Nonviolence versus Capitalism

their abilities, to each according to their needs” (a principle rejected in actual socialist economies in favour of economic reward according to contributions). Unlike sarvodaya, anarchism does not make serving those in need a central moral principle. Instead, satisfying needs is treated more as a pragmatic issue, namely as a sensible goal that ought to be built into the way the economic system works.

Principle 3: satisfying work. Through self-management, work is organised by the workers. This means that the way work is done can be designed to provide work satisfaction, though of course efficiency and production for human needs are also vital considerations. Work satisfaction might be promoted through job rotation, multiskilling, automation of unpleasant tasks, designing of production systems to offer individual challenge and group interaction, and designing of tasks around individuals’ specific needs, abilities and capacities for learning.

Principle 4: participation. Self-management is a system for direct participation by people in decisions that affect their lives. Participation at higher levels is through delegates and federations, and here there may be difficulties. Although delegates are supposed to have no independent power, and delegates can be changed at any time by the groups that selected them, in practice delegates may gain considerable power. A group is likely to pick more articulate and knowledgeable individuals to be delegates and, with their experience on federated bodies, they are likely to become harder to replace. Further up the federative structure, accountability is more attenuated. Participation is thus strongest at the group level and more problematical at upper federated levels.

Principle 5: nonviolence. There have long been two strands within anarchism, those supporting only nonviolent methods and those believing that some armed struggle by the people will be necessary. The nonviolent strand dates back to pacifist anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy, who was an early inspiration for Gandhi. Those anarchists who accept a role for people’s violence usually see this occurring only in defence of revolutionary changes against the violence of the state. The idea of an armed vanguard seeking to capture state power is alien to anarchism, since it opposes the state.

A popular conception of the anarchist is of a terrorist who practises “propaganda of the deed” as a means of sowing chaos. This is very far from most anarchist thinking and practice. There are some individuals who have undertaken assassinations and bombings and called themselves anarchists, but usually they have little connection with anarchist groups and are rejected by most anarchists. Nevertheless, anarchism has been tarred with a violent image, which is convenient to and has been fostered by its opponents on both the right and left.

Suffice it to say that only the nonviolent strand of anarchism is fully compatible with the principle of nonviolence. But violence is not central for even those anarchists who believe armed struggle will be necessary in a transition to self-management. In the usual anarchist model of economics, there is no state, no standing army and no system of private property.[8]

* * *

Anarchism was a considerable force in the international socialist movement prior to World War I. It reached its most dramatic expression in Spain, where it was behind the 1936 revolution but within a few years was crushed by the fascist armies led by Franco on the one hand and by the communists in the republican movement on the other. A type of spontaneous anarchism is apparent in many revolutionary situations, such as the Paris Commune of 1871, the early stages of the Russian Revolution in 1917-1918, Germany 1918-1919, Hungary 1956, France 1968 and Chile 1970-1971. In such cases, workers and communities organise themselves to run society, without a government.[9]

Another side to anarchist action is cooperatives, which are enterprises in which the workers manage everything without bosses. There are food cooperatives, media cooperatives and manufacturing cooperatives.[10] Cooperatives could be considered to be a feature of a Gandhian constructive programme. They are an attempt to “live the alternative” or, in other words, to use means for social change that contain within them elements of the sought-after goal.

For all their strengths, cooperatives have seldom been able to provide much of a challenge to capitalist enterprises. Few cooperatives have the capital or size to compete effectively, and with larger size there is a serious risk of reverting to conventional working arrangements, with a hierarchy developing and workers becoming like employees.

Another economic initiative with links to anarchism occurs when workers take over existing enterprises and run them without bosses. As noted earlier, this often occurs in revolutionary situations, but it can happen at other occasions too, especially when jobs or the entire enterprise are under threat. [11] Such instances of direct action by workers are commonly met by concerted action by government and other companies to put owners and managers back in command. Workers’ control is a serious challenge to capitalists and their government allies. It can occur in government enterprises too.

In a wide range of areas, there are initiatives and ongoing activities that can be interpreted as practical manifestations of anarchism.[12] Examples include:

• free schools, in which teachers and students collaborate in learning; [13]

• housing constructed by dwellers, often in a community where mutual help is provided;[14]

• citizen control over town planning;

• workers collectively making decisions to get things done at work despite bosses and regulations;

• voluntarily organised children’s play;

• informal systems in families and local communities for supportively responding to delinquent or deviant behaviour;

• sharing of information on the Internet.

Although in recent decades there have been many activities and initiatives that are compatible with anarchism, groups that are explicitly anarchist have not been prominent. There are quite a number of small groups, newsletters and local activities, but the activity is usually low profile. To complicate the picture, there are many individuals who call themselves anarchists but who have little idea of anarchist theory or practice and mainly use this label because of its antiestablishment connotations.

Although the explicit anarchist movement is not well developed, anarchist sentiments are quite common in social movements, especially the feminist, environmental and nonviolence movements, though members may not describe their beliefs with the anarchist label. They are opposed to systems of rule, whether capitalist, communist or representative, and support instead methods of direct democracy such as consensus. They reject reform solutions of achieving power through individual advancement or parliamentary election, seeing bureaucratic hierarchies as part of the problem. Their aim is to empower individuals and communities rather than to gain power and use that power to “help” others.

This type of anarchist sensibility is widespread. Activists would agree that in many countries it has much more support than do vanguard left parties. This sensibility is seldom due to the direct influence of anarchists or anarchist writings. Rather, it appears to be a response to hierarchical systems of power, reflecting a belief that a more egalitarian society is both possible and desirable.[15]

Anarchism’s greatest strengths are its general critique of domination and its alternative of self-management, which is both a means and an end. Although its critique remains focussed on the state, anarchism has broadened its ambit, a process that could easily be continued as new sources of oppression develop or are discovered.

Unlike Marxism and feminism, anarchism has only a small academic following, so anarchist theory has not received all that much attention. In particular, anarchism’s critique of capitalism is undeveloped. The lynchpin of anarchist critique is the state, but if the power of multinational corporations is overshadowing that of states, anarchist critique needs updating or augmenting.

Anarchism is built on an assumption of rationality, and much anarchist activity centres around providing information about problems with the state and the advantages of self-management. Yet in a world in which commercial speech and government disinformation are becoming ever more sophisticated, and in which voices of rational critique remain in the margins, anarchism may need something more than small-scale alternatives and reliance on spontaneous self-management in revolutionary situations.

Nonviolent action provides an ideal complement to anarchist theory and practice. Anarchists have often used nonviolent action but, as noted, many anarchists believe that armed popular struggle may be necessary. By instead seeking an alliance between nonviolence and anarchism, much more progress may be possible.