Today's Topics:
1. France, Alternative Libertaire AL Décembre - Youth: Staying
Ready to Bounce (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire AL - international, Truth and
Justice for Fidan, Sakine and Leyla, January 6 in Paris (fr, it,
pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. [Greece] On electronic real estate auctions - "Petralona
communist anarchist initiative" By ANA (ca, gr, it, pt)
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Greece, Posted by dwarf horse APO - Intervention outside
Public. Solidarity with struggling workers (gr) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. wsm.ie: Thinking About Anarchism: Hierarchy - What it is and
isn't by Asha Amargi (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
While the social violence of the Macron government would hope for a mobilization of youth,
it is clear that this is not yet the case. The return is certainly not conducive to
mobilize, but it is also questioning our practices and work to build a balance of power
with patience until the resumption of classes in 2018. ---- Since the start of the school
year, activists and student unionists have been trying to mobilize, against the Macron
offensive, faculties and high schools. Prescriptions, drop in APL, selection at the
university ... All ingredients that let hope for a mobilization of youth at least as
important as spring 2016. Unfortunately, it is clear that for the moment we are not there.
---- Counterproductive practices ---- So why does it skate ? We can provide some
explanations for this lack of mobilization based on objective factors: one in two students
is salaried, often precarious, it does not facilitate mobilization. The orders have
allowed the government to benefit from a favorable timing, the return is not conducive to
mobilize, the majority of students have in mind the administrative procedures of the
beginning of the year ; youth organizations no longer have the capacity to put thousands
of students on the streets. The Unef in particular, which has declined sharply in recent
years in terms of influence and credibility, has recently been further weakened by
internal quarrels with the militants of unsubstantial France.
And while Solidarity student activists have struggle and self-management practices, unlike
UNEF, their implementation is also not massive. More broadly, the educated youth does not
escape the brakes that are at work in companies too: lack of confidence in our struggles,
weight of past defeats, depoliticization.
But even where the long and arduous work of mobilization has been carried out, with
massive distribution of leaflets, public information meetings, walkouts ... the general
assemblies (GA) students have hardly exceeded the hundred participants. For the high
schools, the walkouts were also very weak, and the lack of student movement did not help
to promote them. Since self-organization is more difficult to set up in high schools, the
better structured student movement usually contributes to the mobilization of high school
students.
Faced with our difficulties to convince our fellow students to come to the demonstration
or AG, we must also question our practices. Representatives and avant-garde speeches have
been seen in GAs suggesting the possibility of launching a movement with incantatory calls
to the general strike. Or by calling or voting in AG radical actions while the balance of
power is not there. Practices often shared by some Trotskyist organizations or some
autonomous groups.
On the other hand, that activists outside the university come to the student body is not a
problem in itself, on the contrary, the convergence of the struggles is created above all
by exchanges on the basis of the reality in our sectors. But that activists who are not in
college come to explain to students what they have to do, it does not correspond to
self-organization or self-management of struggles !
A response against the student plan ?
With the announcement of the " Student Plan On October 30, by the government, the
issues specific to students and future students are all the more topical: cuts in the
budget of higher education and research, sans-facs, registration problems, selection in
Master. Of course, it is not a question of giving up the fight against the ordinances,
besides that it is the break of the Labor Code or the selection in the college, it is our
collective rights which will disappear for the benefit of the bosses who will be able to
exploit us more. This denunciation of the global employer project and this link will be
all the better when the student and high school mobilization vis-à-vis their own concerns
will have taken. What counts now is to create a balance of power through massive
mobilization, and " the student plan "Which sets up the selection in the college with
expected and which accentuates the selection in Master can be a subject more explosive.
At the time this article is written, a first meeting bringing together many youth
organizations has taken place, as well as an inter-union gathering federations of
secondary as well as higher (CGT, FO, Solidarity, Unef, UNL, SGL) but neither of them have
yet emerged from concrete mobilization tracks. The latter has the merit of being worn by
many organizations, but will it actually be built locally ? First semester exams and
Christmas holidays are not going to make it easy. If a movement can emerge, it must be
built with patience until the resumption of classes in 2018. The priority is to question
the speech of Macron and the false evidence that the media convey on the selection at the
university . The causes of failure in college are above all the student salary and the
conditions of degraded studies. And a better orientation in high school requires more
resources, not " snake powder ". The implementation of the government plan may create
a hell of a mess in the spring of 2018 as a high school student as a teacher. It will be
necessary to know to profit from it.
Not to give up
So no, defeat and abandonment are still not options for revolutionaries. More than ever it
is necessary to exchange between activists, mutualize returns, to understand why, at the
moment, we can not mobilize around us. In youth as in companies elsewhere. And again,
movement or not, victorious or not, the strengthening of our organizations is fundamental.
On the facs, the federation Solidaires étudiant.es seems today the tool most likely to
mobilize widely, knowing to create unity with the other forces, while ensuring a movement
controlled by the base.
Let's stay on the war foot, ready to feel any change of atmosphere, to rebound in function.
Benjamin (AL Nantes), Dahel (AL Saint Denis), Marius (AL Toulouse), Quentin (AL Rennes)
Libertarian communists of all facets and crutches, let's organize !
Libertarian Alternative has decided to launch a campaign for school youth, high schools
and colleges. During the movement against the labor law in 2016, the mobilization of youth
served as a launching pad for the movement. Today, her absence from litigation is sorely
lacking to encourage workers to strike. We consider ourselves, as students and high school
students, as workers in training. The attacks of the government against the interests of
our class therefore affect us first and foremost. There are also more specific attacks:
selection at the university, budget cuts, lower APL ...
In universities, the construction of the most massive and self-managing union tools
possible remains the priority of AL students. In high schools, the difficulties of
building this type of union tools makes political intervention more directly necessary.
But more broadly, in facs as in high schools, popularize the idea that capitalism,
patriarchy, racism are not fatalities is more than necessary. To bring an alternative, a
project of libertarian communist society, to give meaning to our struggles of today and
tomorrow, that is the meaning of this campaign.
Organize yourself, join us: jeunesse@alternativelibertaire.org
AL Youth Commission
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Jeunesse-Rester-prets-a-rebondir
------------------------------
Message: 2
Five years already ! Let us be numerous on January 6 in Paris to demand that the
government shed light on the triple murder of Kurdish activists Fidan (Rojbin) Dogan,
Sakine Cansiz and Leyla Saylemez. ---- Wednesday, January 9, 2013, Kurdish activists
Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Dogan (Rojbin) and Leyla Saylemez were coldly shot in the head, at
the premises of the Kurdistan Information Center, located at 147 rue La Fayette, Paris.
---- The investigation in France revealed numerous indications that the alleged murderer,
Ömer Güney, arrested a few days after the crime, had acted on behalf of the Turkish secret
service (MIT), as confirmed by the Prosecutor's indictment. the Republic in this case: "
many elements of the procedure allow to suspect the implication of the MIT in the
instigation and the preparation of the murders. "
However, the death of Ömer Güney, on December 17, 2016, to one month of his trial which
was to begin in Paris, on January 23, 2017, deprives us of a public trial which would have
made it possible to judge not only the performer, but also, and most importantly, the
sponsor, the Turkish state !
Five years later, justice is terribly lacking !
DEMONSTRATION
Saturday, January 6, 2018, 11 am
from Paris Gare du Nord, to Place de la République
While the investigation was completed in May 2015, and when Güney's serious health
problems were known, as soon as he was arrested, why was the trial set for such a long
time ? In deferring the holding of this trial, France missed a crucial opportunity to
judge, finally, a political crime committed on its territory ! Since the 1960s, no less
than 43 political murders have been committed on French soil. They all went unpunished !
Despite the promises made by the Interior Minister of the time, Manuel Valls, the day
after the assassinations, the French political authorities have never sought to shed light
on this triple murder. Always anxious to preserve their relations with Turkey, they did
not even take the trouble to receive the families of the victims, nor the representatives
of the Kurdish community.
And what about the refusal of the French government to lift the defense-secret on
information that could have allowed the progress of the judicial investigation ? Deprived
of this information, the judges in charge of the investigation finally closed the file
without being able to go up to the known sponsors.
Until when will France turn a blind eye to the drift of the Turkish regime which not only
permanently violates the rules of the rule of law and those of local democracy, but also
intends to rage in Europe? where he deploys his agents in charge of spying and eliminating
his opponents ?
The death of the alleged murderer in no way undermines our determination to fight for
truth and justice ! One or more of the performers is dead, but the sponsors are still
alive and free ! Five years later, the silence of the French authorities is more deafening
than ever. We demand from them all the light on these assassinations and, finally, justice!
First signatories: Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDKF), Kurdish Women's Movement
in Europe, Kurdistan Solidarity National Coordination (CNSK), Peace Movement (MdP), World
March of Women (MMF), Kurdish Friendships of Brittany (AKB) , Union of Kurdish Students in
France (UEFK), Solidarity Women, Union of Socialist Women (SKB), Association
France-Kurdistan, Movement against Racism and for Friendship of Peoples (MRAP), Initiative
for a Democratic Confederalism, Solidarity, Libertarian Alternative, New Anti-Capitalist
Party (NPA), French Communist Party (PCF), Solidarity & Liberty Marseille Association,
Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Union (UPML), Friends of ICOR in France, Out of Colonialism
Network, Social Ecology
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Verite-et-justice-pour-Fidan-Sakine-et-Leyla-le-6-janvier-a-Paris
------------------------------
Message: 3
It seems that at the end of November or early December the platform for the realization of
electronic auctions of real estate will be ready. This measure is a requirement of the
Troika (European Union, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund) on the closure
of the third assessment. Its purpose / pretext is to reduce the number of loans. According
to the press, 10,000 houses will go to auction in 2018 . Tickets for these auctions are
1.5 million euros. ---- But let's see how we got to this point. During the past three
years attempts at court auctions have been thwarted as fighters have successfully blocked
the sale of houses from the population. Hence, it was to be hoped that the state would
seek ways to overcome the resistance of the poor. A simple way to do this was to create
the electronic platform where unrestricted auctions and reactions take place.
The main line of defense of the government on this obscene measure is that "it can not be
that someone who has very high purchasing power can not repay his loan, this being his
first home." Its purpose is to "affect the intentionally debtors", ie those who owe a lot
of money, who can afford but do not. At the same time, they reassure us that the first
housing is protected and no houses with debts of less than 200,000 euros will be confiscated.
To start, on 1 st January 2014 it was abolished the law that prohibited the
confiscation of property for debts of less than 200,000 euros. There are publications that
say to put on real estate auctions for debts of more than 50,000 euros. Also, there is no
law that protects the first dwelling. With respect to the "intentionally debtors" (ie
capitalists), in addition to being a minority of debtors, we have serious doubts that
confiscate their belongings. In addition, the € 50,000 ceiling clearly reflects the
intention to confiscate the homes of the poor. The reality is confirmed by examples, such
as the unemployed DB in Thessalonica, which was 48 square meters in area, and for debts to
the banks lost everything, being this their first habitation.
What are real estate auctions really?
Those who participate in almost all auctions are the banks (Piraeus, Alpha Bank,
Eurobank), whose objective is the reduction of "personal loans" through liquidations, that
is, confiscations of real estate. The plan of many banks is to buy auctions in many real
estate, since the auctions evaluate the commercial value and not the objective value of
the real estate. This means more profit for the financial capital, since the reduction of
the price of the property with the auction, adds the interests that were imposed of the
debtor when taking the loan. By the time people took on loans at will, consumers actually
invested overvalued values because the real estate value at that time was determined by
the ease of getting a loan due to disproportionate financial expansion. In this auction
game we have the implication of financial capital (banks, real estates, funds, real estate
agencies), consumers (population) and the public sector (state). The role of the state was
indirect but decisive: When a consumer gets a loan from the bank, he actually liquidates
in advance the future wages, which he will never receive (because of the crisis), since
all governments have taken steps to cut, directly or indirectly, the salaries of employees
in the private sector, as well as in the public sector. As a consequence of all of the
above, consumers have acquired a lot of debt and have therefore increased public debt.
When a consumer gets a loan from the bank, he actually liquidates the future salaries in
advance, which he will never receive (because of the crisis), since all governments have
taken measures to cut, directly or indirectly, the salaries of employees in the sector
private sector, as well as in the public sector. As a consequence of all of the above,
consumers have acquired a lot of debt and have therefore increased public debt. When a
consumer gets a loan from the bank, he actually liquidates the future salaries in advance,
which he will never receive (because of the crisis), since all governments have taken
measures to cut, directly or indirectly, the salaries of employees in the sector private
sector, as well as in the public sector. As a consequence of all of the above, consumers
have acquired a lot of debt and have therefore increased public debt.
Putting all this within a political framework, we note that the governmental coalition
confirms what the role of the state, that is, the management of the capitalist system in
the country (in times of crisis), to the benefit of the holders of wealth, on the one
hand, at juridical and institutional level, the interests of Capital, and on the other
hand, imposing its orders on society. In any case, the measure of real estate auctions is
one of the many measures approved by the governments of the Capital during the economic
crisis in order to pass on the public deficit to the workers (with heavy taxes, wage cuts,
etc.) and to keep the class unharmed bourgeois The tense contradictions between work and
Capital reflect the main characteristic in the imperialist phase of Capital, that is, the
super accumulation of wealth in the hands of Capital, and the continuation of the process
of impoverishment of the proletariat. In addition, during the period in which we are
living (as of 2008), the violent transition from Keynesianism to neoliberalism is
reflected, in which there are incalculable casualties for the population dependent on Capital.
From now on
The application of electronic housing auctions will bring huge benefits to the banks and
companies associated with them. People in popular social strata run the risk of being
homeless. It is worth noting that in respect to the Greek reality (which has important
particularities and fluctuations / variations compared to other countries) ownership is
not a criterion of class differentiation, since the majority of the poor (mainly natives)
have at least a house. For us there are no options. Or all together against them or each
on their own and weakened. The blocking of the auctions in the courts constituted a
barricade that achieved victories and left a positive legacy. We can not allow the
fragmentation of the proletariat. Organizing ourselves in unions, neighborhoods and other
formations, fightingly claiming what we produce, directly and indirectly. More steps back, no.
Immediate withdrawal of the proposed law on electronic property auctions. No house of the
poor in the hands of the rich.
Initiative of communist anarchists of Petrálona
The text in Greek:
http://www.ainfos.ca/gr/ainfos03180.html
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Message: 4
This afternoon, about 15 comrades and comrades, we have been interceding for Ermou public
for more than half an hour. They shared dozens of texts, thieves were thrown and hanged in
front of the store. ---- Here is the text: ---- SOLIDARITY TO COMPETITORS ---- FORMER
WORKERS OF THE MULTIRAMA / PUBLIC GROUP ---- RESPONSE TO THE AUTONOMY OF THE AFFIDENTS
---- At the Public Stores of Patras and Kalamata, the bosses' arbitrariness had formed a
working galley. Employees were forced to endure: ---- devastating labor rates (often and
unexpectedly twelve-hour, with eight-hour pay); ---- unpaid overtime and overtime (also
very often forced to work illegally and unregistered on their day off, to illegally
rgazontan Sundays in internal operations of the company, unpaid ), intimidation and
punitive / disciplinary measures against them by employers (the company was intimidating
and terrorizing employees to "catch up with the targets," punishing them continuously for
12 hours if they did not, and forcing them to work under these circumstances; under
these conditions under the constant fear of dismissal, the company did not hesitate to
dismiss a working mother three days after the end of her maternity leave).
In 2013 and 2014, redundant employees of the Public Kalamata and Patras were organized
to claim their accrual by denouncing the conditions of the working Middle Ages that
prevailed in the business and the lawsuit against the bosses. Their collective struggle,
after years of delays and delays, was finally upheld in court rooms.
Today, Public 's employers continue to intimidate the workers who have been campaigning
against it. She does not accept her obligations . He refuses to pay the amounts awarded
and proposes a compromise , threatening to appeal if the redundant do not accept him,
thus perpetuating the litigation. It seeks to break the morale of workers who need the
sums of money owed to them and accept the boss's reduced proposal.
Of course, the example of Public is not the exception, but the rule of the conditions of
impoverishment and terrorism that prevail in the workplace. Work-related "accidents",
inadequate security measures, the constant blackmailing of unemployment with armies of the
unemployed and under-employed in conditions of poverty and social exclusion, redundancies,
abolition of collective agreements, wage and pension cuts, low wages and wages hunger
wages, abusive working conditions and deadly hours, the abolition of Sunday's holiday,
employers' arbitrariness, and the blow of any form of unionism are the factors that make
up the current workplace matikotita. A reality that is expected to become even tougher as
today's political management - in full harmony with the bourgeoisie's suggestions,
On the other hand, there are encouraging examples of resistance of workers who claim life
with dignity. In addition to public employees, it is remarkable to mobilize former
employees at Market In in Ioannina to claim their accruals. Their militancy has even
provoked the wrath of the bosses who went on to crack down strikers and arrest 12 of them
during strike action outside the store on Sunday 29/11.
Respectively, the struggle of the fallen KW From Aromalab in Thessaloniki, which claims
to be reluctant against the dismissal of the company's employability and the solidarity
mobilizations that have taken place lately in Thessaloniki, organized on the basis of
various collectives, is another important example of a labor struggle in today's which
highlights the uncomfortable face of the bosses and stands upright against them.
Against the generalized terrorism and repression, in the conditions of slavery and
impoverishment imposed by the state and the bosses in the workplace, there is another way.
The way of organizing workers, resistance and social-class struggle. Employees themselves,
the unemployed, the youth, the locals and the immigrants, knowing our real needs, must
take the lives in our hands, organize and fight, collectively, self-organized and
uninvolved, in every social and working space, schools and faculties, workplaces,
neighborhoods and streets. With grassroots societies and employee initiatives to claim
our belonging, far from the trade union elites which have a complementary role in terms of
employership.
Linking the few and demanding struggles for permanent and stable work, for better salary
and better working conditions, access to the social goods of housing, health care,
education, the defense of labor and social rights, nature protection, the total and timely
social and political demand for overthrowing the world of power and the libertarian
transformation of society.
SOLIDARITY IN EMPLOYEES
WHO ARE LOVED FOR LIFE WITH DIFFICULTY
anarchist group "dense horse"
------------------------------
Message: 5
Wondering why your vote doesn't seem to make a difference, why your wages seem to barely
cover your costs, or why you feel like a second-class citizen? Then, you're thinking about
hierarchy. ---- Anarchists treat ‘hierarchy' as the central issue in society, as the
unifying theme in most of the problems we face. Then, the aim is to get rid of hierarchy
and replace it with something better. But what is hierarchy? It's not something which is
talked about in mainstream political discourse, and even anarchists themselves can
sometimes misunderstand it. ---- Anarchism is the only political philosophy which makes
hierarchy the main issue even though we are concerned with many of the same problems as
others. Others have a different focus. Most other socialists, e.g. most Marxists, see
capitalism itself as the main problem, that control of society is concentrated in an elite
class which exploits the rest of us and ultimately divides us across lines of gender,
race, and so forth. Liberals tend to see problems in society as poor management of the
existing institutions - greedy CEOs, backwards and corrupt politicians - and ignorance and
inequality amongst the public. ‘Conservatives' tend to see problems in society as a
failure of personal character and a drift away from the traditional values which
purportedly made us strong in the past. Nationalists see the problem as a lack of popular
patriotism, the meddling of other nations, and leaders too weak to drive society forwards.
These are simplistic portraits, but they give the gist.
Formal Hierarchies
So what is hierarchy and why is it a useful way of understanding our society? Most of us,
until we begin reading about anarchism, will think of monarchy, the Catholic and
Protestant church hierarchies, and a military command structure, when we think of
‘hierarchy'. We might imagine a pyramid, with the most powerful and prestigious at the
top, and the least powerful and prestigious at the bottom. In these cases, hierarchy can
be defined as a formal structure of rankings where certain positions within that list of
rankings have certain entitlements and abilities. We could call this a ‘formal hierarchy'
because the hierarchy is formally recognised and codified. These structures are indeed
hierarchies, but the concept is actually more general than that.
Direct Hierarchy
We can see though, intuitively, that it's not necessarily the formal ranking system which
matters but the question of power. Who has it, and why? A hierarchy can be more generally
defined as a relationship of power between people, specifically an imbalance of power.
This makes sense in the case of a king. The king has the power, and the people must do
what they say. But it also applies to less immediately obvious cases. In the workplace,
the boss is in charge and the employees aren't. It would be inaccurate to say the boss has
the same power as an employee. The boss can fire an employee, decide their days, hours,
and wages, and what they do at work. The employee can't decide these things about the
boss. That is a hierarchy, a hierarchical relationship.
Let's look at the ‘traditional' household. The man goes to work, comes home and is fed and
pampered by his wife. It would be inaccurate to say that the man has the same power as the
woman. The man makes the money which the woman depends on. He doesn't necessarily lord
this over her, but that's the fact of the matter. This dynamic really comes in to play in
an abusive relationship - a woman can be trapped in a relationship because she can't
afford to move out and leave the abuser. This is a hierarchy, and it's one reason
feminists have been keen on women being financially independent.
Indirect Hierarchy
Now, how about rich and poor? Is that a hierarchy? Anarchists would say yes. Why? It's not
that rich people can walk around giving orders to poor people, unless there is a boss and
worker relationship there. How is this a hierarchy? Recall the definition above: hierarchy
is a relationship of power or imbalance of power. Do rich people and poor people have the
same power in society, and over their own lives? Some liberals would say ‘yes', that
everybody is equal under the law. But anarchists don't give pieces of paper much kudos
unless they reflect reality. As Anatole France put it ‘the law, in its majestic equality,
forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to
steal bread.' It's clear that rich and poor don't have the same power. How so?
Well that leads us to another interesting question: what is power? It's not that
complicated really. Power is broadly speaking the ability to do things. When people say
‘we feel powerless in our situation' that's what they mean. If you have power over your
own life, you can do what you want. If you don't have power over your own life, you can't.
But we also talk of power in another way. Power, in this sense, is the ability to make
others do what you want, whether by influence or by force. If a king is powerful, that
means he can command many other people to do as he pleases. So we can see that power
splits into two categories, power ‘to' and power ‘over'. Power to do what you want, and
power over other people. Of course, we can see that these are related.
How does this explain the hierarchy between rich and poor? Rich people have quite a lot of
power ‘to'. Because of their wealth, relatively speaking they can do a lot more than
others can, because it takes money to do things, to have the home you want, to pay for
healthcare, to do pursue hobbies. This is not true for poor people. If you're poor, you
find yourself locked out of a lot of life because you lack money. Everything costs money
in this society. You feel more pressure to take a crappy job so you don't lose your flat,
if you get ill you worry you won't be able to afford the treatment, you have to pass up
meeting friends at the pub or a restaurant because you don't have the cash right now. It's
not that the rich person is there controlling the poor person like a puppet. This isn't
like a king ordering about his subjects. But ask yourself if a homeless rough sleeper has
the same power as a billionaire, and suddenly the monarchic analogy doesn't seem far off.
It's an indirect hierarchy. The class system, the monetary system, capitalism, produce
this imbalance of power between rich and poor.
However, sometimes it becomes direct when the rich person is an employer and the poor
person is an employee. Or it becomes more direct when the rich influence politicians to do
something which ends up hurting the poor. Or even we can see hierarchy at play when the
politicians just generally pander to the wishes of the wealthier people to the exclusion
of the poorer. Look at the Dáil and Stormont and ask yourself how many politicians in
there are from poor backgrounds. You're much more likely to end up in positions of power
over others if you have lots of money. Here we see power ‘over' entering the fold as well
as power ‘to'.
More Examples
Unfortunately there are no shortage of examples to give of hierarchy in our society.
Indeed, this is why anarchists sometimes use the term ‘hierarchical society' as shorthand
for the very unequal and unfree society we live in for now.
We've seen direct examples like boss and employee, husband and wife, and a more indirect
example of rich and poor. Let's look at some more indirect examples. But note that the
point of this article isn't to list all of the hierarchies in this society - you can find
all sorts of hierarchies dissected in other WSM material - but by way of illustrating the
main ideas.
Men and Women
Consider men and women again. We are raised to take men more seriously than women, even
when we aren't overly told ‘men are more important than women' (life isn't that simple).
We develop prejudices that men are smarter, funnier, and generally more competent. This
brings to bear when you're trying to get a job, but also in daily life. To take an example
from the left, a common occurrence is that a woman will suggest an idea at a meeting and
be ignored, only for a man to repeat the same idea a while later to great acclaim. This
inability to be heard is just one ‘small' example of a relatively lack of power ‘to'.
Relatedly, women are brought up to be meek and ‘ladylike' while men are brought up to be
staunch and ‘manly'. This often ends up with a man in the dominant position in a
relationship and the woman socialised to put up with it, for example with all sorts of
misgivings about fidelity, lack of respect, effort around the home, and so on. This is
something many of us like to pretend doesn't exist, for somewhat understandable emotional
reasons, but it is a form of hierarchy.
Citizenship and Race
In Ireland people fleeing war zones end up in detention camps called ‘Direct Provision'
centres. They live in much worse conditions than the vast majority of the population and
have much less freedom to live their lives (by working, going to school, even cooking)
because they were born in the wrong place. That is a hierarchy between citizens and
non-citizens, and also between white Europeans and brown and black people from the Middle
East and Africa. If you look the wrong way in this country - as in, the ‘wrong' race -
white Irish people might think you're mentally inferior or more likely to be a criminal.
That is a hierarchy. But also Travellers are commonly looked down upon by settled people,
and have been persecuted at the state level. That is another hierarchy.
Gender and Sexuality
We'll look at three more examples because the point isn't an exhaustive list of examples.
We know there is inequality in Ireland between LGBTQ+ people and straight, cis, people.
The Marriage Equality referendum in the south was part of addressing that, by removing a
law which represented a formal sexual orientation hierarchy and by changing attitudes.
Another example is that teachers aren't protected by legislation on these matters and
often have to pretend to be straight so not to be fired. The next one applies to trans
people and lesbian, gay, and bi, people. Not being able to be yourself is a lack of power
‘to'. Trans people can be beaten off the street for dressing in a way that makes them
comfortable. As a minority population without overwhelming popular support, cis people
have a dangerous form of power ‘over' trans people. The same is true of straight and LGB,
but it isn't as severe as it is for trans people today.
The State and ‘Democracy'
The last example is the state. Anarchists are democrats. We want more democracy in
society, and better democracy. Unfortunately what is usually called ‘democracy' is more
like a temporary oligarchy. Some of us elect a set of rulers, and then four years later we
get the opportunity to elect a very slightly different set of rulers. We are then told how
lucky we are to have this opportunity. This is a very obvious imbalance of power. We take
it for granted, but why are a small group of strangers (e.g. 166 TDs in the Dáil, 90 MLAs
in Stormont) allowed to decide what happens for the rest of us? We don't even get to chime
in as they make decisions. They have full discretion (usually) within the law. But the law
itself is written by these ‘policy makers'. The result is many of us become deeply
cynical, and might even write off politics as a whole as a phony game, a circus which has
little meaning for the person on the street. We will return to this issue later.
Hierarchy and Changing the World
It should be clear by now that hierarchy is an active part of our society today in many
forms. Whether at the workplace, by wealth, race, residency status, gender, sexuality,
disability, age, religion, political office, or many other ways there wasn't enough space
to mention. It's good to point out what's wrong in the world, but the point is to change
it. So what is the solution? What is the opposite of hierarchy?
Well it's not too hard to see that the opposite of hierarchy is equality and freedom. If
hierarchy is an imbalance of power, then we should be aiming for a balance of power
between people. Rather than one person or group of people being able to control another,
or one group of people having lots of control over their own lives and another group
having little control, we should be aiming to level the playing field.
How to level that playing field is what the entire movement of anarchism is dedicated to,
and what the entire body of written work on anarchism is trying to explain. So it can't
all be covered here, but a sketch will do. Humans can all be equal in a meaningful way.
The dignity of all matters. We are not each the exact same, but we can treat each other
with respect and look each other in the eye rather than looking down on others. We should
each get the opportunity to shape our world the same as the person next to us.
Anarchists reject the very obvious hierarchies, like a king or queen ruling over their
subjects. We don't recognise the titles of lords and baronesses, or ministers of the
state. But we are consistent in our opposition to hierarchy, we oppose it across the
board, even hierarchies which aren't immediately obvious. Rather than accepting the
hierarchies around us as ‘natural', we should subject them to questioning. Why does that
person get to tell the other what to do? Why does that person live with ease while the
other doesn't? Why does that person enjoy a higher status while another puts up with low
status? If you continue this process of questioning with enough determination, the
structure of society as it is will vanish in a puff of smoke. Men and women, citizen and
non-citizen, queer and straight cis, in short, all people, can live without false
divisions and the institutions which carve those divisions into stone.
This leads to the last issue to be discussed in this article. Removing hierarchies doesn't
mean disorder. Really, the task is to replace the order of hierarchy with the order of
freedom. This idea has been long recognised in the phrase ‘anarchy is order'. That's what
the ‘Circle-A' symbol means.
The New Economic Order
To do away with hierarchy in its many harmful forms means organising society on different
lines. In a word it is democracy, in two words it is democracy and freedom.
There is no need to have boss and employee. Rather, there should only be workers. People
who get the job done. Any administrative role the boss fulfilled can be taken over, and
any bossing around role the boss fulfilled can be gotten rid of. Workplaces should be run
as economic democracies, something which as it happens is not a sacrifice of efficiency.
Workplaces would federate together in order to secure supply lines, distribute resources,
and co-ordinate the production of things which require multiple inputs. Note that this is
a new order, rather than a lack of order.
There is no need to have rich and poor. This division isn't a fact of nature, it's a fact
of society. And facts of society can be changed. There is enough food, water, clothing,
shelter, electricity, heating, and even internet, and entertainment, to go around
everybody. A society which freed itself from the dogma of an arbitrary property regime
could provide a good life for everyone. People would contribute as best they could, and
could partake as they needed. Again, a new order, rather than a lack of order. No more
homeless and billionaires. To put it crudely, everyone would be ‘middle class'. Unlike
today where almost everyone pretends to be ‘middle class'.
The New Political Order
Continuing in this democratic bent, the political system would have to be changed in a big
way. Politicians are useless. They make sure to be elected next time and anything on top
of that is a bonus for society. We should have a proper democracy which begins at the
local level, where we meet face-to-face, bringing back the human element to politics.
Political life would be vibrant and participation widespread. Politics would become the
popular pastime since we could actually have a say. It would be practical rather than a
game show for the newspapers.
It would begin in the neighbourhoods, and for decisions and tasks that involve larger
areas, we would delegate some people to take care of that. But these delegates would be
more like administrators than politicians. They would work according to a strict mandate,
and would be recalled if they strayed too much from it. In this way, democracy could
extend from the neighbourhood, to the district, to the region, to the province, to the
country. Yet again, a new order, not a lack of order.
The citizen / non-citizen hierarchy would be eliminated by widening citizenship to
everybody who lived in the country (in practice, anyone there for, say, a few months).
People seeking refuge would be given refuge, and congratulated for surviving their
hazardous journey.
People would compensate for the inequalities created by a history of hierarchy, with a
view to looking past these differences entirely once the power balanced out. That is,
balanced out in practice, not just on paper. People of all genders, sexualities, races,
abilities, and ages, would for once in history be free and equal. That is to say, humanity
rather than being an ideal would have been created. A new order, not a lack of order.
This gives a flavour of what it would mean to replace hierarchy with a free and equal
society. These issues have been written about in great detail elsewhere.
To complete our discussion, let's look briefly at how anarchists propose we get there.
For a Society without Hierarchy, Use Methods without Hierarchy
The above sketch is a very appealing vision of the future. The question is how do we get
there without screwing it up?
Anarchists make a big deal about the methods we use to achieve this. To those unfamiliar
with anarchism and the ideas, it might seem a bit obsessive. But there are very good
reasons. You only have to look at the USSR to see an example of a humanitarian project to
transform society gone horribly wrong. Anarchists had predicted this for many years. The
famous (for an anarchist) Michael Bakunin said roughly fifty years before the October
Revolution in 1917 that if socialists attempted to force revolution from the top down by
seizing control the state and issuing orders from there, the result would be a ‘red
bureaucracy' possibly worse than anything seen before. Oscar Wilde warned twenty five
years after Bakunin that ‘if the Socialism is Authoritarian; if there are Governments
armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are to
have Industrial Tyrannies, then the last state of man will be worse than the first''.
So anarchists try to replace hierarchy in society using methods which themselves aren't
hierarchical. If you want a democracy, be democratic now. If you want to be free, treat
each other as equals now. Basically, be aware of the link between the methods you use and
the goal you're working towards.
Anarchists don't try to seize the state or existing institutions. We try to convince the
wider population of our ideas and encourage people to take an active role in shaping their
future, especially by joining with others in campaign groups and trade unions. The
transformation we're working towards is one we envisage being made by people at large, not
by an elite of political masterminds. Though we do try to have an influence on things.
Organisation isn't Hierarchy
As you've noticed, anarchists aren't against forming political parties. The WSM is one
such ‘party'. But we are different from other parties. We try to signal this difference by
calling ourselves an ‘organisation' rather than a ‘party'. This is because we don't run in
elections or want to control the state at all. We don't have a party leader, or a central
committee of leaders. We are an organisation of equals. ‘Ordinary' people attempting an
extraordinary task.
But we are careful to not mistake organisation for hierarchy. Organisation is healthy, it
is doing things systematically, accurately, coherently. Hierarchy is an imbalance of
power. In fact, organisation can help reduce hierarchy. As you no doubt have seen
yourself, even in a group of friends where there are no formal leaders, there can still be
an imbalance of power. Formal organisation and structure can help reduce that as a factor
in a political group.
In the WSM we have ‘officers'. These are people who are delegated by the membership to do
certain administrative tasks. They makes our work run more smoothly because you know
someone is responsible for doing the basics. We practice the same democracy we advocate
for wider society. Directly recallable, mandated, delegates. We think this is the best
balance between getting the job done and people having an equal say. Another important
factor is that the officer roles are rotated. The same person can't hold one role for more
than 3 years in a row, but usually they hold it for less. This is so that skills are
spread around the group rather than a few people becoming administrative experts the rest
have to depend on.
This topic is a very important one for the anarchist movement, but for the sake of brevity
it will not be continued here.
Conclusion
This has been an overview of hierarchy, what it is and what it isn't. Hierarchy is about
power, the power ‘to' do things, and the power ‘over' others. These imbalances of power
are numerous in our society, and they exist formally and informally, in direct ways and
indirect ways. They exist not just in our economic system and political system, but in our
interpersonal dealings. The opposite of hierarchy would be a balance of power. This is why
anarchists seek to de-centralise power, to spread it across society rather than let it
concentrate. The aim is a society of freedom and equality, characterised by democracy
rather than aristocracy, respect rather than command.
https://www.wsm.ie/c/thinking-about-anarchism-hierarchy
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Anarchic update news all over the world - 18.12.2017
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