J.4 What trends in society aid anarchist activity?

   In this section we will examine some modern trends which we regard as
   being potential openings for anarchists to organise and which point in
   an anarchist direction. These trends are of a general nature, partly as
   a product of social struggle, partly as a response to economic and
   social crisis, partly involving people's attitudes to big government
   and big business, partly in relation to the communications revolution
   we are currently living through, and so on.

   Of course, looking at modern society we see multiple influences,
   changes which have certain positive aspects in some directions but
   negative ones in others. For example, the business-inspired attempts to
   decentralise or reduce (certain) functions of governments should in the
   abstract be welcomed by anarchists for they lead to the reduction of
   government. In practice such a conclusion is deeply suspect simply
   because these developments are being pursued to increase the power and
   influence of capital as well as to increase wage-labour to, and
   exploitation by, the economic master class and to undermine working
   class power and autonomy. As such, they are as anti-libertarian as the
   status quo (as Proudhon stressed, anarchism is "the denial of
   Government and of Property." [Property is Theft!, p. 559]). Similarly,
   increases in self-employment can be seen, in the abstract, as reducing
   wage slavery. However, if, in practice, this increase is due to
   corporations encouraging "independent" contractors in order to cut
   wages and worsen working conditions, increase job insecurity and
   undermine paying for health and other employee packages then it is
   hardly a positive sign. Obviously increases in self-employment would be
   different if it were the result of an increase in the number of
   co-operatives, for example.

   Thus few anarchists celebrate many apparently "libertarian"
   developments as they are not the product of social movements and
   activism, but are the product of elite lobbying for private profit and
   power. Decreasing the power of the state in (certain) areas while
   leaving (or increasing) the power of capital is a retrograde step in
   most, if not all, ways. Needless to say, this "rolling back" of the
   state does not bring into question its role as defender of property and
   the interests of the capitalist class -- nor could it, as it is the
   ruling class who introduces and supports these developments.

   In this section, we aim to discuss tendencies from below, not above --
   tendencies which can truly "roll back" the state rather than reduce its
   functions purely to that of the armed thug of property. The tendencies
   we discuss here are not the be all nor end all of anarchist activism or
   tendencies. We discuss many of the more traditionally anarchist
   "openings" in [1]section J.5 (such as industrial and community
   unionism, mutual credit, co-operatives, modern schools and so on) and
   so will not do so here. However, it is important to stress here that
   such "traditional" openings are not being downplayed -- indeed, much of
   what we discuss here can only become fully libertarian in combination
   with these more "traditional" forms of "anarchy in action."

   For a lengthy discussion of anarchistic trends in society, we recommend
   Colin Ward's classic book Anarchy in Action. Ward covers many areas in
   which anarchistic tendencies have been expressed, far more than we can
   cover here. The libertarian tendencies in society are many. No single
   work could hope to do them justice.

J.4.1 Why is social struggle a good sign?

   Simply because it shows that people are unhappy with the existing
   society and, more importantly, are trying to change at least some part
   of it. It suggests that certain parts of the population have reflected
   on their situation and, potentially at least, seen that by their own
   actions they can influence and change it for the better.

   Given that the ruling minority draws its strength by the acceptance and
   acquiescence of the majority, the fact that a part of that majority no
   longer accepts and acquiesces is a positive sign. After all, if the
   majority did not accept the status quo and acted to change it, the
   class and state system could not survive. Any hierarchical society
   survives because those at the bottom follow the orders of those above
   it. Social struggle suggests that some people are considering their own
   interests, thinking for themselves and saying "no" and this, by its
   very nature, is an important, indeed, the most important, tendency
   towards anarchism. It suggests that people are rejecting the old ideas
   which hold the system up, acting upon this rejection and creating new
   ways of doing things.

   "Our social institutions," argued Alexander Berkman, "are founded on
   certain ideas; as long as the latter are generally believed, the
   institutions built upon them are safe. Government remains strong
   because people think political authority and legal compulsion
   necessary. Capitalism will continue as long as such an economic system
   is considered adequate and just. The weakening of the ideas which
   support the evil and oppressive present-day conditions means the
   ultimate breakdown of government and capitalism." [What is Anarchism?,
   p. xii]

   Social struggle is the most obvious sign of this change of perspective,
   this change in ideas, this progress towards freedom.

   Social struggle is expressed by direct action. We have discussed both
   social struggle ([2]section J.1) and direct action ([3]section J.2)
   before and some readers may wonder why we are covering this again here.
   We do so as we are discussing what trends in society help anarchist
   activity, it would be wrong not to highlight social struggle and direct
   action here. This is because these factors are key tendencies towards
   anarchism as social struggle is the means by which people create the
   new world in the shell of the old, transforming themselves and society.

   So social struggle is a good sign as it suggests that people are
   thinking for themselves, considering their own interests and working
   together collectively to change things for the better. As the French
   syndicalist Emile Pouget argued:

     "Direct action . . . means that the working class, forever bridling
     at the existing state of affairs, expects nothing from outside
     people, powers or forces, but rather creates its own conditions of
     struggle and looks to itself for its methodology . . . Direct Action
     thus implies that the working class subscribes to notions of freedom
     and autonomy instead of genuflecting before the principle of
     authority. Now, it is thanks to this authority principle, the pivot
     of the modern world -- democracy being its latest incarnation --
     that the human being, tied down by a thousand ropes, moral as well
     as material, is bereft of any opportunity to display will and
     initiative." [Direct Action, p. 1]

   Social struggle means that people come into opposition with the boss
   and other authorities such as the state and the dominant morality. This
   challenge to existing authorities generates two related processes: the
   tendency of those involved to begin taking over the direction of their
   own activities and the development of solidarity with each other.
   Firstly, in the course of a struggle, such as a strike, occupation,
   boycott, and so on, the ordinary life of people, in which they act
   under the constant direction of the bosses or state, ceases, and they
   have to think, act and co-ordinate their actions for themselves. This
   reinforces the expression towards autonomy that the initial refusal
   that led to the struggle indicates. Secondly, in the process of
   struggle those involved learn the importance of solidarity, of working
   with others in a similar situation, in order to win. This means the
   building of links of support, of common interests, of organisation. The
   practical need for solidarity to help win the struggle is the basis for
   the solidarity required for a free society to be viable.

   Therefore the real issue in social struggle is that it is an attempt by
   people to wrestle at least part of the power over their own lives away
   from the managers, state officials and so on who currently have it and
   exercise it themselves. This is, by its very nature, anarchistic and
   libertarian. Thus we find politicians, managers and property owners
   denouncing strikes and other forms of direct action. This is logical.
   As direct action challenges the real power-holders in society and
   because, if carried to its logical conclusion, it would remove them,
   social struggle and direct action can be considered in essence a
   revolutionary process.

   Moreover, the very act of using direct action suggests a transformation
   within the people using it. "Direct action's very powers to fertilise,"
   argued Pouget, "reside in such exercises in imbuing the individual with
   a sense of his own worth and in extolling such worth. It marshals human
   resourcefulness, tempers characters and focuses energies. It teaches
   self-confidence! And self-reliance! And self-mastery! And shifting for
   oneself!" Moreover, "direct action has an unmatched educational value:
   It teaches people to reflect, to make decisions and to act. It is
   characterised by a culture of autonomy, an exaltation of individuality
   and is a fillip to initiative, to which it is the leaven. And this
   superabundance of vitality and burgeoning of 'self' in no way conflicts
   with the economic fellowship that binds the workers one with another
   and far from being at odds with their common interests, it reconciles
   and bolsters these: the individual's independence and activity can only
   erupt into splendour and intensity by sending its roots deep into the
   fertile soil of common agreement." [Op. Cit., p. 2 and p. 5]

   Social struggle is the beginning of a transformation of the people
   involved and their relationships to each other. While its external
   expression lies in contesting the power of existing authorities, its
   inner expression is the transformation of people from passive and
   isolated competitors into empowered, self-directing, self-governing
   co-operators. Moreover, this process widens considerably what people
   think is "possible." Through struggle, by collective action, the fact
   people can change things is driven home, that they have the power to
   govern themselves and the society they live in. Thus struggle can
   change people's conception of "what is possible" and encourage them to
   try and create a better world. As Kropotkin argued:

     "since the times of the [first] International Working Men's
     Association, the anarchists have always advised taking an active
     part in those workers' organisations which carry on the direct
     struggle of labour against capital and its protector -- the State.

     "Such a struggle . . . permits the worker to obtain some temporary
     improvements . . ., while it opens his [or her] eyes to the evil
     that is done by capitalism and the State . . . , and wakes up his
     [or her] thoughts concerning the possibility of organising
     consumption, production, and exchange without the intervention of
     the capitalist and the State." [Anarchism, p. 171]

   In other words, social struggle has a radicalising and politicising
   effect, an effect which brings into a new light existing society and
   the possibilities of a better world (direct action, in Pouget's words,
   "develops the feeling for human personality as well as the spirit of
   initiative . . . it shakes people out of their torpor and steers them
   to consciousness." [Op. Cit., p. 5]). The practical need to unite and
   resist the boss also helps break down divisions within the working
   class. Those in struggle start to realise that they need each other to
   give them the power necessary to get improvements, to change things.
   Thus solidarity spreads and overcomes divisions between black and
   white, male and female, heterosexual and homosexual, trades,
   industries, nationalities and so on. The real need for solidarity to
   win the fight helps to undermine artificial divisions and show that
   there are only two groups in society, the oppressed and the oppressors.
   Moreover, struggle as well as transforming those involved is also the
   basis for transforming society as a whole simply because, as well as
   producing transformed individuals, it also produces new forms of
   organisation, organisations created to co-ordinate their struggle and
   which can, potentially at least, become the framework of a libertarian
   socialist society (see [4]section I.2.3).

   Thus anarchists argue that social struggle opens the eyes of those
   involved to self-esteem and a sense of their own strength, and the
   groupings it forms at its prompting are living, vibrant associations
   where libertarian principles usually come to the fore. We find almost
   all struggles developing new forms of organisation, forms which are
   often based on direct democracy, federalism and decentralisation. If we
   look at every major revolution, we find people creating mass
   organisations such as workers' councils, factory committees,
   neighbourhood assemblies and so on as a means of taking back the power
   to govern their own lives, communities and workplaces. In this way
   social struggle and direct action lay the foundations for the future.
   By actively taking part in social life, people are drawn into creating
   new forms of organisation, new ways of doing things. In this way they
   educate themselves in participation, in self-government, in initiative
   and in asserting themselves. They begin to realise that the only
   alternative to management by others is self-management and organise to
   achieve it.

   Given that remaking society has to begin at the bottom, this finds its
   expression in direct action, individuals taking the initiative and
   using the power they have just generated by collective action and
   organisation to change things by their own efforts. Social struggle is
   therefore a two way transformation -- the external transformation of
   society by the creation of new organisations and the changing of the
   power relations within it and the internal transformation of those who
   take part in the struggle. This is key:

     "Whatever may be the practical results of the struggle for immediate
     gains, the greatest value lies in the struggle itself. For thereby
     workers learn that the bosses interests are opposed to theirs and
     that they cannot improve their conditions, and much less emancipate
     themselves, except by uniting and becoming stronger than the bosses.
     If they succeed in getting what they demand, they will be better off
     . . . and immediately make greater demands and have greater needs.
     If they do not succeed they will be led to study the causes of their
     failure and recognise the need for closer unity and greater activism
     and they will in the end understand that to make their victory
     secure and definitive, it is necessary to destroy capitalism. The
     revolutionary cause, the cause of the moral elevation and
     emancipation of the workers must benefit by the fact that workers
     unite and struggle for their interests." [Malatesta, Errico
     Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 191]

   Hence Nestor Makhno's comment that "[i]n fact, it is only through that
   struggle for freedom, equality and solidarity that you reach an
   understanding of anarchism." [The Struggle Against the State and other
   Essays, p. 71] The creation of an anarchist society is a process and
   social struggle is the key anarchistic tendency within society which
   anarchists look for, encourage and support. Its radicalising and
   transforming nature is the key to the growth of anarchist ideas, the
   creation of libertarian structures and alternatives within capitalism
   (structures which may, one day, replace it) and the creation of
   anarchists and those sympathetic to anarchist ideas. Its importance
   cannot be underestimated!

J.4.2 Won't social struggle do more harm than good?

   It is often argued that social struggle, resisting the powerful and the
   wealthy, will just do more harm than good. Employers often use this
   approach in anti-union propaganda, for example, arguing that creating a
   union will force the company to close and move to less "militant"
   areas.

   There is some truth in this. Yes, social struggle can lead to bosses
   moving to more compliant workforces -- but this also happens in periods
   lacking social struggle too! If we look at the down-sizing mania that
   gripped the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s, we see companies firing tens
   of thousands of people during a period when unions were weak, workers
   scared about losing their jobs and class struggle basically becoming
   mostly informal, atomised and "underground." Moreover, this argument
   actually indicates the need for anarchism. It is a damning indictment
   of any social system that it requires people to kow-tow to their
   masters otherwise they will suffer economic hardship. It boils down to
   the argument "do what you are told, otherwise you will regret it." Any
   system based on that maxim is an affront to human dignity!

   It would, in a similar fashion, be easy to "prove" that slave
   rebellions are against the long term interests of the slaves. After
   all, by rebelling the slaves will face the anger of their masters. Only
   by submitting without question can they avoid this fate and, perhaps,
   be rewarded by better conditions. Of course, the evil of slavery would
   continue but by submitting to it they can ensure their life can become
   better. Needless to say, any thinking and feeling person would quickly
   dismiss this reasoning as missing the point and being little more than
   apologetics for an evil social system that treated human beings as
   things. The same can be said for the argument that social struggles
   within capitalism do more harm than good. It betrays a slave mentality
   unfitting for human beings (although fitting for those who desire to
   live off the backs of workers or desire to serve those who do).

   Moreover, this kind of argument ignores a few key points.

   Firstly, by resistance the conditions of the oppressed can be
   maintained or even improved. If the boss knows that their decisions
   will be resisted they may be less inclined to impose speed-ups, longer
   hours and so on. If, on the other hand, they know that their employees
   will agree to anything then there is every reason to expect them to
   impose all kinds of oppressions, just as a state will impose draconian
   laws if it knows that it can get away with it. History is full of
   examples of non-resistance producing greater evils in the long term and
   of resistance producing numerous important reforms and improvements
   (such as higher wages, shorter hours, the right to vote for working
   class people and women, freedom of speech, the end of slavery, trade
   union rights and so on).

   So social struggle has been proven time and time again to gain
   successful reforms. For example, before the 8 hour day movement of 1886
   in America most companies argued they could not introduce that reform
   without going bust. However, after displaying a militant mood and
   conducting an extensive strike campaign, hundreds of thousands of
   workers discovered that their bosses had been lying and they got
   shorter hours. Indeed, the history of the labour movement shows what
   bosses say they can afford and the reforms workers can get via struggle
   are somewhat at odds. Given the asymmetry of information between
   workers and bosses, this is unsurprising as workers can only guess at
   what is available and bosses like to keep their actual finances hidden.
   Even the threat of labour struggle can be enough to gain improvements.
   For example, Henry Ford's $5 day is often used as an example of
   capitalism rewarding good workers. However, this substantial pay
   increase was largely motivated by the unionisation drive by the
   Industrial Workers of the World among Ford workers in the summer of
   1913. [Harry Braverman, Labour and Monopoly Capitalism, p. 144] More
   recently, it was the mass non-payment campaign against the poll-tax in
   Britain during the late 1980s and early 1990s which helped ensure its
   defeat. In the 1990s, France also saw the usefulness of direct action.
   Two successive prime ministers (Edouard Balladur and Alain Juppe) tried
   to impose large scale neo-liberal "reform" programmes that swiftly
   provoked mass demonstrations and general strikes amongst students,
   workers, farmers and others. Confronted by crippling disruptions, both
   governments gave in.

   Secondly, and in some ways more importantly, the radicalising effect of
   social struggle can open new doors for those involved, liberate their
   minds, empower them and create the potential for deep social change.
   Without resistance to existing forms of authority a free society cannot
   be created as people adjust themselves to authoritarian structures and
   accept "what is" as the only possibility. By resisting, people
   transform and empower themselves as well as transforming society. New
   possibilities can be seen (possibilities before dismissed as "utopian")
   and, via the organisation and action required to win reforms, the
   framework for these possibilities (i.e. of a new, libertarian, society)
   created. The transforming and empowering effect of social struggle is
   expressed well by the Nick DiGaetano, a one-time Wobbly who had joined
   during the 1912 Lawrence strike and then became a UAW-CIO shop floor
   militant:

     "the workers of my generation from the early days up to now [1958]
     had what you might call a labour insurrection in changing from a
     plain, humble, submissive creature into a man. The union made a man
     out of him . . . I am not talking about the benefits . . . I am
     talking about the working conditions and how they affected the men
     in the plant . . . Before they were submissive. Today they are men."
     [quoted by David Brody, "Workplace Contractualism in comparative
     perspective", pp. 176-205, Helson Lichtenstein and Howell John
     Harris (eds.), Industrial Democracy in America, p. 204]

   Other labour historians note the same radicalising process elsewhere
   (modern day activists could give more examples!):

     "The contest [over wages and conditions] so pervaded social life
     that the ideology of acquisitive individualism, which explained and
     justified a society regulated by market mechanisms and propelled by
     the accumulation of capital, was challenged by an ideology of
     mutualism, rooted in working-class bondings and struggles . . .
     Contests over pennies on or off existing piece rates had ignited
     controversies over the nature and purpose of the American republic
     itself." [David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labour, p. 171]

   This radicalising effect is far more dangerous to authoritarian
   structures than better pay, more liberal laws and so on as they need
   submissiveness to work. Little wonder that direct action is usually
   denounced as pointless or harmful by those in power or their
   spokespersons for direct action will, taken to its logical conclusion,
   put them out of a job! Struggle, therefore, holds the possibility of a
   free society as well as of improvements in the here and now. It also
   changes the perspectives of those involved, creating new ideas and
   values to replace the ones of capitalism.

   Thirdly, it ignores the fact that such arguments do not imply the end
   of social struggle and working class resistance and organisation, but
   rather its extension. If, for example, your boss argues that they will
   move to Mexico if you do not "shut up and put up" then the obvious
   solution is to make sure the workers in Mexico are also organised!
   Bakunin argued this basic point over one hundred years ago, and it is
   still true: "in the long run the relatively tolerable position of
   workers in one country can be maintained only on condition that it be
   more or less the same in other countries." The "conditions of labour
   cannot get worse or better in any particular industry without
   immediately affecting the workers in other industries, and that workers
   of all trades are inter-linked with real and indissoluble ties of
   solidarity." Ultimately, "in those countries the workers work longer
   hours for less pay; and the employers there can sell their products
   cheaper, successfully competing against conditions where workers
   working less earn more, and thus force the employers in the latter
   countries to cut wages and increase the hours of their workers." [The
   Political Philosophy of Bakunin, pp. 306-7] Bakunin's solution was to
   organise internationally, to stop this undercutting of conditions by
   solidarity between workers. As history shows, his argument was correct.
   Thus it is not social struggle or militancy which perhaps could have
   negative results, just isolated militancy, struggle which ignores the
   ties of solidarity required to win, extend and keep reforms and
   improvements. In other words, our resistance must be as transnational
   as capitalism is.

   The idea that social struggle and working class organisation are
   harmful was expressed constantly in the 1970s and 80s. With the
   post-war Keynesian consensus crumbling, the "New Right" argued that
   trade unions (and strikes) hampered growth and that wealth
   redistribution (i.e. welfare schemes which returned some of the surplus
   value workers produced back into our own hands) hindered "wealth
   creation" (i.e. economic growth). Do not struggle over income, they
   argued, let the market decide and everyone will be better off.

   This argument was dressed up in populist clothes. Thus we find the
   right-wing guru F.A. von Hayek arguing that, in the case of Britain,
   the "legalised powers of the unions have become the biggest obstacle to
   raising the standards of the working class as a whole. They are the
   chief cause of the unnecessarily big differences between the best- and
   worse-paid workers." He maintained that "the elite of the British
   working class . . . derive their relative advantages by keeping workers
   who are worse off from improving their position." Moreover, he
   "predict[ed] that the average worker's income would rise fastest in a
   country where relative wages are flexible, and where the exploitation
   of workers by monopolistic trade union organisations of specialised
   workers are effectively outlawed." [1980s Unemployment and the Unions,
   p. 107, p. 108 and p. 110]

   Now, if von Hayek's claims were true we could expect that in the
   aftermath of Thatcher government's trade union reforms we would have
   seen: a rise in economic growth (usually considered as the means to
   improve living standards for workers by the right); that this growth
   would be more equally distributed; a decrease in the differences
   between high and low paid workers; a reduction in the percentage of low
   paid workers as they improved their positions when freed from union
   "exploitation"; and that wages rise fastest in countries with the
   highest wage flexibility. Unfortunately for von Hayek, the actual
   trajectory of the British economy exposed his claims as nonsense.

   Looking at each of his claims in turn we discover that rather than
   "exploit" other workers, trade unions are an essential means to shift
   income from capital to labour (which is why capital fights labour
   organisers tooth and nail). And, equally important, labour militancy
   aids all workers by providing a floor under which wages cannot drop
   (non-unionised firms have to offer similar programs to prevent
   unionisation and be able to hire workers) and by maintaining aggregate
   demand. This positive role of unions in aiding all workers can be seen
   by comparing Britain before and after Thatcher's von Hayek inspired
   trade union and labour market reforms.

   There has been a steady fall in growth in the UK since the trade union
   "reforms". In the "bad old days" of the 1970s, with its strikes and
   "militant unions" growth was 2.4% in Britain. It fell to 2% in the
   1980s and fell again to 1.2% in the 1990s. A similar pattern of slowing
   growth as wage flexibility and market reform has increased can be seen
   in the US economy (it was 4.4% in the 1960s, 3.2% in the 1970s, 2.8% in
   the 1980s and 1.9% in the first half of the 1990s). [Larry Elliot and
   Dan Atkinson, The Age of Insecurity, p. 236] Given that the free-market
   right proclaims higher economic growth is the only way to make workers
   better off, growth rates have steadily fallen internationally since the
   domination of their ideology. Thus growth of output per head in the
   USA, Europe, Japan and the OECD countries between 1979 to 1990 was
   lower than in 1973-9, and 1990-2004 lower still. The deregulation,
   privatisation, anti-union laws and other neo-liberal policies have
   "failed to bring an increase in the growth rate." [Andrew Glyn,
   Capitalism Unleashed, p. 131] What growth spurts there have been were
   associated with speculative bubbles (in the American economy, dot.com
   stocks in the late 1990s and housing in the 2000s) which burst with
   disastrous consequences.

   So the rate of "wealth creation" (economic growth) has steadily fallen
   as unions were "reformed" in line with von Hayek's ideology (and lower
   growth means that the living standards of the working class as a whole
   do not rise as fast as they did under the "exploitation" of the
   "monopolistic" trade unions).

   If we look at the differences between the highest and lowest paid
   workers, we find that rather than decrease, they have in fact shown "a
   dramatic widening out of the distribution with the best-workers doing
   much better" since Thatcher was elected in 1979 [Andrew Glyn and David
   Miliband (eds.), Paying for Inequality, p. 100] This is important, as
   average figures can hide how badly those in the bottom (80%!) are
   doing. In an unequal society, the gains of growth are monopolised by
   the few and we would expect rising inequality over time alongside
   average growth. In America inequality has dramatically increased since
   the 1970s, with income and wealth growth in the 1980s going
   predominately to the top 20% (and, in fact, mostly to the top 1% of the
   population). The bottom 80% of the population saw their wealth grow by
   1.2% and their income by 23.7% in the 1980s, while for the top 20% the
   respective figures were 98.2% and 66.3% (the figures for the top 1%
   were 61.6% and 38.9%, respectively). [Edward N. Wolff, "How the Pie is
   Sliced", The American Prospect, no. 22, Summer 1995] There has been a
   "fanning out of the pay distribution" with the gap between the top 10%
   of wage-earners increasing compared to those in the middle and bottom
   10%. Significantly, in the neo-liberal countries the rise in inequality
   is "considerably higher" than in European ones. In America, for
   example, "real wages at the top grew by 27.2% between 1979 and 2003 as
   compared to 10.2% in the middle" while real wages for the bottom 10%
   "did not grow at all between 1979 and 2003." In fact, most of the gains
   in the top 10% "occurred amongst the top 5%, and two-thirds of it
   within the top 1%." Unsurprising, the neo-liberal countries of the UK,
   USA and New Zealand saw the largest increases in inequality. [Glyn, Op.
   Cit., pp. 116-8 and p. 168]

   Given that inequality has increased, the condition of the average
   worker must have suffered. For example, Ian Gilmore states that "[i]n
   the 1980s, for the first time for fifty years . . . the poorer half of
   the population saw its share of total national income shirk." [Dancing
   with Dogma, p. 113] According to Noam Chomsky, "[d]uring the Thatcher
   decade, the income share of the bottom half of the population fell from
   one-third to one-fourth" and the between 1979 and 1992, the share of
   total income of the top 20% grew from 35% to 40% while that of the
   bottom 20% fell from 10% to 5%. In addition, the number of UK employees
   with weekly pay below the Council of Europe's "decency threshold"
   increased from 28.3% in 1979 to 37% in 1994. [World Orders, Old and
   New, p. 144 and p. 145] Moreover, "[b]ack in the early 1960s, the
   heaviest concentration of incomes fell at 80-90 per cent of the mean .
   . . But by the early 1990s there had been a dramatic change, with the
   peak of the distribution falling at just 40-50 per cent of the mean.
   One-quarter of the population had incomes below half the average by the
   early 1990s as against 7 per cent in 1977 and 11 per cent in 1961."
   [Elliot and Atkinson, Op. Cit., p. 235] "Overall," notes Takis
   Fotopoulos, "average incomes increased by 36 per cent during this
   period [1979-1991/2], but 70 per cent of the population had a below
   average increase in their income." [Towards an Inclusive Democracy, p.
   113]

   The reason for this rising inequality is not difficult to determine.
   When workers organise and strike, they can keep more of what they
   produce in their own hands. The benefits of productivity growth,
   therefore, can be spread. With unions weakened, such gains will
   accumulate in fewer hands and flood upwards. This is precisely what
   happened. Before (approximately) 1980 and the neo-liberal assault on
   unions, productivity and wages rose hand-in-hand in America, afterward
   productivity continued to rise while wages flattened. In fact, the
   value of the output of an average worker "has risen almost 50 percent
   since 1973. Yet the growing concentration of income in the hands of a
   small minority had proceeded so rapidly that we're not sure whether the
   typical American has gained anything from rising productivity." Rather
   than "trickle down" "the lion's share of economic growth in America
   over the past thirty years has gone to a small, wealthy minority." In
   short: "The big winners . . . have been members of a very narrow elite:
   the top 1 percent or less of the population." [Paul Krugman, The
   Conscience of a Liberal, p. 124, p. 244 and p. 8]

   Looking at America, after the Second World War the real income of the
   typical family ("exploited" by "monopolistic" trade unions) grew by
   2.7% per year, with "incomes all through the income distribution grew
   at about the same rate." Since 1980 (i.e., after working people were
   freed from the tyranny of unions), "medium family income has risen only
   about 0.7 percent a year" Median household income "grew modestly" from
   1973 to 2005, the total gain was about 16%. Yet this "modest gain" may
   "overstate" how well American families were doing, as it was achieved
   in part through longer working hours. For example, "a gain in family
   income that occurs because a spouse goes to work isn't the same thing
   as a wage increase. In particular it may carry hidden costs that offset
   some of the gains in money." This stagnation is, of course, being
   denied by the right. Yet, as Krugman memorably puts it: "Modern
   economists debate whether American median income has risen or fallen
   since the early 1970s. What's really telling is the fact that we're
   even having this debate." So while the average values may have gone up,
   because of "rising inequality, good performance in overall numbers like
   GDP hasn't translated into gains for ordinary workers." [Op. Cit., p.
   55, pp. 126-7, p. 124 and p. 201]

   Luckily for American capitalism a poll in 2000 found that 39% of
   Americans believe they are either in the wealthiest 1% or will be there
   "soon"! [Glyn, Op. Cit., p. 179] In fact, as we discussed in [5]section
   B.7.2, social mobility has fallen under neo-liberalism -- perhaps
   unsurprisingly as it is easier to climb a hill than a mountain. This is
   just as important as the explosion in inequality as the free-market
   right argue that dynamic social mobility makes up for wealth and income
   inequality. As Krugman notes, Americans "may believe that anyone can
   succeed through hard work and determination, but the facts say
   otherwise." In reality, mobility is "highest in the Scandinavian
   countries, and most results suggest that mobility is lower in the
   United States than it is in France, Canada, and maybe even in Britain.
   Not only don't Americans have equal opportunity, opportunity is less
   equal here than elsewhere in the West." Without the blinkers of free
   market capitalist ideology this should be unsurprising: "A society with
   highly unequal results is, more or less inevitably, a society with
   highly unequal opportunity, too." [Op. Cit., p. 247 and p. 249]

   Looking at the claim that trade union members gained their "relative
   advantage by keeping workers who are worse off from improving their
   position" it would be fair to ask whether the percentage of workers in
   low-paid jobs decreased in Britain after the trade union reforms. In
   fact, the percentage of workers below the Low Pay Unit's definition of
   low pay (namely two-thirds of men's median earnings) increased -- from
   16.8% in 1984 to 26.2% in 1991 for men, 44.8% to 44.9% for women. For
   manual workers it rose by 15% to 38.4%, and for women by 7.7% to 80.7%
   (for non-manual workers the figures were 5.4% rise to 13.7% for men and
   a 0.5% rise to 36.6%). [Andrew Glyn and David Miliband (eds.), Op.
   Cit., p.102] If unions were gaining at the expense of the worse off,
   you would expect a decrease in the number in low pay, not an increase.
   An OECD study concluded that "[t]ypically, countries with high rates of
   collective bargaining and trade unionisation tend to have low incidence
   of low paid employment." [OECD Employment Outlook, 1996, p. 94] Within
   America, we also discover that higher union density is associated with
   fewer workers earning around the minimum wage and that "right-to-work"
   states (i.e., those that pass anti-union laws) "tend to have lower
   wages, lower standard of living, and more workers earning around the
   minimum wage." It is hard not to conclude that states "passed laws
   aimed at making unionisation more difficult would imply that they
   sought to maintain the monopoly power of employers at the expense of
   workers." [Oren M. Levin-Waldman, "The Minimum Wage and Regional Wage
   Structure: Implications for Income Distribution", pp. 635-57, Journal
   of Economic Issues, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, p. 639 and p. 655]

   As far as von Hayek's prediction on wage flexibility leading to the
   "average worker's income" rising fastest in a country where relative
   wages are flexible, it has been proved totally wrong. Between 1967 and
   1971, real wages grew (on average) by 2.95% per year in the UK (nominal
   wages grew by 8.94%) [P. Armstrong, A. Glyn and J. Harrison, Capitalism
   Since World War II, p. 272]. In comparison, real household disposable
   income grew by just 0.5 percent between June 2006 and 2007. Average
   weekly earnings rose 2.9% between April 2006 and 2007 while inflation
   rose by 3.6% (Retail Prices Index) and 2.8% (Consumer Prices Index).
   [Elliot and Atkinson, The Gods That Failed, p. 163] This is part of a
   general pattern, with UK Real Wages per employee being an average 3.17%
   per year between 1960 and 1974, falling to 1.8% between 1980 and 1999.
   In America, the equivalent figures are 2.37% and 1.02%. [Eckhard Hein
   and Thorsten Schulten, Unemployment, Wages and Collective Bargaining in
   the European Union, p. 9] Looking at the wider picture, during the
   early 1970s when strikes and union membership increased, "real wage
   increases rose steadily to reach over 4% per year" in the West.
   However, after von Hayek's anti-union views were imposed, "real wages
   have grown very slowly." In anti-union America, the median wage was
   $13.62 in 2003 compared to $12.36 in 1979 (reckoned in 2003 prices). In
   Europe and Japan "average wages have done only a little better, having
   grown around 1% per year." [Glyn, Op. Cit., p. 5 and p. 116] It gets
   worse as these are average figures. Given that inequality soared during
   this period the limited gains of the neo-liberal era were not
   distributed as evenly as before (in the UK, for example, wage growth
   was concentrated at the top end of society. [Elliot and Atkinson,
   Fantasy Island, p. 99]).

   Nor can it be said that breaking the unions and lower real wages
   translated into lower unemployment in the UK as the average
   unemployment rate between 1996 and 1997 was 7.1% compared to 4.5%
   between 1975 and 1979 (the year Thatcher took power). The average
   between 1960 and 1974 was 1.87% compared to 8.7% over the whole
   Thatcherite period of 1980 to 1999. Perhaps this is not too surprising,
   given that (capitalist economic theology aside) unemployment
   "systematically weakens the bargaining power of trade unions." In
   short: "Neither on the theoretical nor empirical level can a strictly
   inverse relation between the real wage rate and the level of
   unemployment be derived." [Hein and Schulten, Op. Cit., p. 9, p. 3 and
   p. 2] As we discussed in [6]section C.1.5 this should come as no
   surprise to anyone with awareness of the real nature of unemployment
   and the labour market. So unemployment did not fall after the trade
   union reforms, quite the reverse: "By the time Blair came to power [in
   1997], unemployment in Britain was falling, although it still remained
   higher than it had been when the [last Labour Government of] Callaghan
   left office in May 1979." [Elliot and Atkinson, Age of Insecurity, p.
   258] To be fair, von Hayek did argue that falls in unemployment would
   be "a slow process" but nearly 20 years of far higher unemployment is
   moving backwards!

   So we have a stark contrast between the assertions of the right and the
   reality their ideology helped create. The reason for this difference is
   not hard to discover. As economist Paul Krugman correctly argues unions
   "raise average wages for their membership; they also, indirectly and to
   a lesser extent, raise wages for similar workers . . . as nonunionised
   employers try to diminish the appeal of union drives to their workers .
   . . unions tend to narrow income gaps among blue-collar workers, by
   negotiating bigger wage increases for their worse-paid members . . .
   And nonunion employers, seeking to forestall union organisers, tend to
   echo this effect." He argues that "if there's a single reason
   blue-collar workers did so much better in the fifties than they had in
   the twenties, it was the rise of unions" and that unions "were once an
   important factor limiting income inequality, both because of their
   direct effect in raising their members wages and because the union
   pattern of wage settlements . . . was . . . reflected in the labour
   market as a whole." With the smashing of the unions came rising
   inequality, with the "sharpest increases in wage inequality in the
   Western world have taken place in the United States and in Britain,
   both of which experience sharp declines in union membership." Unions
   restrict inequality because "they act as a countervailing force to
   management." [Op. Cit., p. 51, p. 49, p. 149 and p. 263]

   So under the neo-liberal regime instigated by Thatcher and Reagan the
   power, influence and size of the unions were reduced considerably and
   real wage growth fell considerably -- which is the exact opposite of
   von Hayek's predictions. Flexible wages and weaker unions have harmed
   the position of all workers (Proudhon: "Contrary to all expectation! It
   takes an economist not to expect these things" [System of Economical
   Contradictions, p. 203]). So comparing the claims of von Hayek to what
   actually happened after trade union "reform" and the reduction of class
   struggle suggests that claims that social struggle is self-defeating
   are false (and self-serving, considering it is usually bosses, employer
   supported parties and economists who make these claims). A lack of
   social struggle has been correlated with low economic growth and often
   stagnant (even declining) wages. So while social struggle may make
   capital flee and other problems, lack of it is no guarantee of
   prosperity (quite the reverse, if the last quarter of the 20th century
   is anything to go by). Indeed, a lack of social struggle will make
   bosses be more likely to cut wages, worsen working conditions and so on
   -- after all, they feel they can get away with it! Which brings home
   the fact that to make reforms last it is necessary to destroy
   capitalism.

   Of course, no one can know that struggle will make things better. It is
   a guess; no one can predict the future. Not all struggles are
   successful and many can be very difficult. If the "military is a role
   model for the business world" (in the words of an ex-CEO of Hill &
   Knowlton Public Relations), and it is, then any struggle against it and
   other concentrations of power may, and often is, difficult and
   dangerous at times. [quoted by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton in
   Toxic Sludge Is Good For You!, p. 47] But, as Zapata once said, "better
   to die on your feet than live on your knees!" All we can say is that
   social struggle can and does improve things and, in terms of its
   successes and transforming effect on those involved, well worth the
   potential difficulties it can create. Moreover, without struggle there
   is little chance of creating a free society, dependent as it is on
   individuals who refuse to bow to authority and have the ability and
   desire to govern themselves. In addition, social struggle is always
   essential, not only to win improvements, but to keep them as well. In
   order to fully secure improvements you have to abolish capitalism and
   the state. Not to do so means that any reforms can and will be taken
   away (and if social struggle does not exist, they will be taken away
   sooner rather than later). Ultimately, most anarchists would argue that
   social struggle is not an option -- we either do it or we put up with
   the all the petty (and not so petty) impositions of authority. If we do
   not say "no" then the powers that be will walk all over us.

   As the history of neo-liberalism shows, a lack of social struggle is
   fully compatible with worsening conditions. Ultimately, if you want to
   be treated as a human being you have to stand up for your dignity --
   and that means thinking and rebelling. As Bakunin argued in God and the
   State, human freedom and development is based on these. Without
   rebellion, without social struggle, humanity would stagnate beneath
   authority forever and never be in a position to be free. So anarchists
   agree wholeheartedly with the Abolitionist Frederick Douglass:

     "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to
     favour freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops
     without ploughing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and
     lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many
     waters.

     "This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or
     it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power
     concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
     Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out
     the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon
     them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either
     words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed
     by the endurance of those whom they oppress." [The Life and Writings
     of Frederick Douglass, vol. 2, p. 437]

   Of course, being utterly wrong has not dented von Hayek's reputation
   with the right nor stopped him being quoted in arguments in favour of
   flexibility and free market reforms (what can we expect? The right
   still quote Milton Friedman whose track-record was equally impressive).
   Still, why let the actual development of the economies influenced by
   von Hayek's ideology get in the way? Perhaps it is fortunate that he
   once argued that economic theories can "never be verified or falsified
   by reference to facts. All that we can and must verify is the presence
   of our assumptions in the particular case." [Individualism and Economic
   Order, p. 73] With such a position all is saved -- the obvious problem
   is that capitalism is still not pure enough and the "reforms" must not
   only continue but be made deeper... As Kropotkin stressed, "economists
   who continue to consider economic forces alone . . . without taking
   into account the ideology of the State, or the forces that each State
   necessarily places at the service of the rich . . . remain completely
   outside the realities of the economic and social world." [quoted by
   Ruth Kinna, "Fields of Vision: Kropotkin and Revolutionary Change", pp.
   67-86, SubStance, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 72-3]

   And, needless to say, while three decades of successful capitalist
   class war goes without mention in polite circles, documenting its
   results gets you denounced as advocating "class war"! It is more than
   pass the time when working class people should wage a class war --
   particularly given the results of not doing so.

J.4.3 Are the new social movements a positive development for anarchists?

   When assessing the revolutionary potential of our own era, we must note
   again that modern civilisation is under constant pressure from the
   potential catastrophes of social breakdown, ecological destruction, and
   proliferating weapons of mass destruction. These crises have drawn
   attention as never before to the inherently counter-evolutionary nature
   of the authoritarian paradigm, making more and more people aware that
   the human race is headed for extinction if it persists in outmoded
   forms of thought and behaviour. This awareness produces a favourable
   climate for the reception of new ideas, and thus an opening for radical
   educational efforts aimed at creating the mass transformation of
   consciousness which must take place alongside the creation of new
   liberatory institutions.

   This receptiveness to new ideas has led to a number of new social
   movements in recent years. From the point of view of anarchism, the
   four most important of these are perhaps the feminist, ecology, peace,
   and social justice movements. Each of these movements contain a great
   deal of anarchist content, particularly insofar as they imply the need
   for decentralisation and direct democracy. Since we have already
   commented on the anarchist aspects of the ecology and feminist
   movements, here we will limit our remarks to the peace and social
   justice movements.

   It is clear to many members of the peace movement that international
   disarmament, like the liberation of women, saving the planet's
   ecosystem, and preventing social breakdown, can never be attained
   without a shift of mass consciousness involving widespread rejection of
   hierarchy, which is based on the authoritarian principles of domination
   and exploitation. As C. George Bennello argued: "Since peace involves
   the positive process of replacing violence by other means of settling
   conflict . . . it can be argued that some sort of institutional change
   is necessary. For if insurgency is satisfied with specific reform
   goals, and does not seek to transform the institutional structure of
   society by getting at its centralised make-up, the war system will
   probably not go away. This is really what we should mean by
   decentralising: making institutions serve human ends again by getting
   humans to be responsible at every level within them." [From the Ground
   Up, p. 31]

   When pursued along gender, class, racial, ethnic, or national lines,
   domination and exploitation are the primary causes of resentment,
   hatred, anger, and hostility, which often explode into individual or
   organised violence. Given this, both domestic and international peace
   depend on decentralisation, i.e. dismantling hierarchies, thus
   replacing domination and exploitation by the anarchist principles of
   co-operation and mutual aid.

   Direct democracy is the other side of decentralisation. In order for an
   organisation to spread power horizontally rather than concentrating it
   at the apex of a hierarchy, all of its members have to have an equal
   voice in making the decisions that affect them. Hence decentralisation
   implies self-management. So, anarchists argue, the peace movement
   implies anarchism because world peace is impossible without both
   decentralisation and direct democracy ("a federated people would be a
   people organised for peace; what would they do with armies?" [Proudhon,
   Property is Theft!, p. 719]). As Benello correctly argued, the
   "anarchist perspective has an unparalleled relevance today because
   prevailing nuclear policies can be considered as an ultimate stage in
   the divergence between the interests of governments and their peoples .
   . . the implications when revealed serve to raise fundamental questions
   regarding the advisability of entrusting governments with questions of
   life and death . . . There is thus a pressing impetus to re-think the
   role, scale, and structure of national governments." Moreover, "[s]o
   long as profits are tied to defence production, speaking truth to the
   elites involved is not likely to get very far" as "it is only within
   the boundaries of the profit system that the corporate elites would
   have any space to move." [Op. Cit., p. 138 and p. 34] Thus the peace
   movement implicitly contains a libertarian critique of both forms of
   the power system -- the political and economical.

   In addition, certain of the practical aspects of the peace movement
   also suggest anarchistic elements. The use of non-violent direct action
   to protest against the war machine can only be viewed as a positive
   development by anarchists. Not only does it use effective, anarchistic
   methods of struggle it also radicalises those involved, making them
   more receptive to anarchist ideas and analysis.

   If we look at the implications of "nuclear free zones" we can detect
   anarchistic tendencies within them. A nuclear free zone involves a town
   or region declaring an end of its association with the nuclear military
   industrial complex. They prohibit the research, production,
   transportation and deployment of nuclear weapons as well as renouncing
   the right to be defended by nuclear power. This movement was popular in
   the 1980s, with many areas in Europe and the Pacific Basin declaring
   that they were nuclear free zones. As Benello pointed out, "[t]he
   development of campaigns for nuclear free zones suggests a strategy
   which can educate and radicalise local communities. Indeed, by
   extending the logic of the nuclear free zone idea, we can begin to
   flesh out a libertarian municipalist perspective which can help move
   our communities several steps towards autonomy from both the central
   government and the existing corporate system." While the later
   development of these initiatives did not have the radicalising effects
   that Benello hoped for, they did "represent a local initiative that
   does not depend on the federal government for action. Thus it is a step
   toward local empowerment . . . Steps that increase local autonomy
   change the power relations between the centre and its colonies . . .
   The nuclear free zone movement has a thrust which is clearly congruent
   with anarchist ideas . . . The same motives which go into the
   declaration of a nuclear free zone would dictate that in other areas
   where the state and the corporate systems services are dysfunctional
   and involve excessive costs, they should be dispensed with." [Op. Cit.,
   p. 137 and pp. 140-1]

   The social justice movement is composed of people seeking fair and
   compassionate solutions to problems such as poverty, unemployment,
   economic exploitation, discrimination, poor housing, lack of health
   insurance, wealth and income inequalities, and the like. In the
   aftermath of decades of especially single-minded pursuit of enriching
   the few by impoverishing the many by neo-liberal administrations, the
   United States, for example, is reaping the grim harvest: wages
   stagnate, personal debt soars, homelessness stalks the streets; social
   welfare budgets are slashed to the bone while poverty, unemployment,
   and underemployment grow; sweatshops mushrooming in the large cities;
   millions of Americans without any health insurance while others face
   rocketing costs; obscene wealth inequalities and falling social
   mobility; and so on. Britain under the neo-liberal policies of
   Thatcher, Major and Blair experienced a social deterioration similar to
   that in the US.

   It is not difficult to show that the major problems concerning the
   social justice movement can all be traced back to hierarchy and
   domination. For, given the purpose of hierarchy, the highest priority
   of the elites who control the state is necessarily to maintain their
   own power and privileges, regardless of the suffering involved for
   subordinate classes.

   In short, social injustice is inherent in the exploitative functions of
   the state, which are made possible by the authoritarian form of state
   institutions. Similarly, the authoritarian structure of capitalist
   companies gives rise to social injustice due to exploitation producing
   massive income differentials and wealth disparity between
   owners/management and labour. Hence the success of the social justice
   movement, like that of the feminist, ecology, and peace movements,
   depends on dismantling hierarchies. This means not only that these
   movements all imply anarchism but that they are related in such a way
   that it is impossible to conceive one of them achieving its goals in
   isolation from any of the others. To take just one example, let us
   consider the relationship between social justice and peace, which can
   be seen by examining a specific social justice issue: labour rights.

   The production of advanced weapons systems is highly profitable for
   capitalists, which is why more technologically complex and precise
   weapons keep getting built with government help (with the public paying
   the tab by way of taxes). Now, we may reasonably argue that it is a
   fundamental human right to be able to choose freely whether or not one
   will personally contribute to the production of technologies that could
   lead to the extinction of the human race. Yet because of the
   authoritarian form of the capitalist corporation, rank-and-file workers
   have virtually no say in whether the companies for which they work will
   produce such technologies. (To the objection that workers can always
   quit if they don't like company policy, the reply is that they may not
   be able to find other work and therefore that the choice is not
   genuinely free). Hence the only way that ordinary workers can obtain
   the right to be consulted on life-or-death company policies is to
   control the production process themselves, through self-management as
   production for need and use will never come from the employer. The
   owners of production in a capitalist society will never begin to take
   social priorities into account in the production process. The pursuit
   of ever greater profits is not compatible with social justice and
   responsibility.

   For these reasons, the peace and social justice movements are
   fundamentally linked through their shared need for a worker-controlled
   economy. Moreover, extreme poverty makes military service one of the
   few legal options open for many individuals to improve their social
   situation. These considerations illustrate further links between the
   peace and social justice movements -- and between those movements and
   anarchism, which is the conceptual "glue" that can potentially unite
   all the new social movements in a single anti-authoritarian coalition.

J.4.4 What is the "economic structural crisis"?

   There is an ongoing structural crisis in the global capitalist economy.
   Compared to the post-war "Golden Age" of 1950 to 1973, the period from
   1974 has seen a continual worsening in economic performance in the West
   and for Japan. For example, growth is lower, unemployment is far
   higher, labour productivity lower as is investment. Average rates of
   unemployment in the major industrialised countries have risen sharply
   since 1973, especially after 1979. Unemployment "in the advanced
   capitalist countries . . . increased by 56 per cent between 1973 and
   1980 (from an average 3.4 per cent to 5.3 per cent of the labour force)
   and by another 50 per cent since then (from 5.3 per cent of the labour
   force in 1980 to 8.0 per cent in 1994)." Job insecurity has increased
   with, for example, the USA, having the worse job insecurity since the
   depression of the 1930s. [Takis Fotopoulos, Towards an Inclusive
   Democracy, p. 35 and p. 141] In addition, the world economy has become
   far less stable with regular financial crises sweeping the world of
   de-regulated capitalism every few years or so.

   This crisis is not confined to the economy. It extends into the
   ecological and the social, with the quality of life and well-being
   decreasing as GDP grows (as we noted in [7]section C.10, economic
   factors cannot, and do not, indicate human happiness). However, here we
   discuss economic factors. This does not imply that the social and
   ecological crises are unimportant or are reducible to the economy. Far
   from it. We concentrate on the economic factor simply because this is
   the factor usually stressed by the establishment and it is useful to
   indicate the divergence of reality and hype we are currently being
   subjected to.

   Ironically enough, as Marxist Robert Brenner points out, "as the
   neo-classical medicine has been administered in even stronger doses,
   the economy has performed steadily less well. The 1970s were worse than
   the 1960s, the 1980s worse than the 1970s, and the 1990s have been
   worse than the 1980s." ["The Economics of Global Turbulence", New Left
   Review, no. 229, p. 236] This is ironic because during the crisis of
   Keynesianism in the 1970s the right argued that too much equality and
   democracy harmed the economy, and so made us all worse-off in the long
   run (due to lower growth, sluggish investment and so on). However,
   after decades of pro-capitalist governments, rising inequality,
   increased freedom for capital and its owners and managers, the
   weakening of trade unions and so on, economic growth has become worse!

   If we look at the USA in the 1990s (usually presented as an economy
   that "got it right") we find that the "cyclical upturn of the 1990s
   has, in terms of the main macro-economic indicators of growth --
   output, investment, productivity, and real compensation -- has been
   even less dynamic than its relatively weak predecessors of the 1980s
   and the 1970s (not to mention those of the 1950s and 1960s)." [Brenner,
   Op. Cit., p. 5] Of course, the economy is presented as a success --
   inequality is growing, the rich are getting richer and wealth is
   concentrating into fewer and fewer hands and so for the rich and
   finance capital, it can be considered a "Golden Age" and so is
   presented as such by the media. As economist Paul Krugman summarises,
   in America while the bulk of the population are working longer and
   harder to make ends meet "the really big gains went to the really,
   really rich." In fact, only the top 1 percent has done better since
   the 1970s than it did in the generation after World War II. Once you
   get way up the scale, however, the gains have been spectacular -- the
   top tenth of a percent saw its income rise fivefold, and the top .01
   percent of American is seven times richer than they were in 1973."
   Significantly, the top 0.1% of Americans, a class with a minimum income
   of about $1.3 million and an average of about $3.5 million, receives
   more than 7 percent of all income -- up from just 2.2 percent in 1979."
   [The Conscience of a Liberal, p. 129 and p. 259]

   So it is for this reason that it may be wrong to term this slow rot a
   "crisis" as it is hardly one for the ruling elite as their share in
   social wealth, power and income has steadily increased over this
   period. However, for the majority it is undoubtedly a crisis (the term
   "silent depression" has been accurately used to describe this).
   Unsurprisingly, when the chickens came home to roost under the Bush
   Junta and the elite faced economic collapse, the state bailed them out.

   The only countries which saw substantial and dynamic growth after 1973
   where those which used state intervention to violate the eternal "laws"
   of neo-classical economics, namely the South East Asian countries (in
   this they followed the example of Japan which had used state
   intervention to grow at massive rates after the war). Of course, before
   the economic crisis of 1997, capitalist ideologues argued that these
   countries were classic examples of "free market" economies. Right-wing
   icon F.A von Hayek asserted that "South Korea and other newcomers" had
   "discovered the benefits of free markets." [1980s Unemployment and the
   Unions, p. 113] In 1995, the Heritage Foundation (a right-wing
   think-tank) released its index of economic freedom. Four of the top
   seven countries were Asian, including Japan and Taiwan. All the Asian
   countries struggling just a few years later qualified as "free." Yet,
   as mentioned in [8]section C.10.1, such claims were manifestly false:
   "it was not laissez-faire policies that induced their spectacular
   growth. As a number of studies have shown, the expansion of the Asian
   Tigers was based on massive state intervention that boosted their
   export sectors, by public policies involving not only heavy
   protectionism but even deliberate distortion of market prices to
   stimulate investment and trade." [Fotopoulos, Op. Cit., p. 115]
   Moreover, for a long period these countries also banned unions and
   protest, but then for the right "free markets" always seem compatible
   with lack of freedom for workers to organise.

   Needless to say, after the crisis of the late 1990s, the
   free-marketeers discovered the statism that had always been there and
   danced happily on the grave of what used to be called "the Asian
   miracle". It was perverse to see the supporters of "free-market"
   capitalism concluding that history was rendering its verdict on the
   Asian model of capitalism while placing into the Memory Hole the
   awkward fact that until the crisis they themselves had taken great
   pains to deny that such a model existed! Such hypocrisy is not only
   truly sickening, it also undermines their own case for the wonders of
   "the market." For until the crisis appeared, the world's investors --
   which is to say "the market" -- saw nothing but golden opportunities
   ahead for these "free" economies. They showed their faith by shoving
   billions into Asian equity markets, while foreign banks contentedly
   handed out billions in loans. If Asia's problems were systemic and the
   result of these countries' statist policies, then investors' failure to
   recognise this earlier is a blow against the market, not for it.

   So, as can be seen, the global economy has been marked by an increasing
   stagnation, the slowing down of growth, weak (and jobless) recoveries,
   speculative bubbles driving what growth there is and increasing
   financial instability producing regular and deepening crisis. This is
   despite (or, more likely, because of) the free market reforms imposed
   and the deregulation of finance capital (we say "because of" simply
   because neo-classical economics argue that pro-market reforms would
   increase growth and improve the economy, but as we noted in [9]section
   C.1 such economics has little basis in reality and so their
   recommendations are hardly going to produce positive results). Of
   course as the ruling class have been doing well this underlying
   slowdown has been ignored and obviously claims of crisis are only
   raised when economic distress reach the elite.

   Crisis (particularly financial crisis) has become increasingly visible,
   reflecting the underlying weakness of the global economy (rising
   inequality, lack of investment in producing real goods in favour of
   speculation in finance, etc.). This underlying weakness has been hidden
   by large rises in the world's stock markets, which, ironically enough,
   has helped create that weakness to begin with! As one expert on Wall
   Street argues, "Bond markets . . . hate economic strength . . . Stocks
   generally behave badly just as the real economy is at its strongest . .
   . Stocks thrive on a cool economy, and wither in a hot one." In other
   words, real economic weakness is reflected in financial strength.
   Unsurprisingly, then, "[w]hat might be called the rentier share of the
   corporate surplus -- dividends plus interest as a percentage of pre-tax
   profits and interest -- has risen sharply, from 20-30% in the 1950s to
   60% in the 1990s." [Doug Henwood, Wall Street, p. 124 and p. 73]

   This helps explain the stagnation which has afflicted the economies of
   the west. The rich have been placing more of their ever-expanding
   wealth in stocks, allowing this market to rise in the face of general
   economic torpor. Rather than being used for investment, surplus is
   being funnelled into the finance market (retained earnings in the US
   have decreased as interest and dividend payments have increased
   [Brenner, Op. Cit., p. 210]). However, such markets do concentrate
   wealth very successfully even if "the US financial system performs
   dismally at its advertised task, that of efficiently directing
   society's savings towards their optimal investment pursuits. The system
   is stupefyingly expensive, gives terrible signals for the allocation of
   capital, and has surprisingly little to do with real investment."
   [Henwood, Op. Cit., p. 3] As most investment comes from internal funds,
   the rise in the rentiers share of the surplus has meant less investment
   and so the stagnation of the economy. The weakening economy has
   increased financial strength, which in turn leads to a weakening in the
   real economy. A vicious circle, and one reflected in the slowing of
   economic growth over the last 30 years.

   The increasing dominance of finance capital has, in effect, created a
   market for government policies. As finance capital has become
   increasingly global in nature governments must secure, protect and
   expand the field of profit-making for financial capital and
   transnational corporations, otherwise they will be punished by
   dis-investment by global markets (i.e. finance capital). These policies
   have been at the expense of the underlying economy in general, and of
   the working class in particular:

     "Rentier power was directed at labour, both organised and
     unorganised ranks of wage earners, because it regarded rising wages
     as a principal threat to the stable order. For obvious reasons, this
     goal was never stated very clearly, but financial markets understood
     the centrality of the struggle: protecting the value of their
     capital required the suppression of labour incomes." [William
     Greider, One World, Ready or Not, p. 302]

   For example, "the practical effect of finance capital's hegemony was to
   lock the advanced economies and their governments in a malignant
   spiral, restricting them to bad choices. Like bondholders in general,
   the new governing consensus explicitly assumed that faster economic
   growth was dangerous -- threatening to the stable financial order -- so
   nations were effectively blocked from measures that might reduce
   permanent unemployment or ameliorate the decline in wages . . . The
   reality of slow growth, in turn, drove the governments into their
   deepening indebtedness, since the disappointing growth inevitably
   undermined tax revenues while it expanded the public welfare costs. The
   rentier regime repeatedly instructed governments to reform their
   spending priorities -- that is, withdraw benefits from dependent
   citizens." [Greider, Op. Cit., pp. 297-8]

   Of course, industrial capital also hates labour, so there is a basis of
   an alliance between the two sides of capital, even if they do disagree
   over the specifics of the economic policies implemented. Given that a
   key aspect of the neo-liberal reforms was the transformation of the
   labour market from a post-war sellers' market to a nineteenth century
   buyers' market with its related effects on workplace discipline, wage
   claims and proneness to strike, industrial capital could not but be
   happy even if its members quibbled over details. Doug Henwood correctly
   argues that "Liberals and populists often search for potential allies
   among industrialists, reasoning that even if financial interests suffer
   in a boom, firms that trade in real, rather than fictitious, products
   would thrive when growth is strong. In general, industrialists are less
   sympathetic to these arguments. Employers in any industry like slack in
   the labour market; it makes for a pliant workforce, one unlikely to
   make demands or resist speedups." In addition, "many non-financial
   corporations have heavy financial interests." [Op. Cit., p. 123 and p.
   135]

   Thus the general stagnation afflicting much of the world, a stagnation
   which regularly develop into open crisis as the needs of finance
   undermine the real economy which, ultimately, it is dependent upon. The
   contradiction between short term profits and long term survival
   inherent in capitalism strikes again.

   Crisis, as we have noted above, has appeared in areas previously
   considered as strong economies and it has been spreading. An important
   aspect of this crisis is the tendency for productive capacity to
   outstrip effective demand, which arises in large part from the
   imbalance between capitalists' need for a high rate of profit and their
   simultaneous need to ensure that workers have enough wealth and income
   so that they can keep buying the products on which those profits
   depend. Inequality has been increasing particularly in neo-liberal
   countries like the UK and USA, which means that the economy faces as
   realisation crisis (see [10]section C.7), a crisis which was avoided in
   the short-term by deepening debt for working people (debt levels more
   than doubled between the 1950s to the 1990s, from 25% to over 60%). In
   2007, the chickens came hole to roost with a global credit crunch much
   worse than the previous finance crises of the neo-liberal era.

   Over-investment has been magnified due to the East-Asian Tigers and
   China which, thanks to their intervention in the market (and repressive
   regimes against labour), ensured they were a more profitable place to
   invest than elsewhere. Capital flooded into the area, ensuring a
   relative over-investment was inevitable. As we argued in [11]section
   C.7.2, crisis is possible simply due to the lack of information
   provided by the price mechanism -- economic agents can react in such a
   way that the collective result of individually rational decisions is
   irrational. Thus the desire to reap profits in the Tiger economies
   resulted in a squeeze in profits as the aggregate investment decisions
   resulted in over-investment, and so over-production and falling
   profits.

   In effect, the South East Asian economies suffered from the "fallacy of
   composition." When you are the first Asian export-driven economy, you
   are competing with high-cost Western producers and so your cheap
   workers, low taxes and lax environmental laws allow you to under-cut
   your competitors and make profits. However, as more tigers joined into
   the market, they end up competing against each other and so their
   profit margins would decrease towards their actual cost price rather
   than that of Western firms. With the decrease in profits, the capital
   that flowed into the region flowed back out, thus creating a crisis
   (and proving, incidentally, that free markets are destabilising and do
   not secure the best of all possible outcomes). Thus, the rentier
   regime, after weakening the Western economies, helped destabilise the
   Eastern ones too.

   So, in the short-run, many large corporations and financial companies
   solved their profit problems by expanding production into
   "underdeveloped" countries so as to take advantage of the cheap labour
   there (and the state repression which ensured that cheapness) along
   with weaker environmental laws and lower taxes. Yet gradually they are
   running out of third-world populations to exploit. For the very process
   of "development" stimulated by the presence of Transnational
   Corporations in third-world nations increases competition and so,
   potentially, over-investment and, even more importantly, produces
   resistance in the form of unions, rebellions and so on, which tend to
   exert a downward pressure on the level of exploitation and profits.

   This process reflects, in many ways, the rise of finance capital in the
   1970s. In the 1950s and 1960s, existing industrialised nations
   experienced increased competition from Japan and Germany. As these
   nations re-industrialised, they placed increased pressure on the USA
   and other nations, reducing the global "degree of monopoly" and forcing
   them to compete with lower cost producers. In addition, full employment
   produced increasing resistance on the shop floor and in society as a
   whole (see [12]section C.7.1), squeezing profits even more. Thus a
   combination of class struggle and global over-capacity resulted in the
   1970s crisis. With the inability of the real economy, especially the
   manufacturing sector, to provide an adequate return, capital shifted
   into finance. In effect, it ran away from the success of working people
   asserting their rights at the point of production and elsewhere. This,
   combined with increased international competition, ensured the rise of
   finance capital which in return ensured the current stagnationist
   tendencies in the economy (tendencies made worse by the rise of the
   Asian Tiger economies in the 1980s).

   From the contradictions between finance capital and the real economy,
   between capitalists' need for profit and human needs, between
   over-capacity and demand, and others, there has emerged what appears to
   be a long-term trend toward permanent stagnation of the capitalist
   economy with what growth spurts which do exist being fuelled by
   speculative bubbles as well as its benefits being monopolised by the
   few (so refuting the notion of "trickle down" economics). This trend
   has been apparent for several decades, as evidenced by the continuous
   upward adjustment of the rate of unemployment officially considered to
   be "normal" or "acceptable" during those decades, and by other symptoms
   as well such as falling growth, lower rates of profit and so on.

   This stagnation has became even more obvious by the development of deep
   crisis in many countries at the end of the 2000s. This caused central
   banks to intervene in order to try and revive the real economies that
   have suffered under their rentier inspired policies since the 1970s.
   Such action may just ensure continued stagnation and reflated bubbles
   rather than a real up-turn. One thing is true, however, and that is the
   working class will pay the price of any "solution" -- unless they
   organise and get rid of capitalism and the state. Ultimately,
   capitalism need profits to survive and such profits came from the fact
   that workers do not have economic liberty. Thus any "solution" within a
   capitalist framework means the increased oppression and exploitation of
   working class people.

J.4.5 Why is this "economic structural crisis" important to social struggle?

   The "economic structural crisis" we out-lined in the [13]last section
   has certain implications for anarchists and social struggle.
   Essentially, as C. George Benello argued, "[i]f economic conditions
   worsen . . . then we are likely to find an openness to alternatives
   which have not been thought of since the depression of the 1930s . . .
   It is important to plan for a possible economic crisis, since it is not
   only practical, but also can serve as a method of mobilising a
   community in creative ways." [From the Ground Up, p. 149]

   In the face of economic stagnation and depression, attempts to generate
   more profits (i.e., increase exploitation) by increasing the authority
   of the boss grow. In addition, more people find it harder to make ends
   meet, run up debts to survive, face homelessness if they are made
   unemployed, and so on. This makes exploitation ever more visible and
   tends to push oppressed strata together in movements that seek to
   mitigate, and even remove, their oppression. As the capitalist era has
   worn on, these strata have become increasingly able to rebel and gain
   substantial political and economic improvements, which have, in
   addition, lead to an increasing willingness to do so because of rising
   expectations (about what is possible) and frustration (about what
   actually is). It is true that libertarians, the left and labour have
   suffered setbacks since the 1970s, but with increasing misery of the
   working class due to neo-liberal policies (and the "economic structural
   crisis" they create), it is only a matter of time before there is a
   resurgence of radicalism.

   Anarchists will be in the forefront of this resurgence. For, with the
   discrediting and eventual fall of authoritarian state capitalism
   ("Communism") in Eastern Europe, the anti-authoritarian faction of the
   left will increasingly be seen as its only credible one. Thus the
   ongoing structural crisis of the global capitalist economy, combined
   with the other developments springing from what Takis Fotopoulos calls
   (in his book Towards an Inclusive Democracy) a "multidimensional
   crisis" (which includes economic, political, social, ecological and
   ideological aspects), could (potentially) lead to a new international
   anti-authoritarian alliance linking together the new (and not so new)
   social movements in the West (feminism, the Green movement,
   rank-and-file labour militancy, etc.) with non-authoritarian liberation
   movements in the Third World and new movements in formerly Stalinist
   countries. However, this is only likely to happen if anarchists take
   the lead in promoting alternatives and working with the mass of the
   population. Ways in which anarchists can do this are discussed in some
   detail in [14]section J.5.

   Thus the "economic structural crisis" can aid social struggle by
   placing the contrast of "what is" with what "could be" in a clear
   light. Any crisis brings forth the contradictions in capitalism,
   between the production of use values (things people need) and of
   exchange value (capitalist profits), between capitalism's claims of
   being based on liberty and the authoritarianism associated with wage
   labour ("The general evidence of repression poses an ancient
   contradiction for capitalism: while it claims to promote human freedom,
   it profits concretely from the denial of freedom, most especially
   freedom for the workers employed by capitalist enterprise." [William
   Greider, One World, Ready or Not, p. 388]) and so on. It shakes to the
   bone popular faith in capitalism's ability to "deliver the goods" and
   gets more and more people thinking about alternatives to a system that
   places profit above and before people and planet. The crisis also, by
   its very nature, encourages workers and other oppressed sections of the
   population to resist and fight back, which in turn generates collective
   organisation (such as unions or workplace-based assemblies and
   councils), solidarity and direct action -- in other words, collective
   self-help and the awareness that the problems of working class people
   can only be solved by ourselves, by our own actions and organisations.
   The 1930s in the USA is a classic example of this process, with very
   militant struggles taking place in very difficult situations (see
   Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States or Jeremy
   Brecher's Strike! for details).

   In other words, the "economic structural crisis" gives radicals a lot
   potential to get their message across, even if the overall environment
   may make success seem difficult at times!

   As well as encouraging workplace organisation due to the
   intensification of exploitation and authority provoked by the economic
   stagnation/depression, the "economic structural crisis" can encourage
   other forms of libertarian alternatives. For example, the "economic
   structural crisis" has resulted in the erosion of the welfare state (at
   least for the working class, for the elite state aid is never far
   away). This development has potential libertarian possibilities. "The
   decline of the state," argues L. Gambone, "makes necessary a
   revitalisation of the notions of direct action and mutual aid. Without
   Mama State to do it for us, we must create our own social services
   through mutual aid societies." [Syndicalism in Myth and Reality, p. 12]
   As we argue in more depth in [15]section J.5.16, such a movement of
   mutual aid has a long history in the working class and, as it is under
   our control, it cannot be withdrawn from us to enrich and empower the
   ruling class as state run systems have been. Thus the decline of state
   run social services could, potentially, see the rise of a network of
   self-managed, working class alternatives (equally, of course, it could
   see the end of all services to the weakest sections of our society --
   which possibility comes about depends on what we do in the here and
   now. See [16]section J.5.15 for an anarchist analysis of the welfare
   state).

   Food Not Bombs! (FNB) is an excellent example of practical libertarian
   alternatives being generated by the economic crisis we are facing. FNB
   is a community-based group which helps the homeless through the direct
   action of its members. It also involves the homeless in helping
   themselves. It serves free food in public places to expose the plight
   of the homeless, the callousness of the system and our capacity to
   solve social problems through our own actions without government or
   capitalism. The constant harassment of FNB by the police, middle
   classes and the government illustrates their callousness to the plight
   of the poor and the failure of their institutions to build a society
   which cares for people more than money and property (and the police and
   prisons to protect them). The fact is that in the US many working and
   unemployed people have no feeling that they are entitled to basic human
   needs such as medicine, clothes, shelter, and food. FNB encourages poor
   people to make these demands, provides a space in which these demands
   can be voiced, and helps to breakdown the wall between hungry and
   not-hungry. The repression directed towards FNB by local police forces
   and governments also demonstrates the effectiveness of their activity
   and the possibility that it may radicalise those who get involved with
   the organisation. Charity is obviously one thing, mutual aid is
   something else. FNB is a politicised movement from below, based on
   solidarity, not charity as, in Kropotkin's words, charity "bears a
   character of inspiration from above, and, accordingly, implies a
   certain superiority of the giver upon the receiver." [Mutual Aid, p.
   222]

   The last example of how economic stagnation can generate libertarian
   tendencies can be seen from the fact that, "[h]istorically, at times of
   severe inflation or capital shortages, communities have been forced to
   rely on their own resources. During the Great Depression, many cities
   printed their own currency; this works to the extent that a community
   is able to maintain a viable internal economy which provides the
   necessities of life, independent of transactions with the outside."
   [Benello, Op. Cit., p. 150]

   These local currencies could be the basis of a mutual bank (see
   [17]section J.5.5), providing interest-free loans to workers to form
   co-operatives and so build libertarian alternatives to capitalist
   firms, so eliminating the profits of capitalists by allowing workers to
   exchange the product of their labour with other workers. Moreover,
   "local exchange systems strength local communities by increasing their
   self-reliance, empowering community members, and helping to protect
   them from the excesses of the global market." [Frank Lindenfield,
   "Economics for Anarchists," Social Anarchism, no. 23, p. 24] In this
   way self-managing communes could be created, communes that replace
   hierarchical, top-down, government with collective decision making of
   community affairs based on directly democratic community assemblies.
   These self-governing communities and economies could federate together
   to co-operate on a wider scale and so create a counter-power to that of
   state and capitalism.

   This confederal system of self-managing communities could also protect
   jobs as the "globalisation of capital threatens local industries. A way
   has to be found to keep capital at home and so preserve the jobs and
   the communities that depend upon them. Protectionism is both
   undesirable and unworkable. But worker-ownership or workers'
   co-operatives are alternatives." [Gambone, Op. Cit., pp. 12-13] Local
   communities could provide the necessary support structures which could
   protect co-operatives from the corrupting effects of working in the
   capitalist market (see [18]section J.5.11). They could also demand that
   rather than nationalise or bailout failing companies (or, for that
   matter, privatise state services or public works), they should be
   turned over (as Proudhon constantly argued) to workers co-operatives by
   aiding "the Labour Unions to enter into a temporary possession of the
   industrial concerns", anarchists would provide "an effective means to
   check the State Nationalisation" in the period before a social
   revolution when "State phases which we are traversing now seems to be
   unavoidable." [quoted by Ruth Kinna, "Fields of Vision: Kropotkin and
   Revolutionary Change", pp. 67-86, SubStance, Vol. 36, No. 2, p. 77] In
   this way, economic liberty (self-management) could replace capitalism
   (wage slavery) and show that anarchism is a practical alternative to
   the chaos and authoritarianism of capitalism, even if these examples
   are initially fragmentally and limited in nature.

   However, these developments should not be taken in isolation of
   collective struggle in the workplace or community. It is in the class
   struggle that the real potential for anarchy is created. The work of
   such organisations as Food Not Bombs! and the creation of local
   currencies and co-operatives are supplementary to the important task of
   creating workplace and community organisations that can create
   effective resistance to both state and capitalists, resistance that can
   overthrow both (see sections [19]J.5.2 and [20]J.5.1 respectively).
   "Volunteer and service credit systems and alternative currencies by
   themselves may not be enough to replace the corporate capitalist
   system. Nevertheless, they can help build the economic strength of
   local currencies, empower local residents, and mitigate some of the
   consequences of poverty and unemployment . . . By the time a majority
   [of a community are involved it] will be well on its way to becoming a
   living embodiment of many anarchist ideals." [Lindenfield, Op. Cit., p.
   28] And such a community would be a great aid in any strike or other
   social struggle which is going on!

   The general economic crisis which we are facing has implications for
   social struggle and anarchist activism. It could be the basis of
   libertarian alternatives in our workplaces and communities,
   alternatives based on direct action, solidarity and self-management.
   These alternatives could include workplace and community unionism,
   co-operatives, mutual banks and other forms of anarchistic resistance
   to capitalism and the state.

   Finally, we must stress that we are not arguing that working class
   people need an economic crisis to force them into struggle. Such
   "objectivism" (i.e. the placing of tendencies towards socialism in the
   development of capitalism, of objective factors, rather than in the
   class struggle, i.e. subjective factors) is best left to orthodox
   Marxists and Leninists as it has authoritarian implications. Rather we
   are aware that the class struggle, the subjective pressure on
   capitalism, is not independent of the conditions within which it takes
   place (and helps to create, we must add). Subjective revolt is always
   present under capitalism and, in the case of the 1970s, played a role
   in creating crisis. Faced with an economic crisis we are indicating
   what we can do in response to it and how it could, potentially,
   generate libertarian tendencies within society. Economic crisis could,
   in other words, provoke social struggle, collective action and generate
   anarchic tendencies in society. Equally, it could cause apathy,
   rejection of collective struggle and, perhaps, the embracing of false
   "solutions" such as right-wing populism, Leninism, or Fascism. We
   cannot predict how the future will develop, but it is true that if we
   do nothing then, obviously, libertarian tendencies will not grow and
   develop.

J.4.6 What are implications of anti-government and anti-big business
feelings?

   Public opinion polls show increasing feelings of disappointment and
   lack of confidence in governments and big business.

   Some of the feelings of disappointment with government can be blamed on
   the anti-big-government rhetoric of conservatives and right-wing
   populists. Of course the Right would never dream of really dismantling
   the state, as is evident from the fact that government was as
   bureaucratic and expensive under "conservative" administrations. So
   this "decentralist" element of right-wing rhetoric is a con (and
   quickly jettisoned as required by the capitalist class). The
   "anti-Government" rhetoric is combined with the pro-business,
   pro-private tyranny, racist, anti-feminist, and homophobic hogwash
   disseminated by right-wing radio and TV propagandists and the
   business-backed media which shows that capitalism is not genuinely
   anti-authoritarian (nor could it ever be), as a social system based on
   liberty must entail.

   When a right-wing politician, economist or business "leader" argues
   that the government is too big, they are rarely thinking of the same
   government functions you are. You may be thinking of subsidies for
   tobacco farmers or defence firms; they are thinking about pollution
   controls. You may be thinking of reforming welfare for the better;
   their idea is to dismantle the welfare state (for working class
   people). Moreover, with their support for "family values", "wholesome"
   television, bans on abortion and so on, their victory would see an
   increased level of government intrusion in many personal spheres as
   well as increased state support for the power of the boss over the
   worker and the landlord over the tenant.

   If you look at what the Right has done and is doing, rather than what
   it is saying, you quickly see the ridiculousness of claims of
   right-wing "libertarianism" (as well as who is really in charge).
   Obstructing pollution and health regulations; defunding product safety
   laws; opening national parks to logging and mining, or closing them
   entirely; reducing taxes for the rich; eliminating the capital gains
   tax; allowing companies to fire striking workers; making it easier for
   big telecommunications companies to dominate the media; limiting
   companies' liability for unsafe products -- the objective here is
   obviously to help big business and the wealthy do what they want
   without government interference, helping the rich get richer and
   increasing "freedom" for private power combined with a state whose sole
   role is to protect that "liberty."

   Such right-wing tendencies do not have anarchistic elements. The
   "anti-government" propaganda of big business is hardly anarchistic.
   What anarchists try to do is point out the hypocritical and
   contradictory nature of such rhetoric. The arguments against big
   government are equally applicable to business. If people are capable of
   making their own decisions, then why should this capability be denied
   in the workplace? As Noam Chomsky points out, while there is a "leave
   it alone" and "do your own thing" current within society, it in fact
   "tells you that the propaganda system is working full-time, because
   there is no such ideology in the US. Business, for example, doesn't
   believe it. It has always insisted upon a powerful interventionist
   state to support its interests -- still does and always has -- back to
   the origins of American society. There's nothing individualistic about
   corporations. Those are big conglomerate institutions, essentially
   totalitarian in character, but hardly individualistic. Within them
   you're a cog in a big machine. There are few institutions in human
   society that have such strict hierarchy and top-down control as a
   business organisation. Nothing there about 'Don't tread on me.' You're
   being tread on all the time. The point of the ideology is to try to get
   other people, outside of the sectors of co-ordinated power, to fail to
   associate and enter into decision-making in the political arena
   themselves. The point is to atomise everyone else while leaving
   powerful sectors integrated and highly organised and of course
   dominating resources." He goes on to note that there is "a streak of
   independence and individuality in American culture which I think is a
   very good thing. This 'Don't tread on me' feeling is in many respects a
   healthy one. It's healthy up to the point where it atomises and keeps
   you from working together with other people. So it's got its healthy
   side and its negative side. It's the negative side that's emphasised
   naturally in the propaganda and indoctrination." [Keeping the Rabble in
   Line, pp. 279-80]

   As opinion polls show, most people direct their dislike and distrust of
   institutions equally to Big Business, which shows that people are not
   stupid. Unfortunately, as Goebbels was well aware, tell a lie often
   enough and people start to believe it. Given the funds available to big
   business, its influence in the media, its backing of "think-tanks," the
   use of Public Relations companies, the support of economic "science,"
   its extensive advertising and so on, it says a lot for the common sense
   of people that so many see big business for what it is. You simply
   cannot fool all the people all of the time!

   However, these feelings can easily be turned into cynicism as well as a
   hopelessness that things can change for the better and that you cannot
   help change society. Or, even worse, they can be twisted into support
   for right, authoritarian, populism. The job for anarchists is to combat
   this and help point the healthy distrust people have for government and
   business towards a real solution to society's problems, namely a
   decentralised, self-managed anarchist society.

J.4.7 What about the communications revolution?

   Another important factor working in favour of anarchists is the
   existence of a sophisticated global communications network and a high
   degree of education and literacy among the populations of the core
   industrialised nations. Together these two developments make possible
   nearly instantaneous sharing and public dissemination of information by
   members of various progressive and radical movements all over the globe
   -- a phenomenon that tends to reduce the effectiveness of repression by
   central authorities. The electronic-media and personal-computer
   revolutions also make it more difficult for elitist groups to maintain
   their previous monopolies of knowledge. Copy-left software and text,
   user-generated and shared content, file-sharing, all show that
   information, and its users, reaches its full potential when it is free.
   In short, the advent of the Information Age is potentially extremely
   subversive.

   The very existence of the Internet provides anarchists with a powerful
   argument that decentralised structures can function effectively in a
   highly complex world. For the net has no centralised headquarters and
   is not subject to regulation by any centralised regulatory agency, yet
   it still manages to function effectively. Moreover, the net is also an
   effective way for anarchists and other radicals to communicate their
   ideas to others, share knowledge, work on common projects and
   co-ordinate activities and social struggle. By using the Internet,
   radicals can make their ideas accessible to people who otherwise would
   not come across anarchist ideas. In addition, and far more important
   than anarchists putting their ideas across, the fact is that the net
   allows everyone with access to express themselves freely, to
   communicate with others and get access (by visiting webpages and
   joining mailing lists and newsgroups) and give access (by creating
   webpages and joining in with on-line arguments) to new ideas and
   viewpoints. This is very anarchistic as it allows people to express
   themselves and start to consider new ideas, ideas which may change how
   they think and act.

   Obviously we are aware that the vast majority of people in the world do
   not have access to telephones, never mind computers, but computer
   access is increasing in many countries, making it available, via work,
   libraries, schools, universities, and so on to more and more working
   class people.

   Of course there is no denying that the implications of improved
   communications and information technology are ambiguous, implying Big
   Brother as well the ability of progressive and radical movements to
   organise. However, the point is only that the information revolution in
   combination with the other social developments could (but will not
   necessarily) contribute to a social paradigm shift. Obviously such a
   shift will not happen automatically. Indeed, it will not happen at all
   unless there is strong resistance to governmental and corporate
   attempts to limit public access to information, technology (e.g.
   encryption programs), censor peoples' communications and use of
   electronic media and track them on-line.

   This use of the Internet and computers to spread the anarchist message
   is ironic. The rapid improvement in price-performance ratios of
   computers, software, and other technology today is often used to
   validate the faith in free market capitalism but that requires a
   monumental failure of historical memory as not just the Internet but
   also the computer represents a spectacular success of public
   investment. As late as the 1970s and early 1980s, according to Kenneth
   Flamm's Creating the Computer, the federal government was paying for 40
   percent of all computer-related research and 60 to 75 percent of basic
   research. Even such modern-seeming gadgets as video terminals, the
   light pen, the drawing tablet, and the mouse evolved from
   Pentagon-sponsored research in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Even
   software was not without state influence, with databases having their
   root in US Air Force and Atomic Energy Commission projects, artificial
   intelligence in military contracts back in the 1950s and airline
   reservation systems in 1950s air-defence systems. More than half of
   IBM's Research and Development budget came from government contracts in
   the 1950s and 1960s.

   The motivation was national security, but the result has been the
   creation of comparative advantage in information technology for the
   United States that private firms have happily exploited and extended.
   When the returns were uncertain and difficult to capture, private firms
   were unwilling to invest, and government played the decisive role. And
   not for want of trying, for key players in the military first tried to
   convince businesses and investment bankers that a new and potentially
   profitable business opportunity was presenting itself, but they did not
   succeed and it was only when the market expanded and the returns were
   more definite that the government receded. While the risks and
   development costs were socialised, the gains were privatised. All of
   which make claims that the market would have done it anyway highly
   unlikely.

   Looking beyond state aid to the computer industry we discover a
   "do-it-yourself" (and so self-managed) culture which was essential to
   its development. The first personal computer, for example, was invented
   by amateurs who wanted their own cheap machines. The existence of a
   "gift" economy among these amateurs and hobbyists was a necessary
   precondition for the development of PCs. Without this free sharing of
   information and knowledge, the development of computers would have been
   hindered and so socialistic relations between developers and within the
   working environment created the necessary conditions for the computer
   revolution. If this community had been marked by commercial relations,
   the chances are the necessary breakthroughs and knowledge would have
   remained monopolised by a few companies or individuals, so hindering
   the industry as a whole.

   Encouragingly, this socialistic "gift economy" is still at the heart of
   computer/software development and the Internet. For example, the Free
   Software Foundation has developed the General Public Licence (GPL).
   GPL, also known as "copyleft", uses copyright to ensure that software
   remains free. Copyleft ensures that a piece of software is made
   available to everyone to use and modify as they desire. The only
   restriction is that any used or modified copyleft material must remain
   under copyleft, ensuring that others have the same rights as you did
   when you used the original code. It creates a commons which anyone may
   add to, but no one may subtract from. Placing software under GPL means
   that every contributor is assured that she, and all other users, will
   be able to run, modify and redistribute the code indefinitely. Unlike
   commercial software, copyleft code ensures an increasing knowledge base
   from which individuals can draw from and, equally as important,
   contribute to. In this way everyone benefits as code can be improved by
   everyone, unlike commercial code.

   Many will think that this essentially anarchistic system would be a
   failure. In fact, code developed in this way is far more reliable and
   sturdy than commercial software. Linux, for example, is a far superior
   operating system than DOS precisely because it draws on the collective
   experience, skill and knowledge of thousands of developers. Apache, the
   most popular web-server, is another freeware product and is
   acknowledged as the best available. The same can be said of other key
   web-technologies (most obviously PHP) and projects (Wikipedia springs
   to mind, although that project while based on co-operative and free
   activity is owned by a few people who have ultimate control). While
   non-anarchists may be surprised, anarchists are not. Mutual aid and
   co-operation are beneficial in the evolution of life, why not in the
   evolution of software? For anarchists, this "gift economy" at the heart
   of the communications revolution is an important development. It shows
   both the superiority of common development as well as the walls built
   against innovation and decent products by property systems. We hope
   that such an economy will spread increasingly into the "real" world.

   Another example of co-operation being aided by new technologies is
   Netwar. This refers to the use of the Internet by autonomous groups and
   social movements to co-ordinate action to influence and change society
   and fight government or business policy. This use of the Internet has
   steadily grown over the years, with a Rand corporation researcher,
   David Ronfeldt, arguing that this has become an important and powerful
   force (Rand is, and has been since its creation in 1948, a private
   appendage of the military industrial complex). In other words, activism
   and activists' power and influence has been fuelled by the advent of
   the information revolution. Through computer and communication
   networks, especially via the Internet, grassroots campaigns have
   flourished, and most importantly, government elites have taken notice.

   Ronfeldt specialises in issues of national security, especially in the
   areas of Latin American and the impact of new informational
   technologies. Ronfeldt and another colleague coined the term "netwar"
   in a Rand document entitled "Cyberwar is Coming!". Ronfeldt's work
   became a source of discussion on the Internet in mid-March 1995 when
   Pacific News Service correspondent Joel Simon wrote an article about
   Ronfeldt's opinions on the influence of netwars on the political
   situation in Mexico after the Zapatista uprising. According to Simon,
   Ronfeldt holds that the work of social activists on the Internet has
   had a large influence -- helping to co-ordinate the large
   demonstrations in Mexico City in support of the Zapatistas and the
   proliferation of EZLN communiqués across the world via computer
   networks. These actions, Ronfeldt argues, have allowed a network of
   groups that oppose the Mexican Government to muster an international
   response, often within hours of actions by it. In effect, this has
   forced the Mexican government to maintain the facade of negotiations
   with the EZLN and has on many occasions, actually stopped the army from
   just going in to Chiapas and brutally massacring the Zapatistas.

   Given that Ronfeldt was an employee of the Rand Corporation his
   comments indicate that the U.S. government and its military and
   intelligence wings are very interested in what the Left is doing on the
   Internet. Given that they would not be interested in this if it were
   not effective, we can say that this use of the "Information
   Super-Highway" is a positive example of the use of technology in ways
   un-planned of by those who initially developed it (let us not forget
   that the Internet was originally funded by the U.S. government and
   military). While the internet is being hyped as the next big
   marketplace, it is being subverted by activists -- an example of
   anarchistic trends within society worrying the powers that be.

   A good example of this powerful tool is the incredible speed and range
   at which information travels the Internet about events concerning
   Mexico and the Zapatistas. When Alexander Cockburn wrote an article
   exposing a Chase Manhattan Bank memo about Chiapas and the Zapatistas
   in Counterpunch, only a small number of people read it because it is
   only a newsletter with a limited readership. The memo, written by
   Riordan Roett, argued that "the [Mexican] government will need to
   eliminate the Zapatistas to demonstrate their effective control of the
   national territory and of security policy". In other words, if the
   Mexican government wants investment from Chase, it would have to crush
   the Zapatistas. This information was relatively ineffective when just
   confined to print but when it was uploaded to the Internet, it suddenly
   reached a very large number of people. These people in turn
   co-ordinated protests against the U.S and Mexican governments and
   especially Chase Manhattan. Chase was eventually forced to attempt to
   distance itself from the Roett memo that it commissioned. Since then
   net-activism has grown.

   Ronfeldt's research and opinion should be flattering for the Left. He
   is basically arguing that the efforts of activists on computers not
   only has been very effective (or at least has that potential), but more
   importantly, argues that the only way to counter this work is to follow
   the lead of social activists. Activists should understand the important
   implications of Ronfeldt's work: government elites are not only
   watching these actions (big surprise) but are also attempting to work
   against them. Thus Netwars and copyleft are good examples of
   anarchistic trends within society, using communications technology as a
   means of co-ordinating activity across the world in a libertarian
   fashion for libertarian goals.
   [21] J.3 What kinds of organisation do anarchists build? [22]up
   [23]J.5 What alternative social organisations do anarchists create? 

References

   1. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ5.txt
   2. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ1.txt
   3. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ2.txt
   4. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI2.txt#seci23
   5. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secB7.txt#sec72
   6. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secC1.txt#secc15
   7. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secC10.txt
   8. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secC10.txt#secc101
   9. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secC1.txt
  10. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secC7.txt
  11. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secC7.txt#secc72
  12. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secC7.txt#secc71
  13. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ4.txt#secj44
  14. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ5.txt
  15. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ5.txt#secj516
  16. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ5.txt#secj515
  17. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ5.txt#secj55
  18. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ5.txt#secj511
  19. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ5.txt#secj52
  20. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ5.txt#secj51
  21. //afaq/secJ3.html
  22. //afaq/secJcon.html
  23. //afaq/secJ5.html
