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Final Objectives: Social Revolution and Libertarian Socialism

category brazil/guyana/suriname/fguiana | anarchist movement | policy statement author Friday February 10, 2012 21:46author by Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro - FARJ Report this post to the editors
Having drawn a brief diagnosis of the current society of domination and exploitation, we affirm two objectives that we understand as final: the social revolution and libertarian socialism.

SOCIAL ANARCHISM AND ORGANISATION

FINAL OBJECTIVES: SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND LIBERTARIAN SOCIALISM

We carry a new world in our hearts.
Buenaventura Durruti

The political and social project of anarchism
is a free and anti-authoritarian society that conserves freedom,
equality and solidarity between all its members.

Nestor Makhno

But the universal revolution is the social revolution,
it is the simultaneous revolution of the people of the fields and the cities.
It is this that it is necessary to organise –
because without preparatory organisation,
the strongest elements are impotent and void.

Mikhail Bakunin

Having drawn a brief diagnosis of the current society of domination and exploitation, we affirm two objectives that we understand as final: the social revolution [55] and libertarian socialism. The objective of the social revolution is to destroy the society of exploitation and domination. Libertarian socialism is that which gives constructive meaning to the social revolution. Together, the destruction – as a concept of negation – and the construction – as a concept of proposition – constitute the possible and effective social transformation we propose. “There is no revolution without profound and passionate destruction, salvaging and fruitful destruction, because from it, and only by it, are new worlds created and born.” [56] However, destruction alone is not enough, since “no one can wish to destroy without having at least a remote idea, real or false, of the order of things that should, in their opinion, replace that which currently exists” [57].

The social revolution is one of the possible outcomes of the class struggle and consists of the violent alteration of the established social order, and is considered by us the only way to put an end to domination and exploitation. It differs from the political revolutions of the Jacobins and Leninists by supporting the alteration of the “order” not just with a political change, through the state, exchanging one directing minority for another. As we emphasised earlier the state, for us, is not a means for the emancipation of the exploited classes, nor should it be removed from the hands of the capitalists, through revolutionary means, by a supposed vanguard that claims to act on behalf of the proletariat. A political revolution such as the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution, which does not terminate the state in order to produce equality in its midst, becomes a bourgeois revolution and ends, “unfailingly, in a new exploitation, wiser and more hypocritical, perhaps, but that does not lessen the oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie” [58].

Unlike political revolution, social revolution is accomplished by the people of the cities and countryside who bring the class struggle and its correlation of forces with capitalism and the state to the limit, by means of popular organisation. Social revolution occurs when the social force developed in the heart of the popular organisation is greater than that of capitalism and the state and, put into practice, implants structures that support self-management and federalism; wiping out private property and the state and giving rise to a society of complete freedom and equality. It is the social revolution that will bring popular emancipation, as repeatedly stated by Bakunin:

It is precisely this old system of organisation by force that the social revolution must end, returning complete freedom to the masses, to the communes, to the associations, to individuals themselves and destroying, once and for all, the historical cause of all violence, domination and the very existence of the state [...] [The social revolution is] the abolition of all exploitation and political oppression, juridical or administrative and governmental, including the abolition of all classes by means of the economic levelling of all wealth [...]. [59]
The social revolution is not a “grand night” on which the people revolt, spontaneously, and produce a new society. It is undeniable that the class struggle produces a series of uprisings or even insurrections, spontaneous events of great importance. However, if there is no intense and hard prior organisational work these episodes will pass, sometimes with gains for the exploited classes, but they will not manage to overthrow capitalism and the state, nor give body to a new society. The construction of the popular organisation will develop the spirit of struggle and organisation in the exploited classes, seeking the accumulation of social force and incorporating within it the means to struggle in accordance with the society that we wish to build. Thus, we do not understand the social revolution as simple evolution nor as an obligatory consequence of the contradictions of capitalism, but as an episode that marks the rupture and is determined by the will of the organised exploited classes.

We emphasise that in this revolutionary process it is necessary to use violence, because we do not believe that the expropriation of the capitalists or even the destruction of the state can be accomplished without the ruling class promoting violence. In fact, the system in which we live is already a system based on violence for its maintenance, and its exacerbation during revolutionary moments only justifies the use of violence on the part of revolutionaries, primarily as a response to the violence suffered in the past and present. “Violence is only justifiable when it is necessary in order to defend oneself or others against violence.” [60] The ruling class will not accept the changes imposed on it at the moment of the realisation of the social revolution. So it is necessary to know that, although we are neither promoters nor lovers of violence, it will be necessary for the blow that we intend to deliver against this whole system of domination and exploitation.

Since revolution, by force of circumstance, is a violent act it tends to develop the spirit of violence rather than destroy it. But the revolution conducted as conceived by anarchists is the least violent possible; it seeks to stop all violence as soon as the need to oppose, by force, the material force of the government and the bourgeoisie ceases. The anarchist ideal is to have a society in which the violence factor would have completely disappeared and this ideal serves to halt, correct and destroy this spirit of violence that the revolution, as a material act, would have the tendency to develop. [61]
The violent action of the social revolution must, at the same time as the expropriation of the capitalists immediately destroy the state, giving place to self-managed and federated structures, tried and tested within the popular organisation. Therefore, the authoritarian conception of “socialism” as an interim period in which a dictatorship is established within the state is, for us, nothing but another way to continue the exploitation of the people and must be rejected absolutely, under any circumstance.

As the social revolution must not be made only by the anarchists, it is important that we be fully inserted in the processes of class struggle in order to be able to orient the revolution towards libertarian socialism. This is because the experiences of the revolutions of the twentieth century show us that if this does not happen, the authoritarians will decimate emancipatory experiences in order to occupy the state, ending the possibility of self-management and federalism, and constituting more tyrannical regimes than the previous ones. For this reason the revolution is a risk because, if the anarchists are not sufficiently inserted to be able to give it the desired direction, they will work in order that another regime of domination and exploitation be implanted. A culture of self-management and federalism should already be well developed in the class struggles so that the people, at the revolutionary moment, do not allow themselves to be oppressed by authoritarian opportunists; and this will be through class-based practices of autonomy, combativeness, direct action and direct democracy. The more these values exist in the popular organisation, the less will be the possibility for constituting new tyrannies.

As much as we reject completely the conception of Marxist “socialism”, of dictatorship in the state, it is undeniable that there would be a post-revolutionary moment of adaptation towards libertarian socialism. This may still be a time of many conflicts, and so must rely on the specific anarchist organisations – which will only merge with the social organisations at a later period of the full development of libertarian socialism, when the threat of counter-revolution has passed and libertarian socialism is in full operation.

When we treat our conception of social revolution, or even when we think of a possible future society, we want to make clear that we do not seek to determine beforehand, absolutely, how the revolutionary process or even libertarian socialism will occur. We know that there is no way to predict when this transformation will take place, and therefore any reflections must always consider this aspect of strategic projection of future possibilities from the point of possibilities, of references, and not of absolute certainties. The characteristics of the revolutionary process depend on when and where it occurs.

Thus, the reflections explicit here about the social revolution, and especially about libertarian socialism should not be understood as formulas or predictions of what will necessarily happen. We work with the possibilities that come with our theoretical expectations. However, if on the one hand we do not want to be too assertive, on the other we think discussions about the future society and the possible functioning of libertarian socialism are important. On this point, we believe that practical revolutionary experiences have much to teach us.

To advocate libertarian socialism as a proposed future society implies, for us, relating two inseparable concepts when it comes to a political project. On the one hand socialism, a system based on social, political and economic equality, and on the other hand, freedom. For us, “socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality” [62], a system that degenerates into authoritarian regimes, as we have known well throughout the twentieth century. At the same time, “freedom without socialism is privilege, injustice” [63], a way of continuing domination and exploitation in a society of class and authoritarian hierarchies. Therefore, a project for a future society that promotes equality and freedom can only be, for us, libertarian socialism, which takes shape in the practices of self-management and federalism.

Despite being terms that have arisen at different times [64], self-management and federalism are today necessarily linked and should be understood as complementary concepts. Self-management is a form of management, a model of organisation in which decisions are made by the workers themselves, to the extent by which they are affected by them either in their workplaces or the communities where they live. Federalism is a method of linking self-managed structures, enabling decision-making on a large scale. Contemporary interpretations of self-management and federalism separate the first as the economic and the second as the political system of libertarian socialism. We do not understand the separation between the economic and the political in this way when it comes to self-management and federalism.

The self-managed and federalist society of libertarian socialism has as one of its goals the alienation and ending of the relations of domination and exploitation of labour. The critique of work today, including by libertarians, is for us a critique of work within capitalism and not a critique of work as such. Under libertarian socialism free labour should be a means of liberation for workers who, through self-management, will bring back to themselves the wealth that they have been usurped of by capitalist private ownership. Thus, the socialisation of labour, of the products of labour, the means of production, the forms, rhythms and tempos of work would contribute to the creation of a model of work as the “intelligent action of men in society with the preconceived end of personal satisfaction” [65]. In the new society all those that are able to would need to work, there no longer being unemployment, and the work would be able to be performed in accordance with personal ability and disposition. People will no longer be obliged to accept anything under threat of experiencing want and not attaining their minimum living conditions. Children, the elderly and those unable to work will be assured a dignified life without depravation, all their needs being met. For the most tedious tasks or those perceived as unpleasant, in some cases, there could be rotations or alternations. Even in the case of the carrying out of production, where the co-ordination of some specialists is needed, rotations in function and a commitment to the training of other workers with similar skills will also be necessary for more complex tasks.

Under libertarian socialism, it will no longer be possible to have power or higher remuneration by reason of being the owner of one or more means of production. This is because private property would have been abolished, giving place to the collective ownership of the means of production, which can be thought of in two ways: 1.) no one would effectively be the owner and the means of production belong to the collectivity as a whole, or 2.) all the members of the collectivity will be owners of a portion of the means of production, in exactly the same proportions as the others. “The means of production being the collective work of humanity, they have to go back to the human collectivity from which they came.” [66] In a system of collective ownership; rights, responsibilities, wages and wealth no longer have a relation with private property and the old class relations, based on private property, must also disappear. Libertarian socialism is, therefore, a classless society. The ruling class will no longer exist and the whole system of inequality, domination and exploitation will have disappeared.

In the cities there are different types of workers. Firstly, there are those that perform activities with simple tools, with almost no division of labour in which production can be performed, often, by just one worker. For this type of worker collective work is not a necessity, but it is desirable since it saves time and labour, besides helping a worker to enhance themselves with the skills of others. Then, there are other workers who perform their activities collectively, with relatively simple tools and machines in small companies or factories. Finally, a third category of workers of large companies and industries in which the division of labour is enormous, structured to produce on a large scale with high technology and large capital investments. For the latter two categories collective work is absolutely necessary due to the nature of the work itself, since all the technology, machinery and tooling must be collective. Thus,

every workshop, every factory will therefore organise itself into an association of workers, which will be free for them to organise in the way they see fit, provided individual rights are guaranteed and that the principles of equality and justice are put into practice. [...] Wherever an industry needs complex equipment and collective labour, ownership should also be collective. [67]
In the country there could be two situations: that of peasants that have worked on large properties that must be collectivised in the same way as the large companies and factories; and that of peasants that would prefer to have their own slice of the land and cultivate it themselves. In this mixed economy,
[...] the main purpose of the revolution was achieved: the land has become the property of those that work it and peasants no longer work for the profit of an exploiter that lives from their suffering. With this great victory obtained the rest is of secondary importance. The peasants can, if they choose, divide the land into individual parcels and give a portion to each family. Or they could instead institute common ownership and the co-operative cultivation of the land. [68]
It is important to mention that we do not consider state ownership as collective. For us, collective ownership is self-managed by the people, and not managed by the state which, when it centralises ownership – as in the case of the USSR, for example – does nothing more than become a state employer that continues to exploit workers. But in the case of the persistence of the individual property of the peasants, of those that work the land themselves, it would be more appropriate to understand this situation not as property, but as possession. Thus, property would always be collective, and possession individual. Possession because the value of the land would be in its use, and not trade. And relations with this would be guided by the needs of the producer and no longer that of the market. Such a situation alters everything, so it is necessary to establish a new category.

There is still a fundamental question that should complement the end of private ownership on the path to equality, and that is the end of inheritance with the goal of preventing any kind of accumulation that has consequences on the starting point early on in one’s life. So, true equality is a goal, since

while inheritance exists there will be hereditary economic inequality; not the natural inequality of individuals but the artificial inequality of classes, and this will always be necessarily translated into the hereditary inequality of development and of the culture of the intelligencia, and will continue to be the source of the consecration of all political and social inequalities. [69]
The economy of libertarian socialism is conducted by workers and consumers. The workers create the social product and the consumers enjoy it. In these two functions, mediated by distribution, the people are responsible for economic and political life, having to decide what to produce, and the consumers what to consume. The local structures of libertarian socialism in which workers and consumers organise themselves are the workers’ and consumers’ councils.

Councils are social bodies, vehicles through which the people express their political and economic preferences and exercise self-management and federalism. In them daily political and economic activities are decided and carried out.

Each workplace will be able to be managed by a workers’ council in which all workers have the same rights, the same responsibilities and decide its management equally, since there is no hierarchy. If necessary smaller councils could be formed by staff, teams, small divisions or even larger councils for big divisions, work locations or industries. In these councils the workers and others involved in the production process make all the decisions.

Consumers can organise themselves into consumers’ councils that occur within the communities. Thus individuals are organised in families, these into block and then neighbourhood committees, and so on. These councils would be responsible for pointing out to the producers what they would like to consume, as we believe that it is need that must guide production, and not vice versa.

The workers’ council organises production and the consumers’ council organises consumption. Obviously, this explanation aims to be instructive on the reality and problems that are likely to mobilise the future self-managed society; but, once in this new context, the consumers will also be the workers themselves, and the task of the councils will therefore occur more easily, since profit will no longer be the imperative in the relations of production.

Under libertarian socialism the workers’ councils might still not have eliminated the separation between manual and intellectual work, and this should be done as soon as possible. The argument which holds that both manual and intellectual work are important, and that, therefore, they should be equally recognised and rewarded is not true. Many tasks, primarily those involving manual labour are completely unpleasant, harsh and alienating, and it is not fair that some workers are fully occupied with them, while others are dedicated to performing enjoyable, pleasurable, stimulating and intellectual tasks. If this happens then certainly the class system will be rebuilt, no longer based on private property, but on a class of intellectuals that will command, and another of manual workers that will execute the commands.

Seeking to end this separation the workers’ councils could have a balanced set of tasks for each worker, which would be equivalent for all. Thus, each worker will be responsible for some pleasant and stimulating tasks, that involve intellectual work, and other harsher and more alienating tasks, that involve manual labour. This does not mean that everyone will be doing everything at the same time, but that everyone performs a set of tasks that, when compared, have the same level of intellectual and manual labour. In practice this process would function, for example, with a worker in a school that performs the task of a teacher for some of the time, but also that of the cleaner. Or someone that works in industrial research part of the time, and the rest of the time helping with the manual labour of production. Another person could work the whole time in a job that involves some manual and intellectual activities.

Obviously the scheme is simplified, but the idea is that all the workers of each council have the same level of manual and intellectual work, according to a ratio of time devoted to the execution of tasks and the level of these tasks (manual and intellectual labour). It is important that the councils also have between them equivalent levels of manual and intellectual work, so that a worker from one council has a balanced set of tasks similar to that of another. If eventually there are only manual tasks in a given council, then the worker must work in more than one council.

That is, both internally as well as between the councils one should seek an equivalent level of manual and intellectual labour in the set performed by each worker, which may have one, two or many other tasks. This would obviously mean a decline in productivity, but we shall see later how other elements of the future society would compensate for this.

The goal is not to eliminate the division of labour, but to ensure that people should take responsibility for a sensible sequence of tasks for which, most of the time, they have been properly trained and that no one enjoys constant benefits, in terms of effects of the training for their work. [...] Everyone has a set of tasks that together make up their job, so that the full implication of the entire set of tasks is, on average, like all the implications for the enabling of all other works. [...] Every worker has a job. Every job has many tasks. The tasks are adjusted to the workers and vice versa. [70]
The goal in libertarian socialist remuneration is that it be guided by the communist principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”. However, we understand that to implement this principle libertarian socialism should already be in full function, with production in abundance. Until this is possible, remuneration can be done according to work, or effort – this being understood as personal sacrifice for the collective benefit. Remuneration by labour or effort would mean that everyone that has a balanced set of tasks would receive the same and could choose how to spend it. Some would prefer to acquire a thing or two, others would prefer to invest in leisure, free time, less stressful work etc. A model that is closer to the classic collectivism advocated by the federalists who worked in the IWA of the nineteenth century.

For us, therefore, it would be a case of functioning collectivism, using the maxim “from each according to their ability, to each according to their labour”, and, at the moment in which it becomes possible apply the communist principle, giving “to each according to their need”. In fact this “becomes a secondary issue, since the question of property has been resolved and there are no longer capitalists that appropriate the labour of the masses” [71].

The market would be abolished and in its place put the self-managed planning system, with pricing being done between the workers’ and consumers’ councils, along with their federations and associations which would facilitate this interaction. This planning model differs from the authoritarian form where states plan the economies in the “socialist” countries. It would enable the workers and consumers themselves to decide completely on distribution, wiping out the problem of competition.

For all this to work we believe the role played by technology to be fundamental. Unlike some libertarian tendencies which believe that technology contains in itself the germ of domination, we believe that without it there is no possibility for the development of libertarian socialism. With the advent of technology and it being used in favour of labour, not capital, there would surely be a gain in productivity and consequently a significant reduction in the labour time of people, who could use this time for other activities. These technologies could also be regarded as “the marvellous application of science in production, [...] whose mission it is to emancipate the worker, relieving human labour [and constituting] a progress of which civilised man is justly proud” [72]. Obviously, we understand that there are good and bad technologies and that, therefore, society

need not reject advanced technologies on a large scale, but shift them, really necessitating further development of technology [in agreement] with ecological principles, which will contribute to a new harmonisation of society and the natural world. [73]
This concern with using technology that is in accordance with the environment should be considered in all spheres of the future society, meeting the demands of a social ecology.

To defend this ecological consciousness does not mean that human beings would be constrained by a system of natural laws, since man is part of nature and as such should not be subjected to it. Obviously we also do not hold that the relationship of domination between human beings and nature should continue. On the contrary, it must cease as soon as possible and give way to an egalitarian relationship between humans and nature.

Ecological consciousness should be developed from the time of struggles that precede the revolutionary rupture and in the future society itself, based on the relations of mutual aid theorised by Kropotkin. This development could have as a principle reference the premise that we, human beings, are an integral part of nature “which becomes consciousness of itself”, as Reclus put it.

Human beings differ from other natural elements and other species by establishing social relations with everything surrounding them, because they possess the capacity to think about themselves, to make theories about reality, and with these aptitudes have managed to drastically modify the environmental setting that is their surroundings. In this way the capitalist system, by the very reason of its existence, means that the capitalists exploit natural resources in a way in which these cannot regenerate themselves at their natural rate. In the future society this will no longer be able to happen. The development of human beings brought about by libertarian socialism should stress the importance of the relations of mutual aid between species and nature.

It is worth emphasising that our ecological proposals differ radically from “conservationism” and “primitivism”. From the former, because this means the maintenance of class society and the complete commodification of nature. From the latter, because we consider the “anti-civilisation” proposal a complete absurdity, seeking a romantic return to a distant past or, even worse, a kind of suicide of all humanity and a negation of all our contributions to the maintenance and well-being of nature.

We believe that a society that completely respects the principles of social ecology will only be possible at the moment in which capitalism and the state give way to libertarian socialism. Therefore, with libertarian socialism we hope to harmonise society and the environment again, considering that “if we were not capable of founding an ecological society it is, besides the disastrous consequences that would result therefrom, our moral legitimacy that would be at stake” [74].

With the use of technology in favour of workers and its development; with the end of capitalist exploitation and the fruits of labour going completely to the workers; with full employment in place workers will have more time that could be spent in three ways. First, with the natural loss of productivity that the balanced set of tasks will cause, seeing that it will “de-specialise” labour a bit. Second, with political decisions, which will demand time for discussions and deliberations that would have to be made in the self-managed workplace and community. Finally, with the remaining time – and we think that with these changes time off will be much greater than that of today – everyone will be able to choose what to do: rest, leisure, education, culture etc.

Decisions under self-management do not have to obey a specific model. The workers’ and consumers’ councils can choose the best application of direct democracy, horizontal discussions and deliberations being fundamental, with the clear exposition of ideas and the discussion of questions presented. Clearly, consensus should not be used in the majority of decisions, since it is very inefficient – especially if we think about decisions on a large scale – besides giving a lot of power to isolated agents that could block consensus or have a lot of impact on a decision in which they are a minority. Questions can be decided on by vote, after due debate, it being variable as to whether who wins is who has 50% +1 of the votes, or if who wins is who has 2/3 of the votes, and so on. We must bear in mind that the decision-making process is a means and not an end in itself and, therefore, we also have to concern ourselves with agility in this process.

In the decision-making process self-management and federalism imply direct democracy with the participation of everyone, collective decisions, delegation with imperative mandate, rotation and recallability of functions, access to information and equal decision-making power. Both worker and consumer councils would use self-management as a form of management and decision-making, both in the workplaces and in the communities. Federalism would link both labour as well as the communities, allowing for decisions to be made on a large scale. “Federation, from the Latin foedus, genitive foederis, means pact, contract, treaty, convention, alliance” [75], in which those that are organised “are equally bound to one another for one or more particular objective, the burden of which falls specifically and exclusively on the delegates of the federation” [76].

The linkages within federalism would permit decision-making on a large scale, from the smallest instances of self-management to the most extensive. In the work environment federalism would link units, small divisions, large divisions, workplaces or even entire industries. In the communities federalism would link families, neighbours, blocks, neighbourhoods, cities, regions or even countries. These linkages would be performed by delegates that would articulate and discuss the positions deliberated in the councils. Delegates that would have imperative mandates, that is, they would represent the collective positions of the councils and not their own positions, as occurs under representative democracy. In addition, the delegates’ mandates would not be fixed and would be revocable at any time. Since “the federalist system is the opposite of hierarchy or administrative and governmental centralism” [77], we believe that it would be responsible for the structure that would replace the state and through which, together with the self-managed councils, politics would take place under libertarian socialism. The councils, as voluntary associations,

would take on an even greater extent in order to replace the state and all its functions. They would represent an interwoven network, composed of an infinite variety of groups and federations of all sizes and levels, local, regional, national and international, temporary or more-or-less permanent – for all possible purposes: production, consumption and exchange, communications, sanitation, education, mutual protection, defence of the region and so on; and, on the other hand, for the satisfaction of a number of increasingly scientific, artistic, literary and social needs. [78]
In this way the state and representative democracy would depart and self-management and federalism would take their place; and politics would take its proper place, which is in the midst of the people, there no longer being the separation between those that do politics and those that don’t – since under libertarian socialism it would be the members of society themselves that would realise politics on a daily basis.

Consciousness should accompany the pace of growth of struggles and be stimulated by pedagogic processes whenever possible. Besides not believing that in order to make the revolution all the people must be educated we recognise that, at the moment of the social revolution, the higher the level of consciousness of the people, the better. Increasingly, society should develop its culture in a libertarian direction and this should not only happen at the moment of the social revolution and after it; but already at the moment of struggle, of the construction and the development of the popular organisation. It is undeniable that ideology, already transformed into the culture that capitalism has introduced into popular imagination, will have to be undone bit-by-bit and this will occur through a long process of popular education. Positions such as racial and gender prejudice, patriarchy, individualism etc. will have to be combated as much as possible, both in the processes of struggle as well as at the moment of social revolution or even afterwards. Under libertarian socialism we understand that self-management and federalism will have to contribute to this process in practice. Besides this, one should invest heavily in educational and cultural activities for the whole of society, stimulating “teaching [that] should be equal in all ways for everyone; and consequently must be integral” [79], providing theoretical and practical knowledge for children and adults of both sexes.

Thus, we believe that the system of domination and exploitation of the state and capitalism will have been ended – no longer will anyone accumulate power thanks to the social force obtained by the exploitation of other people – and the new system will support itself on the pillars of social, political and economic equality and freedom. An equality that will occur with the establishment of collective ownership, self-managed councils, balanced sets of tasks, equal pay, self-managed planning, collective decisions, and the constant struggle against prejudice and discrimination. Freedom both in relation to the system of domination and exploitation, as well as in relation to what we wish to attain. A freedom that will be collective, considering each one free to the extent that all others are free; “freedom that consists of the full development of all material, intellectual and moral potential that is found in a state of latent faculty in everyone” [80]. Libertarian socialism will bring a luxury ignored by everyone: “the luxury of humanity, the happiness of the full development and freedom of each one in the equality of all” [81].


Notes:

55. We work with the classic conception of social revolution, developed by Bakunin, which considers it a transformation of the economic, political and social aspects of society. When we distinguish it from the political revolution we seek, in the same way, a classic differentiation that treats the political revolution as a transformation that only occurs on a “political” level, through the state.

56. Mikhail Bakunin. Statism and Anarchy, p. 52.

57. Idem. "Protesta de la Alianza". In: Frank Mintz (org.). Bakunin: crítica y acción. Buenos Aires: Anarres, 2006, p. 33.

58. Idem. "Cartas a un francés". In: Frank Mintz (org.). Bakunin: crítica y acción, p. 22.

59. Idem. "La Comuna de Paris y la Noción del Estado" and "Estatismo e Anarquía". In: Frank Mintz (org.). Bakunin: crítica y acción, pp. 22-23. There are Portuguese translations of the two texts, done by Plínio A. Coêlho. That of Estatismo e Anarquia, in the publication already cited, and that of "A Comuna de Paris e a Noção de Estado", in the publication: Mikhail Bakunin. O Princípio do Estado e Outros Ensaios. São Paulo: Hedra, 2008.

60. Errico Malatesta. "A Violência e a Revolução". In: Anarquistas, Socialistas e Comunistas, p. 40.

61. Idem. "Uma Vez Mais Sobre Anarquismo e Comunismo". In: Anarquistas Socialistas e Comunistas, p. 70.

62. Mikhail Bakunin. Federalismo, Socialismo e Antiteologismo. São Paulo: Cortez, 1988, p. 38.

63. Ibidem.

64. The term “federalism” has been used by anarchists since Proudhon, who formalised his theories about the subject in Do Princípio Federativo of 1863, and other books. Federalism marked the libertarian socialists of the twentieth century, primarily those that acted in the IWA. Do not confuse this libertarian federalism with statist federalism. The term “self-management” arose only a century later, in the 1960s to substitute others like self-government, self-administration, autonomy etc. Today, the two have different meanings, possessing a complementary meaning in economy and politics.

65. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. De la création de l’ordre dans l’humanité. In: A Nova Sociedade, p. 26.

66. Piotr Kropotkin. "As Nossas Riquezas". In: A Conquista do Pão, p. 30.

67. James Guillaume. "Ideas on Social Organization". In: Daniel Guérin. No Gods, No Masters. San Francisco: AK Press, 1998, p. 213.

68. Ibidem. p. 210.

69. Mikhail Bakunin. Federalismo, Socialismo e Antiteologismo, p. 37.

70. Michael Albert. PARECON. London: Verso, 2003, pp. 104-106. For a discussion on complex balanced tasks see this book pp. 103-111.

71. James Guillaume. Op. Cit. p. 211.

72. Mikhail Bakunin. Federalismo, Socialismo e Antiteologismo, p. 18.

73. Murray Bookchin. "Um Manifesto Ecológico: o poder de destruir, o poder de criar". In: Letra Livre 31, p. 8.

74. Idem. Sociobiologia ou Ecologia Social? Rio de Janeiro: Achiamé, s/d, p. 71.

75. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Do Princípio Federativo. São Paulo: Imaginário, 2001, p. 90.

76. Ibidem.

77. Ibidem. p. 91.

78. Piotr Kropotkin. "Anarchism". In: The Encyclopaedia Britannica.

79. Mikhail Bakunin. A Instrução Integral, p. 78.

80. Idem. "A Comuna de Paris e a Noção de Estado". In: O Princípio do Estado e Outros Ensaios, pp. 114-115.

81. Idem. "Moral Revolucionária". In: Conceito de Liberdade. Porto: Rés Editorial, s/d, p. 203.


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