Voting and the Process of Exodus
north america / mexico |
anarchist movement |
debate
Friday July 08, 2005 18:41
by Michael T. McCulley - The Capital Terminus Collective (Individual Capacity)
michaelmcculley at hotmail dot com
Anarchists should build cooperative economic institutions to create realistic alternatives to wage labor. However, to do so successfully, it will be necessary for anarchists to participate in the electoral process.
“Historically, anarchists and other anti-authoritarians have rejected participation in elections. We neither run candidates nor vote for those who run. There have been exceptions to this tradition, but the mainstream of revolutionary anarchism has been against participation in elections or in elected government bodies.” – Wayne Price [1].
“The theory of exodus proposes that the most effective way of opposing capitalism and the liberal state is not through direct confrontation but by means of what Paolo Virno has called `engaged withdrawal,’ mass defection by those wishing to create new forms of community. One need only glance at the historical record to confirm that the most successful forms of popular resistance have taken precisely this form. They have not involved challenging power head on... but from one or another strategy of slipping away from its grasp, from flight, desertion, [and] the founding of new communities.” – David Graeber [2].
Few in the anarchist movement would disagree that anarchism and socialism cannot be attained solely, or even primarily, through the electoral process. Nevertheless, there are certain situations where anarchists should consider voting, lobbying, and possibly even running candidates. These situations will arise during the process of “exodus,” or the construction of a shadow economy that operates on the principles of cooperation (rather than competition) and gift (rather than monetary exchange).
The principle evil of capitalism is wage labor. However, there is no law (in any Western nation, to my knowledge) that actually requires workers to sell their labor to the capitalists. Any worker is free to drop out of the wage labor system provided that he or she can figure out how to survive after doing so. The business of exodus, then, is the creation of a realistic alternative to wage labor.
The likely first step in this process is the establishment of housing cooperatives where persons (and not necessarily those related by blood or marriage) share housekeeping tasks, living and cooking space, and responsibility for each other’s welfare. In the early stages of exodus, it will be necessary for some adult members of the cooperative to pay rent (so that the cooperative will have a cash income), but it should be possible for most (or at least a substantial minority) to live rent-free. An individual member who pays rent should, in exchange, enjoy a reduced burden of housekeeping duties, but in no case should any member be excused from all housekeeping duties.
Once a number of housing cooperatives are established, their members should seek ways to reduce the cooperatives’ dependence upon the market economy for necessary goods and services. This will entail forming other types of cooperatives (such as carpentry, grocery, and electronics cooperatives) using labor and other resources (such as home-grown vegetables) drawn from housing coops. As time passes, the number, variety, and sophistication of coops in this shadow economy will grow, and the number of members who have need of money will shrink. Liberation from need of money is liberation from wage labor.
How does voting figure into this plan? In all Western nations, there are thousands of laws and regulations that can potentially retard the establishment and operation of anarchist cooperatives. Zoning ordinances, building codes, licensing laws, permit requirements, labor regulations, and taxes (worst of all) will greatly complicate the exodus process. Hence, an anarchist electoral strategy must revolve around removing the legal obstacles that lie in the path of the cooperative movement.
Ironically, this will often require taking electoral positions associated with the political right- wing (or at least the libertarian right). Taxes are to be reduced or repealed; regulations are to be constrained or abolished; and public benefits (such as public parks, education, and charity) are to be discontinued. (To be replaced by cooperative services to the community.) Anarchists, however, must take care to focus on realistic electoral goals. For example, few local governments in the United States would seriously consider abolishing their public schools or scrapping their zoning codes, but they might consider liberalizing zoning or reducing the amount of property-taxes assessed for education. If anarchists continually push small, incremental changes in public policy, these changes may add up to radical policy shifts over time.
It will also be important for anarchists in cooperatives to establish and maintain good relationships with local officials. While few civil servants are likely to be sympathetic to anarchism, many will nevertheless be sympathetic to at least some anarchist goals. Cooperatives should appoint representatives (i.e. lobbyists) to meet local officials, guide tours of cooperative facilities, answer questions, and hear concerns. If local officials are personally familiar with the anarchist community, they will be less likely to cause trouble and more likely to respond to anarchist concerns.
As time passes and the exodus movement grows, more and more of the working class will abandon wage labor for the cooperative lifestyle. Government and private industry will become increasingly irrelevant to the lives of the proletariat. As fewer and fewer people depend upon government, the scope of the state will shrink, as will the burdens that it places upon the people. In time, when the exodus movement becomes highly advanced, even the police and army will be replaced by anarchist militia. Then, the entire edifice of the state, being rotten, withered, and emaciated, will crumble away into dust, as will (for the most part) the market economy, which will no longer have the legal infrastructure necessary to support it. The anarchist gift economy will be all that remains.
On the other hand, if the members of cooperatives refuse to participate in the electoral process, the statists and capitalists will enjoy sole control of the crucial legal apparatus. Then, when the enemies of anarchism become alarmed by the spread of cooperatives in their community, they will find it a simple matter to tax and regulate the cooperatives out of existence. Much like gardeners trimming weeds, the capitalists will prune cooperatives back whenever and wherever they find them threatening. Only if anarchists have enough influence in government to resist these tactics can the cooperative movement protect itself.
Fortunately, in the United States the bulk of the threat will come from local (rather than state or federal) governments, and local governments will be the easiest for anarchists to temper or control. Cooperative members will attend local governmental meetings en masse and vote in blocks in local elections. State governments usually delegate taxation and property zoning power to local governments rather than exercise it directly, and attempts in state government to increase taxation or regulation will always be opposed by capitalists who fear that their profits will be endangered. Capitalists (at least in the United States) are highly-focused on short-term profit and seldom willing to sacrifice in order to accomplish long-term goals, hence the capitalists in one locality are unlikely to support state or federal measures to attack anarchist cooperatives in other localities.
In sum, the electoral strategy that I propose is not a pure electoral strategy (which would be tantamount to statism), but a hybrid electoral-exodus strategy. In this model, anarchists do not ask the government for justice, but build their own justice using the trappings and mechanisms of government to smooth the way.
Endnotes:
[1] “None of the Above, The Anarchist Case Against Electoralism.” The Northeastern Anarchist Issue #9, p. 9.
[2] Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2004; pp. 60-61.
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Comments (4 of 4)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4First of all, I'd like to say that I am glad that my friend Michael took the time and trouble to lay his views out in this well-written article. But I have some significant points of disagreement with it.
I challenge the claim that "One need only glance at the historical record to confirm that the most successful forms of popular resistance... have not involved challenging power head on." I think history shows the opposite, that direct (though not necessarily "violent") confrontation with the powers that be, when leavened with common sense and sound strategic thinking, have most often produced the best results.
Furthermore, even where such "drop-out" strategies as the "exodus" approach described above have been, to a point, successful, such an escape has only been available to a social stratum that was already relatively privileged. For example, the children of the middle class in the 60's escaping to the land to form communes was well-intentioned to be sure, but by and large left blacks, poor women and even working white men to stew in their own juices in the inner cities, and the more conservative rural regions. There is also the less-than-stellar record of Fourierism and the like in Europe to be cited (about which I am not well versed enough to say much. But it is generally understood, I think, that utopian drop-out experiments have failed, by and large, in part because it is next to impossible to just step outside of the larger economy.)
Returning to the topic of confrontation, while it is true that capitalists are focused on the short term and tend to fight among themselves, I think history shows that, when any one of them is faced with a workers revolt, they put their differences aside and close ranks. It was not until the social revolution in Spain had been thoroughly defeated, for example, that the fascists and the bourgeois democracies even began to fight each other worldwide. Before that time fascism focused on putting down the workers movement in Spain, and the U.S. and Britain stood politely aside, allowing Franco's thugs the time do their worst.
Finally, I am not categorically opposed to anarchists participating in local elections (although I do not do so myself.) But I think it naive at best, to suppose that by involving ourselves in city councils and such, that anarchists can forestall direct confrontation with the armed might of the same forces that carpet-bombed Viet Nam, and even now are destroying civilian targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only reason that the bosses have historically been relatively gentle with the U.S. citizenry, is because that citizenry has historically been docile in opposing their rule. At such times as the U.S. citizenry *has* actively opposed the rule of capital, such as during the heyday of the IWW, the bosses took the gloves off and throttled white U.S. citizens (among others) as though they were foreigners with dark skin! I see no good reason to think that, if the focus were to change from unions and social democratic politics, to co-ops and city council politics, that the reaction on the part of the state and capital (in the event of any significant degree of success on our part) would be any less harsh.
Kidnappers rarely release hostages willingly, in a fit of conscience. Similarly, our oppressors will not look the other way as the oppressed abandon their yokes for greener, freer pastures. Liberation is going to require a fight, at some point, in some degree, and in some manner. I am convinced that the only other alternative is resignation to ongoing oppression.
Michael sees a weakness in the exodus (alternate institution) strategy, which has been advocated by David Graeber and many others. The weakness he sees (correctly) is that the state has many laws which can be used against the growth of an alternate economy, and the state can pass new laws against it. Consider, just for example, the way the federal government was implored by the banks a few years ago to make it tougher for credit unions (cooperative banks) to do business; the government obliged by passing new regulations against the credit unions. (Unfortunately he does not discuss the ECONOMIC barriers to the alternate institution plan. He is hoping to out-compete capitalism in the capitalist marketplace. This is absurd. The capitalists can always dry up credit, refuse transportation or communication facilities, etc. More often, cooperatives work, but then they fail by success--that is they get absorbed into the market. I live in a tenant-managed housing cooperative. It works but is no threat to capitalism.) Anyway, as Michael implies, if the alternate institutions do start to spread (let's say, to replace U.S. Steel and GM), the state will always be able to pass laws to suppress them. So he proposes that anarchists get involved in the government, particularly by running in local elections and making allies of local politicians. Apparently he thinks that local bourgeois politicians won't be able to realize that this is part of a plan to get rid of their system. Even if he were right about that, he underestimates how vulnerable local governments are. Any locally based big businesses can (and do) threaten to move to another locality if the present municipality becomes "anti-business." And the higher levels of the government can overrule municipalities if necessary. By law counties and cities are agents of the state (U.S. provincial) government. I live in New York City where the city's financies were taken over by a state Financial Control Board, as was the city of Yonkers, for a time. Meanwhile the anarchists will have gotten themselves involved in governing a capitalist economy on the local level and in making alliances with capitalist politicians. In fact, Michael says anarchists should become allies of right wing politicians, those wanting to decrease business taxes and cut back on government social services! I find this an awful program, unlikely to win us the allies we really want, ordinary working class people, women, national minorities, etc. Finally I agree with Prole Cat that all real advances have been won by mass struggles in direct conflict with the state and capital. Anarchists should be participating in union and other workplace struggles, in fights for equal rights for oppressed groups, in struggles for expanded social services under worker and community control, and in the movement against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no way to make an end run around the power. It must be confronted head on.
I wish to thank Wayne for his comments. I have a few responses:
(1) I do not actually oppose direct confrontation tactics. However I think that direct confrontation is futile in the absence of an exodus strategy. While direct confrontation tactics win occasional gains (such as easing the plight of a specific group of workers in a specific place), the Capitalists have too many ways of buying-off or redirecting popular anger (example, "the New Deal" era Federal initiatives, modern day public relations and editorial spin) to be defeated solely by direct confrontation. Furthermore, people in "First World" nations need to learn how to live in a cooperative economy. This will be a slow, frustrating process that cannot be rushed. If the revolution were to occur tomorrow, the people would still backslide into Capitalism in short order.
(2) I have no qualms about using direct confrontation tactics to defend cooperatives. It would be a bit much, for example, to expect people in cooperative housing and labor to meekly comply with new laws that would eject them from their homes and strip them of their livelihood. But again, direct confrontation is no substitute for confronting the enemy in the political area. It is better to prevent destructive laws from being made in the first place.
(3) I think Wayne is overly-pessimistic about the political prospects of cooperatives. All that cooperatives really need from government is to be left alone, which is generally what the Capitalists want as well (and what is generally considered to be "pro-business"). It is true that Capitalists are fond of rigging governmental rules to undermine competitors, but a sufficiently-sophisticated political program can defeat these tactics. If not, direct confrontation is another viable option.
Michael it seems to me that this essay is very much premised on living in a wealthy country which at the moment has no serious large scale anti-capitalist opposition. If you look at what the same US companies are willing to sponsor elsewhere in the world when they do face opposition your hoping rather heavily that they wouldn't bring things back home.
Capitalism far from being founded on letting people get on with their own thing was founded on mass theft and murder. What happened in the Americas or Africa is obvious but even in Europe the period of the growth of early capitalism saw the enclosures in England and the driving of millions off the land in Scotland and Ireland. So both in terms of the history of the development of capitalism and its current actions I can't see how the idea that a co-op movement that threatened capitalism would be left alone can be described as anything other than dangerously naive.
Threatened BTW doesn't even have to mean taking over workplaces. Right now in Ireland five farmers are in jail for refusing to allow Shell to build a pipeline across their land. And this in a wealthy country with little opposition - elsewhere in the world the oil companies have simply had people killed for similar actions.