‘If you can’t dance, it’s not my revolution.’
- Emma Goldman
‘A nation of sheeps will beget a government of wolves.’
- Edward R. Murrow
Another of Gandhi’s seven social sins — Politics without Principle — is an obvious starting point for this chapter. There are certainly a lot of principles floating around out there, but unfortunately for most of us, most of the time, the system isn’t working. It seems we are still a long way from those ideas around ownership, sharing and the commons that we have explored in the preceding chapters. Big business and the interests of the super-rich seem to take precedence over the voices of the poor and the care of the planet. This is all dressed up as ‘progress’, as if we will all one day benefit, and the problems of climate change and pollution will miraculously be sorted out along the way. So, the ‘principles’ we are presented with; maintaining economic growth, investing in new technology, even job security; are often smoke-screens for a far less palatable agenda. Meanwhile, the poor suffer: Poorer nations suffer from the exploitation and the excesses of the wealthy nations. Poor people in rich nations suffer from the growing inequalities within their societies. And future generations are being made poor already, as they will have to pick up the bill for our negligence and irresponsibility. Rousseau said,’…when the state is close to ruin and subsists only through empty and deluded forms, when in each man’s heart the social bond is broken, when the crudest self-interest insolently adorns itself with sacred name of the public good, then the general will falls silent; the motives of all are kept secret, their votes are no more the votes of citizens than if the state never existed, and the decrees that are falsely passed, under the name of laws, have private interests as their only aim.’ (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract.)
In this chapter we’re looking at that basic question raised in the Introduction: Who Decides? I’ve called this chapter Polity because it seems to encompass all of the possible descriptions that might be deployed to answering that question. There is a more specific meaning to polity, which we will get to later. But for now, let’s make a start, by asking why there might be a polity or a government at all.
Any summary of political alternatives cannot fail to mention Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) and his view that humanity, in its natural state, consists of a life that has: ‘No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continued fear of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. According to Hobbes, only by voluntarily submitting to an authority, such as a monarchy or a government, can people live together in relative peace and harmony. The suggestion is that what we sacrifice by way of freedom is more than compensated by the stability that is gained. It has to be said though, that for most people in most countries, we have never actually been given a choice about whether we take up this offer of government or not. Most monarchies and governments have taken power at some time in the past — often by violent means — and they have not since considered it appropriate to ask their citizens whether or not we really think it’s a good idea! Most governments therefore are not legitimate, and to say that they govern by consent or ‘have a mandate’ is nonsense.
The counter-argument is that we need our freedom, and that we are sensible and wise enough to look after ourselves. A high level of good will and common sense amongst people is assumed, and this allows life to go on without much in the way of government or institutions. But this raises the question — are we really good and sensible enough for such freedom? The question of whether or not we have sufficient knowledge, skill and co-operation to make society work without authority was posed long ago by Aristotle and he came down firmly on the side that says we cannot make it by ourselves. He said: ‘He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must either be a beast or a god.’ But there have always been plenty around who think otherwise, and their belief in freedom, independence, self-reliance, good will and common sense is often referred to as anarchism.1 (The word is derived from the Greek anarkhia — an = without + arkh(os) = ruler/authority.) It is difficult to take in much of the broad sweep of ideas that anarchism includes, especially in more recent times, but a small review will hopefully bring out some salient features that are important for our discussion.
Anarchism, as hinted at above, is very optimistic about people and especially at pains to promote the notion that all that is bad in society is due to culture gone wrong, rather than some intrinsic problem with human nature. By ourselves then, and in our basic nature, we are good — the anarchist would claim. It is government, especially any form of state bureaucracy (that almost inevitably will involve hierarchy) where things go wrong.
Anarchism’s way to organise society is to maximise freedom (especially individual freedom) and to minimise bureaucracy and all else relating to government and state. Nicholas Walter’s pithy quote addresses this: ‘Many people say that government is necessary because some men cannot be trusted to look after themselves, but anarchists say that government is harmful because no man can be trusted to look after anyone else.’ Nicholas Walter — About Anarchism.
A further definition, from Alexander Berkman, again stresses freedom: ‘Anarchism teaches that we can live in a society where there is no compulsion of any kind. A life without compulsion naturally means liberty; it means freedom from being forced or coerced, a chance to lead the life that suits you best.’
Alexander Berkman — ABC of Anarchism.
And Proudhon (the reader may remember him from, ‘property is theft’) gave us this delightful quote:
‘To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated, regimented, closed in, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, evaluated, censored, commanded, all by creatures that have neither the right nor wisdom nor virtue…. To be governed means that at every move, operation or transaction, one is noted, registered, entered into a census, taxed, stamped, authorised, recommended, admonished, prevented, reformed, set right, corrected. Government means to be subject to tribute, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolised, extorted, pressured, mystified, robbed; all in the name of public utility and the general good. Then at first signs of resistance or word of complaint, one is repressed, fined, despised, vexed, pursued, hustled, beaten up, garrotted, imprisoned, shot, machine gunned, judged, sentenced, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and to cap it all, ridiculed, mocked, outraged and dishonoured. That is Government. That is its justice and morality!’
Anarchists don’t fully agree on what to do in place of government however. Traditionally, they have been divided into two broad camps — sometimes defined as the individualists and the collectivists.2
It is arguably the individualists who promote the freedom aspect of anarchism the most. As earlier quotes have suggested, freedom means ‘freedom from’, that is, freedom from government, laws, institutions and bureaucracy. It also means ‘freedom to’ — freedom to choose one’s own way of living. Later chapters will develop the ‘freedom to’ aspect as freedom to be the author of one’s own story. But, as far as anarchism goes, this ‘freedom to’ idea often refers to freedom to pursue business interests and to own property. So, the individualist is for freedom, therefore ownership. Individualists are very much into the ownership of property as a guarantor of security, whilst collectivists saw property more or less as an evil. Why would we want more collectivism? Collectivism might suggest planned economies — therefore committees and bureaucracies — and therefore the suppression of freedom and the misery of endless meetings. The endnote gives more details of these contrasts.3
It might seem, at first strike, that a kind of individualist anarchism is very similar to today’s liberal and libertarian notions.4 We’ll see below, however, that those who promote individual freedom nevertheless have very strong ideas about how people should co-operate and above all promote the flourishing of everyone, not just themselves. The contrast with today’s neo-liberal societies (and the utopia I’ve named Privatopia) could not be greater.
As with many of the subjects taken up in this book, there are many names and subtly different meanings that we could use to describe things. This is especially true of anarchism, which seems to have as many subsets as there are anarchist authors. To keep things simple, I’m trying to emphasise just two different categories of anarchism — those that stress the importance of the individual, as we’ve explored above — and those that look at some kind of organisation and shared action in society. For the second category, I am adopting the term ‘collectivist’. Whilst individualist anarchism stresses freedom, collectivism stresses equality.
Perhaps even before humans formed settled communities, there was a tendency for some people to do very much more work that others. The success of one person might be down to hard work, or luck, or both. Meanwhile, failure might be the result of laziness, illness, bad luck or just old age. As such, some gathered large swathes of land for cultivating, whilst others ended up with little or nothing and became hired hands — or slaves — of the rich.
Andro Linklater (Owning the Earth) explains that as a younger man he had joined several communities looking to share resources with each other in a fairer way than offered by the dominant culture of consumer capitalism. Sooner or later they all came up against the problems that had been faced by the early settlers in America. Some people are weaker than others, or just plain lazy, so trying to give them an equal share of what the stronger, harder-working members of the community had toiled to produce just did not seem fair.
Because of this issue — sometimes referred to as the ‘free-rider problem’ — all societies have tried to find ways to achieve a fairer distribution of land, property and other goods to address the imbalance. Compassion leads us to wish to share with those who, through injury, bad luck or old age, do not have the means to work and provide for themselves. But fairness demands that we receive a just reward for our efforts and those who work hardest deserve a larger share. Linklater traces how this story has been played out in different times and different places. Whilst the ‘solutions’ have been very different, the reasons for trying are really as described above.
So the issue comes down to a balance between freedom and equality. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality) recognised two types of inequality — natural, because of physical differences — and moral, or political, because of the laws and conventions of society. We saw above how society tries to address the ‘natural inequality’ issue through compassion for those who are less able. The ‘political inequality’ is the other aspect that society must address, the issue of fair shares. If we are free then we have the opportunity to better ourselves any way we wish. If society does not restrict this freedom then we have what is known as ‘equality of opportunity’. For some, equality of opportunity is still not enough. They might argue, for instance, that since we are all essentially owners of the land then we all have the right to the proceeds of land use. This approach is seen as favouring a different kind of equality — equality of outcome. ‘To each according to his needs’, is an especially ambiguous phrase — it is not obvious that we should all end up with the same levels of income and consumption. (Karl Marx’s famous quote, originally from the Critique of the Gotha Program, says, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!’ It may have been taken from Louis Blanc, but also may be based on a quote from Pierre Leroux: ‘From each according to his capacity; to each according to his work’, but note the somewhat different meaning.) We might also note that the equality of outcome stance may be seen as unreasonable for other reasons than simply about what is a fair distribution. People are too diverse for fairness to be resolved by these simple equations. But if we favour distribution and fair shares, then at the very least we are saying that people should get what is owing to them for the amount of effort they have put in. This alternative kind of distribution is referred to as ‘proportionality’. ‘Genuine equality means not treating everyone the same, but attending equally to everyone’s different needs’, as Terry Eagleton has it. Ronald Dworken (Taking Rights Seriously) gave the example of putting two people on a diet of 3000 calories. One is an athlete who needs 5000 calories. The other is an elderly lady who requires only 2000. Both have been treated equally, but treated unfairly. This balance of freedom and equality is one we will return to and please see also Murray Bookchin’s comments in the endnote.5
Matthew Crawford (The Case for Working with your Hands) offers us yet another angle on this. He says: ‘… consider the paradoxical truth that equality is an aristocratic ideal. It is the ideal of friendship — of those who stand apart from the collective and recognize one another as piers. As professionals, or journeymen, perhaps. By contrast, the bourgeois principle is not equality but equivalence — a positing of interchangeability that elides human differences of rank.’ (Crawford therefore, rather unexpectedly, seems to support aristocratic values to allow us to speak openly about difference.)
Deciding on fair shares raises the question of how this distribution is organised and administered and who decides what is fair. A community or a nation may have a ‘welfare net’ to distribute resources to those who need them. The welfare net stresses the community aspect of society. As societies become more complex, the various resources that make up a welfare net, especially the massive investments made for infrastructure in transport and telecommunications, likewise become more complex — we cannot simply take resources directly from production and hand them out to those in need. So the usual solution is to achieve the welfare net through taxation. Tax may be recovered from what people own, or it may be from the proceeds of their labour, or both.
But here we run up against the problems inherent in our various ‘rights’ of ownership. The political question that arises is, when does a fair distribution, which allows for life’s unpredictable problems, become an imposition on our rights of ownership and the fruits of our labours? The enjoyment of our property and benefiting from the fruits of our labours are therefore rights that all political systems need to respect, along with trying to provide a welfare net for those who have fallen on hard times. So, from our anarchist perspective, we can see how the two poles of individualist and collectivist try to balance the considerations we have looked at above.
The collectivist end of the anarchism spectrum, therefore, might be seen as favouring the distribution side of this equation. So, the drive towards equality of the collectivists seems to involve a curtailment of the freedom of the individualists. It is hard to see though, given the complexities of modern societies alluded to above, how this could be achieved without bureaucracies and therefore something approaching government.
Proudhon is sometimes identified as an individualist anarchist, but also referred to as a ‘mutualist’. He had a deep concern for equality. In particular, he identified the three forms of economic rent we discussed in the previous chapter, (from ownership and rent, from the labour of others and from money itself) and saw these as an evil to be eradicated so as to benefit the ordinary worker. See endnote for the full quote.6
Though they may see themselves as radically distinct, collectivist anarchism flows naturally into being more or less pure communism. So, in our brief summary of alternative polities, we will take a look at this next.
Communism is a system of government — or rather, no government — proposed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. (See, in particular, The Communist Manifesto.) Whilst there are similarities between collectivism and communism there are also differences. Communism distributes all wealth by default. Proudhon took up this problem of excessive sharing in What is Property? He says:
‘Communism is oppression and slavery… Communism is essentially opposed to the free exercise of our faculties, to our noblest desires our deepest feelings…
communism violates the sovereignty of the conscience of equality: the first by restricting spontaneity of mind and heart, and freedom of thought and action; the second, by placing labour and laziness, skill and stupidity, and even vice and virtue on an equality in point of comfort.’
Pierre Joseph Proudhon — What is Property?
Proudhon, then, was picking up on the point above, about the equality of outcome and whether this is truly fair, but also hinting at the further point referred to earlier, that this kind of distribution inevitably involves a structure to make it work — a state — in order to enforce the kind of equality that the communists seem to think could exist naturally.
Communism though, like anarchism, is a belief in no government. If people believe that a fair distribution of resources is required and that a bureaucracy needs to be put in place to achieve it, then this is socialism rather than anarchism or communism. So, whilst there may be ‘socialist’ states, if we are to be true to the original definition of communism then there cannot be communist states. The only ‘state’ in communism is an intermediate stage, known as the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ — which allows for the re-distribution of wealth and the eventual more or less equality of all citizens. The ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ leads to a change in the ‘superstructure’ — in Karl Marx’s terms — meaning culture changes to accept, as a given, a more egalitarian society. This, in turn, leads to full communism, which can be defined as:
1. Distribution of wealth according to need, no longer according to labour performed.
2. No classes.
3. The state withers away.
4. Very high productivity, so there is plenty for all.
5. High socialist consciousness — people work without incentives.
6. More equality, but not absolute equality.
7. No money.
8. A communal economy.
9. The economy managed by a free and equal association of producers.
10. The differences between occupations disappear, so that there is no social distinction between town and country.
11. Each person does about as much physical as intellectual labour.
12. The system is … worldwide.
The countries that have come closest to establishing communism have had, arguably, very bad experiences. But no nation has really come that close to full communism. For all its faults, it remains a noble ambition. Anarchism and communism were, and are, of course, identified as utopias — which some of their advocates accept and others fight to reject.
In this chapter we are not looking, at this stage, to consider left/right issues, but one that can be mentioned here, in passing, is the ‘Rochdale principles’ of Robert Owen, which are often taken as the basis for socialism. See endnote.7 (It is interesting to compare the very practical suggestions of Owen’s principles, and how these were enacted in his mill works in Scotland, with the ideas of Charles Fourier, and his ‘phalanesteries’, ideal communities, which he proposed and a few of which were actually built.)
Communism hoped for those ‘oppressed’ by a powerful elite to regain the ‘means of production’ and therefore be able to take control of their own lives. Ironically, both Marx and, arguably the founder of modern economics, Adam Smith, saw capitalism as a necessary intermediate stage for a better world. Whilst writing about capital and acknowledging the almost magical power by which all kinds of resources are mediated through money, nonetheless Marx seems to have failed to appreciate the lure of money to almost everyone. In large societies, with few social bonds, selfishness becomes a growing problem. Consumption is an addiction. Privatopia reigns. Releasing serfs and peasants from domination only gave room for human nature (at least the more selfish part) to exert its tendency to profit from and exploit people. ‘…to each according to their need’ is open to a lot of hyperbole when it is our own needs that we are considering. The bourgeois capitalist is a caricature that communists, and Marxists generally, just replace with an equally unlikely caricature of ‘the worker’. This presents us with too simplistic a picture — valorising one group over another is divisive and ignores the complexity of real people. As Proudhon seems to be alluding to in the quote above, only a powerful bureaucracy was able to enforce the kind of equality that had been envisioned by communism, and in many ways this became no better than the previous exploitation by the rich elite — perhaps worse.
Communism aims at changing the system, and this will, in turn, change the social relations between people. But, as we explore elsewhere in this work, we could well ask whether change really can come about by changing the structure (capitalism and/or economics) first, such that the ‘superstructure’ — the social relations, the culture and the way people view the world — will likewise change to accommodate the structural change. My conclusion is that people and culture need to change, and that structural change can only follow once this happens. (I have to add here that what has been explained above about base and superstructure is the usual interpretation of Marxism, and has filtered through to economics generally. Marx and Engels themselves were a good deal more ambivalent about what takes precedence — the culture or the economics.)
One contemporary activist and author who has brought valuable insights to these matters — and, especially, the class issue — is Michael Albert. Albert points out that between workers and capitalists there is a third group, which he refers to as the co-ordinator class. Such professions as doctors, engineers, architects and lawyers tend to exercise a lot of control within society and their position, Albert argues, is privileged. Albert even suggests that a revolution, supposedly to benefit the working class (as in the initial stage of communism, to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, described above) would actually benefit the co-ordinator class. It is these people, he suggests, who would take up the administrative roles in the reformed society, giving them extra power, whilst the lot of the workers remains little changed.8 It may even have been the jealousy of the co-ordinator class for the ruling elite that has been the real source of revolution in the past. The workers did not benefit — they just saw a change in their oppressors. Albert goes on to describe what he considers a just way of arranging work and paying an equitable wage for people’s contribution to society.9 A similar split into three layers of society occurs in many utopian novels, and indeed in the classic dystopian novel, 1984.
As mentioned above, whilst there may be ‘socialist’ states, there cannot be communist states, if we are to be true to the original definition of communism. Anarchism and communism, in all their forms, mean no government. We will return to anarchism again later in the chapter, but for now, let’s move on to look at the other side of things. If we were to accept the need for government, then what kind of government would we wish for?
One of the benefits of looking at anarchism and communism is as a wake-up call. If we were to try to run our lives without government we would at once realise the responsibilities that would be on all of us for getting society to function. If, however, we agreed on the need for a government, it does not mean that we can then shirk all responsibility and just blame the politicians when things go wrong. We still need to take some responsibility for deciding on what kind of government best suits our needs.
John Stuart Mill identified: ‘… one very simple principle as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control… That principle is… [T]hat the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community against his will, is to prevent harm to others.’ (John Stuart Mill — On Liberty.)
Thomas Jefferson said: ‘The care of life and happiness and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.’
It is difficult to think of any government disagreeing with Mill and Jefferson, but, of course, the aims they identified are very broad and general ones. Also, they tend to be focused on preventing things from going wrong, rather than actively making things better.
A more cynical view of government is that it is primarily for the protection of property — and, of course, this invariably means the protection of the rich over the poor.10 Government’s function of protecting private property comes originally from Cicero. Meanwhile Rousseau said: ‘Property is the true foundation of civil society.’ However, also in his Discourse on Inequality, he argues that property brings discord and conflict. He agrees that government is established to protect the property rights of the rich over the poor. But this strategy, he told us, ‘irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, established for all time the law of property and inequality… and for the benefit of the few ambitious men, subjected the human race thenceforth to labour, servitude and misery.’ From this, and other criticisms, we might say that government is the ‘monopoly of legitimate violence’, that is, the only power that can uphold its rules by force over its citizens.
Apart from preventing harm and protecting property, could we identify some further aims for government that provide more of a vision for a better world? Rousseau gave us a starting point: ‘One of the most important things for a government to do, therefore, is to prevent extreme inequality of wealth, not by depriving the rich of their possessions, but by denying everyone the means of accumulating them; and not by building poor-houses but by ensuring that the citizens do not become poor.’ (The Social Contract.) Rousseau’s quote takes us back to our discussion of the commons in the previous chapter. We could say that government’s chief purpose, other than preventing harm, is to manage the commons. We saw that, in a sense, governments already do this in an indirect way. Could it be more direct and conscious, so that we really get to grips with how we might use natural resources and protect wild nature?
So what about a world where the purpose of government is to realise the common good, rather than just to protect whatever goods we might be holding on to at the moment? What about a world that is premised on human flourishing, with an emphasis on compassion, equity, enhancement of the environment, a respect for nature and a sense of responsibility for our shared natural commons? If we agree that some kind of governance is a good thing, then can we find a way of getting a governance system that focuses on these kinds of aims?
What kind of government would deliver such solutions? How do we begin to sort out the various strands of political thought that are on offer?
We have to go back to the ancient Greeks, to Plato and Aristotle, to get our definitions. From them, we have: One ruler is a monarchy or dictatorship. Rule by a few is an aristocracy. Rule by many is a constitution or a polity. The perversion of a monarchy is called a tyranny. The perversion of an aristocracy is called an oligarchy. We are probably fine with these definitions, but then, for the ancient Greeks, the perversion of a constitutional government is, amazingly, a democracy. For instance, from Aristotle, the definitions are described like this: ‘We have thus, as the three subdivisions of the “right” type, kingship, aristocracy and “constitutional government”, or “polity”: as the three subdivisions of the “wrong” type, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy.’ (Aristotle — The Politics.) The exact meaning of all these terms has evolved somewhat since the ancient Greeks, but it’s true that democracy still presents problems for some as a government system. American satirist HL. Mencken, for instance, said that to believe in democracy is to believe that, ‘collective wisdom will emerge from individual ignorance’. If, like many nations today, we consider democracy to be the ideal form of government, then we will have to dig deeper into the meanings of democracy, to unravel these issues.
Notwithstanding the ancient Greeks, most nations today take pride in describing themselves as democracies. They would normally use the term ‘representative democracy’. This phrase might imply a mixture of the governance forms outlined above: It is rule by the many — because we all decide who will represent us. At the same time though, it is rule by the few — those chosen to represent us. The adoption of representative democracy — often following the British format, the ‘Westminster model’ — occurs, and persists, under the belief that having the correct system in place will result in the best decisions being made — a process known as ‘proceduralism’ — the decisions proceed from the system. (The alternative is known by the term ‘instrumentalism’, where decisions are based on circumstances, fitness for purpose and pragmatism. Instrumentalism is probably better described here as ‘consequentialism’ — where governments just respond to the consequences of their situation and of the decisions they make.)
Representative democracy suggests a kind of balance between the desire to get everyone’s opinion, but at the same time having some experts take on the actual business of governing. Our representatives, in theory, listen to their electorate, take a balanced view of what is required, then act on this in the interests of society, as best they can. Our suspicions though, are that this is not really what is happening. The suspicion is that under the guise of representative democracy, we have at least an aristocracy, who make decisions under their own light. And, if we are especially cynical of government, we might conclude that, in fact, we have an oligarchy, the perversion of rule by the few, acting in the interests of big business and others who can pay for their voice in politics. Arguably, it is the financial oligarchy who are the ruling class in our day — the 1%, as they have come to be known since the Occupy movement.
Rule by the few is therefore always fraught with this tension of just whose interests the few are promoting; their own, or the population at large. Furthermore, the aristocracy needs to find a justification for their position of power, and this is usually by way of claiming a greater ability to make judgements. We describe this as a ‘meritocracy’, and those who benefit from it are the first to claim that a meritocracy represents fairness. Those at the top may insist that their position is acquired through competence, but those at the bottom suspect that it is more by money and privilege that the few have acquired their power. A meritocracy based on presumed leadership and managerial skills is as fraught as suggesting that class distinctions should be the basis for deciding leadership. Darren Anderson says:
‘If you acquire enough money identities are accepted and sins forgiven. The only real crime is the absence of money. Due to the variety of ways wealth is accumulated, myths are required, not least the fabulous mirage of meritocracy. The more you own the more you are, and the more deserving of it you’ve been. Those who have nothing are nothing and deserve nothing but contempt.’ Darren Anderson — Imaginary Cities. (The term ‘meritocracy’ itself, comes from a 1958 novel by Michael Young — The Rise of the Meritocracy.)
Could we ever resolve this and perhaps set up intelligence as a genuine criterion for a meritocracy? (Plato’s wish for ‘philosopher kings’, which some take to have been ironic, is the desire for rule based on knowledge and intelligence. It is sometimes known as an ‘epistocracy’.) If we could get to a meritocracy that was genuinely fair, then would that be a good move? At first strike, it might look promising, but some would argue that an ‘equality of merit’ is, in fact, a deeply troubling notion. Whilst it suggests that it’s fair, it implicitly says that there are people who simply are not good enough. If the reader were one of the ones left out as a result, then what crumb of comfort is the state going to offer, as it overlooks your voice, your opinion and your needs? It goes back to the issue of trust — are ordinary people bright enough? Even if it were concluded that they are not, should people be denied the right to decide their own future, based on some (rather difficult to apply) standard of intelligence?
So much then for representative democracy, which we have seen is really ‘rule by the few’. What about rule by the many? Going back to the Greek definitions, the ‘polity’ or ‘constitutional government’ that is taken to be the good form of rule by the many is not something that is too clearly defined. It seems in modern times that we have just taken representative democracy to be the constitutional government that is being referred to. But for this to be true then things would need to be very different. There would need to be a true voice for all citizens. We return to this below, but for now we can ask why democracy is seen as being a corruption by the Greeks? To answer this, imagine for a moment that all decisions in the country were decided by a referendum (known as ‘direct democracy’). The problem immediately arises that — even if a great deal of information is provided about what is being asked — some people will not have the time or inclination to study the question fully, whilst others may make their choice for very dubious reasons. There is no accountability, or mechanism for ensuring that everyone makes responsible choices. (This, it seems, was the chief concern of the ancient Greeks and also one of the problems that representative democracy seeks to address. They were also concerned that people with a particular talent for persuasive and charming speech might lure citizens into bad decisions.) Direct democracy also risks the ‘tyranny of the majority’, where a majority make a really bad or morally suspect decision. There is no way to correct for this possibility from within the system. Then again, representative democracy can suffer from its own version of a ‘tyranny of the majority’. Elected leaders may collectively reach very bad decisions and there is no process in place to correct this until they next come round for re-election. It could be argued that, even with these concerns, such a system would be fair. After all, a free vote is a free vote, and why should anyone set themselves up to say that anyone else has not made a ‘responsible’ choice, or has not considered the evidence put before them in a reasonable manner? There is an argument then that ‘direct democracy’ is, at least, a step up from our current system. But it still does not address the question of decision reached by an appropriate level of deliberation. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for instance, made this distinction; that the people may choose on behalf of what is good for society, rather than what is good for themselves individually.11
As mentioned above, we might also question the idea that democracy (or any form of political system) is ‘government by consent’. We have never been asked if we want to be governed, so choosing a candidate for a system already imposed on us does not constitute consent. Likewise, not voting at all does not imply consent, in that, had a citizen preferred something different, they would have voted. The ‘choices’ on offer (if there are any at all) may not be anything the citizen would want, so they are not consenting by refraining from voting.
Let’s assume that we did, at least, consent to the principle of government. The question of consent then moves to us citizens having some knowledge of the policies that governments may be seeking to put in place. We are being asked — through voting, or some other means — to give an informed opinion of our choices. So, what about informed consent? We are not given the facts about decisions the government is trying to make, or given much of an opportunity to even comment on them. No doubt — at least, in theory — this information is available somewhere, and we could access it, given enough time and effort. But is this really enough to say that we are giving informed consent? It seems like too much of a stretch.
Could people then live free of government (since it is imposed on us without our consent)? No. Our only choice would be to live in another country, under a different government that we also have not chosen. International law prevents us living in Antarctica — even if we wanted to. Perhaps there is scope, still, for indigenous peoples and people who choose to go ‘off-grid’. We will be exploring this in later chapters. Maybe, eventually there will be a chance to live on other planets without government. For the moment though, almost everyone in the world is forced to live under a government they have not asked for.
From what has been described above, the impression may have been given that anarchism (and communism, in its idealised form) would have no organisational structures at all. But this is not the case. It is rather the hierarchies of power, the bureaucracies and the institutions that are the problem for those who would advocate no government. The main concern with these types of organisation is that they harden into systems that just continue with their own momentum, getting increasingly out of touch with the people they are intended to serve and often imposing rules and regulations for their own sake with scant regard to the impact all the bureaucracy has on the smooth-running of society. (See Proudhon’s quote above.) By contrast, anarchism generally suggests federations to make decisions at the local level. Federations are much less formal arrangements of people, coming together to make the pragmatic decisions necessary for any given situation. Power, if you like, is ‘radically devolved’. For the larger decisions there are federations of federations that affect regions and nations. (See, for instance, Proudhon.)12, 13 Peter Kropotkin takes up this idea in his definition of anarchism as:
‘…the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government — harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the purposes of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilised being.’
Peter Kropotkin — Anarchy.
Within a system of federations there is a reciprocity between the small-scale, grass-roots levels of communities and neighbourhoods and the wider circles of town, county, region and nation. Some decisions inevitably need to be made at the broader levels (so we may have to reluctantly refer to them as top-down). We can think here of large-scale infrastructure, such as power grids and the road network. We also need to consider international interests such as foreign trade, immigration, defence and efforts to mitigate climate change.
Likewise anarchism speaks of ‘assemblies’ rather than institutions. What does this mean? It means that those concerns that span wider society do not become fossilised in hierarchies. It means that the assemblies that see to things like transport, health care and education will be flexible, open to change and responsive to new circumstances. When it comes to trade, there is an emphasis on contracts, rather than government legislation. These wider forms of governance — the federations of federations — are where the character of a society comes from. Society is not just a collection of individuals — it’s the organisations and the communities that give us the ‘feel’ of the nation, its cities and its lifestyles. So if we are feeling oppressed, it may well be the forms of government and its bureaucracies and institutions that are oppressing us.
I must however introduce a caveat here. It is important to understand that the idea of federalism that I am taking from the anarchists is the grass-roots, bottom-up system and it is this form of federalism that I am advocating here and throughout this book. From Proudhon, it is not altogether clear that this is what he meant — and indeed we see the word federalism used by the American government and by the Liberal Democrats in the UK to mean quite a different thing. Murray Bookchin suggests the word ‘confederalism’ as an alternative, to distinguish the two types. (See Bookchin’s essays in The Next Revolution.) Bookchin further contrasts ‘state’ with ‘polity’ (in contrast to AC Grayling, who valorises ‘statecraft’ over politics). Bookchin saw state as the top-down and hierarchical form of governance (and, he suggested, the way the word federalism is used might still suggest this). Meanwhile, for him, ‘politics’ is ‘of the people’ — polis, polity and politics are all related terms. So, whilst we may dislike the word politics, Bookchin was trying to get us back to its true meaning — to simply the way people choose to govern themselves. (In contrast, Bookchin was slightly cynical of Proudhon, because he was somewhat nationalist whilst others dismiss Bookchin as not truly an anarchist because they regard his federalism/confederalism as still a ‘statist’ idea.)
John Holloway (Change the World without Taking Power) fights desperately against institutions. His argument is that these make ‘doing’ subordinate to ‘being’ — in other words, the institution, once formed, is just accepted as a norm — it just is. Therefore, there is no motivation to create, to do, and by implication to constantly challenge the status quo for different modes of living. Institutions (including governments) are hierarchies frozen in place by ideologies. Assemblies are the more relaxed form of organisation that are flexible to circumstances.14
With these ideas in mind, here is another list of proposals, in some ways rather similar to the definitions of communism given earlier in the chapter, but hopefully a little closer to what may be arrived at in this process of forming federations:
Rules of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities:
1. Holds its land, labour, income and other resources in common.
2. Assumes responsibility for the needs of its members, receiving the produce of their labour and distributing these equally according to need.
3. Practises non-violence.
4. Uses forms of decision-making in which members have an equal opportunity to participate, either through consensus, direct vote, or right of appeal or override.
5. Actively works to establish the equality of all people and does not permit discrimination on the basis of race, class, creed, ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.
6. Acts to conserve natural resources for present and future generations while striving to continually improve ecological awareness and practice.
I would probably quibble only with point number one in the above rules. This book suggests that, at most, only ‘land’ (in other words, the natural commons) is held in common and that labour and income are kept or shared as society and individuals decide. But then, if I am to live by my own lights, it’s not for me to say.
With federalism we come to a different form of rule by the many that can be introduced — a genuine polity, if you will. This is known sometimes as deliberative democracy, or as participatory politics. It is to choose from amongst ordinary citizens, those who will make decisions for the general population. And this decision-making process is open to everyone, no matter their education, religion, political views, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. Whilst a few are chosen out of the general population, and this is representation of a kind, it is not establishing a ruling class elite, who might seek to perpetuate their power. At the same time, it avoids the problems identified above, that just asking everyone to vote on an issue might mean that only a minority will give complex questions the time and effort needed for a good decision. There may be a system for how those in office are chosen and there may be an element of randomness to this — ‘sortition’ — as with a jury. The chapters that follow explore this in more depth and look at the various ways different forms of deliberative democracy might be achieved.
Deliberative democracy means establishing a political system that genuinely listens and responds appropriately — finding a way of achieving a system that serves us better than the ones we have at present. One of the fundamental divides in our country is between those who have a voice and those who do not. If we are to seek positive change then good governance is all about engagement. What are the aims? Number one is that we all have a say. All else follows from this. The more we are willing to participate, the more established and relevant our governance system can become. And there is an element of responsibility on all of us for this to work. Rather than think cynically that our voices will never be heard and those in power will just do whatever they want (usually for their own self-interest or the interests of big business) we can take responsibility and participate. The options raised in this chapter are presented so that we know what choices we might have — if only we were allowed to choose.
What do the Utopias make of the Governance Options?
It has to be remembered that values such as freedom, equality, justice and rights, which we have looked at to some extent in this chapter, are ideals. Like institutions, ideals themselves can get frozen in place, and what was once a lively debate about finding the right path forward for a society, simply fossilises into a set of laws and conventions that may become increasingly out of touch with the people they were designed to serve. We noted in Chapter 1 that ideals can lack pragmatic real-world applications that make them concrete to us as we try to live by them. A utopia, by contrast, has the opposite problem — all the suggestions are concrete. As Chapter 1 suggested, we need a balance of the two. This, I think, is why anarchism stresses so much the need to organise ourselves in different ways. As John Holloway suggests above, it avoids being stifled. Radical devolution allows the problems of power to be dissolved, by seeking out our voices at the grass-roots.
It might seem at first that our current world of Privatopia and future world of Cornucopia would value freedom and lack of interference from bureaucracy above anything else. As such, they might prefer the anarchist views expressed earlier in this chapter. Indeed, we noted that the individualist anarchism quest for freedom is sometimes likened to neo-liberalism. However, I hope I’ve shown in this chapter that this would be a mistaken view, and as we look at neo-liberalism in more depth in a later chapter, we will see just how different they really are. Anarchism takes the responsibility that goes along with freedom very seriously. Privatopia and Cornucopia may be more complacent about government, or, as we will explore in later chapters, they may offer the impression that they are for freedom, but all the while they are seeking substantial legislation that protects private interests.
Ecotopians, by contrast, would probably fall in with what we have discussed under collectivism above — indeed those not sympathetic to the Ecotopians’ concerns often accuse them of using climate change as a cover for a radical left-wing political agenda. There are exceptions however. I am thinking especially of philosopher Roger Scruton’s conservatism, described in his book, A View from Somewhere. Perhaps a conservatism not immediately recognisable to the UK political party. Nevertheless, it shows, I think, that Ecotopia can cover a broad range of political opinion.
When we look back at the three concerns raised in the Introduction — Where is the vision? Why is the good life premised on consumption? Why are politics so polarised? — I hope it’s clear that even in politics there are still utopian visions on offer, and as we focus in on more details of a viable polity, I hope this will become clearer. We have not touched so much on what constitutes a ‘good life’ here — that must wait for future chapters. But we have seen a little of the polarisation of politics already in this chapter. The differences of political perspective will be drawn out further as we progress. Also, with regard to that fourth concern — trust — I think we see this coming through with the discussion on anarchism. Anarchism puts a lot of trust in the good will of ordinary people and our ability to make good and pragmatic decisions. That’s why anarchist ideas have been such a focus for us here. Rousseau told us: ‘Man is born free and everywhere is in chains.’ Note that he said, ‘and everywhere’, not, ‘but everywhere’. There is always a balance of freedom and restraint, licence and responsibility, involved in any polity and we’ve already seen something of how this might work with regard to ownership and sharing in the last two chapters. If then, as Rousseau seems to have suggested, freedom requires responsibility, are we responsible enough to cope with decision-making — whatever form it might take?
The problem with politics is that we can be complacent.15 When there is a crisis, we notice things, and see how strange and broken the system really is. But for the most part, we are all busy making a living and caring for our families, and don’t often stop to examine the insidious march of changes that are being rolled out under our noses, for which no-one has asked and no-one has been given the opportunity to discuss. I can’t remember anyone asking us recently; what kind of government would you like? Not: What political party should be in power, or: Who would you like as an MP, but: Would you like a monarchy, or to be ruled by an elite, or should rule be by the many — and if so, how should this be organised? Most governments are illegitimate. Meanwhile, in our name, and without our express consent, governments see fit to build weapons of mass destruction deemed illegal by the international community: See fit to start wars with other nations despite mass protest against war by their own people: See fit to allow the destruction of the Earth’s eco-systems and bio-diversity: See fit to allow the warming of the planet and change to climate and weather patterns that could bring flooding and devastation to millions. The list goes on. Why is it that we are never asked?
But then, sometimes, the need for choice — to assert ourselves, to make decisions, to look at things differently — might present itself. At this point, I suggest, there is a little of the spirit of the anarchist in us. We are all on the anarchism spectrum.
Speaking of anarchism, Cindy Milstein says: ‘It implies a lavish boundless sense of generosity, in which people support each other and each other’s projects. It expresses an open-handed spirit of abundance, in which kindness is never in short supply. It points to new relations of sharing and helping, mentoring and giving back, as the very basis of social organization’. (Cindy Milstein — Anarchism and its Aspirations.)
Milstein touches on some concerns that are often neglected by politics. Along with her, this book suggests it is social relations (indeed, pleasure) that are the true base of a society and to realise a vision for a better world, we must wake up to their importance. But most politics automatically assumes the material economy — production and consumption — as the real base of society: an economy just of transactions rather than compassion and equity. Combating this blindness to social relations is where a more genuine political arrangement may serve us.
Is it time then for a revolution? As I’ve said elsewhere in this work — be careful what you wish for. A developed society depends on stability — almost on a minute by minute basis — for its continued functioning. Any break in the smooth workings of society is likely to lead to trouble very quickly. Let’s face it, in most developed nations, a revolution is just not going to happen. But as we’ve noted earlier, there are more gradual forms of change and so reform may be the better option, for whatever we may feel is needed for a better world. I have left things open in this chapter and just explored the many options for government that are available to us. Now it’s time to get more specific. And it is to community that, I feel, we need to look to find further answers. We start, in the next chapter, at the smallest of scales, and follow the journey from there.