February 19, 2025 • 37 mins
Andrew and Mia discuss what anarchism actually is as an ethic and a practice.
Links:
https://davidgraeber.org/interviews/david-graeber-on-acting-like-an-anarchist/
https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/glossary/a-new-glossary/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All the media. Hello, and welcome to it could happen here,
because it could. My name is Andrew Sage and I'm
also Andrewism on YouTube and at time of recording, the
year is still technically new, so I wanted to start
it off with some refreshers on anarchism. In the first episode,
(00:24):
we'll look at the meanings of anarchism, authority, and anarchy,
and the next time we'll look at free association, mutuality,
mutual aid, and throllo solidarity. And don't worry, next month
I'll be getting back into the Latin American Anarchism series,
as I still haven't done Uruguay and Mexico yet. Oh.
By the way, I'm not talking to myself. I'm here
(00:44):
with the one and only be along.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh, I keep, I keep forgetting that you do an
actual throws actually saying the name.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, not to worry.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I've only been doing this for several hundred episodes. Now
you'd think you'd think, but no, now you got it.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
You got it.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hell, I'm excited to do this.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Also excited for the Mexico episodes, because Mexican anarchism is
a trip Irguaan anarchism is also a whole lot of
people digging tunnels out of prisons.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
But we'll get we'll get We'll get to that later.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
We will, we will. So I'm supposed to start off
with I want to find out And I asked this
question with tongue in cheek, of course, how familiar but
you say you are with anarchism.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You know, I have a very silly like kind of
like how did I like actually finally become an anarchist
because I've been around anarchists for a long time, But
like the thing that like actually convinced me to be
an anarchist is I sat down and I got a
bunch of like anarchist history books while library I started
(01:45):
reading them, so like.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Marx Nott Lao and I'm sorts of people.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So specifically was a lot of like krups like how
to Shooseo and Puranicism intoward Japan, which I've talked about
on the show one hundred billion times. So I actually
I think I've read Capaletes Anarchism Latin America around that
time too.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
It's a very good resource.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, yeah, so pretty pretty familiar with stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
But yeah, we'll see, we'll see. I'm excited to talk
about it.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, I mean, we'll see, is right, because let's say
ippened an anarchists. But I was first introduced to anarchism,
I would say somewhere around twenty seventeen twenty eighteen through
Christian anarchism. Actually that was during my deconstruction. I stumbled
upon Christian anarchism and briefly flated with it, but didn't
really get seriously into the studying of anarchists m until
(02:37):
like Lee twenty nineteen, Rearly twenty twenty around the time
and leads in towards twenties when I started my channel.
Let's say I've been studying anarchism for about five years. Seriously,
I feel like I'm now getting started, you know, like
I'm now sett into that grasp what it is. And
I think is there's so many interpretations of anarchism, you know,
so many different schools of thought. I mean, that's not
(02:58):
to say that it can't be find or that any
attempts to define anarchism is like exclusionary or on anarchist.
And I see that out of that argument floating around
it like, well, no, you can't define anarchism because that's
actually authoritaria. But you know, there are such a thing
as as definitions, but there is room, of course for
a negotiation of meaning.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, it's it's a very it's a very well usually
it's a very syncratic ideology. It pulls from a lot
of different places, and it pulls mosts a different of
its own strands.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But let's say if you had to
like define anarchism like right now, like, what would you
say is a not un negotiable basic fundamental definition for you?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I mean, the opposition to hierarchy on a basic level,
the opposition to the state, to capitalism, to patriarchy, to
systems of hierarchical power is I guess, like the the
baseline definition. And then also in terms of what it's,
you know, the replacement for that can be a lot
of things. But yeah, it's it's the building of a
(04:04):
society where we don't have power over one another. I
think it's like a very baseline kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, I think that's that's pretty solid for me. I
find it fairly similarly, I would say that I think
the opposition to authority is the most simplant part, you know,
I would say the definition I've been sort of workshopping
sculpting over time and as a right. So I really
like to play with words a bit and find the
best ways to put things. So for me, what I've
(04:32):
come up with is that anarchism is the political philosophy
and practice that opposes all authority along with its justifying dogmas,
and proposes the unending pursuit of anarchy, a world without rule,
where self determination, mutuality, and free association form the basis
(04:52):
of our society. And so basically the rest of this
episode is going to be me breaking down how I
came to this definition, what I'm expounded upon with this definition,
So for one, just taking a look at the structure
of it, we are looking at an oppositional stance and
a propositional stance, opposing and proposing. You know, we're not
(05:14):
just for the negation of all things, although there are
schools of anarchisms that do lead in that direction. But also,
of course, we want to be constructive. We're not as
some people seem to presume, you know, obliterating the states
and then leaving warlords in their weak you know.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, Baconin sucks in a lot of ways, but the
creative verge is a destructive one has the order of
events correctly, where like the point is to create something.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Exactly exactly, And as you know, Bikinnan is one of
the rely a thinkers of anarchism, though I've never really
been partial to him, you know, yeah, to me usually
I've been more of a Krapotkin and Mali Testa a guy.
But lately, as as you know, so problematic as he
(06:05):
is as well, I haven't getten into a bit more.
I recently got the pictures of put On Reader that
Ian McKay put together for a k Press.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Extremely problematic guy, oh boy, Yeah, but he.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Certainly wrote a lot. And so when I think through
and seecret what jim stones of his of his work
I can find, you know, yeah, I think that's that's
important to sift through.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
He's a He's a mixed and baffling figure who also
was a pretty large influence on Marx if you like
read him, even though Marx hates him, which is very funny.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Marx also didn't always understand step Honestly, I don't think
necessarily always had like a very consistent application of his ideas,
hence the misogyny. Despite being an anarchiss and becoming a
politician at one point in his life and all that jazz.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, and people may know this who listen to this show,
but the term libertarian was invented by anarchists specifically to
describe how they were different from ver Dawn because they
weren't sexist, Like, it's the whole.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Thing actually, wasn't away of that.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
That's yeahs interesting, Yeah, that's why, and that's why in
most parts of the world libertarian is like is a
term that means anarchist. It's just it's mostly largely in
the US where that's not a thing because the right
libertarians like took it.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah. Well, unfortunately, the US's cultural hegemony has sort of
propagated that American version of the term as the popular one.
But yeah, yeah, whether you're talking about anarchists or libertarians
or mutualists, you're all getting it from basically that same
(07:51):
sort of original phool of the late nineteenth century early
frankieinth century thinker and I were sort of using their
sort of explorations to build something up a political philosophy.
But in my definition I call it a political philosophy,
but that can be a contentious way of describing it.
You know, anti politics is a tilm that's used to
(08:12):
describe opposition to or distrust in traditional politics. Social politics
is usually associated with the art and science of government.
So there are anarchists who would argue that anarchism is
not a political philosophy, it's actually an anti political philosophy.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I think these people are very okay.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
This is one of the things about being an anarchist, right,
this is the thing thing about being a leftist, and
it's something you have to be able to set aside
when you have to do things. But a lot of
veg A leftists is being annoyed at other leftists. And
I could put together an actual, detailed theoretical critique of
anti politics, but mostly the people who talk about anti
politics just annoy me.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
It's like an affect thing.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I feel you to me, It's like it's a I
like to pick up, look around at, you know, play
with fur little bit, put it back down kind of thing.
You know, I'd like limited to it, but I think
it's like it's good to look at more than one
ankle of definition and an understanding. Yeah, I mean, of course,
(09:12):
I suppose a critique that could be made of define
anarchism as anti politics is a sort of a narrowing
of the definition of politics suggest that sort of art
and science of government when politics can also be defined
really broadly as just about the relationships between people and groups,
which anarchism is concerned with primarily. So, but I do
find it an interesting point to wrestle with, and so
(09:36):
other than it being a political philosophy or anti political philosophy,
we could also define an anarchism as a practice. This
is something that I believe Greeber did in his life.
He saw anarchism. In one interview he said, code it's
possible to act like an anarchist, to behave in ways
that will work without bureaucratic structures of coatient to enforce them,
(09:56):
without calling yourself an anarchist or anything. In fact, to
us act like anarchists, even communists a lot of the time.
To be an anarchist for me is to that self
consciously as a way of gradually bringing a world entirely
based on those principles into being and good. So this
is basically the idea that anarchism is not just something
you think in ahead. It's a method of change or
(10:16):
something that you practice. It's something that the facts anarchists
don't even want to call themselves anarchists because they see
anarchist about something that you do rather than something that
you are.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, that was a graverline.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I think Cala Gwynn kind of had a similar relationship
towards calling yourself an anarchist.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, that's that's possible. That that sounds really, really familiar.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, I think I think a line was like, she
didn't feel like she could because you had to do it.
But yeah, it's a it's a pretty common way of
thinking about anarchism that I like a lot.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, for sure. Another part of the definition of anarchism
that I put forward is the opposition to all authority,
and that a statement could actually get me some pushback,
getting in some trouble with some anarchists. Surprisingly, and I'm
sorry I blame Nome Chomsky, Oh my god, as a historian,
(11:11):
as a linguist, okay, whatever. Sure, but it was not
historically controversial among anarchists to say that you were opposed
to all hierarchy and all authority.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
You know, the definitions of those terms do get confused
often because, like a lot of words in the English language,
they do have multiple meanings. You know, you don't want
to fall into the equivocation fallacy, where you use a
word or phrase in one way and then you use
it in another way in the same argument. So someone
might say, for example, anarchism opposing authority is stupid because
authority just means having a difference in expertise or a
(11:43):
difference in influence, or that hierarchy opposition to hierarchy is
stupid because you know food chains or you know the
hierarchy of needs. But as you know, anarchists will focused
on very specific things or we use these terms, so
arguing against it with other definitions doesn't make sense. And
by hierarchy is anarchists are French as stratification of society,
(12:05):
which gives some individuals, groups, or institutions authority of others.
An authority refuses to recognized right above others in a
social relationship, to give commands, enforced obedia to control, property,
to exploit, and so on. And I really don't see
the benefit in Chomsky's sort of unjust authorities or unjust
(12:26):
hierarchy is approach to define him anarchism.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, because I mean the thing about hierarchies is that
every hierarchy argues it's just like you would get slave owners,
like doing these whole speeches about like the inherent morality
of slavery, like it's not actually a it's not actually
like an ethical position that leads you to like the
opposition to hierarchy, because again, every every hierarchy is self justice,
(12:52):
is self justifying.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Exactly, which is why I say oppositions all authorities and
they're justifying dogmas because all of them have dogmuds, including
the example that Chomsky uses, which is typically of the
parent pulling their child away from traffic. That is not
an exercise of authority. And the relationship between a parents
and a child is something that kind of should be interrogated,
you know, that is a KaiA taking relationship primarily a
(13:16):
relationship of responsibility. It does not have to be a
relationship of authority, and the sense and I suppose yeah,
and the way.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
That it turns into a relationship of ownership is something
that genuinely can and should be opposed. But it's also
something that like gets a lot harder to oppose when
you're sort of stuck up on this like, well, actually, no,
it's good because this is authority or whatever. So I
think the way that Chomsky obfuscates the stuff makes it
(13:46):
harder to actually do politics.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
That's useful exactly because then it also makes it its
hard of people to set a question. The authority the
more comfortable with, or the hierarchy is the more comfortable with.
So you'll see that way. So gold On you can say,
although we don't actually oppose all hierarchities, you know, your
parents thing, and you really you see in ground in
a sense, because you make it harder to identify and
(14:09):
really question those things, because you're you're shutting down that
avenue of questioned it, you know. And so when we
speak of authority, we're really speaking about that right, the
right the authority that gives to certain people over other people,
you know, privileges that are recognized and enforced, and a
right being a sort of a priority that is above others.
(14:31):
You know, the right of authority is a guarantee to
actions or resources that absolve the individual holding that right
of consequences. The right of authority compels and supporting the
desires and needs of those below that authority. So you know,
authorities have the right to command recognized and enforced by
the underlings. You know, they're the right to enforce the
(14:53):
obedience of the underlings are the right to control all
the properties the earth has been carved into. You know.
The right absorbs them of certain consequences and sort of
goes in one direction. It's a unilateral sort of thing.
So the authority can take your house, you know, the bank,
the government, the landlord. They can take your house, but
you can't take theirs. You know. An authority can assault you,
(15:15):
whether be a soldier, police officer, whatever, you cannot assault them.
An authority can take the fruits of your labor. They
could take from these wealth of what you produce, but
you can't take from them. That's theft, right. An authority
cannot be an authority by themselves. They have to have
authority over They have to have a hierarchical social relationship
(15:36):
that deprives some their benefit. An Anarchists oppose authority because,
you know, among other reasons, those subjects of authority become controlled,
They become dependent, exploited, prevented from accessing their full potential
and even their bare necessities. A really that prevented from
accessing their full potential is why a lot of anarchists
have spent a lot of time targeting or approached to
(15:58):
pearance in an approach to entry heat. You know, just
this morning I was reading a bit of Emma Goldmun
as she was talking about Phaer's schools. The way that
she speaks also she was an excellent rights and excellent speaker,
but the way that she did so, and the way
she approached and recognize this need to tap into our potential,
particularly from young to prevent it from being limited by
the impositions of authority. It's just extremely profound. It's necessary,
(16:23):
acessary to start at particularly at that age, but really
at any age, to break away from that condition that
that recognizes and enforces and obeys and accepts authority and
the right of authority. You know, if everybody, if everybody,
including their underlings, decided tomorrow not to recognize and enforce
the authority of presidents, of kings, of capitalists, that freight
(16:46):
would be gone in an instant. Also, when he starts
with us being able to actually question, to challenge, to
resist authority, and that's something that has existed since humans
have been in humans throughout history, we see this sort
of compulsion to resist authority, and that sort of seed
(17:06):
of resistance is what anarchists hope to have thresh.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Fortunately, we have to go to ads.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Disaster fiasco, your principles in shambles.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
But here here's ads.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
We are back. So, like I said before, authority gets
confused with a lot of different things. Force and violence
is the main one. It's one that Marxists in particular love,
that sort of conflation of authority with any use of force.
You know, the slave resistant a slave owner is actually
an example of authority.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Incredibly silly people who are otherwise reasonably intelligent will just
say this stuff. It's like, really, what are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Just come on? Yeah, yeah, I mean force and violence
associated with authority, and there they can be a mechanism
of defending an authority. But they're not in and of
themselves authority. They're not the source of authority. They don't
cost you authority, and you could just as easily use
them to resist authority. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
I want to go back to the slavery thing specifically
about authority, because the argument that it's an imposition of
authority for slaves to free themselves is an argument that
was specifically made by the Southern plantation class. Like that
was that was their argument about federal tyranny, was that
specific argument. So it's probably not a good theoretical basis
for understanding what authority is. If if if you're if
(18:40):
you're making the same argument as the Southern plantation class,
it's gonna just just cause it's gonna leave the.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
One out there exactly exactly. And really we have to
understand violence. Forces are things that are used by authorities.
But if I punch somebody in the face, that doesn't
make me an authority over them. You know, if I
defend myself from me in a punch, that doesn't mean
me in authority of the person trying to punish me.
The source of authority is really about that that right,
(19:05):
that position, that recognized right above others, that position, that
social relationship above others. That's what grants authority. It's recognition.
The general of an army is not an authority because
he's holding a gun to the heads of all the
other soldiers and making them do things. The generals here
is to be a recognizing authority because of his position
(19:26):
and the privileges and rights and powers that that position
gives him. If tomorrow all the soldiers decided to till
in on their general, as has happened historically, that is
one hundred percent possible. That is an instance of four
sort of violence being used to resist authority rather than
being used to, you know, be authority. Another thing that
(19:49):
gets confused with authority is influence or or respect. So
influence is really something I mean, I might find somebody's
a ees or qualities or achievements admirable, right, so I
respect that about them. That does mean they have an
authority over me. I might be inspired by someone in
a way that affects my character or development, will behavior.
(20:11):
But again that isn't that influence doesn't automatically trust into authority.
You'll find that a lot of the anarchists think because
of the late nineteenth twentieth century, they were very influential.
They were not authorities, but they had a profound impact
on the people around them, and they were profound inspiration
to us even to today.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, there's there's a paper I always think about where
I found it, like a kind of liberal, well like
a maybe center lefty academic writing about Mela Tessa, who
we've we've talked about a lot on this show. There's
an Italian anarchists did a whole bunch of stuff. So
when the Italian revolutions are happening in nineteen eighteen, nineteen nineteen,
like Baltesa comes back to Italy because he'd been all
(20:52):
over the world doing a whole bunch of other stuff,
and he gets called like like Italy's Lenin.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
For those who listened to some of my Anarchists History episodes,
you know that he kind of shows up sometimes. You
know that he shows up an easier literally everywhere. He
shows up all over the place.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, all for Latin America is in the US, and
you know, and so he gets called like the Leadin
of Italy. And this paper was about like was he
act Did he actually act like Lenin? And the conclusion
that they came to was like, well, no, he didn't
try to. He didn't come back to Italy to type,
to seize control of the country like he simply did
not because he was an anarchist, because that's what it
means to sort of, you know, have influence, but not.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Like rule exactly exactly. And that really gets into some
of the interesting conversation around anarchism and leadership and the
different ways ad can sort of interpret the concept of leadership.
But I'll see that for another discussion. There are two
other things that authority gets confused with that. I want
to address the first is coordination. And what's interesting with
(21:50):
coordination is that it's very much tied to authority a lot.
In the present day. You know, a lot of the
rules we have in the current system, coordination authority get
tied up together. So you have a manager of an enterprise,
and that manager coordinates all of the workers in that enterprise,
but the manager also has authority over those workers, you know,
to fire, to discipline, to go all these sorts of things.
(22:14):
Or a general in an army might have a coordination
role of ensurance that there's communication between various militias or
you know, various regiments, and that the soldiers within that
regiment know exactly what their goal is, what their task is,
and how they can go about to accomplishing it. That
there's in many ways a coordinating role, but it's also
(22:34):
tied up with the authority of the general, as in
the right above the soldiers, you know, to command them,
to enforce, obeliens, to punish, and that sort of thing.
So we get tied up between a coordination and authority
a lot. But coordination does not have to be ties
of authority in its simplest form of coordination can just
be the communication of information between parties to ensure they
(22:56):
work together smoothly and effectively. That can and already does
take place between equals. So, okay, here's a good example.
You know, you're trying to move a couch into a
house or an apartment. And for those of you who
have had to squeeze a couch and through a doorway,
you kind of know what I'm talking about is already
(23:16):
because you have to kind of come at this at
a certain angle. You know, the the size of our
doorway and the dimensions of a coach require very particular approach.
So you might have somebody who stands to this side
and the talent person okay, all right. So it's likely
in this way because when you lift in a heavy coach,
you kind of just want to put it down. You know,
you can't really think, okay, what anger should take it out?
(23:38):
So you might have somebody in a position to say,
all right, back up, okay, come forward, okay, So it's
slightly into the left, that kind of thing. That's a
coordinative rule. But that person there's an an authority over
anybody there. It's just communicating information to ensure the shared
task that the people involved have can be executed effectively.
So that's a long way of saying that we can't
have coordination and organization in our It doesn't have to
(24:01):
be or it doesn't have to involve authority. Finally, one
of the pet favorites of confusion is the confusion between
authority and expertise. Authority and expertise really example of the
equivocation I was talking about earlier, because authority is a
synonym for expertise by certain definitions, but the kind of
(24:23):
authority and I suppose has nothing to do with expertise,
which is what Baquen was talking about with his authority
the book maker argument. Now, if I could go back
in time, I would just go and tell the quien listen,
A lot of people are not going to read this
in full. I understand the full context. So maybe don't
use the word authority here. Maybe be more specific and
(24:45):
use the word expertise or something so people don't get confused,
because I mean reac in context, it becomes very clear.
But they are people who take the title of that article,
or they take one quote or one passage just taken
out too context from the whole, or they take like,
for example, it's a version of that article that is
cut off from the entire thing on on Marxist dot org.
(25:05):
I think so it's like an incomplete version of that
text available in one page, and then the full versions
of yourble in the anarchists life very incredible. See have
people who basically use that article to argue that actually,
you know, vi Cutan wasn't against authority, but in context
it makes sense what he's talking about authority. They he's
specifically talking about expertise, and he still says that in
(25:27):
the end he's not going to be commanded by that
expert He's just going to take their perspective into account
because he understands the incompleteness of his own perspective. That
is a very different relationship from the sort of commander
in support nation that we see in an authoritarian relationship.
And while expertise often gets conflated with authority in positions
(25:48):
in the current system, that often is damaging to authority itself.
If you think about the relationship people have, for example,
with and this is a sort of a contentious one,
but even if the relationship people have with like their
own like poostyl doctor, the family doctor, wh is the
relationship that they might have with a public health professional.
(26:08):
When people go into the postel doctor, it's very easy
for them to sort of, you know, accept that sort
of expertise. They have a relationship with them, they understand them,
they trust them. One of the case maybe of course
their places where because healthcare is and accessible, people don't
have that relationship with the doctor. But you know, so
I'm speaking internationally here.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, Also I need to put the trans note here,
which is that like it is very hard if you're
trands to find a doctor that you personally trust, because
oh boy.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
That is true.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
That that is a time, that is true.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
That's that's the influence of you know, CISTA a patriarchy,
and it's its impact.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, and so it's also it's also an example of
why you can't just sort of blindly accept the authority.
You can't accept the authority of people who have expertise
because it's like sometimes they don't exactly exactly like a
lot of times, in fact, the credentials don't actually meant
that this person knows anything about trans health care, like
the ASCO exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
It often just me and said the police. Sun has
been given the stuff of approval by an institution that
has been granted authority. Yeah, but the institution being granted
authority does not necessarily or should not have a monopoly
on expertise and often does not in practice have the
full of the sun, and the people who produced by
that institution don't necessarily have that full of crafts and
everything to see that you know, they can be treated
(27:24):
as an unquestioned authority all expert.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah, and it's something that you have to have a
kind of balance between what you know, kind of like
neoliberal like technocracy where you get like we put the
experts in charge and the quote unquote experts running the economy,
like did two thousand and.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Eight all come out to that right wing think down?
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, yeah, it's and then on the other hand, the
kind of like reflexive contrianism and desire to build a
new expert that gets you like RFK Junior as the
future like secretary of Health and Human Services. So you know,
you have to sort of like Jesus, yes, you have
to sort of like balance between sometimes these people fuck
(28:04):
up and also, vaccines are good. This is not a
problem that requires us to like fly through the pin
of a needle. We do have to have a little
bit of I don't know, it's not that difficult of
a problem to deal with, but but the way that
the authority is construed has created a sort of backlash
to it that has been used to sort of delegitimate, genuine,
useful expertise and create sort of like false expertise.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, and that's exactly the points I was going to
make to the institution of authority and the fact that
authorities so frequently, you know, mess up and so frequently
like abuse the trust of people, increase the sense of mistrust,
a rightful and valid mistrust in authorities that it can
often be misdirected or exploited towards ends that are not
necessarily equivalent. So, because these people in public health positions
(28:51):
are tied up with the government, people already don't trust
any legitimate expertise that they may have gets solid essentially
by that person of authority, poisoned by their association with
a government that has clearly proven itself to not have
the best interests of people in mind. All right, So,
(29:20):
just to get back to the definition again, anarchism as
a political philosophy and practice that opposes all authority along
with its justifying dogmas, and proposes the unending pursuit of anarchy,
a world without rule, where self determination, free association, and
mutuality form the basis of our society. So, I mean,
I've spoken a bit about that. Those justified dogmas came
(29:42):
at Stromsky a little bit, and we spoke about how
that's sort of incoherent because every ideology opposes unjust hierarchies.
So I think it's important that anarchism calls out all
the justifications. I'm sure you could think of some of
the main justifications that tend to be used. One of
the oldest justifications is, of course, the divine rights of kings.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah, that one's mostly been broken. Hopefully we don't have
to deal with that shit any war. But I you know,
I don't know, I have I have eternal cynicism.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
I don't know. Maybe the maybe the American people you
in for the Trump dynasty, Yeah, we're going to create
their god king. Oh yeah, as imperial presidency. But yeah,
I mean in more liberal circles, the justification for authority
is usually the social contract theory that individuals implicitly consent
to authority. But I don't know about umia. Nobody asked
(30:35):
for my consent, and also I don't have any way
of relinquishing my consent. Yeah, so is it really consensual?
Speaker 2 (30:43):
No, Like some some fucking assholes at Philadelphia like two
hundred years ago were like, we're going to set up
a thing, and also slavery is good.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
It's like, really, like, what do we doing here?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
How?
Speaker 3 (30:57):
What meaningful way did I agree to this?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah? Exactly. And it's not like I can step out
of it. I mean, you hold the monopoly on literally
every inch of territory on earth, some stately some claim
to some part of the world. There's no escape, So
it's not a contract that you can opt out of.
You know. You know. Another justification that authorities tend to
use as an idea of meritocracy and economic darwin itsell
(31:22):
that the best of the best, they rise to the top,
that they are not really any systemic inequalities or structural barriers.
That this is a survival to the fittest, and the
fittest win, and the losers are losers, and they fail
because they're losers. That's a very cynical sort of take
that I don't think many people openly espouse outside of
like right wing circles, but it's definitely one of the
(31:45):
justifications for authority that gets used. Another one is also
in conservative circles, the idea of natural hierarchy. The idea
is that hierarchies are part of the natural ordel. You know,
people will use avolutionary biology or the just texts or
pseuo scientific claims to justify the inequality between genders or
races or classes. Colonial and imperialists Poulos, for example, would
(32:05):
justify their dominance by claim and cultural superiority. The these
ideas have the white man's buddhen and civilizing missions to
enforce the authority over other people's and their lands, and
that justification, while questioned and challenged to be, still is
at the basis at the root of almost every institution
in our modern rogue.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, it's something I think is going to become increasingly
visible in the US over the next few years, coming
out of a period where it was like slightly more offiscated.
But you know, all of the people who are about
to be coming into power, if you if you spend
like even the tiniest amount of time, you will see
them start talking about like fucking racial IQ shit, and
(32:48):
like all of this really pretty pretty explicit ideology that
they have that like of this sort of like racial
superiority that they think they have. That's like, you know,
there's like motivating ideological factor and also the thing of
the users sort of justify their power.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Yeah, it's unfortunately become in more and more open and
common and to see that sort of discourse on mainstream
platforms like Twitter. The necessity of order an efficiency tends
to also be used as a justification for authority, you know,
the idea that authority is needed to maintain order, to
(33:25):
keep things in place, to make decisions. And this is
really ignoring the capacity that people have already proven historically
and presently to organize cooperatively, to organize without authority, to
take on horizontal and decentralized approaches, because it's something that
is treating complexity as synonymous with hierarchy, that you have
(33:49):
to organize this way, you know, it ignores all the
inefficiencies hybureaucratic systems, It ignores all the harm caused by
authoritarian systems. That just says that you know, we need
this thing, these things function, but we don't.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
One of the weirder artifacts of the twenty tens was
David Raber had an argument with Pure Teel where like
they like did a debate and what a Raber's arguments
is like, well, what do you mean, like our technical
or technological systems mean that we have to organize society
in a way like it like it is is the
argument that you're making that technological possibility makes us less free.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
It's like, no, sucks, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And you know this is all people like who make
these arguments don't necessarily have an understanding of our systems.
The Internet is not organized by one central body. The
Internet is already fairly the yes centralized. It's become more
centralized upon platforms. But as an infrastructure, the Internet is
really a network of nodes that are all over the
(34:49):
world and all over space. Or we could take for example,
the International Postal system. All the mail that gets distributed
around the world internationally is one central global body that's
in charge of that. It's multiple organizations that coordinate their
activities to ensure that you know, you get your mail.
Or we look at even basic supply genes of goods
(35:12):
and resources, it's not all handled by one central industrial body.
It's not all handled by the government or by one corporation.
It's a set of relationships between groups, between companies, between
mining companies and resource exstruction companies, and shipping companies and
processing plants and factories and toys. All these networks already
(35:37):
not undertaken entirely by one central body. They may be
organized internally hierarchically, but that can very easily change. Finally,
final justification I want to get into is this idea
that that authority is the lesser evil. That authority might
be imperfect, but it's preferable to boost alternatives like total anarchy.
And of course some people say anarchy here that the
(35:58):
means in the pejorative sense, or mean like actual anarchy
in the sense of the political philosophy, means in the
sense of instead of having one central authority, they have
one to compete in authorityre in poem, it's a bunch
of warlow its fights in full power. That is not
anarchy in the sense of anarchists pursue that is, you know,
patsy authority fighting predominance, which is if you think about
(36:20):
really how historically states came in.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
To be in Yeah, I was like, what do you
think we have now, like, what do you think that
like one hundred and ninety something states are doing? Like
I I don't know, and I feel like a lot
of these arguments are just describing the current state of
affairs and going well, it could be like that. It's like, oh,
what if how would like communes deal with war? It's
like when't the Communists are going to war with each other?
(36:44):
It's like, well, okay, like what look at the world
right now and ask yourself the question, how are states
dealing with the problem of war?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
And the answer is they're dealing with a problem of
war by going to war with each other? Like what
are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Exactly? Exactly. So the more positive side of the definition
of anarchy is one that I haven't quite gotten into yet,
and I haven't broken down the ideas of mutuality and
free association. But I'll save all that for the next episode.
If you can't wait until then, my videos on how
anarchy works and what ANARCHI needs should whet your appetite.
(37:18):
But until then, I've an Andrew sage. You can find
our YouTube at Andrewism and feature not seeing true this
is it could happen here the show where we chronicle
collapse as it happens and explore how do I build
a better future, and in my case ocasion, I take
a look at the past as well. And that's it.
All power to all the people.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
You listen to podcasts, you can now find sources for
It could Happen Here. Listened directly in episode descriptions. Thanks
for listening.
All the media. Hello, and welcome to it could happen here,
because it could. My name is Andrew Sage and I'm
also Andrewism on YouTube and at time of recording, the
year is still technically new, so I wanted to start
it off with some refreshers on anarchism. In the first episode,
(00:24):
we'll look at the meanings of anarchism, authority, and anarchy,
and the next time we'll look at free association, mutuality,
mutual aid, and throllo solidarity. And don't worry, next month
I'll be getting back into the Latin American Anarchism series,
as I still haven't done Uruguay and Mexico yet. Oh.
By the way, I'm not talking to myself. I'm here
(00:44):
with the one and only be along.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh, I keep, I keep forgetting that you do an
actual throws actually saying the name.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, not to worry.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I've only been doing this for several hundred episodes. Now
you'd think you'd think, but no, now you got it.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
You got it.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hell, I'm excited to do this.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Also excited for the Mexico episodes, because Mexican anarchism is
a trip Irguaan anarchism is also a whole lot of
people digging tunnels out of prisons.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
But we'll get we'll get We'll get to that later.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
We will, we will. So I'm supposed to start off
with I want to find out And I asked this
question with tongue in cheek, of course, how familiar but
you say you are with anarchism.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You know, I have a very silly like kind of
like how did I like actually finally become an anarchist
because I've been around anarchists for a long time, But
like the thing that like actually convinced me to be
an anarchist is I sat down and I got a
bunch of like anarchist history books while library I started
(01:45):
reading them, so like.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Marx Nott Lao and I'm sorts of people.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So specifically was a lot of like krups like how
to Shooseo and Puranicism intoward Japan, which I've talked about
on the show one hundred billion times. So I actually
I think I've read Capaletes Anarchism Latin America around that
time too.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
It's a very good resource.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, yeah, so pretty pretty familiar with stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
But yeah, we'll see, we'll see. I'm excited to talk
about it.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, I mean, we'll see, is right, because let's say
ippened an anarchists. But I was first introduced to anarchism,
I would say somewhere around twenty seventeen twenty eighteen through
Christian anarchism. Actually that was during my deconstruction. I stumbled
upon Christian anarchism and briefly flated with it, but didn't
really get seriously into the studying of anarchists m until
(02:37):
like Lee twenty nineteen, Rearly twenty twenty around the time
and leads in towards twenties when I started my channel.
Let's say I've been studying anarchism for about five years. Seriously,
I feel like I'm now getting started, you know, like
I'm now sett into that grasp what it is. And
I think is there's so many interpretations of anarchism, you know,
so many different schools of thought. I mean, that's not
(02:58):
to say that it can't be find or that any
attempts to define anarchism is like exclusionary or on anarchist.
And I see that out of that argument floating around
it like, well, no, you can't define anarchism because that's
actually authoritaria. But you know, there are such a thing
as as definitions, but there is room, of course for
a negotiation of meaning.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, it's it's a very it's a very well usually
it's a very syncratic ideology. It pulls from a lot
of different places, and it pulls mosts a different of
its own strands.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But let's say if you had to
like define anarchism like right now, like, what would you
say is a not un negotiable basic fundamental definition for you?
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I mean, the opposition to hierarchy on a basic level,
the opposition to the state, to capitalism, to patriarchy, to
systems of hierarchical power is I guess, like the the
baseline definition. And then also in terms of what it's,
you know, the replacement for that can be a lot
of things. But yeah, it's it's the building of a
(04:04):
society where we don't have power over one another. I
think it's like a very baseline kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, I think that's that's pretty solid for me. I
find it fairly similarly, I would say that I think
the opposition to authority is the most simplant part, you know,
I would say the definition I've been sort of workshopping
sculpting over time and as a right. So I really
like to play with words a bit and find the
best ways to put things. So for me, what I've
(04:32):
come up with is that anarchism is the political philosophy
and practice that opposes all authority along with its justifying dogmas,
and proposes the unending pursuit of anarchy, a world without rule,
where self determination, mutuality, and free association form the basis
(04:52):
of our society. And so basically the rest of this
episode is going to be me breaking down how I
came to this definition, what I'm expounded upon with this definition,
So for one, just taking a look at the structure
of it, we are looking at an oppositional stance and
a propositional stance, opposing and proposing. You know, we're not
(05:14):
just for the negation of all things, although there are
schools of anarchisms that do lead in that direction. But also,
of course, we want to be constructive. We're not as
some people seem to presume, you know, obliterating the states
and then leaving warlords in their weak you know.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, Baconin sucks in a lot of ways, but the
creative verge is a destructive one has the order of
events correctly, where like the point is to create something.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Exactly exactly, And as you know, Bikinnan is one of
the rely a thinkers of anarchism, though I've never really
been partial to him, you know, yeah, to me usually
I've been more of a Krapotkin and Mali Testa a guy.
But lately, as as you know, so problematic as he
(06:05):
is as well, I haven't getten into a bit more.
I recently got the pictures of put On Reader that
Ian McKay put together for a k Press.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Extremely problematic guy, oh boy, Yeah, but he.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Certainly wrote a lot. And so when I think through
and seecret what jim stones of his of his work
I can find, you know, yeah, I think that's that's
important to sift through.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
He's a He's a mixed and baffling figure who also
was a pretty large influence on Marx if you like
read him, even though Marx hates him, which is very funny.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Marx also didn't always understand step Honestly, I don't think
necessarily always had like a very consistent application of his ideas,
hence the misogyny. Despite being an anarchiss and becoming a
politician at one point in his life and all that jazz.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, and people may know this who listen to this show,
but the term libertarian was invented by anarchists specifically to
describe how they were different from ver Dawn because they
weren't sexist, Like, it's the whole.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Thing actually, wasn't away of that.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
That's yeahs interesting, Yeah, that's why, and that's why in
most parts of the world libertarian is like is a
term that means anarchist. It's just it's mostly largely in
the US where that's not a thing because the right
libertarians like took it.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah. Well, unfortunately, the US's cultural hegemony has sort of
propagated that American version of the term as the popular one.
But yeah, yeah, whether you're talking about anarchists or libertarians
or mutualists, you're all getting it from basically that same
(07:51):
sort of original phool of the late nineteenth century early
frankieinth century thinker and I were sort of using their
sort of explorations to build something up a political philosophy.
But in my definition I call it a political philosophy,
but that can be a contentious way of describing it.
You know, anti politics is a tilm that's used to
(08:12):
describe opposition to or distrust in traditional politics. Social politics
is usually associated with the art and science of government.
So there are anarchists who would argue that anarchism is
not a political philosophy, it's actually an anti political philosophy.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I think these people are very okay.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
This is one of the things about being an anarchist, right,
this is the thing thing about being a leftist, and
it's something you have to be able to set aside
when you have to do things. But a lot of
veg A leftists is being annoyed at other leftists. And
I could put together an actual, detailed theoretical critique of
anti politics, but mostly the people who talk about anti
politics just annoy me.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
It's like an affect thing.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I feel you to me, It's like it's a I
like to pick up, look around at, you know, play
with fur little bit, put it back down kind of thing.
You know, I'd like limited to it, but I think
it's like it's good to look at more than one
ankle of definition and an understanding. Yeah, I mean, of course,
(09:12):
I suppose a critique that could be made of define
anarchism as anti politics is a sort of a narrowing
of the definition of politics suggest that sort of art
and science of government when politics can also be defined
really broadly as just about the relationships between people and groups,
which anarchism is concerned with primarily. So, but I do
find it an interesting point to wrestle with, and so
(09:36):
other than it being a political philosophy or anti political philosophy,
we could also define an anarchism as a practice. This
is something that I believe Greeber did in his life.
He saw anarchism. In one interview he said, code it's
possible to act like an anarchist, to behave in ways
that will work without bureaucratic structures of coatient to enforce them,
(09:56):
without calling yourself an anarchist or anything. In fact, to
us act like anarchists, even communists a lot of the time.
To be an anarchist for me is to that self
consciously as a way of gradually bringing a world entirely
based on those principles into being and good. So this
is basically the idea that anarchism is not just something
you think in ahead. It's a method of change or
(10:16):
something that you practice. It's something that the facts anarchists
don't even want to call themselves anarchists because they see
anarchist about something that you do rather than something that
you are.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, that was a graverline.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I think Cala Gwynn kind of had a similar relationship
towards calling yourself an anarchist.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, that's that's possible. That that sounds really, really familiar.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, I think I think a line was like, she
didn't feel like she could because you had to do it.
But yeah, it's a it's a pretty common way of
thinking about anarchism that I like a lot.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, for sure. Another part of the definition of anarchism
that I put forward is the opposition to all authority,
and that a statement could actually get me some pushback,
getting in some trouble with some anarchists. Surprisingly, and I'm
sorry I blame Nome Chomsky, Oh my god, as a historian,
(11:11):
as a linguist, okay, whatever. Sure, but it was not
historically controversial among anarchists to say that you were opposed
to all hierarchy and all authority.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
You know, the definitions of those terms do get confused
often because, like a lot of words in the English language,
they do have multiple meanings. You know, you don't want
to fall into the equivocation fallacy, where you use a
word or phrase in one way and then you use
it in another way in the same argument. So someone
might say, for example, anarchism opposing authority is stupid because
authority just means having a difference in expertise or a
(11:43):
difference in influence, or that hierarchy opposition to hierarchy is
stupid because you know food chains or you know the
hierarchy of needs. But as you know, anarchists will focused
on very specific things or we use these terms, so
arguing against it with other definitions doesn't make sense. And
by hierarchy is anarchists are French as stratification of society,
(12:05):
which gives some individuals, groups, or institutions authority of others.
An authority refuses to recognized right above others in a
social relationship, to give commands, enforced obedia to control, property,
to exploit, and so on. And I really don't see
the benefit in Chomsky's sort of unjust authorities or unjust
(12:26):
hierarchy is approach to define him anarchism.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah, because I mean the thing about hierarchies is that
every hierarchy argues it's just like you would get slave owners,
like doing these whole speeches about like the inherent morality
of slavery, like it's not actually a it's not actually
like an ethical position that leads you to like the
opposition to hierarchy, because again, every every hierarchy is self justice,
(12:52):
is self justifying.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Exactly, which is why I say oppositions all authorities and
they're justifying dogmas because all of them have dogmuds, including
the example that Chomsky uses, which is typically of the
parent pulling their child away from traffic. That is not
an exercise of authority. And the relationship between a parents
and a child is something that kind of should be interrogated,
you know, that is a KaiA taking relationship primarily a
(13:16):
relationship of responsibility. It does not have to be a
relationship of authority, and the sense and I suppose yeah,
and the way.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
That it turns into a relationship of ownership is something
that genuinely can and should be opposed. But it's also
something that like gets a lot harder to oppose when
you're sort of stuck up on this like, well, actually, no,
it's good because this is authority or whatever. So I
think the way that Chomsky obfuscates the stuff makes it
(13:46):
harder to actually do politics.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
That's useful exactly because then it also makes it its
hard of people to set a question. The authority the
more comfortable with, or the hierarchy is the more comfortable with.
So you'll see that way. So gold On you can say,
although we don't actually oppose all hierarchities, you know, your
parents thing, and you really you see in ground in
a sense, because you make it harder to identify and
(14:09):
really question those things, because you're you're shutting down that
avenue of questioned it, you know. And so when we
speak of authority, we're really speaking about that right, the
right the authority that gives to certain people over other people,
you know, privileges that are recognized and enforced, and a
right being a sort of a priority that is above others.
(14:31):
You know, the right of authority is a guarantee to
actions or resources that absolve the individual holding that right
of consequences. The right of authority compels and supporting the
desires and needs of those below that authority. So you know,
authorities have the right to command recognized and enforced by
the underlings. You know, they're the right to enforce the
(14:53):
obedience of the underlings are the right to control all
the properties the earth has been carved into. You know.
The right absorbs them of certain consequences and sort of
goes in one direction. It's a unilateral sort of thing.
So the authority can take your house, you know, the bank,
the government, the landlord. They can take your house, but
you can't take theirs. You know. An authority can assault you,
(15:15):
whether be a soldier, police officer, whatever, you cannot assault them.
An authority can take the fruits of your labor. They
could take from these wealth of what you produce, but
you can't take from them. That's theft, right. An authority
cannot be an authority by themselves. They have to have
authority over They have to have a hierarchical social relationship
(15:36):
that deprives some their benefit. An Anarchists oppose authority because,
you know, among other reasons, those subjects of authority become controlled,
They become dependent, exploited, prevented from accessing their full potential
and even their bare necessities. A really that prevented from
accessing their full potential is why a lot of anarchists
have spent a lot of time targeting or approached to
(15:58):
pearance in an approach to entry heat. You know, just
this morning I was reading a bit of Emma Goldmun
as she was talking about Phaer's schools. The way that
she speaks also she was an excellent rights and excellent speaker,
but the way that she did so, and the way
she approached and recognize this need to tap into our potential,
particularly from young to prevent it from being limited by
the impositions of authority. It's just extremely profound. It's necessary,
(16:23):
acessary to start at particularly at that age, but really
at any age, to break away from that condition that
that recognizes and enforces and obeys and accepts authority and
the right of authority. You know, if everybody, if everybody,
including their underlings, decided tomorrow not to recognize and enforce
the authority of presidents, of kings, of capitalists, that freight
(16:46):
would be gone in an instant. Also, when he starts
with us being able to actually question, to challenge, to
resist authority, and that's something that has existed since humans
have been in humans throughout history, we see this sort
of compulsion to resist authority, and that sort of seed
(17:06):
of resistance is what anarchists hope to have thresh.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Fortunately, we have to go to ads.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Disaster fiasco, your principles in shambles.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
But here here's ads.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
We are back. So, like I said before, authority gets
confused with a lot of different things. Force and violence
is the main one. It's one that Marxists in particular love,
that sort of conflation of authority with any use of force.
You know, the slave resistant a slave owner is actually
an example of authority.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Incredibly silly people who are otherwise reasonably intelligent will just
say this stuff. It's like, really, what are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Just come on? Yeah, yeah, I mean force and violence
associated with authority, and there they can be a mechanism
of defending an authority. But they're not in and of
themselves authority. They're not the source of authority. They don't
cost you authority, and you could just as easily use
them to resist authority. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
I want to go back to the slavery thing specifically
about authority, because the argument that it's an imposition of
authority for slaves to free themselves is an argument that
was specifically made by the Southern plantation class. Like that
was that was their argument about federal tyranny, was that
specific argument. So it's probably not a good theoretical basis
for understanding what authority is. If if if you're if
(18:40):
you're making the same argument as the Southern plantation class,
it's gonna just just cause it's gonna leave the.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
One out there exactly exactly. And really we have to
understand violence. Forces are things that are used by authorities.
But if I punch somebody in the face, that doesn't
make me an authority over them. You know, if I
defend myself from me in a punch, that doesn't mean
me in authority of the person trying to punish me.
The source of authority is really about that that right,
(19:05):
that position, that recognized right above others, that position, that
social relationship above others. That's what grants authority. It's recognition.
The general of an army is not an authority because
he's holding a gun to the heads of all the
other soldiers and making them do things. The generals here
is to be a recognizing authority because of his position
(19:26):
and the privileges and rights and powers that that position
gives him. If tomorrow all the soldiers decided to till
in on their general, as has happened historically, that is
one hundred percent possible. That is an instance of four
sort of violence being used to resist authority rather than
being used to, you know, be authority. Another thing that
(19:49):
gets confused with authority is influence or or respect. So
influence is really something I mean, I might find somebody's
a ees or qualities or achievements admirable, right, so I
respect that about them. That does mean they have an
authority over me. I might be inspired by someone in
a way that affects my character or development, will behavior.
(20:11):
But again that isn't that influence doesn't automatically trust into authority.
You'll find that a lot of the anarchists think because
of the late nineteenth twentieth century, they were very influential.
They were not authorities, but they had a profound impact
on the people around them, and they were profound inspiration
to us even to today.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, there's there's a paper I always think about where
I found it, like a kind of liberal, well like
a maybe center lefty academic writing about Mela Tessa, who
we've we've talked about a lot on this show. There's
an Italian anarchists did a whole bunch of stuff. So
when the Italian revolutions are happening in nineteen eighteen, nineteen nineteen,
like Baltesa comes back to Italy because he'd been all
(20:52):
over the world doing a whole bunch of other stuff,
and he gets called like like Italy's Lenin.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
For those who listened to some of my Anarchists History episodes,
you know that he kind of shows up sometimes. You
know that he shows up an easier literally everywhere. He
shows up all over the place.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, all for Latin America is in the US, and
you know, and so he gets called like the Leadin
of Italy. And this paper was about like was he
act Did he actually act like Lenin? And the conclusion
that they came to was like, well, no, he didn't
try to. He didn't come back to Italy to type,
to seize control of the country like he simply did
not because he was an anarchist, because that's what it
means to sort of, you know, have influence, but not.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Like rule exactly exactly. And that really gets into some
of the interesting conversation around anarchism and leadership and the
different ways ad can sort of interpret the concept of leadership.
But I'll see that for another discussion. There are two
other things that authority gets confused with that. I want
to address the first is coordination. And what's interesting with
(21:50):
coordination is that it's very much tied to authority a lot.
In the present day. You know, a lot of the
rules we have in the current system, coordination authority get
tied up together. So you have a manager of an enterprise,
and that manager coordinates all of the workers in that enterprise,
but the manager also has authority over those workers, you know,
to fire, to discipline, to go all these sorts of things.
(22:14):
Or a general in an army might have a coordination
role of ensurance that there's communication between various militias or
you know, various regiments, and that the soldiers within that
regiment know exactly what their goal is, what their task is,
and how they can go about to accomplishing it. That
there's in many ways a coordinating role, but it's also
(22:34):
tied up with the authority of the general, as in
the right above the soldiers, you know, to command them,
to enforce, obeliens, to punish, and that sort of thing.
So we get tied up between a coordination and authority
a lot. But coordination does not have to be ties
of authority in its simplest form of coordination can just
be the communication of information between parties to ensure they
(22:56):
work together smoothly and effectively. That can and already does
take place between equals. So, okay, here's a good example.
You know, you're trying to move a couch into a
house or an apartment. And for those of you who
have had to squeeze a couch and through a doorway,
you kind of know what I'm talking about is already
(23:16):
because you have to kind of come at this at
a certain angle. You know, the the size of our
doorway and the dimensions of a coach require very particular approach.
So you might have somebody who stands to this side
and the talent person okay, all right. So it's likely
in this way because when you lift in a heavy coach,
you kind of just want to put it down. You know,
you can't really think, okay, what anger should take it out?
(23:38):
So you might have somebody in a position to say,
all right, back up, okay, come forward, okay, So it's
slightly into the left, that kind of thing. That's a
coordinative rule. But that person there's an an authority over
anybody there. It's just communicating information to ensure the shared
task that the people involved have can be executed effectively.
So that's a long way of saying that we can't
have coordination and organization in our It doesn't have to
(24:01):
be or it doesn't have to involve authority. Finally, one
of the pet favorites of confusion is the confusion between
authority and expertise. Authority and expertise really example of the
equivocation I was talking about earlier, because authority is a
synonym for expertise by certain definitions, but the kind of
(24:23):
authority and I suppose has nothing to do with expertise,
which is what Baquen was talking about with his authority
the book maker argument. Now, if I could go back
in time, I would just go and tell the quien listen,
A lot of people are not going to read this
in full. I understand the full context. So maybe don't
use the word authority here. Maybe be more specific and
(24:45):
use the word expertise or something so people don't get confused,
because I mean reac in context, it becomes very clear.
But they are people who take the title of that article,
or they take one quote or one passage just taken
out too context from the whole, or they take like,
for example, it's a version of that article that is
cut off from the entire thing on on Marxist dot org.
(25:05):
I think so it's like an incomplete version of that
text available in one page, and then the full versions
of yourble in the anarchists life very incredible. See have
people who basically use that article to argue that actually,
you know, vi Cutan wasn't against authority, but in context
it makes sense what he's talking about authority. They he's
specifically talking about expertise, and he still says that in
(25:27):
the end he's not going to be commanded by that
expert He's just going to take their perspective into account
because he understands the incompleteness of his own perspective. That
is a very different relationship from the sort of commander
in support nation that we see in an authoritarian relationship.
And while expertise often gets conflated with authority in positions
(25:48):
in the current system, that often is damaging to authority itself.
If you think about the relationship people have, for example,
with and this is a sort of a contentious one,
but even if the relationship people have with like their
own like poostyl doctor, the family doctor, wh is the
relationship that they might have with a public health professional.
(26:08):
When people go into the postel doctor, it's very easy
for them to sort of, you know, accept that sort
of expertise. They have a relationship with them, they understand them,
they trust them. One of the case maybe of course
their places where because healthcare is and accessible, people don't
have that relationship with the doctor. But you know, so
I'm speaking internationally here.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, Also I need to put the trans note here,
which is that like it is very hard if you're
trands to find a doctor that you personally trust, because
oh boy.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
That is true.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
That that is a time, that is true.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
That's that's the influence of you know, CISTA a patriarchy,
and it's its impact.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, and so it's also it's also an example of
why you can't just sort of blindly accept the authority.
You can't accept the authority of people who have expertise
because it's like sometimes they don't exactly exactly like a
lot of times, in fact, the credentials don't actually meant
that this person knows anything about trans health care, like
the ASCO exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
It often just me and said the police. Sun has
been given the stuff of approval by an institution that
has been granted authority. Yeah, but the institution being granted
authority does not necessarily or should not have a monopoly
on expertise and often does not in practice have the
full of the sun, and the people who produced by
that institution don't necessarily have that full of crafts and
everything to see that you know, they can be treated
(27:24):
as an unquestioned authority all expert.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah, and it's something that you have to have a
kind of balance between what you know, kind of like
neoliberal like technocracy where you get like we put the
experts in charge and the quote unquote experts running the economy,
like did two thousand and.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Eight all come out to that right wing think down?
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, yeah, it's and then on the other hand, the
kind of like reflexive contrianism and desire to build a
new expert that gets you like RFK Junior as the
future like secretary of Health and Human Services. So you know,
you have to sort of like Jesus, yes, you have
to sort of like balance between sometimes these people fuck
(28:04):
up and also, vaccines are good. This is not a
problem that requires us to like fly through the pin
of a needle. We do have to have a little
bit of I don't know, it's not that difficult of
a problem to deal with, but but the way that
the authority is construed has created a sort of backlash
to it that has been used to sort of delegitimate, genuine,
useful expertise and create sort of like false expertise.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, and that's exactly the points I was going to
make to the institution of authority and the fact that
authorities so frequently, you know, mess up and so frequently
like abuse the trust of people, increase the sense of mistrust,
a rightful and valid mistrust in authorities that it can
often be misdirected or exploited towards ends that are not
necessarily equivalent. So, because these people in public health positions
(28:51):
are tied up with the government, people already don't trust
any legitimate expertise that they may have gets solid essentially
by that person of authority, poisoned by their association with
a government that has clearly proven itself to not have
the best interests of people in mind. All right, So,
(29:20):
just to get back to the definition again, anarchism as
a political philosophy and practice that opposes all authority along
with its justifying dogmas, and proposes the unending pursuit of anarchy,
a world without rule, where self determination, free association, and
mutuality form the basis of our society. So, I mean,
I've spoken a bit about that. Those justified dogmas came
(29:42):
at Stromsky a little bit, and we spoke about how
that's sort of incoherent because every ideology opposes unjust hierarchies.
So I think it's important that anarchism calls out all
the justifications. I'm sure you could think of some of
the main justifications that tend to be used. One of
the oldest justifications is, of course, the divine rights of kings.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah, that one's mostly been broken. Hopefully we don't have
to deal with that shit any war. But I you know,
I don't know, I have I have eternal cynicism.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
I don't know. Maybe the maybe the American people you
in for the Trump dynasty, Yeah, we're going to create
their god king. Oh yeah, as imperial presidency. But yeah,
I mean in more liberal circles, the justification for authority
is usually the social contract theory that individuals implicitly consent
to authority. But I don't know about umia. Nobody asked
(30:35):
for my consent, and also I don't have any way
of relinquishing my consent. Yeah, so is it really consensual?
Speaker 2 (30:43):
No, Like some some fucking assholes at Philadelphia like two
hundred years ago were like, we're going to set up
a thing, and also slavery is good.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
It's like, really, like, what do we doing here?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
How?
Speaker 3 (30:57):
What meaningful way did I agree to this?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah? Exactly. And it's not like I can step out
of it. I mean, you hold the monopoly on literally
every inch of territory on earth, some stately some claim
to some part of the world. There's no escape, So
it's not a contract that you can opt out of.
You know. You know. Another justification that authorities tend to
use as an idea of meritocracy and economic darwin itsell
(31:22):
that the best of the best, they rise to the top,
that they are not really any systemic inequalities or structural barriers.
That this is a survival to the fittest, and the
fittest win, and the losers are losers, and they fail
because they're losers. That's a very cynical sort of take
that I don't think many people openly espouse outside of
like right wing circles, but it's definitely one of the
(31:45):
justifications for authority that gets used. Another one is also
in conservative circles, the idea of natural hierarchy. The idea
is that hierarchies are part of the natural ordel. You know,
people will use avolutionary biology or the just texts or
pseuo scientific claims to justify the inequality between genders or
races or classes. Colonial and imperialists Poulos, for example, would
(32:05):
justify their dominance by claim and cultural superiority. The these
ideas have the white man's buddhen and civilizing missions to
enforce the authority over other people's and their lands, and
that justification, while questioned and challenged to be, still is
at the basis at the root of almost every institution
in our modern rogue.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, it's something I think is going to become increasingly
visible in the US over the next few years, coming
out of a period where it was like slightly more offiscated.
But you know, all of the people who are about
to be coming into power, if you if you spend
like even the tiniest amount of time, you will see
them start talking about like fucking racial IQ shit, and
(32:48):
like all of this really pretty pretty explicit ideology that
they have that like of this sort of like racial
superiority that they think they have. That's like, you know,
there's like motivating ideological factor and also the thing of
the users sort of justify their power.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Yeah, it's unfortunately become in more and more open and
common and to see that sort of discourse on mainstream
platforms like Twitter. The necessity of order an efficiency tends
to also be used as a justification for authority, you know,
the idea that authority is needed to maintain order, to
(33:25):
keep things in place, to make decisions. And this is
really ignoring the capacity that people have already proven historically
and presently to organize cooperatively, to organize without authority, to
take on horizontal and decentralized approaches, because it's something that
is treating complexity as synonymous with hierarchy, that you have
(33:49):
to organize this way, you know, it ignores all the
inefficiencies hybureaucratic systems, It ignores all the harm caused by
authoritarian systems. That just says that you know, we need
this thing, these things function, but we don't.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
One of the weirder artifacts of the twenty tens was
David Raber had an argument with Pure Teel where like
they like did a debate and what a Raber's arguments
is like, well, what do you mean, like our technical
or technological systems mean that we have to organize society
in a way like it like it is is the
argument that you're making that technological possibility makes us less free.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
It's like, no, sucks, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And you know this is all people like who make
these arguments don't necessarily have an understanding of our systems.
The Internet is not organized by one central body. The
Internet is already fairly the yes centralized. It's become more
centralized upon platforms. But as an infrastructure, the Internet is
really a network of nodes that are all over the
(34:49):
world and all over space. Or we could take for example,
the International Postal system. All the mail that gets distributed
around the world internationally is one central global body that's
in charge of that. It's multiple organizations that coordinate their
activities to ensure that you know, you get your mail.
Or we look at even basic supply genes of goods
(35:12):
and resources, it's not all handled by one central industrial body.
It's not all handled by the government or by one corporation.
It's a set of relationships between groups, between companies, between
mining companies and resource exstruction companies, and shipping companies and
processing plants and factories and toys. All these networks already
(35:37):
not undertaken entirely by one central body. They may be
organized internally hierarchically, but that can very easily change. Finally,
final justification I want to get into is this idea
that that authority is the lesser evil. That authority might
be imperfect, but it's preferable to boost alternatives like total anarchy.
And of course some people say anarchy here that the
(35:58):
means in the pejorative sense, or mean like actual anarchy
in the sense of the political philosophy, means in the
sense of instead of having one central authority, they have
one to compete in authorityre in poem, it's a bunch
of warlow its fights in full power. That is not
anarchy in the sense of anarchists pursue that is, you know,
patsy authority fighting predominance, which is if you think about
(36:20):
really how historically states came in.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
To be in Yeah, I was like, what do you
think we have now, like, what do you think that
like one hundred and ninety something states are doing? Like
I I don't know, and I feel like a lot
of these arguments are just describing the current state of
affairs and going well, it could be like that. It's like, oh,
what if how would like communes deal with war? It's
like when't the Communists are going to war with each other?
(36:44):
It's like, well, okay, like what look at the world
right now and ask yourself the question, how are states
dealing with the problem of war?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
And the answer is they're dealing with a problem of
war by going to war with each other? Like what
are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Exactly? Exactly. So the more positive side of the definition
of anarchy is one that I haven't quite gotten into yet,
and I haven't broken down the ideas of mutuality and
free association. But I'll save all that for the next episode.
If you can't wait until then, my videos on how
anarchy works and what ANARCHI needs should whet your appetite.
(37:18):
But until then, I've an Andrew sage. You can find
our YouTube at Andrewism and feature not seeing true this
is it could happen here the show where we chronicle
collapse as it happens and explore how do I build
a better future, and in my case ocasion, I take
a look at the past as well. And that's it.
All power to all the people.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
You listen to podcasts, you can now find sources for
It could Happen Here. Listened directly in episode descriptions. Thanks
for listening.
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