A.2.8 Is it possible to be an anarchist without opposing hierarchy?

No. We have seen that anarchists abhor authoritarianism. But if one is an anti-authoritarian, one must oppose all hierarchical institutions, since they embody the principle of authority. For, as Emma Goldman argued, “it is not only government in the sense of the state which is destructive of every individual value and quality. It is the whole complex authority and institutional domination which strangles life. It is the superstition, myth, pretence, evasions, and subservience which support authority and institutional domination.” [Red Emma Speaks, p. 435] This means that “there is and will always be a need to discover and overcome structures of hierarchy, authority and domination and constraints on freedom: slavery, wage-slavery [i.e. capitalism], racism, sexism, authoritarian schools, etc.” [Noam Chomsky, Language and Politics, p. 364]

Thus the consistent anarchist must oppose hierarchical relationships as well as the state. Whether economic, social or political, to be an anarchist means to oppose hierarchy. The argument for this (if anybody needs one) is as follows:

“All authoritarian institutions are organised as pyramids: the state, the private or public corporation, the army, the police, the church, the university, the hospital: they are all pyramidal structures with a small group of decision-makers at the top and a broad base of people whose decisions are made for them at the bottom. Anarchism does not demand the changing of labels on the layers, it doesn’t want different people on top, it wants us to clamber out from underneath.” [Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action, p. 22]

Hierarchies “share a common feature: they are organised systems of command and obedience” and so anarchists seek “to eliminate hierarchy per se, not simply replace one form of hierarchy with another.” [Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom, p. 27] A hierarchy is a pyramidally-structured organisation composed of a series of grades, ranks, or offices of increasing power, prestige, and (usually) remuneration. Scholars who have investigated the hierarchical form have found that the two primary principles it embodies are domination and exploitation. For example, in his classic article “What Do Bosses Do?” (Review of Radical Political Economy, Vol. 6, No. 2), a study of the modern factory, Steven Marglin found that the main function of the corporate hierarchy is not greater productive efficiency (as capitalists claim), but greater control over workers, the purpose of such control being more effective exploitation.

Control in a hierarchy is maintained by coercion, that is, by the threat of negative sanctions of one kind or another: physical, economic, psychological, social, etc. Such control, including the repression of dissent and rebellion, therefore necessitates centralisation: a set of power relations in which the greatest control is exercised by the few at the top (particularly the head of the organisation), while those in the middle ranks have much less control and the many at the bottom have virtually none.

Since domination, coercion, and centralisation are essential features of authoritarianism, and as those features are embodied in hierarchies, all hierarchical institutions are authoritarian. Moreover, for anarchists, any organisation marked by hierarchy, centralism and authoritarianism is state-like, or “statist.” And as anarchists oppose both the state and authoritarian relations, anyone who does not seek to dismantle all forms of hierarchy cannot be called an anarchist. This applies to capitalist firms. As Noam Chomsky points out, the structure of the capitalist firm is extremely hierarchical, indeed fascist, in nature:

“a fascist system… [is] absolutist — power goes from top down … the ideal state is top down control with the public essentially following orders. “Let’s take a look at a corporation… [I]f you look at what they are, power goes strictly top down, from the board of directors to managers to lower managers to ultimately the people on the shop floor, typing messages, and so on. There’s no flow of power or planning from the bottom up. People can disrupt and make suggestions, but the same is true of a slave society. The structure of power is linear, from the top down.” [Keeping the Rabble in Line, p. 237]

David Deleon indicates these similarities between the company and the state well when he writes:

“Most factories are like military dictatorships. Those at the bottom are privates, the supervisors are sergeants, and on up through the hierarchy. The organisation can dictate everything from our clothing and hair style to how we spend a large portion of our lives, during work. It can compel overtime; it can require us to see a company doctor if we have a medical complaint; it can forbid us free time to engage in political activity; it can suppress freedom of speech, press and assembly — it can use ID cards and armed security police, along with closed-circuit TVs to watch us; it can punish dissenters with ‘disciplinary layoffs’ (as GM calls them), or it can fire us. We are forced, by circumstances, to accept much of this, or join the millions of unemployed… In almost every job, we have only the ‘right’ to quit. Major decisions are made at the top and we are expected to obey, whether we work in an ivory tower or a mine shaft.” [“For Democracy Where We Work: A rationale for social self-management”, Reinventing Anarchy, Again, Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.), pp. 193–4]

Thus the consistent anarchist must oppose hierarchy in all its forms, including the capitalist firm. Not to do so is to support archy — which an anarchist, by definition, cannot do. In other words, for anarchists, ”[p]romises to obey, contracts of (wage) slavery, agreements requiring the acceptance of a subordinate status, are all illegitimate because they do restrict and restrain individual autonomy.” [Robert Graham, “The Anarchist Contract, Reinventing Anarchy, Again, Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.), p. 77] Hierarchy, therefore, is against the basic principles which drive anarchism. It denies what makes us human and “divest[s] the personality of its most integral traits; it denies the very notion that the individual is competent to deal not only with the management of his or her personal life but with its most important context: the social context.” [Murray Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 202]

Some argue that as long as an association is voluntary, whether it has a hierarchical structure is irrelevant. Anarchists disagree. This is for two reasons. Firstly, under capitalism workers are driven by economic necessity to sell their labour (and so liberty) to those who own the means of life. This process re-enforces the economic conditions workers face by creating “massive disparities in wealth … [as] workers… sell their labour to the capitalist at a price which does not reflect its real value.” Therefore:

“To portray the parties to an employment contract, for example, as free and equal to each other is to ignore the serious inequality of bargaining power which exists between the worker and the employer. To then go on to portray the relationship of subordination and exploitation which naturally results as the epitome of freedom is to make a mockery of both individual liberty and social justice.” [Robert Graham, Op. Cit., p. 70]

It is for this reason that anarchists support collective action and organisation: it increases the bargaining power of working people and allows them to assert their autonomy (see section J).

Secondly, if we take the key element as being whether an association is voluntary or not we would have to argue that the current state system must be considered as “anarchy.” In a modern democracy no one forces an individual to live in a specific state. We are free to leave and go somewhere else. By ignoring the hierarchical nature of an association, you can end up supporting organisations based upon the denial of freedom (including capitalist companies, the armed forces, states even) all because they are “voluntary.” As Bob Black argues, ”[t]o demonise state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst.” [The Libertarian as Conservative, The Abolition of Work and other essays, p. 142] Anarchy is more than being free to pick a master.

Therefore opposition to hierarchy is a key anarchist position, otherwise you just become a “voluntary archist” — which is hardly anarchistic. For more on this see section A.2.14 ( Why is voluntarism not enough?).

Anarchists argue that organisations do not need to be hierarchical, they can be based upon co-operation between equals who manage their own affairs directly. In this way we can do without hierarchical structures (i.e. the delegation of power in the hands of a few). Only when an association is self-managed by its members can it be considered truly anarchistic.

We are sorry to belabour this point, but some capitalist apologists, apparently wanting to appropriate the “anarchist” name because of its association with freedom, have recently claimed that one can be both a capitalist and an anarchist at the same time (as in so-called “anarcho” capitalism). It should now be clear that since capitalism is based on hierarchy (not to mention statism and exploitation), “anarcho”-capitalism is a contradiction in terms. (For more on this, see Section F)

Hello there, I am messaging to ask you to promote an initiative that directly saves Palestinian lives. It is called Operation Olive Branch, which is a collective effort that verifies and compiles the funding campaigns of Palestinians in Gaza who need funds to support their wellbeing. Many of these involve needing money to cross the Egyptian border, afford living necessities and to get urgent healthcare for vulnerable family members. There are families with pregnant women, infants, elderly, sick, and Gazan heroes who are all in dire need of assistance. Since these efforts rely entirely on donations, spreading awareness to the Pro-Palestinian community is invaluable to this initiative. This is incredibly urgent given the possibility of the Egypt border closing and Israel threatening to cut Palestinians off from global banking. Please act immediately. More information and the spreadsheet for all the families in need of help can be found on operationolivebranch.org Thank you so much for your time, and all of your hard work in this movement.

They have links to all their social media accounts on their website, which is currently being built. This is their instagram page:

I have stumbled across Operation Olive Branch a few times here. For folks who are able to support and share please do -this can help immensely. This is an incredibly extensive spreadsheet you can access on their page with donation/gofundme and respective social media links for the families/people organizing:

I will post as many donation links as I can from now on from Operation Olive Branch. Thank you, again, for sharing this here. And as always, Free Palestine.

“We are just two months away from our 25th birthday. That’s right: twenty-five freaking YEARS of creating and providing queer, radical, inclusive, accurate, and accessible sex ed, which we hope to continue doing for many years into the future!

With that in mind, we're delighted to introduce you to our epic raffle! Thanks to a collection of truly awesome people, and 60+ prizes they’ve generously donated, we are able to offer a raffle quadruple the size of last year’s. 

Each week has a different theme based on the prizes being offered that week. Ticket sales open when prizes are announced each Monday at 8 AM PST and close when winners are drawn each following Sunday at 8 PM PST. This first week’s theme is: sexy!

Tickets start at just $5 for prizes worth up to $300, in weeks one to three. In our fourth - and fanciest - week, tickets start at $10, for big ticket items worth up to $750 and beyond. Prizes include national or international shipping unless the listing states otherwise.

We also have deals on multi-ticket purchases open to everyone, and a ‘buy one get one’ deal on up to 5 tickets, open to all new and existing recurring donors.

A generous donor has agreed to match any funds we raise over the course of the next for weeks for up to $5,000

Read on to see the prizes for this week! Or check out the whole list here!

Mainstream news is barely covering this, but Borikén (puerto rico by its colonial name) was hard hit by hurricane Fiona yesterday.

As my friends reach out despite widespread power outages, they’re sharing that flooding is happening where water didn’t even reach during Maria.

Grass roots organizations need our support right now, but for those of us showing solidarity from overseas it can be hard to find the right places to donate. During Maria in 2017 literally thousands died, not just as a result to unequal exposure to the natural disasters of climate crisis and instability, but even more so due to the US government’s colonialism and negligence and the incompetency and corruption of the Puerto Rican government.

DO NOT give money to the government or organizations closely working with it unless you want aid materials to rot in a shipping container. Or to buy people KitKat bars. Here are some alternatives I and my close friends trust:

Taller Salud

https://www.tallersalud.com

Comedores Sociales de Puerto Rico

https://www.comedoressocialespr.org/aportar

Pro-Techos

https://protechos.org/es/donate/

Brigada Solidaria del Oeste

https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/co-conspirators/brigada-solidaria-del-oeste/?doing_wp_cron=1663304559.420053958892822265625O

La Code, Parceleras AfroCaribeñas

https://www.parcelerasafrocaribenas.org/donate

Proyecto Agroecológico Campesino

https://instagram.com/proyectoagroecologicocampesino?igshid=YzA2ZDJiZGQ=

El Hangar en Santurce

https://instagram.com/elhangarensanturce?

igshid=YzA2ZDJiZGQ=

Finally here is La Colmena Cimarrona, an Agro ecological farm working towards food sovereignty and collective land ownership in Vieques. They need some resources and financial support after the hurricane, so feel free to pitch in to their work, which will address both short term relief and long term survival strategies. https://www.hasercambio.org/colmena-cimarrona/

Hope this helps some of you direct your support. Y Fuerza Borikén

SO YOU WANT TO HELP THE RAILWAY WORKERS: A CHECKLIST

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a news article.

This is a shitty, shitty situation, and unfortunately we're in a position where all we can do is make it less shitty. BUT. WE HAVE THE POWER TO DO THAT.

Grab that phone and your unlimited data plan, because we're about to flood some phone lines, babes. Start by texting "Sign PZPAKG" to 50409 to sign the action letter written by Resistbot. Once you've done that, reblog this post (if I see more likes than reblogs on this post I'm gonna shit lead) because there are links in here and Tumblr search will eat it, and this will only work if we get a ton of eyeballs on it.

First, you'll want this link, which lists all 100 State Senators. (If you live in Massachussetts or Rhode Island, skip down to "Ready to do more?" Don't call your Senators yet.) Yes, I'm aware this webpage looks like it was made in 2006, I'm extremely sorry (your tax dollars at work), but you do what you gotta. You're going to start by looking up the Senators from your state. This site will direct you to their official webpages. Look for "locations," not "contact," because most of them use email contact forms as a first line of contact these days. You want phone numbers. You should find at least two--one in Washington, DC and one in your state's capitol. (Some may have more than one in-state. I know here in AZ Kelly and Sinema have both a Phoenix and Tucscon office, and Kelly also has one on the Navajo Nation.)

Pick one, it doesn't matter which. Call it. You may get either a staffer or a voicemail. (If it's voicemail, listen carefully to the prompts. If it says voicemail is full, go back and try the other phone number.) Staffers are pretty friendly, but can occasionally seem a little disconnected or brusque. If that's the case, it is not you--your call's probably been routed through a switchboard and they're experiencing lag. Don't worry about it, just say your bit.

HERE IS THE SCRIPT I USED THIS MORNING: "My name is [legal name] and I'm a constituent of Senator [name]'s from [my town]. I'm calling in support of the railway unions in light of this frankly extremely bad deal they're being asked to accept. If railway workers are so important to our economy that Congress can get involved, then they're important enough to deserve paid sick time. I'd like to encourage the Senator to vote NO on any bill that doesn't provide railway union workers with at least seven days of paid sick time."

Total time elapsed for me doing this: about five minutes.

OKAY. READY TO DO MORE? Some Senators have already signed an open letter saying they're in support of providing sick time to railway union members. Those Senators are Bernie Sanders from Vermont, Kirsten Gillibrand from New York, Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin, Cory Booker from New Jersey, Sherrod Brown from Ohio, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley from Oregon, Alex Padilla from Callifornia, and Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island. Give them a call next. HERE'S THE SCRIPT I'VE BEEN USING: "My name is [legal name]. I'm actually an Arizona resident, but I wanted to thank Senator [name] for supporting sick time for railway union members. I was really disappointed to hear President Biden basically decided to get involved in union-busting and I'm glad to hear the Senator is on labor's side. Please encourage them to stay the course and get that sick leave pushed through." If you're from Massachusetts or Rhode Island, feel free to say something about how you're glad your state is standing up for labor when you're calling your own Senators on that list. You can say that to any Senator on this list if they happen to be yours, obviously, it's just definitely got even more of an impact if you're already a constituent.

OKAY. WANT TO KEEP GOING?

I've got one more assignment for you. This is the list of committee members for the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. There are ten of them and some of them overlap with phone calls you've already made, so you're almost done. If you look at the script below and then look at the committee members and go "you think Republicans give a shit about this?," I am begging you to at least call Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney. Yes, the majority of the Republican Party is a nuclear trashfire. Yes, they're Republicans. But if you said "Nina, you have to go to dinner with six Senate members and three of them have to be Republicans," my picks would be Murkowski, Romney, and Liz Cheney. We might actually be able to make a dent in Murkowski and Romney if we try hard enough, and yes, "try" is important here. Fuck Yoda and his do-or-do-not bullshit, if activists in this country only went for sure things we'd still have chattel slavery and no votes for women. YOU GOTTA GET UP AND TRY.

SO HERE'S YOUR SCRIPT FOR THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS.

"My name is [name]. I'm calling because Senator [name] is a member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. I'd like to encourage him/her as a Committee member to lead by example in this current situation with the railway unions, and vote NO on any bill that does not provide railway workers with at least seven days of paid sick leave. I'm sure Senator [name]'s position on this committee has given them plenty of examples to know a healthy and organized labor force is far better for our economy than a sick and demoralized one."

GO BLOW UP THE PHONE LINES LIKE YOU'RE GUY FAWKES UNDER PARLIAMENT. The railway workers have had our backs all through Covid. It's high time we had theirs.

There are a lot of celebrities I love that I slowly lose respect for every day that goes by that they continue to (publicly) act oblivious to the weight they could hold against countless humanitarian atrocities going on all around us.

I’ve never been subject to mass public scrutiny the way famous people are but I know full well that the absolutely obscene amounts of money should more than make up for this occupational stress.

Bc it really gets to me that I can’t even hold a steady income or afford adequate healthcare/treatment for disability & chronic illness, yet I still feel sick-to-my-stomach guilt every 5-10 minutes just wishing I could do more.

Meanwhile rich people are like….exploring space and the deep sea for fun. launching cute new product lines and doing silly fun promos. traveling across the world and back real quick in their private jets. Certainly NOT feeling sick 24/7 wishing they could do more. Because they can absolutely do so much more but they don’t. And if it meant enough to them, they would. Period.

*dramatic trailer announcement voice* in a world of capitalism…and consumerist side hustles…one man thinks outside the box…

*record needle scratch*

alrighty ima start knitting *cutesy slice of life music followed by a montage of a knitting machine working*

Fr tho I’m so hyped about this

love a coupe

Aspen, Colorado 1982

Grass-Roots Telethon (Community Television, Channel 12)

Photograph by Nick DeWolf https://www.flickr.com/photos/dboo/23205482403

A.2.4 Are anarchists in favour of “absolute” liberty?

No. Anarchists do not believe that everyone should be able to “do whatever they like,” because some actions invariably involve the denial of the liberty of others.

For example, anarchists do not support the “freedom” to rape, to exploit, or to coerce others. Neither do we tolerate authority. On the contrary, since authority is a threat to liberty, equality, and solidarity (not to mention human dignity), anarchists recognise the need to resist and overthrow it.

The exercise of authority is not freedom. No one has a “right” to rule others. As Malatesta points out, anarchism supports “freedom for everybody … with the only limit of the equal freedom for others; which does not mean … that we recognise, and wish to respect, the ‘freedom’ to exploit, to oppress, to command, which is oppression and certainly not freedom.” [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 53]

In a capitalist society, resistance to all forms of hierarchical authority is the mark of a free person — be it private (the boss) or public (the state). As Henry David Thoreau pointed out in his essay on “Civil Disobedience” (1847)

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”

Hey everyone !! please read

I am breaking my tumblr hiatus to bring attention to something really important to my family. A family friend is in need of a kidney transplant, and Lebanon is facing its worst economic crisis and their hospitals aren't the most affordable either..

It is costing 11,000USD / 17,000 AUD for a kidney transplant

Any help is appreciated, any amount, even a reblog. I really hope this post reaches some kind souls and makes a difference to Hussein's life.

Thank youu <3

the real question is could the Grassroots be able to solve a math problem amongst themselves or would they still get it wrong

In today’s episode, Ariel chats with Heather MacKenzie, Executive Director of Solar Alberta, about transitioning to renewable energy deep in the heart of oil and gas country - in a just and sustainable way. Join us to learn about the history of the Solar Alberta organization, from its grassroots beginnings in neighbourhood solar projects, to dealing with (government-funded!) trolls online, all the way up to being the leading non-profit solar organization in Alberta and providing worker upskilling in a unique market.

You can go to https://solaralberta.ca to learn more, or connect with and follow them on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Connect with Solarpunk Magazine at solarpunkmagazine.com and on Twitter @solarpunklitmag

Connect with Solarpunk Presents Podcast on Twitter @SolarpunkP, Mastodon @[email protected], or at our blog https://solarpunkpresents.com/

Connect with Ariel at her blog, on Twitter at @arielletje, and on Mastodon @[email protected]

Connect with Christina at her blog, on Twitter @xtinadlr, and on Mastodon @[email protected]

Please share far and wide.

My body has never felt more damaged after a rugby game like it has today.

But kicked a little cheeky conversion and came away with a 65-10 win 🏆😄

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