Section J - What do anarchists do?

J.1 Are anarchists involved in social struggles?
	J.1.1 Why are social struggles important?
	J.1.2 Are anarchists against reforms?
	J.1.3 Why are anarchists against reformism?
	J.1.4 What attitude do anarchists take to "single-issue" campaigns?
	J.1.5 Why do anarchists try to generalise social struggles?

J.2 What is direct action?
	J.2.1  Why do anarchists favour using direct action to change things?
	J.2.2  Why do anarchists reject voting as a means for change?
	J.2.3  What are the political implications of voting?
	J.2.4  Surely voting for radical parties will be effective?
	J.2.5  Why do anarchists support abstentionism and what are its
	       implications?
	J.2.6  What are the effects of radicals using electioneering?
	J.2.7  Surely we should vote for reformist parties in order to show 
	       them up for what they are?
	J.2.8  Will abstentionism lead to the right winning elections?
	J.2.9  What do anarchists do instead of voting?
	J.2.10 Does rejecting electioneering mean that anarchists are 
	       apolitical?

J.3 What forms of organisation do anarchists build?
	J.3.1 What are affinity groups?
	J.3.2 What are "synthesis" federations?
	J.3.3 What is the "Platform"?
	J.3.4	Why do many anarchists oppose the "Platform"?
	J.3.5	Are there other kinds of anarchist federation?
	J.3.6 What role do these groups play in anarchist theory?
	J.3.7 Doesn't Bakunin's "Invisible Dictatorship" prove that 
		anarchists are secret authoritarians?
	J.3.8 What is anarcho-syndicalism?
	J.3.9 Why are many anarchists not anarcho-syndicalists?

J.4 What trends in society aid anarchist activity?
	J.4.1 Why is social struggle a good sign?
	J.4.2	Won't social struggle do more harm than good?
	J.4.3 Are the new social movements a positive development
		for anarchists?
	J.4.4 What is the "economic structural crisis"?
	J.4.5	Why is this "economic structural crisis" important 
		to social struggle?
	J.4.6 What are implications of anti-government and 
		anti-big business feelings?
	J.4.7 What about the communications revolution?
	J.4.8 What is the significance of the accelerating rate 
		of change and the information explosion?
	J.4.9 What are Netwars?

J.5 What alternative social organisations do anarchists create?
	J.5.1  What is community unionism?
	J.5.2  Why do anarchists support industrial unionism?
	J.5.3  What attitude do anarchists take to existing unions?
	J.5.4  What are industrial networks?
	J.5.5  What forms of co-operative credit do anarchists support?
	J.5.6  What are the key features of mutual credit schemes?
	J.5.7  Do most anarchists think mutual credit is sufficient to abolish
	       capitalism?
	J.5.8  What would a modern system of mutual banking look like? 
	J.5.9  How does mutual credit work?
	J.5.10 Why do anarchists support co-operatives?
	J.5.11 If workers really want self-management, why aren't there more
	       producer co-operatives? 
	J.5.12 If self-management is more efficient, surely capitalist firms 
	       will be forced to introduce it by the market?
	J.5.13 What are Modern Schools?
	J.5.14 What is Libertarian Municipalism?
	J.5.15 What attitude do anarchists take to the welfare state?
	J.5.16 Are there any historical examples of collective self-help?

J.6 What methods of child rearing do anarchists advocate?
	J.6.1 What are the main principles of raising free children and 
	      the main obstacles to implementing those principles?
	J.6.2 What are some examples of libertarian child-rearing methods
	      applied to the care of newborn infants?
	J.6.3 What are some examples of libertarian child-rearing methods
	      applied to the care of young children? 
	J.6.4 If children have nothing to fear, how can they be good? 
	J.6.5 But how can children learn *morality* if they are not given
	      punishments, prohibitions, and religious instruction?  
	J.6.6 But how will a free child ever learn unselfishness?
	J.6.7 Isn't what you call "libertarian child-rearing" just another 
	      name for spoiling the child?
	J.6.8 What is the anarchist position on teenage sexual liberation? 
	J.6.9 But isn't this concern with teenage sexual liberation just a 
	      distraction from  issues that should be of more concern to 
	      anarchists, like restructuring the economy?

J.7 What do anarchists mean by "social revolution"?
	J.7.1 Are all anarchists revolutionaries?
	J.7.2 Is social revolution possible? 
	J.7.3 Doesn't revolution mean violence?
	J.7.4 What would a social revolution involve?
	J.7.5 What is the role of anarchists in a social revolution?
	J.7.6 How could an anarchist revolution defend itself?

Section J - What do anarchists do?

This section discusses what anarchists get up to. There is little point
thinking about the world unless you also want to change it for the better.
And by trying to change it, you change yourself and others, making radical
change more of a possibility. Therefore anarchists give their whole-hearted 
support to attempts by ordinary people to improve their lives by their 
own actions. As Max Stirner pointed out, "The true man does not lie in 
the future, an object of longing, but lies, existent and real, in the
present." [_The Ego and Its Own_, p. 327]

For anarchists, the future is *already appearing in the present* and is
expressed by the autonomy of working class self-activity. Anarchy is
not some-day-to-be-achieved utopia, it is a living reality whose growth
only needs to be freed from constraint. As such anarchist activity 
is about discovering and aiding emerging trends of mutual aid which
work against capitalist domination (i.e. what is actually developing), 
so the Anarchist "studies society and tries to discover its *tendencies*, 
past and present, its growing needs, intellectual and economic, and in 
his [or her] ideal he merely points out in which direction evolution 
goes." [Peter Kropotkin, _Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets_, p. 47] 

The kinds of activity outlined in this section are a general overview
of anarchist work. It is by no means exclusive as we are sure to have
left something out. However, the key aspect of *real* anarchist
activity is *direct action* - self-activity, self-help, self-liberation 
and solidarity. Such activity may be done by individuals (for example, 
propaganda work), but usually anarchists emphasis collective activity. This 
is because most of our problems are of a social nature, meaning that their 
solutions can only be worked on collectively. Individual solutions to 
social problems are doomed to failure (for example green consumerism). 

In addition, collective action gets us used to working together, promoting 
the experience of self-management and building organisations that will allow
us to activity manage our own affairs. Also, and we would like to emphasis 
this, it's *fun* to get together with other people and work with them, 
it's fulfilling and empowering.

Anarchists do not ask those in power to give up that power. No, they
promote forms of activity and organisation by which all the oppressed
can liberate themselves by their own hands. In other words, we do not
think that those in power will altruistically give up that power or
their privileges. Instead, the oppressed must take the power *back*
into their own hands by their own actions. We must free ourselves,
no one else can do it for use.

As we have noted before, anarchism is more than just a critique of statism
and capitalism or a vision of a freer, better way of life. It is first and
foremost a movement, the movement of working class people attempting to 
change the world. Therefore the kind of activity we discuss in this 
section of the FAQ forms the bridge between capitalism and anarchy. By 
self-activity and direct action, people can change both themselves and 
their surroundings. They develop within themselves the mental, ethical and 
spiritual qualities which can make an anarchist society a viable option. 

As Noam Chomsky argues: 

"Only through their own struggle for liberation will ordinary people 
come to comprehend their true nature, suppressed and distorted within 
institutional structures designed to assure obedience and subordination. 
Only in this way will people develop more humane ethical standards, 'a 
new sense of right', 'the consciousness of their strength and their 
importance as a social factor in the life of their time' and their 
capacity to realise the strivings of their 'inmost nature.' Such direct
engagement in the work of social reconstruction is a prerequisite for
coming to perceive this 'inmost nature' and is the indispensable 
foundations upon which it can flourish." [preface to Rudolf Rocker's 
_Anarcho-Syndicalism_, p. viii]

In other words, anarchism is not primarily a vision of a better future, but 
the actual social movement which is fighting within the current unjust and 
unfree society for that better future and to improve things in the here and 
now. Without standing up for yourself and what you believe is right, nothing 
will change. Therefore anarchists would agree whole-heartedly with Frederick 
Douglass (an Abolitionist) who stated that:

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour 
freedom and yet deprecate agitation are people who want crops without plowing 
up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. That struggle 
might be a moral one; it might be a physical one; it might be both moral and 
physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. 
It never did and never will. People might not get all that they work for in 
this world, but they must certainly work for all they get." 

In this section of the FAQ we will discuss anarchist ideas on struggle, 
what anarchists actually (and, almost as importantly, do not) do in the
here and now and the sort of alternatives anarchists try to build within
statism and capitalism in order to destroy them. As well as a struggle 
against oppression, anarchist activity is also struggle for freedom. As 
well as fighting against material poverty, anarchists combat spiritual 
poverty. By resisting hierarchy we emphasis the importance of *living* 
and of *life as art.* By proclaiming "Neither Master nor Slave" we urge 
an ethical transformation, a transformation that will help create the 
possibility of a truly free society. 

This point was argued by Emma Goldman after she saw the defeat of the 
Russian Revolution by a combination of Leninist politics and capitalist 
armed intervention:

"the ethical values which the revolution is to establish must be 
*initiated* with the revolutionary activities. . . The latter can 
only serve as a real and dependable bridge to the better life if 
built of the same material as the life to be achieved" [_Red Emma 
Speaks_, p. 358]

In other words, anarchist activity is more than creating libertarian
alternatives and resisting hierarchy, it is about building the new
world in the shell of the old not only with regards to organisations
and self-activity, but also within the individual. It is about transforming
yourself while transforming the world - both processes obviously interacting
and supporting each other -- "the first aim of Anarchism is to assert and 
make the dignity of the individual human being." [Charlotte Wilson, _Three
Essays on Anarchism_, p. 17]

And by direct action, self-management and self-activity we can make the 
words first heard in Paris, 1968 a living reality:

				"All power to the imagination!"

Words, we are sure, the classic anarchists would have whole-heartedly
agreed with. There is a power in humans, a creative power, a power to alter 
what is into what should be. Anarchists try to create alternatives that will
allow that power to be expressed, the power of imagination.

In the sections that follow we will discuss the forms of self-activity and 
self-organisation (collective and individual) which anarchists think will 
stimulate and develop the imagination of those oppressed by hierarchy, build 
anarchy in action and help create a free society.

J.1 Are anarchists involved in social struggles?

Yes. Anarchism, above all else, is a movement which aims to not only
analyse the world but also to change it. Therefore anarchists aim to
participate in and encourage social struggle. Social struggle includes
strikes, marches, protests, demonstrations, boycotts, occupations and so
on. Such activities show that the "spirit of revolt" is alive and well,
that people are thinking and acting for themselves and against what
authorities want them to do. This, in the eyes of anarchists, plays a
key role in helping create the seeds of anarchy within capitalism.

Anarchists consider socialistic tendencies to develop within society, 
as people see the benefits of co-operation and particularly when mutual 
aid develops within the struggle against authority, oppression and
exploitation. Anarchism, as Kropotkin argues, "originated in everyday
struggles." [_Environment and Revolution_, p.58] Therefore, anarchists 
do not place anarchy abstractly against capitalism, but see it as a 
tendency within (and against) the system -- a tendency created by struggle
and which can be developed to such a degree that it can *replace* the 
dominant structures and social relationships with new, more liberatory 
and humane ones. This perspective indicates why anarchists are involved
in social struggles -- they are an expression of this tendency within but
against capitalism which can ultimately replace it. 

However, there is another reason why anarchists are involved in social 
struggle -- namely the fact that we are part of the oppressed and, 
like other oppressed people, fight for our freedom and to make our
life better in the here and now. It is not in some tomorrow that we
want to see the end of oppression, exploitation and hierarchy. It is
today, in our own life, that the anarchist wants to win our freedom,
or at the very least, to improve our situation, reduce oppression,
domination and exploitation as well as increasing individual liberty. 
We are aware that we often fail to do so, but the very process of 
struggle can help create a more libertarian aspect to society:

"Whatever may be the practical results of the struggle for immediate
gains, the greatest value lies in the struggle itself. For thereby
workers [and other oppressed sections of society] learn that the
bosses interests are opposed to theirs and that they cannot improve
their conditions, and much less emancipate themselves, except by
uniting and becoming stronger than the bosses. If they succeed in
getting what they demand, they will be better off: they will earn
more, work fewer hours and will have more time and energy to
reflect on the things that matter to them, and will immediately
make greater demands and have greater needs. If they do not
succeed they will be led to study the reasons of their failure
and recognise the need for closer unity and greater activity
and they will in the end understand that to make victory
secure and definite, it is necessary to destroy capitalism.
The revolutionary cause, the cause of moral elevation and
emancipation of the workers [and other oppressed sections of
society] must benefit by the fact that workers [and other
oppressed people] unite and struggle for their interests."
[Errico Malatesta, _Life and Ideas_, p. 191]

Therefore, "we as anarchists and workers, must incite and
encourage them [the workers and other oppressed people] to
struggle, and join them in their struggle." [Malatesta, 
Op. Cit., p. 190] This is for three reasons. Firstly, struggle 
helps generate libertarian ideas and movements which could 
help make existing society more anarchistic and less oppressive.
Secondly, struggle creates people, movements and organisations
which are libertarian in nature and which, potentially, can replace 
capitalism with a more humane society. Thirdly, because anarchists 
are part of the oppressed and so have an interest in taking part in
and showing solidarity with struggles and movements that can improve
our life in the here and now ("an injury to one is an injury to all").

As we will see later (in section J.2) anarchists encourage direct action
within social struggles as well as arguing anarchist ideas and theories.
However, what is important to note here is that social struggle is a sign 
that people are thinking and acting for themselves and working together to
change things. Anarchists agree with Howard Zinn when he points out that:

"civil disobedience. . . is *not* our problem. Our problem is civil
*obedience.* Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world
have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have
gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . .
Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face
of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our
problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty
thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country.
That's our problem." [_Failure to Quit_, p. 45]

Therefore, social struggle is an important thing for anarchists and we
take part in it as much as we can. Moreover, anarchists do more than 
just take part. We are fighting to get rid of the system that causes the
problems which people fight again. We explain anarchism to those who are
involved in struggle with us and seek to show the relevance of anarchism to 
people's everyday lives through our work in such struggles and the popular
organisations which they create (in addition to trade unions, campaigning 
groups and other bodies). By so doing we try to popularise the ideas and
methods of anarchism, namely solidarity, self-management and direct action.

Anarchists do not engage in abstract propaganda (become an anarchist, 
wait for the revolution -- if we did that, in Malatesta's words, "that
day would never come." [Op. Cit., p. 195]). We know that our ideas will 
only win a hearing and respect when we can show both their relevance to 
people's lives in the here and now, and show that an anarchist world is 
both possible and desirable. In other words, social struggle is the 
"school" of anarchism, the means by which people become anarchists and 
anarchist ideas are applied in action. Hence the importance of social 
struggle and anarchist participation within it.

Before discussing issues related to social struggle, it is important to
point out here that anarchists are interested in struggles against all
forms of oppression and do not limit ourselves to purely economic issues. 
The hierarchical and exploitative nature of the capitalist system is only 
part of the story -- other forms of oppression are needed in order to keep 
it going (such as those associated with the state) and have resulted from 
its workings (in addition to those inherited from previous hierarchical 
and class systems). Like the bug in work, domination, exploitation, hierarchy  
and oppression soon spreads and infests our homes, our friendships and our 
communities. They need to be fought everywhere, not just in work.

Therefore, anarchists are convinced that human life (and the struggle against
oppression) cannot be reduced to mere money and, indeed, the "proclivity
for economic reductionism is now actually obscurantist. It not only shares
in the bourgeois tendency to render material egotism and class interest
the centrepieces of history it also denigrates all attempts to transcend
this image of humanity as a mere economic being. . . by depicting them as
mere 'marginalia' at best, as 'well-intentioned middle-class ideology' at
worse, or sneeringly, as 'diversionary,' 'utopian,' and 'unrealistic.' . . .
Capitalism, to be sure, did not create the 'economy' or 'class interest,' 
but it subverted all human traits - be they speculative thought, love,
community, friendship, art, or self-governance - with the authority of
economic calculation and the rule of quantity. Its 'bottom line' is the
balance sheet's sum and its basic vocabulary consists of simple numbers."
[Murray Bookchin, _The Modern Crisis_, pp. 125-126]

In other words, issues such as freedom, justice, individual dignity, quality
of life and so on cannot be reduced to the categories of capitalist economics.
Anarchists think that any radical movement which does so fails to understand
the nature of the system they are fighting against. Indeed, economic
reductionism plays into the hands of capitalist ideology. So, when anarchists
take part in and encourage social struggle they do not aim to restrict or
reduce them to economic issues (however important these are). The anarchist
knows that the individual has more interests than just money and we consider
it essential to take into account the needs of the emotions, mind and spirit
just as much as those of the belly. Hence Bookchin:

"The class struggle does not centre around material exploitation alone
but also around spiritual exploitation. In addition, entirely new issues
emerge: coercive attitudes, the quality of work, ecology (or stated
in more general terms, psychological and environmental oppression). . .
Terms like 'classes' and 'class struggle,' conceived of almost entirely
as economic categories and relations, are too one-sided to express the
*universalisation* of the struggle. . . the target is still a ruling
class and a class society . . . but this terminology, with its
traditional connotations, does not reflect the sweep and the
multi-dimensional nature of the struggle . . . [and] fail to 
encompass the cultural and spiritual revolt that is taking place
along with the economic struggle." 

[. . . ]

"Exploitation, class rule and happiness, are the *particular* within the 
more *generalised* concepts of domination, hierarchy and pleasure." 
[_Post-Scarcity Anarchism_, pp.229-30 and p. 243]

As the anarchist character created by the science-fiction writer Ursula
Le Guin (who is an anarchist) points out, capitalists "think if people have
enough things they will be content to live in prison." [_The Dispossessed_,
p. 120] Anarchists disagree, and the experience of social revolt in the
"affluent" 1960s proves their case. 

This is unsurprising for, ultimately, the "antagonism [between classes] is 
spiritual rather than material. There will never be a sincere understanding 
between bosses and workers. . . because the bosses above all want to remain
bosses and secure always more power at the expense of the workers, as well 
as by competition with other bosses, whereas the workers have had their fill
of bosses and don't want any more." [Errico Malatesta, _Life and Ideas_,
p. 79]

J.1.1 Why are social struggles important?

Social struggle is an expression of the class struggle, namely the struggle 
of working class people *against* their exploitation, oppression and
alienation and *for* their liberty from capitalist and state authority.
It is what happens when one group of people have hierarchical power over
another. Where there is oppression, there is resistance and where there
is resistance to authority you will see anarchy in action. For this reason
anarchists are in favour of, and are involved within, social struggles.
Ultimately they are a sign of individuals asserting their autonomy and
disgust at an unfair system.

When it boils down to it, our actual freedom is not determined by the law
or by courts, but by the power the cop has over us in the street; the
judge behind him; by the authority of our boss if we are working; by the
power of teachers and heads of schools and universities if we are students; 
by the welfare bureaucracy if we are unemployed or poor; by landlords if we 
are tenants; by prison guards if we are in jail; by medical professionals if
we are in a hospital. These realities of wealth and power will remain unshaken
unless counter-forces appear on the very ground our liberty is restricted 
- on the street, in workplaces, at home, at school, in hospitals and so
on.

Therefore social struggles for improvements are important indications of
the spirit of revolt and of people supporting each other in the continual
assertion of their (and our) freedom. They show people standing up for
what they consider right and just, building alternative organisations,
creating their own solutions to their problems - and are a slap in the
face of all the paternal authorities which dare govern us. Hence their
importance to anarchists and all people interested in extending freedom.

In addition, social struggle helps break people from their hierarchical
conditioning. Anarchists view people not as fixed objects to be classified
and labelled, but as human beings engaged in making their own lives. They
live, love, think, feel, hope, dream, and can change themselves, their
environment and social relationships. Social struggle is the way this
is done collectively.

Struggle promotes attributes within people which are crushed by hierarchy 
(attributes such as imagination, organisational skills, self-assertion,
self-management, critical thought, self-confidence and so on) as people
come up against practical problems in their struggles and have to solve
them themselves. This builds self-confidence and an awareness of
individual and collective power. By seeing that their boss, the state
and so on are against them they begin to realise that they live in a
class ridden, hierarchical society that depends upon their submission
to work. As such, social struggle is a politicising experience.

Struggle allows those involved to develop their abilities for self-rule
through practice and so begins the process by which individuals assert
their ability to control their own lives and to participate in social 
life directly. These are all key elements of anarchism and are required 
for an anarchist society to work ("Self-management of the struggle comes 
first, then comes self-management of work and society," in the words of 
Alfredo Bonnano ["Self-Management", _Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed_, 
no. 48, Fall-Winter 1999-2000, p. 35-37, p. 35]). So self-activity is a 
key factor in self-liberation, self-education and the creating of 
anarchists. In a nutshell, people learn in struggle.

A confident working class is an essential factor in making successful
and libertarian improvements within the current system and, ultimately, 
in making a revolution. Without that self-confidence people tend to just
follow "leaders" and we end up changing rulers rather than changing
society.

Part of our job as anarchists is to encourage people to fight for
whatever small reforms are possible at present, to improve our/their
conditions, to give people confidence in their ability to start taking
control of their lives, and to point out that there is a limit to whatever
(sometimes temporary) gains capitalism will or can concede. Hence the 
need for a revolutionary change.

Until anarchist ideas are the dominant/most popular ones, other ideas will
be the majority ones. If we think a movement is, all things considered, a
positive or progressive one then we should not abstain but should seek to
popularise anarchist ideas and strategies within it. In this way we create
"schools of anarchy" within the current system and lay the foundations of
something better. Revolutionary tendencies and movements, in other words, 
must create the organisations that contain, in embryo, the society of
the future. These organisations, in turn, further the progress of radical
change by providing social spaces for the transformation of individuals
(via the use of direct action, practising self-management and solidarity,
and so on). Therefore, social struggle aids the creation of a free society
by accustoming the marginalised to govern themselves within self-managed
organisations and empowering the (officially) disempowered via the use
of direct action and mutual aid.

Hence the importance of social (or class) struggle for anarchists (which,
we may add, goes on all the time and is a two-sided affair). Social struggle
is the means of breaking the normality of capitalist and statist life, a
means of developing the awareness for social change and the means of
making life better under the current system. The moment that people refuse 
to bow to authority, its days are numbered. Social struggle indicates that
some of the oppressed see that by using their power of disobedience they
can challenge, perhaps eventually end, hierarchical power.

Ultimately, anarchy is not just something you believe in, it is not a cool 
label you affix to yourself, it is something you do. You participate. If you 
stop doing it, anarchy crumbles. Social struggle is the means by which we 
ensure that anarchy becomes stronger and grows.

J.1.2 Are anarchists against reforms?

No, we are not. While most anarchists are against reformism (namely the
notion that we can somehow reform capitalism and the state away) they 
are most definitely in favour of reforms (i.e. improvements in the here 
and now).

The claim that anarchists are against reforms and improvements in the here
and now are often put forth by opponents of anarchism in an effort to paint 
us as extremists. Anarchists are radicals; as such, they seek the root causes
of societal problems. Reformists seek to ameliorate the symptoms of societal
problems, while anarchists focus on the causes.

In the words of the revolutionary syndicalist Emile Pouget (who is 
referring to revolutionary/libertarian unions but whose words can be 
generalised to all social movements):

"Trade union endeavour has a double aim: with tireless persistence, it
must pursue betterment of the working class's current conditions. But,
without letting themselves become obsessed with this passing concern,
the workers should take care to make possible and imminent the 
essential act of comprehensive emancipation: the expropriation of
capital.

"At present, trade union action is designed to won partial and gradual
improvements which, far from constituting a goal, can only be considered
as a means of stepping up demands and wresting further improvements
from capitalism. . .

"This question of partial improvements served as the pretext for attempts
to sow discord in the trades associations. Politicians . . . have tried
to . . . stir up ill-feeling and to split the unions into two camps,
by categorising workers as reformists and as revolutionaries. The 
better to discredit the latter, they have dubbed them 'the advocates
of all or nothing' and the have falsely represented them as supposed
adversaries of improvements achievable right now.

"The most that can be said about this nonsense is that it is witless.
There is not a worker . . . who, on grounds of principle or for
reasons of tactics, would insist upon working tend hours for an
employer instead of eight hours, while earning six francs instead
of seven. . .

"What appears to afford some credence to such chicanery is the
fact that the unions, cured by the cruel lessons of experience
from all hope in government intervention, are justifiably 
mistrustful of it. They know that the State, whose function is
to act as capital's gendarme, is, by its very nature, inclined
to tip the scales in favour of the employer side. So, whenever
a reform is brought about by legal avenues, they do not fall
upon it with the relish of a frog devouring the red rag that 
conceals the hook, they greet it with all due caution, especially
as this reform is made effective only of the workers are
organised to insist forcefully upon its implementation.

"The trade unions are even more wary of gifts from the government
because they have often found these to be poison gifts. . .

"But, given that the trade unions look askance at the government's
benevolence towards them, it follows that they are loath to go
after partial improvements. Wanting real improvements . . . instead
of waiting until the government is generous enough to bestow them,
they wrest them in open battle, through direct action.

"If, as sometimes is the case, the improvement they seek is subject
to the law, the trade unions strive to obtain it through outside 
pressure brought to bear upon the authorities and not by trying
to return specially mandated deputies to Parliament, a puerile
pursuit that might drag on for centuries before there was a
majority in favour of the yearned-for reform.

"When the desired improvement is to be wrestled directly from the
capitalist, the trades associations resort to vigorous pressure
to convey their wishes. Their methods may well vary, although the
direct action principle underlies them all. . . 

"But, whatever the improvement won, it must always represent a
reduction in capitalist privileges and be a partial expropriation.
So . . . the fine distinction between 'reformist' and 'revolutionary'
evaporates and one is led to the conclusion that the only really
reformist workers are the revolutionary syndicalists." [_No Gods,
No Masters_, pp. 71-3]

By seeking improvements from below by direct action, solidarity and the 
organisation of those who directly suffer the injustice, anarchists can 
make reforms more substantial, effective and long lasting than "reforms" 
made from above by reformists. By recognising that the effectiveness of 
a reform is dependent on the power of the oppressed to resist those who 
would dominate them, anarchists seek change from the bottom-up and so make
reforms real rather than just words gathering dust in the law books. 

For example, a reformist sees poverty and looks at ways to lessen the
destructive and debilitating effects of it: this produced things like the
minimum wage, affirmative action, and the projects in the USA and similar
reforms in other countries. An anarchist looks at poverty and says, "what 
causes this?" and attacks that source of poverty, rather than the symptoms. 
While reformists may succeed in the short run with their institutional
panaceas, the festering problems remain untreated, dooming reform to
eventual costly, inevitable failure -- measured in human lives, no less. 
Like a quack that treats the symptoms of a disease without getting rid of 
what causes it, all the reformist can promise is short-term improvements 
for a condition that never goes away and may ultimately kill the sufferer.
The anarchist, like a real doctor, investigates the causes of the illness
and treats them while fighting the symptoms.

Therefore, anarchists are of the opinion that "[w]hile preaching against
every kind of government, and demanding complete freedom, we must support 
all struggles for partial freedom, because we are convinced that one learns 
through struggle, and that once one begins to enjoy a little freedom one
ends by wanting it all. We must always be with the people . . . [and] get
them to understand . . . [what] they may demand should be obtained
by their own efforts and that they should despise and detest whoever is
part of, or aspires to, government." [Errico Malatesta, _Life and Ideas_
p. 195]

Anarchists keep the spotlight on the actual problems, which of course
alienates them from their "distinguished" reformists foes. Reformists are
uniformly "reasonable" and always make use of "experts" who will make
everything okay - and they are always wrong in how they deal with a problem.

The recent "health care crisis" in the United States is a prime example of
reformism at work.

The reformist says, "how can we make health care more affordable to people? 
How can we keep those insurance rates down to levels people can pay?"

The anarchist says, "should health care be considered a privilege or
a right? Is medical care just another marketable commodity, or do living
beings have an inalienable right to it?"

Notice the difference? The reformist has no problem with people paying for
medical care -- business is business, right? The anarchist, on the other hand,
has a big problem with that attitude -- we are talking about human lives, 
here! For now, the reformists have won with their "managed care" reformism, 
which ensures that the insurance companies and medical industry continue to 
rake in record profits -- at the expense of people's lives. And, in the end,
the proposed reforms were defeated by the power of big business -- without
a social movement with radical aims such a result was a forgone conclusion.

Reformists get acutely uncomfortable when you talk about genuinely bringing
change to any system -- they don't see anything wrong with the system itself,
only with a few pesky side effects. In this sense, they are stewards of the
Establishment, and are agents of reaction, despite their altruistic
overtures. By failing to attack the sources of problems, and by hindering
those who do, they ensure that the problems at hand will only grow over
time, and not diminish.

So, anarchists are not opposed to struggles for reforms and improvements
in the here and now. Indeed, few anarchists think that an anarchist society 
will occur without a long period of anarchist activity encouraging and
working within social struggle against injustice. Thus Malatesta's words:

"the subject is not whether we accomplish Anarchism today, tomorrow or
within ten centuries, but that we walk towards Anarchism today, tomorrow
and always." ["Towards Anarchism,", _Man!_, M. Graham (Ed.), p. 75]

So, when fighting for improvements anarchists do so in an anarchist way,
one that encourages self-management, direct action and the creation of
libertarian solutions and alternatives to both capitalism and the state.

J.1.3 Why are anarchists against reformism?

Firstly, it must be pointed out that the struggle for reforms within
capitalism is *not* the same as reformism. Reformism is the idea
that reforms within capitalism are enough in themselves and attempts 
to change the system are impossible (and not desirable). As such all 
anarchists are against this form of reformism -- we think that the 
system can be (and should be) changed and until that happens any
reforms will not get to the root of social problems.

In addition, particularly in the old social democratic labour movement,
reformism also meant the belief that social reforms could be used to
*transform* capitalism into socialism. In this sense, only the Individualist
anarchists and Mutualists can be considered reformist as they think
their system of mutual banking can reform capitalism into a co-operative
system. However, in contrast to Social Democracy, such anarchists
think that such reforms cannot come about via government action, but
only by people creating their own alternatives and solutions by their
own actions.

So, anarchists oppose reformism because it takes the steam out of revolutionary
movements by providing easy, decidedly short-term "solutions" to deep social
problems. In this way, reformists can present the public with they've done
and say "look, all is better now. The system worked." Trouble is that over
time, the problems will only continue to grow, because the reforms did not
tackle them in the first place. To use Alexander Berkman's excellent
analogy:

"If you should carry out [the reformers] ideas in your personal
life, you would not have a rotten tooth that aches pulled out all
at once. You would have it pulled out a little to-day, some more
next week, for several months or years, and by then you would
be ready to pull it out altogether, so it should not hurt so much.
That is the logic of the reformer. Don't be 'too hasty,' don't
pull a bad tooth out all at once." [_What is Communist Anarchism?_, 
p. 53]

Rather than seek to change the root cause of the problems (namely in 
a hierarchical, oppressive and exploitative system), reformists try 
to make the symptoms better. In the words of Berkman again:

"Suppose a pipe burst in your house. You can put a bucket under the
break to catch the escaping water. You can keep on putting buckets
there, but as long as you do not mean the broken pipe, the leakage
will continue, no matter how much you may swear about it . . . the
leakage will continue until you repair the broken social pipe." 
[Op. Cit., p. 56]

What reformism fails to do is fix the underlying causes of the real
problems society faces. Therefore, reformists try to pass laws which
reduce the level of pollution rather than work to end a system in
which it makes economic sense to pollute. Or they pass laws to improve
working conditions and safety while failing to get rid of the wage
slavery which creates the bosses whose interests are served by them 
ignoring those laws and regulations. The list is endless. Ultimately,
reformism fails because reformists "believe in good faith that it is
possible to eliminate the existing social evils by recognising and
respecting, in practice if not in theory, the basic political and 
economic institutions which are the cause of, as well as the prop
that supports these evils." [Errico Malatesta, _Life and Ideas_, 
p. 82] 

Reformists, in other words, are like people who think that
treating the symptoms of, say, cholera is enough in and of itself.
In practice, of course, the causes that create the disease as well
as the disease itself must be combated before the symptoms will
disappear. While most people would recognise the truth of this in 
the case of medicine, fewer apply it to social problems. 

Revolutionaries, in contrast to reformists, fight both symptoms *and* 
the root causes. They recognise that as long as the cause of the evil
remains, any attempts to fight the symptoms, however necessary, will
never get to the root of the problem. There is no doubt that we have
to fight the symptoms, however revolutionaries recognise that this
struggle is not an end in itself and should be considered purely as
a means of increasing working class strength and social power within 
society until such time as capitalism and the state (i.e. the root
causes of most problems) can be abolished.

Reformists also tend to objectify the people whom they are "helping;" they 
envision them as helpless, formless masses who need the wisdom and guidance 
of the "best and the brightest" to lead them to the Promised Land. Reformists
mean well, but this is altruism borne of ignorance, which is destructive over
the long run. Freedom cannot be given and so any attempt to impose reforms
from above cannot help but ensure that people are treated as children,
incapable of making their own decisions and, ultimately, dependent on 
bureaucrats to govern them. This can be seen from public housing. As 
Colin Ward  argues, the "whole tragedy of publicly provided non-profit 
housing for rent and the evolution of this form of tenure in Britain is 
that the local authorities have simply taken over, though less flexibly, 
the role of the landlord, together with all the dependency and resentment 
that it engenders." [_Housing: An Anarchist Approach_, p. 184] This feature 
of reformism was skilfully used by the right-wing to undermine publicly 
supported housing and other aspects of the welfare state. The reformist 
social-democrats reaped what they had sown.

Reformism often amounts to little more than an altruistic contempt for 
the masses, who are considered as little more than victims who need to
be provided for by state. The idea that we may have our own visions of
what we want is ignored and replaced by the vision of the reformists
who enact legislation *for* us and make "reforms" from the top-down.
Little wonder such reforms can be counter-productive -- they cannot
grasp the complexity of life and the needs of those subject to them.

Reformists may mean well, but they do not grasp the larger picture -- by 
focusing exclusively on narrow aspects of a problem, they choose to believe 
that is the whole problem. In this wilfully narrow examination of pressing 
social ills, reformists are, more often than not, counter-productive. The 
disaster of the urban rebuilding projects in the United States (and similar 
projects in Britain which moved inter-city working class communities into 
edge of town developments during the 1950s and 1960s) are an example of 
reformism at work: upset at the growing slums, reformists supported 
projects that destroyed the ghettos and built brand-new housing for 
working class people to live in. They looked nice (initially), but 
they did nothing to address the problem of poverty and indeed created 
more problems by breaking up communities and neighbourhoods.

Logically, it makes no sense. Why dance around a problem when you can 
attack it directly? Reformists dilute social movements, softening and
weakening them over time. The AFL-CIO labour unions in the USA, like the
ones in Western Europe, killed the labour movement by narrowing and 
channelling labour activity and taking the power from the workers 
themselves, where it belongs, and placing it the hands of a bureaucracy. 
The British Labour Party, after over 100 years of reformist practice, 
has done little more than manage capitalism, seen most of its reforms
eliminated by right-wing governments (and by the following Labour 
government!) and the creation of a leadership of the party (in the 
shape of Tony Blair) which is in most ways as right-wing as the 
Conservative Party (if not more so). Bakunin would not have been 
surprised.

Reformists say, "don't do anything, we'll do it for you." You can see 
why anarchists would loathe this sentiment; anarchists are the consummate
do-it-yourselfers, and there's nothing reformists hate more than people 
who can take care of themselves, who will not let them "help" them.

Also, it is funny to hear left-wing "revolutionaries" and "radicals" put
forward the reformist line that the capitalist state can help working people
(indeed be used to abolish itself!). Despite the fact that leftists blame 
the state and capitalism for most of the problems we face, they usually
turn to the state (run primarily by rich - i.e. capitalist - people) to
remedy the situation, not by leaving people alone, but by becoming more
involved in people's lives. They support government housing, government
jobs, welfare, government-funded and regulated child care, government-funded
drug "treatment," and other government-centred programmes and activities. If
a capitalist (and racist/sexist/authoritarian) government is the problem, 
how can it be depended upon to change things to the benefit of working class
people or other oppressed sections of the population like blacks and women? 
Surely any reforms passed by the state will not solve the problem? As
Malatesta pointed out, "[g]overnments and the privileged classes are
naturally always guided by instincts of self-preservation, of 
consolidation and the development of their powers and privileges;
and when they consent to reforms it is either because they consider
that they will serve their ends or because they do not feel strong
enough to resist, and give in, fearing what might otherwise be a
worse alternative" (i.e. revolution) [Op. Cit., p. 81] Therefore,
reforms gained by direct action are of a different quality and
nature than reforms passed by reformist politicians -- these latter
will only serve the interests of the ruling class as they do not
threaten their privileges while the former have the potential of
real change.

Instead of encouraging working class people to organise themselves and
create their own alternatives and solutions to their problem (which can
supplement, and ultimately replace, whatever welfare state activity which 
is actually useful), reformists and other radicals urge people to get the 
state to act for them. However, the state is not the community and so
whatever the state does for people you can be sure it will be in *its*
interests, not theirs. As Kropotkin put it:

"We maintain that the State organisation, having been the force to
which the minorities resorted for establishing and organising their
power over the masses, cannot be the force which will serve to 
destroy these privileges . . . the economic and political liberation
of man will have to create new forms for its expression in life,
instead of those established by the State.

"Consequently, the chief aim of Anarchism is to awaken those
constructive powers of the labouring masses of the people which
at all great moments of history came forward to accomplish the
necessary changes . . .

"This is also why the Anarchists refuse to accept the functions of
legislators or servants of the State. We know that the social
revolution will not be accomplished by means of *laws.* Laws only
*follow* the accomplished facts . . . [and] remains a dead letter
so long as there are not on the spot the living forced required
for making of the *tendencies* expressed in the law an accomplished
*fact.*

"On the other hand . . . the Anarchists have always advised taking
an active part in those workers' organisations which carry on
the *direct* struggle of Labour against Capital and its protector,
-- the State.

"Such a struggle . . . better than any other indirect means, permits
the worker to obtain some temporary improvements in the present
conditions of work [and life in general], while it opens his [or
her] eyes to the evil that is done by Capitalism and the State
that supports it, and wakes up his thoughts concerning the
possibility of organising consumption, production, and exchange
without the intervention of the capitalist and the State." 
[_Environment and Evolution_, pp.82-3]

Therefore, while seeking reforms, anarchists are against reformism
and reformists. Reforms are not an end in themselves but rather a
means of changing society from the bottom-up and a step in that
direction:

"Each step towards economic freedom, each victory won over capitalism will
be at the same time a step towards political liberty -- towards liberation
from the yoke of the state. . . And each step towards taking from the
State any one of its powers and attributes will be helping the masses to
win a victory over capitalism." [Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 95]

However, no matter what, anarchists "will never recognise the institutions;
we will take or win all possible reforms with the same spirit that one
tears occupied territory from the enemy's grasp in order to keep advancing,
and we will always remain enemies of every government." Therefore, "[i]t 
is not true to say . . . [that anarchists] are systematically opposed to 
improvements, to reforms. They oppose the reformists on the one hand because 
their methods are less effective for securing reforms from government and 
employers, who only give in through fear, and because very often the 
reforms they prefer are those which not only bring doubtful immediate 
benefits, but also serve to consolidate the existing regime and to give 
the workers a vested interest in its continued existence." [_Life and Ideas_, 
p. 81 and p. 83]

Only by working class people, by their own actions and organisation, getting 
the state and capital out of the way can produce an improvement in their 
lives, indeed it is the only thing that will lead to *real* fundamental 
changes for the better. Encouraging people to rely on themselves instead 
of the state or capital can lead to self-sufficient, independent, and, 
hopefully, more rebellious people -- people who will rebel against the 
real evils in society (capitalist and statist exploitation and oppression, 
racism, sexism, ecological destruction, and so on) and not their neighbours.

Working class people, despite having fewer options in a number of areas in 
their lives, due both to hierarchy and restrictive laws, still are capable 
of making choices about their actions, organising their own lives and are 
responsible for the consequences of their decisions, just as other people 
are. To think otherwise is to infantilise them, to consider them less fully 
human than other people and reproduce the classic capitalist vision of
working class people as means of production, to be used, abused, and
discarded as required. Such thinking lays the basis for paternalistic
interventions in their lives by the state, ensuring their continued 
dependence and poverty and the continued existence of capitalism 
and the state.

Ultimately, there are two options:

"The oppressed either ask for and welcome improvements as a benefit
graciously conceded, recognise the legitimacy of the power which is over
them, and so do more harm than good by helping to slow down, or divert . . .
the processes of emancipation. Or instead they demand and impose improvements
by their action, and welcome them as partial victories over the class
enemy, using them as a spur to greater achievements, and thus a valid
help and a preparation to the total overthrow of privilege, that is,
for the revolution." [Errico Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 81]

Reformism encourages the first attitude within people and so ensures the
impoverishment of the human spirit. Anarchism encourages the second
attitude and so ensures the enrichment of humanity and the possibility
of meaningful change. Why think that ordinary people cannot arrange
their lives for themselves as well as Government people can arrange it
not for themselves but for others?

J.1.4 What attitude do anarchists take to "single-issue" campaigns?

Firstly, we must note that anarchists do take part in "single-issue"
campaigns, but do not nourish false hopes in them. This section
explains what anarchists think of such campaigns.

A "single-issue" campaign are usually run by a pressure group which
concentrates on tackling issues one at a time. For example, C.N.D.
(The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) is a classic example of
"single-issue" campaigning with the aim of getting rid of nuclear
weapons as the be all and end all of its activity. For anarchists,
however, single-issue campaigning can be seen as a source of false
hopes. The possibilities of changing one aspect of a totally
inter-related system and the belief that pressure groups can
compete fairly with transnational corporations, the military and
so forth, in their influence over decision making bodies can both
be seen to be optimistic at best.

In addition, many "single-issue" campaigns desire to be "apolitical",
concentrating purely on the one issue which unites the campaign and
so refuse to analyse or discuss the system they are trying to change.
This means that they end up accepting the system which causes the
problems they are fighting against. At best, any changes
achieved by the campaign must be acceptable to the establishment
or be so watered down in content that no practical long-term good
is done.

This can be seen from the green movement, where groups like
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth accept the status quo as a given
and limit themselves to working within it. This often leads to them
tailoring their "solutions" to be "practical" within a fundamentally
anti-ecological political and economic system, so slowing down (at
best) ecological disruption.

For anarchists these problems all stem from the fact that social
problems cannot be solved as single issues. As Larry Law argues:

"single issue politics . . . deals with the issue or problem in
isolation. When one problem is separated from all other problems,
a solution really is impossible. The more campaigning on an issue
there is, the narrower its perspectives become . . . As the perspective
of each issue narrows, the contradictions turn into absurdities . . .
What single issue politics does is attend to 'symptoms' but does
not attack the 'disease' itself. It presents such issues as nuclear
war, racial and sexual discrimination, poverty, starvation, pornography,
etc., as if they were aberrations or faults in the system. In reality
such problems are the inevitable consequence of a social order based
on exploitation and hierarchical power . . . single issue campaigns
lay their appeal for relief at the feet of the very system which
oppresses them. By petitioning they acknowledge the right of those
in power to exercise that power as they choose." [_Bigger Cages, Longer
Chains_, pp. 17-20].

Single issue politics often prolong the struggle for a free society
by fostering illusions that it is just parts of the capitalist system
which are wrong, not the whole of it, and that those at the top of
the system can, and will, act in our interests. While such campaigns
can do some good, practical, work and increase knowledge and education
about social problems, they are limited by their very nature and can
not lead to extensive improvements in the here and now, nevermind a
free society.

Therefore, anarchists often support and work within single-issue
campaigns, trying to get them to use effective methods of activity
(such as direct action), work in an anarchistic manner (i.e. from
the bottom up) and to try to "politicise" them into questioning
the whole of the system. However, anarchists do not let themselves
be limited to such activity as a social revolution or movement is
not a group of single-issue campaigns but a mass movement which
understands the inter-related nature of social problems and so the
need to change every aspect of life.

J.1.5 Why do anarchists try to generalise social struggles?

Basically, we do it in order to encourage and promote solidarity. This
is *the* key to winning struggles in the here and now as well as creating 
the class consciousness necessary to create an anarchist society. At its
most simple, generalising different struggles means increasing the chances 
of winning them. Take, for example, a strike in which one trade or one
workplace goes on strike while the others continue to work:

"Consider yourself how foolish and inefficient is the present form of labour
organisation in which one trade or craft may be on strike while the other
branches of the same industry continue to work. Is it not ridiculous that
when the street car workers of New York, for instance, quit work, the
employees of the subway, the cab and omnibus drivers remain on the job? . . .
It is clear, then, that you compel compliance [from your bosses] only when
you are determined, when your union is strong, when you are well organised,
when you are united in such a manner that the boss cannot run his factory
against your will. But the employer is usually some big . . . company that
has mills or mines in various places. . . If it cannot operate . . . in
Pennsylvania because of a strike, it will try to make good its losses by
continuing . . . and increasing production [elsewhere]. . . In that way
the company . . . breaks the strike." [Alexander Berkman, _The ABC of
Anarchism_, pp. 53-54]

By organising all workers in one union (after all they all have the same
boss) it increases the power of each trade considerably. It may be easy
for a boss to replace a few workers, but a whole workplace would be far
more difficult. By organising all workers in the same industry, the
power of each workplace is correspondingly increased. Extending this
example to outside the workplace, its clear that by mutual support between
different groups increases the chances of each group winning its fight.

As the I.W.W. put it, "An injury to one is an injury to all." By generalising
struggles, by practising mutual support and aid we can ensure that when
we are fighting for our rights and against injustice we will not be
isolated and alone. If we don't support each other, groups will be picked
off one by one and if we are go into conflict with the system there will
be on-one there to support us and we may lose.

Therefore, from an anarchist point of view, the best thing about generalising
different struggles together is that it leads to an increased spirit of
solidarity and responsibility as well as increased class consciousness.
This is because by working together and showing solidarity those involved
get to understand their common interests and that the struggle is not
against *this* injustice or *that* boss but against *all* injustice and
*all* bosses.

This sense of increased social awareness and solidarity can be seen from the
experience of the C.N.T in Spain during the 1930s. The C.N.T. organised all 
workers in a given area into one big union. Each workplace was a union branch
and were joined together in a local area confederation. The result was that:

"The territorial basis of organisation linkage [of the C.N.T. unions] brought
all the workers form one area together and fomented working class solidarity
over and before corporative [i.e. industrial] solidarity." [J. Romero Maura, 
"The Spanish Case", in _Anarchism Today_, D. Apter and J. Joll (eds.), p. 75]

This can also be seen from the experiences of the syndicalist unions in Italy
and France as well. The structure of such local federations also situates
the workplace in the community where it really belongs (particularly if
the commune concept supported by social anarchists is to be realistic).

Also, by uniting struggles together, we can see that there are really no
"single issues" - that all various different problems are inter-linked. For 
example, ecological problems are not just that, but have a political and
economic basis and that economic and social domination and exploitation 
spills into the environment. Inter-linking struggles means that they can 
be seen to be related to other struggles against capitalist exploitation 
and oppression and so encourage solidarity and mutual aid. What goes on in 
the environment, for instance, is directly related to questions of domination
and inequality within human society, that pollution is often directly
related to companies cutting corners to survive in the market or increase
profits. Similarly, struggles against sexism or racism can be seen as
part of a wider struggle against hierarchy, exploitation and oppression in 
all their forms. As such, uniting struggles has an important educational
effect above and beyond the benefits in terms of winning struggles.

Murray Bookchin presents a concrete example of this process of linking
issues and widening the struggle:

"Assume there is a struggle by welfare mothers to increase their
allotments . . . Without losing sight of the concrete issues that
initially motivated the struggle, revolutionaries would try to
catalyse an order of relationships between the mothers entirely
different from [existing ones] . . . They would try to foster a
deep sense of community, a rounded human relationship that would
transform the very subjectivity of the people involved . . . Personal
relationships would be intimate, not merely issue-orientated.
People would get to *know* each other, to *confront* each other;
they would *explore* each other with a view of achieving the
most complete, unalienated relationships. Women would discuss
sexism, as well as their welfare allotments, child-rearing as
well as harassment by landlords, their dreams and hopes as
human beings as well as the cost of living.

"From this intimacy there would grow, hopefully, a supportive
system of kinship, mutual aid, sympathy and solidarity in
daily life. The women might collaborate to establish a rotating
system of baby sitters and child-care attendants, the co-operative
buying of good food at greatly reduced prices, the common cooking
and partaking of meals, the mutual learning of survival skills
and the new social ideas, the fostering of creative talents, 
and many other shared experiences. Every aspect of life that 
could be explored and changed would be one part of the kind 
of relationships . . .

"The struggle for increased allotments would expand beyond the
welfare system to the schools, the hospitals, the police, the
physical, cultural, aesthetic and recreational resources of the
neighbourhood, the stores, the houses, the doctors and lawyers
in the area, and so on - into the very ecology of the district.

"What I have said on this issue could be applied to every issue --
unemployment, bad housing, racism, work conditions -- in which an
insidious assimilation of bourgeois modes of functioning is
masked as 'realism' and 'actuality.' The new order of relationships
that could be developed from a welfare struggle . . . [can ensure
that the] future penetrates the present; it recasts the way people
'organise' and the goals for which they strive." [Op. Cit., pp.
231-3]

As the anarchist slogan puts it, "Resistance is Fertile." Planting
the seed of autonomy, direct action and self-liberation can result, 
potentially, in the blossoming of a free individual due to the
nature of struggle itself (see also section A.2.7) Therefore, the 
generalisation of social struggle is not only a key way of winning
a specific fight, it can (and should) also spread into different 
aspects of life and society and play a key part in developing free
individuals who reject hierarchy in all aspects of their life. 

Social problems are not isolated from each other and so struggles 
against them cannot be. The nature of struggle is such that once 
people start questioning one aspect of society, the questioning
of the rest soon follow. So, anarchists seek to generalise
struggles for these three reasons -- firstly, to ensure the 
solidarity required to win; secondly, to combat the many social 
problems we face as *people* and to show how they are inter-related; 
and, thirdly, to encourage the transformation of those involved into 
unique individuals in touch with their humanity, a humanity eroded 
by hierarchical society and domination.

J.2 What is direct action?

Direct action, to use Rudolf Rocker's words, is "every method of
immediate warfare by the workers [or other sections of society] against
their economic and political oppressors. Among these the outstanding are:
the strike, in all its graduations from the simple wage struggle to the
general strike; the boycott; sabotage in all its countless forms;
[occupations and sit-down strikes;] anti-militarist propaganda, and 
in particularly critical cases, . . . armed resistance of the people for 
the protection of life and liberty." [_Anarcho-Syndicalism_, p. 66]

Not that anarchists think that direct action is only applicable within
the workplace. Far from it. Direct action must occur everywhere! So, in 
non-workplace situations, direct action includes rent strikes, consumer 
boycotts, occupations (which, of course, can include sit-in strikes by 
workers), eco-tage, individual and collective non-payment of taxes, 
blocking roads and holding up construction work of an anti-social nature 
and so forth. Also direct action, in a workplace setting, includes strikes 
and protests on social issues, not directly related to working conditions 
and pay. Such activity aims to ensure the "protection of the community 
against the most pernicious outgrowths of the present system. The social 
strike seeks to force upon the employers a responsibility to the public. 
Primarily it has in view the protection of the customers, of whom the 
workers themselves [and their families] constitute the great majority." 
[Op. Cit., p. 72]

Basically, direct action means that instead of getting someone else to act 
for you (e.g. a politician) you act for yourself. Its essential feature is 
an organised protest by ordinary people to make a change by their own efforts.
Thus Voltairine De Cleyre's excellent statement on this topic:

"Every person who ever thought he had a right to assert, and went boldly and
asserted it, himself, or jointly with others that shared his convictions,
was a direct actionist. Some thirty years ago I recall that the Salvation
Army was vigorously practicing direct action in the maintenance of the
freedom of its members to speak, assemble, and pray. Over and over they were
arrested, fined, and imprisoned; but they kept right on singing, praying,
and marching, till they finally compelled their persecutors to let them
alone. The Industrial Workers [of the World] are now conducting the same 
fight, and have, in a number of cases, compelled the officials to let them 
alone by the same direct tactics.

"Every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and did it, or who
laid his plan before others, and won their co-operation to do it with him,
without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a
direct actionist. All co-operative experiments are essentially direct
action.

"Every person who ever in his life had a difference with anyone to settle,
and went straight to the other persons involved to settle it, either by a
peaceable plan or otherwise, was a direct actionist. Examples of such action
are strikes and boycotts; many persons will recall the action of the
housewives of New York who boycotted the butchers, and lowered the price of
meat; at the present moment a butter boycott seems looming up, as a direct
reply to the price-makers for butter.

"These actions are generally not due to any one's reasoning overmuch on the
respective merits of directness or indirectness, but are the spontaneous
retorts of those who feel oppressed by a situation. In other words, all
people are, most of the time, believers in the principle of direct action,
and practicers of it. . ." [_Direct Action_]

So direct action means acting for yourself against injustice and oppression.
It can, sometimes, involve putting pressure on politicians or companies, for 
example, to ensure a change in an oppressive law or destructive practices. 
However, such appeals are direct action simply because they do not assume
that the parties in question we will act for us -- indeed the assumption is
that change only occurs when we act to create it. Regardless of what the
action is, "if such actions are to have the desired empowerment effect,
they must be largely self-generated, rather than being devised and 
directed from above." [Martha Ackelsberg, _Free Women of Spain_, p. 33]

So, in a nutshell, direct action is any form of activity which people
themselves decide upon and organise themselves which is based on their 
own collective strength and does not involve getting intermediates to act 
for them. As such direct action is a natural expression of liberty, of
self-government for "[d]irect action against the authority in the shop,
direct action against the authority of the law, direct action against 
the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the logical,
consistent method of Anarchism." [Emma Goldman, _Red Emma Speaks_, 
pp. 62-63] It is clear that by acting for yourself you are expressing 
the ability to govern yourself. Thus its a means by which people can
take control of their own lives. It is a means of self-empowerment and
self-liberation:

"Direct action meant that the goal of any and all these activities was 
to provide ways for people to get in touch with their own powers and 
capacities, to take back the power of naming themselves and their lives."
[Martha Ackelsberg, Op. Cit., p. 32]

In other words, anarchists reject the view that society is static and that
people's consciousness, values, ideas and ideals cannot be changed. Far from 
it and anarchists support direct action *because* it actively encourages
the transformation of those who use it. Direct action is the means of
creating a new consciousness, a means of self-liberation from the chains
placed around our minds, emotions and spirits by hierarchy and oppression.

Because direct action is the expression of liberty, the powers that be are 
vitally concerned only when the oppressed use direct action to win its 
demands, for it is a method which is not easy or cheap to combat. Any 
hierarchical system is placed into danger when those at the bottom start 
to act for themselves and, historically, people have invariably gained more 
by acting directly than could have been won by playing ring around the 
rosy with indirect means.

Direct action tore the chains of open slavery from humanity. Over the 
centuries it has established individual rights and modified the life and 
death power of the master class. Direct action won political liberties
such as the vote and free speech. Used fully, used wisely and well, 
direct action can forever end injustice and the mastery of humans 
by other humans.

In the sections that follow, we will indicate why anarchists are in
favour of direct action and why they are against electioneering as
a means of change.

J.2.1 Why do anarchists favour using direct action to change things?

Simply because it is effective and it has a radicalising impact on those
who practice it. As it is based on people acting for themselves, it
shatters the dependency and marginalisation created by hierarchy. As
Murray Bookchin argues, "[w]hat is even more important about direct action 
is that it forms a decisive step toward recovering the personal power 
over social life that the centralised, over-bearing bureaucracies have 
usurped from the people . . . we not only gain a sense that we can control 
the course of social events again; we recover a new sense of selfhood 
and personality without which a truly free society, based in self-activity 
and self-management, is utterly impossible." [_Toward an Ecological 
Society_, p. 47]

By acting for themselves, people gain a sense of their own power and 
abilities. This is essential if people are to run their own lives. As
such, direct action is *the* means by which individuals empower themselves,
to assert their individuality, to make themselves count as individuals. It 
is the opposite of hierarchy, within which individuals are told again and 
again that they are nothing, are insignificant and must dissolve themselves 
into a higher power (the state, the company, the party, the people, etc.) and
feel proud in participating in the strength and glory of this higher power.
Direct action, in contrast, is the means of asserting ones individual
opinion, interests and happiness, of fighting against self-negation:

"man has as much liberty as he is willing to take. Anarchism therefore
stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all 
laws and restrictions, economic, social and moral. But defiance and
resistance are illegal. Therein lies the salvation of man. Everything
illegal necessitates integrity, self-reliance, and courage. In short, it
calls for free independent spirits, for men who are men, and who have
a bone in their back which you cannot pass your hand through." [Emma
Goldman, _Red Emma Speaks_, pp. 61-62]

In addition, because direct action is based around individuals solving 
their own problems, by their own action, it awakens those aspects of 
individuals crushed by hierarchy and oppression - such as initiative, 
solidarity, imagination, self-confidence and a sense of individual and 
collective power, that you do matter and count as an individual and that 
you, and others like you, *can* change the world. Direct Action is the 
means by which people can liberate themselves and educate themselves in 
the ways of and skills required for self-management and liberty. Hence:

"anarchists insisted that we learn to think and act for ourselves by 
joining together in organisations in which our experience, our perception 
and our activity can guide and make the change. Knowledge does not precede
experience, it flows from it. . . People learn to be free only by 
exercising freedom. [As one Spanish Anarchist put it] 'We are not going 
to find ourselves. . . with people ready-made for the future. . . Without
continued exercise of their faculties, there will be no free people. . .
The external revolution and the internal revolution presuppose one
another, and they must be simultaneous in order to be successful.'"
[Martha Ackelsberg, _Free Women of Spain_, pp. 32-33]

So direct action, to use Murray Bookchin's words, is "the means whereby 
each individual awakens to the hidden powers within herself and himself, 
to a new sense of self-confidence and self-competence; it is the means 
whereby individuals take control of society directly." [Op. Cit., p. 48] 

In addition, direct action creates the need for new forms of social 
organisation. These new forms of organisation will be informed and shaped
by the process of self-liberation, so be more anarchistic and based upon
self-management. Direct action, as well as liberating individuals, can also
create the free, self-managed organisations which can replace the current
hierarchical ones. In other words, direct action helps create the new world
in the shell of the old:

"direct action not only empowered those who participated in it, it also
had effects on others. . . [including] exemplary action that attracted 
adherents by the power of the positive example it set. Contemporary
examples. . . include food or day-care co-ops, collectively run businesses,
sweat equity housing programmes, women's self-help health collectives, urban
squats or women's peace camps [as well as traditional examples as industrial
unions, social centres, etc.]. While such activities empower those who
engage in them, they also demonstrate to others that non-hierarchical
forms of organisation can and do exist - and that they can function
effectively." [Martha Ackelsberg, Op. Cit., p. 33]

Also, direct action such as strikes encourage and promote class consciousness
and class solidarity. According to Kropotkin, "the strike develops the
sentiment of solidarity" while for Bakunin it "is the beginnings of the
social war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. . . Strikes are a
valuable instrument from two points of view. Firstly, they electrify the
masses, invigorate their moral energy and awaken in them the feeling of
the deep antagonism which exists between their interests and those of
the bourgeoisie. . . secondly they help immensely to provoke and establish
between the workers of all trades, localities and countries the consciousness
and very fact of solidarity: a twofold action, both negative and positive, 
which tends to constitute directly the new world of the proletariat, 
opposing it almost in an absolute way to the bourgeois world." [cited
in Caroline Cahm, _Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism
1872-1886_, p. 256, pp. 216-217]

Direct action and the movements that used it (such as unionism) would be 
the means to develop the "revolutionary intelligence of the workers" and 
so ensure "emancipation through practice" (to use Bakunin's words). 

Direct action, therefore, helps to create anarchists and anarchist
alternatives within capitalism and statism. As such, it plays an 
essential role in anarchist theory and activity. For anarchists, 
direct action "is not a 'tactic'. . . it is a moral principle, an 
ideal, a sensibility. It should imbue every aspect of our lives and 
behaviour and outlook." [Murray Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 48]

J.2.2 Why do anarchists reject voting as a means for change?

Simply because electioneering does not work. History is littered with 
examples of radicals being voted into office only to become as, or even
more, conservative than the politicians they replaced.

As we have discussed previously (see B.2 and related sections) any 
government is under pressure from two sources of power, the state 
bureaucracy and big business. This ensures that any attempts at 
social change would be undermined and made hollow by vested 
interests, assuming they even reached that level of discussion 
to begin with (the de-radicalising effects of electioneering is 
discussed below in section J.2.6). Here we will highlight the 
power of vested interests within democratic government.

In section B.2 we only discussed the general nature of the state and 
what its role within society is (i.e. "the preservation of the economic
'status quo,' the protection of the economic privileges of the ruling
class," in the words of Luigi Galleani). However, as the effectiveness of 
the vote to secure change is now the topic we will have to discuss how and
why the state and capital restricts and controls political action.

Taking capital to begin with, if we assume that a relatively
reformist government was elected it would soon find itself facing 
various economic pressures. Either capital would disinvest, so forcing 
the government to back down in the face of economic collapse, or the 
government in question would control capital leaving the country and so 
would soon be isolated from new investment and its currency would become 
worthless. Either way, the economy would be severely damaged and the 
promised "reforms" would be dead letters. In addition, this economic 
failure would soon result in popular revolt which in turn would lead 
to a more authoritarian state as "democracy" was protected from the 
people.

Far fetched? No, not really. In January, 1974, the FT Index for the 
London Stock Exchange stood at 500 points. In February, the miner's went 
on strike, forcing Heath to hold (and lose) a general election. The new 
Labour government (which included many left-wingers in its cabinet) talked 
about nationalising the banks and much heavy industry. In August, 74, Tony 
Benn announced Plans to nationalise the ship building industry. By December
of that year, the FT index had fallen to 150 points. By 1976 the British
Treasury was spending $100 million a day buying back of its own money to 
support the pound [_The London Times_, 10/6/76]. The economic pressure 
of capitalism was at work:

"The further decline in the value of the pound has occurred despite the high 
level of interest rates. . . dealers said that selling pressure against the 
pound was not heavy or persistent, but there was an almost total lack of 
interest amongst buyers. The drop in the pound is extremely surprising in 
view of the unanimous opinion of bankers, politicians and officials that the 
currency is undervalued" [_The London Times_, 27/5/76]

The Labour government faced with the power of international capital ended up 
having to receive a temporary "bailing out" by the I.M.F. who imposed a 
package of cuts and controls which translated to Labour saying "We'll do 
anything you say", in the words of one economist [Peter Donaldson, _A 
Question of Economics_, p. 89]. The social costs of these policies was
massive, with the Labour government being forced to crack down on strikes
and the weakest sectors of society (but that's not to forget that they "cut 
expenditure by twice the amount the I.M.F. were promised." [Ibid.]). In
the backlash to this, Labour lost the next election to a right-wing, 
pro-free market government which continued where Labour had left off.

Or, to use a more recent example, "The fund managers [who control the 
flow of money between financial centres and countries] command such vast
resources that their clashes with governments in the global marketplace
usually ends up in humiliating defeat for politicians. . . In 1992, US
financier George Soros single-handedly destroyed the British government's
attempts to keep the pound in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). 
Soros effectively bet, and won, that he could force the British government
to devalue. Using his huge resources, he engineered a run on the pound,
overwhelming the Bank of England's attempts to use its reserves to keep
sterling within its ERM band. The British government capitulated by
suspending sterling's membership of the ERM (an effective devaluation) and
Soros came away from his victory some $1bn richer. Fund managers then 
picked off other currencies one by one, derailing the drive for European
monetary union, which would, incidentally, have cut their profits by making
them unable to buy and sell between the different European currencies."
[Duncan Green, _The Silent Revolution_, p. 124]

The fact is that capital will not invest in a country which does not meet 
its approval and this is an effective weapon to control democratically 
elected governments. And with the increase in globalisation of capital over
the last 30 years this weapon is even more powerful (a weapon we may add 
which was improved, via company and state funded investment and research in 
communication technology, precisely to facilitate the attack on working class 
reforms and power in the developed world, in other words capital ran away
to teach us a lesson -- see sections C.8.1, C.8.2, C.8.3 and D.5.3).

As far as political pressures go, we must remember that there is a difference 
between the state and government. The state is the permanent collection of 
institutions that have entrenched power structures and interests. The 
government is made up of various politicians. It's the institutions that 
have power in the state due to their permanence, not the representatives 
who come and go. In other words, the state bureaucracy has vested interests
and elected politicians cannot effectively control them. This network
of behind the scenes agencies can be usefully grouped into two parts:

"By 'the secret state' we mean. . . the security services, MI5 [the FBI in 
the USA], Special Branch. . . MI6 [the CIA]. By 'the permanent government' 
. . . we mean the secret state plus the Cabinet Office and upper echelons 
of Home and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices, the Armed Forces and Ministry 
of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries; and
the so-called 'Permanent Secretaries Club,' the network of very senior
civil servants - the 'Mandarins.' In addition. . . its satellites"
including M.P.s (particularly right-wing ones), 'agents of influence' in 
the media, former security services personnel, think tanks and opinion
forming bodies, front companies of the security services, and so on.
[Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, _Smear! Wilson and the Secret State_,
p. X, XI]

These bodies, while theoretically under the control of the elected government,
can effectively (via disinformation, black operations, bureaucratic slowdowns,
media attacks, etc.) ensure that any government trying to introduce policies 
which the powers that be disagree with will be stopped. In other words
the state is *not* a neutral body, somehow rising about vested interests
and politics. It is, and always will be, a institution which aims to protect
specific sections of society as well as its own. 

An example of this "secret state" at work can be found in _Smear!_, where 
Dorril and Ramsay document the campaign against the Labour Prime Minister of 
Britain, Harold Wilson, which resulted in his resignation. They also indicate 
the pressures which Labour M.P. Tony Benn was subjected to by "his" Whitehall
advisers:

"In early 1985, the campaign against Benn by the media was joined by the
secret state. The timing is interesting. In January, his Permanent Secretary
had 'declared war' and the following month began the most extraordinary
campaign of harassment any major British politician has experienced. While
this is not provable by any means, it does look as though there is a clear
causal connection between withdrawal of Prime Ministerial support, the
open hostility from the Whitehall mandarins and the onset of covert
operations." [Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, Op. Cit., p. 279]

Not to mention the role of the secret state in undermining reformist and 
radical organisations and movements. Thus involvement goes from pure 
information gathering on "subversives", to disruption and repression. 
Taking the example of the US secret state, Howard Zinn notes that in 1975 
"congressional committees.  . . began investigations of the FBI and CIA.

"The CIA inquiry disclosed that the CIA had gone beyond its original mission
of gathering intelligence and was conducting secret operations of all kinds
. . . [for example] the CIA - with the collusion of a secret Committee of
Forty headed by Henry Kissinger - had worked to 'destabilize' the 
[democratically elected, left-wing] Chilean government. . .

"The investigation of the FBI disclosed many years of illegal actions to
disrupt and destroy radical groups and left-wing groups of all kinds. The
FBI had sent forged letters, engaged in burglaries. . . opened mail 
illegally, and in the case of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, seems to
have conspired in murder. . .

"The investigations themselves revealed the limits of government willingness
to probe into such activities. . . [and they] submitted its findings 
on the CIA to the CIA to see if there was material the Agency wanted 
omitted." [_A People's History of the United States_, pp. 542-3]

Also, the CIA secretly employs several hundred American academics to write
books and other materials to be used for propaganda purposes, an important
weapon in the battle for hearts and minds. In other words, the CIA, FBI
[and their equivalents in other countries] and other state bodies can hardly 
be considered neutral bodies, who just follow orders. They are a network of 
vested interests, with specific ideological viewpoints and aims which usually 
place the wishes of the voting population below maintaining the state-capital 
power structure in place.

This can be seen most dramatically in the military coup in Chile against
the democratically re-elected (left-wing) Allende government by the military,
aided by the CIA, US based corporations and the US government cutting economic
aid to the country (specifically to make it harder for the Allende regime). 
The coup resulted in tens of thousands murdered and years of terror and 
dictatorship, but the danger of a pro-labour government was stopped and the 
business environment was made healthy for profits. An extreme example, we 
know, but important ones for any believer in freedom or the idea that the 
state machine is somehow neutral and can be captured and used by left-wing 
parties. 

Therefore we cannot expect a different group of politicians to react in 
different ways to the same economic and institutional influences and 
interests. Its no coincidence that left-wing, reformist parties have 
introduced right-wing, pro-capitalist ("Thatcherite/Reaganite") policies 
at the same time as right-wing, explicitly pro-capitalist parties introduced 
them in the UK and the USA. As Clive Ponting (an ex-British Civil Servant) 
points out, this is to be expected:

"the function of the political system in any country in the world is to
regulate, but not alter radically, the existing economic structure and
its linked power relationships. The great illusion of politics is that
politicians have the power to make whatever changes they like. . . On a
larger canvas what real control do the politicians in any country have 
over the operation of the international monetary system, the pattern of
world trade with its built in subordination of the third world or
the operation of multi-national companies? These institutions and the
dominating mechanism that underlies them - the profit motive as a sole
measure of success - are essentially out of control and operating on
autopilot." [quoted in _Alternatives_, # 5, p. 10]

Of course there have been examples of quite extensive reforms which
did benefit working class people in major countries. The New Deal in 
the USA and the 1945-51 Labour Governments spring to mind. Surely these
indicate that our claims above are false? Simply put, no, they do not.
Reforms can be won from the state when the dangers of not giving in
outweigh the problems associated with the reforms. Reforms can therefore
be used to save the capitalist system and the state and even improve their
operation (with, of course, the possibility of getting rid of the reforms
when they are no longer required). 

For example, both the reformist governments of 1930s USA and 1940s UK
were under pressure from below, by waves of militant working class
struggle which could have developed beyond mere reformism. The waves 
of sit-down strikes in the 1930s ensured the passing of pro-union laws 
which while allowing workers to organise without fear of being fired. 
This measure also involved the unions in running the capitalist-state 
machine (and so making them responsible for controlling "unofficial"
workplace action and so ensuring profits). The nationalisation of roughly 
20% of the UK economy during the Labour administration of 1945 (the 
most unprofitable sections of it as well) was also the direct result of 
ruling class fear. As Quintin Hogg, a Tory M.P. at the time, said, 
"If you don't give the people social reforms they are going to give you 
social revolution". Memories of the near revolutions across Europe after 
the first war were obviously in many minds, on both sides. Not that 
nationalisation was particularly feared as "socialism." Indeed it was
argued that it was the best means of improving the performance of the 
British economy. As anarchists at the time noted "the real opinions of 
capitalists can be seen from Stock Exchange conditions and statements of 
industrialists than the Tory Front bench . . . [and from these we] see that 
the owning class is not at all displeased with the record and tendency of 
the Labour Party" [_Neither Nationalisation nor Privatisation: Selections 
from Freedom 1945-1950_, Vernon Richards (ed.), p. 9]

So, if extensive reforms have occurred, just remember what they were in
response to militant pressure from below and that we could have got so
much more.

Therefore, in general, things have little changed over the one hundred years 
since this anarchist argument against electioneering was put forward:

"in the electoral process, the working class will always be cheated and
deceived. . . if they did manage to send, one, or ten, or fifty of
them[selves to Parliament], they would become spoiled and powerless.
Furthermore, even if the majority of Parliament were composed of workers,
they could do nothing. Not only is there the senate . . . the chiefs of
the armed forces, the heads of the judiciary and of the police, who would
be against the parliamentary bills advanced by such a chamber and would
refuse to enforce laws favouring the workers (it has happened [for example
the 8 hour working day was legally created in many US states by the 1870s,
but workers had to strike for it in 1886 as it as not enforced]; but 
furthermore laws are not miraculous; no law can prevent the capitalists
from exploiting the workers; no law can force them to keep their factories
open and employ workers at such and such conditions, nor force shopkeepers
to sell as a certain price, and so on." [S. Merlino, quoted by L. Galleani,
_The End of Anarchism?_, p. 13]

Moreover, anarchists reject voting for other reasons. The fact is 
that electoral procedures are the opposite of direct action - they 
are *based* on getting someone else to act on your behalf. Therefore, 
far from empowering people and giving them a sense of confidence and 
ability, electioneering *dis*-empowers them by creating a "leader" figure 
from which changes are expected to flow. As Martin observes:

"all the historical evidence suggests that parties are more a drag 
than an impetus to radical change. One obvious problem is that parties 
can be voted out. All the policy changes they brought in can simply be 
reversed later. 

"More important, though, is the pacifying influence of the radical party 
itself. On a number of occasions, radical parties have been elected to 
power as a result of popular upsurges. Time after time, the 
'radical' parties have become chains to hold back the process of radical 
change." ["Democracy without Elections," _Reinventing Anarchy, Again_, 
Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.), p. 124]

This can easily be seen from the history of the various left-wing parties.
Ralph Miliband points out that labour or socialist parties, elected in
periods of social turbulence, have often acted to reassure the ruling
elite by dampening popular action that could have threatened capitalist
interests [_The State in Capitalist Society_, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1969]. For example, the first project undertaken by the Popular Front,
elected in France in 1936, was to put an end to strikes and occupations
and generally to cool popular militancy, which was the Front's strongest
ally in coming to power. The Labour government elected in Britain in 1945
got by with as few reforms as it could, refusing to consider changing
basic social structures. In addition, within the first week of taking office
it sent troops in to break the dockers' strike. Labour has used troops to 
break strikes far more often than the Conservatives have. 

These points indicate why existing power structures cannot effectively be
challenged through elections. For one thing, elected representatives are 
not *mandated,* which is to say they are not tied in any binding way to 
particular policies, no matter what promises they have made or what voters 
may prefer. Around election time, the public's influence on politicians is
strongest, but after the election, representatives can do practically
whatever they want, because there is no procedure for *instant recall.* 
In practice it is impossible to recall politicians before the next
election, and between elections they are continually exposed to pressure
from powerful special-interest groups -- especially business lobbyists,
state bureaucracies and political party power brokers. 

Under such pressure, the tendency of politicians to break campaign
promises has become legendary. Generally, such promise breaking is blamed
on bad character, leading to periodic "throw-the-bastards-out" fervour --
after which a new set of representatives is elected, who also mysteriously
turn out to be bastards! In reality it is the system itself that
produces "bastards," the sell-outs and shady dealing we have come to
expect from politicians. As Alex Comfort argues, political office
attracts power-hungry, authoritarian, and ruthless personalities, or 
at least tends to bring out such qualities in those who are elected
(see his classic work _Authority and Delinquency in the Modern State: 
A Criminological Approach to the Problem of Power_). 

In light of modern "democracy", it is amazing that anyone takes the system
seriously enough to vote at all. And in fact, voter turnout in the US and
other nations where "democracy" is practised in this fashion is typically
low. Nevertheless, some voters continue to participate, pinning their
hopes on new parties or trying to reform a major party. For anarchists,
this activity is pointless as it does not get at the root of the problem.
It is not politicians or parties which are the problem, its a system
which shapes them into its own image and marginalises and alienates 
people due to its hierarchical and centralised nature. No amount of party
politics can change that.

However, we should make it clear that most anarchists recognise there is a 
difference between voting for a government and voting in referendum. Here 
we are discussing the former, electioneering, as a means of social 
change. Referenda are closer to anarchist ideas of direct democracy 
and are, while flawed, far better than electing a politician to office 
once every four years or so.

In addition, Anarchists are not necessarily against all involvement in 
electoral politics. Bakunin thought it could sometimes be useful to 
participate in local elections in relatively small communities where 
regular contact with representatives can maintain accountability. This
argument has been taken up by such Social Ecologists such as Murray
Bookchin who argues that anarchists, by taking part in local elections,
can use this technique to create self-governing community assemblies.
However, few anarchists support such means to create community assemblies 
(see section J.5.14 for a discussion on this).

However, in large cities and in regional or national elections, certain 
processes have developed which render the term "democracy" inappropriate. 
These processes include mass advertising, bribery of voters through government 
projects in local areas, party "machines," the limitation of news coverage to 
two (or at most three) major parties, and government manipulation of the news. 
Party machines choose candidates, dictate platforms, and contact voters by 
phone campaigns. Mass advertising "packages" candidates like commodities,
selling them to voters by emphasising personality rather than policies,
while media news coverage emphasise the "horse race" aspects of campaigns
rather than policy issues. Government spending in certain areas (or more
cynically, the announcement of new projects in such areas just before
elections) has become a standard technique for buying votes. And we have
already examined the mechanisms through which the media is made dependent
of government sources of information (see section D.3), a development that
obviously helps incumbents. 

Therefore, for these related reasons anarchists reject the voting as a
means of change. Instead we wholeheartedly support direct action as
the means of getting improvements in the here and now as well as the
means of creating an alternative to the current system.

J.2.3 What are the political implications of voting?

At its most basic, voting implies agreement with the status quo. It
is worth quoting the Scottish libertarian socialist James Kelman at
length on this:

"State propaganda insists that the reason why at least 40 percent of
the voting public don't vote at all is because they have no feelings one 
way or the other. They say the same thing in the USA, where some 85
percent of the population are apparently 'apolitical' since they don't
bother registering a vote. Rejection of the political system is 
inadmissible as far as the state is concerned. . . Of course the one
thing that does happen when you vote is that someone else has endorsed an
unfair political system. . . A vote for any party or any individual is
always a vote for the political system. You can interpret your vote in
whichever way you like but it remains an endorsement of the apparatus. . .
If there was any possibility that the apparatus could effect a change 
in the system then they would dismantle it immediately. In other words
the political system is an integral state institution, designed and
refined to perpetuate its own existence. Ruling authority fixes the 
agenda by which the public are allowed 'to enter the political arena'
and that's the fix they've settled on" [_Some Recent Attacks_, p.87]

We are taught from an early age that voting in elections is right and a
duty. In US schools, children elect class presidents and other officers. 
Often mini-general elections are held to "educate" children in "democracy".
Periodically, election coverage monopolises the media. We are made to
feel guilty about shirking our "civic responsibility" if we don't vote. 
Countries that have no elections, or only rigged elections, are regarded
as failures [Benjamin Ginsberg, _The Consequences of Consent: Elections,
Citizen Control and Popular Acquiescence_, Addison-Wesley, 1982]. As a
result, elections have become a quasi-religious ritual.

As Brian Martin points out, however, "elections in practice have served
well to maintain dominant power structures such as private property, the
military, male domination, and economic inequality. None of these has been
seriously threatened through voting. It is from the point of view of
radical critics that elections are most limiting." ["Democracy without
Elections", _Reinventing Anarchy, Again_, Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.), p. 124]

Benjamin Ginsberg has noted other ways in which elections serve the
interests of state power. Firstly, voting helps to legitimate government;
hence suffrage has often been expanded at times when there was little
popular demand for it but when mass support of government was crucial, as
during a war or revolution. Secondly, since voting is organised and
supervised by government, it comes to be seen as the only legitimate form
of political participation, thus making it likely that any revolts by
oppressed or marginalised groups will be viewed by the general public as
illegitimate (see his book _The Consequences of Consent_).

In addition, Ginsberg argues that, historically, by enlarging the number
of people who participate in 'politics,' and by turning this participation
into the "safe" activities of campaigning and voting, elections have
reduced the risk of more radical direct action. That is, voting
disempowers the grassroots by diverting energy from grassroots action. 
After all, the goal of electoral politics is to elect a representative 
who will act *for* us. Therefore, instead taking direct action to solve
problems ourselves, action becomes indirect, though the government. This
is an insidiously easy trap to fall into, as we have been conditioned in
hierarchical society from day one into attitudes of passivity and
obedience, which gives most of us a deep-seated tendency to leave
important matters to the "experts" and "authorities." 

Anarchists also criticise elections for giving citizens the false
impression that the government serves, or can serve, the people. As
Martin puts it, "the founding of the modern state a few centuries ago 
was met with great resistance: people would refuse to pay taxes, to 
be conscripted or to obey laws passed by national governments. The
introduction of voting and the expanded suffrage have greatly aided the
expansion of state power. Rather than seeing the system as one of ruler
and ruled, people see at least the possibility of using state power to
serve themselves. As electoral participation has increased, the degree of
resistance to taxation, military service, and the immense variety of laws
regulating behaviour, has been greatly attenuated." [Op. Cit., p. 126]

Ironically, however, voting has legitimated the growth of state power to
such an extent that the state is now beyond any real popular control by
the form of participation that made that growth possible. Nevertheless,
as Ginsberg observes, the idea that electoral participation means popular
control of government is so deeply implanted in people's psyches "that
even the most overtly sceptical cannot fully free themselves from it."
[_The Consequences of Consent_, Op. Cit., p. 241]

Therefore, voting has the important political implication of encouraging
people to identify with state power and to justify the status quo. In 
addition, it feeds the illusion that the state is neutral and that
electing parties to office means that people have control over their
own lives. Moreover, elections have a tendency to make people passive,
to look for salvation from above and not from their own self-activity.
As such it produces a division between leaders and led, with the voters
turned into spectators of activity, not the participants within it. 

All this does not mean, obviously, that anarchists prefer dictatorship 
or an "enlightened" monarchy. Far from it, democratising state power
can be an important step towards abolishing it. All anarchists agree
with Bakunin when he argued that "the most imperfect republic is a 
thousand times better that even the most enlightened monarchy." [cited
by Guerin, _Anarchism_, p. 20] But neither does it mean that anarchists 
will join in with the farce of electioneering, particularly when there 
are more effective means available for changing things for the better.

J.2.4 Surely voting for radical parties will be effective?

There is no doubt that voting can lead to changes in policies, which can
be a good thing as far as it goes. But such policies are formulated and
implemented within the authoritarian framework of the hierarchical
capitalist state -- a framework which itself is never open to challenge by
voting. To the contrary, voting legitimates the state framework, ensuring
that social change will be mild, gradual, and reformist rather than rapid 
and radical. Indeed, the "democratic" process has always resulted in (and
will always result in) all successful political parties becoming committed 
to "more of the same" or tinkering with the details at best (which is 
usually the limits of any policy changes). 

However, given the need for radical systemic changes as soon as possible 
due to the exponentially accelerating crises of modern civilisation, working 
for gradual reforms within the electoral system must be seen as a potentially 
deadly tactical error. In addition, it can never get to the root causes of
our problems. Anarchists reject the idea that our problems can be solved by 
the very institutions that cause them in the first place! What happens in 
our communities, workplaces and environment is too important to be left 
to politicians - or the ruling elite who control governments.

Because of this anarchists reject political parties and electioneering. 
Electioneering has always been the death of radicalism. Political parties 
are only radical when they don't stand a chance of election. However, many
social activists continue to try to use elections, so participating in the
system which disempowers the majority and so helps create the social problems
they are protesting against.

"It should be a truism that elections empower the politicians and not the
voters," Brian Martin writes, "yet many social movements continually are
drawn into electoral politics." There are a number of reasons for this. 
"One is the involvement of party members in social movements. Another is 
the aspirations for power and influence by leaders in movements. Having 
the ear of a government minister is a heady sensation for many; getting 
elected to parliament oneself is even more of an ego boost. What is 
forgotten in all this 'politics of influence' is the effect on ordinary 
activists." ["Democracy without Elections", _Reinventing Anarchy, Again_, 
Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.),p. 125] 

Rudoph Bahro gives an example of how working "within the system"
disempowered grassroots Green activists in Germany during the early
eighties, pointing out that the coalitions into which the Greens entered
with Social Democrats in the German legislature often had the effect of
strengthening the status quo by co-opting those whose energies might
otherwise have gone into more radical and effective forms of activism
[_Building the Green Movement_, New Society Publishers, 1986]. 
 
No doubt the state is more complicated than the simple "executive
committee of the ruling class" pictured by Marxists. There are
continual struggles both within and without the state bureaucracies,
struggles that influence policies and empower different groups of people. 
Because of this, many radical parties believe that it makes sense to work
within the state -- for example, to obtain labour, consumer, and
environmental protection laws. However, this reasoning ignores the fact
that the organisational structure of the state is not neutral.

To quote Martin again, the "basic anarchist insight is that the structure
of the state, as a centralised administrative apparatus, is inherently
flawed from the point of view of human freedom and equality. Even though
the state can be used occasionally for valuable ends, as a means the state
is flawed and impossible to reform. The nonreformable aspects of the state
include, centrally, its monopoly over 'legitimate' violence and its
consequent power to coerce for the purpose of war, internal control,
taxation and the protection of property and bureaucratic privilege.

"The problem with voting is that the basic premises of the state are never
considered open for debate, much less challenge. The state's monopoly over
the use of violence for war is never at issue. Neither is the state's use
of violence against revolt from within. The state's right to extract
economic resources from the population is never questioned. Neither is 
the state's guarantee of either private property (under capitalism) or
bureaucratic prerogative (under state socialism) -- or both" [Op. Cit., 
p. 127]

But, it may be said, if a new political group is radical enough, it will
be able to use state power for good purposes. While we discuss this in
more detail later in section J.2.6, let us consider a specific case:
that of the Greens, many of whom believe that the best way to achieve 
their aims is to work within the representative political system. 

By pledging to use the electoral system to achieve change, Green parties
necessarily commit themselves to formulating their proposals as
legislative agendas. But once legislation is passed, the coercive
mechanisms of the state will be needed to enforce it. Therefore, Green
parties are committed to upholding state power. However, our analysis 
in section B.2 indicated that the state is a set of hierarchical
institutions through which a ruling elite dominates society and
individuals. And, as we have seen in the introduction to section E,
ecologists, feminists, and peace activists -- who are key constituencies
of the Green movement -- all need to *dismantle* hierarchies and
domination in order to achieve their respective aims. Therefore, since
the state is not only the largest and most powerful hierarchy but also
serves to maintain the hierarchical form of all major institutions in
society (since this form is the most suitable for achieving ruling-class
interests), the state itself is the main obstacle to the success of key
constituencies of the Green movement. Hence it is impossible *in
principle* for a parliamentary Green party to achieve essential objectives
of the Green movement. A similar argument would apply to any radical
party whose main emphasis was social justice, which like the goals of 
feminists, radical ecologists, and peace activists, depends on dismantling
hierarchies. 
 
And surely no one who even is remotely familiar with history will
suggest that 'radical' politicians, even if by some miracle they were to
obtain a majority in the national legislature, might dismantle the state. 
It should be axiomatic by now that when a 'radical' politician (e.g. a
Lenin) says to voters, "Give me and my party state power and we will
'wither away'" it's just more campaign rhetoric (in Lenin's case, the 
ultimate campaign promise), and hence not to be taken seriously. And, as
we argued in the previous section, radical parties are under pressure
from economic and state bureaucracies that ensure that even a sincere
radical party would be powerless to introduce significant reforms.

The only real response to the problems of representative democracy is to 
urge people not to vote. This can be a valuable way of making others aware 
of the limitations of the current system, which is a necessary condition 
for their seriously considering the anarchist alternative, as we have
outlined in this FAQ. The implications of abstentionism are discussed
in the next section.

J.2.5 Why do anarchists support abstentionism and what are its
      implications?

At its most basic, anarchists support abstentionism because "participation
in elections means the transfer of one's will and decisions to another,
which is contrary to the fundamental principles of anarchism." [Emma
Goldman, "Anarchists and Elections", _Vanguard_ III, June-July 1936,
p. 19]

If you reject hierarchy and government then participating in a system
by which you elect those who will govern you is almost like adding insult
to injury! And as Luigi Galleani points out, "[b]ut whoever has the political
competence to choose his own rulers is, by implication, also competent
to do without them." [_The End of Anarchism?_, p. 37] In other words,
because anarchists reject the idea of authority, we reject the idea 
that picking the authority (be it bosses or politicians) makes us free.
Therefore, anarchists reject governmental elections in the name of
self-government and free association. We refuse to vote as voting is
endorsing authoritarian social structures. We are (in effect) being asked
to make obligations to the state, not our fellow citizens, and so anarchists
reject the symbolic process by which our liberty is alienated from us.

For anarchists, then, when you vote, you are choosing between rulers. 
Instead of urging people to vote we raise the option of choosing to rule 
yourself, to organise freely with others - in your workplace, in your 
community, everywhere - as equals. The option of something you cannot
vote for, a new society. And instead of waiting for others to do make some 
changes for you, anarchists urge that you do it yourself. This is the 
core of the anarchist support for abstentionism.

In addition, beyond this basic anarchist rejection of elections from a
anti-statist position, anarchists also support abstentionism as it allows
us to put across our ideas at election time. It is a fact that at election
times individuals are often more interested in politics than usual. So,
by arguing for abstentionism we can get our ideas across about the
nature of the current system, how elected politicians do not control
the state bureaucracy, now the state acts to protect capitalism and so
on. In addition, it allows us to present the ideas of direct action and
encourage those disillusioned with political parties and the current
system to become anarchists by presenting a viable alternative to the
farce of politics.

And a sizeable percentage of non-voters and voters are disillusioned
with the current set-up. According to the US paper _The Nation_
(dated February 10, 1997):

"Protest is alive and well in the growing non-electorate, now the majority
(last fall's turnout was 48.8 percent). According to a little-noticed
post-election survey of 400 nonvoters conducting by the Polling Company, a
Washington-based firm, 38 percent didn't vote for essentially political
reasons: they 'did not care for any of the candidates' (16 percent), they
were 'fed up with the political system' (15 percent) or they 'did not feel
like candidates were interested in people like me' (7 percent). That's at 
least 36 million people--almost as many as voted for Bob Dole. The nonvoting 
majority is also disproportionately liberal-leaning, compared with those 
who did vote."

So, anarchist abstentionism is a means of turning this negative reaction
to an unjust system into positive activity. So, anarchist opposition to 
electioneering has deep political implications which Luigi Galleani addresses 
when he writes that the "anarchists' electoral abstentionism implies not 
only a conception that is opposed to the principle of representation 
(which is totally rejected by anarchism), it implies above all an absolute 
lack of confidence in the State. . . Furthermore, anarchist abstentionism 
has consequences which are much less superficial than the inert apathy 
ascribed to it by the sneering careerists of 'scientific socialism' 
[i.e. Marxism]. It strips the State of the constitutional fraud with 
which it presents itself to the gullible as the true representative
of the whole nation, and, in so doing, exposes its essential character 
as representative, procurer and policeman of the ruling classes.

"Distrust off reforms, of public power and of delegated authority, can 
lead to direct action [in the class struggle]. . . It can determine the 
revolutionary character of this . . . action; and, accordingly, anarchists 
regard it as the best available means for preparing the masses to manage their 
own personal and collective interests; and, besides, anarchists feel that even 
now the working people are fully capable of handling their own political and
administrative interests." [_The End of Anarchism?_, pp. 13-14]

Therefore abstentionism stresses the importance of self-activity and
self-libertarian as well as having an important educational effect in
highlighting that the state is not neutral, but serves to protect class
rule, and that meaningful change only comes from below, by direct action. 
For the dominant ideas within any class society reflect the opinion of the 
ruling elite of that society and so any campaign at election times which 
argues for abstentionism and indicates why voting is a farce will obviously 
challenge these dominant ideas. In other words, abstentionism combined with 
direct action and the building of socialist alternatives is a very effective 
means of changing people's ideas and encouraging a process of self-education 
and, ultimately, self-liberation.

Anarchists are aware that elections serve to legitimate government. We
have always warned that since the state is an integral part of the system 
that perpetuates poverty, inequality, racism, imperialism, sexism, 
environmental destruction, and war, we should not expect to solve
any of these problems by changing a few nominal state leaders every four
or five years (see P. Kropotkin, "Representative Government," _The
Commonweal_, Vol. 7, 1892; Errico Malatesta, _Vote: What For?_, Freedom
Press, 1942). Therefore anarchists (usually) advocate abstentionism
at election time as a means of exposing the farce of "democracy", the
disempowering nature of elections and the real role of the state.

Therefore, anarchists urge abstentionism in order to *encourage* activity,
not apathy. The reasons *why* people abstain is more important than the act.
The idea that the USA is closer to anarchy because around 50% of people
do not vote is nonsense. Abstentionism in this case is the product of
apathy and cynicism, not political ideas. So anarchists recognise that 
apathetic abstentionism is *not* revolutionary or an indication of anarchist
sympathies. It is produced by apathy and a general level of cynicism at 
*all* forms of political ideas and the possibility of change. 

Not voting is *not* enough, and anarchists urge people to *organise* and 
*resist* as well. Abstentionism must be the political counterpart of class
struggle, self-activity and self-management in order to be effective - 
otherwise it is as pointless as voting is.

J.2.6 What are the effects of radicals using electioneering?

While many radicals would be tempted to agree with our analysis of the
limitations of electioneering and voting, few would automatically
agree with anarchist abstentionist arguments. Instead, they argue that
we should combine direct action with electioneering. In that way (it is
argued) we can overcome the limitations of electioneering by invigorating
the movement with self-activity. In addition, it is argued, the state
is too powerful to leave in the hands of the enemies of the working
class. A radical politician will refuse to give the orders to crush
social protest that a right-wing, pro-capitalist one would.

This reformist idea met a nasty end in the 1900s (when, we may note, social 
democracy was still considered revolutionary). In 1899, the Socialist 
Alexandre Millerand joined the cabinet of the French Government. The 
Marxian-Socialist Second International approved of this with such leaders 
as Lenin and Kautsky supporting it at the 1904 conference. However, nothing
changed:

"thousands of strikers. . . appealed to Millerand for help, confident that,
with him in the government, the state would be on their side. Much of this
confidence was dispelled within a few years. The government did little 
more for workers than its predecessors had done; soldiers and police were
still sent in to repress serious strikes." [Peter N. Stearns, _Revolutionary
Syndicalism and French Labour_, p. 16]

In 1910, the Socialist Prime Minister Briand used scabs and soldiers to again 
break a general strike on the French railways. And these events occurred 
during the period when social democratic and socialist parties were 
self-proclaimed revolutionaries and arguing against anarcho-syndicalism 
by using the argument that working people needed their own representatives
in office to stop troops being used against them during strikes!

Looking at the British Labour government of 1945 to 1951 we find the same
actions. What is often considered the most left-wing Labour government 
ever used troops to break strikes in every year it was in office, starting 
with a dockers' strike days after it became the new government. And again 
in the 1970s Labour used troops to break strikes. Indeed, the Labour Party 
has used troops to break strikes more often than the right-wing Conservative 
Party. 

In other words, while these are important arguments in favour of radicals
using elections, they ultimately fail to take into account the nature of 
the state and the corrupting effect it has on radicals. If history is 
anything to go by, the net effect of radicals using elections is that by 
the time they are elected to office the radicals will happily do what they 
claimed the right-wing would have done. Many blame the individuals elected
to office for these betrayals, arguing that we need to elect *better* 
politicians, select *better* leaders. For anarchists nothing could be more
wrong as its the means used, not the individuals involved, which is the 
problem.

At its most basic, electioneering results in the party using it becoming
more moderate and reformist - indeed the party often becomes the victim 
of its own success. In order to gain votes, the party must appear "moderate"
and "practical" and that means working within the system. This has meant
that (to use Rudolf Rocker words):

"Participation in the politics of the bourgeois States has not
brought the labour movement a hair's-breadth nearer to Socialism, but
thanks to this method, Socialism has almost been completely crushed
and condemned to insignificance. . . Participation in parliamentary
politics has affected the Socialist Labour movement like an insidious
poison. It destroyed the belief in the necessity of constructive Socialist
activity, and, worse of all, the impulse to self-help, by inoculating 
people with the ruinous delusion that salvation always comes from above." 
[_Anarcho-Syndicalism_, p. 49]

This corruption does not happen overnight. Alexander Berkman indicates how 
it slowly develops when he writes:

"[At the start, the Socialist Parties] claimed that they meant to use politics
only for the purpose of propaganda . . . and took part in elections on order
to have an opportunity to advocate Socialism

"It may seem a harmless thing but it proved the undoing of Socialism. 
Because nothing is truer than the means you use to attain your object soon
themselves become your object . . . [so] There is a deeper reason for this
constant and regular betrayal [than individual scoundrels being elected]
. . . no man turns scoundrel or traitor overnight.

"It is *power* which corrupts . . . Moreover, even with the best intentions
Socialists [who get elected] . . . find themselves entirely powerless to
accomplishing anything of a socialistic nature . . . The demoralisation and
vitiation [this brings about] take place little by little, so gradually
that one hardly notices it himself . . . [The elected Socialist] perceives
that he is regarded as a laughing stock [by the other politicians] . . .
and finds more and more difficulty in securing the floor . . . he knows
that neither by his talk nor by his vote can he influence the proceedings
. . . His speeches don't even reach the public . . . [and so] He appeals to 
the voters to elect more comrades . . . Years pass . . . [and a] number . . .
are elected. Each of them goes through the same experience. . . [and]
quickly come to the conclusion . . . [that] They must show that they are
practical men . . . that they are doing something for their constituency. . .
In this manner the situation compels them to take a 'practical' part in the
proceedings, to 'talk business,' to fall in line with the matters actually
dealt with in the legislative body . . . Spending years in that atmosphere,
enjoying good jobs and pay, the elected Socialists have themselves become
part and parcel of the political machinery . . . With growing success in
elections and securing political power they turn more and more conservative
and content with existing conditions. Removal from the life and suffering
of the working class, living in the atmosphere of the bourgeoisie . . . they
have become what they call 'practical' . . . Power and position have
gradually stifled their conscience and they have not the strength and
honesty to swim against the current . . . They have become the strongest
bulwark of capitalism."[_What is Communist Anarchism?_, pp. 78-82]

And so the "political power which they had wanted to conquer had gradually
conquered their Socialism until there was scarcely anything left of it."
[Rudolf Rocker, Op. Cit., p. 50] Not that these arguments are the result
of hindsight, we may add. Bakunin was arguing in the early 1870s that
the "inevitable result [of using elections] will be that workers' deputies,
transferred to a purely bourgeois environment, and into an atmosphere
of purely bourgeois political ideas. . . will become middle class in their
outlook, perhaps even more so than the bourgeois themselves." [_The
Political Philosophy of Bakunin_, p. 216] History proved Bakunin's 
prediction correct (as it did with his prediction that Marxism would
result in elite rule).

History is littered with examples of radical parties becoming a part of