This is a piece that was written a few years back but never posted to Gonzo Times. In an effort to put out an archive of writings I am also going to try and release some unreleased works as well.
We are looking to form a new society within the shell of the old. This means educating, organizing and producing. This means that the revolution we are seeking must be built through free cooperation, production and built not through the destruction of war. The thing is that we are forming within the shell. A baby bird forms within a shell and has that one moment where it’s beak pierces the shell and breaks through. The revolution will have that one moment the piercing and shattering of the shell. If the bird in the shell is premature it will struggle and quite possibly die. We must nourish it, raise it up to be strong enough so that it will be able to break through that shell, grow strong and eventually soar.
The revolution I seek is driven by a simple goal. The push is for liberation of all from the state and capitalism in the effort to elevate the conditions of all to a point where not only needs are met but people are empowered over their lives free of rulers oppression and exploitation. The goal is to elevate the conditions of lives for all people. In the process there will be those who are parasites on society and currently gain from the poverty of others who will by necessity loose the power of exploitation and find themselves not in a situation of wealth and power at the expense of the labor of others.
Through the liberation of all people we begin to eliminate scarcity and create a society of true wealth. In this we free ourselves from the restrictions placed on the workers in a wage system and the restrictions placed on people by a market system. I am not advocating a new economic model. There may be many economic models that arise from this. It is a call to abolish private property and capitalism as well as the state. Communism and capitalism as we know it is unsustainable and will only create poverty and oppression of the people.
Communist countries have simply used the term communism while creating a form of absolute state controlled capitalism. They have historically claimed ownership of the means of production as the capitalist has. They just simply place a national flag in place of a corporate logo. At the same time privatization and capitalism does exactly the same in reverse. Capitalism has managed to take the power of the state and simply slap a corporate logo over the flag serving the same function of rule through capital and a claim of ownership of the means of production. Through property the communists and capitalists have created hierarchies and oppression.
Anarchism is the liberation of all people and the empowerment of all people over their own lives. All production, work and resources are shifted from the hands of the rulers to the hands of the actual producers and the people. The people gain power over their lives instead of submission to a higher power out of necessity to meet basic needs. Authority is claimed over the production of the people through property of the state or the capitalist. This is how people are enslaved economically to the state and capitalist. Economies are built around a claim to the product of the workers labor. Debt to the state or capitalist is the crux of the economic systems people are currently enslaved to.
Anarchism does not bring utopia. Anarchism will not create a perfect society. It is the empowerment of the people to live in the societies and condition they deem suitable within the limits of reality able to shift and alter according to needs. It is the liberation form being restricted to living in the society rulers allow and create. It is the abolition of rulers.
The effort for anarchism has become watered down. The building of a new society within the shell of the old is still a current effort. It is not going to bring about the liberation we seek. Liberation will not be found within our current capitalist society. Therefore we will find that revolution will become necessary. There is a great deal of fear involving the talk of revolution. This comes from the fact that it is illegal. The state and the capitalist will stand in violent opposition to any true attempt of the people to liberate themselves. Because of this revolution is not realistic at the moment I am writing this. To reach this point we must grow in numbers. We must organize and educate and build momentum for the coming revolution. Simply, until the people want a revolution of the people there will be no revolution of the people.
A modern fear of retaliation to revolution has led to an idea that revolution can be slow and progressive. It has led to a belief that begging to the powers that be will bring about change. It has led to some thinking a protest will make change. All of these are futile. Any world where the powers that be are left in power will lead to the evolution of the complexity of the capitalist state and it’s continued exploitation of the people. Revolution will be sudden. It will have a date and time. It will take time to build for and prepare. It will not be an evolution of the current system. The way of life for many will change. This will not keep all those of privilege in the same state of privilege they currently enjoy. This is why many will oppose revolution. The privileged will loose power of oppression and power to segregate from oppressed classes and they will loose their ability to turn a blind eye to the reality of exploitation and oppression they thrive on. The myth of meritocracy many believe in will crumble around them as they face the reality of their dependance on the lower classes. But in this we will raise the quality of life for all. If your quality of life depends on exploitation and oppression you may have less to gain from revolution immediately, but ultimately we are given the power to build the quality of life we seek and in this we are improving quality of life for all.
This book is not original by any means. It is very much inspired by the anarchists who came before us and it very much holds the same vision they once held only it is an attempt to frame the struggle in what some see as a more complex world facing new challenges. This book is written towards those living in what is called in an ethnocentric manner the developed world. This book is very much inspired by Kropotkin’s anarchist masterpiece ‘The Conquest of Bread’. This book is vital to the history of anarchism because it was not a book of theory like so much anarchist writing. It was a guide book for revolution. It greatly inspired one of the largest attempts of anarchist revolution in the Spanish Civil War because it
This is written with the urban core of the United States in mind. This is because I am rallying those who live side by side with me and in a similar environment as myself. It is focused on those most exploited and impoverished by capitalism in the United States and other similar countries. The fry cooks, the migrant laborers, the people being oppressed by the justice system and anyone who is striving to just keep a roof over their head struggling to keep above water as the capitalists grow richer.
Our politicians promise everything we seek and have failed to deliver throughout history. They have successfully grown their own power and successfully grown capitalism. President Obama ran his campaign promising health care for all and when it came down to it the bill he gave us was written in a manner to benefit the capitalist with a few little crumbs for the people. In the long run it was written by the very same corporations we were seeking refuge from. The reality is that every step we gain in a political arena is simply a little icing on the shit cake that is the growth of capitalist rule. Our dependance on capitalist rulers and low wage labor is unparalleled in human history, yet conveniently covered up with that very same icing on the shit cake.
Yet we are told messages of empowerment and liberation by the very same people who have been systematically exploiting us for labor and oppressing us and others globally. We are told if we keep giving them support they will bring the change we seek and in turn they continue to bleed us dry and leave the people powerless against their rule.
As Kropotkin so elegantly put it:
“This is the secret of wealth; find the starving and destitute, pay them half a crown, and make them produce five shillings worth in the day, amass a fortune by these means, and then increase it by some lucky hit, made with the help of the State.”
We do what we need to do to get by. Many work long hours to attempt to make ends meet but fail in paying bills for basic necessities. Even then they turn to government assistant begging for a portion of the product of their labor to be returned to them in a convoluted system that provides bare essentials like food stamps or section 8 housing. All of these turn out to be insufficient and just enough to get us by long enough to continue to slave away long hours at jobs where we are paid little and the owners continue to increase their corporate profits at unparalleled levels of wealth. The owner of the property that is the workers labor is the parasite on the labor of the worker and the state acts as a buffer defending the capitalist owner from the revolt of the working class. Wage labor must be abolished. Only the wage earner can abolish this.
What is often addressed in a political arena is how to make the capitalist system more compassionate or tolerable. The option to abolish the system of wage labor and property that has been so problematic is not one up for debate. When solidarity is brought up it is either a dirty word or referring to a solidarity with others marching in a protest. The real necessity for solidarity is solidarity of all workers in their given trades with one another against the common foes of capitalism and the state. It must be a unified effort.
We will continue perpetuating the same cycle of the impoverished being subject to the ruling class until a revolutionary movement occurs. In this it becomes essential for the movement to be one against both the state and capitalism. It is only by the absolute liberation of all that we can begin to actually begin to work on ending this cycle. Revolution does not end scarcity overnight. It is however a step away from the capitalist state that generates scarcity.
If all the employees of the state, banks and other areas of capitalist oppression leave oppressive positions and begin to produce with the mass of other workers we will see the parasitic class wither and only a productive class remains. The capitalist likes to label the worker and the oppressed a parasite when it is they who have a parasitic relationship leeching off of the labor of the lower classes to generate their wealth. Anarchism has no place for the parasites of capitalism.
The brutality of the state is the crux of maintaining the system of capitalism. Endless wars and increased police power is used to further the interests of the capitalists. The power held by the capitalist is found in capital of course. The monetary resources and claim to property that gives them a claim to the product of labor or the right of increase. It is what is essential in capitalism to meet basic needs so the one who owns this property is the one who has power over all others. The state officials bow to the capital as well as the major media news outlets. Both are funded by capitalist corporations who provide the ability to continue their operation based on the capital provided in the form of advertisement revenue or campaign contributions.
The state provides physical violence and prison for any who oppose the laws which favor the functioning of commerce or capitalist preference. The state depends on violence to claim it’s power. The state is something that can not continue to exist because the state is violence. It it the social construct of justified violence to maintain hierarchy.