MORE ON ANARCHISM

A good intellectual introduction to anarchism can be gotten by reading Anarchism: A beginner's guide, by Ruth Kinna.  Kinna is editor of the journal Anarchist Studies and is a Lecturer in Politics at Loughborough University, UK.

Here is an excerpt:  "The clearest statement of anarchist suspicion of utopianism appears in Marie Louise Berneris Journey Through Utopia, an analysis of utopian thought from Plato to Huxley.  In this book she argued that the outstanding feature of most utopias is their authoritarianism.  With notable exceptions like William Morris's News From Nowhere, utopias promise material and spiritual satisfaction as well as social and economic equality at the cost of foisting on their ideal citizen a unifying moral ideal. Typically, utopias fail what Berneris called the test of art: Herbert Read's standard of individuality and social experimentation.  Some anarchists have taken the critique further, rejecting utopianism in principle.  It is not so much the contents of utopias that upsets these anarchists but the very idea of perfection--whether it applies to the social order or the framing of personality.  As Rudolph Rocker argues, anarchism 'is no patent solution for all human problems, no Utopia of a perfect social order . . . since, on principle, it rejects all absolute schemes and concepts.'   A similar view informs a recent critique of Zerzan.  Zerzan's treatment of primitive society suggests an 'idealized, hypostatized vision of the past' that is at odds with critical self-understanding of the social and natural world that informs primitivist critique.  It suggests a recommendation for preconceived ideals in a way that constrains free thought'.".

We don't hear much about McCarthyism these days.  It's a shame.  For those who may not know, the phrase refers to the tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950s.  He would accuse presumably innocent people of being communist agents of the Soviet Union, our cold war enemy  He would hold senate hearings in which he would badger witnesses.  His accusations were usually based on scant evidence.  In a nut shell, he and his followers - who were many- simply assumed the guilt of those they considered their enemies.

Well, I see a similar mind set among certain implacable foes of the Spokane Police Department.  This seems quite obvious to me  But let me note just two recent remarks I heard or read.  First, a former attorney with the Spokane Center for justice cited the fact that the Center received many complaints against the police.  The way this was put, it was clear he expected the audience to assume these complaints were valid.  Now, I can not think of  a person more apt to have a false complaint lodged against him than a policeman.   The second incident was the citing by PJALS of the disparity between the percentage of African Americans and Native Americans in the Spokane population and the percentage of those members tasered.  These numbers prove absolutely nothing to anyone with any knowledge of statistical inference but are inflammatory to others.  The numbers result from great social injustices, but police racism is not likely one of them.  Or if it is, bring on a valid proof.

I finish by saying there are things wrong with the SPD but McCarthyism is not the way to fix them

Here are some quotes from the back cover of Freedom Press's 1998 reprint of Peter Kropotkin's 1902 work, MUTUAL AID: A Factor of Evolution.

"I would hold that Kropotkin's basic argument is correct.  Struggle does occur in many modes, and some lead to cooperation among members of a species as the best path to advantage for individuals.  If Kropotkin overemphasized mutual aid, most Darwinians in Western Europe exaggerated competition just as strongly.  If Kropotkin drew . . . hope for social reform from his concept of nature, other Darwinians had erred just as firmly (and for motives that most of us would now decry) in justifying imperial conquest, racism, and oppression of industrial workers as the harsh outcome of natural selection in the competitive mode."
                                                                         

 STEPHEN JAY GOULD

"In light of scientific investigation in the many fields upon which Mutual Aid draws since its  publication, Kropotkin's data and the discussion he based them on stand up reasonable well . . . .Mutual Aid will never be any more out of date than the Declaration of Independence.  New facts may increasingly become available, but we can already see that they will serve largely to support Kropotkin's conclusion that 'in the ethical progress of man, mutual support--not mutual struggle--has had the leading part'."

ASHLEY MONTAGU

"The earliest theorists of anarchism, such as William Godwin and Kropotkin, strikingly anticipate the findings of sociology in their estimate of human behaviour and the means of modifying conduct. . . . Kropotkin profoundly influenced biology by his theory of Mutual Aid, propounded as a counterblast to the social conclusions drawn from the Darwinian 'struggle for existence'.  He was one the first systematic students of animal communities, and may be regarded as the founder of modern social ecology."

ALEX COMFORT

 

Another anarchist I like is Jean Grave (1854-1930).  Here is a paragraph from Louis Patsouras's book, The Anarchism of Jean Grave:

For Grave, anarchism embodied free and co-operative individuals in an egalitarian environment  free of any authority associated with hierarchy in such institutions as government, private capital and religion, the antithesis of the Liberal view of legally free but economically and socially stratified individuals locked in competition.  There was a social contract, so to speak, that united the individual to the general community, the universality of mutual aid,  which anarchists would defend by arms if necessary.  In the event of civil war, would not anarchism, however, not need organisation and hierarchy in order to defend itself?  Perhaps, but one must not discount the various anarchist safeguards that would make hierarchy difficult in the long run, like absence of wage labour, general equality and participatory democracy.

Here is something from Martin Buber's Paths in Utopia on the ideas of the German anarchist and martyr, Gustav Landauer.

"It would be madness,"  Landauer writes in a letter to a woman who wanted to abolish marriage, "to dream of abolishing the few forms of union that remain to us!  We need form, not formlessness.  We need tradition."  He who builds, not arbitrarily and fruitlessly, but  legitimately and for the future, acts with inner kinship with age-old tradition, and this entrusts itself to him and gives him strength.  It will now be clear why Landauer calls the "other" relationship which man can enter into instead the ordinary State-relationship, not by nay new name but simply "People".  Such a "People" comprehend comprehend the innermost reality of "Nationhood" - what remains over after when "Statehood" and politicization have been superseded:  a community of being and  a being in manifold community.

As promised, here is a little more from Colin Ward.  It is from his essay Harmony in Complexity appearing in Anarchy in Action.  I'll just quote a few sentences to give the gist and recommend you read the balance for yourself, which is my strategy for all the posts in this series.


One of the most frequently met reasons for dismissing anarchism as a social theory is the argument that while one can imagine it existing in a small, isolated, primitive community, it can not possibly be conceived in the context of large, complex, industrial societies.  This view misunderstands both the nature of anarchism and the nature of tribal societies. . . .


Anarchy is a function, not of society's simplicity and lack of organisation, but of its complexity and multiplicity of social organisations. . . . 

The anarchist alternative is that of fragmentation, fission rather than fusion, diversity rather than unity,  a mass of societies rather than  a mass society. 

One of my favorite anarchists died recently.  That would be Colin Ward (1924-2010).  The journal, Anarchist Studies, is dedicating  a special issue in Autumn 2011 to his work and legacy.  The volume 18, number 10 issue of that same journal has a tribute to him written by David Goodway.  I want to quote from it here and then in a later post I'll give a Ward quote from his essay Harmony Through Complexity.

" . . . His  third book, Anarchy in Action (1973), was his only work on the theory of anarchism, and indeed the only one 'directly and specifically about anarchism' until his final publication, Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction (2004).  In Anarchy in Action he makes entirely explicit his highly original anarchism ( even if, as he always acknowledged, much indebted to Kropotkin and Landauer).  The opening words have been much quoted: 'Th argument of this book is that an anarchist society,  a society that organizes itself without authority, is always in existence, like  a seed beneath the snow, buried under the weight of the state and its bureaucracy, capitalism and its waste, privilege and its injustices, nationalism and its suicidal loyalties, religious differences and their superstitious separatism'.  His kind of anarchism, 'far from being a speculative vision of a future society . . . is a description of a mode of human organization, rooted in the experience of everyday life, which operates side by side with, and in spite of, the dominant authoritarian trend of our society'."

William Godwin Thought

William Godwin (1756-1836) is said to the father of philosophical anarchism.  He is also famous for being the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, the father of Mary Shelley, and the creator of the detective novel genre, and the inspiration for the political ideals of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Here is a sample of his writing and ideas.

The great cause of humanity, which is now pleading in the face of the universe, has but two enemies; those friends of antiquity, and those friends of innovation, who, impatient of suspense, are inclined violently to interrupt the calm, the incessant, the rapid and auspicious progress which thought and reflection appear to be making in the world.  Happy would it be for mankind if those persons who interest themselves most zealously in these great questions would limit their exertions to the diffusing, in every possible mode, a spirit of enquiry, and the embracing of every opportunity of increasing the stock, and generalizing the communication, of political knowledge.

   

CHOMSKY, ANARCHISTS,  SOCIALISTS

This is from Alan Ritter's 1980 book, Anarchism: A Theoretical Analysis.

 

The error of those who claim that anarchists are socialists at heart stems from blindness toward their disagreement about the causal efficacy of the state qua state.  A typical version of this claim is advanced by Noam Chomsky.  Anarchism is not to be identified with socialism simpliciter, since many socialists rely on legal government.  But there are also socialists (Chomsky cites Anton Pannekoek and William Paul) who are who are at one with finding the state antipathetic.  It is part of this 'libertarian wing of socialism' that Chomsky thinks anarchism should be classed.

 

If the antipathy to legal government of council communists, syndicalists and similar representatives of socialism's libertarian wing came from alarm about the effects of the state's inherent attributes, Chomsky's claim that anarchism is  a type of socialism would be correct.  But even the most libertarian of socialists is alarmed by the effects of the state's changeable characteristics, such as its organization or policies. . . . And what they project as a successor to the existing state is not a society  freed of legal government, but a society organized, in Chomsky's words, 'on truly democratic lines, with democratic control in the workplace and in the community'.

 

. . . Libertarian socialists . . .  are not anarchists but democrats.  [Libertarian socialists] . . . . cannot possibly be called anarchists.

I am starting a series of quotes by Anarchists and about Anarchists.  These will be according my own taste.  There is a nice collection of quotes  by Anarchists edited by Paul Berman  I may or may not use some of them.  Check the book out anyway.  My first will be from Emma Goldman's essay, Anarchism.  In a day or two I'll post one about Chomsky as an Anarchist.  Here's Emma.

As to methods, Anarchism is not, as some might suppose, a theory of the future to be realized by divine inspiration.  It is a living force in the affairs of our life, constantly creating new conditions.  The methods of Anarchism therefore do not comprise an iron-clad program to be carried out under all circumstances.  Methods must grow out of the economic needs of each place and clime, and of the intellectual and temperamental requirements of the individual.  The serene, calm character of a Tolstoy will wish different methods for social reconstruction than the intense, overflowing personality of a Michael Bakunin or a Peter Kropotkin.  Equally so it must be apparent that the economic and political needs of Russia will dictate more drastic measures than will England or America.  Anarchism does not stand for military drill and uniformity; it does, however, stand for the spirit of revolt, in whatever form, against everything that hinders human growth.  All anarchists agree in that, as they also agree in their opposition to the political machinery as  a means of bringing about the great social change.

Emma Goldman from Anarchism and Other Essays, 1917.

THE CHILDREN'S  INVESTMENT FUND

A group of Spokane citizens is making an effort to get a petition on the ballot to raise taxes for helping Spokane youth.

The plan is similar the ones in Portland and a few other cities.  And as is obvious, it is a mom and apple pie issue.  So who should object?

Well, first, let us look at this fact.  Few, if any, voters will read the actual proposed ordinance before they sign the initiative.  I know this from personal experience.  While the solicitors may have the full text with them, signers are on the fly and do not want to take the time to read it. Then once it reaches the ballot, there will be no text, only the title.

There will be a body of eleven citizens who decide where this money goes.  Four of these will be at-large and some others are what  I will call quasi-at-large.  Now one of the most active groups putting this campaign together is the Spokane Alliance, which is made up of mostly labor unions and churches.  It seems to me likely that a fair number of these at-large positions could end up filled by folks affiliated with this or that church.   And so tax money could end up being filtered to groups with a religious bent.  Not good.

 Now isn't the above a silly quibble where our children's future is at stake?   Some will say that.  I don't want to debate the issue here but it brings up the point of what this program will accomplish.  Here are some examples of trouble: One of the major claims is that it will decrease the drop out rate.  Well, The Spokesman recently  had an interesting article showing that the school district itself has been  hopelessly confused about just what is meant by drop out.  The state has rushed to the rescue - somewhat.  But some confusion seems to have lingered.  So how are we going to  measure success?

An Alliance hand-out quotes this so-called fact: Children who attend preschool  are 17% more likely to complete the 12th grade.  Now, this is could be a classic example of confusing correlation with causation.  One can not be certain without more information on the study. 

The law states that money will only be given to agencies with track records (I assume this means good track records).  Well, if we have agencies with track records, how did we get into these alleged dire straits?

I do support help for our youth, but I could use a better thought out plan than what we may be looking at if this gets on the ballot.   And I think the school district is being given too much of a free pass as to their responsibility.

PLEASE FORGET THE PRAYER BREAKFAST

President Obama held an Easter prayer service the other day and it made the news as to how diverse the Christian attendees were.  Hey, if he puts on  a breakfast I don't want to hear the word Easter.  And as to diversity, I want to see a guest list of Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Atheists, Hutterites, and every other color of belief.

This snuggling up to the religious community by Obama reveals a sad flaw in his thinking.  In general,  I am a fan of his and believe him to be an honest man, so I reject for now that he does this kiss-ass for strictly political purposes.  But then that leaves me to realize he is not the deep thinker I usually admire, which puts me in  a quandary.

I'll just have to live with it by remembering one of my basic principles of public policy:  We must learn to go for the lesser evil because that is usually all we will have.

 SHONTO PETE AND POLICE COMMISSION

 

 Shonto Pete has now been rebuffed in his attempt to hold the city of Spokane legally responsible for the fact he was shot by Jay Olsen.  A federal judge did the rebuffing.  It seems like an open and shut case.  If a city-employed plumber helped me with some water line work during his time off and I suffered damage because of his incompetence, I can not believe I would think of suing the city.  Hold it a minute.  I might allow the thought to cross my mind only because the city has much more money.  And this seems to have been the ultimate rationale behind Pete's case against the city.  As to Pete's pressing legal and medical bills: If I had the money I would pay them myself in the interest of justice.   Perhaps there are like minded individuals in Spokane who do have the wealth and the desire to at least partially right a wrong.  Note though that there are hundreds of cases each year where judgments are made in civil actions but the aggrieved party never collects.  I've had it happen to me.

This whole incident opens the door to a consideration of a wider issue:  the setting of policy for the Spokane Police Department.  For starters, let's keep one foot in the ore body and look at off-duty drinking of alcohol and taking of drugs, including prescription pain killers.  Just what the policy should be, other than not what is now, I am not sure.  But I do not believe the mayor or chief should set the policy by themselves.   An independent board of citizens, properly selected, should act as a primary advisor.  This would not be a "sounding board" group or an "oversight" committee.  It would be, to start with,  similar to what Eugene, Oregon has.  And I would hope it would evolve into something at least as strong as  the Park Board. 

CRITIQUE OF PJALS

The Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane is on the extreme edge of Spokane's political thought.   Of course, the name is in their favor.  Who can be against peace and justice?   

I see that now they are stepping up their effort to abolish Israel by boycott, divestiture, and sanctions.   They are denying Israel's right to exist through damnation of the two state solution, a solution  accepted, I believe,  in one form or another by nearly all moderates.  Of course, this is the public face of PJALS.  Who knows what the few hundred paid-up members say?   Attempts to stamp out Israel are certainly not going to lead to peace.  Though I do admit, the current Israel government needs to be thrown out on its ear and a more progressive one installed.  And I condemn all truly unjust acts by Israel just as I condemn suicide bombings and other terrorist attack by the Palestinians

Another example of PJALS meddling in a manner with a formula overladen with venom and under dosed with reason is what they call "police accountability."  One evidence of this is the way they trot out the name of Shonto Pete.  Pete suffered an injustice at the hands of the County Prosecutor or a jury.  The drunken off-duty policeman who shot him was very much in the wrong, but how the department may have been culpable is never addressed by PJALS.  I believe the department needs to be overseen - if only indirectly -  by an independent citizen group.  This in addition to the Ombudsman.  This body could strongly recommend a department policy as to alcohol and the police.  But if an Ombudsman with independent investigatory powers - as proposed by PJALS -  had been in place when Pete was shot, I fail to see where that would have led to anything more than criminal charges being brought against the drunkard policeman.  That was done and still no one is happy.   And finally, there is  the matter of partnering with The Center for Justice on this issue.  They have a civil suit going against a Spokane Policeman in the Zehm case.  They have a money stake in this. 

And so on it goes in knee jerk fashion.  Someone yells foul and PJALS is off on another crusade with its parade of true believers.   

PJALS CRIES SUBTERFUGE

Yes.  Liz Moore, PJALS spokeswoman, accuses our city of attempting a ruse, defined in the dictionary as a wily subterfuge.   But it seems the mayor and all were not wily enough.  They've been caught. 

The impression I get from Moore and others who spoke at her press conferences is that the police are on a rampage.  And why aren't they being sued, reported to the Prosecutor, the Mayor, the  Governor, or the FBI?  Because everyone is afraid of retaliation.  Or so some say.  But everything will just be dandy, they claim, if we  only create an ombudsman position with independent investigatory powers.  Of course, they have already hinted that it also could be necessary for them to pick the ombudsman.

Down the road I believe there will be an ombudsman with independent investigatory powers.  And it will likely be a good thing.  But please, let us get there without killing so much good will.  The city council, administration, and police force are not packed with bad people.  If this tool is needed it can be gotten to with a reasonable lobbying efforts; i.e., by sticking to the facts and making compelling arguments.  Name calling and finger pointing do not impress me.  It reminds me too much of Joe McCarthy.