FROM POLITICS TO LIFE:
Ridding anarchy of the leftist millstone
By
Wolfi Landstreicher
From the time anarchism was first defined as a distinct radical movement it has
been associated with the left, but the association has always been uneasy.
Leftists who were in a position of authority (including those who called
themselves anarchists, like the leaders of the CNT and the FAI in Spain in
1936-37) found the anarchist aim of the total transformation of life and the
consequent principle that the ends should already exist in the means of
struggle to be a hindrance to their political programs. Real insurgence always
burst far beyond any political program, and the most coherent anarchists saw
the realization of their dreams precisely in this unknown place beyond. Yet,
time after time, when the fires of insurrection cooled (and even occasionally,
as in Spain in 1936-37, while they still burnt brightly), leading anarchists
would take their place again as �the conscience of the left�. But if the
expansiveness of anarchist dreams and the principles that it implies have been
a hindrance to the political schemes of the left, these schemes have been a far
greater millstone around the neck of the anarchist movement, weighing it down
with the �realism� that cannot dream.
For the left, the social struggle against exploitation and oppression is
essentially a political program to be realized by whatever means are expedient.
Such a conception obviously requires a political methodology of struggle, and
such a methodology is bound to contradict some basic anarchist principles.
First of all, politics as a distinct category of social existence is the
separation of the decisions that determine our lives from the execution of
those decisions. This separation resides in institutions that make and impose
those decisions. It matters little how democratic or consensual those
institutions are; the separation and institutionalization inherent in politics
always constitute an imposition simply because they require that decisions be
made before the circumstances to which they apply arise. This makes it
necessary that they take on the form of general rules that are always to be
applied in certain types of situations regardless of the specific circumstances.
The seeds of ideological thinking � in which ideas rule the activities of
individuals rather than serving individuals in developing their own projects �
are found here, but I will go into that later. Of equal importance from an
anarchist perspective is the fact that power lies in these decision-making and
enforcing institutions. And the leftist conception of social struggle is
precisely one of influencing, taking over or creating alternative versions of
these institutions. In other words, it is a struggle to change, not to destroy
institutionalized power relationships.
This conception of struggle, with its programmatic basis requires an
organization as the means for carrying out the struggle. The organization
represents the struggle, because it is the concrete expression of its program.
If those involved define that program as revolutionary and anarchist, then the
organization comes to represent revolution and anarchy for them, and the
strength of the organization is equated with the strength of revolutionary and
anarchist struggle. A clear example of this is found in the Spanish revolution
where the leadership of the CNT, after inspiring the workers and peasants of
Catalonia to expropriate the means of production (as well as arms with which
they formed their free militias), did not dissolve the organization and allow
the workers to explore the recreation of social life on their own terms, but
rather took over management of production. This confusion of management by the
union for workers� self-management had results that can be studied by anyone
willing to look at those events critically. When the struggle against the
ruling order is thus separated from the individuals carrying it out and placed
into the hands of the organization, it ceases to be the self-determined project
of those individuals and instead becomes a external cause to which they adhere.
Because this cause is equated with the organization, the primary activity of
the individuals who adhere to it is the maintenance and expansion of the organization.
In fact, the leftist organization is the means through which the left intends
to transform institutionalized power relationships. Whether this is done
through appeal to the current rulers and the exercise of democratic rights,
through the electoral or violent conquest of state power, through the
institutional expropriation of the means of production or through a combination
of these means is of little importance. To accomplish this, the organization
tries to make itself into an alternative power or a counter-power. This is why
it must embrace the current ideology of power, i.e., democracy. Democracy is
that system of separated and institutionalized decision-making that requires
the creation of social consensus for programs put forward. Although power
always resides in coercion, in the democratic framework, it is justified
through the consent it can win. This is why it is necessary for the left to
seek as many adherents as possible, numbers to tally in support of its
programs. Thus, in its adherence to democracy, the left must embrace the
quantitative illusion.
The attempt to win adherents requires the appeal to the lowest common
denominator. So instead of carrying on a vital theoretical exploration, the
left develops a set of simplistic doctrines through which to view the world and
a litany of moral outrages perpetrated by the current rulers, which leftists
hope will have mass appeal. Any questioning or exploration outside of this
ideological framework is vehemently condemned or viewed with incomprehension.
The incapacity for serious theoretical exploration is the cost of accepting the
quantitative illusion according to which numbers of adherents, regardless of
their passivity and ignorance, are considered the reflection of a strong
movement rather than the quality and coherence of ideas and practice.
The political necessity of appealing to �the masses� also moves the left to use
the method of making piece-meal demands to the current rulers. This method is
certainly quite consistent with a project of transforming power relationships,
precisely because it does not challenge those relationships at their roots. In
fact, by making demands of those in power, it implies that simple (though
possibly extreme) adjustments of the current relationships are sufficient for
the realization of the leftist program. What is not put into question in this
method is the ruling order itself, because this would threaten the political
framework of the left.
Implicit in this piece-meal approach to change is the doctrine of progressivism
(in fact, one of the more popular labels among leftists and liberals nowadays �
who would rather leave behind these other sullied labels � is precisely
�progressive�). Progressivism is the idea that the current order of things is
the result of an ongoing (though possibly �dialectical�) process of improvement
and that if we put in the effort (whether through voting, petition, litigation,
civil disobedience, political violence or even the conquest of power � anything
other than its destruction), we can take this process further. The concept of
progress and the piece-meal approach that is its practical expression point to
another quantitative aspect of the leftist conception of social transformation.
This transformation is simply a matter of degrees, of one�s position along an
ongoing trajectory. The right amount of adjustment will get us �there�
(wherever �there� is). Reform and revolution are simply different levels of the
same activity. Such are the absurdities of leftism which remains blind to the overwhelming
evidence that the only trajectory that we have been on at least since the rise
of capitalism and industrialism is the increasing impoverishment of existence,
and this cannot be reformed away.
The piece-meal approach and the political need for categorization also leads
the left to valorize people in terms of their membership in various oppressed
and exploited groups, such as �workers�, �women�, �people of color�, �gays and
lesbians� and so on. This categorization is the basis of identity politics.
Identity politics is the particular form of false opposition in which oppressed
people choose to identify with a particular social category through which their
oppression is reinforced as a supposed act of defiance against their
oppression. In fact, the continued identification with this social role limits
the capacity of those who practice identity politics to analyze their situation
in this society deeply and to act as individuals against their oppression. It
thus guarantees the continuation of the social relationships that cause their
oppression. But only as members of categories are these people useful as pawns
in the political maneuverings of the left, because such social categories take
on the role of pressure groups and power blocs within the democratic framework.
The political logic of the left, with its organizational requirements, its
embrace of democracy and the quantitative illusion and its valorization of
people as mere members of social categories, is inherently collectivist,
suppressing the individual as such. This expresses itself in the call for
individuals to sacrifice themselves to the various causes, programs and
organizations of the left. Behind these calls one finds the manipulative
ideologies of collective identity, collective responsibility and collective
guilt. Individuals who are defined as being part of a �privileged� group �
�straight�, �white�, �male�, �first-world�, �middle class� � are held
responsible for all the oppression attributed to that group. They are then
manipulated into acting to expiate these �crimes�, giving uncritical support to
the movements of those more oppressed than they are. Individuals who are
defined as being part of an oppressed group are manipulated into accepting
collective identity in this group out of a mandatory �solidarity� � sisterhood,
black nationalism, queer identity, etc. If they reject or even deeply and
radically criticize this group identity, this is equated with acceptance of
their own oppression. In fact, the individual who acts on his or her own (or
only with those with whom s/he has developed real affinity) against her or his
oppression and exploitation as s/he experiences it in his or her life, is
accused of �bourgeois individualism�, in spite of the fact that s/he is
struggling precisely against the alienation, separation and atomization that is
the inherent result of the collective alienated social activity that the state
and capital � so-called �bourgeois society� � impose upon us.
Because leftism is the active perception of social struggle as a political
program, it is ideological from top to bottom. The struggle of the left does
not grow out of the desires, needs and dreams of the living individuals
exploited, oppressed, dominated and dispossessed by this society. It is not the
activity of people striving to reappropriate their own lives and seeking the
tools necessary for doing so. Rather it is a program formulated in the minds of
leftist leaders or in organizational meetings that exists above and before
people�s individual struggles and to which these latter are to subordinate
themselves. Whatever the slogan of this program � socialism, communism,
anarchism, sisterhood, the African people, animal rights, earth liberation,
primitivism, workers� self-management, etc., etc. � it does not provide a tool
for individuals to use in their own struggles against domination, but rather
demands individuals to exchange the domination of the ruling order for the
domination of the leftist program. In other words, it demands that individuals
continue to give up their capacity to determine their own existence.
At its best, the anarchist endeavor has always been the total transformation of
existence based on the reappropriation of life by each and every individual,
acting in free association with others of their choosing. This vision can be
found in the most poetic writings of nearly every well-known anarchist, and it
is what made anarchism �the conscience of the left�. But of what use is it to
be the conscience of a movement that does not and cannot share the breadth and
depth of one�s dreams, if one desires to realize those dreams? In the history
of the anarchist movement, those perspectives and practices closest to the
left, such as anarcho-syndicalism and platformism, have always had far less of
the dream and far more of the program about them. Now that leftism has ceased
to be a significant force in any way distinguishable from the rest of the
political sphere at least in the West of the world, there is certainly no
reason to continue carrying this millstone around our necks. The realization of
anarchist dreams, of the dreams of every individual still capable of dreaming
and desiring independently to be the autonomous creators of their own
existence, requires a conscious and rigorous break with the left. At minimum,
this break would mean:
1. The rejection of a political perception of social
struggle; a recognition that revolutionary struggle is not a program, but is
rather the struggle for the individual and social reappropriation of the
totality of life. As such it is inherently anti-political. In other words,it is
opposed to any form of social organization � and any method of struggle � in
which the decisions about how to live and struggle are separated from the
execution of those decisions regardless of how democratic and participatory
this separated decision-making process may be.
2. The rejection of organizationalism, meaning by
this the rejection of the idea that any organization can represent exploited
individuals or groups, social struggle, revolution or anarchy. Therefore also
the rejection of all formal organizations � parties, unions, federations and
their like � which, due to their programmatic nature, take on such a
representative role. This does not mean the rejection of the capacity to
organize the specific activities necessary to the revolutionary struggle, but
rather the rejection of the subjection of the organization of tasks and
projects to the formalism of an organizational program. The only task that has
ever been shown to require formal organization is the development and
maintenance of a formal organization.
3. The rejection of democracy and the quantitative
illusion. The rejection of the view that the number of adherents to a cause,
idea or program is what determines the strength of the struggle, rather than
the qualitative value of the practice of struggle as an attack against the
institutions of domination and as a reappropriation of life. The rejection of
every institutionalization or formalization of decision-making, and indeed of
every conception of decision-making as a moment separated from life and
practice. The rejection, as well, of the evangelistic method that strives to
win over the masses. Such a method assumes that theoretical exploration is at
an end, that one has the answer to which all are to adhere and that therefore
every method is acceptable for getting the message out even if that method
contradicts what we are saying. It leads one to seek followers who accept one�s
position rather than comrades and accomplices with which to carry on one�s
explorations. The practice instead of striving to carry out one�s projects, as
best one can, in a way consistent with one�s ideas, dreams and desires, thus
attracting potential accomplices with whom to develop relationships of affinity
and expand the practice of revolt.
4. The rejection of making demands to those in
power, choosing rather a practice of direct action and attack. The rejection of
the idea that we can realize our desire for self-determination through
piece-meal demands which, at best, only offer a temporary amelioration of the
harmfulness of the social order of capital. Recognition of the necessity to
attack this society in its totality, to achieve a practical and theoretical
awareness in each partial struggle of the totality that must be destroyed.
Thus, as well, the capacity to see what is potentially revolutionary � what has
moved beyond the logic of demands and of piece-meal changes � in partial social
struggles, since, after all, every radical, insurrectionary rupture has been
sparked by a struggle that started as an attempt to gain partial demands, but
that moved in practice from demanding what was desired to seizing it and more.
5. The rejection of the idea of progress, of the
idea that the current order of things is the result of an ongoing process of
improvement that we can take further, possibly even to its apotheosis, if we
put in the effort. The recognition that the current trajectory � which the
rulers and their loyal reformist and �revolutionary� opposition call �progress�
� is inherently harmful to individual freedom, free association, healthy human
relations, the totality of life and the planet itself. The recognition that
this trajectory must be brought to an end and new ways of living and relating
developed if we are to achieve full autonomy and freedom. (This does not
necessarily lead to an absolute rejection of technology and civilization, and
such a rejection does not constitute the bottom line of a break with the left,
but the rejection of progress most certainly means a willingness to seriously
and critically examine and question civilization and technology, and
particularly industrialism. Those who are not willing to raise such questions
most likely continue to hold to the myth of progress.)
6. The rejection of identity politics. The
recognition that, while various oppressed groups experience their dispossession
in ways specific to their oppression and analysis of these specificities is
necessary in order to get a full understanding of how domination functions,
nonetheless, dispossession is fundamentally the stealing away of the capacity
of each of us as individuals to create our lives on our own terms in free
association with others. The reappropriation of life on the social level, as
well as its full reappropriation on the individual level, can only occur when
we stop identifying ourselves essentially in terms of our social identities.
7. The rejection of collectivism, of the
subordination of the individual to the group. The rejection of the ideology of
collective responsibility (a rejection that does not mean the refusal of social
or class analysis, but rather that removes the moral judgment from such
analysis, and refuses the dangerous practice of blaming individuals for
activities that have been done in the name of, or that have been attributed to,
a social category of which they are said to be a part, but about which they had
no choice � e.g., �Jew�, �gypsy�, �male�, �white�, etc.). The rejection of the
idea that anyone, either due to �privilege� or due to supposed membership in a
particular oppressed group, owes uncritical solidarity to any struggle or
movement, and the recognition that such a conception is a major obstruction in
any serious revolutionary process. The creation of collective projects and
activities to serve the needs and desires of the individuals involved, and not
vice versa. The recognition that the fundamental alienation imposed by capital
is not based in any hyper-individualist ideology that it may promote, but
rather stems from the collective project of production that it imposes, which
expropriates our individual creative capacities to fulfill its aims. The
recognition of the liberation of each and every individual to be able to
determine the conditions of her or his existence in free association with
others of her or his choosing � i.e., the individual and social reappropriation
of life � as the primary aim of revolution.
8. The rejection of ideology, that is to say, the
rejection of every program, idea, abstraction, ideal or theory that is placed
above life and individuals as a construct to be served. The rejection,
therefore, of God, the State, the Nation, the Race, etc., but also of
Anarchism, Primitivism, Communism, Freedom, Reason, the Individual, etc. when
these become ideals to which one is to sacrifice oneself, one�s desires, one�s
aspirations, one�s dreams. The use of ideas, theoretical analysis and the
capacity to reason and think abstractly and critically as tools for realizing
one�s aims, for reappropriating life and acting against everything that stands
in the way of this reappropriation. The rejection of easy answers that come to
act as blinders to one�s attempts to examine the reality one is facing in favor
of ongoing questioning and theoretical exploration.
As I see it, these are what constitute a real break with the left. Where any of
these rejections are lacking � whether in theory or practice � vestiges of the
left remain, and this is a hindrance to our project of liberation. Since this
break with the left is based in the necessity to free the practice of anarchy
from the confines of politics, it is certainly not an embrace of the right or
any other part of the political spectrum. It is rather a recognition that a struggle
for the transformation of the totality of life, a struggle to take back each of
our lives as our own in a collective movement for individual realization, can
only be hampered by political programs, �revolutionary� organizations and
ideological constructs that demand our service, because these too, like the
state and capital, demand that we give our lives to them rather than take our
lives as our own. Our dreams are much too large for the narrow confines of
political schemes. It is long past time that we leave the left behind and go on
our merry way toward the unknown of insurrection and the creation of full and
self-determined lives.