A. I am afraid not. Many people believe that an anarchist society could only function in a community where everybody knows each other and people physically come together in mass meetings to make decisions. Technology and the concept of the global village have changed all that. People no longer have to eyeball each other to make decisions. We do not have to rely on representatives to make decisions for us. People can, with the assistance of technology, make decisions and elect or appoint delegates to carry out these decisions.
Anarchism harnesses the energy and enthusiasm of everybody, not just the elite. It permits maximal participation by the maximum number of people. Anarchism allows everybody to participate in the decision making processes, not just the usual suspects. Anarchist principles can be successfully used for both small and large groups. The delegate system allows decisions to be coordinated at a local, regional, national and international level. Although decisions can be made at many levels, power continues to reside in the hands of the groups that give a delegate their mandate. The delegate's responsibility is to the group they speak and act for. They and they alone have the power to remove the delegate's mandate.
The difference between representative and direct democracy is the difference between chalk and cheese. The technological limitations that saw people give representatives a signed blank cheque to make decisions on their behalf at the local, State and national level, no longer exist. Technology has made representative democracy an irrelevant icon of a past millennium. While every other aspect of human endeavour has taken advantage of technological innovations, the political sphere continues to hang onto outdated modes of organisation that continues to put power in the hands of a minority.
Small and big are both beautiful. Technology has given us the key to democratise the political sphere. The arguments that anarchist principles could never be applied to regional, national and international questions are no longer relevant.
Q. WOULD AN ANARCHIST SOCIETY USE EXPULSION AS A MEANS OF MAINTAINING HARMONY WITHIN THAT SOCIETY?
A. Anarchists have traditionally used expulsion as a mechanism by which to maintain cohesion within a group. Some believe the same principle should be extended to society as a whole. Expulsion may help to maintain the internal dynamics of a group, but it won't solve the problems of a community. Expelling people to other communities only puts the problem at the dor of another community. Within a short period, you would be creating a tit for tat situation that would see communities trying to deal with their problems by expelling troublesome people to surrounding communities.
This scenario helps no one, neither the person expelled nor the community that has expelled them. It's quite likely that within a short period, surrounding communities would refuse to accept people who are expelled. This would soon lead to the creation of 'outlaw' communities where those expelled from surrounding communities would band together to survive and extract revenge on the communities that have rejected them.
Trying to resolve internal problems by expelling people from society is both counter productive and potentially dangerous. Groups within a society should have the power to expel people that are destructive from their particular group, but society as a whole has the responsibility to create external mechanisms to help resolve problems that may occur. If no resolution is possible, society has a responsibility to both itself and the people concerned to provide these people the same services that everybody else is entitled to. Although some individuals cannot work in groups, that doesn't mean they should not be part of that society.
Mechanisms need to be developed within anarchist communities that allow them to deal with the problem within their own communities.
Q. CAN ANARCHIST SOCIETY DEAL WITH CLIMATE CHANGE?
A. An anarchist society is the only form of human organisation that can tackle and roll back climate change. A proud boast to make, but can I back it with a few facts? Simple, we find ourselves in the current predicament for one very simple reason; the world economy is based on the ridiculous idea that economic prosperity is linked to growth. No growth, no economy � diaster pestilence, floods, earthquakes, the end of society as we know it. Well, that is what they continue to tell us.
When you spend one minute to look at this ludicrous proposition, it is obvious that an economic system based on the exploitation of finite resources, cannot continue to produce ever increasing profits. An anarchist economic system is based on the satisfaction of real, not manufactured, needs. Anarchist economics is based on the idea that the level of population growth has to take into account the finite resources available. Linking the rate of population growth to the amount of resources available, restores sanity to the debate that we need to increase population growth to stimulate demand. Anarchist economics revolves around the idea that the best way to maintain and possibly increase population growth, is to concentrate on producing and exploiting renewable resources.
All very well in theory, but how does such an economic system allow people to tackle climate change? Very simple, an anarchist society is not based on a wage system where an individual�s health, well being and standing in society is based on their ability to earn a wage. In an anarchist society, everyone has access to the commonwealth, irrespective of what they do. Changing economic direction in a capitalist society is very difficult to achieve.
In Australia, the struggle to stop wood chipping old growth forests is a classic example of what happens in a capitalist society. Workers whose livelihoods depend on logging old growth forests, form alliances with the people who profit from the logging � change becomes very difficult and slow.
An anarchist society�s trump card lies in the fact that it looks after all its citizen, irrespective of what they do. Major changes can be made to the economy with minimal resistance. The �flexibility� � (that word again that is used to give employers the power to lay off workers) � that an anarchist society has, allows it to change economic direction on a three penny piece, while a capitalist or communist society can take decades to change direction. This advantage gives an anarchist community the best hope of combating and eventually reversing man made climate change.