A. Everybody and Nobody. Land ownership plays a crucial role in any society. Land can be owned privately, it can be owned by the State or it can be owned by the community. Land can be bought and sold on the open market or it can be transferred from one person to another. The land in an anarchist society is owned by the community. Ownership is not determined by critical market forces that are driven by the need to create profits. Ownership in an anarchist community is determined by use and need. While the land is used, it remains in the possession of the person who is using it; once they no longer use it, ownership is transferred to someone who can use it. Who has access to it, is determined by individual and community need.
Land remains the property of the community. Once the individual or co-operative can no longer use it, its ownership reverts back to the community. Although the ownership of property is transferred from corporations and individuals to the community during an anarchist revolution, most individuals will not feel the effects of that transfer of ownership. An individual�s relation with the property they are using will not change if they continue to use that property. What will change is that people in rental accommodation will own the property they are renting until they can no longer use it. Its ownership will revert back to the community, until new people are found who can use it. Corporate property will become community property. Co-operatives will take over the temporary ownership of corporate property from the community.
Those people who will not benefit from an anarchist revolution are those who use other people�s labour to enrich themselves and those who own properties they don�t personally use. These people will still have access to the property they personally use and will be able to continue to work as an individual or join one of the many co-operatives that will be formed.
Use, not money or power, will determine access to land and property. While you use it, it�s yours � once you cannot use it, ownership is transferred back to the community until someone else needs to use it.
Q. THE EVERY DAY IS REVOLUTIONARY?
A. Many radical activists are in love with the idea of revolution, believing an egalitarian community will be created when the �right� political and social conditions occur. As a concept, �scientific� anarchism is as inane an idea as �scientific� Marxism. Periods of upheaval will occur and re-occur in any society. A riot here, armed resistance there, does not necessarily create a revolutionary situation, let alone create conditions that will lead to the establishment of an egalitarian community.
Radical egalitarian change comes from people�s everyday experiences; it does not come from text books or �scientific� formulas. Revolution is not a science; it is an art that is rooted in the everyday realities of life. �Professional� revolutionaries have no place in revolutionary struggles. Their personal ambitions have destroyed many egalitarian focused political and social movements.
To be effective, radical activists need to be rooted in the day to day realities of everyday life. They need to work within the communities they live and work in. To be effective, they must be able to draw the link between everyday life and the need for egalitarian social change. Egalitarian change does not come from the barrel of a gun, a magic formula, economic conditions or a political vanguard. It comes when people become involved in political and social struggles that personally affect them.
Radical change comes from mass participation. Mass participation does not materialise from thin air, it is intrinsically linked to people�s awareness of their situation and their ability to form organisations that reflect their hopes, aspirations and political demands.
Everyday life is the revolutionary school that helps to create political and social movements that are able to successfully challenge those sections of the community that use their wealth to maintain the status quo.
The struggle to create an egalitarian community is rooted in our everyday experiences. Those who ignore the realities of everyday life may succeed in taking over the reins of the State, but they will never be able to create that new world in our hearts.
Q. WHAT ROLE DOES WORK PLAY IN AN ANARCHIST SOCIETY?
A. Work plays a pivotal role in every society. Irrespective of where we live and who we are, human beings need access to food, water and shelter. The more hierarchical a society is, the greater the percentage of that community that relies on the labour of others to survive.
Hierarchy increases the gap between order givers and order takers. The more steps in the hierarchical relationship, the greater the number of people who rely on others to perform the real work. Hierarchical societies become stratified into distinct groups that play specific roles in the community. Order givers, whether they belong to a group of hereditary religious, economic, political or miliary rulers are dependent on the work carried out by the people they exercise power over.
An anarchist society is a non-hierarchical society; it is not stratified into order givers and order takers. There are no religious, economic, political or miliary rulers in an anarchist community. Everybody who is able to, will need to participate in the day to day business of keeping that community ticking over. Different people will participate in different ways; no one, except those members of the community who cannot because of physical, intellectual or psychiatric reason, will be able to feed off the labour of others in an anarchist society. Individual security is interlinked with the economic prosperity of the community. It is not related to an individual�s standing within the community or the skills they have acquired.
Work plays an integral role in an anarchist society, individuals who can, would be expected to participate in the day to day life of the community they live in. To each according to their ability, to each according to their need, are the principles that underlie the role the individual plays in the life of an anarchist community.
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