First, I should note I’ve posted a write-up of a talk I gave last year entitled The Spanish Revolution: Anarchy in Action. I cannot help contrasting the spontaneous collectivisations and retooling of workplaces for the fight against fascism to the bureaucratic response of the British government to the coronavirus. Luckily, many people and companies have shown initiative and started to produce the PPE and other equipment which the government seems slow in securing. This is unsurprising as (I’ve noted before) government’s cannot magically produce resources and people which don’t exist – and often gets in the way of those who do or, worse, stops people acting because, after all, that is what the government is meant to do…
First, I should note I’ve posted a write-up of a talk I gave last year entitled The Spanish Revolution: Anarchy in Action. I cannot help contrasting the spontaneous collectivisations and retooling of workplaces for the fight against fascism to the bureaucratic response of the British government to the coronavirus. Luckily, many people and companies have shown initiative and started to produce the PPE and other equipment which the government seems slow in securing. This is unsurprising as (I’ve noted before) government’s cannot magically produce resources and people which don’t exist – and often gets in the way of those who do or, worse, stops people acting because, after all, that is what the government is meant to do…
But, then, being an anarchist some may proclaim me an “anti-government ideologue” – but not I, as I think along with the Situationists that theory is when you have ideas and ideology is when ideas have you… as such, my position on government is the standard anarchist one, namely that it is a machine primarily there to protect minority class power, property and privilege and when it does act in the general interest it does so badly and in those interests. Just as with capitalist forms, whatever useful functions and services it does can be better provided by workers’ associations and their federations. This does not mean a blanket opposition to everything the State does (if the State runs the railways and buses does that mean I must walk?), it just means that anarchists recognise its limitations and vested interests.
It also means that we have a more realistic idea of what anti-government theory means in practice and it is not what far too often passes as such in mainstream discussions. In that there is a cosy consensus between the right and the rest on what “anti-government” politics means – and it is associated with the far-right even though said ideologues are happy to run and use the very State machine they sometimes verbally attack.
The right-wing here in the UK has its fair share of ideologues, incompetents, narcissists and such-like but, thankfully, we are not at the American level yet – and I say yet because it is going that way, deliberately so as there any many very wealthy people who look at Britain and want to turn it into America (while, of course, wrapping themselves in the Union Jack). Just as in America, the word “libertarian” is now being invoked to describe the far-right of the Tory party – including leading politicians and even ministers. So, as in America, we are seeing the strange sight of “anti-government” members of government.
I will take a couple of Paul Krugman posts – my favourite neo-classical Keynesian economist (who I have written about before) to debunk the notion that the Republicans are “anti-government ideologues”(the same can be said of the Tories here). I suppose that these are the intellectual times we live in when members of a government busy spending billions on weapons and imposing new anti-union laws are proclaimed with a straight-face to be “anti-government ideologues” or – worse, given the history of the term – “libertarians”!
Still, this is hardly limited to the right or liberals. I’ve seen Marxists (Leninists!) proclaim that they ideology is “anti-State” and so it was outrageous for anarchists to suggest that it was state socialism. This did not stop them proclaiming the need for a “workers’ State” and mocking anarchists for not seeing its need. I guess this is nonsense shows the power of “dialectics” or some such…
What next, people proclaiming their temperance while quaffing a few pints in the pub? Self-proclaimed abolitions buying and selling slaves? That makes as much sense as “anti-government ideologues” being in the government and using its machinery for their own ends.
(but, then, Murray Rothbard was taken seriously in certain circles as an anarchist in spite of advocating a Marxist political strategy – strangely leftists in and out of academia did not allow “Marxo-capitalism” to take hold as a description… unlike “anarcho”-capitalism, for obvious reasons)
Let me take Starve the Beast, Feed the Depression: Anti-government ideology is crippling pandemic policy first. Krugman notes that in terms of policy in response to the coronavirus crisis that
‘we may not get the program we need, because anti-government ideologues, who briefly got quiet as the magnitude of the Covid-19 shock became apparent, are back to their usual tricks.’
So what are these “anti-government ideologues” who are part of the government (lest we forget) doing? Krugman enlightens us:
‘Everyone, and I mean everyone, knows what is really happening: McConnell is trying to get more money for businesses while continuing to shortchange state and local governments. After all, “starve the beast” — forcing governments to cut services by depriving them of resources — has been Republican strategy for decades. This is just more of the same.’
Which raises an obvious question: how is the politicians of a governing party seeking to funnel government money into the hands of business an example of “anti-government ideology” inaction? It looks like government action to me… He also suggests:
“At a basic level, then, anti-government ideologues are preventing us from responding adequately to the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Their obstructionism will cause vast suffering, as crucial public services are curtailed. It will also compound the economic damage.”
Except that these “anti-government ideologues” are responding to the crisis, they are using the government machine they are part of – to funnel monies to the wealthy, to the capitalist class, to corporations. Yes, this is not what is required now. Yes, they are obstructing and squeezing out more sensible policies. Yes, they will cause vast suffering – but it is hardly “anti-government” when politicians are using the bloody government to pursue their favoured policies!
Simply put, the government having the wrong – whether subjectively or objectively – policies is not “anti-government ideology”: it is government action!
Then there is this:
“Early Monday Trump tweeted out an assertion that he has the power to overrule state governors who have imposed lockdown orders — which suggests that we may have a constitutional crisis brewing, because as far as anybody knows he has no such power.” (Economists Aren’t the Ones Pushing to Reopen the Economy: On cronies, cranks and the coronavirus<)
Sadly Krugman does not explain how seeking autocratic power and concentrating even more power into the hands of the head of the government shows “anti-government” ideology, feelings or policies. Presumably, if Trump does indulge his authoritarian instincts and refuses an election or refuses to admit defeat and the Republicans back him then we would have an “anti-government dictatorship”? Presumably any citizen protests shot by troops – or by pro-Trump activists – in such a scenario would be victims of “anti-government government violence”?
Krugman knows that the Trump administration is acting:
“However, while the Trump administration refuses to aid hard-pressed institutions that employ around 25 million Americans, it has gone all-out to help the oil industry.” (Republicans Don’t Want to Save Jobs: Billions for oil, nothing for nurses and teachers)
Why? “investors have sunk a lot of money into oil, even though few jobs were created . . . And this capital happens to be very G.O.P.-friendly: The oil and gas sector makes big political contributions, almost 90 percent of them to Republicans.” So the government is acting in a certain way due to vested interests yet Krugman sums up as follows:
“Trump’s response to the economic fallout from Covid-19 is looking a lot like his fumbled response to the virus itself. He’s in denial about the problem; he’s blocking essential action because of personal political vendettas; and his party is opposing desperately needed aid because of its anti-government ideology.”
Yes, he is blocking essential action – but the government is acting! How is skewing government action towards favoured sections of Capital an example of “anti-government ideology”? is it a case of flawed and self-interested government action not really government action? Why?
Then there is this:
“And if legislation is stalled, as it appears to be as I write this (although things change fast when we’re on Covid time), it’s because Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is holding needy Americans hostage in an attempt to blackmail Democrats into giving Donald Trump a $500 billion slush fund. . . . So what’s in the stimulus bill that McConnell is trying to ram through the Senate? It grudgingly provides some, but only some, of the aid Americans in distress will need. Funny, isn’t it, how helping ordinary Americans is always framed as a “Democratic demand”? . . . But it also includes a $500 billion slush fund for corporations that the Trump administration could allocate at its discretion, with essentially no oversight . . . the underlying premise of the McConnell slush fund [is] that if you give corporations money without strings attached they will use it for the benefit of workers and the economy as a whole.” (Republicans Add Insult to Illness: Greed, germs and the art of no deal)
How is a government bill which gives billions to corporations “anti-government ideology”? How is giving the government carte blanche over $500 billion “anti-government ideology”? Is it a case of that the recipients of government largess determine its “anti-government” credentials rather than the fact of government action?
It would appear that empowering the government to aid corporations (Capital) is “anti-government”! Which, in a way, makes sense – for the State protecting private property is, in polite circles, not considered State intervention… so given this underlying assumption it is easy to move to viewing any government action in favour of Capital as being normal, not worthy of comment, as something the State just does without it interfering in the “natural order.” Hence the government acting to aid Capital is an expression of “anti-government ideologues”! The opposite of this is the implication that the State aiding its ordinary citizens – working class people – is “unnatural” and “big State interventionism”.
Thus we have the frankly bizarre situation that many – including well-educated professors – view giving $500 billion to corporations as an expression of “anti-government ideology” but giving an identical amount to the people is “government intervention”! Strange…
I think the situation reflects the fact that the Republicans and Tories are opposed to the State acting even slightly in the interests of the population. As long as it acts for the few then it is not government action – even if it is literally sending in troops to break protesters or strikers heads (as noted elsewhere, that propertarian guru von Mises was happily advised fascist governments seems to be of no consequence for his reputation for being “anti-government”). Thus Reagan is meant to be “anti-government” while massively increasing spending on the military as is Thatcher (who also oversaw an massive expansion in the powers of the central State). Yes, hypocrisy in the extreme – and not “anti-government” by any means. The government spending billions on, say, Trident rather than the NHS is still government action even if it is waste intended to favour specific corporations.
That the right wants to limit State action to specific and very narrow sections of society does not mean government action is restricted or limited, for helping Capital can be an expensive business! Indeed, as Malatesta noted, such a policy can easily increase State power and cost:
“The criticism [classical] liberals direct at government consists of wanting to deprive it of some of its functions and to call upon the capitalists to fight it out among themselves, but it cannot attack the repressive functions which are of its essence: for with the gendarme the property owner could not exist, indeed the government’s powers of repression must perforce increase as free competition results in more discord and inequality.” (Anarchy, 46)
Trump and the Republicans have been very happy to increase funding for the armed forces – they even want to add a new branch – Space Force! – to the armed might of the State! How is that the action of “anti-government ideologues”? Or is it a case of “in space no one can hear you rant about Ayn Rand” and so doesn’t count? We really need to look beyond the rhetoric and look at the actions – for actions always speak loader than words: governments intervene all the time under actually existing capitalism and do it even when “anti-government ideologues” make up the government.
Then there is the awkward fact that these “anti-government ideologies” will never refuse to use the State to protect capitalist property rights (this includes private troops enforcing said laws). Nor will they refuse to use governmental forces if people decide not to pay rent, utility bills, etc. as a result of Covid-19 impacting on their income. Nor let people act for themselves – they will send in police and troops if, say, homeless people take over a hotel or hospital staff take needed equipment from warehouses – private or public – without paying for it or getting permission from the appropriate bureaucrats. Far better for this equipment just to gather dust awaiting proper allocation than get it into the hands of those who could use them.
I mention this because I experience this bureaucratic inertia in work – there has been plenty of times when I could have done something to our systems (continual service improvement!) but was not allowed because management had to first determine whether it was an “efficient” use of my – or, more correctly, my employer’s – time. Which meant that nothing was done while the change request disappeared into the management processes – and more time was spent deciding whether to do it or not than would have been used to just do it! As such, Emma Goldman’s comments from her time in Bolshevik Russia rings so true:
“In Kharkoff I saw the demonstration of the inefficiency of the centralised bureaucratic machine. In a large factory warehouse there lay huge stacks of agricultural machinery. Moscow had ordered them made “within two weeks, in pain of punishment for sabotage.” They were made, and six months already had passed without the ‘central authorities’ making any effort to distribute the machines to the peasantry. . . . It was one of the countless examples of the manner in which the Moscow system ‘worked,’ or, rather, did not work.”(“The Crushing of the Russian Revolution,” in Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, To Remain Silent is Impossible: Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman in Russia, ed. Andrew Zonneveld (Atlanta: On Our Own Authority!, 2013), 40)
This collection, as I’ve indicated elsewhere, is well worth reading. So it is all fine and well for some, particularly Marxists, to suggest that centralisation is needed in order that resources are correctly prioritised and allocated but this assumes a level of knowledge and transparency in the resulting bureaucracy which seems unlikely to exist in real life (it was not the case under the Bolsheviks, that is for sure). Which is why anarchists urge federalism – this seeks to secure co-operation and co-ordination in such a way as to avoid bureaucracy and encourage initiate. So a functional federalism should allow more transparency and reduce bottle-necks and idle and wasted resources. It may not be perfect – nothing is – but it would be far better than the reality of Marxist dreams (delusions!) of fully informed and responsive central bodies.
I have gone off topic slightly, although I am sure what I have indicated above will ring-true with people on the front-line of the coronavirus awaiting essential PPE and other equipment.
What of the lock-down and the State enforcing it? Again, how could an anarchist society handle it? Well, most people are sensible and self-isolating through choice – those aware of the science did not wait for the government to make its mind up and a free society would have a better educated general public. So I would suggest that an anarchy would practice self-discipline far quicker and far better than a hierarchical one – particularly as it would not have a right-wing media machine and think-tanks spewing crazy notions.
Talking of which, if the idiot trump-supporters who have protested in, for example, Michigan about the lock-down were only in contact with like-minded right-wingers and all refused to go to hospital when they show symptoms, then it would not be too bad – they can receive the Darwin Award for their activities. But they won’t do that and they will spread the disease wider than their immediate circle – and so potentially help overwhelm the health services (particularly those available to working class people) and so undermine the whole point of the exercise which is based on scientific advice. And hats off to those two nurses in Denver, who having witnessed first-hand the toll the disease is taking, stood up and peacefully counter protested the Trumpettes. Surely the picture of the picture of the Republican politician who helped stop postal votes at the voting centre in full PPE on shows the reality of the situation – these people have the money to get protection and will be able to work from home, many of their followers… less so. Yes, many people are struggling but there plenty of demands which can be raised (such as a universal basic income, rent strikes, etc.) which will not get people killed!
Yet all a statist society can do which an anarchist one cannot is send in the police and imprison those who flout the social conventions which most people now consider as essential. Does this really hinder the spread of the disease? Given that it is already spreading through the prison population, I am not sure adding more prisoners would help. As George Barrett put it long ago:
“This objection is another of the ‘supposition’ class, all of which have really been answered in dealing with question No. 1. It is based on the unsocial man, whereas all systems of society must be organised for social people. The truth, of course, is that in a free society the experts on sanitation would get together and organise our drainage system, and the people who lived in the district would be only too glad to find these convenient arrangements made for them. But still it is possible to suppose that somebody will not agree to this; what then will you do with him? What do our government friends suggest?
“The only thing that they can do which in our anarchist society we would not do, is to put him in prison, for we can use all the arguments to persuade him that they can. How much would the town gain by doing this? . . . Thus we see that whilst we are going to guarantee this man being cleanly by means of violence, we have no guarantee that the very violence itself which we use will not be filthy.”
And let no one suggest that it is not social conventions at work today for the State could not enforce this policy if most people did not accept it as sensible and needed – and part of the problem in the UK was the mixed messages from the Tory government which also downplayed the issue and dithered over a response (given Johnson’s track record of incompetence and laziness, I was not surprised to discover he had missed five Cobra meetings in late January and February where he spent an entire parliamentary recess out of sight at his official country retreat of Chequers). Given the pro-Tory news media, many may think the Johnson Government is not incompetent (it seems to be enjoying high support in opinion polls) but it is:
“Arrogance, perhaps, that led them to ignore not once but three times the opportunity to benefit from an EU scheme on PPE equipment. Arrogance that led them to think they had no reason to make more precautionary purchases of PPE equipment than they thought they needed to allow for contingencies, or to expand testing capacity. And arrogance that required two studies showing the lives lost by their inaction before they abandoned their do nothing approach.
“Let us hope no more lives will be lost because of the failings in our government in the next stage of this pandemic. But can we really trust a group of politicians that failed to act time and again, and whose inactions led to tens of thousands of deaths, to get it right during the remaining months of this pandemic. The signs are not good.”
It is those whose brains are scrambled by the right-wing dogma pushed by the media, think tanks, etc. who are the problem here – reflecting a wider problem Krugman correctly points to in Covid-19 Brings Out All the Usual Zombies: Why virus denial resembles climate denial. However, in that article he writes:
“As a result, the right often opposes government interventions even when they clearly serve the public good and have nothing to do with redistributing income, simply because they don’t want voters to see government doing anything well.”
Yet the right are happy with government interventions when they redistribute income – and power – into the right hands – upwards into the hands of Capital and the extremely wealthy. They work to ensure that is done well – if not other things. Yes, they do not want the voters thinking about intervention for the many but they are not opposing redistribution and interventions when they favour and benefit from them. Lest we forget, the Republicans decades long struggle for State control over women’s bodies and reproduction – this would be government intervention on a massive scale and actively sought by many labelled “anti-government ideologues”.
Perhaps centre-left people find it hard to believe that these are just unprincipled charlatans purely driven by self-interest and seeking government action only for their own benefit – and the corporations and members of the elite who back them. Perhaps that is why they seek to inflict an ideology onto them to explain their actions and make themselves feel better and safer? Perhaps they should ponder these words from the very first issue of Freedom (October 1886):
“To understand the Governmental application of laissez-faire learn the two -following rules of thumb. 1. When the proprietors molest the proletariat, laissez-faire. 2. When the proletariat resist the proprietors, interfere to help the proprietors.”
Yes, of course the Democrats – like Labour here – utilise the State to defend and pursue the interests of capital but at least they recognise that for capital to accumulate you need some public investment in maintaining the people who generate the surplus value as well as necessary social infrastructure. As Malatesta put it, this social spending is done because “government cannot want society to break up, for it would mean that it and the dominant class would be deprived of sources of exploitation”. (Anarchy, 25)
The difference between the two main parties is like the difference between those capitalists who run their companies with the aim of maximising their short-term income alone and those who see the need for investing to secure long-term profitability and so divert some of the surplus to investment rather than their personal wealth. The former is unlikely to be a good place to work while the latter would be – but both are exploitative and oppressive but to different degrees. At least in the latter we may be in a position to think wider than mere survival:
“Like many others I have believed in my youth that as social conditions became worse, those who suffered so much would come to realise the deeper causes of their poverty and suffering. I have since been convinced that such a belief is a dangerous illusion . . . There is a pitch of material and spiritual degradation from which a man can no longer rise. Those who have been born into misery and never knew a better state are rarely able to resist and revolt . . . Certainly the old slogan, ‘The worse the better’, was based on an erroneous assumption. Like that other slogan, ‘All or nothing’, which made many radical oppose any improvement in the lot of the workers, even when the workers demanded it, on the ground that it would distract the mind of the proletariat, and turn it away from the road which leads to social emancipation. It is contrary to all the experience of history and of psychology; people who are not prepared to fight for the betterment of their living conditions are not likely to fight for social emancipation. Slogans of this kind are like a cancer in the revolutionary movement.” (Rudolf Rocker, The London Years, 25-6)
Wise words. Looking at the incompetence of Trump, Johnson and others should make some people ponder whether it is wise to place power into the hands of what is essentially an elected king. It is true that the American health system is a mess and that the NHS is far better – but the Tories have run down the NHS for ten years and we are paying the price now. Likewise, who would want to give Trump – the idiot who defunded WHO during a bloody pandemic! – power over America’s health care? Look at all the Republican State governments and governors who have refused to seek available Obamacare funding in order to make the reform fail. Yes, America like the rest of us needs socialised medicine but it needs to be run by those who work in the industry and the local community and made politician-proof. (until such time as we can get rid of politics).
So the anarchist perspective remains essential – nationalisation and privatisation are both dead-ends even if the latter is worse than the former (see the American health system, British railways, etc.). Ultimately, what can politicians, capitalists and bureaucrats bring to this problem which health care professionals, scientists, transport and other workers in the unions and federations could not? Other than the former blaming the latter for the consequences of their decisions, of course. After all, those politicians who seem to be making the right decisions are those listening to the medical and scientific experts, so not the UK and the USA:
‘Writing in the Observer last month, Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Ediburgh, noted the distinct UK approach. “Rather than learning from other countries and following the WHO advice, which comes from experts with decades of experience in tackling outbreaks across the world, the UK has decided to follow its own path . . . The plan, as explained by the chief science adviser, is to work towards ‘herd immunity’ . . .”’
Obviously, we don’t have a self-managed and self-organised society… but we can encourage tendencies and struggles towards it in the here and now.
And, no, taking to the streets in the name of an authoritarian incompetent President at the call of millionaire funded Astroturf campaigns is not that, it is stupid – listen to the experts and understand the science. Self-isolate to relieve pressure on the health service by reducing infection rates – and remember, mutual aid will get us through and this also means supporting front-line workers if they do have to strike to get PPE (they should not have to pay with their lives for the incompetence of their bosses and the politicians). And be on the watch for any politicians and authorities who ignore the science for their own benefit – whether it is those seeking a swift return to work in order to secure profits for the few or those seeking to utilise the crisis to extend their powers. Sadly, the Trumpettes are deliberately misusing the latter to facilitate the former – and no sane person should be willing to give their life to enriching the elite or getting Trump re-elected… particularly as there is no trade-off between wealth and health (even if certain sections of the ruling class think otherwise).
One final point. It is all fine-and-well to for some – usually propertarians or those close to them – to proclaim that it is up to “individuals” to determine how they respond to the crisis in terms of self-isolation but this in the abstract but this ignores the class nature of modern society in favour of an abstract individualism which actually obscures the limitations this kind of system places on individual choice. Simply put, people need to eat and in a capitalist society the bulk of the population sell their labour to bosses to be able to do so. This means that their “choice” amounts to turning up at work when ordered to by their boss or starving. This means workers not self-isolating because they have to work to pay the bills. So, in practice, it is not their choice on how much they self-isolate, it is their bosses and landlords. To ignore this obvious point is to join the Trumpian death-cult which is willing to sacrifice untold thousands to the profit-economy.
Which is why anarchists are against not only the State or government but also property or capital – for liberty is restricted by economic inequalities (wealth) as by political ones (power). So we are anti-hierarchy theorists and any limiting anarchy to just the political regime distorts it completely – hence the unsurprising alliance of Marxists and Propertarians suggesting otherwise.
Until I blog again, be seeing you…