By Cake Boy
As we have seen, anarchism can have two meanings: an ontological meaning and a constructive social meaning.
There are two anarchisms: individualist anarchism, which Emile Armand followed/lived/wrote about, and constructive anarchism, which people like Bakunin and Rothbard worked on.
The individualist tradition has always resonated with me the most because it’s a pure form of anarchism. Writers in this tradition were poetic and often, in a way, connected to certain forms of spirituality. Constructive thinkers were technical and economic.
The pluralist anarchist project is a constructive/social anarchist project. It’s about a ‘new world’. In a way, Preston is a bit like thinkers like Bakunin, Proudhon, and Rothbard because he is also working on a new world, or at least a space of freedom within the world.
Anarchism is the idea that all social relations should be voluntary.
This sentence can have two meanings. It can mean that you, as a person, only acknowledge rules/systems when you voluntarily join an arrangement. The state isn’t voluntary, so it’s not legitimate. Paying rent isn’t voluntary, so it’s not legitimate. You can function within it, obey its rules, and pay its rents and taxes, but there is no acknowledgment or connection to it. You just happen to live within that system, but you see it as imposed (which it, of course, is). You only respect all the connections that you made yourself, out of your own free will, without someone forcing you to do it. It’s a bit like you can live with a woman because you are married and have children with her, but you don’t love her and would like to leave.
The sentence also suggests that we should create a system where interactions are voluntary.
The pluralist anarchist system is such a system. A political system based on the Tuckerite anarchist hardware. In this system, interactions are voluntary. When a federation/anarchist state revives some commons and autonomous zones, and if the federation lets you migrate any time you want, it’s based on voluntariness. You are truly free if you can choose between different economic arrangements, leave the place, or join an autonomous zone. Or, at least, as free as you can be within a political system.
Individualist anarchists are often skeptical about constructive/social anarchism. They say most people are too stupid to ever live in a system with a lot of freedom. They see authority and slavery as two sides of the same coin. There are slaves because there are masters. There are masters because there are slaves. Common people are bootlickers and imbeciles. The masses aren’t able to think for themselves and will always find new despots.
We have seen that there is some truth in this statement.
The pluralist anarchism could be a world where individuality would have more meaning. You and I actually don’t know if people will manage to create something like that. I can say ‘it’s impossible, they are too stupid’. But then I act as if I know everything. We now at least have a reasonable framework for social anarchist mass organization. If it can succeed, it depends on the people working on it. I won’t be one of them because I’m not really ‘an activist’.
There will always be friction between anarchism as individualism and anarchism as an emancipatory mass movement. Still, I think the pluralist anarchist movement is a breakthrough because it combined leftwing theory with rightwing/market theory. So, it could unite the constructive/social factions into a whole. It should only really work on its PR and its communication. Because often, when social anarchist movements fail, it is because of their immense bad communication and sectarianism
