The provision of social services has even found support amongst anarchists in Aotearoa. At the 2004 anarchist conference in Christchurch there was much talk about providing social services for poor areas of New Zealand in an effort to compete with the likes of Destiny Church. The expansion of Food Not Bombs, especially, was discussed.
"Anarcho-charity", however, is not the same as mutual aid. Mutual aid is a form of social organisation whereby people voluntarily come together to meet their own individual and collective needs based upon reciprocity. This last aspect is critical. Reciprocity encourages egalitarian relations, self-acitivity and genuine solidarity. Charity, on the other hand, creates relationships akin to that of a child to its parents, based on dependency at the expense of their own self-organisation, self-activity and solidarity.
The welfare state is a classic example of this and is renowned for smothering or integrating grassroots forms of mutual aid organisation within its State institutions, whether these be health co-ops, unions, or workers education associations. In New Zealand and elsewhere this top-down provision of services has worked to destabilise and dismantle anarchistic initiatives.
The widespread advocacy of initiatives like Food not Bombs is a curious development and needs to be properly examined. Food not Bombs arose in the early 1980s in the U.S. as part of a rejection of corporate and State spending on military expenses rather than social services. They began handing out free vegan food to the homeless and poor made from dumpstered food from around the city. In addition to the anti-militaristic and pro-welfare perspective, the tactic went onto also illustrate the waste involved in normal capitalist relations.
The rhetoric sounds painfully social democratic but it varies greatly depending on the local Food Not Bombs chapter. Here in New Zealand I've never seen any literature like this so painfully social democratic at an FnB stall; instead they are usually used for general anti-war literature.
But it isn't the literature that makes FnB a poor tactic. It's the form of this tactic in itself. Principally, it isn't based on mutual aid. While there are occasional efforts to get those who are eating to help out, it is mostly a one-sided exchange: take your food and take your literature. It isn't essentially different to the Christian stall that was in town yesterday: free bibles with your free hot dog.
FnB is not based on reciprocity, self-organisation or self-activity. Rather it maintains the split between organisers and eaters and does not encourage solidarity or the collective action of those receiving the free food. It is largely a charitable service whose apparent radical-ness is derived from the fact that it survives off the waste of Western capitalism and distributes radical literature.
Perhaps most importantly, while as a survival tactic it is necessary, it exists within the cracks of capitalism and hardly works to challenge the property relations that are the cause of the poverty we find ourselves in today. Distributing dumpstered food is a far cry from organising against slum lords, self-reduction campaigns or proletarian shopping, for example. As far as I can see, it offers no scope for revolutionary change.
"Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification.
Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others - even by those allegedly acting on their behalf."
— As We See It
Update
I should stress that there is a world of difference between State welfare/services and services provided by members of one class to members of that same class. Nonetheless, I do believe this does not encourage revolutionary tendencies when it is organised in a service model, rather than a participatory model.
8 comments:
From what I've heard and read, many (most?) of the early FnB's had their main focus on empowering those who ate the food to join and help cook/serve the following week and thereafter. That seems to be an aspect thats been lost over time though, certainly in the FnB's I've seen here and in Melbourne.
And of course, add to that the inward focus of FnB's much of the time, cooking for anarchist events/gatherings/conferences/protests, and it almost seems to have turned into an anarchist/activist catering service in many centres...certainly a worthwhile thing to have, although a far cry from what FnB could be.
Unions are 'state organisations' and the welfare state is wholly negative? These ideas are unlikely to strike a chord at a time when trade unions are once again beginning to revive and one of the key battles of the left is the defence of the welfare state from neo-liberal attempts to whittle it away.
I think that this post, like a number of things I've looked at on this blog, takes an overly schematic and abstract approach, rather than actually looking at some concrete examples of the phenomenon it wants to discuss.
The history of the welfare state is New Zealand is complex and contradictory, and can't just be dismissed as an exercise in smothering the working class. You could examine, for instance, the history of organisations set up in the 1970s to treat victims of sexual violence to see some of this complexity in action.
Organisations like Auckland Sexual Abuse Help were founded by radicals and activists dismayed by
the sexism of the mainstream health system. They fought to get decent funding from the government, because this was (and is) desperately needed, but also to maintain autonomy and avoid bureaucratisation (there is an interesting parrallel with the case of the workers at Venepal).
I think that such organisations represent a rough model of how a democratic and non-bureaucratic welfare system might function.
One of the big political issues in this country in the last couple of weeks has been the continued underfunding of public health services and the resulting strike action by radiographers. If you agree that we have to support the actions of these workers and the publically-funded health service they help to provide, where does this leave your stated opposition to the welfare state and unions?
Hi maps,
First things first: you seem to infer elsewhere that my politics could be characterised as ultra-leftist — this is probably quite an accurate description.
Now, be careful to read what I have said. "The welfare state ... is renowned for smothering or integrating grassroots forms of mutual aid organisation within its State institutions, whether these ... be unions". Health and education have actually become State institutions. Unions, on the other hand, have maintained a semblance of independence, but are reliant — even after the implementation of the ECA and ERA — on state institutions and laws, rather than the militancy and solidarity of workers, to win.
It would be wrong to consider all unions the same, however. 'Unions' is a name that has been given to a number of forms of workers organisation. There is, firstly, workers organisation that I would consider thoroughly beneficial and of revolutionary potential, and are characterised by a staunchly adversarial position towards both capitalists and the State. This is workers organisation led and directed by workers, with no mediation involved within the organisation whatsoever, no separation between workers and organisers, and is characteristic of anarcho-syndicalist unions, and to a much lesser degree the IWW.
Then there is workers organisations that have a separation between workers and organisers, but which strongly adhere to representative democracy (as opposed to horizontalism and federation in the first example) within the union. These, while tending to be less militant, often maintain an adversarial approach to both State and capital as the interests of workers are imposed onto the union leadership and thus the union as a whole. The anti-arbitrationist unions of the IC&A Act era in New Zealand are characteristic of this form of union.
Finally, there is the union with clear lines of division between workers ("members", "clients") and the union bureaucracy. In these unions, the bureaucrats come to manage the workers, and their interests come to align more often with capital than labour. Union bureaucrats feign opposition to capital, often seek to avoid strikes, and manage and control strikes when they are inevitable, often strongly back a major left party and themselves come from a political managerial class. This form of union, I have to say, is characteristic of most unions today.
As with the Venezuelan post, I adhere to a three way fight: against both the right and the Statism and pseudo-socialism of the left. State power is firmly aligned with the power of capital, and cannot do anything but to deprive people &mdash and workers — of their own immanent power (this is an Italian Autonomia concept — as opposed to transcendent power). I would not be so quick to charaterise my position as functionalist, however: yes, the welfare State has arisen in the past due to complex and contradictory forces, however it has since worked to undermine organisation of workers and the grassroots. This we can be sure on. And unlike your characterisation of the left as fighting for the welfare State, I have to strongly disagree. This can only be counter-revolutionary. Workers power, not State power. And they are opposed.
Finally, again you assume this ultra-leftist or anarchist position would stop "united fronts", as you call it. Nope. Certainly, in campaigns fighting against certain social conditions it is very easy to work with others, especially when no constructive projects are proposed by others with whom we are working. When it comes to constructive work, as it inevitably must, then we can happily work with others in a non-ideological manner on projects that we consider increase the immanent power of workers and others, which oppose any form of domination (capital, State or otherwise) and which encourage self-organisation, self-activity and solidarity. Happily, a lot of work fits under this bill. Indeed, it is only that work which actively seeks, for example, State power, that we must leave company and oppose. Of course, there is also room for specific anarchist organisations too, to provide support for anarchists and to organise our collective involvement in various struggles so as to openly encourage them in a libertarian direction.
Wow, that's a really long post.
Cheers for the thoughtful reply which I'll have to ponder. But, despite the fact that your attitude to the unions and the welfare state is more subtle than I had inferred, I still wonder how you reconcile your positions with the need to support the struggle against the underfunding of the health sector and the strike action of workers in that sector.
It's all very well to reject the welfare state in toto in theory, but the reality is that for ordinary working class Kiwis the running down of the health sector thanks to neo-liberal 'reforms' and underfunding is a source of great distress and a major political issue.
Joe Bloggs who needs a new hip and Jane Bloggs who needs radiotherapy to help make sure her cancer doesn't come back are right to demand more funding for health and to deplore the way the sector has been treated by neo-liberal governments; the radiograpers and other other groups of workers suffering declining real incomes because of underfunding are right to take strike action.
How can one support them and at the same time say that the welfare state and the health services it provides is something wholly negative? No private charity, anarchist or otherwise, based in the working class can ever replace hips or do radiography.
Would you take part in a demonstration demanding better funding to cut waiting lists, or stand on a picket line of striking health workers wanting more cash for the sector?
"Would you take part in a demonstration demanding better funding to cut waiting lists, or stand on a picket line of striking health workers wanting more cash for the sector?"
With regards to the latter: I do support the radiographers strike, for example.
With regards to the former: I really don't know. I have taken part in a number of free education events but always somewhat unsure exactly how free education - and the bolstering of the welfare State - actually works towards fundamental change. As of late, I have been thoroughly unenthusiastic about free education campaigns, and not just because of all the wannabe politicians using such events to cut their teeth.
Tim
I strongly disagree with your position on groups like food not bombs being devoid of value. You say that groups like Hezbollah and The Blank Panthers used this strategy to recruit members. If you had bothered to read anything about the history of both groups you would know that both groups were an organic expression of their constituency. They wernt outside activists who move into a neighbourhood to garner support for a poor constituency. They are groups organized by poor people meeting the needs of their own community where the state has left them to themselves. Both groups drew in participants from working class neighbourhoods into a system to manage and provide their direct everyday needs. This is a strategy to help people in a direct concrete way not to recruit members into an abstract ideology. Your advocacy of 'proletariat shopping' is just as misguided, who do you think raids the supermarkets today? it isnt unaffiliated working class people struggling to meet a need, often it is the politicos, the marxists and anarchists who steal goods then hand them out to the crowd outside.
'"Anarcho-charity", however, is not the same as mutual aid. Mutual aid is a form of social organisation whereby people voluntarily come together to meet their own individual and collective needs based upon reciprocity.'-In the united states Fnb is much larger and active and feeds not just the homeless but also a lot of poor familied often immigrants and often headed by a single mom. How do you expect these people who are burdened with the demands of everyday life to find the time to spontaneously form networks of mutual aid. Dont be so naive, building alternative social structures takes time and commitment. How do you think the first generation of mutual aid societies were founded? Once again if you bothered to read the history you would find that such networks always start with the efforts of concerned individuals loften motivated by a collectivist and socialist ideology.
This is what happens torrance when left wing intellectuals reify what should be a movement for social change into an abstract ideology based on a number of essential principles. It is exactly what all the marxist sects do, instead of actually engaging with real people in the real world, they wave newspapers at them with information and analysis completly irrelevant to their lives.
It would be best that everyone grow up and realize that a revolutionary working class uprising is NOT going to happen here. It took 3 generations to build a revolutionary culture in Italy, a country of similar material well being as here, and they still failed to fundamentally change the system. And that is the closest the western world has come to a revolution. Building a new world requires slow and steady construction of alternative social institutions and food not bombs is a good start to this long and painstaking process. Anarchists need to be less about useless abstract ideology and more about meeting community needs when the state retreats from its perceived responsibility.
When was the last time you reached out to someone on a human to human level to help another being meet their needs? Anarchism needs to be a movement and a culture not a collection of disaffected intellectuals who do nothing but criticise.
Really nice post anarchafairy you put forward quite a few points I have been thinking about for some time in a really coherent manner. I fully support those who do food not bombs as an honourable thing in itself but recognuisuing the limitations of food not bombs is probably a good idea.
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