Anarchism, like any other political ideology, is a point of view about how we humans should organize our life in common. It argues that, rather than do this through governments, we should arrange our affairs through local co-operative organizations, federating when necessary on a regional, national or global scale. This sounds very mild, but is in fact revolutionary because it involves vast changes. It implies, for example, workers' control of industry, whether we are thinking about the post and its newest equivalents in managing human communications, or of transport, or of food production and distribution, or of, for example, the garment industry, dominated today by child labor in South Asia. Such a society would evolve enormously different priorities. It means, for example, that in the absence of a governmental machine for protecting them from the poor, the rich would have to share with the poor. Children in a playground have little difficulty in establishing the principle of Fair Shares. They know that it is grotesque that a few people should own almost everything, while vast numbers have nothing at all. They know perfectly well that the kid who insists on grabbing everything needs cutting down to size. Like the rest of us, he can have his fair share. What else could anyone expect? It also means that, in the absence of the military force of the so-called Great Powers, or of those tedious little local warlords, people would have to settle down to live with their neighbors without regard to religion, language, nationality or color. Once we have taken the giant leap forward in recognizing that need, what a liberation it would be for us all to set about arranging the complex necessities of an anarchist society. Colin Ward "WHAT ANARCHISM MEANS TO ME" "Freedom" the English Anarchist Fortnightly that was founded in 1886 has recently introduced a new section in its paper called "What Anarchism Means To Me". Always looking around for new ideas on how to improve the quality of the "Anarchist Age Weekly Review" we¹ve decided to introduce a "WHAT ANARCHISM MEANS TO ME" segment. We encourage as many of our readers as possible to put their thoughts down and send us an article for this segment. IN 500 WORDS OR LESS email, fax or post us your thoughts. DON¹T DELAY, PUT YOUR THOUGHTS DOWN AND SEND THEM TO US TODAY. Joseph TOSCANO/LibertarianWorkers for a Self-Managed Society. anarchistage@yahoo.com
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Matthew X