"WHAT ANARCHISM MEANS TO ME"

[Matthew X]

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 at yahoo.com