#brian morris

Another criticism [of anarchism]: it ridicules anarchism for being apolitical and a doctrine of inaction. Anarchists, according to the ex-doyen of the Green Party Jonathon Porritt, do nothing but contemplate their navels. Because they do not engage in party politics, he even suggests that anarchists do not live in the “real world.” All the essential themes of the Green Party manifesto—the call for a society that is decentralised, equitable, ecological, cooperative, with flexible institutions—are of course simply an unacknowledged appropriation of what anarchists like Kropotkin had long ago advocated—but with Porritt this vision is simply hitched to party politics. As a media figure Porritt completely misunderstands what anarchism—and a decentralised society—is all about. Anarchism is not nonpolitical. Nor does it advocate a retreat into prayer, self-indulgence, or meditation, whether or not one contemplates one’s navel or chants mantras. It is simply hostile to parliamentary or party politics. The only democracy it thinks valid is participatory democracy, and it considers putting an X on a piece of paper every five years a sham. It serves only to give ideological justification to power holders in a society that is fundamentally hierarchic and undemocratic. Anarchists are of many kinds. They have therefore suggested various ways of challenging and transforming the present system of violence and inequality—through communes, passive resistance, syndicalism, municipal democracy, insurrection, direct action, and education. One of the reasons why some anarchists have put a lot of emphasis on publishing propaganda and education is that they have always eschewed party organisation as well as violence. Anarchists have always been critical of the notion of a vanguard party, seeing it as inevitably leading to some form of despotism. And with regard to both the French and Russian revolutions, history has proved their premonitions correct.