What is Anarchy?
The magic word anarchy summons up a host of demons in the public consciousness, from the idea of unmanageable chaos to violence. This introduction is to clarify and spark off reflections on anarchy based on its actual history and theories, (of course being so short it's selective); and to incite more reading in the Teapot reading room!
"To be governed means that at every move, operation or transaction one is noted, registered, entered in a census, taxed, stamped, priced, assessed, patented, licensed, authorised, recommended, admonished, reformed... exploited, monopolised, extorted, pressured, mystified, robbed; all in the name of public utility and the general good."
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
Anarchy literally means a society without a state. It is the call for the dismantling of the state and capitalism. Its main principles can be summed up in the following: freedom, equality, autonomy and non-hierarchical self-organisation.

Anarchy thus stands for the abolition of authority/ government with the creation of leaderless, cooperative, decentralised forms of organisation from the bottom up to insure maximum participation. Anarchist ideas include the replacement of industrial capitalism and farming by a small scale approach to production based on self-identified needs, not profits, cooperation, not competition, without the need for bosses, directors or corporations. Labour should be minimised to a few hours every week and the exploitative system of wage slavery abolished.

On an individual level, anarchy promotes the belief in yourself, your own abilities and judgement, cos we don't need "big brother", and the realisation of individual and collective freedom from outer and inner restraints.

The system in which we live is based upon oppression with many different faces - oppression based on gender, race, sexuality, species, nationality etc. Oppression through class structures and the organisation of mostly dull uninspiring exploitative work. Oppression through manipulated monotonous daily lives split into work and pre-packaged leisure time (TV, "entertainment"). Oppression in the patriarchal nuclear family. Oppression of the Third World in which capitalism rages around destroying indigenous peoples and nature. Generally this system of society is fucking up our lives, all life and the planet.

Feeling all oppression is wrong, anarchists seek the solutions to this not in reforms, more regulations, state socialism or the like, but in rejecting the state system, finding all potential in struggling to overcome the alienation from your own desires and from each other and in the creation of a free society. Anarchists also (usually) believe in our individual and collective strength to actually do this without compromising our ideals.

"Yes, for too long have we sacrificed our pleasure for the sake of Production and Development. Those who have a vested interest in maintaining this arrangement appear to wield a great power over us, yet this is but cheap art. It is you and I who have maintained this arrangement mainly by performing our appointed tasks on a regular, daily basis. It is you and I who can do away with such arrangements."



Ozzy Osbourne - Get Me Through -->Video code provided by KEKAI BOY