Cooperatives and anarchism

Working through cooperatives I found some groups that identify themselves with anarchies and anarchism, by ideology and/or purpose (see also libertarianism and Taoism ). While in literature anarchism is sometimes referred to a stream of philosophy, I would rather attribute anarchism and anarchist theory to a form of ideologist movement, which can be more or less utopian. While theories and movements of anarchism can be situated on multidimensional continua from “pacifist” to “extremist (e.g. Galleanist)”, “individualist” to “social”, “socialism” to “capitalism”, “feminist a.”, “green or eco a.”, and more, anarchism as a notion has a connotation to violence: “anarchists must always have anarchy as their end and consequently refrain from committing to any particular method of achieving it (Alexandre Skirda 2002)”.

I hypothesize that present’s world challenges need a Great Transformation, based on principles going beyond traditional philosophical or pseudo-philosophical mainstream: “What is left from and for philosophy when it has lost its source of thinking, the humans and our civilization?”

Born in 1956 in Switzerland, I witnessed anarchism in Europe and former fascist nations through media: the Brigate Rosse BR in Italy (Red Brigades, 1970-2007, seventy-five deaths) and the Red Army Fraction RAF in Germany (from 1970 to 1998, thirty-four deaths), both left-wing extremist and terrorist groups.

This is why I clearly distance myself from anarchism as an ideology and notion. Also, because one might ask “which or what anarchism”? In the past and today, anarchism picks up quasi any mainstream movement. Even in making it an adjective to anarchism, mainstream themes transformed and used as adjectives become subject to anarchist subordination. Thus this is also a call to those, who position themselves within the anarchist context, to rethink whether this is, what they really pursue to achieve: ideological subordination, confusion and misunderstandings of what their adherence to anarchism stands for. Is anarchism experiencing a major identity crisis? We would rather name crucial issues and topics we want to think about by their proper name, so everybody understands, to start with, what we are talking about or what we are referring to.

I would rather invite people to rethink about the values and ideologies for our societies and define a prime mainstream movement, which develops and provides solutions to solve today’s world problems, not only the ones we experience locally or in our Western mature economies, also the ones concerning all continents of the world. I am aware of the complexity of these problems and crises, and we need to find new ways of thinking to embrace and understand cultures, which are fundamentally different, which we cannot explain through mental models which developed over centuries our cultural mindset and beyond the latter challenge we have to solve problems that have become global in nature such as the world’s economic, energy and vital resources, and climate change crises.

I was raised in a family in which we experienced deception and violence on the paternal side throughout the 60ies and 70ies. As a consequence one result of such coercion can be described as the Betrayal of the Self, a theory developed by the The Swiss-German psychologist Arno Gruen http://www.arnogruen.net/

We could hypothesize that anarchism is a consequence of individual and social coercion and deception during and after the second world war and times of Nazism and fascism? Let us review some of the topics debated in anarchism.

The need for state: State has a important role in putting up laws and regulations, which in democracies sets the guidelines on how we interact with each other in a civic world.

The State also regulates public and private state. The State therefore takes the role to allow for private property and also, referring to the tragedy of the commons (Garrett Hardin 1968), how public space is to be preserved and used by the public and citizens.

Stateless societies are both utopian and a state which is not desirable. An ideology that pursues the goal that any asset whether natural or human-made, should be owned and controlled by individual groups or individuals leads to chaos and anarchy. Do collectivities in their steady state not resemble exactly to some sort of society or societies and government, similar to States?

Referring to the Arab Spring and Jasmine Revolutions in 2011, these revolutions where not founded on anarchist principles, but to transform a government, from authority and dictatorship to a government, which represents the people and citizens, country and government founded on rights and responsibilities of democracy.

Hierarchy is the consequence of natural evolution: I often refer to nature or bio-mimicry to develop concepts, models and argumentation. I also could refer to religion. Religion is something very personal and philosophical. So I do not want to explore that aspect of the question, still it is legitimate to put the anarchist ideology in the context of religion and culture, in the US the majority adhering to Christianism, while other cultures and nations adhering to different believes and religions.

The rational for hierarchy and hierarchical system can be found in Darwinist evolution theory. Each living species and society are organized in a hierarchical way. This is also true in our civilization and human society. The objective of anarchism to achieve non-hierarchical societies is against nature and the natural ways, life and human societies organize and interact on our planet.

What we should pursue and adhere to are equity, intra- and forward looking intergenerational justice and equal rights for all people on our planet. In pursuing at the global level human rights and solutions to solving global crises I adhere to the notion and objective of a Great Transformation. It is evident that the basis to achieve Great Transformation are democratic systems and solutions.

With the present global crises, while these have to be addressed at different scales, local, national, regional and international, I cannot imagine that this can be achieved without the involvement of states and governments.

This is why I am quite surprised how cooperatives who have the potential and eventually are predestined to help solving these crises at the decentralized local neighborhood level, would adhere to anarchist ideology?

And those who lead or want to lead in an anarchist system, I do not see how they would abandon hierarchy? Isn’t it inherent to a society where someone leads and some others submit and follow their leader, that such a society is based on a hierarchical system? And an ideology is in contradiction with itself, if its adherents pursue collective goals, while at the same time, its foundation is rationalist and utilitarian (cf. William Godwin), follows utilitarian market mechanism, some of which are radical, individualist and egoist, striving privatization of all public space through private or collective ownership? In that case doesn’t anarchist ideology has a lot of similarities and traits comparable to the capitalist system which brought us the 2008 financial crises and a deep recession?

To conclude, in my opinion neither radical left-wing anarchism nor rational utilitarian capitalism are models adapted to crises and problem solving through cooperatives, cooperative networks and collectivist systems.

Instead, public and private partnership are needed in support of cooperatives, and problem solving is ideally realized trough decentralized civic systems based on democratic rights and responsibilities.

To conclude on Arno Gruen’s theory on the Betrayal of the Self: to develop solutions together, collectively within cooperatives, we need to be able to rely on each other and build relationship that our founded on deep trust, empathy and compassion, love and peace to achieve common goals for the good of our societies, nature and environment, and mother Earth. While collectivist purposes, value and the need for autonomy are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary and necessary for the development of human individuals, we need the healing of our souls, our souls which in our childhood were pristine and pure, which in the past decades and years have been deceived and distorted into pathology.

Gruen defines “autonomy as that state of integration in which we live in full harmony with our feelings and needs. It is a natural state of being experienced in early childhood when the infant is loved unconditionally and without the need to earn this love by the self-sacrifice of submission.”

Only through trust, love and compassion we find back to our Self, move away from self-alienation and submission, to the fresh and clear sources that help us heal and clean our soul deceived from growing social violence, to find back to our humanitarian traits, to build a foundation for personal courage and social responsibility in societies, where collectivism and cooperatives are increasingly gaining in importance.