June 30th, 2008

On Thursday I attended the talk of a Norwegian anarchist, Kim Keyser, who explored the topic of decision making structures within anarchist organizations. Entitled “The Prefigurative Organization”, Keyser did an admirable job of presenting a number of outside-the-box ideas by which anarchists could realize a powerful yet directly democratic movement. About ten Richmonders attended, including Brady and I from the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance. We learned a lot, not only as a result of the talk but also by the open and dialogue-oriented manner in which the meeting was conducted.

The talk’s emphasis was on large scale organizational behavior: who makes the decisions, how they are arrived at, and what conditions are attached to those decisions. By “prefigurative”, Keyser was referring to the need for groups and practices which are structured according to the principles and values we’d like to engender in the world at large. While postulating decision making mechanisms that could scale up to the kind of mass movement we all want to build, he was cognizant of the immediate application of these ideas to our small activist groups. Certainly if we intend to be successful, we cannot ignore the challenges that growth poses to our organizations, let alone to the future anarchist society we envision.

It was a challenging discussion; Richmond anarchists are clearly more comfortable with small, intimate groups in which decision making is performed by consensus rather than by more formal structures. And yet, if Keyser made nothing else clear, it was that consensus has its shortcomings. The informality of consensus often relies on people’s comfort with the personalities in the group. The imbalance of familiarity among participants can comprise a sort of soft hierarchy when newcomers seek to participate. Openness is also no guarantee that all views will be duly represented or that transparency in decision making will be fully realized. Furthermore, as organizations grow and become more diverse it becomes progressively more difficult to balance the diversity of minority positions and maintain the integrity and decisiveness of the organization. Activist groups can become victims of their own success; one need only look at national unions for examples, as one participant pointed out.

Keyser proposed a number of alternative processes to balance growth with direct democracy:

• Opinion points give people the option of expressing support or dissent as a function of their interest in the matter, rather than in terms of yes or no. If people use the point system to accurately represent their true priorities, it allows strong opinions to outweigh the indifference of others. This is one way to make sure that minority views are weighed appropriately even in large assemblies.
• Voting for issues, not candidates is an obvious improvement on traditional democratic systems. Keyser suggested that anarchists should not be as quick to dismiss referenda, as these are more directly democratic means than candidacies to effect representative policy change in a political system. There’s also the possibility that anarchist organizations could have referenda drive their own planning and administration, rather than focusing on getting the right people into office.
• Tailoring mandates to maximize accountability was an idea that struck me as especially important. The idea is that once we get people into office in our organizations, the represented need control over how their mandate is used. The body of the group should be able to recall representatives, shorten their terms, take away certain powers at will, etc. By making the position to which a person is elected as much a matter of popular will as the appointment, the body of the group can exercise oversight that discourages the ossification of democratic structures.
• Rotating roles among the group not only democratizes the administration of the group, but it encourages everybody to share in the learning of important skills that improves the total empowerment of every individual. While this could be applied to specialized offices like webmaster, there’s no reason people cannot all share in leading meetings, writing minutes, accounting for funds, etc.
• Lower the stakes of direct action decisions by remembering that direct action includes a wide variety of strategies beyond protests. Propaganda, boycott, work-to-rule, and other approaches can be just as effective. If an organization engages in activism with a non-formulaic and varied approach that makes sure everybody can participate, people will be more likely to invest fully in the organization.

I’m going off a few days’ memory so I’m sure I left plenty out, but these are the points that stand out to me. I hope Keyser’s beautiful print pamphlet is made available online soon since it really covered the full gambit of his talk.

My opinion on these approaches is that all of them are game, and none of them should be off the table. The best possible organization would use all of them where appropriate, giving the body of the group the maximum flexibility to bring its administration in line with their will. That said, each approach has its downsides and disadvantages that should be apparent to any anarchist. But if used wisely, a group can use these different strategies to keep their group fair, transparent, and democratic.

I really enjoyed Keyser’s talk, and I hope his visit was just the beginning of the Richmond anarchist movement’s revitalization! And if we're planning for the long term, we must apprehend these issues of scale and size. The upshot is that there are a variety of approaches available to us to address the very real questions of just what it means to be a large, powerful, and authentically anarchist organization. Thanks again to Kim Keyser for broadening our perspectives.

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June 25th, 2008

As I blogged earlier, a Norwegian anarchist is coming to Richmond to give a talk on strategy and organization within our movement. The original communication on this event that I received left the venue to be determined. I just got the final details: the event will be held at Flying Brick Library (506 S. Pine Street) on Thursday (tomorrow), June 26, 2008. Hope to see you there!

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June 17th, 2008

Via the Virginia Anarchist Federation mailing list I was made aware of an upcoming event of interest to anarchists / left libertarians:

Kim Keyser is an activist from the nascent anarchist movement in Norway - the so-called "social democratic paradise" in Northern Europe. This summer he'll be touring the US with an illustrated presentation called "The Prefigurative Organization". The presentation will try to answer the question "How can we reflect the future we want, in our present work?". It will touch upon subjects such as direct democracy, direct action, workers councils, anarchist organizing and involvement in social movements.

A complementing pamphlet called "The Prefigurative Organization" - which has been made specifically for the speaking tour - will be available.

After the presentation there will be a possibility to ask the speaker specific questions, followed by plenty of time for discussions in small groups.

I'll let you know when the location is determined, but it will be on Thursday, June 26. Come on out!

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June 13th, 2008

Only in a frightened, cowed society are people scared by the mere sight of a gun.

Richmond police scrambled in several parts of the city this morning after receiving reports of a man with a gun on a GRTC Transit System bus.

Ultimately, police found the man in question on East Broad Street and discovered that he was carrying a handgun legally. But that came after 15 minutes of anxious moments for police trying to determine which bus it was, where it was and whether there was actually a gunman aboard.

While it is a traditional liberal goal to bring about gun control and restrict the right of peaceable people to carry firearms, libertarians and revolutionary leftists recognize the danger of state monopolization of the tools of force. If you don't like the idea of rednecks carrying guns, is it any better when, say, an organization like Blackwater is empowered by the government to not only to use firearms but wield them among a disarmed population?

An egalitarian society is one in which power is distributed among the population, so that no one party can use privilege to gain at another's expense. If we're serious about achieving that society - and trusting normal, everyday people to govern themselves - they must be trusted to keep and use firearms. Otherwise, people will always depend on some outside authority for their very survival, and state usurpation will be the inevitable outcome.

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June 12th, 2008

In case you didn't know, the city jail is officially a bad place to be. Home to minor offenders doing their time as well as the newly arrested awaiting a bail or a hearing, the facility has a history of chronic overcrowding, lack of sanitation, and needless deaths:

The Richmond Sheriff's Department doesn't think the heat is to blame for the death of an inmate at the City Jail. 47-year-old Linwood Jones died at the jail on Tuesday.

Jones is the fifth inmate to die at the City Jail this year. The previous four all died from illnesses they contracted before coming to the jail.

Right; in any case, the message here is that life is cheap, and the jail just serves as a drain into which the police state washes all that human material falling short of its exacting legal standards. Check out Keith Preston's essay at AttackTheSystem.com, which ties the jail's conditions to the growing police state in this country:

How are prisoners’ treated at the Richmond City Jail? What goes on behind the walls on Seventeenth Street? The jail is always filled way beyond capacity, sometimes containing nearly twice as many inmates as space was originally allocated for. Inmates frequently sleep on the floor, often in unsanitary conditions. An epidemic of skin infections occurred among inmates during the fall of 1999 because of such conditions. Most of the jail lacks air conditioning or even proper ventilation so that inmates sometimes find themselves locked into attic-like conditions during the summer months. Proper medical care is often denied to inmates with serious medical conditions. A fifty-three year old man who was arrested for murder after killing someone in self defense suffered paralysis after being denied access to his necessary kidney dialysis. Heroin addicts and alcoholics are forced to undergo withdrawal without any medical supervision whatsoever. Inmates suspected of having suicidal inclinations are stripped naked and locked into solitary cells without blankets or sheets.

State politics built these jails and filled them with prisoners; only direct action will bring freedom and justice!

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