Against Authority

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What Can I Do?

The inevitable question in response to advocacy for political change is: What can I do? Our analysis of the institution of state gives some hints about what may or may not work. In particular, our elitist model of political power - that the ruling elite make the decisions within the state apparatus - indicates that working "within the system" will not work. We recommend not voting at all, since voting seems to condone the state and its immoral actions. Similarly, begging the politicians through signing petitions is, if not futile, at the very least counterproductive. We should be trying to destroy the state's mystique of legitimacy, not enhance it.

As I see it, there are two major ways an individual can strive for change: 1) delegitimize the state, and 2) build alternative institutions.

Delegitimize the State

Do all you can to destroy the state's aura of legitimacy. This mainly involves education, since the "aura" is in people's minds. So long as most people see the state as the solution rather than the problem, freedom cannot generally reign. It will no doubt exist covertly, in Galt's Gulches, Costa Rican hideaways, and other isolated locales, but it will not gain broad enjoyment until most people desire to be free and have overcome their psychological dependency on the state. We know from history that revolution will not likely help (and may well hurt) if people's minds are not already "right" for liberty.

Here are some things you can do to crush sheeple's mental dependence on the state:

Delegitimizing the State
  • Promote liberty in your conversations
  • Promote liberty in public writings (letters-to-editors, web pages, articles, etc.)
  • Correct others when they fall for statist bromides and myths
  • Correct others when they fall for the stateholm syndrome
  • Avoid statist puffery in language
  • Challenge the statist paradigm

We have discussed several statist bromides and myths. These include the pluralist model of political power (the mistaken notion that the masses have significant input is the state's decision-making), and the kneejerk statist attitude that social problems can be solved by simply passing a law. Another myth, or more exactly, anti-concept, is the notion of "the public good" or "the common good." Since there is no interpersonal comparison of utility, the "common good" does not exist, except in the Pareto-optimal sense of everyone being no worse off. But of course, this is not the way statists mean it - they mean some people are better off at the cost of other people. Thus, in practice, the common good is whatever the ruling elites say is good for the dumb masses. Another common myth is that law (or legal systems, or courts) are the same as states. This can be proven incorrect by simply looking at history; states co-opted preexisting "natural" legal systems of society.

The stateholm syndrome is the use of an ambiguous collective ("we," "us," "them," "our") to hide and evade the difference between ruler and ruled. It is a coinage based on the well-known Stockholm syndrome suffered by prisoners and kidnap victims. When someone says, "We bombed Baghdad," they are revealing their mental victimhood to rulers. After all, the speaker (unless he's part of the ruling junto) did not bomb anyone, or order flunkies to bomb anyone - the ruling elite of the US state did. By identifying with mass-murderers, those who use this slave "we" are trivializing moral culpability and accepting undue blame. By such identification with the rulers, they unduly accept responsibility for the act, and make it psychologically harder to condemn it or correct it.

Another example is the slogan "Support Our Troops." First of all, they are the rulers' troops, not "ours." Secondly, such troops are almost always engaging in the killing of hapless foreigners, most of whom are non-combatants. Thus, they deserve condemnation, not support. Finally, "troops" is a sugar-coated word for what these people are - "hired thugs" is more apt. Thus, the libertarian translation of "support our troops" is "condemn the rulers' hired murderers."

One rough way to measure the libertarianism of a speaker is simply to count the number of times he uses "we" or "our" when he really means "the rulers." At best, this is catering to the statism of the audience, at worst it is mental surrender to the dark side. Either way, it does not help our case.

If there is one single thing that can free our minds, and the minds of others, it is the ruthless elimination of the slave "we" from our thoughts and speech. This is easier said than done - even the most libertarian people sometimes slip up. This shows how ubiquitous the statist programming of our lives has been, and how habituated we are to the statist paradigm.

Statist euphemisms abound. People say "public schools" when they mean "government schools." They refer to soldiers and freedom-fighters when its their state's guys, but insurgents and terrorists when it's their state's enemies guys. They call their fuhrers and oppressors "leaders" rather than "rulers." Even technical terms are sugar-coated. Laws outlawing employment for people unable to produce above an arbitrary level are called "minimum wage laws" rather than "minimum productivity laws." Plunder and forced redistribution is called "leveling the playing field" or "fairness." We need to avoid such drivel, and not be afraid to call a spade a spade. We cannot effectively argue against "fairness," but we can certainly argue against robbing productive people.

The statist paradigm is the world-view that the earth consists of competing "teams" called states, that everybody is on a team, and that one should support one's team. It is obvious how such a world-view favors statism, and why states promote such a view. As anarchists, we want subjected people to realize that they are not the rulers, nor are they the state or the government.

With the rise of democracy, the identification of the State with society has been redoubled, until it is common to hear sentiments expressed which violate virtually every tenet of reason and common sense such as, "we are the government." The useful collective term "we" has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the reality of political life. If "we are the government," then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also "voluntary" on the part of the individual concerned. If the government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group for the benefit of another, this reality of burden is obscured by saying that "we owe it to ourselves"; if the government conscripts a man, or throws him into jail for dissident opinion, then he is "doing it to himself" and, therefore, nothing untoward has occurred. Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not murdered; instead, they must have "committed suicide," since they were the government ... - Murray N. Rothbard, The Anatomy of the State

We need to help people realize that the people and the rulers are not on the same team, on the contrary they are implacable enemies. We need for people to realize that the statist wars are not "us" against "them," but are the rulers who claim us as subjects versus the rulers that claim some other people as subjects. The respective peoples have no real stake in the quibbles of rulers, but so long as the people buy into the statist paradigm, they will be cannon-fodder for their rulers. The very existence of interstate war depends on the rulers being able to shove the costs of war onto their gullible subjects. As soon as enough people realize that they are not their rulers, the jig is up. The proper attitude to statist war would be to let the belligerent rulers have at each other in a wire cage with butcher knives, but leave the people out of it.

Build Alternatives to Currently Statist Services

Organize neighborhood and community arbitration systems as an alternative to state monopoly law and courts. Promote the use of alternate currencies, such as silver rounds, e-gold, or Liberty Dollars, as an alternative to statist fiat money. Help volutary community-betterment efforts like Habitat for Humanity, as an alternative to taxation and the state's Department of Housing and Urban Development.

There are two very common related fallacies that state-indoctrinated people tend to fall into. The first is the fallacy of government solipotence. This is the notion that good or service X cannot be provided in any other way except by a state. Most commonly, the X is arbitration (courts), police, and military (defense against foreign invaders), but some will hold the fallacy for road-building, education, and other things. Fortunately, a little study of history reveals that every morally permissable service ever offered by state has been done by voluntary means somewhere, at some time or another. Furthermore, when done voluntarily, the service is generally done better, and always done more morally (since aggression and plunder are not used.) If someone claims that service X can only be supplied by state, all a libertarian needs to do (if not already familiar with examples) is to look up that service in the ample libertarian literature and see how it was done privately. It used to be that this required a good library; now anyone can easily find such things on the internet.

The second fallacy is "the barefoot fallacy." If government didn't provide shoes, all but the wealthy would go barefoot. This is a weaker formulation of the fallacy above. It doesn't say that provision of service X cannot be done voluntarily, it simply says that voluntary provision would result in limiting the service to only the wealthy. The same remedy applies - just look up historical examples and note that they benefitted more than just the wealthy. This fallacy is popular among those who favor state-run education systems. When you look up literacy rates or other measures of educational quality and look at the "Prussian school" movement, it becomes obvious that the motivation for government takeover and centralization of education was to indoctrinate the children (especially of immigrants) into "proper" subservience to state, and resulted in a reduction of educational quality. Voltairine was right.

These two broad areas, destroying the legitimacy of state and building parallel structures, are particularly important for USAmericans in the 21st century. The US is the last remaining empire ("superpower"), and, as all empires eventually do, is well on its way to disintegration. Empires hang themselves on their own rope - the rope of empirial overstretch, massive spending, and hyperinflation. The US will very likely devolve in the first half of the 21st century, much as the USSR did at the end of the 20th century. The breakup will be a crisis and an opportunity. The critical importance of the two strategies is this: When the US breaks up, it will go one of two ways. Either people will call for a new tyrant, or people will opt for new, smaller political entities. Revolutionary France had its crisis and got Napolean; Germany had its hyperinflation crisis and got Hitler. On the other hand, the USSR had its crisis and devolved into many entities, with most of them a lot better off than under the Soviet yoke. Even the countries that were immediately worse off, had better long-term prospects than before.

Whether the US people will demand a Hitler or peacefully devolve into 50 or 60 smaller entities is an open question. But if we anarchist are successful in delegitimizing the state in enough people's minds, we may tip the balance to devolution. And if we have constructed enough parallel structures, money to use when the state's fiat money becomes worthless, rights protection systems, and mutual aid organizations, the transition from overarching state to panarchy need not be too wrenching. May USAmericans adjust as well and as peacefully as most former Soviet subjects did!

Lists of Specific Actions

There are two excellent lists of methods or techniques for direct action. One is from The Methods of Nonviolent Action by Gene Sharp (Boston 1973.) The other is from 101 Things To Do 'Til The Revolution (1999) by Claire Wolfe.

"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." - Claire Wolfe.

Claire Wolfe's 101 Things To Do 'Til The Revolution

  1. Don't write to your congresscritter
  2. Govern yourself
  3. Love the ones you're with
  4. Don't vote; it only encourages them
  5. Do write letters to newspapers and magazines.
  6. Write poetry
  7. Question authority
  8. Kill your TV
  9. Get rid of your dependencies
  10. Be ready to profit from others' dependencies
  11. Just say NO
  12. Know the difference between mala in se and mala prohibita.
  13. Use pre-paid phone cards for privacy
  14. Join a gun-rights group
  15. Be a Simon Jester
  16. Don't be a terrorist
  17. Oppose property seizure with all your might
  18. Celebrate the Fourth of July
  19. Celebrate April 19
  20. Cultivate some Mormon friends
  21. Don't give your social security number
  22. Visualize Vermont Carry
  23. Don't talk to strangers
  24. Don't talk to people you know, either
  25. DO write to your congresscritter
  26. Visualize no government
  27. Fly the Gadsden flag
  28. Dare to keep DARE out of your local schools
  29. Identify the informant in your midst
  30. Remember Mother Batherick
  31. Take your kids out of government school
  32. Keep your sense of humor
  33. Assume all telephones are tapped
  34. Don't debate
  35. Cover your assets
  36. Expect to l ose everything, anyway
  37. Respect individuals, not groups
  38. Fun and Freedom on the Internet
  39. Don't say anything you don't want the world to remember
  40. Throw key words into your e-mail
  41. Use PGP intelligently
  42. Challenge all assumptions
  43. Move to a small town
  44. Read: fiction
  45. Read: history
  46. Read: founding fathers & philosophers of freedom
  47. Read: monkey wrenching & getting around the system
  48. Read: self reliance
  49. Read: strategic thinking and fighting
  50. Read: political periodicals
  1. You can't kill the beast while sucking at its teat
  2. On the other hand...
  3. Bust anti-freedom organizations by driving them broke
  4. Another charming use for 1-800 numbers
  5. Respect the individual, not the office
  6. Don't blame anybody else for your troubles
  7. Stand up for people who stand up for their rights
  8. Don't cooperate with the friendly census taker
  9. Know where your line in the sand is drawn
  10. Buy and carry the Citizens' Rule Book
  11. Join FIJA
  12. Keep a record of your dreams
  13. Consider Sovereign Citizenship
  14. Get your records to safety
  15. Watch your local government
  16. Don't let your possessions imprison you
  17. Cultivate cheap tastes
  18. Close your bank accounts
  19. Create a fake plot or organization
  20. Create a real organization
  21. Join the tax protesters on April 15
  22. Learn dumpster diving
  23. Get healthy!
  24. Learn to disappear in a crowd
  25. Find a balance point in dealing with people
  26. Follow your bliss
  27. Your three-day grab & go kit
  28. Building your emergency water supply
  29. Building your emergency food supply
  30. Building your medical kit
  31. Your survival weapons supply
  32. Start thinking about tools & equipment
  33. Some places to find all of the above
  34. Building your skills
  35. Prepare your children, pets and aging relatives
  36. Avoid "bear bait" cars and other attention-getting vehicles.
  37. Find a non-government occupation
  38. Never beg for your rights
  39. Make "them" fill out your paperwork
  40. If you must vote (part I)....
  41. Get to know your neighbors
  42. Network-but wisely and discreetly
  43. Intimidate back
  44. Know when - and whether - you could kill
  45. If you must vote (part II)...
  46. Learn your privacy rights and protect them
  47. Bury gold, guns and goodies
  48. Maybe you're already a "terrorist"
  49. Put a warning sign on your property
  50. If you can risk it, don't pay your income taxes
  51. Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes

Gene Sharp's Methods of Nonviolent Action

Most of these methods are appropriate for anti-statist action. The few statist items have been striken through.

Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion

Formal Statements
1. Public speeches
2. Letters of opposition or support
3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
4. Signed public declarations
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
6. Group or mass petitions
Communications With A Wider Audience
7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
10. Newspapers and journals
11. Records, radio, and television
12. Skywriting and earthwriting
Group Representations
13. Deputations
14. Mock awards
15. Group lobbying
16. Picketing
17. Mock elections
Symbolic Public Acts
18. Displays of flags and symbolic colours
19. Wearing of symbols
20. Prayer and worship
21. Delivering symbolic objects
22. Protest disrobings
23. Destruction of own property
24. Symbolic lights
25. Displays of portraits
26. Paint as protest
27. New signs and names
28. Symbolic sounds
29. Symbolic reclamations
30. Rude gestures
Pressures On Individuals
31. "Haunting" officials
32. Taunting officials
33. Fraternization
34. Vigils
Drama And Music
35. Humourous skits and pranks
36. Performances of plays and music
37. Singing


Processions
38. Marches
39. Parades
40. Religious processions
41. Pilgrimages
42. Motorcades
Honouring The Dead
43. Political mourning
44. Mock funerals
45. Demonstrative funerals
46. Homage at burial places
Public Assemblies
47. Assemblies of protest or support
48. Protest meetings
49. Camouflaged meetings of protest
50. Teach-ins
Withdrawal And Renunciation
51. Walk-outs
52. Silence
53. Renouncing honours
54. Turning one's back

The Methods Of Social Noncooperation

Ostracism Of Persons
55. Social boycott
56. Selective social boycott
57. Lysistratic nonaction
58. Excommunication
59. Interdict
Noncooperation With Social Events, Customs, And Institutions
60. Suspension of social and sports activities
61. Boycott of social affairs
62. Student strike
63. Social disobedience
64. Withdrawal from social institutions
Withdrawal From The Social System
65. Stay-at-home
66. Total personal noncooperation
67. "Flight" of workers
68. Sanctuary
69. Collective disappearance
70. Protest emigration (hijrat)

The Methods Of Economic Noncooperation:
Economic Boycotts

Action By Consumers
71. Consumers' boycott
72. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
73. Policy of austerity
74. Rent withholding
75. Refusal to rent
76. National consumers' boycott
77. International consumers' boycott
Action By Workers And Producers
78. Workers' boycott
79. Producers' boycott
Action By Middlemen
80. Suppliers' and handlers' boycott
Action By Owners And Management
81. Traders' boycott
82. Refusal to let or sell property
83. Lockout
84. Refusal of industrial assistance
85. Merchants' "general strike"
Action By Holders Of Financial Resources
86. Withdrawal of bank deposits
87. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
88. Refusal to pay debts or interest
89. Severance of funds and credit
90. Revenue refusal
91. Refusal of a government's money
Action By Governments
92. Domestic embargo
93. Blacklisting of traders
94. International sellers' embargo
95. International buyers' embargo
96. International trade embargo

The Methods Of Economic Noncoooperation:
The Strike

Symbolic Strikes
97. Protest strike
98. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)
Agricultural Strikes
99. Peasant strike
100. Farm workers' strike
Strikes By Special Groups
101. Refusal of impressed labour
102. Prisoners' strike
103. Craft strike
104. Professional strike
Ordinary Industrial Strikes
105. Establishment strike
106. Industry strike
107. Sympathy strike
Restricted Strikes
108. Detailed strike
109. Bumper strike
110. Slowdown strike
111. Working-to-rule strike
112. Reporting "sick" (sick-in)
113. Strike by resignation
114. Limited strike
115. Selective strike
Multi-Industry Strikes
116. Generalised strike
117. General strike
Combination Of Strikes And Economic Closures
118. Hartal
119. Economic shutdown

The Methods Of Political Noncooperation

Rejection Of Authority
120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
121. Refusal of public support
122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance
Citizens' Noncooperation With Government
123. Boycott of legislative bodies
124. Boycott of elections
125. Boycott of government employment and positions
126. Boycott of government departments, agencies, and other bodies
127. Withdrawal from governmental educational institutions
128. Boycott of government-supported institutions
129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
130. Removal of own signs and placemarks
131. Refusal to accept appointed officials
132. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions
Citizens' Alternatives To Obedience
133. Reluctant and slow compliance
134. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
135. Popular nonobedience
136. Disguised disobedience
137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
138. Sitdown
139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
141. Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws
Action By Government Personnel
142. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
143. Blocking of lines of command and information
144. Stalling and obstruction
145. General administrative noncooperation
146. Judicial noncooperation
147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
148. Mutiny
Domestic Governmental Action
149. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
150. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units
International Governmental Action
151. Changes in diplomatic and other representation
152. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
153. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
154. Severance of diplomatic relations
155. Withdrawal from international organisations
156. Refusal of membership in international bodies
157. Expulsion from international organisations

The Methods Of Nonviolent Intervention

Psychological Intervention
158. Self-exposure to the elements
159. The fast
a) Fast of moral pressure
b) Hunger strike
c) Satyagrahic fast
160. Reverse trial
161. Nonviolent harassment
Physical Intervention
162. Sit-in
163. Stand-in
164. Ride-in
165. Wade-in
166. Mill-in
167. Pray-in
168. Nonviolent raids
169. Nonviolent air raids
170. Nonviolent invasion
171. Nonviolent interjection
172. Nonviolent obstruction
173. Nonviolent occupation
Social Intervention
174. Establishing new social patterns
175. Overloading of facilities
176. Stall-in
177. Speak-in
178. Guerrilla theatre
179. Alternative social institutions
180. Alternative communication system
Economic Intervention
181. Reverse strike
182. Stay-in strike
183. Nonviolent land seizure
184. Defiance of blockades
185. Politically motivated counterfeiting
186. Preclusive purchasing
187. Seizure of assets
188. Dumping
189. Selective patronage
190. Alternative markets
191. Alternative transportation systems
192. Alternative economic institutions
Political Intervention
193. Overloading of administrative systems
194. Disclosing identities of secret agents
195. Seeking imprisonment
196. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws
197. Work-on without collaboration
198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government



Opportunities for Counter-institutions

  1. Utilities
    1. water
    2. sewer
    3. telecommunications
    4. internet
    5. hardware
    6. recycling/waste
    7. electricity/power
  2. Protection/Defense
    1. commonwealth/national defense
    2. environmental defense
  3. Trade
    1. currency
    2. savings/investment brokering
  4. Means of Production
    1. resources/land
    2. fabrication
    3. management
  5. Social Services
    1. child-care
    2. child welfare
    3. foster care
  6. Safety Net
    1. health insurance
    2. unemployment insurance
  7. Security
    1. security services
    2. adjudication
  1. Education
    1. primary
    2. vocational
  2. Health-care
    1. preventive/regular
    2. emergency
  3. Housing
    1. land
    2. loans
  4. Food
    1. farming
    2. food security
  5. Infrastructure
    1. roads
    2. public transportation
    3. public spaces
    4. emergency services
agorismlogo
What, then, do they want a government for? Not to regulate commerce; not to educate the people; not to teach religion; not to administer charity; not to make roads and railways; but simply to defend the natural rights of man - to protect person and property - to prevent the aggressions of the powerful upon the weak - in a word, to administer justice. This is the natural, the original, office of a government. It was not intended to do less: it ought not to be allowed to do more.
- Herbert Spencer, Man Versus the State
It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
- Ludwig von Mises, Human Action



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