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1 Kritik of Government and Capitalism
A) Framework: GOVERNMENT-FREE SOCIAL LIBERTY WOULD TRANSCEND OURCURRENT CAPITALIST SLAVERY.
Bakunin, Mikhail, a labor organizer, 1870, The Commune, the Church, and the State, (Bakunins
Writings, 1947)I am a passionate seeker fortruth and just as strong an opponent of the corrupting lies, through
which the party of order this privileged, official, and interested representative of all religions,
philosophical political, legal economical, and social outrage in the past and present has tried to
keep the world in ignorance. I love freedom with all my heart. It is the only condition underwhich the intelligence, the manliness, and happiness of the people, can develop and expand. By
freedom, however, I naturally understand not its mere form, forced down as from above,
measured and controlled by the state, this eternal lie which in reality, is nothing but the
privilege of the few founded upon the slavery of all. Nor do I mean that "individualistic,"
selfish, petty, and mock freedom, which is propagated by J.J. Rousseau and all other schools of
bourgeois liberalism. The mock freedom which is limited by the supposed right of all, and
defended by the state, and leads inevitably to the destruction of the rights of the individual. No:
I mean the only true freedom, that worthy of the name; the liberty which consists therein for
everyone to develop all the material, intellectual, and moral faculties which lie dormant in him;
the liberty which knows and recognizes no limitations beyond those which nature decrees. In this
sense, there are no limitations, for the laws of our own nature are not forced upon us by a law-
giver who, beside or above us, sits on a throne.
B) Links
1) The affirmative plan works through the federal government, a structure of social control.
2) [insert specific link]
C) Implications:
1) STATISM LEADS TO MECHANIZATION AND THE DEATH OF LIBERTY, BEAUTY,
AND SCIENCE.
Goldman 40, Emma, a journalist, 1940, Anarchism (1970), p.40Real wealth consists in things ofutility and beauty, in things that help to create strong, beautiful
bodies, and surroundings inspiring to live in. But if man is doomed to wind cotton around a
spool, or dig coal, or build roads for thirty years of his life, there can be no talk of wealth. What
he gives to the world are only gray and hideous things, reflecting a dull and hideous existence
too weakto live, too cowardly to die. Strange to say, there are people who extol this deadening
method of centralized production as the proudest achievement of our age. They fail utterly to
realize that if we are to continue in machine subserviency, ourslavery is more complete than
was our bondage to the king. They do not want to know that centralization is not only the
deathknell of liberty, but also of health and beauty, of art and science, all these being impossible
in a clocklike, mechanical atmosphere.
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2) HIERARCHICAL SOCIETY DEVOURS NATURE LIKE AN UNTREATED DISEASE.
Bookchin, Murray, president of Goddard College, 1990, Remaking Society, p.15
Finally, liberal environmentalism suffers from a consistent refusal to see that a capitalistic society
based on competition and growth for its own sake must ultimately devour the natural world, justlike an untreated cancer must ultimately devour its host. Personal intentions, be they good or
bad, have little to do with this unrelenting process. An economy that is structured around themaxim, Grow or Die, must necessarily pit itself against the natural world and leave ecological
ruin in its wake as it works its way through the biosphere.
3) GOVERNMENT-BASED SOCIETY EXPLOITS AND DEGRADES THE POOR WE
NEED A COMPLETELY NEW SYSTEM.
Kropotkin, Peter, editor of Le Revolt, 1880, The Spirit of Revolt (within Le Revolt)
Those who long for the triumph of justice, those who would put new ideas into practice, are
soon forced to recognize that the realization of theirgenerous, humanitarian, and regenerating
ideas cannot take place in a society thus constituted; they perceive the necessity of a
revolutionary whirlwind which will sweep away all this rottenness, revive sluggish hearts
with its breath, and bring to mankind that spirit of devotion, self-denial, and heroism, withoutwhich society sinks through degradation and vileness into complete disintegration. In periods
offrenzied haste toward wealth, of feverish speculation and of crisis, of the sudden downfall of
great industries and the ephemeral expansion of other branches of production, of scandalous
fortunes amassed in a few years and dissipated as quickly, it becomes evident that the economicinstitutions which control production and exchange are far from giving to society the prosperity
which they are supposed to guarantee; they produce precisely the opposite result. Instead of
order they bring forth chaos; instead of prosperity, poverty and insecurity; instead of reconciled
interests, war; a perpetual war of the exploiter against the worker, of exploiters and of workers
among themselves.
4) GOVERNMENTS ARE INHERENTLY DESTRUCTIVE AND CAUSE CRIME.
Goldman, Emma, 1940, Anarchism (1970), p.43
The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from
the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law,
stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an
absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the
horrible scourge of its own creation.
5) CAPITALISM AND GOVERNMENTS LEGITIMIZE EVIL AND IMPOVERISHMENT.
Einstein, Albert, 1949, Monthly Review, New YorkThe economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of
the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers, the members of which are unceasinglystriving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor not by force, but on the
whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to
realize that the means of production that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed
for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods may legally be, and for the
most part are, the private property of individuals.
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Hierarchy Is Hypocritical
HIERARCHY IS HYPOCRITICAL AND DOOMED TO EXTINCTION.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.33The system under which we live checks in its turn the growth of the social sentiment. We all
know that without uprightness, without self-respect, without sympathy, and mutual aid, human
kind must perish, as perish the few races of animals living by rapine, or the slave-keeping ants.
But such ideas are not to the taste of the ruling classes, and they have elaborated a whole system
of pseudo-science to teach the contrary.
Fine sermons have been preached on the text that those who have should share with those who
have not, but he who would carry out this principle would be speedily informed that these
beautiful sentiments are all very well in poetry, but not in practice. To lie is to degrade and
besmirch oneself, we say, and yet all civilized life becomes one huge lie. We accustomourselves and our children to hypocrisy, to the practice of a double-faced morality. And since the
brain is ill at ease among lies, we cheat ourselves with sophistry. Hypocrisy and sophistry
become the second nature of the civilized man.But a society cannot live thus; it must return to truth, orcease to exist.
Hierarchy Mechanizes
CAPITALISM FORCES WORKERS INTO A REPULSIVE AND MECHANIZED
EXISTENCE..
Marx and Engels, Karl and Friedrich , 1848, The Communist Manifesto
Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labor, the work of the proletarians has
lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an
appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easilyacquired knack that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted,
almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the
propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labor, is equal to its
cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage
decreases.
CAPITALISM MECHANIZES HUMANS.
Goldmann, Emma, 1940, The Individual, Society, and the State
One of the insane characteristics of this struggle is the complete negation of the relation of theproducer to the things he produces. The average worker has no inner point of contact with the
industry he is employed in, and he is a stranger to the process of production of which he is amechanical part. Like any other cog of the machine, he is replaceable at any time by other
similardepersonalized human beings.
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HIERARCHY MECHANIZES AND IMPRISONS SOCIETY.
Goldman, Emma, 1940, The Individual, Society, and the State
The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity; the least divergence from it is the greatest
crime. The wholesale mechanization of modern life has increased uniformity a thousandfold. It
is everywhere present, in habits, tastes, dress, thoughts and ideas. Its most concentrated dullnessis "public opinion." Few have the courage to stand out against it. He who refuses to submit is at
once labeled "queer," "different," and decried as a disturbing element in the comfortable
stagnancy of modern life. ...
In pre-war time the individual could at least escape national and family boredom.. The whole
world was open to his longings and his quests. Now the world has become a prison, and life
continual solitary confinement.
Classism /Division of Labor Bad
CLASS INEQUITIES OPPRESS THE MASSES, ROBBING THEM OF THE ABILITY TO
AVOID PAINFUL DRUDGERY.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.26
In our civilized societies we are rich. Why then are the many poor? Why this painful drudgery
for the masses? Why, even to the best paid workman, this uncertainty for the morrow, in the
midst of all the wealth inherited from the past, and in spite of the powerful means of production,
which could ensure comfort to all, in return for a few hours of daily toil?
The Socialists have said it and repeated it unwearingly. Daily they reiterate it, demonstrating it by
arguments taken from all the sciences. It is because all that is necessary for production the land,
the mines, the highways, machinery, food, shelter, education, knowledge all have been seizedby the few in the course of that long story ofrobbery, enforced migration and wars, ofignorance
and oppression, which has been the life of the human race before it learned to subdue the forces
of Nature. It is because, taking advantage of alleged rights acquired in the past, these fewappropriate today two thirds of the products of human labor, and then squander them in the most
shameful way.
OPPRESSION OF THE MASSES WILL OCCUR SO LONG AS DIVISION OF LABOR
EXISTS.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.148
We understand that all men have but one dream that of emerging from, or enabling their
children to emerge from, this inferior state; to create for themselves an independent position,
which means what? To also live by other mens work!
As long as there will be a class of manual workers and a class of brain workers, black hands
and white hands, it will be thus.
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Capitalism Is As Bad As Feudalism /Monarchy
CAPITALISM IS AS BARBARIC AS FEUDALISM.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.31We cry shame on the feudal baron who forbade the peasant to turn a clod of earth unless he
surrendered to his lord a fourth of his crop. We called those barbarous times. But if the forms
have changed, the relations have remained the same, and the worker is forced, under the name of
free contract, to accept feudal obligations. For, turn where he will, he can find no better
conditions. Everything has become private property, and he must accept, ordie of hunger.
The result of this state of things is that all our production tends in a wrong direction. Enterprise
takes no thought for the needs of the community. Its only aim is to increase the gains of the
speculator. Hence the constant fluctuations of trade, the periodical industrial crises, each of which
throws scores of thousands of workers on the streets.
DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS ARE JUST AS OPPRESSIVE AS ANY MONARCHY.
Bakunin, Mikhail, 1870, Statism and Anarchy
The essential difference between a monarchy and a democratic republic is reduced to the
following: In a monarchy, the bureaucratic world oppresses and plunders the people for the
greater benefit of the privileged propertied classes as well as for its own benefit, and all that is
done in the name of the monarch; in a republic, the same bureaucracy does exactly the same
thing, but in the name of the will of the people.
Hierarchy Hurts Workers
CAPITALISM NEVER HELPS WORKERS IT LEADS TO SEXISM, RACISM, AND
EXPLOITATION.
MacSimin, Alan, a mine labor reformer, 1993, Workers Solidarity, No.38
Anyone who talks about 'social partnership', about labor and capital working together for the
benefit of all is talking nonsense. What rights we have and gains we have made have been the
result of long and often bitter struggles. The bosses only give such rights and concessions as
they are forced to. In times of recession, such as now, they try to make workers pay through job
losses, cuts in real wages, cuts in public spending, productivity deals, etc. for the crisis that is aperiodic and inevitable product of capitalism.
Although capitalism oppresses people on many different levels, race and sex to name but two; it
is the exploitation of our labor that is fundamental to the system. It is on this front that the fight
for a new society will be won or lost. If we can reclaim that aspect of our lives, the system can be
overturned and replaced with something much better.
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THE WAGE SYSTEM DENIES WORKERS THE NECESSITIES OF LIFE.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.84We must offer to the peasant in exchange for his toil not worthless paper-money, but the
manufactured articles of which he stands in immediate need. He lacks the proper implements totill the land, clothes to protect him properly from the inclemencies of the weather, lamps and oil
to replace his miserable rushlight or tallow dip, spades, rakes, ploughs. All these things, under
present conditions, the peasant is forced to do without, not because he does not feel the need for
them, but because, in his life ofstruggle and privation, a thousand useful things are beyond his
reach; because he has no money to buy them.
Governments Exploit
GOVERNMENT IS THE NEGATION OF HUMANITY THE OPPOSITE OF
FREEDOM AND JUSTICE AND THE CAUSE OF WAR.
Bakunin, Michael, 1870, The German Crisis
Whosoever mentions the State, implies force, oppression, exploitation, injustice all these
brought together as a system are the main condition of present-day society. The State has never
had, and never can have, a morality. Its only morality and justice is its own interest, its existence,
and its omnipotence at any price; and before its interest, all interest of humanity must stand in
the back-ground. The State is the negation of Humanity. It is this in two ways: the opposite ofhuman freedom and human justice (internally), as well as the forcible disruption of the
common solidarity of mankind (externally).The Universal State, repeatedly attempted, hasalways proved an impossibility, so that as long as the State exists, States will exist and since
every State regards itself as absolute, and proclaims the adoration of its power as the highest law,
to which all other laws must be subordinated, it therefore follows that as long as States exist wars
cannot cease. Every State must conquer, or be conquered.
CAPITALISM IS THE SOURCE OF ALL OF OUR SOCIAL EVILS AND
EXPLOITATION.
Bookchin, Murray, president of Goddard College, 1990, Remaking Society, p.94
Indeed, capitalism completely incarnates Bakunins notion of evil without the qualification
that it is socially necessary. Beyond the capitalist system there are no further turning points in
history. Capitalism marks the end of the road for a long social development in which evil
permeated the good and irrationality permeated the rational. Capitalism, in effect, constitutes the
point ofabsolute negativity for society and the natural world. One cannot improve this socialorder, reform it, or remake it on its own terms with an ecological prefix such as eco-capitalism.
The only choice one has is to destroy it, for it embodies everysocial disease from patriarchalvalues, class exploitation, and statism to avarice, militarism, and now, growth for the sake of
growth that has afflicted civilization and tainted all its great advances.
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GOVERNMENTS DO NOT FOSTER JUSTICE THEY DEHUMANIZINGLY COERCE.
Thoreau, Henry David, 1849, Civil DisobedienceIt is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation
which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said, that acorporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with aconscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect to it, even the
well-disposed are daily made agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue
respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-
monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills,
ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and
produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which
they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? Or small
movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power.
Governments Exploit/Coerce GOVERNMENTS CANNOT AVOID POVERTY AND EXPLOITATION.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.172
Poverty, we have said elsewhere, was the primary cause of wealth. It was poverty that created the
first capitalist; because, before accumulating surplus value, of which we hear so much, men had
to be sufficiently destitute to consent to sell their labour, so as not to die of hunger. It was
poverty that made capitalists. And if the number of then poor increased so rapidly during the
Middle Ages, it was due to the invasions and wars that followed the founding of States, and to
the increase of riches resulting from the exploitation of the East. These two causes tore asunder
the bonds that kept men together in the agrarian and urban communities, and taught them to
proclaim the principle ofwages, so dear to the exploiters, instead of the solidarity they formerlypractised in their tribal life.
GOVERNMENTS COERCE AND DOMINATE, DESTROYING SOCIETY.
Carter, April, a professor of political science, 1971, The Political Theory of Anarchism, p.25
But for anarchists and many socialists, society becomes the opposite of the State. Society is the
repository of all the good aspects of social life and organization co-operation, sympathy,
affection, initiative, and spontaneity, while the State incorporates all the bad aspects of social
interaction coercion, force, and domination; and politics tends to be seen as the arena of force,
fraud, and trickery. The state is an incubus upon society a distorting factor.
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WE MUST NOT BE COERCED BY GOVERNMENTS THEY DONT WORK FOR THE
GOOD OF THE PEOPLE.
Thoreau, Henry David, 1849, Civil DisobedienceThus the State never intentionally confronts a mans sense, intellectual or moral, but only his
body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength.I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.
What force has a multitude? They can only force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me
to become like themselves. I do not hear ofmen beingforcedto live this way or that by masses of
men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, Your
money or your life, why should I be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great strait, and
not know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do.
Governments Kill Liberty
GOVERNMENTS ARE INHERENTLY VIOLENT AND OPPRESSING.
Bakunin, Michael, 1870, The German Crisis
To strive forinternational justice, liberty, and perpetual peace, and at the same time to uphold
the State, is contradictory and naive. It is impossible to alter the nature of the State, because it is
just this nature that constitutes the State; and States cannot change their nature without ceasing to
exist. It thus follows that there cannot be a good, just, virtuous State. All States are bad in that
sense, that they, by their nature, by their principle, by their very foundation and the highest ideal
of their existence, are the opponents of human liberty, morality, and justice.
ULTIMATE FREEDOM CAN BE ATTAINED ONLY WHEN THE STATE IS
DESTROYED.
Carter, April, a professor at Somerville, 1978, Nomos XIX: Anarchism, p.323There are well-known difficulties in defining freedom, but it is reasonable to start from the basic
assumption that an individuals freedom depends on the absence of immediate and hurtful
physical constraints and of extreme sanctions: an individual is freer out of jail than in it, freerwithout the constant threat ofarrest and torture, and freer if he is not in fear for his life. Thus
freedom in general increases the more the powers of violence wielded by the state against the
individual are restricted, and the more the use of these powers is restricted. Anarchists, instead of
looking to the rule of law to maximize personal freedom, look to the total abolition of the organs
of state violence.
GOVERNMENTS UNNECESSARILY DESTROY LIBERTY AND FREEDOM.
Hocking, William, of Harvard, 1970, Anarchism, p.120First of them is the restriction of liberty; and liberty, in the anarchists ideal, is the chief of all
political goods. If liberty is the chief political good, then no sacrifice of it for any other good can
be other than a bad bargain.
Society stands to lose by every diminution of general freedom; for it runs the risk of checking its
most original, and therefore most priceless, developments. Though not every divergent genius is aprophet, the prophets are bound to be among the divergent and intractable. Yet it is not in the
name of the social welfare that the anarchist primarily pleads his cause. It is in the name of the
individuals own destiny and right.
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Governments Kill Liberty
GOVERNMENT, OR A CONTROLLING SOCIAL STRUCTURE IS THE DEVIL OF
HISTORY.
Bakunin, Mikhail, 1870, Protestation of the Alliance
The instinct to command others, in its primitive essence, is a carnivorous, altogetherbestial, and
savage instinct. Under the influence of the mental development of man, it takes on a somewhat
more ideal form and becomes somewhat ennobled, presenting itself as the instrument of reason
and the devoted servant of that abstraction, or political fiction, which is called the public good.But in its essence it remains just as baneful, and it becomes even more so when, with the
application of science, it extends its scope and intensifies the power of its action. If there is a
devil in history, it is this power principle.
CAPITALISM TYRANNICALLY CONTROLS.
Chomsky, Noam, a linguist and policy analyst, 1995, interview with Kevin Doyle,
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/rbr/noamrbr2.html
What is called 'capitalism' is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and
largely unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy, political
systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close co-operation with powerful states that
intervene massively in the domestic economy and international society. That is dramatically true
of the United States, contrary to much illusion. The rich and privileged are no more willing to
face market discipline than they have been in the past, though they consider it just fine for thegeneral population.
Governments Kill Humanity
GOVERNMENTS MECHANIZE HUMANS, CAUSING EVIL.
Thoreau, Henry David, 1849, Civil Disobedience
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most
cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put
themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be
manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of
straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as
these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others as most legislators, politicians,
lawyers, ministers, and office-holders serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they
rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as
God.
TRULY HUMAN COMMUNITIES CANNOT DEVELOP UNDER GOVERNMENTS.
Bakunin, Mikhail, Letters To A Frenchman
Collectivism can be imposed only upon slaves and then collectivism becomes the negation of
humanity. Among a free people collectivism can come about only in the natural course of things,
by force of circumstances: not by imposing it from above, but by a spontaneous movement from
below, which springs forth freely and necessarily when the conditions of privileged individualism
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State politics, the codes of civil and criminal law, the juridical family and inheritance rights
have been swept away by the Revolution.
GOVERNMENTS ARE HIDEOUS MONSTERS WHICH CONSUME HUMANITY.
Goldman, Emma, 1940, The Individual, Society, and the StateFriedrich Nietzsche called the State a cold monster. What would he have called the hideous
beast in the garb of modern dictatorship? Not that government had ever allowed much scope tothe individual; but the champions of the new State ideology do not grant even that much. "The
individual is nothing," they declare, "it is the collectivity which counts." Nothing less than the
complete surrender of the individual will satisfy the insatiable appetite of the new deity.
Governments Kill Humanity
CAPITALISM PRODUCES INNUMERABLE SOCIAL ILLS, THREATENING
HUMANITY.
Kothari, Rajni, of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, April 1997, Alternatives,
p.233It is a model of global integration built on all-round splintering and polarizing, producing
destruction and annihilation not through wars and military machines but through starvation,
pestilence, crime, social erosion, and loneliness, growing trade in juvenile and gender-based
populations, drugs, violence, and free-trade in guns and bombs, urban collapse and unexpected
deaths caused by ever more hazardous industries and energy use. Much of the price of all this is
paid by the already unprotected, the insecure and vulnerable, the poor, the minorities, the
refugees, and the least secure of all, women and children. If it is a global order that is being
envisaged, it is a global order built on the social erosion of diverse civil societies and shunting to
the margins of existence ideas of individual freedom and primary bonds, of the pride and dignity
that comes from belonging to a clan or a community, a caste or a tribal ancestry. This is what
capitalist development and the forced urbanization and migration and displacement that are
entailed in it will produce, indeed is producing.
GOVERNMENTS ARE OPPOSED TO THE BASIC HUMAN VALUES.
Wolff, Robert Paul, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, 1970, In defense of
Anarchism
The defining mark of the state is authority, the right to rule. The primary obligation of man is
autonomy, the refusal to be ruled. It would seem, then, that there can be no resolution of the
conflict between the autonomy of the individual and the putative authority of the state. Insofar as
a man fulfills his obligation to make himself the authors of his decisions, he will resist the states
claim to have authority over him. That is to say, he will deny that he has a duty to obey the laws
of the state simply because they are the laws. In that sense, it would seem that anarchism is the
only political doctrine consistent with the virtue of autonomy.
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THE INJUSTICE OF LAWS AND GOVERNMENT TURN OUR LIVES INTO A
DELUSIONAL HELL.
Thoreau, Henry David, 1854, Slavery In MassachuesettsAt last it occurred to me that what I had lost was a country. I had never respected the government
near to which I lived, but I had foolishly thought that I might manage to live here, minding myprivate affairs, and forget it. For my part, my old and worthiest pursuits have lost I cannot say
how much of their attraction, and I feel that my investment in life here is worth many per cent
less since Massachusetts last deliberately sent back an innocent man, Anthony Burns, to slavery. I
dwelt before, perhaps, in the illusion that my life passed somewhere only between heaven andhell, but now I cannot persuade myself that I do not dwell wholly within hell. The site of thatpolitical organization called Massachusetts is to me morally covered with volcanic scoriae and
cinders, such as Milton describes in the infernal regions. If there is any hell more unprincipled
than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it. ...
I feel that, to some extent, the State has fatally interfered with my lawful business. It has not
only interrupted me in my passage through Court Street on errands of trade, but it has
interrupted me and every man on his onward and upward path, on which he had trusted soon to
leave Court Street far behind. What right had it to remind me of Court Street? I have found thathollow which even I had relied on for solid.
Governments Kill Equality
GOVERNMENTS DESTROY EQUALITY WITH BRUTAL DOMINATION.
Bakunin, Mikhail, 1870, World Revolutionary Alliance of Social DemocracyEquality of political rights, or a democratic State, constitute in themselves the most glaring
contradiction in terms. The State, or political right, denotes force, authority, predominance; it
presupposes inequality in fact. Where all rule, there are no more ruled, and there is no State.
Governments Cause Crime
GOVERNMENT-CAUSED SOCIAL HIERARCHY LEADS TO CRIME.
Goldman, Emma, 1940, Anarchism (1970), p.43
Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political,
social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most
people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime
will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with
crime. What does society, as it exists today, know of the process of despair, the poverty, the
horrors, the fearful struggle the human soul must pass on its way to crime and degradation?
GOVERNMENTS ARE THE CAUSE OF CRIME.
Hocking, William, of Harvard, 1970, Anarchism, p.121
For however worthy of obedience the law may be, governments, seduced by force-using, seldom
are; and the disaffection from rulers extends to the law behind them. There is an element ofarrogance in their wielding of principles more sacred than themselves; and if they insist on being
inseparable from the law, the resentment due to them will not be withheld because it strikes the
law also. Law which allies itself with force begets lawlessness.
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Governments Kill Independence
GOVERNMENT ACTION CREATES COMPLETE DEPENDENCY.
Taylor, Michael, a professor at the University of Washington, 1987, The Possibility of
Cooperation, p.168Men who live for long under government and its bureaucracy, courts, and police, come to rely
upon them. They find it easier to use the state for the settlement of their disputes and for theprovision of public goods, instead of arranging these things for themselves, even where the
disputes and the publics for which the goods are to be provided, are quite local. In this way, the
state mediates between individuals; they come to deal with each other through the courts, through
the tax collector, and the bureaucracies which spend the taxes.
Capitalism Causes Nuclear Extermination
CAPITALISM CAUSES WARS AND RISKS NUCLEAR EXTERMINATION.
Leight, Samuel, a professor at the University of Arizona, 1984, The Futility of Reformism, p.31Second, the cause of war is inherent in capitalism this is a chronic condition that is both
irremovable and incurable as long as the system survives. Given a society organized as a gigantic
market place, wars will continue to be fought over private property and related issues when
diplomacy and negotiations fail. The big question is: will the small wars continue on daily
basis, as they have for decades, or will they be interrupted by a worldwide nuclear disaster?
Hierarchy Kills Nature
HIERARCHY RISKS ECOLOGICAL EXTINCTIONS.
Bookchin, Murray, president of Goddard College, 1994, Reflecting On Nature (ed. Gruen andJamieson), p.123
Our present society has a definite hierarchical character. It is a propertied society that
concentrates economic power in corporate elites. It is a bureaucratic and militaristic society that
concentrates political and military power in centralized state institutions. It is a patriarchal society
that allocates authority to men in varying degrees. And it is a racist society that places a minority
of whites in a self-deceptive sovereignty over a vast worldwide majority of peoples of color.
While it is theoretically possible that a hierarchical society can biologically sustain itself, at least
for a time, through draconian environmentalist controls, it is absolutely inconceivable that
present-day hierarchical and particularly capitalist society could establish a non-domineering and
ethnically symbiotic relationship between itself and the natural world. As long as hierarchypersists, as long as domination organizes humanity around a system of elites, the project of
dominating nature will remain a predominant ideology and inevitably lead our planet to the brink,if not into the abyss, ofecological extinction.
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HIERARCHY IS INHERENTLY DESTRUCTIVE TO ALL LIFE.
Bookchin, Murray, president of Goddard College, 1994, Reflecting On Nature (ed. Gruen and
Jamieson), p.124
Capitalist society, whether in Western corporate or Eastern bureaucratic forms, is fundamentally
destructive. The power of this society to destroy has reached a scale unprecedented in the history
of humanity and this power is being used, almost systematically, to wreak havoc upon theentire world of life and its material bases. In nearly every region, air is being befouled,
waterways polluted, soil washed away, the land desiccated, and wildlife destroyed. Coastal areas
and even the depths of the sea are not immune to widespread pollution. More significantly in the
long run, basic biological cycles such as the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle, upon which all
living things depend for the maintenance and renewal of life, are being distorted to the point of
irreversible damage.
OPPRESSION OF HUMANS MUST CEASE BEFORE WE CAN STOP OPPRESSION OF
NATURE.
Bookchin, Murray, president of Goddard College, 1990, Remaking Society, p.39
Whatever has turned human beings into aliens in nature are social changes that have mademany human beings aliens in their own social world: the domination of the young by the old, of
women by men, and of men by men. Today, as for many centuries in the past, there are still
oppressive human beings who literally own society and others who are owned by it. Until society
can be reclaimed by an undivided humanity that will use its collective wisdom, culturalachievements, technological innovations, scientific knowledge, and innate creativity for its own
benefit and for that of the natural world, all ecological problems will have their roots in social
problems.
Hierarchy Kills Nature
THE CAPITALIST-BASED ECOLOGICAL CRISIS THREATENS SURVIVAL.
The Monthly Review, November 1997, Joel Kovel, p.6
The ecological crisis is defined by the brutal fact that the normal course of social production
inexorably destroys the natural basis of society. Until as recently as the 1960s nature was able to
buffer the effects of production. Now this function is breaking down in a proliferating and
incalculable way across multiple ecosystems. Climate change, species loss, disease, depletion of
soils and groundwater, intoxication by pollutants... the list can be extended, but its message is
clear and harrowing: survival depends upon coming to grips with what is wrong at the
mainspring of our civilization.
CAPITALISM KILLS BEAUTY, THE EXISTENCE OF NATURE, AND THE HUMAN
SPECIES.
The Monthly Review, November 1997, Joel Kovel, p.12Wherever capital has its way, the ecological principles that underlie the emergence and flowering
of life, beauty, and consciousness are broken down through the intrusion of the commodity
form. Quality is replaced by quantity; differentiation and balance are replaced by brutal
expansion; and the fruits of billions of years of evolution are transformed into cash. And as
ecosystem damage grows and interacts upon itself, the survivability of the species is itself
thrown into doubt.
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CAPITALISM DRIVES ALL FORCES WHICH DESTROY NATURE.
The Monthly Review, November 1997, Joel Kovel, p.7
It is capital that conditions and drives separate determinations in an ecologically destructive way,
and so becomes the efficient cause of the crisis. Development or industrialization, as such, is anempty construct. But development or industrialization under capitalist aegis, in which capitalist
corporations, markets, lifestyles, even psychologies and character structure, all interact, is whatdestabilizes ecosystems all over the planet.
AT: Anarchy Would Harm the Wealthy
1) Extend- Bakunin in 1870: Government-free society would help everyone.
2) CLASSISM CRIPPLES BOTH THE RICH AND THE POOR.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.182
We know the consequences of the division of labour full well. It is evident that, first of all, we aredivided into two classes: on the one hand, producers, who consume very little and are exempt
from thinking because they only do physical work, and who work badly because their brains
remain inactive; and on the other hand, the consumers, who, producing little or hardly anything,
have the privilege of thinking for the others, and who think badly because the whole world of
those who toil with their hands is unknown to them.
3) We must not allow a minority of the people to benefit from the suffering of the majority.
4) Todays upper-class could continue to live excellent lives they would just have to work for it,
rather than exploiting the labor of others.
Governments Dont Represent the People
GOVERNMENTS FAIL TO REPRESENT THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE.
Thoreau, Henry David, 1848, Civil Disobedience
I heartily accept the motto, That government is best which governs least; and I should like tosee it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which
also I believe, That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared
for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an
expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.
The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty,
and deserve to prevail, may also be brought up against a standing government. The governmentitself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable
to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.
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GOVERNMENTS OPPRESSIVELY IGNORE THE NEEDS OF SOCIETY.
Hoffman, Robert, a professor of history, 1970, Anarchism, p.8
The reasons for this conviction are many; most are summed up in the notion that the State, no
matter how constituted, is alien from most or all of the society it governs. It can not be theembodiment of the citizenry, but is instead an institution with needs, views, and the goals peculiar
to itself. Rather than expressing and enacting the needs and wishes of societys members, theState has a life of its own, and serves society as it sees, imposing its will on a largely helpless
and often resentful population, and prevailing over it only through compulsion.
A FREE SOCIETY CAN ONLY BE CONSTRUCTED FROM THE BOTTOM UP.
Bakunin, Michael, The Commune, the Church, and the State
he organization of the society of the future must and can be accomplished only from the bottom
upwards, through the free federation and union of the workers into groups, unions, and societies,
which will unite again into districts, communes, national communes, and finally form a great
international federation. Only thus can be evolved the true vital order of liberty and happiness
for all, the order which is not opposed to the interests of the individual or of society, but on the
contrary strengthens the same and brings them into harmony.
AT: Humans Are Naturally Competitive /No Cooperation
1) THE IDEA THAT IT IS HUMAN NATURE TO STRIVE FOR POWER IS FLAWED AND
SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED.
Dixon, Keith, of Simon Fraser University, 1986, Freedom and Equality, p.72
What most of us take to be natural, aint necessarily so! We may feel that incentives and
rewards are necessary to sustain an efficient level of work; that men will necessarily strive for
power and status and that human wants are limitless. But these assumptions may be socially
derived. Were we to live in a culture where cooperation and not competition were the norm ourconception of human nature might be fundamentally different.
2) People compete now because they have been taught to do so. The new society would teachdifferent ideals.
3) HUMANS COOPERATE TODAY WITHOUT GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.129
Accustomed as we are by hereditary prejudices and our unsound education and training to
represent ourselves the beneficial hand of Government, legislation and magistracy everywhere,
we have come to believe that man would tear his fellow-man to pieces like a wild beast the day
the police took his eye off him; that absolute chaos would come about if authority wereoverthrown during a revolution. And with our eyes shut we pass by thousands and thousands of
human groupings which form themselves freely, without any intervention of the law, and attain
results infinitely superior to those achieved under governmental tutelage.
4) This is an utterly pessimistic view of humanity. If you believe that people can never worktogether, theres no reason for wanting to live.
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AT: Humans Are Naturally Competitive /No Cooperation
5) COMMUNALISM WORKED UNTIL IT WAS CRUSHED BY THE INEQUITIES OF
GOVERNMENTS.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1913, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.17One of the current objections to Communism and Socialism altogether, is that the idea is so old,
and yet it has never been realized. Schemes of ideal States haunted the thinkers of AncientGreece; later on, the early Christians joined in communist groups; centuries later, large
communist brotherhoods came into existence during the Reform movement. ...
At first sight, this objection seems very serious. However, the moment we consider human history
more attentively, it loses its strength. We see, first, that hundreds of millions of men havesucceeded in maintaining amongst themselves, in their village communities, for many hundreds
of years, one of the main elements of Socialism the common ownership of the chief instrument
of production, the land, and the appointment of the same according to the labor capacities of the
different families; and we learn that if the communal possession of the land has been destroyed in
Western Europe, it was not from within, but from without, by the governments which created a
land monopoly in favor of the nobility and the middle classes.
6) The affirmative team insists that cooperation is impossible, yet you can see multiple examples
of it in this debate round. All four debaters have agreed to work alongside their partners and you
have agreed to judge the round.
AT: We Can Reform the System
1) CAPITALISM CAUSES MERE REFORMS TO INTENSIFY PROBLEMS AND CREATE
DICTATORSHIPS.
Leight, Samuel, a professor at the University of Arizona, 1984, The Futility of Reformism, p.6
Reforms never live up to their expectations because the very nature of capitalism invariably
sabotages the performance of the reformers. Even when certain problems get resolved they are
replaced with new ones, generally of an equal or greater magnitude. Apart from the wasted
energy and time that reformism engenders, the danger of such activity lies in the inevitable
apathy and disillusionment that arises in the aftermath. These are the breeding grounds for
dictatorial regimes.
2) Extend- Kropotkin in 1880: Hierarchy is inherently destructive. We need a completely new
system.
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3) ITS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE TO DEMAND REFORM FROM THE GOVERNMENT
INDIVIDUALS MUST ACT AGAINST OPPRESSION.
Thoreau, Henry David, 1849, Civil Disobedience
The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. Theslight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to
incur. Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield toit their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so
frequently the most serious obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the state to dissolve the
Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves,
the union between themselves and the state, and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury?
4) CAPITALISM DESTABILIZES NATURE IN WAYS THAT CANNOT BE CURED BY
MERE REFORMS.
The Monthly Review, November 1997, Joel Kovel, p.10
So long as the money nexus is the expression of capital, the actual, concrete limits of nature will
continue to be brushed aside. For as long as capitalism endures, it tends to reign; and as long as it
reigns it extends itself, and as long as it extends itself it tends to destabilize ecologies bydegrading the conditions of production in the hunt for surplus value. Thus the regime of capital
leads inexorably to an ecological crisis that cannot be resolved within the terms of capital.
5) Reform-based policy has been tried since the birth of hierarchy and hasnt worked yet. Wehave to try something new.
AT: We Can Reform the System
6) WE MUST HAVE COMMUNAL LIVING NOW MERE REFORMS ONLY HINDERS
THE PROCESS.
Leight, Samuel, a professor at the University of Arizona, 1984, The Futility of Reformism, p.3
The deluge of propaganda surrounding the reformist administration of capitalism produces the
distractions, confusions and purposeful misrepresentations that have so drastically hampered the
presentation of the socialist case. We are always being advised that socialism is for the distant
future and that immediate needs must receive attention. Quite the contrary the highest, most
urgent, immediate need of the working class is the establishment of socialism within the shortest
possible time.
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AT: Some Are Oppressed For the Good of the Whole
1) ANY GOVERNMENT OPPRESSION IS WRONG WE MUST ADVANCE TO THE
NEXT STAGE OF FREEDOM.
Thoreau, Henry David, 1849, Civil DisobedienceThe authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to, for I will cheerfully obey
those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know norcan do so well, is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of
the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The
progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a limited
democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopherwas wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we
know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further
towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man?
2) Government-free society would allow everyone to be happy while oppressing none.
3) THE ADVANTAGES OF CAPITALISM ARE NOTHING COMPARED TO THOSE OF
HIERARCHY-FREE SOCIETY.
Leight, Samuel, a professor at the University of Arizona, 1984, The Futility of Reformism, p.2
Life for the working class under capitalism, past and present, cannot be compared favorably with
the social benefits of a classless society in socialism which will convey to all common ownership
rights to the means of production and distribution, and democratic privileges that no reformation
of capitalism can ever attain. Attempting to make the working class better off is no match forthe advantages of socialism; and the wages system, irrespective of wage levels, should justifiably
be rejected when compared to free access to all goods and services for all human beings.
4) Exploitation is never justified. We must not sacrifice any more lives.
AT: Anarchy Oppresses the Rich
1) A government-free society would not eliminate any rights. It would just stop the privileged
from exploiting others. Exploitation is not a natural right.
2) By destroying hierarchy, we abolish the source of all oppression. In a totally-free society like
ours, it would be impossible for coercion to occur.
3) What the affirmative team sees as oppression, we see as a return of rights to the disadvantaged.
Their view is comparable to saying that abolition of slavery oppressed slave owners are taking
away their property.
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Hierarchy-Free Society Saves Nature
HIERARCHY-FREE SOCIETY WOULD HARMONIZE HUMANS AND NATURE AND
FOSTER BEAUTY.
Bookchin, Murray, president of Goddard College, 1990, Remaking Society, p.17I submit that we must go beyond the superficial layer of ideas created by biocentricity,
antihumanism, Malthusianism, and deep ecology at one extreme, and the belief in growth,competition, human supremacy, and social power at the other extreme. We must look at the
socialfactors that have created both of these extremes in their many different forms and answerkey questions about the human condition if we are to harmonize humanitys relationship with
nature.What, after all, is human society when we try to view it from an ecological perspective? A
Curse? An unmitigated blessing? A Device for coping with material needs? Or, dare I say,
a productof natural evolution as well as culture that not only meets a wide variety of humanneeds, but, potentially at least, can play a major role in fostering the evolution of life on the
planet.
DEPRIVATIZATION IS ESSENTIAL FOR HUMAN AND ECOLOGICAL SURVIVAL.
Hayward, Tim, of the University of Glasmorgan, 1994, Ecological Thought, p.189
This claim was already forcefully advanced in Murray Bookchins seminal writings of the 1960s
which argue that ecological and anarchist principles are mutually reinforcing. Bookchin believes
there is not hierarchy in nature and that a society free of hierarchy is a precondition for putting
ecological principles into practice; decentralization is therefore not only desirable but even
necessary for human survival.
AN END TO HIERARCHY WOULD BRING HUMANITY INTO PEACE WITH NATURE
AND ITSELF.
Bookchin, Murray, president of Goddard College, 1995, Re-Enchanting Humanity, p.32
Social life, far from being divided from or placed in opposition to the natural world, would then
be rationally integrated with first nature as a self-conscious dimension of a new, creative, richly
differentiated, and meaningful whole. These goals, rooted in the still-unfinished Enlightenment,
constitute a vision and passion that takes full note of humanitys singularity and potential ability
to ultimately create ecosocial institutions institutions that will bring human beings into
harmony with one another and humanity into harmony with the natural world.
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Anarchy Gives Plenty For All
HIERARCHY-FREE SOCIETY WOULD PROVIDE PLENTY FOR ALL.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.38
No, plenty for all is not a dream though it was a dream indeed in those days when man, for allhis pains, could hardly win a few bushels of wheat from an acre of land, and had to fashion by
hand all the implements he used in agriculture and industry. Now it is no longer a dream, becauseman has invented a motor which, with a little iron and a few sacks of coal, gives him mastery of a
creature strong and docile as a horse, and capable of setting the most complicated machinery in
motion.
But if plenty for all is to become a reality, this immense capital cities, houses, pastures, arablelands, factories, highways, education must cease to be regarded as private property, for the
monopolist to dispose of at his pleasure.
This rich endowment, painfully won, builded, fashioned, or invented by our ancestors, must
become common property, so that the collective interests of men may gain from it the greatest
good for all.
There must be expropriation. The well-being of all the end; expropriation the means.
HIERARCHY-FREE SOCIETY WOULD PROVIDE EVERYONE WITH BOTH FOOD
AND LUXURIES.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.108
We see that the worker, compelled to struggle painfully for bare existence, is reduced to ignore
the higher delights, the highest within mans reach, of science, and especially of scientific
discovery; of art, and especially of artistic creation. It is in order to obtain for all of us joys thatare now reserved to a few; in order to give leisure and the possibility of developing everyones
intellectual capacities, that the social revolution must guarantee daily bread for all. After bread
has been secured, leisure is the supreme aim.
No doubt, nowadays, when hundreds and thousands of human beings are in need of bread, coal,clothing, and shelter, luxury is a crime; to satisfy it, the workers child must go without bread!
But in a society in which all have the necessary food and shelter, the needs which we consider
luxuries today will be more keenly felt.
Anarchy Gives Plenty For All
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ELIMINATION OF HIERARCHY WOULD FREE WORKERS FROM MISERY, GIVING
THEM THE LUXURIES OF HUMANITY.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.148
What interest, in fact, can this depressing work have for the worker, when he knows that the fateawaiting him from the cradle to the grave will be to live in mediocrity, poverty, and insecurity of
the morrow? Therefore, when we see the immense majority of men take up theirwretched taskevery morning, we feel surprised at their perseverance, at their zeal for work, at the habit that
enables them, like machines blindly obeying an impetus given, to lead this life of misery
without hope for the morrow; without foreseeing ever so vaguely that some day they, or at least
their children, will be part of a humanity rich in all the treasures of a bountiful nature, in all the
enjoyments of knowledge, scientific and artistic creation, reserved today to a few privileged
favourites.
It is precisely to put an end to this separation between manual and brain work that we want to
abolish wagedom, that we want the Social Revolution. Then work will no longer appear a curse
of fate: it will become what it should be the free exercise ofallthe faculties of man.
Anarchy Frees
HIERARCHY-FREE SOCIETIES PROMOTE INDIVIDUAL AUTONOMY AND
LIBERTY.
Goldman, Emma, 1940, Anarchism (1970), p.45
Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose, alone can teach us the real
dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities.
Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion ofreligion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the
shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free
grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will
guarantee to every human being free access of the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities oflife, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations.
A HIERARCHY-FREE SOCIETY WOULD PRODUCE HAPPINESS, LIBERTY, AND
JOY.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.173
For the day on which old institutions will fall under the proletarian axe, voices will cry out:
Bread, shelter, ease for all! And those voices will be listened to; the people will say: Let us
begin by allaying our thirst for life, for happiness, for liberty, that we have never quenched. And
when we shall have tasted of this joy, we will set to work to demolish the last vestiges of middle-
class rule: its mine and yours institutions. In demolishing we shall build, as Proudhon said;
and we shall build in the name of Communism and Anarchy.
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ANARCHISM ALONE FORWARDS TRUE HUMANITY AND FREEDOM.
Goldman, Emma, 1940, Anarchism (1970), p.38
Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings man the consciousness of himself; which
maintains that God, the State, and society are nonexistent, that their promises are null and void,since they can be fulfilled only through mans subordination. Anarchism is therefore the teacher
of the unity of life; not merely in nature, but in man. There is no conflict between the individualand the social instincts, any more than there is between the heart and the lungs: the one the
receptacle of a precious life essence, the other the repository of the element that keeps the essence
pure and strong. The individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social life;
society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep the life essence that is, the
individual pure and strong.
Anarchy Frees
IN A HIERARCHY-FREE SOCIETY EQUALITY WOULD REIGN.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.69
So Utopian are we that we go the length of believing that the Revolution can and ought to assure
shelter, food, and clothes to all an idea extremely displeasing to middle-class citizens, whatever
their party colour, for they are quite alive to the fact that it is not easy to keep the upper hand of a
people whose hunger is satisfied.
All the same, we maintain our contention: bread must be found for the people of the Revolution,
and the question of bread must take precedence of all other questions. If it is settled in the
interests of the people, the Revolution will be on the right road; for in solving the question of
Bread we must accept the principle ofequality, which will force itself upon us to the exclusion of
every other solution.
A SOCIETY WITHOUT GOVERNMENT WOULD GRANT THE ONLY TRUE
FREEDOM.
Wolff, Robert, 1976, In Defense of Anarchism, p.81
The argument runs thus: men cannot be free so long as they are subject to the will of others,
whether one man or several. But if men rule themselves, if they are both law-givers and law-
obeyers, then they can combine the benefits of government with the blessings of freedom. Rule
for the people is merely benevolent slavery, but rule by the people is true freedom.
Anarchy Grants Independence
WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, HUMANITY WOULD BE INDEPENDENT AND FREE.
Goldman, Emma, 1940, Anarchism (1970), p.81
In destroying government and statutory laws, anarchism proposes to rescue the self-respect andindependence of the individual from all restraint and invasion by authority. Only in freedom can
man grow to his full stature. Only in freedom will he learn to think and move, and give the very
best in him. Only in freedom will he realize the true force of the social bonds which knit men
together, and which are the true foundation of a normal social life.
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Anarchy Solves For Crime
GOVERNMENT-FREE SOCIETY WOULD ELIMINATE CRIME.
Rothbard, Murray, an economist, 1978, Nomos XIX: Anarchism, p.193
I assume with most observers that mankind is a mixture of good and evil, of cooperation andcriminal tendencies. In my view, the anarchist society is one which maximizes the tendencies for
the good and the cooperative, while it minimizes both the opportunity and the moral legitimacy ofthe evil and the criminal. If the anarchist view is correct and the state is indeed the great legalized
and socially legitimated channel for all manner of anti-social crime theft, oppression, mass
murder on a massive scale, then surely abolition of such an engine of crime can do nothing but
favor the good in man and discourage the bad.
GOVERNMENT-FREE SOCIETY IS THE BEST ANSWER TO CRIME.
Carter, April, a professor of political science, 1971, The Political Theory of Anarchism, p.40
Where the level of violent crimes is exceptionally high, or gangsterism particularly well
entrenched, the anarchist case for abolishing the police may be most persuasive. In the United
States, for example, an official Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence has
stressed that poverty is the main cause of the crime rate, and urged the need to completely rebuild
American cities. Nor does the existence of a police force sufficiently reassure the large number of
householders who fear to walk outdoors at night, or have invested in their own guns a truly
Hobbesian picture.
AT: Cant Reject Capitalism
1) We have to at least try to undo our mistakes. There are still vestiges of free humanityremaining. These could be expanded.
2) WE CAN REJECT CAPITALISM AND SAVE OURSELVES.
The Monthly Review, November 1997, Joel Kovel, p.13
Therefore capitalism must go if we are to survive as a civilization and, indeed, a species; and allpartial measures and reforms should be taken in the spirit of bringing about capitals downfall.
Nothing could seem more daunting than this, indeed, in the current balance of forces, it seems
inconceivable. Therefore the first job must be to conceive it as a possibility, and not to succumb
passively to the given situation. Capital expresses no law of nature; it has been the result of
choice, and there is no essential reason to assume it cannot be un-chosen. Conceiving things this
way is scarcely sufficient. But it is necessary, in both a moral and a practical sense.
3) Im rejecting capitalism right now. All we have to do is convince more people to think like me.
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Anarchy Solves For War
A HIERARCHY-FREE SOCIETY WOULD BE IMMUNE TO WAR AND MOST SOCIAL
PROBLEMS.
Leight, Samuel, a professor at the University of Arizona, 1984, The Futility of Reformism, p.9
There can be no poverty in a classless society, technologically capable of satisfying the needs ofthe population, with free access to all goods and services. There can be no unemployment, when
all men and women are co-owners of the means of production and distribution, giving of their
abilities in useful work for society as well as for themselves. There can be no insecurity when all
needs can be satisfied as the result of common ownership and free access. There can be nowar when humanity is united as a whole without states, national boundaries, or armed forces;
with production and distribution solely for use, and not for profit, eliminating money, wages,
exchange, and the market place.
AT: Governments Would Take Over Communes
1) Societies of free individuals would have nothing to offer nations they would have no
marketable goods.
2) ANARCHIST SOCIETIES COULD DEFEND THEMSELVES.
Wolff, Robert, 1976, In Defense of Anarchism, p.81
If we assume a society of anarchists a society, that is to say, which has achieved a level of
moral and intellectual development at which superstitious beliefs in legitimacy of authority have
evaporated then the citizenry would be perfectly capable of choosing freely whether to defend
the nation and carry its purpose beyond the national borders. The army itself could be run on the
basis of voluntary commitments and submission to orders.
3) Extend- Bookchin in 1971: Once the U.S. acts, freedom will spread, communitizing the
possible enemies.
4) ONCE PEOPLE HAVE LEARNED ABOUT THEIR FREEDOM, THEY CANNOT BE
ENSLAVED.
Douglass, Frederic, civil rights activist, August 4, 1857
Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount ofinjustice
and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with
either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of
those whom they oppress.
5) It has been empirically proven hierarchy-free communities dont go to war.
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6) ANARCHIST COMMUNITIES WOULD USE SOCIAL MEANS TO PRESERVE
LIBERTY.
Sharp, Gene, of the Albert Einstein Institute, 1990, Civilian-Based Defense, p.33
The degree of liberty or tyranny in any political society is, it follows, largely a reflection of therelative determination of the subjects to be free, of their willingness and ability to organize
themselves to live in freedom and, very importantly, their ability to resist any efforts to dominateor enslave them. Social power, not technological means of destruction, is the strongest guarantee
of human freedom.
AT: Anarchy Promotes Chaotic Individualism
1) GOVERNMENT-FREE SOCIETIES WOULD BE COMMUNITIES NOT PLACES FOR
CHAOTIC INDIVIDUALISM.
McIntosh, Don, a professor of philosophy, 1978, Nomos XIX: Anarchism, p.269
Anarchism, however, is not for the individualist. It is inherently collectivistic. Those who have
espoused anarchism on individualistic grounds are in error. Their views have not been internally
coherent, or have rested on weak psychological or sociological grounds.
2) Extend- Bakunin in 1870: The new society would not favor individualists.
3) THE VIEW OF HIERARCHY-FREE SOCIETY AS CHAOS IS FLAWED.
Chomsky, Noam, a linguist and policy analyst, 1995, interview with Kevin Doyle,
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/rbr/noamrbr2.htmlThe general intellectual culture, as you know, associates anarchism with chaos, violence,
bombs, disruption, and so on. So people are often surprised when I speak positively of anarchism
and identify myself with leading traditions within it. But my impression is that among the
general public, the basic ideas seem reasonable when the clouds are cleared away.
4) Turn/ Todays society is horribly individualist People are oppressed for the good of
exploiters.
AT: No Incentive To Work In Anarchy
1) PEOPLE IN A FREE SOCIETY WOULD WORK BETTER AND ATTAIN GREATER
WELL-BEING.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.146
Well-being that is to say, the satisfaction of physical, artistic, and moral needs, has always been
the most powerful stimulant to work. And where a hireling hardly succeeds to produce the bare
necessities with difficulty, a free worker, who sees ease and luxury increasing for him and forothers in proportion to his efforts, spends infinitely far more energy and intelligence, and obtains
first-class products in a far greater abundance. The one feels riveted to misery, the other hopes
for ease and luxury in the future. In this lies the whole secret. Therefore a society aiming at well-
being of all, and at the possibility of all enjoying life in all its manifestations, will give voluntary
work, which will be infinitely superior and yield far more than work has produced up till nowunder the goad ofslavery, serfdom, or wagedom.
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2) This assumes modern societys tendency toward exploitation which will disappear once
hierarchy is removed.
3) PEOPLE ARE ONLY LAZY AND BAD WORKERS BECAUSE HIERARCHY FORCES
THEM INTO MISERY.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.156Somebody has said that dust is matter in the wrong place. The same definition applies to nine
tenths of those called lazy. They are people gone astray in a direction that does not answer to their
temperament nor to their capacities. In reading the biography of great men, we are struck with the
number of idlers among them. They were lazy so long as they had not found the right path;
afterwards they became laborious to excess. Darwin, Stephenson, and many others belonged to
this category of idlers.
Very often the idler is but a man to whom it is repugnant to spend all his life making the
eighteenth part of a pin, or the hundredth part of a watch, while he feels he has exuberant energy
which he would like to expend elsewhere. Often, too, he is a rebel who cannot submit to being
fixed all his life to a work-bench in order to procure a thousand pleasures for his employer, while
knowing himself to be far the less stupid of the two, and knowing his only fault to be that of
having been born in a hovel instead of coming into the world in a castle.
4) Those who refuse to work could be excluded from the community. The majority would not
suffer.
AT: No Incentive To Work In Anarchy
5) FREEDOM WILL ELIMINATE LAZINESS TO THE EXTENT THAT LAWS WOULD BE
UNNECESSARY.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.158
Give the workman who cannot condemn himself to make all his life a minute particle of someobject, who is stifled at his little tapping machine, which he ends by loathing, give him the chance
of tilling the soil, of felling trees in the forest, sailing the seas in the teeth of a storm, dashing
through space on an engine, but do not make an idler of him by forcing him all his life to attendto a small machine, to plough the head of a screw, or to drill the eye of a needle.
Suppress the cause of idleness, and you may take it for granted that few individuals will really
hate work, especially voluntary work, and that there will be no need to manufacture a code of
laws on their account.
6) LIBERATION OF THE SLAVES AND SERFS PROVES THAT PEOPLE WORK HARDER
WITHOUT COERCION.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.144They fear that without compulsion the masses will not work.
But during our own lifetime, have we not heard the same fears expressed twice? Once, by the
anti-abolitionists in America before the emancipation of the Negroes, and, for a second time, by
the Russian nobility before the liberation of the serfs? Without the whip the Negro will not
work, said the anti-abolitionist. Free from their masters supervision the serfs will Leave thefields uncultivated, said the Russian serf-owners. It was the refrain -of the French noblemen in
1789, the refrain of the Middle Ages, a refrain as old as the world, and we shall hear it every time
there is a question of sweeping away injustice. And each time the actual facts give it the lie. The
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liberated peasant of 1792 ploughed with an eager energy, unknown to his ancestors; the
emancipated Negro works more than his fathers; and the Russian peasant, after having honoured
the honeymoon of his emancipation by celebrating Fridays as well as Sundays, has taken up work
with an eagerness proportionate to the completeness of his liberation. There, where the soil is his,
he works desperately; that is the exact word for it. The anti-abolitionist refrain can be of value toslave-owners; as to the slaves themselves, they know what it is worth, as they know its motive.
Anarchy Is Better Than Authoritarianism
WE PROTECT FREEDOM BETTER THAN BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISTS.
Falk, Richard, a professor of International Law, 1978, Nomos XIX: Anarchism, p.65Bureaucratic socialists, those who seek to seize state power rather than to decompose it,
contemptuously dismiss anarchists or libertarian socialists as utopians, or worse, as reactionaries.
But the anarchist response is more credible than the challenge here presented. The anarchist quite
properly contends that merely to seize power is to default upon the humanist content of socialism
and to create a new form ofdespotism.
Representative Democracy Is Oppressive
EVEN REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACIES ARE OPPRESSIVE.
Hoffman, Robert, a professor of History, 1970, Anarchism, p.12
Anarchists believe that this ideal can not be fulfilled: those to whom the peoples authority is
delegated do not and can not act as their constituents require. Instead, representatives and
officials act in their own interests, those of political parties, and those of privileged minorities
with powers far in excess of ordinary people. Anarchists are cynical about the possibilities of
officials acting disinterestedly; there is too much occasion for corruption by the prerogatives of
power and by the methods needed to attain power. Even when relatively uncorrupted and
impartial, those in authority are too distant from the bulk of the populace really to know theirneeds and beliefs.
AT: Permute
1) Extend- Friedman in 1989: Any remaining government returns society to statism.
2) HIERARCHY-FREE SOCIETY AND STATISM ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
GOVERNMENTS CANNOT ACCEPT OUR GOALS.
Bookchin, Murray, president of Goddard College, 1971, Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p.78
Anarchism is not only a stateless society but also a harmonized society which exposes man to the
stimuli provided by both agrarian and urban life, to physical activity and mental activity, tounrepressed sensuality and self-directed spirituality, to communal solidarity and individual
development, to regional uniqueness and worldwide brotherhood, to spontaneity and self-
discipline, to the elimination of toil and the promotion of craftsmanship. In our schizoid society,
these goals are regarded as mutually exclusive, indeed as sharply opposed.
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3) You cant simply have the affirmative policy standing alone as the sole governance structure.
Its solvency requires enforcement, funding, and political passage all responsibilities of other
government agencies.
4) Extend- Bakunin in 1870: Any act of government control is oppressive.
5) In order for a hierarchy-free society to succeed, a clear message must be sent to the people that
government is wrong. The permutation would muddle this message and pervert the counterplansideals.
6) HISTORY PROVES THAT LIMITED GOVERNMENTS EXPAND.
Friedman, David, a professor at the University of Chicago, 1989, The Machinery of Freedom,
p.146
Would it not be better to have a severely limited government doing those few things which it
could do better? Perhaps it would be if the government stayed that way. Here we run into the
problem discussed in Chapter 4. One cannot simply build any imaginable characteristics into a
government; governments have their own internal dynamic. And the internal dynamic of limited
governments is something with which we, to our sorrow, have a good deal of personal
experience. It took about 150 years, starting with the Bill of Rights that reserved to the states andthe people all powers not explicitly delegated to the federal government, to produce a Supreme
Court willing to rule that growing corn to feed to your own hogs is interstate commerce and can
therefore be regulated by Congress.
AT: Anarchy Would Lead To Primitivism
1) Turn/ A hierarchy-free society would actually find more, better, and more liberating uses for
technology than exist in the status quo.
2) Our counterplan doesnt say that we reject technology! For this argument to carry any weight,
the affirmative team has to prove that our authors are against technology.
3) A GOVERNMENT-FREE SOCIETY WOULD EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE
HUMANITY AND NATURE.
Bookchin, Murray, president of Goddard College, 1971, Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p.134
A liberated society, I believe, will not want to negate technology precisely because it is liberated
and can strike a balance. It may well want to assimilate the machine to artistic craftsmanship. By
this I mean the machine will remove toil from the productive process, leaving its artistic
completion to man. The machine, in effect, will participate in human creativity. There is no
reason why automatic, cybernated machinery cannot be used so that the finishing products,
especially those destined for personal use, is left to the community.
4) Kropotkin and Bookchin, primary authors, specifically rely upon advanced technology to
reduce drudgery and toil.
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Laws Bad
LAWS ARE CORRUPT AND FAIL.
Hoffman, Robert, a professor of history, 1970, Anarchism, p.5
Thus, in the anarchist view, people are deluded when they suppose that order and justice are
created and regulated by law and powerful institutions. Such order is mere appearance, behind
which actually is the chaos of men struggling to subjugate and hurt each other, to gain at the
expense of others. Such justice is a sham, called righteous by those able to dominate while
making law serve their own interests.
AT: Anarchy Wont Work With A Large Population
1) Government-free society would consist of decentralized communities. We could liberate the
entire world and still have small communities by simply shunning cities.
2) A LARGE POPULATION WOULD NOT HINDER GOVERNMENT-FREE SOCIETY.
Bookchin, Murray, president of Goddard College, 1990, Remaking Society, p.175
Nor can populations be so large or the number of assemblies so numerous that they cannot be
coordinated in a manner that perpetuates their integrity as face-to-face policy-making bodies.
Delegates to town, city, and regional bodies, can be regarded simply as the walking mandates of
the local assemblies.
3) With the increase in efficiency of production attained by liberation, government-free society
would be able to deal with large populations betterthan the status quo.
Everything Must Be Deprivatized
ALL MUST BE DEPRIVATIZED ARTICLES OF CONSUMPTION ARE AS
IMPORTANT AS THOSE OF PRODUCTION.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.64
Some Socialists still seek, however, to establish a distinction. Of course, they say, the soil, the
mines, the mills, and manufactures must be expropriated, these are the instruments of production,
and it is right we should consider them public property. But articles of consumption food,
clothes, and dwellings should remain private property.
Popular common sense has got the better of this subtle distinction. We are not savages who canlive in the woods, without other shelter than branches. The civilized man needs a roof, a room, a
hearth, and a bed. It is true that the bed, the room, and the house is a home of idleness for the
non-producer. But for the worker, a room, properly heated and lighted, is as much an instrument
of production as the tool or the machine. It is the place where the nerves and sinews gather
strength for the work of the morrow.
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AT: Unfair To Reward Skilled and Unskilled Labor Equally
1) In modern society, not everybody has the opportunity to get a job which requires skills. The
wealthy have great advantages that are inherited by their children while poor families suffer
eternally.
2) In a hierarchy-free society, everyone could choose their own job. People who decide to take up
skilled labor would do so because they enjoy it.
3) Unskilled labor is no worse than mind work. Its only in modern society where people are able
to get away with exploiting others that physical jobs are seen as degrading.
4) In a free society, everyone would have everything they needed. It would be impossible to give
extra bonuses to certain workers.
5) The only advantage to getting paid more than others is that you are brought into a position ofgreater power. This power can only be used to enslave.
Wage System Will Fall With Capitalism
THE WAGE SYSTEM WILL FALL ALONGSIDE CAPITALISM.
Kropotkin, Peter, 1906, The Conquest of Bread (Elephant Edition, 1990), p.46
The wage system arises out of the individual ownership of the land and the instruments of labor.
It was the necessary condition for the development of capitalist production, and will perish with
it, in spite of the attempt to disguise it as profit-sharing. The common possession of the
instruments of labor must necessarily bring with it the enjoyment in common of the fruits ofcommon labor.
AT: Anarchy Is Utopian
1) Extend- Kropotkin in 1906: All we have to do to destroy hierarchy is to strike at it once.
2) THE ACTS OF A FEW, BRAVE INDIVIDUALS COULD BE ENOUGH TO SPUR
SOCIETAL CHANGE.
Kropotkin, Peter, an anarchist theorist, 1880, The Spirit of Revolt (within Le Revolt)
When a revolutionary situation arises in a country, before the spirit of revolt is sufficiently
awakened in the masses to express itself in violent demonstrations in the streets or by rebellionsand uprisings, it is through action that minorities succeed in awakening that feeling of
independence and that spirit of audacity without which no revolution can come to a head. Men of
courage, not satisfied with words, but ever searching for the means to transform them into action,
men of integrity for whom the act is one with the idea, for whom prison, exile, and death are
preferable to a life contrary to their principles,--intrepid souls who know that it is necessary to
dare in order to succeed, these are the lonely sentinels who enter the battle long before the
masses are sufficiently roused to raise openly the banner of insurrection and to march, arms in
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hand, to the conquest of their rights. In the midst of discontent, talk, theoretical discussions, an
individual or collective act of revolt supervenes, symbolizing the dominant aspirations.
3) Hierarchy-free societies existed before in ancient Crete and the Middle-ages. It can happen
again.
4) WE CAN REJECT HIERARCHY AND SAVE OURSELVES.
The Monthly Review, November 1997, Joel Kovel, p.13
Therefore capitalism must go if we are to survive as a civilization and, indeed, a species; and all
partial measures and reforms should be taken in the spirit of bringing about capitals downfall.
Nothing could seem more daunting than this, indeed, in the current balance of forces, it seems
inconceivable. Therefore the first job must be to conceive it as a possibility, and not to succumb
passively to the given situation. Capital expresses no law of nature; it has been the result of
choice, and there is no essential reason to assume it cannot be un-chosen. Conceiving things this
way is scarcely sufficient. But it is necessary, in both a moral and a practical sense.
5) We have to at least try to move beyond the current system of enslavement.
6) WE CAN ADVANCE TO THE NEXT STEP IN SOCIETY TO ATTAIN FREEDOM.
Thoreau, H
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