MWS:
>>I don't think so.  I think it is because left thinkers are paralyzed
>>to some degree by their own rejection of government.  A coalition
>>won't work for long without structure and rules.  As soon as there are
>>structure and rules, there is government.
BB:
>Interesting theory, trouble is it appears to be based on readily observable
>facts. Most "left" thinkers don't reject "government", most left thinkers
>don't even reject the political state.


Precisely. Take the social democrats, for instace, whose entire concept of "politics" circles around the benevolent "welfare state". (Hey, I'm a swede, so I should know, right?) ;-) Even further to the "left" we find the leninists or the neo-leninists who believe a centralised state - albeit wrapped in the red flag and disguised as a "dictatorship of the proletariat" - is the sine qua non for establishing a stateless society (it's beyond me to sort out the finer points of this distorted logic...)

Let me emphasize that among the left, ONLY the anarchists are in flat opposition to the state. Now, let me also emphasize that being opposed to the state, does not NOT mean we are in opposition to organization as such. On the contrary anarchists strive for a highly organized society, since we believe that power - once given up by the people - will easily become slurped up by a stratum of bureaucrats. Therefore we woulde like to see a society that keeps power decentralised and under control by the people.

This said, the form of organization we propound is not the centralized top-down party but instead the bottom-up organization of confederation. To understand confederation it is vital to understand the difference between the policymaking level (which should be the sole privilige of autonomous popular assemblies) and the administrative level (which is the task of delegates from the assemblies who are strictly mandated, recallable and rotating). 

I would also like to make the point that much of this "with-or-without-you"-dicussion seems to be based on some basic misunderstandings. One of them is the failure to distinguish between INDIVIDUALIST anarchism and SOCIAL anarchism. This is a crucial point, especially when some leninistically disadvantaged people come hurling Stirnerite egoism around like an accusation against us anarcho-communists. (Anyone who would like to gain some appreciation of how much and why anarchism has been distorted in the leninist tradition would do well to read Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, or why not Bookchin alongside a copy of Josef Stalins ugly defence of state capitalism and "leading role" of party called "Socialism and anarchism".)

Anyway, to be very brief, individualist anarchists believe in the sovereignty of the individual, while social anarchists believe in the sovereignty of the society (or community, or commune, or municipalty). As anarcho-communists we believe that individual freedom for all can only be realized in a participatory direct-democratic community, reinforced by its civic solidarity, its own economic power and the instauration of a popular face-to-face-democracy. (And yes, any commitment to democracy means that one accepts the fact that the majority rules and the minority have to yield to its will. This follows from the recognition that, to quote Jeremy Bentham (not an anarchist by the way), "each count as one, and no one as more than one". Why should one individual have the right to exercise power over the majority through his or hers veto? That could surely be considered tyranny!)

Finally, let's talk about human nature. Some opponents of anarchism accuse us for naivite, for believing that people are essentially good-natured and benevolent. This is not true. We concede - and who could deny this? - that mankind has the potential for doing good as well as evil. Now, what we say is that the evil impulses in themselves are of no consequence. Problems arise when they are coupled with power over other people (or other animals, or nature even). Bakunin once said - and modern day anarchists usually agrre with him - that if you would take the wildest and most fervent revolutionary, and put him on the throne of the czar, in a month he would be just as bad a tyrant as the czar himself. Anarchism, therefore, is not about flat out denying the "dark side" of humanity, but a commitment to minimizing it's opportunity to grow strong at the expense of the better sides of human nature. The struggle for anarchist society is also the struggle to institutionalize necessary power in structures that are under the direct control of the community, without giving rise any parochial interests of a priviliged minority - usually a "political"/bureaucratic class - that will ultimate lead to centralization and tyranny. (Remember especially the distinction between policy-making and administrative levels.)

All the best,
Per-Anders Svärd

Norra Kronans gata 422, 7 tr
136 60 Haninge
SWEDEN
+ 46 8-777 19 74
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