Anarchists believe that
there is such a thing as a Free Lunch. Yours.That really is
the only belief anarchists have - but there are different kinds of anarchists.
In poor and
unhappy countries, when public order breaks down, the first thing people do is
loot what they can. This is called anarchy and this anarchy is understandable.
The hugely unequal distribution of wealth and income in such countries is the
result of injustice supported by state repression. Looting brings about an
immediate, rough and ready re-distribution. Unfortunately, shop keepers who
aren't the worst criminals - and who may indeed be victims of the local regime's
protection rackets - are usually the biggest victims. Occasionally, looters get into presidential and royal palaces - they did in Iraq thanks to US government encouragement and they did thanks to the Bolsheviks in Russia back in 1917 (Lenin's slogan, "Loot the Looters"). But in all cases, looting works in favour only of the young and fit - and generally male.
To those in
receipt of "something for nothing" it does not always feel like that.
A civil servant with a sinecure probably feels they have a job, but even in Europe and most obviously in countries like Greece and Italy, that feeling has quite often been transparently untrue.
Those with
inherited wealth - what used to be called "private means" - rarely consider that someone else is working to keep them in the style to which they
accustom themselves "Private means" is really something for nothing, someone else's lunch..
Anarchists as we usually understand them can't get near those "private means" nor can they get into bank accounts held in the world's tax havens for the rich created (mainly) by the US and UK governments, and which owe their success to not being very fastidious about how the money they handle was obtained. Tax havens let you be an anarchist without being young, fit and male.
There are a lot of those other kind of anarchist in the world.
© Trevor Pateman 2011 and
2019
No comments:
Post a Comment