from Surviving Leviathan by Peter Gelderloos
Election seasons tend to be stressful times for anarchists, especially if we’re not going to vote. There are very few common features that all anarchists share, but one of them might be that we care. We care about injustice, we care about oppression, we care that the wealthy and powerful are destroying life on the planet and trampling underfoot anyone who gets in the way of accumulation. We don’t look the other way. Granted, there are anarchists who get burned by caring without learning patience, without putting down roots. They tend to fall into deep depression, cynicism, addiction, or some form of Leftism (usually as single-issue progressives or smug Stalinist trolls), but that’s another topic.Also, people become anarchists not through declaration, but through action, by putting beliefs into practice. So when a Get-Out-the-Voter who turns to a little politics once every four years accuses us of being apathetic or inactive, it feels insulting, because it is insulting.Other times, we’re getting the lecture from dedicated progressives who actually do the work, in their way. In those cases what we deal with is not insult but extreme frustration: the patterns we name show up in our history time and time again. Voting—even though it is a normal, legal thing to do in well over a hundred countries around the world and has been that way for decades, if not centuries—has never delivered us to the Promised Land. In fact, things are getting worse.And to head off the ignorant quip that many a centrist or progressive will think themselves original for devising: no, the fact that we don’t currently have whole functional societies without any State is not a valid comparison, for two very simple reasons.
- While voting is encouraged and even rewarded, one of the few things the Right, Center, and Left can all agree on is that they will kill or imprison as many anarchists as they have to; they will evict, enslave, and genocide entire societies to make sure that there is no inhabited country in the world that is not ruled by a State.
- The entire world used to be stateless. Over the last three thousand years, we have won dozens of revolutions to overthrow the State and recreate self-organizing societies. In those free territories, society didn’t collapse. Often, the State was only able to take back control through military conquest, and plenty of times they tried and got their asses handed to them by our anti-state forebears. Five hundred years ago, just before European powers accelerated an unprecedented campaign of mass genocide and mass enslavement on every single inhabited continent, probably one-third to one-half of the world’s population was stateless, most of them intentionally so – meaning they were aware of neighboring states or past states, and possibly resisted state encroachments and reproduced a culture that celebrated its reciprocal aspects as well as its history of revolution, warfare against, or flight from state authority. They knew their lives were better without the State. As for the half of the human population that were state subjects? Most of them were slaves or servants. So… you can drop your masks now, apologists for the State.
People who put their trust in the State build their sense of history on embarrassing beliefs regarding human nature, unexamined assumptions about the inevitability of progress, or by simply accepting that “history is the history of the State” and erasing everything else. Just like the modern State is built on a foundation of violent erasure. Anarchists, on the other hand, have actually done the work to try and understand how and why states form, how and why they don’t form, how and why they get overthrown, and how and why societies resist state formation. You can find just a few examples here and here and here and here. (Going back to 1896, then the early 20th century, then the mid 20th century, then the 21st century, that’s Kropotkin, Reclus, Clastres, and finally my own imperfect contribution.)When we feel insulted or frustrated, we’re more likely to say hyperbolic things like, It doesn’t make a difference, which doesn’t help things, because clearly there is a difference between the Democrats and the Republicans; between Labor and the Tories; the AfD, the CDU, the SPD, and the Greens; the PP and the Socialists; the Liberal Party and the Workers’ Party… But as soon as we say they’re all the same, they spring on us, happy to have an easy route to missing the point entirely.So, though I’m sure it’s too little and too late, here is a little polemic you can share with that friend, co-worker, or family member who you just don’t want to talk with about the election one. more. time.Copy and paste what follows into an email, or—if you really want them to know how you feel—send along the whole newsletter. Hell, there might be a few others you’ll want them to read.Surviving Leviathan with Peter Gelderloos is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.hoods, and planning for collective survival.
Why I’m Not Going to Vote
I’m not going to vote, because the difference between these parties is not enough to save life on this planet. Whether the Left, the Right, or the Center has been in the saddle, emissions have been rising, life-sustaining habitats and ecosystems are being destroyed, and false solutions get more free advertising. We are now crossing irreversible tipping points. Tens of millions of people are already dying every year because of this catastrophe. If we are not personally facing starvation, disease, and homelessness already because of so-called natural disasters, our children will, and it will get worse every generation after that. The forces that are causing this still have all the power and resources and what they are doing now will be felt most acutely fifty or a hundred or two hundred years from now. We need to dedicate all our imagination and all our energies to a deeply rooted social transformation, in order to urgently create a society of survival, a society of healing, and a society of mutual aid, rather than propping up the system responsible for this massive death and suffering. No single party is responsible. They all bear responsibility.
I’m not going to vote, because I refuse to support people or institutions that are complicit in genocide. Genocide is a red line for me. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are funding and arming the Israeli military, which in a year has killed over 100,000 people, destroyed the homes of two million people and forced a million more to flee their homes. Their military has been caught systematically carrying out torture, bombing hospitals, using children as human shields, summarily executing prisoners, again and again. I’m not the one who needs to justify not voting. You’re the one who needs to justify condoning this, or explain what you’re doing to offset the harm your chosen allies are causing.
I’m not going to vote, because the Democrats silenced any meaningful responses to police killings and police racism. As they lose support from Black and Muslim voters, rather than addressing the racism in our society they simply try to appeal to more suburban whites. In swing states, where Republican campaigns rest almost exclusively on race-baiting portrayals of immigrants and dehumanizing paranoia about trans people, directly encouraging more rightwing violence against these groups, the Democrats enable that violence by refusing to push back on the bigotry. Instead they claim they are also tough on immigration rather than building solidarity between people of any origin. They repeat Republican slurs like “trans biological men” or claim it was the Trump administration that was guilty of allowing healthcare for trans people in prison, rather than standing up for trans people and showing how false the rightwing sex panic is.
I’m not going to vote, because the Democrats systemically sabotage any progressive movement in this country, and if you don’t believe in revolution then some kind of ethical progress is the only vision you can offer for change. In 2016, Hillary Clinton got caught rigging the contest to clinch the party nomination and keep out the progressive wing, led at the time by Bernie Sanders, even though Sanders consistently polled as having a much better chance at beating Trump and other potential Republican nominees. Party elders and super delegates closed ranks around Clinton, who had her origins in the pro-segregation wing of the Party, because they were more afraid of the progressive politics of Sanders than the extreme bigotry and climate denialism of Trump. Likewise, during the Trump administration, rather than focusing on the reality of police racism or the frequent assassinations and mass killings carried out by white supremacist vigilantes, and again today with the ongoing genocide in Palestine, powerholders amongst the Democrats waste no opportunity to snipe or sabotage the new progressive wing that coalesced around Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The last time in this country there was a truly progressive movement directly connected to either major party was during the FDR administration in the 1930s, and his brand of progressivism only arose as a strategy to co-opt and institutionalize the subversive organizing of the working class from Black sharecroppers to the multiracial and multiethnic workers in urban factories to the army of unemployed: it was to prevent an anticapitalist revolution. So even if your sincere goal is to create a progressive, pro-State movement, you’re contradicting yourself. Voting wouldn’t be the way to do it. Supporting revolutionary movements would.
Whether we are voting or not, we know that we keep us safe.
We know that the only way to guarantee access to abortions, hormones, and gender affirming care is to organize it ourselves, whether its legally or illegally.
We know that the only way to keep ourselves safe from white supremacists and transphobes, whether they’re wearing badges or hoods, is to arm ourselves, to train, to understand operational security, and to learn surveillance and countersurveillance.
We know that the most effective responses to so-called natural disasters come not from the government nor from humanitarian agencies but from our neighbors and from total strangers practicing mutual aid; that to become even more resilient for the next disaster, the best strategy isn’t some political party, it’s building up stashes of food, water, first aid, and tools, establishing relationships of solidarity globally and in our neighborhoods, and planning for collective survival.
Comments
Broad survey of anti-voting
anon (not verified) Sat, 11/02/2024 - 16:08
Broad survey of anti-voting pieces, many from anarchists.
https://types.mataroa.blog/blog/dont-voted
Is it wrong to vote just to
anon (not verified) Sat, 11/02/2024 - 18:51
Is it wrong to vote just to get your girlfriend off yourback about it?
Yes, but it’s okay to vote
anon (not verified) Sun, 11/03/2024 - 04:24
In reply to Is it wrong to vote just to by anon (not verified)
Yes, but it’s okay to vote for the candidate who will keep sending arms to Ukraine because Makhno or something. Slava UkWayne!
Still better than UkWAyne's
anon (not verified) Sun, 11/03/2024 - 11:50
Still better than UkWAyne's take published recently on anarkopopulismo... as at last PG's not really pathologically posturing for MORE mass revolutionary movements outta inherently liberal/IP struggles.m The question on what anarchists "should" do to me remains an unsolved one, but on top of that not very relevant to solve. Unless, like, you find a way to subvert and reroute voters' attention away from parties, toward some uprising against the state (good luck with that in the US, especially with a vast portion of the population being "anti-establishment" fascist crackers), you'd better invest more efforts in creating an actual out and away from your misery, instead of decades/centuries of mass movement organizing to have The Rev.
The answer, like the Sits wrote, lie in the daily life and its power dynamics, and how to bring qualitative improvement to it. The mass-based relationship is the thing to steer away from.
You are just a statistic to the GOP and Democrats. You don't matter to them any more than that. Is being anarcho-statisticians any better?
Why were my comments deleted?
anon (not verified) Sun, 11/03/2024 - 18:19
Why were my comments deleted?
Probably because you have
Le Way, (not verified) Mon, 11/04/2024 - 05:43
In reply to Why were my comments deleted? by anon (not verified)
Probably because you have individualistic tendencies, thecollective (self-explanatory name) explains it. But I may be wrong, I didn't see your comment.
I have 'bout 387 deletions over a 14yr period, AnD I'm pRoUd oF iT! Not bad heh? ;)
*cries in shittroll tears*
anon (not verified) Mon, 11/04/2024 - 08:44
In reply to Probably because you have by Le Way, (not verified)
*cries in shittroll tears*
I agree with all this and
anon (not verified) Mon, 11/04/2024 - 07:04
I agree with all this and appreciate it. I did reluctantly vote with my ballot hardly filled out and I still don't know if I should have resisted altogether. Probably. But there was a question on people in prisons having a right to post bail. The more people in jail, the less of 'em out here to help. The police are going to get harsher on the population and I think someone should be able to post bail to get away. And I voted for reproductive rights because we are going to be raped by fascists; it's coming. I've been anxious to reach menopause for years so I can't get pregnant (I'm just about there!). I consider myself an anarchist and have yet to meet anyone outside the medical industry who can adequately perform an abortion. But maybe you gave me and my homies another issue to pursue and work, so thanks.
Voting for Politicians or Referenda?
Wayne Price (not verified) Mon, 11/04/2024 - 16:48
In reply to I agree with all this and by anon (not verified)
You write that "there was a question on people in prisons having a right to post bail.... And I voted for reproductive rights."
Sounds like you voted on Referenda, which is a sort of (limited) popular decision-making. It is different from voting for someone to go to some place to make decisions for the now-passive population. So I think it is ok to vote for a referendum. It is different from voting for a person. Personally I live in NY and will vote for Prop. 1, which gives women state rights to abortions, but not for Harris (but then NY is not a "battleground" state, so I am not tempted to vote for Harris in order to defeat Trump, as I am sure other anarchists may be).
I usually vote for ALL the
Pro-State Ultradawg (not verified) Mon, 11/04/2024 - 08:51
I usually vote for ALL the candidates on the list as they're all doing a great PR job and some of them like Orangeman and Mr Couch-Fucker with '82 normie hairstyle are funny ass clowns. I'm very enthusiastic whatever admin's gonna do a terrible job for the next 4 years and bring more misery, violence and injustice to the world and ruin the lives of thousands, millions of unrelated, innocent civilians and natural habitats as well... but anyways that won't show through my vote as I'm just one citizen-slave among tens of millions so my vote counts as much as a Nothing Burger TM.
"if we’re not going to vote"
anon (not verified) Mon, 11/04/2024 - 10:58
"if we’re not going to vote"
?????
is that an option for anarchists???
maybe next we should say "if we decide not to call the cops"
???
have you never seen someone
anon (not verified) Mon, 11/04/2024 - 12:10
In reply to "if we’re not going to vote" by anon (not verified)
have you never seen someone claim to be an anarchist and then call the cops when "it was [their] only option"?
oh yes, the claims rarely
anon (not verified) Mon, 11/04/2024 - 12:23
In reply to have you never seen someone by anon (not verified)
oh yes, the claims rarely match the actions
calling cops and voting,
anon (not verified) Fri, 11/08/2024 - 10:17
calling cops and voting, depending on what you're talking about, is about whether we live in the world or not. more women (never all women, of course, this is capitalism) being able to access better healthcare, some trans folks being able to have some legal redress, etc, are all reformist, as is the idea of cops who are better trained, less likely to shoot as a response to anything. reforms do save lives, and we don't live in a world where we have teams of people ready to come defend us against partners, family, and/or strangers who abuse us.
there are times when cops are the only option, though folks who have never been in such a situation can certainly act purist about it.
calling cops and voting is never anarchist, but that doesn't mean it's always wrong to do them... VERY sadly.
there are limits to this kind
alex (not verified) Fri, 11/08/2024 - 17:03
In reply to calling cops and voting, by anon (not verified)
there are limits to this kind of thinking and many of them are not even reformist so much as directly participatory. asking for more robust rights is not even meaningfully reformist, in my opinion, if it does not directly address the form of the government that causes that question to be phrases as "rights" that can or cannot be withdrawn at any given moment--obvious example would be constitutional amendments etc vs the laws and promises of the political class. better trained cops is just straightforwardly the bullshit HR-styled handwringing of liberals who think they can make the gangs play nicer.
as for calling cops, ive heard people i respect make the case that there are specific situations where it could be the best of bad options, but if you want to make that case i don't think you can leave it open-ended or gesture vaguely at things you have experienced and assume that others havent. ive been mugged, stalked, assaulted by both strangers and friends, held hostage at gunpoint, and confronted by ppl having violent psychotic episodes, and known enough ppl who can say the same or similar. all are examples ppl have given me as times it is "necessary" to call the cops; i did not think it was necessary on either practical or principled terms. if thats "purism" to you i personally dont think you're really arguing for exceptional cases so much as "we can't do this until we change the world" or maybe until people change to suit us. i encourage you to consider that many people live this way and i expect that not even close to the majority of them call themselves anarchist.
I did call the cops in
anon (not verified) Fri, 11/08/2024 - 17:23
In reply to there are limits to this kind by alex (not verified)
I did call the cops in situations where there was no other way to deal with a problem, or like in the case a close family member had been robbed form his bank account by a personal aide, me not calling them would have been straight up collaborating with the extortion of a family member... but in the end the person who did the crime was prosecuted even despite refunding the money afterwards. I and even this relative wanted the trial to stop, but of course that's not how the courts work. So the cops are often contextually a necessary evil that remains, regardless, a double-edged sword.
What differentiates an anarchist to everynormie is that the former will at least look at the options and think what is the least bad, where the latter will just act on their doggish morals like Karens do.
oh ok well thats fine then.
alex (not verified) Fri, 11/08/2024 - 17:41
In reply to I did call the cops in by anon (not verified)
oh ok well thats fine then. help these days amirite! have a good one
I ain't the anon you were
anon (not verified) Fri, 11/08/2024 - 19:53
In reply to oh ok well thats fine then. by alex (not verified)
I ain't the anon you were engaged with, Alex. Just adding my two cents in a discussion.
to be fair
anon (not verified) Sat, 11/09/2024 - 11:49
In reply to I ain't the anon you were by anon (not verified)
all anons are the same
No u
anon (not verified) Sat, 11/09/2024 - 16:56
In reply to to be fair by anon (not verified)
No u
#notanarchist
anon (not verified) Sat, 11/09/2024 - 10:45
In reply to I did call the cops in by anon (not verified)
#notanarchist
i have never even thought
anon (not verified) Sun, 11/10/2024 - 15:16
In reply to I did call the cops in by anon (not verified)
i have never even thought about calling the cops. does that mean i put my self at personal risk to deal with dangerous situations and their consequences? sure does. its called being an anarchist.
go home cop callers.
makes sense, and yes, too
anon (not verified) Fri, 11/08/2024 - 17:43
In reply to there are limits to this kind by alex (not verified)
makes sense, and yes, too much hand-waving is definitely not useful.
i guess i'm thinking about kidnappings of children or adults, times when the power differential is huge and massively one sided.
but maybe i'm too lenient here, maybe too many years volunteering at an ngo for domestic violence survivors has limited my perspective.
a friend used to promote being stringent with policy and generous with people. hard to promote that online, when no one can see you smile.
thats a good example and to
alex (not verified) Fri, 11/08/2024 - 18:59
In reply to makes sense, and yes, too by anon (not verified)
thats a good example and to your latter point no i wouldnt reflexively judge a person for calling in state help if someone was kidnapped. that said my kneejerk response is that state forces in many places have not just claimed exclusive right to be the ones who respond and maintain the kinds of infrastructure needed to respond to situations like that, but actively destroyed people's capacity to do so themselves, and actively enabled a kind of life that empowers people to exploit and abuse others in that way, especially the nuclear family/atomized households etc. but given that i do not want to take the position that some things are only possible once the big bads are gone, yes i am open to exceptions there, and interested in how they could be remedied in advance. im glad no one called the cops when i was missing because i'd probably be dead now, but thats a question of particular circumstances
i agree with all those points
anon (not verified) Fri, 11/08/2024 - 19:31
In reply to thats a good example and to by alex (not verified)
i agree with all those points.
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