On Anarchy
Why do we protest? Who and what are we protesting against?
We only ever complain to those perceived to have the power to make change. Perhaps that change is within our own perception - which in itself is perhaps the most powerful change possible.
It is important to be explicit when it comes to protest and indeed what we want changing.
19th century “anarchists” such as Kropotkin, Bakunin and even Karl Marx were seeking entire political change - often against anyone, party or institution that was deemed to have power and control over the individual. The anarchist manifestation varied between discussion, tolerance and critical thinking through to a more extreme form of violent protest. Change was an end goal not a process. The change to what of course also varied and at times was not even clearly defined. When no port is specified as the destination, no wind is good for the sailor.
Political protest - or simply the individual against the state protest - was often attributed to the rise of the Industrial Revolution. This mass movement of people from often self-sufficient, provincial and community focused ecosystems to new social collections of geographically diverse people was ultimately driven by money. Money exchanged for time or human capital.
The actual owners of capital - which was used to build factories or gain credit - had a drive for efficiency and continual productivity gains in order to improve their return on investment. This lead to an ultimate specialisation of labour, with complex processes and workflows broken down into the most microscopic tasks.
The individual would continually iterate task completion activities based on immediate feedback, testing and social dynamics. Early models of nudging, incentives and gamification would alter behaviour in order to increase productivity - that is doing more with the same investment - be that time or capital.
This specialism of labour often created a dehumanised work environment - one which reduced the economic bargaining power of the individual. The skill they had iterated and become so adept at learning, was now part of a much larger chain of events. Perhaps that chain of events was factory specific, meaning the individual had lower value on the emerging labour market.
To that end, the rise of trade unions provided a means for the individual with a specialist - albeit less transferable skill - to have a voice, be heard and perhaps protected from the unilateral decision making of the capital owner or process designer. The use of trade union “power” against the capital owner is a good example of early textbook anarchism. Strikes at one end of the protest scale, represented discussion, polling and mechanisms for listening at the other end.
A lack of control for the individual was often wrapped in the “protest” apparatus of trade unions and worker action. They could no longer protest individually - if an individual stopped working, they would replaced. If an entire team stopped working, production slowed.
But why does the individual crave control? Control is symptomatic of Stoic beliefs - where only the things you can control should receive effort and attention. A list which is surprisingly small. The beliefs of others, their views of yourself or the actions of them are all outside of the individuals control. Which in turn manifests itself in worry or anxiety. Feelings which can amplify the need for control.
Within the industrial setting, a perceived lack of control would indicate at one point that either control was had or control was wanted. Within a mass employment setting obtaining either was likely illusionary. Amplifying a need for protest.
Freedom too is often synonymous with control. But freedom is often ill-defined and in turn equally difficult to obtain. An unobtainable goal leads not to anarchism, but protest against ones self understanding.
A counterpoint to the Industrial Revolution was not always the concept of mass - mass collections of individuals in towns and cities, mass employment, mass representation by trade unions, or indeed mass protest, but actually the rise of individualism and the sense of self.
The dehumanising nature of labour specialism brought to the fore, that the individual worker yearned to defend their sense of self and their uniqueness.
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves” - Tolstoy
Perhaps the most productive form of anarchism is against our own sense of self - our thoughts, believes, tolerance, understanding, knowledge and views of control.