Program for a libertarian society and the road towards it

Introduction

We write this program because the problems on our planet are stacking and we are refusing to continue standing by and watching. We hear again and again that the rulers are responsible for solving these problems, but we see how they not only fail to do so, but that the problems from day to day get ever more severe. This program is an attempt to bring together different ideas and concrete proposals and also to develop new ones: for a future society, for the road there and for the here and now.

This program is written for all those who have had enough. For those who every day have to fear losing everything because of how they look, because of their name, their passport, their gender. It is for those who are forced to work themselves to death for decades and those who are being humiliated by the job center.  It is for those who look with fear and anger at that what is happening worldwide and here: the endless list of racist attacks, the profit-oriented handling of the pandemic, the inability of governments to truly deal with the consequences of the climate catastrophe, etc. It is for the youth, who can no longer swallow their anger, and for those who refuse to give up hope. For those who are giving the global resistance movements strength and power. For those who see the beautiful potential for change in society and therefore join together and act. But also for those with a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction: can this really be it? Is this all that life has to offer?

This publication deals with a small part of our planned program. The full program is sorted in different chapters of which this introduction is part, followed by a series of social themes. This program doesn’t have to be read from front to back, but these themes also stand for themselves. We will publish the following themes: self-governance, work, health and healthcare, justice, education, housing, anti-racism and decolonization, feminism, infrastructure, ecology and self-defense.

The separate themes will be ordered as followed:

• • An introductory text which shortly describes the current social situation of the theme;
  • A chapter on “Where we want to go in the long term”, in which we sketch how the specific theme could look in a libertarian society;
  • A part on the transitional phase, in which the road there is discussed and potential contradictions that might show up along the way;
  • A chapter called “What can we do in the short run?”, in which we talk about possible things we can do in the struggle for reforms and building up counter-power in the here in now.

What is wrong? A short look at the social situation

What do you see, when you wake up in the morning and look out of the window? How do you feel? When we look closely at the streets or in the mirror, it becomes clear that the everyday life of people exists out of smaller and larger struggles: like the decision of neighbors not to accept the next rent increase; the people on the street who don’t look away when a racist police-check takes place or when someone makes transphobic comments; the common struggle for better circumstances at work at a start-up delivery service. These struggles are no individual cases or the result of individual failure. They are connected with one another and the results and basis for the kind of society we live in today. Do the workers who died in the textile factory in Bangladesh{{Medico International, Medico Factsheet – Mode und Textilbranche , Medico International, 2018 (Faktensammlung)}}, which collapsed over their heads, the miserable working conditions in German butchery-factories{{Jule Reimer, Warum die Arbeitsbedingungen in Schlachtbetrieben so prekär sind, Deutschlandfunk, 2020 (Artikel)}} and the destruction of the Brazilian rainforests{{Norbert Suchanek, Brasiliens bedrohte Galeriewälder – Corona bremste zwar die Wirtschaft, nicht aber die Brände und Rodungen, Neues Deutschland, 2021 (Artikel)}} have something to do with our daily lives?

The growing dissatisfaction with the existing conditions are becoming ever more clear. Worldwide there is an increase in protest movements and insurrections. The causes of the eruptions can be tax reforms, the rising price of oil or racist police violence: the movements which sprung from these are developing ever more often demands which call for a fundamental change. In India{{Dominik Müller, Indien und die Bauernproteste – Beginnt der Niedergang von Modis BJP?, Qantara.de, 2021 (Artikel).}}{{Mahima A. Jain, Die ökologischen Hintergründe der Agrarkrise in Indien, Deutsche Welle, 2021 (Artikel).}} the protest of peasants against agricultural reforms have developed into some of the largest the country has ever seen. In Argentina{{Caroline Kim, Durch den Streik die Welt verstehen – Verónica Gago über die neue Welle antipatriarchaler Kämpfe und ihr Buch »Für eine feministische Internationale«, Analyse & Kritik, 2021 (Artikel)}}, a feminist strike movement fought for the legalization of birth-control and won. In Belarus, hundreds of thousands of people have protested for months to bring down the dictatorship in the country.{{Ara Holmes & Kim García, „Schritte in eine ungewisse Zukunft (Teil 1) – Hintergrund und Analyse zum Beginn der Proteste“, in: Zwischen Neoliberalismus und Revolution – Textsammlung zu den Protesten in Belarus, S. 13-17, 2020 (Broschüre)}}{{Friedrich Burschel (Hrsg.), Durchmarsch von Rechts. Völkischer Ausbruch: Rassismus, Rechtspopulismus und Rechter Terror, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 2017 (Buch)}}{{#rC3 – Kein Filter Für Rechts, Media.CCC.de, 2021 (Video)}}

At the same time we see how the far right, fascist movements and conspiracy theory networks{{Initiative 19. Februar Hanau, https://19feb-hanau.org (Internetseite)}}{{Konrad Litschko, Seehofers „geringe“ Fallzahl, „380 rechtsextreme Vorfälle in den Sicherheitsbehörden zählt ein Lagebild, 1.064 bei der Bundeswehr. Ein strukturelles Problem? Nein, sagt Seehofer“, taz, 2020 (Artikel)}} are surfacing with increasing self-confidence. They fuel fear for social decline, spread misinformation and come with extremely simplified and often anti-Semitic explanations for complex  issues. These hostile and misanthropic ideologies continue to reveal themselves blatantly. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, far-right party) is gaining ever more success with the elections ,and racist and anti-Semitic terror-attacks have now become common place.{{Kommunistischer Aufbau, Wieviel Staat steckt in rechten Terror-Strukturen und wie können wir uns schützen?, 2019 (Broschüre)}}{{Ulrich Sander, AfD und andere rechte Netzwerke in Bundeswehr und Polizei, 2019 (Referat)}}Meanwhile the state is turning a blind eye, or is even part of it: it is well documented that parts of the police, the military and the secret services have taken part in the construction, link-up, financing and covering up of right-wing terrorism.{{Amadeo Antonio Stiftung, Staatsversagen. Wie Engagierte gegen Rechtsextremismus im Stich gelassen werden. Ein Report aus Westdeutschland, 2013 (Broschüre)}}{{Christina Schmidt & Sebastian Erb, Rechte Netzwerke & die „Affäre Caffier“, Jung & Naiv, Nr. 489, 2020 (Video)}}{{Das sehen wir besonders deutlich am Beispiel des NSU: Amadeo Antonio Stiftung, 438 Verhandlungstage sind nicht das Ende der Aufklärung. Zum Urteil im ersten NSU-Prozess, 2018 (Broschüre)}}{{Andere Zustände ermöglichen, Prozesse der Aufarbeitung. Ein erstes Fazit zum Ende des NSU-Verfahrens, Seitenhieb Verlag, 2017 (Broschüre)}}{{NSU-Watch, Analyse und Recherche (Internetseite)}}{{Saal 101 – Dokumentarhörspiel zum NSU-Prozess, ARD, 2021 (Hörspiel)}}

The global crisis, like the corona-pandemic and climate-change, has shown that it is not only the far-right parties that are using the uncertainty and fear. The current measures like the increase of border patrols and general surveillance, the dismantling of labor-rights, all come from the so-called ‘center’, even from parties who are supposedly  leftist. Under the pretense to secure the national prosperity we see an ever stronger split between the poor and the rich.{{WSI Verteilungsmonitor – Institut der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Aktuelle Grafiken, Daten und weiterführende Informationen zu Lohnentwicklung und der Ungleichverteilung von Einkommen und Vermögen (Internetseite)}} These crises are indeed affecting everyone, but not in the same manner. When I work at the cash register in the supermarket, raise my child alone, or am generally a suspect of spreading the virus because of how I look, the pandemic hits me harder as others.{{Natürlich sind auch Menschen aus Risikogruppen besonders stark von der Pandemie betroffen. Die verschiedenen Faktoren verschränken sich miteinander, Armut ist die häufigste Krankheitursache weltweit.}}{{Nelli Tügel, Das Tabu, „Arme sterben im Durchschnitt früher und besonders häufig an Covid-19, doch in Deutschland interessiert das kaum“, Analyse & Kritik, 2021 (Artikel)}} In the meantime, the general board of Amazon are making the profits of their lives.{{Oxfam, Das Ungleichheitsvirus – Wie die Corona-Pandemie soziale Ungleichheit verschärft und warum wir unsere Wirtschaft gerechter gestalten müssen (Deutsche Zusammenfassung), Oxfam Deutschland, 2021 (Studie)}}

Something similar to which we see in the climate crisis: depending on where I live on the planet, the consequences are hitting me more strongly.{{Hildegard Bedarff & Cord Jakobeit, Klimawandel, Migration und Vertreibung – Die unterschätzte Katastrophe, Greenpeace Deutschland, 2017 (Studie)}} Of course the climate is changing  in Central Europe.  But for most people the direct results of the climate-crisis are still farfetched. This is different for people in the Middle East, where because droughts, the price of food is rising already for years. The climate crisis has become an important factor in political developments. Taking Syria as an example{{Jennifer Holleis, Wie der Klimawandel zum Krieg in Syrien beitrug, Qantara.de, 2021 (Artikel)}}, the influence of drought is visible in the uprisings that developed in 2011 (known as the so-called Arab Spring). In other places, people are losing their homes and are forced to migrate.{{Christine Lottje, Migration und Flucht durch Klimawandel – Wie der Klimawandel Menschen zur Aufgabe ihrer Heimat zwingt, Oxfam Deutschland, 2016 (Broschüre)}} Clearly the climate crisis is not the only cause for flight, the deaths in the Mediterranean Sea or the fight for the right to stay. In the media these developments are portrayed as individual cases and are shown isolated from each other, without mentioning  global correlation and origin.

The crisis of this system finds its origin not so much in the faulty implementation of an in general good idea. The way capitalism is functioning is a fundamental cause of these problems. But exactly  do  we mean with that?

Capitalism is more than an economic system that is based on the exploitation of people and nature for the profits of a few. Capitalism is part of our laws, our democratic understanding, our educational system, our understanding of love, our thoughts… It is a social system that is shaping us from birth and which we through our lives reproduce. The origins of this system are multifaceted.

The story that we know from school, is that capitalism developed naturally and fluidly out of the events of the industrial revolution. The organizational and economic structures of before – especially those outside of Europe – are hardly thematized. The same goes for the fact that this social transformation was not a fluid process, but was enforced with brutal repression. The results were European colonialism and later imperialism, which since the 15^th century has globally destroyed and exploited whole civilizations. African people have been forcefully removed from their homes, made into slaves and transported to the America’s where their labor was exploited for centuries.{{Bafta Sarbo, Einführung in die materialistische Rassismuskritik, Kritische Orientierungswochen HU Berlin, 2020 (Video-Vortrag)}} Only the tons of gold and silver which was gathered in the Latin American continent made possible the industrialization of Europe and later in the USA.{{Karl Marx nennt diesen Prozess „Ursprüngliche Akkumulation“ (Anhäufung) von Kapital. Karl Marx, Das Kapital (Band 1) Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, Kapitel 24, Die sogenannte Ursrüngliche Akkumulation, 1867 (Buch)}}{{Eduardo Galeano, Die offenen Adern Lateinamerikas. Die Geschichte eines Kontinents von der Entdeckung bis zur Gegenwart, 2002, Erweiterte Auflage, Peter Hammer Verlag, S. 54-116 (Buch)}} In the meantime, land of peasants and communities in Europe was taken away from them, which forced them into wage labor in the cities and factories. Women were forced out of waged labor and driven into carework.{{Silvia Federici, Caliban und die Hexe. Frauen, der Körper und die ursprüngliche Akkumulation, 2020, 7. Auflage, Mandelbaum Kritik & Utopie (Buch)}}{{Mariana Schütt, Hexenverbrennung und die ursprüngliche Akkumulation, kritisch-lesen.de, 2013 (Rezension)}}

That the ever continuing accumulation of natural resources and property from the beginning was based on racism, patriarchy, oppression, exploitation and severe violence, is today often forgotten. When we honestly look at the history of capitalism, it is inseparable from racism, patriarchy and other forms of oppression. We can’t solve these problems separately from one another .

The national state developed itself as a system of governance under which capitalism could freely develop itself. Individualism and nationalism have hindered worldwide solidarity against the aforementioned oppression and exploitation. The focus on economic growth, the promise of individual happiness and success, but also the fear of poverty, make it so that wage labor has become the center of our lives. Laws, punishment and elections should give us a sense of security, order and participation, whereas in the meantime, we lose the touch of the true meaning of justice, freedom and self-determination. The injustice with which we are faced every day, is not without an alternative.

We need a fundamental change and we are convinced that this is only possible when we take  matters into our own hands. For this however, we need a vision where we want to go: a classless society which is not based on the exploitation of people or nature. We have to think about how this society could look like, to know our goals. But  just imagining a utopia will not suffice. We also have to ask ourselves  how to get there. What do we have to do? How do we create the (material) basis for this? What can we change and construct already today?

Gustav Landauer answered  these questions in 1910 as followed: “The state is a relationship, a relationship between people, is a way in which people relate to each other; and you destroy it by entering into other relationships, by relating to each other in a different way.”{{Gustav Landauer war Anarchist und in der Novemberrevolution 1918/19 sowie der Münchner Räterepublik im April 1919 beteiligt. In: Gustav Landauer, Schwache Staatsmänner, schwächeres Volk!, Der Sozialist, 1910 (Artikel)}} In this sense: let’s create new bonds that tumble the current establishment.

What to do? Social revolution, dual-power, reforms

„Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.“

– Assata Shakur{{Assata Shakur ist eine Schwarze Freiheitskämpferin, ehemaliges Mitglied der Black Panthers und lebt seit 1979 im politischen Exil. Englisches Original-Zitat: „Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.“ in: Assatashakur.org (Internetseite)}}

How can these fundamental changes we propose in this program be realized? Some would propose founding a party and getting voted into parliament. Truly, it does make a difference if there is a leftist or right-wing party in power. But like we mentioned before, the everyday injustice is inseparable from state and capitalism. It is impossible to overcome the oppression from the inside through voting and parties. Whatever good causes a party might strive for – as soon as its in the government, it will have to navigate the rules of the system to stay there. If we really want to change something, we have to do this on a whole new basis.

Social revolution

When we speak of revolution, we mean a fundamental and sustainable change. If we imagine society as a living being, it is finding itself in constant change, which we could describe as a form of evolution, because its progressing slowly. Next to this however also exist revolutions: sudden changes which happen in a short amount of time. Such a quick change can happen in all kinds of fields. For example there is talk of an industrial or digital revolution when there is talk of rapid technological changes. Or there is talk of a political revolution if the form of governance is being changed in a region and with that fundamental political change takes place.

To overcome domination, it takes more than just a change of rulers. To truly change something, we have to look at the foundation of our society with new eyes and create a new basis free of domination. Our goal is thus a social revolution. Next to fields like education, culture, work and governance, we also want to change our interpersonal relationships.

Our mutual relationships are today often ridden with power differences: our boss can decide what the employees have to do, teachers decide what students have to learn and at work the “customer is king”.  We get constantly told that this is the natural order of things: some are predisposed to follow, others to lead. Of course domination is a lot more complex. If want to achieve a world in which all can live together on equal footing the goal of this social revolution should be to create systems which bring to the front the positive aspects in people. Systems which are not built upon the fact that our self-worth is defined by the devaluation or exploitation of others.

Such a society can only be brought about if the material bases that are needed for this are met. To enable a society to function, it also has to be able to feed itself, needs housing, hospitals, infrastructure, etc. Today most of these means are in private hands or are state-property. This is no coincidence. The fact that a small group of people owns these means, and the fact that property is so unequally spread, is a fundamental pillar of domination. In the future society we envision, those who use or work with them, should have access to these means. Social revolution also means shaking those the material pillars to bring them down, for example through extensive expropriation of the aforementioned means (infrastructure, property, essential services) and transferring them into common ownership.

Revolution might mean change over a short period of time. Still, we don’t believe that this will take place in one specific moment. Social revolution means a process that cannot be free of contradictions: there will always be people who organize themselves, meet other movements to find commonalities and differences and join together. Social revolution in that sense is a learning process, a process of exchange, construction, setbacks and achievements.

Looking at the past and present, the ruling classes have shown that they won’t simply allow us to build our own structures and change society.{{Ein aktuelles Beispiel sind die andauernden Angriffe auf Rojava (Nordsyrien) u.a. durch den türkischen Staat, mehr Infos auf Civaka Azad – Kurdisches Zentrum für Öffentlichkeitsarbeit e.V., https://civaka-azad.org (Internetseite)}} It is because of the nature of power. It makes that those who own it want to keep it. This is why we count on it, that we also have to defend the changes that we want to collectively bring about.

Dual/Counter-power

The understanding that social revolution is not just a single moment which we wait for, means to us that we take matter in our own hands today to try and organize a common life free from state and capital. For this we have to create a form of dual power.  Social revolution means that all sectors of social life need to be transformed, and in all these sectors, a form of dual power should be built. This can mean that we create our own education and develop models which create more economic independence; or that we learn to solve conflicts among ourselves and find ways to deal with interpersonal violence.{{Polizeiproblem, Analyse & Kritik, 2020, (Sonderheft)}} It can also mean that we are capable of collectively defend ourselves against attacks from the state, capital and the far-right, be it lay-offs, deportation, evictions or racist attacks. And it means that we have to overcome these forms of domination, which shaped us since we were young, and learn new and equal ways of relating to one another.

All together it means that we create structures which satisfy our needs, independent from state and capitalism, and that we bring these structures together in a tight knit network.

Reforms

Even when structures of dual power can lead to concrete improvements of our everyday lives, we find ourselves in a situation in which it is not always possible to fully evade the logic and influence of the state. Therefore we think it is important to also make proposals for reforms, which will directly improve our situation and living conditions. However, it is clear to us, that mere reformism, that is, the idea that the system can be changed from the inside through reforms, is not the way to bring about a different society. We see a big difference between reforms which are “given to us from above” which can also worsen our situation (E.G. labor reforms), and reforms which are fought for from below (EG. the 8-hour workday and women’s suffrage). Currently, for instance, the state-wide ‘mietendeckel’ (rent-lid, a maximum rent for a certain amount of space and services), the unconditional right to stay for all or the legalizing of abortion would make our lives a lot easier. We should be wary though: if the state meets demands of protest movements, it mostly does so because it intends to stay in control. It tries to pacify protest and split movements and such reforms can always be limited or turned over at another moment.{{Thomas Giovanni, Building Power and Advancing: For Reforms, Not Reformism, Black Rose Federation, 2017 (Artikel)}}{{Eiszeit, Moloch und Heilsbringer. Zur Geschichte und Kritik des Sozialstaats, Kosmoprolet, 2016 (Artikel)}} Next to this, we could lose ourselves in a statist logic to make ‘realistic’ demands, and lose track of our true goals. We therefore see struggles for reforms as a place to learn to organize ourselves politically, and fight for direct improvements. It should however be clear that we can never stop there.

But how? Anarchist principles

Our proposals for social transformation will never be free of contradictions. This is why it will depend on the basic principles that are underlying these proposals. These offer an orientation in all the open questions and contradictions that we will encounter. Just like how the capitalist system is based on a set of principles,  the future society cannot just be organized around common material interests, but should be organized around shared values. Like we have described above, a fundamental characteristic of anarchist thought and action is the overcoming of domination. From this  follows a series of basic principles. These should already today shape not only our theory, but also our strategies and tactics as well as our everyday relationships. The means, that is the manner and methods, the way we organize ourselves today and deal with each other, will determine the outcome: self-organization from below instead of domination from above. Mutual aid and solidarity instead of exploitation and competition. Free association and commonality instead of representation and individualism. Collective responsibility and direct action instead of isolation and the incapacity to act.

What these concepts mean, and how they can be applied, will be explained in the next capitals, mostly in the chapter ‘self-governance’.

A consequent critique of domination also includes other basic attitudes. It includes the acknowledgement that there lies great value in other perspectives and new ideas, the appreciation or will to learn from them and change one owns attitude.

Freedom which is based on the oppression of others, can never be true freedom. Therefore we will never be free, as long as not all are free.{{Der Anarchist Michael Bakunin, Mitbegründer der ‚Internationalen Arbeiterassoziation‘ (Erste Internationale), sagte dazu: „Meine Freiheit ist die Freiheit aller, da ich nur dann wirklich, nicht nur in Gedanken, sondern auch tatsächlich frei bin, wenn meine Freiheit und mein Recht durch die Freiheit und das Recht aller mir gleichgestellten Menschen befestigt ist.“ in: Errico Malatesta, Anarchie, 1891 (Broschüre)}} We will never be able to overthrow the capitalist system, as long as we’re not able to overcome the forms of oppression on which support it. Whether anti-racism, feminism or class-struggle, climate justice or internationalism – these struggles can only be conceived and waged together.

By who? About this program and those who wrote it

We are Perspektive Selbstverwaltung (Perspective Self-governance, PS), an anarchist organization in formation in Berlin.

The following texts and proposals are based on our ideas, thorough research, our own experiences and those of people with whom took up contact. They are also based on the decades, even hundreds of years of experience of resistance and revolutionary movements worldwide. They are the attempt to understand the situation in which we live and the state of the world around us, so that we can change it. To make this transparent for you and to enable you to read on and get into contact, we have a thorough list of the information we used and the people, groups and movements that we use as references.

Next to concrete proposals, we also ask ourselves questions which we so far have left unanswered. This is because our knowledge and  perspectives are limited, but also because we want to find the possible answers to these open questions together with you. We want this program to be an impulse for thought, discussion and action. But also we want it to be an invitation for interested people and groups: you are the experts of your everyday struggles and we look forward for your feedback and critiques. We want to further develop this program with your suggestions, but of course are also happy if you want to do this independently.

The fundamental changes that we propose, can only be made by us as society. We see ourselves as an active part of that. We want to set in motion this common process of construction, and encourage you to join forces to take matters in our own hands!