No, far from it. There can be no such thing as a "blueprint" for a free society. All we can do here is indicate those general features that we believe a free society must have in order qualify as truly libertarian. For example, a society based on hierarchical management in the workplace (like capitalism) would not be libertarian, nor would it remain anarchist for long, as private or public states would soon develop to protect the power of those in the top hierarchical positions. Beyond such general considerations, however, the specifics of how to structure a non-hierarchical workplace must remain open for discussion and experimentation.
So, this section of the anarchist FAQ should not be regarded as a detailed plan. Anarchists have always been reticent about spelling out their vision of the future in too much detail. For it would be contrary to anarchist principles to dogmatise about the precise forms the new society must take. Free people will create their own alternative institutions in response to conditions specific to their area, and it would be presumptuous of us to attempt to set forth universal policies in advance. Not only that, given the ways in which our own unfree society has shaped our ways of thinking, it's probably impossible for us to imagine what new forms will arise once humanity's ingenuity and creativity is unleashed by the removal of its present authoritarian fetters.
Nevertheless, anarchists have been willing to specify some broad principles indicating the general framework within which they expect the institutions of the new society to grow. It is important to emphasize that these principles are not the arbitrary creations of intellectuals in ivory towers. Rather, they are based on the actual political and economic structures that have arisen spontaneously whenever the working class has attempted to throw off its chains during eras of heightened revolutionary activity, such as the Paris Commune, the Spanish Revolution, and the Hungarian uprising of 1956, to name a few. Thus, for example, it is clear that democratic workers' councils are basic libertarian-socialist forms, since they have appeared during all revolutionary periods -- a fact that is not surprising considering that they are rooted in traditions of communal labor, shared resources, and participatory decision making that stretch back tens of thousands of years, from the clans and tribes of prehistoric times through the "barbarian" agrarian village of the post-Roman world to the free medieval city, as Kropotkin documents in his classic study Mutual Aid.
So, when reading these sections, please remember that this is just an attempt to sketch the outline of a possible future. It is in no way an attempt to determine exactly what a free society would be like, for such a free society will be the result of the actions of all of society, not just anarchists. As Malatesta argues, "None can judge with certainty who is right and who is wrong, who is nearest to the truth, or which is the best way to achieve the greatest good for each and everyone. Freedom coupled by experience, is the only way of discovering the truth and what is best; and there is no freedom if there is a denial of the freedom to err" [Malatesta: Life and Ideas, p. 49]
Partly, in order to indicate why people should become anarchists. Most
people do not like making jumps in the dark, so an indication of what
anarchists think a desirable society would look like may help those people
who are attracted intellectually by anarchism, inspiring them to become
committed as well to its practical realization. Partly, it's a case
of learning from past mistakes. There have been numerous anarchistic
social experiments on varying scales, and its useful to understand what
happened, what worked and what did not. In that way, hopefully, we will
not make the same mistakes twice.
However, the most important reason for discussing what an anarchist
society would look like is to ensure that the creation of such a society
is the action of as many people as possible. As Errico Malatesta indicated
in the middle of the Italian "Two Red Years" (see section A.5.5), "either
we all apply our minds to thinking about social reorganisation, and right
away, at the very same moment that the old structures are being swept
away, and we shall have a more humane and more just society, open to
future advances, or we shall leave such matters to the 'leaders' and we
shall have a new government." [The Anarchist Revolution, p. 69]
Hence the importance of discussing what the future will be like in the
here and now. The more people who have a fairly clear idea of what a free
society would look like, the easier it will be to create that society and
ensure that no important matters are left to the "leaders" to decide for
us. The example of the Spanish Revolution comes to mind. For many years
before 1936, the CNT and FAI put out publications discussing what an
anarchist society would look like (for example, After the Revolution by
Diego Abel de Santallian and Libertarian Communism by Isaac Puente). In
fact, anarchists had been organising and educating in Spain for almost
seventy years before the revolution. When it finally occurred, the
millions of people who participated already shared a similar vision
and started to build a society based on it, thus learning firsthand where
their books were wrong and which areas of life they did not adequately
cover.
So, this discussion of what an anarchist society might look like is not a
drawing up of blueprints, nor is it an attempt to force the future into
the shapes created in past revolts. It is purely and simply an attempt to
start people discussing what a free society would be like and to learn
from previous experiments. However, as anarchists recognise the
importance of building the new world in the shell of the old, our ideas of
what a free society would be like can feed into how we organise and
struggle today. And vice versa; for how we organise and struggle today
will have an impact on the future.
As Malatesta pointed out, such discussions are necessary and essential,
for "[i]t is absurd to believe that, once government has been destroyed
and the capitalists expropriated, 'things will look after themselves'
without the intervention of those who already have an idea on what has to
be done and who immediately set about doing it. . . . [for] social life,
as the life of individual's, does not permit of interruption" [Op. Cit.
, p. 121]
We hope that this Section of the FAQ, in its own small way, will encourage
as many people as possible to discuss what a libertarian society would be
like and use that discussion to bring it closer.
I.2.1 Why discuss what an anarchist society would be like at all?