FAQAnar:A.2.8 - Est-il possible d'être un anarchiste sans s'opposer à la hiérarchie ?
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Catégorie:En traduction Catégorie:Que représente l'Anarchisme?
Non. Nous avons vu que les anarchistes abhorrent l'autoritarisme. Mais si on est anti-autoritaire, on doit être opposé à toutes les institutions hiérarchiques, puisqu'elles incarnent le principe de l'autorité. Ainsi, comme le montre Emma Goldman, « ce ne sont pas seulement les gouvernements, au sens de l'État, qui détruisent la valeur et la qualité de chaque individu. C'est l'ensemble complexe de l'autorité et de la domination institutionnelle qui étrangle la vie. Ce sont les superstitions, les mythes, les faux-semblants, les esquives et les soumissions qui soutiennent l'autorité et la domination institutionnelle. »[1] Cela signifie qu'« il y a et il y aura toujours un besoin de découvrir et de vaincre les structures de la hiérarchie, de l'autorité et de la domination, et des contraintes de la vie : l'esclavage, l'esclavage salarial [c'est-à -dire le capitalisme], le racisme, le sexisme, l'éducation autoritaire, etc. »[2]
Par conséquent, l'anarchiste cohérent doit s'opposer aux relations hiérarchiques autant qu'à l'État. Être anarchiste signifie s'opposer à la hiérarchie, économiquement, socialement ou politiquement parlant. L'argument (si tant est qu'il soit nécessaire) est le suivant :
« Toutes les institutions autoritaires sont organisées de façon pyramidale : l'État, les entreprises publiques ou privées, l'armée, la police, l'Église, l'université, l'hôpital : ce sont toutes des structures pyramidales avec un petit groupe de preneurs de décisions au sommet et une large base d'individus soumis aux décisions sommitales. L'anarchisme ne réclame le changement d'étiquette des couches, il ne veut pas de personnes différentes au sommet, il veut que nous l'abattions à partir de la base. »[3]
Les hiérarchies « partagent une caractéristique commune : ce sont des systèmes organisés de commandement et d'obéissance » et les anrchistes cherchent alors à « éliminer la hiérarchie en soi, et non pas simplement remplacer une forme de hiérarchie par une autre. »[4] Une hiérarchie est une organisation pyramidale composée d'une série de grades, de rangs ou de fonctions croissant en pouvoir, en prestige et (habituellement) en rémunération. Les spécialistes qui ont étudié les formes de hiérarchie ont découvert que les deux principes de base qu'elles incarnent sont la domination et l'exploitation. Par exemple, dans son article classique "What Do Bosses Do?" (Que font les chefs ?, Review of Radical Political Economy, Vol. 6, n° 2), une étude de l'usine moderne, Steven Marglin a découvert que la fonction principale d'une hiérarchie d'entreprise n'est pas une productivité meilleure (comme le clament les capitalistes), mais un pouvoir accru sur les ouvriers, le but d'un tel contrôle étant une meilleure exploitation.
Dans une hiérarchie, le contrôle est maintenu grâce à la coercition, c'est-à -dire par la menace d'une sanction de n'importe quel type : physique, économique, psychologique, sociale, etc. Un tel contrôle, qui inclut la répression des dissidents et la révolte, nécessite alors une centralisation : un ensemble de relations exercées pour obtenir le meilleur contrôle par la minorité au sommet (en particulier la tête de l'organisation), tandis que celles et ceux au milieu ont nettement moins de pouvoir et que celles et ceux à la base n'en ont virtuellement aucun.
Since domination, coercion, and centralisation are essential features of authoritarianism, and as those features are embodied in hierarchies, all hierarchical institutions are authoritarian. Moreover, for anarchists, any organisation marked by hierarchy, centralism and authoritarianism is state-like, or "statist." And as anarchists oppose both the state and authoritarian relations, anyone who does not seek to dismantle all forms of hierarchy cannot be called an anarchist. This applies to capitalist firms. As Noam Chomsky points out, the structure of the capitalist firm is extremely hierarchical, indeed fascist, in nature:
"a fascist system. . . [is] absolutist - power goes from top down . . . the ideal state is top down control with the public essentially following orders.
"Let's take a look at a corporation. . . [I]f you look at what they are, power goes strictly top down, from the board of directors to managers to lower managers to ultimately the people on the shop floor, typing messages, and so on. There's no flow of power or planning from the bottom up. People can disrupt and make suggestions, but the same is true of a slave society. The structure of power is linear, from the top down." [Keeping the Rabble in Line, p. 237]
David Deleon indicates these similarities between the company and the state well when he writes:
"Most factories are like military dictatorships. Those at the bottom are privates, the supervisors are sergeants, and on up through the hierarchy. The organisation can dictate everything from our clothing and hair style to how we spend a large portion of our lives, during work. It can compel overtime; it can require us to see a company doctor if we have a medical complaint; it can forbid us free time to engage in political activity; it can suppress freedom of speech, press and assembly -- it can use ID cards and armed security police, along with closed-circuit TVs to watch us; it can punish dissenters with 'disciplinary layoffs' (as GM calls them), or it can fire us. We are forced, by circumstances, to accept much of this, or join the millions of unemployed. . . In almost every job, we have only the 'right' to quit. Major decisions are made at the top and we are expected to obey, whether we work in an ivory tower or a mine shaft." ["For Democracy Where We Work: A rationale for social self-management", Reinventing Anarchy, Again, Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.), pp. 193-4]
Thus the consistent anarchist must oppose hierarchy in all its forms, including the capitalist firm. Not to do so is to support archy -- which an anarchist, by definition, cannot do. In other words, for anarchists, "[p]romises to obey, contracts of (wage) slavery, agreements requiring the acceptance of a subordinate status, are all illegitimate because they do restrict and restrain individual autonomy." [Robert Graham, "The Anarchist Contract, Reinventing Anarchy, Again, Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.), p. 77] Hierarchy, therefore, is against the basic principles which drive anarchism. It denies what makes us human and "divest[s] the personality of its most integral traits; it denies the very notion that the individual is competent to deal not only with the management of his or her personal life but with its most important context: the social context." [Murray Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 202]
Some argue that as long as an association is voluntary, whether it has a hierarchical structure is irrelevant. Anarchists disagree. This is for two reasons. Firstly, under capitalism workers are driven by economic necessity to sell their labour (and so liberty) to those who own the means of life. This process re-enforces the economic conditions workers face by creating "massive disparities in wealth . . . [as] workers. . . sell their labour to the capitalist at a price which does not reflect its real value." Therefore:
"To portray the parties to an employment contract, for example, as free and equal to each other is to ignore the serious inequality of bargaining power which exists between the worker and the employer. To then go on to portray the relationship of subordination and exploitation which naturally results as the epitome of freedom is to make a mockery of both individual liberty and social justice." [Robert Graham, Op. Cit., p. 70]
It is for this reason that anarchists support collective action and organisation: it increases the bargaining power of working people and allows them to assert their autonomy (see section J).
Secondly, if we take the key element as being whether an association is voluntary or not we would have to argue that the current state system must be considered as "anarchy." In a modern democracy no one forces an individual to live in a specific state. We are free to leave and go somewhere else. By ignoring the hierarchical nature of an association, you can end up supporting organisations based upon the denial of freedom (including capitalist companies, the armed forces, states even) all because they are "voluntary." As Bob Black argues, "[t]o demonise state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst." [The Libertarian as Conservative, The Abolition of Work and other essays, p. 142] Anarchy is more than being free to pick a master.
Therefore opposition to hierarchy is a key anarchist position, otherwise you just become a "voluntary archist" - which is hardly anarchistic. For more on this see section A.2.14 ( Why is voluntarism not enough?).
Anarchists argue that organisations do not need to be hierarchical, they can be based upon co-operation between equals who manage their own affairs directly. In this way we can do without hierarchical structures (i.e. the delegation of power in the hands of a few). Only when an association is self-managed by its members can it be considered truly anarchistic.
We are sorry to belabour this point, but some capitalist apologists, apparently wanting to appropriate the "anarchist" name because of its association with freedom, have recently claimed that one can be both a capitalist and an anarchist at the same time (as in so-called "anarcho" capitalism). It should now be clear that since capitalism is based on hierarchy (not to mention statism and exploitation), "anarcho"-capitalism is a contradiction in terms. (For more on this, see Section F)
- ↑ Emma Goldman, Red Emma Speaks (Emma la Rouge parle), p. 435.
- ↑ Noam Chomsky, Language and Politics (Langues et Politique), p. 364.
- ↑ Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action (L'Anarchie en action), p. 22.
- ↑ Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom (L'écologie de la liberté), p. 27.
