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environment Anarchy Works that found their protection through organizing themselves in such a way:'69 Spontaneous horizontal organizing even played a major role in the feudal areas such as Holland and Zeeland, and it is doubtful that the weak authorities who did exist in those parts could have managed the necessary water works by themselves, given their limited power. Though the authorities always take credit for the creativity of the masses, spontaneous self-organization persists even in the shadow of the state. The only way to save the planet When it comes to protecting the environment, nearly any social system would be better than the one we have now. Capitalism is the first social arrangement in human history to endanger the survival of our species and life on earth in general. Capitalism provides incentives to exploit and destroy nature, and creates an atomized society that is incapable of protecting the environment. Under capitalism, ecocide is literally a right. Environmental protections are "trade barriers"; preventing a corporation from clear-cutting land it has purchased is a violation of private property and free enterprise. Companies are allowed to make millions of tons of plastic, most of it for throwaway packaging, despite the fact that they have no plan for disposing of it and not even any idea what will happen with it all; plastic does not decompose, so plastic trash is filling up the ocean and appearing in the bodies of marine creatures, and it may last millions of years. To save endangered rhinoceros from poachers, game wardens have started sawing off their valuable horns; but the poachers are killing them anyway because once they are extinct, the value of the few remaining bits of rhinoceros ivory will go through the roof. And despite all this, universities have the audacity to 69 H. Van Der Linden, "Een Nieuwe Overheidsinstelling: Het Waterschap circa 1100-1400" in D.P. Blok, Algemene Geschiednis der Nederlanden, deel III. Haarlern: Fibula van Dishoeck, 1982, p. 64. Author's translation. indoctrinate students to believe that a communal society would be incapable of protecting the environment because of the 50- called tragedy of the commons. This myth is often explained thus: imagine a society of sheepherders owns the grazing land in common. They benefit collectively if each grazes a smaller number of sheep, because the pasture stays fertile, but any one of them benefjts indiVidually if he overgrazes, because he will receive a greater share of the product-thus collective ownership supposedly leads to depletion of resources. The historical examples intended to corroborate this theory are generally drawn from colonial and postcolonial situations in which oppressed people, whose traditional forms of organization and stewardship have been undermined, are crowded onto marginal land, with predictable results. The sheepherding scenario assumes a situation that is extremely rare in human history: a collective comprised of atomized, competitive individuals who value personal wealth over social bonds and ecological health, and lack social arrangements or traditions that can guarantee sustainable, shared use. Capitalism has already caused the biggest wave of extinctions to hit the planet since an asteroid collision killed off the dinosaurs. To prevent global climate change from bringing about total ecological collapse, and stop pollution and overpopulation from killing off most of the planet's mammals, birds, amphibians, and marine life, we have to abolish capitalism, the sooner the better. Human-caused extinctions have been apparent for at least a hundred years now. The greenhouse effect has been widely acknowledged for nearly two decades. The best that the reputed ingenuity of free enterprise has come up with is carbon trading, a ridiculous farce. Likewise, we cannot trust some world government to save the planet. A government's first concern is always its own power, and it builds the base of this power upon economic relationships. The governing elite must maintain a privileged pOSition, and that privilege depends on the exploitation of other people and of the environment. 148 149
environment Anarchy Works Localized, egalitarian societies linked by global communication and awareness are the best chance for saving the environment. Self-sufficient, self-contained economies leave almost no carbon footprint. They don't need petroleum to ship goods in and waste out, or huge amounts of electricity to power industrial complexes to produce goods for export. They must produce most of their energy themselves via solar, wind, biofuel, and similar technologies, and rely more on what can be done manually than on electrical appliances. Such societies pollute less because they have fewer incentives to mass production and lack the means to dump their byproducts on others' land. In place of busy airports, traffic-clogged highways, and long commutes to work, we can imagine bicycles, buses, interregional trains, and sailboats. Likewise, populations will not spiral out of control, because women will be empowered to manage their fertility and the localized economy will make apparent the limited availability of resources. An ecologically sustainable world would have to be antiauthoritarian, so no society could encroach on its neighbors to expand its resource base; and cooperative, so societies could band together in self-defense against a group developing imperialist tendencies. Most importantly, it would demand a common ecological ethos, so people would respect the environment rather than regarding it simply as raw material to exploit. We can begin building such a world now, by learning from ecologically sustainable indigenolls societies, sabotaging and shaming polluters, spreading a love for nature and an awareness of Ollr bioregions, and establishing projects that allow us to locally meet our needs for food, water, and energy. Recommended Reading Nirmal Sengupta, Managing Common Property: Irrigation in India and The Philippines, New Delhi: Sage, 1991. Winona LaDuke, Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and claiming, Cambridge: South End Press, 2005. Jan Martin Bang, Ecovillages: A Practical Guide to Sustainable Communities. Edinburgh: Floris Books, 2005. Heather C. Flores, food Not Lawns: How To Turn Your Yard Into A Garden And Your Neighborhood Into A Community. White River Jet., Vermont: Chelsea Green, 2006. Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, New York, Viking, 2005. Murray Bookehin, The Ecology of Freedom: the Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy, palo Alto, CA: Cheshire Books, 1982. Elli King, ed., Listen: The Story Df the People at Taku Wakan Tipi and the Reroute of Highway 55, or, The Minnehaha Free State, Tucson, AZ: Feral Press, 2006. Bill Holmgren and David Mollison, Permaculture One: a Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements. Sydney: Corgi books, 1978. 150 151
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Introduction Anarchy would never wo
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introducr.ion Anarchy Works system
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introduction Anarchy Works due to u
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human nature Anarchy Works the rest
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human nature Anarchy Works for them
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human nature Anarchy Works the nigh
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human nature Anarchy Works quantiti
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human nature Anarchy Works warlike
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human nature Anarchy Works accorded
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human nature Anarchy Works developi
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human nature Anarchy Works and a mo
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human ncrture Anarchy Works the val
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neighboring societies Anarchy Works
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Anarchy Works 8. The Future We are
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the future Anarchy Works dependent
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it works when we make it work Anarc
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Bibliography Emily Achtenberg, "Com
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DerrickJensen, A Language Older Tha
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William Foote Whyte and Kathleen Ki
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