o_195qg5dto17o4rbc85q1ge61i84a.pdf

anarchist rejections of the state 71
investigate the reasons why authority has become necessary than
they are with analysing the ways in which anarchists might secure
compliance. Moreover, they are extremely critical of those ‘old’
anarchists who have sought to find alternatives to state authority
without questioning the conditions – industrial technology, work
and the division of labour – deemed responsible for bringing this
authority into being. Nevertheless, primitivist writings support an
idea of authority as self-regulation. Perlman contrasts the ‘voice of
Leviathan’ which ‘speaks of Commandments and Punishments’ to
the voice of Nature that ‘speaks of ways, of paths to Being’. Leviathan
has ‘laws … closed gates’ and says: ‘Thou shalt not’. In contrast
Nature springs from an ‘inner voice’ and says: ‘Thou canst and Thou
shalt Be’. Leviathan is disciplining, Nature enabling. 58 Some primitivists
prefer to distinguish between government authority and persuasion.
In a variation on this theme Zerzan contrasts persuasion to
domination. Like legitimate authority, persuasion requires that
individuals comply with certain internally imposed standards of
behaviour. Above all it requires them to be honest and to refuse the
opportunity to manipulate others to achieve personal goals.
In whichever way anarchists choose to describe the idea,
‘authority from below’ enables them to distinguish between types of
commitment and to argue that anarchism is consistent with some
forms of binding agreement. Specifically, it allows them to reject as
artificial the authority of the state on the grounds that it forces
individuals to uphold agreements that have not been entered into
freely, but to defend the naturalness of promising. Like commands,
promises create obligations that individuals must respect. Once a
promise has been made, individuals are expected to place it
beyond review. Yet, unlike commands, the binding obligations
that promises create are legitimate, because promises are made
voluntarily. The important point here, as Proudhon argued, is that
promising is an expression of natural authority and it provides a
basis for social order in anarchy.
Do you promise to respect the honour, the liberty and the property
of your brothers?
Do you promise never to appropriate for yourself by violence,
nor by fraud, nor by usury, nor by interest, the products or
possessions of another?
Do you promise never to lie nor to deceive in commerce, or in
any of your transactions?