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What follows is not a programme, more the sort of principles and practices which we believe would be essential to a free society. [Further discussion of an anarchist communist society can be found in the AF publications Beyond Resistance and As We See it. See also Peter Kropotkin's classic work, "The Conquest of Bread].

In some ways there are resemblances to ideas that the political parties put forward (Tories, Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Greens have all put forward variations on the theme of decentralisation, for example). This reveals two things. Firstly, that anarchist communism is not something totally alien to the experiences and desires of many working-class people, for whom political parties have often been the expression of their hopes for a better life, and which must take at least some measures to seem to be fulfilling them in order to retain their votes.

But secondly, these parties have also identified with values and ways of working - those of capitalism and hierarchy - that could not help but prevent the realisation of such aims as social justice, individual liberty, and harmony with the environment. Whether it be managers' use of "consultation" or employee shares, politicians' "decentralising" through regional parliaments or neighbourhood committees, there is a common thread. This is the popular desire for more control over one's life entwined with a deceptive way of fulfilling it, which curiously always manages to keep real power in the same hands as before. Anarchist communism seeks to do away with all such half-measures and intermediaries, so that the working-class at last attain control over their own destiny to achieve a genuinely classless society.

A prime objection to anarchism is that it is against human nature. A society without leaders, laws and the apparatus to support them is envisaged as "chaos", as violent, cruel and greedy. Since these are in fact leading characteristics of the present capitalist order - supposedly a world of general wealth and freedom - we should ask if a society founded instead on individual freedom, mutual co-operation and a sensitive use of the planet's resources is likely to produce the same fruits, whether in human character or the state of the Earth.

Class Consciousness

How can the exploitative values now dominant be supplanted? Without going into a full discussion of how an anarchist revolution might be achieved, its indispensable element is a widespread class-consciousness (A conscious minority that tries to make a revolution simply forms a new elite, as with the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution). This consciousness embraces disgust with the present order , the sense of solidarity, the desire for thoroughgoing change and the knowledge of how to achieve it. It is class-based because it is the lives of the industrial and agricultural workers of the world - individuals but with many things in common - which can only be relieved by this consciousness and its expression in the building of a new society.

It follows that those who are thus capable of making a revolution have struggled to go beyond the mind-set that living in a capitalist world tends to produce. We are not just creatures of our environment: we can imagine something better, and actively strive to realise our ideas. Through all the problems involved in carrying through the revolution, any temptations towards authoritarian or exploitative behaviour would face an alert, energised populace working through a very different social framework. Whereas these behaviours now are given every encouragement (from education, media and workplace), anarchist communism would mean a hostile climate for them.

Making Progress

It would, however, be unrealistic to imagine that a completely clean break could be made between one form of society and another. Though a revolution is initially a time of crisis, it then continues as a process. The ways in which we work, create, organise and relate to one another will be continually refined. The basis to this will be the quest to fulfil the twin values of freedom and solidarity, as against the self-centred and short-sighted outlook promoted now.

Anarchist communism would depend on mass involvement. This is both to release everyone's inventiveness and ideas, and to prevent the formation of some sort of governing or economic elite. Two forms of organisation are crucial in this context. The first is regular mass meetings of communities and workers, to ensure that full discussion and participation in matters affecting a locality could be achieved. The second is federation, as many issues (e.g. the uses of a river which runs through many communities) need a broader perspective than the local. This can only come from the involvement of all the communities affected. Federalism would run through successive bands - local, district, regional, international - to take decisions appropriate to that band.

Linked here is a further organisational principle, that would apply to all such situations where the immediate physical presence of all those affected is impracticable. This is delegate democracy. This strongly contrasts with representative democracy (such as Parliament) where, an MP having been elected, he/she then takes decisions on personal, party and ultimately ruling-class grounds, with little reference to the working-class part of the electorate. This approach is also what undermines what currently passes for federalism, as in the EU where it is basically a matter of ruling-class speaking to ruling-class. A delegate, however, is sent with instructions from his or her area or workplace, and any decisions reached at broader bands of a federation ( e.g. regional) must be ratified at the narrower (e.g. local). Delegates are also subject to strict rotation, and recalled if they do not act or speak in accord with their instructions.

Certainly all modern methods of communication, such as the imaginative use of computers, will assist in the flow of discussion and decision-making between the various bands of federations. But even then, particular care would need to be taken against the smaller ones not being heard and thus alienated. Though anarchist communism looks to the creation of a global community, it remains rooted in the local and face to face contact rather than today's way of decisions handed down, from apparently untouchable elites.

These organisational principles apply both economically and politically. For in an anarchist communist society these areas of life, rather than the current fragmentation where each has its supposed experts, are seen as what they are, mutually reinforcing and in need of the other. Thus, for example, everyone in a community may come forward with ideas for running the workplaces and what should be produced, without being either "economist" or "politician".

Work and Wealth

This fluidity of roles would similarly apply to work itself. Of course, people have individual inclinations and talents but, under capitalism, many of these are squandered or only fulfilled in "spare" time because they do not fit with their role as an employee doing a particular job in a particular enterprise. Anarchist communism would allow for the rotation and sharing of all kinds of work, whilst stressing that any technology used must be as safe and non-polluting as possible. There will be plenty to do in an anarchist world, but the emphasis on individual fulfilment and the achievement of mutually-agreed goals would mean the enhancement of living rather than merely "making a living".

This last phrase translates today as the gaining of enough money to buy desired goods and services. But anarchist communism seeks the abolition of money and the market. In a world scarred by hunger, disease, homelessness and poverty, and the concentration of most wealth in the hands of a relative minority, the notion that these methods of economic distribution are the fairest and most efficient possible is disgusting nonsense. Real wealth lies in the produce of the earth (agricultural, mineral, etc.), the talents of human beings, and their combination in products and techniques which represent the experience of generations. Yet it is the possession, or lack of, piles of metal and paper that assign a person's ultimate status and power in today's world. In fact, owing to the perverse use of computer technology in financial and other forms of speculation, the wealth of the rich has become increasingly abstract. But its concrete effects are clearly illustrated by the poverty of "Third World" farmers and labourers paid less and less for crops, or the homeless on the streets on every capital. This complete mismatch between human need and the actual concentrations of material plenty is lubricated by money and the dominant position it affords.

Capitalism relies on monetary and material rewards (or the hope of them) to ensure that work is done. Creativity is only worthwhile in this view if it ends up producing profit. Reducing human beings as this does to consuming machines, there can be little wonder that so many dislike their jobs or, without them, steal to have the goods with which all are constantly tantalised. Since in anarchist communism the working-class and peasantry are in control of planning, production and distribution, there can be confidence that all necessities will be produced and, according to circumstance, made freely available or fairly shared out via community stores and warehouses. Goods and services would also become produced in such a way, and such a spirit, as to mean that work was much more congenial and purposeful, as well as less time-consuming. For if the incentive of money was lacking, the incentive of sustaining a free society and one's place in it would also be powerful.

Even within capitalism, where public service is discouraged (at least by the bosses' conception of reward) many workers are still chiefly motivated by the satisfaction of using their skills to help others. And this is quite apart from those who, perceiving a need, act voluntarily, alone or in association, to meet it. There is no reason to suppose that, where a social climate existed that positively cherished such motives, they would diminish. Thus in striving to ensure fulfilling work for all (such that the distinction of work and leisure would become far less sharp), and with material security brought about by the efforts of all, the frustration and poverty that fuel so much anti-social and self-destructive behaviour now would come to lack such combustible material. But this "utopia" would, in the nature of things, still encounter all sorts of challenges and difficulties . This, therefore, would become the overriding incentive to be active and productive: the drive to continue and improve the way of life of anarchist communism.

But there would also be a grim history of which to be aware, so as to actively guard against its return in a new guise. The history of a world riven by internal and external violence, the domination of a few over the many, racial and sexual oppression, pollution. When we are told that anarchism means chaos and communism tyranny, this can only provoke a bitter laugh. The horrific present of global capitalism provides *these* things in abundance. We look to a day when the people of an anarchist world can look back, and relish their freedom.