Punks at work

If anarchist is against hierarchy, how is any hierarchy justified, social or business? Probably social is a lesser evil, but it still is a hierarchy.

Why would an anarchist, go to a position of an upper hierarchy, at all, if one is against hierarchy?

 

If you are against the Fortune 500 corporations, why would you even work for one?

If you are against a group of individuals who rapes people, you shouldn't associate yourself with that group.

 

Cos its not only those businesses that are shit, and cos many of us have to work to, like, eat?
yr implying we're free to choose where and in what circumstances we work, a choice that is largely Liberal mythology, we are coerced into work under threat of poverty, etc. How many of us would go to our shitty jobs if we weren't required to do so in order to pay the rent, eat, etc? In what way can, say, someone who lives in a small US town choose to work somewhere other than walmart or mcdonalds if they are the only jobs available?

Besides, if yr not working for one of these 500, you could be building the houses which the execs buy, being their maids, working for the charities these firms use to play the philanthropist and hold yearly fundraising dinners in aid of, wait the tables at said functions, etc, etc
I'll use a quote from a fellow melburnite in response to some q's (via libcom), as I reckon it covers the same ground:

 

for this they'll make you employee of the month and let you win a fine wellness-sentence in siberia my dear butcher!

 

hierarchy in real life is a twosided thing - maybe it's explained best with the difference between the german words "Autorität" and "autoritär":
an "autorität" is someone best at what he's doing, an expert or capacitance in his trade, either by ability or knowledge, someone who can teach others how to deal with problems or tasks in the best way possible. if you need to put up a hierarchy of people trying to solve a problem together, such a person will always stay "above" less knowledgeable or experienced people. i wouldn't call this a "natural" hierarchy, but it's an aspect to consider if one is new somewhere and has to learn first instead of claiming absolute equality, because in this or that there is a difference in the level of knowledge and ability - but i think it doesn't mean a thing because in the best case such an expert will pass on his knowledge and thus egalize the hierarchy away.
"autoritär" (like authoritarian) is the worst case scenario - and i think the reason why anarchism in authoritarian hierarchies will never work - when "autorität" is used to keep up the hierarchy, monopolizing it and abusing it as a tool to retain power. one knows it all and controls all others "below" him, who only know so much as necessary to contribute their share to the ones at the end of the food chain. remember the old saying: knowledge is power?
a "true" anarchist won't be able to step up the ladder without pulling his equals up with him - but this would be threatening the authoritarian hierarchy and because the system doesn't works without authoritarianism the poor anarchist would be thumbed back down - or he adapts and becomes corrupted.

maybe people are idealistic or unexperienced with the inner workings of such a career - maybe they are unlucky and are offered such "a great opportunity" - and the system, especially in the economics tried to hide the fact of it's inner authoritarian hierarchy - there were many management-theories about "non-hierarchical" work and cooperation - but at the end...

 

I must atone for my sins thru honest labour

I'm unsure as to what defines 'social hierarchy' in this context.

I think Nike is referring to what I'd call 'specialisation', which isn't necessarily, but can sometimes be (the BS about Liberal Capitalism being a meritocracy does have the occasional truth in it, although much more common is pre-existing class positions dictating who gets the 'good' jobs and the associated lucrative paychecks), connected to hierarchy. Specialisation is kinda good, like if i need brain surgery I want someone who knows a lot more about it than the average person. Likewise knowledgeable engineers and builders are good if one is to hang out in a big building. But yeah, I don't see how having people who are better at certain things than others creates hierarchy if social wealth is held and those specialists specialise in a strictly apolitical capacity.

 

FYI I dare not call myself an anarchist, because in the present system, it seems to be pretty impossible to call yourself an anarchist without being a hypocrite if you receive income for yourself out of this present system (especially multinational corporations) beyond your primary needs (such as having extra income for buying a computer, or a book, and especially a tv, a video game, or even a car), when millions of others don't have the privilege to even have access to their primary needs. Working for the system in this manner means that you are living off the labor of those who are more unfortunate than you (like those who work in the sweatshops in third world countries, who can't even afford to pay for a bare minimum living condition, or those who couldn't get a even get a job in a capitalist company). If working in a capitalist company makes you afford to buy a computer, yet you call yourself an anarchist, that means you are a hypocrite at best.

 

Would you call any supervisor,or a manager of this existing system (be that a capitalist company or state company) to be an "autorität" or "autoritär", and why?

Working in a capitalist/state company, since they are hierarchical, means that you are stepping up the ladder above a class who are not employed in a hierarchical capitalist/state company, such as those who work in a cooperative without any privilege from the State or capitalist system. How could you justify calling yourself an anarchist, while working in a hierarchical company that commonly offers a better income than a non-hierarchical mode of production? Isn't this just plain hypocrisy?

Well, then you gotta to choose to either pursuing your selfish ideals for "a great opportunity" or really becoming an anarchist. It's that simple. Your anarchism is just fake and plain hypocrisy if because of working in a capitalist/state company you have a better life than those who truly live by growing their own food.

Although i'm not myself an anarchist, I respect true anarchists who grow their own food or squatting without absolutely being dependent to working in a capitalist/state company to gain more privileged access to possessions other than the bare necessity to live healthily. But those who claim to be an "anarchist" yet working in a state/capitalist company, and as a result becomes more wealthy than the class of individuals who are completely independent from the existing present system, I have absolutely no respect.

 

If by being knowledgeable means you have the opportunity to gain more possessions than others less knowledgeable, that creates a hierarchy. Inequality of wealth between individuals, is de facto a hierarchy (those who have more access to possessions against those who have less access possessions). If anarchism is anti-hierarchy, and you have more possessions than any other individual in a society, you are shameless to call yourself an anarchist.

 

omibelovedunorthodoxy! this is exactly what i wanted to evade:

just think your own statement through:
because you are lucky enough and have the privilege to be able to consume, you can't be an anarchist - and capitalism will go on forever because of that?
can't you use your computer, books, tv and whatever else "for the cause", to gather information, make up your mind and start to spread it, or - just to mention it - keep yourself entertained and happy enough to work for the liberation despite the frustrations of the present system?
wealth isn't a problem if it's used in the right way and owning personal property isn't a sin against humanity! we must not follow these pseudo-christian martyr-delusions:
what will it help those in the sweat shops and slave camps in so-called third world countries, if we start to walk around wearing sackcloth and ashes and repent for the crimes of technological progress and the blessings of the information society? how many of us are actually able to drop out and produce their own food, clothing, housing and entertainment?
what will it help them to put us on the same level of misery the so-called third worlders suffer, instead of raising them to our level of opportunities, including the wealth we enjoy?

is true under the acutal conditions because there is hardly a realistic alternative - but the solution will not be to put an end to our prosperity too - but to share it and stop the unfair and injust abuse of poverty for profits in capitalism, so the less fortunate can enjoy the gains of their labour themselves, control their economy themselves and produce their needed goods on the highest possible standard.

i actually live and work on a almost non-hierarchical, almost self-sustaining farm-collective and i enjoy it - but if you think that thats the way to achieve anarchy in the futures - i'm afraid you're going to be disappointed: it's only a small and almost isolated happy isle in the great great capitalist world... and how many of our fellow neighbors could achieve the same in their life time eaten up by wage-slaving for just a living, including expensive rent, a coloured tv maybe and a computer too?
personally i did some really weird things to earn money, working for "the media" until i had enough and started to study completely conventional agriculture because there was no realistic alternative to it, many of my fellow comrades "owned" in the past, did "un-anarchist" jobs too while fighting against the state and capitalism - but finally there had to be payed for the farm and some additional forest grounds, there had to be contracts and legal constructs to secure the farm as a living base for the community, we still need to use medication and drugs for humans and animals we could not produce ourselves and never will be able to produce, no matter how dirty the production of the pharma-industry actually is.

your view smells very unrealistic to me, much too much black and white too - just try living on your own feet under todays circumstances and opportunities and i guess you will find out yourself before you call others hypocrites - people who do their job for a living and use their opportunities to fight against the system, informing, discussing, organizing instead of giving the high-priests of right/wrong or black/white... because this kind of philistry is quite obvious - isn't it?

 

i got a new idea:
What about a bio-dynamic gulag for the civilization-weary zealot?

and i wonder what a sweat shop slave will answer you, if yours ask him if he wants a tv, computer, books and all the other sins of possession - or what he would say to this:

Do I smell my young friend skulldrix here?

 

Of course you can't. The logical conclusion of anarchism is the rejection of privilege. If you are not against privilege how can you call yourself an anarchist? I never said that you can't have privilege, of course you can, because there's nothing wrong with privilege, but you can't possibly call yourself an anarchist.

When is "enough" really "enough"? Using this logic, a CEO can call himself an anarchist and promote anarchism in TVs and newspapers while enjoying living in his mansion and driving his Ferrari, because he is frustrated if he doesn't drive a Ferrari and live in a mansion. Can't you see the hypocrisy of these kind of "anarchist"?

Besides, you are also deluded to think that capitalism will fall just because you "gather information, make up your mind and start to spread it", when you work for the system above the misery of those who are not privileged enough to get a job in the system for a better pay. What change have anarchism made to the reduction of Capitalism and the State recently? Does rioting change a thing? No. It just satisfies your own selfish desire to riot between you and your fellow anarchists, but it does not at all help the general working class. In fact, Capitalism and the State have grown stronger than ever now. The anarchist rioting to the Capitalist and Statist class are nothing but an instrument for them to antagonize your movement, it breeds their power to antagonize the anarchist movement against the real living working people. It does not give more freedom nor prosperity to the general population. Just be honest, the 99.99% of people in the world (that includes your beloved "working class") doesn't even understand or want anarchism. You are only helping your own cause in the pretense of representing the whole "oppressed" class. "Oh, I'm an anarchist, I'm holier than thou".

I never mentioned that owning personal property is a sin against humanity. In fact I don't even see why even owning private property is a sin against humanity unlike you anarchists who thinks that property is theft and hierarchy is evillllllll. But those who dare call themselves anarchist while living a privilege of more possessions above the class who are unfortunate to gain more wealth from the capitalist mode of production, is just hypocrisy.

Exactly, nothing. Nothing will change if you start around doing those things. On the other hand you are de facto supporting the system by PARTICIPATING in the system and enjoying the privilege from the system above those who doesn't. What's the difference in saying "I am against religion", but then you go to Church every week?

You are talking as if you have raised or can raise those people to your level opportunities. What have you raised? I bet that even you do, it's really not significant for those laborers in sweatshop to even realize the significance of their level of opportunities being raised at all. What are the realistic practical things that you have done that have effectively raised their level of opportunities? At most you are only changing you and your very tiny little group's level of opportunities. It's not even shaking the system AT ALL. Why would you want to be an anarchist if Capitalists and the State would not have a significant reduction in your LIFETIME as a result of your anarchism? Capitalism and the State are just to powerful to ignore anarchism, and the common people in the world hates anarchism because they actually prefer WATCHING and READING the mainstream media that portrays anarchists as a bunch property destroyer that does not give them more prosperity, happiness, and freedom.

No. What's unrealistic is to BE an anarchist while at the same time receiving a better income from the system out of the misery of those who are more unfortunate.

 

I never said that having possessions is a sin. In fact I don't think that hierarchy and private property is a sin. To my knowledge, it is anarchists, not I who sees hierarchy, private property, employing people in the business in this present world, as sins against humanity.

 

^ Besides the general laborers in sweatshops aren't anarchist, nor do they claim themselves to be anarchists, nor are they interested in anarchism at all, because in reality, anarchism does not generally really give them better education for their children, better health care and general living condition for their families. On the other hand, there are individuals in wealthy countries, working in multinationals with many many times more decent wage and living condition, dare call themselves anarchist, while still trying to manage part of the extra income - received out of the exploitation of third world sweatshop workers - to keep themselves "entertained", instead of sharing it with those sweatshop workers, yet at they same time they preach "solidarity" (in reality the "solidarity" acts are only acts that does not realistically really change the condition of the sweatshop workers).

 

No. Yr boss is making money off both of you.
Nor is it hypocritical for one to be forced into selling one's own labour and to 'compete' for work in the 'labour market', it is an existential necessity for many people. It is a contradiction, sure, that we are forced to act against our own, and those in similar circumstances', interests, thus its necessary to destroy capitalistic social relations. That we are forced to live within these circumstances isn't hypocrisy, rather an unwillingness to challenge these and instead criticise those forced into such circumstances using pseudo-christian and thoroughly Bourgeois notions of purity (If you don't like Capitalism don't work dude! I don't cos I'm the idle rich! / Look at those poor people working in McDonalds, don't they know McDonalds is evil?) that is thoroughly hypocritical.

Next: imagine if sweatshop workers had a strike and won better wages, wouldn't that be evil cos they are now earning more than some other people!
Come on, get yr fucking hand off it.

As for unemployment:

yr obviously trying to troll, yr failing badly, yr arguments are shit and yr sounding like a right royal dickhead.
I'd suggest reading a book.

 

just to remind you:
our privilege is the reality we - in the so called first world - are born into, and at least I was never asked if I wanted to and even while I personally work for some fundamental changes of the way we live and spend quite some time, money and efford to support these changes, would agree with the fact, that giving up the ferrari and taking the sack and ashes changes nothing.
SO WHERE IS YOUR POINT?
your "logic" is ridiculous and we had this kind of jesuitical polemic hypcrites before, BUT for your turn now, your holiness:
where is it written that rejecting the actual circumstances our privilege means that we have to do without it's given opportunities, which we don't asked for, including your beloved ferrari used by your beloved strawman of an anarchist CEO - you believe in santa too, or perchance: the founding fathers?
There is no anarchist CEO, not because of the philosophical problems but because of the requirements of submitting to a authoritarian structure - no living brain with at least a rest of selfrespect would be able to make it that far - maybe you should apply for a career, your black&white strawmanship might need some further enhancement, but your doublethink seems fit enough!

For sanitys sake: What is wrong with driving a ferrari and living in a mansion - as long as giving up both means nothing?
No, i can't see the hypocrisy - the only thing i see is the waste of resources and the difference between the ferrari and my trusted bike (TYI: british rooster 1930, the standard transport of the masses in India, got it from a fair-trade-shop, it was produced in a self-organized project giving women and youths education and mechanics job training - oh what hypocrisy - because of this they might be better off than others!

this one is really bad, you urgently should start reading a book instead of wasting more time mesmerized by fox-channels and the like - I wonder if the state and capitalism have grown stronger - what was it about the current crisis in economix and politics lotsa people talk about? Did we miss a thing or two in all that black&white post-christian logix? Isn't it the anarchists in the antifa and black bloc taking the brunt of the fighting to keep nutzis and xenophobes off the street? Oh, and they are rioting too? Maybe it's your apathy keeping you from gathering information to gain something like an opinion and start doing more than stupid trolling on your computer build on the sweat of the sweat slaves?
99,9% of the world population doesn't understand Anarchy - yours is in good company, my ignorant friend...

again it's all about logix I guess?
Whats the difference between using this old 32-bit A7N8X-E machine, riding a fair-trade-bike, working in a HartzIV-job with longterm unemployed, organising in the neighborhood and several human rights organisations, doing FoodNotBombs and draft resister councelling and going to the church? - what I never do because I'm an atheist and not one of your fairy-tale strawmen... Can't you see how ridiculous your argumentation gets, your holiness?
And if you would know what Nikes tiny, almost non-hierarchical, almost self-sufficient group does and has done for other people - trust me, it could cure even your disturbing level of ignorance - and they never forget who or where they are...

YUKK! - this one stroke my teenage heart deeply - who was it who demasked us as self-centered rioters and trouble makers?
Has yours logix left you again or are you just desparatly scraping up new strawmen from your tiny black&white world?

And in your enlighted wisdom, your holiness, you will do us the favor and come up with your brilliant logical alternative to this misery and btw: It would be nice to answer Mlle Nikes question:
How many of the people in the first world are actually able to drop out of capitalism and live free of sin and the sweat of others?

and at Mdm. Applez:
Single or double rooms - and are dogs allowed?

 

may i ask the central committee why it's only "Mlle" for me but "Mdme." for camarada Applez? kinda hierarchy?
(and mentioning the dog we liberated will get you the favour of solitary confinement i guess! i say we call her Ilsa!)

now i'm curious...

 

may i ask camarada Nike whats wrong with paying some rare respects to a freshly diplomed, multi-challenged day by day / but still constantly prevailing, multi-stressed while breaking down gender-limits/ laying siege to the last refuges of "male" vocations and anywayz:
damned hypocritical anarchist working parent?!

Judi Burgess, first female carpenter apprentice in Orange County, Calif., 1963

and what's about that dog you want to call Ilsa?

 

errrm yes, comrade commissar Lilith, sir - my apologies and a triple cheer to the women behind the hammer! congrats too!
(and for the dog - it's offtoppix...)

 

Okay then, how far up would you as anarchists consider to be fine in climbing up workplace hierarchy/social classes or enrich yourself in this present system without becoming a hypocrite? How do you draw the line as anarchists? Supervisor? Manager? CEO? 30k, 250k? And how would you justify yourself?