Anarchist Infrastructure Ft. Andrew

Andrew joins us to talk about what an anarchist society would actually look like and how it would function

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh yeah, it could happen here, it being a podcast
hosted by myself, Christopher Wong and the minute Inimitable. Amenab
blah blah blah blah blah, and Andrew, Andrew High, you're
in charge, Thank you, thank I almost stuck that landing.
I was so not sucking it up. Are you guys?

(00:25):
Proud the way there being consistent and I consistent? I
mean that you sucked it up again, I'm proud. Yeah.
I shouldn't have tried to say inimitable that was that
that was always going to be a disaster. Yeah, it was,
it was. It was. It was like one of those
gymnastics landings where it's like they landed and then both
your feet go in the ground and they jump and
they fall. Yeah, it's very like that when I yeah,

(00:50):
well all right, Andrew, what do you? What do you?
What do you? What do you? What do you? What
do you? What do you got for us today? Right?
So for this UM, this this episode's topic. UM. The
story begins with Reddit. Unfortunately that's not a great sign.

(01:10):
Well Reddit and Twitter? Yeah, the the two horsemen UM
and the discourse that occurred on those sites. Uh while
ago UM particularly related to like infrastructure and infrastructure and

(01:31):
the anarchic right. I mean, we all know to be
a sick. Principles society UM related to autonomy allow people
to define themselves and organize themselves on their own terms.
UM horizontalism. You know, people able to organize so that
no one dominates anyone else and no one exercises power.

(01:54):
UM move others. Mutual aid so people able to help
one another voluntarily, their bonds of solidarity and networks of
generosity that keep the social fabric together. You know. Free
association allows people to cooperate with who they want to
and how they see fit. And also conversely, you know,
refuse and disassociate. We need to be Yeah, that's a

(02:17):
key one that people don't emphasize it. Yeah, the free
disassociation definitely not be associated with certain people. Yeah, I mean,
because you can't freely associate. If you don't have the
option to freely disassociate, it is like running into a
cage and then you can't exit. Everyone should be able
to move freely as well. Emphasize which is I think

(02:42):
one of the things that radicalized me most was UM
the existence of borders because to me, at least, like
when you're born. You know, you have this spawn point,
and it seems absurd to me that just spawn point
should have so much control over you know, the outcome
of your life. You know, what rights and stuff you enjoy,

(03:05):
and where you can and can't go freely because none
of us have a choice in that matter. You know,
we can't exactly choose our parents, or choose or you know,
neighborhood or where we grew up whatever. And of course
borders of the national kind and the only ones I
guess suppose you know, um, you also oppose borders related

(03:25):
to gender and race and citizenship, and well that's relates
to borders. But yeah, and so how anarchists proposed we
get to this society is first and foremost the people
liberating themselves, the concept of self liberation. So people, and
not even speaking just in terms of workers, you know,

(03:47):
speaking in terms of gender and sexual minorities, speaking to
terms of racial groups, um, speaking in terms of disabled people.
You know, they must at the forefront of their own libration.
Freedom cannot be given, it has to be taken. And
so through direct action, which is when we directly act

(04:13):
without the middle channels of authorities representatives, we make those
changes for ourselves and through other methods we pursue the
world that we wish to live in, which is the
whole prefigurative process of building a new in the shell
of the old. And so I think part of the

(04:35):
issue when it comes to discussions of anarchism and infrastructure
and supply lines and all these different things is that, Um,
I think people have this misconception, this this real strange
idea of what an archist revolution looks like. UM, where
you know, we flip a switch just overnight and boom,

(04:55):
anarchist society. We have nothing in place, we have no
organization or systems or networks in places, just boom, staff
of fingers and all of a sudden we are all
living under anarchy. But in reality, um, you know, as
Kirpotkin expressed, there's no fallacy as harmful as the fallacy

(05:16):
the one day revolution. Obviously there's going to be a transition. UM.
In fact, a lot of people like to define anarchism
as an ongoing process moving further and further towards the
ideal of anarchy. Um. The whole idea is not whether
or not there will be a transitional society or kind
of transition that will be and so in this period
of transition is when we would be engaging in the

(05:37):
different forms of social experimentation to UM manifest you know,
anarchist principles in every facet of life. And of course
this is a process will involves engaging with local conditions
and um local people and allowing those communities, those individuals

(06:02):
to get to go in for themselves. What structures and
systems are put in place. Part of the struggle is
going to involve mirroring the society that we wish to create.
So for our final goal is you know, communistic and
artistic society, that our methods must be as communistic as

(06:24):
an artistic as possible. Basic you know, duality of means
and ends. So when we speak of supply lines, when
we speak of infrastructure, the reality is that existing infrastructure
is not going to disappay overnight. Were are starting from
complete scratch. This isn't a new you know, minecraft world
that we have to go and punch some trees and

(06:45):
start society all over again. Revolution is destructive, but it's
also constructive and transformative. So I mean, we're not going
to get rid of all experts and all expertise. We're
not going to be floundering difficult, how to make penicill in.
You know, people in all fields and all industries and
all layers and all um you know backgrounds are going

(07:08):
to be involved in the process, you know, adapting their
work places, adapting the industries towards sustainable and anarchic ends.
And it's a process that's going on now and will
continue because if you know, we look at at revolution
as a combination of I think Eric ollen Right he

(07:29):
had in his book Envisioning Real Real Utopias three basic
concepts of transformation. He had ruptural transformation, interstitial transformation, and
symbiotic transformation. And so interstitial revolution is basically the idea
um it's basically a mirror of you know, prefigurative politics
as a theoretical means of societal transformation through progressively and

(07:52):
strategically enlarging spaces of social empowerment. And ruptural transformation is
of course, I guess, the dichotomy between the insurrectionists and
everybody else, you know, where you have these moments of
social outposts, these moments of rupture where social forms and

(08:17):
social developments you know, undertaken and we sort of figure
out how we are, or rather we directly fight back
against you know, the systems are in place. I think

(08:40):
rupture is one of the more exciting forms. It's the
kind of form revolution of people tend to think of
when they think of the term revolution, this idea of
you know, all these this is this mass of people,
this crowd of people storming the bastill or whatever. Um.
But the real work of transformission is the stuff that
because you know, prior to and post those wounds of rupture. Well,

(09:06):
I I one of the terms I tend to like
that I've been thinking and reading about a lot is
is shatter zones. And these are this is like the
post rupture, right, these are the areas where state power
kind of collapses, or at least pieces of state power collapse.
And it's you know, the the shatter zones where kind
of you you see the state retreat in the wake

(09:27):
of a rupture, are where very terrible things tend to happen.
But there are also these zones of possibility. You know.
It's the places it's the kind of place where you
you can get an ethnic cleansing, and it's the kind
of place where you can get um rojava, you know,
like it's it's there they're these kind of zones of
possibility in the wake of of rupture. And I think

(09:47):
that's you know, a lot of the a lot of
the revolutionary kind of um imagery focuses on on the rupture,
but the future is decided in the shatter zones, you know. Yeah.
And I think what people miss as well is the
stuff that builds up to those you know, shatter zoons,

(10:08):
which is that their organizations, their affinity groups, their networks
and structures in place that are able to support those
zoons that are able to you know, when those ruptures ore,
could support the people taking part in those fights and
expand you know, those zoons of possibilities. Yeah, I mean,

(10:30):
this is the kind of thing where like, if you're
looking at what what causes the difference between you know,
these disastrous, uh like disasters that happened kind of in
the wake of a rupture, horrible crimes against humanity, and
situations where something better gets built like it again, to
use the example of Rajava. The reason why that happened

(10:50):
there and why isis didn't win in that terrain is
that groups of activists had been organizing in a variety
of ways for years in that and so when the
state collapsed, there were armed groups, and those armed groups
were supported by farming cooperatives and groups of people who
had been organizing to provide supplies to each other and

(11:11):
um like community organizations like focused on social like development
and aid like there was. It's it's yeah, there's an
exists in place exactly exactly and that's that's what you know,
and you could catch ye yeah. And I think that's
also because there's another way this can go to where

(11:33):
it's like you get a lot of moments where you know,
like like May sixty eight in France looks like this
right where like like the like the prime minister at
the president, I forget what was at that time. That's
like you like literally like the country's leaders are flying
out of the country on helicopters because I think everything

(11:55):
is going to collapse and then it just sort of doesn't.
And I think one of one of the way as
you get you get this period that looks like rupture,
but then everything sort of closes back up in on
itself is if those networks aren't strong enough and you
don't have some kind of sufficient level of organization, like
there there isn't there isn't anything. It's like it's like

(12:17):
you have these moments where the state is discredited but
there's nothing to replace it, and then the and the
sort of void, the void isn't strong enough to just
sort of like have the state collapsed entirely. And so
what you guys this moment where it looks like everything
is going to change and then there's nothing happens. And
I think that's also a product of essentially the same thing.

(12:39):
It's just depending on the strength of the state, you
can get very different sort of outcomes from these moments
where sometimes it's able to restabilize itself, sometimes it isn't. Right, Yeah,
And I think we kind of saw that in a
way with protests where you had this massive, massive rupture
probably the largest one of the largest American history. Um

(13:03):
yet people in the streets and cities all over the country.
Um because the vast majority of them were just peaceful marches.
But you also did have some like serious moments of rupture,
like in Minneapolis and stuff. And I mean look at us,
you know, two years later, and while they are you know,

(13:25):
more community organizations, I think they're more people who are
a bit more conscious, with more whale who are you know,
radicalized and expanded their knowledge. Through that rupture, things basically
went back to the way they were in a lot
of ways, and other ways, you know, police budgets were
just increased. I think there was a current with the analogy,

(13:48):
but I'll just go to the analogy of like a hydro,
where you know, the state, whenever it's attacked and stuff,
it's able to just restore itself, just able to recover
itself and able to like adapt to those sorts of attacks.
I remember reading in Tone of Everything where the David's
were talking about how the state they're using example, the

(14:11):
American state. They were saying, you know, the American state
of right is completely different in a lot of ways
from the American state of the two thous you know,
because the the state and statecraft is constantly evolving, constantly expanding,
constantly responding to you know, the conditions that they face.

(14:33):
We saw what happened in the twentieth century, you know,
the different movements that I could in that time, the
state was able to respond to those movements and adjust
itself accordingly. And so obviously when we have these ruptures,
we have these you know, moments of struggle and obviously

(14:58):
the times in between where we yuh pre figuring um
robust systems and alternative institutions that can support people those
womans of rupture um. Part of that isn't going to involve,
you know, defense, and the sue is not, oh, well,

(15:19):
how you defend revolution, because you want to defend revolution,
they don't know how to defend a revolution. But rather
parts of defending it is defending it from people's attempts
to seize power away from the masses, from the waking
class too, you know, cipher and that energy and use

(15:39):
it for the ends of smaller group, smaller class of
you know, whether it be parties or whatever the case
may be. Yeah, there's something there. I think you're going
back to, like thinking about borders and freedom of movement,
because if you look at like both the uss are

(16:01):
and China do this very quickly, which is that okay,
so you you you have the communist revolution, okay, and
theoretically class and power and then like the first thing
they do is set up in turnal border controls and
these like like I mean in China, they they're technically
like the the prohibition on movement is like technically over,

(16:24):
but the like the the household registration system still exists,
and it still determines whether you where you can get
benefits and how you get benefits, and whether you can
live in a city, and like what like how what's
the security you can access? Can you buy houses? Things
like that, like that kind of stuff. If if you're
not if if what you're doing is just putting a

(16:47):
group of people in power and not actually putting you know,
like if you want to talk about it in class terms, right,
it's like, okay, either the actual working class governs itself,
like the class in the hiredy collectively makes decisions, or
you've just created to do like baruacrat class and if
you wind up with a new barracract classes, like yeah,
immediately look at what happens. It's like, oh, hey, a

(17:09):
bunch of people have now decided that like you can't
leave your home province because you don't have the right
registration and it's right, Okay, It's like that kind of
reminds me what you were saying about, you know, if
all the working classes was meant with the state. Reminds
you of the video is watching last night actually from
this YouTuber anarch Daniel Barrian UM. And he was talking

(17:31):
about I believe how the state is necessarily um exclusive.
If everybody holds power, then the state necessarily um must
be wiped out. Must he wipe to it? If not,
it's going to try to reclaim it's monopoly on power,
it's monopoly on violence. UM. It cannot exist without people

(17:56):
under it, you know. And so as you know, we
are engaging in this as we are, you know, organizing strikes,
creating networks of activists, creating assemblies, UM, creating you know,
self finance schools and social centers and cooperatives and all

(18:19):
these different forms of infrastructure that can weather and exists
under capitalism, but serve as prefigurations of all potential beyond capitalisms.

(18:43):
And so I guess the pivot um back to the
topic I was speaking of in the beginning. With regard
to infrastructure. You know, all of history books and stuf
general history books tend to speak of the government, centralized
government states souf arising also the new to build and
maintain like these big infrastructure projects. They then to use

(19:04):
example of irrigation. It's taken for granted, you know, staken
as a given that bureaucracies and such were necessary for
organizing these large populations. And while you know, the Galter
and principles may thrive in a small scale, they just
cannot scale up when populations get any bigger than like
a small band of people. But what we do know

(19:24):
is that complex rural irrigation systems and the Galter and
urban decision making systems have oc could in you know,
human history, that our answers were able to organize those
those institutions without the state, without a centralized body with
a with with with cosive, you know, authority. There's also

(19:47):
like this implicit assumption, you know, when people make these assolutions,
that societies must necessarily grow and endlessly grow, and that
we cannot choose to limit our scale in any way
to avoid centralization, to enhance eqalitarianism. You know, we can't
steal ourselves down to all manageable levels a d growth um.

(20:09):
And as you've see, that's just not true. You know,
we are capable of making those shifts. You know, large
scale projects like irrigation or or you know, supply lines
and stuff. They do require coordination, but coordination is not
synonymous with the state. Coordination is not synonymous with hierarchy. Yeah,

(20:31):
and that's something that's interest It's interesting to me the
way people, like how badly people think about that because
like even even even in terms of sort of like
mercantile is trade right, like that kind of like long
range coordination, long range like moving goods across the world
has like it's but mostly not been states doing that.

(20:56):
Like it's you know, and you can talk about like okay, whatever,
it's like it's however you sort of want to think
about the market mechanisms here, but like, yeah, like people
have been people. People have been moving stuff from one
side of the world to the other, like essentially without
the state having anything to do with it, for like
as long as there have been people exactly. I think

(21:17):
that's one of the things that frustrates me most about
the discourse about like any kind of post capitalism is
this um this purposefully. I think in a lot of
cases like malignant ly um inaccurate um attitude that like
the idea of people like exchanging goods and services is

(21:39):
fundamentally capitalist. That the idea of people like organizing that
the that like a factory right is something that has
to be has to be either organized under capitalist models
or under state socialist models as exactly as if people
haven't done it in other ways. Right, this is not theoretical.
We're not like trying to pose it like well maybe
it could work this way. It's like, no motherfucker's have

(22:01):
done this. Yeah, we have practical examples even on the capitalism. Yeah,
stuff like the mon Dragon Corporation and whatnot, Like it's
not um, it's like it's this is not like theoretical
stuff that we're talking about. I was thinking more long
lines of what happened in Argentina. Yeah. Yeah, you don't

(22:22):
even something going with food of the back as you know,
like the CNT which getting into yeah a little bit. Yeah, yeah,
like that's something. Well, I mean I think I think
part of what's happening there is it's like, yeah, like
people have run factories in other ways, and every single
time they try to do it, every other political faction
on Earth sets out, set aside all the political differences
and goes and tries to kill them, and it's like

(22:45):
this is not that's that's true. That's true. I'm also
reminded of the fact that you know parts of what happened,
and how do the assue that you know it could
in Argentina and as I could elsewhere. Um is this
concept that I think my call Albert Um talks about
a lot, this idea how they coordinator class and the
issues that arise out of that sort of coordinates a class.

(23:08):
And so I think part of that sort of organization
is going to involve confronting that, you know, we tend
to think of it in terms of, you know, the
capitalist ownership and getting rid of the capitalists, but there's
you know, a lot more play than than just just
the capitalist kind of the firm is the firm? I

(23:30):
think it's also like this sort of assumption that people
aren't capable of like taking any kind of you know.
I think there's this kind of way, the submistion that
people aren't capable of taking initiative that people aren't capable
of of, you know, um, seeing the needs around them
and organizing to fulfill them. So when people end up,

(23:52):
you know, trying to do these sculches and stuff with
anarchists like, oh, well, how are you going to do
with garbage? It's like people don't like arbage around them,
you know, which is why we have a sanitation system,
which is why we have garbage disposal systems in place.
But you know, under this system, because everything is all

(24:14):
the costs of you know, our consumption and stuff are
externalized and hidden. People don't have to think about the
ways that you know, our actions are affecting our local
um you know ecosystem. You know, we see that we
pay other countries to or at least one like I say,
a week, um, the US, the USPS, other countries. I mean,

(24:36):
we have a problem and in turn out as well,
where all of our waste um just gets dumped like
right next to them out groove And there's a community
right opposite the highway where the dump is located. And
you know they booon garbage day and it's like the
boont garbage is like a constant smell of boont coarbage
around that community. And it's of course the most improverished

(24:58):
community in the country and US. It's a whole thing. Um.
But I digress. You know, when we aren't able to
just you know, externalize the costs of you know, how
we live, communities are able to you know, notice how
to you know, who notice the problem and figure out

(25:20):
who used to handle it, you know, whether it be
um small rewards, people who volunteer to you know, deal
with trash um or you know, just there's people who
enjoy doing that as well, you know, um and the
same goes for other undesirable jobs or you know, people

(25:43):
have decided to go on like a routa and basis
and the reality is, you know, we don't have to
like define our lives around a career, so you know,
a person doesn't have to be entirely like a garbage collector.
On top of that, you know, as we scale down
the amount of all which we produce, that task would
become you know, less and less necessary. Yes, so you

(26:05):
know what waste infrastructure, people are able to take care
of that. You know, we can't externalize those sorts of issues. Um.
With food infrastructure, you know, we're able to like for example,
in in the Title Hills region of what is now Kenya,
you know, people were able to create these complex irrigation
systems that you know lasted hundreds of years before you know,

(26:26):
colonial states moved in and ended these agricultural practices. You
know the back then, you know, the households would share
the day to day mains and the uns of that
irrigation infrastructure. You know, everyone would take care of the
part of the infrastructure that was closest where they lived.
And you know, as it was commons, people enjoyed it
in common people maintained it in common people benefited in common.

(26:53):
People would also come together UM periodically for like major repairs,
and it was a form of collective, socially motivated rule
work that we see in many other you know, essentialized societies.
You know often he had UM conversations whether I often
read about you know, these different societies. And even on

(27:17):
the capitalism you have communities that you know, when someone
needs somewhere to live, the whole community gets together and
helps them build their house. And when someone else needs
somewhere to live, you know, everyone gets together and builds
their houps and so on and so forth. You know,
people already doing this in parts of the world, These
systems already in place in parts of the world, these

(27:37):
sort of reciprocal networks of of of support UM. And
I mean whether you're talking transportation or power, or communications,
or housing or food or healthcare, there's a precedent set.
You know, these precedents may have certain flaws, but we
could study them, we can learn from them, and we

(27:58):
could establish something better you know, for example, like as
we mentioned earlier in Anarchist Spain Right and Felt. During
the Spanish Civil War, Barcelona's Medical Syndicate, which is organized
largely by anarchists, managed eighteen hospitals, six of which they
had created, seventeen sanatoriums, twenty two clinics, six psychiatric established ones,

(28:21):
three nurseries, and one motility hospital. Whenever they had a request,
the syndicate would send doctors to places in need, because
medicine was considered to be in suits of the community,
not the other way around. You know. Funds of these
clinics would come from the contributions of like local municipalities,
and this syndicate UM had a health workers union that

(28:45):
included eight thousand unhealth workers during operated threety six health
centers and distributed through Catalonia and Pride Health get to
everyone in the region. And these sndicates would send delicates
you know, UM to Barcelona and they would be able
to deal with common problems and implement common plans. But

(29:08):
every department was both autonomous but also not isolated, so
they supported one another where needs to be and under
the CNT you know, we also see like lands being
taken by peasants syndicates um who would organize properties and

(29:31):
allow equal community to take care of you know, their
land and their animals and you know, their crops as
needs be. Yeah, there was something I've been the more
I've read about it, the more impressed I've been with
the way that I guess you would call it, like
the like the anarchists in Spain liked basically did a

(29:53):
universal healthcare program in one year in the middle of
a civil war, and like you know, and like I
think everything about it that that was important is it.
Like they were able to like they had this whole
program that was about like sending like sending doctoration to
the countryside to get to like into committees that have
never actually had regular access to medical care before. And

(30:16):
they're able to do this extremely quickly and had a
system the benefits of which are like enormously better than
like basically like if you can go find I'm forgetting
the exactly, but like you can go find like their
their their policy for like how much time off you

(30:38):
can get for like an injury and stuff, and it's like, yeah,
you can take you can get like six months eight
months off at like full pay. Like people like your
family will be provided for. Like they had all of
this just like incredible, like healthcare infstructure they they're able
to set up like really really fast. Yeah, because they

(31:00):
also had you know, these regional federations of different collectives
and they were able to basically you know, distributes surplus
goods and distribute as you said, health care, and you know,
basically pool infrastructure so that everybody are the pool resources

(31:22):
so that everybody was able to benefit. You know, they
often pooled resources for things where you know areas well
unevenly developed, you know, so that you know, more um
developed regions able to help other regions improve their infrastructure,
you know, build roads and canals and hospitals as this.

(31:44):
When I read about, you know, what happened in Catlonia,
I'm not saying they were perfect. They definitely had a
lot of issues. When I read what what happened there,
you know, in the midst of a civil war, um,
the possibilities that room present and what could have potentially
happened further along, um, you know, it's it's it's very inspiring. Yeah,

(32:12):
And I think it goes back to the sort of
the the point we've been we've been talking about which
is that like the capacity to provide care for people
and the capacity to do stuff like this exists in
our society, right, It's not something that has to be
just sort of just like completely manufactured from the ground up.
It's just that the capacity is not being used to

(32:35):
actually like give to benefits of people what they need.
Is like, well, okay, it's not a it's it's it's
it's less like a process of just completely reconstructing the
society and more a process of like, hey, why don't
we use the resources we already have to do the
things that are like actually useful. And people for some

(32:56):
reason think that like is being true if you don't
have a state, and it's no like the state disappearing
to every single doctor suddenly vanishes from the face of
the earth. Like, yeah, it doesn't mean every single sanitation
we certainly disappears, every single construction we because certainly disappears
every single like every everything teachers and disappears every Yeah. Yeah,

(33:20):
like I said, we're not started from like a new
minecraft food. You know, you're not to go and kill
the end of dragon and all that. But um, I
mean I guess that's a that's a good place to
wrap up, Basically, we have these possibilities, we always have,
UM and in a lot of ways, the state and

(33:40):
you know, capitalism and all these other um manifestations of
hierarchy holding us back. They're preventing us from reaching all
full creative the full unleashing of our creative potential as people. Yeah,
we should do that instead of this. Yeah, we should

(34:01):
do this instead of that, you know, rather we should
do that instead of this. Yeah. Well, Andrew, thank you
so much. Where can where can people follow you? I
believe I believe you just put out a new a
new video this week. If I'm remembering correctly, Yes, I
don't know if they will hear this episode before my

(34:23):
next video is out. Um but um. You can find
me on YouTube dot com slash andrewis um and you
can find me on Twitter at under school saying true. Awesome. Alright,
well go start a hospital. Look, it could happen years

(34:47):
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