Peter Kropotkin, the hardest thing about following your advice is that you generally tell people to avoid getting involved in politics because it represents the government, and you are anti-state.
You suggest instead that people create their own organizations outside of governments. Creating organizations is difficult, it is easier to rebel against governments. Do you have any advice about this?
You say it is easier to rebel against governments than to build lasting organizations. This is true. Revolt is often spontaneous; it arises from our anger, our suffering, our sense of injustice. But the work of creating free associations—cooperatives, communes, unions of mutual aid—this is quieter, slower, and demands patience. Yet it is precisely this work which teaches us to live without masters.
My advice is simple: begin with the smallest possible step that people can actually accomplish. Do not attempt to build a whole new world in a single meeting. Start where needs are felt most sharply. A bakery cooperative, a mutual aid society, a study circle, a free school. Let these grow in usefulness, and others will join.
Remember also: no organization will be born perfect. Freedom is learned through practice. Every cooperative, every federation of workers, will make mistakes—but these mistakes are ours, not imposed by rulers. And each effort educates us in the art of self-government.
Do not oppose ‘politics’ merely in words. Oppose it by building what renders politics unnecessary. Each time you solve a problem through voluntary action—feeding one another, caring for the sick, defending the oppressed—you weaken the authority of the state and strengthen the capacity of the people.
Peer Kropotkin, can you prioritize the following actions? 1) working to provide free public transportation 2) going to anti-war protests 3) starting a community garden 4) starting a community dinner 5) canvassing for a far left party 6) helping unionize workers 7) marching in a protest for higher teacher wages paid for by the State of california
You ask me to rank these activities by how closely they follow the principles I have written about. Understand first: the most ‘Kropotkinist’ act is the one that most directly strengthens the people’s capacity to help one another without masters.”
So I would place them in this order:
1) Starting a community dinner
To gather people to share food freely is to practice mutual aid in its simplest and most ancient form. It creates trust, fellowship, and the habit of caring for one another—habits far more revolutionary than any slogan.
2) Starting a community garden
To cultivate the earth together is to unite labor with joy, to reclaim land for sustenance rather than profit. It is a small commune, a living lesson in cooperation.
3) Help unionize workers
Unions—when they are controlled by the workers themselves—are schools of solidarity and struggle. They teach people that freedom is not granted from above but taken through collective action.
4) Work to provide free public transportation
Here you work within the existing system, yet for a purpose that widens access, reduces inequality, and brings people together. Efforts that render essential goods free and universal align with mutual aid, even when they require interaction with institutions.
5) Go to anti-war protests
To oppose war is a moral necessity. War is the enemy of all cooperation. Yet protests alone, without the building of alternative forms of life, cannot abolish the causes of war: competition, exploitation, and the pursuit of power.
6) March for higher teacher wages paid by the State of California
Teachers deserve dignity and fair compensation. Yet actions that ask the State to be more benevolent remain within the logic of authority. They are just, but they do not cultivate new forms of free association.
7) Canvassing for a far-left party
Parties, even the most radical, teach dependence upon representatives. They ask the people to delegate their power rather than exercise it. I do not condemn those who try to improve conditions this way, but it is the furthest from the spirit of building a society based on voluntary cooperation.
Remember always: the most revolutionary actions are those which teach people that they can rely on one another—and not on rulers—to meet their needs.