> AP World Politics
>
> Despite poor image, anarchism is catching on among young
> activists disillusioned with capitalism
> Wed Jan 15, 7:56 PM ET
> By MALCOLM FOSTER, Associated Press Writer
>
> NEW YORK - Brien Gartland goes "Dumpster diving" every day
> for his food. He raids the garbage bags outside gourmet
> groceries looking for slightly bruised mangos, unopened
> containers of rice pudding and the like.
>
> Known as "Deadbolt," the bearded 21-year-old sleeps in a
> vacant building and refuses to get a job because he's
> disillusioned with capitalism and Western democracy, systems
> he believes exploit the poor and give power to the elite.
>
> Gartland is an anarchist. He views government or any
> hierarchical structure as coercive and ultimately
> undemocratic.
>
> Anarchists have drawn attention in recent years as key
> participants in sometimes violent protests at meetings of
> international organizations, such as the World Economic
> Forum, a gathering of government and business leaders that
> begins Thursday in Davos, Switzerland.
>
> The world would be a better place, Gartland and other
> anarchists argue, if everyday people were directly involved
> in making decisions through group consensus about their
> communities instead of leaving that up to elected lawmakers
> and corporate executives. That's true democracy, they say.
>
> "I don't feel like I have a say in what goes on around me.
> My vote doesn't matter," Gartland said recently at Mayday
> Books, a tiny anarchist bookstore in Manhattan's East
> Village where he volunteers.
>
> "I believe in working together with people to create a
> society that benefits everyone, not just a few."
>
> He says he tends to avoid demonstrations because he's afraid
> of getting beat up by police. Instead, he prefers to play a
> supportive role, cooking food for protesters.
>
> Gartland's lifestyle is extreme even by anarchist standards.
> Most try to strike a balance between their disdain for
> capitalism and the need to make a living.
>
> But anarchist views are spreading among young activists,
> thanks largely to the anti-globalization movement - or the
> global justice movement, as its supporters prefer to call
> it.
>
> Some anarchists have grabbed the spotlight with aggressive
> tactics - confronting police and breaking store windows -
> from the demonstrations that shut down a World Trade
> Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999 to protests in
> Quebec City, Prague and Washington. Clashes with riot police
> in Genoa, Italy, during a Group of Seven summit in 2001 left
> one protester dead, killed by police gunfire.
>
> Many anti-globalization protesters reject the anarchist
> label and condemn combative acts. Yet the protests have been
> shaped by anarchism, both in theme - a call to return power
> to the local level - and in structure - small groups
> cooperating without central authority.
>
> "Seattle was a large coming-out party for anarchists," said
> Mark Lance, a philosophy professor at Georgetown University
> and an anarchist. "Anarchism has certainly become much more
> visible through the global justice movement."
>
> It's hard to know if the number of anarchists has risen in
> America, particularly because of their disdain of structure.
> Even in Europe, where anarchism has a deeper tradition and
> is considered less odd than in the United States, they are
> well outside the mainstream.
>
> But Lance and other experts believe anarchism is more
> widespread today than at any time since the 1930s,
> surpassing its revival during the 1970s anti-nuclear
> movement.
>
> AK Press, a publisher of anarchist and other radical
> literature in Oakland, California, said its sales have risen
> about 20 percent annually the past several years.
>
> Food Not Bombs, an anarchist network that serves free
> vegetarian food, has grown to about 150 chapters across the
> United States, up from 100 a couple of years ago, said Keith
> McHenry, who helped found the group in 1980.
>
> On the academic front, more anarchists are invited to speak
> at conferences and more scholarly work about anarchism is
> published, said Cindy Milstein, a faculty member at the
> Institute of Social Ecology, a small leftist institute in
> Plainfield, Vermont.
>
> "It's OK to call yourself an anarchist now," Milstein said.
>
> Due to student demand, Lance taught a class on anarchism at
> Georgetown last term. In true anarchist fashion, there were
> no assignments - at least from the professor. Instead, the
> class of 50 used consensus, a key anarchist concept, to
> decide on readings, papers and discussion topics.
>
> "Everyone shows up having done the reading and ready to
> discuss the material," he said. "And that's not normal for a
> college class."
>
> Still, anarchists fight an uphill battle for a positive
> image.
>
> Many people equate anarchy - Greek for "no rulers" - with
> chaos. Its critics say that removing authority structures,
> particularly in this age of global terrorism, would be
> disastrous.
>
> Soviet communism also started with utopian visions of
> egalitarianism, but it led to dictatorship, noted Brink
> Lindsey, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a
> conservative think tank in Washington.
>
> Anarchism, he said, is based on a naive understanding of
> human nature and would lead to a backward, village-based
> society incompatible with the complex division of labor in
> the global economy.
>
> "The sober thinking is that this is a fantasy," Lindsey
> said.
> [Note the irony of the "free market", "libertarian" Cato
> Institute speaking up in favor of "authority
> structures".--DC]
>
> Anarchists counter that terrorism, war and poverty are a
> direct result of the inequities created by capitalism and
> political systems that give power to just a few. The whole
> system is corrupt and needs overhauling, they say.
>
> Chaos is not what they're after but a purer form of
> democracy - "direct democracy" rather than the
> representative form.
>
> "Capitalism isn't asking, 'Is it right?', but, 'Can we make
> a profit?'" said Milstein. "I get these false choices
> between Coke and Pepsi, but I don't really get to determine
> what my community is going to look like."
>
> Using a model developed by anarchists during the Spanish
> Civil War in the 1930s, today's anarchists function in
> autonomous "affinity groups."
>
> These groups interact through "spokescouncils," particularly
> leading up to and during demonstrations. Delegates - known
> as "spokes," a rotating post with no decision-making
> authority - relay information between affinity groups and
> the council. Decisions are made by the group as whole.
>
> Kate Crane, 27, was drawn to anarchism's emphasis on
> egalitarianism and community.
>
> "I want a society that's not authoritarian, where everyone's
> voice is important," said Crane, who has joined protests in
> New York and Washington. She now works as a copy writer in
> New York and volunteers with a group that promotes community
> gardens and other public spaces.
>
> Amy, a 27-year-old who declined to give her last name,
> learned about anarchism during protests at last year's World
> Economic Forum in New York and liked its emphasis on
> communal aid and group consensus.
>
> "I'm still learning about anarchism, but I like the idea
> that there are no leaders," she said.
>
> Amy helped form a mothers' group to oppose the proposed
> closure of a birthing center near her.
>
> Noam Chomsky, probably the most prominent American
> anarchist, believes the philosophy's appeal comes from the
> "discontent of people feeling they have no control over the
> decisions that concern them." He points to declining voter
> turnout over the years as evidence.
>
> Chomsky, a linguistics professor at the Massachusetts
> Institute of Technology, describes anarchists as "radical
> democrats" who constantly question the legitimacy of
> hierarchical structures.
>
> "If it doesn't meet the burden of justifying itself, it
> should be dismantled," he said.
>
> Still, very few anarchists today advocate overthrowing the
> government, Milstein and others say.
>
> That wasn't the case at the turn of the last century, when
> anarchists committed numerous violent acts, including the
> assassination of President William McKinley in 1901.
>
> Today, most anarchists say they strive to transform society
> from within, working toward a day when government will
> shrivel and disappear.
>
> "You have to build the new society in the shell of the old,"
> said Eric Laursen, 42, from New York.
> [It should be noted that this phrase dates from the
> nineteenth century.--DC]
>
> As for the window-breaking, many anarchists defend such acts
> as a way to draw attention to bigger problems. They define
> violence as harm done to people - which they disavow.
>
> Damaging the buildings of major institutions doesn't hurt
> anyone, they say. Corporations, governments and financial
> institutions are guilty of committing violence against
> humanity, they argue.
>
> Here Chomsky disagrees to some extent.
>
> "Breaking a window is violence. We all know that," he said.
> "Like any form of violence, it requires justification. You
> need to have a good reason for that act."
>
> Anarchists also wrestle with their participation in an
> economic system they oppose. Lance, the Georgetown
> professor, concedes he participates in capitalism "in a
> million ways."
>
> "I'm not crazy about that, but I have a kid to take care
> of," he says.
>
> More unusual is Gartland, who says he "eats well" on food
> from the trash and estimates he lives on about $4 a month.
>
> Unbound to any job, he spends much of his time helping out
> with a Food Not Bombs group in Manhattan and compiling a
> monthly pamphlet on free events in New York City.
>
> "I just don't want to work for something I don't believe
> in," he says.