Resilience

Published on Resilience
The Democracy Project
By Dave Pollard

my sketch of the camps of political and philosophical movements of the 21st

century; elaborated on here
David Graeber, who was actively involved in the early days of Occupy Wall
Street and continues to work to advance its principles, starts his new book The
Democracy Project with a fascinating (if long) personal history of how OWS
found its legs and what it had to deal with (notably the brutal suppression of

November 2011 when the governments of the day decided to shut down the
protest through a sustained, globally coordinated and ruthless operation, and
the disgraceful behaviour of the media covering the movement, and then
abruptly not covering it at all).
He sees OWS and its sister movements in Europe and the Mideast as
important experiments in rediscovering the potential of a real democracy, and
a society which retains real freedoms, even at a cost. To explain both the
meaning and value of that, he presents a history of both democracy and
anarchism that are starkly different from the histories we are taught in school.
Democracy, he explains, was initially a derogatory term used interchangeably
with the term anarchy by the ruling educated elites in most non-egalitarian,
hierarchical, class-defined nations:
Jackson was running as a populistonce again, against the central banking
system, which he did temporarily manage to dismantle. As Dupuis-Dri
observes, Jackson and his allies were well aware that their use of democracy
was akin to what would today be called political marketing; it was basically a
cynical ploy, but it was wildly successfulso much so that within ten years
time all candidates of all political parties were referring to themselves as
democrats. Since the same thing happened everywhereFrance, England,
Canadawhere the franchise was widened sufficiently that masses of
ordinary citizens were allowed to vote, the result was that the term
democracy itself changed as wellso that the elaborate republican system
that the Founders had created with the express purpose of containing the
dangers of democracy, itself was relabeled democracy, which is how we
continue to use the term today.
What is democracy, in its essence? David defines it this way:
Democracy was not invented in ancient Greece. Granted, the word
democracy was invented in ancient Greecebut largely by people who
didnt like the thing itself very much. Democracy was never really invented
at all. Neither does it emerge from any particular intellectual tradition. Its not
even really a mode of government. In its essence it is just the belief that
humans are fundamentally equal and ought to be allowed to manage their
collective affairs in an egalitarian fashion, using whatever means appear
most conducive. That, and the hard work of bringing arrangements based on
those principles into being.

Consensus, rather than voting, has always, he says, been the preferred means
of group decision-making in decentralized, non-militarized societies:
Even if people throughout history have always known how to count, there are
good reasons why counting has often been avoided as a means of reaching
group decisions. Voting is divisive. If a community lacks means to compel its
members to obey a collective decision, then probably the stupidest thing one
could do is to stage a series of public contests in which one side will,
necessarily, be seen to lose; this would not only allow decisions that as many
as 49 percent of the community strongly oppose, it would also maximize the
possibility of hard feelings among that part of the community one most needs
to convince to go along despite their opposition. A process of consensus
finding, of mutual accommodation and compromise to reach a collective
decision everyone at least does not find strongly objectionable, is far more
suited to [a true democracy, i.e. to] situations where those who have to carry
out a decision lack the sort of centralized bureaucracy, and particularly, the
means of systematic coercion, that would be required to force an angry
minority to comply with decisions they found stupid, obnoxious, or unfair.
Over the past two centuries, while the term democracy, in its distorted
current sense of voting for one or another slate of elite leaders, rather than as
defined above, has developed a positive connotation, anarchy has developed
a negative one, for reasons that suit those with power. David explains:
In 1550, or even 1750, when both words were still terms of abuse, detractors
often used democracy interchangeably with anarchy, or democrat with
anarchist. In each case, some radicals eventually began using the term,
defiantly, to describe themselves. But while democracy gradually became
something everyone felt they had to support (even as no one agreed on what
precisely it was), anarchy took the opposite path, becoming for most a
synonym for violent disorder.
What then is anarchism? David defines it this way:
Actually the term means simply without rulers. The easiest way to explain
anarchism is to say that it is a political movement that aims to bring
about a genuinely free societyand that defines a free society as one
where humans only enter those kinds of relations with one another that
would not have to be enforced by the constant threat of violence. History
has shown that vast inequalities of wealth, institutions like slavery, debt
peonage, or wage labor, can only exist if backed up by armies, prisons, and

police. Even deeper structural inequalities like racism and sexism are
ultimately based on the (more subtle and insidious) threat of force. Anarchists
thus envision a world based on equality and solidarity, in which human beings
would be free to associate with one another to pursue an endless variety of
visions, projects, and conceptions of what they find valuable in life.

image from Justin Bales OWS archive

Far from being the philosophy of crazed bomb-throwers set on terrifying and
unsettling the populace, anarchism has a long pacifist tradition, one whose
greatest challenge is not a lack of purpose, but an almost dreamy idealism that
many would probably think impossible to achieve in the real world. David
asserts:
[In Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries] anarchists insisted that it wasnt just
that the ends do not justify the means (though the ends do not, of course,
justify the means) but that you will never achieve the ends at all unless the
means are themselves a model for the world you wish to create.
David is pragmatic about how this convergence of real (direct, egalitarian,
non-hierarchical) democracy and true (with complete freedom of action and
freedom from violence and coercion) anarchism might be achieved. He seems
to suggest we should just start; disconnect from the dysfunctional political and
economic systems that current oppress us and try living together in ways

consistent with democratic and anarchist principles (which are, in fact, totally
aligned):
Its hard to figure out exactly what kind of anarchism makes the most sense
when so many questions can only be answered further down the road. Would
there be a role for markets in a truly free society? How could we know? I
myself am confident, based on history, that even if we did try to maintain a
market economy in such a free societythat is, one in which there would be
no state to enforce contracts, so that agreements came to be based only on
trusteconomic relations would rapidly morph into something libertarians
would find completely unrecognizable, and would soon not resemble anything
we are used to thinking of as a market at all. I certainly cant imagine
anyone agreeing to work for wages if they have any other options. But who
knows, maybe Im wrong. I am less interested in working out what the
detailed architecture of what a free society would be like than in creating
the conditions that would enable us to find out.
To my colleagues doing the difficult and important work of being facilitators
in a world used to right by might, David would suggest that it is you who are
leading the anarchist charge, you who hold the key to helping citizens find a
better way to live:
What has now come to be called Anarchist Processall those elaborate
techniques of facilitation and consensus finding, the hand signals and the like
emerged from radical feminism, Quakerism, and even Native American
traditions Consensus is not just a set of techniques. When we talk about
process, what were really talking about is the gradual creation of a culture of
democracy Consensus is an attempt to create a politics founded on the
principle of reasonablenessone that, as feminist philosopher Deborah
Heikes has pointed out, requires not only logical consistency, but a measure
of good judgment, self-criticism, a capacity for social interaction, and a
willingness to give and consider reasons. Genuine deliberation, in short. As a
facilitation trainer would likely put it, it requires the ability to listen well
enough to understand perspectives that are fundamentally different from ones
own, and then try to find pragmatic common ground without attempting to
convert ones interlocutors completely to ones own perspective. It means
viewing democracy as common problem solving among those who respect
the fact they will always have, like all humans, somewhat incommensurable
points of view.

David then goes on to provide some of the techniques he believes could be

instrumental in The Democracy Project working to institute a true
democratic and anarchic society. They include
(i) learning, practicing and instituting principles of consensus (in
various forms, pragmatically) in all group deliberations, problemsolving and decision-making;
(ii) direct action, civil disobedience and camping/occupying initiatives
(creating in the process communities of caring) striving to achieve
solidarity and freedoms, and to achieve a more just and egalitarian
distribution of wealth, income and power; that includes respecting but
not liaising or cooperating in any way with police and other authorities,
applying improvisation and creativity to keep the forces of power offguard, and, like the Zapatistas, using precisely [and only] as much
outright violence as [required] in order to put [our]selves in a position
not to have to use violence anymore; and
(iii) creating liberated spaces and institutions within those spaces that
demonstrate the viability of alternative democratic/anarchic models of
living and self-governance and which reflect the dysfunction and
illegitimacy of the current undemocratic and oppressive systems.
In the concluding chapter, some of which was recently posted online as A
Practical Utopians Guide to the Coming Collapse, he talks about how much
of the political and military policy in the US since Vietnam has been about
minimizing dissent among the domestic population, and how policies like the
use of drones (with huge collateral damages but minimal harm to redblooded Americans) directly stem from that. He asks What happens when the
creation of [a] sense of failure, of the complete ineffectiveness of political
action against the system, becomes the chief objective of those in power?
He goes on:
The politicians, CEOs, trade bureaucrats, and so forth who regularly meet at
summits like Davos or the G20 may have done a miserable job in creating a
world capitalist economy that meets the needs of a majority of the worlds
inhabitants (let alone produces hope, happiness, security, or meaning), but
they have succeeded magnificently in convincing the world that capitalism
and not just capitalism, but exactly the financialized, semifeudal capitalism we

happen to have right nowis the only viable economic system. If you think
about it, this is a remarkable accomplishment.
How did they pull it off? The preemptive attitude toward social movements is
clearly a part of it; under no conditions can alternatives, or anyone
proposing alternatives, be seen to experience success. This helps explain
the almost unimaginable investment in security systems of one sort or
another: the fact that the United States, which lacks any major rival, spends
more on its military and intelligence than it did during the Cold War, along
with the almost dazzling accumulation of private security agencies,
intelligence agencies, militarized police, guards, and mercenaries. Then there
are the propaganda organs, including a massive media industry that did not
even exist before the sixties, celebrating police. Mostly these systems do not
so much attack dissidents directly as contribute to a pervasive climate of fear,
jingoistic conformity, life insecurity, and simple despair that makes any
thought of changing the world seem an idle fantasy. Yet these security systems
are also extremely expensive. Some economists estimate that a quarter of the
American population is now engaged in guard labor of one sort or another
defending property, supervising work, or otherwise keeping their fellow
Americans in line.
To exploit this, he says, strategies for The Democracy Project might include
persuading the corporatists that a general debt amnesty would be an excellent
release valve for growing citizen anger over inequality. It would bankrupt Wall
Street, and devastate some (mostly financial) sectors of the stock market, but it
would give citizens back a modicum of control over their lives, and enable
them to contribute again to the rest of the economy, and also rein in the
catastrophic growth (and the need for it) that is desolating our planet. He
writes:
Even those running the system are reluctantly beginning to conclude that some
kind of mass debt cancellationsome kind of jubileeis inevitable. The real
political struggle is going to be over the form that it takes. Well, isnt the
obvious thing to address both problems simultaneously? Why not a planetary
debt cancellation, as broad as practically possible, followed by a mass
reduction in working hours: a four-hour day, perhaps, or a guaranteed fivemonth vacation? This might not only save the planet but also (since its not
like everyone would just be sitting around in their newfound hours of
freedom) begin to change our basic conceptions of what value-creating labor
might actually be.

Occupy was surely right not to make demands, but if I were to have to
formulate one, that would be it. After all, this would be an attack on the
dominant ideology at its very strongest points. The morality of debt and the
morality of work are the most powerful ideological weapons in the hands of
those running the current system. Thats why they cling to them even as they
are effectively destroying everything else. Its also why debt cancellation
would make the perfect revolutionary demand [It would] bring home
that money is really just a human product, a set of promises, that by its
nature can always be renegotiated
[And] I think any levelheaded assessment of the world situation would have to
conclude that whats really needed is not more work, but less. And this is true
even if we dont take into account ecological concernsthat is, the fact that
the current pace of the global work machine is rapidly rendering the planet
uninhabitable Its not a question of building an entirely new society whole
cloth. Its a question of building on what we are already doing, expanding the
zones of freedom, until freedom becomes the ultimate organizing principle. I
actually dont think the technical aspects of coming up with how to produce
and distribute manufactured objects is likely to be the great problem, though
we are constantly told to believe its the only problem.
David is skeptical of the value of complicated designs for an alternative
economy and society, arguing that this isnt how change happens. He says I
am less interested in deciding what sort of economic system we should have in
a free society than in creating the means by which people can make such
decisions for themselves. This is why I spent so much of this book talking
about democratic decision making. And the very experience of taking part in
such new forms of decision making encourages one to look on the world with
new eyes.
When I predicted the failure of OWS, it was not because I believed there is no
alternative to the economic and political systems we have now. I expected that
the powers of the day would not tolerate any threatening dissent for a
prolonged period, and would use the newly militarized police and media to
smash the movement. And I expected it to fail as well because of the endemic
poverty of imagination of our dumbed-down citizens, who have been schooled
and propagandized from birth to believe there are only variations of the one
way to live. Too many in OWS just wanted their fair share of the wealth and
power of the 1%, a redistribution of resources of the unsustainable, massively
destructive and dehumanizing society we have created, a rearrangement of the

deck chairs on the Titanic. Too many believed that things really werent that
bad, and that in any case nothing could be done to make it measurably better.
Its great to read about someone, still active in the movement, with the
knowledge, intelligence and imagination to see not only a better way to live
that is radically different, but a means to overthrow (with minimal violence)
the existing power structure in order to institute it.
I have written often on these pages that everything I know leads me to believe
we are too late to prevent or even mitigate the collapse of civilization culture,
and that we will be wracked in the coming decades by a cascading series of
energy, economic and ecological crises. I have personally given up aspiring to
be a radical activist, because I believe it would be too little too late, and that
thanks to the Jevons Paradox anything I was able to accomplish would almost
surely be offset or undone by positive feedback loops committed to the insane
perpetuation of the existing systems for a while longer. And because I am
afraid of pain and imprisonment.
But I am still a cheerleader for Occupy (camp F in the map above), still active
in the Transition movement (camp G), still a supporter of Deep Green
Resistance (camp H), especially against the Tar Sands, factory farming and
other ecological and humanitarian corporatist atrocities, and still a believer in
Communitarianism (camp I). All these movements embrace the only forms of
action that still make sense:
learning how to live together in community,
learning the essential capacities of resilience that will make us better
able to cope with collapse,
fighting back against the worst injustices of the global corporatist cabal,
and
creating models of a better way to live that just might be useful to the
survivors of collapse, our descendants, as they work to create what will
be almost unrecognizably different, relocalized post-collapse cultures.
David Graebers vision draws on elements of all four camps, and his call for
mass debt cancellation and the reinvention of work (to be meaningful, selfdetermined, sustainable and responsible), is just whats needed to yank us out

of our state of exhausted resignation and stir the idealist in us. Time for those
of us who got our first real taste, our first sense of the possibility of real
democracy and real freedom in the streets and parks and places we Occupied,
to come together again.