Economic anarchism is based on a fundamental premise: a political and social revolution can not be achieved unless the laws of supply and demand that regulate markets are first modified. More and more we believe that the best way to achieve a change in the deepest structures of interpersonal relationships is through a radical change in the economic structures that govern the social models in which we live. That is, if we look for the origin of relationships, we can see that they are based on a simple and authentic interest: supply and demand, from the exchange of material goods to emotional and community relations. Politics and society, booth are built on the basis of individual exchanges that naturally seek individual well-being. So even complex constructions such as work or capital are based on a simple concept motivated by need and will: supply and demand.
The absurd idea that man can be separated from economic activities and function merely with his political and social attributes is an illusion created by current socio-economic systems, especially capitalism. Capital, as regent of global dynamics, is a delirious fallacy built by the ruling monopoly. Work, as an inherent need of the human being, is another delirium of systems that centralize power and capital. The best way to understand global dynamics is through supply and demand as dynamic motivators of human behavior. It is a simple concept of need and will. Nevertheless the authoritarian systems have been in charge of indicating to us what are our needs and what must be our will. They have been artificially created by constant, ingenious but morbid bombings of propaganda and marketing. The reality is that behind these artificial constructions underlies the need for control of the individual and his communities. Concepts such as mass, population, identity and economic strata are nothing but evil illusions that seek to fade the true unity of humanity: the individual. And yet, in the darkness of our daily lives, this simple social rule is implicit: supply is created with demand and demand with supply. And under this simple rule given all the events that touch our lives. He who moves the supply and the demand, moves the humanity; The one that manipulates the supply and the demand, manipulates the human being.
It is sad to see and accept it, but it is liberating to recognize it: current economic systems control the supply and demand of everything: hunger, war, dreams, goods. A small group of privileged has been made, based on manipulation of the natural human impulse becoming it inhuman. Political systems are designed to protect this privileged group and social systems are designed to marginalize the individual. Until we are aware of this cultural perversion, we can never be free. Governments have been overthrown, banks have disappeared, cultures annihilated but essentially an evil genius directs the destinies of humans and profits by perpetuating our ignorance.
Who has not heard the famous sentence: The truth will set you free? The problem is that truth can not be revealed as long as there is a privileged group that builds reality on false values that allow the vast majority of individuals to be subject to the will of a few, yes slaves, but worse, puppets without conscience that they are being used for the benefit of a few.
The world sells us freedom, equality, fraternity in every job that offers us, in every product that sells us, in every god that cares for us. But the reality, the sad reality, is that we are not free, nor equal, nor solidarity. On the contrary, we are increasingly excluded and alienated between and with ourselves. The fundamental premise of economic anarchism is that the most efficient way of destroying this complex apparatus of social, moral, economic, political and religious control is through the weakest link: the economic link. And it is the weakest because it is the most dynamic and because it impacts directly on our most fundamental needs.
Anyone who has read The Anarchist Banker of Fernando Pessoa will find that the anarchist logic is roughly drawn there. The reality is that to believe that an individual can attack the control apparatus from its political foundations will find a system of censorship so strong that it will erase all traces of his history. Probably annihilate him and all the people close to him. To believe that violent confrontation against governments can be a solution is, in all its forms, a contradiction that can only end in the diffusion of the individual, his annihilation and his death. The systems of control are so efficient that even religion sells to us the idea that there is an immaterial world where we are all equal, where there is true happiness and love. What human being, in its sanity, can destroy a God? What individual with sufficient intelligence can even believe that he can attack institutions as old as civilization? And yet "the opium of the peoples", as they are often called connoted communists, is perhaps the most efficient tool for controlling the individual and his communities.
No. A revolution can not start at the social or political level. None one can not force a society to live according to an ideology, even if it is the anarchism. The true anarchist knows that revolution is given by the individual first and then to society. The true anarchist knows that the best way to start a revolution is to infiltrate the weakest link in the system. And that link is the economic one. Then, we return to the premise of the beginning: only by modifying the laws of supply and demand can an authentic anarchist revolution begin. Because economics, however complex it may seem, is just that in principle: supply and demand. Of course, attacking the financial system does not mean that blood is not spilled; and much blood has poured money as religion or political beliefs. There is a high risk that the system will react violently to stop any dangerous infiltration into the economic system. And we have witnessed through history how innumerable attempts to modify economic laws end in bloody lamentable episodes. Many more failed attempts than those achieved by religious or political struggle. The difference is that as long as the anarchist values remain untouchable, light will always prevail in the dark, even a small beam of light in an obscure room.
In religious and political struggles changes can be made in form, but basically, it is always a small group that tends to control, which manipulates according to their interests the information to achieve the desired effects. It can be seen in the History of the Independence of the United States of North America, can be seen in the French Revolution. In the end libertarians become executioners and systems prevail in their control and manipulation. New actors, same system. And perhaps we could say of economic systems the same thing. Behind every system of government is an efficient control arm that expands to where it needs to expand and contains who needs to be contained. The fundamental characteristic of authoritarian systems is that they manage to control information; The flow, the dynamics, of individuals. They control them through manipulation, bribery or, ultimately, repression. Howard Zinn at the end of his book A people's history of the United States makes a very good reflection on the unconscious cooperation between that privileged group and millions of people seduced with crumbs:
“...the Establishment cannot survive without the obedience and loyalty of millions of people who are given small rewards to keep the system going: the soldiers and police, teachers and ministers, administrators and social workers, technicians and production workers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, transport and communications workers, garbage men and firemen. These people-the employed, the somewhat privileged-are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.”
A system that seems to work. Rewards that show your frivolous side when you face the relentless reality of life. And yet so many people stand without consciousness that establishment. Is it that people are inherently stupid? Is there a natural tendency of the human being to live in subjection and to be manipulated? Conversely! If something shows the History of Humanity is that the great reforms are produced by individuals. Christianity, the printing press, Lutheranism, the combustion engine, electricity, cinema, television, Internet sales, cryptocoins.
Pitifully, every time a reform is achieved immediately, there is a way to control, restrict, and manipulate. Millenniums in a struggle against control and repression. Hundreds of millions of people have sacrificed their lives for freedom, for their beliefs. And the struggle persists. And all for a principle as basic as the supply and demand: Is there a demand for religious freedom? The printing is created? Is there a demand for more efficient transport? The combustion engine is created. Every reform, every cultural, scientific, social leap in humanity obeys this need and instinctive wills. And in the end, what are these reforms but creative attempts to improve information? To coordinate communication, to spread ideas, to share thoughts, to transmit more efficiently that information previously concentrated in a few hands with all the power.
Thus, economic anarchism understands that all dynamics of change are based on supply and demand; Also that any change has a cost and that all costs are calculated based on the economic principles of risk / benefit. Economic anarchism recognizes the monetary and financial system as the weakest link in social control systems and seeks, in a coherent and congruent way, to modify the rules arbitrarily implemented by the establishment. Economic anarchism recognizes in technology and science a valuable tool to achieve the ultimate goal: a social system based on agreement between parties and without intermediaries, censors, repressors, manipulators or controllers.
*Translated from original in spanish.