Lifestylism is medicine. Lifestyle Anarchism, or Lifestylism, is an approach to life and politics that emphasizes how an individual or group of individuals live out their lives over the building of mass social movements. Various anarchist tendencies fall into this category including Individualism/Egoism and Anarcho-Primitivism. An ideological precursor to Lifestylism could be the Utopian Socialists of the 19th Century who left modern society to form communes in the wilderness. These Utopian Socialists also had a major influence on the Hippy Movement of the 1960s. Today, Lifestylists are generally less interested in escapist communes where they hide away from the modern world pretending Capitalism isn't ravaging the planet (though some certainly still are). Instead, most lifestylists live in cities and towns where they engage in direct action either individually or as part of an affinity group. The sorts of actions these groups engage in range greatly, from volunteering at their local Food Not Bombs, participation in protests, to vandalism, to clandestine acts of sabotage and property destruction. The ideology of the Lifestylist can usually be summed up with this phrase: "We must act as if we are already free." This is a powerful sentiment, one that has helped revive the anarchist movement from near death, but like any medicine, too high of a dose may result in the demise of the movement.
A Brief and Incomplete History of Early Anarchism in the So-Called United States
In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, Anarchism (particularly the Anarcho-Communist and Syndicalist tendencies) was one of, if not the largest anti-capitalist movements in the world. The so-called United States was home to some of the most influential anarchists in history, including Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Lucy Parsons, the latter of which was one of the founding members of the radical labor union The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Like elsewhere in the world, many Anarchists in the so-called U.S. embraced an ideology and tactic known as Propaganda of the Deed, which boils down to the idea that when one takes direct action it will act as propaganda for the masses and inspire them to rise up and take part in the Social Revolution as well. Some took this ideology to the extreme and carried out bombings and assassinations of capitalists and politicians, such as Alexander Berkman's attempted assassination of industrialist Henry Frick in 1892 and the assassination of U.S. President William McKinley by Leon Czolgosz in 1901. These acts failed to have the desired effect; there was no Social Revolution - not even close - and the only result was the alienation of the masses from the Anarchist movement and the imprisonment and execution of the revolutionaries who carried out these acts. Thus, as Berkman himself later concluded, this is not a sustainable or effective method for achieving the end goals of the Anarchist movement.
Aside from these individual acts of direct action, Anarchists were a major force in the labor movement. The struggle for the emancipation of the Working Class has been a bloody one. There are countless examples throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries of full-on gun battles between strikers and Pinkertons, the Police, and the National Guard. Yet this did not deter the masses, in fact, the labor movement was only growing stronger with thousands of strikes occurring yearly across the so-called United States.
After Russian Socialists, including Anarchists, successfully overthrew the Tsar, The U.S. government realized they had a problem on their hands, a genuine threat to their power. From 1917 to 1920, the U.S. government kicked off the first Red Scare led by the Bureau of Investigation, the precursor to the FBI which was formed in part in response to the assassination of William McKinley. Using the Espionage Act of 1917, countless Anarchists and other Socialists were arrested; those who were immigrants, like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were deported to their home countries. Labor Unions were aggressively repressed, particularly the IWW who had their union halls raided and 165 members arrested. Among the arrested was Socialist and IWW co-founder Big Bill Haywood, who fled to the Soviet Union after being sentenced to 20 years in prison. The Socialist Eugene Debs, another co-founder of the IWW, was sentenced to 10 years for speaking out against US involvement in World War I. In 1919, in response to the wave of anti-Anarchist state repression, a group of Insurrectionary Anarchists known as the Galleanisti carried out a series of bombings against politicians, businessmen, and others. In response, the U.S. government carried out a series of raids on Anarchists and other Socialists during which 10,000 people were arrested and hundreds were deported.
Neither the Anarchist movement nor the State Communist movement has ever fully recovered from the repression faced during the first Red Scare. As the Soviet Union increased its global influence, the State Communist movement began to pick up traction again throughout the 30s and 40s but was struck again with a second Red Scare in the 40s and 50s led by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy.
From the 1960s into the 21st Century: The Gradual Rebirth of the Anarchist Movement and the Introduction of Lifestylism
The 1960s saw a new wave of political activity across the Left, from the Anti-War Movement to the Black Power Movement as well as the push for the legalization of Marijuana. Many of the people and groups involved with these movements, such as the Black Panther Party, subscribed to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist tendency of State Communism. The Anarchists can be seen represented in groups like the Yippies and Up Against the Wall Motherfucker (The Motherfuckers), both formed in 1967. The tactics of these groups were largely theatrical and non-violent pranks and included things such as fake assassinations, pie-throwing, sit-ins (and "smoke-ins"), street protests, vandalism, and cutting the fences at Woodstock. Even these relatively small-scale activities garnered state repression, with multiple members of the Yippies being subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1967 for their participation in the protests against the Democratic National Convention (DNC). Several members were included in the Chicago Seven who were charged with conspiracy for the riots that occurred during the DNC.
Anarchism also played a major role in the Queer Liberation and Second-Wave Feminist Movements in the 60s-80s with groups like the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), and countless others embracing anarchist tactics of direct action. Anarcha-feminists created affinity groups, sometimes with men, other times only with women. In 1982, an affinity group simply called Direct Action carried out a series of bombings in so-called Canada against video stores that were known to sell snuff and child pornography.
The 1970s saw the birth of Punk Rock which was a major catalyst for the re-popularization of Anarchism. While initially being nothing more than a contrarian aesthetic (bands like the Sex Pistols sang songs like Anarchy in the UK while wearing shirts bearing Swastikas), many people and bands in the scene (like Crass and MDC) began seriously interacting with and promoting serious anarchist ideas and concepts. Punks advocated dropping out and living outside the system by squatting, panhandling, and stealing to survive.
In the 1980s, the anti-fascist, predominantly anarchist network of affinity groups Anti-Racist Action was born out of the punk, hardcore, and skinhead scenes to combat a growing neo-nazi skinhead movement. This would later evolve into the modern-day Antifa movement in the so-called US.
In the 1990s, Anarcho-Primitivism, which calls for a return to nature and the destruction of industrial society, and other radical environmentalist tendencies began to rise to prominence. Developed by thinkers like John Zerzan and promoted by hardcore bands like Earth Crisis, and groups like Earth First!, The Animal Liberation Front (ALF), and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) began to push back against the Capitalist and Statist forces that were (and still are) destroying the Earth. Earth First! organized such actions as the Warner Creek Blockade from 1994-1995 which successfully halted logging of old-growth forests in the region. In 1996 and over the next five years, ELF began a series of bombings and arsons against various targets that they identified as perpetrators of the destruction of the Earth. In 2006 13 members were indicted on 65 charges for these attacks after former ELF member and snitch Jake Ferguson gave information to the FBI.
On November 30th, 1999, the World Trade Organization (WTO) held its four-day Ministerial Conference in so-called Seattle, Washington. Around 40,000 people took to the streets to protest Globalization and Capitalism. The protest was made up of a large diversity of people and groups, including labor unions, environmentalists, students, and Anarchists. Throughout the four days, people took to the streets, during which anarchists engaged in direct action tactics including property destruction, blockade building, and battles with police. By the end of what was later dubbed the Battle of Seattle, $20 million worth of damage had been done. It may still not be what it was in its heyday, but it was clear that Anarchism was back.
The Last 20 Years and the Need for Something More
Since the Battle of Seattle, we've seen many movements spring up that are either explicitly Anarchist or have been informed by Anarchist practices. From Occupy Wall Street, to both waves of Black Lives Matter uprisings, to the modern Antifa movement, to the fight against the Genocide in Palestine, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to fight back against these systems of domination, but after all this, what do we have to show for it? Are we any closer to achieving our goal? Have we lost sight of our goal entirely?
Historically, the goal of Anarchists has been to overthrow the State and Capitalism to create a stateless, classless, moneyless society. Call it Communism, call it Anarchy, call it Libertarian Socialism, call it whatever you want; that has always been the goal for most of history, that is until the prevalence of Lifestylism. Lifestylism is powerful. It is liberating to a degree. It tells you that you can do what you want here and now, all you have to do is go do it. And that is almost true.
We have the power to take action with our own hands. We have the power to deal heavy blows to the status quo, I have seen it and history has shown us so. But what happens after the blow is struck? What's left when the bastards have been forced out? Lifestylism says we should revolt for the sake of it, because fuck those bastards for what they do, and because it's fun. And while all of that is true, it's not enough. It can't be enough. The result of this line of thinking is the ever-pushing back on a line that is ever-intruding upon our freedom. It's a losing fight.
When the smoke clears, we go home and wait for the next opportunity to revolt all the while the domination of the State and Capitalists continues. The Earth continues to be ravaged, countless peoples are eviscerated by war and poverty, the prisons continue to swell, and every day we sell our lives to Capitalists who bleed us until our bodies are weak and brittle from age and a life of exploitation. And the conditions under which all this occurs will continue to degrade. Our cities will flood. People from across the world will flee from the conditions they face which are even worse than ours. Politicians will blame everything on those people, and the stupid and afraid will strike out at the immigrants instead of their real enemies. We will do our best to defend them and stand with them as we have, but it will only get worse from here. Unless we do something about it.
I'm not talking about a night of revolt. I'm talking about revolutionizing the way we live our lives. Lifestylism has been great for encouraging revolt thus far, but we are reaching the limits of the power of that idea. Revolt created the Occupy Encampments, it created the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. But those spaces were without resources and were easily crushed by the State. Without bread, without housing, without Social Revolution, we are nothing more than "Egalitarians with empty hands." Without resources and infrastructure autonomous zones are nothing more than hippy communes with massive vulnerabilities where people scramble to put together some way for people to live all while facing immediate threats from the state. This is why we need to start building the Revolution here and now. We can't wait and do it in the midst of or after a revolt. Revolts create power vacuums and if we don't have Anarchist power structures ready to go, our enemies will come right back in and reassume their previous positions, brutalizing people along the way. Then we're back at square one.
We live in the heart of the Empire, of the Western Capitalist Superstructure. So long as the United States of America exists, the Empire will flourish. If we feel any sense of responsibility for our fellow human beings, for animals, for the planet, then we can't forget the end goal. We can't succumb to Nihilist notions that Social Revolution is impossible. If we decide that Social Revolution is impossible then we make it so. We must reject that, because without Social Revolution we are doomed, and no amount of self-helpist Lifestylism will fix that.
The Alternative to Lifestylism: Social Anarchism
To achieve a Social Revolution, we need more than loosely connected networks of affinity groups. We need a mass movement, one that has won the hearts of the greater population, or at least has garnered their sympathy. As Anarchists, we reject the vanguard model of "leading" the people to revolution. History has shown that when those movements are successful, they only ever succeed in replicating the systems they promised to destroy. That is the nature of hierarchy, it is a class distinguisher, and with class comes class-based incentives. I'll go back to the old adage: the Working Class must liberate themselves. If a piece of the Working Class breaks off to lead them, they are no longer a member of the Working Class.
To build this mass movement, we need more than bands of militants. We need Power: Economic, Political, and, yes, Military.
We need to build Economic Power. Many cities across the so-called US already have the seeds of this power planted (Food Not Bombs, mutual aid organizations, worker and housing co-ops, etc), but we still need to water and tend to it so that it can grow into something that is sustainable outside of the small affinity groups that came together to start it. In cities where these projects are already happening, they should federate with each other in order to better collaborate and plan this alternative economy. This will also make it even more apparent what needs aren't being met by the existing Anarchist infrastructure. Say you have a federation of food distros and community gardens, but people in your community are still working awful, low-paying jobs, or the housing conditions are awful, or many people don't have housing at all. Anarchists should work to fulfill those needs and federate those projects with the larger economic federation. Funds from the other projects can even go towards building these new projects. From there, the projects can be expanded to include more and more people within a community until the landlords, grocery stores, and bosses are forced to compete with our new alternative Economic system.
We need to build Political Power, but not power within existing political institutions. We need to create our own decision-making bodies that operate using direct democracy. Decisions should be made at the most local level possible by those who are affected by the decision. For larger decisions, that affect more people than are possible to effectively make decisions, communities should federate with one another, selecting delegates to communicate the positions of each community. These delegates, far from decision-makers, will discuss the positions with each other before returning to their communities to communicate the result of the discussion. The communities will either make a decision based on the result of the meeting or will call for another meeting of delegates. This continues until a decision is made that works for everyone involved. Delegation would be a temporary position, rather than an office held by a politician. These decision-making bodies could be formed around the economic system as it becomes more and more ingrained within various communities.
We need Military Power. With the growth of the Economic and Political Power Structures, the eyes of the State and Capitalists will be drawn towards the movement. We need the power to defend what we've built, and in the case of an uprising where an autonomous zone has been created, the ability to expand that power into the vacuum. Federations of militias should be formed, which should themselves be federated into the decision-making apparatus. They should be structured similarly to the decision-making bodies, with each militia being autonomous but connected through federation and delegation. They should be made up of militants and intelligence operatives. If necessary, generals can be elected, but the position should be temporary and re-callable at any time. It is crucial that these militias are directly connected and answerable to the decision-making apparatus, otherwise they risk becoming a vanguard.
As we build this infrastructure, it's likely that opportunities for revolt will arise. We must continue to participate in them and strive to influence them, but not lead them. The Social Movement must have a life of its own, however, through our participation and influence we can push them in a direction so that they can operate on Anarchist principles even if they don't call themselves Anarchists. The more we make Anarchist practice an integral part of society, the more likely a Social Revolution will be, and when the next uprising breaks out, we will be ready and so will our communities.
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