#notes Earlier essays by Arjuna Rubbo-Ferraro were published at <em>Republic Standard.</em> The author no longer agrees with the views he's expressed on the magazine, with this being his first anarchist essay properly published. He's written at length on his support for anarchism and socialism, not just submitted pieces, unlike this one. A former fascist, his transition to libertarain socialism came about when he began compromising with himself, making right-wing arguments for left-wing political positions, until he discarded fascism and the Alternative Right altogether, and began seekign interest in literature and community dialogue within circles of the New Left.

The machine has a deliberate tendency to lie, to fabricate to its subjects the nature of their surrounding environment. Take the United States for example, a highly authoritarian dictatorship which guarantees its people not basic human necessities, but instead takes the small quantities of money they receive from their slave masters and places it toward acts of imperialism, bombing and burning down countries it deems too dangerous. The United States displays itself, often through the help of the masses indoctrinated into believing it holds apparent freedom, that it’s democratic, liberated, and treats every class and demographic inhabiting its geographical outlines with respect and dignity. Out of any industrialised and developed modern nation, the United States has taken the least responsibility to ensure world peace, and has instead placed everything toward victimising itself as much as possible while simultaneously ruining the lives of as many people it can across the third world.

In order to figure out why so many have been fooled into believing America is a democracy, or what America has, alike other countries, can be considered a democracy, we have to look into what its legal framework stands as. It stands as a representative democracy, one where voters elect a candidate they think is the least terrible and pray they don’t worsen the country, as its current state, financially and lawfully, is undoubtedly the worst out of any first world state. The candidate, when elected, may either commit to one or the other.

One: Do quite literally nothing.

Or, the another: Make their country even worse.

It goes to show, that since the vast majority of America’s general population are against major atrocities committed by the American government, and are also in support of socialised healthcare, their beliefs aren’t the slightest effective in regards to decision making. That is entirely conducted within the state, and anything outside the state is classified irrelevant. In fact, it can occasionally be considered dangerous and harmful if protests are to ever break out, or a particular well-known individual - usually a retired politician or political activist - voices their disdain for the state’s handling of international, foreign affairs. These people are assassinated by the US government, that is, secretly. The state wouldn’t ever think of outwardly admitting to these crimes, even illegal under their own laws and first amendment of their constitution. America lacks honestly, so does the majority of the planet.

The public aren’t participating in democracy, because no democracy actually exists. It’s actually a lack of democracy that has permitted most of the world to be in the state it’s in. My earlier beliefs regarding democracy, when I was a bit younger, came out of frustration for this half-baked, milk toast watering down of what democracy looks like, not real democracy. For some time now, I’ve been cooking up ways the Western world could improve its economy, its legal system, and the way matters are handled within a select territory, and the government of such a territory operating overseas. For them, the politicians, it’s not just enough to ruin their own state, but to bring such misery to countries already undergoing economic crises, decreasing quality of life in these helpless nations to bring about their own iron fist of justice. Immoral, corrupt, it’s not unusual for a government to be. After all, the state exists to protect private property and silence protesting of cruelty, to crush any opposition that seeks to address the burdens of capitalism and its horrid campaign to spread poverty. Without this cause, a state likely wouldn’t exist. Sure, the Republic of Cuba exists, and exists today, but a large part of that is in organisation to resist US imperialism. Not as though that justifies a government, or that the community couldn’t take care of foreign affairs, but that’s the reason a state in Cuba exists when the ruling party have devoted themselves to what they view as stateless communism. They want the workers to control the means of production, not the state. It’s a contradiction when examining their current economic structure, still a hierarchy between state power and ordinary proletarian power. Nonetheless, that’s the case of Cuba’s excuse for a state.

What true democracy would look like wouldn’t even be on the same level as direct democracy, or the commonly described variants philosophers and sociologists recommend, instead participatory democracy. I’ve been thinking of something very similar to it for a long time now, just didn’t know there was a term for it up until recently. The fact representative democracy has been chosen to represent a large portion of the world is saddening when pondering how good we could’ve all had it.

When deciding upon changing a policy, or creating a new one, participates are gathered and are selected to debate, converse, and reach an understanding from talking with one another on the issues they deem important, not just to themselves, but to humanity as a whole. And through this system of simply speaking - crazy, I know - a conclusion will be produced. This may either be in favour of a policy, against it, a compromise, or an alternative. Based upon what one believes, they can separate into a commune of their choice which has already implemented their desired rules, or to form their own commune, a new space of people, to go through with the change they believe is right. This way, people will simply move to the location which has their ideal lifestyle and social components, may this be in the form of authority, economics, demographics, or languages, instead of having to change anyone else’s. This way, a commune is created for each different ideological group of people, or paired individuals who are willing to compromise on their beliefs to reach a better-suited middle ground.

Participatory democracy, in where it differs from representative democracy, arrives down to putting power in the hands of the people, not the individuals the people vote for. Simply, a group of people come together to debate the important issues facing their time period, and reach a conclusion that works best for everyone, or these people separate into independent communes with the rules they desire present there. Each commune will be formed of anywhere between two to one hundred and fifty individuals, operating cooperatively in a non-hierarchical framework. The workers will be self-managing, the same as the economy, and no bourgeoisie, capitalist, ruling class will exist. Rent won’t exist, as housing and general shelter will be entirely a public matter, a roof over everyone’s head provided to the community by the community, as opposed to private owners or the state. Essentially, the less hierarchy exists within a territory, the freer and happier that territory is.

Now, we arrive at the tricky, complicated moral question that uplifts the breeding force of fascism. That is, is it immoral to prevent self-harm? Individuals who commit self-harm, whether intended or not to bring misery to their own lives, should be granted every right to. See, the argument is that the end result, being a negative one, inevitably brings the world more misery than it does good, thus certain activities should thereby be prohibited. If one wishes to inflict damage upon themselves through consumption or injection of life-ruining drugs, that’s their choice. Understand, if individuals decide to walk down these paths, prohibiting certain activities and choices isn’t going to stop this, it’s only going to ignite a rebellious culture - as we very much witness today - of people intentionally going out of their way to disobey the laws put in place. Fascist laws. We seek to move away from this by getting these individuals proper help. This is called rehabilitation. The problem is, capitalism manages to mess this up too. Therapists and psychiatrists often find themselves disinterested with the personal case of their patients, and are instead entirely motivated by private profit. Money, the root of most evil, is at it all, poisoning the chances of these desperate people managing to receive legitimate help. Social healing suffers when profit becomes a motivating factor, as the quality and standards of intimate counselling are greatly reduced when moral purposes to work are weakened or eliminated altogether. Now, it’s true every individual needs to make a living not only to survive, but to have their needs and comforts met with ease. This is why universal basic income, welfare spending, and government grants exist. However, ignoring the state, as none will exist, in an anarcho-communist society people work because they have passions which are in need of exercising, not because they seek to make money. They seek to better humanity, to help their community in ways they’re comfortable with. To live within a society where workers enjoy their work, is to live within a society where waking up and heading off straight to one’s workplace will no longer be a nightmare, instead a dream come true.

Nothing will be paid for, but nobody will be paid either. Not only will basic human needs be free, as they always should’ve been, but everything will be. If an individual wants something, within reason of what everyone can afford when collective property is distributed in equal quantities, they can simply have it. The person who produces such property does it through their own will, and joyfully at that. This creates a society where working for pure fun is a lifestyle right next to unemployment, where - presumably - most of the population will be unemployed, not because they can’t find work due to ridiculous requirements private owners set for obtaining a position which doesn’t exercise any purposes of the qualifications listed, but because they don’t feel like working. They have other things to do, like write stories or play video games. Due to the sheer amount of property the workers of a communist society will produce, more than enough will go around to be shared with the wider portion of such a society, and nothing will be wasted. Everyone’s needs will be met to the point where any more property on top of what they already have won’t change their rates of satisfaction. Of course, certain individuals more materialistic, who consume more, and are generally more needy than the rest of their community, will have a tendency to own more property than the rest. But this is by choice unrelated to currency, or already produced property they’ve accumulated. This is nature taking it course, not the same as individuals hoarding property they’ll never use, nor have rightfully earned, and, through the immoral initiation of force, refuse to allow others to utilise it to meet their needs.

From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

The first amendment of the American constitution is consistently broken, as private businesses are allowed to discriminate against, fire, or abuse their employees however they see fit. This includes harming their livelihoods for violating their accepted ideas of free speech. If a working class individual is caught mouthing off about something their superior disagree with, the private owner of any company is allowed to sack them, or fire them, or any other awful act of tyranny. The state enforces private property rights, the rules made by companies who go unregulated by community or state intervention, thus the state is infringing upon its own guarantee of law. If the American government has to pull an employee from their workplace, put them in jail when they refuse to give up their share of work, their only source of income and survival, it is thereby violating the amendment it once signed. You can’t claim America has freedom, let alone be anywhere near the freest country on Earth, if it’s breaking its own laws that were originally intended to maintain freedom.

Someone who’s thirsty, in desperate need of water, will naturally find themselves to a well, one filled with lots of drinkable, clean water. However, a private owner of that well, someone who has claimed it as private property, will deny access to that individual. Without payment, that individual has no right to drink from the well. Despite the private owner literally owning an entire water factory in, for example, the desert they were located in, they refuse to grant the thirsty individual admission. The one in need of water is not trying to violate anybody’s freedom. In fact, all they see is a resource to keep them alive, water, in front of them, alongside somebody willing to deny their freedom, their survival, just for the exclusive sake of payment. The private owner doesn’t even need anymore money, they’re already a multimillionaire, but that doesn’t stop them from being greedy and heartless.

Who is the fascist in this situation? Why are matters framed as though the thirsty individual, literally about to die unless they get some liquid into their system, is somehow a violator of supposed ‘rights’? If private property is a human right, than human rights have lost all meaning, now officially the opposite of what they used to mean. A human right used to mean access to basic, everyday commodities (water, food, medicine, vaccines, heating, shelter, clothes; so on). Now, it’s reduced to the right of privatisation, to strip people of their liberty to partake in resources which exist not for the claim of someone’s ownership, but to be utilised for the sake of the common good.

If someone who is helpless, unable to get a job with the nonsense qualifications listed for all available work positions, stumbles upon an occupied, empty mansion, and they step foot in it to shield themselves from the storming harsh winter, are they violating someone’s freedom? Well, if that mansion is privately owned by an individual who doesn’t even use it, such buildings built for people to consistently live in them, and already has a house of their own they much prefer, of course not. But to those with a capitalist mindset, apparently so. This individual is not violating anyone’s freedom, they’re merely exercising their own. The only people politicising this situation, a very morally black and white scenario, are pro-capitalism jokes of human beings, who’d rather allow millions of people to go homeless, without shelter, than to violate their distorted and downright evil perception of the non-aggression principle. To prevent someone from stepping onto unused property is violating principles of non-aggression, as it’s initiating force against individuals who aren’t harming anyone. Even if, somehow, stepping onto occupied property was against the non-aggression principle, or accessing water from a well that would otherwise never be drunk from counts as well, than the non-aggression principle is beyond idiotic. In fact, it’s sickening. Allowing millions of people to die from water privatisation, every year, extends further than immortality, it’s genocide against the proletariat. If partaking in privately owned water to keep oneself alive is violating the NAP, than freedom just isn’t worth it, or anywhere near worth it. Of course, this is all a false understanding of how the NAP was actually supposed to function. As a libertarian socialist, an actual believer of the true definition of the non-aggression principle, I’ll provide a simple elaboration.

The non-aggression principle:

An example of breaking the non-aggression principle would be to release hazardous chemicals into the air which pollute a select human environment, tainting the breathing air, and killing millions of people per year. For example, in Shangani, privately owned factories are allowed by the state (empathises on by the state) to unleash harmful chemicals and waste into the environment, and the smoke and air contamination this causes leads to illnesses and fatalities amongst the general population of the city. China has this problem all over its major metropolitan areas, but because the state protects private industries from their unethical practices, the cycle can’t ceize to continue unless revolution is brought about.

Contamination of drinkable water by waste-producing corporations is another method of violating the non-aggression principle, but not according to self-proclaimed right-libertarians. To call oneself a libertarian but to than reject liberty, it means this individual who does so has no dedication, no morals. When libertarianism used to be associated with anarchism and socialism, as it was originally a leftist idea prior to right-wing market advocates ideologically appropriating the term, the non-aggression principle was understood as being against slavery, both chattel slavery and wage slavery. It understood the value of consent, the value of human choice. It allowed for people to commit self-harm, to commit to which activity hurt nobody except themselves, as that was a guarantee of freedom under true libertarianism (in this day in age, what I like to call classical libertarianism, referring to left-libertarianism in general). Nowadays, as the left-wing origins of libertarianism have largely been forgotten, a progressive philosophy latter distorted to fit the will of the machine, of maximaxing human suffering and death, it appears most of America haven’t a clue of real consent, just the type manufactured by a world getting everso poorer as wealth is squeezed from the working class and handed over to their thieving private owners.

One may make the argument that to redistribute wealth is to go against the non-aggression principle, as it exists to prevent a victimless crime. To keep hold of a mansion one never uses, thus keeping anyone not themselves off of it, is violating the non-aggression principle, while accessing the mansion is not, clearly. Hoarding is not a victimless crime. Building up billions of dollars worth of property, and keeping it privately, to oneself, is preventing others from enjoying their lives to the maximum extent possible. While one is not directly going after them violently, the sheer amount of money they keep locked in their bank does provide a problem for the proletariat. Are these private banks? Private banks shouldn’t exist. Well, money, altogether, shouldn’t exist. But, also, nobody should be allowed to build up all that money to begin with, let alone be allowed to keep it, let alone never spend it on anything. If what I’ve stated sounds authoritarian to you, than you have an extremely warped perception of fascism.

America, a country where over half a million people are imprisoned for drug offenses are year, happens to be one of the most developed countries in the world, but when taking into account the enormous amount of economic inequality across the nation, tends to be rather underdeveloped in many major areas of its territory. Consider that the US, due to its immense population size and economy, has the most opportunity to help the world, to better the planet. This can be achieved in many ways, but the most obvious is through having completely opened borders, allowing anyone to partake in the country’s wealth. Ponder how much better people from Mexico could have it in America, even on the disgustingly low minimum wage.

Because the definition of freedom has been distorted, and political perceptions surrounding it, the machine (the capitalist state) has its will sat, devoid of consequences, to mess up its citizens as much as it desires. The amount of money placed toward conducting imperialism, the amount of money wasted on policing drug purchasing and use - which shouldn’t even be illegal to begin with - and the authoritarian employee-employer hierarchy, it makes for a dystopian, totalitarian state. America isn’t free, but the furthest from it. To mask this, self-proclaimed ‘libertarians’ just change the meanings of freedom, liberty, and even consent, for that matter. And none of this derives from any philosophy, it’s just gibberish used to justify horrible treatment of one’s national population, along with populations scattered across third world countries. And this is why America is the worst country on the planet, it doesn’t just keep its poison within its glass - even North Korea manages to do this in its current condition - but to spread that poison as much as possible, to let it sink into as many skins around the globe.

To point out countries with actual freedom, despite not being officially recognised internationally as independent countries, there’s Zaptitisa and Rojava. These countries are actually free, because the workers are free. Secular, non-imperialist, open borders, upholding women’s rights and indigenous rights, and all without a state. These territories operate without bosses, but instead workers free from the enslavement of their masters, cooperating on mutual terms with their fellow comrades to better their beloved societies.

I know this may come off as rather controversial to many anarchists, but compared to representative democracy, single-person dictatorships and monarchies are actually preferable because they at least allow a nation to go somewhere, for radical change to be made that is necessary to human progress. Representative democracy stands for nothing but moderation, and will get a country square in the middle of the political spectrum. This is why the ideological battles between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have been waged ever since the birth of the constitution, the focus painted on these moderate parties as opposed to all others. At least countries like Saudi Arabia and North Korea are permitted to be different under dictatorships. However, as I’ve already stated, I support participatory democracy above all, even above direct democracy. It’s the true way forward for the world, and when more countries convert to the ways of Zaptitisa and Rojava, or more countries like these are spawned, the closer we become to rightful progress. Correcting the mistakes of the past aren’t enough if they’re only on paper, they need to be put in action. If the world remains the way it is today, with regions like Western Europe claiming to stand for freedom when in fact they’re the opposite of free, the existence of the American Empire, and Australia still a puppet state of its fascist founder, the United Kingdom, capitalism will finish the job for them, end this planet sooner than we’d ever expect.

I suggest just dropping a nuke in the center of America. It’s an easy solution. This will allow for a truly liberated and self-determined society to grow, either from its ashes or across a different geographical territory, a stateless socialist prosperity.