WHAT A STATE TO BE IN...
Saverio Craparo
Part V - A few groundrules
Anarchist anti-Statism has, without doubt, been useful in drawing attention to several aspects that Marxism failed to deal with: the role of political power, the role of the institutions during and following the revolution, the role of the intellectual classes, the inner nature of the administration and its ability to reproduce itself, the evolutive autonomy of the superstructure under certain conditions and its influence on the general evolution. In all these areas there have been irreversible theoretical advances which have been proved in the field during the various attempts to install socialism using the parameters of different varieties of Marxism.
However, we need to clean up anti-Statism and remove the detritus which has gathered around it as a result of the accumulation of often overly-superficial interpretations based on simple analogies. In particular, the pernicious confusion between state and public, between bureaucracy and services, between hierarchic and collective. It is, of course, true that public services are affected by bureacratization and a lack of attention to the needs of the individuals who use them. But it is also true that the daily scandal created in the media (controlled by the powers-that-be) regarding disservices and inefficiency serves only to pave the way for private profit. The road which leads from today's justly-criticizable public services to an egalitarian, classless society does not run through the impervious jungle of capitalism in its wildest form and of the so-called interests of each citizen. It is a different road, one which runs in the opposite direction:
This is they way to prepare for an efficient future self-management of society and of the services which are designed to remove any inequalities created among humans by nature. This is the true and most profound meaning of a "public service".
Note: This text is currently being examined by the Federation with a view to its possible adoption as a document of Basic Strategy.