long-term goal in order to devise a strategy?
We learn by trying. We can’t start now, with current
understanding, and say, Okay, let’s design a libertarian society. We
have to gain the insight and understanding that allows us to move
step-by-step toward that end. Just as in any other aspect of life, as
you do more, you learn more. You associate with other people and
create organizations, and out of them come new problems, new
methods, new strategies.
If somebody can come up with a general, all-purpose strategy,
everyone will be delighted, but it hasn’t happened in the last couple
of thousand years. If Marx had been asked, What’s the strategy for
overthrowing capitalism?, he would have laughed.
Even somebody who was overwhelmingly a tactician, like Lenin,
didn’t have any such strategy (other than follow me). Lenin and
Trotsky just adapted strategies to particular circumstances, looking
for a way to take state power (which I don’t think should be our
goal, by the way).
How could there be a general strategy for overcoming
authoritarian institutions? I think questions like that are mostly
asked by people who don’t want to become engaged. When you
become engaged, plenty of problems arise that you can work on.
But it’s not going to happen by pushing a button. It’s going to
happen by dedicated, concentrated work that slowly builds up
people’s understanding and relationships, including one’s own, along
with support systems and alternative institutions. Then something
can happen.
Urvashi Vaid, author of Virtual Equality, castigates what she calls
the “purist left” for waiting for the perfect vision, the one and only
answer, as well as a charismatic leader.
I agree. Not waiting for a charismatic leader, or the perfect and
complete answer, is good advice. In fact, if it comes, it will be a
disaster, as it always has been.
If something grows out of popular action and participation, it can
be healthy. Maybe it won’t, but at least it can be. There’s no other
way.