Uploaded as part of the Anarchism in Australia project.
Author: Melbourne Anarchist Club
Originally Published: 2007
Retrieved from: Melbourne Anarchist Club website
Aims & Principles
(Ratified at the MAC Annual General Meeting, October 28, 2007)Anarchism is both a political philosophy and a social movement. As a social movement, anarchism aims to create a classless, non?hierarchical society; that is, a society without rulers (anarchy). As a political philosophy, anarchism maintains that the creation of such a society is both possible and desirable. Anarchists are those who actively work towards realising this possibility.
PRINCIPLES
Liberty
The concept of individual human freedom lies at the heart of anarchist philosophy. As such, anarchists seek to maximise the ability of individuals to live freely, in the absence of the arbitrary constraints imposed by illegitimate forms of authority. Anarchists therefore oppose all forms of domination and exploitation, and work, through both individual and collective struggle, to subvert all social structures based on these practices.
Equality
The anarchist concept of freedom is intrinsically linked to the notion of equality. That is, anarchists maintain that individuals are most free in a society in which there is economic, political and social equality. From each according to their ability; to each according to their need.
Solidarity
An injury to one is an injury to all. Anarchists oppose the false principle of the survival of the fittest, and believe that human survival and social development can best be secured through co?operation among individuals and groups to their mutual benefit.
Direct Action
The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves. An anarchist society can only be achieved through direct action; that is, through forms of social struggle unmediated by political authority (government).
Direct Democracy
Anarchists advocate the creation of directly democratic forms of social organization, in which individual members have an equal right to take part in decision?making processes. As such, anarchists oppose forms of representative democracy, and agitate for their replacement by directly democratic ones.
Federation
Anarchists advocate the establishment of voluntary, non-hierarchical associations between directly democratic organizations. By the same token, anarchists also maintain the right of members of federated bodies to leave such associations, if and when they deem them to be contrary to their interests.
AIMS
Abolition of the State
Anarchists regard the state as an oppressive institution, the abolition of which is necessary to human liberation.
The state is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of human behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently.
~ Gustav Landauer.The destruction of the state is a collective responsibility which will be achieved through social revolution.
Social Revolution
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger, want and boredom are found among billions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish capitalism and the state, and live in harmony with the Earth.
Anarchist Economics
The ideal economic system, one that is consistent with the principles of liberty, equality and solidarity, is anarchist or libertarian communism. Libertarian communism means the common ownership of the means of production and the free association of producers. The implementation of anarchism can only be through the free federation of productive and communal organizations.
Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without freedom is slavery.
~ Mikhail BakuninGOALS
M.A.C. aims to facilitate the establishment of a federation of anarchist groups.