After reading the latest chapter from the book  “We are Everywhere” (Autonomy: Creating Spaces for Freedom,) I sat down and pounded out the rant below. Please read this as a question from someone who is still very much exploring this whole issue in search of answers. I really don’t have them as far as I can see, and I’m not even certain I’m headed down the right path. But I’m committed to the journey regardless -- and I’m ready to follow a trail-wise scout, someone who knows a quicker route.

Remembering the Ancestors

Autonomy, in isolation, is a beautiful, functional concept. The basic units of social structure, nuclear families, when they can isolate themselves from the pressures of the outside world, operate best in this autonomous state, where everyone’s labor and actions are directed toward the greater good of the family, with the needs of each family member put above the needs of the individual ego -- with the result that the needs of all members of the family are served.

This nuclear structure, admittedly in its ideal state, does not depend on capital, private property or wages. Decisions are made through direct democracy and carried out through direct action, with no intermediaries involved. However, there is always an inherent benevolent hierarchy, or leadership, even within the family -- with the adults/parents on top in the structure.

Extrapolate this nuclear family concept to a small community and you have what has existed for thousands of years in human history: the tribe – a group of families cohesively bound together by custom, beliefs, art, music and a host of other complex, evolving magnetisms. If you go back far enough, at some point, our ancestors were all part of some tribe. Again, in their ideal states, tribes may be the perfect autonomous group, as they build upon the ideal nuclear structure of the family to create a nuclear community. But again, we run into the leadership issue; clearly, it is the grown-ups who control the tribe. But even within this context, direct democracy remains possible, if chiefs -- of the hunt, of the crops, of the cattle -- lead with the understanding that property belongs to the tribe (or is of the earth community in a more enlightened sense, and hence cannot be owned by anyone or anything), and that a leader’s power derives from the tribe, and that the future of the tribe is tied inextricably to the next generation, to the children (which is where those children derive their power within the community).

Kingdoms Come

But eventually we have a network of tribes who – because that is the nature of humans – make contact and must establish customs for interacting. Some tribes, by chance or planning, will be more successful than other tribes; some will occupy richer lands than other tribes; some will -- like history teaches us -- desire more control (power) than other tribes. The network of nuclear communities, then, begins to break down. This may give rise to kings and kingdoms, as the more powerful tribes actively -- through force -- begin to take over the lands, resources and enslave the peoples of weaker or less materially aggressive tribes. These kingdoms in turn give rise to nation states and large bureaucratic monarchies. In the process, though, more and more peasants are created, who begin to resent their lot in life, who have been displaced from their tribal communities, who, as a result, can be organized to resist, even rebel, against the kingdom.

We begin to see revolts; groups of peasants rise up to reclaim their “autonomy.” These revolts, though, are easily put down by the great armies of the kings, but they remain a constant threat to the kingdom – as do the tribes on the fringes of the kingdom who have yet to be conquered. Hence, a system of laws is created to control the peasants and “alien barbarians.” Meanwhile, the kings of these nation states have come to realize that in order to continue to feed their power, they must continue to colonize and exploit foreign lands. But even their powerful armies cannot conquer the whole world (and all other nation states) all at once. The kingdom’s march has hit a wall, so these nation states begin to rely more and more on systems of trade, on mercantilism, to facilitate the building of their wealth and power. This system gives rise to capitalism as an expedient alternative to military conquest, but it remains a form of global conquest nonetheless.

Eventually, kings and kingdoms themselves are transformed by this capitalism. The mercantile class has arisen -- dominated by those who control this global trading system. They use their newfound power to force reforms. A new form of “representational” government is created that is designed to cede power from the kings to the wealthy capitalists and their heirs. For good measure, to appease the peasants -- who after all will now be needed to feed the labor demands of this new capitalist “democracy” -- a few bones are thrown to the underclass over the centuries in terms of “voting and property rights.” But the system has been rigged from the start to assure that the real power -- the vestiges of the kingdom and the new capitalist class -- never really loses power. As this capitalist class grows over the years, it becomes international in nature and eventually passes from the era of industrial capital to the era of electronic capital.  We see the rise of the media barons within this power structure, which assures control of the new form of currency in this electronic capital age: information. But the system, global capitalism, is always backed up ultimately by military force.

Rebuilding Our House

The tribal origins of this new society are long forgotten, but they remain nonetheless. So, as the capitalists take on more and more of the trappings of the kings and kingdoms they replaced, the tribes once again begin to stir, to seek to reclaim their “autonomy.” The question is, do these tribes know how to once again organize themselves, and do they have the ability to connect (to form true nuclear bonds) that collectively have the power to overwhelm the hierarchical state of global capitalism -- with all of its media and military might. Coordinated global direct action on a mass scale (a global general strike?) might work. But maybe the ticket to breaking the stranglehold of global capitalism is simpler, more incremental, and much more local in nature. Maybe, in a manner similar to how the mercantile class wrested the kingdom from the kings, the emerging autonomous communities – one at a time, and collectively as they reach critical mass -- act to collapse the markets that feed the capitalists, and with that the source of their power. It would be kind of like turning the electricity off on the capitalist network. Can these autonomous communities really disconnect themselves from the market, from the global capitalist network? Can that happen without bloodshed? In the end, is nonviolence more powerful than the sword? Or is that even our choice to make?

The bigger question, though, is should this “autonomous” movement prove successful, how do we assure that our tribes, our autonomous communities, do not once again seek to conquer each other – for whatever reason, greed, power, racism, megalomania? How do we create a real future for this world through inter-autonomous-community cooperation, direct democracy and nonviolence? Or is that even the goal?

I agree this mind experiment is vastly oversimplified, but you can’t build a house without pounding the first nail -- even if you wind up hitting yourself in the thumb a few times in the process. So, I now turn over my hammer. Whack away if you are so inclined; I’m interested in the house, not my nail.