From here http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/> against authority and hierarchy?
First, it is necessary to indicate what kind of authority should be challenged challenges. As Erich Fromm points
out in To Have or To Be, "authority" is "a broad term with two entirely different meanings: it can be
either 'rational' or 'irrational' authority. Rational authority is based on competence, and it helps the
person who leans on it to grow. Irrational authority is based on power and serves to exploit the person
subjected to it" [pages 44-45]. The same point was made by Bakunin 100 years earlier when he
indicated the difference between authority and influence (see God and the State).
The crucial point is expressed in the difference between having authority and being an authority.
Being an authority just means that a given person is generally recognised as competent for a given task,
based on his or her individual skills and knowledge. Put differently, it is socially acknowleged
expertise. In contrast, having authority is a social relationship based on status and power derived from a
hierarchical position, not on individual ability. Obviously this does not mean that competence is not an
element for obtaining a hierarchical position; it just means that the real or alleged initial competence is
transfered to the title of the authority.
Anarchists are opposed to irrational authority and hierarchy -- hierarchy being the institutionalisation
of authority within a society. Hierarchical social relationships include sexism, racism and homophobia,
and anarchists oppose them all. As noted earlier (A.2.8), anarchists consider all hierarchies to be not
only harmful but unnecessary, and think that there are alternative, more egalitarian ways to organise
social life. In fact, they argue that hierarchical authority creates the conditions it is presumably designed
to combat, and thus tends to be self-perpetuating. Thus, bureaucracies ostensibly set up to fight poverty
wind up perpetuating it, because without poverty, the high-salaried top administrators would be out of
work. The same applies to agencies intended to eliminate drug abuse, fight crime, etc. In other words,
the power and privileges deriving from top hierarchical positions constitute a strong incentive for those
who hold them not to solve the problems they are supposed to solve. (For further discussion see
Marilyn French, Beyond Power: On Women, Men, and Morals, Summit Books, 1985.)
B.1.1 What are the effects of authoritarian social
relationships?
Hierachical authority is inextricably connected with the marginalisation and disempowerment of those
without authority. This has negative effects on those over whom authority is exercised, since "[t]hose
who have these symbols of authority and those who benefit from them must dull their subject people's
realistic, i.e. critical, thinking and make them believe the fiction [that irrational authority is rational and
necessary], . . .[so] the mind is lulled into submission by cliches. . .[and] people are made dumb
because they become dependent and lose their capacity to trust their eyes and judgement" [Erich
Fromm, To Have or To Be, page 47].
Or, in the words of Bakunin, "the principle of authority, applied to men who have surpassed or attained
their majority, becomes a monstrosity, a source of slavery and intellectual and moral depravity." [God
and the State, p. 41]
As the human brain is a bodily organ, it needs to be used regularly in order to be at its fittest. Authority
concentrates decision-making in the hands of those at the top, meaning that most people are turned into
executants, following the orders of others. If muscle is not used, it turns to fat; if the brain is not used,
creativity, critical thought and mental abilities become blunted and side-tracked onto marginal issues,
like sports and fashion.
Therefore, "[h]ierarchical institutions foster alienated and exploitative relationships among those who
participate in them, disempowering people and distancing them from their own reality. Hierarchies
make some people dependent on others, blame the dependent for their dependency, and then use that
dependency as a justification for further exercise of authority. . . .Those in positions of relative
dominance tend to define the very characteristics of those subordinate to them. . . .Anarchists argue that
to be always in a position of being acted upon and never to be allowed to act is to be doomed to a state
of dependence and resignation. Those who are constantly ordered about and prevented from thinking
for themselves soon come to doubt their own capacities. . .[and have] difficultly acting on [their] sense
of self in opposition to societal norms, standards and expectations" [Martha Ackelsberg, Free Women
of Spain, pages 19-20]
In addition to these negative effects from the denial of liberty, authoritarian social relationships also
produce social inequality. This is because an individual subject to the authority of another has to obey
the orders of those above them in the social hierarchy. In capitalism this means that workers have to
follow the orders of their boss (see next section), orders that are designed to make the boss richer (for
example, from 1994 to 1995 alone, CEO compensation rose 16 percent, compared to 2.8 percent for
workers, which did not even keep pace with inflation, and whose stagnating wages cannot be blamed
on corporate profits, which rose a healthy 14.8 percent for that year). Inequality in terms of power will
translate itself into inequality in terms of wealth (and vice versa). The effects of such social inequality
are wide-reaching.
For example, poor people are more likely to be sick and die at an earlier age, compared to rich people.
Moreover, the degree of inequality is important (i.e the size of the gap between rich and poor).... ... ...
None.
