Revolution? No thanks, we’re autonomists!

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This is the first of two articles review­ ing Marina Sitrin’s “Everyday Revolu­ tions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina” (Zed Books, 2012). M prolific, visible, and eloquent arina Sitrin is one of the most theorists of “horizontalism” and “au­ tonomy” (hereafter referred to jointly as horizontalist autonomy). Thanks to her years of activism and journalism in Argentina and the U.S., and the writings and speeches based on them, I believe she now surpasses John Holloway as the most prominent exponent of the “don’t take power” school of thought.

So a critique of her works is not meant to single her out as politically worse than any of the school’s other thinkers or practitioners, just as the most (at least for now) important.

As I write this, teachers in Greece are preparing for a strike tomorrow (Tues­ day, May 14), likely to be followed by another strike on the 17th, and the distinct possibility of solidarity strikes on both days. The government has re­ sponded by threatening to impose—for the third time this year—“mobilization” orders, in essence breaking the strike by enrolling all teachers overnight into the military, and thus making it “illegal” for them to walk off their jobs.

What would the theory of horizontal­ ist autonomy advise the strikers to do in the face of the government’s threat? What would these theories have to say about the hope of Greek workers in gen­ eral to build a different society, one in which their own ruling class, and their partners in the “Troika,” can no longer exploit them—in which in fact there is no ruling class?

In the introduction to the book, Sitrin says (referring to movements she has studied in Argentina and elsewhere): “These movements define themselves as autonomist precisely because they do not want to take over the state, and see themselves in a position different and separate from the state, therefore autonomous. They do not desire state power, as many left-wing groups and political parties have in the past, but rather want to try to create other forms of horizontal power with one another, in their communities and workplaces. This concept of power and revolution is about a total transformation of society, but one that takes place and continues to expand from below. As the Zapatistas in Mexico say: ‘From below and to the left.’”

The movements in Argentina, she writes, “are prefiguring the change that they desire.” They are “creating hori­ zontal relationships … with a focus on that relationship deepening and ex­ panding. This conceptualization of rev­ olution as an everyday transforma­ tion, not a storming of the Bastille, is an important distinction put forth at the outset of the book.”

Now Greek workers—and those of many other countries on the con­ tinent—have engaged in repeated general strikes in recent years, none of which have yet substantially al­ tered the balance of power, much less overthrown the state. Millions of Europeans are wondering what changes in strategy, tactics, and goals might reverse that situation.

Clearly, Sitrin would not recommend to them that they try to overturn the states that have tried to crush or out­ law their strikes, the states that have imposed the savage cuts demanded by the IMF and the corporations. For her, Greek and other workers should “pre­ figure,” they should “transform,” and not with a long-term vision, but simply on an “everyday” basis.

But let’s leave aside even the question of trying to dismantle such pernicious states. Sitrin’s advice is of even more immediate danger: While acknowledg­ ing the repressive role of the state, and the concrete consequences that role has for the very movements she de­ fends, she has no suggestion at all for how these movements might defend themselves. Or to be more precise, her advice is to sidestep the state, to avoid confrontation with it.

On page 12 she writes: “In the later sections of this book I discuss what happens when the state becomes cog­ nizant of a society moving ahead with­ out it. It is in these moments that those creating these vast new landscapes face some of the most serious challenges. It is most often, in this time of reaction to and from institutional power, that au­ tonomous communities are defeated.

Inherent in the role of the state is its resistance to people organizing outside of it, much in the same way as corpo­ rations resist parallel economies; it is here that often these institutions apply direct repression and cooptation, or a combination of the two.”

Her answer to this threat is simply to point with satisfaction to the begin­ nings of signs that those movements that have been repressed and/or coopt­ ed have begun rebuilding themselves. That’s it.

What’s worse, Sitrin takes this ap­ proach a step further, and argues for a more general approach of non-con­ frontation. On page 13, in the section, “Challenging the contentious frame­ work,” she criticizes sociologists study­ ing social movements who assume the latter are always “in a contentious re­ (Above) Occupy Wall Street.

lationship to the state, or another form or institution with formal ‘power over,’ whether demanding reforms from or desiring another state or institution.”

This framework, she argues, “is not sufficient in explaining these contem­ porary, autonomous social movements, because of these movements’ choice not to focus on dominant institutional powers (such as the state), but rather to develop alternative relationships and forms of power. This reconceptualiza­ tion of power is linked to the nonhier­ archical and directly democratic vision of their organizing.”

This should sound familiar to those who remember the heated debate within the Occupy movement around whether to place demands on the 1% or its state, with the overwhelming majority of those most frequently ac­ tive—usually heavily influenced by an­ archism—arguing against placing de­ mands for just the reasons Sitrin spells out.

Elsewhere in the book Sitrin argues for “everyday revolutions” not as pre­ paratory steps, as building blocks, to a revolution to change society as a whole, but rather as superior substitutes for such a revolution. She explicitly coun­ terposes storming the Bastille, or sovi­ ets taking power through an insurrec­ tion, to building co-ops and self-man­ aged factories and participatory neigh­ borhood health or education groups, (continued on page 9, in “Prison authorities try to silence Mumia”)

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Sitrin argues for ‘everyday revolutions,’ not as building blocks to change society as a whole but as substitutes for such a revolution.