Section B - Why do anarchists oppose the current system?

Introduction

B.1 Why are anarchists against authority and hierarchy?

    B.1.1 What are the effects of authoritarian social relationships?
    B.1.2 Is capitalism hierarchical?
    B.1.3 What kind of hierarchy of values does capitalism create?
    B.1.4 Why do racism, sexism and homophobia exist?
    B.1.5 How is the mass-psychological basis for authoritarian civilisation created? This is why anarchists stress the need for "class consciousness," for recognising that classes exist and that their interests are in conflict. To be class conscious means that we are aware of the objective facts and act appropriately to change them. Although class analysis may at first appear to be a novel idea, the conflicting interests of the classes is well recognised on the other side of the class divide. For example, James Madison in the Federalist Paper #10 states that "those who hold and those who are without have ever formed distinct interests in society." For anarchists, class consciousness means to recognise what the bosses already know: the importance of solidarity with others in the same class position as oneself and of acting together as equals to attain common goals. However, anarchists think that class consciousness must also mean to be aware of all forms of hierarchical power, not just economic oppression.

    It could therefore be argued that anarchists actually want an "anti-class" consciousness to develop -- that is, for people to recognise that classes exist, to understand why they exist, and act to abolish the root causes for their continued existence ("class consciousness," argues Vernon Richards, "but not in the sense of wanting to perpetuate classes, but the consciousness of their existence, an understanding of why they exist, and a determination, informed by knowledge and militancy, to abolish them." [The Impossibilities of Social Democracy, p. 133]). In short, anarchists want to eliminate classes, not universalise the class of "worker" (which would presuppose the continued existence of capitalism).

    More importantly, class consciousness does not involve "worker worship." To the contrary, as Murray Bookchin points out, "[t]he worker begins to become a revolutionary when he undoes his [or her] 'workerness', when he [or she] comes to detest his class status here and now, when he begins to shed. . . his work ethic, his character-structure derived from industrial discipline, his resp