For centuries, people fighting against oppressions
whether imposed by kings, dictators or capital,
have tried to take control of the state
through elections or revolution to build a more just world.
But all these new governments
ended up preserving the existence of a privileged minority,
while the majority of the population continued to be exploited,
incarcerated or killed.
Is it possible to use the state to abolish class oppression?
In liberal democracies, the elections are a market.
It is the consumer society converting
political action into a commodity, to be managed, to be sold.
Therefore, the electoral discourse has to be a discourse of class conciliation.
Its aim is to win over public opinion without changing it,
without educating or creating political awareness.
The candidate wants to win over the electorate with all their prejudices,
to convince them,
to sell themselves as a product on the market.
And to do so, they will have to compromise.
Their discourse becomes hollowed out, until all candidates look alike,
because they want to appeal to the same public.
In the end, the difference is only superficial,
while concrete practice is determined by other factors.
The superficial differences serve to create an illusion of choice
and to generate electoral market niches.
Recuperating the will for the radical transformation of society
into the institutions.
When a movement or party, no matter how radical they claim to be,
plays the institutional game, competing for state power,
gaining and maintaining that power becomes an end in itself.
For in order to govern and not be overthrown,
it must make alliances and answer to those who really control the institutions.
They will have to bargain and compromise with the elites,
moving away from left-wing demands, which defend the working class,
to embrace right-wing demands, which protect the bourgeoisie.
Apart from some welfare and inclusion policies for certain minorities,
which may indeed provide some relief to part of the population,
governments that call themselves left-wing
do not differ much from openly neoliberal governments.
And while these benefits are unlikely to survive
the next government or financial crisis,
the economic structure, which affects all inhabitants of that territory
and enforces the exploitation of the majority
for the privilege of a few, remains untouched.
And the repressive apparatus that protects this structure
is increasingly strengthened and legitimized.
In the electoral dispute,
every attempt is made to control the power of the State,
without realizing that the State is unable
to generate the structural changes we need.
That its existence will always favor the dominant classes and elites.
In order to achieve power, the left turns into
what it itself intended to fight.
Generations and generations have learned the hard way
that it is impossible to use the state to abolish oppressions.
As early as the 18th century,
the French Revolution dethroned and beheaded royalty
only to see the same guillotine used to execute their leaders.
In the early 20th century,
the Russian Revolution overthrew and murdered the Tsar
only to see the Communist Party take control of the state
and in turn persecute, execute or imprison
political dissent and oppress the population.
Although communist movements have succeeded
in seizing power in dozens of revolutions,
they have never succeeded in abolishing class society
and instead of disappearing, the state has only become more powerful and invasive.
Without a critique of the state, even successful revolutionary movements
are doomed to become oppressors,
replacing the governments they overthrew.
For government itself is a class relation.
There is no way to abolish class society
without abolishing the asymmetry between ruler and ruled.
If in capitalism economic power is concentrated
in the hands of a small elite,
in the state it is political power and legitimacy
that are concentrated in institutions
that exist to act upon the people.
And those who control and operate these institutions
have power over the entire population.
When revolutionary groups give the state full control of capital
to try to undo the inequalities created by capitalism,
the class that holds political power becomes the new capitalist class.
The name for this is State Capitalism.
Whether through revolution or election,
whenever people have stopped trying to bring about social change directly
and invested their hopes in political representatives,
the outcome has always been the same.
Power and privilege remained in the hands of a small elite,
while the population continued to be exploited and oppressed.
Where there is political representation and bureaucratic management,
there will be class society.
The only real solution to economic and political inequality
is first and foremost to abolish the mechanisms
that create these power differences.
By organizing horizontal networks of self-determination
and collective defense
that make it impossible for the privileges of any economic or political elite
to be enforced.
This is the opposite of seizing power.
Governments of all stripes oppose this project.
For any government to hold power,
it must maintain a monopoly of coercive force.
To achieve a monopoly of force,
fascist despots, communist dictatorships
and liberal democracies use similar tactics,
collaborating with other powers at play.
This explains why, after the Russian Revolution,
the new Bolshevik communist government
employed tsarist officers and counterinsurgency methods;
it explains why they allied with the petty bourgeoisie against anarchists,
in Russia, Spain and elsewhere.
The problem with Bolshevism was not that it used brute force
to promote a revolutionary agenda,
but that it used brute force to crush the revolution.
Some say we should suspend conflicts
with proponents of authoritarian communism
to focus on more immediate threats,
such as fascism.
However, the widespread fear of left-wing totalitarianism
provides fascists with their main arguments against radical movements.
The rejection of all forms of state and authoritarianism
is what can help distinguish our proposals for social change
from those carried out by Stalinists and other authoritarian groups.
The good news is that revolutionary movements
do not have to end the way the communist revolutions
in Russia, Cuba, China did.
There is another way.
Instead of grasping for state power,
we can open up spaces of autonomy,
taking away the legitimacy of the state and developing the capacity
to address our needs directly.
Instead of dictatorships and armies,
we can build decentralized networks around the world
to defend each other
against any group that wants to exert power over us.
Instead of looking to new representatives to solve our problems,
we can create grassroots associations
founded on voluntary cooperation and mutual aid.
Instead of state-managed economies,
we can establish new commons on a horizontal basis.
This is the anarchist alternative.
Which might have succeeded in Spain in the 1930s,
had it not been attacked by Franco on one side
and Stalin on the other.
From Chiapas to Kabylia,
from Athens to Rojava,
all the inspiring movements and uprisings of the last three decades
have incorporated elements of the anarchist model.
Proponents of state solutions claim that they are more efficient,
but it bears the question:
"more efficient" at what?
There is no shortcut to liberation
because it cannot be imposed from above.
If our goal is to create genuine equality,
we have to organize ourselves in a way that reflects this,
decentralizing power and rejecting all forms of hierarchy.
By building local projects capable of meeting immediate needs
through direct action and solidarity,
interconnecting them on a global scale.
We can take steps towards a world where no one rules anyone.
The kind of revolution we want cannot happen overnight.
It is the ongoing process of destroying all concentrations of power,
from inside our homes to the seats of governments.