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When Tony Blair committed the British government to join the war in Iraq, the huge demonstrations against were unsuccessful. Has society learnt anything from this and, in particular, does anarchism have a role to play?
The ideal of anarchism is the abolition of all government and the organisation of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion. Indeed, this is the ideal of socialism in general. Authoritarian and anarchistic socialism are associated with the names of Marx and Bakunin.
The Marxist programme is for the State to be taken over by a group of people appointed by the working class, who will then guide people to learn to become so co-operative, that the State is no longer needed! Anarchism on the other hand, seeks to undermine the authoritarian institutions, not by direct assault but by attrition, so that people cease to trust them, and they lose power little by little. This talk will argue that the anarchist approach is the more efficient and could have relevance in our society today.