Anarchist Principles Quotes

The workers and peasants had created their own institutions to administer the cities in republican Spain, formed their own armed workers' squads to patrol the streets, and established a remarkable revolutionary militia force to fight the Francista [fascists of General Franco] forces -- a voluntaristic militia in which men and women elected their own commanders and in which military rank conferred no social, material, or symbolic distinctions.

A long long time ago I took an oath to tell all secrets that came my way. Don't tell me a secret, I won't keep it. I'm against secrets, I'm against hierarchies, lineages, all assumption of special knowledge on the part of anyone in the presence of anyone else is abhorrent to me. I mean, I am a true anarchist first and foremost.

… in the long run it is always the searching for a more secure guarantee of freedom which is the common factor among anarchists

A consistent anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of production, and the wage-slavery which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer.

If you look at a lot of traditional societies, they're all organized along what we might call anarchist guidelines, but it's not like the Zapatistas were reading European social theory.

Anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. It means the development of the individual as well as the assertion of the individual. It means self-responsibility, and not leader worship.

I much preferred the approach at the anarchist camp, with its shared tasks and collective responsibilities. Everyone played their part. There was no division between workers and consumers.

I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization.