MARTIN DUBERMAN
the idea of "each against all." On the contrary, they believed that
man was a social creature - that
is,
that he needed the affection and
assistance of his fellows - and most Anarchist versions of the good
life (Max Stirner would be the major exception) involved the idea
of community. The Anarchists insisted, moreover, that it was not
their vision of the future, but rather society as presently constructed,
which represented chaos; with privilege the lot of the few and misery
the lot of the many, society was currently the essence of
disorder.
The
Anarchists demanded a system which would substitute mutual aid for
mutual exploitation, voluntarism for force, individual decision-making
for centralized dictation.
All of these emphases find echo today in SNCC and CORE.
The echoes are not perfect: "Black Power," after all, is above all a
call to organization, and its acceptance of politics (and therefore of
"governing") would offend a true Anarchist - as would such col–
lectivist terms as "black psyche" or "black personality." Nonetheless,
the affinities of SNCC and CORE with the Anarchist position are
substantial.
There is, first of all, the same belief in the possibilities of "com–
munity" and the same insistence that community be the product of
voluntary association. This in turn reflects a second and still more
basic affinity: the distrust of centralized authority. SNCC and CORE's
energies, and also those of other New Left groups like Students for
a Democratic Society (SDS), are increasingly channeled into local,
community organizing. On this level, it is felt, "participatory" democ–
racy, as opposed to the authoritarianism of "representative" democ–
racy, becomes possible. And in the Black Panther party, where the
poor and disinherited do take a direct role in decision-making, theory
has become reality (as it has, on the economic side, in the Mississippi–
based "Poor People's Corporation," which to date has formed some
fifteen cooperatives)
.10
Then, too, SNCC and CORE, like the Anarchists, talk increas–
ingly of the supreme importance of the individual. They do so,
paradoxically, in a rhetoric strongly reminiscent of that long associated
with the Right. It could be Herbert Hoover (or Booker T. Washing–
ton), but in fact it is Rap Brown who now reiterates the Negro's need
10. See
Art
Goldberg, ''Negro Self-Help,"
The New Republic,
June 10,
1967,
and Abbie Hoffman, "Liberty House / Poor People'S Corporation,"
Liberation,
April,
1967.
