Away from Black Blocs and into Economic Development

It seems as though every anarchist is centered on black bloccing as a way to develop the movement. Every protest is created around this form of protest and everywhere people plan for the next black bloc. This has me worried for a variety of reasons. Protesting alone can't solve it and neither can escapism. Protests have never really done much at all. It was the devlopment before and after the protest that created the lasting change. And this is where we need to head.

Anarchism must move away from simply protesting in the streets to a multi-facet approach. Sure, we need to protest and even violently if that's what's necessary, but to simply rely on direct action kills movements of all kinds.


One way I think we need to head is towards economics and the development of unions and getting people out of poverty using ourselves and not the state. The AFL-CIO type unions have a stranglehold on everybody who even thinks of the word union. Unions must go away from leadership positions to democraticly operated organizations. A good way to do this, is to start from the bottom and work your way up. This would mean start at low-level jobs(Fast food being an example) and then work towards higher paying jobs. Once this is established then we need to organize by trade, but keep every union separate from the others. In other words no more vague painting of the brush demands for an entire trade because every corporation is different and that needs to be taken into account.


The economics aspect of things needs to involve a mixture of complimentary currencies, the building of community gardens and of course building of communitites for the extremely poor. First onto the currencies. Complimentary currencies can be used to build solidarity and also to build economic independence. One way to do this, is to have people volunteer at a workplace(Pick anything) and then give them a time note or whatever you want to call it for each hour volunteered. This person then can buy labor from another person for a set price determined by the individuals and then he uses it for whatever reason he decides. This not only personalizes the labor, but also gives people a chance to work together. Only a few cities in the country have this going for them and we need to have every city have a complimentary currency.


Community gardens are also a must. People in lower income communities rarely have access to fresh foods. Many rely on corner stores for their meals. This promotes unhealthy eating habits and it's a cause as to why many lower income people are overweight. Community gardens can help this problem by providing for free fresh veggies and fruits so that they can make themselves a nice balanced meal. In fact, I believe that the goal should be to build farms for cities, like the south central farm. Promoting healthy eating is a must and it's also a way to fuck with big box fast food because people may start to eat in-house instead of eating out.



Poorer communities seem to have a huge homeless problem and the best way to deal with this is to provide them with a safe place to sleep at night. Since many shelters are jam packed, it's best to build tent cities. This is also a way to build solidarity. If a tent city is run by those who sleep in it, then it also builds democracy skills which is crucial to anarchism. In Las Vegas, there is over 13,000 people on the streets and most shelters are full, the tent cities have been shut down, but we must build them again and even get a permit for them. To do this, we would probably have to buy an empty lot, but I believe it's well worth it. We musn't let people sleep on the streets, when they can live in communities that are democratically run.



All of this and more is what's needed. Enough of talking about what you hate, and more doing what you believe in.