Interview with Joe Toscano, Anarchist Media Institute

Dr. Joe Toscano, of the Anarchist Media Institute, is a well-known libertarian activist. A medical practitoner and surgeon, he has run the Anarchist World radio show on 3CR since 1977 and producted a weekly newsletter, the Anarchist Age Review, since 1991. He was a chief organiser of the 1986 Australian Anarchist Centenary Celebrations. One of the most prominent recent campaigns he has been involved in is founding and promoting "Defend and Extend Medicare", Australia's public health system, through decentralised community groups. The groups attracted not only the criticism of the government's health minister (and now opposition leader) as well as briefing papers on the activists by "a senior intelligence official".

The Isocracy Network raised a number of questions with Joe, which he responded en bloc Firstly Joe, thank you for agreeing to be interviewed on The Isocracy Network. Can you give our readers a brief background on your own activities and that of the Anarchist Media Institute? You're an anarchist, you are not enrolled to vote, and yet you stand as a candidate for Federal parliamentary elections and as the Lord Mayor for Melbourne. You have probably received some criticism, both by from fellow anarchists and from mainstream politicians. Why do you do this? Politically, you've advocated delegative and direct rather representative and indirect democracy, and collective rather than representative decision-making. A serious criticism of this model is that majorities can - and often do - oppress minorities. What are the limits of collective action in your view? What about economically models of organisation? What is your perspectives on anarchist economic organisations, such as mutualism, or commonwealth approaches, such as Georgism? Finally, what are the priorities of activity for an politically-involved anarchist today?

Thanks for all the questions from isocracy. Instead of working through them methodically, I’ll answer them as a narrative which I hope will answer all the questions you asked.

I subscribe to the idea that an anarchist is someone who wants to create and live in a society without rulers. The challenge facing anarchists is what institutional, political, social and cultural structures need to be put in place to achieve this. Inequalities of power and wealth lie at the heart of most hierarchical relationships. The struggle to create a society without rulers would result in the creation of a society where wealth and power is shared equally.

The sharing of power and wealth forms the two major principles of association of an anarchist community. Direct democracy is based on the idea people make decisions and use delegates with limited mandates to carry out those decisions. Direct democracy isn’t, as most people seem to think, majority rule. In a direct democratic society both majority and minority decisions can be carried out in parallel. The majority cannot negate the minority’s wishes. Societies based on direct democratic principles make decisions on what is produced, how it is produced and how resources are allocated. It does not make decisions about limiting an individual or minority’s freedoms to live within that community because they do not follow a particular path.

Inequalities in wealth lead to the creation of powerful hierarchies. In an anarchist society – a society without rulers, wealth is held in common. That doesn’t mean people share toothbrushes, what it means is that everyone, irrespective of who they are and what they do, shares in the common wealth – common storehouse economies. Use determines ownership, while you use something it is yours, once you no longer need it it reverts back to the common pool. Nothing I have said so far I believe is too controversial.

What I am about to outline may make a few people choke on their cornflakes. For far too long anarchism has been hobbled by ideology and historical precedent. Hyphen-anarchism dominated 20th century anarchist thought and action. “Anarchists don’t marry, they don’t vote, they don’t stand for election and they don’t own property, area few anarchist sacred cows”. Activists during the 20th century divided themselves as class anarchists, anarcha feminists, anarcho syndicalists, anarcho primitivists, anarcho communists, anarcho individualists etc. etc.

Today some anarchists still seem to confuse strategy and tactics with principle. The central principle shared by all anarchists is woven in the original meaning of the word anarchos – without rulers, not without rules. The Anarchist Media Institute was formed in 1986 after the Australian Anarchist Centenary Celebrations that were held in Melbourne from the 1st – 4th May 1986 to act as the interface between the fourth estate and the Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society, an anarchist group formed in Melbourne in 1976. Over the last 24 years the Anarchist Media Institute has made anarchist ideas accessible to many people in Melbourne, Victoria and Australia that had no contact with the ideas.

One of the many strategies we have used is to use Parliamentary elections to promote Direct Democracy as an alternative to Parliamentary Rule. We were involved in Don’t Vote and Vote Informal electoral campaigns between 1976 to 1992. Since 1992 we have stood candidates in Federal elections to highlight the lunacy of parliamentary rule. Would I personally take a seat in Parliament in the unlikely event of being elected on a radical ticket, promoting direct democracy and using locked up superannuation funds as seeding funding for collectives and co-operatives? I would if I could use parliament to promote its dissolution. The whole purpose of the electoral campaigns is not to get elected but to influence people to grapple with new ideas and concepts at one of the few times they are thinking politically.

I am 58, am not on the electoral roll and have never voted in a State or Federal election although voting is compulsory in Australia. I can legally stand as a candidate because of a quirk in the Australian constitution. My ambition is to drag as many anarchists kicking and screaming into the 21st century and free activists from the ideological straight jacket that many still refuse to discard. It is essential as many anarchists as possible join the 21st century and use all the means available to them to form a voluntary co-operative society based on direct democratic principles where wealth is held in common.

As the world moves from a period of abundance to scarcity, as the four horsemen of the apocalypse – increasing population growth, finite resources, increasing greenhouse emissions and capitalism, an economic system based on the creation of ever increasing profits irrespective of human, social and environmental costs create social, political and cultural conditions that will lead to barbarism if not checked. The importance of creating a community that harvests the collective wisdom of the community to deal with the disasters that a reliance on hierarchical institutions have created cannot be understated. The 21st century is the Anarchist century because the things anarchists have been saying and struggling for, for so long, long hold the key to solving the problems created by the triumph of private and state capitalism during the 20th century.