DAVID 'r. WIECK even if the society were disburdened of many functions, such as the military, that would have no possible place in an anarchy. Practically, if we are all by our choosings to participate in making our world, it would seem necessary that a principle - a practical rather than an ethical principle - of minimum large-scale change be followed generally, so that communication and intelligence be most effective and so that individual choices, and in consequence agreements, contractual and tacit, be made within a world one somewhat understands. The restless technology of our centuries flourishes in a world where institutions of power impose its innovations, provide its workforce, and manipulate its consumers, and where dominant classes are eager to magnify their power and wealth through technological supremacy. Anarchy would not provide these conditions, nor could anarchist decision-making be expected to cope with continuous major technological revolution. Ceaseless and rapid demographic expansion that forces constant dissolution and reformation of life-complexes (neighborhoods, towns, cities, regions) creates a turmoil that free people cannot deal with any more intelligently than can the present institutions. Many technological patterns already existing may also make demands for decision-making that cannot well be met except on a basis of collective institutions that create bureaucratic and other forms of power. That is, anarchist society would not be readily compatible, if compatible at all, with certain practical goals or ways of life or with certain societal rhythms. In the era of unchallenged technological ideology, to which Marxism contributed its share, such concessions would have been regarded as determining conclusively the reactionary nature of anarchism. In the era of ideologies of progress, they would similarly have stamped anarchism as impossible of realization just because it does not extrapolate what was then thought of as progress, and as undesirable because unsuited to spiralling future progress. Today it may be easier to agree that incompatibility with certain practical goals is not necessarily a defect or limitation. The kinds of things that cannot be done well in an anarchist society may be just those that release the blind and uncontrolled historical processes that determine much of our existence in a manner that renders our will ineffectual and that even determines our will. Perhaps the major thrust of serious social thinking for 46
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