We have reason to believe that humans have cooperatively self-organised their lives and resources for thousands of years without rulers or proprietors. The institutions of the state and private property have historically organised and reproduced hierarchical social relations, but we are certainly capable of both authoritarian and anti-authoritarian social arrangements. Avoiding authoritarianism and maintaining egalitarianism relies on a conscious recognition of the material conditions which contribute to that egalitarian arrangement and an anarchic determination to resist social arrangements that grant some people rights over the resources, lives, and labour of others.

Peaceful, egalitarian societies have existed alongside patriarchal warmongers throughout our history. Which traits predominate in our society is determined by what our material conditions incentivise. Everyone can practice cooperative behaviour when they have the need or desire to do so. Natural disasters frequently generate substantial cooperation, solidarity, and spontaneous mutual assistance, although these responses can coexist with competition and conflict. Without our capacity for altruism, built upon the evolutionary foundation of mutual aid and cooperative child rearing, we would not be human.

That isn’t to deny the role of struggle and conflict, but it must be stressed that the primacy of greed, selfishness, and competition within our societies are an outcome of specific social arrangements and material conditions. Whether acting in one’s self-interest to pursue personal well-being produces cooperation or oppression is determined by the systems an individual is embedded within. As British philosopher Andrew Collier wrote in Marx: A Beginner’s Guide:

“To look at people in capitalist society and conclude that human nature is egoism, is like looking at people in a factory where pollution is destroying their lungs and saying that it is human nature to cough.”

Ultimately, the conditions in our society are what shapes what “human nature” is, how it develops, and what aspects of it are made manifest. Egalitarian societies and hierarchical societies will shape people in radically different ways. Both are within the realm of future possibilities. We know that human beings have the ability to think and learn for ourselves, that we are social creatures capable of organising ourselves without hierarchy, and that we can recognise and oppose injustice. With these three characteristics in mind, by recognising and opposing the conditions that favour domination and proposing horizontal social arrangements to actively reshape our powers, drives, and consciousness, we can bring forth our liberation.

Human nature is a mythology of social control weaponised to simplify our complexity and reify the way that present society is organised, whether via divine right, original sin, or sociobiology. Human nature is a lazy mental shortcut to avoid confronting preconceived notions, prejudices, and assumptions. Human nature is an effective propaganda tool limiting our recognition of our possibilities and serving the constriction of our education and imagination.

Anarchists are accused of demanding too much from human nature. I think it’s quite the opposite. We’re told that without the state, the world would descend into chaos. “The state protects us from bad people.” No. As Kropotkin rightfully argued in Are We Good Enough, “both rulers and ruled are spoiled by authority” and “both exploiters and exploited are spoiled by exploitation.” The powerful are corrupted by power and the powerless become either servile or rebellious. Even if human nature were as wicked as some say it is, providing avenues to dominate others would be a terrible mistake. We don’t need perfect people to spark a social revolution, we just need people willing to question and transform our relationships, technologies, cultures, education, and economies in an anarchic manner. It won’t happen overnight, nor will it entirely eliminate conflict between people, but slowly and surely, fuelled by the indomitable human spirit, the social revolution could bring out the untapped potential of freedom embedded within our so-called human nature.

Andrew Sage