Question Everything

I'm not a primitivist, but there are some significant flaws in Civilisation, Primitivism and anarchism by Andrew Flood.

First, it's based on a partial straw man. Not all primitivists reject agriculture, some are open to low-tech forms of agriculture. Freddy Perlman was a very influencial anarcho-primitivist and he didn't see agriculture as the problem, he saw "the leviathan" as the problem. In Against His-story, Against Leviathan!, basically a history of the world from Perlman's primitivist perspective, Perlman sees things as fine up until the creation of the first states/ruling classes in Mesopitamia. See also Anything is Possible, a collection of essays he wrote.

Second, every primitivist I've met who believes population reduction is necessary (this is not universal among primitivists, especially the pro-agriculture type) believes it should be done gradually over a long multi-generational timespan as the result of lower birthrates. No anarcho-primitivist believes in a mass die off. The transition would be gradual, with various parts dismantled along the way. Even John Zerzan, probably the most extreme of the primitivists, says:

What could be dispensed with immediately? Borders, governments, hierarchy....What else? How fast could more deep-seated forms of authority and separation be dissolved, such as that of division of labor? I assert, and not, I hope, in the spirit of wishing to derive blueprints from abstract principle, that I can see no ultimate freedom or wholeness without the dissolution of the inherent power of specialists of every kind.

Many say that millions would die if the present techno-global fealty to work and the commodity were scrapped. But this overlooks many potentialities. For example, consider the vast numbers of people who would be freed from manipulative, parasitic, destructive pursuits for those of creativity, health, and liberty. At present, in fact, very few contribute in any way to satisfying authentic needs.

Transporting food thousands of miles, not an atypical pursuit today, is an instance of pointless activity, as is producing countless tons of herbicide and pesticide poisons. The picture of humanity starving if a transformation were attempted may be brought into perspective by reference to a few other agricultural specifics, of a more positive nature. It is perfectly feasible, generally speaking, that we grow our own food. There are simple approaches, involving no division of labor, to large yields in small spaces.

Agriculture itself must be overcome, as domestication, and because it removes more organic matter from the soil than it puts back. Permaculture is a technique that seems to attempt an agriculture that develops or reproduces itself and thus tends toward nature and away from domestication. It is one example of promising interim ways to survive while moving away from civilization. Cultivation within the cities is another aspect of practical transition, and a further step toward superseding domestication would be a more or less random propagation of plants, a la Johnny Appleseed.

Regarding urban life, any steps toward autonomy and self-help should be realized, beginning now, so that cities may be all the more quickly abandoned later. Created out of capital's need to centralize control of property transactions, religion, and political domination, cities remain as extended life-destroying monuments to the same basic needs of capital. Something on the order of what we know now as museums might be a good idea so that post-upheaval generations could know how grotesque our species' existence became. Moveable celebration sites may be the nearest configuration to cities that disalienated life will express.
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As for population itself, its growth is no more a natural or neutral phenomenon than its technology. When life is fatally out of balance, the urge to reproduce appears as compensation for impoverishment, as with the non-civilized gatherer-hunters surviving today, population levels would be relatively quite low.
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It seems evident that industrialization and the factories could not be gotten rid of instantly, but equally clear that their liquidation must be pursued with all the vigor behind the rush of break-out. Such enslavement of people and nature must disappear forever, so that words like production and economy will have no meaning. A graffito from the rising in France in '68 was simply 'Quick!' Those partisans apparently realized the need to move rapidly forward all the way, with no temporizing or compromise with the old world. Half a revolution would only preserve domination and cement its hold over us.

Thus even Zerzan sees hunter-gatherer society coming about gradually, not instantaneously, although he wants that transition to go as fast as feasible. He claims that implementing this transition will cause birth rates to decline without any kind of mass death. Indeed, given that fertility is already declining in a few centuries we may end up at a point where hunter-gatherer society is feasible even if primitivist ideas go nowhere.

Third, and this is where I take issue with primitivism, the article doesn't really refute their critiques of technology. Many criticisms have been laid out in some depth, such as Pentagon of Power by Lewis Mumford, Against the MegaMachine by David Watson and The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. Hypothetically, Flood's claims about population and their claims about technology could both be right, since he has not even attempted to refute their theories about technology. If this were the case it would show that anarchy is impossible and, even if it were possible, it would only be a minor improvement over the status quo. Defending his advocacy of techno-anarchy requires Flood to refute their theories about technology but he fails to do that, instead focusing on his silly population thesis. He partially gets at this in the "We need more not less technology" section, but not really. For example, many primitivists echo Engels in claiming that technology is inherently hierarchical. And there are other criticisms, too, that you don't address.

"Even if you could turn the clock back it would just start ticking again" can just as easily be applied to the state or capitalism as technology. Fredy Perlman doesn't argue that technology "came from the gods" he claims it was the result of hierarchical society and is an important part of it.

Fourth, I think Flood's article is unnecessarily sectarian. Yes, primitivists can be sectarian, too - but that doesn't make it okay for you to do it. Smearing anarcho-primitivists by associating them with the beliefs of authoritarian primitivists is just as wrong as smearing libertarian socialists by associating them with the beliefs of authoritarian socialists. I could quote positive statements about Castro or Lenin made by advocates of "proletarian revolution," even some by anarchists, but that would hardly be a good reason to argue against libertarian socialism.

Fifth, to say "We need more not less technology" is silly. Some technologies are harmful and should be abolished. Like nuclear weapons. Please, tell me, why do we need more nuclear weapons not less nuclear weapons? The worship of science & industry is just as bad as the primitivists' total rejection of it. Both primitvists and techno-philiacs err in treating all technologies the same. Some technologies are harmful and should be abolished, others are good and should be kept. Primitivist theory, however, is more helpful in thinking about technology because it's based on a social analysis while most technophilia is based on platitudes.