The coherence of means and ends is a concept at the core of anarchist strategy. We would go as far as to say that the coherence of means and ends lies at the heart of anarchism itself. When we speak of the coherence of means and ends, we refer to the inherent connection between the methods we use and the outcomes we achieve. This connection is due to how the types of social relations people engage in, the types of actions they take, and the material context of both shapes the consciousness and outcomes that emerge. This means, once a desired outcome is identified, we must then develop a programme consistent with making it a reality.
Means and Ends Applied to the Union Bureaucracies
As a basic example, we can consider the outcome of wishing to transform a bureaucratic trade union with limited membership participation and control of decision-making to one in which the union rank & file is able to control the union through its own decision-making structures. To achieve such a goal would mean utilising means coherent with our aim. A programme of action focused on bureaucratic manoeuvring then would be considered incoherent with our stated objectives; while bureaucratic manoeuvring may lead to success in replacing one bureaucracy with another, the entrenched nature of the union bureaucracy would remain the same. Nor would such a programme of action serve to build up the participation and control of the membership over the union itself. Lastly, such an approach would fail to illuminate amongst the union base that the issue is not who controls the entrenched union bureaucracy, but the lack of rank-and-file control in the first place.
Instead, we would argue for a programme of action focused on building rank & file strength in opposition to the bureaucracy through active intervention of union militants. This would mean building the confidence and strength of the membership through struggles in the workplace, the distribution of popular education against bureaucratic control, building genuinely democratic structures and towards confrontations with the bureaucracy when they oppose the interests of the members.
At some stage, such a programme may entail replacing one set of union officials with another. However, this is different from believing that such an action in itself can achieve our aim. It is through the rank-and-file taking active control of the union and building organisational structures and norms to facilitate this that the union would be transformed. This transformation may be represented by but not created with more radical or militant officials being elected. Without the organisational means to position union control with the members through active and engaged union branches and committees any set of union officials, no matter how socialist would by necessity be forced to reconstitute an entrenched and controlling bureaucracy.
Social Structures are Material Structures
As materialists we understand the social structures humans create represent a material fact. Social structures transform those that engage and interact with them. To join a union bureaucracy is not to have free rein to act as we will. The structures of the bureaucracy itself, the roles it must play and the forces that exert themselves onto it control and constrict the range of activity. It is not enough to take control of union bureaucracies to transform them.
The coherence of means and ends illuminates our opposition to utilising the state as a means for socialist transformation. Trade unions are fighting organisations for the class; while they can be class collaborationist and bureaucratically controlled these factors are not inherent to unions as organisational structures. The state, on the other hand, is an inherently centralised, bureaucratic structure which exists to reproduce class rule. While the working-class can exert influence upon the State from without, by entering within it, socialists and workers are inevitably transformed by the State’s structures and activity. The state can only perpetuate class society, not destroy it.
Revolutionary Strategy Through Coherent Means and Ends
Such an analysis guides our view of the revolutionary strategy. Our aim is a communist society in which the working class directly self-manages production and distribution and in which the workers are actively engaged across all levels of social decision-making. For this to succeed we require a working-class able and willing to self-manage society and organisational forms which can allow them to do so. Such a working class does not exist today and will not appear spontaneously on the day of the revolution. Such a transformation must be built in our struggles against capitalism.
Popular education concretises experiences and provides revolutionary direction, yet in itself it is not adequate to transform the consciousness of the working class on mass. Practical lessons born from direct engagement in the class struggle are a necessity and shape the consciousness developed. The development of the working class to the point where it is both willing and able to make a revolution for socialism depends to a large degree on how the struggle is waged.
From this, we understand that how we struggle today and the organisations we build are directly connected to the revolutionary society we seek to achieve. This is why our approach is always centred on encouraging the working class towards direct confrontations with capital, nurturing solidarity, building mass working-class organisations based on mass participation and direct democracy and opposing ideas such as racism, sexism, and transphobia within our organisations.
While the coherence of means and ends is sometimes taken to mean calling for people to live perfectly today as they would tomorrow in an anarchist society, we believe this is a mistake. We maintain there is a coherence between our means and our ends not that our means can completely prefigure what we seek to achieve. The reality of capitalism means that we cannot simply pretend to live within a socialist society and act accordingly. The scope of possibilities remains limited by our material conditions but this does not mean we can completely reject how our activity today concretely shapes the direction the revolutionary struggle takes.