COLLAPSE
The last possible future we have to think about is where there is some level of collapse in many of our political and economic institutions. This does not necessarily mean a total collapse in which both the state and capitalist businesses no longer exist, but one in which both the central government and big corporations abandon large swathes of society, and many people are no longer able to get stable wage work, nor access consumer markets to buy the things they need, nor rely on state welfare to provide for them. For most of us, society as we know it today would collapse, while the rich and powerful would retreat to their own strongholds of power and profit.
This may sound extreme, but if we start thinking in terms of decades instead of years, this is a future we must take seriously. For example, if both the 2029 and 2034 elections lead to business-as-usual governments, the social fabric of society will continue to weaken as more and more people fall into isolation and poverty, and a series of economic shocks caused by a worsening environmental situation and geopolitical conflicts, could tip society over into some form of collapse before 2039. Another possibility would be an unsuccessful reformist Labour or Green government elected in 2029 that leads to a runaway far-left social movement, which then leads to a fascist Conservative or Reform government being elected in 2034 that causes widespread economic and social destruction in attempts to destroy this social movement, which leads to a society in 2039 that has collapsed in many places.
Collapse is also not a binary state that happens instantly or everywhere all at once. Some parts of British society could be said to be already collapsing whilst others are thriving. The government is likely to try to prevent the City of London from collapsing for as long as it possibly can. On the other hand, there are many small post-industrial towns or vulnerable neighbourhoods that already feel like the state and capitalism have abandoned them to their own devices, outside of occasionally sending the police in to keep them in line.
Anarchists can build mutual aid movements and other forms of bottom-up provision in the gaps where the state and capitalism retreat, providing infrastructure that proves anarchist ideas through action. Mutual aid is one of the key organising pillars of anarchist movements, and there are already bottom-up organisations such as Common Ground Collective and Mutual Aid Disaster Relief in the United States that we can look to for ideas suitable for even the harshest of conditions. But we cannot assume that doing this alone will be enough to build a movement that can overthrow the state and capitalism, as it is possible that we may end up simply filling in the gaps for them by building key infrastructure from the bottom up, ultimately stabilising society so that the state and capitalism can continue to exploit people, without having to provide any services themselves. Anarchist mutual aid projects must be accompanied with anarchist politics that spread an understanding as to why the state and capitalism have abandoned people and why we should abolish both, and should also be ready to deny their services en masse, ideally to the state and capitalism specifically, as a form of general strike.
This is especially important in the case of society facing some kind of general collapse. In such a future, there is no guarantee that, even if the state and capitalism retreat from the lives of most people, people will replace those institutions with anything more liberatory. In times of stress, people are likely to fall back on the organisational forms and social assumptions they already know, so we would probably see society shatter into a patchwork of smaller authorities that continue exploitation and oppression locally, until one of those authorities can re-unify Britain under centralised rule, or Britain is conquered by an imperial power from the outside. Often, when a state falls, central authority is replaced with decentralised warlordism that then re-solidifies into up to a few imperial states. As the classic historic example of this, when the Western Roman Empire fell, it did not usher in a new age of freedom. Instead, it left behind a decentralised patchwork of feudal kingdoms which then slowly centralised into the early modern empires that often looked back to Rome as an inspiration, not as a warning.
If there is a general collapse, anarchist ideas and structures will need to be well-distributed across society, if we want to ensure that what gets built out of that collapse is not just a more decentralised form of authority. We need to be building our structures in as many places as we can as the state and capitalism retreat, and we need to make our politics explicit so that people understand and trust anarchism as a complete alternative framework to hierarchical rule.
WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE
To bring everything we have discussed together, there are a few things that anarchists in the British Isles need to be prepared for in order, to be ready to deal with the possible futures we might face after the next election:
- Regardless of what happens, even if it is business as usual, we must embed ourselves more in our communities and workplaces, both demonstrating our ideas through practice and directly advocating for them. Without this, other forces in society like fascists or left-wing reformists will be able to organise in the gaps left by the state and capitalism instead of us. We must also be prepared for more and more areas to open up for us to do this, if the state and capitalism start to retreat due to internal failures.
- We must attempt to combat reformism in all left-wing social movements that develop. Where possible, we ourselves should build social movements from the ground up that are immunised against reformism and hierarchy. Part of this involves making demands for things that reformism cannot possibly provide, such as complete worker control of their workplaces, directly-democratic community control of infrastructure, the abolition of the institution known as work, or the abolition of the police and prisons and their replacement with anarchist alternatives, and convincing people of those demands. If we only demand higher wages, better state welfare or real equality before the law, then there is a high chance that we will be outflanked by a progressive reformist government, that can provide those things without undermining the state and capitalism.
- We must be prepared to survive extreme political repression. Any anarchist movement that is successful is going to push social movements beyond demanding reform to the point that reform is no longer a successful tactic to manage social unrest. When this happens, the only tool left in the state and capitalism’s toolbox of social control is brute oppression: violence, indoctrination and surveillance. We must harden our own organisations and social movements against widespread surveillance and extreme violence, to the point that they can defeat any attempt to subjugate them. Then we can start to build towards a fifth future that we often do not dare to think about any more: social revolution.
We expect that none of this will be new to most anarchists, who already agree with these three main points in theory. However, having a good strategy is only a necessary first step, and it is useless if we do not build the capacity to implement it. It should be noted that the early-20th-century anarchist movements were far more powerful and well-embedded in society than our current movement, and they were almost completely destroyed by the one-two punch of repression by fascists and Leninists, and reform by liberals and social democrats. We are in a far more precarious position right now and we must quickly, significantly improve what we are doing if we want to survive the possible futures we might face.
We must also remain flexible in the face of different possible futures. The security culture that is appropriate for a future of severe repression might be a hindrance in a future where anarchists need to be more open and public-facing in order to influence a left-wing social movement. We need to be ready for many different challenges, be aware of the trade-offs we are making with our tactics at any given moment, and be able to react to shifting circumstances.
If there is one other point that we want to drive home, it is this: whether we are facing a future of business as usual, reformism, oppression or outright collapse, we cannot assume that things will automatically go our way. We cannot (just) count on impersonal historic forces without us actively spreading anarchist ideas, ways of relating to each other, tactics, strategies and structures, and obtaining spaces and resources. The state and capitalism will happily keep doing what they are doing until they destroy society, unless there is an active attempt to prevent them from doing so. People will not automatically see the limits of reformism unless we explicitly persuade them. Oppression will not breed more anarchists unless we offer anarchism as the most effective way to fight oppression. If society collapses, it is likely to collapse into a mess of smaller authorities unless we demonstrate a better alternative. Liberation will not happen automatically: we must fight for it and eclipse the state, capitalism, fascism, and all rulers.
The Eclipse 
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