Sir Fred Goodwin’s house vandalised!
Ex-RBS Boss Sir Fred Goodwin’s Home Attacked!
Vandals attack Goodwin home – papers!
Home of RBS Fred the Shred vandalised!
Former RBS chief’s home attacked by vandals!
Vandals target Edinburgh home of Sir Fred Goodwin!
Thugs vandalise Sir Fred Goodwin’s home and car!
Anarchists warn ‘This is just the start’ as we track down Fred the Shred!

I see no anarchists, just violent thugs.

Smashing rich people’s windows and damaging their cars is the methodology of the state. Those who smash rich people’s windows and damage their cars as a means (rather than in defense) [sic] will bring greater state repression and greater hostility from society.

Wash rich people’s windows. Detail rich people’s cars. Don’t be the media stereotype of an anarchist — that will only serve to alienate the movement and push it further to the fringes.

Freedom cannot be imposed through the throwing of a brick at a window or kicking car doors — not in Iraq or Afghanistan, nor in safe European homes.

Here endeth the lesson.

Of course, it’s possible to define ‘violence’ as being something other than the exclusive domain of the state. A ’standard’ definition of ‘violence’:

behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage or kill
(strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force)

It’s also possible to examine the definition of ‘the state’; Weber’s definition is a worthwhile beginning.

According to Weber, the state is “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory” (Max Weber, ‘Politics as a Vocation’, in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. and trans. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 78).

According to Weber, the state, like all political associations, is a relation of “men dominating men.” As this relation is supported by means of violence, one might expect men to resist. They do not, Weber argues, because they think this violence is legitimate. The state gets into trouble only when the violence it exercises cannot be distinguished from criminal violence. In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault suggests that the sovereign, who once played a central role in public executions, retires from the scene beginning in the eighteenth century when in the public’s eyes executions came to resemble the acts of violence for which death sentences were being imposed. Focus shifts away from the execution to the trial and to the sentence as the sovereign distances itself from the violence that is bound up with the practice of justice. In this way, the sovereign comes to appear as a disinterested party whose primary concern is the integrity of the process of judgment rather than its outcome.

~ Jennifer L. Culbert and Austin Sarat, Introduction, South Atlantic Quarterly, 107:3, Summer 2008 [PDF]

The human capacity for violence is obvious. What is not obvious is why those seeking to challenge the state’s claimed monopoly on its use should be automatically condemned, and without any reference to their own aims, methods, or an examination of the political rationale provided for this challenge by those who pursue it. In other words, unless one adopts the position ‘all violence is bad’, it is necessary to distinguish between the legitimate and illegitimate of violence. In this instance, violence as ‘defence’ (legitimate) and violence as ‘attack’ (illegitimate).

(Secondary issues include 1) the supposed inability of someone to be both an anarchist/’violent thug’ — on Monday? — and to ‘build alternative institutions’ — on Tuesday? — and ‘win hearts and minds’ — on a Wednesday? — etc. and; 2) the political economy of the mass media and what this implies for the ’successful’ use of such media to communicate anarchist ideas.)

Violence is the methodology of the state, those who use violence as a means (rather than in defense) will bring greater state repression and greater hostility from society.

Build alternative institutions, win hearts and minds, don’t be the media stereotype of an anarchist – that will only serve to alienate the movement and push it further to the fringes.

Freedom cannot be imposed through the barrel of the gun, not in Iraq or Afghanistan nor at home.