Anarcho-Syndicalists are opposed to participation in parliamentary politics because they agree with Benjamin Franklin, who noted, at least a hundred years in advance of the earliest anarchist philosophers, that the primary purpose of the State [1] is "to protect property from the majority." Although Franklin was writing from the point of view of one who wanted to protect the privileges of the rich and powerful, his analysis of the social role of the state was essentially identical to that of those who later developed the foundations of the philosophy of anarchism, which was to become itself the foundation for the methodology of anarcho-syndicalism.

Like the anarchist philosophers who developed the initial hostility to the State due, in part, to its role as a weapon of class warfare, anarcho-syndicalists too regard the State as a profoundly anti-worker institution. Like Benjamin Franklin, Anarcho-Syndicalists view the primary purpose of the State as being the defence of private property and therefore of economic, social and political privilege, even when doing so denies its citizens the ability to enjoy material independence and the social autonomy which springs from it (see Question #1b). Given that Anarcho-Syndicalists regard the State as a hostile, profoundly anti-worker body, it natually follows that they should reject all forms of participation in it.

In contrast to other bodies of thought (Marxism-Leninism being a prime example), Anarcho-Syndicalists deny that there can be any kind of Workers' State, or State which acts in the interests of workers, as opposed to those of the rich and powerful. Reflecting the anarchist philosophy from which it draws its primary inspiration, anarcho-syndicalism holds to the idea not only that power corrupts, but also that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Anarcho-syndicalists would also concur with the assertion from the American liberal educationalist John Dewey that "the state is the shadow cast over society by big business." If they ever decided to participate in parliamentary politics, anarcho-syndicalists would expect their entry into the political arena to mark the beginning of the abandonment of every principle they ever stood for.

Every time political parties have gained power in the name of the workers, the interests of the working class have been sacrificed to the particular political ambitions of the individuals concerned. This is the actual case every time a supposedly "labour" government gets into power (the use of the military by an Australian Labor government to break a pilot's strike in 1991 being one example of numerous others). We need barely to expend the energy to cite the Bolshevik example in Russia. Anarcho-Syndicalists are inclined to feel that the phrase "Representative Democracy" is oxymoronic, and argue, along with the French ex-politician, Leon Blum, that democracy must be direct or not at all. Blum, having spent years experiencing the manipulation and deception associated with representative politics first-hand, noted that

At an even more profound level, the eminant anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker observed that the ideal of democracy would never work because it was constantly undermined by the anti-democratic, totalitarian impulses of the system of private property. The concept of Representative Democracy, Rocker argued, was "shipwrecked on the realities of the capitalist economic form." [2]

If this is indeed the case, the Liberal-Democratic project appears less as the foundation of freedom and more as a baton or a nightstick for bludgeoning those who get out of line. "Freedom" appears as the sort of liscencious behaviour often blamed on anarchists, ironically enough, the word coming to mean the right of the individual of property and power to whatever they want, regardless of the consequences for other people, for the environment, for the quality of human existence and even for its longevity. "Equality" appears as the equal right of all to exploit, rob and oppress. "Justice" appears as whatever behaviour benefits, supports or furthers the institution of property and those who favour it. "Democracy" appears as an excuse to rob people of their freedom and rights when they violate the sanctity of property, the modern-day God, unquestionable and completely holy. That modern-day Representative Democracy has degraded to the stage where the vocabulary employed in its defence would make Orwell shudder seems as good a reason as the abuses it disguises for anyone concerned with the preservation of social freedoms to reject it.

Anarcho-Syndicalists also reject participation in parliamentary or statist politics on the grounds that means should be consistent with ends. The ends of radical working class movements being the creation of a society where everyone enjoys free and equal access to wealth and resources and equal decision-making power, so, they argue, such principles and ideas should employed within those same movements at the present moment. They deny the arguments seemingly posed by the Marxist-Leninist approach, for example, which seems to say that people must first be trained in the habits of deference and blind submission to authority (in other words, the habits of slavery) in order to be freed.

The methodology of anarcho-syndicalism decrees that individuals must train themselves for freedom, that they must incorporate it into their everyday lives in the present. It says that in order for the end result of working class activism to be the liberation of the world from poverty and wage-slavery, people generally must learn to be autonomous, free-thinking, self-actualising individuals before they can make the social revolution, not the other way around.

1. That is, the institutional structure of law enforcement, not the social body.

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