Anarchist Direct Action (ADA) is a Melbourne based activist organisation of anarchists aimed at participating in the struggle against capitalism and the state.
We are activists within our communities and participate in a broad range of social, political and community groups including unions, student organisations, protest groups, campaigns, and other direct action groups. We are workers, students, unemployed, individuals and collective organisers.
ADA aims at contributing to the movement against capital and the state through the politics of direct action. Direct action does not pertain to the level of militancy different individuals are willing or able to live up to in their activism. It means that we act on behalf of ourselves and do not seek to ‘represent’ others in our political action. We encourage others to do the same instead of leaving political action up to others, be they politicians, bureaucrats, officials or other representative institutions. Our approach derives not only from the belief that in a free society institutions should be both directly democratic and federatively run, but that in getting there we must also actively oppose new, unnecessary hierarchies from establishing themselves. This is relevant in our unions, student organisations, protest groups, campaigns, and even in direct action groups. In the struggle against capitalism we must also maintain a critique of power in all its forms, not simply that which amounts to economic exploitation.
We are opposed to capitalism. This is because capitalism is an economic system based on private property and therefore the dispossession and alienation of vast majority from the products of their own labour. Instead, we are for a self managed economic organisation of society, whereby the tools and the whole productive capacity of society is autonomously owned and controlled in federative and directly democratic way. Some know the concept of an economy based on inalienable rights to social property as socialism, but for others this word has come to signify state control, and state-capitalism.
We are opposed to the state. The state is a form of social monopoly, over the autonomy of individuals, or of groups of individuals, and their right to associate freely, if collectively, with each other. Any form of government, even so-called ‘representative democracies’ will eventually end in despotism because the interests of the rulers will always depart from the ruled. Without the right to freely associate, there is always a tendency towards the centralisation of power, the oppression of minorities by tyrannical majorities, and eventually despotism. The state (and representative political action) has not helped to undermine the worst elements of capitalism in Australia. Direct action and the rejection of government and capital have been the driving force, while the state (and representative political action like elections) have moderated this direct threat and mediated it with the interests of capital. It is the state which through its monopoly of violence over society enforces private property. The modern nation state arose with capitalism. The state is the political expression of oppression and must be overthrown if capitalism is to be overthrown.
With all this in mind, ADA meets regularly to organise how to best contribute to strong and effective community opposition to these illegitimate authorities. We have taken part in community action together, and in our individual pursuits the group acts as a space to reflect on our daily struggles. We have recently started making publications, and have a number of projects on the go at once. We also discuss how to make our action more effective and how to best advocate for the tactics of direct action within the broader social movement. We are open to those who identify as Anarchist and the group is freely federated - meaning the only requirement is that you want to work with us and we want to work with you