In many cities in the United States, anarchists have organized "Food Not Bombs" feeds. The organizers of these projects will explain that food should be free, that no one should ever have to go hungry. Certainly a fine sentiment...and one to which the anarchists respond in much the same way as christians, hippies or left liberals -- by starting a charity.

We will be told, however, that "Food Not Bombs" is different. The decision-making process used by the organizers is nonheirarchical. They recieve no government or corporate grants. In many cities, they serve their meals as an act of civil disobedience, risking arrest. Obviously, "Food Not Bombs" is not a large-scale charitable bureaucracy; in fact, it is often a very slip-shod effort...but it is a charity -- and that is never questioned by its anarchist organizers.

Charities are a necessary part of any economic social system. The scarcity imposed by the economy creates a situation in which some people are unable to meet their most basic needs through the normal channels. Even in nations with highly developed social welfare programs, there are those who fall through the cracks in the system. Charities take up the slack where the state's welfare programs can't or won't help. Groups like "Food Not Bombs" are, thus a voluntary workforce helping to preserve the social order by reinforcing the dependence of the poor upon programs not of their own
creation.

No matter how non-heirarchal the decision-making process used by the relationship is always authoritarian. The beneficiaries of a charity are at the mercy of the organizers of the program and so are not free to act on their own terms in this relationship. This can be seen in the humiliating way in which one must recieve charity. Charity feeds like "Food Not Bombs" require the beneficiaries to arrive at a time not of their choosing in
order to stand in line to recieve food not of their choosing (and usually poorly made) in quantities doled out by some volunteer who wants to make sure that everyone gets a fair share. Of course, it's better than going hungry, but the humiliaton is at least as great as that of waiting in line at the grocery store to pay for food one actually wants and can eat when one wants it. The numbness we develop to such humiliation -- the numbness which is made evident by the case with which certain anarchists will opt to
eat at charity feeds every day in order to avoid paying for food, as though there were no other options -- shows the extent to which our society is permeated with such humiliating interactions. Still, one would think that anarchists would refuse such interactions as far as it lies within their power to do so and would seek to create interactions of a different sort in order to destroy the humiliation imposed by society. Instead, many create programs that reinforce this humiliation.

But what of the empathy one may feel for another who is suffering from a poverty one knows all too well; what of the desire to share food with others? Programs like "Food Not Bombs" do not express empathy, they express pity. Doling out food is not sharing; it is an impersonal, hierarchical relationship between social role "donor" and social role "beneficiary". Lack of imagination has led anarchists to deal with the question of hunger
(which is an abstract question for most of them) in much the same way as christians and liberals, creating institutions which parallel those which already exist. As is to be expected when anarchists attempt to do an inherently authoritarian task, they do a piss-poor job...Why not leave charity work to those who have no illusions about it? Anarchists would do better to find ways of sharing individually if they are so moved, ways which encourage self-determination rather than dependence and affinity
rather than pity.

There is nothing anarchist about "Food Not Bombs". Even the name is a demand being made to the authorities. This is why its organizers so frequently use civil disobedience -- it is an attempt to appeal to the consciences of those in power, to get them to feed and house the poor. There is nothing in this program that encourages self-determination. There is nothing that would encourage the beneficiaries to refuse that role and begin to take what they want and need without following the rules. "Food
Not Bombs", like every other charity, encourages its beneficiaries to remain passive recipients rather than becoming active creators of their own lives. Charity must be recognized for what it is: another aspect of the institutionalized humiliation inherent in our economized existence which must be destroyed so we can fully live.