Save the Welfare State March and Rally, London - Pictures.

We are meant to be destroying the state not defending it!

until someone can come up with an alternative that feeds,homes, supports and has health provision the state is needed.

So unless you can come up with a realistic, costed alternative, without relapsing back into grandious one size fits all political idealism that will probably cost the lives of most of the old folks in these pictures try shutting up and keeping out these folks way while they try to do something.

The welfare state is a good thing if done for the good of all, its when people abuse it that we all suffer

fuck off with your the state is a good thing bullshit

no masters no state no leaders
attack and destroy

Oh dear me, let see...

WW2. England and france avoided war and could of easily stopped Germany from the conquest of europe. Then they 'went to war' later on.

Jeez. Thought the bloody pensioners would remember this stuff

Fuck off back to your middle class parents you pathetic lifestylist. I bet you don't have to worry about getting sick or needing any kind of support with mummy & daddys private healthcare and the other benefits you grew up with. Tossers like you make real anarchists want to throw up.

Smashing the apparatus of the state is about getting rid of the heirarchic, authoritarian organisations which re-enforce and bolster the capitalist system and its dogma.

The public services are the closest thing we have to self-organised provision as they are not privately owned and therefore oriented towards enriching individuals. If it is a choice between private ownership of our necessary utilities, or the state, I will choose the state anyday because at least it theoretically publicly owned and funded and not aimed at profit.

Public services do serve as a positive example of non-profit pubic utilities. It also expose the limits of the state system when the government attempts to cut them because people begin to value free provision of healthcare and the like and get pissed off when some bureaucrat makes cuts and they can't do anything about it because they are not empowered over these matters. It opens the mind to alternatives to the percieved necessity to be a "viable business model" to succeed.

Being anti-everything is not constructive. We as an anarchist movement need to by analytical and tactical in who and what we support and for what ends we do so.

Think before you rush in with fiery raging rhetoric.

Anarchy & Freedom.

We don't need it... what we do need is to claim back the Common Land that has been stolen over the past few hundreds of years. Smash the state and all it's wage slave systems... all we need is the land and the courage to build communities that work for the people not the banks and suited parasites in Whitehall and Westminster. Over and out!

In the world that we live in right now, destroying the welfare state would be an absolutely reactionary move. AberAnarcho puts it well in stating that in some instances, public services are the closest thing we have to not-for-profit utilities that are, theoretically, at least, run for the common good.

There are contradictions in this position if you are coming at it from an anti-authoritarian point of view. However, there are other ways of looking at it. Mr Chomsky, for instance, argued that, while in the long term, anarchists may oppose the state, you may have to support aspects of the state in the short term because the alternative is privatized services run by and for the rich. Look at the example of New Orleans. Much of the public school system was irrevocably damaged post-Katrina. It it's place, a number of dodgy private companies are stepping in, setting up 'voucer systems' with the explicit intention of introducing market ideology into education. In this context, teachers unions have been almost wiped out.

If we followed the logic of Anarchist, would that mean we would have to oppose public libraries (which are free for anyone to use) because they are run by the state? If that's your anarchism than it's ridiculous.

Those who already comparatively rich (ie most Tories) will not be in the leat bit affected by doing away with public services because they are not reliant on them. They have private healthcare, send their kids to private schools and will never have to face a dole queue. There are lots of problems with the welfare state. I was on Jobseekers recently and it was a horrible, degrading experience. However, getting rid of it completely would benefit no one but the rich, and further entrench the massive inequalities we already have in the UK.

I would go along with your approach but we need to keep our eyes focused on the ultimate goal of dismantling the oppressive state system. Obviously, there will be transitional stages and we must take advantage of the public services that have been fought for and payed for by previous generations but I do believe we are heading not into the ultimate showdown between the general public and the criminal oligarchs who have had it too good for too long.

To be free, we must establish our rights and access to common land which has been stolen by the oligarchs over the centuries. We do not need arrogant psychopaths to tell us how to live... human beings have been living and co-operating for millenia without the aid of centralised state systems of control. We now also have the advantage of technology which has been held back in many respects by those in power to maintain the status quo... it is now time to use technology to benefit humanity.

Respect!

I agree. We should disband the government and then organise other community systems to do these tasks. To fund it all, we could allocate some people to collect money off individuals (we could call them taxmen). Then, since everyone will probably have different ideas on how the money should be distributed, we will probably need to put some people in charge to make the the ultimate decisions and rules that everyone has to work to (we could call this group the government).

There will probably be some people who disagree with the general consensus who may cause a lot of trouble, and other people who steal off others. I suggest we give jobs to some special people who have some powers (we'll call these "the law") over others. We could make these people easily identifiable to others by giving them special hats.

What do people think?

Although Anarchists have historically viewed the state as a major hinderance to equality and freedom, it is suspicious to say the least that some are out in full swing against the few institutions that offer any sort of protection for those hit hardest by capitalism. I would understand a reaction to protests against military cuts or cuts on Trident etc, but to highlight cuts in healthcare and pensions as a positive thing is again at least suspicious.

I'm all for a dismantling of the state and private ownership but this can only occur once people have laid the foundations for autonomous organisation. In this sense, as Anarchists we have failed massively. In the mean time we should continue to highlight the importance of social mechanisms (free healthcare/education, A secure livelihood upon retirement) which are rapidly fading into the oblivion.

Until Anarchy proves that it can do things better, then I don't think anyone will vote for it.

Anarchists typical bemoan how things are, but don't go into any specfic details on rebuilding things. Its all a vague "everything will be determined by consensus" statement.

Thats too vague. What if two groups completely disagree on the way forward. Thats not consensus.
As Normanski said "Anarchism would never work".