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Autonomy is one of the most important 
of all anarchist principles,

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and a building block for understanding 
anarchist philosophy more broadly.

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So what is it, exactly?

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Well... basically, it's freedom.

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But more than that, it's a particularly 
an anarchist type of freedom..

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the freedom to make decisions, 
and then act out those decisions

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without asking permission from a higher power.

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In some ways, autonomy is similar to liberty,

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a political concept that dates back 
to Europe's so-called “Age of Enlightenment”

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in the 18th century.

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Back in those days, 
liberty was a radical new idea

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that sought to put limits 
on the absolute power of kings and queens.

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Its early advocates argued that human beings

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possessed certain inalienable rights, 
granted to them by God,

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which rulers had to respect.

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This idea was obviously pretty popular, 
and so it soon became

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the rallying cry of the 
French and American Revolutions,

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which helped overthrow feudalism

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and usher in the era of liberal democracy.

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Over the centuries,

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countless astute, 
and not-so-astute political thinkers,

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from Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson, 
to Alex Jones and Glenn Beck

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have claimed liberty 
as a universal human right.

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But to say that this principle 
hasn't been universally applied

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would be a gross understatement.

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This is because from its very beginnings,

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the concept of liberty has existed

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within a framework of 
European global conquest,

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a process facilitated by colonialism, 
slavery and genocide.

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Even today,

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the language of liberty is still used

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to mobilize people's support for imperialist wars.

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Remember when the United States government claimed

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they were bringing freedom to Iraq?

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The roots of this contradiction
lie in the fact

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that liberty has always been tied
to the existence of states,

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and the associated legal category of citizens.

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Often this is described as a social contract.

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In exchange for obedience to state authority,

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citizens are granted rights and freedoms,

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such as freedom of expression, freedom to associate,

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and the right to pursue happiness or bear arms.

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Non-citizens, or citizens of other states

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are not included in this contract.

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And even putting aside the problem of 
who gets to be considered a citizen,

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just like anything else that is given to you, 
rights can also be taken away.

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At the end of the day,

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it's politicians and courts who get to decide

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what rights you are allowed to exercise
at any given moment.

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Autonomy, on the other hand,

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doesn't rely on a state-based framework of rights.

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Rather than concentrating power and decision-making

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in the tops of social and political hierarchies,

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autonomy starts at the level of the individual,
and scales up.

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If you’re a visual thinker,

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it might be helpful to imagine it 
as sort of like an inverted pyramid.

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As the scope of autonomy grows 
to include more and more people,

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we move from talking about individual autonomy

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to collective autonomy:

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the power of groups of people 
to make collective decisions

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on issues that affect them directly.

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Individual and collective autonomy 
are indivisible under anarchism.

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You can't have one without the other.

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Autonomous collectives are made up 
of autonomous individuals,

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who have all made the decision to work together

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to pursue their common interests.

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Unless you’re living in a cabin in the woods,

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it's difficult to exercise individual 
autonomy outside of a collective,

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first of all because those in power 
make it hard to get away with,

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and second because human beings 
are inherently social creatures.

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Building collective autonomy is 
what anarchism is all about.

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Whether this assumes the form of 
an autonomous feminist collective

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that gets together to make decisions 
on how to fight patriarchy,

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or neighbourhood assemblies that come together 
to fight gentrification...

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or even the millions of Kurds in Rojava

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who are building social structures 
that are autonomous from the Syrian state.

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While these are just a few examples,

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the thing that connects them all 
is a shared pursuit of greater collective autonomy.

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And that’s something we should all be striving for….

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because at the end of the day… 
do you really need someone in authority

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telling you what you can or can’t do?

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