Anarchism's greatest strength is that it advocates a completely different form of social arrangement- one that promises to set free the whole measure of human potential. It's greatest vision is that of a society beyond boring factories and the accumulation of trinkets. I find it easy to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in my mind (much like Chuck, I imagine) that, of course, everyone should have access to health care and shelter and enough healthy food and everything that my fat white male ass has. BUT, I also hold out for the day that we can transcend social arrangements that dictate that someone has to work 8-10 hours in a widget factory whether it's for the "Revolution" or for the bosses. Sure we should all have those widgets but the answer is to slow down and spread it out more. Reducing the amount of waste and over-consumption due to capitalism's voracious appetite for illusionary monetary profit would go much further to bringing the whole world closer to a situation where their worldly needs are taken care of than "full employment".
I always wonder why Ivan Illich seems to have so few fans among even anarchists. He also advocates against the school and health care systems by carefully analyzing how they do more overall harm than good by locking people into the larger system as passive consumers. I realize that schools have probably changed a lot since I was in them but I'm sure they still have bells and set periods of study. It seemed that the smarter you were (in the systems eyes, basically IQ related) the more freedom you were given in your studies. I was offered a chance to study in a program at La Jolla H.S. in San Diego that was touted as a feeder into Ivy League schools. The program was based heavily on self-motivation and obviously there is a relationship between gaining self-confidence by learning to be responsible on your own and becoming a 'leader' in society. But imagine a society made up completely of "leaders" or fully self-realized individuals. Makes the ideologs heads explode, I reckon. Any comments on Illich? I'll try to find some links on him for those who are interested.