ABSTRACT
Knowledge and qualifications give authority only over the field in which they are directly exercised. So for example a supreme educational authority which decides what hundreds of thousands of pupils should learn is a competence of ability tyrannizing over a competence of interest. According to competence of interest there should be local authorities, cultural authorities, economic authorities, mediating authorities. A local authority is a number of people who by the fact of living in a certain area have interests and problems in common. The term "cultural authority" applies to any association primarily concerned with the preservation, development, and creation of values. Economic authorities are necessary in order that production be coordinated to consumer demand, and distribution be carried out in a just and efficient manner. A mediating authority, in our conception of an anarchist society, results automatically whenever the field of competence of one authority extends over that of another.
