yes, yes, some windows got smashed, like at every big protest; and yet we keep having this argument. Was it stupid? Yes. It made absolutely no strategic, operational, or tactical sense. Was it violence? That's going to take a little more explanation. Is that all that Anarchy is? Fuck no.
...they never say "anarchist facilitators helped run a General Assembly in Portland yesterday" or "anarchists practiced non-violent civil disobedience at Chase today" - but the moment someone damages a piece of glass, suddenly their long-term political vision becomes relevant again. David Graeber
Property Violence: It certainly is
La propriété, c'est le vol! Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, 1840
Liberals: Anarchists do not share your value system about property. To us, "violence" is possible only against human beings. Killing, assault, war, torture- Those are violent. Property is not part of a person the way their limbs are or their psychology is.
Your ideas about property come from Classical Liberalism, exemplified in the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution
No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
The idea of 'property rights' was revolutionary at a time when a person's possessions could be seized by an undemocratic Crown. In fact the word "liberal" originally referred to liberty
from feudalism- liberty from censorship; liberty of religiosity; liberty to freely engage in economic activity for personal profit.
But by declaring property rights as a form of human right, Classical Liberalism set up humanity for the very Disaster (bandwidth warning: Scribd) against which the Occupy movement is a reaction: The domination of humanity by a tiny (and ever-smaller) class of owners whose only goal is to dominate your life as thoroughly as possible, their rule enforced by the attack dogs of the organization whose primary function is maintaining the sanctity of property- the State. If you violate that sanctity, expect to be beaten, abducted, tortured, and locked in a cage for years. You can't be against violence and for this system.
Which is violent: breaking a window, or a foreclosure?
Anarchism and Property
The Capitalist idea of property is that it should be based on title: The idea, basically, is that for each thing there is a piece of paper somewhere which says who owns it. Your car's title, your house's deed, the receipt for the doughnut you just bought at the convenience store- the State recognizes this, and only this, as proof of ownership. But this system is not inherent to natural law or evolution, but a particular opinion about how the economic system should work.
Anarchists have a completely different take on property. We say that property ownership should be based on use: Why do you own your car? Because you use it. Why do you own your house? You live in it. Why do you own the doughnut? It was up for grabs and you were hungry. "Intellectual property" is an oxymoron; anything that can be copied at no cost can't justifiably be denied to anyone.
Clearly, this system is not compatible with capitalism. But it is significantly more compatible with human nature (Graeber again). Instead of capitalism, Anarchists advocate various systems of Gift-based economics, in which everything that's distributed is given away with nothing demanded in return; but, notably, for Anarchists it is up to each individual to determine what they are willing to give. You may have experienced this at your local Occupation!
How is ownership determined? However you think is probably the right answer (Title may be insane but I will grant that it is clear); usually it comes down to asking around to see if anyone is using something (which you can think of as the "are you going to eat that?" rule). Again, this is very inherent to human nature, and that's absolutely by design. In the event that no one can be found who is using something, or clear evidence is found that it's up for grabs (for example anything in a trash can), then it can be presumed abandoned and therefore available for taking or homesteading.
The capitalist idea of property is not even compatible with itself when homesteading and abandonment are considered! Rather than having a principled way of determining when something is really abandoned and the title should properly be given to someone else, every government has its own arbitrary time limits and rules. It's all madness, and it even accepts the principle that property ownership is based on use.
Consensus
Actually, the development of consensus process, which is probably the movement’s greatest accomplishment, emerges just as much from the tradition of radical feminism, and draws on spiritual traditions from Native American to Quakerism. This is where the whole exotic language of the movement comes from: facilitation, “the people’s microphone,” spokescouncils, blocks... Graeber
The most dramatically inspiring part of Occupy Wall Street, for the majority of Occupy fans, is undoubtedly the General Assembly. It was apparently an import from Spain's "Indignados" protests earlier in the summer, but the Consensus process is homegrown. I know how to facilitate because of my participation in the Anarchist milieu over the past decade; from where do you think all these experienced facilitators sprang?
Consensus is based on the very nonviolent principle that you can only do something to affect a person with their explicit agreement (consent). It is an organizing principle based on horizontal control- I imagine you're all familiar with these concepts by now.
In Consensus, you should only work with groups and people with whom you share basic and enunciated principles of agreement. If members of an organization can't agree on basics principles or a purpose for the organization, the members go their separate ways. This is what the Block is supposed to be for- to declare that a proposal is antithetical to the group's purpose or principles, and the event of its passage would necessitate that the blocking party can't work with the rest of the organization anymore. A Block is not necessarily a veto! Any voting at all misses the entire point of Consensus process.
Consensus, especially using the Spokescouncil model with organically-formed Affinity Groups, is both the organizational structure we would like to see in an ideal world, and a way of bringing that world about- if it could even be said to not exist, with capitalism as merely a parasite upon it.
An Anarchist FAQ (page formatting may be off)
Anarcho-Syndicalism 101