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txt/secA4.txt
1
A.4 Who are the major anarchist thinkers?
2
3
Although Gerard Winstanley (The New Law of Righteousness, 1649) and
4
William Godwin (Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, 1793) had begun
5
to unfold the philosophy of anarchism in the 17th and 18th centuries,
6
it was not until the second half of the 19th century that anarchism
7
emerged as a coherent theory with a systematic, developed programme.
8
This work was mainly started by four people -- a German, Max Stirner
9
(1806-1856), a Frenchman, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865), and two
10
Russians, Michael Bakunin (1814-1876) and Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921).
11
They took the ideas in common circulation within sections of the
12
working population and expressed them in written form.
13
14
Born in the atmosphere of German romantic philosophy, Stirner's
15
anarchism (set forth in The Ego and Its Own) was an extreme form of
16
individualism, or egoism, which placed the unique individual above all
17
else -- state, property, law or duty. His ideas remain a cornerstone of
18
anarchism. Stirner attacked both capitalism and state socialism, laying
19
the foundations of both social and individualist anarchism by his
20
egoist critique of capitalism and the state that supports it. In place
21
of the state and capitalism, Max Stirner urges the "union of egoists,"
22
free associations of unique individuals who co-operate as equals in
23
order to maximise their freedom and satisfy their desires (including
24
emotional ones for solidarity, or "intercourse" as Stirner called it).
25
Such a union would be non-hierarchical, for, as Stirner wonders, "is an
26
association, wherein most members allow themselves to be lulled as
27
regards their most natural and most obvious interests, actually an
28
Egoist's association? Can they really be 'Egoists' who have banded
29
together when one is a slave or a serf of the other?" [No Gods, No
30
Masters, vol. 1, p. 24]
31
32
Individualism by definition includes no concrete programme for changing
33
social conditions. This was attempted by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the
34
first to describe himself openly as an anarchist. His theories of
35
mutualism, federalism and workers' self-management and association had
36
a profound effect on the growth of anarchism as a mass movement and
37
spelled out clearly how an anarchist world could function and be
38
co-ordinated. It would be no exaggeration to state that Proudhon's work
39
defined the fundamental nature of anarchism as both an anti-state and
40
anti-capitalist movement and set of ideas. Bakunin, Kropotkin and
41
Tucker all claimed inspiration from his ideas and they are the
42
immediate source for both social and individualist anarchism, with each
43
thread emphasising different aspects of mutualism (for example, social
44
anarchists stress the associational aspect of them while individualist
45
anarchists the non-capitalist market side). Proudhon's major works
46
include What is Property, System of Economical Contradictions, The
47
Principle of Federation and, and The Political Capacity of the Working
48
Classes. His most detailed discussion of what mutualism would look like
49
can be found in his The General Idea of the Revolution. His ideas
50
heavily influenced both the French Labour movement and the Paris
51
Commune of 1871.
52
53
Proudhon's ideas were built upon by Michael Bakunin, who humbly
54
suggested that his own ideas were simply Proudhon's "widely developed
55
and pushed right to . . . [their] final consequences." [Michael
56
Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 198] However, he is doing a disservice
57
to his own role in developing anarchism. For Bakunin is the central
58
figure in the development of modern anarchist activism and ideas. He
59
emphasised the importance of collectivism,
60
mass insurrection, revolution and involvement in the militant labour
61
movement as the means of creating a free, classless society. Moreover,
62
he repudiated Proudhon's sexism and added patriarchy to the list of
63
social evils anarchism opposes. Bakunin also emphasised the social
64
nature of humanity and individuality, rejecting the abstract
65
individualism of liberalism as a denial of freedom. His ideas become
66
dominant in the 20th century among large sections of the radical labour
67
movement. Indeed, many of his ideas are almost identical to what would
68
later be called syndicalism or anarcho-syndicalism. Bakunin influenced
69
many union movements -- especially in Spain, where a major anarchist
70
social revolution took place in 1936. His works include Anarchy and
71
Statism (his only book), God and the State, The Paris Commune and the
72
Idea of the State, and many others. Bakunin on Anarchism, edited by Sam
73
Dolgoff is an excellent collection of his major writings. Brian Morris'
74
Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom is an excellent introduction to
75
Bakunin's life and ideas.
76
77
Peter Kropotkin, a scientist by training, fashioned a sophisticated and
78
detailed anarchist analysis of modern conditions linked to a
79
thorough-going prescription for a future society -- communist-anarchism
80
-- which continues to be the most widely-held theory among anarchists.
81
He identified mutual aid as the best means by which individuals can
82
develop and grow, pointing out that competition within humanity (and
83
other species) was often not in the best interests of those involved.
84
Like Bakunin, he stressed the importance of direct, economic, class
85
struggle and anarchist participation in any popular movement,
86
particularly in labour unions. Taking Proudhon's and Bakunin's idea of
87
the commune, he generalised their insights into a vision of how the
88
social, economic and personal life of a free society would function. He
89
aimed to base anarchism "on a scientific basis by the study of the
90
tendencies that are apparent now in society and may indicate its
91
further evolution" towards anarchy while, at the same time, urging
92
anarchists to "promote their ideas directly amongst the labour
93
organisations and to induce those union to a direct struggle against
94
capital, without placing their faith in parliamentary legislation."
95
[Anarchism, p. 298 and p. 287] Like Bakunin, he was a revolutionary
96
and, like Bakunin, his ideas inspired those struggle for freedom across
97
the globe. His major works included Mutual Aid, The Conquest of Bread,
98
Field, Factories, and Workshops, Modern Science and Anarchism, Act for
99
Yourselves, The State: Its Historic Role, Words of a Rebel, and many
100
others. A collection of his revolutionary pamphlets is available under
101
the title Anarchism and is essential reading for anyone interested in
102
his ideas. In Addition, Graham Purchase's Evolution and Revolution and
103
Kropotkin: The Politics of Community by Brain Morris are both excellent
104
evaluations of his ideas and how they are still relevant today.
105
106
The various theories proposed by these "founding anarchists" are not,
107
however, mutually exclusive: they are interconnected in many ways, and
108
to some extent refer to different levels of social life. Individualism
109
relates closely to the conduct of our private lives: only by
110
recognising the uniqueness and freedom of others and forming unions
111
with them can we protect and maximise our own uniqueness and liberty;
112
mutualism relates to our general relations with others: by mutually
113
working together and co-operating we ensure that we do not work for
114
others. Production under anarchism would be collectivist, with people
115
working together for their own, and the common, good, and in the wider
116
political and social world decisions would be reached communally.
117
118
It should also be stressed that anarchist schools of thought are not
119
named after individual anarchists. Thus anarchists are not
120
"Bakuninists", "Proudhonists" or "Kropotkinists" (to name three
121
possibilities). Anarchists, to quote Malatesta, "follow ideas and not
122
men, and rebel against this habit of embodying a principle in a man."
123
This did not stop him calling Bakunin "our great master and
124
inspiration." [Errico Malatesta: Life and Ideas, p. 199 and p. 209]
125
Equally, not everything written by a famous anarchist thinker is
126
automatically libertarian. Bakunin, for example, only became an
127
anarchist in the last ten years of his life (this does not stop
128
Marxists using his pre-anarchist days to attack anarchism!). Proudhon
129
turned away from anarchism in the 1850s before returning to a more
130
anarchistic (if not strictly anarchist) position just before his death
131
in 1865. Similarly, Kropotkin's or Tucker's arguments in favour of
132
supporting the Allies during the First World War had nothing to do with
133
anarchism. Thus to say, for example, that anarchism is flawed because
134
Proudhon was a sexist pig simply does not convince anarchists. No one
135
would dismiss democracy, for example, because Rousseau opinions on
136
women were just as sexist as Proudhon's. As with anything, modern
137
anarchists analyse the writings of previous anarchists to draw
138
inspiration, but a dogma. Consequently, we reject the non-libertarian
139
ideas of "famous" anarchists while keeping their positive contributions
140
to the development of anarchist theory. We are sorry to belabour the
141
point, but much of Marxist "criticism" of anarchism basically involves
142
pointing out the negative aspects of dead anarchist thinkers and it is
143
best simply to state clearly the obvious stupidity of such an approach.
144
145
Anarchist ideas of course did not stop developing when Kropotkin died.
146
Neither are they the products of just four men. Anarchism is by its
147
very nature an evolving theory, with many different thinkers and
148
activists. When Bakunin and Kropotkin were alive, for example, they
149
drew aspects of their ideas from other libertarian activists. Bakunin,
150
for example, built upon the practical activity of the followers of
151
Proudhon in the French labour movement in the 1860s. Kropotkin, while
152
the most associated with developing the theory communist-anarchism, was
153
simply the most famous expounder of the ideas that had developed after
154
Bakunin's death in the libertarian wing of the First International and
155
before he became an anarchist. Thus anarchism is the product of tens of
156
thousands of thinkers and activists across the globe, each shaping and
157
developing anarchist theory to meet their needs as part of the general
158
movement for social change. Of the many other anarchists who could be
159
mentioned here, we can mention but a few.
160
161
Stirner is not the only famous anarchist to come from Germany. It also
162
produced a number of original anarchist thinkers. Gustav Landauer was
163
expelled from the Marxist Social-Democratic Party for his radical views
164
and soon after identified himself as an anarchist. For him, anarchy was
165
"the expression of the liberation of man from the idols of state, the
166
church and capital" and he fought "State socialism, levelling from
167
above, bureaucracy" in favour of "free association and union, the
168
absence of authority." His ideas were a combination of Proudhon's and
169
Kropotkin's and he saw the development of self-managed communities and
170
co-operatives as the means of changing society. He is most famous for
171
his insight that the "state is a condition, a certain relationship
172
among human beings, a mode of behaviour between them; we destroy it by
173
contracting other relationships, by behaving differently towards one
174
another." [quoted by Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible, p. 410
175
and p. 411] He took a leading part in the Munich revolution of 1919 and
176
was murdered during its crushing by the German state. His book For
177
Socialism is an excellent summary of his main ideas.
178
179
Other notable German anarchists include Johann Most, originally a
180
Marxist and an elected member of the Reichstag, he saw the futility of
181
voting and became an anarchist after being exiled for writing against
182
the Kaiser and clergy. He played an important role in the American
183
anarchist movement, working for a time with Emma Goldman. More a
184
propagandist than a great thinker, his revolutionary message inspired
185
numerous people to become anarchists. Then there is Rudolf Rocker, a
186
bookbinder by trade who played an important role in the Jewish labour
187
movement in the East End of London (see his autobiography, The London
188
Years, for details). He also produced the definite introduction to
189
Anarcho-syndicalism as well as analysing the Russian Revolution in
190
articles like Anarchism and Sovietism and defending the Spanish
191
revolution in pamphlets like The Tragedy of Spain. His Nationalism and
192
Culture is a searching analysis of human culture through the ages, with
193
an analysis of both political thinkers and power politics. He dissects
194
nationalism and explains how the nation is not the cause but the result
195
of the state as well as repudiating race science for the nonsense it
196
is.
197
198
In the United States Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were two of the
199
leading anarchist thinkers and activists. Goldman united Stirner's
200
egoism with Kropotkin's communism into a passionate and powerful theory
201
which combined the best of both. She also placed anarchism at the
202
centre of feminist theory and activism as well as being an advocate of
203
syndicalism (see her book Anarchism and Other Essays and the collection
204
of essays, articles and talks entitled Red Emma Speaks). Alexander
205
Berkman, Emma's lifelong companion, produced a classic introduction to
206
anarchist ideas called What is Anarchism? (also known as What is
207
Communist Anarchism? and the ABC of Anarchism). Like Goldman, he
208
supported anarchist involvement in the labour movement was a prolific
209
writer and speaker (the book Life of An Anarchist gives an excellent
210
selection of his best articles, books and pamphlets). Both were
211
involved in editing anarchist journals, with Goldman most associated
212
with Mother Earth (see Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman's Mother
213
Earth edited by Peter Glassgold) and Berkman The Blast (reprinted in
214
full in 2005). Both journals were closed down when the two anarchists
215
were arrested in 1917 for their anti-war activism.
216
217
In December 1919, both he and Goldman were expelled by the US
218
government to Russia after the 1917 revolution had radicalised
219
significant parts of the American population. There as they were
220
considered too dangerous to be allowed to remain in the land of the
221
free. Exactly two years later, their passports arrived to allow them to
222
leave Russia. The Bolshevik slaughter of the Kronstadt revolt in March
223
1921 after the civil war ended had finally convinced them that the
224
Bolshevik dictatorship meant the death of the revolution there. The
225
Bolshevik rulers were more than happy to see the back of two genuine
226
revolutionaries who stayed true to their principles. Once outside
227
Russia, Berkman wrote numerous articles on the fate of the revolution
228
(including The Russian Tragedy and The Kronstadt Rebellion) as well as
229
publishing his diary in book from as The Bolshevik Myth. Goldman
230
produced her classic work My Disillusionment in Russia as well as
231
publishing her famous autobiography Living My Life. She also found time
232
to refute Trotsky's lies about the Kronstadt rebellion in Trotsky
233
Protests Too Much.
234
235
As well as Berkman and Goldman, the United States also produced other
236
notable activists and thinkers. Voltairine de Cleyre played an
237
important role in the US anarchist movement, enriching both US and
238
international anarchist theory with her articles, poems and speeches.
239
Her work includes such classics as Anarchism and American Traditions,
240
Direct Action, Sex Slavery and The Dominant Idea. These are included,
241
along with other articles and some of her famous poems, in The
242
Voltairine de Cleyre Reader. These and other important essays are
243
included in Exquisite Rebel, another anthology of her writings, while
244
Eugenia C. Delamotte's Gates of Freedom provides an excellent overview
245
of her life and ideas as well as selections from her works. In
246
addition, the book Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman's Mother Earth
247
contains a good selection of her writings as well as other anarchists
248
active at the time. Also of interest is the collection of the speeches
249
she made to mark the state murder of the Chicago Martyrs in 1886 (see
250
the First Mayday: The Haymarket Speeches 1895-1910). Every November the
251
11th, except when illness made it impossible, she spoke in their
252
memory. For those interested in the ideas of that previous generation
253
of anarchists which the Chicago Martyrs represented, Albert Parsons'
254
Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis is essential reading.
255
His wife, Lucy Parsons, was also an outstanding anarchist activist from
256
the 1870s until her death in 1942 and selections of her writings and
257
speeches can be found in the book Freedom, Equality & Solidarity
258
(edited by Gale Ahrens).
259
260
Elsewhere in the Americas, Ricardo Flores Magon helped lay the ground
261
for the Mexican revolution of 1910 by founding the (strangely named)
262
Mexican Liberal Party in 1905 which organised two unsuccessful uprising
263
against the Diaz dictatorship in 1906 and 1908. Through his paper
264
Tierra y Libertad ("Land and Liberty") he influenced the developing
265
labour movement as well as Zapata's peasant army. He continually
266
stressed the need to turn the revolution into a social revolution which
267
will "give the lands to the people" as well as "possession of the
268
factories, mines, etc." Only this would ensure that the people "will
269
not be deceived." Talking of the Agrarians (the Zapatista army),
270
Ricardo's brother Enrique he notes that they "are more or less inclined
271
towards anarchism" and they can work together because both are "direct
272
actionists" and "they act perfectly revolutionary. They go after the
273
rich, the authorities and the priestcraft" and have "burnt to ashes
274
private property deeds as well as all official records" as well as
275
having "thrown down the fences that marked private properties." Thus
276
the anarchists "propagate our principles" while the Zapatista's "put
277
them into practice." [quoted by David Poole, Land and Liberty, p. 17
278
and p. 25] Ricardo died as a political prisoner in an American jail and
279
is, ironically, considered a hero of the revolution by the Mexican
280
state. A substantial collection of his writings are available in the
281
book Dreams of Freedom (which includes an impressive biographical essay
282
which discusses his influence as well as placing his work in historical
283
context).
284
285
Italy, with its strong and dynamic anarchist movement, has produced
286
some of the best anarchist writers. Errico Malatesta spent over 50
287
years fighting for anarchism across the world and his writings are
288
amongst the best in anarchist theory. For those interested in his
289
practical and inspiring ideas then his short pamphlet Anarchy cannot be
290
beaten. Collections of his articles can be found in The Anarchist
291
Revolution and Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, both edited by
292
Vernon Richards. A favourite writing technique was the use of
293
dialogues, such as At the Cafe: Conversations on Anarchism. These,
294
using the conversations he had with non-anarchists as their basis,
295
explained anarchist ideas in a clear and down to Earth manner. Another
296
dialogue, Fra Contadini: A Dialogue on Anarchy, was translated into
297
many languages, with 100,000 copies printed in Italy in 1920 when the
298
revolution Malatesta had fought for all his life looked likely. At this
299
time Malatesta edited Umanita Nova (the first Italian daily anarchist
300
paper, it soon gained a circulation of 50 000) as well as writing the
301
programme for the Unione Anarchica Italiana, a national anarchist
302
organisation of some 20 000. For his activities during the factory
303
occupations he was arrested at the age of 67 along with 80 other
304
anarchists activists. Other Italian anarchists of note include
305
Malatesta's friend Luigi Fabbri (sadly little of his work has been
306
translated into English bar Bourgeois Influences on Anarchism and
307
Anarchy and 'Scientific' Communism) Luigi Galleani produced a very
308
powerful anti-organisational anarchist-communism which proclaimed (in
309
The End of Anarchism?) that "Communism is simply the economic
310
foundation by which the individual has the opportunity to regulate
311
himself and carry out his functions." Camillo Berneri, before being
312
murdered by the Communists during the Spanish Revolution, continued the
313
fine tradition of critical, practical anarchism associated with Italian
314
anarchism. His study of Kropotkin's federalist ideas is a classic
315
(Peter Kropotkin: His Federalist Ideas). His daughter Marie-Louise
316
Berneri, before her tragic early death, contributed to the British
317
anarchist press (see her Neither East Nor West: Selected Writings
318
1939-48 and Journey Through Utopia).
319
320
In Japan, Hatta Shuzo developed Kropotkin's communist-anarchism in new
321
directions between the world wars. Called "true anarchism," he created
322
an anarchism which was a concrete alternative to the mainly peasant
323
country he and thousands of his comrades were active in. While
324
rejecting certain aspects of syndicalism, they organised workers into
325
unions as well as working with the peasantry for the "foundation stones
326
on which to build the new society that we long for are none other than
327
the awakening of the tenant farmers" who "account for a majority of the
328
population." Their new society was based on decentralised communes
329
which combined industry and agriculture for, as one of Hatta's
330
comrade's put it, "the village will cease to be a mere communist
331
agricultural village and become a co-operative society which is a
332
fusion of agriculture and industry." Hatta rejected the idea that they
333
sought to go back to an ideal past, stating that the anarchists were
334
"completely opposite to the medievalists. We seek to use machines as
335
means of production and, indeed, hope for the invention of yet more
336
ingenious machines." [quoted by John Crump, Hatta Shuzo and Pure
337
Anarchism in Interwar Japan, p. 122-3, and p. 144]
338
339
As far as individualist anarchism goes, the undoubted "pope" was
340
Benjamin Tucker. Tucker, in his Instead of Book, used his intellect and
341
wit to attack all who he considered enemies of freedom (mostly
342
capitalists, but also a few social anarchists as well! For example,
343
Tucker excommunicated Kropotkin and the other communist-anarchists from
344
anarchism. Kropotkin did not return the favour). Tucker built on the
345
such notable thinkers as Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, Stephen Pearl
346
Andrews and William B. Greene, adapting Proudhon's mutualism to the
347
conditions of pre-capitalist America (see Rudolf Rocker's Pioneers of
348
American Freedom for details). Defending the worker, artisan and
349
small-scale farmer from a state intent on building capitalism by means
350
of state intervention, Tucker argued that capitalist exploitation would
351
be abolished by creating a totally free non-capitalist market in which
352
the four state monopolies used to create capitalism would be struck
353
down by means of mutual banking and "occupancy and use" land and
354
resource rights. Placing himself firmly in the socialist camp, he
355
recognised (like Proudhon) that all non-labour income was theft and so
356
opposed profit, rent and interest. he translated Proudhon's What is
357
Property and System of Economical Contradictions as well as Bakunin's
358
God and the State. Tucker's compatriot, Joseph Labadie was an active
359
trade unionist as well as contributor to Tucker's paper Liberty. His
360
son, Lawrence Labadie carried the individualist-anarchist torch after
361
Tucker's death, believing that "that freedom in every walk of life is
362
the greatest possible means of elevating the human race to happier
363
conditions."
364
365
Undoubtedly the Russian Leo Tolstoy is the most famous writer
366
associated with religious anarchism and has had the greatest impact in
367
spreading the spiritual and pacifistic ideas associated with that
368
tendency. Influencing such notable people as Gandhi and the Catholic
369
Worker Group around Dorothy Day, Tolstoy presented a radical
370
interpretation of Christianity which stressed individual responsibility
371
and freedom above the mindless authoritarianism and hierarchy which
372
marks so much of mainstream Christianity. Tolstoy's works, like those
373
of that other radical libertarian Christian William Blake, have
374
inspired many Christians towards a libertarian vision of Jesus' message
375
which has been hidden by the mainstream churches. Thus Christian
376
Anarchism maintains, along with Tolstoy, that "Christianity in its true
377
sense puts an end to government" (see, for example, Tolstoy's The
378
Kingdom of God is within you and Peter Marshall's William Blake:
379
Visionary Anarchist).
380
381
More recently, Noam Chomsky (in such works as Deterring Democracy,
382
Necessary Illusions, World Orders, Old and New, Rogue States, Hegemony
383
or Survival and many others) and Murray Bookchin (Post-Scarcity
384
Anarchism, The Ecology of Freedom, Towards an Ecological Society, and
385
Remaking Society, among others) have kept the social anarchist movement
386
at the front of political theory and analysis. Bookchin's work has
387
placed anarchism at the centre of green thought and has been a constant
388
threat to those wishing to mystify or corrupt the movement to create an
389
ecological society. The Murray Bookchin Reader contains a
390
representative selection of his writings. Sadly, a few years before his
391
death Bookchin distanced himself from the anarchism he spent nearly
392
four decades advocating (although he remained a libertarian socialist
393
to the end). Chomsky's well documented critiques of U.S. imperialism
394
and how the media operates are his most famous works, but he has also
395
written extensively about the anarchist tradition and its ideas, most
396
famously in his essays "Notes on Anarchism" (in For Reasons of State)
397
and his defence of the anarchist social revolution against bourgeois
398
historians in "Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship" (in American Power
399
and the New Mandarins). These and others of his more explicitly
400
anarchist essays and interviews can be found in the collection Chomsky
401
on Anarchism. Other good sources for his anarchist ideas are Radical
402
Priorities, Language and Politics and the pamphlet Government in the
403
Future. Both Understanding Power and The Chomsky Reader are excellent
404
introductions to his thought.
405
406
Britain has also seen an important series of anarchist thinkers. Hebert
407
Read (probably the only anarchist to ever accept a knighthood!) wrote
408
several works on anarchist philosophy and theory (see his Anarchy and
409
Order compilation of essays). His anarchism flowered directly from his
410
aesthetic concerns and he was a committed pacifist. As well as giving
411
fresh insight and expression to the tradition themes of anarchism, he
412
contributed regularly to the anarchist press (see the collection of
413
articles A One-Man Manifesto and other writings from Freedom Press).
414
Another pacifist anarchist was Alex Comfort. As well as writing the Joy
415
of Sex, Comfort was an active pacifist and anarchist. He wrote
416
particularly on pacifism, psychiatry and sexual politics from a
417
libertarian perspective. His most famous anarchist book was Authority
418
and Delinquency and a collection of his anarchist pamphlets and
419
articles was published under the title Writings against Power and
420
Death.
421
422
However, the most famous and influential British anarchist must be
423
Colin Ward. He became an anarchist when stationed in Glasgow during the
424
Second World War and came across the local anarchist group there. Once
425
an anarchist, he has contributed to the anarchist press extensively. As
426
well as being an editor of Freedom, he also edited the influential
427
monthly magazine Anarchy during the 1960s (a selection of articles
428
picked by Ward can be found in the book A Decade of Anarchy). However,
429
his most famous single book is Anarchy in Action where he has updated
430
Kropotkin's Mutual Aid by uncovering and documenting the anarchistic
431
nature of everyday life even within capitalism. His extensive writing
432
on housing has emphasised the importance of collective self-help and
433
social management of housing against the twin evils of privatisation
434
and nationalisation (see, for example, his books Talking Houses and
435
Housing: An Anarchist Approach). He has cast an anarchist eye on
436
numerous other issues, including water use (
437
Reflected in Water: A Crisis of Social Responsibility), transport
438
(Freedom to go: after the motor age) and the welfare state (Social
439
Policy: an anarchist response). His Anarchism: A Very Short
440
Introduction is a good starting point for discovering anarchism and his
441
particular perspective on it while Talking Anarchy provides an
442
excellent overview of both his ideas and life. Lastly we must mention
443
both Albert Meltzer and Nicolas Walter, both of whom contributed
444
extensively to the anarchist press as well as writing two well known
445
short introductions to anarchism (Anarchism: Arguments for and against
446
and About Anarchism, respectively).
447
448
We could go on; there are many more writers we could mention. But
449
besides these, there are the thousands of "ordinary" anarchist
450
militants who have never written books but whose common sense and
451
activism have encouraged the spirit of revolt within society and helped
452
build the new world in the shell of the old. As Kropotkin put it,
453
"anarchism was born among the people; and it will continue to be full
454
of life and creative power only as long as it remains a thing of the
455
people." [Anarchism, p. 146]
456
457
So we hope that this concentration on anarchist thinkers should not be
458
taken to mean that there is some sort of division between activists and
459
intellectuals in the movement. Far from it. Few anarchists are purely
460
thinkers or activists. They are usually both. Kropotkin, for example,
461
was jailed for his activism, as was Malatesta and Goldman. Makhno, most
462
famous as an active participate in the Russian Revolution, also
463
contributed theoretical articles to the anarchist press during and
464
after it. The same can be said of Louise Michel, whose militant
465
activities during the Paris Commune and in building the anarchist
466
movement in France after it did not preclude her writing articles for
467
the libertarian press. We are simply indicating key anarchists thinkers
468
so that those interested can read about their ideas directly.
469
470
A.4.1 Are there any thinkers close to anarchism?
471
472
Yes. There are numerous thinkers who are close to anarchism. They come
473
from both the liberal and socialist traditions. While this may be
474
considered surprising, it is not. Anarchism has links with both
475
ideologies. Obviously the individualist anarchists are closest to the
476
liberal tradition while social anarchists are closest to the socialist.
477
478
Indeed, as Nicholas Walter put it, "Anarchism can be seen as a
479
development from either liberalism or socialism, or from both
480
liberalism and socialism. Like liberals, anarchists want freedom; like
481
socialists, anarchists want equality." However, "anarchism is not just
482
a mixture of liberalism and socialism . . . we differ fundamentally
483
from them." [About Anarchism, p. 29 and p. 31] In this he echoes
484
Rocker's comments in Anarcho-Syndicalism. And this can be a useful tool
485
for seeing the links between anarchism and other theories however it
486
must be stressed that anarchism offers an anarchist critique of both
487
liberalism and socialism and we should not submerge the uniqueness of
488
anarchism into other philosophies.
489
490
[1]Section A.4.2 discusses liberal thinkers who are close to anarchism,
491
while [2]section A.4.3 highlights those socialists who are close to
492
anarchism. There are even Marxists who inject libertarian ideas into
493
their politics and these are discussed in [3]section A.4.4. And, of
494
course, there are thinkers who cannot be so easily categorised and will
495
be discussed here.
496
497
Economist David Ellerman has produced an impressive body of work
498
arguing for workplace democracy. Explicitly linking his ideas the early
499
British Ricardian socialists and Proudhon, in such works as The
500
Democratic Worker-Owned Firm and Property and Contract in Economics he
501
has presented both a rights based and labour-property based defence of
502
self-management against capitalism. He argues that "[t]oday's economic
503
democrats are the new abolitionists trying to abolish the whole
504
institution of renting people in favour of democratic self-management
505
in the workplace" for his "critique is not new; it was developed in the
506
Enlightenment doctrine of inalienable rights. It was applied by
507
abolitionists against the voluntary self-enslavement contract and by
508
political democrats against the voluntary contraction defence of
509
non-democratic government." [The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm, p. 210]
510
Anyone, like anarchists, interested in producer co-operatives as
511
alternatives to wage slavery will find his work of immense interest.
512
513
Ellerman is not the only person to stress the benefits of co-operation.
514
Alfie Kohn's important work on the benefits of co-operation builds upon
515
Kropotkin's studies of mutual aid and is, consequently, of interest to
516
social anarchists. In No Contest: the case against competition and
517
Punished by Rewards, Kohn discusses (with extensive empirical evidence)
518
the failings and negative impact of competition on those subject to it.
519
He addresses both economic and social issues in his works and shows
520
that competition is not what it is cracked up to be.
521
522
Within feminist theory, Carole Pateman is the most obvious libertarian
523
influenced thinker. Independently of Ellerman, Pateman has produced a
524
powerful argument for self-managed association in both the workplace
525
and society as a whole. Building upon a libertarian analysis of
526
Rousseau's arguments, her analysis of contract theory is ground
527
breaking. If a theme has to be ascribed to Pateman's work it could be
528
freedom and what it means to be free. For her, freedom can only be
529
viewed as self-determination and, consequently, the absence of
530
subordination. Consequently, she has advocated a participatory form of
531
democracy from her first major work, Participation and Democratic
532
Theory onwards. In that book, a pioneering study of in participatory
533
democracy, she exposed the limitations of liberal democratic theory,
534
analysed the works of Rousseau, Mill and Cole and presented empirical
535
evidence on the benefits of participation on the individuals involved.
536
537
In the Problem of Political Obligation, Pateman discusses the "liberal"
538
arguments on freedom and finds them wanting. For the liberal, a person
539
must consent to be ruled by another but this opens up the "problem"
540
that they might not consent and, indeed, may never have consented. Thus
541
the liberal state would lack a justification. She deepens her analysis
542
to question why freedom should be equated to consenting to be ruled and
543
proposed a participatory democratic theory in which people collectively
544
make their own decisions (a self-assumed obligation to your fellow
545
citizens rather to a state). In discussing Kropotkin, she showed her
546
awareness of the social anarchist tradition to which her own theory is
547
obviously related.
548
549
Pateman builds on this analysis in her The Sexual Contract, where she
550
dissects the sexism of classical liberal and democratic theory. She
551
analyses the weakness of what calls 'contractarian' theory (classical
552
liberalism and right-wing "libertarianism") and shows how it leads not
553
to free associations of self-governing individuals but rather social
554
relationships based on authority, hierarchy and power in which a few
555
rule the many. Her analysis of the state, marriage and wage labour are
556
profoundly libertarian, showing that freedom must mean more than
557
consenting to be ruled. This is the paradox of capitalist liberal, for
558
a person is assumed to be free in order to consent to a contract but
559
once within it they face the reality subordination to another's
560
decisions (see [4]section A.4.2 for further discussion).
561
562
Her ideas challenge some of Western culture's core beliefs about
563
individual freedom and her critiques of the major Enlightenment
564
political philosophers are powerful and convincing. Implicit is a
565
critique not just of the conservative and liberal tradition, but of the
566
patriarchy and hierarchy contained within the Left as well. As well as
567
these works, a collection of her essays is available called The
568
Disorder of Women.
569
570
Within the so-called "anti-globalisation" movement Naomi Klein shows an
571
awareness of libertarian ideas and her own work has a libertarian
572
thrust to it (we call it "so-called" as its members are
573
internationalists, seeking a globalisation from below not one imposed
574
from above by and for a few). She first came to attention as the author
575
of No Logo, which charts the growth of consumer capitalism, exposing
576
the dark reality behind the glossy brands of capitalism and, more
577
importantly, highlighting the resistance to it. No distant academic,
578
she is an active participant in the movement she reports on in Fences
579
and Windows, a collection of essays on globalisation, its consequences
580
and the wave of protests against it.
581
582
Klein's articles are well written and engaging, covering the reality of
583
modern capitalism, the gap, as she puts it, "between rich and power but
584
also between rhetoric and reality, between what is said and what is
585
done. Between the promise of globalisation and its real effects." She
586
shows how we live in a world where the market (i.e. capital) is made
587
"freer" while people suffer increased state power and repression. How
588
an unelected Argentine President labels that country's popular
589
assemblies "antidemocratic." How rhetoric about liberty is used as a
590
tool to defend and increase private power (as she reminds us, "always
591
missing from [the globalisation] discussion is the issue of power. So
592
many of the debates that we have about globalisation theory are
593
actually about power: who holds it, who is exercising it and who is
594
disguising it, pretending it no longer matters"). [Fences and Windows,
595
pp 83-4 and p. 83]
596
597
And how people across the world are resisting. As she puts it, "many
598
[in the movement] are tired of being spoken for and about. They are
599
demanding a more direct form of political participation." She reports
600
on a movement which she is part of, one which aims for a globalisation
601
from below, one "founded on principles of transparency, accountability
602
and self-determination, one that frees people instead of liberating
603
capital." This means being against a "corporate-driven globalisation .
604
. . that is centralising power and wealth into fewer and fewer hands"
605
while presenting an alternative which is about "decentralising power
606
and building community-based decision-making potential -- whether
607
through unions, neighbourhoods, farms, villages, anarchist collectives
608
or aboriginal self-government." All strong anarchist principles and,
609
like anarchists, she wants people to manage their own affairs and
610
chronicles attempts around the world to do just that (many of which, as
611
Klein notes, are anarchists or influenced by anarchist ideas, sometimes
612
knowing, sometimes not). [Op. Cit., p. 77, p. 79 and p. 16]
613
614
While not an anarchist, she is aware that real change comes from below,
615
by the self-activity of working class people fighting for a better
616
world. Decentralisation of power is a key idea in the book. As she puts
617
it, the "goal" of the social movements she describes is "not to take
618
power for themselves but to challenge power centralisation on
619
principle" and so creating "a new culture of vibrant direct democracy .
620
. . one that is fuelled and strengthened by direct participation." She
621
does not urge the movement to invest itself with new leaders and
622
neither does she (like the Left) think that electing a few leaders to
623
make decisions for us equals "democracy" ("the goal is not better
624
faraway rules and rulers but close-up democracy on the ground"). Klein,
625
therefore, gets to the heart of the matter. Real social change is based
626
on empowering the grassroots, "the desire for self-determination,
627
economic sustainability and participatory democracy." Given this, Klein
628
has presented libertarian ideas to a wide audience. [Op. Cit., p. xxvi,
629
p. xxvi-xxvii, p. 245 and p. 233]
630
631
Other notable libertarian thinkers include Henry D. Thoreau, Albert
632
Camus, Aldous Huxley, Lewis Mumford, Lewis Mumford and Oscar Wilde.
633
Thus there are numerous thinkers who approach anarchist conclusions and
634
who discuss subjects of interest to libertarians. As Kropotkin noted a
635
hundred years ago, these kinds of writers "are full of ideas which show
636
how closely anarchism is interwoven with the work that is going on in
637
modern thought in the same direction of enfranchisement of man from the
638
bonds of the state as well as from those of capitalism." [Anarchism, p.
639
300] The only change since then is that more names can be added to the
640
list.
641
642
Peter Marshall discusses the ideas of most, but not all, of the
643
non-anarchist libertarians we mention in this and subsequent sections
644
in his book history of anarchism, Demanding the Impossible. Clifford
645
Harper's Anarchy: A Graphic Guide is also a useful guide for finding
646
out more.
647
648
A.4.2 Are there any liberal thinkers close to anarchism?
649
650
As noted in the [5]last section, there are thinkers in both the liberal
651
and socialist traditions who approach anarchist theory and ideals. This
652
understandable as anarchism shares certain ideas and ideals with both.
653
654
However, as will become clear in sections [6]A.4.3 and [7]A.4.4,
655
anarchism shares most common ground with the socialist tradition it is
656
a part of. This is because classical liberalism is a profoundly elitist
657
tradition. The works of Locke and the tradition he inspired aimed to
658
justify hierarchy, state and private property. As Carole Pateman notes,
659
"Locke's state of nature, with its father-rulers and capitalist
660
economy, would certainly not find favour with anarchists" any more than
661
his vision of the social contract and the liberal state it creates. A
662
state, which as Pateman recounts, in which "only males who own
663
substantial amounts of material property are [the] politically relevant
664
members of society" and exists "precisely to preserve the property
665
relationships of the developing capitalist market economy, not to
666
disturb them." For the majority, the non-propertied, they expressed
667
"tacit consent" to be ruled by the few by "choosing to remain within
668
the one's country of birth when reaching adulthood." [The Problem of
669
Political Obligation, p. 141, p. 71, p. 78 and p. 73]
670
671
Thus anarchism is at odds with what can be called the pro-capitalist
672
liberal tradition which, flowing from Locke, builds upon his rationales
673
for hierarchy. As David Ellerman notes, "there is a whole liberal
674
tradition of apologising for non-democratic government based on consent
675
-- on a voluntary social contract alienating governing rights to a
676
sovereign." In economics, this is reflected in their support for wage
677
labour and the capitalist autocracy it creates for the "employment
678
contract is the modern limited workplace version" of such contracts.
679
[The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm, p. 210] This pro-capitalist
680
liberalism essentially boils down to the liberty to pick a master or,
681
if you are among the lucky few, to become a master yourself. The idea
682
that freedom means self-determination for all at all times is alien to
683
it. Rather it is based on the idea of "self-ownership," that you "own"
684
yourself and your rights. Consequently, you can sell (alienate) your
685
rights and liberty on the market. As we discuss in [8]section B.4, in
686
practice this means that most people are subject to autocratic rule for
687
most of their waking hours (whether in work or in marriage).
688
689
The modern equivalent of classical liberalism is the right-wing
690
"libertarian" tradition associated with Milton Friedman, Robert Nozick,
691
von Hayek and so forth. As they aim to reduce the state to simply the
692
defender to private property and enforcer of the hierarchies that
693
social institution creates, they can by no stretch of the imagination
694
be considered near anarchism. What is called "liberalism" in, say, the
695
United States is a more democratic liberal tradition and has, like
696
anarchism, little in common with the shrill pro-capitalist defenders of
697
the minimum state. While they may (sometimes) be happy to denounce the
698
state's attacks on individual liberty, they are more than happy to
699
defend the "freedom" of the property owner to impose exactly the same
700
restrictions on those who use their land or capital.
701
702
Given that feudalism combined ownership and rulership, that the
703
governance of people living on land was an attribute of the ownership
704
of that land, it would be no exaggeration to say that the right-wing
705
"libertarian" tradition is simply its modern (voluntary) form. It is no
706
more libertarian than the feudal lords who combated the powers of the
707
King in order to protect their power over their own land and serfs. As
708
Chomsky notes, "the 'libertarian' doctrines that are fashionable in the
709
US and UK particularly . . . seem to me to reduce to advocacy of one or
710
another form of illegitimate authority, quite often real tyranny."
711
[Marxism, Anarchism, and Alternative Futures, p. 777] Moreover, as
712
Benjamin Tucker noted with regards their predecessors, while they are
713
happy to attack any state regulation which benefits the many or limits
714
their power, they are silent on the laws (and regulations and "rights")
715
which benefit the few.
716
717
However there is another liberal tradition, one which is essentially
718
pre-capitalist which has more in common with the aspirations of
719
anarchism. As Chomsky put it:
720
721
"These ideas [of anarchism] grow out the Enlightenment; their roots
722
are in Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, Humbolt's The Limits of
723
State Action, Kant's insistence, in his defence of the French
724
Revolution, that freedom is the precondition for acquiring the
725
maturity for freedom, not a gift to be granted when such maturity is
726
achieved . . . With the development of industrial capitalism, a new
727
and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism
728
that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the
729
Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted
730
into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order. In fact, on
731
the very same assumptions that led classical liberalism to oppose
732
the intervention of the state in social life, capitalist social
733
relations are also intolerable. This is clear, for example, from the
734
classic work of [Wilhelm von] Humboldt, The Limits of State Action,
735
which anticipated and perhaps inspired [John Stuart] Mill . . . This
736
classic of liberal thought, completed in 1792, is in its essence
737
profoundly, though prematurely, anticapitalist. Its ideas must be
738
attenuated beyond recognition to be transmuted into an ideology of
739
industrial capitalism." ["Notes on Anarchism", For Reasons of State,
740
p. 156]
741
742
Chomsky discusses this in more detail in his essay "Language and
743
Freedom" (contained in both Reason of State and The Chomsky Reader). As
744
well as Humbolt and Mill, such "pre-capitalist" liberals would include
745
such radicals as Thomas Paine, who envisioned a society based on
746
artisan and small farmers (i.e. a pre-capitalist economy) with a rough
747
level of social equality and, of course, a minimal government. His
748
ideas inspired working class radicals across the world and, as E.P.
749
Thompson reminds us, Paine's Rights of Man was "a foundation-text of
750
the English [and Scottish] working-class movement." While his ideas on
751
government are "close to a theory of anarchism," his reform proposals
752
"set a source towards the social legislation of the twentieth century."
753
[The Making of the English Working Class, p. 99, p. 101 and p. 102] His
754
combination of concern for liberty and social justice places him close
755
to anarchism.
756
757
Then there is Adam Smith. While the right (particularly elements of the
758
"libertarian" right) claim him as a classic liberal, his ideas are more
759
complex than that. For example, as Noam Chomsky points out, Smith
760
advocated the free market because "it would lead to perfect equality,
761
equality of condition, not just equality of opportunity." [Class
762
Warfare, p. 124] As Smith himself put it, "in a society where things
763
were left to follow their natural course, where there is perfect
764
liberty" it would mean that "advantages would soon return to the level
765
of other employments" and so "the different employments of labour and
766
stock must . . . be either perfectly equal or continually tending to
767
equality." Nor did he oppose state intervention or state aid for the
768
working classes. For example, he advocated public education to counter
769
the negative effects of the division of labour. Moreover, he was
770
against state intervention because whenever "a legislature attempts to
771
regulate differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors
772
are always the masters. When regulation, therefore, is in favour of the
773
workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is otherwise when in
774
favour of the masters." He notes how "the law" would "punish" workers'
775
combinations "very severely" while ignoring the masters' combinations
776
("if it dealt impartially, it would treat the masters in the same
777
manner"). [The Wealth of Nations, p. 88 and p. 129] Thus state
778
intervention was to be opposed in general because the state was run by
779
the few for the few, which would make state intervention benefit the
780
few, not the many. It is doubtful Smith would have left his ideas on
781
laissez-faire unchanged if he had lived to see the development of
782
corporate capitalism. It is this critical edge of Smith's work are
783
conveniently ignored by those claiming him for the classical liberal
784
tradition.
785
786
Smith, argues Chomsky, was "a pre-capitalist and anti-capitalist person
787
with roots in the Enlightenment." Yes, he argues, "the classical
788
liberals, the [Thomas] Jeffersons and the Smiths, were opposing the
789
concentrations of power that they saw around them . . . They didn't see
790
other forms of concentration of power which only developed later. When
791
they did see them, they didn't like them. Jefferson was a good example.
792
He was strongly opposed to the concentrations of power that he saw
793
developing, and warned that the banking institutions and the industrial
794
corporations which were barely coming into existence in his day would
795
destroy the achievements of the Revolution." [Op. Cit., p. 125]
796
797
As Murray Bookchin notes, Jefferson "is most clearly identified in the
798
early history of the United States with the political demands and
799
interests of the independent farmer-proprietor." [The Third Revolution,
800
vol. 1, pp. 188-9] In other words, with pre-capitalist economic forms.
801
We also find Jefferson contrasting the "aristocrats" and the
802
"democrats." The former are "those who fear and distrust the people,
803
and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher
804
classes." The democrats "identify with the people, have confidence in
805
them, cherish and consider them as the honest & safe . . . depository
806
of the public interest," if not always "the most wise." [quoted by
807
Chomsky, Powers and Prospects, p. 88] As Chomsky notes, the
808
"aristocrats" were "the advocates of the rising capitalist state, which
809
Jefferson regarded with dismay, recognising the obvious contradiction
810
between democracy and the capitalism." [Op. Cit., p. 88] Claudio J.
811
Katz's essay on "Thomas Jefferson's Liberal Anticapitalism" usefully
812
explores these issues. [American Journal of Political Science, vol. 47,
813
No. 1 (Jan, 2003), pp. 1-17]
814
815
Jefferson even went so far as to argue that "a little rebellion now and
816
then is a good thing . . . It is a medicine necessary for the sound
817
health of government . . . The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
818
time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." [quoted by Howard
819
Zinn, A People's History of the United States, p. 94] However, his
820
libertarian credentials are damaged by him being both a President of
821
the United States and a slave owner but compared to the other "founding
822
fathers" of the American state, his liberalism is of a democratic form.
823
As Chomsky reminds us, "all the Founding Fathers hated democracy --
824
Thomas Jefferson was a partial exception, but only partial." The
825
American state, as a classical liberal state, was designed (to quote
826
James Madison) "to protect the minority of the opulent from the
827
majority." Or, to repeat John Jay's principle, the "people who own the
828
country ought to govern it." [Understanding Power, p. 315] If American
829
is a (formally) democracy rather than an oligarchy, it is in spite of
830
rather than because of classical liberalism.
831
832
Then there is John Stuart Mill who recognised the fundamental
833
contradiction in classical liberalism. How can an ideology which
834
proclaims itself for individual liberty support institutions which
835
systematically nullify that liberty in practice? For this reason Mill
836
attacked patriarchal marriage, arguing that marriage must be a
837
voluntary association between equals, with "sympathy in equality . . .
838
living together in love, without power on one side or obedience on the
839
other." Rejecting the idea that there had to be "an absolute master" in
840
any association, he pointed out that in "partnership in business . . .
841
it is not found or thought necessary to enact that in every
842
partnership, one partner shall have entire control over the concern,
843
and the others shall be bound to obey his rule." ["The Subjection of
844
Women," quoted by Susan L. Brown, The Politics of Individualism, pp.
845
45-6]
846
847
Yet his own example showed the flaw in liberal support for capitalism,
848
for the employee is subject to a relationship in which power accrues to
849
one party and obedience to another. Unsurprisingly, therefore, he
850
argued that the "form of association . . . which is mankind continue to
851
improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which
852
can exist between a capitalist as chief, and workpeople without a voice
853
in management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms
854
of equality, collectively owning the capital . . . and working under
855
managers elected and removable by themselves." [The Principles of
856
Political Economy, p. 147] Autocratic management during working hours
857
is hardly compatible with Mill's maxim that "[o]ver himself, over his
858
own body and mind, the individual is sovereign." Mill's opposition to
859
centralised government and wage slavery brought his ideas closer to
860
anarchism than most liberals, as did his comment that the "social
861
principle of the future" was "how to unite the greatest individual
862
liberty of action with a common ownership in the raw materials of the
863
globe, and equal participation of all in the benefits of combined
864
labour." [quoted by Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible, p. 164]
865
His defence of individuality, On Liberty, is a classic, if flawed, work
866
and his analysis of socialist tendencies ("Chapters on Socialism") is
867
worth reading for its evaluation of their pros and cons from a
868
(democratic) liberal perspective.
869
870
Like Proudhon, Mill was a forerunner of modern-day market socialism and
871
a firm supporter of decentralisation and social participation. This,
872
argues Chomsky, is unsurprising for pre-capitalist classical liberal
873
thought "is opposed to state intervention in social life, as a
874
consequence of deeper assumptions about the human need for liberty,
875
diversity, and free association. On the same assumptions, capitalist
876
relations of production, wage labour, competitiveness, the ideology of
877
'possessive individualism' -- all must be regarded as fundamentally
878
antihuman. Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the
879
inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment." ["Notes on
880
Anarchism", Op. Cit., p. 157]
881
882
Thus anarchism shares commonality with pre-capitalist and democratic
883
liberal forms. The hopes of these liberals were shattered with the
884
development of capitalism. To quote Rudolf Rocker's analysis:
885
886
"Liberalism and Democracy were pre-eminently political concepts, and
887
since the great majority of the original adherents of both
888
maintained the right of ownership in the old sense, these had to
889
renounce them both when economic development took a course which
890
could not be practically reconciled with the original principles of
891
Democracy, and still less with those of Liberalism. Democracy, with
892
its motto of 'all citizens equal before the law,' and Liberalism
893
with its 'right of man over his own person,' both shipwrecked on the
894
realities of the capitalist economic form. So long as millions of
895
human beings in every country had to sell their labour-power to a
896
small minority of owners, and to sink into the most wretched misery
897
if they could find no buyers, the so-called 'equality before the
898
law' remains merely a pious fraud, since the laws are made by those
899
who find themselves in possession of the social wealth. But in the
900
same way there can also be no talk of a 'right over one's own
901
person,' for that right ends when one is compelled to submit to the
902
economic dictation of another if he does not want to starve."
903
[Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 10]
904
905
A.4.3 Are there any socialist thinkers close to anarchism?
906
907
Anarchism developed in response to the development of capitalism and it
908
is in the non-anarchist socialist tradition which anarchism finds most
909
fellow travellers.
910
911
The earliest British socialists (the so-called Ricardian Socialists)
912
following in the wake of Robert Owen held ideas which were similar to
913
those of anarchists. For example, Thomas Hodgskin expounded ideas
914
similar to Proudhon's mutualism while William Thompson developed a
915
non-state, communal form of socialism based on "communities of mutual
916
co-operative" which had similarities to anarcho-communism (Thompson had
917
been a mutualist before becoming a communist in light of the problems
918
even a non-capitalist market would have). John Francis Bray is also of
919
interest, as is the radical agrarianist Thomas Spence who developed a
920
communal form of land-based socialism which expounded many ideas
921
usually associated with anarchism (see "The Agrarian Socialism of
922
Thomas Spence" by Brian Morris in his book Ecology and Anarchism).
923
Moreover, the early British trade union movement "developed, stage by
924
stage, a theory of syndicalism" 40 years before Bakunin and the
925
libertarian wing of the First International did. [E.P. Thompson, The
926
Making of the English Working Class, p. 912] Noel Thompson's The Real
927
Rights of Man is a good summary of all these thinkers and movements, as
928
is E.P. Thompson's classic social history of working class life (and
929
politics) of this period, The Making of the English Working Class.
930
931
Libertarian ideas did not die out in Britain in the 1840s. There was
932
also the quasi-syndicalists of the Guild Socialists of the 1910s and
933
1920s who advocated a decentralised communal system with workers'
934
control of industry. G.D.H. Cole's Guild Socialism Restated is the most
935
famous work of this school, which also included author's S.G. Hobson
936
and A.R. Orage (Geoffrey Osteregaard's The Tradition of Workers'
937
Control provides an good summary of the ideas of Guild Socialism).
938
Bertrand Russell, another supporter of Guild Socialism, was attracted
939
to anarchist ideas and wrote an extremely informed and thoughtful
940
discussion of anarchism, syndicalism and Marxism in his classic book
941
Roads to Freedom.
942
943
While Russell was pessimistic about the possibility of anarchism in the
944
near future, he felt it was "the ultimate idea to which society should
945
approximate." As a Guild Socialist, he took it for granted that there
946
could "be no real freedom or democracy until the men who do the work in
947
a business also control its management." His vision of a good society
948
is one any anarchist would support: "a world in which the creative
949
spirit is alive, in which life is an adventure full of joy and hope,
950
based upon the impulse to construct than upon the desire to retain what
951
we possess or to seize what is possessed by others. It must be a world
952
in which affection has free play, in which love is purged of the
953
instinct for domination, in which cruelty and envy have been dispelled
954
by happiness and the unfettered development of all the instincts that
955
build up life and fill it with mental delights." [quoted by Noam
956
Chomsky, Problems of Knowledge and Freedom, pp. 59-60, p. 61 and p. x]
957
An informed and interesting writer on many subjects, his thought and
958
social activism has influenced many other thinkers, including Noam
959
Chomsky (whose Problems of Knowledge and Freedom is a wide ranging
960
discussion on some of the topics Russell addressed).
961
962
Another important British libertarian socialist thinker and activist
963
was William Morris. Morris, a friend of Kropotkin, was active in the
964
Socialist League and led its anti-parliamentarian wing. While stressing
965
he was not an anarchist, there is little real difference between the
966
ideas of Morris and most anarcho-communists (Morris said he was a
967
communist and saw no need to append "anarchist" to it as, for him,
968
communism was democratic and liberatory). A prominent member of the
969
"Arts and Crafts" movement, Morris argued for humanising work and it
970
was, to quoted the title of one of his most famous essays, as case of
971
Useful Work vrs Useless Toil. His utopia novel News from Nowhere paints
972
a compelling vision of a libertarian communist society where
973
industrialisation has been replaced with a communal craft-based
974
economy. It is a utopia which has long appealed to most social
975
anarchists. For a discussion of Morris' ideas, placed in the context of
976
his famous utopia, see William Morris and News from Nowhere: A Vision
977
for Our Time (Stephen Coleman and Paddy O'Sullivan (eds.))
978
979
Also of note is the Greek thinker Cornelius Castoriadis. Originally a
980
Trotskyist, Castoriadis evaluation of Trotsky's deeply flawed analysis
981
of Stalinist Russia as a degenerated workers' state lead him to reject
982
first Leninism and then Marxism itself. This led him to libertarian
983
conclusions, seeing the key issue not who owns the means of production
984
but rather hierarchy. Thus the class struggle was between those with
985
power and those subject to it. This led him to reject Marxist economics
986
as its value analysis abstracted from (i.e. ignored!) the class
987
struggle at the heart of production (Autonomist Marxism rejects this
988
interpretation of Marx, but they are the only Marxists who do).
989
Castoriadis, like social anarchists, saw the future society as one
990
based on radical autonomy, generalised self-management and workers'
991
councils organised from the bottom up. His three volume collected works
992
(Political and Social Writings) are essential reading for anyone
993
interested in libertarian socialist politics and a radical critique of
994
Marxism.
995
996
Special mention should also be made of Maurice Brinton, who, as well as
997
translating many works by Castoriadis, was a significant libertarian
998
socialist thinker and activist as well. An ex-Trotskyist like
999
Castoriadis, Brinton carved out a political space for a revolutionary
1000
libertarian socialism, opposed to the bureaucratic reformism of Labour
1001
as well as the police-state "socialism" of Stalinism and the
1002
authoritarianism of the Leninism which produced it. He produced
1003
numerous key pamphlets which shaped the thinking of a generation of
1004
anarchists and other libertarian socialists. These included Paris: May
1005
1968, his brilliant eyewitness account of the near-revolution in
1006
France, the essential The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control in which he
1007
exposed Lenin's hostility to workers' self-management, and The
1008
Irrational in Politics, a restatement and development of the early work
1009
of Wilhelm Reich. These and many more articles have been collected in
1010
the book For Workers' Power: The Selected Writings of Maurice Brinton,
1011
edited by David Goodway.
1012
1013
The American radical historian Howard Zinn has sometimes called himself
1014
an anarchist and is well informed about the anarchist tradition (he
1015
wrote an excellent introductory essay on "Anarchism" for a US edition
1016
of a Herbert Read book) . As well as his classic A People's History of
1017
the United States, his writings of civil disobedience and non-violent
1018
direct action are essential. An excellent collection of essays by this
1019
libertarian socialist scholar has been produced under the title The
1020
Zinn Reader. Another notable libertarian socialists close to anarchism
1021
are Edward Carpenter (see, for example, Sheila Rowbotham's Edward
1022
Carpenter: Prophet of the New Life) and Simone Weil (Oppression and
1023
Liberty)
1024
1025
It would also be worthwhile to mention those market socialists who,
1026
like anarchists, base their socialism on workers' self-management.
1027
Rejecting central planning, they have turned back to the ideas of
1028
industrial democracy and market socialism advocated by the likes of
1029
Proudhon (although, coming from a Marxist background, they generally
1030
fail to mention the link which their central-planning foes stress).
1031
Allan Engler (in Apostles of Greed) and David Schweickart (in Against
1032
Capitalism and After Capitalism) have provided useful critiques of
1033
capitalism and presented a vision of socialism rooted in co-operatively
1034
organised workplaces. While retaining an element of government and
1035
state in their political ideas, these socialists have placed economic
1036
self-management at the heart of their economic vision and,
1037
consequently, are closer to anarchism than most socialists.
1038
1039
A.4.4 Are there any Marxist thinkers close to anarchism?
1040
1041
None of the libertarian socialists we highlighted in the last section
1042
were Marxists. This is unsurprising as most forms of Marxism are
1043
authoritarian. However, this is not the case for all schools of
1044
Marxism. There are important sub-branches of Marxism which shares the
1045
anarchist vision of a self-managed society. These include Council
1046
Communism, Situationism and Autonomism. Perhaps significantly, these
1047
few Marxist tendencies which are closest to anarchism are, like the
1048
branches of anarchism itself, not named after individuals. We will
1049
discuss each in turn.
1050
1051
Council Communism was born in the German Revolution of 1919 when
1052
Marxists inspired by the example of the Russian soviets and disgusted
1053
by the centralism, opportunism and betrayal of the mainstream Marxist
1054
social-democrats, drew similar anti-parliamentarian, direct actionist
1055
and decentralised conclusions to those held by anarchists since
1056
Bakunin. Like Marx's libertarian opponent in the First International,
1057
they argued that a federation of workers' councils would form the basis
1058
of a socialist society and, consequently, saw the need to build
1059
militant workplace organisations to promote their formation. Lenin
1060
attacked these movements and their advocates in his diatribe Left-wing
1061
Communism: An Infantile Disorder, which council communist Herman Gorter
1062
demolished in his An Open Letter to Comrade Lenin. By 1921, the council
1063
communists broke with the Bolshevism that had already effectively
1064
expelled them from both the national Communist Parties and the
1065
Communist International.
1066
1067
Like the anarchists, they argued that Russia was a state-capitalist
1068
party dictatorship and had nothing to be with socialism. And, again
1069
like anarchists, the council communists argue that the process of
1070
building a new society, like the revolution itself, is either the work
1071
of the people themselves or doomed from the start. As with the
1072
anarchists, they too saw the Bolshevik take-over of the soviets (like
1073
that of the trade unions) as subverting the revolution and beginning
1074
the restoration of oppression and exploitation.
1075
1076
To discover more about council communism, the works of Paul Mattick are
1077
essential reading. While best known as a writer on Marxist economic
1078
theory in such works as Marx and Keynes, Economic Crisis and Crisis
1079
Theory and Economics, Politics and the Age of Inflation, Mattick had
1080
been a council communist since the German revolution of 1919/1920. His
1081
books Anti-Bolshevik Communism and Marxism: The Last Refuge of the
1082
Bourgeoisie? are excellent introductions to his political ideas. Also
1083
essential reading is Anton Pannekeok's works. His classic Workers'
1084
Councils explains council communism from first principles while his
1085
Lenin as Philosopher dissects Lenin's claims to being a Marxist (Serge
1086
Bricianer, Pannekoek and the Workers' Councils is the best study of the
1087
development of Panekoek's ideas). In the UK, the militant suffragette
1088
Sylvia Pankhurst became a council communist under the impact of the
1089
Russian Revolution and, along with anarchists like Guy Aldred, led the
1090
opposition to the importation of Leninism into the communist movement
1091
there (see Mark Shipway's Anti-Parliamentary Communism: The Movement
1092
for Workers Councils in Britain, 1917-45 for more details of
1093
libertarian communism in the UK). Otto Ruhle and Karl Korsch are also
1094
important thinkers in this tradition.
1095
1096
Building upon the ideas of council communism, the Situationists
1097
developed their ideas in important new directions. Working in the late
1098
1950s and 1960s, they combined council communist ideas with surrealism
1099
and other forms of radical art to produce an impressive critique of
1100
post-war capitalism. Unlike Castoriadis, whose ideas influenced them,
1101
the Situationists continued to view themselves as Marxists, developing
1102
Marx's critique of capitalist economy into a critique of capitalist
1103
society as alienation had shifted from being located in capitalist
1104
production into everyday life. They coined the expression "The
1105
Spectacle" to describe a social system in which people become alienated
1106
from their own lives and played the role of an audience, of spectators.
1107
Thus capitalism had turned being into having and now, with the
1108
spectacle, it turned having into appearing. They argued that we could
1109
not wait for a distant revolution, but rather should liberate ourselves
1110
in the here and now, creating events ("situations") which would disrupt
1111
the ordinary and normal to jolt people out of their allotted roles
1112
within society. A social revolution based on sovereign rank and file
1113
assemblies and self-managed councils would be the ultimate "situation"
1114
and the aim of all Situationists.
1115
1116
While critical of anarchism, the differences between the two theories
1117
are relatively minor and the impact of the Situationists on anarchism
1118
cannot be underestimated. Many anarchists embraced their critique of
1119
modern capitalist society, their subversion of modern art and culture
1120
for revolutionary purposes and call for revolutionising everyday life.
1121
Ironically, while Situationism viewed itself as an attempt to transcend
1122
tradition forms of Marxism and anarchism, it essentially became
1123
subsumed by anarchism. The classic works of situationism are Guy
1124
Debord's Society of the Spectacle and Raoul Veneigem's The Revolution
1125
of Everyday Life. The Situationist International Anthology (edited by
1126
Ken Knabb) is essential reading for any budding Situationists, as is
1127
Knabb's own Public Secrets.
1128
1129
Lastly there is Autonomist Marxism. Drawing on the works of the council
1130
communism, Castoriadis, situationism and others, it places the class
1131
struggle at the heart of its analysis of capitalism. It initially
1132
developed in Italy during the 1960s and has many currents, some closer
1133
to anarchism than others. While the most famous thinker in the
1134
Autonomist tradition is probably Antonio Negri (who coined the
1135
wonderful phrase "money has only one face, that of the boss" in Marx
1136
Beyond Marx) his ideas are more within traditional Marxist. For an
1137
Autonomist whose ideas are closer to anarchism, we need to turn to the
1138
US thinker and activist who has written the one of the best summaries
1139
of Kropotkin's ideas in which he usefully indicates the similarities
1140
between anarcho-communism and Autonomist Marxism ("Kropotkin,
1141
Self-valorisation and the Crisis of Marxism," Anarchist Studies, vol.
1142
2, no. 3). His book Reading Capital Politically is an essential text
1143
for understanding Autonomism and its history.
1144
1145
For Cleaver, "autonomist Marxism" as generic name for a variety of
1146
movements, politics and thinkers who have emphasised the autonomous
1147
power of workers -- autonomous from capital, obviously, but also from
1148
their official organisations (e.g. the trade unions, the political
1149
parties) and, moreover, the power of particular groups of working class
1150
people to act autonomously from other groups (e.g. women from men). By
1151
"autonomy" it is meant the ability of working class people to define
1152
their own interests and to struggle for them and, critically, to go
1153
beyond mere reaction to exploitation and to take the offensive in ways
1154
that shape the class struggle and define the future. Thus they place
1155
working class power at the centre of their thinking about capitalism,
1156
how it develops and its dynamics as well as in the class conflicts
1157
within it. This is not limited to just the workplace and just as
1158
workers resist the imposition of work inside the factory or office, via
1159
slowdowns, strikes and sabotage, so too do the non-waged resist the
1160
reduction of their lives to work. For Autonomists, the creation of
1161
communism is not something that comes later but is something which is
1162
repeatedly created by current developments of new forms of working
1163
class self-activity.
1164
1165
The similarities with social anarchism are obvious. Which probably
1166
explains why Autonomists spend so much time analysing and quoting Marx
1167
to justify their ideas for otherwise other Marxists will follow Lenin's
1168
lead on the council communists and label them anarchists and ignore
1169
them! For anarchists, all this Marx quoting seems amusing. Ultimately,
1170
if Marx really was an Autonomist Marxist then why do Autonomists have
1171
to spend so much time re-constructing what Marx "really" meant? Why did
1172
he not just say it clearly to begin with? Similarly, why root out
1173
(sometimes obscure) quotes and (sometimes passing) comments from Marx
1174
to justify your insights? Does something stop being true if Marx did
1175
not mention it first? Whatever the insights of Autonomism its Marxism
1176
will drag it backwards by rooting its politics in the texts of two long
1177
dead Germans. Like the surreal debate between Trotsky and Stalin in the
1178
1920s over "Socialism in One Country" conducted by means of Lenin
1179
quotes, all that will be proved is not whether a given idea is right
1180
but simply that the mutually agreed authority figure (Lenin or Marx)
1181
may have held it. Thus anarchists suggest that Autonomists practice
1182
some autonomy when it comes to Marx and Engels.
1183
1184
Other libertarian Marxists close to anarchism include Erich Fromm and
1185
Wilhelm Reich. Both tried to combine Marx with Freud to produce a
1186
radical analysis of capitalism and the personality disorders it causes.
1187
Erich Fromm, in such books as The Fear of Freedom, Man for Himself, The
1188
Sane Society and To Have or To Be? developed a powerful and insightful
1189
analysis of capitalism which discussed how it shaped the individual and
1190
built psychological barriers to freedom and authentic living. His works
1191
discuss many important topics, including ethics, the authoritarian
1192
personality (what causes it and how to change it), alienation, freedom,
1193
individualism and what a good society would be like.
1194
1195
Fromm's analysis of capitalism and the "having" mode of life are
1196
incredibly insightful, especially in context with today's consumerism.
1197
For Fromm, the way we live, work and organise together influence how we
1198
develop, our health (mental and physical), our happiness more than we
1199
suspect. He questions the sanity of a society which covets property
1200
over humanity and adheres to theories of submission and domination
1201
rather than self-determination and self-actualisation. His scathing
1202
indictment of modern capitalism shows that it is the main source of the
1203
isolation and alienation prevalent in today. Alienation, for Fromm, is
1204
at the heart of the system (whether private or state capitalism). We
1205
are happy to the extent that we realise ourselves and for this to occur
1206
our society must value the human over the inanimate (property).
1207
1208
Fromm rooted his ideas in a humanistic interpretation of Marx,
1209
rejecting Leninism and Stalinism as an authoritarian corruption of his
1210
ideas ("the destruction of socialism . . . began with Lenin.").
1211
Moreover, he stressed the need for a decentralised and libertarian form
1212
of socialism, arguing that the anarchists had been right to question
1213
Marx's preferences for states and centralisation. As he put it, the
1214
"errors of Marx and Engels . . . [and] their centralistic orientation,
1215
were due to the fact they were much more rooted in the middle-class
1216
tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, both
1217
psychologically and intellectually, than men like Fourier, Owen,
1218
Proudhon and Kropotkin." As the "contradiction" in Marx between "the
1219
principles of centralisation and decentralisation," for Fromm "Marx and
1220
Engels were much more 'bourgeois' thinkers than were men like Proudhon,
1221
Bakunin, Kropotkin and Landauer. Paradoxical as it sounds, the Leninist
1222
development of Socialism represented a regression to the bourgeois
1223
concepts of the state and of political power, rather than the new
1224
socialist concept as it was expressed so much clearer by Owen, Proudhon
1225
and others." [The Sane Society, p. 265, p. 267 and p. 259] Fromm's
1226
Marxism, therefore, was fundamentally of a libertarian and humanist
1227
type and his insights of profound importance for anyone interested in
1228
changing society for the better.
1229
1230
Wilheim Reich, like Fromm, set out to elaborate a social psychology
1231
based on both Marxism and psychoanalysis. For Reich, sexual repression
1232
led to people amenable to authoritarianism and happy to subject
1233
themselves to authoritarian regimes. While he famously analysed Nazism
1234
in this way (in The Mass Psychology of Fascism, his insights also apply
1235
to other societies and movements (it is no co-incidence, for example,
1236
that the religious right in America oppose pre-martial sex and use
1237
scare tactics to get teenagers to associate it with disease, dirt and
1238
guilt).
1239
1240
His argument is that due to sexual repression we develop what he called
1241
"character armour" which internalises our oppressions and ensures that
1242
we can function in a hierarchical society. This social conditioning is
1243
produced by the patriarchal family and its net results is a powerful
1244
reinforcement and perpetuation of the dominant ideology and the mass
1245
production of individuals with obedience built into them, individuals
1246
ready to accept the authority of teacher, priest, employer and
1247
politician as well as to endorse the prevailing social structure. This
1248
explains how individuals and groups can support movements and
1249
institutions which exploit or oppress them. In other words, act think,
1250
feel and act against themselves and, moreover, can internalise their
1251
own oppression to such a degree that they may even seek to defend their
1252
subordinate position.
1253
1254
Thus, for Reich, sexual repression produces an individual who is
1255
adjusted to the authoritarian order and who will submit to it in spite
1256
of all misery and degradation it causes them. The net result is fear of
1257
freedom, and a conservative, reactionary mentality. Sexual repression
1258
aids political power, not only through the process which makes the mass
1259
individual passive and unpolitical, but also by creating in their
1260
character structure an interest in actively supporting the
1261
authoritarian order.
1262
1263
While his uni-dimensional focus on sex is misplaced, his analysis of
1264
how we internalise our oppression in order to survive under hierarchy
1265
is important for understanding why so many of the most oppressed people
1266
seem to love their social position and those who rule over them. By
1267
understanding this collective character structure and how it forms also
1268
provides humanity with new means of transcending such obstacles to
1269
social change. Only an awareness of how people's character structure
1270
prevents them from becoming aware of their real interests can it be
1271
combated and social self-emancipation assured.
1272
1273
Maurice Brinton's The Irrational in Politics is an excellent short
1274
introduction to Reich's ideas which links their insights to libertarian
1275
socialism.
1276
1277
References
1278
1279
1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca42
1280
2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca43
1281
3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca44
1282
4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca42
1283
5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca41
1284
6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca43
1285
7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca44
1286
8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB4.html
Loggerhead is a web-based interface for Breezy
Version: 2.0.1