Everything about Anarchist totally explained
Anarchism (from
Greek ἀν (without) + ἄρχειν (to rule) + ισμός (from stem -ιζειν), "without
archons," "without rulers") is a
political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which reject compulsory
government (the
state) and support its elimination, often due to a wider rejection of involuntary or permanent
authority. Anarchism is defined by
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics as "the view that society can and should be organized without a coercive state."
There are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually exclusive. Anarchists hold different views as to the
economic and
legal organisation of society; some favour
anarcho-communism,
collectivist anarchism,
anarcho-syndicalism or
participatory economics while others support
market systems like
mutualism,
agorism, or
anarcho-capitalism. Others, such as
anarchists without adjectives neither advocate nor object to any particular form of organization. According to
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, "there is no single defining position that all anarchists hold, beyond their rejection of compulsory government, and those considered anarchists at best share a certain
family resemblance".
Anarchist schools of thought differ fundamentally, supporting anything from extreme
individualism to complete
collectivism.
Origins
Some claim anarchist themes can be found in the works of
Taoist sages
Laozi and
Zhuangzi. The latter has been translated,
"There has been such a thing as letting mankind alone; there has never been such a thing as governing mankind [withsuccess]." and
"A petty thief is put in jail. A great brigand becomes a ruler of a State." Diogenes of Sinope and the
Cynics and their contemporary,
Zeno of Citium, the founder of
Stoicism, also introduced similar topics.
Modern anarchism, however, sprang from the secular or religious thought of the
Enlightenment, particularly
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's arguments for the moral centrality of freedom. Although by the turn of the 19th century the term "anarchist" had an entirely positive connotation, in opposition to
Jacobin centralisation of power, seeing "revolutionary government" as
oxymoronic. Godwin, a
philosophical anarchist, opposed revolutionary action and saw a
minimal state as a present "necessary evil" that would become increasingly irrelevant and powerless by the gradual spread of knowledge. Godwin advocated extreme
individualism, proposing that all cooperation in labor be eliminated. Godwin felt discrimination on any grounds besides ability was intolerable.
The first to describe himself as anarchist was
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, which led some to call him the founder of modern anarchist theory. Proudhon proposed
spontaneous order, whereby organization emerges without central authority, a "positive anarchy" where order arises when everybody does “what he wishes and only what he wishes" and where "business transactions alone produce the social order." Like Godwin, Proudhon opposed violent revolutionary action. He saw anarchy as "a form of government or constitution in which public and private consciousness, formed through the development of science and law, is alone sufficient to maintain order and guarantee all liberties. In it, as a consequence, the institutions of the police, preventive and repressive methods, officialdom, taxation, etc., are reduced to a minimum. In it, more especially, the forms of monarchy and intensive centralization disappear, to be replaced by federal institutions and a pattern of life based on the commune" By "commune", Proudhon meant local
self-government or according to literal translation, "municipality", rather than a communist arrangement.
Schools of thought
Mutualism
Mutualism began in 18th century English and French labor movements before taking an anarchist form associated with
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in France and others in the United States. Proudhon's ideas were introduced by
Charles A. Dana, to
individualist anarchists in the United States including
Benjamin Tucker and
William Batchelder Greene.
Mutualist anarchism is concerned with
reciprocity, free association, voluntary contract, federation, and credit and currency reform. Many mutualists believe a market without government intervention drives prices to labor-costs, eliminating profit, rent, and interest according to the
labor theory of value. Firms would be forced to compete over workers just as workers compete over firms, raising wages. Mutualism has been retrospectively characterized as being ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism. Proudhon first characterized his goal as a "third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property."
Individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism comprises several traditions which hold that "individual conscience and the pursuit of self-interest shouldn't be constrained by any collective body or public authority." Individualist anarchism is supportive of property being held privately, unlike the social/socialist/collectivist/communitarian wing which advocates common ownership. Individualist anarchism has been espoused by individuals such as
William Godwin,
Henry David Thoreau,
Josiah Warren, and
Murray Rothbard.
One of the earliest and best-known proponents of individualist anarchism was
Max Stirner, who wrote
The Ego and Its Own (1844), a founding text of the philosophy., taking no notice of God, state, or moral rules. To Stirner, rights were
spooks in the mind, and he held that society doesn't exist but "the individuals are its reality" — he supported property by force of might rather than moral right. Stirner preached self-assertion and foresaw "associations of egoists" where respect for ruthlessness drew people together. They advocated the protection of liberty and property by private contractors, and endorsed exchange of labor for wages,. They didn't have a problem that "one man employ another" or that "he direct him," in his labor but demanded that "all natural opportunities requisite to the production of wealth be accessible to all on equal terms and that monopolies arising from special privileges created by law be abolished." They believed
state monopoly capitalism (defined as a state-sponsored monopoly) prevented labor from being fully rewarded. Even among the nineteenth century American individualists, there wasn't a monolithic doctrine, as they disagreed amongst each other on various issues including
intellectual property rights and
possession versus
property in land. A major cleft occurred later in the 19th century when Tucker and some others abandoned
natural rights and converted to an "egoism" modeled upon
Stirner's philosophy.) By the turn of the 20th century, the heyday of individualist anarchism had passed, although it was later revived with modifications by
Murray Rothbard and the
anarcho-capitalists in the mid-twentieth century, as a current of the broader
libertarian movement.
Social anarchism
Social anarchism is one of two different broad categories of anarchism, the other category being individualist anarchism. The term social anarchism is often used to identify communitarian forms of anarchism that emphasize cooperation and mutual aid. Social anarchism includes anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-communism, Libertarian socialism, anarcho-syndicalism, social ecology and sometimes mutualism.
Collectivist anarchism
Collectivist anarchism (a specific tendency not to be confused with the broad category sometimes called
collectivist or
communitarian anarchism) is a revolutionary form of anarchism commonly associated with
Mikhail Bakunin and with
Johann Most. Unlike mutualists, collectivist anarchists oppose all private ownership of the means of production, instead advocating that ownership be collectivized. This was to be initiated by small cohesive elite group through acts of violence, or "
propaganda by the deed," which would inspire the workers as a whole to revolt and forcibly collectivize the means of production. Collectivist anarchism arose contemporaneously with
Marxism but opposed the Marxist
dictatorship of the proletariat, despite the stated Marxist goal a collectivist stateless society.
Anarchist communism
Anarchist communists propose that a society composed of a number of
self-governing communes with collective use of the
means of production and
direct democracy as the political organizational form, and related to other communes through
federation would be the freest form of social organisation. However, some anarchist communists oppose the majoritarian nature of direct democracy, feeling that it can impede individual liberty and favor
consensus democracy. In anarchist communism, individuals wouldn't receive direct
compensation for labour (through sharing of
profits or payment), but would instead have free access to the resources and surplus of the commune. According to anarchist communist
Peter Kropotkin and later
Murray Bookchin, the members of such a society would spontaneously perform all necessary labour because they'd recognize the benefits of communal enterprise and mutual aid. Kropotkin believed that private
property was one of the causes of oppression and exploitation and called for its abolition, advocating instead common ownership.
The status of anarchist communism within anarchism is disputed, because it's seen by individualist anarchists as incompatible with
freedom. Some
anarcho-syndicalists, such as the Spanish union
CNT. saw an anarcho-communist society as their objective.
Platformism is an anarchist communist tendency in the tradition of
Nestor Makhno who argued for the "vital need of an organization which, having attracted most of the participants in the anarchist movement, would establish a common tactical and political line for anarchism and thereby serve as a guide for the whole movement." Some forms of
anarchist communism are strongly
Egoist in nature, and are strongly influenced by radical individualist philosophy, believing that anarcho-communism doesn't require a communitarian nature at all; anarchist communist
Emma Goldman was influenced by both Max Stirner and Kropotkin and blended their philosophies together in her own.
Anarcho-syndicalism
In the early twentieth century anarcho-syndicalism arose as a distinct school of thought within anarchism. With greater focus on the labour movement than previous forms of anarchism, syndicalism posits radical
trade unions as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society, democratically
self-managed by the workers. Anarcho-syndicalists seek to abolish the wage system and private ownership of the means of production, which they believe lead to class divisions. Important principles of syndicalism include workers' solidarity,
direct action (such as
general strikes and workplace recuperations), and
workers' self-management. Anarcho-syndicalism and other branches of anarchism are not mutually exclusive: anarcho-syndicalists often subscribe to
communist or
collectivist anarchist economic systems. Its advocates propose labour organization as a means to create the foundations of a non-hierarchical anarchist society within the current system and bring about social revolution.
Rudolf Rocker was a leading early anarcho-syndicalist thinker who outlined a view of the origins of the movement, what it sought, and why it was important to the future of labour in his 1938 pamphlet
Anarchosyndicalism. Although more frequently associated with labor struggles of the early twentieth century (particularly in
France and
Spain), many syndicalist organizations are active today, united across national borders by membership in the
International Workers Association, including the
SAC in Sweden, the
USI in Italy, and the
CNT in Spain.
Recently-developed schools of thought
Anarchism continues to generate many eclectic and
syncretic philosophies and movements; since the revival of anarchism in the
U.S. in the 1960s, a number of new movements and schools have emerged.
Anarcho-capitalism developed out of radical anti-state
libertarianism as a rejuvenated form of
individualist anarchism, while the burgeoning
feminist and
environmentalist movements also produced anarchist offshoots.
Post-left anarchy is a tendency which seeks to distance itself from the traditional "
left" and to escape the confines of
ideology in general. Post-leftists argue that anarchism has been weakened by its long attachment to contrary "leftist" movements and single issue causes and calls for a synthesis of anarchist thought and a specifically anti-authoritarian revolutionary movement outside of the leftist milieu.
Post-anarchism is a theoretical move towards a synthesis of classical anarchist theory and
poststructuralist thought developed by
Saul Newman and associated with thinkers such as
Todd May,
Gilles Deleuze and
Félix Guattari. It draws from a wide range of ideas including
autonomism, post-left anarchy,
situationism,
postcolonialism and Zapatismo. Another recent form of anarchism critical of formal anarchist movements is
insurrectionary anarchism which advocates informal organization and active resistance to the state; its proponents include
Wolfi Landstreicher and
Alfredo M. Bonanno.
Anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism (also
free-market anarchism) is "based on a belief in the freedom to own private
property, a rejection of any form of governmental authority or intervention, and the upholding of the competitive free market as the main mechanism for social interaction." Because of the historically
anti-capitalist nature of most anarchist thought, the status of
anarcho-capitalism within anarchism is disputed, particularly by
communist anarchists. Anarcho-capitalists distinguish between
free market capitalism – peaceful voluntary exchange – from "
state capitalism" which
Murray Rothbard defined as a collusive partnership between
big business and government that uses
coercion to subvert the free market. Whether in its
natural rights-based or
utilitarian formulations, anarcho-capitalism has a theory of
legitimacy that supports private property as long as it was obtained by labor, trade, or gift. In an anarcho-capitalist society, its proponents hold, voluntary market processes would result in the provision of social institutions such as
law enforcement,
defence and
infrastructure by competing for-profit firms,
charities or
voluntary associations. rather than the
state. In Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism, law (the non-aggression principle) is enforced by the market but not created by it, while according to the "
Chicago School" versionepitomized by
David D. Friedman, the law itself is produced by the market.
While the term "anarcho-capitalism" was coined by Rothbard and its origin is attributed to 1960's
America, some historians, including Rothbard himself, trace the school as far back as the mid-19th century. Anarcho-capitalism has drawn influence from pro-market theorists such as
Gustave de Molinari,
Frédéric Bastiat, and
Robert Nozick, as well as American individualist thinkers such as
Benjamin Tucker and
Lysander Spooner. Considered a form of
individualist anarchism, it differs from the individualism of the "Boston anarchists" of the 19th century in its rejection of the
labor theory of value (and its
normative implications) in favor of the
neoclassical or
Austrian School marginalist view. Anarcho-capitalist ideas have in turn contributed to the development of
agorism,
autarchism, and
crypto-anarchism.
Anarcha-feminism
Anarcha-feminism is a synthesis of
radical feminism and anarchism that views
patriarchy (male domination over women) as a fundamental manifestation of involuntary
hierarchy – to which anarchists are opposed. Anarcha-feminism was inspired in the late 19th century by the writings of early feminist anarchists such as
Lucy Parsons,
Emma Goldman and
Voltairine de Cleyre. Anarcha-feminists, like other radical feminists, criticize and advocate the abolition of traditional conceptions of family, education and
gender roles. Many
Anarcha-feminists are especially critical of marriage. For instance, the feminist anarchist Emma Goldman has argued that marriage is a purely economic arrangement and that "... [woman] pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life.". Anarcha-feminists by contrast view patriarchy as a fundamental problem in society and believe that the feminist struggle against sexism and patriarchy is an essential component of the anarchist struggle against the
state and
capitalism.
L. Susan Brown expressed the sentiment that "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it's inherently feminist". There have been several Male Anarcha feminists as well such as the
Anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque who opposed
Proudhons anti-feminist views."
Anarcho-primitivism has been cited as a form of anarchism that addresses feminist concerns. Anarcho-primitivists, inspired by the work of
anthropologists such as
Jared Diamond and
Eleanor Leacock - who describe a more
egalitarian relationship between men and women in
foraging societies than in
Agricultural societies - believe that agriculture not only gave rise to forms of domination such as
class distinctions but to
patriarchy and
sexism as well.
Green anarchism
Green anarchism is an anarchist school of thought which puts an emphasis on the environment. Some green anarchists can be described as
anarcho-primitivists and sometimes anti-civilization anarchists, though not all green anarchists are primitivists. Likewise, there's a strong critique of technology among some green anarchists, though not all reject it entirely. Sometimes green anarchism is said to be techno-positive or techno-negative to differentiate between those who advocate use of advanced green technology to create and maintain an anarchist society and those who mainly see civilization and modern technology as something negative. Non-primitivist green anarchists, such as anthropologist
Brian Morris, often draw influence from the
social ecology of
Murray Bookchin.
Anarcho-Primitivism
Anarcho-primitivism is a form of anarchism that believes civilization and technology inevitably lead to inequality and are incompatible with anarchism and in effect must be abolished. Anarcho-primitivists often criticize traditional anarchism for supporting civilization and technology which Anarcho-primitivists believe are inherently based on domination and exploitation and instead advocate the process of
rewilding or reconnecting with the natural environment. Anarcho-primitivists (despite their
opposition to science) often use the writings of anthropologists, such as
Jared Diamond who wrote
The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, that have portrayed indigenous societies as egalitarian, to support their critique of civilization.
Anarchism without adjectives
"Anarchism without adjectives", in the words of historian George Richard Esenwein, "referred to an
unhyphenated form of anarchism, that is, a doctrine without any qualifying labels such as
communist,
collectivist,
mutualist, or
individualist. For others,…[it] was simply understood as an attitude that tolerated the coexistence of different anarchist schools". "Anarchism without adjectives" emphasizes harmony among various anarchist factions and attempts to unite them around their shared anti-authoritarian beliefs.
The position was first adopted in 1889 by
Fernando Tarrida del Mármol as a call for
toleration, after being troubled by the "bitter debates" among the different anarchist movements.
Voltairine de Cleyre,
Errico Malatesta, and
Fred Woodworth are noteworthy exponents of the view.
Anarchism as a social movement
Anarchism as a
social movement has regularly endured fluctuations in popularity. Its classical period, which scholars demarcate as from 1860 to 1939, is associated with the working-class movements of the nineteenth century and the
Spanish Civil War-era struggles against
fascism.
The First International
The anti-authoritarian sections of the First International were the precursors of the anarcho-syndicalists, seeking to "replace the privilege and authority of the State" with the "free and spontaneous organization of labor." In
1886, the
Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU) of the United States and Canada unanimously set
May 1,
1886, as the date by which the
eight-hour work day would become standard. In response, unions across America prepared a general strike in support of the event. Upon
May 3, in Chicago, a fight broke out when replacement workers attempted to cross the picket line. Police intervention led to the deaths of four men, enraging the workers of the city. The next day,
May 4, anarchists staged a rally at Chicago's Haymarket Square. A bomb was thrown by an unknown party near the conclusion of the rally, killing an officer. In the ensuing panic, police opened fire on the crowed and each other. Seven police officers and at least four workers were killed. Eight anarchists directly and indirectly related to the organizers of the rally were arrested and charged with the murder of the deceased officer. The men became international political celebrities among the labor movement. Four of the men were executed and a fifth committed suicide prior to his own execution. The incident became known as the
Haymarket affair, and was a setback for the labor movement and the struggle for the eight hour day. In
1890 a second attempt, this time international in scope, to organize for the eight hour day was made. The event also had the secondary purpose of memorializing workers killed as a result of the Haymarket affair. The celebration of
International Workers' Day on
May Day became an annual event the following year.
In 1907, the
International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam gathered delegates from 14 different countries, among which important figures of the anarchist movement, including
Errico Malatesta,
Pierre Monatte,
Luigi Fabbri,
Benoît Broutchoux,
Emma Goldman,
Rudolf Rocker,
Christiaan Cornelissen, etc. Various themes were treated during the Congress, in particular concerning the organisation of the anarchist movement,
popular education issues, the
general strike or
antimilitarism. A central debate concerned the relation between anarchism and
syndicalism (or
trade unionism). Malatesta and Monatte in particular opposed themselves on this issue, as the latter thought that syndicalism was revolutionary and would create the conditions of a social
revolution, while Malatesta didn't consider syndicalism by itself sufficient. Malatesta thought that trade-unions were
reformist, and could even be, at times,
conservative. Along with Cornelissen, he cited as example
US trade-unions, where trade-unions composed of qualified workers sometimes opposed themselves to non-qualified workers in order to defend their relatively privileged position.
The Spanish Workers Federation in 1881 was the first major anarcho-syndicalist movement; anarchist trade union federations were of special importance in Spain. The most successful was the
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour: CNT), founded in 1910. Before the 1940s, the CNT was the major force in Spanish working class politics and played a major role in the
Spanish Civil War. The CNT was affiliated with the International Workers Association, a federation of anarcho-syndicalist trade unions founded in 1922, with delegates representing two million workers from 15 countries in Europe and Latin America. The largest organised anarchist movement today is in Spain, in the form of the
Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) and the
CNT. CGT membership was estimated to be around 100,000 for the year 2003. Other active syndicalist movements include the US
Workers Solidarity Alliance and the UK
Solidarity Federation. The revolutionary industrial unionist
Industrial Workers of the World, claiming 2,000 paying members, and the
International Workers Association, an anarcho-syndicalist successor to the First International, also remain active.
The Russian Revolution
Anarchists participated alongside the
Bolsheviks in both
February and
October revolutions, many anarchists initially supporting the Bolshevik coup. However, the Bolsheviks soon turned against the anarchists and other left-wing opposition, a conflict that culminated in the 1921
Kronstadt rebellion. Anarchists in central Russia were either imprisoned, driven underground or joined the victorious Bolsheviks. In the
Ukraine, anarchists fought in the
civil war against Whites and then the Bolsheviks as part of the
Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine led by
Nestor Makhno, who attempted to establish an anarchist society in the region for a number of months.
Expelled American anarchists
Emma Goldman and
Alexander Berkman were amongst those agitating in response to Bolshevik policy and the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising, before they left Russia. Both wrote accounts of their experiences in Russia, criticizing the amount of control the Bolsheviks exercised. For them,
Bakunin's predictions about the consequences of Marxist rule had proved all too true.
The victory of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War did serious damage to anarchist movements internationally. Many workers and activists saw Bolshevik success as setting an example;
Communist parties grew at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements. In France and the US, for example, certain members of the major syndicalist movements of the
CGT and
IWW left the organizations and joined the
Communist International.
In Paris, the
Dielo Truda group of Russian anarchist exiles, which included
Nestor Makhno, concluded that anarchists needed to develop new forms of organisation in response to the structures of Bolshevism. Their 1926 manifesto, called the
Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft), was supported by some communist anarchists, though opposed by many others. Platformist groups today include the
Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland and the
North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists of North America.
The fight against fascism
In the 1920s and 1930s, the rise of
fascism in Europe transformed anarchism's conflict with the state. Italy saw the first struggles between anarchists and fascists.
Italian anarchists played a key role in the anti-fascist organisation
Arditi del Popolo, which was strongest in areas with anarchist traditions and marked up numerous successful victories, including repelling
Blackshirts in the anarchist stronghold of Parma in August 1922. In France, where the
far right leagues came close to insurrection in the
February 1934 riots, anarchists divided over a
united front policy.
In Spain, the
CNT initially refused to join a popular front electoral alliance and abstention by CNT supporters led to a right wing election victory. But in 1936, the CNT changed its policy and anarchist votes helped bring the popular front back to power. Months later, the ruling class responded with an attempted coup, and the
Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was underway. In response to the army rebellion, an
anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of
Barcelona and of large areas of rural Spain where they
collectivized the land. But even before the eventual fascist victory in 1939, the anarchists were losing ground in a bitter struggle with the
Stalinists, who controlled the distribution of military aid to the Republican cause from the
Soviet Union. According to
George Orwell and other foreign observers, Stalinist-led troops suppressed the collectives and persecuted both
dissident Marxists and anarchists.
Internal issues and debates
Anarchism is a philosophy which embodies many diverse and heterogeneous attitudes, tendencies and schools of thought; as such, disagreement over questions of values, ideology and tactics is common. The compatibility of
capitalism (which anarchists usually reject, according to
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy),
[ nationalism and religion with anarchism is widely disputed. Similarly, anarchism enjoys a complex relationship with ideologies such as Marxism, communism and anarcho-capitalism. Anarchists may be motivated by humanism, divine authority, enlightened self-interest or any number of alternative ethical doctrines.]
Phenomena such as civilization, technology (for example within Anarcho-primitivism and insurrectionary anarchism), and the democratic process may be sharply criticized within some anarchist tendencies and simultaneously lauded in others. Anarchist attitudes towards race, gender and the environment have changed significantly since the modern origin of the philosophy in the eighteenth century.
On a tactical level, while propaganda of the deed was a tactic used by anarchists in the 19th century (for example the Nihilist movement), contemporary anarchists espouse alternative methods such as nonviolence, counter-economics and anti-state cryptography to bring about an anarchist society. The diversity in anarchism has led to widely different use of identical terms among different anarchist traditions, which has led to many definitional concerns in anarchist theory.
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