ANARCHISM

Introduction
• Anarchy comes from the Greek word anarkhos and are called and
literally means without rule
• The word has been used since French Revolution but was initially used
as a negative sense to imply a breakdown of civilize or predictable order
• In everyday means it implies chose and disorder
• Anarchist fiercely Reject such Association
• Pierre joseph proudhon declared In his book ‘What is property’ that “I am
an anarchist” In a positive sense.
• They They believe that political authority in all its forms and specially in
the form of state is evil and unnecessary
• Emphasis on stateless society through the abolition of law and government
• State is evil because as a repository of sovereign compulsory and coercive
authority
• State is unnecessary because order and social harmony can arise naturally
and spontaneously and do not have to be imposed from above
• State is an offence against the principal of freedom and equality
• The core value of anarchism is thus unrestricted personal autonomy
 Origin and development
• The first statement of anarchist principles was produced by William Godwin
in his enquiry concerning political justice although he never describe himself
as an anarchist
• 19th century ,anarchism was a significant components of a broad but
growing socialist movement ,In the late 19th century anarchist sought mass
support among the landless peasants of Russia and Southern Europe and
more successfully through anarcho-syndicalism among the industrial working
class
• Syndicalism was popular in France Italy Spain and in early 20th century in
Latin America, however ,the spread of authoritarianism and political
repression gradually undermine anarchism in both Europe and Latin
America
• Anarchism is unusual among political ideology in that it has never
succeeded in winning power at least at the national level
• The nearest and anarchist have come to winning power was during
the Spanish civil war when they briefly controlled parts of eastern
Spain
• Appeal of an anarchism as a political movement has been restricted
by both its and and its mean. The goal of anarchism is widely
considered to be unrealistic
• Nevertless anarchism refuses to die precisely because of its
uncompromising attitude to authority and political activism
CORE THEMES: against the state
• Defining feature opposition to state
• However the ideological character of anarchism is blurred by two factors
• First, Anarchism is stronger on moral assertion than on analysis and
explanation
• Second, Anarchism is less a unified and coherent ideology in its own right,
and more a point of overlap between two ideologies-liberalism and
socialism-the point at which both ideologies reach anti static conclusion
• Anarchism has a dual character of ‘ultra-liberalism’ and ‘ultra-socialism’
• Anarchist do not have common view for human nature
• Godwin stressed rational benevolence while Max stirner emphasize
conscience egoism
• Mostly anarchist,Human nature is a product of environment
• Theory of human nature realistic as well as pessimistic
• Despite drawing on very different political tradition, it is united by a
series of broader principles and positions
• The most significant of these are:
• Anti-statism
• Natural order
• Anti-clericalism
• Economic freedom
Anti - Statism
• Sebastian faure,in his Encyclopedie anarchiste, defined anarchism as the
‘negation of the principle authority ‘
• Anarchy endroses absolute freedom and unrestrained political equality
• Since human being are free and autonomous creatures, to be subject to authority
means to be diminished
• Authority give rise to a society in which' many are ruthless and most live in fear ‘
• Anarchist critique for state described by pierre-joseph proudhon as “To be
governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed,
legislated ,regimented ,closed in, indoctrinated, preached, controlled, assessed,
evaluated ,censored, commanded ;all by creatures that have neither the right,
nor the wisdom, nerve the virtue.”
• They believe that state is sovereign body ,coercive, compulsory ,while
rejecting the liberal notion of social contract ,and exploitative, and
destructive (Randolph Bourne-War is a health of the state) .
• People who would otherwise be Cooperative sympathetic and
sociable become nothing less than oppressive tyrants when raised up
above others by power privilege or wealth
If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another
and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable—and
this is why we are the enemies of the State. (Bakunin 1873 [1990: 178
Natural order
• Godwin suggest that human beings are essentially rational creatures, it is the
corrupting influence of Government and unnatural laws that create injustice greed
and aggression (against Hobbes social contract theory)
• Government is not the solution to the problem of order, but its cause(because they
create injustice greed and aggression)
• A belief in the natural goodness , or at least potential goodness , of human kind.
• Social order arises naturally and spontaneously, it does not require the machinery
of low and order
• Anarchists have thus sometimes been drawn to the ideas of non Western
religions such as Buddhism and Taoism which emphasize interdependence and
oneness
• Anarchism is not simply based on a Belief in human goodness.
• In first place ,anarchist theories of human nature have often been
complex ,while accessing that human beings could be selfish and
competitive as well as sociable and cooperative
• Second anarchist have paid much attention to social institutions as they
have to human nature
• The idea of nature is established in the basis of
• Human have potential goodness
• A stress on social institutions that foster positive humanism
• They regard human nature as plastic, shaped by social, political, and
economic circumstances within which people live that is social institutions
 Anti-clericalism
• Although the state has been the principal target of anarchist but the
same criticism applied to any other form of compulsory authority that is
religion
• That’s why it prospered in countries with strong tradition such as
france, italy
• Religion has often been seen as the source of authority itself .The idea
of God represents the notion of A Supreme being who commands
ultimate and unquestionable authority.An anarchist political philosophy
had to be based on the rejection of Christianity. Anarchist have
suspected that religious and political authority usually work hand in
hand
• Bakunin proclaimed that’ the abolition of the church and the state
must be the first and indispensable condition of the true Liberation of
society’
• Anarchist view religion as one of the pillars of the state
• Religion seeks to impose a set of moral principles on the individual
and to establish a code of acceptable behaviour
• Individual is robbed of moral economy and the capacity to make
ethical judgement
• Nevertheless,anarchist do not reject the religious impulse altogether
• Anarchist can be said to hold an essentially spiritual conception of human
nature early anarchist were sometimes influenced by
millenarianism.Indeed, anarchism has often been portrait as a form of
political mimimillenarianism
• Modern anarchist have often been attracted to religions such as Taoism
and Zen Buddhism, Which offer the prospect of personal insight and
preach the values of toleration, respect and natural harmony
• Bakunin extended his critique to include religion, arguing against both
God and the State. Bakunin rejected God as the absolute master, saying
famously, “if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him”
(Bakunin 1882 [1970: 28]).
 Economic Freedom
• Bakunin argued that political power and wealth are inseparable
• In the 19th Century anarchist usually worked within the working class
movement and subscribe to a broadly socialist philosophy
• Capitalism was understood in class terms :a ‘ruling class ‘exploits and
oppresses ‘the masses’In which ruling class included king and princes,
politician state official ,judges and police officer ,bishops and priest,
as well as Industrialist and bankers
• Bakulin argued that in every developed society three social groups
can be identified : a vast majority who are exploited; a minority who
are exploited but also exploits others in equal measures and the
Supreme governing state , a small minority of exploiters and
oppressers pure and simple
• 19th century anarchists identified themselves with the poor and oppressed and
sought to carry out a social revolution in the name of “exploited masses” in
which both capitalism and the state would be swept away
• However it is the economic structure of life that most keenly exposes tensions
within anarchism while many anarchist knowledge a kinship with socialism
based on a common distaste for property and inequality have defended
property right and even revered competitive capitalism. This highlights the
distinction between two major anarchist tradition that is collective anarchism
and individual anarchism
• Despite differences, all anarchists opposed capitalism and prefers an economy
in which free individual manage their affairs without need for state ownership
or regulation
BRANCHES OF ANARCHISM
• Collectivist Anarchism
• Individualist Anarchism
COLLECTIVIST ANARCHISM
• Philosophical rules lie in socialism rather than liberalism
• Collectivism is the belief that human beings are social animals better suited
to working together for the common good than striving for individual self
interest
• Collectivist anarchism, sometimes called social anarchism, stresses the
human capacity for social solidarity
• When people are linked together by the recognition of a common humanity,
they have no need to be regulated by government
• As Bakunin proclaimed “Social solidarity is the first human law; freedom is
the second law”.Not only is government unnecessary but in replacing
freedom with oppression it also makes social solidarity impossible
• Philosophical and ideological overlaps between anarchism and
socialism ,particularly marxist socialism ,are evident in the fact that
anarchists have often worked within a broad Revolutionary socialist
movement for example First International
• A number of clear theoretical parallels can be identified between
collectivist anarchism and Marxism. Both fundamentally reject
capitalism, both have endorse Revolution, both exhibit a preference
for the collective ownership of wealth and the communal
organisation of social life. Both believe that a fully communist
society would be anarchic, both agree that human beings have the
ultimate capacity to order their affairs without the need for political
authority
• Anarchism and Socialism diverge at a number of points
• Anarchists dismissed parliamentary socialism as a contradiction in
terms
• Another disagreement on their rival conception of the transition from
capitalism to communism;
Mutualism
• Pierre –Joseph proudhon, in What is property, stated that ‘property is
theft ‘
• But did not opposed to all forms of private property ,distinguishing
between property and ‘possessions
• Proudhon,through mutualism, sought to establish a system of
property ownership that would avoid exploitation and promote social
harmony
• Social interaction in such system would be voluntary ,mutually
beneficial and Harmonious, thus requiring no interference of state
• He put ideas into practice by setting up mutual credit banks
Anarcho-Syndicalism
• Syndicalism is a form of revolutionary trade unionism, drawing it’s
name from the French word syndicat,meaning union or group
• First emerged in France
• Syndicalist theory drew on socialist ideas and advanced a crude
notion of class war
• Syndicate could act as conventional trade unions, raising
wages ,shortening hours and improving working condition
• As anarchists entered the syndicalist movement, they developed the
distinctive ideas of Anarcho –Syndicalism
• Two features of syndicalism inspired anarchist:
• First,syndicalists were rejected conventional politics as corrupting and
pointless
• Second, anarchist saw the syndicate as a model for the decentralized,
non-hierarchic society of the future
• Although anarcho-syndicalism enjoyed genuine mass support, at least
until the Spanish civil war, it failed to achieve its revolutionary objectives
• Other anarchists criticized Syndicalism for concentrating too narrowly
on short term trade union goals and for leading anarchism away from
revolution and towards reformism
Anarcho –communism
• In its most radical form, a belief in social solidarity leads in the
direction of collectivism and full communism
• Sociable human beings leads a shared and communal existence. For
example, labour is a social experience
• In this sense, all forms of private property are theft as it promotes
conflict and social disharmony and inequality in the ownership of
wealth
• Anarcho-communism is rooted in a belief of human capacity for
cooperation, expressed as ‘mutual aid’ by Kropotkin
• Kroptokin argued That species are successful precisely because they
manage to harness collective energies through cooperation. The
process of evolution thus strengthen sociability and favours cooperation
over competition
• He argued that while mutual aid had flourished in , it had been
subverted by competitive capitalism, threatening the further evolution
of human species
• Although Proudhon had warned that Communism could only be
brought about by an authoritarian, anarcho-communist such as
Kroptokin and Errico malatesta argued that true Communism requires
the abolition of the state
• Kroptokin envisaged that an anarchic society would consist of a
collection of largely self -sufficient communes owning its wealth in
common
• Anarcho communist perspective has three key advantages
1. Strengthen the bonds of compassion and solidarity
2. Decisions are made through a process of participatory or direct
democracy
3. Allow people to manage their own affairs through face to face
interaction
INDIVIDUALISTIC ANARCHISM
• The philosophical basis of individualist anarchies lies in the liberal idea
of the sovereign individual
• Anarchist conclusions are pushing liberal individualism to its logical
extreme
• For example –William Godwin’s anarchism amounts to form of
extreme classical liberalism
• When individualism is taken to its extreme,it therefore implies
individual sovereignty, from this perspective any constraints on the
individual is evil, but when this constraint is imposed by the state, it
amounts to an absolute evil
• Individualism and state are irreconcilable by law and government
• Although this seems as liberal in ideology there are some significant
difference exist between them
• First, liberals believe in individual liberty but not in stateless society but
anarchists believe that individuals can conduct themselves peacefully and
prosperously without the need for government because individual are
rational and moral creatures
• Second, liberals believe that government power can be controlled by the
development of constitutional and representative institution but anarchists
dismissed the idea of as they regard constitutionalism and democracy as
simply facades, behind which naked political operation operates
• Anarcho –individualism has taken a number of forms. The most
important of these are :
• Egoism
• Libertarianism
• Anarcho-capitalism
Egoism
• The oldest statement of anarchist convictions built on the idea of the
sovereign individual is found in Max Stirner‘s The Ego and His Own
• Stirner’s theories represent an extreme individualism
• The term Ego is can have two meanings
• It can suggest that individuals are essentially concerned about their ego or
self ,accepted by thinkers such as Hobbes or Locke,m.Self-interestedness can
generate conflict and this justify the existence of state
• In Stirner’s view, egoism Is a philosophy that places the individual self at the
centre of the moral universe. The individual should simply act as he or she
chooses , without any consideration for lawe, social conventio, religious and
moral principle . such a position amounts to from of nihilism
Libertarianism
• The individualist argument was more fully developed in the USA by
libertarian thinkers such as Henry David Thoreau, Lysander
Spooner,Benjamin Tucker and Josiah Warren
• Thoreau in his most political work ‘civil disobedience ‘approved of
Jaffersons liberal motto that ‘government is best which governs least’
but adopted in his anarchist way that ‘government is best which governs
not at all
• Thoreau ‘s anarchism places individual conscience above the demand of
political obligation
• Benjamin tucker took libertarianism further by considering how
individuals could live conflict free
• The first solution is to emphasizes human rationality
• The second solution is to find some source of mechanism through
which the Independent actions of free individuals could be brought
into harmony with another and this could be achieved through a
system of market exchange
• Labour-for-labour exchange
Anarcho -Capitalism
• The revival of interest in free market economy in the late 20th century
lead to increasingly radical political conclusion
• Right wing libertarians such as Robert Nozick, revived the idea of
minimal state, whose principle function is to protect individual rights.
• Other thinkers, for instance Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard and David
Friedman, have pushed free –market ideas to their limit and
developed a form of anarcho –capitalism
• They have argued that government can be abolished and be replaced
by unregulated market competition
• Property should be owned by individual .The individual thus remains free and
the market regulates all social interaction
• Liberals believe that market is effective but limitedly such as in production of
public goods
• Anarcho-capitalist believe that market can satisfy all human wants
• For example –Rothbard recognized ‘protection association ‘ and ‘private
courts’in place of police force or a state court system
• Because they believe profit making protection agencies would offer better
service than state association
• It has already advanced in USA and UK(private prison and private court)and
‘Neighbourhood Watch’ Scheme in UK
 ROADS TO ANARCHY
• Anarchist have been more successful in describing their ideal in book
and pamphlets then they have been at putting them into practice.
Anarchists have been anti-political
• They believe that if the state is evil and oppressive, any attempt to win
government power or influenced I, must be corrupting and unhealthy
• Thus the idea of anarchism politics is contradiction As there is no
conventional ‘road to anarchy ‘ ,anarchist have been forced to less
orthodox means of political activism. The most significant are:
• Revolutionary violence
• Direct action
• Non-violent protest
Revolutionary violence
• In the 19th century, anarchist leaders tried to rouse the ‘oppressed
masses’ to insurrection and revolt
• Bakunin, for example, led a conspirational brotherhood, the Alliance
for Social Democracy, and took part in anarchist rising in France and
Italy. Other anarchist –for example, Malatesta in italy-worked for a
peasant revolution
• However, they failed due to disbelief in careful organisation
• By 19th century they turned to Syndicalist movement but lost support
to better organized, disciplined and communist movement
• Nevertheless, some anarchists continued to place particular emphasis on
the revolutionary potential of terrorism and violence; prominent in two
periods, in the late 19th century and again in the 1970s
• Anarchist have employed terrorism to create an atmosphere of terror or
apprehension
• Among its victims were Tsar Alexander ll, king Umberto of Italy, Elizabeth
of Austria and many more
• The typical terrorist was either individual such as Emile Henry, who was
guillotined in 1894 after placing a bomb in the café Terminus in Paris OR
clandestine groups such as the People ‘s Will in Russia, which
assassinated Alexander ll
• In anarchist view, violence is a form of revenge and retribution against
political exploitation. It is therefore a form of ‘revolutionary justice ‘
• Violence is seen as a way of demoralizing the ruling classes. In addition,
it is a way of raising political consciousness and stimulating the masses
to revolt
• However, in practice political violence has normally provoked public
horror and outrage, furthermore it seems an unpromising way of
persuading the ruling class to relinquish power
• Also, Terrorist attack in both period merely encourage the state to
expand and strengthen it’s repressive machinery, usually with the
backing of public opinion
Direct Action
• Short of revolutionary assault on existing society, anarchists have
often employed tactics of direct action.
• Direct action may range from passive resistance to terrorism
• Anarcho-synadicalist,for example, refused to engage in conventional,
representative politics ,preferring instead to exert direct pressure on
employers by boycotting their product, subotaging machinery and
organising strike action
• It has also employed strategies of mass popular protest and direct
political engagement
• In anarchist view, Direct Action has two advantages
• First, it is uncontaminated by the process of of government and
the machinery of the state
• Second, it is a form of popular political activism that can be
organised on the basis of decentralization and participatory
decision-making
• This is sometimes seen as the ‘new politics ‘,which turns away
from established parties, interest groups and representative
processes towards a more innovative and theatrical form of
protest politics
• It has also its drawbacks
• It may open to the charge of irresponsibility or extremism
• It may restrict political influence
Anarcho – Pacifism
• In practice, most anarchists see violence as tactically misguided, while
others, following Godwin and Proudhon, regard it as abhorrent in
principle
• These latter anarchists have often been attracted to the principles of
non-violence and pacifism developed by the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy
and Mahatma Gandhi
• Although neither of them can properly be classified as anarchist, both,in
different ways, expressed ideas that were sympathetic to anarchism
• Tolstoy suggested that salvation could be achieved by living according to
religious principles and returning to a simple, rural existence, based on
the traditional life –style of the Russian peasantry
• For Tolstoy, Christian respect for life required that “no person would
employ violence against anyone, and under no consideration “.
• Gandhi campaign against racial discrimination and led the national
movement, his political method was based on the idea of Satyagraha,
or non-violent resistance, influenced both by the teachings of Tolstoy
and Hindu religious principles
• The principle of non-violence has appealed to anarchists for two
reasons
• First, it reflects a respect for human beings as moral and autonomous
creatures
• Second, non-violence has been attractive as a political strategy
ANARCHISM IN A GLOBAL AGE
• For an ideology that has failed to provide the basis for political
reconstruction in any major society has stubbornly refused to die
• Early signs of anarchist revival came with the emergence of the ‘new
left’ and the ‘new right’,both exhibited libertarian tendencies bearing
the imprint of anarchist thinking
• New left – Goal of liberation, understood to mean personal fulfillment
and it endorsed an activist style of politics based on popular protest
and direct action,clearly influenced by anarchism
• New Right –Emphasized the importance of Individual freedom, but
believe that this could only be guaranteed by market competition
• By emphasizing the coercive and destructive nature of political power
anarchism also held to count your status tendencies within other
ideology
• But it was less significant in this period
• But in 1960s upsurge many contemporary anti-capitalist activists call
themselves anarchies
• Reasons for return of anarchism –Concern about the capacity of
global capitalism to imprint its value, assumptions and institution
potentially across all parts of the world and it has also offered a style
of activism through which these concerns can be expressed politically
• The clearest manifestation of this new anarchism has been the activist
based theatre politics that was first employed during the so called
‘battle of Seattle ‘ in 1999 and has been used in most subsequent
anti-capitalist protest
• New anarchism attracted to anti-capitalist because:
• Resistence to compromise for the sake of political expediency
• It’s rejection of consumerism
• Its offers a form of form of politics that decidedly ‘in the moment ‘,the
link between anarchism and resistance to globalization
• Doubts about the extent to which the link between anarchism and
resistance to globalization provides the basis for a long term and
meaningful revival of anarchism as a political movement
• In the first place, anti capitalist protesters does not attempted to deal
with anarchism as an ideological system but to build on the ideas of
classic anarchist thinker
• For example, Earlier theoretical debate between anarchist and
Marxismabout strategy and political organisation are entirely alien to the
spirit of new anarchism
• Thus, a distinctively anarchists critique of global capitalism has yet to
emerge
• Second, Not only does anarchism operate with a highly diverse and
sometimes fragmented anti-capitalist movement but the anarchist
element within this movement is itself highly eclectic
• The fact that new anarchism is post ideological –In that it lacks a
theoretical core and ranges over issues as diverse as pollution and
environmental degradation, animal right, consumerism ,Urban
Development ,general relations and global inequality –may help to
widen the appeal of anarchist but at the cost of political effectiveness
• Third, although modern information and communication technology
has greatly extended the scope for self-managed and decentralized
politics,the longer term disadvantages of principled rejection of
leadership and organization have not, and perhaps cannot, be
overcome
• ‘New‘ Anarchism has proved highly effective but without leaders or
formal structure, it is difficult to see how it could develop into a
sustainable mass movement
CRITICISM

The fact that there are currently no developed countries in the

world that operate as pure anarchies indicates that there are
critical problems with anarchist theory. Some of the major
criticisms of anarchism include:

It is Not practical
The very feasibility of a purely anarchist society is
questionable. While anarchist practices can work in small city-
states, regions, or villages, such as the rural Spanish settlement
of Marinaleda, it is unlikely that anarchist organizations can
take hold and sustain themselves on a national or global level.
It is Destructive
Critics contend that anarchism is merely a less-threatening name for chaos and civil disorder
resulting from a rejection of structured order. Anarchists, they claim, are violent and nihilistic
and dedicated to destroying everything, even morality itself. To be sure, history is filled with
cases of violence being a tactic or a result of anarchism.

It is Unstable
Anarchy, critics say, is inherently unstable and will always evolve back into structured
government rule. In developing the theory of the social contract, Thomas Hobbes and other
political philosophers maintain that government naturally emerges as a corrective response
to anarchy which maintains order and protects the interests of thepeople. Another theory
holds that a so-called “night-watchman state” can emerge as a response to anarchism in
which people protect their property by buying the services of a private protection agency,
It is Utopian
Critics further suggest that exercises in anarchist thought are fruitless
because it is simply impossible for individuals or small groups, no
matter how dedicated, to destroy or deconstruct an established
governmental structure. It would be better, they argue, to concentrate
on the inequality, and threats to liberty posed by the ruling government
and work for reforms through the existing political processes.