POWER, POLITICS

& IDEOLOGY IN Lecture 14

MODERN EUROPE
DR. GUY
Anarchism
AITCHISON
Learning outcomes
• Knowledge and understanding of the core concepts of
anarchism
• Critically assess anarchist arguments about the state
• Compare anarchism to other ideologies
• Identify the differences between different strands of
anarchism, e.g. individualist v communal
• Evaluate attempts to apply anarchism in practice
Overview
1. Some background
2. Core ideas
3. Anarchism in action
4. Anarchism and state authority
5. Communal Anarchism
6. Individualist anarchism
7. Conclusion
“ 1. Go to vevox.app
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3. Answer polls
1. Some background
• Anarchism conjoins Greek words: an and arkhe (i.e. no rulers).

• Popular stereotype is chaos or conflict (e.g. bomb-throwing

anarchist), but anarchists not against organisation and many are
pacifist

• Used negatively in French Revolution; Proudhon proudly said “I am

an anarchist” in his 1840 ‘What is Property?’

• Convergence of socialism and liberalism in 19th century;

predominantly left-wing/communal, though also individualist anarchism
2. Core ideas
• Freedom - non-domination,
across all social relations
• Equality - anti-hierarchical,
anti-capitalist, communal
• Utopian - ideal of non-
coercive relations, often
revolutionary
2. Core ideas
• Direct democracy - popular
self-government, local
• Human nature - flexible,
not purely “good”; Rousseau
v Hobbes
• Direct action – acting
without leaders, protest, pre-
figurative
2. Core ideas
Freedom as non-domination opposed to:

• States (police, prisons, borders, war)

• Capitalism (wage slavery)
• Social relations (race, gender, disability, ageism, LGBTQ)
• Religion (mainly Church authority)
“ How do anarchist views on freedom compare to
liberal views?
2. Core ideas

Liberalism Nationalism

Conservatism Imperialism
3. Anarchism in action
Spain: Anarchism grew in
popularity prior to civil war
(1936 – 39), especially among
destitute peasants. General
strikes. CNT (1910): national
organisation aimed at
emancipation of the working
class. Anarchist control of
Barcelona, suppression.
“
The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution
was still in full swing…It was the first time that I had ever been in a town
where the working class was in the saddle…Every shop and cafe´ had
an inscription saying that it had been collectivized… Waiters and shop-
walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile
and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared…
There were no private motor cars, they had all been commandeered,
and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted
red and black…Except for a small number of women and foreigners
there were no ‘well-dressed’ people at all. Practically everyone wore
rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the
militia uniform. All this was queer and moving…I recognized it
immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for.
George Orwell 1986, Homage to Catalonia, [1938], pp. 2–3.
3. Anarchism in action
Recent protest movements:
Alter-globalisation - Fear of
domination by
institutions/organisations that
we do not control.
Corporations. World Bank.
IMF. Global capitalism.
Occupy Wall Street, direct
democracy, pre-figuration, the
“1%”
https://youtu.be/hTCMcO4WTjE
“
The state idea, the authoritarian principle, has been proven bankrupt by
the experience of the Russian Revolution. If I were to sum up my whole
argument in one sentence I should say: The inherent tendency of the
State is to concentrate, to narrow, and monopolize all social
activities; the nature of revolution is, on the contrary, to grow, to
broaden, and disseminate itself in ever-wider circles..... Revolutionary
methods must be in tune with revolutionary aims. The means used to
further the revolution must harmonize with its purposes. In short,
the ethical values which the revolution is to establish in the new society
must be initiated with the revolutionary activities of the so-called
transitional period.
Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment with Russia, 1923.
“ What is the strongest argument anarchists have for
the abolition of the state? And the strongest against?
4. Anarchism and state authority
• Philosophical anarchism - state doesn’t have
legitimate authority (e.g. Robert Paul Wolff, In Defence
of Anarchism, 1970); strong emphasis on personal
autonomy, theories of political obligation fail
• Political anarchism - anarchy a better alternative to
the state, hostile to existing states
5. Communal Anarchism
Mikhail Bakunin (1814 - 1876): Collectivism.

Peter Kropotkin (1842 - 1921): Communism.

Pierre Proudhon (1809 - 1865): Mutualism.

Positive freedom and substantive equality. Freedom not about

property rights but about development of one’s capacities in a
supportive environment. Goods and resources to be distributed
according to some wider metric: need or work, etc., not voluntary
contracts.
 6. Individualist Anarchism
• Individual freedom. Property rights. Extreme classical liberalism. Lockean
rights of non-interference exist in a state of nature. Self-ownership.

• Any external interference is a form of coercion. Hence, the state should be

disbanded in favour of voluntary markets.

• Libertarian anarchism or Anarcho-Capitalism.

• Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, minimal state, classical

liberalism

• Problems: overlooks interdependence, tyranny of market

 Conclusion
Anarchism can be found in both individualist and communal forms with the
latter much more prominent in history and practice

Anarchism opposes domination across all social relations, including the state,
the economy and religion; (communal) anarchists oppose capitalism and want
substantive equality

Anarchism arose out of a critique of both liberalism and state-centric socialism

or Marxism and contains elements of both

There are some small-scale examples of successful anarchist practice and

direct action though many remain sceptical about central claims regarding
states
Anarchism
An ideology based on freeing people from political domination and economic exploitation. Anarchy means being
without government, ‘statelessness’, complete freedom and equality.
Emma Goldman described the state as a ‘cold monster’, a sovereign body that exerts total authority over all individuals
and groups living within its defined geographical limits. Anarchist oppose government, authority, and political power,
which anarchists see as immoral as it restricts liberty. Government is tyrant and must be rejected. In modern
democracies, anarchists believe that the government rules by deceit, backed up by the threat of violence. There has
never been a social contract which individuals have freely entered. If the people were sovereign there would be no
government and no governed, so the state would not exist. The vote is nothing more than a trick that disguises massive
power of the state based on the police, the banks and the army, which it uses to secure its authority. Goldman states: ‘If
voting changed anything they’d make it illegal”
Within a liberal democracy, violence will only be used when deceit falls, anarchists believe well british ones point to the
brutal repression of the miners’ strike 1984-85. American anarchists to the suppression of protest in ferguson 2014 or
standing rock 2016 by a heavily militarized police.
Anarchists reject all forms of authority based on hierarchy, which divides society into the few and the many i.e
institutions such as the church, social relationships- racism. Sexism and homophobia as well as capitalism, where the
workers are wage slaves.
Hierarchical authorities
Commanding-state can foirce individuals to act in a way they would not have done voluntarily.
This forces an individual to suspend their reason and lose their autonomy
Controlling- authority exerts control over people and stifles creativity and initiative , People lose
their ability to understand their own individuality and to think for themselves- preventing from
exploring their nature and expressing themselves. Max striner rejected authority of the state,
church, moral truths, family values and existing sexual morality.
Corrupting- authority corrupts human nature. Those with authority lose all sense of their true
nature which is cooperative and altruistic. Those who are subject to authority are brutalized by a
state that creates social conflict through inequality and resolves disputes through violence,
coercion and not through reason.]
Mikhail Bakunin objected to the socialist state, stating that the ’red bureaucracy’ would become
corrupted by authority and predicted that ‘socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality’.
Strategies to capture the government
Direct action or ‘propaganda by the deed’- the Bakuninist approach involves using any form of non direct action-
non payment of taxes, rents and debts, the mass strike or the refusal of any conscription to acts of violence- to
stir up a revolution e.g. Zapatista uprising in Mexico in 1994 or the non-payment of the poll tax under Thatcher.
Emerging revolution-terroism is widely discredited as ineffective and immoral by Kropotkin and goldman. The
revolution will emerge out of a process of direct action and diy politics that exposes and undermines the nature
of the state. This approach involves acting as if you were already free. These actions will allow individuals to
become autonomous and learn about the benefits of solidarity, mutual aid and collective action, creating a spirit
of revolt.
Creating new instiutions – Proudhon rejected any form of violence and advocated evolutionary process of
creating instiutions in which change can be won. Through education, instruction, peaceful action as well as
mutualist experiments, such as worker associations and a people’s bank.
Insurrection- stirner opposed revolution as a political and social act and an authoritarian one, because revolution
involves the overthrow of existing conditions to be replaced by new conditions. Striner favoured insurrection
whereby a rise of individuals who elevate themselves above the established instiutions through self-liberation,
leaving the establishment to decay and die.
Liberty
Liberty can be defined as individuals pursuing their own good in their own way. This involves freedom from want, as
well well as freedom from expression, thought, assembly and movement for all. Individualist anarchists see human nature
as rational, individualist and autonomous. Because authority is commanding, the individual cannot be autonomous in
making decisions based on reason and conscience, because authority is controlling, the individual cannot fully explore
their individuality. Liberty is the freedom to be autonomous and to explore one’ss individuality to the full
Collective anarchist see humans as rational but emphasise altruism and co-operative. The unjust nature of the state means
the individual is not free, Liberty under capitalism is a cruel joke: it means nothing more than the ability for the wage
slave to choose their own boss. For collectivists, the individual can only be free when all are free to realize their potential.
Liberty is only possible if there is equality, where people treat each other equally, have an equal economic position and
have an equal say in their workplace or community
Collectivists such as Bakunin emphasise the collective more, arguing that the liberty of the individual should be absolute
and unlimited, but that indiviudlaity can be achieved through the collective
Striner argues that the individual needs voluntary associations with others, but never for the common good and always for
their own personal interest
Proudhon was critical of the obsession with individuality and felt that collectivism absorbed and devalued the individual.
Anarchy is order
Collectivist- altruism is undermined by the competitive, exploitative and divisive nature of the
capitalist state. Common ownership and mutualist institutions will help grow altruistic and co-
operative behaviour, which will sustain natural order.
Egoistic anarchist- the individual should act as they see fit and must not be constrained by any laws,
political obligation, social norms and moral/religious principles. The removal of the state will
nurture rationalism, autonomy and self-interest, which are the best guarantors of social order.
Anarcho capitalist- the free market will allow rational, autonomous, competitive and self-interested
individuals to make judgements in their own best interests, creating natural order
In an anarchist society, there would be no centralized body to impose its will on the people, no
recognized hierarchical authority and no coercive machinery to impose laws. Free individuals
decide how they want to live. The new society would be some form of decentralized federation of
autonomous districs, based on the voluntary co-operation of free and equal individuals, where
decisions are made directly by the pople in a form of self-government.
Economic freedom
Economic inequality is built into the state which emerged when society began to produce a surplus that was taken by
the few. The state became necessary to protect private property, which was often acquired unjustly. E.g. the UK the
Land Enclosures Act of the 18th century parcelled up common land nd turned it over to private ownership creating a
landless working class. This was perceived as class robbery.
Proudhon’s analysis of the political economy is crucial. Proudhon calls private property ‘the right to own without the
need to occupy’. This means the ability to earn income without doing any productive work, by exploting the labour of
others through rent, interest and wage labour. The masses must work and be exploited or suffer starvation and misery.
This view is taken by collectivists who see private property, defended by the state as the root cause of exploitation.
Private property encourages selfishness, conflict and social disharmony; inequality promotes greed, envy and
resentment. Collectivist would abolish private property and replace it with mutualism (system of equitable exchange
between self-governing producers nd small scale private property based on use or possession.) which would nurture
the altruistic elements of human nature and create liberty, leading to natural order.
Anarcho capitalists support an entirely free, competitive market, including the principle of private property. The state
must be removed from the market , even with the provision of public goods like roads, education or health care. The
market is always more effective without the state and will allow rational, autonomous, competitive and self-interested
individuals to make judgements in their own best interests, creating natural order.
Utopian
Form of political thinking that constructs a model of an idealized future society in order to develop a
critical analysis of existing society. This ideal society is based on an optimistic view of the potential of
human nature for development, and will be a society of peace, harmony, unrestricted liberty and order
Kropotkin argues utopia will force evolutionaries to question their assumptions about the existing order,
such as the right to private property.
Criticisms of utopia:
1) anarchism has been a historical failure as no anarchist society has been created so it is unachievable.
Response- no ideal socialist/ liberal society has been achieved either. Anarchist experiments have been
seen during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and the Rojava revolution in Syria. Anarchists may also
point to the Zapatista rebellion, which is still in place more than 20 years after the initial uprising.
Criticism- anarchism is unrealistic as its view of human nature is wrong, and natural order will not
happen. Response- anarchism is based on a realistic understanding of human potential. Despite the state,
humans have shown their altruism in forming organisations without authority.
Collectivist anarchism
Argue for a stateless society, where common ownership will nurture the rational, altruistic and
co-operative elements of human nature. Collectivism is the view that human nature is altruistic,
cooperative and sociable. The natural relationships between people are mutual aid, social
solidarity and harmony, which can be nurtured by the right social instiutions. Collectivism entails
the dismantling of the state and the abolition of private property. Land would be owned by the
individul own labour. Society would be organized from the bottom up into voluntary collectives
of producers and consumers, who would organize the production and distribution of goods.
Within this society, the principle of ’from each according to their ability and each according to
their work done’ would apply.
Anarcho communism
Holds that full communism will be the best way to reach liberty, economic freedom and natural
order. Kropotkin said that nature was not ‘red in tooth and claw’, infact those species that
cooperate are the winners in the struggle for survival. As the human species is successful in this
struggle, humans must have a natural capacity for cooperation
They view all forms of private property as theft. As well as land and the means of production
being held in common ownership, the production of individuals’ labour should be held in
common too. In terms of society, kropotkin focuses on the commune, made up of entire local
population, rather than the collective, made up of producers and consumers. These communes
would be small scale, allowing for direct democracy, and all the wealth would be held in
common. iNDIVIUDALS would be a part of these communes based on voluntary agreements.
Mutualism
This is the bridge between collectivist and individualist anarchism. Emerges from Proudhon critique that
‘property is theft’- targeting large property owners who could exploit the masses by charging high rents and
interest and paying low wages that did not reflect their hard work. This criticism of property returned to politics
in the wake of the global economic crash of 2008, with the slogan ‘we are the 99 per cent’ and the occupy wall
street movement.
Proudhon supports the right to possession- the right to use land, tools, skills necessary to ensure that the
individual is economically independent. Possession is his antidote to both collectivism and private property and
is basis of mutualism. The economic organization of mutualism is based on individuals and small associations
right to possession, who would keep the full fruits of their labour. They can both exchange their produce based
on a system of labour notes to make sure everyone had access to the necessities of life. Labour notes will record
the working time that went into making each product. There would also be a people’s bank that would not make
any profit, but would provide credit to the associations.
On a political level, these associations would be drawn together in vast federation, with councils coordinating at
local and international level. The councils would be made up of delegates from the associations, who would be
subject to instant recall. The whole system would be organized from the bottom up, with no central authority and
would be based on voluntary agreements.
Anarcho syndicalism
In this strand of thinking, the trade-union movement is the revolutionary agent of change. Who
will continue to campaign for improved conditions, pay for workers, as well as educating them.
Trades unions can then build economic instiutions that are horizontal, not hierarchical and
provide self-management in the economy. These new instiutions, built withn the existing state,
will prepare the way for the mass strike as the propaganda by the deed to trigger a social
revolution. After the revolution, these instiutions will provide the basis for the future stable,
stabeless and peaceful society.
Individualist anarchism
Sees society as a collection of separate individuals whose autonomy must not be restricted in any way. The state with its coercive force
with its power of taxation, conscription and law is incompatible with autonomy. It rejects the need for night-watchman state to protect
freedom. Provided there is no restriction on individuals, their rational nature will allow them to work together through voluntary
association, resolving all disputes by reason rather than violence. This leads to the basis of natural order and a peaceful society.
Anarcho-capitalism- wish to dismantle the government which they believe is exploitative through its use of taxation, violating the private
property of the individual. The state also intervenes in the market, creating public and private monopolies that restrict freedom. In
anarcho-capitalism, all contracts would be entered freely and would only be regulated by the market, rather than the individual being
forced to pay tax and having to use public services. All services currently provided by government, such as policing, courts and roads
would be handed over to the free market. Competition will give consumers a choice, forcing the suppliers to be efficient, cost effective and
more likely to reflect consumer’s needs.
Criticism on anarcho capitalism- is its belief in the invisible hand of the free market and private property, the profit motive and wage
system would remain. Only the rich and powerful will be free and they will be free to protect their own privileges through private
protection bodies and resolve disputes through private courts
Egoism- argues that individuals are entirely self-interested; their only concern is the ‘ego’. The individual should act in any way they
choose, and there should be no restriction on autonomy or individuality. The state is a tyranny that limits, controls, and subordinates the
individual to the general will, so it must be abolished. Egoism also argues that the individual must reject society and in particular religion,
sexual morality and the moral values imposed on all by their parents Egoism is concerned with stirner, who in economic terms rejects
capitalism, believing that anyone who works for another is exploited and alienated. Work should be purposeful and useful to the individual
and they should retain the full fruits of their labour while rejecting the right to private property.