Anti-capitalism

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The "Pyramid of Capitalist System" cartoon made by the Industrial Workers of the World (1911) is an example of a socialist critique of capitalism and of social stratification.

Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists seek to combat the worst effects of capitalism and to eventually replace capitalism with alternative economic systems such as socialism and communism.

Characteristics

Anti-capitalism can range from a reformist position, which aims to limit corporate power and oppose neoliberal policies, to a radical position, which entirely rejects capitalism and seeks to replace the existing social order. Key principles of anti-capitalism, as outlined by the charter of the World Social Forum, include a committent to democracy and egalitarianism. Anti-capitalists view capitalism either as a social relation or as a distinct economic and political system, and how they view it informs their methods of opposing it. Reformist anti-capitalism places itself in opposition to specific economic practices, including commodification and capital accumulation, and seeks to combat the negative externalities of capitalism without fundamentally altering the economic system; on the other hand, forms of revolutionary socialism see capitalism as a fundamentally flawed social system that needs to be overthrown and replaced. Although the reformist and revolutionary perspectives differ, they are not necessarily distinct, with anti-capitalists often taking aspects of one or the other depending on the material conditions they are faced with.

Various economic systems have been proposed as an alternative to capitalism. American economist Michael Albert proposed a system of participatory economics, a kind of democratic socialism which would involve social ownership, workers' self-management, participatory planning and system of remuneration based on contribution, among other factors. Neozapatismo emphasises the self-determination of indigenous peoples and a form of participatory democracy that stands in contrast to the centralisation and vanguardism of authoritarian socialist tendencies.

History

Early opposition to the rise of capitalism first arose during the 17th century, when feudal landowners first came under threat from the increasing power of business owners. During the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution gave rise to mass production, which accelerated the shift away from mercantilism as the predominant economic system and the globalization of capitalism. The division of labour within this industrial capitalist economy led to the rapid growth of the working class, who were increasingly drawn towards anti-capitalism and organised themselves in trade unions and socialist parties.

Contemporary anti-capitalist movement

1960s–1980s

Contemporary anti-capitalism finds its roots among the New Left and the counterculture of the 1960s, which infused anti-capitalism with a postmodern tendency by the end of the Cold War. During this period, anti-capitalism began to develop within the environmental movement, with green politics drawing a lot of its influence from the New Left and groups such as Greenpeace aligning themselves against economic growth and pioneering new methods of direct action which had previously been advocated by anarchists. Radical environmentalists such as Earth First, which infused their green politics with anti-capitalism, used decentralised clandestine cell systems to carry out large-scale acts of sabotage; tactics which would later be taken up by the wider anti-capitalist movement. Capitalism was increasingly seen as responsible for environmental degradation, leading to the adoption of anti-capitalism by those who aimed to stop it.

1990s

By the 1990s, neoliberalism had asserted a hegemonic influence over the global economy. In reaction against the rise of neoliberalism, a new anti-capitalist movement began to take shape. The contemporary anti-capitalist movement first emerged in January 1994, with the Zapatista uprising against the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos explicitly expressed solidarity with minority groups throughout the world, seeking to make a common cause with others who experienced oppression under globalized capitalism. The Zapatista autonomous region in Chiapas inspired a new generation of anti-capitalists worldwide. Anti-capitalists began to defend cultural pluralism and stand in solidarity with indigenous rights movements, breaking from the 20th century's anti-capitalist movement, which had few links with the decolonial and anti-racist movements of its period.

In 1995, the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which sought to promote a neoliberal policy of economic globalization, met with opposition from the nascent anti-globalization movement (also known as the alter-globalization movement or global justice movement). Other opponents of neoliberal globalization included nationalists and religious fundamentalists, although these tendencies differed widely from anti-capitalism in their principles and objectives. The anti-capitalist movement provided a militant opposition to the WTO and its General Agreement on Trade in Services, distinguishing their progressive politics from the prevailing liberal democratic politics which upheld these institutions and had resigned to a belief that no alternative existed. English philosopher Mark Fisher referred to this phenomenon as capitalist realism.

Towards the end of the 1990s, the British environmentalist group Reclaim the Streets sought to build ties with the anti-globalisation movement, culminating with the Carnival Against Capital on 18 June 1999 in London. Although the protest precipitated a decline in the British anti-capitalist movement, following the rise of Tony Blair's New Labour government, it also renewed contacts within the international anti-capitalist movement and accelerated a shift towards revolutionary anti-capitalism. During the late 1990s, confrontations between militant anti-capitalists and the police became commonplace at G8 summits and WTO conferences, which were regularly targeted for protests by a diverse and decentralised coalition of organisations. The largest of these were the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, where anarchists, environmentalists and trade unionists caused conference negotiations to collapse; this inspired a new wave of anti-capitalist activism in the 21st century, with large protests taking place against the 26th G8 summit in Prague and the 27th G8 summit in Genoa.

2000s

2010s

During the 2010s, anti-capitalist ideas became synonymous with the a broader wave of global protest movements with regards to economic crises, policies on austerity, and growing inequality following the 2008 financial crisis. Mass mobilisations, including occupations of public spaces and large-scale demonstrations, were a defining feature of the decade.

Movements during this period differed in form from earlier anti-globalization protests. Rather than focusing primarily on international summits, more began to adopt sustained occupations and “movement of the squares” tactics, flat organisation, and participatory democracy. Protests framed their demands in terms of majoritarianism, presenting themselves as representing “the 99%”, or any part of the broader population affected by inequality.

Primitive communism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_communism 

Primitive communism is a way of describing the gift economies of hunter-gatherers throughout history, where resources and property hunted or gathered are shared with all members of a group in accordance with individual needs. In political sociology and anthropology, it is also a concept (often credited to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels), that describes hunter-gatherer societies as traditionally being based on egalitarian social relations and common ownership. A primary inspiration for both Marx and Engels were Lewis H. Morgan's descriptions of "communism in living" as practised by the Haudenosaunee of North America. In Marx's model of socioeconomic structures, societies with primitive communism had no hierarchical social class structures or capital accumulation.

The idea has been criticised by anthropologists as too ethnocentrically European a model to be applied to other societies, whilst also romanticising non-European societies. Anthropologists, such as Margaret Mead, argue that private property exists in hunter-gatherer and other "primitive societies" and provide examples that Marx and subsequent theorists label as personal property, not private property.

Development of the idea

Ely S. Parker

 

Lewis H. Morgan

The original idea of primitive communism is rooted in the idea of the noble savage present in the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the early anthropological work of Morgan and Ely S. Parker. Engels was the first to write about primitive communism in detail, with the 1884 publication of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Engels categorised primitive communist societies into two phases: the "wild" (hunter-gatherer) phase that lacked permanent superstructure and had close relationships with the natural world, and the "barbarian" phase which held a superstructure like that of the ancient Germanic populations beyond the borders of the Roman Empire and the Indigenous peoples of North America before colonisation by Europeans, being intra-communally egalitarian and matrilineal within the community.

Marx and Engels used the term more broadly than Marxists did later, and applied it not only to hunter-gatherers but also to some communities that engaged in subsistence agriculture. There is also no agreement among later scholars, including Marxists, on the historical extent, or longevity, of primitive communism. Marx and Engels also noted how capitalist accumulation latched itself onto social organizations of primitive communism. For instance, in private correspondence the same year that The Origin of the Family was published, Engels attacked European colonialism, describing the Dutch regime in Java directly organizing agricultural production and profiting from it, "on the basis of the old communistic village communities". He added that cases like the Dutch East Indies, British India and the Russian Empire showed "how today primitive communism furnishes ... the finest and broadest basis of exploitation".

Anarchists, including Peter Kropotkin and Élisée Reclus, believed that societies that exemplified primitive communism were also examples of anarchist society before industrialisation. An example of this is Kropotkin's anthropological work on anarchism and gift economies, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, which uses a study of the San people of southern Africa for its thesis.

There was little development in the research of "primitive communism" among Marxist scholars beyond Engels' study until the 20th and 21st centuries when Ernest Mandel, Rosa Luxemburg, Ian Hodder, Marija Gimbutas and others took up and developed upon the original theses. Some non-Marxist scholars of prehistory and early history did not take the term seriously, although it was occasionally engaged with and often dismissed. The term primitive communism first appeared in Russian scholarship in the late 19th century, with references to primitive communism existing in ancient Crete. However, it was not researched in any depth until the 20th century, with work such as that of the ethnographer Dmitry Konstantinovich Zelenin, who looked at non-hunter-gatherer societies within the Soviet Union to identify remnants of primitive communism within their societies.

Venus figurine found in the Kostyonki–Borshchyovo archaeological complex, Russia

The belief of primitive communism as based on Morgan's work is inaccurate due to Morgan's misunderstandings of Haudenosaunee society and his since-disproven theory of social evolution. Subsequent and more accurate research has focused on hunter-gatherer societies and aspects of such societies in relation to land ownership, communal ownership, and criminality and justice. A newer definition of primitive communism could be summarized as societies that practice economic cooperation among the members of their community, where almost every member of a community has their own contribution to society and land and natural resources are often shared peacefully among the community.

From the 20th century onward, sociologists and archaeologists have looked at the application of the term of primitive communism to hunter-gatherer societies of the Paleolithic through to horticultural societies of the Chalcolithic, including Paleo-American societies from the lithic stage through the archaic period. Soviet archaeologists, influenced by Morgan's and Engels' works, interpreted the various Paleolithic cultures that created Venus figures, many of which were found in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, as evidence of the societies being primitive communist and matriarchal in nature. The psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich concluded in 1931 the existence of an early communism from the information in Bronisław Malinowski's work. However, Malinowski and the philosopher Erich Fromm did not consider this conclusion to be compelling. Ernest Borneman supported Reich's ideas in his 1975 work Das Patriarchat.

Primitive communist societies

Characteristics

Mbendjele hunter-gatherer meat sharing

In a primitive communist society, the productive forces would have consisted of all able-bodied persons engaged in obtaining food and resources from the land, and everyone would share in what was produced by hunting and gathering. There would be no private property, which is distinguished from personal property such as articles of clothing and similar personal items, because primitive society produced no surplus; what was produced was quickly consumed and this was because there existed no division of labour, hence people were forced to work together. The few things that existed for any length of time - the means of production (tools and land), housing - were held communally. In Engels' view, in association with matrilocal residence and matrilineal descent, reproductive labour was shared. There would have also been a lack of state.

A term usually associated with Karl Marx, but most fully elaborated by Friedrich Engels (in The Origin of the Family, 1884), and referring to the collective right to basic resources, egalitarianism in social relationships, and absence of authoritarian rule and hierarchy that is supposed to have preceded stratification and exploitation in human history. Both Marx and Engels were heavily influenced by Lewis Henry Morgan's speculative evolutionary history, which described the "liberty, equality and fraternity of the ancient gentes", and the "communism in living" said to be evident in the village architecture of native Americans.

— John Scott and Gordon Marshall, 2007, Dictionary of Sociology.

Domestication of animals and plants following the Neolithic Revolution through herding and agriculture, and the subsequent urban revolution, were seen as the turning point from primitive communism to class society, as this transition was followed by the appearance of private ownership and slavery, with the inequality that those entail. In addition, parts of the population began to specialize in different activities, such as manufacturing, culture, philosophy, and science which lead in part to social stratification and the development of social classes.

Egalitarian and communist-like hunter-gatherer societies have been studied and described by many well-known social anthropologists including James Woodburn, Richard Borshay Lee, Alan Barnard and Jerome Lewis. Anthropologists such as Christopher Boehm, Chris Knight and Lewis offer theoretical accounts to explain how communistic, assertively egalitarian social arrangements might have emerged in the prehistoric past. Despite differences in emphasis, these and other anthropologists follow Engels in arguing that evolutionary change—resistance to primate-style sexual and political dominance—culminated eventually in a revolutionary transition. Lee criticizes the mainstream and dominant culture's long-time bias against the idea of primitive communism, deriding "Bourgeois ideology [that] would have us believe that primitive communism doesn't exist. In popular consciousness it is lumped with romanticism, exoticism: the noble savage."

Papers have argued that the depiction of hunter-gatherers as egalitarian is misleading. According to one paper published in Current Anthropology, while levels of inequality were low, they were still present, with the average hunter-gatherer group having a Gini coefficient of 0.25 (for comparison, this was attained by the nation of Denmark in 2007). This argument is in part supported by Alain Testart and others, who have said that a society without property is not free from problems of exploitation, domination or wars. Marx and Engels, however, did not argue that communism brought about equality, as according to them equality was a concept without connection in physical reality. Testart does support Engels' observations that societies without surplus are economically egalitarian and conversely that societies with surplus are unequal.

Arnold Petersen has used the existence of primitive communism to argue against the idea that communism goes against human nature.^[69] Hikmet Kıvılcımlı in his The Thesis of History argued that in pre-capitalist societies, the main dynamic of historical change "was not class struggle within society but rather the strong collective action" of egalitarian and collectivist values of "primitive socialist society".

Example societies

Çatalhöyük after the first excavations

Due to the strong evidence of an egalitarian society, lack of hierarchy, and lack of economic inequality, historian Murray Bookchin has argued that Çatalhöyük was an early example of anarcho-communism, and so an example of primitive communism in a proto-city. However, still others use Çatalhöyük as an example that refutes the concept of primitive communism. Similarly, it has been argued that the Indus Valley Civilisation is an example of a primitive communist society due to its perceived lack of conflict and social hierarchies. Daniel Miller and others argue that such an assessment of the Indus Valley Civilisation is not correct.

The Marxist archaeologist V. Gordon Childe carried out excavations in Scotland from the 1920s and concluded that there was a Neolithic classless society that reached as far as the Orkney Islands.^[76][77] This has been supported by Perry Anderson, who has argued that primitive communism was prevalent in pre-Roman western Europe.^[78] Descriptions of such societies are also present in the works of classical authors.^[79][44]

Biblical scholars have also argued that the mode of production seen in early Hebrew society was a communitarian domestic one that was akin to primitive communism.^[80][81] Claude Meillassoux has commented on how the mode of production seen in many primitive societies is a communistic domestic one.^[82]

The Indian communist politician Shripad Amrit Dange considered ancient Indian society to be of a primitive communist nature. Other communists within India have also labelled the societies of current indigenous groups, such as the Adivasi, as examples of primitive communism. In Alfred Radcliffe-Brown's study of the Andamanese at the beginning of the 20th century he comments that they have "customs which result in an approach to communism" and "their domestic policy may be described as a communism".

Rundale clachan patterns of settlement still visible in Inver, Kilcommon, Erris, County Mayo, Ireland

Alexander Mikhailovich Zolotarev [ru], in his 1960 work on the development of religious cult communities from tribal communities in the Balkans, spoke of the primitive communism of the "archaic form of the tribal system".

Rolf Jensen in the 1980s conducted a historical study of Wolof society in west Africa looking at the development of class antagonisms from a primitive communist society. Also in the 1980s, Bourgeault looked at the forceful transition of indigenous societies in Canada from their traditional structures, which were anarchist and communistic in nature, into capitalist exploitation due to encroaching imperialism and colonialism. Such an area of interest has been a common topic of research for many fields beyond just Marxist scholars. Some anthropologists, such as John H. Moore, have continued to argue that societies such as those of Native Americans constitute primitive communist societies, whilst acknowledging and incorporating the research showing the complexity and diversity in native American societies.

James Connolly believed that "Gaelic primitive communism" existed in remnants in Irish society after it "had almost entirely disappeared" from much of western Europe. The agrarian communes of the rundale system in Ireland have subsequently been assessed using a framework of primitive communism, where the system fits Marx and Engels' definition.

Soviet theorists and anthropologists, such as Lev Sternberg, considered some of the indigenous groups of Siberia and the Russian far east (such as the Nivkh) to be primitive communist in nature.

Criticism

A detail from Benjamin West's heroic, neoclassical history painting, The Death of General Wolfe (1771), depicting an idealized indigenous American. An example of the romanticisation of indigenous and non-Western people.

Criticism of the idea of primitive communism relates to definitions of property, where anthropologists such as Margaret Mead argue that private property exists in hunter-gatherer and other "primitive societies" but provide examples that Marx and subsequent theorists label as personal property, not private property. Similar arguments have been made by other academics, such as the economist Richard Pipes. The idea has also been critiqued by other anthropologists for being based on Morgan's evolutionary model of society and for romanticising non‐Western societies.

Western and non-Western scholars have criticised applying models that are too ethnocentrically European to non-European societies. Western scholars, including Eleanor Leacock, have also criticised the ethnocentric point of view and biases in previous ethnographic research into hunter-gatherer societies. This is similar to criticism of adhering to stadialism in analysing cultures. Feminist scholars have criticised the idea of the lack of subjugation of women as suggested from the works of Engels, while Marxist feminists have been critical of and have reassessed Engels' ideas in The Origin of the Family related to the development of women's subjugation in the transition from primitive communism to class society.

The Marxian economist Ernest Mandel criticised the research of Soviet scholars on primitive communism due to the influence of "Soviet-Marxist ideology" in their social sciences work.

David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything challenges the notion that humans ever lived in precarious, small-scale societies with little surplus. While they provide examples of sharing egalitarian societies in pre-history, they claim that a huge variety of complex societies (some with large cities) existed long before the supposed agricultural and then urban revolutions proposed by V. Gordon Childe. Graeber and Wengrow's understanding of hunter-gatherer societies has, however, been questioned by other anthropologists.

Anthropologist Manvir Singh argued that while some indigenous groups, such as the Aché of Paraguay, exemplified primitive communism, this did not apply to all indigenous groups, such as the Hiwi, using the example of the unequal distribution of meat from hunting. Singh asserts that many hunter gatherers, including the Andaman Islanders and Northern Paiute, recognized private ownership over land and trees, and claims that all hunter gatherers had private property, but provides examples that Marx and subsequent theorists label as personal property, not private property, such as personal "bows, arrows, axes and cooking implements".

The use of the term "communism" to describe these societies has been questioned when put in comparison with a future post-industrial communism, particularly in relation to the difference in scale from small communal groups to the size of modern nation-states.

Use of the term "primitive"

The term "primitive" in recent anthropological and social studies has begun to fall out of use due to racial stereotypes surrounding the ideas of what is primitive. Such a move has been supported by indigenous peoples who have faced racial stereotyping and violence due to being viewed as "primitive". Due to this, the term "primitive communism" may be replaced by terms such as Pre-Marxist communism.

Alain Testart and others have said that anthropologists should be careful when using research on current hunter-gatherer societies to determine the structure of societies in the paleolithic, where viewing current hunter-gatherer communities as "the most ancient of so-called primitive societies" is likely due to appearances and perceptions and does not reflect the progress and development that such societies have undergone in the past 10,000 years.

There have been Marxist historians criticised for their comments on the "primitivism" and "barbarism" of societies prior to their contact with European empires, such as the comments of Endre Sík. Such views on "primitivism" and "barbarism" are also prevalent in the works of their non-Marxist contemporaries. Marxist anthropologists have criticised and denounced Soviet anthropologists and historians for declaring indigenous communities they were studying for primitive communism as "degenerate".

Anarchism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism 

Anarchism is a far-left political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state, capitalism or organized religion. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state and other hierarchical social structures with stateless societies and voluntary free associations. Anarchism is described as being part of the libertarian wing of the socialist movement (libertarian socialism).

Although traces of anarchist ideas are found all throughout history, modern anarchism emerged from the Enlightenment. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for their immediate interests and for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War, whose conclusion marked the end of the classical era of anarchism. In the last decades of the 20th and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent, growing in popularity and influence within anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-globalisation movements.

Anarchists employ a range of approaches to social change, often categorised as revolutionary or evolutionary, though the two frequently overlap and are reflected in a diversity of tactics. Evolutionary approaches generally favour gradual and often nonviolent change, while revolutionary approaches seek to destroy oppressive states and institutions. Many facets of human civilisation have been influenced by anarchist theory, critique, and praxis.

Etymology, terminology, and definition

Main article: Definition of anarchism and libertarianism

See also: Glossary of anarchism

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon – the first political philosopher to call himself an anarchist

The etymological origin of anarchism is from the Ancient Greek anarkhia (ἀναρχία), meaning "without a ruler", composed of the prefix an- ("without") and the word arkhos ("leader" or "ruler"). The suffix -ism denotes the ideological current that favours anarchy. Anarchism appears in English from 1642 as anarchisme and anarchy from 1539; early English usages emphasised a sense of disorder. Various factions within the French Revolution labelled their opponents as anarchists, although few such accused shared many views with later anarchists. Many revolutionaries of the 19th century such as William Godwin (1756–1836) and Wilhelm Weitling (1808–1871) would contribute to the anarchist doctrines of the next generation but did not use anarchist or anarchism in describing themselves or their beliefs.

The first political philosopher to call himself an anarchist (French: anarchiste) and invest the word with a positive meaning was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865). The anarchist movement appeared between Proudhon and the Saint-Imier Congress (1872), with historians arguing for both. Since the 1890s and beginning in France, libertarianism has often been used as a synonym for anarchism; its use as a synonym is still common around the world. But in the United States, some usages of libertarianism refer to individualistic free-market philosophy only, and free-market anarchism in particular is termed libertarian anarchism.

While the term libertarian has been largely synonymous with anarchism, its meaning has more recently been diluted by wider adoption from ideologically disparate groups, including both the New Left and libertarian Marxists, who do not associate themselves with authoritarian socialists or a vanguard party, and extreme cultural liberals, who are primarily concerned with civil liberties. Additionally, some anarchists use libertarian socialist to avoid anarchism's negative connotations and emphasise its connections with socialism. Anarchism is broadly used to describe the anti-authoritarian wing of the socialist movement. Anarchism is contrasted to socialist forms which are state-oriented or from above. Scholars of anarchism generally highlight anarchism's socialist credentials and criticise attempts at creating dichotomies between the two. Some scholars describe anarchism as having many influences from liberalism, and being both liberal and socialist but more so. Many scholars reject that anarcho-capitalism is anarchist, saying that it is a misunderstanding of anarchist principles.

While opposition to the state is central to anarchist thought, defining anarchism is not an easy task for scholars, as there is much discussion among scholars and anarchists on the matter, and various currents perceive anarchism slightly differently. Major definitional elements include the will for a non-coercive society, the rejection of the state apparatus, the belief that human nature allows humans to exist in or progress toward such a non-coercive society, and a suggestion on how to act to pursue the ideal of anarchy.

History

Main article: History of anarchism

Pre-modern era

Zeno of Citium (c. 334 – c. 262 BC), whose Republic inspired Peter Kropotkin

The most notable precursors to anarchism in the ancient world were in China and Greece. In China, philosophical anarchism (the discussion on the legitimacy of the state) was delineated by Taoist philosophers Zhuang Zhou and Laozi. Alongside Stoicism, Taoism has been said to have had "significant anticipations" of anarchism.

Anarchic attitudes were also articulated by tragedians and philosophers in Greece. Aeschylus and Sophocles used the myth of Antigone to illustrate the conflict between laws imposed by the state and personal autonomy. Socrates questioned Athenian authorities constantly and insisted on the right of individual freedom of conscience. Cynics dismissed human law (nomos) and associated authorities while trying to live according to nature (physis). Stoics were supportive of a society based on unofficial and friendly relations among its citizens without the presence of a state.

In the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE), Mazdak called for an egalitarian society and the abolition of monarchy, only to be soon executed by Emperor Kavad I. In Basra, religious sects preached against the state. In medieval Europe, there was no anarchistic activity except some ascetic religious movements. Various European religious sects developed anti-state and libertarian tendencies. These, and other Muslim movements, later gave birth to religious anarchism.

Renewed interest in antiquity during the Renaissance and in private judgement during the Reformation restored elements of anti-authoritarian secularism in Europe, particularly in France. Enlightenment challenges to intellectual authority (secular and religious) and the revolutions of the 1790s and 1848 all spurred the ideological development of what became the era of classical anarchism.

Modern era

The Paris Commune, one of the earliest experiments of anarchism

During the French Revolution, partisan groups such as the Enragés and the sans-culottes saw a turning point in the fermentation of anti-state and federalist sentiments. The first anarchist currents developed throughout the 19th century: William Godwin espoused philosophical anarchism in England, morally delegitimising the state, while Max Stirner's thinking paved the way to individualism and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's theory of mutualism found fertile soil in France. By the late 1870s, various anarchist schools of thought had become well-defined and a wave of then-unprecedented globalisation occurred from 1880 to 1914. This era of classical anarchism lasted until the end of the Spanish Civil War and is considered the golden age of anarchism.

Mikhail Bakunin opposed the Marxist aim of dictatorship of the proletariat and allied himself with the federalists in the First International before his expulsion by the Marxists.

Drawing from mutualism, Mikhail Bakunin founded collectivist anarchism and entered the International Workingmen's Association, a class worker union later known as the First International that formed in 1864 to unite diverse revolutionary currents. The International became a significant political force, with Karl Marx being a leading figure and a member of its General Council. Bakunin's faction (the Jura Federation) and Proudhon's followers (the mutualists) opposed state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings. After bitter disputes, the Bakuninists were expelled from the International by the Marxists at the 1872 Hague Congress. Anarchists were treated similarly in the Second International, being ultimately expelled in 1896. Bakunin predicted that if revolutionaries gained power by Marx's terms, they would end up the new tyrants of workers. In response to their expulsion from the First International, anarchists formed the St. Imier International. Under the influence of Peter Kropotkin, a Russian philosopher and scientist, anarcho-communism overlapped with collectivism. Anarcho-communists, who drew inspiration from the 1871 Paris Commune, advocated for free federation and for the distribution of goods according to one's needs.

During this time, a minority of anarchists adopted tactics of revolutionary political violence, known as propaganda of the deed. The dismemberment of the French socialist movement into many groups and the execution and exile of many Communards to penal colonies following the suppression of the Paris Commune favoured individualist political expression and acts. Even though many anarchists distanced themselves from these terrorist acts, infamy came upon the movement and attempts were made to prevent anarchists immigrating to the US, including the Immigration Act of 1903, also called the Anarchist Exclusion Act. Illegalism was another strategy which some anarchists adopted during this period.

By the turn of the 20th century, the terrorist movement had died down, giving way to anarchist communism and syndicalism, while anarchism had spread all over the world. In China, small groups of students imported the humanistic pro-science version of anarcho-communism. Tokyo was a hotspot for rebellious youth from East Asian countries, who moved to the Japanese capital to study. In Latin America, Argentina was a stronghold for anarcho-syndicalism, where it became the most prominent left-wing ideology. Anarchists were involved in the Strandzha Commune and Krusevo Republic established in Macedonia in Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising of 1903, and in the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The revolutionary wave of 1917–23 saw varying degrees of active participation by anarchists.

Nestor Makhno seen with members of the anarchist Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine

Despite concerns, anarchists enthusiastically participated in the Russian Revolution in opposition to the White movement, especially in the Makhnovshchina. Seeing the victories of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War, many workers and activists turned to Communist parties, which grew at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements. In France and the United States, members of major syndicalist movements such as the General Confederation of Labour and the Industrial Workers of the World left their organisations and joined the Communist International. However, anarchists met harsh suppression after the Bolshevik government had stabilised, including during the Kronstadt rebellion. Several anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow fled to Ukraine, before the Bolsheviks crushed the anarchist movement there too. With the anarchists being repressed in Russia, two new antithetical currents emerged, namely platformism and the anarchist synthesis. The former sought to create a coherent group that would push for revolution while the latter were against anything that would resemble a political party.

In the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39, anarchists and syndicalists (CNT and FAI) once again allied themselves with various currents of leftists. A long tradition of Spanish anarchism led to anarchists playing a pivotal role in the war, and particularly in the Spanish Revolution of 1936. 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 collectivised the land. The Soviet Union provided some limited assistance at the beginning of the war, but the result was a bitter fight between communists and other leftists in a series of events known as the May Days, as Joseph Stalin asserted Soviet control of the Republican government, ending in another defeat of anarchists at the hands of the communists.

Post-WWII

This anarchist symbol, commonly known as the circle-A, represents the core principles of anarchism, including individual freedom and anti-authoritarianism

By the end of World War II, the anarchist movement had been severely weakened. The 1960s witnessed a revival of anarchism, likely caused by a perceived failure of Marxism–Leninism and tensions built by the Cold War. During this time, anarchism found a presence in other movements critical towards both capitalism and the state such as the anti-nuclear, environmental, and peace movements, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the New Left. It also saw a transition from its previous revolutionary nature to provocative anti-capitalist reformism. Anarchism became associated with punk subculture as exemplified by bands such as Crass and the Sex Pistols. The established feminist tendencies of anarcha-feminism returned with vigour during the second wave of feminism. Black anarchism began to take form at this time and influenced anarchism's move from a Eurocentric demographic. This coincided with its failure to gain traction in Northern Europe and its unprecedented height in Latin America.

Black bloc organising during the Battle of Seattle

Around the turn of the 21st century, anarchism grew in popularity and influence within anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-globalisation movements. Interest in the anarchist movement developed alongside momentum in the anti-globalisation movement, whose leading activist networks were anarchist in orientation. Anarchists became known for their involvement in protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Group of Eight and the World Economic Forum. During the protests, ad hoc leaderless anonymous cadres known as black blocs engaged in rioting, property destruction and violent confrontations with the police. Other organisational tactics pioneered at this time include affinity groups, security culture and the use of decentralised technologies such as the Internet. A significant event of this period was the confrontations at the 1999 Seattle WTO conference. As the movement shaped 21st century radicalism, wider embrace of anarchist principles signalled a revival of interest. Contemporary news coverage of black bloc demonstrations emphasises violence committed by anarchists.^[73][74][75]

While having revolutionary aspirations, many contemporary forms of anarchism are not confrontational. Instead, they are trying to build an alternative way of social organisation (following the theories of dual power), based on mutual interdependence and voluntary cooperation, for instance in groups such as Food Not Bombs and in self-managed social centers.

Anarchism's publicity has also led more scholars in fields such as anthropology and history to engage with the anarchist movement, although contemporary anarchism favours actions over academic theory. Anarchist ideas have been influential in the development of the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, more commonly known as Rojava, a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria.

Schools of thought

Anarchist schools of thought have been generally grouped into two main historical traditions, social anarchism and individualist anarchism, owing to their different origins, values and evolution. The individualist current emphasises negative liberty in opposing restraints upon the free individual, while the social current emphasises positive liberty in aiming to achieve the free potential of society through equality and social ownership. In a chronological sense, anarchism can be segmented by the classical currents of the late 19th century and the post-classical currents (anarcha-feminism, green anarchism, and post-anarchism) developed thereafter.

Black bloc protesters parading anarcho-communism imagery such as the motto "No War but the Class War"

Anarchism's emphasis on anti-capitalism, egalitarianism, and for the extension of community and individuality sets it apart from anarcho-capitalism and other types of economic libertarianism.^[24] Much of its economics and legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian, anti-statist, libertarian, and radical interpretations of left-wing and socialist politics such as collectivism, communism, individualism, mutualism, and syndicalism, among other libertarian socialist economic theories. Anarchism is placed on the far-left of the political spectrum, though many reject state authority from right-wing principles, such as anarcho-capitalists.

As anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular worldview, many anarchist types and traditions exist and varieties of anarchy diverge widely. One reaction against sectarianism within the anarchist milieu was anarchism without adjectives, a call for toleration and unity among anarchists first adopted by Fernando Tarrida del Mármol in 1889 in response to the bitter debates of anarchist theory at the time. Despite separation, the various anarchist schools of thought are not seen as distinct entities but rather as tendencies that intermingle and are connected through a set of shared principles such as autonomy, mutual aid, anti-authoritarianism and decentralisation.

Beyond the specific factions of anarchist political movements which constitute political anarchism lies philosophical anarchism, which holds that the state lacks moral legitimacy, without necessarily accepting the imperative of revolution to eliminate it. A component especially of individualist anarchism, philosophical anarchism may tolerate the existence of a minimal state but claims that citizens have no moral obligation to obey government when it conflicts with individual autonomy. Philosophical currents as diverse as Objectivism and Kantianism have provided arguments drawn on in favour of philosophical anarchism, including Wolff's defence of anarchism against formal methods for legitimating it. Anarchism pays significant attention to moral arguments since ethics have a central role in anarchist philosophy. Belief in political nihilism has been espoused by anarchists.

Classical

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is the primary proponent of mutualism and influenced many future individualist anarchist and social anarchist thinkers.

Main articles: Individualist anarchism, Mutualism (economic theory), Collectivist anarchism, Anarchist communism, and Anarcho-syndicalism

Inceptive currents among classical anarchist currents were mutualism and individualism. They were followed by the major currents of social anarchism (collectivist, communist and syndicalist). They differ on organisational and economic aspects of their ideal society.

Mutualism is an 18th-century economic theory that was developed into anarchist theory by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Its aims include "abolishing the state", reciprocity, free association, voluntary contract, federation and monetary reform of both credit and currency that would be regulated by a bank of the people. Mutualism has been retrospectively characterised as ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism. In What Is Property? (1840), Proudhon first characterised his goal as a "third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property." Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionary socialist form of anarchism commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin. Collectivist anarchists advocate collective ownership of the means of production which is theorised to be achieved through violent revolution and that workers be paid according to time worked, rather than goods being distributed according to need as in communism. Collectivist anarchism arose alongside Marxism but rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat despite the stated Marxist goal of a collectivist stateless society.

Anarcho-communism is a theory of anarchism that advocates a communist society with common ownership of the means of production, held by a federal network of voluntary associations, with production and consumption based on the guiding principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Anarcho-communism developed from radical socialist currents after the French Revolution but was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International. It was later expanded upon in the theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin, whose specific style would go onto become the dominating view of anarchists by the late 19th century. Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism that views labour syndicates as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society democratically self-managed by workers. The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are direct action, workers' solidarity and workers' self-management.

Individualist anarchism is a set of several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasise the individual and their will over any kinds of external determinants. Early influences on individualist forms of anarchism include William Godwin, Max Stirner, and Henry David Thoreau. Through many countries, individualist anarchism attracted a small yet diverse following of Bohemian artists and intellectuals as well as young anarchist outlaws in what became known as illegalism and individual reclamation.

Post-classical and contemporary

Main article: Contemporary anarchism

Lawrence Jarach (left) and John Zerzan (right) are two prominent contemporary anarchist authors, with Zerzan being a prominent voice within anarcho-primitivism and Jarach a notable advocate of post-left anarchy.

Anarchism has continued to generate many philosophies and movements, at times eclectic, drawing upon various sources and combining disparate concepts to create new philosophical approaches. The anti-capitalist tradition of classical anarchism has remained prominent in contemporary currents.

Various anarchist groups, tendencies, and schools of thought exist today, making it difficult to describe the contemporary anarchist movement. While theorists and activists have established "relatively stable constellations of anarchist principles", there is no consensus on which principles are core and commentators describe multiple anarchisms, rather than a singular anarchism, in which common principles are shared between schools of anarchism while each group prioritises those principles differently. Gender equality can be a common principle, although it ranks as a higher priority to anarcha-feminists than anarcho-communists.

Anarchists are generally committed against coercive authority in all forms, namely "all centralized and hierarchical forms of government (e.g., monarchy, representative democracy, state socialism, etc.), economic class systems (e.g., capitalism, Bolshevism, feudalism, slavery, etc.), autocratic religions (e.g., fundamentalist Islam, Roman Catholicism, etc.), patriarchy, heterosexism, white supremacy, and imperialism." Anarchist schools disagree on the methods by which these forms should be opposed.

Tactics

Anarchists' tactics take various forms but in general serve two major goals, namely, to first oppose the Establishment and secondly to promote anarchist ethics and reflect an anarchist vision of society, illustrating the unity of means and ends. A broad categorisation can be made between aims to destroy oppressive states and institutions by revolutionary means on one hand and aims to change society through evolutionary means on the other. Evolutionary tactics embrace nonviolence and take a gradual approach to anarchist aims, although there is significant overlap between the two.

Anarchist tactics have shifted during the course of the last century. Anarchists during the early 20th century focused more on strikes and militancy while contemporary anarchists use a broader array of approaches.

Classical era

The relationship between anarchism and violence is a controversial subject among anarchists as shown by anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinating William McKinley.

During the classical era, anarchists had a militant tendency. Not only did they confront state armed forces, as in Spain and Ukraine, but some of them also employed terrorism as propaganda of the deed. Assassination attempts were carried out against heads of state, some of which were successful. Anarchists also took part in revolutions. Many anarchists, especially the Galleanists, believed that these attempts would be the impetus for a revolution against capitalism and the state. Many of these attacks were done by individual assailants and the majority took place in the late 1870s, the early 1880s and the 1890s, with some still occurring in the early 1900s. Their decrease in prevalence was the result of further judicial power and of targeting and cataloguing by state institutions.

Anarchist perspectives towards violence have always been controversial. Anarcho-pacifists advocate for non-violence means to achieve their stateless, nonviolent ends. Other anarchist groups advocate direct action, a tactic which can include acts of sabotage or terrorism. This attitude was quite prominent a century ago when seeing the state as a tyrant and some anarchists believing that they had every right to oppose its oppression by any means possible. Emma Goldman and Errico Malatesta, who were proponents of limited use of violence, stated that violence is merely a reaction to state violence as a necessary evil.

Anarchists took an active role in strike actions, although they tended to be antipathetic to formal syndicalism, seeing it as reformist. They saw it as a part of the movement which sought to overthrow the state and capitalism. Anarchists also reinforced their propaganda within the arts, some of whom practised naturism and nudism. Those anarchists also built communities which were based on friendship and were involved in the news media.

Karl Marx, considered to be one of the principal founders of Marxism, criticised anarchism as the movement of the "petty bourgeois", i.e. of formerly self-employed craftsmen and artisans who had been ruined by capitalistic industrialisation or even war and then driven to factories; even so, they refused to subject themselves to factory discipline, party leadership, and State control, were prone to violence when frustrated, and advocated seizing factories only to break down mass production and return to craftsmanship. Friedrich Engels, who is considered Marxism's other principal founder, criticised anarchism's anti-authoritarianism as inherently counter-revolutionary because in his view a revolution is by itself authoritarian. A Socialist Workers Party pamphlet by John Molyneux, Anarchism: A Marxist Criticism argues that "anarchism cannot win", believing that it lacks the ability to properly implement its ideas. Another Marxist criticism of anarchism is that it has a utopian character because all individuals should have anarchist views and values. According to this Marxist view, that a social idea would follow directly from this human ideal and out of the free will of every individual formed its essence. Marxists state that this contradiction was responsible for their inability to act. In the anarchist vision, the conflict between liberty and equality was resolved through coexistence and intertwining.

Revolutionary and insurrectionary

Internationals in the IRPGF battalion with text on revolution

 

EZLN soldiers next to a captured bulldozer

In the current era, Italian anarchist Alfredo Bonanno, a proponent of insurrectionary anarchism, has reinstated the debate on violence by rejecting the nonviolence tactic adopted since the late 19th century by Kropotkin and other prominent anarchists afterwards. Both Bonanno and the French group The Invisible Committee advocate for small, informal affiliation groups, where each member is responsible for their own actions but works together to bring down oppression using sabotage and other violent means against state, capitalism, and other enemies. Members of The Invisible Committee were arrested in 2008 on various charges, terrorism included.

Overall, contemporary anarchists are much less violent and militant than their ideological ancestors. They mostly engage in confronting the police during demonstrations and riots, especially in countries such as Canada, Greece, and Mexico. Militant black bloc protest groups are known for clashing with the police; however, anarchists not only clash with state operators, they also engage in the struggle against fascists, racists, and other bigots, taking anti-fascist action and mobilising to prevent hate rallies from happening.

Evolutionary

Food not Bombs poster with a circle A with text reading "Free Soup for the Revolution"

Anarchists commonly employ direct action. This can take the form of disrupting and protesting against unjust hierarchy, or the form of self-managing their lives through the creation of counter-institutions such as communes and non-hierarchical collectives. Decision-making is often handled in an anti-authoritarian way, with everyone having equal say in each decision, an approach known as horizontalism. Contemporary-era anarchists have been engaging with various grassroots movements that are more or less based on horizontalism, although not explicitly anarchist, respecting personal autonomy and participating in mass activism such as strikes and demonstrations. In contrast with the "big-A Anarchism" of the classical era, the newly coined term "small-a anarchism" signals their tendency not to base their thoughts and actions on classical-era anarchism or to refer to classical anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon to justify their opinions. Those anarchists would rather base their thought and praxis on their own experience, which they will later theorise.

The concept of prefigurative politics is enacted by many contemporary anarchist groups, striving to embody the principles, organisation and tactics of the changed social structure they hope to bring about. As part of this the decision-making process of small anarchist affinity groups plays a significant tactical role. Anarchists have employed various methods to build a rough consensus among members of their group without the need of a leader or a leading group. One way is for an individual from the group to play the role of facilitator to help achieve a consensus without taking part in the discussion themselves or promoting a specific point. Minorities usually accept rough consensus, except when they feel the proposal contradicts anarchist ethics, goals and values. Anarchists usually form small groups (5–20 individuals) to enhance autonomy and friendships among their members. These kinds of groups more often than not interconnect with each other, forming larger networks. Anarchists still support and participate in strikes, especially wildcat strikes as these are leaderless strikes not organised centrally by a syndicate.

As in the past, newspapers and journals are used, and anarchists have gone online to spread their message. Anarchists have found it easier to create websites because of distributional and other difficulties, hosting electronic libraries and other portals. Anarchists were also involved in developing various software that are available for free. The way these hacktivists work to develop and distribute resembles the anarchist ideals, especially when it comes to preserving users' privacy from state surveillance.

Anarchists organise themselves to squat and reclaim public spaces. During important events such as protests and when spaces are being occupied, they are often called Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZ), spaces where art, poetry, and surrealism are blended to display the anarchist ideal. As seen by anarchists, squatting is a way to regain urban space from the capitalist market, serving pragmatical needs and also being an exemplary direct action. Acquiring space enables anarchists to experiment with their ideas and build social bonds. Adding up these tactics while having in mind that not all anarchists share the same attitudes towards them, along with various forms of protesting at highly symbolic events, make up a carnivalesque atmosphere that is part of contemporary anarchist vividity.

Key issues

As anarchism is a philosophy that embodies many diverse attitudes, tendencies, and schools of thought, disagreement over questions of values, ideology, and tactics is common. Its diversity has led to widely different uses of identical terms among different anarchist traditions which has created a number of definitional concerns in anarchist theory. The compatibility of capitalism, nationalism, and religion with anarchism is widely disputed, and anarchism enjoys complex relationships with ideologies such as communism, collectivism, Marxism, and trade unionism. Anarchists may be motivated by humanism, divine authority, enlightened self-interest, veganism, or any number of alternative ethical doctrines. Phenomena such as civilisation, technology (e.g. within anarcho-primitivism), and the democratic process may be sharply criticised within some anarchist tendencies and simultaneously lauded in others.

The state

Anarchist protesters in Boston opposing state-waged war

Objection to the state and its institutions is a sine qua non of anarchism. The most minimal form of anarchist objection to the state is simply that political and social life would be better in a stateless society. However, many anarchists go further and consider the state to be a tool of domination, believing it to be not only suboptimal, but illegitimate regardless of its political tendencies. For instance, instead of people being able to control their own lives, anarchists often accuse states of taking decisions only involving a small elite. Another anarchist argument against states is that the people constituting a government, even the most altruistic among officials, will unavoidably seek to gain more power, leading to corruption. Anarchists consider the idea that the state is the collective will of the people to be an unachievable fiction due to the fact that the ruling class is distinct from the rest of society.

One of the earliest criticisms is that anarchism defies and fails to understand the biological inclination to authority. Joseph Raz states that the acceptance of authority implies the belief that following their instructions will afford more success. Raz believes that this argument is true in following both authorities' successful and mistaken instruction. Anarchists reject this criticism because challenging or disobeying authority does not entail the disappearance of its advantages by acknowledging authority such as doctors or lawyers as reliable, nor does it involve a complete surrender of independent judgement. Anarchist perception of human nature, rejection of the state, and commitment to social revolution has been criticised by academics as naive, overly simplistic, and unrealistic, respectively. Classical anarchism has been criticised for relying too heavily on the belief that the abolition of the state will lead to human cooperation prospering.

Specific anarchist attitudes towards the state vary. Robert Paul Wolff believed that the tension between authority and autonomy would mean the state could never be legitimate. Bakunin saw the state as meaning "coercion, domination by means of coercion, camouflaged if possible but unceremonious and overt if need be." A. John Simmons and Leslie Green, who leaned toward philosophical anarchism, believed that the state could be legitimate if it is governed by consensus, although they saw this as highly unlikely. Beliefs on how to abolish the state also differ.

A counterpoint of anarchism is the assertion that humans cannot self-govern and so a state is necessary for human survival; this critique was supported by Philosopher Bertrand Russell, stating that "[p]eace and war, tariffs, regulations of sanitary conditions and the sale of noxious drugs, the preservation of a just system of distribution: these, among others, are functions which could hardly be performed in a community in which there was no central government." Another common criticism of anarchism is that it fits a world of isolation in which only the small enough entities can be self-governing; a response would be that major anarchist thinkers advocated anarchist federalism.

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, the philosopher Robert Nozick argued that a "night-watchman state", or minarchy, would emerge from anarchy through the process of an invisible hand, in which people would exercise their liberty and buy protection from protection agencies, evolving into a minimal state. Anarchists reject these criticisms by arguing that humans in a state of nature would not just be in a state of war. Anarcho-primitivists in particular argue that humans were better off in a state of nature in small tribes living close to the land, while anarchists in general argue that the negatives of state organisation, such as hierarchies, monopolies and inequality, outweigh the benefits. Philosophy lecturer Andrew G. Fiala composed a list of common arguments against anarchism which includes critiques such as that anarchism is innately related to violence and destruction, not only in the pragmatic world, such as at protests, but in the world of ethics as well. Secondly, anarchism is evaluated as unfeasible or utopian since the state cannot be defeated practically. He says that this line of arguments most often calls for political action within the system to reform it. The third argument is that anarchism is self-contradictory as a ruling theory that has no ruling theory. Anarchism also calls for collective action while endorsing the autonomy of the individual, hence no collective action can be taken. Lastly, Fiala mentions a critique towards philosophical anarchism of being ineffective (all talk and thoughts) and in the meantime capitalism and bourgeois class remains strong.

Gender, sexuality, and free love

Main article: Anarchism and issues related to love and sex

As gender and sexuality carry along them dynamics of hierarchy, many anarchists address, analyse, and oppose the suppression of one's autonomy imposed by gender roles.

Collection of anarcha-feminist protests, symbols, and flags

Sexuality was not often discussed by classical anarchists but the few that did felt that an anarchist society would lead to sexuality naturally developing. Sexual violence was a concern for anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker, who opposed age-of-consent laws, believing they would benefit predatory men. A historical current that arose and flourished during 1890 and 1920 within anarchism was free love. In contemporary anarchism, this current survives as a tendency to support polyamory, relationship anarchy, and queer anarchism. Free love advocates were against marriage, which they saw as a way of men imposing authority over women, largely because marriage law greatly favoured the power of men. The notion of free love was much broader and included a critique of the established order that limited women's sexual freedom and pleasure. Those free love movements contributed to the establishment of communal houses, where large groups of travellers, anarchists and other activists slept in beds together. Free love had roots both in Europe and the United States; however, some anarchists struggled with the jealousy that arose from free love. Anarchist feminists were advocates of free love, against marriage, and pro-choice (using a contemporary term), and had a similar agenda. Anarchist and non-anarchist feminists differed on suffrage but were supportive of one another.

During the second half of the 20th century, anarchism intermingled with the second wave of feminism, radicalising some currents of the feminist movement and being influenced as well. By the latest decades of the 20th century, anarchists and feminists were advocating for the rights and autonomy of women, LGBT people, and other marginalised groups, with some feminist thinkers suggesting a fusion of the two currents. With the third wave of feminism, sexual identity and compulsory heterosexuality became a subject of study for anarchists, yielding a post-structuralist critique of sexual normality. Some anarchists distanced themselves from this line of thinking, suggesting that it leaned towards an individualism that was dropping the cause of social liberation.

Education

Main article: Anarchism and education

The interest of anarchists in education stretches back to the first emergence of classical anarchism. Anarchists consider proper education, one which sets the foundations of the future autonomy of the individual and the society, to be an act of mutual aid. Anarchist writers such as William Godwin (Political Justice) and Max Stirner ("The False Principle of Our Education") attacked both state education and private education as another means by which the ruling class replicate their privileges.

In 1901, Catalan anarchist and free thinker Francisco Ferrer established the Escuela Moderna in Barcelona as an opposition to the established education system which was dictated largely by the Catholic Church. Ferrer's approach was secular, rejecting both state and church involvement in the educational process while giving pupils large amounts of autonomy in planning their work and attendance. Ferrer aimed to educate the working class and explicitly sought to foster class consciousness among students. The school closed after constant harassment by the state and Ferrer was later arrested. Nonetheless, his ideas formed the inspiration for a series of modern schools around the world. Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy, who published the essay Education and Culture, also established a similar school with its founding principle being that "for education to be effective it had to be free." In a similar token, A. S. Neill founded what became the Summerhill School in 1921, also declaring being free from coercion.

Anarchist education is based largely on the idea that a child's right to develop freely and without manipulation ought to be respected and that rationality would lead children to morally good conclusions; however, there has been little consensus among anarchist figures as to what constitutes manipulation. Ferrer believed that moral indoctrination was necessary and explicitly taught pupils that equality, liberty and social justice were not possible under capitalism, along with other critiques of government and nationalism.

Late 20th century and contemporary anarchist writers (Paul Goodman, Herbert Read, and Colin Ward) intensified and expanded the anarchist critique of state education, largely focusing on the need for a system that focuses on children's creativity rather than on their ability to attain a career or participate in consumerism as part of a consumer society. Contemporary anarchists such as Ward claim that state education serves to perpetuate socioeconomic inequality.

While few anarchist education institutions have survived to the modern-day, major tenets of anarchist schools, among them respect for child autonomy and relying on reasoning rather than indoctrination as a teaching method, have spread among mainstream educational institutions. Judith Suissa names three schools as explicitly anarchists' schools, namely the Free Skool Santa Cruz in the United States which is part of a wider American-Canadian network of schools, the Self-Managed Learning College in Brighton, England, and the Paideia School in Spain.

The arts

Main article: Anarchism and the arts

Les chataigniers a Osny (1888) by anarchist painter Camille Pissarro is a notable example of blending anarchism and the arts.

The connection between anarchism and art was quite profound during the classical era of anarchism, especially among artistic currents that were developing during that era such as futurists, surrealists and others. In literature, anarchism was mostly associated with the New Apocalyptics and the neo-romanticism movement. In music, anarchism has been associated with music scenes such as punk. Anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy and Herbert Read stated that the border between the artist and the non-artist, what separates art from a daily act, is a construct produced by the alienation caused by capitalism and it prevents humans from living a joyful life.

Other anarchists advocated for or used art as a means to achieve anarchist ends. In his book Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas, Chris Robé claims that "anarchist-inflected practices have increasingly structured movement-based video activism." Throughout the 20th century, many prominent anarchists (Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Gustav Landauer and Camillo Berneri) and publications such as Anarchy wrote about matters pertaining to the arts.

Three overlapping properties made art useful to anarchists. It could depict a critique of existing society and hierarchies, serve as a prefigurative tool to reflect the anarchist ideal society and even turn into a means of direct action such as in protests. As it appeals to both emotion and reason, art could appeal to the whole human and have a powerful effect. The 19th-century neo-impressionist movement had an ecological aesthetic and offered an example of an anarchist perception of the road towards socialism. In Les chataigniers a Osny by anarchist painter Camille Pissarro, the blending of aesthetic and social harmony is prefiguring an ideal anarchistic agrarian community.