Postchristianity is the situation in which Christianity is no longer the dominant civil religion of a society but has gradually assumed values, culture, and worldviews that are not necessarily Christian. Post-Christian tends to refer to the loss of Christianity's monopoly in historically Christian societies. For example, although the 2005 Eurobarometer survey indicated that the majority of Europeans hold some form of belief in a higher power, fewer point explicitly to the Christian God.
Some scholars have disputed the global decline of Christianity,
and instead hypothesized of an evolution of Christianity which allows it
to not only survive, but actively expand its influence in contemporary
societies.
Decline of Christianity
A deconsecrated church in Australia, now in use as a restaurant. Declining attendance can lead to the consolidation of congregations and repurposing of church buildings.
A post-Christian society is one in which Christianity is no longer the dominant civil religion but that has gradually assumed values, culture, and worldviews
that are not necessarily Christian (and also may not necessarily
reflect any world religion's standpoint or may represent a combination
of either several religions or none). Post-Christian tends to refer to
the loss of Christianity's monopoly, if not its followers, in historically Christian societies. Postchristian societies are found across the Global North/West: for example, though the 2005 Eurobarometer survey indicated that the majority of Europeans hold some form of belief in a higher power; fewer point explicitly to the Christian God.
Despite this decline, Christianity remains the dominant religion in Europe and the Americas. According to a 2010 study by the Pew Research Center, 76% of the population of Europe, 77% of North America and 90% of Latin America and the Caribbean identified themselves as Christians.
Postchristianity is the loss of the primacy of the Christian worldview in public affairs, especially in the Western world where Christianity had previously flourished, in favor of alternative worldviews such as secularism, nationalism, environmentalism, and organized atheism; sometimes militant as well as other ideologies such as veganism or ethical veganism,
that are no longer necessarily rooted in the language and assumptions
of Christianity amongst many other ideologies. They previously existed
in an environment of ubiquitous Christianity (i.e. Christendom).
As an example, an era of increasing fascination and common
conversion to eastern religions rooted in Asia has been documented among
Western folk of white Christian heritage and liberal backgrounds.
Alternative perspectives
Other
scholars have disputed the global decline of Christianity, and instead
hypothesized of an evolution of Christianity which allows it to not only
survive, but actively expand its influence in contemporary societies.
Philip Jenkins hypothesized a "Christian Revolution" in the Global South,
such as Africa, Asia and Latin America, where instead of facing
decline, Christianity is actively expanding. The susceptibility to
Christian teachings in the global South
will allow the Christian population in these areas to continually
increase, and together with the shrinking of the Western Christian
population, will form a "new Christendom" in which the majority of the
world's Christian population can be found in the South.
Charles Taylor,
meanwhile, disputes the "God is dead" thesis by arguing that the
practices and understandings of faith changed long before the late 20th
century, along with secularism itself. In A Secular Age
Taylor argues that being "free from Christendom" has allowed
Christianity to endure and express itself in various ways, particularly
in Western society; he notes that otherwise secular ideas were, and
continue to be, formed in light of some manner of faith. He stresses
that "loss of faith" reflects simplistic notions on the nature of secularization, namely the idea of "subtraction." Thus "post-Christian" is, after a fashion, a product of Christianity itself.
Other uses
Some American Christians (primarily Protestants) also use this term in reference to the evangelism of unchurched individuals who may have grown up in a non-Christian culture where traditional Biblical
references may be unfamiliar concepts. This perspective argues that,
among previous generations in the United States, such concepts and other
artifacts of Christianese would have been common cultural knowledge and that it would not have been necessary to teach this language to adult converts
to Christianity. In this sense, post-Christian is not used
pejoratively, but is intended to describe the special remediative care
that would be needed to introduce new Christians to the nuances of Christian life and practice.
Some groups use the term "post-Christian" as a self-description. Dana McLean Greeley, the first president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, described Unitarian Universalism
as postchristian, insofar as Christians no longer considered it
Christian, while persons of other religions would likely describe it as
Christian, at least historically.
Utopian socialism is the term often used to describe the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen.[1][2]
Utopian socialism is often described as the presentation of visions and
outlines for imaginary or futuristic ideal societies, with positive
ideals being the main reason for moving society in such a direction.
Later socialists and critics of utopian socialism viewed utopian
socialism as not being grounded in actual material conditions of
existing society and in some cases as reactionary. These visions of
ideal societies competed with Marxist-inspired revolutionarysocial democratic movements.[3]
As a term or label, utopian socialism is most often
applied to, or used to define, those socialists who lived in the first
quarter of the 19th century who were ascribed the label utopian by later
socialists as a pejorative in order to imply naiveté and to dismiss their ideas as fanciful and unrealistic.[4] A similar school of thought that emerged in the early 20th century which makes the case for socialism on moral grounds is ethical socialism.[5]
One key difference between utopian socialists and other socialists such as most anarchists and Marxists is that utopian socialists generally do not believe any form of class struggle or social revolution
is necessary for socialism to emerge. Utopian socialists believe that
people of all classes can voluntarily adopt their plan for society if it
is presented convincingly.[3]
They feel their form of cooperative socialism can be established among
like-minded people within the existing society and that their small
communities can demonstrate the feasibility of their plan for society.[3]
The thinkers identified as utopian socialist did not use the term utopian to refer to their ideas. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
were the first thinkers to refer to them as utopian, referring to all
socialist ideas that simply presented a vision and distant goal of an
ethically just society as utopian. This utopian mindset which held an
integrated conception of the goal, the means to produce said goal and an
understanding of the way that those means would inevitably be produced
through examining social and economic phenomena can be contrasted with scientific socialism which has been likened to Taylorism.[citation needed]
This distinction was made clear in Engels' work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1892, part of an earlier publication, the Anti-Dühring
from 1878). Utopian socialists were seen as wanting to expand the
principles of the French revolution in order to create a more rational
society. Despite being labeled as utopian by later socialists, their
aims were not always utopian and their values often included rigid
support for the scientific method and the creation of a society based
upon scientific understanding.
Development
The term utopian socialism was introduced by Karl Marx in "For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything" in 1843 and then developed in The Communist Manifesto in 1848, although shortly before its publication Marx had already attacked the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in The Poverty of Philosophy
(originally written in French, 1847). The term was used by later
socialist thinkers to describe early socialist or quasi-socialist
intellectuals who created hypothetical visions of egalitarian, communalist, meritocratic, or other notions of perfect societies without considering how these societies could be created or sustained.
In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx criticized the economic and philosophical arguments of Proudhon set forth in The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty. Marx accused Proudhon of wanting to rise above the bourgeoisie. In the history of Marx's thought and Marxism,
this work is pivotal in the distinction between the concepts of utopian
socialism and what Marx and the Marxists claimed as scientific
socialism. Although utopian socialists shared few political, social, or
economic perspectives, Marx and Engels argued that they shared certain
intellectual characteristics. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote:[7]
The
undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own
surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far
superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of
every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence, they
habitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class;
nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once
they understand their system, fail to see it in the best possible plan
of the best possible state of society? Hence, they reject all political,
and especially all revolutionary, action; they wish to attain their
ends by peaceful means, and endeavor, by small experiments, necessarily
doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the
new social Gospel.
Marx and Engels associated utopian
socialism with communitarian socialism which similarly sees the
establishment of small intentional communities as both a strategy for
achieving and the final form of a socialist society.[8] Marx and Engels used the term scientific socialism
to describe the type of socialism they saw themselves developing.
According to Engels, socialism was not "an accidental discovery of this
or that ingenious brain, but the necessary outcome of the struggle
between two historically developed classes, namely the proletariat and
the bourgeoisie. Its task was no longer to manufacture a system of
society as perfect as possible, but to examine the historical-economic
succession of events from which these classes and their antagonism had
of necessity sprung, and to discover in the economic conditions thus
created the means of ending the conflict". Critics have argued that
utopian socialists who established experimental communities were in fact
trying to apply the scientific method to human social organization and were therefore not utopian. On the basis of Karl Popper's definition of science as "the practice of experimentation, of hypothesis and test", Joshua Muravchik
argued that "Owen and Fourier and their followers were the real
'scientific socialists.' They hit upon the idea of socialism, and they
tested it by attempting to form socialist communities". By contrast,
Muravchik further argued that Marx made untestable predictions about the
future and that Marx's view that socialism would be created by
impersonal historical forces may lead one to conclude that it is
unnecessary to strive for socialism because it will happen anyway.[9]
Since the mid-19th century, Marxism and Marxism–Leninism
overtook utopian socialism in terms of intellectual development and
number of adherents. At one time almost half the population of the world
lived under regimes that claimed to be Marxist.[10] Currents such as Saint-Simonianism and Fourierism attracted the interest of numerous later authors but failed to compete with the now dominant Marxist, Proudhonist, or Leninist
schools on a political level. It has been noted that they exerted a
significant influence on the emergence of new religious movements such
as spiritualism and occultism.[11][12]
In literature and in practice
Perhaps the first utopian socialist was Thomas More (1478–1535), who wrote about an imaginary socialist society in his book Utopia, published in 1516. The contemporary definition of the English word utopia derives from this work and many aspects of More's description of Utopia were influenced by life in monasteries.[13]
Saint-Simonianism was a French political and social movement of the first half of the 19th century, inspired by the ideas of Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825). His ideas influenced Auguste Comte (who was for a time Saint-Simon's secretary), Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill and many other thinkers and social theorists.
Robert Owen was one of the founders of utopian socialism.
Robert Owen
(1771–1858) was a successful Welsh businessman who devoted much of his
profits to improving the lives of his employees. His reputation grew
when he set up a textile factory in New Lanark, Scotland, co-funded by his teacher, the utilitarianJeremy Bentham and introduced shorter working hours, schools for children and renovated housing. He wrote about his ideas in his book A New View of Society which was published in 1813 and An Explanation of the Cause of Distress which pervades the civilized parts of the world in 1823. He also set up an Owenite commune called New Harmony in Indiana.
This collapsed when one of his business partners ran off with all the
profits. Owen's main contribution to socialist thought was the view that
human social behavior is not fixed or absolute and that humans have the
free will to organize themselves into any kind of society they wished.
Charles Fourier (1772–1837) rejected the Industrial Revolution
altogether and thus the problems that arose with it. Fourier made
various fanciful claims about the ideal world he envisioned. Despite
some clearly non-socialist inclinations,[clarification needed]
he contributed significantly even if indirectly to the socialist
movement. His writings about turning work into play influenced the young
Karl Marx and helped him devise his theory of alienation. Also a contributor to feminism, Fourier invented the concept of phalanstère,
units of people based on a theory of passions and of their combination.
Several colonies based on Fourier's ideas were founded in the United
States by Albert Brisbane and Horace Greeley.
Many Romantic authors, most notably William Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote anti-capitalist works and supported peasant revolutions across early 19th century Europe. Étienne Cabet (1788–1856), influenced by Robert Owen, published a book in 1840 entitled Travel and adventures of Lord William Carisdall in Icaria in which he described an ideal communalist society. His attempts to form real socialist communities based on his ideas through the Icarian movement did not survive, but one such community was the precursor of Corning, Iowa. Possibly inspired by Christianity, he coined the word communism and influenced other thinkers, including Marx and Engels.
Utopian socialist pamphlet of Swiss social medical doctor Rudolf Sutermeister (1802–1868)
Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) published Looking Backward
in 1888, a utopian romance novel about a future socialist society. In
Bellamy's utopia, property was held in common and money replaced with a
system of equal credit for all. Valid for a year and non-transferable
between individuals, credit expenditure was to be tracked via
"credit-cards" (which bear no resemblance to modern credit cards which
are tools of debt-finance). Labour was compulsory from age 21 to 40 and
organised via various departments of an Industrial Army to which most
citizens belonged. Working hours were to be cut drastically due to
technological advances (including organisational). People were expected
to be motivated by a Religion of Solidarity and criminal behavior was
treated as a form of mental illness or "atavism". The book ranked as
second or third best seller of its time (after Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben Hur). In 1897, Bellamy published a sequel entitled Equality as a reply to his critics and which lacked the Industrial Army and other authoritarian aspects.
William Morris (1834–1896) published News from Nowhere in 1890, partly as a response to Bellamy's Looking Backwards,
which he equated with the socialism of Fabians such as Sydney Webb.
Morris' vision of the future socialist society was centred around his
concept of useful work as opposed to useless toil and the redemption of
human labour. Morris believed that all work should be artistic, in the
sense that the worker should find it both pleasurable and an outlet for
creativity. Morris' conception of labour thus bears strong resemblance
to Fourier's, while Bellamy's (the reduction of labour) is more akin to
that of Saint-Simon or in aspects Marx.
Many participants in the historical kibbutz movement in Israel were motivated by utopian socialist ideas. Augustin Souchy
(1892–1984) spent most of his life investigating and participating in
many kinds of socialist communities. Souchy wrote about his experiences
in his autobiography Beware! Anarchist! Behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904–1990) published Walden Two in 1948. The Twin Oaks Community was originally based on his ideas. Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) wrote about an impoverished anarchist society in her book The Dispossessed,
published in 1974, in which the anarchists agree to leave their home
planet and colonize a barely habitable moon in order to avoid a bloody
revolution.
Classless modes of production in hunter-gatherer societies are referred to as primitive communism by Marxists to stress their classless nature.
A related concept is that of a socialist utopia, usually depicted in
works of fiction as possible ways society can turn out to be in the
future and often combined with notions of a technologically
revolutionized economy.
Anarchism is often considered a far-left ideology and much of its economics and legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism, mutualism, or participatory economics. As anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular worldview, many anarchist types and traditions exist, not all of which are mutually exclusive. Anarchist schools of thought can differ fundamentally, supporting anything from extreme individualism to complete collectivism. Strains of anarchism have often been divided into the categories of social and individualist anarchism or similar dual classifications.Other classifications may add mutualism as a third category while some consider it part of individualist anarchism and others regard it to be part of social anarchism.There are many philosophical differences among anarchists
concerning questions of ideology, values and strategy. Ideas about how
anarchist societies should work vary considerably, especially with
respect to economics.
There are also disagreements about how such a society might be brought
about, with some anarchists being committed to a strategy of nonviolence
while others advocate armed struggle.
Anarchist schools of thought encompass not only a range of individual schools, but also a considerable divergence in the use of some key terms. Some terms such as socialism
have been subject to multiple definitions and ideological struggle
throughout the period of the development of anarchism. Others such as capitalism
are used in divergent and often contradictory ways by different schools
within the tradition. In addition, the meanings of terms such as mutualism
have changed over time, sometimes without spawning new schools. All of
these terminological difficulties contribute to misunderstandings within
and about anarchism. A central concern is whether the term anarchism is
defined in opposition to hierarchy, authority and the state,
or state and capitalism. Debates over the meaning of the term emerge
from the fact that it refers to both an abstract philosophical position
and to intellectual, political and institutional traditions, all of
which have been fraught with conflict. Some minimal, abstract
definitions encourage the inclusion of figures, movements and
philosophical positions which have historically positioned themselves
outside, or even in opposition to, individuals and traditions that have
identified themselves as anarchist. While opposition to the state
is central, there is a lot of talk among scholars and anarchists on the
matter and various currents perceive anarchism slightly differently.
While it might be true to say that anarchism is a cluster of political philosophies opposing authority and hierarchical organization (including the state, capitalism, nationalism and all associated institutions) in the conduct of all human relations in favour of a society based on voluntary association, freedom and decentralisation,
this definition has its own shortcomings as the definition based on
etymology (which is simply a negation of a ruler), or based on
anti-statism (anarchism is much more than that) or even the
anti-authoritarian (which is an a posteriori concussion).
Nonetheless, major elements of the definition of anarchism include the following:
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.
A suggestion on how to act to pursue the ideal of anarchy.
Usages in political circles have varied considerably. In 1894, Richard T. Ely
noted that the term had "already acquired a variety of meanings". In
its most general sense, these included the view that society is "a
living, growing organism, the laws of which are something different from
the laws of individual action". Several years earlier in 1888, the individualist anarchistBenjamin Tucker included the full text of a "Socialistic Letter" by Ernest Lesigne in his essay on "State Socialism and Anarchism". According to Lesigne, there are two socialisms: "One is dictatorial, the other libertarian". As an anti-capitalist and libertarian socialist philosophy, anarchism is placed on the far-left of the political spectrum and much of its economics and legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian interpretations of left-wing politics such as communism, collectivism, syndicalism, mutualism, or participatory economics. 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. As a result, anarchist schools of thought can differ fundamentally yet maintain the common tenets of anarchism, supporting anything from extreme individualism to complete collectivism. Strains of anarchism have often been divided into the categories of social and individualist anarchism, or similar dual classifications. Nonetheless, anti-capitalism is considered a necessary element of anarchism by most anarchists.
While most anarcho-capitalists theorists and scholars divide
anarchism into social anarchism vis-à-vis individualist anarchism
meaning socialism vs. capitalism, seeing the two as mutually exclusive although accepting all anarchist schools of thought under panarchy on the basis of voluntaryism,
anarchist theorists and scholars opposing to anarcho-capitalism reject
this, not seeing them as a struggle between socialism and capitalism or
as mutually exclusive, but instead as complementary, with their
differences mainly being based on the means to attain anarchy,
rather than on their ends, arguing against certain anarcho-capitalist
theorists and scholars who see individualist anarchism as pro-capitalist
and reiterating that anarchism as a whole is socialist, meaning libertarian and anti-statist socialism. Many anarcho-communists regard themselves as radically individualists, seeing anarcho-communism as the best social system for the realization of individual freedom. Notwithstanding the name, collectivist anarchism is also seen as a blend of individualism and collectivism.
Anarchism is generally considered an individualist philosophy, opposing
all forms of authoritarian collectivism, but one which does see the individual or the community
as complementary rather than mutually exclusive, with anarcho-communism
and social anarchism in particular most rejecting the
individualist–collectivist dichotomy. Finally, social anarchism is a
term used in the United States to refer to Murray Bookchin's circle and its omonymous journal.
Schools of thought such as anarcha-feminism, anarcho-pacifism, anarcho-primitivism, anarcho-transhumanism and green anarchism
have different economic views and can be either part of individualist
anarchism or social anarchism. To differentiate it from individualist
anarchism, anarchists prefer using social anarchism, a term used to
characterize certain strides of anarchism vis-à-vis individualist
anarchism, with the former focusing on the social aspect and generally
being more organisational as well as supporting decentralisedeconomic planning and the latter focusing on the individual and generally being more anti-organisational as well as supporting a free-market form of socialism, respectively, rather than seeing the two categories as mutually exclusive or as socialism vis-à-vis capitalism, leading to anarchism without adjectives. Mutualism
is seen as the middle or third category between social anarchism and
individualist anarchism, although it has been considered part of both
social anarchism and individualist anarchism. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon spoke of social individualism and described mutualism and the freedom it pursued as the synthesis between communism and property.
From a materialist perspective, individualist anarchism is the
anarchist form in the pre-capitalist and largely agrarian and
merchantilist capitalism before the Industrial Revolution,
during which individualist anarchism became a form of artisanal and
self-employed socialism, especially in the United States. Instead,
social anarchism is anarchism in an industrial society, being the form of industrial or proletarian socialism, with post-left anarchy and its criticism of industrial technology and anti-workerism arising in a post-industrial society. Some anarchists may see such categorisations in these terms.
Despite their differences, these are all forms of libertarian
socialism. Before socialism became associated in the 20th century with Marxist–Leninist states and similar forms of authoritarian and statist socialism, considered by critics as state capitalism and administrative command economies rather than planned economies, the word socialism was a broad concept which was aimed at solving the labour problem through radical changes in the capitalist economy.
This caused issues between traditional anarchists and
anarcho-captalists, whose understanding of socialism is that of the 20th
century Marxist–Leninist states and whose school of thought is
generally not recognized as part of anarchism.Anarchists such as Luigi Galleani and Errico Malatesta have seen no contradiction between individualist anarchism and social anarchism, with the latter especially seeing the issues not between the two forms of anarchism, but between anarchists and non-anarchists. Anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker
argued that it was "not Socialist Anarchism against Individualist
Anarchism, but of Communist Socialism against Individualist Socialism". Similarly, the view of an individualist–socialist divide is contested as individualist anarchism is largely socialistic
Among anarchists, there is no consensus on the legitimacy or utility of violence in revolutionary struggle. For example, Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman and Errico Malatesta wrote of violence as a necessary and sometimes desirable force in revolutionary
settings. At the same time, they denounced acts of individual
terrorism, see Bakunin's "The Program of the International Brotherhood"
(1869) and Malatesta's "Violence as a Social Factor" (1895). Other anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy and Dorothy Day have been advocates of pacifism.
Anarchists have often been portrayed as dangerous and violent,
possibly due to a number of high-profile violent actions, including riots, assassinations, insurrections and terrorism committed by some anarchists as well as persistently negative media portrayals. Late 19th-century revolutionaries encouraged acts of political violence, called propaganda of the deed, such as bombings and the assassinations of heads of state to further anarchism. However, the term originally referred to exemplary forms of direct action meant to inspire the masses to revolution and propaganda of the deed may be violent or nonviolent.
While all anarchists consider antimilitarism (opposition to war) to be inherent to their philosophy, anarcho-pacifists
take this further by following Tolstoy's belief in pacifism. Although
numerous anarchist-related initiatives have been based on the tactic of nonviolence (see Earth First! and Food Not Bombs), many anarchists reject pacifism as an ideology, instead supporting a diversity of tactics. Authors Ward Churchill (Pacifism as Pathology, 1986) and Peter Gelderloos (How Nonviolence Protects the State, 2005; "The Failure of Nonviolence",
2013) have published influential books critical of pacifist doctrine
which they view as ineffectual and hypocritical. In a 2010 article,
author Randall Amster argued for the development of a "complementarity of tactics" to bridge the pacifist and more militant aspects of anarchism.
As a result of anarchism's critical view of certain types of private property, many anarchists see the destruction of property as an acceptable form of violence or argue that it is not in fact violence at all. In her widely cited 1912 essay Direct Action, Voltairine de Cleyre drew on American historical events, including the destroying of revenue stamps and the Boston Tea Party as a defense of such activities.
Many anarchists participate in subversive organizations as a means to undermine the establishment, such as Food Not Bombs, radical labor unions, alternative media and radical social centers.
This is in accordance with the anarchist ideal that governments are
intrinsically evil and that only by destroying the power of governments
can individual freedoms and liberties be preserved. However, some
anarchist schools in theory adopt the concept of dual power which means creating the structures for a new anti-authoritarian society in the shell of the old, hierarchical one.
While most anarchists firmly oppose voting, or otherwise
participating in the state institution, there are a few that disagree.
The prominent anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon stood for election to the French Constituent Assembly twice in 1848. In the 1890s, Paul Brousse developed the concept of libertarian municipalism in Switzerland which involved participating in local elections.
Anarchists have opposed voting for multiple reasons. Taking part in
elections has historically resulted in radicals becoming part of the
system they oppose rather than ending it. Voting acknowledges the state's legitimacy.
During the 2004 United States presidential election, the anarchist collectiveCrimethInc. launched "Don't Just Vote, Get Active", a campaign promoting the importance of direct action
rather than electoral change. Anarchists in other countries often
engage in similar anti-voting campaigns and advocate a more pragmatic
approach, including voting in referenda. Other prominent anarchists like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky have pledged their support for progressive candidates such as Ralph Nader. In addition to merely voting, some anarchists such as Proudhon and more recently Icelandic activist Smári McCarthy have stood for and won elections to national legislative bodies. American individualist anarchistLysander Spooner
argued that voting was a legitimate means of self-defense against the
state and noted that many supporters of the state consider both voting and abstention to be acknowledgments of the state's legitimacy. Spooner's essay "No Treason"
offers an individualist anarchist rebuttal to the argument that
existing democratic governments are justified by majority consent.
During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, there was debate within anarchist circles about whether to take an abstentionist position, vote for independence,
or to vote to remain in the United Kingdom, thus anarchists rarely
fitted into the easy binary of Yes/No voters of the referendum with all seeking to go beyond the choices offered at the ballot box. There was also a debate about what Scottish independence would mean for the anarchist movement and social struggle. Groups like the Anarchist Federation in Scotland (mainly in Edinburgh and Glasgow) took a critical stance skeptical of the benefits of Scottish independence.
Within the United Kingdom, there was considerable debate around the Brexit vote
in 2016. Anarchists are traditionally opposed to the European Union,
yet the vote was seen as one imposed by two factions of the right-wing. Yet again, there was debate about whether to vote to Remain in the European Union, abstain (some left communists argued for abstaining) or vote to Leave since the United Kingdom government (the Conservative Party) was mostly in favour of remain while UK Independence Party and far-right parties favoured Leave. There was also debate within the left amongst anarchists and those who considered themselves to have a Lexit (Left Exit position). The victory of the Leave side united anarchists whether voters or abstainers against the racist incidents and rise of right-wing populism and neo-nationalism which was considered to have happened following the result of the vote.[99] Many anarchists and anti-authoritarianleftists argue Brexit was negative for social struggles and migrants in particular and considerable efforts were made to analyze why the Leave result happened.
Democracy in anarchism
For individualist anarchists,
"the system of democracy, of majority decision, is held null and void.
Any impingement upon the natural rights of the person is unjust and a
symbol of majority tyranny". Libertarian municipalistMurray Bookchin criticized individualist anarchists for opposing democracy and said majority rule is consistent with anarchism. While preferring the term assembly rather than democracy, Bookchin has in turn been accused of municipal statism, i.e. non-anarchism. Later, Bookchin renounced anarchism to identify himself as an advocate of Communalism.
Anarchists have often been portrayed as dangerous and violent due
mainly to a number of high-profile violent acts including riots,
assassinations and insurrections involving anarchists. However, the use
of terrorism and assassination is condemned by most anarchist ideology,
although there remains no consensus on the legitimacy or utility of violence. Some anarchists have opposed coercion while others have supported it, particularly in the form of violent revolution on the path to anarchy.
Some anarchists share Leo Tolstoy's Christian anarchist belief in nonviolence. These anarcho-pacifists advocate nonviolent resistance
as the only method of achieving a truly anarchist revolution. They
often see violence as the basis of government and coercion and argue
that as such violence is illegitimate, no matter who is the target. Some
of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's French followers even saw strike action as coercive and refused to take part in such traditional socialist tactics.
Other anarchists advocate Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication
that relates to peoples fundamental needs and feelings using strategies
of requests, observations and empathy yet providing for the use of
protective force while rejecting pacifism as a compromising strategy of
the left that just perpetuates violence.
Other anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin and Errico Malatesta
saw violence as a necessary and sometimes desirable force. Malatesta
took the view that it is "necessary to destroy with violence, since one
cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies [the means of life and
for development] to the workers" (Umanità Nova, number 125, 6 September 1921).
Between 1894 and 1901, individual anarchists assassinated numerous heads of state, including:
Such propaganda of the deed was not popular among anarchists and many in the movement condemned the tactic. President William McKinley's assassin Leon Czolgosz claimed to be a disciple of Emma Goldman.
Goldman disavowed the act, although she did not condemn Czolgosz's
motivations in doing it. Goldman included in her definition of anarchism
the observation that all governments rest on violence and this is one
of the many reasons they should be opposed. Goldman herself did not
oppose tactics like assassination until she went to Russia, where she
witnessed the violence of the Russian state and the Red Army.
From then on, Goldman condemned the use of terrorism, especially by the
state, but she still supported most other forms of revolutionary
violence throughout her life. In a debate with a pacifist five years
before her death, she countered that "the organized force used against
the followers of Gandhi has finally forced them to use violence, much to
the distress of Gandhi" and concluded that "as a method of combating
the complex social injustices and inequalities, non-resistance cannot be
a decisive factor" (non-resistance was the term for nonviolence used by
Tolstoy and other early 20th century pacifists). Goldman at this time
was an information officer for the anarchist militias of the Spanish Revolution which were committed to armed struggle.
Depictions in the press and popular fiction (for example, a malevolent bomb-throwing anarchist in Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent)
helped create a lasting public impression that anarchists are violent
terrorists. This perception was enhanced by events such as the Haymarket riot, where anarchists were blamed for throwing a bomb at police who came to break up a public meeting in Chicago. More recently, anarchists have been involved in protests against (WTO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings across the globe which the media has described as violent or riots. Traditionally, May Day in London has also been a day of marching, but in recent years the Metropolitan Police
have warned that a "hardcore of anarchists" are intent on causing
violence. Anarchists often respond that it is the police who initiate
violence at these demonstrations, with anarchists who are otherwise
peaceful sometimes forced to defend themselves. The anarchists involved
in such protests often formed black blocs at these protests and some engaged in property destruction, vandalism, or in violent conflicts with police,
although others stuck to non-violent principles. Those participating in
black blocs distinguish between violence and property destruction as
they claim that violence is when a person inflicts harm to another
person while property destruction or property damage is not violence,
although it can have indirect harm such as financial harm. Most
anarchists do not consider the destruction of property to be violent as
do most activists who believe in non-violence.
Pacifism
Anarchist protesters in Boston opposing state-waged war
Most anarchists consider opposition to militarism to be inherent in their philosophy. Some anarchists take it further and follow Leo Tolstoy's belief in non-violence (note that these anarcho-pacifists are not necessarily Christian anarchists as Tolstoy was), advocating nonviolent resistance as the only method of achieving a truly anarchist revolution.
Anarchist literature often portrays war as an activity in which
the state seeks to gain and consolidate power, both domestically and in
foreign lands. Many anarchists subscribe to Randolph Bourne's view that "war is the health of the state" Anarchists believe that if they were to support a war, they would be strengthening the state—indeed, Peter Kropotkin was alienated from other anarchists when he expressed support for the British inIndividualism vs. collectivism.
This section is missing information about Tucker's and Spooner's understanding of private property
(a product of one's labour) and how it was understood differently by
other anarchists (privately owned land and means of production). Please expand the section to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.(May 2021)
While some anarchists favour collective property or no property, others such as some American individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner support a form of private property
while opposing property titles to unused land. Tucker argues that
collectivism in property is absurd: "That there is an entity known as
the community which is the rightful owner of all land, [...] I maintain that the community is a non-entity, that it has no existence". He was particularly adamant in his opposition to communism,
even to the point of asserting that those who opposed private property
were not anarchists: "Anarchism is a word without meaning, unless it
includes the liberty of the individual to control his product or
whatever his product has brought him through exchange in a free
market—that is, private property. Whoever denies private property is of
necessity an Archist. "Similarly, Albert Meltzer argued that since individualist anarchists
like Tucker promote the idea of private armies, they actually support a
"limited State", contending that it "is only possible to conceive of
Anarchism which is free, communistic and offering no economic necessity
for repression of countering it".
Anarcho-communists reject the criticism, pointing to the principle of
voluntary association that underpins their theory and differentiates it
from state communism. Some individualist anarchists are willing to recognize such communism as a legitimate form. Kevin Carson
writes that "free market, libertarian communist, syndicalism, and other
kinds of collectivist anarchists must learn to coexist in peace and
mutual respect today, in our fight against the corporate state, and
tomorrow, in the that is likely to succeed it".[Some forms of anarcho-communism such as insurrectionary anarchism are strongly influenced by egoism and radical individualism, believing anarcho-communism is the best social system for the realisation of individual freedom. Hence, most anarcho-communists view anarcho-communism itself as a way of reconciling the opposition between the individual and society. Furthermore, post-left anarchists like Bob Black
went as far as to argue that "communism is the final fulfillment of
individualism. [...] The apparent contradiction between individualism
and communism rests on a misunderstanding of both. [...] Subjectivity is
also objective: the individual really is subjective. It is nonsense to
speak of "emphatically prioritizing the social over the individual,"
[...]. You may as well speak of prioritizing the chicken over the egg.
Anarchy is a "method of individualization." It aims to combine the
greatest individual development with the greatest communal unity". Max Baginski has argued that property and the free market
are just other "spooks", what Stirner called to refer mere illusions,
or ghosts in the mind, writing: "Modern Communists are more
individualistic than Stirner. To them, not merely religion, morality,
family and State are spooks, but property also is no more than a spook,
in whose name the individual is enslaved — and how enslaved! [...]
Communism thus creates a basis for the liberty and Eigenheit of the
individual. I am a Communist because I am an Individualist. Fully as
heartily the Communists concur with Stirner when he puts the word take
in place of demand — that leads to the dissolution of property, to
expropriation. Individualism and Communism go hand in hand". Peter Kropotkin
argued that "Communism is the one which guarantees the greatest amount
of individual liberty — provided that the idea that begets the community
be Liberty, Anarchy [...]. Communism guarantees economic freedom better
than any other form of association, because it can guarantee wellbeing,
even luxury, in return for a few hours of work instead of a day's
work". Dielo Truda
similarly argued that "[t]his other society will be libertarian
communism, in which social solidarity and free individuality find their
full expression, and in which these two ideas develop in perfect
harmony".[119] In "My Perspectives" of Willful Disobedience
(2: 12), it was argued as such: "I see the dichotomies made between
individualism and communism, individual revolt and class struggle, the
struggle against human exploitation and the exploitation of nature as
false dichotomies and feel that those who accept them are impoverishing
their own critique and struggle".
The Right to Be Greedy is a book published in 1974 by an American Situationist
collective called For Ourselves: Council for Generalized
Self-Management which Black describes it in its preface as an "audacious
attempt to synthesize a collectivist social vision of left-wing origin
with an individualistic (for lack of a better word) ethic usually
articulated on the right".
Its authors say that "[t]he positive conception of egoism, the
perspective of communist egoism, is the very heart and unity of our
theoretical and practical coherence". The book was highly influenced by the work of Max Stirner, with Black humorously suggesting that it was a synthesis of Marxism and Stirner's philosophy which may be called Marxism–Stirnerism just as he wrote an essay on Groucho-Marxism, writing in the preface to The Right to be Greedy:
"If Marxism-Stirnerism is conceivable, every orthodoxy prating of
freedom or liberation is called into question, anarchism included. The
only reason to read this book, as its authors would be the first to
agree, is for what you can get out of it".
Although commonly misconcepted, Marxism rejected egalitarianism
in the sense of greater equality between classes, clearly
distinguishing it from the socialist notion of the abolition of classes
based on the division between workers and owners of productive property. Marx and Engels believed that an internationalproletarian revolution would bring about a socialist society
which would then eventually give way to a communist stage of social
development which would be a classless, stateless, moneyless, humane
society erected on common ownership. However, Marx's view of
classlessness was not the subordination of society to a universal
interest (such as a universal notion of equality), but it was about the
creation of the conditions that would enable individuals to pursue their
true interests and desires, making his notion of communist society radically individualistic. Marx was a proponent of two principles, the first ("To each according to his contribution") applied to socialism and the second ("From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs")
to an advanced communist society. Although his position is often
confused or conflated with distributive egalitarianism in which only the
goods and services resulting from production are distributed according
to a notional equality, Marx eschewed the entire concept of equality as
abstract and bourgeois in nature, preferring to focus on more concrete
principles such as opposition to exploitation on materialist grounds and
economic logic.
He is a believer in human freedom and human development. For Marx, the
"true realm of freedom" consists in the "development of human powers as
an end in itself".
He conceives of a communist society as one in which "the full and free
development of every individual forms the ruling principle".Marx justified the forms of equality he did advocate such as the
communal ownership and control of the economy on the grounds that they
led to human freedom and human development rather than simply because
they were egalitarian, writing that in such a society there are
"[u]niversally developed individuals, whose social relations, as their
own communal relations, are hence also subordinated to their own
communal control". This communal control includes "their subordination
of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth".
Most modern and historical anarchists describe themselves as anti-racists. Many early anarchists, notably Lucy Parsons (a person of color and formerly an enslaved American), viewed racism as one of many negative side-effects of capitalism and expected that it would vanish in a post-capitalist
world. However, among modern anarchists anti-racism plays a more
prominent role and racism is typically viewed as one of several forms of
social hierarchy and stratification which must be destroyed. No
anarchist organizations has ever included racism as part of its platform
and many—particularly modern formations—include explicit anti-racism,
with the national-anarchist movement being rejected as part of anarchism for his perceived racism, among other reasons. For instance, American anarchists were alone in opposing racism against Chinese and Mexican
workers in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Since the late
1970s, anarchists have been involved in fighting the rise of
neo-fascist groups. In Germany and the United Kingdom, some anarchists
worked within militantanti-fascist groups alongside members of the Marxist left. They advocated directly combating fascists
with physical force rather than relying on the state. Since the late
1990s, a similar tendency has developed within anarchism in the United
States.
Anti-Racist Action
is one of the largest grassroots anti-fascist and anti-racist
organizations in North America today and counts many anarchists among
its members. Their tactics, centered around directly confronting neo-fascist and white-supremacist
groups, are considered controversial both within the anarchist movement
(where they are sometimes portrayed as well-intentioned, but
ineffective) and in mainstream society (where they are often portrayed
as violent and disruptive).
Many anarchists also oppose the concept of race itself, arguing that it has no biological basis in science and is a social construction designed to divide the working class and preserve capitalism.
Christian anarchists believe that there is no higher authority than God and oppose earthly authority such as government and established churches. They believe that Jesus' teachings and the practice of the early Church were clearly anarchistic. Some of them feel that the teachings of the Nazarenes and other early groups of followers were corrupted by contemporary religious views, most notably when Theodosius I declared NiceneChristianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Christian anarchists who follow Jesus' directive to turn the other cheek are usually strict pacifists,
although some believe in a limited justification of defense, especially
defense of others. The most famous advocate of Christian anarchism was Leo Tolstoy, author of The Kingdom of God Is Within You,
who called for a society based on compassion, nonviolent principles and
freedom. Christian anarchists tend to form experimental communities
(such as the Catholic Worker). They also occasionally resist taxation.
Buddhist anarchism originated in the influential Chinese anarchist movement of the 1920s. Taixu,
one of the leading thinkers and writers of this school, was deeply
influenced by the work of Christian anarchists like Tolstoy and by the
ancient Chinese well-field system. In the late 19th century, the Ghadar movement in India (see Har Dayal), influenced by Buddhist thought and by Swami Dayananda Saraswati (founder of Arya Samaj), saw anarchism as a way of propagating the ancient culture of the Arya (not to be confused with the much later appropriation of Aryan identity by Nazism).[146] Buddhist anarchism was later revived in the 1960s by writers such as Gary Snyder; an incarnation of this school of thought was popularized by Jack Kerouac in his book The Dharma Bums.
With its focus on the environment and equality along with its often decentralized nature, Neopaganism has led to a number of Neopagan anarchists. One of the most prominent is Starhawk, who writes extensively about both spirituality and activism.
Discussing the anarchist movement in Britain in 2002, Adam K. has
argued that it "has an especially ignorant and hegemonistic perception
of the Muslim community" which he attributed to "the [A]nglo-centric
nature of the movement". Quoting the statement that "Islam
is an enemy of all freedom loving people" from an anarchist magazine,
he argues that this is "no different to the bigoted rhetoric of George Bush or even BNP leader Nick Griffin".
Throughout all of its history, anarchism has been defined by its proponents in opposition to capitalism which they believe can be maintained only by state violence. Anarchists generally follow Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in opposing ownership of workplaces by capitalists and aim to replace wage labor with workers' associations. These anarchists also agree with Peter Kropotkin's
comment that "the origin of the anarchist inception of society [lies
in] the criticism [...] of the hierarchical organisations and the
authoritarian conceptions of society" rather than in simple opposition
to the state or government. They argue that the wage system is hierarchical and authoritarian in nature and consequently capitalism cannot be anarchist. Conversely, anarcho-capitalists generally support wage labor and oppose workplace democracy
which most anarchists support, claiming that wage labor is voluntary.
However, most anarchists argue that certain capitalist transactions,
including wage labor, are not voluntary and that maintaining the class
structure of a capitalist society requires coercion which violates both
anarchist principles and anarcho-capitalism's non-aggression principle itself. Anarchists who support wage labor do so as long as the employers and employees are paid equally for equal hours worked
and neither party has authority over the other. By following this
principle, no individual profits from the labor of another. Those
anarchists describe the wages received in such an employer-employee
relationship as the individual laborer's full product and generally
envisione that in such a society every worker would be self-employed and
own their own private means of production, free to walk away from
employment contracts.
Some supporters argue that anarcho-capitalism is a form of individualist anarchism.However, most early individualist anarchists considered themselves "fervent anti-capitalists [who see] no contradiction between their individualist stance and their rejection of capitalism". Many defined themselves as socialists. These early individualist anarchists defined capitalism in various ways, but it was often discussed in terms of usury:
"There are three forms of usury, interest on money, rent on land and
houses, and profit in exchange. Whoever is in receipt of any of these is
a usurer". Excluding these, they tended to support free trade, free competition and varying levels of private property such as mutualism based on occupation and use property norms. It is this distinction which has led to the rift between anarchism and anarcho-capitalism.
Historically, anarchists considered themselves socialists and opposed
to capitalism, therefore anarcho-capitalism is considered by many
anarchists today as not being a form of anarchism.
Furthermore, terms like anarcho-socialism or socialist anarchism
are rejected by most anarchists since they generally consider themselves
socialists of the libertarian tradition,
but they are nevertheless used by anarcho-capitalism theorists and
scholars who recognize anarcho-capitalism to differentiate between the
two. Ultimately, anarcho-capitalist author Murray Rothbard,
who coined the term itself and developed such philosophy through the
1970s, stated that individualist anarchism is different from capitalism
due to the individualist anarchists retaining the labor theory of value and many writers deny that anarcho-capitalism is a form of anarchism at all,or that capitalism itself is compatible with anarchism.seeing it instead as a form of New Rightlibertarianism.
Anarchist organisations such as the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (Spain) and the Anarchist Federation
(Britain and Ireland) generally take an explicitly anti-capitalist
stance. In the 20th century, several economists began to formulate a
form of radical American libertarianism
known as anarcho-capitalism. This has met resistance from those who
hold that capitalism is inherently oppressive or statist and many
anarchists and scholars do not consider anarcho-capitalism to properly
cohere with the spirit, principles, or history of anarchism.
While other anarchists and scholars regard anarchism as referring only
to opposition to the non-privatisation of all aspects of the state and
do consider anarcho-capitalism to be a form of anarchism, Gary Chartier has joined Kevin Carson, Roderick T. Long, Charles W. Johnson, Brad Spangler, Sheldon Richman and Chris Matthew Sciabarra in maintaining that because of its heritage and its emancipatory goals and potential radical market anarchism should be seen by its proponents and by others as part of the socialist tradition and that market anarchists can and should call themselves socialists, echoing the language of libertarian socialists like American individualist anarchistsBenjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner and British Thomas Hodgskin.
In particular, Chartier has argued that proponents of a genuinely free market, termed freed market to distinguish them from the common conception which these left-libertarians (referred to as left-wing market anarchists or market-oriented left-libertarians) believe to be riddled with statist and capitalist privileges,
should explicitly reject capitalism and identify with the global
anti-capitalist movement while emphasizing that the abuses the
anti-capitalist movement highlights result from state-tolerated violence
and state-secured privilege rather than from voluntary cooperation and
exchange. Indeed, proponents of this approach strongly affirm the classical liberal ideas of self-ownership and free markets while maintaining that taken to their logical conclusions these ideas support anti-capitalist, anti-corporatist, anti-hierarchical and pro-labor positions in economics; anti-imperialism in foreign policy; and thoroughly radical views regarding such cultural issues as gender, sexuality and race.
One major issue and divide between anarchism and
anarcho-capitalism are the terms capitalism and socialism themselves.
For anarcho-capitalists, capitalism mean the free market rather than actually existing capitalism (of which they are critics, arguing that the problem rests on corporatism and state capitalism, a term coined by German socialist Wilhelm Liebknecht, but whose concept can be traced back to anarchists like Mikhail Bakunin[and Jan Wacław Machajski rather than capitalism itself) as advocated by anti-capitalists and socialism is conflated with state socialism and Marxist–Leninist states.
However, the term socialism originally included any opponent of
capitalism, a term coined in the 18th century to mean a construed political system built on privileges for the owners of capital.
Contra anarcho-capitalists, anarchists argue that capitalism necessarily rest on the state
to survive and state capitalism is seen as the inevitable result of
both capitalism and state socialism. Furthermore, the free market itself
for classical economists such as Adam Smith
did not necessarily refer to a market free from government interference
as it is now commonly assumed or how anarcho-capitalists see it, but
rather free from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and
artificial scarcities, implying that economic rents, i.e. profits generated from a lack of perfect competition, must be reduced or eliminated as much as possible through free competition. While anarcho-capitalists who argue for private property which supports absentee and landlordism ownership rather than occupation and use property norms as well as the homestead principle
are considered right-libertarians rather than anarchists (this is due
to anarchism generally viewing any absentee ownership and ownership
claims on land and natural resources as immoral and illegitimate
and seeing the idea of perpetually binding original appropriation as
advocated by some anarcho-capitalists as anathema to traditional schools
of anarchism as well as to any moral or economic philosophy that takes
equal natural rights to land and the Earth's resources as a premise),
other anarcho-capitalists are closer to mutualism and are considered
part of free-market anarchism which argue that a true free-market or laissez-faire system would be best served under socialism rather than capitalism
As a whole, anarchism is seen part of the socialist tradition, with the main divide being between anti-market anarchists (most social anarchists, including anarcho-communists, anarcho-syndicalists and collectivist anarchists) who support some form of decentralisedeconomic planning and pro-market anarchists (certain individualist anarchists, including free-market anarchists and mutualists) who support free-market socialism. As such, Chartier has argued that anarcho-capitalists should reject capitalism and call themselves free-market advocates,
writing that "it makes sense for [freed-market advocates] to name what
they oppose "capitalism." Doing so calls attention to the freedom
movement's radical roots, emphasizes the value of understanding society
as an alternative to the state, underscores the fact that proponents of
freedom object to non-aggressive as well as aggressive restraints on
liberty, ensures that advocates of freedom aren't confused with people
who use market rhetoric to prop up an unjust status quo, and expresses
solidarity between defenders of freed markets and workers — as well as
ordinary people around the world who use "capitalism" as a short-hand
label for the world-system that constrains their freedom and stunts
their lives".
Another major issue and divide within anarchism and anarcho-capitalism is that of property, more specifically the issues of private property. By property, or private property, ever since Proudhon's book What is Property?, published in 1840, anarchists meant possession (or what other socialists, including Marxists and communists, distingue as personal property) which he considered as liberty ("Property is liberty") versus productive property (such as land and infrastructure, or what Marxists terms the means of production and the means of labor) which he considered as theft ("Property is theft"), causing him to also say "Property is impossible".
Individualist anarchists like Tucker started calling possession
as property, or private property. Anarcho-capitalists generally make no
such distinction. Such distinction is extremely important to anarchists
and other socialists because in the capitalist mode of production private and personal property are considered to be exactly equivalent. They make the following distinctions:
Personal property, or possession, includes items intended for
personal use (e.g. one's toothbrush, clothes, homes, vehicles and
sometimes money). It must be gained in a socially fair manner and the owner has a distributive right to exclude others.
Anarchists generally agree that private property is a social
relationship between the owner and persons deprived (not a relationship
between person and thing), e.g. artifacts, factories, mines, dams,
infrastructure, natural vegetation, mountains, deserts and seas. In this
context, private property and ownership means ownership of the means of
production, not personal possessions.
To anarchists and socialists alike, the term private property refers to capital or the means of production while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services.
Globalization
Many anarchists are actively involved in the anti-globalization movement, seeing corporate globalization as a neocolonialist attempt to use economic coercion on a global scale, carried out through state institutions such as the World Bank, World Trade Organization, Group of Eight and the World Economic Forum. Globalization is an ambiguous term that has different meanings to different anarchist factions. Many anarchists use the term to mean neocolonialism and/or cultural imperialism (which they may see as related). Others, particularly anarcho-capitalists, use globalization to mean the worldwide expansion of the division of labor and trade which they see as beneficial so long as governments do not intervene. Anarcho-capitalists and market anarchists
also see the worldwide expansion of the division of labor through trade
(globalization) as a boon, but they oppose the regulation and
cartelization imposed by the World Bank, World Trade Organization and
"managed trade" agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Many also object to fiat money issued by central banks and resulting debasement of money and confiscation of wealth. Groups such as Reclaim the Streets[205] were among the instigators of the so-called anti-globalization movement.
The Carnival Against Capitalism on 18 June 1999 is generally regarded as the first of the major anti-globalization protests. Anarchists such as the WOMBLES have on occasion played a significant role in planning, organising and participating in subsequent protests.
The protests tended to be organised on anarchist direct action
principles with a general tolerance for a range of different activities
ranging from those who engage in tactical frivolity to the black blocs.
Left and right anarchism
The term left anarchism, or left-wing anarchism, has been used to distinguish social anarchism from anarcho-capitalism and anti-state right-libertarian philosophies."Left anarchists" refer to political philosophies which posit a future society in which private property is replaced by reciprocity and non-hierarchical society. The term left anarchism is sometimes used synonymously with libertarian socialism, left-libertarianism, or social anarchism. Anarchists typically discourage the concept of left-wing theories of anarchism on grounds of redundancy and that it lends legitimacy to the notion that anarchism is compatible with capitalismor nationalism.Syndicalist Ulrike Heider categorized anarchism into left anarchism, right anarchism and green anarchism. The term right anarchism, or right-wing anarchism,
has been used to refer to schools of thoughts which are not generally
considered part of anarchism, including anarcho-capitalism and national-anarchism.
Anarchism has a long history of opposing imperialism, both in the core nations (the colonizers) and the periphery nations
(the colonized). In general, anarchists have preferred to focus on
building revolutions at home and doing solidarity work for comrades in
other countries, e.g. Guy Aldred was jailed for printing Shyamji Krishnavarma's The Indian Sociologist. Another example of this was Rudolf Rocker, a prominent German anarchist and anti-fascist who was particularly active amongst Jewish workers. In his Nationalism and Culture,
he argued for a "federation of European peoples" which would include
Jews. Rejecting biological theories of race and the concept of nation,
he argued that since it was European states that had conquered and
colonized the rest of the world, successful libertarian organization
amongst Europeans was "the first condition for the creation of a world
federation which will also secure the so-called colonial peoples the same rights for the pursuit of happiness. Many modern anarchists and other anti-imperialists share this approach.
Historically, anarchism was supportive of the anationalist movement as well as of the Esperanto language, a language constructed to serve as a politically and ethnically neutral international language. After the Spanish Civil War, Francoist Spain persecuted anarchists and Catalan nationalists, among whom the use of Esperanto was extensive. The so-called national-anarchist movement is not recognized as part of anarchism by anarchists and scholars due to anarchism opposition to nationalism, the nation state, tribalism and neo-tribalism and national-anarchism's perceived racism and sexism, arguing that it represents a further evolution in the thinking of the radical right rather than an entirely new dimension.Some accuse national-anarchists of being white nationalists who promote ethnic and racial separatism while others argue they want the militant chic of calling themselves anarchists without the historical and philosophical baggage that accompanies such a claim.
During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, there was debate within anarchist circles about whether to take an abstentionist position, vote for independence, or to vote to remain in the United Kingdom, therefore anarchists rarely fitted into the easy binary of Yes/No voters of the referendum,
with all seeking to go beyond the choices offered at the ballot box.
There was also a debate about what Scottish independence would mean for
the anarchist movement and social struggle. Groups like the Anarchist Federation in Scotland (mainly in Edinburgh and Glasgow) took a critical stance skeptical of the benefits of Scottish independence. Scottish anarchists argued that Scottish independence and Scottish nationalism
diverted energy away from grassroots struggles and that the movement
for Scottish independence sucked people towards Scottish nationalism and
electoral politics.
The environment and sustainability have been an issue for anarchists from at least as far back as Peter Kropotkin's 1899 book Fields, Factories and Workshops,
but since the late 1970s anarchists in English-speaking world and
European countries have been agitating for the natural environment. Eco-anarchists or green anarchists often embrace deep ecology, a worldview that strives to cultivate biodiversity and sustainability. Eco-anarchists often use direct action against what they see as Earth-destroying institutions. Of particular importance is the Earth First! movement that takes action such as tree sitting. The more militant Earth Liberation Front which grew out of Earth First! also has connections with the anarchist movement. Another important component is ecofeminism which sees the domination of nature as a metaphor for the domination of women.
On May 1937 the President of Republican Spain, Manuel Azaña, then living in the parliament house in Exposition Park, talked by telephone to the President of Catalonia, Luis Companys,
who was in his office in the Palace of the Generalitat. The
conversation had been going on for some time, when it was sharply
interrupted by an anarchist in the Telefónica who said: "This
conversation will have to stop. We have more interesting things to do
than listen to your stupid conversations." The line was then broken.
A movement called post-left anarchy seeks to distance itself from the traditional left—communists, socialists, social democrats and the like—and to escape the confines of ideology
in general. Post-leftists argue that anarchism has been weakened by its
long attachment to contrary leftist movements and single issue causes (anti-war, anti-nuclear
and so on). It calls for a synthesis of anarchist thought and a
specifically anti-authoritarian revolutionary movement outside of the
leftist milieu. Important groups and individuals associated with
post-left anarchy include CrimethInc., the magazine Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed and its editor Jason McQuinn, Bob Black, Hakim Bey and others.
Some activists calling themselves insurrectionary anarchists
are critical of formal anarchist labor unions and federations and
advocate informal organization, carrying out acts of resistance in
various struggles. Proponents include Wolfi Landstreicher and Alfredo M. Bonanno, author of works including Armed Joy and The Anarchist Tension. This tendency is represented in the United States in magazines such as Willful Disobedience and Killing King Abacus.
Communism
While communism
is proposed as a form of social and economic organisation by many
anarchists, other anarchists consider it a danger to the liberty and
free development of the individual. Most schools of anarchism have recognized a distinction between libertarian and authoritarian forms of communism. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
said of communism that "whether of the utopian or the Marxist variety,
that it destroyed freedom by taking away from the individual control
over his means of production", adding: "Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak". Mikhail Bakunin
stated: "I hate Communism because it is the negation of liberty and
because for me humanity is unthinkable without liberty. I am not a
Communist, because Communism concentrates and swallows up in itself for
the benefit of the State all the forces of society, because it
inevitably leads to the concentration of property in the hands of the
State". However, Bakunin was speaking of authoritarian and statist forms of communism and socialism (see also state capitalism and its origins and early uses of the term) as verified by the last line which mentions state property—anarcho-communists
explicitly reject state property and authority, especially centralized
authority—and famously proclaimed: "We are convinced that freedom
without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without
freedom is slavery and brutality". Even American individualist anarchistBenjamin Tucker, who insisted on the voluntary nature of all association and opposed communism along with majority rule, organized religion and the institution of marriage due to their compulsory nature,
argued: "Whoever denies private property is of necessity an Archist.
This excludes from Anarchism all believers in compulsory Communism. As
for the believers in voluntary Communism (of whom there are precious
few), they are of necessity believers in the liberty to hold private
property, for to pool one's possessions with those of others is nothing
more or less than an exercise of proprietorship".
Karl Marx's communist society is actually based on free association which he called a community of freely associated individuals.
Marx's communist society is one in which "the full and free development
of every individual forms the ruling principle" and "the free
development of each is the condition for the free development of all".
Hence, Marx justified the forms of equality he did advocate such as the
communal ownership and control of the economy on the grounds that they
led to human freedom and human development, arguing that "the realm of
freedom actually begins only where labor which is determined by
necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of
things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production.
According to Allen Woods, a communist society is one that has
transcended class antagonisms and "would not be one in which some truly
universal interest at last reigns, to which individual interests must be
sacrificed. It would instead be a society in which individuals freely
act as the truly human individuals they are", making Marx's communist
society radically individualistic.
Although Peter Kropotkin,
one of the leading proponents of anarcho-communism while also opposing
statist communism, argued for an economic model of free distribution
between all individuals, many individualist anarchists
oppose communism in all its forms on the grounds that voluntary
communism is not practicable. Individualist anarchists such as Benjamin
Tucker, Victor Yarros and Henry Appleton have denied that communism is a genuine form of anarchism. They rejected its strategies and argued that it is inherently authoritarian.
In the opinion of Appleton, "Communism, being opposed to natural law,
must necessarily call upon unnatural methods if it would put itself into
practice" and employ "pillage, brute force, and violence". As a response, Albert Meltzer
argued that since individualist anarchists like Tucker promote the idea
of private armies, they actually support a "limited State", contending
that it "is only possible to conceive of Anarchism which is free,
communistic and offering no economic necessity for repression of
countering it".
Anarcho-communists also reject the criticism, pointing to the principle
of voluntary association that underpins their theory and differentiates
it from statist communism. Some individualist anarchists are willing to recognize such communism as a legitimate form. Kevin Carson
writes that "free market, libertarian communist, syndicalism, and other
kinds of collectivist anarchists must learn to coexist in peace and
mutual respect today, in our fight against the corporate state, and
tomorrow, in the panarchy that is likely to succeed it".
As a response, there emerged in the 1980s United States the tendency of post-left anarchy which was influenced profoundly by egoism in aspects such as the critique of ideology. Jason McQuinn
says that "when I (and other anti-ideological anarchists) criticize
ideology, it is always from a specifically critical, anarchist
perspective rooted in both the skeptical, individualist-anarchist
philosophy of Max Stirner". Bob Black and Feral Faun/Wolfi Landstreicher also strongly adhere to Stirnerist egoism. A reprinting of The Right to be Greedy in the 1980s was done with the involvement of Black who also wrote the preface to it. In the book's preface, Black has humorously suggested the idea of "MarxistStirnerism" just as he wrote an essay on "groucho-marxism",
writing: "If Marxism-Stirnerism is conceivable, every orthodoxy prating
of freedom or liberation is called into question, anarchism included.
The only reason to read this book, as its authors would be the first to
agree, is for what you can get out of it".
Hakim Bey has said: "From Stirner's "Union of Self-Owning Ones" we proceed to Nietzsche's circle of "Free Spirits" and thence to Charles Fourier's "Passional Series", doubling and redoubling ourselves even as the Other multiplies itself in the eros of the group".[249]
Bey also wrote: "The Mackay Society, of which Mark & I are active
members, is devoted to the anarchism of Max Stirner, Benj. Tucker & John Henry Mackay.
[...] The Mackay Society, incidentally, represents a little-known
current of individualist thought which never cut its ties with
revolutionary labor. Dyer Lum, Ezra & Angela Haywood represent this school of thought; Jo Labadie, who wrote for Tucker's Liberty,
made himself a link between the American "plumb-line" anarchists, the
"philosophical" individualists, & the syndicalist or communist
branch of the movement; his influence reached the Mackay Society through
his son, Laurance. Like the Italian Stirnerites (who influenced us
through our late friend Enrico Arrigoni) we support all anti-authoritarian currents, despite their apparent contradictions".
Marxism
Anarchism has had a strained relationship with Marxism since Karl Marx's life. The dispute between Marx and Mikhail Bakunin highlighted the differences between anarchism and Marxism, with Bakunin criticizing Marx for his authoritarian bent.
Bakunin also argued—against certain ideas of a number of Marxists—that
not all revolutions need to be violent. For instance, he strongly
rejected Marx's concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a concept that vanguardist socialism, including Marxist–Leninism, would use to justify one-party rule from above by a party representing the proletariat.
Bakunin insisted that revolutions must be led by the people directly
while any "enlightened elite" must only exert influence by remaining "invisible [...] not imposed on anyone [...] [and] deprived of all official rights and significance". He held that the state should be immediately abolished because all forms of government eventually lead to oppression.
Bakunin has sometimes been called the first theorist of the concept of a new class,
meaning that a class of intellectuals and bureaucrats running the state
in the name of the people or the proletariat—but in reality in their
own interests alone. Bakunin argued that the "State has always been the
patrimony of some privileged class: a priestly class, an aristocratic
class, a bourgeois class. And finally, when all the other classes have
exhausted themselves, the State then becomes the patrimony of the
bureaucratic class and then falls—or, if you will, rises—to the position
of a machine". Bakunin also had a different view as compared to Marx's
on the revolutionary potential of the lumpenproletariat and the proletariat.
As such, "[b]oth agreed that the proletariat would play a key role, but
for Marx the proletariat was the exclusive, leading revolutionary agent
while Bakunin entertained the possibility that the peasants and even the lumpenproletariat (the unemployed, common criminals, etc.) could rise to the occasion".
Bakunin "considers workers' integration in capital as destructive of
more primary revolutionary forces. For Bakunin, the revolutionary
archetype is found in a peasant milieu (which is presented as having
longstanding insurrectionary traditions, as well as a communist
archetype in its current social form—the peasant commune) and amongst
educated unemployed youth, assorted marginals from all classes,
brigands, robbers, the impoverished masses, and those on the margins of
society who have escaped, been excluded from, or not yet subsumed in the
discipline of emerging industrial work. [...] [I]n short, all those
whom Marx sought to include in the category of the lumpenproletariat".
While both anarchists and Marxists share the same final goal, the creation of a free, egalitarian society without social classes and government, they strongly disagree on how to achieve this goal. Anarchists, especially social anarchists, believe that the classless, stateless society should be established by the direct action of the masses, culminating in social revolution
and refusing any intermediate stage such as the dictatorship of the
proletariat on the basis that such a dictatorship will become a
self-perpetuating fundament. However, libertarian Marxists
argue that Marx used the phrase to mean that the worker control at the
point of production and not a party would still be a state until society
is reorganized according to socialist principles. For Bakunin, the
fundamental contradiction is that for the Marxists "anarchism or freedom
is the aim, while the state and dictatorship is the means, and so, in
order to free the masses, they have first to be enslaved". Ultimately, the main divide between anarchism and Marxism is between decentralisation and centralisation, with anarchists favouring decentralisation and Marxists arguing that due to the Industrial Revolution and later stages of the Industrial Revolution a certain degree of authority and centralisation has become necessary or inevitable.
Anarchists and many non-Marxist libertarian socialists
reject the need for a transitory state phase, claiming that socialism
can only be established through decentralized, non-coercive
organization. The phrases barracks socialism or barracks communism became a shorthand for this critique, evoking the image of citizens' lives being as regimented as the lives of conscripts in a barracks. Ironically, the term barracks communism (Kasernenkommunismus) was coined by Marx himself to refer to a crude, authoritarian, forced collectivism and communism
where all aspects of life are bureaucratically regimented and communal.
Originally, Marx used the expression to criticise the vision of Sergey Nechayev outlined in "The Fundamentals of the Future Social System" which had a major influence on other Russian revolutionaries like Pyotr Tkachev and Vladimir Lenin.The term barracks here does not refer to military barracks, but to the workers' barracks-type primitive dormitories in which industrial workers lived in many places in the Russian Empire of the time. Later, political theorists of the Soviet Union applied this term to China under Mao Zedong. Still later during the Soviet perestroika period, the term was used to apply to the history of the Soviet Union itself.
Noam Chomsky
is critical of Marxism's dogmatic strains and the idea of Marxism
itself, but he still appreciates Marx's contributions to political
thought. Unlike some anarchists, Chomsky does not consider Bolshevism
"Marxism in practice", but he does recognize that Marx was a
complicated figure who had conflicting ideas. While acknowledging the
latent authoritarianism in Marx, Chomsky also points to the libertarian
strains that developed into the council communism of Rosa Luxemburg and Anton Pannekoek. However, his commitment to libertarian socialism has led him to characterize himself as an anarchist with radical Marxist leanings.
As a response to those critiques, libertarian Marxism refers to a broad
scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, known as left communism, emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism and its derivatives such as Stalinism and Maoism, among others. Libertarian Marxism is also often critical of reformist positions, such as those held by social democrats. Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Marx and Friedrich Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France, emphasizing the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party or state to mediate or aid its liberation. Along with anarchism, libertarian Marxism is one of the main currents of libertarian socialism.
