Hedonic treadmill

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

The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. Philip Brickman and Donald T. Campbell coined the term in their essay "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society" (1971). The hedonic treadmill viewpoint suggests that wealth does not increase the level of happiness. Subjective well-being might be largely determined by genetics; that is, happiness may be a heritable trait.

Overview

Hedonic adaptation is a process or mechanism that reduces the affective impact of emotional events. Generally, hedonic adaptation involves a happiness "set point", whereby humans generally maintain a constant level of happiness throughout their lives, despite events that occur in their environment. The process of hedonic adaptation is often conceptualized as a treadmill, since no matter how hard one tries to gain an increase in happiness, one will remain in the same place.

Hedonic adaptation can occur in a variety of ways. Generally, the process involves cognitive changes, such as shifting values, goals, attention and interpretation of a situation. Further, neurochemical processes desensitize overstimulated hedonic pathways in the brain, which possibly prevents persistently high levels of intense positive or negative feelings. The process of adaptation can also occur through the tendency of humans to construct elaborate rationales for considering themselves deprived through a process social theorist Gregg Easterbrook calls "abundance denial".

Major theoretical approaches

Behavioral/psychological approach

"Hedonic treadmill" is a term coined by Brickman and Campbell in their article, "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society" (1971), describing the tendency of people to keep a fairly stable baseline level of happiness despite external events and fluctuations in demographic circumstances. The idea of relative happiness had been around for decades when in 1978 Brickman, et al., began to approach hedonic pleasure within the framework of Helson's adaptation level theory, which holds that perception of stimulation is dependent upon comparison of former stimulations. The hedonic treadmill functions similarly to most adaptations that serve to protect and enhance perception. In the case of hedonics, the sensitization or desensitization to circumstances or environment can redirect motivation. This reorientation functions to protect against complacency, but also to accept unchangeable circumstances, and redirect efforts towards more effective goals. Frederick and Lowenstein classify three types of processes in hedonic adaptation: shifting adaptation levels, desensitization, and sensitization. Shifting adaptation levels occurs when a person experiences a shift in what is perceived as a "neutral" stimulus, but maintains sensitivity to stimulus differences. For example, if Sam gets a raise he will initially be happier, and then habituate to the larger salary and return to his happiness set point. But he will still be pleased when he gets a holiday bonus. Desensitization decreases sensitivity in general, which reduces sensitivity to change. Those who have lived in war zones for extended periods of time may become desensitized to the destruction that happens on a daily basis, and be less affected by the occurrence of serious injuries or losses that may once have been shocking and upsetting. Sensitization is an increase of hedonic response from continuous exposure, such as the increased pleasure and selectivity of connoisseurs for wine, or food.

Brickman, Coates, and Janoff-Bulman were among the first to investigate the hedonic treadmill in their 1978 study, "Lottery Winners and Accident Victims: Is Happiness Relative?". Lottery winners and paraplegics were compared to a control group and as predicted, comparison (with past experiences and current communities) and habituation (to new circumstances) affected levels of happiness such that after the initial impact of the extremely positive or negative events, happiness levels typically went back to the average levels. This interview-based study, while not longitudinal, was the beginning of a now large body of work exploring the relativity of happiness.

Brickman and Campbell originally implied that everyone returns to the same neutral set point after a significantly emotional life event. In the literature review, "Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill, Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being" (2006), Diener, Lucas, and Scollon concluded that people are not hedonically neutral, and that individuals have different set points which are at least partially heritable. They also concluded that individuals may have more than one happiness set point, such as a life satisfaction set point and a subjective well-being set point, and that because of this, one's level of happiness is not just one given set point but can vary within a given range. Diener and colleagues point to longitudinal and cross-sectional research to argue that happiness set point can change, and lastly that individuals vary in the rate and extent of adaptation they exhibit to change in circumstance.

Empirical studies

In a longitudinal study conducted by Mancini, Bonnano, and Clark, people showed individual differences in how they responded to significant life events, such as marriage, divorce and widowhood. They recognized that some individuals do experience substantial changes to their hedonic set point over time, though most others do not, and argue that happiness set point can be relatively stable throughout the course of an individual's life, but the life satisfaction and subjective well-being set points are more variable.

Similarly, the longitudinal study conducted by Fujita and Diener (2005) described the life satisfaction set point as a "soft baseline". This means that for most people, this baseline is similar to their happiness baseline. Typically, life satisfaction will hover around a set point for the majority of their lives and not change dramatically. However, for about a quarter of the population this set point is not stable, and does indeed move in response to a major life event. Other longitudinal data has shown that subjective well-being set points do change over time, and that adaptation is not necessarily inevitable. In his archival data analysis, Lucas found evidence that it is possible for someone's subjective well-being set point to change drastically, such as in the case of individuals who acquire a severe, long term disability. However, as Diener, Lucas, and Scollon point out, the amount of fluctuation a person experiences around their set point is largely dependent on the individual's ability to adapt.

After following over a thousand sets of twins for 10 years, Lykken and Tellegen (1996) concluded that almost 50% of our happiness levels are determined by genetics. Headey and Wearing (1989) suggested that our position on the spectrum of the stable personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience) accounts for how we experience and perceive life events, and indirectly contributes to our happiness levels. Research on happiness has spanned decades and crossed cultures in order to test the true limits of our hedonic set point.

In large panel studies, divorce, death of a spouse, unemployment, disability, and similar events have been shown to change the long-term subjective well-being, even though some adaptation does occur and inborn factors affect this.

In the aforementioned Brickman study (1978), researchers interviewed 22 lottery winners and 29 paraplegics to determine their change in happiness levels due to their given event (winning lottery or becoming paralyzed). The event in the case of lottery winners had taken place between one month and one and a half years before the study, and in the case of paraplegics between a month and a year. The group of lottery winners reported being similarly happy before and after the event, and expected to have a similar level of happiness in a couple of years. These findings show that having a large monetary gain had no effect on their baseline level of happiness, for both present and expected happiness in the future. They found that the paraplegics reported having a higher level of happiness in the past than the rest (due to a nostalgia effect), a lower level of happiness at the time of the study than the rest (although still above the middle point of the scale, that is, they reported being more happy than unhappy) and, surprisingly, they also expected to have similar levels of happiness than the rest in a couple of years. One must note that the paraplegics did have an initial decrease in life happiness, but the key to their findings is that they expected to eventually return to their baseline in time.

In a newer study (2007), winning a medium-sized lottery prize had a lasting mental wellbeing effect of 1.4 GHQ points on Britons even two years after the event.

Some research suggests that resilience to suffering is partly due to a decreased fear response in the amygdala and increased levels of BDNF in the brain. New genetic research have found that changing a gene could increase intelligence and resilience to depressing and traumatizing events. This could have crucial benefits for those suffering from anxiety and PTSD.

Recent research reveals certain types of brain training can increase brain size. The hippocampus volume can affect mood, hedonic setpoints, some forms of memory. A smaller hippocampus has been linked to depression and dysthymia. Certain activities and environmental factors can reset the hedonic setpoint and also grow the hippocampus to an extent. London taxi drivers' hippocampi grow on the job, and the drivers have a better memory than those who didn't become taxi drivers. In particular, the posterior hippocampus seemed to be the most important for enhanced mood and memory.

Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, and Diener (2003) researched changes in baseline level of well-being due to changes in marital status, the birth of first child, and the loss of employment. While they found that a negative life event can have a greater impact on a person's psychological state and happiness set point than a positive event, they concluded that people completely adapt, finally returning to their baseline level of well-being, after divorce, losing a spouse, the birth of a child, and for women losing their job. They did not find a return to baseline for marriage or for layoffs in men. This study also illustrated that the amount of adaptation depends on the individual.

Wildeman, Turney, and Schnittker (2014) studied the effects of imprisonment on one's baseline level of well-being. They researched how being in jail affects one's level of happiness both short term (while in prison) and long term (after being released). They found that being in prison has negative effects on one's baseline well-being; in other words one's baseline of happiness is lower in prison than when not in prison. Once people were released from prison, they were able to bounce back to their previous level of happiness.

Silver (1982) researched the effects of a traumatic accident on one's baseline level of happiness. Silver found that accident victims were able to return to a happiness set point after a period of time. For eight weeks, Silver followed accident victims who had sustained severe spinal cord injuries. About a week after their accident, Silver observed that the victims were experiencing much stronger negative emotions than positive ones. By the eighth and final week, the victims' positive emotions outweighed their negative ones. The results of this study suggest that regardless of whether the life event is significantly negative or positive, people will almost always return to their happiness baseline.

Fujita and Diener (2005) studied the stability of one's level of subjective well-being over time and found that for most people, there is a relatively small range in which their level of satisfaction varies. They asked a panel of 3,608 German residents to rate their current and overall satisfaction with life on a scale of 0-10, once a year for seventeen years. Only 25% of participants exhibited shifts in their level of life satisfaction over the course of the study, with just 9% of participants having experienced significant changes. They also found that those with a higher mean level of life satisfaction had more stable levels of life satisfaction than those with lower levels of satisfaction.

Applications

Happiness set point

The concept of the happiness set point (proposed by Sonja Lyubomirsky) can be applied in clinical psychology to help patients return to their hedonic set point when negative events happen. Determining when someone is mentally distant from their happiness set point and what events trigger those changes can be extremely helpful in treating conditions such as depression. When a change occurs, clinical psychologists work with patients to recover from the depressive spell and return to their hedonic set point more quickly. Because acts of kindness often promote long-term well-being, one treatment method is to provide patients with different altruistic activities that can help a person raise his or her hedonic set point. This can in turn be helpful in reducing reckless habits in the pursuit of well-being. Further, helping patients understand that long-term happiness is relatively stable throughout one's life can help to ease anxiety surrounding impactful events.

Resilience research

Hedonic adaptation is also relevant to resilience research. Resilience is a "class of phenomena characterized by patterns of positive adaptation in the context of significant adversity or risk," meaning that resilience is largely the ability for one to remain at their hedonic setpoint while going through negative experiences. Psychologists have identified various factors that contribute to a person being resilient, such as positive attachment relationships (see Attachment Theory), positive self-perceptions, self-regulatory skills (see Emotional self-regulation), ties to prosocial organizations (see prosocial behavior), and a positive outlook on life.

Critical views

One critical point made regarding humans’ individual set point is to understand it may simply be a genetic tendency and not a completely determined criterion for happiness, and it can still be influenced. In a study on moderate to excessive drug intake on rats, Ahmed and Koob (1998) sought to demonstrate that the use of mind-altering drugs such as cocaine could change an individual's hedonic set point. Their findings suggest that drug usage and addiction lead to neurochemical adaptations whereby a person needs more of that substance to feel the same levels of pleasure. Thus, drug abuse can have lasting impacts on one's hedonic set point, both in terms of overall happiness and with regard to pleasure felt from drug usage.

Genetic roots of the hedonic set point are also disputed. Sosis (2014) has argued the "hedonic treadmill" interpretation of twin studies depends on dubious assumptions. Pairs of identical twins raised apart aren't necessarily raised in substantially different environments. The similarities between twins (such as intelligence or beauty) may invoke similar reactions from the environment. Thus, we might see a notable similarity in happiness levels between twins even though there aren't happiness genes governing affect levels.

Further, hedonic adaptation may be a more common phenomenon when dealing with positive events as opposed to negative ones. Negativity bias, where people tend to focus more on negative emotions than positive emotions, can be an obstacle in raising one's happiness set point. Negative emotions often require more attention and are generally remembered better, overshadowing any positive experiences that may even outnumber negative experiences. Given that negative events hold more psychological power than positive ones, it may be difficult to create lasting positive change.

Headey (2008) concluded that an internal locus of control and having "positive" personality traits (notably low neuroticism) are the two most significant factors affecting one's subjective well-being. Headey also found that adopting "non-zero sum" goals, those which enrich one's relationships with others and with society as a whole (i.e. family-oriented and altruistic goals), increase the level of subjective well-being. Conversely, attaching importance to zero-sum life goals (career success, wealth, and social status) will have a small but nevertheless statistically significant negative impact on people's overall subjective well-being (even though the size of a household's disposable income does have a small, positive impact on subjective well-being). Duration of one's education seems to have no direct bearing on life satisfaction. And, contradicting set point theory, Headey found no return to homeostasis after sustaining a disability or developing a chronic illness. These disabling events are permanent, and thus according to cognitive model of depression, may contribute to depressive thoughts and increase neuroticism (another factor found by Headey to diminish subjective well-being). Disability appears to be the single most important factor affecting human subjective well-being. The impact of disability on subjective well-being is almost twice as large as that of the second strongest factor affecting life satisfaction—the personality trait of neuroticism.

Economic ideology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

 

An economic ideology is a set of views forming the basis of an ideology on how the economy should run. It differentiates itself from economic theory in being normative rather than just explanatory in its approach, whereas the aim of economic theories is to create accurate explanatory models to describe how an economy currently functions. However, the two are closely interrelated, as underlying economic ideology influences the methodology and theory employed in analysis. The diverse ideology and methodology of the 74 Nobel laureates in economics speaks to such interrelation.

A good way of discerning whether an ideology can be classified an economic ideology is to ask if it inherently takes a specific and detailed economic standpoint.

Furthermore, economic ideology is distinct from an economic system that it supports, such as capitalism, to the extent that explaining an economic system (positive economics) is distinct from advocating it (normative economics). The theory of economic ideology explains its occurrence, evolution, and relation to an economy.

Examples

Capitalism

Capitalism is a broad economic system where the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned and operated for profit, where the allocation of capital goods is determined by capital markets and financial markets.

There are several implementations of capitalism that are loosely based around how much government involvement or public enterprise exists. The main ones that exist today are mixed economies, where the state intervenes in market activity and provides some services; laissez faire, where the state only supplies a court, a military, and police; and state capitalism, where the state engages in commercial business activity itself.

Laissez-faire

Laissez-faire, or free market capitalism, is an ideology that prescribes minimal public enterprise and government regulation in a capitalist economy. This ideology advocates for a type of capitalism based on open competition to determine the price, production and consumption of goods through the invisible hand of supply and demand reaching efficient market equilibrium. In such a system, capital, property and enterprise are entirely privately owned and new enterprises may freely gain market entry without restriction. Employment and wages are determined by a labour market that will result in some unemployment. Government and judicial intervention are employed at times to change the economic incentives for people for various reasons. The capitalist economy will likely follow economic growth along with a steady business cycle.

Social market

The social market economy (also known as Rhine capitalism) is advocated by the ideology of ordoliberalism and social liberalism. This ideology supports a free-market economy where supply and demand determine the price of goods and services, and where markets are free from regulation. However, this economic calls for state action in the form of social policy favoring social insurance, unemployment benefits and recognition of labor rights.

Social democracy

Social Democracy is an ideology that prescribes high public enterprise and government regulation in a capitalist economy. It espouses state regulation (rather than state ownership of the means of production) and extensive social welfare programs. Social democracy became associated with Keynesianism, the Nordic model, the social liberal paradigm and welfare states within political circles in the late 20th century.

Casino capitalism

Casino capitalism is the high risk-taking and financial instability associated with financial institutions becoming very large and mostly self-regulated, while also taking on high-risk financial investment dealings. This has been a driving motive by investors in the quest for profits without production; it provides a speculation aspect that offers prospects for a quicker and more speculator returns for people, wealth, and inside assumptions of the factors likely to affect asset price movements. Typically, this does not add to the collective wealth of an economy, as it can instead create economic instability. Casino capitalism falls alongside the idea of a speculation-based economy where entrepreneurial activities turn to more paper games of speculative trading than actually producing economic goods and services.

It is believed by people such as economists Frank Stilwell that casino capitalism was one of the leading causes of the global financial crisis in 2008. Investors sought out a get-rich-quick motive they found through speculative activities that offered a particular individual gain or loss depending on the assets’ future movements. Other economists like Hans-Werner Sinn, have written books on casino capitalism with commentary outside the Anglo-Saxon bubble.

Neo-capitalism

Neo-capitalism is an economic ideology that blends elements of capitalism with other systems and emphasizes government intervention in the economy to save and reconstruct companies that are deemed a risk to the nation. The ideology's prime years are considered by some economists to be the 10 years leading up to 1964 after the Great Depression and World War II. After World War II, countries were destroyed and needed to rebuild and since capitalism thrives in industrializing countries. These countries most affected by the war saw a growth in capitalism. Neo-capitalism differs from regular capitalism in that while capitalism highlights private owners, Neo-capitalism emphasizes the role of the state in sustaining the country as a provider and a producer and condemns private companies for lacking in their role as a provider and producer for their country.

Critics of neo-capitalism claim that it tends to suppress the reserve army of labor which may lead to full employment, as this can undermine one of the main basics that make capitalism work. Other critics state that if neo-capitalism was put into place, it would become immediately corrupt.

Fascism

Fascism as an economic system promotes the pursuit of individual profit while promoting corporations through government subsidies as the primary tool of economic progress as long as their activities are in line with the goals of the state. In fascist economies, profits or gains are individualized while losses are socialized; these economies are often compared to the third way due to being heavily corporatized. Fascist economies of the mid 20th century such as Italy and Germany often used bilateral trade agreements, with heavy tariffs on imports and government subsidized exports to developing nations around the world. While economically fascism is oriented towards self-sufficiency, politically fascist countries of the mid-20th century were oriented to war and expansion; two seemingly contradictory motives. The goals of fascist nations was to create a closed economic system which is self-reliant, but is also ready and prepared to engage in war and territorial expansion. Fascist economies can then be seen as state capitalist.

Socialism

Socialism is any of the various ideologies of economic organization based on some form of social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the allocation of resources. Socialist systems can be distinguished by the dominant coordination mechanism employed (economic planning or markets) and by the type of ownership employed (Public ownership or cooperatives).

In some models of socialism (often called market socialism), the state approves of the prices and products produced in the economy, subjecting the market system to direct external regulations. Alternatively, the state may produce the goods but then sell them in competitive markets.

Democratic socialism

Democratic socialism (sometimes referred to as economic democracy) is an economic ideology that calls for democratic institutions in the economy. These may take the form of cooperatives, workplace democracy or ad hoc approach to the management and ownership of the means of production. Democratic Socialism is a blending of socialistic and democratic ideas to create a political and economic Structure.

Marxism–Leninism

Marxism–Leninism is a political ideology that calls for centralized planning of the economy. This ideology formed the economic basis of all existing Communist states.

Socialist doctrines essentially promote the collectivist idea that an economy's resources should be used in the interest of all participants, and not simply for private gain. This ideology historically opposed the market economy, and tended to favor central planning.

Communism

As Friedrich Engels described it (in Anti-Dühring), communism is the evolved result of socialism so that the central role of the state has 'withered away' and is no longer necessary for the functioning of a planned economy. All property and capital are collectively owned and managed in a communal, classless and egalitarian society. Currency is no longer needed, and all economic activity, enterprise, labour, production and consumption is freely exchanged "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

Communism is also a political system as much an economic one—with various models in how it is implemented—the well known being the Marxist Leninist model, which argues for the use of a vanguard party to bring about a workers state to be used as a transitional tool to bring about stateless communism, the economic arrangement described above. Other models to bring about communism include anarcho-communism, which argues similarly to Marxist schools for a revolutionary transformation to the above economic arrangement, but does not use a transitional period or vanguard party.

Anarcho-primitivism

Anarcho-primitivism strives to return humans to a pre-industrialized and pre-civilization state. From an economic standpoint, advocates of this model argue the non-necessity of economic systems for human existence. Proponents of this ideology believe that the entire history of human civilization took a wrong turn from hunter-gatherer systems into an agricultural system and has led to human dependence on technology to support increasing populations, government control, and culture. Population growth and the institutions created to support and control it are exploitative of not only humans but also the environment. They argue that the more people live in a society, the more resources they will need. These resources must be taken from the Earth and therefore lead to environmental exploitation. However, they claim that materialist exploitation can be seen throughout almost every society in the world today. This materialism creates inequalities and exploitation such as class structure, the exploitation of humans in the name of labor and profit, and most importantly environmental destruction and deterioration. This exploitation has led to the increase in human population growth, activity, and development which they argue is destroying the Earth's ecosystems. They emphasize coexisting with the natural world instead of destroying it, "a world order on our planet where human civilization is brought into harmony with nature".

They differ from other anarchist and green ideologies by opposing technological and industrial advancement as it further propagates the exploitation of humans. "Technology is not a simple tool which can be used in any way we like. It is a form of social organization, a set of social relations. It has its own laws. If we are to engage in its use, we must accept its authority. The enormous size, complex interconnections and stratification of tasks which make up modern technological systems make authoritarian command necessary and independent, individual decision-making impossible." Anarcho-primitivists seek to revert the economic and government institutions of civilization which they argue are authoritarian, exploitative, and abstract and return humanity to a way of living which is harmonious with the natural world in which technology used mostly individually to create tools for survival much like in primitive cultures and tribes where they argue there is little need for abstract things such as an economy or government.

 

Social anarchism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

 

This article is about the branch of anarchism emphasizing communal individuality, a commons or cooperatives-based economy and mutual aid. For the anarchist and libertarian political philosophy within the socialist movement, see Libertarian socialism. For the journal, see Social Anarchism (journal).

 

Social anarchism is the branch of anarchism that sees individual freedom as interrelated with mutual aid. Social anarchist thought emphasizes community and social equality as complementary to autonomy and personal freedom. It attempts to accomplish this balance through freedom of speech, which is maintained in a decentralized federalism, with freedom of interaction in thought and subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is best defined as "that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry" and that "[f]or every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them", or the slogan "Do not take tools out of people's hands".

Social anarchism has been the dominant form of anarchism. As a label or term, social anarchism is used in contrast to individualist anarchism to describe the theory that places an emphasis on the communitarian and cooperative aspects in anarchist theory while also opposing authoritarian forms of communitarianism associated with groupthink and collective conformity, favoring a reconciliation between individuality and sociality. Self-determination, worker's self-management, education and empowerment are all emphasized in social anarchism, while illegitimate authority is removed through inspection and vigilance. A do-it-yourself mentality is combined with educational efforts within the social realm. Social anarchism advocates the conversion and use of a portion of present-day and future productive private property to be made into social property that can be used as an alternative to capitalist production and exploitative wage labor. Social anarchist thought advocates social property to offer individual empowerment through easier access to tools and a sharing of the commons while retaining respect for personal property.

Social anarchism is considered an umbrella term that mainly refers to the post-capitalist economic models of anarcho-communism, collectivist anarchism and sometimes mutualism. It can also include non-state controlled federated guild socialist, dual power industrial democracy and economic democracy, or federated worker cooperatives and workers' and consumers' councils replacing much of the present state system whilst retaining basic rights. In addition, it includes the trade union approach of anarcho-syndicalism, the social struggle strategies of platformism and specifism and the environmental philosophy of social ecology. As a term, social anarchism overlaps with libertarianism, libertarian socialism and left-libertarianism, emerging in the late 19th century as a distinction from individualist anarchism after anarcho-communism replaced collectivist anarchism as the dominant tendency.

Social anarchism has been described as the collectivist or socialist wing of anarchism as well as representing socialist-aligned forms of anarchism, being contrasted with the liberal-socialist wing represented by individualist anarchism. Nonetheless, several of those collectivist or communist anarchists have supported their theories on radical individualist grounds, seeing collectivism or communism as the best social system for the realization of individual freedom. The very idea of an individualist–socialist divide is also contested as individualist anarchism is largely socialistic and influenced each other. Carl Landauer summarized the difference between individualist and social anarchists by stating that "the communist anarchists also do not acknowledge any right to society to force the individual. They differ from the anarchistic individualists in their belief that men, if freed from coercion, will enter into voluntary associations of a communistic type, while the other wing believes that the free person will prefer a high degree of isolation".

Overview

Anarchist socialism, anarcho-socialism and socialist anarchism are terms used to refer to social anarchism, but this is rejected by most anarchists since they generally consider themselves socialists of the libertarian tradition and are seen as unnecessary and confusing when not used as synonymous for libertarian or stateless socialism vis-à-vis authoritarian or state socialism. Anarchism has been historically identified with the socialist and anti-capitalist movement, with the main divide being between anti-market anarchists who support some form of decentralized economic planning and pro-market anarchists who support anti-capitalist market socialism. Those terms are mainly used by anarcho-capitalism theorists and scholars who recognize anarcho-capitalism to differentiate between the two. For similar reasons, anarchists also reject categorizations such as left anarchism and right anarchism (anarcho-capitalism), seeing anarchism as a radical left-wing or far-left ideology.

While some anarcho-capitalist theorists and scholars divide anarchism into the mutually exclusive individualist anarchism (capitalism) and social anarchism (socialism), anarchist theorists and scholars reject this. Anarchists do not see such a struggle between individualist anarchism and social anarchism which are seen as complementary rather than mutually exclusive, with their differences mainly being based on the means to attain anarchy rather than on their ends. Several anarchists argued that the struggle within anarchism is not between socialists and capitalists, but rather between anarchists and non-anarchists.

Anti-capitalism is considered a necessary element of anarchism by most anarchists. Arguing against some anarcho-capitalist theorists and scholars who see individualist anarchism as pro-capitalist, anarchists and scholars have put it in the socialist camp, meaning anti-statist and libertarian socialism. In addition, anarcho-communists regard themselves as radical individualists, seeing anarcho-communism as the best social system for the realization of individual freedom. Anarchism is an individualist philosophy that oppose all forms of authoritarian collectivism, but one which does see the individual and the community as complementary rather than mutually exclusive, with anarcho-communism and social anarchism in particular most rejecting the individualist–collectivist dichotomy. Notwithstanding the name, collectivist anarchism is seen as a blend of individualism and collectivism. In the United States, social anarchism may refer to Murray Bookchin's circle and its omonymous journal.

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, rather than seeing the two categories as mutually exclusive or as socialist vis-à-vis capitalism. The former focuses on the social aspect and tends to be more organisational as well as supporting decentralised economic planning while the latter focuses on the individual aspect and tends to be more anti-organisational as well as supporting free-market forms of socialism or no specific forms of anarchist economics. This led to anarchism without adjectives. The mutualist theory of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is seen as the middle or third category between social anarchism and individualist anarchism, although it is often considered part of social anarchism and sometimes part of individualist anarchism. Proudhon spoke of social individualism and described the mutualism and the freedom it pursued as the synthesis between communism and property.

Social anarchism sees "individual freedom as conceptually connected with social equality and emphasize community and mutual aid". It rejects private property, seeing it as a source of social inequality, positing instead a future society in which private property does not exist and is replaced by reciprocity and egalitarian society. As a term, social anarchism is used to describe tendencies within anarchism that have an emphasis on the communitarian and cooperative aspects of anarchist theory and practice, aiming for the "free association of people living together and cooperating in free communities". Bookchin identifies social anarchism with the left, by which he refers to the "great tradition of human solidarity and a belief in the potentiality for humanness, [...] the internationalism and confederalism, the democratic spirit, antimilitarism, and the rational secularism".

Historical currents

See also: History of anarchism

Social anarchism emphasizes mutual aid, social ownership and workers' self-management. Social anarchism has been the dominant form of classical anarchism and includes the major collectivist, communist and syndicalist schools of anarchist thought. Mutualism is also sometimes included within this social anarchism tradition, although it is mainly advocated by individualist anarchists.

The social ownership advocated by social anarchists can come through collective ownership as with Bakuninists and collectivist anarchists; common ownership as with communist anarchists; and cooperative ownership as with mutualist and syndicalist anarchists.

It has come in both peaceful and insurrectionary as well as anti-organizationalist and platformist tendencies. It operates heavily within labour syndicates, trade unions and workers' movements, emphasizing the liberation of workers through class struggle.

Mutualism

Main article: Mutualism (economic theory)

 

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Mutualism emerged from early 19th century socialism and is generally considered a market-oriented strand within the libertarian socialist tradition. Originally developed by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, mutualism typically accepts property rights, but with brief abandonment time periods. In a community in which mutuality property rules were upheld, a landowner would need to make continuous use of the land. If failing to do so, the ownership rights would be extinguished and the land could be homesteaded by someone else. A mutualist property regime is often described as one rooted in possession, occupancy-and-use, or usufruct.

Already in 1840, with the publication of What Is Property?, Proudhon supported industrial democracy, preaching "emancipation to the proletaires; association to the labourers" and that leaders within industry "must be chosen from the labourers by the labourers themselves". In his manifesto for the 1848 French Constituent Assembly election, Proudhon called for "democratically organised workers' associations" to run large-scale industry.

Mutualism is also associated with the economic views of 19th century American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker and William Batchelder Greene. For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster, "[i]t is apparent [...] that Proudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism of Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews. [...] William B. Greene presented this Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most systematic form". Today, Kevin Carson is a contemporary mutualist and author of Studies in Mutualist Political Economy who describes this work as "an attempt to revive individualist anarchist political economy, to incorporate the useful developments of the last hundred years, and to make it relevant to the problems of the twenty-first century".

Murray Bookchin, a prominent social anarchist, has held different views regarding Proudhon and mutualism, ranging from describing Proudhon as an "artisanal socialist" to excluding him from the socialist camp. According to Bookchin, "Proudhon envisions a free society as one in which small craftsmen, peasants, and collectively owned industrial enterprises negotiate and contract with each other to satisfy their material needs. Exploitation is brought to an end. [...] Although these views involve a break with capitalism, by no means can they be regarded as communist ideas". According to the authors of An Anarchist FAQ, "[i]t is significant that the first work to call itself anarchist opposed property along with the state, exploitation along with oppression and supported self-management against hierarchical relationships within production". Iain McKay reports that Proudhon's socialism was a form of "'artisanal socialism' (as Marx and Engels recongised). Indeed, [Bookchin] notes that Proudhon was its 'most famous advocate' and that 'nearly all so-called 'utopian' socialists, even [Robert] Owen — the most labour-orientated — as well as Proudhon — essentially sought the equitable distribution of property'".

In the second volume of The Third Revolution, Bookchin argued that "'Proudhon was no socialist' simply because he favoured 'private property.' [...] However, he does note the 'one moral provision [that] distinguished the Proudhonist contract from the capitalist contract' namely 'it abjured profit and exploitation'". The writers of An Anarchist FAQ argue that Bookchin was wrong in excluding Proudhon and mutualism from the socialist and social anarchist camp, concluding that "[g]iven Proudhon's opposition to wage labour and capitalist property and his support for industrial democracy as an alternative, Bookchin's position is untenable — he confuses socialism with communism, rejecting as socialist all views which are not communism (a position he shares with right-libertarians)".

Collectivist anarchism

Main article: Collectivist anarchism

 

Mikhail Bakunin

Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionary form of anarchism commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin and James Guillaume. It is a specific tendency, not to be confused with the broad category sometimes called collectivist or communitarian anarchism.

The tendency emerged from the most radical wing of mutualism during the late 1860s. Unlike mutualists, collectivist anarchists oppose all private ownership of the means of production, instead advocating that ownership be collectivized, being made the joint property of the commune (municipality). This was to be achieved through violent revolution, first starting with a small cohesive group through acts of armed insurrection, or propaganda by the deed, which would inspire the workers and peasants as a whole to revolt and forcibly collectivize the means of production.

Collectivization was not to be extended to the distribution of income as workers would be paid according to time worked, rather than receiving goods being distributed "according to need" as in anarcho-communism. This position was criticised by later anarcho-communists as effectively "uphold[ing] the wages system". While individualist anarchists advocate free-markets and mutualist property rights, seeing state interventions as distorting free competition, collectivist anarchists see such interventions as "merely prop up" for a "system of class exploitation", giving capitalism "a human face".

Anarcho-communist and collectivist ideas were not mutually exclusive. Although the collectivist anarchists advocated compensation for labor, some held out the possibility of a post-revolutionary transition to a communist system of distribution according to need, claiming that this would become more feasible once technology and productivity had evolved to a point where "production outstrips consumption" in a relative sense. Collectivist anarchism arose contemporaneously with Marxism, but it opposed the Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat despite the stated Marxist goal of a collectivist stateless society.

Anarcho-communism

Main article: Anarcho-communism

 

Peter Kropotkin

Anarcho-communism is a theory of anarchism that advocates the abolition of the state, markets, money, capitalism and private property. Politically, anarcho-communists advocate replacing the nation-state and representative government with a voluntary confederation of free communes (self-governing municipalities), with the commune replacing the nation as the core unit of social-political administration. Economically, anarcho-communists believe in converting private property into the commons or public goods while retaining respect for personal property. In practice, this means common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy with production organised through a horizontal network of voluntary associations and consumption based on the guiding principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". 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 realization of individual freedom. Most anarcho-communists view anarcho-communism as a way of reconciling the opposition between the individual and society.

The ideas associated with anarcho-communism developed out of radical socialist currents after the French Revolution, but it was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International. The theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin, who believed that in anarchy workers would spontaneously self-organize to produce goods for all of society, took importance later as it expanded and developed pro-organizationalist and insurrectionary anti-organizationalist sections. In terms of its vision for a post-capitalist economy, it differs from anarcho-syndicalism in seeing the centre of political-economic organisation as the commune, rather than the workplace, with economic issues being administered primarily on a communal (territorial), rather than unionist (industrial), basis. Although most anarcho-syndicalists agree with the communist method of distribution—"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"—they disagree with the commune-based method of organising production and structuring society, making them communists in one sense, but not the other. To date, the best known examples of an anarcho-communist society (i.e. established around the ideas as they exist today and achieving worldwide attention and knowledge in the historical canon) are the Free Territory during the Russian Revolution, the Korean People's Association in Manchuria and the anarchist territories during the Spanish Revolution

During the Russian Revolution, anarchists such as Nestor Makhno worked through the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine to create and defend anarcho-communism in the Free Territory of Ukraine from 1919 before being conquered by the Bolsheviks in 1921 during the Russian and Ukrainian civil wars. In 1929, anarcho-communism was achieved in Korea by the Korean Anarchist Federation in Manchuria (KAFM) and the Korean Anarcho-Communist Federation (KACF), with help from anarchist general and independence activist Kim Chwa-chin, lasting until 1931, when Imperial Japan assassinated Kim and invaded from the south while the Chinese Nationalists invaded from the north, resulting in the creation of Manchukuo, a puppet state of the Empire of Japan. Through the efforts and influence of the Spanish anarchists during the Spanish Revolution within the Spanish Civil War starting in 1936, anarcho-communism existed in most of Aragon, parts of Andalusia and the Levante and Andalusia as well as in the stronghold of anarchist Catalonia before being crushed by the combined forces of the regime that won the war, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini as well as Spanish Communist Party repression backed by the Soviet Union and economic and armaments blockades from the capitalist countries and the Spanish Republic itself.

Anarcho-syndicalism

Main article: Anarcho-syndicalism

See also: Syndicalism

In the late 19th and early 20th century, revolutionary syndicalism emerged as a form of radical trade union activism, sharing a close relationship with social anarchists of both the collectivist and communist tendencies. In the early 1920s, anarcho-syndicalism arose as a distinct school of thought within anarchism.

With greater focus on the labour movement than previous forms of anarchism, syndicalism posits radical trade unions as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society, democratically self-managed by the workers. Like anarcho-communists, anarcho-syndicalists seek to abolish the wage system and private ownership of the means of production, which they believe lead to class divisions. Important principles include workers' solidarity, direct action (such as general strikes and workplace recuperations) and workers' self-management of enterprises and the economy as a whole.

In terms of post-capitalist vision, anarcho-syndicalists most often subscribe to communist or collectivist anarchist economic systems on the issue of distributing goods. The aim is to use a radical trade union movement to achieve either a collectivist or communist (moneyless) mode of distribution; or first the former and then the latter, once a certain degree of technical-productive capacity has enabled production to outstrip consumption, making a moneyless economy more viable. However, anarcho-syndicalists differ from anarcho-communists on wanting federations of (trade-based) workers' syndicates as the locus of organising the economy, rather than confederations of (territory-based) free communes. Its advocates propose labour organization as a means to create the foundations of a trade union centered anarchist society within the current system and bring about social revolution. An early leading anarcho-syndicalist thinker was Rudolf Rocker, whose 1938 pamphlet Anarcho-Syndicalism outlined a view of the movement's origin, aims and importance to the future of labour.

Although more often associated with labor struggles of the early 20th century (particularly in France and Spain), many syndicalist organizations are active today, united across national borders by membership in the International Workers' Association, including the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden in Sweden, the Italian Syndicalist Union in Italy, the National Confederation of Labour and the General Confederation of Labour in Spain, the Workers Solidarity Movement of Ireland and the Industrial Workers of the World in the United States.

Platformism and specifism

Main articles: Platformism and Specifism

Platformism is a tendency or organized school of thought within the anarcho-communist movement which stresses the need for tightly organized anarchist organizations that are able to influence working class and peasant movements to achieve anarcho-communism. It is in many ways identical to specifism (especifismo) and has an antecedent in the work of Mikhail Bakunin, advocating a strategy of "organisational dualism" which entails: (1) building specifically anarchist organisations with a general agreement on ideas and practices; and (2) anarchists working within broader popular organisations and movements that aren't specifically anarchist, hoping to maintain theoretical consistency as well as pushing popular movements in a more anarchistic direction from within.

Platformist/specifist groups reject the model of Leninist vanguardism. They instead aim to "make anarchist ideas the leading ideas within the class struggle" while also opposing the anarcho-syndicalist tendency of seeing the class struggle and anarchist struggle as synonymous; holding that non-union political organisations are a necessary part of achieving anarchist ends. According to the Organisational Platform for a General Union of Anarchists, the four main principles by which an anarchist-communist organisation should operate are the following:

• Ideological unity: a general agreement on anarchist theoretical issues.
• Tactical unity: a general agreement on strategy and tactics for achieving anarchist ends.
• Collective responsibility: a coherence between actions of members and actions of the organisation.
• Federalism: the autonomy of individual chapters within the organisation.

In general, these groups aim to win the widest possible influence for anarcho-communist ideas and methods in the working class and peasantry (the popular classes), oriented towards "ordinary" people, rather than to the extreme left milieu. This usually entails a willingness to work in single-issue campaigns, trade unionism and community groups and to fight for immediate reforms while linking this to a project of building popular consciousness and organisation. They therefore reject approaches that they believe will prevent this, such as insurrectionist anarchism, as well as "views that dismiss activity in the unions" or that dismiss anti-imperialist movements.

The name platformist derives from the 1926 Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft). It was published by the Group of Russian Anarchists Abroad in their journal Dielo Truda (Workers' Cause). This group, consisting of exiled Russian anarchist veterans of the October Revolution of 1917 (notably Nestor Makhno who played a leading role in the anarchist revolution in the Ukraine of 1918–1921), based the Platform on their experiences of the revolution and the eventual victory of the Bolsheviks over the anarchists and other groups. The Platform attempted to address and explain the anarchist movement's failures during the Russian Revolution outside of the Ukraine.

The document drew both praise and criticism from anarchists worldwide and sparked a major debate within the anarchist movement. Today, platformism is an important current in international anarchism. Around thirty platformist and specifist organisations are linked together in the Anarkismo.net project, including groups from Africa, Latin America, North America and Europe. Further theoretical developments of platformism/specifism include the Manifesto of Libertarian Communism (1953) by Georges Fontenis and Social Anarchism and Organisation (2008) by FARJ (Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro).

Contemporary currents

More recent political tendencies which emerged from social anarchism are the post-capitalist economic models of inclusive democracy and participatory economics (both of which could be regarded as updated forms of the collectivist anarchism of Bakunin) as well as the environmental philosophy of social ecology and its associated politics of post-scarcity anarchism and Communalism.

Inclusive Democracy

Main article: Inclusive Democracy

Inclusive Democracy is a political theory and political project that aim for direct democracy, economic democracy in a stateless, moneyless and marketless economy, self-management (democracy in the social realm) and ecological democracy. The theoretical project of Inclusive Democracy (ID; as distinguished from the political project that is part of the democratic and autonomy traditions) emerged from the work of political philosopher, former academic and activist Takis Fotopoulos in Towards An Inclusive Democracy and was further developed by him and other writers in the journal Democracy & Nature and its successor The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy, an electronic journal freely available and published by the International Network for Inclusive Democracy.

According to Arran Gare, Towards an Inclusive Democracy "offers a powerful new interpretation of the history and destructive dynamics of the market and provides an inspiring new vision of the future in place of both neo-liberalism and existing forms of socialism". As David Freeman points out, although Fotopoulos' approach "is not openly anarchism, yet anarchism seems the formal category within which he works, given his commitment to direct democracy, municipalism and abolition of state, money and market economy".

Participism

Main article: Participism

 

Michael Albert

Participism is a 21st-century form of libertarian socialism which comprises two related economic and political systems called participatory economics or parecon and participatory politics or parpolity.

Parecon is an economic system proposed primarily by activist and political theorist Michael Albert and radical economist Robin Hahnel, among others. It uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the production, consumption and allocation of resources in a given society. Proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalist market economies and also an alternative to centrally planned socialism or coordinatorism, it is described as "an anarchistic economic vision" and it could be considered a form of socialism as under parecon, the means of production are owned by the workers. The underlying values that Parecon seeks to implement are equity, solidarity, diversity, workers' self-management and efficiency (efficiency here means accomplishing goals without wasting valued assets). It proposes to attain these ends mainly through the following principles and institutions: workers' and consumers' councils utilizing self-managerial methods for decision making, balanced job complexes, remuneration according to effort and sacrifice and participatory planning. Under parecon, the current monetary system would be replaced with a system of non-transferable credit which would cease to exist upon purchase of a commodity.

Parpolity is a theoretical political system proposed by Stephen R. Shalom. It was developed as a political vision to accompany Parecon. The values on which parpolity is based are freedom, self-management, justice, solidarity and tolerance. According to Shalom, the goal is to create a political system that will allow people to participate as much as possible in a face to face manner. Participism as a whole is critical of aspects of modern representative democracies and capitalism arguing that the level of political control by the people is not sufficient. To address this problem, parpolity suggests a system of nested councils which would include every adult member of a given society. With five levels of nested councils it is thought, could represent the population of the United States.

Under participism, the state as such would dissolve into a mere coordinating body made up of delegates, who would be recallable at any time by the nested council below them.

Social ecology and communalism

Main articles: Communalism and Social ecology

 

Murray Bookchin

Social ecology is closely related to the work and ideas of Murray Bookchin and influenced by anarchist Peter Kropotkin. Social ecologists assert that the present ecological crisis has its roots in human social problems and that the domination of human-over-nature stems from the domination of human-over-human.

Bookchin later developed a political philosophy to complement social ecology that he called communalism. While originally conceived as a form of social anarchism, he later developed communalism into a separate ideology that incorporates what he saw as the most beneficial elements of anarchism, Marxism, syndicalism and radical ecology.

Politically, communalists advocate a network of directly democratic citizens' assemblies in individual communities/cities organized in a confederal fashion. This method used to achieve this is called libertarian municipalism which involves the establishment of face-to-face democratic institutions that are to grow and expand confederally with the goal of eventually replacing the nation state. Unlike anarchists, communalists are not opposed to taking part in parliamentary politics—especially municipal elections—as long as candidates are libertarian socialist and anti-statist in outlook.

Economically, communalism favours the abolition of markets and money and the transition to an economy similar to libertarian communism and according to the principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to needs".