Post-capitalism is a hypothetical state in which the economic systems of the world can no longer be described as forms of capitalism. Various individuals and political ideologies have speculated on what would define such a world. According to classical Marxist and social evolutionary theories, post-capitalist societies may come about as a result of spontaneous evolution as capitalism becomes obsolete. Others propose models to intentionally replace capitalism, most notably socialism, communism, anarchism, nationalism and degrowth.
In 1993, Peter Drucker outlined a possible evolution of capitalistic society in his book Post-Capitalist Society.
The book states that knowledge, rather than capital, land, or labor, is
the new basis of wealth. The classes of a fully post-capitalist society
are expected to be divided into knowledge workers or service workers,
in contrast to the capitalists and proletarians
of a capitalist society. In the book, Drucker estimated the
transformation to post-capitalism would be completed in 2010–2020.
Drucker also argued for rethinking the concept of intellectual property
by creating a universal licensing system.
Consumers would subscribe for a cost, and producers would assume that
everything is reproduced and freely distributed through social networks.
In 2015, according to Paul Mason,
the rise of income inequality, repeating cycles of boom, and bust and
capitalism's contributions to climate change led economists, political
thinkers and philosophers to begin to seriously consider how a
post-capitalistic society would look and function. Post-capitalism is
expected to be made possible with further advances in automation and information technology – both of which are effectively causing production costs to trend toward zero.
Nick Srnicek
and Alex Williams identify a crisis in capitalism's ability and
willingness to employ all members of society, arguing that "there is a
growing population of people that are situated outside formal, waged
work, making do with minimal welfare benefits, informal subsistence
work, or by illegal means".
Christian Anarchism
is an ideology and social movement that highlights the inherent
anarchist values in Christianity and how those values can be used to
construct a non-capitalist society, particularly as described by Leo Tolstoy in his analysis of the Sermon on the Mount and in his treatise The Kingdom of God is Within You.
Heritage check system, a socioeconomic plan that retains a market economy, but removes fractional reserve lending power
from banks and limits government printing of money to offset deflation
with money printed being used to buy materials to back the currency, pay
for government programs in lieu of taxes, with the remainder to be
split evenly among all citizens to stimulate the economy (termed a
"heritage check" for which the system is named). As presented by the
original author of the idea, Robert Heinlein, in his book For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs,
the system would be self-reinforcing and eventually result in a regular
heritage checks able to provide a modest living for most citizens.
Economic democracy
Economic democracy is a socioeconomicphilosophy that establishes democratic control of firms by their workers and social control of investment by a network of public banks.
The participatory economy focuses on the participation of all
citizens through the creation of worker councils and consumer councils.
Hahnel emphasizes the direct participation of worker and consumers
rather than appointing representatives. The councils are concerned with
large-scale issues of production and consumption and are broken into
various bodies tasked with researching future development projects.
In a participatory economy, economic rewards would be offered
according to need, the amount of which would be determined
democratically by the workers council. Hahnel also calls for "economic
justice" by rewarding people for their effort and diligence rather than
accomplishments or prior ownership. A worker's effort is to be
determined by their co-workers. Consumption rights are then rewarded
according to the effort ratings. The worker has the choice to decide
what they consume using their consumption rights. Hahnel does not
address the idea of money, currency, or how consumption rights would be
tracked.
Planning in a participatory economy is done through the councils.
The process is horizontal across the committees as opposed to vertical.
All council members, the workers and consumers, participate directly in
planning unlike in Soviet-type economies and other democratic planning
proposals in which planning is done by representatives. Planning is an
iterative procedure, always being changed and improved upon, that is
accomplished at the level of either work or consumption. All information
and proposals are freely available to everyone, those inside and
outside of the council, so that the social cost of each proposal can be
determined and voted on. Long-term plans such as structuring public
transportation, residential zones and recreational areas, are to be
proposed by delegates and approved by direct democracy (i.e. voting by the population).
Hahnel argues that a participatory economy will return empathy to
our purchasing choices. Capitalism removes the knowledge of how and by
whom a product was made: "When we eat a salad the market systematically
deletes information about the migrant workers who picked it".
By removing the human element from goods, consumers only consider their
own satisfaction and need when consuming products. Introducing worker
and consumer councils would reintroduce the knowledge of where, how and
by whom products were manufactured. A participatory economy is expected
to also introduce more socially oriented goods, such as parks, clean
air, and public health care, through the interaction of the two
councils.
For those that call the participatory economy utopian, Albert and Hahnel counter:
Are
we being utopian? It is utopian to expect more from a system than it
can possibly deliver. To expect equality and justice—or even
rationality—from capitalism is utopian. To expect social solidarity from
markets, or self-management from central planning, is equally utopian.
To argue that competition can yield empathy or that authoritarianism can
promote initiative or that keeping most people from decision making can
employ human potential most fully: these are utopian fantasies without
question. But to recognize human potentials and to seek to embody their
development into a set of economic institutions and then to expect those
institutions to encourage desirable outcomes is no more than reasonable
theorizing. What is utopian is not planting new seeds but expecting
flowers from dying weeds.
Socialism, an economic system based on public or cooperative ownership of the means of production where production is carried out to directly produce use-value, that includes a money-less form of accounting such as physical resource accounting or labor-time
and based on the direct production of utility rather than on the
capitalist laws of accumulation and value. Some models of socialism
imply economic planning for the allocation of the factors of production in place of capital markets,
while other models of socialism retain market-based allocation of
capital goods. Some Marxists believe socialism would eventually in turn
evolve into communism.
Market socialism, a type of socialism based on socialization
and public or cooperative ownership of the means of production, but
retains monetary calculation and market competition and utilizes markets
as the primary way of allocating the factors of production.
Socialism often implies common ownership of companies and a planned
economy, though as an inherently pluralistic ideology, it is argued
whether either are essential features. In his book PostCapitalism: A Guide to our Future, Paul Mason argues that centralized planning, even with the advanced technology of today, is unachievable. Rejecting central planning as both technically unachievable and undesirable, Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel argue that democratic planning provides a viable basis for creating a participatory economy.
In UK politics, strands of Corbynism and the Labour party have adopted this 'post-capitalist' tendency.
Permaculture is defined by its co-originator Bill Mollison
as "The conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive
systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural
ecosystems,"
and combines elements of socialism, anarchism, and home-based economics
to envision and create a society that can persist and thrive in a world
where capitalist ideologies have been abandoned.
Technology as a driver of post-capitalism
Much
of the speculation surrounding the proposed fate of the capitalist
system stems from predictions about the future integration of technology
into economics. The evolution and increasing sophistication of both
automation and information technology is said to threaten jobs and
highlight internal contradictions in Capitalism which will allegedly
ultimately lead to its collapse.
Technological change which has driven unemployment has historically
been as a result of 'mechanical-muscle' machines which have reduced the
need for human labor. Just as horses were once employed but were
gradually made obsolete by the invention of the automobile, humans' jobs
have also been affected throughout history. A modern example of this technological unemployment
is the replacement of retail cashiers by self-service checkouts. The
invention and development of 'mechanical-mind' processes or “brain
labor” is thought to threaten jobs at an unprecedented scale, with
Oxford Professors Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimating that 47 percent of US jobs are at risk of automation.
If this leads to a world where human labor is no longer needed then our
current market system models, which rely on scarcity, may have to adapt
or fail. It is argued that this has been a factor in the creation of
many of what David Graeber calls 'bullshit jobs',
where, in large bureaucracies, production of anything is not the goal,
but exist solely for reasons such as providing sociological benefit to
the manager employing them.
Information technology
Post-capitalism is said to be possible due to major changes information
technology has brought about in recent years. It has blurred the edges
between work and free time
and loosened the relationship between work and wages. Significantly,
information is corroding the market's ability to form prices correctly.
Information is abundant and information goods are freely replicable.
Goods such as music, software or databases do have a production cost,
but once made can be copied/pasted infinitely. If the normal price
mechanism of capitalism prevails, then the price of any good which has
essentially no cost of reproduction will fall towards zero.
This lack of scarcity is a problem for our models, which try to counter
by developing monopolies in the form of giant tech companies to keep
information scarce and commercial. But many significant commodities in
the digital economy is now free and open-source, such as Linux, Firefox, and Wikipedia.
Anarchism in France can trace its roots to thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration and was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. According to journalist Brian Doherty,
"The number of people who subscribed to the anarchist movement's many
publications was in the tens of thousands in France alone."
The origins of the modern anarchist movement lie in the events of the French Revolution, which the historian Thomas Carlyle characterized as the "open violent Rebellion, and Victory, of disimprisoned Anarchy against corrupt worn-out Authority". Immediately following the storming of the Bastille, the communes of France began to organize themselves into systems of local self-government, maintaining their independence from the State and organizing unity between communes through federalist principles. Direct democracy was implemented in the local districts of each commune, with citizens coming together in general assemblies to decide on matters without any need for representation. When the National Constituent Assembly
attempted to pass a law concerning the governance of the communes, the
districts instantly rejected it as it had been constituted without their
sanction, causing the scheme to be abandoned by its proponents.
In particular, the sans-culottes of the Paris Commune were denounced as "anarchists" by the Girondins. The Girondin Jacques Pierre Brissot
spoke at length about the need for the extermination of the
"anarchists", a group that did not form any political grouping in the National Convention, but nevertheless were active participants in the revolution and vocal opponents of the nascent bourgeoisie. The Enragés were among the defenders of the sans-culottes and expressed a form of proto-socialism
that advocated for the transformation of France into a directly
democratic "Commune of Communes", a call later taken up by the 19th
century French anarchist movement. The Enragés attacked the bourgeoisie and the representational composition of the National Convention, which they opposed in favor of the sectional assemblies.
The conflict between the Paris Commune and the National
Convention escalated into a "third revolution", as an insurrection was
openly championed by the Enragés led by Jean-François Varlet,
who desired to overthrow the Convention and establish direct democracy
throughout France. However, this attempted "revolution of anarchy" was
defeated by the Girondins, partly due to a lack of support from the Jacobin Club and the National Guard. Nevertheless, the continuing escalation of the conflict and increasing radicalization culminated in the Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793, during which the Girondins were purged from the Convention and the Montagnards took control, centralizing power in the hands of the Committee of Public Safety and leaving the direct democratic ambitions of the sans-culottes and Enragés completely unfulfilled.
With the beginning of the Reign of Terror, the Enragés
underwent a campaign of repression by the Committee, although the
government also attempted to make some economic concessions in order to
not alienate the sans-culottes. The Enragés leader Jacques Roux committed suicide after being called to trial by the Revolutionary Tribunal and by 1794 the Enragés had all but disappeared from public view. The Committee subsequently began to move against sectional democracy and undertook a vast bureaucratization
of the state machinery, converting elected positions into ones
appointed by the state and transferring power from the hands of the
sectional assemblies into those of the government. The power of the sans-culottes began to wane as the Terror intensified, with the Hébertists and Dantonists also being suppressed. Eventually, the fall of Maximilien Robespierre brought an end to the Terror and the Thermidorian Reaction began to rollback many of the revolutionary changes that had taken place.
The lasted vestiges of revolutionary anarchism were expressed by the Conspiracy of the Equals, which advocated for the overthrow of the Directory and its replacement with a communist society. In his Manifesto of the Equals (1796), the proto-anarchist thinker Sylvain Maréchal
demanded "the communal enjoyment of the fruits of the earth" and looked
forward to the disappearance of "the revolting distinction of rich and
poor, of great and small, of masters and valets, of governors and
governed." The Conspiracy's attempt to overthrow the Directory failed and its leader François-Noël Babeuf was executed by guillotine, but their ideas carried on into the 19th century. Following the Napoleonic Wars and the restoration of monarchy, socialist and anarchist ideas inspired by the Enragés and Equals
began to replace republican ideals, setting up a new framework for
French radicalism that began to reach an apex during the time of the July Monarchy.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) was the first philosopher to label himself an "anarchist." Proudhon opposed government privilege that protects capitalist, banking and land interests, and the accumulation or acquisition of property (and any form of coercion
that led to it) which he believed hampers competition and keeps wealth
in the hands of the few. Proudhon favoured a right of individuals to
retain the product of their labor as their own property, but believed
that any property beyond that which an individual produced and could
possess was illegitimate. Thus, he saw private property as both
essential to liberty and a road to tyranny, the former when it resulted
from labor and was required for labor and the latter when it resulted in
exploitation (profit, interest, rent, tax). He generally called the
former "possession" and the latter "property." For large-scale industry,
he supported workers associations to replace wage labour and opposed
the ownership of land.
Proudhon maintained that those who labor should retain the entirety of what they produce, and that monopolies
on credit and land are the forces that prohibit such. He advocated an
economic system that included private property as possession and
exchange market but without profit, which he called mutualism. It is Proudhon's philosophy that was explicitly rejected by Joseph Déjacque in the inception of anarchist-communism,
with the latter asserting directly to Proudhon in a letter that "it is
not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but
to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature."
Le Libertaire, Journal du mouvement social. Libertarian Communist publication edited by Joseph Déjacque. This copy is of the August 17, 1860, edition in New York City
An early anarchist communist was Joseph Déjacque, the first person to describe himself as "libertaire". Unlike Proudhon,
he argued that, "it is not the product of his or her labor that the
worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs,
whatever may be their nature."According to the anarchist historian Max Nettlau,
the first use of the term libertarian communism was in November 1880,
when a French anarchist congress employed it to more clearly identify
its doctrines. The French anarchist journalist Sébastien Faure, later founder and editor of the four-volume Anarchist Encyclopedia, started the weekly paper Le Libertaire (The Libertarian) in 1895.
Déjacque was a major critic of Proudhon. Déjacque thought that "the Proudhonist version of Ricardian socialism,
centred on the reward of labour power and the problem of exchange
value. In his polemic with Proudhon on women’s emancipation, Déjacque
urged Proudhon to push on ‘as far as the abolition of the contract, the
abolition not only of the sword and of capital, but of property and
authority in all their forms,’ and refuted the commercial and wages
logic of the demand for a ‘fair reward’ for ‘labour’ (labour power).
Déjacque asked: ‘Am I thus... right to want, as with the system of
contracts, to measure out to each — according to their accidental
capacity to produce — what they are entitled to?’ The answer given by
Déjacque to this question is unambiguous: ‘it is not the product of his
or her labour that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of
his or her needs, whatever may be their nature.’"...For Déjacque, on
the other hand, the communal state of affairs — the phalanstery ‘without
any hierarchy, without any authority’ except that of the ‘statistics
book’ — corresponded to ‘natural exchange,’ i.e. to the ‘unlimited
freedom of all production and consumption; the abolition of any sign of
agricultural, individual, artistic or scientific property; the
destruction of any individual holding of the products of work; the
demonarchisation and the demonetarisation of manual and intellectual
capital as well as capital in instruments, commerce and buildings.
Déjacque "rejected Blanquism,
which was based on a division between the ‘disciples of the great
people’s Architect’ and ‘the people, or vulgar herd,’ and was equally
opposed to all the variants of social republicanism, to the dictatorship
of one man and to ‘the dictatorship of the little prodigies of the
proletariat.’ With regard to the last of these, he wrote that: ‘a
dictatorial committee composed of workers is certainly the most
conceited and incompetent, and hence the most anti-revolutionary, thing
that can be found...(It is better to have doubtful enemies in power than
dubious friends)’. He saw ‘anarchic initiative,’ ‘reasoned will’ and
‘the autonomy of each’ as the conditions for the social revolution of
the proletariat, the first expression of which had been the barricades
of June 1848. In Déjacque's view, a government resulting from an
insurrection remains a reactionary fetter on the free initiative of the
proletariat. Or rather, such free initiative can only arise and develop
by the masses ridding themselves of the ‘authoritarian prejudices’ by
means of which the state reproduces itself in its primary function of
representation and delegation. Déjacque wrote that: ‘By government I
understand all delegation, all power outside the people,’ for which must
be substituted, in a process whereby politics is transcended, the
‘people in direct possession of their sovereignty,’ or the ‘organised
commune.’ For Déjacque, the communist anarchist utopia would fulfil the
function of inciting each proletarian to explore his or her own human
potentialities, in addition to correcting the ignorance of the
proletarians concerning ‘social science.’"
After the creation of the First International, or International Workingmen's Association (IWA) in London in 1864, Mikhail Bakunin made his first tentative of creation an anti-authoritarian
revolutionary organization, the "International Revolutionary
Brotherhood" ("Fraternité internationale révolutionnaire") or the
Alliance ("l'Alliance"). He renewed this in 1868, creating the
"International Brothers" ("Frères internationaux") or "Alliance for
Democratic Socialism".
In 1870 Mikhail Bakunin led a failed uprising in Lyon on the principles later exemplified by the Paris Commune, calling for a general uprising in response to the collapse of the French government during the Franco-Prussian War, seeking to transform an imperialist conflict into social revolution. In his Letters to A Frenchman on the Present Crisis,
he argued for a revolutionary alliance between the working class and
the peasantry and set forth his formulation of what was later to become
known as propaganda of the deed.
Anarchist historian George Woodcock
reports that "The annual Congress of the International had not taken
place in 1870 owing to the outbreak of the Paris Commune, and in 1871
the General Council called only a special conference in London. One
delegate was able to attend from Spain and none from Italy, while a
technical excuse - that they had split away from the Fédération Romande -
was used to avoid inviting Bakunin's Swiss supporters. Thus only a tiny
minority of anarchists was present, and the General Council's
resolutions passed almost unanimously. Most of them were clearly
directed against Bakunin and his followers." In 1872, the conflict climaxed with a final split between the two groups at the Hague Congress, where Bakunin and James Guillaume
were expelled from the International and its headquarters were
transferred to New York. In response, the federalist sections formed
their own International at the St. Imier Congress, adopting a
revolutionary anarchist program.
The Paris Commune
was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 (more formally,
from March 28) to May 28, 1871. The Commune was the result of an
uprising in Paris after France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War.
Anarchists participated actively in the establishment of the Paris
Commune. They included Louise Michel, the Reclus brothers, and Eugène Varlin
(the latter murdered in the repression afterwards). As for the reforms
initiated by the Commune, such as the re-opening of workplaces as
co-operatives, anarchists can see their ideas of associated labour
beginning to be realised...Moreover, the Commune's ideas on federation
obviously reflected the influence of Proudhon
on French radical ideas. Indeed, the Commune's vision of a communal
France based on a federation of delegates bound by imperative mandates
issued by their electors and subject to recall at any moment echoes
Bakunin's and Proudhon's ideas (Proudhon, like Bakunin, had argued in
favour of the "implementation of the binding mandate" in 1848...and for
federation of communes). Thus both economically and politically the
Paris Commune was heavily influenced by anarchist ideas.".
George Woodcock manifests that "a notable contribution to the
activities of the Commune and particularly to the organization of public
services was made by members of various anarchist factions, including
the mutualists Courbet, Longuet, and Vermorel, the libertarian collectivists Varlin, Malon, and Lefrangais, and the bakuninists Elie and Élisée Reclus and Louise Michel."
Louise Michel was an important anarchist participant in the Paris Commune. Initially she workerd as an ambulance woman, treating those injured on the barricades. During the Siege of Paris she untiringly preached resistance to the Prussians. On the establishment of the Commune, she joined the National Guard. She offered to shoot Thiers, and suggested the destruction of Paris by way of vengeance for its surrender.
In December 1871, she was brought before the 6th council of war,
charged with offences including trying to overthrow the government,
encouraging citizens to arm themselves, and herself using weapons and
wearing a military uniform. Defiantly, she vowed to never renounce the
Commune, and dared the judges to sentence her to death.
Reportedly, Michel told the court, "Since it seems that every heart
that beats for freedom has no right to anything but a little slug of
lead, I demand my share. If you let me live, I shall never cease to cry
for vengeance."
Following the 1871 Paris Commune, the anarchist movement, as the whole of the workers' movement, was decapitated and deeply affected for years.
The propaganda of the deed period and exile to Britain
Parts of the anarchist movement, based in Switzerland, started theorizing propaganda of the deed.
From the late 1880s to 1895, a series of attacks by self-declared
anarchists brought anarchism into the public eye and generated a wave of
anxieties. The most infamous of these deeds were the bombs of Ravachol, Emile Henry, and Auguste Vaillant, and the assassination of the President of the Republic Sadi Carnot by Caserio.
After Auguste Vaillant's bomb in the Chamber of Deputies, the "Opportunist Republicans" voted in 1893 the first anti-terrorist laws, which were quickly denounced as lois scélérates ("villainous laws"). These laws severely restricted freedom of expression. The first one condemned apology of any felony or crime as a felony itself, permitting widespread censorship of the press. The second one allowed to condemn any person directly or indirectly involved in a propaganda of the deed act, even if no killing was effectively carried on. The last one condemned any person or newspaper using anarchist propaganda (and, by extension, socialist libertarians present or former members of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA)):
"1. Either by provocation or by apology... [anyone who
has] encouraged one or several persons in committing either a stealing,
or the crimes of murder, looting or arson...; 2. Or has addressed a
provocation to military from the Army or the Navy, in the aim of
diverting them from their military duties and the obedience due to their
chiefs... will be deferred before courts and punished by a prison
sentence of three months to two years.
Thus, free speech and encouraging propaganda of the deed or antimilitarism
was severely restricted. Some people were condemned to prison for
rejoicing themselves of the 1894 assassination of French president Sadi Carnot by the Italian anarchist Caserio. The term of lois scélérates
("villainous laws") has since entered popular language to design any
harsh or injust laws, in particular anti-terrorism legislation which
often broadly represses the whole of the social movements.
The United Kingdom quickly became the last haven for political
refugees, in particular anarchists, who were all conflated with the few
who had engaged in bombings. Already, the First International had been
founded in London in 1871, where Karl Marx
had taken refuge nearly twenty years before. But in the 1890s, the UK
became a nest for anarchist colonies expelled from the continent, in
particular between 1892 and 1895, which marked the height of the
repression, with the "Trial of the Thirty" taking place in 1884. Louise Michel, a.k.a. "the Red Virgin", Émile Pouget or Charles Malato were the most famous of the many, anonymous anarchists, deserters or simple criminals who had fled France and other European countries. Many of them returned to France after President Félix Faure's amnesty
in February 1895. A few hundreds persons related to the anarchist
movement would however remain in the UK between 1880 and 1914. The right
of asylum was a British tradition since the Reformation
in the 16th century. However, it would progressively be eroded, and the
French immigrants were met with hostility. Several hate campaigns would
be issued in the British press in the 1890s against these French
exilees, relayed by riots and a "restrictionist" party which advocated
the end of liberality concerning freedom of movement, and hostility
towards French and international activists.
Only eight French delegates attended the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in August 1907. According to historian Jean Maitron,
the anarchist movement in France was divided into those who rejected
the sole idea of organisation, and were therefore opposed to the very
idea of an international organisation, and those who put all their hopes
in syndicalism, and thus "were occupied elsewhere". Only eight French anarchists assisted the Congress, among whom Benoît Broutchoux, Pierre Monatte and René de Marmande.
A few tentatives of organisation followed the Congress, but all were short-lived. In the industrial North, anarchists from Lille, Armentières, Denains, Lens, Roubaix and Tourcoing decided to call for a Congress in December 1907, and agreed upon the creation of a newspaper, Le Combat, which editorial board was to act as the informal bureau of an officially non-existent federation. Another federation was created in the Seine and the Seine-et-Oise in June 1908.
However, at the approach of the 1910 legislative election,
an Anti-Parliamentary Committee was set up and, instead of dissolving
itself afterwards, became permanent under the name of Alliance
communiste anarchiste (Communist Anarchist Alliance). The new
organisation excluded any permanent members. Although this new group also faced opposition from certain anarchists (including Jean Grave), it was quickly replaced by a new organization, the Fédération communiste (Communist Federation).
The Communist Federation was founded in June 1911 with 400 members, all from the Parisian region. It quickly took the name of Fédération anarcho-communiste (Anarcho-Communist Federation), choosing Louis Lecoin as secretary. The Fédération communiste révolutionnaire anarchiste, headed by Sébastien Faure, succeeded to the FCA in August 1913.
Relations between individualist and communist anarchists remained
poor throughout the pre-war years. Following the 1913 trial of the
infamous Bonnot Gang,
the FCA condemned individualism as bourgeois and more in keeping with
capitalism than communism. An article believed to have been written by
Peter Kropotkin, in the British anarchist paper Freedom,
argued that "Simple-minded young comrades were often led away by the
illegalists' apparent anarchist logic; outsiders simply felt disgusted
with anarchist ideas and definitely stopped their ears to any
propaganda."
From the legacy of Proudhon and Stirner there emerged a strong tradition of French individualist anarchism. An early important individualist anarchist was Anselme Bellegarrigue. He participated in the French Revolution of 1848,
was author and editor of 'Anarchie, Journal de l'Ordre and Au fait ! Au
fait ! Interprétation de l'idée démocratique' and wrote the important
early Anarchist Manifesto
in 1850. Catalan historian of individualist anarchism Xavier Diez
reports that during his travels in the United States "he at least
contacted (Henry David) Thoreau and, probably (Josiah) Warren."Autonomie Individuelle
was an individualist anarchist publication that ran from 1887 to 1888.
It was edited by Jean-Baptiste Louiche, Charles Schæffer and Georges
Deherme.
French individualist circles had a strong sense of personal libertarianism and experimentation. Naturism and free love
contents started to have an influence in individualist anarchist
circles and from there it expanded to the rest of anarchism also
appearing in Spanish individualist anarchist groups. "Along with feverish activity against the social order, (Albert) Libertad was usually also organizing feasts, dances and country excursions, in consequence of his vision of anarchism as the “joy of living”
and not as militant sacrifice and death instinct, seeking to reconcile
the requirements of the individual (in his need for autonomy) with the
need to destroy authoritarian society."
Anarchist naturism was promoted by Henri Zisly, Émile Gravelle and Georges Butaud. Butaud was an individualist "partisan of the milieux libres,
publisher of "Flambeau" ("an enemy of authority") in 1901 in Vienna.
Most of his energies were devoted to creating anarchist colonies
(communautés expérimentales) in which he participated in several.
"In this sense, the theoretical positions and the vital
experiences of french individualism are deeply iconoclastic and
scandalous, even within libertarian circles. The call of nudist naturism, the strong defence of birth control methods, the idea of "unions of egoists"
with the sole justification of sexual practices, that will try to put
in practice, not without difficulties, will establish a way of thought
and action, and will result in sympathy within some, and a strong
rejection within others."
Illegalism
is an anarchist philosophy that developed primarily in France, Italy,
Belgium, and Switzerland during the early 1900s as an outgrowth of
Stirner's individualist anarchism.
Illegalists usually did not seek moral basis for their actions,
recognizing only the reality of "might" rather than "right"; for the
most part, illegal acts were done simply to satisfy personal desires,
not for some greater ideal, although some committed crimes as a form of Propaganda of the deed. The illegalists embraced direct action and propaganda by the deed.
Illegalism first rose to prominence among a generation of Europeans inspired by the unrest of the 1890s, during which Ravachol, Émile Henry, Auguste Vaillant, and Caserio committed daring crimes in the name of anarchism, in what is known as propaganda of the deed. France's Bonnot Gang was the most famous group to embrace illegalism.
From World War I to World War II
After the war, the CGT
became more reformist, and anarchists progressively drifted out.
Formerly dominated by the anarcho-syndicalists, the CGT split into a
non-communist section and a communist Confédération générale du travail unitaire (CGTU) after the 1920 Tours Congress which marked the creation of the French Communist Party (PCF). A new weekly series of the Libertaire was edited, and the anarchists announced the imminent creation of an Anarchist Federation. A Union Anarchiste (UA) group was constituted in November 1919 against the Bolsheviks, and the first daily issue of the Libertaire got out on December 4, 1923.
Russian exiles, among them Nestor Makhno and Piotr Arshinov, founded in Paris the review Dielo Truda (Дело Труда, The Cause of Labour) in 1925. Makhno co-wrote and co-published The Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, which put forward ideas on how anarchists should organize based on the experiences of revolutionary Ukraine
and the defeat at the hand of the Bolsheviks. The document was
initially rejected by most anarchists, but today has a wide following.
It remains controversial to this day, some (including, at the time of
publication, Volin and Malatesta) viewing its implications as too rigid and hierarchical. Platformism,
as Makhno's position came to be known, advocated ideological unity,
tactical unity, collective action and discipline, and federalism. Five
hundred people attended Makhno's 1934 funeral at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
In June 1926, "The Organisational Platform Project for a General
Union of Anarchists", best known under the name "Archinov's Platform",
was launched. Volin responded by publishing a Synthesis project
in his article "Le problème organisationnel et l'idée de synthèse" ("The
Organisational Problem and the Idea of a Synthesis"). After the Orléans Congress (July 12–14, 1926), the Anarchist Union (UA) transformed itself into the Communist Anarchist Union (UAC, Union anarchiste communiste). The gap widened between proponents of Platformism and those who followed Volin's synthesis anarchism.
The Congress of the Fédération autonome du Bâtiment (November 13–14, 1926) in Lyon, created the CGT-SR (Confédération Générale du Travail-Syndicaliste Révolutionnaire) with help from members of the Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), which prompted the CGT's revolutionary syndicalists to join it. Julien Toublet became the new trade-union's secretary. Le Libertaire became again a weekly newspaper in 1926.
At the Orléans Congress of October 31 and November 1, 1927, the UAC became Platformist. The minority of those who followed Volin split and create the Association des fédéralistes anarchistes
(AFA) which diffused the Trait d'union libertaire then La Voix
Libertaire. Some Synthesists later rejoined the UAC (in 1930), which
took the initiative of a Congress in 1934 to unite the anarchist
movement on the basis of anti-fascism. The Congress took place on 20 and 21 May 1934, following the February 6, 1934, far right riots
in Paris. All of the left-wing feared a fascist coup d'état, and the
anarchists were at the spearhead of the anti-fascist movement. The AFA
dissolved itself the same year, and joined the new group, promptly
renamed Union anarchiste. However, a Fédération communiste libertaire later created itself after a new split in the UA.
Anarchists then participated in the general strikes during the Popular Front (1936–38) which led to the Matignon Accords (40 hours week, etc.) Headed by Léon Blum, the Popular Front did not intervene in the Spanish civil war, because of the Radicals' presence in the government. Thus, Blum blocked the Brigades from crossing the borders and sent ambulances to the Spanish Republicans, while Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were sending men and weapons to Francisco Franco. In the same way, Blum refused to boycott the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, and to support the People's Olympiad in Barcelona. Some anarchists became members of International Antifascist Solidarity
(Solidarité internationale antifasciste), which helped volunteers
illegally cross the border, while others went to Spain and joined the Durruti Column's French-speaking contingent, The Sébastien Faure Century. A Fédération anarchiste de langue française
(FAF) developed from a split in the UA, and denounce the collusion
between the French anarchists with the Popular Front, as well as
criticizing the CNT–FAI's participation to the Republican government in Spain. The FAF edited Terre libre,
in which Volin collaborated. Before World War II, there are two
organizations, the Union anarchiste (UA), which had as its newspaper Le Libertaire, and the Fédération anarchiste française (FAF) which had the Terre libre
newspaper. However, to the contrary of the French Communist Party (PCF)
which had organized a clandestine network before the war – Édouard Daladier's government even had made it illegal after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact –
the anarchist groups lacked any clandestine infrastructure in 1940.
Hence, as all other parties apart of the PCF, they quickly became
completely disorganized during and after the Battle of France.
On 19 July 1943, a clandestine meeting of anarchist activists took place in Toulouse; they spoke of the Fédération internationale syndicaliste révolutionnaire. On January 15, 1944, the new Fédération Anarchiste decided on a charter approved in Agen on October 29–30, 1944. Decision was taken to publish clandestinely Le Libertaire
as to maintain relations; its first issue was published in December
1944. After the Liberation, the newspaper again became a bi-weekly, and
on October 6–7, 1945, the Assises du mouvement libertaire were held.
The Fourth Republic (1945–1958)
The Fédération Anarchiste (FA) was founded in Paris on December 2, 1945, and elected George Fontenis as its first secretary the next year. It was composed of a majority of activists from the former FA (which supported Volin's Synthesis)
and some members of the former Union anarchiste, which supported the
CNT-FAI support to the Republican government during the Spanish Civil
War, as well as some young Resistants. A youth organization of the FA
(the Jeunesses libertaires) was also created. Apart of some individualist anarchists grouped behind Émile Armand, who published L'Unique and L'EnDehors, and some pacifists (Louvet and Maille who published A contre-courant),
the French anarchists were thus united in the FA. Furthermore, a
confederate structure was created to coordinate publications with Louvet
and Ce qu’il faut dire newspaper, the anarcho-syndicalist minority of the reunited CGT (gathered into the Fédération syndicaliste française (FSF), they represented the 'Action syndicaliste' current inside the CGT), and Le Libertaire newspaper. The FSF finally transformed itself into the actual Confédération nationale du travail (CNT) on December 6, 1946, adopting the Paris charter and publishing Le Combat Syndicaliste.
The Confédération nationale du travail
(CNT, or National Confederation of Labour) was founded in 1946 by
Spanish anarcho-syndicalists in exile with former members of the CGT-SR.
The CNT later split into the CNT-Vignoles and the CNT-AIT, which is the
French section of the IWA.
The anarchists started the 1947 insurrectionary strikes at the Renault factories, crushed by Interior Minister socialist Jules Moch, whom created for the occasion the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité
(CRS) riot-police. Because of the CNT's inner divisions, some FA
activists decided to participate to the creation of the reformist CGT-FO, issued from a split within the communist dominated CGT. The FA participated to the International Anarchist Congress of Puteaux
in 1949, which gathered structured organizations as well as autonomous
groups and individuals (from Germany, USA, Bolivia, Cuba, Argentina,
Peru and elsewhere). Some communist anarchists organized themselves
early in 1950 in a fraction, named Organisation pensée bataille (OPB)
which had as aim to impose a single political stance and centralize the
organization.
The GAAP (Groupes anarchistes d'action prolétarienne) were
created on February 24–25, 1951, in Italy by former members of the FAI
excluded at the congress of Ancône. The same year, the FA decides, on a
proposition from the Louise Michel group animated by Maurice Joyeux,
to substitute individual vote to the group vote. The adopted positions
gain federalist status, but are not imposed to individuals.
Individualists opposed to this motion failed to block it. "Haute
fréquence", a surrealist manifest was published in Le Libertaire
on July 6, 1951. Some surrealists started working with the FA.
Furthermore, the Mouvement indépendant des auberges de jeunesse (MIAJ,
Independent Movement of Youth Hostels) was created at the end of 1951.
In 1950 a clandestine group formed within the FA called Organisation Pensée Bataille (OPB) led by George Fontenis.
The OPB pushed for a move which saw the FA change its name into the
Fédération communiste libertaire (FCL) after the 1953 Congress in Paris,
while an article in Le Libertaire indicated the end of the cooperation with the French Surrealist Group led by André Breton. The FCL regrouped between 130 and 160 activists. The new decision making process was founded on unanimity: each person has a right of veto on the orientations of the federation. The FCL published the same year the Manifeste du communisme libertaire. The FCL published its 'workers’ program' in 1954, which was heavily inspired by the CGT's revendications. The Internationale comuniste libertaire (ICL), which groups the Italian GAAP, the Spanish Ruta and the Mouvement libertaire nord-africain (MLNA, North African Libertarian Movement), was founded to replace the Anarchist International, deemed too reformist. The first issue of the monthly Monde libertaire, the news organ of the FA which would be published until 1977, came out in October 1954.
Several groups quit the FCL in December 1955, disagreeing with
the decision to present "revolutionary candidates" to the legislative
elections. On August 15–20, 1954, the Ve intercontinental plenum of the
CNT took place. A group called Entente anarchiste appeared which was
formed of militants who didn't like the new ideological orientation that
the OPB was giving the FCL seeing it was authoritarian and almost
marxist.
The FCL lasted until 1956 just after it participated in state
legislative elections with 10 candidates. This move alienated some
members of the FCL and thus produced the end of the organization.
A group of militants who didn't agree with the FA turning into
FCL reorganized a new Federation Anarchiste which was established in
December 1953.
This included those who formed L'Entente anarchiste who joined the new
FA and then dissolved L'Entente. The new base principles of the FA were
written by the individualist anarchist Charles-Auguste Bontemps and the non-platformist anarcho-communist Maurice Joyeux which established an organization with a plurality of tendencies and autonomy of group organized around synthesist principles. According to historian Cédric Guérin, "the unconditional rejection of Marxism
became from that moment onwards an identity element of the new
Federation Anarchiste" and this was motivated in a big part after the
previous conflict with George Fontenis and his OPB.
Also it was decided to establish within the organization a Committee of
Relations composed of a General Secretary, a Secretary of Internal
Relations, a Secretary of External Relations a Committee of Redaction of
Le Monde Libertaire and a Committee of Administration. In 1955 a Commission on Syndicalist Relations was established within the FA as proposed by anarcho-syndicalist members.
Regrouping behind Robert and Beaulaton, some activists of the
former Entente anarchiste quit the FA and created on November 25, 1956,
in Bruxelles the AOA (Alliance ouvrière anarchiste), which edited L’Anarchie and would drift to the far-right during the Algerian war.
The French Surrealist group led by André Breton now openly embraced anarchism and collaborated in the Fédération Anarchiste. In 1952 Breton wrote "It was in the black mirror of anarchism that surrealism first recognised itself." "Breton was consistent in his support for the francophone Anarchist Federation and he continued to offer his solidarity after the Platformists around Fontenis transformed the Fédération Anarchiste
into the Federation Communiste Libertaire. He was one of the few
intellectuals who continued to offer his support to the FCL during the
Algerian war when the FCL suffered severe repression and was forced
underground. He sheltered Fontenis whilst he was in hiding. He refused
to take sides on the splits in the French anarchist movement and both he
and Peret expressed solidarity as well with the new Fédération
Anarchiste set up by the synthesist anarchists and worked in the
Antifascist Committees of the 60s alongside the Fédération Anarchiste."
The Fifth Republic (1958) and May 1968
Many leaders of the Mouvement du 22 Mars,
the March 1968 decentralized student protest in Nanterre, came from
small anarchist groups. The anarchists rejected the Anarchist
Federation, which they described as dogmatic, and instead mixed with
other revolutionaries, such as Trotskyites and other militants. Anarchism was in a lull at the time of the radical May 1968 events. It was minimally present in, and gained no momentum from, the events. Even the Situationists, who held similar positions, bristled at being publicly grouped with the anarchists. Daniel Guérin's Anarchism: From Theory to Practice was popular during the May 1968 events.
During the events of May 1968 the anarchist groups active in France were Fédération anarchiste,
Mouvement communiste libertaire, Union fédérale des anarchistes,
Alliance ouvrière anarchiste, Union des groupes anarchistes communistes,
Noir et Rouge, Confédération nationale du travail, Union anarcho-syndicaliste, Organisation révolutionnaire anarchiste, Cahiers socialistes libertaires, À contre-courant, La Révolution prolétarienne, and the publications close to Émile Armand.
In the seventies the FA evolved into a joining of the principles of both synthesis anarchism and platformism. Today the FA is constituted of about one hundred groups around the country. It publishes the weekly Le Monde Libertaire and runs a radio station called Radio Libertaire.
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