Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, 1992.

41

The Relevance of Anarchism

The river of anarchy which has flowed continuously since ancient times -- sometimes fitfully, sometimes at flood level -- has carried a wide variety of theories and movements to the far corners of the earth. As a political philosophy, anarchism not only questions many of the fundamental ideas and values by which most people have lived their lives, but also offers a trenchant, empirical critique of existing practices. It seeks to create a society without government or State, a non-coercive, non-hierarchical world in which fully realized individuals associate freely with one another.

As a movement, anarchism has only partially realized its aims on a large scale for brief periods at times of social upheaval, but it has gone a long way in creating alternative institutions and transforming the everyday life of many individuals. It has a whole range of strategies to expand human freedom right here and now. As a result, it has an immediate and considerable relevance to contemporary problems as well as to future well-being. It provides a third and largely untried path to personal and social freedom beyond the domain of the tired social models of State-orchestrated capitalism or socialism.

The Nature of Anarchism

Although anarchism offers an interpretation of both history and society, it cannot be called a 'political' theory in the accepted sense since it does not concern itself with the State. It calls for non-participation in politics as conventionally understood, that is the struggle for political power. It places the moral and economic before the political, stressing that the 'political' is the 'personal'. If anything, it wishes to go beyond politics in the traditional sense of the art or science of government.

Political theorists usually classify anarchism as an ideology of the extreme Left. In fact, it combines ideas and values from both liberalism and socialism and may be considered a creative synthesis of the two great currents of thought. With liberalism, it is wary of the State and shares a concern for the liberty of the individual. Like liberals, anarchists stress the liberty of choice, the liberty to do what one likes. They advocate the freedom of enquiry, of thought, of expression, and of association. They call for tolerance and forbearance in relations with others and are opposed to force and dogma. They assume that if people are left to pursue their natural desires and interests, the general well-being will result.

At the same time, anarchism like liberalism is suspicious of centralized bureaucracy and concentrated political authority. It recognizes that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is fearful of the triumph of mediocrity and the tyranny of the majority. It calls for social pluralism and cultural diversity. It echoes Alexis de Tocqueville's ideal of liberty and community and J. S. Mill's celebration of individuality. In many of these values, anarchism links up with the libertarian Right.

Unlike liberalism, however, anarchism extends the principle of freedom to the political as well as the economic sphere, confident that a natural harmony of interests will prevail if people are left to themselves. It is opposed to the State, believing that freedom cannot be achieved through the State, but only from the State.1 It rejects the need for a constitution or social contract to set up government. It goes beyond the liberal justification of law to establish rights, to protect freedom and to solve disputes. Where liberals rely on the rule of law established through parliament and political parties, the anarchists argue that such institutions are not the bulwark but the grave of genuine freedom. They see no need for the government to defend society against external threat or internal dissension. They do not want to limit the powers of the State, but to dissolve them altogether. Where the principle attributed to Jefferson 'That government is best which governs least' is liberal, the anarchists join Thoreau in saying 'That government is best which governs not at all.'

At the same time, mainstream anarchism contains many elements of socialism. As Malatesta wrote liberalism is 'a kind of anarchy without socialism' whereas true anarchy is based on a socialist concern with the equality of conditions.2 Since the 1840s anarchism has usually been seen as part of a wider socialist movement. It embraces the socialist critique of capital, property and hierarchy, and stresses the need for solidarity and mutual aid. It is closer to Marxism than democratic socialism in so far as it recognizes that sudden change may be necessary and that the State should ultimately wither away. Both look forward to a free and equal society. Anarchism differs from Marxism however in its scrupulousness about the means required to reach such a society -- it rejects political parties and the parliamentary road to socialism as well as the establishment of any form of workers' State. It stresses that means cannot be separated from ends, and that it is impossible to use an authoritarian strategy to achieve a libertarian goal.

Depending on whether they are individualists stressing the liberty or the individual, or collectivists emphasizing social solidarity, anarchists align themselves with liberalism or socialism. In general, anarchism is closer to socialism than liberalism. Kropotkin called anarchy 'the No-Government system of Socialism', Johann Most declared that anarchism is 'socialism perfected', and Rudolf Rocker regarded it as 'a kind of voluntary socialism'.3 More recently, Daniel Guerin has argued that anarchism is only one of the streams of socialist thought and is really a synonym for socialism.4 But while this approach might help to rehabilitate anarchism amongst other socialists, it would inevitably exclude individualist anarchists like Max Stirner and Benjamin Tucker and modem anarcho-capitalists like Murray Rothbard. Anarchism finds itself largely in the socialist camp, but it also has outriders in liberalism. It cannot be reduced to socialism, and is best seen as a separate and distinctive doctrine.

The word 'libertarian' has long been associated with anarchism, and has been used repeatedly throughout this work. The term originally denoted a person who upheld the doctrine of the freedom of the will; in this sense, Godwin was not a 'libertarian' but a 'necessitarian'. It came however to be applied to anyone who approved of liberty in general. In anarchist circles, it was first used by Joseph Dejacque as the title of his anarchist journal Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social published in New York in 1858. At the end of the last century, the anarchist Sebastien Faure took up the word, to stress the difference between anarchists and authoritarian socialists.5

For a long time, libertarian was interchangeable in France with anarchist but in recent years, its meaning has become more ambivalent. Some anarchists like Daniel Guerin will call themselves 'libertarian socialists', partly to avoid the negative overtones still associated with anarchism, and partly to stress the place of anarchism within the socialist tradition. Even Marxists of the New Left like E. P. Thompson call themselves 'libertarian' to distinguish themselves from those authoritarian socialists and communists who believe in revolutionary dictatorship and vanguard parties. Left libertarianism can therefore range from the decentralist who wishes to limit and devolve State power, to the syndicalist who wants to abolish it altogether. It can even encompass the Fabians and the social democrats who wish to socialize the economy but who still see a limited role for the State.

The problem with th€ term 'libertarian' is that it is now also used by the Right. Extreme liberals inspired by J. S. Mill who are concerned with civil liberties like to call themselves libertarians. They tend to be individualists who trust in a society formed on the basis of voluntary agencies. They reject a strong centralized State and believe that social order, in the sense of the security of persons and property, can best be achieved through private firms competing freely in the market-place. In its moderate form, right libertarianism embraces laissez-faire liberals like Robert Nozick who call for a minimal State, and in its extreme form, anarcho-capitalists like Murray Rothbard and David Friedman who entirely repudiate the role of the State and look to the market as a means of ensuring social order.

While undoubtedly related to liberalism and socialism, true anarchism goes beyond both political tendencies. It maintains that liberty without equality means the liberty of the rich and powerful to exploit (as in capitalist States), and equality without liberty means that all are slaves together (as in communist States). Anarchism leaves Left and Right libertarianism behind since it finds no role for the State and government, however minimal. Its roots may entwine and its concerns overlap, but ultimately anarchism forms a separate ideology and doctrine, with its own recognizable tradition.

Human Nature

The most common criticism of anarchism is that it is based on a simplistic view of human nature. Certainly anarchists all insist that humanity has a largely untried libertarian potential. Human beings, they believe, are capable of living without imposed authority and coercion. A system of punishments and rewards is not essential to shape their behaviour and rulers and leaders are unnecessary to organize society. Human beings, anarchists point out, have regulated themselves for most of history and are capable of leading productive and peaceful lives together. While a few individualist anarchists appeal to self-interest to bring about the natural order of anarchy, most anarchists emphasize the potential for solidarity and believe that in a noncoercive society the values of mutual aid, co-operation, and community would flourish.

The main weakness of the argument that anarchism is somehow against 'human nature' is the fact that anarchists do not share a common view of human nature. Amongst the classic thinkers, we find Godwin's rational benevolence, Stirner's conscious egoism, Bakunin's destructive energy, and Kropotkin's calm altruism. Some like Godwin and Stirner stress the importance of enlightenment and education, others like Bakunin and Kropoddn have great faith in the creative energies of the masses. Emma Goldman had little time for existing majorities, but still thought that all human beings are ultimately capable of becoming free and governing themselves.

The majority of anarchists believe that human beings are products of their environment, but also capable of changing it. Some of the more existentially minded among them insist that 'human nature' does not exist as a fixed essence. We may be born into a particular situation, but we are largely what we make of ourselves.6 The aim is not therefore to liberate some 'essential self' by throwing off the burden of government and the State, but to develop the self in creative and voluntary relations with others.

Another traditional criticism of anarchism is that it assumes the natural goodness of man. It is true that from Godwin onwards the classic anarchist thinkers have depicted human beings as corrupted and deformed by the burden of the State, and they have argued that people will not be able to realize their full potential until it is abolished. But it is not simply a question of pitching some mythical 'natural man' in a state of innocence against corrupt 'political man'. Few anarchists believe in natural goodness. Godwin argued that human beings are born neither good nor bad, but made so by their circumstances. Bakunin felt that man is born a 'ferocious beast' but his reason enables him to develop into a social being. Stirner felt that we are irredeemably egoistical; all we can do is to become conscious of the fact. Kropotkin came closest to a notion of 'natural goodness', but felt not that it is intrinsic as Rousseau had argued, but rather that it has evolved in the form of a moral sense in the co-operative behaviour of human beings in their struggle for survival. r

It was George Bernard Shaw's view that we are simply not good enough for anarchism. In his Fabian tract The Impossibilities of Anarchism (1893), he rejected Kropotkin's claim mat man is naturally social and gregarious. It would have been impossible, Shaw argues, for the institution of property to come into existence unless nearly every man had been eager 'to quarter himself idly on the labour of his fellows, and to domineer over them whenever the law enabled him to do so'.7 But such a Hobbesian view of man, as countless anarchists have pointed out, is profoundly unhistorical; there have been societies where people do not desire to exploit and dominate each other. Even within existing Western society, there are many people who do not do what Shaw considers 'natural'. If this is the case, then the ability to live without domination and exploitation is part of the legacy and potentiality of human beings. Since such an ability has existed and continues to exist, there is no reason to suppose that it cannot exist on a wider scale in the future.

If anything, it could be argued that the anarchists have not only a realistic, but even a pessiniistic view of human nature. This is not merely because some anarchists like Emma Goldman have little faith in the masses. More importandy, it is the profound awareness of anarchists of the corruption inherent in the exercise of power that leads them to criticize political authority. The rise to prominence of Hitler and Stalin this century does not make the anarchist argument weaker but stronger. Precisely because the concentration of power in the hands of a few rulers has led to such enormous oppression, it is prudent to decentralize political authority and to spread power over as wide an area as possible. Power should be dispersed not because people are good, but because when a few wield it exclusively they tend to cause immense injury.

The State

The central issue which distinguishes anarchists from liberals and authoritarian socialists and communists is of course the role of the State in society. The anarchist critique of the Marxist-Leninist State has been only too painfully vindicated. The great Communist revolutions this century in Russia, China, Vietnam and Cuba have all underlined the danger of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' swiftly becoming the dictatorship of a party, if not the dictatorship of a party leader. They have vividly demonstrated the implausibility of the State ever 'withering away' once political control has been centralized and its apparatus colonized by a bureaucratic elite. Wherever vanguard parties have existed, the people have been left behind. It is the Marxist-Leninists, and not the anarchists, who have been naive in thinking that, after a society had suffered the centralization of authority and the concentration of power, the resultant State could then gradually be dismantled. As George Orwell observed, the totalitarian State governs its subjects not only by naked force but by trying to define reality, even to the extent of manipulating their thoughts through the control of permissible language.

The anarchists have been equally vociferous in condemning the liberal State as an unnecessary and harmful check to social development. Far from creating social order, they see it as the principal cause of social disorder. They point out that at the root of the modern democratic State there is a fundamental paradox: its rhetoric celebrates the participation of the people in the political process and yet asks them to sign away their liberty periodically in elections and prevents them from participating directly in the decisions which most affect their lives. Rather than defending the 'national interest' or promoting the 'general good', governments still tend to further the interests of those with power, privilege and wealth. At best they perpetrate the tyranny of the majority; at worst, the tyranny of a minority.

In his spirited defence of social democracy, Shaw maintained that anarchist fears about the tyranny of the majority in a parliamentary democracy are unfounded since under such a system it usually proves too costly to suppress even a minority of one. There is moreover a 'fine impartiality about the policeman and the soldier, who are the cutting edge of State power'.8 He was convinced that once the workers had ousted the 'gentlemen' in the House of Commons, they would use the State against the upper classes and landlords in order to buy land for the people. At the end of the nineteenth century Shaw's argument may have seemed plausible, but, unfortunately, where the workers have been able to send their representatives to parliaments those representatives have tended to join the ruling class and be corrupted by political power. The political establishment has proved far more subtle in co-opting its enemies than Shaw foresaw or imagined.

The central liberal contention that the State is necessary to fight the enemies of liberty from within and without has more weight. As L. T. Hobhouse wrote: 'The function of State coercion is to override individual coercion, and, of course, coercion exercised by any association within the State.'9 From this point of view, every liberty rests on a corresponding act of control. Clearly a liberal State which respects basic human rights is preferable to a despotic State which does not, and the use of soldiers to prevent the lynching of innocent minorities is preferable to their use in shooting dissidents and so-called 'counter-revolutionaries'.

Bertrand Russell, who considered pure anarchism 'the ultimate ideal, to which society should continually approximate', made a similar defence of the minimal State.10 He agreed with the anarchists that a good community springs from the unfettered development of individuals, that the positive functions of the economy should be in the hands of voluntary organizations, and that anarcho-syndicalism was more nearly right than socialism in its hostility to the State and private property. But he still felt a limited State to be necessary: to exercise ultimate control in the economic sphere; to establish a just system of distribution; to maintain peace between rival interests; and to settle disputes whether within or outside its borders.

But this liberal and social democratic defence offered by apologists for the State can be pressed too far. The coercive nature of the State, exemplified by its army, police, and prisons, is invariably greater than its protective nature. Equally, it is presumptuous to consider the State essential to the protection of the people of a country from internal disruption or external threat. A nation which consists of a network of decentralized communities would be more difficult to conquer than a centralized State, and a foreign invasion can be foiled by well-organized civil disobedience. A people-in-arms is preferable to a professional standing army, but the best form of defence is non-violent direct action which seeks to dissuade the enemy rather than to kill him. In the absence of a professional police force, communities are quite capable of maintaining public security for themselves and have done so for centuries.

Another substantive liberal argument for the State is that it can provide for the welfare of its disadvantaged citizens. Clearly, some anarchists have committed the 'genetic fallacy' in thinking that because the State originated in conquest and fraud, it must always remain conquering and fraudulent. The struggles of reformers and working people over the centuries have ensured that the liberal-democratic State does provide some basic social services and welfare for its citizens. But these positive provisions can be better supplied by voluntary associations than State agencies. Released from top-heavy bureaucracies, such organizations will encourage personal initiative and mutual aid. They will be able to satisfy more directly the needs of the people and involve them in their management. To be effective, medicine and education do not require State sponsorship any more than industry and agriculture do. What they need is to be managed by the producers and consumers in democratic committees and councils.

A powerful argument in favour of the State is its role as 'the guardian of national identity'.11 There is no doubt a deep-seated desire among people to feel part of a larger whole, particularly in modern societies which are often composed of lonely crowds of individuals who float around like nounless adjectives. Many people feel more secure by identifying with a nation with a common tradition, culture and language. But a State is not a prerequisite for the integrity of a nation, nor does it always guard its identity. Many nations are either arbitrarily sliced up by different State boundaries or forcibly yoked togedier within one State.

With their principles of federalism and decentralization, anarchists would encourage a more organic and voluntary grouping of peoples, based on cultural, geographical and ecological lines. They accept the validity of 'bioregions', living areas shaped by natural boundaries like watersheds rather than by the bureaucrat's ruler on a map. Cosmopolitan and internationalist, they would like to go beyond the narrow ties of tribe, class, race and nation. They see no beauty in xenophobic nationalism and the exclusive love of one's country. But they are not all opposed to the nation as a community of communities, and see it as part of a widening circle of humanity.

Authority and Power

Anarchism of course seeks to create a society without political authority. It is on the question of authority which socialists have departed from the anarchists. For many, brought up in an authoritarian society, they believe that without some central authority the centre will not be able to hold and chaos will be loosed on the world. People are so conditioned to thinking that leaders are necessary that they are at a loss when not told what to do. Those who fear this imminent collapse, feel the need for some reference point, whether it be God, King, President, or General, to hold everything together with bands of law and the threat of the sword. With their ancient theory of spontaneous order, confirmed by recent scientific hypotheses about the self-regulation of nature, anarchists do not fear the spontaneous order of apparent 'chaos'.

The principal argument of the anarchists is that authority, especially in its political form, prevents the free development of the individual. They believe that political authority is not the remedy for social disorder but rather its main cause. Society flourishes best when least interfered with, and people work most creatively and efficiently when not compelled to. To authoritarians, the anarchist critique of authority and power may seem naive, but in fact the disastrous example of authoritarian leaders and governments this century only confirms the relevance of their analysis.

Their position on authority is not however entirely clear-cut. Bakunin for instance was ready to accept the 'authority' of competence, although he stressed that the individual should always be the final arbiter in accepting the advice of an expert. More recently, it has been argued by some anarchists that it is acceptable for a person to be 'in authority' so long as such leadership is not coercive and is exercised in an egalitarian framework.12 For some, delegated authority is acceptable if it does not entail power over persons; others insist that the 'rule of authority' by competent individuals is permissible if based on consent and accountability.13 From this perspective, anarchists are said to reject authoritarianism, not authority itself.

Most anarchists, however, still do not believe that because someone knows more than another they should have more authority and influence, for this amounts to no more than the tyranny of 'merit'. For Godwin the authority of competence which involves reliance on experts is the worst form of authority since it undermines individual judgement and prevents intellectual and moral development. You can be an authority in a certain field, in the sense of having special knowledge, and you may for some have authority, in the sense of special wisdom, but no one has a monopoly of knowledge or wisdom which entitles them to a special place in some; chain of command. When journalists described Daniel Cohn-Bendit as a leader of the 1968 Revolution in Paris, he insisted in true anarchist spirit that the student movement did not need any chiefs: 'I am neither a leader nor a professional revolutionary. I am simply a mouthpiece, a megaphone.'14

A certain ambivalence has also crept into anarchist discussions of power. In general, anarchism has recognized that power is one of the principal causes of oppression; that as much as wealth, it is at the root of all evil. Influenced by loose slogans such as 'power to the people', some anarchists and feminists have called for the 'empowerment' of the weak. But while their concern shows a fine wish to redistribute power, the long-term aim of all true anarchists is to decentralize power and where possible to dissolve it altogether. Indeed, one of the most important themes of anarchism is that all relations based on power are imperfect. They have not only been traditionally opposed to power over persons, but increasingly they are opposed to power over other species and nature itself.

Law

The rule of law -- made, interpreted and enforced by the State -- is considered essential by liberals to maintain order and to prevent anti-social behaviour in society. Undoubtedly what Russell calls 'primitive anarchy' based on the force of the strongest is worse than the law which follows known procedures and treats everyone equally.15 But as Kropotkin's research and countless anthropological studies have shown, not all pre-industrial societies without written laws are in a Hobbesian condition of universal and permanent war. They generally manage their affairs through custom and solve disputes through agreed convention.

The constant refrain of the anarchist song is that the system of government and law in modern States is often the cause of, rather than the remedy for, disorder. Most laws in Western democracies protect private property and economic inequality rather than civil rights. An authoritarian society with a repressive morality encourages the psychological disorders which lead to rape, murder and assault. And punishment by its very nature tends to alienate and embitter rather than reform or deter.

In a freer and more equal society, anarchists argue, there would be less occasion for crimes against property since all would have their basic needs satisfied and, where possible, share luxuries. But while crime born of injustice and repression might be diminished, if not eradicated, in an anarchist society, it may still not be possible entirely to eliminate crimes passionnels and apparently random crime. What about those individuals who simply do not want to fit in with a reasonable, just and decent society, who might prefer to stick out their tongue -- just for the hell of it -- at a well-ordered community without political authority? How would an anarchist society deal with the kind of self-assertion which involves injury to others and to the perpetrator? Why should an individual be virtuous, and act according to the dictates of reason or in the interest of self and society? Indeed, as Dostoevsky's Underground Man declares, it may be possible and beneficial to act in a manner directly contrary to one's best interest: 'One's own free and unfettered volition, one's own caprice, however wild, one's own fancy, inflamed sometimes to the point of madness -- that is the one best and greatest good.'16 If a person suddenly wants to push another in front of a train, why shouldn't he?

It is a question that all libertarian visionaries must take into account. The conventional anarchist response would be first to point out that since a free society would not impose any social or moral blueprint, there would be no prompt to non-conformity, nothing to rebel against. Its vitality would be measured by the degree of individuality and the diversity of lifestyles it could accommodate without falling apart. It would constantly try and adjust the fine balance between individual and social freedom to maximize both. Secondly, where our repressive society encourages destructive and arbitrary acts, those growing up in a freer one would probably feel it unnecessary to assert themselves by inflicting injury on their own person or on others. Even if there remained people intent on injuring themselves, they should be allowed to do so (as John Stuart Mill argued); if it involved others, then that too would be acceptable as long as mutual consent obtained. But clearly, any such society, however free, would have to restrain child abusers, serial killers or drugged maniacs, if they existed, and deal with the residue of arbitrary and random evil. The inescapable freedom of one is the freedom of all.

The anarchist answer would not however include the demand to punish such wrongdoers since punishment neither deters nor reforms. Nor would offenders be ostracized from society in prisons to be further criminalized. Restraint would be kept to the absolute minimum necesskry; the best remedy for anti-social behaviour is to be found in common human sympathy. Every attempt would be made to rehabilitate wrongdoers in the community, not by brainwashing or re-education but by friendly and dignified treatment which respects their humanity, individuality and will. Foucault is not the only analyst to have pointed out the close similarities between old-fashioned penal culture and modern techniques of 'curing' which perceive 'madness' as a disease and try to turn individuals into docile citizens, uniformly obedient. To solve disputes, regularly rotated juries drawn from the local community would be able to consider each case in the light of its particular circumstances. The aim will be not to apportion blame or to punish the guilty but to restore social harmony and to compensate the victim. Public opinion and social pressure could also act as deterrents as they do now, while traditional techniques of influencing the anti-social through boycott and ostracism could operate as powerful sanctions. But even the latter should be applied carefully and only in extreme cases since they contain the seeds of intolerance and unfair psychological pressure. Non-cooperation is perhaps the most effective sanction: a person who regularly fails to keep their contracts and agreements will eventually find it difficult to enter into agreement with anyone.

In a free society, based on trust and friendship, a new social morality would undoubtedly develop which would make disputes increasingly unlikely. Political and moral coercion would give way to freely adopted customs and norms. Such a society would be based on a tolerance of different lifestyles and beliefs, treating individuals, including children, as ends-in-diemselves. It would encourage the values of autonomy, self-determination, mutual aid, creativity, and respect for all living forms.

Public Opinion

There is of course a real danger that the tyranny of public opinion could replace the oppression of law in a society without government. Godwin suggested that public opinion can provide a force 'not less irresistible than whips or chains' to reform conduct.17 There can be no doubt that in traditional and close-knit communities, public opinion can be a powerful sanction to make people conform. It can be intolerant, repressive and dogmatic. In their efforts to shape public opinion through 'propaganda by the word', some anarchists have undoubtedly been guilty of trying to inculcate anarchist principles instead of letting them be critically discussed and freely adopted. The very word 'propaganda' conjures up the over-zealous proselytizer, not the careful and sensitive thinker. The different schools of anarchism have also engaged in sectarian disputes, the most sustained being that between the individualists and the communists. Social anarchists, who wish to abolish the State and Capital, have nothing but contempt for the right-wing libertarians who wish to get rid of the State in order to achieve an unfettered laissez-faire in the economy.

Orwell observed that there is often an authoritarian strain in the pacifist anarchists who take the high moral ground. Tolstoy, for instance, may have completely abjured violence, but 'it is not easy to believe that he abjured the principle of coercion, or at least the desire to coerce others'.18 Again, Gandhi by his fasts exerted a moral force on people which had coercive overtones. His followers have sometimes been guilty of exerting undue pressure on people to think and act like themselves, a pressure which at times verges on moral coercion. If you are convinced that you are in the right, it is easy to bully others into thinking likewise, but to make someone think like you simply because you are certain does not encourage free enquiry or real conviction.

There is undoubtedly a totalitarian danger in the anarchist vision of society where the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion and everyone is constantly exhorted and advised to act by meddling busybodies. Orwell rightly pointed out that, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in human beings, public opinion can be less tolerant than any system of law: 'When human beings are governed by "thou shall not", the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by "love" or "reason", he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.'19 In addition, in a society in which public opinion replaces law there is also the additional danger of that kind of collective vigilance and moral watchfulness developing which has made many religious sects and socialist States so oppressive.

Most anarchists however are keenly aware of these dangers, especially because of their concern with the sovereignty of the individual. The fundamental moral law, according to Benjamin Tucker, is 'Mind your own business.' This is not only true of individualists. The social anarchists have tried hard to reconcile the freedom of the individual with the freedom of others; to allow the maximum degree of individuality of all; and to achieve the apparent paradox of communal individuality. The measure of a free society would be the degree of eccentricity and deviance it could tolerate. Anarchists are committed to a pluralist society. They encourage variety and experimentation in lifestyles and social forms; to let not just a thousand but as many flowers as possible blossom. In addition, all anarchists have insisted on the individual's right of private judgement and opposed rigid censorship.

The foundation of anarchist educational theory has been to encourage people to think and act for themselves, not to rely on the opinion of others simply because they happen to be in authority. Their aim is to form critical judgement and deploy the creative imagination, not pander to intellectual orthodoxy and social conformity. As Godwin observed, a person may advise others but he should not dictate: 'He may censure me freely and without reserve; but he should remember that I am to act by my deliberation and not his.'20 Public opinion would undoubtedly play an important part in an anarchist society in encouraging social cohesion and in dissuading 'wrong-doers', but its use would be much more deliberate and circumspect.

Like most critics of anarchism, Shaw, Russell and Orwell see no alternative to the rule of law. What such critics underestimate is not so much the goodness of man without the pressure of coercive institutions but the importance of social morality. Without legal and political coercion, new social customs and norms would emerge to hold society together. Anarchists assume that people can act morally and govern themselves, without compulsion, as they did before the creation of States, and that there is enough solidarity, love, reason, and good will in human beings to enable them to get on with each other in a fairly harmonious way when not interfered with.

History of course shows that human beings are equally capable of aggression as of peaceful living. Anarchists believe that without States and governments, which are primarily the cause of war and conflict, the more co-operative and gentler aspects of humanity will have an opportunity to flourish. And the social anarchists would add, without private property and capital, a social morality which satisfies real desires and encourages respect for the freedom of others would grow with the experience of communal work and play.

Social and Economic Arrangements

It has been argued that anarchist thinking is based on a 'romantic backward-looking vision of an idealized past society of artisans and peasants, and on a total rejection of the realities of twentieth-century social and economic organization'.21 It is true that in the nineteenth century, many skilled artisans were undoubtedly attracted to Proudhon's mutualism which seemed to provide an alternative to the factory system of modern industry. Anarchism also attracted the independent clockmakers of the Swiss Jura who developed it in a communist direction. In the Mexican and Spanish Revolutions, it was the most backward peasants who embraced anarchism with the greatest fervour.

But it is quite misleading to see anarchism merely as a peasant or artisan ideology. In the form of anarcho-syndicalism, it attracted the most advanced workers in France and Spain. In the last century, anarchism appealed to sons of aristocrats like Bakunin, Kropotkin and Tolstoy, of peasants like Proudhon, and of landowners like Malatesta. In this century, anarchism has found in advanced industrial countries its greatest support among 'white collar' workers, especially students, teachers, doctors, architects, artists and odier intellectuals. The new anarchism is not merely a revolt of the underprivileged but of the affluent who do not find fulfilment as passive consumers and spectators.

While anarchism has no specific class base like Marxism, it has traditionally found its chief support amongst workers and peasants. Bakunin established an important anarchist tradition by stressing the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, whom Marx dismissed as reactionary 'rural idiots', and of the lumpenproletariat, whom Marx considered to be antisocial elements. The great revolutions of the twentieth century have all confirmed Bakunin's rather than Marx's prognosis; they have not occurred in advanced industrial societies, but in predominandy agricultural ones. Moreover, in advanced industrial societies, it is the lumpenproletariat -- students, the unemployed, ethnic minorities, and women on the margins of capitalism -- who have proved the most rebellious.

The accusation that anarchism is opposed to the dominant economic trend of the twentieth century has more substance. It is certainly hostile to the centralized large-scale industry and agriculture found in modern capitalist and communist States. It is not committed to a policy of economic growth and mass production and consumption.

But while it was possible a quarter of a century ago to suggest that anarchism was out of step with existing economic trends, it would now seem that State communism and international capitalism are failing to achieve their stated aims. The New Left and the growing Green movement have all taken up the classic anarchist demands of a decentralized economy with small-scale units and a harmonious balance between field and factory. Anarchism extolled the virtues of 'Small is Beautiful' before it became a popular slogan, and has long stressed the benefits of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. It has always put human beings before things, and seen no value in economic growth for its own sake. As the twenty-first century approaches, anarchists are no longer idealists swimming against the economic current. Indeed, their recommendations may well prove prerequisites to survival.

There are of course two main strains in anarchist economic thinking. Individualists and their contemporary counterparts, the anarcho-capitalists, rely entirely on the free market to supply public goods, and they retain the profit motive and the wage system. Social anarchists, including the collectivists, syndicalists and communists, seek to organize production for use through co-operatives, syndicates and collectives.

Undoubtedly real difficulties exist with the economic position of the individualists. If occupiers became owners overnight as Benjamin Tucker recommended, it would mean in practice that those with good land or houses would merely become better off than those with bad. Tucker's advocacy of 'competition everywhere and always' among occupying owners, subject to the only moral law of minding your own business might well encourage individual greed rather than fair play all round. His argument for labour as the sole measure of price further conflicts with the market model in which values are dependent on supply and demand.

The economic proposals of modern anarcho-capitalists suffer from similar shortcomings, only in a more extreme form. In their system of complete laissez-faire, those who have wealth and power would only increase their privileges, while the weak and poor would go to the wall. The economy might be 'free' in the sense of unrestrained, but most people would not be free from want and fear. Private protection agencies would merely serve the interests of their paymasters. Right-wing libertarians merely want freedom for themselves to protect their privileges and to exploit others. They talk about freedom but remain silent about equality.

On the other hand, social anarchists all try to realize a society which is both equal and free. They recognize that every person has an equal right to basic liberties and material goods. They would assure a basic minimum for every member of society. There are however differences of degree between collectivists and communists. The collectivists would retain the wage system, rewarding individuals according to the amount of work done. The communists would rely on each contributing according to his or her ability and receiving according to need. In both cases production and distribution would be arranged through the basic economic unit of society, whether it be the syndicate, collective, council or commune.

In general, anarchists look to a decentralized economy which is managed at the local level by the producers and consumers themselves. Production and distribution would be organized through co-ordinating bodies at local, regional and national levels which would also seek to balance regional differences. And if this may appear utopian to some, anarchists point to the way in which highly complex agreements between international airlines and railways can be reached through negotiation without a central authority imposing its will.

In practice, anarchists have adopted different methods, sometimes at the same time, to achieve their ultimate goal of a free and equal society. During the Spanish Revolution, for instance, most theorists had talked about the benefits of co-operatives and syndicates, but collectives emerged in the early days of the civil war which rapidly proceeded to a form of communism by pooling the land and establishing common storehouses. The collective, based on universal solidarity and mutual aid, encompassed all those who wished to join, whether producers or not. Money was abolished in some cases and any surplus produce exchanged directly with neighbouring collectives. Small private farmers who did not wish to join were allowed to continue alongside the collectives. At the same time, in the highly industrialized Catalunya, the factories were run by workers' committees who retained the wage system and in some cases even the managers as advisers. It resulted in a surprisingly diversified form of economic federalism.

What these collectives in Spain demonstrate is that farms and factories can be successfully organized through self-management and workers' control. They also show that there is no inevitable tension between liberty and efficiency. Many impartial observers in Catalunya noted how production in the factories increased and public services improved. This was not a result of better material incentives, for in many instances the value of real wages actually dropped. Even if collective decision-making took longer than issuing orders, in the long run the decisions were better implemented since they were properly understood and those affected felt involved and committed.

The example of Spain further exposes the myth that anarchists are somehow against organization. They are certainly against hierarchical and centralized organization, but not the kind of organization which is reached through negotiation and agreement. A few individualists might wish to remain aloof from all organization, and it is their prerogative if they so wish, but the great majority of anarchists find that they work best within voluntary associations which are small and functional.

In the economic sphere, the traditional arguments against anarchism have therefore proved increasingly hollow, even within capitalist societies. Innumerable practical examples of industrial self-management and workers' control have made a mockery of Engels' nineteenth-century contention that it is impossible to organize a factory without authority. Orwell's end-of-the-war comment that a planned, centralized society is necessary in order to make an aeroplane has been scotched by the success of private aerospace companies. In the post-scarcity world of advanced industrial societies, it can no longer be said that anarchism implies a low standard of living. 'Unless there is some unpredictable change in human nature', a deflated Orwell observed, 'liberty and efficiency must pull in opposite directions.'22 It is not an unpredictable change which has occurred but merely a growing awareness that people are more efficient when they undertake their work voluntarily and participate freely in the process of decision-making.

Work

Human beings of course cannot survive without work. Once compulsion has been abolished, anarchist critics ask, who will then do the dirty work? Indeed, why should one bother to work at all? There is of course no intrinsic good in work, and aristocrats for centuries have enjoyed without complaint their unemployment and leisure. Unlike Marxists and Protestants, most anarchists (with the notable exception of Tolstoy) do not have a strong work ethic and find more happiness in comfortable idleness than in hard labour. They would agree with Russell that work has largely been of two kinds: moving matter around on the earth's crust and telling people to do so.23 In a free society, the latter type of work would of course no longer exist, but who would carry on the former which is necessary to our existence?

Shaw argued forcibly that it is unlikely for men trained under the present economic system to be trusted to pay for their food in a scheme of voluntary communism if they could take it with impunity. Only the dire threat of want forces people to labour and the strong hand of the law can make them pay for what they consume. Even the pressure of social disapproval could not prevent them from taking advantage of voluntary communism for 'a man could snap his fingers at public opinion without starving for it'.24

It is not only 'authoritarian' socialists who have made this point. Some anarchists have insisted on compulsory work for all; others that those who refuse to work should be asked to leave the community since by refusing they are coercing others. Camillo Berneri proposed the compromise: 'no compulsion to work, but no duty towards those who do not want to work'.25 Clearly material incentives are not the only way to get people to work. The threat of want or the promise of material gain do not exhaust human motivation. Social anarchists stress that in a free society without compulsion, a morality based on mutual aid and solidarity would develop which would foster satisfaction in working for the good of the whole. In addition, there would be the moral incentive of social approval for those who work for others, and the sanction of disapproval for those who work only for themselves or not at all. Work which might usually be considered unpleasant can be enjoyable if it is felt to be socially useful and worthwhile. And where work cannot be made more agreeable and attractive, and machines cannot perform unpleasant tasks, there would doubtless be enough public-spirited people to share the work willingly.

But it is not only a question of moral versus material incentives. The nature of work itself would be changed in a free society. Anarchists promote useful work, not useless toil. They wish to end the division of labour so that people can make use of their mental and physical abilities. There would be much greater variety which would make life and work more interesting and exciting. If some people find labour-intensive work agreeable, then there is no reason why they should not engage in it.

When people are able to choose the nature of their work and control its process they do not wish to avoid it like the plague. The most important principle is that every one should be free to decide when, where and how they work. Work can only be fulfilling if it is undertaken voluntarily. The worker can hate his work in the factory, and be mentally and physically exhausted at the end of the day, but a couple of hours in his allotment in the evening can completely restore him.

As for the 'work-shy', it is generally the case, as Berkman pointed out, that laziness implies the right person in the wrong place. Many find little pleasure in their work simply because they do not know how to work well. In an anarchist society, there would no longer be any physical compulsion to work, and material incentives in the form of money and goods would not operate. Nevertheless, every member of the community would have the opportunity to realize his or her mental and physical potential while mixing their labour with nature. Without a rigid division and hierarchy of labour, without the tyranny of the clock and the wage system, people would be able to undertake freely the work which suits them best and remain in control of their labour and their product. As a result, it would be extremely unlikely if there were not enough able-bodied people to satisfy the basic needs and elementary comforts of the entire community.

In our post-scarcity society in the West, the need to work is far less than it was in the nineteenth century. With the development of modern technology we have now reached an era of potential abundance for all. It is no longer necessary for everyone to work, and certainly not in stultifying and degrading labour. As with the body, so with society: the health of a free community might well be measured by the number of 'parasites' it could support as an organism without going under. So-called loafers, idlers, wastrels and good-for-nothings should all have their place in the sun. Apart from excluding the young, the elderly and the infirm, it is a mean principle which says that a person who does not work cannot eat. In an anarchist society based on voluntary and integrated labour, there would room for homo ludens as well as homo faber. Work would finally lose its coercive character and be transformed into meaningful play; it would no longer involve suffering but become a joyful and graceful affirmation of life.

Reform or Revolution?

A major criticism of anarchism is that by refusing to participate in traditional politics, its adherents are inevitably left out in the cold. In general, it is undoubtedly anti-political in the traditional sense, in that it does not offer a specific programme of political change but a platform for personal and social liberation. As a result of their rejection of parliamentary and representative government, anarchists have tended to remain on the fringe of organized politics. In their refusal to compromise they may have maintained their theoretical purity, but they have also been practically ineffective, condemned to wallow in the political doldrums. Whether it be in one-party States or pluralist democracies, political parties have now become an almost universal demand. But what for many democrats is seen as a practical weakness can also be a theoretical strength. The anarchists remain the conscience of the Left, offering a profound critique of authority and power and holding up the combined ideals of equality and freedom. They are the most persistent critics of the Left and Right, and offer a third, largely untried path, to freedom.

Not all anarchists however are uncompromising. Even though they do not see a solution in parliamentary politics in the long run, some anarchists are prepared to support democratic movements if they think they are going in a libertarian direction. Godwin was in theory a republican, but in practice a Whig. Proudhon became a deputy in the National Assembly during the 1848 Revolution. Bakunih urged the boycott of elections not as a principle but as a strategy. And in Spain, many anarchists voted in the 1936 elections for the Popular Front and some of their leaders were prepared to become ministers in the Republican government in order to fight Franco's rebels. Since then, Paul Goodman has argued that a general election can be an educational experience and approved of voting for candidates committed to particular policies. Many anarchists are prepared to engage in local rather than national politics, since to do so is in keeping with their views on decentralization and autonomy.

Whether to use violence or not to achieve their aims has also divided anarchists. Some in the past have advocated terrorism as a last resort while others have been absolute pacifists. In its purest form, anarchism stands for peace and freedom while governments and States perpetrate violence and disorder. However, most anarchists have made a distinction between the violence of the oppressor and the violence of the oppressed, and have justified the use of revolutionary violence as a legitimate weapon with which to resist and eventually overthrow the organized violence of the State. A revolution is by its very nature one of the most violent processes in history, even if it remains relatively bloodless.

In the nineteenth century, anarchist thinkers vacillated on the question of violence. Godwin hoped to bring about gradual and peaceful change through education and enlightenment, but he felt that man was not yet sufficiently rational to be able to persuade an assailant to drop his sword through the mere use of reason. While Proudhon countenanced revolution and participated in the 1848 Revolution, he directed most of his energies to building up alternative institutions. Bakunin more than any other anarchist thinker celebrated the 'poetry of destruction', but he was opposed to arbitrary violence and isolated acts of terrorism. Kropotkin always preferred reason to the sword, and eventually favoured evolution rather than revolution to bring about social change, yet still he refused to condemn terrorists. Only Tolstoy and Gandhi were strict pacifists, although the latter felt that it was better to fight than to refuse to bear arms out of cowardice.

Following the Civil War of the Spanish Revolution, the carnage of the Second World War, and the continued threat of nuclear annihilation, an increasing number of anarchists have adopted a reformist and gradual approach to change. They are still prepared to take direct action, but in a non-violent way. They have recognized with Tolstoy and Gandhi that means cannot be separated from ends; they are ends-in-the-making. As activists in the 1968 Paris rebellion observed: 'The revolutionary organization has to learn that it cannot combat alienation through alienated forms.'26 It is as impossible to create a free society by using coercive means as it is to use violence in order to bring about lasting peace.

Rather than attempting a violent confrontation with the State, which only leads to more repression, many modern anarchists seek like Gustav Landauer to make it obsolete by forming new relationships and institutions. By changing themselves, they change the character of social relationships. Since government is founded on opinion, as Godwin and Tolstoy observed, it will only wither away when enough people believe that it is unnecessary and withdraw their support. Such a process will inevitably be long and gradual, especially as many authoritarian values have been internalized and people are brought up to be dependent on leaders and rulers. But an anarchist society will only be achieved when society consists of anarchists; liberation will occur only when individuals have liberated themselves.

Despite the dominant authoritarian trend in existing society, most contemporary anarchists therefore try and extend spheres of free action in the hope that they will one day become the mainstream of social life. In difficult times, they are, like Paul Goodman, revolutionary conservatives, maintaining older traditions of mutual aid and free enquiry when under threat. In more auspicious moments, they move out from free zones until by their example and wisdom they begin to convert the majority of people to their libertarian vision. Aware that the political is the personal, they work from their particular situation, but they do not rest there. Part of the whole, they reach out to embrace humanity, transcending State boundaries and cultural barriers alike.

Anarchists now recognize that there are many rooms in the communal house of change and that there is no clear-cut distinction between reform and revolution: revolution after all is merely accelerated evolution. They therefore support all movements which seem to be headed in a libertarian direction. They seek to dismantle power pyramids and develop networks of co-operation. They build alternative institutions: free schools, which encourage learning by desire and respond to individual needs; factories based on the principles of self-management and workers' control; housing associations and communes which pool resources and share skills and conviviality. They try and develop a counter-culture which overcomes the split between science and art, reason and imagination, mind and body. They are concerned with the here and now, not merely with a mythical future; they are unwilling to postpone pleasure indefinitely.

With the collapse of anarcho-syndicalism as a major movement in the 1930s, it seemed for a time that anarchism would remain more of a personal philosophy than a social force. All that was changed with the resurgence of anarchism in the fifties and sixties. In India, the Sarvodaya movement attempted to develop Gandhi's vision of a decentralized society of self-sufficient, self-governing village republics. The popular revolution in Hungary in 1956 threw up workers' councils on the anarchist pattern. Many of the chief preoccupations of the New Left -- such as participatory democracy, decentralization, workers' control and self-management -- were central anarchist themes. The uprising in France in 1968, which was largely anarchist in character, provided an unprecedented example of a large-scale revolutionary struggle in late capitalist, late twentieth-century Europe. It was this event, coupled with the widespread resurgence of anarchism among the young throughout the world, which obliged historians of anarchism to add postscripts to their books admitting that they had been too hasty in announcing the demise of the movement.

Anarchism today is still very much a living and vibrant tradition. In the West anarchist individualism has inspired much of the thinking on the libertarian Right. On the Left, socialism has had to develop in a libertarian direction, to concern itself with personal freedom as well as social equality in order to retain its appeal.

In Eastern Europe, the Marxist-Leninist States have collapsed from their own internal contradictions and failure to win popular support. The old centralized bureaucracies have been dismantled and there has been a renewed call for fundamental freedoms. The success of the massive demonstrations for freedom and democracy in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in the 1980s demonstrated the efficacy of the anarchist tactic of non-direct action and the general strike. Even in the Soviet Union the role of the State is being discussed critically once again, with the leading role of the Communist Party roundly rejected. The student-inspired democracy movement which flourished all too briefly in China in 1989, with its call for autonomous unions and freedom of speech and assembly, was strongly libertarian. Before the tanks finally rolled into the centre of Peking, it provided a remarkable example of spontaneous popular organization without leaders. While the main thrust of these recent social movements in Communist States is undoubtedly towards greater democracy, not all wish to imitate the capitalist West. Many seek to reconstruct a form of libertarian socialism with a human face in the crumbling ruins of Marxist-Leninist centralism.

Anarchism might reject many of the realities of twentieth-century social and economic organization, but the signs are that it will help form and be in tune with those of the twenty-first century. It is totally opposed to the highly industrialized, centralized and militarized modern States. It is not committed to economic growth and consumerism. It does not want to exploit people and other species and destroy and pollute the environment. On the contrary, it poses personal autonomy against remote bureaucracies, the organic community against mass society, the balanced integration of town and country against rural deprivation and urban anomie, human relations inspired by trust and solidarity against those based on fear and self-interest. It wishes to end psychological dependence and social injustice so that all can develop the full harmony of their being.

Bourgeois Sport, Infantile Disorder or Utopian Dream?

Ever since the furious dispute between Marx and Bakunin which led to the schism in the international labour movement and the demise of the First International, Marxists have lost no opportunity to criticize anarchism as a puerile and extravagant dream. Most Marxists have taken their cue from George Plekhanov who asserted at the end of the last century that anarchism is a kind of 'bourgeois sport' and argued that 'in the name of revolution, the Anarchists serve the cause of reaction; in the name of morality they approve the most immoral acts; in the name of individual liberty they trample under foot all the rights of their fellows'.27

Lenin at least derided Plekhanov's 'Philistine' and 'clumsy' dissertation on the theme that an anarchist cannot be distinguished from a bandit. He also criticized him for completely ignoring the 'most urgent, burning, and politically most essential issue' in the struggle against anarchism, namely the relation between the Revolution and the State.28 Yet although Lenin agreed with the anarchists that it was necessary 'to smash the bourgeois State', he still called for the dictatorship of the proletariat in a centralized State and dismissed anarchism along with other forms of left-wing communism as an 'infantile disorder'.29 In similar vein, the historian Alexander Gray damned anarchists when he declared magisterially: 'Anarchists are a race of highly intelligent and imaginative children, who nevertheless can scarcely be trusted to look after themselves outside the nursery pen.'30

Such criticism, which merely asserts that anarchists are 'immature' and treats most human beings as naughty children is so obviously vacuous it does not deserve any serious refutation. A more pertinent criticism of anarchism is that it is utopian. From Marx and Engels, who attacked all forms of unscientific socialism as 'utopian', onwards, anarchism has been dismissed as chimerical and fanciful -- at best a romantic dream, at worst a dangerous fantasy. It is true that anarchism shares with utopian thought a longing for perfection and holds up the ideal of absolute liberty. There is also a continuous messianic and millenarian strand in the anarchist tradition. Like the Brethren of the Free Spirit and the Anabaptists of the Middle Ages, many anarchists have hoped to create heaven on earth in a society of perfect freedom and complete equality. The fight against rulers and the State has often been pitched as a struggle of cosmic proportions between good and evil. During the great social upheavals, some anarchists have tried to realize their ideals with religious fervour, especiallyin the peasant communities in Spain and Mexico during their revolutions. With Bakunin and his followers, there also creeps in an apocalyptic vision of revolution in which all is suddenly transformed in an orgy of violent destruction.

The failure of anarchism to establish thus far a free society for any great length of time further supports the utopian claim. Anarchism undoubtedly presents a non-coercive and decentralist vision of society which is entirely different from existing centralized and hierarchical States. Its ideal of complete freedom has also never been realized and strictly speaking can only be imagined. And despite the many attempts to realize the anarchist ideal, to put anarchism into practice, notably in the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Revolution, the embryonic experiments were crushed by more powerful forces.

Nevertheless, it says little to dismiss anarchism merely as a historical failure and a utopian dream. Wary of the utopian accusation, the towering anarchist thinkers of the nineteenth century, Bakunin and Kropotkin, were keen to stress that their social philosophy was 'scientific', in keeping with human psychology and the laws of nature. Despite his dispute with Marx over strategy and the role of the State, Bakunin adopted a tempered version of historical materialism. Kropotkin also constanly emphasized the scientific character of his anarchist beliefs, arguing that the existing tendencies in nature and society supported the anarchist ideal and were moving in its direction. Since Malatesta, who was critical of such a mechanical and determinist approach, anarchists have tended to lay greater stress on the role of human consciousness and volition in social change. Unlike other 'utopian' thinkers, they have consistently refused to offer a detailed blueprint of a free society.

At the same time, anarchists do share some positive aspects of the utopian tradition. The hard-headed 'realist' who rejects utopianism is often trying to discredit any alternative to the status quo in a most unrealistic way. As Oscar Wilde observed:

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, 'sets sail. Progress is the realization of Utopias.31
Utopian thought is valuable precisely because it has the imagination to visualize a society which is different from our own. By doing so, it questions the implicit assumptions of existing society and presents alternatives in a concrete way. It offers an ideal to strive for and a goal to approximate constandy. Moreover what was long considered utopian in the sense of fanciful or impossible has in our century become a reality. To dismiss anarchism as a 'romantic luxury at best' or as 'a cry of pain for the future' is an expression of prejudice entirely bereft of philosophical rigour.32

While the epithet utopian need not be an insult or a condemnation, in many ways anarchism is far from utopian. It offers a clear-sighted critique of existing society and a coherent range of strategies to realize its ideal both in the present and the future. It bases itself on a sound understanding of human potential. It looks to existing libertarian tendencies within society and believes that they can be more fully developed in the future. It draws on the experiences of the past, especially of earlier Stateless societies, and sees no reason why their best qualities cannot be transformed in a more libertarian direction in the future. It combines age-old patterns of cooperation with a modern concern with individuality. Far from sacrificing generations to some unknown future or individuals to some great cause, it argues that everyday relations can be changed here and now. It offers a platform for social change as well as an ideal of personal liberation and self-determination. An anarchist society might be unlikely, since it still remains a minority interest, but it cannot be said that it is implausible or inipossible.

While the authoritarian trend remains dominant in most parts of the world, Colin Ward has correctly observed that 'an anarchist society, which organizes itself without authority, is always in existence, like a seed beneath the snow'.33 It can be seen in all groups and associations which are organized like networks rather than pyramids, and which are voluntary, temporary and small. It emerges in groups which are based on affinity between members rather than on the rigours of the rule-book; which are in flux rather than in aspic. It begins to take shape in self-help, mutual aid and direct action organizations, in co-operatives, learning networks, and community action. It emerges spontaneously when people organize themselves outside the State during emergencies, disasters, strikes, and revolutions.

If not accused of being Utopian, anarchism is often dismissed as being a shallow creed without great theoretical substance. It is presented as more of a mood than a doctrine, as a form of therapy rather than a serious social philosophy. This is a view usually levelled by historians rather than philosophers against anarchism. The historian James Joll, for instance, has talked of the 'somewhat incoherent nature of anarchist philosophy' and argued that if there is a living anarchist tradition, it should be sought in 'psychological and temperamental attitudes in society'.34

Again the historian Eric Hobsbawm, who at least recognized the historical importance of anarchism as a social movement, has argued that 'with the exception of Kropotkin, it is not easy to think of an anarchist theorist who could be read with real interest by non-anarchists'.35 In his view, there is 'no real intellectual room for anarchist theory' and its only useful contribution to socialism his been its critical element. In his study of 'primitive' anarchism in Andalucia, Hobsbawm further emphasized its religious dimension and suggested that it was the dying ideology of historically condemned craftsmen and peasants.

Anarchism has certainly attracted a certain type of temperament. Like all extreme ideologies, it has its share of unbalanced individuals who seek a solution to their personal problems in apocalyptic revolution and who revel in illegality and criminality for their own sake. But these are exceptions. The great majority of anarchists are inspired by a vision of universal freedom, love and peace. For this ideal, they have often been prepared to give up their privileges and comforts, living on the margins of society in a state of permanent protest and open rebellion. They have sometimes gone so far as to cut from the trunk the branch on which they sit.

The anarchist ideal has appealed to a wide variety of people. It has inspired intellectuals who like to take their principles to their logical conclusions and who are prepared to adopt an uncompromising moral stance. The anarchist stress on creativity and spontaneity has attracted many artists among the Post-Impressionists, Dadaists and Surrealists who have called for artistic freedom and tried to create new forms to express their aspirations and feelings. Anarchism appeals to the young in heart who wish to think for themselves and question authority, who wish to throw off the oppressive burden of history and create the world anew.

At the same time, anarchists have certainly not engaged in the tortuous and scholastic debates of many would-be Marxist thinkers. The classic anarchist thinkers, except for Stirner, are notable for the clear and simple exposition of their fundamental principles. Apart from the philosophical anarchists, they have preferred to address the thoughtful worker or peasant rather than the closeted intellectual. But it would be wrong to imply that anarchists are less interested in theory than other socialists or liberals. On the contrary, since there have been relatively few occasions when they have been able to put their principles fully into practice, much of their energy has been devoted to the realm of thought. If some contemporary anarchists are short on theory and long on rhetoric, it is not because of the poverty of anarchist philosophy, but because anarchism attracts a wide-range of support outside the world of intellectuals.

Far from being the puerile, naive, utopian fantasy imagined by superficial observers, anarchist thought, as the present study should hopefully have demonstrated, is profound, complex and subtle. It is more than a doctrine of personal living. It questions and has answers for many of the fundamental concerns of moral and political philosophy. It addresses itself to many of the burning issues of the day. As a result, it remains one of the most important and stimulating intellectual currents in the modern era.

Anarchists are unashamedly optimistic. Many base their optimism on the existence of self-regulation in nature, on the spontaneous harmony of interests in society, and on the potential goodwill of humanity. These beliefs may be under attack in our age of crisis and anxiety but they are still worthy of being taken seriously. They can map our future even if they may never be fully vindicated. Anarchism has been with us as a recognizable philosophy for two and a half millennia; the signs are that it will develop even more vigorously as a way of thinking and being and grow as a social movement in the coming millennium.

Anarchism remains not only an ultimate ideal, but also increasingly a practical possibility. If we are to survive nuclear annihilation and ecological disaster, if we can steer between the Scylla of roaring capitalism and the Charybdis of authoritarian socialism, then we may reach the land where a free society of relative abundance exists in harmony with nature, where the claims of the free individual are reconciled with general solidarity. Even if we cannot reach it in our lifetimes, we can at least enjoy the exhilaration of the journey, sailing our ship together towards the beckoning horizon without fettering slaves in the hold or shooting the albatross on the way.


Notes

1 For this distinction, see Guido de Ruggiero, The History of European Liberalism, trans. R. G. Collingwood (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959), p. 350.

2 Malatesta, Anarchy, op. cit., p. 47

3 Kropotkin, Anarchism and Anarchist Communism, op. cit., p. 23; Most, 'Die Anarchie', Internationale Bibliothek (1888); Rocker, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, op. cit., p. 11

4 Guerin, Anarchism, op. cit., p. 12

5 See Faure, La Douleur universale, op. cit., p. 357

6 See my essay, 'Anarchism and Human Nature', in For Anarchism, ed. David Goodway, op. cit., pp. 127-49

7 George Bernard Shaw, 'The Impossibities of Anarchism' (1893), in Patterns of Anarchy, op. cit., p. 508

8 Ibid., p. 514

9 Hobhouse, Liberalism, op. cit., p. 146

10 Russell, Roads to Freedom, op. cit., p. 15

11 Miller, Anarchism, op. cit., p. 178

12 See Howard J. Ehrlich, 'Anarchism and formal organizations', Reinventing Anarchy, op. cit., p. 108

13 See David Wieck, 'The Negativity of Anarchism', Reinventing Anarchy, op. cit., p. 140; Giovanni Baldelli, Social Anarchism, op. cit., p. 95

14 Quoted in Ward, Anarchy in Action, op. cit., p. 38

15 Russell, Principles of Social Reconstruction, op. cit., p. 3

16 Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, op. cit., pp. 33-4

17 Godwin, Political Justice (1793 edn.), op. cit., II, 565

18 Orwell, 'Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool' (1947), Collected Essays, op. cit., p. 432.

19 Orwell, 'Politics vs. Literature' (1946), ibid., p. 405. Cf. Shaw, 'The Impossibilities of Anarchism', op. cit., p. 508

20 Godwin, Political Justice (1798 edn), op. cit., I, 168

21 Joll, The Anarchists, op. cit, p. 259

22 Orwell, Poetry Quarterly (Autumn 1945)

23 See Russell, In Praise of Idleness, op. cit., p. 11

24 Shaw, 'The Impossibilities of Anarchism', op. cit., p. 508

25 Camillo Berneri, 'The Problem of Work' (1938), Why Work? Arguments for the Leisure Society, ed. Vernon Richards (Freedom Press, 1983), p. 74

26 Adresse a tous les travailleurs (30 May 1968) (Paris: Comite Enrages -- Internationale Situationniste, 1968)

27 G. Plechanoff, Anarchism and Socialism, trans. Eleanor Marx Aveling (Chicago: C. H. Kerr, 1912), pp. 141, 148

28 Lenin, The State and Revolution, op. cit., p. 124

29 See Lenin, 'Left-Wing' Communism, An Infantile Disorder (1920)

30 Gray, The Socialist Tradition, op. cit., p. 380

31 Wilde, 'The Soul of Man under Socialism', op. cit., p. 34

32 Apter, 'The Old Anarchism and the New -- Some Comments', Anarchism Today, op. cit., p. 1

33 Ward, Anarchy in Action, op. cit., p. 11

34 Joll, 'Anarchism -- a Living Tradition', Anarchism Today, op. cit., p. 225

35 Hobsbawm, 'Reflections on Anarchism' (1969), Revolutionaries: Contemporary Essays (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973), p. 83