Alan Ritter, Anarchism: A Theoretical Analysis (1980)
1 LIBERTY AND PUBLIC CENSURE IN ANARCHIST THOUGHT
Anarchists are commonly regarded as extreme libertarians on the ground that they seek freedom above all else. It is natural to view them as libertarians in this sense, because their high esteem for freedom makes it more immediately plausible than any other value as their overriding aim. Godwin praises freedom as 'the most valuable of all human possessions'. Proudhon acclaims it as his 'banner and guide'. To Bakunin, who once described himself as 'a fanatic lover of liberty', it is 'the absolute source and condition of all good'. And Kropotkin seeks a form of society which 'will leave to the individual man complete and perfect freedom'.1 It seems difficult to question the commitment to liberty of theorists who admire it as much as these.
Yet the reliance of anarchists on public censure to control behavior in their good society raises doubts whether their goal is liberty. In Godwin's anarchy 'the inspection of every man over the conduct of his neighbors.. .would constitute a censorship of the most irresistible nature', which 'no individual would be hardy enough to defy'; for 'there is no terror that comes home to the heart of vice like the terror of being exhibited to the public eye'. Proudhon depends on censure in a state of anarchy to 'act on the will like a force and make it choose the right course'. Bakunin follows Proudhon in regarding 'the collective and public spirit' of an anarchist society as 'the only great and all powerful authority.. .we can respect'. And Kropotkin is perfectly candid in explaining what to do 'when we see anti-social acts committed' in a state of anarchy. We must 'have the courage to say aloud in anyone's presence what we think of such acts'.2 How can the anarchists be libertarians, determined to secure freedom above all else, when their social scheme relies so much on coercive public censure? Although interpreters of anarchism have long deemed this question crucial, no acceptable answer has yet been found.
Several types of argument are or can be advanced by anarchists to warrant viewing their search for liberty as compatible with their use of censure. This chapter finds, after examining these arguments, that only one of them is valid. But not even this one is strong enough to prove the anarchists consistent libertarians. The chapter concludes by proposing to look more deeply into the question of the anarchists' libertarianism. What needs asking, instead of whether the anarchists are consistent in espousing censure and liberty, is whether liberty really is their goal. This is the question that the succeeding chapter takes up.
THE CONCEPTUAL ARGUMENT Political theorists often reconcile freedom and coercion with a conceptual argument, which claims, on the basis of what freedom j means, that it is uncurtailed by some restraint. The will of God, the forces of the market and the commands of a revolutionary vanguard are famous examples of restraints that theorists have thus reconciled with freedom. In each case they have argued conceptually, if unconvincingly, that, because freedom as properly defined is unaffected by the restraint in question, the restraint, even though confining, leaves freedom uncurtailed.
The anarchists could use a conceptual argument of this type to prove that they are libertarians, if they defined freedom so that public censure did not obstruct it. In that case, the censorial restraints imposed in their good society, not counting as obstacles to liberty, could not consistently be cited to impugn it as their chief goal. Whether the anarchists can use this conceptual argument to vindicate their libertarianism thus depends on how they define freedom.
Like all concepts of freedom that apply to agents, the anarchists' is a triadic relation of subjects who are free from restraints to reach objectives. No anarchist specifies all terms of this triad completely, but together they give it a thorough description. Since what they say about the triad is for the most part consistent, their concept of liberty can be elucidated by treating their remarks about its various terms as complementary parts of a single whole.
Godwin and Bakunin are the clearest of the anarchists in describing the first term of the triad: the subject of freedom. For both of them it is the choices and actions of individuals that must be free. As Godwin says, a free man must not only act freely; in his prior deliberations he must 'consult his own reason, draw his own conclusions', 'exercise the powers of his understanding'. Bakunin makes the same point about the subject of liberty when he writes that no one is free 'unless all his actions are determined. . .by his own convictions'. And for Proudhon, 'one must think for oneself to be free'. According to the anarchists, then, it is not enough to act freely; one must also have freedom to decide.
As the foregoing quotations indicate, what makes decisions free for anarchists is their origin in rational deliberation. Free decisions, as anarchists conceive of them, are based on arguments and evidence that one has personally and systematically evaluated. Making the freedom of decisions depend on their arising from rational deliberation has implications for the second term of the triad, which identifies the restraints which leave freedom uncurtailed.
Rational deliberation is as much of a restraint on action and choice as more obvious forces, owing to its practical upshot. Anyone who deliberates rationally about the future draws conclusions from his reflections, and these conclusions restrict what he may choose or do. No one can successfully deliberate without encountering these restrictions, because they emerge unavoidably from deliberative activity. This fact shows the anarchists which restraints to identify as compatible with freedom. Recognizing that rational deliberation is restrictive, and believing it indispensable for freedom, the anarchists must conclude that the rational restraints that a deliberating agent imposes on himself do not obstruct his liberty. They must also accept the converse of this conclusion. Since rational deliberation is indispensable for liberty, restraints that directly hinder action and choice are not the only ones that curtail freedom; restraints that hinder rational deliberation indirectly curtail it.
Proudhon is the most systematic of the anarchists in compiling a list of the restraints which anarchists regard as hindrances to free deliberation, choice and conduct. His list can therefore serve most usefully to complete the description of their triad's second term. Most lists of obstacles to the freedom of agents refer only to those that humans deliberately impose or leave in place.5 Proudhon's list is more comprehensive. Not only 'the priest's voice', 'the prince's order', and 'the crowd's cries' obstruct free action, choice, and deliberation. Liberty, as 'the spirit of revolt', recognizes 'no law, no argument, no authority, no end, no limit, no principle, no purpose beyond itself'.6 Proudhon is here extending a theme foreshadowed by Godwin and repeated by the later anarchists: a free agent is liberated from every hindrance that can be removed or lessened, except those arising from his own deliberations.
The third term in the triad specifies the objectives of liberty: what agents must be free to choose or do. The anarchists' description of this term is fixed by what they say about the others. Having stated that freedom requires liberation from all but rational impediments, they cannot put other limits on the goals free persons may reach. We count as free for anarchists, whatever we choose or do, provided that our choice and conduct are rationally based. The agreement of the anarchists about the goal of freedom gives the third term of their concept the unity it needs to make their entire view of liberty coherent.
The analysis of freedom provided by the anarchists would warrant viewing them as seeking liberty above all else, only if it implied that the public censure they prescribe does not coerce. Public censure, for the anarchists, involves 'a promptness to enquire into and to judge' your neighbors' conduct.7 Where this sort of censure is common practice, behavior is controlled in three different ways. It is controlled by penalties, in the form of threatened or actual rebuke, which compel obedience from fear. It is controlled by internalization, a process through which censured individuals absorb prevalent standards of conduct. And it is controlled with reasoned arguments, through which a censurer tries to convince his neighbors that they should mend their ways. Now certainly the rebuke which this complex censure imposes curtails the anarchists' sort of freedom, because rebuke, even if it is mild and private, still, as a penalty, hinders deliberation, choice and conduct. No doubt the anarchists could have conceptually ruled out censorial rebuke as an interference with liberty by explicitly classifying it as non-coercive, but they sensibly avoided such an arbitrary fiat. Their comprehensive list of obstacles to freedom contains no exception in favor of rebuke. Since the meaning of freedom which the anarchists derive from their analysis is too broad to reconcile it with censure, they can only hope to achieve this reconciliation non-conceptually.
THE CRUDE EMPIRICAL ARGUMENTS The anarchists have two kinds of empirical arguments, crude and sophisticated, that might reconcile their use of censure with the view that freedom is their chief aim. Both kinds of arguments attempt to show that though it is conceptually possible for public censure- to curtail freedom, under anarchy this curtailment does not occur. The crude empirical arguments claim that anarchist censure, in its effects on freedom, is no hindrance at all. The sophisticated arguments, while conceding that censure interferes with freedom somewhat, see it as maximizing freedom on the whole.
Godwin advances the crude argument in its boldest form by claiming that anarchist censure increases freedom. A person's freedom is curtailed, 'when he is restrained from acting upon the dictates of his understanding'. Anarchist censure does not impose this kind of restraint. It influences us in the same way as our reading, through 'reasons.. .presented to the understanding', which help us deliberate more rationally by suggesting arguments and evidence we would overlook, if we decided alone. The 'rational restraint of public inspection', being an aid to deliberation, far from hindering freedom, lends it support.8
This version of the crude argument is appealing in its boldness, but though not entirely misguided, it fails to yield Godwin's conclusion. Anarchist censure may rationalize deliberation, but need not. Its effect on the rationality of deliberation depends on how people respond to it. If they use the arguments and evidence it presents to help them make decisions, then censure enables them to deliberate more rationally than they could alone. But, as noted earlier, anarchist censure does more than offer arguments i and evidence: it also imposes sanctions, ranging from mild stigma to complete ostracism. In so far as fear of these sanctions inhibits ' the deliberative process, or deters adherence to its conclusions, the public censure prescribed by anarchists can hardly be called an ' aid to liberty. i
Godwin is especially vulnerable to this objection, because he relies more obviously than most anarchists on censorial sanctions. A writer who describes censure under anarchy as 'a species of coercion' which 'carries despair to the mind' is in no position to claim that it is liberating.9 But this claim holds up no better if ascribed to other anarchists since they all rely somewhat on condemnation and rebuke. Hence if the crude empirical argument is to serve the anarchists as proof that freedom is their chief goal, they must give it a more modest form than Godwin does, by showing that even though censure need not increase freedom, at least it leaves it uncurtailed.
Proudhon and Bakunin try to show this by appealing to the process of internalization, through which the directives issued by public opinion are absorbed by the individual and become part of I his own frame of mind. They both see that these directives \ 'envelop us, penetrate us and regulate all of our movements, thoughts and actions'.10 Bakunin thinks this process is so powerful that man is 'nothing but the product of society'.11 Proudhon's view is more nuanced, since he gives more place in his social psychology to innate dispositions. But he agrees with Bakunin that conduct is guided to a considerable extent by internalized directives.
Proudhon and Bakunin go on to claim that because the directives issued by anarchist censure are internalized, they leave participants in anarchy free. Freedom can only be curtailed by 'an external master, a legislator, who is located outside of the person he commands'.12 But the directives issued by censure, being internalized from opinion, 'are not imposed by an external legislator;.. .they are immanent in us, inherent, they constitute the very basis of our being;. . .hence instead of finding limits in them, we should consider them as the real conditions and the necessary foundation of our freedom'.13 Censure does not restrict the freedom of an individual, because when he complies with it, his directive is a self-imposed 'secret commandment from himself to himself'.14
This argument fails, partly because, like Godwin's claim that ! censure rationalizes deliberation, it overlooks the reality of censorial sanctions. Anarchist censure is not perfectly internalized, but also controls externally by forcing individuals by means of rebuke to comply against their will. This censorial rebuke is obviously a bar to freedom, because it obstructs action, choice and deliberation just as decisively as any other kind of sanction. The anarchists could ignore the interference with liberty caused by rebuke, if in their good society it was not imposed. But since it is imposed there, they are unconvincing when they claim that because their censure is entirely internalized, it is coercion-less.
But even if the anarchists eschewed rebuke entirely and relied on nothing but internalized censure, it still would obstruct their freedom. To count as free for anarchists, one must decide what to do on the basis of one's own rationally reached conclusions. Any other basis for choice interferes with liberty by blocking or bypassing deliberation. Now internalization, as described by anarchists, is not a rational process. Persons who internalize censorial directives unwittingly absorb them and then use them to decide without subjecting them to scrutiny.15 Internalization, thus being a substitute for rational deliberation, and even a bar to it, is not a process that anarchists can deem coercionless. The directives issued by internalized censure may be self-imposed, but for anarchists this does not prevent them from coercing. For it is not just the internal origin, but also the rationality of the directives which determine choice that anarchists must consider in deciding if they curtail liberty. Since internalized censorial directives, though self-imposed, are not products of rational deliberation, anarchists, to be consistent, must admit that they coerce.
There is one other crude empirical argument in anarchist theory for the compatibility of freedom and public censure. This argument sees the restraint imposed by censure in a state of anarchy as unavoidable and hence as no more of a coercion than other restraints which cannot be overcome, such as that of mortality. Bakunin views censure in this light when he describes it as 'one of the conditions of social life against which revolt would be as useless as it would be impossible'.16 The other anarchists agree (though less emphatically) that, owing to its inescapability, censure is coercionless.17
One might admit that, if censure under anarchy is really inescapable, it does not interfere with freedom. But why should it be viewed as beyond escape? Bakunin answers that it is needed for the survival of the self. 'A man is only himself insofar as he is a product' of society and 'has no existence except by virtue of its laws. Resistance to it would therefore be a ridiculous endeavor, a revolt against himself, a veritable suicide.'18 Anarchist censure is inescapable for Bakunin because he thinks that anyone who is not restrained by it will lose his self.
It is true that humans, whose selves are formed through interaction, need the restraint of social influence to achieve identity. But this does not mean that they must be restrained by censure, a special kind of social influence, distinguished by being imposed deliberately: the censurer sets out with full awareness to correct his neighbor's conduct. Deliberate restraint of this sort is not needed to achieve identity, because the spontaneous pressures that members of all societies unintentionally exert on one another are sufficient to make each aware that he and all the others are distinct. Since identity can emerge without the help of censure, in an anarchist society as in any other, Bakunin's claim that it is inescapable is incorrect.
But even if censure was needed to achieve identity, it still would not be inescapable, unless it was also needed to preserve the self. For if the self could be preserved without the aid of censure, a developed individual would not have to submit to it. Now a developed individual who is unrestrained by censure need not lose his identity, because he can maintain it without submitting at all to social influence. While social influence is needed to form the self, the self once formed no longer depends on it for its existence, as its survival in isolated marooned sailors is enough to show. Since developed individuals can maintain identity without submitting to any social influence, they can certainly maintain it without submitting to censure.
These objections to Bakunin's claim that censure is beyond escape show that his version of the crude empirical argument for reconciling it with liberty is no more effective than those the other anarchists advance. But perhaps empirical arguments which are more sophisticated can show that censure and liberty accord.
THE SOPHISTICATED EMPIRICAL ARGUMENTS The crude empirical arguments fail because they refuse to admit that anarchist censure does interfere with freedom. Denying this, they face the impossible task of explaining away its interference as rational, internal, or inescapable. The sophisticated empirical arguments are stronger than the crude ones because, by taking censure's interference with freedom into account, they can pose the problem of reconciliation more manageably. They need not show that censure leaves liberty uncurtailed, but only that it curtails liberty less than the alternatives do. If the sophisticated arguments could show this, they would not prove anarchists libertarian in the usual sense of seeking freedom above all else. But they would prove them libertarian in the sense of showing, whatever their objective, how the most freedom can be attained. Reliance on public censure would stand revealed as the best available aid to liberation.
The anarchists make no attempt to vindicate censure as more liberating than all other methods of behavioral control. Their strategy is to show only that it is more liberating than legal government, which they quite sensibly regard as the most plausible alternative. They argue that censure differs from legal government in ways which make it less coercive on the whole.
Legal government is a method of control marked by the following features: it is applied by a small number of officials, who issue general, standing rules to all members of society and who enforce these rules with fixed penalties for each type of offense.19 All the comparable features of censure, as anarchists conceive of it, are different from those of legal government. Anarchist censure is applied by all members of society, rather than by a few officials. It issues changeable, particular imperatives, not permanent, general rules. It does not rely on fixed penalties to enforce these imperatives, but uses flexible sanctions, internalization and reasoned arguments.20 Each of the features of legal government that distinguishes it from the anarchists' censure is blamed by them for making it more coercive.
The first of these features is remoteness. Legal government relies on a small group of officials to control conduct, whereas censorship relies on society at large. Being few in number, government officials lack the information about the attitudes and circumstances of their numerous subjects that is needed to control them as individuals, and hence must control them as an undifferentiated group. Censurers, on the other hand, being socially intimate with one another, can adjust their directives and sanctions to the situation of each individual so that, while still being effective, they interfere less with conduct.21
Even if legal government could be intimate, as might be possible in a small direct democracy, anarchists would still rate it as less liberating, partly because it must still control its subjects with general rules. However intimate a legal government may be, it works through laws, which, being general, require a whole class of persons to behave the same way in a wide range of cases. Censure, on the other hand, using singular imperatives, which prescribe 'not according to certain maxims previously written, but according to the circumstances of each particular cause', can better protect each subject's liberty.22 The generality of legal rules makes government less liberating than censure by causing it to control behavior more indiscriminately.
The permanence of laws as well as their generality makes even the most intimate legal government less liberating than censure. It is because laws depend more than censorial directives on being publicly known that they must be more permanent. No law can be effective, unless those whom it controls know, before engaging in the activities it regulates, what behavior it requires or forbids. Censorial directives, on the other hand, being applied ad hoc, can effectively regulate behavior even if they are not known in advance. Laws must persist longer than censorial directives, because, if they change as often, the public cannot know what they say. The greater permanence of laws makes legal government less adjustable than censure to changing circumstances, just as their greater generality makes it less adjustable to particular circumstances. While the directives issued by censure can be easily modified so that they do not become more restrictive as conditions change, those issued by government have 'a tendency to crystallize what should be modified and developed day by day'.23 The permanence of legal directives inhibits them from changing in new situations so as to minimize interference with free conduct at all times.
The same uniformity and permanence that make the directives issued by government more coercive than those of censure also make its sanctions more coercive. Governmental sanctions are uniform and fixed, because, being legal, they impose similar penalties for similar offenses.24 Censorial sanctions can be more flexible, because they can impose different penalties for similar offenses, whether committed by different individuals, or by the same individual at different times. Now the same penalty is not needed to enforce a directive in every case. The attitudes and circumstances of some individuals are such that only mild coercion is needed to secure their compliance with many directives, while the same directives will be disobeyed by differently situated individuals, unless enforced by severe coercion. Hence governmental sanctions, being fixed and uniform, interfere substantially with conduct whether they are mild or severe. If an official enforces a directive* with mild coercion, the widespread disobedience he allows impedes free action, while he directly impedes free action if he enforces the directive with severe coercion. A censurer, on the other hand, not having to use uniform, fixed sanctions, can adjust his applications of rebuke so that they coerce each individual just enough to secure compliance. It is thus because censorial rebuke can coerce more economically than legal penalties can that anarchists consider it more liberating.
The anarchists are on firm ground in claiming that the remoteness of its officials and the general, permanent character of its controls make legal government harsher, and to that extent less liberating, than censure. But the same features of legal government which detract from its power to liberate by making its restraints on action harsh, contribute to its power to liberate by making them predictable.
The remoteness of government officials prevents them from effectively regulating behavior, except with predictable controls. Unpredictable controls would not be effective, because officials are too distant from their subjects to instruct them continually and individually about what they must do. The generality and permanence of legal controls give them just the sort of predictability that remote officials need.
Being general and permanent, legal directives set standing conditions under which broad classes of action are forbidden or enjoined. Legal sanctions, also being general and permanent, establish fixed penalties for each type of offense. Hence anyone subject to a legal government can know before he acts what conduct it requires of him and what penalty he will receive from it for disobedience. He can be sure that his conduct will not be hindered by his government, so long as he does what it prescribes.
Censure is less predictable, because its lack of generality and permanence makes it hard to know its requirements in advance. Censure prescribes different conduct for numerous particular situations that law treats as the same, and it prevents transgressions not with settled penalties for each offense, but with varying applications of rebuke. Hence persons subject to public censure, unsure what it will require and uncertain what it will do if they disobey, are less safe from the restraints it imposes on their action than from the restraints imposed on it by law. Even though the particularity and flexibility of censure make it a milder restraint than legal government, these characteristics need not make it less coercive. For besides making it milder, they also make it more unpredictable. Censorial restraint may be milder, but its greater unpredictability offsets the advantage for securing liberty that its mildness gives it as compared to law.
If remoteness, generality and permanence were all that distinguished legal government from censure, the anarchist case for rating it as more liberating would be inconclusive. But anarchist censure, unlike legal government, does not rely on sanctions alone to secure compliance with directives; it also uses internalization and reasoned argument. The anarchists point to both of these distinctive methods of enforcement as attributes that make censure less coercive.
So far as censure enforces its mandates with internalization, it impedes conduct less than government does. Sanctioned directives interfere with conduct, because their threats and penalties limit an individual's range of permissible acts. But internalized directives, not being enforced by threats and penalties, leave individuals free to act just as they please. The conduct of an individual is always restrained, so far as it is controlled by sanctions, but it is not restrained at all so far as it is controlled by internalization.
While this argument shows that internalization, by leaving action unrestrained, is more liberating for conduct than sanctions are, it does not show that internalization is more liberating on the whole. For the advantage of internalization over sanctions as a liberator, arising from its tolerance for conduct, is offset by its interference with thought. Sanctions do not interfere with thought, because they control what people do, not what they think. A person who follows a directive from fear of sanctions can think what he pleases about the merit of the action he carries out. But a person who follows an internalized directive is made to view his action as correct, because internalization controls its mental antecedents, the beliefs and intentions on which it rests. The restraint imposed on thought by internalization makes it no less of an impediment to the liberty of the anarchists than sanctions are, even though it is no impediment to action. For liberty, as conceived by anarchists, requires not only free action, but free thought.
The other method for enforcing directives, besides internalization, that distinguishes censure from government is reasoned argument. By claiming that censure tends more than government to win compliance with reasons, anarchists give themselves the hope, not offered by their other arguments, of proving their society libertarian. For it is a sound argument that, so far as censure differs from legal government by securing obedience with reasons, it serves freedom better.
The argument rests on the conceptual thesis of the anarchists examined earlier, which states that the conclusions an agent draws from his deliberations about the merit of his contemplated acts do not obstruct his liberty. This thesis allows the anarchists to argue that so far as censure secures obedience by giving reasons, it exercises coercionless control, by convincing its subjects to conclude from their own deliberations that the conduct it demands of them is right.
So far as censure secures obedience with sanctions as severe as legal government's, it is no more liberating, because equally severe sanctions, whether legal or censorial, whether they cause physical or mental suffering, impede deliberation to the same extent.25 Anyone who complies with a directive from fear of sanctions is free to deliberate about the merit of the conduct it prescribes. He may even conclude that the act is wrong for him to do. But he does it anyway, because the sanction that controls him prevents him from following his conclusion by overpowering it with fear. Since sanctions, though they allow deliberation, deprive it of effect, they fail to control an agent through his own deliberations and so cannot be regarded by anarchists as leaving him free.
Reasoned argument differs from sanctions as a means to secure obedience by providing just the sort of restraint that a libertarian anarchy needs. The only situation in which an agent who is made to follow a directive bases his compliance on his own deliberations is where he is convinced by those who issue the directive that what they bid him to do is right. Since anarchist censure is distinguished from government by its greater tendency to give reasons of this kind, and since anarchists think a controlling agency must give such reasons in order to respect freedom, they are warranted in arguing that, so far as censure provides more of them than legal government does, it is the more liberating method of control.
Bakunin presents a clear version of this argument when he distinguishes government from censure on the ground that 'its nature is not to convince but to impose and to force'. The liberty of a man 'consists precisely in this: he does what is good not because he is commanded to, but because he understands it, wants it and loves it'. Government, which coerces its subjects with commands instead of convincing them with reasons, he therefore denounces as 'the legal violator of men's wills, the permanent negator of their liberty'.26 No other anarchist makes this argument as forthrightly as Bakunin; but they all do make it, as they must, if their reconciliation of censure with freedom is possibly to succeed.27 For of the many arguments they can or do advance to achieve this reconciliation, only this one hits the mark. Whether it is strong enough to prove anarchy libertarian is an issue that still must be assessed.
THE LIBERTARIANISM OF ANARCHIST CENSURE Though only one of the sophisticated arguments supports the claim that anarchist censure is more liberating than legal government, they all bear on this claim's validity. For together they identify all of the features of anarchist censure that affect how well it protects freedom. These arguments reveal that its unpredictability and its interference with thought, through internalization, handicap anarchist censure as a liberator as compared to legal government. Hence it can only qualify as more liberating !i it has the means to overcome these handicaps. Its greater ability to give reasons for obedience is its most powerful means for overcoming them. But it has other resources. Its mildness tends to offset its unpredictability. Its internality, which makes it tolerant toward action, compensates to some extent for its control of thought. Hence the task of making it more liberating than government does not rest on its ability to give reasons alone. If anarchist censure, by giving reasons, offsets that portion of its disadvantage for achieving freedom that its mildness and internality do not overcome, the claim that it is more liberating than legal government is confirmed. But if, despite its greater tendency to give reasons, anarchist censure still interferes with freedom more, the claim that it is more liberating must be rejected.
These remarks show that a verdict on whether anarchy is more liberating than legal government requires an assessment of the extent to which it uses reasoned argument to control behavior. The next chapter makes this assessment by tracing out the implications for the rationality of anarchist censure of the communal individuality which, rather than freedom, it will be argued, is the anarchists' chief objective. Since the analysis that follows of the scope of liberty in an anarchist society proceeds from a fresh understanding of the goal which anarchists seek, and from a more accurate view than has previously been available of what they mean by censure, it promises finally to settle the dispute, begun by William Proby, whether anarchists are secret enemies of freedom, or loyal friends.
Notes 1 William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, 3 vols. (Toronto, 1946), II, 331; Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Correspondence, 14 vols. (Paris, 1874-5), IV, 375; Michael Bakunin, OEuvres, 6 vols. (Paris, 1895-1913), IV, 248, 156, cf. I, 204; Peter Kropotkin, Revolutionary Pamphlets (New York, 1968), p. 113. All translations from French texts are my own, unless otherwise indicated. For contemporary claims that anarchists are libertarians see, for instance, Gerald Runkle, Anarchism, Old and New (New York, 1972), p. 165, or Derry Novak, "The Place of Anarchism in the History of Political Thought', The Review of Politics, 20 (July 1958), p. 317.
2 Godwin, Political Justice, II, 221, 199, 274; Proudhon, De la Justice dans la Revolution et dans l'Eglise, 4 vols. (Paris, 1930-5), I, 315; Bakunin, OEuvres, III, 69n; Kropotkin, Pamphlets, p. 143.
3 Gerald C. MacCallum, Jr, 'Negative and Positive Freedom', The Philosophical Review, 76 (July 1967), pp. 312-34; cf. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), p. 202.
4 Godwin, Political Justice, I, 168, II, 500; Bakunin, OEuvres, V, 318, cf. I, 105, 281; Proudhon, Justice, II, 77, cf. Proudhon, De la capacite politique des classes ouvrieres (Paris, 1924), p. 190; Kropotkin, Pamphlets, p. 124.
5 For typical analysis along these lines see K. J. Scott, ' Liberty, License and Not Being Free', Political Studies, 4 (June 1956), pp. 176-85, or D. M. White, 'Negative Liberty', Ethics, 80 (April 1970), pp. 185-204.
6 Proudhon, Justice, III, 424.
7 Godwin, Political Justice, II, 496.
8 Ibid., II, 434, 366-7, 505.
9 Ibid., II, 340, 199.
10 Bakunin, OEuvres, III, 49.
11 Ibid., I, 284.
12 Ibid., Ill, 49.
13 Ibid., IV, 249.
14 Proudhon, Justice, I, 325.
15 Bakunin, OEuvres, I, 284, 295; Godwin, Political Justice, I, 64-5, II, 499.
16 Bakunin, OEuvres, V, 159.
17 Godwin, Political Justice, II, 500; Proudhon, Philosophie du progres (Paris, 1946), p. 67; Kropotkin, La science moderne et l'anarchie (Paris, 1913), p. 160.
18 Bakunin, OEuvres, III, 214, cf. I, 295, 298, V, 126, VI, 88.
19 These are the traits normally singled out as typical of a legal system. Cf. H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law (London, 1961), pp. 22-5.
20 Bakunin, OEuvres, I, 288; Godwin, Political Justice, I, 221 inter alia.
21 Godwin, Political Justice, II, 352-3.
22 Ibid., II, 294; cf. 247, 399-400; Bakunin, OEuvres, IV, 261. The anarchists' esteem for particularity in the control of behavior must not be exaggerated. Though general rules must not be followed blindly, they have their place as presumptive guides, akin to the utilitarian's rules of thumb. It is 'incumbent on us, when called into action, to estimate the nature of the particular case, that we may ascertain where the urgency of special circumstances is such as to supersede rules that are generally obligatory' (Political Justice, I, 347).
23 Kropotkin, Pamphlets, p. 200; cf. Godwin, Political Justice, II, 231, 403.
24 The penalties need not of course be identical, since some discretion in sentencing is allowed in even the least flexible legal system.
25 See ch. 4, p. 74, for a discussion of the insignificance of the differences between legal and censorial sanctions, so far as concerns their effects on satisfaction.
26 Bakunin, OEuvres, I, 288.
27 Godwin, Political Justice, II, 334, 375; Kropotkin, Pamphlets, pp. 157, 167; Kropotkin, Science moderne, pp. 160-1.