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Title: Colin Ward's Anarchism Author: Wayne Price Date: January 06, 2015 Language: en Topics: Colin Ward Source: http://anarkismo.net/article/27761
Colin Ward was one of the most influential British anarchists for sixty
years, from the end of the Second World War on. He affected the
anarchist movement around the world. His many books continue to be
reprinted and widely read. For thirty years he was one of the editors of
Freedom newspaper and also the editor of the theoretical magazine
Anarchy. Since his death, at 85, in 2010, there has been published a
“Colin Ward reader” (Wilbert & White) and a collection of essays by
others about his “life, times, and thought” (Levy).
The reader begins, “Colin Ward…was Britain’s most persistent and
articulate defender of the libertarian Left in the second half of the
twentieth century.” (Wilbert & White; v) The essay collection begins,
“Colin Ward was one of the most significant thinkers and activists in
the British anarchist movement….” (Levy; 7)
Not that every anarchist agreed with his views. Albert Meltzer wrote,
“Colin Ward…founded the magazine Anarchy in 1961…and helped set back the
movement…[due to] its reformism….Anarchy…helped as much as anything to
reinforce the myth of a nonviolent, bourgeois, sanitized ‘anarchism’
that could help capitalism out of its difficulties…in terms of
revisionist anarchism….” (Meltzer; 322)
Personally I am more in agreement with Meltzer’s revolutionary,
class-struggle, anarchist-communism than with Ward’s reformist version
of anarchism. However, unlike Meltzer, I think that Ward made useful
contributions to anarchist theory—contributions from which
revolutionaries (and others) can learn.
Colin Ward wrote, “anarchists…advocate the principle of autonomy as
opposed to authority in every field of personal and social life….”
(Wilbert & White; 37) As he saw it, social institutions should be
organized in ways which are “(1) voluntary (2) functional (3) temporary
and (4) small….Let us find ways in which the large scale functions can
be broken down into functions capable of being organized by small
functional groups and then link these groups in a federal manner.” (W &
W; 48) Consistent with this, “anarchist theory of organization,” he
wrote, was “the theory of spontaneous order: that given a common need, a
collection of people will, by trial and error, by improvisation and
experiment, evolve order out of chaos—this order being more durable and
more closely related to their needs than any kind of externally imposed
order.” (W & W 49) He brilliantly summarized: “The social ideas of
anarchism: autonomous groups, spontaneous order, workers’ control, the
federative principle, add up to a coherent theory of social
organization….” (W & W; 54)
Ward’s strategy was, first of all, to look for ways in which autonomous
organizing was already going on, in the cracks and at the margins of the
established society. He referred to this (citing Herzen) as “seeds
beneath the snow.” He discussed the history of squatters, in the city
and the country, describing how people built their own housing. He
researched the self-help mutual aid institutions from before the
“welfare state.” He referred to instances of worker collective
sub-management in certain industries. He studied do-it-yourself
children’s playgrounds and classrooms. He cited anthropological studies
of stateless peoples. He discussed aspects of the Swiss cantonal
federation. As Ward pointed out, no system could function without its
voluntary associations of families and friends and neighbors, no matter
how otherwise authoritarian its structure. He wanted to expand these
associations to cover more of society.
Alternately, he looked at systemic evils embedded in our society and
proposed anarchistic solutions. “One of the tasks of the anarchist
propagandist is to propagate solutions to contemporary issues which,
however dependent they are on the existing social and economic
structures, are anarchist solutions: the kind of approaches that would
be made…in the kind of society we envisage.” (Ward; 124-5) For example,
he warned about developing global ecological crises (in 1973!). He
referred to the imperial countries using up nonrenewable resources,
including fossil fuels, the draining of “Third World” countries, rising
pollution, and “the non-viability of future economic growth.” (W & W;
258) He cited the claim of a radical ecologist that the solution lay in
building “a network of self-sufficient, self-regulating, communities.”
(same) As he noted, ideas for creating relatively autonomous,
decentralized, communities had previously been proposed by Peter
Kropotkin, William Morris, Lewis Mumford, and others from the
libertarian Left.
Similarly, he wrote about “the welfare road we failed to take.” (W & W;
271) Ward condemned the “welfare state” created by the social democratic
and liberal Left. It was bureaucratic and overly centralized, as well as
stingy and infantilizing. He noted the rich history of mutual-aid
self-help insurance programs which the working class had created for
itself before the state took over welfare. He felt that support for the
poor could be much more decentralized, mutualized, and democratically
autonomous than it was, with much better results.
To my mind, there is nothing intrinsically non-revolutionary about
making “anarchist proposals” based on “the kind of society we envisage.”
These transitional demands can help people to understand how anarchism
would solve existing problems. Nor is it necessarily “revisionist” to
point out how anarchist-like activities are being carried on even now in
the margins of society (“beneath the snow”). These provide evidence that
anarchism is possible. These two approaches are quite worthwhile. The
question is whether you counterpose such reforms to anarchist
revolution. This is what Colin Ward did.
“I don’t think you’ll ever see any of my writings…which are remotely
demanding a revolution next week,” he wrote. (Levy; 10) In 1958 he
explained that his understanding of “twentieth century anarchism…rejects
perfectionism, utopian fantasy…[and] revolutionary optimism….It is still
an anarchism of present and permanent protest….The conflict between
authority and liberty is…not something that can be resolved by a vaguely
specified social revolution….The choice between libertarian and
authoritarian solutions occurs every day and in every way….” (W & W;
30). Apparently, the point is not to work for a free society but only
for a free-er society, by permanently (forever) protesting.
In fact, he declared, “An anarchist society is improbable…because human
society is not like that. The degree of social cohesion implied in the
idea of ‘an anarchist society’ could only occur is a society…embedded in
the cake of custom…[without] choice….I would dislike it….” (W & W; 256)
Whatever happened to the vision of a society of federated autonomous
groups? Anyway, someone who regards “an anarchist society” as
“improbable” and something to “dislike,” is an odd kind of anarchist.
Throughout his writings, Ward was fond of quoting the statement of
Gustav Landauer that “The state…[cannot] be destroyed by a revolution,
but is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings….We
destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently.”
(quoted in W & W; 15, among other places). Ward counterposed this to the
opinion of Kropotkin. “Kropotkin viewed the state as an external,
coercive, institution that could simply [?] be destroyed or smashed in a
revolution.” (Levy; 83)
I have already commented on this Landauer quotation and its use by
anarchists who oppose revolutions (in Price). It is true that all social
institutions are composed of people relating to each other through their
behavior. An institution is a consistent, repetitive, pattern of mass
behavior. No doubt, getting rid of the state is not done “simply” (nor
do revolutionaries think so). It requires a large number of people to
change their ideas, their behavior, and their relationships. But what if
there are other people, even if a minority, who continue their statist
behavior and relationships? This will cause a clash between the two sets
of people (which may or may not be violent). This is generally called a
revolution. (Actually, Landauer participated in a revolution in Germany
after World War I. It was defeated and he was murdered by right-wing
soldiers.)
Yet in one place (and in one place only, so far as I know), Ward does
indicate the possible need for a revolution. After discussing ecological
and economic problems, he wrote, “It is not in the least likely that
states and governments…will, of their own volition, embark on the
drastic change of direction which a consideration of our probable future
demands….Power and privilege have never been known to abdicate. That is
why anarchism is bound to be a call for revolution.” (W & W 260-1)
Precisely. But this is in the same essay which begins by saying that an
anarchist society is improbable and dislikeable! And he concludes it by
denying, after all, that there is a distinction between “revolution and
reform.” (W & W; 261) A complete muddle.
Colin Ward’s anarchism (and that of many other anarchists) was an
anarchism of the post-World War II “boom,” from the late forties to the
early seventies. It was an extended period of prosperity (especially as
compared to the Great Depression and World War II). The working class
was politically quiescent (again, as compared to the 30s). There was no
likelihood of a revolution in Britain or most of Western Europe
(although there was eventually a near-revolution in France in 1968).
While the Communist Party was increasingly discredited, the most radical
young leftists were generally attracted to the Marxist-Leninism of Cuba,
Vietnam, and China, which seemed to be fighting Western imperialism. All
these factors put a damper on the development of a revolutionary,
class-struggle, anarchism, in the tradition of Bakunin, Kropotkin,
Goldman, the anarchist-communists and the anarchist-syndicalists (what
van der Walt & Schmidt call “the broad anarchist tradition”).
It was in this period that some anarchists instead found another way to
keep anarchism alive and attractive. They developed a gradualist,
reformist (revisionist) version of anarchism. It seemed relevant to many
people’s daily lives and interests, without having to say, “Wait for a
workers’ revolution to solve all our problems.” Fortunately, Britain,
the US, and Western Europe were bourgeois democracies (I doubt that
gradualist anarchism would have gone far in a fascist or Stalinist
state). Despite its insights and contributions, this school of anarchism
was politically wrong in rejecting revolution as a goal. But the turn to
reformism was understandable.
As Nicolas Walter summarized (not critically), “…All Ward’s work…is a
pragmatic form of anarchism….Ward is calling not so much for a political
revolution as for a social transformation—though not all that much of
one, since he sees anarchism all around us….” (Walter; 238)
Many anarchist-minded people continue right now to reject the heritage
of revolutionary anarchism, in favor of some version of reformist
anarchism. But we are in a much more crisis-ridden situation then in
Ward’s time. The catastrophe of climate change (and other ecological
disasters), the economic stagnation (which may lead to a new Great
Depression), the spread of wars around the globe (with the danger of
nuclear war), as well as other difficulties, are increasing even while
governments are stalled and incompetent. “Power and privilege have never
been known to abdicate. That is why anarchism is bound to be a call for
revolution.” In this period, anarchist reformism has limited use. Ward’s
concept of raising demands and programs which would fit an anarchist
society, as solutions for the here-and-now, continues to be an excellent
approach. But it needs to be used in the programatic context of a
revolutionary anarchism.
Levy, Carl (Ed.) (2013). Colin Ward; Life, Times, and Thought. London
UK: Lawrence & Wishart.
Meltzer, Albert (1996). I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels; Sixty Years of
Commonplace Life and Anarchist Agitation. Scotland: AK Press.
Price, Wayne (2011). Landauer’s Fallacy.
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/20188
van der Walt, Lucien, & Schmidt, Michael (2009). Black Flame: The
Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism; Counterpower
Vol. 1. Oakland: AK Press.
Walter, Nicolas (2007). The Anarchist Past and Other Essays (D. Goodway,
Ed.). Nottingham UK: Five Leaves Publications.
Ward, Colin (1990). Talking Houses: Ten Lectures by Colin Ward. London:
Freedom Press.
Wilbert, Chris, & White, Damian F. (Eds.) (2011). Autonomy, Solidarity,
Possibility; The Colin Ward Reader. London: AK Press.