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Title: Anarchism for Everyone Author: Collective Action Date: August 13, 2013 Language: en Topics: talk, history, Anarchism Source: Retrieved on March 11, 2021 from https://web.archive.org/web/20210311130714/[[http://www.collectiveaction.org.au/2013/08/13/melbourne-anarchist-bookfair-2013-anarchism-for-everyone-talk][www.collectiveaction.org.au]]/ Notes: By Kieran.
The following are the remarks I had prepared for a panel discussion at
the 2013 Melbourne Anarchist Bookfair. What I ended up presenting varied
from what follows in a number of ways. I’ve included some additional
remarks and further information via footnotes and links[1].
All too often I have listened to a definition of anarchism that goes
like this: “the word anarchy comes from the ancient Greek an meaning not
or without, and arkos meaning ruler or rulers”.
This formulation is often followed by claims that anarchism traces its
origins as far back as ancient Greek philosophy, that it represents some
form of innate human desire for freedom, and that it encompasses all
philosophical, political or religious traditions that in some way
proposed humans could live “without rulers”[2].
The effect of this approach is to strip away the meaning and political
content of anarchism, reducing the anarchist tradition to what little a
hodgepodge of disconnected figures had in common[3].
As a definition of anarchism it is grossly incomplete, misleading, and
inaccurate.
Anarchism is a coherent and relatively modern political tradition that
combines a positive vision of a future libertarian socialist society
with a clear analysis of the state and capitalism, and a practice aimed
at overcoming these in order to achieve its vision.
By tradition I do not just mean a series of authors that I think sound
similar. Starting with Pierre Joseph Proudon, there is an identifiable
and traceable tradition of theorists, revolutionaries and organisations
that have developed ideas that were in turn utilised and further
developed by subsequent theorists, revolutionaries and organisations.
Proudon has been called the “father of Anarchism”, but that is probably
too narrow a description of his influence. The writings of Proudon were
critically appropriated by a whole generation of socialist
revolutionaries, including Karl Marx and Michael Bakunin. As I like to
put it, Marxism and anarchism are siblings of the same socialist family!
When the European socialist movement came together in the First
International in the 1860s, anarchists and Marxists, Bakunin and Marx,
shared a largely identical critique of capitalism, private property and
wage labour, as well as a revolutionary outlook. To this day both
anarchism and Marxism are socialist, anti-capitalist and revolutionary
in their aims.
Anarchism emerged as a separate political tradition as a result of the
contest in the First International over questions of the state, the
so-called dictatorship of the proletariat, the nature and role of a
revolutionary party, and the nature of working class self-emancipation.
Then as now, anarchists took the slogan “the emancipation of the working
classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves” quite
literally.
At the heart of anarchism is a vision of libertarian socialism. This
vision of socialism is fundamentally different from that of the
Bolsheviks and their modern acolytes.
The anarchist tradition prioritises human freedom, and in particular
freedom from all forms of domination by any other person or group. But
this conception of freedom is social rather than individualist. The
anarchist tradition argues that the greater the links of solidarity,
cooperation and mutual aid amongst all the toilers of the world, the
greater their ability to realise the material basis for human
fulfilment.
As such, anarchism utterly rejects the private property of capitalism.
Anarchism instead proposes collective ownership of the means of
production, subject to workers control. Decisions about the nature and
direction of work would be undertaken by those who toil.
In contrast to the central planning of the state socialists, anarchists
propose a system of decentralised planning, a network rather than a
command structure. There are debates within the anarchist tradition
about whether this system would have to be collectivist, or whether this
collectivism could form the basis of an anarchism-communism in which all
are provided for according to need[4]. However the long term
desirability of distribution according to need is not controversial in
the anarchist tradition.
This vision of libertarian socialism requires the destruction of
capitalism and the state. Anarchists understand that capitalism is
propelled to expand, and cannot simply coexist or voluntarily cease to
exist. The achievement of libertarian socialism requires a revolution, a
conclusion anarchists still share with Marxists[5].
Anarchism famously rejects the state, including the so-called workers
state of the Marxists, but this is not simply because anarchists despise
being ruled. Anarchism understands that a centralised state is utterly
incompatible with workers control, and that it has embedded in it are
interests of power, command and self-preservation that are utterly at
odds with the aims of libertarian socialism. Workers state or not, the
state IS a system of class domination and will through its control
re-create capitalism[6].
The anarchist tradition understands that the practice for achieving
libertarian socialism must be consistent the desired outcome if it is to
ever exist.
Oppression in all its forms must be overcome by the collective efforts
of the oppressed, or it will not be overcome. If our much desired
revolution involves empowering a minority to act on the behalf of the
majority, through a single party or a centralised state, it is that
party or state that will be in power at the end, not the toiling mass of
humanity.
[1] I did not pick the panel title “Anarchism for Everybody”, as Leigh K
was both correct and quick to point out in the discussion, anarchism is
not for everybody, it is certainly not for the bosses, the police, and
the fascists.
[2] See Kropotkin’s article on anarchism in the 1911 Encyclopedia
Britannica for the most famous example. Kropotkin and others attempted
to “legitimise” anarchism through these appeals to history, but the
disasterous effect of this approach has been a hundred years of
confusion about the content of anarchist politics.
[3] It is common amongst western anarchists, and also entirely false, to
include figures such as Godwin and Stirner in the anarchist tradition.
They did not identify as anarchist, their politics were not anarchist,
their ideas were not what influenced the later 19^(th) century
development of anarchism
[4] I should have defined these better. It is essentially a question of
the remuneration of work, to each according to labour, or to each
according to need? The progression from a workers collectivism to
anarchist communism is where, in my opinion, anarchists can answer the
questions of marxists about anarchism and the transitional process
[5] I reject the idea that Proudonian gradualism has any place in what
is now the anarchist tradition, any more than it has a place in
classical Marxism
[6] Recommended reading: Errico Malatesta, 1891, ‘Anarchy’