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Title: “On Authority” Revisited Author: Piper Tompkins Date: 2018 Language: en Topics: authority, Friedrich Engels Source: https://libcom.org/blog/authority-revisited-17052018
Fredrick Engels argues against Anarchism on the basis that authority is
needed to carry out a revolution against capitalism and the organization
of society. This article argues that he fundamentally ignored what
Anarchists actually meant when they said they were against authority.
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The debates between Anarchists and Marxists in the first international
were instrumental in the development of both schools of thought and as
such in how both movements organized themselves. The fundamental Marxist
text on the subject of authority was authored as a result of these
debates; “On Authority” by Marx’s closest theoretical ally Fredrick
Engels. Historically Marxists have used this text to guide their ideas
about the subject, specifically in regard to the state. From the point
of view espoused by Engels authority itself is not negative, but can be
positive if used by specific groups for a specific end. In the case of
state authority Engels and Marxists after him argue that if it is
created by and for the working class against the capitalist class within
the class struggle then this authority becomes a weapon of the workers
for their emancipation.
Anarchists have always maintained “anti-authoritarianism” which means
that they oppose what they have referred to as “authority” in all
circumstances, rather than viewing it as a tool which can be used for
negative, or positive outcomes. For Anarchists this included state
authority which they always conceived as a coercive mechanism that
forced exploitation by the capitalist class on to the working class.
Engels argues against “anti-authoritarianism” as such.
In Engels view “anti-authoritarianism” is a childish over-reaction to a
multifaceted social question. If we oppose authority in every instance
then we can 1; not properly carry out the operation of day to day life
in a society and 2; not properly carry out the task of a socialist
revolution against capitalism.
The aim of this article will be to review Engels’ arguments and see how
exactly they hold up to scrutiny.
It is pretty obvious that in order to maintain a functioning society
people need to exert force over things. They need to operate the
railroads and trains to make them run on time, they need to organize
factories to produce the needed products on time, ect. ect.. Engels
argues that this is “authority”. By exerting physical force over the
railroads and trains we are in effect exerting our “authority” over
them. “Let us take another example — the railway. Here too the
co-operation of an infinite number of individuals is absolutely
necessary, and this co-operation must be practised during precisely
fixed hours so that no accidents may happen. Here, too, the first
condition of the job is a dominant will that settles all subordinate
questions, whether this will is represented by a single delegate or a
committee charged with the execution of the resolutions of the majority
of persona interested. In either case there is a very pronounced
authority. Moreover, what would happen to the first train dispatched if
the authority of the railway employees over the Hon. passengers were
abolished?”
For Engels the Anarchist desire to abolish authority is ridiculous. All
practical organization of society would be rendered impossible if
authority was to be abolished. “We have thus seen that, on the one hand,
a certain authority, no matter how delegated, and, on the other hand, a
certain subordination, are things which, independently of all social
organisation, are imposed upon us together with the material conditions
under which we produce and make products circulate.”
So the question is, are “the anti-authoritarians” , as Engels refers to
Anarchists, really so ridiculous as to not recognize the authority
exerted in social organization over things and even people? To answer
this question we have to understand what Anarchists mean when they say
“Authority”.
When Anarchists rail against authority they are typically railing
against a specific kind of authority, rather than authority in the
abstract. Specifically the authority most prominent in our lives as
members of a hierarchical class society. The authority of rulers over
the ruled. The authority that capitalists impose over workers by
monopolizing social production as their private property, the authority
that the state imposes over society by creating and enforcing laws and
regulations that establish and protect the claim capitalists have to
social production, the authority of the family relations that allow men
to control women in order to saddle women with the housework that
reproduces the lives of the working class, ect. ect.. Here it is useful
to quote an article from the Anarchist Mikhail Bakunin on the same
subject written not long before Engels’ piece. “The most stubborn
authorities must admit that then there will be no need either of
political organisation or direction or legislation, three things which,
whether they eminate from the will of the soverign or from the vote of a
parliament elected by universal suffrage, and even should they conform
to the system of natural laws – which has never been the case and never
will be the case – are always equally fatal and hostile to the liberty
of the masses from the very fact that they impose on them a system of
external and therefore despotic laws.” “The Liberty of man consists
solely in this: that he obeys natural laws because he has himself
recognised them as such, and not because they have been externally
imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatsoever, divine or human,
collective or individual.”
This explanation makes clear that when Anarchists say they are against
authority what they mean is that they are against the domination of one
person by another, the rigid and hierarchical control of the mass of
people by a bureaucracy, the exploitative power that bosses hold over
workers, the misogynist restriction that men impose on women through
patriarchal social norms. But what do Anarchists have to say about the
authority that is exerted for practical purposes in social organization?
Let us again turn to Bakunin. “Does it follow that I reject all
authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer
to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or
railroads, I consult that of the architect or the engineer. For such or
such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow
neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor savant to impose his
authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect
merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge,
reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. I do
not content myself with consulting a single authority in any special
branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that
which seems to me the soundest. But I recognise no infallible authority,
even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for
the honesty and the sincerity of such or such individual, I have no
absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason,
to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would
immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will
and interests of others.” “I bow before the authority of special men
because it is imposed on me by my own reason. I am conscious of my own
inability to grasp, in all its detail, and positive development, any
very large portion of human knowledge. The greatest intelligence would
not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. Thence results, for
science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and
association of labour. I receive and I give – such is human life. Each
directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and
constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and,
above all, voluntary authority and subbordination.”
Here we can see that Bakunin recognizes authority that is based on
expertise, efficiency, and practical social organization, precisely the
authority that Engels accuses Anarchists of rejecting. Anarchists want
an efficient, large scale, organized society created through the free
agreement of associated people and as such accept the authority of
delegation, expertise, and natural laws. We can then safely conclude
that Engels’ assertions about Anarchists ignoring the need for practical
authority in social organization are fundamentally wrong.
Engels also argues that without authority a revolution against
capitalism can not be carried out. He exclaims “Have these gentlemen
ever seen a revolution?!” and goes on to describe how when workers rise
up against their oppressors they will arm themselves and exert supreme
coercive and forceful authority over them with canons, bayonets, ect..
“A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is
the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the
other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian
means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not
want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the
terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris
Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this
authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on
the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?” So then
how do Anarchists conceive of revolution?
Anarchists are fully aware that a revolution against capitalism will
mean that the working class overthrows the capitalist class by force and
uses the same force to destroy the reactionary forces aiming to preserve
capitalist society. In the 1936 social revolution in Spain lead by
Anarchist unions, the CNT and FAI, the working class took up arms and
forcibly suppressed an attempted coup by Francoist Fascists forcing them
to flee the country. In this social revolution the Anarchist
Buenaventura Durruti lead armed Anarchists in a fight against the
Fascist reactionary forces. The question then is whether this
revolutionary force of the masses of people is in contradiction with
opposition to authority.
We have already established that Anarchists only oppose the kind of
authority which is imposed from above through the domination and
exploitation of people by other people. In this sense, to reverse
Enegels’ statement, a revolution is the most anti-authoritarian thing
there is. When the masses of working people rise up to take possession
of the production which they operate every day, when they destroy the
state that exists to forcibly prevent them from taking this action, when
women challenge and reorganize social relations to create equality
between genders in the place of patriarchy, the hierarchical domination
of people by people is being destroyed through the free organization of
those formerly subjugated to said domination. Anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf
Rocker illustrates this point well when he contrasts the Marxist view of
revolution to the Anarchist one. “We already know that a revolution
cannot be made with rosewater. And we know, too, that the owning classes
will never yield up their privileges spontaneously. On the day of
victorious revolution the workers will have to impose their will on the
present owners of the soil, of the subsoil and of the means of
production, which cannot be done — let us be clear on this — without the
workers taking the capital of society into their own hands, and, above
all, without their having demolished the authoritarian structure which
is, and will continue to be, the fortress keeping the masses of the
people under dominion. Such an action is, without doubt, an act of
liberation; a proclamation of social justice; the very essence of social
revolution, which has nothing in common with the utterly bourgeois
principle of dictatorship.”
The investigation of his arguments we have done here shows us that, in
fact, he didn’t. It is clear from the text that Engels did no real
investigation into the positions of “the anti-authoritarians”. He finds
himself in debates with anti-authoritarians such as Bakunin and feels
the need to respond and to do this pulls his own prejudices about the
anti-authoritarian point of view out of a hat, regardless of any
relation they have to the actual views of the anti-authoritarians. He
compares the hierarchical domination and exploitation that Anarchists
oppose to practical social organization between freely associated
people, and then, even worse, the overthrow of these systems of
exploitation and domination to said systems themselves. It’s high time
this little bit of Marxist common sense be discarded.
On Authority, Frederick Engels
What Is Authority, Mikhail Bakunin
Anarcho-syndicalism: Theory and Practice, Rudolf Rocker
Durruti Is Dead, Yet Living, Emma Goldman
Anarchism and Sovietism, Rudolf Rocker