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Title: Anarchism and Law Author: Alexei Borovoy Language: en Topics: law, Russia, the State Source: Retrieved on 15 January 2011 from http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=labadie;cc=labadie;view=toc;idno=2917084.0001.001 Notes: published by: Friends of Malatesta Box 72, Bidwell Station Buffalo, NY 14222
Biographical Note: Alexei Borovoy. Brilliant Russian Anarchist
theoretician, writer and orator. Professor of Political Economy at
Moscow University, prior to and after the Revolution, until ousted by
the Bolsheviks. Known and respected throughout Russia, where he had
great influence among workers, students and intellectuals. In 1920 the
students of Sverdlov petitioned the university administration to permit
a series of debates on “Anarchism versus Marxism,” Borovoy representing
the Anarchist viewpoint. The local Communist Party, designated the
famous Bolsheviks, Bukarin and Lunacharsky, to defend Marxism. The
Central Committee of the CP of Russia at the last minute overruled the
local CP and forced cancellation of the debates.
Because of his great popularity, the Bolsheviks postponed the silencing
of Borovoy until 1929 when he was arrested and deported to Viatka,
Siberia, where he died in 1936, the victim of persecution, cold and
hunger.
In literature concerning anarchism there is a general opinion that
anarchism, which negates existing society and existing legal codes, has
an equally negative position concerning social codes in general. This
opinion is absolutely false.
The reasons for this error are:
and the State in the writings of anarchists themselves;
both of anarchists and of their critics;
sociological naivete, are sincerely convinced that anarchy is the
absence of any sort of regulation;
but do not bother to learn even the essential elements of anarchist
thought;
“scientific socialism.”
The problem in which we are interested can be presented as follows: Can
a society exist in which nothing limits the individual, where all
regulation is an affair of the individual and not of the collective
will?
Anarchism favors the establishment of a society
“of brothers, each of whom contributes his share, living harmoniously,
not because of a legal system which severely punishes those who disobey,
but because of the force of interpersonal relations, the inevitable
force of natural laws.” — Reclus
How restrictive are these natural laws? Do they permit of a society in
which each individual is free to do as he pleases, or on the other hand,
do they require the existence of a State for the preservation of an
orderly society?
Impartial sociologists have found that the State (the authoritarian
society with an established power) is not the first form of human
society. The State appeared as the result of complex phenomena: of a
particular material and intellectual culture, of the progressive
differentiation of society, of conquest and at the same time of a
progressive consciousness of the advantages of solidarity among large
groups. The same sociologists have pointed out the parallel growth of
the institution of power, which progressively engulfs functions which
previously belonged to local and autonomous social organisms. If some of
these functions have been better executed by the new power, others have
been executed badly and with a constant disregard for the fundamental
rights of the individual.
The process of governmental hypertrophy is well described by Durkheim:
“The governmental power tends to pre-empt all forms of social activity.
Among them it is obliged to take upon itself a considerable number of
functions for which it is unsuited and which it executes in an
insufficient manner. Its passion for bringing everything under its
jurisdiction is matched only by its inability to regulate human life. It
expends enormous amounts of energy which are totally out of proportion
to the obtained results.
“On the other hand, men obey no other collectivity before the State,
because the State proclaims itself the only collective organism. They
acquire the habit of looking upon society as having a perpetual
dependence on the State. And meanwhile, the State is situated very far
from them, it remains an abstract entity which cannot exercise an
immediate influence, so that in a great part of their lives they move in
a void.”
It is on this terrain — the tendency of the State to engulf all things,
the human person, his social needs, to paralyze his will with threats
and sanctions, that the anarchist revolt is born.
Anarchists seek to abolish the State and in general to replace it, not
with chaos, but with anew form of organization. They seek to organize
society not on the principle of class power, but on the principle of
mutual aid.
There has not been a single society, even prior to the birth of the
State, that has not made certain demands upon its members. While
specific regulations may vary from society, some form of regulation is
always necessary.
Aside from legal codes, there exist in all societies what can be called
codes of convention. Shtamler points to these:
“In rules of ethical conduct, in interpersonal relationships.., in
collective norms such as the chivalric codes of the Middle Ages or the
codes of the guilds.”
The force of these codes is perhaps greater than the force of laws. The
fundamental difference is that these codes are based on a collective
accord:
“Men consent to a collective agreement, perhaps an unconscious one, like
the majority of social phenomena, but an agreement nevertheless.”
Meanwhile, legal codes are created by a specialized body, detached from
society, having as its primary aim the preservation of the established
order, which imposes its “sovereignty” without regard to the needs of
individual human beings. Genuinely collective codes, based on the free
agreement of human beings, can be correctly called anarchist codes. This
is recognized by the foremost representatives of anarchist thought, and
follows necessarily from the fact that neither social organization nor
social progress are consistent with unlimited individual liberty.
After this brief theoretical exposition, we would do well to see what
the more important anarchist thinkers have to say about the role of
collective codes in future society.
According to Eltzbacher, Godwin opposes all forms of social regulation.
However, while he opposes government in all its forms, he speaks of
communes as organizations for the collective benefit of all, and points
out the necessity of accepting such organizations. Considering the
possibility of anti-social acts on the part of particular members of a
commune, he speaks of a committee of wise men which would have the power
to punish these people or expel them from the group. Furthermore, he
envisages regional conferences for the discussion of conflicts betwen
communes and for the necessities of defense against the attacks of
common enemies. He feels that such institutions would be much more
effective than existing ones. Thus he favors the replacement of existing
legal codes with the regulation of society by communal organizations.
There are many seeming contradictions in the work of Proudhon concerning
centralization and the State. One can call the institutions advocated by
Proudhon “anarchist” and “federalist,” but these institutions carry with
them certain governmental characteristics. Even the word “anarchism” is
used by Proudhon in two senses: one is the ideal, the vision of a
society totally without coercion; the other is simply a form of
organization characterized by a preponderance of individual liberty.
Proudhon compromises the ideal of anarchism even further. He envisions a
society built largely on the principle of centralization, and his
federalism follows largely from the overt recognition that anarchy is
impossible. In realizing that a realistic solution of social problems
must start with a principle of federalism, he makes a realistic
compromise between anarchy and democracy.
No one has written such passionate criticisms of the State as Bakunin.
For him the State is an absolute evil:
“The State is an immense cemetery, the scene of the suicide, death and
burial of all manifestations of individual life or collective life —
briefly, of life. It is the altar for the sacrifice of liberty and
wellbeing, and the more complete this sacrifice is, the more perfect is
the State. The State is an abstraction which destroys the life of the
people.”
But the State, he insists, is a “historically necessary” evil, in the
same way that the bestiality of the first humans or the theological
imagination of men is necessary. But the State must disappear. It must
be replaced by a free society built on the basis of total autonomy;
starting with the small commune and building toward a worldwide union
joining all men. The relation between different organizations will no
longer be violent — it will be imposed not by law but by the free
consent of all. The voluntary commune — that is the source of Bakunin’s
social norms.
Kropotkin, like his predecessors, accepts social norms in relations
between men, for example, the obligation to fulfill a freely accepted
contract. In “The Conquest of Bread,” for example, he deals extensively
with the objections to and false notion of anarchist communism. In his
answers he shows himself to be above all a humanist, believing more in
human nature than in logic. He correctly insists that the most effective
way to deal with antisocial behaviour is to find and remove the reasons
for its existence. Meanwhile, such problems as the refusal of some men
to work or the refusal to submit to a collective decision can appear
even in the most perfect society. In this case, the recalcitrant can
always be banished. But in a communist society this can be a terrible
punishment, even for the perpetrator of a despicable crime. Unless, of
course, the banished criminal simply finds another commune. We must find
other solutions.
In his philosophical constructions, Tucker follows the reasoning of
Stirner and Proudhon. From Stirner he takes the principle of the
absolute sovereignty of the individual; from Proudhon he takes his
methods for achieving a free society constructed on the principle of
individual agreement.
Like all extreme individualists, Tucker rejects all imposed
organization. From there he launches a violent attack on the State:
“The State is the greatest criminal of our time. It acts not for the
defense of its most important unit, that is, the individual, but on the
contrary, to limit him, to oppress him, to attack him.”
Tucker vehemently criticizes all monopolies: government, the classes it
protects, money, laws. Against monopolies he opposes the principle of
unlimited competition:
“General and unlimited competition leads to absolute peace and true
cooperation.”
From there begins the battle of the anarchist individualists against
state socialism — they reproach it as being the victory of the mob over
the individual. Under state socialism power arrives at its culminating
point, monopolies wield their greatest power. At the same time, the
anarchist individualists fail to distinguish between state socialism and
anarchist commuism. For them, the latter is a phase in the development
of state socialist doctrine.
The characteristic trait of anarchist individualists is their acceptance
of private property. The problem they face is the following: can they
accept the monopoly of the individual over the product of his labor? If
they reply negatively, they give society the right to infringe upon the
individual. They have therefore chosen the other response and therefore
reintroduce the private ownership of land and the means of production.
From the principle of egoism as the sole motive force of men, Tucker
derives the law of equal liberty for all. The limit of the power of each
is found precisely in this egoism. The source of social norms based on
the will of all is the necessity to accept and honor the liberty of
each. Thus the anarchist individualists not only accept certain social
norms, but they tend to defend them.
Therefore, in anarchist individualism, as in anarchist communism, we are
faced with the tragic impossibility of resolving the incompatibility of
the individual and society, the choice between absolute individual
liberty or the necessity of a harmonious society.
If anarchism accepts this incompatibility, it turns to the principle
which is the proper basis of its theories: the principle of the equality
of all members within a free organization. If anarchism does not accept
this, it must then accept other social norms.
This article follows from the fact that anarchism is not an imaginary
dream, but a reality which gives logic and a realistic sense to the
revolt of the human spirit against violence. To be anarchist one does
not have to speak of fictions such as “absolute, unlimited liberty” and
the negation of duty and responsibility. The eternal contradiction, the
incompatibility of the individual and society, is insoluable, because it
is rooted in the nature of man himself, in his need for independence and
his need for society.
Let us openly admit that anarchism admits social norms. The norms of a
free society resemble neither in spirit nor in form the laws of
contemporary society, the bourgeois society, the capitalist society.
Neither do they resemble the decrees of a socialist dictatorship.
These norms will not seek the detachment of the individual from the
collectivity, neither will they serve such abstractions as a “common
good” to which the individual must sacrifice himself. Anarchist norms
will not be a torrent of decrees from a higher authority. They will1
come organically from the restlessness of the spirit which feels in
itself the force of creation, the thirst for the creative act, for the
realization of its desires in forms accessible to men.
The guarantee of this order of things will be the responsibility for our
own liberty and for the liberty of others. Like all social orders, it
will have to be defended. The concrete forms of this defense cannot be
indicated in advance. They will correspond to the concrete needs of the
society at the given moment.