💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › herbert-read-the-paradox-of-anarchism.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 10:49:24. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: The Paradox of Anarchism
Author: Herbert Read
Date: 1941
Language: en
Topics: political philosophy
Source: Retrieved on October 5th, 2009 from http://www.panarchy.org/read/anarchism.html
Notes: In this interesting essay Herbert Read presents the concept of the functional contract in opposition to the social contract. The functional contract characterizes the anarchic society where individuals arrange their affairs and follow rules on the basis of functional aims voluntarily aimed at by the participants. The social contract, on the other hand, is at the basis of democratic statism where everybody is automatically bound, from birth, to follow the rules of the sovereign body. The affirmation of the social contract has been made possible by replacing the natural law (rational norms) with the positive law (state commands) originating from a supposedly existing Volkgeist (national spirit) of which the state is the personification.

Herbert Read

The Paradox of Anarchism

It has been the fashion, especially among orthodox Marxists, to hold in

contempt any theory of politics which did not justify itself in action,

and this emphasis on action has often led to a confusion of means and

ends — the means too often overshadowing the ends and becoming a

substitute for them. The dictatorship of the proletariat, for example,

at first put forward as a means towards the classless society, becomes

stabilized in Russia as the sovereignty of a new class.

Anarchism does not confuse means and ends, theory and practice. As a

theory it relies on reason alone, and if the conception of society which

it thus arrives at seems utopian and even chimerical, it does not

matter, for what is established by right reasoning cannot be surrendered

to expediency. Our practical activity may be a gradual approximation

towards the ideal, or it may be a sudden revolutionary realization of

that ideal, but it must never be a compromise. Proudhon was often

accused of being an anarchist in theory, but only a reformist in

practice: he was, in fact, an anarchist, all the time, who refused to

commit himself to the hazards of dictatorship. He would not play the

game of politics because he knew that economics were the fundamental

reality. And so to-day it is conceivable that a change in the control of

financial credit, or a new system of land tenure, might bring us nearer

to anarchism than a political revolution which merely transferred the

power of the state into the hands of a new set of ambitious gangsters.

Anarchism means literally a society without an arkhos, that is to say,

without a ruler. It does not mean a society without law and therefore it

does not mean a society without order. The anarchist accepts the social

contract, but he interprets that contract in a particular way, which he

believes to be the way most justified by reason.

The social contract, as expounded by Rousseau, implies that each

individual in society surrenders his independence for the common good,

with the assumption that only in this way can the liberty of the

individual be guaranteed. Liberty is guaranteed by law, and law, to use

Rousseau’s phrase, is the expression of the general will.

So far we are on common ground, not only with Rousseau, but with the

whole democratic tradition which has been built up on the theoretical

foundation laid by Rousseau. Where the anarchist diverges from Rousseau,

and from that aspect of the democratic tradition which has found

expression in parliamentary socialism, is in his interpretation of the

manner in which the general will should be formulated and enforced.

Rousseau himself was not consistent on this question. He was quite

convinced that some form of state must exist as an expression of the

general will, and that the power invested in the state by general

consent must be absolute. He was equally convinced that the individual

must retain his liberty, and that upon the individual’s enjoyment of

liberty depended all progress and civilization. He realized that as an

historical fact the state and the individual had always come into

conflict, and for a solution of this dilemma he fell back upon his

theory of education. If every citizen could be brought up to appreciate

the beauty and harmony of the laws inherent in nature, he would be as

incapable of establishing a tyranny as of enduring one. The society in

which he lived would automatically be a natural society, a society of

free consent in which law and liberty are but two aspects of the same

reality. But such a system of education implies a pre-existing authority

to establish it and that authority must be absolute.

The system of government recommended by Rousseau in The Social Contract

is an elective aristocracy rather than a true democracy, and to control

this aristocracy he imagines a state so small that every individual

within it would be able to watch and criticize the government. He

probably had something like the Greek city-state in mind as the real

unit. He certainly had no prevision of the vast complexes of millions of

individuals which constitute most modern states, and we can be quite

sure that he would have been the first to admit that his system of

checks on authority would not work under such conditions.

But his theory of the state, which has had such a profound influence on

the development of modern socialism, has been taken over as applicable

to these vast conglomerates, and it then becomes a justification for the

most absolute kind of authoritarianism. This danger was recognized as

long ago as 1815 by Benjamin Constant, who described The Social Contract

as “le plus terrible auxiliaire de tous les genres de despotisme”.

If what Rousseau calls an aristocratic form of government is more or

less identical with modern democracy, what he calls democracy is more or

less identical with the modern theory of anarchism, and it is

interesting to see why he rejects democracy. He does so for two reasons

— first because he regards it as an executive impossibility. A people

cannot be continuously assembled to govern; it must delegate authority

as a mere matter of convenience, and once you have delegated authority,

you no longer have a democracy.

His second reason is a typical example of his inconsistency. If there

were a people of gods, he says, they could govern themselves

democratically, but a government so perfect is unsuitable for men.

But if democracy is the perfect form of government, it is not for one

who has proclaimed his faith in the perfectibility of man to restrict it

to the gods. What is good enough for the gods is all the better for man

— as an ideal. If the ideal exists we must recognize it and strive,

however approximately, to attain it.

But the fundamental question in all this sophistry is ignored by

Rousseau. It is the unreality of the notion of the general will. There

is probably only one issue on which a people ever expresses unanimous or

general will: the defence of their physical liberty. Otherwise they

divide according to their temperaments, and though these are limited in

number, they are sufficiently diverse and so mutually opposed that in

any given geographical area they will give rise to incompatible groups.

On that very account, say Rousseau and many other philosophers, a

democracy is impossible.

They are forced to this conclusion because they adhere obstinately to

the arbitrary boundaries of the modern state — boundaries established by

rivers, seas, mountains and military treaties, and not by reason.

Suppose we were to ignore these boundaries, or abolish them. The

realities are, after all, human beings with certain desires: with

certain primitive needs. These human beings, according to their needs

and sympathies, will spontaneously associate themselves into groups for

mutual aid, will voluntarily organize an economy which ensures the

satisfaction of their needs. This is the principle of mutual aid, and it

has been explained and justified with much historical and scientific

evidence by Kropotkin. It is this principle which the anarchist makes

the foundation of the social order, and upon which he believes he can

build that democratic form of society which Rousseau felt was reserved

for the gods.

It is not necessary here to repeat the empirical evidence for this

belief: Kropotkin’s great book can now be obtained for sixpence in the

Penguin Series, and it is a work whose scholarship is acknowledged by

sociologists of all schools. The difficulty is not to justify a

principle which has sound psychological and empirical evidence to

support it, but to apply this principle to the existing state of

society.

This we do tentatively by taking the voluntary organizations which

already exist and seeing to what extent they are capable of becoming the

units in a democratic society. Such organizations are trade unions,

syndicates, professional unions and associations — all those groups

which crystallize around a human function. We then consider the

functions which are now performed by the state, and which are necessary

for our well-being, and we ask ourselves to what extent these functions

could be entrusted to such voluntary organizations. We come to the

conclusion that there are no essential functions which could not thus be

transferred. It is true that there are functions like making war and

charging rent which are not the expression of an impulse towards mutual

aid, but it does not need much consideration of such functions to see

that they would naturally disappear if the central authority of the

state was abolished.

The mistakes of every political thinker from Aristotle to Rousseau have

been due to their use of the abstract conception man. Their systems

assume the substantial uniformity of this creature of their

imaginations, and what they actually propose are various forms of

authority to enforce uniformity on man.

But the anarchist recognizes the uniqueness of the person, and only

allows for organization to the extent that the person seeks sympathy and

mutual aid among his fellows. In reality, therefore, the anarchist

replaces the social contract by the functional contract, and the

authority of the contract only extends to the fulfilling of a specific

function.

The political unitarian or authoritarian conceives society as one body

compelled to uniformity. The anarchist conceives society as a balance or

harmony of groups, and most of us belong to one or more such groups. The

only difficulty is their harmonious interrelation.

But is it so difficult? It is true that trade unions sometimes quarrel

with one another, but analyse these quarrels and you will find, either

that they proceed from causes outside their function (such as their

different conception of their place in a non-functional, e.g.

capitalist, society) or from personal rivalries, which are a reflection

of the struggle for survival in a capitalist world. Such differences of

aim bear no relation to the principle of voluntary organization and are

indeed excluded by that very concept. In general, trade unions can agree

with one another well enough even in a capitalist society, in spite of

all its incitement to rivalry and aggressiveness.

If we go outside our own time to the Middle Ages, far example, we find

that the functional organization of society, though imperfectly

realized, was proved to be quite possible, and its gradual perfection

was only thwarted by the rise of capitalism. Other periods and other

forms of society, as Kropotkin has shown, fully confirm the possibility

of the harmonious interrelationships of functional groups.

Admitted, it may be said, that we can transfer all the economic

functions of the state in this way, what about other functions — the

administration of criminal law, relationships with foreign countries not

at the same stage of social development, education, etc.?

To this question the anarchist has two replies. In the first place he

argues that most of these non-functional activities are incidental to a

non-functional state — that crime, for example, is largely a reaction to

the institution of private property, and that foreign affairs are

largely economic in origin and motivation. But it is agreed that there

questions, such as certain aspects of common law, infant education,

public morality, which may be outside the province of the functional

organizations. These, he argues, are matters of common sense, solved by

reference to the innate good will of the community. But the community,

for this purpose need not necessarily be anything so impersonal and so

grandiose as a state — in fact, it will be effective in inverse ratio to

its size. The most effective community is the smallest — the family.

Beyond the family is the parish, the local association of men in

contiguous dwellings. Such local associations may form their courts and

these courts are sufficient to administer a common law based on common

sense. The manor courts in the Middle Ages, for example, dealt with all

crimes and misdemeanours save those committed against the artificial

entities of the state and the Church.

In this sense anarchism implies a universal decentralization of

authority, and a universal simplification of life. Inhuman entities like

the modern city will disappear. But anarchism does not necessarily imply

a reversion to handicraft and outdoor sanitation. There is no

contradiction between anarchism and electric power, anarchism and air

transport, anarchism and the division of labour, anarchism and

industrial efficiency. Since the functional groups will all be working

for their mutual benefit, and not for other people’s profit or for

mutual destruction, the measure of efficiency will be the appetite, for

fullness of living.

There is a further consideration of a more topical and pressing nature.

In a remarkable book published recently, The Crisis of Civilization,

Alfred Cobban has shown that the disasters which have fallen on the

Western world are a direct consequence of the adoption by Germany of the

theory of popular or national sovereignty, in place of the theory of

natural law which had been evolved by the rational movement of thought

in the eighteenth century known as the Enlightenment. German thought,

writes Mr. Cobban,

substituted historical rights for natural rights, and will of the

nation, or the Volk, for reason as the basis of law and government. ...

The ultimate result of the theory of popular sovereignty was thus the

substitution of history for ethics. This tendency was present in the

contemporary thought of all countries. It has only achieved a complete

triumph in Germany. The distinguishing mark of modern German thought is

dissolution of ethics in the Volkgeist; its practical conclusion is that

the state is the source of all morality and the individual must accept

the laws and actions of his own state as having ultimate ethical

validity.

I will not repeat the detailed evidence which Mr. Cobban, who is a

professional historian, offers in support of this statement, but its

truth is obvious enough. “Sovereignty, whether it adopts the democratic,

nationalist, or socialist disguise, or some amalgam of all three, is the

political religion of to-day.” It follows that if we are to rid Europe

permanently of the menace to peace which Germany represents, we must

first of all refute the German conception sovereignty. So long as this

conception remains, as a national religion, there will be a continual

resurgence of the instruments of such a policy — armed might and

arbitrary aggression.

It was a great German, already alarmed by the tendencies then taking

shape, as an immediate reaction from the French Revolution, who warned

his countrymen against the monster they were creating.

It is thus [wrote Schiller] that concrete individual life is

extinguished, in order that the abstract whole may continue its

miserable life, and the state remains for ever a stranger to its

citizens, because nowhere does it touch their feelings. The governing

authorities find themselves compelled to classify, and thereby simplify,

the multiplicity of citizens, and only to know humanity in a

representative form and at second hand. Accordingly they end by entirely

losing sight of humanity, and by confounding it with a simple artificial

creation of the understanding, whilst on their part the subject classes

cannot help receiving coldly laws that address themselves so little to

their personality. At length society, weary of having a burden that the

state takes so little trouble to lighten, falls to pieces and is broken

up — a destiny that has long since attended most European states. They

are dissolved in what may be called a state of moral nature, in which

public authority is only one function more, hated and deceived by those

who think it necessary, respected only by those who can do without it.

(Letters upon the Aesthetical Education of Man, VI, 1795)

In these prescient words Schiller stated that antagonism between organic

freedom and mechanical organizations which has been ignored in the

political development of modern Europe, with results which we see all

round us now.

Anarchism is the final and most urgent protest against this fate: a

recall to those principles which alone can guarantee the harmony of

man’s being and the creative evolution of his genius.