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Title: Anarchism versus Socialism
Author: Sidney E. Parker
Date: Retrieved 11/09/2021 from http://blog.fair-use.org/2014/04/04/anarchism-versus-socialism/
Language: en
Topics: individualism, Minus One Journal, socialism
Notes: First published in Minus One #14 (July-August 1966)

Sidney E. Parker

Anarchism versus Socialism

The trouble with discussing socialism is that the word is such a vague

one. Anarchism, in comparison, is clear and precise. An anarchist is

someone who is without belief in authority–an individual who wants to

live his life without having to submit to a will external to him.

Anarchism is therefore the philosophy of living without authority, as

its etymology suggests.

But what is socialism?

The Little Oxford Dictionary is blunt: “Socialism: the principle that

individual liberty should be completely subordinated to the community.”

Professed socialists themselves, however, have eschewed such bluntness

and the most contradictory doctrines have been labeled “socialist”.

There have been and are, national socialists, Christian socialists,

libertarian socialists, state socialists, Marxist socialists, spiritual

socialists, idealist socialists and so forth and so on. The only way one

can get any sense out of the bewildering confusion of “true

interpretations” is to find some belief or principle common to all

socialists which distinguishes them from other people.

Since, for socialists in general, the economic question is

paramount–every problem tending to be reduced to the abolition of

capitalism and the establishment of socialism–there is one belief which

all socialists, from Statists to libertarian communists, share, and that

is the belief in the need to put the ownership or control of the means

of production into the hands of some collective body, be it the

government or “society”. Socialism above all is, as Auguste Hamon has

said, a “social system in which — a social doctrine by which — the means

of production are socialized”. It is my argument that this wish to make

society the owner and provider of the means of life is to put new

authority over the individual in place of the old and is therefore not

anarchism. Anarchism stands for leaving each individual free to provide

for himself what he needs and is therefore not a complement of socialism

but its opposite. It follows that those anarchists who think that

anarchism is a form of socialism are deluding themselves and sooner or

later will have to choose between them, for they cannot logically be

both.

Undoubtedly there are some socialists who are genuinely concerned for

the freedom of the individual and believe that by taking the means of

production away from the capitalists and giving them to society, or the

State as representative of society, they will abolish the subjection of

the many to the privileged few and so secure the liberty of each

individual. But how would this alter the position of the individual

producer? Under capitalism he has to submit to the will of a handful of

monopolists. Under socialism he would have to submit to the will of the

collective. He would have no freedom to produce and exchange as he

wishes and without this his individual freedom cannot exist.

The socialist might reply that when the means of production belong to

all then everyone will be an owner. But of what use is it to me to be an

owner of something in common with, say, 1,000,000 people? To own one

millionth of something is in effect to own nothing. Under socialism,

therefore, the individual would be a proletarian–that is, a

property-less person–and control of the means of production would be in

the hands of an abstraction called “society”, and the interests of this

abstraction would be superior to the interests of the individual.

Everything would be for the “common good”.

It is not enough to say that the individual would still own his clothing

or his toothbrush, and that only the means of producing these things

would be owned in common. As Benjamin Tucker pointed out this means “the

liberty to eat, but not to cook; to drink, but not to brew; to wear, but

not to spin; to dwell, but not to build; to give, but not to sell or

buy; to think, but not to print; to speak, but not to hire a hall; to

dance, but not to pay the fiddler.”

Socialism, being a species of humanism, is a doctrine of indiscriminate

solidarity. It suppresses direct exchange between the producer and the

consumer and has for its ethic the obligation of each to work for the

benefit of all. It assumes that since each individual will have the

right to a guaranteed living, he must all have the duty to put all he

produces at the disposal of the collectivity. The producer cannot choose

who will benefit from this production; the consumer cannot choose who

will be his producer. Socialism is thus a herd-philosophy, the practice

of the bee-hive. Its consistent application would deny all freedom of

choice and it is therefore a totalitarian system. Even if in theory

there would be no laws in a socialist society to enforce the

subordination of the individual to the mass, there would be a socially

sanctioned system of moral coercion to achieve the same end.

Economic freedom — any kind of freedom — for the individual can only

exist where there is a choice of alternatives. Anarchism can only be

pluralist, allowing any kind of economic relationship that will satisfy

the individuals involved. To tie the individual to collective ownership

is not anarchism, for anarchism can only exist where there is the

possibility for infinite change and variety.

The fundamental issue between anarchism and socialism was well put some

time ago by Francis Ellingham when writing of the difference between

individualist anarchism and libertarian communism. He wrote that this

difference concerned:

… who is to be the subject of the process of production, consumption and

accumulation?

Is it to be the individual, working as an independent economic

unit–either alone or, if he chooses, in association with other

individuals? Or is it to be the community as a whole, working as a sort

of super-family, and necessarily incorporating the individual, who thus

becomes a cell in a larger economic organism?

Either the economy could be of such a nature that it necessitated

association (and let us never forget that economic necessity can be at

least as tyrannical as any government), or it could be based on the

individual unit, leaving each individual free to associate, but never

submerging him in any group from which he could not withdraw without

economic ruin.

The libertarian communist ideal is, he continues,

… only a variation on the Marxist ideal that the State will ‘wither

away’. there are no rulers in the Marxist paradise, which, in that

sense, is an anarchist world. But the supposedly ‘free’ individual is

merely a cog in a gigantic social machine, held together by sheer force

of economic necessity.

Where socialists go wrong in this matter is in their assumption that the

individual can only be free–i.e. self-governing, self-owning–when his

interests are combined with those of all other individuals. They believe

in the collectivization of interests. But I am not free if my interests

are inseparable from yours. My freedom lies in my opportunity to differ,

in dis-unity, dis-connection, dis-sent. I am freest when interests are

individualized, when I can be sole sovereign over my person and can

dispose of the things I produce, or the services I can offer, as I see

fit.

Anarchism lies in the direction of the individualization of interests,

economic or any other, not their socialization.

Socialism is a religion of Society–it is the sacrifice of the individual

to the Collective.

Anarchism is the philosophy of the individual–it is the affirmation of

individuality, the proud denial of legitimacy to any institution, group

or idea that claims authority over the ego.