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Title: Anarchist Socialism Author: J. William Lloyd Date: 1881 Language: en Topics: libertarian socialism, socialism Source: https://www.unionofegoists.com/2018/06/11/anarchist-socialism-by-j-wm-lloyd/
As many of you, my comrades, may know me only as a Socialist, and may
doubt my qualifications to explain Anarchism, I will say that for some
20 years or more I was a professed and active Anarchist, a constant
contributor to Anarchist periodicals, and the personal friend and
correspondent of many of the Anarchist leaders of the time. In 1884,
when I first publicly announced myself a philosophical Anarchist,
Liberty was the leading Anarchist paper in the United States and
certainly the ablest one in the world and I became a steady contributor
to its columns and the close friend of its editor and owner, Benj. R.
Tucker. Mr. Tucker now lives in Europe, but his wife was one of the most
intimate friends of my family and his only child is named Oriole, after
my daughter. At one time I was the literary editor of Liberty. At
another I myself edited an Anarchist periodical, The Free Comrade, which
was suspended for while, and then revived for a short time by Leonard
Abbott and myself, as an advocate of the juncture of the Anarchist and
Socialist forces. I also wrote and published an Anarchist booklet, "The
Red Heard in a White World", and became the leader of an Anarchist
group, which was known as "The Comradeship of Free Socialists", and at
one time had quite a membership, scattered all over the world. My books,
"The Natural Man" and "Vale Sunrise", were Anarchistic. During these
years, tho I avoided the platform, I was almost constantly engaged in
debate, defending and explaining the philosophy of Anarchism thru the
press. I even wrote an "Anarchist's March", which was set to music. I
mention all this simply to show you that when I speak of Anarchism, I am
somewhat prepared to explain it and do it justice.
First, then, what is Anarchism? It is logical human liberty. It is the
ideal of human life without a master. Tucker defined it as "Equal
Liberty". Another definition is, "Do as you please at your own expense";
another, "Mind your own business and let your neighbor's alone". The
name was first used and applied by Pierre J. Proudhon, the French
philosopher, who derived it from the Greek an, privitive, and archos,
ruler, meaning life without a ruler or government. On this basis the
Anarchist founds a whole system of ethics and politics. He identifies
crime and government as the same in logical essence, for both are
impositions of one man's will on another without his consent. All
Anarchists say that liberty and Anarchism are synonyms.
It was a common charge a few years ago, and probably still is, that
Anarchism is an imported foreign product and un-American. On the
contrary, Anarchism originated in the United States before the rest of
the world had it, and is a logical consequence of fundamental American
principles; also many prominent Americans have been Anarchists.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was so
nearly an Anarchist that he uttered the famous aphorism, "The best
government is that which governs the least." The Declaration is so
nearly an Anarchist document that there is probably not an Anarchist in
the world, except the few Nietzscheans, who would reject its fundamental
logic. For example: That all men are equal in rights to life, liberty
and pursuit of happiness; That governments derive their just powers from
the consent of the governed; That whenever any government becomes
destructive to the above rights, it is the right and duty of those who
have formed it, the people, to take whatever measures may be necessary
to secure their own safety and happiness, even to its complete
abolition. In other words, the logic of the Declaration is that the
individual is sovereign and supreme where he has his true rights, and
the government only his tool, which he has made and has a right,
therefore, to unmake at his pleasure.
"Individual Sovereignty" was one of the fundamental American watchwords
and the whole of Anarchism is logically included in it. So too, all
Anarchism is logically contained in the doctrine that governments derive
their just powers from the consent of the governed. No Anarchist has any
logical objection to a government to which all its members consent; only
he carries the logic one step further and says that if the individual
withdraws his consent, in that moment the just power of the government
over him ceases. So too, all Anarchism is logically contained in the
statement that the right of every man to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness, in his own inoffensive way, is rightfully inalienable.
Therefore the American principles are profoundly Anarchistic and the
logic of Anarchism is absolutely American.
But the matter was not left simply to logic and doctrinaire deductions.
Josiah Warren, direct descendant of that famous General Warren who fell
at Bunker Hill, was the real founder of Anarchism and the first
Anarchist author. In his work "True Civilization", published, I believe
in the thirties [1830s], he took the American principle of Individual
Sovereignty and worked it out to its logical ultimates, making the first
clear and definite presentation of Anarchist principles the world had
ever seen. He also established the first Anarchist group at his colony
of "Modern Times" on Long Island. However he did not use the word
"Anarchism", which had not then been adopted. At that time many
prominent Americans accepted these ideas, either wholly or in part.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was the most shining example. His writings are full
of Anarchist statements of great force, much quoted by Anarchists to
this day. His friend, Henry David Thoreau, was a scarcely less
illustrious and more militant Anarchist. He went to jail rather than pay
a poll-tax to a government that supported slavery. When Emerson heard of
it and came to pay his tax to get him out, he said to Thoreau, in his
cell, "What Henry, you here!" and Thoreau sarcastically replied, with
his quaint Yankee humor, "What, Waldo, and you not here!", implying that
to be consistent Emerson would have done the same. And a New England
woman, who knew him, told me two summers ago, that his townspeople
actually never afterwards asked him to pay a tax. Most of the New
England Transcendentalists were more or less Anarchist and so were all
Abolitionists, some of whom were radically so, particularly William
Lloyd Garrison and Stephen Pearl Andrews. It is noteworthy that the
Civil War was more of less avowedly fought over two Anarchist
principles, wrested from their context. Thus the North, so far as
intentionally Abolitionist, was fighting for the restoration of
individuality to the black man, and the South was fighting for the
Anarchist principle of Free Secession from an undesired Union.
Warren's most brilliant and influential disciple was Benj. R. Tucker, a
man of old New England stock. He was at one time city editor of the
Boston Globe. As a translator of French books, he translated some of the
most important of Proudhon's works and adopted Proudhon's name,
Anarchism, for the philosophy. Proudhon had developed his Anarchism
separately, with no knowledge of Warren but probably derived it from the
logic of the French Revolutionary slogan of "Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity", which perhaps the French had largely derived from the
principles of the American Revolution with its Declaration of
Independence. At any rate its logic was identical. But somewhere near
this time, also independently, a Russian form of Anarchism was
originated by Bakounine.
Now developed the first split in the Anarchist movement, which since
then has broken up fundamentally into many sects and schools. Warren and
Proudhon were intensely individualistic, and Proudhon and Tucker
especially detested and fought communism, while the Russians made
communism their main principle. Bakounine, Kropotkin, and Emma Goldman,
all Russians, have been the great leaders of Communistic-Anarchism,
which now has largely outgrown the Individualistic-Anarchistic division
in numbers and political importance.
Another split grew up over the question of violence. The
Individualist-Anarchists have always stood for an intellectual
propaganda and for passive resistance, reserving violence only as a
weapon of last and desperate resort.
The Russians have largely advocated, encouraged and winked at terrorism
as a means of revolution -- "propaganda by deed" they called it. A small
group of Americans and foreigners combined, in Chicago, at one time and
adopted the Russian communistic and terroristic principles, leading to
the calamitous "Haymarket Riot", and the hanging of several of their
leaders. Among these was Samuel Parsons, also an American of
Revolutionary ancestry. On the other hand, among the Russians, Tolstoy
developed an entirely new variant of Anarchism -- a Christian and
non-resistant form, but still communistic. He declared all violence,
even in self-defense, a violation of liberty; even to defend liberty, it
was a violation of liberty.
Now another split came among the individualists. These had largely
adopted the philosophy of Egoism of the German, Max Stirner, who
declared all human life was moved simply by self-interest. Still the
Americans did not think this conflicted with their principle of equal
liberty, which they declared an enlightened egoism would make every man
maintain for his own benefit. But Stirner's most brilliant disciple was
the German, Nietzsche, who declared that the law of Nature was that
might was right, and that the true Anarchist was the individual who
cared consciously only for himself and exploited the world to feed his
own individuality - who pleased himself and had no law or limit but his
own powers. Thru his brilliant and paradoxical genius, Nietzsche exerted
a tremendously active influence in the German universities and over the
dominating spirits of the world. Theodore Roosevelt is commonly
considered among his disciples. So is the German Kaiser and the whole
military caste of Germany, and the initiation of the present war is
often laid to his door. Napoleon and John Pierpont Morgan could have
called themselves Nietzschean Anarchists; or any other utterly
unscrupulous exploiter and tyrant might have taken the name.
There was also a small American school whose watchword was "Do as you
please and take the consequences!", which they said contained all of
Anarchism.
So now Anarchism, today, is curiously broken up into utterly opposing
and contradictory schools. This arises from their failure to agree on a
definition of liberty. Anarchism, they all say, is liberty, but what
liberty is and how best to secure it are the points on which they
divide. The Americans and French say that the liberty of the individual
is only logically secured by equal liberty of each to be sovereign only
over his own. The Russians say that equal liberty can only be secured by
the equal sharing of communism - the individualists retorting that
communism swallows up the individual and digests him into the community.
Tolstoy says if you adopt altruism as your method and let your brother
do what he pleases without resistance, he will let you do what you
please and so equal liberty and harmony will come by the law of Christ.
Neitzsche says he is Anti-Christ, ridicules and denounces Christianity,
altruism, Socialism, equality, communism and social rights, as all
equally the inventions of the weak to cheat the strong, declares there
is no logical liberty but that of the individual to assert himself thru
that struggle for existence and survival of the fittest which is
Nature's law, and everything but the law of might will fail.
I, in my writings, did not agree with any of these exactly, but
endeavored to effect a reconciliation - a working combination of
individualism and communism - the individual to possess and be master of
his own personal belongings, but communistic in the larger and social
relations.
Again the Anarchists split on the question of property in land. The
Individualists held that the only valid title to anything was a
labor-title, and as nobody's labor had made the land, therefore it
belonged to nobody, but would become the property of whoever occupied
and used it just so long as he occupied and used it and no longer. The
Communists held that everything belonged to all men equally, the land
included. My own proposition was that each man should have a small piece
of land, not larger than he could personally occupy and cultivate or
use, and a communal right, with all others, in all land not thus
individually occupied and used. The Single-Taxers, who, by the way, are
largely Anarchistic in theory, agreed with the communists and offered
the Single Tax as the best way of equalizing land values and
opportunities.
Despite its differences, Anarchism has had a profound and far-reaching
influence on human thought. For personal liberty appeals to every brave
and original mind. It is to be noted that Anarchists, just as strongly
as Marxians, claim to be scientific. Nay, they claim to be more
scientific, because they say they would cut away all artificial supports
and privileges and leave man absolutely to the natural laws on which
alone science bases itself. All government, they say, are artificial and
interfere with Nature. It must be remembered that in their younger days
Proudhon and Karl Marx were friends and agreed up to a certain point,
where Marx declared the remedy to be to put all social functions under
the government, and Proudhon affirmed that government itself, with its
privileges and monopolies and invasions of liberty, was the enemy. In
those days both called themselves socialists and Marx called himself a
Communist, as witness his famous "Manifesto". Indeed Anarchists still
claim to be socialists, a name which the Social-Democrats have no right,
they say, to monopolize. All men are socialists, they claim, who are
working for the world as it should be, against those who are contented
or are contending for the world as it is. They call themselves,
sometimes, Free-Socialists, as opposed to what they call
State-Socialists - that is, those who would create socialism thru
political action.
Now for a little personal history. Our secretary [of a local radical
organization], Comrade Zeitelhack will remember that when I offered to
join the Westfield Branch, I wrote him I was an Anarchist but as there
was no Anarchist Group of Single-Tax party here, and as I believed in
radicals working together, I wanted to help the Socialists. He met me on
the street and told me he did not think there was much difference in the
ultimate aims of Anarchism and Socialism and that he would be glad to
have me join, and it was on these terms that I was admitted. I had no
thought of becoming a real Socialist, but I studied the thought and the
literature and in time came to feel that the Socialists had the best of
the argument. Anarchist theories were fine and fascinating, but, as most
Anarchists rejected voting, majority rule and even suspicioned
organization, they were powerless against the growing evils of
capitalism. They refused the ballot because they said the bullet was
behind it, but as most of them justified the bullet, at least as a last
resort, why not use the ballot? I came to see that government was a tool
without which, in some form, cooperative action was impossible. Voting
and majority rule were natural necessities of collective functioning,
and men could act in no other way if they acted together, and I now saw
why, in the twenty years I had been with them, the Anarchists had
accomplished nothing except to modify the thought of some of the higher
minds. I came to think too that there might be times and places where
the rights or necessities of the collectivity might be greater than
those of the individual. So I ceased to be an orthodox Anarchist.
Nevertheless I have never lost my thirst for personal liberty, only I
believe now, that if the Social-Democracy can win, it will give to all
men greater practical equal-liberty and security than the vague faiths
and method, or no-methods of the Anarchists could achieve.
But I believe that Anarchism and Socialism are both needed in human
society - that they represent two strong trends in human psychology -
the trend toward liberty and individual variation, and the trend toward
cooperation, sympathy and solidarity, and that therefore they should
work together. Socialism greatly needs Anarchism as a critic and to keep
it from sacrificing the individual and his originality to the domination
of the mass. And I have tried, tho I confess with no appreciable
success, to effect a compromise, which would permit the essential
Anarchist principles of Individual Secession and Autonomy of the Group
to be guaranteed under Socialism, claiming that if this were done in the
Socialistic Constitution and Platforms, the Anarchists would have no
logical ground for keeping out of the Party, which would thus gain a
multitude of votes - without sacrificing its own principles. Simply an
alliance to win, with division of territory and autonomy of method after
the conquest of government and the capitalist defeat.