Anarchism is a political theory which aims to create anarchy, "the absence of a master, of a sovereign." [P-J Proudhon, What is Property , p. 264] In other words, anarchism is a political theory which aims to create a society within which individuals freely co-operate together as equals. As such anarchism opposes all forms of hierarchical control - be that control by the state or capitalist - as harmful to the individual and their individuality as well as unnecessary.
In the words of anarchist L. Susan Brown:
"While the popular understanding of anarchism is of a violent, anti-State movement, anarchism is a much more subtle and nuanced tradition then a simple opposition to government power. Anarchists oppose the idea that power and domination are necessary for society, and instead advocate more co-operative, anti-hierarchical forms of social, political and economic organisation." [The Politics of Individualism, p. 106]
However, "anarchism" and "anarchy" are undoubtedly the most misrepresented ideas in political theory. Generally, the words are used to mean "chaos" or "without order," and so, by implication, anarchists desire social chaos and a return to the "laws of the jungle."
This process of misrepresentation is not without historical parallel. For example, in countries which have considered government by one person (monarchy) necessary, the words "republic" or "democracy" have been used precisely like "anarchy," to imply disorder and confusion. Those with a vested interest in preserving the status quo will obviously wish to imply that opposition to the current system cannot work in practice, and that a new form of society will only lead to chaos. Or, as Errico Malatesta expresses it:
"since it was thought that government was necessary and that without government there could only be disorder and confusion, it was natural and logical that anarchy, which means absence of government, should sound like absence of order." [Anarchy, p. 12].
Anarchists want to change this "common-sense" idea of "anarchy," so people will see that government and other hierarchical social relationships are both harmful and unnecessary:
"Change opinion, convince the public that government is not only unnecessary, but extremely harmful, and then the word anarchy, just because it means absence of government, will come to mean for everybody: natural order, unity of human needs and the interests of all, complete freedom within complete solidarity." [Ibid., pp. 12-13].
This FAQ is part of the process of changing the commonly-held ideas regarding anarchism and the meaning of anarchy.
The word "anarchy" is from Greek, prefix a, meaning "not," "the want of," "the absence of," or "the lack of", plus archos, meaning "a ruler," "director", "chief," "person in charge," "commander." The Greek words anarchos, and anarchia meant "having no government -- being without a government" [Peter A. Angeles, The Harper Collins Dictionary of Philosophy, Second Edition, pp. 11-12].
As can be seen, the strict, original meaning of anarchism was not simply
"no government." "An-archy" means "without a ruler," or more generally,
"without authority," and it is in this sense that anarchists have
continually used the word. For this reason, rather than being purely
anti-government or anti-state, anarchism is primarily a movement against
hierarchy. Why? Because hierarchy is the organisational structure that
embodies authority. Since the state is the "highest" form of hierarchy,
anarchists are, by definition, anti-state; but this is not a sufficient
definition of anarchism. This means that real anarchists are opposed to all
forms of hierarchical organisation, not only the state.
Reference to "hierarchy" in this context is a fairly recent development
-- the "classical" anarchists such as Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin did use
the word, but rarely (they usually preferred "authority," which was used
as short-hand for "authoritarian"). However, it's clear from
their writings that theirs was a philosophy against hierarchy, against
any inequality of power or privileges between individuals. Bakunin spoke
of this when attacked "official" authority but defended "natural
influence," and also when he said:
As Jeff Draughn notes, "while it has always been a latent part of the
'revolutionary project,' only recently has this broader concept of
anti-hierarchy arisen for more specific scrutiny. Nonetheless, the root
of this is plainly visible in the Greek roots of the word 'anarchy'"
[Between Anarchism and Libertarianism: Defining a New Movement]
We stress that this opposition to hierarchy is, for anarchists, not
limited to just the state or government. It includes all authoritarian
economic and social relationships as well as political ones, particularly
those associated with capitalist property and wage labour. This can be seen
from Proudhon's argument that "Capital . . . in the political field is
analogous to government . . . The economic idea of capitalism . . .
[and] the politics of government or of authority . . . [are] identical . . .
[and] linked in various ways. . . What capital does to labour . . . the
State [does] to liberty . . ." [quoted by Max Nettlau, A Short History
of Anarchism, pp. 43-44]
Thus "anarchy" means more than just "no government," it means opposition to
all forms of authoritarian organisation and hierarchy. In Kropotkin's words,
"the origin of the anarchist inception of society . . . [lies in] the criticism
. . . of the hierarchical organisations and the authoritarian conceptions of
society; and . . . the analysis of the tendencies that are seen in the
progressive movements of mankind." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets,
p. 158]
And, just to state the obvious, anarchy does not mean chaos nor do anarchists
seek to create chaos or disorder. Instead, we wish to create a society
based upon individual freedom and voluntary co-operation. In other words,
order from the bottom up, not disorder imposed from the top down by
authorities.
To quote Peter Kropotkin, Anarchism is "the no-government system of socialism. . . ." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 46].
In other words, "the abolition of exploitation and oppression of man by
man, that is the abolition of private property [i.e. capitalism] and
government." [Errico Malatesta, "Towards Anarchism," in Man!,
M. Graham (Ed), p. 75]
Anarchism, therefore, is a political theory that aims to create a society
which is without political, economic or social hierarchies. Anarchists
maintain that anarchy, the absence of rulers, is a viable form of social
system and so work for the maximisation of individual liberty and social
equality. They see the goals of liberty and equality as mutually
self-supporting. Or, in Bakunin's famous dictum:
The history of human society proves this point. Liberty without equality
is only liberty for the powerful, and equality without liberty is
impossible and a justification for slavery.
While there are many different types of anarchism (from individualist
anarchism to communist-anarchism -- see section
A.3 for more details),
there has always been two common positions at the core of all of them --
opposition to government and opposition to capitalism. In the words of
the individualist-anarchist Benjamin Tucker, anarchism insists on "the
abolition of the State and the abolition of usury; on no more government
of man by man, and no more exploitation of man by man." [cited in
Native American Anarchism - A Study of Left-Wing American Individualism
by Eunice Schuster, p. 140] All anarchists view profit, interest and rent
as usury (i.e. as exploitation) and so oppose them and the conditions
that create them just as much as they oppose government and the State.
More generally, in the words of L. Susan Brown, the "unifying link" within
anarchism "is a universal condemnation of hierarchy and domination and a willingness to fight for the freedom of the human individual." [The
Politics of Individualism, p. 108] For anarchists, a person cannot be
free if they are subject to state or capitalist authority.
So Anarchism is a political theory which advocates the creation of
anarchy, a society based on the maxim of "no rulers." To achieve this,
"[i]n common with all socialists, the anarchists hold that the private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time; that it is
condemned to disappear: and that all requisites for production must, and
will, become the common property of society, and be managed in common by
the producers of wealth. And. . . they maintain that the ideal of the
political organisation of society is a condition of things where the
functions of government are reduced to minimum. . . (and) that the
ultimate aim of society is the reduction of the functions of government to
nil -- that is, to a society without government, to an-archy" [Peter
Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 46]
Thus anarchism is both positive and negative. It analyses and critiques
current society while at the same time offering a vision of a potential
new society -- a society that maximises certain human needs which the
current one denies. These needs, at their most basic, are liberty,
equality and solidarity, which will be discussed in section A.2.
Anarchism unites critical analysis with hope, for, as Bakunin pointed out,
"the urge to destroy is a creative urge." One cannot build a better
society without understanding what is wrong with the present one.
Many anarchists, seeing the negative nature of the definition of
"anarchism," have used other terms to emphasise the inherently positive
and constructive aspect of their ideas. The most common terms used are
"free socialism," "free communism," "libertarian socialism," and
"libertarian communism." For anarchists, libertarian socialism,
libertarian communism, and anarchism are virtually interchangeable.
Considering definitions from the American Heritage Dictionary, we find:
SOCIALISM: a social system in which the producers possess both political
power and the means of producing and distributing goods.
(Although we must add that our usual comments on the lack of political
sophistication of dictionaries still holds. We only use these definitions
to show that "libertarian" does not imply "free market" capitalism nor
"socialism" state ownership. Other dictionaries, obviously, will have
different definitions -- particularly for socialism. Those wanting to
debate dictionary definitions are free to pursue this unending and
politically useless hobby but we will not).
However, due to the creation of the Libertarian Party in the USA, many
people now consider the idea of "libertarian socialism" to be a
contradiction in terms. Indeed, many "Libertarians" think anarchists are
just attempting to associate the "anti-libertarian" ideas of "socialism"
(as Libertarians conceive it) with Libertarian ideology in order to make
those "socialist" ideas more "acceptable" -- in other words, trying to
steal the "libertarian" label from its rightful possessors.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Anarchists have been using the term
"libertarian" to describe themselves and their ideas since the 1850's. The
revolutionary anarchist Joseph Dejacque published Le Libertaire, Journal
du Mouvement social in New York between 1858 and 1861 [Max Nettlau, A
Short History of Anarchism, p. 75]. According to anarchist historian Max
Nettlau, the use of the term "libertarian communism" dates from November,
1880 when a French anarchist congress adopted it [Ibid., p. 145]. The use
of the term "Libertarian" by anarchists became more popular from the 1890s
onward after it was used in France in an attempt to get round anti-anarchist
laws and to avoid the negative associations of the word "anarchy" in the
popular mind (Sebastien Faure and Louise Michel published the paper
Le Libertaire -- The Libertarian -- in France in 1895, for example).
Since then, particularly outside America, it has always been associated
with anarchist ideas and movements. Taking a more recent example, in the USA, anarchists organised "The Libertarian League" in July 1954, which
had staunch anarcho-syndicalist principles and lasted until 1965. The US-based
"Libertarian" Party, on the other hand has only existed since the early
1970's, well over 100 years after anarchists first used the term to describe
their political ideas (and 90 years after the expression "libertarian
communism" was first adopted). It is that party, not the anarchists, who have
"stolen" the word. Later, in Section B, we will discuss why the idea of a "libertarian" capitalism (as desired by the Libertarian Party) is a contradiction in terms.
As we will also explain in Section I, only a libertarian-socialist system of ownership can maximise individual freedom. Needless to say, state ownership -- what is commonly called
"socialism" -- is, for anarchists, not socialism at all. In fact, as we
will elaborate in Section H, state "socialism"
is just a form of capitalism, with no socialist content whatever.
Yes. All branches of anarchism are opposed to capitalism. This is
because the latter is based on domination and exploitation (see sections
B and C). Anarchists
reject the "notion that men cannot work together unless they
have a driving-master to take a percentage of their product" and think
that in an anarchist society "the real workmen will make their own
regulations, decide when and where and how things shall be done." By
so doing workers would free themselves "from the terrible bondage of
capitalism." [Voltairine de Cleyre, "Anarchism," pp. 30-34,
Man!, M. Graham (Ed), p. 32, p. 34]
Individualists like Ben Tucker along with social anarchists like Proudhon
and Bakunin proclaimed themselves "socialists." They did so because the
word "socialist" was originally defined to include "all those who believed
in the individual's right to possess what he or she produced" ["Ayn
Rand and the Perversion of Libertarianism," in Anarchy: A Journal of
Desire Armed, no. 34]. In order to achieve this, socialists desire a society
within which the producers own and control the means of production. Under
capitalism, workers do not govern themselves during the production process
nor have control over the product of their labour. Such a situation is hardly
based on equal freedom for all and is so opposed by anarchists.
Therefore all anarchists are anti-capitalist. Ben Tucker, for example
-- the anarchist most influenced by liberalism (as we will discuss later) -- called his ideas
"Anarchistic-Socialism" and denounced the capitalist as "the
usurer, the receiver of interest, rent and profit." Tucker held that in
an anarchist, non-capitalist, free-market society, capitalists will become
redundant, since "labour. . . will. . . secure its natural wage, its entire product." Such an economy will be based on mutual banking and the free
exchange of products between co-operatives, artisans and peasants. Even Max
Stirner, the arch-egoist, had nothing but scorn for capitalist society and
its various "spooks," which for him meant ideas that are treated as sacred
or religious, such as private property, competition, division of labour, and
so forth.
So anarchists consider themselves as socialists, but socialists of a
specific kind - libertarian socialists. As the individualist
anarchist Joseph A. Labadie puts it (echoing both Tucker and Bakunin):
While social and individualist anarchists do disagree on many issues --
for example, whether a free market would be the best means of maximising
liberty -- they agree that capitalism is to be opposed and that an
anarchist society must, by definition, be based on associated, not wage,
labour. Only associated labour will "decrease the powers of external wills
and forces over the individual" during working hours and such
self-management of work by those who do it is the core ideal of real
socialism. However, the meanings of words change over time. Today
"socialism" almost always refers to state socialism, a system that all
anarchists have opposed as a denial of freedom and genuine socialist
ideals. All anarchists would agree with Noam Chomsky's statement on this
issue:
Anarchism developed in constant opposition to the ideas of Marxism, social
democracy and Leninism. Long before Lenin rose to power, Mikhail Bakunin
warned the followers of Marx against the "Red bureaucracy" that would
institute "the worst of all despotic governments" if Marx's
state-socialist ideas were ever implemented.
Nevertheless, being socialists, anarchists do share some ideas with
some Marxists (though none with Leninists). Both Bakunin and Tucker
accepted Marx's analysis and critique of capitalism as well as his labour
theory of value (see section C). Marx himself was heavily influenced by Max Stirner's book The Ego and Its Own, which
contains a brilliant critique of what Marx called "vulgar" communism as well
as state socialism. There have also been elements of the Marxist movement
holding views very similar to social anarchism (particularly the
anarcho-syndicalist branch of social anarchism) -- for example,
Anton Pannekoek, Rosa Luxembourg, Paul Mattick and others, who are
very far from Lenin. Karl Korsch and others wrote sympathetically of
the anarchist revolution in Spain. There are many continuities from
Marx to Lenin, but there are also continuities from Marx to more
libertarian Marxists, who were harshly critical of Lenin and
Bolshevism and whose ideas approximate anarchism's desire for the
free association of equals.
Therefore anarchism is basically a form of socialism, one that stands in
direct opposition to what is usually defined as "socialism" (i.e. state
control). As Daniel Guerin pointed out in his book Anarchism, "Anarchism is really a synonym for socialism. The anarchist is primarily a socialist whose aim is to abolish the exploitation of man by man."
Instead of "central planning," anarchists advocate free association and
co-operation between individuals, workplaces and communities and so
oppose "state" socialism as a form of state capitalism. The
anarchist objection to the identification of "central planning" with
socialism will be discussed in section H.
Where does anarchism come from? We can do no better than quote the
The Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists produced
by participants of the Makhnovist movement in the Russian Revolution (see
Section A.5.4). They point out that:
"So anarchism does not derive from the abstract reflections of an intellectual or a philosopher, but from the direct struggle of workers against capitalism, from the needs and necessities of the workers, from their aspirations to liberty and equality, aspirations which become particularly alive in the best heroic period of the life and struggle of the working masses.
"The outstanding anarchist thinkers, Bakunin, Kropotkin and others, did not invent the idea of anarchism, but, having discovered it in the masses, simply helped by the strength of their thought and knowledge to specify and spread
it." [pp. 15-16]
Like the anarchist movement in general, the Makhnovists were a mass movement
of working class people resisting the forces of authority, both Red (Communist)
and White (Tsarist/Capitalist) in the Ukraine from 1917 to 1921. As Peter
Marshall notes "anarchism . . . has traditionally found its chief supporters
amongst workers and peasants." [Demanding the Impossible, p. 652]
Anarchism was created in, and by, the struggle of the oppressed for freedom.
It comes from the fight for liberty and our desires to lead a fully human
life, one in which we have time to live, to love and to play. It was not
created by a few people divorced from life, in ivory towers looking down
upon society and making judgements upon it based on their notions of what
is right and wrong.
In other words, anarchism is an expression of the struggle against oppression
and exploitation, a generalisation of working people's experiences and
analyses of what is wrong with the current system and an expression of our
hopes and dreams for a better future.
A.1.1 What does "anarchy" mean?
"Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow-man?
Then make sure that no one shall possess power" [Maximoff, G. P., ed.,
The Political Philosophy of Bakunin: Scientific Anarchism, p. 271].
A.1.2 What does "anarchism" mean?
"We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and
injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality."
[The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 269]
A.1.3 Why is anarchism also called libertarian socialism?
LIBERTARIAN: one who believes in freedom of action and thought; one who
believes in free will.
Just taking those two first definitions and fusing them yields:
LIBERTARIAN SOCIALISM: a social system which believes in freedom of action and thought and free will, in which the producers possess both political
power and the means of producing and distributing goods.
A.1.4 Are anarchists socialists?
"[i]t is said that Anarchism is not socialism. This is a mistake.
Anarchism is voluntary Socialism. There are two kinds of Socialism,
archistic and anarchistic, authoritarian and libertarian, state and free.
Indeed, every proposition for social betterment is either to increase or
decrease the powers of external wills and forces over the individual. As
they increase they are archistic; as they decrease they are anarchistic."
[Anarchism: What It Is and What It Is Not]
"If the left is understood to include 'Bolshevism,' then I would flatly dissociate myself from the left. Lenin was one of the greatest enemies of socialism" [Red and Black Revolution, issue 2].
A.1.5 Where does anarchism come from?
"[t]he class struggle created by the enslavement of workers and their aspirations to liberty gave birth, in the oppression, to the idea of anarchism:
the idea of the total negation of a social system based on the principles of classes and the State, and its replacement by a free non-statist society of
workers under self-management.