The roots of the word ‘anarchism’ lie in the Greek anarchos, meaning ‘without a ruler’. It is a political doctrine that seeks radical social change, particularly the replacement of the state with some form of non-government, non-hierarchical voluntary cooperation between free individuals, sometimes described as mutual aid. With many different schools, ranging from collectivism to libertarian individualism, anarchism can be difficult to place on the political spectrum. It is usually described as a radical left movement. Though ideas of ruler-less societies stretch back to classical antiquity, anarchism as a visible movement emerged in the mid-19th century, its theoretical roots being planted by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who stated, ‘As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.’ Anarchism spread worldwide during the early 20th century, particularly in Spain. Quashed during the Spanish Civil War, anarchism re-emerged with the 1968 student rebellions. Today its ideas and practice influence anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-globalization protests.
Opposition to the state, or anti-statism, is fundamental to all forms of anarchism and is a key element distinguishing it from Marxism and socialism. For anarchists, the state in all its forms – governments, authority, hierarchical and power structures – is the enemy. It is harmful because it controls people’s lives, and unnecessary because people are capable of governing themselves. Anarchists seek to abolish the state, an aim that applies not only to authoritarian regimes but also to representative democracies.
Anarchists do not want to take over the state; they want to abolish it. They eschew the parliamentary process, they do not support or form political parties and refuse to vote on the grounds that by doing so they contribute to the very system they oppose. Like Marxists they seek social revolution and have long been linked with working-class action, but they oppose the socialist model, which they regard as the dictatorship of the proletariat, merely exchanging one power structure for another.
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) wrote ‘that government is best which governs not at all’. This entails a rejection of all authority and political structures.
Anarchists believe humans are capable of governing themselves and do not need hierarchical power structures, whether church, state or monarchies. Free from the shackles of authority, a natural social order will emerge that creates its own rules based on social justice, cooperative work and mutual aid. Many believe this is unrealistic and anarchists have been accused of being utopian. However, the Anarchist Federation make the point that an anarchist utopia would not be a heavenly vision or a return to a golden age, but a world in which violence, exploitation and oppression have disappeared.
Since the 19th century there have been a number of significant radical utopian or communitarian anarchist communities, including New Lanark in the UK and New Harmony in the USA, both set up by industrialist Robert Owen. Brook Farm in the USA was inhabited by, among others, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, while the Whiteway Colony in the UK was founded by followers of Leo Tolstoy’s Christian anarchism.
Sieben Linden is a self-governing, self-sufficient ecovillage in the Altmark of Germany.
Individualist anarchism puts personal freedom and the rights of the individual above the authority of the state, nation, class or any hierarchical structure. The earliest strand of anarchism, it is in effect an assertion of individual sovereignty. William Godwin, the first to develop what is known as philosophical anarchism, was an early influence. He argued that government corrupts society, because it encourages dependency and ignorance, and imposes upon an individual’s right to ‘private judgement’. Godwin also dismissed various cooperative and rule-determined practices, such as law, private property and marriage, as mental enslavement. Subsequently, Max Stirner promoted a more extreme view arguing for what he described as unions of ‘egoists’, based entirely on self-interest. As individualist anarchism spread, Benjamin Tucker suggested each individual should enjoy the maximum liberty, compatible with others. Individualist anarchists tend to reject revolution as a means of bringing about change, arguing that it can result in new hierarchies.
Published between 1881 and 1908 by Benjamin Tucker, Liberty was an American anarchist periodical.
One of the better-known schools of anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism is deeply rooted in revolutionary workers’ action – syndicalism – by which workers seek to gain control of the economy. The basic principles are solidarity, direct action and workers’ self-management, and the main strategy is the general strike. Its ultimate aim is to abolish the wage system, which anarcho-syndicalists regard as wage slavery. Originating in the writings of Proudhon, anarcho-syndicalism appeared in Spain as the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), later merging with the International Workers’ Association (IWA), and informing the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the USA. During the 1920s, mass anarchist unions were created across Latin America and syndicalist-led strikes took place in Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy and France. The rise of fascism in Europe saw anarcho-syndicalism driven underground almost everywhere except in Spain, where the CNT played a leading role in the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. Today Noam Chomsky is probably the best-known anarcho-syndicalist.
The black cat emblem of the IWW.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon famously stated that ‘property is theft’, which remains a popular anarchist belief today. The issue of ownership is a key concern of anarchist theory. Collectivist anarchism, or anarcho-collectivism, advocates the abolition of the state, which will be overthrown through revolution, following which all property would be seized, including the means of production. In place of private ownership and control, collectivist anarchists advocate the collective ownership, management and control of the means of production by workers, through workers’ collectives.
Workers would receive salaries based on the amount of time they contribute to production, following the maxim ‘to everyone according to their labour’. Salaries would be used to buy goods in a communal market. Collectivist anarchism is mainly associated with Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, who argued that religion, capitalism and the state are oppressive institutions that must be smashed if people are to be free.
Anarcho-communism, like most other strands of anarchism, is profoundly anti-capitalist and, as its name suggests, links to communism in its views of ownership. Promoted by Russian anarchists Peter Kropotkin (pictured) and Emma Goldman, it advocates abolition of the state, economic markets, money and capitalism in favour of common ownership of the means of production. Goldman, together with many other anarchists, also advocated the abolition of marriage. This strand of anarchism developed from radical socialist trends after the French Revolution but was first expressed during the First International, which brought together socialists, communists, anarchists and trade unionists. Anarcho-communists were influential during the 1936 Spanish Revolution, and were a major force in Aragon, Andulusia and Catalonia, with much of Spain’s economy being placed under worker control. Worker committees ran factories, farming was collectivized and workers even ran hotels and restaurants. By 1939, however, anarcho-communism in Spain had been crushed.
Libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism
Despite being usually anti-capitalist, anarchism contains a substrand that favours capitalism, namely anarcho-capitalism. Its adherents consider the state to be an unnecessary evil that should be abolished, but favour a free-market economic system, including the principle of private property. American economist Murray Newton Rothbard was one of the main proponents of anarcho-capitalism. He combined individualist anarchism, classical liberalism and Austrian School economics to create a political and economic philosophy that stresses the importance of freedom from the state and coercive monopolies. More recently, anarcho-capitalism has been associated with the ‘rolling-back-the-state’ policies emerging from the neoliberalism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Anarcho-capitalism is often linked to libertarianism, a political philosophy that views liberty as its primary political virtue. Libertarianism can be viewed as right-wing, reflecting an anti-state free-market position, or left-wing, reflecting calls for liberty and freedom.
Anarchism is often associated with violent subversion – the image of a masked man with a smoking bomb remains a popular caricature. During the late 19th century a significant development occurred with the emergence of a doctrine known as ‘propaganda of the deed’, following the views of Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta. This led to a period of violent actions, beginning with rural insurrections intended to rouse the masses and leading to individual acts of terrorism.
Between the 1880s and 1914, individual anarchists assassinated several heads of state, including King Umberto I of Italy, French president Sadi Carnot, American president William McKinley, Spanish prime minister Antonio Canovas del Castillo, King Carlos I of Portugal and George I of Greece. By the late 1880s, key anarchists, including Peter Kropotkin, were distancing themselves from these acts. Emma Goldman (pictured) also revised her position, and by 1914 most anarchists had abandoned support for propaganda of the deed.
