Libertarian socialism

From Free net encyclopedia

Template:Socialism Libertarian socialism is any one of a group of political philosophies dedicated to opposing coercive forms of authority and social hierarchy, in particular the institutions of capitalism and the State. Some of the best known libertarian socialist ideologies are anarchism - particularly anarchist communism and anarcho-syndicalism - as well as mutualism, council communism, autonomist Marxism, and social ecology. However, the terms anarcho-communism and libertarian communism should not be considered synonyms for libertarian socialism. Anarcho-communism is a particular branch of libertarian socialism.

Libertarian socialists believe in the abolition of the State and of private control over the means of production, considering both to be unnecessary and harmful institutions. Most libertarian socialists support personal property or use rights over certain goods destined for individual use, however there are exceptions. The most notable of these are the anarcho-communists, who wish to abolish not only private property over the means of production but individual ownership in the products of labor as well.

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Overview

The basic philosophy of libertarian socialism is summed up in the name: management of the common good (socialism) in a manner that attempts to maximize the liberty of individuals and minimizes concentration of power or authority (libertarianism). It attempts to achieve this through the decentralization of political and economic power, usually involving the collectivization of most large-scale property and enterprise. Libertarian socialism denies the legitimacy of most forms of economically significant private property, since, according to socialists, when private property becomes capital, it leads to the exploitation of others with less economic means and thus infringes on the exploited class's individual freedoms.

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Anti-capitalism

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Libertarian socialists differentiate between the idea of authority based on power, and authority based on knowledge or skills. The term "power", in this instance, refers to the social or physical dominance of one individual over another. They oppose all unjustified authority, be it political, economic, or social.

Libertarian socialists believe that all social bonds should be developed by individuals who have an equal amount of bargaining power, that an accumulation of economic power in the hands of a few and the centralization of political power both reduce the bargaining power—and thus the liberty of the other individuals in society. To put it another way, capitalist (and right-libertarian) principles lead to the concentration of economic power in the hands of those who end up owning the most capital. Libertarian socialism aims to distribute power, and thus freedom, more equally amongst members of society. A key difference between libertarian socialism and right-wing libertarianism is that advocates of the former generally believe that one's degree of freedom is affected by one's economic and social status, whereas advocates of the latter believe that freedom is essentially freedom of choice, or freedom of action. They would argue that even a poor, low-status individual is entirely free in a libertarian society in the sense that he has complete freedom to do whatever he chooses with those possessions and resources which he has. Some analyze the difference between libertarian socialism and right-wing libertarianism using the concepts of positive liberty and negative liberty. It is argued that libertarian socialism is said to promote positive liberty at the expense of negative liberty, whereas right-wing libertarianism is said to do the opposite.

Libertarian socialists believe if freedom is valued, then society must work towards a system in which individuals have the power to decide economic issues along with political issues. Libertarian socialists seek to replace unjustified authority with direct democracy and voluntary federation in all aspects of life, including physical communities and economic enterprises.

Like other socialists, libertarian socialists believe that objects should be held communally and controlled democratically; the only exception being personal possessions. Whereas "private property" grants an individual exclusive control over a thing whether it is in use or not, "possession" grants no rights to things that are not in use. A property title grants owners the right to withhold his property from others, or, if he desires, to require payment from those who wish to use it. "Possession," on the other hand, is not compatible with this form of "exploitation" or "extortion". Possession amounts to the right to use, rather than own, for oneself.

For this reason it is accurate to say that libertarian socialists favor the labor theory of value over the subjective theory of value. This means that, to an anarchist, objects have a value associated with them based upon the amount of labor put in to them. As such, the only way profit can be produced is by paying workers less than this value or by charging consumers more than this value. Capitalists, on the other hand, believe that an object's value is determined by supply and demand. Despite this preference, not all libertarian socialists would argue that the labor theory is any more concrete than the subjective theory, simply that it is more fair.

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Opposition to the State

Template:See also Template:Anarchism Proponents are most famous for opposing the existence of states or government. Indeed, in the past many refused to defend themselves in court because they did not wish to participate in coercive state institutions, instead choosing to go to jail or die.

The critique of states is built on the same principle opposing concentration of authority based on power, which in the libertarian socialist thought constitutes a form of oppression.

In lieu of states, libertarian socialists seek to organize themselves into voluntary institutions (usually called collectives or syndicates) which use direct democracy or consensus for their decision-making process. Some libertarian socialists advocate combining these institutions using rotating, recallable delegates to higher-level federations. Others, however, have advanced strong critiques of federated systems, and these federations have rarely been carried out in practice. Spanish anarchism is a major example of such federations in practice. Contemporary examples of libertarian socialist organizational and decision-making models in practice include the Zapatista Councils of Good Government and the Global Indymedia network (which covers 45 countries on 6 continents). There are also thousands of indigenous societies around the world whose political and economic systems can be accurately described as anarchist or libertarian socialist, each of which is unique and uniquely suited to the culture that birthed it. For libertarians, that diversity of practice within a framework of common principles is proof of the vitality of those principles and of their flexibility and strength.

Contrary to popular opinion, libertarian socialism has not traditionally been a utopian movement, tending to avoid dense theoretical analysis or prediction of what a future society would or should look like. The tradition instead has been that such decisions cannot be made now, and must be made through struggle and experimentation, so that the best solution can be arrived at democratically and organically, and to base the direction for struggle on established historical example.

Supporters often suggest that this focus on exploration over predetermination is one of their great strengths. They point out that the success of science at explaining the natural world comes from its methods and its adherence to open rational exploration, not its conclusions; whereas traditional dogmatic explanations of naturalistic phenomena have proved almost useless at explaining anything in the natural world.

Although critics claim that they are avoiding questions they cannot answer, libertarian socialists believe that a methodological approach to exploration is the best way to achieve their social goals. To them, dogmatic approaches to social organization are just as doomed to failure as are non-scientific explanations of natural phenomena. Noted anarchist Rudolf Rocker once stated, "I am an anarchist not because I believe anarchism is the final goal, but because there is no such thing as a final goal" (The London Years, 1956).

Because libertarian socialism encourages exploration and embraces a diversity of ideas rather than forming a compact movement, there have arisen inevitable controversies over individuals who describe themselves as libertarian socialists but disagree with some of the core principles of libertarian socialism. For example, Peter Hain interprets libertarian socialism as favoring radical decentralization of power without going as far as the complete abolition of the state [1], and libertarian socialist Noam Chomsky supports state intervention to remedy what he regards to be social injustices despite his critiques of the state.

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Political roots

As Albert Meltzer and Stuart Christie stated in their book The Floodgates of Anarchy, anarchism has:

...its particular inheritance, part of which it shares with socialism, giving it a family resemblance to certain of its enemies. Another part of its inheritance it shares with liberalism, making it, at birth, kissing-cousins with American-type radical individualism, a large part of which has married out of the family into the Right Wing and is no longer on speaking terms. (The Floodgates of Anarchy, 1970, page 39.)

That is, anarchism arose as a cross between socialism and liberalism, incorporating the anti-capitalist attitude of socialists and the anti-statist, what would today be called libertarian, attitude of liberalism. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who is often considered the father of modern anarchism, coined the phrase "Property is theft" to describe his affinity for the labor theory of value, a socialist value. At the same time he believed that goods should be traded in a free market (one not under constraint of government) where money was replaced with labor notes which held value in terms of labor rather than supply and demand. A free market is a liberal value.

Seventeen years (1857) after Proudhon first called himself an anarchist (1850), anarchist communist Joseph Déjacque was the first person to describe himself as a libertarian [2]. Because the word libertarian is now commonly used by anti-state capitalists, non-authoritarian socialists often call themselves libertarian socialists to differentiate themselves.

For these reasons libertarian socialism is synonymous with anarchism. However, libertarian socialism has developed a more political connotation while anarchism has grown into a much wider and more philosophical set of ideas. Since mainstream circles equate anarchism with opposition to the state, an ideology known as anarcho-capitalism has come about which would not fall under the category of libertarian socialism. The phrase has therefore taken on a more leftist tone. In addition, some prefer the name because anarchy is often equated with chaos and can be a confusing word to use in political theory.

Perhaps specifically because libertarian socialism has its roots in both liberalism and socialism, it is often in conflict with liberalism (especially neoliberalism) and socialism simultaneously.

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Conflict with Marxism

Template:Main In rejecting both capitalism and the State, libertarian socialists put themselves in opposition to both capitalist representative democracy and to authoritarian forms of Marxism, after the anarchist schism from Marxism. Although anarchists and Marxists are often said to share a belief in the ultimate goal of a stateless society, anarchists criticise most Marxists for advocating a transitional phase under which the state is used to achieve this aim. Nonetheless, libertarian Marxist tendencies such as autonomist Marxism and council communism have historically been intertwined with the anarchist movement. Anarchist movements have come into conflict with both capitalist and Marxist forces, sometimes at the same time, as in the Spanish Civil War, though as in that war Marxists themselves are often divided in support or opposition to anarchism. Other political persecutions under bureaucratic parties have resulted in a strong historical antagonism between anarchists and libertarian Marxists on the one hand and Leninist Marxists on the other and their derivatives such as Maoists. In recent history, however, libertarian socialists have repeatedly formed temporary alliances with Marxist-Leninist groups for the purposes of protest against institutions they both reject. Image:Bakuninfull.jpg Part of this antagonism can be traced to the International Workingmen's Association, the First International, a congress of radical workers, where Mikhail Bakunin, who was fairly representative of the libertarian socialist view, and Karl Marx, whom anarchists accused of being an authoritarian, came into conflict on various issues. Bakunin's viewpoint on the illegitimacy of the State as an institution and the role of electoral politics was starkly counterposed to Marx's views in the First International. Marx and Bakunin's disputes eventually led to Marx taking control of the First International and expelling Bakunin and his followers from the organization. This was the beginning of a long-running feud and schism between libertarian socialists and what they call "authoritarian communists", or alternatively termed just "authoritarians". Of course, some have equally criticised Bakunin for running an invisible dictatorship, and of being just as authoritarian as Marx. Indeed, The Russian Menshevik Fedor Dan criticised Bolshevism for being a product of Bakuninism.

Some Marxists have formulated views that closely resemble syndicalism, and thus express more affinity with anarchist ideas. The American Marxist leader Daniel De Leon, for example, who joined and reorganized the Socialist Labor Party in 1890, advocated a form of "industrial unionism" (known as De Leonism), which was similar to syndicalism, although De Leon himself made a point of distinguishing between the two ideologies. De Leon's insistence on a revolutionary political party working as the political wing of the industrial unions, however, sets him outside of the libertarian socialist current of anarchism (see opposition to the state above).

Several libertarian socialists, notably Noam Chomsky, believe that anarchism shares much in common with certain variants of Marxism such as the council communism of left-wing Marxist Anton Pannekoek. In Chomsky's Notes on Anarchism, he suggests the possibility "that some form of council communism is the natural form of revolutionary socialism in an industrial society. It reflects the belief that democracy is severely limited when the industrial system is controlled by any form of autocratic elite, whether of owners, managers, and technocrats, a 'vanguard' party, or a State bureaucracy."

Autonomist Marxism and situationism are also regarded as being anti-authoritarian variants of Marxism that are firmly within the libertarian socialist tradition.

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Libertarian socialist tendencies

Libertarian socialism is composed of a diverse range of tendencies and organizations, with varying degrees of unity depending on specific ideological beliefs. These are only a few of the most historically important factions within libertarian socialism.

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Anarchist communism

Image:ErricoMalatesta.gif Anarchist communism was first formulated in the Italian section of the First International, by Carlo Cafiero, Errico Malatesta, Andrea Costa, and other ex-Mazzinian republicans. Out of respect for Mikhail Bakunin, they did not make their differences from standard anarchism explicit until after the latter's death. In 1876, at the Florence Conference of the Italian Federation of the International (which was actually held in a forest outside Florence, due to police activity), they declared the principles of anarcho-communism, beginning with:

"The Italian Federation considers the collective property of the products of labour as the necessary complement to the collectivist programme, the aid of all for the satisfaction of the needs of each being the only rule of production and consumption which corresponds to the principle of solidarity. The federal congress at Florence has eloquently demonstrated the opinion of the Italian International on this point..."

The above report was actually made in an article by Malatesta and Cafiero in the (Swiss) Jura federation's bulletin later that year. Cafiero notes, in Anarchie et Communisme, that private property in the product of labor will lead to unequal accumulation of capital, and therefore undesirable class distinctions.

Anarcho-communists hold that the only road to true liberation of the individual, as well as the abolition of wage slavery and the State, is the complete abolition of market systems; whereas some other anarchists and libertarian socialists advocate collective ownership with market elements and sometimes barter. Anarcho-communists believe the only true liberation comes with a gift economy operated by the collective under direct democracy. As such anarcho-communism is the most left-wing branch of libertarian socialism.

In anarchist communism, profit no longer exists. Not only that, but goods are given away as gifts in the certainty that others will also give products back. In an industrial setting, this would occur between worker syndicates as well as between individuals. If one syndicate does not share their products, they will not receive resources from other syndicates, making it in their best interest to share.


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Anarcho-syndicalism

Template:Main Image:Flag of Anarcho syndicalism.svg Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labor movement. Anarcho-syndicalists view labor unions as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the State with a new society democratically self-managed by workers.

The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are:

  1. workers' solidarity
  2. direct action
  3. workers' self-management

Workers' solidarity means that anarcho-syndicalists believe all workers—no matter their race, gender, or ethnic group—are in a similar situation in regard to their boss' (class consciousness). Furthermore, it means that, within capitalism, any gains or losses made by some workers from or to bosses will eventually affect all workers. Therefore, to liberate themselves, all workers must support one another in their class conflict.

Anarcho-syndicalists believe that only direct action—that is, action concentrated on directly attaining a goal, as opposed to indirect action, such as electing a representative to a government position—will allow workers to liberate themselves.

Moreover, anarcho-syndicalists believe that workers' organizations (the organizations that struggle against the wage system, which, in anarcho-syndicalist theory, will eventually form the basis of a new society) should be self-managing. They should not have bosses or “business agents”; rather, the workers should be able to make all the decisions that affect them themselves.

Rudolf Rocker was one of the most popular voices in the anarcho-syndicalist movement. He outlined a view of the origins of the movement, what it sought, and why it was important to the future of labor in his 1938 pamphlet Anarcho-Syndicalism.

The International Workers Association is an international anarcho-syndicalist federation of various labor unions from different countries. The Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo played and still plays a major role in the Spanish labor movement. It was also an important force in the Spanish Civil War.


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Mutualism

Template:Main Image:Proudhon-children.jpg While still socialist, mutualism is the most individualist branch of libertarian socialism. [3] Pierre Joseph Proudhon, William B. Greene, Benjamin Tucker, and John Gray used the term to describe their economic theories. While rejecting private property when it is obtained through violation of the labor theory of value, mutualists tend to believe people have a right to not only possess but own private property as long as it is the product of their own labor. Mutualists do, however, stand against profit and believe that nothing should be sold for more than its "true cost".

To accomplish this, they believe in a system where money is replaced with labor notes that denote a given amount of labor. Whether amount of labor coincides only to hours worked or includes intensity and sacrifice is a point of contention. Wherever a great number of workers is needed, an association of workers is expected. However, the labor of a lone worker requires no association. They also advocate mutual banks, owned by the workers, that do not charge interest. Most mutualists believe that anarchy should be achieved gradually through superiority in the marketplace rather than through revolution.

Worker cooperatives such as the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation follow an economic model similar to that of mutualism. The model followed by the corporation WL Gore and Associates, inventor of Gore-Tex fabrics, is also similar to mutualism as there is no chain of command and salaries are determined collectively by the workers. It is important to note that Gore and Associates has never identified itself as anarchist.

Mutualism's stress on worker association is similar to the more developed modern theory of Participatory Economics, although Participatory Economists do not believe in markets.


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Council communism

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Council communism was a radical Left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s. Its primary organization was the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD). Council communism continues today as a theoretical and activist position within Marxism, and also within libertarian socialism. The central argument of council communism, in contrast to those of Social democracy and Leninist communism, is that workers' councils arising in the factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and state power. This view is opposed to the reformist and Bolshevik stress on vanguard parties, parliaments, or governments.

The core principle of council communism is that the state and the economy should be managed by workers' councils, composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. As such, council communists oppose state-run "bureaucratic socialism". They also oppose the idea of a "revolutionary party", since council communists believe that a revolution led by a party will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communists support a workers' democracy, which they want to produce through a federation of workers' councils.

The Russian word for council is "soviet," and during the early years of the revolution worker's councils were politically significant in Russia. It was to take advantage of the aura of workplace power that the word became used by Lenin for various political organs. Indeed, the name "Supreme Soviet," by which the parliament was called; and that of the Soviet Union itself make use of this terminology, but they do not imply any decentralization.

Furthermore, council communists held a critique of the Soviet Union as a capitalist state, believing that the Bolshevik revolution in Russia became a "bourgeois revolution" when a party bureaucracy replaced the old feudal aristocracy. Although most felt the Russian Revolution was working class in character, they believed that, since capitalist relations still existed (because the workers had no say in running the economy), the Soviet Union ended up as a state capitalist country, with the state replacing the individual capitalist. Thus, council communists support workers' revolutions, but oppose one-party dictatorships.

Council communists also believed in diminishing the role of the party to one of agitation and propaganda, rejected all participation in elections or parliament, and argued that workers should leave the reactionary trade unions and form one big revolutionary union.

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Social Ecology

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Social Ecology is closely related to the work and ideas of Murray Bookchin and influenced by anarchist Peter Kropotkin. Social ecologists assert that the present ecological crisis has roots in social problems, and that the domination of human over nature is a result of the domination of human over human.

Politically, social ecologists advocate a network of directly democratic citizens' assemblies organized in a confederal fashion. This approach is called Libertarian Municipalism.

Economically, social ecologists favour libertarian communism and the principle "from each according to ability, to each according to need."

The Institute for Social Ecology founded in 1974 in Plainfield, Vermont offers a year-round B.A. and M.A. degree program, workshops, and academic conferences.

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Violence in anarchism

Image:Food Not Bombs logo.png Many libertarian socialists see violent revolution as necessary in the abolition of capitalist society. Along with many others, Errico Malatesta argued that the use of violence was necessary; as he put it in Umanità Nova (no. 125, September 6, 1921):

It is our aspiration and our aim that everyone should become socially conscious and effective; but to achieve this end, it is necessary to provide all with the means of life and for development, and it is therefore necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies these means to the workers. [4]

However, Proudhon, who people often term "the father of anarchism," argued in favor of a Non-violent revolution. The progression towards violence in anarchism stemmed, in part, from the various massacres of the communes that has sprung from Proudhon's own ideas. Anarcho-communists began to see a need for revolutionary violence as a form of collective defense against the involuntary restrictions upheld by property owners.

The non-violent anarchist movement today consists of organizations such as BAAM, Food Not Bombs, or Anarchist Black Cross.

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Criticisms of libertarian socialism

A common criticism, made by non-socialist libertarians, is that a free market will spontaneously arise (given modern populations) unless it is suppressed by force (with the exception of a market in information intangibles such as software, music, films, and literature, which requires active enforcement of intellectual property laws to keep from turning into a pure gift economy). Typically, non-socialist libertarians believe that a capitalist economy is natural, rather than artificial, so it would naturally develop in the absence of regulating factors. Thus they argue that a truly socialist libertarianism would be an oxymoron. However, cultural anthropologists have long noted that capitalism defined by private ownership and control of production and self-regulating markets for land, labour and capital is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history, implying that societies can exist and prosper without these attributes. Libertarian socialists also claim that the mere existence of markets in antiquity for consumer goods, or the institution of money, does not denote capitalist social relations, nor can they necessarily be regarded as its incipient forms. For example, in their historical work on the institution of money, Fikret Adaman and Pat Devine conclude that "historically money predates (market) exchange and should be seen fundamentally as a means of payment in discharge of a social obligation", in other words it was embedded in social norms rather than being regulated by an autonomous market mechanism. [5]

Libertarian socialists in conjunction with Marxists dispute the notion that capitalist economic relations arise spontaneously in the absence of suppression, but in fact require active political suppression in the form of property law that is enforced either by a state or by private force (see: Property is theft). Karl Polanyi argued in his seminal work, The Great Transformation (1944), that while markets existed for consumer goods they were invariably embedded in social norms, whereas as self-regulating markets for labour, land and money came about only as the result of the violent intervention by the state. The first instance of this violent displacement of traditional societies occurred in England with the enclosures of common land from the 15th to 18th centuries. This state-led experiment of imposing the "stark utopia" of the self-regulating market wherein the guiding motives of individuals in society are reduced to "hope of gain" and "fear of hunger" has been repeated many times since, throughout the globe, at what socialists claim is an enormous human and environmental cost, including the virtual extinction of ethnic cultures (e.g., Colonialism). It has also been a process that has elicited oppositional struggles whose thrust has been to re-embed the market in social norms that protect the human and natural substance of society.

Libertarian socialists instead argue that a socialist society can develop and endure without coercion. Anarcho-syndicalists believe that trade unionism, direct action, and mass organisation among free individuals would negate capitalism which, similarly, can only be saved by coercion. There are few, if any, libertarian socialists who think that violence should play an institutional role in a future society. Some anarchists, who have been called anarcho-pacifists, reject violence altogether. Thus, they claim that it is a straw-man to suggest that libertarian socialists would violently restrict voluntary economic relations between individuals in the absence of a state. Rather, they believe that capitalist economic relations require public or private enforcement because they are involuntary themselves, thus resistance against private property enforcement is a form of defense.

Adherents of the Austrian School of economics argue that the distinction between "personal" and "productive" property is specious, and that consequently paradoxes in their division are doomed to arise regardless of the delineation chosen. Libertarian socialists generally disagree that the division is specious, but agree that it in some circumstances it can be a subject of contention; thus the decision cannot be trusted to executive decisions of bureaucrats (as state socialists propose), but insofar as it is a public concern, it can be expected to be resolved in the participatory democratic body appropriate to the circumstances. Others believe that the distinction they make is not between personal and productive property, but rather between property that is "in use" or part of a broader use pattern and property that is "out of use" or used to extort labor from a second party.

Some argue that freedom and equality are often in conflict with one another, and that promoting equality (as valued by socialism) will inherently require restrictions on liberty (as valued by libertarianism), forcing the society to choose one or the other as their primary value. (The Kurt Vonnegut story, "Harrison Bergeron", in which equality is enforced by imposing physical and mental handicaps on overachievers, can be seen as a reductio ad absurdum argument illustrating this point.) Yet it is perhaps telling that those who follow Vonnegut's line of argument do not provide examples of egalitarians who actually hold the views that they are attacking. Radical egalitarians such as Noam Chomsky note that, "human talents vary considerably, within a fixed framework that is characteristic of the species and that permits ample scope for creative work, including the appreciation of the creative achievements of others. This should be a matter of delight rather than a condition to be abhorred." (Chomsky Reader, 199) The thrust of the work of another egalitarian, Karl Marx, was never to make human beings identical, but "the development of rich individuality which is as all-sided in its production as in its consumption", and "the absolute working out of (his) creative potentalities." [6] Libertarian socialists believe that the right-libertarian conception of freedom often amounts to little more than apologetics for the right of the powerful to do as they please often at the expense of the freedoms of the less powerful. As libertarian socialist Robin Hahnel has explained,

[I]t is, of course, a good thing for people to be free to do what they please- as long as what they choose does not impinge on more important freedoms or rights of others...I should not be free to employ you because my freedom of enterprise robs you of a more fundamental freedom to manage your own labouring capacities. I should not be free to bequeath substantial inheritance to my children because that robs the children of less wealthy parents of their more fundamental right to an equal opportunity in life. Although advocates of capitalism would not agree, there is little disagreement about any of this among those who believe we must go beyond capitalism if we are to achieve the economics of equitable cooperation. But are there additional freedoms and rights that others should not be free to violate in choosing to do what they please?...We think self-management is the only way to interpret what "economic freedom" means without having one person's freedom conflict with freedoms of others.(p.289)...I define self-management as decision making input in proportion to the degree one is affected.(p.40)(Hahnel- The ABC's of Political Economy)[7]
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Historical origins

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Pre-'anarchism' libertarians

Although anarchism is generally considered to be a development in Western philosophical and political thought, some would disagree. Rejection of coercive authority can be traced as far back as Ancient China, where Taoism is declared by some to have been the oldest example of anarchist doctrine[8]. In fact, similar rejections of authority can probably be found in every society, if one looks hard enough; whether or not they are anarchist is a question for debate. Anarcho-primitivists assert that for the longest period of human history, human society was organised on anarchist principles. This is often framed as a conflict between dominator cultures and archaic partnership cultures. However their critics claim that such a projection of their abstract principles is simply an adaptation of the mainstream project of western value systems onto the rest of the world.

In the Western world, an anti-authoritarian tendency can be traced to Ancient Greece, with philosophers like Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic philosophy, who was, according to Peter Kropotkin, "[t]he best exponent of anarchist philosophy in ancient Greece". Zeno distinctly opposed his vision of a free community without government to the state-utopia of Plato. "He repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual." Zeno argued that although the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads humans to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct—sociability. Like many modern anarchists, he believed that if people follow their instincts, they will have no need of law-courts or police, no temples and no public worship, and use no money (free gifts taking the place of the exchanges). Zeno's beliefs, however, have only reached us as fragmentary quotations.[9]

There were also movements such as the Free Spirit in the Middle Ages and the Diggers (True Levellers) during the English Civil War.

In fact, some anarchists assert anarchism is not so much a movement as an historical tendency; indeed, Bakunin saw thought and rebellion as the principal tenets of human nature as well as of anarchism. Modern anarchists like Murray Bookchin also contend that there are libertarian and authoritarian tendencies throughout history. Others, like George Woodcock reject these claims as an unnecessary attempt to lay down an anarchist creation story. However, there was certainly no coherent ideology that called itself 'anarchism' until the nineteenth century, when anarchism — then often referred to simply as 'revolutionary socialism' — emerged as the libertarian side of the growing socialist and communist movements of that period.

Image:PeterKropotkin.jpg

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Anarchism: a new word

Most of the labor movements of the time were fiercely anti-capitalist, and the resulting organisations produced many utopian visions for how they wished to transform society. Anarchism developed and flourished in this environment, and had a profound mutual relationship with labor movements until well into the 20th century.

Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian philosopher and the intellectual heir of Pierre Joseph Proudhon (who adopted the term anarchist in its modern political meaning) was the first major proponent of the philosophy of libertarian socialism. Bakunin summarized the philosophy: "We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality." Bakunin's conflict with Marx (discussed above under "Conflict with Marxism") was the most visible and well-known split between "authoritarians" and "libertarians" to take place in the nineteenth century working class movement.

The next major step in the development of libertarian socialism came with Peter Kropotkin, a Russian scientist who developed the philosophy of anarchist communism. His writings included The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops. Kropotkin gave up his nobility and refused the offered position of secretary of an important geographical society on moral grounds. He traveled across the world, using his training as a geographer to catalog productivity, and concluded that an admirable lifestyle could be achieved for all with only five hours of work per day for part of your adult life. He also elaborated an idea called mutual aid, which he believed humans were naturally driven towards.

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The spread of ideas: anarchism's influence

Since the 19th century, anarchist ideas have spread through the labor movement, and influenced many radicals and revolutions.

In the Russian Revolution, after the overthrow of the tsarist state, many revolutionary movements sprang up all throughout the collapsing Russian Empire. Notable amongst these was an anarchist peasant movement in Ukraine, usually known as the Makhnovists due to the influence of Nestor Makhno, an anarchist peasant/general. The Makhnovists organized resistance against the White counter-revolution, and later on against the consolidation of power by the Bolsheviks, but were eventually crushed.

Mexican Revolution — The revolutionary period in Mexico was an extended period usually considered to have begun with the overthrow of the dictator Porfirio Díaz and the installation of the moderate Francisco I. Madero. Instrumental in this transfer of power were the likes of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, a mestizo peasant from the state of Morelos. Zapata and his followers, the Zapatistas, mostly Native American, advocated a program of radical land reform under the slogan Tierra y Libertad, or "Land and Liberty". This demand, laid out roughly in the Zapatistas' Plan de Ayala, sought to break up the large landholdings (fincas) which maintained power in the hands of the landlords (finqueros) and kept the indigenous peasants chained into a system of lifelong debt slavery (peonaje). This Zapatista movement was eventually augmented by intellectuals from Mexico City, including the anarchist Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama and the brothers Jesús and Ricardo Flores Magón (who coined the phrase "Land and Liberty" that Zapata adopted). These intellectuals, more articulate than the illiterate peasants (probably including Zapata himself), became the voice for the Zapatista movement. Zapata quickly broke with Madero, who he felt was not moving quickly enough in the area of land reform, and continued to fight his government and the successive governments of Victoriano Huerta and Venustiano Carranza. Madero, Huerta, and Carranza fought each other for control of the Mexican state, but all agreed that Zapata was a thorn that had to be removed. Eventually, after many years of fighting, Carranza succeeded in having Zapata assassinated (on April 10, 1919), and subduing the Zapatista forces. Image:Anarchism in Spain Fascism Snake.jpg Especially significant in the worldwide anarchist movement was the anarchist activity in Spain, which reached a peak during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and resulted from many decades of anarchist agitation and education. The vibrant and widespread support for anarchism resulted in a social revolution that occurred alongside the fight against fascist forces. During the civil war, the anti-fascist forces were comprised of various factions including communists and anarchists. Anarchist groups controlled both territory and factories for a time during the war, especially in Catalonia. Fights broke out between the communists and anarchists in some cities, culminating in the Barcelona May Days of 1937. One of the major anarchist groups from that time, the CNT (Confederación National del Trabajo), still exists in Spain (see [10]). Though the fascists won and the anarchists came into conflict with the fascist rebels, liberal democrats and authoritarian communists, many fled overseas (especially to France) and helped bring anarchist ideas to labor movements around the world.

Labour organisations such as the CNT have often been the focal point of anarchist activity. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or 'Wobblies') are a libertarian socialist labor union that was prominent in labor struggles in the United States during the early 20th century. They advocate the formation of "one big union" comprised of all workers everywhere. The IWW made use of militant tactics in order to effect their demands for improvement in worker's conditions, including sabotage, and popularized the 'wildcat strike', a sudden, unannounced work stoppage, as a means of fighting. While they never advocated straight out violence, they were clear in their intent to defend themselves if attacked, and fought back with force against policemen and Pinkerton security guards. The Wobblies were openly revolutionary (as many labor unions were at the time) and saw their struggle for worker's rights only as a tool towards the eventual worker takeover of factories that the syndicalists envisioned at the time. They were racially inclusive, recognizing that black workers and white workers faced the same oppression (in a time when many labor unions were exclusive). They faced fierce resistance, both from the bosses themselves and from the federal government, particularly during the time of the Palmer Raids. This resistance, and the slow process of attrition of revolutionary potential as labor unions forced concessions from the capitalists, reduced the IWW to tatters by the early twenties. They still survive in some form and are organizing workers to this day (see IWW.org).

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Anarchism today

Despite the fact that several mass-based popular anarchist organizations were dismantled before, during, or after the first two World Wars by fascist or communist dictatorships (e.g. in Spain, the Soviet Union, Italy, Germany, Cuba), thus leading anarchist historian George Woodcock to conclude that the movement was dead in the early 1960s (a claim he would later retract), anarchism enjoyed a major resurgence in the late 1960s in the wave of popular protest against the Vietnam War and with new social movements like feminism, the civil rights movement, the ecology movement, and "third world" solidarity movements. Anarchism, as a living political praxis, has been informed by the insights of such movements throughout its history. Although the anarchist movement today is not as large numerically as it was 70 or 80 years ago, it is arguably much more international.

Today, the most visible element of the anarchist movement is in the protests surrounding the various summits of international financial organizations like the WTO and the G-8 and in the so-called anti-globalization movement. This, however, is far from a complete picture of contemporary anarchist activity. Image:Flag of the EZLN.svg The Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico in 1994 gave the non-parliamentary left new momentum and vigour. As the first major leftist uprising after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Zapatista ethic of not taking state power, rather, exercising power within their own communities through popular directly democratic assemblies mirrored traditional anarchist demands of decentralized political power and participatory decision-making structures. The Zapatista uprising would influence global movements such as Peoples' Global Action and Indymedia, as well as numerous social movements in Latin America, leaving a strong left libertarian imprint on popular struggles throughout the world.

While the anarchist movement lost much of it's influence on the labour movment by the late 1930s, many anarchist labour unions continue to organize and grow. Notable examples include the Spanish Confederacion General del Trabajo de España and Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Swedish Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation, the French Confédération nationale du travail, the Siberian Confederation of Labour SKT, and the Italian CIB Unicobas. United with a growing international platformist tendency, many anarchist unions form the backbone of International Libertarian Solidarity.

Several social movements, although not explicitly anarchist, contain left libertarian elements both in their outlook and organizing principles, often working alongside, with direct participation, or endorsement from anarchists. These include, but are not limited to, the approximately 200 Argentinian self-managed factories and popular assemblies; the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement; and indigenist struggles for land and liberty.

In addition, anarchists today are involved in the squatter movement, social centers, and infoshops; anti-poverty groups like OCAP and Food Not Bombs; tenants unions and housing cooperatives; anti-sexist organizing; grassroots media initiatives; digital media and computer activism; experiments in participatory economics; anti-racist and anti-fascist groups like Anti-Racist Action and Antifa; organizations protecting the rights of immigrants and promoting the free movement of people like the No Border Network and No one is Illegal; while maintaining a long-established presence in various community groups, worker co-operatives, countercultural and artist groups, and the peace movement.

Other prominent anarchists and libertarian socialists include:

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Further reading

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Books

  • Anarchism, George Woodcock (Penguin Books, 1962) (For many years the classic introduction, until in part superseded by Harper's 'Anarchy: A Graphic Guide')
  • Anarchy: A Graphic Guide, Clifford Harper (Camden Press, 1987) (An excellent overview, updating Woodcock's classic, and beautifully illustrated throughout by Harper's woodcut-style artwork)
  • The Anarchist Reader, George Woodcock (Ed.) (Fontana/Collins 1977) (An anthology of writings from anarchist thinkers and activists including Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Bookchin, Goldman, and many others.)
  • The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin (a 1974 science fiction novel that takes place on a planet with an anarchist society; winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel.)
  • Libertarianism without Inequality, by Michael Otsuka, (Oxford University Press 2003)
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Periodicals

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See also

Contrast: Libertarianism, Hierarchical organization

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External links

es: Socialismo libertario fi:Libertaari sosialismi fr:Anarchisme socialiste nl:Libertarisch socialisme ru:Либертарный социализм

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