Anarchism

Question 1

Anarchism: core themes

Answer 1

anti-statism

utopianism

anti-clericalism

economic freedom

Question 2

Syndicalism

Answer 2

A form of revolutionary trade unionism that is based on a crude notion of class war and emphasizes the use of direct action and the general strike.

Question 3

Millenarianism

Answer 3

A belief in a thousand-year period of divine rule; political millenarianism offers the prospect of a sudden and complete emancipation from misery and oppression.

Question 4

Mutualism

Answer 4

A system of fair and equitable exchange, in which individuals or groups bargain with one another, trading goods and services without profiteering or exploitation.

Question 5

Communism

Answer 5

The principle of the common ownership of wealth; communism is often used more broadly to refer to movements or regimes that are based on Marxist principles

Question 6

Direct action

Answer 6

Political action taken outside the constitutional and legal framework; direct action may range from passive resistance to terrorism.

Question 7

Political myth

Answer 7

A belief that has the capacity to provoke political action by virtue of its emotional power rather than through an appeal to reason.

Question 8

Direct democracy

Answer 8

Popular self-government, characterized by the direct and continuous participation of citizens in the tasks of government.

Question 9

Nihilism

Answer 9

Literally a belief in nothing; the rejection of all moral and political principles.

Question 10

Libertarianism

Answer 10

A belief that the individual should enjoy the widest possible realm of freedom; libertarianism implies the removal of both external and internal constraints upon the individual

Question 11

Terrorism

Answer 11

The use of violence to induce a climate of fear or terror in order to further political ends; a clearly pejorative and usually subjective term

Question 12

New politics

Answer 12

A style of politics that distrusts representative mechanism and bureaucratic processes in favour of strategies of popular mobilization and direct action.

Question 13

Pacifism

Answer 13

A commitment to peace and a rejection of war or violence in any circumstances (‘pacific’ derives from the Latin and means ‘peace-making’).

Question 14

Consumerism

Answer 14

A psychic and social phenomenon whereby personal happiness is equated with the consumption of material possessions.

Question 15

William Godwin (1756–1836)

Answer 15

A British philosopher and novelist, Godwin developed a thorough-going critique of authoritarianism that amounted to the first full exposition of anarchist beliefs. Adopting an optimism based on the Enlightenment view of human nature as rational and perfectible, based on education and social conditioning, Godwin argued that humanity would become increasingly capable of self-government, meaning that the need for government (and, with it, war, poverty, crime and violence) would disappear. Godwin’s chief political work is Enquiry Concerning Political Justice ([1793] 1971).

Question 16

Josiah Warren (1798–1874)

Answer 16

A US individualist anarchist, inventor and musician, Warren was a founding member of the New Harmony experimental community in Indiana. Drawing on the fundamental principle of the ‘sovereignty of the individual’, Warren advocated a system of ‘equitable commerce’, which recognized labour as the only legitimate capital and promised to banish both poverty and excessive luxury. His Cincinnati Time Store is sometimes seen as the first experiment in mutualism. Warren’s key writings include Equitable Commerce (1852) and True Civilization (1863).

Question 17

Max Stirner (1806–56)

Answer 17

A German philosopher, Stirner developed an extreme form of individualism, based on egoism, which condemned all checks on personal autonomy. In contrast to other anarchists’ stress on moral principles such as justice, reason and community, Stirner emphasized solely the ‘ownness’ of the human individual, thereby placing the individual self at the centre of the moral universe. Such thinking influenced Nietzsche (see p. 218) and later provided a basis for existentialism. Stirner’s most important political work is The Ego and His Own ([1845] 1971).

Question 18

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–65)

Answer 18

A French social theorist, political activist and largely self-educated printer, Proudhon’s writings influenced many nineteenthcentury anarchists, socialists and communists. His best-known work, What Is Property? ([1840] 1970), attacked both traditional property rights and collective ownership, and argued instead for mutualism, a cooperative productive system geared towards need rather than profit and organized within selfgoverning communities. In The Federal Principle (1863), Proudhon proposed that such communities should interact on the basis of ‘federal’ compacts, although this federal state would have minimal functions.

Question 19

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–76)

Answer 19

A Russian political agitator and revolutionary, Bakunin was one of the key proponents of collectivist anarchism and a leading figure within the nineteenth-century anarchist movement. Arguing that political power is intrinsically oppressive and placing his faith in human sociability, Bakunin proposed that freedom could only be achieved through ‘collectivism’, by which he meant self-governing communities based on voluntary cooperation, the absence of private property, and with rewards reflecting contributions. Bakunin extolled the ‘sacred instinct of revolt’ and was ferociously anti-theological.

Question 20

Henry David Thoreau (1817–62)

Answer 20

A US author, poet and philosopher, Thoreau’s writings had a significant impact on individualist anarchism and, later, on the environmental movement. A follower of transcendentalism, Thoreau’s major work, Walden ([1854] 1983), described his two-year ‘experiment’ in simple living, which emphasized the virtues of self-reliance, contemplation and a closeness to nature. In ‘Civil Disobedience’ ([1849] 1983), he defended the validity of conscientious objection to unjust laws, emphasizing that government should never conflict with individual conscience, but he stopped short of explicitly advocating anarchy.

Question 21

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921)

Answer 21

A Russian geographer and anarchist theorist, Kropotkin’s work was imbued with a scientific spirit, based on a theory of evolution that he proposed as an alternative to Darwin’s. By seeing ‘mutual aid’ as the principal means of human and animal development, he claimed to provide an empirical basis for both anarchism and communism, looking to reconstruct society on the basis of selfmanagement and decentralization. Kropotkin’s major works include Mutual Aid (1902), The Conquest of Bread (1892) and Fields, Factories and Workshops (1898).

Question 22

Murray Rothbard (1926–95)

Answer 22

A US economist and libertarian thinker, Rothbard advocated ‘anarcho-capitalism’ based on combining an extreme form of Lockean liberalism with Austrian School free-market economics. Taking the right of total self-ownership to be a ‘universal ethic’, he argued that economic freedom is incompatible with the power of government and became a fierce enemy of the ‘welfare-warfare’ state, championing non-intervention in both domestic and foreign affairs. Rothbard’s key writings include Man, Economy and State (1962), For a New Liberty (1978) and The Ethics of Liberty (1982).