Ideas and Principles

Question 1

What is Anarchism

Answer 1

An ideology based on freeing people from political domination and economic exploitations, ending the misuse of one person by another

Question 2

End goal of Anarchism

Answer 2

Anarchy- statlessness, complete freedom and equality

Future society will be an ordered way of life

Question 3

State

Answer 3

A sovereign body that exerts total authority over all individuals and groups living within its defined geographical limits

Question 4

Power

Answer 4

The means or instruments- such as the law, the police and the use of ideology- by which the state and other social institutions secure their authority

Question 5

Why do anarchists reject the state?

Answer 5

They oppose government, authority and political power as it restricts liberty
Govt is tyranny and must be rejected
Emma Goldman: the state is a ‘cold monster’

Question 6

How does the govt rule in modern democracies?

Answer 6

Govt rules by deceit backed up by the threat of violence
There has never been a social contract into which individuals have freely entered
People are said to be sovereign but they give their power away at the ballot box
if people were sovereign there wouldn’t be a govt so the state wouldn’t exist
Goldman: ‘If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal’

Question 7

How do govt rule in liberal democracies?

Answer 7

Violence is only used when deceit falls
The brutal repression of the miners’ strike in 1984-85
The suppression of the protest in Ferguson (2014) or Standing Rock (20160 by a heavily militarised police

Question 8

Why do anarchists reject all forms of authority?

Answer 8

Authority is based on hierarchy: authority that divides the society into the few and the many
This includes social institutions such as the church, social relationships such as sexism, racism and homophobia and capitalism where the workers are wage slaves

Question 9

Authority

Answer 9

The right of one person or institution to influence the behaviours of others
Seen as commanding, controlling and corrupting

Question 10

Autonomy

Answer 10

A form of self-govt involving a combination of freedom and responsibility, in which the individual is not subject to the will of the state or any other person

Question 11

Hierarchal authorities are commanding

Answer 11

The state can force the individual to act in a way they would not have done voluntarily
Forces individuals to suspend their reason and lose their autonomy
Autonomy isn’t possible under the state, so the state must be rejected to allow this core element of human nature to flourish

Question 12

Hierarchal authorities are controlling

Answer 12

Exerts control over people and stifles creativity and initiative
Stops individuals being able to fully explore their nature and express themselves

Question 13

Hierarchal authorities are corrupting

Answer 13

Those with authority are raised above others by power, privilege and wealth and lose all sense of their true nature, which is cooperative and altruistic
Those who are subject to authority are brutalised by a state that creates social conflict through inequality and resolves disputes through violence and coercion not through reason

Question 14

Individual anarchists view on the state

Answer 14

The state is like a parasite that robs citizens through taxation, backed up by the threat of force

Question 15

Collectivist anarchists view on the state

Answer 15

The state develops as a body to protect private property and the inequalities between the wealthy and the masses
The state is controlled by the wealthy, who are willing to use mechanisms of the state to their fullest extent to protect their privilege
e.g the World Bank, the IMF and the G20

Question 16

Direct action or ‘propaganda by the deed’

Answer 16

Any form of direct action (non-payment of taxes, rents and debts, the mass strike or refusal of conscription to acts of violence) to stir up revolution
e.g the Zapatista uprising in Mexico in 1994 or the non-payment of the poll tax in the UK under Thatcher

Question 17

Acts of violence

Answer 17

Propaganda by deed but in particular acts of terror

e.g Alexander Berkman’s attempt to murder the US businessman Henry Frick in 1892

Question 18

Emerging revolution

Answer 18

This approach involves acting as if you are already free rather than trying to influence or change the decisions of the govt
These actions allow individuals to become autonomous and learn about the benefits of solidarity, mutual aid and collective action, creating a spirit of revolt
The spread of ideas will reach boring point, hastened by misery and oppression and then explode into revolutionary action

Question 19

Creating new institutions

Answer 19

Proudhon argued that change would be won by an evolutionary process of creating new institutions, within the cracks of the current state, to replace the existing ones
Achieved through education, instruction and peaceful action as well as mutualist experiments, such as worker associations to decay and die rather than be overthrown

Question 20

Government

Answer 20

A particular system of rule, from monarchism to dictatorship to liberal democracy which anarchists believe is based on deceit and violence

Question 21

Solidarity

Answer 21

A relationship of sympathy, co-operations and harmony between people that anarchists believe means that they have no need to be regulated by the state

Question 22

Mutual aid

Answer 22

The anarchist idea that the most successful species are those that employ solidarity and co-operation rather than individualistic competition

Question 23

Direct action

Answer 23

a range of political actions, both non-violent and violent, that are taken outside the legal and constitutional framework

Question 24

Insurrection

Answer 24

an egoistic act that anarchists believe allows individuals to elevate themselves above the established institutions, leaving the establishment to decay and die

Question 25

Individual anarchists view on liberty

Answer 25

Liberty is freedom to be autonomous and to explore one’s individuality to the full. It is freedom from control by the state or other social situations, such as the church or social relationships such as patriarchy, which are based on hierarchal authority

Question 26

Collectivist anarchists view on liberty

Answer 26

Human nature is altruistic and cooperative and their are not free to exercise this due to the unjust nature of the state
Individuals can only be free when all are free to realise their potential
Liberty is only possible if there is equality, where people treat each other equally, have an equal economic position and have an equal say in their workplace or community
Liberty is achieved by the overthrow of the class-based, hierarchal society based on equalities of power, wealth and privilege

Question 27

Alturism

Answer 27

Concern for the interest and welfare of others based on a belief that humans are social beings with a capacity for social solidarity

Question 28

What would there be in an anarchist society to maintain order?

Answer 28

No centralised body to impose its will on the people
No recognisable hierarchal authority
No coercive machinery to impose laws
Some form of decentralised federation of autonomous districts, based on the voluntary co-operation of free and equal individuals, where decisions are made directly by the people in a form of self-govt
Order will occur naturally an it will be both stable and peaceful

Question 29

How do anarchists respond to their critics on ‘Anarchy is order’?

Answer 29

They see humans at their core as social, co-operative and intellectually enlightened, but with the potential for corruption and selfishness.
Human nature is socially determined, moulded by the institutions and relationships are based on hierarchical authority and have created selfish, antisocial and competitive traits
The replacement with alternatives will lead to nurturing core aspects of human nature