Rejection of the state

Question 1

Emma Goldman on the state?

Answer 1

• Described as a ‘cold monster’, a sovereign body that exerts total authority over all individuals and groups
• All forms of government rely on violence, patriotism and militarism. Patriotism is used to force obedience to the flag and state, stir up divisions with others and fund a growing military

Question 2

Anarchist rejection of modern democracies?

Answer 2

• Object the concept of government by consent as individuals cannot by nature, give up their sovereignty to a higher authority. Even if one generation submits itself to government, there is no reason why succeeding generations should do the same
• The people are said to be sovereign but give away their power at the ballot box. The vote is nothing more than a trick, Emma Goldman ‘If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal’

Question 3

Rejection of state based on the notion of hierarchy?

Answer 3

• Anarchists reject the concept of a state due to authority based on hierarchy, authority divides society in the few and the many
• Hierarchical structures should be reject as commanding, controlling and corrupting human nature
• Commanding: The state can force an individual to act in a way they would not have done voluntarily, forces an individual to lose autonomy. Mikhail Bakunin, 1870 State and Revolution - ‘Nothing is as dangerous for man’s personal morality as the habit of commanding’
• Controlling: Authority stifles creativity and initiative with people losing the ability to think for themselves. Pierre Joseph Proudhon, What is Property? (1884) - ‘To be governed is to be watched, inspected and spied upon by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom to so’
• Corrupting: Political authority in any form corrupts human nature for everyone

Question 4

What is the main differential between anarchism and the normative ideologies?

Answer 4

• Core anarchist belief that the state is unjustifiable in any form is the core differential
• Mikhail Bakunin objected the socialist state, suggesting that it would become corrupted by authority and predicted that ‘socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality’. Prediction become reality in Stalin’s Russia with in excess of 14 million people passing from Gulag camps between 1929 and 1953