Anarchism and Human Nature

Ideologies have been described as interrelated sets of ideas providing frameworks of

analysis of existing societies and proposals for their continuance, reform or
transformation. All such proposals depend for their validity on differing interpretations of
human nature and so it should come as no surprise that there are strong ideological
disputes as to the characteristics of human nature which, it must be recognised, can
nevertheless not be resolved empirically. In this essay I shall mention briefly some broad
controversies surrounding the possible characteristics of human nature and then describe
a range of anarchist views of human nature.
Human beings differ in important respects: in terms of their gender, ethnicity, age, social
class membership, physical and mental qualities and so on but when we refer to the
concept of human nature we mean the essential and immutable [i.e. unchangeable]
character of all human beings. Andrew Heywood has suggested that there are three
major disputes about human nature. What is the relative importance of heredity and the
environment in the determination of human behaviour? Are human beings primarily
rational or are they to a considerable extent guided by irrational emotions and passions?
And are they naturally competitive and motivated by narrow individual self-interest or
primarily cooperative, altruistic and motivated by community spirit?
As will be indicated below there are important differences within anarchism as to the
characteristics of human nature but it is often argued that some anarchists [most notably
perhaps Godwin, Kropotkin and their supporters] have a very optimistic view as to the
innate goodness and sociability which can nevertheless be corrupted in societies based
around competitive capitalist institutions and/or dominant states. However it has then
been further argued that these anarchists are therefore illogical because if human beings
are innately good we cannot explain why competitive capitalist institutions and dominant
states arose in the first place.
Nevertheless this difficulty can be resolved by recognising the importance of David
Millers conclusions [In Anarchism {1984} ] that it is necessary to dispel two common
errors: One that all anarchists have the same beliefs about human nature: the other that
these beliefs are excessively optimistic, in the sense that they present human beings in far
too favourable a light. The above apparent logical flaw can be removed if we accept,
along with Peter Marshall, that we have innate tendencies for both types of behaviour
[i.e. goodness and badness]; it is our circumstances which encourage or check them. I
rely heavily on these general points in what follows.
There are considerable similarities [as well as some important differences] in the beliefs
about human nature accepted by Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin. All would
agree that human nature contains elements of both self-interest and altruism; that it
provides the potential for the development of rational thought; and that the development
of human nature itself is heavily influenced by environmental factors such that while our
present authoritarian and hierarchical society encourages egoism, competition and
aggression, there is good reason to think that a free society without authority and
coercion would encourage our benevolent and sympathetic tendencies.[Peter Marshall].

Thus these anarchists would explain the development of the state and of capitalism in
terms of the dominance of our potential for selfishness over our potential for altruism and
claim that our selfishness would be reinforced in capitalist, state-dominated societies.
Anarchist analyses of the state may be seen as providing further evidence of their realism
as shown in their arguments that even the most idealistic persons will be corrupted once
they take over the powers of the state. Here is suggested a view of human nature similar
to the Liberal Lord Actons in his statement that , All power corrupts but absolute power
corrupts absolutely and different from Leninist and social democratic theories of the
state in which it is assumed that states can be used to the benefit of societies as a whole.
There are, however, significant differences between the theories of Godwin, Kropotkin,
Bakunin and Proudhon surrounding the precise nature of the anarchist societies to be
introduced which point also to some differences in their assumptions about human nature.
Godwin and Kropotkin both argue for communal political organisation, communal
control of the means of production and allocation of goods and services according to
social need all of which imply an optimistic [but not illogical] view that communal
ownership, non-hierarchical, non authoritarian communal living will activate the
cooperative, altruistic side of human nature. The abolition of private property will remove
the major cause of crime and individuals, perhaps with a little occasional rational
persuasion, will come to freely accept the limited communal regulations as reflecting
their own best interests.
However Bakunins arguments in support of collectivism rather than anarchocommunism, for allocation of goods and services according to work done rather than
according to social need and for the necessity of some enforcement of community
regulations and Proudhons arguments in support of mutualism for mutualism, the
continued existence of limited amounts of private property and economic inequality each
suggest that it may not be possible to eradicate the egoistical side of human nature as
easily as Godwin and Kropotkin imply. The overall views of Warren and Tucker are
similar in some respects to those of Proudhon and so may also be said to reflect a view of
human nature in which self-interest will never be entirely absent but is still far less
significant than is believed by enthusiastic supporters of the capitalist system.
.
The assumptions about human nature made by Max Stirner and by anarcho-capitalists
such as Murray Rothbard differ significantly from those made by Godwin, Kropotkin,
Bakunin, Proudhon, Warren and Tucker. .In his study The Ego and His Own [1843]
Stirner argues for a stateless society of individualist egoists following their own selfinterest but recognising that they face other highly developed individual egoists well able
to defend their own interests so that a state of social balance could prevail in which all
individuals exercise a high degree of individual freedom but recognise that their self
interest demands that they must not infringe the liberty of others for fear of reprisals.
Implicit in his theory are the notions that human nature is essentially competitive and
self- interested and that the individual can develop fully only by following her/his selfinterest to the maximum extent possible consistent with the existence of other powerful,
self- interested individuals. Altruism, sociability and cooperativeness are not natural
qualities and any attempts to apply them inhibit rather promote human self-development.

Anarcho-capitalists such as Murray Rothbard and David Friedman make assumptions

about human nature which are very similar to those made by classical liberals and neoliberals. Anarcho-capitalists believe that individuals are rational and therefore should be
allowed the liberty to organise their own affairs subject to the proviso that they do not
harm the interests of others. They see human beings as essentially self- interested but
believe that the invisible hand of the laissez-faire market mechanism ensures that if
individuals follow their own self-interest they nevertheless promote the economic
interests of society as a whole. Laissez faire promotes competition which increases
economic efficiency and enables producers to respond flexibly and dynamically to
changes in consumers tastes and preferences there by improving overall living standards.
Anarcho-capitalists argue that all goods and services currently produced by the state can
be produced more effectively via the free market mechanism because in their view
departments of state are all organised inefficiently mainly in the interests of the producers
rather than the consumers of these services. Thus it is argued that professionals working
in theses state services are reasonably well paid but that they do not necessarily provide a
good service for their clients because they know that their clients have nowhere else to
go. According to anarch0-capitalists services would be far better in a more competitive
privately organised system and so all would gain if the state were abolished in its entirety.
Not only that economic production should be based entirely on private enterprise and
laissez faire but that social order also can best be achieved by privately organised courts,
private security firms and private armies and that the state should involve itself far less in
foreign affairs which would mean that the state armed forces could be replaced by much
smaller private militia.
Anarcho-capitalists recognise that the combination of individual freedom and laissezfaire is certain to result in economic inequality of outcome. However they believe that
individuals differ in their talents and abilities primarily for genetic reasons so that in
anarcho-capitalist societies with no governments economic inequality is inevitable. This
economic inequality is also desirable because it will provide the financial incentives
necessary to generate economic growth, the advantages of which will also trickle down to
the poor so that everyone gains from economic inequality of outcome. Anarchocapitalists reject arguments that economic inequalities will restrict the liberties and
opportunities of the poor claiming rather that the poor have more to gain in unequal
societies which promote faster economic growth than from equal societies which stifle
economic growth and result in a levelling down of living standards.
Thus anarcho-capitalists believe that human nature is such that individuals are rational,
competitive and self-interested; that differences in talent and ability and in income and
wealth are determined mainly by genetic rather than environmental factors; and that
individuals can exercise their freedoms best in competitive free market economies
which are best able to promote higher living standards. These competitive market
economies would be hierarchical, authoritarian and economically unequal but according
to anarcho-capitalists they would be organised in accordance with human nature itself
which they see as narrowly rational, self-interested, competitive and ready to accept the
hierarchies which are fair because they are meritocratic in that they derive from mainly

genetically determined differences in talent and ability. Of course the anarcho-capitalist

view of human nature would certainly be rejected entirely by Godwin, Kropotkin and
Bakunin and also to a considerable extent by Proudhon, Warren and Tucker and it should
come as no surprise to discover that many anarchists deny that anarcho-capitalism is a
form of anarchism at all.
It is clear that anarchist assumptions about human nature vary considerably. At one
extreme Godwin and Kropotkin argue that human beings are potentially rational and that
they have innate capacities for both good and bad behaviour which are heavily influenced
by environmental factors leading Peter Marshall to argue that while our present
authoritarian and hierarchical society encourages egoism, competition and aggression,
there is good reason to think that a free society without coercion would encourage our
benevolent and sympathetic tendencies. Such views are optimistic but not illogically so
because they do recognise the negative side of human nature which helps to explain the
formation and continued existence of competitive economies and authoritarian states
which also represent an ongoing corrupting influence even for otherwise idealistic
people.
Godwin and Kropotkin both believe that individuals would work hard, live harmoniously
and freely accept some regulations in communally based societies where the means of
production are communally owned and goods and services are allocated according to
social need. However as we travel ideologically from Bakunin to Proudhon to Warren
and Tucker we see that all of these theorists support limited levels of economic
inequality; that Proudhon, Warren and Tucker also support the limited ownership of
private property ; that Bakunin sees a need for enforced community regulations and that
and Warren and Tucker wish to minimise community regulation as a means of protecting
individual freedom all of which implies for these theorists that human nature would
continue to show its self-interested side even in future anarchist societies.
Of course Max Stirner makes entirely different assumptions For him individuals are
naturally self-interested and competitive and should seek to further their own self-interest
and competitiveness as a means of developing their individuality to the full recognising
only the limits to freedom which might arise as a result of the existence of other highly
developed and self- interested egoists.
Anarcho-capitalist views also differ significantly from those of Godwin, Kropotkin and
Bakunin and to a considerable extent from those of Proudhon, Warren and Tucker. They
see no danger whatsoever that competitive but stateless market economies via their
competitive, hierarchical and authoritarian structures will promoter individuals natural
selfishness at the expense of their natural benevolence and solidarity. Instead they believe
that it is self-interested competitiveness that promotes economic growth and economic
growth which promotes liberty and opportunity. Their rejection of the state but nothing
else would be accepted by the more radical social anarchists.
It is well to remember both that anarchist perspectives on human nature may be criticised
from other ideological perspectives but that all perspectives on human nature are a matter
of opinion: nobody knows what the actual characteristics of human nature really are.

Is Anarchism merely an extreme version of free market liberalism?

Anarchism is a fairly broad ideology and there are important divisions within anarchism
as between individualist and social anarchism and also within these categories and it can
be shown that whereas most individualist anarchists and in particular anarcho-capitalists
have some sympathy with the principles of free market liberalism this would not apply to
social anarchists in general and particularly not to anarcho-communists such as Peter
Kropotkin.
Free market liberal principles have been espoused by both classical liberals and by New
Right theorists who have combined support for free market liberalism with support for
the strong state. Free market liberals argue that individuals are rational and therefore the
best judges of their own interests and that overall economic efficiency can best be
achieved by unregulated laissez faire. Liberal support for laissez faire was under-pinned
by the economic theories outlined by Adam Smith in his study The Wealth of
Nations[1776] in which he argued that the competitive capitalist economy based upon
private profit and individual self-interest could via the so-called invisible hand of the
market mechanism secure the best possible living standards for all members of society.
[Essentially the theory suggested that if large numbers of firms were in competition with
each other they would try to keep their prices as low as was consistent with a reasonable
level of profit for fear that if they increased prices they would lose sales to their
competitors. Furthermore in the competition between firms, efficient firms which could
produce most cheaply would be able to expand at the expense of higher cost firms who
would be driven out of business. Consequently the economic competition between firms
would mean that consumers can buy from the most efficient firms charging reasonable
prices and all of this can be achieved without government intervention in the economy
i.e. via laissez-faire.]
Free market liberals believe also that limited governments are necessary to guarantee
social order and to provide a legal framework within which private enterprise cam work
efficiently but the scope of government should be restricted so that it neither infringes
upon the [negatively defined] freedom of the individual nor inhibits the freedom of the
market economy via excessive regulation . Free market liberals, although not originally
supporters of universal suffrage have come to accept the overall political framework of
modern liberal democracy.
They recognise that the unregulated free market is likely to generate considerable
economic inequalities but see these inequalities as inevitable [since they derive from
individual, natural differences in talents and abilities] and desirable [because they provide
the incentives necessary to promote economic growth and rising living standards for all.
They do however support equality of opportunity as necessary for economic efficiency
but tend to reject egalitarian arguments that high levels of economic inequality restrict
individual liberty [positively defined] and the prospects for equality of opportunity

We can see some similarity between the principles of free market liberalism and individualist
anarchist theories as illustrated for example in the work of Warren and Tucker. For these
theorists individual freedom can best be achieved by the abolition of the state combined with
a modification of the economic principles of free market liberalism.
Warren and Tucker both feared that communal living could result in the denial of
individual freedom and both also supported the ownership of a limited amount of
property as a means of protecting individual independence while Tucker believed also in
the value of economic competition and some economic inequality which would generate
incentives and allow individuals to enjoy the benefits of their own hard work. Anarchism
was consistent Manchesterism, he said which pointed to his support for a modified
form of laissez faire which could result in some economic inequality. However Warren
and Tucker also wish to organise economic systems in which profit and the exploitation
of labour would be abolished and good and services would be exchanged on the basis of
their costs of production [primarily their labour costs].
In the schemes of Warren and Tucker the abolition of the state would inevitably mean that
the scope of free market liberalism would increase because goods and services such as
legal institutions, the police and armed forces which had been previously provided by the
limited state would now be provided via the market mechanism which would now be free of
all government regulation. However the abolition of the profit motive and the resultant
overall reduction in economic inequality [despite the work incentives which Warren and
Tucker wished to retain] could be seen as a retreat from the principles of market liberalism
rather than an extreme version of them.

It might be argued that supporters of anarcho-capitalism such as Murray Rothbard and

David Friedman are the anarchists which are closest to supporting an extreme version of
free market liberalism. Thus whereas classical liberals traditionally argued in support of
laissez faire combined with a limited state which was necessary to provide courts, police
and prisons to promote internal order and to provide armies for defence against
aggressors and neo-liberals argue for the extension of free market liberal principles to
areas such as the provision of health, housing , education, and social security, anarchocapitalists argue for the total abolition of the state and for the provision of all goods and
services including even legal services, the police, and the armed forces via the market
mechanism in which the profit motive would be retained and economic inequality would
continue since anarcho-capitalists defend its importance as an incentive to encourage
work, saving and investment.
According to anarcho-capitalists all government services are organised inefficiently
mainly in the interests of the producers rather than the consumers of these services. Thus
it is argued that professionals working in theses state services are reasonably well paid
but that they do not necessarily provide a good service for their clients because they
know that their clients have nowhere else to go. In a more competitive privately

organised system services would be far better the anarcho-capitalists claim and so all
would gain if the state were abolished in its entirety.
In summary anarcho-capitalists are therefore strong supporters of the abolition of the
state and of the extension of private enterprise based upon the profit motive, atomistic
sef-interest and economic inequality and it can be argued that it is this variant of anarchist
theorising which comes closest to the acceptance of an extreme version of free market
liberalism although it could also be argued that in its support for the actual abolition of
the state it also departs from an important element of free market liberal ideology in
which the state does have an important role to play.[We may note also that anarchocapitalism is subject to the entire range of socialist criticisms of capitalism so that many
socialist-supporting anarchists actually deny that anarcho-capitalism is a form of
anarchism at all a view which anarcho-capitalists would themselves reject.] .
As examples of social anarchist thinking we may consider the broad ideas of Bakunin and
Kropotkin [Proudhon might be seen as occupying an ideological position between
individualist and social anarchism and between liberalism and socialism. As such he is
further from free market liberalism than Warren and Tucker but much closer than
Bakunin and Kropotykin, and, indeed, Godwin.].Social anarchists would agree with free
market liberals that individuals have the capacity for rational thought and that they are
therefore the best judges of their own best interests. However the social anarchists argue,
against free market liberals, that individual freedom should be used reflect the interests of
the community as a whole rather than to reflect atomistic self- interest and that the
combination of a free market economy with a liberal limited liberal democratic state, far
from promoting individual liberty, will restrict individual freedom and undermine
individuals, capacities for self-development through their own efforts. Social anarchist
ideas are not merely an extreme form of market liberalism.
Social liberals argue that the free market economy results in a sub-optimum allocation of
resources because it is based upon production for profit rather than production for need
and that that it inevitably results in economic inequality, poverty and dehumanising work
which inevitably restricts the liberties and opportunities of the poor to develop their
talents since the poor are denied opportunities which are available to the rich as a result
of their wealth .Therefore the economic inequalities which according to free market
liberals derive from mainly inherited differences in talent derive according to social
anarchists from the intergenerational transmission of social class advantages
.Furthermore any aspects of liberty which do exist under capitalism are atomistic, self
interested forms of liberty in which individuals use their liberties to promote their own
self interest at the expense of others.
Whereas market liberals support the limited liberal democratic state social anarchists
oppose all forms of state including the liberal democratic state arguing that it uses its
powers to pass laws, raise taxes and fight wars which destroy individual liberty; that it
ultimately favours its own interests and the interests of the rich at the expense of the poor
and that its very existence denies individuals to promote a harmonious social order via
their own activities.

Instead of free market principles and the limited liberal democratic state both Bakunin
and Kropotkin propose communal living involving the abolition of private property and
its replacement by the communal ownership of the means of production leading to much
greater economic equality which in their views will also enhance both individual liberty
and equality of opportunity. It is hoped that in this situation individuals will come to
equate their own self- interests with the interests of their community as a whole. Also,
whereas Bakunin , in his collectivist belief that at least in the short term goods and
services should be allocated according to work done, has not totally rejected free market
liberal support for financial incentives, Kropotkin , as an anarcho-communist, hopes that
individuals will quickly be prepared to work for the good of the community so that goods
and services can be allocated according to social need which amounts to a total rejection
of the economic principles of free market liberalism. We may note also that William
Godwin although he is often described as an individualist anarchist also supported
communal, living, communal ownership of the means of production, allocation of goods
and services according to need and high levels of economic equality all of which distance
him very considerably from the principles of free market liberalism.
Needs a conclusion

[Also we could buid in the following information Proudhon .How?

Proudhon argued in support of a system of Mutualism which Heywood describes as a
cooperative productive system geared toward need rather than profit and organised within
self-governing communities and in Political Ideology Today [2002] Ian Adams states that
Proudhons ideal world was a world of small independent producers- peasant farmers and
craftsmen who associated and made contracts with each other freely for their mutual benefit
and for whom a centralised coercive state was an unnecessary evil. We can certainly see
elements of socialism in Proudhons rejection of large inequalities of wealth and income and
of the profit motive but in his rejection of the central state and his support for self-governing
communities, individual ownership of possessions and acceptance of a measure of economic
inequality we can also see important links to liberal ideology. It may be argued that his
comments apply equally to the ideas of Warren and Tucker.

Anarchism: Core Values

Views of Human
Nature: Optimistic
in general although
Stirners views
differ from those of
other anarchists

Natural Order: the claim

that individuals are most
likely to create social order
without government and
that government itself
promotes social disorder.
Insert the Anarchist logo
here.

Economic Freedom
[3]. Opposition to
state
ownership and
control of the means
of production as in
USSR State
Socialism

Living in tune with nature

Emphasis on the
rationality and
sovereignty of the
individual

Very strong
emphasis on
individual liberty
although it is
important to clarify
the meaning of
liberty for
anarchists.

Core Values of
Anarchism

Opposition to Authority of
all kinds: opposition
especially to states of all
kinds, to law, religion and
nationalism.
What about attitudes to
expert authority?
What about attitudes to
public opinion or
traditional norms or
values?

Economic Freedom
[2] Support for
laissez faire,
minimal
Government and
some economic
Inequality
=
Anarcho-Capitalism
Economic Freedom
[1] Opposition to
capitalist inequality
and opposition to
private property.
Support for:
Mutualism
[Proudhon],
Collectivism
[Bakunin]
or Communism
[Kropotkin]

Core values of Anarchism influence the strategies by which anarchist

societies are to be achieved and subsequently organised .

Anarchism: Recent Developments and Criticisms

Anarchism and the Modern World
The study of anarchism still revolves to a considerable extent around the
ideas of classic anarchist theorists of the C18th, C19th and early C20th
including Godwin, Stirner, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Warren and
Tucker. These writers wrote of times when new anarchist societies may
potentially have been constructed based around small scale agriculture and
relatively small scale industry although they did also speculate about how
anarchist principles might be applied in a more heavily industrialised world.
No anarchist movement has ever had the opportunity to put its principles
into practice on a large scale except in parts of Spain during the Spanish
Civil War in the 1930s and even there the movement was crushed by
General Francos repressive authoritarian regime. In the aftermath of the 2nd
World War as industrial countries experienced 20-30 years of relative
prosperity and economic growth the possibility seemed limited that anarchist
ideas would influence the development of national politics.
However supporters of anarchism have argued that from the late 1960s
onwards anarchist ideas have again become increasingly important and
relevant. New Left theorists of the 1960s developed increasingly powerful
criticisms of both industrial capitalism and industrial state socialism.
Industrial capitalism was generating economic growth which apparently
resulted in rising living standards but New Left theorists argued that this
economic growth was based upon the creation of false needs by the
advertising industry; that work was an increasingly alienating dehumanising
experience; that apparently rising average living standards hid the existence
of massive inequality and poverty especially when comparisons were made
with the Third World; that racism and patriarchy were rampant and that
mass entertainment industries simply deflected attention from all of the
serious limitations of industrial capitalism. Meanwhile it had also become
clear that the USSR had failed to deliver on the promise of real socialism.
New Left ideas certainly struck a chord among some of the well educated
members of the younger generation but the 1960s passed and the 1970s and
1980s saw the rise of the New Right. According to its supporters New Right

thinking amounted to a coherent set of ideas designed to increase the

efficiency of capitalism and improve living standards for all. However it has
also been criticised by one nation conservatives, liberals, social democrats
and those on the further left of the political spectrum including some
anarchists.
By the 1990s and 2000s there have occurred two wars in Iraq, increased
fears of environmental degradation and global warming and an increasingly
widespread belief that the new process of capitalist globalisation is the
fundamental cause of both environmental damage and entrenched Third
World poverty. Massive demonstrations have occurred against the
globalisation movement and against the second war in Iraq and it is in this
context that the enthusiastic supporter of anarchism, Peter Marshall writes
that in the 21st Century anarchism is not only an inspiring idea but part of a
broader historical movement and at the beginning of the 3rd millennium
anarchism is vibrant and more relevant than ever.
Click here for a recent article by George Monbiot which expresses some
current environmental concerns and thereby provides some useful
background information for the understanding of anarchists involvement in
the environmental movement.

It is difficult to summarise the strands of modern anarchism but we may

include the following areas in which anarchism is relevant.
The American intellectual Noam Chomsky readily acknowledges the
significant influence of anarchism on his thought. Chomsky is
renowned for his opposition to what he sees as imperialistic USA
foreign policy and also criticises the capitalist system as a whole
using ideas similar to those of the New Left. He does emphasise that
he believes states can serve some useful functions in the short term
in that they reduce capitalist exploitation to some extent but he does
believe in the abolition of states in the long run.
He has attracted criticism from some anarchists because of his shortterm defence of the state and also from so-called primitivist
anarchists who argue that if ecological catastrophe is to be averted we
must turn our backs on urban technological living and return to a
more natural state. Chomsky has argued that such a strategy would

result in mass starvation and that it is necessary to utilise the benefits

of technology in an environmentally friendly way rather than to turn
our backs on technology. Many within the anarchist movement agree
with him and support his criticisms of primitivist anarchism.
Anarchists have developed their own version of feminism known as
anarcha feminism which seeks to combine feminist demands with
support for maximum possible individual freedom.
Anarchists are active in the Green and Anti-Globalisation Movements
arguing that it is the continued activities of states and large
corporations which are the ultimate causes of environmental damage
and third world poverty.
Anarchist ideas overlap to some extent with the ideologies of
liberalism and socialism and may therefore influence at least to a
limited extent the content of these currently more popular ideologies.
Anarcho-capitalists also aim to publicise their ideas in support of free
market capitalism without the state. Socialist anarchists deny that
anarcho-capitalism is a form of anarchism.

Criticisms of Anarchism
The main elements of anarchist ideology may be revised with the help of the
introductory chart which you already havesomewhere. Among the
criticisms made of anarchism are the following.
Anarchism and the State
Anarchists argue that states are the main sources of social disorder and that
anarchy, the absence of rule, is the only means by which social order can be
achieved. However it has been argued that the anarchist critique of the state
is misguided and that other ideological arguments in support of the state are
more convincing. Thus in the classical liberal view as developed, for
example by John Locke, states are seen as necessary for the defence of
social order which in turn is seen as necessary for individuals to be able to
exercise their individual liberty. Whereas according to anarchists the state
destroys individual liberty classical liberals claim that the state safeguards
individual liberty by protecting them from the encroachments of others and
that the scope of the state can be restricted so that individuals have the
negative freedom from excessive state intervention.

Furthermore social liberals would argue that the state can both provide for
social order and via a range of welfare expenditures create the positive
freedom for individuals to develop their talents and abilities to the full.
Social democrats and democratic socialists would accept the social liberal
argument in favour of welfare state expenditure but argue that welfare state
expenditure should be much greater than proposed by social liberals and
combined with redistributive taxation and government ownership or at least
control of the means of production in order to create a socially just society.
The socialist anarchist view of the capitalist state would be broadly accepted
by Marxists but Marxists reject the anarchist notion that the state must be
abolished in the first stages of the socialist revolution believing that it must
initially be retained to prevent counter-revolution and then allowed to wither
away at some time in the future a scenario which has never occurred in
practice
Finally as an approximation we might argue that conservative views of the
state are not dissimilar to the classical liberal view [in the case of neo-liberal
conservatives] and not dissimilar to the social liberal view [in the case of one
nation conservatives] and that neo-conservatives support an especially
strong state to guarantee social order. In each case conservatives reject the
anarchist view of the state.
Anarchism and Utopianism
[Utopianism is an important concept in Politics. It could also be argued that
Marxism and radical democratic socialism are to some extent utopian
ideologies]
Anarchist theories are criticised on the grounds that they are utopian but in
order to assess the validity of this criticism it is necessary to clarify the
meaning of the term utopianism. It is usually argued that utopian thought or
utopianism involves the following elements:
existing societies are criticised as fundamentally flawed in several
respects, for example as unjust, unequal and exploitative;
it is assumed that human nature is fundamentally cooperative and
community- centred rather than competitive and self-interested or that
human nature has the potential to develop in this direction in a
suitable environment;

it is assumed that societies can be organised in such a way as to bring

about personal fulfilment in both the public and the private sphere.

Let us now assess the extent to which anarchist thought may be considered
utopian in terms of the above three characteristics bearing in mind the
variability of the ideology of anarchism.

A. Criticism of existing societies

There are important variations among anarchists in their criticisms of
existing societies, their views of human nature and their proposals for the
transformation or reorganisation of existing societies. All anarchists oppose
the state but anarchist attitudes to private property vary. Thus Godwin,
Kropotkin and Bakunin are all critical of the institution of private property
and propose the collective ownership of the means of production while
Proudhon, Warren and Tucker all propose some limited ownership of
property in order to protect individual liberty and the anarcho-capitalists
favour significant inequality in the ownership of private property. The
Anarchist critique of existing societies could itself be criticised as utopian
from the perspective of other ideologies.
B. Human Nature
It might be argued that it is the views on human nature of Godwin and
Kropotkin which are most optimistic and perhaps therefore most utopian.
Thus these theorists argue that individuals can decide of their own free will
to act in accordance with the good of the community and that the allocation
of goods and services can be according to social need with no necessarily
adverse effect on work incentives. They claim also that in anarchist societies
there will be very little crime and that criminals should simply be persuaded
to see the error of their ways rather than punished which will result only in
further criminality.
The thought of Bakunin, Proudhon, Warren and Tucker is less utopian in
that they all argue for the allocation of goods and services according to work
done and whereas Bakunin argues for collective ownership of the means of
production the other theorists argue for limited private ownership of
property as a means of protecting individual liberty suggesting a rather less

optimistic view of human nature. Anarcho-capitalists could be seen as

having an even less optimistic view of human nature.
We currently have no way of knowing the characteristics of human nature
but current experience suggests that humans are currently motivated to a
considerable extent by self-interest in which case Godwins and Kropotkins
views of human nature could be described as utopian as could Marxist and
some other socialist views.
C. Organisation of Anarchist Societies
If anarchist communities were successfully introduced critics have argued
that they would not necessarily result in the high levels of individual liberty
which anarchists support. Anarchists are unwilling to provide detailed blueprints for future societies arguing that it will be for future generations to
decide how they wish to organise themselves.
However they do provide some broad suggestions for the organisation of
future anarchist societies. Such societies will be small scale; they will be
based on direct democracy and linked to other small communities via
representative assemblies which will only need to meet rarely; there will be
no central state to control the overall organisation of these small
communities.
In the social anarchist approach property will be owned collectively and it is
assumed that individuals will decide freely to act in accordance with the
needs of the community as a whole and will be prepared to work hard in the
interests of the community rather than in accordance with their own selfinterest. When disagreements do arise these will be resolved via direct
democracy in which decisions are arrived at via consensus following rational
argument rather than through majority voting which would undermine the
individual freedom of the minority. Conversely Warren and Tucker support
the limited ownership of private property and wish to restrict the scope of
community decision making to a minimum as a means of protecting
individual freedom.
The dangers are that social anarchist schemes in practice will mean that
commune based decisions will restrict the freedom of the individual just as
much as they are restricted by state laws and that individualist anarchist

schemes will restrict excessively community cooperation in the attempt to

safeguard individual liberty.
Anarchists themselves would argue that their theories may well be utopian in
the positive sense that they hold out the prospect of a much better future
which should be an ideal for individuals to aim at. However critics of
anarchism claim in the negative sense that it is pointless to aim for a utopian
ideal if it is unattainable in practice.

Anarchist Methods and the Transition to Anarchism

Various criticisms have been made of anarchist methods. It is argued that the
method of gradual, rational, peaceful persuasion of the validity of the
anarchist cause as suggested for example by William Godwin has shown
itself to be ineffective .Furthermore this is especially likely to be the case
because anarchists may oppose in principle participation in organised
political parties and/or pressure groups designed to advance their cause in
the belief that the organisations themselves will undermine the individual
freedom which anarchists support.
Anarchist- influenced individuals such as Tolstoy and Gandhi have
recommended the creation of small scale rural communities based on
anarchist principles but only a small minority of individuals have sought to
follow this example in modern anarchist-influenced communes.
Other anarchists such as Bakunin and Kropotkin have argued that capitalism
is a powerful and deeply entrenched system of economic and political
domination which must be abolished via revolution. However critics have
argued that the anarchist distaste for revolutionary political parties and their
unrealistic belief in the spontaneous uprising of the people means that their
aim of revolution is unlikely to be achieved.
Revolutionary activity of all kinds may in any case be criticised because of
the violence that it will inevitably entail. Nevertheless outbreaks of anarchist
violence have been relatively rare and many anarchists argue that violence
alienates public support and that it will not be possible to introduce a
peaceful, harmonious society via violent methods.

Anarchist principles have been introduced on a large scale only briefly in

parts of Spain during the Spanish Civil War but contemporary anarchists
believe that they have an important role to play in the evolution of modern
societies. They therefore participate actively in the environmental, antiglobalisation, feminist, gay rights and animal liberation movements hoping
to emphasise the relevance of anarchist principles within these movements.
Participation may involve peaceful, demonstration, non-violent direct action
and simple attempts through rational argument to persuade others of the
validity of anarchist ideas.
However anti-globalisation demonstrations and some forms of direction by
anarchist-inspired animal rights groups have sometimes led to violence [not
always necessarily caused by the anarchists themselves] but as mentioned
above many anarchists are in any case entirely opposed to violence.
According to anarchists it is states themselves and not small anarchist groups
that are responsible for all major forms of violence.
The prospects for anarchism may appear limited because many individuals
living in capitalist societies seem content with the standards of living
generated in such societies and they are more likely to be influenced by
more popular mainstream ideologies of conservatism, liberalism and
socialism. However anarchist principles do, to some extent feed into the
ideologies of liberalism and socialism [and even into conservatism in the
form of anarcho-capitalism.]
Also it is conceivable that as awareness increases of the possibly negative
consequences of globalisation for Third World and the environment the
limitations of the above criticisms of anarchism will come to be recognised.
However it also continues to be claimed that globalisation can be a
beneficial force for Third World development or that even if the criticisms
of globalisation are accurate anarchist theory can contribute little to the
solution of the problems caused by globalisation. Political controversy
continues!

Anarchists and Equality

In order to analyse anarchist attitudes to equality we must distinguish between
the ideas of equality of respect, economic equality of outcome, equality of
opportunity and political equality. Supporters of all ideologies other than
Fascism argue in favour of the view that all individuals are worthy of equal
respect but there are variations both among other ideologies in their treatment
of economic equality of outcome, equality of opportunity and political equality.
Within anarchism it is usual to distinguish between individualist anarchists
[Godwin, Stirner, Warren, Tucker and the anarcho-capitalists] and social
anarchists [Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin]. What distinguishes these broad
groupings is that individualists fear that all forms of social organisation have
the capacity to undermine individual autonomy and believe therefore that in any
future anarchist society social rules must be kept to a minimum while social
anarchists although they recognise the tension between individual autonomy
and social existence are more optimistic that individuals will use their private
judgement in the interests of the community so that community living can be
organised so as to protect individual liberty. However as we shall see attitudes
to economic equality of outcome and private property vary as among different
anarchists and they also cut across the broad distinction between individual
anarchism and social anarchism.
Anarchists and Economic Equality of Outcome
It is the individualist anarchist Godwin and the social anarchists Kropotkin and
Bakunin who show the greatest commitment to economic equality of outcome.
They argue that the abolition of the state will help individuals to develop their
individuality to the full but that individual self development for all also
demands a high level of economic equality of outcome since only then will all
individuals have access to the resources necessary to develop their individuality
and hence their individual liberty.
This leads Kropotkin and Bakunin to argue in favour of the collective
ownership of the means of production and for the distribution of goods and
services in accordance with individual need [Kropotkins anarcho-communism
or in accordance with work done [Bakunins collectivism]. These writers have
therefore accepted arguments that a high level of economic equality is

necessary for the achievement of positive liberty, negative liberty having been
achieved via the abolition of the state.
Godwins overall stance is certainly individualist but his economic beliefs that
the output of goods and services should be allocated according to individual
need demonstrates his commitment to economic equality of outcome and in this
respect places him close to the anarcho-communism of Bakunin.
The French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon famously argued that All
property is theft implying that the accumulation of property could derive only
from the exploitation of the work force but he then went on to draw an
important distinction between property and possessions. For Proudhon massive
inequalities in the ownership of property could not be justified but, at the same
time, it was desirable that individual workers should own a limited amount of
land and working implements since this would provide them with a measure of
independence and liberty which would not be available if all land and work
implements were under common ownership.
Proudhon further believed that goods and services could be exchanged on the
basis of their costs [primarily their labour costs] excluding any profit which
therefore removed the possibility of the exploitation of labour although he also
believed that some economic inequality was justified as a means of rewarding
the more industrious workers. He therefore argued in support of a system of
Mutualism which Heywood describes as a cooperative productive system
geared toward need rather than profit and organised within self-governing
communities.
Further useful information on Proudhon is provided by Ian Adams [Political
Ideology Today 2002] who states that Proudhons ideal world was a world of
small independent producers- peasant farmers and craftsmen who associated
and made contracts with each other freely for their mutual benefit and for whom
a centralised coercive state was an unnecessary evil. We can certainly see
elements of socialism in Proudhons rejection of large inequalities of wealth
and income and of the profit motive but in his rejection of the central state and
his support for self-governing communities, individual ownership of
possessions and acceptance of a measure of economic inequality we can also
see important links to liberal ideology. Let us thank Ian Adams for that: we
may note also that this implies also that Proudhon might be seen as an anarchist
theorist who to some extent appears as a bridge between individualist and social
anarchism.

The American individualist anarchists Josiah Warren and Benjamin Tucker

are described by David Miller [Anarchism 1984] as market socialists in
the sense that they envisaged and economic system in which prices were
determined by their costs of production [mainly by their labour costs] with
zero profit and hence zero exploitation of labour .We can see that in their
rejection of the profit motive and the exploitation of labour that warren and
Tucker had some commitment to economic equality of outcome.
However both Warren and Tucker feared that communal living could result
in the denial of individuality and both also supported the ownership of a
limited amount of property as a means of protecting individual independence
and liberty while Tucker believed also in the value of economic competition
and some economic inequality which would generate incentives and allow
individuals to enjoy the benefits of their own hard work. Anarchism was
consistent Manchesterism, he said which pointed to his support for a
modified form of laissez faire which could result in some economic
inequality.
It might be argued that supporters of anarcho-capitalism such as Murray Rothbard and
David Friedman are the anarchists which are closest to supporting an extreme version of
free market liberalism. Thus whereas classical liberals traditionally argued in support of
laissez faire combined with a limited state which was necessary to provide courts, police
and prisons to promote internal order and to provide armies for defence against
aggressors and neo-liberals argue for the extension of free market liberal principles to
areas such as the provision of health, housing , education, and social security, anarchocapitalists argue for the total abolition of the state and for the provision of all goods and
services including even legal services, the police, and the armed forces via the market
mechanism in which the profit motive would be retained and economic inequality would
continue since anarcho-capitalists defend its importance as an incentive to encourage
work, saving and investment.
According to anarcho-capitalists all government services are organised inefficiently
mainly in the interests of the producers rather than the consumers of these services. Thus
it is argued that professionals working in theses state services are reasonably well paid
but that they do not necessarily provide a good service for their clients because they
know that their clients have nowhere else to go. In a more competitive privately
organised system services would be far better the anarcho-capitalists claim and so all
would gain if the state were abolished in its entirety.
In summary anarcho-capitalists are therefore strong supporters of the abolition of the
state and of the extension of private enterprise based upon the profit motive, atomistic
sef-interest and economic inequality and it can be argued that it is this variant of anarchist

theorising which comes closest to the acceptance of an extreme version of free market
liberalism although it could also be argued that in its support for the actual abolition of
the state it also departs from an important element of free market liberal ideology in
which the state does have an important role to play.[We may note also that anarchocapitalism is subject to the entire range of socialist criticisms of capitalism so that many
socialist-supporting anarchists actually deny that anarcho-capitalism is a form of
anarchism at all a view which anarcho-capitalists would themselves reject.] .

Anarchists and Political Equality

For Godwin the combination of the abolition of the state, the introduction of
small scale communal living and the allocation of the output of goods and
services according to need would combine to provide for individual liberty,
economic equality of outcome and equal opportunities including equal
opportunities for political participation.
Some communal decision making bodies would initially be necessary and
Godwin hoped that they would come to their decisions of the basis of
discussions in which all citizens could participate fully and also that such
decisions would be arrived at on the basis of a rational consensus rather than
on the basis of majority voting which Godwin opposed as an infringement of
individual liberty. He did recognise that some individuals might reject
decisions reached by a consensus of the vast majority but hoped that they
could be encouraged by friendly persuasion to accept the consensus in a way
that did not threaten their individuality. He hoped also that since individuals
were to favour their private judgement based upon a highly developed social
conscience that communal decision making would be come decreasingly
necessary. You might wish to argue that his view that all decisions could be
taken via the rational arrival at a consensus is too optimistic and that in
practice an illiberal tyranny of majority opinion would be unavoidable.
The overall views of Kropotkin and Bakunin in relation to political equality
were not dissimilar to those of Kropotkin. Their views are less strongly
individualist and so they believe that because people would be more
community spirited in anarchist communities that tensions between the
community and the individual could be managed although Bakunin
proposed penalties if individuals stepped too far out of line.
Thus Peter Marshall states Everyone shall work and everyone shall be
educated whether they like it or not and .the pressure of public opinion
should make parasites impossible but exceptional cases of idleness would

be regarded as special maladies to be subjected to clinical treatment. Such

authoritarian statements open up a potential world of tyranny and oppression
in Bakunins so-called free society. We shall have more to say about
Bakunin.
It was the recognition of the possible tensions between individual liberty and
the demands of the community encouraged Proudhon, Warren and Tucker to
support the individual ownership of limited amounts of private property and
economic inequality which were to provide for individual independence in a
way which they believed would not be possible under any scheme of
collective ownership and extreme economic equality. Greater independence
would mean that individual liberty was rarely restricted by the demands of
the community but over a period of years it was possible that economic
inequality could increase considerable under these systems.
How would anarcho-capitalists analyse the issue of political liberty? This
can be discussed in class using the information on Anarcho-capitalism which
has been provided earlier in these notes .
Conclusions and subsequent work.
This discussion of anarchism and equality will help us to begin to clarify
relationships between anarchism and socialism. We can see the clearest
overlap between anarchism and radical forms of socialism in the views of
Kropotkin and Bakunin and in the specifically economic views of Godwin.
Proudhon, Warren and Tucker might be identified with more moderate
forms of socialism given their rejection of the common ownership of the
means of production.
However anarchists claiming to be socialists would describe themselves as
libertarian socialists aiming for high levels of both economic equality and
individual liberty. This leads them to aim for socialism without the state for
in their view even if the state can promote greater economic equality it does
so only via the destruction of liberty and the resultant creation of social
disorder.
Anarcho-capitalists of course reject equality of outcome and socialism in all
its forms.

Anarchism and the State

States have varied both historically and geographically such that for example David Held
distinguishes between traditional states, feudal states,the polity of estates ,absolutist states
and modern states while Richards and Smith distinguish between liberal states, social
democratic states, collectivist states, totalitarian states and developmental states. Such
distinctions are extremely important but I shall be concentrating in the following
documents on the modern liberal democratic and social democratic states and later on
important more recent changes in the nature of the modern British State.
A very useful brief definition of the state has been provided by Andrew Heywood. He
states that "the state can most simply be described as a political association that
establishes sovereign jurisdiction within defined territorial borders and exercises
authority through a set of permanent institutions. Using this definition let us isolate the
key features of the state follows:
1. States aim to ensure that citizens comply with their laws and they may do so by
engineering the consent of the citizens and or by the use of force. The monopoly
of the legitimate use of physical force is central to Max Weber's definition of the
state. He states that "a compulsory political organisation with continuous
operations will be called a "state" insofar as its administrative staff successfully
upholds the claims to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the
enforcement of its order."
2. It has also been argued by the French Marxist Louis Althusser that institutions
such as the family, the church, the education system and the mass media should
be seen as part of the state since they are ideological state apparatuses which
function to legitimise the continued existence of the capitalist state. However
other theorists would claim that these institutions are part of civil society rather
than the State.

3. Modern states are organised on the basis of their Constitutions. A state's

constitution may be defined as a system of rules and conventions by which the
state is governed. Most importantly the Constitution specifies the relative powers
of and relationships between the various political institutions of the state, most
notably the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary and the rights and
obligations of the citizen in relation to the state.

Anarchism literally means without rule or without government. It has traditionally

been associated with chaos, social disorder, destruction, violence and even terrorism. For
example in the latter stages of the French Revolution the so-called Enrages who were

critical of the Jacobin government for their failure to do more to help the poor and the
disadvantaged were described by the government as anarchists in this pejorative sense
and since then the word anarchist has often been used, particularly by moderates as a
term of political abuse. However increasingly from the late C18th political theorists
building on long standing political criticisms of authority developed an altogether more
positive interpretation of the term anarchism.
The case for Anarchism has come to rest essentially on the idea that political arguments
in support of political authority and particularly arguments in support of the state are
flawed. In the anarchist view the state does not guarantee social order, nor protect
individual liberty, nor create the economic conditions for the improvement of working
class life as conservatives, liberals and non-anarchist socialists would argue: rather the
state constrains the individual and creates social disorder. Conversely the anarchists claim
it is only individual freedom and the abolition of the state which will result in real human
self-development and social harmony. To see this let us discuss the Anarchist logo.
We must recognise that although the ideology of Anarchism contains important core
elements there are also major divergences within this ideology. Anarchists are committed
to the cause of individual liberty. They believe that individuals are the best judges of their
own best interests and that they should therefore possess the high degree of liberty
necessary to enable them to think and act as they see fit. The exercise of individual
liberty will result also in social order and social harmony whereas if individuals are
constrained by other individuals and organisations and especially if they are constrained
by the State the result will be social disorder and social disharmony.
All anarchists of all types are united in their opposition to authority and in particular to
the authority of the State. Whereas Liberals, Conservatives and non-Anarchist Socialists
advance various justifications for the existence of the State Anarchists argue that States
destroy individual liberty and in doing so undermine social order and harmony
All anarchists oppose all forms of the State. They obviously reject dictatorships as
tyrannical but they also reject liberal democratic states and the theories which seek to
justify them and they are perhaps particularly critical of so-called state socialist states
which according to anarchists have perverted the aims of anarchist libertarian socialism.
Anarchists criticise liberal democratic states on the following grounds.

Liberal democratic states, like all states, interfere with individual freedom which
is essential to promote human self-development and social order.
Constitutional governments have evolved over several generations but there is no
logical reason why members of the present generation should have their political
freedoms restricted by the decisions of past generations. The liberal claim that
limited states protect our freedom is a myth which helps to legitimise
governments and hide the fact that they govern in their own interests and not in
the interests of the citizens. Liberals such as John Locke argued in the C17th that
states were necessary to maintain the social order without which individual liberty
would be impossible but also that individuals should be free [in a negative sense]

from excessive state intervention and that they also had the right to rebel against
the state and to remove tyrannical governments. Anarchists reject such theories on
the grounds that even limited liberal night watchman restrict individual freedom
and undermine opportunities for personal self-development through the use of
individual judgement.
C17th Century liberals were not especially committed to liberal democracy based
upon universal suffrage but Anarchists are critical also of the liberal democratic
state which is also seen as restricting individual freedoms in various ways such
that as Pierre Joseph Proudhon expressed it, Universal suffrage is the counter
revolution or as we hear sometimes in everyday conversation, Dont vote: it
only encourages them. Anarchists criticise liberal democratic states on the
following grounds.
Conservative and non-anarchist socialist arguments in support of the state are also
invalid
We cannot rely on parliamentary representatives to govern in our interests since
they will be corrupted quickly by their proximity to state power and in any case
we can develop our individuality to the full only by participating personally in
politics and relying on our own judgement, not by relying on the judgement of
others.
Political parties cannot be trusted: they over-simplify issues and rely on
misleading political slogans and demagoguery thereby misleading people and
preventing them from thinking for themselves.
Even in a highly participatory democracy if decisions are taken on the basis of
majority voting there are dangers involved in the possibility of the tyranny of the
majority as some early liberal theorists also recognised. Decisions taken on the
basis of majority voting are not necessarily correct decisions and anarchists argue
that it is entirely justifiable for individuals to rely upon their own individual
judgement and to disobey laws with which they disagree. [In anarchist societies
to be discussed below it is hoped that communal decisions can be made on the
basis of a social consensus constructed through rational discussion rather than
on the basis of majority voting.]
Anarchists may also use arguments influenced by radical socialism [and possibly
Marxism] to claim that even apparently democratically elected governments
govern in the interests of the rich and powerful. Thus not only is our own freedom
restricted when governments pass laws which we are forced either to obey or to
risk punishment for non-compliance but these laws also defend the interests of the
rich via the perpetuation of exploitation, economic inequality and poverty.
Exactly similar arguments apply to government taxation and spending: taxation
takes away our freedom to spend our own money while the government spends
money in accordance with the interests of the rich and /or in accordance with its
own interests.
States are involved in economic competition with other states which may lead to
wars in which citizens are misled by spurious appeals to nationalism into killing
and maiming in the interests of the state.
Whereas social anarchists argue that the state is to be abolished partly because it
is an instrument of capitalist oppression, anarcho-capitalists argue that the state is

to be abolished because it inhibits the operation of laissez-faire capitalism which

alone can protect individual freedom and generate rising living standards for all.
In this respect anarcho-capitalism may be regarded as an extreme variant of neoliberalism but its defence of economic inequality leads some social anarchists to
deny that it is to be regarded as a form of anarchism. Again, more on anarchocapitalism later.

Anarchism and Other Forms of Authority

Anarchists are likely to oppose other forms of authority as well as the authority of the
state. Thus for example patriarchal family structures may inhibit individual freedom of
women and children; schools may encourage an unthinking respect for authority among
children which encourages them to accept monotonous and poorly paid work in later life
without complaint; religion may encourage a fatalistic acceptance of economic inequality
rather than a readiness to rebel against it and all forms of authority prevent individuals
from developing their own individual judgement which alone can provide a basis for
social harmony in anarchy.
As we shall see in more detail later the issue of authority does present some problems for
anarchists.
Should they accept the authority of experts?
If they set up communes will it be necessary to choose representatives who, in
some ways use their authority to undermine the individual freedom of the rest of
the members?
Is there a danger that within anarchist communities the majority opinion will
restrict the freedom of individuals opposed to the majority opinion?

Anarchist Methods
All anarchists oppose the state but beyond this there are important variations
among anarchists in their analyses of contemporary non-anarchist societies
and the methods by which the transition to anarchism is to be achieved.
William Godwin hoped that the transition to anarchism could be achieved
gradually and peacefully via education and rational persuasion although he
also believed that state education would promote respect for the state rather
than anarchistic opposition to the state so that an anarchistic approach to
education would also be required. Tolstoy and Gandhi also had considerable
sympathy with anarchist objectives and hoped that small scale rural
communes might be set up peacefully and organised in accordance with
anarchist principles, a tradition which has continued in the contemporary
commune movement.
Anarchists who support a peaceful transition to anarchism nevertheless
reject parliamentary politics for a variety of reasons.
Revolutionary anarchists, following in the tradition of Bakunin, Kropotkin
and others have argued that capitalism is a powerful and deeply entrenched
system of economic and political domination which must be abolished via
revolution which will inevitably involve some violence. Bakunin did have
some connections with Russian nihilists such as Nechaev some of whom did
support the selective assassination of members of the capitalist class and it is
Bakunin who has been linked especially with the violent tradition within
anarchism.
However it is also possible that Bakunins support for political violence has
been overstated and Kropotkin emphasised that revolutionary violence must
be kept to a minimum on the grounds that the transition to a peaceful,
harmonious anarchist society cannot be achieved by violent means.
Nevertheless there were outbreaks of anarchist violence especially in the
1890s and 1970s as some anarchists came to believe that this was the only
way of destroying the capitalist system but the vast majority of anarchisst
have agreed that anarchist- inspired violence would only undermine large
scale political support for anarchism.

Revolutionary anarchists they emphasise the central principles that the

revolutionary abolition of exploitation and oppression must be undertaken
by the exploited classes themselves and that the organisational methods used
to end oppression should prefigure the broad characteristics of the anarchist
societies which are to be introduced. Marxists have come to believe that the
organisation of a small tight knit party of revolutionary Marxist intellectuals
[such as Lenins Bolsheviks] is necessary to accelerate the revolution.
However anarchists have argued that the revolutionary party will itself take
control of the state and by so doing undermine the prospects for real
revolutionary change. Instead the anarchists believe that the revolution
should develop out of a more spontaneous uprising of the people and that it
is necessary to abolish the state in the first stage of the revolution so that it
does not come to dominate society. Conversely the Marxists argue the state
must initially be controlled by the proletariat after the revolution to prevent
the possibility of counter-revolution although it can be allowed to wither
away in the transition from socialism to communism.
According to anarchists Ii the state is not abolished quickly it will not wither
away in the future as the Marxists claim and on this point the post revolutionary history of the USSR suggests that the anarchists were right.
Nevertheless the anarchist theory of revolution has been criticised on the
grounds that a spontaneous revolutionary uprising is unlikely to occur if
there is no political party to organise it. However some anarchists defend
themselves against this criticism by arguing that opposition to capitalism can
evolve gradually within the trade union movement as in the theory of
anarcho-syndicalism
Propaganda by deednot just bombs but possibility of violence always
there1890s 1970s nowadaysdiscussion of violencelot of
anarchists repelled by violence in the 1890s and subsequently. Some
anarchists continue to believe that violence necessary and that lifestyle
anarchism is a cop out.
Guerrilla warfareseen as appropriate in third world struggles ..eg mexico,
china, cuba, vietmanbut these have not been anarchist strugglesbut the
example is seen as useful by some..idea of anarchist urban guerrillas.
Guerrilla warfare as seen as a preparation and provocation of revolutionary
actionbut doesnt necessarily work.

Maybe use the U.G formula for when violence acceptable. Incompatibility
with anarchist principles. Dont necessarily accept that redbrigade and RAF
=anarchist inspired

General strike
Syndicalists argued that trade unions [or syndicats] should aim to improve
workers wages and working conditions through orthodox political methods
but that they should aim also to educate their workers and prepare them to
take political power via general strikes which would bring socialist
governments to power which would provide for the ownership and control of
industry and land by the workers and peasants themselves. The anarchosyndicalists accepted the principle of worker/peasant ownership and control
but argued further that the central state should itself be abolished.
Some supporters of anarcho-syndicalism were associated with sporadic
outbreaks of individual anarchist terror in the 1890s and it was recognized
also that any attempt to overthrow the state via general strike was likely to
involve violence. However anarcho-syndicalists also accepted many of the
more positive ideas of anarchism about a free and equal society without a
government and state.
In most advanced industrial countries trade unions were gradually
integrated, via their links with mainstream socialist parties, into conventional
politics and anarcho-syndicalism declined as a political force although
anarcho- syndicalists did play an important role in the Spanish Civil War
when syndicates temporarily took over most of the industries in the Spanish
region of Catalonia and ran them effectively bearing in mind the difficult
civil war conditions in which they were operating.
Andrew Heywood comments that anarchists were attracted to anarchosyndicalism because it could potentially avoid the corruption associated with
conventional politics and because they could see a model for the
decentralized non hierarchic society of the future. On the other hand he
argues that anarcho-syndicalists had no clear revolutionary strategy and also
that other anarchists have claimed that there would always be a danger that
anarcho-syndicalists would be incorporated into conventional corrupt
politics.

Peter Marshall states that To date Spain is the only country in the modern
era where anarchism can credibly be said to have developed into a major
social movement and to have seriously threatened the state. Anarchosyndicalists played a significant role in these events but as with other
anarchists their future political role may be limited. Or will it?
The mutualist anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon and the American
individualist anarchists Josiah Warren and Benjamin Tucker supported the
abolition of the state but recommended the setting up of small scale
anarchist communities which would nevertheless allow for the ownership of
limited amounts of property and limited economic inequality as a means of
guaranteeing individual liberty. Proudhon supposed that revolution might be
necessary to achieve his objective while Warren and Tucker hoped that once
anarchist communities were set up increasing numbers of people would wish
to follow the example. Anarcho-capitalists hope also for the gradual
withering away of the state as increasing numbers of people come to accept
the anarcho-capitalist view that that the answer to all of our problems is
unregulated laissez faire.
Anarchist principles have been introduced on a large scale only briefly in
parts of Spain during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s but contemporary
anarchists believe that they have an important role to play in the evolution of
modern societies.
Practical anarchismassociated eg with colin ward
Revolution to be achieved by evolutionary meanscould have a sentence or
two on the meaning of revolutiona total transformation of the structures of
societynot necessarily a big bang struggle.
Anarchy current in our every day livesjob of anarchist =help individuals
and groups to express their natural tendencies
This does not demand final rupture with state in form of civil war or
insurrection ; 1960s..this idea recommended cos it is non-violentalso was
believed that it was more realistic..then 1968 some reassessment of rev
possibilitiesbut things have settled downmay be practical anarchism is
the answer ward saysthat in trying to create aselforganising society, a
network of autonomous free associations for the satisfaction pof human
needs is a struggle against capitalism, bureaucracy and monopoly and it
inevitably makes anar`chists advocates of social revoluition

Education is v. important in wards scheme..currently it just reinforces class

disadvantage and encourages people to accept authority.need for free
schools..link to Godwin
Also more should be done to make town plan sensitive to the needs of lovcal
communities..true but you have to get control of local government. Also
ward admits that there are aspects of the welfare state provision which are
good but it undermines local autonomy.
Criticism is that this kind of anarchism is practical but limiting.
Importance of protest:
Some anarchists now see protest as the only form of revolutionary action.
Ruth kina distinguishes 4 kinds of protestconstitutional action, symbolic
action, direct action, civil disobedience
Constitutional action:
Anarchists against rep.democ so not usually associated with const asct. But
do use freeom of speech and association letters, books articles, lectures,
summer schools, demos, use of internet..even primitivisms use it
Symbolic action:
Acts aiming to raise awareness of injustice without trying to reolve
itvigils, marches, slogans, songs; bearing witness by going to past sits of
oppression; obstructionprevent road building, stop tee clearinguse of
activists bodies to block unjust or oppressive actions; general strike can be
symbolic so can killing a tyrant.
Direct action:
2 defining characteristicsempowerment..= breaking from dependency on
others to run our lives; action intended to succeed, not just gain publicity;
often associated with illegality and sometimes criminality; usually has an
overly political character even if it is illegal; although direct action is meant
to move beyond symbolism it may still have a symbolic element; squatting =
a good example.. attempted solution to the prob of homelessnees, also leads
to experiments in community living.. example pure genius squat turned into
an eco village of 50-100 peoplesymbolic to a large extent but was also
experimental; sabotagea well known gform of direct actiononce
pioneered by syndicalist now taking new formsinfiltration of corporate
computing systems; monkey wrenchingused by eco-anarchistsnon
violentdisable machinery used to pollute environment; defacing
advertisements.. subverting or ad-busting; street parties as direct action
against the car.. by rtsinvolves whole neighbourhoodstherefore get
bigger audience

However some class struggle anarchists denounce a loft of this as middle

class posuring.
Civil disobedience
=an acft of non violent resistance even in the face of violence for which
participants anticipate arrest so secret direct actors are not rally resisting
arrest.. but if you do it publically you are doing civil disobedience. Popular
with non-anarchists as well as anarchists
But the difference is that with anarchism there is the will to destroy the state.
Civil disobedience associated with Thoreau, Tolstoy, Ghandi, ml king; may
be violent or non violent..eg. john brown abolitionist killed 5 unarmed pro
slavery settlers 1859..thoreau defends this. But Tolstoy, Ghandi, mlk
rejected violenceTolstoy..v strong believer that violence perpetuates
violencecannot overcome it. Anarchists have supported both violent and
non violent civil disobedience ..some have defended the Unabomber for
example.
But most anarchists go with the tolstoyan viewpartly because in post war
period civil disobedience was mainly used by peace capaigners and
cndcommitment to non violence was central to the opposition stance and
most anarchists accepted this.
There is a strand of anarchism called anarch-pacifismeg in the committee
of 100 a group within it.
So the divisions between anarcho-pacifists and other anarchists have not
been resolved.
The current environmental, anti-globalisation, feminist, gay rights and
animal liberation movements are no specifically anarchist movements but
anarchists do participate in these movements in the hope of emphasising the
relevance of anarchist principles within these movements. The
acknowledged analyst Ruth Kinna has provided a very useful summary of
the role of anarchism within the anti globalisation movement. She argues
that anarchists have been encouraged by the apparent unconscious
anarchism of the anti-globalisation movement: both the appeal that
decentralist and anti-hierarchical principles exercise across the movement as
a whole and the unity of action demonstrated by activists. As Naomi Klein
argues there is a general consensus within the ant1 globalisation movement
that building community-based decision making power whether through
unions, neighbourhoods, farms villages, anarchist collectives or aboriginal
self government- is essential to countering the might of multinational
corporations. Whilst new social movements, non-governmental
organisations and political parties channel these ideas to state agencies,

anarchist anti-globalisers contend that the mobilisation of popular opinion

against neo-liberal corporate economics is the movements greatest strength.
For them the anti-globalisation movement has opened up a new sphere of
democratic participation and, through this participation, it has drawn
ordinary citizens across the globe into anarchistic action. The promise of the
anti-globalisation movement is that it avoids the staging and workerism
of syndicalist strike actions and extends beyond the sprayings, brickings,
glueings and bombings undertaken by disparate guerrilla groups. The
challenge of the anti-globalisation movement is to discover how to translate
intuitive anarchistic practice into anarchist action.
[Some discussion of this long quotation from Ruth Kinna may be useful.]
We have seen that attitudes to violence vary considerably within the
anarchist movement and these variations are reflected in the different types
of anarchist activity within the globalisation movement. Some anarchists
have been ready to accept the primarily non-violent strategies of the antiglobalisation movement as a whole sometimes seeking to enliven
demonstrations with their own fluffy or non-violent forms of protest but
there are also so-called spiky black blocs committed to violent
confrontation with the police and to violence against capitalist institutions
such as banks, department stores and fast food outlets.
Anti-globalisation protests have certainly attracted considerable media
coverage but national political leaders have attempted to denigrate the
movement as no more than a travelling circus and the prospects for
anarchism may appear limited because many individuals living in capitalist
societies seem content with the standards of living generated in such
societies.
It also continues to be claimed that globalisation can be a force for Third
World development or that even if some of the criticisms of globalisation are
accurate anarchist theory can contribute little to the solution of the problems
caused by globalisation and that the solutions are to found more within the
more popular mainstream ideologies of conservatism, liberalism and social
democracy.
Yet anarchist principles do, to some extent feed into the ideologies of
liberalism and socialism [and even into conservatism in the form of anarchocapitalism.] Also it is conceivable as awareness increases of the possibly

negative consequences of globalisation for Third World and the environment

and the limitations of modern capitalism are more clearly demonstrated in
the current international economic that the popularity of anarchist ideas will
increase.
Political controversy continues!

Anarchism and Liberalism

Liberals argue that because individuals are rational they should be free to
manage their own affairs insofar as this is consistent with the liberty of
others thus signifying that liberals distinguish clearly between liberty and
licence. The individuals which liberals describe may be atomised individuals
concerned solely with their own self-interest but there also within liberal
ideology the possibility that these individuals might also increasingly
concerned with the needs of their community as a whole rather than solely
with their own self-interest. In both cases liberals see states as necessary to
provide for the social order which is also seen as necessary if individuals are
to be able to exercise their individual freedom to the fullest possible extent.
Liberals traditionally supported a limited state which would provide for
social order without restricting individual liberty: i.e. they wished to protect
the negative freedom of the individual from excessive state intervention.
Liberals were also traditionally opposed to universal suffrage and to
majority voting on the grounds that these would promote the tyranny of the
majority which would reduce the individual liberty of the minority and
especially perhaps the individual liberty of the wealthy and /or the individual
liberty of those with more advanced, progressive opinions. However all
major political parties in the UK have come to accept the basic framework of
liberal democracy which does, however restrict the direct political
participation of the citizens.
Classic liberals supported the limited night watchman state which was to
guarantee social order while intervening to only a limited extent in economy
and society thereby ensuring the negative freedom of the citizens and the
operation of the economy according to the principles of laissez faire while
by the late C19th so-called social liberals were arguing in support of a more
interventionist state which would aim to reduce poverty and inequality to
some extent thereby increasing the positive freedom of individuals to
develop their capacities and take advantage of opportunities more fully than
would be possible under unregulated laissez faire. Social liberals hoped also
to see the development of a more socially conscious individualism.
Both classic and social liberals tended to see the state as essentially neutral
operating in the national interest or balancing the claims of competing
pressure groups rather than as operating primarily in the interests of a

dominant economic class as in Marxist theory and some variants of anarchist

theory. That is liberals have accepted a theory of the state which by the
1950s had come to be known as the theory of democratic pluralism.
The Conservatives under Mrs Thatcher reasserted some of the beliefs of
classic liberalism in the neo-liberalism associated with the New Right but
the post-war Liberal and subsequently Liberal Democratic Party has broadly
espoused social liberal principles although it, like the Labour Party, has been
constrained to some extent by the still significant legacy of Thatcherism.
In order to analyse the differences and similarities between anarchism and
liberalism I shall focus on the interrelated issues of individual freedom, the
nature of the state and the organisation of the economy.
Anarchists and Individual Freedom
Anarchists oppose all forms of the state because they deny the liberal
argument that the state is necessary in order to guarantee social order and
thereby to protect individual liberty. Instead they argue that it is the state
itself which is responsible for social disorder and that if states were
abolished individuals would have even greater freedom to promote their own
self-development and use their improved judgment to bring about social
harmony and social order. Thus as the anarchist logo suggests, anarchy, [the
absence of government], will result in maximum possible individual liberty
and much more liberty than is on offer from liberals which in turn will
produce social order and harmony.
Liberals believe that individuals are rational and able to recognise their own
self- interest and this is the main reason why liberals support high levels of
individual freedom but constrained to some extent by the state. Liberal
individualism especially in classical liberalism is taken to mean that
individuals are rather atomistic and that they will act rationally in support of
their own self-interest rather than in the interests of society as a whole
although according to classical liberals the operation of laissez faire will
result in maximum possible economic efficiency which means that selfinterest turns out to be in accordance with the interests of society as a whole.
Later liberals have espoused a more developmental kind of individualism
where individuals are assumed to take more account of the interests of
society as a whole as well as their own self- interest.

Anarchists also believe in high levels of individual rationality and in even

higher levels of individual liberty than liberals because they deny the
validity of liberal theories of the state. In order to analyse anarchist
individualism the broad distinction between individualist anarchism and
social anarchism is useful in emphasising the point that individualist
anarchists fear that communal living will undermine individual freedom
while social anarchists believe that the possible constraints of communal
living can be overcome . Anarchist individualism may, therefore, take
several forms.
In Stirners individualist theory individuals should act as egoists selfconsciously pursuing their own individual interests irrespective of
community needs but recognising that they may be confronted by other
powerful self-interested egoists which may encourage all to moderate their
behaviour for fear of encouraging opposition from other egoists. In the
individualist theories of Warren and Tucker [and to a large extent of
Proudhon who is usually described as a social anarchist but also has
individualist tendencies] individuals may own limited amounts of private
property as a means of safeguarding their independence and although profits
are abolished limited economic inequality is also justified as a means of
providing incentives. Community rules are kept to a minimum but it is
hoped that in pursuing their own self-interest individuals will also indirectly
serve the interests of the community.
In the theories of the individualist anarchist Godwin and the social
anarchists Bakunin and Kropotkin life is to be organised in small scale
communes allowing for maximum possible individual liberty but in
exercising their individual liberty individuals are assumed to give full
consideration to the needs of their community: that is they are assumed to
decide freely to act in accordance with the needs of their community. Note
that although Godwin is described as an individualist anarchist his views are
complexthey can be discussed in more detail in class.
In summary there are differences both within liberalism and anarchism and
between anarchism and liberalism as to the precise nature of individualism.
In particular the views of individualism of Godwin, Bakunin and Kropotkin
are significantly different from the self- interested individualism of classical
laissez- faire liberals.
Anarchist Criticisms of the State

Anarchists suggest several reasons why states promote social disorder.

Liberal democratic states, like all states, interfere with individual
freedom which is essential to promote human self-development and
social order.
This general point refers to that even limited liberal night watchman
states and social liberal states which both restrict individual freedom
and undermine opportunities for personal self-development through
the use of individual judgement.
Constitutional governments have evolved over several generations but
there is no logical reason why members of the present generation
should have their political freedoms restricted by the decisions of past
generations
C17th Century liberals were not especially committed to liberal
democracy based upon universal suffrage but Anarchists are critical
also of the liberal democratic state which are based on universal
suffrage which is also seen as restricting individual freedoms in
various ways such that as Pierre Joseph Proudhon expressed it,
Universal suffrage is the counterrevolution or as we hear
sometimes in everyday conversation, Dont vote: it only encourages
them.
States are involved in economic competition with other states which
may lead to wars in which citizens are misled by spurious appeals to
nationalism into killing and maiming in the interests of the state.
We cannot rely on parliamentary representatives to govern in our
interests since they will be corrupted quickly by their proximity to
state power and in any case we can develop our individuality to the
full only by participating personally in politics and relying on our own
judgement, not by relying on the judgement of others.
Political parties cannot be trusted: they over-simplify issues and rely
on misleading political slogans and demagoguery thereby misleading
people and preventing them from thinking for themselves.
Whereas modern liberals see liberal democratic states as essentially
neutral, anarchists may also use arguments influenced by radical
socialism [and possibly Marxism] to claim that even apparently
democratically elected governments govern in the interests of the rich
and powerful. Thus not only is our own freedom restricted when
governments pass laws which we are forced either to obey or to risk

punishment for non-compliance but these laws also defend the

interests of the rich via the perpetuation of exploitation, economic
inequality and poverty
Exactly similar arguments apply to government taxation and
spending: taxation takes away our freedom to spend our own money
while the government spends money in accordance with the interests
of the rich and /or in accordance with its own interests.
States are involved in economic competition with other states which
may lead to wars in which citizens are misled by spurious appeals to
nationalism into killing and maiming in the interests of the state. This
point may apply to liberal democratic states as much as other types of
state.
Liberals have recognised the dangers of the tyranny of the majority
but have nevertheless been prepared to work within liberal democratic
parliaments based upon majority voting. Anarchists argue in favour of
participatory democracy rather than representative democracy and for
consensus based decision-making rather than majority voting.
Anarcho-capitalists argue that the state is to be abolished because it
inhibits the operation of laissez-faire capitalism which alone can
protect individual freedom and generate rising living standards for all.
In this respect anarcho-capitalism may be regarded as an extreme
variant of neo-liberalism showing similarities with but going beyond
classical liberalism. That is whereas classical liberals require laissez
fire and a minimal state anarcho-capitalists require laissez faire and no
state at all.
Conservative and non anarchist socialist defences of the state are
also invalid.

Anarchists, Liberty, the State and Human Nature

As a result of the above criticisms anarchists reject both the classic liberal
state and the social liberal state and argue instead in favour of stateless
societies. These stateless societies can result in social order and social
harmony according to anarchists partly because most [but not all] anarchists
have a very optimistic view of human nature. This is true particularly of the
individualist anarchist Godwin and the social anarchists Kropotkin and
Bakunin, all of whom argue that individuals have the capacity for good and
evil but that their potential altruism can develop best in small-scale,
relatively economically equal, commune based societies using participatory

consensus-based decision making in which minority interests are protected.

Proudhon, Warren and Tucker, although they argue in favour of limited
property ownership and a measure of economic inequality nevertheless also
have a relatively optimistic view of human nature although we cannot
describe anarcho-capitalist and Stirnerite views of human nature as
particularly optimistic.
In the classical liberal view of human nature individuals are seen as rational
but motivated by self- interest and particularly by financial self-interest in
economic affairs while social liberals may adopt a more developmental
view of individualism. Contrastingly most anarchist views of human nature
and particularly those of Godwin, Kropotkin and Bakunin are more
optimistic than liberal views and these different views of human nature also
help to explain differences between liberals and anarchists as to the ideal
organisation of economic systems.
Liberals, Anarchists, and the Economy.
Classic liberals argue in support of economic laissez faire combined with a
limited night watchman state claiming that laissez faire promotes both
economic liberty and maximum possible economic efficiency. They recognise
that laissez `faire will result in economic inequality of outcome but see this as
natural, inevitable and desirable in a free society and they claim also that even
in an economically unequal society equality of opportunity and meritocracy can
still be achieved which in line with their view of social justice.
Social liberals also accept laissez faire to a considerable extent but argue that it
should be regulated by government and that welfare state provision should be
increased in order to promote the positive freedom for individuals to develop
their talents to the full although social liberals still recognise what they see as
the need for economic inequality of outcome.
It is the individualist anarchist Godwin and the social anarchists Kropotkin and
Bakunin who reject most strongly both unregulated and regulated laissez faire
arguing that the liberal goal of individual liberty can be achieved only if
societies are based on a high degree of economic equality of outcome since only
then will all individuals have access to the resources necessary to develop their
individuality and hence their individual liberty to the full.

This leads Kropotkin and Bakunin to argue in favour of the collective

ownership of the means of production and for the distribution of goods and
services in accordance with individual need [Kropotkins anarcho-communism
or in accordance with work done [Bakunins collectivism]. These writers have
therefore accepted arguments that a high level of economic equality is
necessary for the achievement of positive liberty, negative liberty having been
achieved via the abolition of the state and in both respects they views depart
very considerably from liberalism.
Godwins overall stance is certainly individualist but his economic beliefs that
the output of goods and services should be allocated according to individual
need demonstrates his commitment to economic equality of outcome and in this
respect places him close to the anarcho-communism of Bakunin.
We can see some limited similarity between the economic views of Proudhon,
Warren and Tucker and the economic views associated with liberalism. The
French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon famously argued that All property is
theft implying that the accumulation of property could derive only from the
exploitation of the work force but he then went on to draw an important
distinction between property and possessions.
For Proudhon massive inequalities in the ownership of property could not be
justified but, at the same time, it was desirable that individual workers should
own a limited amount of land and working implements since this would provide
them with a measure of independence and liberty which would not be available
if all land and work implements were under common ownership.
The individualist anarchists Warren and Tucker both feared that communal
living could result in the denial of individuality and both also supported the
ownership of a limited amount of property as a means of protecting
individual independence and liberty while Tucker believed also in the value
of economic competition and some economic inequality which would
generate incentives and allow individuals to enjoy the benefits of their own
hard work. Anarchism was consistent Manchesterism, he said which
pointed to his support for a modified form of laissez faire which could result
in some economic inequality.
However Proudhon, Warren and Tucker parted company with economic
liberalism in their desire to organise economic systems in which profit and
the exploitation of labour would be abolished and good and services would

be exchanged on the basis of their costs of production [primarily their labour

costs] which obviously challenged the core principles of liberal laissez faire.
Proudhon argued in support of a system of Mutualism which Heywood
describes as a cooperative productive system geared toward need rather than
profit and organised within self-governing communities and in Political
Ideology Today [2002] Ian Adams states that Proudhons ideal world was a
world of small independent producers- peasant farmers and craftsmen who
associated and made contracts with each other freely for their mutual benefit
and for whom a centralised coercive state was an unnecessary evil. We can
certainly see elements of socialism in Proudhons rejection of large inequalities
of wealth and income and of the profit motive but in his rejection of the central
state and his support for self-governing communities, individual ownership of
possessions and acceptance of a measure of economic inequality we can also
see important links to liberal ideology. It may be argued that his comments
apply equally to the ideas of Warren and Tucker.
Anarcho-capitalists support an extreme version of neo-liberal ideology in
which the state will be abolished and the entire economy is organised in
accordance with the principles of unregulated laissez faire. Their arguments
are s that human beings are economically rational but also motivated by selfinterest, that economic inequality of outcome is natural, inevitable and
justifiable because the resultant financial incentives promote harder work,
faster economic growth and rising living standards for al and that liberty can
best be achieved via the abolition of the state.
Summary Conclusions.
1. All liberals believe in individual rationality and individual freedom.
2. Classic liberals argue that a limited night watchman state is necessary
to safeguard social order and hence individual liberty. Individuals
should be free from excessive state intervention =negative freedom.
Social liberals argue for greater state intervention in order to promote
individual freedom for self development = positive freedom.
3. All anarchists believe in individual rationality and individual freedom
but many anarchists may define individual rationality to include
concern for society as a whole rather than simply self-interested
rationality.
4. This relates to the more positive view of human nature accepted by
many but not all anarchists.

5. All anarchists believe that states undermine individual liberty and that
individual liberty can be achieved only via the abolition of the state.
They make many , many criticisms of the state
6. Liberals argue that either unregulated or regulated laissez faire can
protect economic freedom and promote high living standards for all.
They are prepared to accept economic inequality but also support
equality of opportunity.
7. Godwin, Kropotkin and Bakunin call for the abolition of private
property and much greater economic equality as a means of improving
living standards for all and increasing individual liberty for all. They
believe individual liberty is impossible in a grossly unequal society.
Communally organised living, not state socialism is to promote
economic equality and liberty. It would be fair to say that these
theorists are closer to socialism [libertarian not state socialism] than to
liberalism
8. Proudhon, Warren and Tucker might be seen as combining elements
of socialism and liberalism. How?
9. What to say about anarcho-capitalism?
10.What to say about Stirner?

Anarchism and Socialism

Anarcho-capitalists and Stirnerites reject all elements of socialist ideology
and so in our consideration of the relationships between anarchism and
socialism we shall be considering the elements of anarchist ideology
originating in the work of Godwin, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Proudhon, Warren
and Tucker. There is much in the work of these theorists which may
reasonably be described as socialist and we shall see that these anarchists
broadly accept several of the core values of socialism.
However when anarchists describe themselves as socialists they often use
the term libertarian socialist to signal that they believe in socialism
without the state and it is this opposition to the state on the grounds that it
destroys liberty which distinguishes anarchist socialism from other forms of
socialism.
You should now attempt to complete the following schematic outline.
Socialist and anarchist views on human nature
Socialist: very optimistic: individual abilities mainly socially rather than
naturally determined; capitalist societies promote self-interest,
competitiveness, aggression. Socialist societies promote cooperation and
community spirit. Individuals are rational and to a considerable extent can
channel their rationality to serve the community.

Why do Anarchists consider the State to be unnecessary?

A state might be defined briefly as a political organisation which possesses
sovereign jurisdiction within a defined territory and exercises its power through
a set of permanent institutions which in liberal democracies include Heads of
State [Presidents or Monarchs], central governments and their bureaucracies,
legislatures, judiciaries and the organisations of regional, state and or local
government, the armed forces and the police. Using this definition let us consider
some of the key features of the state in more detail
Liberals, conservatives, evolutionary socialists and social democrats would all agree that
states fulfill several necessary functions but disagree vehemently as to the ideal functions
and scope of state activity and classical and neo-liberals especially draw attention to what
they see as the potential dangers of excessive state power. Thus although it might
generally be argued that liberal democratic states provide for the representation of the
people and enable them [indirectly] to register their policy preferences Classical and neoLiberals argue in that limited states can best provide for individual liberty combined with
social order while One Nation Conservatives, Social Liberals, Social Democrats and
Evolutionary Socialist all argue in support of varying levels of government intervention
to promote economic stability and develop comprehensive welfare states designed to
alleviate poverty and promote greater economic equality and improved living standards
for all. Marxists meanwhile argue that capitalist states govern in the interests of the
economically and politically dominant Bourgeoisie and against the interests of the
Proletariat [or working class] and that, under Socialism and ultimately Communism states
will eventually wither away.
Anarchists, however, argue that states should be abolished as soon as possible and that
their necessary functions can be performed more effectively by others means while other
state functions prove to be entirely unnecessary. There are of course important theoretical
divergences ranging through anarcho-communism to collectivism to mutualism to
anarcho-capitalism as to the types of political organizations which should ideally replace
the state and in the remainder of this essay I shall attempt to describe alternative
Anarchist proposals for the replacement of the state by alternative institutions
The anarcho-communist analysis of the capitalist state is similar in important respects to
the Marxist theory of the capitalist state. In both cases capitalist states exist primarily in
order to defend the interests of the small, privileged capitalist class which profits from the
exploitation of the workers in the capitalist system. Thus the state constructs laws which
defend private property; the state punishes workers for crimes which derive in many
cases from the injustices of capitalism; capitalist education systems socialise individuals
to accept the injustices of capitalism without criticism; and capitalist welfare states
persuade their clients that their interests are being protected.
However once the injustices of the capitalist system are fully recognised leading to its
abolition the capitalist state is rendered unnecessary because its major function [the

protection of the interests of the capitalist class] has disappeared because after capitalism
there will no longer be a capitalist class in need of protection. Of course it is here that
major disputes arise between anarcho-communists and Marxists as to whether the state
should be abolished rapidly during the revolutionary process [anarcho-communism] or
whether it should be allowed to wither away gradually following a period in which the
state will be organised on the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat. However there is
general agreement that once capitalism and the capitalist class have been abolished the
state sooner or later becomes unnecessary.
The opportunities for working class political participation under conditions of 19th
Century capitalism were severely limited because of the limitation of the franchise and
the absence of strong socialist or social democratic political parties which might represent
their interests but anarchists have argued that even fully developed liberal democratic
political institutions would not adequately represent citizens interests. Instead citizens
should themselves participate much more fully in politics.
According to both the early anarchist William Godwin and the anarcho-communist Peter
Kropotkin individuals should ideally live in small scale communes in which there will be
maximum possible opportunities for active political participation. Rather than choosing
representatives to take decisions on their behalf, individuals would take their own
decisions and in doing so enhance their liberty and their political consciousness;
decisions would ideally be reached via consensus following rational debate although
some majority voting would occasionally be necessary. Communes would combine into
regional, national and international federations but each commune would remain its
autonomy and delegates to federal meetings would be subject to recall if they reflect local
commune interests.
By such mechanisms the actual necessity for rules and regulations would be much
reduced as individuals come to realise that individual liberty lies in freely serving the
interests of the community and such rules and regulations as are necessary are made by
the individuals themselves rather than by state representatives and officials so that once
again the state becomes unnecessary.
In these communes ownership of private property would be abolished and replaced by the
communal ownership of the means of production and goods and services would be
allocated in accordance with social need. Since all the means of production are
communally owned the communes, operating in federations could perform any economic
functions currently performed by states and could do so more effectively since excessive
state bureaucracy will be removed and local circumstances could more easily be
accounted for. Furthermore Godwin, Kropotkin and their followers have demonstrated an
ecological consciousness which has often been absent from the thinking of most states.
Godwin and Kropotkin also claimed that once private property was abolished the major
motivation for crime would be removed and that commune members who did infringe
regulations could be persuaded by rational argument to mend their ways so that state
systems of law enforcement and punishment would no longer be necessary. They further

believed that under conditions of world wide anarchism all individuals would be
community spirited so that wars would be inconceivable and the need for state military
forces would also disappear.
States currently provide a range of welfare services such as health, education and social
security but according to Godwin, Kropotkin and their supporters the needs for such
services could be much reduced under communal living and such services as were
necessary could be better provided by communal institutions organised on a more
collaborative user friendly basis than sometimes seems to be the case in hierarchically
organised welfare states. Also anarchist welfare institutions would provide true welfare
rather than engage in what according to anarchists amount to authoritarian processes of
social control.
In summary, in the anarchist programmes of Godwin and Kropotkin the legislative,
representative, economic, environmental and welfare functions of states can all be
performed more effectively in systems of federated communes while the law and order
and defence functions of states would simply disappear thereby rendering the state
unnecessary.
Other anarchists agree with these key conclusions that the state can be rendered
unnecessary but disagree as to what institutions should replace the state and how they
should be organised. Bakunin agrees with Godwin and Kropotkin that federated
communal living, maximum possible individual involvement in decision making and
collective ownership of the means of production can combine to make the existence of
the state unnecessary.
However he also has a rather less optimistic view of human nature which leads him to
believe that individuals will not necessarily be persuaded to accept communal regulations
and that they must sometimes be forced to do so or to leave the commune; he also
believes that education should be compulsory and that the allocation of goods and
services should be according to work done rather than according to social need. Bakunin
was heavily influenced also by Anarcho-syndicalist ideas believing that the syndicates
could promote anarchist ideas in the work place prior to the revolution, play a significant
role in revolutionary anarchist change and be the major institutions for workers control
after anarchism had been introduced.
Thus Bakunins arguments that the state was unnecessary were essentially the same as
those of Godwin and Kropotkin although his anarchist programme derives from a less
optimistic view of human nature which obliges him to introduce elements of compulsion.
However David Miller has argued that Bakunins collectivism might gradually converge
with Kropotkins Anarcho-communism as anarchist ideas gained fuller acceptance.
Proudhon too supported federated systems of small scale autonomous communities in
which all members should be encouraged to participate actively in political decisionmaking thereby replacing political parties, so-called representative parliaments and states.

However he certainly did not approve of the communal ownership of the means of
production which he believed would undermine individual liberty
Instead he made a very important distinction between possessions[ the limited amounts of
land and work tools which workers would use in their own working lives] and property
[the huge amounts of land and other means of production, ownership of which enabled
the rich to exploit the poor.] Possessions, he said, were essential if individuals were to
retain their liberty and independence while, property, in Proudhons well known phrase
is theft and should be abolished, along with profit.
Once property and profit had been abolished people should live in federated systems of
autonomous communities where workers should work in so-called mutualist systems in
which they would draw up contracts to exchange their goods and services solely on the
basis of their labour costs, profit having been abolished. Proudhon hoped also that
peoples banks could be established which would provide loans to producers at low rates
of interest [ although Proudhons own attempt to set up a national bank failed not least
because Proudhon was at this time imprisoned as a result of his radical political
activities.
Proudhon believed that if workers were to retain their liberty they should be allowed to
receive incomes according to work done and that competition among workers would
encourage innovation and help to keep prices low as well as promoting individual liberty.
Proudhons proposals would inevitably result in some economic inequality but its extent
would be limited due to the abolition of private profit and the processes of competition so
that there was no danger that these limited levels of economic inequality would
undermine individual liberty: indeed he believed that individual liberty would be better
protected in his programme than under systems of communal ownership of the means of
production.
Many of Proudhons ideas derived from his own upbringing in a small scale rural
community but as he travelled to large, more industrialised cities he also began to
develop syndicalist ideas according to which workers would gradually take over the
organisation of larger businesses and run them according to anarchist principles so that in
this case it would be the participation in decision making processes of worker
associations rather than individual possessions which would help to protect individual
liberty.
Thus according to Proudhon the state is unnecessary because political decisions can be
taken more effectively by individuals living in federated systems of autonomous
communities which might include large scale factories organised on Anarcho--syndicalist
principles and because economic production and distribution can be organised along
mutualist principles combining the absence of exploitation and work incentives designed
to safeguard individual liberty and promote economic efficiency which would be defined
to include environmental sustainability which was another key theme in Proudhons
work.

Critics of Proudhon have argued that his imagined community organisations composed
mainly of individual autonomous producers might not be strong enough to undertake all
of the tasks of coordination currently undertaken by states and similar arguments might
apply even more strongly to the schemes of the American individualist anarchists Josiah
Warren and Benjamin Tucker. Thus if the main rule of the Community is Mind your
own business one must wonder how welfare services designed to help the community as
a whole are too be developed unless we can rely on the enlightened self-interest of
community members.
Whereas classical liberals traditionally argued in support of laissez-faire combined with a
limited night watchman state which was necessary to provide for internal law and order
and for defence against external enemies and neo-liberals have argued much more
recently for the rolling back of the social democratic state and the extension of free
market principles into areas such as the provision of health, housing, education and social
security, Anarcho-capitalists have claimed that the entire state is unnecessary and that
even legal institutions, the police and the armed forces can best be provided via the free
market mechanism.
Anarcho-capitalists accept so-called public choice theory arguments that all government
services are provided inefficiently mainly in the interests of government officials
organising the government services and/or in the interests of workers providing these
services [who may be organised in powerful trade unions although this is rather less
likely nowadays]. Thus it is argued that professionals and other workers in state services
are reasonably well paid and that they have a vested interest ion the expansion of their
services but that they do not necessarily provide a good service because they know that
most of their clients have nowhere else to go.
Anarcho-capitalists believe that in a competitive free market system all goods and
services would be provided more efficiently and so all would gain if the state were
abolished in its entirety. Thus the state is unnecessary and its abolition would increase
individual liberty as well as economic efficiency. It is true that in the Anarcho-capitalist
programme economic inequality would increase very significantly but this would
promote faster economic growth which would promote rising living standards and
increased liberty so that there is no contradiction between increased economic inequality
and increased liberty according to anarcho-capitalists.
Anarchists argue that since states undermine individual liberty and inhibit individual selfdevelopment human potential can be maximised only if all state institutions are
abolished. Furthermore although it is argued from other ideological positions that states
of one kind or another are actually necessary because they fulfil a range of useful
functions anarchists reject these arguments but there are a very wide range of arguments
within anarchism which are used to suggest that states are unnecessary.
Thus Anarcho-communists argue that once the capitalist system is abolished the major
function of the capitalist state [the protection of the capitalist class disappears] and that
other functions of the state can be more effectively carried out in stateless federations of

communes, a view that would be accepted broadly also be Bakunin although there are
also divergences between Anarcho-Communism and Bakunins collectivism.
Other anarchists such as Proudhon and the individualist anarchists Warren and Tucker
reject both anarcho-communist and collectivist arguments that private property should be
entirely abolished and believe instead that individual ownership of a limited amount of
property is necessary to secure individual liberty but they do believe that individual
freedom can best be protected in small scale communes where individuals can take
decision affecting their own lives without the restrictions of an overarching state although
it might be argued that in such schemes opportunities for collaborative decision making
might in practice be rather limited.
Finally we have the anarcho-capitalists who argue that individual liberty and economic
efficiency can best be achieved by means of a free market system in which private
corporations take over all of the existing functions of the state and perform these
functions much more effectively than the state could do. Once again the state is
unnecessary but the anarcho-capitalist argument would be criticised especially by
anarcho-communists who would argue that the economic inequality so generated would
undermine rather than protect individual liberty thereby indicating very strong differences
in the analysis of the concept of liberty within the ideology of anarchism.

Varieties of Anarchism
All anarchists believe that social order will arise only if individuals have
maximum possible individual liberty to make their own decisions and that
this will be possible only if the state is abolished and no individual has the
power to restrict the individual liberty of others.
However in order to analyse the anarchism in more detail we must also
consider the differences which exist within the broad ideology of anarchism
and in this respect the most significant broad division is said to be between
individualist and social or collectivist anarchism. However we must also
recognise the divergences within individualist anarchism such as those
between Maw Stirner and William Godwin and that although the term
collectivist anarchism is often used in a broad sense to encompass
Proudhons mutualism, Bakunins collectivism, Kropotkins anarchocommunism and anarcho-syndicalism, it is sometimes used more narrowly
to refer specifically to Bakunins collectivist theories.
Individualist Anarchism
Individualist anarchism is identified primarily with the theories of William
Godwin, Max Stirner, Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker and various
anarcho-capitalists such as Murray Rothbard and David Friedman. All of
these theorists wish to abolish the state but what also unites them is a strong
commitment to the individual liberty.
Individualist anarchists believe in maximum possible individual liberty and
fear that it will be sacrificed in any organised community. They believe that
all states must be abolished [see other notes for reasons] and argue also for
minimum possible community regulation of individuals private lives. Most
but not all individualist anarchists support the continued existence of limited
private property as a defence of individual freedom and limited economic
inequality as reward for hard work.
In these respects individual anarchists can be seen to accept several of the
principles of liberalism but also to move beyond liberalism in their total
rejection of the state rather than support for a limited state. Also, especially
in William Godwins rejection of private property and support for allocation
of goods and services according to social need and ain Warren and Tuckers

rejection of the profit motive, the exploitation of labour and extreme

economic inequality we see that individualist anarchists do also move in the
direction of socialism. For example Warren and Tucker have been described
by David Miller as market socialists. Anarcho- capitalists support an
extreme liberal version of totally laissez faire but combined with the
abolition of the state. They are not remotely influenced by socialist ideology.
For William Godwin all forms of social cooperation presented a potentially
unacceptable threat to individual liberty but he did nevertheless believe that
small scale communal life involving the communal ownership of the means
of production and allocation of resources according to social need could be
consistent with maximum possible individual liberty. This was because of
his optimistic views that in an anarchist society individuals would develop
so as to use their individual freedom voluntarily in the interests of the
community in most cases and that in exceptional cases they could be
persuaded to do so via friendly rational argument. In this way Godwin
believed that individual liberty could be reconciled with the interests of the
community.
It would be fair to say that Max Stirners individualism differs very
significantly to that of William Godwin. Stirner mounts an extremely
powerful critique of the state but also rejects as essentially meaningless the
concepts of equality and social justice as essentially meaningless which
Godwin considers so important .In his study The Ego and His Own [1843]
Stirner argues for a stateless society of individualist egoists following their
own self- interest but recognising that they face other highly developed
individual egoists well able to defend their own interests so that a state of
social balance could prevail in which all individuals exercise a high degree
of individual freedom but recognise that their self interest demands that they
must not infringe the liberty of others for fear of reprisals. His critics have
argued that the achievement of social balance is far from certain. If the
egoist Hitler faced the egoist Stalin there could be trouble ahead. but what
would happen if Jeremy Paxman, Jose Mourinho, Madonna and Lady
Thatcher met up? Do not refer to this hypothetical example in your
examination! We can discuss this issue a little more in class.
The early American anarchists Josiah Warren and Benjamin Tucker may
similarly be described as individualist anarchists in that they wish to protect
individuals liberty from the constraints of communal living. Their views
could be set in the context of the traditional USA belief in the importance of

private property ownership as a safeguard of individual liberty. Thus both

Warren and Tucker proposed that small scale communities should consist of
independent producers owning limited amounts of their own property who
would exchange goods and services on the basis of their costs of production
[mainly their labour costs] thus abolishing private profit and the exploitation
of labour.
Nevertheless they supported a measure of inequality and, in Tuckers case,
limited economic competition as a means of encouraging hard work and
defending the individual freedom to make economic progress by ones own
efforts. In both the Warren and Tucker schema the community would be
served by the abolition of private profit but beyond that individuals would be
free to organise their work and their leisure activities as they saw fit with
minimum interference from the community as a whole. Community rules
should be kept to a minimum and according to Tucker the most important
community rule should be, Mind your own business.
Supporters of anarcho-capitalism such as Murray Rothbard and David
Friedman show some ideological similarities with classical liberalism and
with the neo-liberalism which is one component of New Right thinking.
Whereas classical liberals traditionally argued in support of laissez faire
combined with a limited state which was necessary to provide courts, police
and prisons to promote internal order and to provide armies for defence
against aggressors and neo-liberals now argue for the expansion of laissez
faire and the rolling back of the state anarcho-capitalists argue not only that
economic production should be based entirely on private enterprise and
laissez faire but that social order also can best be achieved by privately
organised courts, private security firms and private armies and that the state
should involve itself far less in foreign affairs which would mean that the
state armed forces could be replaced by much smaller private militia.
Anarcho-capitalists believe further that state health, education, housing,
transport and social security systems are all organised inefficiently mainly in
the interests of the producers rather than the consumers of these services.
Thus it is argued that professionals working in theses state services are
reasonably well paid but that they do not necessarily provide a good service
for their clients because they know that their clients have nowhere else to
go. In a more competitive privately organised system services would be far
better the anarcho-capitalists [and some sections of the New Right] claim
and so all would gain if the state were abolished in its entirety. [There are

also other theorists such as Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick who are
sympathetic to some extent with anarcho-capitalist views but they are better
described as right-wing libertarians since they believe in private enterprise
with a minimum state rather than with no state at all.]
Anarcho-capitalists are therefore strong supporters of private enterprise and
of the abolition of the state and it is clear that with their emphasis on
individual self interest, private profit and private enterprise they are
certainly best described as individualist anarchists. However anarchocapitalism is subject to the entire range of socialist criticisms of capitalism
so that many socialist-supporting anarchists actually deny that anarchocapitalism is a form of anarchism at all.
Social or Collectivist Anarchism
Social or collectivist anarchists do recognise the tension between individual
autonomy and social existence but they are rather more optimistic than
individualist anarchists that social living can be organised in the interests of the
commune as a whole while at the same time protecting individual liberty.
They are likely to see the individualism supported by individualist anarchists as
a rather atomistic form of individualism which neglects the interests of the
community and prevents the development of a fuller individualism in which
individuals come to recognise that solidarity and cooperation are necessary for
the full development of individual liberty. In their view we develop fully as part
of society not as atomistic individuals.
As examples of social or collectivist anarchism we shall consider the anarchocommunism of Kropotkin, the collectivism of Bakunin and the mutualism of
Proudhon.
Both Kropotkin and Bakunin argue that the abolition of the state will help
individuals to develop their individuality to the full but that individual self
development for all also demands a high level of economic equality of outcome
since only then will all individuals have access to the resources necessary to
develop their individuality and hence their individual liberty.
This leads Kropotkin and Bakunin to argue in favour of the collective
ownership of the means of production and for the distribution of goods and
services in accordance with individual need [Kropotkins anarcho-communism

or in accordance with work done [Bakunins collectivism]. These writers have

therefore accepted arguments that a high level of economic equality is
necessary for the achievement of positive liberty, negative liberty having been
achieved via the abolition of the state.
Whereas the individualist anarchists Warren and Tucker advanced arguments in
support of limited private ownership and limited community rules as a means of
guaranteeing individual liberty both Kropotkin and Bakunin suggest that
individuals can learn to exercise their freedom in accordance with the needs of
the community so that there should eventually be no great tension between
individual freedom and the communes economic rules relating to communal
ownership and the distribution of resources. However Bakunin did certainly
suggest that conflicts could arise in the short term and that a minority of
individuals might need to be forced to comply with the rules of the community.
Thus Peter Marshall states that in Bakunins schema, Everyone shall work
and everyone shall be educated whether they like it or not and .the
pressure of public opinion should make parasites impossible but
exceptional cases of idleness would be regarded as special maladies to be
subjected to clinical treatment. Such authoritarian statements open up a
potential world of tyranny and oppression in Bakunins so-called free
society.
The ideas of Michael Bakunin are also identified to some extent with the
development from the 1890s onwards of anarcho-syndicalism as is shown in
the following quotation:
"The [libertarian labour unions] ... bear in themselves the living seeds
of the new society which is to replace the old world. They are creating
not only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself."

Furthermore, according to another anarchist source

" ... The army of production must be organised, not only for everyday
struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when
capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organising industrially we
are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the
old."

Syndicalists argued that trade unions [or syndicats] should aim to improve
workers wages and working conditions through orthodox political methods
but that they should aim also to educate their workers and prepare them to
take political power via general strikes which would bring socialist
governments to power which would provide for the ownership and control of
industry and land by the workers and peasants themselves. The anarchosyndicalists accepted the principle of worker/peasant ownership and control
but argued further that the central state should itself be abolished.
Some supporters of anarcho-syndicalism were associated with sporadic
outbreaks of individual anarchist terror in the 1890s and it was recognized
also that any attempt to overthrow the state via general strike was likely to
involve violence. However anarcho-syndicalists also accepted many of the
more positive ideas of anarchism about a free and equal society without a
government and state.
In most advanced industrial countries trade unions were gradually
integrated, via their links with mainstream socialist parties, into conventional
politics and anarcho-syndicalism declined as a political force although
anarcho- syndicalists did play an important role in the Spanish Civil War
when syndicates temporarily took over most of the industries in the Spanish
region of Catalonia and ran them effectively bearing in mind the difficult
civil war conditions in which they were operating.
Andrew Heywood comments that anarchists were attracted to anarchosyndicalism because it could potentially avoid the corruption associated with
conventional politics and because they could see a model for the
decentralized non hierarchic society of the future. On the other hand he
argues that anarcho-syndicalists had no clear revolutionary strategy and also
that other anarchists have claimed that there would always be a danger that
anarcho-syndicalists would be incorporated into conventional corrupt
politics.
Peter Marshall states that To date Spain is the only country in the modern
era where anarchism can credibly be said to have developed into a major
social movement and to have seriously threatened the state. Anarchosyndicalists played a significant role in these events but as with other
anarchists their future political role may be limited. Or will it?

The French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon famously argued that All
property is theft implying that the accumulation of property could derive only
from the exploitation of the work force but he then went on to draw an
important distinction between property and possessions. For Proudhon massive
inequalities in the ownership of property could not be justified but, at the same
time, it was desirable that individual workers should own a limited amount of
land and working implements since this would provide them with a measure of
independence and liberty which would not be available if all land and work
implements were under common ownership.
Proudhon further believed that goods and services could be exchanged on the
basis of their costs [primarily their labour costs] excluding any profit which
therefore removed the possibility of the exploitation of labour although he also
believed that some economic inequality was justified as a means of rewarding
the more industrious workers. He therefore argued in support of a system of
Mutualism which Heywood describes as a cooperative productive system
geared toward need rather than profit and organised within self-governing
communities.
Further useful information on Proudhon is provided by Ian Adams [Political
Ideology Today 2002] who states that Proudhons ideal world was a world of
small independent producers- peasant farmers and craftsmen who associated
and made contracts with each other freely for their mutual benefit and for whom
a centralised coercive state was an unnecessary evil. We can certainly see
elements of socialism in Proudhons rejection of large inequalities of wealth
and income and of the profit motive but in his rejection of the central state and
his support for self-governing communities, individual ownership of
possessions and acceptance of a measure of economic inequality we can also
see important links to liberal ideology.
Let us thank Ian Adams for that: we may note also that this implies also that
Proudhon might be seen as an anarchist theorist who to some extent appears as
a bridge between individualist and social anarchism.