Anarchist schools of thought
Encyclopedia
Anarchism
is generally defined as the political philosophy
which holds the state
to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority
in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism (known as "anarchists") advocate stateless societies
based on non-hierarchical
voluntary association
s.
Anarchist anthropologist
David Graeber
has noted that while the major schools of Marxism
always have founders (e.g. Leninism, Trotskyism
, Maoism
), schools of anarchism "almost invariably emerge from some kind of organizational principle or form of practice", citing anarcho-syndicalism
, individualist anarchism
and platformism
as examples.
William Godwin
, in founding philosophical anarchism, developed what many consider the first expression of modern
anarchist thought. Godwin was, according to Peter Kropotkin
, "the first to formulate the political and economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas developed in his work." Philosophical anarchism contends that the state
lacks moral legitimacy; that there is no individual obligation or duty to obey the State, and conversely, that the State has no right to command individuals, but it does not advocate revolution to eliminate the state. According to The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought, philosophical anarchism "is a component especially of individualist anarchism
."
Philosophical anarchists may accept the existence of a minimal state
as an unfortunate, and usually temporary, "necessary evil" but argue that citizens do not have a moral obligation
to obey the state when its laws conflict with individual autonomy. As conceived by Godwin, it requires individuals to act in accordance with their own judgments and to allow every other individual the same liberty; conceived egoistically as by Max Stirner
, it implies that "the unique one" who truly "owns himself" recognizes no duties to others; within the limit of his might, he does what is right for him. Godwin opposed revolutionary action and saw a minimal state as a present "necessary evil" that would become increasingly irrelevant and powerless by the gradual spread of knowledge. Godwin advocated extreme individualism
, proposing that all cooperation in labor be eliminated. Godwin felt discrimination on any grounds besides ability was intolerable.
Rather than throwing bombs or taking up arms to bring down the state, philosophical anarchists "have worked for a gradual change to free the individual from what they thought were the oppressive laws and social constraints of the modern state and allow all individuals to become self-determining and value-creating." They may oppose the immediate elimination of the state by violent means out of concern that it would be left unsecured against the establishment of a more harmful and oppressive state. This is especially true among those anarchists who consider violence and the state as synonymous, or who consider it counterproductive where public reaction to violence results in increased "law enforcement" efforts.
Mutualism began in 18th century English and French labor movements, then took an anarchist form associated with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
in France and others in the US. This influenced individualist anarchists in the United States such as Benjamin Tucker
and William B. Greene. Josiah Warren
proposed similar ideas in 1833 after participating in a failed Owenite
experiment. In the 1840s and 1850s, Charles A. Dana, and William B. Greene introduced Proudhon's works to the US. Greene adapted Proudhon's mutualism to American conditions and introduced it to Benjamin R. Tucker.
Mutualist anarchism is concerned with reciprocity
, free association
, voluntary contract, federation, and credit and currency reform. Many mutualists believe a market without government intervention drives prices down to labor-costs, eliminating profit, rent, and interest according to the labor theory of value
. Firms would be forced to compete over workers just as workers compete over firms, raising wages. Some see mutualism as between individualist and collectivist anarchism; in What Is Property?, Proudhon develops a concept of "liberty", equivalent to "anarchy", which is the dialectical "synthesis of communism and property." Greene, influenced by Pierre Leroux
, sought mutualism in the synthesis of three philosophies – communism, capitalism and socialism. Later individualist anarchists used the term mutualism but retained little emphasis on synthesis, while social anarchists
such as the authors of An Anarchist FAQ
claim mutualism as a subset of their philosophical tradition.
and their will
over any kinds of external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a group of individualistic philosophies that sometimes are in conflict.
Egoism was expounded by one of the earliest and best-known proponents of individualist anarchism, Max Stirner. Stirner's The Ego and Its Own
, published in 1844, is a founding text of the philosophy. According to Stirner's conception, the only limitation on the rights of the individual is their power to obtain what they desire, without regard for God, state, or moral rules.
To Stirner, rights were spooks
in the mind, and he held that society does not exist but "the individuals are its reality" – he supported a concept of property held by force of might rather than moral right. By "property" he is not referring only to things but to other people as well. Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw Unions of Egoists, non-systematic associations, which Stirner proposed in as a form of organization in place of the state
. A Union is understood as a relation between egoists which is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will. Even murder is permissible "if it is right for me,", though it is claimed by egoist anarchists that egoism will foster genuine and spontaneous union between individuals.
Stirner saw the state as illegitimate but did not see individuals as having a duty to eliminate it nor does he recommend that they try to eliminate it; rather, he advocates that they disregard the state when it conflicts with their autonomous choices and go along with it when doing so is conducive to their interests. However, while he thought there was no duty to eliminate state, he does think it will eventually collapse as a result of the spread of egoism.
"Egoism" has inspired many interpretations of Stirner's philosophy. It was re-discovered and promoted by German philosophical anarchist and LGBT
activist John Henry Mackay
. Individualist anarchism inspired by Stirner attracted a small following of European bohemian artists and intellectuals. Stirner's philosophy has been seen as a precedent of existentialism
with other thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche
, or even Søren Kierkegaard
.
Russian anarchists like Lev Chernyi
were also attracted by Stirner ideas, as well as a few lone wolves who found self-expression in crime and violence. They rejected organizing, believing that only unorganized individuals were safe from coercion and domination, and that this kept them true to the ideals of anarchism. This type of individualist anarchism inspired anarcho-feminist Emma Goldman
. Though Stirner's egoism is individualist, it has also influenced some anarcho-communists. "For Ourselves Council for Generalized Self-Management" discusses Stirner and speaks of a "communist egoism," which is said to be a "synthesis of individualism and collectivism," and says that "greed in its fullest sense is the only possible basis of communist society.
(1817–1862) was an important early influence in individualist anarchist thought in the United States and Europe. Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic
, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden
, a reflection upon simple living
in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience
, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. His thought is an early influence on green anarchism but with an emphasis on the individual experience of the natural world influencing later naturist currents, Simple living
as a rejection of a materialist lifestyle and self-sufficiency
were Thoreau's goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy. "Many have seen in Thoreau one of the precursors of ecologism and anarcho-primitivism
represented today in John Zerzan
. For George Woodcock
this attitude can be also motivated by certain idea of resistance to progress and of rejection of the growing materialism which is the nature of american society in the mid XIX century."
An early individualist anarchist who was very influential was Josiah Warren
, who had participated in a failed collective "utopian socialist" experiment headed by Robert Owen
called "New Harmony
" and came to the conclusion that such a system is inferior to one that respects the "sovereignty of the individual" and his right to dispose of his property as his own self-interest prescribes.
Another form of individualist anarchism was found in the United States, as advocated by the "Boston anarchists." By default American individualists didn't have any problem that "one man employ another" or that "he direct him," in his labor but demanded that "all natural opportunities requisite to the production of wealth be accessible to all on equal terms and that monopolies arising from special privileges created by law be abolished."
They believed state monopoly capitalism
(defined as a state-sponsored monopoly) prevented labor from being fully rewarded. Voltairine de Cleyre
, summed up the philosophy by saying that the anarchist individualists "are firm in the idea that the system of employer and employed, buying and selling, banking, and all the other essential institutions of Commercialism, centered upon private property, are in themselves good, and are rendered vicious merely by the interference of the State."
Even among the 19th century American individualists, there was not a monolithic doctrine, as they disagreed amongst each other on various issues including intellectual property
rights and possession versus property
in land. A major schism occurred later in the 19th century when Tucker and some others abandoned their traditional support of natural rights -as espoused by Lysander Spooner
- and converted to an "egoism" modeled upon Stirner's philosophy
.
Some "Boston anarchists", including Benjamin Tucker
, identified themselves as "socialists" which in the 19th century was often used in the broad sense of a commitment to improving conditions of the working class (i.e. "the labor problem
"). By the turn of the 20th century, the heyday of individualist anarchism had passed, although aspects of the individualist anarchist tradition were later revived with modifications by Murray Rothbard
and his anarcho-capitalism
in the mid-20th century, as a current of the broader libertarian
movement.
, Pierre Joseph Proudhon and Max Stirner
. Proudhon was an early pioneer of anarchism
as well as of the important individualist anarchist current of mutualism
. Stirner became a central figure of individualist anarchism through the publication of his seminal work The Ego and Its Own
which is considered to be "a founding text in the tradition of individualist anarchism
." Another early figure was Anselme Bellegarrigue
. Individualist anarchism expanded and diversified through Europe, incorporating influences from North American individualist anarchism
.
European individualist anarchists include Max Stirner
, Albert Libertad
, Anselme Bellegarrigue
, Émile Armand
, Enrico Arrigoni
, Lev Chernyi
, John Henry Mackay
, Han Ryner
, Renzo Novatore
, Miguel Giménez Igualada
, and currently Michel Onfray
. Two influential authors in European individualist anarchists are Friedrich Nietzsche
(see Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche
) and Georges Palante
.
From the legacy of Proudhon and Stirner there emerged a strong tradition of French individualist anarchism. An early figure was Anselme Bellegarrigue
He participated in the French Revolution of 1848
, was author and editor of 'Anarchie, Journal de l'Ordre and Au fait ! Au fait ! Interprétation de l'idée démocratique' and wrote the important early Anarchist Manifesto
in 1850. Autonomie Individuelle was an individualist anarchist publication that ran from 1887 to 1888. It was edited by Jean-Baptiste Louiche, Charles Schæffer and Georges Deherme. Later this tradition continued with such intellectuals as Albert Libertad
, André Lorulot, Emile Armand
, Victor Serge
, Zo d'Axa
and Rirette Maitrejean
developed theory in the main individualist anarchist journal in France, L’Anarchie
in 1905. Outside this journal, Han Ryner
wrote Petit Manuel individualiste (1903). Later appeared the journal L'EnDehors created by Zo d'Axa in 1891.
French individualist anarchist exposed a diversity of positions (per example, about violence and non-violence). For example Emile Armand rejected violence
and embraced mutualism while becoming an important propagandist for free love
, while Albert Libertad
and Zo d’Axa was influential in violentists circles and championed violent propaganda by the deed while adhering to communitarianism
or anarcho-communism and rejecting work
. Han Ryner
on the other side conciled anarchism with stoicism
. Nevertheless French individualist circles had a strong sense of personal libertarianism and experimentation. Naturism
and free love
contents started to have a strong influence in individualist anarchist circles and from there it expanded to the rest of anarchism also appearing in Spanish individualist anarchist groups.
Anarchist naturism was promoted by Henri Zisly
, Emile Gravelle
and Georges Butaud. Butaud was a individualist "partisan of the milieux libres, publisher of "Flambeau" ("an enemy of authority") in 1901 in Vienna. Most of his energies were devoted to creating anarchist colonies (communautés expérimentales) in which he participated in several.
"In this sense, the theoretical positions and the vital experiences of french individualism are deeply iconoclastic and scandalous, even within libertarian circles. The call of nudist naturism
, the strong defence of birth control methods, the idea of "unions of egoists" with the sole justification of sexual practices, that will try to put in practice, not without difficulties, will establish a way of thought and action, and will result in symphathy within some, and a strong rejection within others."
Illegalism
is an anarchist philosophy that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland during the early 1900s as an outgrowth of Stirner's individualist anarchism. Illegalists usually did not seek moral basis for their actions, recognizing only the reality of "might" rather than "right"; for the most part, illegal acts were done simply to satisfy personal desires, not for some greater ideal, although some committed crimes as a form of Propaganda of the deed
. The illegalists embraced direct action
and propaganda by the deed.
In Italy individualist anarchism had a strong tendency towards illegalism
and violent propaganda by the deed similar to French individualist anarchism but perhaps more extreme. The theoretical seeds of current Insurrectionary anarchism
were already laid out at the end of 19th century Italy in a combination of individualist anarchism criticism of permanent groups and organization with a socialist class struggle worldview. During the early 20th century it is important to note the intellectual work of individualist anarchist Renzo Novatore
In his thought he adhered to stirnerist disrespect to private property only recognizing property of one's own spirit. Novatore collaborated in the individualist anarchist journal Iconoclasta! alongside the young stirner
ist illegalist
Bruno Filippi
Spain
received the influence of American individualist anarchism but most importantly it was related to the French currents. At the turn of the century individualism in Spain takes force through the efforts of people such as Dorado Montero, Ricardo Mella, Federico Urales and J. Elizalde who will translate French and American individualists. Important in this respect were also magazines such as La Idea Libre, La revista blanca
, Etica, Iniciales
, Al margen and Nosotros. In Germany
the Scottish-German John Henry McKay became the most important propagandist for individualist anarchist ideas. Adolf Brand
(1874–1945) was a German
writer
, stirner
ist anarchist
and pioneering campaigner for the acceptance of male bisexuality
and homosexuality
. Brand published a German homosexual periodical, Der Eigene
in 1896. The Irish anarchist
writer of the Decadent movement
Oscar Wilde
influenced individualist anarchists such as Renzo Novatore
and gained the admiration of Benjamin Tucker
.
. Where individualist forms of anarchism emphasize personal autonomy
and the rational nature of human beings, social anarchism sees "individual freedom as conceptually connected with social equality and emphasize community and mutual aid." Social anarchism is used to specifically describe anarchist tendencies within anarchism that have an emphasis on the communitarian and cooperative aspects of anarchist theory and practice. Social anarchism includes (but is not limited to) collectivist anarchism
, anarcho-communism, libertarian socialism
, anarcho-syndicalism
and social ecology
.
Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionary form of anarchism most commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin
, Johann Most
and the anti-authoritarian section of the First International
(1864–1876). Unlike mutualists, collectivist anarchists oppose all private ownership of the means of production, instead advocating that ownership be collectivized. This was to be initiated by small cohesive elite group through acts of violence, or "propaganda by the deed," which would inspire the workers to revolt and forcibly collectivize the means of production. Workers would be compensated for their work on the basis of the amount of time they contributed to production, rather than goods being distributed "according to need" as in anarcho-communism. Although the collectivist anarchists advocated compensation for labor, some held out the possibility of a post-revolutionary transition to a communist system of distribution according to need. Collective anarchism arose contemporaneously with Marxism
but opposed the Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat
, despite Marxism striving for a collectivist stateless society.
Some collectivist anarchists do not oppose the use of currency. Some support workers being paid based on the amount of time they contributed to production. These salaries would be used to purchase commodities in a communal market. This contrasts with anarcho-communism where wages would be abolished, and where individuals would take freely from a storehouse of goods "to each according to his need." Many modern-day collectivist anarchists hold their form of anarchism as a permanent society rather than a carryover to anarcho-communism or a gift economy. Some collectivist anarchists such as proponents of participatory economics
believe in remuneration
and a form of credit but do not believe in money or markets.
Although Collectivist anarchism
shares many similarities with Anarchist communism
there are also many key differences between them. For example collectivist anarchists believe that the economy and most or all property should be collectively owned by society while anarchist communists by contrast believe that the concept of ownership should be rejected by society and replaced with the concept of usage. Also Collectivist anarchists
often favor using a form of currency to compensate workers according to the amount of time spent contributing to society and production while Anarcho-communists believe that currency and wages should be abolished all together and goods should be distributed "to each according to his or her need".
Anarchist communists propose that a society composed of a number of self-governing
communes
with collective
use of the means of production
, with direct democracy
as the political organizational form, and related to other communes through federation
would be the freest form of social organisation. However, some anarchist communists oppose the majoritarian nature of direct democracy, feeling that it can impede individual liberty and favor consensus democracy
. Joseph Déjacque
was an early anarchist communist and the first person to describe himself as "libertarian
". Other important anarchist communists include Peter Kropotkin
, Emma Goldman
, Alexander Berkman
and Errico Malatesta
.
In anarchist communism, individuals would not receive direct compensation
for labour (through sharing of profits
or payment), but would instead have free access to the resources and surplus of the commune
. Kropotkin, on the basis of his biological
research and experimentation, believed that humans and human society are more inclined towards efforts for mutual benefit than toward competition and strife. Kropotkin believed that private property
was one of the causes of oppression and exploitation and called for its abolition, but he only opposed ownership
, not possession.
Some anarcho-syndicalists
saw anarchist communism as their objective; for example, the Spanish CNT adopted Isaac Puente
's 1932 El comunismo libertario
as its manifesto for a post-revolutionary society. Platformism
is an anarchist communist tendency in the tradition of Nestor Makhno
who argued for the "vital need of an organization which, having attracted most of the participants in the anarchist movement, would establish a common tactical and political line for anarchism and thereby serve as a guide for the whole movement."
Anarcho-communism does not always have a communitarian philosophy. Some forms of anarchist communism are egoist
and strongly influenced by radical individualist, believing that anarcho-communism does not require a communitarian nature at all. Forms of libertarian communism
such as Situationism are strongly Egoist in nature. Anarchist communist Emma Goldman
was influenced by both Stirner and Kropotkin and blended their philosophies together in her own, as shown in books of hers such as Anarchism And Other Essays.
Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft). The Platform came from the experiences of Russian anarchists in the 1917 October Revolution
, which led eventually to the victory of Bolsheviks over the anarchists and other like-minded groups. The Platform attempted to explain and address the failure of the anarchist movement during the Russian Revolution
. As a controversial pamphlet, the Platform drew both praise and criticism from anarchists worldwide.
In the early 20th century anarcho-syndicalism arose as a distinct school of thought within anarchism. More heavily focused on the labour movement than previous forms of anarchism, syndicalism posits radical trade union
s as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society, democratically self-managed by the workers. Anarcho-syndicalists seek to abolish the wage system and private ownership of the means of production, which they believe lead to class divisions. Important principles of syndicalism include workers' solidarity, direct action
(such as general strike
s and workplace recuperations), and workers' self-management
.
Anarcho-syndicalism and other branches of anarchism are not mutually exclusive: anarcho-syndicalists often subscribe to communist or collectivist anarchism. Its advocates propose labour organization as a means to create the foundations of a non-hierarchical anarchist society within the current system and bring about social revolution.
According to An Anarchist FAQ
, anarcho-syndicalist economic systems often take the form of either a collectivist anarchist
economic system or an anarcho-communist economic system.
Rudolf Rocker
is considered a leading anarcho-syndicalist theorist. He outlined a view of the origins of the movement, what it sought, and why it was important to the future of labour in his 1938 pamphlet Anarchosyndicalism. Although more frequently associated with labor struggles of the early 20th century (particularly in France
and Spain
), many syndicalist organizations are active today, including the SAC
in Sweden, the USI
in Italy, and the CNT
in Spain. A number of these organizations are united across national borders by membership in the International Workers Association
.
Religious anarchism refers to a set of related anarchist ideologies that are inspired by the teachings of (organized) religions, however many anarchist have traditionally been skeptical of and opposed to organized religion. Many different religions have served as inspiration for religious forms of anarchism, most notably Christianity; Christian anarchists believe that biblical teachings give credence to anarchist philosophy. Non-Christian forms of religious anarchism include Buddhist anarchism
, Jewish anarchism
and most recently Neopaganism
. Neopaganism focuses on the sanctity of the environment
and equality, and is often of a decentralized nature. This led to a number of Neopagan-inspired anarchists, one of the most prominent of which is Starhawk
, who writes extensively about both spirituality
and activism.
is a form of religious anarchism that seeks to combine anarchism with Christianity, claiming that anarchism is justified by the teachings of Jesus Christ. Early Christian communities have been described by Christian anarchists and some historians as possessing anarcho-communist characteristics. Christian anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy
and Ammon Hennacy
believe that the teachings of Paul of Tarsus
caused a shift from the earlier more egalitarian and anarchistic teachings of Jesus. Others, however, believe that Paul with his strong emphasis on God's Providence, is to be understood as a holding to anarchist principles.
Anarcho-pacifism (also pacifist anarchism or anarchist pacifism) is a form of anarchism
which completely rejects the use of violence
in any form for any purpose. The main prescedent was Henry David Thoreau
who through his work Civil Disobedience
influenced both Leo Tolstoy
and Mohandas Gandhi advocacy of Nonviolent resistance
. As a global movement, Anarchist pacifism emerged shortly before World War II
in Holland, Great Britain
and the United States
and was a strong presence in the subsequent campaigns for nuclear disarmament
.
Violence has always been controversial in anarchism. While many anarchists during the 19th century embraced propaganda of the deed
, Leo Tolstoy
and other anarcho-pacifists directly opposed violence as a means for change. He argued that anarchism must by nature be nonviolent since it is, by definition, opposition to coercion and force, and that since the state is inherently violent, meaningful pacifism must likewise be anarchistic. His philosophy was cited as a major inspiration by Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian independence
leader and pacifist who self-identified as an anarchist. Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis
was also instrumental in establishing the pacifist trend within the anarchist movement. In France anti-militarism appeared strongly in individualist anarchist circles as Émile Armand
founded "Ligue Antimilitariste" in 1902 with Albert Libertad
and George Mathias Paraf-Javal.
philosophies and movements. Since the revival of anarchism in the mid 20th century, a number of new movements and schools have appeared. Anarchist anthropologist David Graeber
has posited a rupture between generations of anarchism, with those "who often still have not shaken the sectarian habits of the last century" contrasted with the younger activists who are "much more informed, among other elements, by indigenous
, feminist
, ecological
and cultural-critical
ideas", and who by the turn of the 21st century formed "by far the majority" of anarchists.
, initially developed in the 19th century, has reemerged in the 21st century within left-libertarianism
, incorporating modern economic ideas such as marginal utility
theory. Kevin A. Carson
's book Studies in Mutualist Political Economy was influential in this regard, updating the labor theory of value
in response to Austrian economics
. Contemporary mutualists are among those involved in the Alliance of the Libertarian Left and in the Voluntary Cooperation Movement. Agorism
, an anarchist tendency founded by Samuel Edward Konkin III
, advocates counter-economics
– working in untaxed black or grey market
s and boycotting as much as possible the unfree taxed market – with the intended result that private voluntary institutions emerge and out-compete statist ones. Geoanarchism, an anarchist form of Henry George
's philosophy, is considered left-libertarian because it assumes land to be initially owned in common, so that when land is privately appropriated the proprietor pays rent to the community. These philosophies share similar concerns and are collectively known as left-libertarianism.
Anarcho-capitalism is "based on a belief in the freedom to own private property
, a rejection of any form of governmental authority or intervention, and the upholding of the competitive free market as the main mechanism for social interaction." Because of the historically anti-capitalist
nature of much of anarchist thought, the status of anarcho-capitalism within anarchism
is disputed, particularly by Libertarian socialists and communist anarchists
. Conversely, anarcho-capitalists sometimes argue that socialist schools of anarchism are themselves logically impossible.
Anarcho-capitalists distinguish between free market
capitalism – peaceful voluntary exchange – from state capitalism
, which Murray Rothbard
defined as a collusive partnership between big business
and government that uses coercion
to subvert the free market. Whether in its natural rights-based, contractarian, or utilitarian formulations, anarcho-capitalism has a theory of legitimacy that supports private property as long as it was obtained by labor, trade, or gift.
Proponents argue that in an anarcho-capitalist society, voluntary market processes would result in the provision of social institutions such as law enforcement
, defence
and infrastructure
by competing for-profit firms, charities
or voluntary associations
rather than the state
. In Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism, law (the non-aggression principle) is enforced by the market but not created by it, while according to David D. Friedman
's utilitarian version, the law itself is produced by the market.
Although the term anarcho-capitalism was coined by Rothbard, and its origin is attributed to 1960s United States
, some historians, including Rothbard, trace the school of thought as far back as the mid-19th century, to market theorists such as Gustave de Molinari
. Anarcho-capitalism has drawn influence from pro-market theorists such as Molinari, Frédéric Bastiat
, and Robert Nozick
, as well as American individualist thinkers such as Benjamin Tucker
and Lysander Spooner
.
Considered a form of individualist anarchism
, it differs from the individualism of the Boston anarchists of the 19th century in its rejection of the labor theory of value
(and its normative
implications) in favor of the neoclassical
or Austrian School
marginalist
view. Anarcho-capitalist ideas have contributed to the development of agorism
, autarchism
, voluntaryism
, paleolibertarianism
, and crypto-anarchism
. Institutes related to capitalist anarchism are Center for Libertarian Studies
and Ludwig von Mises Institute
in US, and Libertarian Alliance
in UK.
Autarchism
is a philosophy subscribed to by Robert LeFevre
, who stated “Autarchy is self-rule. It means that each person rules himself, and no other.” Autarchism rejects compulsory government and supports "private capitalism
."
Anarcha-feminism (occasionally called anarcho-feminism) is a form of anarchism that synthesizes radical feminism
and anarchism that views patriarchy (male domination over women) as a fundamental manifestation of involuntary hierarchy which anarchists often oppose. Anarcha-feminism was inspired in the late 19th century by the writings of early feminist anarchists such as Lucy Parsons
, Emma Goldman
and Voltairine de Cleyre
. Anarcha-feminists, like other radical feminists, criticize and advocate the abolition of traditional conceptions of family, education and gender roles. Anarcha-feminists are especially critical of marriage. For instance, the feminist anarchist Emma Goldman has argued that marriage is a purely economic arrangement... "[woman] pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life."
Anarcha-feminists also often criticize the views of some of the traditional anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin
who have believed that patriarchy is only a minor problem and is dependent only on the existence of the state and capitalism and will disappear soon after such institutions are abolished. Anarcha-feminists by contrast view patriarchy as a fundamental problem in society and believe that the feminist struggle against sexism and patriarchy is an essential component of the anarchist struggle against the state
and capitalism
. As Susan Brown
puts it, "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist".
, homophobia
, transphobia
and biphobia
. Anarcho-queer arose during the late 20th century based on the work of Michel Foucault The History of Sexuality
.
and social ecology
. Many advocates of green anarchism and primitivism consider Fredy Perlman
as the modern progenitor of their views.
Notable contemporary writers espousing green anarchism include Murray Bookchin
, Daniel Chodorkoff, anthropologist Brian Morris
, and people around Institute for Social Ecology
; those critical of technology such as Derrick Jensen
, George Draffan, and John Zerzan
; and others including Alan Carter
, and Stewart Davidson
Social ecologists, also considered a kind of socialist anarchist, often criticize the main currents of anarchism for their focus and debates about politics and economics instead of a focus on eco-system (human and environmental). This theory promote libertarian municipalism
and green technology. Anarcho-primitivists often criticize mainstream anarchism for supporting civilization
and modern technology
which they believe are inherently based on domination and exploitation. They instead advocate the process of rewilding
or reconnecting with the natural environment. Veganarchism
is the political philosophy of veganism
(more specifically animal liberation
) and green anarchism. This encompasses viewing the state
as unnecessary and harmful to both human and animals, whilst practising a vegan diet.
in Spain, France, Portugal. and Cuba.
Anarcho-naturism advocated vegetarianism
, free love
, nudism, hiking
and an ecological world view within anarchist groups and outside them. Anarcho-naturism promoted an ecological worldview, small ecovillage
s, and most prominently nudism as a way to avoid the artificiality of the industrial
mass society
of modernity. Naturist individualist anarchists saw the individual in his biological, physical and psychological aspects and tried to eliminate social determinations."EL NATURISMO LIBERTARIO EN LA PENÍNSULA IBÉRICA (1890-1939)" by Josep Maria Rosell]
in the 1960s.
It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems
, particularly in dominatory hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly competitive grow-or-die philosophy. It suggests that this cannot be resisted by individual action such as ethical consumerism
but must be addressed by more nuanced ethical thinking and collective activity grounded in radical democratic ideals
. The complexity of relationships between people and with nature
is emphasised, along with the importance of establishing social structures that take account of this.
critique of the origins and progress of civilization
. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer
to agricultural
subsistence gave rise to social stratification
, coercion
, and alienation
. Anarcho-primitivists advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialisation, abolition of the division of labour
or specialization
, and abandonment of large-scale organization technologies
. There are other non-anarchist forms of primitivism
, and not all primitivists point to the same phenomenon as the source of modern, civilized problems.
Many traditional anarchists reject the critique of civilization, many even denying that anarcho-primitivism has anything to do with anarchism, while some, such as Wolfi Landstreicher
, endorse the critique but do not consider themselves anarcho-primitivists. Some Anarcho-primitivists are often distinguished by their focus on the praxis of achieving a feral
state of being through "rewilding
".
Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchism's relationship to traditional leftism
. Some post-leftists seek to escape the confines of ideology
in general also presenting a critique of organizations and morality
. Influenced by the work of Max Stirner
and by the Situationist International, post-left anarchy is marked by a focus on social insurrection
and a rejection of leftist social organisation.
The magazines Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed
, Green Anarchy
and Fifth Estate have been involved in developing post-left anarchy. Individual writers associated with the tendency are Hakim Bey, Bob Black
, John Zerzan
, Jason McQuinn
, Fredy Perlman
, Lawrence Jarach
and Wolfi Landstreicher
. The contemporary network of collectives CrimethInc.
is an exponent of post-left anarchist views.
was originated by Saul Newman
, and first received popular attention in his book From Bakunin to Lacan
to refer to a theoretical move towards a synthesis of classical anarchist theory and poststructuralist thought. Subsequent to Newman's use of the term, however, it has taken on a life of its own and a wide range of ideas including post-modernism, autonomism
, post-left anarchy
, situationism, post-colonialism and Zapatismo. By its very nature post-anarchism rejects the idea that it should be a coherent set of doctrines and beliefs. As such it is difficult, if not impossible, to state with any degree of certainty who should or should not be grouped under the rubric. Nonetheless key thinkers associated with post-anarchism include Saul Newman
, Todd May
, Lewis Call
, Gilles Deleuze
, Félix Guattari
and Michel Onfray
.
based organization. Insurrectionary anarchists put value in attack, permanent class conflict
, and a refusal to negotiate or compromise with class enemies.
Contemporary insurrectionary anarchism inherits the views and tactics of anti-organizational anarcho-communism and illegalism
. Important theorists within it include Alfredo Maria Bonanno and Wolfi Landstreicher
.
Anarchism without adjectives, in the words of historian George Richard Esenwein, "referred to an unhyphenated
form of anarchism, that is, a doctrine without any qualifying labels such as communist
, collectivist
, mutualist
, or individualist
. For others, ... [it] was simply understood as an attitude that tolerated the coexistence of different anarchist schools". Anarchism without adjectives emphasizes harmony between various anarchist factions and attempts to unite them around their shared anti-authoritarian beliefs.
The expression was coined by Cuba
n-born Fernando Tarrida del Mármol
, who used it in Barcelona
in November 1889 as a call for tolerance
, after being troubled by the "bitter debates" between the different movements. Rudolf Rocker
said that the different types of anarchism presented "only different methods of economy, the practical possibilities of which have yet to be tested, and that the first objective is to secure the personal and social freedom
of men no matter upon which economics basis this is to be accomplished."
Voltairine de Cleyre
was an anarchist without adjectives who initially identified herself as an individualist anarchist but later espoused a collectivist form of anarchism, while refusing to identify herself with any of the contemporary schools. She commented that "Socialism and Communism both demand a degree of joint effort and administration which would beget more regulation than is wholly consistent with ideal Anarchism; Individualism and Mutualism, resting upon property, involve a development of the private policeman not at all compatible with my notion of freedom" although she stopped short of denouncing these tendencies as un-anarchistic.
Errico Malatesta
was another proponent of anarchism without adjectives, stating that "[i]t is not right for us, to say the least, to fall into strife over mere hypotheses."
. In the 1920s this form found as its main proponents Volin
and Sebastien Faure
. It is the main principle behind the anarchist federations grouped around the contemporary global International of Anarchist Federations
.
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
is generally defined as the political philosophy
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
which holds the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority
Authority
The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...
in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism (known as "anarchists") advocate stateless societies
Stateless society
A stateless society is a society that is not governed by a state. In stateless societies, there is little concentration of authority; most positions of authority that do exist are very limited in power and are generally not permanently held positions; and social bodies that resolve disputes through...
based on non-hierarchical
Hierarchy
A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...
voluntary association
Voluntary association
A voluntary association or union is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement as volunteers to form a body to accomplish a purpose.Strictly speaking, in many jurisdictions no formalities are necessary to start an association...
s.
Anarchist anthropologist
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
David Graeber
David Graeber
David Rolfe Graeber is an American anthropologist and anarchist who currently holds the position of Reader in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He was an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, although Yale controversially declined to rehire him, and his...
has noted that while the major schools of Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
always have founders (e.g. Leninism, Trotskyism
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
, Maoism
Maoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
), schools of anarchism "almost invariably emerge from some kind of organizational principle or form of practice", citing anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. The word syndicalism comes from the French word syndicat which means trade union , from the Latin word syndicus which in turn comes from the Greek word σύνδικος which means caretaker of an issue...
, individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a...
and platformism
Platformism
Platformism is a tendency within the wider anarchist movement originally theorised by Nestor Makhno and is mainly based on his concept of anarchism and the organisational theories in the tradition of Dielo Truda's Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists ...
as examples.
Philosophical anarchism
William Godwin
William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...
, in founding philosophical anarchism, developed what many consider the first expression of modern
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
anarchist thought. Godwin was, according to Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...
, "the first to formulate the political and economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas developed in his work." Philosophical anarchism contends that the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
lacks moral legitimacy; that there is no individual obligation or duty to obey the State, and conversely, that the State has no right to command individuals, but it does not advocate revolution to eliminate the state. According to The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought, philosophical anarchism "is a component especially of individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a...
."
Philosophical anarchists may accept the existence of a minimal state
Minarchism
Minarchism has been variously defined by sources. It is a libertarian capitalist political philosophy. In the strictest sense, it maintains that the state is necessary and that its only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud, and...
as an unfortunate, and usually temporary, "necessary evil" but argue that citizens do not have a moral obligation
Moral obligation
The term moral obligation has a number of meanings in moral philosophy, in religion, and in layman's terms. Generally speaking, when someone says of an act that it is a "moral obligation," they refer to a belief that the act is one prescribed by their set of values.Moral philosophers differ as to...
to obey the state when its laws conflict with individual autonomy. As conceived by Godwin, it requires individuals to act in accordance with their own judgments and to allow every other individual the same liberty; conceived egoistically as by Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
, it implies that "the unique one" who truly "owns himself" recognizes no duties to others; within the limit of his might, he does what is right for him. Godwin opposed revolutionary action and saw a minimal state as a present "necessary evil" that would become increasingly irrelevant and powerless by the gradual spread of knowledge. Godwin advocated extreme individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
, proposing that all cooperation in labor be eliminated. Godwin felt discrimination on any grounds besides ability was intolerable.
Rather than throwing bombs or taking up arms to bring down the state, philosophical anarchists "have worked for a gradual change to free the individual from what they thought were the oppressive laws and social constraints of the modern state and allow all individuals to become self-determining and value-creating." They may oppose the immediate elimination of the state by violent means out of concern that it would be left unsecured against the establishment of a more harmful and oppressive state. This is especially true among those anarchists who consider violence and the state as synonymous, or who consider it counterproductive where public reaction to violence results in increased "law enforcement" efforts.
Mutualism
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French politician, mutualist philosopher and socialist. He was a member of the French Parliament, and he was the first person to call himself an "anarchist". He is considered among the most influential theorists and organisers of anarchism...
in France and others in the US. This influenced individualist anarchists in the United States such as Benjamin Tucker
Benjamin Tucker
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker was a proponent of American individualist anarchism in the 19th century, and editor and publisher of the individualist anarchist periodical Liberty.-Summary:Tucker says that he became an anarchist at the age of 18...
and William B. Greene. Josiah Warren
Josiah Warren
Josiah Warren was an individualist anarchist, inventor, musician, and author in the United States. He is widely regarded as the first American anarchist, and the four-page weekly paper he edited during 1833, The Peaceful Revolutionist, was the first anarchist periodical published, an enterprise...
proposed similar ideas in 1833 after participating in a failed Owenite
Robert Owen
Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
experiment. In the 1840s and 1850s, Charles A. Dana, and William B. Greene introduced Proudhon's works to the US. Greene adapted Proudhon's mutualism to American conditions and introduced it to Benjamin R. Tucker.
Mutualist anarchism is concerned with reciprocity
Reciprocity (cultural anthropology)
In cultural anthropology and sociology, reciprocity is a way of defining people's informal exchange of goods and labour; that is, people's informal economic systems. It is the basis of most non-market economies. Since virtually all humans live in some kind of society and have at least a few...
, free association
Freedom of association
Freedom of association is the individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests....
, voluntary contract, federation, and credit and currency reform. Many mutualists believe a market without government intervention drives prices down to labor-costs, eliminating profit, rent, and interest according to the labor theory of value
Labor theory of value
The labor theories of value are heterodox economic theories of value which argue that the value of a commodity is related to the labor needed to produce or obtain that commodity. The concept is most often associated with Marxian economics...
. Firms would be forced to compete over workers just as workers compete over firms, raising wages. Some see mutualism as between individualist and collectivist anarchism; in What Is Property?, Proudhon develops a concept of "liberty", equivalent to "anarchy", which is the dialectical "synthesis of communism and property." Greene, influenced by Pierre Leroux
Pierre Leroux
Pierre Henri Leroux , French philosopher and political economist, was born at Bercy, now a part of Paris, the son of an artisan.- Life :...
, sought mutualism in the synthesis of three philosophies – communism, capitalism and socialism. Later individualist anarchists used the term mutualism but retained little emphasis on synthesis, while social anarchists
Social anarchism
Social anarchism is a term originally used in 1971 by Giovanni Baldelli as the title of his book where he discusses the organization of an ethical society from an anarchist point of view...
such as the authors of An Anarchist FAQ
An Anarchist FAQ
"An Anarchist FAQ" is an FAQ written by an international work group of social anarchists connected through the internet. It documents anarchist theory and ideas while arguing that social anarchism is a better form of anarchism than individualist anarchism, which it critiques. It also explores other...
claim mutualism as a subset of their philosophical tradition.
Individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individualIndividual
An individual is a person or any specific object or thing in a collection. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires. Being self expressive...
and their will
Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
over any kinds of external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a group of individualistic philosophies that sometimes are in conflict.
Egoism
The Ego and Its Own
The Ego and Its Own is a philosophical work by German philosopher Max Stirner . This work was first published in 1845, although with a stated publication date of "1844" to confuse the Prussian censors.-Content:...
, published in 1844, is a founding text of the philosophy. According to Stirner's conception, the only limitation on the rights of the individual is their power to obtain what they desire, without regard for God, state, or moral rules.
To Stirner, rights were spooks
Reification (fallacy)
Reification is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction is treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a "real thing" something which is not a real thing, but merely an idea...
in the mind, and he held that society does not exist but "the individuals are its reality" – he supported a concept of property held by force of might rather than moral right. By "property" he is not referring only to things but to other people as well. Stirner advocated self-assertion and foresaw Unions of Egoists, non-systematic associations, which Stirner proposed in as a form of organization in place of the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
. A Union is understood as a relation between egoists which is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will. Even murder is permissible "if it is right for me,", though it is claimed by egoist anarchists that egoism will foster genuine and spontaneous union between individuals.
Stirner saw the state as illegitimate but did not see individuals as having a duty to eliminate it nor does he recommend that they try to eliminate it; rather, he advocates that they disregard the state when it conflicts with their autonomous choices and go along with it when doing so is conducive to their interests. However, while he thought there was no duty to eliminate state, he does think it will eventually collapse as a result of the spread of egoism.
"Egoism" has inspired many interpretations of Stirner's philosophy. It was re-discovered and promoted by German philosophical anarchist and LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
activist John Henry Mackay
John Henry Mackay
John Henry Mackay was an individualist anarchist, thinker and writer. Born in Scotland and raised in Germany, Mackay was the author of Die Anarchisten and Der Freiheitsucher . Mackay was published in the United States in his friend Benjamin Tucker's magazine, Liberty...
. Individualist anarchism inspired by Stirner attracted a small following of European bohemian artists and intellectuals. Stirner's philosophy has been seen as a precedent of existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
with other thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, or even Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
.
Russian anarchists like Lev Chernyi
Lev Chernyi
Pável Dimítrievich Turchanínov , known by the pseudonym Lev Chernyi , was a Russian anarchist theorist, activist and poet, and a leading figure of the Third Russian Revolution. His early thought was individualist, rejecting anarcho-communism as a threat to individual liberty...
were also attracted by Stirner ideas, as well as a few lone wolves who found self-expression in crime and violence. They rejected organizing, believing that only unorganized individuals were safe from coercion and domination, and that this kept them true to the ideals of anarchism. This type of individualist anarchism inspired anarcho-feminist Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
. Though Stirner's egoism is individualist, it has also influenced some anarcho-communists. "For Ourselves Council for Generalized Self-Management" discusses Stirner and speaks of a "communist egoism," which is said to be a "synthesis of individualism and collectivism," and says that "greed in its fullest sense is the only possible basis of communist society.
Anglo American individualist anarchism
Henry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
(1817–1862) was an important early influence in individualist anarchist thought in the United States and Europe. Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic
Development criticism
Development criticism refers to criticisms of technological development.-Notable development critics:*Edward Abbey*John Africa*Stafford Beer *Charles A...
, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden
Walden
Walden is an American book written by noted Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau...
, a reflection upon simple living
Simple living
Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than want...
in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience
Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)
Civil Disobedience is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849...
, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. His thought is an early influence on green anarchism but with an emphasis on the individual experience of the natural world influencing later naturist currents, Simple living
Simple living
Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than want...
as a rejection of a materialist lifestyle and self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy...
were Thoreau's goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy. "Many have seen in Thoreau one of the precursors of ecologism and anarcho-primitivism
Anarcho-primitivism
Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation...
represented today in John Zerzan
John Zerzan
John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric humans as an inspiration for what a free society should look like...
. For George Woodcock
George Woodcock
George Woodcock was a Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic. He was also a poet, and published several volumes of travel writing. He founded in 1959 the journal Canadian Literature, the first academic journal specifically...
this attitude can be also motivated by certain idea of resistance to progress and of rejection of the growing materialism which is the nature of american society in the mid XIX century."
An early individualist anarchist who was very influential was Josiah Warren
Josiah Warren
Josiah Warren was an individualist anarchist, inventor, musician, and author in the United States. He is widely regarded as the first American anarchist, and the four-page weekly paper he edited during 1833, The Peaceful Revolutionist, was the first anarchist periodical published, an enterprise...
, who had participated in a failed collective "utopian socialist" experiment headed by Robert Owen
Robert Owen
Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
called "New Harmony
New Harmony, Indiana
New Harmony is a historic town on the Wabash River in Harmony Township, Posey County, Indiana, United States. It lies north of Mount Vernon, the county seat. The population was 916 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Evansville metropolitan area. Many of the old Harmonist buildings still stand...
" and came to the conclusion that such a system is inferior to one that respects the "sovereignty of the individual" and his right to dispose of his property as his own self-interest prescribes.
They believed state monopoly capitalism
State monopoly capitalism
The theory of state monopoly capitalism was initially a Marxist doctrine popularised after World War II. Lenin had claimed in 1916 that World War I had transformed laissez-faire capitalism into monopoly capitalism, but he did not publish any extensive theory about the topic...
(defined as a state-sponsored monopoly) prevented labor from being fully rewarded. Voltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre was an American anarchist writer and feminist. She was a prolific writer and speaker, opposing the state, marriage, and the domination of religion in sexuality and women's lives. She began her activist career in the freethought movement...
, summed up the philosophy by saying that the anarchist individualists "are firm in the idea that the system of employer and employed, buying and selling, banking, and all the other essential institutions of Commercialism, centered upon private property, are in themselves good, and are rendered vicious merely by the interference of the State."
Even among the 19th century American individualists, there was not a monolithic doctrine, as they disagreed amongst each other on various issues including intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
rights and possession versus property
Property
Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...
in land. A major schism occurred later in the 19th century when Tucker and some others abandoned their traditional support of natural rights -as espoused by Lysander Spooner
Lysander Spooner
Lysander Spooner was an American individualist anarchist, political philosopher, Deist, abolitionist, supporter of the labor movement, legal theorist, and entrepreneur of the nineteenth century. He is also known for competing with the U.S...
- and converted to an "egoism" modeled upon Stirner's philosophy
Philosophy of Max Stirner
The philosophy of Max Stirner is credited as an influence on the development of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism, postanarchism and post-left anarchy...
.
Some "Boston anarchists", including Benjamin Tucker
Benjamin Tucker
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker was a proponent of American individualist anarchism in the 19th century, and editor and publisher of the individualist anarchist periodical Liberty.-Summary:Tucker says that he became an anarchist at the age of 18...
, identified themselves as "socialists" which in the 19th century was often used in the broad sense of a commitment to improving conditions of the working class (i.e. "the labor problem
The labor problem
"The labor problem" is an economics term widely used toward the turn of the twentieth century with various applications. It has been defined in various ways, such as "the problem of improving the conditions of employment of the wage-earning classes." However, its cause is universal: failure to...
"). By the turn of the 20th century, the heyday of individualist anarchism had passed, although aspects of the individualist anarchist tradition were later revived with modifications by Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...
and his anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism is a libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty in a free market...
in the mid-20th century, as a current of the broader libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
movement.
European individualist anarchism
European individualist anarchism proceeded from the roots laid by William GodwinWilliam Godwin
William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...
, Pierre Joseph Proudhon and Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
. Proudhon was an early pioneer of anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
as well as of the important individualist anarchist current of mutualism
Mutualism (economic theory)
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought that originates in the writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who envisioned a society where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market...
. Stirner became a central figure of individualist anarchism through the publication of his seminal work The Ego and Its Own
The Ego and Its Own
The Ego and Its Own is a philosophical work by German philosopher Max Stirner . This work was first published in 1845, although with a stated publication date of "1844" to confuse the Prussian censors.-Content:...
which is considered to be "a founding text in the tradition of individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a...
." Another early figure was Anselme Bellegarrigue
Anselme Bellegarrigue
Anselme Bellegarrigue was a French individualist anarchist, born between 1820 and 1825 in Toulouse and presumed dead around the end of the 19th century in Central America...
. Individualist anarchism expanded and diversified through Europe, incorporating influences from North American individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism in the United States
Individualist anarchism in the United States was strongly influenced by Josiah Warren, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lysander Spooner, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Max Stirner, Herbert SpencerHenry David Thoreau...
.
European individualist anarchists include Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
, Albert Libertad
Albert Libertad
Joseph Albert was an individualist anarchist militant and writer from France who edited the influential anarchist publication L’Anarchie.- Life and work :...
, Anselme Bellegarrigue
Anselme Bellegarrigue
Anselme Bellegarrigue was a French individualist anarchist, born between 1820 and 1825 in Toulouse and presumed dead around the end of the 19th century in Central America...
, Émile Armand
Emile Armand
Emile Armand was the most influential French individualist anarchist at the beginning of the 20th century and also a dedicated free love/polyamory, intentional community, and pacifist/antimilitarist writer, propagandist and activist...
, Enrico Arrigoni
Enrico Arrigoni
Enrico Arrigoni was an Italian American individualist anarchist Lathe operator, house painter, bricklayer, dramatist and political activist influenced by the work of Max Stirner.- Life and activism :He took the pseudonym "Brand" from a fictional character in one of...
, Lev Chernyi
Lev Chernyi
Pável Dimítrievich Turchanínov , known by the pseudonym Lev Chernyi , was a Russian anarchist theorist, activist and poet, and a leading figure of the Third Russian Revolution. His early thought was individualist, rejecting anarcho-communism as a threat to individual liberty...
, John Henry Mackay
John Henry Mackay
John Henry Mackay was an individualist anarchist, thinker and writer. Born in Scotland and raised in Germany, Mackay was the author of Die Anarchisten and Der Freiheitsucher . Mackay was published in the United States in his friend Benjamin Tucker's magazine, Liberty...
, Han Ryner
Han Ryner
Jacques Élie Henri Ambroise Ner , also known by the pseudonym Han Ryner, was a French individualist anarchist philosopher and activist and a novelist...
, Renzo Novatore
Renzo Novatore
- Life :Abele Ricieri Ferrari was born in Arcola, Liguria, Italy on May 12, 1890 in a poor peasant family. He did not adjust to school discipline and quit in the first year never coming back after that. While he worked in his father's farm, he self educated himself with an emphasis in poetry and...
, Miguel Giménez Igualada
Miguel Giménez Igualada
Miguel Giménez Igualada, , was a Spanish individualist anarchist writer also known as Miguel Ramos Giménez and Juan de Iniesta.- Life :In his youth, Igualada engaged in illegalist activities...
, and currently Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray is a contemporary French philosopher who adheres to hedonism, atheism and anarchism...
. Two influential authors in European individualist anarchists are Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
(see Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche
Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche
The relation between Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche has been ambiguous. Even though Friedrich Nietzsche criticized anarchism his thought proved influential for many thinkers within what can be characterized as the anarchist movement...
) and Georges Palante
Georges Palante
Georges Toussaint Léon Palante was a French philosopher and sociologist.He advocated aristocratic individualist ideas similar to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. He was opposed to Émile Durkheim's holism, promoting methodological individualism instead.-Life:Palante was born in Blangy-les-Arras in the...
.
From the legacy of Proudhon and Stirner there emerged a strong tradition of French individualist anarchism. An early figure was Anselme Bellegarrigue
Anselme Bellegarrigue
Anselme Bellegarrigue was a French individualist anarchist, born between 1820 and 1825 in Toulouse and presumed dead around the end of the 19th century in Central America...
He participated in the French Revolution of 1848
French Revolution of 1848
The 1848 Revolution in France was one of a wave of revolutions in 1848 in Europe. In France, the February revolution ended the Orleans monarchy and led to the creation of the French Second Republic. The February Revolution was really the belated second phase of the Revolution of 1830...
, was author and editor of 'Anarchie, Journal de l'Ordre and Au fait ! Au fait ! Interprétation de l'idée démocratique' and wrote the important early Anarchist Manifesto
Anarchist Manifesto
Anarchist Manifesto is a work by Anselme Bellegarrigue, notable for being the first manifesto of anarchism...
in 1850. Autonomie Individuelle was an individualist anarchist publication that ran from 1887 to 1888. It was edited by Jean-Baptiste Louiche, Charles Schæffer and Georges Deherme. Later this tradition continued with such intellectuals as Albert Libertad
Albert Libertad
Joseph Albert was an individualist anarchist militant and writer from France who edited the influential anarchist publication L’Anarchie.- Life and work :...
, André Lorulot, Emile Armand
Emile Armand
Emile Armand was the most influential French individualist anarchist at the beginning of the 20th century and also a dedicated free love/polyamory, intentional community, and pacifist/antimilitarist writer, propagandist and activist...
, Victor Serge
Victor Serge
Victor Serge , born Victor Lvovich Kibalchich , was a Russian revolutionary and writer. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks five months after arriving in Petrograd in January 1919 and later worked for the Comintern as a journalist, editor and translator...
, Zo d'Axa
Zo d'Axa
Alphonse Gallaud de la Pérouse, better known as Zo d'Axa , was an adventurer, anti-militarist, satirist, journalist, and founder of two of the most legendary French magazines, L'EnDehors and La Feuille...
and Rirette Maitrejean
Rirette Maitrejean
Rirette Maitrejean was the pseudonym of Anna Estorges. She was a French individualist anarchist born in 1887 in Tulle who collaborated in the French individualist anarchist magazine L´anarchie along with Emile Armand and Albert Libertad. She had romantic relationships with Maurice Vandamme and...
developed theory in the main individualist anarchist journal in France, L’Anarchie
L’Anarchie
L'Anarchie was a French individualist anarchist journal established in April of 1905 by Albert Libertad. Along with Libertad, contributors to the journal included Émile Armand, André Lorulot, Émilie Lamotte, Raymond Callemin, and Victor Serge)....
in 1905. Outside this journal, Han Ryner
Han Ryner
Jacques Élie Henri Ambroise Ner , also known by the pseudonym Han Ryner, was a French individualist anarchist philosopher and activist and a novelist...
wrote Petit Manuel individualiste (1903). Later appeared the journal L'EnDehors created by Zo d'Axa in 1891.
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
and embraced mutualism while becoming an important propagandist for free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
, while Albert Libertad
Albert Libertad
Joseph Albert was an individualist anarchist militant and writer from France who edited the influential anarchist publication L’Anarchie.- Life and work :...
and Zo d’Axa was influential in violentists circles and championed violent propaganda by the deed while adhering to communitarianism
Communitarianism
Communitarianism is an ideology that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. That community may be the family unit, but it can also be understood in a far wider sense of personal interaction, of geographical location, or of shared history.-Terminology:Though the term...
or anarcho-communism and rejecting work
Refusal of work
Refusal of work is behavior which refuses to adapt to regular employment.As actual behavior, with or without a political or philosophical program, it has been practiced by various subcultures and individuals. Radical political positions have openly advocated refusal of work. From within marxism it...
. Han Ryner
Han Ryner
Jacques Élie Henri Ambroise Ner , also known by the pseudonym Han Ryner, was a French individualist anarchist philosopher and activist and a novelist...
on the other side conciled anarchism with stoicism
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...
. Nevertheless French individualist circles had a strong sense of personal libertarianism and experimentation. Naturism
Naturism
Naturism or nudism is a cultural and political movement practising, advocating and defending social nudity in private and in public. It may also refer to a lifestyle based on personal, family and/or social nudism....
and free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
contents started to have a strong influence in individualist anarchist circles and from there it expanded to the rest of anarchism also appearing in Spanish individualist anarchist groups.
Anarchist naturism was promoted by Henri Zisly
Henri Zisly
Henri Zisly was a french individualist anarchist and naturist. He participated alongside Henry Beylie and Emile Gravelle in many journals such as La nouvelle humanité and La Vie naturelle, which promoted anarchist-naturism.In 1902 he is one of the main initiators along Georges Butaud and Sophie...
, Emile Gravelle
Emile Gravelle
Emile Gravelle was a French individualist anarchist and naturist activist, writer and painter. He published the review "L'Etat Naturel." Collaborated with Henri Zisly & Henri Beylie on "La Nouvelle Humanité," followed by "Le Naturien," "Le Sauvage," "L'Ordre Naturel," & "La Vie Naturelle." His...
and Georges Butaud. Butaud was a individualist "partisan of the milieux libres, publisher of "Flambeau" ("an enemy of authority") in 1901 in Vienna. Most of his energies were devoted to creating anarchist colonies (communautés expérimentales) in which he participated in several.
"In this sense, the theoretical positions and the vital experiences of french individualism are deeply iconoclastic and scandalous, even within libertarian circles. The call of nudist naturism
Naturism
Naturism or nudism is a cultural and political movement practising, advocating and defending social nudity in private and in public. It may also refer to a lifestyle based on personal, family and/or social nudism....
, the strong defence of birth control methods, the idea of "unions of egoists" with the sole justification of sexual practices, that will try to put in practice, not without difficulties, will establish a way of thought and action, and will result in symphathy within some, and a strong rejection within others."
Illegalism
Illegalism
Illegalism is an anarchist philosophy that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland during the early 1900s as an outgrowth of individualist anarchism...
is an anarchist philosophy that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland during the early 1900s as an outgrowth of Stirner's individualist anarchism. Illegalists usually did not seek moral basis for their actions, recognizing only the reality of "might" rather than "right"; for the most part, illegal acts were done simply to satisfy personal desires, not for some greater ideal, although some committed crimes as a form of Propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed is a concept that refers to specific political actions meant to be exemplary to others...
. The illegalists embraced direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
and propaganda by the deed.
In Italy individualist anarchism had a strong tendency towards illegalism
Illegalism
Illegalism is an anarchist philosophy that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland during the early 1900s as an outgrowth of individualist anarchism...
and violent propaganda by the deed similar to French individualist anarchism but perhaps more extreme. The theoretical seeds of current Insurrectionary anarchism
Insurrectionary anarchism
Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory, practice and tendency within the anarchist movement which emphasizes the theme of insurrection within anarchist practice. It is critical of formal organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based on a political programme and...
were already laid out at the end of 19th century Italy in a combination of individualist anarchism criticism of permanent groups and organization with a socialist class struggle worldview. During the early 20th century it is important to note the intellectual work of individualist anarchist Renzo Novatore
Renzo Novatore
- Life :Abele Ricieri Ferrari was born in Arcola, Liguria, Italy on May 12, 1890 in a poor peasant family. He did not adjust to school discipline and quit in the first year never coming back after that. While he worked in his father's farm, he self educated himself with an emphasis in poetry and...
In his thought he adhered to stirnerist disrespect to private property only recognizing property of one's own spirit. Novatore collaborated in the individualist anarchist journal Iconoclasta! alongside the young stirner
Stirner
Stirner:* Max Stirner, pseudonym for Johann Caspar Schmidt , German philosopher and journalist* Karl Stirner , painter, illustrator and poet...
ist illegalist
Illegalism
Illegalism is an anarchist philosophy that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland during the early 1900s as an outgrowth of individualist anarchism...
Bruno Filippi
Bruno Filippi
Bruno Filippi , was an Italian individualist anarchist writer and activist who collaborated in the Italian individualist anarchist magazine Iconoclasta! alongside Renzo Novatore....
Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
received the influence of American individualist anarchism but most importantly it was related to the French currents. At the turn of the century individualism in Spain takes force through the efforts of people such as Dorado Montero, Ricardo Mella, Federico Urales and J. Elizalde who will translate French and American individualists. Important in this respect were also magazines such as La Idea Libre, La revista blanca
La Revista Blanca
La Revista Blanca was a Spanish individualist anarchist magazine of sociology and arts published in Madrid by Joan Montseny y Teresa Mañé from 1898 to 1905 and in Barcelona from June 1, 1923 till August 15, 1936....
, Etica, Iniciales
Iniciales
Iniciales was a Spanish individualist anarchist and naturist eclectic magazine which ran between 1929 and 1937. The first number appeared in Barcelona in February, 1929. Its predecessor was Barcelona's Ética...
, Al margen and Nosotros. In Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
the Scottish-German John Henry McKay became the most important propagandist for individualist anarchist ideas. Adolf Brand
Adolf Brand
Adolf Brand was a German writer, individualist anarchist and pioneering campaigner for the acceptance of male bisexuality and homosexuality.-Biography:...
(1874–1945) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, stirner
Stirner
Stirner:* Max Stirner, pseudonym for Johann Caspar Schmidt , German philosopher and journalist* Karl Stirner , painter, illustrator and poet...
ist anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
and pioneering campaigner for the acceptance of male bisexuality
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
and homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
. Brand published a German homosexual periodical, Der Eigene
Der Eigene
Der Eigene was the first gay journal in the world, published from 1896 to 1932 by Adolf Brand in Berlin. Brand contributed many poems and articles himself...
in 1896. The Irish anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
writer of the Decadent movement
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
influenced individualist anarchists such as Renzo Novatore
Renzo Novatore
- Life :Abele Ricieri Ferrari was born in Arcola, Liguria, Italy on May 12, 1890 in a poor peasant family. He did not adjust to school discipline and quit in the first year never coming back after that. While he worked in his father's farm, he self educated himself with an emphasis in poetry and...
and gained the admiration of Benjamin Tucker
Benjamin Tucker
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker was a proponent of American individualist anarchism in the 19th century, and editor and publisher of the individualist anarchist periodical Liberty.-Summary:Tucker says that he became an anarchist at the age of 18...
.
Social anarchism
Social anarchism is an umbrella term used to identify a broad category of anarchism independent of individualist anarchismIndividualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a...
. Where individualist forms of anarchism emphasize personal autonomy
Autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...
and the rational nature of human beings, social anarchism sees "individual freedom as conceptually connected with social equality and emphasize community and mutual aid." Social anarchism is used to specifically describe anarchist tendencies within anarchism that have an emphasis on the communitarian and cooperative aspects of anarchist theory and practice. Social anarchism includes (but is not limited to) collectivist anarchism
Collectivist anarchism
Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionary doctrine that advocates the abolition of both the state and private ownership of the means of production...
, anarcho-communism, libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production...
, anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. The word syndicalism comes from the French word syndicat which means trade union , from the Latin word syndicus which in turn comes from the Greek word σύνδικος which means caretaker of an issue...
and social ecology
Social ecology
Social ecology is a philosophy developed by Murray Bookchin in the 1960s.It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems, particularly in dominatory hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly...
.
Collectivist anarchism
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists,...
, Johann Most
Johann Most
Johann Joseph Most was a German-American politician, newspaper editor, and orator. He is credited with popularizing the concept of "Propaganda of the deed". His grandson was Boston Celtics radio play-by-play man Johnny Most...
and the anti-authoritarian section of the First International
International Workingmen's Association
The International Workingmen's Association , sometimes called the First International, was an international organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class...
(1864–1876). Unlike mutualists, collectivist anarchists oppose all private ownership of the means of production, instead advocating that ownership be collectivized. This was to be initiated by small cohesive elite group through acts of violence, or "propaganda by the deed," which would inspire the workers to revolt and forcibly collectivize the means of production. Workers would be compensated for their work on the basis of the amount of time they contributed to production, rather than goods being distributed "according to need" as in anarcho-communism. Although the collectivist anarchists advocated compensation for labor, some held out the possibility of a post-revolutionary transition to a communist system of distribution according to need. Collective anarchism arose contemporaneously with Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
but opposed the Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat
Dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...
, despite Marxism striving for a collectivist stateless society.
Some collectivist anarchists do not oppose the use of currency. Some support workers being paid based on the amount of time they contributed to production. These salaries would be used to purchase commodities in a communal market. This contrasts with anarcho-communism where wages would be abolished, and where individuals would take freely from a storehouse of goods "to each according to his need." Many modern-day collectivist anarchists hold their form of anarchism as a permanent society rather than a carryover to anarcho-communism or a gift economy. Some collectivist anarchists such as proponents of participatory economics
Participatory economics
Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is an economic system proposed primarily by activist and political theorist Michael Albert and radical economist Robin Hahnel, among others. It uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the production, consumption and...
believe in remuneration
Remuneration
Remuneration is the total compensation that an employee receives in exchange for the service they perform for their employer. Typically, this consists of monetary rewards, also referred to as wage or salary...
and a form of credit but do not believe in money or markets.
Although Collectivist anarchism
Collectivist anarchism
Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionary doctrine that advocates the abolition of both the state and private ownership of the means of production...
shares many similarities with Anarchist communism
Anarchist communism
Anarchist communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, markets, money, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with...
there are also many key differences between them. For example collectivist anarchists believe that the economy and most or all property should be collectively owned by society while anarchist communists by contrast believe that the concept of ownership should be rejected by society and replaced with the concept of usage. Also Collectivist anarchists
Collectivist anarchism
Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionary doctrine that advocates the abolition of both the state and private ownership of the means of production...
often favor using a form of currency to compensate workers according to the amount of time spent contributing to society and production while Anarcho-communists believe that currency and wages should be abolished all together and goods should be distributed "to each according to his or her need".
Anarchist communism
Self-governance
Self-governance is an abstract concept that refers to several scales of organization.It may refer to personal conduct or family units but more commonly refers to larger scale activities, i.e., professions, industry bodies, religions and political units , up to and including autonomous regions and...
communes
Commune (intentional community)
A commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...
with collective
Collectivism
Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...
use of the means of production
Means of production
Means of production refers to physical, non-human inputs used in production—the factories, machines, and tools used to produce wealth — along with both infrastructural capital and natural capital. This includes the classical factors of production minus financial capital and minus human capital...
, with direct democracy
Direct democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
as the political organizational form, and related to other communes through federation
Federation
A federation , also known as a federal state, is a type of sovereign state characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central government...
would be the freest form of social organisation. However, some anarchist communists oppose the majoritarian nature of direct democracy, feeling that it can impede individual liberty and favor consensus democracy
Consensus democracy
Consensus democracy is the application of consensus decision-making to the process of legislation in a democracy. It is characterised by a decision-making structure which involves and takes into account as broad a range of opinions as possible, as opposed to systems where minority opinions can...
. Joseph Déjacque
Joseph Déjacque
Joseph Déjacque was a French anarcho-communist poet and writer. He sought to abolish "personal property, property in land, buildings, workshops, shops, property in anything that is an instrument of work, production or consumption."Déjacque was the first to employ the term libertarian in a...
was an early anarchist communist and the first person to describe himself as "libertarian
Libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production...
". Other important anarchist communists include Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...
, Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
, Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century....
and Errico Malatesta
Errico Malatesta
Errico Malatesta was an Italian anarcho-communist. He was an insurrectionary anarchist early in his life. He spent much of his life exiled from his homeland of Italy and in total spent more than ten years in prison. He wrote and edited a number of radical newspapers and was also a friend of...
.
In anarchist communism, individuals would not receive direct compensation
Remuneration
Remuneration is the total compensation that an employee receives in exchange for the service they perform for their employer. Typically, this consists of monetary rewards, also referred to as wage or salary...
for labour (through sharing of profits
Profit (economics)
In economics, the term profit has two related but distinct meanings. Normal profit represents the total opportunity costs of a venture to an entrepreneur or investor, whilst economic profit In economics, the term profit has two related but distinct meanings. Normal profit represents the total...
or payment), but would instead have free access to the resources and surplus of the commune
Commune (intentional community)
A commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...
. Kropotkin, on the basis of his biological
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
research and experimentation, believed that humans and human society are more inclined towards efforts for mutual benefit than toward competition and strife. Kropotkin believed that private property
Private property
Private property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which refers to assets owned by a state, community or government rather than by...
was one of the causes of oppression and exploitation and called for its abolition, but he only opposed ownership
Ownership
Ownership is the state or fact of exclusive rights and control over property, which may be an object, land/real estate or intellectual property. Ownership involves multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different parties. The concept of ownership has...
, not possession.
Some anarcho-syndicalists
Anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. The word syndicalism comes from the French word syndicat which means trade union , from the Latin word syndicus which in turn comes from the Greek word σύνδικος which means caretaker of an issue...
saw anarchist communism as their objective; for example, the Spanish CNT adopted Isaac Puente
Isaac Puente
Isaac Puente Amestoy was a Basque physician and Spanish anarchist who adhered to anarcho-naturism, active in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo...
's 1932 El comunismo libertario
Libertarian communism
Libertarian communism is a theory of libertarianism which advocates the abolition of the state and private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, a direct democracy and self-governance....
as its manifesto for a post-revolutionary society. Platformism
Platformism
Platformism is a tendency within the wider anarchist movement originally theorised by Nestor Makhno and is mainly based on his concept of anarchism and the organisational theories in the tradition of Dielo Truda's Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists ...
is an anarchist communist tendency in the tradition of Nestor Makhno
Nestor Makhno
Nestor Ivanovych Makhno or simply Daddy Makhno was a Ukrainian anarcho-communist guerrilla leader turned army commander who led an independent anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War....
who argued for the "vital need of an organization which, having attracted most of the participants in the anarchist movement, would establish a common tactical and political line for anarchism and thereby serve as a guide for the whole movement."
Anarcho-communism does not always have a communitarian philosophy. Some forms of anarchist communism are egoist
Egoist anarchism
Egoist anarchism is a school of anarchist thought that originated in the philosophy of Max Stirner, a nineteenth century Hegelian philosopher whose "name appears with familiar regularity in historically orientated surveys of anarchist thought as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of...
and strongly influenced by radical individualist, believing that anarcho-communism does not require a communitarian nature at all. Forms of libertarian communism
Libertarian communism
Libertarian communism is a theory of libertarianism which advocates the abolition of the state and private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, a direct democracy and self-governance....
such as Situationism are strongly Egoist in nature. Anarchist communist Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
was influenced by both Stirner and Kropotkin and blended their philosophies together in her own, as shown in books of hers such as Anarchism And Other Essays.
Platformism
Platformism is a tendency within the wider anarchist movement which shares an affinity with organising in the tradition of Dielo Truda'sDielo Truda
Dielo Truda was an anarchist and platformist journal first published 1925 by a society called the Group of Russian Anarchists Abroad.Russian political exiles formed the group in Paris after the Russian Revolution of 1917...
Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft). The Platform came from the experiences of Russian anarchists in the 1917 October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, which led eventually to the victory of Bolsheviks over the anarchists and other like-minded groups. The Platform attempted to explain and address the failure of the anarchist movement during the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
. As a controversial pamphlet, the Platform drew both praise and criticism from anarchists worldwide.
Anarcho-syndicalism
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society, democratically self-managed by the workers. Anarcho-syndicalists seek to abolish the wage system and private ownership of the means of production, which they believe lead to class divisions. Important principles of syndicalism include workers' solidarity, direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
(such as general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
s and workplace recuperations), and workers' self-management
Workers' self-management
Worker self-management is a form of workplace decision-making in which the workers themselves agree on choices instead of an owner or traditional supervisor telling workers what to do, how to do it and where to do it...
.
Anarcho-syndicalism and other branches of anarchism are not mutually exclusive: anarcho-syndicalists often subscribe to communist or collectivist anarchism. Its advocates propose labour organization as a means to create the foundations of a non-hierarchical anarchist society within the current system and bring about social revolution.
According to An Anarchist FAQ
An Anarchist FAQ
"An Anarchist FAQ" is an FAQ written by an international work group of social anarchists connected through the internet. It documents anarchist theory and ideas while arguing that social anarchism is a better form of anarchism than individualist anarchism, which it critiques. It also explores other...
, anarcho-syndicalist economic systems often take the form of either a collectivist anarchist
Collectivist anarchism
Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionary doctrine that advocates the abolition of both the state and private ownership of the means of production...
economic system or an anarcho-communist economic system.
Rudolf Rocker
Rudolf Rocker
Johann Rudolf Rocker was an anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist. A self-professed anarchist without adjectives, Rocker believed that anarchist schools of thought represented "only different methods of economy" and that the first objective for anarchists was "to secure the personal and social...
is considered a leading anarcho-syndicalist theorist. He outlined a view of the origins of the movement, what it sought, and why it was important to the future of labour in his 1938 pamphlet Anarchosyndicalism. Although more frequently associated with labor struggles of the early 20th century (particularly in France
Anarchism in France
Thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who grew up during the Restoration was the first self-described anarchist. French anarchists fought in the Spanish Civil War as volunteers in the International Brigades. French anarchism reached its height in the late 19th century...
and Spain
Anarchism in Spain
Anarchism has historically gained more support and influence in Spain than anywhere else, especially before Francisco Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939....
), many syndicalist organizations are active today, including the SAC
Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden
Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden is an anarcho-syndicalist trade union federation in Sweden. Unlike other Swedish unions, SAC organizes people from all occupations, including the unemployed, students, and the retired...
in Sweden, the USI
Unione Sindacale Italiana
Unione Sindacale Italiana is an anarcho-syndicalist trade union. It is the Italian section of the International Workers Association , and the name of USI is...
in Italy, and the CNT
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions affiliated with the International Workers Association . When working with the latter group it is also known as CNT-AIT...
in Spain. A number of these organizations are united across national borders by membership in the International Workers Association
International Workers Association
The International Workers' Association is an international federation of anarcho-syndicalist labour unions and initiatives based primarily in Europe and Latin America....
.
Religious anarchism
Buddhist anarchism
Some observers believe certain Buddhist teachings form a philosophical ground for anarchism.-Inferences drawn from the Three Universal Truths:Buddhism is rooted in three fundamental truths of the universe, the dharma seals, viz.:...
, Jewish anarchism
Jewish anarchism
Jewish anarchism is a general term encompassing various expressions of anarchism within the Jewish community.- Secular Jewish Anarchism :Many people of Jewish origin, such as Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Martin Buber, Murray Bookchin, Noam Chomsky, Murray Rothbard or David D. Friedman have...
and most recently Neopaganism
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
. Neopaganism focuses on the sanctity of the environment
Environment (biophysical)
The biophysical environment is the combined modeling of the physical environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and includes all variables, parameters as well as conditions and modes inside the Earth's biosphere. The biophysical environment can be divided into two categories:...
and equality, and is often of a decentralized nature. This led to a number of Neopagan-inspired anarchists, one of the most prominent of which is Starhawk
Starhawk
Starhawk is an American writer and activist. She is well known as a theorist of Paganism, and is one of the foremost popular voices of ecofeminism. She is a columnist for Beliefnet.com and On Faith, the Newsweek/Washington Post online forum on religion...
, who writes extensively about both spirituality
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
and activism.
Christian anarchism
Christian anarchismChristian anarchism
Christian anarchism is a movement in political theology that combines anarchism and Christianity. It is the belief that there is only one source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable, the authority of God as embodied in the teachings of Jesus...
is a form of religious anarchism that seeks to combine anarchism with Christianity, claiming that anarchism is justified by the teachings of Jesus Christ. Early Christian communities have been described by Christian anarchists and some historians as possessing anarcho-communist characteristics. Christian anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
and Ammon Hennacy
Ammon Hennacy
Ammon Ashford Hennacy was an Irish American pacifist, Christian anarchist, social activist, member of the Catholic Worker Movement and a Wobbly...
believe that the teachings of Paul of Tarsus
Paul of Tarsus
Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
caused a shift from the earlier more egalitarian and anarchistic teachings of Jesus. Others, however, believe that Paul with his strong emphasis on God's Providence, is to be understood as a holding to anarchist principles.
Anarcho-pacifism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
which completely rejects the use of violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
in any form for any purpose. The main prescedent was Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
who through his work Civil Disobedience
Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)
Civil Disobedience is an essay by American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849...
influenced both Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
and Mohandas Gandhi advocacy of Nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
. As a global movement, Anarchist pacifism emerged shortly before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in Holland, Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and was a strong presence in the subsequent campaigns for nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated....
.
Violence has always been controversial in anarchism. While many anarchists during the 19th century embraced propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed is a concept that refers to specific political actions meant to be exemplary to others...
, Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
and other anarcho-pacifists directly opposed violence as a means for change. He argued that anarchism must by nature be nonviolent since it is, by definition, opposition to coercion and force, and that since the state is inherently violent, meaningful pacifism must likewise be anarchistic. His philosophy was cited as a major inspiration by Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian independence
Indian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...
leader and pacifist who self-identified as an anarchist. Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis
Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis
Ferdinand Jacobus Domela Nieuwenhuis was the Netherlands' first prominent socialist. He was a Lutheran preacher who, after he lost his faith, started a political fight for workers. He was the first socialist in the Dutch parliament.Nieuwenhuis was born in Amsterdam. His family added the second...
was also instrumental in establishing the pacifist trend within the anarchist movement. In France anti-militarism appeared strongly in individualist anarchist circles as Émile Armand
Emile Armand
Emile Armand was the most influential French individualist anarchist at the beginning of the 20th century and also a dedicated free love/polyamory, intentional community, and pacifist/antimilitarist writer, propagandist and activist...
founded "Ligue Antimilitariste" in 1902 with Albert Libertad
Albert Libertad
Joseph Albert was an individualist anarchist militant and writer from France who edited the influential anarchist publication L’Anarchie.- Life and work :...
and George Mathias Paraf-Javal.
Contemporary developments
Anarchism generates many eclectic and syncreticSyncretic politics
Syncretic politics or spectral-syncretic refers to a form of politics outside of the conventional left-right political spectrum, this term is especially used by some scholars to describe the political nature of fascism...
philosophies and movements. Since the revival of anarchism in the mid 20th century, a number of new movements and schools have appeared. Anarchist anthropologist David Graeber
David Graeber
David Rolfe Graeber is an American anthropologist and anarchist who currently holds the position of Reader in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He was an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, although Yale controversially declined to rehire him, and his...
has posited a rupture between generations of anarchism, with those "who often still have not shaken the sectarian habits of the last century" contrasted with the younger activists who are "much more informed, among other elements, by indigenous
Traditional knowledge
Traditional knowledge , indigenous knowledge , traditional environmental knowledge and local knowledge generally refer to the long-standing traditions and practices of certain regional, indigenous, or local communities. Traditional knowledge also encompasses the wisdom, knowledge, and teachings...
, feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, ecological
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
and cultural-critical
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
ideas", and who by the turn of the 21st century formed "by far the majority" of anarchists.
Contemporary free market anarchism
MutualismMutualism (economic theory)
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought that originates in the writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who envisioned a society where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market...
, initially developed in the 19th century, has reemerged in the 21st century within left-libertarianism
Left-libertarianism
Left-libertarianism names several related but distinct approaches to politics, society, culture, and political and social theory, which stress equally both individual freedom and social justice.-Schools of thought:...
, incorporating modern economic ideas such as marginal utility
Marginal utility
In economics, the marginal utility of a good or service is the utility gained from an increase in the consumption of that good or service...
theory. Kevin A. Carson
Kevin A. Carson
Kevin Amos Carson is a American social and political theorist and scholar of political economy writing in the mutualist and individualist anarchist traditions....
's book Studies in Mutualist Political Economy was influential in this regard, updating the labor theory of value
Labor theory of value
The labor theories of value are heterodox economic theories of value which argue that the value of a commodity is related to the labor needed to produce or obtain that commodity. The concept is most often associated with Marxian economics...
in response to Austrian economics
Austrian School
The Austrian School of economics is a heterodox school of economic thought. It advocates methodological individualism in interpreting economic developments , the theory that money is non-neutral, the theory that the capital structure of economies consists of heterogeneous goods that have...
. Contemporary mutualists are among those involved in the Alliance of the Libertarian Left and in the Voluntary Cooperation Movement. Agorism
Agorism
Agorism is a political philosophy founded by Samuel Edward Konkin III and developed with contributions by J. Neil Schulman that holds as its ultimate goal bringing about a society in which all "relations between people are voluntary exchanges – a free market." The term comes from the Greek...
, an anarchist tendency founded by Samuel Edward Konkin III
Samuel Edward Konkin III
Samuel Edward Konkin III was the author of the New Libertarian Manifesto and a proponent of the political philosophy which he called agorism. Agorism is a leftward evolution of anarcho-capitalism, and subset of market anarchism...
, advocates counter-economics
Counter-economics
Counter-economics is a term originally used by Samuel Edward Konkin III and J. Neil Schulman, libertarian activists and theorists. Konkin defined it as "the study and/or practice of all peaceful human action which is forbidden by the State." The term is short for "counter-establishment economics"...
– working in untaxed black or grey market
Grey market
A grey market or gray market also known as parallel market is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels which, while legal, are unofficial, unauthorized, or unintended by the original manufacturer...
s and boycotting as much as possible the unfree taxed market – with the intended result that private voluntary institutions emerge and out-compete statist ones. Geoanarchism, an anarchist form of Henry George
Henry George
Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...
's philosophy, is considered left-libertarian because it assumes land to be initially owned in common, so that when land is privately appropriated the proprietor pays rent to the community. These philosophies share similar concerns and are collectively known as left-libertarianism.
Anarcho-capitalism is "based on a belief in the freedom to own private property
Property
Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...
, a rejection of any form of governmental authority or intervention, and the upholding of the competitive free market as the main mechanism for social interaction." Because of the historically anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
nature of much of anarchist thought, the status of anarcho-capitalism within anarchism
Anarchism and anarcho-capitalism
This article discusses similarities and differences between anarcho-capitalism and other types of anarchism. Some social anarchists argue that anarcho-capitalism is not a form of anarchism due to their understanding of capitalism as inherently authoritarian...
is disputed, particularly by Libertarian socialists and communist anarchists
Anarchist communism
Anarchist communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, markets, money, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with...
. Conversely, anarcho-capitalists sometimes argue that socialist schools of anarchism are themselves logically impossible.
Anarcho-capitalists distinguish between free market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
capitalism – peaceful voluntary exchange – from state capitalism
State capitalism
The term State capitalism has various meanings, but is usually described as commercial economic activity undertaken by the state with management of the productive forces in a capitalist manner, even if the state is nominally socialist. State capitalism is usually characterized by the dominance or...
, which Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...
defined as a collusive partnership between big business
Big Business
Big business is a term used to describe large corporations, in either an individual or collective sense. The term first came into use in a symbolic sense subsequent to the American Civil War, particularly after 1880, in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at...
and government that uses coercion
Coercion
Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force. In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way...
to subvert the free market. Whether in its natural rights-based, contractarian, or utilitarian formulations, anarcho-capitalism has a theory of legitimacy that supports private property as long as it was obtained by labor, trade, or gift.
Proponents argue that in an anarcho-capitalist society, voluntary market processes would result in the provision of social institutions such as law enforcement
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
, defence
National security
National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...
and infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
by competing for-profit firms, charities
Charity (practice)
The practice of charity means the voluntary giving of help to those in need who are not related to the giver.- Etymology :The word "charity" entered the English language through the Old French word "charité" which was derived from the Latin "caritas".Originally in Latin the word caritas meant...
or voluntary associations
Voluntaryism
Voluntarism, or voluntaryism, is a philosophy according to which all forms of human association should be voluntary. This moral principle is called the non-aggression principle, which prohibits the initiation of aggressive force or coercion...
rather than the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
. In Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism, law (the non-aggression principle) is enforced by the market but not created by it, while according to David D. Friedman
David D. Friedman
David Director Friedman is an American economist, author, and Right-libertarian theorist. He is known as a leader in anarcho-capitalist political theory, which is the subject of his most popular book, The Machinery of Freedom...
's utilitarian version, the law itself is produced by the market.
Although the term anarcho-capitalism was coined by Rothbard, and its origin is attributed to 1960s United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, some historians, including Rothbard, trace the school of thought as far back as the mid-19th century, to market theorists such as Gustave de Molinari
Gustave de Molinari
Gustave de Molinari was an economist born in Belgium associated with French laissez-faire liberal economists such as Frédéric Bastiat and Hippolyte Castille. Living in Paris, in the 1840s, he took part in the "Ligue pour la Liberté des Échanges" , animated by Frédéric Bastiat...
. Anarcho-capitalism has drawn influence from pro-market theorists such as Molinari, Frédéric Bastiat
Frédéric Bastiat
Claude Frédéric Bastiat was a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly. He was notable for developing the important economic concept of opportunity cost.-Biography:...
, and Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick was an American political philosopher, most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia , a right-libertarian answer to John Rawls's A Theory of Justice...
, as well as American individualist thinkers such as Benjamin Tucker
Benjamin Tucker
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker was a proponent of American individualist anarchism in the 19th century, and editor and publisher of the individualist anarchist periodical Liberty.-Summary:Tucker says that he became an anarchist at the age of 18...
and Lysander Spooner
Lysander Spooner
Lysander Spooner was an American individualist anarchist, political philosopher, Deist, abolitionist, supporter of the labor movement, legal theorist, and entrepreneur of the nineteenth century. He is also known for competing with the U.S...
.
Considered a form of individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a...
, it differs from the individualism of the Boston anarchists of the 19th century in its rejection of the labor theory of value
Labor theory of value
The labor theories of value are heterodox economic theories of value which argue that the value of a commodity is related to the labor needed to produce or obtain that commodity. The concept is most often associated with Marxian economics...
(and its normative
Norm (philosophy)
Norms are concepts of practical import, oriented to effecting an action, rather than conceptual abstractions that describe, explain, and express. Normative sentences imply “ought-to” types of statements and assertions, in distinction to sentences that provide “is” types of statements and assertions...
implications) in favor of the neoclassical
Neoclassical economics
Neoclassical economics is a term variously used for approaches to economics focusing on the determination of prices, outputs, and income distributions in markets through supply and demand, often mediated through a hypothesized maximization of utility by income-constrained individuals and of profits...
or Austrian School
Austrian School
The Austrian School of economics is a heterodox school of economic thought. It advocates methodological individualism in interpreting economic developments , the theory that money is non-neutral, the theory that the capital structure of economies consists of heterogeneous goods that have...
marginalist
Marginalism
Marginalism refers to the use of marginal concepts in economic theory. Marginalism is associated with arguments concerning changes in the quantity used of a good or service, as opposed to some notion of the over-all significance of that class of good or service, or of some total quantity...
view. Anarcho-capitalist ideas have contributed to the development of agorism
Agorism
Agorism is a political philosophy founded by Samuel Edward Konkin III and developed with contributions by J. Neil Schulman that holds as its ultimate goal bringing about a society in which all "relations between people are voluntary exchanges – a free market." The term comes from the Greek...
, autarchism
Autarchism
Autarchism is a political philosophy that upholds the principle of individual liberty, rejects compulsory government, and supports the elimination of government in favor of ruling oneself and no other...
, voluntaryism
Voluntaryism
Voluntarism, or voluntaryism, is a philosophy according to which all forms of human association should be voluntary. This moral principle is called the non-aggression principle, which prohibits the initiation of aggressive force or coercion...
, paleolibertarianism
Paleolibertarianism
Paleolibertarianism is a school of thought within American libertarianism associated with the late economist Murray Rothbard, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute. It is based on a combination of right-libertarianism in politics and cultural conservatism in social thought...
, and crypto-anarchism
Crypto-anarchism
Crypto-anarchism expounds the use of strong public-key cryptography to bring about privacy and freedom. It was described by Vernor Vinge as a cyberspatial realization of anarchism. Crypto-anarchists aim to create cryptographic software that can be used to evade prosecution and harassment while...
. Institutes related to capitalist anarchism are Center for Libertarian Studies
Center for Libertarian Studies
The Center for Libertarian Studies was a libertarian and anarcho-capitalist oriented educational organization founded in 1976 by Murray Rothbard and Burton Blumert, which grew out of the Libertarian Scholars Conferences...
and Ludwig von Mises Institute
Ludwig von Mises Institute
The Ludwig von Mises Institute , based in Auburn, Alabama, is a libertarian academic organization engaged in research and scholarship in the fields of economics, philosophy and political economy. Its scholarship is inspired by the work of Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises...
in US, and Libertarian Alliance
Libertarian Alliance
The Libertarian Alliance comprises two libertarian think tanks in Great Britain that promote free-market economics and civil liberties...
in UK.
Autarchism
Autarchism
Autarchism is a political philosophy that upholds the principle of individual liberty, rejects compulsory government, and supports the elimination of government in favor of ruling oneself and no other...
is a philosophy subscribed to by Robert LeFevre
Robert LeFevre
Robert LeFevre was an American libertarian businessman, radio personality, and primary theorist of autarchism.-Early life:...
, who stated “Autarchy is self-rule. It means that each person rules himself, and no other.” Autarchism rejects compulsory government and supports "private capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
."
Anarcha-feminism
Radical feminism
Radical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
and anarchism that views patriarchy (male domination over women) as a fundamental manifestation of involuntary hierarchy which anarchists often oppose. Anarcha-feminism was inspired in the late 19th century by the writings of early feminist anarchists such as Lucy Parsons
Lucy Parsons
Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons was an American labor organizer and radical socialist. She is remembered as a powerful orator.-Life:...
, Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
and Voltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre was an American anarchist writer and feminist. She was a prolific writer and speaker, opposing the state, marriage, and the domination of religion in sexuality and women's lives. She began her activist career in the freethought movement...
. Anarcha-feminists, like other radical feminists, criticize and advocate the abolition of traditional conceptions of family, education and gender roles. Anarcha-feminists are especially critical of marriage. For instance, the feminist anarchist Emma Goldman has argued that marriage is a purely economic arrangement... "[woman] pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life."
Anarcha-feminists also often criticize the views of some of the traditional anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists,...
who have believed that patriarchy is only a minor problem and is dependent only on the existence of the state and capitalism and will disappear soon after such institutions are abolished. Anarcha-feminists by contrast view patriarchy as a fundamental problem in society and believe that the feminist struggle against sexism and patriarchy is an essential component of the anarchist struggle against the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
and capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. As Susan Brown
L. Susan Brown
L. Susan Brown is a Canadian anarcho-communist writer and theoretician.Brown is best-known for her germinal text The Politics of Individualism , in which she makes a distinction between "existential individualism" and "instrumental individualism" and examines how these forms are utilized in...
puts it, "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist".
Anarcho-queer
Anarcho-queer is a form a socialism which suggests anarchism as a solution to the issues faced by the LGBT community, mainly heteronormativityHeteronormativity
Heteronormativity is a term invented in 1991 to describe any of a set of lifestyle norms that hold that people fall into distinct and complementary genders with natural roles in life. It also holds that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation, and states that sexual and marital relations...
, homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
, transphobia
Transphobia
Transphobia is a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards transsexualism and transsexual or transgender people, based on the expression of their internal gender...
and biphobia
Biphobia
Biphobia is a term used to describe aversion felt toward bisexuality and bisexuals as a social group or as individuals. People of any sexual orientation can experience such feelings of aversion...
. Anarcho-queer arose during the late 20th century based on the work of Michel Foucault The History of Sexuality
The History of Sexuality
The History of Sexuality is a three-volume series of books by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault written between 1976 and 1984...
.
Green anarchism
Green anarchism (or eco-anarchism) is a school of thought within anarchism which puts an emphasis on environmental issues. Important contemporary currents are anarcho-primitivismAnarcho-primitivism
Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation...
and social ecology
Social ecology
Social ecology is a philosophy developed by Murray Bookchin in the 1960s.It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems, particularly in dominatory hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly...
. Many advocates of green anarchism and primitivism consider Fredy Perlman
Fredy Perlman
Fredy Perlman was an author, publisher and activist. His most popular work, the book Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, details the rise of state domination with a retelling of history through the Hobbesian metaphor of the Leviathan. The book remains a major source of inspiration for...
as the modern progenitor of their views.
Notable contemporary writers espousing green anarchism include Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics,...
, Daniel Chodorkoff, anthropologist Brian Morris
Brian Morris (anthropologist)
Brian Morris is emeritus professor of anthropology at Goldsmiths College at the University of London. He is a specialist on folk taxonomy, ethnobotany and ethnozoology, and on religion and symbolism....
, and people around Institute for Social Ecology
Institute for Social Ecology
The Institute for Social Ecology is an educational institution in the United States offering courses related to social ecology, an anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian strain of ecology that is a form of libertarian socialism. It was founded in 1974 by Murray Bookchin and Daniel Chodorkoff...
; those critical of technology such as Derrick Jensen
Derrick Jensen
Derrick Jensen is an American author and environmental activist living in Crescent City, California. Jensen has published several books questioning and critiquing modern civilization and its values, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He holds a B.S...
, George Draffan, and John Zerzan
John Zerzan
John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric humans as an inspiration for what a free society should look like...
; and others including Alan Carter
Alan Carter (philosopher)
Alan Brian Carter is the Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow.He earned a BA at the University of Kent at Canterbury, an MA at the University of Sussex and a DPhil at St Cross College at the University of Oxford.Carter's first academic position was Lecturer in Political...
, and Stewart Davidson
Social ecologists, also considered a kind of socialist anarchist, often criticize the main currents of anarchism for their focus and debates about politics and economics instead of a focus on eco-system (human and environmental). This theory promote libertarian municipalism
Libertarian municipalism
Libertarian municipalism is a term first used by libertarian socialist theorist Murray Bookchin, and is used to describe a system in which libertarian institutions of directly democratic assemblies would oppose and replace the state with a confederation of free municipalities...
and green technology. Anarcho-primitivists often criticize mainstream anarchism for supporting civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
and modern technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
which they believe are inherently based on domination and exploitation. They instead advocate the process of rewilding
Rewilding (anarchism)
Rewilding is the process of re-instating the role of keystone species to human society where the expression of this role appears lacking. The term originates in conservation biology in which "rewilding" stands for the re-introduction of keystone species into areas where such species appear locally...
or reconnecting with the natural environment. Veganarchism
Veganarchism
Veganarchism or vegan anarchism, is the political philosophy of veganism and anarchism, creating a combined praxis that is designed to be a means for social revolution. This encompasses viewing the state as unnecessary and harmful to animals, both human and non-human, whilst practising a vegan...
is the political philosophy of veganism
Veganism
Veganism is the practice of eliminating the use of animal products. Ethical vegans reject the commodity status of animals and the use of animal products for any purpose, while dietary vegans or strict vegetarians eliminate them from their diet only...
(more specifically animal liberation
Animal liberation movement
The animal-liberation movement, sometimes called the animal-rights movement, animal personhood, or animal-advocacy movement, is a social movement which seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and...
) and green anarchism. This encompasses viewing the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
as unnecessary and harmful to both human and animals, whilst practising a vegan diet.
Anarcho-naturism
Anarcho-naturism (also anarchist naturism and naturist anarchism) appeared in the late 19th century as the union of anarchist and naturist philosophies. Mainly it had importance within individualist anarchist circlesin Spain, France, Portugal. and Cuba.
Anarcho-naturism advocated vegetarianism
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
, free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
, nudism, hiking
Hiking
Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often in mountainous or other scenic terrain. People often hike on hiking trails. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous hiking organizations worldwide. The health benefits of different types of hiking...
and an ecological world view within anarchist groups and outside them. Anarcho-naturism promoted an ecological worldview, small ecovillage
Ecovillage
Ecovillages are intentional communities with the goal of becoming more socially, economically and ecologically sustainable. Some aim for a population of 50–150 individuals. Larger ecovillages of up to 2,000 individuals exist as networks of smaller subcommunities to create an ecovillage model that...
s, and most prominently nudism as a way to avoid the artificiality of the industrial
Industrialisation
Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
mass society
Mass society
Mass society is a description associated with society in the modern, industrial era. "Guided by the structural-functional approach and drawing on the ideas of Tönnies, Durkheim, and Weber, understands modernity as the emergence of a mass society...
of modernity. Naturist individualist anarchists saw the individual in his biological, physical and psychological aspects and tried to eliminate social determinations."EL NATURISMO LIBERTARIO EN LA PENÍNSULA IBÉRICA (1890-1939)" by Josep Maria Rosell]
Social ecology
Social ecology is a philosophy developed by Murray BookchinMurray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics,...
in the 1960s.
It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems
Social problems
Social problems are problems and difficulties that people often face in society. These include:*crime*corruption*poverty*homelessness*hunger*disease*drug addiction*alcoholism*schizophrenia*depression*pollution...
, particularly in dominatory hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly competitive grow-or-die philosophy. It suggests that this cannot be resisted by individual action such as ethical consumerism
Ethical consumerism
Ethical consumerism is the intentional purchase of products and services that the customer considers to be made ethically. This may mean with minimal harm to or exploitation of humans, animals and/or the natural environment...
but must be addressed by more nuanced ethical thinking and collective activity grounded in radical democratic ideals
Radical democracy
Radical democracy as an ideology was articulated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in their book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, written in 1985. They argue that social movements which attempt to create social and political change need a strategy which...
. The complexity of relationships between people and with nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
is emphasised, along with the importance of establishing social structures that take account of this.
Anarcho-primitivism
Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchistAnarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
critique of the origins and progress of civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
to agricultural
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
subsistence gave rise to social stratification
Social stratification
In sociology the social stratification is a concept of class, involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions."...
, coercion
Coercion
Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force. In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way...
, and alienation
Social alienation
The term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...
. Anarcho-primitivists advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialisation, abolition of the division of labour
Division of labour
Division of labour is the specialisation of cooperative labour in specific, circumscribed tasks and likeroles. Historically an increasingly complex division of labour is closely associated with the growth of total output and trade, the rise of capitalism, and of the complexity of industrialisation...
or specialization
Specialization (functional)
Specialization is the separation of tasks within a system. In a multicellular creature, cells are specialized for functions such as bone construction or oxygen transport. In capitalist societies, individual workers specialize for functions such as building construction or gasoline transport...
, and abandonment of large-scale organization technologies
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
. There are other non-anarchist forms of primitivism
Primitivism
Primitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
, and not all primitivists point to the same phenomenon as the source of modern, civilized problems.
Many traditional anarchists reject the critique of civilization, many even denying that anarcho-primitivism has anything to do with anarchism, while some, such as Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher is the former nom de plume of a contemporary anarchist philosopher involved in theoretical and practical activity...
, endorse the critique but do not consider themselves anarcho-primitivists. Some Anarcho-primitivists are often distinguished by their focus on the praxis of achieving a feral
Feral
A feral organism is one that has changed from being domesticated to being wild or untamed. In the case of plants it is a movement from cultivated to uncultivated or controlled to volunteer. The introduction of feral animals or plants to their non-native regions, like any introduced species, may...
state of being through "rewilding
Rewilding (anarchism)
Rewilding is the process of re-instating the role of keystone species to human society where the expression of this role appears lacking. The term originates in conservation biology in which "rewilding" stands for the re-introduction of keystone species into areas where such species appear locally...
".
Post-left anarchy
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
. Some post-leftists seek to escape the confines of ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
in general also presenting a critique of organizations and morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
. Influenced by the work of Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
and by the Situationist International, post-left anarchy is marked by a focus on social insurrection
Insurrectionary anarchism
Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory, practice and tendency within the anarchist movement which emphasizes the theme of insurrection within anarchist practice. It is critical of formal organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based on a political programme and...
and a rejection of leftist social organisation.
The magazines Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed is a North American anarchist magazine, and is one of the most popular anarchist publications in North America. It could be described as a general interest and critical, non-ideological anarchist journal...
, Green Anarchy
Green Anarchy
Green Anarchy was a magazine published by a collective located in Eugene, Oregon. The magazine's focus was primitivism, post-left anarchy, radical environmentalism, African American struggles, anarchist resistance, indigenous resistance, earth and animal liberation, anti-capitalism and supporting...
and Fifth Estate have been involved in developing post-left anarchy. Individual writers associated with the tendency are Hakim Bey, Bob Black
Bob Black
Bob Black is an American anarchist. He is the author of The Abolition of Work and Other Essays, Beneath the Underground, Friendly Fire, Anarchy After Leftism, and numerous political essays.-Writing:Some of his work from the early 1980s includes...
, John Zerzan
John Zerzan
John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric humans as an inspiration for what a free society should look like...
, Jason McQuinn
Jason McQuinn
Jason McQuinn is an American anarchist, founder and co-editor of Alternative Press Review, and founder and former co-editor of the journal Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed from 1980 to 1995, when Tad Kepley took it over, and again from 1997 to 2006...
, Fredy Perlman
Fredy Perlman
Fredy Perlman was an author, publisher and activist. His most popular work, the book Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, details the rise of state domination with a retelling of history through the Hobbesian metaphor of the Leviathan. The book remains a major source of inspiration for...
, Lawrence Jarach
Lawrence Jarach
- External links :* official website.Publications*"" by Lawrence Jarach at the Berkeley Daily Planet...
and Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher is the former nom de plume of a contemporary anarchist philosopher involved in theoretical and practical activity...
. The contemporary network of collectives CrimethInc.
CrimethInc.
CrimethInc., also known as CWC , is a decentralized anarchist collective of autonomous cells. CrimethInc. emerged in the mid-1990s, initially as the hardcore zine Inside Front, and began operating as a collective in 1996...
is an exponent of post-left anarchist views.
Post-anarchism
The term post-anarchismPost-anarchism
Post-anarchism or postanarchism is the term used to represent anarchist philosophies developed since the 1980s using post-structuralist and postmodernist approaches. Some prefer to use the term post-structuralist anarchism, so as not to suggest having moved "past" anarchism...
was originated by Saul Newman
Saul Newman
Saul Newman is a political theorist and central post-anarchist thinker.Newman coined the term "post-anarchism" as a general term for political philosophies filtering 19th century anarchism through a post-structuralist lens, and later popularized it through his 2001 book From Bakunin to Lacan...
, and first received popular attention in his book From Bakunin to Lacan
From Bakunin to Lacan
From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power is a book on political philosophy by Saul Newman, published in 2001. It investigates the essentialist characteristics of anarchist theory, which holds that government and hierarchy are undesirable forms of social organisation...
to refer to a theoretical move towards a synthesis of classical anarchist theory and poststructuralist thought. Subsequent to Newman's use of the term, however, it has taken on a life of its own and a wide range of ideas including post-modernism, autonomism
Autonomism
Autonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. As an identifiable theoretical system it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerist communism...
, post-left anarchy
Post-left anarchy
Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchism's relationship to traditional leftism. Some post-leftists seek to escape the confines of ideology in general also presenting a critique of organizations and morality...
, situationism, post-colonialism and Zapatismo. By its very nature post-anarchism rejects the idea that it should be a coherent set of doctrines and beliefs. As such it is difficult, if not impossible, to state with any degree of certainty who should or should not be grouped under the rubric. Nonetheless key thinkers associated with post-anarchism include Saul Newman
Saul Newman
Saul Newman is a political theorist and central post-anarchist thinker.Newman coined the term "post-anarchism" as a general term for political philosophies filtering 19th century anarchism through a post-structuralist lens, and later popularized it through his 2001 book From Bakunin to Lacan...
, Todd May
Todd May
Todd May is a political philosopher notable for his role in developing, alongside Saul Newman and Lewis Call, the theory of post-structuralist anarchism. He is currently Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of Philosophy at Clemson University and contributes to CounterPunch...
, Lewis Call
Lewis Call
Lewis Call is an American academic notable for being a central post-anarchist thinker. He is best known for his 2002 book Postmodern Anarchism, which develops an account of postmodern anarchism through philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and cyberpunk writers such as William Gibson and Bruce...
, Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
, Félix Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
and Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray is a contemporary French philosopher who adheres to hedonism, atheism and anarchism...
.
Insurrectionary anarchism
Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory, practice and tendency within the anarchist movement which emphasizes the theme of insurrection within anarchist practice. It opposes formal organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based on a political programme and periodic congresses. Instead, insurrectionary anarchists support informal organization and small affinity groupAffinity group
An Affinity group is usually a small group of activists who work together on direct action.Affinity groups are organized in a non-hierarchical manner, usually using consensus decision making, and are often made up of trusted friends...
based organization. Insurrectionary anarchists put value in attack, permanent class conflict
Class conflict
Class conflict is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests between people of different classes....
, and a refusal to negotiate or compromise with class enemies.
Contemporary insurrectionary anarchism inherits the views and tactics of anti-organizational anarcho-communism and illegalism
Illegalism
Illegalism is an anarchist philosophy that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland during the early 1900s as an outgrowth of individualist anarchism...
. Important theorists within it include Alfredo Maria Bonanno and Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher is the former nom de plume of a contemporary anarchist philosopher involved in theoretical and practical activity...
.
Anarchism without adjectives
Hyphen
The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes , which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign which is also longer...
form of anarchism, that is, a doctrine without any qualifying labels such as communist
Anarchist communism
Anarchist communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, markets, money, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with...
, collectivist
Collectivism
Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...
, mutualist
Mutualism (economic theory)
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought that originates in the writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who envisioned a society where each person might possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market...
, or individualist
Individualist anarchism
Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy but refers to a...
. For others, ... [it] was simply understood as an attitude that tolerated the coexistence of different anarchist schools". Anarchism without adjectives emphasizes harmony between various anarchist factions and attempts to unite them around their shared anti-authoritarian beliefs.
The expression was coined by Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n-born Fernando Tarrida del Mármol
Fernando Tarrida del Mármol
Fernando Tarrida del Mármol , was a Cuban anarchist writer. He was born in Havana to a wealthy family of Catalan emigrants, and was the nephew of Cuban general Donato Mármol. He studied engineering in Barcelona, Toulouse and Madrid, becoming professor and director of the Polytechnic School of...
, who used it in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
in November 1889 as a call for tolerance
Toleration
Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...
, after being troubled by the "bitter debates" between the different movements. Rudolf Rocker
Rudolf Rocker
Johann Rudolf Rocker was an anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist. A self-professed anarchist without adjectives, Rocker believed that anarchist schools of thought represented "only different methods of economy" and that the first objective for anarchists was "to secure the personal and social...
said that the different types of anarchism presented "only different methods of economy, the practical possibilities of which have yet to be tested, and that the first objective is to secure the personal and social freedom
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
of men no matter upon which economics basis this is to be accomplished."
Voltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre was an American anarchist writer and feminist. She was a prolific writer and speaker, opposing the state, marriage, and the domination of religion in sexuality and women's lives. She began her activist career in the freethought movement...
was an anarchist without adjectives who initially identified herself as an individualist anarchist but later espoused a collectivist form of anarchism, while refusing to identify herself with any of the contemporary schools. She commented that "Socialism and Communism both demand a degree of joint effort and administration which would beget more regulation than is wholly consistent with ideal Anarchism; Individualism and Mutualism, resting upon property, involve a development of the private policeman not at all compatible with my notion of freedom" although she stopped short of denouncing these tendencies as un-anarchistic.
Errico Malatesta
Errico Malatesta was an Italian anarcho-communist. He was an insurrectionary anarchist early in his life. He spent much of his life exiled from his homeland of Italy and in total spent more than ten years in prison. He wrote and edited a number of radical newspapers and was also a friend of...
was another proponent of anarchism without adjectives, stating that "[i]t is not right for us, to say the least, to fall into strife over mere hypotheses."
Synthesist anarchism
Synthesis anarchism, synthesist anarchism, synthesism or synthesis federations is a form of anarchist organization which tries to join anarchists of different tendencies under the principles of anarchism without adjectivesAnarchism without adjectives
Anarchism without adjectives , in the words of historian George Richard Esenwein, "referred to an unhyphenated form of anarchism, that is, a doctrine without any qualifying labels such as communist, collectivist, mutualist, or individualist. For others, .....
. In the 1920s this form found as its main proponents Volin
Volin
Vsevolod Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum , known in later life as Volin or Voline , was a leading Russian anarchist who participated in the Russian and Ukrainian Revolutions before being forced into exile by the Bolshevik Party government...
and Sebastien Faure
Sébastien Faure
Sébastien Faure was a French anarchist . He was a main proponent of the anarchist organizational form known as synthesis anarchism.- Biography :Before becoming a free-thinker, he was a seminarist...
. It is the main principle behind the anarchist federations grouped around the contemporary global International of Anarchist Federations
International of Anarchist Federations
The International of Anarchist Federations was founded during an international anarchist conference in Carrara in 1968 by the three existing European federations of France, Italy and Spain as well as the Bulgarian federation in French exile...
.
See also
- National-AnarchismNational-AnarchismNational-Anarchism is a radical, anti-capitalist, anti-statist, right-wing political and cultural ideology which emphasizes ethnic tribalism. As a prelude to an anticipated racial civil war and a collapse of the capitalist system, National-Anarchists seek to establish autonomous villages for...
- Epistemological anarchismEpistemological anarchismEpistemological anarchism is an epistemological theory advanced by Austrian philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend which holds that there are no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of science or the growth of knowledge...
, an anarchistic approach to the philosophy of science and the theory of knowledge - PanarchismPanarchismPanarchism is a political philosophy emphasizing each individual's right to freely join and leave the jurisdiction of any governments they choose, without being forced to move from their current locale. The word "panarchy" was invented and the concept proposed by a Belgian political economist, Paul...
, a theory relating to jurisdictional arbitrage and the free movement of people