Issues in anarchism
Encyclopedia
Anarchism
is a heterogeneous philosophy with many different tendencies and schools of thought
; differences on questions of ideology, values and tactics are common. Ideas about how an anarchist society might work vary considerably, especially with respect to economics
. There are also disagreements about how such a society might be brought about, with some anarchists being committed to a strategy of nonviolence, while others advocate armed struggle.
. Some terms, such as "socialism
", have been subject to multiple definitions and ideological struggle throughout the period of the development of anarchism. Others, such as "capitalism
" are used in divergent, and often contradictory, ways by different schools within the tradition. In addition, terms such as "mutualism
" have changed their meanings over time, without spawning new schools. All of these terminological difficulties contribute to misunderstandings within and about anarchism.
A central concern is whether the term "anarchism" is defined in opposition to hierarchy
, authority
, the state
or state and capitalism. Debates over the meaning of the term emerge from the fact that it refers to both an abstract philosophical position and to intellectual, political and institutional traditions, all of which have been fraught with conflict. Some minimal, abstract definitions encourage the inclusion of figures, movements and philosophical positions which have historically positioned themselves outside, or even in opposition to, individuals and traditions that have identified themselves as "anarchist."
Anti-capitalism is considered a necessary element of anarchism by most anarchists, while anarcho-capitalists naturally disagree. The conflict arises from some combination of genuine differences of opinion on the merits of market economies, differing definitions of "capitalism," and the "package deal" character of some definitions. Usages in political circles have varied considerably. In 1894, Richard Ely noted that the term had "already acquired a variety of meanings." These included, in its most general sense, the view that society is "a living, growing organism, the laws of which are something different from the laws of individual action." Several years earlier, in 1888, the individualist anarchist Benjamin R. Tucker included the full text of a "Socialistic Letter" by Ernest Lesigne
in his essay on "State Socialism and Anarchism." According to Lesigne, there are two socialisms, and "One is dictatorial, the other libertarian."
, Peter Kropotkin
, Emma Goldman
and Errico Malatesta
, for example, wrote of violence as a necessary and sometimes desirable force in revolutionary settings. At the same time, they denounced acts of individual terrorism. (Bakunin, "The Program of the International Brotherhood" (1869) and Malatesta, "Violence as a Social Factor" (1895)). Other anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy
, Dorothy Day
, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau
have been advocates of pacifism
.
Anarchists have often been portrayed as dangerous and violent, possibly due to a number of high-profile violent actions, including riot
s, assassination
s, insurrections, and terrorism
committed by some anarchists as well as persistently negative media portrayals. Late 19th-century revolution
aries encouraged acts of political violence, called "propaganda of the deed
", such as bomb
ings and the assassination
s of heads of state
to further anarchism. However, the term originally referred to exemplary forms of direct action meant to inspire the masses to revolution. Propaganda of the deed may be violent or nonviolent.
While all anarchists consider antimilitarism
(opposition to war
) to be inherent to their philosophy, anarcho-pacifists
take this further, following Tolstoy's belief in pacifism
. Although numerous anarchist initiatives have been based on the tactic of nonviolence
(Earth First!
, Food Not Bombs
, etc.), many anarchists reject pacifism as an ideology, instead supporting a "diversity of tactics." Authors Ward Churchill
(Pacifism as Pathology, 1986), Peter Gelderloos
(How Nonviolence Protects the State, 2005), and Derrick Jensen
(Endgame
, 2006) have published influential books critical of pacifist doctrine, which they view as ineffectual and hypocritical. In a 2010 article, author Randall Amster
argued for the development of a "complementarity of tactics" to bridge the pacifist and more militant aspects of anarchism.
As a result of anarchism's critical view of certain types of private property
, many anarchists see the destruction of property as an acceptable form of violence or argue that it is not, in fact, violence at all. In her widely cited 1912 essay, Direct Action, Voltairine de Cleyre
drew on American historical events, including the destroying of revenue stamps and the Boston Tea Party
, as a defense of such activities.
Many anarchists participate in subversive organizations as a means to undermine the establishment, such as Food Not Bombs
, radical labor unions
, alternative media, and radical social centers
. This is in accordance with the anarchist ideal that governments are intrinsically evil: only by destroying the power of governments can individual freedoms and liberties be preserved. Some anarchist schools, however, in theory adopt the concept of Dual Power
: creating the structures for a new anti-authoritarian society in the shell of the old, hierarchical one.
While most anarchists firmly oppose voting, or otherwise participating in the State institution, there are a few that disagree. The prominent anarchist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
, stood for election to the French Constituent Assembly twice in 1848. Paul Brousse
developed the concept of libertarian municipalism in Switzerland
in the 1890s which involved participating in local elections. Many anarchists oppose voting for three reasons. First, they believe it to be ineffective, at best resulting in minor reforms. Second, taking part in elections has historically resulted in radicals becoming part of the system they oppose rather than ending it. Third, because some claim voting amounts to an acknowledgment of the state's legitimacy. Most fundamental is the idea that representative democracy itself is fundamentally flawed. In essence, the state uses the theory that it is democratic to gain power over the populace, and then uses force to suppress any dissent. Nonetheless, the state in reality almost never serves the interests of the populace in general, but simply produces the illusion that it does this solely to gain power. Governments operate at the expense of the public good, and can serve no other purpose regardless of whatever form they take. During the 2004 US Presidential election, the anarchist collective
CrimethInc.
launched "Don't Just Vote, Get Active
," a campaign promoting the importance of direct action
, rather than electoral change. Anarchists in other countries often engage in similar anti-voting campaigns. Others advocate a more pragmatic approach, including voting in referenda, while other prominent anarchists like Howard Zinn
and Noam Chomsky
have pledged their support for progressive
candidates such as Ralph Nader
.
The individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner
argued that voting was a legitimate means of self-defense against the state, and noted that many supporters of the state consider both voting and abstention to be acknowledgments of the state's legitimacy. Spooner's essay "No Treason" offers an individualist anarchist rebuttal to the argument that existing democratic governments are justified by majority consent.
criticized individualist anarchists for opposing democracy, and said "majority rule" is consistent with anarchism, but he also preferred the term assembly rather than democracy. Bookchin has in turn been accused of "municipal statism"; i.e., non-anarchism. Later, Bookchin renounced anarchism to identify himself as an advocate of Communalism
.
s, assassination
s, and insurrections involving anarchists. The use of terrorism
and assassination, however, is condemned by most anarchist ideology, though there remains no consensus on the legitimacy or utility of violence. Some anarchists have opposed coercion
, while others have supported it, particularly in the form of violent revolution on the path to anarchy or utopia.
Some anarchists share Leo Tolstoy's Christian anarchist
belief in nonviolence
. These anarcho-pacifists advocate nonviolent resistance
as the only method of achieving a truly anarchist revolution. They often see violence as the basis of government and coercion and argue that, as such, violence is illegitimate, no matter who is the target. Some of Proudhon's French
followers even saw strike action
as coercive and refused to take part in such traditional socialist tactics.
Other anarchists advocate Marshall Rosenberg
's Nonviolent Communication
that relates to peoples fundamental needs and feelings using strategies of requests, observations and empathy yet providing for the use of protective force while rejecting pacifism as a compromising strategy of the left that just perpetuates violence.
Other anarchists, such as Mikhail Bakunin
and Errico Malatesta
saw violence as a necessary and sometimes desirable force. Malatesta took the view that it is "necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies [the means of life and for development] to the workers" (Umanità Nova
, number 125, September 6, 1921).
Between 1894 and 1901, individual anarchists assassinated numerous heads of state, including:
Such "propaganda of the deed
" was not popular among anarchists, and many in the movement condemned the tactic. For example, McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz
, claimed to be a disciple of Emma Goldman
, but she disavowed any association with him.
Goldman included in her definition of anarchism the observation that all governments rest on violence, and this is one of the many reasons they should be opposed. Goldman herself didn't oppose tactics like assassination until she went to Russia, where she witnessed the violence of the Russian state and the Red Army
. From then on she condemned the use of terrorism, especially by the state, and advocated violence only as a means of self-defense.
Depictions in the press and popular fiction (for example, a malevolent bomb-throwing anarchist in Joseph Conrad
's The Secret Agent
) helped create a lasting public impression that anarchists are violent terrorists. This perception was enhanced by events such as the Haymarket Riot, where anarchists were blamed for throwing a bomb at police who came to break up a public meeting in Chicago
.
More recently, anarchists have been involved in protests against World Trade Organization (WTO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings across the globe, which the media has described as violent or riots. Traditionally, May Day
in London
has also been a day of marching, but in recent years the Metropolitan Police
have warned that a "hardcore of anarchists" are intent on causing violence. Anarchists often respond that it is the police who initiate violence at these demonstrations, with anarchists who are otherwise peaceful sometimes forced to defend themselves. The anarchists involved in such protests often formed black bloc
s at these protests and some engaged in property destruction, vandalism
, or in violent conflicts with police
, though others stuck to non-violent
principles.
Those participating in black blocs distinguish between "violence" and "property destruction": they claim that violence is when a person inflicts harm to another person, while property destruction or property damage is not violence, although it can have indirect harm such as financial harm. Most anarchists, do not consider the destruction of property to be violent, as do most activists who believe in non-violence.
Most anarchists consider pacifism
(opposition to war
) to be inherent in their philosophy. Some anarchists take it further and follow Leo Tolstoy
's belief in non-violence (note, however, that these anarcho-pacifists
are not necessarily Christian anarchists
as Tolstoy was), advocating non-violent resistance
as the only method of achieving a truly anarchist revolution
.
Anarchist literature often portrays war as an activity in which the state seeks to gain and consolidate power, both domestically and in foreign lands. Many anarchists subscribe to Randolph Bourne
's view that "war is the health of the state". Anarchists believe that if they were to support a war they would be strengthening the state– indeed, Peter Kropotkin
was alienated from other anarchists when he expressed support for the British in World War I
.
Just as they are critical and distrustful of most government endeavors, anarchists often view the stated reasons for war with a cynical
eye. Since the Vietnam War
protests in North America
and, most recently, the protests against the war in Iraq, much anarchist activity has been anti-war
based.
Many anarchists in the current movement however, reject complete pacifism, (although groups like Earth First!, and Food Not Bombs
are based on principles of non-violence), and instead are in favor of self-defense, and sometimes violence against oppressive and authoritarian forces which they in fact also consider as defensive violence. Anarchists are skeptical however of winning a direct armed conflict with the state, and instead concern themselves mostly with organizing.
) support private property
. Tucker argues that collectivism in property is absurd: "That there is an entity known as the community which is the rightful owner of all land, Anarchists deny...I...maintain that ‘the community’ is a non-entity, that it has no existence..." He was particularly adamant in his opposition to "communism," even to the point of asserting that those who opposed private property were not anarchists: "Anarchism is a word without meaning, unless it includes the liberty of the individual to control his product or whatever his product has brought him through exchange in a free market– that is, private property. Whoever denies private property is of necessity an Archist." However, some of these individuals opposed property titles to unused land.
Early French feminists such as Jenny d'Héricourt
and Juliette Adam
criticised the misogyny
in the anarchism of Proudhon during the 1850s.
Anarcha-feminism is a kind of radical feminism
that espouses the belief that patriarchy
is a fundamental problem in society. However, it was not explicitly formulated as anarcha-feminism until early 1970s, during the second-wave
feminist movement. Anarcha-feminism views patriarchy
as the first manifestation of hierarchy in human history; thus, the first form of oppression occurred in the dominance of male over female. Anarcha-feminists then conclude that if feminists are against patriarchy, they must also be against all forms of hierarchy
, and therefore must reject the authoritarian nature of the state and capitalism.
Early first-wave feminist Mary Wollstonecraft
held proto-anarchist views, and William Godwin is often considered a feminist anarchist precursor. While most anarchists of the period did not take these ideas seriously, others, such as Florence Finch Kelly and Moses Harman
held gender equality as a topic of significant importance. Anarcha-feminism garnered further attention through the work of early 20th-century authors and theorists including Emma Goldman
and Voltairine de Cleyre
. In the Spanish Civil War
, an anarcha-feminist group, Mujeres Libres
(Free Women), organized to defend both anarchist and feminist ideas.
Unlike marxist feminism
and socialist feminism
, anarcha-feminism does not necessarily adopt the historical model of patriarchy put across by Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
. Rather, anarcha-feminists are likely to view patriarchy as a component and symptom of interconnected systems of oppression. In such a model, opposition to patriarchy is not the sole means of opposing authoritarian repression, but instead becomes a key component of a movement opposing all interconnected forms of oppression. Anarcho-primitivists see the creation of gender roles and patriarchy as a creation of the start of civilization
, and therefore consider primitivism
to also be an anarchist school of thought that addresses feminist concerns. Eco-feminism, although not exclusively anarchist, is often considered a feminist variant of green anarchist feminist thought.
In anarcha-feminist circles in the United States, the slang term "manarchist" is sometimes used, pejoratively, to describe male anarchists who are either inattentive to or dismissive of (anarcha)feminist concerns.
opposes the existence of a state, capitalism, and subjugation and domination of people of color, and favors a non-hierarchical organization of society. Theorists include Ashanti Alston
, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, and Sam Mbah. Some of these theorists have had past experiences with the Black Panther Party
, and came to anarchism after they became critical of the Black Panther Party's brand of Marxist-Leninism. Anarchist People of Color
, (or APOC), was created as a forum for non-Caucasian anarchists to express their thoughts about racial issues within the anarchist movement, particularly within the United States. Anti-Racist Action
is not an anarchist group, but many anarchists are involved. It focuses on publicly confronting White civil rights activists, such as the KKK, neo-Nazi groups, etc.
Most modern and historical anarchists describe themselves as anti-racists. Many early Anarchists, notably Lucy Parsons
- a person of color and formerly an enslaved
American
- viewed Racism as one of many negative side-effects of Capitalism and expected that it would vanish in a post-capitalist world. Among modern Anarchists, however, anti-racism plays a more prominent role and racism is typically viewed as one of several forms of social hierarchy and stratification which must be destroyed. No anarchist organizations has ever included racism as part of its platform, and many, particularly modern formations, include explicit anti-racism. For instance American Anarchists were alone in opposing racism against Chinese and Mexican workers in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Since the late 1970s anarchists have been involved in fighting the rise of neo-fascist
groups. In Germany and the United Kingdom some anarchists worked within militant anti-fascist groups alongside members of the Marxist left. They advocated directly combating fascists with physical force rather than relying on the state. Since the late 1990s, a similar tendency has developed within US anarchism. See also: Anti-Racist Action
(US), Anti-Fascist Action
(UK/Europe), Antifa Anti-Racist Action
is one of the largest grassroots anti-fascist and anti-racist organizations in North America today and counts many anarchists among its members. Their tactics, centered around directly confronting neo-fascist and white-supremacist groups, are considered controversial both within the anarchist movement (where they are sometimes portrayed as well-intentioned but ineffective) and in mainstream society (where they are often portrayed as violent and disruptive).
Many anarchists also oppose the concept of race itself on that basis that it has no biological basis and is a social construction designed to divide the working class and preserve capitalism.
Black anarchism
opposes the existence of a state, capitalism, and subjugation and domination of people of African descent, and favours a non-hierarchical organization of society. Theorists include Ashanti Alston
, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, Sam Mbah, Aragorn! and Martin Sostre
. Anarchist People of Color
emerged in the United States as a tendency which theorized anarchism in the broader context of race. Founded by writer and organizer Ernesto Aguilar
, an APOC email list became the basis for collectives composed of people of colour to form in several American cities. APOC held a conference in Detroit, Michigan in 2003. In 2005, the first APOC journal, Wildfire, was launched, but folded a few months later. In 2007, Roger White and the Oakland, California
APOC group founded Jailbreak Press blog. http://www.jailbreakpress.org
A minority of historically prominent anarchists have been accused of racism: e.g. Proudhon and Bakunin.
A major area of conflict amongst anarchists is how honest to be about the racism which has existed within the anarchist movement since the days of Proudhon and Bakunin who were both noted Eurocentrist
s and anti-semites
. Some anarchists dismiss this as being completely unimportant, suggesting for instance that racism was commonly accepted at the time. Other anarchists simply prefer to ignore the issue on the grounds that anarchism, unlike ideologies such as Marxism, is not defined by individual theorists, but by the concepts they developed, thus rendering perceived personal failings of individual theorists irrelevant to anarchism generally.
or authoritarian
and, more often than not, aligned with contemporary power structures like the state
and capital
. Nonetheless, others reconcile anarchism with religion.
Christian anarchists
believe that there is no higher authority than God
, and oppose earthly authority such as government
and established churches. They believe that Jesus' teachings and the practice of the early church were clearly anarchistic. Some of them feel that the teachings of the Nazarene
s and other early groups of followers were corrupted by contemporary religious views - most notably when Constantine I
declared "Christianity" to be the official religion of Rome. Christian anarchists, who follow Jesus' directive to "turn the other cheek", are usually strict pacifists
, although some believe in a limited justification of defense, especially defense of others. The most famous advocate of Christian anarchism was Leo Tolstoy
, author of The Kingdom of God is Within You
, who called for a society based on compassion, nonviolent principles and freedom. Christian anarchists tend to form experimental communities (such as the Catholic Worker
). They also occasionally resist taxation
.
Buddhist anarchism
originated in the influential Chinese anarchist movement of the 1920s. Taixu
, one of the leading thinkers and writers of this school, was deeply influenced by the work of Christian anarchists like Tolstoy
and by the ancient Chinese well-field system
. Buddhist anarchism was later revived in the 1960s by writers such as Gary Snyder
; an incarnation of this school of thought was popularized by Jack Kerouac
in his book The Dharma Bums
.
Neopaganism
, with its focus on the environment and equality, along with its often decentralized nature, has led to a number of neopagan anarchists. One of the most prominent is Starhawk
, who writes extensively about both spirituality
and activism
.
In the late 19th century the Ghadar
movement in India (see Har Dayal
), influenced by Buddhist
thought and by Swami Dayananda Saraswati
(founder of Arya Samaj
), saw anarchism as a way of propagating the ancient culture of the Arya (not to be confused with the much later appropriation of "Aryan" identity by German
National Socialists).
Discussing the anarchist movement in Britain in 2002, Adam K. has argued that it "has an especially ignorant and hegemonistic perception of the Muslim community", which he attributed to "the anglo-centric nature of the movement". Quoting the statement that "Islam
is an enemy of all freedom loving people" from an anarchist magazine, he argues that this is "no different to the bigoted rhetoric of George Bush
or even BNP
leader Nick Griffin
."
- which they believe can be maintained only by state violence. Most non-capitalist anarchists follow Proudhon in opposing ownership of workplaces by capitalists and aim to replace wage labour
with workers' associations. These anarchists agree with Kropotkin's comment that "the origin of the anarchist inception of society… [lies in] the criticism… of the hierarchical organisations and the authoritarian conceptions of society" rather than in simple opposition to the state or government. They argue that the wage system is hierarchical and authoritarian in nature and, consequently, capitalism cannot be anarchist.
ManyIndividualist anarchists, advocated markets as essential to a free society. However, most early individualist anarchists considered themselves "fervent anti-capitalists… [who see] no contradiction between their individualist stance and their rejection of capitalism." Many defined themselves as socialists. These early individualist-anarchists defined "capitalism" in various ways, but often it was discussed in terms of usury:
"There are three forms of usury, interest on money, rent on land and houses, and profit in exchange. Whoever is in receipt of any of these is a usurer." [cited in Men against the State by James J. Martin, p. 208]
Excluding these, however, they tended to support free trade, free competition, and varying levels of private property such as mutualism
and homesteading
. It is this distinction which has led to the rift between anarchism and anarcho-capitalism. The self-proclaimed descendents of such theorists, variously called anarcho-capitalists, free-market anarchists, or simply individualist anarchists, support laissez-faire free market capitalism. Historically, anarchists considered themselves socialists and opposed to capitalism. Thus, anarcho-capitalism is considered by many anarchists today as not being true anarchism.
Anarchist organisations, for example the CNT
(Spain) and the Anarchist Federation
(Britain and Ireland), generally take an explicitly anti-capitalist stance. In the 20th century, several economists began to formulate a form of radical American libertarianism known as anarcho-capitalism
. This has met resistance from those who hold that capitalism is inherently oppressive or statist; many anarchists and scholars don't consider anarcho-capitalism to properly cohere with the spirit, principles, or history of anarchism. However, other anarchists and scholars regard anarchism as referring only to opposition to the non-privatisation of all aspects of the state, and thus do consider anarcho-capitalism to be a form of anarchism.
movement, seeing corporate globalization
as a neocolonialist
attempt to use economic coercion on a global scale, carried out through state institutions such as the World Bank
, World Trade Organization
, Group of Eight
, and the World Economic Forum
. Globalization
is an ambiguous term that has different meanings to different anarchist factions. Many anarchists use the term to mean neocolonialism and/or cultural imperialism
(which they may see as related). Others, particularly anarcho-capitalists, use "globalization" to mean the worldwide expansion of the division of labor and trade, which they see as beneficial so long as governments do not intervene. Market anarchists and anarcho-capitalists see the worldwide expansion of the division of labor through trade ("globalization") as a boon, but oppose the regulation and cartelization imposed by the World Bank, World Trade Organization
(WTO), etc. and "managed trade" agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA]). Many also object to fiat money
issued by central banks and resulting debasement of money and confiscation of wealth.
Groups such as Reclaim the Streets
, were among the instigators of the so-called anti-globalization movement
. The Carnival Against Capitalism
on 18 June 1999 is generally regarded as the first of the major anti-globalization protests. Anarchists, such as the WOMBLES
, have on occasion played a significant role in planning, organising, and participating in subsequent protests. The protests tended to be organised on anarchist direct action
principles with a general tolerance for a range of different activities ranging from those who engage in tactical frivolity
to the black bloc
s.
, both in the core nations (the colonizers) and the periphery nations (the colonized). In general, anarchists have preferred to focus on building revolutions at home and doing solidarity work for comrades in other countries, e.g. Guy Aldred
was jailed for printing Shyamji Krishnavarma'sThe Indian Sociologist
.
Another example of this was Rudolf Rocker
, a prominent German anarchist and anti-fascist, who was particularly active amongst Jewish workers. In his Nationalism and Culture
he argued for a "federation of European peoples" which would include Jews. Rejecting biological theories of race, and rejecting the concept of nation, he argued that since it was European States that had conquered and colonized the rest of the world, successful libertarian organization amongst Europeans was "the first condition for the creation of a world federation, which will also secure the so-called colonial
peoples the same rights for the pursuit of happiness" (p554). Many modern anarchists and other anti-imperialists share this approach.
Chinese anarchists were very active in the early Chinese nationalist movement and in the resistance to British
and later Japanese
colonization of China
. Anarchists were also deeply involved in anti-imperialist nationalist movements in Vietnam, Korea, Cuba
, Ukraine, Ireland
, Mexico, and all over Africa.
Anarchism is also an influence in the modern Indigenist movement.
", but since the late 1970s anarchists in Anglosphere
and European countries have been agitating for the natural environment. Eco-anarchists or green anarchists
often embrace deep ecology
. This is a worldview that strives to cultivate biodiversity
and sustainability
. Eco-anarchists often use direct action
against what they see as earth-destroying institutions. Of particular importance is the Earth First!
movement, that takes action such as tree sitting
. The more militant Earth Liberation Front
, which grew out of Earth First!, also has connections with the anarchist movement. Another important component is ecofeminism
, which sees the domination of nature as a metaphor for the domination of women.
Murray Bookchin
's work on social ecology
, David Watson
's work with Fifth Estate
magazine, Steve Booth
's work in the UK publication Green Anarchist
, and Graham Purchase's writings on green syndicalism
have all contributed to the broad variety and scope of green anarchist/eco-anarchist thought and action. Green anarchism also involves a critique of industrial capitalism, and, for some green anarchists, civilization itself.
Most anarchists see class society as being the root cause of pollution. They argue that a small class
of owners or controllers have the wealth to avoid the worst repercussions of pollution while a very much larger class of workers without such wealth have no say in the running of the workplace. Thus under capitalism and other class societies those who control workplaces are also those with the least interest in minimising pollution - indeed as most anti-pollution measures add to costs that class will have an interest in minimising such measures. Under capitalism pollution is often a product of externalising costs - that is a transfer of a pollutant from the property of the owner to a public river transfers the cost from the capitalist to society
at large. The anarchist communist solution is to ensure that all those working and living within the ecosystem
of a plant have control over all its outputs, including pollutants.
Primitivism
is a predominantly Western philosophy that advocates a return to a pre-industrial and usually pre-agricultural society. It develops a critique of industrial civilization. In this critique technology
and development have alienated
people from the natural world. This philosophy develops themes present in the political action of the Luddites and the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
. Primitivism developed in the context of the Reclaim the Streets
, Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front
movements. John Zerzan
wrote that civilization
– not just the state– would need to fall for anarchy to be achieved. Anarcho-primitivists point to the anti-authoritarian nature of many 'primitive' or hunter-gatherer societies throughout the world's history as examples of anarchist societies.
) continue to see themselves as a leftist movement, some thinkers and activists believe it is necessary to re-evaluate anarchism's relationship with the traditional Left
. Like many radical ideologies, most anarchist schools of thought
are, to some degree, sectarian. There is often a difference of opinion within each school about how to react to, or interact with, other schools. Many anarchists however, draw from a wide range of political perspectives, such as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
, the Situationists, "ultra leftists
", Autonomist Marxism, various indigenous cultures.
A movement called post-left anarchy
seeks to distance itself from the traditional "left" - Communists, socialists, social democrats, etc. - and to escape the confines of ideology
in general. Post-leftists argue that anarchism has been weakened by its long attachment to contrary "leftist" movements and single issue causes (anti-war
, anti-nuclear
, etc.). It calls for a synthesis of anarchist thought and a specifically anti-authoritarian revolutionary movement outside of the leftist milieu. Important groups and individuals associated with post-left anarchy include: CrimethInc.
, the magazine Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed
and its editor Jason McQuinn
, Bob Black
, Hakim Bey and others.
The term postanarchism was originated by Saul Newman
, first receiving popular attention in his book From Bakunin to Lacan
, 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 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. Nonetheless key thinkers associated with post-anarchism include Saul Newman
, Todd May
, Gilles Deleuze
and Félix Guattari
.
Some activists, calling themselves "insurrectionary anarchists", are critical of formal anarchist labor unions and federations, and advocate informal organization, carrying out acts of resistance in various struggles. Proponents include Wolfi Landstreicher
and Alfredo M. Bonanno
, author of works including "Armed Joy" and "The Anarchist Tension". This tendency is represented in the US in magazines such as Willful Disobedience and Killing King Abacus.
have recognized a distinction between libertarian and authoritarian forms of communism. Proudhon
said of communism, "whether of the utopian or the Marxist variety, that it destroyed freedom by taking away from the individual control over his means of production" and "Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak." Mikhail Bakunin
stated "I hate Communism because it is the negation of liberty and because for me humanity is unthinkable without liberty. I am not a Communist, because Communism concentrates and swallows up in itself for the benefit of the State all the forces of society, because it inevitably leads to the concentration of property in the hands of the State." Bakunin was speaking of 'state communism' (authoritarian Marxism) as verified by the last line which mentions state property; anarcho-communists explicitly reject state property and authority, especially centralized authority.
Although Peter Kropotkin
, one of the leading proponents of anarchist communism
, while also opposing 'state communism', argued for an economic model of free distribution between all individuals, many individualist anarchists oppose communism in all its forms, on the grounds that voluntary communism is not practicable. Individualist such as Benjamin Tucker, Victor Yarros, and Henry Appleton have denied that anarcho-communism is a genuine form of anarchism. They rejected its strategies and argued that it is inherently authoritarian. In the opinion of individualist Henry Appleton, "Communism, being opposed to natural law, must necessarily call upon unnatural methods if it would put itself into practice" and employ "pillage, brute force, and violence."
Anarcho-communists reject the criticism, pointing to the principle of voluntary association
that underpins their theory and differentiates it from state communism. Some individualist anarchists are also willing to recognize anarchist communism as a legitimate form. Kevin Carson writes that "free market, libertarian communist, syndicalism, and other kinds of collectivist anarchists must learn to coexist in peace and mutual respect today, in our fight against the corporate state, and tomorrow, in the panarchy
that is likely to succeed it."
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 a heterogeneous philosophy with many different tendencies and schools of thought
Anarchist schools of thought
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...
; differences on questions of ideology, values and tactics are common. Ideas about how an anarchist society might work vary considerably, especially with respect to economics
Anarchist economics
Anarchist economics is the set of theories and practices of economics and economic activity within the political philosophy of anarchism.-Early views:...
. There are also disagreements about how such a society might be brought about, with some anarchists being committed to a strategy of nonviolence, while others advocate armed struggle.
Definitional concerns
Anarchist schools of thought encompass not only a range of individual schools, but also a considerable divergence in the use of some key termsTerminology
Terminology is the study of terms and their use. Terms are words and compound words that in specific contexts are given specific meanings, meanings that may deviate from the meaning the same words have in other contexts and in everyday language. The discipline Terminology studies among other...
. Some terms, such as "socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
", have been subject to multiple definitions and ideological struggle throughout the period of the development of anarchism. Others, such as "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...
" are used in divergent, and often contradictory, ways by different schools within the tradition. In addition, terms such as "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...
" have changed their meanings over time, without spawning new schools. All of these terminological difficulties contribute to misunderstandings within and about anarchism.
A central concern is whether the term "anarchism" is defined in opposition to hierarchy
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...
, 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...
, 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...
or state and capitalism. Debates over the meaning of the term emerge from the fact that it refers to both an abstract philosophical position and to intellectual, political and institutional traditions, all of which have been fraught with conflict. Some minimal, abstract definitions encourage the inclusion of figures, movements and philosophical positions which have historically positioned themselves outside, or even in opposition to, individuals and traditions that have identified themselves as "anarchist."
Anti-capitalism is considered a necessary element of anarchism by most anarchists, while anarcho-capitalists naturally disagree. The conflict arises from some combination of genuine differences of opinion on the merits of market economies, differing definitions of "capitalism," and the "package deal" character of some definitions. Usages in political circles have varied considerably. In 1894, Richard Ely noted that the term had "already acquired a variety of meanings." These included, in its most general sense, the view that society is "a living, growing organism, the laws of which are something different from the laws of individual action." Several years earlier, in 1888, the individualist anarchist Benjamin R. Tucker included the full text of a "Socialistic Letter" by Ernest Lesigne
Ernest Lesigne
Ernest Lesigne was a French anarchist in the 19th century.One of his most famous works he wrote is a series of Socialistic letters for Le Radical.-External links:*...
in his essay on "State Socialism and Anarchism." According to Lesigne, there are two socialisms, and "One is dictatorial, the other libertarian."
Ends and means
Among anarchists, there is no consensus on the legitimacy or utility of violence in revolutionary struggle. Mikhail BakuninMikhail 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,...
, 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....
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...
, for example, wrote of violence as a necessary and sometimes desirable force in revolutionary settings. At the same time, they denounced acts of individual terrorism. (Bakunin, "The Program of the International Brotherhood" (1869) and Malatesta, "Violence as a Social Factor" (1895)). Other 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...
, Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term...
, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and 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...
have been advocates of pacifism
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
.
Anarchists have often been portrayed as dangerous and violent, possibly due to a number of high-profile violent actions, including riot
Riot
A riot is a form of civil disorder characterized often by what is thought of as disorganized groups lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence against authority, property or people. While individuals may attempt to lead or control a riot, riots are thought to be typically chaotic and...
s, assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
s, insurrections, and terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
committed by some anarchists as well as persistently negative media portrayals. Late 19th-century revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
aries encouraged acts of political violence, called "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...
", such as bomb
Bomb
A bomb is any of a range of explosive weapons that only rely on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy...
ings and the assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
s of heads of state
Head of State
A head of state is the individual that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state. His or her role generally includes legitimizing the state and exercising the political powers, functions, and duties granted to the head of...
to further anarchism. However, the term originally referred to exemplary forms of direct action meant to inspire the masses to revolution. Propaganda of the deed may be violent or nonviolent.
While all anarchists consider antimilitarism
Antimilitarism
Antimilitarism is a doctrine commonly found in the anarchist and, more globally, in the socialist movement, which may both be characterized as internationalist movements. It relies heavily on a critical theory of nationalism and imperialism, and was an explicit goal of the First and Second...
(opposition to war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
) to be inherent to their philosophy, anarcho-pacifists
Anarcho-pacifism
Anarcho-pacifism is a tendency within the anarchist movement which rejects the use of violence in the struggle for social change. The main early influences were the thought of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy while later the ideas of Mohandas Gandhi gained importance...
take this further, following Tolstoy's belief in pacifism
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
. Although numerous anarchist initiatives have been based on the tactic of nonviolence
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
(Earth First!
Earth First!
Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. It was co-founded on April 4th, 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and less directly, Bart Koehler and Ron Kezar....
, Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, serving free vegan and vegetarian food to others. Food Not Bombs' ideology is that myriad corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance...
, etc.), many anarchists reject pacifism as an ideology, instead supporting a "diversity of tactics." Authors Ward Churchill
Ward Churchill
Ward LeRoy Churchill is an author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1990 to 2007. The primary focus of his work is on the historical treatment of political dissenters and Native Americans by the United States government...
(Pacifism as Pathology, 1986), Peter Gelderloos
Peter Gelderloos
Peter Gelderloos is an American anarchist author known for his 2005 book, How Nonviolence Protects the State.Gelderloos was arrested in 2001 while attending a protest at the Georgia-based Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation , a controversial school that trains Central and South...
(How Nonviolence Protects the State, 2005), and 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...
(Endgame
Endgame (Derrick Jensen books)
Endgame is a two-volume work by Derrick Jensen, published in 2006, which argues that civilization is inherently unsustainable and addresses the resulting question of what to do about it. Volume 1, The Problem of Civilization, spells out the need to immediately and systematically destroy civilization...
, 2006) have published influential books critical of pacifist doctrine, which they view as ineffectual and hypocritical. In a 2010 article, author Randall Amster
Randall Amster
Randall Amster is an author, activist, and educator in areas including peace, ecology, homelessness, and anarchism. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1966, Amster has worked as an attorney, judicial clerk, professor, and academic administrator during his professional career...
argued for the development of a "complementarity of tactics" to bridge the pacifist and more militant aspects of anarchism.
As a result of anarchism's critical view of certain types of 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...
, many anarchists see the destruction of property as an acceptable form of violence or argue that it is not, in fact, violence at all. In her widely cited 1912 essay, Direct Action, 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...
drew on American historical events, including the destroying of revenue stamps and the Boston Tea Party
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies...
, as a defense of such activities.
Many anarchists participate in subversive organizations as a means to undermine the establishment, such as Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, serving free vegan and vegetarian food to others. Food Not Bombs' ideology is that myriad corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance...
, radical labor unions
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
, alternative media, and radical social centers
Infoshop
An infoshop is a storefront or social center that serves as a node for the distribution of political information, typically in the form of books, zines, stickers and posters. Infoshops often serve as a meeting space and resource hub for local activist groups....
. This is in accordance with the anarchist ideal that governments are intrinsically evil: only by destroying the power of governments can individual freedoms and liberties be preserved. Some anarchist schools, however, in theory adopt the concept of Dual Power
Dual power
Dual power is a concept that has taken on a broad meaning in the hands of anarchists and Libertarian socialists who use it to refer to the concept of gradual revolution through the creation of "alternative-institutions" and "counter-institutions" in place of and in opposition to state and corporate...
: creating the structures for a new anti-authoritarian society in the shell of the old, hierarchical one.
Participation in statist democracy
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...
, stood for election to the French Constituent Assembly twice in 1848. Paul Brousse
Paul Brousse
Paul Brousse was a French socialist, leader of the possibilistes group. He was active in the Jura Federation, a section of the International Working Men's Association , from the northwestern part of Switzerland and the Alsace. He helped edit the Bulletin de la Fédération Jurassienne, along with...
developed the concept of libertarian municipalism in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
in the 1890s which involved participating in local elections. Many anarchists oppose voting for three reasons. First, they believe it to be ineffective, at best resulting in minor reforms. Second, taking part in elections has historically resulted in radicals becoming part of the system they oppose rather than ending it. Third, because some claim voting amounts to an acknowledgment of the state's legitimacy. Most fundamental is the idea that representative democracy itself is fundamentally flawed. In essence, the state uses the theory that it is democratic to gain power over the populace, and then uses force to suppress any dissent. Nonetheless, the state in reality almost never serves the interests of the populace in general, but simply produces the illusion that it does this solely to gain power. Governments operate at the expense of the public good, and can serve no other purpose regardless of whatever form they take. During the 2004 US Presidential election, the anarchist collective
Collective
A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project to achieve a common objective...
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...
launched "Don't Just Vote, Get Active
Don't Just Vote, Get Active
Don't Just Vote, Get Active, also known as Don't Just Vote was an open, decentralized national campaign in the United States of America initiated by the CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective and its allies...
," a campaign promoting the importance of 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...
, rather than electoral change. Anarchists in other countries often engage in similar anti-voting campaigns. Others advocate a more pragmatic approach, including voting in referenda, while other prominent anarchists like Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn was an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist. Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books, which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United...
and Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
have pledged their support for progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
candidates such as Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
.
The individualist anarchist 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...
argued that voting was a legitimate means of self-defense against the state, and noted that many supporters of the state consider both voting and abstention to be acknowledgments of the state's legitimacy. Spooner's essay "No Treason" offers an individualist anarchist rebuttal to the argument that existing democratic governments are justified by majority consent.
Democracy in anarchism
For individualist anarchists, "the system of democracy, of majority decision, is held null and void. Any impingement upon the natural rights of the person is unjust and a symbol of majority tyranny." Libertarian municipalist 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,...
criticized individualist anarchists for opposing democracy, and said "majority rule" is consistent with anarchism, but he also preferred the term assembly rather than democracy. Bookchin has in turn been accused of "municipal statism"; i.e., non-anarchism. Later, Bookchin renounced anarchism to identify himself as an advocate of Communalism
Communalism
Communalism is a term with three distinct meanings according to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary'.'These include "a theory of government or a system of government in which independent communes participate in a federation". "the principles and practice of communal ownership"...
.
Violence and non-violence
Anarchists have often been portrayed as dangerous and violent, due mainly to a number of high-profile violent acts including riotRiot
A riot is a form of civil disorder characterized often by what is thought of as disorganized groups lashing out in a sudden and intense rash of violence against authority, property or people. While individuals may attempt to lead or control a riot, riots are thought to be typically chaotic and...
s, assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
s, and insurrections involving anarchists. The use of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
and assassination, however, is condemned by most anarchist ideology, though there remains no consensus on the legitimacy or utility of violence. Some anarchists have opposed 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...
, while others have supported it, particularly in the form of violent revolution on the path to anarchy or utopia.
Some anarchists share Leo Tolstoy's Christian anarchist
Christian 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...
belief in nonviolence
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
. These anarcho-pacifists advocate 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 the only method of achieving a truly anarchist revolution. They often see violence as the basis of government and coercion and argue that, as such, violence is illegitimate, no matter who is the target. Some of Proudhon's French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
followers even saw strike action
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
as coercive and refused to take part in such traditional socialist tactics.
Other anarchists advocate Marshall Rosenberg
Marshall Rosenberg
Marshall Rosenberg is an American psychologist and the creator of Nonviolent Communication, a communication process that helps people to exchange the information necessary to resolve conflicts and differences peacefully...
's Nonviolent Communication
Nonviolent communication
Nonviolent Communication is a communication process developed by Marshall Rosenberg beginning in the 1960s. NVC often functions as a conflict resolution process...
that relates to peoples fundamental needs and feelings using strategies of requests, observations and empathy yet providing for the use of protective force while rejecting pacifism as a compromising strategy of the left that just perpetuates violence.
Other 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,...
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...
saw violence as a necessary and sometimes desirable force. Malatesta took the view that it is "necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies [the means of life and for development] to the workers" (Umanità Nova
Umanità Nova
Umanità Nova is an Italian anarchist newspaper founded in 1920.It wa published daily until 1922, when it was shut down by the fascist regime. In some places its circulation exceeded that of the socialist paper Avanti!...
, number 125, September 6, 1921).
Between 1894 and 1901, individual anarchists assassinated numerous heads of state, including:
- French President Sadi CarnotMarie François Sadi CarnotMarie François Sadi Carnot was a French statesman and the fourth president of the Third French Republic. He served as the President of France from 1887 until his assassination in 1894.-Early life:...
(1894); - Empress consort Elisabeth of AustriaElisabeth of BavariaElisabeth of Austria was the spouse of Franz Joseph I, and therefore both Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. She also held the titles of Queen of Bohemia and Croatia, among others...
(1898); - King Umberto I of ItalyUmberto I of ItalyUmberto I or Humbert I , nicknamed the Good , was the King of Italy from 9 January 1878 until his death. He was deeply loathed in far-left circles, especially among anarchists, because of his conservatism and support of the Bava-Beccaris massacre in Milan...
(1900); and - United States PresidentPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
William McKinleyWilliam McKinleyWilliam McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
(1901).
Such "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...
" was not popular among anarchists, and many in the movement condemned the tactic. For example, McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz
Leon Czolgosz
Leon Czolgosz was the assassin of U.S. President William McKinley.In the last few years of his life, he claimed to have been heavily influenced by anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.- Early life :...
, claimed to be a disciple of 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....
, but she disavowed any association with him.
Goldman included in her definition of anarchism the observation that all governments rest on violence, and this is one of the many reasons they should be opposed. Goldman herself didn't oppose tactics like assassination until she went to Russia, where she witnessed the violence of the Russian state and the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
. From then on she condemned the use of terrorism, especially by the state, and advocated violence only as a means of self-defense.
Depictions in the press and popular fiction (for example, a malevolent bomb-throwing anarchist in Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
's The Secret Agent
The Secret Agent
The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale is a novel by Joseph Conrad published in 1907. The story is set in London in 1886 and deals largely with the life of Mr. Verloc and his job as a spy. The Secret Agent is also notable as it is one of Conrad's later political novels, which move away from his typical...
) helped create a lasting public impression that anarchists are violent terrorists. This perception was enhanced by events such as the Haymarket Riot, where anarchists were blamed for throwing a bomb at police who came to break up a public meeting in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
.
More recently, anarchists have been involved in protests against World Trade Organization (WTO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings across the globe, which the media has described as violent or riots. Traditionally, May Day
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
has also been a day of marching, but in recent years the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
have warned that a "hardcore of anarchists" are intent on causing violence. Anarchists often respond that it is the police who initiate violence at these demonstrations, with anarchists who are otherwise peaceful sometimes forced to defend themselves. The anarchists involved in such protests often formed black bloc
Black bloc
A black bloc is a tactic for protests and marches, whereby individuals wear black clothing, scarves, ski masks, motorcycle helmets with padding, or other face-concealing items...
s at these protests and some engaged in property destruction, vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
, or in violent conflicts with police
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...
, though others stuck to non-violent
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
principles.
Those participating in black blocs distinguish between "violence" and "property destruction": they claim that violence is when a person inflicts harm to another person, while property destruction or property damage is not violence, although it can have indirect harm such as financial harm. Most anarchists, do not consider the destruction of property to be violent, as do most activists who believe in non-violence.
Pacifism
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
(opposition to war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
) to be inherent in their philosophy. Some anarchists take it further and follow 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...
's belief in non-violence (note, however, that these anarcho-pacifists
Anarcho-pacifism
Anarcho-pacifism is a tendency within the anarchist movement which rejects the use of violence in the struggle for social change. The main early influences were the thought of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy while later the ideas of Mohandas Gandhi gained importance...
are not necessarily Christian anarchists
Christian 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...
as Tolstoy was), advocating non-violent 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 the only method of achieving a truly anarchist revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
.
Anarchist literature often portrays war as an activity in which the state seeks to gain and consolidate power, both domestically and in foreign lands. Many anarchists subscribe to Randolph Bourne
Randolph Bourne
Randolph Silliman Bourne was a progressive writer and "leftist intellectual" born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, and a graduate of Columbia University...
's view that "war is the health of the state". Anarchists believe that if they were to support a war they would be strengthening the state– indeed, 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...
was alienated from other anarchists when he expressed support for the British in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Just as they are critical and distrustful of most government endeavors, anarchists often view the stated reasons for war with a cynical
Cynicism
Cynicism , in its original form, refers to the beliefs of an ancient school of Greek philosophers known as the Cynics . Their philosophy was that the purpose of life was to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and...
eye. Since the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
protests in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
and, most recently, the protests against the war in Iraq, much anarchist activity has been anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
based.
Many anarchists in the current movement however, reject complete pacifism, (although groups like Earth First!, and Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, serving free vegan and vegetarian food to others. Food Not Bombs' ideology is that myriad corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance...
are based on principles of non-violence), and instead are in favor of self-defense, and sometimes violence against oppressive and authoritarian forces which they in fact also consider as defensive violence. Anarchists are skeptical however of winning a direct armed conflict with the state, and instead concern themselves mostly with organizing.
Individualism vs. collectivism
While some anarchists favour collective property or no property, others, such as some individualist anarchists of historical note (e.g. Benjamin Tucker and Lysander SpoonerLysander 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...
) support 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...
. Tucker argues that collectivism in property is absurd: "That there is an entity known as the community which is the rightful owner of all land, Anarchists deny...I...maintain that ‘the community’ is a non-entity, that it has no existence..." He was particularly adamant in his opposition to "communism," even to the point of asserting that those who opposed private property were not anarchists: "Anarchism is a word without meaning, unless it includes the liberty of the individual to control his product or whatever his product has brought him through exchange in a free market– that is, private property. Whoever denies private property is of necessity an Archist." However, some of these individuals opposed property titles to unused land.
Gender
Jenny d'Héricourt
Jenny d'Hericourt , also Jenny P. d'Hericourt was a feminist activist, writer, and a physician-midwife. She was born Jeanne-Marie-Fabienne Poinsard, in Besançon, France to Protestant parents. After running a private girls' school, she married Gabriel Marie. However they soon separated...
and Juliette Adam
Juliette Adam
Juliette Adam Juliette Adam Juliette Adam (4 October 1836, Verberie (Oise) – 23 August 1936, Callian (Var), also known by her maiden name Juliette Lambert, was a French author and feminist.- Biography :...
criticised the misogyny
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
in the anarchism of Proudhon during the 1850s.
Anarcha-feminism is a kind of radical 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...
that espouses the belief that patriarchy
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
is a fundamental problem in society. However, it was not explicitly formulated as anarcha-feminism until early 1970s, during the second-wave
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....
feminist movement. Anarcha-feminism views patriarchy
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
as the first manifestation of hierarchy in human history; thus, the first form of oppression occurred in the dominance of male over female. Anarcha-feminists then conclude that if feminists are against patriarchy, they must also be against all forms of hierarchy
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...
, and therefore must reject the authoritarian nature of the state and capitalism.
Early first-wave feminist Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
held proto-anarchist views, and William Godwin is often considered a feminist anarchist precursor. While most anarchists of the period did not take these ideas seriously, others, such as Florence Finch Kelly and Moses Harman
Moses Harman
Moses Harman was an American schoolteacher and publisher notable for his staunch support for women's rights. He was prosecuted under the Comstock Law for content published in his anarchist periodical Lucifer the Lightbearer. He was arrested and jailed multiple times for publishing allegedly...
held gender equality as a topic of significant importance. Anarcha-feminism garnered further attention through the work of early 20th-century authors and theorists including 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...
. In the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, an anarcha-feminist group, Mujeres Libres
Mujeres Libres
Mujeres Libres was an anarchist women's organization in Spain that aimed to empower working class women. It was founded in 1936 by Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Mercedes Comaposada and Amparo Poch y Gascón and had approximately 30,000 members...
(Free Women), organized to defend both anarchist and feminist ideas.
Unlike marxist feminism
Marxist feminism
Marxist feminism is a sub-type of feminist theory which focuses on the dismantling of capitalism as a way of liberating women. Marxist feminism states that private property, which gives rise to economic inequality, dependence, political confusion, and ultimately unhealthy social relations between...
and socialist feminism
Socialist feminism
Socialist feminism is a branch of feminism that focuses upon both the public and private spheres of a woman's life and argues that liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural sources of women's oppression...
, anarcha-feminism does not necessarily adopt the historical model of patriarchy put across by Engels in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State: in the light of the researches of Lewis H. Morgan is a historical materialist treatise written by Friedrich Engels and published in 1884. It is partially based on notes by Karl Marx to Lewis H...
. Rather, anarcha-feminists are likely to view patriarchy as a component and symptom of interconnected systems of oppression. In such a model, opposition to patriarchy is not the sole means of opposing authoritarian repression, but instead becomes a key component of a movement opposing all interconnected forms of oppression. Anarcho-primitivists see the creation of gender roles and patriarchy as a creation of the start 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...
, and therefore consider 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...
to also be an anarchist school of thought that addresses feminist concerns. Eco-feminism, although not exclusively anarchist, is often considered a feminist variant of green anarchist feminist thought.
In anarcha-feminist circles in the United States, the slang term "manarchist" is sometimes used, pejoratively, to describe male anarchists who are either inattentive to or dismissive of (anarcha)feminist concerns.
Race
Black anarchismBlack anarchism
Black anarchism opposes the existence of the state and the subjugation and domination of people of color, and favors a non-hierarchical organization of society. Black anarchists seek to abolish white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and the state...
opposes the existence of a state, capitalism, and subjugation and domination of people of color, and favors a non-hierarchical organization of society. Theorists include Ashanti Alston
Ashanti Alston
Ashanti Alston Omowali is an anarchist activist, speaker, and writer, and former member of the Black Panther Party. Even though the party no longer exists, Alston sometimes refers to himself as a Black Panther, and sometimes as "the @narchist Panther", a term he coined in his @narchist Panther Zine...
, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, and Sam Mbah. Some of these theorists have had past experiences with the Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
, and came to anarchism after they became critical of the Black Panther Party's brand of Marxist-Leninism. Anarchist People of Color
Anarchist People of Color
Anarchist People of Color is an American anarchist/anti-authoritarian group created to address issues of race, anti-authoritarianism and people of color struggle politics within the context of anarchism, and to increase/create political space for people of color.Initially started as an e-mail list...
, (or APOC), was created as a forum for non-Caucasian anarchists to express their thoughts about racial issues within the anarchist movement, particularly within the United States. Anti-Racist Action
Anti-Racist Action
The Anti-Racist Action Network is a decentralized network of anti-fascist and anti-racists in North America. ARA activists organize actions to disrupt neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, and help organize activities against fascist and racist ideologies. ARA groups also oppose sexism,...
is not an anarchist group, but many anarchists are involved. It focuses on publicly confronting White civil rights activists, such as the KKK, neo-Nazi groups, etc.
Most modern and historical anarchists describe themselves as anti-racists. Many early Anarchists, notably Lucy Parsons
Lucy Parsons
Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons was an American labor organizer and radical socialist. She is remembered as a powerful orator.-Life:...
- a person of color and formerly an enslaved
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
- viewed Racism as one of many negative side-effects of Capitalism and expected that it would vanish in a post-capitalist world. Among modern Anarchists, however, anti-racism plays a more prominent role and racism is typically viewed as one of several forms of social hierarchy and stratification which must be destroyed. No anarchist organizations has ever included racism as part of its platform, and many, particularly modern formations, include explicit anti-racism. For instance American Anarchists were alone in opposing racism against Chinese and Mexican workers in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Since the late 1970s anarchists have been involved in fighting the rise of neo-fascist
Neo-Fascism
Neo-fascism is a post–World War II ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. The term neo-fascist may apply to groups that express a specific admiration for Benito Mussolini and Italian Fascism or any other fascist leader/state...
groups. In Germany and the United Kingdom some anarchists worked within militant anti-fascist groups alongside members of the Marxist left. They advocated directly combating fascists with physical force rather than relying on the state. Since the late 1990s, a similar tendency has developed within US anarchism. See also: Anti-Racist Action
Anti-Racist Action
The Anti-Racist Action Network is a decentralized network of anti-fascist and anti-racists in North America. ARA activists organize actions to disrupt neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, and help organize activities against fascist and racist ideologies. ARA groups also oppose sexism,...
(US), Anti-Fascist Action
Anti-Fascist Action
Anti-Fascist Action was a militant anti-fascist organization founded by members of Red Action and other left-wing groups in the United Kingdom in 1985....
(UK/Europe), Antifa Anti-Racist Action
Anti-Racist Action
The Anti-Racist Action Network is a decentralized network of anti-fascist and anti-racists in North America. ARA activists organize actions to disrupt neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, and help organize activities against fascist and racist ideologies. ARA groups also oppose sexism,...
is one of the largest grassroots anti-fascist and anti-racist organizations in North America today and counts many anarchists among its members. Their tactics, centered around directly confronting neo-fascist and white-supremacist groups, are considered controversial both within the anarchist movement (where they are sometimes portrayed as well-intentioned but ineffective) and in mainstream society (where they are often portrayed as violent and disruptive).
Many anarchists also oppose the concept of race itself on that basis that it has no biological basis and is a social construction designed to divide the working class and preserve capitalism.
Black anarchism
Black anarchism
Black anarchism opposes the existence of the state and the subjugation and domination of people of color, and favors a non-hierarchical organization of society. Black anarchists seek to abolish white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and the state...
opposes the existence of a state, capitalism, and subjugation and domination of people of African descent, and favours a non-hierarchical organization of society. Theorists include Ashanti Alston
Ashanti Alston
Ashanti Alston Omowali is an anarchist activist, speaker, and writer, and former member of the Black Panther Party. Even though the party no longer exists, Alston sometimes refers to himself as a Black Panther, and sometimes as "the @narchist Panther", a term he coined in his @narchist Panther Zine...
, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, Sam Mbah, Aragorn! and Martin Sostre
Martin Sostre
Martin Ramirez Sostre is an American activist.He served time in Attica prison during the early 1960s, where he embraced doctrines as diverse as Black Muslimism, Black Nationalism, Internationalism, and finally anarchism. In 1966 Sostre opened the Afro-Asian Bookstore in the black ghetto of...
. Anarchist People of Color
Anarchist People of Color
Anarchist People of Color is an American anarchist/anti-authoritarian group created to address issues of race, anti-authoritarianism and people of color struggle politics within the context of anarchism, and to increase/create political space for people of color.Initially started as an e-mail list...
emerged in the United States as a tendency which theorized anarchism in the broader context of race. Founded by writer and organizer Ernesto Aguilar
Ernesto Aguilar
Ernesto Aguilar founded the Anarchist People of Color email list and website in 2001, which led to the formation of the current Anarchist People of Color network.No longer an anarchist, Aguilar edits the website...
, an APOC email list became the basis for collectives composed of people of colour to form in several American cities. APOC held a conference in Detroit, Michigan in 2003. In 2005, the first APOC journal, Wildfire, was launched, but folded a few months later. In 2007, Roger White and the Oakland, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
APOC group founded Jailbreak Press blog. http://www.jailbreakpress.org
A minority of historically prominent anarchists have been accused of racism: e.g. Proudhon and Bakunin.
A major area of conflict amongst anarchists is how honest to be about the racism which has existed within the anarchist movement since the days of Proudhon and Bakunin who were both noted Eurocentrist
Eurocentrism
Eurocentrism is the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective and with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of European culture...
s and anti-semites
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
. Some anarchists dismiss this as being completely unimportant, suggesting for instance that racism was commonly accepted at the time. Other anarchists simply prefer to ignore the issue on the grounds that anarchism, unlike ideologies such as Marxism, is not defined by individual theorists, but by the concepts they developed, thus rendering perceived personal failings of individual theorists irrelevant to anarchism generally.
Religion
From Proudhon and Bakunin to the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists, most anarchists have questioned or opposed organized religion, believing that most organized religions are hierarchicalHierarchy
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...
or authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
and, more often than not, aligned with contemporary power structures like 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 capital
Capital (economics)
In economics, capital, capital goods, or real capital refers to already-produced durable goods used in production of goods or services. The capital goods are not significantly consumed, though they may depreciate in the production process...
. Nonetheless, others reconcile anarchism with religion.
Christian anarchists
Christian 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...
believe that there is no higher authority than God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, and oppose earthly authority such as government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
and established churches. They believe that Jesus' teachings and the practice of the early church were clearly anarchistic. Some of them feel that the teachings of the Nazarene
Nazarene
Nazarene may refer to:* Nazarene , a title applied to Jesus of Nazareth* Nazarene , a sect of 4th century Christianity described by Epiphanius* Church of the Nazarene, modern Christian Pentecostal denomination...
s and other early groups of followers were corrupted by contemporary religious views - most notably when Constantine I
Constantine I
Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...
declared "Christianity" to be the official religion of Rome. Christian anarchists, who follow Jesus' directive to "turn the other cheek", are usually strict pacifists
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
, although some believe in a limited justification of defense, especially defense of others. The most famous advocate of Christian anarchism was 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...
, author of The Kingdom of God is Within You
The Kingdom of God Is Within You
The Kingdom of God Is Within You is the non-fiction magnum opus of Leo Tolstoy and was first published in Germany in 1894, after being banned in his home country of Russia...
, who called for a society based on compassion, nonviolent principles and freedom. Christian anarchists tend to form experimental communities (such as the Catholic Worker
Catholic Worker
The Catholic Worker is a newspaper published seven times a year by the Catholic Worker Movement community in New York City. The newspaper was started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to make people aware of church teaching on social justice...
). They also occasionally resist taxation
Tax resistance
Tax resistance is the refusal to pay tax because of opposition to the government that is imposing the tax or to government policy.Tax resistance is a form of civil disobedience and direct action...
.
Buddhist 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.:...
originated in the influential Chinese anarchist movement of the 1920s. Taixu
Taixu
Venerable Master Taixu , 1890-1947, was a Buddhist modernist, activist and thinker who advocated the reform and renewal of Chinese Buddhism.- Biography :...
, one of the leading thinkers and writers of this school, was deeply influenced by the work of Christian anarchists like 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 by the ancient Chinese well-field system
Well-field system
The well-field system was a Chinese land distribution method existing between the ninth century BCE to around the end of the Warring States Period...
. Buddhist anarchism was later revived in the 1960s by writers such as Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...
; an incarnation of this school of thought was popularized by Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
in his book The Dharma Bums
The Dharma Bums
The Dharma Bums is a 1958 novel by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. The semi-fictional accounts in the novel are based upon events that occurred years after the events of On the Road...
.
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...
, with its focus on the environment and equality, along with its often decentralized nature, has led to a number of neopagan anarchists. One of the most prominent 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
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
.
In the late 19th century the Ghadar
Ghadar
Ghadar may refer to:* Indian Rebellion of 1857 is also called Ghadar.*Ghadar Party, an Indian political party founded in San Francisco**Hindustan Ghadar, the weekly publication of the Ghadar Party...
movement in India (see Har Dayal
Har Dayal
Lala Har Dayal was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service...
), influenced by Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
thought and by Swami Dayananda Saraswati
Swami Dayananda Saraswati
Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati was an important Hindu religious scholar, reformer, and founder of the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement. He was the first to give the call for Swarajya – "India for Indians" – in 1876, later taken up by Lokmanya Tilak...
(founder of Arya Samaj
Arya Samaj
Arya Samaj is a Hindu reform movement founded by Swami Dayananda on 10 April 1875. He was a sannyasi who believed in the infallible authority of the Vedas. Dayananda emphasized the ideals of brahmacharya...
), saw anarchism as a way of propagating the ancient culture of the Arya (not to be confused with the much later appropriation of "Aryan" identity by 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...
National Socialists).
Discussing the anarchist movement in Britain in 2002, Adam K. has argued that it "has an especially ignorant and hegemonistic perception of the Muslim community", which he attributed to "the anglo-centric nature of the movement". Quoting the statement that "Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
is an enemy of all freedom loving people" from an anarchist magazine, he argues that this is "no different to the bigoted rhetoric of George Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
or even BNP
British National Party
The British National Party is a British far-right political party formed as a splinter group from the National Front by John Tyndall in 1982...
leader Nick Griffin
Nick Griffin
Nicholas John "Nick" Griffin is a British politician, chairman of the British National Party and Member of the European Parliament for North West England....
."
Capitalism
Throughout most of its history, anarchism has been defined by its proponents in opposition to capitalismCapitalism
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...
- which they believe can be maintained only by state violence. Most non-capitalist anarchists follow Proudhon in opposing ownership of workplaces by capitalists and aim to replace wage labour
Wage labour
Wage labour is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer, where the worker sells their labour under a formal or informal employment contract. These transactions usually occur in a labour market where wages are market determined...
with workers' associations. These anarchists agree with Kropotkin's comment that "the origin of the anarchist inception of society… [lies in] the criticism… of the hierarchical organisations and the authoritarian conceptions of society" rather than in simple opposition to the state or government. They argue that the wage system is hierarchical and authoritarian in nature and, consequently, capitalism cannot be anarchist.
ManyIndividualist anarchists, advocated markets as essential to a free society. However, most early individualist anarchists considered themselves "fervent anti-capitalists… [who see] no contradiction between their individualist stance and their rejection of capitalism." Many defined themselves as socialists. These early individualist-anarchists defined "capitalism" in various ways, but often it was discussed in terms of usury:
"There are three forms of usury, interest on money, rent on land and houses, and profit in exchange. Whoever is in receipt of any of these is a usurer." [cited in Men against the State by James J. Martin, p. 208]
Excluding these, however, they tended to support free trade, free competition, and varying levels of private property such as 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...
and homesteading
Homesteading
Broadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of simple self-sufficiency.-Current practice:The term may apply to anyone who follows the back-to-the-land movement by adopting a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading...
. It is this distinction which has led to the rift between anarchism and anarcho-capitalism. The self-proclaimed descendents of such theorists, variously called anarcho-capitalists, free-market anarchists, or simply individualist anarchists, support laissez-faire free market capitalism. Historically, anarchists considered themselves socialists and opposed to capitalism. Thus, anarcho-capitalism is considered by many anarchists today as not being true anarchism.
Anarchist organisations, for example 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...
(Spain) and the Anarchist Federation
Anarchist Federation (British Isles)
The Anarchist Federation is a federation of anarcho-communists in Great Britain and Ireland. It is not a political party, but a direct action, agitational and propaganda organisation.- Origins :...
(Britain and Ireland), generally take an explicitly anti-capitalist stance. In the 20th century, several economists began to formulate a form of radical American libertarianism known as 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...
. This has met resistance from those who hold that capitalism is inherently oppressive or statist; many anarchists and scholars don't consider anarcho-capitalism to properly cohere with the spirit, principles, or history of anarchism. However, other anarchists and scholars regard anarchism as referring only to opposition to the non-privatisation of all aspects of the state, and thus do consider anarcho-capitalism to be a form of anarchism.
Globalization
Many anarchists are actively involved in the anti-globalizationAnti-globalization
Criticism of globalization is skepticism of the claimed benefits of the globalization of capitalism. Many of these views are held by the anti-globalization movement however other groups also are critical of the policies of globalization....
movement, seeing corporate globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
as a neocolonialist
Neocolonialism
Neocolonialism is the practice of using capitalism, globalization, and cultural forces to control a country in lieu of direct military or political control...
attempt to use economic coercion on a global scale, carried out through state institutions such as the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
, World Trade Organization
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
, Group of Eight
G8
The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...
, and the World Economic Forum
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....
. Globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
is an ambiguous term that has different meanings to different anarchist factions. Many anarchists use the term to mean neocolonialism and/or cultural imperialism
Cultural imperialism
Cultural imperialism is the domination of one culture over another. Cultural imperialism can take the form of a general attitude or an active, formal and deliberate policy, including military action. Economic or technological factors may also play a role...
(which they may see as related). Others, particularly anarcho-capitalists, use "globalization" to mean the worldwide expansion of the division of labor and trade, which they see as beneficial so long as governments do not intervene. Market anarchists and anarcho-capitalists see the worldwide expansion of the division of labor through trade ("globalization") as a boon, but oppose the regulation and cartelization imposed by the World Bank, World Trade Organization
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
(WTO), etc. and "managed trade" agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...
(NAFTA) and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA]). Many also object to fiat money
Fiat money
Fiat money is money that has value only because of government regulation or law. The term derives from the Latin fiat, meaning "let it be done", as such money is established by government decree. Where fiat money is used as currency, the term fiat currency is used.Fiat money originated in 11th...
issued by central banks and resulting debasement of money and confiscation of wealth.
Groups such as Reclaim the Streets
Reclaim the Streets
Reclaim The Streets is a collective with a shared ideal of community ownership of public spaces. Participants characterize the collective as a resistance movement opposed to the dominance of corporate forces in globalization, and to the car as the dominant mode of transport.-Protests:Reclaim The...
, were among the instigators of the so-called anti-globalization movement
Anti-globalization movement
The anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalisation movement, is critical of the globalization of corporate capitalism. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist movement, anti-corporate globalization movement, or...
. The Carnival Against Capitalism
Carnival Against Capitalism
The Global Carnival Against Capital took place on Friday, 18th June, 1999. It was an international day of protest timed to coincide with the 25th G8 Summit in Cologne, Germany. The carnival was inspired by the 1980s Stop the City protests and the Global Street Party, which happened at the same time...
on 18 June 1999 is generally regarded as the first of the major anti-globalization protests. Anarchists, such as the WOMBLES
WOMBLES
The WOMBLES are a loosely aligned anarchist and anti-capitalist group based in London...
, have on occasion played a significant role in planning, organising, and participating in subsequent protests. The protests tended to be organised on anarchist 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...
principles with a general tolerance for a range of different activities ranging from those who engage in tactical frivolity
Tactical frivolity
Tactical frivolity is a form of public protest involving humour, often including peaceful non-compliance with authorities, carnival and whimsical antics. Humour has played a role in political protests at least as far back as the Classical period in ancient Greece...
to the black bloc
Black bloc
A black bloc is a tactic for protests and marches, whereby individuals wear black clothing, scarves, ski masks, motorcycle helmets with padding, or other face-concealing items...
s.
Nationalism
Anarchism has a long history of opposing imperialismImperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
, both in the core nations (the colonizers) and the periphery nations (the colonized). In general, anarchists have preferred to focus on building revolutions at home and doing solidarity work for comrades in other countries, e.g. Guy Aldred
Guy Aldred
Guy Alfred Aldred - often Guy A. Aldred - was a British anarchist communist and a prominent member of the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation...
was jailed for printing Shyamji Krishnavarma'sThe Indian Sociologist
The Indian Sociologist
The Indian Sociologist was an Indian nationalist publication in the early twentieth century. Its subtitle was An Organ of Freedom, and Political, Social, and Religious Reform....
.
Another example of this was 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...
, a prominent German anarchist and anti-fascist, who was particularly active amongst Jewish workers. In his Nationalism and Culture
Nationalism and Culture
Nationalism and Culture is a nonfiction book by German anarcho-syndicalist writer Rudolf Rocker. In this book, Rocker's best known work, he criticizes religion, statism, nationalism, and centralism from an anarchist perspective.- Background :...
he argued for a "federation of European peoples" which would include Jews. Rejecting biological theories of race, and rejecting the concept of nation, he argued that since it was European States that had conquered and colonized the rest of the world, successful libertarian organization amongst Europeans was "the first condition for the creation of a world federation, which will also secure the so-called colonial
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
peoples the same rights for the pursuit of happiness" (p554). Many modern anarchists and other anti-imperialists share this approach.
Chinese anarchists were very active in the early Chinese nationalist movement and in the resistance to British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and later Japanese
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
colonization of China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. Anarchists were also deeply involved in anti-imperialist nationalist movements in Vietnam, Korea, Cuba
Anarchism in Cuba
Anarchism as a social movement in Cuba held great influence with the working classes during the 19th and early 20th century. The movement was particularly strong following the abolition of slavery in 1886, until it was repressed first in 1925 by President Gerardo Machado, and finally by Fidel...
, Ukraine, Ireland
Anarchism in Ireland
Irish anarchism has little historical tradition before the 1970s, and as a movement it only really developed from the late 1990s – although one organisation, the Workers Solidarity Movement has had a continuous existence since 1984...
, Mexico, and all over Africa.
Anarchism is also an influence in the modern Indigenist movement.
The environment
The environment and sustainability have been an issue for anarchists from at least as far back as Kropotkin's 1899 book "Fields, Factories and WorkshopsFields, Factories and Workshops
Fields, Factories and Workshops: or Industry Combined with Agriculture and Brain Work with Manual Work is a landmark anarchist text by Peter Kropotkin, and arguably one of the most influential and positive statements of the anarchist political philosophy. It is viewed by many as the central work of...
", but since the late 1970s anarchists in Anglosphere
Anglosphere
Anglosphere is a neologism which refers to those nations with English as the most common language. The term can be used more specifically to refer to those nations which share certain characteristics within their cultures based on a linguistic heritage, through being former British colonies...
and European countries have been agitating for the natural environment. Eco-anarchists or green anarchists
Green anarchism
Green anarchism, or ecoanarchism, is a school of thought within anarchism which puts a particular emphasis on environmental issues. An important early influence was the thought of the American anarchist Henry David Thoreau and his book Walden...
often embrace deep ecology
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
. This is a worldview that strives to cultivate biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
and sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
. Eco-anarchists often use 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...
against what they see as earth-destroying institutions. Of particular importance is the Earth First!
Earth First!
Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. It was co-founded on April 4th, 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and less directly, Bart Koehler and Ron Kezar....
movement, that takes action such as tree sitting
Tree sitting
Tree sitting is a form of environmentalist civil disobedience in which a protester sits in a tree, usually on a small platform built for the purpose, to protect it from being cut down...
. The more militant Earth Liberation Front
Earth Liberation Front
The Earth Liberation Front , also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".The ELF was founded...
, which grew out of Earth First!, also has connections with the anarchist movement. Another important component is ecofeminism
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is a social and political movement which points to the existence of considerable common ground between environmentalism and feminism, with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism...
, which sees the domination of nature as a metaphor for the domination of women.
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,...
's work on 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...
, David Watson
David Watson
David Watson may refer to:*Dave Watson , actor and playwright*David Watson , anarchist author*David Watson *David Watson , Australian Senator...
's work with Fifth Estate
Fifth Estate
Fifth Estate is a US periodical, originally based in Detroit, Michigan, but now produced in a variety of locations. Its editorial collective shares divergent views on the topics the magazine addresses but generally shares an anti-authoritarian outlook and a non-dogmatic, action-oriented approach...
magazine, Steve Booth
Steve Booth
Steve Booth was a British political activist and journalist, and was one of the defendants in the GANDALF trial.After involvement in the 1990 anti-Poll Tax movement, and having written a number of articles for 'Freedom' magazine, he first became involved with the UK Green Anarchist magazine in...
's work in the UK publication Green Anarchist
Green Anarchist
The magazine Green Anarchist was for a while the principal voice in the UK advocating green anarchism, an explicit fusion of libertarian socialist and ecological thinking.-Early years:...
, and Graham Purchase's writings on green syndicalism
Green syndicalism
Green syndicalism or eco-syndicalism has been used as a name for the philosophy of the green guild or sustainable trades movement.- Background :...
have all contributed to the broad variety and scope of green anarchist/eco-anarchist thought and action. Green anarchism also involves a critique of industrial capitalism, and, for some green anarchists, civilization itself.
Most anarchists see class society as being the root cause of pollution. They argue that a small class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
of owners or controllers have the wealth to avoid the worst repercussions of pollution while a very much larger class of workers without such wealth have no say in the running of the workplace. Thus under capitalism and other class societies those who control workplaces are also those with the least interest in minimising pollution - indeed as most anti-pollution measures add to costs that class will have an interest in minimising such measures. Under capitalism pollution is often a product of externalising costs - that is a transfer of a pollutant from the property of the owner to a public river transfers the cost from the capitalist to society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
at large. The anarchist communist solution is to ensure that all those working and living within the ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
of a plant have control over all its outputs, including pollutants.
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...
is a predominantly Western philosophy that advocates a return to a pre-industrial and usually pre-agricultural society. It develops a critique of industrial civilization. In this critique 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 ;...
and development have alienated
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”...
people from the natural world. This philosophy develops themes present in the political action of the Luddites and the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
. Primitivism developed in the context of the Reclaim the Streets
Reclaim the Streets
Reclaim The Streets is a collective with a shared ideal of community ownership of public spaces. Participants characterize the collective as a resistance movement opposed to the dominance of corporate forces in globalization, and to the car as the dominant mode of transport.-Protests:Reclaim The...
, Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front
Earth Liberation Front
The Earth Liberation Front , also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".The ELF was founded...
movements. 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...
wrote that 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...
– not just the state– would need to fall for anarchy to be achieved. Anarcho-primitivists point to the anti-authoritarian nature of many 'primitive' or hunter-gatherer societies throughout the world's history as examples of anarchist societies.
Relations with the Left
While many anarchists (especially those involved in the anti-globalization movementAnti-globalization movement
The anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalisation movement, is critical of the globalization of corporate capitalism. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist movement, anti-corporate globalization movement, or...
) continue to see themselves as a leftist movement, some thinkers and activists believe it is necessary to re-evaluate anarchism's relationship with the traditional Left
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
. Like many radical ideologies, most anarchist schools of thought
Anarchist schools of thought
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...
are, to some degree, sectarian. There is often a difference of opinion within each school about how to react to, or interact with, other schools. Many anarchists however, draw from a wide range of political perspectives, such as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Zapatista Army of National Liberation
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is a revolutionary leftist group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico....
, the Situationists, "ultra leftists
Ultra leftism
The term ultra-leftism has two overlapping uses. It is used as a generally pejorative term for certain types of positions on the left that are seen as extreme or intransigent in particular ways...
", Autonomist Marxism, various indigenous cultures.
A movement called 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...
seeks to distance itself from the traditional "left" - Communists, socialists, social democrats, etc. - and 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. Post-leftists argue that anarchism has been weakened by its long attachment to contrary "leftist" movements and single issue causes (anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
, anti-nuclear
Anti-nuclear
The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes the use of nuclear technologies. Many direct action groups, environmental groups, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, and international level...
, etc.). It calls for a synthesis of anarchist thought and a specifically anti-authoritarian revolutionary movement outside of the leftist milieu. Important groups and individuals associated with post-left anarchy include: 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...
, the magazine 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...
and its editor 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...
, 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...
, Hakim Bey and others.
The term postanarchism 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...
, first receiving 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...
, 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 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. 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...
, 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...
and Félix Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
.
Some activists, calling themselves "insurrectionary anarchists", are critical of formal anarchist labor unions and federations, and advocate informal organization, carrying out acts of resistance in various struggles. Proponents include Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher is the former nom de plume of a contemporary anarchist philosopher involved in theoretical and practical activity...
and Alfredo M. Bonanno
Alfredo M. Bonanno
Alfredo Maria Bonanno is a main theorist of contemporary insurrectionary anarchism who wrote essays such as Armed Joy , The Anarchist Tension and others. He is an editor of Anarchismo Editions and many other publications, only some of which have been translated into English...
, author of works including "Armed Joy" and "The Anarchist Tension". This tendency is represented in the US in magazines such as Willful Disobedience and Killing King Abacus.
Communism
While communism is proposed as a form of social and economic organisation by many anarchists, other anarchists consider it a danger to the liberty and free development of the individual. Most schools of anarchismAnarchist schools of thought
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...
have recognized a distinction between libertarian and authoritarian forms of communism. Proudhon
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...
said of communism, "whether of the utopian or the Marxist variety, that it destroyed freedom by taking away from the individual control over his means of production" and "Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak." 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,...
stated "I hate Communism because it is the negation of liberty and because for me humanity is unthinkable without liberty. I am not a Communist, because Communism concentrates and swallows up in itself for the benefit of the State all the forces of society, because it inevitably leads to the concentration of property in the hands of the State." Bakunin was speaking of 'state communism' (authoritarian Marxism) as verified by the last line which mentions state property; anarcho-communists explicitly reject state property and authority, especially centralized authority.
Although 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...
, one of the leading proponents of 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...
, while also opposing 'state communism', argued for an economic model of free distribution between all individuals, many individualist anarchists oppose communism in all its forms, on the grounds that voluntary communism is not practicable. Individualist such as Benjamin Tucker, Victor Yarros, and Henry Appleton have denied that anarcho-communism is a genuine form of anarchism. They rejected its strategies and argued that it is inherently authoritarian. In the opinion of individualist Henry Appleton, "Communism, being opposed to natural law, must necessarily call upon unnatural methods if it would put itself into practice" and employ "pillage, brute force, and violence."
Anarcho-communists reject the criticism, pointing to the principle of 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...
that underpins their theory and differentiates it from state communism. Some individualist anarchists are also willing to recognize anarchist communism as a legitimate form. Kevin Carson writes that "free market, libertarian communist, syndicalism, and other kinds of collectivist anarchists must learn to coexist in peace and mutual respect today, in our fight against the corporate state, and tomorrow, in the panarchy
Panarchy
Panarchy is a conceptual term first coined by the Belgian botanist and economist Paul Emile de Puydt in 1860, referring to a specific form of governance that would encompass all others. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the noun as "chiefly poetic" with the meaning "a universal realm," citing...
that is likely to succeed it."