University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 1974 Anarchist social science : its origins and development. Rochelle Ann Potak University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses Potak, Rochelle Ann, "Anarchist social science : its origins and development." (1974). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 2504. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/2504 This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ANARCHIST SOCIAL SCIENCE: ITS ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT A Thesis Presented By ROCHELLE ANN POTAK Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the den:ree of MASTER OF ARTS December 1974 Political Science ANARCHIST SOCIAL SCIENCE: ITS ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT A Thesis By ROCHELLE AliN POTAK Approved as to style and content by: Guenther Lewy, Chairman of Committee Dean Albertson, Member — Glen Gordon, Chairman Department of Political Science December 197^ Affectionately dedicated to my friends Men have sought for aees to discover the science of govern- ment; and lo l here it is, that men cease totally to attempt to govern each other at allJ that they learn to know the consequences of their OT-m acts, and that they arrange their relations with each other upon such a basis of science that the disagreeable consequences shall be assumed by the agent himself. Stephen Pearl Andrews V PREFACE The primary purpose of this thesis is to examine anarchist thought from a new perspective. Anarchism and anarchist thought are often portrayed in scholarly works as moral protest against the modern trends of centralized production, social injustice resulting from the abuses of economic and state power, and bureaucratization. This view of anarchism is a simplistic one that could be challenged as one -dimensional , but it is not my major concern to do so. Rather, I Intend to go beyond this by looking at anarchism as a developing social scientific paradigm that can be considered as "hard" an area of social theory and critique as any other. When I began to research this paper, I was apprehensive that there might be a lack of material concerning anarchist social science, for I knew of no book or article written specifically on this subject. Today, hov?ever, only one year later, I confess to being humbled by my subject; rather than having to "stretch" my topic, I have been forced to omit a huge amount of pertinent material. This paper, therefore, is far more limited in its scope than I had originally planned it to be. In the first place, it examines the work of only a relative few anarchist theorists, albeit the most widely vl known ones. Furthermore, it Is almost exclusively concerned with communitarian anarchism, which is certainly not the only form of anarchist and libertarian socialist thought. Finally, a combination of l.anguage barriers and the unavailability of some important European sources has placed certain limits upon my research. Chapter IV, which deals with contemporary anarchist social science, is especially reflective of this; the discussion is entirely in terms of contemporary Anglo-American anarchism. Moreover, it must be kept in mind that whatever is stated in this work about areas of social thought which are non-anarchist must be limited or even implied, for they are peripheral to the scope of my subject. This paper represents only one perspective upon one aspect of a highly complex subject. A critique covering anarchist, liberal, Marxist, and conservative social sciences must be left undone for now. Such an attempt to inter-relate so many facets of the "social science" dilemma would be an undertaking of monumental proportions. I am indebted to my family and all of my friends for their unflagging toleration, understanding and encouragement in the past year. However, I*d like to thank Alex Shi shin in particular for his stimulating comments and for many lively hours of discussion relating Vll to this paper. Special thanks, too. to Murray Bookchln for helping me define this topic, and to Sam and Esther Dolgoff for opening their personal library to me. thereby giving me access to several rare books and pamphlets. My greatest debt Is to Will Petry. whose assistance and support at every stage of my research and writing has been more valuable than I could ever say. — CONTENTS PREFACE V I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE IN RELATION TO NINETEENTH CEI^ITURY ANARCHISM The development of social science as a radical critiaue of pre-nineteenth century methods of studying society; the development of socialism as an integral part of the rise of social science; the emergence of anarchism as an outgrowth of socialism and of social science Pierre-Joseph Proudhon II. THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF AN ANARCHIST PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIEITCE 34 Proudhon’s critique of Harz and . Marxism; Bakunin’s critique of socialism and social science III. CRITIQUE OF SOCIAL DARWINISM AND THE DEVELOPMENT 0F AN ANARCHIST VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE 77 The shift from political economy to natural science as the model for social science — the rise of evolutionary thought; Kropotkin’s conception of social evolution and mutual aid IV. CONTEMPORARY AN^iRCHIST SOCIAL SCIENCE ... 153 The collapse of critical bourgeois social science; modern social science and the anarchist critique of it; contemporary anarchist social science —toward the creation of eco-community SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 222 CHAPTER I THE DEVELOPMENT 0? SOCIAL SCIENCE IN RELATION TO NINETEENTH CENTURY ANARCHISM The Development of Social Science as a Radical Crltloue of Pre-Nineteenth Century i^ethods of Studying; Society The development of anarchist social science is a fairly recent phenomenon, but its roots can be traced beyond the existence of a distinctly self-aware anarchist movement beginning in the nineteenth century. Because its history is so closely related to that of early social science, this chapter will begin with a brief discussion of the rise of sociology and political economy before we proceed to examine the early theories of communitarian anarchism. The actual origins of social sclence--that is, the method developed for use in the natural sciences applied to the study of individual life and society —are tied to the scientific "revolution” directly set in motion largely by Sir Isaac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Galileo Galilei. However, it was Thomas Hobbes who effectively developed a scientific consciousness that embodied the mode of inquiry and explanation used in the natural sciences in a social theory. Hoboes, in the to midst of the English Revolutionary period, attempted 1 2 use Ne;vton*s la^^^s of colliding matter and gravitational restraint to create a theory of social order and law with an explicitly mechanistic Newtonian flavor. He transposed Newton’s thought into a social context, with human and social movement conceived of as a result of reaction. Pleasure and pain became physical functions, while humans were held to be subject to the laws of Inertia — i.e., people and societies were seen by Hobbes as objects either animate or at rest that remained in motion or at rest if external forces remained constant. However, it must be remembered that Hobbes* break from a religious vjay of knowing was not a total one, for he seems to have been influenced as much by the traditional Augustinian viev; of a divinely ordered worldly existence as by Nevjton’s universal laws of matter.^ Later, in English and French Enlightenment thought and in the American Revolution, emphasis began to be placed upon knowing the world in terms of a rationally determined and mechanistic law of motion. Jean-Jaccues Rousseau, for example, looked for the origin of government Isee especially Part III, ”0f a Christian Coramonvjealth** and Part IV, ”0f the Kingdom of Darknesse" of Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London; Pelican Books, 1972 ) . 3 and property In his First and Second Discourses not by looking to the Bible, but rather in using what he felt was reason, for he was greatly Influenced by the scientific spirit of the age. Enlightenment thought considered ideas to be reflected in the natural laws of the universe; a scientific construction of matter and reason was consulted for explanations in both the physical and social realms. Typical examples of this attitude may be found in the works of writers in the genre of Thomas Jefferson, Joseph Priestley, Benjamin Rush, and Thomas Paine, The scientific mode of thought and scientific rationalism icere at first considered by Enlightenment thinkers to be better conceptual frameworks than any previous ones for studying individual, social, and political realities. Eventually, the scientific outlook became the only valid perspective for most. It is impossible to pinpoint any one definite date, person, or idea as the genesis of the scientific mythos as the foundation of modern Western knowing and doing. The scientific consciousness had been slowly developing in Western thought during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and finally came forth in the Enlightenment in such a rules way as to replace gradually the earlier religious knowing of natural order— that is, mystical modes of world. what is real and of living in the material 4 A new way of knowing social reality has to be coupled with a doing process if it is to have any validity for social life. As has already been stated, the rise of scientific social consciousness was tied to the development of the natural sciences. The impact of the latter upon both the educated strata and the masses was tremendous. The increasing capabilities of science to create new and visible "miracles , ” technological Innovations, and rational explanations debunked many traditional and mystical conceptions of the world.