prelims.053 21/07/2005 10:36 AM Page i anarchism a beginner’s guide prelims.053 21/07/2005 10:36 AM Page ii related titles from oneworld Anti-capitalism: A Beginner’s Guide, Simon Tormey, ISBN 1–85168–342–9 Political Philosophy: An Historical Introduction, Michael J. White, ISBN 1–85168–328–3 Marx, Andrew Collier, ISBN 1–85168–346–1 Democracy: A Beginner’s Guide, David Beetham, ISBN 1–85168–363–1 Global Outrage: The Impact of World Opinion on Contemporary History, Peter N. Stearns, ISBN 1–85168–364–X The Palestine–Israeli Conflict: A Beginner’s Guide, Dan Cohn-Sherbok and Dawoud El-Alami, ISBN 1–85168–332–1 Global Terrorism: A Beginner’s Guide, Leonard Weinberg, ISBN 1–85168–358–5 NATO: A Beginner’s Guide, Jennifer Medcalf, ISBN 1–85168–353–4 Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil, Mark LeVine, ISBN 1–85168–365–8 prelims.053 21/07/2005 10:36 AM Page iii anarchism a beginner’s guide ruth kinna prelims.053 21/07/2005 10:36 AM Page iv anarchism: a beginner’s guide Oneworld Publications (Sales and Editorial) 185 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7AR England www.oneworld-publications.com © Ruth Kinna 2005 All rights reserved Copyright under Berne Convention A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library ISBN-13: 978–1–85168–370–3 ISBN-10: 1–85168–370–4 Typeset by Jayvee, Trivandrum, India Cover design by the Bridgewater Book Company Printed and bound by WS Bookwell, Finland NL08 prelims.053 21/07/2005 10:36 AM Page v contents Acknowledgements vii introduction 1 one what is anarchism? 3 Anarchy: origins of the word 6 Anarchist thought: key personalities 10 Anarchist thought: schools of anarchism 15 Anarchist thought: history 27 Summary 38 two anarchist rejections of the state 44 Government, authority, power and the state 45 Anarchist critiques of the state 63 Self-government, ‘natural’ authority and ‘social’ power 67 Anarchism and liberty 76 Summary 81 three anarchy 86 Anarchy and anthropology 87 Anarchy and utopia 97 v prelims.053 21/07/2005 10:36 AM Page vi vi contents Experiments in anarchy 108 Summary 120 four strategies for change 125 Emancipation from oppression by the oppressed 126 Revolutionary strategies 132 Protest 147 Anarchism and anti-globalization 154 Anarchism and violence 158 Summary 163 five concluding remarks 170 Index 175 prelims.053 21/07/2005 10:36 AM Page vii acknowledgements A number of people have helped in the production of this book. Many thanks to Sharif Gemie and Vasilis Margaras for reading and commenting on early drafts, and to Dave Berry for generously giving his time to share his extensive knowledge of anarchist labour history – as well as lending some valuable materials. Thanks also to Simon Tormey who read and offered helpful comments on the original manuscript. Sadly, none of them have managed to iron out all the creases, but I’m very grateful for their help and encouragement. The production team at Oneworld – especially Victoria Roddam, who suggested the project, Mark Hopwood and Judy Kearns – have been extremely helpful and I’m grateful for their responsiveness and patience in seeing the book through. Finally, I’d like to thank family and friends – some I didn’t know I had – who helped out in the dark days of 2002–3 and especially to Robert and Andrew who bore the brunt of those times. This book is for them. vii prelims.053 21/07/2005 10:36 AM Page viii Intro-ch1.053 21/07/2005 10:39 AM Page 1 introduction This book falls into four chapters, each organized around a particu- lar theme: (i) the ideology of anarchism; (ii) anarchist conceptions of the state; (iii) principles of anarchist organization (ideas of anarchy); and (iv) strategies for change. The first chapter begins by introducing the terms ‘anarchism’, ‘anarchist’ and ‘anarchy’ and then discusses the problems anarchists have encountered with popular conceptions of anarchy. The main body of the chapter looks at three different approaches to anarchism. The first seeks to understand the core principles of anarchism by abstracting key ideas from the works of designated anarchist thinkers. The second emphasizes the broadness of the ideology by categorizing anarchists into a variety of schools or traditions. The third approach is historical and argues that anarchism developed in response to a peculiar set of political circumstances, active in the latter decades of nineteenth-century Europe. The aim of this chapter is to suggest that anarchism can be defined as an ideology by the adherence of anarchists to a core belief namely, the rejection of the state. The second chapter considers some of the ways in which anarchists have theorized the state and the grounds on which they have called for its abolition. It looks in particular at anarchist ideas of government, authority and power and it uses these ideas to show why anarchists believe the state to be both detrimental and unneces- sary. Anarchists sometimes suggest that they are wholly opposed to government, authority and power, but the chapter shows how these concepts are incorporated into anarchist theories to bolster anarchist defences of anarchy. Finally, the chapter reviews some 1 Intro-ch1.053 21/07/2005 10:39 AM Page 2 2 anarchism: a beginner’s guide anarchist theories of liberty, in an effort to show why anarchists believe anarchy is superior to the state, and to illustrate the broad difference between anarchist communitarians and libertarians. The third chapter looks at anarchist ideas of organization and some models of anarchy. It looks first at the ways in which anarchists have understood the relationship between anarchy and statelessness, and the use they have made of anthropology to formulate ideas of anarchy. The second part of the chapter considers anarchist responses to utopianism, identifies decentralized federalism as the principle of anarchist planning and outlines two ‘utopian’ views of this principle. The final part of the chapter considers some experi- ments in anarchy, both historical and contemporary, highlighting the relationship that some anarchists posit between organization and revolutionary change. The final chapter examines strategies for change – both revolu- tionary and evolutionary – and different methods of protest, from symbolic to direct action. The chapter includes a discussion of anarchist responses to the anti-globalization movement and reviews one of the important arguments that anti-globalization protest has raised: the justification of violence. Intro-ch1.053 21/07/2005 10:39 AM Page 3 chapter one what is anarchism? There cannot be a history of anarchism in the sense of establishing a permanent state of things called ‘anarchist’. It is always a continual coping with the next situation, and a vigilance to make sure that past freedoms are not lost and do not turn into the opposite ... (Paul Goodman, in A Decade of Anarchy, p. 39) What do we anarchists believe? ... we believe that human beings can achieve their maximum development and fulfilment as individuals in a community of individuals only when they have free access to the means of life and are equals among equals, we maintain that to achieve a society in which these conditions are possible it is necessary to destroy all that is authoritarian in existing society. (Vernon Richards, Protest Without Illusions, p. 129) Anarchism is a doctrine that aims at the liberation of peoples from political domination and economic exploitation by the encourage- ment of direct or non-governmental action. Historically, it has been linked to working-class activism, but its intellectual roots lie in the mid-nineteenth century, just prior to the era of mass organization. Europe was anarchism’s first geographical centre, and the early decades of the twentieth century marked the period of its greatest success. Yet the influence of anarchism has extended across the globe, from America to China; whilst anarchism virtually disap- peared after 1939, when General Franco crushed the Spanish revolu- tion to end the civil war, today it is again possible to talk about an anarchist movement or movements. The origins of contemporary anarchism can be traced to 1968 when, to the delight and surprise of activists – and disappointment and incredulity of critics – student 3 Intro-ch1.053 21/07/2005 10:39 AM Page 4 4 anarchism: a beginner’s guide rebellion put anarchism back on the political agenda. There is some dispute in anarchist circles about the character and composition of the late-twentieth and twenty-first-century anarchism and its rela- tionship to the earlier twentieth-century movement. But all agree that anarchism has been revived and there is some optimism that anarchist ideas are again exercising a real influence in contemporary politics. This influence is detectable in numerous campaigns – from highly publicized protests against animal vivisection, millitarization and nuclear arms, to less well-known programmes for urban renewal, the development of alternative media, free education, rad- ical democracy and co-operative labour. Anarchist ideas have also made themselves felt in the anti-capitalist, anti-globalization move- ment – sometimes dubbed by activists as the pro-globlization move- ment or the movement for globalization from below. Anarchists are those who work to further the cause of anarchism. Like activists in other movements, those who struggle in the name of anarchism fall into a number of categories ranging from education- alists and propagandists to combatants in armed struggle. Anarchists work in local and international arenas, building networks for community action and showing solidarity with comrades locked in struggles in areas like Palestine and the Chiapas region of Mexico. Because anarchists eschew party politics, their diversity is per- haps more apparent than it is in other organizations.