                   A.4 Who are the major anarchist thinkers?

   Although Gerard Winstanley (The New Law of Righteousness, 1649) and
   William Godwin (Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, 1793) had begun
   to unfold the philosophy of anarchism in the 17th and 18th centuries,
   it was not until the second half of the 19th century that anarchism
   emerged as a coherent theory with a systematic, developed programme.
   This work was mainly started by four people -- a German, Max Stirner
   (1806-1856), a Frenchman, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865), and two
   Russians, Michael Bakunin (1814-1876) and Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921).
   They took the ideas in common circulation within sections of the
   working population and expressed them in written form.

   Born in the atmosphere of German romantic philosophy, Stirner's
   anarchism (set forth in The Ego and Its Own) was an extreme form of
   individualism, or egoism, which placed the unique individual above all
   else -- state, property, law or duty. His ideas remain a cornerstone of
   anarchism. Stirner attacked both capitalism and state socialism, laying
   the foundations of both social and individualist anarchism by his
   egoist critique of capitalism and the state that supports it. In place
   of the state and capitalism, Max Stirner urges the "union of egoists,"
   free associations of unique individuals who co-operate as equals in
   order to maximise their freedom and satisfy their desires (including
   emotional ones for solidarity, or "intercourse" as Stirner called it).
   Such a union would be non-hierarchical, for, as Stirner wonders, "is an
   association, wherein most members allow themselves to be lulled as
   regards their most natural and most obvious interests, actually an
   Egoist's association? Can they really be 'Egoists' who have banded
   together when one is a slave or a serf of the other?" [No Gods, No
   Masters, vol. 1, p. 24]

   Individualism by definition includes no concrete programme for changing
   social conditions. This was attempted by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the
   first to describe himself openly as an anarchist. His theories of
   mutualism, federalism and workers' self-management and association had
   a profound effect on the growth of anarchism as a mass movement and
   spelled out clearly how an anarchist world could function and be
   co-ordinated. It would be no exaggeration to state that Proudhon's work
   defined the fundamental nature of anarchism as both an anti-state and
   anti-capitalist movement and set of ideas. Bakunin, Kropotkin and
   Tucker all claimed inspiration from his ideas and they are the
   immediate source for both social and individualist anarchism, with each
   thread emphasising different aspects of mutualism (for example, social
   anarchists stress the associational aspect of them while individualist
   anarchists the non-capitalist market side). Proudhon's major works
   include What is Property, System of Economical Contradictions, The
   Principle of Federation and, and The Political Capacity of the Working
   Classes. His most detailed discussion of what mutualism would look like
   can be found in his The General Idea of the Revolution. His ideas
   heavily influenced both the French Labour movement and the Paris
   Commune of 1871.

   Proudhon's ideas were built upon by Michael Bakunin, who humbly
   suggested that his own ideas were simply Proudhon's "widely developed
   and pushed right to . . . [their] final consequences." [Michael
   Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 198] However, he is doing a disservice
   to his own role in developing anarchism. For Bakunin is the central
   figure in the development of modern anarchist activism and ideas. He
   emphasised the importance of collectivism,
   mass insurrection, revolution and involvement in the militant labour
   movement as the means of creating a free, classless society. Moreover,
   he repudiated Proudhon's sexism and added patriarchy to the list of
   social evils anarchism opposes. Bakunin also emphasised the social
   nature of humanity and individuality, rejecting the abstract
   individualism of liberalism as a denial of freedom. His ideas become
   dominant in the 20th century among large sections of the radical labour
   movement. Indeed, many of his ideas are almost identical to what would
   later be called syndicalism or anarcho-syndicalism. Bakunin influenced
   many union movements -- especially in Spain, where a major anarchist
   social revolution took place in 1936. His works include Anarchy and
   Statism (his only book), God and the State, The Paris Commune and the
   Idea of the State, and many others. Bakunin on Anarchism, edited by Sam
   Dolgoff is an excellent collection of his major writings. Brian Morris'
   Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom is an excellent introduction to
   Bakunin's life and ideas.

   Peter Kropotkin, a scientist by training, fashioned a sophisticated and
   detailed anarchist analysis of modern conditions linked to a
   thorough-going prescription for a future society -- communist-anarchism
   -- which continues to be the most widely-held theory among anarchists.
   He identified mutual aid as the best means by which individuals can
   develop and grow, pointing out that competition within humanity (and
   other species) was often not in the best interests of those involved.
   Like Bakunin, he stressed the importance of direct, economic, class
   struggle and anarchist participation in any popular movement,
   particularly in labour unions. Taking Proudhon's and Bakunin's idea of
   the commune, he generalised their insights into a vision of how the
   social, economic and personal life of a free society would function. He
   aimed to base anarchism "on a scientific basis by the study of the
   tendencies that are apparent now in society and may indicate its
   further evolution" towards anarchy while, at the same time, urging
   anarchists to "promote their ideas directly amongst the labour
   organisations and to induce those union to a direct struggle against
   capital, without placing their faith in parliamentary legislation."
   [Anarchism, p. 298 and p. 287] Like Bakunin, he was a revolutionary
   and, like Bakunin, his ideas inspired those struggle for freedom across
   the globe. His major works included Mutual Aid, The Conquest of Bread,
   Field, Factories, and Workshops, Modern Science and Anarchism, Act for
   Yourselves, The State: Its Historic Role, Words of a Rebel, and many
   others. A collection of his revolutionary pamphlets is available under
   the title Anarchism and is essential reading for anyone interested in
   his ideas. In Addition, Graham Purchase's Evolution and Revolution and
   Kropotkin: The Politics of Community by Brain Morris are both excellent
   evaluations of his ideas and how they are still relevant today.

   The various theories proposed by these "founding anarchists" are not,
   however, mutually exclusive: they are interconnected in many ways, and
   to some extent refer to different levels of social life. Individualism
   relates closely to the conduct of our private lives: only by
   recognising the uniqueness and freedom of others and forming unions
   with them can we protect and maximise our own uniqueness and liberty;
   mutualism relates to our general relations with others: by mutually
   working together and co-operating we ensure that we do not work for
   others. Production under anarchism would be collectivist, with people
   working together for their own, and the common, good, and in the wider
   political and social world decisions would be reached communally.

   It should also be stressed that anarchist schools of thought are not
   named after individual anarchists. Thus anarchists are not
   "Bakuninists", "Proudhonists" or "Kropotkinists" (to name three
   possibilities). Anarchists, to quote Malatesta, "follow ideas and not
   men, and rebel against this habit of embodying a principle in a man."
   This did not stop him calling Bakunin "our great master and
   inspiration." [Errico Malatesta: Life and Ideas, p. 199 and p. 209]
   Equally, not everything written by a famous anarchist thinker is
   automatically libertarian. Bakunin, for example, only became an
   anarchist in the last ten years of his life (this does not stop
   Marxists using his pre-anarchist days to attack anarchism!). Proudhon
   turned away from anarchism in the 1850s before returning to a more
   anarchistic (if not strictly anarchist) position just before his death
   in 1865. Similarly, Kropotkin's or Tucker's arguments in favour of
   supporting the Allies during the First World War had nothing to do with
   anarchism. Thus to say, for example, that anarchism is flawed because
   Proudhon was a sexist pig simply does not convince anarchists. No one
   would dismiss democracy, for example, because Rousseau opinions on
   women were just as sexist as Proudhon's. As with anything, modern
   anarchists analyse the writings of previous anarchists to draw
   inspiration, but a dogma. Consequently, we reject the non-libertarian
   ideas of "famous" anarchists while keeping their positive contributions
   to the development of anarchist theory. We are sorry to belabour the
   point, but much of Marxist "criticism" of anarchism basically involves
   pointing out the negative aspects of dead anarchist thinkers and it is
   best simply to state clearly the obvious stupidity of such an approach.

   Anarchist ideas of course did not stop developing when Kropotkin died.
   Neither are they the products of just four men. Anarchism is by its
   very nature an evolving theory, with many different thinkers and
   activists. When Bakunin and Kropotkin were alive, for example, they
   drew aspects of their ideas from other libertarian activists. Bakunin,
   for example, built upon the practical activity of the followers of
   Proudhon in the French labour movement in the 1860s. Kropotkin, while
   the most associated with developing the theory communist-anarchism, was
   simply the most famous expounder of the ideas that had developed after
   Bakunin's death in the libertarian wing of the First International and
   before he became an anarchist. Thus anarchism is the product of tens of
   thousands of thinkers and activists across the globe, each shaping and
   developing anarchist theory to meet their needs as part of the general
   movement for social change. Of the many other anarchists who could be
   mentioned here, we can mention but a few.

   Stirner is not the only famous anarchist to come from Germany. It also
   produced a number of original anarchist thinkers. Gustav Landauer was
   expelled from the Marxist Social-Democratic Party for his radical views
   and soon after identified himself as an anarchist. For him, anarchy was
   "the expression of the liberation of man from the idols of state, the
   church and capital" and he fought "State socialism, levelling from
   above, bureaucracy" in favour of "free association and union, the
   absence of authority." His ideas were a combination of Proudhon's and
   Kropotkin's and he saw the development of self-managed communities and
   co-operatives as the means of changing society. He is most famous for
   his insight that the "state is a condition, a certain relationship
   among human beings, a mode of behaviour between them; we destroy it by
   contracting other relationships, by behaving differently towards one
   another." [quoted by Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible, p. 410
   and p. 411] He took a leading part in the Munich revolution of 1919 and
   was murdered during its crushing by the German state. His book For
   Socialism is an excellent summary of his main ideas.

   Other notable German anarchists include Johann Most, originally a
   Marxist and an elected member of the Reichstag, he saw the futility of
   voting and became an anarchist after being exiled for writing against
   the Kaiser and clergy. He played an important role in the American
   anarchist movement, working for a time with Emma Goldman. More a
   propagandist than a great thinker, his revolutionary message inspired
   numerous people to become anarchists. Then there is Rudolf Rocker, a
   bookbinder by trade who played an important role in the Jewish labour
   movement in the East End of London (see his autobiography, The London
   Years, for details). He also produced the definite introduction to
   Anarcho-syndicalism as well as analysing the Russian Revolution in
   articles like Anarchism and Sovietism and defending the Spanish
   revolution in pamphlets like The Tragedy of Spain. His Nationalism and
   Culture is a searching analysis of human culture through the ages, with
   an analysis of both political thinkers and power politics. He dissects
   nationalism and explains how the nation is not the cause but the result
   of the state as well as repudiating race science for the nonsense it
   is.

   In the United States Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were two of the
   leading anarchist thinkers and activists. Goldman united Stirner's
   egoism with Kropotkin's communism into a passionate and powerful theory
   which combined the best of both. She also placed anarchism at the
   centre of feminist theory and activism as well as being an advocate of
   syndicalism (see her book Anarchism and Other Essays and the collection
   of essays, articles and talks entitled Red Emma Speaks). Alexander
   Berkman, Emma's lifelong companion, produced a classic introduction to
   anarchist ideas called What is Anarchism? (also known as What is
   Communist Anarchism? and the ABC of Anarchism). Like Goldman, he
   supported anarchist involvement in the labour movement was a prolific
   writer and speaker (the book Life of An Anarchist gives an excellent
   selection of his best articles, books and pamphlets). Both were
   involved in editing anarchist journals, with Goldman most associated
   with Mother Earth (see Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman's Mother
   Earth edited by Peter Glassgold) and Berkman The Blast (reprinted in
   full in 2005). Both journals were closed down when the two anarchists
   were arrested in 1917 for their anti-war activism.

   In December 1919, both he and Goldman were expelled by the US
   government to Russia after the 1917 revolution had radicalised
   significant parts of the American population. There as they were
   considered too dangerous to be allowed to remain in the land of the
   free. Exactly two years later, their passports arrived to allow them to
   leave Russia. The Bolshevik slaughter of the Kronstadt revolt in March
   1921 after the civil war ended had finally convinced them that the
   Bolshevik dictatorship meant the death of the revolution there. The
   Bolshevik rulers were more than happy to see the back of two genuine
   revolutionaries who stayed true to their principles. Once outside
   Russia, Berkman wrote numerous articles on the fate of the revolution
   (including The Russian Tragedy and The Kronstadt Rebellion) as well as
   publishing his diary in book from as The Bolshevik Myth. Goldman
   produced her classic work My Disillusionment in Russia as well as
   publishing her famous autobiography Living My Life. She also found time
   to refute Trotsky's lies about the Kronstadt rebellion in Trotsky
   Protests Too Much.

   As well as Berkman and Goldman, the United States also produced other
   notable activists and thinkers. Voltairine de Cleyre played an
   important role in the US anarchist movement, enriching both US and
   international anarchist theory with her articles, poems and speeches.
   Her work includes such classics as Anarchism and American Traditions,
   Direct Action, Sex Slavery and The Dominant Idea. These are included,
   along with other articles and some of her famous poems, in The
   Voltairine de Cleyre Reader. These and other important essays are
   included in Exquisite Rebel, another anthology of her writings, while
   Eugenia C. Delamotte's Gates of Freedom provides an excellent overview
   of her life and ideas as well as selections from her works. In
   addition, the book Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman's Mother Earth
   contains a good selection of her writings as well as other anarchists
   active at the time. Also of interest is the collection of the speeches
   she made to mark the state murder of the Chicago Martyrs in 1886 (see
   the First Mayday: The Haymarket Speeches 1895-1910). Every November the
   11th, except when illness made it impossible, she spoke in their
   memory. For those interested in the ideas of that previous generation
   of anarchists which the Chicago Martyrs represented, Albert Parsons'
   Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis is essential reading.
   His wife, Lucy Parsons, was also an outstanding anarchist activist from
   the 1870s until her death in 1942 and selections of her writings and
   speeches can be found in the book Freedom, Equality & Solidarity
   (edited by Gale Ahrens).

   Elsewhere in the Americas, Ricardo Flores Magon helped lay the ground
   for the Mexican revolution of 1910 by founding the (strangely named)
   Mexican Liberal Party in 1905 which organised two unsuccessful uprising
   against the Diaz dictatorship in 1906 and 1908. Through his paper
   Tierra y Libertad ("Land and Liberty") he influenced the developing
   labour movement as well as Zapata's peasant army. He continually
   stressed the need to turn the revolution into a social revolution which
   will "give the lands to the people" as well as "possession of the
   factories, mines, etc." Only this would ensure that the people "will
   not be deceived." Talking of the Agrarians (the Zapatista army),
   Ricardo's brother Enrique he notes that they "are more or less inclined
   towards anarchism" and they can work together because both are "direct
   actionists" and "they act perfectly revolutionary. They go after the
   rich, the authorities and the priestcraft" and have "burnt to ashes
   private property deeds as well as all official records" as well as
   having "thrown down the fences that marked private properties." Thus
   the anarchists "propagate our principles" while the Zapatista's "put
   them into practice." [quoted by David Poole, Land and Liberty, p. 17
   and p. 25] Ricardo died as a political prisoner in an American jail and
   is, ironically, considered a hero of the revolution by the Mexican
   state. A substantial collection of his writings are available in the
   book Dreams of Freedom (which includes an impressive biographical essay
   which discusses his influence as well as placing his work in historical
   context).

   Italy, with its strong and dynamic anarchist movement, has produced
   some of the best anarchist writers. Errico Malatesta spent over 50
   years fighting for anarchism across the world and his writings are
   amongst the best in anarchist theory. For those interested in his
   practical and inspiring ideas then his short pamphlet Anarchy cannot be
   beaten. Collections of his articles can be found in The Anarchist
   Revolution and Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, both edited by
   Vernon Richards. A favourite writing technique was the use of
   dialogues, such as At the Cafe: Conversations on Anarchism. These,
   using the conversations he had with non-anarchists as their basis,
   explained anarchist ideas in a clear and down to Earth manner. Another
   dialogue, Fra Contadini: A Dialogue on Anarchy, was translated into
   many languages, with 100,000 copies printed in Italy in 1920 when the
   revolution Malatesta had fought for all his life looked likely. At this
   time Malatesta edited Umanita Nova (the first Italian daily anarchist
   paper, it soon gained a circulation of 50 000) as well as writing the
   programme for the Unione Anarchica Italiana, a national anarchist
   organisation of some 20 000. For his activities during the factory
   occupations he was arrested at the age of 67 along with 80 other
   anarchists activists. Other Italian anarchists of note include
   Malatesta's friend Luigi Fabbri (sadly little of his work has been
   translated into English bar Bourgeois Influences on Anarchism and
   Anarchy and 'Scientific' Communism) Luigi Galleani produced a very
   powerful anti-organisational anarchist-communism which proclaimed (in
   The End of Anarchism?) that "Communism is simply the economic
   foundation by which the individual has the opportunity to regulate
   himself and carry out his functions." Camillo Berneri, before being
   murdered by the Communists during the Spanish Revolution, continued the
   fine tradition of critical, practical anarchism associated with Italian
   anarchism. His study of Kropotkin's federalist ideas is a classic
   (Peter Kropotkin: His Federalist Ideas). His daughter Marie-Louise
   Berneri, before her tragic early death, contributed to the British
   anarchist press (see her Neither East Nor West: Selected Writings
   1939-48 and Journey Through Utopia).

   In Japan, Hatta Shuzo developed Kropotkin's communist-anarchism in new
   directions between the world wars. Called "true anarchism," he created
   an anarchism which was a concrete alternative to the mainly peasant
   country he and thousands of his comrades were active in. While
   rejecting certain aspects of syndicalism, they organised workers into
   unions as well as working with the peasantry for the "foundation stones
   on which to build the new society that we long for are none other than
   the awakening of the tenant farmers" who "account for a majority of the
   population." Their new society was based on decentralised communes
   which combined industry and agriculture for, as one of Hatta's
   comrade's put it, "the village will cease to be a mere communist
   agricultural village and become a co-operative society which is a
   fusion of agriculture and industry." Hatta rejected the idea that they
   sought to go back to an ideal past, stating that the anarchists were
   "completely opposite to the medievalists. We seek to use machines as
   means of production and, indeed, hope for the invention of yet more
   ingenious machines." [quoted by John Crump, Hatta Shuzo and Pure
   Anarchism in Interwar Japan, p. 122-3, and p. 144]

   As far as individualist anarchism goes, the undoubted "pope" was
   Benjamin Tucker. Tucker, in his Instead of Book, used his intellect and
   wit to attack all who he considered enemies of freedom (mostly
   capitalists, but also a few social anarchists as well! For example,
   Tucker excommunicated Kropotkin and the other communist-anarchists from
   anarchism. Kropotkin did not return the favour). Tucker built on the
   such notable thinkers as Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, Stephen Pearl
   Andrews and William B. Greene, adapting Proudhon's mutualism to the
   conditions of pre-capitalist America (see Rudolf Rocker's Pioneers of
   American Freedom for details). Defending the worker, artisan and
   small-scale farmer from a state intent on building capitalism by means
   of state intervention, Tucker argued that capitalist exploitation would
   be abolished by creating a totally free non-capitalist market in which
   the four state monopolies used to create capitalism would be struck
   down by means of mutual banking and "occupancy and use" land and
   resource rights. Placing himself firmly in the socialist camp, he
   recognised (like Proudhon) that all non-labour income was theft and so
   opposed profit, rent and interest. he translated Proudhon's What is
   Property and System of Economical Contradictions as well as Bakunin's
   God and the State. Tucker's compatriot, Joseph Labadie was an active
   trade unionist as well as contributor to Tucker's paper Liberty. His
   son, Lawrence Labadie carried the individualist-anarchist torch after
   Tucker's death, believing that "that freedom in every walk of life is
   the greatest possible means of elevating the human race to happier
   conditions."

   Undoubtedly the Russian Leo Tolstoy is the most famous writer
   associated with religious anarchism and has had the greatest impact in
   spreading the spiritual and pacifistic ideas associated with that
   tendency. Influencing such notable people as Gandhi and the Catholic
   Worker Group around Dorothy Day, Tolstoy presented a radical
   interpretation of Christianity which stressed individual responsibility
   and freedom above the mindless authoritarianism and hierarchy which
   marks so much of mainstream Christianity. Tolstoy's works, like those
   of that other radical libertarian Christian William Blake, have
   inspired many Christians towards a libertarian vision of Jesus' message
   which has been hidden by the mainstream churches. Thus Christian
   Anarchism maintains, along with Tolstoy, that "Christianity in its true
   sense puts an end to government" (see, for example, Tolstoy's The
   Kingdom of God is within you and Peter Marshall's William Blake:
   Visionary Anarchist).

   More recently, Noam Chomsky (in such works as Deterring Democracy,
   Necessary Illusions, World Orders, Old and New, Rogue States, Hegemony
   or Survival and many others) and Murray Bookchin (Post-Scarcity
   Anarchism, The Ecology of Freedom, Towards an Ecological Society, and
   Remaking Society, among others) have kept the social anarchist movement
   at the front of political theory and analysis. Bookchin's work has
   placed anarchism at the centre of green thought and has been a constant
   threat to those wishing to mystify or corrupt the movement to create an
   ecological society. The Murray Bookchin Reader contains a
   representative selection of his writings. Sadly, a few years before his
   death Bookchin distanced himself from the anarchism he spent nearly
   four decades advocating (although he remained a libertarian socialist
   to the end). Chomsky's well documented critiques of U.S. imperialism
   and how the media operates are his most famous works, but he has also
   written extensively about the anarchist tradition and its ideas, most
   famously in his essays "Notes on Anarchism" (in For Reasons of State)
   and his defence of the anarchist social revolution against bourgeois
   historians in "Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship" (in American Power
   and the New Mandarins). These and others of his more explicitly
   anarchist essays and interviews can be found in the collection Chomsky
   on Anarchism. Other good sources for his anarchist ideas are Radical
   Priorities, Language and Politics and the pamphlet Government in the
   Future. Both Understanding Power and The Chomsky Reader are excellent
   introductions to his thought.

   Britain has also seen an important series of anarchist thinkers. Hebert
   Read (probably the only anarchist to ever accept a knighthood!) wrote
   several works on anarchist philosophy and theory (see his Anarchy and
   Order compilation of essays). His anarchism flowered directly from his
   aesthetic concerns and he was a committed pacifist. As well as giving
   fresh insight and expression to the tradition themes of anarchism, he
   contributed regularly to the anarchist press (see the collection of
   articles A One-Man Manifesto and other writings from Freedom Press).
   Another pacifist anarchist was Alex Comfort. As well as writing the Joy
   of Sex, Comfort was an active pacifist and anarchist. He wrote
   particularly on pacifism, psychiatry and sexual politics from a
   libertarian perspective. His most famous anarchist book was Authority
   and Delinquency and a collection of his anarchist pamphlets and
   articles was published under the title Writings against Power and
   Death.

   However, the most famous and influential British anarchist must be
   Colin Ward. He became an anarchist when stationed in Glasgow during the
   Second World War and came across the local anarchist group there. Once
   an anarchist, he has contributed to the anarchist press extensively. As
   well as being an editor of Freedom, he also edited the influential
   monthly magazine Anarchy during the 1960s (a selection of articles
   picked by Ward can be found in the book A Decade of Anarchy). However,
   his most famous single book is Anarchy in Action where he has updated
   Kropotkin's Mutual Aid by uncovering and documenting the anarchistic
   nature of everyday life even within capitalism. His extensive writing
   on housing has emphasised the importance of collective self-help and
   social management of housing against the twin evils of privatisation
   and nationalisation (see, for example, his books Talking Houses and
   Housing: An Anarchist Approach). He has cast an anarchist eye on
   numerous other issues, including water use (
   Reflected in Water: A Crisis of Social Responsibility), transport
   (Freedom to go: after the motor age) and the welfare state (Social
   Policy: an anarchist response). His Anarchism: A Very Short
   Introduction is a good starting point for discovering anarchism and his
   particular perspective on it while Talking Anarchy provides an
   excellent overview of both his ideas and life. Lastly we must mention
   both Albert Meltzer and Nicolas Walter, both of whom contributed
   extensively to the anarchist press as well as writing two well known
   short introductions to anarchism (Anarchism: Arguments for and against
   and About Anarchism, respectively).

   We could go on; there are many more writers we could mention. But
   besides these, there are the thousands of "ordinary" anarchist
   militants who have never written books but whose common sense and
   activism have encouraged the spirit of revolt within society and helped
   build the new world in the shell of the old. As Kropotkin put it,
   "anarchism was born among the people; and it will continue to be full
   of life and creative power only as long as it remains a thing of the
   people." [Anarchism, p. 146]

   So we hope that this concentration on anarchist thinkers should not be
   taken to mean that there is some sort of division between activists and
   intellectuals in the movement. Far from it. Few anarchists are purely
   thinkers or activists. They are usually both. Kropotkin, for example,
   was jailed for his activism, as was Malatesta and Goldman. Makhno, most
   famous as an active participate in the Russian Revolution, also
   contributed theoretical articles to the anarchist press during and
   after it. The same can be said of Louise Michel, whose militant
   activities during the Paris Commune and in building the anarchist
   movement in France after it did not preclude her writing articles for
   the libertarian press. We are simply indicating key anarchists thinkers
   so that those interested can read about their ideas directly.

A.4.1 Are there any thinkers close to anarchism?

   Yes. There are numerous thinkers who are close to anarchism. They come
   from both the liberal and socialist traditions. While this may be
   considered surprising, it is not. Anarchism has links with both
   ideologies. Obviously the individualist anarchists are closest to the
   liberal tradition while social anarchists are closest to the socialist.

   Indeed, as Nicholas Walter put it, "Anarchism can be seen as a
   development from either liberalism or socialism, or from both
   liberalism and socialism. Like liberals, anarchists want freedom; like
   socialists, anarchists want equality." However, "anarchism is not just
   a mixture of liberalism and socialism . . . we differ fundamentally
   from them." [About Anarchism, p. 29 and p. 31] In this he echoes
   Rocker's comments in Anarcho-Syndicalism. And this can be a useful tool
   for seeing the links between anarchism and other theories however it
   must be stressed that anarchism offers an anarchist critique of both
   liberalism and socialism and we should not submerge the uniqueness of
   anarchism into other philosophies.

   [1]Section A.4.2 discusses liberal thinkers who are close to anarchism,
   while [2]section A.4.3 highlights those socialists who are close to
   anarchism. There are even Marxists who inject libertarian ideas into
   their politics and these are discussed in [3]section A.4.4. And, of
   course, there are thinkers who cannot be so easily categorised and will
   be discussed here.

   Economist David Ellerman has produced an impressive body of work
   arguing for workplace democracy. Explicitly linking his ideas the early
   British Ricardian socialists and Proudhon, in such works as The
   Democratic Worker-Owned Firm and Property and Contract in Economics he
   has presented both a rights based and labour-property based defence of
   self-management against capitalism. He argues that "[t]oday's economic
   democrats are the new abolitionists trying to abolish the whole
   institution of renting people in favour of democratic self-management
   in the workplace" for his "critique is not new; it was developed in the
   Enlightenment doctrine of inalienable rights. It was applied by
   abolitionists against the voluntary self-enslavement contract and by
   political democrats against the voluntary contraction defence of
   non-democratic government." [The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm, p. 210]
   Anyone, like anarchists, interested in producer co-operatives as
   alternatives to wage slavery will find his work of immense interest.

   Ellerman is not the only person to stress the benefits of co-operation.
   Alfie Kohn's important work on the benefits of co-operation builds upon
   Kropotkin's studies of mutual aid and is, consequently, of interest to
   social anarchists. In No Contest: the case against competition and
   Punished by Rewards, Kohn discusses (with extensive empirical evidence)
   the failings and negative impact of competition on those subject to it.
   He addresses both economic and social issues in his works and shows
   that competition is not what it is cracked up to be.

   Within feminist theory, Carole Pateman is the most obvious libertarian
   influenced thinker. Independently of Ellerman, Pateman has produced a
   powerful argument for self-managed association in both the workplace
   and society as a whole. Building upon a libertarian analysis of
   Rousseau's arguments, her analysis of contract theory is ground
   breaking. If a theme has to be ascribed to Pateman's work it could be
   freedom and what it means to be free. For her, freedom can only be
   viewed as self-determination and, consequently, the absence of
   subordination. Consequently, she has advocated a participatory form of
   democracy from her first major work, Participation and Democratic
   Theory onwards. In that book, a pioneering study of in participatory
   democracy, she exposed the limitations of liberal democratic theory,
   analysed the works of Rousseau, Mill and Cole and presented empirical
   evidence on the benefits of participation on the individuals involved.

   In the Problem of Political Obligation, Pateman discusses the "liberal"
   arguments on freedom and finds them wanting. For the liberal, a person
   must consent to be ruled by another but this opens up the "problem"
   that they might not consent and, indeed, may never have consented. Thus
   the liberal state would lack a justification. She deepens her analysis
   to question why freedom should be equated to consenting to be ruled and
   proposed a participatory democratic theory in which people collectively
   make their own decisions (a self-assumed obligation to your fellow
   citizens rather to a state). In discussing Kropotkin, she showed her
   awareness of the social anarchist tradition to which her own theory is
   obviously related.

   Pateman builds on this analysis in her The Sexual Contract, where she
   dissects the sexism of classical liberal and democratic theory. She
   analyses the weakness of what calls 'contractarian' theory (classical
   liberalism and right-wing "libertarianism") and shows how it leads not
   to free associations of self-governing individuals but rather social
   relationships based on authority, hierarchy and power in which a few
   rule the many. Her analysis of the state, marriage and wage labour are
   profoundly libertarian, showing that freedom must mean more than
   consenting to be ruled. This is the paradox of capitalist liberal, for
   a person is assumed to be free in order to consent to a contract but
   once within it they face the reality subordination to another's
   decisions (see [4]section A.4.2 for further discussion).

   Her ideas challenge some of Western culture's core beliefs about
   individual freedom and her critiques of the major Enlightenment
   political philosophers are powerful and convincing. Implicit is a
   critique not just of the conservative and liberal tradition, but of the
   patriarchy and hierarchy contained within the Left as well. As well as
   these works, a collection of her essays is available called The
   Disorder of Women.

   Within the so-called "anti-globalisation" movement Naomi Klein shows an
   awareness of libertarian ideas and her own work has a libertarian
   thrust to it (we call it "so-called" as its members are
   internationalists, seeking a globalisation from below not one imposed
   from above by and for a few). She first came to attention as the author
   of No Logo, which charts the growth of consumer capitalism, exposing
   the dark reality behind the glossy brands of capitalism and, more
   importantly, highlighting the resistance to it. No distant academic,
   she is an active participant in the movement she reports on in Fences
   and Windows, a collection of essays on globalisation, its consequences
   and the wave of protests against it.

   Klein's articles are well written and engaging, covering the reality of
   modern capitalism, the gap, as she puts it, "between rich and power but
   also between rhetoric and reality, between what is said and what is
   done. Between the promise of globalisation and its real effects." She
   shows how we live in a world where the market (i.e. capital) is made
   "freer" while people suffer increased state power and repression. How
   an unelected Argentine President labels that country's popular
   assemblies "antidemocratic." How rhetoric about liberty is used as a
   tool to defend and increase private power (as she reminds us, "always
   missing from [the globalisation] discussion is the issue of power. So
   many of the debates that we have about globalisation theory are
   actually about power: who holds it, who is exercising it and who is
   disguising it, pretending it no longer matters"). [Fences and Windows,
   pp 83-4 and p. 83]

   And how people across the world are resisting. As she puts it, "many
   [in the movement] are tired of being spoken for and about. They are
   demanding a more direct form of political participation." She reports
   on a movement which she is part of, one which aims for a globalisation
   from below, one "founded on principles of transparency, accountability
   and self-determination, one that frees people instead of liberating
   capital." This means being against a "corporate-driven globalisation .
   . . that is centralising power and wealth into fewer and fewer hands"
   while presenting an alternative which is about "decentralising power
   and building community-based decision-making potential -- whether
   through unions, neighbourhoods, farms, villages, anarchist collectives
   or aboriginal self-government." All strong anarchist principles and,
   like anarchists, she wants people to manage their own affairs and
   chronicles attempts around the world to do just that (many of which, as
   Klein notes, are anarchists or influenced by anarchist ideas, sometimes
   knowing, sometimes not). [Op. Cit., p. 77, p. 79 and p. 16]

   While not an anarchist, she is aware that real change comes from below,
   by the self-activity of working class people fighting for a better
   world. Decentralisation of power is a key idea in the book. As she puts
   it, the "goal" of the social movements she describes is "not to take
   power for themselves but to challenge power centralisation on
   principle" and so creating "a new culture of vibrant direct democracy .
   . . one that is fuelled and strengthened by direct participation." She
   does not urge the movement to invest itself with new leaders and
   neither does she (like the Left) think that electing a few leaders to
   make decisions for us equals "democracy" ("the goal is not better
   faraway rules and rulers but close-up democracy on the ground"). Klein,
   therefore, gets to the heart of the matter. Real social change is based
   on empowering the grassroots, "the desire for self-determination,
   economic sustainability and participatory democracy." Given this, Klein
   has presented libertarian ideas to a wide audience. [Op. Cit., p. xxvi,
   p. xxvi-xxvii, p. 245 and p. 233]

   Other notable libertarian thinkers include Henry D. Thoreau, Albert
   Camus, Aldous Huxley, Lewis Mumford, Lewis Mumford and Oscar Wilde.
   Thus there are numerous thinkers who approach anarchist conclusions and
   who discuss subjects of interest to libertarians. As Kropotkin noted a
   hundred years ago, these kinds of writers "are full of ideas which show
   how closely anarchism is interwoven with the work that is going on in
   modern thought in the same direction of enfranchisement of man from the
   bonds of the state as well as from those of capitalism." [Anarchism, p.
   300] The only change since then is that more names can be added to the
   list.

   Peter Marshall discusses the ideas of most, but not all, of the
   non-anarchist libertarians we mention in this and subsequent sections
   in his book history of anarchism, Demanding the Impossible. Clifford
   Harper's Anarchy: A Graphic Guide is also a useful guide for finding
   out more.

A.4.2 Are there any liberal thinkers close to anarchism?

   As noted in the [5]last section, there are thinkers in both the liberal
   and socialist traditions who approach anarchist theory and ideals. This
   understandable as anarchism shares certain ideas and ideals with both.

   However, as will become clear in sections [6]A.4.3 and [7]A.4.4,
   anarchism shares most common ground with the socialist tradition it is
   a part of. This is because classical liberalism is a profoundly elitist
   tradition. The works of Locke and the tradition he inspired aimed to
   justify hierarchy, state and private property. As Carole Pateman notes,
   "Locke's state of nature, with its father-rulers and capitalist
   economy, would certainly not find favour with anarchists" any more than
   his vision of the social contract and the liberal state it creates. A
   state, which as Pateman recounts, in which "only males who own
   substantial amounts of material property are [the] politically relevant
   members of society" and exists "precisely to preserve the property
   relationships of the developing capitalist market economy, not to
   disturb them." For the majority, the non-propertied, they expressed
   "tacit consent" to be ruled by the few by "choosing to remain within
   the one's country of birth when reaching adulthood." [The Problem of
   Political Obligation, p. 141, p. 71, p. 78 and p. 73]

   Thus anarchism is at odds with what can be called the pro-capitalist
   liberal tradition which, flowing from Locke, builds upon his rationales
   for hierarchy. As David Ellerman notes, "there is a whole liberal
   tradition of apologising for non-democratic government based on consent
   -- on a voluntary social contract alienating governing rights to a
   sovereign." In economics, this is reflected in their support for wage
   labour and the capitalist autocracy it creates for the "employment
   contract is the modern limited workplace version" of such contracts.
   [The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm, p. 210] This pro-capitalist
   liberalism essentially boils down to the liberty to pick a master or,
   if you are among the lucky few, to become a master yourself. The idea
   that freedom means self-determination for all at all times is alien to
   it. Rather it is based on the idea of "self-ownership," that you "own"
   yourself and your rights. Consequently, you can sell (alienate) your
   rights and liberty on the market. As we discuss in [8]section B.4, in
   practice this means that most people are subject to autocratic rule for
   most of their waking hours (whether in work or in marriage).

   The modern equivalent of classical liberalism is the right-wing
   "libertarian" tradition associated with Milton Friedman, Robert Nozick,
   von Hayek and so forth. As they aim to reduce the state to simply the
   defender to private property and enforcer of the hierarchies that
   social institution creates, they can by no stretch of the imagination
   be considered near anarchism. What is called "liberalism" in, say, the
   United States is a more democratic liberal tradition and has, like
   anarchism, little in common with the shrill pro-capitalist defenders of
   the minimum state. While they may (sometimes) be happy to denounce the
   state's attacks on individual liberty, they are more than happy to
   defend the "freedom" of the property owner to impose exactly the same
   restrictions on those who use their land or capital.

   Given that feudalism combined ownership and rulership, that the
   governance of people living on land was an attribute of the ownership
   of that land, it would be no exaggeration to say that the right-wing
   "libertarian" tradition is simply its modern (voluntary) form. It is no
   more libertarian than the feudal lords who combated the powers of the
   King in order to protect their power over their own land and serfs. As
   Chomsky notes, "the 'libertarian' doctrines that are fashionable in the
   US and UK particularly . . . seem to me to reduce to advocacy of one or
   another form of illegitimate authority, quite often real tyranny."
   [Marxism, Anarchism, and Alternative Futures, p. 777] Moreover, as
   Benjamin Tucker noted with regards their predecessors, while they are
   happy to attack any state regulation which benefits the many or limits
   their power, they are silent on the laws (and regulations and "rights")
   which benefit the few.

   However there is another liberal tradition, one which is essentially
   pre-capitalist which has more in common with the aspirations of
   anarchism. As Chomsky put it:

     "These ideas [of anarchism] grow out the Enlightenment; their roots
     are in Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, Humbolt's The Limits of
     State Action, Kant's insistence, in his defence of the French
     Revolution, that freedom is the precondition for acquiring the
     maturity for freedom, not a gift to be granted when such maturity is
     achieved . . . With the development of industrial capitalism, a new
     and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism
     that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the
     Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted
     into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order. In fact, on
     the very same assumptions that led classical liberalism to oppose
     the intervention of the state in social life, capitalist social
     relations are also intolerable. This is clear, for example, from the
     classic work of [Wilhelm von] Humboldt, The Limits of State Action,
     which anticipated and perhaps inspired [John Stuart] Mill . . . This
     classic of liberal thought, completed in 1792, is in its essence
     profoundly, though prematurely, anticapitalist. Its ideas must be
     attenuated beyond recognition to be transmuted into an ideology of
     industrial capitalism." ["Notes on Anarchism", For Reasons of State,
     p. 156]

   Chomsky discusses this in more detail in his essay "Language and
   Freedom" (contained in both Reason of State and The Chomsky Reader). As
   well as Humbolt and Mill, such "pre-capitalist" liberals would include
   such radicals as Thomas Paine, who envisioned a society based on
   artisan and small farmers (i.e. a pre-capitalist economy) with a rough
   level of social equality and, of course, a minimal government. His
   ideas inspired working class radicals across the world and, as E.P.
   Thompson reminds us, Paine's Rights of Man was "a foundation-text of
   the English [and Scottish] working-class movement." While his ideas on
   government are "close to a theory of anarchism," his reform proposals
   "set a source towards the social legislation of the twentieth century."
   [The Making of the English Working Class, p. 99, p. 101 and p. 102] His
   combination of concern for liberty and social justice places him close
   to anarchism.

   Then there is Adam Smith. While the right (particularly elements of the
   "libertarian" right) claim him as a classic liberal, his ideas are more
   complex than that. For example, as Noam Chomsky points out, Smith
   advocated the free market because "it would lead to perfect equality,
   equality of condition, not just equality of opportunity." [Class
   Warfare, p. 124] As Smith himself put it, "in a society where things
   were left to follow their natural course, where there is perfect
   liberty" it would mean that "advantages would soon return to the level
   of other employments" and so "the different employments of labour and
   stock must . . . be either perfectly equal or continually tending to
   equality." Nor did he oppose state intervention or state aid for the
   working classes. For example, he advocated public education to counter
   the negative effects of the division of labour. Moreover, he was
   against state intervention because whenever "a legislature attempts to
   regulate differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors
   are always the masters. When regulation, therefore, is in favour of the
   workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is otherwise when in
   favour of the masters." He notes how "the law" would "punish" workers'
   combinations "very severely" while ignoring the masters' combinations
   ("if it dealt impartially, it would treat the masters in the same
   manner"). [The Wealth of Nations, p. 88 and p. 129] Thus state
   intervention was to be opposed in general because the state was run by
   the few for the few, which would make state intervention benefit the
   few, not the many. It is doubtful Smith would have left his ideas on
   laissez-faire unchanged if he had lived to see the development of
   corporate capitalism. It is this critical edge of Smith's work are
   conveniently ignored by those claiming him for the classical liberal
   tradition.

   Smith, argues Chomsky, was "a pre-capitalist and anti-capitalist person
   with roots in the Enlightenment." Yes, he argues, "the classical
   liberals, the [Thomas] Jeffersons and the Smiths, were opposing the
   concentrations of power that they saw around them . . . They didn't see
   other forms of concentration of power which only developed later. When
   they did see them, they didn't like them. Jefferson was a good example.
   He was strongly opposed to the concentrations of power that he saw
   developing, and warned that the banking institutions and the industrial
   corporations which were barely coming into existence in his day would
   destroy the achievements of the Revolution." [Op. Cit., p. 125]

   As Murray Bookchin notes, Jefferson "is most clearly identified in the
   early history of the United States with the political demands and
   interests of the independent farmer-proprietor." [The Third Revolution,
   vol. 1, pp. 188-9] In other words, with pre-capitalist economic forms.
   We also find Jefferson contrasting the "aristocrats" and the
   "democrats." The former are "those who fear and distrust the people,
   and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher
   classes." The democrats "identify with the people, have confidence in
   them, cherish and consider them as the honest & safe . . . depository
   of the public interest," if not always "the most wise." [quoted by
   Chomsky, Powers and Prospects, p. 88] As Chomsky notes, the
   "aristocrats" were "the advocates of the rising capitalist state, which
   Jefferson regarded with dismay, recognising the obvious contradiction
   between democracy and the capitalism." [Op. Cit., p. 88] Claudio J.
   Katz's essay on "Thomas Jefferson's Liberal Anticapitalism" usefully
   explores these issues. [American Journal of Political Science, vol. 47,
   No. 1 (Jan, 2003), pp. 1-17]

   Jefferson even went so far as to argue that "a little rebellion now and
   then is a good thing . . . It is a medicine necessary for the sound
   health of government . . . The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
   time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." [quoted by Howard
   Zinn, A People's History of the United States, p. 94] However, his
   libertarian credentials are damaged by him being both a President of
   the United States and a slave owner but compared to the other "founding
   fathers" of the American state, his liberalism is of a democratic form.
   As Chomsky reminds us, "all the Founding Fathers hated democracy --
   Thomas Jefferson was a partial exception, but only partial." The
   American state, as a classical liberal state, was designed (to quote
   James Madison) "to protect the minority of the opulent from the
   majority." Or, to repeat John Jay's principle, the "people who own the
   country ought to govern it." [Understanding Power, p. 315] If American
   is a (formally) democracy rather than an oligarchy, it is in spite of
   rather than because of classical liberalism.

   Then there is John Stuart Mill who recognised the fundamental
   contradiction in classical liberalism. How can an ideology which
   proclaims itself for individual liberty support institutions which
   systematically nullify that liberty in practice? For this reason Mill
   attacked patriarchal marriage, arguing that marriage must be a
   voluntary association between equals, with "sympathy in equality . . .
   living together in love, without power on one side or obedience on the
   other." Rejecting the idea that there had to be "an absolute master" in
   any association, he pointed out that in "partnership in business . . .
   it is not found or thought necessary to enact that in every
   partnership, one partner shall have entire control over the concern,
   and the others shall be bound to obey his rule." ["The Subjection of
   Women," quoted by Susan L. Brown, The Politics of Individualism, pp.
   45-6]

   Yet his own example showed the flaw in liberal support for capitalism,
   for the employee is subject to a relationship in which power accrues to
   one party and obedience to another. Unsurprisingly, therefore, he
   argued that the "form of association . . . which is mankind continue to
   improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which
   can exist between a capitalist as chief, and workpeople without a voice
   in management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms
   of equality, collectively owning the capital . . . and working under
   managers elected and removable by themselves." [The Principles of
   Political Economy, p. 147] Autocratic management during working hours
   is hardly compatible with Mill's maxim that "[o]ver himself, over his
   own body and mind, the individual is sovereign." Mill's opposition to
   centralised government and wage slavery brought his ideas closer to
   anarchism than most liberals, as did his comment that the "social
   principle of the future" was "how to unite the greatest individual
   liberty of action with a common ownership in the raw materials of the
   globe, and equal participation of all in the benefits of combined
   labour." [quoted by Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible, p. 164]
   His defence of individuality, On Liberty, is a classic, if flawed, work
   and his analysis of socialist tendencies ("Chapters on Socialism") is
   worth reading for its evaluation of their pros and cons from a
   (democratic) liberal perspective.

   Like Proudhon, Mill was a forerunner of modern-day market socialism and
   a firm supporter of decentralisation and social participation. This,
   argues Chomsky, is unsurprising for pre-capitalist classical liberal
   thought "is opposed to state intervention in social life, as a
   consequence of deeper assumptions about the human need for liberty,
   diversity, and free association. On the same assumptions, capitalist
   relations of production, wage labour, competitiveness, the ideology of
   'possessive individualism' -- all must be regarded as fundamentally
   antihuman. Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the
   inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment." ["Notes on
   Anarchism", Op. Cit., p. 157]

   Thus anarchism shares commonality with pre-capitalist and democratic
   liberal forms. The hopes of these liberals were shattered with the
   development of capitalism. To quote Rudolf Rocker's analysis:

     "Liberalism and Democracy were pre-eminently political concepts, and
     since the great majority of the original adherents of both
     maintained the right of ownership in the old sense, these had to
     renounce them both when economic development took a course which
     could not be practically reconciled with the original principles of
     Democracy, and still less with those of Liberalism. Democracy, with
     its motto of 'all citizens equal before the law,' and Liberalism
     with its 'right of man over his own person,' both shipwrecked on the
     realities of the capitalist economic form. So long as millions of
     human beings in every country had to sell their labour-power to a
     small minority of owners, and to sink into the most wretched misery
     if they could find no buyers, the so-called 'equality before the
     law' remains merely a pious fraud, since the laws are made by those
     who find themselves in possession of the social wealth. But in the
     same way there can also be no talk of a 'right over one's own
     person,' for that right ends when one is compelled to submit to the
     economic dictation of another if he does not want to starve."
     [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 10]

A.4.3 Are there any socialist thinkers close to anarchism?

   Anarchism developed in response to the development of capitalism and it
   is in the non-anarchist socialist tradition which anarchism finds most
   fellow travellers.

   The earliest British socialists (the so-called Ricardian Socialists)
   following in the wake of Robert Owen held ideas which were similar to
   those of anarchists. For example, Thomas Hodgskin expounded ideas
   similar to Proudhon's mutualism while William Thompson developed a
   non-state, communal form of socialism based on "communities of mutual
   co-operative" which had similarities to anarcho-communism (Thompson had
   been a mutualist before becoming a communist in light of the problems
   even a non-capitalist market would have). John Francis Bray is also of
   interest, as is the radical agrarianist Thomas Spence who developed a
   communal form of land-based socialism which expounded many ideas
   usually associated with anarchism (see "The Agrarian Socialism of
   Thomas Spence" by Brian Morris in his book Ecology and Anarchism).
   Moreover, the early British trade union movement "developed, stage by
   stage, a theory of syndicalism" 40 years before Bakunin and the
   libertarian wing of the First International did. [E.P. Thompson, The
   Making of the English Working Class, p. 912] Noel Thompson's The Real
   Rights of Man is a good summary of all these thinkers and movements, as
   is E.P. Thompson's classic social history of working class life (and
   politics) of this period, The Making of the English Working Class.

   Libertarian ideas did not die out in Britain in the 1840s. There was
   also the quasi-syndicalists of the Guild Socialists of the 1910s and
   1920s who advocated a decentralised communal system with workers'
   control of industry. G.D.H. Cole's Guild Socialism Restated is the most
   famous work of this school, which also included author's S.G. Hobson
   and A.R. Orage (Geoffrey Osteregaard's The Tradition of Workers'
   Control provides an good summary of the ideas of Guild Socialism).
   Bertrand Russell, another supporter of Guild Socialism, was attracted
   to anarchist ideas and wrote an extremely informed and thoughtful
   discussion of anarchism, syndicalism and Marxism in his classic book
   Roads to Freedom.

   While Russell was pessimistic about the possibility of anarchism in the
   near future, he felt it was "the ultimate idea to which society should
   approximate." As a Guild Socialist, he took it for granted that there
   could "be no real freedom or democracy until the men who do the work in
   a business also control its management." His vision of a good society
   is one any anarchist would support: "a world in which the creative
   spirit is alive, in which life is an adventure full of joy and hope,
   based upon the impulse to construct than upon the desire to retain what
   we possess or to seize what is possessed by others. It must be a world
   in which affection has free play, in which love is purged of the
   instinct for domination, in which cruelty and envy have been dispelled
   by happiness and the unfettered development of all the instincts that
   build up life and fill it with mental delights." [quoted by Noam
   Chomsky, Problems of Knowledge and Freedom, pp. 59-60, p. 61 and p. x]
   An informed and interesting writer on many subjects, his thought and
   social activism has influenced many other thinkers, including Noam
   Chomsky (whose Problems of Knowledge and Freedom is a wide ranging
   discussion on some of the topics Russell addressed).

   Another important British libertarian socialist thinker and activist
   was William Morris. Morris, a friend of Kropotkin, was active in the
   Socialist League and led its anti-parliamentarian wing. While stressing
   he was not an anarchist, there is little real difference between the
   ideas of Morris and most anarcho-communists (Morris said he was a
   communist and saw no need to append "anarchist" to it as, for him,
   communism was democratic and liberatory). A prominent member of the
   "Arts and Crafts" movement, Morris argued for humanising work and it
   was, to quoted the title of one of his most famous essays, as case of
   Useful Work vrs Useless Toil. His utopia novel News from Nowhere paints
   a compelling vision of a libertarian communist society where
   industrialisation has been replaced with a communal craft-based
   economy. It is a utopia which has long appealed to most social
   anarchists. For a discussion of Morris' ideas, placed in the context of
   his famous utopia, see William Morris and News from Nowhere: A Vision
   for Our Time (Stephen Coleman and Paddy O'Sullivan (eds.))

   Also of note is the Greek thinker Cornelius Castoriadis. Originally a
   Trotskyist, Castoriadis evaluation of Trotsky's deeply flawed analysis
   of Stalinist Russia as a degenerated workers' state lead him to reject
   first Leninism and then Marxism itself. This led him to libertarian
   conclusions, seeing the key issue not who owns the means of production
   but rather hierarchy. Thus the class struggle was between those with
   power and those subject to it. This led him to reject Marxist economics
   as its value analysis abstracted from (i.e. ignored!) the class
   struggle at the heart of production (Autonomist Marxism rejects this
   interpretation of Marx, but they are the only Marxists who do).
   Castoriadis, like social anarchists, saw the future society as one
   based on radical autonomy, generalised self-management and workers'
   councils organised from the bottom up. His three volume collected works
   (Political and Social Writings) are essential reading for anyone
   interested in libertarian socialist politics and a radical critique of
   Marxism.

   Special mention should also be made of Maurice Brinton, who, as well as
   translating many works by Castoriadis, was a significant libertarian
   socialist thinker and activist as well. An ex-Trotskyist like
   Castoriadis, Brinton carved out a political space for a revolutionary
   libertarian socialism, opposed to the bureaucratic reformism of Labour
   as well as the police-state "socialism" of Stalinism and the
   authoritarianism of the Leninism which produced it. He produced
   numerous key pamphlets which shaped the thinking of a generation of
   anarchists and other libertarian socialists. These included Paris: May
   1968, his brilliant eyewitness account of the near-revolution in
   France, the essential The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control in which he
   exposed Lenin's hostility to workers' self-management, and The
   Irrational in Politics, a restatement and development of the early work
   of Wilhelm Reich. These and many more articles have been collected in
   the book For Workers' Power: The Selected Writings of Maurice Brinton,
   edited by David Goodway.

   The American radical historian Howard Zinn has sometimes called himself
   an anarchist and is well informed about the anarchist tradition (he
   wrote an excellent introductory essay on "Anarchism" for a US edition
   of a Herbert Read book) . As well as his classic A People's History of
   the United States, his writings of civil disobedience and non-violent
   direct action are essential. An excellent collection of essays by this
   libertarian socialist scholar has been produced under the title The
   Zinn Reader. Another notable libertarian socialists close to anarchism
   are Edward Carpenter (see, for example, Sheila Rowbotham's Edward
   Carpenter: Prophet of the New Life) and Simone Weil (Oppression and
   Liberty)

   It would also be worthwhile to mention those market socialists who,
   like anarchists, base their socialism on workers' self-management.
   Rejecting central planning, they have turned back to the ideas of
   industrial democracy and market socialism advocated by the likes of
   Proudhon (although, coming from a Marxist background, they generally
   fail to mention the link which their central-planning foes stress).
   Allan Engler (in Apostles of Greed) and David Schweickart (in Against
   Capitalism and After Capitalism) have provided useful critiques of
   capitalism and presented a vision of socialism rooted in co-operatively
   organised workplaces. While retaining an element of government and
   state in their political ideas, these socialists have placed economic
   self-management at the heart of their economic vision and,
   consequently, are closer to anarchism than most socialists.

A.4.4 Are there any Marxist thinkers close to anarchism?

   None of the libertarian socialists we highlighted in the last section
   were Marxists. This is unsurprising as most forms of Marxism are
   authoritarian. However, this is not the case for all schools of
   Marxism. There are important sub-branches of Marxism which shares the
   anarchist vision of a self-managed society. These include Council
   Communism, Situationism and Autonomism. Perhaps significantly, these
   few Marxist tendencies which are closest to anarchism are, like the
   branches of anarchism itself, not named after individuals. We will
   discuss each in turn.

   Council Communism was born in the German Revolution of 1919 when
   Marxists inspired by the example of the Russian soviets and disgusted
   by the centralism, opportunism and betrayal of the mainstream Marxist
   social-democrats, drew similar anti-parliamentarian, direct actionist
   and decentralised conclusions to those held by anarchists since
   Bakunin. Like Marx's libertarian opponent in the First International,
   they argued that a federation of workers' councils would form the basis
   of a socialist society and, consequently, saw the need to build
   militant workplace organisations to promote their formation. Lenin
   attacked these movements and their advocates in his diatribe Left-wing
   Communism: An Infantile Disorder, which council communist Herman Gorter
   demolished in his An Open Letter to Comrade Lenin. By 1921, the council
   communists broke with the Bolshevism that had already effectively
   expelled them from both the national Communist Parties and the
   Communist International.

   Like the anarchists, they argued that Russia was a state-capitalist
   party dictatorship and had nothing to be with socialism. And, again
   like anarchists, the council communists argue that the process of
   building a new society, like the revolution itself, is either the work
   of the people themselves or doomed from the start. As with the
   anarchists, they too saw the Bolshevik take-over of the soviets (like
   that of the trade unions) as subverting the revolution and beginning
   the restoration of oppression and exploitation.

   To discover more about council communism, the works of Paul Mattick are
   essential reading. While best known as a writer on Marxist economic
   theory in such works as Marx and Keynes, Economic Crisis and Crisis
   Theory and Economics, Politics and the Age of Inflation, Mattick had
   been a council communist since the German revolution of 1919/1920. His
   books Anti-Bolshevik Communism and Marxism: The Last Refuge of the
   Bourgeoisie? are excellent introductions to his political ideas. Also
   essential reading is Anton Pannekeok's works. His classic Workers'
   Councils explains council communism from first principles while his
   Lenin as Philosopher dissects Lenin's claims to being a Marxist (Serge
   Bricianer, Pannekoek and the Workers' Councils is the best study of the
   development of Panekoek's ideas). In the UK, the militant suffragette
   Sylvia Pankhurst became a council communist under the impact of the
   Russian Revolution and, along with anarchists like Guy Aldred, led the
   opposition to the importation of Leninism into the communist movement
   there (see Mark Shipway's Anti-Parliamentary Communism: The Movement
   for Workers Councils in Britain, 1917-45 for more details of
   libertarian communism in the UK). Otto Ruhle and Karl Korsch are also
   important thinkers in this tradition.

   Building upon the ideas of council communism, the Situationists
   developed their ideas in important new directions. Working in the late
   1950s and 1960s, they combined council communist ideas with surrealism
   and other forms of radical art to produce an impressive critique of
   post-war capitalism. Unlike Castoriadis, whose ideas influenced them,
   the Situationists continued to view themselves as Marxists, developing
   Marx's critique of capitalist economy into a critique of capitalist
   society as alienation had shifted from being located in capitalist
   production into everyday life. They coined the expression "The
   Spectacle" to describe a social system in which people become alienated
   from their own lives and played the role of an audience, of spectators.
   Thus capitalism had turned being into having and now, with the
   spectacle, it turned having into appearing. They argued that we could
   not wait for a distant revolution, but rather should liberate ourselves
   in the here and now, creating events ("situations") which would disrupt
   the ordinary and normal to jolt people out of their allotted roles
   within society. A social revolution based on sovereign rank and file
   assemblies and self-managed councils would be the ultimate "situation"
   and the aim of all Situationists.

   While critical of anarchism, the differences between the two theories
   are relatively minor and the impact of the Situationists on anarchism
   cannot be underestimated. Many anarchists embraced their critique of
   modern capitalist society, their subversion of modern art and culture
   for revolutionary purposes and call for revolutionising everyday life.
   Ironically, while Situationism viewed itself as an attempt to transcend
   tradition forms of Marxism and anarchism, it essentially became
   subsumed by anarchism. The classic works of situationism are Guy
   Debord's Society of the Spectacle and Raoul Veneigem's The Revolution
   of Everyday Life. The Situationist International Anthology (edited by
   Ken Knabb) is essential reading for any budding Situationists, as is
   Knabb's own Public Secrets.

   Lastly there is Autonomist Marxism. Drawing on the works of the council
   communism, Castoriadis, situationism and others, it places the class
   struggle at the heart of its analysis of capitalism. It initially
   developed in Italy during the 1960s and has many currents, some closer
   to anarchism than others. While the most famous thinker in the
   Autonomist tradition is probably Antonio Negri (who coined the
   wonderful phrase "money has only one face, that of the boss" in Marx
   Beyond Marx) his ideas are more within traditional Marxist. For an
   Autonomist whose ideas are closer to anarchism, we need to turn to the
   US thinker and activist who has written the one of the best summaries
   of Kropotkin's ideas in which he usefully indicates the similarities
   between anarcho-communism and Autonomist Marxism ("Kropotkin,
   Self-valorisation and the Crisis of Marxism," Anarchist Studies, vol.
   2, no. 3). His book Reading Capital Politically is an essential text
   for understanding Autonomism and its history.

   For Cleaver, "autonomist Marxism" as generic name for a variety of
   movements, politics and thinkers who have emphasised the autonomous
   power of workers -- autonomous from capital, obviously, but also from
   their official organisations (e.g. the trade unions, the political
   parties) and, moreover, the power of particular groups of working class
   people to act autonomously from other groups (e.g. women from men). By
   "autonomy" it is meant the ability of working class people to define
   their own interests and to struggle for them and, critically, to go
   beyond mere reaction to exploitation and to take the offensive in ways
   that shape the class struggle and define the future. Thus they place
   working class power at the centre of their thinking about capitalism,
   how it develops and its dynamics as well as in the class conflicts
   within it. This is not limited to just the workplace and just as
   workers resist the imposition of work inside the factory or office, via
   slowdowns, strikes and sabotage, so too do the non-waged resist the
   reduction of their lives to work. For Autonomists, the creation of
   communism is not something that comes later but is something which is
   repeatedly created by current developments of new forms of working
   class self-activity.

   The similarities with social anarchism are obvious. Which probably
   explains why Autonomists spend so much time analysing and quoting Marx
   to justify their ideas for otherwise other Marxists will follow Lenin's
   lead on the council communists and label them anarchists and ignore
   them! For anarchists, all this Marx quoting seems amusing. Ultimately,
   if Marx really was an Autonomist Marxist then why do Autonomists have
   to spend so much time re-constructing what Marx "really" meant? Why did
   he not just say it clearly to begin with? Similarly, why root out
   (sometimes obscure) quotes and (sometimes passing) comments from Marx
   to justify your insights? Does something stop being true if Marx did
   not mention it first? Whatever the insights of Autonomism its Marxism
   will drag it backwards by rooting its politics in the texts of two long
   dead Germans. Like the surreal debate between Trotsky and Stalin in the
   1920s over "Socialism in One Country" conducted by means of Lenin
   quotes, all that will be proved is not whether a given idea is right
   but simply that the mutually agreed authority figure (Lenin or Marx)
   may have held it. Thus anarchists suggest that Autonomists practice
   some autonomy when it comes to Marx and Engels.

   Other libertarian Marxists close to anarchism include Erich Fromm and
   Wilhelm Reich. Both tried to combine Marx with Freud to produce a
   radical analysis of capitalism and the personality disorders it causes.
   Erich Fromm, in such books as The Fear of Freedom, Man for Himself, The
   Sane Society and To Have or To Be? developed a powerful and insightful
   analysis of capitalism which discussed how it shaped the individual and
   built psychological barriers to freedom and authentic living. His works
   discuss many important topics, including ethics, the authoritarian
   personality (what causes it and how to change it), alienation, freedom,
   individualism and what a good society would be like.

   Fromm's analysis of capitalism and the "having" mode of life are
   incredibly insightful, especially in context with today's consumerism.
   For Fromm, the way we live, work and organise together influence how we
   develop, our health (mental and physical), our happiness more than we
   suspect. He questions the sanity of a society which covets property
   over humanity and adheres to theories of submission and domination
   rather than self-determination and self-actualisation. His scathing
   indictment of modern capitalism shows that it is the main source of the
   isolation and alienation prevalent in today. Alienation, for Fromm, is
   at the heart of the system (whether private or state capitalism). We
   are happy to the extent that we realise ourselves and for this to occur
   our society must value the human over the inanimate (property).

   Fromm rooted his ideas in a humanistic interpretation of Marx,
   rejecting Leninism and Stalinism as an authoritarian corruption of his
   ideas ("the destruction of socialism . . . began with Lenin.").
   Moreover, he stressed the need for a decentralised and libertarian form
   of socialism, arguing that the anarchists had been right to question
   Marx's preferences for states and centralisation. As he put it, the
   "errors of Marx and Engels . . . [and] their centralistic orientation,
   were due to the fact they were much more rooted in the middle-class
   tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, both
   psychologically and intellectually, than men like Fourier, Owen,
   Proudhon and Kropotkin." As the "contradiction" in Marx between "the
   principles of centralisation and decentralisation," for Fromm "Marx and
   Engels were much more 'bourgeois' thinkers than were men like Proudhon,
   Bakunin, Kropotkin and Landauer. Paradoxical as it sounds, the Leninist
   development of Socialism represented a regression to the bourgeois
   concepts of the state and of political power, rather than the new
   socialist concept as it was expressed so much clearer by Owen, Proudhon
   and others." [The Sane Society, p. 265, p. 267 and p. 259] Fromm's
   Marxism, therefore, was fundamentally of a libertarian and humanist
   type and his insights of profound importance for anyone interested in
   changing society for the better.

   Wilheim Reich, like Fromm, set out to elaborate a social psychology
   based on both Marxism and psychoanalysis. For Reich, sexual repression
   led to people amenable to authoritarianism and happy to subject
   themselves to authoritarian regimes. While he famously analysed Nazism
   in this way (in The Mass Psychology of Fascism, his insights also apply
   to other societies and movements (it is no co-incidence, for example,
   that the religious right in America oppose pre-martial sex and use
   scare tactics to get teenagers to associate it with disease, dirt and
   guilt).

   His argument is that due to sexual repression we develop what he called
   "character armour" which internalises our oppressions and ensures that
   we can function in a hierarchical society. This social conditioning is
   produced by the patriarchal family and its net results is a powerful
   reinforcement and perpetuation of the dominant ideology and the mass
   production of individuals with obedience built into them, individuals
   ready to accept the authority of teacher, priest, employer and
   politician as well as to endorse the prevailing social structure. This
   explains how individuals and groups can support movements and
   institutions which exploit or oppress them. In other words, act think,
   feel and act against themselves and, moreover, can internalise their
   own oppression to such a degree that they may even seek to defend their
   subordinate position.

   Thus, for Reich, sexual repression produces an individual who is
   adjusted to the authoritarian order and who will submit to it in spite
   of all misery and degradation it causes them. The net result is fear of
   freedom, and a conservative, reactionary mentality. Sexual repression
   aids political power, not only through the process which makes the mass
   individual passive and unpolitical, but also by creating in their
   character structure an interest in actively supporting the
   authoritarian order.

   While his uni-dimensional focus on sex is misplaced, his analysis of
   how we internalise our oppression in order to survive under hierarchy
   is important for understanding why so many of the most oppressed people
   seem to love their social position and those who rule over them. By
   understanding this collective character structure and how it forms also
   provides humanity with new means of transcending such obstacles to
   social change. Only an awareness of how people's character structure
   prevents them from becoming aware of their real interests can it be
   combated and social self-emancipation assured.

   Maurice Brinton's The Irrational in Politics is an excellent short
   introduction to Reich's ideas which links their insights to libertarian
   socialism.

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca42
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca43
   3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca44
   4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca42
   5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca41
   6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca43
   7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA4.html#seca44
   8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB4.html
