               G.1 Are individualist anarchists anti-capitalist?

   To answer this question, it is necessary to first define what we mean
   by capitalism and socialism. While there is a tendency for supporters
   of capitalism (and a few socialists!) to equate it with the market and
   private property, this is not the case. It is possible to have both and
   not have capitalism (as we discuss in [1]section G.1.1 and [2]section
   G.1.2, respectively). Similarly, the notion that "socialism" means, by
   definition, state ownership and/or control, or that being employed by
   the state rather than by private capital is "socialism" is distinctly
   wrong. While some socialists have, undoubtedly, defined socialism in
   precisely such terms, socialism as a historic movement is much wider
   than that. As Proudhon put it, "[m]odern Socialism was not founded as a
   sect or church; it has seen a number of different schools." [Selected
   Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 177]

   As Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Tucker all stressed, anarchism is
   one of those schools. For Kropotkin, anarchism was "the no-government
   system of socialism." [Anarchism, p. 46] Likewise, for Tucker, there
   were "two schools of socialistic thought", one of which represented
   authority and the other liberty, namely "State Socialism and
   Anarchism." [The Individualist Anarchists, pp. 78-9] It was "not
   Socialist Anarchism against Individualist Anarchism, but of Communist
   Socialism against Individualist Socialism." [Tucker, Liberty, no. 129,
   p. 2] As one expert on Individualist Anarchism noted, Tucker "looked
   upon anarchism as a branch of the general socialist movement." [James
   J. Martin, Men Against the State, pp. 226-7] Thus we find Individualist
   anarchist Victor Yarros, like Tucker, talking about "the position and
   teachings of the Anarchistic Socialists" when referring to his ideas.
   [Liberty, no. 98, p. 5]

   Part of problem is that in the 20th century, the statist school of
   socialism prevailed both within the labour movement (at least in
   English speaking countries or until fascism destroyed it in mainland
   Europe and elsewhere) and within the revolutionary movement (first as
   social democracy, then as Communism after the Russian Revolution). This
   lead, it should be noted, to anarchists not using the term "socialist"
   to describe their ideas as they did not want to be confused with either
   reformed capitalism (social democracy) or state capitalism (Leninism
   and Stalinism). As anarchism was understood as being inherently
   anti-capitalist, this did not become an issue until certain right-wing
   liberals started calling themselves "anarcho"-capitalists (somewhat
   ironically, these liberals joined with the state socialists in trying
   to limit anarchism to anti-statism and denying their socialist
   credentials). Another part of the problem is that many, particularly
   those in America, derive their notion of what socialism is from
   right-wing sources who are more than happy to agree with the Stalinists
   that socialism is state ownership. This is case with
   right-"libertarians", who rarely study the history or ideas of
   socialism and instead take their lead from such fanatical
   anti-socialists as Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. Thus they
   equate socialism with social democracy or Leninism/Stalinism, i.e. with
   state ownership of the means of life, the turning of part or the whole
   working population into employees of the government or state regulation
   and the welfare state. In this they are often joined by social
   democrats and Marxists who seek to excommunicate all other kinds of
   socialism from the anti-capitalist movement.

   All of which leads to some strange contradictions. If "socialism" is
   equated to state ownership then, clearly, the individualist anarchists
   are not socialists but, then, neither are the social anarchists! Thus
   if we assume that the prevailing socialism of the 20th century defines
   what socialism is, then quite a few self-proclaimed socialists are not,
   in fact, socialists. This suggests that socialism cannot be limited to
   state socialism. Perhaps it would be easier to define "socialism" as
   restrictions on private property? If so, then, clearly, social
   anarchists are socialists but then, as we will prove, so are the
   individualist anarchists!

   Of course, not all the individualist anarchists used the term
   "socialist" or "socialism" to describe their ideas although many did.
   Some called their ideas Mutualism and explicitly opposed socialism
   (William Greene being the most obvious example). However, at root the
   ideas were part of the wider socialist movement and, in fact, they
   followed Proudhon in this as he both proclaimed himself a socialist
   while also attacking it. The apparent contradiction is easily explained
   by noting there are two schools of socialism, state and libertarian.
   Thus it is possible to be both a (libertarian) socialist and condemn
   (state) socialist in the harshest terms.

   So what, then, is socialism? Tucker stated that "the bottom claim of
   Socialism" was "that labour should be put in possession of its own,"
   that "the natural wage of labour is its product" and "interest, rent,
   and profit . . . constitute the trinity of usury." [The Individualist
   Anarchists, p. 78 and p. 80] This definition also found favour with
   Kropotkin who stated that socialism "in its wide, generic, and true
   sense" was an "effort to abolish the exploitation of labour by
   capital." [Anarchism, p. 169] For Kropotkin, anarchism was "brought
   forth by the same critical and revolutionary protest which gave rise to
   Socialism in general", socialism aiming for "the negation of Capitalism
   and of society based on the subjection of labour to capital."
   Anarchism, unlike other socialists, extended this to oppose "what
   constitutes the real strength of Capitalism: the State and its
   principle supports." [Environment and Evolution, p. 19] Tucker,
   similarly, argued that Individualist anarchism was a form of socialism
   and would result in the "emancipation of the workingman from his
   present slavery to capital." [Instead of a Book, p. 323]

   The various schools of socialism present different solutions to this
   exploitation and subjection. From the nationalisation of capitalist
   property by the state socialists, to the socialisation of property by
   the libertarian communists, to the co-operatives of mutualism, to the
   free market of the individualist anarchists, all are seeking, in one
   way or the other, to ensure the end of the domination and exploitation
   of labour by capital. The disagreements between them all rest in
   whether their solutions achieve this aim and whether they will make
   life worth living and enjoyable (which also explains why individualist
   and social anarchists disagree so much!). For anarchists, state
   socialism is little more than state capitalism, with a state monopoly
   replacing capitalist monopolies and workers being exploited by one boss
   (the state) rather than many. So all anarchists would agree with
   Yarrows when he argued that "[w]hile State Socialism removes the
   disease by killing the patient, no-State Socialism offers him the means
   of recovering strength, health, and vigour." [Liberty, no. 98, p. 5]

   So, why are the individualist anarchists anti-capitalists? There are
   two main reasons.

   Firstly, the Individualist Anarchists opposed profits, interest and
   rent as forms of exploitation (they termed these non-labour incomes
   "usury", but as Tucker stressed usury was "but another name for the
   exploitation of labour." [Liberty, no. 122, p. 4]). To use the words of
   Ezra Heywood, the Individualist Anarchists thought "Interest is theft,
   Rent Robbery, and Profit Only Another Name for Plunder." [quoted by
   Martin Blatt, "Ezra Heywood & Benjamin Tucker,", pp. 28-43, Benjamin R.
   Tucker and the Champions of Liberty, Coughlin, Hamilton and Sullivan
   (eds.), p. 29] Non-labour incomes are merely "different methods of
   levying tribute for the use of capital." Their vision of the good
   society was one in which "the usurer, the receiver of interest, rent
   and profit" would not exist and Labour would "secure its natural wage,
   its entire product." [Tucker, The Individualist Anarchists, p. 80, p.
   82 and p. 85] This would also apply to dividends, "since no idle
   shareholders could continue in receipt of dividends were it not for the
   support of monopoly, it follows that these dividends are no part of the
   proper reward of ability." [Tucker, Liberty, no. 282, p. 2]

   In addition, as a means of social change, the individualists suggested
   that activists start "inducing the people to steadily refuse the
   payment of rents and taxes." [Instead of a Book pp. 299-300] These are
   hardly statements with which capitalists would agree. Tucker, as noted,
   also opposed interest, considering it usury (exploitation and a
   "crime") pure and simple and one of the means by which workers were
   denied the full fruits of their labour. Indeed, he looked forward to
   the day when "any person who charges more than cost for any product
   [will] . . . be regarded very much as we now regard a pickpocket." This
   "attitude of hostility to usury, in any form" hardly fits into the
   capitalist mentality or belief system. [Op. Cit., p. 155] Similarly,
   Ezra Heywood considered profit-taking "an injustice which ranked second
   only to legalising titles to absolute ownership of land or
   raw-materials." [James J. Martin, Op. Cit., p. 111] Opposition to
   profits, rent or interest is hardly capitalistic -- indeed, the
   reverse.

   Thus the Individualist Anarchists, like the social anarchists, opposed
   the exploitation of labour and desired to see the end of capitalism by
   ensuring that labour would own what it produced. They desired a society
   in which there would no longer be capitalists and workers, only
   workers. The worker would receive the full product of his/her labour,
   so ending the exploitation of labour by capital. In Tucker's words, a
   free society would see "each man reaping the fruits of his labour and
   no man able to live in idleness on an income from capital" and so
   society would "become a great hive of Anarchistic workers, prosperous
   and free individuals" combining "to carry on their production and
   distribution on the cost principle." [The Individualist Anarchists, p.
   276]

   Secondly, the Individualist Anarchists favoured a new system of land
   ownership based on "occupancy and use." So, as well as this opposition
   to capitalist usury, the individualist anarchists also expressed
   opposition to capitalist ideas on property (particularly property in
   land). J.K. Ingalls, for example, considered that "the private
   domination of the land" originated in "usurpation only, whether of the
   camp, the court or the market. Whenever such a domination excludes or
   deprives a single human being of his equal opportunity, it is a
   violation, not only of the public right, and of the social duty, but of
   the very principle of law and morals upon which property itself is
   based." [quoted by Martin, Op. Cit., p. 148f] As Martin comments, for
   Ingalls, "[t]o reduce land to the status of a commodity was an act of
   usurpation, enabling a group to 'profit by its relation to production'
   without the expenditure of labour time." [Op. Cit., p. 148] These ideas
   are identical to Proudhon's and Ingalls continues in this Proudhonian
   "occupancy and use" vein when he argues that possession "remains
   possession, and can never become property, in the sense of absolute
   dominion, except by positive statue [i.e. state action]. Labour can
   only claim occupancy, and can lay no claim to more than the usufruct."
   Current property ownership in land were created by "forceful and
   fraudulent taking" of land, which "could give no justification to the
   system." [quoted by Martin, Op. Cit., p. 149]

   The capitalist system of land ownership was usually termed the "land
   monopoly", which consisted of "the enforcement by government of land
   titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and cultivation."
   Under anarchism, individuals would "no longer be protected by their
   fellows in anything but personal occupancy and cultivation of land" and
   so "ground rent would disappear." [Tucker, The Individualist
   Anarchists, p. 85] This applied to what was on the land as well, such
   as housing:

     "If a man exerts himself by erecting a building on land which
     afterward, by the operation of the principle of occupancy and use,
     rightfully becomes another's, he must, upon demand of the subsequent
     occupant, remove from this land the results of his self-exertion,
     or, failing so to do, sacrifice his property therein." [Liberty, no.
     331, p. 4]

   This would apply to both the land and what was on it. This meant that
   "tenants would not be forced to pay . . . rent" nor would landlords "be
   allowed to seize their property." This, as Tucker noted, was a complete
   rejection of the capitalist system of property rights and saw anarchism
   being dependent on "the Anarchistic view that occupancy and use should
   condition and limit landholding becom[ing] the prevailing view." [The
   Individualist Anarchists, p. 162 and p. 159] As Joseph Labadie put it,
   socialism includes any theory "which has for its object the changing of
   the present status of property and the relations one person or class
   holds to another. In other words, any movement which has for its aim
   the changing of social relations, of companionships, of associations,
   of powers of one class over another class, is Socialism." [our
   emphasis, Liberty, no. 158, p. 8] As such, both social and
   individualist anarchists are socialists as both aimed at changing the
   present status of property.

   It should also be noted here that the individualist anarchist ideal
   that competition in banking would drive interest to approximately zero
   is their equivalent to the social anarchist principle of free access to
   the means of life. As the only cost involved would be an administration
   charge which covers the labour involved in running the mutual bank, all
   workers would have access to "capital" for (in effect) free. Combine
   this with "occupancy and use" in terms of land use and it can be seen
   that both individualist and social anarchists shared a common aim to
   make the means of life available to all without having to pay a tribute
   to an owner or be dependent on a ruling capitalist or landlord class.

   For these reasons, the Individualist Anarchists are clearly
   anti-capitalist. While an Individualist Anarchy would be a market
   system, it would not be a capitalist one. As Tucker argued, the
   anarchists realised "the fact that one class of men are dependent for
   their living upon the sale of their labour, while another class of men
   are relieved of the necessity of labour by being legally privileged to
   sell something that is not labour. . . . And to such a state of things
   I am as much opposed as any one. But the minute you remove privilege. .
   . every man will be a labourer exchanging with fellow-labourers . . .
   What Anarchistic-Socialism aims to abolish is usury . . . it wants to
   deprive capital of its reward." As noted above, the term "usury," for
   Tucker, was simply a synonym for "the exploitation of labour." [Instead
   of a Book, p. 404 and p. 396]

   The similarities with social anarchism are obvious. Like them, the
   individualist anarchists opposed capitalism because they saw that
   profit, rent and interest were all forms of exploitation. As
   communist-anarchist Alexander Berkman noted, "[i]f the worker would get
   his due -- that is, the things he produces or their equivalent -- where
   would the profits of the capitalist come from? If labour owned the
   wealth it produced, there would be no capitalism." Like social
   anarchists they opposed usury, to have to pay purely for access/use for
   a resource. It ensured that a "slice of their daily labour is taken
   from [the workers] for the privilege of using these factories" [What is
   Anarchism?, p. 44 and p. 8] For Marx, abolishing interest and
   interest-bearing capital "means the abolition of capital and of
   capitalist production itself." [Theories of Surplus Value, vol. 3, p.
   472] A position, incidentally, also held by Proudhon who maintained
   that "reduction of interest rates to vanishing point is itself a
   revolutionary act, because it is destructive of capitalism." [quoted by
   Edward Hyams, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: His Revolutionary Life, Mind and
   Works, p. 188] Like many socialists, Individualist Anarchists used the
   term "interest" to cover all forms of surplus value: "the use of money"
   plus "house-rent, dividends, or share of profits" and having to "pay a
   tax to somebody who owns the land." "In doing away with interest, the
   cause of inequality in material circumstances will be done away with."
   [John Beverley Robinson, The Individualist Anarchists, pp. 144-5]

   Given that Individualist Anarchism aimed to abolish interest along with
   rent and profit it would suggest that it is a socialist theory.
   Unsurprisingly, then, Tucker agreed with Marx's analysis on capitalism,
   namely that it lead to industry concentrating into the hands of a few
   and that it robbed workers of the fruits of the toil (for Francis Tandy
   it was a case of "the Marxian theory of surplus value, upon which all
   Socialistic philosophy -- whether State or Anarchistic -- is
   necessarily based" [Op. Cit., no. 312, p. 3]). Tucker quoted a leading
   Marxist's analysis of capitalism and noted that "Liberty endorses the
   whole of it, excepting a few phrases concerning the nationalisation of
   industry and the assumption of political power by working people."
   However, he was at pains to argue that this analysis was first
   expounded by Proudhon, "that the tendency and consequences of
   capitalistic production . . . were demonstrated to the world time and
   time again during the twenty years preceding the publication of 'Das
   Kapital'" by the French anarchist. This included "the historical
   persistence of class struggles in successive manifestations" as well as
   "the theory that labour is the source and measure of value." "Call
   Marx, then, the father of State socialism, if you will," argued Tucker,
   "but we dispute his paternity of the general principles of economy on
   which all schools of socialism agree." [Liberty, no. 35, p. 2]

   This opposition to profits, rent and interest as forms of exploitation
   and property as a form of theft clearly makes individualist anarchism
   anti-capitalist and a form of (libertarian) socialism. In addition, it
   also indicates well the common ground between the two threads of
   anarchism, in particular their common position to capitalism. The
   social anarchist Rudolf Rocker indicates well this common position when
   he argues:

     "it is difficult to reconcile personal freedom with the existing
     economic system. Without doubt the present inequality of economic
     interests and the resulting class conflicts in society are a
     continual danger to the freedom of the individual . . . [T]he
     undisturbed natural development of human personality is impossible
     in a system which has its root in the shameless exploitation of the
     great mass of the members of society. One cannot be free either
     politically or personally so long as one is in economic servitude of
     another and cannot escape from this condition. This was recognised
     by men like Godwin, Warren, Proudhon, Bakunin, [and women like
     Goldman and de Cleyre, we must add!] and many others who
     subsequently reached the conviction that the domination of man over
     man will not disappear until there is an end of the exploitation of
     man by man." [Nationalism and Culture, p. 167]

   There are other, related, reasons why the individualist anarchists must
   be considered left-wing libertarians rather than right-wing ones. Given
   their opposition to non-labour income, they saw their proposals as
   having egalitarian implications. As regards equality, we discover that
   they saw their ideas as promoting it. Thus we find Tucker arguing that
   that the "happiness possible in any society that does not improve upon
   the present in the matter of distribution of wealth, can hardly be
   described as beatific." He was clearly opposed to "the inequitable
   distribution of wealth" under capitalism and equally clearly saw his
   proposals as a means of reducing it substantially. The abolition of
   those class monopolies which create interest, rent and profit would
   reduce income and wealth inequalities substantially. However, there was
   "one exception, and that a comparatively trivial one", namely economic
   rent (the natural differences between different bits of land and
   individual labour). This "will probably remain with us always. Complete
   liberty will very much lessen it; of that I have no doubt . . . At the
   worst, it will be a small matter, no more worth consideration in
   comparison with the liberty than the slight disparity that will always
   exist in consequence of inequalities of skill." ["Why I am an
   Anarchist", pp. 132-6, Man!, M. Graham (ed.), pp. 135-6] Another
   individualist anarchist, John Beverley Robinson, agreed:

     "When privilege is abolished, and the worker retains all that he
     produces, then will come the powerful trend toward equality of
     material reward for labour that will produce substantial financial
     and social equality, instead of the mere political equality that now
     exists." [Patterns of Anarchy, pp. 278-9]

   As did Lysander Spooner, who pointed out that the "wheel of fortune, in
   the present state of things, is of such enormous diameter" and "those
   on its top are on so showy a height" wjile "those underneath it are in
   such a pit of debt, oppression, and despair." He argued that under his
   system "fortunes could hardly be represented by a wheel; for it would
   present no such height, no such depth, no such irregularity of motion
   as now. It should rather be represented by an extended surface, varied
   somewhat by inequalities, but still exhibiting a general level,
   affording a safe position for all, and creating no necessity, for
   either force or fraud, on the part of anyone to secure his standing."
   Thus Individualist anarchism would create a condition "neither of
   poverty, nor riches; but of moderate competency -- such as will neither
   enervate him by luxury, nor disable him by destitution; but which will
   at once give him and opportunity to labour, (both mentally and
   physically) and stimulate him by offering him all the fruits of his
   labours." [quoted by Stephan L. Newman, Liberalism at Wit's End, p. 72
   and p. 73]

   As one commentator on individualist anarchism, Wm. Gary Kline,
   correctly tsummarised:

     "Their proposals were designed to establish true equality of
     opportunity . . . and they expected this to result in a society
     without great wealth or poverty. In the absence of monopolistic
     factors which would distort competition, they expected a society of
     largely self-employed workmen with no significant disparity of
     wealth between any of them since all would be required to live at
     their own expense and not at the expense of exploited fellow human
     beings." [The Individualist Anarchists: A Critique of Liberalism,
     pp. 103-4]

   Hence, like social anarchists, the Individualist Anarchists saw their
   ideas as a means towards equality. By eliminating exploitation,
   inequality would soon decrease as wealth would no longer accumulate in
   the hands of the few (the owners). Rather, it would flow back into the
   hands of those who produced it (i.e. the workers). Until this occurred,
   society would see "[o]n one side a dependent class of wage-workers and
   on the other a privileged class of wealth-monopolisers, each become
   more and more distinct from the other as capitalism advances." This has
   "resulted in a grouping and consolidation of wealth which grows apace
   by attracting all property, no matter by whom produced, into the hands
   of the privileged, and hence property becomes a social power, an
   economic force destructive of rights, a fertile source of injustice, a
   means of enslaving the dispossessed." [William Ballie, The
   Individualist Anarchists, p. 121]

   Moreover, like the social anarchists, the Individualist Anarchists were
   aware that the state was not some neutral machine or one that exploited
   all classes purely for its own ends. They were aware that it was a
   vehicle of class rule, namely the rule of the capitalist class over the
   working class. Spooner thought that that "holders of this monopoly [of
   the money supply] now rule and rob this nation; and the government, in
   all its branches, is simply their tool" and that "the employers of wage
   labour . . . are also the monopolists of money." [Spooner, A Letter to
   Grover Cleveland, p. 42 and p. 48] Tucker recognised that "capital had
   so manipulated legislation" that they gained an advantage on the
   capitalist market which allowed them to exploit labour. [The
   Individualist Anarchists, pp. 82-3] He was quite clear that the state
   was a capitalist state, with "Capitalists hav[ing] placed and kept on
   the statute books all sorts of prohibitions and taxes" to ensure a
   "free market" skewed in favour of themselves. [Instead of a Book, p.
   454] A.H. Simpson argued that the Individualist Anarchist "knows very
   well that the present State . . . is simply the tool of the
   property-owning class." [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 92] Thus both
   wings of the anarchist movement were united in their opposition to
   capitalist exploitation and their common recognition that the state was
   a tool of the capitalist class, used to allow them to exploit the
   working class.

   Tucker, like other individualist anarchists, also supported labour
   unions, and although he opposed violence during strikes he recognised
   that it was caused by frustration due to an unjust system. Indeed, like
   social anarchists, he considered "the labourer in these days [as] a
   soldier. . . His employer is . . . a member of an opposing army. The
   whole industrial and commercial world is in a state of internecine war,
   in which the proletaires are massed on one side and the proprietors on
   the other." The cause of strikes rested in the fact that "before . . .
   strikers violated the equal liberty of others, their own right to
   equality of liberty had been wantonly and continuously violated" by the
   capitalists using the state, for the "capitalists . . . in denying [a
   free market] to [the workers] are guilty of criminal invasion."
   [Instead of a Book, p. 460 and p. 454] "With our present economic
   system," Tucker stressed, "almost every strike is just. For what is
   justice in production and distribution? That labour, which creates all,
   shall have all." [Liberty, no. 19, p. 1]

   Another important aspects of unions and strikes were that they
   represented both a growing class consciousness and the ability to
   change society. "It is the power of the great unions to paralyse
   industry and ignore the government that has alarmed the political
   burglars," argued Victor Yarrows. This explained why unions and strikes
   were crushed by force as "the State can have no rival, say the
   plutocrats, and the trades unions, with the sympathetic strike and
   boycott as weapons, are becoming too formidable." Even defeated strikes
   were useful as they ensured that "the strikers and their sympathisers
   will have acquired some additional knowledge of the essential nature of
   the beast, government, which plainly has no other purpose at present
   than to protect monopoly and put down all opposition to it." "There is
   such a thing as the solidarity of labour," Yarrows went on, "and it is
   a healthy and encouraging sign that workmen recognise the need of
   mutual support and co-operation in their conflict with monopoly and its
   official and unofficial servants. Labour has to fight government as
   well as capital, 'law and order' as well as plutocracy. It cannot make
   the slightest movement against monopoly without colliding with some
   sort of 'authority', Federal, State, or municipal." The problem was
   that the unions "have no clear general aims and deal with results
   rather than causes." [Liberty, no. 291, p. 3]

   This analysis echoed Tucker's, who applauded the fact that "[a]nother
   era of strikes apparently is upon us. In all trades and in all sections
   of the country labour is busy with its demands and its protests.
   Liberty rejoices in them. They give evidence of life and spirit and
   hope and growing intelligence. They show that the people are beginning
   to know their rights, and, knowing, dare to maintain them. Strikes,
   whenever and wherever inaugurated, deserve encouragement from all true
   friends of labour." [Op. Cit., no. 19, p. 1] Even failed strikes were
   useful, for they exposed "the tremendous and dangerous power now
   wielded by capital." [Op. Cit., no. 39, p. 1] The "capitalists and
   their tools, the legislatures, already begin to scent the impending
   dangers of trades-union socialism and initiatory steps are on foot in
   the legislatures of several states to construe labour combinations as
   conspiracies against commerce and industry, and suppress them by law."
   [Op. Cit., no. 22, p. 3]

   Some individualist anarchists, like Dyer Lum and Joseph Labadie, were
   union organisers while Ezra Heywood "scoffed at supporters of the
   status quo, who saw no evidence of the tyranny on the part of capital,
   and who brought up the matter of free contract with reference to
   labourers. This argument was no longer valid. Capital controlled land,
   machinery, steam power, waterfalls, ships, railways, and above all,
   money and public opinion, and was in a position to wait out
   recalcitrancy at its leisure." [Martin, Op. Cit., p. 107] For Lum,
   "behind the capitalist . . . privilege stands as support" and so social
   circumstances matter. "Does liberty exist," he argued, "where rent,
   interest, and profit hold the employee in economic subjection to the
   legalised possessor of the means of life? To plead for individual
   liberty under the present social conditions, to refuse to abate one jot
   of control that legalised capital has over individual labour, and to
   assert that the demand for restrictive or class legislation comes only
   from the voluntary associations of workmen [i.e., trade unions] is not
   alone the height of impudence, but a barefaced jugglery of words."
   [Liberty, no. 101, p. 5]

   Likewise, Tucker advocated and supported many other forms of
   non-violent direct action as well as workplace strikes, such as
   boycotts and rent strikes, seeing them as important means of
   radicalising the working class and creating an anarchist society.
   However, like social anarchists the Individualist Anarchists did not
   consider labour struggle as an end in itself -- they considered reforms
   (and discussion of a "fair wage" and "harmony between capital and
   labour") as essentially "conservative" and would be satisfied with no
   less than "the abolition of the monopoly privileges of capital and
   interest-taking, and the return to labour of the full value of its
   production." [Victor Yarros, quoted by Martin, Op. Cit., p. 206f]

   Therefore, it is clear that both social and Individualist Anarchists
   share much in common, including an opposition to capitalism. The former
   may have been in favour of free exchange but between equally situated
   individuals. Only given a context of equality can free exchange be
   considered to benefit both parties equally and not generate growing
   inequalities which benefit the stronger of the parties involved which,
   in turn, skews the bargaining position of those involved in favour of
   the stronger (also see [3]section F.3).

   It is unsurprising, therefore, that the individualist anarchists
   considered themselves as socialists. Like Proudhon, they desired a
   (libertarian) socialist system based on the market but without
   exploitation and which rested on possession rather than capitalist
   private property. With Proudhon, only the ignorant or mischievous would
   suggest that such a system was capitalistic. The Individualist
   Anarchists, as can be seen, fit very easily into Kropotkin's comments
   that "the anarchists, in common with all socialists . . . maintain that
   the now prevailing system of private ownership in land, and our
   capitalist production for the sake of profits, represent a monopoly
   which runs against both the principles of justice and the dictates of
   utility." [Anarchism, p. 285] While they rejected the
   communist-anarchist solution to the social question, they knew that
   such a question existed and was rooted in the exploitation of labour
   and the prevailing system of property rights.

   So why is Individualist Anarchism and Proudhon's mutualism socialist?
   Simply because they opposed the exploitation of labour by capital and
   proposed a means of ending it. The big debate between social and
   individualist anarchists is revolves around whether the other school
   can really achieve this common goal and whether its proposed solution
   would, in fact, secure meaningful individual liberty for all.

G.1.1 What about their support of the free market?

   Many, particularly on the "libertarian"-right, would dismiss claims
   that the Individualist Anarchists were socialists. By their support of
   the "free market" the Individualist Anarchists, they would claim, show
   themselves as really supporters of capitalism. Most, if not all,
   anarchists would reject this claim. Why is this the case?

   This because such claims show an amazing ignorance of socialist ideas
   and history. The socialist movement has had a many schools, many of
   which, but not all, opposed the market and private property. Given that
   the right "libertarians" who make such claims are usually not well
   informed of the ideas they oppose (i.e. of socialism, particularly
   libertarian socialism) it is unsurprising they claim that the
   Individualist Anarchists are not socialists (of course the fact that
   many Individualist Anarchists argued they were socialists is ignored).
   Coming from a different tradition, it is unsurprising they are not
   aware of the fact that socialism is not monolithic. Hence we discover
   right-"libertarian" guru von Mises claiming that the "essence of
   socialism is the entire elimination of the market." [Human Action, p.
   702] This would have come as something of a surprise to, say, Proudhon,
   who argued that "[t]o suppress competition is to suppress liberty
   itself." [The General Idea of the Revolution, p. 50] Similarly, it
   would have surprised Tucker, who called himself a socialist while
   supporting a freer market than von Mises ever dreamt of. As Tucker put
   it:

     "Liberty has always insisted that Individualism and Socialism are
     not antithetical terms; that, on the contrary, the most perfect
     Socialism is possible only on condition of the most perfect
     Individualism; and that Socialism includes, not only Collectivism
     and Communism, but also that school of Individualist Anarchism which
     conceives liberty as a means of destroying usury and the
     exploitation of labour." [Liberty, no. 129, p. 2]

   Hence we find Tucker calling his ideas both "Anarchistic Socialism" and
   "Individualist Socialism" while other individualist anarchists have
   used the terms "free market anti-capitalism" and "free market
   socialism" to describe the ideas.

   The central fallacy of the argument that support for markets equals
   support for capitalism is that many self-proclaimed socialists are not
   opposed to the market. Indeed, some of the earliest socialists were
   market socialists (people like Thomas Hodgskin and William Thompson,
   although the former ended up rejecting socialism and the latter became
   a communal-socialist). Proudhon, as noted, was a well known supporter
   of market exchange. German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer expounded a
   similar vision to Proudhon and called himself a "liberal socialist" as
   he favoured a free market but recognised that capitalism was a system
   of exploitation. ["Introduction", The State, p. vii] Today, market
   socialists like David Schweickart (see his Against Capitalism and After
   Capitalism) and David Miller (see his Market, State, and community:
   theoretical foundations of market socialism) are expounding a similar
   vision to Proudhon's, namely of a market economy based on co-operatives
   (albeit one which retains a state). Unfortunately, they rarely, if
   ever, acknowledge their debt to Proudhon (needless to say, their
   Leninist opponents do as, from their perspective, it damns the market
   socialists as not being real socialists).

   It could, possibly, be argued that these self-proclaimed socialists did
   not, in fact, understand what socialism "really meant." For this to be
   the case, other, more obviously socialist, writers and thinkers would
   dismiss them as not being socialists. This, however, is not the case.
   Thus we find Karl Marx, for example, writing of "the socialism of
   Proudhon." [Capital, vol. 1, p. 161f] Engels talked about Proudhon
   being "the Socialist of the small peasant and master-craftsman" and of
   "the Proudhon school of Socialism." [Marx and Engels, Selected Works,
   p. 254 and p. 255] Bakunin talked about Proudhon's "socialism, based on
   individual and collective liberty and upon the spontaneous action of
   free associations." He considered his own ideas as "Proudhonism widely
   developed and pushed right to these, its final consequences" [Michael
   Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 100 and p. 198] For Kropotkin, while
   Godwin was "first theoriser of Socialism without government -- that is
   to say, of Anarchism" Proudhon was the second as he, "without knowing
   Godwin's work, laid anew the foundations of Anarchism." He lamented
   that "many modern Socialists" supported "centralisation and the cult of
   authority" and so "have not yet reached the level of their two
   predecessors, Godwin and Proudhon." [Evolution and Environment, pp.
   26-7] These renown socialists did not consider Proudhon's position to
   be in any way anti-socialist (although, of course, being critical of
   whether it would work and its desirability if it did). Tucker, it
   should be noted, called Proudhon "the father of the Anarchistic school
   of Socialism." [Instead of a Book, p. 381] Little wonder, then, that
   the likes of Tucker considered themselves socialists and stated
   numerous times that they were.

   Looking at Tucker and the Individualist anarchists we discover that
   other socialists considered them socialists. Rudolf Rocker stated that
   "it is not difficult to discover certain fundamental principles which
   are common to all of them and which divide them from all other
   varieties of socialism. They all agree on the point that man be given
   the full reward of his labour and recognise in this right the economic
   basis of all personal liberty. They all regard the free competition of
   individual and social forces as something inherent in human nature . .
   . They answered the socialists of other schools who saw in free
   competition one of the destructive elements of capitalist society that
   the evil lies in the fact we have too little rather than too much
   competition, since the power of monopoly has made competition
   impossible." [Pioneers of American Freedom, p. 160] Malatesta,
   likewise, saw many schools of socialism, including "anarchist or
   authoritarian, mutualist or individualist." [Errico Malatesta: His Life
   and Ideas, p. 95]

   Adolph Fischer, one of the Haymarket Martyrs and contemporary of
   Tucker, argued that "every anarchist is a socialist, but every
   socialist is not necessarily an anarchist. The anarchists are divided
   into two factions: the communistic anarchists and the Proudhon or
   middle-class anarchists." The former "advocate the communistic or
   co-operative method of production" while the latter "do not advocate
   the co-operative system of production, and the common ownership of the
   means of production, the products and the land." [The Autobiographies
   of the Haymarket Martyrs, p. 81] However, while not being communists
   (i.e. aiming to eliminate the market), he obviously recognised the
   Individualists Anarchists as fellow socialists (we should point out
   that Proudhon did support co-operatives, but they did not carry this to
   communism as do most social anarchists -- as is clear, Fischer means
   communism by the term "co-operative system of production" rather than
   co-operatives as they exist today and Proudhon supported -- see
   [4]section G.4.2).

   Thus claims that the Individualist Anarchists were not "really"
   socialists because they supported a market system cannot be supported.
   The simple fact is that those who make this claim are, at best,
   ignorant of the socialist movement, its ideas and its history or, at
   worse, desire, like many Marxists, to write out of history competing
   socialist theories. For example, Leninist David McNally talks of the
   "anarcho-socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon" and how Marx combated
   "Proudhonian socialism" before concluding that it was "non-socialism"
   because it has "wage-labour and exploitation." [Against the Market, p.
   139 and p. 169] Of course, that this is not true (even in a Marxist
   sense) did not stop him asserting it. As one reviewer correctly points
   out, "McNally is right that even in market socialism, market forces
   rule workers' lives" and this is "a serious objection. But it is not
   tantamount to capitalism or to wage labour" and it "does not have
   exploitation in Marx's sense (i.e., wrongful expropriation of surplus
   by non-producers)" [Justin Schwartz, The American Political Science
   Review, Vol. 88, No. 4, p. 982] For Marx, as we noted in [5]section
   C.2, commodity production only becomes capitalism when there is the
   exploitation of wage labour. This is the case with Proudhon as well,
   who differentiated between possession and private property and argued
   that co-operatives should replace capitalist firms. While their
   specific solutions may have differed (with Proudhon aiming for a market
   economy consisting of artisans, peasants and co-operatives while Marx
   aimed for communism, i.e. the abolition of money via state ownership of
   capital) their analysis of capitalism and private property were
   identical -- which Tucker consistently noted (as regards the theory of
   surplus value, for example, he argued that "Proudhon propounded and
   proved [it] long before Marx advanced it." [Liberty, no. 92, p. 1])

   As Tucker argued, "the fact that State Socialism . . . has overshadowed
   other forms of Socialism gives it no right to a monopoly of the
   Socialistic idea." [Instead of a Book, pp. 363-4] It is no surprise
   that the authoritarian left and "libertarian" right have united to
   define socialism in such a way as to eliminate anarchism from its ranks
   -- they both have an interest in removing a theory which exposes the
   inadequacies of their dogmas, which explains how we can have both
   liberty and equality and have a decent, free and just society.

   There is another fallacy at the heart of the claim that markets and
   socialism do not go together, namely that all markets are capitalist
   markets. So another part of the problem is that the same word often
   means different things to different people. Both Kropotkin and Lenin
   said they were "communists" and aimed for "communism." However, it does
   not mean that the society Kropotkin aimed for was the same as that
   desired by Lenin. Kropotkin's communism was decentralised, created and
   run from the bottom-up while Lenin's was fundamentally centralised and
   top-down. Similarly, both Tucker and the Social-Democrat (and leading
   Marxist) Karl Kautsky called themselves a "socialist" yet their ideas
   on what a socialist society would be like were extremely different. As
   J.W. Baker notes, "Tucker considered himself a socialist . . . as the
   result of his struggle against 'usury and capitalism,' but anything
   that smelled of 'state socialism' was thoroughly rejected." ["Native
   American Anarchism," pp. 43-62, The Raven, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 60] This,
   of course, does not stop many "anarcho"-capitalists talking about
   "socialist" goals as if all socialists were Stalinists (or, at best,
   social democrats). In fact, "socialist anarchism" has included (and
   continues to include) advocates of truly free markets as well as
   advocates of a non-market socialism which has absolutely nothing in
   common with the state capitalist tyranny of Stalinism. Similarly, they
   accept a completely ahistorical definition of "capitalism," so ignoring
   the massive state violence and support by which that system was created
   and is maintained.

   The same with terms like "property" and the "free market," by which the
   "anarcho"-capitalist assumes the individualist anarchist means the same
   thing as they do. We can take land as an example. The individualist
   anarchists argued for an "occupancy and use" system of "property" (see
   [6]next section for details). Thus in their "free market," land would
   not be a commodity as it is under capitalism and so under individualist
   anarchism absentee landlords would be considered as aggressors (for
   under capitalism they use state coercion to back up their collection of
   rent against the actual occupiers of property). Tucker argued that
   local defence associations should treat the occupier and user as the
   rightful owner, and defend them against the aggression of an absentee
   landlord who attempted to collect rent. An "anarcho"-capitalist would
   consider this as aggression against the landlord and a violation of
   "free market" principles. Such a system of "occupancy and use" would
   involve massive violations of what is considered normal in a capitalist
   "free market." Equally, a market system which was based on capitalist
   property rights in land would not be considered as genuinely free by
   the likes of Tucker.

   This can be seen from Tucker's debates with supporters of laissez-faire
   capitalism such as Auberon Herbert (who, as discussed in [7]section
   F.7.2, was an English minimal statist and sometimes called a forerunner
   of "anarcho"-capitalism). Tucker quoted an English critic of Herbert,
   who noted that "When we come to the question of the ethical basis of
   property, Mr. Herbert refers us to 'the open market'. But this is an
   evasion. The question is not whether we should be able to sell or
   acquire 'in the open market' anything which we rightfully possess, but
   how we come into rightful possession." [Liberty, no. 172, p. 7] Tucker
   rejected the idea "that a man should be allowed a title to as much of
   the earth as he, in the course of his life, with the aid of all the
   workmen that he can employ, may succeed in covering with buildings. It
   is occupancy and use that Anarchism regards as the basis of land
   ownership, . . . A man cannot be allowed, merely by putting labour, to
   the limit of his capacity and beyond the limit of his person use, into
   material of which there is a limited supply and the use of which is
   essential to the existence of other men, to withhold that material from
   other men's use; and any contract based upon or involving such
   withholding is as lacking in sanctity or legitimacy as a contract to
   deliver stolen goods." [Op. Cit., no. 331, p. 4]

   In other words, an individualist anarchist would consider an
   "anarcho"-capitalist "free market" as nothing of the kind and vice
   versa. For the former, the individualist anarchist position on
   "property" would be considered as forms of regulation and restrictions
   on private property and so the "free market." The individualist
   anarchist would consider the "anarcho"-capitalist "free market" as
   another system of legally maintained privilege, with the free market
   distorted in favour of the wealthy. That capitalist property rights
   were being maintained by private police would not stop that regime
   being unfree. This can be seen when "anarcho"-capitalist Wendy McElroy
   states that "radical individualism hindered itself . . . Perhaps most
   destructively, individualism clung to the labour theory of value and
   refused to incorporate the economic theories arising within other
   branches of individualist thought, theories such as marginal utility.
   Unable to embrace statism, the stagnant movement failed to adequately
   comprehend the logical alternative to the state -- a free market."
   ["Benjamin Tucker, Liberty, and Individualist Anarchism", pp. 421-434,
   The Independent Review, vol. II, No. 3, p. 433] Therefore, rather than
   being a source of commonality, individualist anarchism and
   "anarcho"-capitalism actually differ quite considerably on what counts
   as a genuinely free market.

   So it should be remembered that "anarcho"-capitalists at best agree
   with Tucker, Spooner, et al on fairly vague notions like the "free
   market." They do not bother to find out what the individualist
   anarchists meant by that term. Indeed, the "anarcho"-capitalist embrace
   of different economic theories means that they actually reject the
   reasoning that leads up to these nominal "agreements." It is the
   "anarcho"-capitalists who, by rejecting the underlying economics of the
   mutualists, are forced to take any "agreements" out of context. It also
   means that when faced with obviously anti-capitalist arguments and
   conclusions of the individualist anarchists, the "anarcho"-capitalist
   cannot explain them and are reduced to arguing that the anti-capitalist
   concepts and opinions expressed by the likes of Tucker are somehow "out
   of context." In contrast, the anarchist can explain these so-called
   "out of context" concepts by placing them into the context of the ideas
   of the individualist anarchists and the society which shaped them.

   The "anarcho"-capitalist usually admits that they totally disagree with
   many of the essential premises and conclusions of the individualist
   anarchist analyses (see [8]next section). The most basic difference is
   that the individualist anarchists rooted their ideas in the labour
   theory of value while the "anarcho"-capitalists favour mainstream
   marginalist theory. It does not take much thought to realise that
   advocates of socialist theories and those of capitalist ones will
   naturally develop differing notions of what is and what should be
   happening within a given economic system. One difference that has in
   fact arisen is that the notion of what constitutes a "free market" has
   differed according to the theory of value applied. Many things can be
   attributed to the workings of a "free" market under a capitalist
   analysis that would be considered symptoms of economic unfreedom under
   most socialist driven analyses.

   This can be seen if you look closely at the case of Tucker's comments
   that anarchism was simply "consistent Manchesterianism." If this is
   done then a simple example of this potential confusion can be found.
   Tucker argued that anarchists "accused" the Manchester men "of being
   inconsistent," that while being in favour of laissez faire for "the
   labourer in order to reduce his wages" they did not believe "in liberty
   to compete with the capitalist in order to reduce his usury." [The
   Individualist Anarchists, p. 83] To be consistent in this case is to be
   something other -- and more demanding in terms of what is accepted as
   "freedom" -- than the average Manchesterian (i.e. a supporter of "free
   market" capitalism). By "consistent Manchesterism", Tucker meant a
   laissez-faire system in which class monopolies did not exist, where
   capitalist private property in land and intellectual property did not
   exist. In other words, a free market purged of its capitalist aspects.
   Partisans of the capitalist theory see things differently, of course,
   feeling justified in calling many things "free" that anarchists would
   not accept, and seeing "constraint" in what the anarchists simply
   thought of as "consistency." This explains both his criticism of
   capitalism and state socialism:

     "The complaint of the Archist Socialists that the Anarchists are
     bourgeois is true to this extent and no further -- that, great as is
     their detestation for a bourgeois society, they prefer its partial
     liberty to the complete slavery of State Socialism." ["Why I am an
     Anarchist", pp. 132-6, Man!, M. Graham (ed.), p. 136]

   It should be clear that a "free market" will look somewhat different
   depending on your economic presuppositions. Ironically, this is
   something "anarcho"-capitalists implicitly acknowledge when they admit
   they do not agree with the likes of Spooner and Tucker on many of their
   key premises and conclusions (but that does not stop them claiming --
   despite all that -- that their ideas are a modern version of
   individualist anarchism!). Moreover, the "anarcho"-capitalist simply
   dismisses all the reasoning that got Tucker there -- that is like
   trying to justify a law citing Leviticus but then saying "but of course
   all that God stuff is just absurd." You cannot have it both ways. And,
   of course, the "anarcho"-capitalist support for non-labour based
   economics allow them to side-step (and so ignore) much of what
   anarchists -- communists, collectivists, individualists, mutualists and
   syndicalists alike -- consider authoritarian and coercive about
   "actually existing" capitalism. But the difference in economic analysis
   is critical. No matter what they are called, it is pretty clear that
   individualist anarchist standards for the freedom of markets are far
   more demanding than those associated with even the freest capitalist
   market system.

   This is best seen from the development of individualist anarchism in
   the 20th century. As historian Charles A. Madison noted, it "began to
   dwindle rapidly after 1900. Some of its former adherents joined the
   more aggressive communistic faction . . . many others began to favour
   the rising socialist movement as the only effective weapon against
   billion-dollar corporations." ["Benjamin R. Tucker: Individualist and
   Anarchist," pp. 444-67, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp.
   p. 464] Other historians have noted the same. "By 1908," argued Eunice
   Minette Schuster "the industrial system had fastened its claws into
   American soil" and while the "Individualist Anarchists had attempted to
   destroy monopoly, privilege, and inequality, originating in the lack of
   opportunity" the "superior force of the system which they opposed . . .
   overwhelmed" them. Tucker left America in 1908 and those who remained
   "embraced either Anarchist-Communism as the result of governmental
   violence against the labourers and their cause, or abandoned the cause
   entirely." [Native American Anarchism, p. 158, pp. 159-60 and p. 156]
   While individualist anarchism did not entirely disappear with the
   ending of Liberty, social anarchism became the dominant trend in
   America as it had elsewhere in the world.

   As we note in [9]section G.4, the apparent impossibility of mutual
   banking to eliminate corporations by economic competition was one of
   the reasons Voltairine de Cleyre pointed to for rejecting individualist
   anarchism in favour of communist-anarchism. This problem was recognised
   by Tucker himself thirty years after Liberty had been founded. In the
   postscript to a 1911 edition of his famous essay "State Socialism and
   Anarchism", he argued that when he wrote it 25 years earlier "the
   denial of competition had not effected the enormous concentration of
   wealth that now so gravely threatens social order" and so while a
   policy of mutual banking might have stopped and reversed the process of
   accumulation in the past, the way now was "not so clear." This was
   because the tremendous capitalisation of industry now made the money
   monopoly a convenience, but no longer a necessity. Admitted Tucker, the
   "trust is now a monster which . . . even the freest competition, could
   it be instituted, would be unable to destroy" as "concentrated capital"
   could set aside a sacrifice fund to bankrupt smaller competitors and
   continue the process of expansion of reserves. Thus the growth of
   economic power, producing as it does natural barriers to entry from the
   process of capitalist production and accumulation, had resulted in a
   situation where individualist anarchist solutions could no longer
   reform capitalism away. The centralisation of capital had "passed for
   the moment beyond their reach." The problem of the trusts, he argued,
   "must be grappled with for a time solely by forces political or
   revolutionary," i.e., through confiscation either through the machinery
   of government "or in denial of it." Until this "great levelling"
   occurred, all individualist anarchists could do was to spread their
   ideas as those trying to "hasten it by joining in the propaganda of
   State Socialism or revolution make a sad mistake indeed." [quoted by
   James J. Martin, Op. Cit., pp. 273-4]

   In other words, the economic power of "concentrated capital" and
   "enormous concentration of wealth" placed an insurmountable obstacle to
   the realisation of anarchy. Which means that the abolition of usury and
   relative equality were considered ends rather than side effects for
   Tucker and if free competition could not achieve these then such a
   society would not be anarchist. If economic inequality was large
   enough, it meant anarchism was impossible as the rule of capital could
   be maintained by economic power alone without the need for extensive
   state intervention (this was, of course, the position of revolutionary
   anarchists like Bakunin, Most and Kropotkin in the 1870s and onwards
   whom Tucker dismissed as not being anarchists).

   Victor Yarros is another example, an individualist anarchist and
   associate of Tucker, who by the 1920s had abandoned anarchism for
   social democracy, in part because he had become convinced that economic
   privilege could not be fought by economic means. As he put it, the most
   "potent" of the "factors and forces [which] tended to undermine and
   discredit that movement" was "the amazing growth of trusts and
   syndicates, of holding companies and huge corporations, of chain banks
   and chain stores." This "gradually and insidiously shook the faith of
   many in the efficacy of mutual banks, co-operative associations of
   producers and consumers, and the competition of little fellows.
   Proudhon's plan for a bank of the people to make industrial loans
   without interest to workers' co-operatives, or other members, seemed
   remote and inapplicable to an age of mass production, mechanisation,
   continental and international markets." ["Philosophical Anarchism: Its
   Rise, Decline, and Eclipse", pp. 470-483, The American Journal of
   Sociology, vol. 41, no. 4, p. 481]

   If the individualist anarchists shared the "anarcho"-capitalist
   position or even shared a common definition of "free markets" then the
   "power of the trusts" would simply not be an issue. This is because
   "anarcho"-capitalism does not acknowledge the existence of such power,
   as, by definition, it does not exist in capitalism (although as noted
   in [10]section F.1 Rothbard himself proved critics of this assertion
   right). Tucker's comments, therefore, indicate well how far
   individualist anarchism actually is from "anarcho"-capitalism. The
   "anarcho"-capitalist desires free markets no matter their result or the
   concentration of wealth existing at their introduction. As can be seen,
   Tucker saw the existence of concentrations of wealth as a problem and a
   hindrance towards anarchy. Thus Tucker was well aware of the dangers to
   individual liberty of inequalities of wealth and the economic power
   they produce. Equally, if Tucker supported the "free market" above all
   else then he would not have argued this point. Clearly, then, Tucker's
   support for the "free market" cannot be abstracted from his fundamental
   principles nor can it be equated with a "free market" based on
   capitalist property rights and massive inequalities in wealth (and so
   economic power). Thus individualist anarchist support for the free
   market does not mean support for a capitalist "free market."

   In summary, the "free market" as sought by (say) Tucker would not be
   classed as a "free market" by right-wing "libertarians." So the term
   "free market" (and, of course, "socialism") can mean different things
   to different people. As such, it would be correct to state that all
   anarchists oppose the "free market" by definition as all anarchists
   oppose the capitalist "free market." And, just as correctly,
   "anarcho"-capitalists would oppose the individualist anarchist "free
   market," arguing that it would be no such thing as it would be
   restrictive of property rights (capitalist property rights of course).
   For example, the question of resource use in an individualist society
   is totally different than in a capitalist "free market" as landlordism
   would not exist. This is a restriction on capitalist property rights
   and a violation of a capitalist "free market." So an individualist
   "free market" would not be considered so by right-wing "libertarians"
   due to the substantial differences in the rights on which it would be
   based (with no right to capitalist private property being the most
   important).

   All this means that to go on and on about individualist anarchism and
   it support for a free market simply misses the point. No one denies
   that individualist anarchists were (and are) in favour of a "free
   market" but this did not mean they were not socialists nor that they
   wanted the same kind of "free market" desired by "anarcho"-capitalism
   or that has existed under capitalism. Of course, whether their economic
   system would actually result in the abolition of exploitation and
   oppression is another matter and it is on this issue which social
   anarchists disagree with individualist anarchism not whether they are
   socialists or not.

G.1.2 What about their support of "private property"?

   The notion that because the Individualist Anarchists supported "private
   property" they supported capitalism is distinctly wrong. This is for
   two reasons. Firstly, private property is not the distinctive aspect of
   capitalism -- exploitation of wage labour is. Secondly, and more
   importantly, what the Individualist Anarchists meant by "private
   property" (or "property") was distinctly different than what is meant
   by theorists on the "libertarian"-right or what is commonly accepted as
   "private property" under capitalism. Thus support of private property
   does not indicate a support for capitalism.

   On the first issue, it is important to note that there are many
   different kinds of private property. If quoting Karl Marx is not too
   out of place:

     "Political economy confuses, on principle, two very different kinds
     of private property, one of which rests on the labour of the
     producer himself, and the other on the exploitation of the labour of
     others. It forgets that the latter is not only the direct antithesis
     of the former, but grows on the former's tomb and nowhere else.

     "In Western Europe, the homeland of political economy, the process
     of primitive accumulation is more of less accomplished . . .

     "It is otherwise in the colonies. There the capitalist regime
     constantly comes up against the obstacle presented by the producer,
     who, as owner of his own conditions of labour, employs that labour
     to enrich himself instead of the capitalist. The contradiction of
     these two diametrically opposed economic systems has its practical
     manifestation here in the struggle between them."
     [Capital, vol. 1, p. 931]

   So, under capitalism, "property turns out to be the right, on the part
   of the capitalist, to appropriate the unpaid labour of others, or its
   product, and the impossibility, on the part of the worker, of
   appropriating his own product." In other words, property is not viewed
   as being identical with capitalism. "The historical conditions of
   [Capital's] existence are by no means given with the mere circulation
   of money and commodities. It arises only when the owner of the means of
   production and subsistence finds the free worker available on the
   market, as the seller of his own labour-power." Thus wage-labour, for
   Marx, is the necessary pre-condition for capitalism, not "private
   property" as such as "the means of production and subsistence, while
   they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital.
   They only become capital under circumstances in which they serve at the
   same time as means of exploitation of, and domination over, the
   worker." [Op. Cit., p. 730, p. 264 and p. 938]

   For Engels, "[b]efore capitalistic production" industry was "based upon
   the private property of the labourers in their means of production",
   i.e., "the agriculture of the small peasant" and "the handicrafts
   organised in guilds." Capitalism, he argued, was based on capitalists
   owning "social means of production only workable by a collectivity of
   men" and so they "appropriated . . . the product of the labour of
   others." Both, it should be noted, had also made this same distinction
   in the Communist Manifesto, stating that "the distinguishing feature of
   Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition
   of bourgeois property." Artisan and peasant property is "a form that
   preceded the bourgeois form" which there "is no need to abolish" as
   "the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed
   it." This means that communism "derives no man of the power to
   appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him
   of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such
   appropriation." [Marx and Engels, Selected Works, p. 412, p. 413, p.
   414, p. 47 and p. 49]

   We quote Marx and Engels simply because as authorities on socialism go,
   they are ones that right-"libertarians" (or Marxists, for that matter)
   cannot ignore or dismiss. Needless to say, they are presenting an
   identical analysis to that of Proudhon in What is Property? and,
   significantly, Godwin in his Political Justice (although, of course,
   the conclusions drawn from this common critique of capitalism were
   radically different in the case of Proudhon). This is, it must be
   stressed, simply Proudhon's distinction between property and possession
   (see [11]section B.3.1). The former is theft and despotism, the latter
   is liberty. In other words, for genuine anarchists, "property" is a
   social relation and that a key element of anarchist thinking (both
   social and individualist) was the need to redefine that relation in
   accord with standards of liberty and justice.

   So what right-"libertarians" do when they point out that the
   individualist anarchists supported property is to misunderstand the
   socialist critique of capitalism. They, to paraphrase Marx, confuse two
   very different kinds of "property," one of which rests on the labour of
   the producers themselves and the other on the exploitation of the
   labour of others. They do not analyse the social relationships between
   people which the property in question generates and, instead,
   concentrate on things (i.e. property). Thus, rather than being
   interested in people and the relationships they create between
   themselves, the right-"libertarian" focuses on property (and, more
   often than not, just the word rather than what the word describes).
   This is a strange position for someone seeking liberty to take, as
   liberty is a product of social interaction (i.e. the relations we have
   and create with others) and not a product of things (property is not
   freedom as freedom is a relationship between people, not things). They
   confuse property with possession (and vice versa).

   In pre-capitalist social environments, when property is directly owned
   by the producer, capitalist defences of private property can be used
   against it. Even John Locke's arguments in favour of private property
   could be used against capitalism. As Murray Bookchin makes clear
   regarding pre-capitalist society:

     "Unknown in the 1640s, the non-bourgeois aspects of Locke's theories
     were very much in the air a century and a half later . . . [In an
     artisan/peasant society] a Lockean argument could be used as
     effectively against the merchants . . . to whom the farmers were
     indebted, as it could against the King [or the State]. Nor did the
     small proprietors of America ever quite lose sight of the view that
     attempts to seize their farmsteads and possessions for unpaid debts
     were a violation of their 'natural rights,' and from the 1770s until
     as late as the 1930s they took up arms to keep merchants and bankers
     from dispossessing them from land they or their ancestors had
     wrestled from 'nature' by virtue of their own labour. The notion
     that property was sacred was thus highly elastic: it could be used
     as effectively by pre-capitalist strata to hold on to their property
     as it could by capitalists strata to expand their holdings." [The
     Third Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 187-8]

   The individualist anarchists inherited this perspective on property and
   sought means of ending the transformation of American society from one
   where labour-property predominated into one where capitalist private
   property (and so exploitation) predominated. Thus their opposition to
   state interference in the economy as the capitalists were using the
   state to advance this process (see [12]section F.8.5).

   So artisan and co-operative property is not capitalist. It does not
   generate relationships of exploitation and domination as the worker
   owns and controls their own means of production. It is, in effect, a
   form of socialism (a "petit bourgeois" form of socialism, to use the
   typical insulting Marxist phrase). Thus support for "private property"
   need not mean support for capitalism (as shown, for example, by the
   Individualist Anarchists). To claim otherwise is to ignore the
   essential insight of socialism and totally distort the socialist case
   against capitalism.

   To summarise, from an anarchist (and Marxist) perspective capitalism is
   not defined by "property" as such. Rather, it is defined by private
   property, property which is turned into a means of exploiting the
   labour of those who use it. For most anarchists, this is done by means
   of wage labour and abolished by means of workers' associations and
   self-management (see [13]next section for a discussion of individualist
   anarchism and wage labour). To use Proudhon's terminology, there is a
   fundamental difference between property and possession.

   Secondly, and more importantly, what the Individualist Anarchists meant
   by "private property" (or "property") was distinctly different than
   what is meant by supporters of capitalism. Basically, the "libertarian"
   right exploit, for their own ends, the confusion generated by the use
   of the word "property" by the likes of Tucker to describe a situation
   of "possession." Proudhon recognised this danger. He argued that "it is
   proper to call different things by different names, if we keep the name
   'property' for the former [individual possession], we must call the
   latter [the domain of property] robbery, repine, brigandage. If, on the
   contrary, we reserve the name 'property' for the latter, we must
   designate the former by the term possession or some other equivalent;
   otherwise we should be troubled with an unpleasant synonym." [What is
   Property?, p. 373] Unfortunately Tucker, who translated this work, did
   not heed Proudhon's words of wisdom and called possession in an
   anarchist society by the word "property" (but then, neither did
   Proudhon in the latter part of his life!)

   Looking at Tucker's arguments, it is clear that the last thing Tucker
   supported was capitalist property rights. For example, he argued that
   "property, in the sense of individual possession, is liberty" and
   contrasted this with capitalist property. [Instead of a Book, p. 394]
   That his ideas on "property" were somewhat different than that
   associated with right-"libertarian" thinkers is most clearly seen with
   regards to land. Here we discover him advocating "occupancy and use"
   and rejecting the "right" of land owners to bar the landless from any
   land they owned but did not personally use. Rent was "due to that
   denial of liberty which takes the shape of land monopoly, vesting
   titles to land in individuals and associations which do not use it, and
   thereby compelling the non-owning users to pay tribute to the non-using
   owners as a condition of admission to the competitive market."
   Anarchist opposition of rent did "not mean simply the freeing of
   unoccupied land. It means the freeing of all land not occupied by the
   owner. In other words, it means land ownership limited by occupancy and
   use." [Tucker, The Individualist Anarchists, p. 130 and p. 155] This
   would result in a "system of occupying ownership . . . accompanied by
   no legal power to collect rent." [Instead of a Book, p. 325]

   A similar position was held by John Beverley Robinson. He argued that
   there "are two kinds of land ownership, proprietorship or property, by
   which the owner is absolute lord of the land, to use it or to hold it
   out of use, as it may please him; and possession, by which he is secure
   in the tenure of land which he uses and occupies, but has no claim upon
   it at all if he ceases to use it." Moreover, "[a]ll that is necessary
   to do away with Rent is to away with absolute property in land."
   [Patterns of Anarchy, p. 272] Joseph Labadie, likewise, stated that
   "the two great sub-divisions of Socialists" (anarchists and State
   Socialists) both "agree that the resources of nature -- land, mines,
   and so forth -- should not be held as private property and subject to
   being held by the individual for speculative purposes, that use of
   these things shall be the only valid title, and that each person has an
   equal right to the use of all these things. They all agree that the
   present social system is one composed of a class of slaves and a class
   of masters, and that justice is impossible under such conditions."
   [What is Socialism?]

   Thus the Individualist Anarchists definition of "property" differed
   considerably from that of the capitalist definition. As they themselves
   acknowledge. Robinson argued that "the only real remedy is a change of
   heart, through which land using will be recognised as proper and
   legitimate, but land holding will be regarded as robbery and piracy."
   [Op. Cit., p. 273] Tucker, likewise, indicated that his ideas on
   "property" were not the same as existing ones when he argued that "the
   present system of land tenure should be changed to one of occupancy and
   use" and that "no advocate of occupancy-and-use tenure of land believes
   that it can be put in force, until as a theory it has been as generally
   . . . seen and accepted as the prevailing theory of ordinary private
   property." [Occupancy and Use verses the Single Tax] Thus, for Tucker,
   anarchism is dependent on "the Anarchistic view that occupancy and use
   should condition and limit landholding becom[ing] the prevailing view."
   [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 159]

   Based on this theory of "property" Tucker opposed landlords and rent,
   arguing that anarchy "means the freeing of all land not occupied by the
   owner" that is, "land ownership limited by occupancy and use." He
   extended this principle to housing, arguing that "Anarchic
   associations" would "not collect your rent, and might not even evict
   your tenant" and "tenants would not be forced to pay you rent, nor
   would you be allowed to seize their property. The Anarchic Associations
   would look upon your tenants very much as they would look upon your
   guests." [Op. Cit., p. 155 and p. 162] In fact, individualist anarchism
   would "accord the actual occupant and user of land the right to that
   which is upon the land, who left it there when abandoning the land."
   [Tucker, Liberty, no. 350, p. 4]

   In the case of land and housing, almost all Individualist Anarchists
   argued that the person who lives or works on it (even under lease)
   would be regarded "as the occupant and user of the land on which the
   house stands, and as the owner of the house itself," that is they
   become "the owner of both land and house as soon as he becomes the
   occupant." [Tucker, Occupancy and Use Versus the Single Tax] For
   Tucker, occupancy and use was "the Anarchistic solution of the land
   question" as it allowed free access to land to all, to be "enjoyed by
   the occupant without payment of tribute to a non-occupant." This
   applied to what was on the land as well, for if A builds a house, and
   rents it to B, who lives or works in it under the lease then Tucker
   would "regard B as the occupant and user of the land on which the house
   stands, and as the owner of the house itself." [Liberty, no. 308, p. 4]

   Needless to say, the individualist anarchists were just as opposed to
   that mainstay of modern capitalism, the corporation. For Greene
   corporations "disarrange our social organisation, and make the just
   distribution of the products of labour impossible." [quoted by Wm. Gary
   Kline, The Individualist Anarchists: A Critique of Liberalism, p. 94]
   While opposing state attempts to limit trusts (it did not get to the
   root of the problem which lay in class privilege), Tucker took it for
   granted that "corporate privileges are in themselves a wrong." [The
   Individualist Anarchists, p. 129] Given that "occupancy and use"
   applies to what is on the land, it logically follows that for those
   workplaces with absentee owners (i.e., owners who hire managers to run
   them) then these are abandoned by their owners. By the "occupancy and
   use" criteria, the land and what is on it reverts to those actually
   using them (i.e., the workers in question). Corporations and
   shareowners, in other words, are extremely unlikely to exist in
   individualist anarchism.

   Hence to claim that the Individualist Anarchists supported capitalist
   property rights is false. As can be seen, they advocated a system which
   differed significantly to the current system, indeed they urged the
   restriction of property rights to a form of possession. Unfortunately,
   by generally using the term "property" to describe this new system of
   possession they generated exactly the confusion that Proudhon foretold.
   Sadly, right-"libertarians" use this confusion to promote the idea that
   the likes of Tucker supported capitalist property rights and so
   capitalism. As Tucker argued, "[d]efining it with Proudhon as the sum
   total of legal privileges bestowed upon the holder wealth,
   [individualist anarchism] agrees with Proudhon that property is
   robbery. But using the word in the commoner acceptation, as denoting
   the labour's individual possession of his product or of his
   proportional share of the joint product of himself and others, [it]
   holds that property is liberty." [Liberty, no. 122, p. 4]

   If, as it is sometimes suggested, the difference between a right
   "libertarian" is that they despise the state because it hinders the
   freedom of property while left libertarians condemn it because it is a
   bastion of property, it is worthwhile to note two important facts.
   Firstly, that individualist anarchism condemns the state because it
   protects the land monopoly, i.e., capitalist property rights in land
   and what is on it, rather than a system of "occupancy and use."
   Secondly, that all schools of anarchist oppose capitalism because it is
   based on the exploitation of labour, an exploitation which the state
   protects. Hence de Cleyre: "I wish a sharp distinction made between the
   legal institution of property, and property in the sense that what a
   man definitely produces by his own labour is his own." The inequality
   and oppressions of capitalism are "the inevitable result of the whole
   politico-economic lie that man can be free and the institution of
   property continue to exist." [Exquisite Rebel, p. 297] Given this,
   given these bastions of property against which the both the
   individualist and social anarchists turn their fire, it is obvious that
   both schools are left libertarians.

   For these reasons it is clear that just because the Individualist
   Anarchists supported (a form of) "property" does not mean they are
   capitalists. After all, as we note in the [14]section G.2
   communist-anarchists recognise the necessity of allowing individuals to
   own and work their own land and tools if they so desire yet no one
   claims that they support "private property." Equally, that many of the
   Individualist Anarchists used the term "property" to describe a system
   of possession (or "occupancy-and-use") should not blind us to the
   non-capitalist nature of that "property." Once we move beyond looking
   at the words they used to what they meant by those words we clearly see
   that their ideas are distinctly different from those of supporters of
   capitalism. In fact, they share a basic commonality with social
   anarchism ("Property will lose a certain attribute which sanctifies it
   now. The absolute ownership of it -- 'the right to use or abuse' will
   be abolished -- and possession, use, will be the only title." [Albert
   R. Parsons, Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis, p. 173]).
   This should be unsurprising given the influence of Proudhon on both
   wings of the movement.

   As Malatesta noted, recognising the "the right of workers to the
   products of their own labour," demanding "the abolition of interest"
   and "the division of land and the instruments of labour among those who
   wish to use them" would be "a socialist school different from
   [communist-anarchism], but it is still socialism." It would be a
   "mutualist" socialism. [At the Caf, p. 54 and p. 56] In other words,
   property need not be incompatible with socialism. It all depends on the
   type of property being advocated.

G.1.3 What about their support for wage labour?

   As we have argued in [15]section A.2.8 and elsewhere, a consistent
   anarchist must oppose wage labour as this is a form of hierarchical
   authority. While social anarchism has drawn this logical conclusion
   from anarchist principles, individualist anarchism has not. While many
   of its supporters have expressed opposition to wage labour along with
   other forms hierarchical organisation, some (like Tucker) did not. The
   question is whether supporting wage labour disqualifies them from the
   socialist movement or not.

   Within individualist anarchism, there are two different positions on
   this matter. Some of them clearly opposed wage labour as inherently
   exploitative and saw their socio-economic ideas as a means of ending
   it. Others argued that it was not wage labour as such which was the
   problem and, as a consequence, they did not expect it to disappear
   under anarchy. So opposition to exploitation of labour was a universal
   thread in Individualist Anarchist thought, as it was in the social
   anarchist movement. However, opposition to wage slavery was a common,
   but not universal, thread within the individualist anarchist tradition.
   As we discuss in [16]section G.4, this is one of the key reasons why
   social anarchists reject individualist anarchism, arguing that this
   makes it both inconsistent in terms of general anarchist principles as
   well in the principles of individualist anarchism.

   Voltairine de Cleyre in her overview of anarchism put the difference in
   terms of individualist anarchism and mutualist anarchism. As she put
   it, the "extreme individualists" held that the "essential institutions
   of Commercialism are in themselves good, and are rendered vicious
   merely by the interference by the State." This meant "the system of
   employer and employed, buying and selling, banking, and all the other
   essential institutions of Commercialism" would exist under their form
   of anarchism. Two key differences were that property in land would be
   modified so that it could be "held by individuals or companies for such
   time and in such allotments as they use only" and that "wages would
   rise to the full measure of the individual production, and forever
   remain there" as "bosses would be hunting for men rather than men
   bosses." In other words, land would no longer owned as under capitalism
   and workers would no longer be exploited as profit, interest and rent
   could not exist and the worker would get the full product of his or her
   labour in wages. In contrast, mutualist anarchism "is a modification of
   the program of Individualism, laying more emphasis upon organisation,
   co-operation and free federation of the workers. To these the trade
   union is the nucleus of the free co-operative group, which will obviate
   the necessity of an employer . . . The mutualist position on the land
   question is identical with that of the Individualists." The "material
   factor which accounts for such differences as there are between
   Individualists and Mutualists" was due to the former being intellectual
   workers and so "never know[ing] directly the oppressions of the large
   factory, nor mingled with workers' associations. The Mutualists had;
   consequently their leaning towards a greater Communism." ["Anarchism",
   Exquisite Rebel, p. 77 and p. 78]

   Next, we must clarify what is meant by "wage labour" and the related
   term "wages system." They are not identical. Marx, for example,
   corrected the Gotha Programme's "abolition of the wage system" by
   saying "it should read: system of wage labour" (although that did not
   stop him demanding "the ultimate abolition of the wages system"
   elsewhere). [Marx and Engels, Selected Works, p. 324 and p. 226] The
   difference lies in whether there is communism (distribution according
   to need) or socialism (distribution according to work done), as in
   Marx's (in)famous difference between a lower and higher phase of
   communism. It is the difference between a distribution of goods based
   on deeds and one based on needs and Kropotkin famous polemic "The
   collectivist Wages System" rests on it. He argued that the wages system
   was based on "renumeration to each according to the time spent in
   producing, while taking into account the productivity of his labour".
   In other words: "To each according to his deeds." [The Conquest of
   Bread, p. 162 and p. 167] Such a wages system could exist in different
   forms. Most obviously, and the focus of Kropotkin's critique, it could
   be a regime where the state owned the means of production and paid its
   subjects according to their labour (i.e., state socialism). It could
   also refer to a system of artisans, peasants and co-operatives which
   sold the product of their labour on a market or exchanged their goods
   with others based on labour-time notes (i.e., associational socialism).

   This should not be confused with wage labour, in which a worker sells
   their labour to a boss. This results in a hierarchical social
   relationship being created in which the worker is the servant of the
   employer. The employer, as they own the labour of the worker, also
   keeps the product of said labour and as we argued in [17]section C.2,
   this places the boss is in a position to get the worker to produce more
   than they get back in wages. In other words, wage labour is based on
   oppression and can result in exploitation as the bosses control both
   the production process (i.e., the labour of the workers) and the goods
   it produces. It is this which explains socialist opposition to wage
   labour -- it is the means by which labour is exploited under capitalism
   (anarchist opposition to wage labour includes this but also extends it
   to include its denial of freedom to those subject to workplace
   hierarchy).

   So for the purposes of this discussion "wage labour" refers to
   hierarchical social relationships within production while "wages
   system" refers to how goods are distributed once they are produced.
   Thus you can have a wages system without wage labour but not wage
   labour without a wages system. Communist-anarchists aim for the
   abolition of both wage labour and the wages system while
   mutualist-anarchists only aim to get rid of the first one.

   The problem is that the terms are sometimes mixed up, with "wages" and
   "wages system" being confused with "wage labour." This is the case with
   the nineteenth century American labour movement which tended to use the
   term "wages system" to refer to wage labour and the expression
   "abolition of the wages system" to refer to the aim of replacing
   capitalism with a market system based on producer co-operatives. This
   is reflected in certain translations of Proudhon. Discussing the
   "workmen's associations" founded in France during the 1848 revolution,
   Proudhon noted that "the workmen, in order to dispense with middlemen .
   . . , capitalists, etc., . . . have had to work a little more, and get
   along with less wages." So he considered workers associations as paying
   "wages" and so, obviously, meant by "wages" labour income, not wage
   labour. The term "wage labour" was translated as "wages system," so we
   find Proudhon arguing that the "workmen's associations" are "a protest
   against the wage system" and a "denial of the rule of capitalists."
   Proudhon's aim was "Capitalistic and proprietary exploitation, stopped
   everywhere, the wage system abolished, equal and just exchange
   guaranteed." [The General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 89-90, p. 98 and
   p. 281] This has been translated as "Capitalist and landlord
   exploitation halted everywhere, wage-labour abolished." [quoted by John
   Ehrenberg, Proudhon and his Age, p. 116]

   We are sorry to belabour this point, but it is essential for
   understanding the anarchist position on wage labour and the differences
   between different schools of socialism. So before discussing the
   relation of individualist anarchism to wage labour we needed to clarify
   what is meant by the term, particularly as some people use the term
   wages to mean any kind of direct payment for labour and so wage labour
   is sometimes confused with the wages system. Similarly, the terms wage
   labour and wages systems are often used interchangeably when, in fact,
   they refer to different things and abolition the wages system can mean
   different things depending on who is using the expression.

   So after this unfortunately essential diversion, we can now discuss the
   position of individualist anarchism on wage labour. Unfortunately,
   there is no consistent position on this issue within the tradition.
   Some follow social anarchism in arguing that a free society would see
   its end, others see no contradiction between their ideas and wage
   labour. We will discuss each in turn.

   Joshua King Ingalls, for example, praised attempts to set up
   communities based on libertarian principles as "a demonstration . . .
   that none need longer submit to the tyranny and exactions of the
   swindler and speculator in the products of others toil. The example
   would be speedily followed by others who would break away from the
   slavery of wages, and assert their independence of capital." ["Method
   of Transition for the Consideration of the True Friends of Human Rights
   and Human Progress," Spirit of the Age, Vol. I, No. 25, pp. 385-387]
   The "present relation of 'Capital and Labor' is . . . really a mixed
   relation between contract and status; held by fiction of law as one of
   'freedom of contract,' while it retains potentially all the essential
   features of serfdom. Industrially and economically, the relation is
   substantially the same as that which existed between the chattel and
   his owner, and the serf and his lord." Ingalls pointed to "the terrible
   fear of being 'out of a job,' which freedom of contract means to a
   wage-worker." ["Industrial Wars and Governmental Interference," The
   Twentieth Century, September 6, 1894, pp. 11-12] "To reward capital,"
   he argued, "is a direct inversion of natural right, as the right of man
   must be acknowledged paramount to that of property . . . Any system,
   securing a premium to capital, however small, must result in the want,
   degradation and servitude of one class, and in bestowing unearned
   wealth and power upon another." ["Man and Property, their Rights and
   Relations," Spirit of the Age, vol. I, no. 8, pp. 114-116] Like
   Proudhon, he recognised that joint productive activity resulted in an
   output greater than that possible by the same number of people working
   in isolation, an output monopolised by those who owned the workplace or
   land in question:

     "That the operation of any wealth increasing enterprise is
     co-operative needs only stating . . . and its logic in division of
     the product of the conjoint labour, can only be frustrated by the
     fiction that the worker has contracted away his share of the
     increase by accepting wages. But, being dispossessed of his common
     right to land, and to opportunity to use the common materials and
     forces, he can make no equitable contract and cannot be lawfully
     thus concluded . . . The only pretence which prevents this
     distribution, is the plea that the worker in accepting wages, has
     tacitly contracted away his share of the increase, has made a sale
     of his interest. Even this subterfuge fails logically however,
     whenever the operators reduce the rate of compensation without the
     full concurrence of the co-operative workers, and their just claim
     to joint ownership obtains again. It is altogether too late, to urge
     that this is a mere matter of exchange; so much money, so much
     labour-; and that the operator may lay off and take on whom he
     pleases. It never was, as economists teach, a matter of exchange,
     but one of co-operative endeavour." ["Industrial Wars and
     Governmental Interference," The Twentieth Century, September 6,
     1894, pp. 11-12]

   Unsurprisingly given this analysis he saw the need to replace wage
   labour (which he called "false and immoral") with a better system: "the
   adoption of honesty in our useful industries, and a reciprocal system
   of exchange, would unfold a grand and universal cooperative movement,
   seems so clear to me." ["The Wage Question", The American Socialist,
   Vol. 2, No. 38, p. 298] This would result in a boost to economic
   activity:

     "No one, say they, will do anything but for profits. But the man who
     works for wages has no profits; and is not only destitute of this
     stimulus, but his labour product is minus the profits of the
     capitalist, landlord, and forestaller. A rational economy would seem
     to require, that if any one received extra inducement to act, it
     should be that one who did the most labourious and repulsive work.
     It is thus seen, that while exorbitant profits afford an unnatural
     stimulus, in mere wages we have an inadequate motive to action."
     ["Labor, Wages, And Capital. Division Of Profits Scientifically
     Considered", Brittan's Quarterly Journal, No. I, pp. 66-79]

   The land monopoly was "the foundation of class dominion and of poverty
   and industrial subjection." [quoted by Bowman N. Hall, "Joshua K.
   Ingalls, American Individualist: Land Reformer, Opponent of Henry
   George and Advocate of Land Leasing, Now an Established Mode", pp.
   383-96, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 39, No. 4, p.
   387] Without access to land, people would have no option to sell their
   liberty to others and, as such, the abolition of slavery and wage
   labour were related:

     "The right to life involves the right to land to live and labour
     upon. Commercial ownership of land which enables one to exclude
     another from it, and thus enforces involuntary idleness, is as
     destructive of human freedom as ownership of the person, enforcing
     involuntary service . . . Liberation of the slaves would bring their
     labour in more direct competition with our over-crowded and poorly
     paid wage-workers. I did not offer this as a reason against the
     abolition of chattel slavery, but as a reason why the friends of
     emancipation from chattel slavery should unite with the friends for
     the emancipation of the wage worker, by restoring him the right to
     land, for the production of the means of life . . . The real issue
     was between the rights of labour and the rights of ownership."
     [quoted by Bowman N. Hall, Op. Cit., p. 385]

   This analysis was a common theme in pre-civil war libertarian circles.
   As historian James J. Martin noted, "[t]o men like Warren and Evens
   chattel slavery was merely one side of a brutal situation, and although
   sympathetic with its opponents, refused to take part in the struggle
   [against slavery] unless it was extended to a wholesale attack on what
   they termed 'wage slavery' in the states where Negro slavery no longer
   existed." [Men Against the State, p. 81] Such a view, we may add, was
   commonplace in radical working class journals and movements of the
   time. Thus we find George Henry Evans (who heavily influenced
   Individualist Anarchists like Warren and Ingalls with the ideas of land
   reform based on "occupancy and use") writing:

     "I was formally, like yourself, sir, a very warm advocate of the
     abolition of (black) slavery. This was before I saw that there was
     white slavery. Since I saw this, I have materially changed my views
     as to the means of abolishing Negro slavery. I now see clearly, I
     think, that to give the landless black the privilege of changing
     masters now possessed by the landless white, would hardly be a
     benefit to him in exchange for his surety of support in sickness and
     old age, although he is in a favourable climate." [quoted by Martin,
     Op. Cit., p. 81f]

   Ingalls, likewise, "considered the only 'intelligent' strike [by
   workers as] one which would be directed against wage work altogether."
   For Lysander Spooner, liberty meant that the worker was entitled to
   "all the fruits of his own labour" and argued that this "might be
   feasible" only when "every man [was] own employer or work for himself
   in a direct way, since working for another resulted in a portion being
   diverted to the employer." [Martin, Op. Cit., p. 153 and p. 172] To
   quote Spooner:

     "When a man knows that he is to have all the fruits of his labour,
     he labours with more zeal, skill, and physical energy, than when he
     knows -- as in the case of one labouring for wages -- that a portion
     of the fruits of his labour are going to another. . . In order that
     each man may have the fruits of his own labour, it is important, as
     a general rule, that each man should be his own employer, or work
     directly for himself, and not for another for wages; because, in the
     latter case, a part of the fruits of his labour go to his employer,
     instead of coming to himself . . . That each man may be his own
     employer, it is necessary that he have materials, or capital, upon
     which to bestow his labour." [Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal
     Cure, p. 8]

   Wage labour had a negative impact on those subject to it in terms of
   their personal development. "The mental independence of each individual
   would be greatly promoted by his pecuniary independence," Spooner
   argued. "Freedom of thought, and the free utterance of thought, are, to
   a great degree, suppressed . . . by their dependence upon the will and
   favour of others, for that employment by which they must obtain their
   daily bread. They dare not investigate, or if they investigate, dare
   not freely avow and advocate those moral, social, religious, political,
   and economical truths, which alone calm rescue them from their
   degradation, lest they should thereby sacrifice their bread by stirring
   the jealousy of those out whom they are dependent, and who derive their
   power, wealth, and consequence from the ignorance and servitude of the
   poor." [Op. Cit., p. 54] As we argued in [18]section B.1, all forms of
   hierarchy (including wage labour) distorts the personality and harms
   the individual psychologically.

   Spooner argued that it was state restrictions on credit and money (the
   "money monopoly" based on banks requiring specie to operate) as the
   reason why people sell themselves to others on the labour market. As he
   put it, "a monopoly of money . . . . put[s] it wholly out of the power
   of the great body of wealth-producers to hire the capital needed for
   their industries; and thus compel them . . . -- by the alternative of
   starvation -- to sell their labour to the monopolists of money . . .
   [who] plunder all the producing classes in the prices of their labour."
   Spooner was well aware that it was capitalists who ran the state ("the
   employers of wage labour . . . are also the monopolists of money"). In
   his ideal society, the "amount of money capable of being furnished . .
   . is so great that every man, woman, and child. . . could get it, and
   go into business for himself, or herself -- either singly, or in
   partnerships -- and be under no necessity to act as a servant, or sell
   his or her labour to others. All the great establishments, of every
   kind, now in the hands of a few proprietors, but employing a great
   number of wage labourers, would be broken up; for few, or no persons,
   who could hire capital, and do business for themselves, would consent
   to labour for wages for another." [A Letter to Grover Cleveland, p. 20,
   p. 48 and p. 41]

   As Eunice Minette Schuster noted, Spooner's "was a revolt against the
   industrial system", a "return to pre-industrial society." He "would
   destroy the factory system, wage labour . . . by making every
   individual a small capitalist, an independent producer" and "turn the
   clock of time backwards, not forward." This position seems to have been
   a common one, for "the early American Individualists aimed to return .
   . . to an economic system where everyone would be a small, independent
   proprietor." [Native American Anarchism, p. 148, pp. 151-2 and p. 157]
   As another commentator on individualist anarchism also noted, "the
   dominant vision of the future was obviously that of a relatively modest
   scale of production . . . underpinned by individual, self-employed
   workers" and so the individualist anarchists "expected a society of
   largely self-employed workmen with no significant disparity of wealth
   between any of them." [Wm. Gary Kline The Individualist Anarchists, p.
   95 and p. 104]

   This is not to say that all the individualist anarchists ignored the
   rise of large scale industrial production. Far from it. Tucker, Greene
   and Lum all recognised that anarchism had to adjust to the industrial
   system and proposed different solutions for it. Greene and Lum followed
   Proudhon and advocated co-operative production while Tucker argued that
   mutual banks could result in a non-exploitative form of wage labour
   developing.

   William Greene pronounced that "[t]here is no device of the political
   economists so infernal as the one which ranks labour as a commodity,
   varying in value according to supply and demand . . . To speak of
   labour as merchandise is treason; for such speech denies the true
   dignity of man . . . Where labour is merchandise in fact . . . there
   man is merchandise also, whether in England or South Carolina." This
   meant that, "[c]onsidered from this point of view, the price of
   commodities is regulated not by the labour expended in their
   production, but by the distress and want of the labouring class. The
   greater the distress of the labourer, the more willing will he be to
   work for low wages, that is, the higher will be the price he is willing
   to give for the necessaries of life. When the wife and children of the
   labourer ask for bread, and he has none to give them, then, according
   to the political economists, is the community prosperous and happy; for
   then the rate of wages is low, and commodities command a high price in
   labour." [Mutual Banking, pp. 49-50 and p. 49]

   Greene's alternative was co-operation in production, consumption and
   exchange. "The triple formula of practical mutualism", he argued, was
   "the associated workshop" for production, the "protective union store"
   for consumption and the "the Mutual Bank" for exchange. All three were
   required, for "the Associated Workshop cannot exist for a single day
   without the Mutual Bank and the Protective Union Store." Without mutual
   banking, the productive co-operatives would not survive as it would not
   gain access to credit or at a high rate ("How do you advance the cause
   of labour by putting your associated neck under the heel of capital?
   Your talk about 'the emancipation of labour' is wind and vapour; labour
   cannot be emancipated by any such process.") Thus the "Associated
   Workshop ought to be an organisation of personal credit. For what is
   its aim and purpose? Is it not the emancipation of the labourer from
   all dependence upon capital and capitalists?" [Op. Cit., p. 37, p. 34,
   p. 35 and p. 34] The example of the Mondragon co-operative complex in
   the Basque country confirms the soundness of Greene's analysis.

   Here we see a similar opposition to the commodification of labour (and
   so labourers) within capitalism that also marks social anarchist
   thought. As Rocker notes, Greene "emphasised more strongly the
   principle of association than did Josiah Warren and more so than
   Spooner had done." He had a "strong sympathy for the principle of
   association. In fact, the theory of Mutualism is nothing less that
   co-operative labour based on the cost principle." He also "rejected . .
   . the designation of labour as a commodity" and "constantly endeavoured
   to introduce his ideas into the youthful labour movement . . . so as to
   prevent the social problem being regarded by labour as only a question
   of wages." [Pioneers of American Freedom,, p. 108, p. 109, pp. 111-2
   and p. 112] This support for producers' associations alongside mutual
   banks is identical to Proudhon's ideas -- which is unsurprising as
   Greene was a declared follower of the French anarchist. Martin also
   indicates Greene's support for co-operation and associative labour and
   its relation to the wider labour movement:

     "Coming at a time when the labour and consumer groups were
     experimenting with 'associated workshops' and 'protective union
     stores,' Greene suggested that the mutual bank be incorporated into
     the movement, forming what he called 'complementary units of
     production, consumption, and exchange . . . the triple formula of
     practical mutualism.'" [Op. Cit., pp. 134-5]

   Dyer Lum was another individualist anarchist who opposed wage labour
   and supported co-operative production. Like Greene, Lum took an active
   part in the labour movement and was a union organiser. As he put it,
   the Knights of Labor aimed to work for the "abolishment of the
   wage-system" as well as the right of life requiring the right to the
   means of living. Dyer, while rejecting their infatuation with political
   action, had "the fullest sympathy" for their aims and supported their
   economic measures. [Liberty, no. 82, p. 7] Unsurprisingly, as one
   historian notes, "Lum began to develop an ideology that centred on the
   labour reformers' demand: 'The Wage System must go!'" He joined "the
   ideological path of labour reformers who turned to a radicalised
   laissez-faire explanation of wage slavery." [Frank H. Brooks,
   "Ideology, Strategy, and Organization: Dyer Lum and the American
   Anarchist Movement", pp. 57-83, Labor History, vol. 34, No. 1, p. 63
   and p. 67] Like the communist-anarchists of the IWPA, for Lum trade
   unions were both the means of fighting capitalism and the way to
   abolish wage labour:

     "Anarchists in Chicago tended to be much more sympathetic to class
     organisation, specifically unions, because they had many contacts to
     local unions and the Knights of Labor. The issue was not resolved at
     the founding conference of the IWPA, but the Chicago anarchists did
     manage to get a resolution passed stating that 'we view in trades
     unions based upon progressive principles -- the abolition of the
     wages-system -- the corner-stone of a better society structure than
     the present one.'

     "Lum agreed wholeheartedly with this resolution, particularly the
     phrase 'abolition of the wages-system.' This phrase not only
     confirmed the ideological link between anarchism and labour reform,
     but also paralleled similar language in the declaration of
     principles of the Knights of Labor. By 1886, Lum had joined the
     Knights and he urged other anarchists, particularly individualists,
     to support their struggles. Lum continued to be involved with
     organised labour for the next seven years, seeing unions as a
     practical necessity in the struggle against class politics and state
     repression."
     [Brooks, Op. Cit., pp. 70-1]

   However, "[d]espite the similarity between the evolution of Lum's
   strategy and that of the revolutionary anti-statist socialists in the
   IWPA, his analysis of 'wage slavery' was considerably more
   individualistic." [Brooks, Op. Cit., p. 66] Lum saw it as resulting
   primarily from state interference in the economy which reduced the
   options available to working class people. With a genuine free market
   based on free land and free credit workers would work for themselves,
   either as independent producers or in co-operatives ("where capital
   seeks labour . . . where authority dissolves under the genial glow of
   liberty, and necessity for wage-labour disappears." [Dyer D. Lum,
   contained in Albert Parsons, Anarchism, p. 153]). Thus a key element of
   "Lum's anarchism was his mutualist economics, an analysis of 'wage
   slavery' and a set of reforms that would 'abolish the wage system.'"
   [Brooks, Op. Cit., p. 71] Voltairine de Cleyre, in her individualist
   anarchist days, concurred with her mentor Lum, arguing for a "complete
   international federation of labour, whose constituent groups shall take
   possession of land, mines, factories, all the instruments of
   production, issue their own certificates of exchange, and, in short,
   conduct their own industry without regulative interference from
   law-makers or employers." [The Voltairine de Cleyre Reader, p. 6]

   European individualist anarchists, it should be noted had a similar
   perspective. As mentioned in [19]section A.3.1, Frenchman E. Armand
   argued that "ownership of the means of production and free disposal of
   his produce" was "the quintessential guarantee of the autonomy of the
   individual" but only as long as "the proprietor does not transfer it to
   someone else or reply upon the services of someone else in operating
   it." ["Mini-Manual of the Anarchist Individualist", pp. 145-9,
   Anarchism, Robert Graham (ed.), p. 147] Another French individualist
   anarchist, Ernest Lesigne, argued that in a free society, "there should
   be no more proletaires" as "everybody" would be "proprietor." This
   would result in "The land to the cultivator. The mine to the miner. The
   tool to the labourer. The product to the producer." [quoted approvingly
   by Tucker, Instead of a Book, p. 17 and p. 18] Lesigne considered
   "co-operative production" as "a solution to the great problem of social
   economy, -- the delivery of products to the consumer at cost" and as a
   means of producers to "receive the value of your product, of your
   effort, without having to deal with a mass of hucksters and
   exploiters." [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 123]

   In other words, many individualist anarchists envisioned a society
   without wage labour and, instead, based upon peasant, artisan and
   associated/co-operative labour (as in Proudhon's vision). In other
   words, a non-capitalist society or, more positively, a (libertarian)
   socialist one as the workers' own and control the means of production
   they use. Like social anarchists, they opposed capitalist exploitation,
   wage slavery and property rights. However, not all individualist
   anarchists held this position, a notable exception being Benjamin
   Tucker and many of his fellow contributors of Liberty. Tucker asserted
   against the common labour movement and social anarchist equation of
   capitalism with wage slavery that "[w]ages is not slavery. Wages is a
   form of voluntary exchange, and voluntary exchange is a form of
   Liberty." [Liberty, no. 3, p. 1]

   The question how is, does this support of wage labour equate to support
   for capitalism? The answer to that depends on whether you see such a
   system as resulting in the exploitation of labour. If socialism is, to
   requote Kropotkin, "understood in its wide, generic, and true sense" as
   "an effort to abolish the exploitation of labour by capital" then even
   those Individualist Anarchists who support wage labour must be
   considered as socialists due to their opposition to usury. It is for
   this reason we discover Rudolf Rocker arguing that Stephan P. Andrews
   was "one of the most versatile and significant exponents of libertarian
   socialism" in the USA in spite of his belief that "the specific cause
   of the economic evil [of capitalism] is founded not on the existence of
   the wage system" but, rather, on the exploitation of labour, "on the
   unjust compensation of the worker" and the usury that "deprives him of
   a part of his labour." [Op. Cit., p. 85 and pp. 77-8] His opposition to
   exploitation meant he was a socialist, an opposition which
   individualist anarchism was rooted in from its earliest days and the
   ideas of Josiah Warren:

     "The aim was to circumvent the exploitation inherent in capitalism,
     which Warren characterised as a sort of 'civilised cannibalism,' by
     exchanging goods on co-operative rather than supply and demand
     principles." [J.W. Baker, "Native American Anarchism," pp. 43-62,
     The Raven, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 51]

   So should not be implied that the term socialist is restricted simply
   to those who oppose wage labour. It should be noted that for many
   socialists, wage labour is perfectly acceptable -- as long as the state
   is the boss. As Tucker noted, State Socialism's "principle plank" is
   "the confiscation of all capital by the State", so stopping "the
   liberty of those non-aggressive individuals who are thus prevented from
   carrying on business for themselves or assuming relations between
   themselves as employer and employee if they prefer, and who are obliged
   to become employees of the State against their will." [Instead of a
   Book, p. 378] Of course, such a position is not a very good form of
   socialism which is why anarchists have tended to call such schemes
   state-capitalism (an analysis which was confirmed once the Soviet Union
   was created, incidentally). If state bureaucrats own and control the
   means of production, it would not come as too great a surprise if they,
   like private bosses, did so to maximise their incomes and minimise that
   of their employees.

   Which explains why the vast majority of anarchists do not agree with
   Tucker's position. Individualist anarchists like Tucker considered it
   as a truism that in their society the exploitation of labour could not
   exist. Thus even if some workers did sell their liberty, they would
   still receive the full product of their labour. As Tucker put it, "when
   interest, rent and profit disappear under the influence of free money,
   free land, and free trade, it will make no difference whether men work
   for themselves, or are employed, or employ others. In any case they can
   get nothing but that wage for their labour which free competition
   determines." [Op. Cit., p. 274] Whether this could actually happen when
   workers sell their liberty to an employer is, of course, where other
   anarchists disagree. The owner of a workplace does not own simply his
   (labour) share of the total product produced within it. He (and it
   usually is a he) owns everything produced while workers get their
   wages. The employer, therefore, has an interest in getting workers to
   produce as much as they can during the period they are employed. As the
   future price of the commodity is unknown, it is extremely unlikely that
   workers will be able to accurately predict it and so it is unlikely
   that their wages will always equal the cost price of the product. As
   such, the situation that an individual worker would get his "natural"
   wage would be unlikely and so they would be exploited by their
   employer. At best, it could be argued that in the long run wages will
   rise to that level but, as Keynes noted, in the long run we are all
   dead and Tucker did not say that the free market would end exploitation
   eventually. So individual ownership of large-scale workplaces would
   not, therefore, end exploitation.

   In other words, if (as Tucker argued) individualist anarchism desires
   "[n]ot to abolish wages, but to make every man dependent upon wages and
   to secure every man his whole wages" then this, logically, can only
   occur under workers control. We discuss this in more detail in
   [20]section G.4.1, where we also indicate how social anarchists
   consider Tucker's position to be in a basic contradiction to anarchist
   principles. Not only that, as well as being unlikely to ensure that
   labour received its full product, it also contradicts his own principle
   of "occupancy and use". As such, while his support for non-exploitative
   wage labour does not exclude him from the socialist (and so anarchist)
   movement, it does suggest an inconsistent anarchism, one which can
   (fortunately) be easily made consistent by bringing it fully in line
   with its own stated ideals and principles.

   Finally, we must note that there is a certain irony in this, given how
   keenly Tucker presented himself as a follower of Proudhon. This was
   because Proudhon agreed with Tucker's anarchist opponents, arguing
   continually that wage labour needed to be replaced by co-operative
   production to end exploitation and oppression in production. Proudhon
   and his followers, in the words of one historian, thought workers
   "should be striving for the abolition of salaried labour and capitalist
   enterprise." This was by means of co-operatives and their "perspective
   was that of artisan labour . . . The manager/employer (patron) was a
   superfluous element in the production process who was able to deny the
   worker just compensation for his labour merely by possessing the
   capital that paid for the workshop, tools, and materials." [Julian P.
   W. Archer, The First International in France, 1864-1872, p. 45] As
   Frank H. Brooks put it, "Lum drew from the French anarchist Proudhon .
   . . a radical critique of classical political economy and . . . a set
   of positive reforms in land tenure and banking . . . Proudhon
   paralleled the native labour reform tradition in several ways. Besides
   suggesting reforms in land and money, Proudhon urged producer
   cooperation." [Op. Cit., p. 72] We discuss this aspect of Proudhon's
   ideas in [21]section G.4.2.

   So, to conclude, it can be seen that individualist anarchists hold two
   positions on wage labour. Some are closer to Proudhon and the
   mainstream anarchist tradition than others while a few veer extremely
   close to liberalism. While all are agreed that their system would end
   the exploitation of labour, some of them saw the possibility of a
   non-exploitative wage labour while others aimed for artisan and/or
   co-operative production to replace it. Suffice to say, while few social
   anarchists consider non-exploitative wage labour as being very likely
   it is the opposition to non-labour income which makes individualist
   anarchism socialist (albeit, an inconsistent and flawed version of
   libertarian socialism).

G.1.4 Why is the social context important in evaluating Individualist Anarchism?

   When reading the work of anarchists like Tucker and Warren, we must
   remember the social context of their ideas, namely the transformation
   of America from a pre-capitalist to a capitalist society. The
   individualist anarchists, like other socialists and reformers, viewed
   with horror the rise of capitalism and its imposition on an
   unsuspecting American population, supported and encouraged by state
   action (in the form of protection of private property in land,
   restricting money issuing to state approved banks using specie,
   government orders supporting capitalist industry, tariffs, suppression
   of unions and strikes, and so on). In other words, the individualist
   anarchists were a response to the social conditions and changes being
   inflicted on their country by a process of "primitive accumulation"
   (see [22]section F.8).

   The non-capitalist nature of the early USA can be seen from the early
   dominance of self-employment (artisan and peasant production). At the
   beginning of the 19th century, around 80% of the working (non-slave)
   male population were self-employed. The great majority of Americans
   during this time were farmers working their own land, primarily for
   their own needs. Most of the rest were self-employed artisans,
   merchants, traders, and professionals. Other classes -- employees (wage
   workers) and employers (capitalists) in the North, slaves and planters
   in the South -- were relatively small. The great majority of Americans
   were independent and free from anybody's command -- they owned and
   controlled their means of production. Thus early America was,
   essentially, a pre-capitalist society. However, by 1880, the year
   before Tucker started Liberty, the number of self-employed had fallen
   to approximately 33% of the working population. Now it is less than
   10%. [Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist
   America, p. 59] As the US Census described in 1900, until about 1850
   "the bulk of general manufacturing done in the United States was
   carried on in the shop and the household, by the labour of the family
   or individual proprietors, with apprentice assistants, as contrasted
   with the present system of factory labour, compensated by wages, and
   assisted by power." [quoted by Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, Common
   Sense for Hard Times, p. 35] Thus the post-civil war period saw "the
   factory system become general. This led to a large increase in the
   class of unskilled and semi-skilled labour with inferior bargaining
   power. Population shifted from the country to the city . . . It was
   this milieu that the anarchism of Warren-Proudhon wandered." [Eunice
   Minette Schuster, Native American Anarchism, pp. 136-7]

   It is only in this context that we can understand individualist
   anarchism, namely as a revolt against the destruction of working-class
   independence and the growth of capitalism, accompanied by the growth of
   two opposing classes, capitalists and proletarians. This transformation
   of society by the rise of capitalism explains the development of both
   schools of anarchism, social and individualist. "American anarchism,"
   Frank H. Brooks argues, "like its European counterpart, is best seen as
   a nineteenth century development, an ideology that, like socialism
   generally, responded to the growth of industrial capitalism, republican
   government, and nationalism. Although this is clearest in the more
   collectivistic anarchist theories and movements of the late nineteenth
   century (Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, communist anarchism,
   anarcho-syndicalism), it also helps to explain anarchists of early- to
   mid-century such as Proudhon, Stirner and, in America, Warren. For all
   of these theorists, a primary concern was the 'labour problem' -- the
   increasing dependence and immiseration of manual workers in
   industrialising economies." ["Introduction", The Individualist
   Anarchists, p. 4]

   The Individualist Anarchists cannot be viewed in isolation. They were
   part of a wider movement seeking to stop the capitalist transformation
   of America. As Bowles and Ginitis note, this "process has been far from
   placid. Rather, it has involved extended struggles with sections of
   U.S. labour trying to counter and temper the effects of their reduction
   to the status of wage labour." The rise of capitalism "marked the
   transition to control of work by nonworkers" and "with the rise of
   entrepreneurial capital, groups of formerly independent workers were
   increasingly drawn into the wage-labour system. Working people's
   organisations advocated alternatives to this system; land reform,
   thought to allow all to become an independent producer, was a common
   demand. Worker co-operatives were a widespread and influential part of
   the labour movement as early as the 1840s . . . but failed because
   sufficient capital could not be raised." [Op. Cit., p. 59 and p. 62] It
   is no coincidence that the issues raised by the Individualist
   Anarchists (land reform via "occupancy-and-use", increasing the supply
   of money via mutual banks and so on) reflect these alternatives raised
   by working class people and their organisations. Little wonder Tucker
   argued that:

     "Make capital free by organising credit on a mutual plan, and then
     these vacant lands will come into use . . . operatives will be able
     to buy axes and rakes and hoes, and then they will be independent of
     their employers, and then the labour problem will solved." [Instead
     of a Book, p. 321]

   Thus the Individualist Anarchists reflect the aspirations of working
   class people facing the transformation of an society from a
   pre-capitalist state into a capitalist one. Changing social conditions
   explain why Individualist Anarchism must be considered socialistic. As
   Murray Bookchin noted:

     "Th[e] growing shift from artisanal to an industrial economy gave
     rise to a gradual but major shift in socialism itself. For the
     artisan, socialism meant producers' co-operatives composed of men
     who worked together in small shared collectivist associations,
     although for master craftsmen it meant mutual aid societies that
     acknowledged their autonomy as private producers. For the industrial
     proletarian, by contrast, socialism came to mean the formation of a
     mass organisation that gave factory workers the collective power to
     expropriate a plant that no single worker could properly own. These
     distinctions led to two different interpretations of the 'social
     question' . . . The more progressive craftsmen of the nineteenth
     century had tried to form networks of co-operatives, based on
     individually or collectively owned shops, and a market knitted
     together by a moral agreement to sell commodities according to a
     'just price' or the amount of labour that was necessary to produce
     them. Presumably such small-scale ownership and shared moral
     precepts would abolish exploitation and greedy profit-taking. The
     class-conscious proletarian . . . thought in terms of the complete
     socialisation of the means of production, including land, and even
     of abolishing the market as such, distributing goods according to
     needs rather than labour . . . They advocated public ownership of
     the means of production, whether by the state or by the working
     class organised in trade unions." [The Third Revolution, vol. 2, p.
     262]

   So, in this evolution of socialism we can place the various brands of
   anarchism. Individualist anarchism is clearly a form of artisanal
   socialism (which reflects its American roots) while communist anarchism
   and anarcho-syndicalism are forms of industrial (or proletarian)
   socialism (which reflects its roots in Europe). Proudhon's mutualism
   bridges these extremes, advocating as it does artisan socialism for
   small-scale industry and agriculture and co-operative associations for
   large-scale industry (which reflects the state of the French economy in
   the 1840s to 1860s). With the changing social conditions in the US, the
   anarchist movement changed too, as it had in Europe. Hence the rise of
   communist-anarchism in addition to the more native individualist
   tradition and the change in Individualist Anarchism itself:

     "Green emphasised more strongly the principle of association than
     did Josiah Warren and more so than Spooner had done. Here too
     Proudhon's influence asserts itself. . . In principle there is
     essentially no difference between Warren and Proudhon. The
     difference between them arises from a dissimilarity of their
     respective environments. Proudhon lived in a country where the
     sub-division of labour made co-operation in social production
     essential, while Warren had to deal with predominantly small
     individual producers. For this reason Proudhon emphasised the
     principle of association far more than Warren and his followers did,
     although Warren was by no means opposed to this view." [Rudolf
     Rocker, Pioneers of American Freedom, p. 108]

   As noted in [23]section A.3, Voltairine de Cleyre subscribed to a
   similar analysis, as does another anarchist, Peter Sabatini, more
   recently:

     "The chronology of anarchism within the United States corresponds to
     what transpired in Europe and other locations. An organised
     anarchist movement imbued with a revolutionary collectivist, then
     communist, orientation came to fruition in the late 1870s. At that
     time, Chicago was a primary centre of anarchist activity within the
     USA, due in part to its large immigrant population. . .

     "The Proudhonist anarchy that Tucker represented was largely
     superseded in Europe by revolutionary collectivism and
     anarcho-communism. The same changeover occurred in the US, although
     mainly among subgroups of working class immigrants who were settling
     in urban areas. For these recent immigrants caught up in tenuous
     circumstances within the vortex of emerging corporate capitalism, a
     revolutionary anarchy had greater relevancy than go slow mutualism."
     [Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy]

   Murray Bookchin argued that the development of communist-anarchism
   "made it possible for anarchists to adapt themselves to the new working
   class, the industrial proletariat, . . . This adaptation was all the
   more necessary because capitalism was now transforming not only
   European [and American] society but the very nature of the European
   [and American] labour movement itself." [Op. Cit., p. 259] In other
   words, there have been many schools of socialism, all influenced by the
   changing society around them. As Frank H. Brooks notes, "before
   Marxists monopolised the term, socialism, was a broad concept, as
   indeed Marx's critique of the 'unscientific' varieties of socialism in
   the Communist Manifesto indicated. Thus, when Tucker claimed that the
   individualist anarchism advocated in the pages of Liberty was
   socialist, he was not engaged in obfuscation or rhetorical bravado."
   ["Libertarian Socialism", pp. 75-7, The Individualist Anarchists, p.
   75]

   Looking at the society in which their ideas developed (rather than
   ahistorically projecting modern ideas backward) we can see the
   socialist core of Individualist Anarchism. It was, in other words, an
   un-Marxian form of socialism (as was mutualism and
   communist-anarchism). Thus, to look at the Individualist Anarchists
   from the perspective of "modern socialism" (say, communist-anarchism or
   Marxism) means to miss the point. The social conditions which produced
   Individualist Anarchism were substantially different from those
   existing today (and those which produced communist-anarchism and
   Marxism) and so what was a possible solution to the "social problem"
   then may not be one suitable now (and, indeed, point to a different
   kind of socialism than that which developed later). Moreover, Europe in
   the 1870s was distinctly different than America (although, of course,
   the USA was catching up). For example, there was still vast tracks of
   unclaimed land (once the Native Americans had been removed, of course)
   available to workers. In the towns and cities, artisan production
   "remained important . . . into the 1880s" [David Montgomery, The Fall
   of the House of Labour, p. 52] Until the 1880s, the possibility of
   self-employment was a real one for many workers, a possibility being
   hindered by state action (for example, by forcing people to buy land
   via Homestead Acts, restricting banking to those with specie,
   suppressing unions and strikes and so on -- see [24]section F.8.5).
   Little wonder that Individualist Anarchism was considered a real
   solution to the problems generated by the creation of capitalism in the
   USA and that, by the 1880s, Communist Anarchist became the dominant
   form of anarchism. By that time the transformation of America was
   nearing completion and self-employment was no longer a real solution
   for the majority of workers.

   This social context is essential for understanding the thought of
   people like Greene, Spooner and Tucker. For example, as Stephen L.
   Newman points out, Spooner "argues that every man ought to be his own
   employer, and he envisions a world of yeoman farmers and independent
   entrepreneurs." [Liberalism at Wit's End, p. 72] This sort of society
   was in the process of being destroyed when Spooner was writing.
   Needless to say, the Individualist Anarchists did not think this
   transformation was unstoppable and proposed, like other sections of US
   labour, various solutions to problems society faced. Given the
   commonplace awareness in the population of artisan production and its
   advantages in terms of liberty, it is hardly surprising that the
   individualist anarchists supported "free market" solutions to social
   problems. For, given the era, this solution implied workers' control
   and the selling of the product of labour, not the labourer him/herself.
   Unsurprisingly, therefore, the "greatest part [of Liberty's readers]
   proves to be of the professional/intellectual class: the remainder
   includes independent manufacturers and merchants, artisans and skilled
   workers . . . The anarchists' hard-core supporters were the
   socio-economic equivalents of Jefferson's yeoman-farmers and
   craftsworkers: a freeholder-artisan-independent merchant class allied
   with freethinking professionals and intellectuals. These groups -- in
   Europe as well as in America -- had socio-economic independence, and
   through their desire to maintain and improve their relatively free
   positions, had also the incentive to oppose the growing encroachments
   of the capitalist State." [Morgan Edwards, "Neither Bombs Nor Ballots:
   Liberty & the Strategy of Anarchism", pp. 65-91, Benjamin R. Tucker and
   the Champions of Liberty, Coughlin, Hamilton and Sullivan (eds.), p.
   85]

   Individualist anarchism is obviously an aspect of a struggle between
   the system of peasant and artisan production of early America and the
   state encouraged system of capitalism. Indeed, their analysis of the
   change in American society from one of mainly independent producers
   into one based mainly upon wage labour has many parallels with Karl
   Marx's analysis of "primitive accumulation" in the Americas and
   elsewhere presented in chapter 33 of Capital ("The Modern Theory of
   Colonization"). It is this process which Individualist Anarchism
   protested against, the use of the state to favour the rising capitalist
   class. So the social context the individualist anarchists lived in must
   be remembered. America at the times was a predominantly rural society
   and industry was not as developed as it is now wage labour would have
   been minimised. As Wm. Gary Kline argues:

     "Committed as they were to equality in the pursuit of property, the
     objective for the anarchist became the construction of a society
     providing equal access to those things necessary for creating
     wealth. The goal of the anarchists who extolled mutualism and the
     abolition of all monopolies was, then, a society where everyone
     willing to work would have the tools and raw materials necessary for
     production in a non-exploitative system . . . the dominant vision of
     the future society . . . [was] underpinned by individual,
     self-employed workers." [The Individualist Anarchists: A Critique of
     Liberalism, p. 95]

   This social context helps explain why some of the individualist
   anarchists were indifferent to the issue of wage labour, unlike most
   anarchists. A limited amount of wage labour within a predominantly
   self-employed economy does not make a given society capitalist any more
   than a small amount of governmental communities within an predominantly
   anarchist world would make it statist. As Marx put it, in such socities
   "the separation of the worker from the conditions of labour and from
   the soil . . . does not yet exist, or only sporadically, or on too
   limited a scale . . . Where, amongst such curious characters, is the
   'field of abstinence' for the capitalists? . . . Today's wage-labourer
   is tomorrow's independent peasant or artisan, working for himself. He
   vanishes from the labour-market -- but not into the workhouse." There
   is a "constant transformation of wage-labourers into independent
   producers, who work for themselves instead of for capital" and so "the
   degree of exploitation of the wage-labourer remain[s] indecently low."
   In addition, the "wage-labourer also loses, along with the relation of
   dependence, the feeling of dependence on the abstemious capitalist."
   [Op. Cit., pp. 935-6] Within such a social context, the
   anti-libertarian aspects of wage labour are minimised and so could be
   overlooked by otherwise sharp critics of authoritarianism as Tucker and
   Andrews.

   Therefore Rocker was correct when he argued that Individualist
   Anarchism was "above all . . . rooted in the peculiar social conditions
   of America which differed fundamentally from those of Europe." [Op.
   Cit., p. 155] As these conditions changed, the viability of
   Individualist Anarchism's solution to the social problem decreased (as
   acknowledged by Tucker in 1911, for example -- see [25]section G.1.1).
   Individualist Anarchism, argued Morgan Edwards, "appears to have
   dwindled into political insignificance largely because of the erosion
   of its political-economic base, rather than from a simple failure of
   strategy. With the impetus of the Civil War, capitalism and the State
   had too great a head start on the centralisation of economic and
   political life for the anarchists to catch up. This centralisation
   reduced the independence of the intellectual/professional and merchant
   artisan group that were the mainstay of the Liberty circle." [Op. Cit.,
   pp. 85-6] While many of the individualist anarchists adjusted their own
   ideas to changing social circumstances, as can be seen by Greene's
   support for co-operatives ("the principle of association") as the only
   means of ending exploitation of labour by capital, the main forum of
   the movement (Liberty) did not consistently subscribe to this position
   nor did their support for union struggles play a major role in their
   strategy. Faced with another form of anarchism which supported both,
   unsurprisingly communist-anarchism replaced it as the dominant form of
   anarchism by the start of the 20th century in America.

   If these social conditions are not taken into account then the ideas of
   the likes of Tucker and Spooner will be distorted beyond recognition.
   Similarly, by ignoring the changing nature of socialism in the face of
   a changing society and economy, the obvious socialistic aspects of
   their ideas will be lost. Ultimately, to analyse the Individualist
   Anarchists in an a-historic manner means to distort their ideas and
   ideals. Moreover, to apply those ideas in a non-artisan economy without
   the intention of radically transforming the socio-economic nature of
   that society towards one based on artisan production one would mean to
   create a society distinctly different than one they envisioned (see
   [26]section G.3 for further discussion).

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG1.html#secg11
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG1.html#secg12
   3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF3.html
   4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG4.html#secg42
   5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secC2.html
   6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG1.html#secg12
   7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF7.html#secf72
   8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG3.html
   9. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG4.html
  10. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF1.html
  11. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html#secb31
  12. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF8.html#secf85
  13. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG1.html#secg13
  14. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG2.html
  15. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA2.html#seca28
  16. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG4.html
  17. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secC2.html
  18. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB1.html
  19. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA3.html#seca31
  20. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG4.html#secg41
  21. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG4.html#secg42
  22. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF8.html
  23. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA3.html
  24. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF8.html#secf85
  25. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG1.html#secg11
  26. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG3.html
