          G.2 Why do individualist anarchists reject social anarchism?

   As noted in the [1]last section, the individualist anarchists
   considered themselves as anti-capitalists and many called themselves
   mutualists and socialists. It may be objected that they opposed the
   more obviously socialist types of anarchism like communist-anarchism
   and, as a consequence, should be considered as supporters of
   capitalism. This is not the case as can be seen from why they rejected
   communist-anarchism. The key thing to remember is that capitalism does
   not equal the market. So while the individualist anarchists advocated a
   market economy, it "is evident from their writings that they rejected
   both capitalism and communism -- as did Proudhon." [Brian Morris,
   "Global Anti-Capitalism", pp. 170-6, Anarchist Studies, vol. 14, no. 2,
   p. 175]

   It should noted that while Tucker came to excommunicate
   non-individualist forms of anarchism from the movement, his initial
   comments on the likes of Bakunin and Kropotkin were very favourable. He
   reprinted articles by Kropotkin from his paper La Revolte, for example,
   and discussed "the Anarchistic philosophy, as developed by the great
   Proudhon and actively propagated by the heroic Bakunin and his
   successors on both sides of the Atlantic." [Liberty, no. 26, p. 3]
   After the rise of the IWPA in the early 1880s and the Haymarket police
   riot of 1886, Tucker changed his position. Now it was a case that the
   "Anarchistic social ideal" was "utterly inconsistent with that of those
   Communists who falsely call themselves Anarchists while at the same
   time advocating a regime of Archism fully as despotic as that of the
   State Socialists themselves." For Tucker, real anarchists did not
   advocate, like communist anarchists, "forcible expropriation" nor
   "force as a revolutionary agent and authority as a safeguard of the new
   social order." [The Individualist Anarchists, pp. 88-9] As will become
   clear, Tucker's summation of communist-anarchism leaves a lot to be
   desired. However, even after the break between individualist and
   communist anarchism in America, Tucker saw that both had things in
   common as both were socialists:

     "To be sure, there is a certain and very sincere comradeship that
     must exist between all honest antagonists of the exploitation of
     labour, but the word comrade cannot gloss over the vital difference
     between so-called Communist-Anarchism and Anarchism proper."
     [Liberty, no. 172, p. 1]

   Social anarchists would agree with Tucker in part, namely the need not
   to gloss over vital differences between anarchist schools but most
   reject Tucker's attempts to exclude other tendencies from "Anarchism
   proper." Instead, they would agree with Kropotkin and, while
   disagreeing with certain aspects of the theory, refuse to excommunicate
   him from the anarchist movement. As we discuss in [2]section G.2.5, few
   anarchists agreed with Tucker's sectarianism at the time and
   communist-anarchism was, and remains, the dominant tendency within
   anarchism.

   It is these disagreements to which we now turn. It should be stressed,
   though, that the individualist anarchists, while tending to
   excommunicate social anarchism, also had many inclusive moments and so
   it makes these objections often seem petty and silly. Yes, there was
   certainly pettiness involved and it worked both ways and there was a
   certain amount of tit-for-tat, just as there is now (although to a much
   lesser degree these days). Anarchist-communist opposition to what some
   of them sadly called "bourgeois anarchism" was a fact, as was
   individualist anarchist opposition to communist-anarchism. Yet this
   should not blind us to what both schools had in common. However, if it
   were not for some opponents of anarchism (particularly those seeking to
   confuse libertarian ideas with propertarian ones) dragging these
   (mostly resolved) disagreements back into the light of day this section
   would be a lot shorter. As it is, covering these disagreements and
   showing how they could be resolved is a useful task -- if only to show
   how individualist and communist anarchism are not as alien as some make
   out.

   There were four main objections made to communist-anarchism by the
   individualists. Firstly, that communist-anarchism was compulsory and
   any compulsory system could not be anarchist. Secondly, that a
   revolution would be imposing anarchism and so contradicted its
   principles. Thirdly, that distribution by need was based on altruism
   and, consequently, unlikely to succeed. Fourthly, that the
   communist-anarchists are determining how a free society would be
   organised which is authoritarian. Needless to say, communist-anarchists
   rejected these claims as being false and while we have already sketched
   these arguments, objections and replies in [3]section A.3.1 it is
   worthwhile to repeat (and expand on) them here as these disagreements
   are sometimes highlighted by those who fail to stress what both schools
   have in common and, consequently, distort the debates and issues
   involved.

   We will discuss these objections in the following sections.

G.2.1 Is communist-anarchism compulsory?

   Some individualist anarchists argued that communist-anarchists wanted
   to force everyone to be communists and, as such, this proved they were
   not anarchists. This objection is, ironically, both the most serious
   and the easiest to refute. As Tucker noted, "to eliminate the
   compulsory element from Communism is to remove, in the view of every
   man who values liberty above aught else, the chief objection to it."
   [Liberty, no. 122, p. 5] For Henry Appleton, there was "a class of
   ranting enthusiasts who falsely call themselves Anarchists" who
   advocated both violence and "levelling". "All Communism," he asserted,
   "under whatever guise, is the natural enemy of Anarchism and a
   Communist sailing under the flag of Anarchism is as false a figure as
   could be invented." Yet, ironically, A. H. Simpson disproved that
   particular claim for while attacking communism he ended by stating his
   "argument applies only to aggressive Communists" and that "[v]oluntary
   Communism can exist and, if successful, flourish under Anarchy." So,
   apparently, some kinds of communism are compatible with anarchism after
   all! Victor Yarrows, likewise, pointed to "two different schools" of
   communists, those who support "voluntary Communism, which they intend
   to reach by the Anarchistic method" and those who "plot the forcible
   suppression of the entire system" of private property. Only the former
   was "voluntary or Anarchistic Communism." [The Individualist
   Anarchists, pp. 89-90, p. 94, p. 95 and p. 96]

   This, it should be noted, is more than enough to disprove any claims
   that genuine anarchists cannot be communists.

   So, the question is whether communist-anarchists are in favour of
   forcing people to be communists. If their communism is based on
   voluntary association then, according to the Individualist Anarchists
   themselves, it is a form of anarchism. Unsurprisingly, we discover that
   communist-anarchists have long argued that their communism was
   voluntary in nature and that working people who did not desire to be
   communists would be free not to be.

   This position can be found in Kropotkin, from his earliest writings to
   his last. Thus we discover him arguing that an anarchist revolution
   "would take care not to touch the holding of the peasant who cultivates
   it himself . . . without wage labour. But we would expropriate all land
   that was not cultivated by the hands of those who at present possess
   the land." This was compatible with communism because libertarian
   communists aimed at "the complete expropriation of all those who have
   the means of exploiting human beings; the return to the community of
   the nation of everything that in the hands of anyone can be used to
   exploit others." Following Proudhon's analysis, private property was
   different from individual possession and as long as "social wealth
   remains in the hands of the few who possess it today" there would be
   exploitation. Instead, the aim was to see such social wealth currently
   monopolised by the capitalist class "being placed, on the day of the
   revolution, at the free disposition of all the workers." This would
   "create the situation where each person may live by working freely,
   without being forced to sell his work and his liberty to others."
   [Words of a Rebel, p. 214, pp. 207-8, p. 207 and p. 208] If someone
   desired to work outside of the commune, then that was perfectly
   compatible with this aim.

   This position was followed in later works. The "scope of
   Expropriation," Kropotkin argued was clear and would only "apply to
   everything that enables any man -- be he financier, mill-owner, or
   landlord -- to appropriate the product of others' toil." Thus only
   those forms of property based on wage labour would be expropriated. In
   terms of housing, the same general rule applies ("the expropriation of
   dwellings contains the whole social revolution"). Kropotkin explicitly
   discusses the man who "by dint of privation has contrived to buy a
   house just large enough to hold his family. And we are going to deprive
   him of his hard-earned happiness, to turn him into the street!
   Certainly not . . . Let him work in his little garden, too."
   Anarchist-communism "will make the lodger understand that he need not
   pay his former landlord any more rent. Stay where you are, but rent
   free." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 61, p. 95, pp. 95-6 and p. 96]

   Which, incidentally, was exactly the same position as Tucker (see
   [4]section G.1.2) and so Kropotkin's analysis of the land monopoly was
   identical:

     "when we see a peasant who is in possession of just the amount of
     land he can cultivate, we do not think it reasonable to turn him off
     his little farm. He exploits nobody, and nobody would have the right
     to interfere with his work. But if he possesses under the capitalist
     law more than he can cultivate himself, we consider that we must not
     give him the right of keeping that soil for himself, leaving it
     uncultivated when it might be cultivated by others, or of making
     others cultivate it for his benefit." [Act for Yourselves, p. 104]

   For Kropotkin, communism "must be the work of all, a natural growth, a
   product of the constructive genius of the great mass. Communism cannot
   be imposed from above; it could not live even for a few months if the
   constant and daily co-operation of all did not uphold it. It must be
   free." [Anarchism, p. 140]

   Malatesta agreed. Anarchism, he stressed, "cannot be imposed, both on
   moral grounds in regard to freedom, as well as because it is impossible
   to apply 'willy nilly' a regime of justice for all. It cannot be
   imposed on a minority by a majority. Neither can it be imposed by a
   majority on one or more minorities." Thus "anarchists who call
   themselves communists" do so "not because they wish to impose their
   particular way of seeing things on others" but because "they are
   convinced, until proved wrong, that the more human beings are joined in
   brotherhood, and the more closely they co-operate in their efforts for
   the benefit of all concerned, the greater is the well-being and freedom
   which each can enjoy." Imposed communism," he stressed, "would be the
   most detestable tyranny that the human mind could conceive. And free
   and voluntary communism is ironical if one has not the right and the
   possibility to live in a different regime, collectivist, mutualist,
   individualist -- as one wishes, always on condition that there is no
   oppression or exploitation of others." He agreed with Tucker that
   "State communism, which is authoritarian and imposed, is the most
   hateful tyranny that has ever afflicted, tormented and handicapped
   mankind." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 21, p. 34, p. 103
   and p. 34]

   Therefore, arguing that the land and machinery should be common
   property does not preclude individuals possessing it independently of
   communes as both are rooted in individual possession (or "occupancy and
   use") rather than private property. The key anarchist difference
   between property and possession explains any perceived contradiction in
   the communist position. Thus we find Kropotkin arguing that a
   communist-anarchist society is one "without having the soil, the
   machinery, the capital in short, in the hands of private owners. We all
   believe that free organisations of workers would be able to carry on
   production on the farm and on the factory, as well, and probably much
   better, than it is conducted now under the individual ownership of the
   capitalist." The commune "shall take into possession of all the soil,
   the dwelling-houses, the manufactures, the mines and the means of
   communication." [Act for Yourselves, p. 103 and p. 104]

   This in no way contradicts his argument that the individuals will not
   be forced to join a commune. This is because the aim of
   anarchist-communism is, to quote another of Kropotkin's works, to place
   "the product reaped or manufactured at the disposal of all, leaving to
   each the liberty to consume them as he pleases in his own home." [The
   Place of Anarchism in the Evolution of Socialist Thought, p. 7] Thus
   individual ownership meant individual ownership of resources used by
   others rather than individual possession of resources which individuals
   used. This can be seen from his comment that "some poor fellow" who
   "has contrived to buy a house just large enough to hold his family"
   would not be expropriated by the commune ("by all means let him stay
   there") while also asserting "[w]ho, then, can appropriate for himself
   the tiniest plot of ground in such a city, without committing a
   flagrant injustice?" [Conquest of Bread, p. 90]

   Kropotkin's opposition to private appropriation of land can only be
   understood in context, namely from his discussion on the "abolition of
   rent" and the need for "free dwellings", i.e. the end of landlordism.
   Kropotkin accepted that land could and would be occupied for personal
   use -- after all, people need a place to live! In this he followed
   Proudhon, who also argued that "Land cannot be appropriated" (Chapter
   3, part 1 of What is Property?). For the French anarchist, the land "is
   limited in amount" and so "it ought not to be appropriated" ("let any
   living man dare change his right of territorial possession into the
   right of property, and I will declare war upon him, and wage it to the
   death!"). This meant that "the land is indispensable to our existence,
   -- consequently a common thing, consequently insusceptible of
   appropriation." Overall, "labour has no inherent power to appropriate
   natural wealth." [What is Property?, p. 106, p. 107 and p. 116]
   Proudhon, it is well known, supported the use of land (and other
   resources) for personal use. How, then, can he argue that the "land
   cannot be appropriated"? Is Proudhon subject to the same contradiction
   as Kropotkin? Of course not, once we take into account the fundamental
   difference between private property and possession, appropriation and
   use which underlies both individualist and communist anarchism. As
   Malatesta argued:

     "Communism is a free agreement: who doesn't accept it or maintain it
     remains outside of it . . . Everyone has the right to land, to the
     instruments of production and all the advantages that human beings
     can enjoy in the state of civilisation that humanity has reached. If
     someone does not want to accept a communist life and the obligations
     that it supposes, it is their business. They and those of a like
     mind will come to an agreement . . . [They] will have the same
     rights as the communists over the natural wealth and accumulated
     products of previous generations . . . I have always spoken of free
     agreement, of free communism. How can there be liberty without a
     possible alternative?" [our emphasis, At the caf, pp. 69-70]

   Compare this to individualist anarchist Stephen Byington's comment that
   "[t]hose who wish to unite in the communistic enjoyment of their labour
   will be free to do so; those who wish to hold the products of their
   labour as private property will be equally free to do so." [quoted by
   Wm. Gary Kline, The Individualist Anarchists: A Critique of Liberalism,
   p. 93] The similarities are as obvious as between Proudhon's and
   Kropotkin's arguments.

   The same, it must be stressed, can be said of the "Chicago Anarchists"
   whom Tucker labelled as authoritarians. Thus we find Albert Parsons,
   for example, denouncing that kind of private property which allows
   exploitation to happen. The key problem was that "the necessary means
   for the existence of all has been appropriated and monopolised by a
   few. The land, the implements of production and communication, the
   resources of life, are now held as private property, and its owners
   exact tribute from the propertyless" ("Wealth is power"). The aim of
   communist-anarchism was to ensure the "[f]ree access to the means of
   production [which] is the natural right of every man able and willing
   to work." This implied that "[a]ll organisation will be voluntary with
   the sacred right forever reserved for each individual 'to think and to
   rebel.'" This meant that as far as the "final outcome" of social change
   was involved "many disciples of anarchism believe [it] will be
   communism -- the common possession of the resources of life and the
   productions of united labour. No anarchist is compromised by this
   statement, who does not reason out the future outlook in this way."
   [Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis, p. 97, p. 99, p. 96
   ,p. 174 and pp. 174-5] This did not exclude mutualism or individualist
   anarchism:

     "Many expedients will be tried by which a just return may be awarded
     the worker for his exertions. The time check or labour certificate,
     which will be honoured at the store-houses hour for hour, will no
     doubt have its day. But the elaborate and complicated system of
     book-keeping this would necessitate, the impossibility of balancing
     one man's hour against another's with accuracy, and the difficulty
     in determining how much more one man owed natural resources,
     condition, and the studies and achievements of past generations,
     than did another, would, we believe, prevent this system from
     obtaining a thorough and permanent establishment. The mutual banking
     system . . . may be in operation in the future free society. Another
     system, more simple . . . appears the most acceptable and likely to
     prevail. Members of the groups . . . if honest producers . . . will
     be honoured in any other group they may visit, and given whatever is
     necessary for their welfare and comfort." [Op. Cit., p. 175]

   As we discuss in [5]section G.4, this was the same conclusion that
   Voltairine de Cleyre reached three decades later. This was rooted in a
   similar analysis of property as Proudhon and Tucker, namely
   "possession" or "occupancy and use": "The workshops will drop into the
   hands of the workers, the mines will fall to the miners, and the land
   and all other things will be controlled by those who posses and use
   them. There will be, there can then be no title to anything aside from
   its possession and use." The likes of Parsons supported communism was
   not because of an opposition between "communism" and "occupancy and
   use" but rather, like Kropotkin, because of "the utter impossibility of
   awarding to each an exact return for the amount of labour performed
   will render absolute communism a necessity sooner or later." [Op. Cit.,
   p. 105 and p. 176] So while capitalism "expropriates the masses for the
   benefit of the privileged class . . . socialism teaches how all may
   possess property . . . [and] establish a universal system of
   co-operation, and to render accessible to each and every member of the
   human family the achievements and benefits of civilisation which, under
   capitalism, are being monopolised by a privileged class." [August
   Spies, contained in Parsons, Op. Cit., pp. 63-4]

   All of which indicates that Tucker did not really understand
   communist-anarchism when he argued that communism is "the force which
   compels the labourer to pool his product with the products of all and
   forbids him to sell his labour or his products." [Instead of a Book, p.
   400] Rather, communist-anarchists argue that communism must be free and
   voluntary. In other words, a communist-anarchist society would not
   "forbid" anything as those who are part of it must be in favour of
   communism for it to work. The option of remaining outside the
   communist-anarchist society is there, as (to requote Kropotkin)
   expropriation would "apply to everything that enables any man [or
   woman] . . . to appropriate the product of others' toil." [The Conquest
   of Bread, p. 61] Thus communist-anarchism would "forbid" exactly what
   Individualist Anarchism would "forbid" -- property, not possession
   (i.e. any form of "ownership" not based on "occupancy and use").

   Tucker, at times, admits that this is the case. For example, he once
   noted that "Kropotkin says, it is true, that he would allow the
   individual access to the land; but he proposes to strip him of capital
   entirely, and as he declares a few pages further on that without
   capital agriculture is impossible, it follows that such access is an
   empty privilege not at all equivalent to the liberty of individual
   production." [quoted by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, The
   Anarchist Prince, p. 279] However, as two biographers of Kropotkin
   note, Tucker "partly misinterprets his opponent, as when he suggests
   that the latter's idea of communist anarchism would prevent the
   individual from working on his own if he wished (a fact which Kropotkin
   always explicitly denied, since the basis of his theory was the
   voluntary principle)." [Woodcock and Avakumovic, Op. Cit., p. 280] To
   quote Kropotkin himself:

     "when we see a Sheffield cutler, or a Leeds clothier working with
     their own tools or handloom, we see no use in taking the tools or
     the handloom to give to another worker. The clothier or cutler
     exploit nobody. But when we see a factory whose owners claim to keep
     to themselves the instruments of labour used by 1,400 girls, and
     consequently exact from the labour of these girls . . . profit . . .
     we consider that the people . . . are fully entitled to take
     possession of that factory and to let the girls produce . . . for
     themselves and the rest of the community . . . and take what they
     need of house room, food and clothing in return." [Act for
     Yourselves, p. 105]

   So Kropotkin argued that a communist-anarchist revolution would not
   expropriate the tools of self-employed workers who exploited no-one.
   Malatesta also argued that in an anarchist society "the peasant [is
   free] to cultivate his piece of land, alone if he wishes; free is the
   shoe maker to remain at his last or the blacksmith in his small forge."
   Thus these two very famous communist-anarchists also supported
   "property" but they are recognised as obviously socialists. This
   apparent contradiction is resolved when it is understood that for
   communist-anarchists (like all anarchists) the abolition of property
   does not mean the end of possession and so "would not harm the
   independent worker whose real title is possession and the work done"
   unlike capitalist property. [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 103] Compare this
   with Yarros' comment that "[s]mall owners would not suffer from the
   application of the 'personal use' principle, while large owners, who
   have come into possession of the landed property, or the capital with
   which they purchased the landed property, by means that equal liberty
   could not sanction, would have no principle to base any protest on."
   [Liberty, no. 197, p. 2] In other words, all anarchists (as we argue in
   [6]section B.3) oppose private property but support possession (we
   return to this issue in [7]section I.6.2 as it is an all too common
   fallacy).

G.2.2 Is communist-anarchism violent?

   Having shown that communist-anarchist is a valid form of anarchism even
   in terms of individualist anarchism in the [8]last section, it is now
   necessary to discuss the issue of methods, i.e., the question of
   revolution and violence. This is related to the first objection, with
   Tucker arguing that "their Communism is another State, while my
   voluntary cooperation is not a State at all. It is a very easy matter
   to tell who is an Anarchist and who is not. Do you believe in any form
   of imposition upon the human will by force?" [Liberty, no. 94, p. 4]
   However, Tucker was well aware that the state imposed its will on
   others by force and so the question was whether revolution was the
   right means of ending its oppression.

   To a large degree, discussion on the question of revolution was clouded
   by the fact it took place during the height of the "propaganda by the
   deed" period in anarchist history (see [9]section A.2.18). As George
   Woodcock noted, a "cult of violence . . . marked and marred" the IWPA
   and alienated the individualist anarchists. [Anarchism, p. 393] Johann
   Most was the focus for much of this rhetoric (see Paul Avrich's The
   Haymarket Tragedy, particularly the chapter entitled "Cult of
   Dynamite"). However, the reason why talk of dynamite found an audience
   had nothing to do with anarchism but rather because of the violence
   regularly directed against striking workers and unions. As we discuss
   more fully in [10]section G.3.1, strikes were habitually repressed by
   violence (by the state or by the employer's private police). The
   massive 1877 strike wave, for example, saw the Chicago Times urge the
   use of hand grenades against strikers while employers organised
   "private guards and bands of uniformed vigilantes" which "roamed the
   streets, attacking and dispersing groups of workers. Business leaders
   concluded that "the chief lesson of the strike as the need for a
   stronger apparatus of repression" and presented the city of Chicago
   with two Gatling guns to aid that task. "The erection of government
   armouries in the centres of American cities dates from this period."
   This repression and the vitriolic ruling class rhetoric used "set a
   pattern for the future and fuelled the hatreds and passions without
   which the Haymarket tragedy would not have occurred." [Paul Avrich, The
   Haymarket Tragedy, p. 33 and p. 35]

   Given this general infatuation with dynamite and violence which this
   state and employer violence provoked, the possibility for
   misunderstanding was more than likely (as well as giving the enemies of
   anarchism ample evidence to demonise it while allowing the violence of
   the system they support to be downplayed). Rather than seeing
   communist-anarchists as thinking a revolution was the product of mass
   struggle, it was easy to assume that by revolution they meant acts of
   violence or terrorism conducted by a few anarchists on behalf of
   everyone else (this false perspective is one which Marxists to this day
   tend to repeat when dismissing anarchism). In such a situation, it is
   easy to see why so many individualist anarchists thought that a small
   group of anarchists sought to impose communism by means of violence.
   However, this was not the case. According to Albert Parsons, the
   communist-anarchists argued that the working class "will be driven to
   use [force] in self-defence, in self-preservation against those who are
   degrading, enslaving and destroying them." [The Autobiographies of the
   Haymarket Martyrs, p. 46] As August Spies put it, "[t]o charge us with
   an attempt to overthrow the present system on or about May 4th, and
   then establish anarchy, is too absurd a statement, I think, even for a
   political office-holder to make . . . Only mad men could have planned
   such a brilliant scheme." Rather, "we have predicted from the lessons
   history teaches, that the ruling classes of to-day would no more listen
   to the voice of reason than their predecessors; that they would attempt
   by brute force to stay the wheel of progress." [contained in Parsons,
   Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis, p. 55] Subsequent
   events have proven that Spies and Parsons had a point!

   Thus arguments about violence should not result in the assumption that
   the individualist anarchists were pacifists as the subject usually is
   not violence as such but rather assassinations and attempts of
   minorities to use violence to create "anarchy" by destroying the state
   on behalf of the general population. "To brand the policy of terrorism
   and assassination as immoral is ridiculously weak," argued Tucker.
   "Liberty does not assume to set any limit on the right of an invaded
   individual to choose his own methods of defence. The invader, whether
   an individual or a government forfeits all claim to consideration from
   the invaded. This truth is independent of the character of the
   invasion." This meant that the "right to resist oppression by violence
   is beyond doubt. But its exercise would be unwise unless the
   suppression of free thought, free speech, and a free press were
   enforced so stringently that all other means of throwing it off had
   become hopeless." Ultimately, though, the "days of armed revolution
   have gone by. It is too easily put down." [Instead of a Book, p. 430,
   p. 439 and p. 440]

   Except for a small group of hard-core insurrectionists, few social
   anarchists think that violence should be the first recourse in social
   struggle. The ultra-revolutionary rhetoric associated with the 1883-6
   period is not feature of the anarchist movement in general and so
   lessons have been learned. As far as strategy goes, the tactics
   advocated by social anarchists involve the same ones that individualist
   anarchists support, namely refusal of obedience to all forms of
   authority. This would include workplace, rent and tax strikes,
   occupations, protests and such like. Violence has always been seen as
   the last option, to be used only in self-defence (or, sometimes, in
   revenge for greater acts of violence by oppressors). The problem is
   that any effective protest will result in the protesters coming into
   conflict with either the state or property owners. For example, a rent
   strike will see the agents of the property owner trying to evict
   tenants, as would a workers strike which occupied the workplace.
   Similarly, in the Seattle protests in 1999 the police used force
   against the non-violent protesters blocking the roads long before the
   Black Bloc started breaking windows (which is, in itself, non-violent
   as it was directed against corporate property, not people -- unlike the
   police action). Unless the rebels simply did what they were told, then
   any non-violent protest could become violent -- but only because
   private property ultimately rests on state violence, a fact which
   becomes obvious when people refuse to acknowledge it and its privileges
   ("There is only one law for the poor, to wit: Obey the rich." [Parsons,
   Op. Cit., p. 97]). Thus Adolph Fischer, one of the Haymarket Martyrs:

     "Would a peaceful solution of the social question be possible, the
     anarchists would be the first ones to rejoice over it.

     "But is it not a fact that on occasion of almost every strike the
     minions of the institutions of private property -- militia, police,
     deputy sheriffs; yes, even federal troops -- are being called to the
     scenes of conflict between capital and labour, in order to protect
     the interests of capital? . . . What peaceful means should the
     toilers employ? There is, for example, the strike? If the ruling
     classes want to enforce the 'law' they can have every striker
     arrested and punished for 'intimidation' and conspiracy. A strike
     can only be successful if the striking workingmen prevent their
     places being occupied by others. But this prevention is a crime in
     the eyes of the law. Boycott? In several states the 'courts of
     justice' have decided that the boycott is a violation of the law,
     and in consequence thereof, a number of boycotts have had the
     pleasure of examining the inner construction of penitentiaries 'for
     'conspiracy' against the interests of capital."
     [The Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs, pp. 85-6]

   Some individualist anarchists did agree with this position. Dyer Lum,
   for example, "supported revolutionary violence on practical and
   historical grounds. Practically speaking, Lum did not believe that
   'wage slavery' could be ended by non-violence because capitalists would
   surely use force to resist." [Frank H. Brooks, "Ideology, Strategy, and
   Organization: Dyer Lum and the American Anarchist Movement", pp. 57-83,
   Labor History, vol. 34, No. 1, p. 71] Spooner's rhetoric could be as
   violent sounding as Johann Most at his worse and he called upon the
   subjects of the British Empire to rise in revolt (see his pamphlet
   Revolution). Equally, many social anarchists are pacifists or believe
   that anarchism can come about by means of reform and not revolution.
   Thus the reform/revolution divide does not quite equal the
   individualist/social anarchist divide, although it is fair to say that
   most individualist anarchists were and are reformists.

   So, it must be stressed that most individualist anarchists did not
   oppose revolution as such. Rather they considered it as both unlikely
   to succeed and unnecessary. They rejected revolutionary expropriation
   "not because we deem such expropriation unjust, invasive, criminal, but
   solely because we are we are convinced that there is a better, safer,
   and wiser way for labour to pursue with a view to emancipation." With
   mutual banks, they argued, it became possible "for labour to gradually
   lift itself into the position to command its full share of wealth, and
   absorb in the shape of wages all that is now alienated from it in the
   forms of profit, interest proper, and monopoly rent." [Yarrows,
   Liberty, no. 171, p. 5] As such, their aims were the same as
   communist-anarchism (namely to end exploitation of labour and the
   abolition of the state) but their means were different. Both, however,
   were well aware that the capitalism could not be ended by political
   action (i.e., voting). "That the privileged class", argued William
   Bailie "will submit to expropriation, even if demanded at the
   ballot-box, is a delusion possible only to him who knows not the actual
   situation confronting the people of this country." ["The Rule of the
   Monopolists", Liberty, no. 368, p. 4]

   However, there was one area of life that was excluded from their
   opposition to expropriation: the land. As Yarros put it, "the
   Anarchists' position on the land question, which involves the
   dispossession of present landlords and the entire abolition of the
   existing system of land tenure . . . They wish to expropriate the
   landlords, and allow the landless to settle on land which does not now
   belong to them." This "[o]ne exception . . . we are compelled to make"
   involved "believ[ing] that the landless will, individually and for the
   purpose of occupying ownership, take possession of the land not
   personally occupied and used by landlord, and will protect each other
   in the possession of such lands against any power hostile to them."
   [Op. Cit., no. 171, p. 4 and p. 5]

   Yet as subsequent history has shown, landlords are just as likely to
   organise and support violent counter-revolutionary movements in the
   face of land reform as are industrial capitalists. Both sections of the
   capitalist class supported fascists like Mussolini, Franco and Pinochet
   in the face of even moderate attempts at expropriation by either
   reformist governments or the peasants themselves. So as the history of
   land reform shows, landlords are more than willing to turn to death
   squads and fascism to resist it. To suggest that squatting land would
   provoke less capitalist violence than, say, expropriating workplaces
   simply cannot be supported in the light of 20th century history. The
   choice, then, is simply to allow the landlords and capitalists to keep
   their property and try to but it back from them or use political or
   revolutionary means to expropriate them. Communist-anarchists thought
   that the mutual banks would not work and so supported expropriation by
   means of a mass revolt, a social revolution.

   As such, communist-anarchists are not revolutionaries by choice but
   rather because they do not think capitalism can be reformed away nor
   that the ruling class will freely see their power, property and
   privileges taken from them. They reject the mutualist and individualist
   anarchist suggestion that mutual banks could provide enough credit to
   compete capitalism away and, even if it could, the state would simply
   outlaw it. This perspective does not imply, as many enemies of
   anarchist suggest, that social anarchists always seek to use violence
   but rather that we are aware that the state and capitalists will use
   violence against any effective protest. So, the methods social
   anarchists urge -- strikes, occupations, protests, and so forth -- are
   all inherently non-violent but resistance by the state and capitalist
   class to these acts of rebellion often results in violence (which is
   dutifully reported as violence by the rebels, not the powerful, in the
   media). That the capitalist class will use violence and force to
   maintain its position "is demonstrated in every strike which threatens
   their power; by every lock-out, by every discharge; by every
   black-list." [Parsons, Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis,
   p. 105] Ultimately, the workings of capitalism itself provokes
   resistance to it. Even if no anarchist participated in, or help
   organise, strikes and protests they would occur anyway and the state
   would inevitably intervene to defend "law and order" and "private
   property" -- as the history of every class system proves. So
   communist-anarchism does not produce the class war, the class war
   produces communist-anarchism.

   In addition, Tucker thought that a violent revolution would not succeed
   for without an awareness of anarchist ideals in the general public, the
   old system would soon return. "If government should be abruptly and
   entirely abolished tomorrow," he argued, "there would probably ensue a
   series of physical conflicts about land and many other things, ending
   in reaction and a revival of the old tyranny." [Instead of a Book, p.
   329] Almost all revolutionary anarchists would agree with his analysis
   (see [11]section A.2.16). Such anarchists have always seen revolution
   as the end of a long process of self-liberation and self-education
   through struggle. All anarchists reject the idea that all that was
   required was to eliminate the government, by whatever means, and the
   world would be made right. Rather, we have seen anarchism as a social
   movement which, like anarchy itself, requires the participation of the
   vast majority to be viable. Hence anarchist support for unions and
   strikes, for example, as a means of creating more awareness of
   anarchism and its solutions to the social question (see [12]section
   J.1). This means that communist-anarchists do not see revolution as
   imposing anarchism, but rather as an act of self-liberation by a people
   sick of being ruled by others and act to free themselves of tyranny.

   So, in summary, in terms of tactics there is significant overlap
   between the strategies advocated by both social and individualist
   anarchists. The key difference is that the former do not think that the
   latter's mutual banks make expropriation unnecessary while the
   individualist anarchists think that expropriation of capital would
   provoke the state into attacking and it would be unlikely that the
   rebels would win. Both, however, can agree that violence should only be
   used in self-defence and that for most of the time it is not required
   as other forms of resistance are far more effective.

G.2.3 Does communist-anarchism aim to destroy individuality?

   Then there is the desirability of communism as such. A. H. Simpson
   argued that "Anarchism is egoism; Communism is altruism" and altruism
   in any form will involve "the duty of the individual to sacrifice
   himself to God, the State, the community, the 'cause' of anything,
   superstition that always makes for tyranny. This idea, whether under
   Theocracy or Communism, will result in the same thing -- always
   authority." He did, though, argue that in a free society people who
   "desire to have their individuality submerged in the crowd" would be
   free to set up their own communes. [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 92
   and p. 94] This flows from Joshua Warren's experiences on Robert Owen's
   co-operative community New Harmony and the conclusions he drew from its
   collapse. Warren essentially began the individualist anarchist
   tradition by concluding that any sort of collective emphasis was bound
   to fail because it prevented people from sufficiently addressing
   individual concerns, since supposed collective concerns would
   inevitably take their place. The failure of these communities was
   rooted in a failure to understand the need for individual
   self-government. Thus, for Warren, it "seemed that the differences of
   opinion, tastes, and purposes increased just in proportion to the
   demand for conformity" and so it "appeared that it was nature's own
   inherent law of diversity that had conquered us . . . Our 'united
   interests' were directly at war with the individualities of persons and
   circumstances." [quoted by George Woodcock, Anarchism, p. 390] Thus,
   property within the limits of occupancy and use, and within an economy
   dominated by the cost principle or some close equivalent, had to be a
   necessary protection for the individual from both the potential tyranny
   of the group (communism) and from inequalities in wealth (capitalism).

   In return, communist-anarchists would agree. "Phalansteries, argued
   Kropotkin, "are repugnant to millions of human beings." While most
   people feel "the necessity of meeting his [or her] fellows for the
   pursue of common work . . . it is not so for the hours of leisure" and
   such communities "do not take this into account." Thus a commune system
   does not imply communal living (although such arrangements "can please
   some"). Rather it was a case of "isolated apartments . . . Isolation,
   alternating with time spent in society, is the normal desire of human
   nature." [The Conquest of Bread, pp. 123-4] Kropotkin in his discussion
   on why intentional communities like that of Owen's failed repeated many
   of Warren's points and stressed that they were based on the
   authoritarian spirit and violated the need for individual liberty,
   isolation and diversity (see his Small Communal Experiments and Why
   They Fail). The aim of communist-anarchism is to create a communist
   society based on individual liberty and freely joined functional
   groups. It does not aim to burden individuals with communal issues
   beyond those required by said groupings. Thus self-managed communities
   involve managing only those affairs which truly rest in joint needs,
   with the interests of individuals and other groups only being discussed
   if they are harming others and other means of resolving disputes have
   failed. Whether this can actually happen, of course, will be discovered
   in a free society. If it did not, the communist-anarchists would be the
   first to seek alternative economic and social arrangements which
   guaranteed liberty.

   It should also go without saying that no communist-anarchist sought a
   system by which individuals would have their personality destroyed. As
   Kropotkin stressed:

     "Anarchist Communism maintains that most valuable of all conquests
     -- individual liberty -- and moreover extends it and gives it a
     solid basis -- economic liberty -- without which political liberty
     is delusive; it does not ask the individual who has rejected god,
     god the king, and god the parliament, to give himself unto himself a
     god more terrible than any of the preceding -- god the Community, or
     to abdicate upon its alter his independence, his will, his tastes,
     and to renew the vow of asceticism which he formally made before the
     crucified god. It says to him, on the contrary, 'No society is free
     so long as the individual is not so! Do not seek to modify society
     by imposing upon it an authority which shall make everything right;
     if you do you will fail . . . abolish the conditions which allow
     some to monopolise the fruit of labour of others.'" [The Place of
     Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution, pp. 14-5]

   Of course, denying that communist-anarchists seek such a regime is not
   the same as saying that such a regime would not be created by accident.
   Unsurprisingly, communist-anarchists have spent some time arguing that
   their system would not be subject to such a degeneration as its members
   would be aware of the danger and act to stop it (see, for example,
   [13]section I.5.6). The key to understanding communist-anarchism is to
   recognise that it is based on free access. It does not deny an
   individual (or even a group of individuals) the ability to work their
   own land or workplace, it simply denies them the ability to exclude
   others from it unless they agree to be their servant first. The sharing
   of the products of labour is considered as the means to reduce even
   more any authority in society as people can swap workplaces and
   communities with ease, without worrying about whether they can put food
   on their table or not.

   Of course, there is slight irony to Simpson's diatribe against
   communism in that it implicitly assumes that private property is not a
   god and that individuals should respect it regardless of how it impacts
   on them and their liberty. Would it not be altruism of the worse kind
   if working class people did not simply take the land and capital they
   need to survive rather than sell their labour and liberty to its
   owners? So why exclude private property (even in a modified form) from
   individualist anarchist scorn? As we argue in [14]section G.6 this was
   Max Stirner's position and, fundamentally, the communist-anarchist one
   too. Communist-anarchists oppose private property as it generates
   relationships of authority and these harm those subject to them and, as
   a consequence, they argue that it is in the self-interest of the
   individuals so oppressed to expropriate private property and share the
   whole world.

   The issue of sharing and what it implied also caused some individualist
   anarchists to oppose it. Henry Appleton argued that "all communism
   rests upon an artificial attempt to level things, as against a social
   development resting upon untrammelled individual sovereignty." The
   "true Anarchist . . . is opposed to all manner of artificial levelling
   machines. How pitiful the ignorance which accuses him of wanting to
   level everything, when the very integral thought of Anarchism is
   opposed to levelling!" [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 89] However,
   as we have indicated in [15]section A.2.5, all genuine anarchists,
   including communist-anarchists, are opposed to making or treating
   people as if they were identical. In fact, the goal of
   communist-anarchism has always been to ensure and protect the natural
   diversity of individuals by creating social conditions in which
   individuality can flourish. The fundamental principle of communism is
   the maxim "from each according to their abilities, to each according to
   their needs." There is nothing there about "levelling" or (which
   amounts to the same thing), "equality of outcome." To make an obvious
   point: "If one person need medical treatment and another is more
   fortunate, they are not to be granted an equal amount of medical care,
   and the same is true of other human needs. Hence Chomsky talks of the
   "authentic left" who recognise that individuals "will differ in their
   aspirations, their abilities, and their personal goals" and seek a
   society which allows that diversity to fully flourish. [The Chomsky
   Reader, p. 191 and p. 192] In the words of Rudolf Rocker:

     "a far greater degree of economic equality . . . would . . . be no
     guarantee against political and social oppression. Economic equality
     alone is not social liberation. It is just this which Marxism and
     all the other schools of authoritarian Socialism have never
     understood. Even in prison, in the cloister, or in the barracks one
     finds a fairly high degree of economic equality, as all the inmates
     are provided with the same dwelling, the same food, the same
     uniform, and the same tasks . . . [this was] the vilest despotism .
     . . the human being was merely the automation of a higher will, on
     whose decisions he had not the slightest influence. It was not
     without reason that Proudhon saw in a 'Socialism' without freedom
     the worst form of slavery. The urge for social justice can only
     develop properly and be effective, when it grows out of man's sense
     of personal freedom and is based on that. In other words Socialism
     will be free, or it will not be at all. In its recognition of this
     lies the genuine and profound justification for the existence of
     Anarchism." [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 14]

   Therefore, anarchists "demand the abolition of all economic monopolies
   and the common ownership of the soil and all other means of production,
   the use of which must be available to all without distinction; for
   personal and social freedom is conceivable only on the basis of equal
   economic advantages for everybody. [Op. Cit., p. 11] As Kropotkin
   stressed, anarchists recognise that there are two types of communism,
   libertarian and authoritarian and "our communism, is not that of the
   authoritarian school: it is anarchist communism, communism without
   government, free communism. It is a synthesis of the two chief aims
   pursued by humanity since the dawn of its history -- economic freedom
   and political freedom." It is based on "everybody, contributing for the
   common well-being to the full extent of his [or her] capacities . . .
   enjoy[ing] also from the common stock of society to the fullest
   possible extent of his [or her] needs." Thus it is rooted in individual
   tastes and diversity, on "putting the wants of the individual above the
   valuation of the services he [or she] has rendered, or might render, to
   society." Thus communism was "the best basis for individual development
   and freedom" and so "the full expansion of man's faculties, the
   superior development of what is original in him, the greatest
   fruitfulness of intelligences, feeling and will." It would ensure the
   "most powerful development of individuality, of individual
   originality." The "most powerful development of individuality, of
   individual originality . . . can only be produced when the first needs
   of food and shelter are satisfied" and this was why "communism and
   anarchism" are "a necessary complement to one another." [Anarchism, p.
   61, p. 59, p. 60 and p. 141]

   So, communist-anarchists would actually agree with individualist
   anarchists like Simpson and oppose any notion of "levelling"
   (artificial or otherwise). The aim of libertarian communism is to
   increase diversity and individuality, not to end it by imposing an
   abstract equality of outcome or of consumption that would utter ignore
   individual tastes or preferences. Given that communist-anarchists like
   Kropotkin and Malatesta continually stressed this aspect of their
   ideas, Simpson was simply confusing libertarian and authoritarian forms
   of communism for polemical effect rather than presenting a true account
   of the issues at hand.

   A firmer critique of communist-anarchism can be found when Tucker
   argued that "Kropotkinian anarchism means the liberty to eat, but not
   to cook; to drink, but not to brew; to wear, but not to spin; to dwell,
   but not to build; to give, but not to sell or buy; to think, but not to
   print; to speak, but not to hire a hall; to dance, but not to pay the
   fiddler." [quoted by George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, Op. Cit., p.
   279] Yet even this contains a distortion, as it is clear that
   communist-anarchism is based on the assumption that members of a
   communist society would have to contribute (if physically able, of
   course) to the common resources in order to gain access to them. The
   notion that Kropotkin thought that a communist society would only take
   into account "to each according to their needs" while ignoring "from
   each according to their abilities" seems hard to square with his
   published arguments. While it is true that individual contributions
   would not be exactly determined, it is false to suggest that
   communist-anarchism ignores the obvious truism that in order to consume
   you first need to produce. Simply put, if someone seeks to live off the
   work of others in a free society those within it would be asked to
   leave and provide for themselves. By their actions, they have shown
   that they do not want to live in a communist commune and those who do
   wish to live as communists would feel no particular need to provide for
   those who do not (see [16]section I.4.14).

   This can be seen when Tucker quoted Freedom saying that "in the
   transitional revolutionary period communities and individuals may be
   obliged in self-defence to make it their rule that 'He who will not
   work neither shall he eat.' It is not always possible for us to act up
   to our principles and . . . expediency may force us to confine our
   Communism to those who are willing to be our brothers and equals."
   Somewhat incredibly, Tucker stated "I am not quite clear as to the
   meaning of this, and would ask to be enlightened on the question
   whether those objectionable individuals are to be let alone to live in
   their own way, or whether the State Socialistic plan would be pursued
   in dealing with them." [Liberty, no. 149, p. 1] Clearly, his
   anti-communism got in the way of any attempt to build bridges or
   acknowledge that communist-anarchists had no desire (as noted above) to
   force people to be communists nor to have the "communism" of those
   unwilling (rather than unable) to contribute imposed on them!

G.2.4 What other reasons do individualists give for rejecting
communist-anarchism?

   The other differences are not as major. Some individualist anarchists
   took umbrage because the communist-anarchists predicted that an
   anarchist society would take a communal form, so prescribing the future
   development of a free society in potentially authoritarian ways. As
   James Martin summarised, it was Tucker's "belief that 'in all
   subsequent social co-operation no manner of organisation or combination
   whatsoever shall be binding upon any individual without his consent,'
   and to decide in advance upon a communal structure violated this maxim
   from the start." [Men Against the State, p. 222] Others took umbrage
   because the communist-anarchists refused to spell out in sufficient
   detail exactly how their vision would work.

   Communist-anarchists reply in four main ways. Firstly, the
   individualist anarchists themselves predicted roughly how they thought
   a free society would look and function, namely one on individual
   ownership of production based around mutual banks. Secondly,
   communist-anarchists presented any vision as one which was consistent
   with libertarian principles, i.e., their suggestions for a free society
   was based on thinking about the implication of anarchist principles in
   real life. There seemed little point in advocating anarchism if any
   future society would be marked by authority. To not discuss how a free
   society could work would result in authoritarian solutions being
   imposed (see [17]section I.2.1). Thirdly, they were at pains to link
   the institutions of a free society to those already being generated
   within capitalism but in opposition to its hierarchical nature (see
   [18]section I.2.3). Fourthly, presenting more than a sketch would be
   authoritarian as it is up to a free people to create their own society
   and solve their problems themselves (see [19]section I.2).

   Clearly, A. H. Simpson was wrong when he asserted that
   communist-anarchists argued thusly: "Abolish private property by
   instituting compulsory Communism, and the State will go." No
   communist-anarchist has ever argued for compulsory communism. Somewhat
   ironically, Simpson went on to argue that "difference between Communism
   and Anarchy is plainly observable in their methods. Abolish the State .
   . . that bulwark of the robber system . . . says the Anarchist. Abolish
   private property, the source of all evil and injustice, parent of the
   State, says the Communist." [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 92] Yet
   communist-anarchists do not subscribe to the position of abolishing
   private property first, then the state. As we note when refuting the
   opposite assertion by Marxists in [20]section H.2.4, anarchists like
   Kropotkin and Malatesta followed Bakunin in arguing that both needed to
   be abolished at the same time. Kropotkin, for example, did not divide
   economic and political issues, for him it was a case of "the political
   and economic principles of Anarchism." [Anarchism, p. 159]

   This unity of economic and political aspects of anarchism exists within
   Individualist Anarchism too, but it is hidden by the unfortunately
   tendency of its supporters of discussing certain forms of private
   property as state enforced monopolies. So to a large degree many of the
   disagreements between the two schools of anarchism were rooted in
   semantics. Thus we find William Bailie arguing that the
   anarchist-communist "assumption that rent and interest are due to
   private property is not proven" as "both rent and interest are the
   result of monopoly, of restricted individual liberty." [Liberty, no.
   261, p. 1] In other words, rent is caused because the state enforces
   property rights which the individualist anarchists disagree with. Thus
   when individualist anarchists argue they seek to get rid of the state,
   they also mean the end of capitalist property rights (particularly in
   land). That this can lead to confusion is obvious as, in the usual
   sense of the word, rent is caused by private property. The
   communists-anarchists, in contrast, generally used the term "private
   property" and "property" in the same way that Proudhon used it in 1840,
   namely property which allows its owner to exploit the labour of
   another. As such, they had no problem with those who laboured by
   themselves on their own property.

   The lack of a market in communist-anarchism led some individualist
   anarchists like William Bailie to argue that it "ignores the necessity
   for any machinery to adjust economic activities to their ends." Either
   its supporters "exalt a chaotic and unbalanced condition" or they will
   produce an "insufferable hierarchy." [The Individualist Anarchists, p.
   116] Thus, to use modern terms, either communist-anarchists embrace
   central planning or their system simply cannot produce goods to meet
   demand with over-production of unwanted goods and under-production of
   desired ones. Needless to say, communist-anarchists argue that it is
   possible to bring the demand and production of goods into line without
   requiring centralised planning (which would be inefficient and a dire
   threat to individual freedom -- Kropotkin's arguments against state
   capitalism were proved right in Soviet Russia). It would require a
   system of horizontal links between self-managed workplaces and the
   transmission of appropriate information to make informed decisions (see
   [21]section I for a discussion of some possibilities).

   Another objection to communist-anarchism was raised by Proudhon during
   his debates with the state communists of his time who also raised the
   slogan "from each according to their abilities, to each according to
   their needs." For Proudhon, wages in the sense of payment for labour
   would still exist in a anarchist society. This was because of two main
   reasons. Firstly, rewarding labour for its actual work done would be a
   great incentive in ensuring that it was efficiently done and meet the
   consumers requirements. Secondly, he considered communism as being
   potentially authoritarian in that society would determine what an
   individual should contribute and consume. As he put it:

     "Who then shall determine the capacity? who shall be the judge of
     the needs?

     "You say that my capacity is 100: I maintain that it is only 90. You
     add that my needs are 90: I affirm that they are 100. There is a
     difference between us of twenty upon needs and capacity. It is, in
     other words, the well-known debate between demand and supply. Who
     shall judge between the society and me?

     "If the society persists, despite my protests, I resign from it, and
     that is all there is to it. The society comes to an end from lack of
     associates.

     "If, having recourse to force, the society undertakes to compel me;
     if it demands from me sacrifice and devotion, I say to it:
     Hypocrite! you promised to deliver me from being plundered by
     capital and power; and now, in the name of equality and fraternity,
     in your turn, you plunder me. Formerly, in order to rob me, they
     exaggerated my capacity and minimised my needs. They said that
     products cost me so little, that I needed so little to live! You are
     doing the same thing. What difference is there then between
     fraternity and the wage system?"
     [The General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 96-7]

   Yet even here Proudhon shows the libertarian communist solution to this
   possible problem, namely free association. If there were a conflict
   between individuals within a free commune in terms of their
   contributions and consumption then the individual is free to leave
   (and, conversely, the commune is free to expel an individual). Said
   individuals can seek another communist commune and join it or,
   conversely, work for themselves in their present location. Ultimately,
   free association means the freedom not to associate and libertarian
   communism is rooted in that truism. Thus, communist-anarchists would
   agree with the French anarchism when he "conclude[d] that a single
   association can never include all the workmen in one industry, nor all
   industrial corporations, nor, a fortiori, a nation of 36 millions of
   men; therefore that the principle of association does not offer the
   required solution." [Op. Cit., p. 85] Like Proudhon,
   communist-anarchists base their anarchism on federations of
   associations and communes, with these federations and associations
   formed as and when they were required for joint activity. Thus the
   federation of communist communes and workplaces would play a similar
   role as Proudhon's "agro-industrial federation," namely to end "wage
   labour or economic servitude" and "to protect" against "capitalist and
   financial feudalism, both within them and from the outside" as well as
   ensuring "increasing equality" and the "application of application on
   the largest possible scale of the principles of mutualism" and
   "economic solidarity." [The Principle of Federation, p. 70 and p. 71]

   The key difference, of course, between Proudhon's mutualism and
   Kropotkin's communism was (as latter stressed) that the former
   supported payment for labour in terms of money or labour-cheques while
   the latter argued that this would be a modification of the wages system
   rather than its total abolition. Yet by divorcing payment for labour
   from its consumption, Proudhon argued that communism, like monopoly,
   made it difficult to determine exactly the costs involved in producing
   goods. The French anarchist argued that there was no way of knowing the
   real cost of anything produced outside the market. This could be seen
   from monopolies within capitalism:

     "How much does the tobacco sold by the administration cost? How much
     is it worth? You can answer the first of these questions: you need
     only call at the first tobacco shop you see. But you can tell me
     nothing about the second, because you have no standard of comparison
     and are forbidden to verify by experiment the items of cost of
     administration. Therefore the tobacco business, made into a
     monopoly, necessarily costs society more than it brings in; it is an
     industry which, instead of subsisting by its own product, lives by
     subsidies." [System of Economical Contradictions, pp. 232-3]

   Communist-anarchists reply by noting that the price of something is not
   independent of the degree of monopoly of an industry and so natural
   barriers to competition can skew prices. Equally, competition can be a
   race to the bottom and that competitors can undermine their own working
   conditions and enjoyment of life in order to gain an advantage (or,
   more often, simply survive) on the market. As we argue in [22]section
   I.1.3, markets have a tendency to undermine equality and solidarity
   and, over time, erode the basis of a free society.

   As an aside, Proudhon's argument has obvious similarities with von
   Mises' much later attack on communism which is usually called the
   "socialist calculation argument" (see [23]section I.1.1). As discussed
   in [24]section I.1.2, von Mises' argument was question begging in the
   extreme and our critique of that applies equally to Proudhon's claims.
   As such, communist-anarchists argue that market prices usually do not
   reflect the real costs (in terms of their effects on individuals,
   society and the planet's ecology) -- even those prices generated by
   non-capitalist markets. Moreover, due to Proudhon's opposition to rent
   and interest, his own argument could be turned against mutualism and
   individualist anarchism as followers of von Mises have done. Without
   rent and interest, they argue, there is no way of identifying how much
   land or credit is worth and so resource use will be inefficient. Of
   course, this assumes that capitalist definitions of efficiency and
   "cost" are the only valid ones which is not the case. So, arguing that
   markets are required to correctly value goods and services is a
   two-edged sword, argue communist-anarchists.

   One of the joys of Proudhon is that he provides material to critique
   both Kropotkin's communist-anarchism and Tucker's individualist
   anarchism for while opposed to communism he was equally opposed to wage
   labour, as we indicate in [25]section G.4.2 (as such, those who quote
   Proudhon's attacks on communism but fail to note his attacks on wage
   slavery are extremely dishonest). Under mutualism, there would not be
   wage labour. Rather than employers paying wages to workers, workers
   would form co-operatives and pay themselves a share of the income they
   collectively produced. As Robert Graham put it, "[t]hat both Tucker and
   Bakunin could claim Proudhon as their own illustrates the inherent
   ambiguity and elusiveness of his thought . . . With his death, that
   synthesis broke down into its conflicting parts." ["Introduction",
   Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The General idea of the Revolution, p. xxxi]
   Social anarchism emphasised the self-management, associational and
   federalist aspects of Proudhon's ideas along with his critique of
   private property while individualist anarchism tended to stress his
   support for possession, "wages" (i.e., labour income), competition and
   markets.

G.2.5 Do most anarchists agree with the individualists on communist-anarchism?

   No, far from it. Most anarchists in the late nineteenth century
   recognised communist-anarchism as a genuine form of anarchism and it
   quickly replaced collectivist anarchism as the dominant tendency.

   So few anarchists found the individualist solution to the social
   question or the attempts of some of them to excommunicate social
   anarchism from the movement convincing. Across the world, including in
   America itself, communist anarchism became the bulk of the movement
   (social anarchism is the "mainstream of anarchist theory" and in the
   "historical anarchist movement" where anarcho-communism and
   anarcho-syndicalism have been "predominating." [John Clark, The
   Anarchist Moment, p. 143]). That is still the situation to this day,
   with individualist anarchism being a small part of the movement (again,
   it mostly exists in America and, to an even lesser degree, Britain).
   Moreover, with the notable exception of Johann Most, most leading
   communist-anarchists refused to respond in kind and recognised
   individualist anarchism as a form of anarchism (usually one suited to
   conditions in pre-industrial America). Kropotkin, for example, included
   Individualist Anarchism in his 1911 account of Anarchism for the
   Encyclopaedia Britannica as well as his pamphlet Modern Science and
   Anarchism.

   It should also be stressed that not all individualist anarchists
   followed Tucker's lead in refusing to call communist anarchism a form
   of anarchism. Joseph Labadie, Dyer Lum and Voltairine de Cleyre (when
   she was an individualist), for example, recognised the likes of Albert
   and Lucy Parsons, Kropotkin, Goldman and Berkman as fellow anarchists
   even if they disagreed with some of their methods and aspects of their
   preferred solution to the social problem. For Labadie, "[o]ne may want
   liberty to advance the interests of Communism, another to further the
   cause of individualism" and so nothing can "stand in the way of uniting
   with other Anarchists who believe in Communism to get more liberty"
   [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 260 and p. 262] Today, few (if any)
   individualist anarchists try to excommunicate other anarchists from the
   movement, thankfully leaving the diatribes and sectarianism of a few
   individuals in the nineteenth century where they belong.

   Suffice to say, an account of anarchism which excluded social anarchism
   would be a very short work indeed and, unsurprisingly, all serious
   accounts of anarchism concentrate on social anarchism, its thinkers and
   its organisations. Which, unfortunately, ensures that the diversity and
   richness of individualist anarchism is somewhat lost, as are its social
   roots and context (which, in turn, allows some academics to confuse
   individualist anarchism with "anarcho"-capitalism based on a
   superficial analysis of words like "property" and "markets"). This
   predominance of social anarchism is reflected in the movements
   journals.

   While some of its admirers stress that Liberty was the longest lasting
   American anarchist paper, in fact a social anarchist paper has that
   claim to fame. Fraye Arbeter Shtime (The Free Voice of Labour) was a
   Yiddish language anarchist periodical which was first published in 1890
   and lasted until 1977. This was followed by the Italian anarchist paper
   L'Adunata dei Refrattari which was published between 1922 and 1971. So
   when James Martin stated that Liberty was "the longest-lived of any
   radical periodical of economic or political nature in the nation's
   history" in 1953 he was wrong. [Men Against the State, p. 208] In terms
   of the English language, the London based communist-anarchist journal
   Freedom has existed (in various forms) from 1886 and so beats any claim
   made for Liberty as being the longest lasting English language
   anarchist journal by several decades. The anarcho-syndicalist Black
   Flag, another British based journal, began publication in 1971 and was
   still being published over 30 years later. As far as the longest
   running US-based anarchist journal, that title now goes to the social
   anarchist magazine Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed which was founded
   in 1980 and is still going strong. This is, we stress, not to diminish
   Liberty and its achievement but simply to put it into the context of
   the wider movement and the fact that, outside of America, social
   anarchism is the anarchist movement (and even within America, social
   anarchism was and is the bulk of it).

   In summary, then, while individualist anarchism opposed
   communist-anarchism much of this opposition was rooted in
   misunderstandings and, at times, outright distortion. Once these are
   corrected, it becomes clear that both schools of anarchism share
   significant ideas in common. This is unsurprisingly, given the impact
   of Proudhon on both of them as well as their common concerns on the
   social question and participation in the labour and other popular
   movements. As both are (libertarian) socialists inspired by many of the
   same intellectual and social influences, this should come as no
   surprise. That a few individualist and communist anarchists tried to
   deny those common influences should not blind us to them or the fact
   that both schools of anarchism are compatible.

   Ultimately, though, anarchism should be wide enough and generous enough
   to include both communist and individualist anarchism. Attempts to
   excommunicate one or the other seem petty given how much each has in
   common and, moreover, given that both are compatible with each other as
   both are rooted in similar perspectives on possession, capitalist
   property rights and voluntary association. Once the differences in
   terminology are understood, the differences are not impossible to
   reconcile.

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG1.html
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG2.html#secg25
   3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA3.html#seca31
   4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG1.html#secg12
   5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG4.html
   6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html
   7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI6.html#seci62
   8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG2.html#secg22
   9. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA2.html#seca218
  10. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG3.html#secg31
  11. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA2.html#seca216
  12. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ1.html
  13. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI5.html#seci56
  14. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG6.html
  15. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA2.html#seca25
  16. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI4.html#seci414
  17. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI2.html#seci21
  18. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI2.html#seci23
  19. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI2.html
  20. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH2.html#sech24
  21. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secIcon.html
  22. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI13.html#seci13
  23. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI1.html#seci11
  24. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI1.html#seci12
  25. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secG4.html#secg42
