I’m grateful to everyone who has responded so far to my recent challenge, and has taken the time, either in the comments or on their own blogs, to explain their attachment to anarchism. If you haven’t done so already, I recommend following the links. I found the responses extremely enlightening, and they’ve provided me with a rich menu of names, references and links to follow up in due course. As the Plump said in his comment, I need to do some reading.
A few brief and inconclusive comments way of a response to the responses (and in the hope of prompting further debate):
As I read the responses, the fundamental appeal of anarchism seems to be that (in the words of The New Centrist) it’s ‘the only form of radical socialism that takes liberty – in the classical sense – and individual freedom seriously’. Or as others have said, anarchism is about ‘equality in liberty’. For most of my respondents, anarchism appears to offer an appealing alternative to the anti-democratic, centralizing tendencies of communism. It provides a way of holding on to radical ideas of societal change, in the wake of the implosion of State socialism, and/or personal disillusionment with communism.
I share my anarcho-phile comrades' disillusionment with state socialism, and their desire to recapture the emphasis on liberty at the heart of the progressive movement. But I suppose my question back to them is: what’s wrong with the long and honourable tradition of democratic socialism? I’d agree that the liberal, self-organising and voluntarist strain in that tradition has often been buried beneath bureaucratism and paternalism, but isn’t attempting to recover it more realistic than the romantic insurrectionism of anarchism?
Which leads me to a further question. Anarchist critics of state socialism claim it’s the centralism of the latter that lead inevitably to tyranny – but isn’t tyranny just as much the result of communism’s insurrectionism, which it shares with anarchism? Isn’t the belief that radical change can only come by sweeping away all vestiges of the old order inherently authoritarian, and doesn’t it always result in coercion of some kind? TNC quotes Michael Seidman on the way in which, historically, some anarchists have used coercion to initiate collectives. Isn’t the kind of revolutionary change envisioned by anarchists intrinsically coercive, and therefore likely to have illiberal consequences?
As Roland says, anarchism on anything other than a local scale is unlikely to work, since ‘its adherents must accept that their voluntary cooperative community cannot survive, or it will force the dissidents into line.’ And TNC writes that ‘when utopian ideals are implemented they lead to dystopian realities.’ He believes that Hobbes was right: ‘Human beings need the State in order to have what we know as civilization’. You don’t have to be a Hobbesian pessimist about human nature to agree – maybe just a realist. The Plump pointed to a basic tenet of anarchism that seems to be part of its appeal: the belief that ‘people are able to organise themselves without external coercion.’ Without coercion, perhaps, but not without organisation.
Maybe my distrust of anarchism, and my preference for the slow, grinding business of peaceful democratic change – the long march through the institutions – derives from my early experiences, whether in evangelical splinter groups or in ‘radical’ workplaces, which have left me with a distrust of purists and utopians. Or perhaps they're the outcome of even earlier experiences, as the quiet child in the classroom or playground, sensing that, in the absence of proper structures and due process, it was always the loudest and most shrill voices that held sway, and that those processes, however flawed, were the only way of ensuring that the quieter voices got heard.
These disconnected comments probably reflect my ignorance of anarchist thinking, and I'm happy to have the gaps in my understanding pointed out....Let the debate continue.
5 comments:
but isn’t tyranny just as much the result of communism’s insurrectionism, which it shares with anarchism?
This is a common misconception.
1. Much anarchism is not insurrectionist. This is a feature of some, but certainly not of individualism, mutualism, or indeed some anarchist communism for example.
2. Classical revolutionary anarchists did not favour political revolution, they supported social revolution, so they rejected vanguardism as the source of oppression and the subsequent centralising of power in the hands of the party/state.
3. Even revolutionary anarchists, Malatesta for example, felt that revolution could not be successful without long years of preparation through the building of solidarity. This was a process of education through action. Others, like Proudhon was certainly a gradualist, building alternatives outside the state. The eschatological theory of imminent revolution is almost entirely absent after the 1890s.
‘people are able to organise themselves without external coercion.’ Without coercion, perhaps, but not without organisation.
Organisation without organisation would be a good one. Lost me there Martin. Anarchism is about organisation, it just thinks that contemporary society is disorganised by authority.
One of the critiques of Leo Tolstoy seems to be that, as someone who had a sort of radical anarchist christianity in which all truth was found within, and in personal approaches to God, he was a narcissist who couldn't make common cause with others. It's interesting to me how many modernist writers who were extremely distrustful of authority and who relied on themselves admired Tolstoy.
I've had very little contact with anarchists. There used to be a nut who hid in the bushes in Christ Church Meadow who was one, and who thought a Balliol conspiracy was out to get him, but I could never get any sense out of him on my morning walks as to why.
"You don’t have to be a Hobbesian pessimist about human nature to agree – maybe just a realist."
Nice way of putting it. I found Hobbes incredibly pessimistic when I was in my 20s. But the older I got I realized how much of what he wrote--while certainly not presenting the most glowing description of human nature--was true.
There was a book review in the NYT last week (or was it the week before last?) stating that disaster provides a glimpse of utopia by showing how much people work together to assist each other in the worst of situations. The author of the review stated this somehow discounted Hobbes’s observations. But when I read Hobbes, I do not think he is talking about these sorts of exceptional circumstances but the need for the state in our day-to-day life. The most advanced civilizations (I realize that’s a loaded term) have required state structures to be as successful as they were and are.
As to the appeal of democratic socialism, an easy answer for me writing from the U.S. is when I was getting involved in lefty politics there was not much of a presence of democratic socialist tendencies. I realize when you go back into the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the democratic socialists had a much stronger presence but most of the leftist groups I came into contact with were Maxist-Leninist, Maoist or nationalist (African, Latino, Asian, etc). There was (is) the Democratic Socialists—USA but to this young lefty, they were ever so slightly to the left of the Democratic Party and socialist only in name.
On the topic of insurrectionism, as The Plump points out, not all anarchist tendencies support it. There is a strong debate (or silly bickering, take your pick) occurring today between insurrectist anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-communists who view labor and community organizations as vehicles for an anarchist society.
Thanks for the comments. In characterising anarchists as insurrectionists, I was probably betraying my ignorance, and my susceptibility to common caricatures of anarchists (like Martin M's Balliol bush-lurker, or the Tolstoyan sandal-wearing utopian). I instinctively find the variety of anarchist who seeks to work through democratically-constituted organisations (unions, etc) -as described by TNC - more sympathetic.
I agree that events such as natural disasters show the potential for collective self-organisation - and I've witnessed this kind of small-scale self-government myself in community projects, etc. But I also agree that it's hard to see it being reproduced on a larger scale...and at the same time you need large-scale structures to facilitate and support that kind of local initiative.
"I agree that events such as natural disasters show the potential for collective self-organisation - and I've witnessed this kind of small-scale self-government myself in community projects, etc."
I have as well and it has been incredibly inspiring to experience.
"But I also agree that it's hard to see it being reproduced on a larger scale...and at the same time you need large-scale structures to facilitate and support that kind of local initiative."
Scale is important and after I read my comments I realize I should have stated that time is an important factor as well.
Spaces/places that experience the collapse of the state over the medium or long-term (after this immediate disaster period) are hardly Utopian. The conflicts in Somalia comes to mind.
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