Anarchism

Zeno of Citium (c. 334 – c. 262 BC), whose Republic inspired Peter Kropotkin[23]

During the prehistoric era of mankind, an established authority did not exist. It was after the creation of towns and cities that institutions of authority were established and anarchistic ideas espoused as a reaction.[24] The most notable precursors to anarchism in the ancient world were in China and Greece. In China, philosophical anarchism (i.e. the discussion on the legitimacy of the state) was delineated by Taoist philosophers Zhuang Zhou and Laozi.[25] Alongside Stoicism, Taoism has been said to have had "significant anticipations" of anarchism.[26]

Anarchic attitudes were also articulated by tragedians and philosophers in Greece. Aeschylus and Sophocles used the myth of Antigone to illustrate the conflict between rules set by the state and personal autonomy. Socrates questioned Athenian authorities constantly and insisted on the right of individual freedom of conscience. Cynics dismissed human law (nomos) and associated authorities while trying to live according to nature (physis). Stoics were supportive of a society based on unofficial and friendly relations among its citizens without the presence of a state.[27]

During the Middle Ages, there was no anarchistic activity except some ascetic religious movements in the Muslim world or in Christian Europe. This kind of tradition later gave birth to religious anarchism. In the Sasanian Empire, Mazdak called for an egalitarian society and the abolition of monarchy, only to be soon executed by Emperor Kavad I.[28]

In Basra, religious sects preached against the state. In Europe, various sects developed anti-state and libertarian tendencies. Libertarian ideas further emerged during the Renaissance with the spread of humanism, rationalism and reasoning through Europe. Novelists fictionalised ideal societies that were based on voluntarism rather than coercion. The Age of Enlightenment further pushed towards anarchism with the optimism for social progress.[29]

During the French Revolution, partisan groups such as the Enragés and the sans-culottes saw a turning point in the fermentation of anti-state and federalist sentiments.[30] The first anarchist currents developed throughout the 18th century as William Godwin espoused philosophical anarchism in England, morally delegitimising the state, Max Stirner's thinking paved the way to individualism and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's theory of mutualism found fertile soil in France.[31] By the late 1870s, various anarchist schools of thought had become well-defined and a wave of then unprecedented globalization occurred from 1880 to 1914.[32] This era of classical anarchism lasted until the end of the Spanish Civil War and is considered the golden age of anarchism.[31]

Mikhail Bakunin, who opposed the Marxist aim of dictatorship of the proletariat and allied himself with the federalists in the First International before his expulsion by the Marxists

Drawing from mutualism, Mikhail Bakunin founded collectivist anarchism and entered the International Workingmen's Association, a class worker union later known as the First International that formed in 1864 to unite diverse revolutionary currents. The International became a significant political force, with Karl Marx being a leading figure and a member of its General Council. Bakunin's faction (the Jura Federation) and Proudhon's followers (the mutualists) opposed state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings.[33] After bitter disputes, the Bakuninists were expelled from the International by the Marxists at the 1872 Hague Congress.[34] Anarchists were treated similarly in the Second International, being ultimately expelled in 1896.[35] Bakunin famously predicted that if revolutionaries gained power by Marx's terms, they would end up the new tyrants of workers. In response to their expulsion from the First International, anarchists formed the St. Imier International. Under the influence of Peter Kropotkin, a Russian philosopher and scientist, anarcho-communism overlapped with collectivism.[36] Anarcho-communists, who drew inspiration from the 1871 Paris Commune, advocated for free federation and for the distribution of goods according to one's needs.[37]

At the turn of the century, anarchism had spread all over the world.[38] It was a notable feature of the international syndicalism movement.[39] In China, small groups of students imported the humanistic pro-science version of anarcho-communism.[40] Tokyo was a hotspot for rebellious youth from countries of the far east, travelling to the Japanese capital to study.[41] In Latin America, Argentina was a stronghold for anarcho-syndicalism, where it became the most prominent left-wing ideology.[42] During this time, a minority of anarchists adopted tactics of revolutionary political violence. This strategy became known as propaganda of the deed.[43] The dismemberment of the French socialist movement into many groups and the execution and exile of many Communards to penal colonies following the suppression of the Paris Commune favoured individualist political expression and acts.[44] Even though many anarchists distanced themselves from these terrorist acts, infamy came upon the movement and attempts were made to exclude them from American immigration, including the Immigration Act of 1903, also called the Anarchist Exclusion Act.[45] Illegalism was another strategy which some anarchists adopted during this period.[46]

Nestor Makhno with members of the anarchist Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine

Despite concerns, anarchists enthusiastically participated in the Russian Revolution in opposition to the White movement. However, they met harsh suppression after the Bolshevik government was stabilized. Several anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow fled to Ukraine,[47] notably leading to the Kronstadt rebellion and Nestor Makhno's struggle in the Free Territory. With the anarchists being crushed in Russia, two new antithetical currents emerged, namely platformism and synthesis anarchism. The former sought to create a coherent group that would push for revolution while the latter were against anything that would resemble a political party. Seeing the victories of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War, many workers and activists turned to communist parties which grew at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements. In France and the United States, members of major syndicalist movements such as the General Confederation of Labour and the Industrial Workers of the World left their organisations and joined the Communist International.[48]

In the Spanish Civil War of 1936, anarchists and syndicalists (CNT and FAI) once again allied themselves with various currents of leftists. A long tradition of Spanish anarchism led to anarchists playing a pivotal role in the war. In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and of large areas of rural Spain, where they collectivised the land.[49] The Soviet Union provided some limited assistance at the beginning of the war, but the result was a bitter fight among communists and anarchists at a series of events named May Days as Joseph Stalin tried to seize control of the Republicans.[50]

Rojava's support efforts for workers to form cooperatives is exemplified in this sewing cooperative

At the end of World War II, the anarchist movement was severely weakened.[51] However, the 1960s witnessed a revival of anarchism, likely caused by a perceived failure of Marxism–Leninism and tensions built by the Cold War.[52] During this time, anarchism found a presence in other movements critical towards both capitalism and the state such as the anti-nuclear, environmental and peace movements, the counterculture of the 1960s and the New Left.[53] It also saw a transition from its previous revolutionary nature to provocative anti-capitalist reformism.[54] Anarchism became associated with punk subculture as exemplified by bands such as Crass and the Sex Pistols.[55] The established feminist tendencies of anarcha-feminism returned with vigour during the second wave of feminism.[56] Black anarchism began to take form at this time and influenced anarchism's move from a Eurocentric demographic.[57] This coincided with its failure to gain traction in Northern Europe and its unprecedented height in Latin America.[58]

Around the turn of the 21st century, anarchism grew in popularity and influence within anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-globalisation movements.[59] Anarchists became known for their involvement in protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Group of Eight and the World Economic Forum. During the protests, ad hoc leaderless anonymous cadres known as black blocs engaged in rioting, property destruction and violent confrontations with the police. Other organisational tactics pioneered in this time include affinity groups, security culture and the use of decentralised technologies such as the Internet. A significant event of this period was the confrontations at the 1999 Seattle WTO conference.[59] Anarchist ideas have been influential in the development of the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, more commonly known as Rojava, a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria.[60]

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the primary proponent of mutualism, who influenced many future individualist anarchist and social anarchist thinkers[76]

Inceptive currents among classical anarchist currents were mutualism and individualism. They were followed by the major currents of social anarchism (collectivist, communist and syndicalist). They differ on organisational and economic aspects of their ideal society.[77]

Mutualism is an 18th-century economic theory that was developed into anarchist theory by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Its aims include reciprocity, free association, voluntary contract, federation and monetary reform of both credit and currency that would be regulated by a bank of the people.[78] Mutualism has been retrospectively characterised as ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism.[79] In What Is Property? (1840), Proudhon first characterised his goal as a "third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property."[80] Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionary socialist form of anarchism[81] commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin.[82] Collectivist anarchists advocate collective ownership of the means of production which is theorised to be achieved through violent revolution[83] and that workers be paid according to time worked, rather than goods being distributed according to need as in communism. Collectivist anarchism arose alongside Marxism, but it rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat despite the stated Marxist goal of a collectivist stateless society.[84]

Anarcho-communism is a theory of anarchism that advocates a communist society with common ownership of the means of production,[85] direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations, workers' councils and worker cooperatives, with production and consumption based on the guiding principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."[86] Anarcho-communism developed from radical socialist currents after the French Revolution,[87] but it was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International.[88] It was later expanded upon in the theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin,[89] whose specific style would go onto become the dominating view of anarchists by the late 19th century.[90] Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism that views labour syndicates as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society democratically self-managed by workers. The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are direct action, workers' solidarity and workers' self-management.[91]

Individualist anarchism is a set of several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasise the individual and their will over any kinds of external determinants.[92] Early influences on individualist forms of anarchism include William Godwin, Max Stirner and Henry David Thoreau. Through many countries, individualist anarchism attracted a small yet diverse following of Bohemian artists and intellectuals[93] as well as young anarchist outlaws in what became known as illegalism and individual reclamation.[94]

Lawrence Jarach (left) and John Zerzan (right), two prominent contemporary anarchist authors, with Zerzan being a prominent voice within anarcho-primitivism and Jarach a noted advocate of post-left anarchy

Anarchist principles undergird contemporary radical social movements of the left. Interest in the anarchist movement developed alongside momentum in the anti-globalisation movement,[95] whose leading activist networks were anarchist in orientation.[96] As the movement shaped 21st century radicalism, wider embrace of anarchist principles signaled a revival of interest.[96] Anarchism has continued to generate many philosophies and movements, at times eclectic, drawing upon various sources and syncretic, combining disparate concepts to create new philosophical approaches.[97] The anti-capitalist tradition of classical anarchism has remained prominent within contemporary currents.[98]

Contemporary news coverage which emphasizes black bloc demonstrations has reinforced anarchism's historical association with chaos and violence. However, its publicity has also led more scholars in fields such as anthropology and history to engage with the anarchist movement, although contemporary anarchism favours actions over academic theory.[99] Various anarchist groups, tendencies and schools of thought exist today, making it difficult to describe the contemporary anarchist movement.[100] While theorists and activists have established "relatively stable constellations of anarchist principles", there is no consensus on which principles are core and commentators describe multiple "anarchisms" (rather than a singular "anarchism") in which common principles are shared between schools of anarchism while each group prioritizes those principles differently. Gender equality can be a common principle, although it ranks as a higher priority to anarcha-feminists than anarcho-communists.[101]

Anarchists are generally committed against coercive authority in all forms, namely "all centralized and hierarchical forms of government (e.g., monarchy, representative democracy, state socialism, etc.), economic class systems (e.g., capitalism, Bolshevism, feudalism, slavery, etc.), autocratic religions (e.g., fundamentalist Islam, Roman Catholicism, etc.), patriarchy, heterosexism, white supremacy, and imperialism."[102] However, anarchist schools disagree on the methods by which these forms should be opposed.[103] The principle of equal liberty is closer to anarchist political ethics in that it transcends both the liberal and socialist traditions. This entails that liberty and equality cannot be implemented within the state, resulting in the questioning of all forms of domination and hierarchy.[104]

The relationship between anarchism and violence is a controversial subject among anarchists as shown by anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinating William McKinley

During the classical era, anarchists had a militant tendency. Not only did they confront state armed forces, as in Spain and Ukraine, but some of them also employed terrorism as propaganda of the deed. Assassination attempts were carried out against heads of state, some of which were successful. Anarchists also took part in revolutions.[109] Many anarchists, especially the Galleanists, believed that these attempts would be the impetus for a revolution against capitalism and the state.[110] Many of these attacks were done by individual assailants and the majority took place in the late 1870s, the early 1880s and the 1890s, with some still occurring in the early 1900s.[111] Their decrease in prevalence was the result of further judicial power and targeting and cataloging by state institutions.[112]

Anarchist perspectives towards violence have always been perplexing and controversial.[113] On one hand, anarcho-pacifists point out the unity of means and ends.[114] On the other hand, other anarchist groups advocate direct action, a tactic which can include acts of sabotage or even acts of terrorism. This attitude was quite prominent a century ago when seeing the state as a tyrant and some anarchists believing that they had every right to oppose its oppression by any means possible.[115] Emma Goldman and Errico Malatesta, who were proponents of limited use of violence, argued that violence is merely a reaction to state violence as a necessary evil.[116]

Anarchists took an active role in strike actions, although they tended to be antipathetic to formal syndicalism, seeing it as reformist. They saw it as a part of the movement which sought to overthrow the state and capitalism.[117] Anarchists also reinforced their propaganda within the arts, some of whom practiced naturism and nudism. Those anarchists also built communities which were based on friendship and were involved in the news media.[118]

Black bloc protesters parading anarcho-communism imagery such as the motto "No War but the Class War"

In the current era, Italian anarchist Alfredo Bonanno, a proponent of insurrectionary anarchism, has reinstated the debate on violence by rejecting the nonviolence tactic adopted since the late 19th century by Kropotkin and other prominent anarchists afterwards. Both Bonanno and the French group The Invisible Committee advocate for small, informal affiliation groups, where each member is responsible for their own actions but works together to bring down oppression utilizing sabotage and other violent means against state, capitalism and other enemies. Members of The Invisible Committee were arrested in 2008 on various charges, terrorism included.[119]

Overall, contemporary anarchists are much less violent and militant than their ideological ancestors. They mostly engage in confronting the police during demonstrations and riots, especially in countries such as Canada, Greece and Mexico. Militant black bloc protest groups are known for clashing with the police.[120] However, anarchists not only clash with state operators; they also engage in the struggle against fascists and racists, taking anti-fascist action and mobilizing to prevent hate rallies from happening.[121]

Anarchists commonly employ direct action. This can take the form of disrupting and protesting against unjust hierarchy, or the form of self-managing their lives through the creation of counter-institutions such as communes and non-hierarchical collectives.[106] Decision-making is often handled in an anti-authoritarian way, with everyone having equal say in each decision, an approach known as horizontalism.[122] Contemporary-era anarchists have been engaging with various grassroots movements that are more or less based on horizontalism, although not explicitly anarchist, respecting personal autonomy and participating in mass activism such as strikes and demonstrations. In contrast with the big-A anarchism of the classical era, the newly coined term small-a anarchism signals their tendency not to base their thoughts and actions on classical-era anarchism or to refer to classical anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon to justify their opinions. Those anarchists would rather base their thought and praxis on their own experience which they will later theorize.[123]

The decision-making process of small anarchist affinity groups plays a significant tactical role.[124] Anarchists have employed various methods in order to build a rough consensus among members of their group without the need of a leader or a leading group. One way is for an individual from the group to play the role of facilitator to help achieve a consensus without taking part in the discussion themselves or promoting a specific point. Minorities usually accept rough consensus, except when they feel the proposal contradicts anarchist ethics, goals and values. Anarchists usually form small groups (5–20 individuals) to enhance autonomy and friendships among their members. These kinds of groups more often than not interconnect with each other, forming larger networks. Anarchists still support and participate in strikes, especially wildcat strikes as these are leaderless strikes not organised centrally by a syndicate.[125]

As in the past, newspapers and journals are used, but anarchists have gone online in the World Wide Web to spread their message. However, anarchists have found it easier to create websites because of distributional and other difficulties, hosting electronic libraries and other portals.[126] Anarchists were also involved in developing various software that are available for free. The way these hacktivists work to develop and distribute resembles the anarchist ideals, especially when it comes to preserving users' privacy from state surveillance.[127]

Anarchists organize themselves to squat and reclaim public spaces. During important events such as protests and when spaces are being occupied, they are often called Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZ), spaces where art, poetry and surrealism are blended to display the anarchist ideal.[128] As seen by anarchists, squatting is a way to regain urban space from the capitalist market, serving pragmatical needs and also being an exemplary direct action.[129] Acquiring space enables anarchists to experiment with their ideas and build social bonds.[130] Adding up these tactics while having in mind that not all anarchists share the same attitudes towards them, along with various forms of protesting at highly symbolic events, make up a carnivalesque atmosphere that is part of contemporary anarchist vividity.[131]

Émile Armand, a French individualist anarchist who propounded the virtues of free love in the Parisian anarchist milieu of the early 20th century

As gender and sexuality carry along them dynamics of hierarchy, anarchism is obliged to address, analyse and oppose the suppression of one's autonomy because of the dynamics that gender roles traditionally impose.[134]

Collection of anarcha-feminist protests, symbols and flags

Sexuality was not often discussed by classical anarchists, but the few that did felt that an anarchist society would lead to sexuality naturally developing.[135] However, sexual violence was a concern for anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker, who opposed age of consent laws, believing they would benefit predatory men.[136] A historical current that arose and flourished during 1890 and 1920 within anarchism was free love. In contemporary anarchism, this current survives as a tendency to support polyamory and queer anarchism.[137] Free love advocates were against marriage, which they saw as a way of men imposing authority over women, largely because marriage law greatly favoured the power of men. The notion of free love was much broader and included a critique of the established order that limited women's sexual freedom and pleasure.[138] Those free love movements contributed to the establishment of communal houses, where large groups of travelers, anarchists and other activists slept in beds together.[139] Free love had roots both in Europe and the United States. However, some anarchists struggled with the jealousy that arose from free love.[140] Anarchist feminists were advocates of free love, against marriage, pro-choice (utilising a contemporary term) and had a similar agenda. Anarchist and non-anarchist feminists differed on suffrage, but they were nonetheless supportive of one another.[141]

During the second half of the 20th century, anarchism intermingled with the second wave of feminism, radicalising some currents of the feminist movement and being influenced as well. By the latest decades of the 20th century, anarchists and feminists were advocating for the rights and autonomy of women, gays, queers and other marginalised groups, with some feminist thinkers suggesting a fusion of the two currents.[142] With the third wave of feminism, sexual identity and compulsory heterosexuality became a subject of study for anarchists, yielding a post-structuralist critique of sexual normality.[143] However, some anarchists distanced themselves from this line of thinking, suggesting that it leaned towards an individualism that was dropping the cause of social liberation.[144]

The interest of anarchists in education stretches back to the first emergence of classical anarchism. Anarchists consider proper education, one which sets the foundations of the future autonomy of the individual and the society, to be an act of mutual aid.[146] Anarchist writers such as William Godwin (Political Justice) and Max Stirner ("The False Principle of Our Education") attacked both state education and private education as another means by which the ruling class replicate their privileges.[147]

In 1901, Catalan anarchist and free thinker Francisco Ferrer established the Escuela Moderna in Barcelona as an opposition to the established education system which was dictated largely by the Catholic Church.[148] Ferrer's approach was secular, rejecting both state and church involvement in the educational process whilst giving pupils large amounts of autonomy in planning their work and attendance. Ferrer aimed to educate the working class and explicitly sought to foster class consciousness among students. The school closed after constant harassment by the state and Ferrer was later arrested. Nonetheless, his ideas formed the inspiration for a series of modern schools around the world.[149] Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy, who published the essay Education and Culture, also established a similar school with its founding principle being that "for education to be effective it had to be free."[150] In a similar token, A. S. Neill founded what became the Summerhill School in 1921, also declaring being free from coercion.[151]

Anarchist education is based largely on the idea that a child's right to develop freely and without manipulation ought to be respected and that rationality will lead children to morally good conclusions. However, there has been little consensus among anarchist figures as to what constitutes manipulation. Ferrer believed that moral indoctrination was necessary and explicitly taught pupils that equality, liberty and social justice were not possible under capitalism, along with other critiques of government and nationalism.[152]

Late 20th century and contemporary anarchist writers (Colin Ward, Herbert Read and Paul Goodman) intensified and expanded the anarchist critique of state education, largely focusing on the need for a system that focuses on children's creativity rather than on their ability to attain a career or participate in consumerism as part of a consumer society.[153] Contemporary anarchists such as Ward have further argued that state education serves to perpetuate socioeconomic inequality.[154]

While few anarchist education institutions have survived to the modern-day, major tenets of anarchist schools, among them respect for child autonomy and relying on reasoning rather than indoctrination as a teaching method, have spread among mainstream educational institutions. Judith Suissa names three schools as explicitly anarchists schools, namely the Free Skool Santa Cruz in the United States which is part of a wider American-Canadian network of schools, the Self-Managed Learning College in Brighton, England and the Paideia School in Spain.[155]

Objection to the state and its institutions is a sine qua non of anarchism.[156] Anarchists consider the state as a tool of domination and believe it to be illegitimate regardless of its political tendencies. Instead of people being able to control the aspects of their life, major decisions are taken by a small elite. Authority ultimately rests solely on power, regardless of whether that power is open or transparent, as it still has the ability to coerce people. Another anarchist argument against states is that the people constituting a government, even the most altruistic among officials, will unavoidably seek to gain more power, leading to corruption. Anarchists consider the idea that the state is the collective will of the people to be an unachievable fiction due to the fact that the ruling class is distinct from the rest of society.[157]

Specific anarchist attitudes towards the state vary. Robert Paul Wolff believed that the tension between authority and autonomy would mean the state could never be legitimate. Bakunin saw the state as meaning "coercion, domination by means of coercion, camouflaged if possible but unceremonious and overt if need be." A. John Simmons and Leslie Green, who leaned toward philosophical anarchism, believed that the state could be legitimate if it is governed by consensus, although they saw this as highly unlikely.[158] Beliefs on how to abolition the state also differ.[159]

Les chataigniers a Osny (1888) by anarchist painter Camille Pissarro, an example of blending anarchism and art

The connection between anarchism and art was quite profound during the classical era of anarchism, especially among artistic currents that were developing during that era such as futurists, surrealists and others.[160] In literature, anarchism was mostly associated with the New Apocalyptics and the neo-romanticism movement.[161] In music, anarchism has been associated with music scenes such as punk.[162] Anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy and Herbert Read argued that the border between the artist and the non-artist, what separates art from a daily act, is a construct produced by the alienation caused by capitalism and it prevents humans from living a joyful life.[163]

Other anarchists advocated for or used art as a means to achieve anarchist ends.[164] In his book Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas, Chris Robé claims that "anarchist-inflected practices have increasingly structured movement-based video activism."[165] Throughout the 20th century, many prominent anarchists (Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Gustav Landauer and Camillo Berneri) and publications such as Anarchy wrote about matters pertaining to the arts.[166]

Three overlapping properties made art useful to anarchists. It could depict a critique of existing society and hierarchies, serve as a prefigurative tool to reflect the anarchist ideal society and even turn into a means of direct action such as in protests. As it appeals to both emotion and reason, art could appeal to the whole human and have a powerful effect.[167] The 19th-century neo-impressionist movement had an ecological aesthetic and offered an example of an anarchist perception of the road towards socialism.[168] In Les chataigniers a Osny by anarchist painter Camille Pissarro, the blending of aestetic and social harmony is prefiguring an ideal anarchistic agrarian community.[169]