Discussione:Una FAQ Anarchica - Cos'è l'anarchismo?
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[modifica] A.1 Che cos'é l' anarchismo ?
L'anarchismo è una teoria politica che cerca di creare anarchia, "l' assenza di un padrone, di un sovrano." [da P-J Proudhon, Che cos'é la proprietà, p. 264] In altre parole, l'anarchismo è una teoria politica che cerca di creare una società dentro la quale degli individui liberamente cooperano come eguali. Questo tipo di anarchismo si oppone a tutte le forme di controllo gerarchico - sia il controllo dello stato oppure quello di un capitalista - come dannoso per l'individuo e per la sua individualità, oltre che del tutto innecessario.
Spiegato con le parole della anarchica L. Susan Brown:
"Mentre l'impressione popolare dell'anarchismo è quella di un movimento violento, anti-Statale, l'anarchismo è piuttosto una molto più sottile ed tradizione rispetto ad una semplice opposizione al potere governativo. Gli anarchisti si oppongono all'idea che il potere e la dominazione siano necessari allo sviluppo della società, ed invece auspicano forme di organizzazione cooperativa, anti-gerarchica sia nel campo sociale, che politico ed economico." [The Politics of Individualism, p. 106]
Comunque, l' "anarchismo" e l' "anarchia" sono indubbiamente tra le idee, le più mal rappresentate nella teoria politica. Generalmente, la parola viene usata come sinonimo di "caos" o "senza ordine," e così, per implicita associazione di idee, secondo questa definizione raso-terra, gli anarchici desidererebbero il caos sociale ed il ritorno alle "leggi della giungla."
Questo processo di inesatta rappresentazione ha paralleli storici. Per esempio, in paesi che sono governati in modo monocratico (monarchia o presidenza a vita), le parole "repubblica" o "democrazia" vengono connotate da una serie di aggettivi negativi, come quelli che si usano per "anarchia," implicanti disordine e confusione. Quelli che hanno un velato interesse nel preservare lo "status quo" (l'ordine generale delle cose) ovviamente desiderano di rendere implicita che l'opposizione al corrente sistema non può avere uno sbocco pratico e durevole, e che una nuova forma di società porterebbe inevitabilmente al caos o alla degenerazione. O, come scrisse Errico Malatesta:
"dal momento che si pensava che il governo fosse necessario, e che senza governo poteva esservi soltanto disordine e confusione, era naturale e logico che anarchia, che significa assenza di un governo, dovesse suonare come assenza di ordine." [Anarchy, p. 16]
Gli anarchici vogliono cambiare questa idea di "anarchia" che è radicata nel "senso comune", in modo che le persone capiscano che il governo e le altre relazioni sociali gerarchicje siano sia dannose che innecessarie:
"Cambiare l'opinione dominante, convincere il pubblico che il governo non è soltanto innecessario, ma anche estremamente dannoso, ed allora la parola anarchia, solo perché significa assenza di un governo, avrà significato chiaro per ciascuno: ordine naturale, unità dei bisogni umani e dell'interesse per tutti, libertà totale dentro una completa solidarietà." [Op. Cit., pp. 16]
Questa lista di FAQ (domande fatte spesso) è parte del processo del cambiamento delle idee comunemente diffuse che rigardano l'anarchismo ed il significato di anarchia. Ma questo non è tutto. Così come combattere le distorsioni prodotte dal "senso-comune" attorno all'idea di "anarchia", noi dobbiamo combattere anche le distorsioni che sono state prodotte sull'anarchismo e sugli anarchici nel corso degli anni dai nostri nemici politici e sociali. Per esempio, come Bartolomeo Vanzetti disse, gli anarchisti sono "i radicali dei radicali -- i gatti neri, il terrore di molti, di tutti i bigotti, sfruttatori, ciarlatani, falsari ed oppressori. Di conseguenza noi siamo anche i più maltrattati, mal rappresentati, incompresi e perseguitati di tutti." [Nicola Sacco e Bartolomeo Vanzetti, The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti, p. 274]
Vanzetti sapeva di cosa stava parlando. Lui ed il suo compagno Nicola Sacco vennero incastrati dallo stato americano per un reato che essi non avevano commesso e vennero condannati alla sedia elettrica, per il solo fatto di essere anarchici stranieri negli Stati Uniti del 1927. Cosicché questa FAQ dovrà spendere un pò di tempo per controbattere le calunnie e le deformazioni a cui sono stati sottoposti gli anarchici dai mezzi capitalisti, dai politici, dagli ideologi e da ogni tipo di capo (per non citare la rappresentazione deformata fatta da quelli che una volta erano i nostri compagni radicali come i liberali oppure i marxisti). Speriamo che dopo aver presentato il nostro progetto capirete la ragione che induce quelli che detengono il potere a denigrarlo da così lungo tempo - l'Anarchia è quell'idea che può assicurare efficacemente libertà per tutti e che può porre fine a tutti i sistemi basati sulla prepotenza di alcuni sulla maggioranza degli altri.
[modifica] A.1.1 Che cosa significa esattamente "anarchia" ?
La parola "anarchia" proviene dal prefisso (in greco antico), an (oppure a), che indica "no" "la voglia di," "senza," o "la mancanza di", più archos, che siginifica "un governante", "direttore", "capo", "persona in carico di", oppure goni altra forma di "authorità" generica. Oppure, come Peter Kropotkin spiegava, l'Anarchia proviene dalle parole in lingua greca classica che significano "contrario all' autorità". [Anarchism, p. 284]
Mentre le parole greche anarchos e anarchia sono spesso interpretate come significanti "avente nessun governo" oppure "l'essere senza governo", in effetti, come può vedersi, in senso stretto il significato originale di anarchia non è semplicemente "senza nessun governo". Per gli anarchici "An-archia" vuole dire "senza un governante", o più generalmente, "senza un autorità", ed in questo senso gli anarchici utilizzano con continuità storica questa parola. Ad esempio, possiamo citare Kropotkin che sostiene che l'anarchismo "attacca non soltanto il capitale ma anche le fonti principali della potenza capitalista: la legge, l'autorità e lo Stato." [Op. Cit., p. 150] Per gli anarchici, l' anarchia significa "non necessariamente assenza di ordine, così come si suppone generalmente, ma l'assenza di un goeverno". [Benjamin Tucker, Instead of a Book, p. 13] L'idea venne riassunta in modo eccellente da David Weick:
"L'anarchismo può essere compreso come l'idea generica sociale e politica che esprime la negazione di tutta la potenza, sovranità, dominazione e divisione gerarchica, ed una volontà di arrivare alla loro dissoluzione" ... L'anarchismo dunque e più dell' anti-statalismo . ... [anche se] il governo (lo stato) ... è, adeguatamente, l'ogetto su cui si focalizza la critica anarchica". [Reinventing Anarchy, p. 139]
Per questa ragione, invece di essere puramente anti-governativo o anti-statale, l'anarchia somiglia principalmente ad un movimento contro la gerarchia. Perché? Perché la gerarchia è la struttura organizzativa che incorpora l'autorità. Dal momento che lo stato è la forma "più alta" di gerarchia, gli anarchici sono, per definizione, anti-statali; ma questo non è una definizione sufficiente di anarchismo. Questo significa che gli anarchici reali sono contrari a tutte le forme di organizzazione gerarchica, non solo dello stato. Nelle parole di Brian Morris:
"Il termine anarchia proviene dal greco ed essenzialmente vuol dire 'senza alcun governante'. Gli anarchici sono le persone che rifiutano tutte le forme di governo e di autorità coercitiva, tutte le forme di gerarchia e dominazione. Essi sono quindi contrari a quello che il l'anarchico messicano Flores Magon ha chiamato la 'fosca trinità' -- lo stato, il capitale e la chiesa. Gli anarchici sono così contrari sia al capitalismo che allo statalismo, come pure a tutte le forme di autorità religiosa. Ma gli anarchici cercano anche di stabilire o portare avanti con vari mezzi, una condizione di anarchia, cioè, una società decentralizzata senza istituzioni coercitive, una società organizzata attraverso una federazione di associazioni volontarie." ["Anthropology and Anarchism," pp. 35-41, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, no. 45, p. 38]Il riferimento a "gerarchia" in questo contesto è uno sviluppo abbastanza recente - gli anarchici "classici" come Proudhon, Bakunin e Kropotkin hanno utilizzato la parola, ma raramente (di solito essi hanno preferito "autorità", che veniva impiegato in breve per riferirsi all' "assolutismo"). Tuttavia, è chiaro dalle loro opere che la loro era una filosofia contro la gerarchia, contro qualsiasi disuguaglianza di potere o contro l'esistenza di privilegi tra gli individui. Bakunin ha parlato di questo quando attaccava l'autorità "ufficiale", anche se difendeva quella che definiva "influenza naturale", e anche quando affermava:
"Volete rendere impossibile per chiunque l'opprimere il suo prossimo? Allora assicuratevi che nessuno debba possedere il potere." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 271]Come Jeff Draughn osserva: "mentre è stata sempre una parte latente del 'progetto rivoluzionario', soltanto recentemente questo concetto più largo di anti-gerarchia è stato presentato per sottoporlo ad uno scrutinio più specifico ". Nondimeno, la radice di questo è francamente visibile nelle radici greche della parola 'anarchia'." [Between Anarchism and Libertarianism: Defining a New Movement]
[modifica] Rifiuto della mercificazione del lavoro salariato
Sottolineiamo che questa opposizione alla gerarchia non è limitata, per gli anarchici, al solo stato o governo. Include tutti i rapporti economici e sociali di tipo autoritario come quelli politici, in particolare quelli associati alla proprietà capitalista ed lavoro salariato. Questo può essere messo a fuoco dall'argomentazione di Proudhon che asserisce che "il capitale ... nell'ambito politico è analogo al governo...
L'idea economica di capitalismo, le politica del governo o dell' autorità e l'idea teologica della Chiesa sono tre idee identiche, collegate in diversi modi. Attaccare una di loro è equivalente ad attaccare tutte loro... Quello che il capitale fa al lavoro, lo Stato alla libertà, la Chiesa lo fà allo spirito. Questo trinita dell' assolutismo è così velenosa nella pratica come lo è nella filosofia. I mezzi più efficaci per opprimere le persone servono contemporaneamente per asservire il suo corpo, la suo volontà e la sua ragione." [da Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, pp. 43-44]
E dunque vediamo comme Emma Goldman si oppone al capitalismo, quando questo significa "che l'uomo [o la donna] deve vendere il suo lavoro" e, dunque, "che le sue inclinazioni e giudizi sono subordinati al volere di un padrone." [Red Emma Speaks, p. 50]. Quarant' anni prima, Bakunin faceva una affermazione simile quando argomentava che sotto il sistema corrente "il lavoratore vende la sua persona e la sua libertà per un certo tempo" al capitalista in cambio di un salario. [Op. Cit., p. 187]
Dunque "l'anarchia" vuole dire di più che l'opporsi "al governo", ma vuole indicare opposizione a tutte le forme di organizzazione e gerarchia autoritarie. Nelle parole di Kropotkin, "l'origine dell' concetto anarchico di società... [risiede nella] critica... alle organizzazioni gerarchiche e alle concezioni autoritarie di società; e ... l'analisi delle tendenze che si possono osservare nei movimenti progressisti dell' Umanità." [Op. Cit., p. 158] Per Malatesta, l'anarchia "nasce come rivolta morale contro ingiustizia sociale" e che le "cause specifiche dei mali sociali" potrebbe essere trovate nella "proprietà capitalistica e nello Stato". Quando gli oppressi "hanno cercato di rovesciare allo stesso tempo sia lo Stato che la proprietà - è stato allora che l'anarchia è nata". [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 19]
Qualsiasi tentativo di affermare che l'anarchia è puramente anti-statale è un travisamento della parola e del modo con cui è stata usata dal movimento anarchico. Come Brian Morris argomenta, "quando uno esamina le opere degli anarchici classici"... così come il carattere dei movimenti anarchici... si rende chiaramente evidente che non ha mai avuto questa visione così limitata [l'essere soltanto contro lo stato]. Ha sfidato sempre tutte le forme di autorità e sfruttamento, ed é stata critica allo stesso modo nei confronti del capitalismo e della religione al pari dello Stato." [Op. Cit., p. 40]
E, giusto per dichiarare l'evidente, l'anarchia non siginifica caos, né gli anarchici cercano di creare caos o disordine. Invece, desideriamo creare una società in basatta sull libertà individuale e la cooperazione volontaria. In altre parole, ordinata dal basso in alto, non il disordine imposto dall'apice verso il basso che esercitano le autorità. Una tale società sarebbe un'anarchia vera, una società senza governanti.
Mentre noi discutiamo a cosa potrebbe assomigliare una vera anarchia nel sito [I], Noam Chomsky riassume l'aspetto chiave quando afferma che in una società veramente libera "qualsiasi interazione tra esseri umani che sia più che personale -- volendo intendere che prenda forme istituzionali di una forma oppure di un altra -- nella comunità, nel posto di lavoro, nella famiglia, nell'ampiezza della società, qualsiasi cosa possa essere, dovrebbe essere sotto diretto controllo dei suoi participanti.
Questo significherebbe l'istituzione di concili di lavoratori nell'industria, la democrazia popolare nelle comunità, l'interazione tra loro, la loro libera associazione in gruppi più grandi, fino alla organizzazione di una società internazionale." [Anarchism Interview] La società non sarebbe più divisa in una gerarchia di dirigenti (fino al livello di boss) e lavoratori, governanti e governati. Piuttosto, una società anarchica si baserebbe sulla libera associazione in organizzazioni partecipative e sarebbe comandata dal basso. Bisogna far notare che gli anarchici, cercano di creare una società di questo tipo già da oggi, nelle loro organizzazioni, nelle loro lotte ed attività, nella misura del possibile.
[modifica] A.1.2 Che cosa significa "anarchismo" ?
Secondo Pëtr Kropotkin, l'Anarchismo è "il sistema di non-governo del socialismo." [Anarchism, p. 46] In altre parole, "l'abolizione dello sfruttamento e della oppressione dell'uomo da parte dell'uomo, che è l'abolizione della proprietà privata [ad.es. capitalismo] e del governo." [Errico Malatesta, Verso l'Anarchismo,", p. 75]
L'anarchismo, dunque, è una teoria politica che si propone di creare una società che sia davvero senza gerarchie politiche, economiche o sociali. Gli anarchisti sostengono che l'anarchia, l' assenza di governanti, è una forma possibile ed applicabile di sistema sociale e dunque permette di arrivare al massimo livello di libertà individuale ed equità sociale. Loro vedono gli obiettivi della libertà e dell'equità come mutuamente auto-sorreggenti. O, come affermava Bakunin:
"Noi siamo convinti che la libertà senza Socialismo sia privilegio ed ingiustizia, e che il Socialismo senza libertà sia schiavitù e brutalità." [The Politic Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 269]
La storia della società umana dimostra questo argomento. La libertà senza eguaglianza significa soltanto la libertà per i potenti, ed ugalmente l'uguaglianza senza libertà è impossibile ed è una giustificazione per la schiavitù.
Mentre esistono diversi tipi di anarchismo (dall'anarchismo individualista all'anorco-comunismo -- vedi section A.3 per più dettagli), vi sono sempre state due posizioni comuni nel nucleo di tutte queste visioni -- l'opposizione al governo e l'opposizione al capitalismo. Secondo Benjamin Tucker, un individualista-anarchista, l'anarchism consiste "nella abolizione dello Stato e nell'abolizione dell'usura; nella abolizione del governo dell'uomo da parte dell'uomo, e nella fine dello sfruttamento dell'essere umano da parte dell'uomo." [citato da Eunice Schuster, Native American Anarchism, p. 140] Tutti gli anarchici vedono il profitto, l'interesse e la rendita come usura (sinonimo di sfruttamento) e dunque vi si oppogono e lottano contro le condizioni che li hanno creati così come si oppongono al governo ed allo Stato.
Più generalmente, in parole di L. Susan Brown, il "legame unificante" all'interno dell' anarchismo "è la condanna universale della gerarchia e della dominazione ed una volontà di combattere per la libertà dell'individuo umano." [The Politics of Individualism, p. 108] Per gli anarchisti, una persona non può essere libera se è soggetta allo stato oppure all'autorità capitalistica. Come riassume Voltairine de Cleyre:
"L' Anarchismo . . . insegna la possibilità di una società nella quale le necessità della vita di tutti, possano essere pienamente soddisfatte, una società nella quale le opportunità per un completo sviluppo della mente e del corpo possano essere un patrimoniodi tutti ... [Essa] insegna che l'attuale ingiusta organizzazione della produzione e della distribuzione della richezza debba essere completamente distrutta, e sostituita da un sistema che garantizzi a chiunque la libertà di lavorare, senza dover prima cercare un padrone al quale lui [oppure lei] debba rendere un tithe del suo prodotto, cosa che portà garantire la libertà di accesso alle risorse ed ai mezzi di produzione ... Una volta fuori dalla cieca sottomissione che rende le persone scontente; una volta fuori dall'inconscia insoddisfazione, che rende le persone conscinetemente insoddisfatte ..." "L' Anarchismo cerca di svegliare la coscienza dell'oppressione, il desiderio di una società miglire, ed un senso della necessità di combattere incessantemente contro il capitalismo e lo Stato." [Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman's Mother Earth, pp. 23-4]
Dunque l' Anarchismo è una teoria politica che si prefigge di creare l' anarchia, una società basata sulla massima del "nessun governante." Per raggiungere questo scopo, "[i]n comune con tutti i socialisti, gli anarchici sostengono che la proprietà privata della terra, del capitale, e dei macchinari ha fatto il suo tempo; che é condannata a sparire: e che tutti i requisiti per la produzione debbano, e lo saranno, diventare la proprietà comune della società, ed essere gestiti in comune dai produttori di ricchezza. E ... se mantengono che l'ideale della organizzazione politica della società è una condizione delle cose dove i compiti e funzioni del governo sono ridotti al minimo ... [e] che lo scopo ultimato della società è la riduzione delle funzioni governative allo zero -- che significa, una società senza governo, fino alla ana-archia" [Peter Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 46]
Dunque l'anarchismo è sia positivo che negativo. Esso analizza e critica la società corrente mentre allo stesso tempo offre una visione di una nuova società potenziale -- una società che soddisfa certe necessità umane che l'attuale società corrente. Queste necessità, al loro livello più basico, sono libertà, eguaglianza e solidarietà, che saranno discusse nella pagna web di CapitolHill section A.2.
Anarchism unites critical analysis with hope, for, as Bakunin (in his pre-anarchist days) pointed out, "the urge to destroy is a creative urge." One cannot build a better society without understanding what is wrong with the present one.
However, it must be stressed that anarchism is more than just a means of analysis or a vision of a better society. It is also rooted in struggle, the struggle of the oppressed for their freedom. In other words, it provides a means of achieving a new system based on the needs of people, not power, and which places the planet before profit. To quote Scottish anarchist Stuart Christie:"Anarchism is a movement for human freedom. It is concrete, democratic and egalitarian . . . Anarchism began -- and remains -- a direct challenge by the underprivileged to their oppression and exploitation. It opposes both the insidious growth of state power and the pernicious ethos of possessive individualism, which, together or separately, ultimately serve only the interests of the few at the expense of the rest. "Anarchism is both a theory and practice of life. Philosophically, it aims for the maximum accord between the individual, society and nature. Practically, it aims for us to organise and live our lives in such a way as to make politicians, governments, states and their officials superfluous. In an anarchist society, mutually respectful sovereign individuals would be organised in non-coercive relationships within naturally defined communities in which the means of production and distribution are held in common. "Anarchists are not dreamers obsessed with abstract principles and theoretical constructs . . . Anarchists are well aware that a perfect society cannot be won tomorrow. Indeed, the struggle lasts forever! However, it is the vision that provides the spur to struggle against things as they are, and for things that might be . . . "Ultimately, only struggle determines outcome, and progress towards a more meaningful community must begin with the will to resist every form of injustice. In general terms, this means challenging all exploitation and defying the legitimacy of all coercive authority. If anarchists have one article of unshakeable faith, it is that, once the habit of deferring to politicians or ideologues is lost, and that of resistance to domination and exploitation acquired, then ordinary people have a capacity to organise every aspect of their lives in their own interests, anywhere and at any time, both freely and fairly. "Anarchists do not stand aside from popular struggle, nor do they attempt to dominate it. They seek to contribute practically whatever they can, and also to assist within it the highest possible levels of both individual self-development and of group solidarity. It is possible to recognise anarchist ideas concerning voluntary relationships, egalitarian participation in decision-making processes, mutual aid and a related critique of all forms of domination in philosophical, social and revolutionary movements in all times and places." [My Granny made me an Anarchist, pp. 162-3]
Anarchism, anarchists argue, is simply the theoretical expression of our capacity to organise ourselves and run society without bosses or politicians. It allows working class and other oppressed people to become conscious of our power as a class, defend our immediate interests, and fight to revolutionise society as a whole. Only by doing this can we create a society fit for human beings to live in.
It is no abstract philosophy. Anarchist ideas are put into practice everyday. Wherever oppressed people stand up for their rights, take action to defend their freedom, practice solidarity and co-operation, fight against oppression, organise themselves without leaders and bosses, the spirit of anarchism lives. Anarchists simply seek to strengthen these libertarian tendencies and bring them to their full fruition. As we discuss in section J, anarchists apply their ideas in many ways within capitalism in order to change it for the better until such time as we get rid of it completely. Section I discusses what we aim to replace it with, i.e. what anarchism aims for.
[modifica] A.1.3 Why is anarchism also called libertarian socialism?
Many anarchists, seeing the negative nature of the definition of "anarchism," have used other terms to emphasise the inherently positive and constructive aspect of their ideas. The most common terms used are "free socialism," "free communism," "libertarian socialism," and "libertarian communism." For anarchists, libertarian socialism, libertarian communism, and anarchism are virtually interchangeable. As Vanzetti put it:
"After all we are socialists as the social-democrats, the socialists, the communists, and the I.W.W. are all Socialists. The difference -- the fundamental one -- between us and all the other is that they are authoritarian while we are libertarian; they believe in a State or Government of their own; we believe in no State or Government." [Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti, p. 274]
But is this correct? Considering definitions from the American Heritage Dictionary, we find:
LIBERTARIAN: one who believes in freedom of action and thought; one who believes in free will. SOCIALISM: a social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods.Just taking those two first definitions and fusing them yields:
LIBERTARIAN SOCIALISM: a social system which believes in freedom of action and thought and free will, in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods.
(Although we must add that our usual comments on the lack of political sophistication of dictionaries still holds. We only use these definitions to show that "libertarian" does not imply "free market" capitalism nor "socialism" state ownership. Other dictionaries, obviously, will have different definitions -- particularly for socialism. Those wanting to debate dictionary definitions are free to pursue this unending and politically useless hobby but we will not).
However, due to the creation of the Libertarian Party in the USA, many people now consider the idea of "libertarian socialism" to be a contradiction in terms. Indeed, many "Libertarians" think anarchists are just attempting to associate the "anti-libertarian" ideas of "socialism" (as Libertarians conceive it) with Libertarian ideology in order to make those "socialist" ideas more "acceptable" -- in other words, trying to steal the "libertarian" label from its rightful possessors.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Anarchists have been using the term "libertarian" to describe themselves and their ideas since the 1850's. According to anarchist historian Max Nettlau, the revolutionary anarchist Joseph Dejacque published Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social in New York between 1858 and 1861 while the use of the term "libertarian communism" dates from November, 1880 when a French anarchist congress adopted it. [Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, p. 75 and p. 145] The use of the term "Libertarian" by anarchists became more popular from the 1890s onward after it was used in France in an attempt to get round anti-anarchist laws and to avoid the negative associations of the word "anarchy" in the popular mind (Sebastien Faure and Louise Michel published the paper Le Libertaire -- The Libertarian -- in France in 1895, for example). Since then, particularly outside America, it has always been associated with anarchist ideas and movements. Taking a more recent example, in the USA, anarchists organised "The Libertarian League" in July 1954, which had staunch anarcho-syndicalist principles and lasted until 1965. The US-based "Libertarian" Party, on the other hand has only existed since the early 1970's, well over 100 years after anarchists first used the term to describe their political ideas (and 90 years after the expression "libertarian communism" was first adopted). It is that party, not the anarchists, who have "stolen" the word. Later, in Section B, we will discuss why the idea of a "libertarian" capitalism (as desired by the Libertarian Party) is a contradiction in terms.
As we will also explain in Section I, only a libertarian-socialist system of ownership can maximise individual freedom. Needless to say, state ownership -- what is commonly called "socialism" -- is, for anarchists, not socialism at all. In fact, as we will elaborate in Section H, state "socialism" is just a form of capitalism, with no socialist content whatever. As Rudolf Rocker noted, for anarchists, socialism is "not a simple question of a full belly, but a question of culture that would have to enlist the sense of personality and the free initiative of the individual; without freedom it would lead only to a dismal state capitalism which would sacrifice all individual thought and feeling to a fictitious collective interest." [quoted by Colin Ward, "Introduction", Rudolf Rocker, The London Years, p. 1]
Given the anarchist pedigree of the word "libertarian," few anarchists are happy to see it stolen by an ideology which shares little with our ideas. In the United States, as Murray Bookchin noted, the "term 'libertarian' itself, to be sure, raises a problem, notably, the specious identification of an anti-authoritarian ideology with a straggling movement for 'pure capitalism' and 'free trade.' This movement never created the word: it appropriated it from the anarchist movement of the [nineteenth] century. And it should be recovered by those anti-authoritarians . . . who try to speak for dominated people as a whole, not for personal egotists who identify freedom with entrepreneurship and profit." Thus anarchists in America should "restore in practice a tradition that has been denatured by" the free-market right. [The Modern Crisis, pp. 154-5] And as we do that, we will continue to call our ideas libertarian socialism.
[modifica] A.1.4 Are anarchists socialists?
Yes. All branches of anarchism are opposed to capitalism. This is because capitalism is based upon oppression and exploitation (see sections B and C). Anarchists reject the "notion that men cannot work together unless they have a driving-master to take a percentage of their product" and think that in an anarchist society "the real workmen will make their own regulations, decide when and where and how things shall be done." By so doing workers would free themselves "from the terrible bondage of capitalism." [Voltairine de Cleyre, "Anarchism", Exquisite Rebel, p. 75 and p. 79]
(We must stress here that anarchists are opposed to all economic forms which are based on domination and exploitation, including feudalism, Soviet-style "socialism" -- better called "state capitalism" --, slavery and so on. We concentrate on capitalism because that is what is dominating the world just now).
Individualists like Benjamin Tucker along with social anarchists like Proudhon and Bakunin proclaimed themselves "socialists." They did so because, as Kropotkin put it in his classic essay "Modern Science and Anarchism," "[s]o long as Socialism was understood in its wide, generic, and true sense -- as an effort to abolish the exploitation of Labour by Capital -- the Anarchists were marching hand-in-hands with the Socialists of that time." [Evolution and Environment, p. 81] Or, in Tucker's words, "the bottom claim of Socialism [is] that labour should be put in possession of its own," a claim that both "the two schools of Socialistic thought . . . State Socialism and Anarchism" agreed upon. [The Anarchist Reader, p. 144] Hence the word "socialist" was originally defined to include "all those who believed in the individual's right to possess what he or she produced." [Lance Klafta, "Ayn Rand and the Perversion of Libertarianism," in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, no. 34] This opposition to exploitation (or usury) is shared by all true anarchists and places them under the socialist banner.
For most socialists, "the only guarantee not to be robbed of the fruits of your labour is to possess the instruments of labour." [Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread, p. 145] For this reason Proudhon, for example, supported workers' co-operatives, where "every individual employed in the association . . . has an undivided share in the property of the company" because by "participation in losses and gains . . . the collective force [i.e. surplus] ceases to be a source of profits for a small number of managers: it becomes the property of all workers." [The General Idea of the Revolution, p. 222 and p. 223] Thus, in addition to desiring the end of exploitation of labour by capital, true socialists also desire a society within which the producers own and control the means of production (including, it should be stressed, those workplaces which supply services). The means by which the producers will do this is a moot point in anarchist and other socialist circles, but the desire remains a common one. Anarchists favour direct workers' control and either ownership by workers' associations or by the commune (see section A.3 on the different types of anarchists).
Moreover, anarchists also reject capitalism for being authoritarian as well as exploitative. Under capitalism, workers do not govern themselves during the production process nor have control over the product of their labour. Such a situation is hardly based on equal freedom for all, nor can it be non-exploitative, and is so opposed by anarchists. This perspective can best be found in the work of Proudhon's (who inspired both Tucker and Bakunin) where he argues that anarchism would see "[c]apitalistic and proprietary exploitation stopped everywhere [and] the wage system abolished" for "either the workman. . . will be simply the employee of the proprietor-capitalist-promoter; or he will participate . . . In the first case the workman is subordinated, exploited: his permanent condition is one of obedience. . . In the second case he resumes his dignity as a man and citizen. . . he forms part of the producing organisation, of which he was before but the slave . . . we need not hesitate, for we have no choice. . . it is necessary to form an ASSOCIATION among workers . . . because without that, they would remain related as subordinates and superiors, and there would ensue two. . . castes of masters and wage-workers, which is repugnant to a free and democratic society." [Op. Cit., p. 233 and pp. 215-216]
Therefore all anarchists are anti-capitalist ("If labour owned the wealth it produced, there would be no capitalism" [Alexander Berkman, What is Anarchism?, p. 44]). Benjamin Tucker, for example -- the anarchist most influenced by liberalism (as we will discuss later) -- called his ideas "Anarchistic-Socialism" and denounced capitalism as a system based upon "the usurer, the receiver of interest, rent and profit." Tucker held that in an anarchist, non-capitalist, free-market society, capitalists will become redundant and exploitation of labour by capital would cease, since "labour. . . will. . . secure its natural wage, its entire product." [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 82 and p. 85] Such an economy will be based on mutual banking and the free exchange of products between co-operatives, artisans and peasants. For Tucker, and other Individualist anarchists, capitalism is not a true free market, being marked by various laws and monopolies which ensure that capitalists have the advantage over working people, so ensuring the latter's exploitation via profit, interest and rent (see section G for a fuller discussion). Even Max Stirner, the arch-egoist, had nothing but scorn for capitalist society and its various "spooks," which for him meant ideas that are treated as sacred or religious, such as private property, competition, division of labour, and so forth.
So anarchists consider themselves as socialists, but socialists of a specific kind -- libertarian socialists. As the individualist anarchist Joseph A. Labadie puts it (echoing both Tucker and Bakunin):
"It is said that Anarchism is not socialism. This is a mistake. Anarchism is voluntary Socialism. There are two kinds of Socialism, archistic and anarchistic, authoritarian and libertarian, state and free. Indeed, every proposition for social betterment is either to increase or decrease the powers of external wills and forces over the individual. As they increase they are archistic; as they decrease they are anarchistic." [Anarchism: What It Is and What It Is Not]
Labadie stated on many occasions that "all anarchists are socialists, but not all socialists are anarchists." Therefore, Daniel Guerin's comment that "Anarchism is really a synonym for socialism. The anarchist is primarily a socialist whose aim is to abolish the exploitation of man by man" is echoed throughout the history of the anarchist movement, be it the social or individualist wings. [Anarchism, p. 12] Indeed, the Haymarket Martyr Adolph Fischer used almost exactly the same words as Labadie to express the same fact -- "every anarchist is a socialist, but every socialist is not necessarily an anarchist" -- while acknowledging that the movement was "divided into two factions; the communistic anarchists and the Proudhon or middle-class anarchists." [The Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs, p. 81]
So while social and individualist anarchists do disagree on many issues -- for example, whether a true, that is non-capitalist, free market would be the best means of maximising liberty -- they agree that capitalism is to be opposed as exploitative and oppressive and that an anarchist society must, by definition, be based on associated, not wage, labour. Only associated labour will "decrease the powers of external wills and forces over the individual" during working hours and such self-management of work by those who do it is the core ideal of real socialism. This perspective can be seen when Joseph Labadie argued that the trade union was "the exemplification of gaining freedom by association" and that "[w]ithout his union, the workman is much more the slave of his employer than he is with it." [Different Phases of the Labour Question]
However, the meanings of words change over time. Today "socialism" almost always refers to state socialism, a system that all anarchists have opposed as a denial of freedom and genuine socialist ideals. All anarchists would agree with Noam Chomsky's statement on this issue:
"If the left is understood to include 'Bolshevism,' then I would flatly dissociate myself from the left. Lenin was one of the greatest enemies of socialism." [Marxism, Anarchism, and Alternative Futures, p. 779]
Anarchism developed in constant opposition to the ideas of Marxism, social democracy and Leninism. Long before Lenin rose to power, Mikhail Bakunin warned the followers of Marx against the "Red bureaucracy" that would institute "the worst of all despotic governments" if Marx's state-socialist ideas were ever implemented. Indeed, the works of Stirner, Proudhon and especially Bakunin all predict the horror of state Socialism with great accuracy. In addition, the anarchists were among the first and most vocal critics and opposition to the Bolshevik regime in Russia.
Nevertheless, being socialists, anarchists do share some ideas with some Marxists (though none with Leninists). Both Bakunin and Tucker accepted Marx's analysis and critique of capitalism as well as his labour theory of value (see section C). Marx himself was heavily influenced by Max Stirner's book The Ego and Its Own, which contains a brilliant critique of what Marx called "vulgar" communism as well as state socialism. There have also been elements of the Marxist movement holding views very similar to social anarchism (particularly the anarcho-syndicalist branch of social anarchism) -- for example, Anton Pannekoek, Rosa Luxembourg, Paul Mattick and others, who are very far from Lenin. Karl Korsch and others wrote sympathetically of the anarchist revolution in Spain. There are many continuities from Marx to Lenin, but there are also continuities from Marx to more libertarian Marxists, who were harshly critical of Lenin and Bolshevism and whose ideas approximate anarchism's desire for the free association of equals.
Therefore anarchism is basically a form of socialism, one that stands in direct opposition to what is usually defined as "socialism" (i.e. state ownership and control). Instead of "central planning," which many people associate with the word "socialism," anarchists advocate free association and co-operation between individuals, workplaces and communities and so oppose "state" socialism as a form of state capitalism in which "[e]very man [and woman] will be a wage-receiver, and the State the only wage payer." [Benjamin Tucker, The Individualist Anarchists, p. 81] Thus anarchists reject Marxism (what most people think of as "socialism") as just "[t]he idea of the State as Capitalist, to which the Social-Democratic fraction of the great Socialist Party is now trying to reduce Socialism." [Peter Kropotkin, The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 31] The anarchist objection to the identification of Marxism, "central planning" and State Socialism/Capitalism with socialism will be discussed in section H.
It is because of these differences with state socialists, and to reduce confusion, most anarchists just call themselves "anarchists," as it is taken for granted that anarchists are socialists. However, with the rise of the so-called "libertarian" right in the USA, some pro-capitalists have taken to calling themselves "anarchists" and that is why we have laboured the point somewhat here. Historically, and logically, anarchism implies anti-capitalism, i.e. socialism, which is something, we stress, that all anarchists have agreed upon (for a fuller discuss of why "anarcho"-capitalism is not anarchist see section F).
[modifica] A.1.5 Where does anarchism come from?
Where does anarchism come from? We can do no better than quote The Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists produced by participants of the Makhnovist movement in the Russian Revolution (see Section A.5.4). They point out that:
"The class struggle created by the enslavement of workers and their aspirations to liberty gave birth, in the oppression, to the idea of anarchism: the idea of the total negation of a social system based on the principles of classes and the State, and its replacement by a free non-statist society of workers under self-management. "So anarchism does not derive from the abstract reflections of an intellectual or a philosopher, but from the direct struggle of workers against capitalism, from the needs and necessities of the workers, from their aspirations to liberty and equality, aspirations which become particularly alive in the best heroic period of the life and struggle of the working masses. "The outstanding anarchist thinkers, Bakunin, Kropotkin and others, did not invent the idea of anarchism, but, having discovered it in the masses, simply helped by the strength of their thought and knowledge to specify and spread it." [pp. 15-16]
Like the anarchist movement in general, the Makhnovists were a mass movement of working class people resisting the forces of authority, both Red (Communist) and White (Tsarist/Capitalist) in the Ukraine from 1917 to 1921. As Peter Marshall notes "anarchism . . . has traditionally found its chief supporters amongst workers and peasants." [Demanding the Impossible, p. 652]
Anarchism was created in, and by, the struggle of the oppressed for freedom. For Kropotkin, for example, "Anarchism . . . originated in everyday struggles" and "the Anarchist movement was renewed each time it received an impression from some great practical lesson: it derived its origin from the teachings of life itself." [Evolution and Environment, p. 58 and p. 57] For Proudhon, "the proof" of his mutualist ideas lay in the "current practice, revolutionary practice" of "those labour associations . . . which have spontaneously . . . been formed in Paris and Lyon . . . [show that the] organisation of credit and organisation of labour amount to one and the same." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, pp. 59-60] Indeed, as one historian argues, there was "close similarity between the associational ideal of Proudhon . . . and the program of the Lyon Mutualists" and that there was "a remarkable convergence [between the ideas], and it is likely that Proudhon was able to articulate his positive program more coherently because of the example of the silk workers of Lyon. The socialist ideal that he championed was already being realised, to a certain extent, by such workers." [K. Steven Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism, p. 164]
Thus anarchism comes from the fight for liberty and our desires to lead a fully human life, one in which we have time to live, to love and to play. It was not created by a few people divorced from life, in ivory towers looking down upon society and making judgements upon it based on their notions of what is right and wrong. Rather, it was a product of working class struggle and resistance to authority, oppression and exploitation. As Albert Meltzer put it:
"There were never theoreticians of Anarchism as such, though it produced a number of theoreticians who discussed aspects of its philosophy. Anarchism has remained a creed that has been worked out in action rather than as the putting into practice of an intellectual idea. Very often, a bourgeois writer comes along and writes down what has already been worked out in practice by workers and peasants; he [or she] is attributed by bourgeois historians as being a leader, and by successive bourgeois writers (citing the bourgeois historians) as being one more case that proves the working class relies on bourgeois leadership." [Anarchism: Arguments for and against, p. 18]
In Kropotkin's eyes, "Anarchism had its origins in the same creative, constructive activity of the masses which has worked out in times past all the social institutions of mankind -- and in the revolts . . . against the representatives of force, external to these social institutions, who had laid their hands on these institutions and used them for their own advantage." More recently, "Anarchy was brought forth by the same critical and revolutionary protest which gave birth to Socialism in general." Anarchism, unlike other forms of socialism, "lifted its sacrilegious arm, not only against Capitalism, but also against these pillars of Capitalism: Law, Authority, and the State." All anarchist writers did was to "work out a general expression of [anarchism's] principles, and the theoretical and scientific basis of its teachings" derived from the experiences of working class people in struggle as well as analysing the evolutionary tendencies of society in general. [Op. Cit., p. 19 and p. 57]
However, anarchistic tendencies and organisations in society have existed long before Proudhon put pen to paper in 1840 and declared himself an anarchist. While anarchism, as a specific political theory, was born with the rise of capitalism (Anarchism "emerged at the end of the eighteenth century . . .[and] took up the dual challenge of overthrowing both Capital and the State." [Peter Marshall, Op. Cit., p. 4]) anarchist writers have analysed history for libertarian tendencies. Kropotkin argued, for example, that "from all times there have been Anarchists and Statists." [Op. Cit., p. 16] In Mutual Aid (and elsewhere) Kropotkin analysed the libertarian aspects of previous societies and noted those that successfully implemented (to some degree) anarchist organisation or aspects of anarchism. He recognised this tendency of actual examples of anarchistic ideas to predate the creation of the "official" anarchist movement and argued that:
"From the remotest, stone-age antiquity, men [and women] have realised the evils that resulted from letting some of them acquire personal authority. . . Consequently they developed in the primitive clan, the village community, the medieval guild . . . and finally in the free medieval city, such institutions as enabled them to resist the encroachments upon their life and fortunes both of those strangers who conquered them, and those clansmen of their own who endeavoured to establish their personal authority." [Anarchism, pp. 158-9]
Kropotkin placed the struggle of working class people (from which modern anarchism sprung) on par with these older forms of popular organisation. He argued that "the labour combinations. . . were an outcome of the same popular resistance to the growing power of the few -- the capitalists in this case" as were the clan, the village community and so on, as were "the strikingly independent, freely federated activity of the 'Sections' of Paris and all great cities and many small 'Communes' during the French Revolution" in 1793. [Op. Cit., p. 159]
Thus, while anarchism as a political theory is an expression of working class struggle and self-activity against capitalism and the modern state, the ideas of anarchism have continually expressed themselves in action throughout human existence. Many indigenous peoples in North America and elsewhere, for example, practised anarchism for thousands of years before anarchism as a specific political theory existed. Similarly, anarchistic tendencies and organisations have existed in every major revolution -- the New England Town Meetings during the American Revolution, the Parisian 'Sections' during the French Revolution, the workers' councils and factory committees during the Russian Revolution to name just a few examples (see Murray Bookchin's The Third Revolution for details). This is to be expected if anarchism is, as we argue, a product of resistance to authority then any society with authorities will provoke resistance to them and generate anarchistic tendencies (and, of course, any societies without authorities cannot help but being anarchistic).
In other words, anarchism is an expression of the struggle against oppression and exploitation, a generalisation of working people's experiences and analyses of what is wrong with the current system and an expression of our hopes and dreams for a better future. This struggle existed before it was called anarchism, but the historic anarchist movement (i.e. groups of people calling their ideas anarchism and aiming for an anarchist society) is essentially a product of working class struggle against capitalism and the state, against oppression and exploitation, and for a free society of free and equal individuals.
