lhe PoiHicallheory or Anarchism April Corter Routledge & Kegan Paul London First published 1971 by Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane, London, EC4V 5EL Printed in Great Britain by Clarke, Doble & Brendan Ltd Plymouth ©April Carter 1971 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism ISBN 0 7100 6991 8 Contents page Acknowledgments vii Introduction l 1 The Political Theory of Anarchism 13 The Leviathan The Social Contract Hobbes and Godwin Primacy of the Individual Law and Government Society and the Individual 2 Anarchism and the State 28 State and Government The Evolution of the State Bureaucracy Police The Law Authority and Government Modem Society War and the State Constitutionalist Theory and Anarchism 3 Anarchism and Society 6o The Paris Commune Federalism and Nationalism Industrialization The City versus the Country Democracy and Egalitarianism Class Rule and Elites Social Administration without Government The Administration of Justice Utopian Thinking and Historical Progress The Meaning of Politics v vi Contents 4 Anarchism and the Individual Bg The Egoist The Artist The Moralist The Hero The Coward The Political Realm The Citizen Conclusion 105 Suggestions for Further Reading 111 Bibliography 113 Index 11] Acknowledgments I am very grateful to Geoffrey Ostergaard, Nigel Young, Margaret Leslie and to my sister Fay for encouragement, criticism and advice on this manuscript at various stages. Their comments have saved me from many errors; those remaining are my own responsibility. Author's Note This book was conceived and written as a brief study in political theory, primarily for students of politics. Its main aim is to explore anarchist ideas in relation to a number of important themes in political thought. The book assumes no prior knowledge of anarchist history and philosophy, and will therefore cover ground familiar to those already versed in the literature on anarchism. On the other hand it does assume some knowledge of general political theory, although the specific connexions between anarchist and other theorists are spelt out as clearly as possible. It also explores the relevance of anarchist ideas to contemporary politics and political discourse. vii Introduction The cluster of ideas, attitudes and beliefs which can be defined by the term 'anarchism' have not received much attention from political theorists. There are a number of reasons for this neglect. One is that anarchist political theory sounds like a contradiction in terms-a denial of the value and necessity of government both sweeps aside many of the traditional concerns of political theorists, and suggests an essentially apolitical doctrine. Another is the lack of any outstand ing theoretical exponent of anarchism. There are important, interest ing and attractive anarchist writers, but none comparable as social theorists with, for example, Marx. Within the corpus of 'great political thinkers' only Rousseau comes dose occasionally to being an anarchist. A third reason for the comparative neglect of anarchism is probably the fact that anarchists have never yet won permanent victory, and there are no anarchist societies in being; so their opponents have never felt under pressure to examine anarchist ideas very seriously. However, their political failure is also the anarchists' strength, as spokesmen for values which the politically established and victorious have too often forgotten or suppressed. Anarchism like most other contemporary political ideals and doc trines began to emerge as a relatively coherent theory at about the time of the French Revolution. William Godwin's Political Justice, which is usually treated as the first theoretical exposition of anarch ism, was popularly regarded as a reply to Burke's denunciation of the Revolution. Godwin was writing within the theoretical frame work of individualism and rationalism associated with the eighteenth century Enlightenment. The diversity of anarchist thought is illus trated by the fact that the next major anarchist theorist, Max Stimer, belonged to the generation of young intellectuals in Germany of the 184os who were strongly influenced by Hegel's Idealist philosophy, and who developed their own theories through a systematic critique of the more conservative implications of Hegel's philosophy in rela tion to the State and to religion. Another member of that circle of Young Hegelians, Karl Marx, later attacked the ideas of the other Young Hegelians, including those of 'Saint Max', in The German Ideology. Stimer argued in The Ego and His Own that the individual should be totally free from all socially imposed ties and from the conventions of morality. Godwin and Stirner had in common only 1 2 Introduction their atheism and their willingness to take to logical extremes the belief that the individual-not the State or Society-is sovereign. In their stress on the complete autonomy of the individual both differed from most later anarchist thinkers. By the second half of the nine teenth century anarchism had become a political movement closely associated with the international socialist movement, and sharing to some extent the socialist commitment to fraternity as a social ideal, and working class solidarity as a necessary weapon in the political struggle. The development of anarchism as a political movement revealed that it was a doctrine which had its strongest appeal in areas where the process of industrialization had not yet changed the social land scape: among craftsmen like the Swiss watchmakers in the Jura mountains; among skilled workers in small factories, as in France in the 186os; and among poverty-stricken peasants, for example in Andalusia in Spain. The type of anarchism developed by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who first adopted the title 'anarchist', idealized the sturdy independence of the small peasant proprietor or skilled craftsman, and proposed a type of co-operative organization appropriate to the economic needs of this kind of community and to a society of in dependent equals. Proudhon had spent part of his childhood on a farm in the Franche-Comte, was apprenticed as a printer (a trade which has produced many anarchists), and gained some of his ideas-in cluding the name of his 'Mutualist' social and economic theory from the militant textile workers of Lyons in the 184os. His thought always tended to reflect these models of society, though he extended his theory to include workers' co-operative ownership of large scale industry. For a time the Proudhonists were a significant force in the French socialist movement, and in the First Socialist International, which was founded in 1864, the year before Proudhon's death. But the dominant anarchist figure of the First International was the Russian Michael Bakunin, a genuinely internationalist revolution ary who saw the inside of a great many European jails. Bakunin's influence was greatest in Switzerland, where for a short time the headquarters of his separate anarchist international was located; and in particular among the Jura watchmakers, whom he had encouraged in their initiative in opposing Marx's leadership of the First Inter national. The Jura watchmakers epitomized the virtues of the Proud honian ideal. Bakunin's compatriot, Prince Peter Kropotkin, said in his Memoirs that the Jura watchmakers had finally converted him to anarchism. The very organization of the watch trade, which permits men to know one another thoroughly and to work in their own houses,