ANARCHISM

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 661.

Ideologies

Anarchism is an *ideology that is defined by the central belief that political *authority in all its form, and especially in the form of the *state, is both evil and unnecessary (anarchy literally means ‘without rule'). Anarchists believe that the state is evil because, as a repository of sovereign, compulsory and coercive authority, it is an offence against the principles of *freedom and *equality, the core value of anarchism being unrestricted personal *autonomy. The state and the accompanying institutions of *government and *law are therefore rejected as corrupt and corrupting. However, the belief that the state is unnecessary is no less important to anarchism. Anarchists reject ‘political' *order but have considerable faith in ‘natural' order and spontaneous social harmony, ultimately underpinned by optimistic assumptions about *human nature. Government, in other words, is not the solution to the problem of order, but its cause.

Nevertheless, the anarchist preference for a stateless society in which free individuals manage their own affairs through voluntary agreement and cooperation has been developed on the basis of two rival traditions: socialist *communitarianism and liberal *individualism. Anarchism can thus be thought of as a point of intersection between *socialism and *liberalism: a form of both ‘ultra-socialism' and ‘ultra-liberalism'. This is reflected in two rival anarchist traditions, collectivist anarchism and individualist anarchism. Collectivist anarchism, or classical anarchism, is rooted in the idea of social solidarity or what Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) called ‘mutual aid', the belief that the natural and proper relationship amongst people is one of sympathy, affection and harmony. Collectivist anarchists have typically stressed the importance of social equality and common ownership, supporting Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's (1809– 65) famous assertion that ‘Property is theft', most radically expressed in the form of anarcho-communism. Individualist anarchism is based upon the idea of the sovereign individual, the belief that individual conscience and the pursuit of self-interest should not be constrained by any collective body or public authority. Individualist anarchism overlaps with *libertarianism and is usually linked to a strong belief in the market as a self-regulating mechanism, most obviously manifest in the form of anarcho-capitalism.

Significance

Anarchism is unusual amongst political ideologies in that it has never succeeded in winning power, at least at a national level. As no society or *nation has been re-modelled according to anarchist principles, it is tempting to regard anarchism as an ideology of lesser significance. As a political movement, anarchism has suffered from three major drawbacks. First, its goal, the overthrow of the state and all forms of political authority, is often considered to be simply unrealistic. The most common criticism of anarchism is that it is an example of *utopianism in its negative sense, in that it places excessive faith in ‘human goodness' or in the capacity of social institutions, such as the market or social ownership, to maintain order and stability. Second, in viewing government as corrupt and corrupting, anarchists have rejected the conventional means of political activism, such as forming *political parties, standing for *election and seeking public office, and have had to rely instead upon the capacity of the masses to engage in spontaneous rebellion. Third, anarchism does not constitute a single, coherent set of political ideas: apart from anti-statism, anarchists disagree profoundly about the nature of an anarchic society and particularly about property rights and economic organisation.

However, the significance of anarchism is perhaps less that it has provided an ideological basis for acquiring and retaining political *power, and more that it has challenged, and thereby fertilised, other political creeds. Anarchists have highlighted the coercive and destructive nature of political power, and in so doing have countered statist tendencies within other ideologies, notably liberalism, socialism and *conservatism. In this sense anarchism has had growing influence upon modern political thought. Both the *New Left and *New Right, for instance, have exhibited libertarian tendencies, which bear the imprint of anarchist ideas. Indeed, the continuing

importance of anarchism is perhaps merely concealed by its increasingly diverse character. In addition to, and in some ways in place of, established political and class struggles, anarchists have come to address issues such as ecology, transport, urban development, consumerism, new technology and sexual relations. To argue that anarchism is irrelevant because it has long since lost the potential to become a mass movement maybe misses the point. As the world becomes increasingly complex and fragmented, it may be that it is mass politics itself that is dead.