Donald Rooum - What Is Anarchism? An Introduction
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Taken from original print copy. Donald Rooum and Freedom Press (ed.). What Is Anarchism? An Introduction. London: Freedom Press, 1995.
We are often asked to explain what anarchism is all about, and hope to publish a revised and expanded version of Nicolas Walters popular About Anarchism when it is ready. Meanwhile we suggested to Donald Rooum, creator of the anarchist Wildcat cartoons, that he should produce a pamphlet on Anarchism. The first part of this compilation (pages 1 to 28) is his response.
He writes, My contribution is intended to describe anarchism as it appears to anarchists in general, in Britain at the end of the twentieth century. The three headings, What anarchists believe, How anarchists differ, What anarchists do, are taken from Nicolas Walters 1969 pamphlet About Anarchism, and ways of putting points are lifted from many other contemporary anarchists. He adds that he takes personal responsibility for the opinions and errors.
Freedom Press are responsible for the second part, consisting of excerpts from Freedom Press titles (except for those of Charlotte Wilson and George Nicholson, which were nevertheless published in Freedom). Few of these were written at the end of the twentieth century, but we are confident that politically informed readers of the left will recognise their relevance to todays situation.
The Marxists, who until yesterday paid homage at the Lenin Mausoleum, and are now either disillusioned or wise after the collapse of communist dictatorship in Soviet Russia, are referred to page 58, to Malatestas prophetic words, written in 1920:
to achieve communism before anarchy, that is before having conquered complete political and economic liberty, would mean (as it has meant in Russia) stabilising the most hateful tyranny, to the point where people long for the bourgeois regime, and to return later (as will happen in Russia) to a capitalist system ...
As has happened in Russia!
As democratic socialism aspires to the votes that would secure office and power, it moves to conform to popular prejudice, and in the process becomes more and more remote from socialism. More and more genuine socialists are recognising that there is nothing left of socialism in the Labour Party. What can they do? Reform the party? Go for proportional representation (another electoral gimmick) and end up with the Liberals? Start another party? Remember the Gang of Four who were going to break the mould, and have ended up in the House of Lords, and Shirley Williams lecturing at Harvard!
The road to power is not the road to socialism. For libertarian socialists, there is only one road, and that is in the political wilderness with the anarchists, knowing where we want to go!
Anarchists believe that the point of society is to widen the choices of individuals. This is the axiom upon which the anarchist case is founded.
If you were isolated you would still have the human ability to make decisions, but the range of viable decisions would be severely restricted by the environment. Society, however it is organised, gives individuals more opportunities, and anarchists think this is what society is for. They do not think society originated in some kind of conscious social contract, but see the widening of individual choices as the function of social instincts.
Anarchists strive for a society which is as efficient as possible, that is a society which provides individuals with the widest possible range of individual choices.
Any social relationship in which one party dominates another by the use of threats (explicit or tacit, real or delusory) restricts the choices of the dominated party. Occasional, temporary instances of coercion may be inevitable; but in the opinion of anarchists, established, institutionalised, coercive relationships are by no means inevitable. They are a social blight which everyone should try to eliminate.
Anarchism is opposed to states, armies, slavery, the wages system, the landlord system, prisons, monopoly capitalism, oligopoly capitalism, state capitalism, bureaucracy, meritocracy, theocracy, revolutionary governments, patriarchy, matriarchy, monarchy, oligarchy, protection rackets, intimidation by gangsters, and every other kind of coercive institution. In other words, anarchism opposes government in all its forms.
In a government society, anarchists may in practice apply to one coercive institution for protection from another. They may, for instance, call on the legal establishment for protection against rival governments like violent criminals, brutal bosses, cruel parents, or fraudulent police. Do as I say or Ill smash your face in is often a more frightening threat than Persons guilty of non-compliance are liable to a term of imprisonment, because the perpetrator of the threat is less predictable. But the differences between different levels and forms of coercive institutions are less significant than the similarities.
For dictionary purposes, anarchism may be correctly defined as opposition to government in all its forms. But it would be a mistake to think of anarchism as essentially negative. The opposition to government arises out of a belief about society which is positive.
The ideal of anarchism is a society in which all individuals can do whatever they choose, except interfere with the ability of other individuals to do what they choose. This ideal is called anarchy, from the Greek anarchia, meaning absence of government.
Anarchists do not suppose that all people are altruistic, or wise, or good, or identical, or perfectible, or any romantic nonsense of that kind. They believe that a society without coercive institutions is feasible, within the repertoire of natural, imperfect, human behaviour.
Anarchists do not lay down blueprints for the free society. There are science-fiction stories and other fantasies in which anarchies are imagined, but they are not prescribed. Any society which does not include coercive institutions will meet the anarchist objective.
It seems clear, however, that every conceivable anarchy would need social pressure to dissuade people from acting coercively; and to prevent a person from acting coercively is to limit that persons choices. Every society imposes limits, and there are those who argue, with the air of having an unanswerable argument, that this makes anarchism impossible.
But anarchy is not perfect freedom. It is only the absence of government, or coercive establishments. To show that perfect freedom is impossible is not to argue against anarchism, but simply to provide an instance of the general truth that nothing is perfect.
Of course, the feasibility of anarchy cannot be certainly proved. Is anarchy practicable?, is a hypothetical question, which cannot be answered for certain, unless and until anarchy exists. But the question, Is anarchy worth striving for?, is an ethical question, and to this every anarchist will certainly answer yes.
Besides being used in the sense implied by its Greek origin, the word anarchy is also used to mean unsettled government, disorderly government, or government at its crudest in the form of intimidation by marauding gangs (military anarchy).
This usage is etymologically improper, but as a matter of historical fact it is older than the proper one. The poet Shelley held opinions which are now called anarchistic, but in his poem A Mask of Anarchy, written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester, he uses the allegorical figure of Anarchy to mean tyranny. (The poem was published several years after it was written, and by that time anarchists were beginning to call themselves anarchists.)
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