writings and full-grown historical materialism there lies, unquestionably, a series of significant changes, mutations, innovations. At the same time, in pressing this claim Althusser was guilty of much pretension and posturing. Some of his attributions, reflecting the latest in French fashions, were alien to Marx's thought; much of what he excluded, human nature for example, was there plain as day. Equally, for all his emphasis on the materialist character of Marxist theory, the philosophy of practice he elaborated bore many of the marks of a speculative and idealist metaphysic.
NG |
 | | Althusser, L.: For Marx. London: Allen Lane, 1969. |
| | and Balibar, E.: Reading Capital. London: New Left, 1970. |
| | Anderson, P.: Arguments within English Marxism. London: New Left/Verso, 1980. |
| | *Geras, N.: Althusser's Marxism: an assessment. In Western Marxism: a Critical Reader, ed. New Left Review. London: New Left/Verso, 1977. |
| | *Glucksmann, A.: A ventriloquist structuralism. In Western Marxism: a Critical Reader. |
| | Thompson, E.P.: The Poverty of Theory. London: Merlin, 1978. |
Radical Protestants whose movement originated in sixteenth-century Switzerland. The name literally means 'rebaptizers' from their belief in adult baptism. Their fundamentalist outlook led them to see the church as a voluntary association, radically separate from civil government. The Anabaptists acquired political notoriety when they gained control of the city of Mnster in 1534 and instituted a short-lived communist theocracy. See REFORMATION POLITICAL .THOUGHT.
DLM |
| | Cohn, N.: The Pursuit of the Millennium, ch. 13. London: Paladin, 1970. |
| The core of anarchism is the doctrine that society can and should be organized without the coercive authority of the state. |
| Although it is possible to find anarchist tendencies in the thought of many individuals stretching back to antiquity, the first political theorist to argue unequivocally for a stateless society was G ODWIN in a book published in 1793; the first to call himself an anarchist was P ROUDHON . Anarchism as an ideology had its greatest influence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when revolutionary movements of this persuasion emerged in a number of western countries. More recently its impact has weakened, although numbers of individuals continue to think of themselves as anarchists, and sporadically impinge on the political scene. |
| Anarchist thinkers by no means form a homogeneous group, and at times they may seem to be held together only by their recognition of a common enemy, the state. They differ most overtly about the economic arrangements that should prevail in a stateless society: on this question anarchists form a spectrum, ranging from defenders of private property and free competition in the market, to advocates of complete common ownership, co-operative labour and distribution according to need. These differences, which will be analysed in greater depth below, reflect divergences of view on more fundamental questions, such as the meaning of JUSTICE and FREEDOM , and the possibilities of HUMAN NATURE. |
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