Letter: Unfair to Anarchism (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unfair to Anarchism

I should like to take issue with your comments on anarchism in the June issue. You claim that anarchists see “not the capitalist system but ‘authority’ as their enemy” and that it is difficult to generalize about anarchists due to their varying opinions. I find the latter remark inconsistent with your subsequent claim that many anarchists call for social reforms, and that therefore anarchism in general should be dismissed (“we have nothing in common with that”). The behaviour of individual “anarchists” has little to do with the classical principles of anarchy which derive from the theories of Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta and others.

A principle held in common by all anarchists is that the revolution must be social (see your own Declaration of Principles), though it must clearly involve a physical aspect (I believe starting with the appropriation of the means of production by the members of the working class). Equally clearly, the capitalist system is an inevitable manifestation of authority. Government of an individual’s life must rest very largely in the individual’s hands. He may be recommended to do something, but once he is told what to do, whether by a government in Whitehall or by a local union, he becomes subservient to "society”. This is where a new class structure inevitably develops, of the governors and the governed. Such a development, like the Russian Revolution, the French Revolution, and all the other social democratic revolutions, is merely social reform.

To achieve social revolution, it is necessary to subvert the system, not manipulate its own means to the “revolutionary” end, this is a dead end. Subversion is possible where capitalism is weak and unrest comes to the surface. Most people are ready to consider ideas propounded for decades by syndicalists and libertarian communists, though most would probably shrink in horror at the name of “Anarchy”. World revolution must start where the State is most firmly entrenched in capitalist industrialism, trying to destroy the system or to take it over is futile in less “developed” areas. As alienation grows in the industrialized, militarized countries, so does the potential for anarchic revolution. Worrying about the social reformism of fringe anarchist/liberals, such as even appear to be involved in Freedom to some extent, would seem to be rather off the point.

Nicolas James

Reading

Reply:

Your letter illustrates our statement about the varying opinions of anarchists. It claims, in effect, that the ideas of “syndicalists and libertarian communists” alone are true anarchism. But what would the editors and contributors of Freedom say to the suggestion that they are only “fringe anarchist/liberals”? And if the behaviour of individual “anarchists” (your inverted commas conveying an upturned nose) has "little to do with the classical principles of anarchy”, what has it to do with? This reads like a dismissal of the people whom you later say are alienated and ready for anarchist revolution.

Your statements about capitalism do not mention its central feature—exploitation. Nor do you explain where authority and the “governors and governed” position come from; to say a class structure develops from people being told what to do turns things upside down. What this is about is political power. It exists to gain or sustain class ownership. The Russian and French Revolutions (and the English, American, Chinese and others) were the securing of political power by representatives of in-coming capitalism to give legal sanction to its becoming the social system. You say these revolutions were “merely social reform”, presumably because they did not liberate the people at large. They were not intended to: the liberty preached in them was for the capitalist class.

The authority and subservience against which anarchists rebel derive from class ownership. The state is its instrument. Though anarchists deny a priori any possibility of using the state to change society, in fact it is the only possible means. The section which has the obvious interest in social revolution is the working class, the great majority; and to change the ownership basis they must go to the point where ownership is maintained.

On reformism, the magazine Anarchy No. 3, May 1961, had an editorial article “Moving With the Times . . . But not in Step”, making anarchist proposals for the 1960s. Under various headings it advocated participation in movements for criminal reform, education reform, devolution, and community work in undeveloped countries. There is good reason to “shrink with horror at the name of ‘Anarchy’ But these recommendations were made while citing Godwin, Thoreau, Kropotkin and other “classical” theorists, and must be taken as representing anarchism.

Editors.