Anthropology and Anarchism
Brian Morris
Appeared
in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed
There is, in many ways an "elective affinity" between
anthropology and anarchism. Although
anthropology's subject matter has been diverse, and its conspectus rather
broad -- as a study of human culture, historically it has always had a
rather specific focus -- on the study of pre-state societies.
But it is quite misleading to portray the anthropology of the past
as being simply the study of so-called "primitive" people or the
"exotic" other, and thus largely engaged in a kind of
"salvage" operation of "disappearing" cultures.
This is a rather biased and inaccurate portrait of anthropology,
for the discipline has a long tradition of "anthropology at
home," and many important anthropological studies have their location
in India, China and Japan. It
is thus noteworthy that James Clifford and George Marcus (1986) in what
many have regarded as the founding text of literary or post-modern
anthropology, are not only rather dismissive of feminist anthropology, but
ignore entirely the ethnographic studies of non-"Western"
scholars -- Srinivas, Kenyatta, Fei and Aiyappan. But in an important
sense anthropology is the social science discipline
that
has put a focal emphasis on those kinds of societies that have been seen
as exemplars of anarchy, a society without a state.
Indeed, Evans-Pritchard, in his classic study of The Nuer (1940),
described their political system as "ordered anarchy," Harold
Barclay's useful and perceptive little book People without government
(1992) is significantly subtitled "The Anthropology of
Anarchism," and Barclay makes the familiar distinction between
anarchy, which is an ordered society without government, and anarchism,
which is a political movement and tradition that became articulated during
the 19th century.
Anthropologists
and anarchism: Reclus, Bougle,
Mauss, Radcliffe-Brown
Many anthropologists have had affinities with anarchism. One of the earliest ethnographic texts was a book by Elie
Reclus called Primitive Folk. It
was published in 1903, and carries the sub-title "Studies in
Corporative Ethnology." It
is based on information derived from the writings of travelers and
missionaries, and it has the evolutionary flavour of books written at the
end of the 19th century, but it contains lucid and sympathetic accounts of
such people as the Apaches, Naytars, Todas and Inuits.
Reclus declares the moral and intellectual equality of these
cultures with that of "so-called civilized states", and it is of
interest that Reclus used the now familiar term Inuit, which means
"people," rather than the French term Eskimo.
Elie Reclus was the elder brother, and lifetime associate, of
Elisee, the more famous anarchist geographer.
Another French anthropologist with anarchist sympathies was
Celestin Bougle, who wrote not only a classical study of the Indian caste
system (1908) -- which had a profound influence on Louis Dumont -- but
also an important study of Proudhon. Bougle was one of the first to affirm, then (1911)
controversially, that Proudhon was a sociological thinker of standing.
There was in fact a close relationship between the French
sociological tradition, focussed around Durkheim, and both socialism and
anarchism, even though Durkheim himself was antagonistic to the anarchist
stress on the individual. Durkheim
was a kind of guild socialist, but his nephew Marcel Mauss wrote a
classical study on The Gift (1925) which focussed on reciprocal or gift
exchange among pre-literate cultures.
This small text is not only in some ways an anarchist tract, but it
is one of the foundation texts of anthropology, one read by every budding
anthropologist. British anthropologists have less connection with
anarchism, but it is worth noting that one of the so- called
"fathers" of British anthropology, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown was an
anarchist in his early years.
Alfred Brown was a lad from Birmingham.
He managed, with the help of his brother, to get to Oxford
University. There two
influences were important to him. One
was the process philosopher Alfred Whitehead, whose organismic theory had
a deep influence on Radcliffe-Brown.
The other was Kropotkin, whose writings he imbibed.
In his student days at Oxford Radcliffe-Brown was known as
"Anarchy Brown." Alas!
Oxford got to him. He later
became something of an intellectual aristocrat, and changed his name to
the hyphenated "A.R. Radcliffe-Brown."
But, as Tim Ingold has written (1986), Radcliffe-Brown's writings
are permeated with a sense that social life is a process, although like
most Durkheimian functionalists he tended to play down issues relating to
conflict, power and history.
Although anarchism has had a minimal influence on anthropology
--though many influential anthropologists can be described as radical
liberals and socialists (like Boas, Radin, and Diamond), anarchist writers
have drawn extensively on the work of anthropologists.
Indeed there is a real contrast between anarchists and Marxists
with respect to anthropology, for while anarchists have critically engaged
themselves with ethnographic studies, Marxist attitudes to anthropology
have usually been dismissive. In this respect Marxists have abandoned the
broad historical and ethnographic interests of Marx and Engels.
The famous study of Engels on The origin of the Family, Private
Property and the State (1884) is, of course, based almost entirely on
Lewis Morgan's anthropological study of Ancient Society (1877).
If one examines the writing of all the classical Marxists -- Lenin,
Trotsky, Gramsci, Lukacs -- they are distinguished by a wholly Eurocentric
perspective, and a complete disregard for anthropology. The entry under
"Anthropology" in A Dictionary of Marxist Thought (Bottomore,
1983), significantly has nothing to report between Marx and Engels in the
19th century, and the arrival on the scene of French Marxist
anthropologists in the 1970s (Godelier, Meillassoux).
Equally amazing is that one Marxist text, specifically on
Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production (Hindness and Hirst, 1975), not only
suggested that the "objects" of theoretical discourses did not
exist -- and so rejected history as a worthwhile subject of study, but
completely bypassed anthropological knowledge.
This is matched of course by the dismissive attitude towards
anarchism by Marxist scholars -- Perry Anderson, Wallerstein and E.P.
Thompson are examples.
Anarchists
& Anthropology: Kropotkin, Bookchin, Clastres, Zerzan
Kropotkin is well known. But
being a geographer as well as an anarchist, and having traveled widely in
Asia, Kropotkin had wide ethnographic interests.
This is most clearly expressed in his classic text Mutual Aid published in 1903. In
this book Kropotkin attempted to show that both organic and social life
was not an arena where laissez-faire competition and conflict and the
"survival of the fittest" was the only norm, but rather these
domains were characterized by "mutuality" and
"symbiosis." It was
the ecological dimension of Darwin's thought, expressed in the last
chapter of On the Origin of Species, that was crucial for Kropotkin;
co-operation not struggle was the important factor in the evolutionary
process. This is exemplified
by the ubiquitous lichen, one of the most basic forms of life and found
practically everywhere.
Kropotkin's book gives lengthy accounts of mutual aid not only
among hunter-gatherers and such people as the Buryat and Kabyle (now
well-known through Bourdieu's writings), but also in the medieval city and
in contemporary European societies. In
a A.S.A. monograph on socialism (edited by Chris Hann, 1993) two articles
specifically examine anarchy among contemporary people.
Alan Barnard looks at the issues of "primitive communism"
and "mutual aid" among the Kalahari hunter-gatherers, while
Joanna Overing discusses "anarchy and collectivism" among the
horticultural Piaroa of Venezuela. Barnard's
essay has the sub-title "Kropotkin visits the Bushmen,"
indicating that anarchism is still a live issue among some
anthropologists.
Kropotkin was concerned to examine the "creative genius"
of people living at what he described as the "clan period" of
human history, and the development of institutions of mutual aid.
But this did not entail the repudiation of individual
self-assertion and unlike many contemporary anthropologists, Kropotkin
make a distinction between individuality and self-affirmation, and
individualism.
Murry Bookchin is a controversial figure.
His advocacy of citizen's councils and municipal self management,
his emphasis on the city as a potential ecological community, and his
strident critiques of the misanthropy and eco-mysticism of the deep
ecologists are perhaps well known, and the centre of many debates -- much
of it acrimonious. But
Bookchin's process-oriented dialectical approach and his sense of history
-- alive to the achievements of the human spirit -- inevitably led
Bookchin to draw on anthropological studies.
The main influences on his work were Paul Radio and Dorothy Lee,
both sensitive scholars of native American culture.
In his The Ecology of Freedom (1982), Bookchin devotes a chapter to
what he describes a "organic society," emphasizing the important
features of early human tribal-society: a primordial equality and the
absence of coercive and domineering values, a feeling of unity between the
individual and the kin community, a sense of communal property and and
emphasis on mutual aid and usufruct rights, and a relationship with the
natural world which is one of reciprocal harmony rather then of
domination. But Bookchin is
concerned that we draw lesson s from the past, and learn from the culture
of pre-literate people, rather than romanticizing the life of
hunter-gatherers. Still less,
that we should try to emulate them.
Pierre Clastres was both an anarchist and an anthropologist. His minor classic, on the Indian communities of South America
-- specifically the forest Guayaki (Ache) -- is significantly titled
Society Against the State (1977). Like
Tom Paine and the early anarchists, Clastres makes a clear distinction
between society, as a pattern of social relations, and the state, and
argues that the essence of what he describes as "archaic"
societies -- whether hunter-gatherers or horticultural (neo-lithic)
peoples -- is that effective means are institutionalized to prevent power
from being separated from social life.
He bewails the act that western political philosophy is unable to
see power except in terms of "hierarchized and authoritarian
relations of command and obedience," (p.9) and thus equated power
with coercive power. Reviewing the ethnographic literature of the people of South
America -- apart from the Inca State -- Clastres argues that they were
distinguished by their "sense of democracy and taste for
equality," and that even local chief lacked coercive power. What
constituted the basic fabric of archaic society, according to Clastres,
was exchange, coercive power, in essence, being a negation of reciprocity.
He contends that the aggressiveness of tribal communities has been
grossly exaghgerated, and that a subsistence economy did not imply an
endless struggle against starvation, for in normal circumstances there was
an abundance and variety of things to eat.
Such communities were essentially egalitarian, and people had a
high degree of control over their own lives and work activities.
But the decisive "break" for Clastres, between
"archaic" and "historical" societies was not the
Neolithic revolution and the advent of agriculture, but the
"political revolution" involving the intensification of
agriculture and the emergence of the state.
The key points of Clastres' analysis have recently been affirmed by
John Gledhill (1994, pp.13-15). It
provides a valuable critique of western political theory which identifies
power with coercive authority; and it suggests looking at history less in
terms of typologies than as a process in which human activities have
maintained their own autonomy and resisted the centralizing intrusions and
exploitation inherent in the state. While for Clastres and Bookchin
political domination and hierarchy begin with the intensification of
agriculture, and the rise of the state, for John Zerzan the domestication
of plants and animals heralds the demise of an era when humans lived an
authentic, free life. Agriculture,
per se, is a form of alienation; it implies a loss on contact with the
world of nature and a controlling mentality.
The advent of agriculture thus entails the "end of
innocence" and the demise of the "golden age" as humans
left the "Garden of Eden," though Eden is identified not with a
garden but with hunter- gathering existence.
Given this advocacy of "primitivism," it is hardly
surprising that Zerzan (1988, 1994) draws o anthropological data to
validate his claims, and to portray hunter-gatherers as egalitarian,
authentic, and as the "most successful and enduring adaptation ever
achieved by humankind" (1988, p.66).
Even symbolic culture and the shamanism associated with
hunter-gatherers is seen by Zerzan as implying an orientation to
manipulate and control nature or other humans. Zerzan presents an apocalyptic, even a gnostic vision.
Our hunter-gatherer past is described as an idyllic era of virtue
and authentic living. The
last eight thousand years or so of human history -- after the fall
(agriculture) -- is seen as one of tyranny, hierarchical control,
mechanized routine devoid of any spontaneity, and as involving the
anesthetization of the senses. All
those products of the human creative imagination -- farming, art,
philosophy, technology, science, urban living, symbolic culture – are
viewed negatively by Zerzan -- in a monolithic sense.
The future we are told is "primitive."
How this is to be achieved in a world that presently sustains
almost six billion people (for evidence suggests that the hunter-gather
lifestyle is only able to support 1 or 2 people per sq. mile), or whether
the "future primitive" actually entails, in Gnostic fashion, a
return not to the godhead, but to hunter-gathering subsistence, Zerzan
does not tell us. While
radical ecologists glorify the golden age of peasant agriculture, Zerzan
follows the likes of Van Der Post in extolling hunter-gatherer existence
-- with a selective culling of the anthropological literature.
Whether such "illusory images of Green primitivism" are,
in themselves, symptomatic of the estrangement of affluent urban dwellers
and intellectuals, from the natural (and human) world -- as both Bookchin
(1995) and Ray Ellen (1986) suggest -- I will leave others to judge.
Reflections
on anarchism
The term anarchy comes from the Greek, and essentially means
"no ruler." Anarchists
are people who reject all forms of government or coercive authority, all
forms of hierarchy and domination. They
are therefore opposed to what the Mexican anarchist Flores Magon called
the "sombre trinity" -- state, capital and the church.
Anarchists are thus opposed to both capitalism and to the state, as
well as to all forms of religious authority.
But anarchists also seek to establish or bring about by varying
means, a condition of anarchy, that is, a decentralized society without
coercive institutions, a society organized through a federation of
voluntary associations. Contemporary
right-wing "libertarians," like Milton Friedman, Rothbard and
Ayn Rand, who are often described as "anarcho-capitalists," and
who fervently defend capitalism, are not in any real sense anarchists.
In an important sense anarchists support the rallying cry of the
French revolution: liberty, equality and fraternity -- and strongly
believe that these values are inter-dependent.
As Bakunin remarked: "Freedom without socialism is privilege
and injustice; and socialism without freedom is slavery and
brutality." Needless to say, anarchists have always been critical of
soviet communism, and the most powerful and penetrating critiques of Marx,
Marxist-Leninism, and the Soviet regime have come from anarchists: people
like Berkman, Goldman, and Maximoff.
The latter's work was significantly entitled: The Guillotine at
Work (1940). Maximoff saw the
politics of Lenin and Trotsky as similar to that of the Jacobins in the
French revolution, and equally reactionary.
With the collapse of the Soviet regime, Marxists are now in a state
of intellectual disarray, and are floundering around looking for a safe
political anchorage. They
seem to gravitate either towards Hayek or towards Keynes; whichever way
their socialism gets lost in the process. Conservative writers like Roger
Scruton take great pleasure in berating Marxists for having closed their
eyes to the realities of the Soviet regime: they ;themselves, however,
have a myopia when it comes to capitalism.
The poverty, famine, sickening social inequalities, political
repression and ecological degradation that is generated under capitalism
is always underplayed by apologists like Scruton and Fukuyama.
They see these as simply "problems" that need to be
overcome -- not as intrinsically related to capitalism itself.
Anarchism
can be looked at in two ways:
On the one hand it can be seen as a kind of "river," as
Peter Marshall describes it in his excellent history of anarchism.
It can thus be seen as a "libertarian impulse" or as an
"anarchist sensibility" that has existed throughout human
history: an impulse that has expressed itself in various ways -- in the
writings of Lao Tzu and the Taoists, in classical Greek thought, in the
mutuality of kin-based societies, in the ethos of various religious sects,
in such agrarian movements as the Diggers in England and the Zapatistas of
Mexico, in the collectives that sprang up during the Spanish civil war,
and -- currently -- in the ideas expressed in the ecology and feminist
movements. Anarchist tendencies seem to have expressed themselves in all
religious movements, even in Islam. One
Islamic sect, the Najadat, believed that "power belongs only to
god." They therefore
felt that they did not really need an imam or caliph, but could organize
themselves mutually to ensure justice.
Many years ago I wrote an article o Lao Tzu, suggesting that the
famous Tao Te Ching ("The Way and its Power," as Waley
translates it) should not be seen as a mystical religious tract (as it is
normally understood), but rather as a political treatise.
It is, in fact, the first anarchist tract.
For the underlying philosophy of the Tao Te Ching is fundamentally
anarchist, as Rudolf Rocker long ago noted.
On the other hand anarchism may be seen as a historical movement
and political theory that had its beginnings at the end of the 18th
century. It was expressed in the writings of William Godwin, who wrote the
classic anarchist text An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1798), as
well as in the actions of the sans-colottes and the enrages during the
French revolution, and by radicals like Thomas Spence and William Blake in
Britain. The term "anarchist" was first used during the
French revolution as a term of abuse in describing
the sans-culottes - "without breeches"- the working
people of France who during the revolution advocated the abolition of
government. Anarchism,
as a social movement, developed during the 19th century.
Its basic social philosophy was formulated by the Russian revolutionary
Michael Bakunin. It was the
outcome of his clashes with Karl Marx and his followers - who advocated a
statist road to socialism - during meetings of the International Working
Men's Association in the 1860's. In
it's classic form, therefore, as it was expressed by Kropotkin, Goldman,
Reclus and Malatesta, anarchism was a significant part of the socialist
movement in the years before the first World War, but it's socialism was
libertarian not Marxist. The
tendency of writers like David Pepper (1996) to create a dichotomy between
socialism and anarchism is, I think, both conceptually and historically
misleading.
Misconceptions
of anarchism
Of all political philosophies anarchism has had perhaps the worst
press. It has been ignored,
maligned, ridiculed, abused, misunderstood, and misrepresented by writers
from all sides of the political spectrum -- Marxists, liberals, democrats
and conservatives. Theodore
Roosevelt, the American president, described anarchism as a "crime
against the whole human race" -- and it has been variously judged as
destructive, violent and nihilistic.
A number of criticisms have been lodged against anarchism, and I
will deal briefly with eight.
1. It is
said that anarchists are too innocent, too naive, and have too rosy a
picture of human nature. It
is said that, like Rousseau, they have a romantic view of human nature
which they see as essentially good and peace-loving.
But of course real humans are not like this; they are cruel and
aggressive and selfish, and so anarchy is just a pipe dream.
It is an unrealistic vision of a past golden age that never really
existed. This being so, some
form of coercive authority is always necessary.
The truth is that anarchists do not follow Rousseau. In fact, Bakunin was scathing in his criticisms of the 18th
century philosopher. Most
anarchists tend to think humans have both good and bad tendencies.
If they did think humans all goodness and light, would they mind
being ruled? It is because they have a realistic rather then a romantic
view of human nature, that they oppose all forms of coercive authority.
In essence, anarchists oppose all power which the French describe
as "puissance" - "power over" (rather than "pouvoir",
the power to do something), and believe -like Lord Action- that power
corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
As Paul Goodman wrote: "...the issue is not whether people are
'good enough' for a particular type of society; rather it is a matter of
developing the kind of social institutions that are most conducive to
expanding the potentialities we have for intelligence, grace, sociability
and freedom."
2. Anarchy,
it is believed, is a synonym for chaos and disorder.
This is, in fact, how people often use the term.
But anarchy, as understood by most anarchists, means the exact
opposite of this. It means a
society based on order. Anarchy
means not chaos or a lack of organization, but a society based on the
autonomy of the individual, on co-operation, one without rulers or
coercive authority. As
Proudhon put it: liberty is the mother of order. But equally anarchists do
not denounce chaos, for they see chaos and disorder as having inherent
potentiality -- as Bakunin put it: to destroy is a creative act.
3. Another
equation made is that between anarchism and violence. Anarchism, it is
said, is all about terrorist bombs and violence.
And there is a book currently in the bookshops entitled The
Anarchists' Cookbook all about how to make bombs and dynamite.
But as Alexander Berkman wrote: the resort to violence against
oppression or to obtain certain political objectives has been practiced
throughout human history. Acts
of violence have been committed y the followers of every political and
religious creed: nationalists, liberals, socialists, feminists,
republicans, monarchists, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, democrats,
conservatives, fascists ... and every government is based on organized
violence. Anarchists who have
resorted to violence are no worse than anybody else.
But most anarchists have been against violence and terrorism, and
there has always been a strong link between anarchism and pacifism.
Yet anarchists go one step further: they challenge the violence
that most people do not recognize and which is often of the worst possible
kind; this is lawful violence.
4. Anarchist have been accused, especially by Marxists, of being
theoretical blockheads, of being anti-intellectual, or of making a cult of
mindless action. But as a
perusal of the anarchist movement will indicate, many anarchists or people
with anarchist sympathies have been among the finest intellects of their
generations, truly creative people. Moreover, anarchists have produced
many seminal texts outlining their own philosophy and their own social
doctrines. These are
generally free of the jargon and the pretension that passes as scholarship
amongst many liberal scholars, Marxists and post-modernists.
5. Another criticism
is the opposite of this: it ridicules anarchism for being apolitical, and
a doctrine of inaction. Anarchists,
according to the ex-doyen of the Green Party in Britain, Jonathan Porritt,
do nothing but contemplate their own navels. Because they do not engage in
party politics he suggests that anarchists do not live in the "real
world". All the essential themes of the Green Party manifesto - the
call for a society that is decentralized, equitable, ecological,
co-operative, with flexible institutions -- are of course simply an
unacknowledged appropriation of what anarchist like Kropotkin had long ago
advocated -- but with Porritt this vision is simply hitched to party
politics. As a media figure Porritt completely misunderstands what
anarchism -- and a decentralized society -- is all about.
Anarchism is not non-political.
Nor does it advocate a retreat into prayer, self-indulgence or
meditation, whether or not one contemplates one's navel or chants mantras.
It is simply hostile to parliamentary pr party politics.
The only democracy it thinks valid, is participatory democracy, and
considers putting an X on a piece of paper every four or five years is a
sham. It serves only to give
ideological justification to power holders in a society that is
fundamentally hierarchical and undemocratic.
Anarchists are of many kinds.
They have therefore suggested various ways of challenging and
transforming the present system of violence and inequality -- through
communes, passive resistance, syndicalism, municipal democracy,
insurrection, direct action and education.
One of the reasons why some anarchists have put a lot of emphasis
on publishing propaganda and education, is that they have always eschewed
party organization as well as violence.
Anarchists have always been critical of the notion of a vanguard
party, seeing it as inevitably leading to some form of despotism.
And with regard to both the French and Russian revolutions history
has proved their premonitions correct.
6. A
consistent critique of anarchism offered by Marxists is that it is utopian
and romantic, a peasant or petty-bourgeois ideology, or an expression of
millennial dreams. Concrete historical studies by John Hart on anarchism and the
Mexican working class (1978) and by Jerome Mintz on the anarchists of
Casas Viejas in Spain (1982) have more than adequately refuted some of the
distortions about anarchism. The
anarchist movement has not been confined to peasants: it has flourished
among urban workers where anarcho-syndicalism developed. Nor is it utopian or millennial. Anarchists have established
real collectives, and have always been critical of religion.
Nobody among the early anarchists expected some immediate or
cataclysmic change to occur through "propaganda by deed" or the
"general strike" - as the writings of Reclus and Berkman attest.
They realized it would be a long haul.
7. Another
criticism of anarchism is that it has a narrow view of politics: that it
sees the state as the fount of all evil, ignoring other aspects of social
and economic life. this is a misrepresentation of anarchism.
It partly derives from the way anarchism has been defined, and
partly because Marxist historians have tried to exclude anarchism from the
broader socialist movement. But
when one examines the writings of classical anarchists like Kropotkin,
Goldman, Malatesta and Tolstoy, as well as the character of anarchist
movements in such places as Italy, Mexico, Spain and France, it is clearly
evident that it has never had this limited vision. It has always
challenged all forms of authority and exploitation, and has been equally
critical of capitalism and religion as it has of the state.
Most anarchists were feminists, and many spoke out against racism,
as well as defending the freedom of children.
A cultural and ecological critique of capitalism has always been an
important dimension of anarchist writings.
This is why the writings of Tolstoy, Reclus and Kropotkin still
have contemporary relevance.
8. A final
criticism of anarchism is that it is unrealistic; anarchy will never work.
The market socialist David Miller expresses this view very well in
his book on Anarchism (1984). His
attitude to anarchism is one of heads I win, tails you lose. He admits that communities based on anarcho-communist
principles have existed, and "given a chance" have had some
degree of "unexpected success."
But due to lack of popular support and state intervention ;and
repression they have, he writes, always been "failures."
On the other hand he also argues that societies could not exist
anyway without some form of centralized government.
Miller seems oblivious to the fact that what Stanley Diamond called
"kin-communities" have long existed within and often in
opposition to state systems, and that trading networks have existed
throughout history, even among hunter-gatherers, without any state
control. The state, in any
case, is a recent historical phenomena, and in its modern nation-state
form has only existed for a few hundred years.
Human communities have long existed without central or coercive
authority. Whether a complex
technological society is possible without centralized authority is not a
question easily answered; neither is it one that can be lightly dismissed. Many anarchists believe that such a society is possible,
though technology will have to be on a "human scale."
Complex systems exist in nature without there being any controlling
mechanism. Indeed, many
global theorists nowadays are beginning to contemplate libertarian social
vistas that become possible in an age of computer technology.
Needless to say, if Miller had applied the same criteria by which
he so adversely adjudges anarchism – distributive justice and social
well-being -- to capitalism and state "communism" then perhaps
he would have declared both these systems unpractical and unrealistic too?
But at least Miller wants to rescue anarchism from the dustbin of
history -- to help us to curb abuses of power, and to keep alive the
possibilities of free social relationships.
Society, we are told, by such authorities as Friedrich Hayek,
Margaret Thatcher, and Marilyn Strathern, either does not exist, or it is
a "confused category" that ought to be excised from theoretical
discourse. The word derives, of course, from the Latin, Societas, which in
turn derives from Socius, meaning a companion, a friend, a relationship
between people, a shared activity. Anarchists
have thus always drawn a clear distinction between society, in this sense,
and the state: between what the Jewish existentialist scholar Martin Buber
called the "political" and the "social" principles.
Buber was a close friend of the anarchist Gustav Landauer, and what
Landauer basically argued -- long before Foucault – was that the state
could not be destroyed by revolution: it could only be undermined -- by
developing other kinds of relationships, by actualising social patterns
and forms of organization that involved mutuality and free co-operation.
Such a social domain is always in a sense present, imminent in
contemporary society, co-existing with the state.
For Landauer, as for Colin Ward, anarchy, therefore, is not
something that only existed long ago before the rise of the state, or
exists now only among people like the Nharo or Piaroa living at the
margins of capitalism. Nor is
it simply a speculative vision of some future society: but rather, anarchy
is a form of social life which organizes itself without the resort to
coercive authority. It is
always in existence -- albeit often buried and unrecognized beneath the
weight of capitalism and the state. It
is like "a seed beneath the snow," as Colin Ward (1973)
graphically puts it. Anarchy,
then, is simply the idea, to stay with the same writer, "that it is
possible and desirable for society to organize itself without
government."
