anarchist school of thought

Anarchism is the political philosophy which holds ruling classes and the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, The following sources cite anarchism as a political philosophy: Slevin, Carl. "Anarchism." ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics''. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003. or alternatively as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations.

Proponents of anarchism, known as anarchists, advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. However, anarchist schools of thought can differ fundamentally, supporting anything from extreme individualism to complete collectivism to more syncretic tendencies (such as Insurrectionary anarchism). Strains of anarchism have often been divided into the categories of social anarchism and individualist anarchism or similar dual classifications, also including green anarchism and post-left anarchism. Ostergaard, Geoffrey. "Anarchism". ''The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought''. Blackwell Publishing. p. 14.

Anarchism is usually considered a radical left-wing or far-left ideology. and much of anarchist economics and legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarian interpretations of radical left-wing and socialist politics such as communism, collectivism, the free-market, individualism, mutualism, parecon and syndicalism, among other libertarian socialist philosophies. At some point, "the collectivist, communist, and liberal and individualist strands of thought from which anarchists drew their inspiration began to assume an increasingly distinctive quality, supporting the rise of a number of anarchist schools".

Anthropologist David Graeber has noted that while the major Marxist schools of thought always have founders (e.g. Leninism, Trotskyism and Maoism), schools of anarchism "almost invariably emerge from some kind of organizational principle or form of practice", citing anarcho-syndicalism, individualist anarchism and platformism as examples.David Graeber and Andrej Grubacic,
Anarchism, Or The Revolutionary Movement Of The Twenty-first Century
, ZNet. Retrieved 13 December 2007.

Classical anarchism

The decades of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries constitute the belle époque of anarchist history.Levy, Carl (2004). "Anarchism, Internationalism and Nationalism in Europe, 1860–1939". ''Australian Journal of Politics and History''. 50 (3): 337–338. In this classical era, roughly defined as the 1840s or the 1860s to 1939, anarchism played a prominent role in working-class struggles alongside Marxism in Europe as well as North and Latin America, Asia and Australia. Modernism, mass migration, railroads and access to printing all helped anarchists to advance their causes.

Mutualism

Mutualism began in 18th-century English and French labor movements, then took an anarchist form associated with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in France and others in the United States. This influenced individualist anarchists in the United States such as Benjamin Tucker and William B. Greene. Josiah Warren proposed similar ideas in 1833 after participating in a failed Owenite experiment. In the 1840s and 1850s, Charles A. Dana and William Batchelder Greene introduced Proudhon's works to the United States. Greene adapted Proudhon's mutualism to American conditions and introduced it to Benjamin Tucker.

Mutualist anarchism is concerned with reciprocity, free association, voluntary contract, federation and credit and currency reform. Many mutualists believe a market without government intervention drives prices down to labor-costs, eliminating profit, rent and interest according to the labor theory of value. Firms would be forced to compete over workers just as workers compete over firms, raising wages.

Some see mutualism as between individualist and collectivist anarchism. In ''What Is Property?'', Proudhon develops a concept of "liberty", equivalent to "anarchy", which is the dialectical "synthesis of communism and property". Greene, influenced by Pierre Leroux, sought mutualism in the synthesis of three philosophies—communism, capitalism and socialism. Later individualist anarchists used the term mutualism, but retained little emphasis on synthesis while social anarchists such as the authors of ''An Anarchist FAQ'' claim mutualism as a subset of their philosophical tradition.Are there different types of social anarchism?
", An Anarchist FAQ. Retrieved 13 December 2007.

Social anarchism

Social anarchism is a broad category of anarchism independent of individualist anarchism. Where individualist forms of anarchism emphasize personal autonomy and the rational nature of human beings, social anarchism sees "individual freedom as conceptually connected with social equality and emphasize community and mutual aid". Social anarchism is used to specifically describe anarchist tendencies within anarchism that have an emphasis on the communitarian and cooperative aspects of anarchist theory and practice. Social anarchism includes (but is not limited to) collectivist anarchism, anarcho-communism, libertarian socialism, anarcho-syndicalism and social ecology.

Collectivist anarchism

Collectivist anarchism is a revolutionaryPatsouras, Louis. 2005. Marx in Context. iUniverse. p. 54 form of anarchism most commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin, Johann Most and the anti-authoritarian section of the First International. Unlike mutualists, collectivist anarchists oppose all private ownership of the means of production, instead advocating that ownership be collectivized. This was to be initiated by small cohesive elite group through acts of violence, or "propaganda by the deed", which would inspire the workers to revolt and forcibly collectivize the means of production. Workers would be compensated for their work on the basis of the amount of time they contributed to production, rather than goods being distributed "according to need" as in anarcho-communism. Although the collectivist anarchists advocated compensation for labor, some held out the possibility of a post-revolutionary transition to a communist system of distribution according to need. Collective anarchism arose contemporaneously with Marxism, but it opposed the Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat despite Marxism striving for a collectivist stateless society.

Some collectivist anarchists do not oppose the use of currency. Some support workers being paid based on the amount of time they contributed to production. These salaries would be used to purchase commodities in a communal market. This contrasts with anarcho-communism where wages would be abolished and where individuals would take freely from a storehouse of goods "to each according to his need". Many modern-day collectivist anarchists hold their form of anarchism as a permanent society rather than a carryover to anarcho-communism or a gift economy. Some collectivist anarchists such as proponents of participatory economics believe in remuneration and a form of credit but do not believe in money or markets.

Although collectivist anarchism shares many similarities with anarchist communism, there are several key differences between them. For example, collectivist anarchists believe that the economy and most or all property should be collectively owned by society while anarchist communists by contrast believe that the concept of ownership should be rejected by society and replaced with the concept of usage. In addition, collectivist anarchists often favor using a form of currency to compensate workers according to the amount of time spent contributing to society and production while anarcho-communists believe that currency and wages should be abolished all together and goods should be distributed " to each according to his or her need".

Anarcho-communism

Anarcho-communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, markets, money, private property (while retaining respect for personal property) and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".

Some forms of anarchist communism such as insurrectionary anarchism are strongly influenced by egoism and radical individualism, believing anarcho-communism is the best social system for the realization of individual freedom._"Towards_the_creative_Nothing"_by_Renzo_Novatore
_"Towards_the_creative_Nothing"_by_Renzo_Novatore
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Post-left anarchy">Post-left anarcho-communist Bob Black after analysing Insurrectionary anarchism">insurrectionary anarcho-communist Luigi Galleani's view on anarcho-communism went as far as saying that "communism is the final fulfillment of individualism...The apparent contradiction between individualism and communism rests on a misunderstanding of both...Subjectivity is also objective: the individual really is subjective. It is nonsense to speak of "emphatically prioritizing the social over the individual,"...You may as well speak of prioritizing the chicken over the egg. Anarchy is a "method of individualization." It aims to combine the greatest individual development with the greatest communal unity
Bob Black. ''Nightmares of Reason''.
Most anarcho-communists view it as a way of reconciling the opposition between the individual and society.

Anarcho-communism developed out of radical socialist currents after the French Revolution,From Wage slavery: Robert Graham, '' Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas – Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE to 1939)'', Black Rose Books, 2005 but it was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International.Nunzio Pernicone, "Italian Anarchism 1864–1892", pp. 111–13, AK Press 2009. The theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin took importance later as it expanded and developed pro-organizationalist and insurrectionary anti-organizationalist sections."This inability to break definitively with collectivism in all its forms also exhibited itself over the question of the workers' movement, which divided anarchist-communism into a number of tendencies
"Anarchist-Communism" by Alain Pengam

To date, the best-known examples of an anarchist communist society, i.e. established around the ideas as they exist today and achieving worldwide attention and knowledge in the historical canon) are the anarchist territories after the Russian Revolution, the Korean People's Association in Manchuria and the Spanish Revolution.

During the Russian Civil War, anarchists such as Nestor Makhno worked through the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine to create and defend anarcho-communism in Ukraine from 1919 before being conquered by the Bolsheviks in 1921. In 1929, anarcho-communism was achieved in Manchuria by the Korean People's Association in Manchuria (KPAM), with help from anarchist general and independence activist Kim Chwa-chin, lasting until 1931, when Imperial Japan assassinated Kim and invaded from the south while the Chinese Nationalists invaded from the north, resulting in the creation of Manchukuo, a puppet state of the Empire of Japan. Through the efforts and influence of the Spanish anarchists during the Spanish Revolution within the Spanish Civil War, starting in 1936 anarcho-communism existed in most of Aragon; parts of Andalusia and the Levante; and in the stronghold of Revolutionary Catalonia, before being crushed by the combined forces of fascist Francoism, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy as well as Spanish Communist Party repression backed by the Soviet Union and economic and armaments blockades from the capitalist countries and the Spanish Republic itself.

Individualist anarchism

Individualist anarchism is a set of several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and their will over any kinds of external determinants such as groups, society, traditions and ideological systems."What do I mean by individualism? I mean by individualism the moral doctrine which, relying on no dogma, no tradition, no external determination, appeals only to the individual conscience
''Mini-Manual of Individualism'' by Han Ryner
"I do not admit anything except the existence of the individual, as a condition of his sovereignty. To say that the sovereignty of the individual is conditioned by Liberty is simply another way of saying that it is conditioned by itself.""Anarchism and the State" in ''Individual Liberty''

Philosophical anarchism

In founding philosophical anarchism, William Godwin developed what many consider the first expression of modern anarchist thought. According to Peter Kropotkin, Godwin was "the first to formulate the political and economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas developed in his work".Peter Kropotkin
"Anarchism"
, ''Encyclopædia Britannica, 1910'' Philosophical anarchism contends that the state lacks moral legitimacy; that there is no individual obligation or duty to obey the state and conversely that the state has no right to command individuals, but it does not advocate revolution to eliminate the state. According to ''The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought'', philosophical anarchism "is a component especially of individualist anarchism".Outhwaite, William & Tourain, Alain (Eds.). (2003). Anarchism. ''The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought'' (2nd Edition, p. 12). Blackwell Publishing

Philosophical anarchists may accept the existence of a minimal state as an unfortunate and usually temporary "necessary evil", but argue that citizens do not have a moral obligation to obey the state when its laws conflict with individual autonomy. As conceived by Godwin, it requires individuals to act in accordance with their own judgments and to allow every other individual the same liberty—conceived egoistically as by Max Stirner, it implies that "the unique one" who truly "owns himself" recognizes no duties to others; and within the limit of his might, he does what is right for him. Godwin opposed revolutionary action and saw a minimal state as a present "necessary evil" that would become increasingly irrelevant and powerless by the gradual spread of knowledge. Godwin advocated extreme individualism, proposing that all cooperation in labor be eliminated. Godwin felt discrimination on any grounds besides ability was intolerable.

Rather than throwing bombs or taking up arms to bring down the state, philosophical anarchists "have worked for a gradual change to free the individual from what they thought were the oppressive laws and social constraints of the modern state and allow all individuals to become self-determining and value-creating". They may oppose the immediate elimination of the state by violent means out of concern that it would be left unsecured against the establishment of a more harmful and oppressive state. This is especially true among those anarchists who consider violence and the state as synonymous, or who consider it counterproductive where public reaction to violence results in increased "law enforcement" efforts.

Egoist anarchism

Egoist anarchism originated in the philosophy of Max Stirner, a 19th-century Hegelian philosopher whose "name appears with familiar regularity in historically orientated surveys of anarchist thought as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of individualist anarchism". Stirner's philosophy is usually called "egoism" as he says that the egoist rejects devotion to "a great idea, a cause, a doctrine, a system, a lofty calling", saying that the egoist has no political calling but rather "lives themselves out" without regard to "how well or ill humanity may fare thereby". Stirner held that the only limitation on the rights of the individual is his power to obtain what he desires. He proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions – including the notion of state, property as a right, natural rights in general and the very notion of society – were mere ''spooks'' in the mind. Stirner wanted to "abolish not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members".

Stirner's idea of the Union of egoists was first expounded in ''The Ego and Its Own''. The Union is understood as a non-systematic association, which Stirner proposed in contradistinction to the state. The Union is understood as a relation between egoists which is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will. The Union requires that all parties participate out of a conscious egoism. If one party silently finds themselves to be suffering, but puts up with it and keeps up appearances, the Union has degenerated into something else. This Union is not seen as an authority above a person's own will. This idea has received interpretations for politics, economic and sex/love.

Forms of libertarian communism such as insurrectionary anarchism are influenced by Stirner. Emma Goldman was influenced by both Stirner and Peter Kropotkin and blended their philosophies together in her own.

The Scottish-born German writer John Henry Mackay found out about Stirner while reading a copy of Friedrich Albert Lange's ''History of Materialism and Critique of its Present Importance''. Later, Mackay looked for a copy of ''The Ego and Its Own'' and after being fascinated with it he wrote a biography of Stirner (''Max Stirner – sein Leben und sein Werk''), published in German in 1898. Mackay's propaganda of stirnerist egoism and of male homosexual and bisexual rights affected Adolf Brand, who in 1896 published the world's first ongoing homosexual publication, ''Der Eigene''. Another later German anarchist publication influenced deeply by Stirner was ''Der Einzige''. It appeared in 1919, as a weekly, then sporadically until 1925 and was edited by cousins Anselm Ruest (pseud. for Ernst Samuel) and Mynona (pseudonym for Salomo Friedlaender).

Stirnerian egoism became a main influence on European individualist anarchism including its main proponents in the early 20th century such as Émile Armand and Han Ryner in France, Renzo Novatore in Italy, Miguel Giménez Igualada in Spain and in Russia Lev Chernyi. Illegalism was an anarchist practice that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland during the early 1900s that found justification in Stirner's philosophy. The illegalists openly embraced criminality as a lifestyle. Some American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker, abandoned natural rights positions and converted to Max Stirner's egoist anarchism. John Beverley Robinson wrote an essay called "Egoism" in which he states that " dern egoism, as propounded by Stirner and Nietzsche, and expounded by Ibsen, Shaw and others, is all these; but it is more. It is the realization by the individual that they are an individual; that, as far as they are concerned, they are the only individual". Anarchist communist Emma Goldman was influenced by both Stirner and Peter Kropotkin as well as the Russian strain of individualist anarchism and blended these philosophies together in her own, as shown in books of hers such as ''Anarchism And Other Essays''.Levy, Carl
"Anarchism"
Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2007
Archived
2009-10-31. Enrico Arrigoni (pseudonym: Frank Brand) was an Italian American individualist anarchist Lathe operator, house painter, bricklayer, dramatist and political activist influenced by the work of Stirner.Paul Avrich
''Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America''
. Stirner's philosophy also found followers in Colombia in Biófilo Panclasta and in Japan in Jun Tsuji and Sakae Osugi.

In the 1980s, it emerged in the United States the tendency of post-left anarchy which was influenced profoundly by Stirnerist egoism in aspects such as the critique of ideology.

Individualist anarchism in the United States

Josiah Warren is widely regarded as the first American anarchistPalmer, Brian (29 December 2010
What do anarchists want from us?
, ''Slate.com'' and the four-page weekly paper he edited during 1833, ''The Peaceful Revolutionist'', was the first anarchist periodical published. For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster, " is apparent...that Proudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism of Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews... William B. Greene presented this Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most systematic form".''Native American Anarchism: A Study of Left-Wing American Individualism'' by Eunice Minette Schuster
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an important early influence in individualist anarchist thought in the United States and Europe. Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his books ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, as well as his essay, ''Civil Disobedience'', an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. Later, Benjamin Tucker fused Stirner's egoism with the economics of Warren and Proudhon in his eclectic influential publication ''Liberty''.

An important concern for American individualist anarchism was free love. Free love particularly stressed women's rights since most sexual laws discriminated against women—for example, marriage laws and anti-birth control measures. The most important American free love journal was ''Lucifer the Lightbearer'' (1883–1907) edited by Moses Harman and Lois Waisbrooker, but also there existed Ezra Heywood and Angela Heywood's '' ''The Word'''' (1872–1890, 1892–1893). ''Free Society'' (1895–1897 as ''The Firebrand''; 1897–1904 as ''Free Society'') was a major anarchist newspaper in the United States at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries."''Free Society'' was the principal English-language forum for anarchist ideas in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century." ''Emma Goldman: Making Speech Free, 1902–1909'', p. 551. The publication staunchly advocated free love and women's rights and critiqued " Comstockery" – censorship of sexual information. Also M. E. Lazarus was an important American individualist anarchist who promoted free love.

Freethought also motivated activism in this movement. "Freethought was a basically anti-christian, anti-clerical movement, whose purpose was to make the individual politically and spiritually free to decide for himself on religious matters. A number of contributors to ''Liberty'' (anarchist publication) were prominent figures in both freethought and anarchism. The individualist anarchist George MacDonald was a co-editor of ''Freethought'' and, for a time, ''The Truth Seeker''. E.C. Walker was co-editor of the excellent free-thought / free love journal ''Lucifer, the Light-Bearer''". "Many of the anarchists were ardent freethinkers; reprints from freethought papers such as ''Lucifer, the Light-Bearer'', ''Freethought'' and ''The Truth Seeker'' appeared in ''Liberty''...The church was viewed as a common ally of the state and as a repressive force in and of itself".

Individualist anarchism in Europe

European Individualist anarchism proceeded from the roots laid by William Godwin,Woodcock, George. 2004. ''Anarchism: A History Of Libertarian Ideas And Movements''. Broadview Press. p. 20. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Max Stirner. Proudhon was an early pioneer of anarchism as well as of the important individualist anarchist current of mutualism. Stirner became a central figure of individualist anarchism through the publication of his seminal work ''The Ego and Its Own'' which is considered to be "a founding text in the tradition of individualist anarchism". Another early figure was Anselme Bellegarrigue. Individualist anarchism expanded and diversified through Europe, incorporating influences from North American individualist anarchism.

European individualist anarchists include Max Stirner, Albert Libertad, Anselme Bellegarrigue, Émile Armand, Enrico Arrigoni, Lev Chernyi, John Henry Mackay, Han Ryner, Renzo Novatore, Miguel Giménez Igualada and currently Michel Onfray. Two influential authors in European individualist anarchists are Friedrich Nietzsche (see Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche) and Georges Palante.

From the legacy of Proudhon and Stirner there emerged a strong tradition of French individualist anarchism. An early figure was Anselme Bellegarrigue. He participated in the French Revolution of 1848, was author and editor of ''Anarchie, Journal de l'Ordre and Au fait ! Au fait ! Interprétation de l'idée démocratique'' and wrote the important early ''Anarchist Manifesto'' in 1850. ''Autonomie Individuelle'' was an individualist anarchist publication that ran from 1887 to 1888. It was edited by Jean-Baptiste Louiche, Charles Schæffer and Georges Deherme. This tradition later continued with such intellectuals as Albert Libertad, André Lorulot, Émile Armand, Victor Serge, Zo d'Axa and Rirette Maîtrejean, who in 1905 developed theory in the main individualist anarchist journal in France, ''L'Anarchie''. Outside this journal, Han Ryner wrote ''Petit Manuel individualiste'' (1903) and later appeared the journal '' L'En-Dehors'' created by Zo d'Axa in 1891.

French individualist circles had a strong sense of personal libertarianism and experimentation. Naturism and free love contents started to have a strong influence in individualist anarchist circles and from there it expanded to the rest of anarchism also appearing in Spanish individualist anarchist groups.

Anarcho-naturism was promoted by Henri Zisly),_many_syndicalist_organizations_are_active_today,_including_the_Central_Organisation_of_the_Workers_of_Sweden.html" ;"title="Anarchism_in_Spain.html" "title="Anarchism_in_France.html" "title="perlich, Wolfgang B. (2006). Noam Chomsky. Reaktion Books. – via Internet Archive. arguing that his ideological position revolves around "nourishing the libertarian and creative character of the human being". He envisions an anarcho-syndicalist future with direct worker control of the means of production and government by workers' councils, who would select representatives to meet together at general assemblies.

Although more frequently associated with labor struggles of the early 20th century (particularly in France_

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