Social anarchism

Social anarchism is the branch of anarchism that sees individual freedom as interrelated with mutual aid.Suissa, Judith (2001). "Anarchism, Utopias and Philosophy of Education". ''Journal of Philosophy of Education'' 35 (4). pp. 627–646. . Social anarchist thought emphasizes community and social equality as complementary to autonomy and personal freedom. It attempts to accomplish this balance through freedom of speech, which is maintained in a decentralized federalism, with freedom of interaction in thought and subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is best defined as "that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry" and that " r every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them", or the slogan "Do not take tools out of people's hands".

Social anarchism has been the dominant form of anarchism. As a label or term, ''social anarchism'' is used in contrast to ''individualist anarchism'' to describe the theory that places an emphasis on the communitarian and cooperative aspects in anarchist theory while also opposing authoritarian forms of communitarianism associated with groupthink and collective conformity, favoring a reconciliation between individuality and sociality. Self-determination, worker's self-management, education and empowerment are all emphasized in social anarchism, while illegitimate authority is removed through inspection and vigilance. A do-it-yourself mentality is combined with educational efforts within the social realm."Misconceptions of Anarchism"
Spunk Library. In Dolgoff, Sam (1986). ''Fragments: A Memoir''. Refract Publications. Social anarchism advocates the conversion and use of a portion of present-day and future productive private property to be made into social property that can be used as an alternative to capitalist production and exploitative wage labor.Ostergaard, Geoffrey (1991). "Anarchism". ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought''. Blackwell Publishing. p. 21.Peacock, Adrian (1999). ''Two Hundred Pharaohs, Five Billion Slaves''. London: Ellipsis.Goodwin, Barbara (2007). ''Using Political Ideas''. John Wiley & Sons.

''Social anarchism'' is considered an umbrella term that mainly refers to the post-capitalist economic models of anarcho-communism, collectivist anarchism and sometimes mutualism. It can also include non-state controlled federated guild socialist, dual power industrial democracy and economic democracy, or federated worker cooperatives and workers' and consumers' councils replacing much of the present state system whilst retaining basic rights. In addition, it includes the trade union approach of anarcho-syndicalism, the social struggle strategies of platformism and specifism and the environmental philosophy of social ecology. As a term, ''social anarchism'' overlaps with ''libertarianism'', ''libertarian socialism'' and '' left-libertarianism'', emerging in the late 19th century as a distinction from ''individualist anarchism'' after anarcho-communism replaced collectivist anarchism as the dominant tendency.

Social anarchism has been described as the collectivist or socialist wing of anarchism as well as representing socialist-aligned forms of anarchism, being contrasted with the liberal-socialist wing represented by individualist anarchism.Carson, Kevin (2017). "Anarchism and Markets". In Jun, Nathan J. (2017). ''Brill's Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy''. Brill. p. 81. . Nonetheless, several of those collectivist or communist anarchists have supported their theories on radical individualist grounds, Baginki, Max (May 1907)
"Stirner: The Ego and His Own"
''Mother Earth'' (2: 3). "Modern Communists are more individualistic than Stirner. To them, not merely religion, morality, family and State are spooks, but property also is no more than a spook, in whose name the individual is enslaved—and how enslaved! ..Communism thus creates a basis for the liberty and Eigenheit of the individual. I am a Communist because I am an Individualist. Fully as heartily the Communists concur with Stirner when he puts the word take in place of demand—that leads to the dissolution of property, to expropriation. Individualism and Communism go hand in hand."; Novatore, Renzo (1924)
"Towards the Creative Nothing"
Gray, Christopher (1974). ''Leaving the Twentieth Century''. p. 88; Black, Bob (2010)
"Nightmares of Reason"
" mmunism 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". seeing collectivism or communism as the best social system for the realization of individual freedom. Kropotkin, Peter (1901)
"Communism and Anarchy"
"Communism is the one which guarantees the greatest amount of individual liberty—provided that the idea that begets the community be Liberty, Anarchy .. Communism guarantees economic freedom better than any other form of association, because it can guarantee wellbeing, even luxury, in return for a few hours of work instead of a day's work."; Truda, Dielo (1926)
"Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists"
"This other society will be libertarian communism, in which social solidarity and free individuality find their full expression, and in which these two ideas develop in perfect harmony."
"My Perspectives"
''Willful Disobedience'' (2: 12). "I see the dichotomies made between individualism and communism, individual revolt and class struggle, the struggle against human exploitation and the exploitation of nature as false dichotomies and feel that those who accept them are impoverishing their own critique and struggle."; Brown, L. Susan (2002). '' The Politics of Individualism''. Black Rose Books; Brown, L. Susan (2 February 2011)
"Does Work Really Work?"
The very idea of an individualist–socialist divide is also contested as individualist anarchism is largely socialistic and influenced each other. Carl Landauer summarized the difference between individualist and social anarchists by stating that "the communist anarchists also do not acknowledge any right to society to force the individual. They differ from the anarchistic individualists in their belief that men, if freed from coercion, will enter into voluntary associations of a communistic type, while the other wing believes that the free person will prefer a high degree of isolation".

Overview

'' Anarchist socialism'', '' anarcho-socialism ''and ''socialist anarchism'' are terms used to refer to social anarchism, but this is rejected by most anarchists since they generally consider themselves socialists of the libertarian tradition and are seen as unnecessary and confusing when not used as synonymous for libertarian or stateless socialism vis-à-vis authoritarian or state socialism. Anarchism has been historically identified with the socialist and anti-capitalist movement, with the main divide being between anti-market anarchists who support some form of decentralized economic planning and pro- market anarchists who support anti-capitalist market socialism. Those terms are mainly used by anarcho-capitalism theorists and scholars who recognize anarcho-capitalism to differentiate between the two. Ostergaard, Geoffrey (2008). "Anarchism". ''The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought''. Blackwell Publishing. p. 14. For similar reasons, anarchists also reject categorizations such as '' left anarchism''Thagard, Paul. 2002. ''Coherence in Thought and Action''. MIT Press. p. 153. and '' right anarchism'' (anarcho-capitalism), seeing anarchism as a radical left-wing or far-left ideology.

Anti-capitalism is considered a necessary element of anarchism by most anarchists. Arguing against some anarcho-capitalist theorists and scholars who see individualist anarchism as pro-capitalist, anarchists and scholars have put it in the socialist camp, meaning anti-statist and libertarian socialism. In addition, anarcho-communists regard themselves as radical individualists, seeing anarcho-communism as the best social system for the realization of individual freedom. Anarchism is an individualist philosophy that oppose all forms of authoritarian collectivism, but one which does see the individual and the community as complementary rather than mutually exclusive, with anarcho-communism and social anarchism in particular most rejecting the individualist–collectivist dichotomy. Notwithstanding the name, collectivist anarchism is seen as a blend of individualism and collectivism. In the United States, ''social anarchism'' may refer to Murray Bookchin's circle and its homonymous journal.

To differentiate it from individualist anarchism, anarchists prefer using ''social anarchism'', a term used to characterize certain strides of anarchism vis-à-vis individualist anarchism, rather than seeing the two categories as mutually exclusive or as socialist vis-à-vis capitalism. The former focuses on the social aspect and tends to be more organisational as well as supporting decentralised economic planning while the latter focuses on the individual aspect and tends to be more anti-organisational as well as supporting free-market forms of socialism or no specific forms of anarchist economics. This led to anarchism without adjectives. The mutualist theory of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is seen as the middle or third category between social anarchism and individualist anarchism, although it is often considered part of social anarchism and sometimes part of individualist anarchism.

Social anarchism sees " individual freedom as conceptually connected with social equality and emphasize community and mutual aid". It sees private property as a source of social inequality, positing instead a future society in which private property does not exist and is replaced by reciprocity and egalitarian society. As a term, ''social anarchism'' is used to describe tendencies within anarchism that have an emphasis on the communitarian and cooperative aspects of anarchist theory and practice, aiming for the " free association of people living together and cooperating in free communities". Bookchin identifies social anarchism with the left, by which he refers to the "great tradition of human solidarity and a belief in the potentiality for humanness, ..the internationalism and confederalism, the democratic spirit, antimilitarism, and the rational secularism".

Criticism

Andrew Morriss writing for ''The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism'' argued that "By rejecting any meaningful role for market forces and private property, ... social anarchists leave unresolved the mechanism for coordinating the economic activity necessary to sustain human existence and generally retreat into evocations of the need for community."

See also

* Social anarchists (category)

References

Bibliography

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External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Social Anarchism

Anarchism
Anarchist schools of thought
Anarcho-communism
Anarcho-syndicalism
Communalism
Communism
Left-libertarianism
Libertarian socialism
Mutualism (economic theory)
Platformism
Social ecology (Bookchin)
Socialism
Types of socialism
Syndicalism