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Anarchist-communism

Anarchist-communism

Anarchist communism, also known as Communist anarchism, Anarcho-communism, or Libertarian communism, is a political ideology related to Libertarian socialism. However, the terms Anarchist Communism and Libertarian Communism should not be considered synonyms for libertarian socialism. Anarchist Communism is a particular branch of libertarian socialism. It is also important to note that although the term Libertarian Communism is often used as a synonym for Anarchist Communism, they are not necessarily the same ideology. While all Anarchist Communists are Libertarian Communists, not all Libertarian Communists are anarchists. For example, Council Communism is a form of Libertarian Communism, but not anarchism. Anarchist Communism was first formulated in the Italian section of the First International, by Carlo Cafiero, Errico Malatesta, Andrea Costa and other ex-Mazzinian Republicans. Out of respect for Mikhail Bakunin, they did not make their differences from Proudhon's individualist anarchism and mutualism explicit until after Bakunin's death. While both groups argued against capitalism for the freedom of the worker to retain the full benefit of their labor, they departed in that Proudhon argued that such benefit should take the form of individual ownership, while anarcho-communists felt that collective ownership would better protect against what each group saw as the negative effects of large-scale accumulation of capital. Cafeiro explains in Anarchie et Communisme that private property in the product of labor will lead to unequal accumulation of capital, and therefore undesirable class distinctions. Joseph Dejacque altered Proudhon's theory, asserting that "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature." In 1876, at the Florence Conference of the Italian Federation of the International (which was actually held in a forest outside Florence, due to police activity), they declared the principles of Anarcho-Communism, beginning with: :"The Italian Federation considers the collective property of the products of labour as the necessary complement to the collectivist programme, the aid of all for the satisfaction of the needs of each being the only rule of production and consumption which corresponds to the principle of solidarity. The federal congress at Florence has eloquently demonstrated the opinion of the Italian International on this point..." The above report was made in an article by Malatesta and Cafiero in the (Swiss) Jura Federation's bulletin later that year. Anarchist Communism stresses egalitarianism, the abolition of capitalism and money, and the introduction of the gift economy to facilitate the sharing of goods. In Anarchist Communism, profit no longer exists and goods are given away as gifts in the certainty that others will also give products back (in an industrial setting, this would occur between worker syndicates as well as between individuals). If one syndicate does not share their products, they will not receive resources from other syndicates, making it in their best interest to share. Anarchist Communism also advocates the abolition of work in the sense of wage slavery, and recommends worker self management to improve working conditions, increase efficiency, and make working enjoyable.

Philosophical arguments

Anarchist Communism emphasizes the collective experience as distinct and important in the pursuit of freedom. All forms of Anarchism recognize the experience of collective identity to some extent, but the Anarchist Communists, starting with Peter Kropotkin and extending out through Alexander Berkman, Nestor Makhno, and many others recognized that there was more to experiences which were less individualistic than meets the eye. Implicitly, the Anarchist Communists followed a Kantian scheme of classification: like Kant they divided life into its individualistic parts, which have a parallel with Kant's Pure Reason, and the less obvious parts of life which characterize our relations to one another, which parallels Kant's Practical Reason. To put it bluntly: no matter how autonomous we might be to ourselves when we're alone, once we start interacting with the world and with other people our change in circumstance calls for a different perspective. This follows from our biology. The parts of life that Kant singled out in his work on Practical Reason are generally not well understood. How does the experience of work actually feel? What do we actually think when we work? Because of some sort of biological limitation when people deal with these aspects of life they tend to resort to using obscure and abstract metaphors and analogies to explain what they're talking about. This is where the difference between Anarchist Communism and other Anarchist schools of thought shows up most clearly: the Anarchist Communists have taken on these hard to explain aspects of life, have desired to understand them, and have integrated strategies for liberation involving these aspects of life into their overall point of view. The catch with these aspects of life is that while mental liberation might be amazing, becoming aware of the collective substructure of life and society leads to deeper liberation than is commonly thought possible. So in this respect the Anarchist Communists see themselves as pursuing a fuller definition of liberation than other anarchists.

Criticisms

Some of the early individualist anarchists believed that elements of Anarchist Communism were inconsistent with anarchist principles. Benjamin Tucker calls communist-anarchism "pseudo-anarchism." [http://www.blackcrayon.com/page.jsp/library/tucker/tucker37.htm] However, many individualists of that time, such as Tucker and E. Armand, felt they had much in common with anarchist communism, or worked to propagate its ideas along with their own. In modern times almost all individualist anarchists believe that anarchist communism is a legitimate form of anarchism, though most still reject collective economics. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, whose philosophy had great influence on early anarcho-communists, nonetheless refused to use the term "communism" to describe his own views. At the time he wrote most of his works, the word "communism" was typically used to refer to the views of the utopian socialists, whom Proudhon accused of attempting to supply equality by sovereign decrees rather than believing in equality by nature and education. He also criticized them for allegedly "calling justice everything that seems to them to be love of one's neighbor, and incessantly confounding matters of reason with those of sentiment." Unlike anarcho-communists, Proudhon strongly supported private ownership of the product of labor and opposed the idea of collective ownership of the means of production. In opposition to the communist maxim, Proudhon said "To each according to his works, first; and if, on occasion, I am impelled to aid you, I will do it with a good grace; but I will not be constrained" (The Philosophy of Misery).

People

- Mikhail Bakunin
- Alexander Berkman
- Joseph Dejacque
- Emma Goldman
- Peter Kropotkin
- Nestor Makhno
- Errico Malatesta Category:Anarchism Category:Political movements

Books

- Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici, [http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=1336 Anarchist Communists: A Question Of Class], others
- Alexander Berkman, [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html What is Anarchism?], Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, others
- Mikhail Bakunin, [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bakunin/godandstate/godandstate_ch1.html God and the State], The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State, others
- Emma Goldman, [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/GoldmanCW.html Anarchism and Other Essays], Living My Life, others
- Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, The Conquest of Bread, others

External links

- [http://www.afed.org.uk/ Anarchist Federation] - anarchist communist organisation in Britain and Ireland
- [http://www.anarkismo.net/ Anarkismo.net] - the international Anarchist Communist news and theory website
- [http://conceivia.com/ Conceivia.com] - Technology development and support of the world movement
- [http://libcom.org/ libcom.org] - the home of anarchism and libertarian communism in the UK
- [http://www.prole.info/introduction/intro_0.html Work - Community - Politics - War: An easy introduction to anti-political insurrectionist communism]
- [http://www.fdca.it/fdcaen/ Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici] - (FdCA)
- [http://www.nefac.net/ North Eastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists] - (NEFAC)
- [http://www.rebelforums.org/forum/ Rebel Alliance Forums], also harbours a few communists and socialists.
- [http://www.spunk.org/texts/misc/sp000050.txt A Critique of Anarchist Communism by Ken Knudson] A criticism from an individualist anarchist perspective
- [http://www.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=1,323258,,all&st=recent The Citizen's Commune]
- [http://www.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=st&fn=1&tn=325957&st=recent&f=1,325957,0,60 Christianity and Communism]

Council communism

Council communism was a radical Left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s. Its primary organisation was the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD). Council communism continues today as a theoretical and activist position within Marxism, within Libertarian Socialism, and within Anarchism. The central argument of Council Communism, in contrast to those of Social democracy and Leninist communism, is that workers' councils arising in the factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and state power. This view is opposed to the Reformist and Bolshevik stress on vanguard parties, parliaments or governments. The core principle of Council Communism is that the State and the economy should be managed by workers' councils, composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. As such, council communists oppose state-run "bureaucratic socialism". They also oppose the idea of a "revolutionary party", since council communists believe that a revolution led by a party will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communists support a workers' democracy, which they want to produce through a federation of workers' councils. The Russian word for council is "soviet," and during the early years of Soviet Russia workers' councils were politically significant. Indeed, the name "Supreme Soviet," by which the national parliament of the Soviet Union was later called, as well as the name of the Soviet Union itself, imply that the country was meant to be ruled by workers' councils. This was largely the case in the beginning, but the workers' councils soon lost their power and significance under Stalinism. The Supreme Soviet was relegated to the role of a rubber-stamp parliament, and real power was concentrated in the hands of the Communist Party. For these reasons, Council Communists held a critique of the Soviet Union as a capitalist state, believing that the Bolshevik revolution in Russia became a "bourgeois revolution" when a party bureaucracy replaced the old feudal aristocracy. Although most felt the Russian Revolution was working class in character, they believed that since capitalist relations still existed (because the workers had no say in running the economy), the Soviet Union ended up as a state capitalist country, with the state replacing the individual capitalist. Thus, Council Communists support workers' revolutions, but oppose one-party dictatorships. Council Communists also believed in diminishing the role of the party to one of agitation and propaganda, rejected all participation in elections or parliament, and argued that workers should leave the reactionary trade unions and form one big revolutionary union.

History of Council Communism (Left Communism)

As the Second International decayed at the beginning of World War I, socialists who opposed nationalism and supported international proletarian revolution regrouped. In Germany, two major communist trends emerged. First, the Spartacist League was created by the radical socialist Rosa Luxemburg. A second trend emerged amongst the German rank-and-file unionists, who opposed their unions and organized increasingly radical strikes towards the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918. This second trend created the German Left Communist movement that would become the KAPD after the abortive German revolution of 1918-1919. As the Communist International (Comintern) formed, inspired by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, a Left Communist tendency developed in the Comintern's German, Dutch, Bulgarian and Italian sections. In the United Kingdom, Sylvia Pankhurst's theoretically amorphous group, the Communist Party British Section of the Third International, also identified with the Left Communist tendency. Alongside these formal Left Communist tendencies, the Italian group led by Amadeo Bordiga is often commonly recognised as a Left Communist tendency, although both Bordiga and the Bordigists disputed this and qualified their politics as separate, distinct and more inline with the Third International's positions than Left Communism. Bordiga also advocated abstention from the trade unions, a position separating him from the more pro-union council communists. These various assorted groups were criticized by Lenin in his booklet "Left-wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder".[http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm] Despite a common general direction, and despite sharing the criticism of Lenin, there were few politics held in common between these movements. An example of this divergence is that the Italians supported the Right of Nations to Self Determination, while the Dutch and Germans rejected this policy (seeing it as a form of bourgeois nationalism). However, all of the Left Communist tendencies opposed what they called "Frontism". Frontism was a tactic endorsed by Lenin, where Communists sought tactical agreements with reformist (social democratic) parties in pursuit of a definite, usually defensive, goal. In addition to opposing "Frontism", the Dutch-German tendency, the Bulgarians and British also refused to participate in bourgeois elections, which they denounced as parliamentarism. In Germany, the Left Communists were expelled from the Communist Party of Germany, and they formed the Communist Workers Party (KAPD). Similar parties were formed in the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Britain. The KAPD rapidly lost most of its members and it eventually dissolved. However, some of its militants had been instrumental in organising factory-based unions like the AAUD and AAUD-E, the latter being opposed to separate party organisation (see: Syndicalism). The leading theoreticians of the KAPD had developed a new series of ideas based on their opposition to party organisation, and their conception of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia as having been a bourgeois revolution. Their leading figures were Anton Pannekoek and Herman Gorter, as well as Otto Rühle. Rühle later left the KAPD, and was one of the founders of the AAUD-E. Another leading theoretician of Council Communism was Paul Mattick, who later emigrated to the USA. A minor figure in the Council Communist movement in the Netherlands was Marinus van der Lubbe, whose name is attached to the burning of the Reichstag in 1933. The legacy of the council communist movement was taken up by such groups as Socialisme ou Barbarie, Solidarity (UK) and the Situationist International. Additionally, many Anarchists agree with some of the ideas of council communism. The Bordigist communist movement also retains some features of council communism.

Literature

- Anton Pannekoek, Workers' Councils, AK Press, 2003
- Anton Pannekoek, Anton Pannekoek Archive [http://marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/index.htm]
- Collective Action Notes, a collection of Council Communist and other anti-authoritarian marxist literature [http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379/]
- [http://www.libcom.org/library Libertarian Communist Library] Largest online archive of Council Communist texts.

Carlo Cafiero

Carlo Cafiero (Barletta September 1, 1846 - Nocera Inferiore July 17, 1892) is an important Italian communist-anarchist and champion of Mikhail Bakunin during the second half of the 1800's. Originally a member of the Internazionale, due to his friendship with Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, he was eventually imprisoned for his beliefs. He split with Marxism, in part due to Italy's sweeping following of Bakunin's anarchist ideology.

External links

- http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/CafieroCarlo.htm
- http://www.arcaini.com/ITALY/WhoIsWho/Cafiero.htm

Andrea Costa

Andrea Costa (1851-1913) was an Italian socialist activist, born in Imola. He co-founded the Partito dei Lavoratori Italianiin 1892 after renouncing his Anarchist principles in 1879. It is probable that his marriage to Russian Socialist Anna Kulischev. In his book My Years in Exile Edward Bernstein wrote of the conversion, "When he (Filippo Marzotti) first heard the news that Costa was lost to the Anarchist cause, he excitedly raised his hands above his head, and cried repeatedly, almost in desperation: 'Anna! Anna! Anna!'". In his later years Costa was an active politician; he served as mayor of Imola and as a representative in the Italian Parliment. Sources www.marxists.org/reference/archive/ bernstein/works/1915/exile/ch02.htm Costa, Andrea Costa, Andrea

Giuseppe Mazzini

Giuseppe Mazzini (Genoa, June 22, 1805 – Pisa, March 10, 1872) was an Italian politician and writer with extraordinary organizational skills that put him into collision course with the biggest Powers of his time, including Austria whose Chancellor Metternich famously despised Mazzini as one of the biggest source of problems. Mazzini's efforts helped bring about the modern Italian state in place of the several separate states, many dominated by foreign powers, that existed until the nineteenth century. He also helped define the modern European movement for popular Democracy in a Republican State. In 1830, he became a member of the Carbonari, a secret association with political purposes. His activity in revolutionary movements soon caused him to be proscribed. In 1831 he went to Marseille, where he organized a new political society called Giovine Italia (Young Italy). Its motto was God and the People, and its basic principle was the union of the several states and kingdoms of the peninsula into a single republic as the only true foundation of Italian liberty. He also founded several similar organizations aimed at the unification or liberation of other nations: Young Germany, Young Poland and finally Young Europe (Giovine Europa). Mazzini believed that Italian unification could only be achieved through a popular uprising. He continued to avow this purpose in his writings and pursued it through exile and adversity with inflexible constancy. However, his importance was more ideological than practical: after the failure of the 1848 revolutions (during which Mazzini became the main leader of the short-lived Roman Republic), the Italian nationalists began to look to the king of Sardinia and his prime minister Count Cavour as the leaders of the unification movement. This meant separating national unification from the social and political reforms advocated by Mazzini. Cavour was able to secure an alliance with France, leading to a series of wars between 1859 and 1861 that culminated in the formation of a unified kingdom of Italy. General Giuseppe Garibaldi, a former follower of Mazzini, also played a major role, but this kingdom was very far from the republic preached by Mazzini. Mazzini never accepted monarchical united Italy and continued to work for a democratic republic. In 1870 he was arrested and sent again into exile, even though he managed to return under a false name and live in Pisa until his death in 1872. The political movement he led was called the Republican party and was active in Italy until the 1990s.

Mikhail Bakunin

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (Trolo) (Russian — Михаил Александрович Бакунин, Michel Bakunin — on the grave in Bern), (May 30, 1814–June 13, 1876) was a well known Russian anarchist. He was best known as one of the first generation of anarchist philosophers, and has been called one of the "fathers of anarchism".

Biography

Bakunin was born of an aristocratic family in the village of Pryamukhino (Прямухино) between Torzhok (Торжок) and Kuvshinovo (Кувшиново), in Tver guberniya, northwest of Moscow, in the spring of 1814. At the age of 14 he left for St. Petersburg where he was given military training at the Artillery University. On completion of his studies in 1832, he was commissioned as a junior officer in the Russian Imperial Guard and sent to Minsk and Gardinas, Lithuania (now Belarus). Though his father wished him to continue in either the military or civil service, Bakunin abandoned both in 1835 and fled to Moscow, where he hoped to pursue the study of philosophy. In Moscow, Bakunin became fast friends with a group of former university students, then engaged in the systematic study of Idealist philosophy, in particular Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel. All along, he and his friends hoped to complete their studies with a trip to Berlin, then considered the capital of modern science. Bakunins' parents refused at first to pay for this journey; but in the end, they relented and in 1840 Bakunin went abroad. His stated plan at the time was still to become a university professor (a "priest of truth," as he and his friends imagined it). But he soon encountered and joined radical students of the so-called 'Hegelian Left,' and joined the socialist movement in Berlin. From there he went to Paris, where he met Proudhon and George Sand, and also made the acquaintance of the chief Polish exiles. From Paris he journeyed to Switzerland, where he resided for some time, taking an active share in all socialistic movements. While in Switzerland, Bakunin was ordered by the Russian government to return to Russia, and on his refusal his property was confiscated. In 1848, on his return to Paris, he published a fiery tirade against Russia, which caused his expulsion from France. The revolutionary movement of 1848 gave him the opportunity to join a radical campaign of democratic agitation, and for his participation in the May Uprising in Dresden of 1849 he was arrested and condemned to death. The death sentence, however, was commuted to imprisonment for life, and he was eventually handed over to the Russian authorities, by whom he was imprisoned and finally sent to eastern Siberia in 1855. Bakunin received permission to move to the Amur region, from where he succeeded in escaping, making his way through Japan and the United States to England in 1861. He spent the rest of his life in exile in western Europe, principally in Switzerland. In 1869 he founded the Social Democratic Alliance; however, this organisation was refused entry to the First International, on the grounds that it was an international organisation in itself, and only national organisations were permitted membership in the International. The Alliance dissolved in the same year it was formed, and the various groups which composed it joined the International separately. In 1870 Bakunin led a failed uprising in Lyons on the principles later exemplified by the Paris Commune. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels later approved of the Paris Commune and described it as an example of a dictatorship of the proletariat; however, Marx was of the view that the rising in Lyons had been premature and adventurist. Bakunin's disagreements with Marx, which led to Bakunin's expulsion from the International in 1872 after being outvoted by the Marx party at the Hague Congress (1872), give a clear-cut representation of the differences between the Marxist view of the need for a transitional workers' state prior to the final dissolution of the state, and Bakunin's opposition to the notion that such an intermediate step was needed. Although Bakunin accepted Marx's class analysis and economic theories regarding capitalism (acknowledging "Marx's genius"), he thought Marx was arrogant, and that his methods would compromise a communist revolution (a prediction that many believe has been proved accurate). Bakunin also gave vent to his anti-semitism by attacking Marx for being Jewish. Marx in turn said Bakunin was a "sentimental idealist," which Bakunin freely admitted. Bakunin retired to Lugano in 1873 and died at Bern on June 13, 1876.

Political beliefs

Bakunin's political beliefs rejected governing systems in every name and shape, from the idea of God downwards; and every form of external authority, whether emanating from the will of a sovereign or from universal suffrage. He wrote in his Dieu et l'Etat or God and the State (published posthumously in 1882): :"The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature, because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual." Natural laws being thus recognized by every man for himself, Bakunin's reasoning went, an individual could not but obey them, for they would be the laws also of his own nature; and the need for political organization, administration and legislation would at once disappear. Bakunin similarly rejected the notion of any privileged position or class, since "it is the peculiarity of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the intellect and heart of man. The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart." Bakunin's methods of realizing his revolutionary program were no less purposeful than his principles. The revolutionist, as Bakunin described, would be a devoted man, who allowed no private interests or feelings, and no scruples of religion, patriotism or morality, to turn him aside from his mission, the aim of which is by all available means to overturn the existing society. The dispute between Mikhail Bakunin and Karl Marx highlighted the difference between anarchism and communism: While both anarchists and communists share the same final goal (the creation of a free, egalitarian society with no social classes and no government), they strongly disagree on how to achieve this goal. Anarchists believe that the classless, stateless society should be established right away, as soon as possible. Communists believe that such a thing would be impossible and that the anarchists are too idealistic; the communists want a more gradual transition towards the classless and stateless society, involving a transitional stage of democratic government and planned economics, which they call "socialism". (Note that the word "socialism" also has a number of other meanings.)

Anti-Semitism

Bakunin is known to have repeated many common anti-semitic stereotypes, perceiving, for instance, the Jews as "one exploiting sect, one people of leeches, one single devouring parasite closely and intimately bound together not only across national boundaries, but also across all divergences of political opinion ... [Jews have] that mercantile passion which constitutes one of the principle traits of their national character" [http://library.flawlesslogic.com/jtr_01.htm] It is, however, unclear whether he was talking about Semites or about those practicing Judaism but it must be noted that he criticised all religions throughout his life and Christianity and Judaism were dominant in Europe at his time. Bakunin's anti-Semitism, like that of many at the time, likely grew out of a perception that they were behind the workings of European capitalism and politics, which he spent his life opposing. The following quote, part of a polemic attacking Karl Marx, illustrates his perceptions of European Jewry: "Now this entire Jewish world, which constitutes an exploiting sect, a people of leeches, a voracious parasite, closely and intimately connected with another, regardless not only of frontiers but of political differences as well -- this Jewish world is today largely at the disposal of Marx or Rothschild. I am sure that, on the one hand, the Rothschilds appreciate the merits of Marx, and that on the other hand, Marx feels an instinctive inclination and a great respect for the Rothschilds. This may seem strange. What could there be in common between communism and high finance? Ho ho! The communism of Marx seeks a strong state centralization, and where this exists, there the parasitic Jewish nation -- which speculates upon the labor of people -- will always find the means for its existence... "In reality, this would be for the proletariat a barrack-regime, under which the workingmen and the workingwomen, converted into a uniform mass, would rise, fall asleep, work, and live at the beat of the drum. The privilege of ruling would be in the hands of the skilled and the learned, with a wide scope left for profitable crooked deals carried on by the Jews, who would be attracted by the enormous extension of the international speculations of the national banks..." -- Michael Bakunin: Polemique contre les Juifs, 1872.

Bibliography

- Bakunin on anarchism / edited, translated and with an introduction by Sam Dolgoff ; preface by Paul Avrich. -- New York : Knopf, originally published in 1971 as Bakunin on anarchy.
- Statism and Anarchy, Cambridge University Press 1991 English translations of Bakunin are generally rare when compared to the comprehensive editions in French (by Arthur Lehning) and German. Madelaine Grawitz' biography (Paris: Calmann Lévy 2000) remains to be translated. The standard English-language biographies are by E. H. Carr and Aileen Kelly. An eight-volume complete works of Bakunin is to be published at some point in the future by AK Press; according to Ramsey Kanaan these will likely be published yearly for eight years in hardcover format.

External links

- [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/Bakuninarchive.html Bakunin archive] at Anarchy Archives
- [http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchists/bakunin.html Bakunin Biography at Flag Blackened]
- [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/ Writings of Bakunin at Marxist Internet Archive]
- [http://libcom.org/library/taxonomy/term/13 Libcom.org/library Mikhail Bakunin archive]
- [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/godandstate/godandstate_ch1.html English translation of "God and the State"] (1876)
- [http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/Bakunin.htm Mikhail Bakunin Page] at the Antiauthoritarian Encyclopedia
- [http://www.syndicalist.org/archives/llr1-13/13i.shtml Bakunin and the historians] Bakunin, Mikhail Bakunin, Mikhail Bakunin, Mikhail Bakunin, Mikhail Bakunin, Mikhail Category:19th century philosophers Category:Atheist philosophers Category:Materialists Bakunin, Mikhail ko:미하일 바쿠닌 ja:ミハイル・バクーニン th:มีฮาอิล บาคูนิน

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (pronounced [] in BrE, [] in French) (January 15, 1809 – January 19, 1865) was the first individual to call himself an "anarchist." Born in Besançon, Doubs, France, he was a workingman, a printer, who taught himself to read Latin so as to print books in that language as well. He is most famous for asserting "Property is theft", in his missive What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right of Government (original title: Qu'est-ce que la propriété? Recherche sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement), first published in 1840. Proudhon declared that “property is theft”, “property is freedom”, and “property is impossible”. The apparent contradiction is resolved when it is realized that, in What is Property?, he was using "property" to mean idle natural resources that, through coercion, individuals were being prevented from using. But, in asserting that property is essential for liberty he was referring to the product of an individual's labor. For Proudhon, the only legitimate source of property is labor. What one produces is his property and anything beyond that is not. Although he can be considered a libertarian socialist, he rejected collective ownership of the produce of labor as well as of land. Proudhon had many arguments against entitlement to land that one does not use, including those based on morality, economics, politics, and individual liberty. One such argument was that it enabled profit, which in turn led social instability and war by creating cycles of debt that eventually overcame the capacity of labor to pay them off. :Property, acting by exclusion and encroachment, while population was increasing, has been the life-principle and definitive cause of all revolutions. Religious wars, and wars of conquest, when they have stopped short of the extermination of races, have been only accidental disturbances, soon repaired by the mathematical progression of the life of nations. The downfall and death of societies are due to the power of accumulation possessed by property. (What is Property?) As a consequence of his opposition to profit Proudhon rejected capitalism. He adopted the term Mutualism for his brand of anarchism, which involved control of the means of production by the workers. In his vision, self-employed artisans, peasants, and cooperatives would trade their products on the market. For Proudhon, factories and other large workplaces would be run by 'labor associations' operating on directly democratic principles. The state would be abolished; instead, society would be organized by a federation of 'free communes' (a commune is a local municipality in French). In 1863 Proudhon said, "All my economic ideas as developed over twenty-five years can be summed up in the words: agricultural-industrial federation. All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization." Proudhon advocated a revolution, but insisted that it must be a non-violent one, thus he rejected large-scale expropriation: "I regard general disappropriation as impossible: attacked from that point, the problem of universal association seems to me insolvable. Property is like the dragon which Hercules killed: to destroy it, it must be taken, not by the head, but by the tail, -- that is, by profit and interest." He made few public criticisms of Marx or Marxism because in his lifetime Marx was a relatively minor thinker; it was only after Proudhon's death that Marxism became a large movement. In fact, Marx had to struggle against the greater influence of Proudhon amongst leftists. He did, however, criticize other authoritarian socialists of his time period. This included the state socialist Louis Blanc, of which Proudhon said, "let me say to M. Blanc: you desire neither Catholicism nor monarchy nor nobility, but you must have a God, a religion, a dictatorship, a censorship, a hierarchy, distinctions, and ranks. For my part, I deny your God, your authority, your sovereignty, your judicial State, and all your representative mystifications." It was Proudhon's book What is Property? that convinced the young Karl Marx that private property should be abolished. In one of his first works, The Holy Family, Marx said, "Not only does Proudhon write in the interest of the proletarians, he is himself a proletarian, an ouvrier. His work is a scientific manifesto of the French proletariat." Marx, however, disagreed with Proudhon's anarchism and later published vicious criticisms of Proudhon. Marx wrote The Poverty of Philosophy as a refutation of Proudhon's The Philosophy of Poverty. In his socialism, Proudhon was followed by Mikhail Bakunin, in contrast to the authoritarian socialism that followed from Marx. After Bakunin's death his libertarian socialism diverged into anarcho-communsim when anarchists such as Joseph Dejacque amended Proudhon's theories, "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature." His works were first translated into English by Benjamin Tucker, an advocate of individualist anarchism, who promoted Proudhon's ideas in the United States and extended his theory of mutualism. His essay on what is government is also quite well known. :"To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality." (P.-J. Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294.) Another famous quote was his 'dialogue with a philistine' in What is Property?: :"Why, how can you ask such a question? You are a republican."
:"A republican! Yes; but that word specifies nothing. Res publica; that is, the public thing. Now, whoever is interested in public affairs -- no matter under what form of government -- may call himself a republican. Even kings are republicans."
:"Well! You are a democrat?"
:"No."
:"What! "you would have a monarchy?"
:"No."
:" A Constitutionalist?"
:"God forbid."
:"Then you are an aristocrat?"
:"Not at all!"
:"You want a mixed form of government?"
:"Even less."
:"Then what are you?"
:"I am an anarchist."
:"Oh! I understand you; you speak satirically. This is a hit at the government."
:"By no means. I have just given you my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist. Listen to me."
Late in his life Proudhon became more conservative and reactionary, eventually embracing a kind of liberalism. He no longer advocated the abolition of government, and instead argued for increasing its powers while also strenghthening property in order to counter-balance it. "Where shall we find a power capable of counter-balancing the... State? There is none other than property... The absolute right of the State is in conflict with the absolute right of the property owner. Property is the greatest revolutionary force which exists" and "property, by creating guarantees for itself that both spread it more equally and establish it more firmly in society, itself becomes a guarantee of liberty and keeps the State on an even keel. Once property has been firmly established . . . the power of the State is increased to the maximum"(Selected Writings).

External links

- [http://www.BlackCrayon.com/people/proudhon/ BlackCrayon.com: People: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]
- e-texts of works by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
- at the [http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/ Mondo Politico on-line Library]:
- [http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/pjproudhon/whatisproperty/toc.htm What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government]
- at the [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia Library]:
- [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProProp.html What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government]
- [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProMise.html System of Economical Contradictions: or, the Philosophy of Misery]
- Project Gutenberg editions:
- [http://gutenberg.net/etext/360 What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government]
- [http://gutenberg.net/etext/444 System of Economical Contradictions: or, the Philosophy of Misery]
- [http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:_H72tslV7hEJ:www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/libhe/libhe024.pdf Proudhon and Anarchism] by Larry Gambone
- [http://www.againstpolitics.com/market_anarchism/stirner_on_proudhon.html Stirner on Proudhon] Max Stirner criticizes Proudhon Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph Category:Materialists ja:ピエール・ジョゼフ・プルードン

Individualist anarchism

Individualist anarchism is a philosophical tradition that opposes collectivism and has a particularly strong emphasis on the supremacy and autonomy of the individual. The tradition appears most often in the United States, most notably in regard to its advocacy of private property. Individualist anarchism's roots includes Europeans such as William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Emile Armand, Oscar Wilde, Han Ryner and Max Stirner (who is also connected to the existentialist philosophy), though the individualist anarchist tradition draws heavily on American independent thinkers, including Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, Ezra Heywood, Stephen Pearl Andrews, and Henry David Thoreau. The writer and poet John Henry Mackay is also considered an individualist anarchist. Contemporary individualist anarchists title include Robert Anton Wilson, Joe Peacott, Daniel Burton, Kevin Carson, and Keith Preston. Individualist anarchism is sometimes seen as an evolution of classical liberalism, and hence, has been called "liberal anarchism" [http://www.weisbord.org/conquest8.htm].

Origins

classical liberalism and utilitarian. There is a lack of consensus as to whether he was an individualist, a communist, or neither.]] There is significant variance between the philosophies of different individualist anarchists. Almost all, following Proudhon, support individual ownership of the particular form of private property he refered to as "possession". Stirner supports private property but rejects the notion of a right to property. Godwin is an altruist, Stirner an egoist. Warren espouses natural law as a basis for individual liberty, while Tuckers premises it upon egoism. Tucker opposes intellectual property while Spooner advocates it. However, what these philosophers all have in common is a rejection of both capitalist economics and collectivist notions of society and a pronounced focus on individuality. William Godwin, of England, wrote essays advocating a society without government that are considered some of the first, if not the first, anarchist treatises. As such, some consider the liberal British writer to be the "father of philosophical anarchism." There is a lack of consensus as to whether Godwin was an individualist or a communist. He is regarded by some as one of the first individualist anarchists, although his philosophy has some communist-like characteristics. He advocates an extreme form of individualism, proposing that all sorts of cooperation in labor should be eliminated; he says: "everything understood by the term co-operation is in some sense an evil." Godwin's individualism is to such a radical degree that he even opposes individuals performing together in orchestras. The only apparent exception to this opposition to cooperation is the spontaneous assocation that may arise when a society is threatened by violent force. One reason he opposes cooperation is he believes it to interfere with an individual's ability to be benevolent for the greater good. Godwin opposes the existence of government and expressly opposes democracy, fearing oppression of the individual by the majority (though he believes democracy to be preferable to dictatorship). Godwin supports individual ownership of property, defining it as as "the empire to which every man is entitled over the produce of his own industry." However, he does advocate that individuals give to each other their surplus property on the occasion that others have a need for it, without involving trade (see gift economy). This was to be based on utilitarian principles; he says: "Every man has a right to that, the exclusive possession of which being awarded to him, a greater sum of benefit or pleasure will result than could have arisen from its being otherwise appropriated." However, benevolence was not to be enforced but a matter of free individual "private judgement." He does not advocate a community of goods or assert collective ownership as is embraced in communism, but his belief that individuals ought to share with those in need was influential on anarchist communism later. Some consider Godwin both an individualist and a communist rather than than a strict individualist for this reason. [http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:iCK-K7dEYK4J:www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/overview/shelley.pdf] Some, such as Murray Rothbard, do not regard Godwin as being in the individualist camp at all [http://www.b.150m.com/writers/rothbard/burke.html] (Some restrict "individualist anarchism" to the market anarchists). Others consider him an individualist anarchist without reservation. [http://www.weisbord.org/conquest8.htm] Some writers see a conflict between Godwin's advocacy of "private judgement" and utilitarianism, as he says that ethics requires that individuals give their surplus property to each other resulting in an egalitarian society, but, at the same time, he insists that all things be left to individual choice. [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/godwin/] Communist-anarchist Peter Kropotkin says in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica that Godwin "entirely rewrote later on his chapter on property and mitigated his communist views in the second edition of Political Justice." Godwin's basis in utilitarianism and ethical altruism contrasts with later individualists, such as Max Stirner and Benjamin Tucker, who ground their philosophy on egoism or self-interest (though not all are egoists). Also, Godwin's aversion to cooperation and a market economy is not typical among the individualists. self-interest individualist anarchists. Portrait by Friedrich Engels.]] While individualists typically assert property as a right, Germany's Max Stirner that a "right" to property is an illusion, or "ghost"; property is only a matter of control --it is not based in any moral right but solely in the right of might: "Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property.". Stirner considers the world and everything in it, including other persons, available to one's taking or use without moral constraint --that rights do not exist in regard to objects at all. He sees no rationality in taking the interests of others into account unless doing so furthers one's self-interest, which he believes is the only legitimate reason for acting. His embrace of egoism is in stark contrast to Godwin's altruism. He denies society as being an actual entity, calling society a "spook" and that "the individuals are its reality" (The Ego and Its Own). Whether individualist anarchism is properly justified by self-interest (egoism) or natural law has been a subject of debate among the individualists. For example, Lysander Spooner holds that there are natural property rights, but egoists such as Benjamin Tucker agree with Stirner that there are no natural property rights but hold that property can come only about by contract between individuals. France's Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was the first philosopher to label himself an "anarchist." He was particularly influential among the American individualists, mainly by way of Benjamin Tucker who had translated and studied his works. Proudhon opposes government privilege that protects banking and land interests, and any form of coercion that led to the accumulation or acquisition of property, which he believes hampers competition and keeps wealth in the hands of the few. Proudhon favors a right of individuals to retain the product of their labor as their own property, but believed that any property beyond that which an individual produced and could possess was illegitimate. Thus, he saw private property as both essential to liberty and a road to tyranny, the former when it resulted from labor and the later when it resulted from extortion (interest, tax, etc). He says: "Where shall we find a power capable of counter-balancing the... State? There is none other than property... The absolute right of the State is in conflict with the absolute right of the property owner. Property is the greatest revolutionary force which exists." Proudhon maintains that those who labor should retain the entirety of what they produce, and that monopolies on credit and land are the forces that prohibiting such. He advocated an economic system that included private property as possession and exchange market but without profit, which he called mutualism. It is Proudhon's philosophy that was explictly amended by Joseph Dejacque in the inception of anarchist-communism, with the latter asserting directly to Proudhon in a letter that "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature." Proudhon said that "communism...is the very denial of society in its foundation..." (Philosophy of Poverty) and was famous for declaring that "property is theft" in referance to the capitalist practices of his time. After Dejacque and others split from Proudhon due to the latter's support of individual property and an exchange economy, the relationship between the individualists, who continued in relative alignment with the philosophy of Proudhon, and the anarcho-communists was characterised by various degrees of antagonism and harmony. For example, individualists like Tucker on the one hand translating and reprinted the works of collectivists like Mikhail Bakunin, while on the other hand rejecting the economic aspects of collectivism and communism as incompatible with anarchist ideals. While individualist anarchism is often seen as including William Godwin and Max Stirner, it is most often associated with the market anarchism found in the native American tradition, which advocates individual ownership of the produce of labor and a market economy where this property may be bought and sold. However, this form of individualist anarchism is not exclusive to the Americans. It is also found in the philosophy of other radical individalists, such as those in England and France though almost all were influenced by the early American individualists. Individualist anarchism of this type is in contrast to "social anarchism" (e.g. communist anarchism) which holds that productive property should be in the control of the society at large in various forms of worker collectives and that the produce of labor should be collectivized.

The American tradition

Individualist anarchism in American is noted for its strong advocacy of the type of private property championed by Proudhon, and a competitive free market economy. Josiah Warren, who is the first individualist anarchist in the American tradition, had participated in a failed collectivist experiment headed by Robert Owen called "New Harmony" and came to the conclusion that such a system is inferior to one where individualism and private property is respected. In Practical Details, where he discusses his conclusions in regard to the experiment. In a much cited quote from that text, he makes a vehement assertion of individual negative liberty: "Society must be so converted as to preserve the SOVEREIGNTY OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL inviolate. That it must avoid all combinations and connections of persons and interests, and all other arrangements which will not leave every individual at all times at liberty to dispose of his or her person, and time, and property in any manner in which his or her feelings or judgment may dictate WITHOUT INVOLVING THE PERSONS OR INTERESTS OF OTHERS" (Warren's capitalization). Though Warren and Proudhon did not associate with each other, working on separate continents they both came to like conclusions in regard to labor theory of value and property. However, according to Benjamin Tucker, that profiting by violating the labor theory of value is exploitative "was Proudhon's position before it was Marx's, and Josiah Warren's before it was Proudhon's" (Liberty or Authority). While Warren based his philosophy on natural law, Benjamin Tucker eventually switched his allegiance to egoism as a result of his reading of Max Stirner. Many individualists followed in his footsteps in this respect. Tucker maintained that there were two rights, "the right of might" and "the right of contract" and that moral rights do not exist until they are devised by contract initiated out of the self-interest of the contracting parties. The individualists' economic theory (mutualism) is based on the labor theory of value. Accepting that the value of a good is the amount of labor undertaking in producing it, they conclude that it is unethical to charge a higher price for a commodity than the cost of producing or acquiring and bringing it to market (Cost the limit of price). To ensure that labor receives its "full produce" they advocate that a commodity should be purchased with an amount of labor that is equivalent to the amount of labor undertaken in producing that commodity. As a result, equal amounts of labor would receive equal pay; those that did not labor would not be paid. In the area of employment, this would obviate the possibility of an employer profiting from the labor of an employee, which they opposed as being exploitative, since the employee must receive the "full produce" of his labor. With the exception of Warren, this led to their position that private ownership of land should be supported only if the possessor of that land is using it, otherwise, the possessor would be able to charge rent to others without laboring to produce anything (Warren does not oppose ownership of land but does advocate that it be sold at cost). Profiting from lending money for interest is generally seen as usurious as an income is seen as being derived without labor. To the individualists, profit from interest, profit from wages, and rental of land is only made possible by government-backed "monopoly" and "privilege" that restricts competition in the marketplace and concentrates wealth in the hands of a few.

Anarcho-capitalism

If it is consider anarchism like a the voluntary asociation of autonomous individuals, anarcho-capitalism is not a form of anarchism but a faction of Libertarianism Unlike the early and most of the present American individualist anarchists, anarcho-capitalists do not regard value as being matter of labor exerted but a matter of individual subjective judgements (see subjective theory of value) and therefore have no opposition to profit, capitalists authority and wage labour. While anarcho-capitalism is an individualist philosophy, there is much controversy in the claim that anarcho-capitalism is a form of individualist anarchism. The relationship between individualist anarchism and anarcho-capitalism is explored further in that article.

External links

- [http://www.spaz.org/~dan/individualist-anarchist/resources.html Individualist Anarchist Resources]
- [http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/Vindication/0339_Bk.html A Vindication of Natural Society: or, a View of the Miseries and Evils arising to Mankind from every Species of Artifical Society] by Edmund Burke - some regard this liberal essay to be the first to advocate anarchy
- [http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/godwin/pj.html Enquiry Concerning Political Justice] by William Godwin
- [http://www.blancmange.net/tmh/teaho/theego0.html The Ego and his Own] by Max Stirner, translated by Christian individualist anarchist Steven T. Byington
- [http://raforum.apinc.org/article.php3?id_article=169 Manifesto by Josiah Warren]
- [http://www.blancmange.net/tmh/pdf/jwarren.pdf Equitable Commerce by Josiah Warren]
- [http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/tucker/tucker2.html State Socialism and Anarchism: How far they agree, and wherein they differ.] by Benjamin Tucker (1886)
- [http://melior.univ-montp3.fr/ra_forum/en/people/armand_e/individualism.html Anarchist Individualism as Life and Activity] by E. Armand (1907)
- [http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secGcon.html Anarchist FAQ: Section on Individualist Anarchism] (Mirrored at: [http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secGcon.html] and [http://www.spunk.org/library/intro/faq/sp001547/secGcon.html]) :
- [http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secG1.html Anarchist FAQ: Are individualist anarchists anti-capitalist?] (Mirrored at: [http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secG1.html] and [http://www.spunk.org/library/intro/faq/sp001547/secG1.html]) :
- [http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secG4.html Anarchist FAQ: Why do social anarchists reject individualist anarchism?] (Mirrored at: [http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secG4.html] and [http://www.spunk.org/library/intro/faq/sp001547/secG4.html])
- [http://www.weisbord.org/conquest8.htm I. Liberal-Anarchism VIII. Libertarianism] from The Conquest of Power, by Albert Weisbord[http://www.weisbord.org/] discusses individualism of Godwin and Stirner
- [http://www.weisbord.org/conquest10.htm American Liberal-Anarchism] from The Conquest of Power, by Albert Weisbord[http://www.weisbord.org/]
- [http://www.independent.org/issues/article.asp?id=10 American Anarchism by Wendy McElroy] 19th Century Individualist Anarchism in America
- [http://world.std.com/~bbrigade/ Bad Press] Contemporary Individualist Anarchist Publications
- [http://www.spaz.org/~dan/individualist-anarchist/ Individualist-Anarchist.Net]
- [http://www.zetetics.com/mac/articles/jlsorg.html The Schism Between Individualist and Communist Anarchism]
- [http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/proudanar.html Proudhon and Anarchism] by Larry Gambone Category:Political theories Category:Anarchism

Mutualism (economic theory)

This article is about the economic theory. For the biological term, see Mutualism. Mutualism is an economic theory or system based on a labor theory of value that advocates that equal amounts of labor should receive equal pay, and that this should be accomplished by trading goods and services by the use of money that is backed by a quantity of labor. The first use of the term "mutualism" to describe such a system was by the John Gray in 1931. William B. Greene, in 1850, also used the term to label his proposed system that was similar to Pierre Joseph Proudhon's. Proudhon later used the term to describe his economic philosophy as well. The first practical implentation of mutualism was instituted first by individualist anarchist Josiah Warren in America and then then by others in England. Mutualism can in many ways be considered "the original anarchy," since Proudhon was the first to identify as an anarchist. Individualist anarchists often espouse mutualism.

Mutualist thoughts on capitalism

Property

Pierre Joseph Proudhon was one the most famous philosophers to have articulated thoughts on the nature of property. He is known for exclaiming "property is theft!", but is less known for also exclaiming "property is freedom," and "property is impossible." According to Colin Ward [http://www.spunk.org/library/pubs/freedom/raven/sp000615.txt], Proudhon did not see a contradiction between these slogans. This was because Proudhon distinguished between what he considered to be two distinct forms of property often bound up in the single label. To the mutualist, this is the distinction between property created by coercion and property created by labor, occupation, or use (sometimes called "possession" by Proudhon). Property is theft "when it is related to a landowner or capitalist whose ownership is derived from conquest or exploitation and [is] only maintained through the state, property laws, police, and an army". Property is freedom for "the peasant or artisan family [who have] a natural right to a home, land [they may] cultivate, [...] to tools of a trade", and the fruits of that cultivation - but not to ownership or control of the lands and lives of others. [http://www.spunk.org/library/pubs/freedom/raven/sp000615.txt] The former is considered illegitimate property, the latter legitimate property. Proudhon believed the property rights in the form of possession were essential to liberty, while property that strayed from possession was the basis for tyranny and would lead a society to destroy itself. The conception of entitlement property as a destructive force and illegitimate institution can be seen in this quote by Proudhon, :Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty, equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property; then if property is a natural right, this natural right is not social, but anti-social. Property and society are utterly irreconcilable institutions. It is as impossible to associate two proprietors as to join two magnets by their opposite poles. Either society must perish, or it must destroy property. If property is a natural, absolute, imprescriptible, and inalienable right, why, in all ages, has there been so much speculation as to its origin? — for this is one of its distinguishing characteristics. The origin of a natural right! Good God! who ever inquired into the origin of the rights of liberty, security, or equality? (What is Property?) Mutualist, Clarence Swartz, says in What is Mutualism: :It is, therefore, one of the purposes of Mutualists, not only to awaken in the people the appreciation of and desire for freedom, but also to arouse in them a determination to abolish the legal restrictions now placed upon non-invasive human activities and to institute, through purely voluntary associations, such measures as will liberate all of us from the exactions of privilege and the power of concentrated capital. Swartz also states that mutualism differs from anarcho-communism and other collectivist philosophies by its support of private property: "One of the tests of any reform movement with regard to personal liberty is this: Will the movement prohibit or abolish private property? If it does, it is an enemy of liberty. For one of the most important criteria of freedom is the right to private property in the products of ones labor. State Socialists, Communists, Syndicalists and Communist-Anarchists deny private property.

The "cost principle" or "cost the limit of price"

Mutualists believe that most of the economic problems associated with capitalism come back to a violation of the cost principle, or as Josiah Warren interchangeably called it "Cost the limit of price." It was inspired by the labor theory of value, popularized, though not invented, by Adam Smith in 1776 --Proudhon mentions Smith as an inspiration. The labor theory of value holds that the actual price of a thing (or the "true cost") is the amount of labor that was undertaken to produce it. Proudhon and Warren, working without association or apparent knowledge of each other, accepting this axiom, drew from this the conclusion that it is therefore unethical to charge higher price for a thing than the amount of labor that was undertaken to produce it. In Warren's terms, cost should be the "limit of price." Anyone who sells goods should charge no more than the cost to himself of acquiring these goods. As far as determining payment for goods, they should pay for those goods with an equivalent amount of labor lest they violate the cost principle. In terms of employment, an employer should not be paid unless he labors, and if he labors less than an employee then he should be paid less than that employee. Therefore, if the cost principle is followed, profit to an employer through the labor of others is not possible --everyone receives the "full produce" of his own labor and receives no produce of the labor of another unless he pays with an equivalent amount of labor. Warren says that this is in contrast to "Value the limit of price" where the only limit to price is the highest amount someone is willing to pay for a thing based on his own subjective valuation.

Mutualist economics

The major tenets of mutualism are free association, mutualist credit, contract (or federation), and gradualism (or dual-power). Mutualism is often described by its proponents as advocating a "anti-capitalist free market".

Free association

Mutualists believe that association is only necessary where there is an organic combination of forces. For instance, an operation that requires specialization and many different workers performing their individual tasks to complete a unified product, i.e., a factory. In this situation, workers are inherently dependent on each other -- and without association they are related as subordinate and superior, master and wage-slave. An operation that can be performed by an individual without the help of specialized workers does not require association. Proudhon believed that peasants do not require societal form, and only feigned association for the purposes of solidarity in abolishing rents, buying clubs, etc. He recognized that their work is inherently sovereign and free. In commenting on the degree of association that is preferable Proudhon said: In cases in which production requires great division of labour, it is necessary to form an ASSOCIATION among the workers... because without that they would remain isolated as subordinates and superiors, and there would ensue two industrial castes of masters and wage workers, which is repugnant in a free and democratic society. But where the product can be obtained by the action of an individual or a family... there is no opportunity for association.

Mutual credit

Mutualists believe that free banking should be taken back by the people to establish systems of free credit. They contend that banks have a monopoly on credit, just as capitalists have a monopoly on land. Banks are essentially creating money by lending out deposits that do not actually belong to them, then charging interest on the difference. Mutualists believe that by establishing a democratically run mutual bank or credit union, it would be possible to issue free credit so that money could be created for the benefit of the participants rather than for the benefit of the bankers. Individualist anarchists noted for their detailed views on mutualist banking include Proudhon, William B. Greene, and Lysander Spooner. Some modern forms of mutual credit are LETS and the Ripple monetary system project.

Contract / Federation

Mutualism holds that producers should exchange their goods at cost-value using systems of "contract." While Proudhon's early definitions of cost-value were based on fixed assumptions about the value of labor-hours, he later redefined cost-value to include other factors such as the intensity of labor, the nature of the work involved, etc. He also expanded his notions of "contract" into expanded notions of "federation." It is possible that these ideas, more fully developed, could strongly resemble participatory economics today.

Gradualism / Dual-power

:Beneath the governmental machinery, in the shadow of political institutions, out of the sight of statemen and priests, society is producing its own organism, slowly and silently; and constructing a new order, the expression of its vitality and autonomy... (Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century. Translated by John Beverly Robinson. New York: Haskell House Publishers, Ltd., 1923, 1969 [1851]. p 243.) Proudhon noted that the shock of the French Revolution failed the people, and was instead interested in a federation of worker cooperations that could use mutualist credit to gradually expand and take control of industry. This is similar to economic models based on worker cooperatives today, such as the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation in Spain and NoBAWC in San Francisco.

External links

- [http://www.mutualist.org Mutualist.org], Mutualist web site
- [http://mutualist.blogspot.com Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism], a weblog written by Kevin Carson
- [http://www.weisbord.org/conquest9.htm Mutualism] from The Conquest of Power, by Albert Weisbord
- [http://www.crispinsartwell.com/warren.htm Plan of the Cincinnati Labor for Labor Store by Josiah Warren]
- [http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/proudanar.html Proudhon and Anarchism] by Larry Gambone - contains a discussion on Proudhonist mutualism
- [http://www.the-portal.org/mutual_banking.htm Mutual Banking] by William B. Greene
- [http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html Studies in Mutualist Political Economy] by Kevin Carson
- [http://www.zetetics.com/mac/blog/00000930.html Anarchist-Mutualism] by John William Lloyd, a criticism`
- [http://www.panarchy.org/swartz/mutualism.index.html What is Mutualism?] by Clarence Lee Swartz (1927) - A classic text on Mutualism
- [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/mutaidcontents.html Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution] Peter Kropotkin 1902 Category:Economic ideologies Category:Anarchism

Joseph dejacque

Joseph Déjacque (b. December 1821, Paris - d. 1864, Paris) was a French anarcho-communist poet and writer. Of unknown origins, Déjacque was first heard of when arrested as part of the revolutionary upheavals in France in 1848. Imprisoned for a time for socialist agitation he was released but rearrested in 1851 and sentenced for two years for his collection of poems "Les Lazaréennes, Fables et Poésies Sociales". He escaped around the time of the December 2, 1851 coup d'état to London. While in Jersey between 1852 - 1853 he published "La question révolutionnaire", an exposition of anarchism. From there he passed on the USA where he spoke to workers associations in New York and was a signatory to the programme of the International Association there in 1855. Whilst staying in New Orleans from 1856 - 1858 he wrote his famous anarchist utopia "L'Humanisphère, Utopie anarchique" but could not find a publisher. Returning to New York he was able to serialise his book in his periodical "Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement social". Published in 27 issues from June 9, 1858 to February 4, 1861, Le Libertaire was the first anarcho-communist journal published in America. As well as many articles on revolution and current political events both in France and the USA he attacked the hanging of John Brown after the raid on Harpers Ferry and propagandised for the abolitionist cause. Déjacque was the first to use the term "libertarian" in print in 1857 in a letter criticising individualist anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon for an attack by the latter on feminism and his support for individual ownership of the product of labor and a market economy, saying: "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature." His stay in New York ended when his work prospects ran out due to the economic slump occasioned by the outbreak of the Civil War. He returned to London and then to Paris where he died a few years later in extreme poverty.

External links

- [http://joseph.dejacque.free.fr/ Complete works in French, includes 1857 letter to Proudhon]
- [http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/DejacqueJoseph.htm Joseph Dejacque page] from the Anarchist Encyclopedia Déjacque, Joseph

1876

1876 is a leap year starting on Saturday.

Events

January-March

- January 31 United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations.
- February 2 - The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed.
- February 14 - Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone.
- February 22 - Johns Hopkins University founded in Baltimore, Maryland.
- March 7 - Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for an invention he calls the telephone (patent # 174,464).
- March 10 - Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful telephone call by saying "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."

April-June

- April 16 - Bulgarian April uprising
- April 17 - Six Fenian prisoners escape from a penal colony in Fremantle, Australia with the aid of ship Catalpa.
- May 1 - Turks crush uprising of Bulgar Slavs
- May 11-May 12 - Berlin Memorandum - Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary propose an armistice between Turkey and its insurgents
- May 16 - British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli rejects Berlin Memorandum
- May 18 - Wyatt Earp starts work in Dodge City, Kansas, serving under Marshal Larry Deger
- May 30 - Abd-ul-Aziz, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire is deposed and succeeded by his nephew Murat V.
- June 4 - An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, California via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after having left New York City.
- June 17 - Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud - 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.
- June 25 - Indian Wars: Battle of the Little Bighorn. Lieutenant colonel George Armstrong Custer of the US 7th Cavalry Regiment leads a unit of 300 men in battle against the allied forces of Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho, counting 5000 men under the leadership of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The latter emerge victorious.

July-September

- July 1 - Serbia declares war on Turkey
- July 2 - Montenegro declares war on Turkey
- July 4 - United States Centennial See: [http://fax.libs.uga.edu/T825xB1xI5/ Centennial exposition described and illustrated], being a concise and graphic description of this grand enterprise commemorative of the first centennary of American independence. Publisher: Philadelphia, Hubbard bros, 1876.
- July 8 - Reichstadt Agreement between Russia and Austria-Hungary on partitioning the Balkan peninsula.
- August 1 - Colorado is admitted as the 38th U.S. state.
- August 8 - Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.
- August 31 - Murat V, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abdul Hamid II.
- September 5 - Gladstone publishes Bulgarian Horrors pamphlet
- September 7 - In Northfield, Minnesota, Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang attempt to rob the town's bank but are surrounded by an angry mob and are nearly wiped out.

October-December

- October 4 - Texas A&M University, the state’s first public institution of higher education, opened on October 4, 1876 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.
- November 2 - Atlantic giant squid 6.1 meters long washes ashore in Thimble Tickle Bay in Canada
- November 21 - Porfirio Diaz arrives in Mexico City and takes power
- November 7 - U.S. presidential election is held. After long and heated disputes, Rutherford Birchard Hayes would be declared the winner over Samuel Jones Tilden.
- November 7 - Green Clay Smith ran as presidential candidate of Prohibition Party.
- November 7 - Samuel Fenton Cary ran as vice-presidential candidate of Greenback Party.
- November 23 - Corrupt Tammany Hall leader William Marcy Tweed (better known as Boss Tweed) is delivered to authorities in New York City after being captured in Spain.
- November 25 - Indian Wars: In retaliation for the dramatic American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Army troops under General Ranald Mackenzie sack Chief Dull Knife's sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River (the soldiers destroyed all of the villager's winter food and clothing and then slashed their ponies' throats).
- November 29 - Porfirio Díaz becomes President of Mexico.
- December 5 - Fire in theater in Brooklyn, New York City, kills more than 300
- December 23 - Conference of Constantinople about Ottoman treatment of its ethnic minorities begins
- December 29 - The Ashtabula River Railroad bridge disaster, 64 injured, 92 dead at Ashtabula, Ohio.

Unknown dates

- Spandau Prison finished
- Paraguay makes peace with Argentina
- Invention of the four-stroke cycle internal combustion engine by Nikolaus Otto
- United States of America Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
- After the Young Turks rebellion deposes sultan Abd al-Aziz. He is succeeded by Murad V who, after being declared insane, gives way to Abd al-Hamid I.
- Samurai are banned from carrying swords in Japan.
- Harvard Lampoon founded.
- Heinz Ketchup introduced.

Births

January-March

- January 5 - Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1967)
- January 11 - Elmer Flick, baseball player (d. 1971)
- January 12 - Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Italian composer (d. 1948)
- January 12 - Jack London, American author (d. 1916)
- January 20 - Józef Hofmann, Polish pianist (d. 1967)
- January 23 - Otto Diels, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1954)
- January 29 - Havergal Brian, British composer (d. 1972)
- February 19 - Constantin Brancusi, Romanian sculptor (d. 1957)
- March 1 - Henri de Baillet-Latour, Belgian International Olympic Committee president (d. 1942)
- March 2 - Pope Pius XII, (d. 1958)
- March 4 - Léon-Paul Fargue, French poet (d. 1947)
- March 11 - Carl Ruggles, British composer (d. 1971)
- March 21 - John Tewksbury, American athlete (d. 1968)

April-September

- April 4 - Maurice de Vlaminck, lyricist (d. 1958)
- April 22 - Robert Bárány, Nobel Prize winner in medicine
- June 5 - Tony Jackson, jazz musician (d. 1920)
- July 12 - Max Jacob, French poet (d. 1944)
- July 19 - Joseph Fielding Smith, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1972)
- August 7 - Mata Hari, exotic dancer and spy
- September 6 - John James Richard Macleod, Scottish-born physician and physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1935)
- September 15 - Bruno Walter, German conductor (d. 1962)
- September 16 - Marvin Hart, boxer (d. 1931)
- September 18 - James Scullin, ninth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1953)
- September 26 - Edith Abbott, social worker, educator, and author (d. 1957)

October-December

- October 13 - Rube Waddell, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1914)
- November 7 - Charlie Townsend, English cricketer (d. 1958)
- November 7 - Culbert Olson, Governor of California (d. 1962)
- November 17 - August Sander, German photographer (d. 1964)
- November 23 - Manuel de Falla, Spanish composer (d. 1946)
- November 24 - Walter Burley Griffin, American architect (d. 1937)
- December 9 - Berton Churchill, Canadian actor (d. 1940)
- December 12 - Alvin Kraenzlein, American athlete (d. 1928)
- December 21 - Jack Lang, Australian politician (d. 1975)
- December 25 - Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan (d. 1948)
- December 25 - Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1959)
- December 29 - Pablo Casals, Catalan cellist (d. 1973)
- Alfred Stock, German chemist (d. 1946)

Deaths

- January 14 - Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, French painter, total gaylord (b. 1780)
- February 18 - Charlotte Cushman, American stage actress (b. 1816)
- May 26 - František Palacký, Czech historian and politician (b. 1798)
- June 21 - Antonio López de Santa Anna, President of Mexico (b. 1794)
- June 25 - George Armstrong Custer, U.S. officer (killed in battle) (b. 1839)
- August 2 - Wild Bill Hickok, American gunfighter and entertainer (b. 1837)
- October 1 - James Lick, American land baron (b. 1796)
- Abd al-Aziz, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1830) 1876 was also the year that football club Port Vale FC were formed Category:1876 ko:1876년 ms:1876 simple:1876 th:พ.ศ. 2419

Florence

Florence (Italian: Firenze) is the capital city of the region of Tuscany, Italy and also capital of the province of Florence. From 1865 to 1870 the city was also the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. Florence lies on the Arno River and has a population of around 400,000 people, plus a suburban population in excess of 200,000 persons. A centre of medieval European trade and finance, the city is often considered the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance and was long ruled by the Medici family. Florence is also famous for its fine art and architecture. It is said that, of the 1,000 most important European artists of the second millennium, 350 lived or worked in Florence.

History of Florence

Florence's recorded history began with the establishment in 59 BCE of a settlement for Roman former soldiers, with the name Florentia. Julius Caesar had allocated the fertile soil of the valley of the Arno to his veterans. They built a castrum in a chessboard pattern of an army camp (castrum) , with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. This pattern can still be found in the city center. Florentia was situated at the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the North. Through this advantageous position, the settlement could rapidly expand into an important commercial center. Emperor Diocletianus made Florentia capital of the province of Tuscia in the 3rd century CE. St Minias was Florence’s first martyr. He was beheaded at about 250 CE, during the anti-Christian persecutions of the Emperor Decius. The Basilica di San Miniato al Monte now stands near the spot. The seat of a bishopric from around the beginning of the 4th century CE, the city experienced subsequent turbulent periods of Byzantine, Ostrogothic rule, during which the city was often besieged and ravaged. The population may have fallen to as few as 1,000 persons. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. Conquered by Charlemagne in 774, Florence became part of the duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca

Anarchist-communism

Philosophical arguments

Criticisms

People

Books

External links

Council communism

History of Council Communism (Left Communism)

Literature

See also

Bordigism

Carlo Cafiero

External links

Andrea Costa

Giuseppe Mazzini

See also

Mikhail Bakunin

Biography

Political beliefs

Anti-Semitism

Bibliography

See also

External links

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

See also

External links

Individualist anarchism

Origins

The American tradition

Anarcho-capitalism

See also

External links

Mutualism (economic theory)

Mutualist thoughts on capitalism

Property

The "cost principle" or "cost the limit of price"

Mutualist economics

Free association

Mutual credit

Contract / Federation

Gradualism / Dual-power

See also

External links

Joseph dejacque

External links

1876

Events

January-March

April-June

July-September

October-December

Unknown dates

Births

January-March

April-September

October-December

Deaths

Florence

History of Florence