Category: Values theory

Theory relating to the ethical and political principles which underpin thought and practice.

For ex. : Peter Kropotkin – Anarchist Morality

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Anarchism – A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume 1 (2005)

From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

Volume 2 : The Emergence of The New Anarchism (1939-1977)

Volume 3 : The New Anarchism (1974–2012)

Author(s)

Robert Graham

Contents

“Anarchy, a society without government, has existed since time immemorial. Anarchism, the doctrine that such a society is desirable, is a much more recent devel­opment.

For tens of thousands of years, human beings lived in societies without any for­mal political institutions or constituted authority. About 6,000 years ago, around the time of the so-called dawn of civilization, the first societies with formal structures of hierarchy, command, control and obedience began to develop. At first, these hierar­chical societies were relatively rare and isolated primarily to what is now Asia and the Middle East. Slowly they increased in size and influence, encroaching upon, some­times conquering and enslaving, the surrounding anarchic tribal societies in which most humans continued to live. Sometimes independently, sometimes in response to pressures from without, other tribal societies also developed hierarchical forms of social and political organization.

Still, before the era of European colonization, much of the world remained essentially anarchic, with people in various parts of the world continuing to live without formal institutions of government well into the 19th cen­tury. It was only in the 20th century that the globe was definitively divided up be­tween competing nation states which now claim sovereignty over virtually the entire planet.

The rise and triumph of hierarchical society was a far from peaceful one. War and civilization have always marched forward arm in arm, leaving behind a swath of destruction scarcely conceivable to their many victims, most of whom had little or no understanding of the forces arrayed against them and their so-called primitive ways of life. It was a contest as unequal as it was merciless.

[…]

Anarchists and their pre­cursors, such as Fourier, were among the first to criticize the combined effects of the organization of work, the division of labour and technological innovation under capi­talism. Anarchists recognized the importance of education as both a means of social control and as a potential means of liberation. They had important things to say about art and free expression, law and morality. They championed sexual freedom but also criticized the commodification of sex under capitalism. They were critical of all hierarchical relationships, whether between father and children, husband and wife, teacher and student, professionals and workers, or leaders and led, throughout society and even within their own organizations. They emphasized the importance of maintaining consistency between means and ends, and in acting in accordance with their ideals now, in the process of transforming society, not in the distant future. They opposed war and militarism in the face of widespread repression, and did not hesitate to criticize the orthodox Left for its authoritarianism and opportunism.

They developed an original conception of an all-encompassing social revolution, rejecting state terrorism and seeking to reduce violence to a minimum.”

Robert Graham

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Anarchism : a Beginner’s Guide (2005)

Author(s)

Ruth Kinna

Contents

“This book falls into four chapters, each organized around a particular theme: (i) the ideology of anarchism; (ii) anarchist conceptions of the state; (iii) principles of anarchist organization (ideas of anarchy); and (iv) strategies for change.

The first chapter begins by introducing the terms anarchism, anarchist and anarchy and then discusses the problems anarchists have encountered with popular conceptions of anarchy. The main body of the chapter looks at three different approaches to anarchism.ances, active in the latter decades of nineteenth-century Europe. The aim of this chapter is to suggest that anarchism can be defined as an ideology by the adherence of anarchists to a core belief namely, the rejection of the state.

The second chapter considers some of the ways in which anarchists have theorized the state and the grounds on which they have called for its abolition. This chapter also reviews anarchist theories of liberty, in an effort to show why anarchists believe anarchy is superior to the state, and to illustrate the broad difference between anarchist communitarians and “libertarians”.

The third chapter looks at anarchist ideas of organization and some models of anarchy. It looks first at the ways in which anarchists have understood the relationship between anarchy and statelessness, and the use they have made of anthropology to formulate ideas of anarchy. The second part of the chapter considers anarchist responses to utopianism, identifies decentralized federalism as the principle of anarchist planning and outlines two ‘utopian’ views of this principle. The last part of the chapter considers some experiments in anarchy, both historical and contemporary, highlighting the relationship that some anarchists posit between organization and revolutionary change.

The final chapter examines strategies for change – both revolutionary and evolutionary – and different methods of protest, from symbolic to direct action. The chapter includes [reviews] of the important arguments that anti-globalization protest has raised : the justification of violence.”

Ruth Kinna

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Anarchism in Latin America (1990)

Author(s)

Angel J. Cappalletti

“By the 1860s anarchism reached Latin America and took root in a number of activist groups. Sections of the First International formed in the French Antilles; the ideas of Proudhon and Bakunin were disseminated throughout Mexico; and the first organizations of workers, peasants, and students with a libertarian bent were established there.

In the 1870s there was a clear presence of anarchist groups on both sides of the Río de la Plata. For the next half century, anarchism enjoyed a steady even if often irregular history in many Latin American countries. It absorbed the major part of the working classes through unions and resistance societies for several decades in Argentina and Uruguay. In other countries, like Mexico, it played an important role in their political history and armed struggles. In Chile and Peru it sparked the revolutionary dimension of the working class struggle.

There is no doubt that even in some countries whose later history failed to produce an organized and significant labor movement—such as Ecuador, Panama, and Guatemala—there were early workers’ organizations that went beyond simple mutual aid societies and carried forward the class struggle, and they were anarchist.

Thus anarchism in Latin America has an ample history rich in struggles peaceful and violent; in demonstrations of individual and collective heroism; in organizational efforts; in oral, written, and practical propaganda; in literary works; and in theatrical, pedagogical, cooperative, andcommunitarian experiments. That history has not been totally documented, although a few fine partial studies are available. Moreover, many writers of the social, political, cultural, literary, and philosophical history of the continent either ignore or downplay the important role of anarchism—the result of ignorance or bad faith.

This work does not pretend to be a comprehensive history of Latin American anarchism but simply a sketch of it. But the range of the material and the dearth of impartial studies available do prompt a sustained treatment of that history. Hence this work examines the social achievements, the popular writings, and the anarchist literature of each Latin American country from Argentina to Mexico.”

Angel J. Cappalletti

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Decolonizing Anarchism (2011)

Author(s)

Maia Ramnath

Contents

“This leads to the second implication, which has to do not just with anarchism’s role in decolonization but also with decolonizing our concept of anarchism itself.

That means that instead of always trying to construct a strongly anarcha-centric cosmology-conceptually appropriating movements and voices from elsewhere in the world as part of “our” tradition, and then measuring them against how much or little we think they resemble our notion of our own values-we could locate the Western anarchist tradi­tion as one contextually specific manifestation among a larger-indeed global-tradition of antiauthoritarian, egal­itarian thought/praxis, of a universal human urge (if I dare say such a thing) toward emancipation, which also occurs in many other forms in many other contexts.

Something else is then the reference point for us, instead of us being the reference point for everything else. This is a deeply decolonizing move.”

Maia Ramnath

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Anarchism and the Black Revolution (1993)

Author(s)

Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin

Contents

“From Detroit, Michigan to Durban, South Africa, from the Caribbean to Australia, from Brazilto England, Black workers are universally oppressed and exploited. The Black working class needs its own world labor organization. There is no racial group more borne down by social restraint than Black workers; they are oppressed as workers and as a people.

Because of these dual forms of oppression and the fact that most trade unions exclude or do not struggle for Black laborer’s rights, we must organize for our own rights and liberation. Even though in many African and Caribbean countries there are “Black” labor federations, they are reformist or government-controlled. There is a large working class in many of these countries, but they have no militant labor organizations to lead the struggle.

The building of a Black workers’ movement for revolutionary industrial sabotage and a general strike, or organize the workers for self-management of production, and so undermine and overthrow the government is the number one priority.”

Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin

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Anarchy (1891)

Author(s)

Errico Malatesta

Vernon Richards (translator)

“We struggle for anarchy, and for socialism, because we believe that anarchy and socialism must be realised immediately, that is to say that in the revolutionary act we must drive govern­ment away, abolish property and entrust public services, which in this context will include all social life, to the spontaneous, free, not official, not authorised efforts of all interested parties and of all willing helpers.

Of course there will be difficulties and drawbacks; but they will be resolved, and they will only be resolved in an anarchist way, by means, that is, of the direct intervention of the interested parties and by free agreements.”

Errico Malatesta

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The Anarchist Revolution : Polemical Articles 1924-1931 (1995)

Author(s)

Errico Malatesta

Vernon Richards (editor)

Contents

“Organisation, which after all only means cooperation and solidarity in practice, is a natural condition, necessary to the running of society; and it is an unavoidable fact which involves everyone, whether in human society in general or in any grouping of people joined by a common aim.

As human beings cannot live in isolation, indeed could not really become human beings and satisfy their moral and material needs unless they were part of society and cooperated with their fellows, it is inevitable that those who lack the means, or a sufficiently developed awareness, to organise freely with those with whom they share common interests and sentiments, must submit to the organisations set up by others, who generally form the ruling class or group and whose aim is to exploit the labour of others to their own advantage.

And the age-long oppression of the masses by a small number of the privileged has always been the outcome of the inability of the greater number of individuals to agree and to organise with other workers on production and enjoyment of rights and benefits and for defence against those who seek to exploit and oppress them.

Anarchism emerged as a response to this state of affairs, its basic principle being free organisation, set up and run according to the free agreement of its members without any kind of authority; that is, without anyone having the right to impose their will on others. And it is therefore obvious that anarchists should seek to apply to their personal and political lives this same principle upon which, they believe, the whole of human society should be based.”

Errico Malatesta

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An Anarchist Programme (1920)

Author(s)

Errico Malatesta

Contents

“We want to change radically [the] state of affairs. And since all these ills have their origin in the struggle between men, in the seeking after well-being through one’s own efforts and for oneself and against everybody, we want to make amends, replacing hatred by love, competition by solidarity, the individual search for personal well-being by the fraternal cooperation for the well-being of all, oppression and imposition by liberty, the religious and pseudo-scientific lie by truth.

Therefore:

1. Abolition of private property in land, in raw materials and the instruments of labour, so that no one shall have the means of living by the exploitation of the labour of others, and that everybody, being assured of the means to produce and to live, shall be truly independent and in a position to unite freely among themselves for a common objective and according to their personal sympathies.

2. Abolition of government and of every power which makes the law and imposes it on others : therefore abolition of monarchies, republics, parliaments, armies, police forces, magistratures and any institution whatsoever endowed with coercive powers.

3. Organisation of social life by means of free association and federations of producers and consumers, created and modified according to the wishes of their members, guided by science and experience, and free from any kind of imposition which does not spring from natural needs, to which everyone, convinced by a feeling of over, riding necessity, voluntarily submits.

4. The means of life, for development and well-being, will be guaranteed to children and all who are prevented from providing for themselves.

5. War on religions and all lies, even if they shelter under the cloak of science. Scientific instruction for all to advanced level.

6. War on rivalries and patriotic prejudices. Abolition of frontiers ; brotherhood among all peoples.

7. Reconstruction of the family, as will emerge from the practice of love, freed from every legal tie, from every economic and physical oppression, from every religious prejudice.

This is our ideal.”

Errico Malatesta

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At the Café : Conversations on Anarchism (1922)

Author(s)

Errico Malatesta

Paul Nursey-Bray (editor, translator)

Contents

“These dialogues of Malatesta represent not just a major contribu­tion to anarchist political theory, but a significant historical docu­ment. Written over a period of 23 years they are a commentary on turbulent times and vital historical events, covering as they do an epoch distinguished in particular by left-wing agitation and organisation across Europe.

During the time spanned by these ruminations on anarchism the world witnessed the Second International, the rise of Bolshevism, the First World War, the birth of Fascism and the Russian Revolutions, both of 1904 and 1917. Without any direct allusion to any of these events the dialogues engage in a lively debate with many of the issues that they raise.

In a real sense Malatesta has crafted anarchist theory into a run­ning commentary on his times. It is a work of intelligence, style and real artistry.”

Paul Nursey-Bray

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The Philosophy of Social Ecology (1996)

Author(s)

Murray Bookchin

Contents

“What is nature? What is humanity’s place in nature? And what is the relationship of society to the natural world?

In an era of ecological breakdown, answering these questions has become of momentous importance for our everyday lives and for the future that we and other life-forms face. They are not abstract philosophical questions that should be relegated to a remote, airy world of metaphysical speculation. Nor can we answer them in an offhand way, with poetic metaphors or unthinking, visceral reactions. The definitions and ethical standards with which we respond to them may ultimately decide whether human society will creatively foster natural evolution, or whether we will render the planet uninhabitable for all complex life-forms, including ourselves.

At first glance, everybody “knows” what nature is. It is that which is all around us-trees, animals, rocks, and the like. It is that which “humanity” is destroying and coating with petroleum. But such prima facie definitions fall apart when we examine them with some care. If nature is indeed what is all around us, we may reasonably ask, then is a carefully manicured suburban lawn not nature? Is the split-level house it surrounds not nature? Are its furnishings not natural?

Today, this sort of question is likely to elicit a heated avowal that only “wild,” “primordial,” or even nonhuman nature is authentically natural. Other people, no less thoughtful, will reply that nature is basically matter, or the materialized stuff of the universe in all its forms–what philosophers sweepingly call Being. The fact is that wide philosophical differences have existed for centuries in the West over the very definition of the word nature. These differences remain unresolved to this day, even as nature is making headlines in environmental issues that are of enormous importance for the future of nearly all life-forms.

Defining nature becomes an even more complex task when we include the human species as part of it. Is human society with its ensemble of technologies and artifacts-not to speak of such ineffable features as its conflicting social interests and institutions-any less part of nature than nonhuman animals? And if human beings are part of nature, are they merely one life-form among many others, or are they unique in ways that place major responsibilities on them with respect to the rest of the world of life, responsibilities that no other species shares or is even capable of sharing?

Whatever nature may mean, we must determine in what way humanity “fits” into it. And we must confront the complex and challenging question of the relationship of society–more specifically, the different social forms that appeared in the past, that exist today, and that may appear in the future-to nature. Unless we answer these questions with reasonable clarity-or at least fully discuss them-we will lack any ethical direction in dealing with our environmental problems. Unless we know what nature is and what humanity’s and society’s place in it is, we will be left with vague intuitions and visceral sentiments that neither cohere into clear views nor provide a guide for effective action “

Murray Bookchin

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