S
Smart American
Guest
Anarchist communist currents manifested themselves during the English
Civil War and the French Revolution of the 1700s. Gerrard Winstanley,
who was part of the radical Diggers movement in England, wrote in his
1649 pamphlet, "The New Law of Righteousness," that there "shall be no
buying or selling, no fairs nor markets, but the whole earth shall be
a common treasury for every man," and "there shall be none Lord over
others, but every one shall be a Lord of himself."[1] During the
French Revolution, Sylvain Maréchal, in his "Manifesto of the
Equals" (1796), demanded "the communal enjoyment of the fruits of the
earth" and looked forward to the disappearance of "the revolting
distinction of rich and poor, of great and small, of masters and
valets, of governors and governed."[2]
An early anarchist communist was Joseph Déjacque, the first person to
describe themself as "libertarian".[3] Unlike Proudhon, he argued
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."[4]
The collectivist anarchists advocated remuneration for labor, but held
out the possibility of a post-revolutionary transition to a communist
system of distribution according to need. As Bakunin's associate,
James Guillaume, put it in his essay, Ideas on Social Organization
(1876), "When... production comes to outstrip consumption...
[e]veryone will draw what he needs from the abundant social reserve of
commodities, without fear of depletion; and the moral sentiment which
will be more highly developed among free and equal workers will
prevent, or greatly reduce, abuse and waste."[5]
[edit] First International
Anarchist communism as a coherent, modern economic-political
philosophy 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 with collectivist anarchism
explicit until after Bakunin's death.[6] The collectivist anarchists
sought to collectivize ownership of the means of production while
retaining payment for labor, but the anarcho-communists sought to
extend the concept of collective ownership to the products of labor as
well. While both groups argued against capitalism, the anarchist
communists departed from Proudhon and Bakunin, who maintained that
individuals have a right to the product of their labor and to be
remunerated for their work, by proposing that individuals should be
free to access goods according to their needs without respect to how
much labor they exert.
Cafeiro explains in Anarchy and Communism (1880) that private property
in the product of labor will lead to unequal accumulation of capital
and, therefore, undesirable class distinctions: "If we preserve the
individual appropriation of the products of labour, we would be forced
to preserve money, leaving more or less accumulation of wealth
according to more or less merit rather than need of individuals."[7]
At the Florence Conference of the Italian Federation of the
International in 1876, 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.
[edit] Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin, often seen as the most important theorist of
anarchist communism, outlined his economic ideas in The Conquest of
Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops. Kropotkin felt that co-
operation is more beneficial than competition, arguing in Mutual Aid:
A Factor of Evolution that this was illustrated in nature. He
advocated the abolition of private property through the "expropriation
of the whole of social wealth" by the people themselves,[8] and for
the economy to be co-ordinated through a horizontal network of
voluntary associations[9] where goods are distributed according to the
physical needs of the individual, rather than according to labor.[10]
He further argued that these "needs," as society progressed, would not
merely be physical needs but "[a]s soon as his material wants are
satisfied, other needs, of an artistic character, will thrust
themselves forward the more ardently. Aims of life vary with each and
every individual; and the more society is civilized, the more will
individuality be developed, and the more will desires be varied."[11]
He maintained that, in anarcho-communism:
....houses, fields, and factories will no longer be private property,
and that they will belong to the commune or the nation and money,
wages, and trade would be abolished.
– Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread[12]
Individuals and groups would use and control whatever resources they
needed, as the aim of anarchist-communism was to place "the product
reaped or manufactured at the disposal of all, leaving to each the
liberty to consume them as he pleases in his own home."[13] He
supported the expropriation of property to ensure that everyone would
have access to what they needed without being forced to sell their
labour to get it.
We do not want to rob any one of his coat, but we wish to give to the
workers all those things the lack of which makes them fall an easy
prey to the exploiter, and we will do our utmost that none shall lack
aught, that not a single man shall be forced to sell the strength of
his right arm to obtain a bare subsistence for himself and his babes.
This is what we mean when we talk of Expropriation...
– Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread[14]
He said that a "peasant who is in possession of just the amount of
land he can cultivate," and "a family inhabiting a house which affords
them just enough space... considered necessary for that number of
people" and the artisan "working with their own tools or handloom"
would not be interfered with,[15] arguing that "[t]he landlord owes
his riches to the poverty of the peasants, and the wealth of the
capitalist comes from the same source."[16]
While many anarcho-communists are opposed to trade, some post-left and
post-scarcity anarcho-communists, and ones with syndicalist
sympathies, are not opposed to trade. Some support a non-monetary form
of trade in the form of non-monetary commons. Others such as Tiziana
Terranova easily see anarcho-communism being compatible with a non-
hierarchical, open access, free association, non-monetary form of
trade such as P2P. [17]
[edit] Theory
Anarchist communism stresses egalitarianism and the abolition of
social hierarchy and class distinctions that arise from unequal wealth
distribution, the abolition of capitalism and money, and the
collective production and distribution of wealth by means of voluntary
associations. In anarchist communism, the state and property would no
longer exist. Each individual and group would be free to contribute to
production and to satisfy their needs based on their own choice.
Systems of production and distribution would be managed by their
participants.
The abolition of wage labor is central to anarchist communism. With
distribution of wealth being based on self-determined needs, people
would be free to engage in whatever activities they found most
fulfilling and would no longer have to engage in work for which they
have neither the temperament nor the aptitude. Anarchist communists
argue that there is no valid way of measuring the value of any one
person's economic contributions because all wealth is a collective
product of current and preceding generations. For instance, one could
not measure the value of a factory worker's daily production without
taking into account how transportation, food, water, shelter,
relaxation, machine efficiency, emotional mood etc. contributed to
their production. To truly give numerical economic value to anything,
an infinite amount of externalities and contributing factors would
need to be taken into account. Especially current or past labor that
contributes to the ability to utilize future labor.
Anarchist communists argue that any economic system based on wage
labor and private property requires a coercive state apparatus to
enforce property rights and to maintain the unequal economic
relationships that inevitably arise from differences in wages or
amount of property. They further argue that markets and systems of
currency divide labor into classes and assign artificial numerical
values to an individual's work and attempt to regulate production,
consumption and distribution. They argue that money restricts an
individual's ability to consume the products of their labor by
limiting their intake with prices and wages. They believe that
production, consumption and distribution should be self-determined by
each individual without arbitrary value assigned to labor tasks by
others. In place of a market, most anarcho-communists support a
currency-less gift economy where goods and services are produced by
workers and distributed in community stores where everyone (including
the workers who produced them) is entitled to consume whatever they
want or need as "payment" for their production of goods and services.
A gift economy does not necessarily involve an immediate return (such
as with remuneration), compensation comes in the form of whatever the
person decides is of equal value to their products of labor.
Communist anarchism shares many traits with collectivist anarchism but
has defining differences. Collectivist anarchism believes in
collective ownership but communist anarchism negates the entire
concept of ownership in favor of the concept of usage. [18] Thus,
things are seen as either private possessions used by an individual,
or social possessions used to produce for society. Anarcho-communists
believe that means of production should not be owned by any person or
entity, leaving it free to be used by individuals for their own self-
determined needs and wants. The land used by an individual for
themself or their family or productive property used to produce for an
individual would be considered private possessions rather than social
possessions in anarcho-communist theory. In that regard, anarcho-
communism could be considered to be a compromise between collective
and individual ownership, in that one would own what they had created
unless it is used to produce for society in which case it would become
a social possession. The individual would be perfectly free to create
it again and keep it as long as it is not being used as a means of
production for the community or general public.[19]
Anarcho-communists reject mutualist economics because they believe
that market competition, even non-capitalist markets, inherently
create inequalities in wealth and land which would lead to
inequalities of power - thus the recreation of the State and
capitalism as some workers would have more access to capital and
defence force than others. They reject collectivist economics arguing
that remuneration would require a type of currency, which anarcho-
communists reject as an artificial measurement of the value of labor.
They further argue that those who are not part of collective groups or
unions in workers' councils and collectives could be alienated from
access to capital, and thus promote common ownership over ownership by
collective groups.
[edit] Philosophical arguments
Anarchist communists reject the claim that wage labor is necessary
because people are by "nature" lazy and selfish. They point out that
even the so-called "idle rich" sometimes find useful things to do
despite having all their needs satisfied by the labour of others.
[citation needed] Anarcho-communists generally do not agree with the
belief in a pre-set 'human nature', arguing that human culture and
behavior is very largely determined by socialization. Many, like Peter
Kropotkin, also believe that human evolutionary tendency is for humans
to cooperate with each other for mutual benefit and survival instead
of existing as lone competitors.[20]
Anarchist communists support communism as a means for ensuring the
greatest freedom and well-being for everyone, rather than only the
wealthy and powerful. In this sense, anarchist communism is a
profoundly egalitarian philosophy. Anarchist communists do not think
that anyone has the right to be anyone else's master, or 'boss' as
this is a concept of capitalism and the state. Some contemporary
anarchist communists and advocates of post-left anarchy such as Bob
Black reject the concept of work altogether in favor of turning
necessary subsistence tasks into voluntary free play.
Many anarcho-communists (and collectivist anarchists as well) reject
"individualism" and "collectivism" as illusory concepts [21]. They
argue that an individual sacrificing themself for the "greater good"
or being ruled by the "community" or "society" is not possible because
society is composed of individuals rather than being a cohesive unit
sepreate from the individual, and argue that collective control over
the individual is tyrannical and un-anarchistic [22].
[edit] Criticisms
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, some of whose philosophy has influenced social
anarchists[23] (social Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy was heavily
influenced by Proudhon [24]), was critical of communism, "whether of
the Utopian or the Marxist variety, [believing] that it destroyed
freedom by taking away from the individual control over his means of
production."[25] 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 impose equality by
sovereign decrees. In opposition to the communist maxim "to each
according to need", 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" [26]. However,
Proudhon was against the hoarding of private property in an unequal
society and thus supported people being in equal condition which he
believed would negate the difference in amounts of private property.
In his treatise What is Property?(1849), Proudhon answers with
"Property is theft!" In natural resources, he sees two conceivable
types of property, de jure property and de facto property, and argues
that the former is illegitimate. Proudhon's fundamental premise is
that equality of condition is the essence of justice. "By this method
of investigation, we soon see that every argument which has been
invented in behalf of property, whatever it may be, always and of
necessity leads to equality; that is, to the negation of property."[4]
He argued that an inegalitarian condition in society would impoverish
some people at the hands of people with more land,
“ The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, 'This
is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.' Here, then, is a
piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has right to step, save
the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the
proprietor and his servants. Let these multiply, and soon the
people . . . will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground
to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on the edge
of that property which was their birth-right; and the proprietor,
watching them die, will exclaim, 'So perish idlers and vagrants.'"[27]
”
However, while being opposed to communism, he was also opposed to
capitalism. In a series of commentaries, from What is Property? (1840)
through the posthumously-published Théorie de la propriété (Theory of
Property, 1863-64), he first declared that "property is theft",
"property is impossible", "property is despotism" and "property is
freedom". When he said property is theft, he was referring to the
landowner or capitalist who he believed stole the profits from
laborers. For Proudhon, the capitalist's employee was "subordinated,
exploited: his permanent condition is one of obedience."[28] Proudhon
called himself a "socialist" and called his philosophy "anarchist
socialism". He opposed state ownership of capital goods in favour of
ownership by workers themselves in associations.
Many individualist anarchists believe that elements of anarcho-
communism are undesirable or even incompatible with anarchism.
Benjamin Tucker referred to it as "pseudo-anarchism"[29] when
admonishing Peter Kropotkin for opposing wages. Henry Appleton said:
"All Communism, under whatever guise, is the natural enemy of
Anarchism, and a Communist sailing under the flag of Anarchism is as
false a figure as could be invented."[30] Victor Yarros says 'no
logical justification, no rational explanation, and no "scientific"
reasoning has been, is, will be, or can be advanced in defence of that
unimaginable impossibility, Communistic Anarchism' [31]. Clarence Lee
Swartz says in What is Mutualism: "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 one's labor. State
Socialists, Communists, Syndicalists and Communist-Anarchists deny
private property." William Kline says that the individualists and
communists "could not reconcile their differences, the Communist
Anarchists dedicated to a community of property and the Individualist
Anarchists deeply committed to private property and individual
effort."[32] Anarcho-communists counter these criticisms by arguing
that the abolition of property creates maximum freedom for all
individuals. As Errico Malatesta argues,
“ "The individualists assume . . . that the (anarchist) communists
wish to impose communism, which of course would put them right outside
the ranks of anarchism.
"The communists assume . . . that the (anarchist) individualists
reject every idea of association, want the struggle between men, the
domination of the strongest -- and this would put them not only
outside the anarchist movement but outside humanity.
"In reality those who are communists are such because they see in
common freely accepted the realisation of brotherhood, and the best
guarantee for individual freedom. And individualists, those who are
really anarchists, are anti-communist because they fear that communism
would subject individuals . . . to the tyranny of the
collectivity . . . Therefore they want each individual, or each group,
to be in a position to enjoy freely the product of their labour in
conditions of equality with other individuals and groups, with whom
they would maintain relations of justice and equity.
"In which case it is clear that there is no basic difference between
us. But, according to the communists, justice and equity are, under
natural conditions impossible of attainment in an individualistic
society, and thus freedom too would not be attained.
"If climatic conditions throughout the world were the same, if the
land were everywhere equally fertile, if raw materials were evenly
distributed and within reach of all who needed them, if social
development were the same everywhere in the world . . . then one could
conceive of everyone . . . finding the land, tools and raw materials
needed to work and produce independently, without exploiting or being
exploited. But natural and historical conditions being what they are,
how is it possible to establish equality and justice between he who by
chance finds himself with a piece of arid land which demand much
labour for small returns with him who has a piece of fertile and well
sited land?"[33]
”
Anarcho-communists argue that individual worker cooperatives have the
potential to isolate and control those who do not belong to such
institutions, or those with less money. Anarcho-communists in general
argue that the value of labor is subjective and thus cannot be
measured by any monetary means, arguing that such values are arbitrary
and lead to a stratification in society by a division of labor.
Kropotkin and other communists anarchists have argued that the
existence of defence associations, even worker-owned ones that are
freely available for everyone, have authoritarian implications, "[f]or
their self-defence, both the citizen and group have a right to any
violence [within individualist anarchy] . . . Violence is also
justified for enforcing the duty of keeping an agreement. Tucker . . .
opens . . . the way for reconstructing under the heading of the
'defence' all the functions of the State."[34] Moreover, anarcho-
communists argue that even in a socialistic market such as in
individualist and mutualist anarchy, as some workers reaped more
revenue than others, due to different productivity in market
competition, those with more money would have more access to capital
(means of production) and thus become able to unilaterally influence
market deals, decision-making and employment, offering the highest
bids to defence firms and thus reconstituting capitalism and the
State. Alfie Kohn points out "strife of competition reduces empathic
sympathy, distorts communication, impairs the mutuality of support and
sharing, and decreases the satisfaction of personal need." [35]
Communist anarchist Albert Metzer harshly argued, "the school of
Benjamin Tucker -- by virtue of their individualism -- accepted the
need for police to break strikes so as to guarantee the employer's
'freedom.' All this school of so-called Individualists accept . . .
the necessity of the police force, hence for government, and the prime
definition of anarchism is no government." [36]
More recently, advocates of post-left anarchy, such as Bob Black in
Anarchy After Leftism, argue that leftists have an attachment to
generic moral standards that are incompatible with anarchism and seek
to establish political forms, such as platformism and direct
democracy, that amount to forms of the state.[37] However, anarchist
communists reject this claim, stating that direct democracy includes
no hierarchy or monopolization of force and territory. Bob Black is an
anarchist and possibly an anarchist communist himself due to his
rejection of wage labor and rejection of market systems.
One capitalist criticism of anarcho-communism is that such a society
would not be able to keep productivity up because individuals would
not be paid for their labor, since wages would be abolished and people
would instead be given things "according to their needs."[38]
Anarchist communists propose that economic distribution should be
based on the maxim "from each according to their ability and to each
according to their needs" believing these "abilities" and "needs"
should be self-determined.
Anarchist communists reject markets based on the principle that all
theories of monetary value are subjective and argue that private
property is inherently exploitative,[39] and could not exist without
force or without the eventual creation of a State to protect it.[40]
They also put forward the idea that, by making productive property
freely accessible to all, it would increase individual liberty.[41]
They argue that labor should not be an obligation and should be a
voluntary task that should be enjoyable or provide necessary services.
[42] Alexander Berkman in particular believed that all forms of
private ownership of production are authoritarian whether or not they
have an established state to protect them, "[so the boss] gives you a
job: that is permission to work in the factory or mill which was not
built by him but by other workers like yourself. And for that
permission you help to support him for . . .as long as you work for
him."[43] Bob Black further argued, "Some people giving orders and
others obeying them: this is the essence of servitude. Of course, as
[right-Libertarians] smugly [observe], 'one can at least change jobs,'
but you can't avoid having a job -- just as under statism one can at
least change nationalities but you can't avoid subjection to one
nation-state or another. But freedom means more than the right to
change masters"[44] Charlotte Wilson argued that it would not be
possible to be forced into an anarcho-communist commune as the
abolition of property (the anarchist conception of property) cannot be
authoritarian, "every man [or woman] is free to take what he [or she]
requires....[and so] it is hardly conceivable that personal
necessaries and conveniences will not be appropriated.....[for] when
property is protected by no legal enactments, backed by armed force,
and is unable to buy personal service, its resuscitation on such a
scale as to be dangerous to society is little to be dreaded. The
amount appropriated by each individual . . . must be left to his [or
her] own conscience, and the pressure exercised upon him [or her] by
the moral sense and distinct interests of his [or her] neighbours."
She further argued, "Property is the domination of an individual, or a
coalition of individuals, over things; it is not the claim of any
person or persons to the use of things -- this is, usufruct, a very
different matter. Property means the monopoly of wealth, the right to
prevent others using it, whether the owner needs it or not. Usufruct
implies the claim to the use of such wealth as supplies the users
needs. If any individual shuts off a portion of it (which he is not
using, and does not need for his own use) from his fellows, he is
defrauding the whole community." [45]
Marxists criticize anarchism as being incapable of creating a
successful and lasting revolution because it is philosophically flat-
footed and does not aptly identify issues of class and modes of
production[46]. Both Marxist and anarchist class analyses are based on
the idea that society is divided up into many different "classes",
each with differing interests according to their material
circumstances. The two differ, however, in where they draw the lines
between these groups. For Marxists, the two most relevant classes are
the "bourgeoisie" (owners of the means of production) and the
"proletariat" (wage laborers). Anarchists argue that it is not the
capital class who actually has control over the state, but another
upper class which is part of the ruling class (and thus, defending its
interests), but with its own concerns, particularly retaining
political power, national territory and military power. A
revolutionary minority taking over State power and imposing its will
on the people would be just as authoritarian as the ruling minority in
capitalism, and would eventually constitute itself as a ruling class
since the class that governs the state is seen as separate from the
labor class. This was predicted by Bakunin long before the Russian
revolution and the fall of the Soviet Union, when he wrote:
If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute
power, within a year he would be worse than the Czar himself. [47]
Also, anarchists have traditionally advocated that a successful
revolution needs the support of the peasantry, and a joint effort
between both rural agricultural workers and industrial workers [48].
That is, it explicitly rejects imposing state property of the land.
Some modern anarchists (particularly pareconists) argue that there are
three “classes,” which have relevance to social change - not two. The
first is the labor class which includes everyone whose labor is
involved in producing and distributing goods; the second is the
coordinator class which includes everyone whose labor is primarily
concerned with “coordinating” and managing the labor of others
primarily on behalf of the bourgeoisie (this would include
bureaucrats, politicians, intellectuals and party hierarchs); and the
third is the elite owning class or "capital class" which derives its
income from its control of wealth, land, property and resources [49].
Anarchists contend that Marxism fails, and will always fail, because
it creates a dictatorship of the coordinating class and that a
"dictatorship of the proletariat" is a logical impossibility [50]
[51]. They argue its theoretical "socialist mode of production"
involves centralizing and empowering the State apparatus which
empowers people from the coordinator class to seize control of the
State and means of production to manage the labor class. Bakunin
foreshadowed this argument when he wrote:
“ "the State has always been the patrimony of some privileged class: a
priestly class, an aristocratic class, a bourgeois class. And finally,
when all the other classes have exhausted themselves, the State then
becomes the patrimony of the bureaucratic class and then falls—or, if
you will, rises—to the position of a machine." On the International
Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx, Mikhail Bakunin, 1872
[5]
”
Anarchists do not differentiate between peasants, lumpen, merchants,
some small business owners, and proletarians and instead define all
people who work for the profit of others or sell the products of their
own labor as members of the working class, regardless of occupation
[52]. Anarchists do differentiate between the economic and political
elites who set policy and the business and government functionaries
that carry those policies out, whereas Marxists lump the two together
[53] [54]. Further, some anarchists argue that Marxism fails because
it springs from the minds of middle class intellectuals, while arguing
that anarchism springs spontaneously from the self-activity and self-
organization of the labor class [55]. They point to [56] the fact that
schools of Marxism are often named after the intellectuals who formed
the movements through high analytical and philosophical praxis
theorization [57]. Marxists, however, contend that their ideas are not
new ideologies which sprang from intellectuals but are ideas which
form from the class contradictions of each economic and social mode of
history. They argue that Marxian socialism in particular arose from
the minds of the working class due to the class contradictions of the
capitalist mode of production. Some Marxists even argue that anarchism
springs from the ideas of proletarians (or even petty bourgeoisie) who
have been marginalized by capitalism as an unorganized and unrefined
reactionary struggle against the forces of capitalism [58]. Marxists
believe that attempts by oppressed people to liberate themselves will
continue to fail to achieve their full aims until class society is
done away with, because under capitalism and other class societies,
social power rests at the point of production. Many Marxists point to
the sometimes rag-tag nature of anarchist revolutions as evidence that
any working class movement needs a sufficient backbone organizational
focus to maintain good tactics and inspire a proletarian class
consciousness, often in the form of a revolutionary vanguard party
[59]. Some Marxists believe anarchist revolutions tend to be
reactionary (in the sense of reacting against the alienating effects
of capitalism) and fail to stop capitalism due to their hostility to
established political power. They argue that anti-capitalist
revolutions need to seize sufficient political power in the form of a
state in order to prevent the return of capitalism and to create an
economy which allows both capitalism and the state to become
unnecessary [60] [61]. Anarcho-communists counter-argue that
decentralized, stateless collective federations are sufficient to give
both power to workers and preserve personal freedom and point to the
fact that no socialist state has ever showed signs of "withering
away".
However, it should be noted that these disagreements are less of a
problem for libertarian Marxists who believe that a State apparatus
should operate on proletariat-controlled participatory democracy or
even as a consociational state. Marxists and anarcho-communists would
both agree that "It is this class division of society which gives rise
to the state - because the minority need a special force to maintain
their rule over the majority - which has evolved over thousands of
years into the complicated structures we see today." [62].
[edit] Response
However, despite criticisms, anarchist communist communes, such as
anarchist Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, saw increased
productivity. The production of potatoes increased 50% and the
production of sugar beets and feed for livestock doubled. Through the
use of more modernized machinery and chemical fertilizers, the yield
per hectare was 50% greater on collective property than on
individually-owned land. [63] The anarchist collectivization in Spain
also showed that such ideas are possible to implement in industrial
settings. 75% of Spanish industry was located in the Catalon region.
According to local sources at the time,
“ "Catalonia and Aragon, were about 70 per cent of the workforce was
involved. The total for the whole of Republican territory was nearly
800,000 on the land and a little more than a million in industry. In
Barcelona workers' committees took over all the services, the oil
monopoly, the shipping companies, heavy engineering firms such as
Volcano, the Ford motor company, chemical companies, the textile
industry and a host of smaller enterprises. . . Services such as
water, gas and electricity were working under new management within
hours of the storming of the Atarazanas barracks . . .a conversion of
appropriate factories to war production meant that metallurgical
concerns had started to produce armed cars by 22 July . . . The
industrial workers of Catalonia were the most skilled in Spain . . .
One of the most impressive feats of those early days was the
resurrection of the public transport system at a time when the streets
were still littered and barricaded." [64] ”
The collectivist projects were quite successful, sources noted
“ "In distribution the collectives' co-operatives eliminated
middlemen, small merchants, wholesalers, and profiteers, thus greatly
reducing consumer prices. The collectives eliminated most of the
parasitic elements from rural life, and would have wiped them out
altogether if they were not protected by corrupt officials and by the
political parties. Non-collectivised areas benefited indirectly from
the lower prices as well as from free services often rendered by the
collectives (laundries, cinemas, schools, barber and beauty parlours,
etc.)" [65] ”
[edit] History of anarchist communist societies
There have been several attempts both successful and unsuccessful at
creating anarchist-communist societies throughout much of the world.
Some anarchist-communists, especially Anarcho-primitivism forms of the
theory argue that tribal societies are early forms of anarchist-
communism. Egalitarian religious communities such as the Diggers
Movement during the English Revolution could arguably be the first
anarchist communist societies in modern history. Large communities and
federations of communities such as Anarchist Catalonia and the Free
Territory of revolutionary Ukraine are examples of anarchist-communism
in 20th century Europe. The free territories of Hungary during the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 could be seen as another example of large-
scale successful anarcho-communism.
The Korean Anarchist Movement in North and South Korea led by Kim Jwa
Jin showed a temporary success in bringing anarcho-communism to Korea.
However, the success was short-lived and not nearly as widely spread
as the anarchism in Spain or Hungary. Some consider the current
existing anarchist nature of communities in Argentina and the
Zapatista councils in Mexico to be anarcho-communist in nature. Others
consider them to be collectivist or syndicalist.
Some parts of the free software community, the GNU movement and parts
of the copyleft movement are a type of information and software gift
economy (a gift economy being the preferred economic system of anarcho-
communists). Programmers make their source code available, allowing
anyone to copy and modify/improve the code. Individual programmers
gain prestige and respect, and the community as a whole benefits from
better software. Markus Giesler in his ethnography "Consumer Gift
Systems" has developed music downloading as a system of social
solidarity based on gift transactions.[66] [67] Some organizations
such as online commons (such as the Wikimedia Commons), wikis and
Indymedia are held up as examples of functioning anarcho-communistic
organizations.
[edit] See also
Anarchism
Communism
Platformism
Libertarian Socialism
Socialism
Workers' Councils
Direct democracy
Consensus Democracy
Commons
Gift economy
Peer-to-peer (meme)
Libertarian Communism (journal)
Anarchism in Spain
Anarchism in Argentina
Anarchism in Hungary
Anarchism in Ukraine
Anarchism in Mexico
Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Kronstadt Rebellion
[edit] People
Peter Arshinov
Francisco Ascaso
Mikhail Bakunin
Alexander Berkman
Camillo Berneri[citation needed]
Murray Bookchin
Camilo Cienfuegos[citation needed]
Joseph Déjacque
Buenaventura Durruti
Karl Einstein
Emma Goldman
Daniel Guérin
Peter Kropotkin
Nestor Makhno
Cipriano Mera[citation needed]
Kim Jwa Jin
Errico Malatesta
Alan Moore
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin
Emiliano Zapata
Ricardo Flores Magon
Kuwasi Balagoon
Ashanti Alston
Guy Aldred
George Woodcock
Danny Richardson[citation needed]
[edit] References
^ Graham, Robert Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian
Ideas - Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE to 1939), Black
Rose Books, 2005
^ Ibid
^ Déjacque, Joseph. De l'être-humain mâle et femelle - Lettre à P.J.
Proudhon par Joseph Déjacque (in French)
^ Graham op. cit.
^ Guillaume, James. Ideas on Social Organization
^ Guillaume, James. Michael Bakunin - A Biographical Sketch
^ Graham op. cit.
^ Kropotkin, Peter. Words of a Rebel, p99.
^ Kropotkin, Peter. The Conquest of Bread, p145.
^ Shatz, Marshall. Introduction to Kropotkin: The Conquest of Bread
and Other Writings, Cambridge University Press 1995, p. xvi "Anarchist
communism called for the socialization not only of production but of
the distribution of goods: the community would supply the subsistence
requirements of each individual member free of charge, and the
criterion, 'to each according to his labor' would be superseded by the
criterion 'to each according to his needs.'"
^ Kropotkin, Peter. The Conquest of Bread Chapter IX The Need For
Luxury
^ Kropotkin, Peter Chapter 13 The Collectivist Wages System from The
Conquest of Bread, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1906.
^ The Place of Anarchism in the Evolution of Socialist Thought
^ Kropotkin, Peter The Conquest Of Bread Chapter IV
^ Kropotkin Act for yourselves. N.Walter and H. Becker, eds. (London:
Freedom Press 1985) [p. 104-5]
^ Kropotkin "The Conquest of Bread" op cit
^ Terranova, Tiziana "Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital
Economy". 07-26-2005
^ Alexander Berkman. What is Anarchism?, p. 217
^ Kropotkin Act for yourselves. N.Walter and H. Becker, eds. (London:
Freedom Press 1985) [p. 104-5]
^ Peter Kropotkin Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution[1]
^ http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secA2.html#seca213
^ The Place of Anarchism in the Evolution of Socialist Thought, p.
14-15
^ Kropotkin, Peter, The Conquest of Bread, p. 145
^ Hayward, Jack, After the French Revolution, p. 213
^ From Encyclopedia Britannica article "Proudhon, Pierre-
Joseph" (2006)
^ Proudhon, Pierre Joseph. System of Economical Contradictions: or,
the Philosophy of Misery
^ What is Property?, p. 118
^ General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century (1851),
Sixth Study, § 3 ¶ 5.
^ Benjamin Tucker, Labor and its Pay
^ Anarchism, True and False (1884)
^ Victor Yarros, A Princely Paradox
^ William Kline, The Individualist Anarchists: A Critique of
Liberalism
^ Life and Ideas, pp. 31-2
^ Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 297
^ Nathan Ackerman, quoted by Alfie Kohn, Op. Cit., pp. 142-3
^ Anarchism: Arguments For and Against, p. 8
^ Bob Black is a libertarian socialist, and likely an anarcho-
communist (given his reference to attempts on his part to defend
anarcho-communism in his essay "The Libertarian As Conservative") and
his references to "leftism" are mostly against what he perceives as
Marxist influences in libertarian socialism.
^ Busky, Donald F. Communism in History and Theory: From Utopian
Socialism to the Fall of the Soviet Union. Praeger/Greenwood 2002, p.
101
^ Berkman, Alexander. What Is Communist Anarchism? p.11
^ Kropotkin, Peter. Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 297
^ Kropotkin, Peter. The Place of Anarchism in the Evolution of
Socialist Thought, p.14-15
^ Kropotkin, Peter. Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 197
^ Alexander Berkman, What is Communist Anarchism?, p. 11
^ Bob Black, The Libertarian as Conservative
^ Anarchist Essays, pp. 22-23 and p. 40
^ "anarchism developed in opposition to the growth of capitalist
society...the liberty defended by the anarchists was not the freedom
of the working class to make collectively a new society. Rather,
anarchism defended the freedom of the small property owner -- the
shopkeeper, artisan and tradesman -- against the encroachments of
large-scale capitalist enterprise." Socialism From Below McNally,
David
^ (Quoted in Daniel Guerin, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (New
York: Monthly Review Press, 1970), pp.25-26)
^ K. Steven Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French
Republican Socialism, pp. 282-3
^ Elements of Political Economy" quoted by David Ellerman, Property
and Contract in Economics, pp. 53-4
^ The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. xiv
^ Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 152
^ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon What is Property? p. 137
^ Malatesta, Errico. Life and Ideas, p. 145
^ Leon Trotsky Stalinism and Bolshevism
^ Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170-2
^ "Perhaps significantly, these few Marxist tendencies which are
closest to anarchism are, like the branches of anarchism itself, not
named after individuals." [2]
^ Essential Works of Lenin, pp. 74-5
^ McNally, David. Socialism From Below
^ Marxism and direct action by Phil Mitchinson http://www.marxist.com/Theory/direct_action.html
^ "Stalinism and Bolshevism", Socialist Workers Review, no. 146, p.
16
^ Phil Mitchinson argues: "task of this state would be to develop the
economy to eradicate want. Less need, means less need to govern
society, less need for a state."
^ Marxism and direct action by Phil Mitchinson http://www.marxist.com/Theory/direct_action.html
^ Dolgoff, Sam. The Anarchist Collectives, ch. 10
^ Antony Beevor, The Spanish Civil War, pp. 91-2
^ The Anarchist Collectives, p. 114
^ Markus Giesler, Consumer Gift Systems
^ [3]
[edit] Books
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici, Anarchist Communists: A Question
Of Class, others
Alexander Berkman, What is Communist Anarchism?, Prison Memoirs of an
Anarchist, others
Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State, The Paris Commune and the Idea of
the State, others
Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays, Living My Life, others
Kropotkin, Peter Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, 1998 paperback,
London: Freedom Press. ISBN 0-900384-36-0, also at Project Gutenburg
Kropotkin, Peter The Conquest of Bread, first published 1892, also at
Anarchy Archives
Kropotkin, Peter Fields, Factories and Workshops, available at Anarchy
Archives
Bookchin, Murray Post Scarcity Anarchism (1971 and 2004) ISBN
1-904859-06-2
Nestor Makhno Ida Mett Piotr Arshinov Valevsky Linsky, The
Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists (available in:
Castellano, čeština, Deutsch, English, Έλληνικά, Français, Italiano,
Ivrit, Magyar, Nederlands, Polska, Português, Pyccкий, Svenska,
Türkçe)
Robert Graham (anarchist historian), Anarchism: A Documentary History
of Libertarian Ideas, Volume 1: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939)
[6] contains extensive selections from the anarchist communists,
including Joseph Dejacque, Carlo Cafiero, Peter Kropotkin, Luigi
Galleani, Errico Malatesta, Charlotte Wilson, Ricardo Flores Magon,
Shifu, Hatta Shuzo, Alexander Berkman, Voline, and Isaac Puente.
Civil War and the French Revolution of the 1700s. Gerrard Winstanley,
who was part of the radical Diggers movement in England, wrote in his
1649 pamphlet, "The New Law of Righteousness," that there "shall be no
buying or selling, no fairs nor markets, but the whole earth shall be
a common treasury for every man," and "there shall be none Lord over
others, but every one shall be a Lord of himself."[1] During the
French Revolution, Sylvain Maréchal, in his "Manifesto of the
Equals" (1796), demanded "the communal enjoyment of the fruits of the
earth" and looked forward to the disappearance of "the revolting
distinction of rich and poor, of great and small, of masters and
valets, of governors and governed."[2]
An early anarchist communist was Joseph Déjacque, the first person to
describe themself as "libertarian".[3] Unlike Proudhon, he argued
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."[4]
The collectivist anarchists advocated remuneration for labor, but held
out the possibility of a post-revolutionary transition to a communist
system of distribution according to need. As Bakunin's associate,
James Guillaume, put it in his essay, Ideas on Social Organization
(1876), "When... production comes to outstrip consumption...
[e]veryone will draw what he needs from the abundant social reserve of
commodities, without fear of depletion; and the moral sentiment which
will be more highly developed among free and equal workers will
prevent, or greatly reduce, abuse and waste."[5]
[edit] First International
Anarchist communism as a coherent, modern economic-political
philosophy 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 with collectivist anarchism
explicit until after Bakunin's death.[6] The collectivist anarchists
sought to collectivize ownership of the means of production while
retaining payment for labor, but the anarcho-communists sought to
extend the concept of collective ownership to the products of labor as
well. While both groups argued against capitalism, the anarchist
communists departed from Proudhon and Bakunin, who maintained that
individuals have a right to the product of their labor and to be
remunerated for their work, by proposing that individuals should be
free to access goods according to their needs without respect to how
much labor they exert.
Cafeiro explains in Anarchy and Communism (1880) that private property
in the product of labor will lead to unequal accumulation of capital
and, therefore, undesirable class distinctions: "If we preserve the
individual appropriation of the products of labour, we would be forced
to preserve money, leaving more or less accumulation of wealth
according to more or less merit rather than need of individuals."[7]
At the Florence Conference of the Italian Federation of the
International in 1876, 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.
[edit] Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin, often seen as the most important theorist of
anarchist communism, outlined his economic ideas in The Conquest of
Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops. Kropotkin felt that co-
operation is more beneficial than competition, arguing in Mutual Aid:
A Factor of Evolution that this was illustrated in nature. He
advocated the abolition of private property through the "expropriation
of the whole of social wealth" by the people themselves,[8] and for
the economy to be co-ordinated through a horizontal network of
voluntary associations[9] where goods are distributed according to the
physical needs of the individual, rather than according to labor.[10]
He further argued that these "needs," as society progressed, would not
merely be physical needs but "[a]s soon as his material wants are
satisfied, other needs, of an artistic character, will thrust
themselves forward the more ardently. Aims of life vary with each and
every individual; and the more society is civilized, the more will
individuality be developed, and the more will desires be varied."[11]
He maintained that, in anarcho-communism:
....houses, fields, and factories will no longer be private property,
and that they will belong to the commune or the nation and money,
wages, and trade would be abolished.
– Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread[12]
Individuals and groups would use and control whatever resources they
needed, as the aim of anarchist-communism was to place "the product
reaped or manufactured at the disposal of all, leaving to each the
liberty to consume them as he pleases in his own home."[13] He
supported the expropriation of property to ensure that everyone would
have access to what they needed without being forced to sell their
labour to get it.
We do not want to rob any one of his coat, but we wish to give to the
workers all those things the lack of which makes them fall an easy
prey to the exploiter, and we will do our utmost that none shall lack
aught, that not a single man shall be forced to sell the strength of
his right arm to obtain a bare subsistence for himself and his babes.
This is what we mean when we talk of Expropriation...
– Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread[14]
He said that a "peasant who is in possession of just the amount of
land he can cultivate," and "a family inhabiting a house which affords
them just enough space... considered necessary for that number of
people" and the artisan "working with their own tools or handloom"
would not be interfered with,[15] arguing that "[t]he landlord owes
his riches to the poverty of the peasants, and the wealth of the
capitalist comes from the same source."[16]
While many anarcho-communists are opposed to trade, some post-left and
post-scarcity anarcho-communists, and ones with syndicalist
sympathies, are not opposed to trade. Some support a non-monetary form
of trade in the form of non-monetary commons. Others such as Tiziana
Terranova easily see anarcho-communism being compatible with a non-
hierarchical, open access, free association, non-monetary form of
trade such as P2P. [17]
[edit] Theory
Anarchist communism stresses egalitarianism and the abolition of
social hierarchy and class distinctions that arise from unequal wealth
distribution, the abolition of capitalism and money, and the
collective production and distribution of wealth by means of voluntary
associations. In anarchist communism, the state and property would no
longer exist. Each individual and group would be free to contribute to
production and to satisfy their needs based on their own choice.
Systems of production and distribution would be managed by their
participants.
The abolition of wage labor is central to anarchist communism. With
distribution of wealth being based on self-determined needs, people
would be free to engage in whatever activities they found most
fulfilling and would no longer have to engage in work for which they
have neither the temperament nor the aptitude. Anarchist communists
argue that there is no valid way of measuring the value of any one
person's economic contributions because all wealth is a collective
product of current and preceding generations. For instance, one could
not measure the value of a factory worker's daily production without
taking into account how transportation, food, water, shelter,
relaxation, machine efficiency, emotional mood etc. contributed to
their production. To truly give numerical economic value to anything,
an infinite amount of externalities and contributing factors would
need to be taken into account. Especially current or past labor that
contributes to the ability to utilize future labor.
Anarchist communists argue that any economic system based on wage
labor and private property requires a coercive state apparatus to
enforce property rights and to maintain the unequal economic
relationships that inevitably arise from differences in wages or
amount of property. They further argue that markets and systems of
currency divide labor into classes and assign artificial numerical
values to an individual's work and attempt to regulate production,
consumption and distribution. They argue that money restricts an
individual's ability to consume the products of their labor by
limiting their intake with prices and wages. They believe that
production, consumption and distribution should be self-determined by
each individual without arbitrary value assigned to labor tasks by
others. In place of a market, most anarcho-communists support a
currency-less gift economy where goods and services are produced by
workers and distributed in community stores where everyone (including
the workers who produced them) is entitled to consume whatever they
want or need as "payment" for their production of goods and services.
A gift economy does not necessarily involve an immediate return (such
as with remuneration), compensation comes in the form of whatever the
person decides is of equal value to their products of labor.
Communist anarchism shares many traits with collectivist anarchism but
has defining differences. Collectivist anarchism believes in
collective ownership but communist anarchism negates the entire
concept of ownership in favor of the concept of usage. [18] Thus,
things are seen as either private possessions used by an individual,
or social possessions used to produce for society. Anarcho-communists
believe that means of production should not be owned by any person or
entity, leaving it free to be used by individuals for their own self-
determined needs and wants. The land used by an individual for
themself or their family or productive property used to produce for an
individual would be considered private possessions rather than social
possessions in anarcho-communist theory. In that regard, anarcho-
communism could be considered to be a compromise between collective
and individual ownership, in that one would own what they had created
unless it is used to produce for society in which case it would become
a social possession. The individual would be perfectly free to create
it again and keep it as long as it is not being used as a means of
production for the community or general public.[19]
Anarcho-communists reject mutualist economics because they believe
that market competition, even non-capitalist markets, inherently
create inequalities in wealth and land which would lead to
inequalities of power - thus the recreation of the State and
capitalism as some workers would have more access to capital and
defence force than others. They reject collectivist economics arguing
that remuneration would require a type of currency, which anarcho-
communists reject as an artificial measurement of the value of labor.
They further argue that those who are not part of collective groups or
unions in workers' councils and collectives could be alienated from
access to capital, and thus promote common ownership over ownership by
collective groups.
[edit] Philosophical arguments
Anarchist communists reject the claim that wage labor is necessary
because people are by "nature" lazy and selfish. They point out that
even the so-called "idle rich" sometimes find useful things to do
despite having all their needs satisfied by the labour of others.
[citation needed] Anarcho-communists generally do not agree with the
belief in a pre-set 'human nature', arguing that human culture and
behavior is very largely determined by socialization. Many, like Peter
Kropotkin, also believe that human evolutionary tendency is for humans
to cooperate with each other for mutual benefit and survival instead
of existing as lone competitors.[20]
Anarchist communists support communism as a means for ensuring the
greatest freedom and well-being for everyone, rather than only the
wealthy and powerful. In this sense, anarchist communism is a
profoundly egalitarian philosophy. Anarchist communists do not think
that anyone has the right to be anyone else's master, or 'boss' as
this is a concept of capitalism and the state. Some contemporary
anarchist communists and advocates of post-left anarchy such as Bob
Black reject the concept of work altogether in favor of turning
necessary subsistence tasks into voluntary free play.
Many anarcho-communists (and collectivist anarchists as well) reject
"individualism" and "collectivism" as illusory concepts [21]. They
argue that an individual sacrificing themself for the "greater good"
or being ruled by the "community" or "society" is not possible because
society is composed of individuals rather than being a cohesive unit
sepreate from the individual, and argue that collective control over
the individual is tyrannical and un-anarchistic [22].
[edit] Criticisms
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, some of whose philosophy has influenced social
anarchists[23] (social Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy was heavily
influenced by Proudhon [24]), was critical of communism, "whether of
the Utopian or the Marxist variety, [believing] that it destroyed
freedom by taking away from the individual control over his means of
production."[25] 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 impose equality by
sovereign decrees. In opposition to the communist maxim "to each
according to need", 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" [26]. However,
Proudhon was against the hoarding of private property in an unequal
society and thus supported people being in equal condition which he
believed would negate the difference in amounts of private property.
In his treatise What is Property?(1849), Proudhon answers with
"Property is theft!" In natural resources, he sees two conceivable
types of property, de jure property and de facto property, and argues
that the former is illegitimate. Proudhon's fundamental premise is
that equality of condition is the essence of justice. "By this method
of investigation, we soon see that every argument which has been
invented in behalf of property, whatever it may be, always and of
necessity leads to equality; that is, to the negation of property."[4]
He argued that an inegalitarian condition in society would impoverish
some people at the hands of people with more land,
“ The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, 'This
is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.' Here, then, is a
piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has right to step, save
the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the
proprietor and his servants. Let these multiply, and soon the
people . . . will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground
to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on the edge
of that property which was their birth-right; and the proprietor,
watching them die, will exclaim, 'So perish idlers and vagrants.'"[27]
”
However, while being opposed to communism, he was also opposed to
capitalism. In a series of commentaries, from What is Property? (1840)
through the posthumously-published Théorie de la propriété (Theory of
Property, 1863-64), he first declared that "property is theft",
"property is impossible", "property is despotism" and "property is
freedom". When he said property is theft, he was referring to the
landowner or capitalist who he believed stole the profits from
laborers. For Proudhon, the capitalist's employee was "subordinated,
exploited: his permanent condition is one of obedience."[28] Proudhon
called himself a "socialist" and called his philosophy "anarchist
socialism". He opposed state ownership of capital goods in favour of
ownership by workers themselves in associations.
Many individualist anarchists believe that elements of anarcho-
communism are undesirable or even incompatible with anarchism.
Benjamin Tucker referred to it as "pseudo-anarchism"[29] when
admonishing Peter Kropotkin for opposing wages. Henry Appleton said:
"All Communism, under whatever guise, is the natural enemy of
Anarchism, and a Communist sailing under the flag of Anarchism is as
false a figure as could be invented."[30] Victor Yarros says 'no
logical justification, no rational explanation, and no "scientific"
reasoning has been, is, will be, or can be advanced in defence of that
unimaginable impossibility, Communistic Anarchism' [31]. Clarence Lee
Swartz says in What is Mutualism: "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 one's labor. State
Socialists, Communists, Syndicalists and Communist-Anarchists deny
private property." William Kline says that the individualists and
communists "could not reconcile their differences, the Communist
Anarchists dedicated to a community of property and the Individualist
Anarchists deeply committed to private property and individual
effort."[32] Anarcho-communists counter these criticisms by arguing
that the abolition of property creates maximum freedom for all
individuals. As Errico Malatesta argues,
“ "The individualists assume . . . that the (anarchist) communists
wish to impose communism, which of course would put them right outside
the ranks of anarchism.
"The communists assume . . . that the (anarchist) individualists
reject every idea of association, want the struggle between men, the
domination of the strongest -- and this would put them not only
outside the anarchist movement but outside humanity.
"In reality those who are communists are such because they see in
common freely accepted the realisation of brotherhood, and the best
guarantee for individual freedom. And individualists, those who are
really anarchists, are anti-communist because they fear that communism
would subject individuals . . . to the tyranny of the
collectivity . . . Therefore they want each individual, or each group,
to be in a position to enjoy freely the product of their labour in
conditions of equality with other individuals and groups, with whom
they would maintain relations of justice and equity.
"In which case it is clear that there is no basic difference between
us. But, according to the communists, justice and equity are, under
natural conditions impossible of attainment in an individualistic
society, and thus freedom too would not be attained.
"If climatic conditions throughout the world were the same, if the
land were everywhere equally fertile, if raw materials were evenly
distributed and within reach of all who needed them, if social
development were the same everywhere in the world . . . then one could
conceive of everyone . . . finding the land, tools and raw materials
needed to work and produce independently, without exploiting or being
exploited. But natural and historical conditions being what they are,
how is it possible to establish equality and justice between he who by
chance finds himself with a piece of arid land which demand much
labour for small returns with him who has a piece of fertile and well
sited land?"[33]
”
Anarcho-communists argue that individual worker cooperatives have the
potential to isolate and control those who do not belong to such
institutions, or those with less money. Anarcho-communists in general
argue that the value of labor is subjective and thus cannot be
measured by any monetary means, arguing that such values are arbitrary
and lead to a stratification in society by a division of labor.
Kropotkin and other communists anarchists have argued that the
existence of defence associations, even worker-owned ones that are
freely available for everyone, have authoritarian implications, "[f]or
their self-defence, both the citizen and group have a right to any
violence [within individualist anarchy] . . . Violence is also
justified for enforcing the duty of keeping an agreement. Tucker . . .
opens . . . the way for reconstructing under the heading of the
'defence' all the functions of the State."[34] Moreover, anarcho-
communists argue that even in a socialistic market such as in
individualist and mutualist anarchy, as some workers reaped more
revenue than others, due to different productivity in market
competition, those with more money would have more access to capital
(means of production) and thus become able to unilaterally influence
market deals, decision-making and employment, offering the highest
bids to defence firms and thus reconstituting capitalism and the
State. Alfie Kohn points out "strife of competition reduces empathic
sympathy, distorts communication, impairs the mutuality of support and
sharing, and decreases the satisfaction of personal need." [35]
Communist anarchist Albert Metzer harshly argued, "the school of
Benjamin Tucker -- by virtue of their individualism -- accepted the
need for police to break strikes so as to guarantee the employer's
'freedom.' All this school of so-called Individualists accept . . .
the necessity of the police force, hence for government, and the prime
definition of anarchism is no government." [36]
More recently, advocates of post-left anarchy, such as Bob Black in
Anarchy After Leftism, argue that leftists have an attachment to
generic moral standards that are incompatible with anarchism and seek
to establish political forms, such as platformism and direct
democracy, that amount to forms of the state.[37] However, anarchist
communists reject this claim, stating that direct democracy includes
no hierarchy or monopolization of force and territory. Bob Black is an
anarchist and possibly an anarchist communist himself due to his
rejection of wage labor and rejection of market systems.
One capitalist criticism of anarcho-communism is that such a society
would not be able to keep productivity up because individuals would
not be paid for their labor, since wages would be abolished and people
would instead be given things "according to their needs."[38]
Anarchist communists propose that economic distribution should be
based on the maxim "from each according to their ability and to each
according to their needs" believing these "abilities" and "needs"
should be self-determined.
Anarchist communists reject markets based on the principle that all
theories of monetary value are subjective and argue that private
property is inherently exploitative,[39] and could not exist without
force or without the eventual creation of a State to protect it.[40]
They also put forward the idea that, by making productive property
freely accessible to all, it would increase individual liberty.[41]
They argue that labor should not be an obligation and should be a
voluntary task that should be enjoyable or provide necessary services.
[42] Alexander Berkman in particular believed that all forms of
private ownership of production are authoritarian whether or not they
have an established state to protect them, "[so the boss] gives you a
job: that is permission to work in the factory or mill which was not
built by him but by other workers like yourself. And for that
permission you help to support him for . . .as long as you work for
him."[43] Bob Black further argued, "Some people giving orders and
others obeying them: this is the essence of servitude. Of course, as
[right-Libertarians] smugly [observe], 'one can at least change jobs,'
but you can't avoid having a job -- just as under statism one can at
least change nationalities but you can't avoid subjection to one
nation-state or another. But freedom means more than the right to
change masters"[44] Charlotte Wilson argued that it would not be
possible to be forced into an anarcho-communist commune as the
abolition of property (the anarchist conception of property) cannot be
authoritarian, "every man [or woman] is free to take what he [or she]
requires....[and so] it is hardly conceivable that personal
necessaries and conveniences will not be appropriated.....[for] when
property is protected by no legal enactments, backed by armed force,
and is unable to buy personal service, its resuscitation on such a
scale as to be dangerous to society is little to be dreaded. The
amount appropriated by each individual . . . must be left to his [or
her] own conscience, and the pressure exercised upon him [or her] by
the moral sense and distinct interests of his [or her] neighbours."
She further argued, "Property is the domination of an individual, or a
coalition of individuals, over things; it is not the claim of any
person or persons to the use of things -- this is, usufruct, a very
different matter. Property means the monopoly of wealth, the right to
prevent others using it, whether the owner needs it or not. Usufruct
implies the claim to the use of such wealth as supplies the users
needs. If any individual shuts off a portion of it (which he is not
using, and does not need for his own use) from his fellows, he is
defrauding the whole community." [45]
Marxists criticize anarchism as being incapable of creating a
successful and lasting revolution because it is philosophically flat-
footed and does not aptly identify issues of class and modes of
production[46]. Both Marxist and anarchist class analyses are based on
the idea that society is divided up into many different "classes",
each with differing interests according to their material
circumstances. The two differ, however, in where they draw the lines
between these groups. For Marxists, the two most relevant classes are
the "bourgeoisie" (owners of the means of production) and the
"proletariat" (wage laborers). Anarchists argue that it is not the
capital class who actually has control over the state, but another
upper class which is part of the ruling class (and thus, defending its
interests), but with its own concerns, particularly retaining
political power, national territory and military power. A
revolutionary minority taking over State power and imposing its will
on the people would be just as authoritarian as the ruling minority in
capitalism, and would eventually constitute itself as a ruling class
since the class that governs the state is seen as separate from the
labor class. This was predicted by Bakunin long before the Russian
revolution and the fall of the Soviet Union, when he wrote:
If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute
power, within a year he would be worse than the Czar himself. [47]
Also, anarchists have traditionally advocated that a successful
revolution needs the support of the peasantry, and a joint effort
between both rural agricultural workers and industrial workers [48].
That is, it explicitly rejects imposing state property of the land.
Some modern anarchists (particularly pareconists) argue that there are
three “classes,” which have relevance to social change - not two. The
first is the labor class which includes everyone whose labor is
involved in producing and distributing goods; the second is the
coordinator class which includes everyone whose labor is primarily
concerned with “coordinating” and managing the labor of others
primarily on behalf of the bourgeoisie (this would include
bureaucrats, politicians, intellectuals and party hierarchs); and the
third is the elite owning class or "capital class" which derives its
income from its control of wealth, land, property and resources [49].
Anarchists contend that Marxism fails, and will always fail, because
it creates a dictatorship of the coordinating class and that a
"dictatorship of the proletariat" is a logical impossibility [50]
[51]. They argue its theoretical "socialist mode of production"
involves centralizing and empowering the State apparatus which
empowers people from the coordinator class to seize control of the
State and means of production to manage the labor class. Bakunin
foreshadowed this argument when he wrote:
“ "the State has always been the patrimony of some privileged class: a
priestly class, an aristocratic class, a bourgeois class. And finally,
when all the other classes have exhausted themselves, the State then
becomes the patrimony of the bureaucratic class and then falls—or, if
you will, rises—to the position of a machine." On the International
Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx, Mikhail Bakunin, 1872
[5]
”
Anarchists do not differentiate between peasants, lumpen, merchants,
some small business owners, and proletarians and instead define all
people who work for the profit of others or sell the products of their
own labor as members of the working class, regardless of occupation
[52]. Anarchists do differentiate between the economic and political
elites who set policy and the business and government functionaries
that carry those policies out, whereas Marxists lump the two together
[53] [54]. Further, some anarchists argue that Marxism fails because
it springs from the minds of middle class intellectuals, while arguing
that anarchism springs spontaneously from the self-activity and self-
organization of the labor class [55]. They point to [56] the fact that
schools of Marxism are often named after the intellectuals who formed
the movements through high analytical and philosophical praxis
theorization [57]. Marxists, however, contend that their ideas are not
new ideologies which sprang from intellectuals but are ideas which
form from the class contradictions of each economic and social mode of
history. They argue that Marxian socialism in particular arose from
the minds of the working class due to the class contradictions of the
capitalist mode of production. Some Marxists even argue that anarchism
springs from the ideas of proletarians (or even petty bourgeoisie) who
have been marginalized by capitalism as an unorganized and unrefined
reactionary struggle against the forces of capitalism [58]. Marxists
believe that attempts by oppressed people to liberate themselves will
continue to fail to achieve their full aims until class society is
done away with, because under capitalism and other class societies,
social power rests at the point of production. Many Marxists point to
the sometimes rag-tag nature of anarchist revolutions as evidence that
any working class movement needs a sufficient backbone organizational
focus to maintain good tactics and inspire a proletarian class
consciousness, often in the form of a revolutionary vanguard party
[59]. Some Marxists believe anarchist revolutions tend to be
reactionary (in the sense of reacting against the alienating effects
of capitalism) and fail to stop capitalism due to their hostility to
established political power. They argue that anti-capitalist
revolutions need to seize sufficient political power in the form of a
state in order to prevent the return of capitalism and to create an
economy which allows both capitalism and the state to become
unnecessary [60] [61]. Anarcho-communists counter-argue that
decentralized, stateless collective federations are sufficient to give
both power to workers and preserve personal freedom and point to the
fact that no socialist state has ever showed signs of "withering
away".
However, it should be noted that these disagreements are less of a
problem for libertarian Marxists who believe that a State apparatus
should operate on proletariat-controlled participatory democracy or
even as a consociational state. Marxists and anarcho-communists would
both agree that "It is this class division of society which gives rise
to the state - because the minority need a special force to maintain
their rule over the majority - which has evolved over thousands of
years into the complicated structures we see today." [62].
[edit] Response
However, despite criticisms, anarchist communist communes, such as
anarchist Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, saw increased
productivity. The production of potatoes increased 50% and the
production of sugar beets and feed for livestock doubled. Through the
use of more modernized machinery and chemical fertilizers, the yield
per hectare was 50% greater on collective property than on
individually-owned land. [63] The anarchist collectivization in Spain
also showed that such ideas are possible to implement in industrial
settings. 75% of Spanish industry was located in the Catalon region.
According to local sources at the time,
“ "Catalonia and Aragon, were about 70 per cent of the workforce was
involved. The total for the whole of Republican territory was nearly
800,000 on the land and a little more than a million in industry. In
Barcelona workers' committees took over all the services, the oil
monopoly, the shipping companies, heavy engineering firms such as
Volcano, the Ford motor company, chemical companies, the textile
industry and a host of smaller enterprises. . . Services such as
water, gas and electricity were working under new management within
hours of the storming of the Atarazanas barracks . . .a conversion of
appropriate factories to war production meant that metallurgical
concerns had started to produce armed cars by 22 July . . . The
industrial workers of Catalonia were the most skilled in Spain . . .
One of the most impressive feats of those early days was the
resurrection of the public transport system at a time when the streets
were still littered and barricaded." [64] ”
The collectivist projects were quite successful, sources noted
“ "In distribution the collectives' co-operatives eliminated
middlemen, small merchants, wholesalers, and profiteers, thus greatly
reducing consumer prices. The collectives eliminated most of the
parasitic elements from rural life, and would have wiped them out
altogether if they were not protected by corrupt officials and by the
political parties. Non-collectivised areas benefited indirectly from
the lower prices as well as from free services often rendered by the
collectives (laundries, cinemas, schools, barber and beauty parlours,
etc.)" [65] ”
[edit] History of anarchist communist societies
There have been several attempts both successful and unsuccessful at
creating anarchist-communist societies throughout much of the world.
Some anarchist-communists, especially Anarcho-primitivism forms of the
theory argue that tribal societies are early forms of anarchist-
communism. Egalitarian religious communities such as the Diggers
Movement during the English Revolution could arguably be the first
anarchist communist societies in modern history. Large communities and
federations of communities such as Anarchist Catalonia and the Free
Territory of revolutionary Ukraine are examples of anarchist-communism
in 20th century Europe. The free territories of Hungary during the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 could be seen as another example of large-
scale successful anarcho-communism.
The Korean Anarchist Movement in North and South Korea led by Kim Jwa
Jin showed a temporary success in bringing anarcho-communism to Korea.
However, the success was short-lived and not nearly as widely spread
as the anarchism in Spain or Hungary. Some consider the current
existing anarchist nature of communities in Argentina and the
Zapatista councils in Mexico to be anarcho-communist in nature. Others
consider them to be collectivist or syndicalist.
Some parts of the free software community, the GNU movement and parts
of the copyleft movement are a type of information and software gift
economy (a gift economy being the preferred economic system of anarcho-
communists). Programmers make their source code available, allowing
anyone to copy and modify/improve the code. Individual programmers
gain prestige and respect, and the community as a whole benefits from
better software. Markus Giesler in his ethnography "Consumer Gift
Systems" has developed music downloading as a system of social
solidarity based on gift transactions.[66] [67] Some organizations
such as online commons (such as the Wikimedia Commons), wikis and
Indymedia are held up as examples of functioning anarcho-communistic
organizations.
[edit] See also
Anarchism
Communism
Platformism
Libertarian Socialism
Socialism
Workers' Councils
Direct democracy
Consensus Democracy
Commons
Gift economy
Peer-to-peer (meme)
Libertarian Communism (journal)
Anarchism in Spain
Anarchism in Argentina
Anarchism in Hungary
Anarchism in Ukraine
Anarchism in Mexico
Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Kronstadt Rebellion
[edit] People
Peter Arshinov
Francisco Ascaso
Mikhail Bakunin
Alexander Berkman
Camillo Berneri[citation needed]
Murray Bookchin
Camilo Cienfuegos[citation needed]
Joseph Déjacque
Buenaventura Durruti
Karl Einstein
Emma Goldman
Daniel Guérin
Peter Kropotkin
Nestor Makhno
Cipriano Mera[citation needed]
Kim Jwa Jin
Errico Malatesta
Alan Moore
Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin
Emiliano Zapata
Ricardo Flores Magon
Kuwasi Balagoon
Ashanti Alston
Guy Aldred
George Woodcock
Danny Richardson[citation needed]
[edit] References
^ Graham, Robert Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian
Ideas - Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE to 1939), Black
Rose Books, 2005
^ Ibid
^ Déjacque, Joseph. De l'être-humain mâle et femelle - Lettre à P.J.
Proudhon par Joseph Déjacque (in French)
^ Graham op. cit.
^ Guillaume, James. Ideas on Social Organization
^ Guillaume, James. Michael Bakunin - A Biographical Sketch
^ Graham op. cit.
^ Kropotkin, Peter. Words of a Rebel, p99.
^ Kropotkin, Peter. The Conquest of Bread, p145.
^ Shatz, Marshall. Introduction to Kropotkin: The Conquest of Bread
and Other Writings, Cambridge University Press 1995, p. xvi "Anarchist
communism called for the socialization not only of production but of
the distribution of goods: the community would supply the subsistence
requirements of each individual member free of charge, and the
criterion, 'to each according to his labor' would be superseded by the
criterion 'to each according to his needs.'"
^ Kropotkin, Peter. The Conquest of Bread Chapter IX The Need For
Luxury
^ Kropotkin, Peter Chapter 13 The Collectivist Wages System from The
Conquest of Bread, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1906.
^ The Place of Anarchism in the Evolution of Socialist Thought
^ Kropotkin, Peter The Conquest Of Bread Chapter IV
^ Kropotkin Act for yourselves. N.Walter and H. Becker, eds. (London:
Freedom Press 1985) [p. 104-5]
^ Kropotkin "The Conquest of Bread" op cit
^ Terranova, Tiziana "Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital
Economy". 07-26-2005
^ Alexander Berkman. What is Anarchism?, p. 217
^ Kropotkin Act for yourselves. N.Walter and H. Becker, eds. (London:
Freedom Press 1985) [p. 104-5]
^ Peter Kropotkin Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution[1]
^ http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secA2.html#seca213
^ The Place of Anarchism in the Evolution of Socialist Thought, p.
14-15
^ Kropotkin, Peter, The Conquest of Bread, p. 145
^ Hayward, Jack, After the French Revolution, p. 213
^ From Encyclopedia Britannica article "Proudhon, Pierre-
Joseph" (2006)
^ Proudhon, Pierre Joseph. System of Economical Contradictions: or,
the Philosophy of Misery
^ What is Property?, p. 118
^ General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century (1851),
Sixth Study, § 3 ¶ 5.
^ Benjamin Tucker, Labor and its Pay
^ Anarchism, True and False (1884)
^ Victor Yarros, A Princely Paradox
^ William Kline, The Individualist Anarchists: A Critique of
Liberalism
^ Life and Ideas, pp. 31-2
^ Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 297
^ Nathan Ackerman, quoted by Alfie Kohn, Op. Cit., pp. 142-3
^ Anarchism: Arguments For and Against, p. 8
^ Bob Black is a libertarian socialist, and likely an anarcho-
communist (given his reference to attempts on his part to defend
anarcho-communism in his essay "The Libertarian As Conservative") and
his references to "leftism" are mostly against what he perceives as
Marxist influences in libertarian socialism.
^ Busky, Donald F. Communism in History and Theory: From Utopian
Socialism to the Fall of the Soviet Union. Praeger/Greenwood 2002, p.
101
^ Berkman, Alexander. What Is Communist Anarchism? p.11
^ Kropotkin, Peter. Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 297
^ Kropotkin, Peter. The Place of Anarchism in the Evolution of
Socialist Thought, p.14-15
^ Kropotkin, Peter. Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 197
^ Alexander Berkman, What is Communist Anarchism?, p. 11
^ Bob Black, The Libertarian as Conservative
^ Anarchist Essays, pp. 22-23 and p. 40
^ "anarchism developed in opposition to the growth of capitalist
society...the liberty defended by the anarchists was not the freedom
of the working class to make collectively a new society. Rather,
anarchism defended the freedom of the small property owner -- the
shopkeeper, artisan and tradesman -- against the encroachments of
large-scale capitalist enterprise." Socialism From Below McNally,
David
^ (Quoted in Daniel Guerin, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (New
York: Monthly Review Press, 1970), pp.25-26)
^ K. Steven Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French
Republican Socialism, pp. 282-3
^ Elements of Political Economy" quoted by David Ellerman, Property
and Contract in Economics, pp. 53-4
^ The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. xiv
^ Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 152
^ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon What is Property? p. 137
^ Malatesta, Errico. Life and Ideas, p. 145
^ Leon Trotsky Stalinism and Bolshevism
^ Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170-2
^ "Perhaps significantly, these few Marxist tendencies which are
closest to anarchism are, like the branches of anarchism itself, not
named after individuals." [2]
^ Essential Works of Lenin, pp. 74-5
^ McNally, David. Socialism From Below
^ Marxism and direct action by Phil Mitchinson http://www.marxist.com/Theory/direct_action.html
^ "Stalinism and Bolshevism", Socialist Workers Review, no. 146, p.
16
^ Phil Mitchinson argues: "task of this state would be to develop the
economy to eradicate want. Less need, means less need to govern
society, less need for a state."
^ Marxism and direct action by Phil Mitchinson http://www.marxist.com/Theory/direct_action.html
^ Dolgoff, Sam. The Anarchist Collectives, ch. 10
^ Antony Beevor, The Spanish Civil War, pp. 91-2
^ The Anarchist Collectives, p. 114
^ Markus Giesler, Consumer Gift Systems
^ [3]
[edit] Books
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici, Anarchist Communists: A Question
Of Class, others
Alexander Berkman, What is Communist Anarchism?, Prison Memoirs of an
Anarchist, others
Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State, The Paris Commune and the Idea of
the State, others
Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays, Living My Life, others
Kropotkin, Peter Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, 1998 paperback,
London: Freedom Press. ISBN 0-900384-36-0, also at Project Gutenburg
Kropotkin, Peter The Conquest of Bread, first published 1892, also at
Anarchy Archives
Kropotkin, Peter Fields, Factories and Workshops, available at Anarchy
Archives
Bookchin, Murray Post Scarcity Anarchism (1971 and 2004) ISBN
1-904859-06-2
Nestor Makhno Ida Mett Piotr Arshinov Valevsky Linsky, The
Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists (available in:
Castellano, čeština, Deutsch, English, Έλληνικά, Français, Italiano,
Ivrit, Magyar, Nederlands, Polska, Português, Pyccкий, Svenska,
Türkçe)
Robert Graham (anarchist historian), Anarchism: A Documentary History
of Libertarian Ideas, Volume 1: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939)
[6] contains extensive selections from the anarchist communists,
including Joseph Dejacque, Carlo Cafiero, Peter Kropotkin, Luigi
Galleani, Errico Malatesta, Charlotte Wilson, Ricardo Flores Magon,
Shifu, Hatta Shuzo, Alexander Berkman, Voline, and Isaac Puente.