Anarchist VoicesA Journal of Evolutionary Anarchism

Volume 8 Number 4 Summer / autumn 2014

2EDITORIALYet again it has not been possible to producethe two editions of AV which ideally shouldcome out each year. However, here at last isthe summer / autumn edition. The journalrelies on the support of its contributors and on thegenerous financial support of certain individuals. Aslong as there are comrades able and willing to writeinteresting articles and others to finance the journalthen AV will continue to appear. This is not something which can be said of theoldest of anarchist journals in Britain, namelyFreedom, which has announced that it will nowhenceforth only be available online. This reflectsthe marked decline in the readership of the journal.When I was a student in London in the early 1980s theproduction of Freedom was a hands-on affair.Typeset copy was cut and pasted by Phillip Sansomand the finished artwork was sent off to a lithographicprinter. The printed sheets which came back werefolded and assembled by a small squad of volunteers.The paper included a news section and a reviewsection. The folding sessions were interesting socialoccasions with much discussion of topics in thejournal and affairs of the day. It was an effective wayof bringing people into the ranks of Freedom. The subscribers, contributors and readers ofFreedom at that time were a varied bunch and thecontent of Freedom, much to the disgust of Black Flagand other class struggle obsessed anarchists, was a

more liberal and outreaching form of anarchismreflecting the influence of Colin Ward and GeorgeWoodcock. The steady moving away of Freedom fromthis broad version of anarchism has likely been one ofthe main causes of the decline in its readership andthe lack of its wider appeal to ordinary people.Freedom was guilty, at times, of featuring negativeimages of anarchists and anarchism on the frontcover. However, despite its faults, the paper basedversion of Freedom will be much missed. Its demisemarks the end of an era. Anarchism could and should have a wider influencein our modern society, but to do so it needs to bemodern and practical. An anarchism such as thetolerant and incremental anarchism advocated byColin Ward during his time as editor of Anarchymagazine and later expressed so well in his bookAnarchy in Action. Anarchist Voices tries to providea platform for this and other variants of anarchism,less popular within the British Isles, such as AnarchistIndividualism. Positive accounts of people putting anarchism intopractise in their communities is perhaps the onlyeffective way to persuade people unfamiliar with ourideas that anarchism is worthy of their attention andsupport.

Jonathan Simcock

CONTENTS Editorial by Jonathan Simcock ...................Page 2 Not as Pervasive as you think? by Larry Gambone.......................................Page 3 The Invisibility of Albert Tarn by Chris Draper ...Page 4 Tribute to Mike Hamilton by Jonathan Simcock ..................................Page 8 Freedom: An anarchist education by Richard Griffin ........................................Page 9 The Politics of Science by Joe Peacott.......Page11 Remembering the victims of the First World War by Dick Frost..............................Page12 Appropriate Technology by Mike Hamilton .......Page 13 An Anarchist Credo.Page 15 Recommended Journals.............................Page 16The opinions expressed in articles featured in Anarchist Voices magazineare those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent thoseof the editor. The editor welcomes the submission of articles forpublication in Anarchist Voices but cannot guarantee that they will bepublished. Articles can be submitted typed on paper, on disc, or via emailto lloegrambyth@tiscali.co.uk.

Not as pervasiveas you think?

The late Colin Ward revealed to us theanarchism of daily life. Many aspects ofour lives are free from both state andillegitimate authority and operate on theprinciples of voluntarism, reciprocity andsolidarity. The state and illegitimate authority areintrusions into this world of freedom. Theanarchist anthropologist, David Graeber, alsowrites about the communism (anarchistcommunism, of course!) that is innate within ourliving situations. Families work on the principle offrom each according to their ability, to eachaccording to their needs. We don't keep therefrigerator locked, nor do we present ourchildren at age 18 with a bill for past livingexpenses. Nor do we demand payment from ourfriends and neighbours for all those little forms ofmutual aid we engage in. If we treated friendsand family in this manner we would not havethem around for very long. The anarchism and communism of daily lifeshow the inherent weakness of those twin evils,the state and capitalism. They exist as parasitesupon a totally different mode of being. Indeed,without this foundation, the authoritarian andexploitative systems could hardly exist. Imagine ifthe system had to organise and pay for all thosefree and voluntary services. The cost would bebeyond what it could bear. Let's take these thoughts beyond friends andfamily into the economy of neighbourhoods andvillages. Before we do that, however, we mustknow exactly what we mean by both capitalistand non-capitalist economies. Capitalism is essentially what the term

describes an economy based upon theproduction of capital. Not an economy to produceand exchange goods and services, and certainlynot a subsistence economy, but one geared tocreating money-capital to be re-invested to createever more capital. What is produced is incidentalto that end. The formula for capitalist productionis M-C-M1, with M as money capital, C as thecommodity produced, and M1 as the augmentedmoney capital after the commodity C is sold. Thewheel of capital grinds ever on, producing, sellingand augmenting, ideally never ceasing. Trades people, small shop owners, self-employed artisans and small farmers are usuallyinvolved in economic activity to provide a livingfor themselves and their families. Their goal issubsistence, to use the sale of their products orservices as a means to buy other commoditiesessential to their lives, such as paying the rent,manufactured items, services and food theycannot provide themselves. The formula for what they do is C-M-C, whereC is the commodity or service provided, M is themoney they get for selling it, and the second C isthe commodity or service they buy with thatmoney. This cycle, unlike that of capital does notgrind on ever accumulating, but stops when thenew commodity is purchased and a completelynew cycle of production, sale and consumptionmust arise. Such an economy is thereforesteady-state in nature. It should be obvious that an economy basedupon C-M-C is not capitalist in the least, eventhough it involves both private usage and marketexchange. Note that both private usage andexchange existed thousands of years beforecapitalism and a serious error was committed byboth leftists and the system's rightist apologistsfor equating these two elements with capitalism. There is a term for the C-M-C economy, andnone other than Grandfather Marx came up withit. He called it Simple Commodity Production(SCP hereafter) clearly stating that this economicform long preceded capitalism. Private usage andmarkets may be part of capitalism, but they arenot the essential elements which mark thissystem as distinct from all others. To repeat, theessential aspect of capitalism is the production ofcapital. A second essential aspect is theseparation of the once great mass of tradespeople, farmers etc., from their means of wealthproduction and their conversion into a powerless,property-less working class. An SCP economy,on the other hand, is one not dependent uponhired labour, but based upon self-employment. Now that we got through all of that, look aroundyour neighbourhood or village with the SCP

2 3

GLOBAL TAPESTRYA journal celebratingAnarchism and poetry

2.40 per issue.Subscription 9.00 UK(cheques payable to

DA & R Cunliffe) availablefrom Spring Bank,Longsight Road,Copster Green,

Blackburn BB1 9EU

3EDITORIALYet again it has not been possible to producethe two editions of AV which ideally shouldcome out each year. However, here at last isthe summer / autumn edition. The journalrelies on the support of its contributors and on thegenerous financial support of certain individuals. Aslong as there are comrades able and willing to writeinteresting articles and others to finance the journalthen AV will continue to appear. This is not something which can be said of theoldest of anarchist journals in Britain, namelyFreedom, which has announced that it will nowhenceforth only be available online. This reflectsthe marked decline in the readership of the journal.When I was a student in London in the early 1980s theproduction of Freedom was a hands-on affair.Typeset copy was cut and pasted by Phillip Sansomand the finished artwork was sent off to a lithographicprinter. The printed sheets which came back werefolded and assembled by a small squad of volunteers.The paper included a news section and a reviewsection. The folding sessions were interesting socialoccasions with much discussion of topics in thejournal and affairs of the day. It was an effective wayof bringing people into the ranks of Freedom. The subscribers, contributors and readers ofFreedom at that time were a varied bunch and thecontent of Freedom, much to the disgust of Black Flagand other class struggle obsessed anarchists, was a

more liberal and outreaching form of anarchismreflecting the influence of Colin Ward and GeorgeWoodcock. The steady moving away of Freedom fromthis broad version of anarchism has likely been one ofthe main causes of the decline in its readership andthe lack of its wider appeal to ordinary people.Freedom was guilty, at times, of featuring negativeimages of anarchists and anarchism on the frontcover. However, despite its faults, the paper basedversion of Freedom will be much missed. Its demisemarks the end of an era. Anarchism could and should have a wider influencein our modern society, but to do so it needs to bemodern and practical. An anarchism such as thetolerant and incremental anarchism advocated byColin Ward during his time as editor of Anarchymagazine and later expressed so well in his bookAnarchy in Action. Anarchist Voices tries to providea platform for this and other variants of anarchism,less popular within the British Isles, such as AnarchistIndividualism. Positive accounts of people putting anarchism intopractise in their communities is perhaps the onlyeffective way to persuade people unfamiliar with ourideas that anarchism is worthy of their attention andsupport.

Jonathan Simcock

CONTENTS Editorial by Jonathan Simcock....................Page 2 Not as Pervasive as you think? by Larry Gambone.......................................Page 3 The Invisibility of Albert Tarn by Chris Draper ...Page 4 Tribute to Mike Hamilton by Jonathan Simcock ..................................Page 8 Freedom: An anarchist education by Richard Griffin ........................................Page 9 The Politics of Science by Joe Peacott.......Page11 Remembering the victims of the First World War by Dick Frost..............................Page12 Appropriate Technology by Mike Hamilton .......Page 13 An Anarchist Credo.Page 15 Recommended Journals.............................Page 16The opinions expressed in articles featured in Anarchist Voices magazineare those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent thoseof the editor. The editor welcomes the submission of articles forpublication in Anarchist Voices but cannot guarantee that they will bepublished. Articles can be submitted typed on paper, on disc, or via emailto lloegrambyth@tiscali.co.uk.

Not as pervasiveas you think?

The late Colin Ward revealed to us theanarchism of daily life. Many aspects ofour lives are free from both state andillegitimate authority and operate on theprinciples of voluntarism, reciprocity andsolidarity. The state and illegitimate authority areintrusions into this world of freedom. Theanarchist anthropologist, David Graeber, alsowrites about the communism (anarchistcommunism, of course!) that is innate within ourliving situations. Families work on the principle offrom each according to their ability, to eachaccording to their needs. We don't keep therefrigerator locked, nor do we present ourchildren at age 18 with a bill for past livingexpenses. Nor do we demand payment from ourfriends and neighbours for all those little forms ofmutual aid we engage in. If we treated friendsand family in this manner we would not havethem around for very long. The anarchism and communism of daily lifeshow the inherent weakness of those twin evils,the state and capitalism. They exist as parasitesupon a totally different mode of being. Indeed,without this foundation, the authoritarian andexploitative systems could hardly exist. Imagine ifthe system had to organise and pay for all thosefree and voluntary services. The cost would bebeyond what it could bear. Let's take these thoughts beyond friends andfamily into the economy of neighbourhoods andvillages. Before we do that, however, we mustknow exactly what we mean by both capitalistand non-capitalist economies. Capitalism is essentially what the term

describes an economy based upon theproduction of capital. Not an economy to produceand exchange goods and services, and certainlynot a subsistence economy, but one geared tocreating money-capital to be re-invested to createever more capital. What is produced is incidentalto that end. The formula for capitalist productionis M-C-M1, with M as money capital, C as thecommodity produced, and M1 as the augmentedmoney capital after the commodity C is sold. Thewheel of capital grinds ever on, producing, sellingand augmenting, ideally never ceasing. Trades people, small shop owners, self-employed artisans and small farmers are usuallyinvolved in economic activity to provide a livingfor themselves and their families. Their goal issubsistence, to use the sale of their products orservices as a means to buy other commoditiesessential to their lives, such as paying the rent,manufactured items, services and food theycannot provide themselves. The formula for what they do is C-M-C, whereC is the commodity or service provided, M is themoney they get for selling it, and the second C isthe commodity or service they buy with thatmoney. This cycle, unlike that of capital does notgrind on ever accumulating, but stops when thenew commodity is purchased and a completelynew cycle of production, sale and consumptionmust arise. Such an economy is thereforesteady-state in nature. It should be obvious that an economy basedupon C-M-C is not capitalist in the least, eventhough it involves both private usage and marketexchange. Note that both private usage andexchange existed thousands of years beforecapitalism and a serious error was committed byboth leftists and the system's rightist apologistsfor equating these two elements with capitalism. There is a term for the C-M-C economy, andnone other than Grandfather Marx came up withit. He called it Simple Commodity Production(SCP hereafter) clearly stating that this economicform long preceded capitalism. Private usage andmarkets may be part of capitalism, but they arenot the essential elements which mark thissystem as distinct from all others. To repeat, theessential aspect of capitalism is the production ofcapital. A second essential aspect is theseparation of the once great mass of tradespeople, farmers etc., from their means of wealthproduction and their conversion into a powerless,property-less working class. An SCP economy,on the other hand, is one not dependent uponhired labour, but based upon self-employment. Now that we got through all of that, look aroundyour neighbourhood or village with the SCP

2 3

GLOBAL TAPESTRYA journal celebratingAnarchism and poetry

2.40 per issue.Subscription 9.00 UK(cheques payable to

DA & R Cunliffe) availablefrom Spring Bank,Longsight Road,Copster Green,

Blackburn BB1 9EU

4concept in your mind. Bet you will find manyexamples of SPC. This will be especially true inless wealthy neighbourhoods, where there is notenough income to attract the corporations orwanna-be capitalists (in my formerneighbourhood, Point St. Charles in Montreal, Icounted a total of 94 businesses. More than 80 ofthese were small family affairs). If you examinehow these little businesses operate within thecommunity and with each other, you will find thata third essential aspect of capitalism is generallymissing. This is competition. A kind of community ecology evolves. Littlebusinesses take over niche markets within theneighbourhood and thus do not compete. AnIndian restaurant and a fish and chip shopservice different needs and different clientele. Somany square blocks are needed to support aplumber, a convenience store and a barber andfew would be so foolish as to attempt to set upshop in such a limited market. Capitalism,however, comes as an intruder into theneighbourhood. The corporate business destroysthe mom and pop shop and the former self-employed are then reduced to wage slaves orwelfare victims. Marx stated that both small capitalists and non-capitalist forms of economy were doomed by anever more concentrated capitalism. In largemeasure, he was right. His followers, however,foolishly lumped the SCPers in with the pettycapitalists, writing them both off as reactionarylosers. Needless to say, SPC people were notgenerally attracted to socialism because of thiserror. The contemporary anti-capitalist ethiccombined with and exemplified by localism,farmers markets, the craft production of cheese,wine, bread, soap and numerous other productsand services, should make us think again aboutSimple Commodity Production. Rather than dyingout, SCP may be part of our future, but integratedinto a non-capitalist mixed economy that alsocomprises worker and stakeholder co-ops andcommunal aspects. To help this integration occurwe must combat the sometimes snotty attitudethat leftists (and even anarchists) sometimeshave against the self-employed. Never moremust we hear that someone selling home-madesoap at a farmers market or the woman with thefish and chip shop is engaging in capitalism andthus is a contemptible petty bourgeois.

Larry Gambone

The Invisibility ofAlbert TarnA lbert Tarn was The Herald of Anarchy.From the earliest days of the movementin England Tarn was a Freedomcorrespondent and fellow-worker for

Anarchism. In the 1880s and into the twentiethcentury, Alberts activism and public speakingcarried the torch of liberty from London toBirmingham, Huddersfield, Newcastle andGlasgow. He wrote and published four anarchistpamphlets and produced and distributed thepioneering monthly newspaper The Herald ofAnarchy, yet theres no mention of Tarn onlibcom or in the books of Max Nettlau, PeterMarshall or John Quail. Did he simply fade intoobscurity or was the message delivered by TheHerald of Anarchy so unwelcome that themovement resolved to shoot the messenger?

Right Side of the Tracks Albert Herbert Tarn, the youngest of fourchildren, was born in Huddersfield in 1862. Hisfather, Edward Wyndam Tarn (1825-1900), wasan accomplished architect whose notablecommissions included St Lukes School,Milnsbridge; St Saviours Church, Parsonage andSchool, Bacup and All Saints Church, Thornton.The young Albert enjoyed a thoroughly bourgeoisupbringing in an intellectual household with afather who was a stalwart of the towns chess

club as well as the author of several books. During Alberts infancy the family moved toLondon where he was privately educated at aschool in St Johns Wood. Awarded a prize in the1880 external school examinations of CambridgeUniversity, Albert went on to study at LondonUniversity, his fathers alma mater. Once againhe proved an outstanding student, gaining theTufnell Scholarship for Theoretical Chemistry;first class certificate in the Higher SeniorMathematics and also in advanced OrganicChemistry. After graduating in 1883 Albert wasappointed to teach chemistry at Lancaster Schoolof Science and Art. During his appointment at Lancaster, Tarnenjoyed a sabbatical at the University of Berlin. Inhis twenties Alberts intellectual curiosityexpanded beyond chemistry into politics. When abranch of the William Morris-inspired andincreasingly anarchist, Socialist League wasfounded in Lancaster in 1886 Albert Tarn wasone of the first to sign up. Aflame with the spirit of independence andanarchy Tarn grew increasingly discontent ininstitutional teaching and in 1888 started his ownbusiness in Birmingham. After setting up alaboratory, he advertised in the Birmingham DailyPost, offering, Private Instruction in Chemistry(Theoretical and Practical). Tarn maintained hislink with the League in Birmingham and in 1889,after transferring to 39 Newhall Street, heextended his advertising to include an entry inKellys Directory.Bomb-Making in Brum? By this stage the 27 year-old Tarn was a widelyrecognised anarchist having spoken on publicplatforms, not only in his adopted hometown ofBirmingham, and his birthplace of Huddersfield,but also in London where he was involved withthe Freedom group. In this era of propaganda by deed ananarchist advertising private instruction inchemistry was an obvious invitation to bomb-makers guaranteed to attract the attention of theauthorities. Yet it seems Albert was unable toattract sufficient business, legitimate orotherwise, and after a couple of years inBirmingham in 1890 he moved back to London.Not Marx but Spencer The following year, when local Walsallanarchists did construct their own bombs, havingeschewed Tarns certified expertise, theyinadvertently opted to follow the advice of apolice agent (August Coulon)! Ironically,testimony of Tarns unimpeachable characterwas supplied to their January 1892 trial by theauthorities; There had been no anarchists inBirmingham since a man named Albert Tarn, an

analytical chemist, left this town to edit a LondonAnarchist journal. He, however, seemed atheoretical kind of Anarchist, and was an admirerof Herbert Spencer. He and his few supportersconfined their efforts to distributing handbillsexplanatory of What Anarchists Want. Despite his undoubted ability Albert was nobomb-maker and no class warrior either, so howwas he connected to the anarchist-communists ofFreedom? Before detailing Tarns link toFreedom its worth noting the perceptive accountof his politics given at the Walsall anarchists trialas it captures his approach as an Individualist-Anarchist drawing inspiration from Tucker andProudhon rather than Kropotkin or Bakunin.Therein lay the seeds of his own destruction, butthat is jumping ahead of ourselves. The 1892 trialreport concluded, It is not known that there areany Anarchists in the town at the present time,though at periodical intervals copies of Liberty theAmerican Anarchist paper and other specimensof kindred literature are received in Birmingham. Individualism was popular in 1880s Englandbut the founding of Freedom in October 1886triggered an outbreak of anarchist-communismthat within a decade came to dominate theanarchist movement. When Freedom featured anarticle by Albert Tarn encapsulating his ideas inSeptember 1889 there was still everything to playfor. The State has arisen out of and stillembodies the principle of Mutual Distrust, and itcan only be abolished by replacing this principleby that of Mutual Confidence. There was nomention of insurrection or expropriation; Tarnsapproach emphasised the creation of alternative,voluntary associations that would in time replaceexisting authoritarian practices and structures. Asanarchists nurture these seeds beneath thesnow the State would simply wither and die. Inthis essay Tarn also dissects the role of moneyin defining and reinforcing the State andconcludes by asking and answering the question,But how can we do without money? plainlyenough. Start exchanging on any mutual principleupon which you and others can agree, either by aFree Currency representing your goods or on aprinciple of Free Communism, (meaning the freegiving and taking of services), or by any othermutual arrangement you may devise. With thisexplicit acceptance of Free Communism Tarnposited an ecumenical anarchism that couldaccommodate both Tucker and Kropotkin.Individual or Common Property aDiscussion A feature published in Freedom in December1889 illustrates an increasingly obviousdivergence of approach but also a continuingcommitment to open-minded debate. Headlined

4 5

5concept in your mind. Bet you will find manyexamples of SPC. This will be especially true inless wealthy neighbourhoods, where there is notenough income to attract the corporations orwanna-be capitalists (in my formerneighbourhood, Point St. Charles in Montreal, Icounted a total of 94 businesses. More than 80 ofthese were small family affairs). If you examinehow these little businesses operate within thecommunity and with each other, you will find thata third essential aspect of capitalism is generallymissing. This is competition. A kind of community ecology evolves. Littlebusinesses take over niche markets within theneighbourhood and thus do not compete. AnIndian restaurant and a fish and chip shopservice different needs and different clientele. Somany square blocks are needed to support aplumber, a convenience store and a barber andfew would be so foolish as to attempt to set upshop in such a limited market. Capitalism,however, comes as an intruder into theneighbourhood. The corporate business destroysthe mom and pop shop and the former self-employed are then reduced to wage slaves orwelfare victims. Marx stated that both small capitalists and non-capitalist forms of economy were doomed by anever more concentrated capitalism. In largemeasure, he was right. His followers, however,foolishly lumped the SCPers in with the pettycapitalists, writing them both off as reactionarylosers. Needless to say, SPC people were notgenerally attracted to socialism because of thiserror. The contemporary anti-capitalist ethiccombined with and exemplified by localism,farmers markets, the craft production of cheese,wine, bread, soap and numerous other productsand services, should make us think again aboutSimple Commodity Production. Rather than dyingout, SCP may be part of our future, but integratedinto a non-capitalist mixed economy that alsocomprises worker and stakeholder co-ops andcommunal aspects. To help this integration occurwe must combat the sometimes snotty attitudethat leftists (and even anarchists) sometimeshave against the self-employed. Never moremust we hear that someone selling home-madesoap at a farmers market or the woman with thefish and chip shop is engaging in capitalism andthus is a contemptible petty bourgeois.

Larry Gambone

The Invisibility ofAlbert TarnA lbert Tarn was The Herald of Anarchy.From the earliest days of the movementin England Tarn was a Freedomcorrespondent and fellow-worker for

Anarchism. In the 1880s and into the twentiethcentury, Alberts activism and public speakingcarried the torch of liberty from London toBirmingham, Huddersfield, Newcastle andGlasgow. He wrote and published four anarchistpamphlets and produced and distributed thepioneering monthly newspaper The Herald ofAnarchy, yet theres no mention of Tarn onlibcom or in the books of Max Nettlau, PeterMarshall or John Quail. Did he simply fade intoobscurity or was the message delivered by TheHerald of Anarchy so unwelcome that themovement resolved to shoot the messenger?

Right Side of the Tracks Albert Herbert Tarn, the youngest of fourchildren, was born in Huddersfield in 1862. Hisfather, Edward Wyndam Tarn (1825-1900), wasan accomplished architect whose notablecommissions included St Lukes School,Milnsbridge; St Saviours Church, Parsonage andSchool, Bacup and All Saints Church, Thornton.The young Albert enjoyed a thoroughly bourgeoisupbringing in an intellectual household with afather who was a stalwart of the towns chess

club as well as the author of several books. During Alberts infancy the family moved toLondon where he was privately educated at aschool in St Johns Wood. Awarded a prize in the1880 external school examinations of CambridgeUniversity, Albert went on to study at LondonUniversity, his fathers alma mater. Once againhe proved an outstanding student, gaining theTufnell Scholarship for Theoretical Chemistry;first class certificate in the Higher SeniorMathematics and also in advanced OrganicChemistry. After graduating in 1883 Albert wasappointed to teach chemistry at Lancaster Schoolof Science and Art. During his appointment at Lancaster, Tarnenjoyed a sabbatical at the University of Berlin. Inhis twenties Alberts intellectual curiosityexpanded beyond chemistry into politics. When abranch of the William Morris-inspired andincreasingly anarchist, Socialist League wasfounded in Lancaster in 1886 Albert Tarn wasone of the first to sign up. Aflame with the spirit of independence andanarchy Tarn grew increasingly discontent ininstitutional teaching and in 1888 started his ownbusiness in Birmingham. After setting up alaboratory, he advertised in the Birmingham DailyPost, offering, Private Instruction in Chemistry(Theoretical and Practical). Tarn maintained hislink with the League in Birmingham and in 1889,after transferring to 39 Newhall Street, heextended his advertising to include an entry inKellys Directory.Bomb-Making in Brum? By this stage the 27 year-old Tarn was a widelyrecognised anarchist having spoken on publicplatforms, not only in his adopted hometown ofBirmingham, and his birthplace of Huddersfield,but also in London where he was involved withthe Freedom group. In this era of propaganda by deed ananarchist advertising private instruction inchemistry was an obvious invitation to bomb-makers guaranteed to attract the attention of theauthorities. Yet it seems Albert was unable toattract sufficient business, legitimate orotherwise, and after a couple of years inBirmingham in 1890 he moved back to London.Not Marx but Spencer The following year, when local Walsallanarchists did construct their own bombs, havingeschewed Tarns certified expertise, theyinadvertently opted to follow the advice of apolice agent (August Coulon)! Ironically,testimony of Tarns unimpeachable characterwas supplied to their January 1892 trial by theauthorities; There had been no anarchists inBirmingham since a man named Albert Tarn, an

analytical chemist, left this town to edit a LondonAnarchist journal. He, however, seemed atheoretical kind of Anarchist, and was an admirerof Herbert Spencer. He and his few supportersconfined their efforts to distributing handbillsexplanatory of What Anarchists Want. Despite his undoubted ability Albert was nobomb-maker and no class warrior either, so howwas he connected to the anarchist-communists ofFreedom? Before detailing Tarns link toFreedom its worth noting the perceptive accountof his politics given at the Walsall anarchists trialas it captures his approach as an Individualist-Anarchist drawing inspiration from Tucker andProudhon rather than Kropotkin or Bakunin.Therein lay the seeds of his own destruction, butthat is jumping ahead of ourselves. The 1892 trialreport concluded, It is not known that there areany Anarchists in the town at the present time,though at periodical intervals copies of Liberty theAmerican Anarchist paper and other specimensof kindred literature are received in Birmingham. Individualism was popular in 1880s Englandbut the founding of Freedom in October 1886triggered an outbreak of anarchist-communismthat within a decade came to dominate theanarchist movement. When Freedom featured anarticle by Albert Tarn encapsulating his ideas inSeptember 1889 there was still everything to playfor. The State has arisen out of and stillembodies the principle of Mutual Distrust, and itcan only be abolished by replacing this principleby that of Mutual Confidence. There was nomention of insurrection or expropriation; Tarnsapproach emphasised the creation of alternative,voluntary associations that would in time replaceexisting authoritarian practices and structures. Asanarchists nurture these seeds beneath thesnow the State would simply wither and die. Inthis essay Tarn also dissects the role of moneyin defining and reinforcing the State andconcludes by asking and answering the question,But how can we do without money? plainlyenough. Start exchanging on any mutual principleupon which you and others can agree, either by aFree Currency representing your goods or on aprinciple of Free Communism, (meaning the freegiving and taking of services), or by any othermutual arrangement you may devise. With thisexplicit acceptance of Free Communism Tarnposited an ecumenical anarchism that couldaccommodate both Tucker and Kropotkin.Individual or Common Property aDiscussion A feature published in Freedom in December1889 illustrates an increasingly obviousdivergence of approach but also a continuingcommitment to open-minded debate. Headlined

4 5

6as above the article continued, At the suggestionof our individualist fellow-worker for Anarchism,Albert Tarn, we open our columns to a full andfree discussion of the question of property. Ourown views as Communists are well known to ourreaders, but as we hold it to be every honestmans business to let the other side speak and toprove the truth of his own position by hearingwhat the opposition have to say, we welcome theidea and shall be glad to print contributions whichare to the point, from either Communists orIndividualists. Throughout the following year the debateraged. Seizure of the means of production wasespecially hotly contested with Tarn respondingto Comrade Pearson of the Freedom collectivewith the neat counterclaim that whilst,Communists would convert the workers intothieves, the Individualists would convert thethieves into workers. It was all conducted very good-naturedly and areport of a recent social evening, published inFreedom April 1891, evidenced a continuedfellowship. More than a hundred comradesassembled...in the upper chamber of a Citycoffee tavernthe Editor of the Herald ofAnarchy in amicable discussion with one of theFreedom staffthe Individualist AnarchistLeague all cordially mingling with AnarchistCommunists from every group in London. Sopassed a social evening which, we hope, will notbe the last of its kind. The party wasnt over butit soon would be.

The Unbelievable Goodness of Kropotkin Kropotkin gave Anarchist-Communism instantappeal. The revolution was both inevitable andimminent. After the revolution fields, factories andworkshops would be run on rational, scientificprinciples and in the resultant land of milk andhoney everything would be freely available toanybody. Unfortunately Kropotkin, like Marx, deludedhimself as to the immediacy and inevitability ofrevolution. Unlike Marx, Kropotkin assumed that

after the revolution the natural goodness ofhumanity would reign supreme. Albert Tarnsindividualist vision of anarchy was lesssimplistically optimistic. He didnt assumerevolution and he certainly didnt believe youcould create a heaven on earth where everyonewould have unlimited access to warehouses ofthe fruits of production without consequent chaosor starvation. Tarn was concerned to identifymechanisms anarchists might use to facilitaterational and fair methods of exchange anddistribution.Publish and be Damned Tarn set out his intellectual stall during a highlyproductive period of publishing between 1889and 1892. The titles of his pamphlets offer insightinto his politics;

1. The State: Its Origins, Its Nature and ItsAbolition (Charles Stocker, Birmingham)2. The Anarchist Position (William Wood,Birmingham)3 The Individual and the State: a BriefAnalysis of Political Government (NewFellowship Press, London)4 A Free Currency, What it Means, How itCan be Established and What it CanAccomplish (Labour Press Ltd, London)

Tarn was Britains Benjamin Tucker. Tuckerwas his inspiration and returning the favour,Albert acted as distribution agent for Benjaminsnewspaper Liberty in England. Albert alsoadvertised his own publications in Liberty butnone of this pre-empted the masters criticism.Approvingly reprinting Tarns essay on Propertyin an 1890 issue of Liberty, Tuckercharacteristically criticised an over-dependenceon assertion. In following years Liberty publishedAlberts essays on such topics as The Questionof Interest and Mutual Bank Notes.Fanfare for The Herald The first issue of Tarns own newspaper TheHerald of Anarchy An Organ of Social, Politicaland Economic Freethought appeared in October1890. Published monthly, each issue cost apenny and was printed at the Labour Press inChancery Lane, London. After a couple of issuesa further strap line was added to the title page,The Only Uncompromising Advocate of Libertyin England. Although anarchist economicspredominated, the newspaper also examined thedrink question, the socialist fallacy, papers werecommend, sexual relationships, the landquestion and what anarchists want as well asvarious other questions, for the existence of

which we are indebted to stupid and conceitedlawmakers. The high level of intellectual analysis mystifiedsome reviewers. Chit Chat of The Sheffield andRotherham Independent disingenuouslyobserved, unfortunately, no doubt from my ownwant of intelligence, I can make nothing of theHerald, then with a single swipe shiftedresponsibility for incomprehension onto Albertsshoulders whilst simultaneously ridiculing hissupport for rational, phonetic spelling; It is nouse spelling program with ever such pellucidsimplicity if one has no programme!Shoot the Messenger Initially welcoming the appearance of theHerald, Freedom followed up with a statementrubbishing everything Tarn, his newspaper andhis comrades proposed. An 1892 editorialdevoted to a critique of Individualist-Anarchistsemphatically pronounced, Certainly they are notanarchists. In 1893 the Torch followed up with apiece by Merlino emphasising, We Anarchist-Communists have nothing in common with theIndividual-Anarchists! The Herald raised difficult,detailed, awkward questions about the radicalreorganisation of society that Anarchist-Communists preferred to gloss over. As far backas 1890 Tarn had spoken against, The Fallaciesof Socialism and was consistently sceptical thateither parliamentary or anarchist versions ofcollectivism would create heaven on earth. By1893 Individualist-Anarchism was in decline inEngland leaving Tarn no alternative to closing theHerald, but that didnt end his activism.Not so Independent Labour Tarns own account of the reception hereceived at a Glasgow ILP public meeting in 1895is illustrative, The lecturer in the course of hisaddress frequently alluded to collectivistprinciples and finished up with a beatific vision ofthe Promised Land, where we shall all live in loveand happiness under the care and protection ofBumble. At the close of the address I rose andput the question, Has the collective managementof industries been so far an unquestionedsuccess? Tarn was not only denied an answerbut booed out of the hall by the party faithful. Local newspapers generally gave Tarn a fairerhearing than the politicos. Speaking at Spittal in1904 he, impressed upon his hearers thesuperiority of an honest labourer like a fishermanto those who spent their time loafing about andmeddling with other people in their occupations.To the class of loafers and meddlers belongedpeople who made Acts of Parliament, bailiffs,policemen and magistrates. The Glasgow ILP branded Tarn a Capitalistic

Anarchist which, although evidencing ignoranceof his critique of capital, at least had the merit ofidentifying him as an anarchist which theanarchist-communists denied him. Tarn acted aswell as preached anarchy as an October 1902press report records, At Gateshead Police Courton Monday Albert Tarn was summonsed for notpaying borough rates. He said he offered andhad the money to pay all except the SchoolBoard rate because the Board schools were unfitto send his children tohe objected to thelegalised kidnapping of children.Diabolical Liberty Tarn opposed monopoly and was alive to thedanger of group pressure stifling and silencingthe individual. His distrust of the emerging masstrade union movement prompted him, sometimearound 1900, to accept the position of NorthernArea Secretary of the National Free LabourAssociation. Despite its libertarian rhetoric thiswas essentially a strike-breaking organisationthat in 1902 led Tarn to actively support LordPenrhyn in a notorious industrial dispute againsthis own north Wales quarrymen. This was ashameful misjudgement. Cast adrift from theanarchist-communist remnants of an almostmoribund movement he had no rightful placealongside employers who relied on the State toenforce their exploitative contracts. I dont knowwhether Albert arrived at the same conclusion butin any case he soon returned to teachingchemistry.Alberts Last Lesson As late as 1907, Tarn continued to campaignagainst State control of education before retiringfrom political activism. On 23rd December 1923,aged 61, he died at home in Thornton Heath.Gone but not quite forgotten. Albert Tarn never claimed definitive solutionsbut identified and tackled some of the keyproblems of anarchy. The devastating effects ofthe recent world-wide financial crash underlinethe relevance of his analysis of the political roleof economic mechanisms. Despite the assertionsof our class-war comrades, Individualist-Anarchism doesnt simply reduce to selfishegoism or unrestrained capitalism. Tarnattempted to identify how freedom for theindividual is best articulated within a socialcontext. As revolutionaries in Russia and Spainsoon discovered problems of distribution arecritical. It was the key issue that prompted thelibertarian colony at Whiteway to abandonanarcho-communism as an impractical failureand instead adopt mutualism thats endured formore than a century. Group-think takes hold all too easily.

6 7

7as above the article continued, At the suggestionof our individualist fellow-worker for Anarchism,Albert Tarn, we open our columns to a full andfree discussion of the question of property. Ourown views as Communists are well known to ourreaders, but as we hold it to be every honestmans business to let the other side speak and toprove the truth of his own position by hearingwhat the opposition have to say, we welcome theidea and shall be glad to print contributions whichare to the point, from either Communists orIndividualists. Throughout the following year the debateraged. Seizure of the means of production wasespecially hotly contested with Tarn respondingto Comrade Pearson of the Freedom collectivewith the neat counterclaim that whilst,Communists would convert the workers intothieves, the Individualists would convert thethieves into workers. It was all conducted very good-naturedly and areport of a recent social evening, published inFreedom April 1891, evidenced a continuedfellowship. More than a hundred comradesassembled...in the upper chamber of a Citycoffee tavernthe Editor of the Herald ofAnarchy in amicable discussion with one of theFreedom staffthe Individualist AnarchistLeague all cordially mingling with AnarchistCommunists from every group in London. Sopassed a social evening which, we hope, will notbe the last of its kind. The party wasnt over butit soon would be.

The Unbelievable Goodness of Kropotkin Kropotkin gave Anarchist-Communism instantappeal. The revolution was both inevitable andimminent. After the revolution fields, factories andworkshops would be run on rational, scientificprinciples and in the resultant land of milk andhoney everything would be freely available toanybody. Unfortunately Kropotkin, like Marx, deludedhimself as to the immediacy and inevitability ofrevolution. Unlike Marx, Kropotkin assumed that

after the revolution the natural goodness ofhumanity would reign supreme. Albert Tarnsindividualist vision of anarchy was lesssimplistically optimistic. He didnt assumerevolution and he certainly didnt believe youcould create a heaven on earth where everyonewould have unlimited access to warehouses ofthe fruits of production without consequent chaosor starvation. Tarn was concerned to identifymechanisms anarchists might use to facilitaterational and fair methods of exchange anddistribution.Publish and be Damned Tarn set out his intellectual stall during a highlyproductive period of publishing between 1889and 1892. The titles of his pamphlets offer insightinto his politics;

1. The State: Its Origins, Its Nature and ItsAbolition (Charles Stocker, Birmingham)2. The Anarchist Position (William Wood,Birmingham)3 The Individual and the State: a BriefAnalysis of Political Government (NewFellowship Press, London)4 A Free Currency, What it Means, How itCan be Established and What it CanAccomplish (Labour Press Ltd, London)

Tarn was Britains Benjamin Tucker. Tuckerwas his inspiration and returning the favour,Albert acted as distribution agent for Benjaminsnewspaper Liberty in England. Albert alsoadvertised his own publications in Liberty butnone of this pre-empted the masters criticism.Approvingly reprinting Tarns essay on Propertyin an 1890 issue of Liberty, Tuckercharacteristically criticised an over-dependenceon assertion. In following years Liberty publishedAlberts essays on such topics as The Questionof Interest and Mutual Bank Notes.Fanfare for The Herald The first issue of Tarns own newspaper TheHerald of Anarchy An Organ of Social, Politicaland Economic Freethought appeared in October1890. Published monthly, each issue cost apenny and was printed at the Labour Press inChancery Lane, London. After a couple of issuesa further strap line was added to the title page,The Only Uncompromising Advocate of Libertyin England. Although anarchist economicspredominated, the newspaper also examined thedrink question, the socialist fallacy, papers werecommend, sexual relationships, the landquestion and what anarchists want as well asvarious other questions, for the existence of

which we are indebted to stupid and conceitedlawmakers. The high level of intellectual analysis mystifiedsome reviewers. Chit Chat of The Sheffield andRotherham Independent disingenuouslyobserved, unfortunately, no doubt from my ownwant of intelligence, I can make nothing of theHerald, then with a single swipe shiftedresponsibility for incomprehension onto Albertsshoulders whilst simultaneously ridiculing hissupport for rational, phonetic spelling; It is nouse spelling program with ever such pellucidsimplicity if one has no programme!Shoot the Messenger Initially welcoming the appearance of theHerald, Freedom followed up with a statementrubbishing everything Tarn, his newspaper andhis comrades proposed. An 1892 editorialdevoted to a critique of Individualist-Anarchistsemphatically pronounced, Certainly they are notanarchists. In 1893 the Torch followed up with apiece by Merlino emphasising, We Anarchist-Communists have nothing in common with theIndividual-Anarchists! The Herald raised difficult,detailed, awkward questions about the radicalreorganisation of society that Anarchist-Communists preferred to gloss over. As far backas 1890 Tarn had spoken against, The Fallaciesof Socialism and was consistently sceptical thateither parliamentary or anarchist versions ofcollectivism would create heaven on earth. By1893 Individualist-Anarchism was in decline inEngland leaving Tarn no alternative to closing theHerald, but that didnt end his activism.Not so Independent Labour Tarns own account of the reception hereceived at a Glasgow ILP public meeting in 1895is illustrative, The lecturer in the course of hisaddress frequently alluded to collectivistprinciples and finished up with a beatific vision ofthe Promised Land, where we shall all live in loveand happiness under the care and protection ofBumble. At the close of the address I rose andput the question, Has the collective managementof industries been so far an unquestionedsuccess? Tarn was not only denied an answerbut booed out of the hall by the party faithful. Local newspapers generally gave Tarn a fairerhearing than the politicos. Speaking at Spittal in1904 he, impressed upon his hearers thesuperiority of an honest labourer like a fishermanto those who spent their time loafing about andmeddling with other people in their occupations.To the class of loafers and meddlers belongedpeople who made Acts of Parliament, bailiffs,policemen and magistrates. The Glasgow ILP branded Tarn a Capitalistic

Anarchist which, although evidencing ignoranceof his critique of capital, at least had the merit ofidentifying him as an anarchist which theanarchist-communists denied him. Tarn acted aswell as preached anarchy as an October 1902press report records, At Gateshead Police Courton Monday Albert Tarn was summonsed for notpaying borough rates. He said he offered andhad the money to pay all except the SchoolBoard rate because the Board schools were unfitto send his children tohe objected to thelegalised kidnapping of children.Diabolical Liberty Tarn opposed monopoly and was alive to thedanger of group pressure stifling and silencingthe individual. His distrust of the emerging masstrade union movement prompted him, sometimearound 1900, to accept the position of NorthernArea Secretary of the National Free LabourAssociation. Despite its libertarian rhetoric thiswas essentially a strike-breaking organisationthat in 1902 led Tarn to actively support LordPenrhyn in a notorious industrial dispute againsthis own north Wales quarrymen. This was ashameful misjudgement. Cast adrift from theanarchist-communist remnants of an almostmoribund movement he had no rightful placealongside employers who relied on the State toenforce their exploitative contracts. I dont knowwhether Albert arrived at the same conclusion butin any case he soon returned to teachingchemistry.Alberts Last Lesson As late as 1907, Tarn continued to campaignagainst State control of education before retiringfrom political activism. On 23rd December 1923,aged 61, he died at home in Thornton Heath.Gone but not quite forgotten. Albert Tarn never claimed definitive solutionsbut identified and tackled some of the keyproblems of anarchy. The devastating effects ofthe recent world-wide financial crash underlinethe relevance of his analysis of the political roleof economic mechanisms. Despite the assertionsof our class-war comrades, Individualist-Anarchism doesnt simply reduce to selfishegoism or unrestrained capitalism. Tarnattempted to identify how freedom for theindividual is best articulated within a socialcontext. As revolutionaries in Russia and Spainsoon discovered problems of distribution arecritical. It was the key issue that prompted thelibertarian colony at Whiteway to abandonanarcho-communism as an impractical failureand instead adopt mutualism thats endured formore than a century. Group-think takes hold all too easily.

6 7

8Impervious to Kropotkins charms, the Herald ofAnarchy was excommunicated from themovement by a dominant communist faction andthen effectively airbrushed from history. With awhisper from the grave Albert Tarn reminds us toremain ever fearful of all forms of collectivism.

Christopher Draper

Tribute: Mike Hamilton1948 - 2013M ike Hamilton, family man, communityactivist, anarchist, gardener, walkerand most of all, friend, died onMonday 30th December aged 65. I

first met Mike in the summer of 1993 when hestarted attending the walks programme RedRambles for Anarchists and radicals whichcommenced that year. Mike first came to thewalks because of an advert which I had placed inthe anarchist fortnightly paper 'Freedom' and heimmediately became a regular on the walks. Mikebecame a comrade and close friend as the two ofus proceeded to organise a series of events andconferences in Derby and the east midlands.These started with a couple of conferences at theDerby Rainbow Centre and were followed byfurther events in the Peak District, the YorkshireDales, Manchester, Nottingham and Leicester.Mike and I decided to set up a monthly newsletterunder the banner EMAB (East MidlandsAnarchist Bulletin) and during the 5 years ofEMABs existence we produced over 40 editions.Many of the editions were joint productions withMike travelling over from Loughborough to joinme in front of the Amstrad PC in my home inBelper to put together the 2 sides of A4 text andpictures that comprised the newsletter. Mikescontribution to these drew greatly on his wideknowledge of green ideas for more self sufficientcommunities, and his involvement in communityand anarchist politics.

Mike, myself and Ron Marsden organised themeeting which relaunched the Northern AnarchistNetwork (NAN) in Manchester Town Hall in1995. The NAN subsequently evolved toadvocate a brand of class struggle Anarchism notentirely to Mikes liking as his was far more acommunitarian and green influenced version ofthe anarchist ideal. We also took part in other events andoccasions including trips to the York AnarchistForum, and on a number of local demonstrationsaround such issues as the Criminal Justice Bill inLoughborough and others such as a wellattended demonstration to protect Alport Dale inthe Derbyshire Peak District from development. Mike was always a doer and was a keyparticipant in organising the series of EMAAnarchist camps and gatherings . These includeda camping weekend in the Peak District, anotherin the Yorkshire Dales and then between 2001and 2003, 3 consecutive anarchist weekendgatherings at the Woodcraft folk movementcentre at Height Gate, Hebden Bridge. Thesewere always small friendly gatherings of around15 anarchists where we would cook and eattogether, drink, talk and go walking in the locality. Mike was generous, open and honest and if hedisagreed with you he would say so. On oneoccasion we fell out briefly over the Newsletterand this lead me to start publishing Total Libertywhich subsequently became Anarchist Voices.However, Mike and I were soon friends again andhe continued thereafter to be supportive ofAnarchist Voices.

Among Mikes greatest achievements were theNorwich Alternative Bookshop which he helpedestablish while a student in Norwich, and then inhis work as a Community Development Worker,the Nanpantan Community Allotments which heset up on the outskirts of Loughborough. Mikesopenness was expressed in his work through hisopen espousal of Anarchist politics even whiletaking part in Loughborough community politicsvarious and inevitable committees, even when he

was representing the community centre on thePolice Committee of the local authority. Mike had a large number of contacts in theLoughborough community to whom he wouldgive Anarchist literature on occasions such as the

Loughborough Green Fairs, held in a park in themiddle of the town, where Mike and I would havea stall promoting Anarchist ideas. Mike agreed to take part in the AnarchistVoices Video Project and he can be seen in twovideos on the website. In one he gives us a touraround his beloved community allotments atNanpantan, Loughborough and in the other hegives us some insight on his views on anarchism.Mikes position on Anarchism was very muchwithin the tradition of the incremental anarchismof Colin Ward and the wider 1960s communityactivist influenced anarchism. Many of the bookswhich Mike would pass to me reflected this. Onother occasions the two of us visited alternativeprojects such as the self build co-operativehousing project near Southwell, Nottingham andanother time the Centre for AlternativeTechnology near Machynlleth in mid Wales. Mike Hamiltons humane and practical vision ofAnarchism is one which could influence themovement in a positive way, which would be afitting tribute if there were only a fitting journal togive space and publicity to such a viewpoint. Myabiding memory of Mike will be of the good timesspent together as a comrade in many differentevents and as a friend on many walks andrambles from Derbyshire to Yorkshire from themidlands of England to the coastal paths andmountains of north Wales. His impact on friendsand community was shown by the number ofpeople who came to say a final goodbye to Mikeon a cold January morning at the natural burialground at Burton on the Wold. Mike will bemissed by all who knew him, and as they say inWales, Heddwch iw lwch.

Jonathan Simcock

8 9

Freedom: An anarchisteducationFreedom newspaper, Britain's longestrunning anarchist publication, is nolonger being produced in paper form.Starting as a monthly in October 1886,

Freedom has been printed on and off ever since.From its inception Freedom's mission was not tobe associated with any one anarchist group butrather to be a mouth piece for the movement as awhole. A century on anarchism is much broaderthan it was in 1880s but Freedom has remainedfocused on what I regard as the core oflibertarianism: anarcho-communism. In fact from1889 Freedom started to describe itself as a'Journal of Communist Anarchism'. A criticism bysome anarchists in recent years was that thepaper was in fact too limited in its focus, thatanarchism was much bigger than just the classstruggle stuff but that the paper did not reflectthis.To be fair to Freedom I think it long tried to have

a wider perspective. I used to regularly write forthe paper in the 1990s. They were, it seemed,exciting times for far left politics with the rise ofdirect action campaigns particularly the anti-roads ones, Reclaim The Streets, Earth First,papers like Squall and Do or Die but also aprogressive rethink amongst some elements ofthe labour movement, most notably around thestriking Liverpool Dockers. It was a period ofactivism. Taking copies of Freedom to theNewbury anti-bypass camps and marches I wasimpressed how open most people were toanarchist ideas. It was also refreshing not to seeany Socialist Worker sellers. Authoritarianmarxism struggled to accommodate democraticeco-activism; anarchism embraced it.I have looked back at some of the things I wrote

for Freedom back then (I also wrote for Total

9Impervious to Kropotkins charms, the Herald ofAnarchy was excommunicated from themovement by a dominant communist faction andthen effectively airbrushed from history. With awhisper from the grave Albert Tarn reminds us toremain ever fearful of all forms of collectivism.

Christopher Draper

Tribute: Mike Hamilton1948 - 2013M ike Hamilton, family man, communityactivist, anarchist, gardener, walkerand most of all, friend, died onMonday 30th December aged 65. I

first met Mike in the summer of 1993 when hestarted attending the walks programme RedRambles for Anarchists and radicals whichcommenced that year. Mike first came to thewalks because of an advert which I had placed inthe anarchist fortnightly paper 'Freedom' and heimmediately became a regular on the walks. Mikebecame a comrade and close friend as the two ofus proceeded to organise a series of events andconferences in Derby and the east midlands.These started with a couple of conferences at theDerby Rainbow Centre and were followed byfurther events in the Peak District, the YorkshireDales, Manchester, Nottingham and Leicester.Mike and I decided to set up a monthly newsletterunder the banner EMAB (East MidlandsAnarchist Bulletin) and during the 5 years ofEMABs existence we produced over 40 editions.Many of the editions were joint productions withMike travelling over from Loughborough to joinme in front of the Amstrad PC in my home inBelper to put together the 2 sides of A4 text andpictures that comprised the newsletter. Mikescontribution to these drew greatly on his wideknowledge of green ideas for more self sufficientcommunities, and his involvement in communityand anarchist politics.

Mike, myself and Ron Marsden organised themeeting which relaunched the Northern AnarchistNetwork (NAN) in Manchester Town Hall in1995. The NAN subsequently evolved toadvocate a brand of class struggle Anarchism notentirely to Mikes liking as his was far more acommunitarian and green influenced version ofthe anarchist ideal. We also took part in other events andoccasions including trips to the York AnarchistForum, and on a number of local demonstrationsaround such issues as the Criminal Justice Bill inLoughborough and others such as a wellattended demonstration to protect Alport Dale inthe Derbyshire Peak District from development. Mike was always a doer and was a keyparticipant in organising the series of EMAAnarchist camps and gatherings . These includeda camping weekend in the Peak District, anotherin the Yorkshire Dales and then between 2001and 2003, 3 consecutive anarchist weekendgatherings at the Woodcraft folk movementcentre at Height Gate, Hebden Bridge. Thesewere always small friendly gatherings of around15 anarchists where we would cook and eattogether, drink, talk and go walking in the locality. Mike was generous, open and honest and if hedisagreed with you he would say so. On oneoccasion we fell out briefly over the Newsletterand this lead me to start publishing Total Libertywhich subsequently became Anarchist Voices.However, Mike and I were soon friends again andhe continued thereafter to be supportive ofAnarchist Voices.

Among Mikes greatest achievements were theNorwich Alternative Bookshop which he helpedestablish while a student in Norwich, and then inhis work as a Community Development Worker,the Nanpantan Community Allotments which heset up on the outskirts of Loughborough. Mikesopenness was expressed in his work through hisopen espousal of Anarchist politics even whiletaking part in Loughborough community politicsvarious and inevitable committees, even when he

was representing the community centre on thePolice Committee of the local authority. Mike had a large number of contacts in theLoughborough community to whom he wouldgive Anarchist literature on occasions such as the

Loughborough Green Fairs, held in a park in themiddle of the town, where Mike and I would havea stall promoting Anarchist ideas. Mike agreed to take part in the AnarchistVoices Video Project and he can be seen in twovideos on the website. In one he gives us a touraround his beloved community allotments atNanpantan, Loughborough and in the other hegives us some insight on his views on anarchism.Mikes position on Anarchism was very muchwithin the tradition of the incremental anarchismof Colin Ward and the wider 1960s communityactivist influenced anarchism. Many of the bookswhich Mike would pass to me reflected this. Onother occasions the two of us visited alternativeprojects such as the self build co-operativehousing project near Southwell, Nottingham andanother time the Centre for AlternativeTechnology near Machynlleth in mid Wales. Mike Hamiltons humane and practical vision ofAnarchism is one which could influence themovement in a positive way, which would be afitting tribute if there were only a fitting journal togive space and publicity to such a viewpoint. Myabiding memory of Mike will be of the good timesspent together as a comrade in many differentevents and as a friend on many walks andrambles from Derbyshire to Yorkshire from themidlands of England to the coastal paths andmountains of north Wales. His impact on friendsand community was shown by the number ofpeople who came to say a final goodbye to Mikeon a cold January morning at the natural burialground at Burton on the Wold. Mike will bemissed by all who knew him, and as they say inWales, Heddwch iw lwch.

Jonathan Simcock

8 9

Freedom: An anarchisteducationFreedom newspaper, Britain's longestrunning anarchist publication, is nolonger being produced in paper form.Starting as a monthly in October 1886,

Freedom has been printed on and off ever since.From its inception Freedom's mission was not tobe associated with any one anarchist group butrather to be a mouth piece for the movement as awhole. A century on anarchism is much broaderthan it was in 1880s but Freedom has remainedfocused on what I regard as the core oflibertarianism: anarcho-communism. In fact from1889 Freedom started to describe itself as a'Journal of Communist Anarchism'. A criticism bysome anarchists in recent years was that thepaper was in fact too limited in its focus, thatanarchism was much bigger than just the classstruggle stuff but that the paper did not reflectthis.To be fair to Freedom I think it long tried to have

a wider perspective. I used to regularly write forthe paper in the 1990s. They were, it seemed,exciting times for far left politics with the rise ofdirect action campaigns particularly the anti-roads ones, Reclaim The Streets, Earth First,papers like Squall and Do or Die but also aprogressive rethink amongst some elements ofthe labour movement, most notably around thestriking Liverpool Dockers. It was a period ofactivism. Taking copies of Freedom to theNewbury anti-bypass camps and marches I wasimpressed how open most people were toanarchist ideas. It was also refreshing not to seeany Socialist Worker sellers. Authoritarianmarxism struggled to accommodate democraticeco-activism; anarchism embraced it.I have looked back at some of the things I wrote

for Freedom back then (I also wrote for Total

10

Liberty, AVs predecessor at the same time). Iwas surprised how eclectic the topics were. Yes Idid produce regular updates on worker'sstruggles (I was working for a trade union at thetime) but also stuff on growing food, the roadprotests, skinhead culture, GM, voting, publicspaces, music reviews, play, an interview withClifford Harper about his art, skateboarding,pornography (against), allotments, supermarkets,even architecture!For a while it felt like a new, anti authoritarian

movement might emerge from this period andthat anarchism was well and truly in the mix.There was even talk of red, green and blackalliances. It seemed anarchism was emergingcentre stage from the long standing shadow ofmarxism and the more recent one of anarchopunk. Yet looking at the state of the movementtoday retrospectively through the lens of thesearticles I am surprised that the movement is stillso tiny. Was our optimism misplaced? Sure in theintervening years the annual Anarchist Bookfairhas grown leaps and bounds, moving from theclaustrophobic (and it must be said, crusty)constraints of Conway Hall to the wide halls ofQueen Mary's but there are now fewer groupsaround and fewer activists. And now no Freedomnewspaper.I used to also sell copies of Freedom on

marches and demos. The most I ever sold wason the massive anti Iraq war march. Seven oreight of us met outside the Festival Hall themorning of the march, each taking a bundle ofpapers off the then editor, Toby, and headed off. Iremember standing outside a hotel near the Ritzwith people queuing to buy the paper! Queuing! Itfelt we were part of something. A decade later bycoincidence I was in the same spot on an antiausterity march against the current government. Idid not see anyone selling Freedom. Mostanarchists that day were part of a separate bloc,which let off some flairs, sprayed some walls andbroke some windows. I did not feel we hadmoved forward.Reflecting on my time with Freedom I realise

that writing the articles was an education for me.The big lesson I took from researching thearguments for the various pieces I wrote was thatanarchism can be applied, as Kropotkin wellknew, to all aspects of, not only economic, butalso social and cultural life. Anarchism, definedas mutual aid and cooperation, is part of us -despite capitalisms best efforts! This was thepoint Colin Ward made in each edition in hisregular column, always the first thing I would readwhen Freedom landed on the doormat.Fundamentally, writing for Freedom and readingit every two weeks convinced me that anarchism

was right.Freedom's web-only existence has been driven

by a few factors. Fewer people read physicalbooks and papers. Freedoms subscribers havedwindled to 225 and retail outlets for the paper tofewer than 30. Volunteers have also fallen off.Actually for a short while I helped with sendingthe paper out. Once a month I would head toEast London, shoot down Angel Alley, gingerlywalk up the bookshop's rickety stairs into a roomthat looked like something out of a Dickens novel- dusty, full of boxes, old papers, journals,envelopes and books - clear a space, sit downand stick labels on the brown envelopes. Frommemory we sent out 600 or so. Fallingsubscribers and fewer volunteers means thepaper made an annual 2500 loss in the end.Lack of volunteers is also hitting Black Flag

magazine which has not been published for wellover a year. Other anarchist publications appearintermediately. It is odd but many anarchistsseem content to be consumers rather thanproducers. What do those thousands of peopleyou see at the bookfair do in between? But whoam I to judge? The last thing I wrote for Freedomwas a review of Anarchist FAQs, some six yearsago (vol 70 no 14). I stopped reading the papershortly after as my activism wained. Myanarchism has stood the test of time but Irealised a long time ago that radical politics is amarathon, not a sprint.In the end, a bit like Dr Who, we probably all

have our favourite periods of Freedom and lessfavourite ones. We have probably always thoughtit isn't as good as it used to be. I bet anarchistsused to say the same in the 1920s.The original founders of the paper, like

Charlotte Wilson, saw the need for anarchism tohave a paper that stood outside of individualgroups - that was about and for the Movement.That paper and vision is no more. OnlineFreedom still fulfils a role and it may be thecomrades who started Freedom in 1886, if theywere around today, would be writing blogs andweb based articles rather than writing, laying out,designing, printing and posting a paper, but itsnot the same. We have lost something. I stoppedreading it but I miss it.

Richard Griffin

The Politics ofScience

In science, theories are always hypothetical andprovisional and are a convenient method ofgrouping and linking known facts, as well as auseful instrument for research, for the discoveryand interpretation of new facts; but they are notthe truth.The scientist makes use of hypotheses to workon, that is to say he makes certain assumptionswhich serve him as a guide and as a spur in hisresearch, but he is not a victim of his imagination,nor does he allow familiarity with his assumptionsto be hardened into a demonstrated truth, raisingto a law, with arbitrary induction, every individualfact which serves his thesis.These quotations are taken from twoarticles written by Errico Malatesta in thejournals Umanit Nova and Pensiero eVolont in 1922 and 1924, respectively.In these pieces, Malatesta was formulating acritique of the scientific socialists and anarchistsof the day, people like the marxists andanarchists such as Kropotkin, who believed thatthe methods of natural science could be appliedto people and their social and economic relations.Malatesta, on the other hand, believed thathuman beings and their interactions could not beanalysed, nor their actions and decisionspredicted, in the same way that scientists couldstudy and hypothesise about planets, atoms,plants, and other animals. He saw that the mindand free will which people possess make themand their behaviour unpredictable, and thus givesthe lie to the determinist social theories of Marxand Kropotkin. While I am in complete agreement with thiscritique, it was not a new insight for me. What

struck me, however, when I was reading ErricoMalatesta: His Life and Ideas, edited by VernonRichards (and the reason why I selected theexcerpts above), was how clearly Malatesta, anon-scientist, understood the scientific approach,how science is supposed to be done and whatpurpose it should serve. Science is a tool toelucidate natural processes and phenomena inorder to discover the underlying laws of nature;how things work. Once that is understood,scientists can then study the effects of intentionalor unintentional human interventions on them. The words science and scientific have an auraof truth and respectability about them that lead topeople to apply these labels, even when notmerited, to their own ideas and work in an effortto achieve an acceptance they might nototherwise have. Fields of study like psychology,sociology, and economics, for instance, arecommonly called social sciences, but areunscientific in the extreme. While they all involvesome level of research, which generally is simplythe recording of observations of humanbehaviour, they are unable to conduct trueexperiments with any rigor, since they all dealwith the observed behaviour of people, and it isimpossible to accurately assess what leads tothis behaviour and why. While the scientificsocial change theories of the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries have largely gone out offashion, they have been replaced by a newgeneration of pseudosciences. While it is bad enough that what passes forsocial science is anything but, it has becomeincreasingly apparent that natural science hasalso fallen prey to the pitfalls identified a 100years ago by Malatesta. It has becomeincreasingly common to read about poorly-designed research trials, falsified data, burying ofresearch that failed to support the desiredhypothesis. Some researchers cherry-pick datathat fit their theory. Unproven theories canbecome dogma. Dissidents can be treated asheretics. While there is much important and well-done scientific research being carried out, muchof what ends up in public view is shoddily doneand politically motivated. Climate science is the most obvious case atpresent. The scientific establishment hasaccepted the inevitability of global increases intemperature and speculates that theconsequence of this warming will be more or lessdisastrous to lots of people and ecologicalsystems around the world. This view ispropagated by newspapers, television, on-lineinformation sources, movies, books, seeminglyeverywhere. We are told that global warming isestablished science, and those who disagree

People will come to lovetheir oppression, to adorethe technologies that undotheir capacities to think

Aldous Huxley

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Liberty, AVs predecessor at the same time). Iwas surprised how eclectic the topics were. Yes Idid produce regular updates on worker'sstruggles (I was working for a trade union at thetime) but also stuff on growing food, the roadprotests, skinhead culture, GM, voting, publicspaces, music reviews, play, an interview withClifford Harper about his art, skateboarding,pornography (against), allotments, supermarkets,even architecture!For a while it felt like a new, anti authoritarian

movement might emerge from this period andthat anarchism was well and truly in the mix.There was even talk of red, green and blackalliances. It seemed anarchism was emergingcentre stage from the long standing shadow ofmarxism and the more recent one of anarchopunk. Yet looking at the state of the movementtoday retrospectively through the lens of thesearticles I am surprised that the movement is stillso tiny. Was our optimism misplaced? Sure in theintervening years the annual Anarchist Bookfairhas grown leaps and bounds, moving from theclaustrophobic (and it must be said, crusty)constraints of Conway Hall to the wide halls ofQueen Mary's but there are now fewer groupsaround and fewer activists. And now no Freedomnewspaper.I used to also sell copies of Freedom on

marches and demos. The most I ever sold wason the massive anti Iraq war march. Seven oreight of us met outside the Festival Hall themorning of the march, each taking a bundle ofpapers off the then editor, Toby, and headed off. Iremember standing outside a hotel near the Ritzwith people queuing to buy the paper! Queuing! Itfelt we were part of something. A decade later bycoincidence I was in the same spot on an antiausterity march against the current government. Idid not see anyone selling Freedom. Mostanarchists that day were part of a separate bloc,which let off some flairs, sprayed some walls andbroke some windows. I did not feel we hadmoved forward.Reflecting on my time with Freedom I realise

that writing the articles was an education for me.The big lesson I took from researching thearguments for the various pieces I wrote was thatanarchism can be applied, as Kropotkin wellknew, to all aspects of, not only economic, butalso social and cultural life. Anarchism, definedas mutual aid and cooperation, is part of us -despite capitalisms best efforts! This was thepoint Colin Ward made in each edition in hisregular column, always the first thing I would readwhen Freedom landed on the doormat.Fundamentally, writing for Freedom and readingit every two weeks convinced me that anarchism

was right.Freedom's web-only existence has been driven

by a few factors. Fewer people read physicalbooks and papers. Freedoms subscribers havedwindled to 225 and retail outlets for the paper tofewer than 30. Volunteers have also fallen off.Actually for a short while I helped with sendingthe paper out. Once a month I would head toEast London, shoot down Angel Alley, gingerlywalk up the bookshop's rickety stairs into a roomthat looked like something out of a Dickens novel- dusty, full of boxes, old papers, journals,envelopes and books - clear a space, sit downand stick labels on the brown envelopes. Frommemory we sent out 600 or so. Fallingsubscribers and fewer volunteers means thepaper made an annual 2500 loss in the end.Lack of volunteers is also hitting Black Flag

magazine which has not been published for wellover a year. Other anarchist publications appearintermediately. It is odd but many anarchistsseem content to be consumers rather thanproducers. What do those thousands of peopleyou see at the bookfair do in between? But whoam I to judge? The last thing I wrote for Freedomwas a review of Anarchist FAQs, some six yearsago (vol 70 no 14). I stopped reading the papershortly after as my activism wained. Myanarchism has stood the test of time but Irealised a long time ago that radical politics is amarathon, not a sprint.In the end, a bit like Dr Who, we probably all

have our favourite periods of Freedom and lessfavourite ones. We have probably always thoughtit isn't as good as it used to be. I bet anarchistsused to say the same in the 1920s.The original founders of the paper, like

Charlotte Wilson, saw the need for anarchism tohave a paper that stood outside of individualgroups - that was about and for the Movement.That paper and vision is no more. OnlineFreedom still fulfils a role and it may be thecomrades who started Freedom in 1886, if theywere around today, would be writing blogs andweb based articles rather than writing, laying out,designing, printing and posting a paper, but itsnot the same. We have lost something. I stoppedreading it but I miss it.

Richard Griffin

The Politics ofScience

In science, theories are always hypothetical andprovisional and are a convenient method ofgrouping and linking known facts, as well as auseful instrument for research, for the discoveryand interpretation of new facts; but they are notthe truth.The scientist makes use of hypotheses to workon, that is to say he makes certain assumptionswhich serve him as a guide and as a spur in hisresearch, but he is not a victim of his imagination,nor does he allow familiarity with his assumptionsto be hardened into a demonstrated truth, raisingto a law, with arbitrary induction, every individualfact which serves his thesis.These quotations are taken from twoarticles written by Errico Malatesta in thejournals Umanit Nova and Pensiero eVolont in 1922 and 1924, respectively.In these pieces, Malatesta was formulating acritique of the scientific socialists and anarchistsof the day, people like the marxists andanarchists such as Kropotkin, who believed thatthe methods of natural science could be appliedto people and their social and economic relations.Malatesta, on the other hand, believed thathuman beings and their interactions could not beanalysed, nor their actions and decisionspredicted, in the same way that scientists couldstudy and hypothesise about planets, atoms,plants, and other animals. He saw that the mindand free will which people possess make themand their behaviour unpredictable, and thus givesthe lie to the determinist social theories of Marxand Kropotkin. While I am in complete agreement with thiscritique, it was not a new insight for me. What

struck me, however, when I was reading ErricoMalatesta: His Life and Ideas, edited by VernonRichards (and the reason why I selected theexcerpts above), was how clearly Malatesta, anon-scientist, understood the scientific approach,how science is supposed to be done and whatpurpose it should serve. Science is a tool toelucidate natural processes and phenomena inorder to discover the underlying laws of nature;how things work. Once that is understood,scientists can then study the effects of intentionalor unintentional human interventions on them. The words science and scientific have an auraof truth and respectability about them that lead topeople to apply these labels, even when notmerited, to their own ideas and work in an effortto achieve an acceptance they might nototherwise have. Fields of study like psychology,sociology, and economics, for instance, arecommonly called social sciences, but areunscientific in the extreme. While they all involvesome level of research, which generally is simplythe recording of observations of humanbehaviour, they are unable to conduct trueexperiments with any rigor, since they all dealwith the observed behaviour of people, and it isimpossible to accurately assess what leads tothis behaviour and why. While the scientificsocial change theories of the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries have largely gone out offashion, they have been replaced by a newgeneration of pseudosciences. While it is bad enough that what passes forsocial science is anything but, it has becomeincreasingly apparent that natural science hasalso fallen prey to the pitfalls identified a 100years ago by Malatesta. It has becomeincreasingly common to read about poorly-designed research trials, falsified data, burying ofresearch that failed to support the desiredhypothesis. Some researchers cherry-pick datathat fit their theory. Unproven theories canbecome dogma. Dissidents can be treated asheretics. While there is much important and well-done scientific research being carried out, muchof what ends up in public view is shoddily doneand politically motivated. Climate science is the most obvious case atpresent. The scientific establishment hasaccepted the inevitability of global increases intemperature and speculates that theconsequence of this warming will be more or lessdisastrous to lots of people and ecologicalsystems around the world. This view ispropagated by newspapers, television, on-lineinformation sources, movies, books, seeminglyeverywhere. We are told that global warming isestablished science, and those who disagree

People will come to lovetheir oppression, to adorethe technologies that undotheir capacities to think

Aldous Huxley

10 11

12

with this orthodoxy are commonly described asglobal warming deniers, a phrase used to makethem look as absurd as those who claim that theNazis did not systematically murder Jewishpeople (holocaust deniers). But when the dataconflict with the hypotheses of the globalwarming scientific elite, the data are rejectedinstead of their likely very-flawed hypothesis. The last united states surgeon-generals reporton The Health Consequences of InvoluntaryExposure to Tobacco Smoke is another exampleof badly-done science. In it the statement ismade that There is no safe amount of second-hand smoke. Breathing even a little second-handsmoke can be dangerous. There is no realresearch presented to back this up, but there isapparently no need for that these days when itcomes to the self-evident evil of tobacco. While itcan be proven experimentally that ingredients intobacco damage cells, and epidemiology hasclearly demonstrated the ill-effects of activesmoking, neither of these facts support thestatement about the danger of incidentalexposure to small amounts of second-handsmoke except in the sense that there is nosafe amount of salt, since it increases somepeoples blood pressure; or driving, since somepeople die in road accidents; or sunlight, sinceUV rays damage skin cells; or inhalation of carexhaust when one walks or bikes next to aroadway, since these gases too contain toxins. Inthese cases people are advised to reduce theirexposure or risk but not to entirely avoid thesethings. There is no warning from the surgeon-general not to walk or drive around New Yorkduring rush hour. But the prohibitionist approachhas so distorted discussion of tobacco that thisstatement was trumpeted about by newsies andthe public health authorities, but neverchallenged. Least of all by any reputablescientist. The concept of established science is valuedby establishment scientists and their politicalsupporters and funders. But real science is aboutopen inquiry and can never be truly established.New data can always be discovered that cancompletely change the game. Medical research,though imperfect, often seeks real innovation andtries out seemingly crazy approaches in attemptsto treat disease, especially in cancer research.Risky conjecture and scepticism regardingconsensus theory is a key part of true science butis seldom seen in the big, government-fundedscience arena. Since critical thinking and thequestioning of authority are discouraged soactively among the population at large, I guess itshouldnt be surprising that so many scientistsnever overcome their upbringing and training.Authoritarian societies and education systems

are pretty good at creating people, includingscientists, who will go along to get along.Anarchy, instead, would promote real science,since both require people who think and act forthemselves, who see things as they are andcould be, and who change their opinions basedon new information, instead of clinging to worn-out dogmas and explaining away conflictingevidence.

Joe Peacott

Remembering thevictims of the FirstWorld War

A television programme about thedestruction of images during the FrenchRevolution made me wonder why I amtrying to get a local war memorialrepaired. The memorial is in a park near where Ilive and shows a beautiful angel of peace on acolumn, along with the names of the dead. Whatupsets me is that the angels nose has beensmashed in. The French revolutionary iconoclasts were,

quite rightly I think, destroying symbols of royal,church and aristocratic power, and doing sobecause that power was real to them: it wasevidence of their oppression. Memorials are still declarations of the power ofwhoever sets them up though they will often be

financed by their victims and certainly built bythem. There are thousands of memorials aroundEngland today which proclaim the bloody glory ofBritish military leaders and the bloodyachievements of colonial pirates. They dontbother me, but quite rightly, minorities from theempire now living here are affronted by thestature of a general who led the army whichdestroyed their countrys freedom and heraldeddecades of exploitation and often slavery. Quite reasonably, Ken Livingstone tried to shuntsome of these relics of an inglorious past intoLondon side streets; it surprises me that thereisnt more clamour by former colonial subjects fortheir removal. I dont care because I have not beenconquered nor enslaved more than the averageworker and I have an affection for memorials tothe dead of two terrible wars; I find an earliermemorial - to the Camel Corps in theembankment gardens by the Thames in London -quite charming; nice camel. The Great War memorials are a terrible, sadrecognition of the unwilling dead, particularly ofthe trenches, in so far as they do not glorify war.My memorial is a simple 12ft-high column withnames and the full-sized angel of peace in basrelief. I am not happy with angels which brandishrifles; nor with slogans such as to our gloriousdead or They gave their lives that we mightlive; for freedom; for king and country or anyother such slogan. Names, often such long lists of names, areenough. Platitudes reduce them but sadly, theyare not totally inaccurate; many men wentwillingly to war conditioned by a life of jingoisticeducation and stories of heroism and out ofsolidarity with mates they went to school with orworked with. The generals lied; but it isnecessary to remember the power of brain-washing that underlies so much of a willingnessto acquiesce in destructio