the five sages?

8/13/2019 The Five Sages?

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Exam question 7:

We have referred to anarchism several times in the classes one of the most intense and challeging

alternatives to liberalism. Referring to the readings by Kropotkin, Bakunin, Wolff, Nozick and Winstanley to

understand the anarchist position. Does it have value? Is it ethically correct? Is it practical? Defend your

points using relevant texts from Political Thought.


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The five sages?

Why this title, you probably wonder? Well, title is chosen to reflect the content of this paper obviously.

The inspiration comes from academic journal that was released for the first time this year namely Anarchist

Developments in Cultural Studies (ADCS) carrying the title Blasting the Canon. One of the main themes in

this first issue circles around Paul Eltzbachers book Anarchism: Seven Exponents of the Anarchist

Philosophy in 1960 (Kinna & Evren, 2013, p. 2). Der Anarchismus, which were the original title released in

1900 in German has been notoriously known, not for its content but for its deductive method of illustrating

anarchism through the seven sages being William Godwin (17561836), Max Stirner (18061856), PJ

Proudhon (1809-1865), Michael Bakunin (18141870), Peter Kropotkin (18421921), Benjamin Tucker

(18541939) and Leo Tolstoy (18281910). (Kinna, 2005, p. 10). According to Kinna, this method inspired

George Woodcock in his Anarchism (1962), though skipping Tucker, creating a standard reference workin

anarchistic schooling (Ibid, p. 10). Eltzbachers definition of anarchism is a very simplified one, namely

based on the lowest common denominator: an opposition to the state (anti-statism), which was a reflection

of the highly diverse group of thinkers.

Eltzbachers approach have therefore been viewed not only as deductive but also reductive. Now I am

facing the same kind of challenge in this paper, namely understanding the anarchist position based on the

text of the five sagesWinstanley, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Wolff and Nozick found in Rosen and Wolffs reader

Political Thought being the course book of the class. Yet I feel an even greater challenge than Eltzbacher

and Woodcock, in the sense that the five sages I am going to deal with spans over a greater ideological

background. But before I move further into this it is essential to define the concept itself.

Anarchy! The popular discourse has associated this with chaos, but is it that? In reality the word anarchy

arrives from Greek and means no government or no ruler, and not chaos. No government can of

course lead to chaos, but it can also lead to the most harmonious and balanced society, creating a

horizontal structure were everyone has influence on their everyday life and power is placed at the bottom

of society instead of the top1.

So now that we know what anarchy means, then it is time to acknowledge, that there exist is a lot of types

of anarchism, maybe it is the most diverse of the entire political ism? Whether it is the most diverse

ideology does not matter. What matters is that this assignment gives a great opportunity to distinguish

Libertarian Socialism and Libertarianism2, being on radical left wing and radical right wing (radical economic

liberals) of the political spectrum, respectively. The exam question asks me to understand the anarchist

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Being the classical Anarchism, also known as Libertarian Socialism.2Another vocabulary would anarcho-communist and anarcho-capitalist.


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position taking its point of departure in five different anarchist thinkers ranging from the 17th

century up to

modern philosophers from the 1970s, namely Winstanley, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Wolff and Nozick. If I accept

Eltzbachers very simplified version of what defines the anarchist position then it leaves me with four

thinkers already, since Nozick belongs in the Libertarian traditions (anarcho-capitalism) and promotes a

minimal state (Wolff, 2007).

Now, I have spend the first page of our so bringing some inputs on the deductive/reductive method being

requested in this exam question, and tried to display the issues with this approach. Therefore I have

decided to construct an approach, which is easier to defend. First of all it is important to understand which

kind of anarchism the five thinkers promote. The empirical data that I have been asked to base this

assignment on originates from four different chapters being Human Nature, The justification of the

state, Liberty and rights, and Economic Justice, in which thinkers are placed randomly. Unfortunately,

the empirical data does not leave much space for comparison, and thereby a comparative analysis, which

would have been the ideal approach for illustrating the difference between anarcho-communism and

anarcho-capitalism . The empirical data is a really vague basis to understand the anarchist position, so I will

use additional literature to support the views portrayed, in which the book Black Flame3have been a part

of shaping the ideological expression coming forward in this paper.

Personally, I consider four core elements (call them value or ethics) essential to anarchism being:

antiauthority (thereby anti-statism), anti-capitalistic (against exploitation of workers, against competition),

for collective ownership (classless society), for collective organization (horizontalism). To help clarifying my

position I have decided to add a quote from van der Walt and Schmidt (p. 33):

anarchism is a revolutionary and libertarian socialist doctrine: advocating individual

freedom through a free society, anarchism aims to create a democratic, egalitarian, and

stateless socialist order through an international and internationalist social revolution,

abolishing capitalism, landlordism, and the state.

Based on the ideological beliefs expressed above I have tried to categories the five thinkers to which

tradition they belong. I have already sorted one out, Nozick, for being Libertarian and pro a minimal state.

Secondly, Winstanley belongs in the feudal/landlordism era and before the invention of the modern

anarchism by PJ Proudhon (Woodcock, 1967)4. Thirdly, Robert Paul Wolff represents a modern and very

individualistic approach to anarchism, and thereby distinguishing himself from the last two thinkers

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Advocates Libertarian Socialism4To be found online at:http://www.ditext.com/woodcock/anarchism.html
http://www.ditext.com/woodcock/anarchism.htmlhttp://www.ditext.com/woodcock/anarchism.htmlhttp://www.ditext.com/woodcock/anarchism.htmlhttp://www.ditext.com/woodcock/anarchism.html


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Bakunin and Kropotkin, who forms more or less the basis for the premises I setup for defining anarchism,

which is also known as classical anarchism or libertarian socialism.

Finally, I feel that I have made it clear that it is impossible to give a unifying explanation and analysis of

what anarchism exist of based on the empirical data, and at the same time I have illustrated my doubts in a

canon approach. Therefore, I have decided to go separately through all of thinkers, though acknowledging

the common features between Kropotkin and Bakunin.

Winstanley

Winstanley in his text The Common Stock addresses one of the central values of anarchism, namely the

right to free use of the land and fight against property rights and its aggressors. To build up his argument he

points out the false consciousness (a Marxist term, that I could not help but borrow) of the classes when he

exemplifies that free trading, freedom to have ministers preach, sexual freedom of women, freedom to

family hierarchy, in reality does not contain any freedom at all, since there is an authority behind

controlling it (p. 227). These examples can be categorized as false freedom. Furthermore, it is advocated in

the text a creation of public store-houses, be a common treasury (p. 229), to create an egalitarian

economy, which is a strong anarchistic value.

Two points in the text conflicts with traditional anarchistic values, being a government to uphold the laws

in terms of protecting familys property. The existence of a government is a critical point as well as the

family being the central organizational form of society. More than 300 years did George Woodcock

comment on Winstanleys ideas in a flattering manner:

If Winstanley's criticism of society as he sees it at this crucial point in his career ends in a

libertarian rejection of both authority and property, his vision of the kind of egalitarian

society he would like to create embodies many features of the ideal society envisaged by the

anarchists two centuries later (Woodcock, 1967).

I can only agree with Woodcocks observation, since Winstanley was highly inspirational thinker, far ahead

of his times.

A so-called anarchist would though complete brake with these ideas, namely Robert Nozick, who I will

look into in the next section.

I will now continue onto the empirical data dealing with the classical anarchism arriving from Kropotkin and

Bakunin, dealing with mutual aid and science and the people.


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Classical Anarchism: the works of Kropotkin and Bakunin

The two thinkers have probably been among the main contributors to libertarian socialism, being

categorized as classical anarchism. After this I will bring in Wolff before the conclusion, to illustrate how he

differentiates from libertarian socialism, with a much more individualistic approach.

The narrative of the popular known as classical anarchism of today starts in Basal in september 1869 in

Basel at a gathering of the First International (van der Walt & Schmidt, 2009, p. 5). In reality, anarchism did

not evolve as an alternative to liberalism, rather an alternative to socialism.

Mutual Aid - Kropotkin

In this text Kropotkin focuses on the organization in the nature. He argues that competition is not a natural

element in the development of species, but rather that elimination of competition improves the conditions

of the species (Kropotkin, 1999, p. 30).

The text clearly functions as a critique of the Hobbesian philosophy, which argues all against all, which later

was connected to Darwins the survival of the fittest concept. Kropotkin rejects Hobbes primitive idea of

man being in a constant state of warfare. Likely wise, does Kropotkin reject the Hobbesian understanding of

of ethnology, exemplified with families being the ground foundation of human evolution. He explains that

the concept of family did not form the bases of early human civilization but rather the tribal nature and

smaller groups was the organizational nature.

It is evident that it would be quite the contrary to all that we know of nature if men were an

exception to so a general rule: if a creature so defenceless as man was at his beginnings

should have found his protection and his way to progress, not in mutual support, like other

animals, but in a reckless competition for personal advantages with no regard to the interest

of the species(Kropotkin, 1999, p. 31).

Through this analogy of the animal world, Kropotkin legitimizes why a structure based on mutual support,

and thereby collaboration will secure a society in progress. There is no doubt that Kropotkin advocates a

society based on a collectivistic approach, instead of an individualistic approach based on competition.

Therefore we need society to be organized based on mutual aid, creating a space where people have the

possibility and responsibility to take care of their social surroundings. Taking this to a more overall societal

value would equal to collective ownership. How this is done I will look into in the next text by Bakunin,

which discusses science and the people.


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Bakunin: Science and the people

Before entering the text it is very important to take into consideration in which time it is written, though it

still brings a lot of legitimate reason to redesign society. In Science and the People(p. 73-76), Bakunin

reflects over the lack of freedom in society and advocates for a free anarchist society.

Bakunin structures the main ideas of how an anarchist society function, based on the idea of constructing a

society based on the scientific method. The premises for this society are real and total liberation(Bakunin,

1999, p. 73). This premise also represents the sole most important value of anarchism namely total

liberation.

Bakunin starts off by rejecting the dominant scientific method of the times, metaphysical method, due to

their creation of an ideal social organization (p. 73). The paragraph does not really present it clearly, but

with the reference state and statehood later in the text and the reference to Procrustes, it is most probably

the social organization he is pointing to (states). This critique of the metaphysician transcends into

discussion of the function of sociologist. According to Bakunin, sociologist represents the group of scientist

that should to discover how to reach a real and total liberation, but instead they are doing the work of the

governing class, and thereby legitimizing a state, when according to Bakunin: sociology must therefore

be the point of departure for social upheavals and reconstructions(p. 75).

Bakunin advocates a free society encompassed in this sentence:

We believe that the people can be happy and free only when they create their own life,

organizing themselves from below upward by means of independent and completely free

associations, subject to no official tutelage but open to the free and diverse influences of

individuals and parties (p. 75).

This requires a fight against the state and statehood which represents all the oppressing factors. Several

places in the text Bakunin refers to class, and thereby requiring a class-consciousness to occur in order forthere to happen any social revolution. This class-consciousness will thereby be the foundation of the

spontaneous mass-movement it will require to change the system.

Bakunin deals with another central point of classical anarchism, namely that general manual labor will be

obligatory for everyone (p. 74). Since then society have taking some huge technological steps, so today we

have so much technical advantage that it the general manual labor is quite limited.


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In general Bakunins text seems very complex, but delivers a simple message. The ones that believe that

science will create the progress for the people have misunderstood something. What the established

science does is legitimizing the current system, instead of questioning it and being on the forefronts on how

to change society into a total liberation, which should be the task of sociologist.

Bakunin advocates that the anarchism is for the masses whereas Robert Paul Wolff focuses on the

individual anarchism.

Wolff and the individualistic anarchism

R.P. Wolff continues Bakunins critique of the state, but though the one pages text does not leave a lot of

expressions other than authority, in the text as the state, is illegitimate. The conflict of autonomy and

authorityputs man in a box of philosophical anarchism(Wolff, 1999, p. 77), where the center of decision

making is man himself, the autonomous man. The text focuses on man as an individual being decision

taker, which represents another view than what we have seen of Kropotkin focusing on mutual aid and

Bakunins on an organization structure, and thereby arriving to their arguments on socialist platform.

Supporting this observation I have found a quote in Black flame that discusses the complete R.P: Wolffs

work in In Defence of Anarchism:

It is therefore incorrect to define anarchism as a philosophy that holds that every individualshould be entirely free to establish ones obligations to society; given that anarchism

advocated a social vision of freedom as realised through society and cooperation, it could

not be in favour of absolute and unrestrained individual sovereignty. (van der Walt &

Schmidt, 2009, p. 77)

This view is furthermore support by Kinna who in her book writes that Wolffs philosophical anarchism is

a commitment to individual decision-making (sometimes called private judgement) and divorced this

commitment from the struggle to realize a particular socio-economic arrangement.(2005, p. 19). This

individual form of anarchism seems to me to become a slippery slope for anarchism to develop into

something for the personal gain, instead of being the structure securing that we are everyone well off

without being the puppet of a master. This form of individual anarchism (or in this case libertarianism)

takes a far greater turn away from the original anarchist school of thought, since I am going to deal with

Nozick in the next section.


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The word value, well it can certainly mean a lot of things. If you asked a libertarian socialist it will certainly

focus first and for most on principles and behavior, where as a libertarian will focus on the principles of free

market value as well as the value of property rights. To distinguish the two in a simplified manner then we

have on the one hand side the collectivist values and on the other hand the individualistic values.

Practical

During the paper I have somehow avoided this question of discussing the practical element of anarchism.

First of all I would like to address, practical for whom? Since anarchism most central element is to remove

states and governments, we would have to think in another of thinking. Since the ideal is that everything

should be organized from down and up, all decision made will be based on the decision made at the lowest

level. That also means that there will have to planned a great organizational structure. Well if all societies

should be evaluated on the question of practicality, why do we then have a representative democracy,

when a dictatorship is much more practical? My point is that freedom and avoidance of oppression will

always overcome the question of practicality.

Conclusion

I have started out the paper by attacking the canon approach lined up by the exam question, and argued

why this can be such a difficult approach. As mentioned, it has been really difficult to give one notion of

what values and what ethics represents anarchism, but they come to appear due out the paper, and

especially the notion of what anarchism is not in the comparison of libertarian socialism and libertarianism.

This wide spread notion of the values and ethics of anarchism follows the critique of the canon approach,

leaving us with conclusion that if you want to know the value and ethics of anarchism you will have study

the thinkers individually, the only thing you can be sure of is Eltzbachers notion of anti-statism. If the point

is to study libertarian socialism, then we would have to include the values of antiauthority (thereby anti-

statism), anti-capitalistic (against exploitation of workers, against competition), for collective ownership

(classless society), for collective organization (horizontalism).

So is there five sages?


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Bibliography

Bakunin, M., 1999. Science and the people. In: M. Rosen & J. Wolff, eds. Political Thought. New York:

Oxford University Press, pp. 73-76.

Kinna, R., 2005. anarchism: a beginners guide. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.

Kinna, R. & Evren, S., 2013. Introduction: Blasting the canon.Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies

(Blasting the canon, issue 1), pp. 1-6.

Kropotkin, P., 1999. Mutual Aid. In: Political Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 30-33.

Nozick, R., 1999. Rights as Side-Constraints, Where Deterrence Theory goes Wrong, Difficulties withMixing Labour, The Entitlement Theory. In: M. Rosen & J. Wolff, eds. Political Thought. New York: Oxford

University Press, pp. 176-178, 184-186, 210-213, 245-248.

Rasmussen, A. F., 1993. Fra socialstat til minimalstat. Kbenhavn: Olesen Offset.

van der Walt, L. & Schmidt, M., 2009. Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and

Syndicalism. Oakland: AK Press.

Wolff, J., 2007. Robert Nozick, Libertarianism, And Utopia. [Online]

Available at: http://world.std.com/~mhuben/wolff_2.html

[Accessed 12 November 2013].

Wolff, R. P., 1999. Thr conflict of Autonomy and Authority. In: M. Rosen & J. Wolff, eds. Political Thought.

New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 76-77.

Woodcock, G., 1967. Anarchism. In: P. Edwards, ed. Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York: Macmillan.

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