[P2P-F] Fwd: "Anarchism", from The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910 Re: call it "anarcho-syndicalism" ?

[Michel Bauwens]

talking with dante about the differences between p2p and the historical
tradition of anarchism, see below as well

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 10:03 PM
Subject: "Anarchism", from The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910 Re: call it
"anarcho-syndicalism" ?
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>


http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/kropotkin/defanarchy.html
copy pasted :

Kropotkin :
"Anarchism",
from *The Encyclopaedia Britannica*, 1910.

------------------------------

*ANARCHISM* (from the Gr. *an* and *archos*, contrary to authority), the
name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society
is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained,
not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free
agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and
professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption,
as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and
aspirations of a civilized being. In a society developed on these lines, the
voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of
human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute
themselves for the state in all its functions. They would represent an
interwoven network, composed of an infinite variety of groups and
federations of all sizes and degrees, local, regional, national and
international temporary or more or less permanent - for all possible
purposes: production, consumption and exchange, communications, sanitary
arrangements, education, mutual protection, defence of the territory, and so
on; and, on the other side, for the satisfaction of an ever-increasing
number of scientific, artistic, literary and sociable needs. Moreover, such
a society would represent nothing immutable. On the contrary - as is seen in
organic life at large - harmony would (it is contended) result from an
ever-changing adjustment and readjustment of equilibrium between the
multitudes of forces and influences, and this adjustment would be the easier
to obtain as none of the forces would enjoy a special protection from the
state.

If, it is contended, society were organized on these principles, man would
not be limited in the free exercise of his powers in productive work by a
capitalist monopoly, maintained by the state; nor would he be limited in the
exercise of his will by a fear of punishment, or by obedience towards
individuals or metaphysical entities, which both lead to depression of
initiative and servility of mind. He would be guided in his actions by his
own understanding, which necessarily would bear the impression of a free
action and reaction between his own self and the ethical conceptions of his
surroundings. Man would thus be enabled to obtain the full development of
all his faculties, intellectual, artistic and moral, without being hampered
by overwork for the monopolists, or by the servility and inertia of mind of
the great number. He would thus be able to reach full *individualization*,
which is not possible either under the present system of*individualism*, or
under any system of state socialism in the so-called *Volkstaat* (popular
state).

The anarchist writers consider, moreover, that their conception is not a
utopia, constructed on the *a priori* method, after a few desiderata have
been taken as postulates. It is derived, they maintain, from an *analysis of
tendencies* that are at work already, even though state socialism may find a
temporary favour with the reformers. The progress of modern technics, which
wonderfully simplifies the production of all the necessaries of life; the
growing spirit of independence, and the rapid spread of free initiative and
free understanding in all branches of activity - including those which
formerly were considered as the proper attribution of church and state - are
steadily reinforcing the no-government tendency.

As to their economical conceptions, the anarchists, in common with all
socialists, of whom they constitute the left wing, maintain that the now
prevailing system of private ownership in land, and our capitalist
production for the sake of profits, represent a monopoly which runs against
both the principles of justice and the dictates of utility. They are the
main obstacle which prevents the successes of modern technics from being
brought into the service of all, so as to produce general well-being. The
anarchists consider the wage-system and capitalist production altogether as
an obstacle to progress. But they point out also that the state was, and
continues to be, the chief instrument for permitting the few to monopolize
the land, and the capitalists to appropriate for themselves a quite
disproportionate share of the yearly accumulated surplus of production.
Consequently, while combating the present monopolization of land, and
capitalism altogether, the anarchists combat with the same energy the state,
as the main support of that system. Not this or that special form, but the
state altogether, whether it be a monarchy or even a republic governed by
means of the *referendum*.

The state organization, having always been, both in ancient and modern
history (Macedonian Empire, Roman Empire, modern European states grown up on
the ruins of the autonomous cities), the instrument for establishing
monopolies in favour of the ruling minorities, cannot be made to work for
the destruction of these monopolies. The anarchists consider, therefore,
that to hand over to the state all the main sources of economical life - the
land, the mines, the railways, banking, insurance, and so on - as also the
management of all the main branches of industry, in addition to all the
functions already accumulated in its hands (education, state-supported
religions, defence of the territory, etc.), would mean to create a new
instrument of tyranny. State capitalism would only increase the powers of
bureaucracy and capitalism. True progress lies in the direction of
decentralization, both *territorial* and *functional*, in the development of
the spirit of local and personal initiative, and of free federation from the
simple to the compound, in lieu of the present hierarchy from the centre to
the periphery.

In common with most socialists, the anarchists recognize that, like all
evolution in nature, the slow evolution of society is followed from time to
time by periods of accelerated evolution which are called revolutions; and
they think that the era of revolutions is not yet closed. Periods of rapid
changes will follow the periods of slow evolution, and these periods must be
taken advantage of - not for increasing and widening the powers of the
state, but for reducing them, through the organization in every township or
commune of the local groups of producers and consumers, as also the
regional, and eventually the international, federations of these groups.

In virtue of the above principles the anarchists refuse to be party to the
present state organization and to support it by infusing fresh blood into
it. They do not seek to constitute, and invite the working men not to
constitute, political parties in the parliaments. Accordingly, since the
foundation of the International Working Men's Association in 1864-1866, they
have endeavoured to promote their ideas directly amongst the labour
organizations and to induce those unions to a direct struggle against
capital, without placing their faith in parliamentary legislation.
The historical development of anarchism

The conception of society just sketched, and the tendency which is its
dynamic expression, have always existed in mankind, in opposition to the
governing hierarchic conception and tendency - now the one and now the other
taking the upper hand at different periods of history. To the former
tendency we owe the evolution, by the masses themselves, of those
institutions - the clan, the village community, the guild, the free medieval
city - by means of which the masses resisted the encroachments of the
conquerors and the power-seeking minorities. The same tendency asserted
itself with great energy in the great religious movements of medieval times,
especially in the early movements of the reform and its forerunners. At the
same time it evidently found its expression in the writings of some
thinkers, since the times of Lao-tsze, although, owing to its non-scholastic
and popular origin, it obviously found less sympathy among the scholars than
the opposed tendency.

As has been pointed out by Prof. Adler in his *Geschichte des Sozialismus
und Kommunismus*, Aristippus (b. c. 430 BC), one of the founders of the
Cyrenaic school, already taught that the wise must not give up their liberty
to the state, and in reply to a question by Socrates he said that he did not
desire to belong either to the governing or the governed class. Such an
attitude, however, seems to have been dictated merely by an Epicurean
attitude towards the life of the masses.

The best exponent of anarchist philosophy in ancient Greece was Zeno
(342-267 or 270 BC), from Crete, the founder of the Stoic philosophy, who
distinctly opposed his conception of a free community without government to
the state-utopia of Plato. He repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its
intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral
law of the individual - remarking already that, while the necessary instinct
of self-preservation leads man to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective
to it by providing man with another instinct - that of sociability. When men
are reasonable enough to follow their natural instincts, they will unite
across the frontiers and constitute the cosmos. They will have no need of
law-courts or police, will have no temples and no public worship, and use no
money - free gifts taking the place of the exchanges. Unfortunately, the
writings of Zeno have not reached us and are only known through fragmentary
quotations. However, the fact that his very wording is similar to the
wording now in use, shows how deeply is laid the tendency of human nature of
which he was the mouthpiece.

In medieval times we find the same views on the state expressed by the
illustrious bishop of Alba, Marco Girolamo Vida, in his first dialogue *De
dignitate reipublicae* (Ferd. Cavalli, in *Mem. dell'Istituto Veneto*,
xiii.; Dr E. Nys, *Researches in the History of Economics*). But it is
especially in several early Christian movements, beginning with the ninth
century in Armenia, and in the preachings of the early Hussites,
particularly Chojecki, and the early Anabaptists, especially Hans Denk (cf.
Keller, *Ein Apostel der Wiedertaufer*), that one finds the same ideas
forcibly expressed - special stress being laid of course on their moral
aspects.

Rabelais and Fenelon, in their utopias, have also expressed similar ideas,
and they were also current in the eighteenth century amongst the French
Encyclopaedists, as may be concluded from separate expressions occasionally
met with in the writings of Rousseau, from Diderot's *Preface* to the *
Voyage* of Bougainville, and so on. However, in all probability such ideas
could not be developed then, owing to the rigorous censorship of the Roman
Catholic Church.

These ideas found their expression later during the great French Revolution.
While the Jacobins did all in their power to centralize everything in the
hands of the government, it appears now, from recently published documents,
that the masses of the people, in their municipalities and 'sections',
accomplished a considerable constructive work. They appropriated for
themselves the election of the judges, the organization of supplies and
equipment for the army, as also for the large cities, work for the
unemployed, the management of charities, and so on. They even tried to
establish a direct correspondence between the 36,000 communes of France
through the intermediary of a special board, outside the National Assembly
(cf. Sigismund Lacroix, *Actes de la commune de Paris*).

It was Godwin, in his *Enquiry concerning Political Justice* (2 vols.,
1793), who was the first to formulate the political and economical
conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas
developed in his remarkable work. Laws, he wrote, are not a product of the
wisdom of our ancestors: they are the product of their passions, their
timidity, their jealousies and their ambition. The remedy they offer is
worse than the evils they pretend to cure. If and only if all laws and
courts were abolished, and the decisions in the arising contests were left
to reasonable men chosen for that purpose, real justice would gradually be
evolved. As to the state, Godwin frankly claimed its abolition. A society,
he wrote, can perfectly well exist without any government: only the
communities should be small and perfectly autonomous. Speaking of property,
he stated that the rights of every one 'to every substance capable of
contributing to the benefit of a human being' must be regulated by justice
alone: the substance must go 'to him who most wants it'. His conclusion was
communism. Godwin, however, had not the courage to maintain his opinions. He
entirely rewrote later on his chapter on property and mitigated his
communist views in the second edition of *Political Justice* (8vo, 1796).

Proudhon was the first to use, in 1840 (*Qu'est-ce que la propriete?* first
memoir), the name of anarchy with application to the no government state of
society. The name of 'anarchists' had been freely applied during the French
Revolution by the Girondists to those revolutionaries who did not consider
that the task of the Revolution was accomplished with the overthrow of Louis
XVI, and insisted upon a series of economical measures being taken (the
abolition of feudal rights without redemption, the return to the village
communities of the communal lands enclosed since 1669, the limitation of
landed property to 120 acres, progressive income-tax, the national
organization of exchanges on a just value basis, which already received a
beginning of practical realization, and so on).

Now Proudhon advocated a society without government, and used the word
anarchy to describe it. Proudhon repudiated, as is known, all schemes of
communism, according to which mankind would be driven into communistic
monasteries or barracks, as also all the schemes of state or state-aided
socialism which were advocated by Louis Blanc and the collectivists. When he
proclaimed in his first memoir on property that 'Property is theft', he
meant only property in its present, Roman-law, sense of 'right of use and
abuse'; in property-rights, on the other hand, understood in the limited
sense of *possession*, he saw the best protection against the encroachments
of the state. At the same time he did not want violently to dispossess the
present owners of land, dwelling-houses, mines, factories and so on. He
preferred to attain the same end by rendering capital incapable of earning
interest; and this he proposed to obtain by means of a national bank, based
on the mutual confidence of all those who are engaged in production, who
would agree to exchange among themselves their produces at cost-value, by
means of labour cheques representing the hours of labour required to produce
every given commodity. Under such a system, which Proudhon described as
'Mutuellisme', all the exchanges of services would be strictly equivalent.
Besides, such a bank would be enabled to lend money without interest,
levying only something like I per cent, or even less, for covering the cost
of administration. Everyone being thus enabled to borrow the money that
would be required to buy a house, nobody would agree to pay any more a
yearly rent for the use of it. A general 'social liquidation' would thus be
rendered easy, without violent expropriation. The same applied to mines,
railways, factories and so on.

In a society of this type the state would be useless. The chief relations
between citizens would be based on free agreement and regulated by mere
account keeping. The contests might be settled by arbitration. A penetrating
criticism of the state and all possible forms of government, and a deep
insight into all economic problems, were well-known characteristics of
Proudhon's work.

It is worth noticing that French mutualism had its precursor in England, in
William Thompson, who began by mutualism before he became a communist, and
in his followers John Gray (*A Lecture on Human Happiness*, 1825; *The
Social System*, 1831) and J. F. Bray (*Labour's Wrongs and Labour's Remedy*,
1839). It had also its precursor in America. Josiah Warren, who was born in
1798 (cf. W. Bailie, *Josiah Warren, the First American Anarchist*, Boston,
1900), and belonged to Owen's 'New Harmony', considered that the failure of
this enterprise was chiefly due to the suppression of individuality and the
lack of initiative and responsibility. These defects, he taught, were
inherent to every scheme based upon authority and the community of goods. He
advocated, therefore, complete individual liberty. In 1827 he opened in
Cincinnati a little country store which was the first 'equity store', and
which the people called 'time store', because it was based on labour being
exchanged hour for hour in all sorts of produce. 'Cost - the limit of
price', and consequently 'no interest', was the motto of his store, and
later on of his 'equity village', near New York, which was still in
existence in 1865. Mr Keith's 'House of Equity' at Boston, founded in 1855,
is also worthy of notice.

While the economical, and especially the mutual-banking, ideas of Proudhon
found supporters and even a practical application in the United States, his
political conception of anarchy found but little echo in France, where the
Christian socialism of Lamennais and the Fourierists, and the state
socialism of Louis Blanc and the followers of Saint-Simon, were dominating.
These ideas found, however, some temporary support among the left-wing
Hegelians in Germany, Moses Hess in 1843, and Karl Grün in 1845, who
advocated anarchism. Besides, the authoritarian communism of Wilhelm
Weitling having given origin to opposition amongst the Swiss working men,
Wilhelm Marr gave expression to it in the forties.

On the other side, individualist anarchism found, also in Germany, its
fullest expression in Max Stirner (Kaspar Schmidt), whose remarkable works (
*Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum* and articles contributed to the *Rheinische
Zeitung*) remained quite overlooked until they were brought into prominence
by John Henry Mackay.

Prof. V. Basch, in a very able introduction to his interesting book,
*L'lndividualisme
anarchiste: Max Stirner* (1904), has shown how the development of the German
philosophy from Kant to Hegel, and 'the absolute' of Schelling and the *
Geist* of Hegel, necessarily provoked, when the anti-Hegelian revolt began,
the preaching of the same 'absolute' in the camp of the rebels. This was
done by Stirner, who advocated, not only a complete revolt against the state
and against the servitude which authoritarian communism would impose upon
men, but also the full liberation of the individual from all social and
moral bonds - the rehabilitation of the 'I', the supremacy of the
individual, complete 'amoralism', and the 'association of the egotists'. The
final conclusion of that sort of individual anarchism has been indicated by
Prof. Basch. It maintains that the aim of all superior civilization is, not
to permit *all* members of the community to develop in a normal way, but to
permit certain better endowed individuals 'fully to develop', even at the
cost of the happiness and the very existence of the mass of mankind. It is
thus a return towards the most common individual ism, advocated by all the
would-be superior minorities, to which indeed man owes in his history
precisely the state and the rest, which these individualists combat. Their
individualism goes so far as to end in a negation of their own
starting-point - to say nothing of the impossibility for the individual to
attain a really full development in the conditions of oppression of the
masses by the 'beautiful aristocracies'. His development would remain
unilateral. This is why this direction of thought, notwithstanding its
undoubtedly correct and useful advocacy of the full development of each
individuality, finds a hearing only in limited artistic and literary
circles.
Anarchism in the International Working Men's Association

A general depression in the propaganda of all fractions of socialism
followed, as is known, after the defeat of the uprising of the Paris working
men in June 1848 and the fall of the Republic. All the socialist press was
gagged during the reaction period, which lasted fully twenty years.
Nevertheless, even anarchist thought began to make some progress, namely in
the writings of Bellegarrique (Caeurderoy), and especially Joseph Déjacque (
*Les Lazareacute'ennes, L 'Humanisphère*, an anarchist-communist utopia,
lately discovered and reprinted). The socialist movement revived only after
1864, when some French working men, all 'mutualists', meeting in London
during the Universal Exhibition with English followers of Robert Owen,
founded the International Working Men's Association. This association
developed very rapidly and adopted a policy of direct economical struggle
against capitalism, without interfering in the political parliamentary
agitation, and this policy was followed until 1871. However, after the
Franco-German War, when the International Association was prohibited in
France after the uprising of the Commune, the German working men, who had
received manhood suffrage for elections to the newly constituted imperial
parliament, insisted upon modifying the tactics of the International, and
began to build up a Social Democratic political party. This soon led to a
division in the Working Men's Association, and the Latin federations,
Spanish, Italian, Belgian and Jurassic (France could not be represented),
constituted among themselves a Federal union which broke entirely with the
Marxist general council of the International. Within these federations
developed now what may be described as *modern anarchism*. After the names
of 'Federalists' and 'Anti-authoritarians' had been used for some time by
these federations the name of 'anarchists', which their adversaries insisted
upon applying to them, prevailed, and finally it was revindicated.

Bakunin (q.v.) soon became the leading spirit among these Latin federations
for the development of the principles of anarchism, which he did in a number
of writings, pamphlets and letters. He demanded the complete abolition of
the state, which -- he wrote -- is a product of religion, belongs to a lower
state of civilization, represents the negation of liberty, and spoils even
that which it undertakes to do for the sake of general well-being. The state
was an historically necessary evil, but its complete extinction will be,
sooner or later, equally necessary. Repudiating all legislation, even when
issuing from universal suffrage, Bakunin claimed for each nation, each
region and each commune, full autonomy, so long as it is not a menace to its
neighbours, and full independence for the individual, adding that one
becomes really free only when, and in proportion as, all others are free.
Free federations of the communes would constitute free nations.

As to his economical conceptions, Bakunin described himself, in common with
his Federalist comrades of the International (César De Paepe, James
Guillaume, Schwitzguébel), a 'collectivist anarchist' - not in the sense of
Vidal and Pecqueur in the 1840s, or of their modern Social Democratic
followers, but to express a state of things in which all necessaries for
production are owned in common by the labour groups and the free communes,
while the ways of retribution of labour, communist or otherwise, would be
settled by each group for itself. Social revolution, the near approach of
which was foretold at that time by all socialists, would be the means of
bringing into life the new conditions.

The Jurassic, the Spanish and the Italian federations and sections of the
International Working Men's Association, as also the French, the German and
the American anarchist groups, were for the next years the chief centres of
anarchist thought and propaganda. They refrained from any participation in
parliamentary politics, and always kept in close contact with the labour
organizations. However, in the second half of the 'eighties and the early
'nineties of the nineteenth century, when the influence of the anarchists
began to be felt in strikes, in the 1st of May demonstrations, where they
promoted the idea of a general strike for an eight hours' day, and in the
anti-militarist propaganda in the army, violent prosecutions were directed
against them, especially in the Latin countries (including physical torture
in the Barcelona Castle) and the United States (the execution of five
Chicago anarchists in 1887). Against these prosecutions the anarchists
retaliated by acts of violence which in their turn were followed by more
executions from above, and new acts of revenge from below. This created in
the general public the impression that violence is the substance of
anarchism, a view repudiated by its supporters, who hold that in reality
violence is resorted to by all parties in proportion as their open action is
obstructed by repression, and exceptional laws render them outlaws.
(Cf.*Anarchism
and Outrage*, by C. M. Wilson, and *Report of the Spanish Atrocities
Committee*, in 'Freedom Pamphlets'; *A Concise History of the Great Trial of
the Chicago Anarchists*, by Dyer Lum (New York, 1886); *The Chicago Martyrs:
Speeches*, etc.).

Anarchism continued to develop, partly in the direction of Proudhonian
'mutuellisme', but chiefly as communist-anarchism, to which a third
direction, Christian-anarchism, was added by Leo Tolstoy, and a fourth,
which might be ascribed as literary-anarchism, began amongst some prominent
modern writers.

The ideas of Proudhon, especially as regards mutual banking, corresponding
with those of Josiah Warren, found a considerable following in the United
States, creating quite a school, of which the main writers are Stephen Pearl
Andrews, William Grene, Lysander Spooner (who began to write in 1850, and
whose unfinished work, *Natural Law*, was full of promise), and several
others, whose names will be found in Dr Nettlau's *Bibliographie de
l'anarchie*.

A prominent position among the individualist anarchists in America has been
occupied by Benjamin R. Tucker, whose journal *Liberty* was started in 1881
and whose conceptions are a combination of those of Proudhon with those of
Herbert Spencer. Starting from the statement that anarchists are egotists,
strictly speaking, and that every group of individuals, be it a secret
league of a few persons, or the Congress of the United States, has the right
to oppress all mankind, provided it has the power to do so, that equal
liberty for all and absolute equality ought to be the law, and 'mind every
one your own business' is the unique moral law of anarchism, Tucker goes on
to prove that a general and thorough application of these principles would
be beneficial and would offer no danger, because the powers of every
individual would be limited by the exercise of the equal rights of all
others. He further indicated (following H. Spencer) the difference which
exists between the encroachment on somebody's rights and resistance to such
an encroachment; between domination and defence: the former being equally
condemnable, whether it be encroachment of a criminal upon an individual, or
the encroachment of one upon all others, or of all others upon one; while
resistance to encroachment is defensible and necessary. For their
self-defence, both the citizen and the group have the right to any violence,
including capital punishment. Violence is also justified for enforcing the
duty of keeping an agreement. Tucker thus follows Spencer, and, like him,
opens (in the present writer's opinion) the way for reconstituting under the
heading of 'defence' all the functions of the state. His criticism of the
present state is very searching, and his defence of the rights of the
individual very powerful. As regards his economical views B. R. Tucker
follows Proudhon.

The individualist anarchism of the American Proudhonians finds, however, but
little sympathy amongst the working masses. Those who profess it - they are
chiefly 'intellectuals' - soon realize that the *individualization* they so
highly praise is not attainable by individual efforts, and either abandon
the ranks of the anarchists, and are driven into the liberal individualism
of the classical economist or they retire into a sort of Epicurean
amoralism, or superman theory, similar to that of Stirner and Nietzsche. The
great bulk of the anarchist working men prefer the anarchist-communist ideas
which have gradually evolved out of the anarchist collectivism of the
International Working Men's Association. To this direction belong - to name
only the better known exponents of anarchism Elisée Reclus, Jean Grave,
Sebastien Faure, Emile Pouget in France; Errico Malatesta and Covelli in
Italy; R. Mella, A. Lorenzo, and the mostly unknown authors of many
excellent manifestos in Spain; John Most amongst the Germans; Spies, Parsons
and their followers in the United States, and so on; while Domela
Nieuwenhuis occupies an intermediate position in Holland. The chief
anarchist papers which have been published since 1880 also belong to that
direction; while a number of anarchists of this direction have joined the
so-called syndicalist movement- the French name for the non-political labour
movement, devoted to direct struggle with capitalism, which has lately
become so prominent in Europe.

As one of the anarchist-communist direction, the present writer for many
years endeavoured to develop the following ideas: to show the intimate,
logical connection which exists between the modern philosophy of natural
sciences and anarchism; to put anarchism on a scientific basis by the study
of the tendencies that are apparent now in society and may indicate its
further evolution; and to work out the basis of anarchist ethics. As regards
the substance of anarchism itself, it was Kropotkin's aim to prove that
communism at least partial - has more chances of being established than
collectivism, especially in communes taking the lead, and that free, or
anarchist-communism is the only form of communism that has any chance of
being accepted in civilized societies; communism and anarchy are therefore
two terms of evolution which complete each other, the one rendering the
other possible and acceptable. He has tried, moreover, to indicate how,
during a revolutionary period, a large city - if its inhabitants have
accepted the idea could organize itself on the lines of free communism; the
city guaranteeing to every inhabitant dwelling, food and clothing to an
extent corresponding to the comfort now available to the middle classes
only, in exchange for a half-day's, or five-hours' work; and how all those
things which would be considered as luxuries might be obtained by everyone
if he joins for the other half of the day all sorts of free associations
pursuing all possible aims - educational, literary, scientific, artistic,
sports and so on. In order to prove the first of these assertions he has
analysed the possibilities of agriculture and industrial work, both being
combined with brain work. And in order to elucidate the main factors of
human evolution, he has analysed the part played in history by the popular
constructive agencies of mutual aid and the historical role of the state.

Without naming himself an anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, like his predecessors in
the popular religious movements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
Chojecki, Denk and many others, took the anarchist position as regards the
state and property rights, deducing his conclusions from the general spirit
of the teachings of the Christ and from the necessary dictates of reason.
With all the might of his talent he made (especially in *The Kingdom of God
in Yourselves*) a powerful criticism of the church, the state and law
altogether, and especially of the present property laws. He describes the
state as the domination of the wicked ones, supported by brutal force.
Robbers, he says, are far less dangerous than a well-organized government.
He makes a searching criticism of the prejudices which are current now
concerning the benefits conferred upon men by the church, the state and the
existing distribution of property, and from the teachings of the Christ he
deduces the rule of non-resistance and the absolute condemnation of all
wars. His religious arguments are, however, so well combined with arguments
borrowed from a dispassionate observation of the present evils, that the
anarchist portions of his works appeal to the religious and the
non-religious reader alike.

It would be impossible to represent here, in a short sketch, the
penetration, on the one hand, of anarchist ideas into modern literature, and
the influence, on the other hand, which the libertarian ideas of the best
contemporary writers have exercised upon the development of anarchism. One
ought to consult the ten big volumes of the *Supplément Littéraire* to the
paper *La Révolte* and later the *Temps Nouveaux*, which contain
reproductions from the works of hundreds of modern authors expressing
anarchist ideas, in order to realize how closely anarchism is connected with
all the intellectual movement of our own times. J. S. Mill's *Liberty*,
Spencer's *Individual versus the State*, Marc Guyau's *Morality without
Obligation or Sanction*, and Fouillée's *La Morale, I'art et la religion*,
the works of Multatuli (E. Douwes Dekker), Richard Wagner's *Art and
Revolution*, the works of Nietzsche, Emerson, W. Lloyd Garrison, Thoreau,
Alexander Herzen, Edward Carpenter and so on; and in the domain of fiction,
the dramas of Ibsen, the poetry of Walt Whitman, Tolstoy's *War and Peace*,
Zola's *Paris*and *Le Travail*, the latest works of Merezhkovsky, and an
infinity of works of less known authors, are full of ideas which show how
closely anarchism is interwoven with the work that is going on in modern
thought in the same direction of enfranchisement of man from the bonds of
the state as well as from those of capitalism.
------------------------------

Originally found at the Anarchy
Archives<http://www.pitzer.edu/%7Edward/Anarchist_Archives/archivehome.html>
.

Essays by Kropotkin<http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/kropotkin/index.html>
 - Anarchist Library <http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/index.html>





On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Dante-Gabryell Monson <
dante.monson at gmail.com> wrote:

> ok - so ontology wise,
>
> various forms and practices defined by some as anarchism
> can be contained within peer governance, peer production and peer property
>
> and forms and practices related to by some as peer governance, peer
> production and peer property
> can be contained within what some call anarchism.
>
> do various definitions of anarchism necessarily reject the possibility of
> networked forms of hybrid economics and governance ?
>
> or is anarchism identified as non-integral ?
>
> if it can be understood as integral,
> is peer production, peer governance and peer production = anarchism ?
>
> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 3:33 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> yes, a conscious choice of communication strategy, but also more than
>> that, in the sense that a new theory and new situation requires new language
>> and concepts.
>>
>> and no, I would not change again,
>>
>> Michel
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 9:27 PM, Dante-Gabryell Monson <
>> dante.monson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> yes, I understand,
>>> as mentioned in my first post of this thread, that this may be one of the
>>> reasons why people use other terminologies, as to avoid the misinformation
>>> and cumulated emotional significations given to these words.
>>>
>>> after a few years, when p2p terminology will start to be attacked by
>>> coercive forces,
>>> will you change terminology again ?
>>>
>>> Is this a conscious choice of a communication strategy ?
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 3:21 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> if you use socialism or anarchism, which is of course totally
>>>> legitimate, you have to be prepared to face a hundred years of
>>>> misprepresentations ...
>>>>
>>>> that's something you avoid by using the new p2p terminology
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 8:49 PM, Dante-Gabryell Monson <
>>>> dante.monson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Michel
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks - yes, I understand.
>>>>> I expected this reply.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would related it to the "what is contained into what" question.
>>>>> Which I would presume may also depend on the starting point - where one
>>>>> positions oneself.
>>>>>
>>>>> In a case scenario where there is a minimum of containment and
>>>>> coercion,
>>>>> how will individual nodes ( individuals, or existing institutions )
>>>>> choose to network themselves to create synergies - providing access to
>>>>> knowledge of opportunities.
>>>>>
>>>>> We can choose various layers of protocols, contained within each other,
>>>>> or with transfers between each other.
>>>>>
>>>>> So my initial point is one of terminology. What one calls oneself.
>>>>> If a semantic map is created, how close to each other are different
>>>>> words,
>>>>> and why use certain words rather then others ?
>>>>>
>>>>> How does p2pfoundation relate to various other names of groups ( or
>>>>> individuals, or blogs),
>>>>> and with what terminologies do these other groups/individuals/blogs
>>>>> define themselves ( other then with the p2pfoundation )
>>>>>
>>>>> Although some of the targets I perceive may be harnessing understanding
>>>>> and documentation related to structural distributed practices and
>>>>> transformation,
>>>>>
>>>>> and although this in effect may target any human being or form of
>>>>> intelligence who can grasp it,
>>>>> in practice, which groups or individuals defining themselves with
>>>>> specific terminologies most participate or link to the p2pfoundation,
>>>>> and what can be a representation of a cloud of targets ( of individuals
>>>>> or institutions ) of such loose networked coalition ?
>>>>>
>>>>> I understand that some understanding can come out of statistics
>>>>> regarding page views / google analytics,
>>>>> although what concerns subcultural groups,
>>>>> on the list of p2pf I have the impression I see most active people
>>>>> potentially defining themselves as relating themselves to some form of
>>>>> anarchism.
>>>>>
>>>>> So I am happy that more specific terminologies can be used,
>>>>> yet the more I discover recent anarchist movement histories,
>>>>> the more I realize how taboo it seems to be to use "anarchism" as
>>>>> terminology,
>>>>> and I ask myself if this is also perceived by others, consciously or
>>>>> not.
>>>>>
>>>>> I feel more and more like using the terminology "anarchism",
>>>>> and making it a cool word to use,
>>>>> even in corporate environments, even by ceo's.
>>>>>
>>>>> :)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 2:09 PM, Michel Bauwens <
>>>>> michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> in this particular context, one could say that the apparent choices
>>>>>> are already foreclosed and of a secondary nature, while the institution has
>>>>>> made the primary choices
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Dante-Gabryell Monson <
>>>>>> dante.monson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> thanks Michel.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I kind of expected this reply :)
>>>>>>> Different levels of abstraction, connections between different
>>>>>>> systems,
>>>>>>> sometimes enclosures at certain points.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Not very different from people involved in anarcho-syndicalism who
>>>>>>> still connect to "the system" to get central bank money for access to
>>>>>>> certain types of resources, or sell some of their ( surplus ) production
>>>>>>> onto the capitalist central bank money "markets" as to purchase other goods
>>>>>>> or services from the capitalist system.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The person will select the “task”, rather than be given the “task”.
>>>>>>> *
>>>>>>> The question may then be,
>>>>>>> when promoting this,
>>>>>>> is it not the individual that chooses, and not the structure (
>>>>>>> although the culture and structures the individual access may limit its
>>>>>>> empowered choice ).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Individuals constantly creating the structure in an emergent way, and
>>>>>>> not as much the structures coercing the individuals,
>>>>>>> even though the individual may also choose coercive contexts ( but
>>>>>>> what percentage of the population really prefers more coercive contexts ? )
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For the moment, I feel I still lack the choices for "contexts" from
>>>>>>> which I can build up my choices for interdependencies as to create a quality
>>>>>>> of life and a diversity of synergetical reality experiences  ( even though
>>>>>>> at the same time, there may be overabundance of certain kinds of choices ).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Delving into understanding currency information systems, and offering
>>>>>>> alternative dreams to the code of mainstream currency information systems,
>>>>>>> is part of the approach to broaden such potentials for emergent
>>>>>>> choice,
>>>>>>> enabling a convergence of synergies between individuals choosing the
>>>>>>> dream a certain dream, creating such dream together.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 4:50 AM, Michel Bauwens <
>>>>>>> michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> in any case, the same practices, in the context of a for-profit
>>>>>>>> company gives entirely different results .. as the aims and methods are
>>>>>>>> predetermined
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 3:36 AM, Dante-Gabryell Monson <
>>>>>>>> dante.monson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Hi Michel
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> articles like this one
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/characteristics-of-social-business-design-for-the-maker-generation-in-the-workplace/2011/01/22
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> just make me feel that,
>>>>>>>>> actually,
>>>>>>>>> they are describing practices used in anarcho-syndicalism
>>>>>>>>> ( or at least, in my experience )
>>>>>>>>> just adding a few more fancy words,
>>>>>>>>> and taking the misinformation I feel is vehiculated/perceived by
>>>>>>>>> the mainstream media and population
>>>>>>>>> about "anarcho syndicalism" out of it...
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I actually would like to call anarcho-syndicalism,
>>>>>>>>> anarcho-syndicalism again.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
>>>>>>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>>>>>>>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens;
>>>>>>>> http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens;
>>>>>>>> http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Think tank:
>>>>>>>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
>>>>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>>>>>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>>>>>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Think tank:
>>>>>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
>>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>>>
>>>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>>>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>>>
>>>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>>>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>>>
>>>> Think tank:
>>>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>
>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>
>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>
>> Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>



-- 
P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
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Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
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