Description
This article is from the Anarchy FAQ, by
Bryan Caplan with numerous contributions by others.
What other anarchist
viewpoints are there?
There is definitely another strand of
anarchist thought, although it is far vaguer and less propositional than the
views thus far explicated. For some, "anarchist" is just a
declaration of rebellion against rules and authority of any kind. There is
little attempt made here to explain how society would work without government; and
perhaps there is little conviction that it could do so. This sort of anarchism
is more of an attitude or emotion -- a feeling that the corrupt world of today
should go down in flames, without any definite view about what if anything
would be preferable and possible. For want of a better term, I would call this
"emotivist anarchism," whose most prominent exponent is almost
certainly Max Stirner (although to be fair to Stirner he did briefly outline
his vision for the replacement of existing society by a "Union of
Egoists").
For the emotivist anarchist, opposition to
the state is just a special case of his or her opposition to almost everything:
the family, traditional art, bourgeois culture, comfortable middle-aged people,
the British monarchy, etc. This position, when articulated, is often difficult
to understand, for it seems to seek destruction without any suggestion or
argument that anything else would be preferable. Closely linked to emotivist
anarchism, though sometimes a little more theoretical, is nihilist anarchism.
The anarcho-nihilists combine the emotivist's opposition to virtually all forms
of order with radical subjectivist moral and epistemological theory.
To see Tracy Harms' criticism of my treatment
of Stirner, egoism, and nihilism, click here.
Related to emotivist anarchism is a second
strand of less intellectual, more emotional anarchist thought. It has been
called by some "moral anarchism." This view again feels that existing
statist society is bad; but rather than lay out any comprehensive plans for its
abolition, this sort of anarchist sticks to more immediate reforms. Anarchism
of this sort is a kind of ideal dream, which is beautiful and inspiring to
contemplate while we pursue more concrete aims.
The emotivist anarchist often focuses on
action and disdains theorizing. In contrast, another breed of anarchists, known
as "philosophical anarchists," see few practical implications of
their intellectual position. Best represented by Robert Paul Wolff,
philosophical anarchism simply denies that the state's orders as such can
confer any legitimacy whatever. Each individual must exercise his moral
autonomy to judge right and wrong for himself, irrespective of the state's
decrees. However, insofar as the state's decrees accord with one's private conscience,
there is no need to change one's behavior. A position like Wolff's says, in
essence, that the rational person cannot and must not offer the blind obedience
to authority that governments often seem to demand; but this insight need not
spark any political action if one's government's decrees are not unusually
immoral.
Yet another faction, strongly influenced by
Leo Tolstoy, refer to themselves as "Christian anarchists." (Tolstoy
avoided the term "anarchist," probably because of its association with
violence and terrorism in the minds of contemporary Russians.) Drawing on the
Gospels' themes of nonviolence and the equality of all human beings, these
anarchists condemn government as contrary to Christian teaching. Tolstoy
particularly emphasized the immorality of war, military service, and
patriotism, challenging Christians to live up to the radical implications of
their faith by withdrawing their support from all three of these evils.
Tolstoy's essay "Patriotism, or Peace?" is particularly notable for
its early attack upon nationalism and the bloodshed that usually accompanies
it.
Finally, many leftist and progressive
movements have an anarchist interpretation and anarchist advocates. For
example, a faction of feminists, calling themselves "anarcha- feminists"
exists. The feminists, calling themselves "anarcha- feminists"
exists. The Green and environmentalist movements also have strong anarchist
wings which blend opposition to the state and defense of the environment. Their
primary theoretician is probably Murray Bookchin, who (lately) advocates a
society of small and fairly autarchic localities. As Bookchin explains,
"the anarchist concepts of a balanced community, a face-to-face democracy,
a humanistic technology and a decentralized society -- these rich libertarian
concepts -- are not only desirable, they are also necessary." Institutions
such as the town meeting of classical democratic theory point the way to a
radical reorganization of society, in which small environmentally concerned
townships regularly meet to discuss and vote upon their communities' production
and broader aims. Doubtlessly there are many other fusions between anarchism
and progressive causes, and more spring up as new concerns develop.
Description
This article is from the Anarchy FAQ, by
Bryan Caplan with numerous contributions by others.
What moral justifications
have been offered for anarchism?
Again, there are a great many answers which
have been offered. Some anarchists, such as the emotivist and (paradoxically)
the moral anarchists have little interest in high-level moral theory. But this
has been of great interest to the more intellectual sorts of anarchists.
One popular argument for anarchism is that it
is the only way for true socialism to exist. State-socialism is unable to
actually establish human equality; instead it simply creating a new ruling
class. Bakunin prophetically predicted the results of socialists seizing
control of the state when he wrote that the socialist elite would form a
"new class" which would be "the most aristocratic, despotic,
arrogant, and contemptuous of all regimes." Elsewhere Bakunin wrote that
"[F]reedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, ... Socialism
without freedom is slavery and brutality." Of course, socialism itself has
been defended on both deontological and utilitarian grounds, and there is no
need to repeat these here.
On the other hand, anarcho-capitalists have
argued that only under anarchism can the Lockean rights to person and property
so loudly championed by more moderate libertarians be fully respected. Any
attempt to impose a monopolistic government necessarily prevents competing
police and judicial services from providing a legitimate service; moreover, so
long as government exists taxation will persist. The government's claim to
defend private property is thus quite ironic, for the state, in Rothbard's
words, is "an institution that presumes to 'defend' person and property by
itself subsisting on the unilateral coercion against private property known as
taxation." Other anarcho- capitalists such as David Friedman find these
arguments from natural Lockean rights unconvincing, and instead take up the
task of trying to show that Adam Smith's utilitarian case for free-market
capitalism applies just as well to free markets in defense services, making the
state useless as well as dangerous.
Still other anarchists, such as Lysander
Spooner and Benjamin Tucker as well as Proudhon, have argued that anarchism
would abolish the exploitation inherent in interest and rent simply by means of
free competition. In their view, only labor income is legitimate, and an
important piece of the case for anarchism is that without government-imposed
monopolies, non-labor income would be driven to zero by market forces. It is
unclear, however, if they regard this as merely a desirable side effect, or if
they would reject anarchism if they learned that the predicted economic effect
thereof would not actually occur. (Other individualist anarchists have argued
that contrary to Spooner and Tucker, free banking would lead to a much lower
rate of inflation than we experience today; that rent and interest are not due
to "monopoly" but to scarcity of land and loanable funds; and that
there is no moral distinction between labor and rental or interest income, all
of which depend upon a mixture of scarcity, demand, luck, and effort).
A basic moral intuition that probably
anarchists of all varieties share is simply that no one has the right to rule
another person. The interpretation of "rulership," however, varies:
left anarchists tend to see the employer-employee relationship as one of
rulership, and anarcho-capitalists are often dubious of the claim that
envisaged anarchists communes would be democratic and hence voluntary. A
closely related moral intuition, again widely shared by all sorts of
anarchists, is that each person should exercise personal autonomy, or
self-rule. One should question authority, and make up one's mind for oneself
rather than simply following the herd. Again, the interpretation of
"personal autonomy" varies: the left-anarchist sees the
employer-employee relationship as inherently violating personal autonomy,
whereas the anarcho-capitalist is more likely to see personal autonomy
disappearing in the commune or collective, regardless of how democratically
they run themselves.
Description
This article is from the Anarchy FAQ, by
Bryan Caplan with numerous contributions by others.
What are the major
debates between anarchists? What are the recurring arguments?
Without a doubt, the most repeated debate
among modern anarchists is fought between the left-anarchists on one side and
the anarcho-capitalists on the other. Of course, there are occasional debates
between different left-anarchist factions, but probably most of them would be
content with an anarchist society populated by some mixture of communes,
worker-controlled firms, and cooperatives. And similarly there are a few
internal debates between anarcho- capitalists, notably the tension between
Rothbard's natural law anarcho-capitalism and David Friedman's more economistic
anarcho-capitalism. But it is the debate between the left-anarchists and the anarcho-capitalists
which is the most fundamental and the most acrimonious. There are many
sub-debates within this wider genre, which we will now consider.
