ANARCHY

By Tinashe Thabo K Chinya and Thato Gaboeletswe

“TO BE GOVERNED IS TO BE WATCHED OVER, INSPECTED, SPIED ON, DIRECTED, LEGISLATED, REGIMENTED, CLOSED IN, INDOCTRINATED, PREACHED AT, CONTROLLED,
ASSESSED, EVALUATED, CENSORED, COMMANDED; ALL BY CREATURES THAT HAVE NEITHER THE RIGHT, NOR THE WISDOM, NOR THE VIRTUE. “PROUDHON
 ORIGINS OF ANARCHY
 Greek ,“Without rule”
 Negation of the principle of authority

 Overthrow the state ,dismantle all forms of political authority

 Stateless society governed by voluntary agreements

Evolution And Timeline

 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon "What is Property?" (1840), positive association anarchism

 Abolishment of law and government, natural spontaneous social order

 First classical anarchist principles, William Goldwin, “Enquiry Concerning political

justice”(1793)
 Nineteenth century, anarchism as socialist movement

 Syndicalism, Europe and Latin America

E .g CNT(National Confederation of labour) An anarcho-syndicalist movements

(1914; early 20th century)
 CORE THEMES
a)Anti-Statism
 Negation of a state as an authority

 State as an authority- political authority, modern state.

 Emma Goldman(1869-1940) state “the club, the gun and handcuff, or the prison”

 Deprive individuals of their property, their liberty and ultimately, through capital punishment

their life
 State- exploitative body, system of taxation

 State-wealthy, oppression of the poor

 State as an instrument of war- territorial expansions, national glory

 Power in any shape or form corrupts absolutely

 CORE THEMES CONT…

b)Natural Order
 William Godwin

 Natural social order, utopian ideals (Booth, 1991)

 Inherently rational, inclined towards harmony’

 (Emphasizes the potential for spontaneous harmony within human nature

 Buddhism and Taoism, modern ecological theories, interdependence and natural order

 Human nature- corrupt in the face of moral, intellectual enlightenment

 CRITICS-Thomas Hobbes, unrealistic, inherent human selfishness, potential for social conflict
 CORE THEMES CONT…
C)Anticlericalism
 Religion- ‘supreme being’ commands ultimate, unquestionable authority

 Proudhon and Bakunin- political theory that rejected Christianity.

 Religion is incompatible with anarchist ideals of freedom and independence

 Elimination of the Church and State.

 Affect moral autonomy, impose ethical judgements

d)Economic Freedom
 Oppose social and economic systems

 Wealth and political power are linked (Bakunin).

 Social categories ; exploited majority, the minority, the ultimate governing estate

 Bakunin's anarchist principle , founded on human sociability, freedom, revolt, collectivism

 COLLECTIVE ANARCHISM

 Kropotkin “mutual aid”, social solidarity

 Government is unnecessary , oppressive body

a)Mutualism
 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon , mutualism ideas

 Fair and equitable exchange ,mutually beneficial trade, labour input

 “Property is theft”

 Property and possessions

b)Anarcho-Syndicalism
 Revolutionary trade unionism

 Direct action

 Syndicates seen as models for decentralized, non-hierarchical societies

 COLLECTIVIST AND INDIVIDUALIST ANARCHY
c)Anarcho-Communism
 Peter Kropotkin theory of “mutual aid”

 Communal existence, no private property ,communal ownership

 Optimistic beliefs about human cooperation

 Rejects the need for an authoritarian state

a)Egoism
Max Stirner, sovereign individual; In The Ego And His Own (1845)
 Self interested and self seeking

 Individual , self ,center of the moral universe

 Reject external authorities imposing obligations on self

 Individual act as they choose, no consideration for laws, social conventions, religious or moral

principles
 INDIVIDUALIST ANARCHISM
b)Libertarianism
 Benjamin Tucker and David Thoreau

 Civil disobedience

 Individual conscience above the demands of political obligation

 System of market exchange, Labor for labor’ exchange stores

c)Anarcho-Capitalism
 Murray Rothbard , Free market

 Abolishment of government, Unregulated market competition

 Contracts made with private agencies, voluntary, regulated only by impersonal market forces
 ROADS TO ANARCHY
a)Revolutionary Violence
 Anarchist violence , late nineteenth century, 1890s; 1970s

 ‘Clandestine violence’ bombings or assassinations, terror or apprehension.

 Violence is retribution

 Failure of public awareness to oppression, political violence, public horror and outrage

b)Direct Action
 Direct action- political action , constitutional and legal framework, passive resistance to terrorism.

 Advantages ; uncontaminated by the processes of government, the machinery of the state

 Political activism, decentralization, participatory decision-making

… ROADS TO ANARCHY CONT…
c)Non-violence
 Violence is misguided

 Leo Tolstoy , Mahatma Gandhi influence

 Principle of non violence resistance ,“Satyagraha”, influenced both by the teachings of Tolstoy and

Hindu religious principles

CRITICISMS
 Lack of order and stability- centralized authority, enforce order (Abizadeh, 2011).

 Economic concerns-property rights , economic organization

 Feasibility-ideology vs pragmatism
 APPLICATION ANARCHISM
 Challenged, and thereby fertilized, other political ideologies e. g Liberalism
 New left and the new right
 Feminism-2021 Kamala Harris VP ascension (Hora, 2019) , direct political action, activist style of
politics
 LGBTQA+- International wave against traditional gender roles, new culture, new laws
 Reflected anti-capitalist or anti-globalization movement, which, though a broad coalition of
ideological forces, has marked anarchist features.
 Noam Chomsky, on anti-globalization movement, develops his ideas on the basis of anarchist
assumptions
CONCLUSION
 Anarchy-without rule, negation of authority
 Reject the state and view it as an oppressive, exploitative body, wealthy and power
 Natural order- utopian ideals vs the social contract state of nature
 Voluntary agreement economic organization
 Critics- unrealistic, idealistic not pragmatic to reality
 Examples- feminism movement, LGBTQ+ gender rights(Botswana law same sex relations).
REFERENCES
 ABIZADEH, A. (2011). Hobbes on the Causes of War: A Disagreement Theory. The American
Political Science Review, 105(2), 298–315. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41495067
 Booth, K. (1991). Security in Anarchy: Utopian Realism in Theory and Practice. International Affairs
(Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), 67(3), 527–545. https://doi.org/10.2307/2621950
 Heywood, A. (2017). Political Ideologies: An Introduction (3rd ed., pp. 151-171). Palgrave
Macmillan.
 Hora, J. (2019). SHATTERING THE HIGHEST AND HARDEST GLASS CEILING, ONCE AND
FOR ALL: HOW THE 2020 ELECTION CAN CHANGE GOVERNANCE IN THE U.S. AND
BEYOND. Journal of International Affairs, 72(2), 133–144. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26760838