Anarchism: A Beginner's Guide

280 Pages·2005·1.52 MB·English

by  Ruth Kinna

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anarchism: a beginner’s guide
Oneworld Publications (Sales and Editorial)
185 Banbury Road
Oxford OX2 7AR
England
www.oneworld-publications.com
© Ruth Kinna 2005
This ebook edition published in 2012
All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library paperback 978-1-85168-370-3
ebook 978-1-78074-127-7
Typeset by Jayvee, Trivandrum, India
Cover design by the Bridgewater Book Company
contents
Acknowledgements
introduction
one what is anarchism?
Anarchy: origins of the word
Anarchist thought: key personalities
Anarchist thought: schools of anarchism
Anarchist thought: history
Summary
two anarchist rejections of the state
Government, authority, power and the state
Anarchist critiques of the state
Self-government, ‘natural’ authority and ‘social’ power
Anarchism and liberty
Summary
three anarchy
Anarchy and anthropology
Anarchy and utopia
Experiments in anarchy
Summary
four strategies for change
Emancipation from oppression by the oppressed
Revolutionary strategies
Protest
Anarchism and anti-globalization
Anarchism and violence
Summary
five concluding remarks
Index
acknowledgements
A number of people have helped in the production of this book. Many thanks to
Sharif Gemie and Vasilis Margaras for reading and commenting on early drafts,
and to Dave Berry for generously giving his time to share his extensive
knowledge of anarchist labour history – as well as lending some valuable
materials. Thanks also to Simon Tormey who read and offered helpful comments
on the original manuscript. Sadly, none of them have managed to iron out all the
creases, but I’m very grateful for their help and encouragement. The production
team at Oneworld – especially Victoria Roddam, who suggested the project,
Mark Hopwood and Judy Kearns – have been extremely helpful and I’m grateful
for their responsiveness and patience in seeing the book through.
Finally, I’d like to thank family and friends – some I didn’t know I had – who
helped out in the dark days of 2002–3 and especially to Robert and Andrew who
bore the brunt of those times. This book is for them.
introduction
This book falls into four chapters, each organized around a particular theme: (i)
the ideology of anarchism; (ii) anarchist conceptions of the state; (iii) principles
of anarchist organization (ideas of anarchy); and (iv) strategies for change.
The first chapter begins by introducing the terms ‘anarchism’, ‘anarchist’ and
‘anarchy’ and then discusses the problems anarchists have encountered with
popular conceptions of anarchy. The main body of the chapter looks at three
different approaches to anarchism. The first seeks to understand the core
principles of anarchism by abstracting key ideas from the works of designated
anarchist thinkers. The second emphasizes the broadness of the ideology by
categorizing anarchists into a variety of schools or traditions. The third approach
is historical and argues that anarchism developed in response to a peculiar set of
political circumstances, active in the latter decades of nineteenth-century Europe.
The aim of this chapter is to suggest that anarchism can be defined as an
ideology by the adherence of anarchists to a core belief namely, the rejection of
the state.
The second chapter considers some of the ways in which anarchists have
theorized the state and the grounds on which they have called for its abolition. It
looks in particular at anarchist ideas of government, authority and power and it
uses these ideas to show why anarchists believe the state to be both detrimental
and unnecessary. Anarchists sometimes suggest that they are wholly opposed to
government, authority and power, but the chapter shows how these concepts are
incorporated into anarchist theories to bolster anarchist defences of anarchy.
Finally, the chapter reviews some anarchist theories of liberty, in an effort to
show why anarchists believe anarchy is superior to the state, and to illustrate the
broad difference between anarchist communitarians and libertarians.
The third chapter looks at anarchist ideas of organization and some models of
anarchy. It looks first at the ways in which anarchists have understood the
relationship between anarchy and statelessness, and the use they have made of