Anarchism without adjectives
[1] Swiss anarchist leader James Guillaume spurred the debate with his proposition that, once a condition of post-scarcity was achieved, resources could be brought under common ownership and distributed "from each according to ability, to each according to need".
[2] French and Italian members of the International advocated for a system of communist anarchism, in which the state and capitalism would be replaced by voluntary associations which would make goods and services freely available to all who needed them.
[10] Tarrida first used the term at a November 1889 meeting in Barcelona, when he called for anarchists to reject of all forms of dogma in order to conform closer with the principles of "nature, science and justice".
[12] The following year, in the pages of the French communist newspaper Le Révolté, Tarrida replied that the pursuit of anarchy and the abolition of the State ought to be emphasised as the common foundation of anarchism.
[22] In 1889, Mella published the apotheosis of his development of anarchism without adjectives: his utopian novella La Nueva Utopía, which examined the possible social and economic forms of a future anarchist society.
[23] Such an economic and social reorganization of society had been achieved after multiple centuries of experimentation and hard work, driven by scientific and technological progress, which had eliminated both toil and environmental pollution.
Many other anarchists, including Anselmo Lorenzo and Joan Montseny, began calling for an end to the dogmatic schism between communists and collectivists, with the adjectives themselves even taking on negative connotations among those who had tired of the split.
[25] Inspired by Tarrida and Mella, many other European anarchists began to eschew hyphenated labels and refer solely to anarchy as their end goal, rejecting prescriptions for a future society as inherently authoritarian.
They were joined by Voltairine de Cleyre, Honoré Jackson, C. L. James, Lucy Parsons and William Henry van Ornum, but the conference was boycotted by Benjamin Tucker and Johann Most, who were still locked in an ideological conflict.
[39] Over the subsequent years, the Holmes couple and their circle continued attempting to reconcile the different anarchist factions, even going as far as to advocate for an anti-authoritarian united front with Georgists, socialists and nationalists.
[40] By the 1900s, the most visible American exponent of anarchism without adjectives was Voltairine de Cleyre,[41] who adopted the term from Tarrida,[42] and likewise advocated for cooperation between different anarchist philosophies and strategies.
[52] Herself inspired by Max Stirner's individualist anarchism, Goldman also came to reject visionary thinking of "blueprints for the future", instead declaring that anarchist methods must be adapted depending on the circumstances of different places and times.
[53] Anarchism without adjectives was later taken up by Luigi Galleani and the Galleanisti, who went so far as to reject formal organizational structures, claiming the end point of any organization was to move towards conservatism and eventually become reactionary.
[55] Eventually, the term "anarchism without adjectives" largely fell out of use, although its anti-sectarian principles were still implicitly upheld by some contemporary anarchists, following the development of diverse new social movements.
[58] De Cleyre's conception of anarchism without adjectives was adopted by the anarchist historian Peter Marshall, who argued against false binaries that separate economic systems or dichotomise the individual against the community.
[59] The anarchist communist Wayne Price has also proposed that a post-capitalist transition would be carried out in an "experimental, pluralist, and decentralized society", which would utilise different solutions to the specific issues that affect them.
