Anarchism

Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism.

[36] The first anarchist currents developed throughout the 18th century as William Godwin espoused philosophical anarchism in England, morally delegitimising the state, Max Stirner's thinking paved the way to individualism and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's theory of mutualism found fertile soil in France.

Bakunin's faction (the Jura Federation) and Proudhon's followers (the mutualists) opposed state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings.

[49] The dismemberment of the French socialist movement into many groups and the execution and exile of many Communards to penal colonies following the suppression of the Paris Commune favoured individualist political expression and acts.

[52] Despite concerns, anarchists enthusiastically participated in the Russian Revolution in opposition to the White movement, especially in the Makhnovshchina; however, they met harsh suppression after the Bolshevik government had stabilised, including during the Kronstadt rebellion.

Seeing the victories of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War, many workers and activists turned to communist parties, which grew at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements.

In France and the United States, members of major syndicalist movements such as the General Confederation of Labour and the Industrial Workers of the World left their organisations and joined the Communist International.

In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and of large areas of rural Spain, where they collectivised the land.

During the protests, ad hoc leaderless anonymous cadres known as black blocs engaged in rioting, property destruction and violent confrontations with the police.

[78] As anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular worldview,[79] many anarchist types and traditions exist and varieties of anarchy diverge widely.

[82] Despite separation, the various anarchist schools of thought are not seen as distinct entities but rather as tendencies that intermingle and are connected through a set of shared principles such as autonomy, mutual aid, anti-authoritarianism and decentralisation.

Its aims include "abolishing the state",[86] reciprocity, free association, voluntary contract, federation and monetary reform of both credit and currency that would be regulated by a bank of the people.

[91] Collectivist anarchists advocate collective ownership of the means of production which is theorised to be achieved through violent revolution[92] and that workers be paid according to time worked, rather than goods being distributed according to need as in communism.

[100] Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism that views labour syndicates as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society democratically self-managed by workers.

Through many countries, individualist anarchism attracted a small yet diverse following of Bohemian artists and intellectuals[103] as well as young anarchist outlaws in what became known as illegalism and individual reclamation.

[106] Anarchism has continued to generate many philosophies and movements, at times eclectic, drawing upon various sources and combining disparate concepts to create new philosophical approaches.

Its publicity has also led more scholars in fields such as anthropology and history to engage with the anarchist movement, although contemporary anarchism favours actions over academic theory.

[133] The concept of prefigurative politics is enacted by many contemporary anarchist groups, striving to embody the principles, organization and tactics of the changed social structure they hope to bring about.

[141] As anarchism is a philosophy that embodies many diverse attitudes, tendencies, and schools of thought, disagreement over questions of values, ideology, and tactics is common.

Anarchists consider the idea that the state is the collective will of the people to be an unachievable fiction due to the fact that the ruling class is distinct from the rest of society.

[162] Ferrer's approach was secular, rejecting both state and church involvement in the educational process while giving pupils large amounts of autonomy in planning their work and attendance.

Ferrer believed that moral indoctrination was necessary and explicitly taught pupils that equality, liberty and social justice were not possible under capitalism, along with other critiques of government and nationalism.

[173] Anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy and Herbert Read stated that the border between the artist and the non-artist, what separates art from a daily act, is a construct produced by the alienation caused by capitalism and it prevents humans from living a joyful life.

[175] In his book Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas, Chris Robé claims that "anarchist-inflected practices have increasingly structured movement-based video activism.

"[176] Throughout the 20th century, many prominent anarchists (Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Gustav Landauer and Camillo Berneri) and publications such as Anarchy wrote about matters pertaining to the arts.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell supported this critique, stating that "[p]eace and war, tariffs, regulations of sanitary conditions and the sale of noxious drugs, the preservation of a just system of distribution: these, among others, are functions which could hardly be performed in a community in which there was no central government.

Thomas Hobbes and other early social contract theorists argued that the state emerges in response to natural anarchy to protect the people's interests and keep order.

Lastly, Fiala mentions a critique towards philosophical anarchism of being ineffective (all talk and thoughts) and in the meantime capitalism and bourgeois class remains strong.

[183] Philosophical anarchism has met the criticism of members of academia following the release of pro-anarchist books such as A. John Simmons' Moral Principles and Political Obligations.

[191] Anarchist perception of human nature, rejection of the state, and commitment to social revolution has been criticised by academics as naive, overly simplistic, and unrealistic, respectively.