Anarchist communism

Anarchist communism (also known as anarcho-communism and occasionally as free communism or Collectivist anarchism) is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers’ councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”.

A voluntary association or union (sometimes called a voluntary organization, unincorporated association, or just an association) is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement asvolunteers to form a body (or organization) to accomplish a purpose. Strictly speaking in many jurisdictions no formalities are necessary to start an association.

In some jurisdictions, there is a minimum for the number of persons starting an association. Some jurisdictions require that the association register with the police or other official body to inform the public of the association’s existence. This is not necessarily a tool of political control but much more a way of protecting the economy from fraud. In many such jurisdictions, only a registered association is a juristic person whose membership is not responsible for the financial acts of the association. Any group of persons may, of course, work as an association but in such case, the persons making a transaction in the name of the association are all responsible for it.

An unincorporated association has been defined as existing:

“…where two or more persons are bound together for one or more common purposes by mutual undertakings, each having mutual duties and obligations, in an organisation which has rules identifying in whom control of the organization and its funds are vested, and which can be joined or left at will.”

The freedom of association stands in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 20

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

For the collectivization of the means of production, it was originally envisaged that workers will revolt and forcibly collectivize the means of production. Once collectivization takes place, workers’ salaries would be determined in democratic organizations based on the amount of time they contributed to production. These salaries would be used to purchase goods in a communal market.

This contrasts with anarcho-communism where wages would be abolished, and where individuals would take freely from a storehouse of goods “to each according to his need.”

Thus, Bakunin’s “Collectivist Anarchism,” notwithstanding the title, is seen as a blend of individualism and collectivism.

Collectivist anarchism is most commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin, the anti-authoritarian sections of the First International, and the early Spanish anarchist movement.

Some forms of anarchist communism such as insurrectionary anarchism are egoist and strongly influenced by radical individualism, believing that anarchist communism does not require a communitarian nature at all. Most anarcho-communists view anarcho-communism as a way of reconciling the opposition between the individual and society.

Anarcho-communism developed out of radical socialist currents after the French revolution but was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International. The theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin took importance later as it expanded and developed pro-organizationalist and insurrectionary anti-organizationalist sections.

To date in human history, the best known examples of an anarchist communist society, established around the ideas as they exist today, that received worldwide attention and knowledge in the historical canon, are the anarchist territories during the Spanish Revolution and the Free Territory during the Russian Revolution. Through the efforts and influence of the Spanish Anarchists during the Spanish Revolution within the Spanish Civil War, starting in 1936 anarchist communism existed in most of Aragon, parts of the Levante and Andalusia, as well as in the stronghold of Anarchist Catalonia before being brutally crushed by the combined forces of the authoritarian regime that won the war, Hitler, Mussolini, Spanish Communist Party repression (backed by the USSR) as well as economic and armaments blockades from the capitalist countries and the Spanish Republic itself. During the Russian Revolution, anarchists such as Nestor Makhno worked to create and defend—through the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine—anarchist communism in the Free Territory of the Ukraine from 1919 before being conquered by the Bolsheviks in 1921.

Early Developments~

Anarchist communist currents appeared during the English Civil War and the French Revolution of the 18th century. Gerrard Winstanley, who was part of the radicalDiggers movement in England, wrote in his 1649 pamphlet, The New Law of Righteousness, that there “shall be no buying or selling, no fairs nor markets, but the whole earth shall be a common treasury for every man,” and “there shall be none Lord over others, but every one shall be a Lord of himself.” During the French Revolution, Sylvain Maréchal, in his Manifesto of the Equals (1796), demanded “the communal enjoyment of the fruits of the earth” and looked forward to the disappearance of “the revolting distinction of rich and poor, of great and small, of masters and valets, of governors and governed.”

An early anarchist communist was Joseph Déjacque, the first person to describe himself as “libertarian”. Unlike Proudhon, he argued that, “it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature.” According to the anarchist historian Max Nettlau, the first use of the term libertarian communism was in November 1880, when a French anarchist congress employed it to more clearly identify its doctrines. The French anarchist journalist Sébastien Faure, later founder and editor of the four-volume Anarchist Encyclopedia, started the weekly paper Le Libertaire (The Libertarian) in 1895.

The collectivist anarchists advocated remuneration for the type and amount of labor adhering to the principle “to each according to deeds”;[19] but held out the possibility of a post-revolutionary transition to a communist system of distribution according to need. As Bakunin’s associate, James Guillaume, put it in his essay,Ideas on Social Organization (1876), “When… production comes to outstrip consumption… [e]veryone will draw what he needs from the abundant social reserve of commodities, without fear of depletion; and the moral sentiment which will be more highly developed among free and equal workers will prevent, or greatly reduce, abuse and waste.

First International ~  Anarchist communism as a coherent, modern economic-political philosophy was first formulated in the Italian section of the First International by Carlo Cafiero, Emilio Covelli, Errico Malatesta, Andrea Costa and other ex-Mazzinian Republicans. Out of respect for Mikhail Bakunin, they did not make their differences with collectivist anarchism explicit until after Bakunin’s death. The collectivist anarchists sought to collectivize ownership of the means of production while retaining payment proportional to the amount and kind of labor of each individual, but the anarcho-communists sought to extend the concept of collective ownership to the products of labor as well. While both groups argued against capitalism, the anarchist communists departed from Proudhon and Bakunin, who maintained that individuals have a right to the product of their individual labor and to be remunerated for their particular contribution to production. But, Errico Malatesta put it: “…instead of running the risk of making a confusion in trying to distinguish what you and I each do, let us all work and put everything in common. In this way each will give to society all that his strength permits until enough is produced for every one; and each will take all that he needs, limiting his needs only in those things of which there is not yet plenty for every one.”

Cafiero explains in Anarchy and Communism (1880) that private property in the product of labor will lead to unequal accumulation of capital and, therefore, the reappearance of social classes and their antagonisms, and thus the resurrection of the state: “If we preserve the individual appropriation of the products of labour, we would be forced to preserve money, leaving more or less accumulation of wealth according to more or less merit rather than need of individuals.”

..houses, fields, and factories will no longer be private property, and that they will belong to the commune or the nation and money, wages, and trade would be abolished.

– Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread

He said that a “peasant who is in possession of just the amount of land he can cultivate,” and “a family inhabiting a house which affords them just enough space… considered necessary for that number of people” and the artisan ”working with their own tools or handloom” would not be interfered with, arguing that “[t]he landlord owes his riches to the poverty of the peasants, and the wealth of the capitalist comes from the same source.”

In summation, Kropotkin described an anarchist communist economy as functioning like this:

Imagine a society, comprising a few million inhabitants, engaged in agriculture and a great variety of industries–Paris, for example, with the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Suppose that in this society all children learn to work with their hands as well as with their brains. Admit that all adults, save women, engaged in the education of their children, bind themselves to work 5 hours a day from the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty, and that they follow occupations they have chosen in any one branch of human work considered necessary. Such a society could in return guarantee well-being to all its members; that is to say, a more substantial well-being than that enjoyed to-day by the middle classes. And, moreover, each worker belonging to this society would have at his disposal at least 5 hours a day which he could devote to science, art, and individual needs which do not come under the category of necessities, but will probably do so later on, when man’s productivity will have augmented, and those objects will no longer appear luxurious or inaccessible. Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread

While many anarcho-communists are opposed to trade, some post-left and post-scarcity anarcho-communists, and ones with syndicalist sympathies, are not opposed to trade. Some support a non-monetary form of trade in the form of non-monetary commons. Others such as Tiziana Terranova easily see anarcho-communism being compatible with a non-hierarchical, open access, free association, non-monetary form of trade such as P2P

Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and state socialism which uses federations of collectivised trade unions orindustrial unions. It is a form of economic corporatism that advocates interest aggregation of multiple non-competitive categorised units to negotiate and manage an economy.

For adherents, labor unions are the potential means of both overcoming economic aristocracy and running society fairly in the interest of the majority, throughunion democracy. Industry in a syndicalist system would be run through co-operative confederations and mutual aid. Local syndicates would communicate with other syndicates through the Bourse du Travail (labor exchange) which would manage and transfer commodities.

Syndicalism is also used to refer to the tactic of bringing about this social arrangement, typically expounded by anarcho-syndicalism and De Leonism, in which a general strike begins and workers seize their means of production and organise in a federation of trade unionism, such as the CNT Throughout its history, the reformist section of syndicalism has been overshadowed by its revolutionary section, typified by the IWW or the Federación Anarquista Ibérica section of the CNT

Libertarianism is the advocacy of individual liberty, especially freedom of expression and action.Libertarianism includes diverse philosophies and organizations; all advocate either minimization or elimination of the state, and a goal of maximizing individual liberty and freedom.

One significant variable between libertarian schools of thought is the degree to which the state should be reduced, with minarchists advocating reduction to just state protection from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud, and anarchists advocating complete elimination of the state. Another difference among libertarians is in groups who are supportive of private property rights in the ownership of land and natural resources and those who reject private individual ownership and often support communal ownership instead. These are often grouped as right-libertariansand left-libertarians respectively. ”Right libertarianism” has been described as better-known. However, many libertarians reject being described as either “left” or “right.”

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states a strict view of libertarianism “holds that agents initially fully own themselves and have moral powers to acquire property rights in external things under certain conditions,” and that “in a looser sense, libertarianism is any view that approximates the strict view.”

Also noted is that libertarianism is not a “right-wing” doctrine because of its opposition to laws restricting adult consensual sexual relationships and drug use, and its opposition to imposing religious views or practices and compulsory military service. The Stanford Encyclopedia further describes versions of libertarianism, such as “left-libertarianism” stating that this philosophy also endorses full self-ownership, but “differs on unappropriated natural resources (land, air, water, etc.).” “Right-libertarianism” holds that such resources may be appropriated by individuals while “left-libertarianism” holds that they belong to everyone and must be distributed in some egalitarian manner.

According to Sheldon Richman, “libertarianism is premised on the dignity and self-ownership of the individual, which sexism and racism deny. Thus all forms of collectivist hierarchy undermine the libertarian attitude and hence the prospects for a free society.”

Some minarchists believe a minimal state would be preferable, while more anarchist libertarians hold the belief that society functioning without any recognized government is preferable.

Matt Zwolinsky, writing for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, describes the minimal state as providing only law enforcement, a judicial assembly, and armed forces; also described is the right-libertarian view calledanarcho-capitalism which holds that government can be completely abolished because private companies working for profit should provide the court systems, military, and police forces; alternatively, some of the more anarchist libertarians subscribe to libertarian socialism, which seeks the elimination of government with a view on property rights that differs from anarcho-capitalism.

Some ideals of libertarians exhibit a sharp contrast in the treatment of property rights, especially with respect to natural resources, with some libertarians advocating the grant of strong private ownership rights, and others holding that private ownership of certain resources allows people to take what is others have ownership of and, thus, should be avoided as being inconsistent with the basic principles of libertarianism.

Broadly, the view of ownership is one key distinction between left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism.

Classical liberalism is a philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets.

In the late 19th century, classical liberalism developed into neo-classical liberalism, which argued for government to be as small as possible in order to allow the exercise of individual freedom. In its most extreme form, it advocated Social Darwinism. Libertarianism is a modern form of neo-classical liberalism.

The term classical liberalism was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier nineteenth-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism.

The phrase classical liberalism is also sometimes used to refer to all forms of liberalism before the twentieth century, and some conservatives and libertarians use the term classical liberalism to describe their belief in the primacy of economic freedom and minimal government. It is not always clear which meaning is intended.

In the United States, liberalism took a strong root because it had little opposition to its ideals, whereas in Europe liberalism was opposed by many reactionary interests. In a nation of farmers, especially farmers whose workers were slaves, little attention was paid to the economic aspects of liberalism. But, as America grew, industry became a larger and larger part of American life; and, during the term of America’s first populist president, Andrew Jackson, economic questions came to the forefront. The economic ideas of the Jacksonian era were almost universally the ideas of classical liberalism. Freedom was maximized when the government took a “hands off” attitude toward industrial development and supported the value of the currency by freely exchanging paper money for gold.

The ideas of classical liberalism remained essentially unchallenged until a series of depressions, thought to be impossible according to the tenets of classical economics, led to economic hardship from which the voters demanded relief. In the words of William Jennings Bryan, “You shall not crucify the American farmer on a cross of gold.”

Despite the common recurrence of depressions, classical liberalism remained the orthodox belief among American businessmen until the Great Depression. The Great Depression saw a sea change in liberalism, leading to the development of modern liberalism. In the words of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.:

When the growing complexity of industrial conditions required increasing government intervention in order to assure more equal opportunities, the liberal tradition, faithful to the goal rather than to the dogma, altered its view of the state,” and “there emerged the conception of a social welfare state, in which the national government had the express obligation to maintain high levels of employment in the economy, to supervise standards of life and labor, to regulate the methods of business competition, and to establish comprehensive patterns of social security.

Classical liberalism places a particular emphasis on the sovereignty of the individual, with private property rights being seen as essential to individual liberty. This forms the philosophical basis for laissez-faire public policy. According to Alan Ryan, the ideology of the original classical liberals argued against direct democracy, where law is made by majority vote by citizens, “for there is nothing in the bare idea of majority rule to show that majorities will always respect the rights of property or maintain rule of law.”

For example, James Madison argued for a constitutional republic with protections for individual liberty over a pure democracy, reasoning that, in a pure democracy, a “common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole…and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party….”

Social Darwinism is a term used for various late nineteenth century ideologies which, while often contradictory, exploited ideas of survival of the fittest. It especially refers to notions of struggle for existence being used to justify social policies which make no distinction between those able to support themselves and those unable to support themselves. While the most prominent form of such views stressed competition between individuals in free market capitalism, it is also associated with ideas of struggle between national or racial groups.

In sociology it has been defined as a theory of social evolution which asserts that “There are underlying, and largely irresistible, forces acting in societies which are like the natural forces that operate in animal and plant communities. One can therefore formulate social laws similar to natural ones. These social forces are of such a kind as to produce evolutionary progress through the natural conflicts between social groups. The best-adapted and most successful social groups survive these conflicts, raising the evolutionary level of society generally (the ‘survival of the fittest’).” The term has very rarely been used as a self description.

The term first appeared in Europe in 1877, and around this time it was used by sociologists opposed to the concept. The term was popularized in the United States in 1944 by the American historian Richard Hofstadter who used it in the ideological war effort against fascism to denote a reactionary creed which promoted competitive strife, racism and nationalism. Before Hofstadter’s work the use of the term in English academic journals was quite rare. The term “social darwinism” has rarely been used by advocates of the supposed ideologies or ideas; instead it has almost always been used (pejoratively) by its opponents.

n The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex of 1882 Darwin described how medical advances meant that the weaker were able to survive and have families, and commented on the effects of this, while cautioning that hard reason should not override sympathy, and considering how other factors might reduce the effect:

Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. … We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected.

A Trade Union (British-English) or Labor Union (American-English) is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members (rank and file members) and negotiates labour contracts (collective bargaining) with employers. This may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies. The agreements negotiated by the union leaders are binding on the rank and file members and the employer and in some cases on other non-member workers.

Originating in Europe, trade unions became popular in many countries during the Industrial Revolution, when the lack of skill necessary to perform most jobs shifted employment bargaining power almost completely to the employers’ side, causing many workers to be mistreated and underpaid. Trade union organisations may be composed of individual workers, professionals, past workers, or the unemployed. The most common, but by no means only, purpose of these organisations is “maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment”.

Over the last three hundred years, many trade unions have developed into a number of forms, influenced by differing political objectives. Activities of trade unions vary, but may include:

• Provision of benefits to members: Early trade unions, like Friendly Societies, often provided a range of benefits to insure members againstunemployment, ill health, old age and funeral expenses. In many developed countries, these functions have been assumed by the state; however, the provision of professional training, legal advice and representation for members is still an important benefit of trade union membership.
• Collective bargaining: Where trade unions are able to operate openly and are recognized by employers, they may negotiate with employers over wages and working conditions.
• Industrial action: Trade unions may enforce strikes or resistance to lockouts in furtherance of particular goals.
• Political activity: Trade unions may promote legislation favorable to the interests of their members or workers as a whole. To this end they may pursue campaigns, undertake lobbying, or financially support individual candidates or parties (such as the Labour Party in Britain) for public office.

Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. Syndicalisme is a French word, ultimately derived from the Greek, meaning “trade unionism” – hence, the “syndicalism” qualification. Syndicalism is an alternative co-operative economic system. Adherents view it as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society, democratically self-managed by workers.

Anarcho-syndicalists seek to abolish the wage system, regarding it as wage slavery, and state or private ownership of the means of production, which they believe lead to class divisions. Not all seek to abolish money per se. Ralph Chaplin states that “the ultimate aim of the General Strike as regards wages is to give to each producer the full product of his labour. The demand for better wages becomes revolutionary only when it is coupled with the demand that the exploitation of labour must cease.”

Additionally, anarcho-syndicalists regard the state as a profoundly anti-worker institution. They view the primary purpose of the State as being the defence of private property and therefore of economic, social and political privilege, even when such defence denies its citizens the ability to enjoy material independence and the social autonomy which springs from it.  In contrast to other bodies of thought (Marxism-Leninism being a prime example), anarcho-syndicalists deny that there can be any kind of workers’ state, or a state which acts in the interests of workers, as opposed to those of the rich and powerful. Reflecting the anarchist philosophy from which it draws its primary inspiration, anarcho-syndicalism holds to the idea that power corrupts.[4]

Although anarcho-syndicalism originated close to the beginning of the twentieth century, it remains a popular and active school of anarchism today and has many supporters as well as many currently active organisations. Anarcho-syndicalist trade unionists, being socialist anarchists, vary in their points of view on anarchist economic arrangements from a collectivist anarchism type economic system to an anarcho-communist economic system

Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory, practice and tendency within the anarchist movement which emphasizes the theme of insurrection within anarchist practice. It opposes formal organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based on a political programme and periodic congresses. Instead, insurrectionary anarchists support informal organization and small affinity group based organization. Insurrectionary anarchists put value in attack, permanent class conflict, and a refusal to negotiate or compromise with class enemies.

Contemporary insurrectionary anarchism inherits the views and tactics of anti-organizational anarcho-communism and illegalism.

Propaganda of the deed (or propaganda by the deed, from the French propagande par le fait) is a concept that promotes physical violence against political enemies as a way of inspiring the masses and catalyzing revolution. It also refers to the use of symbolic acts of violence against structural targets, in which the act is intended to evoke a broader meaning.

Propaganda of the deed is also related to illegalism, an anarchist philosophy that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland during the early 20th century as an outgrowth of anarchist individualism. The illegalists openly embraced criminality as a lifestyle. Influenced by theorist Max Stirner’s concept of “egoism”, the illegalists broke from anarchists like Clément Duval and Marius Jacobwho justified theft with a theory of la reprise individuelle (Eng: individual reclamation). Instead, the illegalists argued that their actions required no moral basis – illegal acts were taken not in the name of a higher ideal, but in pursuit of one’s own desires. France’s Bonnot Gang was the most famous group to embrace illegalism.

Propaganda of the deed thus included stealing (in particular bank robberies – named “expropriations” or “revolutionary expropriations” to finance the organization), rioting and general strikes which aimed at creating the conditions of an insurrection or even a revolution. These acts were justified as the necessary counterpart to state repression.

Class struggle is the active expression of a theoretical class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, leading ideologists of communism, wrote

“The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle”.

Marx’s notion of class has nothing to do with social class in the sociological sense of upper, middle and lower classes (which are often defined in terms of quantitative income or wealth). Instead, in an age of capitalism, Marx describes an economic class.

Membership in a class is defined by one’s relationship to the means of production, i.e., one’s position in the social structure that characterizes capitalism. Marx talks mainly about two classes that include the vast majority of the population, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Other classes such as the petty bourgeoisie share characteristics of both of these main classes

Marxist analysis of society identifies two main social groups:

• Labour (the proletariat or workers) includes anyone who earns their livelihood by selling their labor power and being paid a wage or salary for their labor time. They have little choice but to work for capital, since they typically have no independent way to survive.
• Capital (the bourgeoisie or capitalists) includes anyone who gets their income not from labor as much as from the surplus value they appropriate from the workers who create wealth. The income of the capitalists, therefore, is based on their exploitation of the workers (proletariat)

Not all class struggle is violent or necessarily radical (as with strikes and lockouts). Class antagonism may instead be expressed as low worker morale, minor sabotage and pilferage, and individual workers’ abuse of petty authority and hoarding of information. It may also be expressed on a larger scale by support for socialist or populist parties. On the employers’ side, the use of union-busting legal firms and the lobbying for anti-union laws are forms of class struggle.

Not all class struggle is a threat to capitalism, or even to the authority of an individual capitalist. A narrow struggle for higher wages by a small sector of the working-class (what is often called “economism”) hardly threatens the status quo. In fact, by applying “craft union” tactics of excluding other workers from skilled trades, an economistic struggle may even weaken the working class as a whole by dividing it. Class struggle becomes more important in the historical process as it becomes more general, as industries are organized rather than crafts, as workers’ class consciousness rises, and as they are organized as political parties. Marx referred to this as the progress of the proletariat from being a class “in itself” (a position in the social structure) to being one “for itself” (an active and conscious force that could change the world).

Marx thought that this conflict was central to the social structure of capitalism and could not be abolished without replacing the system itself. Further, he argued that the objective conditions under capitalism would likely develop in a way that encouraged a proletariat organized collectively for its own goals to develop: the accumulation of surplus value as more means of production by the capitalists would allow them to become more and more powerful, encouraging overt class conflict. If this is not counteracted by increasing political and economic organization by workers, it would inevitably cause an extreme polarization of the classes, encouraging the revolution that would destroy capitalism itself.

The revolution would lead to a socialist society in which the proletariat controlled the state, that is, “the dictatorship of the proletariat”. The original meaning of this term was a workers’ democracy, not adictatorship in the modern sense of the word. For Marx, democracy under capitalism is a bourgeois dictatorship.

Even after a revolution, the two classes would struggle, but eventually the struggle would recede and the classes dissolve. As class boundaries broke down, the state apparatus would wither away. According to Marx, the main task of any state apparatus is to uphold the power of the ruling class; but without any classes there would be no need for a state. That would lead to the classless, stateless communist society.

Corporate statism or state corporatism is a political culture and a form of corporatism whose adherents hold that the corporate group is the basis of society and thestate. The corporate group is typically comprised by political-economic power elites, for example those represented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In other countries, the corporate group may be a specific national or ethnic group.

Corporate statism most commonly manifests itself as a ruling party acting as a mediator between the workers, capitalists and other prominent state interests by institutionally incorporating them into the ruling mechanism. Corporatist systems were most prevalent in the mid-20th Century in Europe and later elsewhere in developing countries. However, both in academia and practice, Corporate Statism (or Corporatism as it is also sometimes known) has fallen out of favour. Globalisation and economic and social diversification are both credited with corporate statism’s decline.

According to this critique, interests, both social and economic, are so diverse that a state cannot possibly mediate between them effectively through incorporating them. Social conflicts go beyond incorporated dichotomies of labour and capital to include innumerable groups. Furthermore, globalisation presents challenges, both social and economic, that a corporate state cannot sufficiently address because these problems transcend state borders and approaches. It therefore differs from Corporate nationalism in that it is a social mode of organization rather than an economic nationalism through private business corporations.

The term corporatism is based on the Latin word “corpus” meaning “body”. Formal corporatist models are based upon the contract of corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, scientific, or religious affiliations, into a collective body.

Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political system where the state, usually under the control of a single political person, faction, or class, recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible. Totalitarianism is generally characterized by the coincidence ofauthoritarianism (where ordinary citizens have less significant share in state decision-making) and ideology (a pervasive scheme of values promulgated by institutional means to direct most if not all aspects of public and private life).

Totalitarian regimes or movements stay in political power through an all-encompassing propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single partythat is often marked by personality cultism, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of speech, mass surveillance, and widespread use of state terrorism.

The notion of “Totalitarianism” a “total” political power by state was formulated in 1923 by Giovanni Amendola who described Italian Fascism as a system fundamentally different from conventional dictatorships. The term was later assigned a positive meaning in the writings of Giovanni Gentile, Italy’s most prominent philosopher and leading theorist of fascism. He used the term “totalitario” to refer to the structure and goals of the new state. The new state was to provide the “total representation of the nation and total guidance of national goals.”

He described totalitarianism as a society in which the ideology of the state had influence, if not power, over most of its citizens.

The purpose of a bureaucracy is to successfully implement the actions of an organization of any size (but often associated with large entities such as government, corporations, and non-governmental organizations), in achieving its purpose and mission, and the bureaucracy is tasked to determine how it can achieve its purpose and mission with the greatest possible efficiency and at the least cost of any resources.

Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for a private profit; decisions regarding supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are made by private actors in the free market; profit is sent to owners who invest in businesses, and wages are paid to workers employed by businesses and companies.

State capitalism consists of state-ownership of profit-seeking enterprises that operate in a capitalist manner in a market economy: examples of this includecorporatized government agencies or partial ownership of shares in publicly-listed firms by the state. State capitalism is also used to refer to an economy consisting of mainly private enterprises that are subjected to comprehensive national economic planning by the government, where the state intervenes in the economy to protect specific capitalist businesses. Many anti-USSR socialists, as well as many anarchists, argue that the Soviet Union was never socialist, but rather state capitalist, since the state owned all the means of production and functioned as an enormous corporation, and exploited the working class as such.

Corporate capitalism is a free or mixed market characterized by the dominance of hierarchical, bureaucratic corporations, which are legally required to pursue profit. State monopoly capitalism refers to a form of corporate capitalism where the state is used to benefit, protect from competition and promote the interests of dominant or established corporations.

Finance capitalism is a term in Marxian political economics defined as the subordination of processes of production to the accumulation of money profits in a financial system. It is characterized by the pursuit of profit from the purchase and sale of, or investment in, currencies and financial products such as bonds, stocks, futures and other derivatives. It also includes the lending of capital at interest. Finance capitalism is seen by

Marxists as being exploitative by supplying income to non-laborers.

The term political radicalism (or simply, in political science, radicalism) denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways.

Historically, radicalism has referred exclusively to the “radical left,” under the single category of far-left politics, rarely incorporating far-right politics though these may have revolutionary elements; the prominent exception is in the United States where some consider radicalism to include both political extremes of the radical left and the so-called “radical right.”

Radical Right is a term used to describe various American political movements that are conspiratorial, atuned to anti-American or anti-Christian agents of foreign powers, and “radical”. The term was first used by social scientists in the 1950s regarding small groups such as the John Birch Society in the United States, and since has been used for similar groups worldwide.

The term “radical” was applied to the American groups because they sought to make fundamental (hence “radical”) changes in American institutions and remove from political life persons and institutions that threatened their values or economic interests. They were called “right-wing” primarily because of their opposition to both socialism and communism and their ultraconservative or reactionary tendencies which limited new access to power and status.

Conservatism (Latin: conservare, “to preserve”) is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism and seek a return to the way things were.

Anti-imperialism, strictly speaking, is a term that may be applied to a movement opposed to any form of colonialism or imperialism. Anti-imperialism includes opposition to wars of conquest, particularly of non-contiguous territory or people with a different language or culture; it also includes people opposing the expansion of a country beyond earlier borders.

Left-wing nationalism describes a form of nationalism officially based upon equality, popular sovereignty, and national self-determination. It has its origins in theJacobinism of the French Revolution. Left-wing nationalism typically espouses anti-imperialism. It stands in contrast to right-wing nationalism, and has often rejected racist nationalism and fascism.

Classical Marxists have unanimously claimed that nationalism is a bourgeois phenomenon that is not associated with Marxism. However, certain interpretations of the works of Karl Marx have claimed that although Marx rejected nationalism as a final outcome of international class struggle, he tacitly supported proletarian nationalism as a stage to achieve proletarian rule over a nation, then allowing succeeding stages of international proletarian revolution. Marxism, in certain instances, has supported nationalist movements if they are in the interest of class struggle, but rejects other nationalist movements deemed to distract workers from their necessary goal of defeating the bourgeoisie.[9] Marxists have evaluated certain nations to be “progressive” and other nations to be “reactionary”.

Types of rebellion

A limited rebellion is an insurrection, and if the established not recognize the rebels as belligerents then they are insurgents and the revolt is an insurgency. In a larger conflict the rebels may be recognised as belligerents without their government being recognised by the established government, in which case the conflict becomes a civil war.

There are a number of terms that fall under the umbrella of rebel and they range from those with positive connotations to those with pejorative connotations. Examples include:

• Mutiny, which is carried out by military or security forces against their commanders
• Nonviolent resistance or civil disobedience, which do not include violence or paramilitary force
• Resistance movement, which is carried out by freedom fighters, often against an occupying foreign power
• Revolt, a term that is sometimes used for a more localized rebellions rather than a general uprising
• Revolution, which is carried out by radicals, usually meant to overthrow the current government
• Subversion, which are non-overt attempts at sabotaging a government, carried out by spies or other subversives
• Terrorism, which is carried out by different kinds of political or religious militant individuals or groups

The anarcho-syndicalist orientation of many early American labour unions arguably played an important role in the formation of the American political spectrum, most significantly of the Industrial Workers of the World. The United States is the only industrialized country that does not have a major labour-based political party. This has not always been the case. In 1912, for example, Eugene Debs (a founding member of the IWW) polled 6% of the popular vote as the Socialist Party presidential candidate – a significant portion of the popular vote considering that this was 8 years before the adoption ofuniversal suffrage in the U.S. Some political scientists would, in part, attribute the lack of an American labour party to the single member plurality electoral system, which tends to favour a two-party system. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as Duverger’s law.

In political science, Duverger’s law is a principle which asserts that a plurality rule election system tends to favor a two-party system. This is one of two hypotheses proposed by Duverger, the second stating that “the double ballot majority system and proportional representation tend to multipartism.”

The second unique problem is both statistical and tactical. Duverger suggested an election in which 100,000 moderate voters and 80,000 radical voters are voting for a single official. If two moderate candidates and one radical candidate were to run, the radical candidate would win unless one of the moderate candidates gathered fewer than 20,000 votes. Observing this, moderate voters would be more likely to vote for the candidate most likely to gain more votes, with the goal of defeating the radical candidate. Either the two parties must merge, or one moderate party must fail, as the voters gravitate to the two strong parties, a trend Duverger called polarization.

A third party can only enter the arena if it can exploit the mistakes of a pre-existing major party, ultimately at that party’s expense.

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Proportional representation (PR) is a goal of voting systems.

Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of voting systems emphasizing proportional representation (PR) in elections returning multiple candidates (e.g. elections to parliament). They can also be used as part of mixed additional member systems.

In these systems, parties make lists of candidates to be elected, and seats get allocated to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party receives. Voters may vote directly for the party.

The order in which a party’s list candidates get elected may be pre-determined by some method internal to the party or the candidates (a closed list system) or it may be determined by the voters at large (an open list system).

Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party’s candidates are elected. This as opposed to closed list, which allows the usually much fewer, active, members, party officials, or consultants, to determine the order of its candidates and gives the general voter no influence at all on the position of the candidates placed on the party list. Additionally, an open list system can also allow a voter the alternative of voting for the party as a whole without expressing a preference between individuals. There are differences possible between varying open list systems, each giving the voter varying amounts of influence. Voter’s choice is usually called preference vote.

Proxy voting, has two forms delegable voting and delegated voting, and are procedures for the delegation to another member of a voting body of that member’s power to vote in his absence, and/or for the selection of additional representatives, as in the case with transitive proxies. Proxy appointments can be used to form a voting bloc that can exercise greater influence in deliberations or negotiations. A person so designated is called a “proxy” and the person designating him is called a “principal.

Anarcho-pacifism (also pacifist anarchism or anarchist pacifism) is a tendency within the anarchist movement which rejects the use of violence in the struggle for social change. The main early influences were the thought of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy. It developed “mostly in Holland (sic), Britain, and theUnited States, before and during the Second World War”.

The main precedent was Henry David Thoreau, who, through his work Civil Disobedience, influenced both Leo Tolstoy and Mohandas Gandhi’s advocacy of nonviolent resistance.

Violence has always been controversial in anarchism. While many anarchists during the 19th century embraced violent propaganda of the deed, Leo Tolstoy and other anarcho-pacifists directly opposed violence as a means for change. He argued that anarchism must be nonviolent since it is, by definition, opposition to coercion and force, and that since the state is inherently violent, meaningful pacifism must likewise be anarchistic. His philosophy was cited as a major inspiration by Mohandas Gandhi, anIndian independence leader and pacifist who self-identified as an anarchist. Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis was also instrumental in establishing the pacifist trend within the anarchist movement. In France anti-militarism appeared strongly in individualist anarchist circles as Émile Armand founded “Ligue Antimilitariste” in 1902.

“Gandhi’s ideas were popularised in the West in books such as Richard Gregg’s The Power of Nonviolence (1935), and Bart de Ligt’s The Conquest of Violence (1937). The latter is particularly important for anarchists since, as one himself, de Ligt specifically addressed those who lust for revolution. ‘The more violence, the less revolution,’ he declared. He also linked Gandhian principled nonviolencewith the pragmatic nonviolent direct action of the syndicalists. (The General Strike is an expression of total noncooperation by workers, though it should be added that most syndicalists believed that the revolution should be defended by armed workers.)”

Among late 20th-century anarcho-pacifists was autarchist Robert LeFevre, who based his pacifism on his belief in the inviolability of property rights. LeFevre also spoke out against war, which he considered to be a product of the state, and was convinced of the power of non-violent resistance.

“An Anarchist FAQ” is an FAQ written by an international work group of social anarchists connected through the internet. It documents anarchist theory and ideas while arguing that social anarchismis a better form of anarchism than individualist anarchism, which it critiques.[3] It also explores other debates internal to the anarchist movement, and counters common arguments against anarchism. It has been in constant evolution since 1995. While it was started as a critique of anarcho-capitalism, by the time it was officially released it had become a general introduction to anarchism.

For An Anarchist FAQ“the attraction of pacifism to anarchists is clear. Violence is authoritarian and coercive, and so its use does contradict anarchist principles.” “(Errico) Malatesta is even more explicit when he wrote that the “main plank of anarchism is the removal of violence from human relations”.

Anarcho-pacifism tend to see the state as ‘organised violence’ and so they see that “it would therefore seem logical that anarchists should reject all violence”.. Anarcho-pacifism criticizes the separation between means and ends. “Means,…must not merely be consistent with ends; this principle, though preferable to ‘the end justifies the means’, is based on a misleading dichotomy. Means are ends, never merely instrumental but also always expressive of values; means are end-creating or ends-in-the making”

While anarcho-pacifism is most commonly associated with religious anarchism such as Tolstoyan Christian anarchism and Buddhist anarchism, irreligious or even anti-religioustendencies have emerged. The anarcho-punk band Crass polemicised a variant of anarcho-pacifism whilst at the same time explicitly rejecting all religions, especially the symbols of ‘establishment’ Christian theology. Opposition to the use of violence has not prohibited anarcho-pacifists from accepting the principle of resistance or even revolutionary action provided it does not result in violence; in fact it was their approval of such forms of opposition to power that lead anarcho-pacifists to endorse the anarcho-syndicalist concept of the general strike as the great revolutionary weapon.

Anti-organizationalist insurrectionary individualism

Italian anti-organizationalist individualist anarchism was brought to the United States by Italian born individualists such as Giuseppe Ciancabilla and others who advocated for violent propaganda by the deed there.

Anarchist historian George Woodcock reports the incident in which the important Italian social anarchist Errico Malatesta became involved “in a dispute with the individualist anarchists of Paterson, who insisted that anarchism implied no organization at all, and that every man must act solely on his impulses. At last, in one noisy debate, the individual impulse of a certain Ciancabilla directed him to shoot Malatesta, who was badly wounded but obstinately refused to name his assailant.”

Organizationalism vs. Insurrectionarism

As anarcho-communism emerged in the mid 19th century it had an intense debate with bakuninist collectivism and as such within the anarchist movement over participation in syndicalism and the workers movement as well as on other issues.[14] So “In the theory of the revolution” of anarcho-communism as elaborated by Peter Kropotkin and others “it is the risen people who are the real agent and not the working class organised in the enterprise (the cells of the capitalist mode of production) and seeking to assert itself as labour power, as a more ‘rational’ industrial body or social brain (manager) than the employers.”.

Platformism is a tendency within the wider anarchist movement originally theorised by Nestor Makhno and is mainly based on his concept of anarchism and the organisational theories in the tradition of Dielo Truda’s Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft).[1] The document was based on the experiences of Russian anarchists in the 1917 October Revolution, which led eventually to the victory of the Bolsheviks over the anarchists and other groups. ThePlatform attempted to address and explain the anarchist movement’s failures during the Russian Revolution. The book drew both praise and criticism from anarchists worldwide.

The Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft) was written in 1926 by Dielo Truda (“Workers’ Cause”), a group of exiled Russian anarchists in France.

The pamphlet is an analysis of the basic anarchist beliefs, a vision of an anarchist society, and recommendations as to how an anarchist organization should be structured. The four main principles by which an anarchist organization should operate, according to the Platform, are ideological unity, tactical unity,collective action, and federalism.

Until recently, the platform was known in English as the Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, because the English translation was based onVoline’s mis-translation of the original and not the Russian original.

The platform argues, “We have vital need of an organization which, having attracted most of the participants in the anarchist movement, would establish a common tactical and political line for anarchism and thereby serve as a guide for the whole movement”.

The Platform has 4 key organizational features which distinguish it from the rest of the anarchist movement. They are:

• Tactical Unity – A common tactical line in the movement is of decisive importance for the existence of the organisation and the whole movement: it avoids the disastrous effect of several tactics opposing each other; it concentrates the forces of the movement; and gives them a common direction leading to a fixed objective.
• Theoretical Unity – “Theory represents the force which directs the activity of persons and organisations along a defined path towards a determined goal. Naturally it should be common to all the persons and organisations adhering to the General Union. All activity by the General Union, both overall and in its details, should be in perfect concord with the theoretical principles professed by the union.”
• Collective Responsibility – “The practice of acting on one’s personal responsibility should be decisively condemned and rejected in the ranks of the anarchist movement. The areas of revolutionary life, social and political, are above all profoundly collective by nature. Social revolutionary activity in these areas cannot be based on the personal responsibility of individual militants.”
• Federalism – “Against centralism, anarchism has always professed and defended the principle of federalism, which reconciles the independence and initiative of individuals and the organisation with service to the common cause.”

Anarkismo.net is an international anarchist-communist, platformist and especifista news and discussion website. Its news service is one of the select publishers included in the Google News aggregator. It was launched on 1 May 2005.

Since then it has published over 17,000 articles in a variety of languages

Especifismo (English: specifism) is one of the two main forms of anarchist activism championed by FARJ (Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro) and otherSouth American anarchist organizations, the other being social insertion. Especifismo emerged as a result of anarchist experiences in South America over the last half of the 20th century starting with the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU), which was founded in 1956 by anarchists who saw the need for an organizationwhich was specifically anarchist.

Especifismo has been summarized as:

• The need for specifically anarchist organization built around a unity of ideas and praxis.
• The use of the specifically anarchist organization to theorize and develop strategic political and organizing work.
• Active involvement in and building of autonomous and popular social movements via social insertion.[

The Communist Manifesto, originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party (German: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) is a short 1848 book written by the German Marxist political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It has since been recognized as one of the world’s most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the Communist League, it laid out the League’s purposes and program. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle(historical and present) and the problems of capitalism, rather than a prediction of communism’s potential future forms.

The book contains Marx and Engels’ Marxist theories about the nature of society and politics, that in their own words, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism, and then eventually communism.