ANARCHISM

ANARCHISM

The theory espousing a societal state in which there is no structured government or law or in which there is resistance to all current forms of government.

Anarchists promote the absence of rules,
which leads to the absence of any identifiable
social structure beyond that of personal auton-
omy. When ANARCHY becomes defined by one
anarchist, other anarchists may feel bound to
change it.

Anarchism thus means different things to
different believers. Anarchists do not hold com-
mon views on subjects such as desirable levels of
community cooperation and the role of large
industry in society. Another matter of continu-
ing debate is whether anarchy is an end unto
itself or simply the best means to a better gov-
ernment. To all anarchists, though, anarchy is
the best refuge from political dogma and
authority. Moreover, many anarchists agree that
anarchism begins with the notion that people
are inherently good, or even perfect, and that
external authority—laws, governments, institu-
tions, and so forth—limits human potential.
External authority, they suggest, brings a cor-
ruption of the innocent human spirit and a ceil-
ing on achievement.

Commentators on anarchism differentiate
between “classical” theories of anarchy and more
modern movements. Classical anarchists
focused more heavily on the opposition to state
control and capitalist society. Their strongest
opposition was directed at government and the
church.Many of the early anarchists were essen-
tially socialists, and anarchist theories played a
significant part in the socialist movements dur-
ing the early twentieth century.

Beginning in about the 1960s, anarchism
shifted its focus to a more general opposition to
public and private hierarchy and domination of
the working class. Modern anarchists tend to
focus upon such issues as those related to patri-
archy, racism, nature, and technology, and the
effects these concepts have on society.One camp
of anarchist theorists advocates a theory of anar-
cho-syndicalism, and those that subscribe to this
theory promote a massive, leaderless movement
of the working class intended to take control
from those with public and private authority.
Modern anarchists directed their opposition
against such pro-capitalist and quasi-govern-
mental entities as the World Trade Organization,
the WORLD BANK, and the INTERNATIONAL
MONETARY FUND. Anarchists became the focus
of national attention in the late 1990s and early
2000s when they staged massive protests against
World Trade Organization meetings in such U.S.
cities as Seattle, Washington, and Eugene, Ore-
gon. Although anarchists claim these protests
were peaceful until law enforcement officers dis-
rupted them, others consider these anarchists to
be violent and unruly revolutionaries.
William Godwin (1756–1836) is widely
regarded as the first to give anarchy a compre-
hensive intellectual foundation. Godwin, the
son of a Calvinist minister, argued that the state
and its laws were enslaving people instead of
freeing them. According to Godwin, govern-
ment was necessary only to prevent injustice and
external invasion. With every person educated
in sincerity, independence, self-restraint, and
seriousness, any more governmental activity
would be unnecessary.

Godwin opposed the rise of liberal democ-
racy in the late 1700s. In the wake of the Ameri-
can and French Revolutions, he observed,
“electioneering is a trade so despicably degrad-
ing, so eternally incompatible with moral and
mental dignity that I can scarcely believe a truly
great mind capable of the dirty drudgery of such
vice.”Godwin’s observations and proposals were
largely ignored during his lifetime, but they
informed anarchists several decades later, when
the brutal working conditions and “wage slav-
ery” of industrialism began to present new rea-
sons for revolt.

Two well-known anarchists, EMMA GOLD-
MAN (1869–1940) and Alexander Berkman
(1870–1936), gained recognition in the 1890s.
Goldman, the daughter of Jewish merchants,
immigrated to the United States from Russia in
1885 at the age of 16. In Rochester, New York,
Goldman worked in a sweat shop—a large,
unsafe factory that paid low wages and
demanded long hours. The experience radical-
ized Goldman, and with her natural flair for
public speaking, she soon became a spokes-
woman for anarchism. Goldman worked exten-
sively for the INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE
WORLD (IWW), an organization dedicated to
anarcho-syndicalism, which seeks to use the
industrial union as the basis for a reorganization
of society. Goldman’s cross-country lecture
tours, in which she addressed a broad range of
social topics in German and English, earned her
a reputation as a witty speaker and provocative
thinker.A voracious reader and a magazine pub-
lisher, Goldman gave voice to ideas on sexuality,
free love, BIRTH CONTROL, and family structures
that shocked members of her generation,
including fellow anarchists.

Like many devout anarchists, Goldman had
trouble with the law. She was imprisoned for a
year for allegedly inciting a riot during a New
York City hunger demonstration in 1893. Gold-
man also served a two-week sentence for distrib-
uting illegal birth control information. She was
jailed on suspicion of complicity in the assassi-
nation of President WILLIAM MCKINLEY,in
1901. In 1917, she was arrested with Berkman
for participating in antiwar protests, and both
were charged with violating the Selective Service
Act of 1917 (40 Stat. 76) by inducing young men
to resist the draft. Goldman and Berkman were
convicted, and, despite appeals to the U.S.
Supreme Court, both served prison terms.Upon
release in 1919, they were deported to Russia.
Berkman, Goldman’s ally, shared Goldman’s
passion for breaking social barriers and inspir-
ing creative thought. He also possessed a violent
streak. In 1892, he was arrested for attempting to
assassinate steel magnate Henry Clay Frick dur-
ing a steel strike. After serving a 14-year prison
sentence, Berkman devoted the rest of his life to
freeing imprisoned political radicals and pro-
moting workers’ rights. He remained a close
companion of Goldman until his death in 1936.
Goldman and Berkman cut dashing figures
as romantic, intellectual anarchists, and they
played no small part in a modest rise of anar-
chism in the early 1900s. Although anarchism
still gains followers in COLLEGES AND UNIVERSI-
TIES and among self-styled intellectuals, it has
been mostly dormant as a social force since the
Great Depression of the 1930s.

Many anarchists have suffered the bemusing
fate of being convicted for breaking laws in
which they do not believe. However, the justice
system does occasionally protect the anarchist.
In Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U.S. 380, 47 S. Ct. 655, 71
L. Ed. 1108 (1927), Harold B. Fiske was charged
in Rice County, Kansas, with violating the
Kansas Criminal Syndicalism Act (Laws Sp. Sess.
1920, c. 37). Fiske had been arrested for promot-
ing the Workers’ Industrial Union (WIU), an
organization devoted in part to establishing
worker control of industry and the abolition of
the wage system.

Under the syndicalism statute in Kansas, any
person advocating “the duty, necessity, propriety
or expediency of crime, criminal syndicalism, or
sabotage . . . is guilty of a felony” (1920 Kan. Sess.
Laws ch. 37, § 3). Criminal syndicalism was
defined as the advocation of crime, physical vio-
lence, or destruction of property “as a means of
effecting industrial or political revolution, or for
profit” (§ 1). Kansas authorities charged Fiske
with criminal syndicalism, citing only the preamble
to the constitution of the IWW, the parent organization of Fiske’s WIU. This preamble
stated, in part, that “a struggle must go on until
the workers of the World organize as a class, take
possession of the earth, and the machinery of
production and abolish the wage system”
(Fiske).
The U.S. Supreme Court found insufficient
evidence against Fiske to warrant conviction of
criminal syndicalism. According to the Court,
there was no suggestion that “getting possession
of the machinery of production and abolishing
the wage system, was to be accomplished by
other than lawful means.” The Court confirmed
that a state may enact legislation to protect its
government from insurrection, but it may not
be ARBITRARY or unreasonable in policing its
citizens who advocate changes in the social
order.
FURTHER READINGS
Brailsford, Henry N. 1931. Shelley, Godwin, and their Circle.
London Press.
Goldman, Emma. 1982. Living My Life. Reprint, Salt Lake
City: G.M. Smith.
Joll, James. 1964 The Anarchists. Boston: Little, Brown.
Nozick, Robert. 1975. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York:
Basic Books.
Sonn, Richard D. 1992. Anarchism. New York: Twayne.
CROSS-REFERENCES
Chicago Eight; Freedom of Speech; Goldman, Emma; Industrial
Workers of the World; Rousseau, Jean Jacques.