The Floodgates of Anarchy

Commentary on Names
Commentary on Names (i) Karl Marx drew attention to the economic development of society and the nature of the class struggle; his socialism, although revolutionary, was based upon the State. Most of his followers, during his lifetime, believed the “capture of the State” to be based upon legalism, but after the Paris Commune, he made it clear that he believed in armed revolution. He never explained how the takeover would be effected nor what his conception of socialism was except that he believed in the “inevitability” of socialism (because capitalism was concentrating on larger units and the ever-increasing misery would cause the workers to rebel, take over the State, and nationalize the monopolies), a now exploded theory. (ii) Michael Bakunin progressed during his lifetime from the concept of democratic revolution, to adopting Proudhon’s (xiii) federalism to the idea of socialism. Within the International (v... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 12 - Is a Free Society Possible?
12 Is a Free Society Possible? Mutual aid is the over-riding principle in human existence. It is greater than that of class struggle, which is the result of impositions upon society. Faced with a child drowning, only those inculcated with the artificial pressures of capitalism will ask what profit he will gain by diving in. Only those coarsened by racially divisive propaganda will ask first about the ethnic origins of the child (one recalls Bessie Smith bleeding to death, refused admission to a “whites only” hospital). Only those who have succumbed to State conditioning will walk around plaintively asking, “What are they doing about it? Where are the police, the fire brigade, the coastguards? What do we pay our taxes for?” Ordinary people practice mutual aid as a matter of course (the lifeboatmen, for instance), or at any rate recognize that deviations from it are a matter of shame. This is not the case with the conqueror. The Scottish c... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 11 - Violence and Terrorism
11 Violence and Terrorism We all deplore each other’s violence. Most people, whether they admit it or not, are conditioned by the mass media, the neo-Church, and they deplore the type of violence that the State deplores, and applaud the violence that the State practices. Dear old ladies, incapable of upsetting the feelings of a cat sitting on the chair they wish to occupy, passionately demand flogging, hanging and disembowelment, sometimes even for demonstrators. Lynch-law is not “anarchy”. It is that degree of law beyond the State, to which authoritarian thinking can lead. The State itself can invoke vigilantes, or fascist thugs. It can give carte blanche to the police when its authority is bypassed or flouted, or where it appears that the State apparatus is insufficient. When it does not do so, lynch-law arises. Yet the same people, from the indignant old ladies to the lynchers and the fascists, will be morally outraged by assassination, since the m... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 10 - A Clash of Generations?
10 A Clash of Generations? The fact that ostensibly revolutionary associations can become merely, as it were, the “ex-servicemen’s legions” of past struggles may mean that there will be older people in ossified movements, and younger ones in currently active movements. On the other hand, in some of the rebellions of today, though composed almost entirely of students, past philosophies such as Blanquism, Trotskyism, De Leonism, stride around with a fixed gaze like the Undead. The idea of classification by “generation” really comes from the university curriculum. In the world in general, however, one finds that “the generation clash” is another abstract conception used to enthralled. It is like the metaphysical idea of “the majority”. Everybody knows that “the majority” do not support revolution. If they did so, there would be one. To “consider public opinion” and “respect majorit... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 9 - Sectarianism and Unity
9 Sectarianism and Unity Once a slogan becomes popular, it is appropriated for general use though it may be given vastly different meanings. To an outsider from any movement, there must seem to be a proliferation of sects saying or going round much the same thing. This is said of the revolutionary movement of our times. It was equally valid of the French Revolution. Even in the wake of the Reformation came the diverse sectarianism of the Protestant revolutionaries, when some of the approaches to spiritual problems were made which are now applied to social ones. There was, too, a reflection of the class struggle following economic changes. But the term “sectarianism” is not a reproach. The British revolutionary movement has proceeded from sectarianism. All its achievements have been under sectarian banners. Unity is strength, but expressing opposite points of view within one organization is only cashbox unity which gives cashbox strength. The saving... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Preface Writing on the subject of anarchism in relation to the class struggle we had few, if any, books to consult, despite the writings of earlier anarchists when class divisions were taken for granted and before the development of current social and economic trends. The anarchist movement owes little to the writings of the “intellectual”-on the contrary, professional writers have dipped into the achievements of anarchist workers to enlighten themselves on social theory or to formulate other theories. I was helped in my early thoughts by coming from Glasgow and Blantyre where I grew up among miners and others who had kept the socialist and libertarian tradition alive for more than sixty years. I subsequently had the advantage o... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

8 Reforms and Revolution Anticipation of what is coming anyway tends to be regarded as reform. It is possible, at the time of writing, to see a classic monument to liberal do-goodism in Victoria Embankment Gardens, where one of the typically useless London statues to forgotten nonentities is raised. Epitaphs are notoriously inaccurate, but here we are asked to admire “William Edward Forster 1818/86, to whose wisdom and courage England owes the establishment throughout the land of a national system of elementary education”. Could one better it for an outrageous lie? Mr Forster was no doubt a worthy man, but does England really owe its elementary education to him? When he was born, England was largely illiterate, and when he died ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

6 Rewards and Fantasies History excuses robbery and the law sanctions it. Even though the thief himself may not die in the odor of sanctity, provided he holds sufficient loot intact to pass on to his descendants, the hereditary principle will provide that his grandchildren may grow up virtuously and live graciously. The rich can afford virtue; the poor may well practice it the more, but can seldom afford it. The descendants of the brigands who stole the land from the Scottish people are proud that their fathers fought for what they now possess, and are most indignant at the notion that they themselves may have to fight for it again. But the British landowning nobility as a whole is resigned to its present situation. They married — bot... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

4 Social Protest and a New Class The appalling progress and prospects of the Destruction State, the increased powerlessness of the individual, and the increased meaninglessness of party or established beliefs held all over the world, gave an enormous impetus to social protest. It was a secular revolution against the neo-Churches. It began on well-worn anti-militarist lines, if with some imaginative overtones, but nevertheless tended to follow certain patterns of the class struggle. This was against the expectations of some of those who, like many radical leaders, think that to run a little ahead of the crowd is to lead it. The general climate of social protest was a revival of militant liberalism. Political liberalism was institutionalized ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

3 The Labor Movement Anarchism as a movement in its own right has its own traditions, now a century old, yet forms a faction within the international labor movement as a whole. It has its particular inheritance, part of which it shares with socialism, giving it a family resemblance to certain of its enemies. Another part of its inheritance it shares with liberalism, making it, at birth, kissing-cousins with American-type radical individualism, a large part of which has married out of the family into the Right Wing and is no longer on speaking terms. To understand Anarchism, it is necessary to understand the parting of the ways in the labor movement, by which term is not implied the Labor-TUC-Cooperative set-up; though this is also part of i... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)