I
considered entitling this "Individualist Anarchism,
Nowhere at Home" but I realized in time that alienation as
a political theory has been done already by Karl Marx. If I
had used that title, however, the point I would have been making
is that the two movements which seem to be natural homes of
individualist anarchism -- libertarianism (for which it used
to be a synonym) and the anarchist tradition (of which it is
a subset) -- are now uncomfortable places. This wasn't always
true.
For example, although the Workingman's International
(that touchstone of 19th century radical chic) is usually associated
with Marxism, the First International consisted largely of
Bakuninists (communist anarchists) and individualist anarchists.
In other words, individualist anarchism as a radical political
philosophy was taken seriously back then by other anarchists;
it had credentials behind its name. This credibility came basically
from two things. First, it came from the almost herculean efforts
of libertarian figures such as Benjamin Tucker, who were not
only active in labor organization but who were also responsible
for the input of new, dynamic theory into anarchism, for example
by translating the works of Max Stirner. In short, individualist
anarchism had life and motion.
Secondly and, I think, more significantly, the
credibility came from points of theory which individualist
anarchism used to share with communist anarchism. Over the
last century, however, the theory of individualist anarchism
has changed dramatically and it has drifted far away from the
other schools of anarchism: by which I mean communist anarchism,
anarcho-syndicalism, and Christian anarchism.
The
main school I will be contrasting with individualism is communist
anarchism -- the theory of which I'll go into
shortly. But I want to take a minute to comment on the syndicalist
and Christian anarchism since I won't be discussing them in
any detail. Anarcho-syndicalism is theoretically close to communist
anarchism even though, historically, there has been hostility
between them. The hostility is largely the result of the anarcho-syndicalist
belief that change should come through a reorganization of
labor into a loose federation of collectively owned and operated
factories whereas communist anarchists advocated other means.
In other words, they both wanted an anarchistic worker's society,
but they disagreed on how it was possible to get there. The
most popular example of an American anarcho-syndicalist organization
is the early I.W.W.2 [Industrial Workers of the World], also
known as the Wobblies.
Christian anarchism, as a movement, is usually
attributed to Leo Tolstoy and its name is fairly self-explanatory.
Christian anarchism does not recognize the right to use violence
for any purpose. It is a type of pacifism and its rejection
of the use of force in self defense is the most significant
difference it has with individualist anarchism. Generally speaking,
however, Christian and individualist anarchism get along quite
well and Tolstoy's work used to be advertised for sale in Benjamin
Tucker's Liberty, the main forum of individualist anarchism
in the late 19th Century.
As I mentioned before, in the days of Tucker
individualist anarchism and libertarianism used to be synonymous.
The schism occurred because the meaning of libertarianism has
undergone separate changes which have taken it in a different
direction so that the goals and strategy of libertarianism
are often antagonistic to individualist anarchism.
These are the two points around which my speech
revolves and to which I will return: changes within the theory
of individualist anarchism that have alienated it from other
forms of the philosophy; and, changes within libertarianism
that have made it antagonistic to individualist anarchism.
But, first, I want to give you some background
on individualist anarchism so you have the inestimable benefit
of knowing what I am talking about.
In
1833, the American libertarian Josiah Warren began publishing
The Peaceful Revolutionist
which was perhaps
the first anarchist periodical and certainly the first individualist
anarchist one. Warren didn't call himself an anarchist; in
fact, no one used that word very much, except as a term of
opprobrium to hurl at an opponent, until Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
applied it to himself and made it "honorable." Nevertheless,
it is clear that Warren was an anarchist. He called for a voluntary
society organized around the individual as the basic unit.
His approach was expressed in a report he wrote of the libertarian
community, Utopia, in the May 1848 issue of The Peaceful Revolutionist.
Warren wrote:
"Throughout the whole of our operations . . .
everything has been conducted so nearly upon the Individual
basis that not one meeting for legislation has taken place.
No Organization, no indefinite delegated power, no "Constitutions," no "laws" or "bye
[sic] laws," "rules" or "regulations" but such as each individual
makes for himself and his own business. "
Now, the two key ideas in Warren's philosophy
which became the two key concepts of individualist anarchism
for over a century were the Sovereignty of the Individual,
and Cost is the Limit of Price or the labor theory of value.
Sovereignty of the Individual is fairly self-descriptive
and more commonly goes under the label of self-ownership which
was the term used by the anti-slavery crusader and libertarian
William Lloyd Garrison, a contemporary of Warren. Sovereignty
of the Individual or self-ownership refers to the moral claim
that every human being has to his or her own body. As Warren
expressed it in his book, Practical Details:
"Society
must be so converted as to preserve the SOVEREIGNTY OF EVERY
INDIVIDUAL inviolate.
That it must
avoid all combinations and connections of persons and interests,
and all other arrangements which will not leave every individual
at all times at liberty to dispose of his or her person, and
time, and property in any manner in which his or her feelings
or judgment may dictate, WITHOUT INVOLVING THE PERSONS OR INTERESTS
OF OTHERS. "
Now,
self-ownership is still fairly common in libertarianism,
although, as electoral politics
prevails, the
principle's popularity seems to be on the decline. Individualist
anarchism opposes -- as libertarianism used to -- the very
idea of anyone holding a position of unjust (that is, undelegated)
power over someone else's life. It opposes anyone holding political
office. There is a great tension between saying on one hand "your
peaceful actions are sacrosanct and no one else's business",
while on the other hand attempting to place someone in a position
of unjust power over those activities. And the concept which
is being stretched out of shape by this tension is self- ownership,
Sovereignty of the Individual.
The
second mainstay of 19th century individualist anarchism was
Cost the Limit of Price, a version of the labor
theory of value. This theory states that value results from
labor and can come from nowhere else. If I work to produce
something and sell it for $1.00, it is assumed that I have
received the full, just value of my labor. However, if an entrepreneur
who paid me $1.00 turns around and sells the product for $1.50,
the question arises: where did the extra 50 cents, the extra
value come from? Since all values under my theory comes from
labor and since I provided all the labor that went into the
product, the extra 50 cents of value obviously represents my
labor which the entrepreneur (read capitalist) stole by giving
me less than the full value of what my labor produced. In other
words, profit is theft. Or as Sam Konkin put it so well in
his last S.L.L. talk, the labor theory of value recognizes
no distinction between profit and plunder. As another example,
imagine that $1.00 is the just reward of my labor and I lend
that dollar to you on the condition that I receive back $1.10
at the end of a year. Where did the 10 cents come from? Certainly
not from my labor since I have already been paid in full. The
10 cents must result from your labor which I am stealing through
interest. All profit was theft. Not metaphorically, but literally
theft and the fact that people willingly paid interest and
willingly sold their labor to capitalists did not mitigate
the fact that a theft had occurred.
Now,
the labor theory of value, which derives from Adam Smith1,
was an extraordinarily popular theory in 19th
century radical movements, including libertarian ones. There
were exceptions, for example the Classical Liberals in England
and the Loco Focos in 18th Century America but, if you are
dealing with American libertarianism in the 19th Century, you
will find that the movement accepted the labor theory of value
almost as completely as the modern movement accepts the free
market.
This acceptance of Cost the Limit of Price was
a strong tie between individualist anarchism and the other
forms of anarchism. Communist anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism,
especially, viewed capitalism as institutionalized force. From
beginning to end, capitalism was profit which was theft committed
against the workers; that's where you get the propaganda posters
of capitalists as bloated parasites sucking the blood of the
laborers. They sought to destroy such profit taking by force.
Individualist
anarchists approached the situation differently. Although
they agreed that profit
was theft, their
primary commitment was to a voluntary society and to the right
of contract. In fact, Benjamin Tucker described the ideal society
as "society by contract." In essence, they came to the conclusion
that if you wanted to invite people to steal from you by contracting
to pay interest or rent, it was your business. They might try
to show you the error of your ways, but the bottom line was
that everyone had the right to make a foolish, self-destructive
contract and that no one had the right to interfere in that
voluntary process. So, although there was theoretical agreement
on the labor theory of value between individualist anarchists
and their communist cousins, the added element of respect for
contract within individualist anarchism led to radically Different
practical consequences. For example, whereas communist anarchists
would put a gun to the head of landlords, individualists would
leaflet all the tenants. And both would attack the State, because
they believed that destroying the State would virtually eliminate
such practices as charging interest. But, again, the individualists
embraced non-violence as a political strategy.
So, what is the real difference here? Is it merely
that individualist anarchists are nice people who won't use
force to implement their theories whereas communist anarchists
are evil? I think the real distinction is less ad hominem and
more theoretically significant; and that is, they each define
aggression in fundamentally different ways. To the individualist
anarchist, aggression is defined with reference to property
titles. For example, if a man snatches a dollar I earned from
my hand, it is theft for two reasons: first, it is my dollar,
I have title to it; and second, he has taken it without my
consent. If, however, the man snatches a dollar I had previously
stolen from him out of my hand, it is not theft for two reasons:
it is not my dollar because he has title to it; it is his property
and, therefore, my consent is unnecessary. So, the definition
of aggression within individualist anarchism rests on two concepts:
title and consent. Whose property is it and does the owner
agree to what is going on?
Although
the most important present disagreement between individualist
and communist anarchism
is the definition
of property, I don't think this was the most significant point
in the 19th Century. Since they both accepted the labor theory
of value and condemned capitalism, the most important disagreement
was in how they approached consent. With individualist anarchism
consent was a fairly straightforward matter. You agreed or
you didn't, you said "yes" or "no." And, so long as you are
saying "yes," it is in principle impossible to aggress against
you. Not so with communist anarchism.
Communist anarchism contains the notion of economic
coercion; that is, even if a worker consents to a certain wage,
consents to have a portion of his labor stolen by the capitalist,
the consent doesn't count because it was obtained through duress.
The economic situation created by the capitalist is the equivalent
of a gun pointed at the head of the worker: the capitalist
says: work on my terms or starve. Allow me to steal from you
or let your children go hungry. And the consent, the freedom
venerated by the individualist anarchist is dismissed as a
fraud. As the sort of freedom that says to the beggar and to
the millionaire that they are both free to sleep under a bridge
in the driving rain. In short, the communist anarchist does
not recognize the possibility of such things as interest or
rent existing under contract; by definition, they are acts
of force and cannot be otherwise. Using force against those
who charge interest or rent was, therefore, nothing more than
self-defense.
This
notion of economic coercion has dramatic implications for
another key difference between
these forms
of anarchism: namely, how they define "justice" a not insignificant
concept. Now, very briefly, an important difference is that
communist anarchism approaches justice as an end state; by
which I mean, it provides a specific picture of what constitutes
a just society. It would be a society without a State or any
capitalist practices in which the means of production are collectively
owned and every worker receives the full reward of his labor.
In other words, justice resides not only in the absence of
institutionalized force (the State) but in the establishment
of a specific economic arrangement.
In
contrast, the individualist anarchist approach to justice
is means oriented. It provides no end
product, no
particular social arrangement which constitutes justice, but
says only "anything that's peaceful is just." Under individualist
anarchism, you could have communist communities existing beside
capitalist ones and, so long as membership was voluntary, the
arrangement in each would be just. So, again, to the communist
anarchist justice is an end state (a specific economic system);
to the individualist anarchist, it is means oriented (anything
that's peaceful) with no hard vision of what would result.
They differ as well on the concept of class.
Since communist anarchism fundamentally opposes capitalism,
often considered to be inextricably a part of the State, it
defines class in economic terms, in relation to ownership of
the means of production. You are a capitalist or you are a
worker. If you are a capitalist, you live off the sweat and
blood of the worker regardless of whether or not you know it
or whether you are simply the thoughtless, apolitical wife
of a banker. You are part of the capitalist class. Since individualist
anarchism fundamentally opposes only one thing -- aggression
and the State as institutionalized aggression -- it defines
class in political rather than economic terms. It defines class
in terms of one's relationship to the State. You are a member
of the economic class which lives through voluntary exchange
or you are a member of the political class which lives off
theft and tribute from the economic class. This is the basis
of the classic libertarian distinction made by Franz Oppenheimer
between the political and the economic means.
So, returning to the use of violence. These conflicting
concepts of justice and class are key and contributed heavily
to the different historical paths taken by communist and individualist
anarchism. Ponder for a moment, who is more likely to use violence
a man who is committed to peaceful means whatever those means
may bring, or a man who is committed to a specific form of
society with no moral commitment to any specific strategy,
short of not using the State? As you might suspect, communist
anarchists have been far more willing to use violence to implement
their form of justice than have individualist anarchists. For
one thing, the communist anarchist ideal can be implemented
through violence. You can enforce a specific economic arrangement
on people. But you cannot use force to create and maintain
a society without force.
Anarchism, in general, has received bad PR with regard to
violence and the bomb-throwing demented anarchist is as much
a cultural caricature as the dumb blonde. Unfortunately, as
with most caricatures, there is some grain of truth in the
picture. And, unfortunately, critics have made no attempt to
distinguish the truth, to distinguish one form of anarchism
from another to ascertain who is the guilty party. Overwhelmingly,
the violence attributed to anarchists came either from communist
anarchism or from the State's attempt to discredit the anarchist
tradition. It is ironic that one of the charges that used to
be brought against individualist anarchism in the 19th Century
was that it was too peaceful; an anarchist community would
have no defense against those willing to use violence to conquer
it. Needless to say, this view of anarchism changed drastically
and it is possible to point to several events which were pivotal
in changing this attitude.
One of
these events was the Russian Revolution, or rather the period
preceding the Revolution during which
several communist
anarchist groups openly and repeatedly committed violence as
a strategy against capitalists and the State. Part of this
strategy included throwing bombs into crowded restaurants on
the assumption that only capitalists could afford to eat in
that restaurant and all members of the capitalist class were
deadly enemies. Although Russian anarchists did not originate
the idea of "propaganda by deed," they became famous for using
that method. And even though Russia was also the home of Christian
anarchism and although the violence committed by communist
anarchists was minuscule compared to the violence committed
by the State or by the non-anarchist revolutionaries who followed,
the Russian Revolution helped to cement the association between
anarchism and violence.
In America, the Haymarket incident and the assassination of
President McKinley had a similar effect. The Haymarket incident
occurred in 1886, in Chicago which was a stronghold of communist
anarchism. A group of anarchists, most prominently Albert Parsons,
held an open door labor meeting; as it began to break up police
converged on the peaceful crowd. A bomb was thrown at the police
who opened fire on the crowd. Seven demonstrably innocent men
were arrested and tried: one committed suicide, four were hanged,
two were subsequently pardoned. I don't have time to go into
the Haymarket incident other than to point out three things:
first, the men involved in the Haymarket affair were communist
anarchists who openly advocated violence, which is not to say
they were guilty of any crime or to reduce their status as
anarchist martyrs. Second, the Haymarket incident and the public
furor that followed it changed the public perception of anarchism
by associating it firmly with violence.
Third,
individualist anarchists did not enthusiastically support
the Haymarket martyrs. For example, although Benjamin
Tucker
condemned the State and recognized it as the true villain of
the event, he criticized the Haymarket Seven for consciously
promoting violence and he was reluctant to raise them to the
status of anarchist heroes. In the July 31, 1886 issue of Liberty,
he wrote: "It is because peaceful agitation and passive resistance
are weapons more deadly to tyranny than any others that I uphold
them ... brute force strengthens tyranny... War and authority
are companions; peace and liberty are companions... The Chicago
Communists I look upon as brave and earnest men and women.
That does not prevent them from being equally mistaken." This
reluctance on the part of individualist anarchists, whose stronghold
was Boston, outraged other anarchists who began to refer to
anyone who criticized the Haymarket martyrs as 'a Boston anarchist'
regardless of where the critic lived. (Tucker's Liberty was
published from Boston.)
The assassination of President McKinley in 1901 by a self-
professed anarchist who claimed to have been inspired by hearing
Emma Goldman speak almost destroyed the anarchist movement.
The deportations and hideous laws that followed were the most
obvious repercussions. But perhaps as importantly, it absolutely
cemented the association between violence and anarchism, all
forms of anarchism. The movement declined sharply past the
turn of the century. And individualist anarchism virtually
died in 1908 when the offices of Tucker's Liberty and bookstore
burnt to the ground.
So,
if those were the days when communist and individualist anarchism
had a lot in common, what constitutes a real difference
of opinion? A real difference is contained in the changes individualist
anarchism went through in the 1950s. What happened? In my opinion,
the most significant changes can be analyzed by referring to
one man, Murray Rothbard. Rothbard and the circle of scholars
who met in his parlor in the 1950s -- e.g. Leonard Liggio,
Ralph Raico, and Ron Hamowy -- did something astounding. Rothbard
took three traditions, three themes which were considered antagonistic
to each other and wove them together to produce the philosophy
that dominates modern individualist anarchism.3
The
first tradition was Austrian economics. As a specialist in
economic theory, Rothbard became an admirer of Ludwig Von
Mises4 and adopted Austrian economics, a radical and
sophisticated defense of the laissez-faire capitalism.
The
second tradition was individualist anarchism. Now remember,
Tucker
attacked capitalism as theft and he
was considered a
moderate on the question, as anarchists go. The genius of Rothbard
lay in taking the value of individualist anarchism namely,
the theoretical roots of "self-ownership" and its radical civil
liberties, while discarding its excess baggage namely, the
labor theory of value. He replaced this economic theory with
a defense of the free market. The result was something entirely
new under the sun: an anarchist movement that championed capitalism.
It is difficult to even come up with a parallel to give you
a sense of how incredible a hybrid capitalism and anarchism
make. If you can imagine someone proving that not only are
Freudianism and Behaviorism both correct but that both are
and always have been compatible, you might get the flavor of
it all.
For better or worse, this moral and sophisticated defense
of capitalism has greatly distanced individualist anarchism
from the general anarchist movement which still considers capitalism
to be an evil on the level of, if identical with, the State.
And when you talk to communist anarchists, if they don't get
immediately hostile, they are likely to express total bewilderment
at this bizarre combination of beliefs.
The third tradition Rothbard and his circle incorporated into
this system was isolationism, Old Right foreign policy. And
by incorporating it into a system of economics and civil liberties,
he created the synthesis that dominates the theory of individualist
anarchism as it exists today.
Rothbard
is also often credited with modern libertarianism, which
I consider to be a movement separate
from individualist
anarchism: that is, I believe they have distinct and often
antagonistic goals and strategies. When Tucker referred to
himself as a libertarian, it meant individualist anarchist,
but words have lives of their own and meanings change. As Murray
once said to me when I commented on his many strategic alliances: "It's
a fast moving world, sweetie." The word liberal once referred
to an individualist who defended the free market; now, it means
almost the opposite and libertarians need to use the term "classical
liberal" if they want to be clear. Similarly, the word "libertarian" has
changed due to the fairly successful efforts of the Libertarian
Party5 to associate libertarianism
with political goals and the political means, both of which
are anathema to individualist
anarchist theory.
The integrating
theme behind individualist anarchism was the primacy of the
individual and the commitment
to rid society
of all but defensive force. And the kind of force they most
loudly opposed was political activity, i.e., voting and electoral
politics. They considered any participation in electoral politics
to be a violation of libertarian principles. In Tucker's words: "If
Liberty has a weak-kneed friend who is contemplating a violation
of his anarchist principles by voting just for once, may these
golden words from John Morley's 'Compromise' recall him to
his better self: 'A principle, if it be sound, represents one
of the larger expediencies. To abandon that for the sake of
some seeming expediency of the hour is to sacrifice the greater
good for the less on no more creditable ground than that the
less is nearer.'"
On the issue of holding political office, Lysander Spooner
was one of the clearest of the individualist anarchists. In
A Letter to Thomas Bayard, he framed his objection to the holding
of political office, irrespective of who the particular holder
may be. By what right, Spooner asked, can one person occupy
a position of power over another's life? What circumstance
would make this a proper situation? If you have the natural
right to protect your life and property and if you delegate
this right to another person, then his position is contractual
and thereby in accord with libertarian principles.
But what
does this delegation entail? It means, according to Spooner,
that you possess the right which is
being delegated;
that the delegation was explicit and not merely assumed, for
a contract may not be assumed; and, that you can withdraw your
delegation and reclaim the exercise of your natural rights,
for to say that you cannot withdraw your delegation is to say
that you have given away not the exercise of a particular right
but your entire liberty. In Spooner's words: "No man can delegate,
or give away his own natural right to liberty. . . or to give
to another, any right of arbitrary dominion over himself; for
that would be giving himself away as a slave. And this no one
can do. Any contract to do so is necessarily an absurd one
and has no validity. "
Voltairine
de Cleyre expressed a similar view in a lecture delivered
before the Boston Secular Society
in 1890 and subsequently
reprinted in Liberty. "I go to the White House' de Cleyre stated, "I
say 'President Harrison, are you the government?' 'No, madam,
I am its representative.' 'Well, then, where is the principal?
Who is the government?' 'The people of the United States.'
'The whole people?' 'The whole people.' 'You, then, are the
representative of the people of the United States. May I see
your certificate of authorization?' "
De
Cleyre went on to define what she meant by authorization
and why
she morally opposed political office
and the process
of voting. "A body of voters cannot give into your charge any
rights but their own. By no possible jugglery of logic can
they delegate the exercise of any function which they themselves
do not control. If any individual on earth has a right to delegate
his powers to whomsoever he chooses, then every other individual
has an equal right; and if each has an equal right, then none
can choose an agent for another, without the other's consent.
Therefore, if the power of government resides in the whole
people and out of that whole all but one elected you as their
agent, you would still have no authority whatever to act for
that one."
To
drive my point into the ground...The individualist anarchists
overwhelmingly
believed that voting and the holding
of political
office were direct violations of libertarian morality. This
issue was debated only twice in Liberty. The first instance
occurred when Henry Appleton attempted to infiltrate and use
the Knights of Labor to achieve certain labor goals through
that organization's participation in politics. Appleton accepted
political activity as compromise. He wrote: "Tucker has yet
to learn that compromise is a true scientific principle under
Anarchism." He then proceeded to defend compromise against
the rigid "plumb-line" approach of Tucker. Tucker's harsh reply
was entitled "Plumb-line or Corkscrew?" Although Appleton's
integrity was never questioned, the ensuing dispute was so
bitter that Appleton, hitherto Liberty's most frequent contributor,
chose to disappear from its pages.
Victor
Yarros also locked horns with Tucker. In one of his many
articles for Liberty, Yarros opposed voting
on strategic
rather than on moral grounds. He wrote: "A friend and reader
of Liberty recently put this query to me: When some practical,
immediate good can be accomplished by the election of a particular
man or the victory of a particular party, is it not the part
of wisdom and propriety . . . to aid and abet such election?"
Yarros
replied: "The real question is whether the immediate
and practical good which, by our hypothesis, can be secured
is not overbalanced by indirect and remote injury to the essential
aims and purpose of Anarchism. Answer this question in the
negative, and all reasons for boycotting politics vanish ....
Anarchists have no religious or moral objection to voting and
party warfare." Tucker responded: "For my part, when I say
that I would use the ballot if I thought thereby I could best
help the cause of freedom, I make the declaration in precisely
the same sense . . . as when I declare . . . that I would dynamite
if I thought that thereby I could best help the cause of freedom."
Although
he didn't disappear from Liberty as Appleton did, Yarros
backed down from the issue. The point
here is that 19th
century Individualist anarchism/libertarianism was overwhelmingly
anti-political. One of Liberty's themes was "power corrupts" and
one of its regular columns, "The Beauty of Government," was
devoted to this theme. If libertarianism of the late nineteenth
century stood for any one social principle it was opposition
to the political solution (a form of force) to social problems.
Unfortunately, perhaps because it was such a basic aspect
of individualist anarchism, the anti-political position was
often been assumed as self-evident rather than worked out in
hard detail. And if individualist anarchism has contributed
to its own decline, it has been in this respect. Individualist
anarchists have naively assumed that, because libertarians
flatly condemned the political means, the State and politicians,
this condemnation meant that libertarians had some fundamental
objection to electoral politics itself. A mistaken assumption.
More and more, libertarianism has become identified with the
Libertarian' Party. More and more, the goal of libertarianism
has changed from dismantling the State to joining the State
and replacing the face behind the desk of power as though it
were the particular face and not the desk -- the position of
unjust power itself -- that was the enemy. But to an individualist
anarchist, the enemy is anyone who assumes political power
and anyone who aspires to it. And the onus of proof is not
on the anarchist to explain why he objects to someone fighting
for vast power over his life, it is on the politician and the
libertarian who supports him to explain how such power is justified.
Nevertheless, whoever logically carries the burden of proof,
it has become necessary for individualist anarchism to develop
a comprehensive defense of anti-political theory in order to
counter the grotesque spectacle of anarchists running for President.
Fortunately, there is wonderful work being done to fill in
the gaps of anarchist theory in which political weeds have
grown. The Voluntaryist has been running a series of articles
enticed the Ethics of Voting by George H. Smith in which Smith
breaks new ground by delineating an institutional analysis
of the State. Because anarchism is more than just a commitment
to non-aggression; it is the principled rejection of the State.
It is
commonly assumed that individualist anarchism and libertarianism
are two points along the same road, chat
we are fellow travelers
and, frankly, I feel tremendous goodwill toward many of the
people within the LP. But this goodwill does not affect the
fact that they and I are on fundamentally different and antagonistic
paths. And anarchists who are working within the Party in order
to smash the State are fooling themselves. They are donating
their time, money, and sanction to the political process with
the stated goal of creating yet another politician. Only this
time it is a "good" politician--their politician. And where
have we heard this before?
As libertarianism
becomes increasingly political, it will become increasingly
hostile to individualist anarchism,
because
anarchism poses as great a threat to the political ambitions
of the LP as it does to the conventional defenders of government.
I have no intention of amending the slogan "Smash the State" to
read "Smash the State Except for the LP." And if the LP is
ever successful they will quickly turn on the anarchists, turn
on their supposed fellow travelers. The anarchists will then
learn from political libertarians the same lesson that the
Russian anarchists learned from the Bolsheviks -- we are fellow
travelers no more.
Footnotes
by Mondo Politico