Anarchisms, Postanarchisms and Ethics

Benjamin Franks

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield International
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781783488315
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Anarchism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What are the core features of an anarchist ethics? Why do some anarchisms identify themselves as anti-moral or amoral? And what are the practical outcomes of ethical analysis for anarchist and post-anarchist practice? This book shows how we can identify and evaluate different forms of anarchism through their ethical principles, and we can identify these ethics in the evolving anarchist organizations, tactics and forms of critique. The book outlines the various key anarchist positions, explaining how the identification of their ethical positions provides a substantive basis to classify rival traditions of thought. It describes the different ideological structures of anarchism in terms of their conceptual organization integrated into their main material practices, highlighting that there is no singular anarchism. It goes on to assess distinctive approaches for identifying and categorizing anarchism, and argues that it is best viewed not as a movement that prioritizes rights and liberal accounts of autonomy, or that prescribes specific revolutionary goals, but as a way to challenge hierarchies of power in the generation of social goods. Finally, the book uses case studies from contemporary issues in educational practice and pertinent political conflicts to demonstrate the practical applicability of a virtue approaches to anarchism.

Chapter 1

The Place of Ethics in Anarchist Theory and Practice¹

A stranger entered a bar just as four anarchists were discussing their ideas. The conversation turned to what constituted true anarchism. The discussion quickly escalated into heated exchanges and blows. The stranger, intrigued by what they had seen, asked one of them: ‘So which version of anarchism was right?’ The revolutionary gestured to the continuing disruptive passionate debate and replied: ‘This one’.

There is no single way of examining anarchism. Prior to the significant reignition of interest in anarchism from within academic circles from the mid-1990s onwards, that is to say the post–Cold War period,ⁱ Leninism was viewed as the dominant sometimes even the sole form of revolutionary opposition, especially from liberals (see, for instance, Popper 1960; Popper 1966). As a result, much of the research on anarchism during this Leninist period was orientated on historical analysis of failed movements and a sympathetic, albeit occasionally over-romantic, elucidation of anarchism as part of a history of ideas.² During the latter part of the Leninist period, the few evaluations of anarchism concentrated on it as a subset of liberalism, and often classical liberalism, with R. P. Wolff’s neo-Kantian A Defense of Anarchism and Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia constituting its core theoretical position.

In the last few years, there has been much greater interest from a range of disciplines such as geography, utopian studies, theology and continental political thought. The motivation for academic re-evaluation has come from both the decline of Leninism as the pole of oppositional theory and the growth of diverse forms of (anti-)political contestation, in which anarchist activism has been significant. These include the rise of the direct action environmentalism, anti-Poll Tax and anti-roads movements, then the upsurge of the alter-globalisation movement and later Occupy and militant responses to right-populist and neo-fascist movements. As a result, anarchism has gained a small but significant place in contemporary social studies and its theoretical perspectives are increasingly being engaged within political theory and social philosophy.

The multiplicity of manifestations of anarchism is not unique to the post-Leninist period. In earlier eras, forms of anarchism arose that responded to different conditions and social problems: anarcho-syndicalisms in periods of intense labour disputes prior to the Bolshevik revolution, anarcho-pacifisms arising in periods of intense militarisation; anarcha-feminisms, as women’s movements rose up to challenge different forms of patriarchal structure. Similarly, the emphasis provided by green anarchisms, individualist anarchisms, lifestyle anarchisms, anti-civilisation anarchisms, post-left and postanarchisms are responding to particular material problems as well as assumed deficiencies within other anarchist morphologies. In some cases, the response re-configures concepts to make a new ideological structure that is antipathetic to the other more pervasive and stable forms of anarchism.

Disciplinary and methodological differences affect the results and the focus of attention. For instance, there is no single way to study drosophilia (fruit flies). One could catch a fruit fly, cover it in wax, slice it very thinly and study the cross sections of the fly under a microscope. This would elicit data about the internal biological structure of drosophilia. Another way would be to place a few fruit flies in separate observation tanks and give them different samples to see which fruits attract most fruit fly species. A third method would be to study fruit fly in the wild and observe their behaviour in their habitats, learning how they interact within their colonies and with other species. A further method would be to study the social meanings of the fruit fly, how it informs local discourses and shapes the traditions of human communities.

Each method yields different types of data, none is universally preferable (though the fruit fly might have a particular disinclination towards the first), but each approach depends on the types of findings that the scientist is seeking. So too, there is no single method for studying and assessing political (or anti-political) behaviours: methods are dependent on the types of answers the researcher is looking for. Methodology is, thus, not value-neutral but formed by the questions the researcher has already identified as being the most pivotal.

Any investigatory method brings with it assumptions about the types of findings the investigator is prioritising, an assumed epistemology about what constitutes legitimate findings and modes of expressing the methods and results, which in turn assume particular types of audience.³ The method this book uses and defends—one based on Michael Freeden’s conceptual analysis (also known as the morphological approach) is no different: it too has its inherent biases. However, in arguing for its usefulness and pertinence in examining anarchism and postanarchism, I am not claiming it is the only method or always and everywhere the most appropriate analytic system for identifying and assessing (anti-)political action.

This method’s pertinence will be demonstrated by using it to identify anarchism from rival accounts, explaining why so-called anarcho-capitalisms, national anarchisms and conservative (or tory) anarchisms are distinct from the wider anarchist tradition. It can also explain why some versions of individualist anarchism are consistent with the wider anarchist tradition and others, although using similar terms, are outside it. The method also helps to locate postanarchism⁴ in relation to these traditions. It shows that, in the main, postanarchism is an identifiable sub-ideology or hybrid of anarchism, alongside other categories such as libertarian Marxism, green anarchism and anarcha-feminism, and is increasingly finding greater affinities with the main social anarchist traditions as the conventions of postanarchisms develop. In some locations, sub-hybrids become so prominent that they become the dominant ideological form. For instance, Leninism was once a minor form of Marxism, becoming only the bolshinstvo (majority) in one of many Marxist parties by selective exclusion of opposing currents.

This section starts by providing an account of the analytic approach before drawing out Freeden’s own version and the adaptations made to it here. It then goes on to discuss intentional, hermeneutic and cultural approaches drawing out those elements relevant to the approach taken here. In many instances, these are already included in Freeden’s methods.

Analytic Political Philosophy⁵

The methodological approach used and defended here—a variant of Freeden’s conceptual method—develops out of, but is distinct from, standard analytical political philosophy.⁶ There is no single account of analytic philosophy. One of its advocates, Paul McLaughlin (2017), a philosopher with a long-time interest in anarchism, has recently proposed a distinction between Analytic Philosophy (AP), the intellectual tradition (made up separately of a disparate movement of key individuals and schools, the institutions that utilise the theory and set particular parameters), and analytic philosophy (ap), a theoretical procedure. Even limiting the account to a theoretical procedure, he recognises that descriptions are complex and multiple, identifying multiple divisions and subdivisions (346–53). Nonetheless, amongst the plethora of differences and questionable distinctions there are common features: ‘[1] The semantic demand for linguistic or conceptual clarity; [2] the logical demand for argumentative rigour; [3] the dialogical demand for argumentative interaction; and [4] the gradualistic demand for cautious, step-by-step argumentation’. To these McLaughlin also adds ‘[5] the epistemic demand for some contribution to knowledge’ (349).

McLaughlin, in addition, wants to defend the value-status of the method of analytical philosophy, from critics who argue it has a liberal or conservative bias, and that it can serve, even if it does not at present, anarchist theory (353–61). Through de-linking institutions and process and historical movement from philosophy, McLaughlin largely positions analytic method as an ideologically neutral method. In doing so, he adopts the position of D. D. Raphael (1979, 20) and David Miller (2003, 17–18) that the purpose of political philosophy is to avoid ‘ideology’, by eschewing the promotion of non-rationally justified norms through coherent analysis of terms and checking for internal consistency and logical connectivity.

In common with his earlier account (McLaughlin 2010, 22), McLaughlin (2017) prioritises conceptual clarification and argument analysis, but additionally highlights, that openness to debate and the gradualistic development of wisdom are also features of analytic philosophy. The core of McLaughlin’s account, despite some reservations, is shared by other prominent analytic political philosophers such as Raphael (1979, 12) and Jonathan Wolff (2006, 3). The latter states that ‘In short, they [political philosophers] present arguments’. Similarly, Robert E. Goodin (2017, 18) considers clarity and argumentative structure as amongst the primary features of good analytical political theory.⁷

The core of the analytic tradition is argumentation—assessing the validity of arguments. Conceptual clarity is central to this task as formal validity requires that there is no slippage in the use of terms between premise(s) and conclusion(s). Breaking downterms, as McLaughlin himself does to distinguish between, for instance, institutional accounts of analytic philosophy and procedural accounts (and then between sub-sections and sub-sub-sections of these), ensures stable and consistent interpretations. McLaughlin is typically critical of those, like myself, he believes conflate different versions (363). There are multiple forms of conceptual clarification and some, like Wittgensteinian family resemblances (Wittgenstein 1978, para 66–71) reject that there is a fixed universal definition, others hold that concepts refer to a real, independent universal (see Pettit 2000, 7). Universalist perspectives tend towards accounts of phenomenon based on necessary and sufficient conditions.

A necessary condition is something that is required for an entity to count as member of a group or to have that label applied to it; without it, it cannot be so classified. A sufficient condition is one that by itself would be enough to identify an entity; though it is possible to still be classified as that thing without meeting that condition. For instance, the classical liberalism associated with Nozick must have a particular view of the self: one based on a negative view of freedom centred on the rational subject having absolute property rights in the body. If it does not have this account of the individual as sovereign, then it is not Nozickian liberalism. However, this condition alone is not enough to identify the theory as classical liberalism; other theories, too, might hold a negative rights conception of the sovereign agent, such as Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner’s left libertarianism (Vallentyne 2000; Vallentyne et al. 2005). If the description of the sovereign self also included extending property rights beyond one’s body and labour to other natural resources and products, with such rights secured by a minimal state whose functions are only to secure such rights, then we would have a necessary and sufficient account of Nozickian liberalism.

Family resemblances do not require a fixed single characteristic or essence for membership of a group. Wittgenstein’s own example is of the word ‘game’. There may be no single common feature between every example of a game (chess, noughts and crosses, ring-a-ring-a-roses and catch), but there are a variety of traits with a sufficient number shared by all members of the family. As new types of game emerge (say computer games), new traits emerge. There are, however, problems with the Wittgensteinian approach, as it fails to distinguish between elements that core and major and those which are peripheral. Given that ultimately for Wittgenstein (1978, para 43), the circumstances by which an alteration to a definition comes about ‘is its use’, that is to say social convention, it requires an account of how conventions develop and are policed.

Further, while McLaughlin highlights methodological diversity, he, like many other analytic theorists, tends to use necessary and sufficient conditions to describe anarchism through one essential criterion (342; see also R. Wolff 1976 and J. Wolff 2006). For McLaughlin (2017, 342), the description of anarchism is, initially, particularly thin: ‘I define anarchism as scepticism about authority’. This is only thickened out a little by the addition of some focus to this scepticism: ‘the belief that authoritative norms, practices, relations and institutions can be and ought to be called into question with respect to their desirability’. McLaughlin makes it clear that this analytical account of anarchism does not posit any positive goals or other ethical principles (such as equality or autonomy). As such, McLaughlin’s emaciated ‘anarchism’ is one found across a range of substantive political traditions. He cites in support of the supposed radicalism of analytical political philosophy in general and his version of anarchism in particular, rights libertarians and anarcho-capitalists (propertarians)⁸ like Robert Nozick and A. John Simmons (356). For McLaughlin, then, the political anarchism of activists is separate to the philosophical version with only provisional or incidental similarities.

McLaughlin tends to use looser conceptual approaches when describing his own preferred position (as one that ‘aspires’ to conceptual clarity, even when he admits many counter-examples); yet, he fixes opponents with more rigid defined, necessary conditions, which are then easy to refute with a couple of counter-examples. Similarly, when it comes to logical analysis, McLaughlin rightly acknowledges the plurality of logics available for analysis and points to the importance of informal logics in argument analysis (363–64). However, this does not disguise the fact that many influential descriptions of analytic procedure assume a singular, universal reason and a singular rational subject (see, for instance, Knowles 2001, 6; Raphael 1979, 4, 6, 17–20). Neither does McLaughlin explain the basis for the selection of logic or logics in each evaluation, nor how institutional or professional contexts change the operation of informal logic (for the contextualisation of reason, see MacIntyre 2001 and Atkinson 1997, though the latter problematically drifts towards a cultural relativist critique of the universality of critical thinking).

In addition, McLaughlin’s (2017) more recent and sophisticated account of analytical philosophies rejects the dominant institutional practice of the past. This rejected approach ascribed a single rational logo to philosophical analysis and academic discourse and rejected or marginalised others that do not subscribe to it. McLaughlin argues that there is a plurality of analytic procedures, but these were restricted by analytic institutional demands. His defence rests on a distinction between the supposedly plurality of analytic philosophical procedure and the more restrictive and less-defensible analytical institutional demands (363, 366). However, McLaughlin’s argument illustrates that institutions shape theory, rather than being separate from it. The more diverse approaches, positioned as dissident within the tradition, have their location because of institutional power. They appear and operate within particular organisations and departments. The method adopted here, thus, rejects the division between theory and the institutions in which principles are derived, structured and elucidated.

It is nonetheless worth expanding on what makes the analytic method so attractive, as well as drawing out the significant problems associated with it. First, it provides a clear and consistent method for identifying and assessing different political philosophies. Through identifying necessary and sufficient conditions (or the constellation of core family resemblances) and identifying subtle distinctions, different positions and nuances are recognised and labelled. McLaughlin (2007, 25–36; 2017) does not just distinguish his philosophical anarchism from other political philosophies, but from rival interpretations. Clarifying principles and testing their internal consistency and their applicability provides a well-defined method for assessing the relative merits of competing positions. However, it also misses out much that is important, such as the importance of vagueness and ambiguity in the operation of concepts.

A second, significant advantage is that it provides philosophy with a clear identity. Other disciplines, as McLaughlin (2010) points out, also use argumentation; however, it is the priority given to argument clarification that demarcates it as a discipline. The analytic method promotes rigorous thinking and fidelity to the text through careful reading and thus starts to extend into other disciplines such as history to clarify meaning or highlight ambiguities by placing arguments in their historical setting (see the Quentin Skinner and the ‘Cambridge School’) (Weinstein 2012, 143; Blau 2017).

Analytic approaches are becoming mor...