Imagining Other
Political Philosophy Part 2
pp18: Kropotkin and
Anarchism
Links: Imagining Other Index
Page
Political Philosophy Contents Page
NB the main focus of these notes is on Kropotkin’s
work “Mutual Aid”: to me this is one of the most powerful works written on the
subject of human society from an anarchist point of view, and its relevance
today is still very strong.
KROPOTKIN (1842 -
1921) AND ANARCHISM
OUTLINE:
1. ANARCHISTS AND
ANARCHISM
1.1 Definition - #definition
1.2 Who are the anarchists? #who are they?
1.3 Comparison with other
ideas #comparisons
1.4 History of the term
anarchism #history of the term, and clarifications
1.5 Varieties of anarchism #varieties
1.6 A few final points! (i) Overview (ii) Updates #overview, updates etc.
2. KROPOTKIN
2.1 Brief Life History
2.2 Kropotkin’s Writings
2.3 Mutual Aid – Commentary with Extracts
3. FURTHER EXTRACTS FROM
KROPOTKIN’S WRITINGS
4. REFERENCES
NOTES
1. ANARCHISTS AND ANARCHISM
(From Goodwin, B 1982) There are two basic aspects:
(a) anarchists reject: power/authority/government/state/law - but not
order.
Of course, popular belief has it that anarchists want
disorder: but what this amounts to is that those who reject anarchism believe
it would lead to disorder – this is not what anarchists believe.
I think it is worth noting that anarchists would not
reject “authority” in the sense of expertise – that would be absurd! – but that their use of the word is to refer to the authority
of the state, or other sources of authority that are backed up by coercive
power (force). The same goes for the word “law”: no one would oppose
“rules” (i.e. agreements about how we ought to behave) – what anarchists oppose
is the coercive legal apparatus, with its sanctions (punishments: jail, forced
labour etc), including only too often the ultimate sanction of capital
punishment.
It must also be noted that anarchists go beyond mere rejection of law and authority:
(b) anarchists believe in the possibility of order without
authority/law/the state.
Anarchists propose forms of organisation (councils,
communes etc) that would bring order without the state, the law, and all the
repressive apparatus that goes with this. Moreover, not anyone who rejects the
state and the law is an anarchist (that is we should differentiate anarchism
from nihilism or terrorism... see below on
rebellion/violence).
Looking more closely at these two aspects, Goodwin
argues that they rest on other ideas:
(i) anarchists
reject existing law and governmental authority, because they believe that this
consists of a minority imposing order on the majority.
Thus Godwin argued that government is "regulated
force". It is worth noting that the (non-anarchist!) sociologist Max Weber
argued that the distinctive feature of the state was precisely its monopoly of
force. The anarchist Bakunin argued that "conquest is the basis of every
state", and that rulers are ultimately self-interested and will always
conspire against the masses.
This argument is similar to the liberal view that
authority/power may be abused – anarchists would say it will always be abused. Thus even power exercised in what is seen as
another’s interest is, for an anarchist, unacceptable. Power must only be
exercised by ourselves and for ourselves.
It also resembles Paine’s argument that society does
most of what we need...
Proudhon extended the
argument against the exercise of power “for others” to political parties:
"all parties without exception, in so far as they seek for power, are
varieties of absolutism.
(Quoted in Woodcock 1962 p 15) Bakunin said
that self-interested rulers always conspire against the masses ("drudge
people") and that
"conquest is the basis of every state." (Quoted by
Goodwin)
On the other hand, the well-known saying: “all power corrupts,
and absolute power corrupts absolutely” did not originate with anarchists, but
was formulated by the historian Lord Acton (1834 – 1902)!
Unlike liberals, anarchists oppose the law. (Liberals
see the law as “neutral” or “above the state”). There are several reasons for
this view:
(1) the law amounts to class
rule, to protect property, (as Marxists also argue)
(2) the law, and punishment for
infringing it, is based on the presumption that we have free will, and that
anyone who commits a crime has chosen to do so; anarchists argue that crime has
a social cause
(3) the law tells us what to
do, and by threatening us with punishment gets obedience by fear, not out of
reasoned choice: thus it removes individual freedom of judgement
(4) the law forces particular
acts into general categories (Goodwin 1982) and doesn’t distinguish between
individuals’ actions and motivations.
(ii) The second aspect, that we can get an ordered society without law and
government is based on the view that “man” (classical anarchists for the most
part used “man” to include woman: nowadays, anarchists would not accept this!)
is naturally social. See Kropotkin
extract (1) below. Some anarchists believe that humans are naturally good,
others simply that they have a potential
for good.
Many, like Kropotkin, would argue that there is a
natural evolutionary process which can develop our moral and collective
sentiments and which will, over time, lead to a good society.
Again, there is a similarity with socialists, and a
contrast with liberals: although some anarchists are individualists (see
below), there is a strong collective or communitarian aspect to anarchism (e.g.
Kropotkin).
Thus, for example,
Proudhon said: “[man] feels his dignity at the same time in himself and in
others and thus carries in his heart a morality superior to himself. This
principle does not come to him
from outside; it is secreted within him, it is immanent. It constitutes his
essence, the essence of society itself. It is the true form of the
human spirit, a form which
takes shape and grows towards perfection only by the relationship that every
day gives birth to social life. Justice,
in other words, exists in
us like love, like
notions of beauty, of utility, of truth, like all our powers and
faculties." (Woodcock 1962 p 19 - 20)
Proudhon also said:
"Just as the right of force and the right of artifice retreat before the steady
advance of justice, and must finally be extinguished in equality, so the
sovereignty of the will yields
to the sovereignty of reason and must at last be lost in scientific
socialism... As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in
anarchy. Anarchy - the
absence of a master, of a sovereign - such is the form of government to which
we are every day approximating."
Kropotkin has a view
of human nature (extract i) which I find actually
resembles the view of Adam Smith – we all have a natural feeling of sympathy
for others, and
this feeling will be
stronger the better your imagination... (Woodcock 1962, p 20)
Perhaps the Spanish anarchist Durutti
put this most forcefully, in 1936: "we carry a new world, here in our
hearts. That world is growing this minute." (Woodcock
1962 p 11).
1.2 ...who are the anarchists?
(these are just a few brief
notes, taken from "The Anarchist Reader" ed. George Woodcock,
Mikhail Bakunin 1814 - 1876
Was influenced by having read the German idealist
philosophers, Fichte and Hegel; also the Russian
revolutionary Herzen, and Proudhon. Took part in the
1848/9 uprisings in
Alexander Berkman 1870 - 1936
Fled from
work with the Bolsheviks,
but became disillusioned especially after the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising. Died penniless as a refugee in
Anarchist
Communism".
Gustave Courbet
1819 - 1877
A famous painter, he worked
with Proudhon, and was active in Paris Commune of 1871. He was briefly
imprisoned. Later, accused of being
responsible for destruction of Vendome Column in
Benaventura Durutti 1896 - 1936
A member of (Spanish)
CNT, he belonged to a terrorist group which robbed banks, and carried out
assassinations (e.g. of Cardinal of Salamanca - at
the high altar!). He
was in and out of prison, and fought against Franco. Led an anarchist column
into
assailant.
William Godwin 1756 - 1836
An ex-pastor, he
criticised the conservative reaction against the French Revolution, in "An
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice" (the first thorough
exposition of
anarchism). He married Mary Wollstonecraft (feminist, author of "The
Vindication of the Rights of Woman"). Their daughter was Mary
Shelley (author of
"Frankenstein"). Mary was the wife of the poet Shelley, who was
influenced by Godwin’s ideas.
Emma Goldman 1869 - 1940
Left
She became so
disillusioned with Bolshevism that she left in 1921 to expose it. Her
autobiography is called "Living my Life".
Errico Malatesta
1853 - 1932
Italian anarchist. He
joined the First International and supported Bakunin. He gave up medicine to
become a full-time agitator, and travelled widely.
He was kept under
house arrest in
William Morris
1834 - 1896
English artist and
libertarian socialist. He worked with anarchists in the Socialist League.
Edited a paper called Commonwealth. Wrote utopian novel:
"News From
Nowhere", which represents a kind of anarchist utopia. Believed (as part
of his socialist outlook) that everyone had the right to beautiful
surroundings, and he
produced fabrics etc. These became very popular, but also very expensive – so,
sadly, beyond the reach of most people.
George Orwell 1903
- 1950
English writer and
journalist (“1984” Animal Farm”), who was a libertarian socialist. His satire
Animal farm is usually seen as an attack on
authoritarian
socialism, but he opposed authoritarianism of any kind. He fought with the
anarchist brigades in the Spanish Civil War, and wrote of
them with sympathy
(“Homage to
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon 1809
- 1865
French anarchist –
the first to use the term for himself. By trade a printer. His best known book
is "What is Property?" (1840) - where he claims that property
is theft. However, he
believed in small communities owning their own property. He also wrote: The
General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century (1851)
and The Principle of
Federation (1863), and much more, very little of which has been translated into
English (Brian Morris, review of Iain McKay’s anthology of
Proudhon’s political writings,
in Freedom Jan 2012). He did not develop a coherent philosophy – in fact his
writing has been described as chaotic. Marxists dismiss
him as bourgeois and
reactionary. Morris sees him as ‘proto-anarchist.’ Bookchin
questioned whether he could even be called socialist because of his views on
small-
scale ownership. Morris
says he opposed strikes and the class struggle (!).His followers called
themselves Mutualists, and they were active in
founding the
First
International, and in the
him, but some anarchists
reject his views, which were reactionary over other matters – he was seen by
Charles Maurras as a French nationalist, and he had
anti-semitic
views and supported the
patriarchal family.
McKay identifies him
as anarchist because of his ‘critique of property, state and capitalism, his
analysis of exploitation being rooted in wage labour, his advocacy of a
decentralised and federal system
of workers’ associations, his support for workers’ self- management of
production, his call for working-class autonomy and self-
activity as a means of
transforming society from below.’
He became an
independent Deputy in the National Assembly during the 1848/9 revolution. He
founded a People's Bank (which gave free credit). He was sent into exile.
Max Stirner 1806
- 1856
Controversial figure, author of
"The Ego and His Own" - an individualist anarchist and young
Hegelian. His views influenced Nietzsche, who rejected
bourgeois order and morality,
and advocated that all (or those who could?) should become “supermen”.
Henry David Thoreau 1817
- 1862
American writer,
author of "Walden", a utopian novel proposing a withdrawal from
modern civilisation. He was imprisoned for one night for refusing
Taxes; he opposed the
was a kind of anarchist
(See forthcoming notes in “Power and Protest”).
Leo Tolstoy 1828 -
1910
Russian writer and
thinker, author of “War and Peace” etc. He was a Christian pacifist, and was
influenced by Proudhon. He would not accept The
description
"anarchist" because of its violent overtones. He was also a wealthy
landowner, but gave up his wealth and died on a railway station.
Oscar Wilde 1854 -
1900
Irish author of plays
etc. Wrote a brilliant essay: "The Soul of Man Under Socialism". Like
William Morris, whom he admired, believed that socialism
and beauty must go
together. Also admired Kropotkin. Foolishly sued when accused of homosexuality,
and lost the case, ending up in jail carrying out
heavy forced labour.
His health suffered, and he died not long after he was released. His
experiences are contained in "The Ballad of Reading Jail".
and today (or recent!):
Herbert Read (1893 - 1968), poet, art critic, lecturer,
publisher. Wrote "The Philosophy of Anarchism" and "Education
through Art".
Paul Goodman (1911 - 1972), advocated gay liberation;
psychologist and educationalist. Author of "Growing Up Absurd".
Alex Comfort (1920 – 2000), gerontologist and advocate
of sexual liberation; wrote "Authority and Delinquency in the
Murray Bookchin (1921 – 2006),
author of "Post-Scarcity Anarchism"; ecologist, influence on the
anti-globalisation movement.
Nicolas Walter - writer and theoretician of anarchism,
author of e.g. “About Anarchism”.
Colin Ward – author of
"Anarchy in Action” etc; writes on practical aspects of anarchist
life-style.
1.3 Comparing anarchism with other ideas:
Anarchism and
liberalism:
The liberal position
on controlling the power of the state
is to impose constitutional
"limits" on the state. Thus the rule of law, the independence of
the judiciary,
separation of powers, etc, and such processes as judicial review, are supposed
to put controls or checks and balances on the state.
To anarchists this is
not acceptable, since the institution of the law is backed by the same power as
that of the state, and ultimately this means force. Using power to
try to remove power
would be a contradiction! Using power to restrain power seems doomed to failure
– especially if in the end the same kind of (coercive) power is
what is being used.
(Perhaps, then, anarchism is a more consistent version of liberalism?).
Anarchists obviously
reject the central tenet of liberalism, that the state is a "neutral arbiter" – some anarchists (“class
war anarchists”) view the state
as an instrument of class power (as do
Marxists), others simply oppose the use
of centralised force by a minority over the majority.
Anarchists also have
a specific view of “freedom”. They
oppose what they see as the liberal notion of abstract freedom – a
notion that is surely only
too prevalent today,
since individual freedom seems to be the highest social goal. For anarchists, freedom can only be had through and in
society,
since we are social
beings. Thus Goodwin (1982) talks of the "centrality
of society to the being of each individual".
Anarchists would
reject the often-used liberal notion of the “social contract” – in any of its
forms. If society is natural, then
there is no need for its
members to contract together.
Since the power of the state is coercive, a contract between the state and the
citizens is meaningless – a confidence trick
in fact! (See the
link to notes on Political theory and Government, above)
Whilst liberals
disagree on what is the basis of a good society (is it individual happiness, or
rights, or the maximum happiness of the maximum
number?), the good
society for anarchists should be based on morality
alone. Moreover, we can change
society in this way because society is
"natural"
and evolves in a way that we can guide, provided we are collectively
autonomous. (See Kropotkin on this
point, below).
Anarchism and
Marxism:
Whereas Marxist
theory says that it is the working class
- the proletariat - that will bring socialism, the anarchist view of social
order is such that it is
possible for other
groups (e.g. the peasantry) to bring about an anarchist society. This
difference of outlook led to conflict after the Russian
Revolution,
in the
less likely to be precise
and strict in their definition of “class” – whereas for Marxists the key issue
is the relationship to the means of production, for
anarchists it is “who exercises power over whom?”
As suggested already,
many anarchists believe in a natural
evolution to a higher form of society. Thus anarchists have more faith in
nature, we might
say, whilst Marxists
have faith in history.
Because of their
belief that we all have a natural tendency towards peaceful and democratic
co-operation, and because the current social order (no
matter how
“liberal”!) is seen as repressive, anarchists favour spontaneity. Marxists, and especially Leninists, frequently stress
the need for order and
“discipline”. After all, if history is
following a clear pattern then we must at least obey that and not give in to
whims! More seriously, the ruling
class will not give
up power without a struggle, and it has so many weapons at its disposal,
Marxists would say, that opposition needs to be well-
organised and
disciplined to overcome it. Anarchists would also tend to be flexible and pragmatic rather than
rigid and dogmatic in terms of their
theory.
Although it is
possible to exaggerate the difference, we could also say that
Marxists/socialists are more collectivist
in outlook, whereas anarchists put
more stress on freedom of the individual: on the other
hand, anarchism is not simply “individualist”.
The ideal form of
organisation for anarchists is (small) self-sufficient
communities, whereas Marxists are prepared to “use” the state at least in the
“transition” from
capitalism to socialism. This is, for some anarchists, another highly
contentious point: some (perhaps the most “purist”) anarchists
will not compromise
in any way with the existing nation-state – thus they are not interested in
“improvements” to the existing law, or institutions
(education, the
welfare state), whilst most socialists are prepared to form alliances with
existing parties, or to use the state apparatus if necessary, and
to struggle to
improve the workers’ lot.
In terms of strategy, whilst Marxists talk of “capturing the state” which will then "wither away" once the working
class is in power, anarchists stress the immediate rejection and destruction of the state. In the Russian Revolution,
anarchists were at first on the side of Lenin; however they soon learned that
Lenin didn’t trust them and wanted all power to be focussed in the Bolshevik
Party.
Whilst Marxists and
socialists believe in the necessity for capitalism
to develop to a higher stage before socialism can be established,
anarchists not
only believe in
spontaneous change, but some could be seen as nostalgic for the past.
Anarchists are often suspicious of
"progress", especially as this
is so often seen now
in terms of material or capitalist “progress”. Anarchists would stress “quality of life” rather than (though
not at the expense of!)
“standard of living”
– hence also we often find anarchists or libertarian socialists involved in the
creative arts. (The arts, for
Marxists can be
problematic: what to
make of art-products in a capitalist or “bourgeois” society? Must art either
reflect or reject current social values? Is there such a
thing as socialist
art? The history of the arts in the
I have stressed the differences between anarchism and
Marxism so far, but it is important to note several crucial similarities,
especially the opposition
to institutionalised
private property - Proudhon, before Marx in fact, argued that workers are not
paid for the value they create, and that “property is theft”.
My understanding of this (in
light of Proudhon’s defence of ‘private property’ is
that it means ownership of property which enables some to control others – what
Marxists would call ‘ownership of the means of production.’ Many anarchists
envisage an ideal society in which property, money and above all capital no
longer exist.
One of the most
systematic anarchist thinkers, Kropotkin, saw that there was a connection
between the nature of the state, wage labour, and surplus
value (see below).
1.4 History of the term anarchism, and some
further points of clarification:
1.4.1 History of the term “anarchism” (See
Woodcock 1962 ch 2):
There is a long history, especially in
-
there have been religious movements such as the
Anabaptists, who preached free love and the abolition of private property, and
who saw Christ as the earliest communist
-
during the English Civil War, there were demands for
more participation in politics, from the Levellers (so-called because of their
demand to “level” the social order). A more radical group were the “Diggers”,
so called because they reclaimed common land (during the enclosures) by digging
it
-
the word was first used pejoratively during the French
Revolution, but as noted, Proudhon was the first to give it a positive
connotation; however he didn't establish a "movement"
-
there were some ideas and
movements that appeared as a “spin-off” from the French Revolution, for example
“mutualité”
(some of Proudhon's followers used this term to
emphasise workers' mutual-aid associations); while Proudhon was the first to
use the term favourably for himself, he did not establish a movement. During
the Revolution there were also discussions of federalism: the allocating of
power to districts, and there were also many “sociétés” (societies) advocating
democracy, – Condorcet also used the term. Note also the “enragés”.
-
the Paris Commune of
1871, whilst not anarchist-inspired, nevertheless practised direct democracy
(delegates who could be recalled if they did not stick to what they were instructed
to argue).
1.4.2 Is anarchism utopian?
Woodcock argues
convincingly that anarchists actually oppose
utopias, since a utopia is fixed and would be rigid and stultifying.
"Perfection" means there can be no
further growth.
Anarchists, as already suggested, do not have a
blueprint for an ideal society, nor do they have a rigid dogma, because society
evolved with man - hence we should strive to make human society reflect nature.
For example, Kropotkin society is in a continual evolution – there should
be no crystallisation and immobility.
1.4.3 Anarchists and rebellion:
Anarchists would not
support rebellion for its own sake, but anyone who rebels against fixed (and
therefore authoritarian) institutions is not necessarily bad or
antisocial.
Anarchists have often been confused with terrorists or
nihilists because (i) some have advocated or even
practised assassination of political leaders or Royalty (ii)
because they argue that to
build a new order we have to destroy the old. Bakunin, in particular, stressed
the positive role of destruction: "let us put our trust in the
eternal spirit which
destroys and annihilates ... because it is the… eternally creative source of
all life. The passion for destruction is also a creative passion!"
(Woodcock 1962 p 11)
Assassinations carried out in
Will) who were not
strictly anarchists.
Compare also Durutti: "We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We
are going to inherit the earth. There is not the slightest doubt about that.
The bourgeoisie may blast
and ruin its own world
before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world, here in our
hearts..." (loc cit p 12).
1.4.4 Why is anarchism feared?
For many, the
destructive aspect of anarchism is bound to be frightening. But it may well be
that there is a deeper reason for the fear, since anarchism, by throwing
responsibility onto each of us, confronts the insecure, who are afraid
to exercise true freedom (though they may secretly wish for it....). E. Fromm’s book “The Fear
of Freedom” is
pertinent here. In this argument, that although freedom is best for us we don’t
always want it, I see a link between anarchism and existentialism. (See
Notes on Existentialism (Sartre))
Of course, anarchism as a theory is always attacked by
those who have power, as they don't want to lose it. And we must not forget the
power that our rulers have to shape our ideas and persuade us that anarchism is
dangerous, impractical or utopian! Given
the “overtones” already associated with the word, it is only too easy to
portray even the most gentle anarchists as bomb-carrying terrorists!
1.4.5 What is the appeal of anarchism?
As noted, anarchism
appeals to artists and to intellectuals, and to anyone of a radical frame of
mind who is not attracted to Marxism or other branches of socialism.
Marxism may be
rejected because it is too rigid, or because of its narrow appeal to the
working classes: hence anarchism is an alternative that is especially appealing
to
those of an independent
turn of mind, and perhaps to those best described as classless or déclassé. Even members of the aristocracy
or gentry have found anarchism
appealing – for example,
Kropotkin himself, who was a “Prince” (a Russian title with not quite the same meaning
as in English, but still indicating someone “high-
born”).
As we have seen, anarchists
come in many shapes and colours!
There are disagreements over:
Individualism/collectivism
The use of money or its abolition
The ownership of property, or its abolition, or communal
ownership
Violence/non-violence.
Here is a brief “classification”
with examples (drawn from Goodwin and Woodcock):
Individualist – e.g. Stirner,
Godwin
Mutualist – e.g. Proudhon,
whose followers established French sections of First International 1865,
believed in the right of the individual to possess property, but not to own the
means of production
Collectivist – e.g. Bakunin late 1860s: believed in
possession by voluntary associations, and that the individual has the right to
the product of his/her work, or its equivalent
Anarcho-communist – e.g.
Kropotkin: believed in the abolition of wage-labour, and the formation of
communes
Anarcho-syndicalist - 1880s
revolutionary trade unions as organs of struggle and as basis of a new society.
The Spanish CNT is the best example, but there are also the Wobblies
– the IWW, who are still organised!
Pacifist – e.g. Tolstoy, Gandhi. Their followers would
support the establishment of libertarian communities, and the practice of
non-resistance... Their modern descendents tend to accept (non-violent) direct
action, which puts them closer to anarcho-syndicalists.
(i) Overview:
The essence of
anarchist organisation is flexibility: often an organisation will be set up
temporarily, for a limited goal or purpose. Likewise, anarchists may appoint
temporary “leaders” or a
“chair” for a meeting, - the danger, for
anarchists, lies in institutionalised
power.
This also suggests
that it is difficult to argue that anarchism has failed: certainly it would be
illogical to say that it has failed because Anarchists haven’t seized power!
The task of changing
the whole of society may take a very long time, and in the meanwhile anarchists
may have to be content with trying to lead one’s life in a way that
is consistent with
one’s anarchist principles, and trying to apply these principles in different
areas of activity. The influence of anarchists is to be found in many areas:
the anti-bomb/anti-war
movement (the Committee of 100 and the Spies for Peace were organised in an
anarchist manner), the anti-road campaigns (Stop the City etc),
environmental movements (Earth
First, Greenpeace), campaigns against animal cruelty, and especially the
anti-globalisation movement.
(ii) Updates:
1. According to Jenni Russell, Guardian
The first is research in the Nov 2011 issue of the journal
Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, which shows that
powerful people make less accurate decisions than less powerful people –
especially because they ignore the opinions of others (when others’ input is
valuable, and others can point out a person’s distortions).
Secondly, Daniel Kahneman in a book out this
month: Thinking, Fast and Slow, shows how unwittingly flawed many
professionals’ judgement is – several years’ research on market traders showed
they were usually wrong about the way the market was going; and at autopsies,
those doctors who said they were most confident (‘completely confident’) about
their diagnosis of the patient when alive were most often wrong (40% of the
time!).
Karen McVeigh also quotes spokespeople for OWS saying they have had a
victory in shifting the discussion of the current crisis from one exclusively
about the ‘credit crunch’ to one about poverty and inequality.
3. Anarchists have supported the travellers camp Dale
Farm, which has finally been closed down by Basildon Council – http://dalefarm.wordpress.com see Freedom Nov 2011, images at http://www.unmanageablevariables.net
words: http://www.historyblock.org
4. David Sloan Wilson
on co-operation:
5. See also notes on
Power and Protest, especially:
The anti-war movement:
link
The Environmental
Movement: link
Kropotkin was born into a family that was part of the
minor aristocracy in
He joined the military, and became a Page to the Tsar.
However, when a Polish uprising was repressed violently, his disillusionment
began.
As a member of the growing bureaucracy he drew up
proposals for reform of the education system, but he saw that top-down change
was not bringing results. On his travels, as a geographer, mapping and
surveying
As a result of his activities he spent two periods in
gaol – he even escaped once! He spent
some time living in
There were thousands at his funeral in 1921, but at this
time the Bolshevik government was exerting itself to stop anarchists from
organising - the Cheka arrested, tortured &
executed anarchists (even Tolstoyans, who were
non-violent).
Words of a Rebel 1885 (articles in Le Revolte/La
Revolte)
Conquest of Bread 1892 (ditto) [Cambridge U.P. 1995]
Act for Yourselves (published 1988 - articles in Freedom)
Fields, Factories and Workshops 1899
Memoirs of a Revolutionist 1899
Anarchist Communism 1891
Mutual Aid 1902 [New York University Press 1972, see also Freedom Press
1987]
The State 1903
Modern Science and Anarchism 1901
Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature 1905
The Great French Revolution 1909
Ethics (published) 1922
2.3 "Mutual Aid": Commentary, with Extracts:
2.3.1 Introduction:
His
best-known book, Mutual Aid was produced as result of Kropotkin’s
travels through
Kropotkin
called his method and approach "scientific" (see extract (3) below),
and this is indisputably true, in the sense that he used observation and the
accumulation of data, followed by generalisations (cf. Aristotle).
The book
covers co-operation amongst:
- animals
- what Kropotkin called "savages" (i.e.
pre-industrial peoples)
- the "barbarians" i.e. those peoples regarded
historically as “outside of” civilisation
- people living in Medieval cities
- present day peoples.
These
examples of co-operation are described and discussed below, but it is important
to point out that there are several other important arguments in the book, for
example:
- on the origin of
the law:
Kropotkin, believing that co-operation amongst humans is natural, saw legal
systems as having emerged over time, as a result of free agreements becoming
“fixed”, and the agreed arrangements being exploited by a few to take
authority. This led to fixed rules, and to the allocation to a few individuals
of the task of resolving disputes, rather than the community maintaining
responsibility. Punishment also, having originally been decided on by the
community – often with some notion of reparation involved – became fixed. (See
our constant argument today over sentencing).
- on the evolution of
“society” and “the individual”: Kropotkin argues that it is wrong to suggest
that, historically, there were first individual humans, then families and group
of families (leading to tribes) – the evidence is that society comes first,
both in a chronological sense, and (“ontologically”) in that individuals are
shaped by and maintained by society.
This is reflected in his view on ethics (see extracts 1 and 3 below).
2.3.2: A summary of
“Mutual Aid”
(page references are
to: Kropotkin: Mutual Aid – A Factor of Evolution, Ed. Paul Avrich,
Chapters 1, 2: Mutual
aid among animals:
Kropotkin assembles a truly amazing number of examples
of co-operation among even the “humblest” of animals: starting with the very
simplest, he works his way through the biologists’ classifications up to the
highest vertebrates and then to humans.
One of the first examples he gives (1972, p 34) is of burying beetles (so-called
because they bury the corpses of small dead animals to lay their eggs in): “As
a rule, they lead an isolated life, but when one of them has discovered the
corpse of a mouse or of a bird, which it could hardly manage to bury itself, it
calls four, six, or ten other beetles to perform the operation with united
efforts; … and they bury it in a very considerate way, without quarrelling as
to which will enjoy the privilege of laying its eggs in the buried corpse.” When an experimenter hung a bird’s corpse
from a stick, the beetles worked together to try to retrieve it!
He goes on to write of the social practices of ants,
bees, etc, and birds: he describes (p 41)
the observations of N. Syevertsoff, who watched a
white eagle circling in the air calling out to other eagles – it had found food
(a dead horse) on the ground below and did not descend to eat until the group
had joined it; he notes how birds gather in flocks “for the mere pleasure of
the flight”; how sparrows share food; how parrots have become the most
intelligent of birds through their practice of social life, etc. (On
intelligence as a result of social organisation, see the reference in extract 3
below to individualization, which
Kropotkin argues depends on social organisation). The migration of birds, as he notes at the
start of chapter 2 is of course a highly organised social phenomenon.
With mammals, he notes that there are far more social species
than there are “carnivores who do not associate”. It strikes me over and over,
when going through this book, how our own picture of animal life has been
distorted by the preoccupation with animals that demonstrate aggressiveness,
rather than the many more examples of peaceful co-operation. This is a reflection, I am sure, of the
morbid general social obsession with death and violence… It’s hardly “news”
that millions and millions of people get on perfectly happily with their
families, friends workmates and neighbours – but should one murder occur we all
have to know about it!!
Many mammals live in colonies, Kropotkin points out:
deer, antelopes, gazelles, buffaloes, wild goats and sheep – also squirrels,
beavers, mice, marmots and other rodents – also, of course, elephants and
monkeys, wild horses etc, etc. Only members of the cat tribe prefer isolation,
but even among lions there is a tendency to hunt in company. Rodents, Kropotkin
says, show a highly-developed practice of mutual aid: squirrels live in
separate nests, and accumulate their own food, but if food in an area runs
short they will migrate together. They also play together: marmots, for
example, have their own nests, but there are tracks between the nests showing
that they spend a lot of time visiting each other!
Kropotkin comes back to this point on p 66-7: play can be a “school for the
proper behaviour of the young in mature life”, but it can also be simply a
“manifestation of an excess of forces” - “the joy of life”, and a “desire to communicate
with other individuals”… - a “manifestation of sociability proper”. For
anarchists (in contrast to Marxists!) play, rather than work, is an essential
activity. Since Kropotkin’s time we have learned how
important play is to children’s development, and we have found how playful -
and intelligent - dolphins and whales are.
After filling the first two chapters with such examples
and arguments, Kropotkin concludes (p
65):
"We thus see, even from the above
brief review, that life in societies is... the rule in the animal world, the
law of Nature, and it reaches its fullest development with the higher
vertebrates. Those species which live
solitary.. are relatively few...”
“Association is found in the animal
world at all degrees of evolution…. But, in proportion as we ascend the scale
of evolution, we see association growing more and more conscious.… it ceases to
be simply instinctive, it becomes reasoned”.
Moreover, association, higher up the evolutionary ladder, takes more
subtle and sophisticated forms – e.g. temporary association for a particular
purpose (again, note the point made in 1.6 above, that it is when association
becomes fixed and unchangeable that problems arise).
Chapter 3, 4: Mutual
Aid among "savages" (peoples in pre-developed societies) and “barbarians” (the peoples
who invaded
Kropotkin raises the question: how did original
(prehistoric) man live? This had been an issue for political philosophers such
as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau in the previous century. Kropotkin’s
position is opposed to that of Hobbes, who believed that early humans acted as
self-interested individuals and were therefore constantly in conflict with each
other (before the establishment of a strong central controlling power).
Kropotkin sees no reason why we should not view humans as “part of nature” just
as are animals etc. Since animals show strong tendencies to social life, how
could humans be any different?
Of course, Kropotkin says, it is hard to come to any
conclusion from the small amount of direct or positive evidence about
prehistoric man. However, studying primitive races shows traces of ways of
living from earlier times, so these
chapters have a dual purpose: to argue for a natural and historical origin to
mutual aid, as well as to give concrete examples of mutual aid in surviving
“savage” peoples.
For Kropotkin, the evidence shows (contrary to what was
argued by many at the time) that the family
is a late development in evolution:
the earliest form of social
organisation must have been tribes or
bands. There are several reasons for his arguing this:
(i) As Darwin himself pointed out, man is more likely to
have evolved from a weak, social species such as the chimpanzee than from a
stronger and unsociable species such as the gorilla (pp 84-5). (Aggressive
animals organise themselves into small families, more peaceful ones into larger
groupings…).
(ii)
There is also some significant positive evidence:
- there are huge piles of flint tools and chippings in
many places, showing that people gathered together to make tools and weapons
for hunting;
- there are also sites where caves can be found large
numbers in groups;
- the shell-heaps found along the coast of lakes in Denmark
(which were thought to be made by nature not by humans) it is now clear must
have been built up over a long time by hundreds of small tribes;
- villages tend to be clustered
together, as are the 24 small villages by the side of Lac Leman in
Kropotkin goes on, as we would expect, to survey
existing knowledge about people living in what we would now call pre-industrial
or developing societies. Here the most
common form of organisation by far is the clan,
which has a complex organisation and
rules of behaviour. For Kropotkin, nature of clan organisation shows the
preparedness of individuals to put aside their own passions, drives and needs
for the sake of the wider society. What is more, clans have existed for “scores
of thousands of years”, so they must have been stable and practical!
Among the examples of clans and their characteristics,
Kropotkin discusses:
Bushmen and others: they are
noted by many observers for their sociability,
and they live by a complex set of moral
rules; they are always said to be good-hearted, disinterested, true to
their promises and grateful. These are all qualities “which could develop only by
being practised within the tribe” (p 93).
Hottentots and others share
goods, and live in a form of communism;
for example, if someone suddenly becomes wealthier than the others, they give
their goods away.
Amongst some peoples, e.g. the Papuans, there are fairly frequent feuds. However, Kropotkin argues that the cause of these feuds is superstition (i.e. a belief in black
magic, so that someone in a neighbouring tribe is blamed when illness occurs).
He stresses that these feuds do not arise as a result of economic pressures or
competition, as western observers might think
The Eskimos
practice collective justice: when
someone offends, they are shamed in the eyes of the others, and this in itself
is a strong form of punishment.
However, as Kropotkin acknowledges, there are practices
among these people that would horrify us: notably infanticide and parricide (killing, or allowing the very young and
the very old to die, without trying to keep them alive). It seems particularly strange that this
should be the case with people who are very close to their children. Kropotkin
tries to understand the context and background to these practices, and to find
something positive in them: he also argues that they are not as widespread as
some claim, and in fact their extent has been "extremely
exaggerated." Yet the fact that the practice exists at all, and is found
amongst most “savages” is significant. Kropotkin stresses that these things are
done out of a sense of loyalty to the tribe: in situations of shortage or
difficulty, everyone has to think of the survival of the tribe as a whole,
which would be put in jeopardy by trying to feed too many mouths or by
expending too much time and energy on “carrying” those who cannot contribute
any more to the well-being of the tribe. As he puts it, these things are done:
“as an obligation towards the tribe, and a means of rearing the already growing
children. Kropotkin quotes other observers who say that the “savages” ” do not “multiply without stint”, but take
all kinds of measures to reduce the birth-rate (p 102).
Kropotkin takes the same approach with superstition, head-hunting, blood revenge
etc: he puts them in context, stressing always that there is a sense of morality (not an absence of morality)
behind these practices – thus strengthening his case that morality is “natural”
and evolves with human society. He does recognise the danger of “idealising”
“savages” (as had been done by many writers in the 18th century) but
he feels that scientists have now gone to the other extreme (p 109). Scientists
of his time were too pre-occupied with trying to prove the “animal” nature of
primitive man.
“The savage is not an
ideal of virtue, nor is he an ideal of “savagery”… he identifies his own
existence with that of his tribe; and without that quality mankind never would
have attained the level it has now” (p 110).
Of course we might want to question this: doesn't
Kropotkin underestimate the power of the community over the individual? For
example, isn’t it only too easy for a community to persuade someone that their
life was no longer worth living?
In Chapter 4
Kropotkin notes the prevalence of warfare,
which belongs to a later stage of human development, and which, he says,
emerged with the development of nations and states. He says that “the pessimist
philosopher triumphantly concludes that warfare and oppression are the very
essence of human nature” (p 113) – but historians ignore the many acts of
co-operation, the peaceful toil going on amongst the majority, whilst it is
only a minority who are actually fighting battles and wars. The contemporary
relevance is striking again: the media care more about bringing us images and
stories of conflict and suffering than they do positive news of human happiness
and co-operation.
A historically important event which caused war and
conflict was the migration from
These conquests and this mixing also led to the
beginnings of a new basis for organisation i.e. territorial rather than consanguine (organisation by the
relationship of peoples to each other at birth). Thus we now have village communities, which also allow
the family to become more independent. Kropotkin notes how extensive (among
many different peoples) the new kind of organisation, the village community,
was. In opposition to other authorities,
Kropotkin says that the village community must have preceded serfdom: “we do
not know one single human race or one single nation which has not had its
period of village communities… it was a universal phase of evolution, a natural
outcome of the clan organisation – a union between families considered as of
common descent and owning a certain territory in common” (p118 -9). He also
notes how aspects of life in this kind of social organisation have persisted
over a long period of time, for example the village folk-motes (assemblies with
judicial and other powers).
He stresses that the villages did recognise private property, but mainly with
regard to “movables”; land was always held in common (whereas during the time
of the old gens,
hunting, fishing and the culture of orchards was communal). However,
consumption (i.e. partaking of meals) became less communal. Meals took place in
families, except for festivals (and the “harvest festival” is a remnant of old
communal village practices). There was also a lot of work carried out
communally: digging irrigation canals, mowing, road-making, fences, bridges,
etc.
There are some very important observations about justice: “ every quarrel arising
between two individuals was treated as a communal affair… - even the offensive
words that might have been uttered during a quarrel being considered as an
offence to the community and its ancestors (p 124)” – “every dispute was
brought first before mediators or arbiters, and it mostly ended with them” – if
the dispute could not be settled this way, it was taken before the folkmote, which had procedures for
finding the sentence, settling the dispute etc. Again, this way of organising
and finding a just solution to disputes lasted for more than two thousand years
in some parts of the world, surviving even the transition to feudalism:
“The moral authority
of the commune was so great that even… when the village communities fell into
submission to the feudal lord, they maintained their judicial powers” (p 125)
With regard to conceptions of punishment, at first the villages practised like for like
punishment; gradually however the idea of compensation was introduced.
Kropotkin stresses that this was not just a “fine” for wrongdoing (which would
not prevent crime if people thought they could afford to risk a fine). Often
(especially for murder) the amount of compensation demanded was set so high
that the wrongdoer was put permanently into debt to the wronged (even sometimes
being adopted by them!). There are, he says, remnants of this practice in some
parts of
During this period, although war did occur, of course,
there were many institutions that were set up to prevent it or to provide an
alternative, says Kropotkin. He argues that even the fact that the profession
of “warriors” (as specialists in fighting) arose indicates the desire for most
people not to be involved in war. (See next chapter)
As with the sections of the book that deal with animals,
there are many examples given of historical peoples and of peoples today who
have similar kinds of social organisation (Mongol Buryates,
Red Indians, Chinese on the banks of the Usuri, the Kabyles (in Algeria, who follow Islamic practices), and several more. But, as Kropotkin says, at the end of this
chapter: “More illustrations would
simply involve me in tedious repetitions, so strikingly similar are the
barbarian societies under all climates and amidst all races.” (p 139)
Chapters 5 and 6:
Mutual Aid in the Medieval City
Again, Kropotkin’s position is
that the mass of people have no desire for war and conflict. The vast bulk of
“the Teutons, the Saxons, the Celts, the Slavonians and so on” settled on the lands they had
conquered soon after their arrival. There is evidence of “barbarian codes”
which show “societies composed of peaceful
agricultural communities, not hordes of men at war with each other.” (p
142) They “covered the country with
villages and farmhouses.” Warlike pursuits were left to scholae,
that is “trusts” of men, “gathered around temporary chieftains”, who wandered
about offering their services to the people, who were “only too anxious to be
left in peace.”
Life in the villages was not secure, owing to unstable
physical (e.g. weather) conditions, and to threats from new waves of migrating
tribes. Whole villages would be abandoned as their inhabitants went off to
search for new places to live. The bands of fighting men were then able to
offer to assist and defend the peasants, who eventually “fell into servile obligations towards the protector of the territory.”
These protectors thus got wealth (from the payments they expected from the
peasants), and power.
Finally, the headmen
or chieftains of these scholae protectors (“kings, dukes, knyazes and the like”) came to be
entrusted with the administration of
justice – especially if they were regarded as having knowledge of the ways
of settling disputes that the tribes had developed over time. Kropotkin gives
examples (p 145) of the different national assemblies etc which emerged at this
time, Authority thus went to those who had knowledge, or who were regarded as
impartial. For example, the Slavonians [as Kropotkin
calls them] in north-western
All this, Kropotkin argues, undermines the belief that
the origin of authority is purely military power – rather such power has “its origin in the peaceful
inclination of the masses”. This
account, he says, shows the true origins
of feudalism.
Kropotkin states that the next surprising development,
which seems to have happened all over
According to Kropotkin, “feudalism did not imply a
dissolution of the village community”, but the
village kept its two characteristic powers with regard to: (i)
possession of the land, and (ii) self-jurisdiction. They maintained the folk-mote’s jurisdiction, nominating
judges with whom any official sent by a superior lord would have to work.
During the tenth and eleventh centuries
the towns gradually strengthened this freedom from higher control. Many towns
and cities developed charters, which
show a common idea in the union of the town, but great variety in details
between different towns. (p 160) Given its self-jurisdiction, the city was in
effect a “State”, Kropotkin says.
At the same time, but organised on a different basis,
the guilds served to bring groups
together within the city in order to carry out a particular function (e.g. building
a cathedral) or to organise a particular trade or craft. The universality of
guild-type organisations is noted: in
Two fundamental principles are the basis of guild
organisation: self-jurisdiction over
quarrels within the guild, and mutual support, i.e. social duties (p 155).
The variety of guilds is fascinating. Kropotkin mentions
guilds of: serfs and of freemen, and of both; guilds formed temporarily for a
special purpose such as a trading expedition and guilds which have lasted for
centuries. Guilds brought together merchants, craftsmen, hunters and peasants;
priests, painters, teachers, even beggars and lost women!! (p 156).
Alongside this organisation of its members into guilds,
each city or town was also divided into territorial
unions – “the street, the parish, the section” – which had jurisdiction over
crime, its own aldermen, priests, and maybe even its own militia. So the
medieval city was “a double federation:
of all householders united into small territorial units … and of individuals
united by oath into guilds according to their profession” (p 162).
Communal purchases were made for the cities, the cities
were collectively responsible for losses by any individual merchant, and in times
of scarcity everyone collectively bore the burden. Above all, this kind of
community meant that: “so long as the
free cities existed no one could die in their midst from starvation, as is
unhappily too often the case in our own times.” (p 163)
In Chapter 6,
Kropotkin explores further the organisation of the medieval cities, their
achievements, the conflict between town and country, and the decline of the
independent cities.
Here (p 169, and Appendix 11), there is a fascinating
discussion of the special attributes of the market-place: the location where trading occurred. Kropotkin points
out that at first trading would take place only with “outsiders”, and that
there was a need for a protected area
where the traders could meet. There were rules concerning the market-place:
arms could not be carried there, “no feud could be prosecuted” on it, and if a
quarrel arose amongst those trading, it had to be brought before whoever were
the protectors of the market-place (the community tribunal, or that of the bishop
or lord or king’s representative). In the market-place there would be a pole
with an emblem representing the king or a lord or a local saint, or a cross –
depending on “whether the market was under the protection of the king, the
lord, the local church, or the folkmote.”
Note: I
am reminded here of Castoriadis’s use of the term agora to describe the practice of
allocating a public space in which democratic discussion could take place (See
the website link in my notes at: Recommencing
Revolution).
Clearly there was a danger that the merchants’ guild would form an oligarchy,(and when merchants’
guilds did become more powerful, Kropotkin suggests, the power of the city was
in decline); however, the craft guilds
were strong enough to counterbalance the power of the merchants for a long
time. The craft guild encompassed those who produced goods (manual workers)
those who bought raw materials, and those who sold the goods (merchants).
Moreover, the master and the apprentice would belong to the same guild –
distinctions between them being “at the outset a mere difference of age and
skill, not of wealth and power.”
Kropotkin notes that only much later, in the sixteenth century, when the
kings had destroyed the independent cities and the craft guilds, was it
possible to become a master simply by acquiring wealth.
Manual workers, and
work itself, had a high status in these cities: ideas of “just” workmanship, “rightness”
of materials (and I would add, a “just”
price) were central. After all, the guild was responsible for the quality
of goods, and it was in the collective interest to ensure that standards were
maintained. Moreover, production was primarily for consumption within the city
– what would be the point of shoddy workmanship, or inferior products?
As many socialists
and anarchists have pointed out, (and even Aristotle believed this): when goods
are produced for exchange and not for use, something changes in the process of
production. The purpose of production becomes profit not the usefulness or
reliability of the product.
“The more we learn
about the medieval city, the more we are convinced that at no time has labour
enjoyed such conditions of prosperity and respect as when city life stood at
its highest.” (p 172) Hours of work were regulated, and the fact that the guild had
autonomy, or as Kropotkin called it self-jurisdiction (on anything which did
not hamper other guilds), meant that the guild was a superior form of
organisation to our modern-day trade unions. (Again, see Notes
on the Labour Movement).
Kropotkin is clearly full of admiration for the medieval
city: “The medieval cities have
undoubtedly rendered an immense service to European civilization. They have prevented
it from being drifted into the theocracies and despotical
states of old; they have endowed it with the variety, the self-reliance, the
force of initiative, and the immense intellectual and material energies it now
possesses.”
The last part of this chapter deals with the conflict
between city and countryside, and the decline of the cities. The two phenomena
were interlinked, as Kropotkin sees it, since the cities “based their wealth upon commerce and industry, to the
neglect of agriculture” and therefore came to treat the peasants as
outsiders, even with hostility. Some
feudal lords lived in the cities, and they were resistant to being subordinate
to the city and its guilds. So powerful families arose within the cities, who
were able to defend their wealth by means of force. And when the cities fought
the rising power of the feudal lords and the king, it was for their own
protection, not seeing the peasants were on the same side, and not realising
that this would lead the peasantry to support the lords and the new monarchical
power. Most important however, as Kropotkin saw it, was the spread of the
“Roman” idea (backed up by the Christian church) of a strongly centralized
state, ruled by a semi-divine individual; this replaced the city ideals of “self-reliance and
federalism, the sovereignty of each group, and the construction of the
political body from the simple to the composite”.
It is clear from
this, if Kropotkin is right, that there are two challenges to modern-day anarchists:
how to organise our world on this decentralised basis, and how to prevent
groups emerging who will take power from us!
Chapters 7, 8: Mutual
Aid Amongst Ourselves.
Here Kropotkin deals with examples of co-operation
today, and these examples are used to support the ideas he has already set out
several times:
- all people desire order, and they then put their trust
in those who promise to deliver it
- those who are entrusted to keep order may have the
best of intentions, but they are bound to gain power, and end up abusing the
trust given to them, becoming a ruling minority
- this minority may be the wealthy, or the militarily
skilled, or those with knowledge of traditions and laws, or religious
leaders. (Note how this is a more
complex picture than the standard Marxist reduction of the source of power to
control over the means of production.)
- people also desire structured rules for behaviour, but
these have become "crystallised" and rigid, and this then destroys
freedom and morality
- the fact that there are authoritarian and exploitative
leaders, far from disproving the existence of an instinctive moral sense in
ordinary people, is in fact evidence for it, once we understand how the leaders
arose in the first place
- the responsibility, then, lies with ordinary people,
not to allow others to gain power over them: as the 1960s slogan had it: “they
only rule over us because we are on our knees”.
“And
whenever mankind had to work out a new social organisation, adapted to a new phasis (sic) of development, its constructive genius always
drew the elements and the inspiration for the new departure from that same
ever-living tendency [the mutual-aid tendency in man]. New economical and
social institutions, in so far as they were a creation of the masses, new
ethical systems, and new religions, all have originated from the same source,
and the ethical progress of our race, viewed in its broad lines, appears as a
gradual extension of the mutual-aid principles from the tribe to always larger
and larger agglomerations, so as to finally embrace one day the whole of
mankind, without respect to its divers creeds, languages, and races.” (p 194)
As
noted at the end of the previous chapters, it was in the fifteenth/sixteenth
centuries that a new form of organisation emerged in
Gradually
the mutual-aid institutions were destroyed by the rising state powers, until at
the end of the 18th century all the states of
In
a passage that I find incredibly perceptive, and that could be a comment on the
present-day, he continues:
“In
the guild - and in medieval times every man belonged to some guild or
fraternity – two “brothers” were bound to watch in turns a brother who had
fallen ill; it would be sufficient now to give one’s neighbour the address of
the nearest paupers’ hospital. In barbarian society, to assist at a fight
between two men, arising from a quarrel, and not to prevent it from taking a
fatal issue, meant to be treated oneself as a murderer; but under the theory of
the all-protecting State the bystander need not intrude: it is the policeman’s
business to interfere, or not. And while in a savage land, among the
Hottentots, it would be scandalous to eat without having loudly called out
thrice whether there is not somebody wanting to share the food, all that a
respectable citizen has to do now is pay the poor tax and let the starving
starve.
The
result is, that the theory which maintains that men can, and must, seek their
own happiness in a disregard of other people’s wants is now triumphant all
round – in law, in science, in religion.”
[see Richard Jones’s article in Guardian
G2, 25.01.07, on the social life of wasps: researchers have been puzzled by the
wasps’ tendency to socialise – since “Received wisdom is that seemingly
altruistic behaviour… pays off in genetic terms, if they help in securing a
future for their own nests… . and gene line”. Yet the wasps – 56% of them in
fact! - even join other nests and help them to feed and care for their queen.
So there seems to be a conflict between the social behaviour of these wasps and
the “selfish gene” theory!!]
The
rest of Chapter 7 deals mainly with the many instances of survival of mutual
aid practices, such as communal ownership of land, despite the State’s
determination to stamp out all such institutions.
In
Chapter 8 he first shows how the State attempted unsuccessfully to maintain
control over trade and over production and wages. Although the State found it
was unable to keep hold of these parts of the economy, since the capitalist
class was becoming more powerful all the time, nevertheless it fought to
prevent control falling into the hands of the workers. Laws, in
Kropotkin
goes on to describe the unions and their political counterparts – socialist
parties – in rather over-romanticised tones! (The years of effort and sacrifice
put in to keep a paper going, to get votes, to support each other, without any
personal ambition or hope of personal reward….). He does, however, note that there is
sometimes an element of egotism, even in co-operatives; but underlying it all is
the same spirit of solidarity and mutual aid. (p 230)
The
most intriguing passages in this part of the book are those describing
organisations that we may have forgotten, or that we may not think of as having
anything to do with mutual aid:
-
on the one hand the “friendly societies, unities of odd-fellows, the village
and town clubs organised for meeting the doctor’s bills, the dress and burial
clubs”; “the countless clubs and
alliances for the enjoyment of life, for study and research, for education and
so on” – he enumerates sports clubs, cyclists’ clubs, the Alpine Clubs with
over 100,000 members; the scientific societies (Kropotkin was a geographer,
remember!); Froebel unions (for the education of
children), etc. All are voluntary, and a few hundred years ago would have been
illegal because of the control exercised by the state or the feudal order. Of course, such “civil society” associations
as we now would call them, are still not allowed to exist in many authoritarian
countries today…
-
and on the other hand the Lifeboat Association: volunteers man hundreds of boats up and down the coast and rescue
whoever is in distress at sea, no matter what the conditions; or the way that
miners team up to go to the rescue of their fellows after a mining accident.
Alongside
this, Kropotkin tries to address counter-arguments about selfishness:
When
someone produces an example of people ignoring others’ suffering, he points out
that the miners and fishermen had a sense of community and a common interest, as
well as the common threat from outside (the sea, mining accidents etc) which
create a feeling of solidarity. In the cities there is none of this: we are
separate individuals with no common danger to oppose; moreover there is no
common tradition (or culture) as there is with miners and others, and as the
village communities shared in their stories and epics. Instead, we have the
church which is “anxious to prove that all that comes from human nature is sin”
(p 234), and writers (and journalists?) whose main idea of heroism is that of
the state or of leading military or political figures.
Later
(p 238) he notes that when the churches do speak of mutual aid they mean
“charity”, which implies the superiority of the giver over the receiver, as
well as attributing supernatural origins to such feelings! After all, the church assisted the state in
its destruction of popular mutual aid institutions. Still, Kropotkin is
generous enough to note that many church bodies do carry out charity work, and
that this must (whatever the church followers themselves believe!) be “an
outcome of the same mutual-aid tendency.”
He
also notes the growth of feelings of international solidarity among people,
despite the “jealousies which are bred by competition” and the historical rivalries
between states with their “provocations to hatred… sounded by the ghosts of a
decaying past.” (ibid)
The
final paragraphs of this remarkable book may be said to fall into romanticism
again: this time it is Kropotkin arguing that charitable acts are more common
among the poor. The stories he tells are touching and sentimental – but before
we dismiss them we should note that recent studies have found that the less
well-off in fact contribute proportionally more to charity than the rich. There
is also no doubt that when he was writing the poor had a stronger sense of
community than they do now.
The
best final comment to make might be that Kropotkin notes two distinct
tendencies in society today: one that favours mutual aid and one that opposes it.
His book, and these notes, were written to encourage the former tendency, and
to discourage pessimistic notions that we will never have control of our own
lives.
3. Further Extracts from Kropotkin’s
writings:
(1)
Comments on “the moral sentiment”: Adam Smith’s
“Theory of Moral Sentiment”, and
“In a fine work, left to slumber
in silence by religious prejudice…(i.e. Adam Smith’s
“Theory of Moral Sentiment” - the book was on the Black List for a century, Kropotkin
says) Adam Smith has laid his finger on the true origin of moral sentiment. He
does not seek it in mystic religious feelings; he finds it in the feeling of
sympathy.
You see a man beat a child. You
know that the beaten child suffers. Your imagination causes you yourself to
suffer the pain inflicted upon the child; or perhaps its tears, its little
suffering face tell you. And, if you are not a coward, you rush at the brute
who is beating it and rescue it from him.
This example by itself explains almost
all the moral sentiments. The more powerful your imagination, the better you
can picture to yourself what any being feels when it is made to suffer, and the
more intense and delicate will your moral sense be. The more you are drawn to
put yourself in the place of the other person, the more you feel the pain
inflicted upon him, the insult offered him, the injustice of which he is a
victim, the more you will be urged to act so that you may prevent the pain,
injustice or insult….
Adam Smith’s only mistake was not
to have understood that this same feeling of sympathy, in its habitual usage,
exists among animals as well as amongst men.
Pace the popularisers of
… the
more the principles of solidarity and equality are developed in an animal
society and have become habitual to it, the more chance has it of surviving…
The more thoroughly each member of society feels his solidarity with each other
member of society, the more completely are developed in all of them those two
qualities which are the main factors of all progress: courage, on the one hand,
and, on the other, free individual initiative.”
Notes:
I deal
elsewhere with the “imagination” (See Imagining Other, and forthcoming further
notes on Castoriadis).
Kropotkin
makes an important point when he stresses solidarity and free individual
initiative as interdependent: as I understand it, he is saying that we cannot
exercise individual freedom unless we
have the social stability and sense of security that collective solidarity
brings.
Note
that Kropotkin talks of an instinct for co-operation, and in the (1902)
Introduction to Mutual Aid (Kropotkin 1972, p 21) he spells out that he is not
talking about “love” (as had Louis Büchner in a book
of 1882), nor of “(personal) sympathy”: “It is a feeling infinitely wider … -
an instinct
(my emphasis) that has been slowly developed among animals and men in the
course of an extremely long evolution, and which has taught animals and men
alike the force they can borrow from the practice of mutual aid and support,
and the joys they can find in social life.”
(2)
From the Preface to the 1914 Edition of
Mutual Aid:
[Kropotkin starts by saying that
biologists have begun to accept his idea that amongst animals mutual aid
“represents in evolution an important progressive
element”. He criticises current
thinking, however, for exaggerating both the extent of the “internal” struggle (i.e. within the species, as
against the struggle of the species against external forces) for survival, and
its importance in evolution, and he
says this distortion has been made “much to the regret of Darwin himself”.]
“however, if the importance of
mutual aid and support among animals begins to win recognition among modern
thinkers, this is not yet the case for the second part of my thesis – the
importance of these two factors in the history of man, for the growth of his progressive
institutions.
The leaders of contemporary
thought are still inclined to maintain that the masses had little concern in
the evolution of the sociable institutions of man, and that all progress made
in this direction was due to the intellectual, political, and military leaders
of the inert masses.
The present war [i.e. the First
World War]… will show how much the creative, constructive genius of the masses
of the people is required, whenever a nation has to live through a difficult
moment of history.
It was not the masses of the
European nations who prepared the present war-calamity and worked out its
barbarous methods: it was their rulers, their intellectual leaders….
And if… we may still be sure that
the teachings and traditions of human solidarity will, after all, emerge intact
from the present ordeal, it is because, by the side of the extermination
organised from above, we see thousands of those manifestations of spontaneous
mutual aid, of which I speak in this book…
The peasant women who, on seeing
German and Austrian war prisoners wearily trudging through the streets of Kiev,
thrust into their hands bread, apples, and occasionally a copper coin; the
thousands of women and men who attend the wounded, without making any
distinction between friend and foe, officer or soldier; … the cooperative
kitchens and popottes communistes
which sprang up all over France… - all these facts and many more similar ones
are the seeds of new forms of life. They will lead to new institutions, just as
mutual aid in the earlier ages of mankind gave origin later on to the best
progressive institutions of civilised society.”
(3)
“Harmony Without Government” – the Encyclopaedia
Britannica entry, written by Kropotkin in 1910, reprinted in 14th
edition, 1926 (vol. 1 pp 873-4, 877).
“Anarchism, the name given to a
principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived
without government … - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by
submission to law or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements
concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely
constituted for the sake of production and consumption… Such a society would represent nothing
immutable. On the contrary – as is seen in organic life at large – harmony
would (it is contended) result from an ever-changing adjustment and
re-adjustment of equilibrium between the multitude of forces and influences,
and this adjustment would be the easier to obtain as none of the forces would
enjoy a special protection from the state.
If, it is contended, society were
organised on these principles, man would not be limited in the free exercise of
his powers in productive work by a capitalist monopoly, maintained by the
state; nor would he be limited in the exercise of his will by a fear of
punishment, or by obedience towards individuals or metaphysical entities, which
both lead to depression of initiative and servility of mind. He would be guided
in his actions by his own understanding, which necessarily would bear the
impression of a free action and reaction between his own self and the ethical
conception of his surroundings. Man would thus be enabled to obtain the full
development of his faculties, intellectual, artistic and moral, without being
hampered by overwork for the monopolists, or by the servility and inertia of
the mind of the great number. He would thus be able to reach full individualization, which is not possible
either under the present system of individualism, or under any system of State
Socialism in the so-called Volkstaat (popular State).
Scientific
Anarchist-Communism. … the present
writer for many years endeavoured to developed the following ideas: to show the
intimate, logical connection which exists between the modern philosophy of
natural sciences and anarchism; to put anarchism on a scientific basis by the
study of the tendencies that are apparent now in society and may indicate is
future evolution; and to work out the basis of anarchist ethics. As regards the substance of anarchism itself,
it was Kropotkin’s aim to prove that Communism – at
least partial – has more chances of being established than collectivism,
especially in communes taking the lead, and that free, or anarchist-Communism
is the only form of Communism that has any chance of being accepted in
civilised societies… And in order to
elucidate the main factors of human evolution he has analysed the part played
in history by the popular constructive agencies of mutual aid and the
historical role of the State.”
4. REFERENCES
Main Sources;
Goodwin, Barbara (1982): Using Political Ideas, Wiley
Kropotkin, Peter
(1972): Mutual Aid, A Factor of Evolution, edited by
Paul Avrich,
Woodcock, George (1962): Anarchism, Pelican
Woodcock, George (1977): The Anarchist Reader,
Further
Apter, David and Joll, James (1971): Anarchism Today, Macmillan
Barclay, Harold (1990): People Without
Government, Kahn and Averill; The State, Freedom Press
Bourne,
Butterworth, Alex:
The world that never was: a true story of dreamers, schemers, anarchists and
secret agents, Vintage £8.99. Anarchism etc in early part of 20th
century.
Carter, April (1971): The Political Theory of Anarchism,
Routledge
Christie, Stuart and Meltzer, Albert (1979): The
Floodgates of Anarchy, Kahn and Averill
Cole, G.D.H.: A
History of Socialist Thought, Vol II.
Goodway, David: Seeds Beneath the Snow,
Holloway, John:
Change the World without taking Power. The meaning of
revolution today. Pluto 2002. £15.99. 0-7453-1863-0.
Joll, James – The Anarchists
Leier, Mark: Bakunin: The Creative Passion:
Thomas Dunne Books (review freedom
Marshall, Peter
(1992): Demanding the Impossible,
McKay, Iain: Property
is Theft: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology, AK Press.
Miller, D -
Anarchism
Morris, Brian – The Anarchist Geographer… Genge Press ISBN
978-0-9549043-3-3 (c/o Freedom Press) £8.00. Primarily
biography but some treatment of his ideas.
Quail, John (1981): The Slow Burning Fuse
Sitrin, Marina: Horizontalism:
Voices of popular Power in
Vallance, Ted: A Radical History of Britain:
visionaries, rebels and revolutionaries… Little, Brown £25
Various: Why Work?
Arguments for the Leisure Society – Freedom Press
Walter, Nicholas –
About Anarchism – Freedom Press
Ward, Colin (1973): Anarchy in Action, Allen and Unwin
Ditto
(2004): Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction
Weinberg, Chaim: Forty Years in Struugle –
memoirs of a Jewish Anarchist – can be downloaded free from www.deadanarchists.org/weinberg.htm
Anarchy, and The Raven (no longer published); Freedom
(fortnightly), , published by Freedom Press (84b
Works by Kropotkin and
others published by Freedom Press, in Angel Alley, Whitechapel (near Aldgate
East underground station - worth a visit!).
www.avtonom.org (
www.tomjennings.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
See also: http://cira.marseille.free.fr
– international research centre on anarchism, a member of http://ficedl.info
Film on Ethel
MacDonald – went to
Links: Imagining
Other Index Page
Political
Philosophy Contents Page