Anarchism Lecture for PS 240, Fall 2014, University of Kentucky.

1. Anarchism
Dr. Christopher S. Rice

3. “I must tell you first of all what
anarchism is not. It is not bombs,
disorder, or chaos. It is not robbery or
murder. It is not a war of each against
all. It is not a return to barbarism or to
the wild state of man. Anarchism is the
very opposite of all that.”
– Alexander Berkman, American anarchist,
1929

6. Anarchism
The philosophy of a new social
order based on liberty
unrestricted by man-made law;
the theory that all forms of
government rest on violence
and are therefore wrong and
harmful, as well as unnecessary.

7. Enragés

10. Order is the genus:
Government is the species

11. anarchos

12. Anarchism is not as systematic an
ideology as liberalism or Marxism

13. Liberty
Equality
Solidarity

14. Liberalism
Anarchism
Marxism

15. freedom and equality are
complementary, not
contradictory

16. Progress & History
(Dualistic)

17. HOPE, not certainty

18. A little of column A,
A little of column B

19. What is the individual’s
role in society?

20. The individual is the basic unit
of society…

21. …but full humanity can only be
achieved by membership in a
community/ society.

22. Individual-in-Community

23. Human Nature

24. basic impulses

25. “Kill the social sense in man – and
you get a savage orangutan; kill
egoism in him and he will become a
tame monkey.”
- Alexander Herzen

26. Self-interested impulse to subdue
others for individual purposes

27. An impulse to help others
(Mutual Aid)

28. Human Malleability

29. HOPE

30. Anarchism &
The State

31. “Of all the things which interfere
with the free activity of the
individual, which reduce liberty
and compel us to act in ways
different from those we would
choose, the most powerful and
pervasive is the state.” (Jennings)

32. The essential function of the
state is to maintain the existing
inequalities in society…

33. Private Property

34. Godwin: each article of property
ought to belong to the individual
whose possession of it would yield
the greatest good for the greatest
number; thus, property should be
distributed according to claims of
need.

35. “Property is Theft”
(Proudhon)

36. “The only demand that property
recognizes is its own gluttonous
appetite for greater wealth,
because wealth means power;
the power to subdue, to crush,
to exploit, the power to enslave,
to outrage, to degrade.”
- Emma Goldman

37. Democracy (?)

38. Decision-making by
Consensus

39. The Problem of
Conventional Institutions

44. What do
Anarchists
wish to achieve?

45. The highest level of individual
freedom possible for the
individual, the fulfillment of each
individual’s full human potential,
while at the same time
developing human society to the
highest degree possible.

46. Anarchism “seeks the complete
development of individuality
combined with the highest
development of voluntary
association in all respects, in all
possible degrees for all imaginable
ends.”
~Kropotkin

47. A few goals…
• Overthrow of the State
• End of private property
• The end of “democracy”
• The end of repressive social
structures and values (
“transvaluation” of human values)
• Full and rewarding work and
leisure

48. 4 Approaches to Anarchism
• Armed and Violent Revolution

49. 4 Approaches to Anarchism
• Armed and Violent Revolution
• Civil Disobedience

50. 4 Approaches to Anarchism
• Armed and Violent Revolution
• Civil Disobedience
• Propaganda by the Deed

52. 4 Approaches to Anarchism
• Armed and Violent Revolution
• Civil Disobedience
• Propaganda by the Deed
• Transvaluation