The International Writers Magazine: Book Review with Charlie Dickinson

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ANARCHISM: A Very Short Introduction by Colin Ward Oxford University Press, 2004, 109 pp. ISBN: 0-19-280477-4 Review by Charlie Dickinson One of more than 150 titles in the outstanding "A Very Short Introduction" series from Oxford University Press, Colin Ward's ANARCHISM surveys the history of an often misunderstood ideology.

In the early 1900s, several high-profile assassinations by anarchists, including President McKinley's in 1901, helped negatively caricature this political ideology as violent and prone to terrorism. And more recently, for example, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski's primitive anarchism (expressed in an anti-technology screed) has also kept alive dismissive thinking about this long-lived political tradition. With this handy, pocket-sized, but comprehensive introduction, Colin Ward, himself an unapologetic anarchist, offers the reader understanding of a notable ideology that must not be confused with terrorism.

First proposed by the Greek Stoic Zeno, anarchism defines a society without government, one in which dispersed and decentralized parties make collaborative agreements with each other. Ward grounds anarchism in this anti-State stance. Alas, anarchists always seem to have a State to oppose. Too often on the front lines when revolutions occur, Ward portrays anarchists as noble losers. They're left wondering, What went wrong? when a French Revolution replaces royalty with an empire-hungry Napoleon, when a Bolshevik Revolution in the name of communism does much the same.

Anarchists will argue the State invariably protects the privilege of the rich and powerful. So the timeless social question, Why the gulf between the haves and have-nots? is answered as less power to the State means less protected privilege for the rich. The gap between rich and poor should follow. (Although this reviewer thinks this theory more likely applies to less complex countries than the USA--say a resource-rich, third-world kleptocracy-- but that's an argument for another day.)

Ward defines the intellectual "jewels" in the anarchism tradition as four in number: Englishman William Godwin (1756-1836), Frenchman Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-65), Russian Michael Bakunin (1814-76), and another Russian, Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921). The latter is the most widely read of the four, and Kropotkin's FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS, with its emphasis on humanization of work anticipates the work decades later of E. F. Schumacher's highly influential SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL, which also called for small-scale, decentralized industry.

Anarchism can be sliced many ways and Ward takes care to cover a number of arenas where anarchists have played a role in reform. Notably, in public education and prisons, two societal missions often prone to serve State interests at the expense of the individual. In another arena, ecology, the Green political movement is linked to the inspiration of Kropotkin's writing.

One offshoot of anarchism Ward doesn't embrace is American libertarianism of the last fifty years. To Ward's way of thinking, libertarians are academics and anarchists of the Right, as contrasted with the social-activist anarchists of the Left (the latter having Ward's obvious sympathies). Ward's rejection of libertarian anarchists as apologists for untrammelled capitalism seems a bit simplistic. Perhaps he meant to say libertarians are not anarchist true believers because their acceptance of capitalism equates to acceptance of corporate power, an all to easy target for any real anarchist eager to resist all possible stand-ins for the State.

As I said earlier, Ward is an anarchist and his analysis reflects his passion. That adds to the flavor of ANARCHISM as more than a "definition" book and gives the reader an excellent survey of the topic. References for further exploration are well-documented.

One reason to study anarchism--this political ideology so long in need of a PR facelift--is that it appears to be on the upswing for current relevance. Our technology-driven times give more and more power to the State to regulate individual lives with massive, interlinked databases. Anarchism as a dialectical counter to this trend is worth keeping in mind if we are to preserve our tradition of individual freedom.
Paradoxically, technology has also empowered the individual in ways undreamt of even a decade ago. This fits the decentralization vision of anarchism. Moreover, it is interesting to note how much of the anarchist paradigm is operational. Consider such open-source software as Linux, a collaboration by programmers worldwide who really work for no one, only a greater "whole." Consider the radical change in music distribution, driven by the anarchy of the original Napster phenomena. Lastly, consider an article about anarchism online in the Wikipedia (a voluntary collaborative online encyclopedia and yet one more example of technological anarchism) @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism.
© Charlie Dickinson
email: anarchism.5.charlied@spamgourmet.com
Web site @ http://charlied.freeshell.org

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