Individualist anarchism

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Individualist anarchism is a philosophical tradition that opposes collectivism and has a particularly strong emphasis on the supremacy and autonomy of the individual. The tradition appears most often in the United States, most notably in regard to its advocacy of private property. Individualist anarchism's roots includes Europeans such as William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Emile Armand, Oscar Wilde, Han Ryner and Max Stirner (who is also connected to the existentialist philosophy), though the individualist anarchist tradition draws heavily on American independent thinkers, including Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, Ezra Heywood, Stephen Pearl Andrews, and Henry David Thoreau. The writer and poet John Henry Mackay is also considered an individualist anarchist. Contemporary individualist anarchists include Robert Anton Wilson, Joe Peacott, Daniel Burton, Kevin Carson, and Keith Preston. Individualist anarchism is sometimes seen as an evolution of classical liberalism, and hence, has been called "liberal anarchism" [1].

Some individual anarchists, such as Benjamin Tucker, referred to themselves as socialists [2]. It should be noted, though, that this usage of the term "socialism" does not reflect the most common current use of the term, in which the means of production are owned collectively by the community [3]; in fact, Tucker supported private ownership of the means of production. He did oppose absentee ownership of land, but had no objection to ownership by someone who actually occupies and uses a plot of soil. However, not all of the labor-value individualist anarchists opposed ownership of land itself. Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews both supported title to unused land.

Origins

William Godwin, a radical liberal and utilitarian. There is a lack of consensus as to whether he was an individualist, a communist, or neither.

There is significant variance between the philosophies of different individualist anarchists. Almost all, following Proudhon, support individual ownership of the particular form of private property he referred to as "possession". Stirner supports private property but rejects the notion of a right to property. Godwin is an altruist, Stirner an egoist. Warren espouses natural law as a basis for individual liberty, while Tuckers premises it upon egoism. Tucker opposes intellectual property while Spooner advocates it. However, what these philosophers all have in common is a rejection of both capitalist economics and collectivist notions of society and a pronounced focus on individuality.

William Godwin, of England, wrote essays advocating a society without government that are considered some of the first, if not the first, anarchist treatises. As such, some consider the liberal British writer to be the "father of philosophical anarchism." There is a lack of consensus as to whether Godwin was an individualist or a communist. He is regarded by some as one of the first individualist anarchists, although his philosophy has some communist-like characteristics. He advocates an extreme form of individualism, proposing that all sorts of cooperation in labor should be eliminated; he says: "everything understood by the term co-operation is in some sense an evil." Godwin's individualism is to such a radical degree that he even opposes individuals performing together in orchestras. The only apparent exception to this opposition to cooperation is the spontaneous association that may arise when a society is threatened by violent force. One reason he opposes cooperation is he believes it to interfere with an individual's ability to be benevolent for the greater good. Godwin opposes the existence of government and expressly opposes democracy, fearing oppression of the individual by the majority (though he believes democracy to be preferable to dictatorship). Godwin supports individual ownership of property, defining it as as "the empire to which every man is entitled over the produce of his own industry." However, he does advocate that individuals give to each other their surplus property on the occasion that others have a need for it, without involving trade (see gift economy). This was to be based on utilitarian principles; he says: "Every man has a right to that, the exclusive possession of which being awarded to him, a greater sum of benefit or pleasure will result than could have arisen from its being otherwise appropriated." However, benevolence was not to be enforced but a matter of free individual "private judgement." He does not advocate a community of goods or assert collective ownership as is embraced in communism, but his belief that individuals ought to share with those in need was influential on anarchist communism later. Some consider Godwin both an individualist and a communist rather than than a strict individualist for this reason. [4] Some, such as Murray Rothbard, do not regard Godwin as being in the individualist camp at all [5] (Some restrict "individualist anarchism" to the market anarchists). Others consider him an individualist anarchist without reservation. [6] Some writers see a conflict between Godwin's advocacy of "private judgement" and utilitarianism, as he says that ethics requires that individuals give their surplus property to each other resulting in an egalitarian society, but, at the same time, he insists that all things be left to individual choice. [7] Communist-anarchist Peter Kropotkin says in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica that Godwin "entirely rewrote later on his chapter on property and mitigated his communist views in the second edition of Political Justice." Godwin's basis in utilitarianism and ethical altruism contrasts with later individualists, such as Max Stirner and Benjamin Tucker, who ground their philosophy on egoism or self-interest (though not all are egoists). Also, Godwin's aversion to cooperation and a market economy is not typical among the individualists.

Max Stirner was the first of the egoist individualist anarchists. Portrait by Friedrich Engels.

While individualists typically assert property as a right, Germany's Max Stirner that a "right" to property is an illusion, or "ghost"; property is only a matter of control --it is not based in any moral right but solely in the right of might: "Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property.". Stirner considers the world and everything in it, including other persons, available to one's taking or use without moral constraint --that rights do not exist in regard to objects at all. He sees no rationality in taking the interests of others into account unless doing so furthers one's self-interest, which he believes is the only legitimate reason for acting. His embrace of egoism is in stark contrast to Godwin's altruism. He denies society as being an actual entity, calling society a "spook" and that "the individuals are its reality" (The Ego and Its Own). Whether individualist anarchism is properly justified by self-interest (egoism) or natural law has been a subject of debate among the individualists. For example, Lysander Spooner holds that there are natural property rights, but egoists such as Benjamin Tucker agree with Stirner that there are no natural property rights but hold that property can come only about by contract between individuals.

France's Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was the first philosopher to label himself an "anarchist." He was particularly influential among the American individualists, mainly by way of Benjamin Tucker who had translated and studied his works. Proudhon opposes government privilege that protects banking and land interests, and any form of coercion that led to the accumulation or acquisition of property, which he believes hampers competition and keeps wealth in the hands of the few. Proudhon favors a right of individuals to retain the product of their labor as their own property, but believed that any property beyond that which an individual produced and could possess was illegitimate. Thus, he saw private property as both essential to liberty and a road to tyranny, the former when it resulted from labor and the latter when it resulted from extortion (interest, tax, etc). He says: "Where shall we find a power capable of counter-balancing the... State? There is none other than property... The absolute right of the State is in conflict with the absolute right of the property owner. Property is the greatest revolutionary force which exists." Proudhon maintains that those who labor should retain the entirety of what they produce, and that monopolies on credit and land are the forces that prohibiting such. He advocated an economic system that included private property as possession and exchange market but without profit, which he called mutualism. It is Proudhon's philosophy that was explicitly amended by Joseph Dejacque in the inception of anarchist-communism, with the latter asserting directly to Proudhon in a letter that "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature." Proudhon said that "communism...is the very denial of society in its foundation..." (Philosophy of Poverty) and was famous for declaring that "property is theft" in reference to the capitalist practices of his time.

After Dejacque and others split from Proudhon due to the latter's support of individual property and an exchange economy, the relationship between the individualists, who continued in relative alignment with the philosophy of Proudhon, and the anarcho-communists was characterised by various degrees of antagonism and harmony. For example, individualists like Tucker on the one hand translating and reprinted the works of collectivists like Mikhail Bakunin, while on the other hand rejecting the economic aspects of collectivism and communism as incompatible with anarchist ideals.

While individualist anarchism is often seen as including William Godwin and Max Stirner, it is most often associated with the market anarchism found in the native American tradition, which advocates individual ownership of the produce of labor and a market economy where this property may be bought and sold. However, this form of individualist anarchism is not exclusive to the Americans. It is also found in the philosophy of other radical individualists, such as those in England and France though almost all were influenced by the early American individualists. Individualist anarchism of this type is in contrast to "social anarchism" (e.g. communist anarchism) which holds that productive property should be in the control of the society at large in various forms of worker collectives and that the produce of labor should be collectivized. Most of the individualist anarchists in the 19th and 18th centuries adhered to a labor theory of value, and hence, saw profit as subverting natural law. However, there have been a few theorists in the 19th and 18th centurues that did not adhere to labor-value. These include Jakob Muavillon, Julius Faucher, Gustave de Molinari, Auberon Herbert, and Herbert Spencer.

File:IndAnarchismTree01.jpg

The American tradition

Main article: American individualist anarchism

Individualist anarchism in America is noted for its strong advocacy of the type of private property in the product of labor, and a competitive free market economy. Josiah Warren, who is the first individualist anarchist in the American tradition, had participated in a failed collectivist experiment headed by Robert Owen called "New Harmony" and came to the conclusion that such a system is inferior to one where individualism and private property is respected. In Practical Details, where he discusses his conclusions in regard to the experiment. In a much cited quotation from that text, he makes a vehement assertion of individual negative liberty: "Society must be so converted as to preserve the SOVEREIGNTY OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL inviolate. That it must avoid all combinations and connections of persons and interests, and all other arrangements which will not leave every individual at all times at liberty to dispose of his or her person, and time, and property in any manner in which his or her feelings or judgment may dictate WITHOUT INVOLVING THE PERSONS OR INTERESTS OF OTHERS" (Warren's capitalization). Though Warren and Proudhon did not associate with each other, working on separate continents they both came to like conclusions in regard to labor theory of value and property. However, according to Benjamin Tucker, that profiting by violating the labor theory of value is exploitative "was Proudhon's position before it was Marx's, and Josiah Warren's before it was Proudhon's" (Liberty or Authority).

While Warren based his philosophy on natural law, Benjamin Tucker eventually switched his allegiance to egoism as a result of his reading of Max Stirner. Many individualists followed in his footsteps in this respect. Tucker maintained that there were two rights, "the right of might" and "the right of contract" and that moral rights do not exist until they are devised by contract initiated out of the self-interest of the contracting parties.

The individualists' economic theory (mutualism) is based on the labor theory of value. Accepting that the value of a good is the amount of labor undertaking in producing it, they conclude that it is unethical to charge a higher price for a commodity than the cost of producing or acquiring and bringing it to market (Cost the limit of price). To ensure that labor receives its "full produce" they advocate that a commodity should be purchased with an amount of labor that is equivalent to the amount of labor undertaken in producing that commodity. As a result, equal amounts of labor would receive equal pay; those that did not labor would not be paid. In the area of employment, this would obviate the possibility of an employer profiting from the labor of an employee, which they opposed as being exploitative, since the employee must receive the "full produce" of his labor. With the exception of Warren, this led to their position that private ownership of land should be supported only if the possessor of that land is using it, otherwise, the possessor would be able to charge rent to others without laboring to produce anything (Warren does not oppose ownership of land but does advocate that it be sold at cost). Profiting from lending money for interest is generally seen as usurious as an income is seen as being derived without labor. To the individualists, profit from interest, profit from wages, and rental of land is only made possible by government-backed "monopoly" and "privilege" that restricts competition in the marketplace and concentrates wealth in the hands of a few.

In the 20th century, Albert Jay Nock, author of Our Enemy the State, was perhaps the best-known individualist anarchist. He was active in opposition to WWI, the New Deal, and WWII. Nock was a journalist, like his friend and fellow-libertarian H. L. Mencken.

Anarcho-capitalism

Main article: anarcho-capitalism

Most pre-20th century individualist anarchists espoused the labor theory of value. However, as economic theory advanced, the popularity of the labor theory of value of classical economics was superceded by much greater acceptance of the subjective theory of value of neo-classical economics. This marginalist revolution influenced the thoughts of some radical individualists, whose theories were eventually termed anarcho-capitalism. Most anarchists do not accept anarcho-capitalism as a "true" form of anarchist thought, as anarchism as been traditionally opposed to capitalism.

Comparison of the relations of production

Anarchist Schools Collectivist (anarcho-communist/syndicalist) Individualist (labor-value) Anarcho-capitalist
Are natural resources
owned by the community? 		Yes No No
May an individual
hold legal ownership to land itself? 		No No (some yes) Yes
Are man-made capital goods
legitimate private property? 		No Yes Yes
Is re-distribution of profit permissible? Yes No No
Can labor be exchanged? No Yes Yes
Is profiting from others' labor exploitative? Yes Yes No

(NRxCol) "The land, and all natural resources, are the common property of everyone, but will be used only by those who cultivate it by their own labor. Without expropriation, only through the powerful pressure of the worker’s associations, capital and the tools of production will fall to those who produce wealth by their own labor." - Michael Bakunin, Revolutionary Catechism.

(NRxInd) "The only way, in which ['the wealth of nature'] can be made useful to mankind, is by their taking possession of it individually, and thus making it private property." - Lysander Spooner, Law of Intellectual Property.

(NRxAC) "The only 'natural' course for man to survive and to attain wealth, therefore, is by using his mind and energy to engage in the production-and-exchange process. He does this, first, by finding natural resources, and then by transforming them (by 'mixing his labor' with them, as Locke puts it), to make them his individual property, and then by exchanging this property for the similarly obtained property of others." Murray Rothbard, The Anatomy of the State.

(TxCol) see (NRxCol) above.

(TxInd) Though, most labor-value individualists oppose buying and selling of land itself, they maintain that an individual should be allowed exclusive of use of land against any claims of the community. "Anarchism holds that land belongs not to the people but the occupant and user..." - Benjamin Tucker Liberty X May 19 1894. But Warren, Andrews, and Greene supported an individual holding transferable title to land itself; for example, "the prime cost of land, the taxes, and other contingent expenses of surveying, etc., added to the labor of making contracts, would constitute the equitable price of land purchased for sale." -Josiah Warren, Equitable Commerce

(TxAC) "If Columbus lands on a new continent, is it legitimate for him to proclaim all the new continent his own, or even that sector 'as far as his eye can see'? Clearly, this would not be the case in the free society that we are postulating. Columbus or Crusoe would have to use the land, to 'cultivate' it in some way, before he could be asserted to own it.... If there is more land than can be used by a limited labor supply, then the unused land must simply remain unowned until a first user arrives on the scene. Any attempt to claim a new resource that someone does not use would have to be considered invasive of the property right of whoever the first user will turn out to be. There is no requirement, however, that land continue to be used in order for it to continue to be a man’s property." -Murray Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State

(CGxCol) The means of production are owned by the community in collective. "The revolution as we understand it will have to destroy the State and all the institutions of the State, radically and completely, from its very first day. The natural and necessary consequences of such destruction will be: ... f. the confiscation of all productive capital and of the tools of production for the benefit of workers’ associations, who will have to have them produced collectively." - Bakunin, The Program of the International Brotherhood.

(CGxInd) All products of labor are the property of the individual, regardless of in the form of capital or not."Proudhon scoffed at this distinction between capital and product. He maintained that capital and product are not different kinds of wealth, but simply alternate conditions or functions of the same wealth. ... For these and other reasons Proudhon and Warren found themselves unable to sanction any such plan as the seizure of capital by society." - Benjamin Tucker, State Socialism and Anarchism.

(CGxAC) All products of labor are the property of the individual, regardless of in the form of capital or not. "Production begins with natural resources, and then various forms of machines and capital goods, until finally, goods are sold to the consumer. At each stage of production from natural resource to consumer good, money is voluntarily exchanged for capital goods, labor services, and land resources. At each step of the way, terms of exchanges, or prices, are determined by the voluntary interactions of suppliers and demanders. This market is "free" because choices, at each step, are made freely and voluntarily." - Rothbard, Free Market.

(PxCol) Profit may be rightfully expropriated; contract is irrelevant. "Since a person inevitably takes from others whatever he does not gain from his own, we have the right to say that all such profits are thefts of collective labor, committed by a few privileged individuals with the sanction of the State and under its protection." - Michael Bakunin, Selected Writings. ""Will you stand up for that piece of chicanery which consists in affirming 'freedom of contract'? Or will you uphold equity, according to which a contract entered into between a man who has dined well and the man who sells his labor for bare subsistence, between the strong and the weak, is not a contract at all?" -Peter Kropotkin, An Appeal to the Young

(PxInd) Because profit is perceived as being the receipt of income without laboring, profit is seen as exploitative. However, because the labor-value individualists believe that freedom of contract is of paramount importance, they are opposed to expropriation. Also, they believe that in a laissez-faire system, profit would be nearly impossible due to increased competition. "My enquiring friend [...] supposes the Anarchists to condemn the contract between the borrower and the lender, per se; whereas the truth is that they condemn, not the contract, but the conditions of compulsory restriction and limitation under which such contract is now necessarily made if made at all, and in the absence of which it would be prevented, not by law or by invasion of any kind, but by simple competition, from embodying the element of interest on capital." - Benjamin Tucker, The Abolition of Interest. "In defending the right to take usury, we do not defend the right of usury" -Benjamin Tucker, Liberty I,3

(PxAC) The labor theory of value is erroneous. Profit is not exploitative and contract is supreme. "The capitalist, then, is a man who has labored, saved out of his labor (i.e., has restricted his consumption) and, in a series of voluntary contracts has (a) purchased ownership rights in capital goods, and (b) paid the laborers for their labor services in transforming those capital goods into goods nearer the final stage of being consumed. Note again that no one is preventing the laborers themselves from saving, purchasing capital goods from their owners and then working on their own capital goods, finally selling the product and reaping the profits. In fact, the capitalists are conferring a great benefit on these laborers, making possible the entire complex vertical network of exchanges in the modern economy." - Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty.

(LxCol)

(LxInd) It is considered exploitative to pay an individual for less than the "full produce" of his labor. - "The price is not sufficient: the labor of the workers has created a value; now this value is their property. But they have neither sold nor exchanged it; and you, capitalist, you have not earned it. That you should have a partial right to the whole, in return for the materials that you have furnished and the provisions that you have supplied, is perfectly just. You contributed to the production, you ought to share in the enjoyment. But your right does not annihilate that of the laborers, who, in spite of you, have been your colleagues in the work of production. Why do you talk of wages? The money with which you pay the wages of the laborers remunerates them for only a few years of the perpetual possession which they have abandoned to you. Wages is the cost of the daily maintenance and refreshment of the laborer. You are wrong in calling it the price of a sale. The workingman has sold nothing; he knows neither his right, nor the extent of the concession which he has made to you, nor the meaning of the contract which you pretend to have made with him. On his side, utter ignorance; on yours, error and surprise, not to say deceit and fraud." - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

(LxAC)

See also

External links

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