Talk:Anarchism/historical

This is supposed to be a historical article, but already the timeline and historical continuity has been disrupted by taking an issue-oriented approach.

The article looks okay through "Precursors of Anarchism." The "History of Anarchism" has lost the reference to Burke's "Vindication of Natural Society" essay and ignores Josiah Warren's contributions pre-dating Proudhon. These omissions can easily be remedied.

After the intro paragraph, things get really bad - the article suddenly forgets all about the historical progression and jumps (from 1840 Proudhon) to 1876 (Florence conference)! From that point on, the historical evolutionary approach goes out the window. Instead, there is a hodgepodge of issues, with no particular logic or order. Even the pertinent dates have been omitted! To an uninformed reader, it would appear that Max Stirner came after Peter Kropotkin who came after Malatesta.

The current article is very much worse than the original historical article, not only due to historical shenanigans. Schools have been smuggled back into the article, mostly under misleading titles. E.g. Anti-propertarian anti-private property anarcho-communism is under the heading "Private Property." (Not to mention listed prior to both utopian anarchism and mutualist anarchism.)

The "Capitalism vs. Free Market" section is POV, since it emphasizes the differences between the individualist anarchist conception of property and the modern notion of capitalism, but doesn't even mention the differences between the IA property and the modern notion of socialism. E.g. The acceptance of private property, the rejection of communism and communal ownership, the view that usurors should be peacefully out-competed rather than expropriated, and so on. There used to be a very good table citing the similarities and differences between property systems. Perhaps this should be put back into the article.

Suggestion: Bring back the timeline, and stick closely to the timeline in the article.

Timeline

I put the timeline back in and reordered some of the out-of-sequence sections.

The timeline is overly simplistic and dumbs down what could otherwise be a good article dealing with a complicated historical epistimalogical approach. millerc 23:30, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that it provides an excellent overview of the development of anarchist ideas. How does it "dumb it down?" How is it contrary to the historical epistemological view? By looking at ideas advocated by luminaries, with links to the original tracts explaining the ideas, it seems to match the format perfectly.

Telemachus' suggestions

It's a great start, alba! A few suggestions:

(1) The "precursors to..." section is indispensible; however, the organization could be better. Consider organizing it as follows:

(a) Pre-historic/Anthropological Theories

(b) Ancient Historical Influences

(I) "Western" [or however it might be termed, including Greece/Mediterranian]

(II) "Eastern" [ditto, including Taoism, etc.]

(c) Modern Historical Influences

(I) Anabaptists

(II) et al.

(2) The "History of..." section doesn't really look like a history, but more like an overview of issues. For the history of Anarchism, I would go down the list of important figures in order, from Godwin on down. Give a superficial explanation of their beliefs and how they differ and agree with preceding figures.

(3) After the history, I would go over in more detail what set different strains of Anarchism apar, along with the justifications and criticisms given by the various figures (major and minor figures both).

(4) With the historical background laid down in both chronical and taxonomical forms, I would then introduce "modern" Anarchism, perhaps post-WWII.

I'll think of more later. I need to get back to work. I'll also try to do myself what I'm thinking rather than giving suggestions. More later... --TelemachusSneezed 22:15, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Good comment, but I disagree with (2). "Important figures" is a can of worms. You're just asking for the an-caps to start filling this article with a bunch of classical liberals (who were never anarchists), just because that's who they see as their precursors.

Maybe we could come to a compromise that any figure listed should have self-described as an anarchist, but any such compromise will quickly be ruined with a bunch of POV warriors wanting to redefine a group of liberals as "anarchists" and screaming NPOV. millerc 23:37, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Interesting suggestions, Tele. However the rationale behind the ordering/sections was to present anarchism in a nonlinear fashion, albeit chronologically (nonlinear in this sense means that certain sub-theories are invented/discovered not as a sequential evolution, but independently; not contingent on the work that was done before). That is, to present each idea and issue that anarchism has dealt with or brought up, in chronological order in which that issue/idea/meme came into anarchism. Detailing your suggestions:

(1) It doesn't matter when in history an idea that is later identified as being a core anarchist theory/practice happens, or who it happens to. Although, I'm in favor of your suggestions for how to split them up.

(2)Again, in a nonlinear approach, an anarchist "figure of note" is not worthy of mention unless they:

(a) introduce a unique theory/idea into anarchism

(b) develop/advance existing anarchist theories/ideas, possibly to "update" them with changing times

(c) dismiss/merge/compromise conflicts between anarchist ideas, possibly by introducing new stipulations/theories

(d) were a key figure in a historical event that marks a developmental step in anarchist practice

Simply echoing some other anarchist's ideas is hardly noteworthy -- in a evolutionary epistemology history of anarchism, we trace the ideas but not the people. Readers can simply go to the list of anarchists if they want to know more specifics on a person.

(3) I agree, I have not had a chance to, though. It was enough work simply re-organizing the existing article text.

(4) I waver on the "modern" label/classification of history. "Contemporary" in my mind evokes continuing thought processes and issues of anarchists, while "historical" denotes things that anarchists wrestled with in the past but take for granted now. "Modern" invites a further demarcation into "Post-Modern" which is a can of worms I'd rather not open. --albamuth 04:24, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Please start editing though. It would be nice to create a completely alternative version of the article that resolves the disputes we've been having for so long. It seems that the disputes are purely semantic in nature, and breaking anarchism down along particular memes avoids the problems that labelling entails. --albamuth 04:24, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I see now what you are trying to do. I'll try to help you with some of the ordering of information just so people understand that the article is issue-oriented instead of people/event-oriented. Let me just say also, that it was a good idea to start the history off with "Private Property" as an issue, as this issue appears to be the jumping-off point for contemporary Anarchism, at least with Proudhon. --TelemachusSneezed 19:35, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

However the rationale behind the ordering/sections was to present anarchism in a nonlinear fashion, albeit chronologically (nonlinear in this sense means that certain sub-theories are invented/discovered not as a sequential evolution, but independently; not contingent on the work that was done before).

So, it seems you are saying that the following order is appropriate:

• utopianism (Godwin) emphasizing no-money, no-law, communal living
• mutualism (Proudhon) with its acceptance of private property so long as it's owned by mutuals or craftsmen
• individualism (Warren) accepting private property for any person or group (except for unoccupied land) so long as there is no usury
  • Just pointing out that Warren accepts unused land as private property as long as its bought and sold "at cost." He differed from Tucker on this. RJII 04:03, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
• egoism (Stirner) justifying anarchism by egoism rather than higher law
• capitalism (Molinari) supports private property without qualification (ie usury is permissable)
• socialism (Bakunin) against private property except for personal possessions
• communism (Kropotkin) added certain worker/peasant strategies to socialist anarchism

This is what I originally thought the article should look like, but I think alba's got a better idea in terms of laying things out along issue lines. --TelemachusSneezed 19:35, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

I really like the feel and the look of this new page, but at the same time it seems to be getting pretty muddled. Have been sitting looking at it for a while trying to think of ways to help straighten it out, and thinking maybe we need to - not dumb down but inject a shot of simplicity. I can see people don't want to introduce a timeline of famous characters, but perhaps it'd help to be more linear in terms of the development of ideas. I.e., follow a stricter chronology in terms of sub-head topics and within each one.

Eg. at the moment we jump from godwin and proudhon to the florence congress then back to the ego and its own. And within private property section have the (20th century) platform then next para starts 'later in the 19th century'.

As a suggestion - what about:

1) first agree on the discussion page an ordered list of subheaded topics

2) within each subhead use a strictly chronological approach.

As my clumsy stab at an ordered list of subheads:

godwin and proudhon - birth of modern anarchism.

private property - starting with proudhon's 'what is property'

individualism

(you know i'm not sure about including russian nihilism at all as a section - it is very country-specific, and not exclusively anarchist history by any means - eg. could argue as well that SR party was true successor of nihilist movement)

the international - development of anarchism as libertarian tendency within working class movement

propaganda of the deed / insurrectionary anarchism (don't these two belong together?)

pacifist anarchism - debates around violence (would also mention debates over 1st world war here) - tolstoy

syndicalism

feminism

russian revolution - the platform

anti-fascism - spanish civil war

I think looking at my schema I would tend to work more around historical events and movements, and the way ideas fed off actions, more than as it currently is. I don't think this is a bad thing in a historical account - to situate anarchism within working class revolutionary history rather than as if ideas are are born in the air.

Bengalski 00:50, 24 October 2005 (UTC)