Anarchism and capitalism

The nature of capitalism is criticized by most anarchists, who reject hierarchy and advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical"Principles of The International of Anarchist Federations". International of Anarchist Federations. "The IAF - IFA fights for : the abolition of all forms of authority whether economical, political, social, religious, cultural or sexual".Kropotkin, Peter. "Anarchism: its philosophy and ideal". "That is why Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organization and preaches free agreement — at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist"."B.1 Why are anarchists against authority and hierarchy?" . An Anarchist FAQ. "Anarchists are opposed to irrational (e.g., illegitimate) authority, in other words, hierarchy — hierarchy being the institutionalisation of authority within a society". voluntary associations.Woodcock, George. "Anarchism". Encyclopedia of Philosophy. "ANARCHISM, a social philosophy that rejects authoritarian government and maintains that voluntary institutions are best suited to express man's natural social tendencies".Kropotkin, Peter. "Anarchism". Encyclopædia Britannica. "In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions". Anarchism is generally defined as the libertarian philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful . The following sources cite anarchism as a political philosophy: Slevin, Carl (2003). McLean, Aiaun; McMillan, Allistair, eds. "Anarchism". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Oxford University Press. as well as opposing authoritarianism, illegitimate authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations.Goldman, Emma. "What it Really Stands for Anarchy". Anarchism and Other Essays. "Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations".Tucker, Benjamin. Individual Liberty. "They found that they must turn either to the right or to the left, — follow either the path of Authority or the path of Liberty. Marx went one way; Warren and Proudhon the other. Thus were born State Socialism and Anarchism. [...] Authority, takes many shapes, but, broadly speaking, her enemies divide themselves into three classes: first, those who abhor her both as a means and as an end of progress, opposing her openly, avowedly, sincerely, consistently, universally; second, those who profess to believe in her as a means of progress, but who accept her only so far as they think she will subserve their own selfish interests, denying her and her blessings to the rest of the world; third, those who distrust her as a means of progress, believing in her only as an end to be obtained by first trampling upon, violating, and outraging her. These three phases of opposition to Liberty are met in almost every sphere of thought and human activity. Good representatives of the first are seen in the Catholic Church and the Russian autocracy; of the second, in the Protestant Church and the Manchester school of politics and political economy; of the third, in the atheism of Gambetta and the socialism of the socialism off Karl Marx".Anarchist historian George Woodcock report of Mikhail Bakunin's anti-authoritarianism and shows opposition to both state and non-state forms of authority as follows: "All anarchists deny authority; many of them fight against it". (p. 9) "[...] Bakunin did not convert the League's central committee to his full program, but he did persuade them to accept a remarkably radical recommendation to the Berne Congress of September 1868, demanding economic equality and implicitly attacking authority in both Church and State". Capitalism is generally considered by scholars to be an economic system that includes private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, and wage labor, which have generally been opposed by most anarchists historically.Heilbroner, Robert L. Capitalism. New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition (2008).Tormey, Simon. Anticapitalism. One World Publications, 2004. p. 10. Since capitalism is variously defined by sources and there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category,Critical Issues in History. Lanham, Md: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999, p. 1. the designation is applied to a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.

Anarchist criticism of capitalism and economic issues

It has been pointed out that historically the anarcho-communist economic theories published by Peter Kropotkin and others have been ignored or intentionally sidelined by historians.Knowles, Rob (2000). "Political Economy From Below: Communitarian Anarchism as a Neglected Discourse in Histories of Economic Thought". History of Economics Review. 31 (1): 30–47. . . Retrieved 22 June 2020. Anarchists such as Kropotkin object to the portrayal of economics as a value-free science, arguing in Revolutionary Pamphlets:

Within the realm of anarchist labor issues is the issue of the monetary system. While all anarchists are against the current monetary system, there is disagreement as to whether or not there should be a monetary system. Alexander Berkman was an anarchist against the monetary system. In his book What Is Anarchism?, Berkman argues that in an anarchist society money would become unnecessary. Within anarchy, all occupations are viewed as equally beneficial to society. Since the concept of value is different for everyone and cannot be determined, it is argued that it should not be set and one's contribution to society through their occupation entitled them to be a part of it. Within this system, there is a free distribution of goods without the need for money. Money in its current form is a hierarchical system, the exception being when all people are paid equal salaries. The argument goes further to question the purpose of money if people are paid equally. Those who agree with this would also note that a monetary system would open a vulnerability for some to acquire more of it and create a class system.Berkman, Alexander (1929). The ABC of Anarchism. p. 25. Some individualist anarchists and mutualists do not oppose the idea of money and see currency as a tangible form of workers receiving the full product of their labor. They support mutual banking (some individualists support no banking at all to keep exchange rates constant) and local currency as opposed to national currency. Others see money as simply an index for exchanging goods and that its existence would not necessarily create a class system."Citizens' Money", an 1890 lecture on the national banking system delivered in Chicago and published in Liberty of Boston in 1888. San Francisco: Equity Publishing."Citizens' Money, a critical analysis in the light of free trade in banking delivered by Alfred B. Westrup in Chicago, Sunday, 3 June 1888 and in Toledo, Ohio under the auspices of the Society for Economic Inquiry on 19 February 1891. Chicago: Mutual Bank Propaganda.

The anti-capitalist tradition of classical anarchism has remained prominent within post-classical and contemporary currents.Williams, Dana M. (2018). "Contemporary Anarchist and Anarchistic movements". Sociology Compass. Wiley. 12 (6): 4. . . Anarchists are committed against coercive authority in all forms, namely "all centralized and hierarchical forms of government (e.g., monarchy, representative democracy, state socialism, etc.), economic class systems (e.g., capitalism, Bolshevism, feudalism, slavery, etc.), autocratic religions (e.g., fundamentalist Islam, Roman Catholicism, etc.), patriarchy, heterosexism, white supremacy, and imperialism". Anarchist schools of thought disagree on the methods by which these forms should be opposed.Jun, Nathan (September 2009). "Anarchist Philosophy and Working Class Struggle: A Brief History and Commentary". WorkingUSA. 12 (3): 507–508. . .

Equality Collectivist anarchist Mikhail Bakunin famously proclaimed: "We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality".Maximov, G. P., ed. (1953). The Political Philosophy of Bakunin. New York: The Free Press. p. 269. With equality meaning equal liberty, Bakunin also argued that "I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation".Bakunin, Mikhail (1871). "About Freedom". Panarchy. Retrieved 20 June 2020.

As further confirmation of equality's misunderstanding, anarcho-communist Alexander Berkman similarly argued in The ABC of Anarchism:

Private property There is some debate about the question of private property and economic organization which is mainly caused by the meaning of private property. Social anarchists claim that the existence of private property (productive property) results in wage slavery while certain anti-capitalist individualist anarchists and mutualists argue for private property (personal property and possessions) and wages owned and controlled directly by workers themselves in the form of worker cooperatives such as labor-owned cooperative firms and associations.Martin, James J. (1953). Men Against the State. p. 223.Hymans, E. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. pp. 190–191. For the anarchist and socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, "strong workers' associations would enable the workers to determine jointly by election how the enterprise was to be directed and operated on a day-to-day basis".Vincent, Steven K. (1984). Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism. Oxford University Press. pp. 156, 230.

Wage labor Individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker, who identified his individualist anarchism as anarchistic socialism, are opposed to both capitalism and compulsory communism. Those anarchists support wage labor as long as the employers and employees are paid equally for equal hours worked and neither party has authority over the other.Cheyney, Ryan C. (November 1980). "Social Justice and the Right to the Labor Product". Political Theory (8: 4). p. 506. This approach was put into practice in American individualist anarchist colonies such as Utopia, organized by Josiah Warren. By following this principle, no individual profits from the labor of another. Tucker described the wages received in such an employer-employee relationship as the individual laborer's full product. He envisioned that in such a society every worker would be self-employed and own their own private means of production, free to walk away from employment contracts. Tucker called communism "pseudo-anarchism" because it opposes wages and property, fearing that collectivization would subdue individuals to group mentality and rob workers of the full product of their labor.