History UsefulNotes / Anarchism

'''Key Principles'''

As a basic rule of thumb, political anarchism (despite its internal differences) could be summed up in the following five principles: individual autonomy (concerning persons), voluntary association (concerning persons in relation to other persons and to groups), mutual aid (concerning persons in relation to other persons and groups in relation to other groups), self-organisation (concerning persons within groups), and free federation (concerning groups in relation to other groups).

* ''Individual Autonomy''

The sovereignty of the individual person and their freedom to do whatever they want as long as they're not harming anyone else.
* ''Voluntary Association''

The idea that all relations and institutions should be organised voluntarily with the guarantee that any individual or group can disassociate/secede from an association whenever they choose, and either join another or found their own.
* ''Mutual Aid''

The practice of positive reciprocity; or helping others out just as they help you out, building common bonds and providing the basis of solidarity. Also called "mutuality" or "sociality" when described as a concept instead of a practice. Contained in the principle is the recognition that no act is fully self-interested (egoistic) or self-negating (altruistic), but contains concern for both the self and for others.
* ''Self-Organisation''

Organising within associations being done through horizontal cooperation and participatory decision-making by all members involved, also called participatory democracy. While some anarchists have criticised what's commonly ''called'' democracy (i.e., representative government), they do support decisions being made in a manner that is direct, participatory, and autonomous. In fact, this is actually closer to what the word ''democracy'' originally meant. Though this is only as long as the democracy is on the basis of voluntary association and respects individual autonomy.
* ''Free Federation''

In keeping with their commitment to decentralisation of power, anarchists support organising things on a large scale through federations/confederations of voluntary, directly-democratic associations, with each component unit remaining self-organising while also being part of a larger whole that cooperates to take care of issues that require a bigger geographical scope than local autonomous associations allow.

And all five could in turn be condensed into the formula:

Anarchism = Autonomy + Cooperation

While a participatory democracy, libertarian socialist economy, and civil libertarian society is their long term goal, anarchists also have various short-term and mid-term goals which they see as desirable both as a means of making life under capitalism/statism more tolerable, as well as pushing society in a more liberatory direction. These include things like:

As a basic rule of thumb, political anarchism (despite its internal differences) could be summed up in the following five principles:

(Persons)

(Persons-Groups)

(Persons and Groups)

(Groups)

(Groups-Groups)

As a basic rule of thumb, political anarchism (despite its internal differences) could be summed up in the following four principles:
* ''Individual Autonomy'' - The sovereignty of the individual person and their freedom to do whatever they want as long as they're not harming anyone else.
* ''Voluntary Association'' - The idea that all relations and institutions should be organised voluntarily with the guarantee that any individual or group can disassociate/secede from an association whenever they choose, and either join another or found their own.
* ''Participatory democracy'' - While some anarchists have criticised what's commonly ''called'' democracy (i.e., representative government), they do support decisions being made in a manner that is direct, participatory, and self-organised; in fact, this is actually closer to what the word ''democracy'' originally meant. Though this is only as long as the democracy is on the basis of voluntary association and respects individual autonomy.
* ''Confederative organisation'' - (or ''free federation'') In keeping with their commitment to decentralisation of power, anarchists support organising things on a large scale through federations/confederations of voluntary, directly democratic associations, with each component unit remaining self-administering while also being part of a larger whole that cooperates to take care of issues that require a bigger geographical scope than local participatory democratic associations allow.

And all four could in turn be condensed into the formula:

-> -- Creator/AlanMoore

--AlanMoore

(1) associate the word democracy with representative government; and

(2) especially those who associate the word socialism with statism.

[[/folder]]

There was some tension early in the 1870s and 1880s over whether a post-capitalist economy should be organised primarily through self-governing communes or self-managed syndicates, these tensions between pro-commune and pro-syndicate factions became a lot more pronounced in the early 20th century.

However, some anarchists, such as Murray Bookchin, argued for focusing more on the commune, claiming that in the era of the welfare state, the working class had been bought off by reforms and no longer had the potential to dismantle capitalism and the state; attacking anarcho-syndicalism as too class-centric and too accepting of the "work ethic" found in both capitalism and state socialism. Transformative change should therefore be waged by a convergence of oppressed social groups (women, people of colour, LGBT+ folks) and focus more on creating democratised communities rather than trying to organise workers into radical trade unions.

Confusingly, the commune-oriented group – the "communalists" – tended to call themselves "anarcho-communists", even though many of them also supported syndicalism as a tactic. While the labour-oriented group – the "labourists" – tended to call themselves "anarcho-syndicalists", even though they tended to support a free communist economy.

Writers, artists, and entertainers who openly declared an affinity with political anarchism are somewhat rare, although a few notable ones are: Creator/OscarWilde, Creator/GeorgeOrwell (in his early days), Creator/CharlieChaplin, Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin, Creator/MichaelMoorcock, Creator/RobertAntonWilson, Creator/AlanMoore, and (uh...) Creator/WoodyHarrelson.

* the ''political'' sphere;
* the ''economic'' sphere;
* the ''kinship'' sphere [[note]] (Personal social identities) Comprising gender, sexuality, disability, and family relations. [[/note]];

With each of the four spheres existing in an ecological context, incorporating Murray Bookchin's theory of [[http://www.kurdishquestion.com/index.php/insight-research/analysis/what-is-social-ecology-by-murray-bookchin.html Social Ecology]] - which also developed out of the sixties counter-cultural environment. They came up with this model in large part due to what they felt was Marxism's inadequacy to address issues of race and gender in a United States context, as well as how the black power/Chicano movements could at times act as if racial oppression was the most important hierarchy to get rid of, or how the nascent feminist movement emphasised gender inequality as the most pressing problem. All of these, it was claimed, needed to stop thinking of domination in monist terms and examine how their oppressions relate to each other in holist terms.

In other words, they were countering what's called the "lynchpin" view of oppression: the idea that there's one main form of oppression (e.g. class or patriarchy) which, if gotten rid of, will cause all other oppressions to crumble, like a lynchpin causing something to unravel if pulled loose.

* '''Anarcho-Syndicalists''' (labourists) generally wanted a free communist economy – no state, no markets, no money – but wanted to achieve it via industrial proletarian class struggles through trade unions. They also wanted the future society to be organised with the self-managed workplace at the centre of things, with the economy being composed of federations of worker-run enterprises.
* '''Anarcho-Communists''' (communalists) generally supported taking part in syndicalist struggles, but saw them as only one tactic among many, not as the primary locus of social struggle. They also wanted the future society to be organised with the self-governing commune as the centre of things, with the economy being composed of confederations of directly-democratic communities.

There's still something of a conflict between these two tendencies. Though later alliances between class-based and trans-class forces in events like Occupy may mean that some of the balance between the two sites of struggle could be restored.

Those who focused more on the workplace tended to see revolution coming about from a ''general strike'', where militant trade unions keep amping up the struggle against capitalists until finally an economy-wide lockdown was declared, forcing the ruling classes to abdicate control over the means of production to the workers. They also tended to support a post-capitalist economy that was worker-directed by self-managed enterprises and federations of industrial syndicates. [[note]] Confusingly, the former group – the "communalists" – tended to call themselves "anarcho-communists", even though many of them also supported syndicalism as a tactic, while the later group – the "labourists" – tended to call themselves "anarcho-syndicalists", even though they tended to support a free communist economy. This dual meaning of "communist" within anarchism – organisation through communes and a moneyless economy – has befuddled both anarchists and non-anarchists, hence the reason that the use of communism to mean commune-ism is often retroactively referred to as communalism. [[/note]]

As the twentieth century progressed, social anarchism retained this orientation towards "labourism" (workers) rather than "communalism" (communities), possibly due to the world becoming more industrialised. However, some anarchists, such as Murray Bookchin, argued for focusing more on the commune, claiming that in the era of the welfare state, the working class had been bought off by reforms and no longer had the potential to dismantle capitalism and the state; attacking anarcho-syndicalism as too class-centric and too accepting of the "work ethic" found in both capitalism and state socialism. Transformative change should therefore be waged by a convergence of oppressed social groups (women, people of colour, LGBT+ folks) and focus more on creating democratised communities rather than trying to organise workers into radical trade unions.

''Escaping from the dominant powers and constructing a positive alternative to them; prediguration of the liberated world to come''

This creation of positive alternatives is called ''dual power'', or sometimes ''counter-power''. Dual Power strategists see this process of "exodus" from hierarchical society as creating an anarchist ''transfer-culture'' which will prefigure the forms the new social-institutional structure will take "within the shell of the old".

Most want this whole endeavour to be as nonviolent as possible, while still defending the use of self-defensive violence as a last resort to prevent the Dual Power structure from being dismantled by state or corporate power. It was originally devised by Proudhon and is the primary strategy recommended by market anarchists, though several social anarchists like Gustav Landauer, Paul Goodman, and Murray Bookchin have supported it as well.

Having developed out of the same European socialist movement that Karl Marx was a part of, anarchism's relationship to Marxism has always been ambivalent. While many anarchists accepted Marx's critique of capitalism and (with nuance) the Marxian school of economics, they strenuously rejected Marx's politics, in particular the tactic of taking state power as a way to bring about socialism. For anarchists like Mikhail Bakunin (Marx's rival in the First International), the state was inherently an institution of class rule, and could never be used to bring about a classless society, as it would just corrupt whatever group laid their hands on it. (Bakunin's view is generally regarded as having been VindicatedByHistory in light of what happened in the UsefulNotes/SovietUnion and other nominally Communist countries). They also tended to reject the Marxist conception of history - historical materialism - which claims that economic and technological factors are the fundamental driving force of human development. Anarchists saw this perspective as reductionist and ignoring important social factors that weren't directly related to economics - their own conception of history might best be termed ''historical naturalism''. [[note]] This means that they accept the naturalist (non-supernatural) view of the world that sees science and reason as the best means for achieving knowledge, but don't accept the idea that everything that happens in a society is ultimately caused by economic/technological conditions. Indeed, the anarchist David Graeber has argued that historical materialism, in a way, isn't materialist ''enough'', in that it denies the materiality (and thus material significance) of intellectual/affective forces, as well as the idealist components of so-called material forces. [[/note]]

Also, while Marxists see the proletariat (the urban industrial working class) as the fundamental agents of revolution, anarchists also saw revolutionary potential in the rural peasantry and social outcasts (the lumpen-proletariat), which Marxists tend to dismiss as "backwards". They also feel that it's important to appeal to those subject to hierarchy and domination as "the people" and not just as a class.

* the ''kinship'' sphere [[note]] (Personal social identities) Comprising gender, sexuality, and family relations. [[/note]];
* the ''communities'' sphere [[note]] (Collective social identities) Comprising racial, ethnic, national, geographic, and religious relations. [[/note]]

With each of the four spheres existing in an ecological context, incorporating Murray Bookchin's theory of [[http://www.kurdishquestion.com/index.php/insight-research/analysis/what-is-social-ecology-by-murray-bookchin.html Social Ecology]] - which also developed out of the sixties counter-cultural environment. They came up with this model in large part due to what they felt was Marxism's inadequacy to address issues of race and gender in a United States context, as well as how the black power/Chicano movements could at times act as if racial oppression was the most important hierarchy to get rid of, or how the nascent feminist movement emphasised gender inequality as the most pressing problem. Al of these, it was claimed, needed to stop thinking of domination in monist terms and examine how their oppressions relate to each other in holist terms.

The four spheres are used for social analysis and examining how different social factors affect one another. For example, how patriarchal gender relations (kinship sphere) are reproduced in the workplace (economic sphere), or how racial, ethnic, or religious discrimination (communities sphere) is heightened further and reproduced through oppressive state laws (political sphere). But at the same time these hierarchies can also be transformed within each sphere, leading to co-transformation in the other spheres, like how removing anti-queer discrimination in the kinship sphere can force the political, economic, and communities spheres to catch up; or how devolving political power to communities of colour transforms both spheres at the same time.

The complementary holist model also stresses the importance of a the third class in between the ruling class and the working classes called the ''managerial class'' (or coordinator class) whose ideal is neither capitalism nor worker self-management but a kind of left-wing bureaucracy. It is this class, they claim, who is best served by traditional state-socialism and social democracy. A broad outline of these ideas is available [[http://www.afreesociety.org/writings/OFS-PointsofUnity.pdf here]].

Over the last century, anarchism has had a complex set of relationships with other philosophies too. Repression of much anarchist political and labour organising in the late 19th and early 20th century meant that a lot of anarchist thinkers ended up channelling their ideas into more intellectual pursuits. For instance, anarchism (especially individualist anarchism) had a large influence on the development of early Modernism, Dadaist art, and surrealism in the early years of the 20th century. In the later years of the same century it also blended with certain forms of {{postmodernism}} and poststructuralism to create a hybrid many started calling "post-anarchism".

There's also something of an affinity between anarchism and American [[http://www.anarkismo.net/article/26978 pragmatism]], with both supporting a "whatever works" attitude to solving problems, with the US writer Paul Goodman inspiring many a student radical with his common sense, pragmatic approach to anarchism. Lately, there's been a drift in anarchist thinking towards the philosophy of [[http://international-criticalrealism.com/about-critical-realism/ Critical Realism]] (originally devised by Roy Bhaskar) - which is a sort of middle-way between scientistic positivism and postmodernism, and which the famous anarchist anthropologist David Graeber, fellow anthropologist Brian Morris, and literary critic Jesse Cohn have used to elucidate their theoretical work. It's worth noting that Roy Bhaskar's Critical Realism has a lot in common with Bookchin's philosophy, though the two were unfamiliar with each other's work during their lifetimes.

[[folder: Class Struggle and Social Struggle]]

Armed struggle to violently overthrow the state and private capital and set up a confederation of worker councils and popular assemblies in their place. The tactic of "propaganda by the deed", which was popular in the second half of the 19th century, involved committing acts of violence against ruling elites in the hope this would incite the working classes to rise up and get into insurrection mode. As the now common image of the BombThrowingAnarchist terrorist proves, this didn't work. In fact, it only served to alienate most working people by associating anarchism with mindless terrorism.

Mass organising by anarchist groups and other transformative forces to push against existing forms of domination, with the intention of winning enough victories against capital and the state to trigger the downfall of the capitalist state system.

''Escaping from the dominant powers and constructing a positive alternative to them, prediguration of the liberated world to come''

Exiting the capitalist state system by creating counter-institutions to it - like worker cooperatives, directly-democratic popular assemblies, affinity groups, democratic schools, interest-free banks, intentional communities - and then linking them all together into a confederated network, so as to contest the power of corporations and governments over the administration of society.

This creatin of positive alternatives is called ''dual power'', or sometimes ''counter-power''. Dual Power strategists see this process of "exodus" from hierarchical society as creating an anarchist ''transfer-culture'' which will prefigure the forms the new social-institutional structure will take "within the shell of the old".

Most want this endeavour to be as nonviolent as possible, while still defending the use of self-defensive violence as a last resort to prevent the Dual Power structure from being dismantled by state or corporate power. It was originally devised by Proudhon and is the primary strategy recommended by market anarchists, though several social anarchists like Gustav Landauer, Paul Goodman, and Murray Bookchin have supported it as well. Some even see exodus (Dual Power) as compatible with the strategy of social struggle (including anarcho-syndicalism), with trade unions and other popular organisations confronting capital directly (and defending workers from its effects) while the Dual Power institutions try to route around it, offering people an escape from capitalism and from the state.

Despite some more contemporary tends among anarchists towards technophobia and neo-Luddism, the broad anarchist tradition has been largely enthusiastic and supportive of the liberatory potential of technology to remove needless toil from work, automate production, and enhance communication and transport among regions. They have no love, however, for the kind of centralised, mass production systems of technology which have dominated economies since the Industrial Revolution. Peter Kropotkin, in his book [[http://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/FactoriesPDF.pdf ''Fields, Factories, and Workshops'']], recommended radically decentralising the scale of technologies, localising production so as to move closer to communal self-sufficiency, and integrating mental and manual labour. Later, in the 1960s, Murray Bookchin claimed that decentralist and human-scale technology was the only means to provide a high standard of living while maintaining ecological balance. Social anarchists think one of the main problems of capitalism regarding technology is that it actually holds technological innovation back, channelling its development into producing destructive military weapons and planned obsolescence in consumer goods instead of building things to last and eliminating dull, dirty, and dangerous forms of labour with automation.

Democratising finance is one of the oldest components of the anarchist economic vision, first being suggested by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon; finance being the "means of investment" under capitalism. The early mutualists sought to create "mutual banks" which would be used to fund the creation of worker cooperatives and other self-managed economic institutions to gradually replace capitalist and state enterprises, and to eliminate usury (charging interest for loaned money). The social anarchists from the First International on went further in seeking the full socialisation of investment in the hands of local communities. Many also suggested replacing traditional money with "labour vouchers" (nowadays these would take the form of digital credit points on debit cards) which unlike conventional currency, would be created at the point of receiving income and would cease to exist upon purchase of an item; in much the same way as frequent flyer miles or restaurant loyalty points work. Participatory Economics and Inclusive Democracy both support such proposals.

'''Class Struggle and Social Struggle'''

They agree with most other radical socialists that ''class struggle'' (of the popular classes against the ruling elites) is a necessary part of social transformation, though they tend to disagree with many, especially Marxists, who see economic class as the only/primary form of oppression, with others - like race, gender, sexuality, nationality, ecology - being secondary or at worst a distraction. Rather, they see it as necessary to [[http://www.afed.org.uk/blog/state/327-a-class-struggle-anarchist-analysis-of-privilege-theory--from-the-womens-caucus-.html integrate class struggle with trans-class forms of struggle]], unifying them in a way that makes purely class-based issues (like workplace organising) complement non-economic concerns (like fights against gender or ethnic oppression, or defence of the environment) as part of an intersectional ''social struggle'' against all forms of hierarchy and domination, whatever the specific tactics used for achieving an anarchist society.

* '''Insurrection: Destruction of the dominant powers'''
Armed struggle to violently overthrow the state and private capital and set up a confederation of worker councils and popular assemblies in their place. The tactic of "propaganda by the deed", which was popular in the second half of the 19th century, involved committing acts of violence against ruling elites in the hope this would incite the working classes to rise up and get into insurrection mode. As the now common image of the BombThrowingAnarchist terrorist proves, this didn't work. In fact, it only served to alienate most working people by associating anarchism with mindless terrorism. What few proponents this tactic has today at least agree that they need to get popular support for the uprising ''before'' committing any acts of violence, and that isolated acts of terrorism don't do much besides turn people off their cause. Though, to be fair, propaganda by the deed first referred to armed struggle in a collective sense, such as militias taking over a small town and turning it into an autonomous territory, not assassinations or bombings. When seen in this context, the idea seems more appropriate and likely to inspire further popular uprisings.
* '''Struggle: Confrontation with the dominant powers'''
Mass organising by anarchist groups and other transformative forces to push against existing forms of domination, with the intention of winning enough victories against capital and the state to trigger the downfall of the capitalist state system. Varieties of the this approach are ''platformism'' – similar to the specifist strategy outlined above – and the more famous tactic of ''anarcho-syndicalism''. While many have (somewhat inaccurately) used this term to refer to a certain type of social anarchist economic system, [[note]] One which would be worker-directed (by federations of worker councils and syndicates) rather than community-directed (by popular assemblies and confederated municipalities). [[/note]] it's actually a strategy of achieving libertarian socialism through the use of trade unions. Anarcho-syndicalists propose setting up anarchist syndicates (unions), as well as establishing an anarchist presence in mainstream unions, so as to get as many working people organised as possible and eventually declare a general strike (or "general lock-out of the capitalist classes") to shut down the capitalist economy until the capitalists and landlords agree to sign over control over the means of production, distribution, and investment to the federation of syndicates that would have been established, who would then reorganise the economy on the basis of decentralised worker self-management. This strategy is still very popular today despite having been developed over a century ago in very different economic circumstances. It's also the one that's been most successful thus far, winning many labour victories through trade unions in the early 20th century with the [[UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar Spanish Revolution of 1936]] successfully establishing a libertarian socialist economy for a short time (before being suppressed by Marxists on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War).
* '''Exodus: Escaping from the dominant powers and constructing a positive alternative to them'''
Exiting the capitalist state system by creating counter-institutions to it - like worker cooperatives, directly-democratic popular assemblies, affinity groups, democratic schools, interest-free banks, intentional communities - and then linking them all together into a confederated network, so as to contest the power of corporations and governments over the administration of society. This creatin of positive alternatives is called ''dual power'', or sometimes ''counter-power''. Dual Power strategists see this process of "exodus" from hierarchical society as creating an anarchist ''transfer-culture'' which will prefigure the forms the new social-institutional structure will take "within the shell of the old". Most want this endeavour to be as nonviolent as possible, while still defending the use of self-defensive violence as a last resort to prevent the Dual Power structure from being dismantled by state or corporate power. It was originally devised by Proudhon and is the primary strategy recommended by market anarchists, though several social anarchists like Gustav Landauer, Paul Goodman, and Murray Bookchin have supported it as well. Some even see exodus (Dual Power) as compatible with the strategy of social struggle (including anarcho-syndicalism), with trade unions and other popular organisations confronting capital directly (and defending workers from its effects) while the Dual Power institutions try to route around it, offering people an escape from capitalism and from the state.

* '''Insurrection:''' Armed struggle to violently overthrow the state and private capital and set up a confederation of worker councils and popular assemblies in their place. The tactic of "propaganda by the deed", which was popular in the second half of the 19th century, involved committing acts of violence against ruling elites in the hope this would incite the working classes to rise up and get into insurrection mode. As the now common image of the BombThrowingAnarchist terrorist proves, this didn't work. In fact, it only served to alienate most working people by associating anarchism with mindless terrorism. What few proponents this tactic has today at least agree that they need to get popular support for the uprising ''before'' committing any acts of violence, and that isolated acts of terrorism don't do much besides turn people off their cause. Though, to be fair, propaganda by the deed first referred to armed struggle in a collective sense, such as militias taking over a small town and turning it into an autonomous territory, not assassinations or bombings. When seen in this context, the idea seems more appropriate and likely to inspire further popular uprisings.
* '''Struggle:''' Mass organising by anarchist groups and other transformative forces to push against existing forms of domination, with the intention of winning enough victories against capital and the state to trigger the downfall of the capitalist state system. Varieties of the this approach are ''platformism'' – similar to the specifist strategy outlined above – and the more famous tactic of ''anarcho-syndicalism''. While many have (somewhat inaccurately) used this term to refer to a certain type of social anarchist economic system, [[note]] One which would be worker-directed (by federations of worker councils and syndicates) rather than community-directed (by popular assemblies and confederated municipalities). [[/note]] it's actually a strategy of achieving libertarian socialism through the use of trade unions. Anarcho-syndicalists propose setting up anarchist syndicates (unions), as well as establishing an anarchist presence in mainstream unions, so as to get as many working people organised as possible and eventually declare a general strike (or "general lock-out of the capitalist classes") to shut down the capitalist economy until the capitalists and landlords agree to sign over control over the means of production, distribution, and investment to the federation of syndicates that would have been established, who would then reorganise the economy on the basis of decentralised worker self-management. This strategy is still very popular today despite having been developed over a century ago in very different economic circumstances. It's also the one that's been most successful thus far, winning many labour victories through trade unions in the early 20th century with the [[UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar Spanish Revolution of 1936]] successfully establishing a libertarian socialist economy for a short time (before being suppressed by Marxists on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War).
* '''Exodus (Dual Power):''' Exiting the capitalist state system by creating counter-institutions to it - like worker cooperatives, directly-democratic popular assemblies, affinity groups, democratic schools, interest-free banks, intentional communities - and then linking them all together into a confederated network, so as to contest the power of corporations and governments over the administration of society. Dual Power strategists see this process of "exodus" from hierarchical society as creating an anarchist ''transfer-culture'' which will prefigure the forms the new social-institutional structure will take "within the shell of the old". Most want this endeavour to be as nonviolent as possible, while still defending the use of self-defensive violence as a last resort to prevent the Dual Power structure from being dismantled by state or corporate power. It was originally devised by Proudhon and is the primary strategy recommended by market anarchists, though several social anarchists like Gustav Landauer, Paul Goodman, and Murray Bookchin have supported it as well. Some even see exodus (Dual Power) as compatible with the strategy of social struggle (including anarcho-syndicalism), with trade unions and other popular organisations confronting capital directly (and defending workers from its effects) while the Dual Power institutions try to route around it, offering people an escape from capitalism and from the state.

At first, inspired by the Paris Commune of 1871, this involved recommending acts of collective insurrection, leading many anarchists to try taking over small municipalities in Italy and Spain, with the intention of turning them into free communes. The intention being that this would cause a domino effect of the people in other parishes, towns, and cities becoming inspired to mirror such actions, turning their local areas into free communes with libertarian socialist economies. This was called ''propaganda by the deed'': belief that living examples of socialist revolution proved more effective than writing pamphlets or making speeches; that is, written and oral propaganda. [[note]] The word "propaganda" back then didn't mean brainwashing (as it mostly does today). It was a term roughly synonymous with what's now called public relations (PR), getting your message out there. [[/note]]

After a string of failures however, and the successful assassination of Tsar Alexander the 2nd in Russia, attention turned to acts of individual insurrection, targeting royals and businessmen in the hope that this would give the masses the confidence to rise up and overthrow the governments and the structures of private property.

For example, at the 1907 Amsterdam Congress of anarchists, some expressed the idea that the strategy of revolutionary syndicalism (trade unionism) was "enough in itself" to realise anarchist goals, and that anarchists should dissolve themselves into the wider labour movement. Errico Malatesta came out staunchly against this view, claiming that while workers' struggles were important, they were (by themselves) conservative unless they were pushed in a more social libertarian direction, and that specifically anarchist political organisations would be necessary, not just anarchists working within trade unions. This came from his view, contrary to Marxism, that mass struggle has as much to do with will (fighting for a chosen ideal) as with material interest (reacting to the mechanical processes of the economy).

This strategy was already discussed by Mikhail Bakunin and others in the First International in the 1860s and 1870s. But it became really relevant in the 1880s through to the 1910s, as the labour movements of the world became more and more successful and relevant. This lead to the birth of anarcho-syndicalism as a distinct strategic approach which centred the workplace, the industrial working class, and trade unions (“syndicates” in French) as the primary vehicles of revolution. Though a lot of anarchists, such as Errico Malatesta and Emma Goldman, discouraged people from emphasising syndicalism too much, arguing that focusing on economic issues alone could cause anarchists to neglect political, societal, and individual-level issues. They also cautioned against the idea that “revolution” would involve dispatching the old order in one fell swoop, claiming that the whole process would take years.

Even those anarchists who saw social revolution as involving a popular uprising (like the French Revolution) didn't think libertarian socialism would just spontaneously establish itself. They held that while the abolition of the state and subsequent devolution of power to localities would open up the necessary space/opportunities for creating anarchism, the actual process itself would take several years of hard work. This would entail the constructive efforts of spreading anarchist ideas and practices among the general population, reorganising the polity and economy along decentralised and horizontalist lines, as well as the defensive work of making sure the state, capitalism, or hierarchy in general don't reemerge from the remnants of the old order.

A minority of anarchists don't actually believe that transition to a full anarchist social order is possible, or at least not on a large scale. Instead, they view anarchism more as a set of practices for the here-and-now, as a way to realise autonomous spaces of freedom and autonomy in a sea of authoritarianism, as well as a politics of “permanent protest” against every form of hierarchy and domination. People like Colin Ward and James C. Scott fall into this camp.

Élisée Reclus claimed that evolution and revolution were two variants of the same process, with evolution being the incremental changes which occur on a continuous basis, and revolutions being moments of sudden rupture, preceded by a long period of evolution beforehand.

Those who focused more on the commune tended to see revolution coming about from a ''popular uprising'' which would seize the means of governance from the state, then reorganise things on free communalist lines.

Those who focused more on the workplace tended to see revolution coming about from a ''general strike'', where militant trade unions keep amping up the struggle against capitalists until finally an economy-wide lockdown was declared, forcing the ruling classes to abdicate control over the means of production to the workers.

As the twentieth century progressed, social anarchism retained this orientation towards "labourism" (workers) rather than "municipalism" (communities), possibly due to the world becoming more industrialised. However, some anarchists, such as Murray Bookchin, argued for focusing more on the commune, claiming that in the era of the welfare state, the working class had been bought off by reforms and no longer had the potential to dismantle capitalism and the state; attacking anarcho-syndicalism as too class-centric and too accepting of the "work ethic" found in both capitalism and state socialism. Transformative change should therefore be waged by a convergence of oppressed social groups (women, people of colour, LGBT+ folks) and focus more on creating democratised communities rather than trying to organise workers into radical trade unions.

This strategy was already discussed by Mikhail Bakunin and others in the First International in the 1860s and 1870s. But it became really relevant in the 1880s through to the 1910s, as the labour movements of the world became more and more successful and relevant. This lead to the birth of anarcho-syndicalism as a distinct strategic approach which centred the workplace, the industrial working class, and trade unions (“syndicates” in French) as the primary vehicles of revolution. Though a lot of anarchists, such as Errico Malatesta, discouraged people from emphasising syndicalism too much, arguing that focusing on economic issues alone could cause anarchists to neglect political, societal, and individual-level issues. He also cautioned against the idea that “revolution” would involve dispatching the old order in one fell swoop, claiming that the whole process would take years.

Élisée Reclus claimed that evolution and revolution were two variants of the same process, with evolution being the incremental changes which occur on a continuous basis, and revolutions being moments of sudden rupture, preceded by a long period of evolution beforehand.

1. Preparation
2. Fermentation
3. Transformation

This came close to becoming the default version of anarchism in the mid 20th century – after the (anarchist) Spanish Revolution and World War II, but before the revival of anarchism in the New Left of the 1960s – as establishing a completely stateless non-hierarchical world seemed ever more impossible. This position was called “resistantialism” by its detractors, meaning concerned only with ''resisting'' authoritarianism instead of dissolving it.

However, some anarchists like Noam Chomsky recommend what's called "defensive voting" (using your vote as a form of self-defence against the state) in situations where a certain candidate or party winning an election could be catastrophic, like a fascist coming to power or a war being launched. A few others support taking part in municipal elections (though never national elections) so as to devolve the powers of local governments to directly-democratic neighbourhood assemblies and to municipalise enterprises before turning them over to worker self-management; though this is a minority position, with most anarchists being against taking part in ''any'' form of electoral politics.

In general, direct action and grassroots self-organisation are the primary methods anarchists recommend for accomplishing their goals. That means resisting all the different forms of hierarchical power through popular social struggle, as well as trying to create contrete examples of anarchism in a positive sense, namely associations which run on the basis of free cooperation and egalitarian self-ordering by their own participants. They don't put much faith in even a well-meaning government to do the right thing by the socially oppressed, relative to the oppressed themselves through bottom-up forms of collective self-help. Though that's not to say they oppose making demands on the government from the outside, through protest and civil disobedience, and this usually entails (1) demanding the state reduce its own authority over people, and (2) redirect it's resources (as long as it has them at all) towards helping the general population rather than the ruling elite.

Given that there remained divisions within anarchism over what kind of post-capitalist economy there should be – eg: free collectivism or free communism – this sometimes led to arguments within organisations as to whether they were really fighting for the same thing. Support for anarchist communism (a moneyless economy with distribution "according to needs") ended up becoming the majority tendency in most countries, though anarchist collectivism (an economy which retained incomes and prices with distribution "according to deeds") became the majority in Spain, anarchism's main centre of activity. Support for free collectivism was also a minority position among anarchists in countries where free communism was the default position of anarchists.

While not an anarchist himself, the fantasy novelist ChinaMieville suggested a system that most anarchists would find appealing, where authors (and other artists and entertainers) are paid salaries for doing creative work rather than being paid per the profits for their individual products, as they could be distributed for free online. While this would obviously mean that most of the big-name artists and entertainers could no longer make millions, he pointed out that for most struggling artists it would actually be a pay upgrade, allowing them to devote themselves to their craft full-time. An anarchist entertainment industry could therefore be based on cooperatives (based on location) and democratic guilds (based on art form), where big-scale art/entertainment projects like blockbuster movies would be greenlit based on perceived quality instead of potential profitability.

Anarchism is the belief that ''rulership'' as a whole, not just the state, should not exist [[note]] (as indicated in its Greek roots, an- [no] -arkhos [ruler]) [[/note]] and that people should instead organize their social relations and institutions though voluntary cooperation without hierarchies of power. So what characterises anarchism is not anti-statism so much as anti-authoritarianism.

* '''The Commune:'''(aka Municipality) The local territory where people live, corresponding to small towns, city districts, or rural parishes.

The goal is to transform statist municipalities into liberated free communes, self-governed by their own residents through autonomous directly-democratic processes; and to turn capitalist corporations into liberated cooperative enterprises, self-managed by their own workers.

While early on, during the the mid-to-late 1800s, there was an even balance in focus between the commune and the workplace, over time the workplace started to hold a more and more important place in anarchist attention, especially with anarchist involvement in the workers' movement and the rise of anarcho-syndicalism (trade unionism). Though the commune retained its importance for anarchists organising in more agrarian parts of the world, where the people were united more by community in the countryside than by trade in the city.

As the twentieth century progressed, social anarchism retained this orientation towards "labourism" (workers) rather than "municipalism" (communities). However, some anarchists, such as Murray Bookchin, argued for focusing more on the commune, claiming that in the era of the welfare state, the working class had been bought off by reforms and no longer had the potential to dismantle capitalism and the state; attacking anarcho-syndicalism as too class-centric and too accepting of the "work ethic" found in both capitalism and state socialism. Transformative change should therefore be waged by a convergence of oppressed social groups (women, people of colour, LGBT+ folks) and focus more on creating democratised communities rather than trying to organise workers into radical trade unions.