--New Perspectives in Libertarian Thought--
EDITOR: Murray Bookchin Vol. 1, No. 4 Price: 80 cents The American Crisis
To conceal real crises by creating specious ones is an old political trick, but the past year has seen it triumph with an almost classic example of text-book success.
The so-called "Iranian Crisis" and Russia's heavy-handed invasion of its Afghan satellite have completely deflected public attention from the deeper waters of American domestic and foreign policy. One would have to be blind not to see that the seizure of the American embassy in Teheran by a ragtail group of Maoist students spared both Khomeini and Carter a sh... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Table of Contents
IntroductionInalienable Tenets of AnarchismThe Class StruggleOrganization and AnarchismThe Role of an Anarchist in an Authoritarian SocietyBringing About the New SocietyThe Marxist Criticism of AnarchismThe Social-Democratic Critique of AnarchismThe Liberal-Democratic Objection to AnarchismThe Fascist Objection to AnarchismThe Average Person's Objection to Anarchism
Introduction
The Historical Background to Anarchism
It is not without interest that what might be called the anarchist
approach goes back into antiquity; nor that there is an anarchism of
sorts in the peasant movements that struggled against State
oppression over the centuries. But the modern anarchist movement
could not claim ... (From : Hack.org.)
Preface Preface There has recently been a renewal of interest in anarchism. Books, pamphlets, and anthologies are being devoted to it. It is doubtful whether this literary effort is really very effective. It is difficult to trace the outlines of anarchism. Its master thinkers rarely condensed their ideas into systematic works. If, on occasion, they tried to do so, it was only in thin pamphlets designed for propaganda and popularization in which only fragments of their ideas can be observed. Moreover, there are several kinds of anarchism and many variations within the thought of each of the great libertarians. Rejection of authority and stress on the priority of individual judgment make it natural for libertarians to "profess the faith of anti dogmatism." "Let us not become the leaders of a new religion," Proudhon wrote to Marx, "even were it to be the religion of logic and reason." It follows that the views of the libertarians are more varied, more...
From: Peter Kropotkin, Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets. Roger N. Baldwin, editor. Vangaurd Press, Inc. 1927
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM: ITS BASIS AND PRINCIPLES
Section ISection IIAdditional Note to "Anarchist Communism"
I
Anarchism, the no-government system of socialism, has a double origin. It is an outgrowth of the two great movements of thought in the economic and the political fields which characterize the nineteenth century, and especially its second part. In common with all socialists, the anarchists hold that the private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time; that it is condemned to disappear; and that all requisites for production must, and will, become the common pro... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
The views taken in the preceding article* as to the combination of efforts being the chief source of our wealth explain why more anarchists see in communism the only equitable solution as to the adequate remuneration of individual efforts. There was a time when a family engaged in agriculture, and supported by a few domestic trades, could consider the corn they raised and the plain woolen cloth they wove as production of their own and nobody else's labor. Even then such a view was not quite correct: there were forests cleared and roads built by common efforts; and even then the family had continually to apply for communal help, as it is still the case in so many village communities. But now, under the extremely interwoven state of indu... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD by P. Kropotkin CHAPTER V Food I IF the coming Revolution is to be a Social Revo lution it will be distinguished from all former uprisings not only by its aim, but also by its methods. To attain a new end, new means are required. The three great popular movements which we have seen in France during the last hundred years differ from each other in many ways, but they have one common feature. In each case the people strove to overturn the old regime, and spent their heart's blood for the cause. Then, after having borne the brunt of the battle, they sank again into obscurity. A Government, composed of men more or less honest, was formed and undertook to organize--the Republic in 1793, Labor in 1848, and the Free Commune in 1871. Imbued with Jacobin ideas, this Government occ...
[Since this article was written Prince Kropotkin, whose efforts on behalf of the Russian people forty years ago resulted in his imprisonment in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, has been incarcerated in the same prison by the accursed Bolshevists who now misrepresent that people. The Editor is unable to obtain any news of Prince Kropotkin, but there is only too much reason to fear that he has been murdered in the name of those whom he befriended.]
There can be no doubt that species may become greatly modified through the direct action of environment. I have some excuse for not having formerly insisted more strongly on this head in my Origin of Species, as most of the best facts have been observed since its publication. --- Darwi... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
The text is from my copy of Peter Kropotkin, Ethics: Origins and Development, London: George E. Harrap & Cop., LTD. Ethics: Origin and Development By Peter Kropotkin CHAPTER VI CHRISTIANITY-THE MIDDLE AGES -- THE RENAISSANCE SUMMING up the pre-Christian ethics of ancient Greece, we see that in spite of the different interpretations of morality by the Greek thinkers they all agreed on one point: they saw the source of morality in Man, in his natural tendencies and in his reason. They were far from having a clear idea as to the true nature of these tendencies. But they taught that, owing to his reason and owing to his social mode of life, Man naturally develops and strengthens his moral tendencies, which are useful for the maintenance of the sociality essential to him. For this reason the Greek thinkers did not look for any external, supernatural forces to come to the aid of Man. Such was the es...
FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS: or Industry Combined with Agriculture and Brain Work with Manual Work, by P. Kropotkin FOURTEEN years have passed since the first edition of this book was published, and in revising it for this new edition I found at my disposal an immense mass of new materials, statistical and descriptive, and a great number of new works dealing with the different subjects that are treated in this book. I have thus had an excellent opportunity to verify how far the previsions that I had formulated when I first wrote this book have been confirmed by the subsequent economical evolution of the different nations. This verification permits me to affirm that the economical tendencies that I had ventured to foreshadow then have only become more and more definite since. Everywhere we see the same decentralization of industries going on, new nations continually entering the ranks of those which manufacture for the world market. Each of these new-come...
General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century (1851) by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon « Second Study. Is there Sufficient Reason for Revolution in the Nineteenth Century? | Contents | Fourth Study. The Principle of Authority. » Third Study. The Principle of Association. The Revolution of ’89 had the industrial order to build, after having made a clean sweep of the feudal order. By returning to political theories, it plunged us into economic chaos. In place of a natural order conceived in accordance with science and labor, we have a factitious order, in the shadow of which we have developed parasitic interests, abnormal morals, monstrous ambitions, prejudices at variance with common sense, which today all claim to be legitimate, invoking a tradition of sixty years, and, being unwilling either to abdicate or to modify their demands, place...