Encyclopedia
Individualist anarchism is an
anarchist philosophical tradition that has a strong emphasis on equality of liberty and individual sovereignty.Individualist anarchists believe that "individual conscience and the pursuit of self-interest should not be constrained by any collective body or public authority." The tradition appears most often in the
United States. Benjamin Tucker, for example, was influenced by
Herbert Spencer, as he took up Spencer's "law of equal liberty."
Anarcho-capitalism is a form of individualist anarchism that emerged in the middle of the 20th century, through the writings of
Murray Rothbard. However, a small revival of the mutualist type of individualist anarchism has emerged in the 21st century, through the writings of Kevin Carson.
Anarchists
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 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. And those in the 20th century that did not have a labor theory of value, such as Albert Jay Nock,
Murray Rothbard and David Friedman.
William Godwin
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 . Godwin supports individual ownership of property, defining it 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 . 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 a strict individualist for this reason. Some, such as
Murray Rothbard, do not regard Godwin as being in the individualist camp at all . Others consider him an individualist anarchist without reservation. 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. 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 .
Pierre Proudhon
Some see Proudhon as an individualist, but some consider him to be situated somewhere between individualism and collectivism. 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 . 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..." 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.
Stirnerite individualist anarchism
Max Stirner was a philosophical anarchist whose "name appears with familiar regularity in historically-orientated surveys of anarchist thought as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of individualist anarchism." In 1844, Max Stirner's
The Ego and Its Own was published, which is considered to be "a founding text in the tradition of individualist anarchism." Stirner believs that most commonly accepted social institutions - including the notion of State, property as a right, natural rights in general, and the very notion of society - were mere illusions or
ghosts in the mind, saying of society that "the individuals are its reality." He advocated egoism and a form of amoralism, in which individuals would unite in 'associations of egoists' only when it was in their self interest to do so. For him, property simply comes about through might: "Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property." And, "What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing." 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 American tradition
The American version of individualist anarchism supports provision of defense of the individual and his property being supplied by multiple competing providers in a free market. This may further be broad divided into those who have a labor theory of value and those who don't. Some of the latter are often referred to as "anarcho-capitalists." However, there are still others such as
Henry David Thoreau who do not speak of markets but simply of the right of "disunion" from the state. Among the market anarchists, is a strong advocacy 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 that respects the "sovereignty of the individual" and his right to dispose of his property as his own self-interest prescribes. 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." Also, unlike in social anarchism, individualists do not advocate the socialization of the means or production.
The "Boston anarchists"
However, Warren held the labor theory of value and saw the profit reaped by the merchant that covered more than the cost of his labor as being exploitative. Accepting that the value of a good is the amount of labor undertaking in producing it, he 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 To ensure that labor receives its "full produce" he advocated that a commodity should be purchased with an amount of labor that is equivalent to the amount of labor undertaken in producing that commodity. Benjamin Tucker was influenced by Warren and also a proponent of this interpretation of the labor theory of value. 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. Also, unique to the mutualists was the belief 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. However, not all of the early individualist anarchists held this philosophy of land ownership. Warren and Lysander Spooner who placed no restrictions on occupancy and use for ownership.
American individualist anarchists support replacing the security functions of the state with private defense that charges for its services of protecting liberty and property. Benjamin Tucker says: : He said that anarchism "does not exclude prisons, officials, military, or other symbols of force. It merely demands that non-invasive men shall not be made the victims of such force. Anarchism is not the reign of love, but the reign of justice. It does not signify the abolition of force-symbols but the application of force to real invaders." As far as a judicial system, many of these individualists such as Lysander Spooner supported a jury trial with the right of the jury to nullify law, however some such as Steven T. Byington opposed such a system saying that there is a "need for certainty in some kinds of laws." Byington suggested that adjudications be done by judges "on a business basis" through private arbitration.
Some of the American individualist anarchists later in this era, such as Benjamin Tucker, abandoned this form of anarchism and converted to Stirner's amoral Egoism. Abandoning the idea of moral rights, Tucker said that there were only two rights, "the right of might" and "the right of contract."
Anarcho-capitalism
Most pre-20th century individualist anarchists espoused the labor theory of value, however "their successors today, such as Murray Rothbard, having abandoned the labor theory of value, describe themselves as
anarcho-capitalists." As economic theory advanced, the popularity of the of the labor theory of classical economics was superceded by much greater acceptance of the subjective theory of value of neo-classical economics. According to Kevin Carson, while some individualist anarchists today still follow the economics of Benjamin Tucker, most people who call themselves individualist anarchists today are adherents to the philosophy of Rothbard.
Murray Rothbard is credited with introducing
marginalism into individualist anarchism:
As in 19th century individualist anarchism, in an anarcho-capitalist society, no authority would prohibit anyone from providing, through the free market,
any service - even those services traditionally provided by state
monopoly such as police, courts, and defense. However, unlike classical individualist anarchism that accepts the labor theory of value, anarcho-capitalism does not believe that laissez-faire would cause profit to disappear, nor does it consider
profit, rent, interest to be exploitative but natural and beneficial. Rothbard holds that land can only become property by using or occupying it , and that after this it can only legitimately change hands by trade or gift. Its leading proponents are
Murray Rothbard and David Friedman and it has been influenced by non-anarchist libertarians such as
Frederic Bastiat,
Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick.
Rothbard did say "I am...strongly tempted to call myself an “individualist anarchist,” except for the fact that Spooner and Tucker have in a sense preempted that name for their doctrine and that from that doctrine I have certain differences," however scholars generally regard
anarcho-capitalism as being a capitalist form of individualism anarchism.
Comparison of property systems
- Note: Not all philosophers in the various camps agree on everything; this table is only representative of what anarcho-communists, individualist anarchists, and anarcho-capitalists think.
| Philosophies | Anarcho-communists | 19th century American individualists
| Anarcho-capitalists |
| Does the community own the land and other natural resources? | Yes | No | No |
| Does the individual continue to own land if he stops using it? | No | Tucker: No, Spooner: Yes | Rothbard: Yes, Friedman: Depends on what the market chooses |
| Is the product of labour legitimate private property? | No | Yes | Yes |
| Are privately-owned capital goods permissible? | No | Yes | Yes |
| Is profit from labor, land and loans exploitative? | Yes; such profits should be confiscated. | Yes; but should not be prohibited. | No |
"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.
"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. "That there is an entity known as the community which is the rightful owner of all land anarchists deny. I...maintain that the community is a non-entity, that it has no existence, and is simply a combination of individuals having no prerogative beyond those of the individuals themselves." -Benjamin Tucker,
Liberty "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 , 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.
see above.
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 "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 "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." -Joseph Dejacque,
Letter to Proudhon "If we preserved the individual appropriation of the products of labour, we would be forced to preserve money, leaving more or less accumulation of wealth according to more or less merit rather than need of individuals." -Carlo Cafiero,
Anarchism and Communism "In other words, labour and its products must be exchanged without price, without profit, freely, according to necessity. This logically leads to ownership in common and to joint use. Which is a sensible, just, and equitable system, and is known as Communism." -Alexander Berkman,
ABC of Anarchism "One of the tests of any reform movement with regard to personal liberty is this: Will the movement prohibit or abolish private property? If it does, it is an enemy of liberty. For one of the most important criteria of freedom is the right to private property in the products of ones labor. State Socialists, Communists, Syndicalists and Communist-Anarchists deny private property." -Clarence Swartz,
What is Mutualism "...the principle of individual property... says that each man has an absolute dominion, as against all other men, over the products and acquisitions of his own labor." -Lysander Spooner,
The Law of Intellectual Property 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 and, in a series of voluntary contracts has purchased ownership rights in capital goods, and 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.
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.
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.
"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,
.
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 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 "In defending the right to take usury, we do not defend the right [ethicality] of usury" -Benjamin Tucker,
Liberty I,3 Note- Tucker used the term "usury" to mean profit --both from capital and labor.
see above.
References
- "Some portion, at least, of those who have attended the public meetings, know that EQUITABLE COMMERCE is founded on a principle exactly opposite to combination; this principle may be called that of Individuality. It leaves every one in undisturbed possession of his or her natural and proper sovereignty over its own person, time, property and responsibilities; & no one is acquired or expected to surrender any "portion" of his natural liberty by joining any society whatever; nor to become in any way responsible for the acts or sentiments of any one but himself; nor is there any arrangement by which even the whole body can exercise any government over the person, time property or responsibility of a single individual." - Josiah Warren,
- "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. "That there is an entity known as the community which is the rightful owner of all land anarchists deny. I...maintain that the community is a non-entity, that it has no existence, and is simply a combination of individuals having no prerogative beyond those of the individuals themselves." - Benjamin Tucker, Liberty. The communist anarchist Kropotkin, a critic of individualism, agrees that individualist anarchism is opposed to collectivism: "The individualist anarchism of the American Proudhonians finds, however, but little sympathy amongst the working masses. Those who profess it - they are chiefly 'intellectuals' - soon realize that the individualization they so highly praise is not attainable by individual efforts, and either abandon the ranks of the anarchists, and are driven into the liberal individualism of the classical economist or they retire into a sort of Epicurean amoralism, or superman theory, similar to that of Stirner and Nietzsche. The great bulk of the anarchist working men prefer the anarchist-communist ideas which have gradually evolved out of the anarchist collectivism of the International Working Men's Association."
- , by Wendy McElroy
- .
See also
External links
-
- by Edmund Burke - some regard this liberal essay to be the first to advocate anarchy
- by William Godwin
- by Max Stirner, translated by Christian individualist anarchist Steven T. Byington
-
-
- by Benjamin Tucker
- by E. Armand
- from The Conquest of Power, by Albert Weisbord discusses individualism of Godwin and Stirner
- from The Conquest of Power, by Albert Weisbord
- 19th Century Individualist Anarchism in America
-
- Contemporary Individualist Anarchist Publications
-
-
- by Larry Gambone
-
