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Title: Anarchy
Author: Robert LeFevre
Release date: November 1, 2023 [eBook #72001]
Language: English
Original publication: Colorado Springs: The Freedom School, 1959
Credits: Bob Taylor, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
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Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
ANARCHY
[Illustration: Tree]
by Robert LeFevre
Copyright 1959, by Robert LeFevre
Permission to reprint in whole or in part
granted without special request.
PRINTED IN COLORADO SPRINGS, U.S.A.
Published June, 1959
_Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:
59-13480_
THE FREEDOM SCHOOL
P.O. Box 165
Colorado Springs, Colorado
EDITOR’S NOTE
Robert LeFevre, president and founder of the Freedom School, has also
served as the editorial writer for the Gazette Telegraph in Colorado
Springs, since 1954. In addition to several thousand editorials, he
has written numerous articles for the Freeman Magazine, including:
“_The Straight Line_,” “_Jim Leadbetter’s Discovery_,” “_Shades of
Hammurabi_,” “_Grasshoppers and Widows_,” and “_Coercion at the Local
Level_.”
His article “Even the Girl Scouts” (Human Events, 1953) led to a recall
of the Handbook of this organization and extensive revisions. His book,
“The Nature of Man and His Government,” has recently been published by
Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho.
ANARCHY
A rational being, intent upon learning the nature of liberty or
freedom, is confronted almost at once with innumerable instances of
governmental predation against liberty.
As the subject of liberty is pursued, the more frequently and the more
persistently the fact emerges that governments have been one of the
principal opponents if not the only principal opponent to liberty.
Invariably, this discovery leads the perspiring seeker after truth to a
fork in the road. Is it possible, the aspirant to libertarian certainty
asks himself, to pursue the end of the rainbow of liberty into a miasma
of quicksand and uncertainty?
Might I not end at a place where I would advocate the cessation of all
government? And if I reached such a conclusion, would I not find myself
aligned with the very forces I sought to oppose in the beginning,
namely, the forces of lawlessness, chaos and anarchy?
At this fork in the road, libertarians hesitate, some briefly and some
for lengthy periods of time. The choice to be made is a difficult one.
To abandon liberty at this juncture and to endorse minimal governments
as devices which might prevent license, could cause the devotee of
liberty to endorse the active enemy of liberty, albeit in small doses.
On the other hand, to pursue liberty to its logical conclusions might
end in an endorsement of license, The very antonym of liberty.
It is at this juncture that the word “anarchy” rears its dreadful
visage. It becomes incumbent upon sincere seekers after liberty to
grapple with this word and to seek to understand its implications.
Anarchy has very ancient roots. It is not wholly essential to probe to
the last hidden tendril altho such a probe can be highly instructive.
What does appear to be a necessary minimal effort, however, is to
explore at least the principal authors of anarchistic thought with the
view to discovering what it was that motivated these men.
We can begin with William Godwin of England. Godwin is noteworthy as
the “father of anarchistic communism” (Encyclopaedia Britannica).
In 1793 he published the first of several works on this subject
entitled, “Inquiry Concerning Political Justice.” He is probably most
famous as the author of an anarchistic novel which he named, “Caleb
Williams.”
It was Godwin’s thesis that governments are instruments of eternal
bickering and war; that wars are fought over property; that the
ownership of property privately is the greatest curse ever to beset the
human race. As a specific example of tyranny in its worst form, Godwin
suggests marriage.
Before we lay the soubriquet “crackpot” behind his name, let us look
at the England of Godwin’s time to try to find an explanation for his
radical conclusions.
In Godwin’s day (1756-1836) with only a few minor exceptions, all
property was owned by the nobility, which is to say by the persons
favored by government. The common people owned little save the shirts
on their backs. As for marriage, women were chattels, given by a male
parent to another male, during a governmentally approved ceremony.
The idea of one person actually owning and controlling another, which
we would call slavery, and which Godwin saw as the marriage state, was
repellent to him. He insisted that females were human beings and as
such had as much right to individuality as males.
To cure the malady, which Godwin saw as ownership of property, the
early Briton recommended an abolition of governments. It was the
government which sanctified and protected property rights, even in
marriage. To return to a state of nature (see Rousseau) governments
would have to be abolished.
Be it noted to Godwin’s credit that he despised violence. And in
this position he is far removed from both the true communist and the
anarchists of action who followed him.
The next anarchist to be examined is Pierre Joseph Proudhon of
Bexancon, France (1809-1865). Proudhon drank deeply from Godwin’s well
and came forward with certain modifications and extensions of the
Godwin doctrine.
Proudhon acknowledged a debt of gratitude to both Plato and Thomas
More, a pair of dedicated socialists (see Plato’s “Republic” and More’s
“Utopia”) and busied himself with some practical means for implementing
the socialist dream.
Like his precursors, he was fundamentally opposed to property
ownership. His most famous work, “Qu’est-ce que La Propriete?”
(“What Is Property?”), got him into immediate difficulties with the
government. Proudhon, in this opus, declared that “property is robbery”
and set about outlining a social order in which no property could be
privately owned.
The Encyclopedia Americana says that Proudhon was the “first to
formulate the doctrines of philosophic anarchism.”
It is probably true that there are no better writings extant extolling
individualism as opposed to collectivism than Proudhon’s early essays.
Yet, it should be recalled that Proudhon’s aim, in addition to a
society free of governmental coercion, was a state in which property as
a private device was abolished.
It is also interesting to recall that Karl Marx was deeply moved by
Proudhon’s arguments. The first of Proudhon’s writings appeared in
print in 1840 and formed the basis of Marx’s first expostulations which
appeared in 1842. Shortly thereafter, Marx veered away from Proudhon’s
individualism and contrived his concept of collectivism as the natural
and the inevitable course of history.
Marx, however, was never an anarchist, despite the well-known phrase
frequently attributed to him that in time the government of the
proletariat would simply “wither away.” This phrase should properly be
attributed to Lenin.
However, it is known that Marx did make an attempt to lure the
anarchists of France into the first “Internationale” and was hooted
down for his pains. The anarchists of that time were shrewd enough to
sense that the enlargement of government into a general holding company
for all property, would never result in the abolition of private
ownership of property. Rather, it would result in the perpetuation of a
privileged class of persons who would have possession of the property
to the exclusion of all others, the very contingency the anarchists
sought to avoid. And since the aim of the anarchists was to eliminate
exclusive ownership, they could not agree to the Marxist arguments
respecting the usefulness of a government as the repository of all
property.
We pass from Proudhon to another noteworthy anarchist, the Russian
Prince Peter Alexeivich Kropotkin (1842-1921). In his hands, the
doctrine of anarchism took on an international aspect. In point of fact
he added little to either Godwin or Proudhon, except the more grandiose
concept of a world order. He suggested that ALL governments must be
overthrown either peacefully or in any other manner after which “the
present system of class privilege and unjust distribution of the wealth
produced by labor that creates and fosters crime” would be abolished.
It was Kropotkin who endeavored to preserve the ideals of a
property-less society after the most exciting and destructive of all
the anarchists had done his work. This was Michael Bakunin (1814-1876).
Bakunin took his ideology both from Proudhon and from Marx and
endeavored to unite the objectives of the former with the methods of
the latter.
Bakunin despaired of bringing about a state of universal
property-less-ness by means of education and propaganda. So did Marx.
Marx declared that those who owned property would never give it up
without a struggle. This idea entranced Bakunin. He devised what was to
be called “propaganda of action.”
It was Bakunin’s contribution to anarchistic methods that persons
who held governmental offices should be assassinated while they held
office. Such assassination, he argued, would have a persuasive effect
upon future politicians. If the offices could be made sufficiently
dangerous and risky, there would be few who would care to hazard
their necks in such unrewarding positions. The answer to the force of
government, according to Bakunin, was the force of non-government. As
an educational device, a thrown bomb was considered to be the final
argument.
It is unnecessary to embroider the result. The peaceful arguments
of Proudhon and Godwin went by the boards as anarchists rallied
to Bakunin’s banner. Beginning in 1878 there was a series of
assassinations and attempted assassinations against the heads of
governments.
Germany’s Emperor William had a narrow escape and so did the German
princes in 1883. In 1886 in Chicago, a bomb explosion in the Haymarket
killed a number of persons. In the resulting hysteria, seven arrests
were made, all of persons known to be teaching anarchy. Four were
hanged, two drew life sentences, and one was imprisoned for 15 years. No
one to this day is certain who threw the bomb.
Anarchists were pictured in cartoons as bearded radicals carrying
smoking bombs. President Carnot of France was assassinated in 1894. The
Empress Elizabeth of Austria was assassinated in 1898. King Humber of
Italy was assassinated in 1900. President McKinley was assassinated in
1901.
But Bakunin’s enthusiasm wrecked the anarchist movement despite all
Kropotkin could do to save the fragments. These excesses, which have
even been repeated in modern times, have had the effect of uniting
public opinion against anything that smacks of anarchy.
There were, of course, other anarchists. Some have credited Rousseau,
and some even Zeno with the actual birth of the idea of a property-less
society. But the four men briefly reviewed here, with the possible
additions of Elisee Reclus and the American, Benjamin R. Tucker, made
the major contributions to anarchist doctrine. There is no serious
cleavage in anarchist ranks.
It is these thoughts which must confront the libertarian as he seeks to
understand the meaning of individualism, liberty, property, and so on.
But in complete candor, the sincere libertarian cannot be called an
anarchist whichever fork of the road he elects to pursue. It must
be recalled that without exception, anarchists wished to do away
with private ownership of property. Some advocated peaceful means
ending the abolition of government. Some advocated violent means by
destroying politicians in government. But by any yardstick employed,
and whether we are speaking of “philosophic anarchists” or “anarchistic
communists,” the central aim of the anarchist movement was to eliminate
private ownership. The reduction of the government to zero was simply,
to them, a necessary first step.
In contrast, the libertarian is a better economist. From first to last
he is in favor of private ownership. It is, in fact, the abuses of
private ownership inflicted by government which arouse the most ardent
libertarians.
If we take the “communist” anarchists, we are confronted with violence
as a means to abolish private ownership with the abolition of
government as the first step. If we take the “philosophic” anarchists,
we are confronted with essays on individualism and the desire to do
away with private ownership by means of the elimination of government.
The aim of the anarchist is to eliminate private ownership. The
libertarian is dedicated to the perpetuation and the full enjoyment of
private ownership.
Never could two doctrines be more in opposition.
The most constructive of the anarchists were, socially speaking,
individualists, peaceful and harmless. The least constructive, socially
speaking, were dedicated to the overthrow of force by counter force.
But without exception, in the realm of economics, every anarchist comes
unglazed.
In brief, let us define the anarchist as a political individualist and
an economic socialist. In contrast, the libertarian can be defined as
an individualist, both politically and economically.
As the libertarian approaches or hesitates at the fork in the road, one
direction seems to him to indicate anarchy and the other, an advocacy
of coercion in minor doses. But, on careful analysis, the branch which
seems to carry the banner “anarchy” does no such thing.
The libertarian, however he mulls over this dilemma to his progress,
is not concerned with government. His concern is with liberty. He is
not opposed to government. He favors freedom. The libertarian wishes to
preserve all human rights, among which and predominantly among them is
the right to own property privately and to enjoy it fully.
The libertarian is a champion of individualism. He is an advocate of
tools which can perform certain functions for him. He has no objection
to the formation of any kind of tool that will assist him to protect
his rights or his property. But he cannot brook the forceful compulsive
tool which he is compelled to pay for when he has no use for it.
He has no objection to policemen whose function is solely that of
protection. But he resists the supposition that others know better than
he, how much protection he needs or can afford.
He sees in government a tool of man’s devising. He has no objection
to this tool so long as it is totally responsive to the man who hires
the tool and pays for its use. He does object to the employment of
this tool by some against others in an aggressive manner, since he is
primarily concerned with human liberty and the preservation of it for
all individuals.
But it is destructive of libertarian aims and objectives to label a
seeker after total freedom with the opprobrium of “anarchist.”
Economically speaking, all anarchists are, socialists, however they
may coalesce to the political spectrum. Economically speaking,
the libertarian is an individualist, believing in and supporting
the concept of private ownership, individual responsibility and
self-government.
Information about the Freedom School will be sent on request.
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