Anarchism, Human Nature and History
Lessons for the
Future
By Dave Morland
Human nature is one
of the most important concepts employed in political argument. Whether in
everyday conversation or academic discourse, it is used as an evaluative tool
to embrace or reject political ideologies. Traditionally, anarchism has been
attacked on the basis that its conception of human nature is excessively
optimistic. Anarchism, reputedly, will simply not work because human nature is
not as good as anarchists like to think it is. This chapter aims to correct
this erroneous apprehension, and it intends to illustrate that anarchism offers
a very realistic assessment of human nature that constitutes one of the
greatest strengths of anarchist thinking. At the same time it highlights the
dangers of adopting the philosophy of the New Right and cautions against a
marriage with existentialism.
Introduction
Generally speaking,
anarchism is dismissed in the public's imagination as being either too violent
or simply unworkable. The former perception has
much to do with the
image anarchism inherited at the end of the nineteenth century, with which it
remains associated. An anarchist, it would seem, is someone who operates
incognito, armed with a dagger or a pocketful of semtex. This vision of the
anarchist as a clandestine terrorist was cemented in novels like Joseph
Conrad's The Secret Agent, set in the
1890s and published in 1907. Yet more recently Peter Marshall has commented,
'the very word "anarchist" continues to evoke a shiver of anxiety
among the respectable and well‑off.’1 A detailed investigation
of what it is to be an anarchist, or, more precisely, what anarchism means is
beyond the remit of this chapter. However, in so far as it is concerned with
the second assumption, that anarchism is unworkable, some elaboration on the
nature of anarchism itself will undoubtedly emerge.
At the heart of
political argument lies the concept of human nature. Particularly in popular
discourse, but also in academic analysis, the concept of human nature is the
benchmark by which political ideologies are either embraced or eschewed. Human
nature is invoked time and again in everyday conversation as testimony to the
success or feasibility, or conversely the naivety or utopianism, of social and
political ideals. A conservative, for example, might comment that socialism
will never work because human nature is not good enough. Humankind is burdened
by original sin, and socialists would do well not to forget it when drawing up
plans for future society. As Christopher Berry has remarked:
'human nature' has a prominent place in the
repertoire of explanations and justifications that is embedded in popular consciousness.
It is this consciousness that is largely responsible for the perceptions people
have of their society and it is these perceptions that directly affect their
political beliefs and actions .2
Inasmuch as
political ideologies are instrumental in shaping the popular consciousness,
then they are responsible for constructing a political programme that is
partly underpinned by a set of assumptions about human nature.
It has often been
said that people turn to ideologies to make sense of the world. By and large
this appears to be true. But for ideologies to afford meaning and understanding
they have to provide an account of the world in which their followers live. The
more convincing their explanation of events, the more converts they can hope to
attract. Ideologies do this by enunciating an argument that transcends all
three dimensions of time: past, present and future. Not only do they pronounce
on the past and the present, but they offer a view of how humanity might live
in a future society. Political ideologies are both descriptive and
prescriptive. Judgment is, however, largely predicated on a concept of human
nature. Ideological portraits are dependent upon human nature not only to
describe what is wrong with society now (as the concept of alienation is
employed in Marxism), but how those wrongs should be put right. Human nature,
then, is an evaluative tool by which rival ideologies are either welcomed or
spurned.
The dimensions
of human nature
The concept of
human nature is simply one piece in the jigsaw that helps to establish the
overall pattern of an ideology. Concepts of history or some wider metaphysic
also play a fundamental role in constructing this ideological matrix. The
centrality of the concept of human nature to this process, though, is
incontestable. But human nature itself is what is commonly referred to as an
essentially contested concept. What is at stake here is the authenticity of the
epistemology through which human nature is defined. In other words, there is
often basic disagreement about what constitutes human nature ‑ and such
is the stuff of politics. Are human beings essentially sinful, as the Bible
tells us or are they basically innocent, as someone like Rousseau would have us
believe? Whatever the answer, there appear to be two procedures for laying
claim to what amounts to a supposedly truthful account of human nature. Either
human nature is taken to be a construct of one's social context, or it is held
to possess certain transcendent, universal qualities. That is, either human
nature is regarded as a product of the environment of which it is a part, or it
is seen as something which is given about humanity. It is either contextual or
universal.
Locating the
essence of human nature is an immensely difficult if not impossible task. And
even if it is possible to identify the transcendent component(s) of human
nature (i.e., that which is sometimes referred to as the essence of human
nature), it does not automatically follow that human nature can yield a
prescription about how society ought to be organized. As Raymond Plant has
argued, 'in so far as the theory of human nature is factual in content it
cannot yield any conclusion about the morally desirable form of human
organization’.3 The dilemma is created by the is/ought or fact/value
distinction, and to say that 'facts' about human nature prescribe moral
outcomes is to commit what is known in philosophical jargon as the
'naturalistic fallacy'. Conversely, in so far as a conception of human nature
is not factual but evaluative then it may be said to be capable of sustaining
moral arguments about social and political reform. But that still leaves the
unanswered question: in what will that conception of human nature be grounded?
The dilemma,
however, may not be as absolute as it first appears, since the dichotomy of
contextual and universal elements of human nature is seldom hard and fast in
political ideology. Conservatism, for example, is commonly held to be indebted
to a contextualist conception of human nature, with its emphasis on the
individual's gradual acquisition of culture and language as a major element
that forges personal identity. Despite this perception that an individual's
context is vital to an understanding of what goes to compose that person, the
conservative may equally accentuate the influence of a universal component like
original sin or the cogency of emotions over the limited capacity of
humankind's power of reason.4 Likewise, liberalism is often
considered to exhibit a universalist conception of human nature. Reason or
rationality is the hallmark of humanity, according to the liberal; but even
here due credit is given to the character forming basis of circumstance.5
Indeed, if it were not for the ability of the environment to impress all
identity oil individuals' minds then the whole liberal impulse of the
Enlightenment would have been an irrelevant exercise in the triumph of reason
over faith and superstition.
Common
misconceptions
Conceptions of
human nature, then, often combine both contextualist and universalist
arguments, and anarchism (as will be demonstrated below) is no exception.
Unfortunately, this fact is not always recognized by those who reflect upon the
nature of anarchism. The discipline of political ideology is central to the
study of politics and has spawned a growing number of commentaries in recent
years. But most of these texts rest on a fundamental error concerning the
anarchist conception of human nature. They point, quite rightly, to the fact
that anarchists operate a contextualist conception of human nature, but fail to
detect the givenness or universality that anarchists ascribe to human nature.
This leads some commentators to suggest that anarchism has little to say about
human nature that has not already been said by the black sheep of the
Enlightenment, Rousseau. Barbara Goodwill, for instance, argues that along with
Rousseau some anarchists picture 'the individual as a tabla rasa (blank sheet) at birth, innocent of evil and only
corrupted later, by invidious social institutions'.6 An almost
identical argument emerges in the work of Ian Adams. In his book, Political Ideology Today, Adams argues
that anarchism rests 'upon certain basic assumptions about human nature and its
relation to society', one of which is: 'Humanity is essentially good, but is
corrupted by government'.7 Alternatively, anarchists are said to
espouse an overly optimistic assessment of human nature. Thus Andrew Heywood
contends that the core of anarchism is founded on
an unashamed optimism, a belief in the
natural goodness, or at least potential goodness, of humankind. Social order
arises naturally and spontaneously; it does not require the machinery of 'law
and order'. This is why anarchist conclusions have been reached by political
thinkers who possess an essentially optimistic view of human nature.8
The prominence that
is attributed to an optimistic account of human nature, allegedly espoused by
anarchism, is not only, as April Carter has noted, 'an over‑simplification’,9
but 'a perennial half‑truth that deserves to be critically examined'.10
Sadly, this confusion is perpetuated by sympathetic and more knowledgeable
analysts of the ideology. George Woodcock has sometimes concluded, erroneously
in my opinion, that certain anarchists, such as Proudhon and Kropotkin,
propound an optimistic conception of human nature.11 Elsewhere,
however, Woodcock appears to be cognizant of the general caution that
anarchists tend to adopt when discussing human nature .12 Clarity is
still found wanting in Marshall's mammoth‑sized successor to Woodcock's
erstwhile standard reference to the movement and its ideas. In his Demanding the Impossible, Peter Marshall
vacillates between two contradictory positions. On the one hand, he states that
anarchists: 'are unashamedly optimistic. Many base their optimism on the
existence of self‑regulation in nature, on the spontaneous harmony of interests
in society, and on the potential goodwill of humanity'.13 On the
other, he contends that few 'anarchists believe in natural goodness'. On the
contrary, 'it could be argued that the anarchists have not only a realistic,
but even a pessimistic view of human nature'.14 While implying that
the conception of human nature that anarchists employ contains an assumption
that there is something given or innate about human nature, Marshall
simultaneously argues that whatever it is that is innate in human nature, most
anarchists do not think that it is natural goodness.
Redressing the
balance: anarchism and human nature
It is one of the
tasks of this chapter to clarify these clouded assessments by offering a
detailed analysis of the anarchist conception of human nature. Anarchism is
neither inspired by 'an unashamed utopianism', at least not in the manner that
Heywood believes, nor is it the ideological narrative of those working with 'an
essentially optimistic view of human nature'. 15 Although anarchists
certainly rely on environmental factors to establish the groundwork for their
belief that human nature is capable of providing a strong enough basis for
anarchy to be a realistic alternative to State‑led exploitation and
oppression, this is only one side of the coin. Concomitant to the contextual
element of the anarchists' conception of human nature there is a given or
inherent constituent that is incontrovertibly characterized as badness.
Anarchists are proprietors of a double‑barreled conception of human nature.
Human nature is composed of both sociability and egoism (which corresponds
rather loosely to what Heywood and others term goodness and badness). The point
that these interpreters seem to miss is that in elucidating a vision of the
good life (a process at the heart of all ideologies), anarchists have advanced
a series of proposals that are tinged with an air of realism and prudence that
is fuelled by what is, at times, a particularly honest if not pessimistic
account of the darker aspects of human nature.
Judgments that
point to excessive optimism about human nature are not without warranty, but
are grossly exaggerated. Kropotkin is rightly
identified as the
most optimistic of the classical anarchists. As George Woodcock has remarked,
one is struck by 'the particular benignity of Kropotkin's view of human
nature', especially when compared alongside Bakunin who exhibits a measure of
realism that Kropotkin's stricter scientific basis seems unwilling to yield.16
Kropotkin's concept of mutual aid may have fuelled his undoubted optimism, but
this has to be taken in context. The other leading anarchists of the nineteenth
century, Proudhon and Bakunin, both highlight the baser elements of human
nature. Proudhon in particular does not recoil from admitting that humankind
knows how to do 'evil with all the characteristics of a nature deliberately
maleficent, and all the more wicked because, when it so wishes, it knows how to
do good gratuitously also and is capable of self‑sacrifice'.17
Indeed, it is this recognition of humanity's capacity for evil that constitutes
one of the points of division between anarchists and Marxists. The rationale
behind the anarchist objection to Marxism is, to put it very simply, that
Marxist-Leninists have misunderstood human nature. There is, anarchists
caution, a lust for power in humankind that will jeopardize the very outcome of
the revolutionary process itself As Bakunin advised: 'No one should be
entrusted with power, inasmuch as anyone invested with authority must, through
the force of an immutable social law, become an oppressor and exploiter of
society'.18 History seems to have vindicated the anarchists' account.
Anarchists, as Miller has observed, are cognizant 'of the imperfections of
human nature'.19 As Bakunin commented, with the best will in the world, one
simply has to recognize the corrupting effects of power on all human beings.
'Take', Bakunin suggests, 'the most sincere democrat and put him on the throne;
if he does not step down promptly, he will surely become a scoundrel.’20
Likewise, Proudhon contends: 'Give power to a Saint Vincent de Paul and he will
be a Guizot or a Talleyrand' .21 Once incumbent, the occupier of
power will simply abuse the privilege bestowed by that position. The notion of
a will to power establishes itself as a central plank in the anarchist
conception of human nature, with even Kropotkin acknowledging its existence,
despite Woodcock's judgment, in order to explain the rise of the modern State .22
Anarchism and
history
The true nature of
this insistence on an innate capacity for wrongdoing or a lust for power in
human nature cannot be properly appreciated unless it is balanced against the
contextualist understanding of human nature that permeates many anarchist
writings on the subject. Anarchists draw attention to the inherent will to
power in human nature, of that there is no doubt; but they do so in conjunction
with the belief that this is simply one potentiality of human nature. Egoism is
counterbalanced by sociability. It is this which helps explain, for instance,
the anarchist philosophy of history, expounded principally by Proudhon but
followed by Bakunin and Kropotkin.23 According to Proudhon, history
is characterized by two competing, permanent tendencies: authority and liberty.
Each and every society is governed by the relationship of authority and
liberty.
Authority and liberty are as old as the
human race; they are born with ns, and live on in each of ns. Let its note but
one thing, which few readers would notice otherwise: these two principles form
a couple, so to speak, whose two terms, though indissolubly linked together,
are nevertheless irreducible one to the other, and remain, despite all our
efforts, perpetually at odds.24
History, then, is
to be seen as a series of developments in either direction, towards a
burgeoning of authority or a flowering of liberty. As history unfurls its
consequences upon the human race, this is, for anarchists, confirmation of
their understanding that human nature may be subject to the influences of either
egoism or sociability.
Such thinking again
isolates the anarchists from the Marxists, for history becomes a matter of
human will. This divergence in understanding on the nature of history was most
famously expressed in the attack launched by Marx on Bakunin. Marx wrote, in
his Conspectus of Bakunin's 'Statism
and Anarchy', that Bakunin 'understands absolutely nothing about the social
revolution, only its political phrases. Its economic conditions do not exist
for him ... The will, and not the economic conditions, is the foundation of his
social revolution' .25 Of course, the essence of Marx's critique is
correct but misplaced. Anarchists do not subscribe to the materialist
conception of history for the very reason that their conception of human nature
forbids it. The course of history cannot be mapped out according to the
development of the relations and forces of production. As Proudhon wrote in his
Confessions of a Revolutionary, in
1849, the philosophical method of studying history reveals 'that there is no
inevitability in particular events and that these may vary infinitely according
to the individual wills that cause them to happen' .26 Following in
the footsteps of his predecessors, Kropotkin announces that two opposed
recurrent traditions have vied with each other for supremacy throughout the
history of civilization: 'the Roman and the Popular; the imperial and the
federalist; the authoritarian and the libertarian' .27 Within
anarchism there is an implicit relationship between human nature and historical
progress, with the rise of the State corresponding to the rise of self‑assertion
or egoism, and the development of free communes, or medieval city‑states
in Kropotkin's historical analysis, corresponding to a growth in sociability.
The struggle of historical forces, the battle between libertarianism and
authoritarianism, is occasioned by a comparable contest within human nature.
Human nature and
its environment
It is at this
juncture that the interconnection of history and human nature becomes all
important, for the anarchist analysis points to the significance of
environmental factors in curtailing the expansion of egoism. Humankind has the
capacity for both egoism and sociability, but these potentialities exist in
what may be best described as a symbiotic relationship with the environment.
Social, economic and political institutions, together with the evolution of
social and political ideals, act in the manner of a gardener's trestle, shaping
and bending human nature in one particular direction. There are innate
components of human nature, the development of which is encouraged by the
environmental context within which individuals find themselves. Human nature is
malleable, but not completely so. Just as the evolution of the modern State
facilitated the intensification of egoism, so sociability continues to persist
in the form of mutual aid. Human nature provides the sustenance for the
development of history just as history releases the possibility of its own
fulfillment. In other words, social circumstances may inaugurate the
consummation of a historical trend. Human nature acts as a catalyst
establishing a basis for the victory of one trend over another. In this sense a
political or social movement may act as an environmental trigger liberating both
the forces of history and the potentialities of human nature. The one feeds off
the other as they chart their progress through the course of social evolution.
Anarchists can
never be accused of historical determinism. At the same time, however, the
interplay between their conceptions of human nature and history illustrates why
it is imperative to ensure the right kind of environmental context for the
flourishing of mutual aid and sociability. Ideas alone are insufficient to
bring about historical change or insure against an outbreak of egoism in human
nature. Anarchism is very definitely a philosophy of praxis; and one of the
best ways to stimulate the ascent of sociability over egoism is through
appropriate social praxis. This reflects the fact that anarchists are much
beholden to materialism, because it is this which inspires the contextualist
dimension of their conception of human nature.28 Adopting this
contextualist line of reasoning, Bakunin argues that humans are what their
environment makes of them. No one, he opines, 'will seriously dispute this
opinion, that every child, youth, adult, and even the most mature man [sic], is
wholly the product of the environment that nourished and raised him ‑ an
inevitable, involuntary, and consequently irresponsible product'.29
'Bakunin's writings are notorious for their inconsistencies and Bakunin's
contextualism, which reads like materialistic determinism, rubs hard against
his submission that power is attractive to people. As Bakunin himself admits,
every person 'carries within himself the germs of this lust for power'.30
Moreover, as he wrote in his A Circular
Letter to My Friends in Italy, humankind's 'nature is so constituted that,
given the possibility of doing evil, that is, of feeding his vanity, his ambition,
and his cupidity at the expense of someone else, he surely will make full use
of such an opportunity'.31
Despite Bakunin's
inconsistencies, both materialism and contextualism remain a fundamental part
of anarchist ideological thinking. Indeed, one may say that anarchists have to
adhere to these concepts if only because the feasibility of anarchism demands
it. Without the accent on contextualism, the anarchist tale of a better society
to come would have to be dismissed as complete nonsense or utopian.
Contextualism is imperative not only in the anarchists' critique of Marxist‑Leninist
revolutionary strategy, but in the belief that a fresh social environment is
capable of fostering a new social morality and consolidating the victory of
mutual aid. Given the right circumstances, human nature can be transformed from
that which corresponds to the climate of economic liberalism to that which
maintains the establishment of an anarchist-communist society.
The anarchist
conception of human nature, then, reflects that of other ideological
conceptions. It is indebted to a contextualist and a universalist reading. More importantly, it comprises both
egoism and sociability. A simple enough thesis one might admit, but it has
largely gone unnoticed in academic analysis. However, the double‑barreled
character of the anarchists' conception of human nature may seem confusing and
somewhat paradoxical. The paradox is overcome by simply accepting that
anarchism is ambivalent or indeed inconsistent about ‑the issue of human
nature. Anarchists do concede that human nature has intrinsic properties and
these include both sociability and egoism, propensities which may be said to
lead to good and evil. The former (contextualist and sociable) reading reflects
their shared heritage with socialism and accounts for their belief in the
ultimate attainability of a peaceful, harmonious society that is devoid of the
oppressive structures that demarcate capitalist society. The latter
(universalist and egoist) reading is indicative of what they have in common
with liberalism. It explains why anarchists observe with a measure of accuracy
the corrupting effects of power and why they counsel against the Marxist
concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat or a workers' State.
It is this broader
understanding of the anarchist conception of human nature that reveals one of
the greatest strengths of anarchism.32
The duality of their thinking on human nature may illuminate a central
tension within the ideology (but then most, if not all, political ideologies
are subject to similar tensions), but most importantly it signals, as John
Clark has perceived, one of the anarchists' towering strengths:
It is the belief that power corrupts, and
that people become irresponsible in their exercise of it, that forms the basis
for much of their criticism of political authority and centralized power. Power
must be dispersed they say, not so much because everyone is always good, Init
because when power is concentrated some people tend to become extremely evil.33
Lessons for the
future: 1. Against the New Right
As the second
millennium draws to a close there are encouraging signs for anarchism ahead.
There are many opportunities to be gained from strengthening already existing
bonds with new social movements like ecologism and feminism. Both ideologies
have done much to break through barriers, once regarded as insurmountable, in
human relationships within human society and with the natural world. Feminism's
evaluation of the personal as political has done much to illustrate the nature
of women's oppression and has encouraged a fundamental rethink on what it is to
be male and female. Equally important, though, are the consequences of the
feminist analysis of 'patriarchy' for everyday life. Politics is no longer confined
to the public arena of States, governments and political parties. Feminism's
great achievement has been to redraw the boundaries of the public imagination
in terms of the pervasiveness of political relationships, which cross the
threshold and extend into many areas of family and personal life. Arguably the
first and most fundamental form of human oppression, feminism's dissection of
female oppression has done much by way of illustrating how a superficial
dependence upon class politics and a utopian faith in the magical powers of
Marxist revolution are not in themselves sufficient to guarantee the liberation
of all humankind. Similarly, ecologism has not only revealed the arrogance of
the anthropocentrism of mainstream ideologies, but has forced many people to
reconsider the nature of their own being in light of an increasingly relevant
and persuasive philosophy of ecocentrism that highlights the interrelatedness
and interdependence of all organisms that inhabit the Earth. Relationships
between human beings and between humanity and the planet are now being
reconsidered in imaginative and auspicious ways. The possibilities for a cross‑fertilization
of ideas between anarchism and these new social movements are both fascinating
and extensive. However, this is not my area of concern here; rather, I seek to
draw attention to some recent developments, both in practice and theory, that
anarchism would do well to avoid. Two that will be examined here, albeit very
briefly, are the rise of the New Right in Britain and a proffered courtship
with existentialism.
History has
vindicated the anarchist assessment of human nature on more than one occasion.
Anarchists like to think that the history of the
Soviet Union
justified their concern about establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Investing power in a revolutionary elite or vanguard party not only flouted the
principle of commensurability between means and ends (authoritarian vs.
libertarian), but also confirmed their suspicions that power is an addictive drug
which if not checked will jeopardize the smooth functioning of any society. The
' argument has been most cogently expressed by Bakunin. There is no real
difference, he believes, between a revolutionary dictatorship and the State.
Both govern by a minority in the name of the majority. And both consolidate
'the political and economic privileges of the governing minority and the
political and economic slavery of the masses'.34 Dictatorship, he
notes, has only one objective: to perpetuate itself. 'Anyone who doubts this is
not at all familiar with human nature.’35 Thus Bakunin enunciates a
conviction that lies at the heart of anarchist thinking:
the only way to render any political power
harmless, to Pacify it and subdue it, is to destroy it. The philosophers did
not understand that there can be no guarantee against political power except
its complete abolition. Words, promises, and vows mean nothing in politics, as
an arena of mutually contending forces and facts, for the simple reason that
any political power, as long as it remains a real power, by its very nature and
tinder the threat of self-destruction must inexorably and at all costs strive
for the realization of its objectives, regardless of or even against the will
of the authorities and princes wielding it.36
Just as anarchists
have been persuaded against supporting Marxist-Leninist revolutionary strategy
because of its lack of understanding of human nature, then so they should not
be deluded by the rhetoric of the New Right.37 One of the leading
proponents of the New Right in Britain was the long‑serving Prime
Minister, Margaret Thatcher. During the 1980s her commitment to rolling back
the frontiers of the State, which at first glance may appear to share some
common ground with anarchist objectives, simply disguised the now well‑known
strategy that a minimal or free market economic State demands and depends upon
a highly centralized and exceedingly powerful political State to support it.
Notions of maximum individual liberty within a minimal State have to be
tempered upon realization that the minimal State is only minimal in certain
areas: notably, economic regulation of the free market. As local democracy
degenerates under an increasingly powerful stranglehold exerted by central
government, it would appear that the New Right is oblivious to its own
teachings on human nature.
It has become
customary now for the New Right to describe itself as having more in common
with nineteenth‑century Liberalism or the Manchester school of economics
than traditional Conservatism.38 This is generally true, and as such
the New Right operates with a conception of human nature that is underpinned by
assumptions about humanity's selfishness, competitiveness, acquisitiveness and
hedonistic nature. This view of the bourgeois individual dovetailed perfectly
into the demands of capitalist society, and proved fundamental to the
Thatcherite school of the New Right. Hence their libertarian guru, Keith
Joseph, argued that human nature is so constituted that it is natural
to pursue private rather than public ends.
This is a simple matter of observation. The duty of government is to
accommodate themselves [sic] to this immutable fact about human nature . . .
Men [sic] have a natural right to their ambitions because it was not for the
purpose of abolishing competitiveness that they submitted to government; it was
for the purpose of regulating competitiveness and preventing it from taking
violent, fraudulent or anti‑social forms.39
By its own
admission, humankind is ambitious and competitive: it is power hungry, and will
swallow up any opportunity for power that presents itself This may make sound
sense, in their eyes, for a minimal State, but for anarchists it is a recipe
for no State at all. The New Right has proved more than capable of putting its
philosophy into practice in terms of free‑market policies, but it has
chosen to ignore the consequences of the power‑seeking and ambitious
disposition of humankind. It is not that the New Right is incognizant of this
dimension of human nature; rather, such thinking serves to corroborate their
belief that society is a hierarchical command structure in which those most
able to assume positions of power and responsibility will do so. The
complicating factor is that not all of human life is subsumed under private
activities. As a programme for political rule, the inherent danger in all this
is that once incumbent in positions of power, the office holder will use that
office for private rather than public ends. In other words, the New Right philosophy
engenders the very real possibility of an abuse of power and office. Having
created an ethos of selfish egoism throughout the 1980s, the erosion of
political accountability in the creation of a culture of government‑appointed
quangos and deregulated industries has suddenly come home to roost with a
vengeance in the mid‑1990s.40 Anarchists can learn from this
experience. Suppositions about power, ambition and egoism in human nature teach
that power should be decentralized and devolved wherever it cannot be
eliminated altogether. Anarchists have noted and should continue to take note
of Acton's caveat that 'Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts
absolutely'.41 The experience of the New Right has been a painful
one, but if nothing else it has taught us the dangers of unaccountability and
the centralization of power. Human nature has much to say about political
practice.
Lessons for the
future: 2. Against existentialism
Another important
development that has occurred recently is the suggestion that anarchism should
discard any dependency on human nature in favour of a marriage with
existentialism. This is the position adopted by Marshall in his essay, 'Human
nature and anarchism' .42 In purporting to reject human nature, he
writes
that we should abandon the use of the term
'human nature since it implies that there is a fixed essence within its which
requires certain conditions to express itself, or some inherent force which
directs ns outside the influence of history or culture.43
At face value this
may seem like an apostasy of nineteenth‑century conceptions of human
nature in favour of twentieth‑century existentialism. However, Marshall
stops short of migrating into a fully‑fledged existentialism. Instead, he
opts for what he terms a 'soft determinism'. Whilst Marshall acknowledges that
'there are causes which influence us', he qualifies this admission by
suggesting that 'all causes [are] incomplete and open‑ended. Such causes
dispose but do not determine.’44 Furthermore, as for the search for
an unmistakable identity or essence of human nature, whether it be goodness or
badness, we should leave well alone. 'We have', he acknowledges,
innate tendencies for both types of
behavior; it is our circumstances which encourage or check them. While our
present authoritarian and hierarchical society encourages egoism, competition
and aggression, there is good reason to think that a free society without
authority and coercion would encourage our benevolent and sympathetic
tendencies.45
Seemingly, Marshall
wants to divorce himself from any dependence upon a concept of human nature but
is forced to concede that human nature does exist and that its identity is
largely (because the environment can only dispose and not determine) a matter
of environmental factors. It is patently obvious that, existentialist overtones
aside, Marshall remains securely rooted in the nineteenth‑century
anarchist tradition. His own personal views bear a remarkably striking
resemblance to those of the social anarchists in general and Kropotkin in
particular. For whatever reason though, Marshall is unable to recognize the
similarity of his own views and the assumptions that underpin the social
anarchists' conception of human nature in his voluminous tome on the history of
anarchism.
One contemporary
anarchist writer who is more consistent in her belief that anarchism should
abandon human nature is L. Susan Brown. In her article 'Anarchism,
existentialism and human nature: a critique', Brown argues that anarchists
should jettison the outdated nineteenth‑century model of human nature in
favour of modern existentialist considerations .46 Brown's intention
is to 'argue against any inherent nature to humanity at all, and propose that
we are that which we make of ourselves'.47 The evidence of her
article indicates that it is perfectly possible to tender the argument that we
are what we make ourselves to be, whilst maintaining a conception of human
nature in which there is something given or innate. Initially, Brown's idea
might sound like an attractive proposition. But the problem is that, in
rejecting the concept of human nature, existentialism discards not only that
which embodies an essence or innateness that is common to all humankind, it
also jettisons the argument that political circumstances or the social
environment have to be altered if anarchy is to flourish. Existentialism is
opposed to both dimensions of the anarchist conception of human nature: the
universal and the contextual; and it is the latter which demands social change
for the better of humanity. Of course, it is important to stress that to
repudiate any notion of human nature is in itself a theory or conception of
human nature; however, the point is that existentialism seems entirely at odds
with the activist nature of anarchism. As Mark Leier has noted, if we believe
with existentialism that individuals can always choose to be free, why should
we bother to try to change anything except our own minds?’48
Anarchists stand to gain little if anything from entering into a partnership
with existentialism. With its notion of metaphysical freedom, existentialism is
in no better position than anarchism to conclude that history will evolve in
the direction of greater freedom rather than increased authoritarianism. As
Brown admits, there is nothing to prevent individuals from choosing fascism
over anarchy.49
Conclusion
Even if anarchists
refrain from embracing existentialism, they may find themselves in a similar
position in that they cannot predict with any certainty the outcome of social
or historical evolution or revolution. As Peter Marshall has highlighted,
[there] is no pre‑ordained pattern to
history, no iron law of capitalist development, no straight railroad which we
have to follow. Although it is always made on prior circumstances, history is
what we make it; and the future, as the past, can be either authoritarian or
libertarian depending on our choices and actions.50
History is
autonomous; it may move in either direction ‑ such is the consequence of
accepting the twin basis of egoism and sociability in human nature, and such is
the consequence of importing the existentialist belief that humans are what
they make of themselves. Revolution is a matter of will rather than economic or
social circumstances. But the advantage of possessing a conception of human
nature is that the morality that accompanies forms of social organization
resides in something more solid than anything existentialism has to offer.
Whether we like it or not, human nature is vitally important as a critical tool
in expressing a judgment about society and its dispensation of justice. In this
respect, human nature emulates the capacities of human rights. Anarchism's
belief that freedom and sociability are fundamental to human nature helps it to
undermine the dehumanizing and authoritarian consequences of State power. At
the same time, anarchism's cognizance of the effects of egoism engenders a
permanent vigilance against new forms of oppression and abuses of power.
History has taught anarchists that they should be prepared to grasp any
opportunity that presents itself for moving in the direction of a freer
society, whilst paying attention to human nature and avoiding any repetition of
past mistakes in the twenty‑first century. To that effect, anarchists
will have to suffer a while longer the individualist ethos that looks set to
close the door on the twentieth century, whilst working hard to bring about the
success of a society inspired by communalist, participationist and non‑hierarchical
goals.
Notes
1 Marshall (1992),
p.630.
2 Berry (1986),
p.x.
3 Plant (1991),
p.70.
4 A point made by
Burke (1982), p.183.
5 See, for example,
Smart (1983), pp.36‑52.
6 Goodwin (1992),
p.10. Rousseau's argument is developed in A
Discourse on Inequality, commonly referred to as his Second Discourse.
7 Adams (1993),
p.172.
8 Heywood (1992),
p.198. Andrew Gamble is another who misjudges the anarchists' conception of
human nature. See Gamble (198 1), pp. 109‑10.
9 Carter (1971),
p.16.
10 Clark (1984),
p.121.
I I Woodcock (1972),
p. 172.
12 Woodcock (1975),
p.19,
13 Marshall (1992),
p.664.
14 Ibid, p.643.
15 Heywood (1992).
16 Woodcock (1975),
p.206. Concurring with the tenor of Woodcock's judgement, Marshall talks of
Kropotkin's _'optimistic frame of mind which at times could be almost
fatalistic in its confidence in progress'. See Marshall (1992), p.309.
17 Proudhon (1972),
p.410.
18 Maximoff(1964),
p.249.
19 Miller (1984),
p.93.
20 Dolgoff(1973),
p.91.
21 Quoted in Gu6rin
(1970), p.22. Saint Vincent de Paul was the founder of many Roman Catholic
women's congregations in seventeenth‑century France to aid the poor and
needy. Guizot was the leader of the conservative constitutional monarchists
during the July Monarchy of 1830‑48 in France. Talleyrand was a senior
French statesman renowned in political circles for his ability to survive. He
held high office during the French Revolution, under
22 Napoleon, at the
restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, and under King Louis‑Philippe.
22 A point that is
recognized by Marshall (1992), p.324; and Crowder (199 1), p. 140.
23 A point
acknowledged by Kelly (1982), p. 12 1.
24 Proudhon (1979),
p.6,
25 This essay is
contained in Marx (1974), pp.334‑5
26 Proudhon's
remarks can be found in Edwards (1970), p.237.
27 Kropotkin (1987),
p.59.
28 See, for
example, Bakunin's The Knouto‑Germanic
Empire and the Social Revolution, in
Maximoff(1964), p.65.
29 Ibid., p.153.
30 Protestation of the Alliance, in ibid.,
p.248.
31 Ibid., p.249.
32 A fact perceived
by Kropotkin (1995), P.110.
33 Clark (1984),
p.129. Emphasis in the original.
34 Bakunin (1990),
p.137.
35 Ibid., p.178.
Cf. also ibid., p.179.
36 Ibid., p.150.
37 The author is
aware of the divisions within the New Right and that there may be fundamental
differences between them. For the purposes of this chapter, the New Right is
referred to as that movement which took control of the British Conservative
Party in the second half of the 1970s,
38 The Manchester
school refer‑, to an economic school of thought in England from 1820 to
1850. It was inspired by the political‑economic philosophy of laissezfiaire,
and used arguments centred on free trade to reform measures such as the Corn
Laws.
39 Joseph and
Sumption (1979), pp.10G‑L
40 The word quango
refers to quasi-autonomous non‑governmental organizations. Figures
released by the UK government in 1993 gave a total number of quangos; of 1389.
Research by the University of Essex in the first half of 1994 concluded that a
more accurate figure is close to 7000. Despite differences of categorization,
quangos cause widespread resentment because of their unaccountable and
unelected nature. Consequently, many critics from all political lines have
condemned the use of quangos by recent UK governments to subvert and undermine
the processes of local democracy.
41 This familiar
quotation is drawn from a letter which Acton wrote to Bishop Mandell Creighton,
5 April 1887. Acton was a Liberal historian and moralist who espoused a
philosophy of resistance against the evils of the State. He was elected to
Parliament in 1859, became a close associate of the Liberal Prime Minister
Gladstone, and was raised to the peerage in 1869.
42 See Marshall
(1989), pp.127‑49.
43 Ibid., p.138.
44 Ibid., p. 141.
45 Ibid., p.142.
46 Brown (1988),
pp.49‑60.
47 Ibid., p.54
48 Lcier (1993),
p.37.
49 Brown (1988),
p.54.
50 Marshall (1989)
p.144.