Libertarian Marxism? A foray into Individualist Anarchism.

Firstly, I would happily include William Godwin and Pierre Joseph Proudhon as consistent “Individualist Anarchists”, although I also consider Proudhon to be the only consistent Liberal in history.

Characters like Max Stirner, Hakim Bey and John Clark also generally fit into this category, but are probably better described as “Ego Communists” or “Communist Individualists”, and cover the philosophical ground somewhat of “Insurrectionary Anarchism”. Anti-state and anti-democratic but socialists all in their own way.

My main focus is on the ideas of Benjamin Tucker, William Thompson and, especially, Thomas Hogskin. Hogskin’s ideas could best be described as “Libertarian Marxist”, and Tucker owes a great debt to Proudhon, although for Tucker worker’s collectives would produce their own currency as opposed to a more nationalist mutual bank. For Tucker, the market is not free enough, and he describes, sometimes convincingly, how it could benefit workers with the end of capitalist and state monopolies.

Thompson describes how the workers could buy out their bosses and how a system similar to Tuckers (free market anarchism*?) would lead to equality. Unlike Tucker and Hogskin he admits that this ultimately wouldn’t help inequality between co-operatives or provide for orphans or the elderly.

Thompson’s ultimate solution is to have an Owenite-style co-operative state. Thompson’s libertarian credentials are somewhat redeemed by his assertion that the state exploits the working classes through unfair laws (inheritance, property rights, taxes) more than capitalists. As an aside to the two above positions, I would have to assert that the state requires the (taxed) capitalist exploitation of surplus labour in order to be funded, like the rich man funding an orphanage though exploited surplus.

As an aside, I would define “the” authoritarian position as being “If it wasn’t for a particular institution, there’d be more poverty”. Compared to the libertarian position as being “It’s state monopolies that create poverty, and if not, we don’t care anyway”, as opposed to using the terms “left” and “right” which are often meaningless. As someone who considers himself an anarchist, I would partly agree with both. Capitalism creates poverty, but the state often keeps people in poverty, doesn’t do enough to eradicate poverty and limits wealth redistribution through the laws that it enforces.

Hogskin’s position is an almost perfect example of the problem of dividing and defining society on class lines. Writing in the 1820’s, he espoused a primitive form of Revolutionary Syndicalism, showing himself to be a “Workerist” through and through. For Hogskin, all forms of labour are equally valid and it is capitalist relations that create inequalities between wages (and presumably state institutions as well; there is no call for an SPD-style levelling of wages).

The solution for this is for workers, including management, to combine in unions for each trade and to recognise their common enemy: the non-labouring Capitalist. They would eventually take over the economy and run it on market-socialist* lines similar to Tucker’s. With all capitalists expropriated, management would no longer have any privileged positions in the workplace and the manager of, for example, a biscuit factory, would be just as important, and have the same relative wage as, the tea lady.

The problem is simply: what about those who don’t work? Hogskin’s is a position typical of later Marxists in suggesting an alliance between the proletariat and the petit-bourgeoisie at the expense of the lumpenproletariat (and students, the elderly/ retired, the disabled, single mothers, refugees and orphans).

Unlike Marx, Hogskin does not see any benefit to industrial society from capitalists. It has been suggested that this position shows up the naivety of market socialism, for how would roads and canals and other infrastructure be built without either large-scale collectivism (probably administered by the state) or through large accumulations of capital?

This does, however, fit in with the supposed environmental benefits of “individualist anarchism”. Various environmental and other interest groups would still survive the state and would probably be in a better position to take on certain corporate interests, that a state would most likely side with, especially if they had a large membership. Similarly, it could be said that roads, nuclear power stations (and weapons) etc would only be built if they were absolutely needed or had the overwhelming support of the community. Otherwise, people would learn to do without or become more self-sufficient. Of course, if the voluntary funding ran out anyway, a project would have to be abandoned.

I would imagine that in the societies envisages by Tucker and Hogskin, inheritance would be abolished and the capital put to social uses (building schools, hospitals, orphanages etc), although without voluntary co-operation they would quickly become reliant on charitable donations.

I think the questions society really needs to answer to respond to the “Individualist Anarchist’s*” position are: do we really need universal education after elementary level, can we do without nuclear power and, especially with greater equalities of income, is the trade and use/ abuse of narcotics really a problem or is it simply a majority imposing its own moral code on a minority?

Thinking about the issues more closely, I would have to place the Individualist Anarchists slightly outside anarchism for the most part and among the so-called Libertarians, while keeping Godwin and Stirner as the altruistic and egoistic keepers of the true Individualist flame.

I think the main issue with Libertarianism is that you may have got rid of Capitalism but you haven’t got rid of Feudalism. To have the vulnerable unsupported by society (the same goes for international society) will lead to a “warrior, freeman, serf” system whereby the strong are in a greater position to exploit the weak. The point about Anarchism is that society has to collectively agree to end Feudalism. For ever. Capitalism is not the default mode of human economic activity, it is in fact a fairly transitory, localised phenomenon, but the legalised subjection of human labour is as old as politics.

*For the purposes of the positions described, these are effectively the same with more obvious differences asserting themselves outside the scope of this essay.