FR 427: Anarchist Culture in Belle Epoque Paris

Lecture 1: What is Anarchism?

Dr Jessica Wardhaugh

Module outline• Week 1: What is anarchism?• Week 2: Anarchist theories of art and action• Week 3: Anarchist communities• Week 4: Louise Michel, red virgin of the

Commune• Week 5: Fernand Pelloutier, trade unionist• Week 6: Reading Week• Week 7: Jean Grave, journalist• Week 8: Octave Mirbeau, Les Mauvais Bergers• Week 9: Georges Courteline, satirist• Week 10: Research Forum

Portrait of an anarchist (Louis Lumet)

Defining anarchism• Greek word ‘anarchia’ means ‘without

a ruler’, ‘without authority’• In the medieval period, ‘anarchy’ was

also used to refer to God as being without an end, not ruled by time

• More recently the word has returned to its original sense

• The first person to call himself an anarchist was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Intellectual origins of anarchism

• Some trace the concept back to Asia in the 6th century BC, and to the works of Taoist philosophers of ancient China.– Positive view of the state of nature– Suggestion that violent and unruly behaviour

came from the imposition of laws and authority

• Others trace the origins of anarchism as a philosophy to ancient Greek thought– The Stoics (e.g. Zeno, 336-264 BC) believed that

the path to happiness meant being rational parts of a rational nature.

François-Noël (Gracchus) Babeuf, 1760–1797

• Opposed the Thermidorean regime and composed a Manifeste des égaux (1795), propounding communist ideas

• His ‘conspiracy of equals’ was unmasked (1796), and he was executed in 1797

William Godwin (1759-1836)• Nonconformist

upbringing• Influenced by

philosophes and the French Revolution

• Published An Enquiry concerning the principles of political justice, and its influence on general virtue and happiness (1793)

An Enquiry concerning the principles of political justice, and its influence on general virtue and happiness (1793)

• ‘There is no satisfactory criterion marking out any man, or set of men, to preside over the rest…all men are partakers of the common faculty, reason’

• ‘That an individual, however great may be his imaginary elevation, should be obliged to yield his personal pretensions to the sense of the community at least bears the appearance of a practical confirmation of the great principle that all private considerations must yield to the general good.’

Max Stirner (Johann Caspar Schmidt, 1806–56)

• Part of a group of radical poets and thinkers in Berlin in the 1840s

• But in his 1844-5 essay, Stirner rejected these philosophers, reformers, and humanitarians and their theories, and instead favoured pure and total Egoism

Pierre-Joseph Proudon, 1809-65• Self taught• His ideal: a

cooperative society based around small-scale enterprises and skilled artisans.

• This popular community would be the source of wisdom and order

Proudhon

• “Être gouverné, c’est être gardé à vue, inspecté, espionné, dirigé, légiféré, réglementé, parqué, endoctriné, prêché, contrôlé, estimé, apprécié, censuré, commandé, par des êtres qui n’ont ni le titre ni la science, ni la vertu…”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–76)

• ‘Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice, but socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.’

Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)

• The Conquest of Bread (1892)• Mutual Aid (1902)• Fields, Factories and Workshops (1899)

• Kropotkin was influenced by the Russian zoologist Karl Kessler, who argued that mutual cooperation between species actually ensured survival more effectively than the ‘survival of the fittest’

Anarchist thought: key themes

• Individual liberty (but not the rule of law)• Opposition to authority and the state• Anarchists argue that because human society

existed before the state, therefore it can exist after it

• Liberal democracy may be preferable to more authoritarian regimes, but it is still imperfect

• Imagination of a fraternal, cooperative society, without authority and close to nature

• But how could this utopian society be achieved? Anarchists differ over possible methods