Collectivist anarchism (also known as anarcho-collectivism)
is a revolutionary anarchist doctrine that
advocates the abolition of both the state
and private ownership of the means of production
as it instead envisions the means of production
being owned collectively and controlled and
managed by the producers themselves.
For the collectivization of the means of production,
it was originally envisaged that workers will
revolt and forcibly collectivize the means
of production.
Once collectivization takes place, money would
be abolished to be replaced with labour notes
and workers' salaries would be determined
in democratic organizations of voluntary membership
based on job difficulty and the amount of
time they contributed to production.
These salaries would be used to purchase goods
in a communal market.
This contrasts with anarcho-communism where
wages would be abolished and where individuals
would take freely from a storehouse of goods
"to each according to his need".
Thus notwithstanding the title, Mikhail Bakunin's
"collectivist anarchism" is seen as a blend
of individualism and collectivism.Collectivist
anarchism is most commonly associated with
Bakunin, the anti-authoritarian sections of
the First International and the early Spanish
anarchist movement.
== The First International ==
Giuseppe Fanelli met Bakunin at Ischia in
1866.
In October 1868, Bakunin sponsored Fanelli
to travel to Barcelona to share his libertarian
visions and recruit revolutionists to the
International Workingmen's Association.
Fanelli's trip and the meeting he organised
during his travels provided the catalyst for
the Spanish exiles, the largest workers' and
peasants' movement in modern Spain and the
largest Anarchist movement in modern Europe.
Fanelli's tour took him first to Barcelona,
where he met and stayed with Elie Recluse.
Recluse and Fanelli were at odds over Recluse's
friendships with Spanish republicans and Fanelli
soon left Barcelona for Madrid.
Fanelli stayed in Madrid until the end of
January 1869, conducting meetings to introduce
Spanish workers, including Anselmo Lorenzo,
to the First National.
In February 1869, Fanelli left Madrid, journeying
home via Barcelona.
While in Barcelona again, he met with painter
Josep Lluís Pellicer and his cousin Rafael
Farga Pellicer along with others who were
to play an important role establishing the
International in Barcelona as well as the
Alliance section.
In 1870, Bakunin led a failed uprising in
Lyon on the principles later exemplified by
the Paris Commune, calling for a general uprising
in response to the collapse of the French
government during the Franco-Prussian War,
seeking to transform an imperialist conflict
into social revolution.
In his Letters to A Frenchman on the Present
Crisis, he argued for a revolutionary alliance
between the working class and the peasantry,
advocated a system of militias with elected
officers as part of a system of self-governing
communes and workplaces and argued the time
was ripe for revolutionary action: [W]e must
spread our principles, not with words but
with deeds, for this is the most popular,
the most potent, and the most irresistible
form of propaganda.
These ideas and corresponded strikingly closely
with the program of the Paris Commune of 1871,
much of which was developed by followers of
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon as Marxists were almost
entirely absent from the Commune.
Bakunin was a strong supporter of the Commune,
which was brutally suppressed by the French
government.
He saw the Commune as above all a "rebellion
against the State" and commended the Communards
for rejecting not only the state, but also
revolutionary dictatorship.
In a series of powerful pamphlets, he defended
the Commune and the First International against
the Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini,
thereby winning over many Italian republicans
to the International and the cause of revolutionary
socialism.
The collectivist anarchists at first used
the term "collectivism" to distinguish themselves
from the mutualism of the followers of Proudhon
and the state socialists associated with Karl
Marx.
Bakunin wrote that "we shall always protest
against anything that may in any way resemble
communism or state socialism", which Bakunin
regarded as fundamentally authoritarian ("Federalism,
Socialism, and Anti-Theologism", 1867).Bakunin's
disagreements with Marx, which led to the
attempt by the Marx party to expel him at
the Hague Congress (see below), illustrated
the growing divergence between the anti-authoritarian
sections of the International, which advocated
the direct revolutionary action and organization
of the workers and peasants in order to abolish
the state and capitalism; and the sections
allied with Marx, which advocated the conquest
of political power by the working class.
Bakunin was "Marx’s flamboyant chief opponent"
and "presciently warned against the emergence
of a communist authoritarianism that would
take power over working people".The anti-authoritarian
majority, which included most sections of
the International, created their own First
International at the St. Imier Congress, adopted
a revolutionary anarchist program and repudiated
the Hague resolutions, rescinding Bakunin's
alleged expulsion.
Although Bakunin accepted elements of Marx’s
class analysis and theories regarding capitalism,
acknowledging "Marx’s genius", he thought
Marx's analysis was one-sided and that Marx's
methods would compromise the social revolution.
More importantly, Bakunin criticized "authoritarian
socialism" (which he associated with Marxism)
and the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat
which he adamantly refused.
If you took the most ardent revolutionary,
vested him in absolute power, within a year
he would be worse than the Tsar himself.
The anti-authoritarian sections of the First
International proclaimed at the St. Imier
Congress (1872) that "the aspirations of the
proletariat can have no purpose other than
the establishment of an absolutely free economic
organization and federation, founded upon
the labour and equality of all and absolutely
independent of all political government",
in which each worker will have the "right
to the enjoyment of the gross product of his
labours and thereby the means of developing
his full intellectual, material and moral
powers in a collective setting".
This revolutionary transformation could "only
be the outcome of the spontaneous action of
the proletariat itself, its trades bodies
and the autonomous communes".
A similar position was adopted by the Workers'
Federation of the Spanish Region in 1882 as
articulated by an anarchist veteran of the
First International, Jose Llunas Pujols, in
his essay "Collectivism".By the early 1880s,
most of the European anarchist movement had
adopted an anarchist communist position, advocating
the abolition of wage labour and distribution
according to need.
Ironically, the "collectivist" label then
became more commonly associated with Marxist
state socialists who advocated the retention
of some sort of wage system during the transition
to full communism.
The anarchist communist Peter Kropotkin attacked
this position in his essay "The Collectivist
Wages System", which was reprinted in his
book The Conquest of Bread in 1892.
== Theory ==
Bakunin's socialism was known as "collectivist
anarchism", where "socially: it seeks the
confirmation of political equality by economic
equality.
This is not the removal of natural individual
differences, but equality in the social rights
of every individual from birth; in particular,
equal means of subsistence, support, education
and opportunity for every child, boy or girl,
until maturity and equal resources, and facilities
in adulthood to create his own well-being
by his own labor".Collectivist anarchism advocates
the abolition of both the state and private
ownership of the means of production.
It instead envisions the means of production
being owned collectively and controlled and
managed by the producers themselves.
For the collectivization of the means of production,
it was originally envisaged that workers will
revolt and forcibly collectivize the means
of production.
Once collectivization takes place, money would
be abolished to be replaced with labour notes
and workers' salaries would be determined
in democratic organizations based on job difficulty
and the amount of time they contributed to
production.
These salaries would be used to purchase goods
in a communal market.
=== Critique of Marxism ===
The dispute between Mikhail Bakunin and Karl
Marx highlighted the differences between anarchism
and Marxism.
Bakunin argued—against certain ideas of
a number of Marxists—that not all revolutions
need to be violent.
He also strongly rejected Marx's concept of
the "dictatorship of the proletariat", a concept
that vanguardist socialism including Marxist–Leninism
would use to justify one-party rule from above
by a party representing the proletariat.
Bakunin insisted that revolutions must be
led by the people directly while any "enlightened
elite" must only exert influence by remaining
"invisible...not imposed on anyone...[and]
deprived of all official rights and significance".
He held that the state should be immediately
abolished because all forms of government
eventually lead to oppression.
Libertarian Marxists argue Marx used the phrase
to mean the worker control at the point of
production, not a party, would still be a
state until society is reorganized according
to socialist principles.
They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship—their
dictatorship, of course—can create the will
of the people, while our answer to this is:
No dictatorship can have any other aim but
that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget
only slavery in the people tolerating it;
freedom can be created only by freedom, that
is, by a universal rebellion on the part of
the people and free organization of the toiling
masses from the bottom up.
While both social anarchists and Marxists
share the same final goal, the creation of
a free, egalitarian society without social
classes and government, they strongly disagree
on how to achieve this goal.
Anarchists believe that the classless, stateless
society should be established by the direct
action of the masses, culminating in social
revolution; and refuse any intermediate stage
such as the dictatorship of the proletariat
on the basis that such a dictatorship will
become a self-perpetuating fundament.
For Bakunin, the fundamental contradiction
is that for the Marxists "anarchism or freedom
is the aim, while the state and dictatorship
is the means, and so, in order to free the
masses, they have first to be enslaved".
However, Bakunin also wrote of meeting Marx
in 1844: As far as learning was concerned,
Marx was, and still is, incomparably more
advanced than I. I knew nothing at that time
of political economy, I had not yet rid myself
of my metaphysical observations...
He called me a sentimental idealist and he
was right; I called him a vain man, perfidious
and crafty, and I also was right.
Bakunin found Marx's economic analysis very
useful and began the job of translating Das
Kapital into Russian.
In turn, Marx wrote of the rebels in the Dresden
insurrection of 1848 that "[i]n the Russian
refugee Michael Bakunin they found a capable
and cool headed leader".
Marx wrote to Friedrich Engels of meeting
Bakunin in 1864 after his escape to Siberia,
saying: "On the whole he is one of the few
people whom I find not to have retrogressed
after 16 years, but to have developed further".Bakunin
has sometimes been called the first theorist
of the "new class", meaning that a class of
intellectuals and bureaucrats running the
state in the name of the people or the proletariat—but
in reality in their own interests alone.
Bakunin argued that the "[s]tate has always
been the patrimony of some privileged class:
a priestly class, an aristocratic class, a
bourgeois class.
And finally, when all the other classes have
exhausted themselves, the State then becomes
the patrimony of the bureaucratic class and
then falls—or, if you will, rises—to the
position of a machine".
Bakunin also had a different view as compared
to Marx's on the revolutionary potential of
the lumpenproletariat and the proletariat.
As such, "[b]oth agreed that the proletariat
would play a key role, but for Marx the proletariat
was the exclusive, leading revolutionary agent
while Bakunin entertained the possibility
that the peasants and even the lumpenproletariat
(the unemployed, common criminals, etc.) could
rise to the occasion".
Bakunin "considers workers' integration in
capital as destructive of more primary revolutionary
forces.
For Bakunin, the revolutionary archetype is
found in a peasant milieu (which is presented
as having longstanding insurrectionary traditions,
as well as a communist archetype in its current
social form—the peasant commune) and amongst
educated unemployed youth, assorted marginals
from all classes, brigands, robbers, the impoverished
masses, and those on the margins of society
who have escaped, been excluded from, or not
yet subsumed in the discipline of emerging
industrial work...in short, all those whom
Marx sought to include in the category of
the lumpenproletariat".
=== Comparison with anarcho-communism ===
The difference between collectivist anarchism
and anarcho-communism is that under the former
a wage system is retained based on the amount
of labor performed.
Anarchist communism, like collectivist anarchism,
also advocates for the socialization of production,
but the distribution of goods as well.
Instead of "to each according to his labor",
in anarcho-communism the community would supply
the subsistence requirements to each member
free of charge according to the maxim "to
each according to his needs".Collectivist
anarchism stresses collective ownership of
productive, subsistence and distributary property
while communist anarchism negates the concept
of ownership in favor of usage or possession
with productive means being a possession not
owned by any individual or particular group.
Anarcho-communists believe that subsistence,
productive and distributive property should
be common or social possessions while personal
property should be private possessions.
Collectivist anarchists agree with this, but
disagree on the subject of remuneration as
some collectivist anarchists, such as Mikhail
Bakunin, believe in the remuneration of labor
while anarcho-communists, such as Peter Kropotkin,
believe that such remuneration would lead
to the recreation of currency and that this
would need a state.
It could thus be said that collectivist anarchists
believe in freedom through collective ownership
of production and a communal market of sorts
to distribute goods and services and compensate
workers in the form of remuneration.
Collectivist anarchism could thus be seen
as a combination of communism and mutualism.
Collectivist anarchists are not necessarily
opposed to the use of currency, but some while
opposing the retaining of money—propose
the adoption of labour vouchers or "personal
credit" (such as participatory economists).
Most collectivist anarchists see their philosophy
as a carryover to anarcho-communist, but some
see the system and the use of a labour voucher
system as permanent rather than a transition.
Collectivist anarchist James Guillaume argued
that such a society would "guarantee the mutual
use of the tools of production which are the
property of each of these groups and which
will by a reciprocal contract become the collective
property of the whole [...] federation.
In this way, the federation of groups will
be able to [...] regulate the rate of production
to meet the fluctuating needs of society".
They argue for workplace autonomy and self-management
"the workers in the various factories have
not the slightest intention of handing over
their hard-won control of the tools of production
to a superior power calling itself the 'corporation'".
An Anarchist FAQ compares and contrasts collectivist
anarchism with anarcho-communism this way:
The major difference between collectivists
and communists is over the question of "money"
after a revolution.
Anarcho-communists consider the abolition
of money to be essential, while anarcho-collectivists
consider the end of private ownership of the
means of production to be the key.
As Kropotkin noted, "[collectivist anarchism]
express[es] a state of things in which all
necessaries for production are owned in common
by the labour groups and the free communes,
while the ways of retribution [i.e. distribution]
of labour, communist or otherwise, would be
settled by each group for itself."
Thus, while communism and collectivism both
organise production in common via producers'
associations, they differ in how the goods
produced will be distributed.
Communism is based on free consumption of
all while collectivism is more likely to be
based on the distribution of goods according
to the labour contributed.
However, most anarcho-collectivists think
that, over time, as productivity increases
and the sense of community becomes stronger,
money will disappear.
== Performance ==
Application of many collectivist anarchists
projects have been successful as sources during
the Spanish Revolution noted in the Catalan
region: In distribution the collectives' co-operatives
eliminated middlemen, small merchants, wholesalers,
and profiteers, thus greatly reducing consumer
prices.
The collectives eliminated most of the parasitic
elements from rural life, and would have wiped
them out altogether if they were not protected
by corrupt officials and by the political
parties.
Non-collectivised areas benefited indirectly
from the lower prices as well as from free
services often rendered by the collectives
(laundries, cinemas, schools, barber and beauty
parlours, etc.)
Tom Wetzel describes another collectivization:
Another industry that was totally re-organized
was hair-cutting.
Before July 19th, there had been 1,100 hairdressing
parlors in Barcelona, most of them extremely
marginal.
The 5,000 assistant hairdressers were among
the lowest-paid workers in Barcelona.
The Generalitat had decreed a 40-hour week
and 15 percent wage increase after July 19th—one
of the Esquerra’s attempts to woo worker
support.
This spelled ruin for many hairdressing shops.
A general assembly was held and it was agreed
to shut down all the unprofitable shops.
The 1,100 shops were replaced by a network
of 235 neighborhood haircutting centers, with
better equipment and lighting than the old
shops.
Due to the efficiencies gained, it was possible
to raise wages by 40 percent.
The entire network was run through assemblies
of the CNT barber’s union.
The former owners became members of the union.
== People ==
== See also ==
Direct democracy
Participatory Economics
Workers' council
Workers' self-management
== References ==
Bookchin, Murray (1998), The Spanish Anarchists:
The Heroic Years, 1868–1936, Canada: AK
Press, ISBN 1-873176-04-X
== External links ==
"The Collectivist Wages System" entry at the
Anarchy Archives – anarcho-communist Peter
Kropotkin's criticism of collectivist anarchism
from The Conquest of Bread
