Anarchism without adjectives

Anarchism without adjectives is a pluralist tendency of anarchism that opposes sectarianism and advocates for cooperation between different anarchist schools of thought. First formulated by the Spanish anarchists Ricardo Mella and Fernando Tarrida del Mármol, as a way to bridge the ideological divide between the collectivists and communist factions, it was later adopted by the Italian communist Errico Malatesta and the American individualist Voltairine de Cleyre.

Anarchists without adjectives are suspicious of dogmatism and criticise prescriptions for a post-capitalist future, which they consider authoritarian. Instead they hold that a new society should be allowed to emerge spontaneously after a social revolution, which they believe could result in the experimental development of different economic forms in different locations. They thus tend to focus on taking action in the present, with contemporary forms outright rejecting utopianism.

History

When anarchist communism was first formulated in 1876, debates over its merits led to a split within the Anarchist International, as French and Italian communists clashed with collectivists from Spain. At the 1877 Vervies Conference, Swiss anarchist leader James Guillaume attempted to overcome the split by arguing that "each group be free to determine its own solutions".

In Europe

Fernando Tarrida del Mármol, the Spanish collectivist who coined the phrase "anarchism without adjectives"

This position was adopted by a number of Spanish anarchists, who advocated for the tolerance of different, coexisting anarchist schools of thought. During the late-1880s, the Spanish collectivists Fernando Tarrida del Mármol and Ricardo Mella conceived of an "unhyphenated form of anarchism", which they termed "anarchism without adjectives" (Template:Lang-es).

At a November 1889 meeting in Barcelona, Tarrida called for anarchists to reject of all forms of dogma in order to conform closer with the principles of "nature, science and justice". The following year, in the pages of La Revolte, Tarrida declared that the pursuit of anarchy and the abolition of the State ought to be emphasised as the common foundation of anarchism. He held the economic question to be secondary, rejecting any rigid systematic theory and upholding the complimentary potential of different anarchist economic propositions.

Inspired by Tarrida, many other European anarchists began to eschew hyphenated labels and refer solely to anarchy as their end goal, rejecting prescriptions for a future society as inherently authoritarian. It was taken up by Élisée Reclus and Max Nettlau, the latter of whom called for a non-sectarian anarchism that accounted for both communism and individualism, without universalizing either, leaving room for experimentation in different possibilities of economic organization.

Errico Malatesta, an Italian anarchist socialist who advocated for anarchists of different schools of thought to cooperate within a single plural organisation

The position was also adopted by the Italian communist Errico Malatesta, who likewise argued against dogmatism within the anarchist movement. Malatesta warned that "one must beware, at the risk of certain disaster, of supposing that one’s system is the only, and infallible, one [...] and that its success must be assured at all costs, by means other than those which depend on persuasion, which spring from the evidence of facts." Malatesta posited that as anarchism centres spontaneity, it would be wrong for anarchists to impose economic prescriptions. He concluded that different anarchist tendencies should therefore unite within a single organisation, which centred a shared anarchist method. Malatesta also began referring to himself as an "anarchist socialist", in order to promote inclusivity of different anarchist schools. In the pages of La Revolte, Malatesta declared that "[i]t is not right for us, to say the least, to fall into strife over mere hypotheses".

In the United States

In the United States, there was also an intense debate between individualist anarchists around Benjamin Tucker and the anarchist communists around Johann Most, who dismissed each other's ideas as un-anarchistic. Troubled by the "bitter debates" between anarchists from divergent schools of economic thought, those who did not see a need to confine themselves to one particular school of thought called for more tolerance among anarchists, with some of them explicitly terming it "anarchism without adjectives".

Starting in the 1880s, many American anarchists began to prioritize their commonly-held anti-statism over their differing economic methods, which they saw as of secondary importance and something to be left until the future. In 1893, William and Lizzie Holmes organized an international anarchist conference in Chicago, where they attempted to formulate a common programme for anarchists to unite behind. They were joined by Voltairine de Cleyre, Honoré Jackson, C. L. James, Lucy Parsons and William Henry van Ornum, but the conference was boycotted by Benjamin Tucker and Johann Most, who considered eachother's economic posititions to be un-anarchistic. Over the subsequent years, the Holmes couple and their circle continued attempting to reconcile the different anarchist factions, even going as far as to advocate for an anti-authoritarian united front with Georgists, socialists and nationalists. In 1895, the Jewish anarchist J. A. Maryson began calling for a "pure and simple" anarchism that upheld freedom of opinion, arguing that diversity was an essential component of freedom.

Voltairine de Cleyre, an American anarchist whose advocacy of anarchism without adjectives has inspired sections of contemporary anarchism

By the 1900s, the most visible American exponent of anarchism without adjectives was Voltairine de Cleyre, who adopted the term from Tarrida de Mármol, and likewise advocated for cooperation between different anarchist philosophies and strategies. She criticised economic dogmatism, believing that after the state was abolished, different localities would be free to experiment in different economic forms of anarchism, ranging from mutualism to communism.

During the last years of her life, de Cleyre argued passionately against anarchist sectarianism, declaring her desire to rid the anarchist movement of "those outrageous excommunications which belong properly to the Church of Rome, and which serve no purpose but to bring us into deserved contempt with outsiders." Skeptical of "high-sounding theories", which she considered to be indicative of intellectual elitism, de Cleyre preferred to support action in the present rather than indulge in debates over the future. She believed that a future free society could not be forecast, due to the uncertainty of how society might evolve, and thus upheld all experiments in the direction of greater freedom as intrinsically good.

As she saw shortcomings in each anarchist school of thought, arguing for the best elements of each to be synthesized into a more pragmatic philosophy, historian Paul Avrich argued that de Cleyre "cannot be fitted into any single anarchist category". Until the end of her life, she insisted on labelling herself simply as an "anarchist", even as she personally moved from American individualism towards the anarchist communism advocated by Emma Goldman. Herself inspired by Max Stirner's individualist anarchism, Goldman also came to reject visionary thinking of "blueprints for the future", instead declaring that anarchist methods must be adapted depending on the circumstances of different places and times.

Contemporary developments

Voltairine de Cleyre's contributions to anarchism without adjectives have been particularly influential on the development of contemporary anarchism, which has often neglected prescriptive models for alternatives to globalization and neoliberalism. de Cleyre's conception of anarchism without adjectives was adopted by the anarchist historian Peter Marshall, who argued against false binaries that separate economic systems or dichotomise the individual against the community. In the 21st century, the anarchist communist Wayne Price has also proposed that a post-capitalist transition would be carried out in an "experimental, pluralist, and decentralized society," which would utilise different solutions to the specific issues that affect them.

See also

• Synthesis anarchism

Bibliography

• Avrich, Paul (1978). "Anarchism without Adjectives". An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre. Princeton University Press. pp. 144–170. ISBN 0-691-04657-3. LCCN 78-51153.
• Avrich, Paul (1995). Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-03412-5. OCLC 30476588.
• Campbell, Michelle M. (2013). "Voltairine de Cleyre and the Anarchist Canon". Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies (1): 64–81. ISSN 1923-5615.
• Carson, Kevin (2017). "Anarchism and Markets". In Jun, Nathan (ed.). Brill's Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy. Leiden: Brill. pp. 81–119. doi:10.1163/9789004356894_005. ISBN 978-90-04-35689-4.
• Esenwein, George Richard (1989). "Anarquismo sin adjectivos". Anarchist Ideology and the Working-class Movement in Spain, 1868-1898. University of California Press. pp. 134–165. ISBN 978-0520063983.
• Graham, Robert (2018). "Anarchism and the First International". In Adams, Matthew S.; Levy, Carl (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 325–342. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_19. ISBN 978-3319756196. S2CID 158605651.
• Marshall, Peter H. (1993). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. London: Fontana Press. ISBN 978-0-00-686245-1. OCLC 1042028128.
• Nettlau, Max (1996). A Short History of Anarchism. Freedom Press. pp. 195–201. ISBN 978-0900384899. OCLC 37529250.
• Sartwell, Crispin (2017). "Anarchism and Nineteenth-Century American Political Thought". In Jun, Nathan (ed.). Brill's Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy. Leiden: Brill. pp. 454–483. doi:10.1163/9789004356894_0018. ISBN 978-90-04-35689-4.
• Shannon, Deric (2018). "Anti-Capitalism and Libertarian Political Economy". In Adams, Matthew S.; Levy, Carl (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 91–106. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_5. ISBN 978-3319756196. S2CID 242094330.
• Turcato, Davide (2018). "Anarchist Communism". In Adams, Matthew S.; Levy, Carl (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 237–248. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_13. ISBN 978-3319756196. S2CID 242094330.

Further reading

• Aragorn! (2007). "Anarchy Without Road Maps or Adjectives". AJODA. No. 63 – via The Anarchist Library.
• De Cleyre, Voltairine (1914a). "Anarchism". In Berkman, Alexander; Havel, Hippolyte (eds.). Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre. New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association. pp. 96–117. OCLC 170244.
• De Cleyre, Voltairine (1914b). "The Making of an Anarchist". In Berkman, Alexander; Havel, Hippolyte (eds.). Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre. New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association. pp. 154–163. OCLC 170244.
• Goldman, Emma (1910). "Anarchism: What It Really Stands For". Anarchism and Other Essays. Mother Earth Publishing Association.
• Grubacic, Andrej; Graeber, David (2004). "Anarchism, Or The Revolutionary Movement Of The Twenty-first Century". Z Network.
• Lum, Dyer (1886). "Communal Anarchy". The Alarm. Vol. 2, no. 15. p. 2 – via The Libertarian Labyrinth.
• Malatesta, Errico (1965). "Anarchist-Communism". In Richards, Vernon (ed.). Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas. London: Freedom Press. pp. 34–37.
• Malatesta, Errico (2014). "Our Plans". In Turcato, Davide (ed.). The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader. Oakland, California: AK Press.
• Mella, Ricardo (1889). "Tolerancia e Intransigencia". La Solidaridad (in Spanish). Translated by Wilbur, Shawn – via The Libertarian Labyrinth.
• Neal, Dave (1997). "Anarchism: Ideology or Methodology?". Spunk Library.
• Nettlau, Max (1914). "Anarchism: Communist or Individualist? Both". Mother Earth. Vol. 9, no. 5. pp. 170–175 – via The Anarchist Library.
• Tarrida del Mármol, Fernando (1889). "Revolutionary Theory". Translated by Wilbur, Shawn – via The Libertarian Labyrinth.
• Tarrida del Mármol, Fernando (1890). "Anarchism Without Adjective". La Révolte. Vol. 3, no. 51. Translated by McNab, Nestor – via The Anarchist Library.
• Winn, Ross (1894). Let Us Unite . Twentieth Century – via Wikisource.