Friday, May 14, 2010

Another anarchist I like is Jean Grave (1854-1930).  Here is a paragraph from Louis Patsouras's book, The Anarchism of Jean Grave:

For Grave, anarchism embodied free and co-operative individuals in an egalitarian environment  free of any authority associated with hierarchy in such institutions as government, private capital and religion, the antithesis of the Liberal view of legally free but economically and socially stratified individuals locked in competition.  There was a social contract, so to speak, that united the individual to the general community, the universality of mutual aid,  which anarchists would defend by arms if necessary.  In the event of civil war, would not anarchism, however, not need organisation and hierarchy in order to defend itself?  Perhaps, but one must not discount the various anarchist safeguards that would make hierarchy difficult in the long run, like absence of wage labour, general equality and participatory democracy.

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