[p2p-research] review: Economic Thought in Communitarian Anarchism, 1840-1914

[Michel Bauwens]

Political Economy from Below. Economic Thought in Communitarian Anarchism,
1840-1914  *Author:* Michel Bauwens a
  *Affiliation: *  a Foundation for P2P Alternatives, Chiang Mai, Thailand
*DOI:* 10.1080/09538250902871691
*Publication Frequency:* 4 issues per year
*Published in:* [image: journal] Review of Political
Economy<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713444532~db=all>,
Volume 21<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713444532~db=all~tab=issueslist~branches=21#v21>,
Issue 2 <http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g910948236~db=all>April
2009 , pages 336 - 337


Robert Knowles
*New York, Routledge, 2004*, 432 pp., $90.00 hardcover
ISBN 0-415-94903-3

Robert Knowles's *Political Economy from Below* is both an excellent
scholarly study and an important contribution to contemporary political
debates. The book provides an exhaustive review of the economic doctrines of
classical anarchism. Its publication is timely, as the world's fastest
growing international political movement - the anti-globalization movement -
draws inspiration from many of the principles advocated by the early
anarchist theorists; and because many of the new digitally-enabled social
movements are groping for a commons-based (and therefore non-state based)
political strategy. The essential difference is that while the anarchists
actively fought the emerging nation-state, contemporary forces seem inclined
to bypass what they may consider an already weakening institution, and
instead focus on the emergent powers of world governance. The vast majority
of our activist contemporaries may reject the traditional anarchist and
socialist labels, but the similarities between those movements and
modern-day anti-globalism nevertheless justify a renewed study of the
historical tradition.

Knowles puts forth the hypothesis that the anarchist tradition has been
absorbed by contemporary activists through the influence of ecologists with
an anarchist bent. His study is based on an exhaustive examination of both
the French- and English-language writings in the anarchist tradition, and he
stresses that such a strategy is vital, as any single-language based study
would distort the record. Knowles has gone beyond the call of duty in making
sense of this enormous body of thought. He focuses on the positive ideas,
not on anarchists' criticisms of non-anarchists or of each other, or on
non-anarchist critiques of anarchist thought. The scope of the book is
precisely limited to the communitarian anarchist tradition; that is, it
excludes from consideration both (i) the anti-communal individualist
anarchist tradition associated with Max Stirner and which eventually evolved
into US-style libertarianism; and (ii) the anarcho-syndicalist movement of
the first half of the twentieth century. These classical anarchists
disdained unions for accepting the exploitative wage relationship in the
first place. By contrast, the communitarian tradition can be understood 'as
a generic form of socialism which denies the need for any authority over the
individual from above, and which requires absolute belief that the
individual cannot exist outside of a community of others' (p. 11). But
Knowles also makes no mention of the less well-known left-libertarian
individualist tradition, which is not anti-communal but stresses cooperative
individualism.

Each chapter opens with a lively account of the intellectual, political and
personal history of a particular anarchist figure and then moves on to an
analysis of the subject's economic ideas and, finally, a discussion of how
the subject fits into the debates of his time, including his connection to
other socialist traditions. Most of the chapters conclude with a section on
the 'connections' of its subject to the figure who will be described next in
line. The exposition is clear and understandable throughout and will be
accessible to the layperson. However, in contrast to Knowles's crisp
explanations, the value-loaded rhetoric of the original literature he cites
often seems convoluted and unclear. The reader cannot help but be impressed
by Knowles's work of selection and exegesis to tease out precisely what
economic doctrines his sources meant to convey.

The book takes up its story in 1840, the year in which Proudhon's first book
dealing substantially with economic topics was published, and four of the
book's chapters are devoted to Proudhon. Knowles covers not only the obvious
names, such as Bakunin and Kropotkin, but also lesser known, but nonetheless
interesting figures such as Alexander Herzen, Elisee Reclus and Jean Grave.
Knowles ends the book in 1914, with the start of the First World War marking
a watershed change in the anarchist tradition. The last figure to be covered
is the 'Christian anarchist' Leo Tolstoy.

The anarchist movement ultimately failed. There are two reasons. The
anarchists, unlike the followers of the Marxist and social-democratic
traditions, always started from 'first principles' that were entirely
ethical in nature - justice, equality and so forth - that is, from a
conception of what man could or should become. This approach, while
defensible, is alien to our contemporary 'realist', not to say 'cynical' *
Zeitgeist*, which has been influenced by another hundred years of market
capitalism. The anarchists addressed themselves not to the still small group
of factory workers, but to the majority of small peasants and artisans, at a
time when communities and families were not utterly dislocated. The communal
past, in the form of independent artisans organized in guild-like fashion,
and the agricultural commons of the Russian 'Mir', was still very much
alive, as were its values. The Russian Commons were in fact an enduring
inspiration for all the writers discussed by Knowles. The anarchists also
refused to be specific about the alternatives, both for their present, and
for the future. Anarchist writings are therefore variations on a very basic
theme, i.e. how to organize a society around autonomous and cooperating
federations. The variations on this theme form the core of Knowles's book.
The anarchists saw political economy as grounded in an illusory view of
human nature, and comprised of untenable models that were divorced from any
reality. They rejected the very notion of material scarcity, on which
economics is based (anticipating recent discourse on 'the economics of
abundance'), and they deplored the expulsion of moral considerations from
economics.

The book disappoints in one respect. Its title might lead prospective
readers to expect an account of the manifold communal efforts and
cooperatives that existed in the nineteenth century, and of how they dealt
with the challenges of capitalism. But Knowles tells none of this story; the
book is concerned exclusively with the writings of the key theorists of
anarchism. This drawback aside, I recommend Knowles's book as a fascinating
account of an important tradition in political activism. It is particularly
useful for its analysis of anarchist economic thought, which has been
largely neglected until now. This book is a landmark study that will be of
interest to both scholars and activists.

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