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anarchy 87
of pre-state or preliterate, ‘primitive’ societies. The second section
of the chapter looks at the relationship between anarchism and
utopianism, presenting an anarcho-syndicalist and an eco-anarchist
model of organization. The final section considers the ways in which
anarchists have attempted to put their principles into practice,
looking again at anarcho-syndicalism and, developing the discussion
of liberty, the idea of anarchist community.
anarchy and anthropology
In 1963 in the British journal Anarchy, Kenneth Maddock argued
that anarchists who drew on anthropological studies of primitive or
stateless societies were purveyors of social myths. Their concern was
not so much to show how primitive societies functioned, but to
show ‘what the future would be’. Their analyses were ‘reverse reflections,
critiques, of the present’ which built into the past ‘precisely
those qualities lacking in the present’. And their aim was to spur
‘men on to action’. 1 Undoubtedly Maddock was right to suggest that
anarchist studies of stateless societies were broadly posited on a
critique of the state. But his suggestion that anarchists have habitually
treated stateless societies as models of anarchy wrongly suggests
that they have viewed the relationship between statelessness and
anarchy in a uniform way. Contrary to Maddock, it is possible to distinguish
four schools of thought. Kropotkin is a representative of the
first school, though he was torn between two views. On the one
hand, he represented statelessness as a primitive condition through
which humanity had evolved and, on the other, he argued that traditional
or ‘primitive’ ways of life were examples of statelessness that
should be protected. Harold Barclay is a representative of the second
approach. Barclay argues that stateless societies are functioning
anarchies and uses anthropological evidence to examine the conditions
of anarchy’s operation. Murray Bookchin is the leading theorist
of the third school. Bookchin’s view is that the anthropological
studies of preliterate peoples provide an insight into the ecological
system and an ethical guide to the proper organization of anarchy.
Zerzan and Perlman are representative of the final school. These
writers – particularly Zerzan – review anthropological arguments
about statelessness in order to uncover the behaviours and attitudes
that have been lost to the destructive power of civilization. These
four approaches point to broad agreement about the status of