Tom Hodgkinson on the history of Anarchism

at Port Eliot Lit Fest

The Port Eliot Literature festival is situated on the landscaped grounds of the 18th century Port Eliot House at St Germans in Cornwall. Taking part over three days, the Lit fest attracts a diverse range of performers, and has something for all tastes. Whether you want to catch some music, listen to poetry, see talks by authors about their work, watch films, or take part in a pub quiz, the Port Eliot Lit fest will not disappoint.

One of the people I was most eager to see was Tom Hodgkinson who was talking about Anarchism. Anarchism has had a very bad press, and it often conjures up images of bomb throwers, vandals, and chaos. However while studying politics, I found the Anarchist ideology the most inspiring. Unlike some other political philosophies which suggest people are naturally competitive and greedy, Anarchism puts forward that people are naturally co-operative, and will work together for the collective good with the absence of government and authority.

Tom Hodgkinson is the founder and editor of the Idler, a bi-annual magazine, and author of ‘How to be Idle’ and ‘How to be Free’. He started up the Idler in 1993 as an attack on work as it is. He was working hard for little money and thought there must be another way. He wanted to explore and find ways of reorganising work, so he could be autonomous, and recreate work so it could be liberating instead of soul destroying. In his talk Tom provided a potted history of Anarchism, and the ideas and people behind it.

The philosophy of Anarchism can be traced back to the Taoists. One eminent Taoist philosopher; ‘Laozi’ said the best form of government is a government you don’t really know is there. Another key concept of Taoist belief which has influenced Anarchism, is to ‘go with the flow’ meaning to go through life like a river, travel along paths of least resistance, and create unique and beautiful curves as you go through the land on the way to the sea.

As far back as the 14th century, there were medieval movements similar to Anarchism, such as the ‘Brethren of Free Spirit’ which was inspired by Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. They believed if you found god, and reached a plane of higher being, ordinary everyday morality meant nothing to you. You could do anything and indulge in the pleasure of luxury.

These ideas later came back in 17th century with the ‘Ranters’ and the ‘Levellers’ who protested against the status quo. The ‘Levellers’ dug up common land as a protest against the enclosure system. The ‘Ranters’ were the most extreme, and had a similar philosophy to the ‘Brethren of free spirit’; you could do anything you wanted, you didn’t even need to work. Their slogan was ‘Bread for god’s sake’, they baked, they didn’t need to work and saw work as a kind of a vanity.

One key stage in the development of the Anarchist philosophy was around the time of the Industrial revolution in the late 18th century. People had to clock in at certain times and often did 16 hours a day. To encourage this there was a concerted campaign by educators, leaders and churches, to convince people that punctuality was next to godliness. In the past when societies were mainly rural, people weren’t used to working around a standardised time, they worked with the seasons, and work depended on the weather.

In the same period William Godwin was a key figure in British Anarchism. He was the father of Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein) and was married to Mary Wollstonecraft author of ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’. William was fiercely anti authority and the consumer society which was starting to develop. He didn’t call himself an Anarchist; this was a label he was given later. At the time the philosophy of Anarchism was more promoted by romantic poets such as William Blake. Lines from his poems such as; ‘the dark satanic mills’ are commonly interpreted as being about the factories taking people’s essential creativity away from them, and destroying their spirit.

Kropotkin was another massive influence on Anarchism. He was a Russian prince who absconded from Russia and settled in Coventry, where he wrote books such as ‘Mutual aid’ and ‘Field factories and workers’ and worked on Freedom magazine. His book ‘Mutual aid’ was not so much an attack on Darwin, but on the uses that Darwin’s theories were being put to. He disagreed with the idea that there is a natural competitiveness and that competition should become the motivating source of society, and indeed relationships. Kropotkin put forward co-operation was just as an important force, and that people were naturally co-operative.

These ideas were coming out around the same time as Marx’s philosophies in the 19th century. This was a period of great political agitation, most probably due to the inequities of Industrial revolution. Kropotkin had more of an influence on the ground, and among others inspired Oscar Wilde, who said Kropotkin was the most cheerful man he’d ever meet.

Kropotkin’s definition of Anarchism (1905) appeared in the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

“Anarchism is the name given to a principle of theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of the needs and aspirations of a civilized being. In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state of its functions.”

People not mentioned too much in Anarchist history are William Morris and Ruskin. They were both medievalists and were interested in how work could be recreated to be enjoyable. Ruskin suggested people go and look at the old cathedrals in Florence, which were built at the time of a free state. People had freed themselves from landlords and created their own communes. The word ‘commune’ was used as the communal good was more important than the individual. They all got together to build these amazing cathedrals.

There is a weird link between Medievalism and Anarchy. When people think of medieval times they often think of ill health, bad teeth, bloodshed, cruelty and torture, and some of these things are true, but it was also a time of a real collective spirit. There was a different approach to life, which had come through the bible and Aristotle’s ethics, which were translated and spread across Europe. These theories talked about co-operation, and contemplation. Aristotle believed a contemplative life was most likely to lead to living blissfully, not the busy rushing around life we are used to today.

There was not enough time to go into detail about everyone who has had an influence on Anarchist philosophy. However Tom was able to briefly mention Tolstoy; a Christian Anarchist and pacifist, whose ideas influenced Gandhi among others. Later in the early 20th century, a key figure was Emma Goldman who created the radical political journal ‘Mother Earth’.

There was a kind of resurgence of Anarchist ideas in the 1920’s and 30’s among people like G.K Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc. They promoted the idea of ‘Distributism’. They believed each person should have their own property, as if they all had an acre of land and were able to be self sufficient; they could free themselves from their reliance on the government, and being a slave to wages. They believed property is freedom.

In the 1950’s the ‘Situationists’ in Europe were another movement fighting the status quo. They were asking what was going on in society, and were very anti work. They were also very artistic and often used art as a way of political agitation. They hung around the streets wearing trousers covered in writing and slogans, and almost had a punky look which later inspired Malcolm McLaren. The ideas and looks of the ‘Situationists’ may certainly have influenced the later punk movement.

In the 1970’s, key figures in Anarchism were Ivan Illich, whose most famous work was ‘Deschooling society’, and E.F.Schumacher who was an economist. He had worked for the coal board for 30 or 40 years, and came out of it with a philosophy that in economics we need to keep things small, when things get too big they get swallowed up into one big monopoly. The same sort of thing is happening now, as many people believe Tescos are getting too big, and has too much of a monopoly. This was what Schumacher was saying in the 1970’s.

Also in the 70’s the Sex Pistols burst on to the scene with their Anarchy and anger. It was a fantastic blast, producing one album, a chaotic American tour, and then they finished. For people sitting around thinking ‘am I alone in thinking life is shit?’ the Sex Pistol’s music enabled them to release their wild side, and got them thinking they could grab hold of their lives again. Punk had a huge impact in England at the time.

The lyrics of their song ‘Anarchy in the UK’ were very powerful and Tom provided us with his interpretation of what they meant. Lyrics such as; ‘property is freedom’ he suggests refers to everyone owning land, and being self sufficient (see Distributionists above). ‘I want to be Anarchy’ is likely to imply they want to encapsulate the whole Anarchist approach to life. ‘Don’t want to be a dogsbody’ is likely to be saying they don’t want to work for anyone else; they don’t want to be a wage slave. ‘I give the wrong time’ Tom interpreted as being about the standardised time of work and meaning ‘I’m going to subvert your capitalist idea of time’. ‘Stop the traffic line’ he believes may be illustrating where we’re going, as the building of roads is an inevitability of civilising our world. Finally the line ‘I use the enemy’ is likely to be about Anarchy itself, as an attack on society as it is, is what Anarchy is all about.

As Punk became more popular it also became more commercial. Crass the Anarchist punk band, around in the late 70’s became disappointed at this commercialism. They had tried to live the Anarchist philosophy for many years. In 1968 two of them had cycled around London and found land where they all started to live together in a commune. They grew their own vegetables, printed their own record sleeves, and took distribution into their own hands, not selling their records for more than 99p. They still live there today.

Today Anarchism still promotes the idea of communal living. Many people are becoming more and more removed from their communities. They travel to do their main shop at the supermarket and may not even know who their neighbours are. The Anarchist idea’s of communal living, communal gardens, shopping locally, and becoming engaged with our local communities may seem like a silly pipe dream, but it is possible, and has been shown to work in the past. For example in the 2nd world war people became more self sufficient, they had allotments, kept chickens, and were generally more involved in community living.

Alternative technology such as wind farms, which were considered to be a bonkers idea 20 or 30 years ago, are now being embraced and we are congratulating ourselves on our green living. Similarly there may be possibilities for Anarchist ideas in today’s society. Tom suggests:

“What was once regarded as impractical and visionary has now becoming eminently practical. If community face to face democracy, a humanistic liberatory technology, and decentralisation are conceived of merely as reactions to the prevailing state of affairs …… a compelling objective case can also be made for the practicability of an Anarchist society.”

Tom finished off with his ‘freedom manifesto’, written for the book ‘How to be free’, to much applause from the audience:

“Death to the supermarkets
Bake bread
Play the ukulele
Open the village hall
Action is futile
Quit moaning
Make music
Stop consuming
Start producing
Back to the land
Smash usury
Embrace beauty
Embrace poverty
Hail the chisel
Ignore the state
Reform is futile
Anarchy in the UK
Hail the spade
Hail the horse
Hail the quill
Love thy neighbour
Be creative
Free your spirit
Dig the Earth
Make compost
Life is absurd
We are free
Be merry”