108 Chapter 5
In practice, the anarchist critique of authority usually focuses on political authority, especially when it is backed up by the machinery of the modern state. Anarchism is defined by its radical rejection of state power, a stance that sets anarchism apart from all other political ideologies (with the exception of Marxism). The flavour of this anarchist critique of law and government is conveyed by one of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s ([1851] 1923) famous diatribes: To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated, regimented, closed in, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, evaluated, censored, commanded; all by creatures that have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue. The state is a sovereign body that exercises supreme authority over all individuals and associations living within a defined geographical area. Anarchists emphasize that the authority of the state is absolute and unlimited: law can restrict public behaviour, limit political activity, regulate economic life, interfere with private morality and thinking, and so on. The authority of the state is also compulsory . Anarchists reject the liberal notion that political authority arises from voluntary agreement, through some form of ‘social contract’, and argue instead that individuals become subject to state authority either by being born in a particular country or through conquest. Furthermore, the state is a coercive body, whose laws must be obeyed because they are backed up by the threat of punishment. For Emma Goldman (see p. 109), government was symbolized by ‘the club, the gun, the handcuff, or the prison’ (Goldman, 1969). The state can deprive individuals of their property, their liberty and ultimately, through capital punishment, their lives. The state is also exploitative , in that it robs individuals of their property through a system of taxation, once again backed up by the force of law and the possibility of punishment. Anarchists often argue that the state acts in alliance with the wealthy and privileged, and FUNDAMENTALISTS view the state as an instrument of social and political regeneration, carried out in line with religious principles. For example, the Islamic state is a means of ‘purifying’ Islam, by both returning it to its supposed original values and practices, and countering Western influence generally. embodiment of the common good, and thus approve of interventionism in either its social- democratic or state-collectivist form. ANARCHISTS reject the state outright, believing it to be an unnecessary evil. The sovereign, compulsory and coercive authority of the state is seen as nothing less than legalized oppression operating in the interests of the powerful, propertied and privileged. As the state is inherently evil and oppressive, all states have the same essential character. FASCISTS particularly in the Italian tradition, see the state as a supreme ethical ideal, reflecting the undifferentiated interests of the national community, hence their belief in totalitarianism. The Nazis, however, saw the state more as a vessel that contains, or tool that serves, the race or nation. FEMINISTS have viewed the state as an instrument of male power, the patriarchal state serving to exclude women from, or subordinate them within, the public or ‘political’ sphere of life. Liberal feminists nevertheless regard the state as an instrument of reform that is susceptible to electoral and other pressures.
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