Anarchism
Subtitle: A Theoretical Analysis
By: Alan Ritter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2010-04
Place of publication: Cambridge, England; New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 196
ISBN-13: 9780521135702
Copyright date: 1980
Subjects: Anarchism
Description: The central claim of anarchism is that government, being the chief cause of human misery, must be replaced by a stateless society of strongly independent persons who are strongly bound together in a group. In an anarchist social order, individual and communal tendencies, now often contradictory, become mutually reinforcing so as to create a nurturing environment. The main purpose of this 1980 book is to vindicate this argument as presented by leading anarchists: William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. Early chapters are devoted to proving the anarchists consistent in seeking to combine the greatest individual development with the greatest communal unity. Later chapters show the plausibility of the various anarchists’ models of the good society, of their criticisms of established institutions and of their strategies for creating an anarchist social order. The analysis presented accords the anarchists a leading voice in the debate among political theorists over how to create and organize a just society.

(Source: [Cambridge University Press](https://www.cambridge.org/de/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/politics-general-interest/anarchism-theoretical-analysis))
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Acknowledgments
pagenum: vii; title: Introduction
pagenum: 1; label: 1
title: Liberty and public censure in anarchist thought
pagenum: 9; title: The conceptual argument
pagenum: 10; title: The crude empirical arguments
pagenum: 13; title: The sophisticated empirical arguments
pagenum: 17; title: The libertarianism of anarchist censure
pagenum: 23; label: 2
title: The goal of anarchism: communal individuality
pagenum: 25; title: The normative status of individuality and community in anarchist thought
pagenum: 26; title: Liberty, censure and individuality
pagenum: 31; title: Liberty, censure and community
pagenum: 33; title: How free is anarchy?
pagenum: 35; label: 3
title: Varieties of anarchy
pagenum: 40; title: Godwin: anarchy as conversation
pagenum: 41; title: Proudhon and Bakunin: anarchy as a productive enterprise
pagenum: 49; title: Kropotkin: anarchy as an extended neighborhood
pagenum: 56; label: 4
title: The anarchists as critics of established institutions
pagenum: 61; title: Law, government and unanimous direct democracy
pagenum: 62; title: Authority
pagenum: 65; title: Punishment
pagenum: 72; title: Social inequality
pagenum: 76; title: Technology
pagenum: 83; title: The coherence of anarchist criticism
pagenum: 87; label: 5
title: Anarchist strategy: the dilemma of means and ends
pagenum: 89; title: Godwin: ‘trusting to reason alone’
pagenum: 90; title: Proudhon: waiting for the revolution
pagenum: 97; title: Bakunin: the perils of force and fraud
pagenum: 100; title: Kropotkin: in search of strategic balance
pagenum: 105; title: The futility of anarchist strategy
pagenum: 109; label: 6
title: The place of anarchism in the spectrum of political ideas
pagenum: 112; title: Anarchism, liberalism and community
pagenum: 113; title: Anarchism, socialism and the state as cause
pagenum: 124; title: The singularity of anarchism
pagenum: 132; label: 7
title: Evaluating anarchism
pagenum: 134; title: Anarchy as a complete achievement
pagenum: 135; title: Anarchy as a critical standard and practical guide
pagenum: 151; title: The significance of anarchism for political thought
pagenum: 164; title: Notes
pagenum: 167; title: Index
pagenum: 185