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Making anarchism respectable? The social philosophy of Colin Ward

2007; Routledge; Volume: 12; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13569310601095580

1469-9613

Stuart White,

Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy

Abstract Anarchism suffers from a respectability deficit, a problem of achieving a threshold level of credibility in the eyes of non-anarchists. One anarchist thinker who has grappled persistently with this problem over 60 years of activism is the influential post-war British anarchist, Colin Ward. Responding directly to the respectability deficit, Ward helped to develop a 'pragmatist' anarchism characterized by direct engagement with urgent social problems. The paper explains the nature of this pragmatist anarchism, and places it in its historical intellectual context. It discusses how far Ward has indeed succeeded in producing a social philosophy that is at once genuinely anarchist and 'intellectually respectable'. My theme in this symposium … is 'are we respectable enough?', and in asking this question I am not concerned about the way we dress, or whether our private lives conform to a statistical norm, or how we earn our living, but with the quality of our anarchist ideas: are our ideas worthy of respect? (Colin Ward, Anarchism and Respectability, 1961) Notes 1. For comment and encouragement on this paper, I would like to thank Christopher Bertram, Harry Brighouse, Paula Casal, Laurence Davis, Michael Freeden, Uri Gordon, Catriona Hobbs, Clarissa Honeywell, David Leopold, Catriona MacKinnon, David Miller, Colin Ward, Harriet Ward, Katherine Wedell, Stephen Yeo, and two anonymous referees. Particular thanks are owed to David Goodway for sharing with me his deep knowledge of the subject. 2. H. Read, 'Revolution and Reason', in H. Read, Anarchy and Order (London: Souvenir Press, 1974), pp. 13–31, specifically p. 13. 3. M. Taylor, Community, Anarchy and Liberty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 4. C. Ward, 'It Never Dies …', Freedom, 17 (43), October 27, 1956, p. 2. (Many of Ward's articles in Freedom are signed 'C.W', but it is clear that Ward is the author.) 5. For comprehensive biography, see D. Goodway, 'Introduction', in C. Ward and D. Goodway, Talking Anarchy (Nottingham: Five Leaves Press, 2003), pp. 1–20, a version of which can also be found in D. Goodway, Anarchist Seeds Beneath Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006). I am much indebted to Goodway's article. 6. C. Ward, 'Who Rules the Schools?', Freedom, 18 (8), May 14, 1957, pp. 3, 4, specifically p. 3. Characteristically, Ward downplays the importance of the distinction in practice in this article, but it points to a real and interesting difference of perspective. 7. According to Ward: '… I read Dwight Macdonald's New York magazine Politics from its beginnings in 1944 to its end in 1949, and it influenced me greatly' (Ward and Goodway, op cit, Ref. 5, p. 89). On politics, see G.D. Sumner, Dwight Macdonald and the politics Circle (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996). See also P. Goodman, Growing Up Absurd (New York: Vintage, 1960), Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals (New York: Vintage, 1962). Ward published numerous articles by Goodman in Anarchy. 8. C. Ward, 'What Kind of Paper do we Really Need?', Freedom, 21 (50), December 10, 1960, p. 4. 9. Ward, 'What Kind of Paper do we Really Need?', Freedom, 21 (50), December 10, 1960, p. 4. 10. For an account close to the events, see David Stafford, 'Anarchists in Britain Today' in D. Apter and J. Joll (Eds), Anarchism Today (London: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 84–104. Stafford's analysis of the 'reformist' position in British anarchism, represented by Anarchy, is similar to my account of pragmatist anarchism here, and I am indebted to his discussion. It should be noted that by no means was the whole Freedom group in agreement with Ward's pragmatist anarchism. Other leading figures in the group, such as Vernon Richards, continued to propound a more traditional revolutionary anarchism (as did other anarchists outside the group, such as Albert Meltzer). Others in the 'reformist' camp included Geoffrey Ostergaard and Ian Vine. Ward shared with Ostergaard an interest in the Gandhian sarvodaya movement in India which has much in common with the pragmatist anarchist perspective; see C. Ward, 'Revolution Through Love', Freedom, 16 (28), July 9, 1955, pp. 2, 4. 11. C. Ward, Anarchy in Action, second edition (London: Freedom Press, 1982 [1973]). See also C. Ward, Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 12. H. Read, 'Anarchism: Past and Future', in H. Read, D. Goodway (Ed.), A One-Man Manifesto (London: Freedom Press, 1994), pp. 117–125. See also David Goodway's 'Introduction', pp. 1–26, to this collection which notes Read's anticipation in this essay of the themes that would later be associated with the '"new anarchism" of Alex Comfort and Paul Goodman, Colin Ward and Murray Bookchin …' (p. 8). 13. G. Ostergaard, 'Utopia and Experiment', Freedom, 17 (10), March 10, 1956, pp. 2, 4, specifically p. 4. 14. Ostergaard, 'Utopia and Experiment', Freedom, 17 (10), March 10, 1956, pp. 2, 4, specifically, p. 4. 15. See M. Buber, Paths in Utopia (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949). Ward seems to have first discussed Buber and Landauer in a series of articles on the theme of 'Anarchism, Zionism and the Kibbutz'; see in particular C. Ward, 'The Intrusion of Politics and Nationalism', Freedom, 16 (39), September 25, 1955, p. 2, and 'The Libertarian Tradition and the New Society', Freedom, 16 (40), October 1, 1955, pp. 2, 3. 16. Ward, Anarchy in Action, p. 23. Ward published an article by Geoffrey Ostergaard on this theme in a relatively early issue of Anarchy, and when Buber died in 1965, he devoted an entire issue of Anarchy to a discussion of Buber's and Landauer's ideas. See G. Ostergaard, 'Contracting other relationships', in C. Ward (Ed.), A Decade of Anarchy (London: Freedom Press, 1987), pp. 36–38, originally published in Anarchy, 20 (1962); and Anarchy, 54 (1965). For helpful discussion of Landauer see also R. Day, Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements (London: Pluto/Toronto: Between the Lines, 2005), pp. 123–126. 17. Ostergaard, op cit, Ref. 13, p. 4. 18. Read, op cit, Ref. 12, p. 122. 19. Ward, Anarchy in Action, p. 137, emphasis added. 20. See especially G. Molnar, 'Conflicting strains in anarchist thought', Anarchy 4, 1961, pp. 117–127. See also G. Molnar, 'Controversy: Anarchy and Utopia', Freedom, 19 (30), July 26, 1958, p. 2; 'Controversy: Anarchy and Utopia—2', Freedom, 19 (31), August 2, 1958, pp. 2, 3; and 'Meliorism', Anarchy 85, 1968, pp. 76–83. 21. C. Ward, 'Anarchism and Respectability', Freedom, 22 (28), September 12, 1961, p. 3, and 'Anarchism and Respectability—2', Freedom, 22 (29), September 19, 1961, p. 3. The quote is from the first part of the article. 22. Ward, Anarchy in Action, p. 131. 23. Ward, op cit, Ref. 21, first part. 24. Ward, op cit, Ref. 21, first part. 25. Ward, op cit, Ref. 21, first part. 26. That said, the normative anarchist position ceases to be very interesting unless it is combined with a belief in the possibility of making a modern society substantially anarchic, significantly more so than, say, state socialist or welfare state capitalist societies of the twentieth century. As will become clear, Ward certainly does hold such a belief. 27. M. Buber, 'Society and the State', Anarchy, 54, 1965, pp. 232–243. The essay was first delivered as a lecture at the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem in 1950. 28. Buber, 'Society and the State', Anarchy, 54, 1965, pp. 232–243. The essay was first delivered as a lecture at the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem in 1950, p. 232. 29. Buber, 'Society and the State', Anarchy, 54, 1965, pp. 232–243. The essay was first delivered as a lecture at the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem in 1950, p. 241. Citations of the passage (which I have edited) by Ward can be found, for example, in Ward, Anarchism, p. 27 and Ward and Goodway, op cit, Ref. 5, p. 87. Ward also refers to this Buber essay in Anarchy in Action at p. 23. 30. Ward, Anarchy in Action, p. 18. 31. 'What extreme situations always reveal is the enormous untapped resources of human solidarity which are normally stultified by our manner of living, by the values we honour, and by our social passivity'. See C. Ward, 'Pull Up the Ladder, Jack …', Freedom, 19 (20), May 17, 1958, p. 3. See also C. Ward, 'Kropotkin and Ashley Montagu', Freedom, 18 (37), September 14, 1957, p. 3, discussing scientific work supporting the account of human nature set out in P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1939). 32. Ward, Anarchy in Action, pp. 131, 137. 33. Cited in Ward and Goodway, op cit, Ref. 5, p. 59; originally in C. Ward, 'A Hundred Issues of Anarchy', Freedom, 30 (20), June 14, 1969, p. 3. 34. See Ward and Goodway, op cit, Ref. 5, p. 35. 35. G. Woodcock, New Life to the Land (London: Freedom Press, 1942), Railways in Society (London: Freedom Press, 1943), Homes or Hovels: The Housing Problem and Its Solution (London: Freedom Press, 1944). 36. G. Woodcock, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Movements and Ideas (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975 [1961]), pp. 446–447. 37. Woodcock continued to contribute to Freedom in the 1950s and also contributed to Anarchy in the late 1960s, commenting very favourably on it in the second edition of his book: '… a monthly review, Anarchy, which for a decade was superior to any journal that anarchists had published since the libertarian literary magazines of Paris during the 1890s'. See Woodcock, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Movements and Ideas (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975 [1961]), p. 457. 38. Gaston Leval, 'A Constructive Libertarian Movement', Freedom, 21 (13), March 26, 1960, pp. 2, 4. 39. Leval, 'A Constructive Libertarian Movement', Freedom, 21 (13), March 26, 1960, p. 2. 40. Leval, 'A Constructive Libertarian Movement', Freedom, 21 (13), March 26, 1960, p. 4. 41. A. Uloth, 'Anarchism, the workers, and social revolution', Anarchy 74, 1967, pp. 114–116, specifically p. 114. 42. The more contemporary works include C. Ward, Tenants Take Over (London: The Architectural Press, 1974); Housing: An Anarchist Approach (London: Freedom Press, 1976); When We Build Again … Let's Have Housing That Works! (London: Pluto, 1985); Talking Houses (London: Freedom Press, 1990); and Talking to Architects (London: Freedom Press, 1996). Historical works include C. Ward, Cotters and Squatters (Nottingham: Five Leaves Press, 2002), and, with D. Hardy, Arcadia for All: The Legacy of a Maksehift Landscape (London: Mansell, 1984). See also Ward, Anarchy in Action, pp. 67–73. 43. See J. C. Scott, Seeing Like a State (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), and P. Hall, Cities of Tomorrow: Third Edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 218–261. 44. Ward, 'Dear Mr. Crosland …', in Ward, Housing, pp. 93–98, specifically p. 94. 45. Ward, When We Build Again, p. 87. 46. See Ward, Anarchy in Action, pp. 70–72; Housing, pp. 13–34; Cotters and Squatters; Social Policy: An Anarchist Response (London: London School of Economics, 1996), pp. 25–31; Ward and Goodway, op cit, Ref. 5, p. 73. 47. Ward, 'What Have the Squatters Achieved?', in Housing, pp. 28–34, specifically p. 34. 48. See Ward, Cotters and Squatters and Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All. See also Ward, When We Build Again, pp. 71–84; Talking Houses, pp. 65–80; Social Policy, pp. 18–23. 49. Anarchy, 23 (1963), contains articles on cooperative self-build projects. A later summary of views is Ward, 'Self-Help in Urban Renewal', The Raven, 2 (1987), pp. 115–120. See also Ward's discussion of Walter Segal, an architect whose designs helped pioneer the self-build movement in contemporary Britain, in C. Ward, Influences: Voices of Creative Dissent (Bideford: Green Books, 1991), pp. 97–101, and Talking to Architects (London: Freedom, 1996), pp. 31–40. Another influence on Ward in this area is J. Turner, Housing by People: Toward Autonomy in Building Environments (New York, Pantheon, 1976). 50. Ward, Talking Houses, pp. 15–35; Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All, pp. 298–300. 51. In addition to Tenants Take Over, see Ward, Anarchy in Action, pp. 72–73, and When We Build Again, pp. 27–45. 52. Ward comments that: 'The proudest moment of my housing advocacy was when the Weller Street Co-op chairman, Billy Floyd, introduced me at a meeting by waving a tattered copy of Tenants Take Over and saying: "Here's the man who wrote the Old Testament … But we built the New Jerusalem!"' See Ward and Goodway, Talking Anarchy, pp. 74–75. For an account of the Weller Street Co-op, see Alan McDonald, The Weller Way (London: Faber and Faber, 1986). 53. Ward and Goodway, op cit, Ref 5, p. 74. 54. See C. Ward and A. Fyson, Streetwork: The Exploding School (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973). See also C. Ward, Utopia (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), which, like Streetwork, encourages children to take an active interest in the physical (and, by extension, social) environment in which they live. 55. The underlying theory is set out in C. Ward, 'Education for Participation', in Ward, Housing, pp. 119–129. 56. The Kropotkinian influence is clear in New Life for the Land, and also in G. Woodcock, Anarchy or Chaos (London: Freedom Press, 1944), pp. 90–104, which also refers to the garden city model of Howard (p. 104); and The Basis of Communal Living (London: Freedom Press, 1947), especially pp. 3–7, 37–41. 57. R. Boston, 'Conversations about anarchism', in op cit, Ref. 16, pp. 11–23, specifically p. 11. The typescript was also published in Anarchy 85, 1968. 58. See, for example, Ward, Welcome, Thinner City: Urban Survival in the 1990s (London: Bedford Square Press, 1989), pp. 14–21; Talking Houses, pp. 15–35, specifically pp. 19–20; Talking to Architects, pp. 65–76. 59. See P. Kropotkin, C. Ward (Eds), Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow (London: Freedom Press, 1975). 60. See Ward, Influences, pp. 103–114 (on Geddes); Ward and Goodway, op cit, Ref. 5, pp. 70–73 (on Howard and Geddes). For an account of garden city philosophy, emphasizing the links with anarchist thought, see P. Hall, Cities of Tomorrow, Third edition (Oxford, Blackwell, 2002 [1988]), pp. 87–187. For the original text stating the garden city ideal, see also E. Howard, To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (London, Routledge, 2003), with introduction by P. Hall, D. Hardy and C. Ward. The influence of the Goodman brothers, Percival and Paul, is also important in Ward's thinking about urban design. See Ward, Influences, pp. 115–132, and Goodway, 'Introduction', in Ward and Goodway, op cit, Ref. 5, p. 16. For Woodcock's earlier endorsement of garden city ideas, see Woodcock, Homes or Hovels, pp. 31–33, and Anarchy or Chaos, p. 104. 61. See Kropotkin, op cit, Ref. 59. 62. Ward, Anarchy in Action, pp. 59–66. 63. See C. Ward, Freedom to Go: After the Motor Age (London: Freedom Press, 1991). 64. See D. Crouch and C. Ward, The Allotment: Its Landscape and Culture (Nottingham: Five Leaves Press, 1997); Ward, Welcome Thinner City, pp. 96–102, and Anarchism, p. 97 (illustration by Clifford Harper). 65. Ward, Anarchy in Action, pp. 104–106; Anarchism, pp. 47–49. Anarchy 30, 1963, is themed on this topic. 66. Hall, op cit, Ref. 60, pp. 93–97. This is also noted by Ward in Ward and Goodway, op cit, Ref. 5, p. 72. Ward's definition of 'anarchist communism' can be found in Anarchism, p. 2. Ward also discusses local popular management of water supplies as a feasible response to the 'tragedy of the commons' in C. Ward, Reflected in Water: A Crisis of Social Responsibility (London: Cassell, 1997). 67. On self-help therapeutic groups, see Ward, Anarchy in Action, p. 120. See also A. Pressman, 'Synanon and anarchy', Anarchy, 60 (1966), pp. 40–51. On Friendly Societies, see Ward, Anarchy in Action, p. 119; Social Policy, pp. 1–7. On education, see C. Ward, 'A modest proposal for the repeal of the Education Act', Anarchy, 53 (1965), pp. 214–216; Anarchy in Action, pp. 79–86; Talking Schools (London: Freedom Press, 1995). 68. C. Ward, 'Federalism, Regionalism, and Planning: An Anarchist Perspective', The Raven, 31, 1995, pp. 290–302. See also R. Rendell and C. Ward, Undermining the Central Line (London: Chatto and Windus, 1989). 69. On economic decentralization, see Kropotkin, op cit, Ref. 59. On political decentralization, see P. Kropotkin, trans. by Vernon Richards, The State: Its Historic Role (London: Freedom Press, 1987 [1897/98]). 70. 'We proclaim integration … a society of integrated, combined labour. A society where each individual is a producer of both manual and intellectual work; where each able-bodied human being is a worker, and where each worker works both in the field and the industrial workshop; where every aggregation of individuals, large enough to dispose of a certain variety of resources—it may be a nation, or rather a region—produces and itself consumes most of its agricultural and manufactured produce'. See Kropotkin, op cit, Ref. 59, p. 26. 71. P. Kropotkin, 'Anarchist Communism: Its Basis and Principles', in R.N. Baldwin (Ed.), Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets (New York: Dover, 1970 [1887]), pp. 46–75, specifically p. 59. 72. C. Ward, 'Learning About LETS', The Raven, 31, 1995, pp. 229–233; Ward, Social Policy, pp. 1–7. 73. C. Ward, 'A Few Italian Lessons', The Raven, 7, 1989, pp. 197–206; Ward and Goodway, op cit, Ref. 5, pp. 52–53. 74. Ward, Anarchy in Action, pp. 98–102. Workers' control was a regular theme in Anarchy. See especially issues 2 (1961), 40 (1964), 47 (1965), 80 (1967), 86 (1968), 95 (1969), 108 (1970) and 118 (1970). 75. Review of Ward's Anarchy in Action, Black Flag, 3 (8), 1974, pp. 13–14. The review is unsigned but the style suggests Albert Meltzer. 76. C. Ward, 'Notes of an Anarchist Columnist', The Raven, 12, 1990, pp. 315–319, specifically p. 316. 77. C. Ward, 'The Unwritten Handbook', Freedom, 19 (26), June 28, 1958, p. 3. 78. Molnar, 'Controversy: Anarchy and Utopia', p. 2. 79. C. Ward, 'Anarchy for Adults', Freedom, 19 (31), August 2, 1958, p. 2. 80. Ward puts emphasis on the following passage: 'Throughout the history of our civilisation, two traditions, two opposed tendencies, have been in conflict; the Roman tradition and the popular tradition, the imperial tradition and the federalist tradition, the authoritarian tradition and the libertarian tradition. Between these two currents, always alive, struggling in humanity … our choice is made'. What Molnar and Ward stress is the idea that the two tendencies are both 'always alive, struggling in humanity'. Ward reports that the passage is to be found in the 1913 French edition of Kropotkin's Modern Science and Anarchism. See also Buber, Paths in Utopia, p. 39. A more extended interpretation of Kropotkin on Ward-Molnar lines is presented in Day, op cit, Ref. 16, pp. 117–123. 81. K. Stephen Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 209. 82. See Day, op cit, Ref. 16, and U. Gordon, 'Anarchism and Political Theory—Contemporary Problems', unpublished D.Phil thesis, Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University, 2006. 83. See P. Hain, Radical Regeneration: Protest, Direct Action and Community Politics (London: Quartet, 1975). 84. Ward, Anarchy in Action, p. 132. 85. Speaking in 1987, Samuel comments that 'I have been struck with how much of the cultural revolution of the 1960s was actually prefigured in that journal, which was running in easy tandem with a larger New Left'. See R. Samuel, presentation in 'Then and Now: A Re-evaluation of the New Left', in Oxford Socialist Discussion Group (Eds), Out of Apathy: Voices of the New Left Thirty Years On (London: Verso, 1989), pp. 143–170, specifically p. 148. 86. K. Worpole (Ed.), Richer Futures: Fashioning a New Politics (Bristol: Earthscan, 1999). 87. Worpole, Richer Futures: Fashioning a New Politics (Bristol: Earthscan, 1999), p. 1. 88. See A. Briggs, Michael Young: Social Entrepreneur (Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2001), pp. 280–309. 89. C. Ward, 'A Confederation of Confederations?', Samizdat, 11, 1990, pp. 15–16, 'City People Can House Themselves', Samizdat, 12, 1990, pp. 7–9. The affinity between Ward and Young, noted by Goodway, is worthy of further consideration. See Ward and Goodway, op cit, Ref. 5, pp. 91–95. 90. Worpole, op cit, Ref. 86, p. 182. 91. This line of criticism of anarchist thought is developed at more length by Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers in their critique of Noam Chomsky's anarchism. See J. Cohen and J. Rogers, 'Knowledge, Morality and Hope: The Social Thought of Noam Chomsky', New Left Review, 187, 1991, pp. 5–27, specifically pp. 14–16. 92. Buber, op cit, Ref. 15, p. 36. 93. Buber writes, op cit, Ref. 15, p. 39: 'In history there is not merely the State as a clamp that st>s the individuality of small associations; there is also the State as the framework within which they may consolidate … not merely the machina machinarum that turns everying belonging to it into the components of some mechanism, but also the communitas communitatum, the unions of the communities into community, within which "the proper and autonomous common life of all the members" can unfold'. 94. P. Hirst, Associative Democracy: New Forms of Economic and Social Governance (Cambridge: Polity, 1994), and J. Cohen and J. Rogers, Associations and Democracy (London: Verso, 1994). 95. See, for example, G.D.H. Cole, Social Theory (London: Methuen and Co., 1920). 96. R.H. Tawney, Equality (London: Allen and Unwin, 1931). 97. As Michael Kenny writes, '…the New Left placed tremendous emphasis upon democracy, spontaneity and initiative from below', and many of its thinkers shared a 'concern for the restoration of community within British political life'. See M. Kenny, The First New Left: British Intellectuals after Stalin (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1995), pp. 95, 74. Turning very selectively to the original texts, one might cite R. Williams, 'Towards a Socialist Society', in P. Anderson and R. Blackburn, eds., Towards Socialism (London: New Left Books, 1965), pp. 367–397, as an article with a strong emphasis on the democracy theme, and P. Townsend, 'A Society for People', in N. MacKenzie (Ed.), Conviction (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1958), pp. 93–120, as an eloquent statement of the concern for fellowship (see especially pp. 118–120). The values of participatory democracy and fellowship also feature prominently in a helpful retrospective set of essays by leading theorists of the first New Left. See S. Hall, 'The "First" New Left: Life and Times', R. Samuel, 'Born-again Socialism', and C. Taylor, 'Marxism and Socialist Humanism', in Oxford Socialist Discussion Group (Eds), op cit, Ref. 85, pp. 11–38, 39–57, 59–78. 98. Buber, op cit, Ref. 15, p. 48.