Dear Editor
Dear Editor Anarchism Allow me a belated response to George Woodcock's review of my book. The Anarchist Way to Socialism: Eiisee Rectus and Nineteenth-Century European Anarchism (NL, January 28),...
...For the remainder of his life he supported "unorganized " agitation (ranging from various forms of "consciousness-raising" to political terrorism) as the way to bring about a socialist society...
...Star Wars Robert Asahina should be banished to Dagobah for his review of George Lucas' Star Wars 11 (NL, June 2...
...I am amazed that a professor must alert Mr...
...I could write much about sex, but my piece was conceived in inflation and the Carter masochistic recession...
...Still, I would not go so far as to state categorically, with Woodcock, that Reclus was "antiutopian...
...this is not, however, an accurate representation of my position...
...London, Canada Marie Fleming Assistant Professor of Political Science University of Western Ontario George Woodcock replies: Marie Fleming has written a spirited defense of her book, and I agree that she is "re-reading history...
...I, for one, will never forgive him for revealing Darth Vader's identity—something every other critic managed to avoid...
...The question of his being "more" socialist or "more" anarchist holds little interest for me, since I do not think this can be measured...
...He speaks of going to a bank, etc...
...Staten Island, N. Y. Steve Merntt...
...In the last years of the anarchist rump of the First International, Reclus and his contemporaries clearly accepted this tradition, which ran from Proudhon into Bakunin's semi-conspiratorial formations—and from which, in Reclus' time and long afterward, the anarchists in Italy and Spain derived their main inspiration...
...Woodstock claims that I see Reclus as "more socialist than anarchist...
...It was in an effort to highlight this point that I chose as a title for my book 77ie Anarchist Way to Socialism...
...Lutz to the facts of business life—to wit, that money wages and salaries are far and away the most important elements in business costs and prices...
...whence my conclusion that anarchist theory in late 19th-century Europe was self-consciously and objectively a variety of socialism, bearing a limited resemblance to "anarchist" theories of other times and places...
...He simply refuses to ponder the implications of money incomes leaping ahead by 10 per cent while productivity goes forward by an indiscernible glich...
...But my general approach does lift Reclus out of the "anarchist tradition" and place him in the socialist tradition...
...What I have done is to suggest that we may arrive at a deeper understanding of all forms of "anarchism" if we allow that many of those thinkers usually brought under the "anarchist" umbrella have some marked differences...
...he receives his salary from the university...
...But when I, as a small businessman, go to a bank for working capital, to hire labor or to carry me over my production costs (of manufacturing books), if the money supply is tight, I pay through the nose...
...Menemsha, Mass...
...Moreover, it was under Bakunin's personal influence that Reclus himself became an anarchist...
...His assiduous dissection spoiled the film for those of us who are not embarrassed by our childish delight in Lucas' work...
...Those political theorists whose work is largely based on textual criticism will reject my methods for being too "historical.** I suggest that anarchist theory must be studied within the context of the social-economic and political conditions in which it arose...
...Although I have long been an admirer of Woodcock and have gained many insights from his books, I must take issue with his verdict...
...Second, Fleming fails to recognize how far the stress on "socialism" (which really meant anarchist communism, rather than social democracy) was tactical in intent: The anarchists were seeking, after 1880, to gain a foothold in the new working class movements that had emerged when France recovered from the depression that followed the Paris Commune...
...In particular the anarchists hoped to have a place, and perhaps even a dominant influence, in the Second International...
...Lutz' sick joke: My children were not born out of immaculate conception...
...I am not advocating a return to $30 pay scales...
...When the prime rate goes up, who do you think has to pay more if not the man who has to hire labor or acquire materials...
...Tight Money I do not know what world Sidney Weintraub inhabits...
...The Anarchist Way to Socialism: Eiisee Rectus and Nineteenth-Century European Anarchism (NL, January 28), which is revealingly entitled "Misreading Radical History...
...Two main groups seem to be interested in preserving the standard interpretation of the anarchist tradition...
...it detaches late 19th-century anarchism from its true roots...
...I believe Eiisee Reclus would oppose my conclusions on the efficacy of the anarchist way to socialism, but he would chuckle at my resistance to the established "authorities" on the anarchist tradition...
...1, for one, prefer to think that I have "re-read" radical history...
...Significantly, in his "refutation" of this point that the anarchists contributed mightily to their own demise as a potent force for change, Woodcock can only offer examples of marginal gains...
...The book charts Reclus' adoption of socialist principles in early youth and his search over two decades for some means (including, briefly, parliamentary politics) of putting these principles into practice...
...NL, June 16), it may affect people who want to "buy gold or commodities on speculative markets...
...Moreover, he made the important discovery (though he did not recognize its importance) that his negation of the state had "totally different meanings" for its various exponents...
...Reclus tried to find a theoretical and "scientific" basis for his vision of a better world, and even though he insisted on scientific method, he held on to this dream against all odds and against all disappointments...
...If his anger did not block his thought, he would realize that for 1,000 employees at $30 per week, he would have to borrow $30,000...
...The other group that will find fault with my work consists of the partisans of anarchism as a cause...
...The anarchists she is concerned with, Reclus and his associates, belonged to a movement that derived from Mikhail Bakunin's libertarian groupings in the First International, and these in turn derived their anti-governmental theories from Pierre Joseph Proudhon and his Mutualist working men followers, who were among the founders of the International...
...It was not until the savage suppression of the Paris Commune in 1871 that he rejected all forms of party-political activity...
...Rather, I see his socialism and anarchism as complementary aspects of the all-embracing political theory he developed after the Paris Commune...
...He mocks the view that money supply works directly on prices...
...As these hopes faded they talked less and less about "socialism," except in terms of rejection...
...As Woodstock himself states, all my evidence proves that, after 1871, Reclus " firmly believed it was only through stressing the anarchist rejection of all governments, all political organizations, all parliamentary activity, that a true socialism could be achieved...
...indeed, we have more in common than his review makes apparent...
...But I remain convinced that she is "mis-reading" it...
...My work analyzes the life and thought of a man whose contribution to anarchism as it developed in late 19th-century Europe has been underestimated...
...More money is borrowed because money incomes are higher, and not the other way around...
...By the Amsterdam anarchist congress of 1907, the abandonment of socialist verbiage was virtually complete...
...It is a serious and surprising misreading of my book to suggest, as Woodcock does, that I "dub Reclus a Utopian"—that is, a community-maker, a dreamer who arrived at his insights through speculation rather than scientific method, a man preoccupied with laying out blueprints for the perfect society...
...In the course of my study of Reclus I became convinced that the emphasis upon government and the state in late 19th-century European anarchism was secondary to the interest in the social-economic structure of society...
...Lutz Sidney Weintraub replies: Alas, I must spoil F.A...
...My conclusion is that Reclus was a socialist who was also an anarchist...
...And what do I do with the larger burden of capital costs if not pass them along to my customers...
...A complete reply would need a letter as long as hers, so I will be content with what seem to me two very pertinent points...
...Luckily, Weintraub is a professor and does not have to go to a bank...
...By this I mean that he was a socialist in terms of his vision of a "free" society and an anarchist in terms of his revolutionary strategy to achieve that goal...
...When "the Fed" slows up the supply, he tells us ("Oh, What a Lovely Recession...
...This poses a methodological challenge to conventional studies of anarchism, on the one hand, and reopens the question of the relationship between anarchism and Marxism, on the other...
...Mostly, however, businesses borrow from banks either to hire labor...
...First, Fleming persists in denying that the rejection of the state, meaning government of any kind, is "the fundamental element*' in all periods of the movement's history...
...It was Proudhon who first used the word "anarchist" in a nonpejorative way to describe—and here he was just as explicit as the OED—a demand for the ending of government...
...Likewise, Lutz' material costs are higher because of higher money wages and salaries in the producing firms...
...Even Paul Eltzbacher, who compiled a book on the "classics" of modern anarchism (1900), was compelled to admit that the "negation of the State" was the sole common element in "anarchist" thought...
...When the anarchists were drummed out of the London congress of the Second International in 18%, their attempts to present themselves as socialists were brought to an effective end...
...They will reject my implication that the negation of the state, while clearly prominent in the thought of all "anarchists," may not be the fundamental element of it...
...Yet, as I have already argued, this involves a dislocation of anarchist history which did not in fact take place...
...There will also be objections to my contention that, far from inciting change in society, European anarchist theory effectively prescribed acceptance of the status quo...
...I am citing the causes of bigger bank loans and the growth in bank credit...
...Small wonder, then, that anarchism, as traditionally understood, has posed serious problems for those hoping to reduce it to a coherent body of political thought...
...I explicitly repudiate the popular conception that the anarchists were Utopian, and go to some lengths to show that Reclus was an enthusiastic advocate of scientific method...
...If the banks did not make the $300,000 available, unemployment would develop...
...or to acquire materials from selling firms, usually at already established money wages or market prices...
...He reminds me of the old definition of an economist that used to circulate in the garment district: An economist is like a professor of anatomy who is still a virgin...
...In Weintraub's world, "these activities [have] little or no wage or price perturbation...
...He has causation exactly reversed...
...Lutz has a remarkable capacity for identifying fleas while overlooking elephants...
...Now, with an average pay closer to $300 per week, $300,000 must be borrowed...
...Woodcock and I agree that Reclus was both anarchist and socialist...
...Lutz' wailing is ultimately concerned with the Fed's flailing—which is my position...
...Wages and salaries amount to about 75 per cent of the total money incomes with interest at about 6 per cent...
Vol. 63 • July 1980 • No. 14
