The Iron Law


            Max Weber examines the relationship between democracy and bureaucratic organizations and discovers a paradoxical relationship between the two institutions.  Some legal requirements further democracy as well as bureaucracy, such as, the principle of "equal justice under the law."  This would also include technical and scientific knowledge rather than arbitrary decisions.[1]  Nevertheless, according to Weber, "'democracy' as such is opposed to the 'rule' of bureaucracy, in spite and perhaps because of its unavoidable yet unintended promotion of bureaucratization."[2]  A major reason for this is that bureaucracy concentrates power in the hands of those in charge of the bureaucratic apparatus and thereby undermines democracy.[3]  Robert Michels, in Political Parties, also argues from another perspective, that a number of complex tendencies in organizations oppose the realization of democracy.  He postulates that democracy leads to oligarchy and consequently the elite domination of policy outcomes.[4]  Michels goes on to state, "It follows that the explanation of the oligarchical phenomenon which thus results . . . from the consolidation of every disciplined political aggregate … reduced to its most concise expression, the fundamental sociological law of political parties (the term 'political' being here used in its most comprehensive significance) may be formulated in the following terms:  'It is organization which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors … of the delegates over the delegators.  Who says organization says oligarchy."[5]

            Michels' thesis in the "iron law of oligarchy," challenges Rousseau's concept of direct popular rule and both Madison and Jefferson’s representative form of democracy.  The dysfunctional nature of existing democracy for Michels, is not simply the result of social and economic underdevelopment and alienation, inadequate education, media control of propaganda advertisements, or the capitalist control of government organizations and institutions.  Rather, the problem of democracy is rooted in its organic nature, and according to Michels' logic, any organization must confront its tendency to be controlled at the top.  He states, "The formation of oligarchies within the various forms of democracy is the outcome of organic necessity, and consequently affects every organization.[6]  This phenomenon for Michels is an intrinsic dimension of bureaucracy and any large-scale organization or institution.  As a result, "Every party organization represents an oligarchical power grounded upon a democratic basis.  We find everywhere electors and elected.  Also we find everywhere that the power of the elected leaders over the electing masses is almost unlimited.  The oligarchical structure of the building suffocates the basic democratic principle."[7]  Thus large-scale social organizations and democracy are incompatible, which is position similar to Lowi's notion that elitist interest-group liberalism undermines democracy[8] and Olson's theory that large groups fail to identify and act on their self-interest, reinforce Michels' position that the elite emerge from democratic dysfunction to dominate organizations.  Michels found that even socialist organizations and trade unions that valued democracy could not pursue their goals, even with strong leadership.  From this Michels proposed a general law that "the majority of human beings . . . are predestined by tragic necessity, to submit to the dominion of a small minority, and must be content to constitute the pedestal of an oligarchy."[9]  

            The underlying notion of a liberal democracy is that government organizations and institutions are to be administered in a democratic fashion by majority rule, respect for minority rights, freedom of speech and dissent, based on a constitutional framework.  On the other hand, while democratic values and policies are to be implemented, the task must be implemented through the most efficient and effective administrative methods available.  Therefore agencies, governed primarily by the principle of efficiency and effectiveness, tend to act in an autocratic fashion.  Nevertheless, if Michels' argument is a sound one, then the implications for government are startling:  organizations and their subsequent policies are held captive by an elite clientele.  The reality of an elite ruling government agencies, and for that matter, political parties, unions, religious organizations, etc., conveys the idea that popular rule is subverted.  This leaves little doubt organizations and institutions by their very nature are predisposed inherently to being co-opted by an elite faction.  Thus organizations and institutions are designed to serve the interests of an elite cadre and not its rank and file members.[10]   

            In summary, the "iron law of oligarchy," with respect to democratic organizations and policy outcomes, functions in four different capacities.  Organizations and policy outcomes:  (1) mobilize the forces of indoctrination and formal socialization in the direction of established interests and dominant values;  (2) control the means of rewards and punishments based on organizational structures and behavior;  (3) preempt competing behavioral forms and thus structure the definition of "reality" to the advantage of the elite;  and, (4) reinforce their own existence by preventing any question or ideological challenge to its purpose and mission.  Thus, Michels believed that any organization or political system, democratic or egalitarian, becomes oligarchic and therefore undemocratic.



            If this analysis which argues that the tendency of organizations (democratic governments, political parties, unions, etc.) is to become oligarchic and therefore obfuscate and undermine democratic rule, then it would seem plausible that the very legitimacy of “democratic” government is in question, since oligarchic rule appears not to serve the general will of the people and the purposes of self-governance, but rather an elite cadre within organizations in which individuals position themselves for control of the organizations. Liberal democratic self-governance is in question, specifically as it relates to contemporary liberal theorists such as John Rawls in A Theory of Justice, and Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State and Utopia.  Both liberal theories - Rawls’ in prioritizing legal rights for those least advantaged in society (welfare rights), and Nozick’s in prioritizing maximum individual liberty (libertarianism) – are challenged by oligarchic tendencies, that is, if Michels position is correct.  This oligarchic tendency is also present in radical and Marxist democratic organizations who argue for democratic rights as the foundation of economic social justice in a democratic society.  This tradition is espoused by Reinhold Niebuhr, Edward Banfield, Amartya Sen and Rodney Peffer.[11]  

The problem associated with the inherent nature of democratic organizations to emerge as non-democratic oligarchies, is exactly what anarchism seeks to confront.  Anarchist critiques of the oligarchic and authoritarian tendencies of Enlightenment liberalism and capitalist development according to its chief spokespersons, such as, Gerrard Winstanley, William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Henry David Thoreau, Benjamin Tucker, and Emma Goldman[12] and contemporary critiques of modern liberalism, liberal democracies and neoliberal capitalism by philosophical anarchists such as Charles Frankel, Noam Chomsky, Michael Albert, Murray Bookchin, Robert Paul Wolff and A. John Simmons, demand serious attention.[13]  Here the understanding is that government, law, and public policy, is hardly justification for moral guidance in the lives of people.  In fact, government coercion for anarchists is the very basis of tyranny according to anarchists because it violates the very nature of autonomous and free individuals and communities.  Nonviolent civil disobedience, therefore, becomes the modus operandi of anarchists and government dissenters in this tradition.   

Early seventeenth century British anarchist, Gerrard Winstanley, argued that the capitalist accumulation of wealth and property resulted in greater social inequality and that land should be understood as a “common treasury” and that the promotion of federalism within nations and internationalism promoted throughout the world represented the earliest developments in anarchist theory.[14]  Winstanley argued that peasants possessed the fundamental human right to the wealth they create and the land upon which they worked.  Known as the “Diggers,” Winstanley urged peasants to “squat” on stretches of unused common land in Southern England in order to provide themselves with both a domicile a living.  Moreover, for Winstanley the individual person is marginalized by both monarchical and parliamentary (democratic) rule.  For anarchists, both authoritarian and democratic rule resulted in plutocratic elite domination.  Much like today’s libertarian movement, anarchists believed that the individual person should be given the utmost possible freedom and that voluntary institutions best represent the human person’s natural social tendencies.  Yet, the voluntary association of unionized workers, pitted against the elite control and possession of capital, clearly differentiates anarchists from libertarians.  Marxists, on the other hand, differ from anarchists for the most part precisely over the role of the state, since the state has a role to play in the revolutionary class struggle.  Anarchists would not deny that class warfare results from capitalist exploitation, however they tend to view any role of the state in resolving this conflict as lacking any political legitimacy.              

Later eighteenth century British anarchists, such as William Godwin, argued that violent revolutionary action was a legitimate course of action in the event that the new “capitalist state” became increasingly tyrannical, especially in light of the gross inequities of the burgeoning industrial revolution.[15]  Godwin argued for a “fixed and immutable” universal natural law as fundamental to justice.  Here, Godwin argued that justice itself was based on fundamental human rights, but that human laws could potentially be fallible and that reason and conscience dictates obedience or disobedience to human law.  Godwin, furthermore, rejected all established institutions and all social relations that suggested inequality or the power of one person over another, including marriage.  Influenced by the anarchist tendencies in the social and political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Godwin argued that while government might be considered necessary for the short term, in the long run it would eventually become obsolete when others their very freedom and autonomy would be secured through the non-interference in others’ lives.[16]  Godwin further argued that individuals should act in accordance with their own judgments and that in return others should be allowed the same liberty. 

Nineteenth-century European anarchism developed independently from the earlier British version.  It grew out of French socialist thought and German Neo-Hegelianism, as fused by Pierre Proudhon who in turn profoundly influenced Marx and his development of anarchist thought, and later theorists such as Michael Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, and Georges Sorel.  This form of anarchism sought to eliminate the role of the state and simultaneously uphold the greatest amount of freedom based on three main areas: (1) the use of violence as a means to overthrow authoritarian rule; (2) the establishment and respect for individual liberty and human rights; and (3) the promotion of economic and social institutions that foster individual freedom and the common good.  With the exception of anarchists such as Pierre Proudhon, Henry David Thureau, Leo Tolstoy, Robert Tucker, and Mohandas Ghandi, who rejected violence as a form of revolutionary action, most anarchists in the nineteenth century have sought to abolish injustice and establish a socially just society based on the above three categories.[17]  Thoreau, Tolstoy, Tucker, and Ghandi urged peaceful nonviolent civil disobedience as an alternative to violent revolutionary action.                

Philosophical anarchists argue, within the same basic anarchist tradition (e.g., mutualism, anarcho-syndicalism, collectivism, individualism, pacifism, Wobblies, trade unionism, Marxist Anarchism, left libertarianism) that authoritarian systems are not the only form of state oppression but that the modern democratic state itself has become, fundamentally, an instrument by which elites and special interests in a liberal democracy coerce and even use their power to oppress others.[18]  Therefore the state, by virtue of its liberal nature: (1) lacks legitimacy because the state serves elite interests at the expense of individual and collective self-governance; and (2) impedes individual autonomy and self-determination by compelling individuals to obey the state through coercion (rules, regulations, and laws), and even force (police and military action).  Philosophical anarchists thus argue that individuals, according to their conscience, have the moral right not to comply with the state and even the moral obligation to disobey the state in the event that the policies and laws of a particular government violate the conscience of individual citizens.  Godwin argued for a radical egalitarian society where each person should take part in the production of necessities and should share their part in the production of necessities with all in need.  Here conceived, a society of free land workers and artisans was the first outline of an anarchist society.  This the “socialist” roots of anarchism trump those of any libertarian element.[19]     

In the past other more militant schools of anarchist thought, including those of nineteenth century figures such as Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Marx, argued that it was necessary for the exploited working class to overthrow the state and its controlling capitalist class, violently if necessary.[20]  Philosophical anarchists argue that, rather than taking up arms to bring down the state, the optimal situation is to work for gradual change to free individuals from what they perceive to be oppressive laws and social constraints of the modern state and allow all individuals to become self-determining autonomous actors in the world.  While philosophical anarchists oppose the immediate elimination of the state by violent means, they adhere to this primarily out of concern that what might remain in place after a given revolution could very well become the establishment of a more harmful and oppressive state.  This is especially true among those anarchists who consider violence and the state as synonymous, or who consider it counterproductive and where public reaction to violence could result in increased “law enforcement” or the reinforcement of the “police state.”  Subsequently philosophical anarchists reject, for the most part, the urge to violence as a means for eliminating the “illegitimate” state, while at the same time they accept the existence of a minimal state as an unfortunate, but “necessary evil.”  A. John Simmons states, “philosophical anarchists hold that there are good reasons not to oppose or disrupt at least some kinds of illegitimate states, reasons that outweigh any right or obligation of opposition.  The practical stance with respect to the state, the philosophical anarchist maintains, should be one of careful consideration and thoughtful weighing of all the reasons that bear on action in a particular set of circumstances.”[21]  And Robert Paul Wolff further states that while philosophical anarchists may not wish to disrupt a particular state, they do not necessarily think anyone has an obligation to obey the state.  There can be no such thing as a government that “has a right to command and whose subjects have a binding obligation to obey.”[22]

 


Postmodern Anarchism

            Other forms of anarchism, such as postmodern anarchism, have been developed by theorists such as May, Newman, and Call,[23] who assert that the anarchist writings of Nietzsche, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Freud, Durkheim, Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Baudrillard, and Chomsky, intersect with postmodern critiques of modernism, rationalism, and scientism.  Specifically, this theoretical construct, where anarchism and postmodernism meet, moves beyond anarchism’s conventional attacks on capital and the state to criticize those forms of rationality, consciousness, and language that implicitly condition all economic and political power.  May, Newman, and Call, argue that postmodernism contemporizes anarchism, making it relevant to the current political culture of the twenty-first century. 

            The postmodern anarchists draw on the works of several theorists in an attempt to connect anarchism with postmodernism.  May, Newman, and Call, use anarchism to critique liberal notions of language, consciousness, and rationality, which are inherent within capitalist state organizations, and use postmodern methods to deconstruct hegemonies of all sorts, predominantly those dominant ideas and beliefs at the heart of capitalist and Marxist ideology.  Yet, their sharpest postmodern attack is leveled against bourgeois liberalism and its manifestation in “late capitalism,” or as Veblen describes it, “conspicuous consumption.”  Here the postmodern anarchists nevertheless, identify classical anarchism as being fundamentally opposed to hierarchical (paternalistic) social relations inherent in capitalist modes of production and state socialist regimes.  It therefore rejects state capitalist of state socialist uses of force and the “coercive politics implicit in all state systems.  Such anarchism envisions strictly voluntary (and typically small-scale) forms of organization,”[24] devoid of any reliance on modernism’s devotion to rationality as an organizing principle typified by Western culture.  In this sense, postmodern anarchists argue that liberal democracies can become, and often do become, oppressive hegemonies controlled by a power-elite precisely “to prevent radical change.”  Postmodern anarchists such as Call, argue that although “liberalism represents an impressive and historically important body of work … [it] imposes a disturbing silence upon radical thinking.”[25]  In rejecting Rorty’s liberal principles (and those of other great liberals such as Holms, Rawls, Nozick, Dworkin, etc.), of avoiding harm and cruelty to others, liberalism as applied to a democratic society “functions to defend existing institutions and to prevent radical change.”[26]      

 

Resisting the rise of tyrants depends on safeguarding against the structural inequalities characteristic of oligarchies.

Anarchy as Social Justice

        As a justifiable reaction to the problem of oligarchy in organizations and liberal democratic institutions, some theorists and activists have identified alternative political arrangements to liberal democratic organizations and institutions.  Such anarchist examples include Chomsky’s recommendations of the Kibbutzim villages of Israel and the worker-owned cooperatives of Spain’s Mondragon experiments.[27]  Other anarchist examples are based on the New Social Movements (NSM) school, which for the most part, have become an activist alternative means of self-governance through autonomous grass roots organizations.[28]  Leading NSM theorists include, Alain Touraine, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Claus Offe, Immanueal Wallerstein, Michel Foucalut, and Jurgen Habermas.  These proponents base their anarchist tendencies on identity, politics, culture, and ideology, which for all intents and purposes has emerged in the women’s movement, ecological and environmental movements, LGBT rights, peace movement, etc.

Currently, anarchist NSM organizations have surfaced in the current culture through what can be described as the “community of meaning” and “popular justice.”  The goal of these alternative methods of self-governance is to bypass the rigid oligarchy of the state, and for that matter, even nonprofit organizations that tend toward oligarchic structures.  As such, the community of meaning concept is based to a large degree on the anarchist-environmentalist-feminist notion that human relationships in society are primarily based upon a “conscience collective,” that is, the fostering of diverse talents and skills within a local setting (community, neighborhood, school, etc.).[29]  The strategy enables persons to respond to various needs and cultivate unique talents while striving to maintain sustainable development strategies and promote “socio-economic justice.”  The community of meaning can also be understood within the context of Marxist anarchist tendencies in which the state would eventually give way to self-governing communities with the intention of fostering both individual and collective solidarity “determined precisely by the connection of individuals, a connection which consists partly in the economic prerequisites and partly in the necessary solidarity of the development of all … on the basis of existing productive forces.”[30]  Likewise, individuals within a particular community are united, according to Durkheim, not so much by what they have in common, but rather, by their very differences, interdependence, and “organic solidarity.”[31]  The community of meaning, as Hampson and Reddy assert, becomes and indispensable condition for cooperation within society and is subsequently grounded upon ensuring a sustainable planet based on the fundamental human needs of local communities as the policy priority.[32]  This approach necessarily commits local and global communities, as Mittleman argues, to sustainable development strategies based upon mutually interrelated human concerns.[33]  Thus, if sustainability is to have priority in local policy initiatives at both the local and global community levels, and if public or nonprofit organizations are unable to meet this criteria, then anarchist communities of meaning must bypass these institutions and promote local and global strategies favorable to environmental and socio-economic justice based on sustainable development goals.[34]  The guidelines for a community of meaning, act as a strategy in which concerned people seek to address the causes of poverty and simultaneously prevent, and even reverse, environmental degradation.  Moreover, the community of meaning, whether informal or formal in nature, seeks to seeks to implement where possible, policies based on what is known as “popular justice.”[35]  In fact, Engle Merry and Milner argue that the anarchist combination of the community of meaning and popular justice strategies “is part of a protest against the state and its legal system by subordinate, disadvantaged, or marginalized groups.”[36]          

The notion of popular justice for Engle Merry, “is a process for making decisions and compelling compliance to a set of rules that is relatively informal in ritual and decorum, nonprofessional in language and personnel, local in scope, and limited in jurisdiction.”[37]  Theoretically, popular justice governs the community of meaning and simultaneously attempts to apply local standards and rules, that is commonsense forms of reasoning to human relationships rather than state laws.[38]  Forums of popular justice, in its original conception, are specifically intended to resolve disputes that involve small sums of money, aspects of family life, and interpersonal injury short of murder.  Nevertheless, popular justice forums can act, in similar capacity, as a model by which environmental and socioeconomic justice concerns can be addressed as a form of binding arbitration.  According to Engel Merry and Milner, these forums thus create a venue for the less powerful members of society, such as, “the urban poor, rural peasants, the working class, minorities, women,”[39] to voice their concerns.  In contrast, elites utilize formal legal institutions through the state, since those same elites have co-opted those very institutions and can thus control those institutions for their own ends.

In the past, popular justice has manifested itself in numerous venues.  One form of popular justice can be identified as “reformist.”  In the reformist tradition popular justice intends to develop adequate procedures for the varied complexities the legal system facilitates; its goal is to make the system work more efficiently, not to change its fundamental principles.  This is intended to increase popular participation in the functions of a centralized judicial system.  Reformist approaches to popular justice usually appear in countries based on the principles of liberal democracy and capitalist economies.  Failures in the judicial system are generally attributed to the burdens on the legal system rather than to the underlying structures of capitalism and its relationship to law and the state.  On the other hand, the socialist tradition of popular justice is derived from Marxist-Leninist theories about the role of popular justice “tribunals” to empower the masses to address violations of laws and rules.  The role of the tribunals is to also educate the masses in the creation of the Marxist “new man” of the revolutionary socialist order.  According to Engle Merry, the masses are included when “socialist popular justice promises to transform relations of power from the domination of the bourgeoisie to that of the proletariat.”[40]  Yet popular justice in this tradition tends to reinforce existing structures of power in the same manner as that of the reformist.  Both socialist and reformist approaches promote a form of institutional justice closely connected to, and controlled, by the state.  

Another model of popular justice, based on violent uprisings in the anarchic tradition, is one that is associated with mass revolt against the state and the existing social order.  While anarchic uprisings can be nonviolent, they nevertheless tend to be violent and derived from popular unrest do to perceived social injustices.[41]  As a result of anarchic uprisings, the masses generally intend to terminate their oppression and punish or reeducate their enemies.  In this case the masses do not rely on an abstract idea of justice, but on their own experience and extent of the injuries they have suffered.  However, this type of popular justice in its violent form is usually “quelled by the state or brought under control of local communities.”[42]  

The anarchic-environmentalist-feminist notion of popular justice associated with the community of meaning, tends to be more closely connected to, and controlled by indigenous people and grassroots movements.[43]  While this version of popular justice does not necessarily rule out its use by elites, it nevertheless attempts to function outside the state and institutional mechanisms.  A withdrawal from society, which is arguably too rigid, hierarchical and bureaucratic to serve the needs of a popular majority, is one of the goals of popular justice.  The central understanding of this form of justice, according to Rifkin, is “decentralization … replacing centralized bureaucracy with small, local forums on a more humane scale.”[44]  In this sense community norms govern people in a more humanistic and democratic manner while simultaneously maintaining local autonomy.   

Conclusion

As Weber observes, "How are freedom and democracy in the long run at all possible under the domination of highly developed capitalism?"[45]  Some would argue that the vast disparity of economic power and wealth that is increasing in the United States, translates into greater inequality for the poor and marginalized.  The question remains pertinent today.  As this crisis deepens (the contradiction between the egalitarian expectations of democracy and the rational utility of capital) the state and its citizenry have the historical choice to address this conflict.  Here, Marcuse urges the human community to initiate "the radical reconstruction of society . . . to find there the images and tones which may break through the established universe of discourse and preserve the future."[46]  If organizations and their policy outcomes are to have greater meaning and democratic accountability for the twenty-first century, and if in fact it is worthwhile to understand how organizations tend to serve elites within these very organizations, and not the rank and file members that comprise it, then the primary goal of a democratic society would be to strengthen their democratic institutions and restructure the allocation of power away from elite control.  As such, anarchist principles of social justice point the way for this restructuring and renewal of democratic institutions.  The strengthening of democratic institutions must therefore come from outside these very institutions as a form of ongoing anarchist critique, agitation, and even civil disobedience if needed.  The continued challenge for committed democrats is to be mindful that democratic institutions act on behalf of an elite interest and, ipso facto, subvert democratic egalitarian self-determining groups.  Hence providing resistance to the oligarchic nature of democratic institutions in the United States and other democracies through anarchic justice, is vital to democracy and greater democratic participation.[47]  Anarchic resistance to democratic institutions is in essence the life blood of democracy.        

 

 



[1] From Max Weber:  Essays in Sociology, pp. 224-228.

[2] Ibid., p. 231.

[3] Ibid., pp. 233-235.

[4] Robert Michels, Political Parties, p. 6.

[5] Ibid., p. 365.

[6] Ibid., p. 365-366.

[7] Ibid., p. 365.

[8] Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States, Second Edition, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1969, (1979).  See Michael Parenti, Democracy for the Few, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1974.

[9] Ibid., p. 390.

[10]Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1965; E.E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People, New York:  Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960.

[11]Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932; Edward Banfield, Politcal Influence, New York: Free Press, 1961; Amartya Sen, Development As Freedom, London: Oxford University Press, 1999; Amartya Sen, “Reason, Freedom and Well-Being,” Utilitas, 18(1), March 2006, 80-96; R.G. Peffer, Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990; R.G. Peffer, “Toward A More Adequate Rawlsian Theory of Social Justice,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 75, (1994), 251-271.

[12] Ibid.

[13] James Joll, The Anarchists, London: Eyre and Spotliswoode, 1964; Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism, New York: Harper & Row, 1970; A. John Simmons, “The Anarchist Position,” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 16, Spring 1987, 269-279.

[14] Gerrard Winstanley, The New Law of Righteousness, [1649], Early English Books, Electronic Reproduction, Arizona State University, Online Access.

[15] William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Kitchener, Ontario; Batoche, [1793] 2001.

[16] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Social Contract,” in Social Contract: Essay by Locke, Hume, and Rousseau, New York: Oxford University Press, [1762] 1979.

[17] James Joll, The Anarchists.  Also see Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What Is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government, New York: Dover Publications, [1840] 1970; Henry David Thureau, “Civil Disobedience,” Essays: A Fully Annotated Edition, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, [1849] 2013; Robert Tucker, Why I Am An Anarchist, www.Philpapers.com, [1892], Retrieved 1-5-14.

[18] Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism, New York: Harper & Row, 1976; A. John Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979. Also see David  Lyons, “Moral Judgment, Historical Reality, and Civil Disobedience,” 27, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 1998, 31-49; and  Daniel McDermott, “The Duty to Punish and Legitimate Government,” The Journal of Political Philosophy, 7(2), 1999, 147-171.

[19] Bertrand Russell, Proposed Roads to Freedom, New York, 1919; Alexander Gray, The Socialist Tradition, London, 1946; George Woodcock, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements, Cleveland, 1962.

[20] Mikhail Bakunin, Marxism, Freedom and the State, London: Freedom Press, 1950; Anthony D’Agostino,  Marxism and the Russian Anarchists, San Francisco: Germinal Press, 1977; Paul Thomas, Karl Marx and the Anarchists, London: Routledge/Kegan Paul, 1985; John H. Barker, Individualism and Community: The State and Marx and Early Anarchism, New York: Greenwood Press, 1986; Alan Carter, Marx: A Radical Critique, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988; Sam Dolgoff (ed.), Bakunin on Anarchism, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2002.

[21] A. John Simmons, p.25-26, cited in Christopher H. Wellman and A. John Simmons, Is There a Duty to Obey the Law? New York: Cambridge University Press.  Also see Susanne Sreedhar, “Anarchism, Historical Illegitimacy, and Civil Disobedience: Reflections on A. John Simmons’s Disobedience And Its Objects,” Boston University Law Review 90, 1833-1846.  

[22] Robert Paul Wolff, p. 141, cited in Rex Martin, “Defense of Philosophical Anarchism,” Philosophical Quarterly, 24(95), 140-149.

[23] Todd May, The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism, University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1994; Saul Newman, From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power, Lantham: Lexington Books, 2001; Lewis Call, Postmodern Anarchism, New York: Lexington Books, 2002.

[24]Lewis Call, Postmodern Anarchism, p. 14.

[25] Lewis Call, Postmodern Anarchism, pp. 61-62.

[26] Lewis Call, Postmodern Anarchism, p. 37.

[27] Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent.

[28] Alan Scott, Ideology and New Social Movements, London: Routledge, 1990.

[29] Lisa Weinberg, “Understanding Social Process,” in Gary Wamsley and James Wolff, eds., Refounding Democratic Public Administration: Modern Paradoxes, Postmodern Challenges, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1996; Andrew Dobson, Green Political Thought, 3rd Edition, New York: Routledge Press, 2000; Virginia Held, Feminist Morality: Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993; Lois Ann Lorentzen, “Transformations Within third World Grass Roots Environmental Movements,” in Sheldon Kamieniecki, (ed.), Environmental Politics in the International Arena: Movements, Parties, Organizations, and Policy (New York: SUNY Press, 1993).

[30] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology, New York: International Publishers, 1974, p. 118; Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt (Boston:  Beacon Press, 1972):  44-45; Kevin Phillips, The Politics of Rich and Poor:  Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath (New York:  Random House, 1989).

[31] Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, New York: Free Press, 1933; Gerhard Lenski and Jean Lenski, Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982.

[32] Fen Osler Hampson and Judith Reppy, eds., Earthly Goods: Environmental Change and Social Justice, Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.

[33] James Mittleman, “Rethinking the International Division of Labour in the Context of Globalization,” Third World Quarterly, Volume 16, Number 2, June 1995, pp. 273-295.

[34] Weinberg, Understanding Social Process.

[35] Lois Ann Lorentzen, “Women, the Environment and Sustainable Development: Cases from Central America,” in Brun Taylor, ed., Ecological Resistance Movements: The Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Environmentalism, New York: SUNY Press, 1995;  Lois Ann Lorentzen, “Empty Water Pots: Women, the Environment and Sustainable Sufficiency,” Conference Proceedings of the International Development Ethics Association Third International Conference on Ethics and Development, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, June 21-27, 1992.

[36] Sally Engle Merry and Neal Milner, eds., The Possibility of Popular Justice: A Case Study of Community Mediation in the United States, Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1995, p. 31.  Also see Hiro N. Aragaki, “Deliberative Democracy as Dispute Resolution? Conflict, Interests, and Reasons,” Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, 24(3), 2009, 406-478.

[37] Sally Engle Merry and Neal Milner, p. 32.

[38] Gary C. Bryner, Gaia’s Wager: Environmental Movements and the Challenge of Sustainability, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000; Charles Taylor, The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1989):  497; From Max Weber:  Essays in Sociology, p. 236.  Also see Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital (New York:  Monthly Review Press, 1974).  Robert Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

[39] Engle Merry and Milner, p. 33.

 [40] Engle Merry and Milner, p. 42; John R.E. Bliese, "The Conservative Case for the Environment," The Intercollegiate Review, Volume 32, Number 1, Fall 1996.

[41] Ted R. Gurr, Why Men Rebel, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971.

[42] Merry and Milner, p. 49.

[43] Alan Durning, Guardians of the Land: Indigenous Peoples and the Health of the Earth, Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, 1992;  Alan Durning, Action at the Grassroots: Fighting Poverty and Environmental Decline, Washington, DC: Worldwide Institute, 1989;  Lester Brown and Edward C. Wolf, “The Illusion of Progress,” in L.R. Brown, ed., State of the World 1990, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988; Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View, New York: Bantam Books, 1980.

[44] Rifkin, p. 46.  For examples of anarchic popular justice see Jonathan Rosenbloom, “New Day at the Pool: State Preemption, Common Pool Resources, and Non-Place Based Municipal Collaborations,” Harvard Environmental Law Review, 36(2), 2012, 446-485; Oluf Langhelle, “Sustainable Development and Social Justice: Expanding the Rawlsian Framework of Global Justice, Environmental Values, 9(3), August 2000, 295-323.

[45] Max Weber, "Class, Status, Party," in From Max Weber:  Essays in Sociology, eds., H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1946), 236.  Also see Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Democracy and Capitalism, Second Edition, New York: Basic Books, 1987.

[46] Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, p. 93.

[47] Jeffrey A. Winters, “Oligarchy and Democracy,” The American Interest, 7(2), November/December 2011; Thomas R. Dye, Harmon Ziegler, and Louis Schubert, The Irony of Democracy:  An Uncommon Introduction to American Politics, Fifteenth Edition, Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012; Noam Chomsky, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and the Global Order, New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999.




Ed Martin
Tubac, Arizona
Long Beach, California
December 18, 2024

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