Constructing an Anarchism: Guarantism (Application)

In resultant anarchy the basic social unit will be marriage with Proudhonian analysis.

from Libertarian Labyrinth

I had anticipated the need for one last serious theoretical intervention at this point, in order to set up the comparatively programmatic elements in the remaining posts. The emergence of some new details in the “social system” section of Proudhon’s Justice—as discussed in the last post—offers a different and more direct path forward. But let’s start by quickly examining the road we won’t be traveling.

My thought, even just a week ago, was that the discussion of guarantism would focus on what I’ve called resultant anarchy, forms of anarchic social organization that emerge from the counter-balancing of more-or-less archic forms. Proudhon’s “new theory” in Theory of Property and indeed most of the work derived from his study of Poland, including The Federative Principle, explores this roundabout approach to anarchy, which has often been understood—misunderstood, I would argue—as an abandonment of anarchistic goals. But there is something very powerful and promising about the possibility that the emergence and persistence of anarchy is not dependent on the flawless functioning of perfectly designed anarchic systems. And, having introduced enough of the theory of collective force to show that, for Proudhon, the kinds of conflicts from which that kind of anarchy might emerge might also be productive of a richer, fuller, more powerful kind of anarchy, I can think of good reasons to spend time exploring the details involved—all other things being equal.

The possibility of resultant anarchy also seems to suggest a potential theory of the transition from archic to anarchic social relations, allowing us to consider the ways in which existing institutions and norms might be shifted into different arrangements, producing not just those checks and balances we have briefly discussed, but real mutual negation or conflicts productive of increased freedom. The problem for us is that we have reached a point where it would be nice to be able to move more directly toward the goal or articulating an anarchism of the general, potentially shareable sort that I first proposed—and these considerations, useful as they may be in other anarchistic contexts, seem to be of another order.

It was a pleasant surprise to find, in the midst of trying to set up some kind of simple transition back from the intricacies of resultant anarchy to something more fundamental, that perhaps what I was looking for was already present in the description of Proudhon’s “social system”—previously unrecognized, despite my repeated examinations of that material. But it was a surprise, even though I had, in some sense, been looking for just the thing I eventually found. I suspect that part of the issue, the reason for a peculiar sort of blindness, is that even those of us who take real pleasure in digging deep into the historical material seldom get to do so without preconceptions, filters inherited from the tradition. Even when you’re used to reading sources against the grain of common interpretations, you can only so much distance without real effort. So consider that my excuse for the sort of obsessive circling around certain topics and passages that is one obvious and central aspect of my work. It isn’t that kind of task that I would necessarily wish on anyone else, but sometimes it gets places that would be hard to reach by any other route.

What this most recent reading of the passage on the “social system” seems to get us is a way to acknowledge, in passing, the utility of Proudhon’s more contract-centered depictions of anarchic relations—both as a rhetorical advance at the time and as a part of a possible strategy of transition in the future—without wasting any more time getting to the parts of his theory—now identified right at the heart of his most finished mature work—that relate most directly to the problem of giving an anarchistic character to our social relations.

We ended the last post with this summary:

Guarantism, in that sense, would just be the consequence of getting mixed up with other people, with associations, with the world around us, etc. To draw on the egoist elements that we have been incorporating into this construction, we’re talking about safeguarding others because we have not just seen ourselves in them, but have joined our might (puissance) to theirs, made them in some sense « our own » — a sort of equation perhaps not so alien to Proudhon’s thought.

And we had interpreted the familiar passage in roughly these terms:

Two individuals meet, recognize themselves in one another, note the additional benefit that would result for both from their concerted efforts, and as a consequence safeguard equality, which essentially means economy. This is the whole social system: an act of mutual recognition, which results in a collective potential.

I don’t think any of that is unfaithful to the spirit of Proudhon’s work. I’m inclined to think it is indeed a much clearer presentation of his thought than I have managed in the past. But, whether or not that is the case, it seems to me that it is a very promising way to approach the question of how to construct durable anarchistic social relations. What I want to do now is to sketch out a couple of applications, which we can then examine in the remaining posts for this “quarter.”

Someone asked me on social media how we might think about a non-patriarchial family—or whatever basic social unit will come to replace the family—starting from this analysis. Here, we obviously have to depart to some extent from Proudhon’s work, as he never managed to entirely abandon a patriarchal conception of family structure—but perhaps we can salvage some of the key elements even of that work.

Those who are interested in the details of Proudhon’s thoughts on relations between the sexes can read the frustrating, fascinating “Catechism of Marriage,” from Justice, which is linked in the sidebar. But let’s not waste any time stripping away the heteronormative aspects of his theory of the family and simply suggest that Proudhon is perhaps right in seeing something like an “organ of justice,” a basic institution with a function closely tied to the balancing of individuals’ interests, in certain kinds of intimate relations. But let’s also say that there is arguably some of this function that emerges in every association where we mutually unite our interests and capacities in such a way and to such an extent that the question of a resulting collectivity emerges—and that this is perhaps particularly true when we approach these associations through lenses other than that of contract, pact, etc.

The question of lenses and framing rhetoric doesn’t just relate to our way of thinking about association, but also to the ways in which we think about individual being. If we think of ourselves as a “political animal” or as homo economicus, there are obviously not just different consequences in our associations, but different possibilities than there would be if we think of ourselves as an einzige. But perhaps almost all of us can imagine circumstances under which mutual recognition and identification becomes a durable sense or conviction of mutual intimacy—passing over, for now, all of the elements of folie à deux that may or may not be involved. Equation may take the form of recognizing one another as kindred or as complements, both forms of identification that at least evoke a potential collectivity to which we might think of ourselves as belonging—at which point it is more than possible to think of the other as « our own », in some dizzying assortment of ways. But, however we get there, having identified the other as our own and having achieved some form of association with them, we arguably don’t need a particular ideological framework to simply not raise the question of their inequality—however we might think about their differences—and we don’t need a pact or contract to have the sentiment that our own is to be protected and the equation with the other to be safeguarded.

If we wanted an instance where equality and economy are near-synonyms, we could at least, I think, point to our own most basic conception of a mutual, intimate relationship. And the conventional institution that still comes to mind when we talk about intimate relations—particularly in the context of oikonomia, the management of the household—is, for better or worse, the family. I keep waiting for repeated readings of Proudhon’s writings on marriage and the family to deliver some epiphanic moment, some means of clarifying what I suspect were real confusions in his mind about equality and economy in that context. There are passages where he traces the origin of the state-form to the patriarchal family, but none, as far as I can see, where he takes the logical step of applying insights he seems to have already possessed and reevaluating the nature of the conjugal couple, so that his “organ of justice” does not tend to compromise the social bodies that it is instrumental in forming. We can take that step—and more.

However we imagine the most basic sort of union, there seems to be very little to stand between anarchists and a conception of it that is both fundamentally anarchic and more or less compatible with the Proudhonian formula of “an equation and a (potential) collective power. So if we think of that union in terms of family, there is no reason why that family should be conceived as a little polity with a patriarch at its head. And if our union, conceived as family, makes reproduction one of its concerted industries, there seems to be very little reason why that decision should compromise the essentially anarchic character of the union.

There are, I have no doubt, even as I write this, would-be anarchists rearing up to parent-splain the reasons why anarchic freedom cannot possibly be extended to the tiny terrors whom childless wretches like myself so dangerously under- or perhaps overestimate. This has become a fixed and fundamentally inevitable element in every online attempt to assert a consistent anti-authoritarian or anti-hierarchy position. I have again linked “But What About the Children? (A Note on Tutelage)” in the sidebar for those who want a more detailed argument on why it seems impossible to derive authority from mere differences in capacity, even under present circumstances. But here I simply want to focus on the basic anarchic union that we have been positing. Assuming a potentially reproductive union, in which the parents have avoided relations of inequality, realizing that potential is first of all a matter of extending the association, enlarging the union.

Children our « our own » in a particularly straightforward way. What that means to us undoubtedly depends on how we understand property in an equally basic sense. There have been infamous anarchist debates on the question, such as the one in which Benjamin R. Tucker involved himself in the 1890s, asserting that “the unemancipated child is property,” property of the mother, and that, while he might engage in forceful intervention if he should “see a woman throw her baby into the fire as a man throws his newspaper,” the woman would be within her rights and he would be an aggressor. In that case, however, I can’t help thinking that Tucker could have usefully spent a bit more time thinking about just what “property” could or ought to mean in that context.

Tucker certain knew well the rights-based distinction Proudhon made between possession—which involves a right of use—and property—which involves rights of use and abuse. He understood full well that property is, in essence, what you can throw in the fireplace without anyone having a right to object. He would presumably also have understood the nature of the domain or allod that Proudhon made use of in his later works—forms of property based in sovereign rule and free from any sort of duty. And perhaps Tucker was faithful, after his fashion, to Proudhon—who considered domain “unpardonably reprehensible,” even as he planned to put it to work—in affirming the right of the mother to destroy the baby, while asserting that he personally might seek to intervene. But I find it beyond me to equate this kind of property with any sort of anarchistic conception of « my own ».

And it is hard to see how domain would emerge from the scenario we have been exploring. It seems much easier to understand the reproductive enterprise of our intimate collectivity-in-formation as at once a realization of collective potential and an extension—or potential extension—of the association. We know that reproduction is presently freighted with all sorts of complicated significances, from the perpetuation of the parents to that of the species. But all of hopes with which the child is burdened hardly seem like the sort of thing to make us consider it fireplace fuel in the case of a parental whim.

The thorniest question, when we are talking about the parenting relationship, is precisely what the differences between the capacities of the child and that of the adults imply in terms of rights and responsibilities. We tend to distinguish the two in terms of the possession of something like “full adult agency,” with the child falling a bit short of our standards for being human enough to be recognized as an equal. We can certainly say that, collectively, we have built a world in which children are at a distinct disadvantage—and, as a result, have built a very strange mixture of authoritarian hierarchy and ambiguous hospitality into the parenting relation—but we might also say that the complex and mutual interdependence of adults in any very complex modern society raises some serious questions about what “full adult agency” might really consist of, out here in the wild. Our ability to fend for ourselves in a way that feels comparatively independent probably emerges at least in part—and perhaps in large part—from relations that we tend to take for granted.

Any perspective that makes the differences in capacity among adult human beings look less obviously distinct from those between adults and children should, I think, reduce the temptations to introduce property, hierarchy or authority at the most intimate scales of our relations. That should, in turn, simplify the processes by which we might scale up the kinds of relations we find in intimate unions to include larger associations and accomplish more generally desirable tasks. There are undoubtedly real complexities and difficulties that we will face in any attempt to construct larger-scale institutions and ultimately “society” as a means of mutually safeguarding equality—which here really amounts to anarchy. What I don’t see, however, is any necessity for compromising the attempt to achieve that end in its early, intimate stages.

We’re at the stage of sketching out possibilities, some of which will be explored in the last few weeks of construction and some of which will undoubtedly have to remain more or less intriguing questions. For today, I would just like to add two short reflections that might help to frame what I’ve already said.

First, it seems important to acknowledge that, while we can probably imagine the progression, through stages of voluntary association, from some intimate dyad through various stages to global federations for which there seems to be some kind of need, the theory of collective force should prepare us for some complicated reflections on the implications of building even what seems most necessary on a large scale. One the one hand, that theory should make us appreciate the potential freedoms that might emerge from the successful balancing of our multitudinous efforts. On the other, it should make us aware of the means by which the association of fairly small-scale efforts might rather quickly snowball out of control. The sort of social anarchy that this neo-Proudhonian approach ought to lead us to value is probably never very far removed from a state of barely controlled chaos. So issues of responsibility and restraint almost certainly come with any very ambitious attempts to take conscious advantage of the power of collective force.

Second, there are a number of our most pressing shared problems which are quite simply not fully explicable in terms of voluntary association. There are the runaway effects of various concerted efforts in the past, some of which have become established as the dominant institutions of our societies, structuring perhaps even our most intimate relations in ways that must be accounted for if we are to resist them and associate differently. We are often linked to others in ways that we never desired and would abandon if it was in our power, but probably have to account for, again, if we wish things to be different. And, of course, this is true of our relationships to the natural world.

The reference to ecology is perhaps one way to begin to think about relations of mutual protection that are not separate from relations of conflict, up to and including real predation. We have no shortage of examples, drawn from comparatively recent changes in the world around us, that illustrate the power of dynamic balance and the danger of breaking down fundamental sorts of equilibrium.

When we are thinking about anarchism as a real-world attempt to advance toward more anarchistic relations, we arguably need both a fairly clear vision of how we might construct new relations of a fairly strictly anarchistic variety and a set of analytic tools that might help us find the means of extricating ourselves from complex relations of a much different sort.

There are 8 Comments

All this really rubs me the wrong way.
Basing all relationships or "encounters" in a model of minimal paternalism/maternalism (not implying patriarchy or matriarchy, giving that much benefit of doubt)?
Why is there a need to construe a "basic social unit"?
Why the desire to base a project on notions of possession, property, domain, conjugal couple, organ of justice, and contract?
I find these terms repulsive. It would be a tedious enough proposition to go through the motions of critiquing and demolishing each of them, would never even consider basing anarchy on any of them.
Why does children as property -making a point to exclude "parent-splainers", (why not in terms of parenting, defer to the parents?)- and mentioning marriage, the conjugal couple, and family -"But let’s not waste any time stripping away the heteronormative aspects of his theory of the family"- make appearance as talking points or prominent pit stops?

Recovering from an initial recoiling at wtf am I reading, even to consider the first premise of:

"Guarantism, in that sense, would just be the consequence of getting mixed up with other people, with associations, with the world around us, etc. To draw on the egoist elements that we have been incorporating into this construction, we’re talking about safeguarding others because we have not just seen ourselves in them, but have joined our might (puissance) to theirs, made them in some sense « our own » — a sort of equation perhaps not so alien to Proudhon’s thought.

And we had interpreted the familiar passage in roughly these terms:

Two individuals meet, recognize themselves in one another, note the additional benefit that would result for both from their concerted efforts, and as a consequence safeguard equality, which essentially means economy. This is the whole social system: an act of mutual recognition, which results in a collective potential."

Once you are born into this world mediated by capital (and pointing this out is not a default to communism) you are not on equal footing with it, capital is valued above life and as a consequence does not safeguard equality which essentially means economy. All this to say we're already "mixed up" in these subjugating relationships with people. What sense does it make to imagine a foundational moment of encounter of individuals on equal footing forming a guarantist social contract, conceptualized then as a collective force as the resultant anarchy of the relationships between the basic social units?
This is akin to imagining anarchy, instead of "After the Revolution", "After the Constitution" or whatever the name for this social contract is?

I might not be making sense, but let's see if I understand: this conception of anarchy rests on the success of reforming the basic social unit somehow into an organ of justice, a non-patriarchal communal-ish mutualist-ish re-envisioned family? Establishing a town and an economy with multiple basic social units behaving in accordance to proudhonian principles, which is like some rational actor in game theory and economics, but more old-timey and maybe more leeway for it to make more sense?

I don't see how making a bavarian village diorama out of legalistic 19th century big brain on an armchair natural law social science and economistic language has anything to do with... anything i'd like to be doing at least.

You are born into a world mediated by humans(capital is but one of these spooks) and these mediations can be severed. You’re just invoking some Marxian Real base structure that isn’t actually there.

I look around and this world is made of commodities, devices, material structures. Those things are mostly built by humans, yet what system and imperatives are they serving?

Has our dead Ukrainian returned to us? There is a level of willful misinterpretation here that is remarkable—presumably all drive[n] (once again) by the fact that I have used the wrong words, even if it was to critique the concepts now curiously attributed to me.

If you find yourself reading a text—or attempting to read a text—containing words that prevent you from anything but this kind of projection, wouldn't it make more sense to recognize that nothing good is going to come from the encounter and, say, go take a walk instead?

I'm happy to deal with any serious attempts at "critiquing and demolishing," but it will probably take more than going through the motions to get started.

Nah, I'm not that guy. My interpretation is willful, as in completely voluntary and not against my will, you may definitely disagree with it and could clarify what a more accurate interpretation could be, or not. While I'd be pleased to discover you only mean wonderful things by these repulsive (to me) words, I would still prefer others.

Words are the only things your readers can review. As long as words, with their construed meanings, are the medium for our communication, then the choice of words matters greatly, and one may object words opposing them with other words. It's horrible, I know. You carefully put together these words, I know these concepts are not coined by you, but you chose them out of all that were available, due to your affinity with them, even if that affinity does not mean you turn off your critical thinking. I merely expressed very crudely that I lack affinity with this direction of thought.

I realize nothing good came from this encounter, as when I step on a nail and let out a shout, I'm not expecting the shout will undo my misfortune of stepping on it. Likewise, my complaint is cathartic and it will not undo my unpleasant encounter with this text. But like I said, I read this willfully, I chose to read your workshop. I don't always comment, sometimes the comments are more agreeable and sometimes it's a heckle like now. I will keep reading your rambles and meanders, workshop or otherwise, with interest. I find the disagreements challenging and interesting. I also amuse myself by making them vocal. For example:

This entry exhibits an anarchism that merely aspires to be a refined civism. Where the citizen is now a “political animal” or "homo economicus" or "einzige" in a mutual intimate relationship/union, details to be fleshed out, which hinge on the management of a household, which constitutes the basic social unit. I do not discard your previous writing, so I do not use this text as pretext to discard them, I'm just saying no to this part. This seems to describe the part of everyday life that is perhaps inevitably not anarchic. This is the modicum of conformity one abides to to get by.

As you say, words are all we have. You may have noticed that there aren't many left that we don't have to use in somewhat novel ways in order to talk about anarchy. And since you reference my earlier work, you obviously can't have missed the fact that the whole project is a matter of breaking free from, well, pretty much all of the things that you turn around and accuse me of perpetuating. I have to assume that you picked your own words with the understanding that neither I nor most of the readers here would respond positively to them, as well as the knowledge that you had yourself chosen those words. This shit about "making a bavarian village diorama out of legalistic 19th century big brain on an armchair natural law social science and economistic language" isn't half-bad as attack—unless, of course, you're unaware that it's a ridiculous misrepresentation (at which point it seems bad indeed.)

Why talk about a "basic social unit"? First, because a participant in the workshop specifically asked me to. I've taken on some responsibility to step up in those moments when this thing stops being some kind of weird performance art and threatens to be something like a seminar again. Second, because, as good as the "society!" jokes are, anarchism really does seem to need to come to some kind of terms with "the consequence of getting mixed up with other people." And we often do it pretty badly, leaving authoritarian, hierarchical, archic elements intact—the sort of thing you are presumably accusing me of.

Why not defer to parents who seem to think of their children as property or subordinates? For the same reason that it seems useful to root out the patriarchy in Proudhon's social science. For the same reason it seems useful not to just accept "direct" or "pure democracy" as compatible with anarchy.

Why, on your side, talk about a "guarantist social contract," when the discussion was quite explicitly about the anarchic alternative to all pacts and contracts? Who the fuck knows? Catharsis, presumably—but catharsis for an encounter shaped by you into something much more unpleasant than it needed to be.

My reactions are not accusations, but provocations, insults are a source of self-amusement in the comment section. Feels less insane than talking out loud to the screen, but not much different from that. You did call me out on my b.s., that's cool.

"Why talk about a "basic social unit"? First, because a participant in the workshop specifically asked me to."

Just tell those querying about units that you seek to live without measure. And tell em to never settle for basic. Maximalist instead of a minimal basic entente or synthesis.

"Second, because, as good as the "society!" jokes are, anarchism really does seem to need to come to some kind of terms with "the consequence of getting mixed up with other people." And we often do it pretty badly, leaving authoritarian, hierarchical, archic elements intact—the sort of thing you are presumably accusing me of."

Hmm, good things to think about. If I were in a prison, I'd want to escape, not reform it, destroying it would be great but not likely. I don't think that the "authoritarian, hierarchical, archic, elements" in society! can be reformed away, specially not by anarchists, and I would say anarchists would immediately benefit more from evasion, disruption, expropriation. Can they work less, obey less, do more of what they want, what can they get away with? Can mechanisms of surveillance and control be destroyed? I might be wrong. It feels flimsy to reply this. But I don't think conceiving of an ideal way of getting mixed up with other people really addresses the consequences of the current way of getting mixed up with people and the chain reactions of previous mix-ups. I don't think you can collectively unlearn the bad and do it right this time around, so to speak.

"Why not defer to parents who seem to think of their children as property or subordinates? For the same reason that it seems useful to root out the patriarchy in Proudhon's social science. For the same reason it seems useful not to just accept "direct" or "pure democracy" as compatible with anarchy."

I was making fun of the Bakunin quote to annoy you, sorry if it didn't make much sense. I do agree with the other two things you said, I think it's worth taking the time to explore that instead of breezing past by them with an odd mention of the Tucker quote of throwing kids in fire, reminds me of Kropotkin twirling a chair mention. You don't have to do it yourself, by why mention it if you don't want people to argue about it? Let's discuss the patriarchal and heteronormative aspects of his theory of the family, for example, or let's not bring it up at all. All these old-timey dudes have more to offer in terms of our disagreements with them than the few morsels we can take away. I think that's great part of the spirit of your writing.

"Why, on your side, talk about a "guarantist social contract," when the discussion was quite explicitly about the anarchic alternative to all pacts and contracts? Who the fuck knows? Catharsis, presumably—but catharsis for an encounter shaped by you into something much more unpleasant than it needed to be."

Isn't the anarchic alternative just doing what you want? Why do terms of relationships be decided in advance? I think it's just as valid for you to think the pursuit of alternative models is a good to follow, as it is for me to have my doubts about it. I don't think any of my comments are a "gotcha" or in any way shake up foundations of you're trying to set up, but they do point to a path that diverges from the current emphasis of this post, and perhaps that of your vision of resultant anarchy, not that this is new to you as you've seen similar arguments play out throughout anarchist history.

What do words mean anyway, rite? What we NEED are SYSTEMS to take measurements of anarchist economies! Then once we have the PROPERTY we can get and wield the anarchic POWER like PJP foretold. Anything else is counter-revolutionary archistic authoritarianism.

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