This is something I ponder once in a while. Has the right succeeded (at least in North America) in appropriating the word “libertarian”? Has Stalinism ensured that “communist” be a word best avoided?
This is something I ponder once in a while. Has the right succeeded (at least in North America) in appropriating the word “libertarian”? Has Stalinism ensured that “communist” be a word best avoided?
The most recent cause for my concern was provoked by this thread on anarkismo, when an extremely ignorant American right-winger denounced us for “soiling the good name of liberty, by associating the term ‘libertarian’ with your completely authoritarian group.” He presented a potted history of right-wing use of the term in the United States which can, apparently, “can be traced back to the 1930s. . . and a small group that met in New York weekly” before Karl Hess “greatly popularized the term in a 1969, full-length article in Playboy Magazine”!
Reading that reminded me that Joseph Déjacque first used the term in 1858 in (ironically) New York and this provoked me to write this anniversary AFAQ blog entry marking it.
So, in a way I’m glad that numpty posted on anarkismo, as I had forgotten that anarchist use of libertarian is 150 years old this year! I cannot believe I almost missed this, but it was nice to point out that when “a small group” of right-wingers were busy stealing the word in the 1930s the Spanish anarchists were busy creating the Libertarian Youth and agreeing the CNT’s ideas on libertarian communism! So it is nice to set the record straight…
It is sad, really, in a way that this needs to be done. Looks like we really have our work cut out for us – but I hope the blog post goes some way to reclaiming the word in English. However, I sometimes wonder if we can. The power of money in the “marketplace of ideas” has worked, turning a word associated with the left for over one hundred years into a synonym for “right-wing nutter.” This applies to even “left-libertarian”, as a small group of right-wing “libertarians” have rejected the obvious implications of the ideology and argued that equal access to resources is necessary to ensure genuine liberty for the many. Academics (of course!) are picking up on this and so, slowly, “left-libertarian” is mutating into the left-wing of the right-wing “libertarians”!
It is frustrating, but I think three factors can stop the appropriation. First, the current crisis will make it harder for the so-called “libertarian” right to make their case. Saying that deregulation did not go far enough and that nothing should be done during the crisis cannot help ensure self-marginalisation. Second, if the anarchists in America (and elsewhere, of course) grow in number and influence then they cannot be ignored (we saw the possibilities after Seattle when “anarchist” became associated with anti-capitalism again to a large degree). That means participating fully in the struggles thrown up by the crisis and having practical ideas on what to do. Hopefully we can. Thirdly, by ensuring that genuine libertarian ideas are better known and challenging those who use the term to describe some right-wing ideology.
Sadly, I think it may be some time before we can use the term “libertarian” on its own, without adding “socialist” or “communist” to it. And talking of which, can “communist” be saved from its association with Leninism and Stalinism?
AFAQ (in section H.3) quotes Malatesta worrying that “ the communist anarchists will gradually abandon the term ‘communist’: it is growing in ambivalence and falling into disrepute as a result of Russian ‘communist’ despotism.. . .we may have to abandon the term ‘communist’ for fear that our ideal of free human solidarity will be confused with the avaricious despotism which has for some time triumphed in Russia and which one party, inspired by the Russian example, seeks to impose world-wide.” That did happen, to some degree, with libertarians preferring just “anarchist” as it was talked for granted that anarchism was a school of (libertarian) socialism.
This, though, had the unfortunate result that “anarcho”-capitalists could suggest that anarchism was purely “anti-state” (a position which cannot be supported with even a basic knowledge of anarchism as a theory and as a social movement). However, at least that way we avoided association with the horrors of Stalinism.
Personally, I am a communist-anarchist (I try to place the communist first, showing that I’m first and foremost an anarchist and communism is my preferred sub-branch). Yet I’m aware that this may sound somewhat strange to people not that aware of the history of socialism. So, that makes libertarian socialist a nice alternative (I reject the term socialist-anarchist as being redundant and leading to suggestions that there could be a non-socialist “anarchism”). Not too sure of libertarian communism, but I guess it does have the benefit of making the heads of dogmatic and ignorant right-wing “libertarians” explode…
So, can libertarian be saved? I hope so, but it seems like difficult task just now – but struggle can make most things seem more possible!. All we can do is try…
What about communism? Should we even try with that? And what about non-anarchist communists, like various kinds of Marxists? When we took-up communism in the 1870s and 1880s, the Marxists can turned to socialist and social democracy (again, words used by Bakunin and Proudhon). There really was little chance of confusion (as Engels said, they would have renamed the Communist Manifesto the Socialist Manifesto if it had been written after the 1870s). Today, well, various Marxists use the term (some, like the council communists, are close to us, other are Leninists or strange mixtures of both).
So, what do people think? Obviously, much the same can be said of anarchism. It does have associations in the popular mind with “chaos” and punks (the latter is better than communism putting pictures of Stalin into people’s heads!). Attempts by the right to steal “anarchist” (as in that oxymoron “anarcho”-capitalism) have been far less successful than “libertarian” (probably because it is harder to ignore the socialist roots and associations of anarchism, although they try their best with Tucker and the rest). Particularly as we have been far less willing to let anarchist be gutted of meaning (An Anarchist FAQ is probably the most recent and best known response).
There is reason to be hopeful. So, can libertarian and/or communist be saved? Or should we not bother?