Since the beginning of political discourse, the political philosophy of Aristotle (384-322 BC) that “man is by nature a political animal” is matched by the politics of withdrawal of the Cynics, Epicureans and Stoics. The reason for this retreat of politics was the narrow social base; only 10 per cent of Greeks engaged in politics in the exalted Athenian democracy. Ever since then, this distrust of politics has been an integral part of normative political theory. Its modern version, Anarchism, begins with the writings of Gerrard Winstanley (1609-60) and William Godwin (1756-1836) but develops as a coherent doctrine in the writings of Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1808-65) Michael Bakunin (1815-76) and Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921).

In the middle of the 19th century — and for the first time — Proudhon developed the Anarchist theory of social organisation, comprising small units federated together but with no central power and authority. A variant of Anarchism in France was Georges Sorel’s (1847-1922) Syndicalism. With the twin influence of Proudhon and Karl Marx (1818-83), Sorel created the myth of a general strike for capturing State power, Kropotkin rejected the views of both Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and Charles Darwin (1809-92) on human nature. He insisted that human beings are by nature cooperative and sympathetic and developed the concept of mutual aid, a society based on mutual exchanges made in a system of voluntary cooperation.

In the colonial context of an overdeveloped state, Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) incorporated the ideas of Henry David Thoreau (1817-62), John Ruskin (1819-1900) and Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910). He described himself as a “philosophical anarchist”, and wanted to keep the life of the people within participatory decentralised community and outside the ambit of the State.

The philosophy of Anarchism was dormant in recent years but has surfaced during the occasional outbursts such as the 1968 student revolt in West Europe and the 2011 Arab Spring. More recently, Arvind Kejriwal’s assertion that he is an Anarchist has generated some interest in this political philosophy. There is clearly a sharper focus on Anarchism because the critics of an unresponsive and unreformed State draw sustenance from it in view of the fact that Marxism has lost the capacity to renew itself after the collapse of Communism.

Anarchism, like Marxism, rejects constitutional law — that governs the State — as formal, one that serves the interests of the entrenched propertied class. Government, for an Anarchist, is both harmful and unnecessary and an absolute evil. Woodcock defines anarchy as a state of being without a ruler, a society without government. Emphasising the essential social nature of human beings, it advocates a voluntary, freely formed, self-regulating and anti-authoritarian association of people. It underlines the need for a decentralised and pluralistic society. The anarchists also want the abolition of private property along with the clergy and capitalism as these are evil systems. In the opinion of many, Anarchism is less of a political philosophy and more an expression of temperament.

The distrust of the State and rejection of political absolutism is also the core of liberalism, aptly expressed by John Locke (1632-1704) in the Second Treatise. Its key tenets are political authority as a trust, consent as the basis of legitimate authority, and constitutionalism or limits to political power and State action so as to maximise individual freedom. This would imply the existence of private space that is independent of State and civil society. Constitutionalism flows from the acceptance of the fact that human nature is imperfect, succinctly expressed by James Madison (1751-1836) that “if men were angels there would be no need for laws”; importance of gradualism and moderation and rejection of grand design and total change is flawed. Anarchism and Marxism believe in the innate goodness of human beings and in holistic change.

Libertarian liberalism that begins with Locke and continues with Thomas Paine (1737-1809) and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) became increasingly untenable during the Industrial Revolution with all its horrors for the majority of the people. In England, Charles Dickens (1812-70) vividly portrayed this period of squalor, aimlessness, fear, anxiety, breakdown of the old social order and erosion of family values, and the powerlessness of the ordinary person. It is at this juncture that socialism and its variants emerge, according to Watkins, because of the inability of early liberalism to fulfill its own promise of human liberation.

Anarchism is critical of not only liberalism but also of Marxism because of its inherent statism and authoritarianism, thus going beyond Marxism. Its tremendous influence can be gauged by the fact that Marx had to shift the First International or the International Workingmen Association (1864-76) to the USA to keep the Anarchists away.

Anarchism, like Marxism, grows as a critical school within the industrialised capitalist society highlighting its evils like dehumanisation, alienation, inequality, oppression and exploitation. It desires to overthrow capitalism and the capitalist State. It rejects representative parliamentary institutions and accepts only self-imposed ones through the working class revolution. For Anarchism, the State is the basic source of all social injustice, while Marxism asserts that its nature is conditioned and determined by the economic base of society. The destruction of the State is the goal of both Anarchism and Marxism, but for the former it is an immediate objective, while for the latter it is the ultimate aim.

Marxism defends the institution of the dictatorship of the proletariat following the destruction of capitalism, but Anarchism sees the proletarian dictatorship as mere change of masters, and continuation of oppression and coercion with new privileges and fresh inequalities. This is the reason why it doubted the Marxist vision of the withering away of the State. Bakunin rightly prophesied that the dictatorship of the proletariat would soon degenerate into a dictatorship on the proletariat. Anarchism disagrees with the concept of social democracy, specifically the use of State power to advance the cause of the workers as it proposes a stateless society. Anarchism like Marxism and unlike liberal democracy could never provide a well-developed theory of the State and democracy based on the rule of law, equity, just reward, freedom, tolerance and pluralism. Both are a critique and not an alternative to liberalism.

Liberal constitutionalism gradually paves the way for liberal democracy from the late 19th century onwards with the establishment of representative institutions, extension of franchise, electoral reforms, panel sanctions, professional bureaucracy recruited through competitive examinations and universal literacy. The concern for minorities and rights of the individual, in the writings of John Stuart Mill (1806-73) underlines the importance of a liberal society. The Keynesian revolution, inauguration of the welfare State, trade unionism, labour welfare laws, emergence of social democratic parties and its convergence with liberalism in the mid-1950s, occupational diversification within the working class, and increased productivity have changed the nature of capitalism. It brings in what Meade calls property-owning democracy or what President George W Bush once referred to as “ownership society”.

The three components of the modern political order, as identified by Fukuyama, are a strong and capable State, the subordination of the State to the rule of law and the government’s accountability to all citizens. In India, such a construct does exist, in however tenuous a manner. Despite six and half decades of a functioning democracy, there are many fault-lines. Jayaprakash Narayan’s movement was the first extra-constitutional attempt to bring back a derailed system to order. However, there is a major difference between JP’s movement and that of the Aam Aadmi Party. In 1975, the concern was with Indira Gandhi and the tinkering with the judiciary and supersession of judges in the Supreme Court. In 2014, the anxiety of the AAP is with corruption, but without a blueprint for institutional reforms, of making the government responsive, accountable and incorruptible. Kejriwal and the AAP have succeeded in attracting attention, but the party’s enduring and meaningful existence as a responsible entity of governance as well as opposition is yet to be tested. Any attempt to go beyond liberal constitutionalism has the potential of degenerating into French Jacobinism.

By arrangement with The Statesman/ANN