Pat Stack states that one of the "key points of divergence" between anarchism and Marxism is that the former, "far from understanding the advances that capitalism represented, tended to take a wistful look back. Anarchism shares with Marxism an abhorrence of the horrors of capitalism, but yearns for what has gone before." ["Anarchy in the UK?", Socialist Review, no. 246]

Like his other "key point" (namely the rejection of class struggle — see last section), Stack is simply wrong. Even the quickest look at the works of Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin would convince the reader that this is simply distortion. Rather than look backwards for their ideas of social life, anarchism has always been careful to base its ideas on the current state of society and what anarchist thinkers considered positive current trends within society.

The dual element of progress is important to remember. Capitalism is a class society, marked by exploitation, oppression and various social hierarchies. In such a society progress can hardly be neutral. It will reflect vested interests, the needs of those in power, the rationales of the economic system (e.g. the drive for profits) and those who benefit from it, the differences in power between nations and companies and so on. Equally, it will be shaped by the class struggle, the resistance of the working classes to exploitation and oppression, the objective needs of production, etc. As such, trends in society will reflect the various class conflicts, social hierarchies, power relationships and so on which exist within it.

This is particularly true of the economy. The development of the industrial structure of a capitalist economy will be based on the fundamental need to maximise the profits and power of the capitalists. As such, it will develop (either by market forces or by state intervention) in order to ensure this. This means that various tendencies apparent in capitalist society exist specifically to aid the development of capital. This means that it does not follow that because a society which places profits above people has found a specific way of organising production "efficient" it means that a socialist society will do. As such, anarchist opposition to specific tendencies within capitalism (such as the increased concentration and centralisation of companies) does not mean a "yearning" for the past. Rather, it shows an awareness that capitalist methods are precisely that and that they need not be suited for a society which replaces the profit system with human and ecological need as the criteria for decision making.

For anarchists, this means questioning the assumptions of capitalist progress. This means that the first task of a revolution after the expropriation of the capitalists and the destruction of the state will be to transform the industrial structure and how it operates, not keep it as it is. Anarchists have long argued that that capitalist methods cannot be used for socialist ends. In our battle to democratise and socialise the workplace, in our awareness of the importance of collective initiatives by the direct producers in transforming their work situation, we show that factories are not merely sites of production, but also of reproduction — the reproduction of a certain structure of social relations based on the division between those who give orders and those who take them, between those who direct and those who execute. Equally, the structure of industry has developed to maximise profits. Why assume that this structure will be equally as efficient in producing useful products by meaningful work which does not harm the environment?

A further aspect of this is that many of the struggles today, from the Zapatistas in Chiapas to those against Genetically Modified (GM) food and nuclear power are precisely based on the understanding that capitalist 'progress' can not be uncritically accepted. To resist the expulsion of people from the land in the name of progress or the introduction of terminator seeds is not to look back to "what had gone", although this is also precisely what the proponents of capitalist globalisation often accuse us of. It is to put "people before profit."

As such, only a sophist would confuse a critical evaluation of trends within capitalism with a yearning for the past. It means to buy into the whole capitalist notion of "progress" which has always been part of justifying the inhumanities of the status quo. Simply put, just because a process is rewarded by the profit driven market it does not mean that it makes sense from a human or ecological perspective. For example, as we argue in section J.5.11, the capitalist market hinders the spread of co-operatives and workers' self-management in spite of their well documented higher efficiency and productivity. From the perspective of the needs of the capitalists, this makes perfect sense. In terms of the workers and efficient allocation of resources, it does not. Would Marxists argue that because co-operatives and workers' self-management of production are marginal aspects of the capitalist economy it means that they will play no part in a sane society or that if a socialist expresses interest in them it means that are "yearning" for a past mode of production? We hope not.

This common Marxist failure to understand anarchist investigations of the future is, ironically enough, joined with a total failure to understand the social conditions in which anarchists have put forward their ideas. Ironically, for all his claims that anarchists ignore "material conditions," it is Pat Stack (and others like him) who does so in his claims against Proudhon. Stack argues that Proudhon (like all anarchists) was "yearning for the past" when he advanced his mutualist ideas. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. This is because the society in which the French anarchist lived was predominately artisan and peasant in nature. This was admitted by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto ("[i]n countries like France" the peasants "constitute far more than half of the population." [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 493]). As such, for Proudhon to incorporate the aspirations of the majority of the population is not to "yearn for what has gone before" but rather an extremely sensible position to take.

Therefore, it is hardly an example of Proudhon "yearning for the past" for Stack to mention that Marx dubbed Proudhon ("the founder of modern anarchism") as "the socialist of the small peasant or master craftsman." It is simply unsurprising, a simple statement of fact, as the French working classes were, at the time, predominately small peasants or master craftsmen (or artisans). As K. Steven Vincent points out Proudhon's "social theories may not be reduced to a socialism for only the peasant class, nor was it a socialism only for the petite bourgeois; it was a socialism of and for French workers. And in the mid-nineteenth century . . . most French workers were still artisans." Indeed, "[w]hile Marx was correct in predicting the eventual predominance of the industrial proletariat vis-a-vis skilled workers, such predominance was neither obvious nor a foregone conclusion in France during the nineteenth century. The absolute number of small industries even increased during most of the century." [Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism, p. 5 and p. 282] Proudhon himself noted in 1851 that of a population of 36 million, 24 million were peasants and 6 million were artisans. Of the remaining 6 million, these included wage-workers for whom "workmen's associations" would be essential as "a protest against the wage system," the "denial of the rule of capitalists" and for "the management of large instruments of labour." [The General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 97-8]

To summarise, if the society in which you live is predominately made-up of peasants and artisans then it is hardly an insult to be called "the socialist of the small peasant or master craftsman." Equally, it can hardly represent a desire for "what has gone before" to tailor your ideas to the actual conditions in the country in which you live! And Stack accuses anarchists of ignoring "material conditions"!

Neither can it be said that Proudhon ignored the development of industrialisation in France during his lifetime. Quite the reverse, in fact, as indicated above. Proudhon did not ignore the rise of large-scale industry. He argued that such industry should be managed by the workers' themselves via workers associations. As he put it, "certain industries" required "the combined employment of a large number of workers" and so the producer is "a collectivity." In such industries "we have no choice" and so "it is necessary to form an association among the workers" because "without that they would remain related as subordinates and superiors, and there would ensue two industrial castes of masters and wage-workers, which is repugnant to a free and democratic society." [Op. Cit., pp. 215-6]

All in all, Stack is simply showing his ignorance of both Proudhon's ideas and the society (the "material conditions") in which they were shaped and were aimed for. As can be seen, Proudhon incorporated the development of large-scale industry within his mutualist ideas and so the need to abolish wage labour by workers' associations and workers' control of production. Perhaps Stack can fault Proudhon for seeking the end of capitalism too soon and for not waiting patiently will it developed further (if he does, he will also have to attack Marx, Lenin and Trotsky as well for the same failing!), but this has little to do with "yearn[ing] for what has gone before."

After distorting Proudhon's ideas on industry, Stack does the same with Bakunin. He asserts the following:

"Similarly, the Russian anarchist leader Bakunin argued that it was the progress of capitalism that represented the fundamental problem. For him industrialisation was an evil. He believed it had created a decadent western Europe, and therefore had held up the more primitive, less industrialised Slav regions as the hope for change."

Now, it would be extremely interesting to find out where, exactly, Stack discovered that Bakunin made these claims. After all, they are at such odds with Bakunin's anarchist ideas that it is temping to conclude that Stack is simply making it up. This, we suggest, explains the total lack of references for such an outrageous claim. Looking at his main source, we discover Paul Avrich writing that "[i]n 1848" (i.e. nearly 20 years before Bakunin became an anarchist!) Bakunin "spoke of the decadence of Western Europe and saw hope in the primitive, less industrialised Slavs for the regeneration of the Continent." [Op. Cit., p. 8] The plagiarism, again, is obvious, as are the distortions. Given that Bakunin became an anarchist in the mid-1860s, how his pre-anarchist ideas are relevant to an evaluation of anarchism escapes logic. It makes as much sense as quoting Marx to refute fascism as Mussolini was originally the leader of the left-wing of the Italian Socialist Party!

It is, of course, simple to refute Stack's claims. We simply need to do that which he does not, namely quote Bakunin. For someone who thought "industrialisation was an evil," a key aspect of Bakunin's ideas on social revolution was the seizing of industry and its placing under social ownership. As he put it, "capital and all tools of labour belong to the city workers — to the workers associations. The whole organisation of the future should be nothing but a free federation of workers — agricultural workers as well as factory workers and associations of craftsmen." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 410] Bakunin argued that "to destroy . . . all the instruments of labour . . . would be to condemn all humanity — wwhich is infinity too numerous today to exist. . . on the simple gifts of nature. . . — to. . . death by starvation. Thus capital cannot and must not be destroyed. It must be preserved." Only when workers "obtain not individual but collective property in capital" and when capital is no longer "concentrated in the hands of a separate, exploiting class" will they be able "to smash the tyranny of capital." [The Basic Bakunin, pp. 90-1] He stressed that only "associated labour, this is labour organised upon the principles of reciprocity and co-operation, is adequate to the task of maintaining the existence of a large and somewhat civilised society." Moreover, the "whole secret of the boundless productivity of human labour consists first of all in applying . . . scientifically developed reason . . . and then in the division of that labour." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, pp. 341-2] Hardly the thoughts of someone opposed to industrialisation!

Rather than oppose industrialisation and urge the destruction of industry, Bakunin considered one of the first acts of the revolution would be workers' associations taking over the means of production and turning them into collective property managed by the workers themselves. Hence Daniel Guerin's comment:

"Proudhon and Bakunin were 'collectivists,' which is to say they declared themselves without equivocation in favour of the common exploitation, not by the State but by associated workers of the large-scale means of production and of the public services. Proudhon has been quite wrongly presented as an exclusive enthusiast of private property." ["From Proudhon to Bakunin", The Radical Papers, Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos (ed.), p.32]

Clearly, Stack does not have the faintest idea of what he is talking about! Nor is Kropotkin any safer than Proudhon or Bakunin from Stack's distortions. He claims that:

"Peter Kropotkin, another famous anarchist leader to emerge in Russia, also looked backwards for change. He believed the ideal society would be based on small autonomous communities, devoted to small scale production. He had witnessed such communities among Siberian peasants and watchmakers in the Swiss mountains."

First, we must note the plagiarism. Stack is summarising Paul Avrich's summary of Kropotkin's ideas. [Anarchist Portraits, p. 62] Rather than go to the source material, Stack provides an interpretation of someone else's interpretation of someone else's ideas! Clearly, the number of links in the chain means that something is going to get lost in the process and, of course, it does. The something which "gets lost" is, unfortunately, Kropotkin's ideas.

Ultimately, Stack is simply showing his total ignorance of Kropotkin's ideas by making such a statement. At least Avrich expanded upon his summary to mention that Kropotkin's positive evaluation of using modern technology and the need to apply it on an appropriate level to make work and the working environment as pleasant as possible. As Avrich summarises, "[p]laced in small voluntary workshops, machinery would rescue human beings from the monotony and toil of large-scale capitalist enterprise, allow time for leisure and cultural pursuits, and remove forever the stamp of inferiority traditionally borne by manual labour." [Op. Cit., p. 63] Hardly "backward looking" to desire the application of science and technology to transform the industrial system into one based on the needs of people rather than profit!

Stack must be hoping that the reader has, like himself, not read Kropotkin's classic work Fields, Factories and Workshops for if they have then they would be aware of the distortion Stack subjects Kropotkin's ideas to. While Avrich does present, in general, a reasonable summary of Kropotkin's ideas, he does place it into a framework of his own making. Kropotkin while stressing the importance of decentralising industry within a free society did not look backward for his inspiration. Rather, he looked to trends within existing society, trends he thought pointed in an anti-capitalist direction. This can be seen from the fact he based his classic work Field, Factories and Workshops on detailed analysis of current developments in the economy and came to the conclusion that industry would spread across the global (which has happened) and that small industries will continue to exist side by side with large ones (which also has been confirmed). From these facts he argued that a socialist society would aim to decentralise production, combining agriculture with industry and both using modern technology to the fullest.

As we discuss the fallacy that Kropotkin (or anarchists in general) have argued for "small autonomous communities, devoted to small scale production" in section I.3.8, we will not do so here. Suffice to say, Kropotkin's vision was one of federations of decentralised communities in which production would be based on the "scattering of industries over the country — so as to bring the factory amidst the fields . . . agriculture . . . combined with industry . . . to produce a combination of industrial with agricultural work." He considered this as "surely the next step to be made, as soon as a reorganisation of our present conditions is possible." Indeed, he though that this step "is imposed by the very necessity of producing for the producers themselves." Kropotkin attempted to show, based on a detailed analysis of modern economic statistics and trends, a vision of a decentralised, federated communal society where "the workers" were "the real managers of industries" and what this would imply once society was free of capitalism. Needless to say, he did not think that this "next step" would occur until "a reorganisation of our present conditions [was] possible." [Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, pp. 157-8] In other words, until after a social revolution which expropriated industry and the land and placed social wealth into the hands of the producers. Until then, the positive trends he saw in modern society would remain circumcised by the workings of the capitalist market.

He did not, as is often asserted, argue for "small-scale production" (he still saw the need for factories, for example) but rather for production geared to appropriate levels, based on the objective needs of production (without the distorting effects generated by the needs of capitalist profits and power) and, of necessity, the needs of those who work in and live alongside industry (and today we would add, the needs of the environment). In other words, the transformation of capitalism into a society human beings could live full and meaningful lives in. Part of this would involve creating an industry based on human needs. "Have the factory and the workshop at the gates of your fields and gardens and work in them," he argued. "Not those large establishments, of course, in which huge masses of metals have to be dealt with and which are better placed at certain spots indicated by Nature, but the countless variety of workshops and factories which are required to satisfy the infinite diversity of tastes among civilised men [and women]." The new factories and workplaces would be "airy and hygienic, and consequently economical, . . . in which human life is of more account than machinery and the making of extra profits." [Op. Cit., p. 197] Under capitalism, he argued, the whole discourse of economics (like industrial development itself) was based on the logic and rationale of the profit motive:

"Under the name of profits, rent and interest upon capital, surplus value, and the like, economists have eagerly discussed the benefits which the owners of land or capital, or some privileged nations, can derive, either from the under-paid work of the wage-labourer, or from the inferior position of one class of the community towards another class, or from the inferior economical development of one nation towards another nation. . .

"In the meantime the great question — 'What have we to produce, and how?' necessarily remained in the background . . . The main subject of social economy — that is, the economy of energy required for the satisfaction of human needs — is consequently the last subject which one expects to find treated in a concrete form in economical treatises." [Op. Cit., p. 17]

Kropotkin's ideas were, therefore, an attempt to discuss how a post-capitalist society could develop, based on an extensive investigation of current trends within capitalism, and reflecting the needs which capitalism ignores. As noted above, current trends within capitalism have positive (socialistic) and negative (capitalistic) aspects as capitalist industry has not developed neutrally (it has been distorted by the twin requirements to maintain capitalist profits and power).

For this reason Kropotkin considered the concentration of capital (which most Marxists base their arguments for socialism on) did not, in fact, represent an advance for socialism as it was "often nothing but an amalgamation of capitalists for the purpose of dominating the market, not for cheapening the technical process." [Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 154] Indeed, by basing themselves on the trends of capital towards big business, Leninism simply locks itself into the logic of capitalism and, by implication, sees a socialist society which will basically be the same as capitalism, using the technology, industrial structure and industry developed under class society without change. After all, did Lenin not argue that "Socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people"?

Rather than condemn Kropotkin, Stack's comments (and those like them) simply show the poverty of the Leninist critique of capitalism and its vision of the socialist future.

All in all, anyone who claims that anarchism is "backward looking" or "yearns for the past" simply has no idea what they are talking about.