RESISTING THE NATION STATE - ANARCHISM AS A TRADITION OF POLITICAL THOUGHT - Geoffrey Ostergaard

Considered as a tradition of political thought, however, anarchism is more complex than its manifestation in the classical anarchist movement might suggest. From this perspective, anarchism appears to be as closely related to liberalism as it is to socialism. Indeed, one form of anarchism, individualist, may be seen as liberalism taken to its extreme - some would say - logical conclusion. Individualist, as distinct from socialist, anarchism has been particularly strong in the USA from the time of Josiah Warren (1798-1874) onwards and is expressed today by Murray Rothbard and the school of 'anarcho-capitalists'. Individualist anarchism emphasises individual liberty, conscience, individuality, and the uniqueness of each person - the latter brilliantly expressed by Max Stirner (1805-56) in The Ego and His Own. Often, as with William Godwin (1756-1836), it leads to a distrust of any kind of enduring cooperation with others, such relations constraining the exercise of what Godwin called the individual's 'private judgement'. In their economic ideas, individualists have usually insisted on the importance of individual production, private property or possession, praised the free market and condemned the iniquity of all monopolies. Their central political principle is 'the sovereignty of the individual'. Taken seriously, this principle is sufficient to explain their rejection of the state and of any government other than 'voluntary government' based on the consent of each and every individual. more...