Tradition

Individualist anarchism

Overview

Individualist anarchism or anarcho-individualism is a collection of anarchist currents that generally emphasize the individual and their will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems.

Individualist anarchism can be divided into two main distinct movements, each with its own ideological orientations and choices. On one hand, there is American individualist anarchism, which began with Warren in the 1860s. It focuses primarily on economic freedom, drawing upon Stirner's egoist anarchism and Proudhon's mutualism, and develops perspectives that are notably financial in nature. Most American individualist anarchists of the 19th century advocated mutualism, a libertarian socialist form of market socialism, or a free-market socialist form of classical economics.

On the other hand, European individualist anarchism emerged between 1885 and 1895 in the labour movement. Much less studied and not directly connected to American individualist anarchism, with virtually no influence by Proudhon or Stirner for example, it generally consisted of militants with very different outlooks—particularly marked by strong radicalism, general adherence to anarchist communism, and often highly radical positions, including significant support for revolutionary violence and propaganda of the deed. The European movement was also distinguished by its strong opposition to the emerging anarcho-syndicalism of the same period, its rejection of the distinction between bourgeoisie and proletariat—seen as social constructs of capitalism to be abolished—and its close affinity with the social outlook of the women, sex workers or criminals. This helps explain its rapid association with the rise of anarcha-feminism or illegalism in Europe, for example.

Although usually contrasted with social anarchism, both individualist and social anarchism have influenced each other. Among the early influences on American individualist anarchism are Josiah Warren, Max Stirner, Lysander Spooner, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Henry David Thoreau, Herbert Spencer and Anselme Bellegarrigue. For European individualist anarchism, one can find Pierre Martinet, Vittorio Pini, Clément Duval, Errico Malatesta, Émile Henry, Zo d'Axa, or groups such as the Intransigeants of London and Paris or the Pieds plats.

Within anarchism, American individualist anarchism is primarily a literary phenomenon while social anarchism has been the dominant form of anarchism, emerging in the late 19th century as a distinction from individualist anarchism after anarcho-communism replaced collectivist anarchism as the dominant tendency. American individualist anarchism has been described by some as the anarchist branch most influenced by and tied to liberalism (specifically classical liberalism), or as a part of the liberal or liberal-socialist wing of anarchism — in contrast to the collectivist or communist wing of anarchism and libertarian socialism. However, others suggest a softer divide, seeing individualist anarchists as sharing with social anarchists an opposition to state, capitalism and authority, while diverging (a) due to their evolutionary approach to change, preferring the creation of alternative institutions, such as mutual banks or communes, and (b) in their preference for a market-based system of distribution over the need-based system advocated by social anarchists. The very idea of an individualist–socialist divide is also contested by those who argue that individualist anarchism is largely socialistic and can be considered a form of individualist socialism, with non-Lockean individualism encompassing socialism. Lastly, some anarcho-capitalists claim anarcho-capitalism is part of the individualist anarchist tradition, while others disagree and reject the notion that anarcho-capitalism is a genuinely anarchist belief system or movement.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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I must call attention to the fact, by the way, that the views here set out were, for by far the most part, developed and established by Marx, and only to a very slight degree by myself, so that it is understood that I have not represented them without his knowledge. I read the entire manuscript to him before sending it to press and the tenth chapter of the section on Political Economy was written by Marx and…
Friedrich Engels, Landmarks of Scientific Socialism
States what Individualist anarchism is; the author is tied to Individualist anarchism in the knowledge graph.
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Apparently in opposition to the peacefully industrious democrats and Revolution-ideologues, and still more so to the awkward philosophasters and fraternity-visionaries who call themselves Socialists and want a "free society," those are really at one with them all in their thorough and instinctive hostility to every form of society other than that of the AUTONOMOUS herd (to the extent even of repudiating the notions…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
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For, to our three social reformers, the bourgeois world, based upon the principles of these philosophers, is quite as irrational and unjust, and, therefore, finds its way in the dust-hole quite as readily as feudalism and all the earlier stages of society. If pure reason and justice have not, hitherto, ruled the world, this has been the case only because men have not rightly understood them. What was wanted was the…
Friedrich Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific
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Individualist anarchism

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