People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy

Anarchy is most often equated with chaos or seen as some crackpot scheme advanced only by bomb-throwing, wild-eyed maniacs. Certainly it is an idea which has not been taken seriously by most. Although in recent years there has been a slight increase in appreciation of anarchist theory, to the extent that a greater number now consider it worthy of mention in serious discussion, it remains largely ignored. The anthropologically demonstrated fact that anarchy is possible is frequently overlooked.

Over the past several generations, anthropologists, through their ethnographic research, have documented innumerable stateless and governmentless societies throughout the world and throughout time. And even the devotees of Marx point to these as indicators of some earlier stateless stage of human cultural evolution. Nevertheless there is some considerable reluctance to define these societies as anarchies. Even amongst anthropologists there are those so imbued with their own cultural traditions that they will go to any lengths to avoid recognising these systems for what they are. Because they believe social order can exist only where there is government and law, they stretch the meanings of these terms to cover what is clearly not government at all. In an anthropology textbook, Hammond has written: "Even when the population is large, relatively dense, and somewhat diversified, the absence of government does not necessarily imply the presence of anarchy" (239). Hoebel, who later changed his mind, has so defined law and the state, and so interpreted the data of numerous cultures, asto make every society a state with law (1958, 467ff) . And earlier, both Clark Wissler and George Murdock included a 'government' as a 'universal' of culture (Wissler, 1923; Murdock, 1945).

Other anthropologists readily recognise the widespread existence of staeless societies, some even call them 'functioning anarchies'. They see the need to demonstrate the existence of such societies as a task long since accomplished and believe we should move on to more important problems. However, it has been my experience in more than 30 years of teaching anthropology that, among students, about the most firmly held myth is the one that no society can exist without government - and its corollary that every society must have a head. If modern day students have given up the religion of the church, they have not budged from the religion of nationalism and statism. It is the latter which affords the source of unity - the cementing element - in contempoary 'pluralistic' society. Thus, the myth of the necessity of the state and of government is decisive for that unity, as decisive as belief in God was for the unity of Medieval society. In the universities, political 'science' departments are the chief centres for the promulgation of this myth.

One task of this book, then, is to present examples of anarchy. Thereby we will demonstrate that there are human societies which fit the criteria of anarchy and should be recognised for what they are.

There are also other reasons for this book. I will be suggesting that anarchy is by no means unusual; that it is a perfectly common form of polity or political organisation. Not only is it common, but it is probably the oldest type of polity and one which has characterised most of human history.

In the course of this presentation, attention will be given to the kinds of social, economic, technological and ecological contexts which appear to be conducive to anarchic systems. We must consider the oft-made proposition that if anarchies or governmentless, stateless societies exist, they could do so only in the most simple form of human culture and in the smallest type of grouping.

An important aim of this book is to give some idea of what anarchy in practice is like. In this we must consider the various ways in which order is maintained within anarchy. This in turn is related to the more general problem of the dynamic interplay between freedom and authority which characterises human society. In connection with this we must observe how anarchy can, and does on occasion, appear to degenerate into despotism, a process which also entails a consideration of the origins of the state. In general,then, we will try to address the question: is there anything to be learned from these anarchic polities?

Perhaps, finally, this essay will provide a critique of anarchist theory and contribute, therefore, to an improved understanding of the problems of freedom in society.

There are similarities between what is proposed for this investigation and some of the works of Kropotkin, namely, his The State: Its Historic Role and Mutual A id. These works were a factor in my decision to enter the field of anthropology and also stimulated my writing of this book. I would like to think that this book adds to, and improves upon, Kropotkin's pioneering investigations in this subject.

On the Nature of Anarchy

On anarchy and anarchism

Our first task must be to clarify the meaning of anarchy in relation to a variety of different terms. Let us begin by considering anarchy and anarchism. These must be distinguished from one another, just as one distinguishes 'primitive communism' from Marxian communism. The latter is an elaborate sociological system, a philosophy of history and an idea for a future condition of society in which property is held in common. 'Primitive communism' refers to a type of economy, presumably found among 'archaic' or 'primitive' peoples, in which property is held in common. By property is to be understood the crucial resources and means of production of wealth. In fact, what is communally held in such societies is invariably land; tools, livestock, and many other kinds of resources ( eg, fishing sites) are individually owned. In any case, Marxist theory does not identify primitive communism with the intended Marxist communism. One might say that implicitly it is held that the historical process involves a grand cycle where humans commence with primitive communism and ultimately return to communism at a higher level - which is somewhat reminiscent of the progressive-cyclic theory of Giambattista Vico. As we distinguish between the two communisms, so we must also distinguish between anarchy and anarchism. Anarchy is the condition of society in which there is no ruler; government is absent. It is also most clearly associated with those societies which have been called 'archaic' and 'primitive', among other pejorative adjectives. Anarchism is the social political theory; developed in 19th century Europe, which incorporates the idea of anarchy, but does so as part of, and as a result of, a broader, self-conscious theory of values which makes human freedom and individuality paramount. Thus, in anarchist theory, the first premise is something which Josiah Warren called the sovereignty of the individual and from this it follows that government and state are oppressive of individual freedom and should be abolished. But, at the same time, the anarchist looks to the abolition of other institutions similarly interpreted as oppressive: the Church, the patriarchal family and any system which appears to enshrine 'irrational' authority. Anarchist theory is egalitarian and anti­ hierarchical, as well as being decentralist. Discrimination based on 'race, colour, or creed' or sex are always anathema. Anarchists were probably the first advocates of women's liberation. In place of the old system, anarchist theory advocates self regulation and voluntary co-operation. Social relations are to be carried out through free contractual agreements of mutual or equal benefit to all parties involved. For Proudhon 'mutualism' was a basic cornerstone of anarchy. His mutualist conception has an interesting similarity and concordance with the contemporary anthropological theory of Mauss and Levi-Strauss, since mutualism may be readily seen as reciprocity. To Levi-Strauss, reciprocity as a mutual exchange is the fundamental structural principle of . society; it is a kind of 'category of thought', so fundamental as to be imbedded in the human mind. Pierre Clastres, following in the tradition of Levi-Strauss, argues that 'coercive power', that is, both state and government, are unreciprocal since a ruler receives more than a subject, so upsetting the balance of equity. Therefore, state and government are in opposition to the basic principles of social life: society is against the state. In the final chapter I shall return to Clastres' thesis and the general subject of reciprocity and the emergence of coercive power. Here I only wish to indicate that anarchist theory and anthropological theory do impinge upon one another.

In addition to mutualism, Proudhon and Bakunin, among others, also stressed the idea of federalism, designed to facilitate relations between increasingly larger and more widespread groups of people. The initial building blocks of the federalist plan are the local, 'face to face' groups, either of neighbours or persons with common occupational interests - in any case they have a common mutual interest in working with each other for one or more ends. Such groups form and concern themselves with achieving their specified goals. In order to facilitate these ends they 'federate' with other similar groups to form a regional federation and in turn regional federations join with others to form yet a broader I federation. In each case the power invested in the organised group decreases as one ascends the different levels of integration. As Bakunin and others said, the system was to be 'built from the bottom up and not from the top down'. Each member of a federation has a right to withdraw if in disagreement with the majority's proposed action. It is interesting to note here the similarity between anarchist federalism and the segmentary lineage system characteristic of many anarchic polities, especially in Africa. In both cases the sum is composed of segments and each segment of sub segments and so on. In both cases the most effective authority is in the smallest unit, decreasing directly as one ascends to broader levels of integration, so that at the 'top', the ultimate federation has little influence whatsoever. In both cases, as well, we have a technique for establishing a broad network which draws innumerable small groups into 1'! large integrated whole. One major contrast between the two systems, however, is that federalism is based upon the co-operation between groups - the principle of mutualism or reciprocity - while for segmentary lineages the operative principle is opposition or conflict between groups of the same level. Anarchist federalism should not be confused with the kind of 'confederacy' advocated by such men as John Calhoun and other early 19th century American political thinkers. Anarchists would be sympathetic to such a view only in that it proposes to strip central government of most of its authority, permitting member states to withdraw from the system if they see fit. However, from an anarchist point of view, Calhoun and his sympathisers were inconsistent, in that they· were primarily concerned about maximizing the power of the several states within the Union. Had they been interested in the freedom of the individual unit members, they would also have recognised the legitimate right of the counties to withdraw from states, of towns to withdraw from counties and of individuals to withdraw .from towns.

Anarchism is in sum a complex theoretical orientation. It should not, however, be seen in any sense as a single monolithic conception, or a grand theoretical system to be compared, say, with Marxism. Anarchism, on the contrary, entails several related, but often distinct, points of view. And no anarchist theoretician has ever presented an integrated theoretical system. Yet all anarchist theory shares a common concern for the individual and freedom, opposition to the state and a desire to establish a system of voluntary co-operation. It is obvious that the sort of society envisioned by anarchists does not exist and, except for a few isolated and short lived attempts, has never existed. Nevertheless, we do have numerous examples of anarchy - societies without government and without the state.

Just as Marxist communists might not be thoroughly pleased with a functioning 'primitive communism' , so we cannot expect anarchists to approve extant anarchic polities. It is obvious that many would be horrified by some of their characteristics. While these societies lack government, as we shall see, patriarchy often prevails; a kind of gerontocracy or domination by the old men is not uncommon; religious sanctions are rampant; children are invariably in a 'second class' position; women are rarely treated in any way equal to men. Indeed, there are invariably strong pressures to conform to group traditions. But since they are highly decentralised, lacking government and the state, they do exemplify anarchy. And thus we must look at such systems as examples of the application of anarchy.

It may be argued that to employ the term 'anarchy' for a major group of human societies is ethnocentric and confuses ideology with social classification. It is to take a highly emotionally charged word, one with a very clear ideological connotation, identified with Euro-American cultural traditions, and to apply it cross-culturally when those in the other cultures would clearly lack the ideology and values of the anarchist. Thus, not only is the word distorted, but so also is the meaning of those cultures.

But if this is true of the word 'anarchy', it applies equally to the use of such words as 'democratic', 'government' , 'law' , 'capitalist' , 'communist' and a host of others employed daily by social scientists, yet derived from ordinary speech. Social science is full of terms in common usage which are applied to social contexts in other cultures. There are certainly dangers to such a procedure. It is easy to carry extraneous ideological baggage along with the term. On the other hand, if we cannot at all make such cross­ cultural transfers, we are left with a proliferation of neologisms which become pure jargonese, enhancing obfuscation rather than clarification. There are, after all, types of social phenomena which occur throughout the world. Scientific understanding is not furthered by a kind of radical phenomenology which makes every cultural item, every individual perception, unique. I believe many anthropologists, in their own projection of personal and cultural values, have obstinately refused to apply the one truly clarifying term to those numerous societies which are without government and are, therefore, anarchies.

Social order and authority

One of the universal characteristics of mankind, or of any species for that matter, is that it survives and thrives in the context of some kind of order. That is, humans have peace of mind where behaviour and events are on the whole predictable. We are animals of habit or animals of custom - traditionalists. Behaviour in human societies is, therefore, stanardised and deviations are punished. A society by definition has order and structure and operates with regularised, relatively fixed modes of behaviour. The term 'society' implies that the component members are operating according to some 'rules of the game'. Such rules can be extremely vague and open to conflicting interpretations, or they may be very specific and explicit. In any case, there are guidelines without which we would be lost in a sea of anomie. Part of the problem of the modem world is that many of these guildelines have become so ambiguous that the level of general anxiety of the population increases. It is clear that where there is no structure, there is no order and there is no society. And, as the first lesson in any anthropology or sociology course points out, humans without society are not human. But another part of that first lesson is that there is an immense amount of variation within human society, including the amount and kind of structure and order.

Having said this, let me add ·that humankind often seeks a holiday from routine and structure. Max Gluckman pointed to what he called 'rituals of rebellion', which are periods in which the populace is expected to behave - within limits - in a manner counter to normal expectation. Thus there is the 'Mardi Gras', which is a traditional relaxing of behaviour before the commencement of the exacting observations of the Lenten season. We have Hallowe'en as a traditional time when children are .permitted a short expression of rebellion against the adult community.

Victor Turner has suggested that there are two countercurrents in a society: one of structure and the other of communitas or anti­ structure. The latter expresses the spontaneous, the unplanned and the ecstatic, as a kind of reaction to the usual, predictable and structured. This in a way parallels Proudhon's view that authority and liberty operate as antinornies within any society, each acting so as to delimit the other, In terms of these polarities, anarchism as a social theory is allied with communitas and liberty. Like Thoreau, anarchists are critical of those elements within a culture which become so engrained as to be stultifying and superficial or empty rituals. They look with favour on the new and the untried. Perhaps Nietzsche's call to live dangerously has some relevance here.

On occasion, the anarchist sympathy for communitas has appeared to go to extremes. Thus Hippies, in their rejection of modern structures, sometimes reject every form of structure so as to enshrine dirt - the ultimate of disorder. But while, of all social theories, anarchism has more sympathy for communitas, it is still not opposed to structure, to order or to society. Indeed, Proudhon once wrote that liberty is the mother of order not the daughter. The issue for anarchists is not whether there should be structure or order, but what kind there should be and what its sources ought to be. The individual or group which has sufficient liberty to be self-regulating will have the highest degree of order; the imposition of order from above and outside induces resentment and rebellion where it does not encourage childlike dependence and impotence, and so becomes a force for disorder.

The relation of anarchy to power, authority, politics and political organisation is another misunderstood area. In human groups some manoeuvring for power characterises the relationship between individual members. The intensity and emphasis on the contest varies from one culture to another and from one individual to another. The cultural values of the Pygmies to be discussed and also of such Pueblo Indian groups as the Zuni and Hopi, play down attempts by individuals to stand in the forefront, although one cannot say that the desire to influence others is absent. And within every culture there is variation. Some people strive more than others; a few even opt out. Nevertheless, the contest for power manifests itself in some fashion within each human group. Power means the ability to get others to do what you want them to do. Thus, someone who convinces ten others to follow orders has more power than someone who is able to get only one to obey. But this depends on all other things being equal, since, for example, someone who controls the one individual who knows how to use a nuclear detonating device can have more power than someone who controls the behaviour of a million ordinary men and women. Power means influence - convincing others by logical argument, by the prestige of one's status or rank, by money or bribe. Or it means implied or overt threat of injury - either by physical or psychological means - and the ability to carry it out.

The contest for power is an important dynamic force in the social group - a major mechanism by which the group undergoes change over time. The 'push and pull' of members not only causes 'palace revolutions', that is, shifts in the personnel of the less powerful and the more powerful, but leads as well to changes in rules and values.

Ralf Dahrendorf, a German sociologist who is certainly no anarchist, presents a thesis in a way amenable to anarchist thought, particularly as an answer to Marx. Dahrendorf suggests that the conflict for power is central in a society; Marx was primarily concerned with one feature of the power complex, namely, economic power. This emphasis has meant that those who follow Marx devalue the non-economic dimensions of power. Consequently, we find the world full of peoples' democracies in which the oppression of ordinary people is no less than it was before the 'revolution'. Marxism in practice has tended to transfer the forces of power from the capitalist to the professional bureaucrat and military officer, primarily because it does not see that the central problem is the problem of power itself. The anarchist insists upon addressing this larger issue.

Neither anarchy nor anarchist theory deny power; on the contrary, in anarchist theory this is a central issue for all human societies and the limiting of power is a constant concern. Bakunin recognised the great human drive for power ( Maximoff, 248ff ) . Anarchy is, after all, the condition in which there is the maximum diffusion of power, so that ideally it is equally distributed - in contrast to other political theories, such as Marxism, in which power is transferred from one social group ( class ) to another. It is, of course, true that much anarchist thinking regarding power has been muddled by 'utopian' dreaming of the ideal society where no-one infringes on anyone else. Godwin and Kropotkin, for example, believed that in the course of time the human race would evolve towards a condition where all were good to their fellows and did not try to take advantage. But other anarchists are not such optimists about human nature; if they were they would not be so worried about the uses and abuses of power.

Max Weber stressed the difference between power and authority. In any society, individual members recognise certain others as having authority within specified realms. Thus, in modern society, members accept as legitimate the right of certain individuals to carry and, where 'necessary', to employ firearms, in order to apprehend suspected law breakers. These policemen invariably wear special dress. Members of this society do not recognise as legitimate the use of force by others, such as gangsters. In both cases coercive force is· employed. In the first the power is authority since it is seen as legitimate and right; but the second is not authority; it is the illegitimate use of power. Something of this kind of distinction can be identified in all societies. Yet a significant modification of Weber's terminology is in order. Most Canadians would eagerly subscribe to the notion that the power of the Ottawa government is legitimate, but some would only acquiesce to that power. The several generations of colonial rule of the Dutch in Indonesia, for example, commenced as a pure case of the imposition of brute and raw force. But with the passage of time it acquired a certain 'legitimation' , so that the power became authority in Weber's terms. But it becomes legitimate power because the Indonesians learned to acquiesce: they grew accustomed to the situation and tacitly accepted it. Raymond Firth has noted that power acquires some kind of support from the governed either because of "routine apathy, inability to conceive of an alternative or acceptance of certain values regarded as unconditional" (123). Most authority commences as the raw power of the gangster and evolves into the 'legitimate' authority of tacit acquiescence. This is certainly the history of the nation state. Fried observes that legitimacy is the means by which ideology is blended with power. The function of legitimacy is "to explain and justify the existence of concentrated social power wielded by a portion of the community and to offer similar support to specific social orders, that is, specific ways of apportioning and directing the flow of social power" (Fried, 26).

No philosopher or social theorist accepts the legitimacy of 'raw' use of power and none rejects totally and completely any and all kinds of authority. Even the anarchist recognises that there is a place for legitimate authority. An anarchist conception of legitimate authority was long ago intimated by Proudhon: " . . . if man is born a sociable being, the authority of his father over him ceases on the day when his mind being formed and his education finished, he becomes the associate of his father. . . " (n.d. ,264) . Later Bakunin wrote: "We recognise then, the absolute authority of science . . . Outside of this only legitimate authority, legitimate because it is rational and is in harmony with human liberty, we declare all other authorities false, arbitrary and fatal " (Maximoff, 254).

Paul Goodman in Drawing the Line writes of natural coercion in which the infant is dependent upon his mother or the student upon the teacher - cases in which teaching is involved with the intent of increasing the independence of the one to attain the level of the other (1946) . I don't know whether Fromm ever read Proudhon, Bakunin or the early Goodman, but certainly his view of the nature of authority closely parallels and further explicates that of his anarchist predecessors. Fromm distinguishes, as does Bakunin, between 'rational' and 'irrational' authority. Rational authority has its source in competence; it requires constant scrutiny and criticism and is always temporary. It is based upon the equality of the authority and the subject "which differ only with respect to the degree of knowledge or skill in a particular field" . "The source of irrational authority, on the other hand, is always power over \ people" - either physical or mental power (9). Stanley Milgram has said that people appear to believe that those in positions of authority, including politicians, are the most knowledgeable. But perhaps this is only wishful thinking in an attempt to justify their authorities. People delude themselves into thinking that through the electoral process they put those in office who are intellectually superior.

Modern society has many in authority who have earned rationally the right to authority, but it has many whose claim to authority is irrational and they are our politicians, judges and policemen. These the anarchist rejects, accepting only rational authority. Anarchists· recognise that there are specialists, that is, authorities in various realms, who are accepted as such because of their expertise. Yet one can readily see the potential danger inherent even here, that those holding one form of authority may seek to extend their power· so that rational authority is transformed into irrational authority. Closely related to the concept of authority is that of leadership. Again, no one can deny that there are individuals who appear in every human group who stand out as influential persons for one reason or another. The anarchist movement has long accepted leaders within its own folds, even though it has remained suspicious of the general idea. Although group leadership is a universal of human social organisation, it is, at the same time, necessary to stress that leadership is conceived differently amongst different peoples. The Pygmies and Hopi of Arizona express an anarchist distrust of leaders, such that h that each individual seeks to avoid the leadership role, blending into the group as much as possible.

Since societies have order and structure and must deal with the problem of power, they are therefore involved in politics. When we use the word politics, we are concerned with power and its uses in a human group. Not only do all societies have politics, but they have political organisation or political systems - that is, standardized ways of dealing with power problems. Political organisation is not a synonym for government. Government is one form of political organisation. Politics may be handled in a variety of ways; government is just one of those ways. Thus it is clear that even anarchism as a theory does not deny or oppose politics or political organisation. It is, on the contrary, very political.

In the broadest sense politics can be applied to any kind of social group-. That is, there may even be politics within the family - where clearly the distribution of power between father, mother, son and daughter is a major issue. A local club also has politics in a similar small-scale fashion. Ordinarily, however, when one speaks of politics or political organisation, one does not think of the internal affairs of the family. Political organisation applies more to 'public' affairs - relations which are territorial and cut across kinship groupings. Politics involves a substantial geographical area - a community, or at least an extensive neighbourhood. Yet even this kind of conceptualisation leads to ambiguity as to whether one is dealing with political or family affairs. We may have a confrontation between two groups related by kinship, but beyond the level of extended family (for example, two patrilineages), which would be considered at least as a quasi-public affair. Nevertheless, the terms of address employed and the atmosphere of the exchange will unmistakably be those of kinship.

Social sanctions

Neither anarchy , nor anarchist theory in sum, is opposed to organisation, authority, politics, or political organisation. It is opposed to some forms of these things, especially to law, government and the state, to which terms we must now proceed. Radcliffe-Brown proposed the term 'sanctions' to apply to the manner in which a social group reacts to the behaviour of any one of its members. Thus, a positive sanction is some form of expression of general approval. A soldier is given a medal; a scholar an honorary degree, or a student an award; mother kisses little junior for his good behaviour, or daddy gives him a piece of candy. A negative sanction is the reaction of the community against the behaviour of a member or members; it expresses disapproval. Thus, a soldier may be court martialled; a scholar fired or put in jail; a student failed in course work or ostracised by fellow students and the child slapped b y his parent. It seems obvious that it is the negative sanctions which become most important in any society.

Sanctions may also be categorised as being 'diffuse', 'religious' or 'legal'. Here my interpretation deviates slightly from that -of Radcliffe-Brown. Diffuse sanctions are those which are spontaneously applied by , any one or more members of the community. Crucial to the conception of diffuse sanctions is the notion that their application is not confined to the holder of a specific social role. They may be imposed by anyone within a given age/sex grade or, occasionally, there may be no limit to who may initiate them. This is the meaning of diffuse: responsibility for and the right to impose the sanction is spread out over the community. Society as a whole has the power. There is no special elite which even claims a monopoly on the use of violence as a sanctioning device. Further, when and if sanctions are applied is variable, as is the intensity of the sanctions imposed.

Diffuse sanctions include gossip, name calling, arguing, fist fighting, killing and ostracism. Duelling and formal wrestling matches are less widespread forms. Inuit have ritualised song competitions in which two opponents try to outdo one another in insults before an audience which acts as judge. Diffuse sanctions may be resorted to by an individual or a group. And their effectiveness is enhanced as the entire community joins in participation in the sanctions. Vigilante style action and feuds are common forms of diffuse sanction which depend upon collective action.

In many societies, fines and other punishments are meted out by an assembly. Radcliffe-Brown calls these 'organised' sanctions. Yet they are still not 'legal' but have the character of diffuse sanctions, of a more formalised type, if the assembly has no authority to use force in executing its decisions. In such instances the assembly members act as mediators rather than judges and are successful to the extent that they can convince two disputing parties to come to some compromise. Diffuse sanctions are a universal form of social regulation; if a social group has nothing else it will have various techniques which can readily be classified as diffuse sanctions.

Religious sanctions involve the supernatural. 'Black magic' may be performed against a person; one may be threatened with the eternal torment of hell, or encouraged with a positive religious sanction promising everlasting ecstasy in heaven. The Nuer leopard skin chief may get his will done by threatening to curse another. The Ojibwa Indians believed infractions of the rules led to the acquisition by supernatural means of specific kinds of diseases. Thus, religious sanctions may either have a human executor, as in the case of a curse which must be invoked, or be seen as automatic, as with the Ojibwa belief, or the idea that breaking out of the ten commandments commits one to hell fire. In another respect religious sanctions are either those which are intended to bring forth punishment in this life, or those which are for an after-life: physical versus ultimate spiritual punishment.

Legal sanctions involve all expressions of disapproval or approval of the behaviour of an individual wherein: a) such expressions are specifically delegated to persons holding defined roles, one of the duties of which is the execution of these sanctions; b) these individuals alone have the 'authority' to threaten use of violence and use it in order to carry out their job and; c) punishments meted out in relation to the infraction are defined within certain limits and in relation to the 'crime'.

Policemen, justices of a court, jailers, executioners and lawmakers are examples of those who may enforce legal sanctions. In our society they collectively constitute a government. The state, through its agent the government, declares it has the monopoly on the use of violence against others within society, meaning that only certain agents of the state, for example, policemen, can take a person off the street and put him or her in jail. Only certain collectivities, that is, the courts, can determine guilt and assess a punishment in accord with what others, the lawmakers, have established as law. Finally the punishment connected with a legal sanction is fairly standardised and precise. A person found guilty of robbing a store will receive, say, a year to ten years in prison.

Legal sanctions are laws. Laws exist where one has specific social roles designed, or delegated, to enforce regulations by force of violence, if necessary and where punishment has certain defined limits and is not capricious. Law exists where you have government and the state; conversely, if you have a government you have law. Legal sanctions, and thus law and government, are not universal, but are characteristic of only some human societies - albeit the most complex ones. Such societies also, it should be borne in mind, retain a peripheral position for both diffuse and religious sanctions.

Malinowski suggested that the term 'law' should be applied loosely to cover all social rules which have the support of society (Malinowski, 9-59). Such usage, however, obscures the fundamental and important difference in the means by which different rules are enforced. Law and government are invariably associated with rule by an elite class, while governmentless societies are invariably egalitarian and classless. Hence, Malinowski's loose usage obfuscates the important difference concerning who, or what, enforces regulations.

It should be clear that any society characterised by the prevalence of legal sanctions can hardly be called anarchic. As we shall note in considering some of the case studies below, there are marginal examples. There is no clean-cut line between anarchy and government. The relation of anarchy to diffuse and religious sanctions, however, requires some futher clarification. In the social theory of anarchism the idea of voluntary co-operation has been made the positive side of the coin of which abolition of government is the negative. Where the idea of voluntary co-operation is so critical to anarchist thought, it is important to consider it in relation to the nature of functioning anarchic polities, giving special attention to the employment of diffuse and religious sanctions. Voluntary co-operation, like its antonym, coercion, is a highly ambiguous term. From one point of view nothing may be seen as purely voluntary and all acts as being in some way coerced. For one thing, it might be said that conscience, ego, id, 'the inner spirit' or what have you, are fully as coercive forces as the policeman, or as public ostracism. However, coercion may be best conceived as a relationship of command and obedience, wherein the commanding force is· either human or supernatural, but is always external to the individual person. Ideally, for true voluntary co-operation t9 prevail, there must be no such forms of external coercion. Yet, in fact, even anarchists themselves accept the use of such coercive force and limit voluntary co-operation. In their everyday activity' in their writings and in their own creation of anarchist communes and societies, anarchists use a variety of diffuse sanctions. Some have advocated and applied what are clearly legal sanctions.

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the type of society envisioned by a Bakunin or Proudhon from a decentralised federal democracy. Towards the end of his life, Proudhon seems to have moved away from his advocacy of voluntary association, towards a sort of minimal state. " . . . (I)t is scarcely likely", he writes in Du Principe Federatif, "however far the human race may progress in civilisation, morality, and wisdom, that all traces of government and authority will vanish" (20). For him anarchy has become an ideal type, an abstraction, which like the similar ideal types, democracy and monarchy, never exist in a pure form, but are mixtures of political systems. "In a free society, the role of the state or government is essentially that of legislating, instituting, creating, beginning, establishing; as little as possible should it be executing . . . . Once a beginning has been made (for some project) the machinery established, the state withdraws leaving the execution of the new task to local authorities and citizens" (45). Proudhon has become an advocate of a federal or confederal system, in which the role of the centre is reduced "to that of general initiation, or providing guarantees and supervising . . . (T)he execution of its orders (are) subject to the approval of the federated governments and their responsible agents" ( 49). He cites the Swiss confederation with approval. "If I may express myself so" , Proudhon had written in a letter of 1864, "anarchy is a form of government or constitution in which the principle of authority, police institutions, restrictive and repressive measures, bureaucracy, taxation, etc, are reduced to their simplest terms" (quoted in Buber, 43). We are left wondering if the elder Proudhon would now not feel more at home with such early American opponents of centralised government as John Taylor of Caroline or John Randolph of Roanoke, even John Calhoun.

Bakunin, who absorbed most of Proudhon's federalist ideas, presents a similar problem. In describing his idea of a federal system in the Organisation of the International Brotherhood, Bakunin makes some disconcerting statements: "The communal legislatures, however, will retain the right to deviate from provincial legislation on secondary but never on essential issues . . . " while the provincial parliament "will never interfere with the domestic administration of the communes, it will decide each commune's quota of the provincial and national taxation". There are to be· courts and a national parliament as well. This national parliament "will have the task of establishing the fundamental principles that are to constitute the national charter and will be binding upon all provinces wishing to participate in the national pact". The national parliament "will negotiate alliances, make peace or war, and have the exclusive right to order (always for a predetermined period) the formation of a national army" (Lehning, 72-73). Bakunin's anarchy sounds like a decentralised federalist democracy. Yet a year after writing this document he seems to redeem himself for anarchy in an essay on Federalisme, Socialisme et Antitheologisme: "Just because a region has formed part of a State, even by voluntary accession, it by no means follows that it incurs any obligation to remain tied to it forever." "The right of free union and equally free secession comes first and foremost among all political rights" (Lehning, 96).

Kropotkin favourably described the early Medieval city . commune as an anarchistic system, when, as we shall note below, it surely had a governmental structure. The same may be said concerning the 'anarchist collectives' established in the Ukraine in 1917 and later in some of those in Spain. Even such an individualist anarchist as Josiah Warren saw the need for organised militias. And most anarchists have legitimised military force to achieve their ends, or have considered it an unfortunate necessity. In a word, anarchists have sometimes been equivocal about legal sanctions, to say the least.

In focusing on highly centralised realms of coercion in modem society such as the state and the church, they have also tended to neglect the sometimes more oppressive force of such diffuse sanctions as gossip and ostracism. Nevertheless, there is an important difference between the coercion of the state and. the coercion of diffuse sanctions, which may in part justify anarchist reliance on the latter while rejecting the former. In the state or government there is always a hierarchical and status difference between those who rule and those who are ruled. Even if it is a democracy, where we suppose that those who rule today are not rulers tomorrow, there are nevertheless differences in status. In a democratic system only a tiny minority will ever have the opportunity to rule and these are invariably drawn from an elite group. Differential status is not inherent in diffuse sanctions. Where a group or individual employs gossip or ostracism against another person, that person may freely use these same techniques. Where differential status is associated with diffuse sanctions, such as in the command position of the father over his son, we do have a form of coercion which begins to approach that of government. Yet still the father role has the quality of a rational authority and a young man may expect eventually to 'graduate' to a position of greater equality with his father, eventually achieving fatherhood himself. In no diffuse sanctions is there a vesting of the power to employ violence into the hands of a restricted group of commanders.

Anarchism as a social theory cannot, and I believe in actuality does not, reject all forms of coercion. While its advocates may wield the slogan of voluntary co-operation, it is recognised that this too has limits. For anarchists there is a tacit and, for many, an overt recognition of the legitimate use of some kind of force in some circumstances and this force is what anthropologists refer to as diffuse sanctions. Indeed, as psychologists have informed us and as Allen Ritter has lately reiterated, these sanctions are imperative for the development of personality. The growth of the individual's self image relies upon knowing what others think of his or her behaviour. At the same time, the operation of sanctions instills awareness of others and so builds community by building empathy (Ritter, 1980): Concerning religious sanctions, anarchist theoreticians have generally looked upon religion as another oppressive system aimed at curbing the free expression of the individual. Michael Bakunin, e.specially, saw God and the state as two great interrelated tyrannical ogres which must be destroyed. All well-known anarchists at least opposed the church - religion being seen as an organised and hierarchical social structure. Even Tolstoy agreed in this, although his anarchism derived from his interpretation of a Christianity which stressed the literal acceptance of the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount.

The Catholic Worker Movement is a rather unusual development within American anarchism. Led by a convert to Catholicism, Dorothy Day, it professes both an adherence to the principles of pacifist anarchism and to the Roman Catholic Church - a kind of Catholic Tolstoyan movement. Few outside this movement have understood how anarchism, or for that matter any moderately libertarian doctrine, could be reconciled with Roman Catholicism and its dedication to an absolutist monarchy - the papacy - and to a rigid hierarchical structure. Most anarchists see any religion as an authoritarian system, but are all religious sanctions necessarily incompatible with anarchy? I think not. We must appreciate the distinction made above between those religious sanctions which require human mediation and those which are 'automatic'. A religious sanction which is least compatible with anarchy and takes on some of the character of . a legal sanction, is one which can only be invoked by a specific individual as part of a formal office and where there is consensus that such a person has a legitimate monopoly on the power - ie, the authority - to impose sanctions. The priest is the best example of this. On the other hand, where the power to invoke religious sanctions is available to the many and not legitimately monopolised, we have a situation which parallels diffuse sanctions. A punishment which is believed to come directly from God or some other supernatural force, does not require human intervention and is more on the order of subjugation to natural occurrences such as storm and earthquake. Indeed, it is quite clear that punishment by one's conscience is a sanction of this order. Those religious sanctions which parallel diffuse sanctions, as well as those which require no human intermediary, do not seem incompatible with anarchy as we have here conceived it.

Government and the state

Conceptions of government and the state and the relationship between them are often confused. Marxists and some anarchists, including Bakunin, declare their opposition to the state and desire to replace what is called 'political' government with a government over 'things'. But this seems like playing with words and sloganeering.' Any 'things' are going to be manipulated by people and will therefore be seen as in need of governing because people are involved. So it is still a government over people. Further, one cannot abolish the state and still have a government, since the latter is the institutional apparatus by which the state is maintained.

Nadel (1942, 69-70) has given three specific characteristics of the state and in doing so has also indicated the role of government in the state. First, the state is a territorial association. It claims 'sovereignty' over a given place in space and all those residing within that area are subject to, and must submit to, the institu1ion of authority ruling or governing that territory, that is, the government.

While the state is a territorial entity, it is often an inter-tribal and inter-racial structure. The criteria for membership are determined by residence and by birth. Membership is ordinarily ascribed, although one may voluntarily apply to join if one immigrates and settles within the territory of the state.

The state has an apparat.us of government and this is to some degree centralised. The government functions to execute existing laws, legislate new ones, maintain 'order and arbitrate conflicts to the exclusion of other groups or individuals. It comprises specific individuals holding defined social roles or offices. Crucial to the definition of such roles is the claim to a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within that territory. The part played by the different role holders in using violence may vary so that there can be a highly differentiated system or division of labour (cf the discussion of legal sanctions above). All are in any case part of a single integrated monopolistic institution. Such a situation differs, for example, from the role of the Inuit shaman who may threaten a victim with violence, since the shaman cannot claim a monopoly on its legitimate use.

The ruling group in any state tends to be a specialised and privileged body separated by its formation, status and organisation from the population as a whole. This group collectively monopolises political decision. In some polities it may constitute an entrenched and self-perpetuating class. In other more open systems such as a democracy, there is a greater circulation or regular turnover of membership of the ruling group, so that dynasties or other kinds of closed classes of rulers do not ordinarily occur. This, of course, contributes to the illusion of equality of power in a democracy and obscures the division between rulers and ruled.

Fundamental to both government and the state is the employment of violence to enforce the law. This may be variously viewed as either the imposition of the will of the ruling group, or as a device to maintain order, keep the peace and arbitrate internal conflicts. In fact states and governments fulfil all these functions by enforcing the law. It is theorists of the left and especially anarchists, however, who emphasise that the paramount and ultimate end of all law enforcement is to benefit the ruling interests, even though there may be positive side effects such as keeping the peace. They would further emphasise that the existence of the state is conducive of strife and conflict since as a system based upon the use of violence it thereby legitimises and incites it. The state is further predicated upon the assumption that some should be bosses giving orders while others should be subordinates - a situation which can only irk the subordinates and frustrate them and, thus, become yet another provocation of violence. Democratic systems may ameliorate this situation but they do not cure it. By their nature state and government discourage, if they do not outlaw, the natural voluntary co-operation amongst people, a point made by Benjamin Tucker and more recently in some detail by Taylor. Anarchist theory is therefore clearly opposed to Hobbes' thesis that without government society is nasty and brutish. Indeed, anarchists set Hobbes on his head and argue that the world would be more peaceful and amenable to co-operation if the state were removed. And, clearly, the anthropological record does not support Hobbes in any way. Stateless societies seem less violent and brutish than those with the state.

Above all, the state and government are organisations for war. No more efficient organisation for war has been developed. It is interesting and perhaps ironic that right-wing and anarchist theoreticians have converged in recognising the significance of violence to the life of the state. Machiavelli's practical guide to the operation of a state has disturbed many a naive believer in democracy, since the Italian politician recognises force and fraud as the obvious central mechanisms for the success of any state. Von Treitschke, the German historian whose greatest hero was Frederick the Great, observed that "without war no State could be. All those we know of arose through war and the protection of their members by armed force remains their primary and essential task. War, therefore, will endure to the end of history as long as there is a multiplicity of States . . . the blind worshipper of an eternal peace falls into the error of isolating the state, or dreams of one which is universal, which we have already seen to be at variance with reason" since a state always means one among states and thus opposed to others (38). "(S)ubmission is what the State primarily requires . . . its very essence is the accomplishment of its will" (14). "The State is no Academy of Arts, still less is it a Stock Exchange; it is Power. . " (242).

The pioneer British anthropologist, Edward B Tylor, wrote in his Anthropology, "A constitutional government whether called republic or kingdom, is an arrangement by which the nation governs itself by means of the machinery of a military despotism" (156).

Nietzsche, who contrary to popular opinion was no friend of the state, noted its predatory nature: "The State (is) unmorality organised . . . the will to war, to conquest and revenge. " As a predator the state attempts to become larger and larger, ever ·expanding its sphere of influence and subjugation at the expense of other weaker states. It is true that in the course of time in this interstate struggle most states opt out of the conflict and resign themselves to becoming satellites of larger states, realising they cannot effectively compete. It is also true that the giant states may not always. seek to gobble up weaker states, because they find it better for their own interests to keep such states as ostensibly independent entities. Thus, in the modem world, we have super powers which are in the midst of the struggle for expansion, carrying on the traditional predatory role of the state - the United States, Russia, China, France, and. the United Kingdom ( now marginally ) . There are innumerable satellite states of each of the big predators. There are those - usually known as 'Third-world' states - which may try small order predation against neighbouring states, but on the whole they keep their independent status and opt out of full conflict because they are buffers between, or pawns of, the big predators. Finally there are a few states such as Switzerland and until recently Lebanon which are perpetually neutral zones; the big predators do require such zones in which to operate, particularly for information gathering purposes.

Conclusion

The classification of sanctions discussed above may now be summarised in relation to political systems by means of the following diagram presented as a continuum with anarchy, where there is 00 government, at one end and archy, where the state and government clearly exist, at the other. Under anarchy only diffuse and certain supernatural sanctions are operative, while archy is characterised by the prevalence of legal sanctions. In the middle, between the two poles, there is a limbo which may be seen as a marginal form of anarchy or a rudimentary form of governmental or archic system. There are many anomalous cases of this kind and we shall consider some of these below. Such entities may possibly be considered as transitional examples from anarchy to statism. As Lowie has said, states do not appear full blown out of the stateless condition; they too must evolve or develop and this takes time.

Maine in his Ancient Law was the first to explicate an evolutionary typology of tribal or stateless society on the one hand and the state type society on the other. The first was based on kinship ties, in which every member believed he was related to all others in the group. Members obeyed a head man, not as a ruler of a state, but as a senior kinsman, as head of a family, a father. Early societies were all of this type and in the course of time some evolved into societies with a different basis of membership - that of territory . 'Local contiguity' rather than kinship became the basis for deciding the ultimate authority. Such a society entails a government and a state. Gluckman has noted that Maine meant to stress that the 'revolution' in social order comes about when dwelling in a certain territory was sufficient to grant citizenship without having to create some kinship tie either by marriage, adoption, or through inventing a genealogical connection. "The alteration comes when a kinship idiom to express political association is no longer demanded" (86).

My continuum should not be interpreted as an evolutionary scheme, in which culture history is a one-way street where tribal or anarchic societies only become state type societies, while the reverse does not occur. At any point in time, individual societies may be placed along the continuum. In addition, any given society may have different positions in the course of its history. The major thrust of history seems to be the transformation of stateless into state societies, but, as we shall note below, there are examples as well of the reverse and of societies which seem to oscillate back and forth between the two opposite poles. In addition, let us not forget that even if the trend of history and evolution favours the change from anarchy to archy, this does not thereby make that process right and good.