Anarchist Studies Journal 19.2

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Anonymous
Anarchist Studies; 2011; 19, 2; Alt-PressWatch
pg. 2
Editor
Ruth Kinna
Department of Politics, History and International Relations, University of Loughborough,
Loughborough LE11 3TU
Book reviews editor
Dave Berry, Department of Politics, International Relations and European Studies,

Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3T U
Associate editors
L. Susan Brown (Independent), political and social theory

Richard Cleminson (University of Leeds), Spanish and Portuguese
Carl Levy (Goldsmiths College), social policy/politics
Jon Purkis (Independent), human and health sciences
Sharif Gemie (School of Humanities/Social Sciences University of Glamorgan)
Lewis Call (California Polytechnic State University), intellectual history
Art editor
Allan Antliff (University of Victoria), history of art
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Cover illustration: Clifford Harper,
Clifford Harper 2011
Portrait of Colin Ward,
pen and ink water colour
Anarchist Studies
is indexed in Alternative Press Index, British Humanities Index, CIRA,

Left Index, International Bibliography of the Social SCiences, Sociological Abstracts and
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table of contents
Anonymous
pg. 3
Contents
About this issue's cover
Introduction: Colin Ward
5
(1924-2010)
Carl Levy
Colin Ward: Sower of anarchist ideas Peter Marshall
16
'The man who knows his village' Colin Ward and Freedom Press Pietro Di Paola
22
Colin Ward and the New Left David Goodway
42
Colin Ward and Kropotkin's legacy Brian Morris
57
Colin Ward: anarchism and social policy Carissa Honeywell
69
Colin Ward: Anarchy and organisation Robert Graham
84
Social anarchism, lifestyle anarchism, and the anarchism of Colin Ward

Stuart White
92
REVIEWS
Mohammed A. Bamyeh, Anarchy as Order: the History of Civic Humanity
105
Reviewed by Alex Prichard

Ross Bradshaw, Ben Ward, Harriet Ward and Ken Worpole (eds.),
Remembering Colin Ward,
Stuart Christie
1924-2010 Reviewed by Sharif Gemie
106
& Albert Meltzer, The Floodgates of Anarchy
Reviewed by Keith Hodgson

Ronald Creagh,
107
Utopies Americaines: Experiences libertaires du XIXe siecle
a nos jours Reviewed by John Clark
109
Costas Douzinas and Slavoj Zizek (eds.), The Idea of Communism

Reviewed by Brian Morris
112
Simon Fairlie, Meat: A Benign Extravagance Reviewed by Matt Wilson
114
Paul Goodman New Reformation Reviewed by Carissa Honeywell
116
Jamie Heckert and Richard Cleminson (eds.), Anarchism
& Sexuality. Ethics,
Relationships and Power Reviewed by Gwendolyn Windpassinger
118
Gustav Landauer, Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader,

Edited and translated by Gabriel Kuhn Reviewed by Matt Wilson
121
Sheila Rowbotham, Dreamers of a New Day Reviewed by Brian Morris
124
Derek Wall, The Rise of the Green Left: Inside the Worldwide Ecosocialist
Movement Reviewed by Brian Morris
126

Antliff, Allan
pg. 5
Anarchist Studies is fortunate indeed to feature a new pen and ink portrait of Colin
Ward (based on a photograph taken near Ward's home) by Clifford Harper, one of
anarchism's most well-known illustrators and critical voices. Harper's career spans four
decades and I was recently reminded ofjust how significant it has been while
conducting research in Leeds over the summer. Checking out the City Museum, I
came across a video interview with council tenants who reside in refurbished nine
teenth-century row housing (,back-to-backs'). One interviewee, who was black and
had been involved in anti-racist activism, had two posters by Harper (one declaring
'class war, not race war: the other stating 'life can be magic when we start to break free')
proudly displayed on his living room wall. Which goes to show that Clifford Harper's
graphics are not only outstanding for their craftsmanship: they radicalise people.
My own first encounter with his work came by way of a now very battered
edition of Class 1%r Comix no. 1 ( 1 974), reprinted in 1978 by 'Kitchen Sink
Enterprises, Wisconsin: which had found its way to the Librairie Alternative book
store in Montreal. The comic relates the story of life on a rural commune, where
anarchists must decide how to combat resurgent political authoritarianism after a
revolution. I still own it, and I remember how impressed I was by the afterword,
where Harper revealed he began drawing the comic 'in 1972, after four years of
communal living [and] squatting'. This is the sort of 'reality check' that, for me, has
always made his work stand out: that and the ways his illustrations have served as the
graphic touchstone for some of the most inspiring developments coming out of the
UK. I am thinking of the covers for Elephant Editions' insurrectionary pocket
books; the London Anarchist Bookfair posters (always arresting, and at times
bitingly ironic); or the remarkable range of politically-charged graphics that have
been silk-screened onto t-shirts, patched and sewn into jackets, stickered, postered,
spray-painted on walls or banners, reproduced in zines, journals, books, and now, in
the twenty-first century, are circulating the internet.
Harper is also a gifted writer, and his illustrated history, Anarchy: A Graphic
Guide, is a remarkable example of how complex ideas can be communicated in a
clear accessible way (a new edition is currently in the works). I gave a seminar on
anarchism and art a few years ago and ordered copies for my class to serve as the
survey text. The students had nothing but praise for the book, and of course it was a
pleasure to introduce them to anarchism in this fashion. Harper's style has developed
considerably since he first put pen to paper in the early 1 970s, and he now has his
own imprint (Agraphia Press) dedicated to 'maintaining the tradition of radical,

didactic black and white drawing' which flourished between the 1 890s and 1920s in
the work of anarchist artists Camille Pissarro, Felix Vallotton and Franz Masereel.
All great illustrators, certainly, and Harper is every bit their equal and then some.
Allan Ant/iff
Clifford Harper adds:
I first met Colin and Harriet in 1969 when I was living at Eel Pie Island commune
(on the River Thames above Richmond). Later we worked together on the first
version ofAnarchy -A Graphic Guide (Camden Press 1987). Colin, who shared
with me the precarious existence of a freelancer, secured my longest running regular
job, drawing the covers of the Town and Country Planning Association Journal
which I'm still dOing. Thank you Colin. This is the third portrait of Colin Ward I've
done - the first was for Anarchists: Thirty Six Picture Cards (Freedom Press 1994),
and the second was for Stamps: Anarchist Postage Stampsfor After the Revolution,
Sixteen Portraits, with a foreword by Colin Ward (Rebel Press 1997).
http://www.agraphia.co.uk/home.html.
-
Introduction: Colin Ward (1924-2010)

Levy, Carl
pg. 7
Anarchist Studies 19.2 2011
ISSN
0967 3393
www.lwbooks.co.ukljournals/anarchiststudies/
Introduction: Colin Ward (1924-2010)

Carl Levy
I am personally not waiting for concerted action, for I am in my own person
concerted action! I am not waiting for the revolution, for I am myself the revolu
tion! Before the revolution comes, you must have the revolutionary. Before you
consolidate the masses you must be sure of the individual.
From the papers of Sapper Colin Ward, December 19441
This special issue ofAnarchist Studies is dedicated to the life and thought of Colin
Ward, one of the most significant thinkers and activists in the British anarchist
movement in the second half of the twentieth century. Born into a Labour family
(his father a primary school teacher and later headmaster and his mother a short
hand typist) in suburban Essex, Ward became an anarchist during the Second World
War in that most authoritarian of institutions, the army.2 Stationed in Scotland, he
discovered the vibrant anarchist sub-culture of Glasgow, where he read Herbert
Read and George Barrett.3 He was swept up in the war Commentary trial of 1945, in
which a group of anarchists (Marie Louise Berneri, John Hewetson, Vernon Richards
and Philip Sansom) were accused of disaffecting troops, and Ward acted as a rather
cagey witness (for years after he was ribbed as 'not categorically ward'). But from the
trial he met a group of lifelong friends, who would later form part of the Freedom
Press Group.
Ward did not prosper in school and started to work at the age of fifteen. His
formative job was with the architect Sidney Caulfield, who acted as living link with
the Arts and Crafts movement and the memory of William Morris. He became a
draughtsman and worked in the 1950s and 1960s for a series of architects who
specialized in schools and municipal housing. In the mid-I960s he retrained as a
further education teacher and taught at Wandsworth Technical College; later he
became education officer for the Town and County Planning Association (founded
by Ebenezer Howard as the Garden City Association), and edited BEE (Bulletin of
Environmental Education) for it. He was a prolific journalist, not only in anarchist
Carl Levy
Is
circles (Freedom and then Anarchy [ 1 961-1970] - perhaps the best Anglophone
anarchist magazine ever), but also for New Society, the New Statesman, the
Guardian, etc. His published books for adults (he also wrote two books aimed at
teenagers, Violence and Work) started with the very successful Anarchy in Action
( 1 973) (symptomatically, he wanted to call it Anarchy as a Theory ojOrganization)
which summarized twenty years of journalism. From the 1 970s to the 2000s he
published (many times as a co-author) a series of books and pamphlets on modern
urban life, the modern human environment (water), housing, squatters, cotters and
campers, children and their urban environment, transport, education and play.4
Although he produced books that focused on anarchism directly, not least his
Oxford University Press, Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction (2004), he excelled
in using the anarchist and libertarian method to address everyday life or the
quotidian in the social history of Britain.
Ward was the product of a Britain that no longer exists, where a lower middle or
working class individual could progress into a professional and intellectual career,
without having pursued a university degree. His introduction to avant-garde
thought, modernist literature and the contemporary arts was through political and
friendship circles. But he was cognizant of the changes in education, and by the
1960s realized that a new generation of beneficiaries of higher education were the
target readership for Anarchy. A generation older than the Baby Boomers, he never
theless grew into middle age in the midst of the growth of the welfare state and the
Great Boom of the 1 950s and 1960s. Ward, the anarchist, was a fierce critic of the
post-war welfare state. He argued that it ingrained inequalities and undermined the
self-organised institutions of working-class welfare. It produced well-fed and rela
tively healthy fodder for the hierarchical capitalist system, where a veneer of social
welfare kept the social peace but did not ensure social justice. He never departed
from an appreciation of a civilization founded on mutual welfare, the path not taken
when the Fabians' 'Minority Report' and Herbert Morrison's ways were endorsed by
the Labour Party. But with the end of the Great Boom and the rise of neo-liberalism
in the middle 1970s, he shared Richard Tittmus's animus at the philistine resurrec
tion of 'economic man' (sic) in social policy.
Along with his American friend Paul Goodman and other libertarian socialist
and anarchist mavericks of the 1950s and the early 1960s, Ward set the scene for a
radical critique of consumer capitalism and the military industrial complex, tran
scending the logic of East and West, which burst on the scene in the middle and late
1 960s: indeed Ward told an radio interviewer in 1968 that he could sense anarchy in
the air. I first encountered Ward's work in the late 1960s as a teenaged university
,
Anarchist Studies 19.2
Colin Ward (1924-2010)
student at the University of Buffalo, when 1 got my hands on some superb back
issues ofAnarchy. (Ward had long-term connections with the pacifist/libertarian/
anarchist American Left, from Dwight MacDonald's politics in the 1940s to
Liberation in the 1 960s, of which I was an avid reader.) The covers ofAnarchy by
Rufus Segar were enough of an attraction, but the message of the magazine was even
more important.
Young Americans at that time were consumed by the war in Vietnam and the
war in the American ghettoes, and many of my friends, fired by a fierce anti-imperi
alism, were attracted to the Pentagon's stubborn adversaries in Southeast Asia;
feeling a moral necessity for solidarity with peoples our country was busy inciner
ating, they adopted an unthinking 'Third Worldism' and Marxism Leninism
('automatic Marxism' as Ward called it),S which was uneasily mixed with the
wonders of illicit drugs, funny costumes or American Civil War fancy dress and po
faced concept rock albums.
By the tail end of the 1 960s the formerly libertarian spirit of the first American
New Left was drowning in 'vanguardism', sectarian psycho-drama and a posturing
militarism, the last of which was a mirror image of the underlying brutality of main
stream 1960s America itself For me Ward was a steadying hand: being an 'empirical
softie: Ward realised that radicalism here and now could not dress in nineteenth
century garb - Marxist or anarchist - but had to address the problems of our soci
eties. ('I don't think you'll ever see any of my writings in Freedom which are remotely
demanding a revolution next week: he explained in an interview in 1997.6) Ward's
Anarchy combined a quiet, reasoned anarchism with a piercing critique of the Great
Boom societies of the 1960s and an endorsement of direct action which was more
than gesture politics or Maoism or Trotskyite gymnastics; and of course its strangely
foreign and exotic language and concepts were alluring to an American. (What on
earth were these adventure playgrounds ? How could you squat buildings without
getting your head staved in by a billy club (a police truncheon) ?) And Ward intro
duced me to interesting names dead or alive: Gustav Landauer, Alex Comfort,
Martin Buber, etc. Forty years later 1 still have copies of this wonderful journal.
The articles in this issue cover Colin Ward's life and times and analyze his
uniquely approachable, open-ended and creative form of anarchism. Peter Marshall,
David Goodway and Pietro Di Paola place the development of Ward's thought
within the context of his biography. Marshall gives us a generous portrait of the man
and in the course of it outlines the unique aspects of his form of anarchism. Di Paola
discusses the importance of Ward to the development of the newspaper Freedom
during the late 1940s and the 1950s, and foreshadows the appearance of Anarchy in
Car/Levy
1961. Goodway discusses the relationship between Ward, the Freedom Press Group
and the British New Left of the 1950s and 1960s, and analyzes the nature of
Anarchy.
One of the themes in Goodway's treatment, which reappears elsewhere in other
contributions, was the Englishness of Ward. Of course Ward was a great internation
alist: one need only recall the affectionate ties he fostered in Italy?, Scandinavia,
Spain, North America and elsewhere; and the Freedom Group was a cosmopolitan
conclave. But Ward's empiricism, his insistence that he did not do theory, and even
his retiring but firm personality, were shaped by his Englishness; and it can be seen
in the ever-present traditions of Dissent, and in William Godwin and Mary
Wollstonecraft (that is who Peter Marshall and Ward discussed the first time they
met one summer's eve in the early 1970s), as well as in the subjects of Ward's invalu
able historical detective work, which revealed the lost world of seaside do-it-yourself
huts and other forms of hearty mutualism, the cotters and squatters, which invoked
an anarchist take on the myth of the 'Free Born Englishman' (sic).
In its initial years from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, many key personalities
of the British New Left sought to employ non-sectarian libertarian socialism to
understand the modern world, and Colin Ward was part of this intellectual milieu.
Anti-Stalinist former Communists and the anarchists and those in between found
common ground after the Hungarian Revolution, the Suez Crisis and rise of CND.
An emergent humanist socialism, the sense of impending doom fostered by the East
West nuclear arms race, and the rediscovery of workers' control and non-party
council communism, helped construct a new ideological force field on the Left.
While many of the New Left's older generation could never quite abandon a senti
mental attachment to communism (E.P. Thompson), which separated them from
Ward's instinctive anti-Marxism, the theme of Englishness does bring Ward and the
New Left together. Attitudes towards George Orwell reveal an interesting cross
cutting pattern. While Peter Sedgwick and Raymond Williams aligned with Ward's
appreciation of Orwell's work (Orwell had supported the defendants in the 1945
U'llr Commentary trial), however, this was not the case with the increasingly liber
tarian Thompson (see the dramatic changes in the two editions of his biography of
William Morris ( 1 955) and ( 1 976)). But Thompson too was an empirical English
'softie' of sorts, since he shared Ward's suspicion of high theory - revealed in his
vicious and delightful duels with the British followers of Louis Althusser8 - and had
undertaken a similar quest to rescue the common folk from the condescension of
posterity. But, like William Morris himself, Thompson could never abide the label
anarchist. More open to persuasion was Raphael Samuel, who in later life praised
Colin Ward (1924-2010)
Ward's social histories; and this appreciation was reciprocated by Ward. Perhaps it
was the complex nature of Orwell's Englishness (was he in fact a misplaced 'Tory
anarchist'?)9 which Thompson found revolting. That being said, Ward's attraction to
some forms of pluralist liberalism - in Isaiah Berlin or Alexander Herzen and his
modern promoters - was alien to the mindset of Thompson and other New Leftists
(perhaps with the exception of old Guild Socialist/pluralist, G.D.H. Cole, who also
showed great sympathy to anarchism), because these two thinkers buttressed Cold
War 'NATO' intellectual hegemony.
The signal influence ofKropotkin upon Ward is the theme of Brian Morris's
contribution, and of course Kropotkin's love affair with English civil and voluntary
society mirrors similar feelings in Ward's interventions. As Morris relates, in charac
teristic modesty, Ward believed that his life's work was merely an updated footnote
to the Russian's Mutual Aid. But Morris outlines the similarities and differences in
the work of both.
Ward's first major published works revolved around the post-war housing
shortage and the rise of squatting. The New Criminologists of the 1960s were influ
enced by Ward and were published in Anarchy, and later in life he was the Centenary
Professor of Social Policy at the LSE in 1995-96. Carissa Honeywell emphasizes
Ward's pioneering historical investigation of the libertarian, decentralized mutualism
of British working-class social welfare. She also raises interesting questions about the
similarities of Ward's anarchism to such concepts as the informal self-service
economy (and the work of the sociologist Ray Pahl), co-production, Local Exchange
Trading Systems, social capital (and Robert Putnam), and even the mirage-like 'Big
Society' and its 'Blue Labour' twin.
While Kropotkin's influence on Ward is well known, Honeywell emphasizes the
importance ofProudhon's political economy. Ward felt that the British Left's fear of
owner-occupation of housing was misguided (although he was firmly against the
privatization of public goods such as water). Ward felt that owner-occupation, self
help and mutualism created a form of self-determined citizenship. His thoughts are
not without relevance in the early twenty-first century. The American sub-prime
'Ponzi scheme' was stimulated by bi-partisan government policy to turn poorer
Americans into owner-occupiers, but had the effect of turning house ownership into
a cash cow. The ensuing crash of 2007-2008, leading to the bailout of banks and the
sovereign debt crisis, had the paradoxical effect of weakening the already sickly
welfare state on both sides of the Atlantic. It did not, as some initially predicted,
strengthen Keynesian policy or signal a return to the post-war welfare state. And
more generally, the decline of the welfare state was aided and abetted by consumer
Carl Levy
112
booms in the 1990s and 2000s, in which 'piggy bank' homes (through schemes of
equity withdrawal) and credit cards counteracted the long-term depression in the
rise of real wages since the 1970s. Now the chickens have come home to roost, but
here it is best to remember that Ward always believed (like Proudhon) that there was
a need to couple personal ownership and the artisanal or self-service economy with
the mutualization of credit, a radical slogan which has great potential today if the
Left could reclaim 'common sense' from European deficit hawks and the American
Tea Party. Given the fact that the trans-Atlantic financial system is still largely owned
by the State directly or propped up indirectly through Quantitative Easing, the
mutualization of credit might be a democratic and popular policy, with enormous
left-libertarian potential. It is a pity that Colin Ward is no longer with us. 10
Robert Graham discusses Ward's anarchist theory of organization. Ward was not
particularly interested in focusing on the theory and practice of anarchist organiza
tions. If he had had his way Anarchy would have been called Autonomy, but more
sectarian comrades objected. The age ofBakunin and Kropotkin had passed, and by
the 1960s Ward anticipated the concepts we now associate with post-anarchy. Thus
radical action was not informed by a quest for perfectionism or a reckoning with the
present order (Ward wrote, 'there is not a final struggle, only a series of partisan
struggles on a variety of fronts'). 11 Or, as Ward argued, one could never reach a free
society, but one could struggle for a 'free-er' society. And we should also recall the
fragment at the beginning of this introduction, with its hint of Gustav Landauer:
one needed to form a libertarian personality in which to ground self-determined citi
zenship - which anticipates the arguments of Richard Day and a host of
post-anarchists in the early 2000S.12 Well before the American New Left coined the
phrase, Ward understood that the 'personal was political'. But Ward's form of 'post
anarchism: or more accurately radical autonomy, was guided by the political
lodestars Alexander Herzen and Isaiah Berlin, rather than an acquaintance with
post-structuralism. Indeed, as Goodway shows, Ward asked Berlin to write a piece
for Anarchy on Zeno ofCitium (he gracefully declined but expressed his admiration
for Anarchy). Thus Ward embraced the two waves of anarchism in the post- 1945
period: from the 1950s to the 1970s he was a libertarian gadfly of the welfare state
and embraced the growing rank and file insurgency of the working class; and later,
when neo-liberalism and the decline of heavy industry ushered in a new political
economy, Ward was prepared for the self-service economy and DIY alter-globaliza
tion politics.
Ward, Graham argues, combined an appreciation for Bakunin's concept of feder
alism and for Kropotkin's stress on the voluntary nature of engagement in
Colin Ward (I924-201O)
federations, or, more accurately for Ward, networks. But in order to counteract the
trends towards bureaucracy, stasis and top-down decision-making which earlier anti
organizationalist anarchists detected even in anarchist political organizations, Ward's
ideal-typical organizations were voluntary, functional, temporary and small; indeed
for Ward the Freedom Group of the late 1940s and 1950s was the template, which
combined a friendship circle with interlocking networks of expertise. Ward sought
those fleeting pockets of anarchy that occur in daily life. And, like Kropotkin, he
adopted a dualist approach to the study of history - to return to a point highlighted
in Morris's contribution - a history in which decentralizing and bottom-up move
ments clashed with 'Roman' statist centralizers.13 As Graham reminds us, Ward the
historian and commentator noted the spontaneous order of the revolutionary inter
regnum, something that is present in the dynamics of the Arab Spring - and, one
could add, the other 'Springs' and 'Summers' which have encircled the globe in
20 1 1.14 Thus in 1997 Ward praised Hakim Bey's concept of the Temporary
Autonomous Zone, unlike his old friend Murray Bockchin (whose pioneering
articles on ecology and anarchism were published in Anarchy in 1967), who, as
Marshall reminds us, Ward, in his typical low-key but forceful manner, felt had
grown sectarian and egocentric in his later years.
In the final contribution, Stuart White examines the relationship between Ward,
social anarchism and lifestyle anarchism. As should be clear by now, Ward blended
these two forms of anarchism.ls We have already seen that by the 1950s or 1960s
classical anarchism for Ward was inspiring but of historical interest; instead, as
White explains, he endorsed George Molnar's interventions in Freedom and
Anarchy, where Molnar argued that anarchism was a form of permanent protest,
which carved out zones ofliberation. But this form of anarchism was not merely
'bumming around: as one contributor in Freedom put it in 1963 (an early expression
of what Bookchin would find distasteful in 'Lifestyle Anarchism' so many years
later). Anarchism as permanent protest had a long-term aim. Like the 'classical anar
chist' Errico Malatesta, Ward saw anarchism as a gadfly of the Left and the status
quo (Malatesta's biographer was Vernon Richards, Ward's Freedom Group comrade
and dear friend; while Richards's father, Emidio Recchioni, had been a close comrade
of Malatesta, who had also spent many years in London exile).16
Anarchism should not be a dour religious millenarian sect. As Di Paola shows,
Ward appreciated the eighteenth-century cobbler who was inspired by radicalism of
the early Baptist or Quaker sects, but disavowed the sectarianism of the latter-day
Exclusive Brethren he knew too well. So a touch of Hakim Bey was not to be
shunned; a taste of the good life here and now was essential to nurture a libertarian
Car/Levy
personality : we are not merely, as White writes (sounding very Herzen-like), 'tarmac,
as it were on the highway of history'.
Carl Levy is
a Reader in European Politics in the Department of Politics,

Goldsmiths, University of London. He has written extensively on the social history
and history anarchism; he is author of Gramsci and the Anarchists and is currently
writing a biography of Errico Malatesta.
NOTES
1 . I would like to thank Pietro Di Paola for alerting me to this document which was
found at the National Archives, Kew, London. It is a from a report on Colin Ward,
from the Special Branch, 4 January 1945, seized from the papers of Sapper Colin
Ward in December 1944 by Captain E. Davies, Royal Engineers, Millfield Camp,
Strornness, Orkney Islands (National Archives, Subject: 'War Commentary &
Freedom Press', 347/ 14/29).
2. For biographical overviews of Colin Ward, see David Goodway, Anarchist Seeds
Beneath the Snow. Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writersfrom William Morris
to Colin Ward (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006) pp. 309-325; Stuart
White, 'Making Anarchism Respectable: The Social Philosophy of Colin Ward',
Journal ofPolitical Ideologies, 12, 1 (2007), 1 1-28; Ross Bradshaw, Harriet Ward and
Ken Worpole (eds.), Remembering Colin Ward 1 924-2010 (Nottingham: Five Leave
Publicatins, 201 1); Carissa Honeywell, A British Anarchist Tradition. Herbert Read,
Alex Comfort and Colin Ward (London: Continuum Press, 201 1), pp. 1 33-1 82. For a
good overview of Colin Ward's published work, see Chris Wilbert & Damian White
(eds.), Colin Ward. Autonomy, Solidarity, Possibility: The Colin Ward Reader
(Edinburgh: AK Press, 201 1).
3. George Barrett, Objections to Anarchism (London: Freedom Press, 192 1 ).
4. Some of his books and pamphlets were devoted to applying the anarchist method to
social life. See: (with Anthony Fyson) Streetwork: The Exploding School ( 1 973);
Tenants Take Over (1974); Housing: An Anarchist Approach (1976); The Child in the
City (1978); When We Build Again, Lets Have Housing that Works! ( 1 985); The
Child in the Country (1988); (with Ruth Rendell) Undermining the Central Line
( 1989); Welcome, Thinner City: Urban Survival in the 1 990s ( 1 989); Talking Houses
( 1 990); Freedom to Go: After the Motor Age ( 1991 ); New Town, Home Town: The
Lessons ofExperience ( 1 993); Talking Schools ( 1 995); Talking to Architects (1996);
Havens and Springboards: The Foyer Movement in Context ( 1997); Reflected in Water:
Colin Wttrd (1924-2010)

A Crisisoj'Social Responsibility ( 1997); (with Peter Hall) Sociable Cities: The Legacyoj'
Ebenezer Howard (1998). Three co-authored monographs and one single-authored
monograph were devoted to social history. See: (with Denis Hardy) Arcadiafor All:
The Legacy ofa Makeshift Landscape ( 1984; (with Denis Hardy) Goodnight Campers!
The Historyoj'the British Holiday Camp (1986); and (with David Crouch), The
Allotment: Its Landscape and Culture (1988); Cotters and Squatters: Housing's Hidden
History (2002).
5. Colin Ward (ed.), A Decadeoj'Anarchy (1961-1970) (London: Freedom Press, 1987),
p. 8.
6. Goodway, Anarchist Seeds, p. 320.
7. For instance, he was widely published in Italy by Eleuthera.
8. E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory: and other essays (London: Merlin Press, 1978).
9. P. Wilkins, '(Tory) Anarchy in the UK: the Very Peculiar Practice of Tory Anarchism',
Anarchist Studies 17, 1 (2009), 22-44.
10. Guido Giacomo Preparato, 'Of Money, Heresy, and Surrender (Part I): The Ways of
Our System, An Outline from Bretton Woods to the Financial Slump of2008',
Anarchist Studies 17, 1 ( 2009), 1 8-47; Guido Giacomo Preparato, 'Of Money, Hersey
and Surrender, Part II: A Plea for a Regional and Perishable Currency', Anarchist
Studies, 1 8, 1 (20 1 0), 4-33; David Graeber, Debt: the First Five Thousand Years (New
York: Melville House Publishing, 201 1 ).
1 1 . Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action (London: Freedom Press, 1973, p. 26.
12. Richard Day, Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements
(London: Pluto Press, 2005).
13. I discuss the dual nature of history in Carl Levy, 'Social Histories of Anarchism',
journalfor the Studyoj'Radicalism, 4, 2 (2010), 1-44.
14. Mohammed Bamyeh, 'Anarchist, Liberal and Authoritarian Enlightenments: Notes on
the Arab Spring: Kuturaustausch, Sept, 201 1, forthcoming; and, more generally, see
Mohammed Bamyeh, Anarchy as Order. The History and Future ofCivil Humanity
(Lanthan, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2009).
15. Laurence Davis, 'Social Anarchism & Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unhelpful Dichotomy',
Anarchist Studies, 1 8, 1 (20 10), 62-82.
16. C. Levy, Errico Malatesta: The Rooted Cosmopolitan, the Life and Timesoj'an Italian
Anarchist in Exile (forthcoming).
Colin Ward: Sower of anarchist ideas

Marshall, Peter
pg. 16
ISSN
0967 3393
Colin Ward: Sower of anarchist ideas

Peter Marshall
ABSTRACT
Drawing on personal experience, this article examines Colin Ward's life and works,
explores the nature and originality of his anarchism and argues that he was one of
the great British anarchists of the last half of the twentieth century.
Keywords Colin Ward, biography, anarchism
1 . INTRODUCTION: COLIN WARD, INDIVIDUAL AND ANARCHIST
Colin Ward was a determined sower of anarchist ideas in many fields and one of the
most influential British anarchists since the Second World War. However stony the
ground, he continued to scatter his seeds far and wide and they often took root in
the most unexpected places.
I first met Colin Ward in the early 1970s when he was living in south London.
He appeared in shorts on a summer's evening and invited me into his kitchen. We
discussed the writings of William Godwin, the father of British anarchism, and his
companion Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of British feminism, and how they
personally united two great traditions. I Among other things, I found we shared an
interest in the common use ofland, allotments, dweller control within the home,
community action in society, and education for the happiness of all. I appreciated his
wish to extend the span of autonomy at work and the sphere of free action every
where. And I celebrated with him the playful creativity of children, however difficult
their circumstances.
Colin Ward for me represented the best in the British anarchist tradition. Mter
becoming an anarchist whilst a soldier posted in Scotland during the Second World
War, he never wavered in his belief in the harmful effects of government and
imposed authority and the incalculable benefits of a federal, decentralized society of
Colin Ward: Sower ofanarchist ideas
17 1
self-governing communities. As he declared in a radio interview in 1 968, he was 'an
anarchist-communist, in the Kropotkin tradition'.2 Like Kropotkin, he recognized
that there are libertarian and authoritarian tendencies in society, and wished to
encourage the former to the detriment of the latter. He was very clear that an anar
chist society is 'a society which organizes itself without authority' and that anarchism
is a description of human organization rooted in the experience of everyday life.3
With these firm beliefs, he helped make, along with Vernon Richards, Nicolas
Walter and others, the paper Freedom and the journal Anarchy the centre of
thoughtful and constructive anarchism in Britain. His main theoretical work,
Anarchy in Action ( 1 973), based on a series of articles written for them, was widely
translated and reached far beyond the anarchist circle of enthusiasts. It confirmed my
belief in the practical possibility of anarchism, not in some distant future but here
and now.
Towards the end of his long life, the man who loved to quote others was
immensely gratified to discover that his own most-quoted paragraph was:
When we compare the Victorian antecedents of our public institutions with the
organs of working-class mutual aid in the same period, the very names speak
volumes. On the one side the Workhouse, the Poor Law Infirmary, the National
Society for the Education of the Poor in Accordance of the Principles of the
Established Church; and on the other, the .Friendly Society, the Sick Club, the Co
operative Society, the Trade Union. One represents the tradition of fraternal and
autonomous associations springing up from below, the other that of authoritarian
institutions directed from above. 4
The quotation reflects Ward's admiration for the long and fruitful tradition of
working-class mutual aid and self-help as well as his interest in neglected areas of
social history. He was convinced that the British had taken the wrong road in the
provision of welfare by stifling local and voluntary initiatives and by adopting an
authoritarian and hierarchical approach through the centralized power of the state.
By contrast, he encouraged the voluntary, co-operative and libertarian tendencies
within society and called for the widest possible decentralization of coercive power.
In his view, the four principles that should shape an anarchist theory of organiza
tions are: '( 1 ) voluntary, (2) functional, (3) temporary, and (4) small'.S
In all his writings, Ward celebrated the creative potential, initiative and
autonomy of young people and ordinary folk, of those oppressed and marginalized
by coercive power and authority. If'freedom for the pike means death for the
Peter Marshall
minnow; as the old proverb puts it, there was no doubt on whose side he was and
whose freedom he wished to expand.6 He brilliantly showed that however tyrannical
a state or however desperate circumstances might be, the innate human impulses to
create and co-operate cannot be crushed.
Although self-effacing and drawing extensively on the works of others and
quoting copiously, Ward's warm humanity always shines through his clear and
measured prose. 1 appreciated the way his reviews were invariably positive and 1 was
the fortunate beneficiary on several occasions. Whenever we appeared on radio
together to discuss anarchism, 1 was always struck by his calm and shrewd comments.
But while trying to see the best in people and avoiding the sectarian infighting of
some anarchist circles, he was not incapable of criticizing others. The most patient
and generous of men once wrote to me: 'I lose patience with Murray [Bookchin] and
his belligerence: considering him to be 'rather egocentric'? That could not be said of
Colin Ward.
2. THE QUALITY OF COLIN WARD'S ANARCHISM
Having left school at fifteen to work in an architect's office and largely self-taught,
he would be the first to admit that he was not a theorist in an abstract sense. He
saw himself primarily as a popularizer and propagandist of anarchist ideas: 'I have
been writing for all my adult life, for propagandist reasons; he admitted in his
seventies.8 But it was definitely propaganda by the word, not by the deed, although
he may have inspired others to action. He was no advocate of revolutionary violence
or insurrection but like Godwin sought to change people's opinions and actions
mainly through education and enlightenment. Unlike many propagandists, he was
never economical with the truth or careless about his sources. Avoiding rhetorical
flourishes and dogmatic pronouncements, he made his case with sound reasoning
and careful evidence. And his cause was always freedom.
Ward may not have been an abstract thinker, but he was an original one, often
seeing connections where others saw only differences. When asked, for example, to
plan a lesson on environmental education during a teacher trainer course at Garnett
College in London (while in full flight as editor ofAnarchy), his future wife Harriet
recalls that he described the journey of a tomato seed from being grown in an allot
ment and then passing through a human body, into the municipal sewage system,
down a river and finally out to sea. 9 He was interested in the nuts and bolts of envi
ronmentalism, not just in the poetry of trees, in the city was well as the country.
Ward was also original in applying his profound libertarian sensibility to what he
Colin 1Vard: Sower ofanarchist ideas
called anarchist 'applications' and 'solutions' in a wide variety of fields, from housing,
architecture, planning, social policy, allotments, squatting, and education, to trans
port and water. His books, many of which were written in collaboration with other
authors, all took a definite anarchist point of view and were mainly concerned with
the relations between people and the environments in which they lived, worked and
played. He was particularly keen to show how they could creatively use and trans
form their environments in unofficial and subversive ways to meet their particular
needs and desires.
Ward was clearly a man who knew what he wanted to do and planned his work
well in advance. On 20 Jan 1993, he wrote to me: 'I'm overwhelmed with work,
catching up with a book I was commissioned to write about the lessons of the post
war British New Towns. But then I want to write a book about the pre-20th century
history of squatting - the folklore about if you put up a house between sundown and
sunrise, or vice-versa, you couldn't be evicted. Then I want to write an anarchist
book about water.' The first book was published as New Town, Home Town ( 1 993)
in the same year. But the book Reflected in Jfater: A Crisis ofSocial Responsibility
( 1 997) took four years to appear, and Cotters and Squatters: The Hidden History of
Housing (2004), eleven. He wrote many reviews, articles, chapters and several other
books in between. There was no disorder in the mind or house of this anarchist.
In his endearingly modest way, when asked to write an autobiography, Ward
came up with a collection of essays on his favourite mentors called Influences: Voices
ofCreative Dissent ( 1 991). He read widely in anarchist and socialist literature and
often acknowledged his debts to Godwin and Wollstonecraft for his views ofliber
tarian education; to Kropotkin, for his notion of mutual aid and the humanization
of work in federated networks of autonomous communes; to Martin Buber, for
bringing out the permanent conflict between what he called the 'social principle' and
the 'political principle'; to Gustav Landauer, for reminding him that the state is not
an abstract entity above society but 'a condition, a certain relationship between
human beings, a mode of human behaviour'; to Paul Goodman, for making it clear
that a free society is an extension of already existing spheres of free action; and
finally to Alexander Herzen, for convincing him that one should work for change in
the present rather than in some imaginary future which may never come.10
While acknowledging these influences, Ward decidedly made them his own. His
piecemeal, gradualist approach and his emphasis on practical anarchy in action both
helped form and reflected what I call the 'second wave' of 'post-left anarchy' which
developed towards the end of the twentieth century throughout the West. I I With its
DIY approach and stress on mutual aid and self-sufficiency, it continues to create
Peter Marshall
120
webs of voluntary associations and co-operatives, libertarian institutions and
different experiments in communal living. Although Ward recognized that anar
chists had not achieved in the twentieth century any lasting large-scale changes in
society, he was convinced that in many 'quiet revolutions: they had contributed to 'a
long series of small liberations that have lifted a huge load of human misery: 12 And
in his quiet way, Ward was a major contributor himself to the process.
3. CONCLUSION: COLIN WARD'S LEGACY
Ward will be remembered as one of the great British anarchists of the last half of the
twentieth century and as the one who probably had the greatest influence on social
policy and environmental planning. It is typical of this far-seeing, warm-hearted man
that he should at the end of his long and fruitful life conclude that 'anarchism is the
only political ideology capable of addressing the challenges posed by our new green
consciousness to the accepted range of political ideas. Anarchism comes more and
more relevant for the new century'. 13
Ward was a very modest man who always liked to underplay his important
contribution to social anarchist ideas. Like an ancient Daoist sage, he guided from
behind so that people could say 'We did it' without being aware of his benign and
playful influence. And he practised what he preached: his son Ben recalls that he was
'a very kind and non-interfering parent' and 'a true man of peace: 14 As long as
freedom, autonomy, kindness and conviviality are considered important human
values, Colin Ward will be like 'a seed beneath the snow' (to use one of his favourite
phrases), ready to burst forth wherever there is a thaw in the bitter winter of Western
civilization. 1 5
Peter Marshall is a philosopher, historian, biographer and travel writer and author
of fifteen books. They include William Godwin ( 1984); (ed.), The Anarchist
Writings of William Godwin ( 1986, 1996); William Blake: Anarchist Visionary
(1988, 1994, 2008); Nature's U1eb: an Exploration ofEcological Thinking (1 992,
1994, 1996); Riding the Wind: a New Philosophyfor a New Era ( 1998, 2000, 2009).
His Demanding the Impossible: A History ofAnarchism ( 1992, 1993, new edition
with Epilogue, 20008, 2010) is widely considered to be a standard work.
Website: www.petermarshall.net
Colin Ward: Sower 0/anarchist ideas

NOTES
1. For his view of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, see Colin Ward,
Irif/uences: Voices o/Creative Dissent. (London, 1991 ) [hereafter Influences], pp. 13-47.
2. C. Ward, {ed.), A Decade ofAnarchy (J961-1970) (London, 1987), p. 1 1 .
3. C. Ward, Anarchy in Action (London, 1973) [hereafter Anarchy in Action], p.l 1 .
4. C. Ward, Social Policy: an anarchist response (London, 1996) [hereafter Social Policy],
p. 1.
5. Ward, Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2004) [hereafter Anarchism], p.
31.
6. Quoted in ibid. p. 67.
7. Ward to Peter Marshall, personal correspondence, 20 January 1993.
8. Social Policy, p. 1 .
9 . See Harriet Ward, 'Meeting Colin in the Sixties', Remembering Colin Ward, ed. Ross
Bradshaw et al (Nottingham, 201 1 ), pp. 20-21 .
10. Influences, pp. 88, 85.
1 1. See Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History ofAnarchism (London,
2008); Oakland, CA: 201 0), p. 676.
12. Anarchism, pp. 10,74.
1 3. Ibid., p. 98.
14. Ben Ward, 'What it was like having Colin Ward as a dad', Remembering Colin Ward,
pp. 1 2, 14.
15. Ward, Anarchy in Action, p. 1 1. See also David Goodway, Anarchist Seeds beneath the
Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writersfrom William Morris to Colin
Ulard (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006).
'The man who knows his village' Colin Ward and Freedom Press
Di Paola, Pietro
pg. 22
ISSN
0967 3393
www.lwbooks.Co.ukljournals/anarchiststudies/
'The man who knows his village'

Colin Ward and Freedom Press
Pietro Di Paola
ABSTRACT
It was during the Second World War that Colin Ward came into contact with the
anarchist movement and started his long lasting activity as an 'anarchist columnist'.
From 1943, he became involved in the Freedom Press Group. This article will
analyse his major contributions to J.tr Commentary and then Freedom. It will
examine the role that Ward played in the resurgence of anarchist journalism, from
the late 1940s to the late 1960s, by investigating the relationship and the mutual
influences between Ward and the other activists in Freedom Press. Ward's books
addressed the world outside anarchism and used ordinary real world facts to discuss
anarchist arguments. This article will analyse how these innovative characteristics
developed in his journalism.
Keywords Colin Ward, Freedom Press, War Commentary, British Anarchism
Every couple of years or so I write an article under the title The Man who Knows
his Village .. I have forgotten how the quotation ends but the inference is clear.
The phrase is a sort of shorthand for the series of ideas which to me are funda
mental. For the idea that the man who knows his village understands the world,
that everything important starts in small ways in small places, that the only real
politics are those of the parish pump. For the idea of small communities, dispersal,
fragmentation, the human scale, anarchy.l
.
1 . INTRODUCTION
During the thirteen years of his association with the editorial board of J.tr
Commentary and Freedom, from 1947 to 1960, Ward elaborated his own idea of
The man who knows his village'
anarchism, developed his reflections about the application of libertarian principles to

day-to-day life, and promoted them in the pages of Freedom. In his articles he
addressed a broad range of topics and issues: squatting; housing and urban planning;
workers' control in industries; environment and education. These writings laid the
foundations for his later publications, not only with respect to discussing his
favourite subjects and themes, but especially in the perspective and the methodolo
gies adopted in approaching them. His experience on the editorial board ofFreedom,
the recurrent discussions on the purposes of an anarchist journal, and the role and
limits of anarchist-written propaganda, as well as the feedback received from the
readers over the years, shaped his views about the way in which anarchist ideas
should be promoted to a wider public.
When Ward joined Freedom Press in 1947 he was introduced to a vibrant and
intellectually-stimulating environment. As he later recalled, during the latter years of
the Second World War and the beginning of the 1950s, 'the English anarchist paper
Freedom experienced one of those outstanding periods when the editors work as a
creative group sparking off each others' talents in a periodical which speaks to its
time with a coherent and apposite voice: 2 The two central figures of the Freedom
Press Group were Vernon Richards and Marie Louise Berneri, both children of
Italian anarchist expatriates. They 'reacted on each-other and [ .. ] formed a very
good working partnership:3 In 1936, Richards 'as a very young man [ ... ] blew new
life into what little smouldering fire that was left over by Tom Keele'. 4 The same year
Richards published Spain and the "World and Revolt and, at the start of the Second
World War, 1#lr Commentary which later became Freedom. From the beginning it
was a collaborative project: 'M.L. Berneri's personality and spirit infused every
activity undertaken by Freedom Press since 1936';5 another member, John
Hewetson, was a general practitioner and 'a pioneer of advocacy of freely available
contraception and abortion and of enlightened attitude to drug users: George
Woodcock, 'by far the most prolific of the new pamphleteers: joined the Freedom
Press Group in 1942. His pamphlets on railways, housing and the land and his
pioneering biographies on Godwin, Herzen, and Kropotkin had an enormous influ
ence on Ward.6 Among other members of Freedom Press were John Olday who
contributed his cartoons, Philip Sansom, 'industrial editor and a sharply witty
cartoonist: and Rita Milton, 'a marvellous orator'. Moreover, the group received
many contributions of high quality from Herbert Read, Alex Comfort, the political
scientist Geoffrey Ostergaard, and Gerald Brenan.7
This environment influenced Ward greatly, 'not only about the interpretation of
anarchism, but also about most other things [ ... ] food [ ... ] music [ ... ] perhaps the
.
Pietro Di Paola
most important was attitudes to sexual freedom and enlightenment'.8 His participa
tion with the Freedom Press Group and his enduring relationships with its members
therefore played an essential part both in the development of Ward's conception of
anarchism and his personal life.
2. 'NOT CATEGORICALLY WARD'
Before the war, during the late 1 930s, Ward followed the political views of his
parents, who were 'socialist in the Labour Party sense with the kind of belief in
municipal activity: In Ilford, where he grew up, he was involved in minor political
activities such as sticking 'a special printed sticker on top of posters for Mosley to say
Meeting Cancelled', and 'taking part in various actiyities for collecting Co-operative
Milk tokens for Spain' during the Spanish Civil War.9 It was during the Second
World War that he was introduced to anarchist ideas; as an eighteen year-old
conscript he was sent to work in a military unit in Glasgow where there was an active
anarchist movement. He came across the outdoor platforms of the anarchists and
'became interested in propaganda through reading the publications of Freedom
Press'. Ward remembered that The Philosophy ofAnarchism by Herbert Read 'was
probably one of the first bits of anarchist propaganda which I consciously
read:lOAnother publication was Berneri's pamphlet, Kropotkin and his Federalist
Ideas: 'I heard Frank Leech debating with some communist heckler in Glasgow
Green and referring him to Camillo Berneri [ ... ] I went to the bookshop and spent
tuppence on Berneri's pamphlet. [ ... ] And that was a very small 1 6-page pamphlet
which influenced me a lot.' 1 1 In 1 943, in the anarchist bookshop in George Street, he
bought for the same price one of the best anarchist pamphlets he ever read: George
Barrett's Objections to Anarchism, published by Freedom Press in 192 1 .12 Ward also
subscribed to U'llr Commentary, a 'very cogent and well written newspaper, an
absolute mine of information' that discussed 'the events which led to the participa
tion of the war of the various great powers and what their war aims were', and
reported 'on opposition to the war and on industrial disputes which tended to get
left out of the ordinary press'.l3
At the end of 1 943, encouraged by Frank Leech, a leading Glasgow anarchist,
Ward sent his first article into 1tar Commentary. It appeared in December 1 943 and
was followed by another three pieces, all dealing with the Allied administration of the
liberated countries.14 In this initial series of articles Ward criticised the institutional
organisations {such as the Allied Military Government and the United Nations Relief
and Rehabilitations Administrations} set up in Liberated Europe because they would

'be a reactionary device for maintaining the imperialist control of subject territories
[ ... ] in many ways and with many exceptions this turned out to be true'. 15
From the spring of 1 944, Ward's contributions to 1#zr Commentary stopped for
more than a year, the period when he was posted to the remote Orkney and
Shetlands Maintenance Company, probably because his connections with the anar
chists in Glasgow had emerged. Although, at that time, anarchist ideas did not
change his attitude of 'shrugging your shoulders and lying low which is my mode of
going through life: they 'had something to do with his "growing truculence".' When
he declined to do work that should have been carried out by qualified workers, he
was court-martialled for insubordinate language and disobeying orders and sent to a
military detention camp for fifty-six days over trivial 'matters more of trade
unionism than of anarchism:16 1n the same period, on 1 2 December 1 944, under the
provision of the Defence Regulation Act, Special Branch agents raided the Freedom
Press offices and found the names and addresses of soldiers who subscribed to the
paper, including Ward. Those servicemen were subsequently questioned: 'Like the
adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik: Ward was escorted back to his unit where
his belongings were searched on 29 December; a few days later he was interviewed
by a Special Branch inspector.'7 In the meantime, four editors of 1#zr Commentary
were arrested. A Freedom Press Defence Committee was immediately formed by the
surrealist Simon Watson Taylor which won the support of well-known figures
including E.M. Forster, George Orwell, Benjamin Britten, Bertrand Russell, Michael
Tippet, and Herbert Read.
In April 1 945 Marie Louise Berneri, Vernon Richards, John Hewetson and
Philip Sansom were put on trial charged with disaffecting the armed forces. Ward
was among the five soldiers summoned as witnesses for the prosecution. Asked by
the judge during the proceedings ifhe agreed with everything he read in the publica
tions of Freedom Press, he replied timorously: 'I could not say that categorically, my
Lord'. Ward remembered that for many years afterwards friends 'used always to joke
meeting me and say "Not categorically Ward" [ . .] : 18
At the end of the proceeding, Richards, Samson and Hewetson were sentenced
to nine months' imprisonment; Marie Louise Berneri was found not guilty on a
technicality and was thus able to continue the running of 1#zr Commentary with the
help of George Woodcock.
The trial was very significant for Ward:
.
My own marginal part in the proceeding brought me a rich reward. The defendants
became my closest and dearest friends.19
Pietro Di Paola
3. FREEDOM PRESS
Ward's statement that after the trial the defendants 'emerged to make Freedom the
outstanding journal that it was in the late 1940s' was - according to Samson - 'as
usual, over-modest ... for he, too, was a member of the editorial board at that time.'20
After being demobilised in 1 947, Ward joined the editorial board and began to
attend the fortnightly meetings at which various tasks were allocated.
We were making an effort to compartmentalise things so that Philip Sansom wrote
industrial notes and Gerald Vaughan wrote 'Land Notes' and Tom Earley was
writing educational pieces [ ... ] They were a bunch of people who trusted each
other, who knew that people would do what they said that they would do, and it
would follow the general line of the paper.2 l
They constituted a typical anarchist functional group 'which did not fail because its
members were linked together not necessarily by the same conception of anarchism,
or the same eventual aims, but by the process of doing a particular job which seemed
worthwhile to them'P Interested in the sociology of autonomous groups, Ward
regarded the Freedom Press group as a noteworthy example:
having a secure internal network based on friendship and shared skills, and a series
of external networks of contacts in a variety of fields [ ... ] with the literary world
through George Woodcock, with the world of the emergent Health Service and
the field of contraception and sexual politics through John Hewetson, with the
anarchist publishing groups in other languages through Marie Louise and Vero,
with trade unionism and syndicalism through Philip, through several of us with the
field of progressive education, and with me to those of architecture, housing and
planning.23
As mentioned by Ward, comradeship was
also an important feature of the group.

When Woodcock joined the editorial board of Freedom and Freedom Press, he was
'immensely happy because of the sense of being in a true affinity group' for the first
time in his life.24 Similarly, Sansom, who was introduced to anarchist ideas by Read's
Poetry and Anarchism, 'felt at home immediately' when he visited Freedom Press.2S
Nevertheless, when Ward became a member of the FPG (Freedom Press
Group) it faced several impending difficulties. With the end of the conflict and
Labour's electoral victory 'the kind of common cause between the random collecAnarchist Studies 19.2

tion of anti-war papers like Peace News, or The Socialist Standard or The New
Leader, that kind of beleaguered feeling was gone'.26 Freedom, like other alternative
left-wing papers, experienced a decline in its circulation. M. L. Berneri remarked
that: 'The paper gets better and better and fewer and fewer people read it'.27
Moreover, the Freedom Press Group faced a drastic drop in the sales of their books
and pamphlets as demand for political literature fell after the war. Freedom's slump
in sales was particularly evident at its Sunday outdoor sales in Hyde Park and
Marble Arch. During the conflict these were one of the best means of distribution
and of contacting new people. But, lamented an editorial, 'To-day it seems that
our comrades and sympathisers have more important occupations for their Sunday
afternoons for there are Sundays when no Freedom sellers at all are to be seen at
,
the Marble Arch! 28 In a report about 'the malaise of the FP Group', Ward
reviewed the commitment and workload of each of its members. His own situa
tion, written in third person, illustrated this: 'his [Ward's] architectural work is
taking precedence over the F.P. There are certain justifications for that, being
neither as adaptable nor having had the same educational opportunities as some
members of the group, he has to learn his metier plus stick to it. Intends to do
progressively more'.29 Ward's conclusions about the functioning of the group were
that, 'several of its members are attaching more importance to their own careers or
livelihood, 'or more exactly, are involved in a continual tussle between rival
commitments', a situation that was likely to continue for several years. There was
only one solution to the problem:
to get the group's work done we must get hold of new people. (I would remind you
that, so far as I know, I am the group's only recruit for several years). If you ask:
where are the new people ? I suggest we start by an intensive cultivation of A.
Wavers, J. Philip Harrison, Ivan Avacumovic' [sicpo
However, contrary to Ward's hopes, in the space of few months Freedom Press
Group lost two of its most valuable members. Woodcock abruptly left the United
Kingdom at the beginning of 1 949 and moved to Canada with his wife. A few
months later, a 'terrible blow was suffered in the tragically early death on 1 3 April
1949 of Marie Louise Berneri: who died of a viral infection at the age of
3 1 .3lAccording to Woodcock these two losses caused a slump in the anarchist
movement in the United Kingdom.32 For Ward, this was 'unnervingly true' although
he distinguished 'between a slump in the anarchist movement and a slump in the
circulation of the anarchist press.'33
Pietro Di Paola
As promised in his report, Ward became progressively more and more involved
in editorial work and with contributions to the paper.
4. 'AN EMPIRICAL SOFTIE'
Freedom combined several functions. It was a newspaper in the strict sense, but also
an internal bulletin, journal for the discussion of anarchist theory, propagandist
paper, and magazine. However, the primary interest of the members of the editorial
group was 'anarchism as a way oflife All problems affecting the lives of individuals sexuality, family relationships, the development of authoritarian attitudes and their
acceptance, education - were considered important, worthy of intensive study, and
found space in the pages of the paper. The group was also convinced of the need for
the anarchist movement to take advantage of the advances of research in sociology,
psychology, technology and other sciences, to enrich both their ideas of how a free
society could be structured and the methods of struggle. In particular, practical
experiments in progressive education, agricultural communities, communal experi
ments in Palestine, and organisations encouraging voluntary action for common
objectives like the Peckham Health Centre, were considered ofgreat interest and
importance; part of one comprehensive process, together with the continual struggle
against capitalism and the state.34 In 1 949 this approach led to the accusation that
Freedom was failing to appeal to working-class activity and the paper was 'out of
touch with the workers' who were 'not interested in Sex, Art or Education' but in
their working conditions and the cost ofliving.35 In response the editors stressed the
difference between their approach to the furthering of anarchism and that of their
critics. Their interest did not lie 'in talking of reaching the masses or forming
anarcho-syndicalist organisations'. They aimed at creating 'a movement of militant
anarchists who have thought out their anarchism, have tested it and are convinced of
its correctness' by being in touch with modern thought and research and by keeping
ideas under continuous close examination. 36 Ward (who challenged the concept that
workers were not interested in sex, citing that the News ofthe
World had the largest
circulation of any journal) defended the value of the work done by Freedom Press by
pointing out that libertarian psychologists had shown that authoritarian sexual
morality and the authoritarian education system were key factors in maintaining
passivity among workers. Moreover, in term of its content, Freedom existed for the
expression and exchange of anarchist views and for propagating anarchist ideas; there
was no use 'in filling its pages with sensational and exaggerated reports of every little
dispute, giving it a quite unwarranted revolutionary significance37 He agreed on the

necessity to increase the number of working-class readers, because the most effective
resistance to authority would come from that section of society. The anarchists
should try to transmit their conception of freedom to workers, 'not to patronise
them, nor to plan for them, but to work with them'. However, he was also aware that
the readers of Freedom tended to have a more formal education than the majority of
manual workers to whom, consequently, the anarchist point of view was least acces
sible. Nevertheless, it would have been counterproductive to write 'a lot of
one-syllable claptrap, to dress up anarchism as something more attractive, or to hang
out a Daily Mirror version of Freedom like a flypaper to catch them by pretending
that our views were other than they are:38 According to Ward, to retain its regular
readers Freedom had to 'have enough non-propagandist material of sufficient variety
and sophistication to make the paper a pleasure to read'. Following this principle, he
enriched the paper with articles covering an extensive variety of themes and issues.
He often began them 'with some scrap of personal experience: and ended 'by
drawing some anarchical conclusion from it'39.
It was in the 1 950s that Ward found the appropriate format for the topics he
wanted to write, 'first under the title "Comment" and then, until the end of 1 960 in
the weekly Freedom, under the heading "People and Ideas"'. In these columns Ward
introduced issues that Freedom 'failed to discuss, simply because the people weren't
anarchists or because the ideas weren't in the headlines:40 The broad spectrum of
'unconventional' themes that Ward introduced to his readers was a consequence of
and instrumental to the development of his views on the role that anarchism and
anarchists should play in society.
Already in his reports on the squatters' movement published in U'ilr
Commentary in 1 945 and 1946, Ward had not only praised the 'direct action' and
cooperation of homeless families during the occupation of disused military camps,
but related their action to the problem of 'realism' and the 'practicability of anar
chism: an issue that would be one of the main threads in his later writings.
In camps I visited I found everywhere the hopeful, adventurous, and friendly spirit
that springs from the spontaneous co-operation and instinctive mutual aid that still
remain in our people despite centuries of competitive society [ . ] As anarchists we
see in the squatters' movement a complete vindication of our 'impractical and unre
alistic' principles of direct action and free co-operation.41
.
Moreover, Ward discussed and publicised the activities and movements that could
provide experimental verification of the 'classical' anarchist thinkers' constructive
Pietro Di Paola
Iso
ideas: the Jewish communal settlements, the Bhoodan movement in India, the play
ground movements and the Peckham Health Centre experiment.42 To illustrate the
anarchist aspect of the latter, Ward juxtaposed a series of notes from books and
reports on the centre with quotations from anarchist theoreticians.43 However, the
article provoked a protest from the centre's founder for 'the label or libel' affixed to
his name and Peckham'.44 The authors of a book reviewed by Ward raised a similar
objection: they were opposed to being labelled as anarchist, 'because labels are not a
good idea'.45
Experimental verification was coupled with attempts to find and suggest prac
tical anarchist solutions to particular problems. Influenced by the writings of
Kropotkin and Buber, Ward believed that the task for anarchists and the anarchist
press was to make people aware of the differences between society and the state, to
distinguish between 'the social principles (families, groups, voluntary associations)
and the political principle (power, authority, dominion): and to recognise 'the
inverse relationship between the two: The state was strengthened to the detriment of
society and human freedom when authoritarian solutions were generally accepted.
For this reason, an anarchist newspaper 'with an active even if small readership, was
vital to gain widespread support for common-sense libertarian solutions' and to
create a 'climate of opinion which will treat anarchism as more than a joke or an
"interesting" intellectual attitude.' However, for Ward, celebrating the seventieth
anniversary of Freedom, 'the most encouraging thing about anarchist ideas is that
they never die out:46
Woodcock contributed to the same issue of Freedom with a controversial article
that influenced Ward considerably. Woodcock made a clear distinction: 'As a polit
ical movement in the sense envisaged by Kropotkin and Bakunin anarchism has been
passed over by history; it belongs with the dinosaurs: but it remained valid as 'an
idea, a critical viewpoint and an ideal destination.' The article proposed a forward
looking viewpoint and Woodcock urged anarchists: 'to abandon all ideas of
perfectionism because the ideal society will never exist'; 'to abandon all social,
economic and organisational dogmatism'; 'to re-examine incessantly the ideas associ
ated with the libertarian tradition: 'to beware of the revolutionary illusion [ ... ] and
to abandon the apocalyptic view of the Revolution, the chiliastic dream that the
struggle at the barricades [ ... ] is likely to usher in a free society'. Instead of pursuing
the illusion of 'revolution in our time: libertarians 'should [be] searching out the
various positive tendencies that emerge in society almost spontaneously' and 'trying
to transform them into a trend towards growing liberation from the trammels of the
state: The positive trends that Woodcock indicated were tendencies towards regionAnarchist Studies 19.2

alism, the independence of experts, free education, cultural and economic equality,
urban decentralisation, and the increased mobility of workers. According to
Woodcock, although this attitude could be seen as reformist and 'a retreat into liber
alism: it in fact implied 'a return to those basic social factors that lie at the roots of
human cooperation: and that were 'the libertarian's true field of thought and work:
He concluded that, 'In a world of so much negation it is time to seek for and to
nurture the positive forces:47
Woodcock's contribution received harsh criticisms. There were strong disagree
ments with his remarks on the failure of anarchism as a political movement and his
exhortation to nurture positive trends. Samson claimed that Freedom had always
supported these; in his opinion the 'fashionable' gradualists were asserting that this
encouragement was now 'more important than the general propaganda for the
general philosophy itself or the creation of a movement to put it into practice on as
wide a scale as soon as possible'.48 In this way, Woodcock was reducing anarchism 'to
a sort of cheer-leader for other people's activities: In fact, gradualists ignored how
these trends were initiated, by what forces, and with which struggles improvements
were achieved:
In ten years time some pacifist gradualist will point to the trend towards industrial
democracy in Hungary and say that that is a positive tendency which we should
nurture. And he may not even know that the conditions for that trend to
commence had been won by a bloody revolution complete with barricades,
workers' militia and a lot of out-of-date romantic nineteenth-century heroic
workers who woke up one morning to find their chiliastic dreams coming true.49
A contributor to Freedom, Rita Milton warned that, as long as governmental authori
tarianism remained the basis of organised society, the positive trends that appeared
to be expressions of a freer attitude were always in danger of being reversed and the
positive achievements abandoned. Anarchists should always in their propaganda
remind the public of the threat to freedom inherent in a parliamentary capitalist
society and hold on to a vision of the ideal society, since the absence of an idea of
perfection led to inertia. Therefore, she concluded: 'We cannot be merely content to
move with the trends, we have to be ahead of them: propagating, harrowing and
keeping our own vitality alight otherwise we will all slip into the easy way of giving
up our power to the state whilst clapping our tied hands quietly when the positive
trends make their appearance'. so
Ward later endorsed some of the points raised by Woodcock. Inspired by
Pietro Di Paola
Herzen's statement that 'a goal that is infinitely remote is not a goal at all, but a
deception: he progressively emphasised the need for a practical and empirical anar
chism in society and in favour of the spreading of anarchist ideas outside the inner
circles of militants. In 1957, P.H., commenting on one of Ward's articles, raised the
question of the relation between the anarchists and the non-anarchist progressive
attitudes of well-meaning people who, despite holding such attitudes, did not chal
lenge authority and power on specific issues.51 This question, according to Ward,
touched on 'the dilemma of every anarchist who wants to relate his view of life to the
world he lives in' - the meaning of being an anarchist. Reviewing various types of
anarchist, he identified himself with the 'empirical softie' who 'makes every possible
compromise with the society around us, but since anarchism seeks to replace govern
ment and authority as a means of social organisation by a network of voluntary
non-coercive associations, he looks for examples of this principle of organisation in
existing society and tries to strengthen them and enlarge their scope'. This ran the
risk 'of whittling down anarchism to a kind of National Council of Social Service
attitude' but it was also 'affirming precisely that difference between anarchism and
non-anarchist progressive attitudes: 52 Quoting Geoffrey Ostergaard, according to
whom the task of the anarchist was not to dream about the future society but to act
in as anarchist a fashion as possible, Ward clarified that while the progressive consid
ered 'the value ofvoluntary associations as an indispensable adjunct to the
machinery of government, the anarchist wants them to grow out of that role into
one of responsibility and autonomy: Ward therefore urged anarchists to:
develop those forms of social organisation which are the alternative to the govern
ment and authoritarian social structure [ ... ] This means, by lending our support to
whatever tendencies we can find towards workers' control in industry, toward local
autonomy in social affairs and public services, towards greater freedom and respon
sibility for the young, towards evetything that makes for more variety, more dignity
and quality in human life.53
He also became more critical towards messianic revolutionary action and sectarian
exclusiveness.
This approach entailed strong criticism of the kind of anarchism that postponed
all solutions until after the advent of revolution and the construction of a hypothet
ical free society. For Ward, this was an anarchism that did not develop any critical
analysis of social and economic phenomena because it did not have any contact with
the real world. Consequently, it was 'more akin to astrology' and could not hope for

any enlargement of its impact and influence. Ward's criticisms of the 'millenarian'
approach of some forms of anarchism were inspired by the comparison between the
anarchists and the non-conformist sects published in an article by Paul Gibson, an
article which had influenced him very greatly. Ward commented:
We know from anarchists of our acquaintance that some are exactly like Baptists or
Quakers in the 1 8th century [ .. ] I mean we have our vision of the radical cobbler
of the 1 9th century, who was probably a member of some non-conformist sect and
was opposed to church and state and the landlords and the priests, I feel much like
that cobbler myself [ . ].
.
..
But the comparison with non-conformity also applied to

that kind of religious sect like the Exclusive Brethren who believe that contact with
the outside world is wicked and who are very, very censorious. I have seen ample
evidence of this among the anarchists and this is a trend in anarchist non
conformity which I always set myself against, the moral censoriousness, the looking
out for people who are straying away from the straight and narrow path of the true
believer.54
5. WHAT IS FREEDOM FOR?
Ward started to indicate possible transformations to Freedom from the second half of
1 959. His proposals did not involve merely technical changes - such as the alteration
of the format to avoid long 'grey and forbidding' articles and a small price increase to
reduce financial losses. They extended to more radical changes that were the
outcomes of a process of theoretical elaboration about the role of anarchism in
society.
According to Ward, Freedom needed a stronger, more distinctive character to
attract readers and to retain their interest and loyalty, and more specifically, 'one of
its characteristics should be the use of satire and irony', but not the 'heavy handed
sarcasm which often serves as an inadequate and irritating substitute for it'. Another
distinguishing feature should be an 'attractive combination oflevity and moral seri
ousness'. Freedom needed to shake off its tendency to moralise and should instead
take up the 'bawdy irreverence which other papers cannot afford to adopt'. However,
Ward's most important point was that the anarchists 'have to earn the right to be
taken seriously: particularly in relation to the emerging school of writers on social
Pietro Di Paola
and economic affairs who were making a careful and critical appraisal of Britain's
social institutions. It was no longer enough to locate in the present the correctness of
past anarchist theoreticians; new analysis and researches were needed to develop new
ideas and exercise a greater influence on society.55
For anarchism suffers, as all minority movements suffer, from the fact that its
numerical weakness inhibits its intellectual strength. This may not matter when
you approach it as an individual attitude to life, but in its other role, as a social
theory, as one of the possible approaches to the solution of the problems of social
life, it is a very serious thing [ ... ] Ideas and not armies change the face of the world,
and in the sphere of social science, too few of the people with ideas couple them
with anarchist attitudes. The biggest need today of anarchism, considered as a
social theory, is for a body of social theorists, for a group of anarchist economists,
sociologists, psychologists, to relate our ideas more closely to the social realities of
the second half of the twentieth century.56
Consequently:
The kind of anarchism which is concerned with the day to day search for liber
tarian solutions, which asks which tendencies in our society should be supported,
which opposed, or which ones set in motion, needs the kind of social analysis and
investigation which should be a feature of Freedom in the sixties.
57
Ward reiterated his views at the end of the same year. Analysing the decade of the
1950s, he stressed that the worldwide anarchist movement had not increased its
influence and that, since 'the relevance of anarchist ideas was never so great', the
problem for anarchists was 'how to put anarchism back into the intellectual blood
stream, into the field of ideas which are taken seriously:58
However, his articles did not apparently raise any significant debate within the
editorial group or Freedom's readers.
The issue was brought up again at the end of 1 960 - this time with more signifi
cant consequences. Ward replied to a contribution by P.H. that raised issues about
minority movements, anarchism, and propaganda. In his piece, P.H. remarked that
since anarchism was at a junction between several different minority groups, it was
often 'treated not on the merits of its case, but as one of an indistinguishable array of
minority cults'. Moreover, the anarchists ran the risk of inwardly accepting the idea
of being an ineffective minority, thus making their propaganda efforts fruitless. To
35 1
be successful they had to address the problems faced by ordinary people and, to
achieve it, it was essential to break down
the false dichotomy between the conceptions of ,escapist' revolutionaries and prac
tical minded 'revisionists [ ... ] by showing in practice that anarchism can provide a
realistic way of facing up to practical problems.59
Ward, lamenting that no one had thought it worthwhile to take up the question,
examined at length the implications of P.H:s article and investigated the problem of
sectarianism and utopianism, linking them with the issue ofpropaganda and, more
importantly, with the future of Freedom.
P.H. reopened the question of sectarianism that Ward had previously criticised
in his article on non-conformist sects the year before:
We have all met a kind of anarchism epitomised by the comparison with the sect
type - a concern with the millennium, with some hypothetical future 'free society'
in which all problems will be solved coupled with an impatience with the search for
radical solutions to actual present day problems, a withering intolerance of any
departure by a hair's breadth from the canon of unorthodox orthodoxy; an eleva
tion of personal predilections and prejudices into moral principles and the
assumption of a position of moral judgement over all one's fellows; a paranoid
suspicion of all existing social institutions, assuming that no-one but ourselves can
act in good faith. This is the kind of attitude which the least likeable of anarchists
has in common with the least attractive of non-conformist sectarians, and for those
unlucky enough to encounter it in this guise anarchism must appear to be a
restricting and pharisaical creed rather than a liberating and fructifying influence.6o
6. CONCLUSION: FROM FREEDOM TO ANARCHY
Ward argued that the anarchists were unsuccessful in engaging a potential

audience for their ideas, for example within the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament, because of the incapacity to formulate and offer anarchist alterna
tives in the most important fields of life. Moreover, as Freedom had 'sunk that
much further into the doldrums of the last ten years', 61 forms of elaboration and
means of dissemination of anarchist ideas needed reconsidering. A readership
survey carried out the previous year demonstrated that Freedom was 'only
scratching the surface of the potential readership' of an anarchist periodical, and in
Pietro Di Paola
136
particular did not attract those people who were sympathetic but not 'fully paid
up anarchists'.62 For the first time, Ward proposed a monthly paper. The change
was unlikely to have negative effects on the readership, as the survey showed that
the readers of Freedom were untypical members of the general population; 'highly
literate and who think'. He backed up his proposal citing the fact that ninety-seven
periodicals and newspapers had disappeared over the last ten years, while month
lies were gaining circulation, and arguing that those papers which had undergone
radical changes had better chances of success than those 'whose attitudes and
general atmosphere were formed in the thirties or forties: Behind the proposal was
a clear view of the kind of ideas, and consequently the kind of anarchism, that,
according to Ward, needed to be propagated - and set out the best means to do so.
Ward was frustrated by the fact that the ponderous weekly editorial work heavily
affected the quality of their publication and propaganda. The amount of work and
the strict deadlines prevented the editors from being selective about the contents
and from keeping up contact with potential contributors. The pressure of
producing a weekly made it impossible to follow up particular topics dealt with in
the paper with people outside the movement and from seriously discussing the
problems of anarchism. The conclusions of the analytical articles, which ought to
be clear, detailed and useful, were written 'in the small hours of the morning: and
tended to be vague generalisations or routine denunciations. Less frequent publica
tion would have enabled the group to do more research and to focus more on the
analysis of contemporary capitalism as was the case, for example, of the New Left
magazine. In this way Freedom would be able to put forward more comprehensive
statements of anarchist attitudes to social facts with a greater propaganda effect. It
was time to change priorities:
Time to Think. For we are in a period which calls for us to do a lot of thinking to
undertake in fact the task which we put offyear after year because of our commit
ment to weekly journalism - the systematic restatement of anarchist principles in
contemporary terms, the absorption of current trends in the social sciences into
anarchist theory, the assessment in anarchist terms of the 'oppositionist'
programmes on the Communist countries and a hundred other tasks which call for
more than slogans.63
In an
editorial article dealing with the issue of police and society, Ward's piece
received some vexed comments that probably mirrored the discussions that took
place on the editorial board of Freedom:

Even at the risk of being charged by our colleague and comrade c.w. with being
superficial and utopian, we feel that even if Freedom were an Annual instead of a
weekly, and we had a year to think about the relationship of anarchism to the
police in the 60s of the 20th Century, before committing our thoughts to paper we
would still come to the conclusion that the only thing to do with the police force
(as with the armed forces ) , is to abolish it ! We are fully aware that this is not a very
'practical' suggestion.
64
Ward's proposal initiated an intense discussion among the newspaper's readers and
contributors. Several letters supporting the idea of a monthly magazine were published,
but it was also pointed out that many readers had, 'in passing: lodged pleas that
Freedom should continue as a weekly publication.65 The terms and the outcomes of the
debate were summarised in an article announcing plans to change Freedom. A measure
of the paper's success was the extent to which anarchist ideas were accepted and acted
upon by a growing number of people; some of the editors believed that 'the results of
1 5 years of propaganda have been a dismal failure: Some of them blamed an inade
quacy of 'putting over the idea: others held responsible the indifference of the public; a
third group felt that the intensification of propaganda was necessarily independent of
the public's attitude. A compromise was reached among these positions based on the
premise that the new publication should appear in addition to and not at the expense
of the weekly paper. Therefore, readers were notifled that on the last week ofeach
month they would receive the new thirty-two page anarchist review Autonomy instead
ofFreedom. In February 1961, the flrst issue ofAnarchy appeared - one of the 'best
anarchist periodicals to have been published anywhere:66
With Anarchy a new, decisive phase opened in Ward's editorial work and in his
pursuit of the 'very modest aspiration' that he held: 'nurturing positive trends'.67
is a Lecturer in History at the University of Lincoln. His research

interests focus on the experience of exile in the anarchist movement and social
movements. His publications include P. Di Paola (ed.), Rudo/fRocker sindrome da
filo spinato. Rapporto di un Tedesco internato a Londra (1 914-1 914) (2006); and P.
Di Paola with P. Brunello (ed.), Errico Malatesta, Autobiografia mai scritta (2004).
Recent publications include, 'Popular Songs, Social Struggles and Conflictual
Identities in Mestre-Marghera ( 1970s- 1 980s)', in K. Cowan & I. Packer (eds.),
Radical Cultures and Local Identities (2010); and 'Factory Councils in Turin, 1 9 1 91 920: "The Sole and Authentic Social Representatives of the Proletarian Class": in
Pietro Di Paola
Pietro Di Paola
138
I. Ness
& D. Azzelini (eds.), Ours to Master and to Own (20 1 1). He is currently
writing a monograph on the Italian anarchists in London in the nineteenth and

early twentieth centuries,
The Knights Errant ofAnarchy (Liverpool University
Press, forthcoming).
Email: pdipaola@lincoln.ac.uk
NOTES
1. C. Ward, 'On the Human Scale: Freedom, 1 3 August 1 9S 5, p. 2.
2. C. Ward, 'An Anarchist Testament: Review for Peace News, typescript, International
Institute of Social History, Colin Ward papers.
3. T. Gibson, Transcription of interview with George Woodcock, 27 October 1 982,
International Institute of Social History, Gibson Papers, f. G. Woodcock, p. 9.
4. Transcription of interview with Colin Ward, 27 October 1 982, International Institute
of Social History, Gibson Paper, f. C. Ward, pp. 20.
S. Freedom Press Group, 'M.L.B:s Contribution to the anarchist movement: Freedom, 28
May 1 949, p. 4.
6. Ward to Douglas Fetherling, 14 October 1 992, IISH, Ward papers, b. 1 4S- l S I .
7. C. Ward & D. Goodway,
8.
9.
Talking Anarchy, (Nottingham, 2003)
[hereafter
Anarchy], pp. 4-S; 33-39.

Ibid, p. 40.
C. Ward , The Anti 1#lr Movement, Imperial War Museum interview,
Talking
1 986, 9327-6,
pp. 3-4.
1 0.
Ibid, p.
1 1.
1 1. Transcription of interview with Colin Ward, 27 October 1 982, International Institute

of Social History, Gibson Paper, f. c. Ward, p. 22.
1 2. C. Ward, 'George Barrett's Answers: Raven, 1 2 ( 1 990), p. 333.
13. C. Ward,
The Anti 1#lr Movement, Imperial War Museum interview,
1 986, 9327-6,
pp. 14- 1 S.
14. C. Ward, 1\llied Military Government:
1#lr Commentary, Mid-December 1 943, p. 1 1.

1#lr Commentary, January 1 944, p.
7; 'Europe next Enemies' 1#lr Commentary, February 1 944, p. 1 0, 'Political Use of
Relief: 1#lr Commentary, March 1 944, p.7.
C. Ward , The Anti 1#lr Movement, Imperial War Museum interview, 1986, 9327-6, p. 63.
Ibid, p. 46.
Ward, c., 'UNRRA -a dangerous quack remedy',
1 S.
1 6.
1 7. Inspector Whitehead, Special Report, 4 January 1 945, National Archive,

H04S/2SSS4.
'The man who knows his village'

1 8. Transcription of interview with Colin Ward, 27 October 1 982, International Institute
of Social History, Gibson Paper, C. Ward, pp. 22-23.
1 9. C. Ward, 'Witness for the Prosecution',Inside Story, supplement to
Wildcut, n.
1, 1 974
(IISH, C.Ward Papers, b. 232- 1 37.)

20. P. Sansom, 'Revived 45: Anarchists Against the Army', Inside Story, supplement to
Wildcut, n.
1 , 1974 (IISH, C.Ward Papers, b. 232-1 37.)
2 1 . T. Gibson, , Typsescript of interview with Colin Ward, 27 October 1 982,

International Institute of Social History, Gibson Paper,
C. Ward, p.
1 0.
22. C. Ward, 'Anarchist Activity: Freedom, 2 September 1 950.

23.
Talking Anarchy, pp. 44-49.
24. T. Gibson, Transcription of interview with G. Woodcock, International Institute of

Social History, Gibson Papers,
G. Woodcock, p.
14
25. T. Gibson, Transcription of interview with Philip Samsom, International Institute of

Philip Samson, p.6.
26. T. Gibson, Transcription of interview with Colin Ward, 27 October 1 982,

C. Ward, p.
1 0- 1 1
29.
Talking Anarchy, p. 6.
'The Future of Freedom Depends on Your Support!: Freedom, 7 August 1 948, pp. 2-3.
Colin Ward to Vernon Richards, 3 1 .7. 1 948, IIHS, Vernon Richards Archive, b. 1 ,
30.
Ibid.
27.
28.
1 949.
3 1 . C Ward, '70 Years of Freedom Press: Freedom, 27 October 1 956, pp. 1 -3.
32. T. Gibson, Transcription of interview with G. Woodcock, International Institute of
G. Woodcock, p. 28.

C. Ward, p.
1 2.
34. 'Editorial Comment', Freedom, 1 8 September 1 948, p. 2.

35. M. Kavanagh, 'To the Editors. Not Interested?: Freedom, 5 March 1 949, p.4
36. ' What Are Workers Interested In?', Freedom, 2 April 1 949, p. 4.
37. C. Ward, 'And a Letter on the Subject', Freedom, 2 April 1 949, p. 4.
38. C. Ward, 'What is Freedom for?, Freedom, 27 August 1 955, p. 2.
39.
Ibid..
40. C. Ward, 'Notes of an Anarchist Columnist, Raven, 1 2 ( 1 990), pp. 3 1 5-3 1 6 ..

4 1 . C. Ward, 'Squatters Come to Stay:
r Commentary, 7 September 1 946.
42. The Peckham Health Centre ( 1 935-1 939 and 1 946- 1 950) operated in south-east
London based on the principles of mutualism, autonomy, preventative medicine or
'wellness' and bottom-up decision making. The only requirement were a weekly family
Pietro Di Paola
subscription of 6d and a periodic medical examination. The centre (housed in a strik
ingly modernist building) included a swimming pool, a day nursery, and a substantial
play area. See the interesting article by David Goodway, 'Anarchism and the Welfare
State: the Peckham Health Centre', History and Policy, May , 2007,
http://www.historyandpolicy.orglpapers/paper-policy-55.html , accessed 4 August
20 1 1 .
43. C. Ward, 'The Anarchist Aspects of the Peckham Experiment: Freedom, 1 1 August
1 95 1
44.
S. Williams, 'Autarchy at Peckham: Freedom, 26 August 1 95 1 , p. 2.
45. P. Ritter, 'The Self-Regulating Ritters', Freedom, 1 1 July 1 959.

46. C. Ward, 'It Never Dies', Freedom, 27 October 1 956, p.3.
47. G. Woodcock, 'Nurturing the Positive Trends: Freedom, 27 October 1 956, p. 4.
48. P. Samson, '70 Years of Freedom Press: Academic Nurturing?: Freedom, 3 November
1 956, p. 4.
49.
Ibid.
50. R. M., '70 Years of Freedom: Freedom, 24 Novemebr 1 956.

5 1 . P.H., 'Letters to the Editors. The Tender Trap: Freedom, 19 October 1957, p. 4.
52. C. Ward, 'Letters to the Editors. The Tender Trap', Freedom, 26 October 1 957, p. 4.
53. C. Ward, 'Contrary to Our lnterests: Freedom 25 May 1 957, p. 2.
lnternational lnstitute of Social History, Gibson Paper,
c. Ward, p. 3 1 .
55. See White, S., 'Making Anarchism Respectable? The Social Philosophy o f Colin
Ward: Journal ofPolitical Ideologies, 1 2, 1 (2007), pp. 1 1 -28.
56. C. Ward, 'House of Theory: Freedom, 3 1 January 1 959, p. 3.
57. C. Ward, 'Freedom in the Sixties', Freedom, 24 October 1 959, p. 3.
58. C. Ward, 'A Last Look Round At the 50's; Freedom, 2 December 1 959, p. l .
59. P. Holgate, 'Is Anarchism a Minority Sect Social Force ?; Freedom, 2 2 October 1 960,
p. 4.
60. C. Ward, 'The Muggletonians', Freedom, 2 1 March 1959, p. 2.; 'What Kind of people
do we think we are ?; Freedom, 3 December 1 960, p. 3.
6 1 . C. Ward, 'What Kind of Paper Do We Really Need: Freedom, 10 December 1 960,
p. 4.
C. Ward, p. 3 1 . p. 1 3.
C. Ward, 'What Kind of Paper Do We Really Need', Freedom, 1 0 December 1 960,
lnternational lnstitute of Social History, Gibson Papers,

63.
p. 4.
64. 'Police and the Public: Freedom, 10 December 1 960, p. 3.
65. Several of them supported, with more suggestions, Ward's proposal: D.R., 'Paid
Editors for Freedom?', 7 January 1 96 1 , Ernie Crosswell, ' What Kind of Freedom ?' 2 1
January 1 96 1 , Letter ntitled 'What Two Readers Think: signed S.F. and N.R, 1 8
February 1 96 1 ; Against see: G, 'What Kind o f Paper ?' 7 January 1 96 1 .
66. Talking Anarchy, p. 56.
International Institute of Social History, Gibson Papers, C. Ward, p. 3 1 . p. 4 1 .
Anarchist Studies 1 9.2
Colin Ward and the New Left

Goodway, David
pg. 42
ISSN
0967 3393
www.lwbooks. co.ukljournals/anarchiststudies/
Colin Ward and the New Left

David Goodway
ABSTRACT
This article discusses the relationship between Colin Ward and the British New Left
in the 1 950s and the 1 960s. Although Ward was deeply suspicious of Marxism, there
were participants in the emerging and evolving New Left who were attracted to anar
chism and the libertarian tradition. Thus the complex relationship between leading
figures of the Marxist New Left and Freedom Press Group is disaggregated and simi
larities and differences are noted over, for example, the campaign for nuclear
disarmament and the political legacy of George Orwell.
Keywords Colin Ward, New Left, Anarchism
1 . INTRODUCTION: A TEENAGER DISCOVERS ANARCHISM IN LONDON
When the New Reasoner and the Universities and Left Review (ULR) amalgamated
and the first number of the New Left Review appeared at the beginning of 1 960, I
was a foundation subscriber. I had read, as a schoolboy of seventeen, a report of the
launch meeting in the New Statesman and liked what was said about 'the New Left'.
A year later (in March 196 1 ) Freedom Press began to publish Anarchy with Colin
Ward as editor, an event unremarked on by the New Statesman. In October 1 96 1 , in
London again to appear at Bow Street after my arrest during the Committee of 1 00's
Trafalgar Square sit-down of 17 September, I bought my first copy ofAnarchy (no.
8) at Collet's bookshop in Charing Cross Road. Several weeks later I moved to
London to work there during the autumn and winter of what would now be called
my gap year. I attended the weekly meetings of the London Anarchist Group and
started to read Freedom as well as Anarchy, the first seven numbers of which I now
bought from the Freedom Press Bookshop at Fulham. At the time it seemed to me,
although a jejune reader, that the New Left Review and Anarchy were complemen-
Colin T-ftzrd and the New Lrft

tary, that a significant libertarian correspondence existed between the two journals.
Neither periodical mentioned the other and their political origins were very
dissimilar. Ward was committed to the classical anarchism of Kropotkin and Malatesta
with no interest in, indeed an antipathy to, Marxism; whereas most (although by no
means all) of the New Left had been members of the Communist Party of Great
Britain (CPGB), but in retreat from the 'moral wilderness' of Stalinism, and were
committed to what E.P. Thompson, their principal theorist, called 'Socialist
Humanism: I As a result, I believe my intuition at the time was correct, and I would
contend retrospectively that there was a real overlap between Anarchy and the New
Left Review in consequence of the New Left's revision of the Marxism of the mid
twentieth century through its rediscovery of libertarian socialism.
During 1 962, however, the New Left Review underwent a crisis. Perry Anderson
took over the editorship, and reshaped the journal as much more internationalist and
often dauntingly theoretical; he was committed to introducing the thinkers of what
he was to call 'Western Marxism' to an English readership, both in the journal and
through the publishing house of New Left Books, eventually renamed Verso. This
second New Left, in which Robin Blackburn and Tom Nairn were also prominent,
was far from libertarian, there being only one survivor (Gabriel Pearson) from the
founders of the New Left Review on the new editorial group. In consequence, along
with many other readers, I did not renew my subscription in 1 963, contributing to a
financial crisis for the young journal. It was only, belatedly, in 1 965-6 I appreciated
the intellectual, and even some political, merits of the new New Left Review, and
began to read and eventually subscribe to it once more.
The traditions of the first New Left were continued in The Socialist Register,
edited annually from 1 964 by Ralph Miliband and John Saville, and brought out by
Merlin Press.2 But its intellectual impact was very great, with members of the first
editorial board of the New Left Review publishing between 1 96 1 and 1963 a series of
dazzling books that shaped the intellectual agenda of British radicals for many years:
The Long Revolution (Raymond Williams); The Making ofthe English Working Class
(Thompson); Parliamentary Socialism (Miliband); The Golden Notebook (Doris
LeSSing); Key Problems ofSociological Theory (John Rex); After Imperialism (Michael
Barratt Brown).
-
2. THE GOOD SOLDIER WARD DISCOVERS ANARCHISM

Ward had become an anarchist during the Second World War while serving as a
military conscript in Glasgow, and his first article for U'llr Commentary, the current
David Goodway
Freedom Press periodical, appeared in December 1943 when he was nineteen. It was
in April 1945, as the war drew to a close, that the four editors of U'llr Commentary
were prosecuted for conspiring to cause disaffection in the armed forces - they were
anticipating a revolutionary situation comparable to that in Russia and Germany at
the end of the First World War, one of their headlines insisting 'Hang on to Your
Arms!' - and Ward was among four servicemen subscribers who were called to give
evidence for the prosecution. All four testified that they had not been disaffected,
but John Hewetson, Vernon Richards and Philip Sansom were each imprisoned for
nine months, while Marie Louise Berneri was acquitted on the technicality that she
was married to Richards.3
The following year, still in the army, but now in the south of England, Ward was
able to report on the post-war squatters' movement in nine articles in Freedom, U'llr
Commentary having reverted to the traditional title. When he was eventually
discharged from the army in the summer of 1 947, he was asked to join Freedom's
editorial group, of which George Woodcock had also been a member since 1 945.
This was his first close contact with the people who were to become his 'closest and
dearest friends'.4 The Freedom Press Group was extremely talented and energetic,
and although Woodcock emigrated to Canada in 1 949 and Berneri died the same
year, could summon up contributions from anarchists like Herbert Read (until
shunned in 1 953 for accepting his knighthood), Alex Comfort and Geoffrey
Ostergaard, and such sympathizers as Gerald Brenan.
The rue of Freedom for the late 1 940s and early 1 950s therefore makes impres
sive reading. During the 194Os, U'llr Commentary, followed by Freedom, had been
fortnightly, but from summer 1 95 1 the paper went weekly. The bulk of the contents
had always been written by the editors: in 1950 Ward had provided some twenty-five
items, rising to no fewer than fifty-four in 1 95 1 , but the number declined as he
began to contribute long articles, frequently spread over four to six issues. From May
1 956 until the end of 1960, and now under the heading of 'People and Ideas: he
wrote around one hundred and Sixty-five such columns.
By the early 1 950s characteristic Ward topics had emerged: housing and
planning; workers' control and self-organization in industry; the problems of
making rural life economically viable; the decolonizing societies. He was alert to
what was going on in the wider intellectual world, attempting to point to what was
happening outside the confines of anarchism; drawing on the developing sociolog
ical literature; writing (sympathetically) on Bertolt Brecht (on 5 August and 1
September 1 956); and excitedly highlighting the publication in Encounter of
Isaiah Berlin's celebrated Third Programme talks, 'A Marvellous Decade', on the
Colin mzrd and the New Lrft

Russian intelligentsia between 1 838 and 1 848, to be collected much later (Russian
Thinkers 25 June 1 955). Admiration for Brecht and enthusiastic attention to the
emergence of British sociology he shared with the New Left, but certainly not his
indebtedness to Berlin - a significant influence for Ward, yet always a bugbear to
the Marxist left.
But who was reading Ward's articles ? 1tar Commentary had fared relatively well
in wartime on account of the solidarity and intercourse between the small anti-war
groups, principally Peace News, but also the ILP (Independent Labour Party) with its
New Leader. With the end of the war and Labour's electoral triumph in 1 945, the
anarchists were to become very isolated indeed, Freedom Press being unswervingly
hostile to the Labour governments and their nationalization and welfare legislation.
Ward recalled Berneri saying towards the end of the forties: 'The paper gets better
and better, and fewer and fewer people read it'.S The isolation and numerical
insignificance of British anarchism obtained throughout the fifties also.
3. FROM FREEDOM TO ANARCHY: THE EMERGENCE OF WARD'S ANARCHISM
It was to break from the treadmill of weekly production that Ward began to urge the
case for a monthly, more reflective Freedom, and eventually his fellow editors
responded by giving him his head with the monthly Anarchy from March 1 96 1 ,
while they continued to bring out Freedom for the other three weeks of each month.
Ward had actually wanted his monthly to be called Autonomy: AJournal ofAnarchist
Ideas, but this his traditionalist comrades were not prepared to allow (he had already
been described as a 'revisionist' and they considered that he was backing away from
the talismanic word 'anarchist'), although the subtitle was initially, and now largely
redundantly, retained - until ditched from no. 28 by Rufus Segar, the designer of the
superb covers.6 One hundred and eighteen issues were to appear, culminating in
December 1 970.
In a review of the 1 950s and statement of his personal agenda for the 1 960s
Ward had observed:
The anarchist movement throughout the world can hardly be said to have
increased its influence during the decade ... Yet the relevance of anarchist ideas
was never so great. Anarchism suffers, as all minority movements suffer, from the
fact that its numerical weakness inhibits its intellectual strength. This may not
matter when you approach it as individual attitude to life, but in its other role, as a
social theory, as one of the possible approaches to the solution of the problems of
David Goodway
social life, it is a very serious thing. It is precisely this lack which people have in
mind when they complain that there have been no advances in anarchist theory
since the days of Kropotkin. Ideas and not armies change the face of the world,
and in the sphere of what we ambitiously call the social sciences, too few of the
people with ideas couple them with anarchist attitudes.
For the anarchists the problem of the nineteen-sixties is simply that of how to
put anarchism back into the intellectual bloodstream, into the field of ideas which
are taken seriously?
As editor ofAnarchy Ward had some success in putting anarchist ideas 'back into the
intellectual bloodstream: largely because of propitious political and social changes.
The rise of the New Left and the nuclear disarmament movement in the late fifties,
culminating in the student radicalism and general libertarianism of the sixties, meant
that a new audience receptive to anarchist attitudes came into existence. My own
case provides an illustration of the trend. By 1 968 Ward himself could say in a radio
interview:
I think that social attitudes have changed ... Anarchism perhaps is becoming
almost modish. I think that there is a certain anarchy in the air today .
.
Ward's success was also due to Anarchy's simple excellence. This should not be
exaggerated, for there was definite unevenness. He put the contents together on
his kitchen table. Coming out of Freedom, he frequently wrote much of the
journal himself under a string of pseudonyms - 'John Ellerby', 'Frank Schubert'
(these two after the streets where he was currently living), and 'Tristram Shandy'
- as well as the unsigned items. If promised contributions to an issue failed to
materialize, he would write them himself.9 Even the articles scarcely differed
from, and indeed there was significant recycling of, his contributions to Freedom
back in the 1 950s - for example, the admired issue on adventure playgrounds
(September 1 96 1 ) had been preceded by a similar piece in Freedom (6 September
1 958). Sales never exceeded 2,800 per issue, no advance on Freedom's -2,000 to
3,000.10
The excellence, though, lay in a variety of factors. Ward's anarchism was no
longer buried among reports of industrial disputes and comment on contemporary
politics, whether national or international. It now stood by itself, supported by like
minded contributors. Influenced especially by Kropotkin, Martin Buber and Gustav
Landauer, he had come to believe that 'an anarchist society, a society which organizes
Colin Ward and the New Lift

itself without authority, is always in existence, like a seed beneath the snow .. .' His
kind of anarchism, 'far from being a speculative vision of a future society: was 'a
description of a mode of human organization, rooted in the experience of everyday
life, which operates side by side with, and in spite of, the dominant authoritarian
trends of our society':
... once you begin to look at human society from an anarchist point of view you
discover that the alternatives are already there, in the interstices of the dominant
power structure. If you want to build a free society, the parts are all at hand. I I
As he explained in a remarkable manifesto of 1958, 'The Unwritten Handbook:

published in his 'People and Ideas' column, his was an anarchism ...
which recognizes that the conflict between authority and liberty is a permanent
aspect of the human condition and not something that can be resolved by a vaguely
specified social revolution. It recognizes that the choice between libertarian and
authoritarian solutions occurs every day and in every way, and the extent to which
we choose, or accept, or are fobbed off with, or lack the imagination and inventive
ness to discover alternatives to, the authoritarian solutions to small problems is the
extent to which we are their powerless victims in big affairs. 1 2
Even if there was a significant overlap between the anarchists and the Marxism of the
New Left, overlap did not mean absolute congruence and such thinking was remote
from the Marxism of even the most libertarian New Leftist.
Anarchy exuded vitality, was in touch with the trends of its decade, and appealed
to the young. Its preoccupations centred on housing and squatting, progressive
education, workers' control, and crime and punishment. The leading members of the
'New Criminology' - David Downes, ]ock Young, Laurie Taylor, Stan Cohen and
Ian Taylor - all appeared in its pages. Nicolas Walter was a frequent contributor, and
Ward published both his pair of important articles, 'Direct Action and the New
Pacifism' and 'Disobedience and the New Pacifism', and the influential About
Anarchism for the entire hundredth number ofAnarchy. From the other side of the
Atlantic the powerfully original essays by Murray Bookchin (initially as 'Lewis
Herber') - 'Ecology and Revolutionary Thought' (November 1966), 'Towards a
Liberatory Technology' (August 1967) and 'Desire and Need' (October 1 967), later
collected in Post-Scarcity Anarchism (London, 1 974) - had their first European
publication in Anarchy.
David Goodway
148
4. MARXIST DISSIDENCE, THE NEW LEFT AND COLIN WARD
The campaign for unilateral nuclear disarmament, both through the mass legal agita
tion of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), founded in 1 958, and the
non-violent and illegal actions of the Direct Action Committee (DAC) ( 1 957) and
the Committee of 1 00 ( 1 960), was a shared commitment of Freedom Press, Anarchy
and the New Left. Indeed the emergence of the British New Left was exactly concur
rent with the mobilization of the nuclear disarmament movement, although with
completely unrelated origins, with its members and journals giving vigorous support
to the larger and broader movement against nuclear weapons. It needs to be empha
sized that the New Left in Britain not only predated that in the United States by
several years; it was also much less student-based, with university teachers and estab
lished, albeit young, intellectuals taking the lead, and far less anarchic, while
possessing important libertarian characteristics.13 For almost four decades after the
Russian Revolution most Marxists in whatever part of the world had subjected
themselves to thought control from Moscow as they joined - and were generated by
- the national Communist Parties. The only significant exceptions were, from the
1 930s, the minuscule groups of Trotskyites, purged in the Soviet Union and Spain
and hounded everywhere they were active. From 1 956 all this changed with large
numbers of former Communists remaining Marxists and, while Trotskyism was one
of the gainers, most were not prepared to submit to its equally dogmatic and author
itarian sects, relishing instead their freedom as independent, dissident Marxists.14
In the turmoil following the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union in February 1 956 and the publication of Khrushchev's 'secret letter' in
the West, E.P. Thompson and John Saville had co-edited the Reasoner, a mimeo
graphed discussion journal, the first unauthorized publication ever to have been
circulated within the Communist Party of Great Britain since its foundation in
1 920. The masthead carried a quotation from Marx: 'To leave error unrefuted is to
encourage intellectual immorality'. After three issues and the outbreak of the
Hungarian Revolution the two men resigned from the Party - along with around
7,000 other people.ls In 1 957 Thompson and Saville began to bring out the New
Reasoner, with an editorial board that was to include Ken Alexander, Michael Barratt
Brown, Mervyn Jones, Doris Lessing, Ralph Miliband, Peter Worsley and Randall
Swingler (an editor ofLift Review in the thirties and significantly older than the
others). Several months before the first issue of the New Reasoner, the ULR had
appeared, edited by four recent Oxford graduates, Stuart Hall, Gabriel Pearson,
Ralph (later Raphael) Samuel and Charles Taylor. When the ULR constructed its
Colin 11'llrd and the New Left

editorial board among its members were Alasdair MacIntyre, Alan Lovell and (the
formal link between the two journals) Michael Barratt Brown. After ten issues of
The New Reasoner and seven of the ULR, as we have seen, they merged in 1 960 to
become the New Lift Review, the composite board of which was also bring in Denis
Butt, Lawrence Daly, Paul Hogarth, John Rex, Dorothy Thompson and Raymond
Williams. 16
In what ways, then, did the early New Lift Review and the first New Left overlap
with Anarchy? The ULR group had been close to the DAC, while the New Lift
Review initially supported the Committee of 1 00, whose leaflets were inserted (as I
well recall) between its pages and a member of which, Alan Lovell, participated in a
long and prominent interview about direct action and civil disobedience (although
he had by then resigned from the board).'? Nicolas Walter, a contributor to the
ULR, was invited to write 'Damned Fools in Utopia' about the Committee for the
New Lift Review. 18

But the most strikingly libertarian feature was the stress placed on industrial and
participatory democracy. Denis Butt, a former Shipley woolsorter who had won a
mature scholarship to Oxford and then, until his premature death, was a staff tutor
for the Department of Extra-Mural Studies, University of London, wrote a notable
article on workers' control.I9 As Worsley was to recall:
Many of the key ideas of the early New Left: were ... revivals ofolder socialist tradi
tions from Robert Owen to the Guild Socialists. The work initiated ... drew upon
classic socialist ideas about the need for self-rule by the producers themselves,
rather than rule by politicians and technocrats. Running through ... was the theme
of the emancipation of human capacities. For us democracy meant not just the
ballot box but participation in deciSion-making at all levels, not just at work or at
the level of national institutions hut in all spheres of everyday life.20
So Thompson stressed the need 'to break through our present political conventions,
and help people to think of socialism as something done by people and notfor or to
people, by pressing in new ways on the ground', believing that:
One socialist youth club of quite a new kind ... one determined municipal council,
probing the possibility of new kinds of municipal ownership in the face of
Government opposition; one tenants' association with a new dynamic, pioneering
on its own account new patterns of social welfare - play-centres, nursery facilities,
community services for and by the women - involving people in the discussion and
David Goodway
1 50
solution ofproblems of town planning, racial intercourse, leisure facilities; one pit,
factory, or sector of nationalized industry where new forms of workers' control can
actually be forced upon management ... would immediately help in precipitating a
diffuse aspiration into a positive movement . .. 2 1
A quarter of a century later he articulated his vision of a free Europe in virtually

identical terms:
The nation-state begins to decline in importance, giving way to a heightened sense
of regional and cultural identities ... One would hope to see what used to be called
workers' control or greater autonomy, smaller units of control; public industry
being co-operative, or corporations municipally controlled, and so on. 22
Stuart Hall, the first editor of the New Left Review (and previously one of the editors
of the ULR, which had come out of Oxford), has emphasized the importance of
G.D.H. Cole, 'an austere and courageous veteran of the independent left, who was ...
still teaching politics at Oxford', to the New Left:
Although he was a distinguished historian of European socialism and a student of
Marxism, Cole's socialism was rooted in the co-operative and 'workers' control'
traditions of Guild Socialism. His critique of bureaucratic 'Morrisonian'-style
nationalization was enormously influential in shaping the attitude of many social
ists of my generation towards statist socialism.23
(Clause Four had committed Labour Party in 1 9 1 8 to seeking 'the common owner
ship of the means of production: adding - as a sop to the trade-union militancy of
the decade - that this should be on the basis of 'the best obtainable system of
popular administration and control of each industry and service'; but Labour's
model of nationalization originated under Herbert Morrison, when Minister of
Transport, 1 929-3 1 , with each industry run by a public corporation, whose members
were largely from private industry and none directly nominated by the unions.)
Ward, in turn, appreciated Cole's socialist pluralism, commenting that when he died
I remember being amazed as I read the tributes in the newspapers from people like
Hugh Gaitskell and Harold Wilson alleging that their socialism had been learned
from him ... for it had always seemed to me that his socialism was of an entirely
different character from that of the politicians of the Labour Party. Among his obitu
arists, it was left to a dissident Jugoslav communist, Vladimir Dedijer, to point what
Colin Wttrd and the New Lift

the difference was; remarking on his discovery that Cole 'rejected the idea of the
continued supremacy of the State' and believed that 'it was destined to disappear'.24
The greatest correspondence between the New Left and Anarchy was actually between
Ward and the glossy ULR, equally relishing the street photography of Roger Mayne
and the sociological reports of contemporary Britain. The future social historian
Raphael Samuel was for several years actually employed by Michael Young's and Peter
Wilmott's Institute of Community Studies, helping with their Family and Class in a
London Suburb ( 1960).
Both Ward and the ULR group also esteemed George Orwell, rejoicing in his
trenchant anti-Stalinism and unremitting support for the Spanish Revolution.
Thompson, in contrast, although undoubtedly a left-libertarian,25 abhorred him. They
never met, but Swingler, a particular friend of Thompson from the mid-forties, so
disgusted Orwell by his reply at this time to 'The Prevention of Literature' that Orwell
did all that he could to avoid bumping into him in their local - they both lived in
Canonbury Square - and grew to hate him passionately:
What a smelly little hypocrite Swingler is! Just like the rest of them! Ifhe could do
it without risking his cowardly little hide, he'd take the greatest delight in pushing
me under a bus.26
Thompson wrote on Orwell once only, in 'Outside the Whale' of 1960, and with
great distasteP Although he acknowledged 'the stubborn criticism, the assertion of
the value of intellectual integrity, which Orwell presented throughout the 1 936-46
decade: he considered him a major contributor to what he dubs 'Natopolitan culture:
that is, supporting the values of the West against Soviet Marxism during the Cold
War. He damns him for what he regards as his 'profound political pessimism: but
entirely misses his continuing commitment to democratic and libertarian socialism.28
James Hinton rightly draws attention to Thompson's 'astonishing blindness to the
things he shared with Orwell ...: and his suggestion that, 'Thompson's loyalty to his
own Communist past was interfering with his eyesight' is indubitably correct.29
5. CONCLUSION: 'THE ORWELL TEST', MEMORIES OF COMMUNISM AND
COLIN WARD'S ANARCHISM
Thompson's sentimental loyalty to Communism - and hence blindness was shared

by other members of the New Reasoner group, who had also mainly been members of
-
David Goodway
1 52
the CPGB. John Saville, for example, denounced the Orwellian perspective of
Valentine Cunningham's lengthy introduction to The Penguin Book ofSpanish Civil
1.tr Verse as an '"old-fashioned" Cold War approach', implausibly asserting that 'the
immense scholarly work on Spain and the Civil War in the past quarter of a century
has now taken our analysis and our understanding far beyond Orwell's interpreta
tion, and it is inadequate and inaccurate to structure the discussion of the history of
the civil war years in the terms in which they were discussed before 1 950')0 Similarly
Raymond Williams, neither a 'New Reasoner' nor associated with the ULR, but a
central figure of the New Left, was moulded politically by the 1 930s, and in spite of
writing the characteristically perceptive short study, Orwell ( 1 97 1 ), and believing
Orwell to be 'brave, generous, frank, and good' and 'always an opponent of privilege
and power: acknowledging he was 'a man who said that every word he had written
was for democratic socialism, and who fought for it in Catalonia as a revolutionary:
could still maintain that the later books were written by 'an ex-socialist' and
complain that Animal Farm was 'defeatist') !
By contrast, such was Orwell's influence on the ULR group, who were of the
next generation and tended not to have been through the CPGB, that Thompson
even tried to get Swingler to write an article on Orwell for the first issue of the New
Left Review to counter this. So Peter Sedgwick, who in 1 963 significantly published
his translation of Victor Serge's great Memoirs ofa Revolutionary, was to claim
Orwell as an 'International Socialist: that is, a forerunner of the Socialist Workers'
Party. Raphael Samuel and Denis Butt were elated when they saw red-and-black
anarchist banners surge to the front of the 1 963 Aldermaston March, since they had
been avidly reading Homage to Catalonia. Samuel was also to tell me he had attended
meetings of Oxford Anarchist Group in the early sixties and particularly enthused
over Ronald Sampson's talk on Tolstoy which he had heard with Butt, but it is
improbable whether any of the 'New Reasoners' would have approved)2
Samuel, who had been a central figure in the New Left, and Ward were to
become good friends and mutual admirers. Ward responded warmly to the oral
history of Samuel's first books Village Life and Labour; Miners, QJtarrymen and
Saltworkers; East End Underworld ( 1 975-8 1 ) - while Samuel commented that Ward
had 'turned himself into a quite remarkable historian', assessing Arcadiafor All
( 1984) as 'a work of real daring, a rare and authentic example of "history from
below" - one which is attentive to "ordinary" people without any attempt to corral
them for a political project of the author's own'. This is from Samuel's evaluation of
Ward's work, occasioned by A Decade ofAnarchy, the latter's selection of articles
from Anarchy. He concluded by saying that, like Anarchy, Arcadiafor All was 'a fine
-
Colin 1fard and the New Lrft

example of the democratic intellect at work'.33 In 1 987 he also remarked that
Anarchy
... was a journal which helped me through the mid sixties, which were rather bleak
years from the radical point of view . . I have been struck with how much of the
.
cultural revolution of the 1 960s was actually prefigured in that journal, which was
running in easy tandem with a larger New Left.34
Although much of the first iteration of the New Left developed from a Communist
context, and certainly most of its proponents had matured within an entirely
different politics (consider the contentious 'Orwell question'), there was still much
in Ward's Anarchy in which these renegade Marxists could find comfort. I therefore
contend that my untutored impression of fifty years ago has considerable substance.
David Goodway is
the author of several monographs and edited works, including,

London Chartism, 1 838- 1 848 ( 1982); (ed.) For Anarchism: History, Theory and
Practice ( 1 989); (ed.) Herbert Read Reassessed ( 1 998); and Anarchist Seeds beneath
the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writersfrom William Morris to Colin
1ard (2006), shortly to be reissued in a second edition by PM Press. He has also
edited a series of collections of writings of the twentieth century British anarchist
and left libertarians Maurice Brinton, Alex Comfort, Herbert Read, John Cowper
Powys, and Nicolas Walter, and a book of conversations with Colin Ward - C. Ward
and D. Goodway, Talking Anarchy (2003).
Email: d.j.goodway@leeds.ac.uk
NOTES
An Epistle to the Philistines', New Reasoner,

1957); A. Macintyre, 'Notes from the Moral Wilderness' New
1 . See E.P. Thompson, 'Socialist Humanism:

No, 1 (Summer
2.
3.
4.
Reasoner, No.7 (Spring 1 959).

For The Socialist Register, see M. Kozak, 'How It All Began: A Footnote to History: in
L. Panitch (ed.), The Socialist Register 1 995.
C. Ward, 'Witness for the Prosecution: Wildcat, no. 1 (September 1 974); C. Ward &
D. Goodway, Talking Anarchy (Nottingham, 2003) [hereafter TAJ, pp. 29-32.
Interview with Colin Ward, 29 June 1 997. For Ward's reminiscences of the Freedom
Press Group, see
TA, pp. 33-42.

David Goodway
1 54
5. Interview.
6. C. Ward, 'Notes on of an Anarchist Columnist: Raven, no. 1 2 (October/December,
1990), p.3 16; C. Ward (ed.), A Decade ojAnarchy, 1 961-1970: Selectionsfrom the
MonthlyJournal 'Anarchy' (London, 1987), pp. 8-9.
7. Cw, 'Last Look Round at the 50s: Freedom, 26 December 1959.
8. R. Boston, 'Conversations about Anarchism', Anarchy, no. 85 (March 1968), p. 74.
9. H. Ward, 'Meeting Colin in the Sixties', in R. Bradshaw, B. Ward, H. Ward and K.
Worpole (eds.), Remembering Colin T#trd, 1 924-2010 (Nottingham, 201 1 ), pp. 2024.
10. Cw, 'After a Hundred Issues', in Ward, Decade ofAnarchy, p. 276.
1 1 . C. Ward, Anarchy in Action (London, 1973), pp. 1 1-13.
1 2. Freedom, 28 June 1 958. Quoted also in TA, pp. 54-55.
1 3. C P. Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History ofAnarchism (London, 1992),
pp. xi, 5-6, 541-2, 659.
14. C E. Hobsbawm, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life (London, 2002), pp.
20 1-2, 210- 1 1.
15. N. Wood, Communism and British Intellectuals (London, 1959), p. 194; J. Saville,
'The Twentieth Congress and the British Communist Party', in R. Miliband and ].
Saville (eds.), The Socialist Register 1 976; ]. Saville, 'Edward Thompson, the
Communist Party and 1956: in R. Miliband and L. Panitch (eds.), The Socialist
Register 1 994.
1 6. The best work on the New Left is Lin Chun, The British New Left (Edinburgh, 1993).
There is also Michael Kenny, The First New Left: British Intellectuals after Stalin
(London, 1 995). For Dorothy Thompson's very considerable reservations about both
books, see her 'On the Trail of the New Left: New Left Review[hereafter NLR], no.
2 1 9 (September-October 1996). Robin Archer et al. (eds.), Out ojApathy: Voices ofthe
New Left Thirty Years On (London, 1989) is an interesting, very useful collection.
1 7. 'Direct Action?: NLR, no. 8 (March-April 196 1 ).
18. N. Walter, 'Men Only', Universities and Left Review, no. 7 (Autumn 1959), pp. 55-7.
N. Walter, 'Damned Fools in Utopia: NLR, nos. 13- 14 (January-April 162), is
reprinted in Nicolas Walter, Damned Fools in Utopia and Other Writings on Anarchism
and T#tr Resistance, ed. D. Goodway (Oakland CA, 201 1 ) pp. 23-35.
19. D. Butt, 'Workers' Control: NLR, no. 10 (July-August 1961). See also D. Butt. 'Men
and Motors: NLR, no.3 (May-June 1960).
20. P. Worsley, 'Non-alignment and the New Left: in Archer et aI., p. 88.
2 1 . E. P. Thompson, 'Revolution Again! Or Shut Your Ears and Run: NLR, no. 6
(November-December 1960), p. 3 1 .
Colin 1Mzrd and the New Left
55 1
22. M. Veldman, Fantasy, the Bomb and the Greening ofBritain: Romantic Protest, 1 9451 980 (Cambridge, 1994), p. 200n.
23. S. Hall, 'Life and Times of the First New Left: NLR, 2nd series, no. 61 (January
February 20 ID), p. 178. See also S. Hall, 'The "First" New Left: Life and Times: in
Archer et al, p. 1 5.
24. C. Ward, 'The State and Society: Anarchy, no. 14 (April 1962), p. 1 15. For Cole see
also D. Goodway, Anarchist Seeds beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and
British Writersfrom William Morris to Colin 1Mzrd (Liverpool, 2006) [hereafter
Seeds], pp. 28-30.
25. As I argue in Goodway, Seeds, pp. 270-87.
26. E. P. Thompson, Persons and Polemics (London, 1994), p. 236; P. Davison (ed.), The
Complete Works ofGeorge Orwell (London, 20 vols., 1998), XVIII, p. 443n; G.
Woodcock, Letter to the Past: An Autobiography (Don Mills, Ontario 1982), pp. 2856; G. Bowker, George Orwell (London, 2003), p. 331. For Swingler, see the exuberant,
talented, politically myopic Andy Croft, Comrade Heart: A Life ofRandall Swingler
(Manchester, 2003), esp. pp. 1 83-4.
27. E.P. Thompson, 'Outside the Whale: in E. P. Thompson (ed.), Out ofApathy
(London, 1960) [ reprinted in E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays
(London, 1978), in a fuller version, but also with several deletions].
28. Thompson, Poverty, pp. 1 3-14.
29. ]. Hinton, Protests and Visions: Peace Politics in Twentieth Century Britain (London,
1 989), p. 234, n. 1 .
30. ]. Saville, 'Valentine Cunningham and the Poetry of the Spanish Civil War', in R.
Miliband and]. Saville (eds.), The Socialist Register of1981, p. 271. For the vigorous
response, see V. Cunningham, 'Saville's Row with The Penguin Book ofSpanish Civil
T#lr Verse: in M. Eve and D. Musson (eds.), The Socialist Register 1 982, esp. pp. 271-2.
3 1 . R. Williams, Culture and Society, 1 780-1 950 (Harmondsworth, 1961), p. 284; R.
Williams, Orwell (London, 199 1 edn.), p. 1 26; R. Williams, Politics and Letters:
Interviews with 'New Left Review' (London, 1979), pp. 384, 390-91 . ]' Rodden, The
Politics ofLiterary Reputation: The Making and Claiming of'St George' Orwell (New
York, 1989), pp. 1 88-200 (and repeated in ], Rodden, George Orwell: The Politics of
Literary Reputation (New Brunswick, N], 2002), pp. 188-200, accounts compellingly
for Williams's ambivalence and drastic changes in assessments, relating them to his
position within the British left, especially the New Left.
32. R. Samuel, 'Born-Again Socialism', in Archer et al., p. 53; Williams, Orwell, pp. 84-5;
Croft, p. 244; P. Sedgwick, 'George Orwell: International Socialist?', International
Socialism, no. 37 ( 1969) [reprinted in P. Flewers (ed.), George Orwell: Enigmatic
David Goodway
1 56
(London, 2005), pp. 3-19]; D. Goodway, 'Raphael Samuel ( 1934- 1996): A
Reminiscence', Labour History Review, LXII (1997), pp. 121 -2.
33. R. Samuel, 'Utopian Sociology', New Society, 2 October 1987. Samuel neglected the
fact that Arcadiafor All was co-authored by Dennis Hardy.
34. In Then and Now: A Re-evaluation of the New Left: in Archer et at., p. 148.
Colin Ward and Kropotkin's legacy

Morris, Brian
pg. 57
Anarchist Studies 19.2 201 1
ISSN
0967 3393
Colin Ward and Kropotkin's legacy

Brian Morris
ABSTRACT
This article analyzes the influence of Peter Kropotkin on the thought and projects of
Colin Ward. Kropotkin was central to Ward's 'practical anarchism: both as a role
model and in the Russian's ideas. Ward did not, however, uncritically accept
Kropotkin's intellectual legacy, and was prepared to note those aspects of his thought
which were outmoded.
Keywords Colin Ward, Kropotkin, Anarchism
1 . INTRODUCTION
This essay is both a tribute to, and an exploration of the social anarchism of the
writer Colin Ward. Trained as an architect, and a teacher of liberal studies for some
years, Ward in his last years became a well-known and popular writer, journalist and
lecturer. He seems, however, to have always considered himself a 'propagandist' for
anarchism; a social anarchist who throughout his life endeavoured to apply anarchist
ideas and principles to a wide range of contemporary social issues. These issues range
from architecture and town planning, to housing, education, the rural economy,
allotments, and the world's water crisis.
Ward lrmly situated himself in the revolutionary socialist tradition of Pierre
Joseph Proudhon, Peter Kropotkin and Gustav Landauer. Especially important,
Ward was also a social ecologist, who applied the ecological insights of Kropotkin,
Patrick Geddes and Lewis Mumford to contemporary social life. He thus, like his
contemporary Murray Bookchin, creatively integrated anarchism as a form ofliber
tarian socialism, with an ecological sensibility.
In this article I focus on Ward's relationship to the Russian anarchist-geographer
Peter Kropotkin, and examine Kropotkin's legacy in terms of lve themes that
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1 58
emerge from Ward's social anarchism, namely: the theory of spontaneous order; the
dual legacy of history; Kropotkin and the social economy; integral education; and,
finally, Ward's views on social revolution. I stress that Ward insightfully developed
Kropotkin's legacy, making it relevant to contemporary social life.
2. COLIN WARD'S SOCIAL ANARCHISM
I never met Colin Ward in the flesh, although we corresponded. But I always
admired his writings and warmly reviewed his book, Reflected in ter, in the pages
ofAnarchist Studies ( 1 997). When some thirty years ago one of my daughters asked
me for a book on anarchism, becoming aware of my own political eccentricity, I had
no hesitation in giving her a copy of Colin Ward's readable and engaging introduc
tion to anarchism, Anarchy in Action ( 1 973).
Ward explicitly saw himself as a follower ofKropotkin and Landauer; a social
anarchist or revolutionary socialist (these labels are virtual synonyms) who empha
sized that a future society would consist of a 'network of autonomous free
associations, for the satisfaction of human needs'; and as an advocate of a 'social
revolution: This explicitly implied a struggle not only against state power but also
against capitalism and all forms of exploitation and social oppression (Ward 19837). His book Anarchy in Action ( 1 973) was a 'kind of manual of anarchist
applications' (Ward and Goodway 2003: 69): the application of social anarchist
ideas and principles to contemporary issues, problems and struggles - economic,
social, political and cultural.
Given his background in architecture and as a teacher of liberal studies, Ward
had wide-ranging interests, and his social anarchism drew on an extensive range of
sources. This is reflected in his editorship of the monthly journal Anarchy, which
included articles and short essays on many divers topics related to anarchism. The
journal carried material by noted social critics, such as Alex Comfort, Dora Russell,
Geoffrey Ostergaard, Nicolas Walter, Murray Bookchin, and Paul Goodman, as well
as my own first writings in the realm of politics ( 1 969). At the end of the 'Decade of
Anarchy' ( 1961 - 1 970), Ward drew on many of these seminal articles in the writing
of his Anarchy in Action: a book which essentially views anarchism as a 'theory of
organization: as Ward succinctly puts it. Thus his well-known introductory text has
discussions, as chapters, on a wide range of topics, Ward drawing extensively not only
on the various contributions to Anarchy, but also on contemporary literature in the
social sciences. Ward often quoted liberally from the contributors' articles to
Anarchy. He did this, he modestly recalled, because they expressed their ideas much
Colin TMtrd and Kropotkin's legacy

better than he could himself. And Ward highlighted such writers in the main text,
rather than relegating them to some obscure footnote at the end of the text (Ward,
1 99 1 a: 9; Ward and Goodway 2003: 1 17).
Both Anarchy and Anarchy in Action discuss four key topics: workers' control of
industry; education and the de-schooling movement that was particularly associated
with Paul Goodman ( 1964) and Ivan lllich ( 197 1 ); issues relating to crime and
punishment; and finally, housing, urban planning and squatters' organizations. But
Ward also discussed the provision of playgrounds for children, the sexual revolution
of the 1960s, food co-operatives and many other kinds of community action.
A number of important themes emerge from Ward's social anarchism, as
expressed in Anarchy in Action and in his other writings, and these essentially reflect
the important influence of Peter Kropotkin, whom Ward explicitly recognized as
one of the key influences on his life-work. And many of his other influences Ebenezer Howard, Gustav Landauer, Martin Buber, Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford
and Paul Goodman - were themselves influenced by Kropotkin's writings. It is to
Kropotkin that we may now turn.
3. KROPOTKIN'S LEGACY
That Kropotkin was a key influence on Ward's social anarchism is perhaps self
evident, for in almost all his writings Ward quoted from Kropotkin and
acknowledged him as a source of ideas. Thus Ward defined anarchist social theory in
terms of four key ideas that can be traced back to the Russian: direct action and the
repudiation of statist politics in favour of a 'do-it-yourself' politics; a stress on
autonomy and workers' control in the sphere of economic life; the advocacy of a
decentralized society; and, finally, a devotion and advocacy to the principle of feder
alism (Ward, 1973: 23-25). Yet Ward not only embraced Kropotkin's anarchist
communism, but resembled the Russian anarchist in two other ways.
Firstly, he saw himself essentially as an anarchist propagandist. 'I am a propagan
dist: he wrote ( 1991 a: 141), and he warmed to Kropotkin precisely because the
Russian anarchist had so many virtues as an anarchist propagandist, in that he wrote
simply, lucidly and logically, so that his revolutionary pamphlets had a wide circula
tion. The same can be said of Ward's own books, which give an anarchist perspective
on many issues relating to transport, housing, schools, social policy and the water
crisis (Ward 1 983; 1 991b; 1 995; 1996; 1 997).
Secondly, Ward, like Kropotkin, endeavoured to apply anarchist ideas and prin
ciples not only to politics, but to all aspects of human life - economic, social,
Brian Morris
Iso
political and cultural. Ward denied being an anarchist theorist but the social philos
ophy he expressed, following Kropotkin, was an all-embracing one - even though his
style of anarchism was essentially pragmatic, and Ward never engaged himself in
questions of epistemology, metaphysics or political theory. Even so, his writings
display an empirical and relational theory of knowledge. Kropotkin's influence on
Ward's anarchism is evident in most of the chapters ofAnarchy in Action and we
discuss below some of the ideas that emerge from this text. But it must be stressed
from the outset that Ward did not simply imbibe Kropotkin's anarchist ideas; he
critically developed them and gave them a contemporary meaning and relevance.
Five key themes are worth noting: the theory of spontaneous order; the dual legacy
of history; Kropotkin and the social economy; integral education; and Ward's
conception of social revolution. We can discuss each in turn.
3 (i) The theory of spontaneous order
Ward adopted Kropotkin's theory of spontaneous order - the notion that organi
zation, specifically social organization, can emerge spontaneously through the
co-operation and the social interactions of the individuals concerned. Anarchy is
not therefore synonymous with chaos or disorder; to the contrary, it implies for
Ward a form of social organization that is achieved without the intrusions of the
state or any other form of authority. Ward defined the theory of spontaneous order
as follows:
that given a common need, a collection of people will, by trial and error, by
improvisation and experiment, evolve order out of the situation (chaos) - this
order being more durable and more closely related to their needs than any kind of
externally impose order ( 1 973: 28).
Like Kropotkin, Ward gave many illustrations of this kind of social order: the
Peckham experiment in health care in the 1 940s; voluntary organizations such as the
Lifeboat Institute; and the establishment of orderly social life among tribal peoples
such as the Tiv, Dinka and Talleni, who have been described as 'people without
government' (Barclay, 1 982). The key features of such an order are that it is essen
tially voluntary, functional, local, and small scale. Given, however, the complexity of
tribal or kin-based societies, Ward insists that 'Anarchy is a function not of a society's
simplicity and lack of social organization, but of its complexity and multiplicity of
social organizations' ( 1 993: SO).
Colin lfard and Kropotkin's legacy

Drawing on both anthropology and cybernetic theory relating to self-organizing
systems (McEwan 1 963) Ward concluded that:
both anthropology and cybernetic theory support Kropotkin's contention that in
a society without government harmony would result from 'an ever-changing
adjustment and re-adjustment of equilibrium between the multitudes of forces
and influences' expressed in 'an interwoven network, composed of an infinite
variety of groups and federations of all sizes and degrees, local, regional, national
and international - temporary or more or less permanent - for all possible
purposes' (Ward 1973: 52; Baldwin 1 970: 284).
3 (ii) The dual legacy of history
Related to this, Ward emphasized that all human societies are 'mixed' or 'plural'
(Ward 1 987: 16), in that they consist essentially of two contrasting traditions or
principles. Again, Ward liberally quotes from Kropotkin:
Throughout the history of our civilization, two traditions, two opposing tenden
cies have confronted each other: the Roman and the popular traditions; the
imperialist and the federalist; the authoritarian and the libertarian (Ward 1 973: 20;
Kropotkin 1 993: 200).
But the key influence on Ward in this regard was Martin Buber whose lecture,
'Society and the State' ( 1 965), emphasized a clear demarcation and conflict between
what Buber described as the social principle (society) and the political principle
(state). This, Ward felt, like Kropotkin, was a permanent aspect of the human condi
tion. Thus Ward suggests that a conflict between the authoritarian and the
libertarian traditions was as much a part of the history of the future as of the past
(Ward 1 99 1a: 90).
Buber, of course, in his well-known Paths in Utopia ( 1 949) attempted to re
affirm the importance of three 'Utopian' socialists - Proudhon, Kropotkin and
Landauer - all of whom made a clear distinction between peoples and their social
life and the state. Given this perspective, it follows that the weakening or under
mining of state power is a social imperative. As Ward writes:
The strengthening of other loyalties, of alternative foci: of power, of difforent
modes of human behaviour, is an essential for survival. The anarchist strategy is,
then, not to gain state power - as with the Marxists and parliamentary socialists but rather to avoid it, to drain power away from the state ( 1 973: 22).
Thus Ward concludes that all human activities and struggles should begin with
Brian Morris
what is local and immediate - the emphasis being on local autonomy, self-manage
ment and the fulfUment of local needs. Links between various groups and social
organizations should be via the federal principle, that is, through various networks
and federations with no central or directing agency (Ward 1 973: 56-58).
Although there are no route maps to Utopia, Ward insists that ifwe want to
weaken the state we must strengthen society ( 199 1a: 90). And he also suggests that
alternatives to contemporary capitalism and the state are already in existence 'in the
interstices of the dominant power structure. If you want to build a free society, the
parts (materials) are all at hand' ( 1 973: 1 3).
3 (iii) Kropotkin and the social economy
Colin Ward suggested that all his writings have an essential unity, in their 'explo
ration of the relations between people and their environment' (Ward and Goodway
2003: 1 12). Thus like his mentor Kropotkin and his contemporary Bookchin, Ward
was essentially an ecological thinker. Yet, it is of interest that Anarchy in Action has
very little discussion of either ecology or agriculture although it has chapters on the
city environment and urban planning - Ward's key mentors in this regard being
Ebenezer Howard and Patrick Geddes. But Ward admits that he had always been
fascinated by the ways in which people use and shape their environment - even in
adverse circumstances, such as in the Arctic regions or in urban shanty -towns
( 1 991a: 1 03). It is thus no surprise that he acknowledges that Kropotkin was his
mentor or key 'influence' on the subject of economics - if we define economics as
the productive relationship that humans have with nature in order to provision
themselves with food, dothing, shelter and essential artefacts. In fact, Ward read
Kropotkin's MutualAid ( 1 902) at fourteen, and suggested, rather modestly, that his
book Anarchy in Action was simply an extended, updating footnote to Kropotkin's
MutualAid (Ward and Goodway 2003: 14).
But the key text on economics for Ward was Kropotkin's Fields, Factories and
Workshops, published in book form in 1 899, and which Ward describes as 'one of
those great prophetic works of the nineteenth century whose hour is yet to come'
(Kropotkin 1 985: iv). Ward edited an updated version of the book in 1974 with an
introduction, and annotated it with many critical reflections, linking Kropotkin's
ideas to contemporary issues. Ward particularly noted that E.E Schumacher's Small
is Beautiful (1974) marvellously complemented Kropotkin's work (Kropotkin
1 985: 60) .
Anarchists like Kropotkin have often been dismissed by Marxists as utopian
Colin lVtzrd and Kropotkin's legacy

dreamers or simply as advocates of petty-commodity production. It is plainly evident
that Kropotkin cannot be accused of either of these failings. As a geographer he was
throughout his life interested in practical issues, and how humans could best
produce their basic livelihood, and made practical suggestions along these lines
(Kropotkin 1 892). But his basic ideas on economic life were published in the
Nineteenth Century ( 1 888- 1 890); a decade later they were collected as the well
known book Fields, Factories and Workshops ( 1899). The book, with respect to the
economy, argues three essential themes.
The first is that there is a growing tendency towards the decentralization of
industry, away from large-scale monopoly production. However, Ward noted that
the development of capitalism has largely contradicted Kropotkin's thesis, in that
both capitalists and governments have put their faith in giant corporations and
multi-national companies - rather than in small-scale industry (Kropotkin 1 985: 42;
Morris 2004: 92). Yet Ward suggests that Kropotkin's emphasis on the decentraliza
tion of industry is both important and valid, for production should be local and
geared to the actual needs of the people, rather than involving capital-intensive
industries that are geared to the generation of profits. Production for a local market,
Ward writes, is a 'rational and desirable tendency' ( 1 99 1 a: 74).
The second theme is Kropotkin's discussion on the possibilities of agriculture.
Kropotkin argues that all countries, including Britain, could and should become self
sufficient in agriculture. He repudiates the Malthusian doctrine that population will
always outstrip food supply, and argues that the problem with British agriculture
stems from the fact that much of the land is in the hands oflarge landowners and
that the land is used as a commodity to generate profit rather than for the needs of
the majority. Kropotkin emphasizes that humans are an intrinsic part of nature and
that soils could actually be improved in terms ofproductivity by human activity.
Kropotkin also stresses the importance of intensive agriculture - by which he essen
tially means horticulture, market gardening, intensive field cultivation, and
greenhouse culture as well as kitchen gardens. Kropotkin, in fact, throughout his life
cultivated, with his wife Sophia, a vegetable plot (Morris 2004: 90-93).
Ward makes two important points with regard to this theme. The first is that
Kropotkin based his ideas on agricultural self-sufficiency to a large extent on his own
observations, derived from his travels throughout Europe. Ward remarks that
Kropotkin never seems to have been without his notebook, and certainly Kropotkin
had a much more intimate knowledge of agricultural practices than most econo
mists, many of whom never venture outside academia or the reading rooms of the
British Museum (Kropotkin 1 985: 1 59, Morris 2004: 93).
Brian Morris
1 64
A second point is that Ward, quoting Malatesta, suggests that Kropotkin's
emphasis on self-sufficiency in agriculture may be overly optimistic. Ward also
believed that Kropotkin had a rather 'mechanistic nineteenth century attitude to
land: and Ward even implied that Kropotkin would have supported 'factory farming
methods' (Kropotkin 1 985: 1 16). Given the pantheistic sentiments Kropotkin
expressed in his memoirs ( 1 970: 97), this statement perhaps needs some qualifica
tion. Nevertheless, Ward laments the fact that the dominant trend today, in both
agriculture and horticulture, is away from the labour-intensive, small-scale produc
tive unit that Kropotkin envisaged (Kropotkin 1 985: 1 08- 1 1 8). Kropotkin put great
faith in science and labour-saving technology to improve agriculture and small-scale
industries. Since the nineteenth century, science, of course, has become increasingly
implicated in the capitalist economy and has often functioned as a form oflegiti
macy for established social institutions and unequal social patterns (Lewontin 199 1).
This leads to the third important theme of Kropotkin's book, namely the need
to integrate industry with agriculture - but on a small scale. Kropotkin certainly
does not advocate the kind of agriculture that has developed under capitalism in
recent decades. What he does suggest is the need to combine agriculture, workshops
and factories in an integrated social economy that is focused on meeting basic needs
and also gives people time to engage in leisure pursuits. For Ward Kropotkin's ideas
are relevant to an era hypnotized by the 'cult of bigness: and he notes too how
Kropotkin's suggestions on a decentralized economy and bioregionalism, link his
earlier key influences - Ebenezer Howard, Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford and Paul
Goodman (Kropotkin 1 985 : 1 59 - 1 65) - to the writers of the 1 970s and 1 980s,
Schumacher ( 1 974) and Kirkpatrick Sale ( 1 985), regarding intermediate, 'human
scale' technology and bioregionalism, and of course the radical agriculture and social
ecology of Bookchin ( 1 982) and the organic farming advocated by Wendell Berry
( 1 977). Thus Kropotkin is a very astute guide to a contemporary anarchist social
economy.
3 (iv) Integral education
In
the closing pages of Fields, Factories and Workshops Kropotkin argues that we need
a form of education, and habits of mind, that combine manual and intellectual work.
His basic ideas are summed up with his suggestion that a future society
must find the best means of combining agriculture with manufacture - the work
in the field with a decentralized industry, and it will have to provide for 'inteAnarchist Studies 19.2
Colin 'Wtlrd and Kropotkin's legacy
65 1
grated education' which education alone, by teaching both science and handicraft
from earliest childhood, can give to society the men and women it really needs
( 1985: 27).
Ward, of course, was an experienced teacher, with a deep interest in education. He
edited the Bulletin ofEnvironmental Education ( 1 970- 1 979) and was well-known as
a lecturer on educational issues (Ward, 1 995). He thus warmed to Kropotkin's ideas
on education, suggesting that such ideas were the conventional wisdom of progres
sive education and in case already rooted in the legacy of William Godwin
(Kropotkin 1 985: 1 90).
3 (v) On social revolution
Ward interpreted direct action not simply as involving illegal activities and violent
confrontations with the police, but rather in the sense that Kropotkin ( 1 988) origi
nally envisaged it, namely to 'act for yourselves'. By this, Ward (and Kropotkin)
essentially implied establishing forms of mutual aid and autonomous organizations
independent of both the state and capitalism. In his thoughts on anarchism in the
twenty-first century, Ward saw anarchism as emerging in 'endless local struggles'
involving food co-ops, play groups, credit unions, local exchange networks, and a
whole range of activities and groups built around community action, self-help and
mutual aid ( 1 996: 82). Ward focused on the local community, but he always empha
sized the importance of the informal economy and workers' control in industry
( 1 988). As he wrote: 'Workers' control of industrial production seems to me to be
the only approach compatible with anarchism' (Ward and Goodway 2003: 26).
Like Kropotkin, Ward has no time for a Marxist-inspired revolution that only
leads to the installation of a new 'gang of rulers' and the kind of 'reform' that simply
makes current forms of exploitation and social oppression 'more palatable or more
efficient' ( 1 973: 1 43). 'My kind of anarchism', he argued, 'wants to change the struc
ture of society' ( 1 987: 21 ) . Like his mentors Kropotkin and Landauer, Ward was
therefore an advocate of social revolution, and in this regard was always critical of
the sectarianism and parochialism that seemed to beset the anarchist movement
( 1 987: 277).
Kropotkin's conception of a social revolution was, of course, the replacement of
state institutions (and capitalism) based on hierarchy and coercion, with voluntary
organizations and relations of mutual aid and reciprocity. But following Martin
Buber ( 1 949: 46), Ward suggests that Kropotkin viewed the state as an external,
Brian Morris
166
coercive institution that could simply be destroyed or smashed by a revolution.
(Ward and Goodway, 2003: I S).
In contrast, Ward was fond of quoting the well-known sentiments of Gustav
Landauer who was critical of those
who regard the state as a thing or a fetish that one can smash in order to
destroy it. The state is a condition, a certain relationship among human beings,
a mode of behaviour between men: we destroy it by contracting other relation
ships, by behaving differently towards one another ... we are the state, and we
shall continue to be the state until we have created the institutions that form a
real community and society of men (Lunn 1973: 226; Ward 1965: 247; Ward
1973: 1 9).
Landauer, of course, was deeply influenced by Kropotkin, whom he knew personally,
and translated, Mutual Aid and Fields, Factories and Workshops into German. Both
men were revolutionary socialists, and it is doubtful if there was any great difference
in their conceptions of a social revolution. Kropotkin clearly recognized that the
state was a social institution, implying human relationships, and not a thing or fetish.
But both men conceived of socialism as involving a social revolution, and the
creation of a new social reality, that this reality would be based on autonomous local
communities and voluntary associations, and that Marxist politics was the 'plague of
our time and the curse of the socialist movement' (Landauer 1978: 60; Landauer
20 10).
4. CONCLUSION
In this article I outlined Colin Ward's social anarchism and his relationship to the
political legacy of Peter Kropotkin. What is evident is that Ward, like Kropotkin,
was a 'practical anarchist'. He was not a utopian saint lost in dreams about a future
society, nor simply a rebel bent on insurrectionary tactics, but a social anarchist; an
anarchist communist, who, like Kropotkin and Landauer, emphasized the need, even
under contemporary capitalism, to support and create alternative forms of social
organization based on mutual aid, local autonomy, voluntary co-operation and a 'do
it-yourself' form of politics. It was Ward's response to what Murray Bookchin ( 1 986)
described as the 'modern crisis'. Thus in an era when corporate capitalism reigns
triumphant, creating conditions that induce fear, social dislocation, economic inse
curity, gross social inequalities, and political and ecological crisis, when the only
Colin Wttrd and Kropotkin's legacy

alternatives to neo-liberalism - social democracy and Marxism - are both politically
bankrupt, and when there is a pervasive mood of apocalyptic despair among many
intellectuals (and some anarchists) there is surely a need to take seriously Kropotkin's
legacy, and his vision of an alternative way of organizing social life (Morris 2004:
35). It was this legacy that Colin Ward creatively sought to develop, and make
relevant to contemporary issues and concerns - with regard to a wide range of
human activities.
is a Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of
London. He is the author of many monographs in the field of anthropology,
including: The Anthropology ofthe Self the Individual in Cultural Perspective ( 1 994);
The Power ofAnimals: an Ethnography ( 1 998); Animals andAncestors (2000); Insects
and Human Life (2004); Religion and Anthropology: a Critical Introduction (2006).
He has written widely on anarchism, including: Bakunin: the Philosophy ofFreedom
( 1 993); Kropotkin: the Politics ofCommunity (2004); and The Anarchist Geographer:
an Introduction to the Life ofPeter Kropotkin (2007).
Emall: b.morris@gold.ac.uk
Brian Morris
REFERENCES
Baldwin, Roger N. 1970. Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets (First Edition, 1927). New
York, Dover.
Barclay, Harold J. 1982. People without Government: An Anthropology tifAnarchism.
London, Kahn and Averill.
Berry, Wendell 1 977. The Unsettling ofAmerica. San Francisco, Sierra Club.
Bookchin, M 1982. The Ecology tifFreedom. Palo Alto, Cheshire Books.
1 986. The Modern Crisis. Philadelphia, New Society Press.
Buber, Martin 1949. Paths in Utopia. Boston, Beacon Press.
1 965. 'Society and the State'. Anarchy, 54: 232-43.
Goodman, Paul 1964. Compulsory Mis-Education. New York, Vintage.
Illich, Ivan 1 97 1 . Deschooling Society. New York, Harpers and Row.
Kropotkin, Peter 1972. The Conquest tifBread, intro. P. Avrich. ( 1 892), London, Penguin.
1 902. MutualAid: A Factor in Evolution. London, Heinemann.
1970. Memoirs tifa Revolutionist. New York: Grove Press, ( 1 899).
1 985. Fields, Factories, and Workshops Tomorrow. ( 1 899). Colin Ward (ed. and
intro). London, Freedom Press.
--
--
--
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Brian Morris
laa
1 988. Actfor Yourselves. London, Freedom Press.
1993. Fugitive Writings. G. Woodcock (ed.). Montreal, Black Rose.
Landauer, Gustav 1978. For Socialism. St. Louis, Telos Press.
2010. Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader. G. Kuhn (ed.). Oakland:
P. M. Press.
Lewontin, R.C. 199 1 . The Doctrine oJDNA: Biology as Ideology. London, Penguin Books.
Lunn, Eugene 1973. Prophet o/Community: The Romantic Socialism oJGustav Landauer.
Berkeley, University of California Press.
McEwan, J.D. 1963. 'Anarchism and the Cybernetics of Self- Organizing Systems: in C.
Ward (ed.) A Decade 0/Anarchy 1 961-1 970. London: Freedom Press, 1987, pp. 42 58.
Morris, Brian 1969. 'Thoughts on "Participation"'. Anarchy 103: 285-86.
1 997. 'Review. C. Ward, Reflected in Water', Anarchist Studies 5, 2: 173-74.
2004. Kropotkin: The Politics o/Community. Amherst: Humanity Books.
2009. 'Reflections on the "New Anarchism"'. Social Anarchism, 42: 36-50.
Sale, Kirkpatrick 1985. Dwellers in the Land. San Francisco, Sierra Club Books.
Schumacher, E.F. 1974. Small is Beautiful: A Study ojEconomics as ifPeople Mattered.
London, Sphere Books.
Ward, Colin 1965. 'Gustav Landauer: Anarchy 54: 244-252.
-- 1 973. Anarchy in Action. London, Freedom Press.
-- 1983. Housing: An Anarchist Approach. London, Freedom Press.
1987. (ed.) A Decade 0/Anarchy 1 961-1970). London, Freedom Press.
1 988 'Anarchism and the Informal Economy', The Raven, 1, 1 : 25-37 reprinted in
H.J. Ehrlich (ed.), Re-Inventing Anarchy, Again. Edinburgh: A.K Press, 1996, 221233.
1991a. Influences: Voices oJCreative Dissent. Bideford, Green Books.
199 1 b. Freedom to Go: After the Motor Age. London, Freedom Press.
1995. Talking Schools. London, Freedom Press.
1996. Social Policy: An Anarchist Approach. London, Freedom Press.
1 997. Reflected in Water: A Crisis in SocialResponsibility. London, Cassell.
2004. Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Ward, C. and D. Goodway 2003. Talking Anarchy. Nottingham, Five Leaves Press.
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Colin Ward: anarchism and social policy

Honeywell, Carissa
pg. 69
ISSN 0967
3393
www.iwbooks.co.ukljournais/anarchiststudies/
Colin Ward: anarchism and social policy

Carissa Honeywell
ABSTRACT
This paper aims to highlight the contributions made to British social policy
debates by thinkers working within the anarchist tradition by focusing on the
writing of the post-war British anarchist Colin Ward. It will argue that Ward
framed anarchism as a relevant, constructive approach to contemporary public
policy dilemmas, and show how this was the basis for his contact with mainstream
policy agendas, including council housing, water privatization, and education for
citizenship. Ward was a regular contributor and editor for the British anarchist
publishing group Freedom Press, and the author of a number of titles which
approached problems of social policy in areas such as town planning and educa
tion, from an anarchist perspective. He developed a pragmatic, policy-oriented
perspective on anarchism and presented it as the reasonable alternative to both
bureaucratic state administration and privatization in the twentieth century. The
paper will argue that Ward aimed to reclaim for the anti-market left the libertarian
terminology adopted by the free-market right. In the case of housing this led Ward
to defend private ownership against state ownership. In debate about water privati
zation, however, he presented a fierce attack on the administration of public goods
as market commodities. Both arguments were driven by anarchist principles of
independence and mutual aid drawn from key thinkers in the tradition. These
principles guided Ward's contributions to public debates in the late twentieth
century concerning education policy and public planning policy. In particular,
Ward's publications for the Town and Country Planning Association concerning
education policy and town planning applied anarchism to mainstream concerns
about political engagement.
Keywords Colin Ward, Social Policy, Anarchism, Planning
Carissa Honeywell
170
1 . INTRODUCTION
The conviction reflected in anarchist thought and practice is that individuals and
social groups are effective and creative in their attempts to secure their needs.
This perspective has immediate implications for our thinking about the promo
tion of welfare in human societies. These are explored in the work of Colin Ward,
who was appointed visiting Centenary Professor in the Department of Social
Policy at the London School of Economics during 1 995-6. The invitation to
deliver a series of lectures at the School represented an acknowledgement of his
voice in the academic field of social policy in Britain. The field concerns the
distribution of resources, particularly entitlements to social services, and it is
linked closely to the existence of the welfare state. Arguing that 'We took the
wrong road to welfare: Ward considered the post-war socialist support for state
administered welfare a grave mistake of the British left. ' With this claim he was
re-opening the terms of the debate that heralded the very emergence of social
policy as a distinct field of state activity and academic enquiry in Britain with the
publication of the 'majority' and 'minority' reports on the Royal Commission on
the Poor Law of 1 909. The 'minority report' set the centralized, municipal
pattern for welfare in Britain realized after 1 945. At this point, according to
Ward, 'The great tradition of working-class self-help and mutual aid was written
off, not just as irrelevant, but as an actual impediment, by the political and
professional architects of the welfare state'.2
Drawing on New Left critiques of the welfare state that raised doubts about
the egalitarian impact of state provision, and also drawing on revisions to the
historiography of welfare relief that have highlighted the welfare role of mutual
institutions preceding the development of state provision, Ward's challenge to
British post-war social policy framed anarchism as a viable alternative approach to
the state in the sphere of welfare in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Employing his distinctive anarchist approach to society and the individual, which
emphasizes association and agency in the development of individual autonomy,
Ward envisioned a welfare society of socially embedded economic relationships. It
is a vision which includes user-initiated and controlled organisations, local mutu
alist exchange practices, and a revised conception of work and employment which
focuses on forms oflabour that have been identified as 'informal' or 'core'
economic relationships. Ward's critical anarchist approach to social policy, which
posits a reciprocal as opposed to a hierarchical model of welfare, speaks to
contemporary debates around retracting state welfare provision and also to
Colin ltard: anarchism and socialpolicy

concerns about the decline of civic and associational relationships in democratic
cultures.
2. THE ANARCHIST CRITIQUE OF STATE WElFARE
In what are now very familiar arguments, right-wing critics of state welfare have
generally objected to the interference of state provision in the workings of a capi
talist market economy, arguing that state intervention to provide welfare services
interferes with the effective operation of the market, and provides no incentive for
individuals and families to protect themselves through savings or insurance.
Further, they argue that state intervention leads to economic recession and that
economic growth is only restored by cutting public expenditure. From the 1 970s,
however, critiques of the welfare state began to emerge from the left as New Left
commentators began to doubt whether the achievement of the welfare state in post
war Britain had been as successful, or as desirable, as had been assumed by earlier
socialists. As part of this process of revision, critics rejected the Fabians' approach
to the understanding of state welfare. These doubts and revisions were an impor
tant reference for the critiques of welfare policy offered by Ward. We are familiar
with the idea of politically-administered welfare as a victory for socialism in Britain,
but we are less familiar with the contrary interpretation that the welfare settlement
between state and citizens in the post-war era represented the defeat of popular
aspirations and social welfare movements, and a curtailment of socialist aspirations
regarding meaningful work and social change. New Left critics argued that the
welfare state supported capitalism rather than challenged it, and that it had not
succeeded in solving the social problems of the poor. They challenged the theoret
ical assumptions of the post-war consensus approach to state welfare, developing a
political-economy-based conflict model which situated the explanation of the
growth of state welfare in the needs of the capitalist economy for healthy and
educated workers, and the struggle of the working class for concessions from the
capitalist state. They also argued that for many working-class people welfare
services such as council housing or social security were experienced as oppressive
and stigmatising.
Alongside the New Left critics of state welfare services, Ward expressed
concerns about the relations of power involved in the delivery of social services,
highlighting the limited material benefits provided by the state, and pointing out
the compromises that had been made to the socialist vision. As such, he argued that
the welfare state was merely 'Monopoly capitalism with a veneer of social welfare as
Carissa Honeywell
1 72
a substitute for social justice.'3 Ward also made an important point about the super
ficiality of the celebrated principle of ,universalism' embedded in the Fabian model
of welfare, held to be enshrined in the state administration of health and social
services and centralized revenue collection. The posited egalitarianism of a
universal taxation model of welfare rests on the assumption that, unlike local and
decentralized provision, central control can ensure an impartial and equal service to
all, irrespective of locality, class or status. 'The short answer to this is that it
doesn't!' retorted Ward, and, as he elaborated, 'universalism is an unattainable idea
in a society that is enormously divided in terms of income and access to employ
ment'. 4 Ward argued that state provision as a whole had increased social inequality.
He highlighted the differential benefits drawn from state welfare provision by
working and middle-class families, and demonstrated that the middle classes
received a greater degree of state support especially in the areas of health and educa
tion. Ward emphasized the harm inflicted on the poor by centralized bureaucratic
managerial social policies, which included the privatization of services and
resources as well as state education and welfare.
According to Ward, one of the biggest mistakes of the mainstream socialist
movement in Britain was its support for state-owned housing. As he stated:
[B] linded by ideology and ignoring observable facts, we have been so brainwashed
as to equate local-authority landlordism with a socialist approach to housing.S
The state provision ofhousing was one of the central values of the Fabian, municipal
strand of socialism that Ward saw as the tradition that had obscured the libertarian
alternative. According to Ward, socialist organizations, 'instead of conducting a
phoney crusade against the right to buy: should concentrate on avoiding the mistakes
of 'the era of authoritarian paternalism:6 The first step was to recognize that:
[T]he whole owner-occupation sector in housing is, though it is very unfashion

able to say so except in Conservative circles, a triumphant example of self-help and
mutual aid. Building societies originated as working class organisations?
Ward argued that there was 'nothing necessarily socialist about state-owned social or
council housing, nor anything necessarily capitalist about owner-occupation'.8 He
advocated home ownership yet attacked capitalist consumerist values.
The key to this ideological position lies in the ideas first aired in the anarchist
movement by Proudhon regarding property. Proudhon both attacked and defended
Colin IVtlrd: anarchism and socialpolicy

private property. The message of his political ideas in this respect was an assertion of
material independence as a condition for freedom. When Proudhon attacked
property he was attacking its use to exploit others. When he defended property he
was asserting the importance of personal access to the necessities of shelter, land and
tools as essential components of liberty. Without unfettered access to these means,
an individual or community is dependent, and thus not genuinely free. In his
argument for the transfer of municipal housing from the council to its tenants, Ward
elaborated this Proudhonian view of property ownership:
It would take one third of Britain's households out of the humilities of municipal
tutelage into self-determining citizenship, at least as far as their housing is
concerned.9
Ward emphasized the necessity of direct inalienable access to the necessities oflife in
order to maintain independence and avoid exploitation and manipulation. In the case
of housing this led him to defend private ownership against state ownership. However,
in the case of water he argued for national or common ownership. In each case the
principle of independence was the same and neither entailed the market-based model
of the free individual as an economically choosing consumer. His 1 997 publication,
Reflected in 1%ter, included a fierce attack on the administration of public goods, in
this case water, as market commodities. More than once Ward used a phrase from the
work of Richard Titmuss to described this development as 'the philistine resutrection
of economic man in social policy'. lO Ward argued against the misanthropy of the idea
that common ownership was an encouragement to greed and wastefulness. He argued
in defence ofpopular and mutual systems and local social institutions:
[I]fhuman communities actually achieved control of their own supply and manip
ulation of water; they would manage fairly and responsibly, recognizing the needs
of all, as well as those of their fellow users of the same resource.ll
The socialist ideal of centralized welfare, in which 'nobody except the providers has
any actual say about anything: seemed to Ward to be 'a very vulnerable utopia'. 1 2
Instead of being firmly and permanently embedded in already existing community
governed practices, welfare has become a resource to be administered or removed
according to the assessments of national needs made by central government actors.
The state welfare tradition as he saw it was a powerful agent of social authority,
locking individuals into dependent relationships with centralized government
Carissa Honeywell
agencies. Conversely, self-help, self-governing traditions of mutual aid grew from and
developed human autonomy and social responsibility.
One of the most characteristic of Ward's statements concerns the dichotomy
between state-administered welfare and mutual, self-help arrangements that were
established and managed by voluntary organization:
When we compare the Victorian antecedents of our public institutions with the
organs ofworking-class mutual aid in the same period, the very names speak
volumes. On the one side the Workhouse, the Poor Law Infirmary, the National
Society for the Education of the Poor in Accordance with the Principles of the
Established Church; and the other, the Friendly Society, the Sick Club, the Co
operative Society, the Trade Union. One represents the tradition of fraternal and
autonomous associations springing up from below, the other that of authoritarian
institutions directed from above.13
In recent decades the historical investigation of the non-governmental organisation
of welfare in Britain, especially focusing on mutual institutions in the period
following the 1834 Poor Law reforms, which greatly reduced the extent of state
spending on poor relief. has often served political purposes. The historical sociology
fuelling these political debates has implications for our assessment of the state of civil
society under state provision and the importance of informal economic arrange
ments for greater welfare. Ward's anarchist response to British social policy was
partly inspired by these changes in the historiography of welfare provision in Britain.
From left and right these challenges have highlighted the prevalence of a 'mixed
economy of welfare' as opposed to an exclusively state-oriented model of provision,
drawing the historian's attention to sources of welfare in human societies outside
formal centralised, top-down relie14 Drawing on these insights, Ward emphasized
the plurality of welfare providers in the twentieth century, from families and
communities to mutual aid organisations, including informal or domestic relation
ships comprising an 'economy of makeshifts: and the rich associative culture which
has underpinned these arrangements.
Ward argued that social welfare in Britain did not originate in the state, Labour
governments, National Insurance law, or the institution of the National Health
Service. Rather, it originated in working class self-help and mutual aid practices in
the nineteenth century, which built up a dense network of social and economic
initiatives ranging from friendly societies, building societies, coffin clubs and sick
clubs to community-organized education, healthcare and consumer control, up to
Colin T-fard: anarchism and socialpolicy

trade unions and the Co-operative Movement. I S For Ward, a key large-scale illustra
tion of the endemic mutualist welfare practices preceding the institutions of the
welfare state, and a radical challenge to the familiar image of inadequate and incon
sistent welfare before the intervention of the state, is the Tredegar Medical Society,
founded in 1 870 in South Wales. Through a voluntary levy it provided medical and
hospital care for local miners and steelworkers and their dependants, irrespective of
contribution or employment status. Ward stressed that this example, and others like
it, demonstrated clearly that a different model of welfare could have evolved in
Britain in the post-war era. Further examples include the nineteenth-century dame
schools - set up by working-class parents for their children, and under their control
- but swept away by the board schools of the 1 870s. Similarly, the self-organization
of patients in the working-class medical societies was lost in the creation of the
NHS. Ward noted the same dynamic in the housing sector. He argued that self-help
building societies were stripped of mutuality by the tradition of municipal housing
which was opposed to the principle of dweller conttol. Ward was adamant that: 'We
are paying today for confusing paternalistic authoritarianism with Socialism and
social responsibility.'16 As he argued:
There once was the option of universal health provision 'at the point of service' if
only Fabians, Marxists and Aneurin Bevan had trusted the state and centralised
revenue-gathering and policy-making less, and our capacity for self-help and
mutual aid moreY
The local and federalized approach to medical care was, however, displaced by a
centralized model of health provision and, as a result, 'permanent daily need'
became 'the plaything of central government financial policy.'18 For Ward, these
historical revisions point the way towards an anarchist model of welfare, high
lighting the greater egalitarian and libertarian potential of user-initiated and
controlled welfare arrangements.
3. ANARCHISM AND MUTUALISM
Ward was concerned to frame anarchism as a relevant, constructive approach to

contemporary political dilemmas. This was the basis for his contact with mainstream
policy agendas, including council housing, water privatization, and education for
citizenship. In Ward's work anarchism was an anti-authoritarian, libertarian and
socialist political tradition. It was directed towards the creation of self-governing
Carissa Honeywell
h6
communities and independent, autonomous individuals. The anarchist tradition in
which he worked values both individual and social facets of freedom and their inter
relationship. The fundamental insight of an anarchist like Ward is that individual
human autonomy is dependent upon and reinforces social ties, self-governing groups
and community endeavour. He associated freedom with the type of personality
fostered by engaged and dynamic activity. His anarchist utopia was an ideal of
community transformation of public space in the present as the expression of agency
and association. The centrality of voluntary, spontaneous social connectedness in the
work of Ward has parallels in more mainstream political and social science, with the
recognition of the importance of what has, especially since the work of Robert
Putnam, been referred to as 'social capital: As used by social scientists, in the words
of Putnam, the term refers to 'social networks, norms of reciprocity, mutual assis
tance, and trustworthiness'. The concept is used to demonstrate the value of social
networks for the people within them and for society at large. Putnam himself high
lights 'the extraordinary power and subtlety of social networks to enable people to
improve their lives: 19
Putnam framed social capital as an attribute of societies and, as such, a broad
societal measure of communal health. According to Putnam and his followers,
social capital is reflected in the membership of social groups, including non-polit
ical organizations, which facilitate co-operation and mutually supportive relations
in communities by building trust and shared values. It is thus a vital resource for
combating the social disorders prevalent in modern society, such as crime, and a
key component in building and maintaining democracies.2o Ward also aimed to
advocate and support the development and survival of vibrant, participatory
communities embedded in face-to-face contact between individuals. In his termi
nology, this was in defense of a 'social' as opposed to a 'political' principle of
human organization, and it was represented in voluntary organization and grass
roots association. Recent academic and policy debates, from discussions about
social capital to social policy initiatives which advance the idea of 'co-production:
demonstrate a swell of interest in reciprocity and mutualism in social connections,
and individual involvement in the public life of the community.21 These
approaches emphasize the importance of person-to-person contact over time for
building trust and mutuality, which are 'defined by connections among people
who know each other.'22 There are clear synergies to be explored between anar
chist and non-anarchist attempts to redefine the relationships between the social
and the political, informal work and formal economic activity, and individual
confidence and social connectedness.
Colin Itzrd: anarchism and socialpolicy
77 1
Kropotkin's Mutual Aid charted the destruction of the social institutions that
embodied the human tendency for mutual aid by the growth of the nation state. Ward
updated this critique of statehood with his attack on the principles of state welfare.
State welfare in Britain, he argued, swept away the working-class self-help and mutual
aid welfare organizations that preceded it. This mutualist strand within anarchist polit
ical and social ideas aims to promote mutual organizations to meet social needs,
including mutual insurance systems and mutual funds. In economic terms mutualism
grows out of anarchist schools ofthought, originating in the writings of Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon, who propounded a labour theory of value whereby the exchange of goods
was strictly based on the direct equivalence of the labour time invested in their produc
tion. Mutualism also makes a virtue of the pluralism of human life, something Ward
particularly celebrates. Through his enthusiasm for various historical and contempo
rary examples of mutualist practice, Ward highlighted the direct link between
anarchist political thought and a variety of mutualist traditions. He aligned anarchism
with the informal habits and organizations by means ofwhich marginalized groups
traditionally survive in hierarchical societies. These traditions were for Ward a model
ofwhat a mutually-produced social order could look like.
Ward's work offers key insights into the potential future of mutualism and anar
chism. His ideas concerning labour and the 'informal economy' of real human social
life provide a basis for conceptualizing an alternative route to work and welfare, and
they have a vital part to play in contemporary movements to regenerate the social
capital upon which mutual, reciprocal and self-help practices depend. Ward detected
a renewal of self-help and mutual aid practices in the emergence of 'marginal activi
ties' such as food co-operatives, credit unions, tenant self-management, and Local
Exchange Trading Systems (LETS). As he stated, 'Huge welfare networks were built
up by the poor in the rise of industrial Britain. Perhaps they will be rebuilt, out of
the same sheer necessity during its decline'.23
Ward's writings on the importance of informal working practices and the prin
ciples of self-employment have a role to play in the revival and regeneration of
mutualist solutions to the dilemmas of sustainable social welfare provision. Ward's
challenge, for those contemporary initiatives seeking to support mutuality and reci
procity in marginalized communities, especially through engagement in welfare
practices, is to encourage individuals and communities to 'break free from our
enslavement to the idea of employment'.24 For Ward, the development of healthy,
cooperative, well-cared for, self-governing communities depends on 'the movement
of work back into the domestic economy'.2S In his exploration of the individual
means and social resources that make life and work possible under circumstances of
Carissa Honeywell
h8
increasing unemployment, Ward focused on the self help and reciprocal domestic
arrangements inherent in society. His discussion ofwhat he called the 'informal
economy' - the sphere of private, social and economic arrangements constituted by
these self-help and mutual aid practices - drew on re-conceptualizations of the
notion of 'work' to include all human activities that address social needs and
demands, whether or not they are included in official employment statistics or
formal remunerative arrangements.26 This wider conceptualization of human
labour, which highlights the significance of social relationships and reciprocal prac
tices for the quality of human life, is a vital component of an alternative approach
to human welfare that depends on neither the vagaries of states nor markets. Recent
research emphasizes the importance of informal social care embedded in domestic
and family relationships by referring to this private labour as the 'core economy:
acknowledging the extent to which this informal work supports the formal
economy.27 These ideas feed into social policy prescriptions which draw citizens
into reciprocal and mutual exchange practices in various spheres of medical and
social care.28 The conceptual affinities between contemporary thinking about the
productive delivery of welfare services and the anarchist social ontology, particu
larly as deployed and developed in the work of Ward, highlight ways in which
anarchism can inform and interrogate thinking about social policy in Britain in the
twenty-first century.
One of the first myths to be addressed, Ward implicitly observes, is that
economic growth is going to solve the problem of welfare, and his insights in this
respect support wider recent doubts about the real social benefits of ,growth' in a
formal economic sense. 'We don't really believe that British or American manufac
turing industries are going to recover lost markets: wrote Ward. And he continued:
'We don't really believe that big business has any answers for us. Even our faith that
the tertiary or service economy is bound to expand to replace the jobs lost in the
productive sector has been shattered'. But what Ward considers might prove to be of
much greater significance, is the growth of a 'self-service economy', claiming that a
positive alternative to the market economy can be effected by household, family and
neighbourhood relationships 'revitalised' as 'powerful and relatively autonomous
productive' units. According to Ward's reading of the history of the Industrial
Revolution, which closely follows the Marxist understanding, it was only under
duress that labour moved out of the domestic sphere into the realm of formal
employment in the first place.29
Paid employment represents the relationship between employer and employee
that Marx referred to as 'alienation' and this condition was the product of the
Colin U'l.zrd: anarchism and socialpolicy

worker's lack of ownership over his time, his tools and the product of his labour. 'Any
account of the Industrial revolution in this country; writes Ward, 'tells how workers
were driven by starvation to accept the disciplines of employment:3o Ward made a
direct comparison between these insights into early factory life and the sociological
research undertaken by Ferdinand Zweig among car workers in Coventry, published
in The Worker in the Affluent Society in 196 1 . Zweig noted that workers engaged in
intensive 'do-it-yourself' labour at weekends, often returning to the factory on
Monday exhausted from their leisure activities. This led Ward to ask 'what is work
and what is leisure, if we work harder at our leisure than at our work.' The first point
he makes in relation to this question is to argue that whilst jobs may be scarce, there
is never a shortage of work, an insight he traces to William Morris's distinction
between useless toil and useful labour. As Ward stated, 'There will never be a
shortage of work in the sense of coping with useful tasks') ' The second point he
makes in relation to the distinction between work and employment is to highlight
the existing economy of work which is not formal employment, in the sense of the
visible, measurable official economy. This covers all the effort people expend in
addressing the needs of others, from fixing a tap to babysitting, and under an even
wider understanding of the informal economy this extends to meeting the social
needs of others.
Ward draws examples of informal economic transactions from the work of soci
ologist Ray Paht using his case of a broken window. Informal solutions would
include paying someone privately in cash who is known to be able to mend windows,
asking a friend or neighbour to do it in return for reciprocal goods or services,
including reciprocated good will, or undertaking the repair oneself using one's own
tools and labour. From this discussion, Ward uses the notion of the 'informal
economy' to refer to 'all the possible conceptions of alternative economies: including
'ordinary self-employment' and 'that multitude of mutual services where money
doesn't change hands at all: and 'the communal economy ofjoint use of expensive
equipment: These activities, he notes, 'add up to an enormous range of human activi
ties without which life on this planet would be impossible')2
But Ward makes a clear Proudhonian distinction between the material condi
tions for free home work and those of sweated labour. The difference between
owning the relevant means of production, relying on an employer for access to them,
or doing without them and 'sweating' over output, 'is of course', he argues, 'a matter
of access to a very modest amount of credit'. The crucial difference between self
employment and sweatshop labour is access to a basic credit infrastructure for the
poor and some security of tenure for home workers. Ward adds that 'This is the
Carissa Honeywell
l ao
lesson of the Informal Economy in the exploding cities of the Third World tOO')3
'The obstacle' to self-employment for workers in both rich and poor countries is the
same, Ward argues, 'lack of access to capital or credit, lack of security, since in all
countries social security is geared to the employed controllable worker, not to the
self-employed, and the absence of an infrastructure which could automatically favour
the small, local provider.'34 Ward resists the association of terms like 'enterprise:
'initiative' and 'self-help' with the political right and the defence of capitalism, and
similarly rejects the identification of socialism with 'a Big Brother State with a
responsibility to provide a pauper's income for all and an inflation-proof income for
its own functionaries'. He draws on an older socialist image of federated craftsman
ship, based on the model of a radical self-employed individual:
sitting in his shop with a copy of William Morris's Useful T#Jrk versus Useless Toil
on the workbench, his hammer in his hand, and his lips full of brass tacks, his mind
full of notions ofliberating his fellow workers &om industrial serfdom in a dark
satanic mill,35
A decentralist anarchist vision of humanized work is achieved via the rejection of
formal employment and the growth of the informal, self-employed economy. From
Ward's reflections about the anarchist view of liberated work, we learn that part of a
mutualist set of welfare aspirations must be to 'question the legitimacy of the
employing institurions, and the monopoly we ascribe to them of creating wealth'.36
4. CONCLUSION
As an anarchist, Colin Ward expressed a commitment to the individual and commu

nity self-government and employed the ontology of mutually reinforcing spheres of
individual freedom and social connectedness. In so doing, he provided a distinctive
anarchist response to contemporary social policy dilemmas, particularly concerning
welfare. The anarchist approach to contemporary welfare fostered by his work
emphasises microeconomic and 'informal' approaches to understanding both
already-existing and potential welfare practices. The emphasis is on the ways in
which these practices embody the transcendence of economic transfer, the institu
tionalising of benevolence, and the widening of notions of productive reciprocity to
include emotional and social relationships. The most important implication of these
practices from an anarchist point of view is that they inform a distinctly anarchist
view of social relationships, based on individual freedom, mutual aid and rich associAnarchist Studies 19.2
Colin "Ward: anarchism and socialpolicy

ad
ational cultures of reciprocity - Ward gives us a much clearer picture of what social
forms might flourish in an anarchist society, where welfare and work are immanent
features of human interaction. The most important implication of these practices
from the point of view of social policy is that they represent a potential welfare
society premised on social practices that are not so vulnerable to the official policy
changes of central government. Ward offers a model of social policy that separates
the public sphere from top-down ideologies of social provision. Any social policy
agenda is suspect, he argued, that does not immediately and tangibly aim to
diminish poverty and enhance independence. This argument has a role to play in the
anarchist interrogation of ongoing debates. For example, Ward demonstrates that
any attempt to fuse private responsibility and public spirit needs to recognize the
economic underpinning necessary for community self-management, such as reliable
tenure and small-scale credit facilities. Ward's anarchism is important for under
standing what mutualism really entails, especially in the sphere of welfare provision.
He demonstrates that it must be based on the economic freedoms of self-employ
ment and the credit provisions envisaged by Proudhon. As the post- 1 945 welfare
settlement becomes history, the left-wing reclamation of mutualist and self-help
welfare idioms from the free market right, and from the theoreticians of the 'Big
Society: becomes more pressing. The work of Ward over the last fifty years provides
an anarchist analysis that can facilitate this reclamation.
is a Lecturer in Politics at Sheffield Hallam University. Her

research interests concern the political theory of anarchism, particularly in the twen
tieth century contexts. She is the author ofA British Anarchist Tradition: Herbert
Read, Alex Comfort and Colin Ward (20 1 1); 'Utopianism and Anarchism: Journal of
Political Ideologies (2007); 'Art and Utopia: The Philosophies of Herbert Read:
Altertopian (2009); 'Bridging the Gaps: Anarchism Old and New: in R. Kinna (ed.),
Continuum Companion to Anarchism (20 1 1 ); and 'Paul Goodman: Finding an
Audience for Anarchism: Journalfor the Study ofRadicalism (20 1 1 ).
Email: c.honeywell@shu.ac.uk
Carissa Honeywell
NOTES
1. C. Ward, Social Policy, An Anarchist Response (London, 2000, first published by the
London School of Economics, 1996) [hereafter Social Policy], p.17.
2. Social PoliCY, pp. l 0-1 1 .
Carissa Honeywell
3. C. Ward, Anarchy in Action (London, 1 982), p.22.
4. Social Policy, p. 16.
5. C. Ward, When Jfe Build Again, Let's Have Housing That Works (London, 1985)
[hereafter When Jfe Build Again], p. l 5.
6. When Jfe Build Again, p.56.
9. C. Ward, Tenants Take Over (London, 1974), p.8.
10. R. Titmuss, The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy (London:
1970), pA, quoted in Colin Ward, Reflected in T-tater. A Crisis ofSocial Responsibility
(London & Washington, 1997), p. viii, subsequent reference to Reflected in T-tater.
1 1. Reflected in T-tater, p.1 3 1 .
1 2. Social PoliCY, p. 1 2.
1 3. Social Policy, p.9.
14. See A. Kidd, 'Civil Society or the State?: Recent Approaches to the History of
Voluntary Welfare; Journal ofHistorical Sociology, 1 5, 3, (2002), pp. 328- 342.
IS. Ward, Social Policy, p.l O- l 1.
1 6. Ward, When Jfe Build Again, pp.9- 1O.
17. Ward, Social Policy, p.1 6.
18. C. Ward, Anarchism. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2004), p.28.
19. R. Putnam, 'Introduction' to R. Putman & L. Feldstein, Better Together: Restoring the
American Community (New York, 2004) [hereafter Better Together], pA.
20. R. D. Putnam, R. Leonardi & R. Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy Work: Civic
Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, 1994).
2 1 . See for example 'Co-Production. A Manifesto for Growing the Core Economy' (New
Economics Foundation, 2008).
22. Better Together, p.9.
23. Social Policy, p. 17.
24. C. Ward, 'Anarchism and the Informal Economy; The Raven, 1 ( 1 986) [hereafter
'Anarchism and the Informal Economy; p.27.
25. 'Anarchism and the Informal Economy', p.3 1.
26. 'Anarchism and the Informal Economy', p.25.
27. The idea of the 'core economy' is associated with the work of Neva Goodwin.
28. Particularly in the works of Elinor Ostrom, Anna Coote, and Edgar Cahn.
29. 'Anarchism and the Informal Economy; p.27.
30. J.L. and Barbara Hammond, The Town Labourer: 1760- 1832 (Phoenix Mill, Reprint
edition, 1995).
Colin Ward: anarchism and socialpolicy
83 1
3 1.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
'Anarchism and the Informal Economy: p.34.

'Anarchism and the Informal Economy', p.33.
'Anarchism and the Informal Economy', p.33.
Colin Ward: Anarchy and organisation

Graham, Robert
pg. 84
ISSN
0967 3393

Robert Graham
ABSTRACT
Throughout his writings, Colin Ward sought to develop an anarchist theory of organ
isation, emphasising voluntary association and functional groups which would
coordinate their activities through horizontal networks or federations. Ward drew on
the work of classical anarchists, such as Proudhon's theory of federation, Bakunin's
notion of freedom and solidarity, and Kropoktin's writings on voluntary association,
decentralisation, human scale technology, and mutual aid. Ward also drew on the
work of his contemporaries, especially Paul Goodman. His theory of anarchist organi
sation was an original synthesis of his and other anarchists' ideas made relevant to
contemporary society. He envisioned the expansion and proliferation of ad hoc
groups based on voluntary memberships that would function for as long as they were
needed. Many such groups already exist, and more can be created without having to
wait for a social revolution. His writings of the 1 960s and 1 970s presaged in many
ways the new approaches to anarchist organisation that have become more prominent
following the rise ofglobal justice movements against neo-liberalism in the late twen
tieth century, and are consonant with the much more theoretical approaches of
post-structuralist currents in anarchist thought, but are far more accessible.
Keywords Anarchism, Organisation, Colin Ward
1 . INTRODUCTION
Colin Ward first became involved in the anarchist movement in the 1 940s, when he
testified at the trial of Vernon Richards, Marie Louise Berneri, John Hewetson and
Philip Sansom for 'causing disaffection' among the troops. Ward had read their
paper, 1#lr Commentary (soon to be renamed Freedom), while still a soldier, and said
that it did not cause him to be disaffected. No doubt many other things already had.
Colin fMlrd: Anarchy and organisation
8s 1
He was soon writing regularly for Jfar Commentary, and then Freedom. Some of
his earliest articles were on the post-war squatting movement in England (reprinted
in Ward 1 983: 1 3-27). Ward emphasised how poor and working class people were
forcing the issue of affordable housing through their own direct action, outside of
any political parties or trade union organisations, by means of rent strikes and occu
pations, the 'three prerequisites for successful action' being 'independence, solidarity
and determination' (Ward 1 983: 1 8; original emphasis). For Ward, one of the most
notable features of the squatting movement was 'the way in which, quite sponta
neously and without disputes, the accommodation was divided among the would-be
squatters in accordance with their needs, the size of their families, and so on: giving
rise to 'that hopeful, adventurous spirit that springs from independence and sponta
neous cooperation' (Ward 1 983: 24).
Here we have the seeds of Ward's approach to anarchism as a theory of organisa
tion, 'a description of a mode of human organisation, rooted in the experience of
everyday life, which operates side by side with, and in spite of, the dominant authori
tarian trends of our society' (Ward 1 974: 1 1). As Ward immediately noted, this 'is
not a new version of anarchism' (Ward 1974: 1 1). Its roots can be found in the
writings of the 'classical anarchists' of the nineteenth century, such as Proudhon,
Bakunin and Kropotkin, and in the writings of early twentieth century anarchists,
such as Gustav Landauer. Ward's approach to anarchism constitutes a vivid refuta
tion of George Woodcock's thesis that there was a real discontinuity between
nineteenth-century anarchism, which supposedly died with the defeat of the Spanish
anarchists at the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1 939, and the so-called 'new anar
chism' which began to emerge in the 1 960s (Woodcock 1972: 29-45).
2. CLASSICAL ANARCHISM, POSTWAR ANARCHISM AND COLIN WARD'S

THEORY OF ORGANISATION
Throughout his writings, Ward drew out what remained relevant and valuable in the
work of earlier anarchists. He often referred to Proudhon's theory of federalism,
Bakunin's critique of the state, and Kropotkin's theory of voluntary association. He
gave credit to Proudhon for developing, well before Ward had, 'an anarchist theory
of social organisation, of small units federated together but with no central power'
(Ward 1 974: 12). He commended Proudhon's view that a successful federation must
be composed of relatively equal groups, such that a federated Europe, in Proudhon's
words, 'would have to be a confederation of confederations' (Ward 1974: 55). Ward
agreed with Proudhon and Bakunin that any genuine federation requires, as Bakunin
Robert Graham
I S6
put it, the 'right of free union and equally free secession ... without it, confederation
would be nothing but centralisation in disguise' (Ward 2004: 85).
This emphasis on voluntary association was even more pronounced in
Kropotkin's writings, to which Ward returned time and time again in setting forth
his conception of anarchism as a theory of organisation. In arguing that anarchy, in
its positive sense, 'is a function, not of a society's simplicity and lack of social organi
sation, but of its complexity and multiplicity of social organisations: Ward cited
Kropotkin's view that anarchism 'seeks the most complete development of individu
ality combined with the highest development of voluntary association in all its
aspects, in all possible degrees, for all imaginable aims; ever changing, ever modified
associations which carry in themselves the elements of their durability and constandy
assume new forms which answer best to the multiple aspirations of all' (Ward 1 974:
50; Graham, 2005: 142).
By combining Kropotkin's conception of voluntary association with Proudhon
and Bakunin's federalism, Ward developed his own original conception of ,topless' or
'horizontal' federations. Proudhon and Bakunin's concept of federation is that of an
inverse pyramid. Instead ofpower being held by a few at the top of a hierarchical
power structure, power resides in the people at the base, in their productive and
communal groups, which voluntarily federate with one another to coordinate their
activities. In Bakunin's words, the 'future social organization should be carried out
from the bottom up, by the free association or federation of workers, starting with the
associations, then going on to the communes, the regions, the nations, and, finally,
culminating in a great international and universal federation' (Graham 2005: 1 05).
The problem with this conception of federalism as an inverse pyramid is that the
pyramid can be reversed, particularly in times of crisis, as some would argue
happened to the anarcho-syndicalist CNT in Spain during the Civil War (see, for
example, Richards 1 953). The administrative and coordinating bodies at the top of
the federal structure, which are not supposed to have any decision-making power,
start to function more like an executive power, adopting and pursuing policies that
the federated groups never authorised (except sometimes, after the fact, when the
policy or decision has become afait accompli).
Kropotkin conceived of an anarchist society as 'an interwoven network,
composed of an infinite variety of groups and federations of all sizes and degrees,
local, regional, national, and international - temporary or more or less permanent for all possible purposes: production, consumption and exchange, communications,
sanitary arrangements, education, mutual protection, defence of the territory, and so
on; and, on the other side, for the satisfaction of an ever-increasing number of scienAnarchist Studies 1 9.2
Colin rd: Anarchy and organisation
tiflc, artistic, literary and sociable needs' (Ward 1 974: 52). Ward agreed that 'every
kind of human activity should begin from what is local and immediate, should link
in a network with no centre and no directing agency, hiving off new cells as the
original ones grow' (Ward 1 974: 58). But rather than conceiving of the resulting
social structure as a single, albeit interwoven, network, Ward conceived of it as a
network of networks, from communication networks, to production networks, to
consumption networks, to care and service networks, to artistic and leisure
networks, 'connecting through one another rather than to each other through a
centre: to use Donald Schon's words, even if that centre is supposed to be only a
coordinating or administrative agency (Ward 1 974: 5 1 ).
In arguing that social harmony is achieved through social complexity, Ward was
drawing on the work of communitarian anarchists, such as Gustav Landauer, his
friend and literary executor, Martin Buber, and Ward's anarchist contemporary, Paul
Goodman, to whom Anarchy in Action was dedicated. Landauer and Buber empha
sised the degree to which communal life had been simplifled and hollowed out by
capitalism and the state, such that the task facing anarchists was the reconstitution or
regeneration of a rich and complex social life or community. Ward was fond of
quoting Landauer's statement that: 'The state is not something which can be
destroyed by a revolution, but is a condition, a certain relationship between human
beings, a mode of human behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships,
by behaving differently' (Ward 1 974: 1 9; alternate translation in Graham 2005:
165). Landauer therefore advocated the creation of'a society of societies, an associa
tion of associations' (Graham 2005: 1 64), which became, in Buber's formulation, 'a
community of communities' (Graham 2009: 87-88).
In the same vein, Paul Goodman wrote in 1 945, in a passage also cited by Ward,
that: 'A free society cannot be the substitution of a 'new order' for the old order; it is
the extension of spheres of free action until they make up most of social life' (Ward
1 974: 1 1; Graham 2009: 43). Ward argued that 'once you begin to look at human
society from [this] anarchist point of view you discover that the alternatives are
already there, in the interstices of the dominant power structure. If you want to build
a free society, the parts are all at hand' (Ward 1 974: 1 3).
As Ward pointed out in his 1 966 article, 'Anarchy as a Theory of
Organisation', almost all of us already 'belong to a whole network of groups,
based on common interests and common tasks', but these are generally divided
into two kinds (Graham 2009: 363). The first kind is the bureaucratic, top down
organisation. The second kind is the voluntary association, which people 'are free
to join or free to leave alone'. Anarchists 'are people who want to transform all
Robert Graham
laa
forms of human organization into that kind of purely voluntary association where
people can pull out and start one of their own if they don't like it' (Graham 2009:
363). The kind of voluntary association suitable as an anarchist form of organisa
tion is therefore one which is: ' ( 1 ) voluntary, (2) functional, (3) temporary and
(4) small' (Graham 2009: 363).
This focus on the internal organisation and dynamics of voluntary associations
was largely absent from Kropotkin's writings, but formed a central part of the debate
between so-called anti-organisationalist and organisationalist anarchist groups in the
early 1900s (see Turcato 2009). One of the most articulate of the anti-organisation
alists was Luigi Galleani, who argued that even a self-identified anarchist
organisation, or an anarcho-syndicalist trade union, would inevitably be 'based on
delegation and representation', with 'an organ for every function, of little or no use,
but through which everybody must pass, against which all initiatives will have to
collide, and before which all original and unorthodox projects will appear suspicious,
if not outright subversive' (Graham 2005: 1 22). Voline, the Russian anarchist, recog
nised the danger of any organisation tending toward 'immobility, bureaucracy' and
'authoritarianism: but argued that a more fluid conception of voluntary association,
closer to Kropotkin's, comprising 'more mobile, even provisional organs which arise
and multiply according to the needs that arise in the course of daily living and activi
ties: would help obviate such concerns (Graham 2005: 424).
The four criteria for organisation proposed by Ward also help to answer the
anti-organisationalist case. The first criterion, voluntary membership, ensures that
everyone is free to join or not join any group. The second criterion, functionalism, is
meant to counter-act the 'tendency for organisations to exist without a genuine
function, or which have outlived their functions', one of Galleani's fears (Graham
2009: 363). The third criterion, temporariness, serves a similar function, for 'perma
nence is one of those factors which hardens the arteries of an organisation, giving it a
vested interest in its own survival, in serving the interests of its office holders rather
than in serving its ostensible functions' (Graham 2009: 363). The fourth criterion,
smallness, gives 'the bureaucratizing and hierarchical tendencies inherent in organisa
tion' the 'least opportunity to develop' (Graham 2009: 363).
But Ward went further than that. These four criteria relate to organisations in
general, for Ward's theory is an anarchist theory of organisation, not a theory of
anarchist organisations. Ward was not trying to suggest that only anarchist groups
need satisfy these criteria, nor did he envisage a future society consisting of a
network of self-proclaimed anarchist groups. Nowhere does Ward propose the
creation of ideological anarchist groups that would have a function akin to more
conventional political parties. Throughout his work, Ward highlighted the ability
and practice of ordinary people in organising their own affairs, whether homeless
people, tenants, workers, consumers and so forth. In citing Landauer and Goodman
on creating other relationships, outside of the state, and extending the spheres of free
action to encompass all of social life, Ward was emphasising not only self-help but
self-organisation. From this perspective, the role of anarchists is not to create ideo
logical anarchist organisations or to recruit people into them, until they are large and
strong enough to supplant the state and capitalism, but to work with people in
creating their own human-scale, functional groups, through which they can take
control of their everyday lives.
3. CONCLUSION: SPONTANEOUS ORDER, LEADERLESS GROUPS AND
TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONES
Tied to Ward's anarchist theory of organisation are his concepts of 'spontaneous

order' and 'leaderless groups: With respect to the latter concept, Ward quoted
Bakunin's comment: 'Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no
fIxed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary and,
above all, voluntary authority and subordination' (Ward, 1974: 39). While Bakunin
may not have applied this concept in a consistently anarchist manner, Ward argued
that 'this fluid, changing leadership ... derives from each person's self-chosen
function in performing the task in hand: not from any position, status or office
(WardI974: 41). The temporary leadership role is functionally based, as is the group
itself. such that the role ceases upon the exercise of the function, just as the group
ceases to exist when it no longer has a function.
Ward summarised the anarchist theory of spontaneous order as 'the theory that,
given a common need, a collection of people will, by trial and error, by improvisation
and experiment, evolve order out of the situation - this order being more durable
and more closely related to their needs than any kind of externally imposed authority
could provide' (Ward 1974: 28). In addition to various sociological experiments and
observations, Ward cited the spontaneous order that often emerges during revolu
tionary interregnums, the time during which the old regime has been overthrown
but a new regime has yet to consolidate power. Earlier anarchists, such as Voline, had
noted that 'revolutions necessarily begin in a more or less spontaneous manner'
(Graham 2009: 308). The problem is how to prevent a new power from asserting
itself. Voline argued this could only be done 'by the direct, widespread, and inde
pendent action ofthose concerned, ofthe workers themselves, grouped, not under the
Robert Graham
190
banner of a political party or of an ideological formation, but in their own class
organisations (productive workers' unions, factory committees, co-operatives, etc)
on the basis of concrete action and self-government'(Graham 2009: 309). Ward
agreed that '[a]utonomous direct action, decentralised decision-making, and free
federation have been the characteristics of all genuinely popular uprisings: and
provided extensive evidence that workers' control of industry is entirely feasible
(Ward 1974: 2S & 99- 104).
Unlike Murray Bookchin, Ward was sympathetic to newer concepts, such as
'temporary autonomous zones: which he describes as those 'fleeting pockets of
anarchy that occur in daily life' (Ward, 1997). Much of his Anarchy in Action docu
mented the many pockets of anarchy that occur in daily life, in the hope that this
would inspire people to expand these pockets to encompass the whole of social life,
or at least to 'widen the scope of free action and the potentiality for freedom in the
society we have'(Ward 1974: 1 38). For Ward, anarchism, 'is not a programme for
political change but an act of social self-determination: an 'assertion of human
dignity and responsibility' (Ward 1974: 143).
In the 1960s and early 1970s, Ward summed up 'the social ideas of anarchism' as
'autonomous groups, workers' COntrol, [and] the federal principle: horizontal
'networks, not pyramids: composed of ,small, functional groups which ebb and flow,
group and regroup, according to the task in hand'(Graham 2009: 369-371). The
latter part of his description could just as easily have been of the anarchist action
groups that assumed such a prominent role in the global justice movements which
emerged in the wake of the Zapatista uprising in Mexico in the 1990s, and the 1999
'Battle in Seattle'. Recent examples of spontaneous uprisings and the continuing aspi
ration for self-determination can be readily found in the 'Arab Spring' of 20 1 1. In
refashioning the ideas of the 'classical anarchists' for the latter half of the twentieth
century, Colin Ward helped lay the ground work for yet another resurgence of anar
chism in the twenty-first.
Robert Graham is
the editor of the three-volume anthology of anarchist writings

from ancient China to the present day, Anarchism: a Documentary History of
Libertarian Ideas. He has been writing about contemporary anarchist theory and the
history of anarchist ideas since the 1980s.
Blog Address: http://robertgraham.wordpress.com
Colin 1ard: Anarchy and organisation

REFERENCES
Graham, Robert 2005. Anarchism: A Documentary History ofLibertarian Ideas. Volume

One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939). Montreal, Black Rose Books.
Graham, Robert 2009. Anarchism: A Documentary History ofLibertarian Ideas. Volume
Two: The Emergence ofthe New Anarchism (J939-1977). Montreal, Black Rose Books.
Richards, Vernon 1953. Lessons ofthe Spanish Revolution. London, Freedom Press.
Turcato, Davide 2009. 'Making Sense of Anarchism'. In Anarchism: A Documentary History
ofLibertarian Ideas, Volume Two: The Emergence ofthe New Anarchism (J 939-1 977).
Ed. Robert Graham.
Ward, Colin 2004. Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, Oxford University
Press.
1974. Anarchy in Action. New York, Harper.
-- 1 983. Housing: An Anarchist Approach. London, Freedom Press.
-- 1997. 'Temporary Autonomous Zones'. Freedom Spring 1 997.
Woodcock, George 1 972. 'Anarchism Revisited'. In The Rejection ofPolitics. Toronto: New
Press.
--
Social anarchism, lifestyle anarchism, and the anarchism of Colin Ward

White, Stuart
pg. 92
ISSN
0967 3393
Social anarchism, lifestyle anarchism,

and the anarchism of Colin Ward
Stuart White
ABSTRACT
In
a famous polemical article, Murray Bookchin contrasts social and lifestyle anar
chisms and argues that there is an 'unbridgeable chasm' between them. This article
traces a parallel debate in British anarchism at the start of the 1960s and explains
how Colin Ward sought to endorse elements of both views in developing his non
utopian, pragmatic anarchism. It shows how social and lifestyle anarchist themes
find expression in Ward's work more generally, and argues that Ward's work in this
way implicitly and persuasively challenges the thesis that they are incompatible
(without denying they can be in tension).
Keywords Social Anarchism, Lifestyle Anarchism, Permanent Protest
INTRODUCTION
In a famous polemic, Murray Bookchin distinguishes between what he terms 'social
anarchism' and 'lifestyle anarchism' (Bookchin 20 1 1 ( 1 995)). As presented by

Bookchin, social anarchism remains within the socialist tradition and accordingly
seeks a transformation of society towards a more egalitarian, post-capitalist order.
Lifestyle anarchism, by contrast, presents anarchy as a state of being which can and
should be seized by the individual here and now. Bookchin is insistent that there is,
as he puts it, 'an unbridgeable chasm' between the two perspectives. One cannot mix
the two in an integrated anarchist theory or practice. However, a number of recent
works have questioned this claim, arguing that some integration of the two perspec
tives is possible (Bowen 2004: 8-9; Day 2005: 21). The purpose of this paper is to
Social anarchism, liftstyle anarchism, and the anarchism 0/Colin rd
explore this possibility by looking at how the two perspectives which Bookchin sees
as irreconcilable are arguably blended in the thinking of the post-war British anar
chist, Colin Ward.
1 . SOCIAL ANARCHISM VERSUS LlFESmE ANARCHISM
Let us begin by elaborating Bookchin's distinction between social and lifestyle anar
chism.
Social anarchism stands in the socialist tradition. It aims to establish a post
capitalist, egalitarian social order. The content of this post-capitalist order is
something on which different schools of social anarchist thought disagree. But
there are some basic points of agreement. First, decision-making must be decentral
ized. In the syndicalist variant of social anarchism, the workplace or local
occupational group is the primary unit of decision-making. In the anarcho-commu
nist variant, it is the self-governing neighbourhood or 'commune'. Local units
federate to handle issues that require coordination. Second, economic distribution
must be strongly egalitarian, ideally attaining the standard of 'from each according
to his/her ability, to each according to his/her need'. Bookchin's own version of
social anarchism, social ecology, is communalist in orientation ( Bookchin 197 1 a,
2007) . Freedom, Bookchin argues, should not be understood primarily as a matter
of the 'autonomy' of the individual to do her own thing without regard to the
community. Rather, it is primarily a matter of the local community having real
democratic control over its affairs and of the individual being able to participate in
this democratic control on a 'face-to-face' basis and on a footing of equality
( Bookchin: 1 97 1 a, 2007, 20 1 1 ) ..
Bookchin's social anarchism is also distinguished, of course, by the relative
emphasis that he places on the ecological argument for a communalist social order as
an alternative to capitalism. To satisfy tightening ecological constraints, economic
organization must be substantially decentralized to the regional and communal level.
Today's massive urban conglomerations must give way to smaller communities that
are more widely dispersed. Agriculture must be decentralized so that local people
produce food primarily for local consumption. Energy supply, using new technolo
gies of solar, wind and tidal power, must similarly be decentralized (Bookchin
1971b) . Other economic activity must go the same way. Ecology and freedom neces
sarily come as a package, finding their mutual realization in communalism. In terms
of the anarchist tradition, the basic social vision has much in common with that
presented by Peter Kropotkin in Fields, Factories and Workshops.
Stuart White
What, then, is lifestyle anarchism? The first thing to say is that lifestyle anar
chism is not simply an anarchism that contains a concern for lifestyle. A social
anarchist can be concerned to promote specific kinds oflifestyle on the grounds that
these are instrumental to bringing about a new social order. Bookchin supports a
concern for lifestyle change in this respect. This is related to the view that the means
used to achieve fundamental social change must prefigure the end, implying that
elements of the communalist future must be embodied in the lives of anarchists
today. At the very least, Bookchin accepts what we can call an instrumentalist view
of anarchist lifestyle: valuable because, and insofar as, it is instrumental to the
creation of a new social order.
Lifestyle anarchism, as Bookchin characterizes it, values anarchist lifestyle in a
different way. Anarchist lifestyle derives its value and significance not from the
contribution it makes to comprehensive social change which may become effective at
some future date, but from the anarchy that it manifests here and now. Anarchy is a
matter of creating anarchistic spaces, albeit provisional, within existing society and
enjoying them while they last. A central idea is Hakim Bey's notion of the
Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ): '... a guerrilla operation which liberates an
area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself, to re-form else
where/elsewhen, before the State can crush it' (cited in Bookchin 200 1 : 12).
Bookchin's evaluation is wholly negative: '... a basically apolitical and anti-organiza
tional commitment to imagination, desire, and ecstasy, and an intensely self-oriented
enchantment of everyday life .. : (Bookchin 20 1 1 : 4).
Bookchin points out that Bey does not simply celebrate the intrinsic worth of
the TAZ here and now, but goes further in seeing action geared to wider social trans
formation as misguided because it is geared to a speculative future rather than the
here and now. Iflifestyle anarchism is defined in this way, then, as Bookchin argues,
there does indeed seem to be a contradiction with social anarchism. However, by
setting up or accepting so stark a contrast, Bey and Bookchin invite an obvious
rejOinder: why can't the anarchist value lifestyle in both ways ? Why force a choice ? I
shall now try to show how a hybrid, bridging social and lifestyle anarchisms, finds
expression in the anarchism of Colin Ward.
2. FREEDOM IN THE 1 960S: THE PERMANENT PROTEST DEBATE
In
turning to Ward, let us begin by sketching some of the intellectual and political
context in which Ward developed his own anarchist position. In particular, it is
important to attend to the debate going on in the pages of the journals Freedom and
Social anarchism, lifestyle anarchism, and the anarchism 0/Colin Uizrd
95 1
Anarchy in the late 1950s and early 1 960s about the idea that anarchism should be
conceived as a philosophy of 'permanent protest'. As we shall see, the terms of this
debate mirror very closely those of the more recent debate around social and lifestyle
anarchisms. Ward developed a distinctive, intermediate position in this debate, one
that may have lessons for anarchists currently seeking to navigate their way through
the confrontation between social and lifestyle anarchisms.
One of the key instigators of the debate was the Australian anarchist, George
Molnar. Molnar published in Freedom in the late 1950s and Ward, as editor of
Anarchy, published his work in that journal in the 1960s. 1n one particularly impor
tant article published in Anarchy in 1961, Molnar argues that the mode of social
organization favoured by anarchists is highly unlikely ever to win universal consent
(Molnar 1961). Hence, an anarchist society is not possible unless anarchists use force
to implement or maintain it. But that would be contrary to the basic norm of anar
chism. So an anarchist society is, for all practical purposes, an impossibility. It makes
no sense, therefore, to understand anarchism as a movement to create an anarchist
society. What, then, is anarchism about? Molnar's answer is that it is about 'perma
nent opposition' to authoritarian society: 'This conclusion implies that the
conflicting strains of anarchism cannot be resolved until anarchism is altogether
purged of its association with a program of secular salvation ... Anarchism, consis
tently interpreted, is permanent opposition' (Molnar 196 1 : 127).
This call was persuasive to some British anarchists in the 1960s and some inter
preted it in a way that sounds strikingly similar to later thinkers such as Hakim Bey
in its emphasis on the individual's battle to win spaces of freedom here and now
against the state, simply bracketing the question of whether and what sort of future
society the anarchist wishes to create. Thus one 'J.G.' writes in Freedom in 1961 that:
The upholder of permanent protest acts against the power of the Church, the
State, the authoritarian institutions and regimentation because of the affirmation of
his freedom here and now, not because of the trajectory of the future society. His
action therefore springs from the contradiction between the individual and society
and as such it does not necessitate any teleological precepts (J.G. 196 1 : 3).
The whole focus on what a future society might look like is, according to this writer,
akin to an addiction that distracts us from living freely here and now: 'The future
pessimistic, or optimistic, utopian or non-utopian, is but a drug habit' (J.G. 196 1 : 3).
In a letter to Freedom some two years later, one correspondent expressed his under
standing of the permanent protest perspective in more concrete terms:
Stuart White
Individuals now can do something positive. Contract out - alone or in small
groups. I exist behind the welfare state, after the full stop on the red tape forms. In
short I bum around. My life is my permanent protest at the lousy world. I don't
rejoice at exploitation and oppression ... I just see that nowadays an individual can
do little but this permanent protest thing. My anarchism is between my legs, in
books, poetry, thoughts and a few friends, I harm no-one and no-one harms me.
I'm living my anarchism NOW (Rowley 1963: 4).
Other contributors to Freedom reacted to these views with the same hostility that
Bookchin today reacts to views such as Bey's, seeing them as expressing a self-indulgent
escapism from social responsibility. Responding to '].G:' Arthur Uloth comments:
Well, of course if one is exhilarated by life in an authoritarian society, and finds the
joy of battle in resisting social pressures, one is welcome to one's fun. Personally, I
find a world of H-Bombs and concentration camps a bit of a bore. I can think of
many better ways ofliving ... Ways that are quite within the range of human possi
bilities (Uloth 196 1 : 4).
Within this debate, which strikingly anticipates the terms of Bookchin's polemic
with lifestyle anarchism, Ward staked out an interesting intermediate position.
In an article published in Freedom in 1961, and originally delivered that year to a
summer school of the London Anarchist Group, entitled 'Anarchism and
Respectability', Ward sets out clearly where he stands on these issues (Ward 1961 a,
1961 b). Ward begins by arguing, on lines similar to Molnar, that the idea of creating
an 'anarchist society' is not 'an intellectually respectable idea.' Ward concedes that
the permanent protest perspective represents one coherent response to this, and that
it is, to this extent, intellectually respectable:
One reasonable reaction is to stress again the individual character of anarchism and
declare like Robert Frost and Ammon Hennacy: 'I believe in the one-man revolu
tion. We ain't going to get any other kind.' ... I think that those anarchists like
George Molnar who see anarchism as permanent protest, have an attitude which is
a good deal more respectable than those who in fact make it an attitude of perma
nent postponement (Ward 1961a: 3).
However, the main point of Ward's article is to argue that permanent protest does
not properly exhaust what anarchism is or should be about. Anarchism should aim
Social anarchism, lifestyle anarchism, and the anarchism oleolin rd
to change society. For even if it cannot be wholly transformed in an anarchist direc

tion, society can be more or less anarchic and the anarchist should strive to make
them more rather than less: 'The concept of a free society may be an abstraction, but
that of a freeer society is not.' With this perspective the idea of an 'anarchist society'
re-emerges but in a different way: 'having thrown the idea of an anarchist society out
of the front door: Ward writes, 'I want to let it in again by the back window. Not as
an aim to be realised, but as a yardstick, a measurement or means of assessing reality
.. .' (Ward 1 961a: 3). Beyond the episodes of 'permanent protest: in which anarchy is
fleetingly grabbed and enjoyed, there is a need for a social vision: a working, always
provisional conception of a different kind of society towards which the anarchist
should work.
In the next section, 1 will set out the aspirational social vision underlying Ward's
work. The section after this discusses themes in Ward's work which are more consis
tent with the here and now emphasis of so-called lifestyle anarchism. The
concluding section then brings the two themes together.
3. THE SOCIAL ANARCHIST THEME IN WARD
In
a BBC radio programme broadcast in 1 968, Ward comments: 'I consider myself
to be an anarchist-communist, in the Kropotkin tradition' (Boston, in Ward, ed.
1 987: 1 1). There is no doubting that Ward's anarchism is centrally informed by a
social vision that has some strong similarities with that of Kropotkin.
The point of convergence is the idea of the garden city developed in the work of
Ebenezer Howard (Ward and Goodway 2003:70-73; Hall 2002: 87- 1 87). Ward
worked for the Town and Country Planning Association for about a decade, a volun
tary organization which emerged to propagate the ideas of Ebenezer Howard. He
wrote frequently for the TCPA journal, Town and Country Planning (Ward and
Goodway 2003: 68-69). Ward's essays repeatedly and sympathetically draw out the
connections between this tradition of urban planning and the ideas of Kropotkin
(Ward 1 989, 1 990, 1 99 1 a, 1 996b). In Howard's vision, garden cities combine indus
trial and agricultural ptoduction mostly directed to local needs. Towns contain green
spaces along with manufacturing units and housing. Each city is in a network of
other, similar cities, with greenbelts preventing them merging into a single urban
whole. Thus, instead of Town and Country, we have what Howard termed 'Town
Country'. Within this structure, Ward imagines that each neighbourhood is
self-governing (Ward 1 996a: 59-66). Neighbourhoods federate at the city level, and
cities further federate to coordinate common affairs.
Stuart White
Many of Ward's specific interventions and policy ideas fit readily into, and make
a particular sense within, the framework of this Town-Country' social vision. For
example, one can see how Ward's advocacy of public transport and of planning to
discourage use of the private motor car corresponds with this vision (Ward 199 1 b).
Or consider the affinity between the garden city and Ward's interest in allotments
and community gardens (Crouch and Ward 1997, Ward 1989). Ward explored how
the principle of the community garden might be extended into small-scale industrial
production in his work on the 'community workshop' (Ward 1996a: 104- 106; Ward
2003: 47-49). Allotments and community workshops can, in turn, be linked to his
advocacy of Local Exchange Trading Schemes (Ward 1995). Following Howard,
Ward argues that the local community should own its own land so that rents from its
use would belong to it and be available to fund local public services (Ward and
Goodway 2003: 72; see also Hall 2002: 93-97).
Ward's practical applications of anarchism range actoss a wide variety of
concerns - housing, education, transport, food, energy, water, and more - but one
thing which holds much of this work together is the way each intervention on a
specific subject draws on, and draws us towards, an integrated social vision of the
garden city kind.
4. THE PLENITUDE OF 'UNMAKE': THE LlFESmE ANARCHIST THEME IN WARD
Ward's anarchism is informed, then, by a definite vision of a possible future society.

However, a good deal of Ward's work is less concerned with mapping the possible
future than with celebrating what people can and do experience here and now.
'And now we see an immaculate vegetable patch with an old gentleman hoeing
his onions' (Ward 1 990: 29). This sentence is characteristic of Ward's work. It
focuses our attention on something that is modest and which yet at the same time
carries with it a dignity associated with creative self-assertion. Much of Ward's work
as a social historian or anthropologist is concerned with identifying spaces of this
creatively self-assertive kind. Ward's purpose is not merely observational. Implicitly at
least, he celebrates the way in which people discover and create these spaces, and, in
so doing, perhaps encourages us to seek them and carve them out of the social world
in which we live.
This theme is apparent, firstly, in Ward's work on the histoty of self-build move
ments in housing. Ward's main work on this topic, Arcadiafor All, traces the history
of the 'plotlands' developments in the years before World War Two (Hardy and
Ward 1987). Starting at the end of the nineteenth century, working-class people
Social anarchism, lifestyle anarchism, and the anarchism ofColin 1Vtzrd
began to purchase land within reasonable distance of cities such as London at

depressed prices. They built on these plots and, as they did so, new communities
started to grow up in haphazard fashion. Many middle-class observers viewed the
developments at the time with alarm and disdain, and post-war planning legislation
was motivated in part by a desire to prevent them happening again. Ward, however,
is deeply impressed by the episode. Where others see an unpleasant untidiness, even
a 'vast pastoral slum: Ward sees a prime example of creative direct action by means of
which working-class people crawled out of the very real urban slums in which they
often lived and found for themselves a modest place in the sun (Ward 1 990).
Implicitly contrasting the results with the oppressive uniformity of the UK's post
war tower blocks and council estates, he writes of one such development, Laindon:
Let us zoom in on one particular street in the Laindon end of Basildon. It probably
has a greater variety of housing types than any street in Britain. It starts on the right
with two late Victorian villas ... On the left is a detached house with a porch
embellished with Doric wooden columns ... Then there are some privately-built
houses of the 1960s, and next a wooden cabin with an old lady leaning over the
gate ... Here is a characteristic improved shanty with imitation stone quoins ...
Most of the old houses have some feature in the garden ... This one has a fountain,
working. This one has a windmill about five feet high painted black and white like
the timber and asbestos house it adjoins. The sails are turning. Here's one with a
pond full of goldfish (Ward 1990: 28).
In his later and more general work on the history of self-build,
Cotters and Squatters,

Ward sympathetically describes the history of popular squatting in Royal forests
(Ward 2002: 78-9 1). Much squatting activity reflected a widespread folk belief that if
a person erects a functioning building between sunrise and sunset then he or she has
the right to remain. Over time, some squatted communities did establish an official
position. These included the 'free miners' of the Forest of Dean who for a period in
the nineteenth century existed as 'a community of small proprietors [with] a consider
able degree of independence and freedom from authority' (Ward 2002: 86, quoting
Fisher 1978: 17). Building on the oral history work of Raphael Samuel and his
students, Ward also describes the settlement at Headington Quarry in Oxford (Ward
2002: 1 15-124). With a ready supply of valuable stone and a lack of clear ownership
titles to the land, self-build housing went up, and by the nineteenth century the area
had developed into a thriving community which made ends meet partly by supplying
building materials, masonry work and washing services to the Oxford colleges, and
Stuart White
partly by means of a 'varied series of poaching, rabbit-snaring, pig-rearing and cow
keeping activities' (Ward 2002: 121). Unusual in being 'a village which had arisen
singularly free oflandlords', Ward quotes Samuel's assessment that ' [f]or centuries it ...
enjoyed what was virtually an extra-parochial existence, a kind of anarchy, in which
the villagers were responsible to nobody but themselves' (Ward 2002: 122).
We find a similar celebration of what Ward terms a 'peopled landscape' in his
writing on allotments (Ward 1999: 84-98). 'Some allotment sites: Ward writes,
... encapsulate ... something of a visual paradise. At Bladon allotments near
Woodstock in Oxfordshire ... Poppies stray over the edges of the cornfield that has
missed treatment, to bloom amongst the french beans. A footpath skirts the length
of the site, but an enterprising holder on a very well-tended plot has created a
splendid scarecrow ... (Crouch and Ward 1 997: 1 88).
The allotment represents:
a working-class landscape, a productive landscape, conforming to no 'style' ... found
in conditions of need and poverty ... It is an intensive and an inventive landscape,
free from everyday outside controls and forced by necessity towards initiative and
invention (Crouch and Ward 1997: 190, 192).
Finally, consider Ward's discussions of the ways in which children make use of their
environment. A recurring theme of Ward's The Child in the City, is children's creative
appropriation of city spaces. Here is Ward writing about new estates in suburbia:
The place that is becoming, the unfinished habitat, is rich in experiences and adven
tures for the child, just because of the plenitude of 'unmake' [:] bits of no-man's
land which have ceased to be agricultural and have yet to become residential. There
are secret places for solitude among the weeds and hillocks, gregarious places in
hollows like Keith Waterhouse's basins, where the soil is worn smooth by feet and
bicycle tires and where some-one has looped a stolen length of rope round the
branch of a tree and an impromptu playground develops, to disappear next year or
the one after that when the builders move in (Ward 1979: 71).
Ward quotes Marjorie Allen, a campaigner for 'nursery schools, the de-institutionali
sation of residential children's homes, tree planting, play parks and adventure
playgrounds: who holds that all urban children must have access to 'gardens where
Social anarchism, liftstyle anarchism, and the anarchism ofColin IVard
1011
they can keep their pets and enjoy their hobbies and perhaps watch their fathers [sic]
working with real tools; secret places where they can create their own worlds; the
shadow and mystery that lend enchantment to play'. (Ward 1 979: 1 96)
5. CONCLUSION: BRIDGING SOCIAL AND LIFESTYLE ANARCHISM
Let us recap. We saw in section 2 how Ward tried to stake out an intermediate
position in the 'permanent protest' debate within British anarchism in the early
1 960s. Ward accepted, with Molnar and others, that an 'anarchist society' is impos
sible. He accepted a stance of 'permanent protest' as a legitimate response to this
finding. However, he argued that anarchism should be about more than 'permanent
protest'. It should continue to aim at wider social change. For while an anarchist
society might not be possible a substantially more anarchistic society is possible and
represents a perfectly valid goal.
In section 3, we looked briefly at the specific vision of the good society that
informs Ward's work. Section 4 then described what one might see as an implicitly
lifestyle anarchist theme in Ward's work: his celebration of the ways in which people
manage, here and now, to grab a little of the free living that they might enjoy more
securely or consistently in a society of the future.
It should be clear from the foregoing account that Ward is a kind of social anar
chist. This is the import of his insistence that the 'permanent protest' perspective is
inadequate as a complete view of anarchism. His social anarchism is given clear
content by the social vision described above. Indeed, there would seem to be a good
deal of similarity between Ward's social vision as described above and that which
Bookchin has set out in his writings on social ecology. Both emphasize the need for a
radical localization of economic life and governance. Both look forward to a new
kind of self-governing community in which the boundaries between rural and urban
life are overcome, and in which the social product is distributed on a substantially
egalitarian basis. Both see science and technology as potentially liberating forces
within the framework of such communities. Ward self-consciously looks back to
Kropotkin; Bookchin acknowledges that social ecology has affinities with
Kropotkin's ideas so far as the form of post-capitalist society is concerned. This is
why it is entirely unsurprising that as editor of Anarchy in the 1 960s, Ward published
some of Bookchin's pioneering essays in the theory of social ecology (such as
'Ecology and Revolutionary Thought').
However, Ward also places an intrinsic value on the immediate, local, and
perhaps temporary, victory: the successful squat; the plotland development; the
Stuart White
child's creative occupation of wasteground. These experiences are valuable in their
own right, and should be celebrated as such, and not only as steps - if, indeed, they
are steps - to a new society. There is, then, an element to Ward's anarchism which
marks an affinity with those whom Bookchin described as lifestyle anarchists. This
helps explain why, when Ward reviewed Bookchin's polemic against lifestyle anar
chism, Ward found something worthwhile in the notion of the TAZ:
... once the phrase Temporary Autonomous Zones lodges in your mind you begin
to see it/them everywhere: fleering pockets of anarchy that occur in daily life. In
this sense it describes a perhaps more useful concept than that of an anarchist
society, since the most libertarian societies that we know of have their authoritarian
elements, and vice versa (Ward 201 1 (1997)).
Ward's work therefore embodies the two perspectives and, quite plausibly, refuses
to choose between them. Imagine that there are some activities that are constitu
tive of an anarchist lifestyle. One might value some such activities instrumentally
because of their contribution to the creation of a new and better society. This,
however, does not exclude one from also valuing them intrinsically as direct mani
festations of an anarchic way of being. Take the case of someone who is deeply
involved in organizing and working a community garden. From Ward's standpoint,
it makes sense to see such activity as valuable instrumentally because of the way it
pushes society in the direction indicated by his overarching vision of what a
substantially more anarchic society would look like. But it also makes sense to see
such activity as valuable because of the way it enables the individual to create and
experience a more anarchic existence here and now. Neither perspective need be to
the exclusion of the other.
A critic might point out, rightly, that not all activities on an anarchist lifestyle
wish-list will necessarily have this double quality. Some activities might well have
much more of one quality than the other. Does this not give rise to a possible
tension between activities that can be expected to build a new society and activities
that grab a bit of the anarchic good life here and now ? This possible tension needs
to be acknowledged. However, it is surely hyperbole to see it as calling for a repudia
tion of one kind of activity for the other.
On the one hand, one can agree with Bookchin that someone who simply
throws out the idea of action aimed at wider social change, the creation of a new and
better society, in favour of anarchic episodes and autonomous zones here and now, is
giving up on something important in the anarchist tradition. On the other hand,
Social anarchism, lifestyle anarchism, and the anarchism ofColin Ward
1 03 1
there is also something unreasonable about the idea (which Bookchin does not
assert) that we should make our lives simply vehicles for the construction of a better
future society: tarmac, as it were, on the highway ofhistory. It is reasonable for an
anarchist to think that we are enrided to grab a bit of the anarchic good life here and
now, if we can get it, even if this is to some extent at the cost of activities that one
might expect to make a bigger contribution to overall social change. Thus, to the
extent that the two conflict, a reasonable anarchist would (or at least may) aim at
some sort of balance between lifestyle instrumentalism and living more anarchically
here and now.
That Colin Ward's work expresses this balanced perspective, in a such a rich and
multifarious way, is one reason to see it as a major and stimulating contribution to
anarchist, and wider ptogressive, thought.
Stuart White teaches political
theory at Jesus College, Oxford. He is the author of

The Civic Minimum (2003) and Equality (2007).
Email: stuart.white@jesus.ox.ac.uk
REFERENCES
Bookchin, Murray 197 1 (a). 'The Forms of Freedom', in Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity
Anarchism. San Francisco, Ramparts Press.
197 1 (b). 'Ecology and Revolutionary Thought', in Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity
Anarchism. San Francisco, Ramparts Press,
2007. SocialEcology and Communalism. Edinburgh, AK Press.
-- 1995. ' Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edulAnarchjist Archive/bookchinlsoclife.html, accessed
25/05120 1 1 ; also Edinburgh, AK Press.
Boston, Richard 1987. 'Conversations about anarchism', in Colin Ward, (ed.), A Decade of
Anarchy, 1 1-23.
Bowen, James 2004. 'Introduction: Why Anarchism Still Matters', in John Purkis and
James Bowen, Changing Anarchism: Anarchist Theory and Practice in a Global Age.
Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1-19.
Crouch, David and Ward, Colin 1 997. The Allotment: Its Landscape and Culture.
Nottingham, Five Leaves Press.
Day, Richard, J. F. 2005. Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social
Movements. London, Pluto.
--
--
Stuart White
Fisher, Chris 1978. 'The Free Miners of the Forest of Dean 1 800-1 841', in R. Harrison,
ed., The Coal Miner as Archetypal Proletarian Revisited. Hassocks, The Harvester
Press, pp.17-SS.
Hall, Peter 2002. Cities ofTomo77'ow: Third Edition. Oxford, Blackwell.
Hardy, Dennis and Ward, Colin 1984. Arcadiafor All: The Legacy ofa Makeshift
Landscape. London, Mansell.
J.G., 'Permanent Protest ?', Freedom 22 ( 1 1 ), April 1 1961, 3.
Kropotkin, Peter 1975, Colin Ward (ed.) Fields, Factories and Workshops ofTomo77'ow.
London, Freedom Press.
Molnar, George 196 1 . 'Conflicting Strains in Anarchist Thought: Anarchy 4, 1 17-1 27,
reprinted in Colin Ward, ed., A Decade ofAnarchy, pp.24-36.
Rowley, Mike 1963. 'I Live My Anarchism!: Freedom 24 (33), October 1 9, 4.
Uloth, A.W. 1961. 'Permanent Protest and Utopia', Freedom 22 ( 1 2), April 8, 4.
Ward, Colin 1961 (a). 'Anarchism and Respectability: Freedom 22 (28), September 2, 3.
1 961 (b). 'Anarchism and Respectability - 2', Freedom 22 (29), September 9, 3.
1979. The Child in the City. Harmondsworth, Penguin.
1 989. Welcome, Thinner City. London, Bedford Square Press.
1 990. 'The Do-It-Yourself New Town', in Colin Ward, Talking Houses. London,
Freedom Press, 1990, I S-3S.
-- 1991. Influences: Voices ofCreative Dissent. Bideford, Green Books.
-- 1991. Freedom to Go: After the Motor Age. London, Freedom Press, 1991.
1 995. 'Learning About LETS: The Raven 3 1 , 1995: 229-233.
1 996. Anarchy in Action: Second Edition. London, Freedom Press.
1996. 'Unexpected Pioneers of Town and Country Planning: in C. Ward, Talking
to Architects, London: Freedom Press, 1 996, pp. 6S-76.
-- 1999. 'A Peopled Landscape: in K. Worpole (ed.), Richer Futures: Fashioning a New
Politics. London, Earthscan, pp. 84-98.
-- 2002. Cotters and Squatters. Nottingham, Five Leaves Press.
-- 1997. 'Temporary Autonomous Zones',
http://theanarchisclibrary.orglHTMLlColin Ward_Temporary-Autonomous Zon
es.html, accessed 1 2/06/201 1 (original 1997).
Ward, Colin (ed.) 1987. A Decade ofAnarchy. London, Freedom Press, 1 987.
Ward, Colin and Goodway, David 2003. Talking Anarchy. Nottingham, Five Leaves Press.
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Anarchy as Order: the History of Civic Humanity

Prichard, Alex
pg. 105
ISSN
0967 3393
REVIEWS
Mohammed A. Bamyeh, Anarchy as Order: the History of Civic Humanity

Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, 2009
I came to this work full of excitement. So much about this book suggests a new soci
ological and refreshing take on the question of anarchy and human order.
Mohammed Bamyeh is a professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh and
has taught in this area for a number of years. Despite numerous French examples,
inspired mainly by the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, there is no recognised
standard English-language text in sociology that approaches the subject from an
anarchist perspective, or attempts a synthesis of the two. Therefore, the book's claim
to offer a sociology of global anarchy, positing the artificiality of social orders not
founded on principles of non-hierarchical social organisation, was hugely enticing.
Not to be daunted by this already substantial aim, Bamyeh also seeks to provide an
anarchist science in the interests of civic humanity. This reader was not persuaded by
either of Bamyeh's offerings.
Of the six chapters, the third, fourth and fifth provide the substance of the
analysis. Chapter 3 provides a social history of taxation and state formation; chapter
4 provides a typology of personality in the interests of fleshing out a more adequate
'three-dimensional man' for sociological analysis; and chapter 5 sets out a theory of
freedom. None, despite indications to the contrary, relates these discussions to anar
chism in any meaningful way. The other three chapters seem to bookend these more
substantive ones and add nothing of any real value to the analysis. Indeed, each of
the three core chapters could well have been published, without reference to anar
chism, in any other scholarly outlet. In fact, the book has no substantive engagement
with anarchism at all. Even in the chapter entitled 'What is Anarchy?', for example,
what actual, individual anarchists have said in response to this question is quite
explicitly ignored.
Buried in one of the early footnotes to the book, Bamyeh states that the work
will not 'state, summarise or synthesise self-consciously anarchist thought and
experiments', and therefore he decides to use the term 'anarchy', rather than 'anar
chism' to avoid confusing his work with the historical body of thought signified
Reviews
1 1 06
by the latter (n. 17, p.2S). And yet throughout the text, he contravenes this
promise and thereby undermines this qualification irreparably. For example, he
argues that ' rJ]undamental to anarchist thought [ ... ] is apprehending human
reality in a nonabstract manner' (p.37), and ' [t]he proper anarchist conception of
solidarity therefore must be that it is essentially fluid in nature' (p.39). Later he
argues that 'an anarchist perspective must involve a measured critique of memori
alism and monumentalism' (p.S6) and 'in its broadest sense anarchist conception
of freedom must combine' the two approaches he sets out (p. I 44). These short
quotes (with emphasis added) illustrate Bamyeh's tendency to tell his readers
precisely what anarchism should be without spending any time finding out what it
actually is and how actually existing or long-dead anarchists have approached the
issues he covers.
Bamyeh's highly gendered language will also grate on many. 'Man' and 'men' seek
civic fulfilment and the expression of human will, while, in one unfortunate instance,
the impersonal 'she' is used in reference to the election of an unpopular president
(p. 148). Finally, the argument that 'a more rational [ ... ] coherent idea of anarchy
must be a synthesis of "communist anarchism" and "libertarianism"' - a libertari
anism inspired by Ayn Rand, Nozick and Hayek to avoid any confusion here - will
surely undermine the credibility of the work for many anarchists (pp.22-23). There
is little to recommend in this book that could not be found better done elsewhere.
Unfortunately, anarchism and sociology still await a good English-language
synthesis. Perhaps this book will inspire such a project.
Alex Prichard
London School ofEconomics and Political Science.
Ross Bradshaw, Ben Ward, Harriet Ward and Ken Worpole (eds.),
Remembering Colin Ward, 1924-2010
Nottingham: Five Leaves, 2010; 52pp.
ISBN 978-1-907869-28-0; 5
In recent months I have developed a strong personal interest in funerals and obitu
aries: my Patricia died suddenly in hospital on 4 September 20 1 0. I read this booklet

to get some idea of how others had faced a similar challenge.
Sharif Gemie
Colin Ward once remarked that funerals were 'by and large, jolly occasions'
(p.7). There's definitely some truth in this remark; habits of sociability do not just
vanish, even under the grimmest of circumstances, and people still take pleasure in
renewing friendships, talking and expressing admiration for the person they knew.
Colin reached the age of eighty-six: the phrase I found in one bereavement guide
of 'a life completed, not a life interrupted' seems the right one to cite in these
circumstances.
Remembering Colin ward is a collection of the various addresses given at his
funeral on 1 March 20 1 0 and at the memorial meeting on 1 0 July 201 0. Some of the
contributors are body-and-soul anarchists; some are relatives, colleagues and co
authors. Together they present a remarkably consistent picture of a remarkable man:
someone with 'no spite, jealousy or envy' (p.7), who was 'patient, unselfish, a true
man of peace' (p. 1 4), 'the kindest, most generous person you could hope to meet'
(p.23); someone who had a genius for 'making connections' (p. 1 0), who represented
'the best in the British anarchist tradition' (p.28), who was 'one of those rare people
who live and work according to the ideals they espouse' (p.32).
I only met Colin once, back in 1 977. My impression ofhim fully accords with
the images presented by these contributors. In making these comments I am not
attempting to transform a real person into an ideal legend, but to do something else
that Colin was good at: he 'believed the best of people and brought out the best in
them' (p.42). Maybe that's another good goal to set for any funeral or obituary.
SharifGemie
University oj Glamorgan
Stuart Christie & Albert Meltzer, The Floodgates of Anarchy

Oakland,
ISBN:
CA: PM Press, 2010; 1 44pp, 1 2
978-1 -60486-1 05-1
PM Press, a young and vibrant anarchist publishing house in San Francisco, have re
issued The Floodgates ojAnarchy, a seminal work by two stalwarts of British
anarchism, Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer. Christie will forever be associated
with his attempt to assassinate the Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, in 1 964.
Indeed, he attributes the genesis of this book to the resulting time he spent with
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other anarchist inmates in Madrid's Carabanchel Prison. Christie is still active as an
anarchist publisher and polemicist and recently announced on his Facebook page
that his story is to be the subject of a forthcoming feature film. He welcomes flat
tering suggestions as to who should play the lead! Meltzer's long life and political
activism cannot be separated from the growth and development of anarchism in the
UK and in the establishment of international links which led to the formation of the
Anarchist Black Cross prisoner support group. I got to know him, all too briefly, in
the early 1 980s, when we were both members of the anarcho-syndicalist Direct
Action Movement. Though individual chapters of the book are not attributed to
either author, many of the early ones are undoubtedly Meltzer's and re-reading the
text today brings memories of meetings and conversations with Albert vividly back
to life. He was not only uncompromising in his views, but was given to reinforcing
political points not only with historical examples, but with instances drawn from his
own experience. His objections to both Marxism and reformist socialism, as well as
his repudiation of the nature and tactics of the parties of the left, were often dealt
with in this way, as can be seen in this book, though not to the same extent as they
are deployed in his autobiography, I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels (Edinburgh: AK
Press; 1 996). I see now, but did not recognise then, the many similarities between
Albert and Murray Bookchin.
Other reviews of Floodgates have spoken of it 'coming from a position of
uncompromising class struggle: and indeed it does, beginning by relating the
ideology to the labour movement and outlining the history and development of
anarcho-syndicalism. Without being a handbook for the movement or depiction
of a future libertarian society, Floodgates unashamedly locates anarchism within
the revolutionary tradition - but where else could a movement demanding the
end of the state, government and capitalism be ? It therefore unsurprisingly advo
cates class struggle as the means by which anarchism will advance towards its
goals. It is refreshing to read something which directly addresses three of the great
elephants in the room of contemporary political discourse, namely the state, capi
talism and the struggle between classes. In fact, as a mark of its quality, I would
argue that the analysis and description of the state advanced in Floodgates, as well
as of the anarchist critique of the state and of those who would capture or reform
it, are superior to those put forward by Peter Kropotkin in his The State: Its
Historic Role. This could be because the former was written much more recently
and is in a modern idiom, but it is worth noting that the dubious historical case
which underpins Kropotkin's conclusions is absent from Christie and Meltzer's
book.
Keith Hodgson
Floodgates was first published in 1 970 and has since been re-issued several times.
It was written in the context of the anti-Vietnam war movement and the counter
culture, and it has to be said that sections of it are a little dated now - a fact freely
acknowledged by Stuart Christie in his new introduction for the 2010 edition. It is
also written from a British perspective and it will be interesting to see how it
resonates with a younger and predominantly American readership.
Keith Hodgson
Wigan & Leigh College
Ronald Creagh, Utopies Americaines: Experiences libertaires du XIXe siecle

a nos jours
Marseille: Agone, 2009, 397pp
Almost three decades ago Ronald Creagh published a groundbreaking work,
Laboratoires de I'Utopie (Laboratories of Utopia), which was the first extensive study
of American libertarian intentional communities. He has now expanded it into a
more comprehensive work almost twice the size of the original. It extends his theo
retical reflection on the communal experience and updates the historical discussion
to include communities established since the 1 960s. It also includes a very helpful
glossary, with biographies of seventy-five figures important to libertarian commu
nalist theory and practice, and a very useful, highly detailed, twenty-six page
bibliography. All of this makes Utopies Americaines essential reading for anyone seri
ously interested in either the American communal experience or the history of
American anarchism.
Creagh describes a wide spectrum of nineteenth and early twentieth-century
communities founded on values such as rationality, equality, communal property
and social progress. He recounts often valiant efforts to establish these communi
ties in the face of problems such as persecution by neighbours, lack of basic
resources, crop failures, epidemics and other health problems. He shows that the
projects were also beset by internal structural problems such as an absence of
consensus over goals and values, inadequate foresight and planning, and conflicts
between contending factions.
Nevertheless, the focus of the story is on the noteworthy successes achieved
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by these early experiments and the significant role they played in American social
and political history. They showed how alternative economic systems could
operate, how groups could live together in conditions of vastly greater equality,
how non-authoritarian social mores could be put into practice, and how liber
tarian pedagogy could be applied, to mention just a few of their important
achievements.
Creagh justly devotes extensive attention to the work of the great individualist
anarchist Josiah Warren. Warren inherited from his teacher Robert Owen a
concern with issues such as fair exchange, voluntary cooperation, and the powerful
influence of the social environment. In pursuit of his ideals he founded several
communities, in addition to establishing his famous Time Store, in which items
were sold at cost plus a fair price for the labour of the retailer. Creagh notes that
the individualist anarchist communities were noteworthy not only for their
economic innovations, but also for their absence of dogmatism and their dedica
tion to personal self-realization.
Another topic that Creagh investigates in considerable detail is the long and
inspiring history ( 1 9 14- 195 1 ) of the Modern School Community in Stelton, New
Jersey. He describes the flowering of the Modern School Movement inspired by
anarchist educational theorist Francisco Ferrer. The School's libertarian 'anti-peda
gogy' was a radical experimentalism based on concern for the child's
self-realization and treatment of the child as a responsible person. Creagh shows
the Stelton community to be an example of a highly successful egalitarian social
organization that integrated families and students coming from diverse classes and
ethnicities. Through this case study, he shows how a distinctive sense of purpose
and dedication to a practical project can be a powerful basis for a viable and
enduring community.
Creagh also presents a perceptive account of the place oflibertarian commu
nalism within the radical politics and the counterculture of the 1 960s. He shows that
during this period themes such as personal self-realization, communal values, and
ecological consciousness became objects of intense concern, and cultural radicalism
took centre stage. He observes that in comparison to previous experiments, the new
communities were more self-critical, more sceptical of the ideas of progress and tech
nological development, and oriented more towards particularity than to
universalistic models.
Creagh brings his history up to date with a discussion of a variety of post- I 960s
communities, most of which are still in existence. He finds strengths in their
economic arrangements that balance the individual and the communal dimensions,
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in their successful experiments with consensus and other non-traditional decision
making processes, and in their continued focus on the personal dimension. He
concludes that although the recent communities are 'more modest' than their prede
cessors, and less familiar to the public, they have nevertheless made a more
substantial contribution through their 'concern with everyday realities' and their
ability to create 'an ongoing social life.'
Creagh draws a number of significant conclusions from his studies. He observes
that the degree to which a community succeeds in creating a radically new collective
imaginary is a major factor in determining whether it will maintain its integrity. He
finds that communities tend to lose their autonomy when they become more
dependent on outside forces, as when they accumulate debts, become entangled in
legal processes, accept financial aid from the state, or focus on producing goods or
services for the dominant economy. On an optimistic note, he observes that though
libertarian communities have generally been socially marginal, they have played a
disproportionately large role in social change through creating radical education
projects, advancing transformative social movements, and initiating new experiments
in personal and communal liberation.
Questions can be raised about certain aspects of the work. For example, it
would have been desirable to undertake a deeper analysis of practices like 'free
love' and 'free unions', discossing the degree to which they were authentically
libertarian and the extent to which patriarchal sexual and gender relations
continued in a disguised form. There are also some neglected topics, such as the
influence on contemporary libertarian communalism of the Rainbow Family, the
place of sexual radicalism (polyamory, the Radical Faeries, etc.) and the role of
neo-Primitivism.
However, I hesitate to mention such qualms as these, in view of the over
whelming strengths of this work. It more than fulfills its promise of introducing
the reader to the history of the libertarian communal experience in America and
to the practical and theoretical issues that this history poses. Utopies Americaines
is an invaluable work that brilliantly recounts and assesses a fascinating and
inspiring history. It certainly needs to be translated into English as soon as
possible.
John Clark
Loyola University, New Orleans
The Idea of Communism

Morris, Brian
pg. 112
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Costas Douzinas and Slavoj Zizek (eds.), The Idea of Communism

London: Verno, 2010
In March 2009 a large conference was held at the Institute of Education in London
to discuss the 'Idea' of communism. It brought together a number of Marxist
philosophers, mostly academic celebrities; scholars such as Jacques Rancit:re,
Antonio Negri, Terry Eagleton, Jean-Luc Nancy and Slavoj Zizek. It was focussed
around a keynote address by Alain Badiou. An ex-Maoist, Badiou is now heralded as
one of the great philosophers of the twentieth century, at least by his Marxist friends.
Badiou, a latter-day Platonist, suggested that communism was the only political idea
worthy of the true philosopher, and that it had the status of an eternal idea. It was
essentially a kind of hypothesis about emancipation. The question was therefore
posed as to whether the term 'communism: given its association with that 'historical
failure' - the communism of the Soviet regime under Stalin - could be usefully
applied to the 'new forms' of radical politics that the Marxist academics at the
conference clearly felt they were initiating. This book is thus a collection of some
rather abstruse reflections on the 'Idea' of communism by some fifteen academics,
although who they are and where they came from is never indicated in the text.
The term 'communism', of course, has many different meanings and connota
tions - the determinate negation of capitalism; the state control of the economy; the
visions of the nineteenth-century utopian socialists; the state capitalism of the
current Chinese Communist Party; or, as Marx wrote, 'the positive expression of the
abolition of private property' (p. 1 39). As Michael Hardt puts it, in an essay relatively
free of scholastic jargon, communism is the affirmation of common property, as
opposed to that of private and state (public) property (p. l44). Kropotkin, of course,
was suggesting this at the end of the nineteenth century.
The book has a rather in-house feel to it, as the likes of Badiou, Zizek, Ranciere,
and Negri form a kind of exclusive Marxist coterie which continually refers to the
work of its clique. The reflections offered in the text are also rather exclusive, for
many of the essays simply offer rather scholastic commentaries on such luminaries as
Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong, reflecting on what they had to say about
communism, although such political reactionaries as Hegel, Nietzsche and
Heidegger often get an affirmative mention. These academic Marxists seem blissfully
unaware that there have been socialists or communists outside the Marxist tradition.
When reference is made to political theorists outside the usual Marxist canon, what
are we offered? - the radical universalism of the Islamic scholar Sayyid Qutb, the
Brian Morris
intellectual inspiration of the Muslim Brotherhood; and the plebeian socialism of
Garcia Linera, the current vice-president of Bolivia. Moreover, some of the essays are
written in the kind of scholastic Marxism that is barely intelligible. Thus we get such
expressions as: 'the ideological operation of the Idea of communism is the imaginary
projection of the political real into the symbolic fiction of History' (p. l l ). The book
is in fact full of platitudes wrapped up in scholastic jargon. Interestingly, some of the
more informative and insightful essays - Hallward on political will, Bosteels on
Lenin and left-wing communism, and Douzinas on human rights - are not in fact by
the famous academic gurus.
What then constitutes the 'new' Marxist politics, and its vision of a 'radical
emancipatory project'?
Firstly, whereas generations of radical scholars and activists have usually thought
that the concepts of socialism and communism are virtually synonymous, we are now
informed that socialism implies the welfare capitalism of the Keynesian variety and is
quite distinct from the pure communism that Badiou writes about. That welfare
capitalism is a form of socialism is a contradiction in terms, although it may incorpo
rate socialist elements in order to counter the malign effects of capitalism.
Secondly, there is the recognition that the modern state is essentially an 'agent of
capitalism: This surely is hardly news. Marx and Kropotkin were emphasizing this
more than a hundred years ago.
Thirdly, we are told that the new form of politics will be a 'politics without a
party' nd will take its 'distance from statism: Being a communist, Antonio Negri
tells us, means 'being against the state'. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao all clearly
argued for a political party that would represent the interests of the working class,
and that real politics would involve the 'conquest of state power: the destruction of
capitalism, and then, allegedly, the 'withering away' of the state. The autonomous
Marxists now seem to repudiate entirely this Marxist political strategy. They have
thus embraced, without any acknowledgement, the kind of politics that has been
advocated and practised by anarchist communists (libertarian socialists) for more
than a century.
Fourthly, Jacques Ranciere, the guru of the postanarchists, suggests that commu
nism is enacted when workers and ordinary people struggle for basic rights and
themselves run the factories, schools, administrations etc. Again, self-management is
something that Kropotkin and anarchists generally have been emphasizing for many
generations. Being a communist, Negri suggests, means 'building a world where the
exploitation of capital and subjection to the state are eliminated' (p.1 61). Isn't this
what anarchists have always advocated?
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Fifthly, there is constant reference throughout the text to human rights, the class
struggle, universal values, and the emancipation of humanity. Does this imply that
postmodernism, along with post-Marxism, has had its day?
Finally, it is worth noting that Slavoj Zizek, in contrast to the anti-Marxist
Marxists like Badiou and Negri, is a latter-day Jacobin and Marxist-Leninist. His
vision of the 'new emancipatory politics' thus involves the establishment of a
'centralized dictatorial power' to enact 'strict egalitarian justice' through 'discipli
nary terror'. How this fits in with the two other concepts of the eternal Idea of
communism, political voluntarism and trust in the people is never explained. Peter
Hallward in contrast emphasizes the importance of voluntary and autonomous
action and direct participation, but throughout most of the discussions in this
book, in true Marxist fashion, there is very little mention of liberty, and not very
much about community. The concept of free communism emphasized by
Kropotkin and libertarian socialists (anarchist communists) is quite beyond its
radar - although we are informed that one of the themes of the conference is that
'Freedom cannot flourish without equality and equality does not exist without
freedom' (p.x). The Marxists are just discovering for themselves what Bakunin was
affirming way back in the nineteenth century in his opposition to the statist
politics of Karl Marx.
Brian Morris
Goldsmiths, University ofLondon
Simon Fairlie, Meat: A Benign Extravagance

East Meon: Permanent Publications, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-85623-055-1
Meat is, for the most part, an excellent work. Alongside a passionate and radical
critique of much that is wrong with modem food production and modem life in
general, there are countless facts and figures which Simon Fairlie somehow succeeds
in making interesting and digestible. And the book is about far more than just meat.
Several chapters focus on grass, on trees, on nuts, on comparisons between conven
tional, organic and permacultural techniques, and much more; again, they are filled
with useful information, as well as Fairlie's own radically-informed musings on the
Matt Wilson
politics and values that lie behind not only industrial farming, but also the environ
mental movement's response to ecological problems. This all makes for a very
interesting book, but it makes the emphasis on meat (not only in the title, but as a
thread that runs through many of the chapters) all the more regrettable, because it
obscures the fact that much else is discussed; this might not be a problem, but as
Fairlie is evidently aware, the battle between vegans and meat-eaters is often a crude
and dogmatic one, and few people advocating a radical re-appraisal of our relation
ship with the non-human world are likely to read or engage with this book. This is a
real pity, because what is clearly needed is a much more informed and mutually
respectful discussion about how we could or should feed ourselves, and much of the
substance of the book is genuinely balanced, and could provide a useful starting
point for such a debate.
The book quite rightly takes aim at the ways in which those who support
equal respect for humans and non-human animals have used the evident problems
of industrialised farming to argue that all animal products must vanish from a
sustainable world. I have always felt this argument, presented in such absolute
terms, was empirically unsound, ethically dubious, and tactically doomed to the
sort of backlash which may well now occur, in part due to the publication of this
book. Yet Fairlie is at times unable to resist the sort of crude and confrontational
style that he rightly critiques when he sees it in the animal rights movement. Most
notably, he devotes the larger part of a chapter to critiquing Peter Singer's recent
discussions on transhumanism, genetic engineering, and so on, with the misleading
implication that Singer's views are widely echoed throughout the vegan commu
nity, claiming that Singer is 'without doubt the most influential philosopher
behind the spread of the vegan ethic' (p.23 !). In fact, Singer himself is not a vegan,
an important point which Fairlie is apparently unaware of, and I see no evidence
whatsoever that the arguments of Singer which Fairlie discusses have had any real
impact on the wider vegan movement - and certainly not on the anarchist side of
the movement, which is rapidly growing. Fairlie rightly condemns the way in
which vegans often equate industrial animal farming with animal farming per se,
but makes the same mistake by equating all vegans with Singer, and with large,
corporate organisations such as PETA.
A second, and for me more worrying problem, is that people clearly enjoy
eating animal products, and despite the slow increase in veganism, the majority of
even environmentally-minded people continue to eat large amounts of meat and
dairy. Fairlie's arguments rely on such products being produced in ways radically
different from the way the vast maj ority of meat and dairy is currently produced,
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1 1 16
and he might therefore argue that he only provides justification for that sort of
consumption. But we are not such rationally calculating beings, and his book will
clearly muddy the waters, and help make people feel more comfortable with their
current eating habits. Fairlie ought to know that people will latch on to any scrap
of justification to carry on business as usual, and at a time when there is a clear
need for a massive reduction in animal products, he runs the risk of unwittingly
providing ammunition for those who would prefer not to make any real dietary
changes.
For reasons beyond sustainability, I disagree that meat can ever be a 'benign
extravagance: but my worry here is not with the arguments themselves, but with the
way they are presented, especially in the title; the book might be informed and
reasoned, but I suspect the message that many will take from it will be less so. All in
all though, this book is well worth reading.
Matt Wilson
Loughborough University
Paul Goodman, New Reformation

Oakland,
CA:
PM Press, 201 0
Paul Goodman emerged from within the New York intellectual scene of the 1 930s
and 1 940s, particularly that connected with Partisan Review. By the 1 960s he had
become a campus cult figure and a movement intellectual. For an audience
concerned with poverty and injustice, racism and urban blight, imperialism and
militarism, Goodman pointed to the organized system as the cause, and the young
were highly receptive. By the mid- 1 960s, as Kevin Mattson notes, 'When an
organizer needed a speech made for a protest, Goodman made it. When a group
needed a pamphlet, Goodman often promised to write it.'l But, as this reprint of
his 1 970 work New Reformation makes clear, by the end of the decade his relation
ship with the radical youth had turned into disillusionment on both sides.
'Whether or not the bombs go ofC he remarks bitterly here, the young seem to
believe that 'human beings are evidently useless' (p.72). It is a timely re-publica
tion, offering significant insights into this unique intellectual and his relationship
to the movements of that decade. Also, perhaps more importantly, Goodman's
Carissa Honeywell
account of his disenchantment offers readers the opportunity to access a particular
radically-humanist vision of civic engagement and human connectedness that has
parallels with more recent academic and policy interest in identifying the kind of
social institutions that can facilitate co-operation, welfare and mutually supportive
relations in communities by building trust and shared values. Goodman advocated
new arrangements for self and community creation, in a civic culture on a human
scale that could be a mentor to freedom and engagement. It was this position
which ultimately brought him into conflict with the radical movements which he
aimed to support. By the late 1 960s, instead of the necessary 'common faith' that
was required for social transformation, he perceived only 'truculence and disdain'
among the radicals of the New Left, whom he considered so 'unequivocally and
hell-bent for radical change' that they overlooked the 'underlying issues of modern
times' (p. 174, p.52). '[T]he system is not the monolith that they think' (p.77), he
argued, and their dogmatism on this point weakened their potential to engage
with important piecemeal change. For their part they understood his call for
engagement, premised on his essentialism and his pragmatism, as naIve, and insuf
ficiently critical or revolutionary.
New Reformation is an account of Goodman's disillusionment and it is 'rather
sour on the American young' (p.33), but it offers a clear defence of an alternative,
more transformative approach ro social change. As Goodman developed it, the
concept of community implied that man's social relationships, his perspective on
the world and his values were represented in his self-construction of his own
habitat. Goodman saw the radical agenda as a mission to conserve and extend
those positive social patterns, tendencies and traditions which the centralized
state worked to destroy, in community with other individuals. The revolutionary
project was thus a mission to initiate and promote manageable changes that made
individuals more free, but it depended on a 'common faith', and a 'trust in the
others as human beings' that he felt was disastrously absent from the new move
ments (p.74, p.33). His 'real bother' with the later New Left was that the
'abortive manipulation of lively energy and moral fervour for a political revolu
tion that will not be, and ought not to be, confuses the piecemeal social
revolution that is brightly possible' (p. 1 54). Goodman understood voluntary,
grassroots social organization to be a vital resource for combating the social disor
ders prevalent in modern society, and a key component in building and
maintaining democratic cultures. Recent academic and policy debates demon
strate a swell of interest in such social connections, and emphasise the importance
of individual involvement in and identification with the public life of the commuAnarchist Studies 19.2
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1 118
nity.2 As i n Goodman's work, these approaches emphasize the importance of
person-to-person contact over time for building trust and mutuality.3
Recognising.this demonstrates that there are clear synergies to be explored
between anarchist and non-anarchist attempts to redefine the relationships
between the social and the political, and between individual confidence and
social connectedness.
Carissa Honeywell
Shdfield Hallam University
NOTE
I . Kevin Mattson, Intellectuals in Action.
The Origins ofthe New Left and Radical
Liberalism, 1 945-1970 (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002),

pp.129-30.
2. Robert D. Pumam, Robert Leonardi, Raffaella Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy Work:
Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton University Press, 1994); also see for
example Co-Production. A Maniftstofor Growing the Core Economy (London: New
Economics Foundation, 2008).
3. Robert Pumam, 'Introduction' to Robert Putman and Lewis Feldstein, Better together:
Restoringthe American Community (Simon & Schuster, 2003), p.9.
Jamie Heckert and Richard Cleminson (eds.), Anarchism & Sexuality.

Ethics, Relationships and Power
London: Routledge, 2011; 232 pp
ISBN 978-0-415-59989-4; 75.00 (hbk)
This is a timely collection of original articles dealing with connections between anar
chism and sexuality. Notably, it bears witness to an intensifying cross-fertilisation
between queer theory and anarchism in the present day. The contemporary study of
sexuality, particularly the philosophy of sexuality, is very much influenced by queer
theory, a theory of sexuality which started to take shape around
1 990, and which
challenges existing norms governing our understanding of sex, gender and desire, and
in particular, the relationship between the three :
Gwendolyn Windpassinger
Challenging established identities, questioning notions of family and society and
even the very idea ofwhat constitutes 'sex' (as both an activity and with respect to
what are considered to be biological truths of male and female) can dramatically
undercut the foundations of established ways of relating to ourselves, each other
and the world (pp.9-10).
Queer theory has evolved out of gay and lesbian studies, feminist theory and post
structuralism. The influence of the latter on anarchist thought has already led to
the development of what is now commonly referred to as postanarchism, and this
is a natural stepping stone facilitating intellectual links between queer theory and
anarchism. Because of this, both postanarchism and queer theory are frequently
referenced in this collection. This is particularly the case in Lena Eckert's 'Post( -)
anarchism and the Contrasexual Practices of Cyborgs in Dildotopia: or "The War
on the Phallus"', which focuses on the Countersexual Manifesto by queer theorist
Beatriz Preciado, an important reference for those who read Spanish, French or
German, yet little known in the English-speaking world. Furthermore, in his
contribution 'Structures of Desire: Postanarchist Kink in the Speculative Fiction
of Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany', the well-known postanarchist writer Lewis
Call connects queer theory to his postanarchism, seeking to invent a new concept
which he calls 'postanarchist kink'. The collection further contains an interview
with the queen of queer theory (pun intended), Judith Butler, dealing with her
relationship to anarchism. Those who enjoyed her recent participation at 'The
Anarchist Turn' conference will welcome her thoughtful engagement with anar
chism in this interview. 1
Readers who are uncomfortable with the jargon-heavy disciplines of poststruc
turalist and queer theory will rejoice in those parts of the collection which are less
dense, yet by no means less rigorous. In her contribution, Jenny Alexander argues
that Alexander Berkman's Prison Memoirs are an example of sexual radicalism; a
radicalism largely ignored in subsequent narratives. Many readers will have become
familiar with Berkman's homoerotic experiences through Terence Kissack's 'Free
Comrades: Anarchism and Homosexuality in the United States' (see Anarchist
Studies 17. 1 for an appreciative review by Judy Greenway2), and may nnd
Alexander's to be an interesting addition to the few existing accounts of Berkman's
views on sexuality. The collection further contains a beautifully-written analysis of
'Love and revolution in Ursula Le Guin's Four UT,tys to Forgiveness' by Laurence
Davis; and a highly informative overview of contemporary Czech anarchists' rela
tionship to issues of sexuality by Marta Kolirovi, which deals among other things
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with the recent appropriation of queer theory by Czech anarchists and anarcha
feminists.
Overall, this is a nicely composed collection of historiographical, sociological,
geographical, philosophical and literary analyses of connections between anar
chism and sexuality, lightened up with 'poetic interludes: Anarchism & Sexuality
does not pretend to have been produced by and for brains on sticks, but by and for
people who think and feel. Because Anarchism & Sexuality is based on the idea
that revolution is a process, its editors and authors place great emphasis on the way
humans relate to each other, seeking to prefigure anarchy in those relationships.
For the same reason, readers are encouraged to treat themselves kindly. The care of
the self is a theme which has intensified in Jamie Heckert's work over recent years
and is also articulated in Stephen Shukaitis's chapter 'Nobody Knows What An
Insurgent Body Can Do: Questions For Affective Resistance'. Furthermore,
Heckert and Cleminson reflect critically on the process of editing a book,
including potentially problematic issues of hierarchy and power which arise in the
editorial process, and express a desire to 'appreciate processes and relationships for
themselves' (p.2). The collection closes with a short article by Kristina N. Weaver,
in which she reflects on her experience of the conference which gave rise to this
collection.3 This is unusual because the way we do conferences is often taken for
granted, and it is a highly unconventional topic to be discussed in conference
proceedings. But here, process is considered very important, as authors and editors
share a strong belief in prefigurative politics. Shukaitis's contribution is a sustained
defence of prefiguration. Heckert's 'Fantasies Of An Anarchist Sex Educator', a
touching and rich autobiographical account, similarly foregrounds prefigurative
politics, and so does Gavin Brown's 'Amateurism and Anarchism in the creation of
Autonomous Queer Spaces: which is best read in conjunction with the author's
numerous other publications dealing with homonormativity, radical queer activism
and homoerotic cruising.
The dedication to prefiguration in this collection not only shows that its
contributors take the feminist conviction that the personal is political seriously, but
they also seek to counteract what Karl Marx has conceptualised as alienation under
capitalism. Brown speaks of the 'celebration ofplayful inefficiency over the earnest
efficiency of alienated work' (p.206), and Shukaitis imagines sustainable practices
which do not leave us feeling burnt out. Overall, Anarchism & Sexuality combines
anarchism's anti-capitalism and critique of hierarchies with the study of sexuality in
manifold ways, and I strongly recommend reading this contribution to defining
anarchist positions with regard to sexuality. This is all the more important because
we still live in a heteronormative society, and a world in which machismo and
violence against 'homosexuals' and 'transsexuals' and other dissident genders, sexes
and desires still abound. This collection is an important step towards formulating an
anarchist stance with regard to this ongoing brutality.
NOTES
1. Conference at New School for Social Research, New York, S May 20 1 1. See Judith
Buder, 'Queer Anarchism & Anarchists against the Wall: Anarchist Developments in
Cultural Studies (20 1 1), http://www.anarchist-developments.org/index.php/adcs/article/view/36/36. July 201 1.
2. Judy Greenway, 'Sex bombs: anticipating a free society: Anarchist Studies 17 (2009) 1,
106- 1 1 2 (Review article: Terence Kissack, Free Comrades: Anarchism and
Homosexuality in the United States, 1895-1917 (Edinburgh 2008); Sheila Rowbotham,
Edward Carpenter: A Life ofLiberty and Love (London 2008).
3. Anarchism & Sexuality, Leeds University, 4 November 2006.
Gustav Landauer, Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader

Edited and translated by Gabriel Kuhn
Oakland,
CA: PM
Press,
2010 (ISBN: 978-1-60486-054-2)
and London: Merlin Press,
2010
(ISBN: 9780850366712)
'The state is a social relationship; a certain way of people relating to one another .. .'.
You know that one, don't you? Yet until now, these commonly quoted lines were
pretty much the only contact many people have had with the man who wrote them
- Gustav Landauer. The simple reason for this is that before the publication of this
excellent book, very little of Landauer's work had been translated into English.
Whatever the reasons for this (and it is certainly a question worth asking, though
not one I am qualified to answer), Gabriel Kuhn has done all English-speaking
radicals a tremendous service by translating a fine collection of Landauer's lengthier
essays, opinion pieces and letters, and it is a compliment, rather than a criticism, to
Reviews
say that, extensive though it is, this book already feels limited, and left me hoping
that more translations will soon follow.
And Kuhn has done much more than translate these works: the book is
prefaced with a lengthy introduction (co-written with Siegbert Wolf) and is
packed with extensive endnotes that help contextualise the chosen texts, both in
broader historical and cultural terms, and in relation to the seemingly vast
amount of Landauer's writing that is not included. This not only helps the reader
to understand Landauer's thought all the better. It also, importantly, reassures us
that Kuhn was as good a person as any for the job: in selecting which texts to
include, Kuhn was placed in the position of deciding how this clearly important
thinker, who wrote extensively over many decades, would be presented to the
English-speaking world. Imagine having only one collection of essays by
Kropotkin or Bakunin (and imagine the arguments that would follow about what
had been excluded). Such a task comes with considerable responsibility, and
whilst we have little more than Kuhn's input itself by which to judge his endeav
ours, I personally left any concerns aside as it became clear that Kuhn was highly
knowledgeable in his subject, without ever seeming biased or otherwise one-sided
in his presentation of Landauer. The result is a fine collection of work that
demands attention.
What remains to be seen, however, is how Landauer's ideas will be received.
As noted, Landauer's view that 'the state is a social relationship' is frequently
quoted; but what does Landauer mean by this, exactly ? More to the point, is its
regular invocation a sign of agreement, or of misunderstanding ? I raise the
question because Landauer consistently argued for an approach to social change
which is often far from popular within certain anarchist circles. In particular, two
related arguments are presented in numerous texts throughout the book. First,
Landauer argues for what might be called (for want of a better term) lifestyle
anarchism. Personally, I see Landauer's approach as an entirely appropriate appli
cation of a prefigurative politics that is supposedly at the heart of anarchist
thinking. Yet for many anarchists, prefiguration is understood within the narrow
confines of direct action protest, and as a rejection of tactics which are not prefig
urative, such as voting. But Landauer argued that we must begin to create
anarchism in our daily lives. This included creating intentional communities
(which he argued should be outward rather than inward-looking), but also
involved creating workers' and consumer co-ops; indeed, anything that helped us
slip through 'the cracks of capitalism' (p.284). For many anarchists, this sort of
lifestyle shift is nothing more than a distraction from the real work of creating a
Matt Wilson
1 23 1
revolutionary movement; but for Landauer, without a community of people who
had grown accustomed to living differently - who had developed 'new social rela
tionships', as his famous remark would have it - any revolution, even if it rejected
parties and the state, would simply recreate the same social ills as before.
The second related thread that runs through much of Landauer's work is that
this argument relies on a critique, not simply of capitalism and the state, but of
individuals within these systems - something which, again, is often unpopular
amongst radicals. With characteristic frankness, Landauer proclaimed that
' [rJotten people are on top because rotten people are at the bottom' (p.228). This
is not intended as a moral attack, but as a sociological insight. Nonetheless, this is
clearly an awkward point to make, because it involves critically challenging people
to act differently, despite their often unfortunate circumstances, suggesting that
they have a responsibility to lead better lives. Whilst many anarchists appear to
see this as a case of blaming the victims, or as holier-than-thou moralising, I
believe it in fact offers a radically-empowering vision, and one which does not
patronisingly imply that people are incapable of thinking and acting differently,
simply because they live within a capitalist state. Ironically, a radical critique of
capitalism and the state, can, in effect, disempower the individual; if the system is
at fault, then nothing is to be gained by improving one's own life. Landauer
rejected this view, arguing in a letter to his friend Max Nettlau that 'In order to
change ourselves and our social conditions, we must use the limited freedom that
we have' (p.309).
This, then, is what Landauer meant when he said that 'the state is a social rela
tionship [ . . J It can be destroyed by creating new social relationships' (p.214). As
frequently as these lines are quoted, it seems the sentiment behind them has yet to
convince many anarchists. Perhaps now that people have access to more of
Landauer's work, his arguments will finally get the support and deeper under
standing they deserve. I certainly agree with Landauer that, until they do, we are
doomed to recreate the state, even if our intention is to destroy it. Whether
Landauer's arguments will convince radicals in these regards remains to be seen, but,
almost one hundred years after Landauer's death, I am personally grateful to Gabriel
Kuhn for giving this inspirational thinker another chance to try.
.
Matt Wilson
Dreamers of a New Day

Morris, Brian
pg. 124
Reviews
Sheila Rowbotham, Dreamers of a New Day

London:
Verso: 2010
Hbk: 978-1844677030, 11;
Pbk
978-18446761 32, 17.95
Author of a recent splendid biography of Edward Carpenter (2008), Sheila

Rowbotham is a well-known socialist historian and feminist. Her books Women,
Resistance and Revolution ( 1 972) and Hiddenfrom History ( 1 973) were pioneer
studies of women's liberation, in outlining their struggles against social oppression
and gender inequalities. Dreamers ofa New Day is her most recent book. Like
Rowbotham's earlier historical studies, it is a work of fine scholarship, well
researched, lucidly written, and intellectually engaging.
The book is focused on Britain and the United States, and covers the period
from around 1 880 to the beginning of the First World War. This was, of course, a
period of immense social change, with the resurgence of industrial capitalism reflected in the growth of urban slums, the advent oflarge-scale corporations, mass
production and sweated labour, and the widespread movement of the human popu
lation - particularly immigration into the United States.
Dreamers ofa New Day essentially details the response of women across the
political spectrum to these social changes, and the sense that they had that a new way
oflife was possible. It thus brings together a mass of interesting material on, for
example, the following: birth control campaigns; the efforts of women to democra
tize personal relationships and thus explore new forms of sexuality; the links
between women's efforts at emancipation and the socialist movement, particularly
the role of women in the trade unions and their own labour organizations, including
the suffragettes. It is thus a very wide-ranging text, discussing numerous women's
organizations and the many social issues that involved women around the turn of the
twentieth century. It carries the subtitle 'Women who invented the twentieth
century', for many of the issues raised by these 'rebel women: as Rowbotham
describes them, have now become part of everyday life. Indeed, she suggests that
women in the early years of the twentieth century had transformed many of the
conditions of their own lives, decades before the intellectuals of the 1 960s discovered
'everyday life' as an arena for radical politics.
I have only two misgivings with regard to this valuable book. The first is that
Rowbotham often, somewhat disconcertingly, flips back and forth in the text
between Britain and America. The second is that there is no real introduction to the
contents of the book - for the introduction is a rather breathless sweep over
Brian Morris
numerous issues, woman's organizations and countless women rebels and reformers Rowbotham mentioning (but often no more than mentioning) within the space of
nine pages, no less than forty-one different women.
But for me, what was of especial interest about the book is that Rowbotham not
only discusses the struggles of African-American women, but includes within the
text many insightful discussions of the anarchist women who were also involved in
feminist issues. These include Lizzie Holmes, Lucy Parsons, Emma Goldman,
Voltairine de Cleyre, Helena Born, Kate Austin and Anela Heywood. All were
American anarchists who were strong defenders of a woman's right to sexual
freedom, and thus strong advocates of free love and birth control and of direct action
in personal life as well as in politics. They rebelled against the notion that it was in a
woman's nature to be 'an angel at the hearth', that is, simply a housewife. Rowbotham
indicates that the writings of Walt Whitman and Henrik Ibsen had an important
influence on these 'rebel women'.
In Britain, Rose Witcop, who came from a Jewish working-class immigrant
family in London's East End, lived in a free union with the anti-parliamentarian
socialist, Guy Aldred. The younger sister of Rudolf Rocker's life-long partner Milly
Witcop, Rose supported Margaret Sanger in being a strong advocate of birth control.
Other anarchists who were involved in feminist issues and in countering
women's oppression and are briefly mentioned by Rowbotham include: Margaret
Anderson, Adeline Champney, Louise Michel, Marie Ganz, Lillian Harman and Lily
Gair Wilkinson. It is of interest that few of these women anarchists are mentioned in
the standard histories of anarchism by Max Nettlau and Peter Marshall - though see
Margaret S. Marsh, Anarchist Women: 1870-1 920 (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1 98 1 ).
Significantly, although eugenics - selective breeding - was an important
movement at the turn of the twentieth century, even being embraced by political
radicals, Rowbotham indicates that the anarchist-feminists, like Voltairine de Cleyre
and Lizzie Holmes, were opposed to eugenic ideas, particularly their authoritarian
implications.
As a historian, Rowbotham suggests that to think about the problems and the
struggles that people faced in the past might help us in the present. In this regard,
Dreamers ofa New Day is a useful and very worthwhile text.
Brian Morris
The Rise of the Green Left: Inside the Worldwide Ecosocialist Movement
Morris, Brian
pg. 126
Reviews
Derek Wall, The Rise of the Green Left: Inside the Worldwide Ecosocialist
Movement
London: Pluto, 2010

ISBN: 978-0745330365, 13
This little book by Derek Wall is essentially a primer and manifesto of eco-socialism
advocated by the Green Party. Wall seems to have replaced Jonathon Porritt as the
principal intellectual guru of the Green Party, although it is unclear whether Wall is
still an active member or 'principal speaker' of the party.
In many ways this is an excellent text, lucidly written, well-researched, engaging
and informative. and Wall's heart is clearly in the right place as he describes and
supports social movements and the struggles of indigenous peoples actoss the globe.
He is supportive of any movement, organization or political party that is conducive
to radical or 'positive social change: embracing both struggle for social justice and
ecological integrity. The book consists essentially of four topics: the politics of
climate change, a manifesto and advocacy of Marxist eco-socialism, an outline and
history of green anti-capitalist thought, and a brief discussion of eco-socialism in
Latin America.
The basic premise of the book is that eco-socialism can be found amongst 'green
parties, socialist movements, socialist groups and indigenous networks'; that it has its
origins in the politics of Karl Marx (p.2); and that it is necessary to gain 'state-level
power' in order to transform capitalism, and thus achieve the transition to an eco
socialist society (p. 143).
It is, however, not really a manifesto for eco-socialism; it is rather a plea for eco
state socialism, and state socialism, like anarcho-capitalism, is essentially a
contradiction in terms. Like many Marxists, Wall tends to conflate socialism with
Marxism. He thus envisages some kind of dichotomy between socialism and anar
chism. Yet apart from a brief mention of Edward Carpenter and Murray Bookchin,
anarchism - that is, libertarian socialism - is hardly mentioned in the entire text.
Bookchin, of course, is dismissed as a 'sectarian' and for his alleged 'rejection' of
socialism (p.8S). Bookchin was no more 'sectarian' than the anarcho-primitivists, or
those who fervently advocate the parliamentary politics of the Green Party - he just
happened to be rather abrasive and strident towards those he disagreed with. Wall
disagrees with those who reject electoral politics, or belong to what he describes as
the 'purist left' (which includes the anarchists), but he does so in a more benign
fashion.
Brian Morris
To suggest that Bookchin rejected socialism is quite untrue. He rejected
Marxist authoritarian socialism. For most of his life Bookchin was an anarchist, that
is a libertarian socialist. This he affirmed in one of his last essays on 'communism'.
Even so, in his last years, he was reluctant to call himself an anarchist, mainly
because in the United States anarchism had become identified with primitivism,
anarcho-capitalism, Stirnerite individualism, and the obscurantist mysticism of
Hakim Bey. Nevertheless, Bookchin was a socialist, but a libertarian socialist or
anarchist. He was therefore naturally critical ofKovel's embrace of the kind of
status politics derived from Marx - hence their split - and, as Wall recognizes,
Bookchin was advocating an ecological critique of capitalism long before Kovel and
the Marxists. In fact Kovel's book The Enemy ofNature simply appropriates
Bookchin's essential thesis, with little acknowledgement. Kovel, however, seems to
be one of Wall's key mentors;
Thus Wall seems blissfully ignorant of the fact that there is a form of eco
socialism that is quite independent of Marxism. It was advocated long ago by such
anarchists or libertarian socialists as Elisee Reclus, Peter Kropotkin and Gustav
Landauer - all of whom were real ecological thinkers, unlike most Marxists who are
now falling over themselves to affirm their green credentials. But none of these liber
tarian socialists gets even a mention in Wall's text, although he does devote some
discussion to eco-fascists like Rolf Gardiner and RudolfBahro. As he is rather enam
oured of contemporary political 'leaders' like Evo Morales, Fidel Castro and Hugo
Chavez, it is hardly surprising that Wall fails to mention, let alone discuss, contem
porary anarchists such as Colin Ward, Peter Marshall and Graham Purchase, as well
as the Anarchist Federation, all of whom have sought to combine a libertarian
socialist politics with an ecological sensibility.
Anarchist initiatives, ranging from indigenous struggles over land rights to
community-based organizations challenging environmental degradation, are to be
acknowledged and supported; electoral politics is a cul-de-sac, leading only to social
democracy, or worse, a Marxist tyranny, as Bakunin predicted.
Derek Wall ends the book with the rallying call of William Morris: 'educate,
agitate, organize'. But it is well to remember that Morris was a romantic and critical
of industrialism, and that when politically active he advocated an 'anti-parliamentar
ian' form of socialism, and thus, as Peter Marshall suggests, has more affinities with
anarchism than he ever did with the Marxist politics of Engels and Hyndman, which
were fundamentally authoritarian.
History seems to be repeating itself Twenty-five years ago I reviewed Jonathon
Porritt's early manifesto of the Ecology Party, Seeing Green ( 1 984). It was then
Reviews
dubbed as a 'quaint organization' by Porritt, who went on to write a book in support
of a benign form of capitalism, and to become an advisor on environmental issues to
Tony Blair and New Labour. Let's hope Derek Wall (and Caroline Lucas) don't
follow Porritt's political trajectory.
Brian Morris

Anarchist Studies Journal 19.2

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Credits

Dave Berry, Department of Politics, International Relations and European Studies,

L. Susan Brown (Independent), political and social theory

Allan Antliff (University of Victoria), history of art

Lawrence & Wishart 2011

2012 subscriptions are (for two issues):

Portrait of Colin Ward,

pen and ink water colour

is indexed in Alternative Press Index, British Humanities Index, CIRA,

Colin Ward: Sower of anarchist ideas Peter Marshall

Colin Ward and the New Left David Goodway

Colin Ward and Kropotkin's legacy Brian Morris

Colin Ward: anarchism and social policy Carissa Honeywell

Colin Ward: Anarchy and organisation Robert Graham

Social anarchism, lifestyle anarchism, and the anarchism of Colin Ward

Reviewed by Alex Prichard

1924-2010 Reviewed by Sharif Gemie

& Albert Meltzer, The Floodgates of Anarchy

Reviewed by Keith Hodgson

Utopies Americaines: Experiences libertaires du XIXe siecle

a nos jours Reviewed by John Clark

Costas Douzinas and Slavoj Zizek (eds.), The Idea of Communism

Simon Fairlie, Meat: A Benign Extravagance Reviewed by Matt Wilson

Paul Goodman New Reformation Reviewed by Carissa Honeywell

Jamie Heckert and Richard Cleminson (eds.), Anarchism

& Sexuality. Ethics,

Relationships and Power Reviewed by Gwendolyn Windpassinger

Gustav Landauer, Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader,

Sheila Rowbotham, Dreamers of a New Day Reviewed by Brian Morris

About this issue's cover

About this issue's cover

own imprint (Agraphia Press) dedicated to 'maintaining the tradition of radical,

Introduction: Colin Ward (1924-2010)

Anarchist Studies 19.2 2011

Introduction: Colin Ward (1924-2010)

Anarchist Studies 19.2

Colin Ward (1924-2010)

Colin Ward (1924-2010)

Colin Ward (I924-201O)

a Reader in European Politics in the Department of Politics,

Colin Wttrd (1924-2010)

Anarchist Studies 19.2

Colin Ward: Sower of anarchist ideas

Anarchist Studies 19.2 2011

Colin Ward: Sower of anarchist ideas

1 . INTRODUCTION: COLIN WARD, INDIVIDUAL AND ANARCHIST

Colin Ward: Sower ofanarchist ideas

Colin 1Vard: Sower ofanarchist ideas

Anarchist Studies 19.2

Colin Ward: Sower 0/anarchist ideas

Anarchist Studies 19.2

Anarchist Studies 19.2 2011

'The man who knows his village'

The man who knows his village'

anarchism, developed his reflections about the application of libertarian principles to

Anarchist Studies 19.2

The man who knows his village'

also an important feature of the group.

The man who knows his village'

4. 'AN EMPIRICAL SOFTIE'

World had the largest

Anarchist Studies 19.2

The man who knows his village'

The man who knows his village'