Against the State: An Introduction to Anarchist Political Theory

by Crispin Sartwell

Irreverent and incisive critique of liberal theories of the state.

In Against the State, Crispin Sartwell unleashes a quick and brutal rejection of the traditional arguments for state legitimacy. Sartwell considers the classics of Western political philosophy—Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, Hume, Bentham, Rawls, and Habermas, among others—and argues that their positions are not only wrong but also embarrassingly bad. He separates the traditional pro-state arguments into three social contract theories, utilitarian justifications, and justicial views, all while attacking both general strategies and particular formulations. Sartwell argues that the state rests on nothing but deadly force and its accompanying coercion, and that no one is under any obligation to obey the law merely because it is the law. He concludes by articulating a positive vision of an anarchist future, based on the “individualism” of such figures as Emerson and Thoreau. Against the State provides a rigorous and provocative foil to the classic texts, and also serves as a concise statement of the anarchist challenge.

“Sartwell’s work stands in the Thoreauvian tradition he admires—simultaneously lyrical and plainspoken, intensely personal yet theoretically compelling. Transcending the hackneyed opposition between individualist and communitarian approaches to politics, Sartwell’s spirited, engaging, and insightful critique of the state reminds us of the essentially barbarous nature of that institution, forcefully engages the classic arguments on its behalf, and makes a vigorous and inspiring case for a humane anarchist alternative.” — Roderick T. Long, Auburn University

“Sartwell is unabashed and unrelenting in pointing out the unquestioned absurdities at the foundation of the state’s legitimacy. His refusal to accept any assumption on faith or to turn away from logical conclusions is the book’s greatest strength.” — Dana Ward, coauthor of Political Reasoning and A Piagetian View

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Anarchism

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Crispin Sartwell was born 6.20.58 in DC. His Dad (and his and his) were DC newspapermen. His Mom and Step-pa were high school teachers and later organic farmers. He got kicked out of the public school system in tenth grade for fomenting revolution, and attended the New Education Project, aka Bonzo Ragamuffin Prep, then U Maryland, Johns Hopkins, UVA. He worked as a copy boy in 1980-81 at the Washington Star, where he started writing about pop music. He was a freelance rock critic through the eighties for, among others the Balt City Paper, Record Mag, High Fidelity, and Melody Maker.

He lives in Glen Rock, PA with his wife, the writer Marion Winik, and their five children. He's Visiting Associate Prof of Political Science at Dickinson College. He writes a weekly op-ed column, distributed by Creators Syndicate. He has also appeared in Harper's, the Washington Post, and on Weekend All Things Considered.

He is the author and editor of a number of books, and he's taught philosophy and communications at Vanderbilt, the Unversity of Alabama, and Penn State Harrisburg.

Reviews

[Conrado · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a technical achievement but a great read nonetheless. I also wouldn't consider it to be really an introduction to anarchism (more like a short anarchist essay with its own original points here and there) but it's very accessible to those who wish to get into the basics of (one particular kind of) anarchism.

The book is divided into three parts, the first one dealing with some basic definitions for what Sartwell considers to be key anarchist terms ("anarchism", "state", "government", "legitimacy", "coercion", "freedom", "voluntary action", etc.) and then sets out to properly charactize anarchism as the thesis according to which every human relation should be voluntary -- which, according to him, given his definition of "government", already entails the thesis that the state should be abolished [I'm not really happy with this definition, but I'll let it slide]. Without getting into detail, I think there is some merit in some of his definitions. His characterization of the state as a mere personalization of something else (that is, government) points out the fact that is not a good choice to define anarchism as a simply anti-statism, since (i) that is not historically accurate of many anarchist philosophers, but also (ii) it ignores the fact that the state is actually one of many instances and faces of something larger, which is any form of government (including tribes and empires). Although clarifying, I would go further and say that anarchists are anti-government because they're government itself is the instance of a greater problem, which is political authority (and, for some anarchists, authority more broadly). However I think his points are very illuminating and quite interesting.

Having clarified anarchist concepts, Sartwell goes on to attack three well-known justifications for the legitimacy of government: social contract, utilitarianism and justificationism/deontological approaches. His strategy is simple: the burden of proof on the letigimacy (i.e., moral justification) of the state is on those who affirm it (i.e., the statists), rather than those who deny it (i.e., the anarchists). Now if the statist can show that his standard of political legitimacy can and is fulfilled by at least a single existing state, then the anarchist will concede that and withdraw his denial. The problem is that anarchists don't have any reason to concede that, and Sartwell attempts to show how statists have failed to show how states can be justified under the statists' own criteria of legimitacy. For example, if consent is the necessary component for legitimacy, the anarchist will show how consent (explicit or otherwise) is never really achieved (or cannot in principle ever be achieved) under state rule. The same applies to considerations of utility and distributive justice, as Sartwell argues throughout most of the book.

What motivates this burden of proof strategy? As I see it, Sartwell has in mind the what I call The voluntarist argument, which is based on his defence of political freedom as an universal moral value. The argument is the following:

P1 Every human association ought to be, as far as possible, uncoerced (unless coercion is morally justifiable);
P2 Government is an arrangement of coercions (essentially so, as Sartwell argues by appeal to thought experiments);
C Government stands in need of moral justification.

Now this argument hinges upon freedom as an almost inviolable moral value, which is something anarchists commonly hold. The problem, however, is justifying this kind of value as an absolute one. Robert P. Wolff, who also held a similar view, said that his defence of autonomy depended on a whole moral theory, which he did not set out to develop in his own In defence of anarquism. And Sartwell himself confesses that he doesn't have any knockdown arguments for that, but only broad appeals to intuition. While I respect his sincerity, I think it's been a long problem for anarchists to come up with a plausible argument for the absolute value of freedom (or autonomy), and this book does not intend on contributing to this project. This is not a minor quibble: if moral anarchism wants to impose itself a respectable theory, I think it ought to present good reasons for thinking that anarchist values are absolute. Fortunately, there's still lots of good argumentation against statist arguments that will help an anarchist at least come up with good reasons to reject the legimacy of the state.

The third part of the book broadly outlines Sartwell's own conception of individualist anarchism, dividing it into several concepts: (i) the absolute self-ownership of every individual (which I believe Sartwell takes to be a natural human right); (ii) the body as the primary location of individual consciousnness, identity and so on; (iii) nominalism with regard to collective entities (states, peoples, classes, etc.); (iv) rejection of psychological egoism; (v) rejection of homo oeconomicus; (vi/vii) social relations (and relations towards nonhuman animals and objects) as constitutive of individuality (though not to the point of implying collectivism); (viii) rejection of immoralism/amoralism; (ix) rejection of utopianism. It goes way beyond the scope of this review to dive into each of these in detail, so I'm just gonna comment that he's correct in pointing out that, despite non-utopianism being the best form of anarchism (and here I take it that he aligns himself with anarchist without adjectives like Volteirine de Cleyre), it's hard to avoid speculating about anarchist societies, given that anarchists are pressed to solve the issue of distributive justice without the state, given that that notion usually assumes a set of persons who have the power do ameliorate social conditions, in Sartwell's words.

Overall, I think there's much to learn here, and this is definitely one of the better and most engaging introductions to theorical anarchism. It also completely avoids doing history of anarchism, which is a bonus in my opinion (many intro books to anarchism feel so overlong to me because it seems they feel like they have to talk about it; fortunately, Sartwell is too worried about actually theorizing and trying to make anarchism plausible). I highly recommend this to those who wish to figure out what's to interesting and plausible about anarchism as a philosophical view.

[Craine · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who has read quite a few introductions to anarchism this short book certainly stands out in a positive way, but may perhaps appeal more for to the audience of whom likes to engage in philosophical issues. Crispin lays forth some of the strongest or if not the strongest definitely the most historical significant arguments pertaining to the state as a construct and its justification and takes these arguments apart. He notes the justification of the state is most often defended on the grounds of utilitarian, contract basis or through other judicial beneficial reasons and addresses theses arguments one at a time. A summary of his positions regarding a possible envisioned future through anarchism is given at the end of the book.

On criticism I have of the book is that he does not bother always to give reasonable counter arguments as is the case for social contracts where he simply gives some loose arguments then says that the social contract defense has been debunked by others without proper reference to these arguments. Its also noted that Crispin is an individual anarchist and not a social anarchist although there are of course generalities in terms of the philosophy of anarchism which includes both social and individual anarchists such as creating a society with as voluntary as possible number of interactions and there is much overlap in the positions of personal autonomy and liberty as well.

Overall enjoyable especially if you have some interest in political philosophy and as an introduction to anarchism. If you are looking for a book where existing or previous anarchist examples are given then I would not suggest this book as it does not cover this topic. Alternatives to read in that regard I would highly recommend "Chomsky- On Anarchism " or " Anarchism From Theory to Practice- Daniel Guerin" for example.


(Note I don't like the star rating and as such I only rate books based upon one star or five stars corresponding to the in my opinion preferable rating of thumbs up/down. This later rating system encourages in my opinion the degree to which the reader is likely to read a review instead of merely glancing at the number of stars)

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first thing you should know is that the title is a lie. Kind of. As Crispin puts it himself, all anarchist philosophies are different, meaning there can be no one introduction, which in turn means this is an introduction to his idea of what anarchist political theory is. Which is a lot of criticism of the political philosophy of Hobbes.

While I agree that Hobbes was wrong, and Crispin is right, about a lot of stuff, I keep thinking, "Almost all the political philosophy I've read, like Marx, Kropotkin, and Goldman is so much more digestible and understandable."

It's a tiresome read that requires an understanding of the modern language in political philosophy to be decipherable, which really flies in the face of what I think makes anarchist philosophy cool: It's slick and understandable, throwing away the hierarchy of class and education to reach the masses.

It's not a bad book, but I feel like it fails to be an introduction to the average, curious person. I would much rather recommend Kropotkin or Goldman if you want an introduction to the philosophy of anarchy.

[Zack Semones · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[John Roskelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw this on the reading list of a book club and thought I'd like to see how Sartwell defined anarchism and supported his arguments. Essentially he says that humans should be individualists, and that any power or force that results in a diminution of individuals' freedoms is coercive and thus a form of anarchy. He analyzes the thinking of classics of Western political philosphy such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, Hume, Bentham, Rawls and Habermas by critiquing their various definitions of anarchism, coercion, freedom, etc. It was interesting reading, but one would have to have a previous blush with the views of those Sartwell critiques to fully cement his own preferences in one's understanding, whether one agrees with him or not.

[Boaz]

Philosophical discussion of anarchy- arguments as to why the state is not justified and is founded on violence.