\input booklet \pageno=59 \footline={\hfill\rm\folio\hfill} \parindent=20pt \def\dash{\unskip\nobreak{-}\hskip0pt} \centerline{\hl Reflections on the Anarchist Principle} \centerline{\sans by Paul Goodman {\it(from ANARCHY 62, April¨ 1966)}} \vskip\parskip \vskip6pt \vbox to 6pt{ \hbox{\hskip8pt\hlbig A\hfill} } \vskip-10pt \noindent \hangindent=20pt\hangafter=-1 narchism is grounded in a¨ rather definite proposition: that valuable behavior occurs only¨ by the free and direct response of individuals or voluntary¨ groups to the conditions presented by the historical environment.¨ It claims that in most human affairs, whether political,¨ economic, military, religious, moral, pedagogic, or cultural,¨ more harm than good results from coercion, top\dash down¨ direction, central authority, bureaucracy, jails, conscription,¨ states, pre\dash ordained standardization, excessive planning,¨ etc. Anarchists want to increase intrinsic functioning and¨ diminish extrinsic power. This is a social\dash psychological¨ hypothesis with obvious political implications. Depending on varying historical conditions that present various¨ threats to the anarchist principle, anarchists have laid their¨ emphasis in varying places: sometimes agrarian, sometimes¨ free\dash city and guild\dash oriented; sometimes technological,¨ sometimes anti\dash technological; sometimes Communist, sometimes¨ affirming property; sometimes individual, sometimes collective;¨ sometimes speaking of Liberty as an almost absolute good,¨ sometimes relying on custom and ``nature''. Nevertheless, despite¨ these differences, anarchists seldom fail to recognize each¨ other, and they do not consider the differences to be¨ incompatibilities. Consider a crucial modern problem, violence.¨ Guerrilla fighting has been a classical anarchist technique; yet,¨ especially where, in modern conditions, {\it any} violent means¨ tends to reinforce centralism and authoritarianism, anarchists¨ have tended to see the beauty of non\dash violence. Now the anarchist principle is by and large true\footnote{*}{I,¨ and other anarchists, would except certain states of temporary¨ emergency, if we can be confident that the emergency is {\it¨ temporary}. We might except certain simplistic logistic¨ arrangements, like ticketing or metric standards or tax\dash¨ collection, if we can be confident that the administration, the¨ ``secretariat'', will not begin to run the show. And we might¨ except certain ``natural monopolies'', like epidemic control,¨ water\dash supply, etc.}. And far from being ``utopian'' or a¨ ``glorious failure'', it has proved itself and won out in many¨ spectacular historical crises. In the period of mercantilism and¨ patents royal, free enterprise by joint stock companies were¨ anarchist. The Jeffersonian bill of rights was anarchist.¨ Progressive education was anarchist. The free cities and¨ corporate law in the feudal system were anarchist. At present,¨ the civil rights movement in the United States has been almost¨ classically decentralist and anarchist. And so forth, down to¨ details like free access in public libraries. Of course, to later¨ historians these things do not seem to be anarchist, but in their¨ own time they were regarded as such and often literally called¨ such, with the usual dire threats of chaos. But this relativity¨ of the anarchist principle to the actual situation is of the¨ essence of anarchism. There {\it cannot} be a history of¨ anarchism in the sense of establishing a permanent state of¨ things ``anarchist''. It is always a continual coping with the¨ next situation, and a vigilance to make sure that past freedoms¨ are not lost and do not turn into the opposite, as free¨ enterprise turned into wage\dash slavery and monopoly capitalism,¨ or the independent judiciary turned into a monopoly of courts,¨ cops, and lawyers, or free education turned into School Systems. \bye