Eduardo Rivas Luveiro
Legitimacy, Political Institutions and Actors.
Hannah Arendt and Anarchism:
The Institutionalization of Freedom
Eduardo Rivas Luveiro
Global Studies
Second Year
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INDEX
- Introduction : p.3
- Arendt and Anarchism: p. 4-9
- New Social Movements in the 2010s: p. 10-15
- Arendt’s Epiphany and the what-if of NSMs: p.16-17
- Concluding Statements: p.18-19
- Bibliography: p.20
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Introduction
Traditional anarchism, regarding society and the concept of council-like system of
organization is not far off from some of Arendt’s postulates. Even Arendt herself strongly
believed in this same system as a means to institutionalize ‘revolutionary politics’, being
this the root of her many disagreements with Marxism and communist praxis.
However, it is not the traditional aspect of anarchism, neither Arendt’s confrontations
with Marxism what interests me, but rather the apparent links of the latter’s theories of
public sphere and space of appearance, to modern social movements, which some
authors sustain, are the offspring of 19th century anarchist ideals.
It is quite adventurous to say that these movements have inherited something from
anarchism, given their love of non-violent ways of protest and their quick predisposition
to submit to the established order, but it would be unfair not to explore the existing ties
both to the anarchist movement and Arendt’s postulates, and how these and their ties
to new democratic movements have undermined the potentiality and discourse of the
former, even among anarchists themselves
Taking these premises as a parting point, it is the purpose of this essay to analyze and
critique both Arendt statements towards anarchism and the development of New Social
Movements in relation to libertarian ideas regarding council-like spaces of appearance
and their disregard for theoretical basis as a key to their ultimate decadence after their
initial momentum. In order to do so, this essay is structured in 4 sections: an overview
of Arendt’s similarities with libertarian postulates, the gravely fragmented failure of the
NSMs (and specially the case of the 15- M), why should these NSMs have looked into
theoretical frameworks such as that of Arendt regarding horizontal associations of
citizens, and concluding statements regarding the whole essay.
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Arendt and Anarchism: delusion made statement
Arendt’s vision and critiques of anarchism seem rather off, in the sense that she always
advocated for almost the exact same thing: the destruction of the modern bureaucratic
nation. However, in Arendt’s case, the destruction of the modern state is only plausible
if afterwards it is followed by the construction of a council-like system, in which power
is exerted in a horizontal way (one of the main principles of libertarian philosophies)
rather than vertical. This is due to the given, built-from-the-bottom-up, nature of
councils.
This defense of councils and a subsequent council system of the likes of a “federation”,
in which councils are able to represent communities in a decentralized way, ensuring
that there isn’t any kind of coercion given by a vertical hierarchy, can be traced back to
Proudhon’s conception of federalism (Proudhon, 1863), based upon Proudhon’s concept
of duality between “authority” and “freedom” which define the contractual terms under
which, the councils, and therefore the confederation are established. This same concept
can be traced back to even 9 years earlier with Pi I Margall’s “El Eco de la Revolución”
(1854). But that is too far from what now is the main point of this essay.
Following Proudhon’s federalist conception we have Bakunin , who, almost a century
earlier than Arendt , stated that once
“the accursed power of the State is no longer there to constrain individuals, associations, communes,
provinces, or regions to live together, they will be much more closely bound” (Guérin, 1970).
This legitimates Mijaíl Bakunin’s claim, in which he expresses the desire for government
through association and not the other way around, which , again, is the same principle
exposed by Proudhon, and later by Arendt. This belief in associative praxis stemming
from the collapse of the bureaucrat state, is also present when we look at Arendt’s
analysis of the Paris Commune of 1871 in her book “On Revolution”. In her analysis of
revolutionary movements she expresses joy before the spontaneously emerging
councils and associations of workers living in the post-revolutionary world, to which she
added :
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“they never came into being as a result of a conscious revolutionary tradition or theory, but entirely
spontaneously, each time as though there had never been anything of the sort before. Hence the council
system seems to correspond to and to spring from the very experience of political action”
(Arendt,1972)
However, Arendt is more interested in the consolidation of these associations, in order
to attain the new “state” they must be transformed and settled into councils. It is here
where, together with the politicization of labor, Arendt digresses with Marxism, as for
Marx, the ubiquity of the council system is of transitory nature, a mere step in the path
leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat, and a big obstacle for the same reason. If
a council system, in which power is decentralized and distributed in a horizontal fashion,
was to be consolidated, then no party could attain power’s monopoly. This is due to the
fact that Socialism/Marxism, requires from the existence of centralized institutions, very
much like the bureaucratic nation states that it seeks to substitute.
Again, in criticizing such aspects of Marxism and Socialism, Arendt was, unknowingly,
incurring in pure anarchist theory, and agreeing with both the authors (Proudhon and
Bakunin) that she had previously ostracized as mere “utopians”. Nonetheless, from her
perspective, highly affected by her experiences and critiques of bio-political terror
inducted by totalitarianism, anarchism was nothing more than an individualist outlook
on utopian socialism. As a curiosity, in doing so, she anticipated some of the current
movements and theories of modern anarchism, such as “egoist-anarchism” or the more
broad concept of “post-left anarchism”, which have broken free from the left-wing
stigmatization associated with anarchism, something that I will explore later with the
influence of anarchism on current social movements.
But returning to Arendt’s criticism of anarchism, we, now detached from the delusional
world of theory and discourse, encounter the world of labor (also analyzed from a
theoretical and reality-detached point of view), something that constitutes another
battling ground for Arendt’s and her misguided conception of anarchism. Her critique
on the vision of labor is, again, misguided by her own confusion of socialism, utopianism
and radical anarchism. Arendt keeps on dismantling socialist postulates (I wonder if she
ever thought she would do better as an anarchist penseusse) on the dignity that stems
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from work, heavily criticizing the “animal laborans” figure defined by Marx. In Arendt’s
work it is a recurrent topic that of the “freed man” whom has broken free of the yoke
of any kind of labor and can now proceed to give himself to the delights of action and
public speech. By virtue of this freedom he is able to act (in the political sense),
something that labor forbids due to its inextricable ties to man’s natural needs (in our
society we must work so we can eat, it is as simple, and sad, as that).
By marginalizing the possibility (here I’d rather say the “legitimacy”) of public and
political action stemming from a life of labor and the free-association of workers, a
common feature to both anarchists and socialists, Arendt is depriving the council system
from its political roots, as well as establishing a barrier between what we could call
“politics” and “needs”. In the words of Brian Smith (pg.101, 2019):
“By disaggregating the management of needs from the possibility of doing politics, Arendt is
simply demarcating a space for action. Needs management reflects the cyclical and repetitive
movements of bodily care and sustenance, whereas politics represents the possibility of
rectilinearly breaking out of familiar patterns, becoming the basis of subsequent action that is
as yet unknown and unpredictable.”
It is one of Arendt’s notes on Western countries, that politics have become the space
for the management of the aforementioned needs, in which elections just serve to
choose that who seems the most befitted to handle the citizenry petitions. This notion,
however, was exposed years before by Max Weber, and more recently by Pierre
Rosanvallon when talking about the “invisible minority” and the now out-of-fashion
concept of “majority”.
But in her statements, and contrary to these same statements (yes you have read well),
Arendt affirms that trade and labor unions could be the bases for future revolutionary
movements in centuries, a claim that she backs by noting a (purposefully forgotten by
her, would be more accurate) lack of slave rebellions throughout history until the
worker-conflating movements of the 1848 revolutions up to the 1956 Hungarian
uprisings.
Here, and stemming from Arendt’s neglection of slave-ignited rebellions I would like to
make an incision to briefly point the latent racism present throughout all of her work,
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and specially in works such as “On Violence” (1970) and her characterization of Black
Power movements throughout the 60’s as mere savages who adhered to a cause after
being fanatized into doing so for the mere idea of race supremacy. It seems that one of
the standing points of Arendt’s anti-black racism is that she considered people of African
descent and their ancestors to be brought up in communities with very low politicization
akin more to “animal communities” than to “human” ones. The other standing point is
that she, and this is directly related to the point discussed in the previous page, cannot
conceive social and political causes to be indissolubly entangled. Her delusional
conception of politics and detachment from the social reality of the past and her own
time period, did not allow her to see that inequality, be it political or societal, is
inextricably linked to political action and the space of appearance, the same concepts
she preached to be only possible if individuals act in sheer human togetherness.
She goes as far as to say that black parents who wished for their children to go to white
schools, were trying to socially improve their lives by being “social-climbers”.
By writing this little parenthesis I only intend to give more insight into the delusional of
the writings of Arendt, and specially in regard to her obsession of isolating the political
sphere from the social one.
Going back to the previous page and Arendt’s appraisal of worker movements, it is quite
shocking for anarchists and academic scholars alike, that Arendt ends up saying that
“unions were never revolutionary in the sense that they desired a transformation of
society together with a transformation of the political institutions in which this society
was represented” (Arendt, 1958), when she previously has stated quite the opposite.
This rupture in her logic (although constant throughout her critique of anarchism,
utopianism and labor movements) is even bigger if one takes a brief look at basic
anarcho-syndicalist principles, which pretty much vow for the subversion of the
established political order, rather than its transformation and the subsequent liberation
of the worker from its chains, embodied by work. To top Arendt’s delusional échec in
undermining anarchism and trying (consciously or not) to make her ideas look as
something that few had heard of, when explaining the council system, she most notably
uses examples stemming from the labor world and yet, she tries to demarcate these
same parables from their libertarian and socialist origins.
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Nonetheless, it is not Arendt alone the one who is confused by the minimal, yet
substantial differences among libertarian and socialist philosophies. Anarcho-
Syndicalism, Libertarian-Socialism, Anarcho-Communism, all are commonly mistaken
among themselves and used as synonyms almost every time they are talked about.
Finally, Arendt’s vision on anarchism also digs into the legitimation of the use of violence
on the face of adversity and injustice. Arendt’s repulsion of violence and her
categorization of it as an “anti-political” act, pretty much in the vein of Habermas’s
principle of instrumental action, seems frontally opposed to many anarchist theories
and movements, of which she says that they’re nothing more than a cult of death, rather
than revolutionaries. Nevertheless, she allows certain situations to determine the
legitimacy of violence, as those in which violence is the only way for justice to prevail.
In addition to this rather ambiguous claim, she also states that almost all revolutionary
process has been preceded by what she calls “liberative violence”. Still, she manages to
exclude at the same time she uses it as an example, as she does with worker committees
and unions, from the field of revolutionary politics. Arendt detaches what everyone
understands as the “act of revolution“ from what she understands as the “revolution”
(that which only concerns speech and political action). And yet, she still states, that the
space for revolutionary politics can only be created through the use of this legitimated
violence. On her critique of the anarchist promotion of violence, we can see again how
she manages to use biased information, as she now critiques Bakunin and Nechayev’s
concepts of violence as a uniform conception among anarchism, something that is pretty
partial, because apart from the justification of violence as a revolutionary tool, are
completely torn apart, starting by Nechayev’s preaching of nihilism (which is not a very
orthodox anarchist approach), followed by the critique of Bakunin’s towards terrorism,
which he states is something that should be alien to any social movement, even though
he defends the use of violence to resist acts of oppression and therefore, the need of
violent acts to commit to a revolution.
In this biased critique toward anarchism, Arendt shows again, that her ideas are just
reformulations of what had been said before by people such as Bakunin, Brecht, or
Proudhon (which never was an advocate forte use of violence), who never claimed that
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violence was the centerpiece to their thought, but rather a resource in times of extreme
necessity, being this, the same claim as Arendt’s.
Despite all of this, and as a conclusion to this section, it would not be fair to demand of
Arendt strict compliance with herself, because none of us has ever been as compliant as
we would like to think. What it is fair to demand of her, even though she’s well under
earth now, is that at least , she had had the decency of not coat-tailing the success of
worker and labor movements for the good of her own postulates while ostracizing the
working class to a non-political life in her discourse.
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New Social Movements in the 2010s:
Anarchism’s offspring?
During the past decade, and even the decade before, we have seen the rise of numerous
social movements associated to the struggle for more participatory forms of democracy,
and also linked to the decay of the current system, exposed by events such as the 2008
global economic crisis.
In their claim for participatory democracy and in their practices, authors have found
these New Social movements (NSMs from now on) to be heavily inspired by anarchist
principles, but rather than being mere continuities to the anarchism of the 19th and 20th
century, these movements constitute a rupture with the tradition. This is in part due to
their widespread support among the population during the apogee of their actions and
the positive reactions generated around the globe. However, and as I state above, these
movements “break free” from the anarchist tradition, in regard to theory and praxis.
This rejection of the anarchist theoretical legacy originates from a more varied
approach, in which adaptation and openness to different discourses is the norm. This
“pragmatic” pre-disposition makes of these NSMs a melting pot of concepts in which
the philosophical and utopian content is rejected in favor of the possibility of making
institutions accessible for the average citizen, that is to say, the minorities that conform
the bulk of these movements.
And I speak of minorities rather than citizens because in recent years, society can no
longer be divided or spoken of as some sort of divide between classes, good and bad,
morally correct or incorrect. As some authors, Rosanvallon for example, have stated in
the last 20 years that society is now a conflate of minorities fighting for the salience of
their proposals, and when one of those minorities is “ahead” of the rest, then that issue
is the one that leads the struggle of the rest, determining the agenda for the subjacent
ideology that coordinates the myriad of smaller struggles and minorities.
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These can be seen if one takes a look at our current situation (obviating the CoVid-19
situation). It is now the time of enviromentalism, feminism, and the fight for inclusion
of marginalized minorities (LGBTQ+, People of Color, indigenous communities, etc.).
They now lead the struggle that one would typically associate with the “working-class”
side of the ideological clash present in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, this is
nothing new, as the workers’ struggle and many of the anarchist movements had been
already phagocytized by the left-wing politics after the 60’s and 70’s, laying down the
path for actual NSMs to carry on the torch of the fight against injustice. This
fragmentation is also an identity trait of modernization within a social movement. In a
constantly evolving world devoured by liberalism, it is no longer sensible to identify with
something as simple and polarized as your belonging to one of two social classes (an
example of this may be the emergence of political postures such as the Third-Position,
Post-Left Anarchism, etc.), and so, political struggles are shaped by identity questions,
transcending class, age or gender, something that goes back to the previous page’s
mention to the accessibility of institutions (also present in Rosanvallon’s work).
In this crusade for the accessibility of institutions, it is their strife for participatory
democracy the one that vertebrates almost every movement, from the US to Spain, yet
it is nowhere backed by an actual proposal of how the system (which is now substitute
for the term “state”) could be reorganized in order to attain the aforementioned
accessibility. It is in this incapability of backing their claims with a solid alternative where
the NSMs differ most with traditional anarchism, which, as exposed in the first section
of this essay, essentially (at least the currents explored in that section i.e: anarcho-
syndicalism) proposes a confederation composed of councils that reflect the will of the
citizenry.
This lack of supporting alternatives can be traced back to the already mentioned
disregard for theoretical and utopian content of traditional anarchism. Because it is in
the philosophical space where practice can find the theory and postulates that back its
actions, and it is also there that the current struggles and problems can be assessed.
Lacking theory or passion for philosophical content is not bad, but it is indeed a sign of
what I have already commented: the fragmentation of the common struggle.
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In addition to this fragmentation we have the convergence of multiple movements,
political currents and individual interests, which together with the voluntarily self-
distancing from any kind of dogma, has contributed to this inability to formulate a
theoretical framework for their main goals. What this means, is that the few alternatives
that emerged during discussions among participants of these movements, have only
come to light thanks to the external interference of major political actors such as
national or local institutions. This is the case of “participatory budgeting” implemented
by many city councils all throughout European countries.
To some, this is the perfect example of how participatory democracy can (and should)
work, as it enables the citizens’ to take “control” of how their tax money is spent in their
place of residence (among many other options). Nonetheless, this is not how a
participatory democracy, at least if one decides to follow the premises of the NSMs
(even though neither of them has done so in the last 6 or 7 years).
In order to build, from below, a system in which citizens erect a society in harmony with
their will, the mechanisms cannot be provided by preexisting institutions, as it would be
foolish to think that one can change anything about this society using the tools given by
the same institutions that perpetuate it. Collective or citizen action’s legitimacy cannot
be provided by city councils, governments or tribunals. This is explained in the previous
section of the essay, in which it is exposed that anarchism wants to walk towards
“government” (organizational effectiveness would be a more accurate description)
through collectivity and association, and not towards “collective action” through
government approval.
It is here where the anarchist and socialist tradition of councils provide the most
plausible alternative to a conceptually “empty” space that nobody in these NSMs
seemed to think about.
Councils have spawned from revolutionary momentum at any given time in history
(American and French Revolutions, the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolutions, etc.),
as they provided an organizational alternative built by common peers from below up, in
which the components had one common tie, which normally was class, occupation or
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social group. This common feature to all of the members was acknowledged by each
and every one of them, coordinating their words and deeds. The New Social Movements
of the late 2000’s and the 2010’s tried to imitate this cohesion by virtue of unifying
fragmented struggles under the banner of the “fight against social injustice”, which, I
hope the reader does not get me wrong, is nothing more than a smokescreen to hide
the fact that, other than emerging at a given time under similar circumstances, there
was nothing that could coordinate conjoint actions within any of these movements.
If one looks at councils in both the socialist (not speaking about Marxism-Leninism or
Communism) and the anarchist traditions, it is their principal function to preserve
freedom through the organization of these committees. The idea of “organizing”
freedom and its embodiment in these organs is still present within current anarchist
movements, and it obeys to the will of defending it from the institutionalization suffered
by previous council-type organizations such as the soviets after the triumph of the
Bolsheviks and later with the settling of the monolithic Soviet Union, in which the long-
gone soviets, after being kept under the control of Bolsheviks, had been substituted by
the revolutionary party.
Here is where I’d like to make a comparison with the current state of participatory
politics. In the same way that the soviets were usurped by Marxists and Leninists, in our
liberal democracies these NSMs and their dismal initiatives were transformed into
abhorrent tools for demagogues to reach ultimate positions of power. A nightmare,
some may think , but it is the exact case of Spain, in which the institutionalization of a
watered-down version of council-like movements, “asambleas de barrio”, then “Círculo
de Podemos” (it used to be the logo of the party), proceeded to create the party that
now co-occupies the presidential chair.
This, already spoken of, lack of a theoretical framework upon which to build a horizontal
a de-centralized network of assemblies, is manifestly existent. In the 15-M movement’s
manifesto (2011) we can read the following:
Among the general transformative social movements and more specifically in the labor movement, there
has been a common historical concern for unity. The convergence of the diverse or of the different
requires a growing sensitivity and maturity towards what is not related or identitarian.
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Ironically enough they had unknowingly written about their fragmented idiosyncrasy
and the need for a more unified approach in order to achieve their goal.
This is followed by a series of points destined to summarize the principles and goals of
the movement, and there we find this:
“The 15-M can not only be offered as a unifying framework, it is also a part of the whole and because of
this, we have to solve the problem of the lack of structures. We are fond of the rejection of hierarchization,
the value of horizontal functioning, the usefulness of consensus, which does not mean it necessarily has
to lead to failure. It is urgent that the 15-M elects a voice (eligible and revocable at all times).” (2011)
In writing these words, the 15-M movement was conscious of its flaws, and sought to
put an end to them. However, it did not come to pass, and like many other NSMs it went
down the drain, leaving only a legacy of merchandise politics and an underground
meritocracy for small parties, syndicates and disillusioned participants to dispute.
To speak of failure within NSMs is not mistaken but it is not truthful either, as in one
way or another, NSMs, despite not achieving most of their goals (not speaking of those
major movements related to the Arab Spring, of which I do not think have very much in
common with anarchist struggle or theory, given the fact that they have spawned a new
wave of religious terror and fundamentalism) awoke a big part of the population in
regard to political matters amidst a climate of social injustice and institutional
oppression. But to claim that, aside from a few basic notions and actions, these
movements were of anarchist tendencies is indeed a grave mistake. The NSMs were
advocates for democracy, whether it is participatory, direct or not, and sought not to
subvert the established system but to occupy it and mold it to their needs, something
which as I’ve repeated several times, frontally opposes anarchism. They rejected the use
of violent means of pressure towards institutions, and in their conflation of singular
struggles they annihilated individual interests through the false-necessity of ascribing to
each and every one of them (as any good communist, socialist or totalitarian knows,
individuality must be sacrificed when the common good requires so), another symptom
of anarchism’s phagocytizing by the left wing. Through the commodification of
anarchism and its marketing as the “panacea” for the illness that Post-Modernity is,
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libertarian ideas have become devoid of any real impact at a scale big enough to achieve
goals, and persist only in small circles and assemblies, alien to mass movements or
ideological alliances that seek the über-good no matter what the people might lose in
doing so.
Of these failures and political horrors, NSMs can be taken as proofs.
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Arendt’s Epiphany and the what-if of NSMs:
Despite the harshness of the words that compose the previous sections, this work is not
a critique towards Arendt work (at least in regard to her overall reasoning), but rather
criticism directed towards those who from the academic perspective keep on attributing
a series of posthumous views that in Arendt’s lifetime (and in that sense, neither am I
entitled to say the following) would not have been quite in line with what she conveyed
through her works. In my critique of the NSMs there are present pretty hostile views,
but again, aiming to criticize those who, at the time, could have achieved so much, but
by disregarding theory and rejecting an educated political praxis, the exact thing Arendt
advocated for through her notions of public space and political action, left the NSMs at
a stage in which they had been feeble enough to be engulfed by political parties and the
disenchantment that followed their slow demise.
It would have been a gracious decade if these social movements had had Arendt’s
epiphany regarding federative and council politics, even if it was just to secure
something similar to Arendt’s space of appearance in which citizens could expose their
ideas and find in “action” an “end” rather than a mean. This double-edged blade of ends
and means is, to my understanding, one of the main causes that drove NSMs to a point
in which they became stagnant and lost any opportunities of regaining their initial
momentum. The creation of something as Arendt’s definition of this public space, in this
case associated to the councils of anarchist tradition, in which bureaucracy is subject to
the actions of citizens, would have prevented the later institutionalization of these (non-
existent yet) by newer parties, an act that became both the first example of council-like
politics stemming from remote links to NSMs, and the very end to this same example.
It is indeed good to remember, following Arendt’s line of reasoning, that, contrary to
spontaneously-emerged associations of individuals under the revolutionary
momentum, parties subvert democracy’s very principle -government by the people for
the people- into a government by an elite elected among the elites of the people.
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This subversion is what Arendt criticizes and upon which she calls to action, as we have
seen in the first half of this essay, advocating for a positive exercising of freedom, that
means making the most of one’s liberty by focusing on public speech and action with
the object of conforming a people’s utopia, not a delusional dream of just one man with
vast theoretical knowledge, but rather a common project that could be argued and
defended by every citizen that wished to build it.
It is in this wish of constructing something from below up and among equals that Arendt
and the NSMs come together, and, where before I said that Arendt constitutes nothing
more than a mere reworking of Proudhon’s and Bakunin’s postulates, now I say that,
while the former is true, her thoughts on councils, participatory politics and advocating
for an organizational mechanism in which horizontal power in itself is the source of
legitimacy, should be taken into account when tackling modern democratic practices
and the study of political legitimacy. Not only because of the fact that it could back more
modern outlooks that today are despised for being utopian or dismal, but also because
they can re-introduce concepts that have been long forgotten or ostracized to smaller
demographics with higher knowledge of political affairs.
However, Arendt’s conception is still in need of a few coats of modernizing (and access-
facilitating) varnish. I say this due to her approach of political, social and economic
needs, which she finds, need to be segregated and never mixed. This, as the defeat of
NSMs has showed, is an utmost priority if any kind of council system (whether it
perpetuates a democracy or breaks free from its yoke) is to be reached, as in the 21 st
century, after two centuries of capitalistic and authoritarian slaughter, none of the three
can be understood without the others.
Fragmenting struggles into inter-dependent categories does not break down the bigger
problem, it makes of pyrrhic victories social achievements, while keeping at a
reasonably safe distance the root to most of the evils that plague our world.
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The Institutionalization of Freedom:
Concluding Statements
After World Wars I and II, libertarian politics were wiped out of the mainstream political
map, something quite drastic if we take into account that, together with socialism, it is
thanks to them that modern politics were born. The great divide between both of those
currents was already existent, but during the 20th century it became an irreconcilable
abyss due to various “minor” conflicts such as the Spanish Civil War, the anarchist
struggle and Majnó’s Black Army in Ukraine, and of course, the prosecution of both the
Western and Eastern blocks of any dissident theoretical framework that didn’t fall in line
with the pre-established order.
In that way, it is important to value Arendt’s contribution to Council’s definition, as it
served as a revamping for the old anarchist ideals, even if it was unknowingly and at the
expense of criticizing the same ones who had written down the basis almost a century
ago. Her defense of this system as a tool against a decaying bureaucracy also costed her
numerous criticisms given the libertarian nature of these postulates. Nevertheless to
imply that Hannah Arendt has something to do with anarchism is to go a (dangerous)
step further. And I say it is dangerous because we are talking about an author among
whose postulates we find a divide between that what is social-economic and that what
is politics, a digression that is unthinkable within most libertarian currents, and certainly
postulates regarding race and international conflict that are put in a childish and
reductionist way, all of this while ostracizing those movements that emerged from the
spontaneity inherent to those under extreme oppression.
Nevertheless, Arendt’s work is not as affected of a child-like ingenuity as the movements
that shook the world for a brief instant in recent history. The naivety of these
movements in which words substituted deeds and enthusiasm took ahold of theory just
to throw it out the window, has led to a fate far worse than we think. It is now the time
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of pseudo-participation, of freedom’s lethargy, in which an abnegated population has
chosen to reject the positive exercise of its freedom and prefers to wallow in the ever-
growing shadows of presidentialism, with real legitimacy nowhere to be found.
In their fragmentation of struggles and rejection of theoretical frameworks, current
politics and the NSMs have made of people spectators believing to be agents of change.
The institutionalization of freedom does not come through as people resigned to do
what they are told without complaint, it relies on a complex theatre of shadows in which
all actors have now come to believe they are in control of their words and deeds, acting
in a public sphere in which the political machinery has everything under control, acting
under the protection of charisma, social justice and a rotten welfare state. The best
disguise Post-Modernity could ask for.
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Bibliography
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Arendt, H. (1970). On Violence. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Arendt, H. (1972). Crises of the Republic lying in politics, civil disobedience on violence,
thoughts on politics, and revolution. San Diego: Harcourt Brace.
Deumert, A. (2020). On racism and how to read Hannah Arendt. Diggit Magazine.
González, M. (2011). Proudhon, o los principios de autoridad y libertad. Breve
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Lederman, S. (2015). Councils and Revolution: Participatory Democracy in Anarchist
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Smith, B. (2019). Anarcho-Republicanism?: Arendt and the Federated Council System.
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