Voltairine de Cleyre - Political Beliefs

Political Beliefs

Part of the Politics series on
Anarchism
Schools of thought
  • Black
  • Buddhist
  • Capitalist
  • Christian
  • Collectivist
  • Communist
  • Egoist
  • Existentialist
  • Feminist
  • Green
  • Individualist
  • Infoanarchism
  • Insurrectionary
  • Leftist
  • Mutualist
  • National
  • Naturist
  • Pacifist
  • Philosophical
  • Platformist
  • Post-anarchist
  • Post-colonial
  • Post-left
  • Primitivist
  • Queer
  • Social
  • Syndicalist
  • Synthesist
  • Vegan
  • Voluntaryist
  • Without adjectives
  • Theory
  • practice
  • Anarchy
  • Anarchist Black Cross
  • Anti-authoritarianism
  • Anti-militarism
  • Affinity group
  • Black bloc
  • Class struggle
  • Communes
  • Consensus democracy
  • Conscientious objector
  • Decentralization
  • Deep ecology
  • Direct action
  • Direct democracy
  • Dual power
  • Especifismo
  • Expropriative anarchism
  • Free association
  • Free love
  • Free school
  • Freethought
  • Horizontalidad
  • Illegalism
  • Individualism
  • Individual reclamation
  • Isocracy
  • Law
  • Participatory politics
  • Permanent Autonomous Zone
  • Prefigurative politics
  • Propaganda of the deed
  • Refusal of work
  • Revolution
  • Rewilding
  • Social center
  • Social ecology
  • Social insertion
  • Somatherapy
  • Spontaneous order
  • Squatting
  • Temporary Autonomous Zone
  • Union of egoists
People
  • William Godwin
  • Josiah Warren
  • Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
  • Henry David Thoreau
  • Max Stirner
  • Mikhail Bakunin
  • Louise Michel
  • Peter Kropotkin
  • Benjamin Tucker
  • Errico Malatesta
  • Johann Most
  • Leo Tolstoy
  • Emma Goldman
  • Émile Armand
  • Nestor Makhno
  • Rudolf Rocker
  • Buenaventura Durruti
  • Alexander Berkman
  • Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia
  • Volin
  • Murray Bookchin
  • Colin Ward
  • Noam Chomsky
  • Alfredo M. Bonanno
  • John Zerzan
Issues
  • Anarcho-capitalism
  • Animal rights
  • Capitalism
  • Education
  • Criticisms
  • Islam
  • LGBT rights
  • Lifestylism
  • Marxism
  • Nationalism
  • Orthodox Judaism
  • Religion
  • Sex/love
  • Violence
History
  • Paris Commune
  • Hague Congress
  • International Conference of Rome
  • Trial of the thirty
  • Haymarket affair
  • May Day
  • Anarchist Exclusion Act
  • Congress of Amsterdam
  • Tragic Week
  • High Treason Incident
  • Manifesto of the Sixteen
  • 1919 United States anarchist bombings
  • Biennio rosso
  • German Revolution of 1918–1919
  • Bavarian Soviet Republic
  • Kronstadt rebellion
  • Third Russian Revolution
  • Free Territory
  • Amakasu Incident
  • Escuela Moderna
  • Individualist anarchism in Europe
  • Individualist anarchism in France
  • Spanish Revolution
  • Barcelona May Days
  • Red inverted triangle
  • Labadie Collection
  • May 1968
  • Provo
  • LIP
  • Kate Sharpley Library
  • Australian Anarchist Centenary
  • Carnival Against Capitalism
  • 1999 WTO Conference protest
Culture
  • Anarchist films
  • Anarchist Bookfair
  • Anarcho-punk
  • Arts
  • Culture jamming
  • DIY culture
  • Freeganism
  • Independent Media Center
  • Infoshop
  • The Internationale
  • Jewish anarchism
  • Land and liberty
  • Lifestylism
  • Popular education
  • Property is theft!
  • Radical cheerleading
  • Radical environmentalism
  • Squatting
  • Symbolism
  • Terminology
  • A las barricadas
Economics
  • Communization
  • Co-operatives
  • Counter-economics
  • Economic democracy
  • Economic secession
  • Free store
  • Gift economy
  • Infoanarchism
  • Market abolitionism
  • Mutual aid
  • Mutualism
  • Participatory economics
  • Planned economy
  • Really Really Free Market
  • Wage slavery
  • Workers' self-management
By region
  • Africa
  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • China
  • Cuba
  • Ecuador
  • England
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • India
  • Iceland
  • Ireland
  • Israel
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • Korea
  • Mexico
  • Poland
  • Russia
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Turkey
  • Ukraine
  • United States
  • Vietnam
Lists
  • Anarcho-punk bands
  • Communities
  • Fictional characters
  • Jewish anarchists
  • Musicians
  • Organizations
  • Periodicals
  • Poets
  • Pornographers
  • Russian anarchists
  • Films
Related topics
  • Anti-capitalism
  • Anti-consumerism
  • Anti-corporatism
  • Anti-fascism
  • Anti-globalization
  • Antimilitarism
  • Anti-statism
  • Anti-war
  • Autarchism
  • Autonomism
  • Labour movement
  • Left communism
  • Libertarianism
  • Libertarian perspectives on revolution
  • Libertarian socialism
  • Situationist International
Anarchism Portal
Politics portal

Voltairine de Cleyre's political perspective shifted throughout her life, eventually leading her to become an outspoken proponent of "anarchism without adjectives," a doctrine, according to historian George Richard Esenwein, "without any qualifying labels such as communist, collectivist, mutualist, or individualist. For others, … was simply understood as an attitude that tolerated the coexistence of different anarchist schools."

For several years de Cleyre associated primarily with the American individualist anarchist milieu. Her early allegiance to individualism can be seen in the way she differentiated herself from Emma Goldman: "Miss Goldman is a communist; I am an individualist. She wishes to destroy the right of property, I wish to assert it. I make my war upon privilege and authority, whereby the right of property, the true right in that which is proper to the individual, is annihilated. She believes that co-operation would entirely supplant competition; I hold that competition in one form or another will always exist, and that it is highly desirable it should."

Despite their early dislike for one another, Goldman and de Cleyre came to respect each other intellectually. In her 1894 essay "In Defense of Emma Goldman and the Right of Expropriation", de Cleyre wrote in support of the right of expropriation while remaining neutral on its advocacy: "I do not think one little bit of sensitive human flesh is worth all the property rights in N. Y. city … I say it is your business to decide whether you will starve and freeze in sight of food and clothing, outside of jail, or commit some overt act against the institution of property and take your place beside Timmermann and Goldmann."

Eventually, however, de Cleyre was moved to reject individualism. In 1908 she argued "that the best thing ordinary workingmen or women could do was to organise their industry to get rid of money altogether" and "produce together, co-operatively rather than as employer and employed." In 1912 she argued that the Paris Commune's failure was due to its having "respected property." In her essay, "The Commune Is Risen", she states that "In short, though there were other reasons why the Commune fell, the chief one was that in the hour of necessity, the Communards were not Communists. They attempted to break political chains without breaking economic ones…".

"Socialism and Communism both demand a degree of joint effort and administration which would beget more regulation than is wholly consistent with ideal Anarchism; Individualism and Mutualism, resting upon property, involve a development of the private policeman not at all compatible with my notion of freedom." Instead, she became one of the most prominent advocates of anarchism without adjectives. In The Making of an Anarchist, she wrote, "I no longer label myself otherwise than as 'Anarchist' simply".

Some disagreement exists as to whether or not de Cleyre's rejection of individualism constituted an embrace of pure communism. Rudolf Rocker and Emma Goldman made such an assertion, but others, including biographer Paul Avrich, have taken exception. Cleyre, herself, in response to claims that she had been an anarchist communist, asserted in 1907 that "I am not now, and have never been at any time, a communist." Anarchist author Iain McKay argues that de Cleyre's subsequent 1908 advocacy of a money-less economy was communism.

"Direct Action", her 1912 essay in defense of direct action, is widely cited today. In this essay, de Cleyre points to examples such as the Boston Tea Party, noting that "direct action has always been used, and has the historical sanction of the very people now reprobating it."

In her 1895 lecture entitled Sex Slavery, de Cleyre condemns ideals of beauty that encourage women to distort their bodies and child socialization practices that create unnatural gender roles. The title of the essay refers not to traffic in women for purposes of prostitution, although that is also mentioned, but rather to marriage laws that allow men to rape their wives without consequences. Such laws make "every married woman what she is, a bonded slave, who takes her master's name, her master's bread, her master's commands, and serves her master's passions."

She also adamantly opposed the standing army, arguing that its existence made wars more likely. In her 1909 essay, Anarchism and American Traditions, she argued that in order to achieve peace, "all peaceful persons should withdraw their support from the army, and require that all who wish to make war do so at their own cost and risk; that neither pay nor pensions are to be provided for those who choose to make man-killing a trade."

Read more about this topic:  Voltairine De Cleyre

Famous quotes containing the words political and/or beliefs:

    It is silly to call fat people “gravitationally challenged”Ma self-righteous fetishism of language which is no more than a symptom of political frustration.
    Terry Eagleton (b. 1943)

    All beliefs are bald ideas.
    Francis Picabia (1878–1953)