Philosophy and Critical Theory
This chapter addresses the conceptual schema of associational anarchism’s legal framework, which may be thought of as non-parliamentary jurisprudence. Anarchism renunciates the legal authority of the modern state. It points to the possibility of life beyond the law, of a social order held together by a cooperation that, where necessary, may be legitimately coerced if derived through collective and democratic decision-making. In general, it has been suggested that minor infringements can be left to public pressure, with more serious cases solved through trials, compensation, isolation and ultimately expulsion. This chapter qualifies these claims in certain ways. On the grounds that laws are determined inclusively by all who are subject to them, and that they are not enforced by the coercive institutions of the state, an anarchist legal order can be coherently theorised. Here the chapter engages with the intriguing political thought of J.J. Rousseau. The guilds will self-legislate within their own jurisdiction at the local level, and their legal decision-making will assume the mode of general will deliberations. The idea is that individual cooperators will determine the legal rules they themselves agree to comply with in their productive lives. The chapter moves on to indicate how interpersonal conflicts beyond the sphere of production may be settled consistently without recourse to a centrally administered judiciary. At this point, the distinction drawn in the works of Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin between ‘customary law’ and ‘codified law’ is explained, which leads to a discussion of the associational anarchist innovation of the ‘justice councils’.
This lengthy chapter defines how the ‘freedom to do/become’ strand in freedom as Marxian-autonomy is embodied within a self-determining policy. The product mix is determined by an unconventional combination of non-statist planning and a non-capitalist market system. Through an engagement with Hayek’s sceptical epistemology, the chapter indicates how a subordinated market, regulated by the guilds and consumer councils, can fulfil social imperatives. Whilst his critique of state socialist planning is not challenged, the chapter argues that the domination of enterprise monopoly in a neo-liberal economy, with its irrevocable administration through central planning, cannot be routinely prevented. From here the chapter indicates the specific ways in which domination by any kind of tyranny will be prevented in the guild system. Participatory planning is arranged through the transparent deliberations between, at the most immediate level, the whole local guild and a corresponding department of the cooperative consumer council, then at the regional levels between the guilds, or the Industrial Guild Congress (IGC), and the two consumer councils. The latter will, through continuous deliberations with the local guilds, play a large role in coordinating agents’ interpersonal relations. At the local level, the cooperative consumer councils will fulfil their objectives through both planning (pre-production) and by perfecting market deficiencies (post-production), including where necessary the blocking of certain products. These measures provide the optimal means through which agents can effectively self-assess their given desires, and, chiefly, for exposing and eradicating the harmful effects of externalities.
The main objective of this chapter is to mark out the specific ways in which freedom as Marxian-autonomy brings together ideals from the positive conceptions of freedom (self-determination and self-realisation), which, far from violating the usual set of freedoms from, is, for a number of reasons, the optimum means through which to protect them. In their productive lives, members of work teams in the guild cooperatives are ensured the opportunity to self-elevate into their higher-selves through a democratic determination of cooperative method and policy, including self-legislation, which overlaps with the radical republican notion of liberty (self-determination), and the universalisation of a creative mode of labour, which is a version of idealist liberty (self-realisation). The chapter argues that these two inseparable labour processes are configured in such a way that they provide fair value to the usual set of equal political liberties. It is then this particular rearrangement of the intrinsic properties of political participation that provide the levels of instrumental acts upon which a just constitution rests. Moving on, this argument is enhanced through a discussion of the contemporary literature on how freedom is best enforced. The focus is now on the role of civic virtue as a guarantor of negative liberty. Here the chapter infers that for the implied link between civic virtue and negative freedom to be robust enough to fulfil its instrumental role, a system of workers’ cooperatives formed through internal participatory structures is the essential ingredient. In these self-governing conditions, the freedom of citizens will need no formal enforcement from a centralised political authority.
The chapter begins by introducing the key ideals and principles central to social anarchist discourse. It then suggests there are certain ideas in Cole’s guild socialist writings that, suitably revised, offer a sound base upon which to build a new model of social anarchism. This serves as the essential premise upon which to frame a specific anarchist-Marxist dialogue, which seeks to breathe new life into the classical anarchist project. Bakunin and Kropotkin received Marx’s argument that the relations within and between social classes are the foundational inequalities through which capitalism systematically reproduces itself sympathetically, yet at the same time they defined class more extensively, and they fiercely rejected his prescribed role for a communist revolutionary state, spearheaded by an authoritarian vanguard. Here the chapter puts forward a rationale for rejecting state communism whilst retaining Marx’s penetrating critique of the capitalist mode of production. Both anarchism and Marxism are committed to instigating a world beyond inequality and exploitation, where production need not be an alienating experience. Although tensions between the two schools of anti-capitalist thought remain, especially on the question of prefigurative politics, the chapter explains that at the same time, there are certain ideal and maxims that are held in common, which consist of themes central to social anarchism and non-statist communism. The resulting conception constellation regards Marx’s sophisticated analyses of political economy and the anarchist suspicion of the main institutions of the modern state as mutually enriching. It is this amalgamation that permeates the entire constitution of associational anarchism. In sum, associational anarchism’s plural democracy is the practical application of the key ideals of class-struggle anarchism, and it is the libertarian edge of democratic Marxism.
The project for Critical International Relations is to provide practical solutions and thinking for our current troubled times. In the light of an acknowledged failure to develop an emancipatory practice, the chapter suggests a possible way forward for the approach, drawing on the critique of the west provided by Frankfurt School influenced thinking and the work of Michel Foucault. When combined with posthumanist thinking which encourages us to look beyond the human, the chapter suggests an engagement with forms of non-Western thinking.
This chapter develops a working definition of critical theory, and argues for the need for critical approaches to understand current global crises and the operation of power. Following a brief discussion of the notion of critique, the chapter provides an analysis of Horkheimer’s agenda-setting essay ‘Traditional and Critical Theory’. Horkheimer’s essay is compared to Robert Cox’s distinction between problem-solving and critical theory. The chapter closes with a discussion of the emergence of a range of critical theories within International Relations, namely Critical Theory itself, feminism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and complexity thinking.
Critical theory remains one of the most important and exciting areas within the study of international relations. Its purpose is not only to describe the way in which the world operates but to help us imagine how the world might be different and how we might achieve a more equitable and sustainable way of life. As well as presenting key concepts and thinkers the book also provides an evaluation of the field and suggests how critical thinking can contribute to confronting the challenges of the twenty-first century. The book evaluates the foundations on which critical theory has been built and illustrates how ideas which developed outside of International Relations theory have been adopted and adapted within the discipline. The book is focused on essential questions to the critical project: what can we know; how does power operate; and how should we live? In addition to discussing the foundations of critical thinking in International Relations, the book draws on recent developments in philosophy and posthumanism as an area of study to critique western thought. To overcome recent critiques of critical theory in International Relations, the book argues that it is necessary to engage with thinking outside of the western tradition. As the human species confronts the COVID-19 epidemic and the ongoing climate crisis, the book argues for a new direction for critical theory in International Relations.