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Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism

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Although the pioneering work of anarchist history was Woodcock's relatively tiny volume "Anarchism", Marshall demonstrates with this revision that the torch has passed from Woodcock to him. What is most satisfying in this edition is that, although Marshall's sympathies are unambiguously anarchist, he manages to offer a very balanced, clear, objective, helpful historical account, combined with admirably critical insights. Written in 1991, it has an added value for being reasonably recent, as previous scholarship on the subject is by now mostly dated. "Demanding the Impossible" is superior also because of its sheer bulk: 700+ information-packed pages. Not merely confining himself to looking at anarchism as an ideology, Marshall spans a period starting from Buddhism and Taoism, to ancient Greece and Christianity, up to the present and offers a rich and powerful exposition of these cultural phenomena and the ways in which they prefigure anarchistic ideas, to form a many-streamed "river of anarchy". In addition, there are explorations of modern anarchism in action in Russia and the Ukraine, Asia, Northern Europe and the United States, among many other countries across the globe. Other chapters include surveys and critiques of the major classical anarchist thinkers -- Mikhail Bakunin, Count Leo Tolstoy, Max Stirner, William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Prince Kropotkin -- as well as examinations of libertarian movements and thinkers allied to anarchism, such as Wilhelm von Humboldt, Nietzsche, J.S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, the existentialists Sartre and Camus, The New Left, the hippy Counterculture, Right Libertarianism, the work of Michel Foucault, and so forth. Extremely accessible account overall.

Overall, an excellent overview of anarchism that is well worth reading. Glad I bought it and enjoyed reading it.

However, at times the author goes from chronicling the views of individual anarchists (and opponents) to coming down on one side or another of a debate. This itself would be useful, except the author seems to give short shrift to views he doesn't share.

For example, take Murray Bookchin's criticisms of deep ecology. Marshall simply treats Bookchin's criticisms as untenable and treats Bookchin's disagreements with the deep ecologists as an example of how Bookchin "laments our alienation from nature ... but he would still appear to be a victim of the process."

Perhaps if the subtitle of "Demanding the Impossible" had been "An Evaluation and Critique of Anarchism" rather than "A History of Anarchism" this wouldn't have been so jarring, but it left me wondering (as someone not overly familiar with anarchist thinking and debates) how much of his history is colored by his own personal views on what is and is not anarchism proper.

This book was absolutely excellent. Complete in almost every way, it covered every major anarchist thinker, almost every anarchist stream of thought, and anarchist history by nation. The book was very objective, unbiased and *extremely* comprehensive, and as such i feel that it is essential reading for any anarchist or student of anarchism.

Instead of giving the reader a personal point of view, Peter Marshall tries to cover the different factions in the Anarchist movement.

"My edition of Demanding the Impossible was published in 1992 by HarperCollins Publishers. On p.561, Marshall writes that:


David Friedman sees such agencies as both brokers of mini- social contracts and producers of 'laws' which conform to the market demand for rules to regulate commerce. Each person would be free to subscribe to a protective association of his choice, since 'Protection from coercion is an economic good.' Apart from adumbrating The Machinery of Freedom (1973), Friedman has popularized Hayek's defense of capitalism as the best antidote to the serfdom of collectivism in books with such self-explanatory titles as Capitalism and Freedom (1962) and Free to Choose (1979).
The true author of Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose is of course Milton Friedman, David Friedman's non-anarchist father. Milton Friedman is not mentioned in the two preceding pages of the chapter; and in any case "Friedman" clearly is meant to refer to David Friedman. (Nor is Milton Friedman in the index or bibliography of the book, although at least Milton Friedman's books are omitted from the bibliography rather than attributed to David Friedman's authorship a second time.)

This error is so egregious that the reader can only conclude that Peter Marshall presumes to write about books that he has never even seen the cover of, much less read. Whether Marshall corrected it in a subsequent edition, or whether the error was simply corrected by the transcriber of the widely available Internet exerpt , I do not know. But even if the correction was Marshall's, for this kind of error to have made it into a published book speaks volumes.

On the same page, Marshall writes that:

The writings of Ayn Rand, a refugee from the Soviet Union, best represent the intellectual background to the new right-wing libertarianism in the United States. In her The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (1964), she attempted a philosophical defence of egoism while in her novels she portrayed a superior individual fighting the forces of collectivism, particularly in the form of the State. Her superior individual, driven by a Nietzschean will to power, appears in the guise of a capitalist entrepreneur who is presented as the source of all wealth and the creator of all progress. Rand claimed that she had a direct knowledge of objective reality, and her 'Objectivist' movement had a considerable vogue in the sixties. Like most anarcho-capitalists, she is convinced of the truth of her own views, which to others appear mere dogma.
And in my edition, the paragraph immediately ends. The next paragraph begins, "Amongst anarcho-capitalist apologists, the economist Murray Rothbard is probably the most aware of the anarchist tradition."

Again, this outrageous error has been corrected in the Internet excerpt of Demanding the Impossible. But it provides additional proof that Peter Marshall presumes to write about books and authors that he has never read. Ayn Rand's attack on anarcho-capitalism (in "The Nature of Government," one essay in her The Virtue of Selfishness) is so clear that Marshall could only make this error by failing to have even read the author whose views he is describing.

These are only two of Marshall's numerous factual errors which demonstrate a shocking lack of basic standards of scholarship. After all, a book is not a Usenet posting; one is supposed to spend months or years in study, fact-checking, re-writing, and so on.

Some similar errors appear in Ulrike Heider's Anarchism: Left, Right and Green. Once again, there are errors so gross that the only possible explanation is that Heider presumes to write about books she has never read.

A few examples of her poor scholarship:


"Menger is considered the founder of the Austrian School of Economics, which continued to refine its theory of monetary value until the middle of the 20th century. The most prominent descendent of this school of thought is is monetarist Milton Friedman, the economic authority for such politicians as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and others." Anarchism: Left, Right, and Green, p.100.
Milton Friedman is not and never has had any affiliation with the Austrian School. In fact, he is the most famous member of the rival Chicago School, which even a minimal study of the differences between free-market economists would have revealed.

"If it weren't for their obsession with work and their misanthropic outlook, one might mistake Rand's heroes for left-wing bohemians. They are always Anglo-Saxon Americans." ibid, p.105
Francisco d'Anconia, one of the four major heroic characters in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is of South American nationality.

"Roark's rival, the mediocre architect Peter Keaton..."ibid
The character's name is in fact Peter Keating. While the error is trivial, it does indicate that Heider sees no need to get the basic facts straight when she discusses a book. The Fountainhead is divided into four sections, each named for one major character; "Peter Keating" is the title of the first section. It would be very hard to miss, unless you never read the book (or wrote from memory years afterwards).

Reversing her previous confusion about the Austrian vs. the Chicago schools of economics, Heider appears to attribute monetarist policy prescriptions to Rothbard: "The monetarist road out of such misery must lead through a depression, the 'painful but necessary process by which the free market rids itself of the excesses and errors of the boom.' [quotation Rothbard's] Rothbard recommends that the government do the exact opposite of what the Keynesians suggest: it should simply abandon its policy of inflation by giving the free market reign and by reinstating the gold standard." ibid, p.131.
Again, Rothbard spent the better part of his academic career attacking monetarism and the Chicago school of economics with which monetarism is associated.
I have been informed by admirers of Murray Bookchin that Heider's work contains similar gross errors about eco-anarchism. Since this is not my field of expertise, I do not presume to point them out, but it would not surprise me.

It is one thing to violently disagree with an author, and to express one's disagreement in a book. It is another matter entirely to get basic facts wrong; so wrong, in fact, that it casts doubt on whether the author read the books he or she presumes to write about. "

On p. 442, Marshall writes, "Georges Sorel, inspired by by Proudhon and the syndicalists, maintained in his Reflections on Violence (1908) that class war invigorates society. He opposed 'bourgeois force', arguing that the latter has a purifying effect that enables people to take possession of themselves. The general strike moreover is of value as a 'social myth', an article of faith which inspires the workers in their struggle. For Sorel, social myths are important since they are 'not descriptions of things, but expression of a determination to act'. Although he later influenced Lenin, Mussolini and Action Française, he did not object to acknowledging himself an anarchist since 'Parliamentary Socialism professes a contempt for morality' and the new ethic of the producers."
Mr Marshall, as a historian of anarchism, seems to share their indifference to facts.
Sorel did not influence Lenin. Lenin called Sorel `the well-known advocate of confusion'. The Marxist historian of philosophy George Lukacs referred to Sorel's `totally insubstantial theory of myth'. So it is a bit of a stretch for Marshall to write that Lenin was influenced by Sorel.
This mistake is typical of this unreliable book. It is careless of the facts, even about its subject, and still more unreliable about any other politics.