Poetica Pavonis
Poetica Pavonis
Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm an anarchist.
Sort of. I think. Maybe?
I call myself an anarchist- an anarcho-communist, if I'm being specific- but the truth is, I don't have much in the way of actual knowledge on the subject. I've incidentally read a fair amount of Marxist theory due to overlap with some other interests, but as far as anarchy goes, most of what I know is gleamed from podcasts, YouTube videos, memes, and a heaping teaspoon of "how I reckon' things are," and while I feel fairly confident in saying that I know more about anarchy than the layperson, I have only vague ideas of how an anarchist system would work.
So, with Christmas in the rear view, I've decided to make 2026 an educational year, (NOTE: I may have started this in the first week of January and gotten distracted, oops) starting off with a reading of Errico Malatesta's Anarchy. And to make things more fun, I've decided to blog my way through it, both to make myself write down my reflections and to invite discussion! I'll be reading through an English translation, available for free here at the Anarchist Library, and sharing my thoughts here, one chapter at a time. Read along, if you'd like!
First, a bit of background on the man himself. Errico Malatesta was an Italian writer and political theorist active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in 1853, before the unification of Italy, he would die in 1932 having witnessed the rise of Mussolini's fascist regime. The intervening years he would spend variously writing, organizing labor efforts, being imprisoned (for writing and/or organizing labor efforts), and fleeing countries (as a result of same). Anarchy (originally L'Anarchia) was first published as an essay in 1891. Years of work organizing in support of labor causes around the world meant that by this time Malatesta was already well known among early anarchists. As a result, Anarchy was widely read and became the foundation of much subsequent anarchist thought. Which is why I'm reading it- I fully intend to continue my education beyond this essay, and it seems like a good jumping-off point into the wider world of anarchy.
Prelude out of the way. Onto the text itself, starting with, believe it or not,
Not very anarchist of you, Errico, but I'll give you a pass. Maybe it was better in Italian.
Like all good essays, Malatesta starts us off with some definitions. Right off the bat, we've got:
Anarchy - which he defines simply as the condition of living without government. Straightforward enough. You'd think that's the whole book sorted but turns out, there's more to it. For instance, what is a government, anyway?
Government (sometimes State) - Malatesta describes government as a system in which some individuals are empowered over others in the population in order to manage society (politically, financially, etc) by enacting and enforcing laws. In exchange for delegating these responsibilities, the general population gives up portions of their self-control. It shouldn't be that hard to conceptualize- it's how most of us live today. Obviously, as an anarchist, Malatesta is not altogether happy with this system.
Despite sometimes being used interchangeably, there is a difference between the two- Malatesta refers to the State as the "abstract expression" which is "personified by Government." It's the difference between the Concept of A Car and your own car- one is an idea, the other is a concrete embodiment of that idea.
Malatesta acknowledges these definitions may not be universal. For instance, in many people's minds the term "anarchy" itself refers to chaos and disorder, and represents a lack of a system, rather than an alternative to our current one. Many people, having lived under traditional systems of government their whole lives, are unable to conceive of a world without those systems that could still maintain any semblance of order. Malatesta argues that this is both a natural consequence of only knowing one way of life, and the result of deliberate reinforcement by the authorities (teachers, religious leaders, etc) within those systems with a vested interest in preserving them. He refutes, however, the position that the term "anarchy" is poorly chosen. In his view, no matter what this political movement called themselves, their beliefs were such that they could not help but come into conflict with the existing governmental structures in the same way. In other words, an anarchist by any other name would still represent lawlessness and disorder- the antithesis of government, which represents order. Rather than try to make themselves more palatable to those who would oppose them no matter how they presented themselves, anarchists should focus their efforts on changing their opinions of anarchy as it is.
(I pause here to note some particular wording- Malatesta describes people unfamiliar with the nuances of anarchy as a system as "people whose unhappy social situation has not given them the opportunity to accustom themselves to the subtle distinctions of scientific language." Perhaps it's the translation, but it seems to capture a certain level of condescension that only writers of this era could manage)
He also points out the many different ways the word "state" is used- to mean a government, a subdivision of a government, a condition of being, and so on, leading to ambiguity and further misunderstanding of anarchism and its goals. He therefore prefers the use of the term "government" in place of "state" (i.e., "abolition of government" as opposed to "the state") for clarity.
At the end of chapter 1, we've got some basic definitions and a few ideas of what's coming next. I wouldn't say I've learned anything particularly revolutionary here, but that's not what opening chapters are for. I do find refreshing his refusal to concede that anarchy is simply a poorly chosen word on account of public perception- writing from 2026 America, where there certainly aren't any anarchists on the ballot, I at least wish some of our less-malicious democrats would take a similar stance. How much of modern politics feels like the "left" (such as it is) playing to the wants and fears of the imagined white moderate, at the cost of actually taking a stance which would actually benefit anyone? Playing into public perception is easy but accomplishes little to nothing. Public perception can be changed, but not without expending significant effort, which obviously precludes the democrats from doing anything of the sort. (This is also, perhaps, a consequence of having a system in which your two political parties are unified by nothing beyond superficial opposition to each other, but that's a story for another day).
To wrap up, a story that might seem like a bit of a non-sequitur, but stay with me, I promise there's a point.
I've got ADHD. To anybody who knows me personally, this is not a surprise. To anybody who doesn't, and who only knows me through reading this... it's probably also not a surprise. The thing is, I had no idea about it until I was 20. Growing up, whenever I heard about ADHD, it was always "kid doing bad in school disorder," and as someone who generally did well in school (despite the fact that almost all of my homework was done in frantic "oh-crap-I-forgot" rushes or postponed until the last possible moment,) I figured it never applied to me. Fast forward to when I'm twenty, neurodivergent communities on the Internet start taking off and I learn a bit more comprehensively what ADHD actually is. Two years later (which should be a hint in itself) I was formally diagnosed.
The point of all this being, that up until the time I was twenty, I was experiencing the world as a person with ADHD- a legitimate disability- and never had any idea. I didn't know there was another way to be.
Malatesta writes that "Man, like all living beings, adapts and accustoms himself to the conditions under which he lives, and passes on acquired habits. Thus, having been born and bred in bondage, when the descendants of a long line of slaves started to think, they believed that slavery was an essential condition of life, and freedom seemed impossible to them."
Most of us today are similarly accustomed to our conditions. The world we've lived in all our lives is one of states, borders, hierarchy, and capital. It can be difficult, bordering on impossible, to shrug off the beliefs that this is all a world can be. But in reading Anarchy, we find an alternative.
I'm not an anarchist because I believe that Errico Malatesta happened on the secrets of the universe when he wrote Anarchy. I think there's plenty I'm going to learn (I wouldn't be reading it otherwise), but to cling so devoutly to the words of one man would defeat the whole purpose of the philosophy. As things stand there are countless problems I can think of with anarchism as I understand it, and whether those problems are addressed by Malatesta remains to be seen. But the point isn't to solve every problem, to duplicate the philosophy of a writer from the last century and manifest a utopia.
The point is to make things better. Anarchism is an idea that looks at the world, the way things are, and refuses to accept it. Anarchism sees the world and says, "This isn't working- let's try something else."
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”
-Ursula K. Le Guin
Stay tuned for chapter 2, where hopefully Malatesta will elaborate a bit on the how's and why's of anarchism.