Editing Peter Kropotkin (section)

== Philosophy ==
{{anarcho-communism sidebar}}

=== Critique of capitalism ===
Kropotkin critiqued what he considered to be the fallacies of the [[Economics#Criticism|economic systems]] of [[feudalism]] and [[Criticism of capitalism|capitalism]]. He believed they create poverty and [[artificial scarcity]] and promote [[social privilege|privilege]]. Alternatively, he proposed a more decentralized economic system based on [[mutual aid]] and [[cooperation|voluntary cooperation]]. He argued that the tendencies for this kind of organization already exist, both in evolution and in human society.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kropotkin |first=Peter |url=https://archive.org/details/mutualaidafacto00knigoog |title=Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution |publisher=McClure, Philips & Company |year=1902 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/mutualaidafacto00knigoog/page/n247 223]}}</ref>

Kropotkin disagreed in part with the Marxist critique of capitalism, including the [[labor theory of value]], believing there was no necessary link between work performed and the values of commodities. His attack on the institution of wage labor was based more on the power employers exerted over employees, and not only on the extraction of [[surplus value]] from their labor. Kropotkin claimed this power was made possible by the state's protection of private ownership of productive resources.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bekken |first=John |title=Radical Economics and Labour |publisher=Routledge |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-415-77723-0 |location=London & New York |page=223 |chapter=Peter Kropotkin's anarchist economics for a new society |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3PoqAJrrYtAC&pg=PT18}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Kropotkin |first=Peter |title=The Conquest of Bread |publisher=Dover Publications, Inc. |year=2011 |pages=50, 101–102}}</ref> However, Kropotkin believed the possibility of surplus value was itself the problem, holding that a society would still be unjust if the workers of a particular industry kept their surplus to themselves, rather than redistributing it for the common good.<ref name=":0" />

=== Critique of state socialism ===

Kropotkin believed that a [[Communism|communist]] society could be established only by a [[social revolution]], which he described as, "... the taking possession by the people of all social wealth. It is the abolition of all the forces which have so long hampered the development of Humanity".<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Revolutionary Government |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-revolutionary-government |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170309063440/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-revolutionary-government |archive-date=9 March 2017 |access-date=13 December 2022 |website=The Anarchist Library |language=en}}</ref> However, he criticized forms of revolutionary methods (like those proposed by [[Marxism]] and [[Blanquism]]) that retained the use of state power, arguing that any central authority was incompatible with the dramatic changes needed by a social revolution. Kropotkin believed that the mechanisms of the state were deeply rooted in maintaining the power of one class over another, and thus could not be used to [[Emancipation|emancipate]] the [[working class]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-modern-state |title=The Modern State |language=en |access-date=13 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221213065703/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-modern-state |archive-date=13 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> Instead, Kropotkin insisted that both [[private property]] and the [[State (polity)|state]] needed to be abolished together.

<blockquote>The economic change which will result from the Social Revolution will be so immense and so profound, it must so change all the relations based today on property and exchange, that it is impossible for one or any individual to elaborate the different social forms, which must spring up in the society of the future. [...] Any authority external to it will only be an obstacle, only a trammel on the organic labor which must be accomplished, and beside that a source of discord and hatred.<ref name=":1" /></blockquote>

Kropotkin believed that any post-revolutionary [[government]] would lack the local knowledge to organize a diverse population. Their vision of society would be limited by their own vindictive, self-serving, or narrow ideals.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=Revolutionary Studies |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-revolutionary-studies |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221213065733/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-revolutionary-studies |archive-date=13 December 2022 |access-date=13 December 2022 |website=The Anarchist Library |language=en}}</ref> To ensure order, preserve [[authority]], and organize [[Production (economics)|production]] the state would need to use [[violence]] and [[coercion]] to suppress further revolution, and control workers. The workers would be reliant on the state [[bureaucracy]] to organize them, so they would never develop the initiative to self-organize as they needed.<ref name=":1" /> This would lead to the re-creation of [[Social class|classes]], an oppressed workforce, and eventually another revolution.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-modern-state |title=The Modern State |language=en |chapter=XI. CAN THE STATE BE USED FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF THE WORKERS? |access-date=13 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221213065703/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-modern-state |archive-date=13 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> Thus, Kropotkin wrote that maintaining the state would paralyze any true social revolution, making the idea of a "revolutionary government" a contradiction in terms:

<blockquote>We know that Revolution and Government are incompatible; one must destroy the other, no matter what name is given to government, whether dictator, royalty, or parliament. We know that what makes the strength and the truth of our party is contained in this fundamental formula — "Nothing good or durable can be done except by the free initiative of the people, and every government tends to destroy it;" and so the very best among us, if their ideas had not to pass through the crucible of the popular mind, before being put into execution, and if they should become masters of that formidable machine — the government — and could thus act as they chose, would become in a week fit only for the gallows. We know whither every dictator leads, even the best intentioned, — namely to the death of all revolutionary movement.<ref name=":1" /></blockquote>

Rather than a centralized approach, Kropotkin stressed the need for decentralized organization. He believed that dissolving the state would cripple counter-revolution without reverting to authoritarian methods of control, writing, "In order to conquer, something more than guillotines are required. It is the revolutionary idea, the truly wide revolutionary conception, which reduces its enemies to impotence by paralyzing all the instruments by which they have governed hitherto."<ref name=":2" /> He believed this was possible only through a widespread "Boldness of thought, a distinct and wide conception of all that is desired, constructive force arising from the people in proportion as the negation of authority dawns; and finally—the initiative of all in the work of reconstruction—this will give to the revolution the Power required to conquer."<ref name=":2" />

Kropotkin applied this criticism to the [[Bolsheviks]]' rule following the [[October Revolution]]. Kropotkin summarized his thoughts in a 1919 letter to the workers of Western Europe, promoting the possibility of revolution, but also warning against the centralized control in Russia, which he believed had condemned them to failure.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Russian Revolution and the Soviet Government: Letter to the Workers of Western Europe |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-russian-revolution-and-the-soviet-government-letter-to-the-workers-of-wester |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221213065732/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-russian-revolution-and-the-soviet-government-letter-to-the-workers-of-wester |archive-date=13 December 2022 |access-date=13 December 2022 |website=The Anarchist Library |language=en}}</ref> Kropotkin wrote to [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] in 1920, describing the desperate conditions that he believed to be the result of bureaucratic organization, and urging Lenin to allow for local and decentralized institutions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Letter to Lenin (4 March 1920) |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-letter-to-lenin-4-march-1920 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221213065733/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-letter-to-lenin-4-march-1920 |archive-date=13 December 2022 |access-date=13 December 2022 |website=The Anarchist Library |language=en}}</ref> Following an announcement of executions later that year, Kropotkin sent Lenin another furious letter, admonishing him for the terror which Kropotkin saw as needlessly destructive.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Letter To Lenin (21 December 1920) |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-letter-to-lenin |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221213065705/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-letter-to-lenin |archive-date=13 December 2022 |access-date=13 December 2022 |website=The Anarchist Library |language=en}}</ref>

=== Cooperation and competition ===
In 1902, Kropotkin published his book ''[[Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution]]'', which gave an alternative view of animal and human survival. At the time, some proponents of "[[Social Darwinism]]" such as [[Francis Galton]] proffered a theory of interpersonal competition and natural hierarchy. Instead, Kropotkin argued that "it was an evolutionary emphasis on cooperation instead of competition in the Darwinian sense that made for the success of species, including the human".<ref name="Sale">[[Kirkpatrick Sale|Sale, Kirkpatrick]] (1 July 2010) [http://www.amconmag.com/article/2010/jul/01/00045/ Are Anarchists Revolting?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101212113034/http://amconmag.com/article/2010/jul/01/00045/ |date=12 December 2010 }}, ''[[The American Conservative]]''</ref> In the last chapter, he wrote:

{{blockquote|In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense – not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species [...] in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits [...] and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development [...] are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kropotkin, Peter |url=http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kropotkin#Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution_.281902.29 |title=quotation from ''Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution'' |year=1902 |access-date=May 31, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190316091205/https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kropotkin#Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution_.281902.29 |archive-date=March 16, 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>}}

Contrary to popular belief, he did not deny the existence of selfishness or competitive struggle among organisms in nature, that is, "mutual struggle". He viewed cooperation and sociability among members of the same species as the best means to survive.<ref name="Kropotkin & McCay 2018">{{cite book |last=Kropotkin |first=Petr Alekseevich |chapter=Introduction |chapter-url={{GBurl |id=n3s5DwAAQBAJ |pg=PT3}} |editor-last=McKay |editor-first=Iain |title=Modern Science and Anarchy |publisher=AK Press |publication-place=La Vergne |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-84935-275-8 |oclc=1030822849 |quote=Passage surrounding "Kropotkin was well aware that the drive for cooperation rested on the 'selfish' desire to survive."}}</ref>

Biologist [[Stephen Jay Gould]] argued that Kropotkin's view was consistent with modern biological understanding. He agrees with Kropotkin's observations, noting that while Kropotkin did not deny the concept of competitive struggle, he believed that cooperative interactions were too often overlooked within it. He also points out that if cooperation increases the survival rate of an individual, there is no reason why it should be ruled out by natural selection, but rather, as he said, encouraged.<ref name=Gould>{{cite magazine|last=Gould |first=Stephen Jay |date=June 1988 |title=Kropotkin was no crackpot |magazine=[[Natural History (magazine)|Natural History]] |number=106 |pages=12–21 |url=http://www.marxists.org/subject/science/essays/kropotkin.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250303084502/http://www.marxists.org/subject/science/essays/kropotkin.htm |archive-date=2025-03-03 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Kropotkin did not deny the presence of competitive urges in humans, but did not consider them the driving force of [[human history]].<ref name="Gallaher">{{Cite book |last1=Gallaher |first1=Carolyn |title=Key Concepts in Political Geography |last2=Dahlman |first2=Carl T. |last3=Gilmartin |first3=Mary |last4=Mountz |first4=Alison |last5=Shirlow |first5=Peter |date=2009 |publisher=SAGE |isbn=9781412946728 |location=London |page=392 |author-link=Carolyn Gallaher}}</ref> He believed that seeking out conflict proved to be socially beneficial only in attempts to destroy [[injustice]], as well as [[authoritarian]] institutions such as the [[state (polity)|state]] or the [[Russian Orthodox Church]], which he saw as stifling human creativity and impeding human instinctual drive towards [[cooperation]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vucinich |first=Alexander |title=Darwin in Russian Thought |publisher=University of California Press |year=1988 |isbn=9780520062832 |page=349}}</ref>

Kropotkin claimed that the benefits arising from [[mutual organization]] incentivizes humans more than mutual strife. His hope was that in the long run, mutual organization would drive individuals to [[Production (economics)|produce]]. [[Anarcho-primitivists]] and [[anarcho-communists]] believe that a [[gift economy]] can break the cycle of [[poverty]]. They rely on Kropotkin, who believed that the [[hunter-gatherer]]s he had visited implemented mutual aid.  
<ref>{{Cite book |last=Roy |first=Debarati |title=The Power of Money |publisher=Vij Books India Private Limited |year=2012 |isbn=9789382573173 |page=201}}</ref>

=== Mutual aid ===

In his 1892 book ''[[The Conquest of Bread]]'', Kropotkin proposed a system of economics based on mutual exchanges made in a system of voluntary cooperation. He believed that in a society that is socially, culturally, and industrially developed enough to produce all the goods and services it needs, there would be no obstacle, such as preferential distribution, pricing or monetary exchange, to prevent everyone to take what they need from the social product. He supported the eventual abolition of money or tokens of exchange for goods and services.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kropotkin |first=Peter |url=https://archive.org/details/conquestbread00kropgoog |title=The Conquest of Bread |publisher=Putnam |year=1892 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/conquestbread00kropgoog/page/n219 201]}}</ref>

Kropotkin believed that [[Mikhail Bakunin]]'s [[Collectivist anarchism|collectivist]] economic model was just a wage system by a different name<ref>Kropotkin wrote: "After the Collectivist Revolution instead of saying 'twopence' worth of soap, we shall say 'five minutes' worth of soap." (quoted in {{Cite book |last=Brauer, Fae |title=The Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms, and Visual Culture |publisher=UPNE |year=2009 |isbn=9781584657750 |editor-last=Larsen, Barbara Jean |page=211 |chapter=Wild Beasts and Tame Primates: 'Le Douanier' Rosseau's Dream of Darwin's Evolution |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kZisTVt0GJQC&pg=PA211}})</ref> and that such a system would breed the same type of centralization and inequality as a capitalist wage system. He stated that it is impossible to determine the value of an individual's contributions to the products of labor and thought that anyone who was placed in a position of trying to make such determinations would wield authority over those whose wages they determined.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Avrich, Paul |title=The Russian Anarchists |title-link=The Russian Anarchists |publisher=AK Press |year=2005 |isbn=9781904859482 |pages=28–29}}</ref>

According to [[Kirkpatrick Sale]], "[w]ith ''Mutual Aid'' especially, and later with ''[[Fields, Factories, and Workshops]]'', Kropotkin was able to move away from the absurdist limitations of [[individual anarchism]] and no-laws anarchism that had flourished during this period and provide instead a vision of [[communal anarchism]], following the models of independent cooperative communities he discovered while developing his theory of mutual aid. It was an anarchism that opposed centralized government and state-level laws as traditional anarchism did, but understood that at a certain small scale, communities and communes and co-ops could flourish and provide humans with a rich material life and wide areas of liberty without centralized control."<ref name=Sale/>

=== Self-sufficiency ===
Kropotkin's focus on local production led to his view that a country should strive for [[autarky|self-sufficiency]] by manufacturing its own goods and growing its own food, thus lessening the need to rely on imports. To these ends, he advocated [[irrigation]] and [[greenhouse]]s to boost local food production.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Adams |first=Matthew S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bFFOCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA114 |title=Kropotkin, Read, and the Intellectual History of British Anarchism: Between Reason and Romanticism |date=4 June 2015 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9781137392626 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Religion ===

Although in the past he harshly criticized religious morality,<ref>[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-anarchist-morality Anarchist Morality]. ''The Anarchist Library''. (1897)</ref> Kropotkin recognized the [[Christian anarchism]] of [[Leo Tolstoy]] as one of the four schools of thought in anarchism.<ref>[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-anarchism-from-the-encyclopaedia-britannica Anarchism]. ''The Anarchist Library''. (1910).</ref> Kropotkin and Tolstoy maintained, despite never meeting in person, a relationship of mutual respect.<ref>''The Anarchist Prince'' by [[George Woodcock]] and [[Ivan Avakumović]]. (1950)</ref> Kropotkin saw the origins of anarchism in Europe as found in various Christian movements, such as the [[Anabaptists]] and [[Hussites]], mentioning figures such as the Italian Catholic bishop [[Marco Girolamo Vida]] and the German Anabaptist theologian [[Hans Denck]].<ref>[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-anarchism-from-the-encyclopaedia-britannica Anarchism]. ''The Anarchist Library''. (1910).</ref>

Kropotkin admired [[Christianity]] and [[Buddhism]], along with the figures of [[Jesus Christ]] and [[Buddha]] and their ethical teachings.<ref>[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-ethics-origin-and-development Ethics: Origin and Development]. ''The Anarchist Library''. (1922).</ref> Kropotkin did not see that Christianity introduced anything new in its defense of brotherhood and mutual aid, but he did (along with Buddhism) in forgiveness. Compared to the ethics of the vengeful culture of other peoples, the doctrine of Christ repudiates persecution and revenge, saying that “the true greatness of Christianity lies in the words «do not take revenge on your enemies.»”.<ref>[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-ethics-origin-and-development Ethics: Origin and Development]. ''The Anarchist Library''. (1922).</ref> Kropotkin also saw the Christian God as an improvement over the pagan gods, whom he considered vengeful and to whom one should submit.<ref>[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-ethics-origin-and-development Ethics: Origin and Development]. ''The Anarchist Library''. (1922).</ref> Kropotkin's ''Ethics'' stated:
{{blockquote|In the case of Christianity the love of the divine teacher for men, – for all men without distinction of nation or condition, and especially for the lowest, – led to the highest heroic sacrifice – to death on the cross for the salvation of humanity from the power of evil.<ref>[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-ethics-origin-and-development Ethics: Origin and Development]. ''The Anarchist Library''. (1922).</ref>}}