Right-Wing Anarchism: A Philosophical Left-Wing Concept

Abstract

The article discusses the issue whether anarchism should be considered a right-wing ideology. Anarchism as an ideology, formulated in the works of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon of the 1830s-1840s, was originally in the leftwing political spectrum. The anarchist Joseph Dejacque, who advocates equality of rights for men and women and does not agree with Proudhon on this issue, called himself a libertaire . The French word libertaire has been translated into English as “libertarian.” Due to the fact that in the 20 th century, economic theories justifying state intervention in the economy became widespread among those who called themselves liberals, the word “liberal” came to mean “socialist.” American liberals (in the original sense of the word) adopted anarcho-communist Dejacque’s neologism “libertarian.” The author shows that, according to the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, unlimited liberalism and socialism have common origins, since these two ideologies proceed from the fact that human freedom is innate, which means that traditional values should not restrict human behavior. Thus, the ideological roots of anarcho-capitalism and libertarianism are to be found in the corpus of doctrines of the French left wing. In the 1970s, the French economist Henri Lepage translated the English word “libertarian” into the French, coining new world libertarien and not using the word libertaire, which is due to the fact that libertarianism began to be perceived as a right-wing ideology, and therefore it was necessary to distinguish it from its roots – libertarisme, which was considered a leftist movement. The author refutes the idea, which became widespread in the 20 th century, that, due to the emergence of the Libertarian party and anarcho-capitalism, a part of the anarchist movement joined the right wing.