Individual reclamation

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Individual reclamation (French : reprise individuelle) is a form of direct action, characterized by the individual theft of resources from the rich by the poor. Individual reclamation gained popular attention in the early 20th century as a result of the exploits of anarchists and outsiders, such as Ravachol and Clément Duval, who believed that such expropriations were ethical because of the exploitation of society by capitalists (see Anti-capitalism). Advocacy centered on France, Belgium, Great Britain, and Switzerland.

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Conceptual origins

In 1840, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, a French anarchist, wrote What Is Property? , a question to which he famously answered "property is theft". By this, Proudhon meant that legitimate private property could result only from an individual's labor and all other capital was, in effect, stolen. [1] This economic world view converged in the minds of radicals with the Russian theorist Mikhail Bakunin's concept of propaganda of the deed, the use of physical violence against political enemies as a method of inspiring the masses.

A marginal sector of European individualist anarchism derived the idea of individual reclamation as a means of breaking down what they perceived as the robbery of the laboring class by capitalists, politicians and the church. The individual's expropriation was regarded as legitimate resistance against an unfair social order, an ethical right to even the distribution of wealth.

Practice

Well-known 19th century practitioners of individual reclamation included Ravachol and Clément Duval. A later generation of European anarchists, influenced by the anti-essentialism of Max Stirner, would eventually abandon the ethical framing of individual reclamation, proposing an ideology of illegalism and openly embracing criminality as a lifestyle. The most famous of these practitioners included the infamous Bonnot Gang of France.

In the 20th century, Lucio Urtubia, a Spanish practitioner of individual reclamation, stole millions from Citibank by forging traveler's checks. Between 1993 and 2007, Jaime Giménez Arbe robbed 36 banks in Spain, stealing more than €700,000 in what he described as an effort "to liberate the Spanish people" from the banking sector. [2]

See also

Notes

  1. Parry, Richard. The Bonnot Gang. Rebel Press, 1987. p. 15
  2. 'Loner' claims he robbed banks 'to liberate Spanish people' Archived 2008-10-24 at the Wayback Machine

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Jules Bonnot

Jules Joseph Bonnot was a French anarchist bank robber famous for his involvement in a criminal anarchist organization dubbed "The Bonnot Gang" by the French press. He viewed himself as a professional and avoided bloodshed, preferring to outwit his targets. Often posing as a businessman, his taste in expensive clothing earned him the pseudonym "Le Bourgeois" among comrades.

The Bonnot Gang was a French criminal anarchist group that operated in France and Belgium during the Belle Époque, from 1911 to 1912. Composed of individuals who identified with the emerging illegalist milieu, the gang used cutting-edge technology not yet available to the French police.

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Clément Duval

Clément Duval was a famous French anarchist and criminal. His ideas concerning individual reclamation were greatly influential in later shaping illegalism. According to Paul Albert, "The story of Clement Duval was lifted and, shorn of all politics, turned into the bestseller Papillon."

Illegalism

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Anarchism in France

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Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism, known as anarchists, advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. While anarchism holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, opposition to the state is not its central or sole definition. Anarchism can entail opposing authority or hierarchy in the conduct of all human relations.

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Social anarchism is the branch of anarchism that sees individual freedom as interrelated with mutual aid. Social anarchist thought emphasizes community and social equality as complementary to autonomy and personal freedom. It attempts to accomplish this balance through freedom of speech, which is maintained in a decentralized federalism, with freedom of interaction in thought and subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is best defined as "that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry" and that "[f]or every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them", or the slogan "Do not take tools out of people's hands".

Benjamin Tucker American individualist anarchist

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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon French politician, philosopher and socialist

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