Collectivist anarchism, also called anarchist collectivism and anarcho-collectivism, is an anarchist school of thought that advocates the abolition of both the state and private ownership of the means of production. In their place, it envisions both the collective ownership of the means of production and the entitlement of workers to the fruits of their own labour, which would be ensured by a societal pact between individuals and collectives. Collectivists considered trade unions to be the means through which to bring about collectivism through a social revolution, where they would form the nucleus for a post-capitalist society.
The tendency was initially conceived as a synthesis of social equality and liberty, by the Russian revolutionary socialist Mikhail Bakunin. It is commonly associated with the anti-authoritarian sections of the International Workingmen's Association and the early Spanish anarchist movement, with whom it continued to hold a strong influence until the end of the 19th century. Eventually, it was supplanted as the dominant tendency of anarchism by anarcho-communism, which advocated for the abolition of wages and the distribution of resources "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".
Collectivist anarchism was first formulated within the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), under the influence of Mikhail Bakunin. Bakunin had been inspired by the traditional agrarian collectivism practiced by the Russian peasantry and wished to see its principles of mutual aid applied to industrial society, which he hoped to mobilise in favour of liberty and social equality. According to Friedrich Engels, Bakunin's collectivism represented a synthesis of Karl Marx's communism and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's mutualism. Bakunin rejected the communist principle of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs", considering instead that resources would have to be distributed according to one's own labour.
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