The writings of Colin ward and the legacy of anarchism for housing studies

Abstract

British anarchist Colin Ward (1922–2010) wrote extensively on housing issues. His work offers insights on governmental power and alternative forms of organisation. Whilst Ward’s views have been discussed in social theory his housing analysis has been somewhat overlooked. The article addresses this gap by situating Ward within a post war intellectual milieu as well as housing concerns such as: private property and household autonomy; the role of the state; and tenant participation. The main part of the article explores the relevance of Ward’s work for addressing housing challenges. It is claimed that Ward’s writings offer both a trenchant critique of managerially inspired policies and a set of political interventions that merit consideration. The concluding discussion assesses the value of Ward’s contribution and some of the problematic issues that arise from his analysis.

Keywords:

• Anarchism
• housing policy
• welfare state

Introduction

Over recent years, anarchist writings have rarely featured in housing scholarship (though Hodkinson 2012, Allen 2016, and Bower 2017 for exceptions). Many academics dismiss anarchism entirely or construe its main objectives as being to overthrow the State, prohibiting private ownership and postulating a society devoid of conflict or rancour. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that scholars have judged anarchism as being not only incapable of addressing multifaceted political challenges but also utopian as to its vision for the future. Such views of anarchism are largely caricatures, in so far as they rely on depictions that have been framed by its most vociferous critics.

There is a strand of literature that views anarchism as a mode of living that values collective practices that enhance freedom and social solidarity. It is often claimed within this strand that anarchist practices offer, in some instances, an alternative (at least on a small local scale) to the centralised modes of funding and service delivery that have been an enduring feature of public housing provision in nation states such as the UK. However, as I contend in this article, these localised interventions lack sufficient funding sources and so seem incapable of responding to the large-scale challenges of homelessness and housing poverty that are features of the current era¹.

Outside of academia it is commonplace to equate anarchism with violent protest and the denunciation of governmental authority. That such a view prevails is not surprising as often media reports on anti-government protests that turn violent have blamed anarchist agitators (see Booth and Vallée 2011). And while there is a strand of anarchist writing that justifies violence against the State under certain conditions, much of the anarchist writing has a more nuanced view of protest. In fact, there are some anarchists who reject entirely any association of anarchism with nihilism. George Woodcock, one of the most influential twentieth century anarchists claimed that ‘anarchists have never been nihilists, wishing to destroy present society entirely and replace it with something new … The anarchists have always valued the endurance of natural social impulses and the voluntary institutions they create, and it is to liberate the great network of human cooperation that even now spreads through all levels of our lives rather than to creating or even imagining brave new worlds that they have bent their efforts. That is why there are so few utopian writings amongst anarchists’ (Woodcock 1992, p. 16–17 quoted in Goodway 2006, p. 317).

Colin Ward

Colin Ward was amongst the most influential group of anarchist writers that explicitly rejected violent revolution as a necessary starting point to pursue progressive political objectives (Scott-Brown 2022). Ward contributed to the anarchist journal ‘Freedom’ from the late 1940s and from 1961 to 1970 edited the monthly journal ‘Anarchy’. Ward trained as an architect and from the 1970s worked for the Town and Country Planning Association. During this period, he was also a regular contributor to the journal New Society (see Honeywell 2007, p. 247). Ward wrote on a wide variety of topics including anarchist practice, contemporary politics, squatting, housing, architecture, schooling, town planning and mutual aid. And whilst Ward is probably best known in the UK, his extensive writing on mutual aid and squatting ensured that his influence had an international reach particularly amongst community activists in Europe and as well as South and North America².

Ward advocated for a version of everyday anarchism that entailed experimentation and practical interventions rather than future orientated activities to bring about the overthrow of capitalism. As White (2007, p. 13) explains, ‘Ward’s position is not so much to reject emphatically the very idea of revolution as to neglect other ways of advancing anarchism. What the anarchist should be advancing is ‘social changes, whether revolutionary or reformist, through which people enlarge their autonomy and reduce their subjection to external authority’ (Ward 1983, p. 137)’. So, for Ward, anarchist practices are already happening and not something that is only possible after the demise of capitalism. He understood that power conflicts arising from inequality are an ongoing feature of any society and these will not disappear as some Marxist scholars assume once a revolution has occurred³ (see Goodway 2006, p. 116 for a discussion).

When discussing the contribution of Colin Ward, it may be helpful to briefly mention the political milieu that was a feature of the British social democratic post war settlement (i.e. 1945 - to the mid 1970s). Four observations can be made. First, this was a period when the two main political parties in the UK were broadly committed to Keynesian economic management and the welfare state. Left-wing writers⁴ whose articles appeared in the mid to late 1970s in UK journals such as New Society and the New Statesman had the confidence to critique the welfare state on the assumption that it would remain largely intact. Only a few critics ever anticipated the longer consequences of the privatisation policies enacted during Margaret Thatcher’s second term in office or the very large spending cuts imposed on local authorities responsible for public housing.

Second, from the late 1950s through to the late 1970s there was an interest in forms of self-expression and individual autonomy. A combination of factors was evident; at a time of near full employment young people had more disposable income and there was also antipathy to authoritarian governmental practices as well as class-based hierarchies. Influential writing during this period including works by political theorists John Rawls and Robert Nozick, anti-psychiatry critics Thomas Szasz, David Cooper and R. D. Laing, literary scholars such as Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart and community campaigners such as Michael Young.⁵

Third, Colin Ward, like R.D Laing and to some extent Michael Young, was critical of bureaucratic methods of control and supportive of alternative ways to disperse power away from the welfare state. Hence his focus on the capacities of individuals and communities to subvert and replace bureaucratic forms of welfare provision, including public housing, with cooperatives and self-built housing. For this reason, his work chimed with some of the other critical contributions that were a feature of this period.

Fourth, one can contrast Ward’s writings with the more defensive approaches that were a feature of some left-wing commentary on British social policy following the victory of the Conservative party led by Margaret Thatcher in the 1979 general election (see Ginsburg 1979). From the mid 1980s, when the scale of Government expenditure cuts and privatisation became apparent much of the intellectual energy was expended on thinking how political institutions such as local councils might best defend existing welfare provision⁶. Ward was critical of the government’s expenditure cuts but he also argued that this was both an insufficient and defensive response. In his view, political energy should be expended on developing the social realm in which people live their lives. As Ken Worpole points out, Ward challenged the ‘assumption, particularly on the left, that ‘the social’ and ‘the political’ are one and the same thing and inter-changeable’. … . The social is much larger, more inclusive, more porous, more informally constructed and sustained than the political – and less easily captured by vested interests. We make and unmake the social world each day, and that is why it is so flexible and resilient (Worpole 2023, p. 2).

The role of the State

Colin Ward, because he was committed to repairing and strengthening the social realm, saw a need to highlight the formulistic features of welfare service delivery. In his view, UK welfare provision especially in the allocation and management of housing estates was often enacted in paternalistic and judgmental ways. He also claimed that the provision operated as a form of ‘monopoly capitalism with a veneer of social welfare as a substitute for social justice’ (Ward, 1973, p. 22 quoted by Honeywell 2011, p. 71–72). He dismissed the claim often made by defenders of the welfare state that it delivered universal services in areas where there was clear evidence of market failure. For Ward, this claim was not achievable, given the enduring class inequalities in Britain. In short, universal provision often reinforced the privileges of the better-off (Ward 2000, p. 16). Instead, Ward believed that ‘social welfare can exist without the state’ (Ward 1973, p. 110) through the mutual aid and self-help. Ward justified this claim on his historical reading of 19^th and early twentieth century British society, where he found numerous examples of cooperatives and mutual societies⁷. He argued that many of these mutual societies folded after the creation of the welfare state.

Ward, whilst seeing the State in problematic terms in so far as he believed many of its activities impeded individual freedom and mutuality, nonetheless, recognised some of its productive roles for critical infrastructure and community safety. This noted, he was unimpressed by those who saw a functioning democratic State⁸ as a necessary instrument to advance equality and freedom. Ward dismissed arguments that voting in a general election was a necessary task to improve political outcomes. As Ward explained ‘since anarchism implies an aspiration for a decentralised non-governmental society, it makes no sense from an anarchist point of view to elect representatives to form a central government. If you want no government, what is the point of listening to the promises of a better government? (Ward 1987a). And neither did Ward see value in establishing ways for government and citizens to cooperate to advance what Max Weber had termed ‘an ethics of responsibility’ (Weber 1919 [1970]). In this respect Ward’s conceptualisation of the State is inimical to the one proposed by T.H. Marshall (1964 [1949]) in which he suggested that the British welfare state aimed to ‘replace the differential status associated with class, function and family, … by the single uniform status of citizenship’ (T.H Marshall quoted by Sennet 2003, p. 261).

In opposition to Marshall’s conception, Ward stated how he agreed with Landauer’s (1910) formulation that ‘the State is not something which can be destroyed by revolution, but is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of human behaviour; we destroy by contracting other human relationships, by behaving differently’. For Ward, it was not a priority to replace the State but rather to establish new forms of living that operated independently from it. Here Ward was influenced by Martin Buber’s writings (see Goodway 2006, p. 319) especially as set out in Paths in Utopia (Buber 1949). According to Goodway (2006) what impressed Ward was Buber’s demarcation of ‘social principle’ to categorise all spontaneous actions that coalesce around mutual needs and support (such as trade unions, cooperatives, family networks and friendships) from ‘political principle’ which is evident in most governmental modes of power. Buber argued that the problematic aspects of the State arise because it holds more power than is required for any determined activity. This excess of power helps the State establish what he termed a ‘political surplus’, and this surplus extends in such a way that it operates as a brake on cooperation.

For Ward, the absence of more social forms of activity created opportunities for the State to extend not only its paternalistic allocation and bureaucratic approach but also construe a view that tenants should be grateful and subservient. Only if sociality and libertarianism are reactivated could the State’s problematic features be reined in (see Goodway 2006, p. 320). So, for Ward, the power abuses enacted by the State would intensify unless there was a re-discovery of the freedom that pertains when human agency and sociality flourish. Ward’s claim that it is day-to-day practices that offers the conditions for more radical modes of sociality is perhaps his most interesting contribution. His disregard for most future orientated political strategy was attacked by more traditionally minded anarchists who accused Ward of adopting a proto-conservative stance. Ward, in stating his commitment to the spontaneity and the social, was drawing directly from a strand of anarchist theory set out earlier by Peter Kropotkin (1902 [2011]) and Gustav Landauer (1910). Both saw anarchism as an attempt to reconstitute and advance practices that have always been evident in any flourishing human society (such as cooperation, conviviality and sociality).

Housing

Ward’s many articles on housing are collated in a book Housing: An Anarchist Approach. The book was first published in 1976 and republished in 1983 with a new postscript. Ward explains that anarchism’s aim is to make ‘dweller control’ as the first principle of housing’ (Ward 1983, p. 183). The book addresses many of the issues that were pertinent at the time. In the early 1980s properties owned by private landlords in the UK amounted to just 10% of the overall stock following on from slum clearance and municipalisation programmes undertaken in the 1960s and 1970s. The Right to Buy policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher had yet to take effect. Ward predicted that private renting would mostly disappear and that he envisaged a duopoly of public housing and owner occupation. Ward thought the Labour party’s municipalisation policy was a major error and led to a relationship that embedded both dependency and resentment. He was against private landlordism recognising its exploitative features, but he considered paternalistic bureaucratic top-down interventions that were a feature of public housing provision at the time as one of the main challenges. Ward explained that ‘as an anarchist and a believer in freedom and autonomy, I don’t see why I should be pushed into a position of defending the corporate state of the left against the corporate state of the right. I want people to escape in whatever areas of life they can, from being pushed around’ (Ward 1983, p. 185).

Ward was aware that his defence of owner occupation was controversial. ‘The whole-owner occupation sector in housing is, though it is very unfashionable to say so except in Conservative circles, a triumphant example of self-help and mutual aid’ (Ward 1985, p. 29 quoted by Honeywell 2011, p. 72). Ward was especially critical of sections of the British left who he felt voiced their disdain at owner occupiers. He wrote that he ‘detected a certain antipathy toward owner occupation, and particularly towards its spread among working class families. The first is a fear that ‘the workers’ will be at home papering the parlour when they ought to be out in the streets making a revolution. I find this a grotesquely unsympathetic approach to other people’s aspirations, like that attitude that hopes that other people’s conditions will worsen so as to hasten the day of whatever popular rising we fancy’ (Ward 1983, p. 185). The second objection often made against homeownership, according to Ward, was that private property ‘is evil as such’ (Ward 186) or is a form of theft. Here Ward made use of Proudhon’s distinction between personal property such as one’s home and real property which is utilised to extract profit from productive forms of labour.

Ward was not in favour of selling off public housing preferring instead cooperative take overs where tenants collectively managed their estate (see Thompson 2020 for a discussion of Ward’s influence on alternative housing options in Liverpool). It is also clear that Ward refrained from advocating for the dismantling of the welfare state. As stated earlier, Ward understood its importance in providing infrastructure and resources. Ward quotes approvingly the anarchist architect John Turner (1976) who also recognised the essential role of central government in delivering essential provision. ‘While local control over necessarily diverse personal and local goods and services - such as housing - is essential, local control depends on personal and local access to resources which only central government can guarantee’ (Turner cited in Ward 1983, p. 192).

It is important to reflect further as to why Ward argued that defending public housing, in its current form, was reactive and a detraction to more pressing tasks. It seems that he felt it was far more important to develop social practices that are more locally situated and attentive to the needs of individuals. As mentioned at the start of the article, Ward was dismissive of political activism that was limited to voting or critique and argued instead for forms of action in everyday and more mundane social settings. As Crouch (2017, p. 686) argues, ‘Colin Ward’s enthusiasm was for freedom rather than resistance; this was a positive shift from much of the conventional thinking shaping anarchy and involving emphasising ideas of practical and already existing action that revealed numerous potentialities and the sources of their potential life’. Ward was correct to point out the risks that arise when pursuing defensive forms of politics but there seems no justification to assume that voting in general elections or advocating for public provision is necessarily undermining of forms of mutuality and social organisation.

Ward’s critique of the modern State and its role in providing housing can be contrasted with much of the academic literature on UK housing policy. From the mid-1980s onwards, an aim of housing scholarship was to critique the privatisation of public housing and identify its problematic effects. Nearly 40 years on from Ward’s postscript in ‘Housing: An Anarchist Approach, it is evident that the Right to Buy policies in the UK have accentuated inequality and reduced the prospects for many young households. Ward, like many other writers, failed to anticipate that 40% of the public housing properties that were bought by sitting tenants would later be sold on to corporate and private landlords (Murie 2016).

Ward, unlike some commentators writing from a left-wing perspective, did not see tenants as problematic subjects that need assistance from government. Instead, he construed them as active agents who have the capability to progress and sustain meaningful change. In an open letter to the then UK Minister for the Environment Anthony Crosland in 1976, Ward accused the Minister of seeing the ‘homeless, the ill-housed and overcrowded and the newly-weds just coming up for membership of the Housing Shortage Club, as the inert objects, the raw material of policy, waiting to be processed by the Housing Problems Industry.’ Ward then went on to write ‘But suppose we turn the whole subject upside down and assume that the ordinary people are the makers, rather than the victims of policy. We can then see a totally new spectrum of opportunities and possibilities, some of which the experts dismiss as irrelevant, some of which they regard as subversive and some of which they know nothing about’ (Ward 1983, p. 94).

As Stuart White (2016, p. 308) writes ‘What Ward was protesting against here was the paternalism of the post welfare state. The social democratic settlement after 1945 certainly did embody solidarity. But it often did so in ways that inscribed hierarchy into welfare provision. Politicians, planners, administrators and bureaucrats stood on one side of this hierarchy and welfare recipients on the other. Ward’s anarchism opposed this hierarchy and aimed to find ways of opening space and opportunity for more self-determining agency by those in need’. Yet this reframing of tenants as the source and producers of knowledge whilst superficially appealing is too simplistic. The production of knowledge is mutually constituted through the interactions and conversations of many individuals rather than the preserve of one group.

Ward went on to write that it is a serious engagement with tenants that is missing in attempts to address housing problems, and this is a reason why policies so often fall short. Ward ends his letter by writing ‘the missing factor, left out of all the calculations, is popular involvement. Can we afford to go on leaving it out. This and not the matter of standards is the real housing question (Ward 1983, p. 98). Tenant engagement is important but here Ward is overstating its potential as a mechanism for ameliorating housing shortages. Participation is productive but not in itself capable of transforming long-standing problems relating to the allocation of resources.

For Ward, it was through practical tasks that dysfunctional social arrangements could be repaired and renewed. One of the ways to advance beneficial social arrangements in the setting of housing was squatting. Ward made a differentiation between squatting as a political demonstration to highlight inequities and squatting as a personal solution to a housing problem (Scott-Brown 2022, p. 8). Ward claimed that very often the experience of campaigning on squatting issues and collaborating on making squatted accommodation habitable was energising for all those involved. He saw squatting as a form of sociality which could lead to more productive living arrangements and forms of solidarity amongst people who may have little in common other than their shared experience of homelessness. Ward’s view of squatting reveals an inclination of his to make judgements that were often unqualified or untested empirically. Squatter movements have been important in the establishment of campaigns to draw attention to the housing crisis but other than that their influence in the UK has been negligible. There is also no reason to assume, as Ward did, that squatting practices eventuate in socially progressive arrangements⁹. Rather, all the anarchist practices valued by Ward including squatting and self-built housing are situated within capitalist relations and so can never break free in the way he envisaged (see Hodkinson’s 2012 discussion of squatting in relation to capitalist production and also Burgess 1978 for an extended critique of self-built housing)¹⁰.

Importantly for Ward, it was not a case of tenants necessarily having to develop new practices or expertise. He argued that this expertise already existed within these communities, but it remains unacknowledged by State bureaucrats who had a deficit model of tenants as being somehow bereft of skills and acumen. His view was that there was a propensity for individuals to devise ways of cooperating and sharing resources and that furthermore these practices would lead to individuals valuing their contribution. For participation to succeed on the lines that Ward envisaged, it was necessary to control resources, otherwise the participation would be little more than tokenistic (see Wilkin and Boudeau 2015, p. 1328). Ward had concerns that bureaucrats might reappropriate these participation practices and claim them as either their own or, worse still, justify incorporating these collective practices within a larger welfare state. Ward argued that this is effectively what had happened to many working-class mutual aid societies in the late 19th and early twentieth century when Fabian socialists were at their most ascendent (Wilkin and Boudeau 2015, p. 1336). Ward however fails to acknowledge the considerable expertise that exists within the welfare state and the progressive actions of professionals employed by governments. He is also mistaken in thinking that these participation practices could eventuate in significant change. An example of Ward’s tendency to advance one-sided accounts of the emergence of the British welfare state and assign blame without providing any accompanying empirical evidence is revealed in the passage below.

How sad that in Britain, birthplace of friendly societies, trade unionism and the Co-operative movement, socialists should have been so intoxicated with power and bureaucracy and the mystique of the state that they should dismiss their own inheritance as a path not worth taking! Social welfare has been surrendered to the state as well as the income to pay for them, the state’s way. For most of the post-war decades there was a consensus between the political parties on state paternalism in welfare (Ward 1987b:5).

Ward’s commitment to changing social relations led him to recognise the potential of new towns for forging both positive social encounters and more amenable spatial configurations. He envisaged a role for planners establishing utilities and public amenities and then channelling resources for households to build new properties. So, for Ward, there was an important and essential role for government, but it was as a source and guarantor of funds rather than a deliverer of services. As for town planners Ward (1976b: 2), saw their role as ‘indispensable’ for providing ‘sites and services’.

In his discussion of town planning, he argued that the best way to allocate resources was to let local people who had most at stake make the decisions. He asked ‘suppose our future in fact lies, not with a handful of technocrats pushing buttons to support the rest of us, but with a multitude of small activities, whether by individuals or groups, doing their own thing…… making their own niche in the world of ordinary needs and their satisfaction. Wouldn’t that be something to do with anarchism?’ (Ward 1976a, p. 87–88 quoted by Honeywell 2007, p. 250). Ward’s dismissal of technocratic expertise seems not only a misreading of the evidence but is also politically naïve as it gives succour to those who wish to discard professional advice premised on education and experience.

Housing studies and anarchism

Much of the scholarship within housing studies is situated on contemporary policy concerns such as affordability, financialisation and inequality. Ward’s formulation of anarchism, his critique of the State and his suggestions as to how to reconfigure decommodified modes of housing have been largely overlooked by writers within the field. This noted there are three articles - Hodkinson (2012), Allen (2016) and Bower (2017) - that not only directly engage with Colin Ward’s ideas on housing but do so in ways that provide insights for readers. Hodkinson, in his article, explores questions such as ‘what anti-capitalists should do about housing. What is our alternative? Do we have one? Should we? If so, what does it look like and what is it alternative to? (Hodkinson 2012, p. 424). In his discussion, Hodkinson contrasts anarchism with Marxism. Anarchists see housing issues as a site for collaboration and forging new forms of social relations that are not rooted in commodification such as self-help cooperatives, squatting campaigns and local building projects. In contrast, Marxists, for example Engels’ The Housing Question, (Engels, (1872 [1997]), claimed that housing activism that aimed to ameliorate poor conditions caused by landlord exploitation would be a distraction to the core task of disrupting capitalist production that could eventuate in the overthrow of the ruling class.

In his article, Hodkinson argues that anarchism is more productive than Marxism in that it offers practical interventions that could have greater impact for ameliorating exploitation. He notes the relevance of anarchist architect John Turner’s (1976) critique of government bureaucracy in Latin America and its role in constraining slum dwellers capability to extend mutually supportive practices. Hodkinson’s main discussion on anarchism is through the work of Colin Ward. He states that ‘for Ward, the task of progressives was to find a housing system that simultaneously enabled three freedoms denied by the State – to move at will, to stay put and to control one’s own home’ (Hodkinson 2012, p. 9).

Hodkinson makes a contrast between left-wing activists who saw it as imperative to defend public housing and Ward’s view that much of public housing was akin to ‘municipal serfdom’. Ward advocated for mutual forms of homeownership whereby individual households became collective owners of the properties and so free to live and modify their homes as they wished. A financial appeal of mutuality would be that capital gains could be returned to the collective. For Ward, tenant control was necessary for all progressive housing projects.

Allen’s (2016) discussion differs from Hodkinson in so far as he deploys anarchism as a theoretical lens to reflect upon the activity of academic research which he thinks is largely unable to inform or influence public opinion. Like Ward, Allen sees anarchism as an orientation that is firmly rooted in the present day rather than a future orientated political strategy. In his article, Allen claims that an anarchist research approach to the study of housing can be more democratic and break down the divide that impedes academics working alongside marginalised communities. Allen’s discussion on anarchism therefore mostly considers its potential for critical housing researchers who wish to remain academically relevant in ways that acknowledge the contribution to knowledge made by marginalised communities.

Allen sees anarchist theory as an opening or space to reflect upon the contradictions between an individual life and a political outlook. Allen is aware that some of the academic criticisms of current housing arrangements are undermined by the failure of authors to either reflect on let alone change their own practices. So, for example being critical of homeownership yet owning a home, identifying the inherent exploitation that is a feature of landlordism but willing to participate in landlord platforms such as Airbnb. Allen argued that only by acknowledging our own shortcomings and then embracing new forms of living can academics become more relevant. Allen proposed a series of steps to achieve this, suggesting that academics ensure their writing is clear and explicitly acknowledge that their insights are acquired from multiple sources and therefore reliant on others. In short, they should conduct their research in ways that are ‘non-hierarchical and egalitarian’ (Allen 2016, p. 280). For Allen, anarchist research should be viewed dialogically; as a conversation that aims to be ‘mutually transformative’ as he writes ‘the task of the anarchist is to step outside of the ‘scholar self’ and into genuine personhood and reciprocal relationships that dissolve the boundary between ‘in here’ and ‘out there’ (Allen 2016, p. 279). Yet Allen in putting forward this advice does not provide an explanation as to how this might be achieved. There is no state of ‘being’ that can be described as ‘genuine personhood’ or any possibility of dissolving a boundary of ‘in here’ and ‘out there’. Academic writing, like any situated practice, can never rise above the problematic environment it seeks to analyse. To think otherwise is mistaken.

Bower’s (2017) article is the most detailed study of Ward’s engagement with housing issues. Although its focus is narrow, specifically discussing Ward and co-author Dennis Hardy’s writings on informal housing settlements in coastal regions in the south-east region of the UK during the 1940–1950s. Plotlanders (Ward and Hardy (1972) and Arcadia for All (Hardy and Ward 1996) record the aspirations and life of DIY (Do It Yourself) builders. Many of the informal seaside properties have long gone because of 1960s bureaucratic planning regulations and rising land values. Ward saw the example of these DIY builders as useful for exploring alternative ways to address the shortage of affordable housing. Similar ideas to Ward’s can be found in the architect Walter Segal’s self-built dwellings in Lewisham (Bower 2017, p. 81). Bower notes how Ward sought to explain the powerlessness of individuals as not just a consequence of the extension of State power but also because ‘Individuals have surrendered their power to the state. It is through every individual possessed a certain quantity of power, but that by default, negligence or thoughtlessness and unimaginative habit or conditioning, he has allowed someone else to pick it up, rather than use it himself for his own purposes’ (Ward 1973, p. 23). Here Ward seems to be suggesting that individuals are unaware of their own capabilities, and this has led to ceding power to governmental authority.

Other writers in the field of housing have explored terrains similar to those purveyed by Ward but his contribution is rarely acknowledged. In recent years, there has been an interest in the way that households living in public housing support each other at a time of public expenditure cuts and austerity. Research by Power and Bergan (2019) and Power et al (2022) highlight how tenants provide informal care to neighbours and families that makes up for the shortfall in welfare provision. The argument put forward is that these informal relational practices offer a way forward for reorganising welfare in ways that are less hierarchical and top down (see Honeywell 2011). Again, the arguments that underpin this perspective are assumed but not tested empirically. Informal social relations are important and productive but the claim that these practices can somehow supersede government welfare provision has not been demonstrated in any sufficient way.

Critique

Hodkinson and Bower provide excellent accounts of the theoretical value of Ward’s views on anarchism and the housing crisis. Allen’s article is also insightful and thoughtful, though more introspective in so far as his focus is on the way that critically minded academics write on housing topics and engage with disadvantaged households. This noted, their articles are not critical of the anarchist position set out by Ward¹¹. In the remainder of the article, I address this gap by summarising the criticisms of anarchism raised by Dobraszczyk (2021) and David Harvey (2017) as well as setting out my own observations.

Although largely missing from the housing studies literature, some criticisms of Ward’s anarchist perspective are set out by Dobraszczyk (2021) in the introduction to his book Anarchy and Architecture. Dobraszcyck cites Bonanno (2010) who argued that Ward overstated the transformative potential of his local forms of anarchist practice and that it often can lead people to disengage from working against the existing social order as their time is taken up on small local projects. Perhaps this indictment is a bit harsh since anarchist practice does not have to be an either a local or structural intervention. It is quite possible to undertake small-scale actions and, at the same participate, in larger struggles.

Though not mentioning Ward directly, the observations of geographer David Harvey (2017) provide a trenchant critique of anarchist practice. At the start of his article Harvey notes there are many variants of anarchism just as there are many variants of Marxism. He acknowledges that social anarchists have been ‘much more interested and sensitive to questions of space, place and environment … while the Marxist tradition has been lamentably uninterested in such topics’ (Harvey 2017, p. 234). He applauds the humanist features of anarchism and their opposition to ‘the scientism that dominates the Althusserian and scientific communistic traditions’ (Harvey 2017, p. 238). Whilst Harvey is sympathetic to many of the aspirations of anarchism ultimately, he is very critical of its blind spots. He states there is no body of theory within anarchist writings other than its valorisation of personal freedom. For Harvey, the pursuit of freedom has meant that anarchism is ill equipped to formulate ways to address the inequities wrought by the commodification processes that are features of capitalism. For Harvey, anarchist writing on organisational structures may appear plausible, but it is difficult to see how such arrangements could operate at a citywide or national level.

Harvey also sees this individualised perspective that is a feature of anarchist writing as insufficient for developing a broader analysis for reform. As he writes ‘everyday life problems from the perspective of the individual or the local neighbourhood look quite different from the everyday life in the city as a whole’ (Harvey 2017, p. 240). Harvey also argued that anarchists have a disdain for organised power structures and a simplistic view of how the State operates. He complained that the anarchist position fails to press home the necessary mobilisation required for a fundamental configuration of power structures. In short, there is a reluctance by anarchists to ‘stretch the vision of political activism from local to far broader geographical scales at which planning of major infrastructures and the management of environmental conditions and long-distance trade relations become a collective responsibility for millions of people’ (Harvey 2017, p. 42). Harvey argues that the ambiguous relation to power and the state is due to anarchists being too rooted in the concept of the free individual and in their advocacy of decentralisation as ‘if it is an unalloyed good’ (p.244). Harvey felt that there was an unwillingness to look at the contradictions and consequences or show how it can deliver a rational ecological society (p.245).

Harvey also felt that anarchist view of the State fails to take account of its contradictions or the productive role it can play in establishing essential infrastructure in complex societies. He argues that the a priori commitment to horizontal or flat structures which is a feature of all anarchist writing are not always appropriate and the dogmatic attachment to horizontal structures can be seen as a failure to take account of empirical circumstances.

One might recognise some of Harvey’s concerns regarding anarchist practice but not his criticism regarding geographical scale as this is a challenge that arises for all modes of organisational arrangement, not only anarchism. One might also wish to add some further observations on Ward’s housing analysis. A recurring feature of Ward’s writing on housing was his anxiety about technocratic forms of power and its impact on individuals. This anxiety can probably be sourced to Ward’s misgivings about bureaucratic forms of governance, but it seems there is a romanticised view of the capacity of individuals to work in small groups to overcome problems and achieve significant change. The experience of small-scale anticipation may well be enhancing for individuals but that should not necessarily lead one into thinking that the outcomes that follow are long term or significant. In the case of the housing crisis, the scale of intervention requires a strategic governmental response that Ward was not really willing to contemplate. Ward saw little purpose in this form of forward thinking. Yet when one considers the formation of the post-war welfare state it is evident that theoretical arguments, activism and voting were instrumental. As Jose Harris (2000, p. 26) has argued, during the 1930s ‘many labour writings of the period cut deep into the problems of poverty and inequality’ so for example G.D.H. Cole went so far as to predict that instead of ‘the centralising and bureaucratic tendency’ of government in Britain, there would in future be ‘democratic self-government of neighbours street by street … with a constant and real contact between the members of the neighbourhood and those who represent it upon the larger civic authority’ (Cole, 1943, p. 4, 11 & 27 cited by Harris 2000, p. 28).

A second observation is that Ward’s version of localism overlooks some of the specific problems that can arise when allocating housing resources. Amongst the positive features of bureaucracy are the efforts expended by officials on trying to ensure that everyone is treated fairly, regardless of their social connections to those with authority for decision-making. In the case of housing, an impersonal bureaucratic allocation system seems a more just and certainly a far more transparent way to determine priority for housing. An alternative system might cede too much power to individuals to make decisions that are not accountable.

Third, it can be noted that Ward, along with many other anarchist writers, seems to be more critical of what the State is deemed to represent rather than attentive to the very complex range of services provided. This ‘representative’ view of the state was informed by Kropotkin’s view that ‘the absorption of all social functions by the State necessarily favoured the development of an unbridled, narrow-minded individualism. In proportion, as the obligations towards the State grew in numbers, the citizens were evidently relieved from their obligations towards each other’ (Kropotkin 1902 [2011]). As a generalisation, Kropotkin’s depiction does not concur with empirical evidence. Provision in welfare services such as housing and health does not necessarily lead to individualism. On the contrary, it could be argued that institutions that deliver state funded welfare provision have fostered reciprocity and mutual support. The NHS is the most obvious example but for a time public housing fulfilled this role (see Merritt 1979; Harloe 1995). Ward and other anarchists failed to acknowledge the potential of welfare services to advance social cohesion or take full account of the problematic outcomes when provision is withdrawn.

Ward’s writings also convey a rather one sided and romanticised view of public housing tenants. His demand that budgetary control should be ceded to tenants led him overlook some of the substantive challenges that might ensue. For example, the risk of nativism i.e. the problematic allocation policies that might advantage long standing residents over newcomers such as migrants and refugees. Ward however felt that progressive arguments would trump nativist prejudice but there is no evidence he offers to back this claim.

Like many anarchists, Ward was confident that even debates on emotive topics could be transformative and eventuate in greater understanding. This may appear plausible, but it could also be said that greater understanding may take a long time to eventuate, so the question then becomes what does one do in the interim to manage these conflicts? There is a component of Ward’s political outlook that was formed a priori rather than after the deliberation of empirical evidence. For Ward, it was always a case of repair or working through problems, but this assumes that all problems are amenable to dialogue and some resolution¹². There seems no attempt to dwell on the possibility that dialogue may not lead to a resolution.

Ward’s idea of individual freedom, whilst having appeal, is too reliant on a narrow conception of what individuality entails and how it is constituted. The individual is never autonomous in any practical sense because any life is always enacted in relation with others and the world inhabited. No individual ever lives as an autonomous subject, rather, it is both boundedness and connections that are formed with others which constitute the conditions and possibilities to flourish¹³.

Conclusion

In her biography of Colin Ward, Scott-Brown (2022, p. 245–246) provides a summary of the type of anarchism Ward and his fellow travellers were advocating for. ‘They promote’ she writes, ‘the idea of a fissiparous society, continually re-inventing itself to its changing needs. As a pattern of life, they argue, this aligns with natural tendencies observable in all complex eco-systems. As a theory of organisation, it offers the only sensible design to accommodate the complexity of modern societies. Whether the emphasis falls on syndicates, guilds, co-operatives or communities as the key social units for realising this flexible design, the principles for it, dynamism and dispersion, remain constant.’

Ward’s, version of anarchism does not offer any template for living which one should somehow aspire to. The appeal of Ward’s version rest on his recognition that there is no point in the future where it might be possible to reconcile the desire for individual autonomy and greater social equality. Aspirations for equality and liberty will endure whatever system is in place and so politics will always be a deliberative practice of claims, counter- claims and negotiation. Ward saw sociality as an arena for experimentation and adjustment and so warned against the temptation to believe that governments are capable of settling political issues. There is no possibility of actualising a future society in which problems are resolved and completing claims reconciled. Hence Ward’s interest in DIY repair, building projects, experimentation, sociality, cooperation, and collective forms of politics that coalesced outside the boundaries of State provision. Ward understood that all political arrangements, at least in some ways, will fail to deliver outcomes that fulfil initial expectations, but this should not deter us from seeking ways to work through the difficulties that will arise when seeking to fashion new power and social relations.

It for these reasons that Ward’s writings provide a valuable resource when considering contemporary housing challenges and some of his suggestions for devolving budgets and administration remain especially relevant. This noted, there is insufficient attention paid to the problematic issues that arise when individual autonomy is framed as the absence of constraint and professional expertise is discarded. Ward insistence on viewing the State as the primary problem meant that he often overlooked the way that inequalities operate as a main driving force shaping the housing system. For these reasons, Ward’s housing solutions are not easily applicable to large-scale challenges that operate at city, regional and national levels but that does not mean that we should desist from trying.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors and referees for Housing Studies as well as Jeff Malpas, Anna Yeatman and Virginia Watson for their comments on an earlier version of the article.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Keith Jacobs

Keith Jacobs is an emeritus professor based in the school of social sciences at the University of Tasmania. His current research interests include social theory and intellectual history.

Notes

1 Here my arguments share some similarity with the claims made by Fitzpatrick et al (2020) in their critique of localist interventions to address the problem of UK homelessness. They contend that localist housing policies only have a minimal impact unless properly funded by central government and often do little to address the sense of marginalisation felt by many disadvantaged tenants.

2 His influence might have been even greater had Ward overcome his reluctance to accept invitations to speak overseas (see Krznaric 2011:35).

3 Ward’s views share a similarity with Rosa Luxemburg’s critique of the Bolshevik revolution. Luxemburg denounced Lenin’s view that once the revolution had occurred, the new government must suppress all forms of protest.

4 See for example Cynthia Cockburn et al’s (1979) discussion document titled ‘In and Against the State’ published under the auspices of a group known as the London Edinburgh Weekend Return Group. The document provides a radical critique of 1970s welfare provision in the UK.

5 Michael Young founded the Consumers Association and the Institute of Community Studies - to study the impact of welfare state policies on disadvantaged communities (see Ackers and Reid 2016: 15).

6 There were exceptions see Griffith, J. (2012) (eds) Socialism in a Cold Climate published in 1981.

7 Whilst there was evidence of working men’s clubs and mutual societies, it is evident that they were insufficient as agencies to address large scale poverty. The substantive improvement in health, education and housing outcomes were achieved following the creation of the welfare state after the Second World War.

8 See Yeatman (1998) for a quite different formulation of the State to that put forward by Ward.

9 I am thinking here of the Christiana neighbourhood in Copenhagen. Initially squatters took steps to resist gentrification and commodification practices but over time they efforts proved unsuccessful (see Amouroux 2009).

10 One can note too how mutuality and self-help housing was promoted by neoliberal think tanks and development agencies such as the World Bank during the 1980s and 1990s. It is evident these agencies perceived this mode of mutuality as unproblematic because it could never impact upon the underlying social relations that capitalism relies upon (see Bower (2016) for an interesting discussion of this issue).

11 During the research for this article, it became very clear that writing on anarchism is either extremely critical (e.g. David Harvey) or largely a one-sided endorsement of its practices.

12 A similar criticism can be made of Habermas’ (1987) notion of communicative action. Habermas, like Ward, assumes that some resolution can be actualised.

13 Rousseau’s conception of the ‘General Will’ as set out in the Social Contract is premised on this positive view of freedom.