The anarchist and the technocrat: Herbert Read, C.P. Snow, and the future of Britain

A conceptual revision occurred at the heart of anarchist theory between the end of the nineteenth and the mid-twentieth century. As anarchist thinkers grappled with a state transformed beyond recognition by technological change, they reassessed their critique of state power and the rhetorical methods used to expose its inherent violence. Where nineteenth-century anarchists favoured organic metaphors to emphasise the monstrosity of the state, twentieth-century anarchists tended to adopt a set of mechanical metaphors. This change focused attention on the idea of technocracy, and informed a more comprehensive assessment of the state’s activities. This paper analyses this innovation in anarchist political thought, before tracing it through to Herbert Read’s critical appraisal of C.P. Snow’s influential lecture ‘The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution’, and Snow’s response to Read. Their debate was a contest for Britain’s future, in which Read challenged Snow’s argument that the pursuit of technological and political modernisation was essential to maintain the nation’s international role, and address the social and economic challenges of the mid-century. Drawing on his anarchism, Read saw such ideas as an existential threat, with the unthinking promotion of a technological ‘revolution’ imperilling ‘the tender shoots of all that is human’. Contextualising Read in his anarchist intellectual milieu, this article recovers a neglected voice in British intellectual and cultural history; the complexities of an overlooked political tradition; and a radical vision of Britain’s future that questioned the dominant assumptions of the age.