In an interview on the Leaderless Revolution

Let’s move onto Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s The Proper Study of Mankind.

I started reading him in my twenties when I lived in Germany, in a very boring little town called Bonn. The British embassy used to be there when it was Germany's capital, and so you could devote a lot of time to reading things like Isaiah Berlin. His writing is just extraordinary.

He didn't really write books, he wrote essays. There are two particular essays – “The Hedgehog and the Fox” and “Two Concepts of Liberty” – which were really formative in developing my political thought. “The Hedgehog and the Fox” in particular was very interesting to me because of its analysis of political thought in Tolstoy. I ultimately came to a conclusion (this will sound very arrogant indeed) that Berlin missed the big picture of Tolstoy's writing, which is that Tolstoy believed, and this is evident in War and Peace, that it's not great men or governments who make history but the actions of ordinary people. One begins to understand that Tolstoy was in fact an anarchist, that this is what Tolstoy believed in. He believed in the theory of ordinary people making history. “The Fox and the Hedgehog” is not about that, it's about other, more mystical aspects of Tolstoy's thought, but it is nonetheless a sublimely good piece of writing, as is “Two Concepts of Liberty”.

While it seems inarguably true that traditional democratic governance is often corrupt and always imperfect, do you advocate leaderless governance? If so, why do you think anarchy is a better system?

I think people need to act on their own convictions to address their political concerns, and by definition that is a leaderless activity. If they look to leaders to define the agenda then it's not going to happen. People need to look to themselves, and the great beauty of that is people releasing themselves from the framework of leadership and of leaders giving people permission to act. The actions of the many upon their convictions have far greater potential for real change than the actions of any small group or government.

All the great changes in human history – from the emancipation of women to civil rights – came about because of the actions of groups of people. In the 21st century we are tremendously more connected to other people globally than we were before. The potential for triggering sweeping political change from the actions of just a few people is extraordinary, which is one reason why I think the Occupy movement is very, very interesting.