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Post by Admin on Jul 26, 2020 14:03:12 GMT
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_anarchismContemporary anarchism, in the history of anarchism, is the period of the anarchist movement continuing from the end of the Second World War and into the present. Since the last third of the 20th century, anarchists have been involved in student protest movements, peace movements, squatter movements, and the anti-globalization movement, among others. Anarchists have participated in violent revolutions (such as in Revolutionary Catalonia and the Free Territory) and anarchist political organizations (such as IWA-AIT or the IWW) exist since the 19th century.
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Post by Admin on Jul 26, 2020 14:48:11 GMT
The Structural-Anarchism Manifesto: (The Logic of Structural-Anarchism Versus The Logic of Capitalism) by Dr. Michel Luc Bellemare Ph.d. (Author) This book outlines a new form of anarchism, i.e., structural-anarchism, which advocates for a series of micro-revolutions, designed to install an anarchist federation/patchwork of municipalities, cooperatives, and autonomous-collectives, devoid of capitalism and devoid of any federal state-apparatus. Specifically, structural-anarchism is a form of anarchist-communism. It is communism from below, rather than, the Marxist notion of communism from above, i.e., authoritarian-communism. Furthermore, this book explores the complications and the complexities of the basic fact that we are increasingly living within the confines of a disciplinary surveillance society, where privacy is really based on an individual’s ability to expose the surveillance mechanisms monitoring his or her private life. The assumption is that surveillance and discipline are now total and that most surveillance and disciplinary mechanisms never attain the light of public knowledge and scrutiny. As a society, western democracies have moved beyond democracy into a new socio-economic formation, the framework of the soft-totalitarian-state, i.e., bourgeois-totalitarianism. Michel Luc Bellemare Ph.d. trentu.academia.edu/MichelLucBellemare
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Post by Admin on Aug 8, 2020 19:45:59 GMT
Individualist anarchism en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualist_anarchismIndividualist anarchism is the branch of anarchism that emphasize the individual and their will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions and ideological systems.[1][2] Although usually contrasted to social anarchism, both individualist and social anarchism have influenced each other. Mutualism, an economic theory particularly influential within individualist anarchism whose pursued liberty has been called the synthesis of communism and property,[3] has been considered sometimes part of individualist anarchism[4][5][6] and other times part of social anarchism.[7][8] Many anarcho-communists regard themselves as radical individualists,[9] seeing anarcho-communism as the best social system for the realization of individual freedom.[10] As a term, individualist anarchism is not a single philosophy, but it refers to a group of individualist philosophies that sometimes are in conflict. Among the early influences on individualist anarchism were William Godwin (philosophical anarchism),[11] Josiah Warren (sovereignty of the individual), Max Stirner (egoism),[12] Lysander Spooner (natural law), Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (mutualism), Henry David Thoreau (transcendentalism),[13] Herbert Spencer (law of equal liberty)[14] and Anselme Bellegarrigue (civil disobedience).[15] From there, individualist anarchism expanded through Europe and the United States, where prominent 19th-century individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker held that "if the individual has the right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny".[16] Individualist anarchism has been described as the anarchist school most influenced by and tied to liberalism (especially classical liberalism) as well as the liberal wing—contra the collectivist or communist wing—of anarchism and libertarian socialism.[17][18][19] Nonetheless, the very idea of an individualist–socialist divide is contested as individualist anarchism is largely socialistic[20][21][22] and can be considered a form of individualist socialism, with non-Lockean individualism encompassing socialism.[23]
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Post by Admin on Aug 18, 2020 14:43:47 GMT
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Post by Admin on Aug 18, 2020 14:46:02 GMT
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Post by Admin on Aug 21, 2020 15:39:31 GMT
Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates and Pirate Utopias (Digital Communication) (A Bradford Book) by Peter Ludlow en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ludlow"A wide-ranging collection of writings on emerging political structures in cyberspace. In Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates, and Pirate Utopias, Peter Ludlow extends the approach he used so successfully in High Noon on the Electronic Frontier, offering a collection of writings that reflects the eclectic nature of the online world, as well as its tremendous energy and creativity. This time the subject is the emergence of governance structures within online communities and the visions of political sovereignty shaping some of those communities. Ludlow views virtual communities as laboratories for conducting experiments in the construction of new societies and governance structures. While many online experiments will fail, Ludlow argues that given the synergy of the online world, new and superior governance structures may emerge. Indeed, utopian visions are not out of place, provided that we understand the new utopias to be fleeting localized "islands in the Net" and not permanent institutions. The book is organized in five sections. The first section considers the sovereignty of the Internet. The second section asks how widespread access to resources such as Pretty Good Privacy and anonymous remailers allows the possibility of "Crypto Anarchy"-essentially carving out space for activities that lie outside the purview of nation states and other traditional powers. The third section shows how the growth of e-commerce is raising questions of legal jurisdiction and taxation for which the geographic boundaries of nation-states are obsolete. The fourth section looks at specific experimental governance structures evolved by online communities. The fifth section considers utopian and anti-utopian visions for cyberspace. Contributors Richard Barbrook, John Perry Barlow, William E. Baugh Jr., David S. Bennahum, Hakim Bey, David Brin, Andy Cameron, Dorothy E. Denning, Mark Dery, Kevin Doyle, Duncan Frissell, Eric Hughes, Karrie Jacobs, David Johnson, Peter Ludlow, Timothy C. May, Jennifer L. Mnookin, Nathan Newman, David G. Post, Jedediah S. Purdy, Charles J. Stivale" Quote from Amazon.
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Post by Admin on Aug 25, 2020 19:53:44 GMT
Anarcho-syndicalism en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalismAnarcho-syndicalism[1] is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence in broader society. The end goal of syndicalism is to abolish the wage system, regarding it as wage slavery. Anarcho-syndicalist theory therefore generally focuses on the labour movement.[2] The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are solidarity, direct action (action undertaken without the intervention of third parties such as politicians, bureaucrats and arbitrators) and direct democracy, or workers' self-management. Anarcho-syndicalists believe their economic theories constitute a strategy for facilitating proletarian self-activity and creating an alternative co-operative economic system with democratic values and production that is centered on meeting human needs. Anarcho-syndicalists view the primary purpose of the state as being the defense of private property in the forms of capital goods and therefore of economic, social and political privilege. In maintaining this status quo, the state denies most of its citizens the ability to enjoy material independence and the social autonomy that springs from it.[3] Reflecting the anarchist philosophy from which it draws its primary inspiration, anarcho-syndicalism is centered on the idea that power corrupts and that any hierarchy that cannot be ethically justified must either be dismantled or replaced by decentralized egalitarian control.[3] www.solfed.org.uk/brighton/what-is-anarcho-syndicalismOrigins and ideas of anarcho-syndicalism Anarcho-syndicalism is a distinct school of thought within anarchism. It seeks to abolish the wage system and private ownership of the means of production which lead to the class divisions in society. The three important principles of anarcho-syndicalism are solidarity, direct action and workers' self-management. It focuses on the labour movement more than other forms of anarchism and looks to unions as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the State with a new democratically self-managed society. The origins of anarcho-syndicalism can be traced back to the First International, also known as the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), formed in 1864. The First International was a socialist organisation which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing political groups and trade unions that were based on the working class and class struggle. Anarcho-syndicalism was a development of the social aspirations most strongly held by the libertarian or anarchist wing. After the demise of the International and the period of repression following the defeat of the Paris Commune, there was a move by some anarchists towards propaganda by deed to bring about change. At the same time the Marxist political parties settled into a crude determinism that saw them simply waiting for capitalism to collapse under the weight of its own internal contradictions. Many anarchists though saw the futility of individual action that had alienated them from the working class and sought to re-enter and influence a re-emerging labour movement. These syndicalists were industrial activists, ordinary workers concerned with the day-to-day problems that confronted them. Syndicalism was not the creation of one particular writer, or group of writers, rather it was the name given to the practice of a group of social movements that emerged, in many parts of the world, between the 1890s and the 1920s. All of these movements, “revolutionary syndicalist”, “anarcho-syndicalist” or “industrial unionist”, had a common aim, the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism based on economic organisation and using direct, as opposed to political i.e. electoral action. They sought to establish a new social order, free from economic and political oppression. This, they believed, would only be achieved by action from below, so they discarded notions of capturing state power through parliamentary or revolutionary means. They rejected the idea of “theorising” as an abstract exercise. They did however develop a theory of syndicalism in another way, which was through the experience and practice of the workers under capitalism. This was an important aspect of syndicalist thought. The workers through their own experiences saw the true nature of capitalist society; that it is divided into two naturally antagonistic camps constituting class struggle. Syndicalists believed that any over-lapping between the classes must be prevented; that the working class must become sufficient unto itself. This characteristic has been called “ouvrierism” – coming from the French word for “workers”, which can be described as the rejection of intervention by ‘outside experts' and parliamentary intermediaries within the socialist struggle, and an exclusive reliance on mass working class experience and action. This is why the syndicalists saw the revolutionary union as the form of organisation to achieve change. The union should be, unlike the political party, wholly working class in character. It unites workers in their very quality as workers. Syndicalists took literally the slogan of the First International; “the emancipation of the workers must be the task of the workers themselves” and seeing, in the strike, the means to do this. Every strike, whether successful or not, was seen to increase the hostility between the classes and so stimulate further conflict. Strikes encourage feelings of solidarity and are a training ground for further struggles. The climax would be, after a long series of strikes growing in breadth and intensity, the revolutionary ‘general strike'. The anarcho-syndicalists also saw the need to combine the political and the economic struggle into one. They rejected pure economic organisation and insisted that the revolutionary union should have a clear political goal, the overthrow of capitalism and the state. The anarcho-syndicalists saw themselves as presenting a consistent programme of action. The strike, the natural form of conflict, was also the form of revolution. The union, the natural formation for battle in the class struggle, was also the core of the new society. Every strike was a step on the way to the final conflict; while the class war is waged, the future is being created. Anarchists realised they could not wait for the workers to come to them but had to go out into the labour movement themselves and take an active part in unions and in their affairs and participate in all strikes and agitations. www.solfed.org.uk/solfed/a-short-history-of-british-anarcho-syndicalism
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Post by Admin on Aug 27, 2020 20:35:20 GMT
Mass Anarchism: A Political Strategy of Alt-Right Circumvention Derek Wittorff | August 18th, 2020 c4ss.org/content/53318Popular movements, focusing on anti-police community self-defense, may be the best way to effectively circumvent the influence that alt-right fake news sites are continuing to have on society now and in the long-run. In contrast to single-issue protest campaigns, a broad movement towards community self-defense would avoid key pitfalls in the struggle for the support of the masses, namely by taking important rhetorical ammunition out from the hands of the alt-right. Many of the alt-right’s core figures (Richard Spencer, Alex Jones, Milo Yuannopolous, Matthew Heimbach, etc.) might have been deplatformed from major private websites like FB, YouTube, etc. in the last couple years, but their fake news sources are still operating. Before they were using records of counter-protesters to fuel their “anti-antifa” campaign with marginal success, influencing the gullible and misguided. Now, they’re trying to use recorded information from the recent BLM anti-police and community self-defense movements but they’re having less success, arguably because of the movement’s intersectional mass appeal. If the uprising becomes too focused on a single issue — such as antiracism, however, the alt-right could benefit from leftists centering their cause to single-issue campaigns. Antifascism, for instance, has the problem of appealing only to those with a very specific political identity. The alt-right depends on this politicizing of the issues because their audience doesn’t really care about facts and having the left address them alone, toe-to-toe, and on their terms, ultimately gives them the advantage. Intersectional and multi-issue campaigns have the virtue of uniting the masses against a common problem and performatively demonstrating the contradictions of the alt-right’s ideology and mode of reasoning. Mass movements inform the people that they’ve been fooled by these alt-right fake news outlets because they inform the people about the general contradictions of society. Taking issue with the conditions produced by the current system, particularly without limiting them to their extent under the reign of Trump, has the benefit of not making it a fight about the current alt-right alone. As a strategy, this gives them a platform by assuming some kind of equality in terms of political legitimacy. Even cancel-culture (while being perfectly okay morally, because it’s important to call-out and challenge alt-right narratives built on lies), is nonetheless a stop-gap measure like most single-issue campaigns, compared to those broadly intersectional multi-issue campaigns that unify the masses. The latter also refines the threat assessment of the masses in the direction of the state which has the most politically oppressive authority acting on the largest number of people. It’s important to understand the alt-right’s cultural reproduction strategy depends on singling out a particular political or social identity and then subjecting them to their own self-projections, which most logical forms of reason would determine to be counter-intuitive if not outright bigoted. The alt-right claims anti-fascists are fascists because they are fascists. They claim BLM is racist because they are racist. They bash cancel culture, despite being founded and gaining prominence by calling-out the left. They claim leftists are sensitive snowflakes who need a safe space, yet they often become outraged and complain when they’re called out — even calling and depending on police to create a safe space when anti-fascists assemble to counter-protest their marches and rallies. In other words the alt-right’s disinformation/misinformation campaigns depend on singling out an identity, value, or belief and forcing rivaling political tendencies to meet them on their ground and respond. Their strategic model is exemplified in another way by the cultural pipelines utilized by the alt-right. Rather than informing libertarians of the errors in their reasoning and logic as leftists have often tried, the alt-right tends to play into and cultivate their prejudices by facilitating and validating them. If alt-right news sources aren’t manufacturing outright lies, they have a knack for cherry-picking and presenting certain facts and data in ways that navigate around the truth. This strategy has influenced libertarians to think like the alt-right, attracting many in the alt-right into their movement — assuming they haven’t come to explicitly self-identify as alt-right. This strategy is applied towards the general public too, so much so that we even see liberals (albeit politicians like Joe Biden instead of average working class folks) mirror calls for prosecuting anarchists who have the freedom of belief under the first amendment. BLM started having a greater impact in the spring when its direction became focused on the cause of community self-defense and abolishing the police, which has the broad, intersectional, and multi-issue appeal of being anti-state, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-police militarization, anti-police brutality, anti-mass incarceration, etc. position. It has the virtue of targeting and undermining the particular leading cause of black murders in the US and it succeeded in bringing about mass protests. This doesn’t mean BLM shouldn’t focus on all the other dimensions and instances of racism as a general structure of oppression, or that anti-racism and anti-fascism aren’t about calling-out and challenging bigotted narratives, but those strategies alone, 1) aren’t necessarily convincing for those who are negligent or dismissive of the facts because they attempt to stand on even ground with those figures who don’t actually use facts, and 2) forget that broad mass unified movements drown out the alt-right’s bullshit with constructive projects and targeted goals. This means we don’t have to give them the time of day, which undermines a platform they might have used. And it also raises subjects that cause the masses to question and critically analyze the narratives and political agendas set out by the alt-right and thereby raise their consciousness. Call-outs, antifascist counter-protesters, etc. are all well and good but it’s a stop-gap measure that keeps the left and right effectively locked into this subcultural pissing contest because the alt-right can always play victim and rally people around their victimization when such mass movements aren’t in play. We stop the alt-right by taking on broadly intersectional multi-issue campaigns that pull the people away from their manipulative and hateful distractions. It’s when BLM focused the cause on defunding the police that it had the most effect because it had a broad appeal that involved the masses in targeting the leading cause of black murders in the US, ie police forces. Similarly, the cause of community-self defense is having the effect of uniting masses against rogue street fascists and the political machinery of the state which fascists want to further appropriate. For example, contrary to what the alt-right may want people to believe, political identity is the least stable identity they’re attempting to oppress and yet leftists currently seem to be the primary targets. This is because leftists stand in the way of their domination and oppression of those on the more general basis of race, class gender, sexual identity, etc. They peddle false caricatures of their political agenda, ideology, and personal character. The more leftists directly target them, the more we subject ourselves to their self-victimization strategy. The alt-right — now more than before — needs direct antifascist opposition as fodder to produce and distribute their propaganda. The cause of community policing can serve the same purpose of protecting the left from the alt-right while producing the social infrastructure to protect the masses from the state. Don’t get me wrong, if the alt-right starts building the momentum that resulted in the kind of national protests that went on between 2017-2018 (anti-antifa, anti-sharia law, unite the right, etc.) then anti-fascists would have reason to focus direct action there, once again, but in the current situation, more broad community self-defense measures would have a greater impact against the movement by disempowering the prized goal of the alt-right: state machinery.
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Post by Admin on Aug 31, 2020 17:20:58 GMT
The Masque of Anarchy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masque_of_Anarchy"Stand ye calm and resolute, Like a forest close and mute, With folded arms and looks which are Weapons of unvanquished war. And if then the tyrants dare, Let them ride among you there; Slash, and stab, and maim and hew; What they like, that let them do. With folded arms and steady eyes, And little fear, and less surprise, Look upon them as they slay, Till their rage has died away: Then they will return with shame, To the place from which they came, And the blood thus shed will speak In hot blushes on their cheek: Rise, like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number! Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you: Ye are many—they are few!"[
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Post by Admin on Sept 3, 2020 10:57:23 GMT
Description Mutual Exchange Symposium: Anarchy and Democracy store.c4ss.org/index.php/product/anarchy-democracy/Organized by Cory Massimino Introduction Mutual Exchange is the Center for a Stateless Society’s effort to achieve mutual understanding through dialogue. Following one of the most divisive Presidential elections in recent U.S. American history and a dangerous victor’s contested ascension to power, the political climate is one of intense ideological strife and disagreement. There is no better time to refocus at least some of our efforts on respectful and mutually beneficial discourse. Periodically delving into the weeds of complex theoretical topics to collaboratively experiment with ideas is not only necessary for individual and collective intellectual progress, but is part and parcel of anarchist praxis itself. “Fighting over the definitions of words can sometimes seem like a futile and irrelevant undertaking. However, it’s important to note that whatever language gets standardized in our communities shapes what we can talk and think about,” says William Gillis in his lead essay of our June symposium. Indeed, rather than pointless “infighting” and social posturing, the Center for a Stateless Society hopes to create a platform for free expression that benefits authors and readers alike by productively clarifying our values and principles. Whether or not any sort of resolution, consensus, or agreement results from our ensuing dialogue is, perhaps ironically, not the point. Ten anarchist authors have chosen to participate in an in-depth examination of the idea of “democracy” and how it relates to anarchy. I hope they are able to develop, advance, and popularize their individual ideas, but also set a standard for productive, yet diverse debate that is sorely needed right now. Combining the Greek words demos (“common people”) and kratos (“strength”), democracy means “rule of the commoners.” The philosophical and political debates surrounding democracy extend back 2500 years to Ancient Athens. For much of recent history, many people consider democracy to be a cherished value to protect and spread across the globe, while many others see it as a privilege they hope to someday enjoy. Even others, from all over the political spectrum, see democracy as an enemy to be squashed. This C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium will explore what anarchists have to say about democracy. What is the historical relationship between democracy and anarchy? Is democracy always entwined with the state? What should anarchists think of democratic government? What are truly democratic values and how do they relate to anarchist values? How does democracy relate to market exchange and social organization? How should those interested in social change view democracy? How do causes like feminism, anti-racism, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, and anti-capitalism relate to democracy? It is no secret that a President Trump is reigniting debates surrounding democracy and democratic values among many commentators. What will a Trump presidency mean for democracy around the world and how should anarchists react? Moving forward in the 21st century it is imperative that we get to the roots of these nuanced debates so that we are better prepared to build the new world in the shell of the old, while also staying afloat in the stormy seas of authoritarianism, political violence, turbulent geopolitical alliances, and genocide. The June C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium features the Center’s own William Gillis, Kevin Carson, Nathan Goodman, and Grayson English in addition to Shawn Wilbur, Wayne Price, Alexander Reid Ross, Jesse Baldwin, Derek Wittorff, and Jessica Flanagan. Every day this month the Center will publish another entry in our ongoing conversation from one of the ten authors fleshing out their thoughts regarding the above questions and issues. Some essays will remain stand-alone contributions while others will provide back-and-forth commentary between multiple authors. I look forward to seeing these prolific and nuanced writers hash out all their points of disagreement as well as agreement and hope you stay with the Center throughout the entire month to gain both theoretical and practical insights from our symposium.
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Post by Admin on Sept 3, 2020 19:37:36 GMT
David Graeber: In Memoriam theslowburningfuse.wordpress.com/2020/09/03/david-graeber-in-memoriam/David Graeber Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You! Chances are you have already heard something about who anarchists are and what they are supposed to believe. Chances are almost everything you have heard is nonsense. Many people seem to think that anarchists are proponents of violence, chaos, and destruction, that they are against all forms of order and organization, or that they are crazed nihilists who just want to blow everything up. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. It is really a very simple notion. But it’s one that the rich and powerful have always found extremely dangerous. At their very simplest, anarchist beliefs turn on to two elementary assumptions. The first is that human beings are, under ordinary circumstances, about as reasonable and decent as they are allowed to be, and can organize themselves and their communities without needing to be told how. The second is that power corrupts. Most of all, anarchism is just a matter of having the courage to take the simple principles of common decency that we all live by, and to follow them through to their logical conclusions. Odd though this may seem, in most important ways you are probably already an anarchist — you just don’t realize it. Let’s start by taking a few examples from everyday life. If there’s a line to get on a crowded bus, do you wait your turn and refrain from elbowing your way past others even in the absence of police? If you answered “yes”, then you are used to acting like an anarchist! The most basic anarchist principle is self-organization: the assumption that human beings do not need to be threatened with prosecution in order to be able to come to reasonable understandings with each other, or to treat each other with dignity and respect. Everyone believes they are capable of behaving reasonably themselves. If they think laws and police are necessary, it is only because they don’t believe that other people are. But if you think about it, don’t those people all feel exactly the same way about you? Anarchists argue that almost all the anti-social behavior which makes us think it’s necessary to have armies, police, prisons, and governments to control our lives, is actually caused by the systematic inequalities and injustice those armies, police, prisons and governments make possible. It’s all a vicious circle. If people are used to being treated like their opinions do not matter, they are likely to become angry and cynical, even violent — which of course makes it easy for those in power to say that their opinions do not matter. Once they understand that their opinions really do matter just as much as anyone else’s, they tend to become remarkably understanding. To cut a long story short: anarchists believe that for the most part it is power itself, and the effects of power, that make people stupid and irresponsible. Are you a member of a club or sports team or any other voluntary organization where decisions are not imposed by one leader but made on the basis of general consent? If you answered “yes”, then you belong to an organization which works on anarchist principles! Another basic anarchist principle is voluntary association. This is simply a matter of applying democratic principles to ordinary life. The only difference is that anarchists believe it should be possible to have a society in which everything could be organized along these lines, all groups based on the free consent of their members, and therefore, that all top-down, military styles of organization like armies or bureaucracies or large corporations, based on chains of command, would no longer be necessary. Perhaps you don’t believe that would be possible. Perhaps you do. But every time you reach an agreement by consensus, rather than threats, every time you make a voluntary arrangement with another person, come to an understanding, or reach a compromise by taking due consideration of the other person’s particular situation or needs, you are being an anarchist — even if you don’t realize it. Anarchism is just the way people act when they are free to do as they choose, and when they deal with others who are equally free — and therefore aware of the responsibility to others that entails. This leads to another crucial point: that while people can be reasonable and considerate when they are dealing with equals, human nature is such that they cannot be trusted to do so when given power over others. Give someone such power, they will almost invariably abuse it in some way or another. Do you believe that most politicians are selfish, egotistical swine who don’t really care about the public interest? Do you think we live in an economic system which is stupid and unfair? If you answered “yes”, then you subscribe to the anarchist critique of today’s society — at least, in its broadest outlines. Anarchists believe that power corrupts and those who spend their entire lives seeking power are the very last people who should have it. Anarchists believe that our present economic system is more likely to reward people for selfish and unscrupulous behavior than for being decent, caring human beings. Most people feel that way. The only difference is that most people don’t think there’s anything that can be done about it, or anyway — and this is what the faithful servants of the powerful are always most likely to insist — anything that won’t end up making things even worse. But what if that weren’t true? And is there really any reason to believe this? When you can actually test them, most of the usual predictions about what would happen without states or capitalism turn out to be entirely untrue. For thousands of years people lived without governments. In many parts of the world people live outside of the control of governments today. They do not all kill each other. Mostly they just get on about their lives the same as anyone else would. Of course, in a complex, urban, technological society all this would be more complicated: but technology can also make all these problems a lot easier to solve. In fact, we have not even begun to think about what our lives could be like if technology were really marshaled to fit human needs. How many hours would we really need to work in order to maintain a functional society — that is, if we got rid of all the useless or destructive occupations like telemarketers, lawyers, prison guards, financial analysts, public relations experts, bureaucrats and politicians, and turn our best scientific minds away from working on space weaponry or stock market systems to mechanizing away dangerous or annoying tasks like coal mining or cleaning the bathroom, and distribute the remaining work among everyone equally? Five hours a day? Four? Three? Two? Nobody knows because no one is even asking this kind of question. Anarchists think these are the very questions we should be asking. Do you really believe those things you tell your children (or that your parents told you)? “It doesn’t matter who started it.” “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” “Clean up your own mess.” “Do unto others…” “Don’t be mean to people just because they’re different.” Perhaps we should decide whether we’re lying to our children when we tell them about right and wrong, or whether we’re willing to take our own injunctions seriously. Because if you take these moral principles to their logical conclusions, you arrive at anarchism. Take the principle that two wrongs don’t make a right. If you really took it seriously, that alone would knock away almost the entire basis for war and the criminal justice system. The same goes for sharing: we’re always telling children that they have to learn to share, to be considerate of each other’s needs, to help each other; then we go off into the real world where we assume that everyone is naturally selfish and competitive. But an anarchist would point out: in fact, what we say to our children is right. Pretty much every great worthwhile achievement in human history, every discovery or accomplishment that’s improved our lives, has been based on cooperation and mutual aid; even now, most of us spend more of our money on our friends and families than on ourselves; while likely as not there will always be competitive people in the world, there’s no reason why society has to be based on encouraging such behavior, let alone making people compete over the basic necessities of life. That only serves the interests of people in power, who want us to live in fear of one another. That’s why anarchists call for a society based not only on free association but mutual aid. The fact is that most children grow up believing in anarchist morality, and then gradually have to realize that the adult world doesn’t really work that way. That’s why so many become rebellious, or alienated, even suicidal as adolescents, and finally, resigned and bitter as adults; their only solace, often, being the ability to raise children of their own and pretend to them that the world is fair. But what if we really could start to build a world which really was at least founded on principles of justice? Wouldn’t that be the greatest gift to one’s children one could possibly give? Do you believe that human beings are fundamentally corrupt and evil, or that certain sorts of people (women, people of color, ordinary folk who are not rich or highly educated) are inferior specimens, destined to be ruled by their betters? If you answered “yes”, then, well, it looks like you aren’t an anarchist after all. But if you answered “no”, then chances are you already subscribe to 90% of anarchist principles, and, likely as not, are living your life largely in accord with them. Every time you treat another human with consideration and respect, you are being an anarchist. Every time you work out your differences with others by coming to reasonable compromise, listening to what everyone has to say rather than letting one person decide for everyone else, you are being an anarchist. Every time you have the opportunity to force someone to do something, but decide to appeal to their sense of reason or justice instead, you are being an anarchist. The same goes for every time you share something with a friend, or decide who is going to do the dishes, or do anything at all with an eye to fairness. Now, you might object that all this is well and good as a way for small groups of people to get on with each other, but managing a city, or a country, is an entirely different matter. And of course there is something to this. Even if you decentralize society and put as much power as possible in the hands of small communities, there will still be plenty of things that need to be coordinated, from running railroads to deciding on directions for medical research. But just because something is complicated does not mean there is no way to do it democratically. It would just be complicated. In fact, anarchists have all sorts of different ideas and visions about how a complex society might manage itself. To explain them though would go far beyond the scope of a little introductory text like this. Suffice it to say, first of all, that a lot of people have spent a lot of time coming up with models for how a really democratic, healthy society might work; but second, and just as importantly, no anarchist claims to have a perfect blueprint. The last thing we want is to impose prefab models on society anyway. The truth is we probably can’t even imagine half the problems that will come up when we try to create a democratic society; still, we’re confident that, human ingenuity being what it is, such problems can always be solved, so long as it is in the spirit of our basic principles — which are, in the final analysis, simply the principles of fundamental human decency. theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you
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Post by Admin on Sept 5, 2020 16:31:59 GMT
OP-ED CULTURE & MEDIA David Graeber Left Us a Parting Gift — His Thoughts on Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid” truthout.org/articles/david-graeber-left-us-a-parting-gift-his-thoughts-on-kropotkins-mutual-aid/David Graeber was my mentor and my closest friend for the last twenty years. We have participated in dozens of political projects and wrote several things together. He was by far the most brilliant person I have ever met. We all have a good idea or two, but David was always able to come up with many, sometimes in the same sentence. I have no doubt that he was the most significant anarchist thinker of my generation. I have even less doubt that he was one of the most important anthropologists of our time. His first book, Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value, has changed the way we theorize value. Inspired by the work of his late mentor Terry Turner and his lifelong intellectual inspiration, the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss, this book has demonstrated the way beyond substantivist debates and offered a synthesis between Marx and Mauss. His pamphlet-book Fragments of An Anarchist Anthropology, was a pathbreaking and genre-making work that has established anarchist anthropology as a legitimate field of inquiry. In this vein, his books Possibilities, Revolutions in Reverse, and Direct Action: An Ethnography provided young anthropologists with tools to study social movements “from the inside.” As one colleague once remarked about Possibilities, each chapter of this phenomenal book could have been a pathbreaking academic monograph. This book and a couple of other of his major anthropological works were published by an anarchist publisher rather than by an academic press. It is a bitter paradox that the best anthropologist theorist of his generation never felt quite at home in the established anthropology circles. He hated academic conferences with a passion. It wasn’t just because of Yale’s shameful decision to get rid of him because of his political activism; David was a working-class person who detested, with every fiber of his being, any hint of academic elitism, networking, and schmoozing. Much to his personal cost, he rejected these strange sectarian rituals of academic life. He was the most generous friend and colleague one could hope to have, and the most formidable opponent of academic snobbery. After he was fired from Yale, David applied to more than twenty academic jobs in the US. He hasn’t been shortlisted for a single one. But it was impossible to get rid of David Graeber. A few years after he was sent into academic exile in England, in 2011, he published one of the classic works of anthropology, Debt: The First 5,000 Years. The book was an instant classic. We spoke on the phone when he was organizing with Occupy Wall Street in New York. He would use brief moments in between direct actions to write chapters of Debt. His later books Lost People (his doctoral fieldwork on Madagascar), On Kings (with the great Marshall Sahlins), The Democracy Project, The Utopia of Rules, and Bullshit Jobs were superb and original.
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Post by Admin on Sept 8, 2020 13:09:01 GMT
"Despite calling for the prosecution of anarchists as violent criminals, Biden himself has propagated—from a safe distance of course—immense destruction, it’s just that his is within the confines of the law." - Eric Fleischmann Biden and the Demonization of Anarchism Eric Fleischmann | August 25th, 2020 c4ss.org/content/53367This year, in response to nationwide protests against police brutality, President Donald Trump has repeatedly attempted to associate Black Lives Matter with anarchists and anarchism. He has tweeted such threatening posts as just the phrase “Anarchists, we see you!” with a video of a man dressed in black at one protest, and he has referred to protesters in Portland, Oregon as “anarchists who hate our Country” and called for Governor Kate Brown to “clear out, and in some cases arrest, the Anarchists & Agitators in Portland.” It is certainly true that many anarchists—such as myself—have been involved in Black Lives Matter protests, but it is obvious that President Trump is not making an objective ideological observation but rather is attempting to use anarchist as a ‘dirty word’ intended to make protestors out to be terroristic criminals. This is unsurprising coming from a right-wing, authoritarian, corporate capitalist (one might even succinctly say ‘fascist’) who obviously sees anarchism as the antithesis of his vision of the world, but this rhetoric is not confined to Trump and Trumpist Republicans. Recently, in a speech delivered in Wilmington, Delaware, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden employed a similar tactic in the following statement: “I’ve said from the outset of the recent protests that there’s no place for violence or destruction of property. Peaceful protesters should be protected, and arsonists and anarchists should be prosecuted, and local law enforcement can do that.” Foregoing discussions around the conflation of violence with property damage, the truly disturbing element of this statement is the association of arson with anarchism and consequently the latter with violent criminality. As MSNBC’s Chris Hayes tweets, “‘anarchist’ is not some free-floating category of criminal. It’s perfectly legal to be an anarchist, as protected by the first amendment and it’s a gross violation of the spirit of liberty to imply otherwise.” And even a 2010 piece on the FBI website about terroristic violence motivated by “anarchist extremism” prefaces its content with the statement that “Anarchism is a belief that society should have no government, laws, police, or any other authority. Having that belief is perfectly legal, and the majority of anarchists in the U.S. advocate change through non-violent, non-criminal means.” But both the public demonization and literal criminalization of anarchism—and far-left ideologies in general—is nothing new in American history. Consider the famous examples of both Red Scares in which the U.S. Government and American society at large instigated witch hunts against individuals and groups with leftist sympathies. The first of these (as well as its prelude), occurring in the early 20th century, certainly had strong elements of anti-communism—the 1917 Russian Revolution birthed conspiratorial fears of Bolshevik influence in the United States—but it had a particular emphasis on rooting out anarchism. This can be traced in no small part to the 1886 Haymarket Riot— a landmark event in labor history which culminated in the throwing of a bomb at Chicago police officers for which four anarchists were tried and hanged. And there was also of course the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 by Polish-American* self-proclaimed anarchist Leon Czolgosz and about two decades later the infamous case of Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who were executed for alleged murder and armed robbery. But as HISTORY explains, “Czolgosz was only nominally connected to the American anarchist movement—certain groups had even suspected him of being a police spy” and “the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti was regarded by many as unlawfully sensational. Authorities had failed to come up with any evidence of the stolen money, and much of the other evidence against them was later discredited.” But these facts did little to dissuade draconian action against political dissent, such as state legislation in Kansas which made “it felony to display any flag, standard, or banner, of any color or design that is now or may hereafter be designated as the flag, standard, or banner of Bolshevism, anarchy, or radical socialism” and that in Massachusetts which decreed that “[n]o red or black flag, and no banner, ensign, or sign, having upon it any inscription opposed to organized government, or which is sacrilegious, or which may be derogatory to public morals” may be displayed at parades. On a federal level there was the Immigration Act of 1903 (also known as the Anarchist Exclusion Act) which allowed the U.S. government to exclude and deport immigrants associated with anarchism and radical labor movements. And furthermore, there was the Espionage Act of 1917 which, in one section, criminalized dissent (at the time) against American involvement in WW1. Famed anarchist Emma Goldman and IWW icon Eugene Debs were charged under this law, and this same legislation was used much more recently against such figures as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. And this by no means exhausts the litany of legislation in that era targeted against anarchists (and leftists in general). Furthermore, public opinions regarding anarchism in the early 20th century can be excellently illustrated in the cartoons of the time, which generally depict a devious-looking, often-foreign man labeled ‘anarchist’ or ‘anarchism’ with a bomb, knife, or another weapon about to strike at symbols of America or liberty or even civilization wholesale:
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Post by Admin on Sept 8, 2020 17:58:58 GMT
Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach (Routledge Studies in Radical History and Politics) by Nathan Jun (Author), Leonard Williams (Author), Benjamin Franks (Editor)
"Anarchism is by far the least broadly understood ideology and the least studied academically. Though highly influential, both historically and in terms of recent social movements, anarchism is regularly dismissed. Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach is a welcome addition to this growing field, which is widely debated but poorly understood.
Occupying a distinctive position in the study of anarchist ideology, this volume – authored by a handpicked group of established and rising scholars – investigates how anarchists often seek to sharpen their message and struggle to determine what ideas and actions are central to their identity. Moving beyond defining anarchism as simply an ideology or political theory, this book examines the meanings of its key concepts, which have been divided into three categories: Core, Adjacent, and Peripheral concepts. Each chapter focuses on one important concept, shows how anarchists have understood the concept, and highlights its relationships to other concepts.
Although anarchism is often thought of as a political topic, the interdisciplinary nature of Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach makes it of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences, liberal arts, and the humanities."
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Post by Admin on Sept 9, 2020 13:15:59 GMT
A Critical Consideration of Hensley’s Appalachian Anarchism Eric Fleischmann | September 8th, 2020 In his book Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism, Chris Matthew Sciabarra makes the astute observation that “[j]ust as relations of power operate through ethical, psychological, cultural, political, and economic dimensions, so too the struggle for freedom and individualism depends upon a certain constellation of moral, psychological, and cultural factors.” This is something that Dakota Hensley, in his article “Appalachian Anarchism: What the Voting Record Conceals,” seems to implicitly know but not elaborately understand. Hensley makes four general points: there is an existing culture akin to an explicitly ideological (individualist, Christian, agrarian, and even conservative) anarchism in Appalachia, many parts of the region are already exploring a rejection of government, the region is not truly a “conservative hotbed” as the voting record might indicate, and the area has a strong pro-labor history. Although he makes a compelling case for both an existing and emergent quasi-anarchism within the culture and communities of Appalachia, he fails to critically take into account the anti-liberatory impacts of reactionary cultural elements that would hinder an Appalachian-brand anarchism’s evolution into a genuine part of a common struggle for a truly free society. Therefore, I would like to critically consider and elaborate upon both the liberatory and reactionary components of Hensley’s ideas. Hensley begins his piece by presenting five values of Appalachia—“Individualism, community, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and faith”—within which “we find an anarchism that has existed in the cities and rural communities for decades.” The first four of these values are absolutely central to anarchism and their presence in Appalachian culture is a compelling case for at least the groundwork for an emergent anarchism. And the last of these, faith, is not a necessary element of anarchism—at least in its religious sense—but when interpreted through the lens of Christian anarchism it begins to add up, and Hensley does this. He writes that Appalachian anarchism “is Christian anarchist in that faith is held dear to Appalachians who let the Bible guide them, despite 70% being unchurched and their native Christianity being decentralized and opposed to religious hierarchy and established churches.” This sort of thinking in anarchism absolutely has precedent as can be seen in such works as Leo Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You, in which he writes how Christianity applied to the real world takes the form of a rejection of government and violence in general. For example, Tolstoy writes: Only because this condition of universal arming and military service has come step by step and imperceptibly, and because for its maintenance the governments employ all means in their power for intimidating, bribing, stupefying, and ravishing men, we do not see the crying contradiction between this condition and those Christian feelings and thoughts, with which all the men of our time are really permeated. c4ss.org/content/53462
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