Absolutely what we need in these days of spreading gloom. A very well argued case for joyful militancy, and against the dead hand of puritanical revolution. Read it, live it!--John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism
Why do radical movements and spaces sometimes feel laden with fear, anxiety, suspicion, self-righteousness, and competition? Montgomery and bergman call this phenomenon rigid radicalism: congealed and toxic ways of relating that have seeped into social movements, posing as the correct way of being radical. In conversation with organizers and intellectuals from a wide variety of political currents, the authors explore how rigid radicalism smuggles itself into radical spaces, and how it is being undone
Interviewees include Silvia Federici, adrienne maree brown, Marina Sitrin, Gustavo Esteva, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Walidah Imarisha, Margaret Killjoy, Glen Coulthard, Richard Day, and more.
The definitive primer on anarchist thought and practice, from the thinker the New York Times Book Review calls the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet
The essence of anarchism [is] the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met. --Noam Chomsky
With the specter of anarchy being invoked by the Right to sow fear, a cogent explanation of the political philosophy known as anarchism has never been more urgently needed. In On Anarchism, radical linguist, philosopher, and activist Noam Chomsky provides it. Known for his brilliant evisceration of American foreign policy, state capitalism, and the mainstream media, Chomsky remains a formidable and unapologetic critic of established authority and perhaps the world's most famous anarchist.
On Anarchism sheds a much-needed light on the foundations of Chomsky's thought, specifically his constant questioning of the legitimacy of entrenched power. The book gathers his essays and interviews to provide a short, accessible introduction to his distinctively optimistic brand of anarchism. Chomsky eloquently refutes the notion of anarchism as a fixed idea, suggesting that it is part of a living, evolving tradition, and he disputes the traditional fault lines between anarchism and socialism, emphasizing the power of collective, rather than individualist, action.
Including a retrospective interview with Chomsky where the author assesses his writings on anarchism to date, this is a book that is sure to challenge, provoke, and inspire. Profoundly relevant to our times, On Anarchism is a touchstone for political activists and anyone interested in deepening their understanding of anarchism and the power of collective action.
Bring out your inner anarchist!
You may not realise it, but you are probably already practicing anarchism in your daily life. From relationships to school, work, art, even the way you organise your time, anarchism can help you find fulfilment, empathy and liberation in the everyday. From the small questions such as 'Why should I steal?' to the big ones like 'how do I love?', Scott Branson shows that anarchism isn't only something we do when we react to the news, protest or even riot. With practical examples enriched by history and theory, these tips will empower you to break free from the consumerist trappings of our world. Anarchism is not just for white men, but for everyone. In reading this book, you can detach from patriarchal masculinity, norms of family, gender, sexuality, racialisation, individual responsibility and the destruction of our planet, and replace them with ideas of sustainable living, with ties of mutual aid, and the horizon of collective liberation.Anarchists have much to learn from Indigenous struggles for decolonization. [A] thought-provoking collection Lesley J. Wood, Professor, York University, Toronto
Vigorously affirming anarchism's plurality, the authors make a powerful case for the reconfiguration of anticolonial struggle Ruth Kinna, Professor, Loughborough University
As early as the end of the nineteenth century, anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin and Élisée Reclus became interested in Indigenous peoples, many of whom they saw as societies without a state or private property, living a form of communism. Thinkers such as David Graeber and John Holloway have continued this tradition of engagement with the practices of Indigenous societies, while Indigenous activists coined the term 'anarcho-indigenism', in reference to a long history of (often imperfect) collaboration between anarchists and Indigenous activists, over land rights and environmental issues, including recent high profile anti-pipeline campaigns.
Anarcho-Indigenism is a dialogue between anarchism and Indigenous politics. In interviews, the contributors reveal what Indigenous thought and traditions and anarchism have in common, without denying the scars left by colonialism. They ultimately offer a vision of the world that combines anti-colonialism, feminism, ecology, anti-capitalism and anti-statism.
Francis Dupuis-Déri is a Professor of Political Science and a member of the Institut de Recherches et d'études Féministes at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He is the author of several books such as Who's Afraid of the Black Blocs?. Benjamin Pillet is a translator and community organizer, with a PhD in Political Thought from the Université du Québec à Montréal.
A spirited defense of the anarchist approach to life
James Scott taught us what's wrong with seeing like a state. Now, in his most accessible and personal book to date, the acclaimed social scientist makes the case for seeing like an anarchist. Inspired by the core anarchist faith in the possibilities of voluntary cooperation without hierarchy, Two Cheers for Anarchism is an engaging, high-spirited, and often very funny defense of an anarchist way of seeing--one that provides a unique and powerful perspective on everything from everyday social and political interactions to mass protests and revolutions. Through a wide-ranging series of memorable anecdotes and examples, the book describes an anarchist sensibility that celebrates the local knowledge, common sense, and creativity of ordinary people. The result is a kind of handbook on constructive anarchism that challenges us to radically reconsider the value of hierarchy in public and private life, from schools and workplaces to retirement homes and government itself. Beginning with what Scott calls the law of anarchist calisthenics, an argument for law-breaking inspired by an East German pedestrian crossing, each chapter opens with a story that captures an essential anarchist truth. In the course of telling these stories, Scott touches on a wide variety of subjects: public disorder and riots, desertion, poaching, vernacular knowledge, assembly-line production, globalization, the petty bourgeoisie, school testing, playgrounds, and the practice of historical explanation. Far from a dogmatic manifesto, Two Cheers for Anarchism celebrates the anarchist confidence in the inventiveness and judgment of people who are free to exercise their creative and moral capacities.2019 Reprint of 1896 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. In this work Lockwood creates an alternate history of the United States that puts William Jennings Bryan in power, and in which Bryan immediately took America off the gold standard. Mob actions and political chas follows. Prescient for those unhappy with the 2016 election; the issues are entirely different, but the turmoil seems similar.
What do we do when the state has abandoned us? From failing health systems to housing crises to cascading ecological collapse, it's increasingly evident that state-centered politics do not protect us from the violence of colonialism and capitalism, fascism, and patriarchy. In fact, they actively work to harm us.
Anarchist feminism--or anarcha-feminism--shows us how we tend to our social relations can build a new world inside the old one. We can care for each other when nothing else will, supplying communal well-being and liberatory horizons.
From communitarian kitchens to medic collectives, squatted social centers to queer theater troupes, Ljubljana to Mexico City, Constellations of Care powerfully underscores that we already have everything we need and desire in one another to carve out lives worth living.
Thirty years of crisis, mass unemployment, and flagging growth, and they still want us to believe in the economy... We have to see that the economy is itself the crisis. It's not that there's not enough work, it's that there is too much of it. The Coming Insurrection is an eloquent call to arms arising from the recent waves of social contestation in France and Europe. Written by the anonymous Invisible Committee in the vein of Guy Debord--and with comparable elegance--it has been proclaimed a manual for terrorism by the French government (who recently arrested its alleged authors). One of its members more adequately described the group as the name given to a collective voice bent on denouncing contemporary cynicism and reality. The Coming Insurrection is a strategic prescription for an emergent war-machine capable of spreading anarchy and live communism. Written in the wake of the riots that erupted throughout the Paris suburbs in the fall of 2005 and presaging more recent riots and general strikes in France and Greece, The Coming Insurrection articulates a rejection of the official Left and its reformist agenda, aligning itself instead with the younger, wilder forms of resistance that have emerged in Europe around recent struggles against immigration control and the war on terror. Hot-wired to the movement of '77 in Italy, its preferred historical reference point, The Coming Insurrection formulates an ethics that takes as its starting point theft, sabotage, the refusal to work, and the elaboration of collective, self-organized life forms. It is a philosophical statement that addresses the growing number of those--in France, in the United States, and elsewhere--who refuse the idea that theory, politics, and life are separate realms.
Navigating the broad river of anarchy, from Taoism to Situationism, from Ranters to Punk rockers, from individualists to communists, from anarcho-syndicalists to anarcha-feminists, Demanding the Impossible is an authoritative and lively study of a widely misunderstood subject. It explores the key anarchist concepts of society and the state, freedom and equality, authority and power, and investigates the successes and failure of the anarchist movements throughout the world. While remaining sympathetic to anarchism, it presents a balanced and critical account. It covers not only the classic anarchist thinkers, such as Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Reclus and Emma Goldman, but also other libertarian figures, such as Nietzsche, Camus, Gandhi, Foucault and Chomsky. No other book on anarchism covers so much so incisively.
In this updated edition, a new epilogue examines the most recent developments, including post-anarchism and anarcho-primitivism as well as the anarchist contribution to the peace, green and Global Justice movements.
Demanding the Impossible is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand what anarchists stand for and what they have achieved. It will also appeal to those who want to discover how anarchism offers an inspiring and original body of ideas and practices which is more relevant than ever in the twenty-first century.
What is nature? What is humanity's place in nature? And what is the relationship of society to the natural world? In an era of ecological breakdown, answering these questions has become of momentous importance for our everyday lives and for the future that we and other life-forms face. In the essays of The Philosophy of Social Ecology,
If anthropology consists of making the apparently wild thought of others logically compelling in their own cultural settings and intellectually revealing of the human condition, then David Graeber is the consummate anthropologist. Not only does he accomplish this profound feat, he redoubles it by the critical task--now more urgent than ever--of making the possibilities of other people's worlds the basis for understanding our own. --Marshall Sahlins, University of Chicago
Graeber's ideas are rich and wide-ranging; he pushes us to expand the boundaries of what we admit to be possible, or even thinkable.--Steven Shaviro, Wayne State UniversityIn this new collection, David Graeber revisits questions raised in his popular book, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Written in an unpretentious style that uses accessible and entertaining language to convey complex theoretical ideas, these twelve essays cover a lot of ground, including the origins of capitalism, the history of European table manners, love potions in rural Madagascar, and the phenomenology of giant puppets at street protests. But they're linked by a clear purpose: to explore the nature of social power and the forms that resistance to it have taken, or might take in the future.
Anarchism is currently undergoing a worldwide revival, in many ways replacing Marxism as the theoretical and moral center of new revolutionary social movements. It has, however, left little mark on the academy. While anarchists and other visionaries have turned to anthropology for ideas and inspiration, anthropologists are reluctant to enter into serious dialogue. David Graeber is not. These essays, spanning almost twenty years, show how scholarly concerns can be of use to radical social movements, and how the perspectives of such movements shed new light on debates within the academy.
David Graeber has written for Harper's Magazine, New Left Review, and numerous scholarly journals. He is the author or editor of four books and currently lives in New York City.
In Oakland, California on March 24, 2015 a fire destroyed the AK Press warehouse along with several other businesses. Please consider visiting the AK Press website to learn more about the fundraiser to help them and their neighbors.
Essential reading in Jewish labor history, culture, and radicalism.
Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe once comprised the largest segment of the anarchist movement in the United States. Part historical excavation and part memoir, Joseph Cohen chronicles both well-known events and behind-the-scenes conflicts among radicals, as well as profiles of famous personalities like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and of the rank-and-file radicals who sustained the anarchist movement across North America from the 1880s to the 1940s.
The Jewish Anarchist Movement in America brings Joseph Cohen's irreplaceable 1945 Yiddish-language study of America's Jewish anarchists to an English-speaking audience for the first time and remains the most detailed examination of this neglected history.
The book also contains Cohen's own reflections on anarchist theory and tactics, based upon his experiences and observations over four decades. Edited and fully annotated, this edition includes a wealth of supplementary information about the people, places, and events central to American anarchist history.
The argument of this book is that an anarchist society, a society which organizes itself without authority, is always in existence, like a seed beneath the snow, buried under the weight of the state and its bureaucracy, capitalism and its waste, privilege and its injustices, nationalism and its suicidal loyalties, religious differences and their superstitious separatism.
Anarchist ideas are so much at variance with ordinary political assumptions and the solutions anarchists offer so remote, that all too often people find it hard to take anarchism seriously. This classic text is an attempt to bridge the gap between the present reality and anarchist aspirations, between what is and what, according to the anarchists, might be.
Through a wide-ranging analysis--drawing on examples from education, urban planning, welfare, housing, the environment, the workplace, and the family, to name but a few--Colin Ward demonstrates that the roots of anarchist practice are not so alien or quixotic as they might at first seem but lie precisely in the ways that people have always tended to organize themselves when left alone to do so.
The result is both an accessible introduction for those new to anarchism and pause for thought for those who are too quick to dismiss it.
For more than thirty years, in over thirty books, Colin Ward patiently explained anarchist solutions to everything from vandalism to climate change--and celebrated unofficial uses of the landscape as commons, from holiday camps to squatter communities. Ward was an anarchist journalist and editor for almost sixty years, most famously editing the journal Anarchy. He was also a columnist for New Statesman, New Society, Freedom, and Town and Country Planning.
In the nineteenth century anarchists were accused of conspiracy by governments afraid of revolution, but in the current century various conspiracy theories suggest that anarchists are controlled by government itself. The Illuminati were a network of intellectuals who argued for self-government and against private property, yet the public is now often told that they were (and are) the very group that controls governments and defends private property around the world. Intervening in such misinformation, Lagalisse works with primary and secondary sources in multiple languages to set straight the history of the Left and illustrate the actual relationship between revolutionism, pantheistic occult philosophy, and the clandestine fraternity.
Exploring hidden correspondences between anarchism, Renaissance magic, and New Age movements, Lagalisse also advances critical scholarship regarding leftist attachments to secular politics. Inspired by anthropological fieldwork within today's anarchist movements, her essay challenges anarchist atheism insofar as it poses practical challenges for coalition politics in today's world.
Studying anarchism as a historical object, Occult Features of Anarchism also shows how the development of leftist theory and practice within clandestine masculine public spheres continues to inform contemporary anarchist understandings of the political, in which men's oppression by the state becomes the prototype for power in general. Readers behold how gender and religion become privatized in radical counterculture, a historical process intimately linked to the privatization of gender and religion by the modern nation-state.
This collection of writings by Lucy Parsons (1853-1942) offers a compelling glimpse into the life and ideas of one of the most influential labor activists and anarchists in American history. She was known for her passionate advocacy for labor rights, anarchism, and social justice.
This new large print edition, designed to make reading comfortable, includes influential works like 'The Principles of Anarchism', a foundational text articulating her political philosophy, and 'A word to Tramps' which calls for direct action against poverty and injustice.
Table of contents:
1. The Principles of Anarchism
2. A Word to Tramps
3. Our Civilization: Is It Worth Saving?
4. A Christmas Story
5. We Are All Anarchists
6. The Factory Child
7. Americans! Arouse Yourselves!
8. What Freedom Means
9. Anarchism
10. The Eight Hour Strike of 1886