Anarchism pages

“I’m not an anarchist but anarch ism [sic] has some deep truths that one has to take into consideration.” Cornel West

“It seems to me that the truly American revolution would be to abolish power.” Karl Hess

Like most isms there is a plethora of variation in the isms. Practically every post and page on this site relates to one of the isms, but the items below define some of the boundaries and objections.

also see the order pages for what anarchism could look like

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“Anarchism” has a clearer etymology than “feminism”, or “communism”, or “socialism”, or “social justice”, and it targets not something as macroscopic and aggregate as “women” or “community” but an incredibly important conceptual tangle that gets at the root of many of our society’s problems. The crux of “anarchy” is an ethical orientation, not a political platform. It’s intellectually easy to be a sociopath and also a feminist or a communist, or whatever. In the very best currents of such traditions “never holding control over another mind” is still only loosely stitched on as a bullet point. Anarchism is simply more closely tied to “no power relations ever” or “see others freedom as your own” and this matters in a wider array of situations than something historically particular. Anarchism can be corrupted and obviously often is, but it’s harder, in the grand scheme of things, to corrupt anarchism than anything else. We’ve numbered in the millions and moved the world yet deliberately never seized power. For all the shit that’s cropped up in our ranks, unlike virtually any other comparable framework you care to name no anarchist has ever been responsible for genocide or megadeath. That is actually, sadly, amazingly unique in history. Our focus on power itself rather than any of its instantiations has an effect that’s hard to deny. We may fuck up, but we course-correct. If not ourselves then our comrades. The cognitive dissonance is usually just too great. source

Anarchy is Order, like a fractal in Chaos Theoy, Order generated from the ‘Chaos’ of the many paths crossing to seek Order. If the paths are libertarian in nature they will shed minimal turbulence to disturb others, and find order via liberty if they have also shed the fetters of Authority in their wake. Anarchism is more process and ethic than final solutions to land a monopoly in control of process and the outlook. The solution is in an evolution around moving forward as needed to preserve a better world with liberty justice in tow.

“Anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. It means the development of the individual as well as the assertion of the individual. It means self-responsibility, and not leader worship.” —Voltairine de Cleyre

“The real revolution is the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of character. The only real emancipation is individual…” —Will Durant

“There is nothing intrinsically wrong about utopias, the problem is if you just have one of them, we need as many utopian visions as possible…” David Graeber

 

“Hayekian Anarchism” PDF

The Libertarian Spectrum

Libertarianism has a complex history and contemporary culture. There are two main camps of libertarianism: Individualist, and Social/Communistic (not state communism `a la the USSR).   There are many slight variations, or tents within these camps, but they essentially fall within one...

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Anarchism: A Responses to Ten Objections

Roderick Long audio- mp3 I want to talk about some of the main objections that have been given to libertarian anarchism and my attempts to answer them. But before I start giving objections and trying to answer them, there is...

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Anarcho-adjectives

Anarchy without adjectives and the reality of the situation below may have prompted this: A SURVEY OF HYPHENATED ANARCHIST TYPES AND THEIR OPPOSITES. Version 2 of ANSPECTRUMHYPHENATEDANTERMS 10 MARCH 2000 by John Zube. ANYONE IS INVITED TO REPRODUCE AND IMPROVE THIS...

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Instead of a Primer

Roger Kropotkin* There is a great deal of confusion among anarchists in terms of what anarchism is and, more importantly, what anarchism is not. It is all too common for anarchists to mistake tactics for principles. Even worse, some mistake...

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Noam Chomsky Notes on Anarchism

Noam Chomsky Taken from "For Reasons of State", 1970 See more of Chomsky's reflections on Anarchism @ www.zmag.org/chomsky/interviews/ A French writer, sympathetic to anarchism, wrote in the 1890s that ``anarchism has a broad back, like paper it endures anything''---including, he...

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Psychology for Anarchism

Four Reasons for Humanistic Psychologists to Advocate Anarchism Dennis R. Fox 1986 Transformations, 2(1), 17-23 I wrote this short paper for my first American Psychological Association conference in 1984. Eight people showed up for the early morning session. They smiled. The paper...

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A Lance for Anarchy (freethought parallel)

Voltairine de Cleyre The Open Court journal. Sept. 24, 1891 a response to editor Paul Carus. The perusal of Dr. Carus's article, "Freethought: Its Truth and its Error" in The Open Court of Aug. 6th, has impelled me to a parallel...

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Anarchism: Arguments for and against

Albert Meltzer Introduction Inalienable Tenets of Anarchism The Class Struggle Organisation and Anarchism The Role of an Anarchist in an Authoritarian Society Bringing About the New Society The Marxist Criticism of Anarchism The Social-Democratic Critique of Anarchism The Liberal-Democratic Objection...

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Anarchism: From Theory to Practice

Daniel Guérin source Preface There has recently been a renewal of interest in anarchism. Books, pamphlets, and anthologies are being devoted to it. It is doubtful whether this literary effort is really very effective. It is difficult to trace the...

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Transcending Anarcho-semantics (freed market types)

[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community] There is a reoccuring problem that occurs within internal libertarian and anarchist discourse that I like to call the anarcho-semantics problem. The anarcho-semantics problem most often occurs in discussions and debates between socialist oriented...

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On Amoralist Anarchism

brainpolice I've been a part of numerous online social networks or general social groups online that contains some amoralist anarchists, who either are former libertarian anarchists who have come to reject libertarianism or they are anarchists who rejected libertarianism from...

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Marx and Bakunin Argue

John/laughingman0X source Mikhail Bakunin and Karl Marx walked into Bronx County’s 47th Precinct. Yet terming the action “walking” would be quite insufficient, as this term often implies the erroneous assumptions that such actions were free and voluntary; quite the contrary....

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On Lumpen Ideology

source intro by Ashanti Omowali This particular work by Eldridge was published after the 1971 split in the Black Panther Party, the approximate time was 1973-1974, and it was published by the Black Liberation Front of England. Here, Eldridge continues...

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Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!

David Graeber source 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...

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Anarchy Works

Peter Gelderloos, 2010 source Introduction Anarchy Would Never Work What exactly is anarchism? A note on inspiration The tricky topic of representation Recommended Reading 1. Human Nature Aren’t people naturally selfish? Aren’t people naturally competitive? Haven’t humans always been patriarchal?...

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Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

Project Gutenberg's Mutual Aid, by kniaz' Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms...

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Towards Anarchism

"Towards Anarchism" by Errico Malatesta (1853-1932) first appeared in English in the Depression era periodical MAN! This little essay was highly regarded by the revolutionary anarchist prisoner Carl Harp (1949-1981) who suggested reprinting it in this form. First printing, 1982...

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Marx and Anarchism

I Some years ago, shortly after Frederick Engels died, Mr. Eduard Bernstein, one of the most prominent members of the Marxist community, astonished his colleagues with some noteworthy discoveries. Bernstein made public his misgivings about the accuracy of the materialist...

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