Contemporary anarchism
Encyclopedia
Anarchism is a political philosophy
encompassing theories and attitudes
which consider the state
, as compulsory government
, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and favors the absence of the state
(anarchy
).
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. Today, traditional anarchist organizations continue to exist across the globe
and, in recent years, anarchism as a political philosophy has gained a higher profile as a result of the "anti-globalisation" movement.
is celebrated for its anarchist and pacifist ideas. Crass was one of the bands that began the Anarcho-punk
sub-genre of punk rock. One of the better known songs of punk rock, Sex Pistols
' hit "Anarchy in the UK", espouse a nihilistic
, violent and destructive concept of anarchy
, exploiting the mainstream views on anarchism that remain after the time of the propaganda of the deed
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Denmark
, the Freetown Christiania
was created in downtown Copenhagen
. The housing and employment crisis in most of Western Europe led to the formation of communes
and squatter
movements like the one still thriving in Barcelona
, Spain
.
Since the revival of anarchism in the mid 20th century, a number of new movements and schools have appeared. Anarchist anthropologist David Graeber
has posited a rupture between generations of anarchism, with those "who often still have not shaken the sectarian habits of the last century" contrasted with the younger activists who are "much more informed, among other elements, by indigenous
, feminist
, ecological
and cultural-critical
ideas", and who by the turn of the 21st century formed "by far the majority" of anarchists.
Feminism
has always been a part of the anarchist movement, in the form of anarcha-feminism
. North American anarchism also takes strong influences from the American Civil Rights Movement and the movement against the war in Vietnam
. European anarchism has developed out of the labour movement, and both have incorporated animal rights
activism. Globally, anarchism has also grown in popularity and influence as part of the anti-war
, anti-capitalist
, and anti-globalisation movements. Recently, anarchists have been known for their involvement in protest
s against World Trade Organization
and Group of Eight
meetings, and the World Economic Forum
; protests which are generally portrayed in mainstream media coverage as violent riots. Many anarchists are part of the black bloc
s at these protests and some engage in rioting, vandalism
, and violent
confrontations with police
. Others peacefully protested, upholding non-violent
principles.
Anarchists and others might say that recent technological developments have made the anarchist cause both easier to advance and more conceivable to people. Many people use cell phones or the Internet to form loose communities which could be said to be organized along anarchist lines. Some of these communities have as their purpose the production of information in a non-commodified or use-value format, a goal made attainable by the availability of personal computing, desktop publishing and digital media. These things have made it possible for individuals to share music files
over the Internet, without economic incentive, and even with a certain amount of risk. There are also open source
programming communities, who donate their time, and offer their product freely as well. Examples include Usenet
, the free software movement
(including the GNU
/Linux
community and the wiki
wiki paradigm), and Indymedia. A book analyzing how this new "anarchic" mode of production is possible is Eric S. Raymond
's The Cathedral and the Bazaar
. Traditional historical materialist
analysis, used by many libertarian socialists
, is one means of interpreting the above, and would describe it as a "political economy of non-commodity information production".
Anarcho-pacifism is a form of anarchism that emerged shortly before World War II
, emphasizing the complete rejection of violence
in any form for any purpose. Although commonly associated with religious forms of anarchism, such as Christian anarchism
or Buddhist anarchism
, irreligious or anti-religious strains of anarcho-pacifism were present in the anarcho-punk
scene of the 1970s, spearheaded by Crass
. Historical advocates of pacifist anarchism include the Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy
, Jean-Paul Sartre
and Mohandas Gandhi who considered violence to be the root of societies problems and the state as the manifestation of violence. It was an influential force in the nuclear disarmament movements that followed World War II
.
Among late 20th-century anarcho-pacifists was autarchist
Robert LeFevre
, who based his pacifism on his belief in the inviolability of property rights. LeFevre also spoke out against war, which he considered to be a product of the state
, and was convinced of the power of non-violent resistance.
, is a political philosophy (whose status within anarchism is disputed) which is most common in the United States. It is "based on a belief in the freedom to own private property
, a rejection of any form of governmental authority or intervention, and the upholding of the competitive free market as the main mechanism for social interaction." Anarcho-capitalists advocate for all services, including law enforcement and security, to be performed by multiple private providers all competing for business, rather than by a monopolist state agency funded by taxation. Anarcho-capitalism's proponents include Murray Rothbard
, David D. Friedman
, Hans-Hermann Hoppe
, Walter Block
, and Stefan Molyneux
.
Agorism
is a philosophy based on Rothbard's ideas. In the agorist work, The New Libertarian Manifesto by Samuel Konkin III, agorism is repeatedly described as being on the left of politics because Konkin views it as being revolutionary due to its explicit advocacy of expansion of the underground market economy as means to eliminate the state.
and anarchism that views patriarchy (male domination over women) as a fundamental manifestation of involuntary hierarchy which anarchists often oppose. Anarcha-feminism was inspired in the late 19th century by the writings of early feminist anarchists such as Lucy Parsons
, Emma Goldman
and Voltairine de Cleyre
.
Anarcha feminists like other radical feminists criticize and advocate the abolition of traditional conceptions of family, education and gender roles. Anarcha-feminists are especially critical of marriage for instance the feminist anarchist Emma Goldman has argued that marriage is a purely economic arrangement... [woman] pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life.". Anarcha-feminists also often criticize the views of some of the traditional anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin who have believed that patriarchy is only a minor problem and is dependent only on the existence of the state and capitalism and will disappear soon after such institutions are abolished. Anarcha feminists by contrast view patriarchy as a fundamental problem in society and believe that the feminist struggle against sexism and patriarchy is an essential component of the anarchist struggle against the state
and capitalism
. As Susan Brown puts it, "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist". Anarcha-feminists have also argued for non-hierarchical family and educational structures, and had a prominent role in the creation of the Modern School
in New York City
, based on the ideas of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia
.
In modern times anarcha-feminism has been noted for its heavy influence on ecofeminism. "Ecofeminists rightly note that except for anarcha feminist, no feminist perspective has recognized the importance of healing the nature/culture division."
Contemporary anarcha-feminist groups include Bolivia
's Mujeres Creando
, Radical Cheerleaders, and the annual La Rivolta! conference in Boston
.
Green anarchism
is a school of anarchism that emphasizes the protection of the environment. Green anarchists can be broadly divided into two categories. Techno-negative green anarchists, such as John Zerzan
and Theodore Kaczynski
, see modern civilization and technology (as well as agriculture, in the case of Anarcho-Primitivists) as inherently harmful. Techno-positive green anarchists, such as Murray Bookchin
and Alan Carter
, see technology as morally neutral or even as beneficial to the development of a green anarchist society.
It develops a critique of industrial civilization. In this critique, technology
and development
have alienated
people from the natural world. This philosophy develops themes present in the political action of the Luddites and the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
, although when primitivism emerged it was influenced more directly by the works of theorists such as the Frankfurt School
Marxists, Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse
; anthropologists Marshall Sahlins
and Richard Lee
; and others such as Lewis Mumford
, Jean Baudrillard
and Gary Snyder
. Many advocates of green anarchism and primitivism consider Fredy Perlman
as the modern progenitor of their views.
Some techno-negative green anarchists, identifying themselves as anarcho-primitivists, advocate a complete process of 'rewilding
' and a return to nomadic hunter-gatherer
lifestyles while many green anarchists only wish to see an end to industrial society and do not necessarily oppose domestication
or agriculture
. Still, many green anarchists decide to skirt these issues entirely, focusing not on a post-revolutionary future, but on defense of the earth and social revolution in the present. Today there is disagreement between Primitivists and followers of more traditional forms of anarchism, such as the social ecology
of Murray Bookchin and socialist forms of anarchism which advocate class struggle
, although many green anarchists do advocate class struggle.
is a form of green anarchism that believes civilization and technology inevitably lead to inequality and are incompatible with anarchism and in effect must be abolished. Anarcho-primitivists often criticize traditional anarchism for supporting civilization and technology which Anarcho-primitivists believe are inherently based on domination and exploitation and instead advocate the process of rewilding
or reconnecting with the natural environment
. Anarcho-primitivists (despite their opposition to science) often use the writings of anthropologists, such as Jared Diamond
who wrote The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, that have portrayed indigenous societies as egalitarian, to support their critique of civilization.
Many traditional anarchists reject the critique of civilization, many even denying that anarcho-primitivism has anything to do with anarchism, while some, such as Wolfi Landstreicher
, endorse the critique but do not consider themselves anarcho-primitivists. Anarcho-primitivists are often distinguished by their focus on the praxis of achieving a feral
state of being through "rewilding".
) consisting of no more than 150 people. Like anarcho-primitivists, eco-anarchists hold bands and tribes in high regard for their functionality and their non-hierarchical structure, but unlike anarcho-primitivists, do not support the total elimination of industrial and agricultural technology. Instead, they believe that small scale eco-villages are preferable to large scale urbanized forms of social organization.
Eco anarchists, like neo-tribalists often argue that life in small scale Eco-villages is preferable to life in large scale urbanized societies because of an Evolutionary Principle; the idea invented by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss
that humans evolved to live in such societies
and are thus better suited to such an environment. Eco-anarchism often combines elements of many earlier preexisting philosophies such as Deep ecology
, social ecology
, primitivism
, neo-tribalism
, bioregional democracy, Eco-feminism, pacifism
and secession
.
Some green anarchists see veganism as an intrinsic part of the struggle for a free, healthy way of life. Veganarchism
is the political philosophy
of veganism
(more specifically animal liberation
) and green anarchism, creating a combined praxis
as a means for social revolution
. This encompasses viewing the state
as unnecessary and harmful to animal
s, both human
and non-human
, whilst practising a vegan diet. Veganarchists either see the ideology as a combined theory, or perceive both philosophies to be essentially the same. It is further described as an anti-speciesist perspective on green anarchism, or an anarchist perspective on animal liberation
.
The term was popularised in 1995 with Brian A. Dominick's pamphlet Animal Liberation and Social Revolution, described as "a vegan perspective on anarchism or an anarchist perspective on veganism". The 18-page pamphlet explains how many young anarchists in the 1990s
had been adopting deep ecological
(animal-inclusive and anti-speciesist) mindsets as part of an overall green anarchist political philosophy. Similarly animal liberationists were becoming increasingly influenced by anarchist thought and traditions, thus becoming veganarchists and adopting an overall praxis.
emerged out of nearly 50 years of anarchist experiences in South America starting with the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya
(FAU), founded in 1956 by anarchists who saw the need for an organization which was specifically anarchist. It has been summarised as:
"The need for specifically anarchist organization built around a unity of ideas and praxis. The use of the specifically anarchist organization to theorize and develop strategic political and organizing work. Active involvement in and building of autonomous and popular social movements, which is described as the process of "social insertion."
Other organisations that hold to Especifismo include Federação Anarquista Gaúcha
(FAG), the Federação Anarquista Cabocla (FACA), and the Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro (FARJ) (all in Brazil). Especifismo is considered to have come to broadly similar conclusions to the Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft) leading to the argument that it is properly considered a new form of Platformism
.
seeks to distance itself from the traditional "left" - communists, socialists, social democrats, etc. - and to escape the confines of ideology
in general. Post-leftists argue that anarchism has been weakened by its long attachment to contrary "leftist" movements and single issue causes (anti-war
, anti-nuclear
, etc.). It calls for a synthesis of anarchist thought and a specifically anti-authoritarian revolutionary movement outside of the leftist milieu. Groups and individuals associated with Post-left anarchism include CrimethInc.
, Jason McQuinn
, Bob Black
, and the magazines Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed
and Green Anarchy
.
The left
, even the revolutionary left, post-leftists argue, is anachronistic and incapable of creating change. Post-left anarchy offers critiques of radical strategies and tactics which it considers antiquated: the demonstration, class-oriented struggle, focus on tradition, and the inability to escape the confines of history. The book Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs, for example, criticizes traditional leftist ideas and classical anarchism while calling for a rejuvenated anarchist movement. The CrimethInc.
essay "Your Politics Are Boring as Fuck" is another critique of "leftist" movements:
The ideas associated with post-left anarchy have been criticized by other anarchists, notably Murray Bookchin
, whose polemic, Social Anarchism Or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm
, attacks these recent trends in anarchist thinking. Bob Black
wrote a book in response to Bookchin's arguments called Anarchy After Leftism.
was originated by Saul Newman
, and first received popular attention in his book From Bakunin to Lacan
to refer to a theoretical move towards a synthesis of classical anarchist theory and poststructuralist thought. Subsequent to Newman's use of the term, however, it has taken on a life of its own and a wide range of ideas including autonomism
, post-left anarchy
, situationism, post-colonialism and Zapatismo. By its very nature post-anarchism rejects the idea that it should be a coherent set of doctrines and beliefs. As such it is difficult, if not impossible, to state with any degree of certainty who should or should not be grouped under the rubric. Nonetheless key thinkers associated with post-anarchism include Saul Newman
, Todd May
, Lewis Call
, Gilles Deleuze
and Félix Guattari
.
The "Lacanian anarchism" proposed by Saul Newman
utilizes the works of Jacques Lacan
and Max Stirner
more prominently. Newman criticizes classical anarchists, such as Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin
, for assuming an objective "human nature
" and a natural order; he argues that from this approach, humans progress and are well-off by nature, with only the Establishment
as a limitation that forces behavior otherwise. For Newman, this is a Manichaen
worldview, which depicts only the reversal of Thomas Hobbes
' Leviathan
, in which the "good" state is subjugated by the "evil" people.
Lewis Call
has attempted to develop post-anarchist theory through the work of Friedrich Nietzsche
, rejecting the Cartesian concept of the "subject". From here a radical form of anarchism is made possible; the anarchism of becoming. This anarchism does not have an eventual goal, nor flow into "being", it is not a final state of development, nor a static form of society, but rather becomes permanent, as a means without end. Italian autonomist Giorgio Agamben
has also written about this idea. In this respect it is similar to the "complex systems" view of emerging society known as Panarchy
. Call critiques liberal
notions of language, consciousness, and rationality from an anarchist perspective, arguing that they are inherent in economic and political power within the capitalist state organization.
is a form of revolutionary anarchism critical of formal anarchist labor unions and federations. Insurrectionary anarchists advocate informal organization, including small affinity groups, carrying out acts of resistance in various struggles, and mass organizations called base structures, which can include exploited individuals who are not anarchists. Proponents include Wolfi Landstreicher
and Alfredo M. Bonanno
, author of works including "Armed Joy" and "The Anarchist Tension". This tendency is represented in the US in magazines such as Willful Disobedience and Killing King Abacus.
Here, a text from the magazine Killing King Abacus outlines some of the basis points of insurrectionary anarchist praxis.
The tactic was developed in the 1980s by anti-nuclear
activist autonomists
. Black blocs gained broader media attention outside Europe
during the 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations
, when a black bloc damaged property of GAP
, Starbucks
, Old Navy
, and other retail locations in downtown Seattle.
Tactics of a black bloc can include vandalism
, rioting and street fighting
, demonstrating without a permit, misleading the authorities, assisting in the escape of perpetrators arrested by the police, administering first aid
to persons affected by tear gas in areas where protesters are barred from entering, building barricade
s, and attacking police. However not all bloc participants engage in violence; participants often use peaceful methods of protest as well. Although black blocking is usually connected with some form of direct action
, some black blocs also participate in wholly symbolic action, as well as actions that fall entirely within traditional definitions of nonviolent
protest. Property destruction carried out by black blocs tends to have symbolic significance: common targets include banks, institutional buildings, outlets for multinational corporation
s, gasoline stations, video-surveillance cameras.
There may be several black blocs within a particular protest
, with different aims and tactics. As an ad hoc
group, they share no universally common set of principles or beliefs apart from an adherence to – usually – radical Left
/autonomist values. But a few radical right-wing groups, like some of the neo-Nazi Freie Kameradschaften of Germany
, have adopted "black bloc" tactics too.
, is a recent development in academia
that uses the methods of analytic philosophy
to clarify or defend anarchist theory. Analytical anarchists include Robert Paul Wolff
, Alan Carter
, and Michael Taylor. Wolff argues that we have no obligation to obey the state, while Carter argues that the state cannot be trusted to liberate the people, and Taylor uses game theory
to argue that cooperation is possible without the state.
Analitycal anarchism also refers, according to Peter Boettke
, to the positive political economy
of anarchism, or anarchism from the economic point of view, in the libertarian tradition
of Murray Rothbard
's For a New Liberty
(1973) and David Friedman
's The Machinery of Freedom
(1973). Boettke claims that analytical anarchism has developed out of this tradition, and is currently being pursued by economists such as Peter Leeson
, Edward Stringham
, and Christopher Coyne. These professors are related to Mercatus Center
and to the faculty of economics at George Mason University
.
, amongst others, to describe the most recent reinvention of the anarchist thought and practice. What distinguishes the new anarchism of today from the new anarchism of the '60s and '70s, or from the work of US-UK based authors like Murray Bookchin
, Paul Goodman
, Herbert Read
, Colin Ward
and Alex Comfort
, is its emphasis on the global perspective. Some of essays on new anarchism include David Graeber
's "New Anarchists" in A Movement of Movements: is Another World Really possible?, ed. Tom Mertes (London: Verso, 2004) and Grubacic's "Towards Another Anarchism" in World Social Forum: Challenging Empires, ed. Jai Sen and Peter Waterman (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2007).
in Mexico
and Abahlali baseMjondolo
in South Africa
have been described as having close connections to some aspects of traditional anarchist thought. However these movements do not describe themselves as anarchist.,
movement is an example of an emergent movement with anarchist characteristics. The nature of the GPL
and many other free software licenses is such that there is a collective sharing of resources (in this case, source code
) between developers and users, thus some anarchists see this as putting into practice their perspective on private property
and economic organization. There is, however, little evidence that those involved in the Free Software have considered the political implications. The movement can be treated as being a large number of anarcho-syndicalist communities.
The Free Software movement was started by people who believe that software should be free, and indeed this is the position of the Free Software Foundation
. However, large amounts of free software is written nowadays by traditional software development bodies who consider it as a better development method for many cases.
that expounds the use of strong public-key cryptography
to enforce privacy
and individual freedom
. It was described by Vernor Vinge
as a cyberspatial realization of anarcho-capitalism
. Crypto-anarchists aim to create cryptographic software that can be used to evade prosecution and harassment while sending and receiving information in computer network
s. Timothy C. May
wrote about crypto anarchism in Cyphernomicon
:
Using such software, the association between the identity
of a certain user or organisation and the pseudonym they use is difficult to find, unless the user reveals the association. It is difficult to say which country's laws will be ignored, as even the location of a certain participant is unknown. In a sense, the encrypted anonymous networks (the "cipherspace
") can be regarded as an independent, lawless territory. However, participants may in theory voluntarily create new laws using smart contracts or, if the user is pseudonymous
, depend on online reputation.
One motive of crypto-anarchists is to defend against surveillance
of computer networks communication.
A second concern is evasion of censorship
, particularly internet censorship
, on the grounds of freedom of expression. The programs used by crypto-anarchists often make it possible to both publish and read information off the internet or other computer networks anonymously. Thirdly, the technical challenge in developing these cryptographic systems is tremendous, which interests some programmers into joining the projects.
The Independent Media Center (aka Indymedia or IMC) is a global participatory
network of journalists that report on political and social issues. It originated during the anti-WTO protests worldwide in 1999
and remains closely associated with the global justice movement
, which criticizes neo-liberalism, and its associated institutions. Indymedia uses an open publishing
and democratic media
process that allows anybody to contribute.
According to its homepage, "Indymedia is a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth." Indymedia was founded as an alternative to government and mainstream media, and seeks to facilitate people being able to publish their media as directly as possible.
Indymedia has a variable reputation, both among its users and outside critics. Its operations are conducted by activists around the world, who, though they may be lacking in journalistic training and corporate funding, tend to make up for this with enthusiasm for reporting issues of social justice and unique related events, which in their view, the corporate media
under-reports or censors
. For example, the Bolivian Gas War
in 2003 was virtually unheard of in the US media, while it received extensive worldwide and multilingual reporting through Indymedia. Another example is the February 15, 2003 anti-war protest
in many US and European cities, which received detailed coverage written by its participants.
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
encompassing theories and attitudes
Anarchist schools of thought
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
which consider the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
, as compulsory government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and favors the absence of the state
Stateless society
A stateless society is a society that is not governed by a state. In stateless societies, there is little concentration of authority; most positions of authority that do exist are very limited in power and are generally not permanently held positions; and social bodies that resolve disputes through...
(anarchy
Anarchy
Anarchy , has more than one colloquial definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is meant to refer to a society which lacks publicly recognized government or violently enforced political authority...
).
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
Anti-globalization movement
The anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalisation movement, is critical of the globalization of corporate capitalism. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist movement, anti-corporate globalization movement, or...
, among others. Today, traditional anarchist organizations continue to exist across the globe
Globe
A globe is a three-dimensional scale model of Earth or other spheroid celestial body such as a planet, star, or moon...
and, in recent years, anarchism as a political philosophy has gained a higher profile as a result of the "anti-globalisation" movement.
Overview
The band CrassCrass
Crass are an English punk rock band that was formed in 1977, which promoted anarchism as a political ideology, way of living, and as a resistance movement. Crass popularised the seminal anarcho-punk movement of the punk subculture, and advocated direct action, animal rights, and environmentalism...
is celebrated for its anarchist and pacifist ideas. Crass was one of the bands that began the Anarcho-punk
Anarcho-punk
Anarcho-punk is punk rock that promotes anarchism. The term anarcho-punk is sometimes applied exclusively to bands that were part of the original anarcho-punk movement in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and early 1980s...
sub-genre of punk rock. One of the better known songs of punk rock, Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...
' hit "Anarchy in the UK", espouse a nihilistic
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
, violent and destructive concept of anarchy
Anarchy
Anarchy , has more than one colloquial definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is meant to refer to a society which lacks publicly recognized government or violently enforced political authority...
, exploiting the mainstream views on anarchism that remain after the time of the propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed is a concept that refers to specific political actions meant to be exemplary to others...
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, the Freetown Christiania
Freetown Christiania
Not to be confused with Christiania, Norway, another name for Oslo.Christiania, also known as Freetown Christiania is a self-proclaimed autonomous neighbourhood of about 850 residents, covering 34 hectares in the borough of Christianshavn in the Danish capital Copenhagen...
was created in downtown Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
. The housing and employment crisis in most of Western Europe led to the formation of communes
Commune (intentional community)
A commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...
and squatter
Squatting
Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use....
movements like the one still thriving in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
Since the revival of anarchism in the mid 20th century, a number of new movements and schools have appeared. Anarchist anthropologist David Graeber
David Graeber
David Rolfe Graeber is an American anthropologist and anarchist who currently holds the position of Reader in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He was an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, although Yale controversially declined to rehire him, and his...
has posited a rupture between generations of anarchism, with those "who often still have not shaken the sectarian habits of the last century" contrasted with the younger activists who are "much more informed, among other elements, by indigenous
Traditional knowledge
Traditional knowledge , indigenous knowledge , traditional environmental knowledge and local knowledge generally refer to the long-standing traditions and practices of certain regional, indigenous, or local communities. Traditional knowledge also encompasses the wisdom, knowledge, and teachings...
, feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, ecological
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
and cultural-critical
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
ideas", and who by the turn of the 21st century formed "by far the majority" of anarchists.
Feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
has always been a part of the anarchist movement, in the form of anarcha-feminism
Anarcha-feminism
Anarcha-feminism combines anarchism with feminism. It generally views patriarchy as a manifestation of involuntary hierarchy. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class struggle, and the anarchist struggle against the state...
. North American anarchism also takes strong influences from the American Civil Rights Movement and the movement against the war in Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. European anarchism has developed out of the labour movement, and both have incorporated animal rights
Animal rights
Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...
activism. Globally, anarchism has also grown in popularity and influence as part of the anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
, anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
, and anti-globalisation movements. Recently, anarchists have been known for their involvement in protest
Protest
A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...
s against World Trade Organization
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
and Group of Eight
G8
The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...
meetings, and the World Economic Forum
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....
; protests which are generally portrayed in mainstream media coverage as violent riots. Many anarchists are part of the black bloc
Black bloc
A black bloc is a tactic for protests and marches, whereby individuals wear black clothing, scarves, ski masks, motorcycle helmets with padding, or other face-concealing items...
s at these protests and some engage in rioting, vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
, and violent
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
confrontations with police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
. Others peacefully protested, upholding non-violent
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
principles.
Anarchists and others might say that recent technological developments have made the anarchist cause both easier to advance and more conceivable to people. Many people use cell phones or the Internet to form loose communities which could be said to be organized along anarchist lines. Some of these communities have as their purpose the production of information in a non-commodified or use-value format, a goal made attainable by the availability of personal computing, desktop publishing and digital media. These things have made it possible for individuals to share music files
File sharing
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...
over the Internet, without economic incentive, and even with a certain amount of risk. There are also open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
programming communities, who donate their time, and offer their product freely as well. Examples include Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
, the free software movement
Free software movement
The free software movement is a social and political movement with the goal of ensuring software users' four basic freedoms: the freedom to run their software, to study and change their software, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. The alternative terms "software libre", "open...
(including the GNU
GNU
GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...
/Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
community and the wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
wiki paradigm), and Indymedia. A book analyzing how this new "anarchic" mode of production is possible is Eric S. Raymond
Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...
's The Cathedral and the Bazaar
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
The Cathedral and the Bazaar is an essay by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods, based on his observations of the Linux kernel development process and his experiences managing an open source project, fetchmail. It examines the struggle between top-down and bottom-up design...
. Traditional historical materialist
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
analysis, used by many libertarian socialists
Libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production...
, is one means of interpreting the above, and would describe it as a "political economy of non-commodity information production".
Anarcho-pacifism
Anarcho-pacifism is a form of anarchism that emerged shortly before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, emphasizing the complete rejection of violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
in any form for any purpose. Although commonly associated with religious forms of anarchism, such as Christian anarchism
Christian anarchism
Christian anarchism is a movement in political theology that combines anarchism and Christianity. It is the belief that there is only one source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable, the authority of God as embodied in the teachings of Jesus...
or Buddhist anarchism
Buddhist anarchism
Some observers believe certain Buddhist teachings form a philosophical ground for anarchism.-Inferences drawn from the Three Universal Truths:Buddhism is rooted in three fundamental truths of the universe, the dharma seals, viz.:...
, irreligious or anti-religious strains of anarcho-pacifism were present in the anarcho-punk
Anarcho-punk
Anarcho-punk is punk rock that promotes anarchism. The term anarcho-punk is sometimes applied exclusively to bands that were part of the original anarcho-punk movement in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and early 1980s...
scene of the 1970s, spearheaded by Crass
Crass
Crass are an English punk rock band that was formed in 1977, which promoted anarchism as a political ideology, way of living, and as a resistance movement. Crass popularised the seminal anarcho-punk movement of the punk subculture, and advocated direct action, animal rights, and environmentalism...
. Historical advocates of pacifist anarchism include the Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
, Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
and Mohandas Gandhi who considered violence to be the root of societies problems and the state as the manifestation of violence. It was an influential force in the nuclear disarmament movements that followed World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Among late 20th-century anarcho-pacifists was autarchist
Autarchism
Autarchism is a political philosophy that upholds the principle of individual liberty, rejects compulsory government, and supports the elimination of government in favor of ruling oneself and no other...
Robert LeFevre
Robert LeFevre
Robert LeFevre was an American libertarian businessman, radio personality, and primary theorist of autarchism.-Early life:...
, who based his pacifism on his belief in the inviolability of property rights. LeFevre also spoke out against war, which he considered to be a product of the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
, and was convinced of the power of non-violent resistance.
Free market anarchism
Free-market anarchism, usually referring to anarcho-capitalismAnarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism is a libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty in a free market...
, is a political philosophy (whose status within anarchism is disputed) which is most common in the United States. It is "based on a belief in the freedom to own private property
Private property
Private property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which refers to assets owned by a state, community or government rather than by...
, a rejection of any form of governmental authority or intervention, and the upholding of the competitive free market as the main mechanism for social interaction." Anarcho-capitalists advocate for all services, including law enforcement and security, to be performed by multiple private providers all competing for business, rather than by a monopolist state agency funded by taxation. Anarcho-capitalism's proponents include Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...
, David D. Friedman
David D. Friedman
David Director Friedman is an American economist, author, and Right-libertarian theorist. He is known as a leader in anarcho-capitalist political theory, which is the subject of his most popular book, The Machinery of Freedom...
, Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is an Austrian School economist of the anarcho-capitalist tradition, and a Professor Emeritus of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.-Academic career:...
, Walter Block
Walter Block
Walter Edward Block is a free market economist and anarcho-capitalist associated with the Austrian School of economics.-Personal history and education:...
, and Stefan Molyneux
Stefan Molyneux
Stefan Basil Molyneux is a blogger, essayist, author, and host of the Freedomain Radio series of podcasts, living in Mississauga, Canada...
.
Agorism
Agorism
Agorism is a political philosophy founded by Samuel Edward Konkin III and developed with contributions by J. Neil Schulman that holds as its ultimate goal bringing about a society in which all "relations between people are voluntary exchanges – a free market." The term comes from the Greek...
is a philosophy based on Rothbard's ideas. In the agorist work, The New Libertarian Manifesto by Samuel Konkin III, agorism is repeatedly described as being on the left of politics because Konkin views it as being revolutionary due to its explicit advocacy of expansion of the underground market economy as means to eliminate the state.
Anarcha-feminism
Anarcha-feminism (occasionally called anarcho-feminism) is a form of anarchism that synthesizes radical feminismRadical feminism
Radical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
and anarchism that views patriarchy (male domination over women) as a fundamental manifestation of involuntary hierarchy which anarchists often oppose. Anarcha-feminism was inspired in the late 19th century by the writings of early feminist anarchists such as Lucy Parsons
Lucy Parsons
Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons was an American labor organizer and radical socialist. She is remembered as a powerful orator.-Life:...
, Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
and Voltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre
Voltairine de Cleyre was an American anarchist writer and feminist. She was a prolific writer and speaker, opposing the state, marriage, and the domination of religion in sexuality and women's lives. She began her activist career in the freethought movement...
.
Anarcha feminists like other radical feminists criticize and advocate the abolition of traditional conceptions of family, education and gender roles. Anarcha-feminists are especially critical of marriage for instance the feminist anarchist Emma Goldman has argued that marriage is a purely economic arrangement... [woman] pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life.". Anarcha-feminists also often criticize the views of some of the traditional anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin who have believed that patriarchy is only a minor problem and is dependent only on the existence of the state and capitalism and will disappear soon after such institutions are abolished. Anarcha feminists by contrast view patriarchy as a fundamental problem in society and believe that the feminist struggle against sexism and patriarchy is an essential component of the anarchist struggle against the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
and capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. As Susan Brown puts it, "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist". Anarcha-feminists have also argued for non-hierarchical family and educational structures, and had a prominent role in the creation of the Modern School
Modern School (United States)
The Modern Schools, also called Ferrer Schools, were United States schools, established in the early twentieth century, that were modeled after the Escuela Moderna of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, the Catalan educator and anarchist...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, based on the ideas of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia
Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia
Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia was a Spanish Catalan free-thinker and anarchist....
.
In modern times anarcha-feminism has been noted for its heavy influence on ecofeminism. "Ecofeminists rightly note that except for anarcha feminist, no feminist perspective has recognized the importance of healing the nature/culture division."
Contemporary anarcha-feminist groups include Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
's Mujeres Creando
Mujeres Creando
Mujeres Creando is a Bolivian anarcha-feminist collective that participates in a range of anti-poverty work, including propaganda, street theater and direct action. The group was founded by María Galindo, Mónica Mendoza y J.Paredes in 1992 and members including two of Bolivia's only openly lesbian...
, Radical Cheerleaders, and the annual La Rivolta! conference in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
.
Green anarchism
Green anarchism
Green anarchism, or ecoanarchism, is a school of thought within anarchism which puts a particular emphasis on environmental issues. An important early influence was the thought of the American anarchist Henry David Thoreau and his book Walden...
is a school of anarchism that emphasizes the protection of the environment. Green anarchists can be broadly divided into two categories. Techno-negative green anarchists, such as John Zerzan
John Zerzan
John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric humans as an inspiration for what a free society should look like...
and Theodore Kaczynski
Theodore Kaczynski
Theodore John "Ted" Kaczynski , also known as the "Unabomber" , is an American mathematician, social critic, anarcho-primitivist, and Neo-Luddite who engaged in a mail bombing campaign that spanned nearly 20 years, killing three people and injuring 23 others.Kaczynski was born in Chicago, Illinois,...
, see modern civilization and technology (as well as agriculture, in the case of Anarcho-Primitivists) as inherently harmful. Techno-positive green anarchists, such as Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics,...
and Alan Carter
Alan Carter (philosopher)
Alan Brian Carter is the Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow.He earned a BA at the University of Kent at Canterbury, an MA at the University of Sussex and a DPhil at St Cross College at the University of Oxford.Carter's first academic position was Lecturer in Political...
, see technology as morally neutral or even as beneficial to the development of a green anarchist society.
It develops a critique of industrial civilization. In this critique, technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
and development
Social change
Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic...
have alienated
Social alienation
The term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...
people from the natural world. This philosophy develops themes present in the political action of the Luddites and the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
, although when primitivism emerged it was influenced more directly by the works of theorists such as the Frankfurt School
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
Marxists, Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...
; anthropologists Marshall Sahlins
Marshall Sahlins
Marshall David Sahlins is a prominent American anthropologist. He received both a Bachelors and Masters degree at the University of Michigan where he studied with Leslie White, and earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1954 where his main intellectual influences included Karl Polanyi and...
and Richard Lee
Richard Lee
Richard Lee may refer to:*Richard Lee , herald and Clarenceux King of Arms in the reign of Elizabeth I of England*Sir Richard Lee , British military engineer...
; and others such as Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford was an American historian, philosopher of technology, and influential literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer...
, Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.-Life:...
and Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...
. Many advocates of green anarchism and primitivism consider Fredy Perlman
Fredy Perlman
Fredy Perlman was an author, publisher and activist. His most popular work, the book Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, details the rise of state domination with a retelling of history through the Hobbesian metaphor of the Leviathan. The book remains a major source of inspiration for...
as the modern progenitor of their views.
Some techno-negative green anarchists, identifying themselves as anarcho-primitivists, advocate a complete process of 'rewilding
Rewilding
Rewilding may refer to:* Rewilding , the return of habitats to a natural state* Rewilding , the reversal of human "domestication"* Rewilding , a thoroughbred racehorse...
' and a return to nomadic hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
lifestyles while many green anarchists only wish to see an end to industrial society and do not necessarily oppose domestication
Domestication
Domestication or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. In the Convention on Biological Diversity a domesticated species is defined as a 'species in which the evolutionary process has been...
or agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
. Still, many green anarchists decide to skirt these issues entirely, focusing not on a post-revolutionary future, but on defense of the earth and social revolution in the present. Today there is disagreement between Primitivists and followers of more traditional forms of anarchism, such as the social ecology
Social ecology
Social ecology is a philosophy developed by Murray Bookchin in the 1960s.It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems, particularly in dominatory hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly...
of Murray Bookchin and socialist forms of anarchism which advocate class struggle
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
, although many green anarchists do advocate class struggle.
Anarcho-primitivism
Anarcho-primitivismAnarcho-primitivism
Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation...
is a form of green anarchism that believes civilization and technology inevitably lead to inequality and are incompatible with anarchism and in effect must be abolished. Anarcho-primitivists often criticize traditional anarchism for supporting civilization and technology which Anarcho-primitivists believe are inherently based on domination and exploitation and instead advocate the process of rewilding
Rewilding
Rewilding may refer to:* Rewilding , the return of habitats to a natural state* Rewilding , the reversal of human "domestication"* Rewilding , a thoroughbred racehorse...
or reconnecting with the natural environment
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
. Anarcho-primitivists (despite their opposition to science) often use the writings of anthropologists, such as Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond
Jared Mason Diamond is an American scientist and author whose work draws from a variety of fields. He is currently Professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA...
who wrote The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, that have portrayed indigenous societies as egalitarian, to support their critique of civilization.
Many traditional anarchists reject the critique of civilization, many even denying that anarcho-primitivism has anything to do with anarchism, while some, such as Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher is the former nom de plume of a contemporary anarchist philosopher involved in theoretical and practical activity...
, endorse the critique but do not consider themselves anarcho-primitivists. Anarcho-primitivists are often distinguished by their focus on the praxis of achieving a feral
Feral
A feral organism is one that has changed from being domesticated to being wild or untamed. In the case of plants it is a movement from cultivated to uncultivated or controlled to volunteer. The introduction of feral animals or plants to their non-native regions, like any introduced species, may...
state of being through "rewilding".
Eco-anarchism
Eco-anarchism is a subset of green anarchism that argues that society is best organized into small Eco-villages (somewhat similar to the KibbutzKibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
) consisting of no more than 150 people. Like anarcho-primitivists, eco-anarchists hold bands and tribes in high regard for their functionality and their non-hierarchical structure, but unlike anarcho-primitivists, do not support the total elimination of industrial and agricultural technology. Instead, they believe that small scale eco-villages are preferable to large scale urbanized forms of social organization.
Eco anarchists, like neo-tribalists often argue that life in small scale Eco-villages is preferable to life in large scale urbanized societies because of an Evolutionary Principle; the idea invented by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
that humans evolved to live in such societies
Band society
A band society is the simplest form of human society. A band generally consists of a small kin group, no larger than an extended family or clan; it has been defined as consisting of no more than 30 to 50 individuals.Bands have a loose organization...
and are thus better suited to such an environment. Eco-anarchism often combines elements of many earlier preexisting philosophies such as Deep ecology
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
, social ecology
Social ecology
Social ecology is a philosophy developed by Murray Bookchin in the 1960s.It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems, particularly in dominatory hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly...
, primitivism
Primitivism
Primitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
, neo-tribalism
Neo-Tribalism
Neotribalism or modern tribalism is the ideology that human beings have evolved to live in tribal society, as opposed to mass society, and thus will naturally form social networks constituting new "tribes."-Sociological theory:...
, bioregional democracy, Eco-feminism, pacifism
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
and secession
Secession
Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...
.
Veganism
Veganarchism
Veganarchism or vegan anarchism, is the political philosophy of veganism and anarchism, creating a combined praxis that is designed to be a means for social revolution. This encompasses viewing the state as unnecessary and harmful to animals, both human and non-human, whilst practising a vegan...
is the political philosophy
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
of veganism
Veganism
Veganism is the practice of eliminating the use of animal products. Ethical vegans reject the commodity status of animals and the use of animal products for any purpose, while dietary vegans or strict vegetarians eliminate them from their diet only...
(more specifically animal liberation
Animal Liberation
Animal liberation may refer to:*Animal rights, animals being considered as legal persons**Animal-liberation movement**Abolitionism , an abolitionist approach to animal rights**Veganarchism, a combined theory of animal liberation and anarchism...
) and green anarchism, creating a combined praxis
Praxis
Praxis is the putting of theory into practice. The term may refer to:* Christian theological praxis* Praxis , the practice of faith, especially worship* The Praxis School, a school of Marxist philosophy...
as a means for social revolution
Social revolution
The term social revolution may have different connotations depending on the speaker.In the Trotskyist movement, the term "social revolution" refers to an upheaval in which existing property relations are smashed...
. This encompasses viewing the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
as unnecessary and harmful to animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
s, both human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
and non-human
Non-human
Non-human is a term used to refer to non-human actors. Its use marks a shift in how the role of humans is perceived and discussed...
, whilst practising a vegan diet. Veganarchists either see the ideology as a combined theory, or perceive both philosophies to be essentially the same. It is further described as an anti-speciesist perspective on green anarchism, or an anarchist perspective on animal liberation
Animal Liberation
Animal liberation may refer to:*Animal rights, animals being considered as legal persons**Animal-liberation movement**Abolitionism , an abolitionist approach to animal rights**Veganarchism, a combined theory of animal liberation and anarchism...
.
The term was popularised in 1995 with Brian A. Dominick's pamphlet Animal Liberation and Social Revolution, described as "a vegan perspective on anarchism or an anarchist perspective on veganism". The 18-page pamphlet explains how many young anarchists in the 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
had been adopting deep ecological
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
(animal-inclusive and anti-speciesist) mindsets as part of an overall green anarchist political philosophy. Similarly animal liberationists were becoming increasingly influenced by anarchist thought and traditions, thus becoming veganarchists and adopting an overall praxis.
Especifismo
EspecifismoEspecifismo
Especifismo is one of the two main forms of anarchist activism championed by FARJ and other South American anarchist organizations, the other being social insertion...
emerged out of nearly 50 years of anarchist experiences in South America starting with the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya
Uruguayan Anarchist Federation
Federación Anarquista Uruguaya, commonly known as FAU or Uruguayan Anarchist Federation, is a Uruguayan anarchist organization founded in 1956. The FAU was created by anarchist militants to be a specifically anarchist organization. The FAU was the first organization to promote the organizational...
(FAU), founded in 1956 by anarchists who saw the need for an organization which was specifically anarchist. It has been summarised as:
"The need for specifically anarchist organization built around a unity of ideas and praxis. The use of the specifically anarchist organization to theorize and develop strategic political and organizing work. Active involvement in and building of autonomous and popular social movements, which is described as the process of "social insertion."
Other organisations that hold to Especifismo include Federação Anarquista Gaúcha
Federação Anarquista Gaúcha
The Federação Anarquista Gaúcha, or FAG, was formed November 18, 1995 in one of the meetings of the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation, in Montevideo. Of anarchist and socialist orientation, it defends federalism and self-management. Today this federation is spread in many cities of Rio Grande do Sul,...
(FAG), the Federação Anarquista Cabocla (FACA), and the Federação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro (FARJ) (all in Brazil). Especifismo is considered to have come to broadly similar conclusions to the Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft) leading to the argument that it is properly considered a new form of Platformism
Platformism
Platformism is a tendency within the wider anarchist movement originally theorised by Nestor Makhno and is mainly based on his concept of anarchism and the organisational theories in the tradition of Dielo Truda's Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists ...
.
Post-left anarchy
Post-left anarchyPost-left anarchy
Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchism's relationship to traditional leftism. Some post-leftists seek to escape the confines of ideology in general also presenting a critique of organizations and morality...
seeks to distance itself from the traditional "left" - communists, socialists, social democrats, etc. - and to escape the confines of ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
in general. Post-leftists argue that anarchism has been weakened by its long attachment to contrary "leftist" movements and single issue causes (anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
, anti-nuclear
Anti-nuclear
The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes the use of nuclear technologies. Many direct action groups, environmental groups, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, and international level...
, etc.). It calls for a synthesis of anarchist thought and a specifically anti-authoritarian revolutionary movement outside of the leftist milieu. Groups and individuals associated with Post-left anarchism include CrimethInc.
CrimethInc.
CrimethInc., also known as CWC , is a decentralized anarchist collective of autonomous cells. CrimethInc. emerged in the mid-1990s, initially as the hardcore zine Inside Front, and began operating as a collective in 1996...
, Jason McQuinn
Jason McQuinn
Jason McQuinn is an American anarchist, founder and co-editor of Alternative Press Review, and founder and former co-editor of the journal Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed from 1980 to 1995, when Tad Kepley took it over, and again from 1997 to 2006...
, Bob Black
Bob Black
Bob Black is an American anarchist. He is the author of The Abolition of Work and Other Essays, Beneath the Underground, Friendly Fire, Anarchy After Leftism, and numerous political essays.-Writing:Some of his work from the early 1980s includes...
, and the magazines Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed is a North American anarchist magazine, and is one of the most popular anarchist publications in North America. It could be described as a general interest and critical, non-ideological anarchist journal...
and Green Anarchy
Green Anarchy
Green Anarchy was a magazine published by a collective located in Eugene, Oregon. The magazine's focus was primitivism, post-left anarchy, radical environmentalism, African American struggles, anarchist resistance, indigenous resistance, earth and animal liberation, anti-capitalism and supporting...
.
The left
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
, even the revolutionary left, post-leftists argue, is anachronistic and incapable of creating change. Post-left anarchy offers critiques of radical strategies and tactics which it considers antiquated: the demonstration, class-oriented struggle, focus on tradition, and the inability to escape the confines of history. The book Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs, for example, criticizes traditional leftist ideas and classical anarchism while calling for a rejuvenated anarchist movement. The CrimethInc.
CrimethInc.
CrimethInc., also known as CWC , is a decentralized anarchist collective of autonomous cells. CrimethInc. emerged in the mid-1990s, initially as the hardcore zine Inside Front, and began operating as a collective in 1996...
essay "Your Politics Are Boring as Fuck" is another critique of "leftist" movements:
The ideas associated with post-left anarchy have been criticized by other anarchists, notably Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics,...
, whose polemic, Social Anarchism Or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm
Social Anarchism Or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm
Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm is a polemical essay written by Murray Bookchin and published as a book in 1995. It is a critique of deep ecology, bio-centrism and lifestyle anarchism...
, attacks these recent trends in anarchist thinking. Bob Black
Bob Black
Bob Black is an American anarchist. He is the author of The Abolition of Work and Other Essays, Beneath the Underground, Friendly Fire, Anarchy After Leftism, and numerous political essays.-Writing:Some of his work from the early 1980s includes...
wrote a book in response to Bookchin's arguments called Anarchy After Leftism.
Post-anarchism
The term post-anarchismPost-anarchism
Post-anarchism or postanarchism is the term used to represent anarchist philosophies developed since the 1980s using post-structuralist and postmodernist approaches. Some prefer to use the term post-structuralist anarchism, so as not to suggest having moved "past" anarchism...
was originated by Saul Newman
Saul Newman
Saul Newman is a political theorist and central post-anarchist thinker.Newman coined the term "post-anarchism" as a general term for political philosophies filtering 19th century anarchism through a post-structuralist lens, and later popularized it through his 2001 book From Bakunin to Lacan...
, and first received popular attention in his book From Bakunin to Lacan
From Bakunin to Lacan
From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power is a book on political philosophy by Saul Newman, published in 2001. It investigates the essentialist characteristics of anarchist theory, which holds that government and hierarchy are undesirable forms of social organisation...
to refer to a theoretical move towards a synthesis of classical anarchist theory and poststructuralist thought. Subsequent to Newman's use of the term, however, it has taken on a life of its own and a wide range of ideas including autonomism
Autonomism
Autonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. As an identifiable theoretical system it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerist communism...
, post-left anarchy
Post-left anarchy
Post-left anarchy is a recent current in anarchist thought that promotes a critique of anarchism's relationship to traditional leftism. Some post-leftists seek to escape the confines of ideology in general also presenting a critique of organizations and morality...
, situationism, post-colonialism and Zapatismo. By its very nature post-anarchism rejects the idea that it should be a coherent set of doctrines and beliefs. As such it is difficult, if not impossible, to state with any degree of certainty who should or should not be grouped under the rubric. Nonetheless key thinkers associated with post-anarchism include Saul Newman
Saul Newman
Saul Newman is a political theorist and central post-anarchist thinker.Newman coined the term "post-anarchism" as a general term for political philosophies filtering 19th century anarchism through a post-structuralist lens, and later popularized it through his 2001 book From Bakunin to Lacan...
, Todd May
Todd May
Todd May is a political philosopher notable for his role in developing, alongside Saul Newman and Lewis Call, the theory of post-structuralist anarchism. He is currently Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of Philosophy at Clemson University and contributes to CounterPunch...
, Lewis Call
Lewis Call
Lewis Call is an American academic notable for being a central post-anarchist thinker. He is best known for his 2002 book Postmodern Anarchism, which develops an account of postmodern anarchism through philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and cyberpunk writers such as William Gibson and Bruce...
, Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
and Félix Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
.
The "Lacanian anarchism" proposed by Saul Newman
Saul Newman
Saul Newman is a political theorist and central post-anarchist thinker.Newman coined the term "post-anarchism" as a general term for political philosophies filtering 19th century anarchism through a post-structuralist lens, and later popularized it through his 2001 book From Bakunin to Lacan...
utilizes the works of Jacques Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
and Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
more prominently. Newman criticizes classical anarchists, such as Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...
, for assuming an objective "human nature
Human nature
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally....
" and a natural order; he argues that from this approach, humans progress and are well-off by nature, with only the Establishment
The Establishment
The Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...
as a limitation that forces behavior otherwise. For Newman, this is a Manichaen
Manichaeism
Manichaeism in Modern Persian Āyin e Māni; ) was one of the major Iranian Gnostic religions, originating in Sassanid Persia.Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived...
worldview, which depicts only the reversal of Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...
' Leviathan
Leviathan (book)
Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil — commonly called simply Leviathan — is a book written by Thomas Hobbes and published in 1651. Its name derives from the biblical Leviathan...
, in which the "good" state is subjugated by the "evil" people.
Lewis Call
Lewis Call
Lewis Call is an American academic notable for being a central post-anarchist thinker. He is best known for his 2002 book Postmodern Anarchism, which develops an account of postmodern anarchism through philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and cyberpunk writers such as William Gibson and Bruce...
has attempted to develop post-anarchist theory through the work of Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, rejecting the Cartesian concept of the "subject". From here a radical form of anarchism is made possible; the anarchism of becoming. This anarchism does not have an eventual goal, nor flow into "being", it is not a final state of development, nor a static form of society, but rather becomes permanent, as a means without end. Italian autonomist Giorgio Agamben
Giorgio Agamben
Giorgio Agamben is an Italian political philosopher best known for his work investigating the concepts of the state of exception and homo sacer....
has also written about this idea. In this respect it is similar to the "complex systems" view of emerging society known as Panarchy
Panarchy
Panarchy is a conceptual term first coined by the Belgian botanist and economist Paul Emile de Puydt in 1860, referring to a specific form of governance that would encompass all others. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the noun as "chiefly poetic" with the meaning "a universal realm," citing...
. Call critiques liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
notions of language, consciousness, and rationality from an anarchist perspective, arguing that they are inherent in economic and political power within the capitalist state organization.
Insurrectionary anarchism
Insurrectionary anarchismInsurrectionary anarchism
Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory, practice and tendency within the anarchist movement which emphasizes the theme of insurrection within anarchist practice. It is critical of formal organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based on a political programme and...
is a form of revolutionary anarchism critical of formal anarchist labor unions and federations. Insurrectionary anarchists advocate informal organization, including small affinity groups, carrying out acts of resistance in various struggles, and mass organizations called base structures, which can include exploited individuals who are not anarchists. Proponents include Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher
Wolfi Landstreicher is the former nom de plume of a contemporary anarchist philosopher involved in theoretical and practical activity...
and Alfredo M. Bonanno
Alfredo M. Bonanno
Alfredo Maria Bonanno is a main theorist of contemporary insurrectionary anarchism who wrote essays such as Armed Joy , The Anarchist Tension and others. He is an editor of Anarchismo Editions and many other publications, only some of which have been translated into English...
, author of works including "Armed Joy" and "The Anarchist Tension". This tendency is represented in the US in magazines such as Willful Disobedience and Killing King Abacus.
Here, a text from the magazine Killing King Abacus outlines some of the basis points of insurrectionary anarchist praxis.
Insurrectionary anarchism is not an ideological solution to all social problems, a commodity on the capitalist market of ideologies and opinions, but an on-going praxis aimed at putting an end to the domination of the state and the continuance of capitalism, which requires analysis and discussion to advance. We don't look to some ideal society or offer an image of utopia for public consumption. Throughout history, most anarchists, except those who believed that society would evolve to the point that it would leave the state behind, have been insurrectionary anarchists. Most simply, this means that the state will not merely wither away, thus anarchists must attack, for waiting is defeat; what is needed is open mutiny and the spreading of subversion among the exploited and excluded. Here we spell out some implications that we and some other insurrectionary anarchists draw from this general problem: if the state will not disappear on its own, how then do we end its existence? It is, therefore, primarily a practice, and focuses on the organization of attack...
The State of capital will not "wither away"
...attack is the refusal of mediation, pacification, sacrifice, accommodation, and compromise.
Black bloc
A black bloc is a tactic for protests and marches, whereby participants wear black clothing, ski masks and motorcycle helmets with padding, steel-toed boots and often carrying their own shields and truncheons. The clothing is used to avoid being identified by authorities, and to theoretically appear as one large mass, promote solidarity, and create a clear revolutionary presence.The tactic was developed in the 1980s by anti-nuclear
Anti-nuclear
The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes the use of nuclear technologies. Many direct action groups, environmental groups, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, and international level...
activist autonomists
Autonomism
Autonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. As an identifiable theoretical system it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerist communism...
. Black blocs gained broader media attention outside Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
during the 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations
WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity
Protest activity surrounding the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, which was to be the launch of a new millennial round of trade negotiations, occurred on November 30, 1999 , when the World Trade Organization convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington,...
, when a black bloc damaged property of GAP
Gap (clothing retailer)
The Gap, Inc. is an American clothing and accessories retailer based in San Francisco, California, and founded in 1969 by Donald G. Fisher and Doris F. Fisher. The company has five primary brands: the namesake Gap banner, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta. As of September 2008,...
, Starbucks
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...
, Old Navy
Old Navy
Old Navy is an American clothing brand as well as a chain of stores owned by Gap, Inc., with corporate operations in San Francisco and San Bruno, California. It is one of the first major corporations to house headquarters in the new Mission Bay district of San Francisco.Gap, Inc. was run by...
, and other retail locations in downtown Seattle.
Tactics of a black bloc can include vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
, rioting and street fighting
Street fighting
Street fighting is a colloquial term used to denote unsanctioned, illegal in some countries, hand-to-hand fighting in public places, between individuals or groups of people....
, demonstrating without a permit, misleading the authorities, assisting in the escape of perpetrators arrested by the police, administering first aid
First aid
First aid is the provision of initial care for an illness or injury. It is usually performed by non-expert, but trained personnel to a sick or injured person until definitive medical treatment can be accessed. Certain self-limiting illnesses or minor injuries may not require further medical care...
to persons affected by tear gas in areas where protesters are barred from entering, building barricade
Barricade
Barricade, from the French barrique , is any object or structure that creates a barrier or obstacle to control, block passage or force the flow of traffic in the desired direction...
s, and attacking police. However not all bloc participants engage in violence; participants often use peaceful methods of protest as well. Although black blocking is usually connected with some form of direct action
Direct action
Direct action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
, some black blocs also participate in wholly symbolic action, as well as actions that fall entirely within traditional definitions of nonviolent
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
protest. Property destruction carried out by black blocs tends to have symbolic significance: common targets include banks, institutional buildings, outlets for multinational corporation
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
s, gasoline stations, video-surveillance cameras.
There may be several black blocs within a particular protest
Protest
A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...
, with different aims and tactics. As an ad hoc
Adhocracy
Adhocracy is a type of organization that operates in opposite fashion to a bureaucracy. The term was first popularized in 1970 by Alvin Toffler, and has since become often used in the theory of management of organizations , further developed by academics such as Henry Mintzberg.- Etymology :The...
group, they share no universally common set of principles or beliefs apart from an adherence to – usually – radical Left
Far left
Far left, also known as the revolutionary left, radical left and extreme left are terms which refer to the highest degree of leftist positions among left-wing politics...
/autonomist values. But a few radical right-wing groups, like some of the neo-Nazi Freie Kameradschaften of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, have adopted "black bloc" tactics too.
Analytical anarchism
Analytical anarchism, which partly began as a response to analytical MarxismAnalytical Marxism
Analytical Marxism refers to a particular Marxist approach that was prominent amongst English-speaking philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s. It was mainly associated with the September Group of academics, so called because of their biennial September meetings to discuss common...
, is a recent development in academia
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
that uses the methods of analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
to clarify or defend anarchist theory. Analytical anarchists include Robert Paul Wolff
Robert Paul Wolff
Robert Paul Wolff is a contemporary American political philosopher and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Wolff has written widely on many topics in political philosophy such as Marxism, tolerance , political justification and democracy. Wolff is also well known for his work on...
, Alan Carter
Alan Carter (philosopher)
Alan Brian Carter is the Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow.He earned a BA at the University of Kent at Canterbury, an MA at the University of Sussex and a DPhil at St Cross College at the University of Oxford.Carter's first academic position was Lecturer in Political...
, and Michael Taylor. Wolff argues that we have no obligation to obey the state, while Carter argues that the state cannot be trusted to liberate the people, and Taylor uses game theory
Game theory
Game theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances, such as in games, where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others...
to argue that cooperation is possible without the state.
Analitycal anarchism also refers, according to Peter Boettke
Peter Boettke
Peter J. Boettke is an American economist of the Austrian School.-Early life and education:Boettke was born in Rahway, New Jersey to Fred and Elinor Boettke and remained there until he moved to Pennsylvania to attend Thiel College in Greenville and later Grove City College. He became interested in...
, to the positive political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
of anarchism, or anarchism from the economic point of view, in the libertarian tradition
Anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism is a libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty in a free market...
of Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...
's For a New Liberty
For a New Liberty
For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto is a book by American economist and historian Murray N. Rothbard, first published in 1973, that helped launch the modern libertarian movement in the United States, and was the first modern free market anarchist manifesto For a New Liberty: The...
(1973) and David Friedman
David D. Friedman
David Director Friedman is an American economist, author, and Right-libertarian theorist. He is known as a leader in anarcho-capitalist political theory, which is the subject of his most popular book, The Machinery of Freedom...
's The Machinery of Freedom
The Machinery of Freedom
The Machinery of Freedom is a 1973 nonfiction book by libertarian economist David D. Friedman outlining the means by which an anarcho-capitalist society could operate...
(1973). Boettke claims that analytical anarchism has developed out of this tradition, and is currently being pursued by economists such as Peter Leeson
Peter Leeson
Peter T. Leeson is BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University He authored The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, a book in which he uses rational choice theory to examine the economic conditions and incentives that influenced pirate...
, Edward Stringham
Edward Stringham
Edward Peter Stringham is the L.V. Hackley Endowed Professor for the Study of Capitalism and Free Enterprise at Fayetteville State University.He received a B.A. in economics from College of the Holy Cross and his Ph.D...
, and Christopher Coyne. These professors are related to Mercatus Center
Mercatus Center
The Mercatus Center at George Mason University in the United States is a non-profit market-oriented research, education, and outreach think tank affiliated with the Koch family. It works with policy experts, lobbyists, and government officials to connect academic learning and real-world practice...
and to the faculty of economics at George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
.
New Anarchism
"New Anarchism" is a term that has been notably used by Andrej GrubacicAndrej Grubacic
Andrej Grubačić is a US-based anarchist theorist, sociologist, activist and lecturer with a Yugoslavian background who has written on anarchism and the history of the Balkans...
, amongst others, to describe the most recent reinvention of the anarchist thought and practice. What distinguishes the new anarchism of today from the new anarchism of the '60s and '70s, or from the work of US-UK based authors like Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics,...
, Paul Goodman
Paul Goodman (writer)
Paul Goodman was an American sociologist, poet, writer, anarchist, and public intellectual. Goodman is now mainly remembered as the author of Growing Up Absurd and an activist on the pacifist Left in the 1960s and an inspiration to that era's student movement...
, Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
, Colin Ward
Colin Ward
Colin Ward was a British anarchist writer. He has been called "one of the greatest anarchist thinkers of the past half century, and a pioneering social historian." -Life:...
and Alex Comfort
Alex Comfort
Alexander Comfort, MB BChir, PhD, DSc was a medical professional, gerontologist, anarchist, pacifist, conscientious objector and writer, best known for The Joy of Sex, which played a part in what is often called the sexual revolution...
, is its emphasis on the global perspective. Some of essays on new anarchism include David Graeber
David Graeber
David Rolfe Graeber is an American anthropologist and anarchist who currently holds the position of Reader in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He was an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, although Yale controversially declined to rehire him, and his...
's "New Anarchists" in A Movement of Movements: is Another World Really possible?, ed. Tom Mertes (London: Verso, 2004) and Grubacic's "Towards Another Anarchism" in World Social Forum: Challenging Empires, ed. Jai Sen and Peter Waterman (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2007).
Neo-Anarchism in the Global South
A number of popular movements in the global South, like the Zapatista Army of National LiberationZapatista Army of National Liberation
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is a revolutionary leftist group based in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico....
in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Abahlali baseMjondolo
Abahlali baseMjondolo
Abahlali baseMjondolo , also known as AbM or the red shirts is a shack-dwellers' movement in South Africa which is well known for its campaigning for public housing. The movement grew out of a road blockade organized from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban in early 2005 and now...
in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
have been described as having close connections to some aspects of traditional anarchist thought. However these movements do not describe themselves as anarchist.,
Free Software movement
The Free SoftwareFree software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
movement is an example of an emergent movement with anarchist characteristics. The nature of the GPL
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
and many other free software licenses is such that there is a collective sharing of resources (in this case, source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
) between developers and users, thus some anarchists see this as putting into practice their perspective on private property
Property
Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...
and economic organization. There is, however, little evidence that those involved in the Free Software have considered the political implications. The movement can be treated as being a large number of anarcho-syndicalist communities.
The Free Software movement was started by people who believe that software should be free, and indeed this is the position of the Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
. However, large amounts of free software is written nowadays by traditional software development bodies who consider it as a better development method for many cases.
Crypto-anarchism
Crypto-anarchism is an ideologyIdeology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
that expounds the use of strong public-key cryptography
Public-key cryptography
Public-key cryptography refers to a cryptographic system requiring two separate keys, one to lock or encrypt the plaintext, and one to unlock or decrypt the cyphertext. Neither key will do both functions. One of these keys is published or public and the other is kept private...
to enforce privacy
Privacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
and individual freedom
Freedom (political)
Political freedom is a central philosophy in Western history and political thought, and one of the most important features of democratic societies...
. It was described by Vernor Vinge
Vernor Vinge
Vernor Steffen Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels and novellas A Fire Upon the Deep , A Deepness in the Sky , Rainbows End , Fast Times at Fairmont High ...
as a cyberspatial realization of anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism is a libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty in a free market...
. Crypto-anarchists aim to create cryptographic software that can be used to evade prosecution and harassment while sending and receiving information in computer network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
s. Timothy C. May
Timothy C. May
Timothy C. May, better known as Tim May, is a technical and political writer, and was an electronic engineer and senior scientist at Intel in the company's early history...
wrote about crypto anarchism in Cyphernomicon
Cyphernomicon
"The Cyphernomicon" is a document written by Timothy C. May in 1994 for the Cypherpunks electronic mailing list, outlining some ideas behind, and the effects of, crypto-anarchism...
:
Using such software, the association between the identity
Identity (social science)
Identity is a term used to describe a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations . The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, and is given a great deal of attention in social psychology...
of a certain user or organisation and the pseudonym they use is difficult to find, unless the user reveals the association. It is difficult to say which country's laws will be ignored, as even the location of a certain participant is unknown. In a sense, the encrypted anonymous networks (the "cipherspace
Cipherspace
Cipherspace or cypherspace is the encrypted equivalent to cyberspace. Examples of cipherspaces include Freenet, I2P, Tor, and some anonymous mail-forwarding services....
") can be regarded as an independent, lawless territory. However, participants may in theory voluntarily create new laws using smart contracts or, if the user is pseudonymous
Pseudonymity
Pseudonymity is a word derived from pseudonym, meaning 'false name', and anonymity, meaning unknown or undeclared source, describing a state of disguised identity. The pseudonym identifies a holder, that is, one or more human beings who possess but do not disclose their true names...
, depend on online reputation.
One motive of crypto-anarchists is to defend against surveillance
Computer surveillance
Computer surveillance is the act of performing surveillance of computer activity, and of data stored on a hard drive or being transferred over the Internet....
of computer networks communication.
A second concern is evasion of censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
, particularly internet censorship
Internet censorship
Internet censorship is the control or suppression of the publishing of, or access to information on the Internet. It may be carried out by governments or by private organizations either at the behest of government or on their own initiative...
, on the grounds of freedom of expression. The programs used by crypto-anarchists often make it possible to both publish and read information off the internet or other computer networks anonymously. Thirdly, the technical challenge in developing these cryptographic systems is tremendous, which interests some programmers into joining the projects.
Indymedia
Open publishing
Open publishing is a process of creating news or other content that is transparent to the readers. They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the pool of stories publicly available. Those stories are filtered as little as possible to help the readers find the stories they want....
network of journalists that report on political and social issues. It originated during the anti-WTO protests worldwide in 1999
WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity
Protest activity surrounding the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999, which was to be the launch of a new millennial round of trade negotiations, occurred on November 30, 1999 , when the World Trade Organization convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington,...
and remains closely associated with the global justice movement
Global Justice Movement
The Global Justice Movement is a network or constellation of globalized social movements opposing what is often known as the “corporate globalization” and promoting equal distribution of economic resources.-Movement of movements:...
, which criticizes neo-liberalism, and its associated institutions. Indymedia uses an open publishing
Open publishing
Open publishing is a process of creating news or other content that is transparent to the readers. They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the pool of stories publicly available. Those stories are filtered as little as possible to help the readers find the stories they want....
and democratic media
Democratic media
Democratic media is a form of media organization that strives to have the principles of democracy underlying not only the production of content, but also the organization of the entire project.- Definition of the term :...
process that allows anybody to contribute.
According to its homepage, "Indymedia is a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth." Indymedia was founded as an alternative to government and mainstream media, and seeks to facilitate people being able to publish their media as directly as possible.
Indymedia has a variable reputation, both among its users and outside critics. Its operations are conducted by activists around the world, who, though they may be lacking in journalistic training and corporate funding, tend to make up for this with enthusiasm for reporting issues of social justice and unique related events, which in their view, the corporate media
Corporate media
"Corporate media" is a term which refers to a system of mass media production, distribution, ownership, and funding which is dominated by corporations and their CEOs....
under-reports or censors
Project Censored
Project Censored is a non-profit, media criticism and investigative journalism project within the Sonoma State University Foundation. It is managed through the School of Social Sciences at the university....
. For example, the Bolivian Gas War
Bolivian Gas War
The Bolivian gas conflict was a social confrontation in Bolivia centering on the exploitation of the country's vast natural gas reserves. The expression can be extended to refer to the general conflict in Bolivia over the exploitation of gas resources, thus including the 2005 protests and the...
in 2003 was virtually unheard of in the US media, while it received extensive worldwide and multilingual reporting through Indymedia. Another example is the February 15, 2003 anti-war protest
February 15, 2003 anti-war protest
The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world expressing opposition to the then-imminent Iraq War. It was part of a series of protests and political events that had begun in 2002 and continued as the war took place....
in many US and European cities, which received detailed coverage written by its participants.
External links
- Amster, RandallRandall AmsterRandall Amster is an author, activist, and educator in areas including peace, ecology, homelessness, and anarchism. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1966, Amster has worked as an attorney, judicial clerk, professor, and academic administrator during his professional career...
, et al. (eds.), Contemporary Anarchist Studies. Routledge, New York/UK 2009. - Perlin, Terry M. Contemporary Anarchism. Transaction Books, New Brunswick, NJ 1979.