Fifth Estate
Encyclopedia
Fifth Estate is a US periodical, originally based in Detroit, Michigan
, but now produced in a variety of locations. Its editorial collective shares divergent views on the topics the magazine addresses but generally shares an anti-authoritarian
outlook and a non-dogmatic, action-oriented approach to change. The title implies that the periodical is an alternative to the fourth estate
(traditional print journalism
).
Fifth Estate is frequently cited as the longest running English language anarchist publication in North America, although this is sometimes disputed since it became only explicitly anti-authoritarian in 1975 after ten years of publishing as part of the 1960s Underground Press movement.
, a seventeen year old youth from Detroit. He was inspired by a summer trip to California where he worked on The Los Angeles Free Press
, the first underground paper in the US
. The name came from The Fifth Estate coffee house on the Sunset Strip
, where the Free Press had its office in the basement.
The first issue was published on November 19, 1965—"That's what we really are—the voice of the liberal element in Detroit," it said. It was produced on a typewriter and then reproduced by offset lithograph, in an 8-page tabloid newspaper format with two pages left blank. It featured a critical review of a Bob Dylan
concert, a borrowed Jules Feiffer
cartoon, alternative events listing and an announcement of a forthcoming anti-Vietnam War
march. None of these things would have been included in contemporary newspapers.
In 1966 Ovshinsky moved the office from his parents' basement to a mid-town storefront near Wayne State University
. Here the paper was saved from extinction by the Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam
, John Sinclair
's Artist Workshop, and other radicals, with Sinclair signing on as the paper's first music editor. Later in 1966 the paper moved to Plum Street
where they also established a bookshop. Fifth Estate thrived in the late sixties, a period when over 500 underground papers emerged in the US. Thousands of copies were distributed locally with hundreds more being sent to GIs in Vietnam
. Fifth Estate openly called on soldiers to mutiny
. In 1967 the Fifth Estate offices were tear-gassed by the National Guard
during the 12th Street riot
. In this period the print run reached 15,000 – 20,000 copies, publishing biweekly in a tabloid newspaper format of 20 to 32 pages, with local ads and listings.
From the start Fifth Estate had a political orientation that could be described as non-denominational Marxist. There was an informal rule that regular staff members could not be card-carrying party members at the same time, but several staff members had connections with the SWP (Socialist Workers Party
), and Sol Wellman, the former head of the Communist Party
in Michigan, would drop by the Fifth Estate office to discuss the issues of the day. The spirit of the paper during the first ten years of its existence was summed up in a Feb. 1, 1969 staff editorial:
, a 29-year-old Michigan State dropout who had been with the paper since March 1966, took over as editor. Some of the young staff's naïveté wore off as they sent delegations to Vietnam, Cambodia
and Cuba
. The massive defeat of George McGovern
and the election of Richard Nixon
for a second term with an increased vote damaged the movement—many underground papers stopped coming out and the alternative news services such as the Liberation News Service
, and the Underground Press Syndicate
collapsed. The Fifth Estate was mentioned in the national press when one of its reporters, Pat Halley, threw a shaving cream pie at Guru Maharaj Ji
in 1973. Though the guru forgave him publicly, two of his followers attacked Halley a week later and fractured his skull.
By 1975, Fifth Estate was lingering on—many staff had burnt out through too much activism and they had their share of internal disputes. The debts were mounting. In August 1975, Vol. 11, No.1 declared "The issue you are now holding is the last issue of the Fifth Estate - the last issue of a failing capitalist enterprise…This is also the first issue of a new Fifth Estate." This was the first explicitly anti-authoritarian
issue of Fifth Estate. The paper had been taken over by the Eat the Rich Gang, a group that had successfully published several pamphlets and were particularly influenced by Fredy Perlman
, Jacques Camatte
, Jean Baudrillard
, Council communism
, and Left Communism
, as well as the Situationists. They did not originally identify themselves as explicitly anarchist and had no contacts with the anarchist currents of the 1930s. However, they were contacted by veterans of that period who they saw as powerful role model
s. Those included Marcus Graham (publisher of the 1930s anarchist periodical Man!) and Spanish and Italian anarchist veterans. They also developed a close relationship with Black and Red Press, a radical Marxist printers/publishers group with which Lorraine and Fredy Perlman
were involved.
. Long-time contributor John Zerzan
published his seminal essays on time, language, art, number and agriculture in the magazine. His articles were frequently accompanied by long critiques by George Bradford (née David Watson
) or Bob Brubaker, who developed different versions of primitivism. After Zerzan's 1988 article on agriculture
, he started publishing his new essays in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed
. Dismayed by what he saw as the excesses of Zerzan and others, Watson eventually repudiated primitivism in his 1997 essay "Swamp Fever".
remained involved. In 2006, Fifth Estate decentralized their editorial group, and since then issues have been published that were primarily produced in Michigan, Tennessee, New York and Wisconsin. The current editorial collective has moved away from primitivism, does not endorse a specific political line and welcomes voices from disparate strains of anti-authoritarian thought. The group also continues to distance themselves from anarchism as a specific ideology, embracing a more inclusive, yet still radical, anti-capitalist perspective. Continuing to cover environmental and anti-capitalist resistance, articles have also appeared which address immigration, race, feminism, queer sexuality and transgender issues.
In 2008, long-time contributor Marie Mason
was arrested as part of what some call the Green Scare
. In February 2009, she was sentenced to almost 22 years for two acts of environmentally-motivated property destruction. The Fifth Estate has run articles protesting both the labeling of her actions as "terrorism" as well as the long sentence she received.
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, but now produced in a variety of locations. Its editorial collective shares divergent views on the topics the magazine addresses but generally shares an anti-authoritarian
Anti-authoritarian
Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as a "political doctrine advocating the principle of absolute rule: absolutism, autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, totalitarianism." Anti-authoritarians usually believe in full equality before the law and strong civil...
outlook and a non-dogmatic, action-oriented approach to change. The title implies that the periodical is an alternative to the fourth estate
Fourth Estate
The concept of the Fourth Estate is a societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognized. The Fourth Estate now most commonly refers to the news media; especially print journalism, referred to hereon as "The Press"...
(traditional print journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
).
Fifth Estate is frequently cited as the longest running English language anarchist publication in North America, although this is sometimes disputed since it became only explicitly anti-authoritarian in 1975 after ten years of publishing as part of the 1960s Underground Press movement.
Origin
Fifth Estate was started by Harvey OvshinskyHarvey Ovshinsky
Harvey Ovshinsky is a journalist, story consultant media producer, film maker, and self described "Detroit Story Teller". Ovshinsky was raised in Detroit, Michigan and attended Mumford High School. In 1965, at age 17, he founded and edited Fifth Estate, one of the longest running underground...
, a seventeen year old youth from Detroit. He was inspired by a summer trip to California where he worked on The Los Angeles Free Press
Los Angeles Free Press
The Los Angeles Free Press , also called “the Freep”, was among the most widely distributed underground newspapers of the 1960s. It is often cited as the first such newspaper...
, the first underground paper in the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The name came from The Fifth Estate coffee house on the Sunset Strip
Sunset Strip
The Sunset Strip is the name given to the mile-and-a-half stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through West Hollywood, California. It extends from West Hollywood's eastern border with Hollywood at Harper Avenue, to its western border with Beverly Hills at Sierra Drive...
, where the Free Press had its office in the basement.
The first issue was published on November 19, 1965—"That's what we really are—the voice of the liberal element in Detroit," it said. It was produced on a typewriter and then reproduced by offset lithograph, in an 8-page tabloid newspaper format with two pages left blank. It featured a critical review of a Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
concert, a borrowed Jules Feiffer
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays...
cartoon, alternative events listing and an announcement of a forthcoming anti-Vietnam War
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...
march. None of these things would have been included in contemporary newspapers.
In 1966 Ovshinsky moved the office from his parents' basement to a mid-town storefront near Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
. Here the paper was saved from extinction by the Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam
Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam
The Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam was the city-wide anti-war organization that mobilized numerous actions in Detroit, United States between 1965 and 1972 and helped bring thousands of people to mass protests in Washington, D.C...
, John Sinclair
John Sinclair (poet)
John Sinclair is a Detroit poet, one-time manager of the band MC5, and leader of the White Panther Party — a militantly anti-racist countercultural group of white socialists seeking to assist the Black Panthers in the Civil Rights movement — from November 1968 to July 1969...
's Artist Workshop, and other radicals, with Sinclair signing on as the paper's first music editor. Later in 1966 the paper moved to Plum Street
Plum Street
Plum Street is a neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan, roughly the area today bounded by Michigan Avenue, the Lodge Freeway, and the Fisher Freeway. The community gained wide notice in the late 1960s as hub of art, rock 'n' roll, anti-war, drug and hippie activity...
where they also established a bookshop. Fifth Estate thrived in the late sixties, a period when over 500 underground papers emerged in the US. Thousands of copies were distributed locally with hundreds more being sent to GIs in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. Fifth Estate openly called on soldiers to mutiny
Mutiny
Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...
. In 1967 the Fifth Estate offices were tear-gassed by the National Guard
United States National Guard
The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...
during the 12th Street riot
12th Street riot
The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan, that began in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the corner of 12th and...
. In this period the print run reached 15,000 – 20,000 copies, publishing biweekly in a tabloid newspaper format of 20 to 32 pages, with local ads and listings.
From the start Fifth Estate had a political orientation that could be described as non-denominational Marxist. There was an informal rule that regular staff members could not be card-carrying party members at the same time, but several staff members had connections with the SWP (Socialist Workers Party
Socialist Workers Party (United States)
The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...
), and Sol Wellman, the former head of the Communist Party
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
in Michigan, would drop by the Fifth Estate office to discuss the issues of the day. The spirit of the paper during the first ten years of its existence was summed up in a Feb. 1, 1969 staff editorial:
"We believe that people who are serious in their criticism of this society and their desire to change it must involve themselves in serious revolutionary struggle. We do not believe that music is revolution. We do not believe that dope is revolution. We do not believe that poetry is revolution. We see these as part of a burgeoning revolutionary culture. They cannot replace political struggle as the main means by which the capitalist system will be destroyed. The Man will not allow his social and economic order to be taken from him by Marshall amps and clashing cymbals. Ask the Cubans, the Vietnamese or urban American blacks what lengths the system is willing to go to, to preserve itself."
1970s
By 1972 the optimism of the sixties had worn off and the tone of the paper became more concerned with struggle than fun. Ovshinsky had left in 1969, leaving a group of young people (teenagers or in their early twenties) to run the paper. Peter WerbePeter Werbe
Peter Werbe is a radio talk show host and political activist. He hosts Nightcall Sunday nights on Detroit's WRIF 101.1 FM. Werbe's tenure, having commenced in 1970, makes him one of the longest broadcasting talk show hosts in radio history.-Nightcall:...
, a 29-year-old Michigan State dropout who had been with the paper since March 1966, took over as editor. Some of the young staff's naïveté wore off as they sent delegations to Vietnam, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
and Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. The massive defeat of George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
and the election of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
for a second term with an increased vote damaged the movement—many underground papers stopped coming out and the alternative news services such as the Liberation News Service
Liberation News Service
Liberation News Service was a New Left, Underground press news service which published news bulletins from 1967 to 1981.-History:The Liberation News Service was co-founded in the summer of 1967 by Ray Mungo and Marshall Bloom after the two of them were separated from the United States Student...
, and the Underground Press Syndicate
Underground Press Syndicate
The Underground Press Syndicate, commonly known as UPS, and later known as the Alternative Press Syndicate or APS, was a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines formed in mid-1966 by the publishers of five early underground papers: the East Village Other, the Los Angeles Free Press, the...
collapsed. The Fifth Estate was mentioned in the national press when one of its reporters, Pat Halley, threw a shaving cream pie at Guru Maharaj Ji
Prem Rawat
Prem Pal Singh Rawat , also known as Maharaji and formerly known as Guru Maharaj Ji and Balyogeshwar, teaches a meditation practice he calls Knowledge....
in 1973. Though the guru forgave him publicly, two of his followers attacked Halley a week later and fractured his skull.
Anti-authoritarian
Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as a "political doctrine advocating the principle of absolute rule: absolutism, autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, totalitarianism." Anti-authoritarians usually believe in full equality before the law and strong civil...
issue of Fifth Estate. The paper had been taken over by the Eat the Rich Gang, a group that had successfully published several pamphlets and were particularly influenced by 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...
, Jacques Camatte
Jacques Camatte
Jacques Camatte is a French writer who once was a Marxist theoretician and member of the International Communist Party, a primarily Italian left communist organisation under the influence of Amadeo Bordiga, which denounced the USSR as capitalist and aimed to rebuild a "true" Leninism...
, 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:...
, Council communism
Council communism
Council communism is a current of libertarian Marxism that emerged out of the November Revolution in the 1920s, characterized by its opposition to state capitalism/state socialism as well as its advocacy of workers' councils as the basis for workers' democracy.Originally affiliated with the...
, and Left Communism
Left communism
Left communism is the range of communist viewpoints held by the communist left, which criticizes the political ideas of the Bolsheviks at certain periods, from a position that is asserted to be more authentically Marxist and proletarian than the views of Leninism held by the Communist International...
, as well as the Situationists. They did not originally identify themselves as explicitly anarchist and had no contacts with the anarchist currents of the 1930s. However, they were contacted by veterans of that period who they saw as powerful role model
Role model
The term role model generally means any "person who serves as an example, whose behaviour is emulated by others".The term first appeared in Robert K. Merton's socialization research of medical students...
s. Those included Marcus Graham (publisher of the 1930s anarchist periodical Man!) and Spanish and Italian anarchist veterans. They also developed a close relationship with Black and Red Press, a radical Marxist printers/publishers group with which Lorraine and 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...
were involved.
1980s and 1990s
By 1980, the paper had become more anti-technological and anti-civilisation, something for which it was well known throughout the '80's. It was the focal point for the development of the political trend of 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...
. Long-time contributor 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...
published his seminal essays on time, language, art, number and agriculture in the magazine. His articles were frequently accompanied by long critiques by George Bradford (née David Watson
David Watson
David Watson may refer to:*Dave Watson , actor and playwright*David Watson , anarchist author*David Watson *David Watson , Australian Senator...
) or Bob Brubaker, who developed different versions of primitivism. After Zerzan's 1988 article on 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...
, he started publishing his new essays in 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...
. Dismayed by what he saw as the excesses of Zerzan and others, Watson eventually repudiated primitivism in his 1997 essay "Swamp Fever".
2001 to present
In 2001, the center of the magazine shifted from Detroit, Michigan to Liberty, Tennessee when long-time contributor Sunfrog Bonobo took over the main editorial duties of the magazine, although long-time Detroit staffers like Peter WerbePeter Werbe
Peter Werbe is a radio talk show host and political activist. He hosts Nightcall Sunday nights on Detroit's WRIF 101.1 FM. Werbe's tenure, having commenced in 1970, makes him one of the longest broadcasting talk show hosts in radio history.-Nightcall:...
remained involved. In 2006, Fifth Estate decentralized their editorial group, and since then issues have been published that were primarily produced in Michigan, Tennessee, New York and Wisconsin. The current editorial collective has moved away from primitivism, does not endorse a specific political line and welcomes voices from disparate strains of anti-authoritarian thought. The group also continues to distance themselves from anarchism as a specific ideology, embracing a more inclusive, yet still radical, anti-capitalist perspective. Continuing to cover environmental and anti-capitalist resistance, articles have also appeared which address immigration, race, feminism, queer sexuality and transgender issues.
In 2008, long-time contributor Marie Mason
Marie Mason
Marie Mason is an environmental activist from Cincinnati, Ohio, who in 2009 was sentenced to 22 years after admitting 13 counts of arson and property damage amounting to US$4 million...
was arrested as part of what some call the Green Scare
Green Scare
The Green Scare, alluding to the Red Scares periods of fear over communist infiltration of US society, is a term popularized by environmental activists to refer to legal action by the US government against the radical environmental movement....
. In February 2009, she was sentenced to almost 22 years for two acts of environmentally-motivated property destruction. The Fifth Estate has run articles protesting both the labeling of her actions as "terrorism" as well as the long sentence she received.
Contributors
- Richard MockRichard MockRichard Mock was a printmaker, painter, sculptor, and editorial cartoonist. Mock was best known for his linocut illustrations that appeared on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times from 1980 through 1996....
, designer of many of the linocuts used on Fifth Estates covers. - David Watson, longtime Fifth Estate writer and editorial collective member
- Fredy PerlmanFredy PerlmanFredy 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...
, Fifth Estate writer - Peter WerbePeter WerbePeter Werbe is a radio talk show host and political activist. He hosts Nightcall Sunday nights on Detroit's WRIF 101.1 FM. Werbe's tenure, having commenced in 1970, makes him one of the longest broadcasting talk show hosts in radio history.-Nightcall:...
, longtime Fifth Estate writer and editorial collective member - John ZerzanJohn ZerzanJohn 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...
, Fifth Estate contributor from 1974 to 1988
External links
- Official website
- Fifth Estate on the website of Peter WerbePeter WerbePeter Werbe is a radio talk show host and political activist. He hosts Nightcall Sunday nights on Detroit's WRIF 101.1 FM. Werbe's tenure, having commenced in 1970, makes him one of the longest broadcasting talk show hosts in radio history.-Nightcall:...
. - Metro Times story on Fifth Estates 40th anniversary