This is a write-up of a talk I gave in Edinburgh in April 2019 on anarchist ideas on social change and organisation. I have used the slides I created for the talk as the basis of this write-up, although as usual I am sure this is not the same as what was said on the night but close enough. Hopefully this talk gives a useful summary of anarchist ideas on organisation and their development from the birth of anarchism to around 1920.
Writer: Anarcho
Articles by anarcho
Anarchists from Proudhon onwards have met with misunderstanding and not a little deliberate distortion. Peter Kropotkin, despite being one of the most widely read anarchist thinkers, has also suffered this fate. This, perhaps, is due to him being so widely read for the most easily available works are those he wrote as general introductions to anarchism. The more numerous works he wrote for the anarchist press addressing the issues it was facing remain mostly buried in archives.
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Precursors of Syndicalism II
The first instalment of Precursors of Syndicalism (ASR No. 75, Winter 2019) sketched the rise of syndicalist ideas within the First International. Championed by Bakunin, the idea of the International as a militant union for economic struggle was the majority trend within it and Marx preferred to destroy the organisation when it did not endorse his position of transforming it into parties pursuing political action.
There is nothing worse than seeing a film labelled “inspired by true events” (or a TV series “inspired” by the stories of Philip K. Dick) for you know that any relation to actual events is purely accidental. This does not mean the film will be bad – indeed, it may be excellent (Blade Runner springs to mind as regards Dick adaptations). It just means that when you discover the source of the “inspiration” you realise the film does not reflect it very much, if at all.
This is a write-up of a talk I gave at the Sparrow’s Nest Archive in Nottingham on 23 June 2018. The talk was advertised by the following text:
The Revolutions of 1848 remain the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history. While remembered as essentially liberal in nature, aiming at ending the old monarchical regimes they were also note-worthy for the advent of the industrial working class as a factor in social struggle. So as well as political change, the social question was raised while the events of 1848 shaped the ideas of Marx and Proudhon. So on their 170th anniversary, we look at the 1848 revolutions and their lessons for today.
This is a write-up of my notes for the book launch of Kropotkin’s Modern Science and Anarchy in Nottingham, 17th of November 2018. This, in turn, was a slightly revised version of a talk I did in Edinburgh early that year. As with all my subsequent write-ups, this is more what I aimed to say rather than what was said (this, for example, has far fewer jokes than uttered on the day). Still, it covers the main points said on the day.
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Propertarianism and Fascism
Discussing the links between propertarianism (i.e., right-wing “libertarianism”) and fascism, concentrating on Ludwig von Mises and his support for it in the short-term to crush the labour movement, including his role as an advisor to the Austrian fascist government of Engelbert Dollfuss. It appeared in Anarcho–Syndicalist Review No. 75 (Winter 2019)
The State and Revolution: Theory and Practice
This is almost my chapter in the anthology Bloodstained: One Hundred Years of Leninist Counterrrevolution (Oakland/Edinburgh: AK Press, 2017). Some revisions were made during the editing process which are not included here. In addition, references to the 1913 French edition of Kropotkin’s Modern Science and Anarchy have been replaced with those from the 2018 English-language translation. However, the bulk of the text is the same, as is the message and its call to learn from history rather than repeat it. I would, of course, urge you to buy the book.
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Precursors of Syndicalism
It is a standard cliché of Marxist attacks on anarchism to contrast “individualistic” anarchism with “collectivist” syndicalism. The former are backward looking, reactionary and beyond the pale while the latter are almost Marxist, and so worthy of faint praise. Another, also wrong, cliché has wider acceptance, namely that syndicalism arose in France during the 1890s in response to the failure of “propaganda of the deed.”
Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) was for four decades a leading anarchist thinker and writer. His many articles and books – Post-Scarcity Anarchism, Toward an Ecological Society, The Ecology of Freedom and a host of others – are libertarian classics and influential in the wider green movement.