The Failure Of The State And The Rise Of Anarchism In Contemporary Anti-Systemic Praxis (original) (raw)
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Anarchist and Anarchistic Anti-Systemic Movements in World-Systems Perspective
Journal of World-Systems Research
While world-systems anti-systemic movement scholarship has briefly acknowledged the existence of anti-state “cultural” movements—namely, autonomous indigenous movements in the periphery and anarchist worker movements in the core and semi-periphery—it relegates them to secondary importance to statist “political” movements. In this paper, we provide an intervention in the world-systems anti-systemic movements literature by centering anti-state movements in our analysis. In order to investigate the mechanisms essential for anti-state, anti-systemic movements over the longue durée of the world-system, we operationalize a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) using nine cases of non-state spaces from different geographies and historical time periods throughout the world-system. We use a Boolean crisp set, or binary approach, denoting the presence, or absence of factors to determine the pathways that lead to the variation between explicitly anarchist and implicitly anarchistic movements ...
Beyond nonviolent regime change: Anarchist insights
Peace & Change, 2024
In recent years, a major focus of research and campaigning on strategic nonviolent action has been on movements to oust authoritarian rulers. However, these “nonviolent revolutions” usually do not transform systems of economic and social domination. To motivate appreciation of what might be involved in a more far-reaching social transformation, selected anarchist themes offer useful guides. The relevance of four principles of anarchist theory and practice—non-hierarchy, self-management, direct action, and prefiguration—is illustrated in the South African struggle against apartheid. Activists should consider how to use nonviolent strategies to move beyond systems of domination based on states and capitalism.
Journal of World-Systems Research, 2022
While world-systems anti-systemic movement scholarship has briefly acknowledged the existence of anti-state "cultural" movements-namely, autonomous indigenous movements in the periphery and anarchist worker movements in the core and semi-periphery-it relegates them to secondary importance to statist "political" movements. In this paper, we provide an intervention in the world-systems anti-systemic movements literature by centering anti-state movements in our analysis. In order to investigate the mechanisms essential for anti-state, antisystemic movements over the longue durée of the world-system, we operationalize a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) using nine cases of non-state spaces from different geographies and historical time periods throughout the world-system. We use a Boolean crisp set, or binary approach, denoting the presence, or absence of factors to determine the pathways that lead to the variation between explicitly anarchist and implicitly anarchistic movements as well as short-term or long-term non-state spaces established by anti-state movements. We find that the core and semi-periphery classification of anarchist movements is false. We also find that non-state spaces succeed when they are not repressed by statist anti-systemic movements or core imperial nation-states. In effect, the anti-systemic political actor replicates the logic of the core nation-state it claims to be opposed to when it comes to its repression of non-state spaces and movements. Prior to the "liberal geoculture" (1848-1968), even core states had difficulty repressing non-state spaces, and after the liberal geoculture semi-periphery and periphery states have had difficulty repressing non-state spaces.
Comparative Sociology, 2012
The anarchist movement utilizes non-statist and anti-statist strategies for radical social transformation, thus indicating the limits of political opportunity theory and its emphasis upon the state. Using historical narratives from present-day anarchist movement literature, we note various events and phenomena in the last two centuries and their relevance to the mobilization and demobilization of anarchist movements throughout the world (Bolivia, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Greece, Japan, Venezuela). Labor movement allies, failing state socialism, and punk subculture have provided conditions conducive to anarchism, while state repression and Bolshevik success in the Soviet Union constrained success. This variation suggests that future work should attend more closely to the role of national context, and the interrelationship of political and non-political factors.
JOURNAL: 2016, "Global Anarchism and Syndicalism: Theory, History, Resistance"
The discussion below is a lightly edited transcription of a talk given by the author at the Ay Carmela, Rua das Carmelitas, in São Paulo, Brazil, on 2 November 2010. This article provides a global perspective on the history and theory of anarchism and syndicalism, arguing against views that treat anarchism as simple ‘anti-statism’ or a natural human ‘impulse’, in favour of the argument that the current is a socialist, working class tradition dating to the International Workingmen’s Association (the ‘First International’), 1864-1877. An international movement in intent, conception and membership from the start, it drew on a range of modernist, rationalist socialist ideas, and developed a powerful base in many regions of the world by the 1940s. Spanish anarchism was undoubtedly important, as was the anarchist Spanish Revolution of 1936–1939, but Spain provided but one of a series of mass-based, influential anarchist and syndicalist movements. Barcelona was only one in a chain of red-and-black anarchist and syndicalist strongholds, and the Spanish Revolution only one of a number of major rebellions, revolutionary rehearsals and actual social revolutions in which anarchism/ syndicalism played a decisive role. Although public attention was drawn by the spectacular actions of the movement’s marginal ‘insurrectionist’ wing, it was the ‘mass’ anarchist approach – based on patient mass organising and education – that predominated. The movement’s immersion in mass movements – especially through syndicalism, peasant and civil rights struggles, fights against racism and women’s oppression, and anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles – can also only be properly appreciated from a global perspective – one in which the movement’s rich history in the colonial and postcolonial world is placed centre-stage. The real history of the movement should not be confused with the mythological, propagandistic history of anarchism that sections of the movement subsequently promoted, centred on claims that ‘anarchism’ existed across all human history, was ‘natural’ etc.
Anarchism and the Newest Social Movements
2019
Something new has been taking place around the world. Societies are in movement as never before—not with such tremendous numbers, consistent horizontal forms, uses of direct action over demands, in vastly disparate geographies and with such overarching global consistency. This chapter will delve into the specifics of the newer anti-capitalist movements, as well as ground them in many historical movements, both recent and with a longer view, that have similar forms and visions, such as the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, the Global Justice Movement and the Argentine assembly movements post-2001. In particular, the question of the similarities with an anarchist approach and vision will be discussed in relation to the newer movement forms and will ask the question of the newness of these forms.
Elisée Reclus (1830-1905) argued that ‘anarchy is the highest expression of order’. This assertion, clashing with the bourgeois interpretation of anarchy as chaos, perfectly captured the theories that were being elaborated by Reclus and other anarchist geographers including Pëtr Kropotkin (1842-1921). At the centre of these theories lay the conviction that societies organised around mutual aid and cooperation would be infinitely more rational and empowered than societies organised under the State and capitalism. Then, militants like Errico Malatesta (1853-1932) and Luigi Fabbri (1877-1935) advocated the need for formal anarchist organisation - to put in practice the principles of a horizontal and federalist society in daily life - and prepare the grounds for revolution. Acknowledging the importance of better understanding the past to inform the present, this paper first shows the link (generally overlooked by anarchist historiography) between Reclus’s and Kropotkin’s idea of order and Malatesta’s and Fabbri’s idea of organisation; then, it presents the model of anarchist organisation as a possible resource for present-day social movements, which often act as spontaneous networks of activism without a deep reflexion on organisational issues. According to the tradition of organisational communist anarchism, represented today by the International of Anarchist Federations, organisation is a key point, being not only a necessity, but the method for social transformation: without clarity on this, social struggles are likely to fall either in reformism either in Jacobinism. Finally, I show how present-day anarchist geographies can contribute to these points through their effort to prefigure new spaces for new societies. Keywords: anarchist organisation; mutual aid; anarchist geographies; transnational anarchism; International of Anarchist Federations
Revolutionary Anti-authoritarian Movements and Anarchist Studies
Social Movement Studies, 2019
The three titles, Unruly Equality by Andrew Cornell, Living at the Edges of Capitalism by Andrej Grubačić and Denis O’Hearn, and Immigrants Against the State by Kenyon Zimmer are exemplars from the interdisciplinary field of anarchist studies. This academic and lay-scholar tradition focuses on the study of (1) anarchists and anarchist movements and (2) non-anarchist subjects from an anarchist perspective. These three books emphasize the ways in which revolutionary social movements exist within and against the societal status quo. Radical, anti-authoritarian movements, such as anarchism, have throughout the 20th century (and before) challenged the centripetal forces of state and capitalism. In Cornell’s study, anarchists found a way to bridge the post-WWI abeyance in the US, as aging syndicalists, counter-culturalists, and white ethnic immigrants kept anarchism alive until its rejuvenation within the movements of the 1960s. Grubačić and O’Hearn note how entire social groups have attempted to reclaim their autonomy from the state, despite efforts to re-conquer and incorporate such exiles back into the state system. Finally, Zimmer’s research focuses primarily on the movements created by Yiddish and Italian immigrants in the US, who asserted their cosmopolitan and internationalist values, retained cultural aspects from their mother countries, and still critiqued their new, adopted home country. Together, these works help to push against the ever-expanding boundaries of anarchist studies, revealing a rich, radical counter-history below the surface of many societies and even beneath the scholarly study of social movements.
WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society, 2016
This commentary engages current labor and Left debates on building alternatives, drawing on the experiences of the radical wing of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and on anarchism and syndicalism. It argues for a strategy of bottom-up mobilization based on debate and pluralism, and building structures of counter-power and a revolutionary counter-culture that can prefigure and create a new social order. The aim is to foster a class-based movement against exploitation, domination, and oppression, including national oppression, that can win reforms through self-activity, unite a range of struggles against oppression, and develop the capacity and unity needed for deep social change. This should be outside parliament, the political party system and the state. The outcome, ultimately, would be the replacement of capitalism, the state, and social and economic inequality, by a universal human community based on self-management, the democratization of daily life, participatory economic planning, and libertarian socialism.