By Paul Spooner International Terrorist movements were launched under Mikhail Bakunin & the First International led by Karl Marx, but extend well into the 20th Century. This article provides an overview of anarchism’s geopolitical relationships, its theoretical bases, operating organizations, methods and funding, with a focus on French […]
Achieving semi-autonomy even within the context of a theocratic imperium. At times the borders of the Ottoman empire almost reached Vienna inthe north, Yemen in the south, Algeria in the west and today’s Iran in the east.The Ottoman state was a form of theocracy, based on strict notions […]
Quasi-anarchy in antiquity. The ancient Greeks were divided into over 1,000 different city-states, from the bustling cities of Athens and Sparta to colonies in distant Afghanistan, but how exactly did these city-states work?
My prediction is that the combined proliferation of startup societies and the collapse of the global capitalist order and the nation-states that are its components will probably produce systems that look not unlike modern versions of the Holy Roman Empire, a hodgepodge of independent or semi-independent but often […]
On The Jacobin Show, Adaner Usmani explains the economic origins of mass incarceration and discusses solutions for rolling back the police state today.
Since its emergence in the middle of the twentieth century, the American Empire has been fueled by the search for an enemy. This episode of Zero Squared features a conversation with Daniel Bessner features a conversation about Karl Schmidt, the friend/enemy distinction, the cold war, and American Empire’s […]
By Constance Bantman and David Berry Recent years have seen an upsurge of interest in the history of European anarchist and syndicalist movements. The rise of alter-globalisation protest borrowing many of its direct-action tactics from pre-World War I anarchism and syndicalism has been important in bringing it on […]
A far-right commentator explains why the America of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan is finished. And good riddance. The Reagan Revolution was just as damaging to what Sam Francis called the “post-bourgeois proletariat” (the conventional working to middle classes) as anything from the Left. While the cultural assault […]
By Julian Casanova This article focuses on the various examples of anarchist violence, from terrorist action in the 1890s to anonymous bombs of the first decade of the twentieth century; from the tyranny of the Star pistol in the 1920s to the uprisings and revolutionary terror of the […]
By Edward Whelan, Classical Wisdom There are many great Romans whose names are still honored to this day. None has been more feted down the centuries than Cicero. He was perhaps Rome’s greatest author and one of its greatest orators and philosophers. Cicero was also one the last […]
By Chris Ealham This is a study of social protest and repression in one of the twentieth century’s most important revolutionary hotspots. It explains why Barcelona became the undisputed capital of the European anarchist movement and explores the sources of anarchist power in the city. It also places […]
By Steven Henry Martin Carlism and anarchism were revolutionary social movements that acquired significant popular support during the most intensive period of modernization in Spain (mid 19th to mid 20th centuries). It was noted but not well explored by contemporaries and historians that these enemies were similar in […]
The making of a modern sweatshop. By Lisa Napoli, Smithsonian Magazine Before southern California’s glorious, golden landscape was etched with eight-lane superhighways and tangles of concrete flyovers choreographing a continuous vehicular ballet; before families became enchanted with the thrill and convenience of popping TV dinners into the oven; […]
By Eduardo Romanos Historians have traditionally considered Spanish anarchism to be the most successful variant of the international libertarian movement. Most of them also believe that the terminal point of that variant came soon after the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and Franco’s dictatorship (1939–1975) came […]
By Peter Brandt Telos In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and the United Kingdom, growing numbers of statues of historical figures have been toppled, beheaded, or turned upside down. It has been a matter primarily of figures charged with participation in […]
Anarchist News From The Transmetropolitan Review Who the hell is Jack London? That’s a complicated question. If you superficially glance through the Google Search results for Jack London, it’s easy enough to find out that he was a socialist. If you dig a little bit deeper, you’ll see […]
By Bert Altena One of the characteristics of anarchist movements is their pattern of appearance and disappearance. In fact, there are two different patterns. One is short-term and occurred mainly during the period of classical anarchism (i.e. 1870–1914). During these years, in several countries, the anarchist movement disappeared, […]
By Danny Evans This thesis analyses the opposition mounted by anarchists to the policy of state collaboration, which was adopted by the principal organisations of the Spanish libertarian movement at the outset of the civil war. Collaboration is understood in broad terms as the involvement of libertarian individuals […]
Michael Lind nails it again. The Democrats are now the new Rockefeller Republicans, and the Republicans are now Jacksonian Democrats (as was FDR). By Michael Lind, Tablet Seventy-six years ago today, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, serving his fourth term in office, died in his “little White House” in […]
By Patricia McCormick, Washington Post In 1970, an image of a dead protester immediately became iconic. But what happened to the 14-year-old kneeling next to him? Last May, when Mary Ann Vecchio watched the video of George Floyd’s dying moments, she felt herself plummet through time and space […]
I saw one of the Hoffman/Rubin debates in the 80s. Rubin was fairly prophetic in predicting a fusion of the cultural left with the business and political class, though Hoffman was right that the “enlightenment” of the boomers was actually pretty benighted. In the 1960s, the former New […]
He was one of the only two presidential candidates I ever voted for. The other was Andre Marrou in 1992. By Steven R. Weisman, New York Times Under Jimmy Carter, he was the first V.P. to serve as a genuine partner of a president. His own run for […]
By Amanda Siebert, Forbes This day—April 19—is the 78th anniversary of the first-ever acid trip. It is affectionately referred to by psychonauts around the globe as Bicycle Day. The psychedelic compound LSD is known primarily for its hallucinogenic effects, and while an increasing number of researchers are studying […]
By Peter R. Quinones It started at Ruby Ridge. A guy took his family to the middle of nowhere to get away from those he believed were trying to stoke a race war (any questions when you consider the modern day?), and they followed him there. After the […]
By Jonathan Payn This document, first published in Portuguese under the title Anarquismo Social e Organização and adopted at the first Congress of the Feder-ação Anarquista do Rio de Janeiro in August 2008, seeks to map out the FARJ’s theoretical conception of an organised, class struggle anarchism and, […]
By James Bovard, The American Conservative Last week, President Joe Biden nominated David Chipman to be head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the premier federal firearms enforcement agency. Biden complemented that announcement with a call for a national red flag law to entitle police […]
By Frank Green, Richmond Times-Dispatch Virginia’s ultimate sanction was carried out for more than a century on an oak chair from Trenton, N.J. used to execute 267 people who were deemed too vile or dangerous to live among us. Their limbs and torsos bound by straps and heads […]
A review of: Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World (1870-1940): The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social LiberationEdited by Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt; with a Foreword by Benedict Anderson Abstract: The volume under review is a very informative and, an immenselythought-provoking […]
Homer, The Minotaur, 300 spartans, Greek theatre, Parthenon, democracy — everything that you once knew, but forgot.
Caesar, The Colosseum, Republic, Nero, geese, plebeians, legions – everything that you once knew, but forgot.
I agree that the USSR was not state-capitalist. What we have in the USA is state capitalism. I consider Soviet-type economies to be party/military/state/bureaucratic dictatorships but not “capitalist.” If anything, I would compare them to ancient tyrannies like Egypt and Babylon.
By Stephen Johnson, Big Think Scientists printed a 3D replica of the vocal tract of Nesyamun, an Egyptian priest whose mummified corpse has been on display in the UK for two centuries. With the help of an electronic device, the reproduced voice is able to “speak” a vowel […]
This is an interesting discussion of the culture wars from a serious left/Marxist perspective. My viewpoint is that the cultural left has been the hands-down winner on most cultural issues (outside of certain narrow geographical, subcultural, institutional, or socioeconomic sectors). But the economic right has been the hands-down […]
By Will Lester, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — G. Gordon Liddy, a mastermind of the Watergate burglary and a radio talk show host after emerging from prison, died Tuesday at age 90 at his daughter’s home in Virginia. His son, Thomas Liddy, confirmed the death but did not […]
By Toby Boraman The 1960s have been dismissed as a joke, a time when naive young people believed they could change society by wearing beads and placing owers in their hair. This is a myth. The 1960s and – to perhaps a greater extent – the 1970s were […]
By Robert Lindsay There have been many leftwing nationalists – the Pathet Lao, Stalin, Samora Machel in Mozambique, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Aristide in Haiti, Correo in Ecuador, the Fernandez’ in Argentina, and of course the Chavistas in Venezuela. The IRA was left nationalist. So was the ETA […]
A Newsletter from Sean Gabb View this email in your browser (https://mailchi.mp/cca13977a77e/boris-johnson-5121314?e=52821aac48) Sean Gabb Newsletter, 28th March 2021 (See Below for Republication Rights) Dear All, My teaching is over for a few weeks. Here is the whole series of my lectures on the Decay of the Roman Republic […]
Did he fulfill his destiny? I would say so. He lured the US empire into a series of failed wars which embarrassed and humiliated the US ruling class on the global stage, undermined the empire’s legitimacy, and contributed to internal fracturing as well. His goal was to repeat […]
Intense polarization has become a “national psychosis.” But, since few understand how things got this way, most “solutions” offered just lead to more of the same. Learn the nature of the problem from George Washington, Mercy Otis Warren, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Understanding that, there is still […]
During the past 50 years, the cultural revolution of the 1960s was co-opted first by the Democratic Party, then by the liberal wing of the corporate class, and then by the state security services altogether. You’ve got to check out this article if you want to know how […]
By Bear Freeman Benjamin Tucker was against “capitalism” in the sense of a State-supported monopoly of productive tools and equipment which allows owners to avoid paying workers the full value of their labor. This stance puts him squarely in the libertarian socialist tradition. Indeed, Tucker referred to himself […]
By Robert Tombs, Unherd One hundred and fifty years ago, revolutionaries were far more interested in democracy than feminism and Marx. When I was a student in Paris, I would spend every 18 March walking the streets of Montmartre, where the Paris Commune was born. I would visit […]
By James Bovard, Future of Freedom Foundation The easiest way to achieve sainthood in Washington is to cover up a federal atrocity. Thus, it is no surprise that former senator John Danforth continues to be treated by the Washington Post as a visionary statesman. The Post showcased Danforth’s […]
I wrote this 32 years ago, and it was published in The Fifth Estate, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, and (if I remember correctly) Ideas and Action, along with some other anarchist publications from the era. There was no Internet or websites back them. This was published […]
I tend to have a more negative view of Alexander the Great than Peter but whatever. By Peter R. Quinones Whenever there is a perceived political movement happening, those that are in opposition quickly stop politics from being the focus of the movement. Almost immediately detractors will say […]
By Chung Wong A day after her birthday, Santa Baby singer Eartha Kitt aka Catwoman would lose her career after being invited to the White House today in 1968, for her charity work with youth-at-risk. Lady Bird Johnson invited 50 mostly wealthy women to discuss the rise of […]
This is a classic Murray Rothbard article from 1979 that debunked Cold War mythology regarding the “international communist conspiracy” and so forth. Learning many of these same things in the 1980s (not from Rothbard but from other sources), and learning more about US conduct in the Cold War, […]
I often think of myself as the equivalent of an atheist living in early modern Europe, with the neoliberal Center assuming the role of the Catholic Church in the sense of holding near-total intellectual and institutional hegemony; the Left assuming the role of Protestantism as a rising revolutionary […]
On one side, Rudy Rochman, a young and inspiring activist who uses his growing platform to generate innovative ways to combat anti-Semitism. Rudy is dedicated to fighting antisemitism around the world and strengthening Jews’ connection to the land of Israel. On the other side, Noam Chomsky, a world-renowned […]
Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson
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