THE POLITICS OF OBEDIENCE. The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by Étienne de la Boétie. Translated by Harry Kurz. (Kindle, Kobo or direct from our eBookstore at £1.00)

 anarchism  Comments Off on THE POLITICS OF OBEDIENCE. The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by Étienne de la Boétie. Translated by Harry Kurz. (Kindle, Kobo or direct from our eBookstore at £1.00)
Dec 032015
 

BoetiecoverTHE POLITICS OF OBEDIENCE. The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by Étienne de la Boétie ( NB Those not wishing to patronise Amazon/Kindle can purchase a MOBI or ePUB file (readable on your Kindle or other device) of any of our titles for between £1.00 and £1.50 (£1.00 in the present case), either from our eBOOKSTORE or payment by PAYPAL to christie@btclick.com. Check out all Christiebooks Kindle titles HERE — UK : £1.33 ; USA : $2.00 ;  FRANCE : €1.89 ; GERMANY : €1.89 ; SPAIN : €1.89 ; ITALY: €1.89 ; NETHERLANDS : €1.89  ; JAPAN : ¥ 246 ;  CANADA : CDN$2.67 ; BRAZIL : R$ 7.69 ; AUSTRALIA : $2.78 ;   INDIA R134 ; Mexico : $33.25 —  ChristieBooks on KOBO   THE POLITICS OF OBEDIENCE. The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude — £1.50

Étienne de la Boétie (1530-1563) wrote the following essay on the ultimate source and nature of political power in the early 1550s, while still a law student at the University of Orleans. In it he considers the origins of dictatorship and the means by which people can prevent political enslavement and liberate themselves. The Discourse deserves a prominent place in the literature of political theory.

The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude is lucidly and coherently structured around a single axiom. a single insight into the nature not only of tyranny but, implicitly, of the State itself. Many medieval writers had attacked tyranny, but La Boétie delved deeply into its nature, and that of State rule itself. His fundamental insight was that every tyranny must necessarily be grounded upon general acceptance. In short, the bulk of the people themselves acquiesce in their own subjection. If this were not the case, no tyranny, indeed no government, could long endure. Hence, a government does not have to be popularly elected to enjoy general public support; for general public support is in the very nature of all governments that endure — including the most oppressive of tyrannies. The tyrant is but one person, and could scarcely command the obedience of another person, much less of an entire country, if most of the subjects did not grant their obedience by their own consent.

For La Boétie the central question of political theory is why people consent to their own enslavement? He cuts to the heart of what is, or rather should be, the central problem of political philosophy — the mystery of civil obedience. Why do people, in all time and places, obey the commands of government, which always constitutes a small minority of the society? To La Boétie the spectacle of general consent to despotism is both puzzling and appalling.

THE CUNTOCRACY: or How well is David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ going these days? by William Clark (Kindle, KOBO and MOBI)

 Essay, Power elites and brokers  Comments Off on THE CUNTOCRACY: or How well is David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ going these days? by William Clark (Kindle, KOBO and MOBI)
Sep 182015
 

CuntocracyTHE CUNTOCRACY: or How well is David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ going these days? by William Clark. Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £1.30 ; USA : $2.00 ;  FRANCE : €1.76 ; GERMANY : €1.76 ; SPAIN : €1.76 ; ITALY: €1.76 ; NETHERLANDS : €1.76 ; JAPAN : ¥ 241 ;  CANADA : CDN$ 2.00 ; BRAZIL : R$ 7.74 ; AUSTRALIA : $2.82 ; INDIA : R133 ; MEXICO : $33.68 —  ChristieBooks on KOBO  — THE CUNTOCRACY £1.20 — For a MOBI or other eBook file — PAYPAL direct to christie@btclick.com — £1.00,

“Why not call the present political system a ‘cuntocracy’?  It is most certainly not a democracy—at least not the type any one would want.  We need a new name for not just what our leaders do to us because of greed and stupidity: we need an accurate irrefutable term for all of society’s organisation as an undesirable but innate feature of the effects of the power-hungry.  We need a term who’s very existence and use will return power to the ordinary people—or at least give them a voice and provide a way to talk back to those who pose as leaders but take us nowhere.  If people in power object: then the term is working.

“So what are our base assumptions? Well, there is probably only one ‘law’ that we could say social science ‘discovered,’ and this seems to have been by sheer flippancy. This was Lord Acton’s statement (in a letter to a Bishop) that all power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. No one has thought to extrapolate our one law further to establish its social determinants. You are simply not allowed to.  Nevertheless, we can adapt Acton’s Law into: all power tends to create cunts and absolute power creates total cunts.

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NATIONALISM AND CULTURE by Rudolf Rocker (Translated by Ray E. Chase) Kindle and Kobo editions (£2.25 ;$4.00 ;€3.51)

 anarchism, Anarchist ideas  Comments Off on NATIONALISM AND CULTURE by Rudolf Rocker (Translated by Ray E. Chase) Kindle and Kobo editions (£2.25 ;$4.00 ;€3.51)
Aug 252015
 

RockerCover2NATIONALISM AND CULTURE by Rudolf Rocker (Translated by Ray E. Chase)  Complete edition (Books I & II, with all 27 chapters, including bibliography and index. Appx. 713 pp) NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE (READ INSIDE) and KOBO.  Check out all Christiebooks titles HERE UK : £2.25 ; USA : $4.00 ;  FRANCE : €3.51 ; GERMANY : €3.51 ; SPAIN : €3.51 ; ITALY: €3.51 ; NETHERLANDS : €3.51  ; JAPAN : ¥ 488 ;  CANADA : CDN$ 5.28 ; BRAZIL : R$ 14.00 ; AUSTRALIA : $5.47 ; INDIA : R263 ; MEXICO : $67.95  ChristieBooks on KOBO  — NATIONALISM AND CULTURE, £2.50

Nationalism and Culture is a detailed and scholarly study of the development of nationalism and the changes in human cultures from the dawn of history to the present day and an analysis of the relations of these to one another. It tells the story of the growth of the State and the other institutions of authority and their influence on life and manners, on architecture and art, on literature and thought. Nationalism and Culture is, primarily, a 600-page (appx 713pp on Kindle/Kobo) exploration of the origins and development of nationalism, and a scathing denunciation of the corrosive effect of national feeling on the human spirit. Yet it is one of those works, like The Anatomy of Melancholy (Robert Burton, 1621), that springboard from their stated purpose to discourse on everything under the sun. Architecture is analyzed, socialism is defended, and Rembrandt’s paintings are scrutinized at length. It is at once a treatise on the state’s relationship with culture and a manifesto for an enlightened leftism. Most of all, it is a clear-eyed plea for sanity at a moment when nationalist and religious irrationalism threatened to swallow the globe. It could not be more relevant. Rocker’s thesis is straightforward: Nations are the products of states, rather than vice versa. They are manufactured to serve the goals of the powerful, to divide human beings and keep them from recognizing their common interests. Rocker argues this point with a litany of historical examples, from the Renaissance to “the stupid and stumbling provisions of the Versailles treaty.”

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Some thoughts on Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius by Stuart Christie

 Ethics, Politics, The State  Comments Off on Some thoughts on Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius by Stuart Christie
Mar 252014
 
Niccolo_Machiavelliright

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527)

The Renaissance consigliere and political thinker Niccolò Machiavelli has for centuries been portrayed, indeed demonised, as the ideological father of political duplicity, manipulation, amorality and cold selfishness. All of these are identifiable traits common not only among the “political” and mandarin classes but also among those individuals and institutions who pursue their interests, i.e. money, power, market-share, sex, etc., as though in a “society in which the individual stands alone, with no motives and no interests except those supplied by his own egoism”.

The view that Machiavelli’s analysis of the nature and mechanics of political power reflects the values of an individual motivated by a self-interest that overrides all other considerations is not, I believe, one that can be sustained by a careful consideration of his writings. In fact, the very opposite can be said to be the case … Machiavelli argues in both The Prince and The Discourses that all well-ordered principalities and republics are based on mutual understanding between rulers and ruled, and that the state is no more than the sum of the individuals who comprise it. In addition, the state has characteristics and responsibilities that cannot be explained in terms of the properties and ethical relationships to one another of the individuals within society.

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THE PLACE OF POWER IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE by Saul Newman (International Political Science Review (2004), Vol 25, No. 2, 139–157 (a discussion document)

 anarchism, Anarchist ideas  Comments Off on THE PLACE OF POWER IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE by Saul Newman (International Political Science Review (2004), Vol 25, No. 2, 139–157 (a discussion document)
Oct 022013
 

The following article on the ‘place of power in political discourse’ by Australian political scientist/theorist Saul Newman first appeared in The International Political Science Review in 2004. The subject it deals with, the nature and concept of power — as outlined by Michel Foucalt — relates to the anarchist critique of — and struggle against— the State. We welcome any contributions to the discussion, which should be emailed to us; these will be posted in due course.

Foucault5

Michel Foucault (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984) – French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, philologist and literary critic

ABSTRACT. This article examines the concept of a central, symbolic place of power in political theory. I trace the genealogy of “place” from sovereign conceptions of power in classical political theory to the problem of state power in radical politics. I then examine the theoretical and political implications of Foucault’s reconfiguration of the concept of power, in particular, his contention that power does not have a place, but rather, is dispersed throughout the social network.  I argue that this decentralization of the concept of power denies a universal dimension that “sutures” the political field.  I critically engage with the limitations and flaws of Foucault’s theory of power, and turn to the work of Lefort and Laclau for a more viable understanding of the relationship between power, its place or non-place, and the contemporary possibilities for radical politics.

This relationship of domination is no more a “relationship” than the place where it occurs is a place. Michel Foucault  (1984:85)

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