From Anarkismo by Wayne Price

Review of Markus Lundstrom, Anarchist Critique of Radical Democracy

Reviewing Lundstrom's "Anarchist Critique of Radical Democracy" leads to a discussion of what "radical democracy" could mean and whether anarchists should support it. Some anarchists oppose "democracy" of any sort because they regard "majority rule" as inherently oppressive and un-anarchist. This view is criticized and rejected in favor of a view of anarchism as democracy without a state.

From CrimethInc.
An Anarchist Analysis

(Over the past few years, anarchists internationally have been debating the issues of democracy, pro and con. As a response I offer the following pamphlet written in 1968, by Ciriaco Duarte (1908-1996), a Paraguayan anarcho-syndicalist living in exile in Argentina at the time of its production.

These divergent views of anarchists illustrate the problem with the label: It is imprecise and malleable, and it means whatever (usually bad) things different people want it to mean. Supposedly the one principle that unites anarchists is their opposition to government, but that statement tells us little about their actual views.

Still, is it possible that self-identified anarchists from the past can tell us something about our politics in the present? Specifically, in the quest for a just and equitable society, are political labels of all kinds not just irrelevant, but counterproductive and even divisive?

From Anarkismo by Wayne Price

Review of Jonathan M. Smucker, Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals
How can we build an effective popular movement to change society? That is the subject of this book, which has been widely praised. In my opinion, it has important and profoundly true things to say, but is politically unbalanced and mistaken in certain ways.

From Freedom News UK

Below is a statement released by KAF, a Kurdish-speaking anarchist group, in the wake of the recent Iraqi government assault on Kirkuk and other Kurdish-held positions — and against the destructive policies of Marsoud Barzani’s government.

From CrimethInc.

At long last, we are ready to fill orders for No Wall They Can Build and From Democracy to Freedom, our new books about borders and democracy. Both of these are the culmination of years of effort—years of on-the-ground organizing, research, and reflection involving participants from around the world. We are very excited to share them with you!

This piece is the twenty-sixth essay in the June C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium: “Anarchy and Democracy.” It is written in reply to contributions by Nathan Goodman, contributions by Kevin Carson, and Wayne Price.

From C4SS by Shawn P. Wilbur

This piece is the twenty-third essay in the June C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium: “Anarchy and Democracy.” It is written in reply to this contribution by Wayne Price.

From C4SS by Shawn P. Wilbur

It should be clear that one of the key conflicts in these debates about anarchy and democracy is a struggle over the nature of anarchism. And it is probably safe to say that nearly all anarchists wrestle with the difficulties of defining that term. Part of the difficulty is that anarchism is simultaneously a kind of system and a matter of tradition. It is at once a political—or anti-political—ideology, a social-scientific approach, and a body of practices that have emerged within—and sometimes against—a particular set of social movements. It is no surprise, then, when our discussions of anarchist theory and practice oscillate between, on the one hand, attempts to show logical consistency between given practices and established principles and, on the other, appeals to the practices of certain pioneers.