On August 24, 1978, Murray Bookchin gave a lecture at the Toward Tomorrow Fair in Amherst, Massachusetts. Also speaking at that year’s gathering were several prominent thinkers, including R. Buckminster Fuller and Ralph Nader. In his speech, Bookchin argues against the ideology of futurism and for ecological utopianism. In the Q&A session, he points out that he is not against technology itself, he is against technocracy, and he also describes, in detail, his political vision for the future.
The speech is surprisingly relevant in today’s context: it’s as if he predicted the rise of fascist ideology and lifeboat ethics in the 21st century, and it feels like a direct rebuttal of Elon Musk-esque technocratic futuris... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Half a century after the events concerned, the Guardian and the BBC
unearthed the facts about Edward VIII (later Duke of Windsor). Only their
interpretations are dubious. They say the Establishment suspected Edward
for his fascist views, and used the Mrs Simpson affaire as an excuse to
get rid of him. Certainly Edward
collaborated with the Nazis before and during the war and by law should
have been hanged for high treason (even now a capital offense). He
deserted his post in front of the enemy in France during the war and went
to Spain. Another death sentence was due.
Prime Minister Churchill then sent him off on a handsome salary to govern
the Bahamas, where he gave information and advice to Berlin (a third
death sen... (From: Hack.org.)
Material force can prevail over moral force. It can even destroy the most refined civilization, if it doesn’t know how to defend itself with appropriate means against the offensive returns of barbarism.
Any ferocious beast can rip a gentleman to shreds, even if he is a genius, a Galileo or a Leonardo, if he is naive enough to believe that he can curb the beast by showing it a work of art or announcing a scientific discovery.
But brutality hardly triumphs, and in all cases its successes have never been general and lasting, when it fails to achieve a certain moral consensus, when civilized men recognize it for what it is and, even if powerless to eradicate it, move away from it as a dirty and repugnant thing.
Fascis... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Criticism of opposition to the police usually falls into one of five categories. The first common argument is that the police, as our fellow workers, are also exploited members of the proletariat, and should therefore be our allies. Unfortunately, there is a vast gap between “should” and “is.” The police exist to enforce the will of the powerful; anyone who has not had a bad experience with them is likely either privileged or submissive. Today’s police officers, at least in North America, know exactly what they’re getting into when they join the force; people in uniform don’t just get cats out of trees in this country. Yes, most take the job because of what they feel to be economic necessity, but ne... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
One of the principal features of the development of modern industrial production is the ever-increasing organization of the laboring force and of the means of production. The result is that with less “hands” a continually growing amount of commodities is being produced. From this last is might be concluded that man should be thus enabled to satisfy all his intellectual and physical wants with a decreasing exertion of his physical powers. Yet, no such result is apparent. On the contrary, all progress in the direction of facilitating the process of production has the effect of reducing the number of laborers employed, and of challenging those who are out of employment to increase the intensity with which they compete among themsel... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Objection has been made to the use of the word “Communism” to
express fully-developed Socialism, on the ground that it has been used for the
Community-Building, which played so great a part in some of the phases of
Utopian Socialism, and is still heard of from time to time nowadays. Of
Communism in this sense I am not writing now; it may merely be said in passing
that such experiments are of their nature non-progressive; at their best they
are but another form of the Mediæval monastery, withdrawals from the Society of
the day, really implying hopelessness of a general change; which is only
attainable by the development of Society as it is; by the development of the
consequences of its faults and anomalies, as wel... (From: Marxists.org.)
First Published: in Modern Quarterly 1935, translation revised by the author; Source: Class Against Class; Transcribed: by Andy Blunden, for marxists.org 2003; Proofread: by Chris Clayton 2006.
Instead of discussing Marxism in general I propose to deal at once with some of the most effective points of Marxist theory and practice. Only such an approach conforms with the principle of Marxian thought. For the Marxist, there is no such thing as ‘Marxism’ in general any more than there is a ‘democracy’ in general, a ‘dictatorship’ in general or a ‘state’ in general. There is only a bourgeois state, a proletarian dictatorship or a fascist dictatorship, etc. And even these exist only at determina... (From: Marxists.org.)
I am an Anarchist because Anarchy alone, by means of liberty and justice based on equal rights, will make humanity happy, and because Anarchy is the sublimest idea conceivable by man. It is, today, the summit of human wisdom, awaiting discoveries of undreamed of progress on new horizons, as ages roll on and succeed each other in an ever widening circle.
Man will only be conscious when he is free. Anarchy will therefore be the complete separation between the human flocks, composed of slaves and tyrants, as they exist to day, and the free humanity of tomorrow. As soon as man, whoever he may be, comes to power, he suffers its fatal influence and is corrupted; he uses force to defend his person. He is the State; and he considers it a pro... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Why am I an Anarchist? That is the question which the editor of the Twentieth Century has requested me to answer for his readers. I comply; but, to be frank, I find it a difficult task. If the editor or one of his contributors had only suggested a reason why I should be anything other than an Anarchist, I am sure I should have no difficulty in disputing the argument. And does not this very fact, after all, furnish in itself the best of all reasons why I should be an Anarchist – namely, the impossibility of discovering any good reason for being anything else? To show the invalidity of the claims of State Socialism, Nationalism, Communism, Single-taxism, the prevailing capitalism, and all the numerous forms of Archism existing or propos...
Before answering the inquiry propounded to me, it were well to first define terms. In one sense whoever desires a radical change in our social conditions, who advocates principles at utter variance with those now maintaining, may be said to be a Social Revolutionist; in this sense the Quakers were religious revolutionists. But the accepted meaning of the term does not embrace revolution and evolution as identical words, but ascribes to the former active resistance by overt acts to the powers that be. It is in this sense that the term is here used, and I at once proceed to give some of the chief reasons why I defend such a course and array myself with those who do not make the assertion of principle subordinate to the lines of legality as la... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
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