March 7, 2025

Featured Articles

A Return to the Question of the “Polity-Form”

Anarchy 101
March 2, 2025

The polity-form, then, in its simplest sense, is the form given to social collectivities when they are accounted for, explained, “realized” (in the language used by Louis Blanc in 1849-50), etc. by a transformation into political units. In this process, individuals — participants in the social relations that give rise to these social collectivities — are reimagined as citizens, subjects, members of the political unit, with rights, duties, privileges, etc. granted or imposed as a result. This governmental relation seems inescapably hierarchical — although in certain instances of extensive, stable consensus that hierarchy might be considered more or less “voluntary” (if only because there is no occasion for enforcement.) […]

Anarchy 101: Thinking about Authority and Hierarchy

Anarchy 101
February 24, 2025

It is common, when discussing anarchist critiques of “hierarchy” and “authority,” to encounter conflicts between those who consider anarchism a critique of all hierarchy and every form of authority and those who, for one reason or another, object that it is only certain forms of hierarchy and authority that anarchists oppose — or should oppose. We are reminded of “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” Bakunin’s “authority of the bootmaker,” etc. For our purposes here, I want to present a general framework that draw sharp distinctions between anarchy and these other elements of social organization. […]

Anarchy 101: Thinking about “Crime”

Anarchy 101
February 11, 2025

This is the first in a series of documents attempting to frame the discussion of key concepts in anarchist theory. The goal is to address a series of frequently asked questions, not necessarily by giving definitive answers to them — as that may often be impossible — but at least by summarizing the particular considerations imposed by a fairly consistently anarchistic approach to the analysis. That means attempting to examine the questions in a context where there is no question of “legitimate” authority, “justified” hierarchy or any of the various sorts of “good government,” “anarchist legal systems,” etc. The guiding assumption here is that the simplest conception of anarchy is one that can be clearly distinguished from every form of archy. If self-proclaimed anarchists might perhaps choose to embrace approaches that are, in practice, more complex or equivocal, there is presumably still value for them in the presentation of more starkly drawn alternatives. For some of us, of course, there simply is no question of any compromise between anarchy and archy. […]

Encounters with Anarchist Individualism

Contr'un
January 1, 2025

The “anarchic encounter” was always really a metaphor, on which I hoped to eventually hang a more thorough analysis of anarchistic social relations. The elaboration has been slow, but the metaphor has remained surprisingly serviceable — and saw a real revival over the course of the “Constructing Anarchisms” project. The metaphor has its source in a pair of passages from Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church — a work that I have translated over the past couple of years and will continue to revise and annotate in 2025 — which summarize in just a few lines a rudimentary anarchist social system. There is a little more to work with than a bon mot or some etymological cues, but not a great deal more. Again, it is a question of a focus for elaborations that it would probably not be accurate to say all follow directly from the original source. But you have to start somewhere — or start again somewhere, as many times as it is necessary to start again — and the encounter is a somewhere that has served me well for some time now. I’m hoping others will have a similar experience. […]

Anarchist History: Our Lost Continent

Corvus Editions: Anarchistic Frontiers

Corvus Editions
July 12, 2019

I am not sure there is any way forward but to gather together the fruits of the last couple of decades or research and present them for use, as if there was an audience ready and willing to use them. And since we’re talking about works deemed insufficiently commercial even for the niches filled by anarchist publishers and academic presses, the way to do that is through print-on-demand volumes. So the next phase of the Corvus Edition story involves a line of collections published through Lulu. […]

Our Lost Continent: Episodes from an Alternate History of the Anarchist Idea, 1837–1936

Our Lost Continent
May 3, 2019

My goal overall is to produce a work that is at least potentially useful and shareable among anarchists of a variety of tendencies, as well as students of “the anarchist idea.” (The phrase is one of Nettlau’s that was obscured in translation.) But, to be honest, I am also very interested not to get too deeply involved in certain kinds of debate about how inclusive anarchist history ought to be. I expect that the best version of the work would hold little interest for those for whom anarchism does not appear still nascent in some important senses. For those willing to at least weigh the possibility of really sharing a historical tradition, I have some hope of presenting a relatively compelling case, but for others, honestly, I got nothin’… […]

Welcome to Anarchist Beginnings

Anarchist Beginnings
December 18, 2017

VOL. I — DECLARATIONS & PROFESSIONS OF FAITH Precursors & Related Tendencies: pre-1840 The Era of Anarchy: 1840—1880 The Era of Anarchism: 1881—1925 VOL. II — PROGRAMS & MANIFESTOS VOL. III — CATECHISMS, DIALOGUES, POEMS […]

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Libertatia Laboratories: Audio Experiments

  1. Bellsdosa 5:36
  2. three twenty six hors du troupeau 5:39
  3. For All the Brave Pianos Lost at Sea - Third Movement hors du troupeau 6:28
  4. For All the Brave Pianos Lost at Sea - First Movement (draft) hors du troupeau 7:30
  5. Damaged Atmospheres - One Libertatia Laboratories 1:02:18
  6. Genbaku Dome Guinea-Pig Fleet 41:14
  7. Rainy Christmas Eve hors du troupeau 4:40
  8. above the city (drinking in the view) hors du troupeau 3:22

Plucked from the Fields of Anarchist Individualism

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