Anarchism
Anarchism and anarchists and anything associated with the thinking, the people, or the history generally get a raw deal from the media and even mainstream historians. It is true that anarchism is profoundly anti-authoritarian, but its popular association with violence (wild-eyed bearded men throwing bombs) is exaggerated, even fictionalized by the very forces threatened by it, namely governments and the media with vested interests in things as they are.
As with any subversive political and economic movement, some proponents became impatient and felt justified in striking out in vengeance or justice. Thus you have Alexander Berkman and his attempted assassination of Pennsylvanian Henry Clay Frick in 1892 and Leon Czolgosz and his successful assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. Berkman, however, served his time in jail, wrote a deep and insightful account of his experience and went on to write more worthwhile books on the subject which possessed his life. (Czolgosz did not have that opportunity, being executed forty-five days after the death of his victim.)
Anarchism survived its dramatic beginnings in the 19th Century, however, and interested readers can find its articulate concern with agricultural reform, labor rights, and prophetic worries about the growth of the surveillance state in many excellent books. Here you will find books and a superb documentary on Sacco and Vanzetti (as well as Woody Guthrie's cd of his investigation into the miscarriage of justice). Here you will find histories, biographies, anthologies, memoirs, and fiction. It is a rich tradition, relevant to this day and to the future.
Post-Scarcity Anarchism
Post-Scarcity Anarchism
In a series of related essays, Murray Bookchin balances his ecological and anarchist vision with the promising opportunities of a "post-scarcity" era. Surpassing Marxist political economy, which was rooted in an era of material scarcity, Bookchin argues that the tools necessary for the self-administration of society have largely been developed and, that, combined with an ecological outlook have greatly altered our revolutionary landscape. Technological advances made during the twentieth century have expanded production greatly, but in the pursuit of corporate profit and at the expense of human need and ecological sustainability. Far from a time when "capital accumulation" could be considered a prerequisite for liberation, the working class now more than ever can dispel the myth that obstructions such as the state, hierarchical social relations, and political parties (vanguards) are necessary appendages to their struggle for freedom. Bookchin's utopian vision, rooted in the realities of contemporary society, remains refreshingly pragmatic.
Perhaps his most influential collection of essays (includig the legendary 'Listen Marxist' 'Ecology And Revolutionary Thought') this new third edition includes a new preface from the author.
"Bookchin makes a trenchant analysis of modern society, and offers a pointed, provocative discussion of the ecological crisis." —Library Journal