Any book recommendations on anarchism?

[benhur]

Comrades,

Any nice books on anarchism, preferably online audio books? Could be lectures, articles, anything, but interesting and creative. Specifically, I'd like to see where they part ways with socialism, what sort of governance they propose, if there's no authority/hierarchy, and all the rest.

TIA,
Benhur

[Charles Xavier]

Ward Churchill is a good speaker, and likewise Michael Parenti (though he is a socialist). You can watch their lectures on You Tube.

[BobKKKindle$]

Lenin, 'State and Revolution'

[Incendiarism]

The Conquest of Bread

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

Lenin, 'State and Revolution'


How mature.


Anarcho-syndicalism Theory and Practice - Rudlof Rocker

As for online have a read on infoshop.com , libcom.com and Anarchy Archives have some good stuff. For literature Anarchy Archives is best.

Try this to start: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/stateless.html

or a good basic starter in social anarchist currents:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/making-sense-anarchism-t6416/index.html

[nuisance]

Lenin, 'State and Revolution'
Keep it relevant, dickhead.
Here's a audio version of Bakunin's God and the State (http://librivox.org/god-and-the-state-by-mikhail-bakunin/).
This site (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/index.html) in general is great for relevant anarchist literature.
(http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bakunin/BakuninCW.html)

[BobKKKindle$]

How mature.I am being mature. The OP said he wanted to learn about how anarchists "part ways" with socialists, and SaR is the best Marxist work on the state, and does a good job of explaining what the state is, in terms of the historical conditions which allow state apparatuses to form and why a state will be needed once the workers have taken power, to defend the revolution against the threat of capitalist restoration from the remnants of the ruling class. Given that opposition to the state is the defining feature of anarchism as a political philosophy, this is highly relevant. In general academia, if you want to understand a subject you have to look at a range of different perspectives - hence the Leninist perspective. If the OP had asked for books only by anarchist authors, I wouldn't have bothered to post in the thread.

The book contains an entire section entitled "Controversy with the Anarchists" - if you don't want to read the entire book, start with that.

[TheDevil'sApprentice]

http://www.infoshop.org/faq/index.html
This should tell you everything you want to know. Very accessable, but also pretty indepth. References loads of books for further reading on just about every topic it covers.

http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secHcon.html
This section is on where we part ways with state-socialists.

[F9]

If you want a book, then ABC of Anarchism by Alexander Berkaman, is the ideal book!You can find it and some more in electronics form in here. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/queries-theory-t83290/index.html)

Fuserg9:star:

[Trystan]

How mature.
Anarcho-syndicalism Theory and Practice - Rudlof Rocker


This.

[F9]

Holy shit, i just randomly now felled in a site where books and articles are in audio form
here (http://www.audioanarchy.org/)

Fuserg9:star:

[Charles Xavier]

I agree with Lenin, State and the Revolution, it will show you how Marxists part ways with anarchists.

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

Surley the best way to learn about anarchists views is by reading anarchist literature not oppositing views? I take that other views must be taken into account but I would first read an anarchist book, then get some of the arguments against amd decide form there.

[Thunder]

I havent read any anarchist literature, but yesterday I ordered ABC of Anarchism. I know the author was a communist anarchist, but I want to learn about anarchism specifically. Would you say that along with anarchist communism, it also gives a good view into adjective free anarchism?
Thanks.

[F9]

I havent read any anarchist literature, but yesterday I ordered ABC of Anarchism. I know the author was a communist anarchist, but I want to learn about anarchism specifically. Would you say that along with anarchist communism, it also gives a good view into adjective free anarchism?
Thanks.

Yeah, basically you get to know what Anarchism is, and then he explains that the best "economical structure" of commune is Communism.

Fuserg9:star:

[Os Cangaceiros]

This:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Y1VBTE3KL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

[gla22]

http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/1931/secAcon.html

This website is incredibly good at explaining anarchism.

[Charles Xavier]

I agree with this work.... The ABCs of Anarchism, This is actually one of the first leftist books I read, it gave a great introduction to Anarchism and Socialism in general. Its not very theoretical grounded or explained, but its a decent simple over view of topics and very easy to read. I read this when I was 16. It made me ask questions to understand socialism which the book just rambled about incoherently at times and sometimes just mistruths about contemporary events of the time to try to prove a point(like the part that says the Bolsheviks gave extra rations to the bourgeioisie?). And I can't say that Alexander Berkman's work made me convinced of Anarchism, it certainly made me anti-capitalism.

But this is a better resource:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...hism/index.htm (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/anarchism/index.htm)


This is a great resource, its Marx and Engels debating directly with Bakunin and Proudhon.

[Fiskpure]

DannyOKC on youtube has a few videos (http://www.youtube.com/user/DannyOKC) on anarchism.

[JRPS-12]

Read anything by Emma Goldman..

The Conquest of Bread - Kropotkin (a must read)
God and the State - Bakunin
Ya Basta! - (Writings of Subcommandante Insurgente Marcos)
Anarchism, A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas - Robert Graham

This is what Ive read so far and it has helped explain alot..

[ZeroNowhere]

I'll third(?) the Anarchist FAQ, it's a great resource on anything except Marx. Also, yes, the Conquest of Bread, State and Revolution (the best ideas in it are anarchist ), and 'What is Communist Anarchism?'

[JimmyJazz]

Anarchism by Daniel Guerin is really good. The Great Anarchists by Paul Eltzbacher is a good selection of stuff from classical anarchist thinkers (all male).

[Bilan]

Anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism - Rudolf Rocker
Platform of the Libertarian Communists - Makhno (and others)
Manifesto of the Libertarian Communists
Anarchy - Malatesta

State and Revolution wont give you a great insight into to where anarchists and socialists part ways. I'm afraid that claim is just bogus, considering many anarchists here agree that State and Revolution was a very libertarian work, and further more, misrepresents alot of anarchists (but not all).

Much of the parting is stupid. But some of it makes alot of sense.

[LavenderMenace]

try this site. it has a great zine library you can download for free. qzap.org

[Charles Xavier]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/anarchism/index.htm


This is a great resource, its Marx and Engels debating directly with Bakunin and Proudhon.

They handed a big can of whoop ass to anarchism.

[Harrycombs]

Google "What is Communist Anarchism" by Alexander Berkman. Its a very good read on anarchism. While I don't consider myself an anarchist, it definitely shifted my views further left.

[bcbm]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/anarchism/index.htm


This is a great resource, its Marx and Engels debating directly with Bakunin and Proudhon.

They handed a big can of whoop ass to anarchism.

And since no Anarchist theory has been published or developed since Bakunin and Proudhon, its pretty much case closed.

[Charles Xavier]

And since no Anarchist theory has been published or developed since Bakunin and Proudhon, its pretty much case closed.

Not really, I mean you can say syndicalists but Lenin did a good number on them.

[Dr. Fish]

And since no Anarchist theory has been published or developed since Bakunin and Proudhon, its pretty much case closed.
That's not true.
Peter Kropotkin made theories. And so did Noam Chomsky and George Woodcock.

[bcbm]

That's not true.
Peter Kropotkin made theories. And so did Noam Chomsky and George Woodcock.

Uh, sarcasm. Look it up. :rolleyes:


Not really, I mean you can say syndicalists but Lenin did a good number on them.

What, distortions and making shit up? Not to mention the numerous theoretical works that have been developed since then particularly in Spain and Italy but other places as well.

[Bilan]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/anarchism/index.htm


This is a great resource, its Marx and Engels debating directly with Bakunin and Proudhon.

They handed a big can of whoop ass to anarchism.

Would you shut up? This has nothing to do with that, and no they didn't. Bakunin and Proudhon have no relationship with my politics as an anarchist, nor most anarchists. So please shut up with this tripe.

[Bilan]

Not really, I mean you can say syndicalists but Lenin did a good number on them.

No, he didn't. I don't think you even know what Syndicalism is.

[ZeroNowhere]

This is a great resource, its Marx and Engels debating directly with Bakunin and Proudhon.

They handed a big can of whoop ass to anarchism.
Yes, I especially like Marx's Conspectus of 'Statism and Anarchy', especially how it shows that he basically is an anarchist (crud, wasn't it cited by Rubel in his essay on Marx as a theoretician of anarchism?). :D
Also, Lenin refuted syndicalism in the same way that he did anarchism and left communism, that is, he didn't.

[Rosa Provokateur]

"On Civil Government" by David Lipscomb
"Jesus for President" by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw

[Charles Xavier]

Anarchism has refuted itself, existing well before Marxism or even capitalism, it has bared no fruit. Marx, Engels, and Lenin clearly explained why. But you can say "Well everyone's anarchism is different than my anarchism because my anarchism is the pure anarchism because no one ever thought as brilliantly as me before and I don't know why because I'm pretty young and don't read a lot" Well good luck with that prove the world wrong.

[bcbm]

Man, you're gonna scare all the crows away with your strawman army.

[Chicano Shamrock]

Would you shut up? This has nothing to do with that, and no they didn't. Bakunin and Proudhon have no relationship with my politics as an anarchist, nor most anarchists. So please shut up with this tripe.

How is it that most anarchists' politics have no relation to Bakunin or Proudhon?

As someone already stumbled upon you can go to the website www.audioanarchy.org and listen to several audio books. They have some of Emma Goldman's stuff which you must listen to. They also have some stuff from Crimethinc and so on.

[Chicano Shamrock]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/anarchism/index.htm


This is a great resource, its Marx and Engels debating directly with Bakunin and Proudhon.

They handed a big can of whoop ass to anarchism.



...which is unceasingly found in the works and speeches of the Lasalleans and Marxists, itself indicates that the so-called people's state will be nothing else than the very despotic guidance of the mass of the people by a new and numerically very small aristocracy of the genuine or supposedly educated. The people are not scientific, which means that they will be entirely freed from the cares of government, they will be entirely shut up in the stable of the governed. A fine liberation!
The Marxists sense this (!) contradiction and, knowing that the government of the educated (quelle reverie) will be the most oppressive, most detestable, most despised in the world, a real dictatorship despite all democratic forms, console themselves with the thought that this dictatorship will only be transitional and short.

Non, mon cher! -- That the class rule of the workers over the strata of the old world whom they have been fighting can only exist as long as the economic basis of class existence is not destroyed.


They say that their only concern and aim is to educate and uplift the people (saloon-bar politicians!) both economically and politically, to such a level that all government will be quite useless and the state will lose all political character, i.e. character of domination, and will change by itself into a free organization of economic interests and communes. An obvious contradiction. If their state will really be popular, why destroy it, and if its destruction is necessary for the real liberation of the people, why do they venture to call it popular?


Yeah big can of whoop ass... I especially like when the thought of anarchism was defeated when Bakunin told Marx exactly what would later become of Marxist societies like the USSR, China, Vietnam etc...

[Os Cangaceiros]

Look, the OP wanted some book recommendations so he could learn a bit more about anarchism.

He did not ask for Leninists to get on this thread and plague it with partisan crap-o-la.

So please, pretty please, if you have nothing of value to add to this thread, just stay the fuck off. I don't go on threads where people ask for materials relating to Lenin or Trotsky and go, "MALATESTA LOLZ!" :rolleyes:

[Enragé]

Read anything by Emma Goldman..

The Conquest of Bread - Kropotkin (a must read)
God and the State - Bakunin
Ya Basta! - (Writings of Subcommandante Insurgente Marcos)
Anarchism, A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas - Robert Graham

This is what Ive read so far and it has helped explain alot..

Is Ya Basta! online anywhere? I'd really like to read it

[Charles Xavier]

Yeah big can of whoop ass... I especially like when the thought of anarchism was defeated when Bakunin told Marx exactly what would later become of Marxist societies like the USSR, China, Vietnam etc...
They were actually pretty f'n good.

[Fiskpure]

Can someone also post something to read about non-revolutionary anarchists (Apparently my teacher at school claims that anarchists don't want to bring about radical changes through a revolution, instead, she means that they're just some small lobby group if not a candidate for the parliament).

[ZeroNowhere]

Yeah big can of whoop ass... I especially like when the thought of anarchism was defeated when Bakunin told Marx exactly what would later become of Marxist societies like the USSR, China, Vietnam etc...
Except perhaps that they weren't Marxist? "Hey, guys, I said that Marxism would lead to despotism, and a Blanquist revolution in one country with a peasant majority just proved me right. Yay!" No. Well, I can't imagine anybody arguing that China and Vietnam were Marxist revolutions, except perhaps Maoists.

"By people's government they understand (i.e. Bakunin) the government of the people by means of a small number of leaders, chosen (elected) by the people." :)
Bakunin: "What does it mean, the proletariat organized as ruling class?"
Marx: "It means that the proletariat, instead of struggling sectionally against the economically privileged class, has attained a sufficient strength and organization to employ general means of coercion in this struggle. It can however only use such economic means as abolish its own character as salariat, hence as class. With its complete victory its own rule thus also ends, as its class character has disappeared."

Bakunin: "The Germans number around forty million. Will for example all forty million be member of the government?"
Marx: "Certainly! Since the whole thing begins with the self-government of the commune."

Bakunin: "But those elected will be fervently convinced and therefore educated socialists. The phrase 'educated socialism'..."
Marx: "...never was used."

Bakunin: "So the result is: guidance of the great majority of the people by a privileged minority. But this minority, say the Marxists..."
Marx: "Where?"

Now, if only people realized that Marx correcting Bakunin's misunderstandings does not mean that he somehow refuted anarchism, rather than showing his support for it...


Can someone also post something to read about non-revolutionary anarchists (Apparently my teacher at school claims that anarchists don't want to bring about radical changes through a revolution, instead, she means that they're just some small lobby group if not a candidate for the parliament).
...Bringing about anarchism would be a revolution, whether done by an anarchist President or not (though honestly? A revolution solely through the current government system isn't going to lead to anything good).
However, most anarchists either advocate a general strike (anarcho-syndies and left commies generally do), or a violent revolution.

[Political_Chucky]

Chomsky on Anarchism is a good yet dry read (as much of Chomsky's material is) of selective writings. You can find that book and loads of other leftist writings on http://akpress.com
(http://akpress.com/)

[revolution inaction]

Can someone also post something to read about non-revolutionary anarchists (Apparently my teacher at school claims that anarchists don't want to bring about radical changes through a revolution, instead, she means that they're just some small lobby group if not a candidate for the parliament).

Although there are people who call them selves anarchists and who don't seek to bring about a revolution i wouldn't consider them anarchists.

[FlamingChainsaws]

As was previously mentioned, Michael Parenti (though I don't think he's an anarchist) is really good. I have managed to find only two torrents of his lectures, but you can order his stuff here: michaelparenti.org You can order books and CD's...I should do that soon.

I'm currently reading The Conquest of Bread (as was also mentioned before). It is brilliant; I'm loving every bit of it.

Unfortunately I can't recommend much else except maybe the works of Bakunin and Proudhon, because I just got into my fantastic commie stage last year, and I haven't read a ton.

[Charles Xavier]

Look, the OP wanted some book recommendations so he could learn a bit more about anarchism.

He did not ask for Leninists to get on this thread and plague it with partisan crap-o-la.

So please, pretty please, if you have nothing of value to add to this thread, just stay the fuck off. I don't go on threads where people ask for materials relating to Lenin or Trotsky and go, "MALATESTA LOLZ!" :rolleyes:
You should because it would be funny.

[Chicano Shamrock]

Now, if only people realized that Marx correcting Bakunin's misunderstandings does not mean that he somehow refuted anarchism, rather than showing his support for it...


It's true he wasn't refuting anarchism. Instead Marx was replying to Bakunin's refutations of Marxism and Uncle Karl failed horribly.

We can either keep going back and forth making excuses like "but it wasn't really Marxism /cry" or we can notice the problem and learn from it. The state was not ruled by the proles in the USSR. It instead created a new manager class like Bakunin said it would. The bureaucracy will not wither away etc... etc...

[Charles Xavier]

It's true he wasn't refuting anarchism. Instead Marx was replying to Bakunin refutations of Marxism and Uncle Karl failed horribly.

We can either keep going back and forth making excuses like "but it wasn't really Marxism /cry" or we can notice the problem and learn from it. The state was not ruled by the proles in the USSR. It instead created a new manager class like Bakunin said it would. The bureaucracy will not wither away etc... etc...

I dunno about you but the Soviet Union was awesome. I don't think you can hold a coin to the light to say otherwise.

However I think all anarchists can appreciate the intelligence of Bakunin when he says,

Jews are "an exploitative sect, a people of bloodsuckers, one voracious parasite" who serve both Marx and the Rothschilds.

Very intelligent debater, I didn't know Marx wasn't able to debate such an enlightened gentleman revolutionary.

[ZeroNowhere]

It's true he wasn't refuting anarchism. Instead Marx was replying to Bakunin's refutations of Marxism and Uncle Karl failed horribly.
I don't-
:confused:

[Chicano Shamrock]

I dunno about you but the Soviet Union was awesome. I don't think you can hold a coin to the light to say otherwise.

However I think all anarchists can appreciate the intelligence of Bakunin when he says,

Jews are "an exploitative sect, a people of bloodsuckers, one voracious parasite" who serve both Marx and the Rothschilds.

Very intelligent debater, I didn't know Marx wasn't able to debate such an enlightened gentleman revolutionary.
I was trying to talk about ways we can progress in communist thought.... so what exactly was the point of your quote?

I have never read anything like that from Bakunin. Do you mind providing some context or proof to that in form of a link to the writing? Even if it is true what does it have to do with what he said would come of Marxism? That has to be some kind of fallacy.