Anarchism For Beginners

179 Pages·2008·63.49 MB·English

by  Mayer

F 0 R B E G I N N E R 5'
0

F 0 R B E G I N N E R S@
MARCOS MAYER
BY
SANYU
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
-~-
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FOR BEGINNERS®
an imprint ofS teaforth Press
Hanover, New Hampshire
For Beginners LLC
155 Main Street, Suite 211
Danbury, CT 06810 USA
www.forbeginnersbooks.com
Text copyright: © Marcos Mayer 2003
Illustrations copyright: © Héctor A. Sanguiliano 2003
English translation copyright © 2008 For Beginners LLC
Book Design:David Janik
First published in Spanish asAnarquismo para Principiantesby Era Naciente SRL, Buenos Aires,
Argentina, 2003.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
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otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.
A For Beginners® Documentary Comic Book
Copyright © 2008
Cataloging-in-Publication information is available from the Library of Congress.
eISBN:978-1-934389-73-7
For Beginners® and Beginners Documentary Comic Books® are publishedby For Beginners LLC.
V3.1
Anarchism Revived
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in rqgq, the rebellion against an unjust
world found an opening within the anarchist tradition. The State was
revealed as an enemy of liberty. And the libertarians were reborn. The anar
chists left as their primary legacy an anti-authoritarian spirit that
remained within the culture after the second World War and today has
new formulations in theory and in practice.
There are many that think the anarchist movement belongs only to the
rqth century, with some resonance in the 20th, but that history has
passed it by both in doctrine and in political practice. Today however, it
seems to be regaining its former strength, reorganizing, and emerging as
a valid alternative for those who believe its history is not over yet.
1
I've ReAD IT TOO. IN THOSe
BOOKS, IT'S PReTTY CLeAR
THAT POLITICAL POWeR AND
THe RICH ARe INS[:;PARABLe.
The anarchists' fundamental belief is that the State or Government is
the primordial tool of the oppression mankind has endured throughout
history and the reason it is necessary to create ways of living in soli
darity and freedom.
Little by little, the texts of Kropotkin, Proudhon, and Malatesta are
regaining a relevancy that looked to be lost in the bottom of the barrel
of time. And they're leading to new formulas with significance today.
2
Global versus universal
In activism against globalization (the Buy Local Movement for example),
different anarchist organizations are playing a role in an effort to tip the
scales, whether its preparing petitions against multinational companies
or using the internet to transmit their message.
In reality, the economic side of globalization consists, basically, of get
ting work done in the cheapest place (usually Third World countries) and
selling products where the concentration of wealth is highest. Anar
chism has plenty to say about this.
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Also, militant liberals apply themselves, dedicate themselves to smaller
protests, and to no less affect, by supporting self-management in fac
tories, for example, and promoting worker's unions.
Anarchism has been an active participant in squatter's movements
and in the fight against the abuse of recreational drugs. In short,
anarchism has been rediscovered to do battle against oppression on
various fronts.
We DON'T NeeD A BOSS TO AND WITH THe FACTORY IN
Keep UP PRODUCTION. OUR HANDS, THeRe WON'T
Be eXPLOITATION.
4
Sights set on power
Although he never declared himself openly an anarchist, the French phi
losopher Michel Foucault contributed, in recent times, a different con
cept of power that seems to have taken hold in various rebellious groups
that attacked different fronts at the same time.
For Foucault, power not only oppresses but produces a certain type of
wisdom and control. This presence of power as something that goes far
ther than just repression made him think of the necessity of finding a
way out of this net covering everything. He found it in the private sec
tor; in some ways, the same way some a_narchists set their ideas in their
federations and communities.
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