Don’t worry I’m here for every delicious bit of drama.
Do anarchists still exist anymore? I know it’s a fun name tag to wear, but I’m finding very few actual “practicing” anarchist organizations.
YMMV depending on country. In the US you can find at least a handful of named anarchist organizations in any given state. Many anarchist or libertarian organizations keep it on the DL for a multitude of reasons. You may have better luck finding groups under the monikers of communalist, x or y federation, social ecologist, or just plain ole socialist. Mutual aid networks, food not bombs chapters, and IWW chapters are other spaces a lot of anarchists occupy. Many anarchists still stick to affinity groups and the like as well so, while they may be out there and active, it’s likely you’ll never hear about them. Further muddying the waters there’s also the concept of social insertion where anarchists support local movements and encourage (but don’t attempt to force) the popular movement to develop in a more libertarian fashion. Some big names in the libertarian milieu in the US are the symbiosis network and moneyless society. The black rose anarchist federation is another one I’ve seen around.
That said, it’s still hard to find other anarchists in a lot of areas. I’ve been on the hunt for a while and haven’t had any luck in my area. The closest I have is a food not bombs chapter in my city but they’re all a bunch of zionist soc-dems. 🤷 They do good work but I don’t want to be the only anarchist in the group haha. I’ll be handing out zines and fliers at the pride parade in a few weeks in the hopes of starting a reading group and hopefully an explicitly anarchist org in my city
food not bombs chapter in my city but they’re all a bunch of zionist soc-dems.
That’s news to me.
I may have worded that weird. Just to be clear, food not bombs in general isn’t a social democrat org. The chapter in my town just so happens to be run by them. More often than not, you’ll find at least a handful of anarchists in the mix at a food not bombs group
We do! In my area there are quite a few of us and we operate a number of collectives providing things like:
- Free meals
- Free groceries
- Bike repair workshops
- Theory reading groups
- Clothing
- Social activities
Of course there’s also a lot of direct action going on for various causes.
What is “theory reading”?
Having never done it as part of one such group, I don’t know exactly what goes on, but essentially there’s a large body of literature on leftist political concepts, covering the ideas of why anarchy rather than archy, how to practice it, how to organise etc. I’m definitely the wrong person to explain it, generally socialists (at least here) are the ones doing all the reading, I’m a lot more interested in praxis tbh.
Some classic anarchist writers include Kropotkin, Bakunin and Proudhon, but the communist and socialist literature often applies too.
The anarchist library has lots to browse and the anarchist faq is a great starting place despite its huge volume of content, I highly recommend casually browsing it.
Pleasently surprised to see Bakunins name dropped! Since there seems to be some misconceptions in this thread about what Anarchy actually is, I thought I’d share one of his quotes that has stuck with me through the years:
Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality
Leftist groups of all stripes have a long history, and with that history comes books, essays, and pamphlets on strategy, analysis, philosophy, and outlook.
Like Bible study but with more books
in my country its mostly MLs. i think it tends to be that way in the 3rd world.
Honestly! We need more Mutualists and Syndicalists!
