Hey all, I started my dive into anarchism a little over a year ago and I’ve read a lot of the anarchy/socialism 101 type books but I’m starting to find a lot of it repetitive. I’m looking for suggestions to deepen my understanding of anarchism and libertarian socialism. Especially praxis and tactics, a lot of theory that I’ve come across doesn’t really get into the weeds about applying it, and as someone in an area with no leftist orgs to speak of (outside of a small DSA chapter), I don’t have anyone local to go to in order to learn from.
I want to start putting all of this knowledge to use in my area but I’m not 100% sure where to start or how to avoid some of the pitfalls of organizing. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
Just to give a reference point for where I’m at in my understanding for suggestions, here’s a little bit of what I’ve read through. This isn’t all, but it’s a decent enough snapshot of where I’m at
Kropotkin: the bread book, mutual aid
Malatesta: anarchy, at the cafe
Rudolf rocker: anarcho syndicalism
FARJ: Social anarchism and organization
James c. Scott: seeing like a state (currently reading)
Did you check out crimethinc? I really like them for approach that to me feels very different more classical texts i read (didnt read that many tho)
Also which book from list did you feel most connected with / engaged by?
I’ve seen them referenced online before but I haven’t gotten around to looking them up. Their library seems to have a lot on praxis, thank you for linking it!
Kropotkin definitely spoke to me most, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Malatesta and rockers writing as well. The first chapter of anarcho-syndicalism was a great summary and history of anarchism that tied a lot together for me. The rest of it was so-so, I want to start anarcho-syndicalism: theory and practice after I finish seeing like a state, but that may be a while. Seeing like a state is deeeeeeense haha
I read both of kropotkins books (bread book 100% and mutual aid 40%) and I connect with his ideas / views on mutual aid :) I think he writes in a way that just make it seem so natural and reproducable.
I’ll second Kropotkin’s The Bread Book (AKA “The Conquest of Bread”). I’ll admit it’s been a few years since I’ve directly read any political philosophy, but this one struck me as a bit more practical than the average anarchist text. By that I mean (if I’m remembering correctly) he does a better than average job of laying out how his proposed society could come about, as well as addressing what it might look like in practice. He’s specifically a proponent of anarchist communism, so it’s a different take than anarchist literature that focuses more on the individual.
Its a great read for sure! While it wasn’t huge on theory per se, it had a hopeful streak that I found very encouraging. It was one of the first strictly anarchist books I read and it showed a great contrast to the likes of Marx and Lenin, which I had been reading before. They seemed solely focused on criticizing without posing much in the way of meaningful alternatives to the status quo. I’m sure those suggestions exist on the auth left but a lot of their introductory texts are just “shits bad, yo”.
Just reading kropotkin go on for a few pages about dishwashers definitely put me in the mindset of “things can be better, they had the means then so we must have the means now” over the persistent sense of dread that saturated other socialist books.
Hahaha. Sorry, I didn’t realize I was replying to OP - I took that comment as being someone’s suggestions to you. In that case I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer. As I had said in my earlier comment my grasp on anarchist literature these days is a bit spotty (though I’m hoping to start freshening up on it, so I look forward to other replies.)
From what I recall, however, most anarchist writers seem to have an unfortunate tendency to lean more on theory than practice. Furthermore, a lot of the foundational stuff was written in the 19th century, so their practical suggestions are quite often not super applicable to the modern context.
All good! I have read some more modern texts from FARJ (an especifist org in Brazil), some stuff on zapatismo, and I have more modern texts on the back log. Stuff from Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin and a handful of queer anarchist theorists as well. There’s a boatload of modern theory floating around out there, it’s just time consuming to parse through. I also wanted to get “the classics” out of the way to have a good foundation and historical context to pull from when reading more modern work
Very cool! I’ll have to find some time to read up on some more modern stuff. I vaguely remember one really good modern book from when I went back to finish a poli sci degree 5ish years ago, but unfortunately don’t remember the name or author. If I manage to dig it up I’ll let you know, as I recall it being quite informative.