I’m digging anarchists’ more hands on, pragmatic approach to politics. I finished The Conquest of Bread a couple of weeks ago and I’m currently working my way through Bullshit Jobs. Any suggestions about theory, praxis, mutual aid, etc. would be appreciated
I think anarchism is more about removing hierarchies, including gender roles and man’s domination of nature.
The issue is that a governing body is pretty much always formed after some time. Murray Bookchin was an anarchist for a while, before creating a new idea of communalism.
It’s essentially the idea of hyper localization, and democratic self-governing of small communities. The communities then delegate an individual to discuss larger issues with neighboring communities.
Bookchin also analyzed previous anarchist rebellions to see how they failed and why. He identified one of the largest contributing factors was that once the previous government’s politicians were overthrown, the anarchists refused to “take power” and preferred to do nothing.
While the anarchists did anarchy things, capitalists went right back into positions of power unchallenged. Which is why Bookchin was no longer in supportof anarchism and developed a new philosophy. Which is actually being tested right now in Rojava.
Bookchin is a very flawed source. Despite having contributed good ideas to anarchist theory in his earlier days, he later engaged in what to me seems like a personal vendetta against some forms of Anarchism for various reasons. Some justified at the time (hedonist lifestyle anarchism) but I think the main reason was that Anarchists consistently called him out for creating what many people consider almost a religious cult.