Audible Anarchism

Murray Bookchin "Ecology and Revolutionary Thought" - Part 1: The Critical Nature of Ecology

Read the full text: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lewis-herber-murray-bookchin-ecology-and-revolutionary-thought

Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) was an anarchist and libertarian socialist political theorist, historian, and author. He is perhaps best remembered as a thinker who fused critical ecology with anarchist thought, but his conceptions of democratic confederalism have influenced numerous social and political movements, including the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (also know as Rojava). In part 1 of Ecology and Revolutionary Thought, Bookchin addresses the environmental catastrophes that have been produced by imperialistic capitalism and the widespread disconnect between humanity and the environment caused by hierarchical social relationships.

The Idea is the Thing - By Alexander Berkman

The full text:https://libcom.org/library/idea-thing-berkman

Tyranny must be opposed at the start. Autocracy, once secured in the saddle, is diffucult to dislodge. If you believe that America is entering the war "to make democracy safe," then be a man and volunteer.

But if you know anything at all, then you should know that the cry of democracy is a lie and a snare for the unthinking. You should know that a republic is not synonymous with democracy, and that America has never been a real democracy, but that it is the vilest plutocracy on the face of the globe.

If you can see, hear, feel, and think, you should know that King Dollar rules the United States, and that the workers are robbed and exploited in this country to the heart's content of the masters.

If you are not deaf, dumb, and blind, then you know that the American bourgeois democracy and capitalistic civilization are the worst enemies of labor and progress, and that instead of protecting them, you should help to fight to destroy them.

If you know this, you must also know that the workers of America have no enemy in the toilers of other countries. Indeed, the workers of Germany suffer as much from their exploiters and rulers as do the masses of America.

You should know that the interests of Labor are identical in all countries. Their cause is international.

Then why should they slaughter each other?

The workers of Germany have been misled by their rulers into donning the uniform and turning murders. So have the workers of France, of Italy, and England been misled. But why should *you*, men of America, allow yourselves to be misled into murder or into being murdered?

If your blood must be shed, let it be in defense of your own interests, in the war of the workers against their despoilers, in the cause of real liberty and independence.

Mutual Aid - By Errico Malatesta

Full text https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/errico-malatesta-mutual-aid-an-essay

Since it is a fact that man is a social animal whose existence depends on the continued physical and spiritual relations between human beings, these relations must be based either on affinity, solidarity and love, or on hostility and struggle. If each individual thinks only of his well being, or perhaps that of his small consanguinary or territorial group, he will obviously find himself in conflict with others, and will emerge as victor or vanquished; as the oppressor if he wins, as the oppressed if he loses. Natural harmony, the natural marriage of the good of each with that of all, is the invention of human laziness, which rather than struggle to achieve what it wants assumes that it will be achieved spontaneously, by natural law. In reality, however, natural Man is in a state of continuous conflict with his fellows in his quest for the best, and healthiest site, the most fertile land, and in time, to exploit the many and varied opportunities that social life creates for some or for others. For this reason human history is full of violence, wars, carnage (besides the ruthless exploitation of the labour of others) and innumerable tyrannies and slavery.

Revolutionary Bread by Emile Pouget

Émile Pouget (1860-1931) was a French anarcho-communist, who adopted tactics close to those of anarcho-syndicalism. He was vice-secretary of the General Confederation of Labour from 1901 to 1908.

Text version: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-pouget-revolutionary-bread

The Bully's Pulpit by David Graeber

The Bully's Pulpit: On the Elementary Structure of Domination

Full text here https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-the-bully-s-pulpit

David Graeber (1961- ) is an anarchist, anthropologist, and activist who currently holds a professorship in anthropology at the London School of Economics. Graeber has written extensively on theories of value, social theory, direct action, and ethnographic theory. He participated in the Occupy movement and is a member of the Industrial Workers of the World.

In this essay, Graeber links the psychological impulses of bullying--both of bullies and of passive observers of bullying--to structures of power inherent within hierarchical authority. He contends that from a young age, we are socialized to side with bullies and against victims, and we are socialized to see victims as either deserving their punishment or of having the same moral worth as the bullies themselves.

Manifesto of Equals by Gracchus Babeuf

Full text here

 

Real equality, final goal of social art
-Condorcet

 

Gracchus Babeuf was a French radical during the days of the French Revolution. He was an early advocate for political, social and economic equality and was opposed to the increasingly corrupt ruling Directory. The group dubbed the Conspiracy of Equals was exposed in December 1796, resulting in the execution of Babeuf and many of his supporters in 1797.

Post Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin

Full essay https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism

In this series of essays, Murray Bookchin balances his ecological and anarchist vision with the promising opportunities of a “post-scarcity” era. Technological advances during the 20th century have expanded production in the pursuit of corporate profit at the expense of human need and ecological sustainability. New possibilities for human freedom must combine an ecological outlook with the dissolution of hierarchical social relations, capitalism and canonical political orientation. Bookchin’s utopian vision, rooted in the realities of contemporary society, remains refreshingly pragmatic. Bookchin makes a trenchant analysis of modern society and offers a pointed, provocative discussion of the ecological crisis.

The Chain Factory by Osugi Sakae

The essay in text form: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/osugi-sakae-the-chain-factory
Osugi Sakae biography: https://libcom.org/library/osugi-sakae-biography

Ōsugi Sakae was a Japanese Anarchist born in 1885. In addition to study socialism and the works of Bakunin and Kropotkin-whose autobiography he translated into Japanese- he taught himself several langauges including Italian, Esperanto, English, Russian, French and German. He was imprisoned many times throughout his life for anti government activities, including taking part in a protest in 1906 against high trolley fairs. He was spared from execution during the High treason incident which claimed the lives of other prominent Japanese Anarchists, because he was already in prison for taking part in a demonstration during the earlier Red Flag incident.

He was killed in 1923 in the aftermath of the Kanto earthquake when police and right wing gangs took advantage of the chaos to kill many anti government activists and ethnic Chinese and Koreans.

 

"The Forbidden Word: Class" by Howard Zinn from the book A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

Full text of this essay: https://books.google.co.uk/books?

Howard Zinn (1922-2010) was an American historian, anarchist, and activist. He authored 20 books, including "A People's History of the United States," one of the most influential and controversial books of the twentieth century. Zinn had the audacity to write about historically marginalized peoples, and he took great pains to write about history from their perspectives. In this essay, excerpted from the book "A Power Governments Cannot Suppress," Zinn explores how the political elites of the US ignore and silence discussions of class, thereby denying how all of American history is littered with class struggle. Zinn concludes the essay by calling for large and unified social movements of the working and exploited classes to overthrow the ruling class that controls the US government.

More readings on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaO1QA8QL99_eb0XhJI2Fyw

Fascists are the Tools of the State by Peter Gelderloos

Read the full text here https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-fascists-are-the-tools-of-the-state

 

This reading is dedicated to Heather Heyer, an antifascist activist whose life was cut short by a neo-Nazi in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017. This audio is also dedicated to all the people who have ever been killed or injured in the struggle against fascism. We stand with you in solidarity. Rest in power, comrades.