Historical Failure of Anarchism

Kasama recently re-posted 'The Historical Failure of Anarchism' by Christopher Day (originally published by Love & Rage 1996).
I strongly strongly encourage anyone considering themselves an anarchist to read this! It provides a very constructive historical breakdown of anarchist attempts at transforming societies and gives some direction towards a potentially bright future.

some quotes to entice you with:

...revolutionaries have a responsibility to have a plausible plan for making revolution... the anarchist movement offers people who want to make revolution very little in the way of a coherent plan of action.

Instead it takes a historical experience that ended in a crushing defeat, makes excuses for that defeat and offers the faithful reassuring platitudes that, all evidence to the contrary, the one true path of anarchism is vindicated by the experience.

The anarchist movement is filled with people who are less interested in overthrowing the existing oppressive social order than with washing their hands of it. This concern with ensuring the passage of ones soul to anarchist heaven can range from the obsessive efforts to purify ones personal habits to the sectarian refusal to join any group or organization that shows any sign of being a product of this society.

The proletariat should not be viewed as a monolithic entity represented by a single party (a la the various currents of Marxism) but rather as a contested body whose unity is contingent on the freedom of its different parts to fight for their interests within it.

There is a crying need for the development of a new body of revolutionary theory that breaks decisively with the dogmatism and political shallowness of anarchism as well as with the authoritarian essence of marxism.
_____

I welcome any comments on the writing. I encourage us all to read and analyze the piece and then come together to discuss and build.

_____

SAMCRO

FX has a new series entitled Sons Of Anarchy.

The name caught my attention. When I found out that it was a drama about a motorcycle gang (loosely based on Hamlet), I was less than enthused with the choice of 'anarchy' in the title. However, I do have an interest in outlaws and have been following the show.
This past week's episode, "Patch Over" actually name-dropped Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and featured a quote of Emma Goldman's describing the meaning of anarchy (and insinuating the original intention of the club).
Very interesting.