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In the early 19th century, a movement grew in Europe out of the frustrations of the poor living under hierarchical monarchies that resisted democracy. You may be more familiar with its better-known counterpart — Marxism. But this was a movement that called for direct action, that did not trust the electoral process or union organizing as a pathway to change.
Too many times these efforts had met with violent repression. And when the Marxists took power in the Russian revolution, they turned out to be as interested in self-preservation as the aristocrats they deposed. Elections won based on lies.
Power concentrated in a few. What else was there to do? Anarchism offered a different path. If you could not seize power to create a just society, build it from within.
Set up collectives where farmers could challenge the power of railroads and banks. Organize co-ops to sell food, educate children and bring produce to the market. Build the new world within the framework of the old.
In time, justice would prevail. We have echoes of that movement in America today. Henry David Thoreau taught about self-reliance and civil disobedience.
Food co-ops, bank cooperatives, and farmers organizations exist today. Charter schools, community clinics, and neighborhood organizations carry on a peaceful challenge to established organizations that refuse to give up power. An entire generation in the 1960s experimented with communal living and living outside the capitalist system.
But that movement also experienced failures. Elections did not work out the way these visionaries would have liked. Lies seem to replace policies as a political platform.
Assumptions about security are cast aside by 9/11 and economic recession. MAGA challenges what we thought we knew about political vocabulary. Hatred and scapegoating seem to have won the day.
The early 20th century saw movements toward social justice crushed by political violence and the catastrophes of two world wars. For some who called themselves anarchists, people who reject both government and capitalism, the response was violent direct action. The propaganda of the deed.
The acts of bombings and assassinations were themselves the message. Article continues after..
. Cross|Word Flipart Typeshift SpellTower Really Bad Chess There is fire burning in a generation that watched democracy fumble away the promise of social progress and has given billionaires the power to strip civil servants of their jobs, children of their health care, and the aged and inform of their lifesaving benefits. A generation working longer for less, facing a political structure and a Supreme Court that is only too happy to remove their rights.
There is a lot of right-wing anger out there. We learned that in the last election. We are about to experience a presidency based on retribution.
But be aware that there is left-wing anger out there, too. Anger that may no longer seek change through elections corrupted by money, or courts beholden to private power. In their absence, the heat of that anger increases until it is white hot.
An executive of a company that profits by denying health care finds himself targeted by a young man in a hoodie. A young man who has a gun. Points it.
And fires. As James Baldwin once told us, “The fire next time.” David Parrella lives in Buckland.
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