We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, October 16, 2014

”Engines of Domination”, An Argument For Anarchism, Out This October 17

Click here to access article from Revolution News!

In this preview of a film based on Mark Corske’s book Engines of Domination, we are offered an anarchist's perspective on what is wrong in today's world. Although I take issue with some of the statements in the article which make inconsistent use of concepts and arguments, I believe that this anarchist view has much to offer.
”Engines of Domination" offers a theory of political power as a tool for making tools of human beings — an engine that converts human energy into authority and privilege for the rulers. Invented in the Bronze Age, brilliantly refined for six thousand years, today the engine has caused a human emergency that threatens to destroy our world. This documentary makes a powerful argument that there is only one way to save the future. Armed central authority must be abolished, giving way to a world of peaceful voluntary communities — in other words, an argument for anarchism.
The economic arrangement imposed on the masses of workers is a miserable failure for the simple reason that it destroys people.
Both capitalism and the state, in any form, are incompatible with the individual freedom of the working class and peasantry....