Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 05:29:45 -0800 (PST) From: Jamal Hannah <jah-AT-iww.org> Subject: Re: Anarchism; more popular than marxism? (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 12:54:08 -0000 From: Graham <graham-AT-unacode.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: marxism-AT-lists.panix.com To: marxism-AT-lists.panix.com, marxism-digest-AT-lists1.panix.com Subject: Re: Anarchism; more popular than marxism? When all's said and done, the bottom line with anarchism as a 'mass movement' in the USA, Australasia and parts of Western Europe is its connexions with early 1980s punk subculture. Many of the bands, particularly those connected with Crass records, had a comparatively coherent outlook - vegetarian diets, not voting, hating EMI and other multinational targets. The pacifist aspect has been whittled away since the early 80s, and the 'movement' has overlapped with other groups, depending where and when they sprang. (For a good description of the British variation of this process, see George McKay's _Senseless Acts of Beauty_ (Verso, 1996): McKay is overwhelmingly positive about a destructive, antipolitical trend. In short, the new 'anarchist' movement is more popular than Marxism - i.e it has a more active base of support within certain imperialist powers - but only by virtue of it being 'last man standing'. It's come out of the 80s and 90s in better shape than rival political traditions (needless to say it has little to do with Bakunin et al at present). As Phil Ferguson and others have suggested, what looks like a popular movement is closer to a youth subculture, made up of drop-outs who need to grow up. Graham Barnfield
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005