I am tempted to say that contemporary anarchist theory has four elements, like hip hop: a) analysis of the multitude, with the work of Paulo Virno as its most impressive and useful writer, b) anarchist anthropology as a method for learning about the possible and understanding, compiling, and experimenting with new practices, as put forward by David Graeber, c) the compilation and enacting of concrete strategies within a larger framework as modeled by James Herod in his excellent and free book Getting Free, and d) the articulating of a hip politics, and attacks putting forth abundance on the level of culture, see Crimethinc for instance.
The brilliance and importance of the above work is however only a springboard for the action that is demanded of us, given our present situation in the world, the near nonexistence of substantive organizing channels and the coming shift in the global order. Whether this shift is Virno’s ‘new 17th century’, the collapse of the global ecosystem and a new dark ages, or at the very least the destruction of the US as the world’s sole superpower, we are entering very interesting times indeed. Times where terms like sovereignty, the central state, legitimate/legal, the social pact, and so on are losing coherence, and when the two existing options for a declining superpower seem to be expansionist war and externally enforced structural adjustment in the world bank model…
If we consider the last transition from one superpower and one model of global capitalism to another we certainly find a bleak picture ahead, dreams of WWI and WWII…is it useful to ask who are the new Germanys? Or should we rather expect a broadening and war in earnest of what some are calling the 4th World War, the war against corporate globalization?
Regardless how are we to build the sites/practices/culture to support/enact/generate resistance and new, transnational, mobile(?) societies? How are we to rearrange/create/escape the current push/pulls of the current economic and political forces and build a new world to attract immigrants, to partake in exodus/exit and to ever grow its scope, assets and culture? Here do we use an anarchist anthropological lens? Do we grow the commons considered as a frontier as a chance not a border? How do we build the online resources, the local assets, and the culture of solidarity to escape work, to escaping the constant enemies that have plagued our humanity since the beginning of civilization: the haves vs. the have nots, intergenerational struggle, cultural and biological reproduction, and through all of this the entrenchment of the privileged?
Are we right in our idealism that the elimination of dependence means the elimination not inequality of humanity? A basis from which allows us to live in freedom? And if so is this even possible? Do we have the bear by the throat or are we diving into a concrete wall of nature?
