Death Panel Best of 2025: Another Way Out w/ William C. Anderson
Jan 1, 2026
William C. Anderson, writer and activist from Birmingham known for Black anarchism and abolition, discusses his 'Another Way Out' column. He critiques reliance on electoral politics and the liberal aesthetics of resignation. He explores direct action, community survival work, and the need to build infrastructures of mutual aid. Short, urgent calls to act, risk, and learn through struggle.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Build From Below, Not Great-Man History
- William C. Anderson centers overlooked rank-and-file radicals to reshape political education and strategy.
- He maps a counter-history that emphasizes building power from below rather than venerating great figures.
Inaction Can Be Marketed As Principle
- Anderson diagnoses a surge of weaponized resignation where inaction is framed as principled resistance.
- He argues state-shaped commemorations and narratives can neutralize struggle and produce complacency.
Representative Politics Often Disempowers
- Representative democracy channels hope into a distant mechanism, producing indirect, demobilizing politics.
- Anderson urges direct, communal power-building because electoralism often returns little material change.
