Everyday Anarchism

In this episode of Anarchism 101: An Anarchist Syllabus, I read Lucy Parsons' "The Principles of Anarchism" and "Speech on June 29 of the Founding Convention of the IWW" .This project is year-long; on the first of each month of 2022, I'll be posting my reading of an important anarchist text. Later that month, I'll post an episode in which I discuss each text and its author with a scholar of anarchism. Look forward to my discussion of this text with Jacqueline Jones on July 27

In this June 2022 discussion episode of Anarchism 101, I discuss Gandhi's "Passive Resistance" with KP Shankaran. Join us as we discuss Gandhi's place in the anarchist movement, why his ethics based anarchism is the purest form of anarchism, and how his critique of colonialism is more important now than ever before. This project is year-long; on the first of each month of 2022, I'll be posting my reading of an important anarchist text. Later that month, I'll post an episode in which I discuss each text and its author.

Welcome back to my continuing coverage of the Graeber and Wengrow book The Dawn of Everything. This week, I'm joined by four members of the Black Trowel Collective, a network of anarchist archeologists: James Birmingham, Lewis Borck, James Flexner, and Aris Politopoulos. This is part one of our roundtable discussion, covering first impressions of the book and its place in recent work on archaeology.To support underrepresented archaeologists financially, check out Black Trowel's revolutionary grant program: Black Trowel Microgrants.And for more from Aris Politopoulos, check out our episode on videogames.

Kim Stanley Robinson joins me to discuss his new book, The High Sierra: A Love Story. Stan and I discuss literary form, the need for Keynesianism in a crisis, utopian camping, his solution to leftist infighting, and how humanity can survive our current climate nightmare. You might also like Stan's most recent novel, a future history of how a worldwide crisis response to the climate emergency would work: The Ministry for the Future.

Iain McKay joins me to discuss the new edition of Kropotkin's Words of a Rebel from PM Press. In this book, Kropotkin's very first, he lays out the need for a revolution and how to prepare for that revolution. It's strikingly relevant, beautifully written, and packed with all sorts of context from Iain. I highly recommend the book!

In this episode of Anarchism 101: An Anarchist Syllabus, Abby Russ and I read Gandhi's "Passive Resistance" from his anarchist manifesto, Hind Swaraj.This project is year-long; on the first of each month of 2022, I'll be posting my reading of an important anarchist text. Later that month, I'll post an episode in which I discuss each text and its author with a scholar of anarchism. Look forward to my discussion of this text with KP Shankaran on June 29

Labor journalist Kim Kelly joins me to discuss her new book, Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor. We talk unions, what they did historically, what they're doing right now, and most of all how they can make an impossible future possible.

The heart of modern capitalism is the exploitation of workers. But according to all of the great theorists of capitalism, capitalism will actually prevent the exploitation of labor. So maybe all those thinkers are just wrong. But maybe what we call "capitalism" is just an updated form of feudal serfdom in which CEOs and middle managers have replaced monarchs and aristocrats. But if we are living not in capitalism but what David Graeber called "managerial feudalism," just what would capitalism look like? I do my best to answer that question.

This week I'm joined by Bruce Glavovic, Iain White, and Tim Smith to discuss their recent article "The Tragedy of Climate Science." In the article, these three climate scientists point out the obvious: climate scientists keep making increasingly dire predictions, and politicians keep doing nothing. In a recent survey, a majority of climate scientists expect catastrophic global warming to occur despite all their work. So why keep doing it? Maybe it's time for the climate scientists to stop doing science as usual, and start doing scientific activism.

This week I'm joined by Corey Robin, author of The Reactionary Mind, to discuss American democracy in the wake of the January 6th attack and the supposed crisis of democracy it caused. Corey and I discuss democracy as a process, the work that needs to be done to support that process, and how Karl Rove was right about one thing: it's our job to imagine and realize a different world.