A. Kent MacDougall

Anarchism : Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarianism -- (7,286 Words / 47,799 Characters)
Introduction Anarchist-communism has been regarded by other anarchist currents as a poor and despised relation, an ideological trophy to be exhibited according to the needs of hagiography or polemic before moving on to “serious things” (the collectivizations of Spain, anarcho-syndicalism, federalism or self-management), and as an “infantile utopia” more concerned with dogmatic abstractions than with “economic realities”. Yet, anarchist communism has been the only current within the anarchist movement that has explicitly aimed not only at ending exchange value but, among its most coherent partizans, at making this the immediate content of the revolutionary process. We are speaking here, of course, only of the current that explicitly described itself as “anarchist-communist”, whereas in fact the tendency in the nineteenth century to draw up a stateless communism “utopia” extended beyond anarchism properly s... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Anarchism : Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarianism -- 1999 ~ (1,130 Words / 7,577 Characters)
Fifth Estate Note: Some terminology in this brief but potent essay differs somewhat from the language generally used in the FE. For example, we normally do not invoke Marx and Engels in economic critiques, but much of their economic analysis remains valid into the modern era. Also, we feel the commonly used term, employed here by the author, “developing,” is inaccurate to describe the nations of the South — that is the Southern tier, non-industrial countries. The phrase connotes a process that is not occurring, as the article ably points out. Despite these minor differences, we think his description of contemporary capitalism is compelling and deserves wide possible dissemination. The author can be contacted directly at 911 Oxford St., Berkeley, CA 94707. During the post-Second World War economic boom, Marxi... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)