The principle and practice of “violence” against property
The recent student protests – in particular the siege of Millbank Tower and the riots on the day of the tuition fees vote – have provoked an awful lot of debate. Among other things, it brought the boogeyman of anarchism back into the media spotlight and helped to reinvigorate the fight against the cuts. What … Read more
Communism and the state
The fundamental difference between anarchist communists and any other kind of communist (Leninst, Trotskyist, Titoist, whatever) can be boiled down, ultimately, to two sentences from Karl Marx; Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in … Read more
Killing and dying for “the old lie”
Ninety one years ago today, at 11:00am, the guns fell silent on the Western Front. Not two minutes earlier, George Lawrence Price became the last Commonwealth casualty of the Great War after being shot in the heart by a German sniper. Up to 16 million people had fallen before him. The war was a case … Read more
An argument for the abolition of the prison system
![abc_arn_index[1]](http://propertyistheft.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/abc_arn_index1.jpg?w=440&h=240&crop=1)
As with borders, the prison system is an element of state structure deemed to be beyond question. Debate rages on whether it is “too soft” or “too tough,” on whether it needs reform, and on how it can be made to work better. However, the idea of its abolition remains unspeakable, indeed unthinkable. There simply … Read more
The case against borders
Anarchy, by its very definition, requires that there be no borders. If there is no state, no unjust or illegitimate hierarchy imposing its will on a population, by what criteria do you even define a border? Clearly, in a truly free society, there is no justification for using some pre-determined criteria – be they racial … Read more
“Support our troops” – apologism for the crimes of war
In the wake of the more recent developments in the Afghanistan war, which I’ve commented on at length in Truth, Reason & Liberty, I received – for a second time – a spam email that has been circulating about the military and the supposed need to “support our troops.” It reads like this: You stay … Read more
The folly of patriotism
In the essay Patriotism: Menace to Liberty, Emma Goldman tells us that “Patriotism … is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.” There is considerable weight to the truth of this statement. Those … Read more
