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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > Anarchism
The Conquest of Bread is Peter Kropotkin's famous critique of
capitalism, wherein he excoriates that system in favor of
anarcho-communism; a form of government he believed could ensure
fairness for all. Kropotkin had an alternate vision of the way
society, work, and population should be organized - in The Conquest
of Bread, he interweaves his plans for a social revolution with
critiques of the prevailing orthodoxy. We receive outlines of how
his propositions will eliminate poverty and scarcity - conditions
Kropotkin believed were artificially enforced in order to maintain
control upon the working populace. As a philosopher and scientist,
Peter Kropotkin abhorred the manner in which abject poverty
characterized industrialized society. He also held a great
resentment for centralized authority of government and the owners
of capital, which he felt acted in concert to undermine the
majority of humanity.
Emma Goldman is one of the most celebrated activists and
philosophers of the early 20th century, admired and reviled for her
anarchist ideas and vociferous support of free speech and personal
liberation. A polarizing figure in life, Emma Goldman was among the
first advocates of birth control for women. From 1900 to 1920 she
was in and out of jail in the United States on charges of illegally
promoting contraception, inciting riots in favor of her social and
economic causes, and discouraging potential recruits to avoid the
draft for World War I. Although Goldman initially supported the
Bolshevik Revolution, the resulting Soviet Union's repressiveness
caused an abrupt reversal in her opinion. Goldman's narrative is
thorough yet compelling; her childhood in Russia, her emigration to
the USA as a teenager, and her attraction to anarchist and social
causes is told.
In the quarter century that has passed since the collapse of the
Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, fanciful establishment
intellectuals have advanced the idea that an "end of history" has
somehow arrived. The model of "democratic capitalism" is said to be
the final stage in the development of political economy. It is
often suggested that it is simply a matter of waiting for the rest
of the world to catch up, and at that point the Western model will
have achieved a final and eternal triumph. In this work, the
anarchist philosopher Keith Preston expresses skepticism of these
presumptions. Expounding upon the critique of modernity advanced by
Friedrich Nietzsche well over a century ago, Preston argues that
the historical cycle associated with the rise of modernity is
winding down. The forces of globalism, liberalism, capitalism,
democracy, and Americanization are closer to achieving universal
hegemony than ever before. Yet Preston subjects all of these to
relentless criticism, and challenges virtually every presumption of
the present era's dominant ideological model. Drawing upon a wide
range of ideological currents and intellectual influences, Preston
observes how the hegemony of what he calls the
"Anglo-American-Zionist-Wahhabist" axis is being challenged within
the realm of international relations by both emerging blocks of
rival states and insurgent non-state actors. Citing thinkers as
diverse as Ernst Junger and Emma Goldman, Max Stirner, Alain de
Benoist, Hans Hermann Hoppe and Kevin Carson, Preston offers an
alternative vision of what the future of postmodern civilization
might bring.
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