My question would be: do anarchists really work as professors at the London School of Economics? And Yale? Aren't you a 'system man' at that point?
My question would be: do anarchists really work as professors at the London School of Economics? And Yale? Aren't you a 'system man' at that point?
I believe thinking and writing and getting these ideas into the mainstream can be a form of praxis. As Zizek says, sometimes the most revolutionary thing to do is nothing at all.
But should you embrace it? While Yale and LSE are no doubt great institutions, to my mind they are also up there as educators of those who go on to become the system's top managers.
It's not nearly as Conservative as you might think.
The reason is that it helps to present what is in fact a false dichotomy. The radical thought they support is that within the Overton window. Nothing that would really shake up the ruling elite is expressed there. Like CNN and Fox news.
If there was an anarchistan in recent history it was a probably Somalia and even there you now find a regular government.
He was in support of Corbyn etc - this is to say he was happy to work within the system. You might say that this is a pragmatic view - but really he represented a hard left view.
Anarchism is, by definition, no-leaders. Self-determination. Neither communism nor a libertarian position. So I think in practise he was in contradiction of the beliefs he purported to hold.
BS jobs was good though!
For about a century libertarianism was exclusive a far left ideology including mostly anarchists and libertarian Marxists.
I know a banker who is communist. It does not mean that he behaves like a communist in his actions, but he does in his words. From my perspective, he takes the best (or the worst) of both worlds: the quality of life of a very rich man who can afford living in the most expensive places and whatever leisure he wants, and the ability to punch down on the "lesser" people around him from his morally higher stand-point. Never under-estimate people's hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance, especially when what is at stake is exerting power over other people's lives. One can always find a way to rationalize one's crappy behaviour to try to lower the cognitive dissonance after the fact.
That's an incontinent position to hold and he must have high cognitive dissonance of schizophrenia. Except if he is duplicitously self-serving, ie happy to receive the payments but not the opprobrium that comes with a high paying system position.
On one hand one of the things Proudhon and Marx agreed on was that driving down the cost of credit is an inherently radical act - the cheaper credit becomes the weaker the hold of employers over employees becomes, as it becomes easier to start for yourself.
On the other hand in finance you see the mechanisms at work laid bare.
Nowhere else than in finance and in far left groups have I seen the same extent of shared fear (AND optimism - people tend to be unaware the Communist Manifesto starts with fanboy-level praise for the advances brought by capitalism) about the long term societal effects of automation for example.
I guess bankers and communists share the idea of looking at 'the people' as a group to be governed and managed. Both are wedded to the system. I think communistic thinking is the idea that seems to have won, and (technocratic) governance is going to proceed with that as its basis.
Of course anarchism is a resistance to rule by domination, not to systems and procedures. Some universities are no doubt power centers, though.
edit: anarchism means "no ruler." It's usually painted by people who think rulers are necessary as something like amorphism i.e. "no shape."