The tricky business of violence against the state (or other systems of power) is really defined by two questions: When is violence acceptable and justifiable on principle, and when is it the best tactic to achieve your goal? There are times when violence is both justifiable and strategically useful. However, there are also times when…

A week before the writing of this article, I wrote another that stated that we should privatize the police. When people hear that, they think of the anarcho-capitalist idea of the same name. The difference between that and mine is monumental. The AnCap idea is to have communities or, more likely, corporations hire a police…

This article is best started by briefly outlining two historical figures: Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) and Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992). Christopher Columbus is believed to have been born in Genoa, Italy and most famously, as the rhyme goes, “sailed the ocean blue in 1492” in order to find a route to Asia under the patronage of…

In times past, people emptied buckets of shit from their windows to the streets below. We can remember this as a historical fact without the streets continuing to be covered in human waste. If you were violently assaulted, you would want people to recognise the injustice but probably wouldn’t be campaigning for a statue of…

Oh dear, conservatives, you’ve been looking kinda confused and down recently. What a bind you’ve gotten yourselves into! You instinctively and viscerally oppose the popular uprising against the police state. But everything you can point to was done in the American revolution. It’s helpful if you curate your feeds to see only the worst examples…

When massive Western corporations provide relief and assistance during a pandemic, these stories are easily framed by corporate communications teams, the government, and mass media as some sort of angelic benevolence. This is, at most, half the story.  Many have hailed these companies for “stepping up” as they turn their productive capacities to producing things…

The situation is fluid, we may all be dead tomorrow. But it is interesting to examine the splits going on right now within the establishment. It’s clear that no matter what the MAGA chuds will continue whacking off to fantasies of slaughtering everyone to show How Real Power Works. But the establishment has come to…

Most folks radicalized online in these recent years have virtually no knowledge of what serious state repression looks like, and that lack of preparation scares me to my bones. SWAT raids, abductions, rape, torture blacksites, mock executions… those of us anarchists around from the counter-globalization era have experienced a vast array of state repression. The…

This may be the year folks. The economy is already mostly shuttered, let’s shut it the rest of the way down! For once a general strike on a massive scale may be an achievable goal. Oh what a joyous May Day indeed. Last month launched the April 1st rent strike, where almost a third of…

The concept of legal personhood as separate from natural personhood stretches back centuries. From collegia to modern day corporations, collectives of individuals have found the need to protect their institution’s ability to conduct business and maintain continuity as membership comes and goes. While the convenience of this abstraction eases the complications of liability, continuity, and…

[Listen to a Mutual Exchange Radio Podcast discussing this essay here] Ideas related to Universal Basic Income (UBI) have been gaining some traction lately with the goals of mitigating inequality, addressing the increasing precarity of technological unemployment, and attempting to ensure that people can meet their basic needs. As an anarchist seeking freedom for all,…

Governments have various ways to control the markets and attempt to preserve equilibrium. The most familiar one is price-fixing1 and punishing the infringers by reliance on governments’ forces. The rationale behind this is that governments will allocate resources to the best interest of the community and, as they have authority, they can easily mobilize the…

As the world responds to the COVID-19 (or coronavirus) pandemic, we’re seeing many opportunities to highlight the anarchist perspective. Right now, mutual aid is the shining star of the last-ditch efforts to minimize the impact on the global north.  From communities passing the hat for those who are out of work, to neighbors dropping off…

Gamestop’s disdain for their workers is well known and the accounts are numerous. Whether it’s their Circle of Life program or low pay, if you work in-store at Gamestop, you’re likely not having a great time. But now the company has gone all-in on their exploitation. Gamestop has recently responded to coronavirus by trying to…

Resistance to our oppressors can often seem like a monumental, if not impossible task. Facing off against massive police and military institutions can make any means we employ to resist them seem pointless. However, it is my contention that it is possible to resist even the greatest institutions of domination within our times, not by…

When talking to your local anarcho-syndicalist on why someone should join their union, they usually give a long list of all the things taken for granted today that are the result of organized labor fights in the past, with the weekend being the most enthusiastically mentioned. Now it is easy to believe that the eight-hour…

Consensual non-monogamy, that is romantic relationships with multiple partners,  has long been a prime candidate for the next battleground in America’s on-going culture wars. The issue got an unexpected push from the traditionally conservative state of Utah, whose Republican-dominated Senate recently voted unanimously on a bill that would remove the threat of imprisonment for polygamy….

Solarpunk is a somewhat newer subculture inspired by science fiction, most notably steampunk and cyberpunk, and environmentalism. It is a media genre that has produced amazing works in the fields of video games, animation, film, television, literature, and music. It also exists as a real life movement which has influenced areas of society such as…

On January 21, 2017, I took to the streets of DC alongside thousands of other women supposedly joined in unity and solidarity with the rights of all women, but what I experienced said otherwise. Even in the weeks leading up to the march there were issues between white organizers and organizers of color as well…

From December 10th-13th, 2019 (December 14th-17th for those in the UK due to the desire to not limit access to important political news during an election period), YouTube creators and their supporters went on strike, refusing to upload or watch any content or even log onto the site, to protest YouTube’s new terms of service….