It seems to me as though there’s been two prevailing and conflicting ideas about democracy in this symposium. The first idea is that democracy is irreconcilable with anarchy in principle. The second idea is that democracy can — ironically because of practical concerns — be compatible with anarchy. I’ve made my own position clear.

This is not a symposium on the post-left and certainly that term of self-identification has been increasingly appropriated by reactionaries, but it’s important to note that the original post-left argument for anarchists to distance ourselves from “the left” was the opposite of some kind of etymological argument that appealed to relatively fixed underlying meanings.

In “The Regime of Liberty,” Gabriel Amadej advocates the Proudhonian ideal – reflected in the dictum “property is liberty” – of some individual sphere of last resort where means of subsistence are secure from the will of the majority: “Democracy disrupts this balance and places society under the unaccountable domain of community.

This C4SS discussion about anarchism and democracy has been intriguing—even though I am one of only two writers who have regarded them as compatible concepts. The brief essay by Grayson, “Demolish the Demos,” is especially useful. It clarifies what is at the root of the disagreement among anarchists about democracy. The basic issue, I believe, is not what…

I should clarify for Derek Wittorff that I wasn’t embracing, for example, calling all collective decisionmaking “democracy.” Rather, I was entertaining the more extreme definitions out there. I was attempting to point out how some kernel of “the rule of all over all” lies within each of these alternative definitions.

I found William Gillis’ essay “The Abolition of Rulership Or The Rule Of All Over All” to be a very interesting read. It covered many of the same points as my essay without much disagreement, and in a much less compressed manner. However, there was one notable difference, and a couple of slight disagreements.

It should be clear that one of the key conflicts in these debates about anarchy and democracy is a struggle over the nature of anarchism. And it is probably safe to say that nearly all anarchists wrestle with the difficulties of defining that term.

Nathan Goodman brings an interesting definition of “democracy” to the conversation — and one that I didn’t preemptively critique — openness. Seeking to bridge the oft-stated dichotomy of markets and democracy, Nathan cites Don Lavoie’s conception which essentially posits markets as the truest expression of democracy.

At Slate Star Codex (“Considerations on Cost Disease,” Feb. 9), Scott Alexander has a long, long, LONG article speculating on possible causes for the “cost disease — that is, the escalating unit costs and prices in certain economic sectors relative to their outputs.

Last week, President Trump announced intentions to roll back the Obama administration’s opening of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Trump called for stricter enforcement of the ban on Americans visiting Cuba as tourists, as well as doing business with Cuba’s Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group.

With all the attention given to last month’s release of Chelsea Manning, whose sentence was only commuted by the Obama administration after it became politically convenient, we must not overlook the fact that the Obama administration also had the opportunity to pardon another famous whistle-blower.

This piece is the tenth essay in the June C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium: “Anarchy and Democracy.” A fundamental difference between anarchism and statism is that anarchists do not assume that public officials are any more morally entitled to use force or to threaten people with violence than anyone else.

Di Grayson English. Originale pubblicato il 14 giugno 2017 con il titolo Demolish the Demos. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. Questo articolo e l’ottavo saggio del June C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium: “Anarchy and Democracy.” Da qualche tempo all’interno dell’anarchismo aleggia un certo spirito democratico. Certo, quando si parla di ingiustizia statalista e autoritaria, ci sentiamo spinti…

Classical liberalism emerged as a radical ideology, challenging the status quo of monarchy, mercantilism, religious tyranny, and the ancien regime. The liberals promoted two ideals, markets and democracy, as alternatives to the old despotisms. Yet markets and democracy seemed to be at odds.

There has long been a certain kind of democratic spirit in anarchism. Of course when we bring forth the imagery of statist and authoritarian injustice, we feel the rhetorical pull to illustrate it as a collective issue, one that is relevant and applicable to all.

The relationship between democracy and anarchism is undoubtedly a contentious one. In his work The Principle of Federation1, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon makes it clear that democracy has an important legacy to respect. Because Proudhon declared that Universal Suffrage was above The Republic, he had to evaluate the character of democracy in ideal terms. Proudhon categorized democracy…

Di Logan Yershov. Originale pubblicato il 18 maggio 2017 con il titolo Understanding Richard Spencer’s Holodomor Denial. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. Richard Spencer è ancora una volta al centro di polemiche dopo aver detto in un tweet recente che l’Holodomor (la carestia provocata dalla politica staliniana tra il 1929 e il 1933, ndt) non fu…

As a working definition of democracy, I think about the best we can do is this description of anarchy in Pyotr Kropotkin’s 1911 Britannica article on anarchism — the attainment of harmony: “…not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free arrangements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional,…

Di Vishal Wilde. Originale pubblicato il 5 giugno con il titolo The Common ‘Logic’ of Compulsory Education, Homophobia, and Transphobia. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. A chiunque contesti l’obbligo scolastico capita prima o poi di ricevere (una variante di) questa obiezione: “un giovanissimo non ha la possibilità di sapere cosa è bene per lui, cosa serve…

[Di Derek Wittorff. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 4 giugno 2017 con il titolo Democracy: Self-Government or Systemic Powerlessness? Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.] Questo è il terzo saggio della serie June C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium: “Anarchy and Democracy.” La parola democrazia è l’universale grido di battaglia per la giustizia. Dicono a…