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Petit éloge De L'anarchisme (Instinct De Liberté) (French Edition) (2013)

by James C. Scott(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Lux Éditeur

review 1: Connects the contemporary dots to the constellation, but, sadly, so very safely.-------"The condensation of history, our desire for clean narratives, and the need for elites and organizations to project an image of control and purpose all conspire to convey a false image of historical causation. They blind us to the fact that most revolutions are not the work of revolutionary parties but the precipitate of spontaneous and improvised action ('adventurism' in the Marxist lexicon), that organized social movements are usually the product, not the cause, of uncoordinated protests and demonstrations, and that the great emancipatory gains for human freedom have not been the result of orderly, institutional procedures but of disorderly, unpredictable, spontaneous actions cracking ... moreopen the social order from below."
review 2: I exist in political and theological schizophrenia. Half of me is a socialist and half of me, I am coming to realize, is an anarchist. James Scott provides a whimsical, intelligent, and thoughtful experiment in how to productively think like an anarchist without necessarily committing oneself wholeheartedly to the anarchist project. Scott uses what he calls an ‘anarchist squint’ to examine leadership, ways of knowing, human productivity, politics and power. His conclusion? Human beings are most productive and most flourishing precisely when they are least ‘efficient’ and least controlled by any other human being. Lest you think Scott is advocating libertarianism, he carefully points out that capitalism and corporations are some of the most dangerous and least anarchist organizations out there – we need to be free from supervisors and CEOs as well. He summarizes provocatively, “There is no authentic freedom when huge differences make voluntary agreements or exchanges nothing more than legalized plunder.” Essentially, this entire short volume is a series of thought experiments in the benefits of total freedom.Scott experiments (successfully) with a series of vignettes organized around a thread of thought, rather than an exhaustively researched tome. (He claims his former books were written on multiple rolls of butcher paper with tiny footnotes everywhere, and he just got tired.) He uses examples like breaking a law every day (jaywalk!) to practice for more important civil disobedience; children in Denmark who build their own playgrounds; the success of haphazardly planted crops vs. the death of gardens in straight rows; and the power of the worker to break the corporation by actually following the rules. Scott quotes Bakunin in his preface, “Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.” The combination of these two with the anarchist squint is helping to resolve my multiple personality discomfort. Recommended for any intelligent person in any field who wants to experiment with true creativity, productivity, and human flourishing. Next step for me – an anarchist squint at theology. less

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