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“Anarchy, in common with socialism, has as its basis, its point of departure, its essential environment, equality of conditions; its beacon is solidarity and freedom is its method.”—Errico Malatesta The most distinctive and universal anarchist principle is the principle of coherence between ends and means: human emancipation cannot be achieved by authoritarian means. However, the same principle could also be read in the opposite direction: our ends should not be disconnected from our action; our ideals should not be so lofty as to make no difference to what we do here and now. The anarchist whose deeds and words have best illustrated both sides of that principle—the “idealist” an...
With the timely reprinting of this selection of Malatesta’s writings, first published in 1965 by Freedom Press, the full range of this great anarchist activist’s ideas are once again in circulation. Life and Ideas gathers excerpts from Malatesta’s writings over a lifetime of revolutionary activity. The editor, Vernon Richards, has translated hundreds of articles by Malatesta, taken from the journals Malatesta either edited himself or contributed to, from the earliest, L’En Dehors of 1892, through to Pensiero e Volontà, which was forced to close by Mussolini’s fascists in 1926, and the bilingual Il Risveglio/Le Réveil, which published most of his writings after that date. These articles have been pruned down to their essentials and collected under subheadings ranging from “Ends and Means” to “Anarchist Propaganda.” Through the selections Malatesta’s classical anarchism emerges: a revolutionary, nonpacifist, nonreformist vision informed by decades of engagement in struggle and study. In addition there is a short biographical piece and an essay by the editor.
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Can we make sense of anarchism or is that an oxymoron? Guided by the principle that someone else's rationality is not an empirical finding but a methodological presumption, this book addresses that question as it investigates the ideas and action of one of the most prominent and underrated anarchists of all times: the Italian, Errico Malatesta.
Historians have frequently portrayed Italian anarchism as a marginal social movement that was doomed to succumb to its own ideological contradictions once Italian society modernized. Challenging such conventional interpretations, Nunzio Pernicone provides a sympathetic but critical treatment of Italian anarchism that traces the movement's rise, transformation, and decline from 1864 to 1892. Based on original archival research, his book depicts the anarchists as unique and fascinating revolutionaries who were an important component of the Italian socialist left throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. Anarchism in Italy arose under the influence of the Russian revolutionary Bakunin, triu...
The original Anarchy in the U.K. This volume focuses on the crucial years in Errico Malatesta's life when he was exiled in London. Responding to what he saw as the unrealistic insurrectionism and isolation into which anarchism had fallen, Malatesta advocated "a long and patient work to prepare and organize the people," through which anarchism would operate in broad daylight to entrench itself in the workers' movement. Among the concerns Malatesta addresses in this volume are the assassinations of King Humbert of Italy and President McKinley in the US. The emerging radical labor movement that was taking off in England, France, and Spain at the time, and his own imprisonment in England.
Anarchists believe that the point of society is to widen the choices of individuals. Anarchism is opposed to states, armies, slavery, the wages system, the landlord system, prisons, capitalism, bureaucracy, meritocracy, theocracy, revolutionary governments, patriarchy, matriarchy, monarchy, oligarchy, and every other kind of coercive institution. In other words, anarchism opposes government in all its forms. Enlarged and updated for a modern audience, What Is Anarchism? has the making of a standard reference book. As an introduction to the development of anarchist thought, it will be useful not only to propagandists and proselytizers of anarchism but also to teachers and students of politica...