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Beyond the State: the Return to Anarchy disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory Volume 12 (in)Civilities Article 7 4-15-2003 Beyond the State: The Return to Anarchy Jeff Shantz DOI: https://doi.org/10.13023/disclosure.12.07 Follow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/disclosure Part of the Political Science Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Shantz, Jeff (2003) "Beyond the State: The Return to Anarchy," disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory: Vol. 12 , Article 7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13023/disclosure.12.07 Available at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/disclosure/vol12/iss1/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory. Questions about the journal can be sent to [email protected] Endnotes 1. '1-\rchitects Reveal Plans for New Park: Themes will be Bluegrass, I Iorses.,, ux­ i11gto11 Herald uader 28, Oct.1989. A 1. Jeff Shantz 2. This submjssion received an "honorable mention,, during the jury review. The Beyond the State: The Return to Anarchy jury's first place award went to I Teman Diaz Alonso and Florencia Pita. I fow­ ever, this design (shiny abstracted sculptures meant to resemble the rolHng hills of the Bluegrass) was rejected by the urban county council and was not consid­ An old and seemingly vanquished spectre is ered feasible for construction. After a publicly criticized selection process, the once again haunting politics--the spectre of anar­ local government eventually approved another design submission by Lance chism. In the past few years striking media cover­ Decker of Borrelli & Associates, whkh is planned for construction next year. age of angry, black-clad, balaclava wearing youth Public opposition to the plaza design and selection process still continues. demonstrating outside of the global meetings of 3. See High Lo11eso1ne: the Story of Blmgrass M11sic and Emery, esp. pages 17 and 98- government and corporate power-holders has 100. stirred memories of the moral panic over anar­ chism which marked the beginning of the 20th Works Cited century. The "uncivil" disobedience, especially Alvey, Gerald R. Ke11t11cAvt Bl11egrass Co1111/ry. Jackson: University of Mh;sissippi where it concerns damage to corporate property, Press, 1992. attributed to so-called "black bloc" anarchists at global capitalist summits since the 1999 World "Architects Reveal Plans for New Park: Themes will be Bluegrass, I Torses." Ltx­ i11gto11 Herald Ltader 28 Oct. 1989. A 1. Trade Organization (WTO.) meetings in Seattle have returned anarchists to the headlines and Brim, llisa. "Courthouses Awaited as 'Next Big Thing,' Project Could Mean New landed them on the covers of Time and Newsweek in Reason to Visit Downtown.,, uxi11gto11 I Jerald uader 12 Apr. 2001: Cl. addition to a feature story on television's Sixty Min- Clark, Thomas D. Agrarian Ke11t11cAvt. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 11/u II. As well, poHce assaults on anarchists during 1977. economic summits-including pepper spray, tear Clarke, Mary Washington. Ke11t11cAvt Q11il1s a11d their Makers. Lexington: University gas, rubber bullets and mass arrests, in addition to Press of Kentucky, 1976. shootings and even killings-have suggested to the Coleman, Winston J., Jr. Slavery Ti1J1es i11 Ke11t11c~. Chapel f fill : University of North general public that anarchists are something to be Carolina Press, 1940. feared. That view has been reinforced in main­ stream media depictions of anarchists as "thugs" Duncan, James S. The Ci!J as Text. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. an d "h ooli gans. ,, Emery, Lynne Fauley. Black Da11ce i11 the U11ited Stotesfro1n 1619 lo 1970. Palo Alto, That anarchists should run afoul of the au­ CA: National Press Books, 1972. thorities is hardly surprising. Indeed, anarchism has High Lo11eso111e: the Story of Bluegrass M11sic. Dir. Rachel Liebling. New Films Interna­ a long history of direct conflict with State institu­ tional, 1994. tions and their defenders. There is no surprise, of Mulvihill, Geoff. "Mental Block About the Auction Block: Lexington Ignores its course, that rulers should so desire to construct an­ Prominence in Slave rl 'rade." Lexi11gto11 Herald Leader 6 1•'eb 2000: A 1. archists as nihilistic fanatics for they question the Schein, llichard. "Normative Dimensions of Landscape." Everyday AlllericO'. C11l­ very legitimacy of rulership itself. As the anarchist t11ral La11dscape St11dies AfterJ.B. Jackson. I ~ds. Chris Wilson and Paul Groth. Ber­ historian Peter Marshall notes, the radical implica­ keley: University of Californja Press, 2003. 199-218. tions of anarchism have not been lost on rulers (of the Left or Right) or ruled "filling rulers with fear, Wahlman, Maude Southwell. Signs and Symbols: Africa11 llllages i11 Africo11-A111erico11 Q11ilts. New York: The Penguin Group, 1993. since they mjght be made obsolete, and inspiring o 2003 dlsClosure: a journal the dispossessed and the thoughtful with hope of social theory no. 12. Committee on Social Theory, since they can imagine a time when they might be University of Kentucky, free to govern themselves" (x). In contrast to the Lexington, KY violence of government, most anarchist practical initiatives have been directed towards building new communities and institutions. 86 87 Shantz Beyond the State ~e sociologists have paid little attention to such unruly movements, crimi­ have themselves suffered deathblows recently. With the political Left in disarray, ~ologist.s ~ave re~ently shown some interest in taking anarchism seriously as poli­ anarchism presents to many an overlooked alternative to both liberal democracy tl.cs. Crurunologtst Jeff Perrell suggests that becoming attuned to anarchist and Marxism. practice and the anarchist critique of the State is especially relevant in the current Recent transformations to bring the state more in line with the needs of glo­ context. In his _vi~w, close attention to anarchism shoulc..l encourage criminologists bal capital have led to the emergence of what might be called a "crisis state"3 to develop a crunmology of resistance. This criminology of resistance would take which claims to be feeble in the face of global forces while flexing its muscles seriou~ly the cri~alizc~ activities undertaken by anarchists (a nc..l others), e.g. against the poor and disadvantaged. Ruling elites have been hard at work remov­ graffin, squats, pirate radio, sabotage, "as means of investigating the variety of ing reforms won from capital, through great struggles, over the past century. So­ ways in which criminal or criminalized behaviours may incorporate repressed di­ cial programs continue to be dismantled with cuts to health care and public mensions of human dignity and self-determination, and livec..l resistance to the au­ education, the introduction of anti-labour legislation, restrictions upon social as­ ~ori~ of state law" (Verrell 151 ). T hese behaviours should no longer be sistance (and workers' compensation and unemployment insurance), and "loos­ dismJssed as symptomatic of an "infantile disordcr,"1 or "banditry,"z but taken for ened" environmental regulations among the more familiar minarchist initiatives. what they are-political acts. This, of course, requires making a break with as­ Rather than offering a " safety net" or some manner of "social security," these sumptions of privileged forms of resistance and receivcc..l notions about activism. policies create various crises within the working classes of Western industrial na­ We might refer to Castells, Yazawa a nc..l Kiselyova in suggesting that autonomy tions, crises which undermine attempts to expand demands for services or to re­ movements offer "alternative visions and projects of social transformation that sist transformations which favour capital. reject the patterns of domination, exploitation and exclusion cmbcddcc..l in the Notably these policies have been embraced by mainstream political parties of current forms of globalization" (22). Jn constructing this alternative, anarchists both the Left and the Right. In the U. ... , for example, the Democratic Party has ?ften ~cvelop practices that disrupt the smooth functioning of capitalist econom­ routinely adoptcc..l positions quite similar to the Republicans on matters such as ics or liberal den:iocratic politics. This suggests, fo llowing sociologist Leslie Sklair, welfare, affirmative action and NAF'l'A. One secs similar shifts in Britain and that that anarchist movements exemplify a "disruption" model of social move­ Australia under so-called Labour governments. Jn response to this convergence, ments and resistance to capitalism which docs not seek an o rganizational moc..lcl anarchists refer to the "Republicrats," signifying their belief that there is no differ­ that would ~low for greater integration within mainstream political channels. ence between these parties of the ruling classes. Anarchists mobilize against Through ~heir uncompromising rhetoric and immodest strategics anarchist move­ Rcpublicrat policies which advocate building more prisons and developing ments resist a.ttempts to divert their disruptive fo rce into normal politics. Activists tougher sentencing practices including mandatory terms. l'or anarchists such poli­ attem~t ~o rCJ ect the entire context within which they can be either marginalized cies appeal only to "racist crime hysteria" (Subways 11) and sentiments which de­ or a~simiJated; they. occu~y the~ ~wn ground. Thus one must also move beyond monizc the poor. Sklair's focus on disruptive poliacs to look at the constructive projects which These "crisis state" transformations have given shape to an austerity politics make up so much of contemporary anarchism. with the conversion of the Welfare tate into a penal state, the primary function Politics, which imp~de the ~ap~cities of states and capital to impose their glo­ of which is understood to serve as a law and order mechanism. Worthy social ser­ bal agenda, offer po ~s iblc b cgt ~~m gs for revolutionary politics in an age when vices now include boot camps, "workfare," changes to "Young Offenders" legisla­ ma.ny thought r~voluaonary polJacs had run their course.
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