quotes from Two Cheers For Anarchism, Preface and Section One
A collection of quotes from the Preface and section One
of Two Cheers for Anarchism by James C. Scott
from Preface (An Anarchist Squint, or Seeing Like an Anarchist)
- Freedom and (small "d") democracy are, in conditions of rampant inequality, a cruel sham as Bakunin understood. There is no authentic freedom where huge differences make voluntary agreements or exchanges nothing more than legalized plunder.
- Freedom and (small "d") democracy are, in conditions of rampant inequality, a cruel sham as Bakunin understood. There is no authentic freedom where huge differences make voluntary agreements or exchanges nothing more than legalized plunder.
from Preface (The Paradox of Organization)
- As Francis Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward have convincingly shown for the Great Depression in the United States, protests by unemployed and workers in the 1930s, the civil rights movements, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the welfare rights movement, what success the movements enjoyed was at their most disruptive, most confrontational, least organized, and least hierarchical. It was the effort to stem the contagion of a spreading, noninstitutionalized challenge to the existing order that prompted concessions. There were no leaders to negotiate a deal with, no one who could promise to get people off the streets in return for concessions. Mass defiance, precisely because it threatens the institutional order, gives rise to organizations that try to channel that defiance into the flow of normal politics, where it can be contained.
- As Francis Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward have convincingly shown for the Great Depression in the United States, protests by unemployed and workers in the 1930s, the civil rights movements, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the welfare rights movement, what success the movements enjoyed was at their most disruptive, most confrontational, least organized, and least hierarchical. It was the effort to stem the contagion of a spreading, noninstitutionalized challenge to the existing order that prompted concessions. There were no leaders to negotiate a deal with, no one who could promise to get people off the streets in return for concessions. Mass defiance, precisely because it threatens the institutional order, gives rise to organizations that try to channel that defiance into the flow of normal politics, where it can be contained.
from Fragment 3 (More on Insubordination)
- Owing to the concentration of property and wealth in liberal democracies and the privileged access to media, culture, and political influence these positional advantages afford the richest stratum, it is little wonder that, as Gramsci noted, giving the working class a vote did not translate into radical political change.
- The job of trade unions, parties, and even radical social movements is precisely to institutionalize unruly protest and anger. Their function is, one might say, to try to translate anger, frustration, and pain into a coherent political program that can be the basis of policy making and legislation. They are the transmission belt between and unruly public and the rule-making elites. The implicit assumption is that if they do their jobs well, not only will they be able to fashion political demands that are, in principle, digestible by legislative institutions, they will, in the process, discipline and regain control of the tumultuous crowds by plausibly representing their interests, or most of them, to the policy makers.
- Another paradox: at such moments, organized progressive interests achieve a level of visibility and influence on the basis of defiance that they neither incited nor controlled, and the achieve that influence on the presumption they will then be able to discipline enough of that insurgent mass to reclaim it for politics as usual.
- Owing to the concentration of property and wealth in liberal democracies and the privileged access to media, culture, and political influence these positional advantages afford the richest stratum, it is little wonder that, as Gramsci noted, giving the working class a vote did not translate into radical political change.
From Fragment 4 (Advertisement: "Leader looking for followers, willing to follow your lead")
- A social or revolutionary movement not yet in power is likely to have better hearing than one that has come to power. The most powerful don't have to learn how to carry a tune. Or, as Kenneth Boulding put it, "the larger and more authoritarian an organization [or state], the better chance that its top decision-makers will be operating in pure imaginative worlds."
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- A social or revolutionary movement not yet in power is likely to have better hearing than one that has come to power. The most powerful don't have to learn how to carry a tune. Or, as Kenneth Boulding put it, "the larger and more authoritarian an organization [or state], the better chance that its top decision-makers will be operating in pure imaginative worlds."