 Let them eat cake. Okay, but what if they have no cake? Anarchist thinkers have often focused on food and my personal focus on how to live freely also concentrates on how we secure our need for food But how did I start on that path? Published 35 years ago. This book is a simple comprehensive diverse and more importantly fun exploration of anarchism Based on many different anarchist texts It's one of the best introductions to the history and theory of anarchism I found It avoids the often dry academic prose of other guides for an involving narrative and attractive graphics What it seeks to demonstrate is not so much what anarchism is but the broad field of anarchist ideas that have existed for centuries I'm a working-class Genexa from a small town out in the sticks when punk came along I couldn't afford the clothes or trips to London to see concerts instead What I got from punk was to do it yourself epic. I punked my outlook in attitudes rather than just to close I wore all the music I listened to That attitude never to be brought me to anarchism at first that meant reading a few books by anarchist thinkers But it was this book which I bought around 1987 or 88 when it was published It really opened up the full range of anarchist thinking and gave me direction to express my ideas deliberately in the way I chose to live One of the reasons you are reading watching or listening to this today is not so much because of the words in the book But the direction those words gave me to explore the rabbit hole of anarchist thinking We can start with some of the earliest anarchists such as William Godwin With what delight must every well-informed friend of mankind look forward to the dissolution of political government of that brute engine Which has been only the perennial causes of the vices of humankind and which has mischiefs of various sorts Incorporated within its substance and not otherwise to be removed than bias utter annihilation When the world was simple and people live more directly with agriculture and small industries Anarchist ideas were focused on the relationship between people's needs and access to the land or resources to meet them Early anarchism was mainly about cutting out the middle manner government and corporations so that we might all share in the natural resources the earth provides What changed that in the 19th century was the full force of industrialization and how it's several people from the land Making the mere cogs in the overwhelming machine of capitalism as Proudhon said If I were asked to answer the question what is slavery and I should answer in one word murder my meaning will be understood at once No further argument will be needed to show that the power to take from someone their thought their will their personality is a power of life and death And that to enslave a human is to kill them Why then to this other question what is property may or not likewise answer theft Anarchist ideals are often phrased around the community the commune That's because contrary to the hyper-individualism of later libertarian capitalists. We can't be wholly self-sufficient Therefore the struggle we engage in is to find a balance where we can all participate Equally in the process of meeting our needs and through that to express our individual human identity Or as Kropotkin put it When these days shall come and it is for you to hasten their coming when a whole region When great towns with all their suburbs shall shake off their rulers our work is clear All equipment must return to the community the social means held by individuals must be restored to their true owners Everybody so that each may have his full sharing consumption that production may continue in everything that is necessary and useful And that social life far from being interrupted may be resumed with the greatest energy Growing up in the 1970s and 80s Annihilation by nuclear conflicts seemed an ever-present danger just as today the focus is on climate change The answer to both is to tackle the possessive Controlling nature of the industrial state and the governments who work primarily for the owners of the state's wealth and resources And guess what the media seldom talk or explain that perspective, which again is why books like this are so important It may be we can't avoid a catastrophic failure of industrial capitalism by war or ecological collapse Anarchists have already thought about that most notably Daruti We've always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We know how to accommodate ourselves for a while We must not forget that we can also build it is we who built these palaces and cities we the workers We can build others to take their place and better ones. We are not in the least afraid of ruins We are going to inherit the earth. There is not the slightest doubt about that The bourgeoisie may blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history We carry a new world here in our hearts. That world is growing in this minute There are some truly great books on anarchist ideas Daniel Gerrins no gods no masters or George Woodcox anarchism a history But unless you have a burning desire for their gratuitous detail these tomes are not going to catch your interest I think this book is one of the most effective introductions to the history of anarchist ideas because literally it paints pictures rather than making arguments It allows people to find their place in the pantheon of anarchist thought rather than telling them what to think And of course the lovely graphics are just the icing on that particular cake Some afterthoughts As this is the 21st review I thought perhaps I should review how this idea has developed over the last year or so The point of a book in five minutes is to digest the essence of a book into a series of short quotes and descriptions So that people may have their interests captured and perhaps get a copy of the book and read it in full Over recent months a number of people have said that they'd love to have a more general description about each book and its significance Problem is you can't do that in five minutes, which would defeat the purpose of why I write these deliberately short reviews To try and answer that demand. I thought rather than change the format I'd just add to that not by lengthening the review But instead with a swish of a backpossess scorto harp adding some freeform ideas Which are absolutely not to win the historic context of the book to bring people up to date Let's get started Some afterthoughts on anarchy a graphic guide Anarchism is utopian utopias are never meant to be attained otherwise. They wouldn't be utopian When it comes to anarchism people have a problem with that idea because it leaves the future open to interpretation An unwritten script with only vague stage directions, which you have to improvise as you go Reading anarchy a graphic guide allowed me to understand that To resolve the conflict between the mainstream media and political portrayal of anarchism as a lack of order versus the central idea of anarchism Which is that a truly democratic order is something created horizontally between people not vertically under an imposed hierarchy of control Like the book's author I chose to end the review of deruta's famous quote because in all honesty The capitalist mode of production has driven the entire planet to the verge of destruction How bad things get is not merely an issue of how long the system could perpetuate itself But of how long centrist reformers prop up that system by trying to ameliorate those deleterious impacts In order to drastically reduce our footprint on the earth We the 10 percent of the global population who consume over half of everything and who are the most likely group to be reading this Have not only to radically curtail our consumption We have to radically relocalize in order to ensure that local ecological conditions are assessed and properly considered under local decision making In the years since the publication of the book I think there are three major changes to the knowledge base of anarchism and anthropology generally which are worth adding to the book's scope Firstly the rising role of indigenous people's knowledge of self-governance and communal decision making that the west has long ignored This was discussed recently in grave room when grows the dawn of everything I'd also recommend ruxang, demba or teases and indigenous people's history of the united states Other researchers are also highlighting the role that indigenous knowledge has played in civilizing western ideas Such as the influence of the blackfoot confederacy on the origins of manslo's hierarchy of needs And generally indigenous knowledge has been identified as a major part of how we adapt to a more ecologically perilous world Secondly we need more contemporary anarchist thinkers who are dealing with the world as it is Because that world view is now so far outside the world view of classical anarchism For example, although Murray Bookchin gets a mention in the years since the book was published The significance of bookchin's ideas on self-organizing movements has grown the most well known example being re harvard Finally related to the above perhaps the most significant thing missing from the book is an analysis of technology And how technology extends the power of late stage capitalism by further subjugating people to the priorities of the modern workplace The book ignores technology as both a force for hierarchical control and for decentralized liberation Today the role of technology, especially in the rise of near feudalism through digital platforms Is absolutely critical to any realistic discussion of anarchism So I commend to you Clifford Harper's wonderful book that 35 years after I first read it still dazzles in its ability to synthesize the ideas of anarchism across the centuries in less than 200 pages Now of course for those watching the video what has dominated my review of the book have been the scenes of gratuitous chocolate cake making As I opened with anarchism and food have a long history one which I still cherish In that vein to extend the point made above I'll leave you with this from Murray bookchin Which advances the idea that tyrannochist organization relies on groups of conscious self-motivating individuals Not collective class consciousness There can be no society based on self-management without self-activity Indeed revolution is the self-activity in its most advanced form Direct action carries to the point where the streets the land and the factories are appropriated by the autonomous people Until this order of consciousness is attained consciousness at least on the social level remains mass consciousness the object of manipulation by elites If for this reason alone Authentic revolutionists must affirm that the most advanced form of class consciousness is self-consciousness The individuation of the masses into conscious beings who can take direct unmediated control of society and of their own lives If only for this reason too or fantic revolutionists must affirm that the only real Siege of power by the masses is a dissolution of power the power of human over human Of town over country of state over community and of mind over sensuousness