Post-1960 U.S. anarchism and social theory
Item
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Title
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Post-1960 U.S. anarchism and social theory
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:2ba93bc717ac:11943
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identifier
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12613
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Creator
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Sunshine, Spencer,
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Contributor
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Stanley Aronowitz
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Date
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2013
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Social structure | Modern history | American history | anarchism | social theory
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Abstract
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Relatively recent political mobilizations---such as the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle (1999), the attempted uprising in Greece (2008), and the Occupy movement (2011)---have shown that anti-capitalist anarchists can be influential in political movements far beyond their small numbers. Recently, some have argued that anarchism has the potential for useful contributions to social theory; however, it has failed to make these. This study, using both theoretical and historical lenses, looks at the development of U.S. anarchism to answer the question of why this has not happened. First, a general political and theoretical history of anarchism is provided, including a focus on the implications of the transition between classical (1840-1939) and contemporary (1960 to the present) anarchism. Then the theoretical bases of several contemporary anarchist theorists are analyzed. Murray Bookchin is looked at in the light of post-Trotskyist and Hegelian Marxist traditions. John Zerzan's indebtedness to a variety of intellectual strains, including various forms of heterodox marxism as well as the German interwar right, is analyzed. David Graeber's work is shown to illustrate ideal type anarchism. Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt are seen as reviving syndicalist revisionism, and certain of the postanarchists are shown to deploy post-structuralist narratives that mask a rehashing of New Left anti-imperialism. This study concludes that in the contemporary period, anarchism has, instead of developing classical anarchist ideas, primarily borrowed its theoretical notions from non-anarchist intellectual traditions---sometimes by combining them with classical anarchism, but at other times merely acting under the general political framework set up by it. In conclusion, some suggestions are offered of how a theoretically rigorous and intellectually freestanding left-wing anarchist social theory could be developed.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Sociology
