Anarchism

Abstract

Anarchism asks a simple, yet deceptively complex question: is a better life possible? The answer depends on one's tolerance for examining Hobbesian premises at the heart of today's democracies. The dismantling of society's coercive principles means nothing short of reconfigured nondominating relationships, redeveloped community support for fruitful living, and full-scale rejection of violence. Carissa Honeywell's Anarchism addresses both concerns by dispelling popular myths that propagate the modern state and plotting the anarchist way to a better life. The strength of this text is Honeywell's scholarly voice and method. As part of Polity Press's series, “Key Concepts in Political Theory,” Honeywell's Anarchism includes extensive notes, sound and compelling scholarship, and clear and incisive language. Beyond the refreshingly clear writing, Honeywell's scholarly treatment of literature also serves the dual purpose of introducing the reader to additional sources to consider. This monograph may well be one of the most accessible texts on anarchism available today.Anarchism is divided into five chapters. The introduction describes social structures that create the conditions of inequality. Reemphasizing that these structures are “choices” (3), Honeywell defines modern anarchism as the “rejection of nation-states and neoliberal economic policies, resistance to war, the use of direct action, organization through cooperative association, horizontal structures, commitment to bottom-up organization, decentralization, voluntary association, mutual aid, the rejection of any idea that the end justifies the means, consensus decision making and network models of organization” (17).The major chapters interweave theory with specific case studies, like Food Not Bombs in Chapter 2. Tracing the corrosive effects of neoliberalism (38ff), Honeywell highlights the plight of those affected by economic policies because “anarchists work from the assumption that it is the economic model that is faulty and broken, not the people who suffer from it” (45). Honeywell uses the idea of reorganizing ourselves away from nondominance to encounter real freedom in our interconnections (64).Chapter 3’s topic of harm reduction underscores the group Prevent Point to reshape how society considers harm particularly in health-care matters (66). This is to emphasize “[h]arm reduction treats these needs and choices as lived realities, not moral issues’’ (71). In the larger scope of prefiguration, or building the future now with anarchist principles, Honeywell paints harm reduction as a method to enact social change to combat “dislocation” and “isolation” (73).The abolition of the prison-industrial complex is, it can be argued, one of the most misunderstood areas of anarchism. Chapter 4 treats “the primary justification of state power and the state monopoly of violence” insofar as prison “has developed to defend capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy in the twenty-first century” (97). Appealing to the anarchist goal to alleviate the causes of social ills (99), Honeywell details how this can be done on a practical level (108) while isolating how recent policies have depleted social funding and support (101). A fascinating subsection, “Anarchist criminology,” presents alternative social ideas where the practicalities can take place “to engage in deeper learning about how to create safety and justice when we have all been taught by the media and in schools, colleges, and police academies that the only way to make everyone safe is through control, force, weapons, and punitive justice” (117). Honeywell also details the anarchist vision of “transformative justice” (123ff) to heighten “demilitarizing work” (126).The final chapter outlines ways to rethink the underpinning of violence in society where people can consider the claim that it is “our bonds with others that keep us safe, not our protection from them or our power over them” (129). Rejecting violence requires a reorientation to real human relationships not held together with fear and coercion.One of the strengths of this text, the extensive use of contemporary examples, may also weaken the relevance and argument over time. That is, the examples mentioned in the text provide immediate context, illustrative power, and convincing argumentation. At the same time, the examples may lose their persuasive power in the future. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic is used throughout the text to interrogate health injustice, domestic violence, and political manipulation. The pandemic will no doubt be relevant for the foreseeable future, but it also might have an effect now that it may not have in the future.In addition, Honeywell rightly stresses the “choices” that go into creating and then sustaining social structures. And, no doubt, there are moral implications to individuals’ choices. What is less clear, though, is the motivation for doing so. In other words, do people operate within the systems because they simply haven't considered the question, is a better life possible?, or do they choose their actions with maliciousness? I suspect that real engagement with a text like Honeywell's Anarchism would shake off the slumber of complicity with unjust systems, but it is worth considering the question of motivations.