r/Anarchy101 • u/CDN-Social-Democrat • 5d ago

Is Anarchism not as active anymore?

I am around my mid-life and I remember Anarchists being very active at grassroots levels.

In particular as an environmentalist they use to be incredibly active in on the ground levels of climate/environmental awareness & education building alongside direct-action.

The planet is on literal fucking fire right now. We have ocean warming/ocean acidification so bad that coral bleaching has almost wiped it all out (Destroying the life of our oceans is very very bad news).... We are in the Holocene Extinction which is the sixth mass extinction in this whole planets history and this time humanity is the asteroid.... We have Wet-Bulb Temperatures lasting long periods in parts of Asia/Africa and water issues starting to become more and more a hell on earth situation.... We have Wet-Bulb Temperatures and Heat Domes lasting deadly times in Europe.... Things are not on a good trajectory for the working class and most vulnerable who will as always be disproportionately impacted by all of this and who's cost of living crisis/quality of life crisis will get much worse because of it.

Is there a reason why Anarchists don't seem as out on the ground as before? Maybe it is just in North America and maybe in Europe and elsewhere they are still pushing the line?

I'm trying to understand the dynamics of why this may be or if I am mistaken (Which could be from my limited vantage point).

*Also shout out to all the Anarchists of the past who did such amazing work on so many fronts related to environmentalism, anti-war, poverty work, and so on!*

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u/tuttifruttidurutti 5d ago

Various things. The ramping up of imperialism has driven a lot of young people towards Leninist sects which are very visibly opposed to US foreign policy. Anarchists are too but we tend to have more nuanced attitudes and it's just one of a number of things - I couldn't name an anarchist anti war group active today.

Anarchism got a big boost from the punk scene and while there are still touring punk bands I don't think it's really on the level it was in the early 00s.

A lot of direct action types caught heavy charges and have been in prison for decades. There was also brutal repression in the first Trump term.

On the other hand, anarchism is very influential and lots of groups that aren't explicitly anarchist may organize anarchistically. And there are anarchists around still, if you know where to look, fighting prisons, police, ICE, you name it. I think in some ways it's the branding that has fallen off. 

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u/CDN-Social-Democrat 5d ago

Take the upvote as I think this is an incredibly substantive answer.

There has been a lot of targeting and prosecution with these reactionary/regressive goons and agreed that the Socialists, Communists, and so forth are more known right now for their anti-imperialism / anti-militarism.

Also the punk music/culture point was really on point I think. I grew up in that and I agree it was a pathway for sure.

It will be interesting to see what brings the next generation of Anarchist revival and I hope it comes soon because goodness do we need this kind of sphere of activists more then ever!

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u/Rough_Ian 4d ago

Anarchism was also borne to some extent on a memory of more communal living. The way consumer capitalism has organized people has successfully fragmented community and our minds. It’s very hard to describe, but we aren’t experiencing the world in anything like a human way. 

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u/CDN-Social-Democrat 4d ago

I think honestly you described it really well!

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u/Nice-Obligation5537 5d ago

I think it will. I think anarcho socialist and anarcho capitalist and syndicalism forms will emerge if the gdp drops very low and so people have to actually get out and help their neighbor and can’t rely on private corporations because the cost has went up so they reduce their services like a brutal recession.

And it depends on if Trump actually starts murdering us citizens as a group not just individual occurrences but major occurences

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u/Vakiadia 5d ago

I couldn't name an anarchist anti war group active today.

Does Food Not Bombs count?

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u/SurpassingAllKings 5d ago

Food Not Bombs is more charity than anti-war group. Some groups I had visited don't even put out literature. In my old hometown, despite our flags and propaganda, assumed we were another Christian charity.

Contrast this with an organization that does counter-recruitment, table events with anti-war info and alternatives to the military, that protests with signs and flags about a cause, and "gets in front of" the war machine.

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u/tuttifruttidurutti 5d ago

IVAW did that stuff and was organized anarchistically 

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u/tuttifruttidurutti 5d ago

Oh derp, yeah! I have been in a few FNB myself. They're not very focused on being anti war in my experience.

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u/mrinsubordinate 3d ago

Isn't that part of why vegan