Anarchism

The only crisis of capitalism is capitalism itself. Let's toss credit default swaps, bailouts, environmental externalities and, while we're at it, private ownership of production in the dustbin of history. The Accumulation of Freedom brings together economists, historians, theorists, and activists for a first-of-its-kind study of anarchist economics. The editors aren't trying to subvert the notion of economics—they accept the standard definition, but reject the notion that capitalism or central planning are acceptable ways to organize economic life.

Contributors include Robin Hahnel, Iain McKay, Marie Trigona, Chris Spannos, Ernesto Aguilar, Uri Gordon, and more.

Decolonizing Anarchism looks at the history of South Asian struggles against colonialism and neocolonialism, highlighting lesser-known dissidents as well as iconic figures. This approach reveals an alternate narrative of decolonization, in which achieving a nation-state is not the objective. Maia Ramnath also studies the anarchist vision of alternate society, which closely echoes the concept of total decolonization on the political, economic, social, cultural, and psychological planes. This facilitates not only a reinterpretation of the history of anticolonialism, but insight into the meaning of anarchism itself.

Maia Ramnath teaches at New York University and is a board member of the Institute for Anarchist Studies.

“Varied, complex, often inspiring, the achievement of the people in Spain is unique in the history of 20th century revolution. It should be carefully studied.”—Noam Chomsky

“An excellent documentary history of the Anarchist collective in Spain.”—Paul Avrich

This is the first book in English that is devoted to the experiments in workers’ self-management, both urban and rural, which constituted one of the most remarkable social revolutions in modern history. Libertarian communism was truly the creation of workers and peasants—a “spontaneous” creation, for which the groundwork had been laid by decades of struggle and education, experiment and thought.

The history of the legendary Column who took the fight to fascism and defied the dictatorship springing up in their wake, riding out the rise and fall of the Spanish Revolution that raged alongside the Civil War. Abel Paz uses the testimony of its members, extracts from their newspaper Línea de Fuego, and internal documents to tell their remarkable story.

Abel Paz (1921–2009) spent most of his life authoring biographical and autobiographical works and delivering lectures celebrating the achievements of the anarchists in the Spanish revolution. His book Durruti in the Spanish Revolution was published by AK Press in 2006.