The Anarchist Critique of Political Economy

I. What is Anarchism?

"Anarchism, the no-government system of socialism, has a double origin. It is an outgrowth of the two great movements of thought in the economic and political fields which characterize the nineteenth century...In common with all socialists, the anarchists hold that the private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time; that it is condemned to disappear...And in common with the most advanced representatives of political radicalism, they maintain that the ideal of the political organization of society is a condition of things where the functions of government are reduced to a minimum, and the individual recovers his full liberty of initiative and action for satisfying...all the infinitely varied needs of the human being."--Peter Kropotkin

A. Non-coercive organization

B. Decentralization

II. Anarchism and Marxism

A. Similarities

 

B. Differences

1. The peasants

Subcommander Marcos, leader of the Zapatista movement. The Zapatistas are a revolutionary peasant force, active in southern Mexico.

2. The state

 

III. Peter Kropotkin

A. Kropotkin's background

 

B. A brief anarchist history of the state

 

C. Anarchism as an agrarian socialism

D. Kropotkin on the law and prisons

E. Against the myth of scarcity: The Conquest of Bread

F. Against the myth of competition: Mutual Aid

Political Economy of Industrial Imperialism

I. Nineteenth Century Economic Imperialism

A.  Quest for resources

European empires:  British in red, French in green, German in purple.  Blue arrows show the flow of raw materials; purple arrows show the flow of manufactured goods.

B.  Export of capital

C. Indirect Imperialism (Example: Opium)

D. Direct Imperialism

Sepoy Mutiny (1857): rebellion of Indian soldiers against British Empire.

1. Europeans colonize Africa

2.  Economic restructuring in Africa

3. The new mercantilism and the "scramble for Africa"

Berlin Conference (1884): established guidelines for division of Africa.

4. The Boer War

E. Does economic imperialism work?

F.  Lenin on Imperialism

II. The political economy of total war

A. Methods of economic mobilization

1.  Force

2.  Taxation and rationing

3.  Inflation and debt

B. Women in wartime

C. Mobilizing the working class

D. Economic consequences of the Great War