Everyday Anarchism

For this episode I'm joined by Gabriel Kuhn, author of Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy , to discuss the anarchist nature of 18th century pirates. Join us to learn about all the ways that pirates lived more freely, more justly, and with less violence than their counterparts in European navies and merchant ships. Gabriel also discusses the connections between pirate radi...

I'm joined by one of my dissertation directors, John McGowan, to discuss the philosophy of John Dewey in the context of anarchism. Dewey is today remembered as one of the premier advocates for democracy, and especially democratic education, in the entire history of the United States. And like his teacher William James and his collaborator Jane Addams, he seems more than a little anarchist to me. W...

On this episode I'm Graeme Robertson, co-author of Putin vs. the People, joins me to discuss Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the formation of the new Ukrainian national identity, and the way that nationalism, imperialism, and neoliberalism have shaped the current situation. Graeme debunks right-wing talking points about the war, provides necessary context from recent Ukrainian and Russian history, an...

In this episode of Anarchism 101: An Anarchist Syllabus , I read Bakunin's famous discussion of science and authority from God and the State This project is year-long; on the first of each month of 2022, I'll be posting my reading of an important anarchist text. Later that month, I'll post an episode in which I discuss each text and its author with a scholar of anarchism. If you have any questions...

In this March 2022 discussion episode of Anarchism 101 , I discuss an excerpt of Proudhon's "What is Property" with Edward Castleton. Join me and Edward as we discuss Proudhon's theory of property, the revolutionary context of his works, and the sense in which he deserves to be considered one of the founders of anarchism. This project is year-long; on the first of each month of 2022, I'll be posti...

Cathy O'Neil - a veteran of both Wall Street and Occupy Wall Street - joins me to discuss her new book, The Shame Machine . We discuss her previous book, Weapons of Math Destruction , how it led her to The Shame Machine , and how shame has become an invisible currency sustaining capitalism's most exploitative practices. Cathy outlines how social media "cancellations" are just free advertisements f...

Just before his death, David Graeber completed a manuscript of a book called The Dawn of Everything - both a serious attempt to provide an entirely new story of the origin of "civilization" and playful takedown of other recent books that purport to explain civilization. Written with David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything raises many fabulous and provocative questions: what if it was indigenous Amer...

In this emergency Ukrainian war episode, I'm joined by Stan, the coeditor of the website for Assembly, an anarchist group in Ukraine. Assembly's  main role, as he explains in our talk, is organization and mutual aid in neighborhoods of Kharkov. In our conversation, Stan and I talk about the situation in Kharkov, the role of anarchism at this time of crisis, and what you can do to help. Below...

Finally, on Everyday Anarchism, we turn to bread! I'm joined by Mark Bittman and Kerri Conan to discuss their new book, Bittman Bread , and how baking bread using their method can be considered anarchism. We also talk about whether governments can be used to fight corporations, how to create a bread-based utopia, and why I was naive to think that the federal government would ever create a healthy,...

In this episode of Anarchism 101: An Anarchist Syllabus, I read Proudhon's famous declaration that property is theft in What is Property? This project is year-long; on the first of each month of 2022, I'll be posting my reading of an important anarchist text. Later that month, I'll post an episode in which I discuss each text and its author with a scholar of anarchism. If you have any questions yo...

In this episode, Meredith King of the University of New Orleans joins me to discuss Mardi Gras. We begin with the liberatory possibility of historical carnivals, as drawn from the works of David Graeber and Mikhail Bakhtin, then examine all of the many ways that Mardi Gras does and doesn't provide a space for freedom and grassroots organization. As always, you can find me at www.everydayanarchism....

In this February 2022 discussion episode of Anarchism 101 , I discuss Kropotkin's "Anarchism" with Ruth Kinna. Join me and Ruth as we discuss Kropotkin's life, his place in the history of anarchism, and his analysis of anarchism as both a modern movement and an ancient practice. For more from Ruth, check out her discussion of the anarchism of Santa Claus with me and the overview of the history of...

This episode features my conversation with James Fallows, a legendary journalist whose work Our Towns is one of the inspirations for Everyday Anarchism. James and his wife Deb flew all over the country in their small airplane, documenting the ways that American democracy works at the grassroots level. In this conversation, James and I discuss the dysfunction of the federal government, the historic...

This week we go to Barcelona - today's Barcelona, where the memory of the heroic anarchist revolution of the 1930s mostly goes unmemorialized. My guests, Dave Zirin and Mike Stark, traveled to Barcelona and visited sites of revolutionary struggle. Join me, Dave, and Mike as we discuss their trip, the radical history of Barcelona, the local leftists they met in the city, and how we can work togethe...

This week's episode is another in my ongoing series about the takeover of higher education by bureaucracy and managerialism. I'm joined by Andreas Wittel of Nottingham Trent University to discuss his idea of education as a gift, not a commodity. We also discuss the ways that we can work together to hold things in common, alternatives to the current educational model, the coming environmental colla...

In this episode of Anarchism 101: An Anarchist Syllabus, I read Kropotkin's historical overview of anarchism, published in the 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. If you would prefer to read the essay, you can find it here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Anarchism This project is year-long; on the first of each month of 2022, I'll be posting my reading of an...

In this first discussion episode of Anarchism 101, I'm joined by eminent Goldman scholars to discuss Emma Goldman's "Anarchism: What it Really Stands For." Join me, Kathy Ferguson, and Penny Weiss as we discuss the text and where it fits in Goldman's thinking and the history of anarchism This project is year-long; on the first of each month of 2022, I'll be posting my reading of an important anarc...

This week's episode comes out a little early in honor of MLK! This episode places Martin Luther King Jr. right where I think he belongs: in the midst of the anarchist tradition. The focus is on Universal Basic Income, the idea which King adopted in the year before his assassination as a solution to poverty. King argues in Where Do We Go From Here? that the direct abolition of poverty is not only d...

On Tuesday, January 18, German soccer giants Borussia Dortmund take the field against FC St. Pauli, a second division soccer team from Hamburg (in the US you can watch it on ESPN+). So who is FC St. Pauli? Why do they use the jolly roger as a logo, blast heavy metal and punk rock, and fly communist and anarchist flags? In anticipation of this big game, join me and Fabian Fritz, the director of edu...

In this week's episode I'm joined by Dr. Liz Morrish, a leading critic of the current state of universities. Liz and I discuss the craze for evaluating people based on numbers and the damage it does to the very real people trying to teach, research, and learn in academia. We also discuss academic free speech, the University of Austin Texas's half-baked solutions, the overselling of "STEM" majors a...

In this inaugural episode of Anarchism 101: An Anarchist Syllabus, I read Goldman's famous essay. If you would prefer to read the essay, you can find it here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2162/2162-h/2162-h.htm#anarchism This project is year-long; on the first of each month of 2022, I'll be posting my reading of an important anarchist text. Later that month, I'll post an episode in which I disc...

Association football, also known as soccer, is one of the most beloved of all human pursuits. It's also one of the most democratic, most grassroots, most anarchist. Lately, though, billionaires, especially petro-billionaires and American sports billionaires, have been trying to take soccer away from the people. Now the petro-billionaires are squabbling with the American billionaires to see if socc...

For the second Christmas special from Everyday Anarchism in 2021, I'm doing a reading of "The Night of the Meek ," season 2, episode 11 of The Twilight Zone . I begin with an explanation of a genre I'm calling "Christmas Romance," then show how that episode of The Twilight Zone puts the classic twilight zone twist on the Christmas romance. Along the way I touch on Shakespearean romances, the power...

For the first of two Christmas specials from Everyday Anarchism, I'm joined by Ruth Kinna to discuss the anarchism of Christmas and Santa Claus. You can read Ruth's article on the topic here: An Anarchist Guide to Christmas Next week, another Christmas episode, this time on "The Night of the Meek ," season 2, episode 11 of The Twilight Zone . As always, you can find me at www.everydayanarchism.com

This week's episode is the first of several episodes about how colleges and universities have abandoned their core mission - the collaborative search for truth - in favor of, well, something else. My guest for this episode is William Deresiewicz , author of Excellent Sheep , The Death of the Artist , and the landmark essay "" Don't Send Your Kid to the Ivy League ." Bill and I discuss the meritocr...