Everyday Anarchism

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...

We've got a supply chain crisis! But the supply chain is the crisis. The supply chain isn't some new, efficient, capitalist remnant of colonialism and slavery. In fact, colonialism and slavery were developed to feed the supply chain. The supply chain came first. So if we want to be free, we can't fix the supply chain. We've got to abolish the supply chain. In this episode, we explore the coloniali...

This week's episode is an interview with Professor Leonard Williams, a professor of political science, crossword puzzle constructor, and author of the new book, Black Blocks, White Squares: Crosswords with an Anarchist Edge . Join me and Professor Williams for a discussion of that book, plus the anarchist nature of 60s protests, the forces driving the rebirth of anarchism in the 21st century, and...

Science is real! At least that's what my neighbor's sign says. But what does it mean to claim that science is real? Aren't lots of things real? In this episode, I argue that "science is real" is a claim that science isn't just real, it has access to a higher reality, one that nonscientists aren't allowed to argue with. This means science isn't just real, it's the boss. Which isn't very anarchist....

In this Q&A episode, I respond to questions about voting, juries, and other elements of the political process. Tune in to hear how I think we can use parts of the political process, like voting and the justice system, to try to make the world a more anarchist place. I also answer two questions about David Graeber, in anticipation of his new book, The Dawn of Everything, coming out this week! V...

Now that Jesus Christ is out of the way, we can study Jesus of Nazareth, the anarcho-communist who hated property, encouraged his followers to share everything together, and sent the rich to hell without even thinking about it. Our guide to this Jesus is Walter Rauschenbusch, whose bold claim for Jesus as a socialist in the early 20th century reverberated around the world. This Jesus actually thou...

In this episode, I dive into the definition of anarchism. Are the street fighters of the black bloc "really" "anarchists"? Is cooperation really all it takes to be an "anarchist"? Why even bother with this dangerous term "anarchism" anyway? Was Tolstoy even an "anarchist"? If you want to skip to a specific question: 01:50 - Do everyday anarchists and black bloc anarchists even believe the same thi...

Jesus of Nazareth was an anarchist. But he doesn't get talked about too much by Christians. Instead, Christians tend to focus on Jesus Christ, who was made up by the Romans more than 300 years after Jesus died. I'll talk about the anarchist Jesus of Nazareth next time; this week is all about how a visionary, anti-clerical, anti-imperial, anarcho-communist mystic became a vessel for clerical and im...

In this Q&A episode, I devote most of the time to the question of vaccine mandates. Also included are: 0:20 - New website, and updates about the podcast's growth and how to support it. Go to www.everydayanarchism.com! 4:40 - Should anarchists support vaccine mandates? 31:15 - What's the connection between anarchism and utopia (featuring quotes from Oscar Wilde) 38:55 - Do states hate anarchism...

Marriage is a patriarchal, capitalistic tool of oppression. But John Milton, the man who made Satan a revolutionary hero, suggested that marriage could be rendered empowering, not oppressive. By divorce! Join me for the everyday anarchism of divorce - as well as a brief history of patriarcho-capitalistic marriage and Emma Goldman's scathing condemnation of it. Also briefly discussed are the castle...

Tolkien expert and fellow podcaster Sam Brock joins me for a discussion of Tolkien's anarchism! In my attempts to convince Sam that anarchism is the true hero of The Lord of the Rings, we discuss Ents as eco-terrorists, the Shire as a conservative anarchist utopia, Aragorn as a monarch who never governs, and power as the true villain. Check out Sam's podcast, Quenya Questions in Quarantine, if you...

I answer a question about Tolkien's anarchism, then a series of questions about anarchism, everyday anarchism, and why they matter! Featuring Tolkien's environmentalism, a conventional definition of libertarianism and an anarchist definition of libertarianism, discussion of Robert Nozick and Abdullah Öcalan, Kurdistan, the Paris Commune, the Spanish Civil War, and more!