understandingpower
"[M]any commentators dismiss anarchism as utopian, formless, primitive, or otherwise incompatible with the realities of a complex society. One might, however, argue rather differently: that at every stage of history our concern must be to dismantle those forms of authority and oppression that survive from an era when they might have been justified in terms of the need for security or survival or economic development, but that now contribute to--rather than alleviate--material and cultural deficit."
This essay is a revised version of the introduction to Daniel Guerin's Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. In a slightly different version, it appeared in the New York Review of Books, May 21, 1970. Transcribed by rael@ll.mit.edu (Bill Lear). Typeset in LaTeX by ol2144@columbia.edu (Ori Livneh).
For more context: http://archive.org/details/NotesOnAnarchism
