Introduction
I recently read The Anarchist Cookbook. Not the one about making bombs by William Powell, but the one about making food, and social moments, by Keith McHenry and others. I liked it, but it is missing some important discussion. Although the book preaches anarchism, it fails to provide a real example of the details and advantages/disadvantages.
Before I go further, I should point out that: I do not support terrorism nor any kind of violence, and this book has not changed that opinion, but has strengthened it.
Summary
First, the book starts with some essays. Mainly, these essays denounce violence as ineffective and not morally correct, but they also give the principles of anarchism, and include other out of place but related topics, such as how to avoid clashing with the federal government. These essays also preach the philosophy of nonviolent direct action, and outline how it is often more effective then other forms of protest.
Next, the book provides a guide to common methods of political demonstration, with long and well thought out analysis of their merits and problems.
Next comes a section on how to organize many types of events in a decentralized and democracy based way. This is probably the most concretely useful section of the book. I particularly like it because of its applicability to all sorts of scenarios regardless of your beliefs about anarchism and political demonstration.
Then there is a section on nonviolent direct action, and how to use it to maximum effect. It also goes deeper and analyzes how to plan it and what kinds of questions you should be asking yourself during planning.
Finally, there is a section on projects similar to Food Not Bombs. The author of the book is the co founder of this organization.
Then, there is an appendix of vegan recipes, some of which are marked as appropriate for small groups, but most of which are written for groups of 100 people.
Analysis
Here is a list of some things that the book dose well:
- Provide a compelling argument that something is wrong with the current way the world is organized. This is well sprinkled throughout the chapters. It dose this by pointing out the large amount of violence initiated by the state or other large organizations in the modern world. This includes things like wars, evicting homeless people, and putting people in jail, among others.
- An explanation of the philosophy behind anarchism. (The idea that the state causes more violence in trying to prevent violence than people would cause themselves.)
- A rejection of terrorism and other forms of violence on the grounds that they are both ineffective, and are not in line with anarchist beliefs.
- Advice and strategies on how to produce productive revolution and reform while avoiding illegal action.
- Provides good resources and descriptions on how to start a social movement.
- Advice on how to organize any group in a decentralized way.
Important things the book dose not discuss:
- What is the goal of anarchism in practice? What would anarchy or society based on "voluntary agreement, cooperation, and mutual aid," actually look like? How would it deal with the few people who would try to control/harm others, or with the larger group of well meaning people who accidentally hurt others?
- The book discusses several examples of working anarchism in practice, but they are all either on a small scale, or failed to bring about lasting change.
- What are the disadvantages of decentralized organizational structures?
Expanding on the first point, it feels easy to imagine a society that already has a gun problem, like the US, turning into a place where there are even more guns due to lack of a central body to enforce regulations, and thus even higher rates of gun violence. So despite the society being free of systemic violence, it may be replaced with interpersonal violence. A related question, what entity would help to mediate interpersonal disputes, like the courts do now? Would the lack of such an entity lead to even higher rates of gun violence?
On point two, although anarchy is a compelling idea to reduce systemic violence, one wonders why no prominent examples of long lasting change based on anarchy can be found in the modern world. This could be, for example, because various aspect of what are now, for better of for worse, part of modern life, require an authority to function well. I am thinking particularly of things like computers, where countless standards must be developed and agreed on in order to make all of the computers able to work together and benefit from each others work. To put it lightly this task sounds very difficult without any central authority holding power over the majority of tech developers.
Finally, on point three, it is easy to imagine two groups that can't agree on something causing problems when they split up. One example of this is infrastructure, like trains. What if two groups who ran trains could not agree on the schedules? Or worse, track gauge? Either of these problems would cause the trains not to be able to run on the other tracks. This would mean slowing down trips for both people and cargo, because they would have to be moved from one train to another.
Overall, although the book was a useful and insightful read, it was ultimately not convincing in it's advocacy for anarchy.
Giving Anarchy a Fair Chance
I will be emailing the author, Keith McHenry, to ask him for his thoughts on the potential problems I proposed, and if I get a reply, and he wants me to, I will add a section to this article with his thoughts.
Book Recommendations
Are there any other good books on anarchism I should read next? I have already requested After The Revolution from the library, but if you have any other suggestions, email me with the button below.