Anarchist Without Content

They found the first body tucked away in one of the many coves that dot the  shoreline. It had long decomposed, and it first appeared as if all they had to go on was a set of bones whose neat arrangement had been systematically disrupted with the rolling tide. After closer examination, however, they...

from redbird prison abolition Thursday, May 3: Ohio Super Max Hunger Strike Continues and Expands According to a level 5 prisoner participating in the hunger strike at Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP) there are forty-eight (48) prisoners who have refused nine meals and should be officially recognized a...

the mutilated individual is removed from the common mass of humanity by a rite of separation (this is the idea behind cutting, piercing, etc.) which automatically incorporates him into a defined group; since the operation leaves ineradicable traces, the incorporation is permanent (Arnold Van Gennep,...

We are a generation raised on zombie movies. Of the 5,000 ads each one of us saw today, explosions punctuated more than a few. So how can you blame us when we get a taste for destruction? We live the revenge-torture films we’ve been spoon fed. I remember the first time I saw a cop [...]

Escape in a world without magic is simply a question of strength, and usually geography. Either the State is able to maintain what binds the captured to a person or a place, or it does not. The struggle to escape this State is the struggle to resist the direct influence of sovereign might. Opportuni...

War is not always undertaken by States. This why the magician-king’s greatest illusion is war, which is the result of his most masterful conjuring trick. At various times and places, war been primarily an anti-State force, dissolving them and dispersing power (Clastres, Archaeology of Violence...

But what about the poles? someone interjected. You are right, the patient voice continued, let me return to the poles… The Archaic State utilizes the first pole of sovereignty, the pole of conquest. Dumézil outlined the mythic origins of this pole, tracing it back to the figure of the magician-king....

Dear V, It was a pleasure presenting with you on Saturday night. My research experience with microfinance comes mostly from a feminist perspective, in particular, feminist academic work that critically considers how “empowerment” rhetoric shapes global development. The crux of the argume...

presented on April 14, 2012, as part of a joint Occupy/Justice Action Ministries panel discussion on poverty entitled “The Poor Can No Longer Afford the Rich.” [for my previous pieces of public scholarship i/r/t Occupy, look to Nightmares and Ghost Stories] In our modern world, poverty is not natura...

The fundamental misunderstanding over the Archaic State is in regards to the type of conquest it undertakes. The conquest performed by the Archaic State is never a salt-the-earth war of annihilation but a process of capture. As the centrality of slavery in padi states indicates, if humans are the mo...