Anarcho-Liberalism and its Discontents

Socialism 2015

July 02, 2015

Over the last decade thousands of young people have become conscious of the injustices in the world and sought to do something to end them. But without organization of the working class and the Left, those who move swiftly to the radical left often retain much of the strategy and analysis of liberalism, while adopting anarchist-like rhetoric. Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin Magazine, described this ideology as encompassing, “an anti-intellectualism that manifested itself in a rejection of “grand narratives” and structural critiques of capitalism, abhorrence for the traditional forms of left-wing organization, a localist impulse, and an individualistic tendency to conflate lifestyle choices with political action. The worst of both worlds, the “anarcho-liberal” can neither manage the capitalist state nor overcome it, and aspires to do both and neither at the same time.”

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