2009/09/01 by Nathan Jun · 5 citations
Social Sciences · #Anarchism and Radical Politics #Political Economy and Marxism
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1743-4580.2009.00251.x
openalex publication_date 2009/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Anarchist philosophy has often played and continues to play a crucial role in interventions in working‐class and labor movements. Anarchist philosophy influenced real‐world struggles and touched the lives of real, flesh‐and‐blood workers, especially those belonging to the industrial, immigrant working classes of late nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century America. Too often the writings, which were disseminated to, and hungrily consumed by, these workers are dismissed as “propaganda.” However, insofar as they articulate and define political, economic, and social concepts; subject political, economic, and social institutions to trenchant critique against clear and well‐defined normative standards; offer logical justifications of their own positions; and advance positive alternative proposals, why should these writings not be regarded as philosophical texts and analyzed accordingly? Obviously they should, and the fact that they have been so long ignored by political philosophers, historians, and other scholars reflects academic prejudice rather than the intellectual and philosophical merit of the writings. This article is a preliminary step toward giving anarchist philosophy the hearing it so richly deserves.