Allan Antliff

Anarchy, Power, and Poststructuralism

In 1994 Todd May initiated a new turn in contemporary theory– poststructuralist anarchism, commonly abbreviated to “postanarchism.” May’s seminal study, The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism called attention to ways in which the political philosophy of anarchism echoes the concerns of poststructuralist thought, notably in its critique of oppression. Taking aim at Marxism, he (rightly) argued that anarchism has a more sophisticated grasp of how oppression disperses across the social field. According to May, Marxists did not address the hierarchical relations sustaining this state of affairs. Instead, they called for the seizure of the reigns of power by a benighted proletariat that would subordinate society to its will by restructuring economic relations in the image of socialism (49). 1 Historically, anarchists opposed this, because they were suspicious of any social formation, however well intentioned, exercising power over others. Anarchism interrogated relations of domination with the goal of destroying all representational forms of power, precisely because such politics are always already at one remove from the represented (May, 50). However, as a corollary to his praise for this thorough-going attack on domination in all its forms, May argued that anarchism (theoretically) was not up to the task of realizing its political potential. Referencing “classical” figures from the nineteenth-century European wing of the movement, May suggested that anarchists had yet to come to terms with power as a positive ground for action. The anarchist project, he argued, is based on a fallacious “humanist” notion that “the human essence is a good essence, which relations of power suppress and deny.” This impoverished notion of power as ever oppressive, never productive, was the Achilles heel of anarchist political philosophy (ibid., 62). Hence May’s call for a new and improved “poststructuralist anarchism.” The

Anarchism and Aesthetics

Brill’s Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy offers a broad thematic overview of the relationship between anarchism and philosophy.