I have to confess to some ennui – as will be obvious to the long delays in recent posts. These are the recent book downloadings
and Geronimo de la Torre (2024)
The
fall of the Soviet Union was hailed as the end of history. The onset
of globalisation was hailed as the end of geography. The growth of
artificial intelligence is being hailed as the end of human labour.
The identification of the Anthropocene has become a warning for the
end of humanity itself. When epochs are labelled and called into
being, even if arbitrarily or retrospectively, it is always followed
by claims of a crisis or death of something. Why, then, does the
state seem to endure all these crises and deaths, sometimes coming
out of them even stronger and more assured than before? The same
state whose actions and inactions are at the very centre of so many
crises and deaths, both literal and figurative? We live in a present
era marked by a seemingly endless stream of crises that should, in
principle, be solvable by states, but which are not; crises caused by
economic crashes, environmental catastrophes, wars, famines, as well
as everyday crises of culture, health or quality of life. The state
is not singularly to blame for most of such crises, but it plays a
central role in causing, exacerbating, or responding to them (often a
combination of these roles).
That
the state, with its vast resources and coercive power, seems unable
or unwilling to substantially address the systemic problems that
beset present society, yet still remains at the centre of our
political imaginations, is evidence of its remarkable endurance and
resilience. The many leftwing and decolonial projects that have
attempted to reform the state across the globe in recent years are
testament to the enchantment of the state as a space of political
action, as well as its ability to quash radical change within its
framework of ordering our worlds. This is not to say that they have
not made positive material changes, but that those changes invariably
fall far short of their intentions and very quickly become enveloped
within its logics.
This
is a book about how the idea of the state survives and maintains its ubiquity
as the pivot of territorial organisation and order. However, it is also
about how other stories of our world exist, and persist, in spite of
it.
As
anarchists have said for at least the last 150 years, we need a
different imagination of how society could be governed if we are to
save humanity and make our lives truly liveable, and the so-called
‘disaster anarchy’ of mutual aid and spontaneous
self-organisation that erupts at times of crisis is testament to how
this can feel so tantalisingly close. Even those who wish to reform
the state, rather than overthrowing it, are already looking to new
forms of governance that move beyond its limits. We therefore look to
‘other’ accounts of life that highlight ways of being and
organising – forms of order amidst the disorder of state power –
that can be used to decentre the state from our political and
geographical imaginations and envision much wider future horizons
that may include the state as one option but also vastly exceed it.
We draw from otherwise very different disciplines – geography,
archaeology, anthropology, cultural studies, philosophy and more –
as well as multiple different cosmovisions and worldviews, some of
which might even conflict or contrast with each other, to highlight
the endurance and inventive resourcefulness of orders despite the
state. The academic quest for perfect theoretical unity is rarely
reflected in the messy realities of life.
Therefore,
this book begins by asking: what if
the state had never existed?
10
Christian Adam (2021)
Y Jisheng (2020)
(2020)
9
With every degree of temperature increase, roughly a billion people will be
pushed outside the zone in which humans have lived for thousands of years.
We are running out of time to manage the coming upheaval before it becomes
overwhelming and deadly. Migration is not the problem; it is the solution.
8
Yet, even then, at the height of its power, with the world seemingly at its feet,
the ability of the US to achieve clearly stated goals at the end of the war,
in countries that it thought were of vital interest, such as China, was shown to be
shockingly weaker than expected. So, there was certainly no one standard of
great power in World War II that might help us understand the power relationship
between the states involved, and nor could the greatest of the so- called great
powers in many centuries – the United States – achieve many of its goals.
6
Richard Finlay (2022)
Geoff Mulgan (2022)
This
book is about the art and science of words that work. Examining the
strategic and tactical use of language in politics, business, and
everyday life, it shows how you can achieve better results by
narrowing the gap between what you intend to convey and what your
audiences actually interpret. The critical task, as I’ve suggested,
is to go beyond your own understanding and to look at the world from
your listener’s point of view. In essence, it is listener-centered;
their perceptions trump whatever “objective” reality a given word
or phrase you use might be presumed to have. Again, what matters
isn’t what you say, it’s what people hear.
Dan Davies (2018)
the world lost its mind Dan Davies (2024)
Hans Ostrom and William Haltom (2019)
In
our book as in this chapter we enter that meeting place to converse
precisely, clearly, and honestly about “Politics and the English
Language.”
To
be honest, clear, and precise, we contend that the essay is a
muddle—something its status and that of its author often obscure.
In this chapter we show that most of the famed parts of the essay do
not suit the whole as tightly as they might and that many parts
entertain more than enlighten. The essay’s most momentous major
claim is served poorly when it is served at all by such features as
Orwell’s five “specimens,” by his catalogue of four “swindles
and perversions,” by his six “rules,” and by his unnumbered
gibes and gripes.
Labour Chris Baker et al (2009)
progressive politics Richard Carr (2019)
H Landemore (2020)
Thomas Merton and William Shannon (2000)
