A critique of neoanarchism
Taylor follows the rise of what she calls neoanarchism at the turn of the twenty-first century. This was different from the classical anarchism from the late 1800s and early 1900s in that it took into account the failures of recent revolutionary projects (notably state-Marxist projects) as well as insights from the New Left, which ushered in a new awareness of the myriad (not merely class-based) ways oppression operates. It was still clearly anarchist, however, in that it rejected "not only the state but often power itself, privileging instead alternative institutions, the immediacy of prefigurative action and individual ethical choice."
This neoanarhcism was seen in its full splendor with the Zapitista uprising in 1994 in response to the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and picked up by alter(or anti-)globalization movements in the Global North shortly thereafter. Front and center to its critique was neoliberal policy and its effects on both people and the environment. Some theorize that the reason neoanarchism actual rose to prominence (as epitomized in the massive World Trade Organization Protest in Seattle in 1999), was that it had a built-in pluralism—an acceptance and room for autonomy of differing, including non-anarchist, groups— that could "unify" a very identitarian Left, one broken up along lines and around issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, and so on.
Taylor'a main purpose in this piece is to investigate why this neoanarchist activity—seen in the alterglobalization movement, then the anti-war movement following 9/11, and finally in Occupy Wall Street—proved so profoundly unsuccessful. Indeed rather than overturning the neoliberalism it challenged, these movements seemed to end only with its further fortification.
She nods to a slate of standard explanations given for the decline of neoanarchist energy after its initial spike at the century's turn, ranging from general state repression to the specific shifting of public attitudes about the need and legitimacy of the US state following 9/11. However, her thesis is that recuperation played a the largest role.
"Recuperation" describes the process by which power defeats its opposition not by destroying it, but absorbing or coopting it. In the case of neoanarchism, this has meant that corporations fought neoanarchist critiques of their neoliberal world-destruction by taking on ethical language, and to some extent, action: corporate responsibility, green products, organics, fair trade, etc. At the same time, movement leaders and other critics were often literally hired out of their antagonism into reformist roles in the for-profit, non-profit, and governmental roles where they could ostensibly work to address the issues they previously contested. But being suddenly in the system, the teeth of their critiques were largely dulled. Lastly, recuperation functioned in the realm of cultural production to make Americans broadly (and other consumers in the Global North) develop ethics of consumption, or a "vote with their dollar" mentality. Buying right, not revolution, could fix the problems, and this became a responsibility of those with means.
The finished product of neoanarchism recuperated was, Taylor argues, organic milk on the shelves in Walmart, a spike in vegan lifestyles, but a weak challenge to the ongoing processes of environmental destruction and the exploitation of workers in the Global South that the alterglobalization movement initially challenged. In her words, neoanarchism "successfully popularized a critique of unethical corporations and the international financial organizations that champion their interests, creating mass demand for an ethical universe while at the same time leaving deeper structures of global capitalism largely unproblematized and thus well positioned to meet these new desires."
Recuperation, in some senses, has always at play. Capitalism has, since the 1800s at least, proved an unfailing genius in responding to and subduing antagonism, and often, this has meant absorbing rather than destroying its opposition. However, Taylor also points to specific features of neoanarchism that made it particularly "recuperable." Notably, she points to the ideological similarities between it and the neoliberalism it supposedly challenged (in fact she created a whole table comparing the two, see the figure at the bottom of this review). Generally, they share a focus on individual freedom and autonomy, the main difference is the former's distaste for the market, and the latter's obsession with it. Perhaps most damningly, she observes that the pluralist and autonomist ethos emphasized by neoanarchism, the very same ethos that likely aided in its ability to hold together a fractured and identintarian New Left, actually led its content to be weak and shortsighted. In its focus on micro-politics and prefiguration, the local environs and immediate tactical needs, it sidelined long term political strategy.
Take Occupy Wall Street for example. There, the vast majority of energy went into matters of "physical reproduction," whether it be organizing sleeping arrangements or preparing meals. Precious little attention was given to making actionable plans or developing a long term political strategy (or even a long term reproduction strategy, given the Occupations were inevitably temporary from their beginning). Ironically, the moments that drew the most attention to Occupy were moments of external, organized political activity, such as the march on the Brooklyn Bridge that resulted in 700 arrests and the shut down of Oakland's port. Yet, these were the exceptions, not the rule, to Occupy's content.
With this microscopic focus, neoanarchist tactics avoided (to some extent) the divisive fracturing common on the Left. If there was no overarching plan for the future, it was hard to disagree with it. At the same time, it allowed activists to avoid what one might call the "demands trap," in which, by articulating a clear position and a corresponding set of demands, the antagonistic group reifies the power of those they demand it from: we want these things from you, therefore we concede that you have the power to give and take things in the first place. However the costs of lacking clear articulation, in retrospect, are evident. Beyond a vaguely utopic period of time in which Leftists occupied parks and created temporary alternative ways of living, what did they accomplish?
I noticed similar patterns as described by Taylor in my own historical research on Occupy in Atlanta: during the 19 day occupation, most of the energy went towards the daily life of the encampment. Antagonistic energy of all sorts was attracted to Woodruff Park, but largely funneled into intentional living and the consensus decision making processes rather than long term planning for the destruction of, or meaningful change to, the systems that had caused the crisis that brought everyone together in the first place. There was certainly an external political component, with regular demonstrations against banks, police violence, and more. But again, these were not part of a long term strategy.
So this piece raises for me a series of questions that would bring grins to the faces of my more Marxist friends. What good are consensus and non-hierarchical tactics if they can only provide fleeting moments of lived experience, and their content can ultimately be absorbed into mainstream institutions with ease? Would not some kind of permanent power construction be more useful?
