TotW: Dissolving Power, Not Replacing It

Power structures persist because power itself becomes the game. Even attempts to redistribute power often reinforce its logic rather than dismantling it. Can anarchism go beyond shifting power and instead make it something that naturally dissipates?

Encounters with Anarchist Individualism

From Libertarian Labyrinth by Shawn P. Wilbur

I must have written a dozen variations on this theme over the last few years, as I have gradually refined my ideas about anarchism-in-general. Those familiar with my past work will recognize a variety of allusions, going back to the decade-old work on “the anarchic encounter,” which once enjoyed a certain pride of place in the revived theory of anarchistic mutualism. The notion of the encounter as a fundamental element of anarchist practice is one that I have returned to quite a number of times over the years, both on the blog and in my notebooks. Towards the end of Constructing Anarchisms, I went so far as to posit the encounter as essentially the whole of anarchist practice.

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