Understanding the Modern State
from Anarchist Agency
an Interview with Eric Laursen
Agency: Your recently published book The Operating System: An Anarchist Theory of the Modern State. Why the State? What inspired you to tackle such a monumental subject at this time? Eric Laursen: Mainly the fact that it hasn’t really been done before. I’ve identified as an anarchist for just about my entire adult life, and early on, I was struck by the fact that the so-called “classic” anarchists – Kropotkin, Bakunin, Goldman, etc – never analyzed in an extended way what the State was.