Perspectives on Anarchist Theory

12/11/2025

If you think it's weirdly administrative and fascist enabling for Portland City Hall to merely charge a fee for a place that facilitates the abduction and disappearance of our fellow humans, you're not wrong. Portland City Council's new ordinance that basically bills the ICE facility landlord for the costs to the city for things like police overtime, is a perfect encapsulation of the severe limitations of social democratic politics. Not abolition, but mild mannered management. Journalist Alissa Azar expertly lays out the situation in Portland, Oregon in this excellent piece.

Portlanders have repeatedly shown up to City Hall with one message: We refuse to negotiate the terms of our own oppression. People weren’t there for symbolic accountability, or for another round of policy cosplay. They came to demand the obvious: Shut the ICE facility down. Completely and permanen...

12/04/2025

“Dangerous times demand dangerous books and Visions and Interventions certainly rises to that challenge.”

~Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine

Visions and Interventions (Preorder)

11/25/2025

Two Perspectives collective members will be doing sessions at the Howard Zinn Book Fair December 7th in San Francisco. (Links in the comments).

11/21/2025

New piece, from Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, by Naomi Bennet.

Encampments Paved the Way for Jewish Liberation by Naomi Bennet November 21, 2025November 20, 2025 It feels downright naive at this point, but in 2016 Donald Trump shocked the political world with his campaign’s willingness to deploy antisemitic dog whistles to attack his political rivals. Prior t...

10/25/2025

We published, six years ago, a piece on the history & politics of antifa by a German comrade named Bender, who lives in Berlin. This is a translated talk he gave in Portland, rich in detail and nuance, that is well worth reading to get a better handle on what is currently unfolding here in the US, and how we can best respond. One of many essential points is that fascism grows directly out of liberal capitalist democracy, it is not external.

"The connection between capitalism and sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and so on needs to be made explicit. To critique all these inner connections to capitalism on a theoretical and practical level is, in the case of Antifa, the most urgent task. Here the connection of capitalism with repressive and authoritarian forms is not only more drastic, but different ideologies like racism, sexism, nationalism, and homophobia overlap."

Commitment and Continuity: A Short Overview of Autonomous Antifa Organizing in Germany November 29, 2021November 26, 2019 By Bender Translated from German “They got gloves, they got sticks, they got masks, they got everything: An-TIFA.” (Donald Trump) First, we need a short explanation of the ...

10/06/2025

Flip off the fascists & get a copy of Mark Bray’s “The Antifa Handbook” from AK Press.

As long as there has been fascism, there has been anti-fascism — also known as “antifa.” In a smart and gripping investigation, Mark Bray provides a one-of-a-kind look inside the movement, including a detailed survey of its history from its origins to the present day

09/30/2025

Info link in first comment.

09/24/2025

Write for Perspectives on Anarchist Theory!

CONTROL: Call for Perspectives’ Submissions: 2025-2026 September 22, 2025September 21, 2025 We’re back! After a hiatus that allowed us to put together an anthology of essays for AK Press showcasing the first thirty years of our work (due out July, ’26!), Perspectives on Anarchist Theory is onc...

08/14/2025

The Elements of Mutual Aid is an exciting new docuseries project that received a Jen Angel Anarchist Media Grant from Agency and the Institute for Anarchist Studies in 2023. With the project recently having wrapped up the production stage, we were excited to connect with co-directors, Payton and Leah, to learn more about their inspiration, process, and plans for the upcoming release in 2026.

Agency speaks with the creators of The Elements of Mutual Aid, a new documentary series. The Elements of Mutual Aid is an exciting new docuseries project that received a Jen Angel Anarchist Media Grant from Agency and the Institute for Anarchist Studies in 2023. With the project recently having wrap...

08/09/2025

A new essay, “Activating the Emergency Brake: Saito’s Degrowth Communism,” from Paul of the Perspectives' collective, published in the summer print issue of New Politics, is now online. Paul presents Japanese Marxist Kohei Saito’s reading of the later Marx in the context of other expressions of ecological Marxism, seeing Saito as a Marxist in the tradition of Walter Benjamin. Saito & Paul both oppose the Promethean Marxism of the likes of Jacobin magazine & others & he outlines the implications of degrowth ideas for waging antiauthoritarian ecological class war.

Paul Messersmith-Glavin positively reviews Kohei Saito's work on degrowth communism, as a political project that will expand the realm of freedom.

11/07/2024

Though the United States touts itself as the oldest existing democracy, it oversees the world's largest carceral system and launches imperialist wars around the world. How can the concept of democracy inform or distract liberatory movements for radical change? Can we speak of democracy beyond the ballot box--or beyond the state entirely? Lexicon is a series of free pamphlets created by the IInstitute for Anarchist Studiesto convert words into politically useful tools. https://anarchiststudies.org/

11/07/2024

Though the United States touts itself as the oldest existing democracy, it oversees the world's largest carceral system and launches imperialist wars around the world. How can the concept of democracy inform or distract liberatory movements for radical change? Can we speak of democracy beyond the ballot box--or beyond the state entirely? Lexicon is a series of free pamphlets created by the Institute for Anarchist Studies to convert words into politically useful tools.

https://anarchiststudies.org/