Unlearning the Need to Appeal to External Authority

In a context in which abolitionist discourse is reaching an ever-wider audience, and people’s trust in the state, as a vehicle through which we can hope to achieve meaningful political change, continues to ebb away, we are seeing a renewed engagement with prefigurative politics across the left.

Pluto has always published books from a variety of political tendencies, and that includes anarchism. The label ‘anarchist’ has far from universal appeal, but as Scott Branson argues in their new book, Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily Life, the label itself is of secondary importance, and anarchism is something many of us are already practising in our daily lives, whether we realise it or not.

From relationships to school, work, art, even the way we organise our time, the book shows us that anarchism can help us find fulfilment, empathy and liberation in the everyday.

Scott joins us on the show for a conversation about their vision of a ‘practical anarchism’. We discuss the ways in which it is informed by Black and queer feminisms, how we can work to disidentify from the logic of capital and the state, and why we shouldn’t throw out the idea of ‘utopia’ altogether.