Jeff Shantz

"Fear is a powerful emotion and a formidable spur to action, a source of worry and--when it is manipulated--a source of injustice. Manufacturing Phobias demonstrates how economic and political elites mobilize fears of terrorism, crime, migration, invasion, and infection to twist political and social policy and advance their own agendas. The contributors to the collection, experts in criminology, law, sociology, and politics, explain how and why social phobias are created by pundits, politicians, and the media, and how they target the most vulnerable in our society. Emphasizing how social phobias reflect the interests of those with political, economic, and cultural power, this work challenges the idea that society's anxieties are merely expressions of individual psychology. Manufacturing Phobias will be a clarion call for anyone concerned about the disturbing consequences of our culture of fear."--

This lively volume featuring works by innovative scholars presents the compelling potency of anarchist literature through distinct voices. Anarchism has greatly influenced literary production and provided inspiration for a diversity of writers and literary movements. Edited by a longtime anarchist theorist, this exciting collection of engaging works highlights the rich articulations of anarchism and literary creations. It places anarchism at the center of analysis and criticism. Authors examined include Octavia Butler, John Fowles, James Joyce, Ursula LeGuin, Eugene O’Neill, B. Traven, and Oscar Wilde, among others. The collection shows the richness of anarchist movements in politics and culture. Specters of Anarchy examines critically the generally overlooked intersections, engagements, debates and controversies between literature and criticism and anarchist theories and movements, historically and in the present period. Synthesizing literary criticism with the theory and practice of anarchism, this book offers a re-reading of important literary and political works. Anarchist politics is a major, and growing, contemporary movement, yet the lack of informed analysis has meant that the actual perspectives, desires and visions of this movement remain obscured. Lost in recent sensationalist accounts are the creative and constructive practices undertaken daily by anarchist organizers imagining a world free from violence, oppression and exploitation. An examination of some of these constructive anarchist visions, which provide examples of politics grounded in everyday resistance, offers insights into real world attempts to radically transform social relations in the here and now of everyday life.

As capitalist societies in the twenty-first century move from crisis to crisis, oppositional movements in the global North have been somewhat stymied (despite ephemeral manifestations like Occupy), confronted with the pressing need to develop organizational infrastructures that might prepare the ground for a real, and durable, alternative. More and more, the need to develop shared infrastructural resources — what Shantz terms “infrastructures of resistance” — becomes apparent. Ecological disaster (through crises of capital), economic crisis, political austerity, and mass produced fear and phobia all require organizational preparation — the common building of real world alternatives. There is, as necessary as ever, a need to think through what we, as non-elites, exploited, and oppressed, want and how we might get it. There is an urgency to pursue constructive approaches to meet common needs. For many, the constructive vision and practice for meeting social needs (individual and collective) is expressed as commonism — an aspiration of mutual aid, sharing, and common good or common wealth collectively determined and arrived at. The term commonsim is a useful way to discuss the goals and aspirations of oppositional movements, the movement of movements, because it returns to social struggle the emphasis on commonality — a common wealth — that has been lost in the histories of previous movements that subsumed the commons within mechanisms of state control, regulation, and accounting — namely communism. In the current context, commonism, and the desire for commons, speaks to collective expressions against enclosure, now instituted as privatization, in various realms. While the central feature of capitalism is the commodity — a collectively produced good controlled for sale by private entities claiming ownership — the central feature of post-capitalist societies is the commons. These counter-forces have always been in conflict throughout the history of capitalism’s imposition. And this conflict has been engaged in the various spheres of human life, as mentioned above. Commonism, (and commonist struggles), is expressed in intersections of sites of human activity and sustenance: ecological, social, and ideational. Examples of ecological commonism include conservation efforts, indigenous land reclamations and re-occupations (and blockades of development), and community gardens, to name only a few. Social commons include childcare networks, food and housing shares, factory occupations, and solidarity economics (including but not limited to community cooperatives). Ideational commons include creative commons, opens source software, and data liberation (such as Anonymous and Wikileaks). This becomes procreative or constructive. It provides a spreading base for eco-social development beyond state capitalist control. It also moves movements from momentary spectacles or defensive stances or reactive “fightbacks.” Commonism affirms and asserts different ways of doing things, of living, of interacting. This book engages various commonist tendencies. It examines communism, including overlooked or forgotten tendencies. It provides an exploration of primitive accumulation and mutual aid as elements of struggle. Attention is given to constructive aspects of commonist politics from self-valorization against capital to gift economies against the market. It finally speaks to the need of movements to build infrastructures of resistance that sustain struggles for the commons. Written by a longtime activist/scholar, this is a work that will be of interest to community organizers and activists as well as students of social movements, social change, and radical politics. It will be taken up by people directly involved in specific community movements as well as students in a range of disciplines (including sociology, politics, geography, anthropology, cultural studies, and social policy). There is no book that offers such a concise, readable discussion of the issues in the current context, with particular emphasis on anarchist intersections with communism.

This is an age of crisis: economic, political, environmental, and social. Yet the nature of contemporary crisis is often misunderstood. Crisis, rather than being accidental or episodic ? as is too often assumed ? has been a regular feature of state practice in the neoliberal austerity regimes of contemporary capitalism. In this timely work Jeff Shantz gives special attention to the particular manufactured crises associated with austerity regimes and conditions of precarity within contemporary capitalism, and how Crisis States differ from other forms of state practice. Crisis is a powerful weapon of states and capital in the pursuit of accumulation, exploitation, and control. Engaging insights from anarchism and autonomous Marxism, Shantz lays bare the real nature and character of crisis as political and social pursuits of state and capital under precarious capitalism. Attention is also given to social resistance under crisis state conditions. Contemporary capitalism renders the oppressed and exploited precarious at the same time as opportunities are opened to render the system itself precarious. Understanding Crisis States and precarious capitalism is crucial in considering prospects for resistance.

ix, 180 p. 24 cm

Contemporary Anarchist Criminology: Against Authoritarianism and Punishment offers a cutting-edge critical assessment of criminology by creating provocative discussions regarding business as usual in the criminal justice system. This exciting interdisciplinary book explores a diversity of topics that range from the construction of criminal law, to Lombroso, to deviant behavior, to prison abolition, to transformative justice, to restorative justice, to environmental justice, and to the prison industrial complex. Contemporary Anarchist Criminology is a must-read book for anyone looking for a serious critique of the criminal justice system, specifically for those in sociology, political science, criminology, peace and conflict studies, and criminal justice. Contemporary Anarchist Criminology is not for the timid, but for those wanting to challenge and dismantle the current forms of domination, oppression, and injustice that frame and define the current system of justice. (Source: [Peter Lang](

Anarchists were among the earliest modern thinkers to offer a systemic critique of criminal justice and among the first to directly criticize academic criminology while formulating a critical criminology. They identified the sources of social problems in social structures and relations of inequality and recognized that the institutions preferred by mainstream criminologists as would-be solutions to social problems were actually the causes or enablers of those harms in the first place. This volume collects critical writings on criminology from radicals and thinkers like William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikahil Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Lucy Parsons, Emma Goldman, and many others.

"Few activities have captured the contemporary popular imagination as hacking and online activism, from Anonymous and beyond. Few political ideas have gained more notoriety recently than anarchism. Yet both remain misunderstood and much maligned. Cyber Disobedience provides the most engaging and detailed analysis of online civil disobedience and anarchism today"--

Opponents of states and capital must be prepared to defend ourselves. To understand the nature of the state is to know that it will attack to kill when and where it feels a threat to its authority and power. But the struggles against exploitation, oppression, and repression must also move to the offensive. With the emboldening of reactionary forces on the far Right, there has been a renewed focus on issues of community self-defense, not only against the violence of the state but against organized fascists and Right-wing vigilantes alike. There has also been a developing seriousness, particularly among anarchist and antifascist, or antifa, activists. The goal of all anarchism is not to eliminate violence in social struggle (a futile and impossible pursuit given the nature of the state), but to limit the amount, degree, and extent of violence and harm inflicted by state agents, and their vigilante supporters, on the poor, oppressed, and exploited. And this is part of the emphasis on insurrectionary infrastructures. Non-material (emotional) and material resources and spaces are necessary to defend communities and workplaces under attack, but also to organize possible, and necessary, offensives. Insurrectionary Infrastructures reflects on strategies and tactics of rebellion and resistance and offers suggestions for fighting to win

Papers from the 5th Conference of the North American Anarchist Studies Network (La Red Norteamericana de Estudios Anarquistas / Le Réseau Nord-Américain d'études Anarchistes) Anarchism is experiencing a remarkable resurgence in the new millenium. Not only active in the streets across Turtle Island, growing interest in anarchist scholarship is perhaps unprecedented. This is reflected in the development of the North American Anarchist Studies Network (NAASN). Drawn from papers presented at the fifth NAASN conference in Surrey (on Coast Salish Territories), this collection shows the vitality of contemporary anarchist research and writing.