Brains on the asphalt: Three punk expressions of crisis

Since its crisis-marked beginnings, punk’s relationship with anarchism could be described as ‘complicated’. In spite of the wide use of the word and the circled ‘A’ symbol, not every artist considered anarchy in its political meaning of radical egalitarianism and libertarian socialism. This article explores the ‘impulse of anarchy’ in punk, as considered by Edoardo Sanguineti, as a more-than-political aesthetic phenomenon present in all avant-garde poetry (and arts in general) in modern history, consciously or not, whose ultimate goal is to change life and modify the world. Through this perspective, the article presents a comparative analysis of three expressions of crisis by three different punk groups from three different European countries, in three different languages: ‘Možgani na asfaltu’ (‘Brains on the Asphalt’) in Slovene by Berlinski zid from (then) Yugoslavia, ‘Lasciateci sentire ora’ (‘Let Us Hear Now’) in Italian by Franti from Italy and ‘Crisis’ in English by Poison Girls from the United Kingdom. The article will thus try to contribute to the understanding of anarchist and anarchic influences in coping with crisis under international capitalism and bourgeois hegemony.

Saggio introduttivo. Critica del fordismo e dinamiche del potere nella ricerca transnazionale di Bruno Trentin (1926-2007)

The essay traces Bruno Trentin's political biography and intellectual research from a transnational perspective. Through the work notebooks (1953-1995), the diaries on the CGILGeneral Secretary (1988-1994), the activity in the European Parliament (1999-2004) and the following two years, the elaboration of The Freedom Comes First(2005) is rooted in a long term criticism against the subalternity of the communist and social-democratic culture to the Fordist model. It is also based on the necessity of a libertarian socialism, based on the centrality of the person and on the unavoidable link between work and knowledge. What stands outis the originality of Trentin's political thought, the intellectual circuit in which his research is developed and his vision of a federal Europe in the international system following the Cold War and the aftermath of September 11th, 2001.

Enemigo a las puertas. La libertad política en el socialismo británico

El objetivo de este artículo es proporcionar algunas claves históricas y conceptuales para comprender la historia del socialismo británico libertarian y su relación con la concepción fiduciaria del poder político y del poder económico. Las expresiones de este socialismo no son homogéneas, convivieron con otras ideas rivales llegando en ocasiones a mezclarse con ellas; y fueron formuladas siempre como respuestas concretas ante los problemas que planteaba cada momento histórico. Desde el socialismo republicano de algunos seguidores de Robert Owen hasta los desafíos que planteó la New Left, las teorías fiduciarias encontraron hueco para abrirse paso en los escritos de estos socialistas libertarian. The objective of this paper is to provide some historical and conceptual keys to understand the history of libertarian British socialism, and its relationship with the fiduciary conception of political power and economic power. The expressions of this libertarian socialism are not homogeneous, they coexisted with other rival conceptions, sometimes mixing with them. Those articulations were always formulated as concrete responses to the problems laid out by different historical moments. From the republican socialism of some Robert Owen’s followers to the challenges exposed by the New Left, fiduciary theory found room to break through in the writings of these libertarian socialists.

Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph (1809–65)

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French social theorist, political activist and journalist. Claiming to be the first person to adopt the label ‘anarchist’, he developed a vision of a cooperative society conducting its affairs by just exchanges and without political authority. In his lifetime he exercised considerable influence over both militants and theorists of the European left, and he is remembered today as one of the greatest exponents of libertarian socialism. His last writings, though still strongly libertarian, advocated a federal state with minimal functions.

SEX IN UTOPIA: THE EVOLUTIONARY HEDONISM OF GRANT ALLEN AND OSCAR WILDE

In his provocative polemic“The New Hedonism,” Grant Allen mounts a passionate defense offin-de-siècleaestheticism by proposing a modern ethic – the titular “new hedonism,” which he borrows from Oscar Wilde's novelThe Picture of Dorian Gray(1890, rev. 1891) – that fully synthesizes aestheticism's insights with up-to-date scientific knowledge. At first glance, Allen seems an unexpected ally for Wilde, in part because few literary historians have explored the link between the two contemporaries. Many modern-day scholars of Allen's work (including Peter Morton, Bernard Lightman, William Greenslade, and Terence Rodgers) have tended to focus on his popular science writing, his elaborations on Herbert Spencer's evolutionary theories, and his controversial “New Woman” novelsThe Woman Who Did(1895) andThe Type-Writer Girl(1897). Those who do connect Allen and Wilde, such as Nick Freeman, often draw the relationship into focus through the two writers’ shared interest in libertarian socialism rather than their overlapping philosophical and aesthetic concerns (111–28). Yet, as we can begin to see in the epigraphs, the association that Allen made between evolutionary progress and the “beautifying of life” echoes one of the most significant claims of Wilde's earlier, dialogic essay, “The Critic as Artist.” “Aesthetics,” Wilde's speaker, Gilbert, enthuses, “like sexual selection, make life lovely and wonderful, fill it with new forms, and give it progress, and variety and change” (“The Critic as Artist” 204). Allen's survey of human evolutionary history reminds him, too, that our cultural and artistic achievements are all that lift us “above the beasts that perish” (382). For both writers, then, aestheticism's commitment to beauty, “self-development,” and the emancipated pursuit of pleasure entails potentially sweeping consequences for the future evolution of humankind. Allen's vocal support for Wilde – which Allen expressed privately in letters as well as publicly in his 1891 article “The Celt in English Art” – was not simply a convenient political alliance, but an integral part of Allen's complete program for sociocultural improvement.

Siloism, the Self, and Total Revolution

This chapter shifts the book’s line of sight away from hippismo and toward the esoteric counterculture of Siloism and the group of Chilean Siloists called Poder Joven (Young Power). The chapter unpacks Siloism’s call for young people to focus their youthful energy inward, peer deeply into their own psyches, experience fully the connection between mind and body, and realize socialismo libertario, or libertarian socialism. Such undertakings would effectively transform the individual, his or her immediate surroundings, and the world. These and other aspects of Siloist thought and practice raised quite a ruckus among those pledged to protect culture and public morality, thus motivating authorities to repress what many identified as Poder Joven’s depravity.