From Bakunin to Lacan―Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power

While anarchism deserves credit as a political philosophy that unmasked the domination of power, it fails at its core, according to Newman (politics, Goldsmiths College, U. of London, UK), because it presupposes an essential division between humanity and power that does not exist. Thus, in anarchism, the place of resistance is itself contaminated by power. Newman explores this paradox and its possible solutions by comparing anarchism to poststructuralist arguments of Stirner, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Derrida, and Lacan, eventually arguing that a discourse of resistance can be constructed through a non-essentialist notion of the Outside, thereby allowing us an anti-authoritarian thinking that does not reaffirm domination. This is a paperbound edition of a work first published in 2001. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Saul Newman is senior lecturer in politics at Goldsmiths College, University of London.