Colin Ward disguised as Jimmy Carter
I’m saddened to learn that Colin Ward has died.
Jesse Walker has rightly called Ward’s Anarchy in Action the left-wing equivalent of The Machinery of Freedom.
Ward may or may not have called anarchy the cement that holds the bricks of society together, but the quote is a nice summary of his outlook – that spontaneous, voluntary, non-hierarchical cooperation is all around us, in the interstices of statist society, routing around authority to get things done.
Anarchy in Action is a wonderful book. For anyone interested in the history of mutuals, self-built housing, and other self-organized working class alternatives, Social Policy and Talking Houses both deserve a place alongside the work of Kropotkin, E.P. Thompson and David Beito.