I have some problems with this text. Castells says that anarchism “seems to enjoy excellent health in the social movements that sprout everywhere from the depths of the resistance to our increasingly destructive global social order.” I would not agree with this, social movements are not sprouting everywhere and anarchism isn't enjoying excellent health.
“It is enough to follow the debates in the movement against capitalist globalization, online or otherwise, to note the prevalence of anarchist principles such as self-organization and the rejection of the state in any form”. Maybe so, but a lack of organization (often an anarchist principle) in this movement is also very present.
“Likewise, the autonomist perspective, which is so closely linked to anarchism, has a very strong presence on the theoretical and political terrains.” That's not true, autonomism isn't that much theoretical or political, it can also just be sometimes about fighting in the streets or throwing bricks at people. Ofcourse, I'm not saying that Negri and Hardt do that. But France’s May ‘68 revolt, I guess these writers have been much inspired by that event, was also about these violent things happening in the streets of Paris.
“Anarchism’s great difficulty has always been reconciling personal and local autonomy with the complexities of daily life and production in an industrialized world on an interdependent planet. And here technology turns out to be anarchism’s ally more so than Marxism’s.”
I'm much more interested in a social revolution than in personal or local autonomy actually. People have to work together, communes too. I don't know why Castells is so positive about autonomy, people often need support from others. I prefer the things Murray Bookchin has written about autonomy at the end of his life, he wasn't that positive about autonomy either, it's just too much individualistic. And to think of technology as an ally of anarchists? Many anarchists don't like the fact that technology is so important these days, some of them have even opposed technology.
“And instead of the nation-state controlling territory, we have city-states managing the interchange between territories.” That cities have become statified is largely the result of nation-states controlling territory. And with a striving for utopia one not always dreams, Castells is wrong about that too, it can be realistic to strive for utopias. Then Castells wants us to believe that anarchists don't believe in God and that socialism is settling into retirement.
“With ideology one struggles. Anarchism is an ideology. And neo-anarchism is an instrument of struggle that appears commensurate with the needs of the twenty-first century social revolt.”
I think anarchism was a lot more suitable for struggle in the 19th century. Authentic anarchism is not an ideology, it's several ideologies in one package. Some of its most known proponents, have not cried out “no God, no master!”. The christian-anarchist Tolstoyans have never done that for example. And authentic socialism that is “settling into retirement”? It's regaining its strength in Europe and Latin America, it's not much libertarian either.
