From autonomies by Tomás Ibáñez
From Redes Libertarias, 27/01/2026
From the moment that political anarchism took its first steps in the second half of the 19th century, it has always been open to incorporating contributions from critical thought that were attuned to its own tenets and that were susceptible to nourish its theoretical and practical work. It was precisely this openness towards was elaborated around it, along with what emanated from its own struggle against domination, that prevented it from stagnating in petrified forms and allowed it to remain in permanent movement.
Of course, from the outset there was also resistance to change, a resistance that insisted on firmly anchoring anarchism in its initial tenets. Ultimately, this constant tension between the opposing poles of renovation and preservation proved beneficial, as it contributed to anarchism remaining neither an admirable but outdated historical relic, nor changing in any substantial way, becoming something radically different from what it had been.
If I pay special attention here to the theoretical proposals developed in spaces outside of self-proclaimed anarchism, it is because I consider that in recent decades the elements that most enrich it come, basically, from outside its own sphere, and emanate from thinkers who do not consider themselves explicitly anarchists, and from struggles that do not raise the banners of the anarchist movement.
It is undeniable that anarchism had the enormous historical insight to highlight both the importance of power and the struggle against it. However, it is also true that a significant part of anarchism continues to subscribe to an outdated conception of power. This conception defines power as uniform, monolithic, invariant in its constitutive essence, fundamentally repressive throughout history, and situates freedom precisely where power does not intervene to obstruct it. From this perspective, power and freedom are in an unequivocal antagonistic relationship, and their interplay is reduced to a relationship of mutual exclusion, since power is seen as that which has the capacity to oppose freedom, and freedom as that which unfolds when power fails to curtail it.
In contrast to this conception, it is noteworthy that Michel Foucault developed a new conceptualization where power manifests a productive, immanent, polymorphic, historically changing character, and is inherent to social life itself since it originates from it.
It is not fitting here to spell out the elements of this new analytics of power that are already well known. I will simply recall that we learned from Foucault that power commits suicide as soon as it annihilates freedom, for the simple reason that it cannot exist without it. In short, power requires freedom, and therefore, where there is power, there is necessarily freedom; these two entities are antithetical yet mutually dependent and implicative.
In fact, it is in acts of resistance that we truly become free; it is in the struggle against power, in the act of overcoming its effects and mechanisms that freedom is constituted and unfolds. This means that freedom can neither arise in its absence nor be external to power itself. It is an entity that is constituted against what opposes it, while at the same time, paradoxically, what opposes it makes it possible.
It is undeniable that Foucault’s contributions are of paramount importance for updating anarchist thought on the relationship between power and freedom, and if we were to review his entire body of work here, we would see that they are also important with respect to many other issues, such as the historical and contingent nature of our certainties and practices, which lack any original and constitutive essence. Like Foucault, several contemporary thinkers have contributed to dismantling all foundations, showing that, far from being perennial and firm, they always exhibit the fragility of what is merely temporary, finite, and contingent. Thus, the great principle of metaphysics, which stipulated the imperative need to establish an unquestionable and firm foundation upon which to solidly and imperishably build any theoretical edifice that aspired to be correct, was effectively dismantled. However, not only must we abandon the fascination with the solidity of granite foundations, but we must also renounce the need for any ultimate foundation.
Following this line of thought, which finds one of its sources in the thinking of Reiner Schürmann, let us recall that the term an-arkhé (antonym of the Greek word arkhé) not only means the absence of power, even though this was the meaning conveyed by the word anarchy for centuries, but also refers to the absence of foundational principles. To understand this second meaning, it is necessary to go back to the time when Greek philosophy established the need to refer and remit the world to a few first principles of a foundational nature that would allow us to understand its origin and decipher its constitution.
Being foundational and situated at the beginning, these formative principles of the arkhé were, according to Aristotle, those that subordinated everything that succeeded them in time, thus exercising a determining power over what followed. With them, the disorder characteristic of anarkhé was avoided, since the absence of an arkhé—that is, the absence of leadership or command, but also the lack of foundational principles—could only lead to chaos and the uncontrollable and ungovernable proliferation of multiplicity, escaping the constraints imposed by the foundations.
It is a fact that, in claiming to be anarchic, political anarchism limited itself to contemplating only one of the two faces of that two-faced entity that is the arkhé; it focused on the side represented by power—Kratos—ignoring the other side represented by foundational principles. It interpreted the an-arkhé – anarchy – as a struggle against Kratos, a fight for its eradication, without paying sufficient attention to the fact that anarchy also consisted of the absence of foundational principles. In this way, the anarchy of political anarchism surreptitiously preserved a part of the arkhé, and this preservation prevented it from being genuinely anarkhé/anarchic, that is, truly neither non-dominating nor susceptible to domination [indominante] or, in other words, completely detached from the production of effects of domination.
It is to try to move towards a truly indominante anarchism and to evacuate the part of the arkhé that still permeates it, so that a type of anarchism, which I conveniently call non-foundational anarchism, is able to articulate several conceptual tools of which, here, I will only mention three: the primacy of practice, called the practical a priori, the prevalence of resistance, and the absence of guiding purposes or objectives.
a) The practical a priori
The dismantling of the part of the arkhé constituted by foundations produces the effect of breaking the usual prevalence of theory over practice because if the principles lack robust foundations that guarantee their validity above the vicissitudes of situations, then they lose ipso facto all legitimacy to guide practices, and cease to hold any privilege to place themselves above them.
It is clear that, if, in order to orient itself, anarchist praxis can no longer resort to the lights of theory, which is, let us not forget, where the principles reside, then it can only base itself on itself, without the possibility of resorting to anything that does not emanate directly from what the practices themselves create and develop in each particular situation.
Thus, practices must respond to the demands of the specific situations in which they unfold, remaining independent of any external determination beyond a situation, whether in terms of principles or assigned goals. Stated differently, this means rejecting principles and goals that are not inherent to the specific circumstances, principles and goals that are therefore as mutable, multiple, and contingent as the circumstances of daily life. Distrust of principles that do not arise from practices but rather claim to be above and direct them is palpable in certain areas of social antagonism. In fact, what is happening within the current anarchist movement seems to confirm that the practical a priori is gradually gaining ground, especially among its younger members. Among the later, the idea is gaining ground that action should not begin with theory, but rather with the concrete practices of struggles against power, or with ways of life outside of domination, in order to extract from them the theoretical principles and concepts that align with those struggles. These elements are devoid of the coercive power of theoretical principles because they are not applied to practices from outside them, preceding and directing them, but rather arise contingently from within them. Thus, the conviction is taking hold that understanding the mechanisms of domination that shape the world is, above all, a matter of the practices carried out to struggle against them. It is no wonder, then, that new anarchist collectives are striving to articulate these practices in all the spaces where they develop their struggles, or where they construct a subversive habitat. They do not do it because anarchist principles prescribe it, but rather those principles take shape in their practices of opposition to domination.
The importance of the practical a priori can be seen in two episodes of recent decades that have represented both a remarkable resurgence, as well as a certain renewal of anarchism. These are, on the one hand, May ’68 and the long-lasting repercussions of its aftermath, and on the other, Seattle 1999 and its consequences. Both cases constitute episodes of struggle that unfold, invent, and bring forth libertarian approaches from ways of acting that do not arise directly from a pre-existing libertarian ideology, but rather respond to collective modes of action that emerge and develop against certain systems of domination.
It will be said, of course, that anarchism has always rejected separating practice and theory, and also, it will be said that it has rarely, if ever, subordinated practice to theory, since its well-known tenet is that the idea arises from action and feeds back into it, modifying it in an incessant recursive loop. Of course, this is true; however, it does not contradict the fact that anarchism has also been characterised by the projection of a dense set of principles, tactics and aims onto the terrain of practices in order to guide them in certain directions. The fact that practices are allowed to develop without appealing to guiding principles raises some concerns among defenders of classical anarchism. But to dispel these concerns, it suffices to remember that anarchism is not an abstract entelechy constructed in the realm of heaven, in the sphere of pure abstraction and the world of imagination, but rather it emerges and develops in a world composed of very specific characteristics. It turns out that this world is constituted, among other things, by multiple relations of domination, and anarchism is born precisely within the practices of struggle against these relations, being, literally, what opposes the very logic of domination. It is therefore understandable that anarchist practices always confront domination without waiting for any principle external to those practices to mandate it.
b) The Prevalence of Resistance
Furthermore, anarchist struggles have always presupposed a close relationship between power and resistance. However, it is only in recent years that Foucault’s idea of ??a strict inseparability between these two phenomena has taken root. Today, it is increasingly assumed that where there is power, there is also resistance, and that if there is no resistance, there is no power either, because power needs resistance to exist.
To understand the idea of ??the prevalence of resistance as conceived by an anarchism open to contemporary critical thought, it may be useful to contrast it with classical orientations, sometimes updated by thinkers who, like Murray Bookchin, develop a specific societal project and formulate a program and strategy to achieve it. These orientations typically propose an institutional counter-power, decentralised and alternative to the State, where the people govern and hold power by resorting to structures of a trade union, communal, or democratic confederal nature. The programme to achieve this situation consists of fighting to wrest power from those who hold it and to redistribute it differently, modifying it to meet the demands for greater equality, equity, and horizontality, while eradicating exploitation. The frequent reference to popular power perfectly reflects that these are orientations focused on modalities of power rather than on forms of resistance.
c) The absence of guiding/ruling ends
From a non-foundational anarchist perspective, the aim is not to design new ways of administering society, even if they are far more just, but rather to encourage resistance against any form of government that is established. That is to say, the purpose is not to promote another model of society, but to maintain resistance within any existing model, fostering an ethic of permanent revolt against any form of domination, rather than an epic of revolution.
In accordance with the practical a priori, non-foundational anarchism, in addition to dispensing with guiding principles, maintains that it is inappropriate to establish predetermined goals whose achievement guides practices. Indeed, it is about proceeding without the authority of principles, but also without subordinating practices to the demand of achieving certain objectives defined from outside those practices as the telos that guides them.
In other words, the achievement of a pre-established goal should not be the driving force behind the development of a practice. Rather, the practice should formulate its own objective in the course of its own development, based on the always contingent circumstances that arise in each specific situation. Therefore, there are indeed goals to be achieved, but these are not defined apart from specific and unique situations, or from any perspective other than that of the practice itself in the course of its development.
As an example of what the absence of a telos means, one can consider anarchism as a tool that serves to accomplish various things, such as dismantling apparatuses of domination or constructing spaces and relationships without hierarchical elements. And one of these things is to anarchise the world as much as possible.
Nevertheless, it is not a matter of anarchising the world in response to a project, which is presented as an objective to be achieved, but rather as an effect, a consequence of the development of anarchist practices that are their own end. These practices are not developed with the aim of anarchising the world, but instead they effectively anarchise it as a result of their own struggle against domination. In short, it is about anarchising the world, not about achieving the victory of anarchism; it’s about putting into practice practices that are inherently anarchising. For example, building horizontal networks of free association is how we contribute to changing the world, but these networks are not created to change it, but rather because they embody the values ??of that new world we yearn for.
To anarchise the world, it is not necessary to project a plan to change it by establishing a predetermined roadmap. It is simply necessary to do things that produce this change as one of their effects, but which find their own purpose and value within themselves, rather than being valuable because of the end pursued.
Indeed, with the exception of the Chiapas uprising, all of the destabilizing episodes of recent years, beginning with May ’68 and continuing, among others, with the occupations of public squares in 2011, or with the uprisings in Chile, arose unplanned, outside of any preparatory programmes for these insurgencies. When it takes hold and develops, the insurgency is in effect its own program. It constitutes, so to speak, a political performative that is oriented and draws its energy from within and through its own trajectory.
From this perspective, the notion that anarchism should develop a project for transforming society is questionable and it is argued that it should instead constitute itself as an instance of negation, rejection, insubordination, and ultimately, as a device for the radical subversion of the social status quo. Although it may seem paradoxical, even though it lacks a global transformative project, this type of anarchism, which presents itself as an anarchism of resistance, turns out to be profoundly transformative because it disrupts and blocks, here and now, certain apparatuses of domination.
Non-foundational anarchism promotes a non-essentialist resistance to power, a resistance that is not made in the name of morality, reason, good, humanity, anarchism, or the preparation for revolution. That is, it is animated by nothing that transcends the concrete situations that give rise to the emergence of resistance. It is not about advancing toward a particular horizon, nor about obeying this or that axiological mandate. It is simply about saying No! to a given situation and to act to neutralise it and, if possible, eliminate it.
This approach certainly evokes the notion of insurrection as conceived by Max Stirner and differs from the classical concept of revolution in that it is not driven by the project of creating a new social order. It is limited to not accepting the established order, to rebelling against existing oppression. This is not though because it wants to replace it with something else that is well-defined, nor because lofty principles demand its elimination, but simply because it considers it unacceptable. To this extent, the insurrection is more akin to a removal of political power than to a substitution of the established power with another of a different kind. In this extent, the space is opened up for the development of a truly non-sovereign politics, insofar as it does not seek to establish a new society governed by its own principles, but rather to destroy the existing oppression.
From this perspective, being an anarchist means constituting oneself as a breach, as the primary site of resistance based on a subjectivity that refuses to be governed, referring to nothing more than the refusal to obey, to insubordination and to a profound rejection of established domination, without needing a substitute object to justify this rejection. It is, of course, in the crucible of collective action that these rebellious subjectivities are forged, and it is in joint action that they manifest themselves.
In this text, I mention only a few contributions from just two of the various contemporary thinkers who have developed approaches capable of enriching anarchism. I trust that the elements outlined here will encourage further exploration of contemporary critical thought from the perspective of finding materials for the constant updating of anarchism.
Comments
>Indeed, with the exception…
anonymous (not verified) Sat, 02/14/2026 - 14:13
>Indeed, with the exception of the Chiapas uprising, all of the destabilizing episodes of recent years, beginning with May ’68 and continuing, among others, with the occupations of public squares in 2011, or with the uprisings in Chile, arose unplanned, outside of any preparatory programmes for these insurgencies.
And incidentally Chiapas is the only one of these uprisings that have resulted in an anarchist like society that still stands today.
I see your point in the article but flailling about and strugglling with nothing to guide you longterm will only lead to burnout and wasted time and potential.
I agree though that starting projects where the main goal is to fullfill a need anarchically will help naturally lead to anarchy. But if you dont coordinate with other collectives near you and accross the globe your projects will be much easier to crush.
Longterm planning ( I am being very loose with the definition of "planning" here ) also gives people confidence in your ideas, and people will only risk being fired, imprisoned, or even putting their lives on the line if they are confident that what they are doing is right and has a good chance of success. People just rebelling for rebellions sake will quit when times get hard because when they start to seriously question if what they are doing is actually worth it, the answer will be "I dont know"
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