> In my view, anarchism as a political philosophy hasn't gone beyond the
> social contract discourse and the idea of "human nature" embedded in it.
> Anarchists (left-wing varieties, that is) disagree with Hobbes, Locke,
> Rousseau, etc., only on the ground that the state & the market are to be
> rejected, but anarchist dichotomy of human nature versus artificial
> civilization (i.e. society conceptualized merely as a "social convention,"
> as it were) puts a limit on their political thought and practice.
That may be true. I can't say because I'm not the world's most proficient social theorist. Anarchists themselves have recently been talking about updating our theories on economics. Other anarchists, such as myself, are working on injecting anti-work theories into classic anarcho-syndicalist projects like the IWW. The IWW, by the way, is far from being an anachronism, having experienced a huge growth spurt in recent years.
Anarchism in the past 10 years has been more focused on practical projects, than in any attempt towards updating our ideology. Thus, you see a huge emphasis among anarchists on community organizing and building alternative institutions like housing co-ops, squats, food co-ops, and infoshops. If you look at Critical Mass, Food not Bombs, Reclaim the Streets, Earth First, and the micropower radio movment, you'll find lots of anarchists.
However, there has been an attempt by a variety of English-speaking anarchists to update the "canon", so to speak, and the results of that multi-year effort can be found online at:
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/index.html
-- Chuck0
Mid-Atlantic Infoshop http://www.infoshop.org/
Leonard Peltier Freedom Month Executive Clemency For Peltier! http://www.freepeltier.org/lpfreedommonth.html
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now! http://www.infoshop.org/gulag/mumia_idx.html
"A society is a healthy society only to the degree that it exhibits anarchistic traits."
- Jens Bjørneboe