Anarchism: A Critical Analysis
Anarchism is a radical social-political theory that aims to deconstruct the State in order to empower every one; empower by granting liberty and equality. An old saying of Bakunin is paraphrased, “equality without liberty is tyranny, liberty without equality is gross injustice” (Shantz, 2013). Anarchism asserts that in order to grant liberty to all and treat all as equals, we must abolish the authoritarian state. So, the three, interconnected ideals discussed here are foundational to anarchism: 1) abolishing the authoritarian state; 2) liberty; and 3) equality. After examining the interrelations of the three key ideals, I shall focus on one criticism surrounding human nature.
Anarchist criminology: a new way to understand a set of proven practices
An anarchist theory of criminology would describe the response of a society to harmful acts when there is no ruling authority imposing a system of legal order. The author describes this theory and then demonstrates how restorative justice practices can be seen to meet the requirements for an anarchist theory of criminology. Anyone who has had to teach or take a course titled something like “Theories of Criminology” knows that there are a lot of them, and that the differences boil down to a small group of family trees. What they all have in common is support for a ruling class tamping down social deviance to a level and type that it deems acceptable. In the United States this generally takes the form of providing middle class jobs to one sort of people who then seek to restrain another sort of people for the benefit of the ruling class. This pacifies the middle class group in the process. Americans broadly accept the idea that their criminal justice system is not working well. (Cole, 2001) US Senator Jim Webb recently wrote “America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness. Our failure to address this problem has caused the nation's prisons to burst their seams with massive overcrowding, even as our neighborhoods have become more dangerous. We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing millions of lives.” (Webb 2009) Webb has introduced legislation to address these issues. During the 2008-10 financial crisis for governments there was stirring around the subject of how to incarcerate fewer people, and to lower the cost of keeping those who are imprisoned. Not surprisingly efforts to change sentencing laws were protested by people who still seem to believe a nation can arrest its way to security. Equally unsurprising was the barrage from the correctional officer associations aimed at anything that might diminish the flow of inmates. Observers can’t help but notice that most people in prison have been involved with illegal drugs, usually on the distribution and sales end of the business. The question is starting to be asked in respectable circles whether we are made safer by making drugs illegal, and whether we can afford that particular safety. Societal response to all of these issues is determined by elites with the understandable concern about holding on to their place on the gravy train. One only has to follow the money to see why the elites calling for the status quo take the positions they do.
The crystal structure of stilpnomelane. Part II. The full cell
Summary The structural formula of stilpnomelane averaged from 37 representative literature analyses and based on the determined structure is (Ca,Na,K)4(Ti0·1Al2·3Fe35·5Mn0·8Mg9·3)[Si63Al9](O,OH)216·nH2O. Ferrostilpnomelanes have up to 12 R 3+ cations in the octahedral sheet, ferristilpnomelanes commonly have between 24 and 30 R 3+ cations, rarely up to 37. The two groups can be distinguished by accurate X-ray powder diffraction, ferrostilpnomelanes having d 001 less and a greater than have ferristilpnomelanes. The unit cell is triclinic, a = b∼21·8 Å, γ = 120°, d 001∼12·2 Å, P . Hexagonal groups or ‘islands’ of 24 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra co-ordinate to the octahedral sheet, the centres of the ‘islands’ are displaced by 5a/12, 8b/12 on either side of the octahedral sheet as a result of warping of this sheet to permit articulation with the smaller tetrahedral sheet. The 24-tetrahedra ‘islands’ are linked laterally by 6-member rings of inverted tetrahedra, which in turn link at their apices to like rings connecting the next sheet of ‘islands’. Thus a single tetrahedral layer is 4 tetrahedra thick and has symmetry 6/m. The 6-member rings of tetrahedra act as hinges permitting up to 0·5 Å extension or contraction of the tetrahedral sheet to accommodate variations in the octahedral sheet dimensions with varying R 2+/R 3+ ratio.