Letter to the Editor

Published in Social Anarchism #25, 1998

Hello, Howard

I read the symposium in #24 with interest.

You were asking, I think, wherre are all the anrachists? Or what on earth are they doing?

This era seems to me again an especially unfavorable one. The spirit of the time seems to be one of rampant capitalism: the sound that goes through the air is not one of community or of organizing cooperatively. It is more like: invest, try to enrich, become virtuous by becoming rich.

(Michael Bacon apparently realizes some of what I'm getting at--and is trying to combat it. But I'm not able to move to Philadelphia just now! I do support the last remaining independent bookstore in Buffalo).

The last few days with the stock market sinking don't really alter this zeitgeist. Just make it more scary.

I think SOCIAL A. is achieving something important just by being around, keeping on going , offering those other voices that are neither letting themselves be run away with by the era of mystical greed--nor allowing themselves to sink into silence.

Not that I doubt the value of the more active mode that you are calling for in your part of the symposium.

All the best,

Art Efron