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[BOOKS] Interrogating Anarchism NO GODS NO MASTERS: An Anthology of Anarchism, edited by Daniel Guerin, translated by Paul Sharkey. AK Press, 2006 Edition
THERE IS ONLY SO much one can stand reading about European anti-Semites who wished to liberate the world by killing everyone who disagreed with them. Ignorant of the anti-Semitic conditions that forced Jews out of artisan trades and into mercantile professions (and with no small thanks due the self-hatred of Karl ben Herschel Mordechai Marx), Mikhail Bakunin once referred to the Jewish people as an "organic collective parasite," a sentiment echoed by Pierre Prodhoun, who once proclaimed Jews "a parasitic race, enemy of work, devoted to financial speculation and bank usury."
Perhaps I'm embittered by the fact that modern anarchists generally place the demand of assimilation only upon Jews. Or it could be that I'm a fake anarchist-as I've often been derided-preferring the post-Leftist anarchy of Crimethinc, the Curious George Brigade, and even the Luddism of John Zerzan to the insurrectionist rhetoric of Bakunin and terrorist apologia of the likes of Sasha Berkman. The truth of the matter is that I'd rather work in a sweatshop than sit through a reading of Emile Pouget's dialectical materialist critique of trade unionism.
"The trade association," Pouget writes, "is, in fact, the only focal point which, in its very composition, reflects the aspirations by which the wage...