Originally published at: Prefiguration: How to get from here to there
For those who want a better world, a common question arises: “How do we get there?”. While the path to a libertarian society may seem complicated, one answer has been put forward a long time ago: prefiguration. Although there is much more to cover about the subject, this article offers a brief overview of prefiguration…
So why is prefiguration not a dominant strategy nowadays?
Hi Shujun_Tan.
I think it is because this a core aspect of anarchism and a main strategy of the movement that the rest of the left often does not understand or has never heard of.
Before the Second World War, there were millions of anarchists, and anarchism was the leading school of thought on the left at that time. The anarchists were quite successful in implementing prefiguration during the Spanish Civil War, for example. Unfortunately, after the Second World War, many historians have pointed out that millions of anarchists perished because they were part of the working class sent to fight in the war. Following the war, only a small number of anarchists remained, and the concept of prefiguration faded as a result. Since then, other factions of the left have become dominant and have largely disagreed or ignored with the idea of prefiguration. This is where we find ourselves today.
Why do you think prefiguration not a dominant strategy nowadays?
I see.
I think it is not dominant (aka, not widely used) on the left because I have never heard of this tactic before. But anyway, this tactic is interesting.