The Conquest of Bread and Other Writings by Pyotr Kropotkin

The Conquest of Bread and Other Writings Reviews

• 
  Javier

  A seemingly much-ignored classic--Kropotkin here lays out the specifics of 'the ideal society,' where labor-time would be vastly reduced, everyone would have necessities provided for, and leisure time would be greatly maximized so as to allow for the greater cultivation of self and community. I, for one, saw many of Kropotkin's claims here echoed in later anarchist works, esp. in those of
  Ursula Le Guin and
  Murray Bookchin. Highly recommended--certainly a more constructive account of politics/life than that afforded by standard intro political philosophy texts (Hobbes, Locke, etc.). And yet there seems to be a clear reasoning behind the fact that it isn't presented in such realms....
• 
  Jackson Cyril

  More fun to read than Das Kapital
• 
  Kamyar

  It’s completely natural for an introductory book to be written in an accessible way, especially if it aims to invoke ‘revolutionary tendencies’ in the masses, but Kropotkin goes way further than that to the extent that his text looks plain dumb. I always hated when some right-winger accused socialist worldviews to be merely utopian fever dreams but this term could pretty much wrap the whole content of Kropotkin’s text. This being part of the anarchists’ canon, I guess the whole thing is to be considered inconsequential except for probably part of Max Stirner’s essays.
• 
  Roxerg

  In this book Kropotkin provides a reasonably solid case for anarchism in late 18th century. With some rudimentary math he proves the plausibility of a 5-hour work day for a sufficient life. There are some optimistic convictions regarding people taking administrative work in their own hands with no centralized entity overseeing it.
  
  Some assumptions were right, namely, in the rapid progress i. technology, which makes Kropotkin's ideas more plausible from the raw production amounts standpoint.
  
  My main questions regarding anarchist communities were left still unanswered, however:
  * What would be the logistics in such a society? Granted, production is sufficient, how will it be transported appropriately depending on the needs? Will it force people to live in small self-sufficient communities?
  * How does an anarchist nation defend itself from destruction by a statist nation? Is it feasible for an anarchist country to survive with other forms of governance existing?
  
  As for the additional texts, I found it especially interesting finding out about the start of the rift between anarchists and Marxists. It was also very fun to read how Marx was not radical enough for the author of this book, and the absolute thrashing of his "Capital". But after the sensible chuckle I realized how sad it is that the disagreements among the left have deep roots and are very hard to tend.
• 
  Molly

  Reviews of political texts are always going to be built on the reader's ideas, as there isn't a lot to interpret and as I have been a communist/anarchist for a long time I wholeheartedly agree with Kropotkin.
• 
  Andy

  Life changing book. This is the text that made me an anarcho-communist.
• 
  Chandler

  Certified hood classic
• 
  Stanisław Stępień

  🍞👨‍🏭👩‍💼👷‍♀️, ❌🏛️, 👩🏿‍💼👩🏼‍🔧🎉👨🏾‍🏭👷
• 
  Brendan Conner

  The book is an account of Kropotkin's 'anarchist communist' program as it is set apart from those of Alexander Berkman and Errico Malatesta, for instance. Kropotkin's inductive method, for the social sciences, presents the reader with the possibility of large-scale decentralization, but, in a unique take, Kropotkin claims decentraization has in fact already happened despite the fact that the media and books of history, haven't noticed. "Three hundred and fifty million Europeans love or hate one another, work, or live on their incomes; but, apart from literature, theatre, or sport, their lives remain ignored by newspapers if governments have not intervened in some way or other. It is even so with history." A highly underserved theorist, Kropotkin provides the most comprehensive of 19th century accounts of a social-revolutionary program I have read to date.
• 
  Harris

  While the ideas contained within are endlessly exciting and engaging, what I found most interesting 130 years after the fact is the positivism exploding from almost every page. His critique of Marx's science not being scientific or axiomatic enough, his 'proofs' that his own system works, etc.