Paul Cudenec

A tricky one this. On the one hand, I agree with almost everything Cudenec writes in the first half of this book, and with the spirit of the second. On the other, his prose can be hard to follow and his work is peppered with attempts to describe material conditions and philsophical realities in original ways, and often uses language perhaps designed to appeal to spiritual types rather than materialists. But if designed for beginners from outside the movement (Cudenec is an anarchist philosopher, though a little more libertarian than I am comfortable with), then the language is too convoluted. But if this is for people who are already conversant with libertarian philosophical ideas, then they'd know that Marx and Gramsci have already done all the hard work here. Still, bits of this are very good, and his descriptions of the relationship between land ownership and freedom are great. It seems to me that for the author freedom is the most important concept, and from which all else will follow. But there isn't really anything beyond that, it feels a bit like it trails off, and so I lost interest towards the end and couldn't be bothered with the last few chapters.… (mais)