Written in the wake of Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement in the US (and elsewhere), this short book by Institute for Experimental Freedom is an attempt to contextualize those events in a narrative that includes the last two decades of anti-authoritarian struggle, and developments in late capitalism.

In a mix of super-hip irreverence and academic language, this is analysis consistent with other IEF titles (Politics is not a Banana, notably), with allegiance paid to Tiqqun and insurrectionist thought. A fragmented collection of theses on our tumultuous situation. From Egypt to the US, Greece to the UK, contemporary struggle announces a revolt against government. These theses draw a line connecting the forces at play, examine their parodic language, affective practices and radically self-annihilating tactics. At the threshold of our epoch and at our phase of self-governance, the events unfolding rub up against the meaning of autonomy, and in doing so ask the question, “What does it mean to live a life?” This uneasy question— and this decade of experiments aimed at answering it anticipate the formation of a real force. What grew rhizomatically —in subterranean practices of sharing —between anti-globalization and radical environmentalism, between riots against the democratic police and irruptions of occupied spaces, burst through into the open and unpredictable air of the now. At our particular moment there is a chance that —from ancient Athenian democracy to our refined economy of subjectivation techniques —the paradigm of government may come to a close.