Breaking Bread, Sharing Soup, and Smashing the State: Food Not Bombs and Anarchist Critiques of the Neoliberal Charity State

Abstract

Members of the anarchistic mutual aid group Food Not Bombs have been arrested in scores of cities throughout the nation. Their crime? Providing free vegan food in public spaces. In this article I contend that the group's oppositional relationship to neoliberal charity provides a partial explanation for the state's hostility to the group; however, this is not sufficient on its own for explaining why certain cities have cracked down on the organization. Instead, Food Not Bombs' resistance to neoliberal charity makes the group's actions a serious threat to state power only given the right confluence of neoliberal economic development, austerity, urban gentrification efforts, and public visibility. In this article, I look at the impacts of neoliberal policies on homeless services, examine how neoliberal charities discipline and regulate the poor, and then analyze the way that Food Not Bombs activists see their actions as a form of resistance to neoliberal charity.

“Customer is king”: Staging consumer culture in a food aid organization

“…As indicated in the introduction, this is just one model for realizing dignity in food aid, there are also non-market models based around an ethic of solidarity, such as food not bombs (Myers, 2013;Parson, 2014) and food sharing (Morrow, 2019), which may be equally effective in preserving dignity. Some of these non-market models are in fact highly critical of consumer culture, and view it as a source of oppression for people with low incomes, as such they resist reproducing market and consumer logics in their food redistribution practices.…”

“…As such, community food networks variously act for increasing access to nutritious food, supporting local economies, and sustainability (Gaechter and Porter, 2018). Social and solidarity oriented models more specifically focus on mutual aid and sharing food as commons (Morrow, 2019;Myers, 2013;Parson, 2014). Each of these models has their merits, and their diversity shows the need to address systemic injustices while also keeping people fed in the meantime.…”

Beyond the Shadow State: The Public–Private Food Assistance System as Networked Governance

“…Several critics of the PPFAS connect these failings to neoliberal trends toward devolution and privatization of responsibility for social welfare (McEntee and Naumova 2012;Parson 2014;Riches 2002;Warshawsky 2010). Indeed, the PPFAS emerged in a context of and is shaped by neoliberal logics.…”

Contemporary anarchist and anarchistic movements

“…An example is Food Not Bombs (FNB), which gleans food for free redistribution, often the homeless. FNB is anarchistic because it provides mutual aid as resistance against neoliberal forms of charity (Parson, ) and is urban direct action opposing growing injustices at the expense of fundamental rights (Heynen, ). Other examples include Anti‐Racist Action (ARA) and Anti‐Fascist Action, CM, Earth First!, Homes Not Jails, and IMCs.…”