ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows that punk has in fact been a persistent and consistent tradition in the decades since, with successive novel reinventions of punk bringing a sense of empowerment to participants. Marx and the Marxists, on the one hand, have made a clear commitment to ambitions for macro-social change, as is well known. Anarchism, on the other hand, which many punks and punk bands have claimed as their guiding philosophy, is oriented around the micro-social unit. In some forms of anarchism, including some pronouncements of and slogans from agents within punk scenes as well as particular theories within the wider tradition of anarchism, the most important unit is ultimately the self. In practice, punk, as a tradition, has often veered between anarchist and Marxist strategies.
