Food Not Bombs bases the way we operate on principles of Anarchism. Professor Howard Zinn, author of the People’s History of the United States and long-time supporter of Food Not Bombs, describes anarchism in his book Declarations of Independence as following:

“Anarchists, I discovered, did not believe in anarchy as it is usually defined — disorder, disorganization, chaos, confusion, and everyone doing as they like. On the contrary, they believed that society should be organized in a thousand different ways, that people had to cooperate in work and in play, to create a good society. But anarchists insisted, any organization must avoid hierarchy and command from the top; it must be democratic, consensual, reaching decisions through constant discussion and argument.”

He continues, “What attracted me to anarchism was its rejection of any bullying authority — the authority of the state, of the church, or the employer. Anarchism believes that if we can create an egalitarian society without extremes of poverty and wealth, and join hands across all national boundaries, we will not need police forces, prisons, armies, or war, because the underlying causes of these will be gone.”

Howard Zinn wrote the forward to the Food Not Bombs books, and has consistently spoken out against police attacks and city harassment of FNB groups in San Francisco and in Worcester, Massachusetts. In a recent newspaper article about the city harassment of Worcester FNB, Howard Zinn is quoted in the Worcester Phoenix:

“Food Not Bombs protests a system which fails to give people basic necessities in life” says Zinn, adding that prior movements faded because they couldn’t cope with “conditions of economic distribution in the country.”