# Does anarchism have a serious future?



## Joe Reilly (Nov 29, 2004)

As idelogies go, anarchism is as old as the hills but has never made a difference anywhere, and looked at objectively, never looks likely to. At a fairly basic level it is theoritically incoherent; not sure that the state has power by virtue of the economic system or whether it is the other way round. 

Even in the 21st century it seems most comfortable defining itself against rival ideologies that are either dead or discredited. While theory is all about the high moral ground, practice is often grubby 'ends and means' stuff with hostility and fear of the 'other' the heavily pronounced and self-serving rationale. 

Or as Raymond Chandler once put it: 'Once you identify with an ideology, you don't own it - it owns you.'  

All told anarchism does not have much of a past. So does it have much of a future?


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## catch (Nov 29, 2004)

Theories put out by people calling themselves anarchists may be theoretically inconsistent, either within the work of individual writers, or between different writers. But there's plenty of consistent theoretical writing by anarchists. Read any Bookchin lately? Examples please of this endemic inconsistency.

Which revolutionary philosophy is your preferred?


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## General Ludd (Nov 29, 2004)

> Which revolutionary philosophy is your preferred?


At best Joe Reilly is a Bolshevik.


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## catch (Nov 29, 2004)

He could say so himself if he's going to go banging on about everyone else.

Russia's position as a unique international beacon of socialism bears him out on the long-lasting effectiveness of Bolshevik theory and practice doesn't it?

oh shit, wait a minute...


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## neilh (Nov 29, 2004)

personally i don't care that much about the future of "anarchism", i just hope most of the basic ideas like a non hierarchical, free society come about and whether this is through an anarchist movement steeped in "anarchism" and theory or through just more folk coming to conclusions about best/happiest/most efficient or whatever ways of existing i couldn't really care. i do think some of the more "theoretical anarchists" in ways aren't that different from theoretical marxists, capitalists etc.


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## Lock&Light (Nov 29, 2004)

Did it ever have a serious past?


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## october_lost (Nov 29, 2004)

> Does anarchism have a serious future?


The problems not _anarchism_, but rather _anarchists_...


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## Dubversion (Nov 29, 2004)

Lock&Light said:
			
		

> Did it ever have a serious past?



why, that's the funniest comment i ever did hea....



zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


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## In Bloom (Nov 29, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> As idelogies go, anarchism...blah...misinformed shite...hypocritical bollocks about ideology...blah...


Am I the only one who knew exactly where this was going?


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## neilh (Nov 29, 2004)

october_lost said:
			
		

> The problems not _anarchism_, but rather _anarchists_...


i kind of thought it was the other way around that the problem was anarchism, not anarchists, ie folk acting as anarchists and rejecting having masters or slaves and trying to not screw folk over etc wasnt the problem, but it was folk who are right into the theory of anarchism but dislocated from reality. but mebbe these are the folk you mean by "anarchists", and by anarchism you mean what i mean by anarchists; i just think anarchism can be just a different theory like marxism that someone can profess to believe in, but if they act the same as if they werent into it, and they dont think for themselves, but believe stuff because its what anarchists believe its all a bit pointless and aint gonna change fuck all.


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## blamblam (Nov 29, 2004)

Hmmmm I wonder what the motive for this thread was...

Hmmmm...


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## kropotkin (Nov 29, 2004)

Reilly is a trot pretending not to be. You can take the lenninist out of the party...


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## Lock&Light (Nov 29, 2004)

Dubversion said:
			
		

> why, that's the funniest comment i ever did hea....
> 
> 
> 
> zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz



That's more than can be said for anything I've ever heard you come out with.


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## kropotkin (Nov 29, 2004)

That was good, L+L,snappy and not at all playground-esque...


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## Lock&Light (Nov 29, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> That was good, L+L,snappy and not at all playground-esque...



And you, too, are acting as well as can be expected.


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## ernestolynch (Nov 29, 2004)

Lock&Light said:
			
		

> That's more than can be said for anything I've ever heard you come out with.



My, U75's resident ulcer is on form tonight....


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## kropotkin (Nov 29, 2004)

we've had piss-all run-ins before. Don't add me to your enemy list just yet.
But try and make some informed comments, eh?


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## Lock&Light (Nov 29, 2004)

ernestolynch said:
			
		

> My, U75's resident ulcer is on form tonight....



Unlike Urban's resident louse.


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## Lock&Light (Nov 29, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> But try and make some informed comments, eh?



Up till now I've been waiting for you.


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## ernestolynch (Nov 29, 2004)

Lock&Light said:
			
		

> Unlike Urban's resident louse.



Like your pissant 'pwease ban him' plea on the Moon Hoax thread, after I said I wouldn't post anymore on it?


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## Lock&Light (Nov 29, 2004)

ernestolynch said:
			
		

> Like your pissant 'pwease ban him' plea on the Moon Hoax thread, after I said I wouldn't post anymore on it?



You know, and I have no doubt that you know, that I have never asked for your banning. That I have regularly been able to enjoy your absence is not to say that I have ever asked for it. Ever!


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## Steve Booth (Nov 29, 2004)

*It is not rocket science*




			
				Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> As idelogies go, anarchism is as old as the hills but has never made a difference anywhere, and looked at objectively, never looks likely to. At a fairly basic level it is theoritically incoherent; not sure that the state has power by virtue of the economic system or whether it is the other way round.
> ....
> 
> All told anarchism does not have much of a past. So does it have much of a future?



There is this problem with the state, that it produces yet more and more regulations, bureaurcracy, taxes, laws about security etc etc yet people have never been more insecure.

The economic system becomes ever more of a problem, job losses and insecurity, pensions crisis, housing market fears and so on. People having run run faster and faster on the treadwheel just to stay on. Longer working hours...

The mainstream political parties tweedledum / tweedledee are so close that you can barely get a fag paper in between them, and less and less people vote. Political corruption and nepotism are rife.

Alienation and mental ilness are increasing.

OK. So there is a political approach called Anarchism which provides a lot of the obvious answers to these problems and what we need to do is not that complicated. It's not rocket science. But it means questioning fundamentals and it means people assuming responsibility for their own lives and actions instead of deferring to the authority of the state and corporations.

They won't thank you for that message...

Anarchism has a past which we all know about, and a lot of recent historical baggage which largely prevents the anarchists from getting it together and putting their political philosophy across in a coherent, concentrated and convincing way. But then again there are a lot of small and local initiatives like the LETs schemes which use anarchistic ways of working and which have a lot of potential to develop.

So why is it not possible for anarchists to change and for anarchism to be put across in a reasonable way to people, and for a lot more folks to start to believe it and put it into practice?

Perhaps some sort of large scale economic, political and social crisis resulting from the problems outlined above will encourage more people to consider it as a live possibility.


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## Joe Reilly (Nov 29, 2004)

Steve Booth said:
			
		

> So why is it not possible for anarchists to change and for anarchism to be put across in a reasonable way to people, and for a lot more folks to start to believe it and put it into practice?
> QUOTE]
> 
> See ludd and kroptokin for answer perhaps?


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## kropotkin (Nov 29, 2004)

Why? Because we called you on being a wanker?


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## General Ludd (Nov 29, 2004)

> See ludd and kroptokin for answer perhaps?


Anarchism really wouldn't have a future if we started tolerating Leninist twats.


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## Joe Reilly (Nov 29, 2004)

catch said:
			
		

> Which revolutionary philosophy is your preferred?



Instinctvely and predictably you set out to define yourself against a rival idelogy. Don't you know what you believe in a free-standing sort of way?


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## Joe Reilly (Nov 29, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> Why? Because we called you on being a wanker?



Evidently 'an ends justifies the means' kinda guy. That makes you different from the likes of Rebel how exactly?


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## Joe Reilly (Nov 30, 2004)

General Ludd said:
			
		

> Anarchism really wouldn't have a future if we started tolerating Leninist twats.



Your definition of 'Leninist/Bolshevik' is what exactly? Someone who isn't a card-carrying anarchist?


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## Joe Reilly (Nov 30, 2004)

In Bloom said:
			
		

> Am I the only one who knew exactly where this was going?


 Scaredy cat.


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## catch (Nov 30, 2004)

> Instinctvely and predictably you set out to define yourself against a rival idelogy.



Anyone starting a thread saying anarchism is shit/historically dead is already defining themselves negatively against something - you may have forgotten that you started the thread and I responded, not the other way 'round. I think people who criticise ideologies (if anarchism can be considered to be one, which I think it can't unless very strictly defined) and start threads about them should be prepared to present their own views in a full and frank way, or admit they don't have alternatives views to present.

My political views are very much my own, and are based, to the extent my knowledge and understanding allows, on the history of both events and ideas. One or two things I may have pulled out of my arse at some point, but I have no hesitation in aligning myself with things that have already been thought of if I happen to agree with them. I disagree with large swathes of stuff written by anarchists, it doesn't yet stop me from calling myself one.

What do you want and how do you want to get there?

Until you answer that I'll keep my nose out of the thread, since it looks like a bin candidate anyway.


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## Groucho (Nov 30, 2004)

I think this is an opportunity to evaluate anarchism today. It doesn't matter that the originator of the thread has a view. The fact is anarchism has failed to attain its goals (true also of Marxism and reformist socialism). Yet the injustices of society are so accute that the need for some kind of solution rejecting capitalist heirarchy is more pressing than ever.  No-where has anarchism become a significant influential force for any length of time, and no where less so than the UK.

In recent times the emergence of an anti-capitalist current, a huge movement against the economic injustice of neo-liberalism, and against war has openned up real opportunities for an activist libertarian collectivist current to thrive.

The idea that liberty and capitalism go hand in hand - or could even go hand in hand - is refuted, bith in practice and in the ideology of the capitalists themselves. Reformist socialism is firmly entrenched in the mire of failure with reformist parties now happily running capitalism and perpetuating the most extreme right-wing neo-liberal ideological practice.

Marxism has its baggage. Having become associated with some of the most opporessive and heirarchical regimes. 

One would have thought that anarchism should be experiencing some kind of rennaissance. Not so though.

Subjectively Anarchism has been torn apart by the hopeless sectarian stupidity of aloof intellectuals on the one hand and elitist posteuring on the other. 

Objectively there is a flaw at the core of anarchy. Individualism. Individualism as opposed to collectivism arises from specific class interests. The bourgeois individualist can happily embrace anarchism in theory demanding that the state leaves him be to exploit without interference. The free hand of the market will bring about peace and harmony if unmolested by the nanny state. 
But anarchism also has a peasant basis at its origins and thus articulates a desire to bring down the authority of capitalist masters as well. Again the individual comes to the fore in peasant ideology all the while the aspirations are to develope ones own land and own property without the oppression of landlords. But with the advent of capitalism such straight-forward individualism is shown to be incapable of challenging the rule of the opporessors.

Collectivism is embraced of necessity because only collective struggle is viable and only collective production can hope to form a structured society free from bosses. But here is a conflict and contradiction within the heart of anarchism that cannot be resolved. Any collective will result in the prospect of some form of majority decision - and thus the liberty of the individual is threatened.

This becomes all the clearer when the question of the state is considered. For the majority class - the working class - to seize power as a class they must have to enforce their rule as a class rule. It is inconceivable that the minority capitalist class will simply stand aside peacefully. Any oppression of one class by another - however democratic, and even if it is the majority class imposing its will on the minority - has to be opposed in principle by anarchists. Fundamental to Anarchist ideology is opposition to state and law as enemy. There is, in the final analysis, no class collective solution acceptible to anarchists for whom the bottom line remains individual liberty. So the position is adopted that all state power and all law must immediately be abolished or nothing has changed. This utopia is obviously not attainable.

In the day to day struggle this utopian individualism cripples anarchism from contributing to any real movement for liberty of the many. Insofar as Anarchism has at any stage contributed to the struggle it has been through accentuation of the collective and class element of struggle and the subordination of individualism - Spanish @ trade unions, syndicalism etc. Here though, a utopian position vis a vis power and the state renders @ impotent at key and decisive points.

Even in small scale struggle @ is weak. The battle for a change in law is possible for a reformist with illussions in the capitalist state. It is also possible for a Marxist. For Marxists all law is class law. It is possible through collective action to force concessions from the state that are set as markers in law. Trade union rights, equal pay legislation etc are, for Marxists a small victory possible because of the strength of the collective working class movement. For an anarchist the state and law as enemy means that the key issue is not the balance of class forces but rather the existance of the state and law. So any such victory is a contribution to the problem and not a victory at all. Thus anarchists render themselves impotent in the day to day struggles. Impotence plus utopianism of course encourages the kind of purile oppositionism to all manifestations of our society whether benevolent or malevolent, and can lead to an atttack on an anti-fascist meeting for e.g. at an event attended by 10,000s of people who reject many of the worst aspects of the system and who choose to do something about it. The very people who should be the audience sought by any anti-authoritarian tendency are attacked as the enemy.  Thus anarchism denies itself a any future.

Anarchists also take the individualism at the heart of their ideology to the question of organisation. Heirarchy of all kinds, however democratic is rejected in theory. All heirarchy leads to power and all power to corruption. So the organisational basis for anarchism in theory becomes a network of autonomous individuals or a loose federation of groups of autonomous individuals cooperating voluntarily with no leadership and no rigid structure. In practice this leads to elitist forms of struggle undertaken on behalf of the poor/oppressed/working class who are viewed as too dim witted to form part of this elitist goup. Vanguardism (class conscious workers organised in a party to seek to take forward the class struggle) is rejected in favour of elitist action. 'Vanguardism' seeks to organise the most militant sections of the class to enable them to challenge the influence of capitalist ideology over the rest of the class - a philosophy that _requires_ organisation and struggle involving the mass of workers. Anarchist elitism is by its nature separate from the mass of the people it seeks to liberate. The lack of an organised structure means in practice there can be no democratic calling to account and a secret unaccountable leadership emerges in the case of e.g. the Wombles. Since small elitist actions are more prone to disruption by state infiltration and state repression the organised @ cells become ever more heirarchical and elitist (as an attempt to avoid state disruption) whilst raging in theory against heirarchy. Thus many of those rightly attracted to the idea of anti-authority and challenging heirarchy are repulsed by the reality of the organisations who claim to be the most consistant anti-auhoritarians.


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## ernestolynch (Nov 30, 2004)

That's far too long for me to read.

I switched off after 'I'


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## R.I.C.O. (Nov 30, 2004)

*..*

Your loss I guess...


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## butchersapron (Nov 30, 2004)

Dear fucking god. I'm glald i'm going to bed - what self-serving tautological crap/ignorance. Yes, you'll get a proper reply tomorrow. But i'd be ashamed if i'd made a similiarly shallow critique of leninism. Really i would.

And what makes it worse is that you actually tried.


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## butchersapron (Nov 30, 2004)

And stop writing like a jealous frustrated civil servant Groucho.


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## Groucho (Nov 30, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> And stop writing like a jealous frustrated civil servant Groucho.



But I am a jealous frustrated Civil Servant.


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## butchersapron (Nov 30, 2004)

Really? I would never have guessed 

Help him out someone.


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## Groucho (Nov 30, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Really? I would never have guessed
> 
> Help him out someone.



I am beyond help.   

But I am right about @. 

Of course, on the subject of jealousy, the number of posts started by certain @'s about RESPECT/SWP/STWC show there is a real case of the green eyed monster as far as political influence is concerned.


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## butchersapron (Nov 30, 2004)

Mate, you're so off being right that i suspect this will be held up as a humuorous lesson in getting things wrong for years to come - *you have got everything wrong*. Despite your utter conviction that you have everything right.

edit: and this sort of crap isn't going to get her back either - not unless she has really fucking low standards.


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## haggy (Nov 30, 2004)

i couldn't be arsed to read all that either.

the only attraction anarchism has for me is its anti-authoritarianism (altho I have to qualify that by being disturbed/amused at some of the more extreme - usually m/c versions - of this), both politically and organisationally.  

As an ideological contention of Leninism and Trotskyism it's very pertinent.

But really, its a bit utopian, I find.  it's like, having an anarchist conscience is a good thing, but the reality of politics sometimes means that purity of conscience condemns you to isolation and political irrelevance.  

This utopianism is not a feature of anrachism in other countries, however.  anarcho-syndicalism has an honourable tradition.  probably something to do with its class-orientation.  

So, I ain't an anarchist, but I like (most of) those I have met & worked with, and they are generally less sectarian than other left groups (in my experience), even if their all-inclusiveness can sometimes be frustrating and counter-productive.


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## Groucho (Nov 30, 2004)

haggy said:
			
		

> This utopianism is not a feature of anrachism in other countries, however.  anarcho-syndicalism has an honourable tradition.  probably something to do with its class-orientation.



Well yes, it is a feature of @ in other countries. anarcho-syndicalism does have an honourable tradition (especially in Spain) but it is alsio a flawed tradition.

Many @-syndicalists joined the Bolshevik tradition (corrupted by Stalinism).  I have the reproduced Syndicalst newspapers in their entirety from the period of the Great Unrest in Britain. A mixture of utopianism, (trade union) reformism, sectarianism, anti-militarism and militant class struggle. Tom Mann et al joined the CP. The Syndicalists collapsed at the outbreak of WW1.


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## butchersapron (Nov 30, 2004)

Unlike the 2nd international which the communists were organised in - 4th august 1914 is a proud day for them/you.

Good trick that condemning yourelf without condmening yourself. Bolsheviks got that one down pat


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## Groucho (Nov 30, 2004)

Syndicalists like Tom Man were better than the leadership of the 2nd international. Unlike LP he did not capitulate to supporting his country in war. The Syndicalist was among those tendencies overtly condemning the drive to war. This is why many of these couragious individuals joined the CP.

The very fact that these were among the best and most class conscious worker militants makes it all the more a shame that their organisation and political ideology was not capable of withstanding the outbreak of war. We have the benefit of hindsight. The Bolsheviks and Luxemburg's Polish organisation were the only consistant anti-imperialist organisations. But it was the @ rejection of overt politics/party so weakened the Synidicalists.


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## butchersapron (Nov 30, 2004)

Well, actually  it was the Bulgarians rather than the Poles (and the bolsheviks split with the majority supporting the war) who were the only 2nd internationalists to be consistent. (i'm fed up telling you lot your own history)

Your own organsiation broke on the war - the arrogance that it must take then to argue that:

"The very fact that these were among the best and most class conscious worker militants makes it all the more a shame that their organisation and political ideology was not capable of withstanding the outbreak of war."

Is appalling.


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## Groucho (Nov 30, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Well, actually  it was the Bulgarians rather than the Poles (and the bolsheviks split with the majority supporting the war) who were the only 2nd internationalists to be consistent. (i'm fed up telling you lot your own history)
> 
> Your own organsiation broke on the war - the arrogance that it must take then to argue that:
> 
> ...



There were two parties in Poland. One effectively led by Rosa Luxemburg (from Germany!) took a revolutionary defeatest position as did the Bolsheviks who were already a distinct political tendency with separate organisational structures in many if not most localities. They were the only two parties to take such a clear position. The Bulgarians took a pacifist position as did Kautsky's split in Germany.

Now I really am off to bed.


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## butchersapron (Nov 30, 2004)

You mean the party that was part of the SPD and that became the USPD taking the pacifist role? The party that didn't do what you claim that they did? That one? You're wrong mate. And you've ignored the serbs - haven't you?


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## ernestolynch (Nov 30, 2004)

2 bald men fighting over a comb


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## charlie mowbray (Nov 30, 2004)

Oh dear, what an awful thread, particularly Groucho's appalling and erroneous piece.
By the way, I now think I know who he is. An obsessive writer of letters ( many of them boring and inconsequential)to many newspapers and magazines, so much so that one publication declared its letters pages a -----free zone, perhaps?


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## steeplejack (Nov 30, 2004)

Actually I thought Joe's questions were quite reasonable and offered the chance to discuss what anarchism's about now/what it has to offer in the future.

pretty pisspoor that the bulk of the @s on here sought to evade those questions by childish insults and "Leninist" smears.

For myself, @ is totally irrelevant as a political practice, but not so as a set of ideas. Much like Marxism, then.


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## Joe Reilly (Nov 30, 2004)

icepick said:
			
		

> Hmmmm I wonder what the motive for this thread was...
> 
> Hmmmm...



Well the overall level of discussion after the bookfair might be a clue.


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## charlie mowbray (Nov 30, 2004)

Another clue might be ructions in a group beginning with I


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## In Bloom (Nov 30, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> Actually I thought Joe's questions were quite reasonable and offered the chance to discuss what anarchism's about now/what it has to offer in the future.


I don't know about the "Leninist" and "Bolshevik" stuff, but considering that he opened the thread by aserting that:


> anarchism is as old as the hills but has never made a difference anywhere


Which is patently untrue, its unsurprising that many anarchists have no interest in engaging with somebody so absurdly and willfully ignorant.


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## charlie mowbray (Nov 30, 2004)

One hundred and eighty!!


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## rednblack (Nov 30, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Oh dear, what an awful thread, particularly Groucho's appalling and erroneous piece.
> By the way, I now think I know who he is. An obsessive writer of letters ( many of them boring and inconsequential)to many newspapers and magazines, so much so that one publication declared its letters pages a -----free zone, perhaps?



beard liberation front?


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## charlie mowbray (Nov 30, 2004)

Bull's eye!


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## Joe Reilly (Nov 30, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> Actually I thought Joe's questions were quite reasonable and offered the chance to discuss what anarchism's about now/what it has to offer in the future.
> 
> pretty pisspoor that the bulk of the @s on here sought to evade those questions by childish insults and "Leninist" smears.
> 
> For myself, @ is totally irrelevant as a political practice, but not so as a set of ideas. Much like Marxism, then.



Cheers 'Doc'. Liberterianism seems to be painted pretty thin! Makes you kinda wonder what an anarchist organisation/society where fundamentalists like 'Cpl' Ludd and co held sway would really be like dosen't it?  

Overall the response from anarchists is either to shun the debate as beneath them (the question being clearly impertinent!) or to define any discussion in 'safe' Leninist v Anarchist terms when Bolshevism is totally discredited, anti-democratic, anti-working class and in any case long dead. 

All of which in its own way _does_ provide an answer to my original question.


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## rednblack (Nov 30, 2004)

Lock&Light said:
			
		

> That's more than can be said for anything I've ever heard you come out with.



http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=96343

here's a thread about one of your co religionists for you to play on troll  

fuckin' prods


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## charlie mowbray (Nov 30, 2004)

An original question which was ignorant and ill-informed, so noone bothering to take you seriously


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## Paul Marsh (Nov 30, 2004)

rednblack said:
			
		

> beard liberation front?



Not that useless salad dodger Keith Flett?


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## charlie mowbray (Nov 30, 2004)

Salad dodger? Wozzat?


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## rednblack (Nov 30, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Salad dodger? Wozzat?



fatty?


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## butchersapron (Nov 30, 2004)

Well historical inaccuracies aside (for now at least), the short answer is yes, of course anarchism has a future - maybe not through the sort of formal mass membership that some here think is the only true indicator of influence, but through helping to develop strong w/c communties that have both the power and willingness to assert their needs against the needs of the state/capital/politicos.

No  ones claiming that anarchism or anarchist prcatice is perfect, or the one true way - what they are saying though is that anarchism has a hell of a lot to offer the w/c in terms of social organisation, and that this is often (historically and currently) refelected in the way the w/c _organises itself_, without declaring themselves to be anarchists.

To try and evaluate  anarchism through the partyist perspective that some have done here is to mistate the question from the start - by definition anarchism will always be viewed as inconsequential and a failure through a party/leninist lens - it _has_ to be a failure from that approach.


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## Paul Marsh (Nov 30, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Salad dodger? Wozzat?



The term was first used by Bradford boxer Junior Witter who lambasts his rival, Bitter Blue Man City tosser Ricky Hatton, with the nickname "salad dodger"

Hatton's weight, between fights, regularly ballons up to over 12 stone, rather than his fighting weight, which is (if I remember correctly) just under 10 stones.  

Those who saw Hatton on Superstars will recall that he was actually too unfit to compete, due to his compulsive salad dodging. A bit like keith Flett.


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## steeplejack (Nov 30, 2004)

In Bloom said:
			
		

> I don't know about the "Leninist" and "Bolshevik" stuff, but considering that he opened the thread by aserting that:
> 
> Which is patently untrue, its unsurprising that many anarchists have no interest in engaging with somebody so absurdly and willfully ignorant.



So how about telling us _where_ it;s made a difference, outside of the Spanish Civil war, and to what extent these ideas have left a legacy, rather than these pisspoor hissy fits?.

Only butchersapron (in his post above) bothers to address the question. Which, whether the provocative way in which it was asked needles you or not, could do with a decent answer, rather than the usual "fuck off" "read the FAQ" stylee pat responses.


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## Ray (Nov 30, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> All told anarchism does not have much of a past.



Not true. 




			
				Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> So does it have much of a future?



Yes. 

That's about as much thought as this thread deserves.


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## steeplejack (Nov 30, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> To try and evaluate  anarchism through the partyist perspective that some have done here is to mistate the question from the start - by definition anarchism will always be viewed as inconsequential and a failure through a party/leninist lens - it _has_ to be a failure from that approach.



That's an interesting point. Of course there's no "anarchist party" as such as anarchists reject the established party/ballot system.

the response to that is that anarchists really are shutting themselves out of an anodyne , wasted political culture where the soundbite and media appearance is king. How do you actually get people to engage in a climate of anarchist ideas/practical action? Doesn't the anarchist approach ensure its irrelevance, the way politics currently works?

Don;t want to come across as bitter and cynical, but it really is hard to see how an ideology at its peak nearly 100 years ago can have any influence in the hear and now, however interesting some of its ideas may be. I don;t like the current electoral punch n judy show much either- but what alternative do you suggest and how do we get there?


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## steeplejack (Nov 30, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> Not true.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## In Bloom (Nov 30, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> So how about telling us _where_ it;s made a difference, outside of the Spanish Civil war, and to what extent these ideas have left a legacy, rather than these pisspoor hissy fits?.
> 
> Only butchersapron (in his post above) bothers to address the question. Which, whether the provocative way in which it was asked needles you or not, could do with a decent answer, rather than the usual "fuck off" "read the FAQ" stylee pat responses.


The OP was grounded in willful ignorance.  I don't get the impression that the OPer had much intention of asking a serious question so much as trying to score cheap points by making dishonest and disingenuous remarks.


----------



## steeplejack (Nov 30, 2004)

In Bloom said:
			
		

> The OP was grounded in willful ignorance.  I don't get the impression that the OPer had much intention of asking a serious question so much as trying to score cheap points by making dishonest and disingenuous remarks.



Errr, okay....

...I'll ask politely and without the intention or time to "score cheap points". I'm not a leninist or Bolshevik, either.

Does anarchism have a viable political future? if yes, how do you see that taking shape and achieve the things you;d like to see happen?


----------



## In Bloom (Nov 30, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> Does anarchism have a viable political future? if yes, how do you see that taking shape and achieve the things you;d like to see happen?


Fine, in short, I think anarchism does have a viable political future.  Though its influence in the short term is admittedly small, I think that growing disatisfaction with current society is evident, which could spill over into anarchic (not necessarily avowedly anarchist) action, which would open a window of opportunity for a growth in anarchism.  I think that the role of anarchists in the short term should be to take direct action which will improve conditions in the here and now while at the same time promoting libertarian ideas.


----------



## Paul Marsh (Nov 30, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Another clue might be ructions in a group beginning with I



You are not telling me that INXS have split up just before their first comeback tour minus Mr Chokey-Wankey are you?


----------



## Chuck Wilson (Nov 30, 2004)

Paul Marsh said:
			
		

> Bitter Blue Man City tosser Ricky Hatton, with the nickname "salad dodger"



Shouldn't you like most Man Utd supporters concentrate on the burning issue of congestion charges in London?


----------



## Random (Nov 30, 2004)

Anarchism exists, not as a set of organisations, but as a current of activity within society and within anti-capitalist social movements.  The record of anarchism within UK movements is a good one -- mostly these have been protest movements, but that is down to the nature of UK society.  Anarchism rises when popular activity rises (for example, during the poll tax protests) and falls again when activity diminishes.

So I'd say thatthe answer to the question 'does anarchism have a future?' depends how you see our society going.  I'd say that mass movements and protests are going to continue to be a part of our history, and anarchism will continue to be a part of them.

Many self-described anarchists (as opposed to people who simply organise in anarchic ways) have gravitated to protest activism; partly because of the continued activity in the ecological and anti-military scenes, and partly because of the university backgrounds of many anarchist activists.  I think the crucial test for anarchism in the next 10 years is whether it can adapt itself to go beyond the established protest scenes and link up with other forms of popular activity that are developing -- both in the community and in the workplace.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 30, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> Doesn't the anarchist approach ensure its irrelevance, the way politics currently works?


What approaches are more relevant?
Try to start/build a new liberal party that will either sell out or fade away?
Like has happened the hundreds of times before all over the world.


----------



## steeplejack (Nov 30, 2004)

redsquirrel said:
			
		

> What approaches are more relevant?
> Try to start/build a new liberal party that will either sell out or fade away?
> Like has happened the hundreds of times before all over the world.



Where did i advocate the establishment of a new liberal party?
 

Besides, I'm asking anarchists how they see their beliefs developing because I'm interested, not because I've got some grand alternative that I'm about to unveil to an astonished world. 

The reality is that the practice of anarchism barely registers on most folks' radar now- whether in and of itself, or as part of a broader protest current as random suggests. It's a problem that seems to have hamstrung them for a long time and i wondered how anyone else thought they might tackle it. 

Aren;t you a trot, anyway?


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 30, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> Where did i advocate the establishment of a new liberal party?
> 
> 
> Besides, I'm asking anarchists how they see their beliefs developing because I'm interested, not because I've got some grand alternative that I'm about to unveil to an astonished world.
> ...


Sorry I didn't mean to imply you were. But before saying whether anarchism is relevant or not shouldn't we find out what is relevant? 

And anarchism may not register with people but people are still organising in 'anarchic' ways all the time. Personally I agree with In Bloom when he says



			
				In Bloom said:
			
		

> Fine, in short, I think anarchism does have a viable political future. Though its influence in the short term is admittedly small, I think that growing disatisfaction with current society is evident, which could spill over into anarchic (not necessarily avowedly anarchist) action, which would open a window of opportunity for a growth in anarchism. I think that the role of anarchists in the short term should be to take direct action which will improve conditions in the here and now while at the same time promoting libertarian ideas.


 




			
				steeplejack said:
			
		

> Aren;t you a trot, anyway?


  ,take that back.


----------



## steeplejack (Nov 30, 2004)

In Bloom said:
			
		

> Fine, in short, I think anarchism does have a viable political future.  Though its influence in the short term is admittedly small, I think that growing disatisfaction with current society is evident, which could spill over into anarchic (not necessarily avowedly anarchist) action, which would open a window of opportunity for a growth in anarchism.  I think that the role of anarchists in the short term should be to take direct action which will improve conditions in the here and now while at the same time promoting libertarian ideas.



Without wishing to be rude, this sounds like a prescription for 'steady as she goes'/more of the same.

What guarantee is there that protest will become 'anarchic'? If there is any violent insurgency in the UK (however utterly unlikely), it's more likely to be right wing that left wing in character ( a la plans for military take over in the mid 70s)

Are there concrete examples of DA improving things in the here and now, anyway? Even if there aren't, then that doesn't mean that DA won't help in the future, I suppose, but it's still a pretty rickety prospectus for future action....

It strikes me that the government can accommodate any number of DA stunts (see also F4J), but can't accommodate political organisation and expression. It's in that latter category where it seems that anarchism has yet to make any impact IMO.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 30, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> Without wishing to be rude, this sounds like a prescription for 'steady as she goes'/more of the same.
> 
> What guarantee is there that protest will become 'anarchic'? If there is any violent insurgency in the UK (however utterly unlikely), it's more likely to be right wing that left wing in character ( a la plans for military take over in the mid 70s)


People do things within the framework of mutual aid all the time.




			
				steeplejack said:
			
		

> Are there concrete examples of DA improving things in the here and now, anyway? Even if there aren't, then that doesn't mean that DA won't help in the future, I suppose, but it's still a pretty rickety prospectus for future action....
> 
> It strikes me that the government can accommodate any number of DA stunts (see also F4J), but can't accommodate political organisation and expression. It's in that latter category where it seems that anarchism has yet to make any impact IMO.


What do you mean by "political organisation and expression"? Petitions? Strikes? Political parties?


----------



## steeplejack (Nov 30, 2004)

redsquirrel said:
			
		

> 1.Sorry I didn't mean to imply you were. But before saying whether anarchism is relevant or not shouldn't we find out what is relevant?
> 
> 2.And anarchism may not register with people but people are still organising in 'anarchic' ways all the time. Personally I agree with In Bloom when he says
> 
> ...



1. Yes. Which is what my original question was intended to do.

2. How so? What is organising 'in an anarchic way' anyway? What current examples can you cite as a template for future action? there's threads on here all the time about "alternative non hierarchical extra-political spaces" being created, but are said spaces really impacting on indivduals beyond the small community of anarchist activists?


3.


----------



## steeplejack (Nov 30, 2004)

redsquirrel said:
			
		

> 1. People do things within the framework of mutual aid all the time.
> 
> 
> 2.What do you mean by "political organisation and expression"? Petitions? Strikes? Political parties?



1. What is "working within a framework of mutual aid"? No-one from the Tory wets leftward would have a problem with such an idea- it;s so all encompassing as to be meaningless. this strikes me as exactly the problem- good ideas cloaked in vague wafting language whose specific meaning is clear only to a very few.

2. Yes. Effective ones.


----------



## Solidarnosc (Nov 30, 2004)

Groucho said:
			
		

> Objectively there is a flaw at the core of anarchy. Individualism. Individualism as opposed to collectivism arises from specific class interests. The bourgeois individualist can happily embrace anarchism in theory demanding that the state leaves him be to exploit without interference. The free hand of the market will bring about peace and harmony if unmolested by the nanny state.



Depends on whether you think all anarchism is individualistic. I would say that it isn't, and I think it's important that if you're going to critisise anarchism that you don't just label one tendency of anarchism as the entire movement, so to speak.

It's a bit like trying to develop a coherent critique of 'Marxism'. There are people who call themselves Marxists, but align themselves with the state capitalist regiemes, like Stalinist Russia, and Cuba, which go againt, IMO, a fundamental principle of Marxism - the self-emancipation of the working class. Since these regiemes were not based on working class control, their Marxism is questionable. There are also Marxist trends which reject any idea that these regiemes are based on working class emancipation, like the SWP. 

However, there is also a tendency, especially from the 'anti-authortarian left', to bung together all Leninisms in one bag, without recognising the key differences between them. I'd like anyone to show me that the core politics of the SWP, and say, the New Communist Party, to be the same. 

Anyway. There are trends in the Anarchist movement which stress organisation. The Anarchist Communism of Afed is a good example. While they may look to more sponatneity in struggle from where I'm sitting (I might be wrong on this) they clearly see that the only way forward is a more organised struggle - why do you think that their magazine is called Organise? 

Of course, there are the individualistic tendencies of Anarchism (see Freedom newspaper) but you can't just lump everything together. Critiques of Anarchism aren't one-size-fits-all - just like critiques of different trends of the Marxist left.


----------



## rednblack (Nov 30, 2004)

Solidarnosc said:
			
		

> Of course, there are the individualistic tendencies of Anarchism (see Freedom newspaper) but you can't just lump everything together. Critiques of Anarchism aren't one-size-fits-all - just like critiques of different trends of the Marxist left.



a reasonable description

but freedom is changing and is not the same as when you last read it


----------



## Solidarnosc (Nov 30, 2004)

rednblack said:
			
		

> a reasonable description
> 
> but freedom is changing and is not the same as when you last read it



I haven't read Freedom yet, it was just the first individualist anarchist group/publication which sprang to mind.


----------



## rednblack (Nov 30, 2004)

Solidarnosc said:
			
		

> I haven't read Freedom yet, it was just the first individualist anarchist group/publication which sprang to mind.



it's definately class struggle now, one of the editors is AFed


----------



## Solidarnosc (Nov 30, 2004)

rednblack said:
			
		

> it's definately class struggle now, one of the editors is AFed



I thought Freedom was run by the Freedom Group. That's quite an interesting development, given the more individualist people apparently behind it. Is this a political shift for Freedom, or a political shift for the Afed member? 

Or does it really matter?


----------



## rednblack (Nov 30, 2004)

Solidarnosc said:
			
		

> Or does it really matter?



no

but maybe someone who knows more of the details will come along


----------



## Random (Nov 30, 2004)

lol

Freedom is always changing.  One of its founders was Kropotkin, grand-daddy of anarcho-communism.


----------



## kropotkin (Nov 30, 2004)

Solidarnosc: the rational trot. 

Good post up there by the way.


----------



## october_lost (Nov 30, 2004)

Solidarnosc said:
			
		

> Of course, there are the individualistic tendencies of Anarchism (see Freedom newspaper) but you can't just lump everything together. Critiques of Anarchism aren't one-size-fits-all - just like critiques of different trends of the Marxist left.


Personally the 'individualistic tendencies' you speak of are not part of anarchism per se, they are a bourgeouis influence within it, because anarchists see freedom as a social thing, not simply as a singular activity.



> It is not true that the freedom of one man is limited by that of other men. Man is really free to the extent that his freedom, fully acknowledged and mirrored by the free consent of his fellowmen, finds confirmation and expansion in their liberty. Man is truly free only among equally free men; the slavery of even one human being violates humanity and negates the freedom of all.



Anarchism, despite its faults is the best motor for revolutionary social change, since it recognises _all_oppressions, and doesnt deny the individual autonomy


----------



## Sorry. (Nov 30, 2004)

Solidarnosc said:
			
		

> I thought Freedom was run by the Freedom Group. That's quite an interesting development, given the more individualist people apparently behind it. Is this a political shift for Freedom, or a political shift for the Afed member?
> 
> Or does it really matter?



AFAIK Freedom's editorial staff no longer contains any liberal individualists. Some of the contributors are, but most of the copy comes from communists and syndicalists.


----------



## Groucho (Nov 30, 2004)

Solidarnosc said:
			
		

> Depends on whether you think all anarchism is individualistic. I would say that it isn't, and I think it's important that if you're going to critisise anarchism that you don't just label one tendency of anarchism as the entire movement, so to speak....
> 
> There are trends in the Anarchist movement which stress organisation. The Anarchist Communism of Afed is a good example. While they may look to more sponatneity in struggle from where I'm sitting (I might be wrong on this) they clearly see that the only way forward is a more organised struggle - why do you think that their magazine is called Organise?



I agree with you, Sol. There are different strands of anarchism. I specifically mentioned class struggle @ that accept collectivity. (We could also mention that some @s have accepted workers councils and the Paris Commune as organisational expressions of class struggle). To my mind that accepts the workers state.  Were @ism has made its more valuable contributions (Spain) has been where organisation (including trade unions), class sruggle and collectivism has been taken on board. But even here, as in Spain, or with the British Syndicalists the rejection of party, the denial of the question of power (both spring from the individualist utopian origins of @ism) lead to a utopianism that becomes fatal at key moments in struggle.

I might add that I believe that Marxism has always been at its strongest when it has lent towards libertarianism. Obviously true if you contrast the Trotskist tradition with Stalinism. But within Trotskyism there has been a sect like mentality in many organisations combined with a top down view of socialism (nationalise the top 200/300/400 monopolies, Government enabling law, industry to be run by appointees of Govt,TU bureaucracy..etc???)

The New Left in re-evaluating Marx in light of Stalinist distortions gave rise to libertarian Marxist tendencies such as the development of Marxism Humanism and the Socialism from Below of the IST.

* ps I am not a real ale drinker, I do not have a beard, I do not work for Telecoms.*


----------



## Sorry. (Nov 30, 2004)

Are far as the rest of this thread goes - I'll add my voice to those accusing Joe Reilly and Groucho of posing their questions in manner that was disingenuous and were probably deliberately designed to provoke irritation rather than interesting responses.

By way of response, I'll say that I'm not particularly interested in resurrecting (erecting even?) anarchism as an ideology/political philosophy. My interest is in the ideas for action that are contained within; not just direct action, but horizontal organisation, federalism and a class based movement as interested in challenging hierarchy as it is private ownership. 

I think those principles certainly have a future; if you look at trade unionism in this country (and across western europe) you can see the difference between unions increasingly dominated by active rank and file groups (the FBU and RMT for instance) and those run by the union leadership that have turned into glorified insurance schemes. It's fairly obvious which has been the more effective, and I think it's rather practical proof of the continued relevance (and potential popularity) of syndicalist ideas (even if not directly inspired by syndicalist ideology). 

I'd like to also mention the continued emergence of local action groups with which anarchists are influenced, and form one of many influences of, but I'm off out now ...


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 30, 2004)

Groucho said:
			
		

> I might add that I believe that Marxism has always been at its strongest when it has lent towards libertarianism. Obviously true if you contrast the Trotskist tradition with Stalinism. But within Trotskyism there has been a sect like mentality in many organisations combined with a top down view of socialism (nationalise the top 200/300/400 monopolies, Government enabling law, industry to be run by appointees of Govt,TU bureaucracy..etc???)
> 
> The New Left in re-evaluating Marx in light of Stalinist distortions gave rise to libertarian Marxist tendencies such as the development of Marxism Humanism and the Socialism from Below of the IST.
> 
> * ps I am not a real ale drinker, I do not have a beard, I do not work for Telecoms.*


 No, no no - there were always libertarian marxists, from well before the emergence of the new left, this is not a modern development in fact most of them originated in the criticisms of leninism and the sort of orthodox marxism that was put into pracice in Russia in the years immediately following 1917 - libertarian marxists largely reject the traditions that you place at the very centere of your approach. The SWP (or any other trotskyist/leninist group) is not a libertarian marxist group - that makes a mockery of the very concept, given it's basis in a clear rejection of vanguards, democratic centralism etc.

(The marxist-humanism developed by Dunayevskaya was based on an rejection of the organisational and theoretical limits of trotskyism as well).


----------



## blamblam (Nov 30, 2004)

Solidarnosc said:
			
		

> Of course, there are the individualistic tendencies of Anarchism (see Freedom newspaper)


Fuck you!

We're fucking communists you bastard   

(As you should see from your sample copy headed your way...)


----------



## Top Dog (Nov 30, 2004)

Sorry. said:
			
		

> Are far as the rest of this thread goes - I'll add my voice to those accusing Joe Reilly and Groucho of posing their questions in manner that was disingenuous and were probably deliberately designed to provoke irritation rather than interesting responses.
> 
> By way of response, I'll say that I'm not particularly interested in resurrecting (erecting even?) anarchism as an ideology/political philosophy. My interest is in the ideas for action that are contained within; not just direct action, but horizontal organisation, federalism and a class based movement as interested in challenging hierarchy as it is private ownership.


Too right Sorry. 

Joe has started the thread with a question designed to get anarcho's backs up, but does that make an argument in itself? You might have started it to get some serious discussion going Joe, but its not good enough to pose those questions and merely sitting back to watch the spectacle. If you believe those statements are in fact the case - that both the _ideology_ is defunct and devoid of any useful insight and its practitioners are misguided, then you need to respond with counter arguments and perhaps construct a critique with your comments on possible ways beyond the problem. You are careful to side step the question when its put back to you, but you do intimate that your politics might be more pragmatically constructed... to suit the immediate situation that stands perhaps? And this is demonstrated by your affiliations. But if this _is_ your position you must say so and say it clearly. 

So to get an idea of where you're coming from I have a basic question for you to begin with... do you hold that it is the task of the working class to emancipate themselves? Or is that a question that you believe is too abstract to even tackle in the current social context?


----------



## In Bloom (Nov 30, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> Without wishing to be rude, this sounds like a prescription for 'steady as she goes'/more of the same.


Its a fair comment, but for now, I don't see any serious alternatives to trying to keep the ideas alive and waiting for an opportunity to push things forwards.



> What guarantee is there that protest will become 'anarchic'? If there is any violent insurgency in the UK (however utterly unlikely), it's more likely to be right wing that left wing in character ( a la plans for military take over in the mid 70s)


I'm not talking about "violent insurgency" just yet, you're putting the cart before the horse.  It's more likely that the right opportunity will come along as a result of wide scale industrial unrest or single issue based rioting (a la miners' strike + poll tax)



> Are there concrete examples of DA improving things in the here and now, anyway? Even if there aren't, then that doesn't mean that DA won't help in the future, I suppose, but it's still a pretty rickety prospectus for future action....


I'd say that social centres are a good example of DA working in the here and now for the benefit of the working class.  There are a lot of local campaigns you don't hear a lot about in the national media, too.



> It strikes me that the government can accommodate any number of DA stunts (see also F4J), but can't accommodate political organisation and expression. It's in that latter category where it seems that anarchism has yet to make any impact IMO.


First of all, F4J doesn't do DA, it does silly little stunts that piss people off, but that's a different thing all together.  You seem to have a very strange idea of what DA is.  And as for "the government...can't accomodate political organisation and expression", if that's true, how come the government is so tolerant of the StWC coalition and similar liberal, anti-DA orgs?


----------



## In Bloom (Nov 30, 2004)

Solidarnosc said:
			
		

> I thought Freedom was run by the Freedom Group. That's quite an interesting development, given the more individualist people apparently behind it. Is this a political shift for Freedom, or a political shift for the Afed member?
> 
> Or does it really matter?


Freedom has shifted towards class struggle, mainstream (haha) anarchism in recent years.


----------



## Groucho (Nov 30, 2004)

rednblack said:
			
		

> beard liberation front?



You think Groucho has something to do with...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2955883.stm

that!


----------



## Joe Reilly (Nov 30, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> No, no no - there were always libertarian marxists, from well before the emergence of the new left, this is not a modern development in fact most of them originated in the criticisms of leninism and the sort of orthodox marxism that was put into pracice in Russia in the years immediately following 1917 - libertarian marxists largely reject the traditions that you place at the very centere of your approach. The SWP (or any other trotskyist/leninist group) is not a libertarian marxist group - that makes a mockery of the very concept, given it's basis in a clear rejection of vanguards, democratic centralism etc.



This is another misunderstanding that is tied into the original question. I would argue that there is no such thing as a 'libertarian marxist'. Marx and Engels were in both method and analysis were democrats. Lenin and Trotsky, though they could see a tactical value in it were, when it came to the crunch, the very opposite. 
Worse, and far more damaging in the long run, than the actions themselves were the theories (Trotsky being a particularly culpable) developed to justify those actions. 
So there is Marx's method, the Bolshevik experiment, and Anarchism. All different. You are either a Leninist or a 'Marxist' (this is just short hand as marxism is not an ideology as such) but you cannot be both. 

To argue otherwise is can be from having a) read one but not the other b) read a little of both c) read little of either. 

It follows therefore that to talk about liberterian Marxism, anarcho-communism etc is a product of a confusion that has not yet to run its course.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 30, 2004)

You've just pretty much re-stated _my own argument_ (and it's an argument that i've been making on here and elsewhere for many years) - that there is an unbridgable gap between marx and 'the marxists' - in the first part of that post. But then you used it to attack my post - _the one making the same argument!_ I think you may have misread what i actually wrote.

The last line i simply do not understand - why would the fact that 'marxists' who follow the leninist tradition are very far from Marx' actual writings mean that it's a nonsense to talk of anarcho-communism? You're not making the mistake of assuming that the 'anarcho' prefix, means 'marxist' are you?


----------



## 888 (Nov 30, 2004)

(to Joe Reilly)

Marx and Engels weren't democrats in method - see the first international. Leninism clearly contains elements of Marxism - as do some types of anarchism. More importantly anarchism contains ideas of class struggle and working class self-organisation. Are you saying there is no anarcho-communism?

Marxism is an ideology, in so far as it is a distinct set of ideas. So's situationism, despite its claims not to be.


----------



## Sorry. (Nov 30, 2004)

Groucho said:
			
		

> I agree with you, Sol. There are different strands of anarchism. I specifically mentioned class struggle @ that accept collectivity. (We could also mention that some @s have accepted workers councils and the Paris Commune as organisational expressions of class struggle).



You're speaking as if anarchist-communism and anarcho-syndicalism were just minority interests amongst an individualist majority! Presumably this has to be deliberate because I can't imagine that anyone involved with left-wing politics could be quite so ignorant. I can give several examples of syndicalist unions with hundreds of thousands of members, and anarchist-communist federations with nearly as many, but I couldn't name a single significant individualist movement (the closest you might is some of the post-war incarnations of the French AF)   

As for the piece you've thrown in brackets, workers councils and workers control are actually ideas accepted by anarchists but rejected by Leninists! So I'm left undecided whether I'm actually enraged by that comment as much as bewildered by it.

Regarding the Paris commune, I've not really studied it, but as far as I know anarchist-communists were heavily involved. 



> To my mind that accepts the workers state.


*bangs head against brick wall* no it doesn't, because they're example of federal and horizontal organisation, not centralist, hierarchical organisation. 



> @sm has made its more valuable contributions (Spain) has been where organisation (including trade unions), class sruggle and collectivism has been taken on board.



Class struggle, collectivism and organisation are INHERENT parts of Syndicalism. There weren't "taken on board" (you patronising arse), they are the fucking centre point of the ideology!



> But here, as in Spain, or with the British Syndicalists the rejection of party, the denial of the question of power (both spring from the individualist utopian origins of @ism) lead to a utopianism that becomes fatal at key moments in struggle.



In your opinion. In my opinion the struggle only existed in the form that it did because they weren't hamstrung by a centralised structure. The May '37 barricades for instance actually existed in spite of high profile anarchists, not because of them. 



> I might add that I believe that Marxism has always been at its strongest when it has lent towards libertarianism. Obviously true if you contrast the Trotskist tradition with Stalinism. But within Trotskyism there has been a sect like mentality in many organisations combined with a top down view of socialism (nationalise the top 200/300/400 monopolies, Government enabling law, industry to be run by appointees of Govt,TU bureaucracy..etc???)



Still statist, still democratic centralist. Not libertarian, sorry.


----------



## The Black Hand (Nov 30, 2004)

There is a current of thought that could be termed anarcho-marxism, libertarian communism, anarcho-communism... I have used the first term to describe myself... 

Marxism isn't an ideology contra to 888, it is a method of class struggle... Having read many of Marx's works, and enough subsquent theorists identifying themselves within the Marxist tradition (and there are many of these traditions) I think authentic/ideal type Marxism IS anarchism - put that in your pipes and smoke it     As for a future for anarchism, quite clearly the movement worldwide is enjoying a process of major growth, so it looks like there is a rich future for it...


----------



## steeplejack (Dec 1, 2004)

In Bloom said:
			
		

> 1.Its a fair comment, but for now, I don't see any serious alternatives to trying to keep the ideas alive and waiting for an opportunity to push things forwards.
> 
> 
> 2.I'm not talking about "violent insurgency" just yet, you're putting the cart before the horse.  It's more likely that the right opportunity will come along as a result of wide scale industrial unrest or single issue based rioting (a la miners' strike + poll tax)
> ...



1 Sheesh, it looks like you'll be waiting a long time. That puts you in the position of reacting to events rather than shaping them.

2 I wasn't talking violent insurgency immediately either. I was stating that revolutions in the UK are much more likely to be right wing in character.

3. That to me suggests you're so immersed in the practice of anarchism that you're unable to perceive it's irrelevance to 99.999% of working class- or any class people. There's lots of local campaigns everywhere in the UK- what percentage of them are driven by anarchists? Infinitessimal, i'd suggest.

4. F4J is one aspect of DA, as is the delivery of irritating stunts. Many's the time an anarchist on here has spoken of doing a "wacky stunt" arranged around some political event (pilchardman's phrase that, i believe). Of course DA is a broad umbrella that also encompasses things like HLS- whilst that may initially have had some success, the govt.s now bringing in measures which will make it much more difficult for them to operate. What's the next stage once those laws come in and put DA as we currently know it in a legal straitjacket?

Finally, the StWC doesn't fit my definition of a sustainedly effective political organisation. Yo;'re awful easy pleased if you think it is. As to other "liberal anti-DA orgs", you'll need to specify who you're talking about.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> 4. F4J is one aspect of DA, as is the delivery of irritating stunts. Many's the time an anarchist on here has spoken of doing a "wacky stunt" arranged around some political event (pilchardman's phrase that, i believe). Of course DA is a broad umbrella that also encompasses things like HLS- whilst that may initially have had some success, the govt.s now bringing in measures which will make it much more difficult for them to operate. What's the next stage once those laws come in and put DA as we currently know it in a legal straitjacket?
> 
> Finally, the StWC doesn't fit my definition of a sustainedly effective political organisation. Yo;'re awful easy pleased if you think it is. As to other "liberal anti-DA orgs", you'll need to specify who you're talking about.


How are F4J stunts DA?
They're publicity stunts designed to get the government to change the law. That’s precisely the opposite of DA.

What do you think are effective political organisations?


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## Ray (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> F4J is one aspect of DA, as is the delivery of irritating stunts.



No, it isn't.   

Direct action means that you achieve your goals directly, by the things you do yourself, rather than indirectly, by appealing to others in a position of power. Setting up a squat, reclaiming a street, going on strike, refusing to pay a poll tax, setting up a co-op - these are all examples of direct action. The F4J stunts are not direct actions - they are attempts to gain publicity, in the hope that the publicity will make the government change a law. That makes them indirect actions - just another form of petition, really. 

(There's nothing wrong with stunts, in principle, but they're not direct action)


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## In Bloom (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> 1 Sheesh, it looks like you'll be waiting a long time. That puts you in the position of reacting to events rather than shaping them.


Long time is a matter of perspective, I'm patient 
Seriously though, I don't see any immediate alternatives, so I'll go with it, the revolution isn't the only thing in anarchism.



> 2 I wasn't talking violent insurgency immediately either. I was stating that revolutions in the UK are much more likely to be right wing in character.


Leaving aside the question of whether a right wing coup can be considered "revolution", what makes you say that?



> 3. That to me suggests you're so immersed in the practice of anarchism that you're unable to perceive it's irrelevance to 99.999% of working class- or any class people. There's lots of local campaigns everywhere in the UK- what percentage of them are driven by anarchists? Infinitessimal, i'd suggest.


They don't need to be "driven by anarchists", they are still examples of effective DA and many anarchists _take part_



> 4. F4J is one aspect of DA, as is the delivery of irritating stunts. Many's the time an anarchist on here has spoken of doing a "wacky stunt" arranged around some political event (pilchardman's phrase that, i believe). Of course DA is a broad umbrella that also encompasses things like HLS- whilst that may initially have had some success, the govt.s now bringing in measures which will make it much more difficult for them to operate. What's the next stage once those laws come in and put DA as we currently know it in a legal straitjacket?


Stunts are not DA, for the last time.  F4J are trying to publicise their cause in the hope that some kind government minister will advance it for them, that is not DA by any definition.  Not knocking "wacky stunts", mind, just saying they're not DA.



> Finally, the StWC doesn't fit my definition of a sustainedly effective political organisation. Yo;'re awful easy pleased if you think it is. As to other "liberal anti-DA orgs", you'll need to specify who you're talking about.


It doesn't fit my definition of an effective political organisation, but it is a political organisation, none the less and it is a mode of political expression.  What forms of political organisation and expression _other than DA_ do you think the state can't tolerate?


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## steeplejack (Dec 1, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> No, it isn't.
> 
> Direct action means that you achieve your goals directly, by the things you do yourself, rather than indirectly, by appealing to others in a position of power. Setting up a squat, reclaiming a street, going on strike, refusing to pay a poll tax, setting up a co-op - these are all examples of direct action. The F4J stunts are not direct actions - they are attempts to gain publicity, in the hope that the publicity will make the government change a law. That makes them indirect actions - just another form of petition, really.
> 
> (There's nothing wrong with stunts, in principle, but they're not direct action)



Okay then.

Ypour list is interesting though- what does reclaiming a street/setting up a squat _achieve_ It may be fun in the shiort term- but long term achieves bugger all. (Squat repossessed by landlord/ RTS moved on by police and street re-opened).

Surely DA has bigger ambitions than temporary and mildly inconvenient interventions? By that defintion, it achieves little more than the annoying sensationalism of F4J.


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## In Bloom (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> Okay then.
> 
> Ypour list is interesting though- what does reclaiming a street/setting up a squat _achieve_ It may be fun in the shiort term- but long term achieves bugger all. (Squat repossessed by landlord/ RTS moved on by police and street re-opened).
> 
> Surely DA has bigger ambitions than temporary and mildly inconvenient interventions? By that defintion, it achieves little more than the annoying sensationalism of F4J.


RTS is a bad example, IMO, but even if a squat doesn't last forever, it provides somebody who needs a home with a home, if that's not worth achieving, I don't know what is.


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## steeplejack (Dec 1, 2004)

In Bloom said:
			
		

> 1.Long time is a matter of perspective, I'm patient
> Seriously though, I don't see any immediate alternatives, so I'll go with it, the revolution isn't the only thing in anarchism.
> 
> 2.Leaving aside the question of whether a right wing coup can be considered "revolution", what makes you say that?
> ...



1. I'm glad yr patient! 

2. Historical precedent. When has anywhere in the Uk been remotely close to a left originated revolution? red Clydeside is an example some use: history shows that to have been rather pale pink Clydeside, sadly.

3. Fair enough. Again though if anarchists are merely happy to take part, aren't you ensuring that you'll never be in a position to achieve fully all yr goals?

4. Again, fair enough, though personally I find "wacky stunts" a juvenile pain in the arse.

5. (and to redsquirrel as well who asked the same question)

Three spring to mind

a) Sinn Fein, who are in a political process backed up with latent threat of violence. if the state could have accommodated SF without the significant sea change its amde in its postion re: northern ireland, it would have done.

b) radical environmentalism which has much more subtly helped shift the state's agenda on a whole range of issues from the 70s onward. In fact the Greens parallel anarchist thonking in some ways. Patrick Harvie, a green MSP in Scotland, has claimed that he doesn't care about being in power/driving change, as long as the govt. of the day follows an environental agenda.

c) Although it's in its very early days, the IWCA- a self organising, people responsive, community based organisation making political cause from and on behalf of those shamefully ignored by all the major parties. The reaction of "New" labour and the Glib Dems to them locally suggest that the state would struggle to accommodate such a body if it was able to grow successfully.

And before I'm accused of insincerity and following an IWCA agenda, I'm not a member and couldn't really be- however sympathetic i am to some of their aims- as I don't have a class based outlook on politics, and I'm not w-c. Plus I've been called a pious middle class liberal more often by JR than you lot've had hot dinners.


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## Ray (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> Okay then.
> 
> Ypour list is interesting though- what does reclaiming a street/setting up a squat _achieve_ It may be fun in the shiort term- but long term achieves bugger all. (Squat repossessed by landlord/ RTS moved on by police and street re-opened).



An achievement doesn't have to be permanent for it to be an achievement. The purpose of an RTS is to have a street party. It doesn't achieve this purpose by petitioning the Arts Council or local corporation to organise a street party, it does it by holding a street party. Action that directly achieves its goals. 

Squats, as In Bloom says, provide a home to people who previously didn't have a home. You want a home -> you squat a house -> you have a home. Direct action.


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## redsquirrel (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> a) Sinn Fein, who are in a political process backed up with latent threat of violence. if the state could have accommodated SF without the significant sea change its amde in its postion re: northern ireland, it would have done.
> 
> b) radical environmentalism which has much more subtly helped shift the state's agenda on a whole range of issues from the 70s onward. In fact the Greens parallel anarchist thonking in some ways. Patrick Harvie, a green MSP in Scotland, has claimed that he doesn't care about being in power/driving change, as long as the govt. of the day follows an environental agenda.
> 
> c) Although it's in its very early days, the IWCA- a self organising, people responsive, community based organisation making political cause from and on behalf of those shamefully ignored by all the major parties. The reaction of "New" labour and the Glib Dems to them locally suggest that the state would struggle to accommodate such a body if it was able to grow successfully.


I think it's important to note that anarchists are willing to play some role in political organisations. I mean there are anarchists in the IWCA, tenants associations etc not to mention anarchist groups like AF, SolF and Class War. The idea that DA is the only type of action anarchists are willing to take is nonsense.


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## steeplejack (Dec 1, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> 1. An achievement doesn't have to be permanent for it to be an achievement. The purpose of an RTS is to have a street party.
> 
> 2. It doesn't achieve this purpose by petitioning the Arts Council or local corporation to organise a street party, it does it by holding a street party. Action that directly achieves its goals.
> 
> 3. Squats, as In Bloom says, provide a home to people who previously didn't have a home. You want a home -> you squat a house -> you have a home. Direct action.



1. Fine. But, errr....we're talking about how anarchists see their goals being achieved in the middle to long term. If all they have to offer is some street parties broken up when the police have a spare moment, isn't JR's original question re: irrelevance of anarchism a pertinent one? Any bugger can, by yre definition, claim political 'achievment' after a two hour RTS style 'happening'. Doesn't do much for anyone else though, does it? 

2. I've got the point about DA, thanks.

3. I'd be interested to see what percentage of folk squatting actually were homeless before moving into their squat. But it's a difficult question to ask without sounding like a right wing troll (which I'm not). I don't have a huge problem with squatting and the linked points it makes about a) ludicrous property market and b) affordbale housing for all are important ones. But how many folk squat because they are homeless, rather than as an expression of affinity to anarchist/self-organising ideas?


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## In Bloom (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> Fair enough. Again though if anarchists are merely happy to take part, aren't you ensuring that you'll never be in a position to achieve fully all yr goals?


If that's all anarchist ever did, yes, we would be.  But the only way anarchism is ever going to be seen as a credible idea by the mainstream is if we show we aren't a bunch of middle class wankers who sit on our arses all day smoking pot and moaning about the government.



> a) Sinn Fein, who are in a political process backed up with latent threat of violence. if the state could have accommodated SF without the significant sea change its amde in its postion re: northern ireland, it would have done.


The government puts up with Sinn Fein because they fear violent action, not because they're affraid of political expression.



> b) radical environmentalism which has much more subtly helped shift the state's agenda on a whole range of issues from the 70s onward. In fact the Greens parallel anarchist thonking in some ways. Patrick Harvie, a green MSP in Scotland, has claimed that he doesn't care about being in power/driving change, as long as the govt. of the day follows an environental agenda.


Another example of the state changing its policies in the hopes of appeasing DA based movements, IMO.



> c) Although it's in its very early days, the IWCA- a self organising, people responsive, community based organisation making political cause from and on behalf of those shamefully ignored by all the major parties. The reaction of "New" labour and the Glib Dems to them locally suggest that the state would struggle to accommodate such a body if it was able to grow successfully.


The state struggles to accomodate such organisations in the hopes of corrupting them and making them more like themselves, not because they're tolerant of DA.


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## steeplejack (Dec 1, 2004)

redsquirrel said:
			
		

> The idea that DA is the only type of action anarchists are willing to take is nonsense.



I agree, and you'll note I haven't advanced this position anywhere.


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## steeplejack (Dec 1, 2004)

In Bloom said:
			
		

> 1. If that's all anarchist ever did, yes, we would be.  But the only way anarchism is ever going to be seen as a credible idea by the mainstream is if we show we aren't a bunch of middle class wankers who sit on our arses all day smoking pot and moaning about the government.
> 
> 2.The government puts up with Sinn Fein because they fear violent action, not because they're affraid of political expression.
> 
> ...



1. A tough job, I agree.

2, 3 & 4: SF aren't linked to violent paramilitaries just cause they feel like it. The govt. fears violence, true, but also fears the frustrated political expression/set of ideas which motivated that violence. The two are inseparable. as to 3 & 4, not much sign of that happening, really, is there?


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## redsquirrel (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> SF aren't linked to violent paramilitaries just cause they feel like it. The govt. fears violence, true, but also fears the frustrated political expression/set of ideas which motivated that violence. The two are inseparable.


But hasn't that set of ideas being somewhat sidelined by SF/IRA turning towards a more party political role. I mean by letting SF into government, they have become a political party and have all the problems that political parties have (maintaining their popularity for instance).


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## Ray (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> 1. Fine. But, errr....we're talking about how anarchists see their goals being achieved in the middle to long term. If all they have to offer is some street parties broken up when the police have a spare moment, isn't JR's original question re: irrelevance of anarchism a pertinent one? Any bugger can, by yre definition, claim political 'achievment' after a two hour RTS style 'happening'. Doesn't do much for anyone else though, does it?



The point about direct action is that its empowering. When you organise something yourself, and it comes off, whether it be a street party or anything else, you realise that you don't need to ask other people to do things for you, you can do it yourself. And that's something you'll remember - that you don't need to contact your MP or the union head office to sort out a problem in your area or workplace, you can take direct action. And it 'does something' for other people because your confidence and experience will benefit other people. 

So how I see anarchists achieving their goals in the middle to long-term is this - People get involved in political activity. They realise that directly democratic means of organising works. They extend that to other activities, drawing in more people. Those people realise that anarchist methods work. They extend that to other activities...

What's your alternative?


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## steeplejack (Dec 1, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> So how I see anarchists achieving their goals in the middle to long-term is this - People get involved in political activity. They realise that directly democratic means of organising works. They extend that to other activities, drawing in more people. Those people realise that anarchist methods work. They extend that to other activities...
> 
> What's your alternative?



Er, I'm not sure that the successful organising of afternoon parties/temporary squats count as fulsome evidence that DD works. It works in that very limited and limiting sphere of organisation, I'm sure- whether it would work in the long term, say, in organising health care and whatever is far from proven.

there's bveen other threads about it, but anarchism suffers from a real image problem. people automatically associate it with brick chucking youths, mobs, pisspoor stickers on lamp-posts, and Gavrilo Princip. I'm aware that's a reductive caricature, and know that in the main anarchism seems to be a bunch of okay people trying to get things done in their local area, but that doesn't come across at all outwith the activist community.

Anarchism suffers as much as anything else from political apathy- the current two party/ pressure group system actively discourages people's involvement, so they're likely to look at anything calling itself politics/political activity with a hearty skepticism. Party politics is failing and breaking down, but I'm far from sure that anarchists/anarchism is anything like organised or strong enough to capitalise, however things may shake out in future.


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## rednblack (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> Er, I'm not sure that the successful organising of afternoon parties/temporary squats count as fulsome evidence that DD works.



direct debits? dungeons & dragons?


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## JoeBlack (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> I'd be interested to see what percentage of folk squatting actually were homeless before moving into their squat. But it's a difficult question to ask without sounding like a right wing troll



The reason it sounds like a right wing troll is because the probable way your using the term 'homeless' (sleeping on the streets/in shelters) is the way the right define it.

If you define 'homeless' in the broader sense of not having a decent place to stay then probably a lot of squatters are homeless.  That is they otherwise are coach surfing, in over crowded crapy landlord accommodation or even stuck in the same dwelling as their parents. 

To illustrate. The estate I live in which is 3 bedroomed houses has quite a few houses with 9 people in them representing 3 generations of the same family.  This isn't by choice but because typically single parents and their kids can't afford anywhere and live with the grandparents.  The word homeless as used above fails to capture the overcrowding that is a fact of life for many working class people.


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## steeplejack (Dec 1, 2004)

redsquirrel said:
			
		

> But hasn't that set of ideas being somewhat sidelined by SF/IRA turning towards a more party political role. I mean by letting SF into government, they have become a political party and have all the problems that political parties have (maintaining their popularity for instance).



I doubt it!

SF are committed to a united ireland- the focus of that struggle has shifted to politics for now, that's the only change. Their contempt/refusal to enage with UK instituions of governemnt at westminster remains, despite the political path pursued amongst their community in NI.

SF are the best illustration I can think of, of a state failing to accommodate & control a particular outlook, both in political and military terms.


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## steeplejack (Dec 1, 2004)

rednblack said:
			
		

> direct debits? dungeons & dragons?



direct democracy.

dunderheided dick'ead.


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## steeplejack (Dec 1, 2004)

JoeBlack said:
			
		

> The reason it sounds like a right wing troll is because the probable way your using the term 'homeless' (sleeping on the streets/in shelters) is the way the right define it.



yeh- it should have been clearer- i was using homeless in the broad sense of the term you mention.

The necessity/lifestyle percentage question would still be an interesting one to have an answer to, mind.


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 1, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> You've just pretty much re-stated _my own argument_ (and it's an argument that i've been making on here and elsewhere for many years) - that there is an unbridgable gap between marx and 'the marxists' - in the first part of that post. But then you used it to attack my post - _the one making the same argument!_ I think you may have misread what i actually wrote.
> 
> The last line i simply do not understand - why would the fact that 'marxists' who follow the leninist tradition are very far from Marx' actual writings mean that it's a nonsense to talk of anarcho-communism? You're not making the mistake of assuming that the 'anarcho' prefix, means 'marxist' are you?



I think this territory is ripe for mis-understanding. I wasn't actually attacking your post but the ideas that a) you can be a Leninist and a marxist. And b) if you accept the hybrid marxism-leninism (authoritarian/top down) then the natural reflex might be something like anarcho-communism. The need for the latter is based on the error of accepting the historical validity of the former.


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 1, 2004)

888 said:
			
		

> (to Joe Reilly)
> 
> Marx and Engels weren't democrats in method - see the first international.



An allegation, that is to put it mildly, contested evidence.


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## butchersapron (Dec 1, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> I think this territory is ripe for mis-understanding. I wasn't actually attacking your post but the ideas that a) you can be a Leninist and a marxist. And b) if you accept the hybrid marxism-leninism (authoritarian/top down) then the natural reflex might be something like anarcho-communism. The need for the latter is based on the error of accepting the historical validity of the former.


 Ok, i'm with you now. And i'd say that the logical practical upshot of that position seems to lead then to either a wholesale _rejection_ or _acceptance_ of Marx (not marxism) - it doesn't leave much ground for manouvere. There are many many good, useful things in Marx, there are also many outdated ideas that are not really applicable given current conditions and developements. I simply don't believe there is any need to swallow the thing whole - that path leads straight back to Leninism and related fundamentalisms.

On the point that anarcho-communism can be seen a form of activity that developed alongside and in rejection of marxism-leninism, then i think that you're partially correct, but i'd say that this is actually a _strength_ of anarchism - that it related it's historical practice and theory to something concrete - the USSR and marxism-leninism did actually exist and did do some terrible damage for nearly a 100 years, and so to try and _incorporate_ critiques of this into its worldview was the correct thing to do. I'd agree though that some anarchists now seem unable to make any moves beyond this position despite the collapse of the USSR and of Trotskyism.

I say _'incorparate'_ because anarchism (esp anarcho-communism) also grew out of its own independent base - it actually came to life well before leninism, and if anything Leninism can be seen as one of the reactions _to anarchism's_ growth within the 19th centruy workers movement rather than _vice versa_. Anarchism cannot be reduced to a simple a rejection of Leninism (and the confusion of Leninism with the ideas of Marx) - it has always had it's own central principles and to read them as being merely anti-leninism is to miread the whole history of anarchism.


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## Top Dog (Dec 1, 2004)

*Steeplejack & Red Squirrel - on the subject of DA, F4J and "demands"*

Theres an interesting discussion of this in Moments of Excess that covered part of this discussion during the Life Despite Capitalism conference at the alternative ESF recently.

In looking at different kinds of "direct action" and the dangers inherant in it ideologising itself, the authors ask:





> 'Where is the rupture?' lf all forms of action are socially productive, and if capital is amoral and infinitely malleable, isn't our resistance simply the creative cutting edge of capital? Will we turn round in ten years time to find that the things we're fighting for now appear against us? Will we close down Starbucks only to find a chain of organic fair-trade coffee houses clogging up our cities? Are we stuck in an eternal return where all struggles are recuperated? Do we have to give up millenarian fantasies of a mighty day of reckoning where the truth will out and the unjust shall be judged? We don't know. With no inside and outside, there is no solid foundation on which we can stand to make those judgements: all we know is that nothing is certain. Perhaps we won't even recognise rupture until after it has happened, especially if we're still looking for a winter palace to storm.


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## scawenb (Dec 1, 2004)

I am an non-Trotskyist Marxist and although I was once emotionally drawn to anarchism I was never convinced of its ability to achieve its goal. 

I do however accept that there is an Anarchist theory which is practically and intellectually coherent. I do think that individualists, anti-authoritarians and utopians have taken up the term anarchism and turned it into a nonsense (there are many here on U75 but also people like Germain Greer).

My view is that as an active political movement anarchism is one of three main form of socialism as an intellectual position however it owes just as much to a radical form of liberalism (in the nest sense of the term).

In practice Marxist have always had more in common in their fight for revolution and opposition to reformism. Politically I have always found myself that I'd rather be fighting alongside anarchist than Trotsyists. From fighting fascism, to fighting the state (with it police, courts and prisons), opposing Labour and parliamentarianism to even solidarity with national liberation struggles it is the anarchists who are most reliable and committed. 

The real difference comes after the revolution and the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. So in 1917 many anarchists supported the bolsheviks and visited Lenin. I think that is when important and fundamental differences come to the fore but until then I welcome a stronger, more coherent anarchist movement with a serious future.


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## charlie mowbray (Dec 1, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> An allegation, that is to put it mildly, contested evidence.


Not just in the First International but within the Communist League before it  Marx and Engels behaved appallingly, with a series of expulsions, denunciations and vitriolic polemic. Read any history about the Communist League ( or stay ill-informed)


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## Pickman's model (Dec 1, 2004)

scawenb said:
			
		

> In practice Marxist have always had more in common in their fight for revolution and opposition to reformism.


i wonder if you shouldn't reconsider that sweeping statement...


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 1, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Ok, i'm with you now. And i'd say that the logical practical upshot of that position seems to lead then to either a wholesale _rejection_ or _acceptance_ of Marx (not marxism) - it doesn't leave much ground for manouvere. There are many many good, useful things in Marx, there are also many outdated ideas that are not really applicable given current conditions and developements. I simply don't believe there is any need to swallow the thing whole - that path leads straight back to Leninism and related fundamentalisms.



It is not about swallowing anything whole. Basically what I'm saying is that process and analysis offered by Marx and co was - unlike Lenininism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and variants of Anarchism - _not_ an ideology. The problem is not anarchism as such but the penchant for looking at objective reality through an ideological prism that is 'outdated and not really applicable given current conditions and developments'. 
To paraphrase Henry Ford: "ideology is bunk."


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 1, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Not just in the First International but within the Communist League before it  Marx and Engels behaved appallingly, with a series of expulsions, denunciations and vitriolic polemic. Read any history about the Communist League ( or stay ill-informed)



'Any history' - by who exactly?


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## Ray (Dec 1, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Basically what I'm saying is that process and analysis offered by Marx and co was - unlike Lenininism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and variants of Anarchism - _not_ an ideology.



Everyone else is blinded by an ideology, but you are guided by a method?


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## Louis MacNeice (Dec 1, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Ok, i'm with you now. And i'd say that the logical practical upshot of that position seems to lead then to either a wholesale _rejection_ or _acceptance_ of Marx (not marxism) - it doesn't leave much ground for manouvere. There are many many good, useful things in Marx, there are also many outdated ideas that are not really applicable given current conditions and developements. I simply don't believe there is any need to swallow the thing whole - that path leads straight back to Leninism and related fundamentalisms.




Is there another alternative to your 'adopt Marx or die' option? Can we reject ideology (that is ideology a somehow singular set of ideas for a political/economic/social system) while keeping the working class centre stage as the only class whose material interest is the thorough going transformation of society?

One of the reasons I ask this is because I attended the community politics meeting at the bookfair, and was genuinely suprised by the number of people there, who found it easier to talk about community activity in terms of ideas/identity/anarchism rather than people/problems/working class. Chatting in the pub afterwards, one of the Hackney Independent members made the intereting comment that they felt secure enough in their politics not to feel the need for the ideological tag. Now while I might disagree with them as to how far they have managed to move beyond an ideological straight jacket   (the process of being owned by an ideology refered to by Joe in his Raymond Chandler quote); I really think this confidence is to be admired.

Cheers - Louis Mac


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 1, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> Everyone else is blinded by an ideology, but you are guided by a method?


Anyone that is motivated and guided by and idelogy is inevitably partially sighted at best, as it will necessarily involve sooner or later the rejection of home truths unacceptable to that ideology. Or the rejection of that idelogy.

That said, simply looking at reality as it is, does not provide any guarantee that you will be able to alter that reality.


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## charlie mowbray (Dec 1, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> 'Any history' - by who exactly?


Try here http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1846let1.htm
Weitling's letter about his treatment by MARX ( I would have thiught you would side with the worker Weitling against the intellectual Marx)
Also the book the Red Prussian by Leopold Scwarzschild- more to follow


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## Ray (Dec 1, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Anyone that is motivated and guided by and idelogy is inevitably partially sighted at best, as it will necessarily involve sooner or later the rejection of home truths unacceptable to that ideology. Or the rejection of that idelogy.
> That said, simply looking at reality as it is, does not provide any guarantee that you will be able to alter that reality.



I'm just amused by your confidence that *you* are the one seeing reality as it is, while the rest of us see it through a glass darkly.


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## butchersapron (Dec 1, 2004)

Louis MacNeice said:
			
		

> Is there another alternative to your 'adopt Marx or die' option? Can we reject ideology (that is ideology a somehow singular set of ideas for a political/economic/social system) while keeping the working class centre stage as the only class whose material interest is the thorough going transformation of society?
> 
> One of the reasons I ask this is because I attended the community politics meeting at the bookfair, and was genuinely suprised by the number of people there, who found it easier to talk about community activity in terms of ideas/identity/anarchism rather than people/problems/working class. Chatting in the pub afterwards, one of the Hackney Independent members made the intereting comment that they felt secure enough in their politics not to feel the need for the ideological tag. Now while I might disagree with them as to how far they have managed to move beyond an ideological straight jacket   (the process of being owned by an ideology refered to by Joe in his Raymond Chandler quote); I really think this confidence is to be admired.
> 
> Cheers - Louis Mac


 I think that's what i was trying to say Louis - it was Joes logic that i was arguing seemed to me to lead to the type of position of either accepting or rejecting Marx in full, with the concomitant denial that Marx's thought could ever constitute an ideology. Your first paragraph puts across the sort of approach i was trying to convey.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 1, 2004)

steeplejack said:
			
		

> I doubt it!
> 
> SF are committed to a united ireland- the focus of that struggle has shifted to politics for now, that's the only change. Their contempt/refusal to enage with UK instituions of governemnt at westminster remains, despite the political path pursued amongst their community in NI.
> 
> SF are the best illustration I can think of, of a state failing to accommodate & control a particular outlook, both in political and military terms.


But these days much of their focus is on getting the assembly back, getting a referendum etc. Don't you think that much of their focus has been shifted to shorter term goals, in particular being part of a government.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 1, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> I'm just amused by your confidence that *you* are the one seeing reality as it is, while the rest of us see it through a glass darkly.



Hello Ray - I took Joe to be having a pop at those who insist on placing the adherence to/identification with a particular ideology before their desire/willingness to confront reality; a bit like someone who carries on using the same pair of specs years after they have ceased to be useful and instead complains about the smallness of print these days.

Cheers - Louis Mac


----------



## Ray (Dec 1, 2004)

Louis MacNeice said:
			
		

> Hello Ray - I took Joe to be having a pop at those who insist on placing the adherence to/identification with a particular ideology before their desire/willingness to confront reality; a bit like someone who carries on using the same pair of specs years after they have ceased to be useful and instead complains about the smallness of print these days.



Yes, but his criticism loses its force if he's doing the same thing himself, doesn't it? Motes, beams, and all that jazz...


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 1, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Try here http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1846let1.htm
> Weitling's letter about his treatment by MARX ( I would have thiught you would side with the worker Weitling against the intellectual Marx)
> Also the book the Red Prussian by Leopold Scwarzschild- more to follow


Francis Wheen's book on Marx also refers to these goings-on as does Revolutionary Refugees by Christine Lattek


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 1, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> I'm just amused by your confidence that *you* are the one seeing reality as it is, while the rest of us see it through a glass darkly.



I made no such exclusive claims. Millions of working class people see reality as it is. _Changing _ that reality is the difficult bit.Howeve if the basic evidence is tampered with, either over or under egged, or re-shaped in some way so as not to appear to be in conflict with idelogical principles and beliefs then it is fair to assume that the 'difficult bit' quickly becomes the impossible bit.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 1, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Francis Wheen's book on Marx also refers to these goings-on as does Revolutionary Refugees by Christine Lattek



Well yes there were 'goings-on'. Not in dispute. I am not trying to paint Marx or Engels as saints. Merely that working class control, the unrestricted law of the greatest number lay at the heart of the political philosophy espoused by them.


----------



## kropotkin (Dec 1, 2004)

Joe,seriously, what the fuck are you talking about?
Serious anarchist theory centres around the w/c as the most important historical actor, and works towards developing it's own capacity for organisation and self-management. You have either misunderstood what it actually is (as illustrated by you actually arguing _the same_ position as Butchers above), are deliberately attempting to attack a straw man, or are just trying to be argumentative.

Anarchists don't want to recruit people totheir organisations, they want to percolate anarchist methods of organising to other sections of the class and provide support when any sections are trying to independantly act in their own interests. Granted the "movement" is currently shit, and many anarchists get sucked into thinking PR stunts are a substitute for political action, but it is amistake to conflate _anarchism_ with _anarchists_.

Changing tack, another example of anarchy in action is that of the residents pissed off with traffic in their estate putting in their own speed-control measures (speed bumps as far as I remember). No blak and redflags, no quoting of 19th century writers, just normal people acheiving their desires directly.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 1, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> Joe,seriously, what the fuck are you talking about?
> Serious anarchist theory centres around the w/c as the most important historical actor, and works towards developing it's own capacity for organisation and self-management. You have either misunderstood what it actually is (as illustrated by you actually arguing _the same_ position as Butchers above), are deliberately attempting to attack a straw man, or are just trying to be argumentative.
> 
> Anarchists don't want to recruit people totheir organisations, they want to percolate anarchist methods of organising to other sections of the class and provide support when any sections are trying to independantly act in their own interests. Granted the "movement" is currently shit, and many anarchists get sucked into thinking PR stunts are a substitute for political action, but it is amistake to conflate _anarchism_ with _anarchists_.
> ...




Hello Kropotkin - Some anarchism does have the working class at its heart, but not all e.g. Striner as the individualist par excellence. 

Did the people doing their own traffic calming call it anarchy in action? If not this would seem to be an example of the ability to get along quite nicely without the ideological label.

Cheers - Louis Mac

p.s. The notion that Joe is a trotskyist is very funny!


----------



## kropotkin (Dec 1, 2004)

arghh!

1. Stirnirite anarchism has always been a minority current, and certainly is these days. It is clear from reading this thread, and indeed Joe Reilly's first post, that the current being discussed is anarcho-comminsm.

2. That is the point i am making! They don't have to self-identify as anarchists for the action to be "anarchist". My point is that it doesn't need a label. We really are arguing the same posiiton here (which is the point of my posts)

3. He certainly behaves like a leninist.I don't give a fuck what people say- I'll make my judgements based on actions cheers.

Mark


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## rednblack (Dec 1, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> 2. That is the point i am making! They don't have to self-identify as anarchists for the action to be "anarchist". My point is that it doesn't need a label. We really are arguing the same posiiton here (which is the point of my posts)



exactly, and that's something that marxists from a leninist background (i'll avoid the question of whether joe or for that matter louis are leninists now  ) find really difficult to understand, loads of people act in an anarchist way in the community or workplace with out ever calling it anarchism or necersarily knowing anything about it - everytime that happens (even if 99% of the time it doesnt lead to the setting up of permanent structures) it is a valedation of the correctness of anarchist theory

imo


----------



## Machen (Dec 1, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> another example of anarchy in action is that of the residents pissed off with traffic in their estate putting in their own speed-control measures (speed bumps as far as I remember). No blak and redflags, no quoting of 19th century writers, just normal people acheiving their desires directly.



Anarchism must mean more than THAT! It must involve more than a particularly uppity manifestation of local Neighbourhood Watch schemes, led by Hyacinth Bucket, ffs!!

But your comment raises another interesting question: what is it about the pro-Foxhunting, Countryside Alliance/BFSS lot and THEIR defence of community against the British State, that prevents it from being - in your analysis - 'Anarchist'? Are the anarchists of U75 planning on getting on down to London to lend some support to these resolute defenders of local community tradition in the face of State power?


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## kropotkin (Dec 1, 2004)

I said that the action was an example of anarchism in action, not that it provided the limit of anarchist activity! Examples such as the one above provide a basis from which self-activity can begin to be built- with confidence and organisation improving with each action.

Countryside Alliance. Any ciursory look at the CA illustrates it is atop-down organisation with a background of business and land owners. And it is a presure group- trying to get the government to implement a different law. Hardly fits the bill of self-directed, horizontally-organised direct action, is it?


----------



## Machen (Dec 1, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> I said that the action was an example of anarchism in action, not that it provided the limit of anarchist activity! Examples such as the one above provide a basis from which self-activity can begin to be built- with confidence and organisation improving with each action.



I think some of the kids on my esate built a speed-bump all by themselves! Unfortunately, it was constructed out of a pair of burnt mattresses, and didn't last. 



> Countryside Alliance. Any ciursory look at the CA illustrates it is atop-down organisation with a background of business and land owners. And it is a presure group- trying to get the government to implement a different law. Hardly fits the bill of self-directed, horizontally-organised direct action, is it?



Certainly, the CA is riddled with business backers - but those involved see themselves as defending their communities and ways of living. It is relatively "horizontally organized" and manifests in direct action - characteristics that will continue grow through 2005. The Countryside Alliance/BFSS would not have been able to mobilse on such a grand scale without that element of self-propulsion from amongst its supporters nationwide.  Compared with this, the Anarchist movement is piss poor, and maybe could learn a thing or two.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 1, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> arghh!
> 
> 1. Stirnirite anarchism has always been a minority current, and certainly is these days. It is clear from reading this thread, and indeed Joe Reilly's first post, that the current being discussed is anarcho-comminsm.
> 
> ...



1. Joe's first post makes no mention of anarcho-communism.

2. If it does not need a label why protest at criticisms of the label and try to claim other people's actions to that label?

3. Joe's a member of the IWCA an organisation which explicitly doesn't require adherence to an ideology be it leninism or anarchism...so as you say let's judge him by his actions.  

As for you R&B, I'll let you know I hardly ever dream of purging middle class elements from the ranks of the vanguard party.  

Cheers - Louis Mac


----------



## kropotkin (Dec 1, 2004)

how is it about DA? It just sems to call marches as far as i can see. I suppose that actually hunting after it becomes illegal would be DA...


----------



## Machen (Dec 1, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> how is it about DA? It just sems to call marches as far as i can see. I suppose that actually hunting after it becomes illegal would be DA...



Listen to the language these people are starting to use: they see their struggle in CLASS TERMS, and are willing to be IMPRISONED time and again. They are taking on the full force of the British State and standing up to that with comradely solidarity.

Still, it is NOT Anarchism. Is it?


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 1, 2004)

rednblack said:
			
		

> exactly, and that's something that marxists from a leninist background (i'll avoid the question of whether joe or for that matter louis are leninists now  ) find really difficult to understand, loads of people act in an anarchist way in the community or workplace with out ever calling it anarchism or necersarily knowing anything about it - everytime that happens (even if 99% of the time it doesnt lead to the setting up of permanent structures) it is a valedation of the correctness of anarchist theory



Surely it can only be regarded as 'a validation of anarchist theory' if only there have been substantial arguments against same, (and as a result such values can be thought to be exclusive) but if people are doing it anyway -'without even knowing about it' in what way can this be called 'anarchist theory' especially as its not clear whether anarchists are taking a lead from them or they are taking a lead from you?


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## kropotkin (Dec 1, 2004)

1. 9th then you bloody pedant! 
2. Just a minute: he was trying to restrict an interpretation of the term unduly, and I have pointed out why I think that is unfair.
3. Yet it still manages splits!


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## General Ludd (Dec 1, 2004)

> 3. Joe's a member of the IWCA an organisation which explicitly doesn't require adherence to an ideology be it leninism or anarchism...so as you say let's judge him by his actions.


But he is also a member of RA, an organisation which does require 'adherence to an ideology', no?


----------



## Sacred Spirit (Dec 2, 2004)

.
Do anarcho-fascist's (anarchist's for utopia) have any future ?
.


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## haggy (Dec 2, 2004)

adherence to ideology is a straitjacket that makes politicos feel comfortable in adverse political circumstances, ie all the time, but separates them from the class (or nation, whatever) they aspire to influence/represent.

Re the Community Politics meeting at the bookfair, it may be OK to call your group anarchist to attract likeminded people, but if being badge-wearing anarchists separates you from your 'constituency' - which it necessarily does - then you have to ask whether the label is really just for your benefit.

I agree with Louis Mac.  Not all anarchists - regrettably - recognise the primacy of class relations in the capitalism they wish to subvert/overthrow.  You don't have to be a Marxist to see the w/c as the agent for change.  Anarcho-communists also recognise this.  Trouble is most @ are either lifestylists or - as we say here in Hackney - crusty jugglers.  The w/c perception of @'s or socialists or whatever is largely negative.  Their perception of organisations, however, which do not espouse an ideology but do actively reflect, support, organise w/c interests, is largely positive.  If this comes as a surprise to most @'s or Trotskyists confined to their ideological straight-jackets - and happy to be there - it's because they rarely engage in the kind of consistent community politics that allows you find out just what it is us working-classes actually want/think...


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## Louis MacNeice (Dec 2, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> 1. 9th then you bloody pedant!
> 2. Just a minute: he was trying to restrict an interpretation of the term unduly, and I have pointed out why I think that is unfair.
> 3. Yet it still manages splits!



3. do only leninists split? if so what does that make class war, the liberal democrats, the spgb...?

Cheers - Louis Mac


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## Louis MacNeice (Dec 2, 2004)

General Ludd said:
			
		

> But he is also a member of RA, an organisation which does require 'adherence to an ideology', no?



I have asked Joe if he can find the exchange of articles between RA, the Marxist Group and Open Polemic where RA argue consistently and with some force against the notion of an ideological group. Both the Marxist Group and Open Polemic, as good marxist-leninists, were pusihing the line of the neccessity of ideological agreement as a prerequisite for group formation and membership; RA in stark contrast saw this as not just uneccessary but also damaging. And all of this was being argued out some six years ago.

Cheers - Louis Mac


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## Ace (Dec 2, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Or as Raymond Chandler once put it: 'Once you identify with an ideology, you don't own it - it owns you.'



We all pretty much are ideological beings anyway, the important difference is that the "anarchist" has had sufficient courage in her convictions to make a conscious choice.

Chandler himself was a product of "romanticism;" he called his hero "Marlow," after Christopher Marlowe, and personally subscribed to an ethic of urban chivalry.


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## butchersapron (Dec 2, 2004)

Louis MacNeice said:
			
		

> I have asked Joe if he can find the exchange of articles between RA, the Marxist Group and Open Polemic where RA argue consistently and with some force against the notion of an ideological group. Both the Marxist Group and Open Polemic, as good marxist-leninists, were pusihing the line of the neccessity of ideological agreement as a prerequisite for group formation and membership; RA in stark contrast saw this as not just uneccessary but also damaging. And all of this was being argued out some six years ago.
> 
> Cheers - Louis Mac



Here


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## Ace (Dec 2, 2004)

Steve Booth said:
			
		

> Anarchism has a past which we all know about, and a lot of recent historical baggage



I don't think "we" do all know about it. I'm relatively ignorant...  

I suspect I'm in a majority.

Ditto for "recent historical baggage:" I would say on the contrary, a relative lack of "historical baggage" gives anarchism a head start in any future battle of ideas.


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## Louis MacNeice (Dec 2, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Here




Hello Butchers - these weren't the ones I was refering to; although you do get other examples of the break RA was making with its leninist roots. The discussions I was refering to come later from a publication called Prospect. 

Cheers - Louis Mac


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## butchersapron (Dec 2, 2004)

Ah right, PC has copies of those i think.


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## Ace (Dec 2, 2004)

Groucho said:
			
		

> In recent times the emergence of an anti-capitalist current, a huge movement against the economic injustice of neo-liberalism, and against war has openned up real opportunities for an activist libertarian collectivist current to thrive
> 
> Hell, yes!
> 
> ...


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## Ace (Dec 2, 2004)

What is  "The Individual?" What is "Liberty?"

As phenomena they have no essential form whatsoever, they are both ideas specifically related to the social formation of any moment in history.

"Individual" vs "Collective." "Liberty" vs "Restraint."

Groucho, you seem to think these things do have an essential form. That anarchism just simply plucks the construct "The Individual" out of actually existing social relations and makes this form the base of any future societies.

Similarly you think anarchism plucks "Liberty" from now, and uses it to beat capitalism about the head with. So that all our notion of "Liberty" derived from the way we live becomes the model for what we might expect and demand of our shared future.

This is nonsense. 

What is "Liberty" now; the "Liberty" to drive a car at 180 mph, the "Liberty" to drive everyone nuts with my stereo at 2 am? That's how its set up.

Or, you might, in a more sophisticated way argue that "Liberty" is the right to collectively bargain and organise in a way that effective represents a wider 
( class ) interest.

But, as soon as you start arguing these more sophisticated ideas of "Liberty" you immediately lose the Object, the "Society" these new potential forms of "Liberty" takes shape in.

Do you understand the move?

As soon as you posit different ideas of "Liberty" you immediately reconfigure the idea of "Restraint" they are working against. 

So, your argument, that anarchism simply translates the figure of the "bourgeois individualist" into some utopic realm where all his desires are achieved is wrong. As soon as the Liberty-seeking subject  imposes his individual or collective will against a Society of Restraint, that Society of Restraint changes. Transformed, as is the idea of the Liberty she originally sought.


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 2, 2004)

haggy said:
			
		

> adherence to ideology is a straitjacket that makes politicos feel comfortable in adverse political circumstances, ie all the time, but separates them from the class (or nation, whatever) they aspire to influence/represent.
> 
> Re the Community Politics meeting at the bookfair, it may be OK to call your group anarchist to attract likeminded people, but if being badge-wearing anarchists separates you from your 'constituency' - which it necessarily does - then you have to ask whether the label is really just for your benefit.
> 
> I agree with Louis Mac.  Not all anarchists - regrettably - recognise the primacy of class relations in the capitalism they wish to subvert/overthrow.  You don't have to be a Marxist to see the w/c as the agent for change.  Anarcho-communists also recognise this.  Trouble is most @ are either lifestylists or - as we say here in Hackney - crusty jugglers.  The w/c perception of @'s or socialists or whatever is largely negative.  Their perception of organisations, however, which do not espouse an ideology but do actively reflect, support, organise w/c interests, is largely positive.  If this comes as a surprise to most @'s or Trotskyists confined to their ideological straight-jackets - and happy to be there - it's because they rarely engage in the kind of consistent community politics that allows you find out just what it is us working-classes actually want/think...


That might be the case here ( and AF CW and Solfed as well as sundry unaffiliated class struggle anarchists are trying their best to counter it) but does it really apply to anarchism internationally? I think not. Anyway, class struggle anarchism historically has always been the major current within anarchism


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 2, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Well yes there were 'goings-on'. Not in dispute. I am not trying to paint Marx or Engels as saints. Merely that working class control, the unrestricted law of the greatest number lay at the heart of the political philosophy espoused by them.


Were you? I thought you claimed M &E were thoroughgoing democrats,
Anyway read the programmatic details of the Communist Manifesto and then ponder whether these points really gave control to the working class.
Here is what you said in reply to 888-

888:Marx and Engels weren't democrats in method - see the first international.  
Joe: An allegation, that is to put it mildly, contested evidence.


----------



## Ace (Dec 2, 2004)

Sorry, I feel I'm interrupting a private conversation on this thread.

Just one last question before I piss off - related to the thread title 
" Does Anarchism Have a Serious Future?"

If someone here could someone here explain anarchism without recourse to:

a) Acroynoms no one knows. 
b) Obscure fights in the Spain/Russia/France of 80/100 years ago. 
c) The Sectarian Struggles of the post war British Left.
d) Beards.
e) Utopian farms in the Scottish Highlands, presided over by a beaming pilchardman in a bobble hat.
f) Turgid turgid, utterly anachronistic, 'monopoly capitalist,' rhetoric.
g) Explosions of adolescent aggression.

Then yeah. 

Surely anarchism has a future if it can be explained in ordinary terms to normal people - and stays well clear of utopianism.


----------



## General Ludd (Dec 2, 2004)

> If someone here could someone here explain anarchism without recourse to:


Enrager has a brief intro without any of those points, and if you allow a few lines on history then there are tons.


----------



## scawenb (Dec 2, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Anyway read the programmatic details of the Communist Manifesto and then ponder whether these points really gave control to the working class.


The anarchist Murray Bookchin does not seem particularly critical of this section of the CM. 

The Manifesto of the Communist Party made a dramatic leap, unequalled by any contemporary socialistic document. It showed that communism was not merely an ethical desideratum for social justice but a compelling historical necessity, flowing out of the very development of capitalism itself. This leap was reined in by its ten-point minimum program, largely the work of Engels. With its moderate demands, it seems to have been designed for the German workers' movement, which was still allied with the middle classes against the aristocracy. Hence even the most socialistic of the ten demands, the seventh, prudently called for the "extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state" rather than the collectivization of the economy (p. 505). In a long-range perspective, part II of The Manifesto projected the concentration of all productive facilities, including the land, in the "hands of a vast association of the whole nation" (p. 505). Actually, this last phrase, "a vast association of the whole nation," was specific to the English translation; the original German spoke of "associated individuals," a somewhat Proudhonist formulation that would have made the document more acceptable in Germany at the time.

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/comman.html

Many anarchists accused the CM of plagerising anarchist texts.


----------



## scawenb (Dec 2, 2004)

General Ludd said:
			
		

> Enrager has a brief intro without any of those points, and if you allow a few lines on history then there are tons.


I'm afraid it mentions Spain - so it'd be disallowed to.

On reading it  I could see much difference between its definition of Anarchism and Marx's definition of Communism. Except perhaps "we need a revolution. Firstly, of ideas." This is probably the core difference between Marxism and Anarchism that it is just a matter of changing people's ideas and showing them the light.
I also note it ends with "Let's demand the impossible" which perhaps sums up the other difference - a certain utopianism.
These differences relate to the Dictatorship of the Porletariat and whether it is possible to make the leap straight from capitalist society to anarchy or communism.


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 2, 2004)

In reply to Scawenb
Not very likely as anarchism as a movement did not develop till the mid-1860s. Certainly Marx plagiarised- or was inspired by, depending how kind you feel-  many texts. He was particularly influenced by Proudhon,Weitling, the Irish economist Thompson, etc.


----------



## belboid (Dec 2, 2004)

Louis MacNeice said:
			
		

> 3. do only leninists split? if so what does that make class war, the liberal democrats, the spgb...?
> 
> Cheers - Louis Mac


the French Anarchist Federation have underogne a major split according to 'leftist trainspotters'


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 2, 2004)

There has been a split but this was back in July so a bit late but yes there have been splits in anarchist organisations. I remember when there was a split in the Anarchist Workers Association here in the 70s - excluded group set up the Provisional (ha!) AWA which then became the Anarchist Communist Association


----------



## gawkrodger (Dec 2, 2004)

and wasn't what i would call that major


----------



## belboid (Dec 2, 2004)

aah, well the  post over there was from an LCR member, so I can see that they may want to exagerate it a little.  And that there a little behind the times too.


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 2, 2004)

And  it lacked the acrimony of many Leninist splits in that cooperation is still possible between the two groupings


----------



## belboid (Dec 2, 2004)

that report in full (actually there is another one as well, says it was about feminism):

At the time of the last annual congress of the F.A some sections
decided to leave FA in order to constitute itself in autonomous
collective.
The collectives of Lyon, Saint-Brieuc, Lille, Bordeaux and one of
the two groups of Rennes thus made scission with the F.A.

They are groups composed almost entirely of libertarian Communists
who chose to leave the federation.

would that be about right?


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 2, 2004)

yes


----------



## kropotkin (Dec 2, 2004)

Yeah, I was talking to the FA international secretary about thsi on Saturday. It was over some of the results of the Patriarchy Commission that was set up within the FA to work on and around issues of patriarchy. I didn't really understand what the split was about, but it did result in a couple of hundred members leaving (according to her).


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 2, 2004)

I thought it was about 70 all told


----------



## gawkrodger (Dec 2, 2004)

yeh, i thought it was 50-70leaving and hundreds remaining?


----------



## belboid (Dec 2, 2004)

LCR bod says 400 pre-split.

(and i take your point about the maintenace of fraternal relations - almost impossible that happening within the trot left)


----------



## sihhi (Dec 2, 2004)

So what exactly was the disagreement about feminism about?


----------



## gawkrodger (Dec 2, 2004)

cross-class alliances???


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 2, 2004)

Yes that was my understanding- those leaving were deemed to be advocating cross-class alliances in the fight against patriarchy. Getting a bit off topic now though.


----------



## Machen (Dec 2, 2004)

haggy said:
			
		

> adherence to ideology is a straitjacket that makes politicos feel comfortable in adverse political circumstances, ie all the time, but separates them from the class (or nation, whatever) they aspire to influence/represent.
> 
> Re the Community Politics meeting at the bookfair, it may be OK to call your group anarchist to attract likeminded people, but if being badge-wearing anarchists separates you from your 'constituency' - which it necessarily does - then you have to ask whether the label is really just for your benefit.
> 
> I agree with Louis Mac.  Not all anarchists - regrettably - recognise the primacy of class relations in the capitalism they wish to subvert/overthrow.  You don't have to be a Marxist to see the w/c as the agent for change.  Anarcho-communists also recognise this.  Trouble is most @ are either lifestylists or - as we say here in Hackney - crusty jugglers.  The w/c perception of @'s or socialists or whatever is largely negative.  Their perception of organisations, however, which do not espouse an ideology but do actively reflect, support, organise w/c interests, is largely positive.  If this comes as a surprise to most @'s or Trotskyists confined to their ideological straight-jackets - and happy to be there - it's because they rarely engage in the kind of consistent community politics that allows you find out just what it is us working-classes actually want/think...



Hoorah! Three cheers for the Haggmeister!


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 2, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Were you? I thought you claimed M &E were thoroughgoing democrats,
> Anyway read the programmatic details of the Communist Manifesto and then ponder whether these points really gave control to the working class.
> Here is what you said in reply to 888-
> 
> ...



There has always been a high number of ideologically motivated polemics published for one purpose; to prove M&E anti-democratic. 

From the right the intention was to show that from the outset, communism or any working class attempt to assert itself politically, is thoroughly unnatural and must therefore in end some form of dictatorial disaster or other. 

Much of the propaganda output from the anarchist camp was stimulated by the likes of Bakunin as a result of his struggles with M&E within the International.  

A third feed comes from the Stalinist/Trotskyist Left desperate to find justifcation in the writings of M&E for their hi-jacking of the cause.  


Ps I looked at the letter from Weitling. How that can be presented as evidence of anything much is beyond me. So Marx shouted, did he, big deal.


----------



## Sacred Spirit (Dec 2, 2004)

Ace said:
			
		

> Sorry, I feel I'm interrupting a private conversation on this thread.
> " Does Anarchism Have a Serious Future?"
> 
> If someone here could someone here explain anarchism without recourse to:
> ...



Perfect description of the Alexander Berkman school of thought, 1st publication in Britain 1942 of ABC of anarchism, , they've been around for some time now the berks and idiots.

Few pages into the second part "the Nazarene, the man of peace" tells which direction to follow, some call themselves krystian anarchist's now, shade of Bakunine will haunt them forever.

Been known to work well with the right wing utopians in the states.
Berkman also states that all he put forwards could be implemented it the states at the time, first published 1929.


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## charlie mowbray (Dec 2, 2004)

Leaving aside the loonie, I think it is you that is bound by ideology., if by ideology  you use one of the two meanings, that is a doctrine that is hidebound and narrow in outlook. I am perfectly prepared to accept a lot of Marx's economic analysis and some of his approach. You seem unable to take any criticism of his and Engels manouevrings and general unpleasant and authoritarian behaviour. Weitling was pushed out of the League and were many others in a series of manouevres and Marx wrote that that was his attention. I'll get you the quote if you want. How is communism discredited by criticising Marx? I regard myself as a communist
If you look at Marxism as a whole it was predominantly social democratic with mass parties in Germany and Austria and smaller formations in France, etc. A minority was Leninist  i.e. influenced by Jacobinism/Blanquism) an even smaller minority upheld workers autonomy (council communism)


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## Sacred Spirit (Dec 2, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Leaving aside the loonie, I think it is you that is bound by ideology.,
> if by ideology  you use one of the two meanings, that is a doctrine that is hidebound and narrow in outlook.--
> How is communism discredited by criticising Marx? I regard myself as a communist



The first to accuse...........shame, i'll tell picky.

Hi Charlie,
   so who were the last people to live as communist's and who before them ? or is it just ideology you imbibe.

Not an idea but a study of all previous communist societies, you know, economics, science, family structures, democratic means etc, as a guide to understanding a new society, for the future.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 2, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Leaving aside the loonie, I think it is you that is bound by ideology., if by ideology  you use one of the two meanings, that is a doctrine that is hidebound and narrow in outlook. I am perfectly prepared to accept a lot of Marx's economic analysis and some of his approach. You seem unable to take any criticism of his and Engels manouevrings and general unpleasant and authoritarian behaviour.



You in turn have not presented any evidence - just a few tired assertions made by political opponents. Also I notice you conflate 'unpleasant with authoritarian' as if swearing of rudeness by itself somehow signified a dictatorial mindset! 

Being democratic dosen't mean agreeing with everyone all the time, or nodding respectfully at every view no matter how cretinious, as some on here seem to believe. It is rather about setting up or adhering to democratic institutions and fighting your corner (as hard as you like) within that framework. 

On the wider question given that the political opposition are in arguably a stronger position that they were in 1848 it's past time for our side to pull its finger out. 

Given the scale of the ambition the enemy displays that some home made speed bumps can be sited as proof of a lurking counter offensive speaks volumes.


----------



## october_lost (Dec 2, 2004)

Ace said:
			
		

> Sorry, I feel I'm interrupting a private conversation on this thread.
> 
> Just one last question before I piss off - related to the thread title
> " Does Anarchism Have a Serious Future?"
> ...



Anarchism is a political system based on mutual aid and co-operation, which rejects all forms of government and economic repression...

does that help?


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 2, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> How is communism discredited by criticising Marx? I regard myself as a communist



I just noticed this. I didn't say communism was discredited by criticising Marx.

The playing up of false allegations of him being anti-democratic were originally designed to discredit him _personally _ within the workers movement. Ever since the same old rubbish has been widely circulated by historians of a right-wing hue not to discredit Marx as such, but used more as the launch pad for the notion that democratic working class control must automatically lead to some perverse, obscene, gangster ridden society. 'Look at the author of the Communist Manifesto, if he was like this etc...' 

Anarchists and Trots still draw on the original and subsequent slanders to justify what they are fighting for  - and - against respectively. Needless to say none of it advances the cause one whit.


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 2, 2004)

october_lost said:
			
		

> Anarchism is a political system based on mutual aid and co-operation, which rejects all forms of government and economic repression...


...leading to what?


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## october_lost (Dec 2, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> ...leading to what?


to a society based on mutual aid and co-operation, minus economic repression and government....do you want the coloring book version?


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## catch (Dec 2, 2004)

> used more as the launch pad for the notion that democratic working class control must automatically lead to some perverse, obscene, gangster ridden society. 'Look at the author of the Communist Manifesto, if he was like this etc...'
> 
> Anarchists and Trots still draw on the original and subsequent slanders to justify what they are fighting for - and - against respectively. Needless to say none of it advances the cause one whit.



Direct democratic control by the working class and communist distribution are for me the central aspects of any future society I'd like to see. That I agree with Marx on some things and not on others doesn't mean I do so because I don't want democracy and communism.

However, I think anything other than direct democracy shouldn't rightly be called democracy, and therefore reject representative democracy, national referendums and other forms of centralised decision making.





> Being democratic dosen't mean agreeing with everyone all the time, or nodding respectfully at every view no matter how cretinious, as some on here seem to believe. It is rather about setting up or adhering to democratic institutions and fighting your corner (as hard as you like) within that framework.



That's consensus, not democracy. Really dislike consensus decision making. Setting up democratic institutions I'm all for, adhering to current ones, since in my view they're anti-democratic, no.


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 2, 2004)

october_lost said:
			
		

> to a society based on mutual aid and co-operation, minus economic repression and government



How will what is defined 'as mutual aid and co-operation' be decided?


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## catch (Dec 2, 2004)

Local, directly democratic, federated assemblies, or some variation thereof.


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## october_lost (Dec 2, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> How will what is defined 'as mutual aid and co-operation' be decided?


by ordinary people, it would be wrong to talk of blueprints as such, but different industries maybe run on different principles, that ultimately is for them to decide which strand of self-management they want....all I can do is influence the community/workplace I belong to...


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 3, 2004)

catch said:
			
		

> Local, directly democratic, federated assemblies, or some variation thereof.



define 'direct democracy'.


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## charlie mowbray (Dec 3, 2004)

Marx " Without parties no development, without division no progress". Later on in a letter to Bebel in 1873 Engels wrote:" old Hegel has already said it; a party proves itself a victorious party by the fact that it splits and can stand the split. The movement of the proletariat necessarily passes through stages of development; at every stage one section of the people lags behind and does not join in the further advance; and this alone explains why it is that actually the "solidarity of the proletariat" is everywhere realised in different party groupings which carry on life and death feuds with one another".
The mythology of Marxism implies that the theory of communism was perfected by M & E without really taking into consideration all that had gone before and that communism, organised more or less into a loose movement, was created by artisans and workers as a result of their practical experiences in the French Revolution and the events of the 1830s, as well as their continuing theoretical labours. M & E entered into an already existing movement. Their struggle againsst Weitling was about theoretical and practical leadership of this movement. Both the Russian Annenkov and Weitling (eyewitnesses) testify that at a meeting in Brussels in 1846 Marx demanded a thorough cleansing of the ranks of the communists. weitling testifies that ( despite an often asserted claim that he was opposed to propaganda) that the Marx camp itself opposed "oral propaganda, no provision for secret propaganda, in general the word propaganda not to be used in the future". Marx firmly stated that the realisation of communism in the near future was out of the question and that first the bourgeoisie must be at the helm.
Weitling's exclusion was quickly followed by the exclusion of Weitlingites in France and Germany and by that of the group around Karl Gruen. Engels carried out this purging of the ranks in Paris in corresponsdence with M saying that he had "put it over" with some communists and "bamboozled" others.
During the first months of 1848 Marx was an enthusiastic supporter of the section of the bourgeoisie that was struggling for democratic rights. He clashed with Andreas Gottschalk and his Workers ASociety in Cologne( He and the people around him were members of the Communist League) M accused this group of isolating itself from the struggle. In fact the agitation of Gottschalk and co had increased the Workers Society to 5,000 members. Finding himself in a minority M first of all dissolved the Central Committee, despite the Cologne group being a section of the Communist League. Her set up a rival organisation, the Democratic Association and launched an electoral campaign for the Frankfurt Parliament,, supporting a dubious left candidate (Wespec' anyone?)
 Previously describing themselves as communists, Marx and his associates now described themselves in the daily paper Neue Rheinische Zeitung- organ of democracy they had now set up as "we other democrats". They advocated a united front between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, as long as the former remained on the "revolutionary road" in other words as long as they struggled for a democratic society. There was not an iota of antagonism between the democracy of the bourgeoisie and the communism of the proletariat, and nothing about the immediate economic problems of the workers as the paper of the Workers Society was quick to point out. During all of this, the Communist League in Germany was dropped and allowed to fizzle out.
As Marx said in his paoper "The revolution must be first of all a revolution for the bourgeoisie. The revolution of the proletariat is solely possible after capitalist economy has created the conditions". Gottschalk replied " Must we, after finally escaping the hell of the Middle Age, throw ourselves voluntarily into the purgatory of a decrepit capitalist power".
The criticisms of Gootschalk hit home among German workers. The German bourgeoisie signally failed in its endeavours to bring about a revolution for democracy and M was obliged to break with the bourgeois democrats in April 1849 and resurrect the Communist League. Not only had M & E attempted to hitch working class communism to the democratic desires of the bourgeoisie but he had denounced the fundamental principles of international solidarity between peoples. Positing the theory of "historic nations" Germany, Poland, Hungary and Italy and lesser nations doomed to be Germanised or disappear altogether, they argued that strong nation states had to be created in order to quicken the fall of absolutism. In a totally inaccurate prediction, M foresaw the extinction of the Czechs, Slovaks and South Slavs. Chillingly, he saw these nations as backward and obsolete. He warned in a veiled attack on the panSlavist Bakunin that " We shall fight an 'implacable life and death struggle' with Slavdom, which has betrayed the revolution; a war of annihilation and ruthless terrorism, not in the interests of Germany but in the interests of the revolution!" that " we can only secure the revolution against these Slav peoples by the most decisive acts of terrorism". In a profoudly racist language against the Slavs he bellyaches that no gratitude was shown "for the pains the Germans have taken to civilise the obstinate Czechs ansd Slovenes, and to introduce among them trade, industry, a tolerable agriculture and education!" Even more chilling was E's comment that "the next world war will not only cause reactionary classes and dynasties to disappear from the face of the earth, but also entire reactionary peoples. And that too is an advance".


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## In Bloom (Dec 3, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> define 'direct democracy'.


Its generally taken to mean decisions taken by popular vote at regular meetings of members of the community, with delegates elcted to implement (not make) decisions.


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## charlie mowbray (Dec 3, 2004)

Soon Marx took a turn away from revolutionary activity, stating that no revolution was possible for the present because of of the economic recovery. Further, a coming revolution did not just depend on another trade crisis, which he had seen as the cause of the 1848 Revolutions, but a massive development of the productive forces. Leading workers in the Communist League like Schapper, Fraenkel, Lehmann and willich ( many of whom had been the real founders of the League) fell out with him over this. In behaviour that was echoed in Marx;'s later tactics in the First International, the Central Committee was transferred to Cologne. As Schapper noted" Just as the proletariat cut itself off from the Montagne and the press in France, so here the people who speak for the party on matters of principle are cutting themselves off from those who organise within the proletariat". After this M& E wrote to their Blanquist allies saying that as far as they were concerned the World Society set up between them and the revolutionary wing of Chartism no longer existed.   The Cologne section and indeed the whole German section of the League controlled by the M & E minoritywas closed down by police action , as was the German majority section in 1851. During the trial of the Willich-Schapper group in Germany, M & E made unfounded accusations that they had shopped the rival M & E faction to the police. These tactics of calumny were later used by them and their associates against Bakunin. 
Shortly after in 1852 dissolved his section of the League and began to drop the use of the word communist, and to start using the term social democrat to describe his politics.
M & E had done considerable damage to important sections of the nascent communist movement with their tactic of allying the cause of the working class with that of the bourgeoisie. They had further strengthened the pro-Statist currents within this loose communist movement and had prepared the way for the mass social-democratic parties to come. Now they had the luxury of retreating into theoretical work work until 1864, whilst communist workers endeavoured to carry on their organisational work within the working class.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 3, 2004)

I can't actually see what any of this has to dow with accusation made by you that Marx was anti-democratic. Vague whitterings, 'eye-witnesses' criticisms by bitter political opponents as to this or that tactic adopted, on this or that issues do not a smoking gun make. 
Also this subjective approach side-steps the broader public theoritical conclusions, which is where the case for or against, stands or falls. 




			
				charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Soon Marx took a turn away from revolutionary activity, stating that no revolution was possible for the present because of of the economic recovery. Further, a coming revolution did not just depend on another trade crisis, which he had seen as the cause of the 1848 Revolutions, but a massive development of the productive forces. Leading workers in the Communist League like Schapper, Fraenkel, Lehmann and willich ( many of whom had been the real founders of the League) fell out with him over this. In behaviour that was echoed in Marx;'s later tactics in the First International, the Central Committee was transferred to Cologne. As Schapper noted" Just as the proletariat cut itself off from the Montagne and the press in France, so here the people who speak for the party on matters of principle are cutting themselves off from those who organise within the proletariat". After this M& E wrote to their Blanquist allies saying that as far as they were concerned the World Society set up between them and the revolutionary wing of Chartism no longer existed.   The Cologne section and indeed the whole German section of the League controlled by the M & E minoritywas closed down by police action , as was the German majority section in 1851. During the trial of the Willich-Schapper group in Germany, M & E made unfounded accusations that they had shopped the rival M & E faction to the police. These tactics of calumny were later used by them and their associates against Bakunin.
> Shortly after in 1852 dissolved his section of the League and began to drop the use of the word communist, and to start using the term social democrat to describe his politics.
> M & E had done considerable damage to important sections of the nascent communist movement with their tactic of allying the cause of the working class with that of the bourgeoisie. They had further strengthened the pro-Statist currents within this loose communist movement and had prepared the way for the mass social-democratic parties to come. Now they had the luxury of retreating into theoretical work work until 1864, whilst communist workers endeavoured to carry on their organisational work within the working class.


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 3, 2004)

In Bloom said:
			
		

> Its generally taken to mean decisions taken by popular vote at regular meetings of members of the community, with delegates elcted to implement (not make) decisions.



And would this system be applied to running the country?


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## Ray (Dec 3, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> And would this system be applied to running the country?



Are you asking all this because you honestly don't know the standard anarchist answers (in which case, go read the FAQ), or are you waiting for the point where you get to shout "IDEOLOGY!"? (in which case, do us a favour and jump to the chase)


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## kropotkin (Dec 3, 2004)

What's a country, Joe?


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## butchersapron (Dec 3, 2004)

..and where's your fish?


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## redsquirrel (Dec 3, 2004)

That's terrible.


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## butchersapron (Dec 3, 2004)

I know 

Leaving the room now...


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## charlie mowbray (Dec 3, 2004)

"I can't actually see what any of this has to dow with accusation made by you that Marx was anti-democratic. Vague whitterings, 'eye-witnesses' criticisms by bitter political opponents as to this or that tactic adopted, on this or that issues do not a smoking gun make. 
Also this subjective approach side-steps the broader public theoritical conclusions, which is where the case for or against, stands or falls. "
You are , or from where I stand, trapped by ideology. The usual denial, the "subjective" crapola . So how do you explain all the expulsions and denunciations? Strange really when Red Action have long espoused the view that intellectuals captured the workers movement- correct me if I'm wrong?


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## General Ludd (Dec 3, 2004)

> You are , or from where I stand, trapped by ideology. The usual denial, the "subjective" crapola . So how do you explain all the expulsions and denunciations?


They're as bad as liberals now, everyone has an ideology apart from them.


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## catch (Dec 3, 2004)

In Bloom's definition of direct democracy works fine for me. And I second the inclusion of popular vote into that definition.

As to countries, federation between assemblies could extend across geographical and regional cultural/language boundaries (which would be as close as you'd get to a country in an international post-revolutionary situation, not as if the British Isles are going to move twenty miles southwest and turn into a peninsula, there'd still be physical boundaries), into an international/intercontinental federation, not just within currently existing nation states, although the number of decisions required to be made at an international level I think would be about none, or not very many.


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 3, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> Are you asking all this because you honestly don't know the standard anarchist answers (in which case, go read the FAQ), or are you waiting for the point where you get to shout "IDEOLOGY!"? (in which case, do us a favour and jump to the chase)



Has anyone denied that anarchism is an ideology? I'm not aware of it.


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## butchersapron (Dec 3, 2004)

That depends on what you mean by ideology.

It's a bit rich, not to mention galling, for you to stand behind and defend Marx 100% whilst lamabasting others for dogmatism. You are wrong on Marx and Engels - there is no longer any doubt about their undemocratic, autocratic, bureaucratic personal, and organisational behavior - in the same way that there is none about Bakunin - they both acted liked arses at diffrent periods. 

I've given you the benefit of the doubt thus far, but i'm starting to think i may have been wrong in doing so. 

You might want to review this thread and take a guess at just where your logic is leading you.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 3, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> "I can't actually see what any of this has to dow with accusation made by you that Marx was anti-democratic. Vague whitterings, 'eye-witnesses' criticisms by bitter political opponents as to this or that tactic adopted, on this or that issues do not a smoking gun make.
> Also this subjective approach side-steps the broader public theoritical conclusions, which is where the case for or against, stands or falls. "
> You are , or from where I stand, trapped by ideology. The usual denial, the "subjective" crapola . So how do you explain all the expulsions and denunciations? Strange really when Red Action have long espoused the view that intellectuals captured the workers movement- correct me if I'm wrong?



For reasons I explained previously 'Marx the authoritarian' is a cottage industry.  An examanation of an controversial conclusion often finds that the research is somewhat less than say, forensic. It is written, produced and _quoted _ by partisans and is as such, largely meaningless. 

And expulsion here, a denunciation there, what of it? Expulsions/resignations happen in every walk of life don't they? And afterall I'm sure your no stranger to a bit of 'denouncing' yourself? 

Meanwhile odd isn't it that for the all the bluff and bluster there has not been a _single _ public anti-democratic utterance attributed to Marx that anyone can get their teeth into?

*As for RA the issue was not actually intellectuals per se, but the exclusive orientation of the so-called revolutionary left to universities etc (after '68) resulting in recruitmnent to said organisations in question being entirely dominated by middle class dillettantes. Which was not, RA pointed out, a natural or healthy state of affairs.


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## Louis MacNeice (Dec 3, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> "I can't actually see what any of this has to dow with accusation made by you that Marx was anti-democratic. Vague whitterings, 'eye-witnesses' criticisms by bitter political opponents as to this or that tactic adopted, on this or that issues do not a smoking gun make.
> Also this subjective approach side-steps the broader public theoritical conclusions, which is where the case for or against, stands or falls. "
> You are , or from where I stand, trapped by ideology. The usual denial, the "subjective" crapola . So how do you explain all the expulsions and denunciations? Strange really when Red Action have long espoused the view that intellectuals captured the workers movement- correct me if I'm wrong?



Hello Charlie - What expulsions and denunciations would they be? You might want to look at Haggy's post (an ex-Hackney IWCAer) to see the lack of denunciation and recrimination between Hackney Independent and the IWCA.

Cheers - Louis Mac


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## kropotkin (Dec 3, 2004)

charlie's post doesn't imply that though


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## butchersapron (Dec 3, 2004)

"Meanwhile odd isn't it that for the all the bluff and bluster there has not been a single public anti-democratic utterance attributed to Marx that anyone can get their teeth into?"

You know the USSR Joe? Formally and legally socialist - you know the difference between form and content Joe.  Get your steel teeth into that.

Very dissapointing this debate actually. You've gone nowhere.


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## Louis MacNeice (Dec 3, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> charlie's post doesn't imply that though



Charlie's post doesn't imply what?

Cheers - Louis Mac


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## kropotkin (Dec 3, 2004)

In his head though, it has been a Long March


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## kropotkin (Dec 3, 2004)

Louis MacNeice said:
			
		

> Charlie's post doesn't imply what?
> 
> Cheers - Louis Mac


 I understood you post to impley that Charlie had alluded to denunctiations and expulsions in Hackney IWCA. If I am wrong then apologies.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 3, 2004)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> I understood you post to impley that Charlie had alluded to denunctiations and expulsions in Hackney IWCA. If I am wrong then apologies.



I tought he was talking about the IWCA in general and I was pointing to the amicable post divorce relationship which seemed to be displayed on U75.

No apology needed (unlike some I could mention  ) - Louis Mac


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## kropotkin (Dec 3, 2004)

I don't think on reading his post that he was talking about the IWCA split.


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## Pickman's model (Dec 3, 2004)

it helps to read the post!


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 3, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> That depends on what you mean by ideology.
> 
> It's a bit rich, not to mention galling, for you to stand behind and defend Marx 100% whilst lamabasting others for dogmatism. You are wrong on Marx and Engels - there is no longer any doubt about their undemocratic, autocratic, bureaucratic personal, and organisational behavior - in the same way that there is none about Bakunin - they both acted liked arses at diffrent periods.
> 
> ...



As for the comment 'there is no longer any doubt' about Marx etc being anti-democratic not a single shred of 'evidence' has been produced. This is mostly because the majority have only ever 'read' Marx through Trotskyist eyes or Anarchist eyes which is to say through the eyes of what are in effect rival tendencies and are simply happy (like black cab drivers) in their bigotry. In any case the thread is not about Marx at all democratic or otherwise.


Ulimately the question is not whether I should be 'given the benefit of the doubt' but whether anarchism should? I outlined why I thought it had failed up to now and would in all probability continue to fail. By failure I mean not being in position physically or intellectually to ever make a significant contribution to the fight against the enemy agenda. What is worse is not seeing the need to even seriously try.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 3, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> "Meanwhile odd isn't it that for the all the bluff and bluster there has not been a single public anti-democratic utterance attributed to Marx that anyone can get their teeth into?"
> 
> You know the USSR Joe? Formally and legally socialist - you know the difference between form and content Joe.  Get your steel teeth into that.
> 
> Very dissapointing this debate actually. You've gone nowhere.



What the fuck had the USSR to do with Marx!?


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 3, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> As for the comment 'there is no longer any doubt' about Marx etc being anti-democratic not a single shred of 'evidence' has been produced. This is mostly because the majority have only ever 'read' Marx through Trotskyist eyes or Anarchist eyes which is to say through the eyes of what are in effect rival tendencies and are simply happy (like black cab drivers) in their bigotry. In any case the thread is not about Marx at all democratic or otherwise.



Joe, you're factually wrong on this - this is no longer an issue. The most sympathetic of biographers or chronicolers no longer seek to deny this. You are out of date and need to read some new work. 




> Ulimately the question is not whether I should be 'given the benefit of the doubt' but whether anarchism should? I outlined why I thought it had failed up to now and would in all probability continue to fail. By failure I mean not being in position physically or intellectually to ever make a significant contribution to the fight against the enemy agenda. What is worse is not seeing the need to even seriously try.



No, on this thread, one of the questions _most certainly_ is if you  hould be 'given the benefit of the doubt' - i had taken you as a comrade who had battled through leninism to reach a pont where w/c self activity (as a short hand, and as opposed to partyist leads) was now now placed at the centre of your approach. 

Now i think that you have reached that conclusion but predicated it on a sectarian and ideological rejection of those who don't agree with you. You're doing what you argue against others doing. You're ideologising your appraoch - luckily no other bugger i've met from the IWCA takes this approach.


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## butchersapron (Dec 3, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> What the fuck had the USSR to do with Marx!?


 Don't be stupid - i was putting forward the idea that form and content dont always conicide - and that to go with form is stupid. That's a marx a-b-c btw.

If you're happy to play dumb, i'm happy to put you right.


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## kropotkin (Dec 3, 2004)

oooh, you partisan, you.


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 3, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Joe, you're factually wrong on this - this is no longer an issue. The most sympathetic of biographers or chronicolers no longer seek to deny this. You are out of date and need to read some new work.
> 
> We'el just take your word for it then shall we?
> 
> ...



So now if you argue against ideology (any ideology) is it becuase your are yourself and 'idelogist'! Not only that but secterian to boot! Talked about fucked up.


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## Pickman's model (Dec 3, 2004)




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## butchersapron (Dec 3, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> So now if you argue against ideology (any ideology) is it becuase your are yourself and 'idelogist'! Not only that but secterian to boot! Talked about fucked up.



Absolutley not - but if you proclaim fidelity to the writings of one man now and forever, and argue that he never did no wrong, then yes, _that_ is dogmatic and ideological - in the terms that Marx himself first described the concept.

So, go get that beam out of your eye brother - it's getting in teh way of serious  business.

The only other option is that you, by dint of being who you are, are non-sectarian, and non-ideological in any way.


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## Pickman's model (Dec 3, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> So, go get that beam out of your eye brother


thus mote it be


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## autojay (Dec 4, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> anarchism is as old as the hills but has never made a difference anywhere



Have you not heard of the Spanish Civil War, then? Or the Russian Revolution? or the Spartacist revolution in Germany 1918-9? All of which anarchists and anarchism played a key part


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 4, 2004)

autojay said:
			
		

> Have you not heard of the Spanish Civil War, then? Or the Russian Revolution? or the Spartacist revolution in Germany 1918-9? All of which anarchists and anarchism played a key part


 
Of course I heard of them. Remind me how you did again?


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## In Bloom (Dec 4, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Of course I heard of them. Remind me how you did again?


About as well as trots like y'r good self.


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 4, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Absolutley not - but if you proclaim fidelity to the writings of one man now and forever, and argue that he never did no wrong, then yes, _that_ is dogmatic and ideological - in the terms that Marx himself first described the concept.
> 
> So, go get that beam out of your eye brother - it's getting in teh way of serious  business.
> 
> The only other option is that you, by dint of being who you are, are non-sectarian, and non-ideological in any way.



In recent weeks we've had the theft of a mobile phone at the ESF, the great graffitti scandal at the book fair and the rumour of an anarchist inspired speed hump somewhere in the country. If that is the 'serious business' you were referring to don't let me get in you way.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 4, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> In recent weeks we've had the theft of a mobile phone at the ESF, the great graffitti scandal at the book fair and the rumour of an anarchist inspired speed hump somewhere in the country. If that is the 'serious business' you were referring to don't let me get in you way.


and what have you been up to?


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 4, 2004)

In Bloom said:
			
		

> About as well as trots like y'r good self.



I'm working on the assumtion your semi-literate so here goes: Trostkyism wasn't invented until the 1930's - up until 1928 or so him and Uncle Joe were chums. As for the Spartacist League Rosa Luxembourg was a marxist (old school).


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 4, 2004)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> and what have you been up to?



You boys are in fine form this evening.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 4, 2004)

so, you've either been up to something so nefarious you don't want to discuss it - which is fair enough - or very little.


----------



## In Bloom (Dec 4, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> I'm working on the assumtion [sic] your [sic] semi-literate [oh the irony] so here goes: Trostkyism [sic] wasn't invented until the 1930's - up until 1928 or so him and Uncle Joe were chums. As for the Spartacist League Rosa Luxembourg was a marxist [sic] (old school).


Fine, Leninist/Marxist/whatever-obscure-semi-religious-brand-of-authoritarian-communism-you-subscribe-to.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 4, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> In recent weeks we've had the theft of a mobile phone at the ESF, the great graffitti scandal at the book fair and the rumour of an anarchist inspired speed hump somewhere in the country. If that is the 'serious business' you were referring to don't let me get in you way.


 Reply to the points or don't reply at all Joe.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 4, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Reply to the points or don't reply at all Joe.


i think he's done a webel.


----------



## Sacred Spirit (Dec 5, 2004)

Does anarchism have a serious future asked  one of Alexander the greats anarchist soldiers, especially now that his armies lay dead and are only usefull for fertilising the crops.

and so alex wandered off only to die on the ancient site of Babylon, the last remaining few soldier paid their respect to their God as they buried him.

Though the anarchists had been the largest group in his armies and his most devoted worshipers, there were some who on hearing of the mass slaughter of his forces decided to leave and settle where they were, rather than return home.
The descendants of the ones who settled in Afghanistan still remember the old God and are still amused as to how many anarchist are still awaiting his return, bush and blair among them,  -- look NO government -- Iraq and Afghanistan.

Does anyone think the penny will ever drop.


----------



## 888 (Dec 5, 2004)

The return of the loon...


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 5, 2004)

Sacred Spirit said:
			
		

> Does anarchism have a serious future asked  one of Alexander the greats anarchist soldiers, especially now that his armies lay dead and are only usefull for fertilising the crops.
> 
> and so alex wandered off only to die on the ancient site of Babylon, the last remaining few soldier paid their respect to their God as they buried him.
> 
> ...


 ThE mAN WHO WOULD BE KING WAS FILM

up tHe punX!!!


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 6, 2004)

Louis MacNeice said:
			
		

> Hello Charlie - What expulsions and denunciations would they be? You might want to look at Haggy's post (an ex-Hackney IWCAer) to see the lack of denunciation and recrimination between Hackney Independent and the IWCA.
> 
> Cheers - Louis Mac


Louis, please read my post a bit more closely- I'm referring to splits, denunciations etc within the Communist League


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 6, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> Louis, please read my post a bit more closely- I'm referring to splits, denunciations etc within the Communist League



Sorry Charlie I'd linked it with your earlier post alluding to an organisation whose initials began with an I ...  

Only very slightly paranoid - Louis Mac


----------



## october_lost (Dec 6, 2004)

Joe Riley said:
			
		

> Ulimately the question is not whether I should be 'given the benefit of the doubt' but whether anarchism should? I outlined why I thought it had failed up to now and would in all probability continue to fail. By failure I mean not being in position physically or intellectually to ever make a significant contribution to the fight against the enemy agenda. What is worse is not seeing the need to even seriously try.


Is this simply an implication of the UK wide scene? Because outside of that I wouldnt agree with your analysis. You can only articulate a new agenda when there is enough opposition and action _against_ something, in which case anarchism as appeared to last and would appear to have a future, but like much of the left in this country its barely on the radar...


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> i think he's done a webel.



The fact is that for the most part the anarchists on here were decidly uncomfortable discussing whether or not anarchism has a serious (which is to say a politically influential future) and so sought to justify the failure to engage by a) re-casting the question on familiar leninst - anarchist lines, finger-pointing at Marx or/and finger-pointing (e.g personalising the argument) at the one who posed the question in the first place. 

All of this was I suppose predictable. But let's not pretend it was me that bottled out.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> The fact is that for the most part the anarchists on here were decidly uncomfortable discussing whether or not anarchism has a serious (which is to say a politically influential future) and so sought to justify the failure to engage by a) re-casting the question on familiar leninst - anarchist lines, finger-pointing at Marx or/and finger-pointing (e.g personalising the argument) at the one who posed the question in the first place.
> 
> All of this was I suppose predictable. But let's not pretend it was me that bottled out.


Like your question wasn't hugely personalised in the first place.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

catch said:
			
		

> However, I think anything other than direct democracy shouldn't rightly be called democracy, and therefore reject representative democracy, national referendums and other forms of centralised decision making.
> QUOTE]
> 
> I just thought I would come back on this as it seems to be at the heart of the debate in that it is assumed to be uniquely anarchist.
> ...


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

october_lost said:
			
		

> Is this simply an implication of the UK wide scene? Because outside of that I wouldnt agree with your analysis. You can only articulate a new agenda when there is enough opposition and action _against_ something, in which case anarchism as appeared to last and would appear to have a future, but like much of the left in this country its barely on the radar...



You seem to be saying that anarchism as an ideology can only kick in once the process of opposition has been set in train by someone else. I would not disagree. But this inability to _initiate _ rather renders the whole point of the identfying with an anarchism as a idelogy pointless dosen't it?


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> catch said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, precisely as was argued by anarchists earlier on in _this very thread_. No one here has claimed those organisational forms are exclusive to anarchists - we've argued the exact opposite. _You're_ the only one making that claim on behalf of anarchists.

And if you want to talk about Marx and the commune you'll have to admit (as he himself did) that the forms of self-organisation that it threw up directly challenged and lead to him revising many of his earlier views - views which anarchists had already pointed out to him needed to be changed. Which at the very least should give you pause for thought if you wish to continue with the incredibely crude marx good, anarchists bad approach that you've chosen to employ on this thread.


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> The fact is that for the most part the anarchists on here were decidly uncomfortable discussing whether or not anarchism has a serious (which is to say a politically influential future) and so sought to justify the failure to engage by a) re-casting the question on familiar leninst - anarchist lines, finger-pointing at Marx or/and finger-pointing (e.g personalising the argument) at the one who posed the question in the first place.
> 
> All of this was I suppose predictable. But let's not pretend it was me that bottled out.


I certainly was not uncomfortable. All my observations, especially on the international rebirth of revolutuionary anarchism, make me feel quietly confident. You talk about personalisation. It was you who mentioned that Marx was a democrat. I argued against that, and as far as I am aware did not personalise it. Your original question was crass, with a failure to recognise the importance of anarchism around the world within social revolutions, either deliberate or not, I don't know.


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> The fact is that for the most part the anarchists on here were decidly uncomfortable discussing whether or not anarchism has a serious (which is to say a politically influential future) and so sought to justify the failure to engage by a) re-casting the question on familiar leninst - anarchist lines, finger-pointing at Marx or/and finger-pointing (e.g personalising the argument) at the one who posed the question in the first place.



Nonsense. All of the anarchists who replied to your post said that anarchism did have a future, and seemed comfortable saying so. If you want to complain about people pointing fingers and arguing on familiar anarchist - leninist lines, don't start a thread with such an obviously slanted, inaccurate and confrontational post   

Your argument doesn't get far past 'Anarchism is hopeless. Marx was great. Anyone who doesn't agree is obviously blinded by ideology' Since you didn't actually suggest any problems with anarchism, and spent most of your time arguing that Marx was a perfect democrat, obviously the thread is going to focus on Marx rather than problems with anarchism. 

But maybe your clear and unaffected vision saw something else


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> You seem to be saying that anarchism as an ideology can only kick in once the process of opposition has been set in train by someone else. I would not disagree. But this inability to _initiate _ rather renders the whole point of the identfying with an anarchism as a idelogy pointless dosen't it?



Oh cop yourself on. Do you honestly think octoberlost is arguing that anarchism is incapable of initiating anything? Do you really believe anarchists are going to accept this characterisation? 

If all ideologies have this failing - apart from the completely unideological Marxism, of course - why doesn't the clear statement of Marxist truth immediately cause a revolution?


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Yes, precisely as was argued by anarchists earlier on in _this very thread_. No one here has claimed those organisational forms are exclusive to anarchists - we've argued the exact opposite. _You're_ the only one making that claim on behalf of anarchists.
> 
> 
> 
> And if you want to talk about Marx and the commune you'll have to admit (as he himself did) that the forms of self-organisation that it threw up directly challenged and lead to him revising many of his earlier views - views which anarchists had already pointed out to him needed to be changed. Which at the very least should give you pause for thought if you wish to continue with the incredibely crude marx good, anarchists bad approach that you've chosen to employ on this thread.



If organisational form in question is not exclusive to anarchism what is indeed exclusive to anarchism?


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> Oh cop yourself on. Do you honestly think octoberlost is arguing that anarchism is incapable of initiating anything? Do you really believe anarchists are going to accept this characterisation?
> 
> If all ideologies have this failing - apart from the completely unideological Marxism, of course - why doesn't the clear statement of Marxist truth immediately cause a revolution?



I asked_ him_ the question. If you don't care to answer it that is no reason why he should be urged not to do so.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> Your argument doesn't get far past 'Anarchism is hopeless. Marx was great. Anyone who doesn't agree is obviously blinded by ideology' Since you didn't actually suggest any problems with anarchism, and spent most of your time arguing that Marx was a perfect democrat, obviously the thread is going to focus on Marx rather than problems with anarchism.
> 
> But maybe your clear and unaffected vision saw something else



This is just flabby revisionism. I _did _ point it a number of serious flaws in contemporary anarchism. I did _not_ spend most of my time arguing Marx was a perfect democrat. In regard to Marx what I said was that I did not regard 'marxism' as an ideology. It was _your_ mob who focused on Marx the authoritarian - I simply asked for evidence. None was provided. 
Such tactics are hall marks of a defensive mentality. But then of course you have much to be defensive about.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> If organisational form in question is not exclusive to anarchism what is indeed exclusive to anarchism?


 And there we get to the crux of the matter. Joe doesn't know that much about the historical theory or practice of anarchism. You're simultaneously attacking anarchism for being an 'ideology' with no influence, then denying that it even exists as an 'ideology' (Taken in the sense of a coherent set of beliefs and practies, not in Marx's sense).

Do you really believe that anarchism can be reduced to the adoption of a particular organisational form (a form which you're more than happy to embrace yourself, but seem a tad put out by anarchists also supporting). You're the one reducing it to these crude straw men. Learning the lessons from past forms of working class self-organisation and the struggles that these forms have developed out of is (or should be ) an a-b-c.

As it goes i've got neither the time nor the inclination to fill you in what you should already have looked into _before_ you started this thread. I could quickly list inquiries into differing form of domination (physchological, economic, legal etc), the evolution of and nature of the state form, research and ecperiments into differing methods of enabling direct democracy, the emphahsis on Direct Action, the rejection of representation etc, the focus on working class autonomy, the rejection of politcal parties etc.

Really Joe, this is on the level of someone turning up and saying 'marx was shit - just look at the USSR.'


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> I asked_ him_ the question. If you don't care to answer it that is no reason why he should be urged not to do so.



I'm pointing out the fact that s/he was obviously not saying what you thought s/he was saying. octoberlost's post seems to boil down to the argument that politics does not proceed in a vacuum, even if you have great ideas they depend on you having an audience. Uncontroversial stuff. 

Seriously, do you think anyone is going to believe that an 'ideology' is incapable of initiating anything, yet still believe in that ideology? 

Anyway, your qestion to ocoberlost could be just as easily turned around on you - if (pure, unideological) Marxism is so great, how come everyone hasn't joined in the pure, unideological Marxist revolution?


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> Anyway, your qestion to ocoberlost could be just as easily turned around on you - if (pure, unideological) Marxism is so great, how come everyone hasn't joined in the pure, unideological Marxist revolution?


 Indeed - does Marx (or marxism) have a serious future? The evidence suggests not. That's the only consistent answer, given Joes eariler 'appraisial' of anarchism and its future.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> And there we get to the crux of the matter. Joe doesn't know that much about the historical theory or practice of anarchism. You're simultaneously attacking anarchism for being an 'ideology' with no influence, then denying that it even exists as an 'ideology' (



I posed the question. Why is it that you seem to have so much trouble dealing with that? 

As for ABC's what is the anarchist ABC from where we are not to where you think you want to go? For an ideology confident you can change the world it is all rather thin on specifics.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 9, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> As it goes i've got neither the time nor the inclination to fill you in what you should already have looked into _before_ you started this thread.


What you don't even have time to link to the  FAQ.
Not even for Ern.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> I posed the question. Why is it that you seem to have so much trouble dealing with that?
> 
> As for ABC's what is the anarchist ABC from where we are not to where you think you want to go? For an ideology confident you can change the world it is all rather thin on specifics.



You posed the question - i answered, but pointed out that given that _you_ started this thread, it would have been more constructive if you'd taken the time to look into it before starting the thread - as it's becoming increasingly clear that you're operating on a number of misconceptions about anarchism. I don't know if this is deliberate or not - but it's not helpful either way.

Try as i might i can't make head nor tail of that last para.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> I'm pointing out the fact that s/he was obviously not saying what you thought s/he was saying. octoberlost's post seems to boil down to the argument that politics does not proceed in a vacuum, even if you have great ideas they depend on you having an audience. QUOTE]
> 
> Alright then lets look at it another way, what is anarchism's actually _doing_ to reach the necessary audience?


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> This is just flabby revisionism. I _did _ point it a number of serious flaws in contemporary anarchism.



I've just checked through all of your posts to this thread, and it confirms what I said. You didn't point to *any * flaws in anarchism. The closest you got was the blanket assertion in the first post that anarchism was a failure, and mutterings about ideology. You didn't point to a single element of anarchist theory that was illogical or contradictory, or point to any noticable failures of current anarchist organisations. 

Don't agree? Show me the posts. 




			
				Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> I did _not_ spend most of my time arguing Marx was a perfect democrat. In regard to Marx what I said was that I did not regard 'marxism' as an ideology. It was _your_ mob who focused on Marx the authoritarian - I simply asked for evidence. None was provided.



Plenty of evidence was provided, but nothing that managed to convince you that you were the only non-ideological one here. Funny that. 




			
				Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Such tactics are hall marks of a defensive mentality. But then of course you have much to be defensive about.



Such as...?


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> You posed the question - i answered, but pointed out that given that _you_ started this thread, it would have been more constructive if you'd taken the time to look into it before starting the thread - as it's becoming increasingly clear that you're operating on a number of misconceptions about anarchism.
> QUOTE]
> 
> Judging from the nature of the debate the misconceptions may actually lie with you. Among yourselves you all know what it is your talking about. Or think you do. But there is a reluctance verging on resentment (and not just limited to this thread) the minute anyone question the veracity of your assumptions. How different is that from the average Trot sect? This answer is not very much.


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Ray said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> You didn't point to a single element of anarchist theory that was illogical or contradictory, or point to any noticable failures of current anarchist organisations.
> 
> 
> QUOTE]
> ...


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> butchersapron said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> I don't know whether to laugh or cry
> 
> Anarchists are involved in campaigns, demonstrating anarchist methods of organising in practice, and they produce papers, magazines, leaflets, and pamphlets, discussing anarchist ideas, the principles and their particular applications.


I don't doubt you have been doing all the above from time - but as you admit they don't work. They don't achieve the audience. So does the problem lie with the audience or does the the problem with anarchists?


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> What are the noticeable _successes_ of current anarchist organisations then?



I'm famiiar with Ireland, rather than the UK, but anarchists here have been very effective in anti-war campaigns, anti-racist work, 'anti-globalisation' stuff. 

Remember, *you're * the one that started the thread, arguing that anarchism doesn't have a future, so its up to *you * to provide the evidence.


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> I don't doubt you have been doing all the above from time - but as you admit they don't work. They don't achieve the audience. So does the problem lie with the audience or does the the problem with anarchists?



The problem is exactly the same as that faced by pure, non-ideological marxism.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> The problem is exactly the same as that faced by pure, non-ideological marxism.



I agree. But if indeed it is recognised as a problem (and there may not be unanaminity on this) the question of what anarchism doing about it remains? 

By the way the majority of the thread has been taken up with defenders finding reasons not to answer a straight question just like this. So let's see what happens...


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> I'm famiiar with Ireland, rather than the UK, but anarchists here have been very effective in anti-war campaigns, anti-racist work, 'anti-globalisation' stuff.
> 
> Remember, *you're * the one that started the thread, arguing that anarchism doesn't have a future, so its up to *you * to provide the evidence.



Neo-liberalism is winning hand over fist. Theoritically, idelogically, strategically and tactically. Look out the window occassionally. There's your evidence!


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> I agree. But if indeed it is recognised as a problem (and there may not be unanaminity on this) the question of what anarchism doing about it remains?
> 
> By the way the majority of the thread has been taken up with defenders finding reasons not to answer a straight question just like this. So let's see what happens...


 It's not a straight question at all though is it - it's an entirely skewed question - with you limiting the replies to the choice of two that _you_ rather the person being questioned have already decided for them - both equally unpalatable and both having to ignore wider factors such as the general climate of working class defeat and the consequent demoralisation this has brought etc. It's a are you still beating your wife type question


----------



## Stavrogin (Dec 9, 2004)

I agree with Ray and BA in that JoeR accusation didn't match up to the reality of the thread but even so, I feel that it was a 'useful' remark.

_Se Non e vero..., _ eh?

I've had that experience - discussing anarchism with certain people and coming to ridiculous impasses where we have, say, conflicting paradigms.

If looked at it in these terms we might be able to examine some of the reasons why, as has been said, anarchism has been unsuccesful.  I don't know...

interesting though


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Neo-liberalism is winning hand over fist. Theoritically, idelogically, strategically and tactically. Look out the window occassionally. There's your evidence!


 So then are you going apply that evidence to marx/marxism then and draw the only logoical conclusion that it has no serious future? If not, why not?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Neo-liberalism is winning hand over fist. Theoritically, idelogically, strategically and tactically. Look out the window occassionally. There's your evidence!


 it's dark outside! can't see much out there!


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Neo-liberalism is winning hand over fist. Theoritically, idelogically, strategically and tactically. Look out the window occassionally. There's your evidence!



Again, for fucks sake. 

If that's your argument, then your thread should have been 'Does socialism have a future?' If you're going to attack anarchism, it should be about a problem that marxism doesn't share.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 9, 2004)

Stavrogin said:
			
		

> I agree with Ray and BA in that JoeR accusation didn't match up to the reality of the thread but even so, I feel that it was a 'useful' remark.
> 
> _Se Non e vero..., _ eh?
> 
> ...


 Yeah, i've no problem with the question being asked at all - just that the lack of support for the original contention rather let it down. It's a discussion that i think is actually _needed_ at the minute, because i think a whole load of stuff that some anarchists are doing is not only useless but actively counter-productive to any sort of progress in the actual concrete conditions of the working class.


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> I agree. But if indeed it is recognised as a problem (and there may not be unanaminity on this) the question of what anarchism doing about it remains?
> 
> By the way the majority of the thread has been taken up with defenders finding reasons not to answer a straight question just like this. So let's see what happens...



Anarchism is doing the same thing as 'non-ideological marxism' is doing. Trying to convince people that its a sensible idea that would improve the world. Anarchism can't claim to have completely succeeded so far, but then neither has 'non-ideological marxism'. 

Do you think there's some sort of magc wand that anarchists or marxists could wave, and convince everyone overnight of the brilliance of their position? Why do you assume there is anything to be done, apart from what anarchists are currently doing?


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Yeah, i've no problem with the question being asked at all - just that the lack of support for the original contention rather let it down. It's a discussion that i think is actually _needed_ at the minute, because i think a whole load of stuff that some anarchists are doing is not only useless but actively counter-productive to any sort of progress in the actual concrete conditions of the working class.



The difference being, you could actually point to stuff that anarchists are doing, and say "I think we should be doing more of _this_, and less of _that_". And you don't need to have direct democracy explained to you.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> It's not a straight question at all though is it - it's an entirely skewed question - with you limiting the replies to the choice of two that _you_ rather the person being questioned have already decided for them - both equally unpalatable and both having to ignore wider factors such as the general climate of working class defeat and the consequent demoralisation this has brought etc. It's a are you still beating your wife type question



A one size fits all standard ideological reply. LOL! The working class has been defeated, are demoralised etc. But not anarchism. Anarchism is made of sterner stuff. Has suffered no defeats etc.

There are a whole series of problem with that rationale. One that immediately jumps out is is that it presumes anarchism had an influence _prior _ to the "general climate of working class defeat and the consequent demoralisation etc". 

Unless you are using the R&B criteria from earlier  (the majority unknowingly act in an anarchist way) the defence for current inertia simply does not stand up does it?


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> A one size fits all standard ideological reply. LOL! The working class has been defeated, are demoralised etc. But not anarchism. Anarchism is made of sterner stuff. Has suffered no defeats etc.



You know we're all mentally substituting 'Marxism' for 'anarchism' in your posts, don't you? 

(The difference is, we're aware of what we're doing)


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> Anarchism is doing the same thing as 'non-ideological marxism' is doing. Trying to convince people that its a sensible idea that would improve the world. Anarchism can't claim to have completely succeeded so far, but then neither has 'non-ideological marxism'.
> 
> Do you think there's some sort of magc wand that anarchists or marxists could wave, and convince everyone overnight of the brilliance of their position? Why do you assume there is anything to be done, apart from what anarchists are currently doing?



'Anarchists are trying to convince people that is it a sensible _idea_ that would improve the world' _is_ the problem. By approaching everything from an idelogical angle you come across as little different to Jehovah's witnesses...which is there is no audience which is why it can never work.


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> By approaching everything from an idelogical angle you come across as little different to Jehovah's witnesses...which is there is no audience which is why it can never work.



Oh great, back to "everyone's ideological except me"...


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> A one size fits all standard ideological reply. LOL! The working class has been defeated, are demoralised etc. But not anarchism. Anarchism is made of sterner stuff. Has suffered no defeats etc.
> 
> There are a whole series of problem with that rationale. One that immediately jumps out is is that it presumes anarchism had an influence _prior _ to the "general climate of working class defeat and the consequent demoralisation etc".
> 
> Unless you are using the R&B criteria from earlier  (the majority unknowingly act in an anarchist way) the defence for current inertia simply does not stand up does it?



But that's not even close to what i said Joe and you know it. I said that your choices of either anarchism being wrong or the working class being wrong were ridiculous and crude because they effectively left out wider developements such as the one i mentioned, and that this meant that, _contra_ your claims, you were not asking a straight question at all but a polemically skewed one. 

I said no such thing as anarchism has suffered no defeats - i was making the _exact opposite_ point that anarchism has suffered from many defeats (as has the wider w/c movement). 

Now, that's three times on this thread that you've taken my replies as meaning the opposite of what they intended - no one else has yet managed to do this. So why do you keep doing it?

Yes, anarchism did have some influence in this country historically - that's undeniable. But, as you insist on viewing things from a formal, partyist viewpoint you're forced to deny this, to maintain the coherency of your own perspective. 

This also means that you've failed entirely to grasp what the argument is concerning people often spontaneously acting in ways that anarchists would recognise as useful - i.e by adopting direct democracy or immediately recallable delegates.


----------



## Chuck Wilson (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> You know we're all mentally substituting 'Marxism' for 'anarchism' in your posts, don't you?
> 
> (The difference is, we're aware of what we're doing)




Ray I just had a look at your site and found it interesting. I can understand your diffrences with the trot left what I don't understand is this ..take away the labels...why wouldn't the IWCA form of organisation and orientation be acceptable to your group?


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 9, 2004)

To Joe reilly
What? Your last sentence makes no sense. Looks like this conversation is degenerating into a yes it is, no it isn't session with you as the main culprit. Let's see in another ten years where Red Action is and where British anarchism is. I know who I'd put my money on.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> Oh great, back to "everyone's ideological except me"...




Only on this thread Ray, in the real world it's the other way round.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

charlie mowbray said:
			
		

> To Joe reilly
> Looks like this conversation is degenerating...QUOTE]
> 
> On the contrary we are I believe already in the end game.


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Only on this thread Ray, in the real world it's the other way round.



Still, on this thread, everyone is blinded by ideology except you, right? 
Convenient.


----------



## Ray (Dec 9, 2004)

Chuck Wilson said:
			
		

> Ray I just had a look at your site and found it interesting. I can understand your diffrences with the trot left what I don't understand is this ..take away the labels...why wouldn't the IWCA form of organisation and orientation be acceptable to your group?



To be clear, its not my site, as I'm no longer a WSM member, though I'd still agree with pretty much everything there. I don't know enough about the IWCA to comment really - I know they ran in council elections, which I'd generally disagree with, but that they seem to be trying to get a mandating system going for their councillors, which is interesting.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> Still, on this thread, everyone is blinded by ideology except you, right?
> Convenient.



It is most convenient. And the advantages are evident.


----------



## Chuck Wilson (Dec 9, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> To be clear, its not my site, as I'm no longer a WSM member, though I'd still agree with pretty much everything there. I don't know enough about the IWCA to comment really - I know they ran in council elections, which I'd generally disagree with, but that they seem to be trying to get a mandating system going for their councillors, which is interesting.



Aren't elections even for anarchists a tactical question rather than a principle?
The IWCA website is a good one to look around and keep up to date with, the cutting edge section is really thought provoking:
www.iwca.info/indewx.htm


----------



## TopCat (Dec 9, 2004)

Quote:To Joe reilly
What? Your last sentence makes no sense. Looks like this conversation is degenerating into a yes it is, no it isn't session with you as the main culprit. Let's see in another ten years where Red Action is and where British anarchism is. I know who I'd put my money on.


Joe, send me the appliocation form as I know where my bets lies...


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> So then are you going apply that evidence to marx/marxism then and draw the only logoical conclusion that it has no serious future? If not, why not?



I see no evidence of marxism as an _ideology_ existing much less having a future do you? What I mean is the people who define themselves first and foremost as marxist (stalinists, leninists trots etc) have for decades shown themselves to be entirely incapable of looking at objective reality and as a result entirely incapable of dealing in any useful way with contemporary issues and changing landscape. And because they refuse to deal with facts except through their own idelogical prism it stands to reason they can or will never come up with solutions. In the ideas department absolutely fucking useless. My argument is that anarchism suffers from a similar handicap for identical reasons.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> it's dark outside! can't see much out there!



Sounds dangerously like a metaphor.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 9, 2004)

Yes, Joe, we all understand your argument, it's coming across quite clearly - it says all ideologies are bad, anarchism is an ideology thefore it's also bad. And that you're uniquely starting from a non-ideological reading of Marx. Well done. The last free man on earth. Freed by Marx.

What about those of us broadly supportive of the IWCA approach - are we equally blinded by ideology? An approach that we were actually arguing for as one of the last remaining chances to get out of the shit the working class was in, whilst you were still a leninist incidentally.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 9, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Yes, Joe, we all understand your argument, it's coming across quite clearly - it says all ideologies are bad, anarchism is an ideology thefore it's also bad. And that you're uniquely starting from a non-ideological reading of Marx. Well done. The last free man on earth. Freed by Marx.
> 
> What about those of us broadly supportive of the IWCA approach - are we equally blinded by ideology? An approach that we were actually arguing for as one of the last remaining chances to get out of the shit the working class was in, whilst you were still a leninist incidentally.



Admit it. You just dont want to face facts. The old guff about 'starting from a non-idelogical reading of Marx' is just something you've made up. I never said anything of the sort; you and your chums who did all that pigeon-holing for me. 

Ps. A word to the wise: as someone who has been 'broadly supportive of the IWCA' on here your last sentence is ill-informed and frankly embarassing.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 9, 2004)

Ok, have you never been a Leninist then Joe? Straight question. I may well have been misinformed. I notice that you chose to skip over the question that preceded that last sentence though...

As for the first point, again, do re-read the thread Joe, the posts are there for you and any other interested parties to read for themselves.


----------



## Ray (Dec 10, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> It is most convenient. And the advantages are evident.



Its a good thing that no ideology-blinded person could ever make the mistake of believing that they were free from ideology, isn't it? Think of the confusion it would cause...


----------



## Ray (Dec 10, 2004)

Chuck Wilson said:
			
		

> Aren't elections even for anarchists a tactical question rather than a principle?



Missed this, sorry. 
I think its a question of principle, rather than tactics*. Anarchists are opposed to representative democracy, and want to replace it with direct democracy. Elections are a form of representative democracy. The IWCA's attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole is interesting, but I suspect that sooner or later the long term and short term goals will come into conflict. 


* some anarchists might disagree, but I have the International Anarchist Tribunal on my side.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 10, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> Missed this, sorry.
> I think its a question of principle, rather than tactics*. Anarchists are opposed to representative democracy, and want to replace it with direct democracy. Elections are a form of representative democracy. The IWCA's attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole is interesting, but I suspect that sooner or later the long term and short term goals will come into conflict.
> 
> 
> * some anarchists might disagree, but I have the International Anarchist Tribunal on my side.



Does this mean that delegates can only be selected by lot? Does it also mean that no exchange of views and opinions takes place at an assembley of delegates? Isn't the point of delegation not to stop a delegate breaking their mandate in the light of new information/circumstances, but rather to make they immediately responsible by means of recall if they break the mandate (or for that matter if they are found to have misrepresented the views of those mandating them). The point being that delegate democracy and elections are not incompatible (since some people will make better delegates than others and elections are a way of choosing between prospective delegates); there isn't a square peg and a round hole.

Louis Mac


----------



## Ray (Dec 10, 2004)

Louis MacNeice said:
			
		

> Does this mean that delegates can only be selected by lot?



No, it means they have no power to make decisions outside their mandate. 




			
				Louis MacNeice said:
			
		

> Does it also mean that no exchange of views and opinions takes place at an assembley of delegates?



No, not at all. But the delegates can't approve of anything on their own, they can only bring it back to the bodies which mandated them. 




			
				Louis MacNeice said:
			
		

> Isn't the point of delegation not to stop a delegate breaking their mandate in the light of new information/circumstances, but rather to make they immediately responsible by means of recall if they break the mandate (or for that matter if they are found to have misrepresented the views of those mandating them). The point being that delegate democracy and elections are not incompatible (since some people will make better delegates than others and elections are a way of choosing between prospective delegates); there isn't a square peg and a round hole.



The point of representative democracy is to choose someone to make decisions for you. The point of direct democracy is to choose someone to carry out your decisions. 
The square peg and round hole problem is this. Suppose a community elects someone from the IWCA on to the council, and mandates them to vote for X. The councillor goes to the council meeting, and votes against X. 
In a direct democracy situation, the delegate would be deselected, and (if possible) the decision overturned. But (AFAIK) there is no real way for the councillor's constituents to do this. They can have all the angry meetings they like, but they can't strip someone of their seat until the next election. So, square peg, round hole.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 10, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> No, it means they have no power to make decisions outside their mandate.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 10, 2004)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Ok, have you never been a Leninist then Joe? Straight question. I may well have been misinformed. I notice that you chose to skip over the question that preceded that last sentence though...
> QUOTE]
> 
> 'Are you blinded by idelogy in your support for the IWCA?'
> ...


----------



## Random (Dec 10, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Yes but your forgetting the role of the IWCA itself. If a councillor voted against IWCA policy then the councillor would be deselected and (if possible) the decision overturned. A radical party like the IWCA also has the option of legally binding any candidate to abide by organisation decisions once elected - or - standown.



Here you assume that 'IWCA policy' -- a national policy -- is exactly the same thing as a specific community's mandate.  The point of direct democracy is to keep delegates in line through constant contact with the people who have mandated them -- you can't replace this with a party's whip, no matter how 'radical' the party.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 10, 2004)

Random said:
			
		

> Here you assume that 'IWCA policy' is exactly the same thing as a community's mandate.  The point of direct democracy is to keep delegates in line through constant living contact with bodies of the people who have mandated them -- you can't replace this with a party's whip, no matter how 'radical' the party.



I personally _agree_ with as direct a democracy as is possible. But not standing for elections in working wards and thus allowing middle class parties to dominate (on a minority vote) and then push through a neo-liberal agenda is more than a bit of a cop out. 
The problems of elected officials being kept in check by the organisation and the organisation being in tune with the local population are all areas that need to be worked on to ensure the entire enterprise becomes/remains organic. 

But none of the potential probems should be used as an excuse for standing on the sidelines issuing edicts. Simply making phrases and doing nothing is no longer an option.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 10, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> I personally _agree_ with as direct a democracy as is possible. But not standing for elections in working wards and thus allowing middle class parties to dominate (on a minority vote) and then push through a neo-liberal agenda is more than a bit of a cop out.
> The problems of elected officials being kept in check by the organisation and the organisation being in tune with the local population are all areas that need to be worked on to ensure the entire enterprise becomes/remains organic.
> 
> But none of the potential probems should be used as an excuse for standing on the sidelines issuing edicts. Simply making phrases and doing nothing is no longer an option.


Your doing it again. No anarchist would support "simply making phrases and doing nothing" as you know quite well.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 10, 2004)

redsquirrel said:
			
		

> Your doing it again. No anarchist would support "simply making phrases and doing nothing" as you know quite well.



I think your being over sensistive. This was  general comment not directed at anarchists per se...


----------



## Random (Dec 10, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> I personally _agree_ with as direct a democracy as is possible. But not standing for elections in working wards and thus allowing middle class parties to dominate (on a minority vote) and then push through a neo-liberal agenda is more than a bit of a cop out.
> The problems of elected officials being kept in check by the organisation and the organisation being in tune with the local population are all areas that need to be worked on to ensure the entire enterprise becomes/remains organic.
> 
> But none of the potential probems should be used as an excuse for standing on the sidelines issuing edicts. Simply making phrases and doing nothing is no longer an option.



Fair enough.  It seemed to me that you thought IWCA party policy could already work out these issues.  I agree that they need sorting and the sorting has to be done through solid action.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 11, 2004)

Random said:
			
		

> Fair enough.  It seemed to me that you thought IWCA party policy could already work out these issues.  I agree that they need sorting and the sorting has to be done through solid action.



A lot of thought has gone into the issue within the IWCA, however it needs the solid practice and example of having candidates elected to provide a practical basis for working through the possible pitfalls. 

To shun the existing electoral process, as imperfect, means also to boycott working class concerns on housing, drugs, gentrification, policing, etc which is the context of the landscape, neo-liberalism, BNP and so on, cannot surely be justified any longer by anyone who claims to be politically radical.


----------



## rednblack (Dec 11, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> A lot of thought has gone into the issue within the IWCA, however it needs the solid practice and example of having candidates elected to provide a practical basis for working through the possible pitfalls.
> 
> To shun the existing electoral process, as imperfect, means also to boycott working class concerns on housing, drugs, gentrification, policing, etc which is the context of the landscape, neo-liberalism, BNP and so on, cannot surely be justified any longer by anyone who claims to be politically radical.



while i agree that standing in local elections can be useful, i'm certainly not against getting councillors elected - i don't think you can say that those opposed to such a strategy are not justified to call themselves radical is pure hyperbole - there are other ways - for instance building strong, local, independent residents and tenants associations - which can campaign on a wide range off issues of importance to local people (personally i'd like to see them organised on a class basis as well) and can remain independent of the council/labour party/police etc if the people involved want them to be

the electoral issue can be left open, individual local groups should be trusted to decide whether to stand or not - my own choice would for a fucntioning campaigning group which already has a presence in a ward/on an estate to survey the residents six months before the local elections to see whether people thought standing/voting in elections was worthwhile - and if not, why not - and what alternatives would they suggest, for instance community assemblies


----------



## catch (Dec 11, 2004)

The attempts at recallability for IWCA candidates is something I think is interesting, and if it worked practically, I'd certainly not oppose contesting elections in a similar way to R&B's post, with community assemblies discussing the issue then mandating the councillor. However, my main problem is that the tactic seems to be aimed exclusively at borough/city/town-level councils, which apart from their basis in representative democracy, are quite large bureaucracies run by unelected managers and which have their own power structures existing alongside that of the elected councillors, probably much stronger, and difficult for a councillor (or even a majority of councillors long term) to have much effect on.

What I'd like to see is people contesting (or setting up) community/parish/local councils, which don't have paid bureaucracies, but which have some, if only a few, legal powers - especially on transport, planning, meeting and community facilities and a few other things. This is the lowest current level of democracy in the UK with policy making powers, and could potentially allow local assemblies/federated residents' associations a degree of power over their own wards or similar size areas, and could easily be run on an entirely direct democratic basis with the elected postions quite flexible for rotation and recallability.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 12, 2004)

With reference to the debate on direct democracy and accountability - here are a couple of letters from the Oxford Mail, which show other ways in which the IWCA councillors work at making sure they don't become distant from the community which elected them, by joining in the self-seeking and parasitic behaviour of many of the city councillors:

" Oxford Mail 29th Nov 2004

SIR - I find Lord Mayor Bryan Keen's attempts to score political points off the backs of those who gave their lives in two world wars, by targeting councillors who did not accompany him to this year's Remembrance Sunday
event, distasteful ( Oxford Mail November 25).

I was driving public transport that day, but if I had not been working I might have chosen to remember the war dead quietly at home with my family, as councillor Lee Cole traditionally does, or attended the civic event with councillor Claire Kent who watched her daughter march in the parade and paid her respects as an anonymous face in the crowd.

Either way, I like to think I would have displayed the same quiet dignity as my Independent Working Class Association colleagues who neither see attendance as a feather in their caps come election time, nor as a chance to occupy the moral high ground from which to attack those 'less worthy' who wish to mark the event privately.

Mr Keen complains that IWCA councillors choose not to wear the robes of office and lord it up over the public at civic functions.

He is entitled to his opinion, but is wrong to assume that our noses will be in the trough alongside other councillors at his Christmas drinks reception.

We never have or will attend council social functions because we cannot justify the waste of council money.

STUART CRAFT (Councillor)
Oxford City Council
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oxford Mail 8th Dec 2004

Underhand tactics

SIR - My first six months on Oxford City Council have been an eye opener.
Only a fool would have expected Labour Party members to be happy at the
ascent of the Independent Working Class Association and the end of the era
of safe seats.
Yet I must admit being taken aback at the underhand tactics the party
regularly employs against us.

Maybe I am naïve, but I expected at least a cursory amount of debate on the
actual political issues.

I have seen nothing so far, but lazy, negative campaigning and vindictive
black propaganda.

The latest smear, peddled by John Sanders (Oxford Mail November 29), is that
the IWCA is against social housing. This almost laughable lie, which is
being repeated in Labour publications around the city, is being hung on the
fact that Lee Cole and I recently voted against building 45 social housing
units on the Trap Grounds in north Oxford.

This decision, as we explained at the time, was made, after much
deliberation and research, primarily because the plot is on a flood plain
which, we feel, is likely to cause future problems for tenants.

It is worth noting that this plot has been avoided by the developer for the
majority private housing on the site.

We have also explained in our own publications and on your letters page that
we support, in principle, social housing proposed for Grenoble Road, and the
proposed urban extension of Oxford.

But why bother with the truth when a lie would serve better?

CLAIRE KENT (Councillor)
IWCA
Oxford City Council "

Cheers - Louis Mac


----------



## rednblack (Dec 12, 2004)

excellent letters there, lets hope they keep it up


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 12, 2004)

catch said:
			
		

> The attempts at recallability for IWCA candidates is something I think is interesting, and if it worked practically, I'd certainly not oppose contesting elections in a similar way to R&B's post, with community assemblies discussing the issue then mandating the councillor. However, my main problem is that the tactic seems to be aimed exclusively at borough/city/town-level councils, which apart from their basis in representative democracy, are quite large bureaucracies run by unelected managers and which have their own power structures existing alongside that of the elected councillors, probably much stronger, and difficult for a councillor (or even a majority of councillors long term) to have much effect on.
> 
> What I'd like to see is people contesting (or setting up) community/parish/local councils, which don't have paid bureaucracies, but which have some, if only a few, legal powers - especially on transport, planning, meeting and community facilities and a few other things. This is the lowest current level of democracy in the UK with policy making powers, and could potentially allow local assemblies/federated residents' associations a degree of power over their own wards or similar size areas, and could easily be run on an entirely direct democratic basis with the elected postions quite flexible for rotation and recallability.



This I think is where we part company. The primary IWCA reason for being is to provide a platform for working class concerns. By contrast your priority seems to be with finding a way to implant anarchism through a variety of organisational foibles. And whatever else you might say about it spontaneous or organic it certianly isn't.


----------



## rednblack (Dec 12, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> This I think is where we part company. The primary IWCA reason for being is to provide a platform for working class concerns. By contrast your priority seems to be with finding a way to implant anarchism through a variety of organisational foibles. And whatever else you might say about it spontaneous or organic it certianly isn't.



actually i agree to some extent - our political activity should be about trying to put forward a working class agenda - if they best way to do that is through anarchist organisational forms great - but if not we have to look at alternatives

i think that some anarchists do have to realise that (not catch necerssarily - but certainly many who were at the community organising meeting at the bookfair)


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 12, 2004)

rednblack said:
			
		

> while i agree that standing in local elections can be useful, i'm certainly not against getting councillors elected - i don't think you can say that those opposed to such a strategy are not justified to call themselves radical is pure hyperbole - there are other ways - for instance building strong, local, independent residents and tenants associations - which can campaign on a wide range off issues of importance to local people (personally i'd like to see them organised on a class basis as well) and can remain independent of the council/labour party/police etc if the people involved want them to be
> 
> the electoral issue can be left open, individual local groups should be trusted to decide whether to stand or not - my own choice would for a fucntioning campaigning group which already has a presence in a ward/on an estate to survey the residents six months before the local elections to see whether people thought standing/voting in elections was worthwhile - and if not, why not - and what alternatives would they suggest, for instance community assemblies



The task the IWCA has set itself is to place the working class back in the political mainstream. It has proven it can be done. Essentially these recipes are a retreat from all of that.


----------



## catch (Dec 12, 2004)

You managed to miss this bit of the post, here it is again:



> [borough councils] are quite large bureaucracies run by unelected managers, which have their own power structures existing alongside that of the elected councillors, probably much stronger, and difficult for a councillor (or even a majority of councillors long term) to have much effect on.



How do you intend to deal with that? Bureaucracies not known for being spontaneous or organic, even if the non-ideological people elected to run them in the interests of the working class are.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 12, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> The task the IWCA has set itself is to place the working class back in the political mainstream. It has proven it can be done. Essentially these recipes are a retreat from all of that.


by this "political mainstream" do you mean that in future the iwca's policies are going to be determined by focus groups and so forth rather than by what's in the working class interest? i think you should expand somewhat on this "political mainstream" bit. it sounds a bit ominous to me, that you might mean some things i rather hope you don't.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 12, 2004)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> by this "political mainstream" do you mean that in future the iwca's policies are going to be determined by focus groups and so forth rather than by what's in the working class interest? i think you should expand somewhat on this "political mainstream" bit. it sounds a bit ominous to me, that you might mean some things i rather hope you don't.



Being in the 'political mainstream' means challenging head-on the hegemony of the middle class parties in working class areas in a visible way NOT retreating back into the cosy but artifical world of 'community assemblies' and the like. Focus groups are not an issue. They exist to try and glean what people are thinking a) because the party is unrepresentative of that section of the population or b) as is the case with New Labour as an alternative to trusting its existing membership. The IWCA does use surveys. But for a different reason.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 12, 2004)

that's fair enough, but i imagine that most people would share my understandign of the "political mainstream" which is buying into the sphere of politics represented in the house of commons. which would rather defeat the object of the iwca...


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 12, 2004)

catch said:
			
		

> You managed to miss this bit of the post, here it is again:
> 
> 
> 
> How do you intend to deal with that? Bureaucracies not known for being spontaneous or organic, even if the non-ideological people elected to run them in the interests of the working class are.



The bureaucrats are probably more powerful than the elected councillors at present. But that is not a problem if the contradictions are brought out into the open, the real relationship made both explicit and transparent, and the bureaucrats politically confronted on it in front of the public. But of course until you are in position to run a council...


----------



## catch (Dec 12, 2004)

> that is not a problem if the contradictions are brought out into the open, the real relationship made both explicit and transparent, and the bureaucrats politically confronted on it in front of the public.



All of those things can be done now, and council bureaucracies already affect people now - either employing them, or making decisions which affect them. I don't think it's an issue which should be left until "you're in a position to run a council", that's merely one possible tactic within a whole range of community politics (and community politics encompasses workplaces within that community, including local councils and contractors, a point that should be obvious, but is worth repeating). And as you've just pointed out yourself, running a council only begins to address that particular power structure, and so far you've suggested public confrontation of bureaucrats, something that can be done by anyone, not just elected councillors.


----------



## Joe Reilly (Dec 12, 2004)

catch said:
			
		

> And as you've just pointed out yourself, running a council only begins to address that particular power structure, and so far you've suggested public confrontation of bureaucrats, something that can be done by anyone, not just elected councillors.



Your quite wrong there. The contradiction can be exposed by elected councillors confronting un-elected bureaucrats. No one else can do it. Otherwise in any attack the councillors and bureaucrats link arms with councillors the first line of defence. Thus no contradiction to exploit. The councillors have to be stripped out first to enable the exposure to occur.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 12, 2004)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Otherwise in any attack the councillors and bureaucrats link arms with councillors the first line of defence. Thus no contradiction to exploit.


maybe no contradiction but much confusion.


----------



## Sacred Spirit (Dec 16, 2004)

888 said:
			
		

> The return of ...



Obviously 888 is a scripted trinitarian....>>>>

------------------------------------
Does anarchism have a serious future? 

May have helped on this thread if someone had answered if anarchism had a past and if so what.
As with all ISM'S it is no more than an extended abstraction that nullifies the original if left to fester.

Curious how non seem to be able to address the issue. 

The Greeks invented the classifications of the archy's, now when did anarchISM turn into anarchism and for how long did Alexanders religious fundamentalists spend per day in praying to him ?

Does anyone know if the present X+infinity of groups calling themselves anarchist's have yet been in touch with the descendants of Alexanders worshipping troops (some of whom were Greek) in Afghanistan ? 

To ascertain the REAL history of Anarchy and anarchISM ?

.


----------



## charlie mowbray (Dec 16, 2004)

Get back on the medication, mate.


----------



## catch (Dec 16, 2004)

> The contradiction can be exposed by elected councillors confronting un-elected bureaucrats. No one else can do it.



So in that case only MPs can complain about quangos, MI5, Chief Constables, the House of Lords, in fact anyone working for the state then? Fuck me, better get going with our national election strategy then, otherwise we'll all just be carping from the sidelines.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 16, 2004)

catch said:
			
		

> So in that case only MPs can complain about quangos, MI5, Chief Constables, the House of Lords, in fact anyone working for the state then? Fuck me, better get going with our national election strategy then, otherwise we'll all just be carping from the sidelines.



You can choose to elect councillors with a proven track record of working to a shared agenda with the more powerful council bureaucracy, or you can choose to elect councillors who are committed to pursuing the interests of the communities they come from (in the case of the IWCA working class communites), regardless of the interests of the council bureaucracy. These are the real, albeit limited choices that face voters come the local elections; I know which one I prefer and which one more effectively exposes the contradictions between the rhetoric and reality of local representative democracy. The option of not taking part does nothing in and of itself to expose this contradiction and of course gives those backing the first option a free run. None of which of course precludes political acitivity outside of the electoral arena.

Cheers - Louis Mac


----------



## Chuck Wilson (Dec 16, 2004)

Ray said:
			
		

> Missed this, sorry.
> I think its a question of principle, rather than tactics*. Anarchists are opposed to representative democracy, and want to replace it with direct democracy. Elections are a form of representative democracy. The IWCA's attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole is interesting, but I suspect that sooner or later the long term and short term goals will come into conflict.
> 
> 
> * some anarchists might disagree, but I have the International Anarchist Tribunal on my side.



I think that joe reilly answers the point about direct and representitive democracy and the IWCA. My suggestion is to think of the IWCA as a trade union for residents based on rank and file principles.

As for the square peg/round hole I remember the IWCA being described as 'a good idea in practise that would never work in theory'


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## catch (Dec 16, 2004)

Louis, that's all quite reasonable, and I'm not necessarily against people running for local elections if it's understood that it's a limited tactic within a much wider range of activity, however that's not the same as "No one else can do it".

Both you and Joe Reilly have confirmed that there's a limit on what councillors can do even if elected due the nature of the current electoral/bureaucratic system - even within the remit of the council, let alone every other powerful institution within communities that the council as an entity has to deal with but has no jurisdiction over. Direct, face-to-face, community assembly-based politics has the potential, even if it's not happening now, to deal with issues that local councils don't have any control or influence over, which Joe Reilly dismisses as trying to impose anarchist organisation on communities through an ideological straitjacket.


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## Ray (Dec 16, 2004)

Chuck Wilson said:
			
		

> I think that joe reilly answers the point about direct and representitive democracy and the IWCA. My suggestion is to think of the IWCA as a trade union for residents based on rank and file principles.



Hmm, well I'd suggest that if the IWCA continues, and continues to grow, it'll start running into the same problems as the trade union movement




			
				Chuck Wilson said:
			
		

> As for the square peg/round hole I remember the IWCA being described as 'a good idea in practise that would never work in theory'



I can see the point of a pragmatic politics, and it looks from here like anarchists and IWCA members would get along well on a lot of things. But 'rejecting theory' and only 'looking at immediate goals' could also be described as 'ignoring long-term problems because you can't see the solutions'. 

The thing is, its hard to argue about if the lack of any general theory means debates come down to "I think comrade X is a great bloke - are you saying he's going to sell us out?".


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## Sacred Spirit (Dec 17, 2004)

*Bakunine * --3 Letters to the Swiss.

He has an interesting use of the word Earth, in it's application.
--------
When an English ship first landed in Japan, they found that the Jesuits had been there for approx one hundred years. The Japanese had learnt from them to understand that Europe was under one religion, Catholic, there were no disturbance - all peaceful, all Europeans were of one religion.

So tales had been told, sadly the English told of the wars and of the Protestants as well and of many other religious groups.

_Bakunine as with most others of the early anarchists of the modern period,  were all from within the Russian Empire and of the Russian religion_, which they clearly understood as an offshoot of the German Catholic.

The area of both Russia and Germany was riddled with concepts of More's Utopia, which in itself came from the area of the Anglo catholic, Britain, it's author 'became' a saint. 
The main line within it was that the society they had was the best of all BUT it needed a new management committee.

Bakunine in his written pieces refers to the type of State (Civitas) that existed in Russia and Germany as being the same all over the earth. 
The Communist manifesto was aimed at trying to move the position of the Utopians,  Bakunine pandered to them. He was wrong. It's how they taught him. He never broke from it.

The state (civitas not civilisation) has been guided in it's development, in the Byzantine, feudal and capitalist periods by the same religious doctrine, though the German (feudal) and the British (capitalist) were not a continuity of the Byzantine or the Roman.

Anarchism of the modern period arose in the Russian Empire it has to a great extent been grafted on to central and southern Europe because it had a use value.
The fascists and Stalinist were all of the Utopians of last century. and yes there are such things as anarcho fascists. So yes anarchism has problems.


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## Nigel (Jan 4, 2005)

*Anarchism Outmoded*




			
				Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> Cheers 'Doc'. Liberterianism seems to be painted pretty thin! Makes you kinda wonder what an anarchist organisation/society where fundamentalists like 'Cpl' Ludd and co held sway would really be like dosen't it?
> 
> Overall the response from anarchists is either to shun the debate as beneath them (the question being clearly impertinent!) or to define any discussion in 'safe' Leninist v Anarchist terms when Bolshevism is totally discredited, anti-democratic, anti-working class and in any case long dead.
> 
> All of which in its own way _does_ provide an answer to my original question.


I don't know if anarchism was never a effective, does'nt have much of a history, and is'nt effective today.

I am sure that you have read up on much of the history of anachism from the nineteenth century onwards that anarchist movements gained control in areas of Southern Europe: Italy in the early twentieth century, influenced much by Malatesta's concept of an Anarchist Party, The Spanish Civil War where areas were succesfully  controlled by CNT-AIT. There was much infuence by anachism  and large movements in South America: Argentina, and if you consider Zapata Mexico. USA, Canada, Australia where the IWW of which many were Anarchists and Syndicalists opposed to Political Party Leadership. Tom Mann the British Syndicalist is said to be influenced by Anachism in finding alternative solutions in industrial disputes [Sabotage; Geoff Brown]. The list goes on... 

More to the point its main rivals Capitalism, Fascism/Nationalism, Communism/Socialism have all been inspired by anachism.

The history of Anarchism for most seems to start with Godwin and Proudhom and go on from there (I think that is where Woodstock starts). However I would argue that the roots of anarchism were with the peasant rebelliions of the middle ages. Movements of peasant rebellions inspired by the Peasants Revolt where the Symbol of the Black Rose apparently comes from. The development of movements such as the Dolcherites, Taborites, Anabaptists came during the reformation.

One question I think that you have to ask though, is when anarchist movements have become succesful is when they have not acted in a strictly anarchist way. Anarchists have either acted as Vanguards for there ideals or blatantly become leaders. Even if afterwards there has been some form of spontaneous organisation, leaderless self government.(usually short lived).
Anarchism can exist in condusive utopian societies where almost everyone is consenting, but when it comes to an ideology for resistance against authoritarian regimes that are exploitive and oppressive it falls on its face.

Another problem anarchism has especially in the post war period is that it has been taken by various subcultural groups whose main activities are sourounded by some form of hedonistic indulgence. This may or may not be subversive, liberating etc. but to a greater or lesser extent it alients itself from the day to day struggles of oppressed peoples or just adds to them.
However I can't see why this state of affairs has to carry on forever. But for anarchism in its present state I cannot see it not being a subcultural movement. 

WHY WHAT DO YOU THINK    JOE


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## Chuck Wilson (Jan 5, 2005)

Ray said:
			
		

> Hmm, well I'd suggest that if the IWCA continues, and continues to grow, it'll start running into the same problems as the trade union movement
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I don't think anyone has suggested that the IWCA has ambitions to become 'the trade union movement'.A trade union for the community seems to be a convenient political analogy, after all what were soviets but directly elected representitives form working class communities?

As for theory ,it used to be fashionable to think of Red Action as having no theory, simply a bit of muscle in anti fash activity. what surprised me about them when I trawled through their archives on the web site was that they have probably been (one of) the most active in crtically examining a number of theoretical principles that have become sacred for the left.More importantly they have tried to tackle these issues from a position of putting ideas into practise.


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## Nigel (Jan 5, 2005)

Sorry. said:
			
		

> AFAIK Freedom's editorial staff no longer contains any liberal individualists. Some of the contributors are, but most of the copy comes from communists and syndicalists.



A couple of years ago I went to their Christmas Party and someone there was talking about taking over the management of the place. I tied to point out that the correct youphemism(apologies for spelling) should be something like leaderless co-ordinator.

Goes to show even an archaic institution like freedom has been seduced by concepts like modernisation and coherent management structures.


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## catch (Jan 5, 2005)

dunno, leaderless co-ordinator sounds like manager-speak to me....


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## Nigel (Jan 7, 2005)

*????????*




			
				catch said:
			
		

> dunno, leaderless co-ordinator sounds like manager-speak to me....


whats in a name????
what would you have suggested?


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## catch (Jan 7, 2005)

If it wasn't "become a manager at freedom", then I have no problem with the term management as a verb in the sense of administration rather than administrator.

So "take over the management of the place"

"take over the running of the place" both sensible.

"take over the leaderless co-ordination of the place" - much closer to management newspeak.


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## Joe Reilly (Jan 7, 2005)

Ray said:
			
		

> But 'rejecting theory' and only 'looking at immediate goals' could also be described as 'ignoring long-term problems because you can't see the solutions'.
> QUOTE]
> 
> The IWCA dosent reject theory or analysis. If it did it wouldn't exist would it? As a progressive organisation what it rejects is unproven theory or theory untested by practice.
> ...


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## TremulousTetra (Jan 11, 2005)

I can't pretend to have understood everything in the thread, but I have learned a lot.  Well done to all, but especially those who took it through to its conclusion.  

Frats Rmp3


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## october_lost (Jan 13, 2005)

ResistanceMP3 said:
			
		

> I can't pretend to have understood everything in the thread, but I have learned a lot.  Well done to all, but especially those who took it through to its conclusion.
> 
> Frats Rmp3


I dont get it, the meanderings of a few marxists makes up a conclusion for you


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## Joe Reilly (Jan 13, 2005)

october_lost said:
			
		

> I dont get it, the meanderings of a few marxists makes up a conclusion for you



People in glass houses and so on...


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## Pickman's model (Jan 13, 2005)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> People in glass houses and so on...


should move?


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## TremulousTetra (Jan 14, 2005)

october_lost said:
			
		

> I dont get it, the meanderings of a few marxists makes up a conclusion for you


Didn't know you and dickman were marxists.


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## RedSkin (Jan 15, 2005)

Are those on here who call themselves anarchists more bonded to 'anarchy' or class struggle?


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## Taxamo Welf (Jan 15, 2005)

RedSkin said:
			
		

> Are those on here who call themselves anarchists more bonded to 'anarchy' or class struggle?


slightly redundant question: it varies from a person to person basis. There isn't an u75 anarchist group with a set analysis.

That said the overwhelming majority of @'s here are class struggle, and have come to @ through class struggle. They would argue that anarcho-communism and class struggle are the same thing.


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## RedSkin (Jan 15, 2005)

Yeah I kind of understood that. I used to call myself an anarchist. I'm just interested at what point do anarchy and class struggle diverge. All revolutionaries should be pragmatists so they shouldn't be bound to any doctrine whether that be 'anarchy', 'socialism' or 'communism'.


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## Taxamo Welf (Jan 16, 2005)

RedSkin said:
			
		

> Yeah I kind of understood that. I used to call myself an anarchist. I'm just interested at what point do anarchy and class struggle diverge. All revolutionaries should be pragmatists so they shouldn't be bound to any doctrine whether that be 'anarchy', 'socialism' or 'communism'.


oh definitely mate! 

BTW what do you call yourself hnow if asked ur politics (please resist the temptation to give a joke answer here )


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## RedSkin (Jan 16, 2005)

I posted you a lovely long reply detailing my political history but I lost it before I could submit! So here's a brief summary:
Dissillusioned Anti-Cpaitalist. Used to go on all the anti-cap things from b4 J18 till I realised that no-one was intersted in building day to day resistance, just planning the next big event.
I'm a lazy cunt! but I regularly donate to the IWCA but I don't do anything. IWCA literature and Red Action's in the lead up to ther IWCA's founding is,IMO, the best political analysis in this country.
I'm a G.P.M.U. (Amicus) member. Work's hotting up at the minute.

When talking to someone in work, or a 'layman' i describe myself as a socialist coz it's easier for them to get a handle on than 'anarchist' or non-authoritarian communist. I beleive in justice and redistribution of wealth and all that but I know the state won't give it up without a fight.

Class War was my favourite @ publication. I don't do a lot at the mo I guess I'm just waiting for 'the next big thing'. When the whole ID cards thing kicks off I guess I'll see some of you out there. I'll carry one over my dead body!


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## Joe Reilly (Jan 16, 2005)

Taxamo Welf said:
			
		

> slightly redundant question: it varies from a person to person basis. There isn't an u75 anarchist group with a set analysis.
> 
> That said the overwhelming majority of @'s here are class struggle, and have come to @ through class struggle. They would argue that anarcho-communism and class struggle are the same thing.



They might argue that. It has also been argued that the reason anarchist theory has no application is because 'there is no audience'. However when the logical question is posed, it is evident there are neither plans nor ambition to reach said 'audience'. Thus 'anarcho communism and class struggle are the same thing' only in the minds of those who politically define themselves as such.


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## Ryazan (Jan 16, 2005)

Random said:
			
		

> Anarchism exists, not as a set of organisations, but as a current of activity within society and within anti-capitalist social movements.  The record of anarchism within UK movements is a good one -- mostly these have been protest movements, but that is down to the nature of UK society.  Anarchism rises when popular activity rises (for example, during the poll tax protests) and falls again when activity diminishes.
> 
> So I'd say thatthe answer to the question 'does anarchism have a future?' depends how you see our society going.  I'd say that mass movements and protests are going to continue to be a part of our history, and anarchism will continue to be a part of them.
> 
> Many self-described anarchists (as opposed to people who simply organise in anarchic ways) have gravitated to protest activism; partly because of the continued activity in the ecological and anti-military scenes, and partly because of the university backgrounds of many anarchist activists.  I think the crucial test for anarchism in the next 10 years is whether it can adapt itself to go beyond the established protest scenes and link up with other forms of popular activity that are developing -- both in the community and in the workplace.



How does anarchism, mainly dominated by middle class people become relevant to working class people?


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## Joe Reilly (Jan 16, 2005)

Ryazan said:
			
		

> How does anarchism, mainly dominated by middle class people become relevant to working class people?



When the working class wise up and all become anarchists presumably. But in meantime if truth be told who really needs them? 
Certianly not  - ANARCHISM!- which is, so we are assured, getting along fine without help from any of them.


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## Random (Jan 16, 2005)

Ryazan said:
			
		

> How does anarchism, mainly dominated by middle class people become relevant to working class people?



Anarchism is generally relevant to working class people when anarchist ideas and practise become useful to them.  As I said before, this usually happens when certain struggles take place -- like those that go beyond legal/parliamentary means -- where anarchism has been useful.


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## montevideo (Jan 16, 2005)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> They might argue that. It has also been argued that the reason anarchist theory has no application is because 'there is no audience'. However when the logical question is posed, it is evident there are neither plans nor ambition to reach said 'audience'. Thus 'anarcho communism and class struggle are the same thing' only in the minds of those who politically define themselves as such.



but anarchism isn't a political doctrine that you can subscribe you. Regardless of how some may want it to be. 

I would suggest anarchism is a method, a way working together as people. 

One thing the iwca have done is taken The Working Class (as an identity, as a category, as a form of social identification) from the workplace & put it in a wholly social (& geographical) setting.


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## Taxamo Welf (Jan 17, 2005)

Joe Reilly said:
			
		

> They might argue that. It has also been argued that the reason anarchist theory has no application is because 'there is no audience'. However when the logical question is posed, it is evident there are neither plans nor ambition to reach said 'audience'. Thus 'anarcho communism and class struggle are the same thing' only in the minds of those who politically define themselves as such.


 don't really see why you want to kick off now - i'm sure everythings been said. Most @'s here give support to IWCA (if not in public then at least in private) and that just proves that they are willing to move with the climate IMHO, cos it would be unthinkable to the 'ideology' of @ to use electorlaism as a tactic - ever... 

What more do you want from them?


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## Joe Reilly (Jan 17, 2005)

Taxamo Welf said:
			
		

> don't really see why you want to kick off now - i'm sure everythings been said. Most @'s here give support to IWCA (if not in public then at least in private) and that just proves that they are willing to move with the climate IMHO, cos it would be unthinkable to the 'ideology' of @ to use electorlaism as a tactic - ever...
> 
> What more do you want from them?



Electoralism is a term with common usage with apparently a multitude of meanings. You for instance employ it as if standing in front of the working class for election and something called 'electoralism' are one and the same thing. Which just further confuses. 

Ps. If you check the original exchanges the thread never had anything much to do with the IWCA at all.


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## Taxamo Welf (Jan 18, 2005)

yeah but you do   

was just trying to cut the shit mate. You know, just say that they aren't knocking you so why knock them? If you're right then anrchism has no relevance and will plod on/disappear without bothering you - so why bother it? 

I don't understand what you mean about electoralism (i'm thick) - i thought it was the tactic of standing in elections whatever your political or class persuasion


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