Anarchism. 'Organisation'? 'Leadership'?

[Edie]

The voice of the (wo)man on the Clapham omnibus? The voice of the streets speaking an eternal truth?

No, in many ways it wouldn't be hugely different on paper from what we have now, except with more democracy within the political and crucially the economic sphere which would actually make it hugely different in practice.

Dunno about Clapham. Other than that we seem to agree. Not sure how we'd get rid of the top few mind. It's fuckin insane that so few have so much.

 

[Athos]

You'd value the right of a greedy twat to read Ayn Rand over the rights of Cuban kids to healthcare and education.

I value freedom. Both from the oppression of the state, and from that of capitalism. What do you believe in?

 

[ernestolynch]

I value freedom. Both from the oppression of the state, and from that of capitalism. What do you believe in?

Freedom of speech won't feed children, you individualistic liberal swine.

 

[Athos]

Credit to you Athos, you are streets ahead of the other anarchists on here in this respect. However, my point is, instead of insisting we discuss workers states, what you are against, why don't we discurss workers autonomous zones, what you are for.


http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/th...tion-Phase-of-a-Workers-Autonomous-Zones-quot
You see, I have been on here for several years, trying to get anarchists to discuss something else besides the SWP. This thread is my first successful attempt. Perhaps that's my fault.

AND:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/th...Leadership?p=11345698&viewfull=1#post11345698


ETA. Actually, I must keep reminding myself, the 'anarchists' on here/uk are NOT representative of anarchists. There are plenty of decent anarchists. Got some on my website. www.ResistanceMP3.org.uk

I'll take a look at that thread, albeit I don't remember telling you that I was 'for' workers' autonomous zones.

 

[DotCommunist]

China isn't communist.

not anymore, no, but it does retain the political apparatus of authoritarianism.

 

[Athos]

Freedom of speech won't feed children, you individualistic liberal swine.

You've set up a false dichotomy as a straw man. I want both freedom and food. Don't you?

 

[DotCommunist]

Dot I was talking bout Russia. They ended up with a totalitarian state, secret police, people disappearing and starvation didn't they? Had no idea anywhere else was actually communist nowadays except China. And that's a secret terror state with huge oppression and censorship innit.

It's a little more complex than that, and starvation- no. Also worth remembering that the secret police, the siberian exile camps and a totalitarian state existed before the revolution(s). They went fuedal-to-communist with no industrial revolution between times. Uncle Joe turned the country into an industrialised threat to Nazi incursions.
[/quote]
I dunno. I want the priviledged fuckers gone, and the bankers. But I don't wanna live in some communist state which goes wrong.[/QUOTE]

This is a capitalist world gone wrong. We eat while the masses of the world starve and scrape. Nobody really wants another stalin, but the paranoiac tendencies of stalin are not the be all and end all of a communist society.

 

[DotCommunist]

What literature does a Cuban political prisoner read with his much-vaunted literacy?

Does the increased life expectancy apply to the tens of millions killed as a result of the policies of Stalin and Mao?

Get a grip mate. Are you seriously suggesting that they are the sort of societies you'd like to see?

The old tyrant in all his rages never killed as many as yesterdays battle for freedom.

 

[TremulousTetra]

I ain't given up hope, not sure I ever had any. Just always thought we're all pretty fucked and just got to look after you and yours best you can. Life is unfair and there will always be people who try and manipulate shit to get more than there share, more power or money. Look what happened to communism, turned out exactly like that.

sorry. eddie, I wasn't judging any of you. What is discussed in here isn't the real world. Well, what I mean is, virtually everybody I know, go to the pub with etc, thinks like you do. Such as my mate who has voted Tory all his life, and my uncle, who has voted bnp once or twice or the ones who are lab/tu supporter.

BUT I am positive communism was possible. I thought we would achieve communism, I've just given up hope will now. Just think we may have blown our opportunities, and such things as climate change may negate the possibility of future opportunities. Hope I am wrong, for everybody's sake.

So I just mean't MY position has change from hoping for communism, to being sceptical of it's possibility, 'like' you.

 

[Athos]

The old tyrant in all his rages never killed as many as yesterdays battle for freedom.

What?

 

[yield]

What?

The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams

 

[DotCommunist]

the freedom you seek is a fetish. An ephemeral ghost.

 

[Athos]

The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams

Yes, but I was wondering what point he's trying to make.

 

[Athos]

the freedom you seek is a fetish. An ephemeral ghost.

There, we disagree.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So butchers, louis, panda, if we accept there is no distinction between communism and anarchism

Perhaps not as an "end-state", but the ways and means by which that end-state might be reached, while somewhat over-lapping, can't be said to have "no distinction" between them.
Of course, that gets into the whole realm of trying to decipher what you mean by communism and anarchism, and whether your meanings are the same as mine, and whether yours and mine are the same as someone else's, etc.

do you also accept "that, at least to begin with, our aims are the same i.e. the rejection of capitalism; and that, more importantly, even though our methods may differ, our motives are essentially the same."?

I agree on aims, and on the differing of methods, but motives...that's a difficult one to just "pronounce" on, because I can only speak for my own motives, and at best only infer yours from what you say - I don't know what you think, only what you say.

 

[TremulousTetra]

What literature does a Cuban political prisoner read with his much-vaunted literacy?

Does the increased life expectancy apply to the tens of millions killed as a result of the policies of Stalin and Mao?

Get a grip mate. Are you seriously suggesting that they are the sort of societies you'd like to see?

As capitalist societies go [for me Cuba is a state capitalist society], and in the face of such adversities, Cuba does have some pretty amazing statics, that disgraces such as America etc. but I still find it amazing the number of people on the left who still have illusions in Cuba.

 

[DotCommunist]

There, we disagree.

I suppose we do. I can't see the individualist streak that runs through anarchism as useful in the short term when we seek to replace a capitalist society with a nice soc dec planned economy. I can see a society that devolves that power to the collectives but in the mean time when we are faced with a toal juggernaut- no.

 

[Athos]

I suppose we do. I can't see the individualist streak that runs through anarchism as useful in the short term when we seek to replace a capitalist society with a nice soc dec planned economy. I can see a society that devolves that power to the collectives but in the mean time when we are faced with a toal juggernaut- no.

I think the basis of our disagreement is your (in my opinion, mistaken) view that anarchism is individualistic.

 

[ernestolynch]

I think the basis of our disagreement is your (in my opinion, mistaken) view that anarchism is individualistic.

Anarchism isn't, you are.

And you ain't an anarchist.

 

[LLETSA]

The indivisability of ends and means in my conception of anarchism means that, although we may be a long way from the ends i.e. a classless stateless society, every step towards that i.e. the everyday efforts we can all make to live in a way consistent with anarchist principles, is an example of my version of events happening. You seem to be very negative about the possibility of change, whereas I believe that we (individually and collectively) can begin to make it happen, here and now.

Good luck.

 

[DotCommunist]

No, it is not by nature but it is there, and while completely laudable on a localised scale it cannot succeed in macro- the forces opposing it are too organised and ready to crush dissent while you lot roll another fattie

What gains anarchism can give us would neccesitate a transition period of fairly authoritarian communism. The forces opposing the anarchist utopia are simply too entrenched to be able to introduce that dream without a few generations of top down enforced socialism.

 

[Athos]

Anarchism isn't, you are.

And you ain't an anarchist.

What makes you say that?

Also, you haven't answered my previous two questions on this thread:

What do you believe in?

Don't you want freedom AND food?

 

[LLETSA]

would that be the communism that sees Cuba with 0% malnutrition and the highest rate of literacy in the world? Or the Venezuelan model which has seen vast improvements in health, literacy? or the communism that saw life expectancy rise significantly in china and russia?

There is no Venezuelen model of communism. Or socialism. The recent social gains notwithstanding, Venezuela is still a capitalist country.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

You've set up a false dichotomy as a straw man. I want both freedom and food. Don't you?

Sometimes they're the same thing.

Louis MacNeice

 

[Athos]

No, it is not by nature but it is there, and while completely laudable on a localised scale it cannot succeed in macro- the forces opposing it are too organised and ready to crush dissent while you lot roll another fattie

What gains anarchism can give us would neccesitate a transition period of fairly authoritarian communism. The forces opposing the anarchist utopia are simply too entrenched to be able to introduce that dream without a few generations of top down enforced socialism.

That boils down the basis of our differences pretty well. No doubt you'd disagree, but I'd suggest that revolutions which have been followed by a few generations of enforced socialism have failed to then move forward to stateless classless societies.

 

[LLETSA]

Dot I was talking bout Russia. They ended up with a totalitarian state, secret police, people disappearing and starvation didn't they? Had no idea anywhere else was actually communist nowadays except China. And that's a secret terror state with huge oppression and censorship innit.

I dunno. I want the priviledged fuckers gone, and the bankers. But I don't wanna live in some communist state which goes wrong.

There were no 'communist states' that 'went wrong.' What we've seen are states established on the basis of particular historical, economic and cultural circumstances at a given time. None of them claimed to be communist states (a contradiction in terms), although they did claim to have established socialism.

 

[TremulousTetra]

There is no Venezuelen model of communism. Or socialism. The recent social gains notwithstanding, Venezuela is still a capitalist country.

So is Cuba, China, korea, 'russia'.

 

[Pickman's model]

So is Cuba, China, korea, 'russia'.

yes. i thought you'd mourn the demise of the russian soviet socialist republic. fucking crypto-brezhnevite

 

[LLETSA]

What literature does a Cuban political prisoner read with his much-vaunted literacy?

Does the increased life expectancy apply to the tens of millions killed as a result of the policies of Stalin and Mao?

Get a grip mate. Are you seriously suggesting that they are the sort of societies you'd like to see?

As it happens, I'm going to be visiting a couple of people who grew up in the USSR in a few hours time. Like most people who were raised in the Communist-ruled countries, they are considerably better educated than most of us and know the literary classics they were taught in well-disciplined, well-equipped schools inside out.

Life expectancy increased dramatically, despite the crimes of Stalin and Mao. When the USSR collapsed it went disastrously into reverse.

Obviously they are not the kind of societies most of us on here would like to see, but these are the facts, like them or not.

 

[Pickman's model]

As it happens, I'm going to be visiting a couple of people who grew up in the USSR in a few hours time. Like most people who were raised in the Communist-ruled countries, they are considerably better educated than most of us and know the literary classics they were taught in well-disciplined, well-equipped schools inside out.

Life expectancy increased dramatically, despite the crimes of Stalin and Mao. When the USSR collapsed it went disastrously into reverse.

Obviously they are not the kind of societies most of us on here would like to see, but these are the facts, like them or not.

so what you're saying is that despite the handicaps they faced, the former socialist states were still able to provide a better cultural education than certain capitalist countries we might mention.