Are you an anarchist but not a member of an anarchist organisation?

[Sue]

It's not necessarily "blaming" anyone, it's just an observation about what many people are (or rather aren't) interested in. Even more people are disinterested in what anarchists have got to say.

Saying people 'couldn't/can't be bothered' isn't neutral, is it?

 

[AmateurAgitator]

I wouldn't say I was interested if I wasn't.

You said that fringe politics is way down on your list, which came across to me as dismissive and quite narrow-minded.

 

[danny la rouge]

You said that fringe politics is way down on your list, which came across to me as dismissive and narrow-minded.

He had a very long list that took him 20 years to work through, but now he’s finally got around to anarchism.

To be perfectly honest, I’m not holding out much hope given his understanding of mainstream politics.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

It would just be the strong fucking over the weak.

Oh that tired old chestnut. Funnily enough thats what we've always had with the state. Wherever or wheneever you've got a state you've got a minority of people running things in their own nefarious interests in one way or another.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

Btw there is abit about the transport system in The Anarchist Collectives by Sam Dolgoff and though it wasn't full blown anarchist communism in that part of Spain there were improvements made to the service by the anarchist union. The book is very good and looks at other sectors aswell (including healthcare), and other aspects of the revolution. The other two books I mentioned are also probably worth reading, but I think Dolgoff's book gives a good overview.

 

[teuchter]

Saying people 'couldn't/can't be bothered' isn't neutral, is it?

What would be a better word - unmotivated?

 

[danny la rouge]

What would be a better word - unmotivated?

Yes, because that suggests the next question to ask, instead of assuming a conclusion had been reached.

 

[Sue]

What would be a better word - unmotivated?

'Didn't'. People might not have voted for umpteen different reasons.

 

[teuchter]

Btw there is abit about the transport system in The Anarchist Collectives by Sam Dolgoff and though it wasn't full blown anarchist communism in that part of Spain there were improvements made to the service by the anarchist union. The book is very good and looks at other sectors aswell, and other aspects of the revolution. The other two books I mentioned are also probably worth reading, but I think Dolgoff's book gives a good overview.

I looked at it last night.

It describes how the existing structures of the Barcelona city-wide transport system and the national rail system were taken over. It doesn't describe the kind of federated arrangement of local organisations that this discussion started out talking about. And these situations only lasted for a short period of time didn't they? So it doesn't tell us anything about how things like long term investment would be planned and managed.

 

[Pickman's model]

.

 

[JimW]

I find it hard to imagine how current developed world levels of urbanism can be managed in an anarchist model. One of the interesting things about the communes here, that was a model with the potential for a different type of modernity but it lived and died with top down Leninism. What it did do was envisage a pattern of living and producing with the potential to be sustainable.

 

[danny la rouge]

I find it hard to imagine how current developed world levels of urbanism can be managed in an anarchist model. One of the interesting things about the communes here, that was a model with the potential for a different type of modernity but it lived and died with top down Leninism. What it did do was envisage a pattern of living and producing with the potential to be sustainable.

I mean, I don’t think the developed world model of urbanism is sustainable, so it does need to be reimagined.

 

[Karl Masks]

I very much recommend The Anarchist Collectives by Sam Dolgoff as a starting point, but its too much for me to convey what is written in that book here.

Unlike more statist and top-down experiments, its the more horizontal ones (despite their limitations) that have gone further in achieving proper socialism or communism. That is to say that they achieved some degree of genuine worker's ownership and running of the means of production and distribution, and also real decommodification of the economy.

So again, how are you going to persuade people other than by telling them to read a book? Most people aren't going to want to read that book when they are already being persuaded to vote against their own itnerests on a daily basis.

 

[A380]

They’re not necessarily socialist. The post war welfare state was a result of the Beveridge report, written by a Liberal peer, and would have been implemented by whichever party had won the post war election. The post war consensus included all of those points raised by LBJ, and was supported by Tory and Labour governments alike for decades until diluted by neoliberalism, (itself in turn supported by Tory and Labour governments alike).

A “dictionary definition” of socialism relying on just those policies listed would not be a very good one.

You have my argument the wrong way round. Socialism isn't the same as having a 'socialist' government it's a way of delivering goods or services. To argue the massive redistribution and restructuring of the post war government wasn't socialism, just because it didn't change the whole of society to a socialist system (or the Janet and John description of advanced communism AA seems to be mixing up with it) is as disingenuous as claiming any of the 20th century's 'communist' states were fully socialist societies.

 

[chilango]

If it were to happen, I suspect that systemic change to something like anarchism is not going to happen right now through the efforts of of tiny Anarchist groups prompting a revolutionary seizure of power, but rather emerge in the ashes of the imminent collapse of industrial capitalism.

Discussion of whether currently existing mass infrastructure could be taken over and run along anarchist lines is sadly alternate history stuff at this point in time.

The discussion will be to how best (re)build in the wreckage and the abandoned without the gated bubbles of Space Karen's and their private armies wiping us out.

 

[danny la rouge]

You have my argument the wrong way round. Socialism isn't the same as having a 'socialist' government it's a way of delivering goods or services. To argue the massive redistribution and restructuring of the post war government wasn't socialism, just because it didn't change the whole of society to a socialist system (or the Janet and John description of advanced communism AA seems to be mixing up with it) is as disingenuous as claiming any of the 20th century's 'communist' states were fully socialist societies.

You are misinterpreting my point. Those policies - the NHS, the welfare state, nationalised industry - are not necessarily socialist nor are they sufficient for socialism to exist. Socialist does not mean bureaucratic or public sector.

 

[A380]

If it were to happen, I suspect that systemic change to something like anarchism is not going to happen right now through the efforts of of tiny Anarchist groups prompting a revolutionary seizure of power, but rather emerge in the ashes of the imminent collapse of industrial capitalism.

Discussion of whether currently existing mass infrastructure could be taken over and run along anarchist lines is sadly alternate history stuff at this point in time.

The discussion will be to how best (re)build in the wreckage and the abandoned without the gated bubbles of Space Karen's and their private armies wiping us out.

This, society changes from one state to another when the technology of that civilisation in terms of production and distribution of goods and services requires it to change. Guessing what the changes will be that will enable a change to full socialism is a mugs game/ opportunity for speculative fiction. I bet a small amount of money on part of it being low carbon energy with low marginal cost for dispatch and AI, but the only certainty with that is I'll be wrong.

 

[A380]

You are misinterpreting my point. Those policies - the NHS, the welfare state, nationalised industry - are not necessarily socialist nor are they sufficient for socialism to exist. Socialist does not mean bureaucratic or public sector.

Socialism means the cost is socialised. How is the NHS or the Welfare state not socialist ? You can have islands of socialism in Capital. In the same way we still have island remnants of feudalism and even slavery. I have no doubt that in a Socialist state there would still be remnants of capitalism.

 

[danny la rouge]

Socialism means the cost is socialised. How is the NHS or the Welfare state not socialist ? You can have islands of socialism in Capital. In the same way we still have island remnants of feudalism and even slavery. I have no doubt that in a Socialist state there would still be remnants of capitalism.

You’re defining socialism very differently to the way I would. I work in the public sector. Education. My workplace is not socialist. There is no workplace democracy, there is no service user democracy, the provision is tailored to the demands of business.

 

[A380]

You’re defining socialism very differently to the way I would. I work in the public sector. Education. My workplace is not socialist. There is no workplace democracy, there is no service user democracy, the provision is tailored to the demands of business.

I am defining it differently to you. That's the issue, socialism gets conflated with lots of other things. You don't need work place democracy to deliver socialism. Likewise workplace democracy can (and very occasionally does) exist in purely capitalist organisations.

 

[danny la rouge]

You don't need work place democracy to deliver socialism.

Then I’m not a socialist. Which is news to me.

 

[Rob Ray]

If it were to happen, I suspect that systemic change to something like anarchism is not going to happen right now through the efforts of of tiny Anarchist groups prompting a revolutionary seizure of power, but rather emerge in the ashes of the imminent collapse of industrial capitalism.

Discussion of whether currently existing mass infrastructure could be taken over and run along anarchist lines is sadly alternate history stuff at this point in time.

The discussion will be to how best (re)build in the wreckage and the abandoned without the gated bubbles of Space Karen's and their private armies wiping us out.

Yes, and (in some case seemingly wanton) misunderstandings about how most anarchists actually see this process are at the heart of quite a lot of the confusion. Asking "how would you do a transport megaproject" for example seems to consider it from a perspective where a scrappy bunch of random anarchos with no expertise are suddenly confronted with coordinating a major urban planning operation. Which ironically is what actually happens today via MPs with no expertise and corpo boards whose interest in social functionality is way down the list. If you look at the history of London transport "efficient" really isn't the word that comes to mind - and the Tube is broadly considered one of the best of its kind. The flattening of hierarchy doesn't mean the elimination of leadership or authority derived from expertise, it simply means the elimination of assumed control based on ownership.

 

[A380]

Then I’m not a socialist. Which is news to me.

I presume you are deploying irony and humour for rhetorical effect .

Of course you are a socialist.

 

[danny la rouge]

I presume you are deploying irony and humour for rhetorical effect .

Of course you are a socialist.

I’m saying you’re wrong about what socialism is.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You’re defining socialism very differently to the way I would. I work in the public sector. Education. My workplace is not socialist. There is no workplace democracy, there is no service user democracy, the provision is tailored to the demands of business.

It's not all or nothing, though, is it? It's not either 'this workplace is fully socialist' or 'this workplace is fully capitalist'. And the old-fashioned ethos of public service has been eroded for decades in all kinds of areas. But with a state-owned entity, there is at least the possibility of democratic accountability where the first priority of its managers is not to make a profit. With a private business, there is very little chance of that. In terms of achieving the things you mention, I would suggest a first necessary step would be the taking of ownership into collective hands in some form, whether that means worker-owned, state-owned or some hybrid model that incorporates all stakeholders. In the old Yugoslavia, there were various forms of workplace democracy. That wouldn't have been possible if the workplaces had been private businesses.

But yeah, there are definitional problems here. I would call the taking of sectors of the economy, be they education, healthcare, housing, utilities or industry, into public hands a socialist policy. That a bunch of non-socialists may also agree with it at certain points in history doesn't change that. It isn't a guarantee of workplace democracy - the Soviet Union shows us that - but I would suggest that it is a necessary step towards it.

There are a few terms flying around here that seem to have uncertain definition. Commodification is one. 'State capitalism' is another. It's an easy phrase to throw around, but I don't think it makes much sense from a Marxist pov. A collectively owned business is no longer obliged to seek profit. In fact,in many instances it can be incorporated in such a way that it is obliged not to seek profit. The mechanics of Marxist exploitation that flow from the profit motive cease to apply. That matters and it makes the term 'state capitalism' hugely problematic. It's a bit like calling any repressive regime 'fascist'.

 

[A380]

I’m saying you’re wrong about what socialism is.

I know. And I’m arguing you are making the label socialism do too much heavy lifting.

 

[The39thStep]

I'm for muscular reformism. I'd start with the Atlee govt reforms and then add work place democracy and user/customer/citizen involvement . Probably call it Stepism .

 

[danny la rouge]

It's not all or nothing, though, is it?

No, it isn’t. But it’s nonsense to say that the welfare state = socialism = the welfare state. The welfare state was a compromise between labour and capital.

 

[Rob Ray]

It's not all or nothing, though, is it?

For libertarian socialists it is, in fact it's largely the point. Either you're free and an equal part of controlling your community and projects or you ain't, working under the unelected hand of a boss who can strip you of your means of survival if you get on their bad side is no more "controlling the means of production" if you do it for the civil service than if you do it for a private firm, except in the most abstracted and useless of ways.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

For libertarian socialists it is, in fact it's largely the point. Either you're free and an equal part of controlling your community and projects or you ain't, working under the unelected hand of a boss who can strip you of your means of survival if you get on their bad side is no more "controlling the means of production" if you do it for the civil service than if you do it for a private firm, except in the most abstracted and useless of ways.

Nah. There are loads of shades of grey. The existence of things like affordable housing, free healthcare, a benefits system, free education, pensions, etc, makes a huge difference to how you relate to your boss, whether they're private or public. The tyranny of the boss increases the less public provision there is, which makes the fall when you lose that job all the more vertiginous. A comparison across different countries in the world shows that. For example, Japanese workers routinely staying late at work do so because they fear losing their job, and they fear losing their job because so many benefits in Japan are workplace-dependent.