Does anarchism have a serious future?

[kropotkin]

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]

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]

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

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]

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]

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]

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?

 

[kropotkin]

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!

 

[General Ludd]

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]

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

 

[haggy]

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...

 

[Louis MacNeice]

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

 

[Louis MacNeice]

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

 

[Ace]

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.

 

[butchersapron]

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

 

[Ace]

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.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

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

 

[butchersapron]

Ah right, PC has copies of those i think.

 

[Ace]

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!

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.

I wouldn't dream of speaking for anarchists here, but, Groucho, aren't you working with a oversimplified idea of what you call "individualism."

How can the "bourgeois individualist" embrace anarchism?

I thought a person achieved personhood in bourgeois society in part throught the acquisition of property; anarchism being about the relative annihilation of the idea of property.

How can these 2 coincide?

liberty of the individual is threatened.

Ditto. The 'liberty" to do what?

To persue happiness - different ideas of happiness: to work and live peacefully unmolested by the state. Again, different ideas of State.

If, in the rest of your post you are arguing that essentially a lot of anarchist reaction, theoretically at least, is directed against the failed "workers states" of history and are consequently parasitical and reactive to certain configurations of history that are gone, never to return, then I think you may have a point.

But then the density and self-referentiality of your own post shows you're locked into the same discourse. Its very hard for anyone outside a set of cliques, who is not a 20th century history anorak, to get any grip at all on these debates. And the language is stifling and oppressing.

 

[Ace]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

and wasn't what i would call that major

 

[belboid]

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.