London Anarchist Bookfair 2022

[Rob Ray]

there is nothing so blinding as ideology ..

Indeed. Sometimes people are so immersed in it that they might read the basic tenets of communism, look at a State which has none of those features, and still call it communism using the excuse that the autocratic leaders of that State said so, with enthusiastic support from people who have everything to gain from associating alternative ideas with brutality.

(NB// on the grounds of being slightly more helpful than just making sarcastic comments, I'd recommend The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control for further reading on this topic. It outlines fairly well the disconnect between the rhetoric of the Bolsheviks and their actions in diverting the Russian revolution towards their own ends very early on in the process. Such disconnects are a feature of pretty much every Leninist ousting of prior governments, utilising the language but crucially, not the practice of the ideologies they hung their hats on).

 

[A380]

Are you really this thick? I quoted the paragraph you wrote because it is nonsense, one begging for the response ‘ohh no it didn’t’.

The thread has moved on. It’s behind you.

 

[Carl Steele]

Indeed. Sometimes people are so immersed in it that they might read the basic tenets of communism, look at a State which has none of those features, and still call it communism using the excuse that the autocratic leaders of that State said so, with enthusiastic support from people who have everything to gain from associating alternative ideas with brutality.

I don't know who you think you are talking to. I don't think the Soviet Union, for example, was a communist state. I don't even like the designation workers state. But I don't think it was capitalist either. Bureaucratic Collectivism as a descriptor seems better though don't take that to mean I buy the whole theory.

 

[Rob Ray]

I think I'm talking to someone who up thread made a patently ridiculous appeal to authority that "the leaders of the revolutions thought they had overthrown capitalism. And the governments of the so-called Western world agreed. Perhaps they were mistaken."

 

[Pickman's model]

This is of course true but I do think capitalist governments know what capitalism is, and what it is not. Though to offer an olive branch I do think state capitalism is a reasonable description of modern China, by which I mean China of the last 20 years or so, and the West continues to talk about Communist China.

i wouldnt advise approaching any current cabinet members and asking what they think capitalism is, you'd be spittle-flecked and none the wiser as they sought to baffle you with bollocks

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't know who you think you are talking to. I don't think the Soviet Union, for example, was a communist state. I don't even like the designation workers state. But I don't think it was capitalist either. Bureaucratic Collectivism as a descriptor seems better though don't take that to mean I buy the whole theory.

Degenerated workers state ftw

 

[Carl Steele]

think I'm talking to someone who up thread made a patently ridiculous appeal to authority that "the leaders of the revolutions thought they had overthrown capitalism. And the governments of the so-called Western world agreed. Perhaps they were mistaken."

Chill out Rob, it was a throwaway line, not scientific to be sure, but not worth all the froth.

Degenerated workers state ftw

Never really liked this, not even when I was a card carrier, deformed workers state is worse, North Korea and Tito's Yugoslavia were not quite the same.

i wouldnt advise approaching any current cabinet members and asking what they think capitalism is, you'd be spittle-flecked and none the wiser as they sought to baffle you with bollocks

Rest assured, the chances of me approaching any current cabinet members are remote.

 

[Serge Forward]

For Carl Steele this is what the end of capitalism looks like.

 

[Pickman's model]

Never really liked this, not even when I was a card carrier, deformed workers state is worse, North Korea and Tito's Yugoslavia were not quite the same.

i wasn't being wholly serious

 

[Rob Ray]

Chill out Rob, it was a throwaway line, not scientific to be sure, but not worth all the froth.

I'm entirely chill ta, and not the one indignantly squeaking about whether I know who I'm talking to.

 

[RD2003]

This is a debate that can never go anywhere. Simplifying somewhat, only the Stalinists called what existed in the Communist Party-ruled states socialism. The orthodox Trots had their degenerated workers' state theory, and there were the various state capitalism and bureaucratic collectivism theories. The rest of the world's population thought it was communism, or at least socialism, if only because that's what the rulers of those states claimed, with the wholehearted agreement of those who ran the rest of the world. They are the overwhelming majority who will never be convinced that it wasn't, not least because enough minds can't be reached by those who argue otherwise. We now have a world where confusion on the matter reigns as never before, to the extent that scores of millions believe those on the Right who claim that everything they don't like about contemporary society is creeping communism or socialism or at least an attempt to foist it on everybody. This is despite the fact that much of what their 'Woke' enemies stand for would have got you locked up in the countries where Communist parties actually ruled.

There is literally nothing anybody can do about this.

 

[NoXion]

There is literally nothing anybody can do about this

That's your reply to damn near everything.

 

[RD2003]

That's your reply to damn near everything.

Perhaps, but maybe because its largely true.

 

[NoXion]

Perhaps, but maybe because its largely true.

That's why feudalism never ended, and we've been stuck with the divine right of kings ever since.

Oh wait, you're wrong, never mind.

 

[belboid]

Ohh fuck, haven’t we missed LLETSA’s one track miserabilism

 

[RD2003]

That's why feudalism never ended, and we've been stuck with the divine right of kings ever since.

Oh wait, you're wrong, never mind.

Did I say that nothing changes, or imply the obvious: that there are plenty of insoluble problems on the horizon?

 

[The39thStep]

 

[Pickman's model]

Ohh fuck, haven’t we missed LLETSA’s one track miserabilism

back in the days when the rcp still existed i had a conversation with one of their adherents members, who was very similar in outlook to our resident miserabilist - not paying the poll tax - won't work, it's an individual gesture - boycotting mcdonald's, won't work it's an individual gesture etc etc etc ad nauseam.

 

[NoXion]

Did I say that nothing changes, or imply the obvious: that there are plenty of insoluble problems on the horizon?

If we all gave up like you, then all problems would become "insoluble".

 

[Pickman's model]

This is a debate that can never go anywhere. Simplifying somewhat, only the Stalinists called what existed in the Communist Party-ruled states socialism. The orthodox Trots had their degenerated workers' state theory, and there were the various state capitalism and bureaucratic collectivism theories. The rest of the world's population thought it was communism, or at least socialism, if only because that's what the rulers of those states claimed, with the wholehearted agreement of those who ran the rest of the world. They are the overwhelming majority who will never be convinced that it wasn't, not least because enough minds can't be reached by those who argue otherwise. We now have a world where confusion on the matter reigns as never before, to the extent that scores of millions believe those on the Right who claim that everything they don't like about contemporary society is creeping communism or socialism or at least an attempt to foist it on everybody. This is despite the fact that much of what their 'Woke' enemies stand for would have got you locked up in the countries where Communist parties actually ruled.

There is literally nothing anybody can do about this.

the best thing about this post is the correct use of reigns, so often people nowadays use rein for a monarch's tenure and reign for the straps you use to control a horse.

 

[The39thStep]

I think LDC has had a word with The Customer Support Collective at The Bookfair

 

[RD2003]

If we all gave up like you, then all problems would become "insoluble".

I'm not suggesting anybody should give up anything.

Perhaps you, or somebody, could make a start by having a go at explaining how the world can be convinced that what existed in certain places was not communism or socialism, and how most of what currently gets labelled as such by the Right (who are winning the argument) simply could not have existed or survived where Communist parties ruled? And the mechanisms that could be employed for spreading the truth?

 

[RD2003]

the best thing about this post is the correct use of reigns, so often people nowadays use rein for a monarch's tenure and reign for the straps you use to control a horse.

I blame trendy teaching methods, wilful dumbing down, and the abolition of grammar schools.

 

[Pickman's model]

I think LDC has had a word with The Customer Support Collective at The Bookfair

View attachment 331866

it's really weird that capitalist enterprises might have sent a similar email to lisa in the first place but that some anarchist groups, who aim to promote a better way of doing things than capitalism, have to be pushed and prodded to put a spot of flesh on the word 'disinclined'. as far as i know this is the first time that someone's part-time job has been held against them - no one, for example, ever took me to task when for a time i worked for a bank, or for working for local government or for working in a pub or whatnot. when there's no suggestion that lisa's adopted or shares in any way the values of her employers it seems to me really shit. but there you go, after last year's acg barring i suppose i would have been overly optimistic to expect they wouldn't top that little clusterfuck.

 

[RD2003]

back in the days when the rcp still existed i had a conversation with one of their adherents members, who was very similar in outlook to our resident miserabilist - not paying the poll tax - won't work, it's an individual gesture - boycotting mcdonald's, won't work it's an individual gesture etc etc etc ad nauseam.

Whereas back at the time I thought pretty much the opposite, not that it matters now.

But those are examples of what can feasibly be changed. I was referring to something which quite obviously can't.

 

[Pickman's model]

Wheras back at the time I thought pretty much the opposite, not that it matters now.

But those are examples of what can feasibly be changed. I was referring to something which quite obviously can't.

there are actually very few things that can't be changed.

 

[RD2003]

there are actually very few things that can't be changed.

Well as I say to Noxion above, a start could be made right here by explaining how the tiny numbers who have a coherent critique of 'actually existing socialism' can reach the hundreds of millions, or more likely billions, who have never been exposed to it, and believe instead that it was communism.

 

[Pickman's model]

Well as I say to Noxion above, a start could be made right here by explaining how the tiny numbers who have a coherent critique of 'actually existing socialism' can reach the hundreds of millions, or more likely billions, who have never been exposed to it, and believe instead that it was communism.

there is a notion abroad in the country that jeremy corbyn is some sort of hard-left stalin in waiting, a marxist who would have brought the country to its knees if he had been elected, who would have made of this country some bolshevik dystopian nightmare. i have had this sort of thing said to me by people who really ought to know better. and all corbyn was proposing was some gentle social democracy. frankly i'd rather work towards countering the notion that corbyn's a Communist, instead of looking back at the soviet union etc and arguing over that. there are very few things that cannot be changed, but it's as well to change the things which are more relevant to people's everyday lives before going back to arguments which mean fuck all to at least half the country - the average age in the uk being now 41, and pretty much no one of that age and under will recall the eastern bloc with any great clarity whereas a far larger number will recall with varying degrees of loathing the labour party under jeremy corbyn.

 

[RD2003]

there is a notion abroad in the country that jeremy corbyn is some sort of hard-left stalin in waiting, a marxist who would have brought the country to its knees if he had been elected, who would have made of this country some bolshevik dystopian nightmare. i have had this sort of thing said to me by people who really ought to know better. and all corbyn was proposing was some gentle social democracy. frankly i'd rather work towards countering the notion that corbyn's a Communist, instead of looking back at the soviet union etc and arguing over that. there are very few things that cannot be changed, but it's as well to change the things which are more relevant to people's everyday lives before going back to arguments which mean fuck all to at least half the country - the average age in the uk being now 41, and pretty much no one of that age and under will recall the eastern bloc with any great clarity whereas a far larger number will recall with varying degrees of loathing the labour party under jeremy corbyn.

Fair enough, but it is rarely long before the argument gets back to the idea, disseminated by the Right, that the outcome of Corbyn would be the sytem that existed in the Soviet bloc. Despite, as I said, simultaneous accusations that Corbyn is 'woke.' The Right's argument is, as many of them know, incoherent, but it is effective. The fact that most of the population can't even remember the Soviet Union might actually make it more powerful.

There are tens of millions going about their business right now, distantly believing the laughable idea that the USSR imposed 'woke' or 'politically correct' notions on society.

 

[chilango]

For Carl Steele this is what the end of capitalism looks like.

I've got some Cuban money with Che Guevara on it somewhere.

...and Mao on some Chinese notes.