Why anarchism as a method of action doesn't work.

[chilango]

Apart from rmp3 and perhaps audiotech are there nay other SWPs and fellow travllers left on the boards? Is Das Uberdog still around? Any others? Poor old rmp3 is fighting a lonely battle at the moment....

 

[Athos]

But surely, comrade, one needs fellow-workers who will submit to the will of the people and guide the class along the path of freedom?

One's bound to think that. One is middle class, after all.

 

[ViolentPanda]

On the measures you set out, I would define myself as working class:

Income - After you took out what I paid to service the loans I'd taken out to go to university and law school I was poorly paid.

TBF, according to some Law Society papers I read in the '00s, over 60% of all practicing solicitors earn less than the "average" wage, with just over half of that 60% qualifying for "in-work benefits".

Social class - I am the son of two non-professionals; the first in my family to get even an A Level, never mind a degree. I come from a working class area, and was educated at the local comp. And I never had a foreign holiday until I left home!

Similar, except I never got an A level, and damn few O levels, and I went to the local grammar (which went comp the year after I left - I think I lowered the standard!). All my higher ed has been funded out of my own pocket, and for reasons of interest rather than to pursue a career path.

Means of production - To pay my bils, I had to sell my labour exactly the same as I would have done if I'd gone to work on the production line at the local Vauxhall factory; I wasn't a partner or shareholder etc.

I am well paid now (relative to the national average), and that is reflected in my tastes e.g. good food etc, but that doesn't mean I'm no longer working class, does it?

Depends who you're asking that question of, doesn't it? For me, it's a lot about attitude, too. About your politics and whether you shape them to accommodate the lifestyle you desire, or stay true to what you believe. This is why I dislike neo-libs - they follow the money rather than their convictions.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Apart from rmp3 and perhaps audiotech are there nay other SWPs and fellow travllers left on the boards? Is Das Uberdog still around? Any others? Poor old rmp3 is fighting a lonely battle at the moment....

Most of 'em are as fed-up with rmp3s dogmatism and willful misrepresentations as many of the anarchists on this board are.

 

[Athos]

Depends who you're asking that question of, doesn't it? For me, it's a lot about attitude, too. About your politics and whether you shape them to accommodate the lifestyle you desire, or stay true to what you believe.

Unexpectedly, I found myself moving further and further to the left the older I've got! In my teens, I was apolitical; in my early 20s, I was looking forward to a Labour government; ever since, I've become more and more interested in first Marx, and then anarchism. I thought it was supposed to go the other way.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Unexpectedly, I found myself moving further and further to the left the older I've got! In my teens, I was apolitical; in my early 20s, I was looking forward to a Labour government; ever since, I've become more and more interested in first Marx, and then anarchism. I thought it was supposed to go the other way.

Only for those with atherosclerosis of the brain.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Post #316, made nearly an hour ago.
Going blind now too?

Aaaaah, so you are there. so, do you accept you were wrong to interpret socialist as Socialist worker, and interpret working with the working class the way you did?

 

[chilango]

Soooo.................rmp3 were you at Seattle then?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Aaaaah, so you are there. so, do you accept you were wrong to interpret socialist and Socialist worker, and interpret working with the working class the way you did?

No.
Hth.

 

[TremulousTetra]

No.
Hth.

You were.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Apart from rmp3 and perhaps audiotech are there nay other SWPs and fellow travllers left on the boards? Is Das Uberdog still around? Any others? Poor old rmp3 is fighting a lonely battle at the moment....

I rarely post here as well. Got fed up with VP's dogmatism and willful misrepresentations.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Most of 'em are as fed-up with rmp3s dogmatism and willful misrepresentations as many of the anarchists on this board are.

Define vangaurdism.

 

[Athos]

Define vangaurdism.

SWP

 

[TremulousTetra]

Depends who you're asking that question of, doesn't it? For me, it's a lot about attitude, too. About your politics and whether you shape them to accommodate the lifestyle you desire, or stay true to what you believe. This is why I dislike neo-libs - they follow the money rather than their convictions.

Fucking hell, my dustbin man isn't working class!!!!

 

[TremulousTetra]

SWP

RU VP's glove puppet?

go on admit, you don't know. your just repeating what the big boys have told you say.


pssss, dont believe everything VP says.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I rarely post here as well. Got fed up with VP's dogmatism and willful misrepresentations.

You plum.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Fucking hell, my dustbin man isn't working class!!!!

So you equate a menial job with being "working class", do you?

 

[ViolentPanda]

You were.

No, I wasn't.
What I am, is fed-up with being required to explain myself over and over again by some dupe whose politics don't benefit the working classes.

 

[ViolentPanda]

SWP

Makes you wonder whether rmp3 has ever bothered to look out the founding principles of the organisation, or analyse the philosophy it was originally based on.

 

[ViolentPanda]

RU VP's glove puppet?

go on admit, you don't know. your just repeating what the big boys have told you say.

What a snidey little sod you are. You have a pop, then you attempt to cover it with smilies.

pssss, dont believe everything VP says.

You know what, I don't ask or require anyone to believe anything I say, I state what I believe to be true, and let others decide.
Odd how those "others" tend to see things my way rather than yours, though. I suppose that they're all my sock-puppets, then?

Idiot.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Makes you wonder whether rmp3 has ever bothered to look out the founding principles of the organisation, or analyse the philosophy it was originally based on.

According to RMP3, the SWP aren'tvanguardist, you know.

Where did I say that?

 

[TremulousTetra]

What a snidey little sod you are. You have a pop, then you attempt to cover it with smilies.

oh fuck off you soft get.

You know what, I don't ask or require anyone to believe anything I say, I state what I believe to be true, and let others decide.
Odd how those "others" tend to see things my way rather than yours, though. I suppose that they're all my sock-puppets, then?

According to RMP3, the SWP aren'tvanguardist, you know.

Where did I say that?

 

[TremulousTetra]

So you equate a menial job with being "working class", do you?

No! There you go again reading what hasn't been said.

 

[TremulousTetra]

But surely, comrade, one needs fellow-workers who will submit to the will of the people and guide the class along the path of freedom?

No comrade, we need a squat, 'freedom' in the heart of capitalism, that will act as a beacon to the working classES, to which they will flock, and will convert en masse to the one true belief, to achieve freedom you have to be freedom.


Did ever see that Reginald D Hunter comedy routine about the Batman movie, "in order to overcome fear, you have to become fear." lol

 

[ViolentPanda]

Where did I say that?

What, you don't remember denying it and disingenuously asking "what is 'vanguardist?' " when the subject came up in one of your previous threads having a pop at anarchism?

 

[ViolentPanda]

oh fuck off you soft get.

Whatever.

Where did I say that?

Repeating yourself?

 

[ViolentPanda]

No! There you go again reading what hasn't been said.

What else does your post mean, then? Perhaps if you were a little less incomprehensible...?

 

[ViolentPanda]

No comrade, we need a squat, 'freedom' in the heart of capitalism, that will act as a beacon to the working classES, to which they will flock, and will convert en masse to the one true belief, to achieve freedom you have to be freedom.

Because, as is well known, all anarchists are "squat-punks".

Oh, and anarchism makes no claims to being "one true belief". Never has, and hopefully never will. Anarchisms aren't about conversion of the masses from one ideology to another, it's about trying to set an example of a way of living that doesn't depend on some bunch of technocratic leeches interposing themselves between the people and the achievement of the will of the people. There's no freedom in swapping one belief system for another, and you don't achieve freedom by "being" freedom, you achieve it by doing freedom, by action and example.

 

[TremulousTetra]

No, I wasn't.
What I am, is fed-up with being required to explain myself over and over again by some dupe whose politics don't benefit the working classes.

You fucking were, and you cshould know it. Your interpretation is nonsense.

you can be a member of the working class and choose not to work with the working classes, ie join the Tory party or the BNP. Or you could be a member of the working classes, and choose not to work with them, preferring to go on living some little anarchist squat in the republic of nowhere. And I stated, the example of Seattle, where anarchist chose not to work with the workers march. That you choose to work with the working classes, DOES NOT automatically place you outside them.

 

[dennisr]

"Packing meetings" - having plenty of members to hand to ram through resolutions that favour the SWP over other parties to alliances/compacts/whatever. It happens way too often to be incidental (which is what Swappies tend to claim if you tax them on it), and it's a manipulation of supposedly-democratic fora by a supposedly democratic (ha-fucking-ha!) organisation.

And this is exactly why any organsation working towards genuine unity would have to guarentee minority rights within its setup - so the respective parts of that organisation could learn to trust through working together, knowing that one organisation - regardless of how they dominate in terms of numbers cannot override genuine concerns of significent minority views. It is how the SA was established - before folk, unfortunately took the desicion to vote away that constitutional setup - on the basis of a hoped for "unity" with the SWP (the mythical 'unity of left groups' hope over experience - seen as more important than the initiation of an organisation that could draw in and genuinely become a beacon for unifying more than just those left groups).

The irony should not be lost on anyone (apart from RMP3)