Do I want to wish Voltairine de Cleyre a happy birthday?

Depends on who you ask... I don't like this "camping" much myself.

Worse than that, she was 'anarchist without adjectives'.

"There is nothing un-Anarchistic about any of [these systems] until the element of compulsion enters and obliges unwilling persons to remain in a community whose economic arrangements they do not agree to. (When I say 'do not agree to' I do not mean that they have a mere distaste for...I mean serious differences which in their opinion threaten their essential liberties...)...Therefore I say that each group of persons acting socially in freedom may choose any of the proposed systems, and be just as thorough-going Anarchists as those who select another."

So no, you definitely don't.

Fuck, I've got a book by her. Glad I haven't read it now.

Truth be told, I don't quite see the problem there.

Or is it that 'not a communist, so not an anarchist' stuff?

Go to town if ya want:

Essays and Other Writings by Voltairine de Cleyre

Non-communist anarchists love all that bullshit about the contractual freedom of individual subjects to enter into any arrangement according to their own free will.

I'm not even being polemical when I say that substantively, there's no difference to classical liberalism.

They should read Paschukanis:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/pashukanis/1924/law/ch04.htm

Does that also apply to non-communist socialists or just to those individualist or capitalist types?

Because if so, I can see why some accuse communists of dogmatism if only their system is 'the right one'.

why would anyone be a communist if they didn't think it was right?

Yeah well, obviously I think communism is the 'real deal' myself or I wouldn't be here, but what happened to pluralism?

The way your question sounds, it makes it seems like we're all in some giant tug-of-war here and we must show our superiority (at least that's the underlying feeling I get from that, sorry if I'm making more out of it than it is). Who was it again who said communists must not propose a solution, but critique? Dupont?

to be honest i don't know who Dupont is/was or why i'd care what he thought. I'm just saying everyone thinks their own ideas are better than those of everyone who disagrees with them or else they would have different ideas.

I'm not sure what you mean by pluralism?

"I was for several years an individualist, but becoming convinced that a number of the fundamental propositions of individualistic economy would result in the destruction of equal liberty, I relinquished those beliefs. In doing so, however, I did not accept the proposed economy of Communism, which in some respects would entail the same result, destruction of equal freedom; always, of course, in my opinion, which I very willingly admit should not be weighed by others as of equal value with the opinions of those who make economy a thorough study, but which must, nevertheless, remain supreme with me. I am an Anarchist, simply, without economic label attached. "

De Cleyre was a great anarchist, not to mention feminist, I wouldn't know why we shouldn't wish her a happy birthday. She got shot you know...

Like most honest, non-ideological, anarchists, she was skeptical economic agnostic.

Not only did she get shot, she was shot by a former pupil (she taught English to immigrants) and refused to press charges or speak to the cops about it. That she stuck to her anti-statist principles even under such horrific circumstances (she lived in constant pain until her death) puts her head and shoulders above most historical and contemporary anarchists.

Yeah, she certainly was a great anarchist, and although I don't personally believe in ceremonial rituals such as 'birthdays' (everyday would be a birthday in a non-elitist anarchist society)---I would nevertheless give her homage on 365 occasions when I lit a cigarette rather than a candle on a cake.
But I don't understand this hatred that is directed mostly against individualists, as if they are fascists, I can only wince at how the proletariat are considered by these very same slanderers, or are the commonality exempt from criticism from these ideologists because of their political naivety? This approach to social relationships verges on paternalism.

Well, what do you mean by "pluralism"? If "pluralism" is supposed to mean something like, "I don't think people should be jailed or shot because of their beliefs", then ok, I'll go along with that, but since no one on this thread was suggesting anything like that, I don't quite understand what point you're trying to make.

If, on the other hand, "pluralism" is supposed to mean something like, "I should respect ideas that I regard as wrong", then that makes no sense. I wouldn't have a position if I thought all the opposing positions were equally valid.

I'll reiterate: non-communist anarchism, especially of the individualist variety, is pretty much indistinguishable from classical liberalism. The only difference is that those types of anarchist are basically disgruntled because really existing liberalism fails to live up to some "ideal" liberalism.

Another reason I don't like VdC...

Sorry, little Johnny. Ever since the glorious Revolution birthdays have been exposed as the individualist bourgeois nonsense they truly are. I fed your cake to the dog.

Marie Antoinette fed cake to her pedigree dogs:) But seriously, on what date did that glorious revolution occur? Be careful, your answer may reveal a hero worshipping of some kind.

Lucky dog! Marie Antoinette lacked your generosity towards the needy.

Got shot three times, and said this about her would-be assassin:

This, despite the fact, as Black Badger says, she was left in severe pain by the shooting. She might not be the most memorable of the anarchist ilk in terms of her output, but she certainly has my admiration for this act alone. Happy birthday de Cleyre.

You didn't hear about it? It was last week. It was all over CNN.

On that note, what's your opinion on Rudolf Rocker? He's on my to-do list. Wikipedia says he was a self-professed anarchist without adjectives.

I thought he was an anarcho syndicalist?

Yeah, from what I've gathered (including from the same article!), which makes it a bit confusing. What do you guys think about this particular self-profession? Is it even actually true?

I think all this will to label is very un-anarkie-ist

He describes himself as an anarchist without adjectives, but he is also the man who wrote the text Anarcho-Syndicalism , so go figure . I think (I am probably wrong here), but he is taking a 'without adjectives' stance against contemporaries on the left (early 20th century had some pretty shit leftists).

Yeah Rocker was definitely not a textbook anarcho-syndicalist despite his actual involvement in grassroots revolutionary unionism. IIRC he had a very big tent notion of what anarchism is, and in his book on anarchism in America he pretty much includes all the betes noires of libcom (from Thoreau to the individualists) in the anarchy camp. He even talks about "Lincoln' anarchic tendencies" ffs! But this brings me to my point. Who cares that de Cleyre and Rocker had a dodgy understanding of ideological anarchism? Both of them, esp. Rocker, were utterly devoted to the cause of the labour movement, and devoted their energies to materially improving the lives of working people; neither sided with the state on any issue (well Rocker may have given vocal support to the Allied war effort, but then Kropotkin was guilty of the same and no one would accuse His Beardness of not being a proper anarchy).

Very helpful, thanks. I believe this is the book you were talking about.

So remember, kids, when the Bolsheviks crush a sailors' uprising, it's because they're evil statists, but when Rocker or Kropotkin support the allies, they still aren't "siding with the state on any issues."

I love the consistency of principles of big-tent anarchism. As long as somebody calls themselves an anarchist, they get a pass on anything. Oh, if only Lenin and Trotsky had just circled their As!

Naturally, Noam Chomsky should also be in the list of those who supported imperialist powers. He supports the Allies in World War 2, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in the Vietnam War and the Indian invasion of Bangladesh in the India-Pakistan war of 1971.

Kropotkin and Rocker should certainly be criticised for there stupid political decisions, but none of them are the same as shooting workers to suppress revolution.