Anarchism in the "third-world"

Hi. I imagine it would be similar to what was done in the rural areas of Spain during their revolution / civil war. Peasants expropriated land from the landlords and formed farming collectives. Some peasants preferred to farm individual plots of land, which was allowed as long as they didn't employ any labor.

The "third world" describes many different peoples and places, existing under very different conditions dependant on where they are.

Unfortunately for many third world people there are no means of production which they can access apart from very depleted and overpopuated tracts of land (like refugee camps).

In these instances "organisation" is based significantly around ensuring enough food and medicine just to survive, and around avoiding violent genocide and persecution.

Personally I feel that the responsibility for third world access to means of production lies just as much in my own hands and those of my comrades in first world countries as it does in the hands of trhose in the thirld wold (if not significantly more). It is the hstorical and current colonialism and capital exploitation of these countries which has created and maintains a third world. It does so in such a decisive way that for many the only options are persecution or refuge and in either case often starvation.

The corrupton of first world capitalist intrusion in many of these places has seen armed resistances mislead into the same kinds of tyrannical dictatorships that they aimed to overthrow.

I think the thirld world problems are largely dependant on a first world revolution, because the means of production which exst in the third world are generally controlled from the first world.

I'll think you'll find the core of the means of production are actually concentrated in the developing world, unless you think coffee shop chains, retail outlets and financial sectors are vital means of production. Your point about what means of production there are in the developing world being controlled from the developed world is quite confusing, afterall isn't revolution about the working class seizing control of the means of production?

There is also an implicit eurocentrism to your post, firstly in your explicit claim that people in the developing worlds are beholden to revolution in the west but also in your implicit notion that the problems of corruption and the dynamic of third world resistances spawning their own ruling classes are the simple outcome of first world intrusion, something that to me seems rather patronising, a kind of inverted white mans burden, whereby the "third world" is denied any real agency, so much so that the "first world" has a monopoly on wrong doing, others reduced to a state of infantile innocence.

Many of the largest historic anarchist movements have existed in areas of relitively low socio-economic 'development'. Places like Korea, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina and South Africa have had large anarchist movements, or movements of a basically anarchist type. Their aims, as far as I can tell, have tended to be pretty similar to those of anarchists in countries with relitively high levels of 'development'. So things like communal control of the mechanisms of production, the abolition of the wage system, an end to social relations based on dominance, and so on have been at the core of 'third world' anarchism, just as they have been at the core of 'western' anarchism.

There are, of course, regional variations. But it seems to me that the global movement against capitalism (which on this site is usually called communism) is about as coherant and ingrained as global capitalist social relations are. And since capitalism is the basic strucuturing social principle pretty much everywhere, resistance to capital has some pretty international themes too. In fact, you couldn't have a genuine anti-capitalism which wasn't as global as capitalism is.

Firstly what you call the developing world for the most part is what is referred to as the "second world". This thread is about the third world. Yet as I said the situations differ from place to place so even qualifying something as third world as opposed to developing or vice versa is difficult. I understand that.

You mentioned coffee. Coffee comes from many places and largely from south america where there is a strong historical influene politically that has among other more spontaneous motivators lead to lots of great work being done in organisation by coffee producers.

Unfortunately there is a significant distinction between the relationships between workers and capitalists when it comes to renewable resources, like coffee; and the relationships between workers and capitalists where non renewable resources are concerned, like minerals and metals. There is also significant distinctions between these relationships depending on the relationships between capitalists and government in the areas of production.

There are unfortunately areas where this sort of production happens where worker pay is not enough to get them over the poverty line in fact it is so small that it is just enough to keep themselves and their families above the starvation line. In some areas mines are defended by private security forces made up if not then almost entirely of fly in fly out 4 weeks on 1 week off first world security personel.

When workers attempt to organise whole villages are executed and women are raped (in many african communties traditio dictates that if a woman is raped the village much move out of an area out of shame - making way for expansion of capital).

As RedEd stated capitalism is a global problem and it unfortunatley requires a global solution. I didn't say that it is entirely our responsibility, but the "developing" world as you call it devlop products which are mainly consumed in first world poulations, and the same first world military forces (whether state sponsored or privately so), create and inflame internal conflicts which lead to famine and and disease on such a scale that local poulations will do anything just to survive. In these situations it is work to eat the bare minimum necessary for survival or die of starvation or murder.

To suggest that I am being patronising by acknowledging this is the most fucked up piece of backward pc rhetoric I have ever heard (although I understand this is poular amongst coffee drinking first world intellectuals).

I never claimed that it was a simple case of exterior capitalist intrusion being the sole source of corruption and power dynamics in the third world. It is a significant conributor in some situations though (specifically I am talking about plaes like Sierra Leone and Congo), and in these situations it is much more important to adress this despite the chance of backwards pc ideology (ideology in the most literal sense) being used to in some way negate this and reduce the problem to being one of a simple class dynamic that exists in that location .

I am not advocating some parent/infant framework from which to view the situations and it is not implicit in what I said in any way whatsoever. I never said the first world has a monopoly on wrong doing or that thirld world populations do wrong out of infantile innocense. Often they do so from the threat of starvation and disease which is very real in the thirld world (unlike many places that you would call developing). Is survival innocent or not? I think reducing this to some kind of ideological dichotomy of right/wrong, innocent/guilty or parental/infantile is sophmoric at best.

This is a question not of some theoretical objectives being fulfilled through intellectually and academically acknowledged ""correct" ways of adressing the matter. When people are in a situation which is basically enforced slavery where the means of production are violently defended and controlled by an imported private first world militia whose presense is sanctioned by local government and whose authority when questioned is enforced by local state military (who are often motivated by enflamed ethnic divisions), and whose only other options are starvation or murder, then the potential for "the working class seizing control of the means of production" because that's what the revolution is about, is significantly diminished without the support ad solidarity of a first world input.

I don't think this is in any way paternal or patronising. It is honest and responsible. International solidarity is a must for an international problem. If we can't accept the differences in power dynamics between different places and reduce this international problem to being purely ideological and universally generic, then we accept an ideology that serves capital and supports it. It is neccesary to at least consider the possibility that the burden of responsibility lies with consuption as well as with production.

However before you single that last statement out let me add that more importantly is it for us to recognise that some people have more opportunity and means to revolt, and it is the gratest act of hypocrisy for these people to at once claim class consciousness and at the same time refute their superior potential to resist. That isn't class consciosness. That is bourgeois self justification disguised as pc solidarity.

I'm not being rude but the only argument of any substance I can find in that post is over the definition of third world, a term I think is next to useless. The developing world is a much better term (though not without it's own problems) and I would certainly define India and China as developing, indeed even under the old three world model, China was in the 2nd world because of it's political ideology not level of development.

Your points about the difference between renewable resources and non renewable are frankly quite odd and don't go anywhere in terms of drawing conclusions from them, likewise you stating that many workers live on just above starvation wages, something that was true of the west during it's development but never led anyone to claim that it couldn't produce revolutionary movements and moments.

The issue over the reverse white mans's burden is one that is very real, the left has a long history of reducing conflicts and movements in the developing world to "anti imperialist" and cheerleading them on, overlooking their own massive shortcomings and class divisions, issues of course that tie into global economics but do not exonerate their own failings, anymore than the Russian Civil War excuses the Bolsheviks own anti working class politics and policy, likewise the various regimes that arose from anti colonial struggles.

Your last point about people in the developing world having more a responsibility to revolt is fine up to a point but it doesn't in any shape or form follow that the developing world must lead the way in revolution, infact such is the global division of labour that it's becoming easier to imagine the developing world sparking off global revolution, as deindustrialisation leaves the west without the traditional working class envisaged as the bearers of revolution at the turn of the century. I also want to touch on the fact that revolutionary potential is not based on some moral idea of who "should" revolt first out of obligation but is based on material factors to do with positions within the economy, class composition and such. The fact that the means of production themselves are in the developing world surely counts for quite a deal if we are talking about the potential for a revolution that seizes them. It's always struck me as odd that at the start of the century revolution was only possible in the west first because the rest of the world wasn't industrialised enough, that it lacked the large scale production that brought the working class together and yet now that the west is deindustrialised so many still cling to the idea that the west must lead the revolutions. Seems to me just a long standing sense of western centricity that assumes it is always the vanguard of history.

Essentially I have little time for the notion of the third world as a primarily national geographic concept and think trying to talk about these sort of matters in these terms is essentially pointless.

It is interesting to me that when you denounce the substance of my post you choose not to referr in any way to the examples I used in Africa. Thus ignoring the very basis of the substance of my point.

You are advocating a generic ideological framework which is as applicable to someone in a refugee camp in the congo as it is to a factory worker in chicago.

I advocate a flexible theoretical framework which acknowledges the different situations that exist across the world.

Chinese labour and Bolshevism have very little practical revelance to the struggle of the people of the Congo and the fact that you so loosely dismiss any differentiation is quite concerning.

Some of your arguments are quite relevant to certain places in the developing world. However when you dismiss a legitimate differentiation between the situations faced by those who work in renewable resource production, non-renewable resource extraction, and manufacturing you show a lack of understanding of current capitalist practice and capitalist priority as it relates to state and military intervention.

Also the premise that starvation situations from within which revolutionary practices developed are in anyway comparable to situations that have been fluctuating in parts of africa is hilarious. Please provide an example of one that is?

Ultimately you are arguing my point as if I were applying to all "third world" and "developing" situations. I am not. The places you mentioned like China and India I would make a whole different set of arguments about, and I do not for the most part consider these to be third world in any way shape or form like I would the DRC or Sierra Leone or Sudan or Uganda.

Please don't generalise. Adress my examples specifically. It is completely illogical to use China and India as examples why I am wrong about sub-saharan africa. Otherwise we are discussing two completely separate topics and it doesn't make any fucking sense haha.

But this is the thing, you get refugee camps outside of sub Saharan Africa, you get them all across the world and of course they aren't the same as a workplace like a mining company, a coffee plantation in terms of what class organising, but then again the same can be said for the refugee camps in France during and after the Spanish civil war but I'd be baffled if someone argued they showed revolution wasn't possible in the west.

Regarding starvation situations, you seem to have moved the goal posts, first it was workers on just about feeding themselves and now you seem to be talking about outright famine, as if the "third world" can be reduced to refugee camps and famine.

Like I said talking about things in such stupidly general terms as "the first and third world" and seeking to answer which one is revolutionary is pointless and frankly get's pretty offensive when one half is reduced to permanent victims, refugees and starving. Third world is a problematic enough term in it's common usage without having it further reduced to some sort of Bono wank fantasy of starving africans and refugees.

If the question was about anarchism and class struggle in famines and refugee camps your posts would be of some relevance, but the question was about the "third world" which is not reducible to those western media tropes.

Yeah, I think the term 'Third World' isn't very useful, it's based on a classification from the time of the cold war, with the term 'Second World' being reserved for the Soviet Union/China and their satellites. I find it more useful to think of a country's position in the world economy in terms of core and pheriphery.

Wow dude I am not generalising: you are.

Here are some examples:

I'm not reducing the thirld world. I just pointed out a few examples of "specific" situations which are considered "third world" where the possibility of effective revolutionary practice seems like it will be dependant on effective "first world" revoutionary practice if not prior to, hen at least simultaneously to (on a global scale). I am not suggesting that all situations that could be considered to be third world are in the same position.

Resisting legitimate differentiations between the unique situations in sub-saharan africa and post spanish war refugee camps or chinese manufacturing plants is the product of a gross generalisation on your part.

My bringing up refugee camps in sub-saharan africa and mining operations in close geographic proximity is in no means a move of the goal posts. The point it that there is a direct economic, political and geographic relationship between these. A large majority of those who do not consent to participating in the latter, are forced if they can avoid murder to seek refuge in the former.

This in no means represents the entirety of what happens in the third world and I never suggested so. But it is a syllogistic fallacy to suggest that because in other thirld world situations an effective revolutionary practice is possible (situations which suffer from vastly different economic and political conditions); it so follows that this will also be possible in the specific areas I have mentioned without a change in first world capitalist intrusion whether that be forced by reformism, military intervention, or a change in these enforced by a sustained and widespread (ie global) "first world" revolutionary practice.

This is no Bono wank "fantasy". These conditions are very real for the people who live and experience them. It does not follow that all people who might be considered "third world" suffer the same extremes and I never suggested so. Neither does it follow that because others who might be labelled "third world" have opportunities for revolt that it is implicit that the people in the specific situations I have mentioned must also.

To simplify this dscussion with a simple metaphor: I said "that barnabys rabbit is white". Then you say: "hey he just said all barnabys rabbits are white". Then I say: "I didn't say they all were.... but that one is still white". Then you say "he's generalising.... but just so you kow: they are actually all black... although I don't think we should call them barnabys rabbits".

In the same way that you don't like the generalisation of the label "third world" (I don't either), I don't like the generalisation of class relations across different situations. Trying to bend reality to fit your theoretical framework is a poor substitute for theoretical criticism.

On a sperate note I tend to agree with the core and periphery outlook as a good starting point for observing different class relations based on a locations position between the two extremes. The examples I have raised here are most cxertainly at the extreme of the periphery, in that they do not even recieve redundant or obsolete technology. Unless you call food and clothing obsolete technology. I think to resist a differentiation between the extreme periphery and other areas along the scale is just the hangover of a stubborn overinvestment in a particular ideology and the desire to see this satisfied.

I honestly see this as the biggest threat to "first world" revolutionary organisation.

I think it's also quite useful to define this in the negative - ie. what we are against.

Basically we are against the bolshevik (and affiliated tendencies) method of fighting for a form of state-capitalism or social-democracy, in order to industrialise the country. As much as i dislike Debord, he puts it quite well in Society of the Spectacle: