Anarchism without Adjectives

How does "anarchism without adjectives" differ from not having clear defined positions,/avoiding thinking about what works and what doesn't?

on what basis do awas organise?

AdC,

Your post is reasonable, but the are two main points where I, and I suspect many others here, would diverge from it. First, you description of the value of diversity of struggle in pre-revolutionary situations seems accurate enough to me, however, it is no basis for building a specific organisation on, in my opinion. In order for a given organisation to be effective, it must have a certain level of unity in theory and action. There's no point producing contradictory propoganda, or taking mutally opposed approaches in relating to trade unions. Because of this, splitting into multiple groups with specific goals, tactics and priorities seems sensible to me. This needn't lead to sectarianism either. In the UK groups like Afed, SolFed, AntiFa etc. get on well whilst remaining seperate.

The second place I'd disagree is that anarchists basically want economic democracy. Anarchist communists tend to have a more specific idea about what they want to achieve, and reject democracy a sufficient basis for an anarchist economy. Anarchist communists have a critique of things like the commodity form, markets, individual enterprises and so on and often take the position that the type of economy envisioned by mutualism is either/both undesirable or/and impossible. A phrase communists sometimes use to describe certain ideas assosiated with mutualism is 'self-managed capitalism', and we see have little in common with people who advance those ideas.

So whilst I have nothing against people who have different aims and tactical views, I don't want to be in an organisation so broad it has trouble operating coherantly. Equally, whilst I think there are plenty of non-communists who have well meaning political visions, and genuinely oppose exploitation, I don't think that their ideas are in some way compatible with my own, either theoretically or as paralel possibilities for social change in the real world.

The basis where a room with 2 anarchists doesn't give you three splinter groups...

Everyone I know that simply calls themself an "anarchist" rather than "anarcho-syndicalo-communo-proto-platformist" organizes way better. When organizing doesn't require you to get everyone in your group to define reality the same way, you can concentrate a lot more energy on doing something other than giving people wordy pamphlets on why some obscure anarchist ideology from the 1800s isn't sufficient, but your obscure anarchist ideology from the 1800s is.

I think there's certainly a value in being able to learn from a range of different anarchist currents - communism, syndicalism and so on - and being able to organise in a way that can draw from and incorporate each of them where needed. But then, most anarchists I know do this anyway, even if they feel particularly drawn to one current or another.

My issue with turning this into a point of principle (ala anarchism without adjectives) is that it can often lead to (at best) a lack of criticism, and (at worse) active support for, some of the more silly ideas that get described as "anarchism" - primitivism, individualism, "ancap" and the like. "Unity in diversity" is good as a guiding point, but unity only works if there's at least a basic degree of shared analysis of how things are, where we want to go, and how we get there.

I agree with most of what you're saying, jonthom, and I would add that the only thing less successful than anarchist without adjectives is hyper dogmatism to anarcho-somethingism.

Personally, I choose the label 'anarchist.' It is not a pet cause of mine to entertain philosophies that won't work, and it's not a point of mine to make sure nothing but my favorites are presented as the only solution. I've been called a Soviet by capitalists and a capitalist by communists. The only people to call me something like 'comrade' and have me believe it are those I see and work with every day, because I'm a member of my community first, and an anarchist as a result.

The most valid, and quite important, thing to draw from Voltarine deCleyre's AWA is that one should not equivocate discussion of theory to discussion of space and time. Labor vouchers in one place probably won't lead to the recreation of capitalism if all the other basic criteria for anarchism are in place. Anarchism itself probably sets the stage best to find out with specific ideas work. In the absence of the state and hierarchical relationships there's no reason not to expect a proliferation of different projects to learn from and discuss at meetings. And with a taste a freedom, there's not much reason to believe people would recreate systems that enslave them.

Unless we are going to go to a remote island and play a game/simulation of capitalism like that thread a couple of weeks ago. I forget who made that suggestion, might be HorrorHiro

Unfortunately all these shorthand decriptions for our politics rely on words that have been used in a number of contradictory ways over the decades and we just have to make the best of it, but it seems to me that 'communism', 'socialism', anarchism' and 'democracy' are all pretty much useless to us without at least some 'adjectives' and probably a paragraph or two of explanation.

Even 'A de C' has had to incorporate some such adjectives it seems.

A discussion on 'money', 'labour-time vouchers' and 'communism versus mutualism' is perhaps best left to other threads, some of them still active now.

On more than one occasion I have been witness to people getting into (honestly I have probably also taken part in haha) heated arguments where the differing parties; when they have finally talked it out, realise that they agree in all practical areas of action and organisation, and their arguments have come solely from the differing labels they use to describe their actions.

Fetishism is a word that gets thrown around a lot by libertarian communists, yet one of the biggest barriers I often see to revoltutionary organisation is the fetishisation of terms. There is a global media practice of fetishising terms due to the powerful effect this process has on consumers of media. When we have a simplified label for complex groups of ideas we tend to give it a power beyond our rational consciousness. This is often magnified in social "situations".

These labels can generally be helpful when we know through prior experience that there is an agreement about meaning in that it saves time and energy etc. This is the thing about meaning: in a social context meaning is something that is arrived at and negotiated socially. When dealing with people we don't know, it is useful (despite how time and energy consuming as it can be) to remain adjectiveless whilst meanings and ideas are being negotiated and presented. At least we should be willing to start any conversation where we use simplified labels by not only defining them but negotiating an agreed meaning socially.

We are competing with a huge global propaghanda machine. If we want revolution to spread we must be willing to constantly and consistently redefine our terms (I don't mean constantly change their meaning; just when necessary define them again for new social connections - new people).

I would advocate that we should be willing for time and energy's sake create simpler labels for complex groups of idas, but that we should when necessary be willing to renegiotiate terms for the benefit of social cohesion, as long as the important actions and ideas that these labels represent are not transformed by this process.

Just as importantly though we must be willing to critique ourselves consistently and be aware of the potential for unhealthy emotional connections to be formed to these simplified labels. If we are identifying too heavily with our simple labels we might let the emotional turmoil this can create get in the way of performing the actions and exploring the ideas these simple labels were meant to represent.

This

Nope

Actually I brought that up as a hypothetical possibility to consider in a theoretical discussion. It was never "suggested" that it should be done. Although I would argue that for people who lack emotional maturity (like children), there is often an emotional drive to sustain restrictive systems out of fear and ignorance. Which is why education is so important.

However I think this is off this topic and as has been seen encourages a further unnecessary deviation from the topic, which is about the merits for and against more specific adjective prefixes to broader anarchist definitions.

I'd love it if you would add something constructive to that discussion specifically Croydonian Anarchist.

What do you think?

Communism is the riddle of history solved, end of story.

I think in terms of theoretical discussions with others, adjectives like syndicalist for instance, to make anarcho syndicalism, are useful. Also, in this context, I think people who call themselves "anarchists without adjectives" are really doing it just because they are a bit confused about which strands they agree with the most. People who call themselves "anarchists" as opposed to actually saying "without adjectives" at the end I think are more sincere and genuinely take bits from all strands in a pragmatic case by case fashion.

But in terms of when they are actually out on the streets and organising etc, as opposed to having theoeretical discussions on sites like this (though this is by no means all libcom is), I think not adding the adjective is helpful, especially to people who are not familiar with anarchism at all, as it might just add more mystery/confusion/alienation.

you know this is nothing but an insult against anarchists who think about their politics, it answers nothing at all.

Well if we're going to throw around the word "insult" lightly, then you should probably reevaluate what you mean by AWA. de Cleyre had her own very clear ideas when she coined the term, and she was well on her way to being a communist. The difference was that she didn't like an already marginalized and small community being further divided because the communists and collectivists don't think that each other are anarchists. It was a matter of humility, suggesting that maybe you're not the only anarchist in the world that "gets it," rather than one of ill-defined thought.

edit: fixed a typo