Anarcho Syndicalism -> Libertarian Communism

.

Yes, I think you're right to ask that question, because quite clearly there is a tension between 'social' and 'individual' liberty, although nastyned is right to stress that Libertarian Communism must encompass both.

The real issue, though, is 'how do we reconcile differences between the liberty of the individual and the liberty of society?'.

The standard answer is 'democracy'. All individuals have a vote to collectively make decisions. That is, democratic methods for decision-making within Workers' Councils (not, of course, discredited 'parliamentary democracy' (sic)).

But this leads us to the inevitable conclusion that 'social liberty' is of a higher priority than 'individual liberty'. This simply means that 'workers' as a collective production category must prevail over 'individuals' as an isolated bourgeois consumption category.

FWIW, I think the real test of someone's position is whether thay see themselves as an 'individual' or as a 'worker' (a proletarian class collective identity, rather than simply 'me').

And given that we are talking about politics, which is a social, not an individual, activity, and we aim for Communism, which surely as a term argues against 'individualism', we should jettison this essentially bourgeois idea.

I think that both Libertarian Marxists and Class Struggle Anarchists have this 'social' focus to their ideas and practice. We're all in this together on this planet and humans are social animals.

Most platformists support revolutionary syndicalism as a strategy and ideally a consciously anarchist revolutionary syndicalism. The difference is mainly that platformists feel that the syndicalist organisation alone is insufficient. That is, they are in the dual-organisationalist tradition of Bakunin.

I hate to create a circular argument, but people advocating parecon and anything contravening of,...well, libertarian communism, aren't really anarcho-syndicalist are they. Its an essential programme of our movement. If we have prefigurative (means and ends) politics and practice self-management, then I can only see bartering and democratic forms of capitalism as antagonistic trends.

So I would have said; not all libertarian communists are anarcho-syndicalist, but all anarcho-syndicalists are libertarian communists.

Only true if you think logical consistency is a requirement of people or movements... It certainly hasn't been observed to be the case.

Yea, while I think non-communist anarcho-syndicalism is bullshit, I'm loathe to go down the route of "you're not a real anarcho-syndicalist" just because someone was a collectivist or something.

Clearly it is possible to be an anarcho-syndicalist and not be a libertarian communist. The CNT wasn't always committed to libertarian communism and not all anarcho-syndicalists are today. There were anarchists before both anarchist communism and anarcho-syndicalism. This is simply a fact.

Now as an anarchist communist myself I do see there being unresolved inconsistencies in people who call themselves anarchists but not libertarian communists but I think that is another argument.

I'm no expert here, but I also have heard, prolly from Cat, that during the Spanish Revolution there were forms of renumeration even on collectivized farms. What that was, what it entailed, sorry, beyond my pay grade (har,har) at this point. I just not that well versed on it.

There were anarcho-syndicalists who weren't necessarily advocating libertarian communism, such as collectivists (who saw renumeration according to effort), but they were surely a minority. Also there was a movement in the 30's away from libertarian communism by some anarcho-syndicalists... I'm thinking Damier's book on Anarcho-Syndicalism... here's a quote from my review:

But yeah, others have summed up the differences pretty well here, and I would agree that for most anarcho-syndicalism was a method or strategy to get to libertarian communism.

There were collectivists in the CNT who advocated a form of wages, but often it was just a reflection of the limits of the situation, i.e. communism on one estate or in one factory wasn't viable, so some monetary relations were retained. I'm fairly certain it wasn't a parecon-style 'remuneration for effort' though; iirc wages were paid according to family needs (i.e. number of kids etc) as part as getting as close to 'to each according to needs' as possible. I think that would have proved unstable, either pushing through to communism or regressing into standard wage labour - but the revolution didn't last long enough to find out.

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but in my experience with quite a few self-described platformists I have met (and I have been one/sympathetic a long time) I have often encountered arguments against setting up even revolutionary syndicalist unions or other structures of a libertarian character for along Malatestan lines total insertion in "apolitical" bodies. I think some of this comes from lack of development though, cause I have read more serious platformist stuff that does think eventually revolutionary or anarcho-syndicalism would be good but only after breaking off or capturing the current unions and social movements. I also have always assumed that platformists were in keeping with "anarcho-communist" tradition possibly more open to insurrectionism?