AWL publish 'working class struggle and anarchism'

Erm, Bakunin's ideas are the absolute foundation of anarchism. If you don't learn much from him it's because his ideas are repeated in later writers' - but personally I think he put them better.

As I said, THEY decided on the title. I noted that some Marxists are close to anarchism, like the Council Communists, at the debate. But I'm there to discuss anarchism, being an anarchist.

Actually, I talked about how Marx learned a lot from Proudhon and how many Marxists have learned from "classical" anarchists -- or at least, eventually came to the same conclusions as, say, Bakunin. And, to be honest, I've learned far from Bakunin, Proudhon and Kropotkin than Marx. As I've read more by Proudhon, I get the impression Marx learned far more than he was willing to admit...

Gorter, sure. Bordiga? No, I don't think so. His arguments for party dictatorship are worthless -- other than a "what not to do" manual. Not to mention his sectarianism in Italy during the Red Years -- his inspiration was Bolshevik and the Bolsheviks should really have said to him " you act that way AFTER you seize power NOT before...."

Reading Marx? Presumably not his ultra-centralist and state-capitalist positions in 1848 and 1850? Or his urging of a social-democratic approach in the 1870s, doing so far as to proclaim (AFTER the Paris Commune!) that workers could vote socialism in? And so on?

As I said, I was there to discuss anarchism. Marx made his contributions to the socialist project but please don't expect anarchists to spend their time praising Marx when we can get on discussing anarchist contributions to socialism...

Anarcho, I've got a lot of time for the work you've done in arguing against the Leninist/Trotkyist interpretation of Marx, and indeed against some of Marx himself, but I think you're not responding in the best way to the spirit of Harrison Myers' and RedEd's posts.

I would think most 'Marxists' on the site (and I include myself in that category) are being influenced by Anarchist ideas, and hopefully are influencing in turn the 'Anarchists' with some of the better stuff from the Marxist tradition.

We all see ourselves as Libertarian Communists, and we should try to bring our strands together, and continue a fruitful debate. We need to encourage each other to discuss our differences and similarities.

Please give us some leeway for our differences, and don't respond in the same way as 'Trots' do to 'Anarchism', by being too dismissive. It doesn't build bridges, and there are too few of us to remain in our little worlds. I think HM & RE are to be admired for their comradeship.

Anyway, Anarcho, keep up the good work.

PS. I agree about Bordiga, if Xanthorus is anything to go by!

to much time is spent arguing over who who best has claim to marx, what does it matter? take what you want and burn the rest as they say. people should really consider drawing a line under this age old debate and get on with shit, not that one negates the other.

Without wishing to speak for RedEd, he merely makes the perfectly legitimate point that Bordiga is more likely to be discussed amongst anarchists than among the majority of self-proclaimed Marxists. Clearly, this is not the place to discuss what may or may not be valuable in Bordiga, but it is as good a place as any to note that the Leninist/Trotskyist groups as they are constituted today deny the richness of the Marxist tradition they lay claim to, whereas class struggle anarchists are normally more open to it.

RedEd basically argued that anarchists should spend their time proclaiming how great Marx is and how much more we have learned from him than the "classical" anarchists... I disagree. In terms of "spirit" of the posts, that spirit is extremely patronising. I have no problem recognising Marx's contributions to socialism, I wish some Marxists would be willing to admit that anarchists have also done so.

btw, my talk and leaflet now on-line

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/anarcho/awl-versus-anarchism

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/anarcho/marxism-and-anarchism

I've always found the way you discuss marxism and anarchism to be pathetic, it's like you are supporting a football team or something.

Your response to people on here simply pointing out that marxist and post marxist ideas are often discussed with greater depth and breadth among libertarian communists is indicative of this embarrassing approach.

also if you learn more from Proudhon than Marx you need your head examined.

I hope I didn't argue that "anarchists should spend their time proclaiming how great Marx is" since that's not a position I hold, though I'm not shy of saying that I think he was an excellent theorist. What I think it is useful to do is to point out to Leninists and people without a a good knowledge of the various strands of socialist thought that anarchists have, when we've been being sensible, been delighted to take on board lots of bits an pieces of thinkers from outside of anarchism, most notably from the Marxist tradition. Sometimes we take lots, such as when we take a whole heap of Marx's critique of political economy (which of course he developed using the ideas of others, including Proudhon, only the most dogmatic 'Marxist' tries to get round that) or little tit-bits, such as when we pay attention to Bordiga's critique of bourgeois democracy.

I think there is also a tactical issue here. Every trotskyist group around publishes an article every so often called something like Marxism vs. Anarchism, which is actually about their brand of leninism vs. a more or less convincing straw men of Bakunin, Proudhon and if your lucky Makhno. Given the forced choice the Trotskyists present, it makes sense to a lot of people to go with Trotskyism, and I think that's fair enough if you take what they say at face value. Deconstructing the forced choice is important. Much more so, I think, than showing that Anarchism is right and Marxism is wrong, especially when such things as Operaismo and Insurrectionist Anarchism exist.

If any of this comes across as patronizing, then that's a shame, since, as I've said elsewhere, I think your responses to Leninist misrepresentations of anarchism are really useful. I simply thought I had a worthwhile suggestion (for people generally, not specifically for you) about how to undercut some of the worst aspects of Leninist anti-anarchist propaganda so I made it, though it seems not very clearly

I think that the conditions of the working class under industrial capitalism are the absolute foundations of anarchism. At least I hope so, otherwise I'm switching political philosophy.

We can argue the relative merits of Bakunin and Marx all day, but I think it is fair to say that there are anarchists who get more from Marx than Bakunin and we needn't be worried about that. For my part I think that the positive contributions Marx made were more interesting and harder to come by than those that Bakunin made, and I'm not that interested in the bits that either got wrong. So whilst I'm politically closer to Bakunin, I learn more from Marx. In other words, and to oversimplify, I read Bakunin for the 'yes, I agree with that' moments and Marx for the 'I'd never thought of that before' moments. I've no idea to what extent that's because Marx at his best is a more penetrating thinker, if at all, and to what extent it simply reflects my own personal circumstances.