Can I be an anarchist and desire wealth as well?

There is nothing wrong with understanding capitalism as a system of value if you also grasp that this is the product of alienation and exploitation that isn't simply automatic but has to be produced and reproduced at every level day in day out.

You're changing the subject. Do you see the sense of it, or am I wrong, and if so why?

It's an analogy ffs - I'm not advocating workers literally murder capitalists. Nor am I claiming only the workers can 'murder' the capitalist class as a whole. What I'm saying is that only workers can 'murder' capital. And capitalism is the set of social relations, of which workers are an essential part, so this 'murder' would indeed improve our situation.

~J.

I will buy you a book of your choice (but under 20 Euro) if you can find a post on this thread asserting that workers drawing a pension are capitalists. (not counting the clearly humorous post about retired football players)

I really, really, really wish people would read exactly what other people write on this forum, and ask for clarification if a formulation seems ambiguous. This is not the first thread where people have drawn inferences from what other people write and then respond to those inferences, rather than responding to what other people write.

In post #56, you say:

Basically, you are presenting workers as merely unsuccessful capitalists. They have yet to muster the funds to become capitalists. Oh, if they could only save up enough.

Or you could try and make yourself clearer, assuming that is your goal. You seem to be well aware of what people's misconceptions are, so you might want to write with that in mind.

I thought I was rounding the point off, rather than changing the subject. I interpreted you as saying that it was possible to avoid having to distinguish between demands for worker self-managed pensions versus capitalist-managed pensions because it would always be possible to demand that the capitalist deliver the same efficiency as the workers could. Theoretically, of course, that is possible but recent experience would not lead most workers to see it as a preferred concrete demand.

I asked the original question, about distinguishing self-managed pensions, because I was interested to know whether a Class Struggle Anarchist would be concerned about its more capitalistic nature and, more generally, whether you'd have a preconceived general rule about it. I'm still not sure whether you have a general rule about it (not that I think you should have one) but you have clearly stated that you have a general rule about making concrete rather than leftist demands.

I agree with one of your earlier posts that, "In practice, we support struggles generally because as an expression of workers self-organisation they have content that goes beyond their form". However, I am not convinced that demands made of capitalists can ever go beyond the system so whether they are concrete or leftist should something that is driven by the desire to maximise the opportunity to challenge capital social relations (including abstract work) rather than a preconceived general rule.

I can conceive of a situation where it might be a marginally more emancipatory experience for people to be involved in a dispute where they were managing their own pension capital rather than simply demanding that capitalists do it for them. And, if such a situation were to occur, I don't think there is an inherent problem with people playing the role of capitalist in addition to their role as worker etc.

treeofjudas, perhaps some italics might assist your reading comprehension:

Hope that helps.

Actually, put in the context of that entire quotation:

you will readily find that my conclusion, namely:

follows directly. Thank you for pointing out this wonderful new technology called italics, by the way. Pretty neat. I should use it more often.

treeofjudas,

no, your reasoning is completely faulty.

If I say: what distinguishes an amateur football player from a professional is that the latter makes a living from playing, it does not follow that an amateur football player is a failed professional.

Hope this helps.

But in what way are you exploiting others if your deferred wages are invested in a pension scheme?
Are the workers' pension schemes going to perform so well that the element of pension benefits derived from the investment of these deferred wages exceeds the surplus value created by the same workers during their working lives?

Let's say I were to work 20 years of my life, all the while scrimping and saving, rather than pissing my money away on comic books and Jazz CDs. After this period, but well before reaching retirement age, I plow my savings into a business venture, and live the rest of my life entirely from the revenues I derive from exploitation.

Would I then not be exploiting others, simply because my initial investment came from my own savings rather than inherited wealth?

On the contrary, not only would I be living from exploitation, but, in contrast to the pensions example, I would even be a capitalist.

This is taking on "angels on the head of a pin" proportions, where we start developing a catalog of criteria to determine whether or not pensioners are capitalists. But that misses the point, since I never claimed that pensioners are capitalists, but simply that the revenues of pension funds are derived from exploitation.

The original context was somebody (I think j. costello?) saying that anyone "directly involved in exploitation" cannot be an anarchist. For the duration of the thread I merely teased out the implications of that poorly phrased statement. After all, even proletarians are directly "involved" in exploitation, since they're the ones being exploited!

So it would be legitimate to accuse me of being cynically over-literalist in responding to j. costello's statement, I guess. An online friend of mine says that one should always apply the "principal of charity" in discussions.

But my main intention is to simply point out that class division in capitalism, mediated as it is by the commodity-form, is not such a clear, direct relation of domination the way class relations in feudal and slave-owning societies are. And my second point is that there is no reason why nominal workers are inherently more "anarchist" than nominal capitalists. References to the proletariat as the class with "nothing to lose" or whatever just don't fly with me. The sector of the proletariat fortunate enough to have swimming pools and holiday villas has plenty to lose.

Cool! So if I can land a "good job", my interests really are best served by Capitalism after all.

I guess we can all forget about this Communism nonsense then.

I don't presume to make any pronouncements concerning your interests, since unlike you I don't engage in mystical speculation concerning the "historic mission" of distinct segments of the population.

The only people who have an "interest" in ending capitalism are those who consciously decide that they do. That's admittedly tautological, but to assert anything else is to continue to indulge in mystifications concerning "real" and "false" consciousness.

With some of the best racing in the UK along with Royals galore in attendance, and the weather holding out fine here at Royal Ascot.
And here we are under starters orders, and it looks as if it is proving to be a nice clean race all the way to the finishing line... In the Group 1 race today we have Class Struggle Anarchist, looking a bit miserable there, but putting up a spirited defence...oh, no, there he goes for a burton, a serious fall quite early on (always a sticky one, that deep theory ditch. Even the best have taken an unexpected fall there. Nasty, bit of a swamp.)
(word is his trainer still uses the Engels manual of 1886. Nice book but some of its a bit dated for todays rough riding terrain. Bit too early to forecast the rise of mass consumption and the integration of the working class, for example)
Once again a couple of jockeys riding to victory on the back of German Theory - and it proves to be a bit of a photofinish romp to the end, with One-Small-Book-One-Very-Big-Idea Postone coming up fast on the inside. Remarkable! It seems some people have updated their ideas, making them a bit more supple when it comes to staying the course.
Class War Anarchist will be forced to get back into some serious training if they are going to fight on such a rough terrain again next year. No-one's backing them much these days.
Its a story many are loathe to see repeated, but we reckon Class War Anarchist is going to start recuperating the new ideas breezing in from abroad before long, which can only be a good thing for all us here at the event of the racing year!

By demanding concrete things we challenge value, by asserting use-value. Communism is the abolition of value, leaving only use-value - the use of our collective means - to meet our collective needs. That being so, when we assert concrete use-value over value we are, indeed, going beyond the system.

Challenging capital social relations is necessary, but it is not an end in itself - it should not be a "preconceived general rule" as you put it, to challenge capital at every turn. We should fight the directives of capital not on principle but because they stand between us and our concrete needs, by asserting our needs in the face of the abstract needs of capital. That is communism.

That rather depends on your definition of an 'emancipatory experience'. However, I still think you're avoiding the salient point I made about alienation - i.e. that being a capitalist is simply another form of alienation. A more pleasant form, but nonetheless subjugated to capital. It's obviously better for workers to avoid this if they can, and clearly they can, by organising together to demand what they actually need.

Not really.

~J.

Indeed? If so, one might ask what causes people to consciously decide to do x, y or z. And one might get answers involving, for example, class relations.

Ideas do not spring from nothingness. All ideas are rooted in material reality. People do not consciously decide to do something for no reason.

If you regard it as mystification to even attempt to distinguish between something that is real and something that is false, one wonders how you get out of bed in the morning.

~J.

If I understand you correctly, workers demanding a better pension would be an example of a concrete demand. No way would that "challenge value". On the contrary, it is all about workers trying to maintain an abstract labour relationship with an employer.

The reality of modern economies is that there is no utility for most of the use-values being produced in a future communist society. For instance, there is no point in producing the use-value: 'facilitating the sale of private dwellings' from the workers in the say three estate agents on each high street. Furthermore, where there are use-values that have utility in a communist society, the current production and distribution processes are nearly always highly determined by the needs of capital rather than the needs of a communist society, e.g. work free of alienations.

Trying to put the argument in your terms: it is impossible to realise "our concrete needs" -- in terms of what we want in a communist society -- without first overcoming the "directives of capital". "Demanding concrete things" -- which I am taking to mean that they are realisable within the "directives of capital" -- cannot challenge value because (as you pointed out previously) value is a defining aspect of capitalism.

I thought I'd covered alienation starting at #87 with the Anselm Jappe quote about multiple roles. I agree, "that being a capitalist is simply another form of alienation".

Aaah. I agree! The only alternative to the dialectical position is the idealist-positivist position. If there isn't an underlying, more "real" consciousness to the consciousness which capitalist society imbues people with, well then, the only thing that exists is what people believe right now. Revolution is just a choice made or not made by free individuals. So if the majority buys McDonalds and votes in elections currently, then that's what they've chosen and that all there is.

I understand now. With falsity being a universal quality of today's world, I sometimes have the idle thought that even the trendy thinkers would admit that false consciousness is part of this falsity, especially those trendy thinkers who make some reference to the SI.

But I get reminded, again and again, that, to bask in it's reflected glory, those lusting for an apparent connection to the zeitgeist must ultimately affirm the spectacle's point of view: "all that exists is what people believe exists. There can be no false consciousness. Away with this Hegelian baloney...".

Of course, each of them struts their theory's unique selling proposition and so righteously resists being lumped into the common bin, Still, AN, Principia Dialectica and the Post-moderns all agree on this point; "What people believe, exists and what exists is only what people believe." and it really seems like this is what matters most.

What utter bollocks! If you have a pension or savings it is you who is being exploited. Pensions and savings schemes are another way that capitalism robs us of the true value of our labour. Workers have to put cash aside in pensions and savings to ensure they can live above subsistence levels when they are no longer able to work. This is nothing more than deferred payment for labour and yet again we are robbed as the invested captial is skimmed by the bosses to further their own profits.

"Robs us of the true value of our labour."

Oh dear, Proudhon undead!

The critique of political economy is the only wooden steak to drive through the heart of this beast!

P.S. Anyone who thinks PD is working from a caricature of the left should read Liam Derry's post. "True value of our labour", indeed!

we work to stay alive not to express our creativity or our concern for our fellow humans. Liam's point is correct.

"An individual who has neither capital nor landed property of his own is dependent on wage-labour from his birth as a consequence of social distribution. But this dependence is itself the result of the existence of capital and landed property as independent factors of production." Marx, Critique of Political Economy.

This is how capitalism robs us.

Pension contributions are used as capital to make investments. The profits are used to counter inflation and grow the eventual payout. In the UK, the returns averaged 6.1% over the last 15 years [1]. Pensions represent a significant proportion capitalist ownership - 12% of the UK stockmarket is owned by UK pension funds [2].

That means around 1/8 of each UK worker's surplus value is 'robbed' by pensions funds to pay the pensions of other UK workers. If you accept that other shareholders are exploiting workers then pension funds must be doing it too. You may feel that it is fair, or not, but it is not a capitalist conspiracy just a capitalist way of looking after the interests of one of the classes that constitute capitalism - workers.

Look closer at what Liam_Derry writes:

Again, people who think Principia Dialectica are only attacking a "caricature" of the left should ponder that statement by Liam_Derry.

Death to Proudhonism!

Yes, you can call for abolition of private property and desire more wealth.

You can also be an "anti-authoritarian" and boss your kids.

You can also talk about truthfullness and love while you are cheating your "significant other".

But what kind of a human been you would be?

Anarchism is only a stance for a free society, without oppression. If you're for anarchy that only tell us what form of society you desire.

That's the thing. Our actions, feelings, and thoughts define us human beens, not as anarchists.

Great post - that's the nub of it.

A person is defined by their actions, not by what they choose to call themselves.

For example, a comrade who betrays one or more of his fellows is not, therefore, entitled to refer to himself as a comrade, at least, not with any authenticity, no matter how much theory they spout.

"By their deeds shall you know them. "

Welcome to the boards, Ricardo.

Thank you, Lone Wolf.

I am talking about the value of that labour to capitlalism. The value that captial can generate from our labour. Is there any particular reason that you talk such bullshit?

Death to idiots!

...says the former member of "Class War".

What the capitalist purchases is labor-power for a specific period of time. Labor-power as a commodity is able to create value in excess of its own costs of reproduction. There is no "theft" going on here. The capitalist buys it, fair and square, on the market.

But go back to blue-collar posturing and affected cockney accents if that offers you a certain grounding and consolation in the face of an intimidating, complex world.

double post

Blimey, when it comes to condescending putdowns, you're the bleedin' guvnor.

Sorry to disappoint you but I don't have a blue collar job (never had) and we don't do affected cockney accents in Ireland.