In the real world

Maybe Tina and the others might be attracted to the ideas behind LCAP, OCAP, SeaSol and others for concrete things that can be done on a small scale in the here and now.

From what Ive heard of LCAP its something that might interest you tina.

Well, no offense, but what you've seen isn't much. Go to any university or public library and the marxist theory outnumbers the anarchist theory by 25 to 1, I would estimate.

I would bet the total accumulated theory output of single SECTS within marxism would dwarf the entire anarchist canon, social or individualist.

Oh definitely. Most Marxists these days do nothing but write theory. Most Anarchists, by contrast, do nothing but activism.

~J.

Nope, I'm saying employees can't resist because they're not [puts on his best Trotskyite voices] workers.

Still flogging definitions from a 19th century book with about 18th century revolutions in the 21st century, tut,tut.

They're also great fun, if you survive the executions, famine and genocide you get all the fun of living in a totalitarian state, no end of things to whinge about then from an anarchist perspective.

So you're a "we're" now. Is this multiple personalities or do you have legions of Basque-like corngriinders to lead to war.

Perhaps they could have given me lessons on how not to become extinct. Or what it's like to be a member of a group 6 strong meeting in a pub and talking about "when we rule the world." Oh, wait, I can get revolutionary anarchists to do the second one.

or next time there's a famine in the world, say to the locals "sorry chaps love to help but can't do a damn thing about it till after the revolution completely pointless you see. After the revolution you'll all be fine, except of course you'll all have murdered long ago. And those people over there handing out food should stop immediately, and cut out that well digging and agricultural aid. Wait for the revolution..."

Yeah this is kinda what I was thinking here, especially if we broaden our conception of the working class to include the retired, the infirm, unemployed, housewives etc. They still have immediate needs that are largely caused and mediated by capitalism.

I think a lot of the answers to the questions originally timl posed in his original post can be found in the 'Aspects of Anarchism' pamphlet. I think what's needed is to spread these ideas to the masses, so that when the revolution comes, or when capitalism eats itself up and collapses, they have the knowledge there ready to take control of their own lives, organise themselves and work together. Isn't this what happened during the Spanish civil war?

So... are you saying that workers resistance no longer happens in the 21st century?

etc. etc. etc.

you
pronoun [ second person singular or plural ]

...

Yes, that's right, Anarchism is definitely all about digging wells, and definitely not about social change.

Likewise, because I am opposed to a bunch of lefties running some crackpot 'alternative' ambulance service, I am definitely completely against anyone doing anything ever.

Honestly though, when did I ever say I thought people should wait for revolution before doing anything? Or that I had some pathological hatred of wells and food handouts? What did I say that even tangentially suggested anything even approaching any of the above?

Honestly, I can't see how you can possibly have gotten that information from anything I have posted here, or from anything I've ever said or done anywhere.

~J.

One thought:

As was stated before talk of open revolution, at this point, scares people. People who would be useful allies to the common cause. That's why I think we need to start by helping people to empower themselves by informing them of how much power they as the workers actually do wield. When we get more people in the workplace starting to stand up by striking, holding sit ins, picket lines and myriad other tactics we can start the ball rolling more rapidly. Since we all know that those who are in control are generally unwilling to relinquish their grasp on the world the workers will begin to see that their efforts to effect change are being met with increasingly more heated force and the revolution will begin. We need to start with steps that aren't overtly violent to show the need for violence to the people. As more and more people begin to have less and less to lose more and more people become open to the idea of challenging authority directly and the backlash that will ensue will serve as the catalyst for revolution. At least from where I stand, we just need to appeal to the worker's sense of outrage at his plight and then engender that feeling that there is something that can be accomplished through direct action while at the same time pointing out the obvious faults of any state system. When the walls come down there will be many people with many different ideas on what the reformation of society will entail, therein lies the importance of voluntarism because if any one sect places itself above the interests of the others yet another central authority will be put in place. It is not a fight that can be won and done with but a fight that must be maintained in order to preserve the anarchy against those who would impose a new authority, those types will always exist.

Thank you J for the easy guide, well I understand it but some wouldn't I think.

Thank you jesuithitsquad, yes those groups look good but I don't live there.

What I am getting at is basically, we know what end we want, why are we waiting for some big event, why don't we just DO something creative & positive now?

OK I know some people are but a lot of the time we're bickering rather than using our intelligence creatively.

I agree, it has to move from discussion to fruition. So go start a strike! Organize a massive walk out! Let's rock and roll!

You may say there is infighting on the 'anarchist' left. In the UK anyway anarchism is a tiny movement. But in any movement there is gonna be infighting. I personally will not want to work with people for example certain 'lifestlye anarchists' who do not seem to realise that anarchism(to me anyway) is about class struggle and a form of socialism without gulags etc.

I would also not want to be commanded and lead by groups from the authoritarian left.etc Tina have you read much stuff about the spanish civil war and the role anarchism played in that and Spains history?

allybaba I hear what you say.

Tell about the lesson of anarchism in Spain, and how it applies here, I need to read more, that's why I'm asking what you think.

Sure. This is a quick intro-

http://libcom.org/history/1936-1939-the-spanish-civil-war-and-revolution

Its relevant because its probably the best and most recent example of anarchists being in control or certainly influencial on large parts of spain. Its the perhaps the most successful anarchist experiment in history. To me its also relevant as it shows the dangers for anarchists of getting involved in parliaments.

Getting past the fallacy of "anarchists need to be united" (as if unity for the sake of unity means anything), I can't not take issue with the condescending tone of your second suggestion; do you think "normal people" are too stupid to understand why capitalism is bad and why they would benefit from organizing themselves against it (i.e. anarchism)?
If there is no great upsurge of working-class militancy today, it is not because revolutionary idea befuddle workers with their vagueness and complexity, but because the amount of shit that's thrown at you as a simple wage slave leaves very little time for political musings. It is because fear of bankruptcy and ruin keeps workers submissive and defeated.
"anarchising every day life"? no offence, but get a fucking grip.
At the risk of over-dramatizing, here's what the everyday life of a worker is like in my experience:
-you get up in the morning
-you go to work where you are forced into working overtime for fear of being made redundant
-you come back home, broken and tired (and I'm only talking about office work here, not mining) and you watch some telly
-you browse job searching engines hoping for something better, but no one ever calls back what with the recession and all and you not having the right "academic qualifications"
Tell me how exactly can any of this be "anarchised"? Even if open workplace struggle occurs, it is not often, especially where there is no sense of empowerment whatsoever (such as union representation), and you're talking about anarchizing everyday life?
If anarchists can do anything today it's to make workers believe in their power to disrupt the violence of capital; that is a worthwhile, if not immediately rewarding project. Supposedly self-sufficient communes/urban gardens/voluntary ambulances are nothing but entertainment for lifestylists.

Whereas for us communists-

~J.

OK call me a naive lifestylist if you like.

Many people on here believe the only way to reach anarchy is to have
a revolution organized by workers.

There are other types of anarchist out there as well that be done at the same time.

Other parts of life involve looking after children, doing shopping, cooking, etc.

What I am asking for is if anyone sees any way of being constructive & trying to build what might be useful.

As few people can see what I mean, I think that might be holding us back.

If you reading this have an idea that might be useful apart from fighting against something rather building something, post it now!

Anarchism is about objecting to any imposed authority. It is about voluntary association. It does not preach a particular rigid structure, that's not how it works. To be an Anarchist is to object to outside control via subversion, force or any other means. Anything beyond that is personal politics.

Communism, socialism, Marxism, et all are not part of Anarchism. They are the offshoots of personal taste, viewpoints and voluntary associations. The only reason capitalism doesn't jive with Anarchism is that it is in itself all about control of the people by a ruling elite in the name of profit and it necessarily requires the dissolution of personal identity for the good of the machine. Anarchists often identify themselves with hyphens, anarcho-this, anarcho-that. That isn't Anarchism, it is Anarchism with whatever other ideology to which one subscribes added.

The solidarity or unity that we need to work toward is the end of authority. The rest is up to the people to decide via voluntary association. I have no qualm with working with anyone who is an Anarchist despite personal differences as long as they are willing to WORK toward anarchy. I would not think of telling someone that their personal views on how society and the way it should be restructured are wrong, that's not up to me to decide. If I were to try and advocate only a specific offshoot of anarchism that would make me rather authoritarian.

The fact is, different groups of freely associating people with personal liberty will voluntarily agree on what will work best for them according to the needs of their particular group. As long as that group doesn't seek to infringe upon the liberty of others not in line with it's own interest what business is it of mine? We all want the same thing, Anarchy. The rest is academic, to try and say otherwise would be non-anarchistic. So what I suggest is that we set our differences aside in the interest of working toward our one common goal. Anarchy.

In order to work toward that goal I would suggest federalism, freely associated groups voluntarily working together despite personal differences, agreeing voluntarily to unite based on the common goal, not ruled by a particular group or even delegates from all groups, but actual direct democracy in that everyone has the choice to agree or not. If you don't want a part in it, who am I to say anything about it? THAT'S what liberty is all about, the ability to secede from any association based on personal, voluntary choice. The choice to agree or to opt out.

Completely agree!

You put so well one of the things I was trying to say!

.

Not so much. Libcom is not a big-tent, anarchism without adjectives sort of a place so you will find very little sympathy here for that type of thinking. It's not that people here think they have all the answers. It's that we KNOW that Lifestylism, Primitivism, and Individualist anarchists have fuck all to do with the type of society we want to see. Read this and if you don't agree, you're not going to find a whole lot of love on this site.

Tina, I linked to the organizations above not because I thought you lived in London, Ontario or Seattle, but because the work those organizations are doing is easily replicable. If you're not in one of those places and if you want to do something constructive in the here and now why not look into starting a similar organization?

People have tried to address you in a relatively constructive way, but I'm not seeing much reciprocity on your part as it seems like you won't be satisfied until you get the answer you already think is right.

Be that as it may, the fact remains that anarchism is anarchism despite any outside opinion. I'm, again, not here to argue principals. Personally I lean toward what I guess you would call Anarchist Communism, but those two separate (and they ARE separate) parts of my outlook don't coincide in a way that excludes other anarchists.

I'm not looking for "love". I'm looking for communication of useful ideas. The statement you just made says to me "we here at libcom are a group of like minded anarchists, we don't really have much room for people who don't see things as we do".

My only objection to what you call lifestyle anarchism is that it doesn't entail action in ending authority, it simply seeks to walk away into the alleys and feed off what it can find. Standing up to end authority is an important part of anarchism. To live an anarchist lifestyle is also to stand up for anarchist politics and social change, otherwise it isn't an anarchistic lifestyle at all, is it?

As to primitivism and individualism, well again, who the hell are you to say weather or not they fit into the "world you want to live in"? You can live in a community with similar desires and tastes to the ones you have and they can do likewise. It is not your call as to weather their outlook is productive, they are working toward social change in a way that suits them. As long as they don't try and force their way of life on you, what do you care how they choose to live? To say that you don't want them in your world is rather authoritarian, wouldn't you agree?

Personally I'm more of a direct action, front line fighting, in your face kind of revolutionary, but the revolution has room for all types of people who want to see an end to authority. As long as someone is working toward change, catalyzing world changing events in the future, you have no business telling them that what they are doing is not congruent with anarchism. Anarchy doesn't belong to you.

whoops, double post. sorry!

PS. I read through the page that you linked and I find it very congruent with my views. Thanks for sharing!

except where i explicitly stated that we don't think we have all the answers. i'm off to the vet so i haven't much time, but for starters i'm guessing you don't know that primitivists basically think 85% of the world's population should just fuck off and die. that is NOT the type of society i want to live in and i definitely don't consider them "comrades." more later.

Yes!

http://www.infoshop.org/movement_debunker.html

Well as far as primitivism is concerned, if that's what they believe then I can't get down with that. That isn't really anarchistic thought at all, more like fascism. To advocate the death of most of the world's population really doesn't jive with the idea of anarchism, sounds pretty elitist. I had always thought that primitivism referred more to back to basics, anti-technology kind of ideology, but if that's what it's about that's just not cool. I have a hard time in believing that all of those who call themselves primitivists feel that way though. Now as to your statement that you don't think you have all the answers, I like that. Neither do I. I just don't like the thought of one specific group of anarchists posing as superior to all others. Each person is different, therein lies the beauty of anarchy.

Add:

I do not object to the ideas expressed in primitivism, although I do not feel the same with them, unless they seek to dismantle actively other groups who aren't acting against them. If people want to live primitivist lifestyles, more power to them, so long as they don't try and force me to do the same.

Crap. I don't even wanna get into all the various logical fallacies in this all too typical craptacular piece from Infoshop, but here's some comments.

No, it is primarily used to describe anarchists that think small personal choices and/or living "outside the system" is a viable strategy for the abolition of state and capital.

I must have missed the anarcho-census that establishes the numbers of people who consider themselves anarchists or class struggle anarchists. This percentage is pulled out of thin air and sounds like it comes from the pages of a fanzine.

These divisions have existed before lifestyle anarchism was coined and will exist after the term's popularity dies down.

While not all post-leftists are primitivists (the rest are vague insurrectionarys), I have never met a primitivist that wasn't a post-leftist.

So because someone is a Marxist, they have nothing worth saying? That's ridiculous. In that case, better remove all the analysis of class, gender, race, patriarchy, sexuality, that anarchists have because much of it originates from authoritarian leftists.

Whether Freeman personally advocated Lenininst modes of organization or not is irrelevant, unless it is actually advocated in the essay being considered.

It's a mistake that because an authoritarian leftist criticizes supposed anarchists decision to be anti-formal organization, that automatically we need to side with the latter out of a sense of ideological unity that doesn't exist.

The reason it is waved over people's heads is because it recognizes the problem and why it is a problem. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel through isolated discussion when your viewpoint is more or less expressed and easily available through text/internet.

It's just as recent as some anarchists pushing this form of decision making as the only model (around 30 years old).

There is nothing inherently anarchist about any form of decision making, I would argue, but definitely not consensus, which didn't even come out of anarchism and whose status as a primary form is younger than some of the posters on this forum.

LMAO. You wanna talk about dragging on for hours....consensus takes much more time up. To say otherwise is to reveal one's inexperience in one or both forms of decision making.

Yeah, because people are not involved in directly democratic decision making such as majoritarian or supermajoritarian voting. Nonsense.

Why is it authoritarian? Because the minority has to bend to the will of the majority? How is switching this around MORE democratic?

Also, voting as a decision making process by definition cannot be "anti-democratic". Jesus, talk about shitty usage of rhetoric...

Ad hominem.

To follow up on primitivism this covers things pretty nicely.

http://libcom.org/thought/anarcho-primitivism-anti-civilisation-criticism

looks like my numbers were a bit generous.

Wow, I stand aghast at the idiocy of such a thing. I still doubt that even half the people who advocate the idea of "running wild with the deer" understand what it would require. This is kind of way off of my original topic though, these people just plainly have no idea what the hell they are talking about. It's vastly unlikely that a sect of people dedicated to the idea of population reduction by 98% would ever succeed in their goal. The number of people who actually desire such a setting would have to be extremely small. Now maybe a few groups (about the maximum who would be genuinely interested) could pull it off for isolated villages but I can't imagine much more than that happening. Still, if they weren't actively trying to destroy the rest of humanity I could live and let live. If by some very off chance the population of earth was reduced to 2% then it is most likely that the people who think this is a good idea would have been part of the 98% who died off.

PS by "pull it off" I meant living primitively, not wiping anyone out. Just to be clear.

Iplawhead, don't get sucked into some ridiculous discussion on how primmo's are genocidal maniacs hell bent on cheerleading for AIDs and famine. This is a communist site for fuck sake, not Noam Chomsky's fan forum. If you're going to critically analyze an ideological tendency, try not to descend into inane ravings on how evil the other guy is. And Jweidner, stop spurring on the newbs to take up the banner of a decades old blood feud between red anarchists and primmos. It's off topic in the worst way.

The prominence of workers in communist analysis is exactly because the power of capitalism lies in the workplace -- in the points of production where the material and subjective conditions of this society are constructed and disseminated. If workers in a vital sector of production go on strike, for instance, the economy is going to feel it. The general goal of communist activity is to push for workers to adopt a materialistically selfish stance (self-interest is pretty much a virtue when one is subjugated to capitalism; capital has a total disregard for human needs) and, basically, catalyze economic collapse. The 'contradiction' that commies ramble on about all the time is the contradiction between the needs of those subjugated to the working class condition (exploited labor and whatnot) and their relatively vital place in capitalist production. Capital places it's most miserable subjects in the most important area of it's power, and then leaves them to fuck off and struggle for subsistence. Conflict is inevitable and it is highly dangerous to economic stability. Marx wasn't joking when he said the critique of capital is immanent to capital itself (or some shit like that -- haven't really read much of the bastard myself).

A very simplistic way of putting it, yes; but that's really what it all boils down to. The working class has it's finger on the trigger and all it needs to do is pull it a couple of times. Of course, getting that finger to twitch is what communists and other pro-revolutionaries have been trying to do for the past 250 years and we've completely failed at it so far (past insurrections don't amount to shit, in my opinion; Spain 1936 or Germany 1918 ain't making me any freer).

And for the record, you cannot exist outside given power relations -- barring you don't totally isolate yourself from other people; but perhaps power reaches beyond just human relations. You will not be 'outside' of capitalism until capitalistic relations and institutions lose their hegemonic position in human society, and even then we'll just adopt, more or less, fragmented and disordered power relations of a less insidious and reified nature (hopefully...). The point being that, in my opinion, anarchists should not waste their breath on offering materialistic or idealistic solutions to the general human population. Any 'counter-institution' you construct will simply bare the mark of modern power relations, and it will be produced by (this is to say, subjected to), and reproduce, capitalism. I can guarantee it. Altruism does not negate capital -- it just polishes it. If 'revolution' is defined as something that negates dependencies on contemporary institutions and the dominance of given relations, then what exactly is revolutionary about passing out vegan food to homeless people? What's revolutionary about providing free services to anyone at all? How is a community center revolutionary? Etc, etc.

BigLittleJ pretty much laid out why those things aren't revolutionary. Ideological conviction does not override human relations; it could be said that ideology is the plaything of human relations. So, ideology does not override capital. This is why no matter how stubbornly you argue for the radical potential of worker coops, it doesn't change the fact that worker coops still produce surplus labor, they're still waged, they're subject to the whims of the economy, etc.

So on and so forth...