Counter-Critique of Donald Parkinson

https://libcom.org/article/nothing-new-look-here-towards-critique-communization-donald-parkinson?

A peer of mine has alerted me to the existence of Donald Parkinson's 'critique of communization,' and I have decided to write a counter-critique in response to the Kautskyist's. In 'Nothing new to look at here: towards a critique of communization'. Donald Parkinson performs a rather well-elaborated critique of Communization Theory. Despite this, it is subject to numerous central flaws.

To begin, communization theory is far from a unified tendency, and indeed, it could be argued that it is not a tendency at all. However, regardless of it's status as a tendency, communization's central theses, the rejection of workerism and the embrace of an insurrectionary mode of political action emerge as a process of critique, NOT as a proposition or an alternative. Indeed, one could state that communization exists purely as a movement of ruthless critique and self-critique rather than any central proposition in response to practical-organizational questions.
However, I am getting distracted. Parkinson puts forward two central arguments. The first is that communization is inherently localist and fails to realize the truth that communism must be global. The second is that it is simply an over-intellectualized repeat of Kropotkin and Sorel's critiques of traditional Marxism. The first proposition is simply outright false and it's existence is propped up by what is simply a misunderstanding of communization's insurrectionary propositionss. The second criticism is in fact partially correct, as communization *does* repeat some(not all) talking-points from Kropotkin and Sorel; this is simply because some of Kropotkin and, in partcular, Sorel's arguments were correct.

First and foremost we must adress Parkinson's critique of communization's supposed 'localism'. This critique is founded in a simple misunderstanding; communization is a process, not the magical realization of communist social relations. It is a gradual deconstruction and reconstruction which begins on a localized scale wherever it does, but which has as its central task *expansion*. Communization is only localist insofar as any political movement is; it is only localist insofar as political action is necessarily local. Nowhere in the writings of communizers does one find a Bookchinist proposition for local autonomy. Parkinson himself recognizes that Dauve and TC do not claim or propose localism; he instead claims localism is a necessary implication of their propositions. This is false, as stated previously, because communization is emerges on a local scale and expands from there.

Communization is the production of communist social relations and the negation of capitalist ones; it is not an immediate realization of communism. This is where communization diverges from traditional anarcho-communism; it recognizes that communism can only truly exist on a *global* scale, and that this must occur through the creation and proliferation of communistic social relations.

Next, Parkinson takes aim at communization's rejection of the proletarian as revolutionary subject. Indeed, this is continuing the tradition of Sorel and perhaps even Marcuse in rejecting proletarian as rationally revolutionary subject; Here I wish to criticize the philosophy behind the concept of rational class-consciousness. The sheer audacity to claim that you are aware of what is 'best' for someone. What is the measure of whether something is best for an individual or not? Is this not up to the individual's choice? This objective statement on what is best is simply the projection of one's own desires onto other subjects. The proletariat is not inherently revolutionary because no individual is, because the experience and structure of each individual's psyche is diverse and far from unified. Indeed, in the absence of an objective measure of 'bestness', one can only base political action on one's *own* desire, on one's *own* perspective.

Additionally, even if the proletarian was necessarily revolutionary, this would not exclude other classes from the potential to be revolutionary. Is it not also in the rational interest of the bourgeois to end capitalism? Is it not in the interest of all humanity? And if it is, then is not all humanity inherently revolutionary? What I am criticizing is sweeping statements about what is in the interest of a particular individual, as only the individual truly knows what is in their interest. And, even IF the proletarian is inherently revolutionary, so are all other classes, because capital is an inherently oppressive circuit, even to the bourgeoisie!

I argue that the proletarian is not necessarily, but potentially revolutionary, as are all individuals. All individuals have the potential to participate in social revolution, but not all individuals *do*. The proletarian is NOT an inherently revolutionary subject, but merely *a* revolutionary subject. While we communizers may not all necessarily agree with Sorel's substitution of class consciousness with myth(I personally subscribe to this notion, but few other 'communizers' do,) it can recognized that we substitute proletarian consciousness with a general consciousness which can be found within any individual existing in capitalist society.

Finally, I must adress a small portion of Parkinson's critique; that of the very possibility of communization. Parkinson claims that due to existing specialization, communization is simply not possible in the short term. What he fails to undestand is that communizers agree! We are of the position that communization is a process, not an immediate realization of communism! We are not run-of-the-mill anarcho-communists, not utopians advocating for some magical conjuration of communism on a localized scale. No, we are disciples of the movement to abolish the present state of things!