Holy Family of Libcom, a work in progress

I was thinking "mystic farmer" for you, but self-righteous crackpot also works.

I prefer Khmer Situationism: for a society without spectacles. 👓

Syndicalist - I am who I am.

*rolls eyes* these Americans... It means 'what you see is what you get'. You better get with the programmmeee syndicalist, or else we're sending you to Coventry.

Whatever happened to Joseph Kay? They used to post a whole bunch

edit: Removing my reference to Kafka's Trial after realizing that something might have actually happened to him... I had also noticed that he stopped posting on twitter around 2019 and that he wasn't listed on this collective statement. I certainly hope he's doing alright. I thought the Out of the Woods articles (and book) were great stuff.

Forums are dead, so very few of those that used to post here frequently don't anymore (me included, I just lurk these days).

I'm not sure if Kay's vanishing is just because people don't use the libcom forum as much as they used to. I don't guess it's any of our business really, but he sort of completely disappeared it seems around 2019 (here's his twitter). I guess someone could reach out to one of the Out of the Woods people to see what happened.

I mostly remember the forums as being a cesspit.

There was some pretty horrible stuff in the old threads if you went back and read them. But at the same time forums on here and other places were a great source of information and an education in the noughties. As well as being places where I picked up a few friends.

Yes, they were cesspits, but as Fozzie says, a great source of info and education. It's the latter I miss, but still, warts and all.

I thought it a big missed opportunity. Loads of great stuff on the site and there were decent people on the forums. But it's still mostly it being a cesspit I remember.

Oh, I know people were turned off libcom due to the nastiness of the forums. They did improve considerably, but IIRC that was right before people migrated their discussions to Facebook.

I read Bookchin’s Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism the other day and realised how influential it was on the forums. Exact same snidey way of talking to people who were ‘wrong’.

Probably a good time to revive it, it’s not like there’s competition and social media is on death’s door.

It seems nobody wants to address the fact that hundreds of old threads are no longer accessible. They don’t show up in any search. It looks like they have been deleted forever.

I have searched by both the internal search and by using google search, and still hundreds, maybe thousands of threads are missing. Also, new discussions can’t recreate all the valuable discussions that took place in those old threads. This forum had incredible posters whose contributions meant a lot to me. Now, I can’t find those posts. New discussions threads nowadays can’t come close due to the lack of posters willing to participate.

Who can forget those long forum posts by that one ex-ICCer who alleged the ICC raided his home and took back their mimeograph machines or whatever they were lol?

The ICC were pretty big on the nonsensical idea of a semi-State.

In the early libcom days, there was a person whose name, I believe, was Tony.
Although seemingly British white, he had dread locks, as I recall. I met him
when he was in Manhattan on a visit. Nice person. Not sure what happened
to them.

Saw I made your list westartfromhere, I am actually Christian so that’s weird. I consider Mary Magdalene the first but she could be the thirteenth, the luckiest number. Or maybe replacing Judas is more fitting. “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother…”

Craftwork

"Nonsensical", and yet the Makhnovists created the Kontrrazvedka.

I am not familiar with the history of the Makhnovists. But assuming they actually put things into practice that contradicts their own principles, does that mean all subsequent anarchists are guilty of the same thing? Do you think most anarchists today would advocate such a thing. The ICC advocates semi-States as something that’s unavoidable. Is there anything anarchists advocate currently that is equivalent to that?

Craftwork

It doesn't matter what anarchists' principles are or what they advocate. Reality forces all revolutionary regimes to establish some apparatus of repression and social order to fight counterrevolution. Militia, prisons, courts, espionage agency, the Makhnovists and the Spanish anarchists had to resort to these methods. This is a vindication of the Marxist position.

Despite using this website, you still seem awfully unfamiliar with what anarchists have always said on this issue. Anarchists have always believed in workers organizing some kind of communal self-defense, after a revolution, against reactionary elements, as long as it is under popular control. What they don’t believe in is organizing in a hierarchical manner, or even a state to accomplish that. The Marxist position that is supposedly vindicated often advocates for the latter, or considers any libertarian organization of society with collective self-defense as a state. Obviously, anarchists disagree with that.

I find it surprising that someone would resort to such an argument on this site. But I guess when your a Marxist, you probably only consume Marxist material on this site, and hold on to common Marxist stereotypes of anarchists.

Nah, it's liberatory.

Nah, it's liberatory.

You claim anarchists "don't believe in organizing in a hierarchical manner", clearly you haven't read the Platform then ("In order to coordinate the activity of all of the Union's affiliated organizations, a special body is to be established in the form of an Executive Committee of the Union"). And what anarchists believe has no bearing on what they're forced to do in reality due to the exigencies of social and military conflict. Thus every anarchist insurgent movement has a general command, a security apparatus, etc.

Anarchists advocate federation whereby base units, such as unions, form communes, consisting of councils of recallable, mandated delegates. All decision making power rests with the base units. Separate committees can be created to help carry out their decisions; no decision making power is invested in such bodies. This is not a hierarchy in the sense of some people having power over others.

You claim that this isn't a state, but I ask you a simple question: should an anarchist militia impose communalism/collectivism on the territories that it captures?

I think that in order for the revolution to spread, they need to convince others outside of their territory of the values of socialism or communism. I can’t even imagine how it would work if the people living in those areas aren’t on board.

So in my view, the Marxist position is vindicated. Anarchist insurgent movements have resorted to coercion, repression, and dictatorial methods to enforce their principles on territories they seize. This is an example of para-state organisation. You might even call it a semi-state ;-)

Your pointing to these historical examples doesn’t prove that the Marxist position is vindicated. And you can’t just dismiss what anarchists advocate for. Would you argue that a federal organization of society briefly described above is a form of state?

I mean, I get your point about circumstances anarchists might find themselves in. But you seem to think, based on those historical examples, that their only option is to abandon what they believe in and form a state or whatever to deal with those situations.

Craftwork,

Would you agree that a social revolution thoroughly committed to anarchist principles is feasible? Usually, in these kinds of discussions, it is a common argument from Marxists that a federalist anarchist organization of society is still a state. Would you also argue that, or is it only the case in those historical examples you pointed at?

Chinese proto communists led by a mystic that says the sky will turn yellow: 360,000
Who is more uwu, Karl or Mikhail (in 2025): 8 people