Practical Platformism: Revolutionary Cadre Organisation
Common Struggle – Libertarian Communist Federation (LCF), formerly known as the North Eastern Federation of Anarchist-Communists (NEFAC), has been in existence for nearly eleven years now. From its inception it has billed itself as Platformist: that is to say, generally following the guidelines of the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists (or, General Union of Anarchists). Needless to say, any organisation grows and evolves over time and this is often healthy – but I’d like to take a moment to examine our relationship to Platformism and to determine if we have strayed from that model, and if this desirable. I wish to rehash elements of an old debate: the Bring the Ruckus (BTR) – NEFAC debate, specifically in regard to revolutionary cadre organisation and dual power. I wish to go back to the Platform, as well as the memoirs of Nestor Makhno himself, where he lays out numerous lessons we must heed.
Nestor Makhno, who was one of the main theoreticians of the Platformist tendency, was proponent of cadre organisation, which is typically associated with Marxism. Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that many in the anarchist milieu have called the Platform “authoritarian” – though this is completely unfounded. This is a case of anarchists fetishising form over content, something unfortunately common within the anarchist milieu. That is to say, to consider the way things function organisationally or aesthetically as opposed to the libertarian content in their work. We see this in the incessant demand for things like infoshops, for instance, or other cultural projects that, while not bad in themselves (counterinstitutions are necessary), cannot substitute for organising and do not require the collective discipline that serious organising requires (ie, revolutionary libertarian cadres). Another example of this demand for form over content is those anarchists who reject Marxism so outright that they will not even read Capital, though their entire critique of capitalism was formulated mostly in the first volume of that book. It is for lack of critical analysis that this attitude is taken towards cadres.
To my dismay, during the BTR-NEFAC debate those arguing on behalf of NEFAC chose to attack BTR on the grounds that it is a cadre organisation (that is not the only thing their critique focused on, but it was a major aspect of it). I don’t believe the points raised, specifically in Nicolas Phebus’s article “Differences of Strategy and Organization”, were particularly helpful in critiquing cadres, because they did not address the type of organisation that BTR was hoping to create – libertarian cadres. Why? What is typical is the dismissal of the Leninist concept of cadre and vanguard that is hierarchical and patronising. I believe that from a Platformist point of view, which naturally gravitates towards cadre organisation, it is impossible to dismiss such cadres. Unlike the Leninists, Libertarian cadres “[do] not seek to control any organization or movement, nor does it pretend that it is the most advanced section of a struggle” and “it assumes that the masses are typically the most advanced section of a struggle.”i BTR concludes by stating, “the organization would not actively support any kind of activism but only those struggles that hold the potential of building a dual power.”ii What is questionable is BTR’s strategy towards achieving dual power, which was rightfully critiqued by Wayne Price in his article “What, if anything, is a dual power strategy?”, not the idea of creating a dual power situation itself, and destroying the state and capital simultaneously through social-revolutionary action. Price argued that their race-reductionist politics are, in fact, not as strategic for building a desired situation than the solid class-based politics of (at the time) NEFAC.
Much of Phebus’s article was designed to point out supposed “contradictions” in cadreorganisation, but it does not. Firstly, it begins by defining what BTR and libertarian cadres are based upon old definitions that are irrelevant to the reality of what is practiced – the article insists that they are a bourgeois, authoritarian leninist-appropriated method of organisation. It does not define BTR’s project on their own terms. The article claims that by having prefigurative politics that are then spread to the masses, it is authoritarian and believes the masses “dumb”. No, BTR is simply realistic about revolutionary organisation and building power. Because it is true what Platform said of anarchism, that “the outstanding anarchist thinkers, Bakunin, Kropotkin and others, did not invent the idea of anarchism, but, having discovered it in the masses, simply helped by the strength of their thought and knowledge to specify and spread it.”iii However, it is naive to believe that because anarchism was discovered in the masses that, in bourgeois society which does everything in its power to suppress it, the proletariat will magically come to this idea. Some of them will, someone of them will not. We revolutionary anarchists are an example of those who did. Those at Occupy are an example of those who are close to it, but lack the clarity to articulate their true desire – libertarian communism. At work we find reactionary working class people: racists and sexists who reinforce the worst aspects of the capitalist system.
From reading the initial “Bring The Ruckus” statement, I have gathered that they fundamentally understood what a cadre is meant to uphold: collective responsibility, theoretical and tactical unity, and direct democracy. What differences are there, then, between the Federation and Bring the Ruckus organisationally? This is a difficult question to consider without insider knowledge of BTR, which I simply do not have. They do, however, have a common strategy and specific criteria that defines the work cadres are able to carry out under the banner of BTR. This not something that Common Struggle has, but it is something discussed at the 2011 Federal Conference and is being moved forward on in a committee. Phebus’s closing statement on cadres is this utterly confusing as he claims: “NEFAC has chosen a platformist federation model, BTR has chosen a cadre; they are not the same thing, whether we like it or not.”iv It is interesting, then, that the founder of the tendency of Platformism seemed to disagree with him. Makhno wrote in the first volume of his memoirs, The Russian Revolution in Ukraine: “Either we go to the masses and dissolve ourselves into them, creating from them revolutionary cadres, and make the Revolution; or we renounce our slogan about the necessity of social transformation, the necessity of carrying through to the end the workers’ struggle with the powers of Capital and the State.v
There are legitimate issues with revolutionary cadre organisation, but I do not believe they are not critiqued in the BTR-NEFAC debate. Namely, while they are tight-knit and committed to revolutionary struggle, they tend to be insular and reject the building of revolutionary anarchist organisation. While acknowledging that we do not seek to dominate, but will lead when appropriate, we also believe in the validity of anarchist communism as the only system which can eliminate exploitation and domination. As such, it is not enough for us to have an “anarchistic movement” – such as the current Occupy movement, with elements of anarchism (albeit so-called “small a anarchist”) like consensus decision making and general assemblies – but in fact to eventually have a revolutionary anarchist communist movement that enacts a social revolution to end exploitation and domination. Thus, the question of how we relate to the rest of the proletariat crops up. I do not have an exact scientific formula for solving this issue, but I do believe the answer lies in self-reflection and political education. It’s important to understand that “doesn’t automatically give us a method to bring up the level of the left to the unity and strategy we seek”vi but that this is something we are always striving for and challenging ourselves as revolutionaries to meet.
Cadres also tend to act as substitutionists, something which Phebus points out in saying, “of course, we must agitate for our idea and lead the battle of ideas, but as members of the class not as outside agitators.”vii I completely agree with this statement – I think Bring the Ruckus does as well, and Phebus here is merely misconstruing words, but the point is valid. If cadres think this way, that they are outside the class, instead of dissolving themselves into the class, than they are approaching revolutionary organisation in the wrong way. However, were are libertarians and not Leninists – with proper political education and leadership building in our organisations that should never be a problem. Defining cadres as inherently substitutionist is incorrect, especially in this libertarian sense of them! It is important to reiterate Makhno’s words here – that revolutionary cadres are formed from masses themselves. If this is properly understood than there will be no confusion of so-called “substitutionism”.
So then, what do these so-called “revolutionary libertarian cadres” look like? It is simple: they are local unions of anarchist-communists committed to struggle, which “emphasizes not just the organizational positions, but also the capabilities and activity of militants.”viiiThey strive for the central tenants of platformism, and keeping intact their libertarian ideology at all times they seek to politically educate their members to build leadership that is worthy of being the vanguard of the class struggle. Not only are they an organisation of organisers, because we cannot simple fetishise one strength that not everyone has, but an organisation of propaghandists capable of taking anarchism to the masses and building a revolutionary anarchist movement – backed by those toilers who the organisers build power with. This is not where Common Struggle is at, for now, but it is what we should be striving for if we are really Platformists.
It is with great interest we critically analyse the situations that occur in the struggle, to identify the most revolutionary aspects of the struggle and innoculate against reformism. In other words, the cadre seeks, at all times, to deepen and broaden the struggle to point of social revolution. The cadre is a serious organisation that requires discipline and commitment, because the task of creating an anarchist communist world is one of immense proportions.
iBring The Ruckus. Bring The Ruckus. Accessed 12/4/11. http://bringtheruckus.org/?q=about
iiiThe Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists. Delo Truda. Accessed 12/4/11.http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/platform/general.htm
ivDifferences of Strategy and Organization. Nicolas Phebus. The North Eastern Anarchist. Accessed 12/4/11. http://commonstruggle.org/node/126
viWe Are Not Platformists, We Strive To Be. Scott Nappalos. Recomposition Blog. Accessed 12/15/11. http://recompositionblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/we-are-not-platformists-we-strive-to-be/
viiDifferences of Strategy and Organization. Nicolas Phebus. The North Eastern Anarchist. Accessed 12/4/11. http://commonstruggle.org/node/126
viiiWe Are Not Platformists, We Strive To Be. Scott Nappalos. Recomposition Blog. Accessed 12/15/11. http://recompositionblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/we-are-not-platformists-we-strive-to-be/
To Be Fair, He Is a Journalist: A Short Response to Chris Hedges on the Black Bloc
Note: This is the first post on here in a hot minute, and it is a post from a comrade of mine. I’m glad he gave me permission to release this, because Chris Hedges’ article release the other day was, quite frankly, disgusting. Don lays out an argument against it rather well, I think.
To Be Fair, He Is a Journalist: A Short Response to Chris Hedges on the Black Bloc
By Don Gato
Don Gato and the communisation kitties.
It was a little weird to wake up today to an article by Chris Hedges on a website called “Truth-Out” when “truth” is in such short supply in the piece. Hedges was trained as a journalist and worked for years at such luminaries of lies like the New York Times, so it shouldn’t be a secret where he’s gotten his sensationalism, his tendency to lie, his hyperbole, and, most of all, his seeming inability to do rudimentary research. Nonetheless, when activist celebrities like Hedges (and his friend here, Derrick Jensen) write even complete nonsense like this, it tends to have a certain conceptual currency with people. And though I’d much rather be visiting with friends today (who promised me peanut butter cookies, no less!), I figured I’d take a few minutes to point out some of the more egregious distortions in Hedges’ terrible piece.
Definitions
First, we need to clear up some definitional problems. Now, as a journalist, I really don’t expect Hedges to be able to “research,”—it does seem to go against the prime directives of the profession, but let’s be clear: There’s no such thing as “The Black Bloc movement.” The black bloc is a tactic. It’s also not just a tactic used by anarchists, so “black bloc anarchists” is a bit of a misnomer—particularly because Hedges doesn’t know the identities of the people under those sexy, black masks. In fact, it was autonomists in the 80s who came up with the (often quite brilliant) idea in Germany. Protecting themselves against the repression of what Hedges calls “the security and surveillance state,” squatters, protesters, and other rabble rousers would dress in all black, covering up tattoos, their faces, and any other identifying features so they could act against this miserable world and, with some smarts and a sharp style, not get pinched by the pigs. This was true of resisters who were protecting marches (because the state never needs an excuse to incite violence and police are wont to riot and attack people), destroying property, or sometimes just marching en masse. That is, the black bloc has all kinds of uses. And in Oakland, where Hedges seems particularly upset by people actually having the gall to defend themselves against insane violent police thugs instead of just sit there idly by getting beaten, on Move-In Day the bloc looked mostly defensive—shielding themselves and other protesters from flash grenades and police mob violence with make-shift shields (and even one armchair). So, to be clear: The black bloc is a tactic used by lots of people, not just anarchists, and it has all kinds of uses. It’s not a “movement.”
Who Is This Straw Fankenstein?
And, importantly, people in black blocs don’t have “unity” with one another about politics. This is another bizarre part of Hedges’ hatchet job. He goes on this long diatribe about what “The Black Bloc Movement” (this weird straw Frankenstein he’s created) believes. We learn in his piece that this Frankenstein is “against organization” when members of the black bloc, anarchists included, have all kinds of ideas about organization (none of which are “against organization”). If Chris did a little research, he’d find that “The Black Bloc Papers,” for example, were edited and compiled by two members of a formal political organization. And while many anarchists do reject formal political organizations, no anarchists oppose “organization” as such. Rather, we have disagreements over organizational form, duration, formality, purpose, and so on. Not to state the obvious, but considering our collective failure to smash capitalism, the state, and all other manifestations of coercive power over others, uh, shouldn’t we be building those kinds of critiques? If Hedges were interested in honesty, he might know that’s also why many anarchists are critical of the Left (I imagine dishonest and divisive hatchet jobs by Leftist celebrities like this one is another reason why more and more anarchists reject the Left—among its many other shortcomings and failures).
He goes on to state that this Frankenstein he’s created is universally under the influence of John Zerzan, then attacks Zerzan. Again, this just shows how out of touch Hedges is and how he’s fooled himself into believing he knows what he’s talking about when he doesn’t (a very common trait for celebrity journalists). Apparently it needs repeating, the black bloc is not a unified “movement”—it’s a bunch of folks dressed similarly so they can’t be identified by the popo. There are all kinds of thoughts on Zerzan in such a grouping, some supportive, some not, some who, no doubt, have no idea who he is. But Zerzan doesn’t speak for the bloc—no one does. And so there’s this weird “guilt-by-association” in this piece which ends in blaming criticisms of the Zapatistas on this “Black Bloc Movement” that he’s created.
Gender Essentialism! It’s Not Just For the 70s Anymore!
Hedges also critiques the black bloc for its supposed “hypermasculinity,” engaging in a gender essentialism that belies his inability to keep up with contemporary radicalism. In Oakland, part of the militant march on Move-In Day was the “Feminist and Queer Bloc.” I’m sure they would be quite surprised to learn that self-defense against violent police thugs and petty vandalism is actually a man’s activity! Why, those poor, beleaguered women and queers are probably alienated from such militancy, along with the befuddled masses that Hedges seems to be writing for! Rather than a lengthy critique of this already-disposed-of pseudo objection, I’ll let Harsha Walia enlighten Hedges on the problems of wealthy white, men like himself attempting to speak for the alienated and frightened “victims” of such “masculine” activities as building a confrontational and militant movement against capitalism and the state. Check it out:
The Personal Is Antipolitical
Some of this is personal to me, in the interest of full disclosure. I have friends in Oakland. They’re brave and awesome. Seeing them stand up to police repression and attempt to take an empty building while people sleep in the streets was exciting and invigorating for me. It was a welcome sight in today’s age of non-violent fundamentalism, where so many are beset with the crippling belief that if we just get beat up badly enough we’ll attract “the masses” with our moral superiority and somehow the wealthy and powerful will recognize the error of their ways and give us the world back that they’ve so successfully turned into their nightmarish, authoritarian, and wasted playground. My friends were gassed, beaten, given broken faces, broken dreams, and locked in cages for their bravery. And now they’re being denounced by a comfortable journalist who wasn’t there who refers to them as a “cancer”.
I don’t want to suggest that they shouldn’t be critiqued. Self-critique is important for any improvement of practice—if it’s honest.
But here I feel betrayed. When Hedges wrote about the Greeks, notorious for their black blocs, he praised them for “getting it.” Indeed, according to Hedges, they knew what to do. In Hedges own words:
They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare—the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it.
Apparently for Hedges, that’s good enough for the Greeks. But, by God, don’t you dare bring this filthy resistance to his home! You might accidentally (horror of horrors!) break a window! Perhaps it might belong to Hedges! Well, I passed around his piece on Greece thinking that perhaps there was, in fact, a journalist that “gets it.” I was wrong and I feel betrayed.
So I am angry at Hedges. I know it shows and it will look ugly to some people, but at one point, I trusted his work. And now, I have broken and brave friends that he is denouncing in a movement that he is dividing and presuming to speak for.
After the Move-In Day, the Mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan, asked the Occupy movement to “disown” Oakland because they were militant, uncompromising, and because they were willing to engage in the kinds of “class warfare” that Hedges once praised in Greece. Occupy groups quickly dismissed this as a divisive tactic, but Hedges and Derrick Jensen seem all too eager to help Mayor Quan out. We live in interesting times, but we need to see these kinds of attacks for what they are—forms of recuperating needed and justified rage. When rigid ideologues who think they have some kind of special access to “Truth” come in swinging like this, particularly right after being politely asked to by liberal Mayors like Quan to do so, it’s time to do some quick disowning. We should reject the attempts to divide us by the likes of Quan, Jensen, and Hedges and, more importantly, reject the lies and distortions embedded in these facile “critiques.” Shame on you, Chris. If you want to denounce “violence,” you might use your time to target the police and Mayor Quan instead of doing the work they’ve asked Occupy “leaders” to do for them.
Historicising the Bloom: A Short Inquiry Into Alienation
The French philosophical journal Tiqqun, active in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was popularised in mainstream culture by the case of the Tarnac 9. According to French authorities the Tarnac 9 committed acts of sabotage and was planning acts of terrorism, they were part of the insurrectionary communist milieu and have been accused of writing The Coming Insurrection – which has never been proven. Tiqqun put forth as one of their major concepts, that of the Bloom. The Bloom was, to use their technical terms, the product of modern empire’s alienation, the product of biopower, and of commodity fetishism. To Tiqqun, the Bloom is the natural culmination of the historic moment. I will explain more of what Tiqqun means by this term in a moment. My main goal is to ask, how far back does this historical moment go? Can we treat the Bloom historically? Is it something we can trace, or will the Bloom remain forever an intangible concept, merely a philosophical reference point for communist graduate students?
First it is necessary to attempt to understand what the Bloom is. It is, in a way, a bird which clips its own wings. The concept is taken from James Joyce’s Ulysses, from the character Leopold Bloom. This character is one of appetites, and so is the Bloom. Based on Leopold’s constant wandering and meandering as chronicled in Ulysses, the Bloom is an appetite for nothing – “it is clear that Bloom refers less to an absence of taste than to a special taste for absence.”i If the Bloom lacks a definite definition it is because it is itself a mystery still unravelling. The lack of definition allows for a sort of openness; the concept is something we should still work out. The concept is also as much a literary figure as it is a clear analysis. There is power in this, and there is weakness, as the term is messy. To the degree that it reveals things to us and makes us think differently, it’s a good thing. If it becomes a matter of easy answers and ways to avoid though, that’s another matter. Parts of Bloom exist and are telling. In Tiqqun‘s piece Introduction to Civil War, the Bloom is described thusly: “Bloom is therefore a body distinctively affected by a proclivity toward nothingness.”ii Despite an elaborate essay on the Bloom, titled the Theory of Bloom, these short excerpts from Introduction to Civil War provide the best definitions of what this concept truly means. From there, we can begin to look for the Blooms of history.
Joyce’s Ulysses was not published until 1922, though it had been published as a series of short stories in various literary magazines earlier, but since the Bloom is an advent of capitalism it must have been in existence earlier than this and certainly earlier than it was written of in Tiqqun.Joyce named the Bloom and depicted some of its qualities; Tiqqun tookthis one step further. Neither Tiqqun nor Joyce invented the Bloom, though. In this essay I want to expand and deepen the engagement with the Bloom. I would like to suggest that the Bloom is not a singular but a plural noun. The Bloom is multiple, existing in different and historically specific ways. Investigation into the will always be limited if it proceeds only as a philosophical activity. It must be supplemented by historical investigation into the many actually existing Bloom. Understanding of the Bloom would be enriched by research into vagrancy. One example of the Bloom as vagrants would those literal wanderers, the Hobos, Tramps, and Bums. Often lumped together, these three categories of the underclass are, in fact, distinct and provide for us a look at a sort of embryonic stage of the Bloom theory. They are left behind by society, vagrants who are nothing and looked over. Though associated with the expansion of the railways, the vagrancy forced upon them by capitalism is an echo of the earlier processes of primitive accumulation as described by Marx in the last part of Capital (vol. One).
Part eight of Capital, “So-Called Primitive Accumulation,” describes the historical process of not only alienating humanity, but of domesticating them to a point, and preparing them for Capitalism and its final conclusion: the Bloom and our precarious existence. Marx explains that the means of production were at fist taken by “conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, force”iii a process so demoralising that, I contend, it has an effect on us today, the description of which was taken up by Tiqqun around the turn of the century. This process of primitive accumulation was that of literally clearing the communally held lands that most peasants in Europe lived on, so as to artificially create markets in which the peasants would now serve as wage-labourers (ie, they were to become proletarians). Even from this basic description we are able to see the alienation from the land, tools, and means of production this creates and that when this very alienation becomes the basis for social relations that it cannot do anything but spread into the very psyche of human behaviour. So the peasants were removed from the land and Marx chronicles the class struggle between the new Capitalists and the displaced peasants and emerging working class: namely the struggle to resist wage labour as the basis for life. The result of this was a pitched battle and a permanent layer of people excluded from work who would become the first wanderers.
We know who won this battle, but as primitive accumulation began to end in Europe (and later in the United States), these vagrants, these embryonic Blooms, took a new form mentioned earlier: the hobo, the tramp, and the bum. “The hobo works and wanders, the tramp dreams and wanders, and the bum drinks and wanders,”iv according to Dr. Ben Reitman. Even those vagrants who work most, the hobo, they tend to not grasp anything for long, similar to the idea of having “a special taste for absence.” Like their predecessors’ battles, the vagrants often were of a radical character. In the early 1900s, for instance, they were often associated with the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical syndicalist labour union, which indeed led to more discrimination against travelers. In California and all over the mid-western United States, the hobo would play a huge role in labour organising, workers’ revolts, and other radical activity, that to go into any depth in would require an essay of its own. The punishments these vagrants faced were often harsh, from lynchings to branding. Despite their punishment they still preferred their life of seclusion in chase of nothing, and all while singing the songs to fan the flames of discontent. Yet contrary to the some of the popular songs, such as Big Rock Candy Mountain, which made the hobo life seem jolly and grand, an issue of Industrial Worker published on April 23rd, 1910 ran a poem called “The Blanket Stiff”, along side a picture of a solemn, lonely man walking down the street. It goes as follows:
He built the road –
With others of his CLASS, he built the road,
Now o’er it, many a weary mile, he packs his load,
Chasing a JOB, spurred on by HUNGERS goad.
He walks and walks, and wonders why
In Hell, he built the road.
So the existence of the vagrant was not something to be so glorified in reality. Nor was it something new, as we see in the process of primitive accumulation. It is documented that the methods to dealing with these vagrants did not change either. To deal with their refusal to work, bosses we allowed to extract corporeal punishment to make them accept wage labour. Even without being forced into labour, the vagrant could have their ears clipped or be branded.v The branding would not stop after primitive accumulation was complete and became a common punishment against IWW vagrants.
What Tiqqun suggests is that this feeling of not belonging is now generalised throughout our entire society, that it no longer belongs to a few displaced people. In CLR James’s renowned work Facing Reality, he inadvertently investigates the generalisation of the Bloom in British and American society in the late 1950s. He does this first by examining a piece from the Times Literary Supplement of the London Times. James describes the apathy of the average citizen: “On the surface he votes, he works, he salutes the flag (or he does not salute it), he listens to politicians, but in the privacy of his own mind and heart, all of this parade of politics and patriotism means nothing to him.”vi The Literary Supplement adds to this by stating, “society renders its citizens ever more rootless in their habitations, ever more mobile, ever more atomistic. They do not feel their society. They do not seem parts of it. […] He will effectively die towards his society.”vii In Britain, the Bloom has been found, caught red handed by James! Again, the Literary Supplement describes the Bloom: “This a ‘sort of traitor’ arises […] a vast number of non-citizens – citizens of nothing, attaching no positive value whatever to their society and its administrative State, having no emotive affection for it, living as atoms in it.”viii James moves onto American culture, looking at the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune, at the time an American periodical widely distributed in Europe. According to this article, entitled “America’s Non-Generation,” there is a new advent of trend among the youth, a similar story to that of the London Times. This periodical believes there is “justice in regarding the young generation as a non-generation, a collection of people who, for all their apparent command of themselves, for all their sophistication, for all their ‘maturity,’ know nothing, stand for nothing, believe in nothing.”ix James further backs his evidence up with some of the popular culture of the time, movie titles such as “Rebel Without a Cause,” which he feels illustrates the growing feeling of, well, nothing. The trend would continue out of the 1950s. In 1977 Richard Hell and Voidoids released their album “Blank Generation” – the insert said it was “For everyone that suffers and loses” (in poorly worded Croatian, mind you) – capturing the beginnings of the ‘no future’ punk rock attitude that would continue to afflict the youth to this day.
Reasons for the creation of the so-called non-generation are fairly obvious. The social instability of the 1960s showed the failure of the “social peace” – the failure of Social Democracy – and the beginnings of a new epoch of formal subsumption. This new era would be marked by the breaking up of the trade unions, the completion of an integrated spectacle in all developed nations, and a stagnating standard of living for the working class. In economic terms, it looked like recession, austerity, and the rise of precarious work as the norm. And youth in particular rejected this world. Even if you could succeed in the so-called good life offered by the system, many youth said, could you really call that living? In other words, you merely need to look around to view it. As James demonstrates, the Bloom as clearly been generalised in all developed nations – beyond the schools of Paris, infecting all walks of working class life. In the United States, the picture is crystal clear: low unionisation rates, tremendous growth in the service sector, and a U-6 employment rate of 17.1%x… That is to say, the capitalist system has done exactly what Marx predicted, in that with its valorisation of capital, it now expels proletarians from the process of their reproduction as proletarians.
Precarity has become such an issue in societies that those trapped in it now rebel against it. In France and Denmark in 2006, youth made insurrection against official society over their lack of a future and austerity measures and only a few months before in France the immigrant youth voiced their frustration with bricks. Now in 2011, the British oppressed, those people of colour and immigrants whose standards of living have stagnated or declined since the mid-1980s, made what Darcus Howe described as an “insurrection of the masses of the people.” In the age of the Bloom, it has become clear to see that we are still fucking angry.
Now, since the old forms are clearly indicative of the creation of this epidemic in the first place, it is necessary to replace them with new forms. For Marx it was the Workers State, the IWW dreamed of the One Big Union, and James proposed a Government of Workers Councils. So what, then, is Tiqqun‘s contribution, and why should the libertarian communists take it seriously? While it is true that their contribution to revolutionary practice is minimal, they have allowed us another way to understand and critically analyse alienation in capitalist society. The problem with Tiqqun is how much of its analysis is philosophical or purely literary, but this does not mean that we cannot take from it and contextualise it – give it more form, more content. This is similar to the way we understand the writings of Karl Marx, whose earlier writings were parallel to Tiqqun in a number of ways: they were philosophical texts that explained what capitalism does to us, to humanity. The height of Marx’s work, however, is Capital, where he writes historically, concretely, in detail, and where he not only describes but explains. We should investigate the Bloom, and we should do so more in the style of the later Marx than the early Marx. It is there that we will find the critical analysis that helps us develop and hone our praxis as pro-organisational libertarian communists.
i. Tiqqun, Introduction to Civil War.Intervention Series.Alexander R. Galloway and Jason E. Smith. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2010.
iv. Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology. 2nd ed. Joyce L. Kornbluh. Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1998.
as the dust clears
The riots in Britain are over. They are over, and I find it that now it is even more important to go back and look at some important commentary from one Darcus Howe. Howe was interviewed on the BCC only to have the video taken down, and it is fairly obvious why upon watching the clip here. Mr. Howe is the nephew of C.L.R. James and clearly has been influenced by his uncle, who had a nuanced and critical analysis of race relations and imperialism. Revisiting this clip, we can remind ourselves that there will always be, as Howe says, warning signs shown to us by the oppressed, the developing underclass, and precarious youth. The historical moment may not always be expressed by direct conflict, but inevitably we will see conflict arise. All history is the history of class struggle, as the dust clears in London, we await the next zone of the insurrection of the masses of the people.
Examining a Ghost: A Young Anarchist Reflects on Bookchin
| From Ideas and ActionExamining a Ghost: A Young Anarchist Reflects on Bookchin I have recently been reading Murray Bookchin. AK Press put out a wonderful collection, titled Post-Scarcity Anarchism, of ten of his works, including essays and discussion pieces on them, and a collection of letters and observations. Bookchin is a touchy topic with some, because as most are aware, he moved away from anarchism later in his life, supporting what he called “communalism.” None-the-less, all of these texts are from no later than 1970, when he was in his prime as an anarchist and, I contend, a leading theorist of the time. In the first three essays of the collection (“Post-Scarcity Anarchism”, “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought”, and “Towards a Liberatory Technology”), he would define the revolutionary need for an ecological perspective, and not without controversy. |
One must not take Bookchin out of his historical context, and to do so makes his works an enigma. Most of these essays were penned between 1965 and 1968. This must be kept in mind when reading his works, which make references to “free love,” the hippies, and the lifestylism of the time. He has many praises for these things, which many dismiss now, but in the sweeping social changes of the 1960s they could be seen as positive occurrences. Following the repressive social relations of the 1950s, it truly must have felt like a breath of fresh air to those who lived through these times – an explosion of sexual freedom, feminist and queer theory, and the civil rights movement. All these things, from experiments in communal living, consensus decision making, rioting and mass insurrection, contain lessons that we continue to pull from today. Bookchin took them in a critical light, used the parts he respected and applied them to his ecological-anarchist perspective in a pragmatic way.
Bookchin’s position on ecology was ahead of its time. He believes that much of the failure of earlier socialist movements was precisely because of their lack of this perspective. The earlier Marxists and anarchists believe in a society that was based solely around industry, glorifying work and toil, but he tempers this critique by attributeing this attitude to the lack of development of productive forces at the time. This deterministic attitude would have us believe that it was not possible for there to be a human community during the industrial revolution, because goods were not in abundance (or, unable to be in abundance). He does not speak to whether he believes it was possible to achieve a communist society before hand, but he does praise the feudal era for its intimate attachment to the land. Despite this, Bookchin’s central point is correct: communism requires new forms, new relationships with both land and industry. Compared to many Marxists and anarcho-syndicalists, who see workers’ self-management as the end in itself, Bookchin sees this as the beginning of a new human community. In this we can see the beginnings of a critique of self-management as a total end and Bookchin begs the question: what exactly will we self-manage? A society solely based on the self-management of exploitation appears only liberatory on the surface, but because it is still a society of labour and toil (but “self-managed,” naturally), it does not abolish the alienation that these forms create. In addition, it does not break down the division between humanity, nature, and work.
The essay “Towards a Liberatory Technology” describes the changes in technology that were occurring throughout the 1960s. Namely he speaks to automation and computers. An unfortunately large portion of the essay is devoted to technical information on technology, which I have no interest in and has little contemporary use. While, as stated before, Bookchin unleashe a criticism of Marxism and anarchism focusing on and glorifying toil, this essay tends to be the weakest of his three in the collection on ecology. I believe this is because, as having seen the deployment and use of the liberatory technology he describes, I can certainly say his predictions were wrong. Rather unfortunately, we are able to see first hand that technology has been recuperated as another source to enhance the process of capitalist accumulation, which is reminiscent of Marx’s warning in capital of the immiseration of the proletariat. Furthermore, this assertion that technology is in itself liberatory and necessary for a post-scarcity society are shaky. A major gripe of mine with his work is that he provides no evidence that it is not possible to have a post-scarcity society, or even communism, without automation or computers. Perhaps at the time it would not have been possible for him to predict the waste these technologies would create and the alienated forms of communication they would create, but regardless these things have become reality for modern capitalist society.
What he saw as liberatory, or having the potential for being so, has, in reality, been turned against the proletarians. Recuperation is a concept put forward by the Situationists, who Bookchin did keep up with (since he references Guy Debord at least once), and is a concept that states the existing order will take radical ideas and turn them against the pro-revolutionaries. Recuperation is what has been done to these technologies. They could be used to reduce toil, but certainly not in the market economy. Perhaps Bookchin did not mean it was, but he does not make this point clear, and uses the idea of liberatory technology to support his bizarre economic determinism, almost as a justification for the continued existence of capitalism.
I do not bring these issues up, though, to shoot down everything in Bookchin’s entire theory. In his ideas on freedom, I find his analysis correct and moving. He puts forward the belief that the ability to abolish scarcity is now a precondition to freedom… that while humans are incapable of getting all they need, and the required sacrifice through labour, they cannot truly be free. In this, we can find echoes of the communist call for the abolition of value. In addition to this, his vision for an ecological anarchist society was, I believe, ahead of its time and has an important place in the way which “red anarchists” and communists consider the natural world and its place in a communist society, without delving deeply into the wasteland of primitivist thought. A term brought up often in his writing throughout these essays is the need for a “well-rounded man” [sic] – which seems to reconcile the apparent contradictions of a deep relationship with nature, and the need for automation and technological advance. It does this by suggesting that ones livelihood cannot be restricted to one avenue (ie, just agriculture or just industry). This is, of course, tied into the idea of the abolition wasteful work that is created by a national division of labour. In refreshingly novel terms, Bookchin has put forward some of the classic ideas of true communism – that of transforming our relationships with work, land, production, and play and not merely substituting one form of management for another.
the first spectre
Welcome.
Some years ago, it is not terrible important how long other than to say it has been a while, a man wrote of a spectre that was looming over Europe. This was man was, of course, Karl Marx. And he referred to the rising of the European proletarians… but was he proven wrong? I talk to many friends, family, coworkers only to hear that I either care too much, I’m too sensitive about things, or I’m flat out delusional. To question the modern day, the status quo, and what you can see with your own eyes and touch with your own hands, this makes you insane — some would suggest you must have a personality disorder to suggest that this is not it. The real. The finale. The endgame.
Forever has come crashing, though. And so did the stocks, starting in 2008. The material world, the real conditions around me that proved my ideology irrelevant, have been literally pulled from the grip of many working families, and I believe their situation will continue to degrade. I am unapologetically pessimistic about the foreseeable future and all of this because I truly believe Karl Marx is being proven correct. In Das Kapital, Marx refers to the General Law of Capitalist Accumulation, what is otherwise known as his immiseration theory, which states that while capital accumulates it continually pushes more and more proletarians out of the labour pool, thus permanently creating a layer of unemployed. In addition, the removal of these people from the labour pool increases the amount of labour done by those remaining in capital’s playpen. This, combined with the attacks of austerity, have indebted the population, leading to hardship and misery. Unemployment often has a glorified identification within anarchist circles. It is likely these people have never organised alongside the unemployed or been within their ranks. Vagrancy is not a luxurious life for those who are forced into, contrary to those tales of the radical subcultural milieus who choose it.
Since 2008, what have we seen besides this? I contend it has opened many eyes to the real, latent content of any struggle of the oppressed: communism. I could cite dozens of historical examples of a drive towards gemeinwessen, but I think they are irrelevant to the here and now. The struggle is not over, it assumes new forms. And so it has.
We have born witness to the self-organisation of many oppressed peoples since 2008, from small-scale projects such as the emergence of solidarity networks, to the largest prisoner strike of history, and a series of revolutionary upsurges throughout the Middle East. These solidarity networks are of interest to me, not simply because of my involvement with them, but because they have sprung up regardless of tendency. Those who would consider themselves insurrectionists, platformists, syndicalists, and much more, have all participated in the founding of these autonomous, self-organised networks. They are an example of the drive toward communism, latent in ourselves, and the creative measures we proletarians will go to in order to help achieve our goals.
So is there hope? Perhaps. There is an insurmountable task in the way of the path towards a human community: the abolition of the state and capital. It will take more than a few riots, councils, or networks to overcome this obstacle. Negation is a task for the negators themselves, and I await to see what they will come up with. The forces against them have the weapons, not only in the form of guns, but also of recuperation, the spectacle, the value form. An optimist would believe in a communist future, I believe merely in the battle for a communist future. Though I have chosen a side, I cannot chose the winner. Despite this, I am happily able to state that the first spectre, the spectre of communism, once again haunts us. Perhaps that is a victory in itself.
A Response to Wayne Price
leave a comment »
My comrade, Wayne Price, had two comments to add about my essay on Bookchin’s idea of Social Ecology. I think he raises some good points about why my essay was somewhat incomplete and I would like to take the time to respond to him on here. This is what he wrote.
For Wayne’s first point, it is true I do not believe that a high level of productivity is one necessary to create a communist society. I believe in a latent content of communism in the human mind and reject the Bookchin and Marx’s economic determinism. My opinion on the matter is informed by a number of historical events that pushed towards a libertarian society regardless of technological levels or whether those involved had read Marx. These range from the early Christian communities, the millenarians, the diggers, the levelers, the Paris Commune, the Seattle Commune, the St. Louis Commune, the Russian Revolution, the German Revolution, the Spanish Revolution, East Germany 1953, Hungary 1956, the Prague Spring, May 68, and beyond. Communism, to me, is the creation of new social relations that are created through a social revolution. To some degree, all these events have began that process and some came closer than others. Many of these events happened before productive forces had been “fully developed” in the sense that Bookchin believed. Bookchin was quite caught up in the “liberatory” possibilities of automated technology and mass production of goods… I find that these concepts are strangely at odds with Bookchin’s theory of Social Ecology and also can lead to more alienated work. Perhaps what Bookchin did not foresee was the growth of precarity, though it is unfortunate if that is the case since C.L.R. James saw it in 1958 in Facing Reality. Creating a new human community, to me, will never depend on technology, but rather, humans themselves.
Secondly, Wayne is correct in pointing out Bookchin’s major flaw. I find his theory of Social Ecology extremely useful for libertarian communists, but his lack of a working class perspective — no, his outright rejection of it — makes his over-arching analysis useless to me. It is one of Bookchin’s aspects I cannot reconcile with my own beliefs. My opinion on the matter of oppression is one of class composition… The theory of Selma James in her essay Sex, Race, and Class. To deny a class-perspective will ultimately leave ones theory rudderless and irrelevant. This is exactly what happened with Bookchin, in my opinion, especially with his break from anarchism and the theory of “libertarian municipalism”.
Those are some of my thoughts on the matter.
Written by red zarathustra
August 28, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Posted in Commentary
Tagged with anarchism, class struggle, libertarian communism, murray bookchin, social ecology, wayne price