Critique of Daniel James Sanchez : Anarcho-Syndicalism: A Recipe for Ruin

Greetings, comrades! I’ve been busy as of late reading Das Kapital and the many other books I’ve recently ordered. So, for my idleness, I apologize. As to the title of this entry, I’ll be critiquing this article http://mises.org/daily/5590 , as-well as his assertions of ‘Anarcho’-Capitalism.

“Many anarcho-syndicalists also subscribe to a doctrine known as “mutualism.”” – Daniel James Sanchez

Most, if not every Anarcho-Syndicalist subscribes to the doctrine known informally known as : “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. We do not differ from Anarcho-Communists in this aspect. All goods produced should be distributed without favor to all of society. We do, however, view the world as one big cooperative; some would argue that the unions would exclude the citizens, albeit this is debatable. For one, the syndicate is the basis around society, where all who inhabit society will take a part in the economic activities, etc,.

To imply that Anarcho-Syndicalist favor mutualism is folly. We oppose labor remuneration and the use of artificial markets for goods and services. For historical references, one could look at Spain during 1936-1939 “In many communities money for internal use was abolished…” Bolloten op. cit., p.65-66

“Not only production was affected, distribution was on the basis of what people needed. In many areas money was abolished. If there were shortages rationing would be introduced to ensure that everyone got their fair share.” – Eddie Conlon: The Spanish Civil War: Anarchism in Action.

“For them, factory takeovers are simply workers defending what was really theirs all along. Furthermore, discounting the work of the entire anarcho-capitalist tradition, they think that the classic-liberal legal order (perpetual and even distant ownership of that which one has homesteaded or contracted for, and all its products) would not be viable without the support of a state — that the anarcho-syndicalist system is the only one compatible with statelessness.” – Daniel James Sanchez

Let me respond to the first sentence; do the producers (men manning the machines manufacturing the commodities) create the wealth, or does the owner of the machines? Without the wage-laborers the commodities will not be produced, thus capital or profit cannot be created. With the lack of capital being created by the wage-laborers, can the Capitalist acquire the machines with no money? Or, look at it in this light, does that money to invest in property, the manufacturing plant (factory), and machines that are used to produce the commodity, derive from the profit that the laborer creates? So, we know where the Capitalist receives the money to invest in the machines — from the laborers; and since they created the wealth, they own the machines, for if they didn’t produce, the Capitalist wouldn’t have the finances to purchase the machines, land, and factory. To the second statement; without the state, the protection of land and equipment is not there, and there is nothing present to stop the laborers from taking over the factory. Secondly, Capitalism must expand into foreign markets, and protect their interests, i.e., natural resources, without the state, the military doesn’t exist, therefore nothing can protect this interests from foreign states. Furthermore, when the anarchy of production causes an influx in capitalist economy, without the state to stimulate, production ceases, and will fail.

“Recall that Mises thought of the legal order advocated by syndicalists to be even less worthy of consideration than socialism. At least socialism was a “thinkable — although not realizable — system of social cooperation under the division of labor.” – Daniel James Sanchez

To assert this he  must have forget human history, i.e., communal society, where the means of production was utilized not around profit, but around need. Furthermore, mutual aid has been present since our earliest ancestors. Mutual Aid : A Factor of Evolution by Peter Kropotkin is a great read.

“The whole point of social production is the use of the final goods at the end of the line. Therefore, any arrangement worthy of the name “social system of production” has to ultimately be about adjusting production for the sake of consumption. The economic state of affairs favored by syndicalists does not fit that bill.” Daniel James Sanchez

The federated unions of workers don’t manage this themselves? They don’t adjust production to the demands of the community? We produce what’s needed for the community, not what is profitable. This is a baseless accusation, as it is fallacious to assert anarchy in socialist production. Capitalism, on the other hand, doesn’t adjust production for the sake of consumption, rather for the sake of profit. Thus we see over-production and wasted social labor, to which those resources could be allocated more effectively to produces the needs of the people.

” But the classical-liberal legal order doesn’t prevent cooperatives, so if they were so good at running their own factory enterprise, why could not those same workers form a cooperative and pool their wages or borrow money to create or buy their own factory in the first place? If it is because the “absentee-owned” factory was run more competently in light of ultimate consumer evaluation, and thus they would not have been able to compete, then this new turn of affairs will only be to the detriment of the general public.” – Daniel James Sanchez

Well, let’s again assay Spain circa 1936-1939 : Production greatly increased. Technicians and agronomists helped the peasants to make better use of the land. Scientific methods were introduced and in some areas yields increased by as much as 50%. Food was handed over to the supply committees who looked after distribution in the urban areas. With the profit motive gone, safety became more important and the number of accidents was reduced. Fares were lowered and services improved. In 1936, 183,543,516 passengers were carried.

It’s simple, if we were to revolve around Capital, the priority is to obtain profit. With the profit motive, working conditions, compensation, general safety, and the waste of production would exist, causing us to be 1) enslaved to the machines to earn a wage instead of working for needs, 2) create surplus-value for the capitalist 3) the inner contradictions of Capitalism cause unemployment and ceases production of needs; while producing for needs doesn’t revolve around profit, which means goods and employment are always in demand. Capitalism is therefore artificial and not natural, as our toil isn’t to yield our needs, but profit.

“Collaborative production (the division of labor) is so bountiful because it allows people to specialize: to focus on what they are good at and then exchange with each other.” – Daniel James Sanchez

“with this division of labour”, the worker is “depressed spiritually and physically to the condition of a machine” (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, 1844, First Manuscript, in T.B. Bottomore, Karl Marx Early Writings, C.A. Watts and Co. Ltd., London, 1963, p. 72).

“A capitalist/worker arrangement is effectively an intertemporal exchange. Workers are advanced present money in exchange for enabling the capitalist to own and sell a future product. Abolishing wages would therefore be injurious to both would-be consenting parties in the exact same way that abolishing interest, another phenomenon of intertemporal exchange, would be.” – Daniel James Sanchez

“[…]free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.” – The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin. The “Capitalist/Worker arrangement” is not of free contract, rather a submissive one. The laborer is forced to sell his labor power to survive. He produces a commodity which doesn’t suit his every need. [Example : a car manufacturer may indeed need a vehicle, albeit he also needs food, shelter, etc,. If his employer is unable to produce the vehicles at a profit, the laborer loses his means to obtain his needs.] In Socialist society, however, the goods produced are not owned by an individual, but by all of society, no matter their relation to the finished product, as society too has access to what he produces. This need to produce for societies and individual needs causes man to work.

Noam Chomsky : What Uncle Sam Really Wants

For most of this century, the United States was far and away the world’s
dominant economic power, and that made economic warfare an appealing
weapon, including measures ranging from illegal embargo to enforcement of
IMF rules (for the weak). But in the last twenty years or so, the US has
declined relative to Japan and German-led Europe (thanks in part to the
economic mismanagement of the Reagan administration, which threw a party
for the rich with costs paid by the majority of the population and future
generations). At the same time, however, US military power has become
absolutely preeminent.

As long as the Soviet Union was in the game, there was a limit to how much
force the US could apply, particularly in more remote areas where we
didn’t have a big conventional force advantage. Because the USSR used to
support governments and political movements the US was trying to destroy,
there was a danger that US intervention in the Third World might explode
into a nuclear war. With the Soviet deterrent gone, the US is much more
free to use violence around the world, a fact that has been recognized
with much satisfaction by US policy analysts in the past several years.

In any confrontation, each participant tries to shift the battle to a
domain in which it’s most likely to succeed. You want to lead with your
strength, play your strong card. The strong card of the United States is
force — so if we can establish the principle that force rules the world,
that’s a victory for us. If, on the other hand, a conflict is settled
through peaceful means, that benefits us less, because our rivals are just
as good or better in that domain.

Diplomacy is a particularly unwelcome option, unless it’s pursued under
the gun. The US has very little popular support for its goals in the Third
World. This isn’t surprising, since it’s trying to impose structures of
domination and exploitation. A diplomatic settlement is bound to respond,
at least to some degree, to the interests of the other participants in the
negotiation, and that’s a problem when your positions aren’t very popular.

As a result, negotiations are something the US commonly tries to avoid.
Contrary to much propaganda, that has been true in Southeast Asia, the
Middle East and Central America for many years.

Against this background, it’s natural that the Bush administration should
regard military force as a major policy instrument, preferring it to
sanctions and diplomacy (as in the Gulf crisis). But since the US now
lacks the economic base to impose “order and stability” in the Third
World, it must rely on others to pay for the exercise — a necessary one,
it’s widely assumed, since someone must ensure a proper respect for the
masters. The flow of profits from Gulf oil production helps, but Japan and
German-led continental Europe must also pay their share as the US adopts
the “mercenary role,” following the advice of the international business
press.

The financial editor of the conservative Chicago Tribune has been
stressing these themes with particular clarity. We must be “willing
mercenaries,” paid for our ample services by our rivals, using our
“monopoly power” in the “security market” to maintain “our control over
the world economic system.” We should run a global protection racket, he
advises, selling “protection” to other wealthy powers who will pay us a
“war premium.”

This is Chicago, where the words are understood: if someone bothers you,
you call on the Mafia to break their bones. And if you fall behind in your
premium, your health may suffer too.

To be sure, the use of force to control the Third World is only a last
resort. The IMF is a more cost-effective instrument than the Marines and
the CIA if it can do the job. But the “iron fist” must be poised in the
background, available when needed.

Our rent-a-thug role also causes suffering at home. All of the successful
industrial powers have relied on the state to protect and enhance powerful
domestic economic interests, to direct public resources to the needs of
investors, and so on — one reason why they are successful. Since 1950,
the US has pursued these ends largely through the Pentagon system
(including NASA and the Department of Energy, which produces nuclear
weapons). By now we are locked into these devices for maintaining
electronics, computers and high-tech industry generally.

Reaganite military Keynesian excesses added further problems. The transfer
of resources to wealthy minorities and other government policies led to a
vast wave of financial manipulations and a consumption binge. But there
was little in the way of productive investment, and the country was
saddled with huge debts: government, corporate, household and the
incalculable debt of unmet social needs as the society drifts towards a
Third World pattern, with islands of great wealth and privilege in a sea
of misery and suffering.

When a state is committed to such policies, it must somehow find a way to
divert the population, to keep them from seeing what’s happening around
them. There are not many ways to do this. The standard ones are to inspire
fear of terrible enemies about to overwhelm us, and awe for our grand
leaders who rescue us from disaster in the nick of time.

That has been the pattern right through the 1980s, requiring no little
ingenuity as the standard device, the Soviet threat, became harder to take
seriously. So the threat to our existence has been Qaddafi and his hordes
of international terrorists, Grenada and its ominous air base, Sandinistas
marching on Texas, Hispanic narcotraffickers led by the arch-maniac
Noriega, and crazed Arabs generally. Most recently it’s Saddam Hussein,
after he committed his sole crime — the crime of disobedience — in
August 1990. It has become more necessary to recognize what has always
been true: that the prime enemy is the Third World, which threatens to get
“out of control.”

These are not laws of nature. The processes, and the institutions that
engender them, could be changed. But that will require cultural, social
and institutional changes of no little moment, including democratic
structures that go far beyond periodic selection of representatives of the
business world to manage domestic and international affairs.

ABC’s Of The Revolutionary Anarchist (Nestor Makhno)

Anarchism means man living free and working constructively. It means the destruction of everything that is directed against man’s natural, healthy aspirations.

Anarchism is not exclusively a theoretical teaching emanating from programs artificially conceived with an eye to the regulation of life: it is a teaching derived from life across all its wholesome manifestations, skipping over all artificial criteria.

The social and political visage of anarchism is a free, anti-authoritarian society, one that enshrines freedom, equality and solidarity between all its members.

In anarchism, Right means the responsibility of the individual, the sort of responsibility that brings with it an authentic guarantee of freedom and social justice for each and for all, in all places and at all times. It is out of this that communism springs.

Anarchism is naturally innate in man: communism is the logical extrapolation from it.

These assertions require theoretical support in the shape of assistance from scientific analysis and concrete facts, so that they may become fundamental postulates of anarchism. However, the great libertarian theorists, like Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Johann Most, Kropotkin, Malatesta, Sébastien Faure and lots of others were, I suppose at any rate, loath to confine their doctrine within rigid, definitive parameters. Quite the opposite. It might be said that anarchism’s scientific dogma is the aspiration to demonstrate that it is inherent in human nature never to rest on its laurels. The only thing that is unchanging in scientific anarchism is its natural tendency to reject all fetters and any attempt by man to exploit his fellow men. In place of the fetters of the slavery currently extant in human society which, by the way, socialism has not done away with, nor can it – anarchism plants freedom and man’s inalienable right to make use of that freedom.

As a revolutionary anarchist, I shared the life of the Ukrainian people during the revolution. Throughout its activity, that people instinctively felt the vital attraction of libertarian ideas and, equally, paid the tragic price for that. Without yielding, I tasted the same dramatic rigors of that collective struggle but, very often, I found myself powerless to comprehend and then to articulate the demands of the moment. Generally speaking, I quickly came to my senses and I clearly grasped that the goal for which I and my comrades were calling for struggle was readily assimilated by the masses fighting for the freedom and independence of the individual and of mankind as a whole.

Experience of practical struggle strengthened my conviction that anarchism educates man in a living way. It is a teaching every bit as revolutionary as life, and it is as varied and potent in its manifestations as man’s creative existence and, indeed, is intimately bound up with that.

As a revolutionary anarchist, and for as long as I retain even the most tenuous connection with that label, I will summon you, my humiliated brother, to the struggle to make a reality of the anarchist ideal. In fact, it is only through that struggle for freedom, equality and solidarity that you will reach an understanding of anarchism.

 

So, anarchism is present in man naturally: historically, it liberates him from the (artificially acquired) slave mentality and helps him become a conscious fighter against slavery in all its guises. It is in that regard that anarchism is revolutionary.

The more a man becomes aware, through reflection, of his servile condition, the more indignant he becomes, the more the anarchist spirit of freedom, determination and action waxes inside him. That is true of every individual, man or woman, even though they may never have heard of the word “anarchism” before.

The nature of man is anarchist: it kicks against anything tending to make it a prisoner. As I see it, this, man’s natural essence, is well expressed by the scientific term anarchism. The latter, as an ideal of life in men, plays a meaningful role in human evolution. The oppressors as much as the oppressed, begin, little by little, to come alive to that role: so the former aspire by hook or by crook to misrepresent that ideal, whilst the latter aspire to make it the easier to attain.

Comprehension of the anarchist ideal grows in slave and master alike as modern civilization grows.

Despite the ends to which the latter has thus far been turned – lulling and thwarting every natural tendency in man to protest every trespass against his dignity – it has not been able to silence independent scientific minds which have exposed the true provenance of man and demonstrated the nonexistence of God, hitherto considered the Creator of Mankind. Thereafter, it has naturally become easier to offer irrefutable proof of the artificial nature of “divine ordinances” on earth and of the ignominious relations that they establish between men.

All of these happenings have been of considerable assistance to the conscious development of anarchist ideas. Equally it is true that artificial notions have come to light at the same time: liberalism and that allegedly “scientific” socialism, one of the branches of which is represented by Bolshevism-Communism. However, despite all their vast influence upon the psychology of modern society, or at any rate upon a large part thereof, and despite their victory over the classical reaction on the one hand, and over the individual personality on the other, these artificial notions tend to slip down the slope leading to the familiar forms of the old world.

The free man, who achieves consciousness and expresses it around himself, inevitably lays to rest and always will lay to rest, the whole of mankind’s ignoble past, as well as all that that implied in terms of deceit, arbitrary violence and degradation. It will also lay these artificial teachings to rest.

From this moment forth, the individual little by little struggles free of the carapace of lies and cowardice in which the earthly gods have wrapped him since birth, and that with the aid of the brute force of bayonet, ruble, “justice” and hypocritical science – the science of the sorcerers’ apprentices.

In sloughing off such infamy, the individual attains a completeness that opens his eyes to the map of the world: and the first thing he remarks is his servile former existence, replete with cowardice and misery. In making a slave of him, that former existence had done to death everything clean, pure and worthwhile that he had started life with, so as to turn him either into a bleating sheep, or an imbecilic master who tramples and destroys anything good to be encountered in himself or in others.

It is at this point only that man awakes to natural freedom, independent of everyone and everything which reduces to ashes anything that defies it, everything that violates nature’s purity and captivating beauty, which is made manifest and grows through the autonomous creative endeavor of the individual. It is here only that the individual comes to his senses again and damns his shameful past for once and for all, severing every psychic link with it that hitherto imprisoned his individual and social life with the burden of its servile ascendancy and also, partly, through his own resignation, as encouraged and deceived by the shamans of science.

Henceforth, man makes as much progress from year to year towards a lofty ethical goal – not to be and not to become a shaman himself, some prophet of power over others and no longer to tolerate others wielding power over him – as formerly he was making from generation to generation.

Freed from his heavenly and earthly deities, as well as from all their moral and social prescriptions, man speaks out against and offers actual opposition to man’s exploitation of his fellow man and the perversion of his nature, which remains invariably committed to the onward march towards completion and perfection. This rebel, having become conscious of himself and of the circumstances of his oppressed and degraded brethren, thereafter gives expression to his heart and to his reason: he becomes a revolutionary anarchist, the only individual capable of thirsting after freedom, completion and perfection for himself and for the human race, as he tramples underfoot the slavery and social idiocy which has, historically, been embodied by violence – the State. Against that murderer and that organized bandit, the free man in turn organizes along with his fellows, so as to strengthen and espouse a genuinely communist policy in all the common gains made along the road of creation, which is at once grandiose and painful.

The individual members of such groups, by dint of becoming members of them, free themselves from the criminal tutelage of the ruling society, to the extent that they rediscover themselves, that is, they reject all servility towards others, whatever they may have been hitherto: worker, peasant, student or intellectual. In this way they escape from the condition either of a pack-mule, slave, functionary or lackey selling themselves to imbeciles of masters.

 

As an individual, man gets back to his authentic personality when he rejects false thinking about life and reduces it to ashes, thereby recovering his real rights. It is through this dual operation of rejection and affirmation that the individual becomes a revolutionary anarchist and a conscious communist.

As an ideal of human existence, anarchism is consciously disclosed to each individual as thought’s natural aspiration to a free and creative existence, leading on to a social ideal of happiness. In our day, the anarchist societyor harmonious human society no longer seems a chimera. However, like its elaboration and its practical planning, the conception of it seems as yet little in evidence.

As a teaching bearing upon man’s new life and its creative development, individually as well as socially, the very idea of anarchism is founded upon the indestructible truth of human nature and on the incontrovertible proofs of the injustice of contemporary society – a veritable permanent blight. Realization of that leads to its advocates – anarchists – finding themselves in conditions of semi- or complete outlawry vis-á-vis the formal institutions of the existing society. Indeed, anarchism cannot be acknowledged as quite lawful in any country: this can be explained in terms of present society’s being profoundly impregnated by its servant and master, the State. That band of individuals which has always lived as a parasite upon mankind, by cutting its life up into “slices,” has thus identified itself with the State. Whether individually or as a countless mass, man finds himself at the mercy of this band of drones going under the name of “governors and masters,” when in reality they are nothing but straightforward exploiters and oppressors.

The great idea of anarchism is not at all to the taste of these sharks who brutalize and enslave the contemporary world, whether they are governments of right or left, bourgeois or statist socialists. The difference between these sharks boils down to the fact that the former are professedly bourgeois – and thus less hypocritical – whereas the latter, the statist socialists of all shades, and among them especially the collectivists who have illegitimately tacked on the label of “communists,” namely, the Bolsheviks, hypocritically hide behind the watchwords of “fraternity and equality.” The Bolsheviks are ready to give the present society a thousand coats of paint or re-label the systems of domination for some and enslavement for others a thousand times over – in short, to amend the names as their programs may require, without thereby altering the nature of the present society by one iota, even if it means incorporating into their stupid programs compromises between the natural contradictions that exist between domination and servitude. Although they know that these contradictions are insurmountable, they cling to them regardless, for the sole purpose of not letting appear in life the only truly human ideal: libertarian communism.

According to their absurd programs, the statist socialists and communists have decided to “allow” man to emancipate himself socially, without its thereby being feasible for him to manifest that freedom in his social life. As for leaving man to emancipate himself completely, spiritually, in such a way that he may be wholly free to act and to submit only to his own will and the laws of nature alone, although they touch upon that subject, that is out of the question as far as they are concerned. This is the reason why they join their efforts to those of the bourgeois, so that emancipation may never elude their odious supervision. In any event, we know only too well the form that may be taken by “emancipation” awarded by any political authorities.

The bourgeois finds its natural to speak of the toilers as slaves fated to remain such. He will never give encouragement to authentic labor likely to produce something genuinely useful and beautiful, something of benefit to the whole of mankind. Despite the vast capital resources at his disposal in industry and agriculture, he claims not to be able to devise the principles of a novel social existence. The present seems quite adequate to him, for all the powerful kowtow to him: tsars, presidents, governments and virtually all intellectuals and scholars, all who in their turn reduce the slaves of the new society to subjection. “Servants!” the bourgeois cry out to their faithful servitors, “Give to the slaves the pittance which is their due, keep what is due to you for your devoted services, then hold the remainder for us!” In conditions like those, life for them could not be anything other than beautiful! – No, we are not in agreement with you on the above! retort the state socialists and communists. Whereupon they turn to the workers, organizing them into political parties, then inciting them to revolt whilst exhorting them as follows:

Drive out the bourgeois from State power and give it to us statist socialists and communists, then we will defend you and set you free.

Bitter, natural enemies of State authority, more than of the drones and privileged, the toilers give vent to their hatred, rise in revolt, carry out the revolution, destroy the power of the State and drive out those wielding it, and then, either through naiveté or lack of vigilance, they let the socialists lay hands on it. In Russia, they let the Bolshevik-Communists lay hands on it like that. These craven Jesuits, these monsters, butcherers of freedom, thereupon set to work to strangle, shoot and crush the people, even though they were unarmed, just as the bourgeois had done before them, if not indeed worse. They shot to break the independent spirit, whether collective or individual, in the aim of eradicating once and for all from man the spirit of freedom and the will to create, to leave him a spiritual slave and physical lackey to a band of villains ensconced in place of the toppled throne, and not hesitating to deploy killers to bring the masses to heel and eliminate the recalcitrant.

Man groans underneath the weight of the chains of socialist power in Russia. He groans in other countries also beneath the yoke of socialists in cahoots with the bourgeoisie, or even under the yoke of the bourgeoisie alone. Everywhere, individually or collectively, man groans under the oppressiveness of State power and its political and economic lunacies. Few people take an interest in his sufferings without simultaneously having second thoughts, for the executioners, old or new, are spiritually and physically very robust: they can call upon huge effective resources to underpin their hold and crush each and every person who stands in their way.

Itching to defend his rights to life, liberty and happiness, man seeks to manifest his creative determination by venturing into the maelstrom of violence. In face of the uncertain outcome of his fight, he sometimes has a tendency to lower his arms in front of his executioner, at the very moment when the latter is slipping the noose about his neck, and this when just one bold glance from him would be enough to reduce the executioner to a quivering jelly and call the burdensome yoke once more into question. Unfortunately, man very often prefers to close his eyes at the very moment when the executioner is slipping a noose around his entire life.

Only the man who has successfully rid himself of the chains of oppression and seen all the horrors being perpetrated against the human race can be persuaded that his freedom and that of his neighbor are inviolable, as are their lives, and that his neighbor is his brother. If he is ready to conquer and defend his freedom, to exterminate every oppressor and every executioner (unless the latter renounces his craven trade) then, provided he does not set himself the target in this struggle against the evils of contemporary society of replacing bourgeois power with some other, equally oppressive power – be it socialist, communist or “worker” (Bolshevik) – but rather aims to achieve a really free society, organized on a basis of individual responsibility and guaranteeing all a genuine freedom and equality of social justice for all, that man only is a revolutionary anarchist. He may without fear look upon the works of the executioner-State and, if need be, listen to his verdict, and also pronounce his own by declaring:

No, it need not be so! Revolt, oppressed brother! Rise up against all State power! Destroy the power of the bourgeoisie and do not replace it with that of the socialists and Bolshevik-communists. Do away with all State power and drive out its champions, for you will never find friends among them.

The power of the statist socialists or communists is every bit as noxious as that of the bourgeoisie. It may even be more so, when it conducts its experiments with the blood and the lives of men. At this point, it does not take long to revert surreptitiously to the premises of bourgeois power: it no longer has any fears about having recourse to the worst of means, lying and deceiving even more than any other power. The ideas of socialism or State communism become redundant: it no longer avails of them, laying hands instead upon any which might help it to cling to power. In the last analysis, it merely uses new means to perpetuate domination and become more cowardly than the bourgeoisie which strings the revolutionary up in public view whilst Bolshevism-communism murders and strangles on the sly.

Any political revolution which has left the bourgeoisie and the state socialists or communists to fight it out is a good illustration of what I have just been saying, especially if one considers the examples of the Russian revolutions of February and October 1917. Having overthrown the Russian empire, the toiling masses consequently felt themselves to be half-liberated politically and sought to complete their liberation. They set about transferring the land confiscated from the great landlords and the clergy to those who worked it or indeed intended to do so without exploitation of another man’s labor. In the towns, it was the factories, workshops, printing-works and other social enterprises that were taken in hand by those who worked there. Embroiled in these healthy and enthusiastic endeavors, designed to institute fraternal relations between town and country, the toilers omitted to notice that new governments were being installed in Kiev, Kharkov and Petrograd.

Through its class organizations, the people yearned to lay the foundations of a new, free society intended, as it develops without interference, to eliminate from the body of society all the parasites and all the power exercised by some over others, these being deemed by the toilers to be stupid and harmful.

This approach clearly made headway in the Ukraine, in the Urals and in Siberia. In Tiflis, Kiev, Petrograd and Moscow, in the very heart of the moribund authorities, a similar tendency surfaced. However, always and everywhere, the state socialists and communists had, and still have, supporters aplenty, as well as their hired killers. Among the latter, sad to say, there were also many workers. Abetted by these paid killers, the Bolshevik-Communists put paid to the people’s endeavors and in a manner so terrible that even the Medieval Inquisition might feel envious of them!

As for ourselves, knowing the nature of all State power, we told the socialist and Bolshevik leaders:

Shame on you! You have written and talked so much about the ferocity of the bourgeoisie towards the oppressed. You have been so zealous in your defense of the revolutionary purity and commitment of the toilers struggling for their emancipation and now, having come into power, you turn out to be either the same cowardly lackeys of the bourgeoisie or have become bourgeois yourselves through recourse to its methods, to the extreme that the bourgeoisie stands astounded and pokes fun at you.

Moreover, through the experiences of Bolshevism-Communism, the bourgeoisie has been brought to a realization, in recent years, that the “scientific” chimera of a state socialism proved unable to cope without its methods and indeed, itself. It has grasped the point so well that it pokes fun at its pupils who cannot even live up to its example. It has realized that in the socialist system, the exploitation and organized violence against the bulk of the laboring population do nothing to do away with the debauched life-style and parasitism of the drones, that in fact the exploitation suffers only a name change before growing and being redoubled. And this is what the facts bear out for us. One has only to register the Bolsheviks’ rapaciousness and their monopolization of all the revolutionary gains of the people, as well as their police, courts, prisons and armies of jailers, all of them deployed against the revolution. The “red” army continues to be recruited by force! In it one finds the same ranks as before, albeit now given different labels, but even more unaccountable and overbearing.

 

Liberalism, socialism and State communism are three branches of the same family, resorting to different approaches in order to exercise their power over man, with a view to preventing him from growing fully in the direction of freedom and independence through the devising of a new, wholesome, genuine principle rooted in a social ideal valid for the whole human race.

Rebel! the revolutionary anarchist exhorts the oppressed. Rise up and eradicate all power over you and within you. And have no truck with the establishment of any new power over others. Be free and defend the freedom of others against all trespass!

In human society, power is particularly exalted by those who have never really lived by their own labor and a wholesome existence, or indeed who no longer live by it or have no wish to live by it. The power of the State will never deliver joy, happiness and fulfillment to any society. Such power was created by drones for the sole purpose of pillage and indulgence of their often murderous violence against those who do produce, through their toil – whether through determination, intelligence or brawn – everything useful and good in man’s life.

Whether that power styles itself bourgeois, socialist or Bolshevik-Communist or worker-peasant power, it all comes down to the same thing: it is every whit as damaging to a wholesome and happy individual as it is to society at large. The nature of all State power is everywhere identical: it tends to annihilate the freedom of the individual, turning him, spiritually, into a slave, and physically into a lackey, before putting him to use for the filthiest tasks. There is no such thing as harmless power.

Oppressed brother, banish all power from within you and do not allow any to be established either over you or over your brother, be he near or far!

The really wholesome, joyous life of the individual or group is not built up with the aid of power and programs that seek to enclose it within artificial constructs and written laws. No, it can only be constructed on a basis ofindividual freedom and its independent creative endeavor, making headway through phases of destruction and construction.

The freedom of every individual is the foundation of the libertarian society: the latter attains wholeness through decentralization and the realization of a common objective: libertarian communism.

Whenever we think of the libertarian communist society, we see it as a grandiose society, harmonious in its human relationships. It is chiefly dependent upon the free individuals banded together into affinity groupings – whether prompted by interest, need or inclination – guaranteeing an equal measure of social justice for all and linking up into federations and confederations.

Libertarian communism is a society that is rooted in the free life of every man, in his untouchable entitlement to infinite development, the elimination of all injustices and all the evils that have hobbled society’s progress and perfectibility by splitting it into strata and classes, sources of man’s oppression and violence towards his fellow man.

The libertarian society sets itself the target of making everyone’s life more beautiful and more radiant, through his labor, his determination and his intellect. In full accord with nature, libertarian communism is, consequently, founded upon man’s life made wholly fulfillment, independent, creative and absolutely free. For that reason its adepts appear to live the lives of free and radiant beings.

 

Labor, universally fraternal relations, love of life, the passion for free creation of beauty, all these values animate the life and activity of the libertarian communists. They have no need of prisons, executioners, spies and provocateurs, whom the statist socialists and communists employ in such huge numbers. As a matter of principle, the libertarian communists have no need for the hired brigands and killers of which the prime example and supreme chief is, in the last analysis, the State. Oppressed brother! Prepare yourself for the establishment of that society, through reflection and organized action. Except, just remember that your organization must be solid and consistent in its social activity. The sworn enemy of your emancipation is the State: it is best embodied by the union of these five stereotypes: the property-owner, the soldier, the judge, the priest and the one who serves them all, the intellectual. In most instances, the last-named of these takes it upon himself to demonstrate the “legitimate” entitlement of his four masters to punish the human race, regulate man’s life in its every individual and social aspect, and in so doing, distorting the meaning of the natural law in order to codify “historical and juridical” laws, the criminal outpourings of pen-pushers on a retainer.

The enemy is very strong because, for centuries past, he has made his living from rapine and violence: he has the accumulated experience of that, he has overcome internal crises and now he puts on a new face, being threatened with extinction through the emergence of a new science that rouses man from his age-old slumbers. This new science frees man from his prejudices and equips him for self-discovery and discovery of his true place in life, despite all the efforts of the sorcerers’ apprentices from that union of the “five” to block his progress down that avenue.

Thus, such a change of face on the part of our enemy, oppressed brother, can be noted, say, in everything that emanates from the chambers of the State’s erudite reformers. We have watched a typical example of such a metamorphosis in the revolutions we have witnessed at first-hand. The union of the “five,” the State, our enemy, seemed at first to have vanished completely from the face of the earth.

In reality, our enemy merely altered his appearance and found himself new allies who schemed criminally against us: the example of the Bolshevik-Communists in Russia, in the Ukraine, in Georgia and among many Central Asian peoples is very edifying in this regard. This is a lesson that will never be forgotten by the man fighting for his emancipation, for the nightmarish criminality will be engraved in him.

The sole, the surest weapon available to the victim of oppression in his battle against the evil that binds him is the social revolution, a profound leap forward in the direction of human evolution.

 

Although the social revolution occurs spontaneously, organization smoothes its passage, eases the appearance of breaches in the ramparts erected against it and speeds its coming. The revolutionary anarchist beavers away in the here and now along these lines. Every victim of oppression become sensible of the yoke weighing him down, realizing that this ignominy is crushing the life out of the human race, should come to the aid of the anarchist. Every human being should be aware of his responsibility and see it through by casting out of society all the executioners and parasites from the union of “five,” so that mankind may breathe free.

Every man and above all the revolutionary anarchist – as the pioneer inciting struggle for the ideal of freedom, solidarity and equality – ought to bear it in mind that the social revolution, if it is to evolve creatively, requires adequate means, especially ongoing organizational resources, particularly during the phase when, in a spontaneous outburst, it tears slavery up by the roots and plants freedom, affirming every man’s entitlement to free and unbounded development. This is the very time when, coming alive to the freedom within and surrounding them, individuals and masses will make bold to act upon the gains of the social revolution, and that revolution will have most need of such organizational resources. For example, revolutionary anarchists played a particularly outstanding role in the Russian revolution, but, not being possessed of the requisite means of action, were unable to see their historical mission through. Moreover, that revolution demonstrated to us the following truth: after having rid themselves of the bonds of slavery, the masses of humanity have no intention of creating new ones. On the contrary: during times of revolution, the masses fetch about for new forms of free associations capable not only of responding to their libertarian instincts, but also of defending their gains should the enemy mount an attack.

Observing this process at work, we were constantly drawn to the conclusion that the most fruitful and most valuable associations could not be other than the commune-unions, the ones whose social resources are conjured up by life itself: the free soviets. Basing himself on that same belief, the revolutionary anarchist hurls himself into selfless action and exhorts the oppressed to join the struggle for free associations. He is convinced that not only must the essential creative organizational precepts be demonstrated: there is also the need to equip oneself with the wherewithal to defend the new life-style against hostile forces. Practice has shown that this has to be pursued most firmly and supported by the masses themselves, in person and on the spot.

In carrying through the revolution, under the impulsion of the anarchism that is innate in them, the masses of humanity search for free associations. Free assemblies always command their sympathy. The revolutionary anarchist must help them to formulate this approach as best they can. For instance, the economic problem of the free association of communes must find full expression in the creation of production and consumer cooperatives, of which the free soviets will be the sponsors. It is through the good offices of the free soviets while the revolution is rippling outwards, that the masses will themselves lay hands upon the entirety of the social heritage: the land, forests, workshops, factories, railways and seaborne transportation, etc., and then, banding together on the basis of interests, affinities or a shared ideal, they will rebuild their social life along the most varied lines to suit their needs and wishes.

It goes without saying that this will be a vicious struggle; it will cost a huge number of lives, for it will pit free humankind against the old world for one last time. There will be no room for hesitation or sentiment. It will be a life or death struggle! At any rate, that is how any man who places any store by his rights and the rights of humankind should think of it, unless he wishes to remain a beast of burden, a slave, as he is compelled to be at the moment.

When healthy reasoning and love of oneself and of others alike gain the ascendancy in life, man will become the authentic author of his own existence.

Organize, oppressed brother, summon all men from plow and workshop, from school and university desk, not forgetting the scholar and the intellectual generally, so that he may venture beyond his chambers and help you along your daunting course. It is true that nine out of ten intellectuals may fail to answer your call or, if they do respond, will do so with the intention of pulling the wool over your eyes, for remember that they are the faithful servants of the union of the “five.” Even so, there will be that one in ten who will prove your friend and will help you puncture the deceit of the other nine. As far as physical violence, the brute force of those who govern and legislate, is concerned, you will see it off with violence of your own.

Organize, summon all your brethren to join the movement and insist of all who govern that, of their own volition, they cease their craven profession of regulating the life of man. Should they refuse, rise up, disarm their police, militiamen and the other guard-dogs of the union of the “five.” Arrest all governors for as long as need be, tear up and burn their laws! Tear down the prisons, once you have annihilated the executioners and eradicate all State power!

Many paid killers and assassins are in the army, but your friends, the draftees, are there also. Call them to your side and they will come to your aid and help you neutralize the mercenaries.

Once you have all come together into one big family, brethren, we will march together down the path of enlightenment and knowledge, we will leave the shadows behind and stride towards mankind’s common ideal: the free and fraternal life, the society wherein no one will be a slave any longer, nor humiliated by anyone.

To the brute violence of our foes we will make reply through the compact force of our insurgent revolutionary army. To incoherence and arbitrariness, we will make reply by erecting our new life upon a foundation of justice, on a basis of individual responsibility, the true guarantor of freedom and social justice for all.

Only the blood-thirsty criminals of the union of the “five” will refuse to join us on the path to innovation: they will try to oppose us so as to cling to their privileges, thereby signing their own death warrant.

My Objection to Marxism-Leninism By Observing the Soviet Union Under Lenin

My objection to Marxism-Leninism is clearly evident by the title of my blog.  Although I must make aware, I do not, however, object all works of our comrade, Karl Marx.Vladimir Lenin, on the other hand, I cannot enunciate the same feeling. The objection lies within the conception of the state apparatus, and the rather prude disposition towards other leftist theoreticians; predominantly against Proudhon and Bakunin. The expulsion of these endowed gentlemen from the IWMA primarily on their opposition to the state,  or for technical purposes, opposition towards the Dictatorship of The Proletariat. Although, it’s not the personality of Marx, rather, the manner of his actions; which from my humbled opinion, referencing the actions of the expulsion of the Anarchists from the IWMA, was done because of his desire to influence the future of Socialism. What I mean by this is lucid : Marx, while holding considerable sway, did not wish to have someone tantamount to his position, role, and contribution to the modern forming of the Socialist movement. For it would destroy his achievements (contributions of theories). This is, of-course, just my opinion, but the expulsion due to opposition to Marx, however, is fact *1*. To Lenin, who was an elitist, and a rather dignified one, used his adroit aptitude of intellectualism to persuade the proletariat that they are too incompetent to take on the task of revolution absent of a superior intellectual minority which would provide guidance. “If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.” – Vladimir Lenin. A great work by Bakunin titled “Power Corrupts The Best”, explains in considerable detail of individuals like Lenin. ““The masses” a man says to himself,” recognising their incapacity to govern on their own account, have elected me their chief. By that act they have publicly proclaimed their inferiority and my superiority. Among this crowd of men, recognising hardly any equals of myself, I am alone capable of directing public affairs. The people have need of me; they cannot do without my services, while I, on the contrary, can get along all right by myself; they, therefore, must obey me for their own security, and in condescending to obey them, I am doing them a good turn.” – Bakunin.

The state provides the first stage of the Dictatorship of The Proletariat, this state will be the ruling body of the proletariat, decreeing legislation, and acting on behalf of the workers, according to Marx. This has proven to be quite the contrapositive in regards to who truly wields the power of the state. We’ve observed and conceived the writings of Marx on paper, but we’ve also seen his theory in action. I am, of-course, viewing this on the history of Marx’s theory in motion — Marxism-Leninism in the ‘Soviet’ Union, which, in my opinion, embodied the concept of a central authoritarian state that Marx demanded rather violently that it must be the first step in the workers’ liberation. To this notion, of which Bakunin denounced, and which the intellectuals praised, we have witnessed its moment in history. I must note, this is not about Stalin’s rule of the U.S.S.R., rather comrade Lenin, which most will praise for remaining the closest figure to Marx between the two.

Once we analyze the ‘Soviet’ State, which implemented the theory contributed by Marx, and configured to the material conditions by Lenin, we can observe its inevitable failure. For one, the revolution which stressed the need of a Vanguard was going to take control not the proletariat. Secondly, this inevitably spawned as Bakunin cited in Power Corrupts The Best, the division of the masses from the intellectuals :” Here, then, is society divided into two categories, if not yet to say two classes, of which one, composed of the immense majority of the citizens, submits freely to the government of its elected leaders, the other, formed of a small number of privileged natures [intellectuals], recognized and accepted as such by the people, and charged by them to govern them. Dependent on popular election, they are at first distinguished from the mass of the citizens only by the very qualities which recommended them to their choice and are naturally, the most devoted and useful of all. They do not yet assume to themselves any privilege, any particular right, except that of exercising, insofar as the people wish it, the special functions with which they have been charged.” From this, there is no contrast. The Bolsheviks, later known as The Communist Party of The Soviet Union (КПСС), they retained power from the bloodshed of the proletariat and peasant’ revolution.

The rebuttal to such an assertion by Marxist-Leninist is mere prattle. “The conditions from outside agitators and internal reactionaries caused the need for an authoritarian government to protect the revolution.” Perhaps, maybe, but once referencing the Spanish Revolution, we’ve seen militias of the collectives connected through federation to tackle these issues. The other most common refutation of direct control of the state is : “Russia was a backwards state, which wasn’t developed, and still rather agrarian.” Once again, let’s compare this with Spain, which was too agrarian and ‘backwards’ in regards to modern industrial development. Production greatly increased. Technicians and agronomists helped the peasants to make better use of the land. Scientific methods were introduced and in some areas yields increased by as much as 50%. Food was handed over to the supply committees who looked after distribution in the urban areas. (Source :  “The Spanish Civil War: Anarchism in Action” for the Workers’ Solidarity Movement).

– Revolutionary Anarchist

*1* Col Longmore/S. London DAM pamphlet “The IWA Today” (1984)

Bakunin vs Marx

Bakunin’s opposition to Marxism involves several separate but related criticisms. Though he thought Marx was a sincere revolutionary, Bakunin believed that the application of the Marxist system would necessarily lead to the replacement of one repression (capitalist) by another (state socialist).

Firstly, Bakunin opposed what he considered to be the economic determinist element in Marx’s thought, most simply stated that ” Being determines consciousness.” Put in another way, Bakunin was against the idea that the whole range of ‘super structural’ factors of society, its laws, moralities, science, religion, etc. were ” but the necessary after effects of the development of economic facts.” Rather than history or science being primarily determined by economic factors (e.g. the ‘mode of production’), Bakuninallowed much more for the active intervention of human beings in the realization of their destiny.

More fundamental was Bakunin’s opposition to the Marxist idea of dictatorship of the proletariat which was, in effect, a transitional state on the way to stateless communism. Marx and Engles, in the Communist Manifesto of 1848, had written of the need for labour armies under state supervision, the backwardness of the rural workers, the need for centralised and directed economy, and for wide spread nationalisation. Later, Marx also made clear that a workers’ government could come into being through universal franchise. Bakunin questioned each of these propositions.

The state, whatever its basis, whether it be proletarian or bourgeois, inevitably contains several objectionable features. States are based upon coercion and domination. This domination would, Bakunin stated, very soon cease to be that of the proletariat over its enemies but would become a state over the proletariat. This would arise,Bakunin believed, because of the impossibility of a whole class, numbering millions of people, governing on its own behalf. Necessarily, the workers would have to wield power by proxy by entrusting the tasks of government to a small group of politicians.

Once the role of government was taken out of the hands of the masses, a new class of experts, scientists and professional politicians would arise. This new elite would,Bakunin believed, be far more secure in its domination over the workers by means of the mystification and legitimacy granted by the claim to acting in accordance with scientific laws (a major claim by Marxists). Furthermore, given that the new state could masquerade as the true expression of the people’s will. The institutionalising of political power gives rise to a new group of governors with the same self-seeking interests and the same cover-ups of its dubious dealings.

Another problem posed by the statist system, that of centralised statist government would, argued Bakunin, further strengthen the process of domination. The state as owner, organiser, director, financier, and distributor of labour and economy would necessarily have to act in an authoritarian manner in its operations. As can be seen by the Soviet system, a command economy must act with decision flowing from top to bottom; it cannot meet the complex and various needs of individuals and, in the final analysis, is a hopeless, inefficient giant. Marx believed that centralism, from whatever quarter, was a move toward the final, statist solution of revolution. Bakunin, in contrast opposed centralism by federalism.

Bakunin’s predictions as to the operation of Marxist states have been borne out by reality. The Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, talked incessantly of proletarian dictatorship and soviet power, yet inevitably, with or without wanting to, created a vast bureaucratic police state.

Provided by Anarchist Federation.

Mikhail Bakunin — Where I Stand


I am a passionate seeker after truth (and no less embittered enemy of evil doing fictions) which the party of order, this official, privileged and interested representative of all the past and present religions, metaphysical, political, juridical and “social” atrociousness claim to employ even today only to make the world stupid and enslave it, I am a fanatical lover of truth and freedom which I consider the only surroundings in which intelligence, consciousness and happiness develop and increase.

I do not mean the completely formal freedom which the State imposes, judges and regulates, this eternal lie which in reality consists always of the privileges of a few based upon the slavery of all – not even the individualist, egotistical, narrow and fictitious freedom which the school of J.J. Rousseau and all other systems of property moralists, middle class bourgeoisism and liberalism recommend – according to which the so called rights of individuals which the State “represents” has the limit in the right of all, whereby the rights of every individual are necessarily, always reduced to nil. No, I consider only that as freedom worthy and real as its name should imply, which consists in the complete development of all material, intellectual and spiritual powers which are in a potential state in everyone, the freedom which knows no other limits than those prescribed by the laws of our own nature, so that there be really no limits – for these laws are not enforced upon us by external legislators who are around and over us, these laws are innate in us, clinging to us and form the real basis of our material, intellectual and moral being; instead of therefore seeing in them a limitation, we must look upon them as the real condition and the actual cause of our freedom.

Unconditional Freedom

I mean that freedom of the individual which, instead of stopping far from the freedom of others as before a frontier, sees on the contrary the extending and the expansion into the infinity of its own free will, the unlimited freedom of the individual through the, freedom of all; freedom through solidarity, freedom in equality; the freedom which triumphs over brute force and over the principle of authoritarianism, the ideal expression of that force which, after the destruction of all terrestrial and heavenly idols, will find and organize a new world of undivided mankind upon the ruins of all churches and States. I am a convinced partisan of economic and social equality, for I know that outside this equality, freedom, justice, human dignity and moral and spiritual well-being of mankind and the prosperity of nation, and individuals will always remain a lie only. But as an unconditional partisan of freedom, this first condition of humanity, I believe the equality must be established through the spontaneous organization of voluntary cooperation of work freely organized, and into communes federated, by productive associations and through the equally spontaneous federation of communes-not through and by supreme supervising action of the State. This point separates above all others the revolutionary socialists or collectivists from the authoritarian “communists”, the adherents of the absolute initivaitve necessity of and by the State. The communists imagine that condition of freedom and socialism (i.e., the administration of the society’s affairs by the self-government of the society itself without the medium and pressure of the State) can be achieved by the development and organization of the political power of the working class, chiefly of the proletariat of the towns with the help of bourgeois radicalism, while the revolutionary (who are otherwise, known as libertarian) socialists, enemies of every double-edged allies and alliance believe, on the very contrary that the aim can be realised and materialized only through the development and organization not of the political but of the social and economic, and therefore anti-political forces of the working masses of the town and country, including all well disposed people of the upper classes who are ready to break away from their past and join them openly and accept their programme unconditionally.

Two Methods

From the difference named, there arise two different methods. The “Communists” pretend to organize the working classes in order to “capture the political power of the State”. The revolutionary socialists organize people with the object of the liquidation of the States altogether whatever be their form. The first are the partisans of authoritiveness in theory and practice, the socialists have confidence only in freedom to develop the initiative of peoples in order to liberate themselves. The communist authoritarians wish to force class “science” upon others, the social libertarians propagate empirical science among them so that human groups and aggregations infused with conviction in and understanding of it, spontaneously, freely and voluntarily, from bottom up wards, organize themselves by their own motion and in the measure of their strength – not according to a plan sketched out in advance and dictated to them, a plan which is attempted to be imposed by a few “highly intelligent, honest and all that” upon the so-called ignorant masses from above. The revolutionary social libertarians think that there is much more practical reason and common, sense in the aspirations and the of the people than in the “deep” intelligence of all the learned, men and tutors of mankind who want to add to the many disastrous attempts “to make humanity happy” a still newer attempt. We are on the contrary of the conviction that humankind has allowed itself too long enough to be governed and legislated for and that the origin of its misery is not to be looked for in this or that form of government and man-established State, but in the very nature and existence of every ruling leadership, of whatever kind and in whatever name this may be. The best friends of the ignorant people are those who free them from the thraldom of leadership and let people alone to work among themselves with one another on the basis of equal comradeship.

Books

List of books I’ve ordered, but haven’t yet read :

Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics) : Interestingly enough, I’ve never read the whole book Das Kapital, merely excerpts, accompanied by the writings of some Marxists on economics. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the contradictions of Capitalism. It’s a very adroit publication, a masterpiece, and a must read for anyone who desires to be able to hold an intelligent and persuasive debate with those who believe in the Capitalist system.

 The Accumulation of Freedom : Writing on Anarchist Economics : The only crisis of capitalism is capitalism itself. Let’s toss credit default swaps, bailouts, environmental externalities and, while we’re at it, private ownership of production in the dustbin of history.The Accumulation of Freedom brings together economists, historians, theorists, and activists for a first-of-its-kind study of anarchist economics.

The Conquest of Bread : The author of said book is Peter Kropotkin. You can find some of his contributions to anarchist theory on my blog. He’s a renowned Anarchist philosopher, and in this book he speaks about Anarchist economics.

 Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics Of Anarchism and Syndicalism (Counter-Power Vol 1) : Black Flame is the first of two volumes that reexamine anarchism’s democratic class politics, its vision of a decentralized planned economy, and its impact on popular struggles in five continents over the last 150 years. From the nineteenth century to today’s anticapitalist movements, it traces anarchism’s lineage and contemporary relevance. It outlines anarchism’s insights into questions of race, gender, class, and imperialism, significantly reframing the work of previous historians on the subject, and critiquing Marxist approaches to those same questions.

Books I have purchased, and have read. 

Anarchism : Theory and Practice : In 1937, at the behest of Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker penned this political and philosophical masterpiece as an introduction to the ideals fueling the Spanish social revolution and resistance to capitalism the world over. Within, Rocker offers an introduction to anarchist ideas, a history of the international workers’ movement, and an outline of the syndicalist strategies and tactics embraced at the time (direct action, sabotage and the general strike). Includes a lengthy introduction by Nicholas Walter and a Preface by Noam Chomsky. I will provide excerpts, explanations, and a brief over-view of this book. That will, of-course, come once I receive the book back from a friend I’ve lent it to.

Workers’ Councils : This is a great read provided to us by Anton Pannekoek, who also has provided work to my blog. The book goes in-depth into the organization of  workers’ councils, a critique of the Bolshevik movement,  explains how each system of capitalism is different in Britain, America, France, and Germany. Also, he explains Imperialism in Japan. A great read for the theoretic’s of a non-state society, which is replaced by the workers’ councils.

Reform or Revolution and Other Writings : A great read and critique of Bernstein’s “Means of Adaptation”. The critique is a response to the “Means of Adaptation” rendering revisionist  Bernstein’s theory fallacious by the use of Dialectical Materialism and Marxist economics.

Feuerbach – The Roots of the Socialist Philosophy. Theses on Feuerbach : This work is a testimony with regard to the method employed by Marx and Engels in arriving at their philosophical conclusions. It is the statement of the philosophical foundations of modern socialism by one who helped to lay them; it is an old man’s account of the case upon the preparation of which he has spent his entire life, for, this work, short as it is, represents the results of forty years of toil and persevering effort. Included in the book is how Dialectical Materialism came to be. It should be noted this may be difficult for some readers.

I will write excerpts from Workers’ Councils, Anarchism — Theory & Practice, and Reform or Revolution. Albeit this will come in the following weeks — or month. The purpose for this to help those interested in the content inside these publications. Finally, I do recommend these books for all those who wish to grasp the organizational, economical, and scientific facts based upon Socialism. All of these books provide said qualities.

– Revolutionary Anarchist

(François Claudius Koenigstein) Ravachol’s Forbidden Speech

François Claudius Koenigstein (Ravachol)  attempted to give the following speech, not to deny his guilt, but to accept and explain it. According to contemporary accounts, he was cut off after a few words, and the speech was never delivered. He was guillotined shortly afterwards.

If I speak, it’s not to defend myself for the acts of which I’m accused, for it is society alone which is responsible, since by its organization it sets man in a continual struggle of one against the other. In fact, don’t we today see, in all classes and all positions, people who desire, I won’t say the death, because that doesn’t sound good, but the ill-fortune of their like, if they can gain advantages from this. For example, doesn’t a boss hope to see a competitor die? And don’t all businessmen reciprocally hope to be the only ones to enjoy the advantages that their occupations bring? In order to obtain employment, doesn’t the unemployed worker hope that for some reason or another someone who does have a job will be thrown out of his workplace. Well then, in a society where such events occur, there’s no reason to be surprised about the kind of acts for which I’m blamed, which are nothing but the logical consequence of the struggle for existence that men carry on who are obliged to use every means available in order to live. And since it’s every man for himself, isn’t he who is in need reduced to thinking: “Well, since that’s the way things are, when I’m hungry I have no reason to hesitate about using the means at my disposal, even at the risk of causing victims! Bosses, when they fire workers, do they worry whether or not they’re going to die of hunger? Do those who have a surplus worry if there are those who lack the basic necessities”?

There are some who give assistance, but they are powerless to relieve all those in need and who will either die prematurely because of privations of various kinds, or voluntarily by suicides of all kinds, in order to put an end to a miserable existence and to not have to put up with the rigors of hunger, with countless shames and humiliations, and who are without hope of ever seeing them end. Thus there are the Hayem and Souhain families, who killed their children so as not to see them suffer any longer, and all the women who, in fear of not being able to feed a child, don’t hesitate to destroy in their wombs the fruit of their love.

And all these things happen in the midst of an abundance of all sorts of products. We could understand if these things happened in a country where products are rare, where there is famine. But in France, where abundance reigns, where butcher shops are loaded with meat, bakeries with bread, where clothing and shoes are piled up in stores, where there are unoccupied lodgings! How can anyone accept that everything is for the best in a society when the contrary can be seen so clearly? There are many people who will feel sorry for the victims, but who’ll tell you they can’t do anything about it. Let everyone scrape by as he can! What can he who lacks the necessities when he’s working do when he loses his job? He has only to let himself die of hunger. Then they’ll throw a few pious words on his corpse. This is what I wanted to leave to others. I preferred to make of myself a trafficker in contraband, a counterfeiter, a murderer and assassin. I could have begged, but it’s degrading and cowardly and even punished by your laws, which make poverty a crime. If all those in need, instead of waiting took, wherever and by whatever means, the self-satisfied would understand perhaps a bit more quickly that it’s dangerous to want to consecrate the existing social state, where worry is permanent and life threatened at every moment.

We will quickly understand that the anarchists are right when they say that in order to have moral and physical peace, the causes that give birth to crime and criminals must be destroyed. We won’t achieve these goals in suppressing he who, rather than die a slow death caused by the privations he had and will have to put up with, without any hope of ever seeing them end, prefers, if he has the least bit of energy, to violently take that which can assure his well-being, even at the risk of death, which would only put an end to his sufferings.

So that is why I committed the acts of which I am accused, and which are nothing but the logical consequence of the barbaric state of a society which does nothing but increase the rigor of the laws that go after the effects, without ever touching the causes. It is said that you must be cruel to kill your like, but those who say this don’t see that you resolve to do this only to avoid the same fate.

In the same way you, messieurs members of the jury, will doubtless sentence me to death, because you think it is necessary, and that my death will be a source of satisfaction for you who hate to see human blood flow; but when you think it is useful to have it flow in order to ensure the security of your existence, you hesitate no more than I do, but with this difference: you do it without running any risk, while I, on the other hand, acted at the risk of my very life.

Well, messieurs, there are no more criminals to judge, but the causes of crime to destroy! In creating the articles of the Criminal Code, the legislators forgot that they didn’t attack the causes, but only the effects, and so they don’t in any way destroy crime. In truth, the causes continuing to exist, the effects will necessarily flow from them. There will always be criminals, for today you destroy one, but tomorrow ten will be born.

What, then, is needed? Destroy poverty, this seed of crime, in assuring to all the satisfaction of their needs! How difficult this is to realize! All that is needed is to establish society on a new basis, where all will be held in common and where each, producing according to his abilities and his strength, could consume according to his needs. Then and only then will we no longer see people like the hermit of Notre-Dame-de-Grace and others, begging for a metal whose victims and slaves they become! We will no longer see women give up their charms, like a common piece of merchandise, in exchange for this same metal that often prevents us from recognizing whether or not affection is sincere. We will no longer see men like Pranzini, Prado, Berland, Anastay and others who kill in order to have this same metal. This shows that the cause of all crimes is always the same, and you have to be foolish not to see this.

Yes, I repeat it: it is society that makes criminals and you, jury members, instead of striking you should use your intelligence and your strength to transform society. In one fell swoop you’ll suppress all crime. And your work, in attacking causes, will be greater and more fruitful than your justice, which belittles itself in punishing its effects.

I am nothing but an uneducated worker; but because I have lived the life of the poor, I feel more than a rich bourgeois the iniquity of your repressive laws. What gives you the right to kill or lock up a man who, put on earth with the need to live, found himself obliged to take that which he lacks in order to feed himself?

I worked to live and to provide for my family; as long as neither I nor my family suffered too much, I remained what you call honest. Then work became scarce, and with unemployment came hunger. It is only then that the great law of nature, that imperious voice that accepts no reply, the instinct of preservation, forced me to commit some of the crimes and misdemeanors of which I am accused and which I admit I am the author of.

Judge me, messieurs of the jury, but if you have understood me, while judging me judge all the unfortunate who poverty, combined with natural pride, made criminals, and who wealth or ease would have made honest men.

An intelligent society would have made of them men like any other!

Noam Chomsky : OWS & Anarchism

The US and Europe are committing suicide in different ways. In Europe it’s austerity in the midst of recession and that’s guaranteed to be a disaster. There’s some resistance to that now. In the US, it’s essentially off-shoring production and financialization and getting rid of superfluous population through incarceration. It’s a subtext of what happened in Cartagena [Colombia] last week with the conflict over the drug war. Latin America wants to decriminalize at least marijuana (maybe more or course;) the US wants to maintain it. An interesting story. There seems to me no easy way out of this….

LF: And politically…?

NC: Again there are differences, In Europe there’s an dangerous growth of ultra xenophobia which is pretty threatening to any one who remembers the history of Europe… and an attack on the remnants of the welfare state. It’s hard to interpret the austerity-in-the-midst-of-recession policy as anything other than attack on the social contract. In fact, some leaders come right out and say it. Mario Draghi the president of the European Central Bank had an interview with the Wall St Journal in which he said the social contract’s dead; we finally got rid of it.

In the US, first of all, the electoral system has been almost totally shredded. For a long time it’s been pretty much run by private concentrated spending but now it’s over the top. Elections increasingly over the years have been [public relations] extravaganzas. It was understood by the ad industry in 2008, they gave Barack Obama their marketing award of the year. This year it’s barely a pretense.

The Republican Party has pretty much abandoned any pretense of being a traditional political party. It’s in lockstep obedience to the very rich, the super rich and the corporate sector. They can’t get votes that way so they have to mobilize a different constituency. It’s always been there, but it’s rarely been mobilized politically. They call it the religious right, but basically it’s the extreme religious population. The US is off the spectrum in religious commitment. It’s been increasing since 1980 but now it’s a major part of the voting base of the Republican Party so that means committing to anti-abortion positions, opposing women’s rights… The US is a country [in which] eighty percent of the population thinks the Bible was written by god. About half think every word is literally true. So it’s had to appeal to that – and to the nativist population, the people that are frightened, have always been… It’s a very frightened country and that’s increasing now with the recognition that the white population is going to be a minority pretty soon, “they’ve taken our country from us.” That’s the Republicans. There are no more moderate Republicans. They are now the centrist Democrats. Of course the Democrats are drifting to the Right right after them. The Democrats have pretty much given up on the white working class. That would require a commitment to economic issues and that’s not their concern.

LF: You describe Occupy as the first organized response to a thirty-year class war….

NC: It’s a class war, and a war on young people too… that’s why tuition is rising so rapidly. There’s no real economic reason for that. It’s a technique of control and indoctrination. And this is really the first organized, significant reaction to it, which is important.

LF. In the media, there was a lot of confusion in the coverage of Occupy. Is there a contradiction between anarchism and organization? Can you clarify?

NC: Anarchism means all sort of things to different people but the traditional anarchists’ movements assumed that there’d be a highly organized society, just one organized from below with direct participation and so on. Actually, one piece of the media confusion has a basis because there really are two different strands in the occupy movement, both important, but different.

One is policy oriented: what policy goals [do we want.] Regulate the banks, get money out of elections; raise the minimum wage, environmental issues. They’re all very important and the Occupy movement made a difference. It shifted not only the discourse but to some extent, action on these issues.

The other part is just creating communities — something extremely important in a country like this, which is very atomized. People don’t talk to each other. You’re alone with your television set or internet. But you can’t have a functioning democracy without what sociologists call “secondary organizations,” places where people can get together, plan, talk and develop ideas. You don’t do it alone. The Occupy movement did create spontaneously communities that taught people something: you can be in a supportive community of mutual aid and cooperation and develop your own health system and library and have open space for democratic discussion and participation. Communities like that are really important. And maybe that’s what’s causing the media confusion…because it’s both.

 

 

Critique of a “Progressive Political Movement”

I’ve come across a quote recently, suggesting that liberals have been able to make life better for the poor and working classes. Here is the quote :

“Progressive reforms are capable of improving our lives without the need for a bloody, violent and uncertain revolution. In fact, not only is it capable, The evidence  is the fact that, globally, parliamentary democracy is now the norm as opposed to despotism or feudalism, and while corruption, repression and oligarchy are still problems worldwide, they are at least globally recognized as problems and progress is being made to end them. Progress is being made and will continue to be made, however haltingly, without violent revolution.”

To critique this statement, we turn to Rosa Luxemburg, and one of her great essays’ called : ‘Reform or Revolution‘ –“Poverty, the lack of means of production, obliges the proletariat to submit itself to the yoke of capitalism. And no law in the world can give to the proletariat the means of production while it remains in the framework of bourgeois society, for not laws but economic development have torn the means of production from the producers’ possession.” 

Additionally, we must observe the mechanism this system will operate in… Capitalism. The system of operation within this “progressive” model of capitalist liberal parliament provides us with two scientific problems according to Das Kapital and recent history. Nothing can give more than what it has, this includes capital. For the “progressive” system to operate, there needs to be enough capital to distribute in social programs, as-well as enough capital to pay for all of the many other expenditures the government needs to pay for daily operations. This provides a problem during the many influxes within the Capitalist economy. Also, since the bourgeois state is still bourgeois, radical reforms, for which they as a plan to ease and contain the tensions of workers before they become too enormousness to handle, will, sooner or later, collapse, causing a fusion of energy and hostility. For social programs to be funded there needs to be some sort of tax revenue, when the economy isn’t performing well, you inevitably receive less revenue, which means tremendous debt to afford these programs. We must look at the change of the political landscape within Europe and America — The constant switching between the center-left and center-right, which provides two non-distinct.. hardly opposite  theories, which are both laughable, to address such problems. Which the liberals believe in the Capitalist market, albeit, through regulation and higher taxes / spending for social programs. The conservative — lower taxes and less regulation; which they postulate will create competitive working conditions and create jobs. Neither work, in the case of the liberals, the economy tanks, switching voters from center-left, to center-right. When the center-right assumes office they make the rich richer, the poor poorer.

We’ve witnessed these issues occur all over Europe and the United States with the increasing amounts of austerity measures. With the lack of tax revenue and borrowing to afford these programs, aided with global recession, the faults in this system have presented themselves to be a fallacious notion.

On to the politician. These politicians are not to be trusted, based on the costs. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-for-president/. The average amount spent by winning candidates was an astounding $7.26 million in the Senate and $840,000 for House candidates. (http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/cost-running-political-office.) Logically, who provides these checks? They aren’t grass-root fundraisers, it’s corporations, and these “donations” come with strings attached. These “donations” are merely bribe money, in which, their paid puppet, will act in favor of their contributor, not the classes.  It could be said these reforms are for the working class, but we must know, this isn’t the case. The bourgeoisie says to the politician :  “Feed him enough to where he doesn’t starve, but not too much to where he will become powerful enough to overtake us.”

Since this system is due to failure, and when it has failed, the working classes are the ones who face the blunt end of it. This system can only work in perfect economy, and we’ve yet to realize a perfect economy under Capitalism. The Capitalists argue with compassion that under Reagan and Thatcher, (Which Right-Wing Libertarians see as the greatest economic periods for both the US and UK) we’ve seen an increase three-fold in national debt, which wasn’t  due to social programs spending, but military spending. Also deregulation caused the financial institutions to collapse. When this happened, we’ve seen the huge separation between the two classes. The Bourgeoisie now controlled a considerable amount of wealth, while, on the contrary for the working class, they collectively weren’t even close to being tantamount to bourgeoisie in regards to amount of opulence their class possessed. Additionally, we too saw who the government favored when they approved the bail out. The people went homeless, jobless, and hungry, while the failure Capitalist bathed in the tax money paid by the workers.

To fully free ourselves from oppression and the dangers of poverty, we must look away from the state and beyond Capitalism. No laws will be decreed for the proletariat to seize the means of production, thus putting us at risk for poverty and oppression. Since too the system isn’t natural, but artificial, we also face the dangers of unemployment. To rid ourselves of these problems, we mustn’t look towards the government, rather to revolution.

– Revolutionary Anarchist