so comrade Z, do you plan on registering your "requirements" as international laws?


your posts are ironic and garbage at best.
Who are YOU to tell others the "minimum requirments" to becoming an anarchist?

"The person should have some basic knowledge of the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, and May 1968."

"The person should have some basic knowledge of and read at least one work by at least two of any of the following: Bakunin, Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Karl Marx, CrimethInc., infoshop.org's Anarchist FAQ, Noam Chomsky, Rudolph Rocker, or other sourches of anarchist theory and action that I have forgotten to mention. "

A person doesnt have to know any of this load of garbage to identify with anarchism. Sure this shit is important but there are many anarks who have actually done more useful things than set up barriers and rules and they dont know alot about these things.

Too much talk-the-talk inevitably leads to too little walk-the-walk.

Perhaps we have different definitions of what ANARCHISM is. I'm not talking about the psuedo-marxist ideology. I'm using a very clear definition derived from the etymology of the word itself.

Most of the black blocs I know of consisted of folks from Eugene Oregon who were what you would call 'middle-class lifestylists'. Black Blocs are one example of a valid and effective form of resistance born out of non-workerist thought.

'Work' as we know it, is nothing necessary. Many have(Bertrand Russell, Peter Kropotkin, Bob Black, etc.) made a very strong case that work should be reduced as much as possible and the amount of work directly related to the amount of misery in the world.

This may be true, however one should also be aware of the totalitarian tendencies within the syndicalist movement.

Personally, I think it is a breath of fresh air. There's nothing wrong with a little selfish individualism so long as it's not at the expense of others.

So? That doesn't change the fact that a personal attack is a logical fallacy completely unrelated to the argument.

Your relationship to the means of production and the goods produced does, however. If one hasn't the money to afford a house they're obviously not middle class.
For someone who espouses the Marxist class-conflict rhetoric as much as you do, it'd be wise for you to actually get an understanding of what you're talking about. Middle class, as we know it today mainly consists of a handful of petit-bourgeoise, professionals, and technocrats. Those with a small degree of economic 'success' although they lack any direct control over production.
Marx's definition of the lumpenproletariat would probably be much more suited for the lifestylists... But it doesn't quite roll off the tongue and have the insulting impact of calling someone "middle class" though.

So have nearly all the great anarchist and marxist theoreticians over the past few centuries just been a bunch of class-enemies?

"My way or the Highway" right? How pompous and arrogant of those foolish lifestylist anarchists, how could they reject your plan, the only possible way to destroy capitalism.

It has everything to do with what you said. Here you are with your self-righteous idea of what anarchism should be and whenever someone fails to fall in step with your grand scheme of an all-working class revolution on your terms, you immediately start accusing them of being middle-class and having no politics. This is the same shit the left has been pulling for a few decades now, and look where it's gotten you so far. Nowhere.

funny, because all I'm seeing is the regurgitation of an ideology.

I see you skipped my comment on my use of the word anarchism on purely etymological grounds rather than ideological. Here's a breakdown of the word for you:

Anarchy: 1539, from M.L. anarchia, from Gk. anarkhia "lack of a leader," noun of state from anarkhos "rulerless," from an- "without" + arkhos "leader." Anarchist (1678) got a boost into modernity from the French Revolution.

Am I splitting hairs with semantics? Yes. But given the topic of discussion, I think it's called for.

"anarchist" wasn't in use, so of course he didn't use the word. However any brief analysis of his work shows that his ideas are consistent with anarchism.

This is a complicated subject, however I would not be so quick to write him off. The synthesis of the individualism and collectivism is where anarchism grew out of, and to say that old Max was the beginning of it is pretty ignorant.

It would help to know what middle-class is to begin with.

And if there's going to be any progress at all in terms of anarchist theory, this will have to be overcome.

The argument could be made that there were the beginnings of an ideology(especially in Bakunin) however the closest there has come to any kind of definite structure is syndicalism.

Encompassed in the critique of the spectacle was the critique of ideology as one of the biggest obstacles for overcoming the spectacle. And the fact that you attack his plagiarism, then acknowledge the validity of his analysis is pretty odd, considering the fact that the situationists were pretty open about the fact that they considered plagiarism and detournement as necessary means of the critique of the spectacle.

Oh so now you know my class of origin now?(you're wrong, by the way) Fuck you buddy, you've really got nothing at all to say except calling everyone who disagrees with you "middle class".

Yeah of course you'd like that, it'll fit on a bumper sticker and reflects the continued slogan-shouting nonthinking you're used to.

Evidently

Quote:

I'm not talking about the psuedo-marxist ideology.

Psuedo?

Quote:

Quote: Work is a necessary product of existence. Without working we wouldn't be able eat. Work is going to be necessary, even in an anarchist society. 'Work' as we know it, is nothing necessary. Many have(Bertrand Russell, Peter Kropotkin, Bob Black, etc.) made a very strong case that work should be reduced as much as possible and the amount of work directly related to the amount of misery in the world.

Can you try and keep up with what you're saying otherwise things start getting confused.

I'm not entirely sure why you've told me this?

Quote:

Quote: Through workerist politics, however, we will achieve the destruction of capitalism, the state and bring this process of work under our control. This may be true, however one should also be aware of the totalitarian tendencies within the syndicalist movement.

Now we are seeing your distinct lack of knowledge concerning class-struggle anarchism which leads to the question; how can you oppose something you know very little about?

The syndicalist movement is a broad spectrum of idea’s and is not specifically anarchist.

Quote:

Quote: Most middle class people, especially individualists, have no tangible understanding of being working class. So? That doesn't change the fact that a personal attack is a logical fallacy completely unrelated to the argument.

Actually it's very much related to this discussion and logical fallacy or not my point still stands.

Quote:

If one hasn't the money to afford a house they're obviously not middle class.

But they do, hence why I'm calling them middle class.

Quote:

Marx's definition of the lumpenproletariat would probably be much more suited for the lifestylists... But it doesn't quite roll off the tongue and have the insulting impact of calling someone "middle class" though.

The "lumpenproletariat" are those people within society who have no means of subsistence and live outside of the means of production.

Most lifestlyists, although do indeed live outside of that process, directly benefit from it.

I have never met a lifestylist who has not been a) an undergraduate or post graduate student, b) someone who has weekly support from their parents/inheritence/trust fund or c) able to rely on the wealth of their family to support themselves.

For example, I lived in a squat with three women, the average animal rights, vegan power activist (one of them actually hugged trees) of which one had parents who were both doctors, one had a parent who was a vicar and a parent who was an engineer in BA Systems. The other girls family were small land owners (she in fact had a trust fund).

There is a vast class difference between someone who is "lumpen" because they have no other means of subsistence and someone who is "lumpen" because they have chosen it to be their lifestyle (and could easily survive with middle class style, whatever situation they were in).

Quote:

Quote: In the context of class struggle it could be argued that their class origin makes them less of an anarchist. So have nearly all the great anarchist and marxist theoreticians over the past few centuries just been a bunch of class-enemies?

My point being that people like Kropotkin and Bakunin relinquished their wealth to fight a struggle based on an objective understanding of history and these anarchists we're talking about have not relinquished their wealth and who bring their class prejudices to deformed and apparent anarchist struggles.

Quote:

Quote: Well, no, not unless they want to destroy capitalism, the state and create an anarchist society. "My way or the Highway" right? How pompous and arrogant of those foolish lifestylist anarchists, how could they reject your plan, the only possible way to destroy capitalism.

I wouldn't put it quite like that, but ostensibly, yes you're right.

Quote:

Quote: That has nothing to do with what I said. Lifestyle anarchism does not challange capitalism or the state. It has everything to do with what you said. Here you are with your self-righteous idea of what anarchism should be and whenever someone fails to fall in step with your grand scheme of an all-working class revolution on your terms, you immediately start accusing them of being middle-class and having no politics.

You seem to be misunderstanding. I'm not being emotional here, I'm simply stating facts.

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Quote: That old chestnut. I'm simply stating facts. funny, because all I'm seeing is the regurgitation of an ideology.

Right, and?

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Quote: Well there you are then... ... No it hasn't. The concept of anti-statism and community co-operation has been however. I see you skipped my comment on my use of the word anarchism on purely etymological grounds rather than ideological. Here's a breakdown of the word for you: Anarchy: 1539, from M.L. anarchia, from Gk. anarkhia "lack of a leader," noun of state from anarkhos "rulerless," from an- "without" + arkhos "leader." Anarchist (1678) got a boost into modernity from the French Revolution.

A very interesting quote from a dictionary, but what relevance does this have? All you have done is proven the origins of a word adopted by Proudhan and Bakunin to label an ideology they had developed out of class struggle?

It doesn't refute the ideology of anarchism.

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The synthesis of the individualism and collectivism is where anarchism grew out of, and to say that old Max was the beginning of it is pretty ignorant.

That's complete and utter nonsense. Bakunin railed against individualism and wrote polemic after pamphlet refuting the very notion that anarchism had anything to do with individualism.

He argues that the individual should be free, but only in the context that everyone is free collectively.

Quote:

Originally posted by "Marxism Freedom and the State"@ I mean that liberty of each individual which, far from halting as at a boundary before the liberty of others, finds there its confirmation and its extension to infinity; the illimitable liberty of each through the liberty of all, liberty by solidarity, liberty in equality; liberty triumphing over brute force and the principle of authority which was never anything but the idealised expression of that force, liberty which, after having overthrown all heavenly and earthly idols, will found and organise a new world, that of human solidarity, on the ruins of all Churches and all States.

I'd suggest reading the introduction to MFS:

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archi.../marxnfree.html

Quote:

"Solidarity in Liberty: Workers path to freedom"

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/...itings/ch04.htm

In that quote, not only does he negate individualism he posits quite clearly that liberty and freedom cannot exist until we are equal economically.

By analysing Bakunin's positions further, it is clear to see that "first and foremost economically" means the expropriation of the means of production; this is specifically a reference to class struggle.

He admits in those four words, that economic freedom is the first step to freedom for all, and how else does one become economically free if you do not destroy the system of economics that stops that from being so and who, further to that, has the power to bring down that system?

The answer to the last question is:The working class. Simply because they work within the means of production and so are the only people in society that can have any great effect on bringing it down.

Anarchism is not about individualism, it's about collectivism, and collectivism through class and the struggle which exists among them.

And then what? There is no other analysis of society or history that has been so objective in its understanding.

If you assert that it must be overcome, then show me what it is to overcome into! Surely, in order to assert such a statement, you must have first refuted historical materialism, class struggle and concluded an analysis that transcends them both?

What is it?

What does that even mean?

And what a complete hypocrite Guy Debord turned out to be.

If we are to overcome ideology as Debord asserts, what do we overcome into and will this overcoming destroy capitalism, the state and create an anarchist society?

I'm not referring to his critique of the "spectacle" although it wouldn't surprise me if he had plagiarised it.

Until Guy Debord was plagiarised of course.

I'm not calling everyone who disagrees with me middle class, I'm calling the vast majority of lifestylists and individualist’s middle class.

Oh the sheer audacity of it!

Many words have meanings similar to their original etymological definitions. However, for political terms, there is an ongoing struggle by upper-class factions to impose its meanings on the working-class struggle. Only the continuous, mass participation of the lower class in movements labeled as "communist" was able to retain its original meaning as "common good." This was despite immense efforts of upper-class intervention to change its meaning to "state despotism" (by "Marxists").

The lack of ongoing, lower-class participation in anarchist movements during the 20th Century is why the mass usage of these terms changed. The original etymological definitions were replaced. Upper-class ideology gives lip service to the definition of "anarchism" as "no ruler," the same as it gives lip service to a "higher order of communism."

By the way, "workerism" is a derogatory term--and y'all are using it correctly to describe yourselves.

I meant "Pseudo". Simple typo.

Really? It can't be that hard to follow the train of thought here. I can summarize it though.
-You say that "lifestylists" tend to be put off by workerism because it's unglamourous.
-I say that Work and Workerism are a big part of the problem with society and you can't really blame someone for opting out of it.
-You say work is a necessary product of existence.
-I say that's not necessarily true, and work should be reduced or eliminated as much as possible and many anarchists have come to similar conclusions

Here you're making two assumptions:
1) I don't know what I'm talking about.
2) I oppose anarchosyndicalism

well, since you've really given me much to work with on the first point, I'm going to assume it has to do with the fact that I didn't specify "anarcho"-syndicalism. My mistake, I thought the context in which it was used and the topic of conversation kind of implied it, but if you insist that I use the prefix, I'll oblige.
I admit I wasn't too clear, but what I was talking about was the very real danger for the development of a specialized technocratic elite(a bureaucracy of specialists for lack of a better term) in anarchosyndicalist paradigms such as the 'One Big Union'. Even in the case of Spain there were the beginnings of a bureaucracy among the leadership of the CNT-FAI.

As for the second assumption, I don't really oppose anarcho-syndicalism, I am just critical.

Middle class people don't know what it's like to be working class. So what's your point? People in the middle classes can't be anarchists? That's stupid.

Yet they're squatting? Let me assure you that those "lifestylists" that you know, who can afford to own a home yet insist on squatting, are in the very very small minority and a very poor example to use as a representative generalization of the individualist-anarchist movement.

Again you're generalizing

Strange because most lifestylist-types I encounter are people who grew up as teenage runaways, (ex-)heroin addicts who've lost everything, bohemian types, and other folks who are not so easily categorized. Perhaps this is a geographical/cultural issue.

There's really no difference if you look at it from the perspective of 'who controls the means of production'. The only difference I can spot is that one(one with money) of them will have a little bit easier time getting along with not working than the other(poor). But in the end, both of them fit the description of the lumpenproletariat, as both marx and engels pointed out in German Ideology, the lumpenproletariat sometimes benefits from capitalism.

That's true in Bakunin's case(although the man had a lot of connections in high places and was a freemason), however Kropotkin didn't fight at all. He wrote books and studied bugs, the man was an intellectual and would definitely be classified as 'middle-class' in that he was much better off than his working-class countrymen.
"These anarchists" we're talking about are a broad range of individuals, to assume your example holds true for every individualist/egoist/lifestylist would be a mistake.

I never said anything about emotions, but now that you've explained yourself a bit more, I see where you're coming from. However I'd have to disagree that your experiences with these people represent the majority of them.(at least in my area anyway)

It's not useful if there's going to be any significant development of revolutionary theory.

Well, before I posted the etymology of the word, you refused to even acknowledge that anarchism even existed prior to Marx's development of historical materialism.

And in doing so, showed you that the anarchist concept has existed long before Proudhon and Bakunin and its meaning encompasses an array of ideas outside of their ideology.

Nor did I intend it to.

Ummmmmm..... You don't see the synthesis here?
Anarchism has an indelible individualistic foundation, if it hadn't there would be no grounds on which it could stand on to resist the oppression of the minority by the majority(collective mob rule).
Bakunin's sentiment about 'no individual being free until every individual is free' is probably the finest example of the synthesis of individualism and collectivism found in anarchism.

Ideology is constantly being transcended by new theories and ideas.

It can be overcome in the same matter Marx, Stirner, and Bakunin overcame traditional Hegalian ideology. I have no theory to propose right now, however at the moment I can only offer my brief criticisms.

It means that the only kind of structured anarchist paradigms have all been anarchosyndicalist.

The man said it himself: "The proletariat cannot make use of any ideology designed to disguise its partial goals as general goals, because the proletariat cannot preserve any partial reality that is not truly its own."

Then what were you referring to? Almost all of his work consisted of criticism of the spectacle. And of course he employed plagiarism in his critique, almost all of the situationists did.

On what grounds? Your experiences with the few people you've met and talked about the subject? I don't believe you.

I know what you meant; I'm puzzled at why you said it?

Oh for pity sake! Like I said, keep up...

I was specifically talking about agitation among the working class, which is an integral part of developing a revolutionary movement. This is something lifestylists opt out of for the reason I gave.

It may very well be unglamouras, but it's vital nonetheless.

Well it is necessarily true if anarchists want to reduce or eliminate as much as possible. Which incidentally, I agree with.

Which the Friends of Durruti and the rank and file anarchist communist militants of the FAI challenged, and rightly so. What class struggle anarchist organisation actually defends it?

Likewise.

That's not what I said...

Well, I wouldn't be so bold or arrogant as to say that I know every anarchist in the UK, obviously I don't, but it's fair to say that I'm heavily involved within the British anarchist movement, as small as it is, so my generalisation is based on that experience.

Yes I am.

Perhaps there is, I'm quite happy to accept that. Regardless, lifestyle anarchism still poses no real threat to the state or capitalism and has no future in progressing revolutionary struggle.

By all means, come to the UK. I'd be happy to meet and introduce you to the British anarchist movement.

Like I have already said in this thread and countless others, I am quite happy to refine, reshape, reinvent or disregard altogether the ideology of class struggle, but I am yet to see these significant development in revolutionary history that you say should come.

If there is something presented into the realm of anarchist theory or practice that is indeed significant in its development of revolutionary theory I, and my comrades for that matter, would be happy, ecstatic in fact to take it up and forward it.

The reality, however, is that there has been nothing of significance that has been presented by individualism or by lifestylism that makes an objective sense or that has demonstrated an effective action against the state.

What do you think people in the anarchist movement are doing? We are constantly attempting to progress, but we come back to the same tumbling block. I read a pamphlet called 'Nihilist Communism', I've even read John Zurzan but the fact of the matter is no one is saying anything of any relevance or significance.

However, class struggle has been the only idea and practice that has ever got to a point where the state and capitalism have been overthrown; for the time being I'm quite happy to stick with what works. Of course, until the day that someone says something worth taking note of.

Granted, but none that work. Isn't there a clue in that somewhere...?



Touché!

double post