Stand-offish Anarchists

Posted on 04/03/2013 by floaker

The unity of the left is a strange beast that often rears it’s confused head, telling anarchists that we have to come play nicely alongside the political parties and representative trade unions of the authoritarian left, then resorts to calling us “stand-offish” when we don’t fall into line peacefully.

Even some anarchists drift into these groups with the best of intentions. After all can’t we see that there is a common enemy to be taken care of and that the only way we can beat them is to create a mass movement together? Well, no.

Systemic Risk
If these coalitions are not organised using a directly democratic model then the results are unlikely to empower individuals to take action or provide them with the best experience by which to develop their confidence to plan/take action. Instead these new initiatives will reproduce the oppressive nature of our dominant society and act to shift the reliance we have on existing structures onto the organising committee or leadership of the group involved. Anarchists who do involve themselves in these conferences and coalitions often find themselves under the same pressures that socialist parties find themselves in when engaging with parliamentary systems – they are marginalised, flattered or cajoled into being dominated by the majority or give up the core of their principals for the charade of unity and a place at the leaders table.

Not Simply a Numbers Game
While I do see the need to spread anarchist ideas and methodology to as many people as possible, we also have to take care and ensure our actions develop The Three C’s for everyone involved. We need the ideas themselves to take the lead in people’s minds through showing their benefits and taking action with them, not because of a decision being taken that you have only the most remote engagement with.

Lets look at that mainstay of leftist protest: The Big March. While this is a tactic that can be used to great effect, the way in which these are deployed in an almost ritualistic fashion have the potential to reduce participants confidence in taking any future action if it fails to have any result, it can blinker the competence to make good decisions over which actions are worth being taken in the future, and the consciousness of left parties and representative unions role in maintaining the status quo may be hidden under the premise that we just need more people then this will work.

I am constantly amazed when I look at local leftist groups and how little they are achieving with membership ranging from several dozen up into hundreds in a single local group. While they have a lot of meetings, committees, create reams of propaganda, and put a HUGE amount of effort into membership building, their output is equivalent of what a tiny anarchist group achieves with a fraction of the resources to hand.

To me it is clear that tactics involving big numbers are viable, but only when they have been built on a long campaign rooted in the community and led by the direct input of those effected. The whole numbers game when controlled by a hierarchical leadership works only for elitist ends and is a displacement of resources away from the work needed to engage social change within our communities. Instead energy is focused inwardly, isolating the ideas needed to change society from the people who need make the change while simultaneously ignoring the people who would know how best they wish to act. Ultimately the huge effort being expended is futile.

The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend?
Looking at the groups we are being asked to enter into coalitions with you could almost make a better case for them working alongside the Tory party than anti-parliamentary socialists.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP), and many of its erstwhile loyal supporters (right up to the moment they broke away) in the ISG and Counterfire, have a long history of undermining direct action being taken by groups most effected as a means to show their ability to control actions and attempt to leverage political power as “representatives of the working class” while proposing themselves as a “revolutionary leadership”. They have a well deserved reputation for starting coalitions as a front for recruitment before abandoning them once they feel no more can be gained from the alliance (even during key campaigns). Recently the handling of a case of rape within the SWP has shown that the party as a whole has some deep cultural problems that would need to be acknowledged and addressed by them before any joint action should even be given the slightest entertainment. I don’t expect any group to be free of the problems of our dominant society. I do expect them to try and act in a way that does not re-enforce the dominance of our rape culture.

Fight Racism Fight Imperialism (FRFI), while acting as sponsor to many front groups, is itself a front for the Revolutionary Communist Group. This group still try to cover up play down the internment and execution of queer individual in concentration camps in Cuba and until 2003 was affiliated with groups that held that homosexuality was a counter-revolutuonary bourgeois affectation. Even now they have some worrying (anti)feminist politics. And yes, this was their most recent article on feminism I could find, and to be honest I reckon you would have to travel back to the seventies to get four women to put their names to that bullshit. By this timeframe they should be starting to talk about intersectionality sometime about 2076. Their continued support for brutal and inhumane “communist” dictatorships around, their cultish “cadre system” of membership, and their habit of turning any demo they get involved with into a circus makes it difficult to have any working relationship with them.

The representative unions of the (S)TUC and the Labour party share a history of betrayal of the working class, advancement of the capitalist agenda, and of undermining popular movements as has been demonstrated in many books. In short they are mediators of capital and so as a whole do not work with the interest of the working class no matter what they say come election time. They will usually try to buy or bluff their way into campaigns, set up their own “alternatives” against the local consensus, or claim any success for themselves.

Spectres of the Past
While it may not seem like a big deal to other leftists, historically there is a precedent that these coalitions are most successful when they are organised by anarchist ideals. The Paris Commune, The Russian Revolution, Revolutionary Catalonia, Occupy Wall Street. All coalition situations where a major factor in their initial success is due to the deployment of anarchist methods. This is something we should take note of and try and learn from, understanding which of the tactics we deployed were successful, why they worked,  and which areas we should develop or discard.

Unfortunately the second precedent we need to learn from the past is that in all these coalitions the anarchists where made scapegoats to anything that goes wrong, that or we are rounded up and shot when the authoritarian left makes a move to assert control over the situation.

Looking at the history of coalition politics, anarchists are worth more to the authoritarian left in their hunt for legitimacy to assume control than we will gain from our involvement with them. Trust me, if we are doing things right then it won’t be long until one or more of the authoritarian leftist groups will turn up like the proverbial bad penny and try and lay claim to the work we have just done; whether it is the NUS retroactively taking the reigns of the student movement, trade unions that were conspicuously absent during grass-roots campaigns turning up with propaganda and flags when the media are about, or Trots diverting people away from taking direct action to listen to them rant.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
So, given all the negative talk about alliances above what do I think anarchists should be doing?

Well, the first thing to think on before compromising your politics is to find a revolutionary organisation or group to directly involve yourself with that (for the most part) shares your politics. Get a feel for working with a group on some activities that you don’t have to make compromises on the big stuff, but where you get to refine your politics and really test out the details of action and develop your own confidence, competence and consciousness while having the space to make mistakes.

If a community group or a workplace is already organising along directly democratic means and calls for solidarity then respect their autonomy. Enter into work with them openly. Don’t try to to actively recruit for your group or suggest branding their campaigns with your logo unless you are invited to do so. Even then, be respectful and let your actions do the talking. Your morals and methods can be added as a current in all situations while being argued for and demonstrated –  what anarchists call a Leadership of Ideas.

‘Anarchism is organisation, organisation and more organisation.’
– Errico Malatesta

If and when the question of formal coalition with other groups is raised be up-front and realistic about the form of organisation it will take, the people that are going to be involved, and the likely outcomes of any activity that will be taken. Look at the groups involved and be honest with yourself about how they have acted in the past. A demo called by the Boycott Workfare campaign, the IWW, AFed, SolFed or another group organised roughly along anarchist principals is far more likely to involve methods of organisation and acceptable compromises that everyone can live with and so create a true unity of purpose compared with some of the coalitions comprised of both anarchist and authoritarian groups which always leave one side lacking. That said if you feel that you can all get behind a cause and the actions won’t act to prevent prefigation of your ideas, then go for it!

Finally, don’t be afraid to walk away. In these circumstances clear communication of your reasons for doing so to all involved at a base level is important. There is no point making a principled walk-out if the people left in charge are able to lie about your reasons for doing so. Be sure to keep clear channels of dialogue open and if you think there is going to be some fall-out for those allies still stuck inside of the coalition try and create structures of support to help anyone trying to untangle themselves from the mess.

Idealism is the true spectre of communism. If this gives anarchists a reputation of being stand-offish or too principled then I suggest that anarchists hold their course until we are presented with better reasoned choices than Marxism or name-calling. Sure, we have to compromise some points, everyone does. Just don’t allow the failure in other political groups methods set-back The Three C’s in yourself or those around you because as long as we are all moving forward we are getting closer to the better world we deserve.

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Lepht Anonym – Cybernetics for the Masses

Posted on 02/03/2013 by floaker

<Trigger Warning for graphic verbal description of self-administered surgery>

I’d never come across Lepht before a friend passed me these vids. Their Twitter feed (@lepht_anonymare) describes them as a “genderless, self-modifying H+, biohacker, humanist. servant of Morpheus. knowledge-chaser. sape.”. Given that they are based up in Aberdeen I can see why this kind of thirst for knowledge would put all other concerns into a far second place.

I will get around to posting up my own views on the the intersections between anarchism and transhumanism in the not to far far future.

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Morals, Ethics & State

Posted on 01/03/2013 by floaker

I had some interesting chat over tea and a snack of baba ganoush with a good friend this week. I always enjoy our thorough yet friendly back-and-forth discussions as we both have very strong political views that compliment one another in many ways but clash in others. A good example of this is that while we are both communists, I am an anarchist while they have a Marxist view of the world. Our thoughts on the organisation of society are similar, however our conceptions of how to get there or what is underpinning it seem to be at odds.

We often jump into conversation at the deep end the second we get the chance, as if every moment sat together is a moment to revel in the joys of debate. I really think that we are both engaged in a way where we feel that either we will change the others mind or they will change ours. Even when this doesn’t happen there is the happiness to have had the opportunity to see the world from another perspective. We always begin, punctuate and end our discussion with humour, broad smiles, laughter and elephants.

Something that has become apparent though our ongoing conversation is that we often use words and terms in common but find that they have very different meanings to each of us. By the time we unravel one another’s conception of a phrase the original discussion fades into the background as we make an effort to see the world from the others perspective. This is no bad thing as it gives me an important mechanism to check my own thoughts against and I hope my friend takes as much out of our time together as I do. While this process often leads to understanding, sometimes it is a Gordian knot that I have to either unravel slowly or slice through to get to the real heart of the matter. One such instance came up that I have been puzzling over, especially in light of my recent comments about morals in the comments section of my last post.

Crossed Wires
Like the the Ariekei and the Ambassadors of Embassytown (a book I can’t rate highly enough) we sometimes talk past one another in the strangest of ways and this week has been one of the most puzzling for me when we started talking about Morals, Ethics and the State. My own take on these are:

  • Morals: Morals are value judgements placed upon actions by individuals, collective groups or the greater society. They can be discussed, reasoned and changed.
  • Ethics: Ethics are the notion and practice of moral philosophy by people (ie: deciding individually or as a larger society which morals are “right” and which are “wrong”), either by  individuals, collective groups or the greater society.
  • The State: An organisation of lawmaking and law-enforcing institutions which claim to have the sole right to sanction and implement violent actions both within and outwith it’s territorial borders. It uses this monopoly on violence to enforce it’s laws. The main function of the state is to protect capital interest as the success of the state is tied to its capital success. States take many forms to fulfil this task.

To me the terms Morals and Ethics are intrinsically linked and can usually be used interchangeably. A brief search also gives me the impression that my three definitions are kinda the standard, however during our conversation I was confronted with some very different takes. I asked my friend to write down their views as I didn’t want to misrepresent them:

  • Morals: “Morality is related to the customs, mores and ideology of our times. There may be hegemonic moralities and sub-moralities, but importantly they require an underlying culture, society, tradition and community, real or imagined.”
  • Ethics: “So-called “individual morality” is very different from morals in that the individual will claim to have their basis in philosophy (ethics), and so this type of morality is individual.”
  • The State: “The state is the realm in which the individual may experience social relations, which is beyond the level of family (or inter-personal relationships) and civil society.”

Further to these definitions they added that “the fact of individuality or collectivism in morality creates a very different entity in each case”, ie: morality is a term you apply to larger groups or cultural mores while ethics relate only to an individual’s choices and personal reasoning. Also their notion of the state is not something necessarily in opposition to communism.

As you can see, our differences in definition are not minor to say the least.

One Foot in Each World
To me morals and ethics are what people do. It is both the moral rights/wrongs as decreed by external forces (other people, traditions, cultures, societies) AND the act of individuals or groups feeding into or deviating from these sources. This is a constant feedback loop that at no point sits entirely in the realm of the individual, the immediate community or society at large.

When I try put myself into the position of splitting morals and ethics as my friend claims them to be I can’t understand how you could have a morality free of ethical decision, or how a society-wide morality is not also a product of individuals input. It simply seems like an artificial divide that has no descriptive benefit.

I find the second definition of a state to be completely at odds with both the practical reality of what the function and actions of a state are, have been, and the outcomes of what happens when assuming the role of the state. As I look at the word through this alternative conception I don’t see what the difference between “the state” and anything that happens beyond your direct contact. Calling it the state is just a confusing definition  for what I would simply refer to as greater society. It also makes the notion of smashing the state a very different proposition indeed!

For me the all the people who are part of the connected web that makes up humanity can still have some shared morals and ethics that would be favourable to accept on a near-global sense. This is not (as my friend puts it) “the state” but is the actualisation of a exploitation-free stateless society. While those outwith your direct contact may have different morals, as long as we respect the autonomy of others to have direct input upon any action that impacts them, and everyone has the freedom to associate or disassociate in these matters, then we do not need to share ALL the life values of someone in another part of the world, only those required to maintain anarchist communism (or any free society that develops beyond it).

All told I haven’t been able to grasp the reasoning behind my friends position. When trying to take it on it’s own terms I find it muddled in presentation, disconnected from practical outcomes and behaviour, and of little analytical or descriptive value compared with alternate terms. In fact, as I started to draw on past conversations we had, some concerns started to surface that I doubt my friend has considered…

Be Careful What You Wish For
While thinking through the above I remembered back to an earlier conversation where the same friend claimed that the concept of the individual was a construct of capitalist society and something that was “wrong” (for the record I disagree). This makes me even more concerned as to what their definitions of ethics, morals and state could entail.

If the individual is a bogus notion then any morals individually held but not shared by the greater state are also considered bogus. Given this, what would prevent you advocating that collectively agreed morality of the state is the only acceptable morality? Deviation from this is something to be countered. Far from being communist in nature this is a more horrific and pure form of totalitarianism than we have seen to date. While it could not currently come into being, as it relies on an end to the process of individual thought, humanity has a knack for coming up with solutions to these types of “problems” (see also the concept of work, capitalism, or unjustifiable hierarchies).

I’m looking forward to what my friend makes of this piece, and perhaps they will even commented bellow, but either way these are some points I hope to pick up over tea, a snack and some smiles.

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A Reply to Joe Rahi

Posted on 24/02/2013 by floaker

One of the first people to follow me here was Joe Rahi. Go check out their blog. It’s cool, I’ll wait here until you’re done.

Right, so you will have noticed that Joe describes themselves as a Christian anarchist, a philosophy that I recently touched on in a none-too-positive light. Parallel to writing my blog I had also been chatting with Joe in the comments section of a post in which they describe the intersection of their politics and their faith. I for one found it refreshing that Joe is willing to enter into a honest and sincere dialogue. While we may not come to complete accord I do feel it is only right that we try to understand each others point of view as much as critique from our own perspectives, so to this end I asked if there was anything Joe would like to ask me. I was posed the following questions:

“I have two questions for you (but they are practically the same); what do you believe is the meaning of life? And what is the foundation of your political ideas?”

Well, seek and you shall find…

Life, The Universe, and Everything
The Meaning of Life – sounds grand, bigger than just us, kinda special. Well… not to me. I kind of think this is one of those concepts that meets the very definition of deepity. On the face of it this seems profound, almost as if there could be an ultimate objective answer or that we can get to some universally accepted truth but I don’t subscribe to this school of thought. Instead I find the meaning we place in life can be demonstrated through the morality we profess and the actions we take. With this as my position the next logical step to me looking at the meaning I place on life would be to examine where our moral values come from.

In this task, rather than take up a huge word count I would advise watching QualiaSoup’s YouTube series on morality, which at this time has three parts that I have been broadly in agreement with.

With those vid’s in mind  I would propose that almost every single person in the world selects the morals they wish to follow. Over time they adapt on the individual level as well as across whole societies. Those ideas with lasting worth endure or re-occur while those that cannot be justified are mostly abandoned. Some with religious faith will choose their morality unquestioningly from positions of authority – either texts, leaders or community pressure However even when doing this an individual cherry picks the bits they like (or are culturally pressured or indoctrinated into to professing) and whitewash, handwave or contort the bits they find less savoury.

Instead of going through this intellectually dishonest task I try to make a critical evaluation of the world, examining the ideals and cultural norms I wish to see and try and line them up with my actions. This leads to my morality and the meaning that I give life; not a static, unchanging set of commandments set in stone but instead a critically evaluated code that can be improved upon as new information comes to light and well reasoned without recourse to supernatural beings or outside authority.

Why Anarchist Communism?
So in the past I’ve talked a bit about why I think anarchist communism is a relevant and vital political philosophy given the dominant culture, and the only methodology which takes into account the morals I wish to see in the world while standing up to the vigour’s of critical evaluation, but how and why did I come to that conclusion?

My political identification through life has went from being the child of “Old Labour” parents that had a fair amount of the hippy ethic mixed in for good measure. I grew up with a deep sense that people should have dignity, that all the essentials of life should be provided to all, and that there should be a bottom-line for quality of life which people can’t fall bellow. I remember looking at communism at high school and thinking it was a great idea but there had to be some kind of flaws I was missing in the key ideology because every “communist” county was an absolute hell-hole. I didn’t realise at the time that the communist countries were shit because of the lack of communism, and that the term was being misappropriated by the governments in question and misattributed by their opponents. That said the idea that we can and should work to end homelessness, starvation and every other preventable ill of our dominant culture has been a constant since my youth.

As I went through my late teens it became more and more apparent that the Labour party did not, and had never really had, shared anything with socialism as I had come to understand it. I stopped identifying with the Labour party and described myself more plainly as a socialist. I read Marx and got from him that abolition of money and work in its current format are essential to prevent the exploitation of others. I was not convinced by the idea that to reach these goals that mirroring the structures that preserve capitalism had been successful and I avoided involvement in what seemed to me to be the hugely flawed positions given by the SWP, the SSY, FRFI, and their ilk. In the end it looked like they would either follow the trajectory of the Labour party or the Marxist/Leninist/Maoist states, neither of which was appealing.

I began a long process of examining systems of governance and society, often talking late into the night with close friends. I realised that no matter what we discussed to tinker with forms of representation that the same problems kept reoccurring  My position moved more and more towards anti-authoritarianism and solutions which utilised directly democratic methods.

I realised that I couldn’t be the only person who had came up against the same problems and sought out writers who has already been down this road. I soon found that the early socialists had far more developed positions and were not only able to share my concerns, but had already proposed solutions, not through dogmatic programmes but through using and refining our principals here and now. My anarchism became more refined and the process of review and reflection led me to conclude that the term I felt most closely described my politics was anarcho-communism.

Over several years a friend who was a member of the Anarchist Federation who pointed out that my politics where broadly in line with that of the fed. At the same time I realised that the one thing I was not undertaking that every writer talked about was involving myself in organising in a way where my means would give the ends I seek. I began the slow process of changing my life to allow this to happen more and more, and this process is ongoing today.

Answers on the Back of a Postcard
So, getting back to the questions as they were posed…

What do you believe is the meaning of life?
There is not one single “meaning of life”, but instead a series of motivating factors that lead us towards undertaking certain actions. My morals, my politics and my actions are all intimately connected and this IS what life IS. Meaning is what we assign to those decisions or what we attribute to our motives to take them. I’d also say the same is true for everyone else. Sometimes we fuck up or are forced into activity that contradicts our interests and we live with those mistakes, but we have the choice to to learn from them and improve ourselves.

What is the foundation of your political ideas?
That we have all the tools and ability to create a world where well-being is available to all. A world where we have horizontally organised egalitarian collectives working along the principles of direct democracy, free association and mutual aid. A world where oppression is challenged and the we destroy the concept of economic class to prevent exploitation. In short: anarchist communism.

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Belarus ABC Infotour comes to Glasgow

Posted on 21/02/2013 by floaker

On Thursday the 28th of February I’ll be helping host a rare chance to talk with a comrade from the Anarchist Black Cross in Belarus and find out about the reality of life and activism under Lukashenko. All the info for Glasgow can be found here, while the full list of stops on the tour can be seen here.

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Two Dirty Words

Posted on 19/02/2013 by floaker

There are many branches of political thought to which people subscribe. While some obscure or outdated philosophies still have lip-service given to them in passing during our mainstream education I am somewhat disappointed that one long, noble and constantly adapting school of thought often goes unspoken. Even to those who follow its course, the words themselves are often obscured behind alternate terminology or guarded like some True Name that can be used to weave a curse against you. What is this pariah of political philosophy of which I speak?

Anarchist communism.

Examined individually each word has been tarred by the mainstream media for over a hundred and twenty years. Anarchism: Black. Bomb throwing. Rioting. Smashing. Rag-tag. Destructive chaos. Communism: Red. Authoritarian. Poor. Centralised. Militaristic. Controlling order.

Given the above perceptions why would anyone describe themselves as an anarchist or a communist? Is using the two in conjunction a contradiction? What about the people seen using these terms that meet the popular expectations? I’d like to clear up a few facts about what anarchism and communism are and then explain why we should not only accept the term anarchist communist in private or as a historical curio, but be open about identifying it as a way to live life in the here and now.

Say what you mean & Mean what you say
Anarchism is the branch of socialism that holds that the individual should have full agency over the decisions they make so long as they effect nobody else. Hierarchical, exploitative and oppressive systems of control should be removed, while horizontally organised egalitarian systems of free association and mutual aid are created in their place. Anarchists try to work in a way where the means by which they act reflect the ends they wish to achieve (and so reject reformism, vanguardism and party politics).

Communism is the branch of socialism that states that private property is exploitative as it prevents the each person’s needs from being met. As any current endeavour relies on so many actions taken both in the past and both directly and indirectly in the world around you, no value judgement can every properly quantify or qualify the work you undertake in comparison with another. As such we should expect each to work according to their abilities, and provide everyone with supplies according to their needs.

As you can see anarchism is anything but chaotic and there is nothing in communism which mandates massive bureaucracies or authoritarian dictatorships. The two concepts, while not necessary mutually inclusive, are not only complementary but where once closely related up until the split in the First Internationale. They are reliant on one another for either to be enacted successfully, as can be seen on one of my favourite quotes from Mikhail Bakunin:

“We are convinced that freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice, and that socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.”

What Bakunin is postulating is that “anarchism” or “communism” taken outwith the context of egalitarian socialism is a recipe for disaster. Was he right?

Anarcho-bullshitters
While I don’t want to get into a game of “I’m a better anarchist than you”, there are a whole bunch of groups that describe themselves as anarchists but are not only are incorrect, but should be called out for appropriation of a term that they do not understand or embody. These philosophies all contain the contradiction of stating that they want egalitarianism while encapsulating some unavoidable form of oppression or exploitation.

Anarcho-Capitalists
Anarchists who want police protection from their slaves (apologies to Kim Stanley Robinson). “An-Caps”, or to give them their proper title “Capitalists”, want an end to the oppression of the state and think that once it has been removed that the exploitation required to drive capitalism will magically disappear. Their poorly constructed arguments seem to be an indicator of how corrupting capitalism is as the dominant cultural norm: people are able to tell that the system is broken but are unable to see beyond capital as the economic process by which we meet our needs.

Christian Anarchism
No Gods but Yahweh, No Masters except for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ??? In much the same way as An-Caps are a testament to the deep psychological scars our dominant economic culture leaves behind, Christian anarchists cannot let go of the cultural oppression of the church. They cherry pick the nice bits of the bible and rely on ignorance or poor logic to cover up all the horrific, manipulative, creepy and violent things Jesus is purported to have done. That is all before they even think to examine their reasons for belief in one set of supernatural tales from the past over any other. That said they are Mostly Harmless, unlike the other groups I describe here.

Nationalist Anarchism
Crypto-Fascists using black bloc tactics. Plain and simple. If you spot one of these peeps and they aren’t for being talked out of their politics then kick the living shit out of them. No Pasaran!

Post-left Anarchism
When those pesky morals are getting in the way of a good noncing you can call yourself a post-left anarchist and pretend it is all ok, right? Post-leftists are those flakes that get in the way at occupations and squats, talking about how class is so 19th century and that we need to destroy a lot of our cultural normative to be truly free. Heck, I think some of the writing by post-leftists is okay, but while anarchism should look to destroy our current dominant society it needs to be done at the same time as creating a new world built with the best of our principles. Floating on a sea without a moral compass just leaves us in a chaotic maelstrom where predatory individuals go unchecked.

Anarcho-Primativism
Primmos. They have a lot of the same problems as post-leftists and nationalists while also retaining tribal hierarchies and wanking over the idea of destroying modern civilisation. Not to be confused with the ecological focus of green anarchism.

Failed States
It would be a waste of my time and an insult to your intelligence by reeling of the litany of failed hierarchical, authoritarian and inhumane communist projects of the twentieth century – if anyone really wants me to talk about that then comment bellow. What I will say is that not one of them was communist in nature. The only two groups that want to think of Cuba, North Korea or the USSR as communist or socialist are the rulers of the state itself (to keep the population in line and give the rulers the air of legitimacy), and their capitalist opposite numbers (to give them an enemy to rail against and to undermine socialist progress in their own domains of control). Noam Chomsky has a good bit to say on this (so hit that link yo!)

AKA
Some people have decided that the terminology of the past is now a “dead brand” or hide their politics inside terms they feel will be more readily accepted. Libertarian socialists may have an air of historical accuracy but creates undue confusion and by abandoning the language of anarchist communism, hiding the key ideas and text from others who seek it out. Platformists are de facto anarchist communists and so publicly stating you are one without the other is somewhat insincere. Open Marxism and Communiszation are Marxist currents that have come to terms with the shortfalls in what Marx had to say but then create new tendencies to avoid using the word anarchism; to me it appears that they don’t want to conceded the argument that split the first international and so instead they reinvent the wheel by giving new terminology to old anarchist concepts and so start from a point that anarchist communists have since moved beyond. To the anarchists that ask me “Why are you a communist as well?” I normally reply that they are communists too, and once they get over all the propaganda of the capitalist states and authoritarian left they tend to agree.

Another important thing to note is that even if you don’t call yourself an anarchist communist, as soon as your methods start to work they will be recognised for what they are and you will be ignored and isolated, ridiculed and shunned, or violently repressed. By identifying as an anarchist communist you gain the benefit of showing a historical linage that goes back longer than any Leninist or Trotskyist group, has a more coherent, adaptable and critically examined political outlook than your critics, it acts to reclaim the terms anarchist and communist from both their enemies who would slur the terms and those who appropriate then shit on them, and it garners solidarity through shared identity.

Lets start kicking it old school!
So, you have taken a bit of time to reflect on your politics and can admit to yourself that they are anarchist communist in nature. Brilliant! However, anarchism is all about the politics not being something remote from the day-to-day of your actions, so what can be done to reflect your outlook in your actions?

Get Active!
Not as an “activist” per se, but make your anarchism an active part of your life. Undertake steps to prefigure the change you want to see: Direct Action for solving problems, Direct Democracy when organising with others, look towards Recomposition of the class, and keep your eye on Full Communism as the goal. While you don’t have to kick down the door, screaming out The Internationale and waving your red & black flag, when you are following anarchist methodology and someone asks where you get your ideas from then don’t shy away from telling the truth… and not some lame assed half-truth like “oh it is horrizontalism”. Be open and say “this is anarchism”. People aren’t stupid. They know the media lies and that politicians have an agenda that doesn’t include our best interest. They will possibly be a little surprised, maybe even make a comment about how what you are doing not lining up with what they thought an anarchist was, but they will accept it and in the future remember that anarchism equals hard graft without the need for fanfare (every time that bus would stop an ISG organiser would pester the driver to ensure the banners were on the “right side” to advertise their group), dishonesty and corruption, or the delusion that selling a paper is a revolutionary praxis.

When challenged on something others see as problematic in your behaviour take note of that knee-jerk defence that kicks in and look beyond it. Think over things with the best of your morals/philosophy and be ready to revise your position. When we fuck up then we should put our hands up, listen and try to understand what we did wrong, then be open about discussing strategies to try and avoid it happening again. Even then be ready to fuck up some more, it happens.

When supporting campaigns against types of oppression that are not suffered directly by yourself then keep in mind it is not our place to act as leaders or to be given a special space in the spheres occupied of those being oppressed Instead we need to take the spaces where we are already active and change them from within (fem men quote). Red Emma taught me that oppressed groups must lead and inform their struggle and Bell Hooks taught me that cultural context is important.

Get Organised!
Join a wider group which shares your politics and can help develop your abilities in a friendly environment, and provide solidarity and support when you need it. Here in Britain there are several organisations that can fulfil this purpose.

I would contend that the Anarchist Federation is the primary organisation for any anarchist communist in Britain to be part of. It is organised using a federated, directly democratic structure and has a strong set of Aims and Principles which members accept upon joining. This gives a strong platform of tactical and theoretical unity to work from and means that you don’t have to compromise on the big points. Now is also a great time to join as the last few years have been a time of rapid growth and the lessons, teething troubles and splits that come with that have been weathered. Like having a local group which you are part of to punch above your weight in a “union if individuals”, so too does having this kind of federation allow local groups to punch above their weight. It is also federated to IFA-IAF and so can call upon other federations, groups and individuals across the world to help with projects.

Anarcho-syndicalism is the kissing cousin to Anarcho-communism, so much so that we even share the same flag (while Kroporkin and Rocker shared a flat together in London – get too it ararcho-slashfic writers!). In the UK there are two main org’s that scratch that itch: SolFed (explicit in their anarchist roots), and the IWW (implicit in their methods). It can really depend where you are based which you should involve yourself with, as both have local branches that vary in the level of action they take and the politics they profess.

Local synthesist groups such as Dundee Anarchists and Stains Anarchists can be just as good, and members of the above organisations are usually involved in them, however they do have the potential to be short-lived or be less focussed in the actions they take, thought this is not always the case and they can provide a good taste into organising.

If theory without action is more up your street there are groups such as The Commune, or if you like some long-winded bitching from the sidelines that ironically criticises precisely what your group is doing when you see it in someone else, there is Collective Action.

None of the options given above are mutually exclusive and “dual-carding” in several of these groups is common. Personally I’m in the Glasgow AF and the Wobblies and in the past have involved myself in the wider Glasgow Anarchists organisation meet-ups.

Get Talking!
Get talking with yourself and others by hooking into the wider anarchist communist culture either on-line or in print. Read articles, books, zines and blogs. Post comments on line and in chat forums when you think it could be productive. Go to larger gatherings and make friends. Three good places to start would be LibCom for the articles, Anarchist Memes for the funnies, and AK Press for the books.

Defend our anarchist communist heritage from those who would sideline, obfuscate or belittle it. Our politics are better and stand up in comparison to other modes of thought as they include in their base the mechanisms for review, correction and adaptation. Don’t be shy in challenging not only the fascists and parliamentarians, but also liberals, Marxists, dodgy “anarchists”, conspiracy theorists, or right-wing “libertarians” when they spout spout some nonsense.

If someone wants to get into a debate over peculiars of your politics vs. their politics then keep in mind that there are three good reasons for debate (taken from Russell Glazier at The Atheist Experience). First, and possibly the most rewarding, is those debates where there is sincerity from both parties to listen to and understand the other side and perhaps revise your own position. Second is the fact that you know the other person hasn’t got any interest in changing their point of view, but there is an audience who you can demonstrate the substance of your ideas to and the other person id the perfect foil to work off of. Finally there are those times you have an idea you want to get tested as sometimes you need the hot flames and icy water to make the best steel. Pick the battles you involve yourself in. There is no need to go to every “debate” on Anarchism vs. Marxism that the SWP set up (and trust me these things are almost always a set up).

Get Smart!
Lastly, make sure you are living your life and not just existing. If getting involved in things is going to have a negative impact on your mental or physical well being then don’t do it! Carry the seed of the new world in your heart and do all the small things that will help it grow for you. If you are getting involved in the ways I suggest above then I highly recommend reviewing your actions and ensuring that you make sure you are realistic about sustainability of the level of activity you undertake.

If structures don’t exist to provide the support you need, and you are in a position to do so, then help build those structures. Safer spaces and community accountability should be primary elements of any organising. Communicate any help and support you need from others, as well as the boundaries on things you will not be part of.

Life should have a bit of fun in it and so be sure to have some interests away from the campaigning and organising that can sometimes seem overwhelming. Just because something needs to be organised doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyable or have a social aspect to it. Also make sure our groups are inclusive and listen on those rare opportunists someone voices ways to do this.

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Beaten to the Punch

Posted on 17/02/2013 by floaker

If I told you that I have a completed article on the false notion of the “unity of the left” completed and lined up to post in March would you believe me? I hope so as Phil over on libcom has just posted this article on the same subject that is 75% less sassy and 100% kicks ass.

Enjoy!

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A Heap of Horseshit

Posted on 17/02/2013 by floaker

A whole bunch of friends, some of whom are self-described anarchists, have been posting a vile article from The Making Progress Blues along with comments blaming individuals as consumers for the horse-meat scandal here in the UK. For those of you not privy to the peculiars what has been happening is that a whole bunch of beef products have been found to be “contaminated” with horse meat. It started with Tesco’s supermarket own-brand products, but has been spreading through all the big names. While some people voiced concern that horses are often killed using a poison that could be harmful to humans, this never seemed to be taken seriously but nobody knew why. That is until the scandal of illegal horse poaching came to light, then it all kinda starts to fall into place where the horses were coming from. The fact that a cow has the  same level of sentience as a horse seems to be passing most people by.

Anyway, back to the shite from that article The main drive of the post to my eyes read as:

“Good, concerned, middle class people LIKE ME have been yelling into the gale of working class idiots LIKE YOU about the need to shop locally and to oppose the supermarket drive to the bottom on price and quality for years. It was because of all you filthy proles that horse meat is in YOUR food. Oh, and by the way FUCK YOU because I don’t eat any of that peasant swill.”

The writer is an idiot, and I’ll tell you why.

First, their whole concept of how the food production chain works is far too simple. It isn’t just a case that someone produces the raw materials, the components are produced, the shop buys in bulk, then you buy the end product. Each and every segment of every aspect of each component is tied into a huge web activity that ultimately alienates the whole production chain from itself. This huge game of smoke and mirrors occurs whatever product being brought to you, be it a sentient creature needlessly killed, vegetables and other foodstuffs, high end electronics, or a duvet. I recommend “Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato Trail” by Deborah Barndt for a detailed look on the huge impact of a single item of produce, or if you want to get into the meat & bones of how we turn animals into products and the impact that has I’d look into “Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights” by Bob Torres (review soon).

Next, the piece is written from such a position of comfort in comparison to the people it is criticising that Joe Hill himself couldn’t have written a song to show the social class divide with any more clarity. People may be choosing to take other “luxuries” by reducing the cost of the food they purchase, but that isn’t because they didn’t realise the difference in quality of the food they buy, it is so they can give their families the small things that mean they can enjoy some time together and celebrate cultural norms without feeling ashamed. Sure that is also part of the consumerist drive, but social pressures and conventions work that way and if it brings a little hope, no matter how false, folks are going to take it. If state benefits are the base level within our capitalist system that are required to live a satisfactory existence then we should be able to eat as the piece describes and still have enough for a modest luxuries with what is given, but I think we all know that this is an absurd notion. The writer thinks that only a small number of people are a position to have to buy the cheapest foodstuff available is laughably sick because even if you do have the money, they may not have the transportation or time to get to the locations where these “good products” are being sold.

“Capitalism not only validates pre-capitalist notions of the domination of nature by man; it turns plunder of nature into society’s law of life. To quibble with this kind of system about its values, to frighten it with visions about the consequences of growth is to quarrel with its very metabolism. One might more easily persuade a green plant to desist from photosynthesis than to ask the bourgeois economy to desist from capital accumulation. There is no one to talk to. Accumulation is not determined by the good or bad intentions of the individual bourgeois, but by the commodity relationship itself, what Marx so aptly called the cellular unit of the bourgeois economy.”
– Murray Bookchin, Toward an Ecological Society, 1980

Key to this is that the problem isn’t people buying cheap meat. The problem is in the ecology of how we interact with all animals and our environment. The capitalist system treats every animal, including humans, as an exploitable part of the process of capital gain. We are busy creating profits for someone else in order to get tokens that we then exchange to give someone else profit. Some animals don’t get these tokens and so are not given even the sliver of the concern we give to those with tokens in this system. The consumer isn’t to blame, the system of withholding people from their needs is to blame. The idea that we can “buy well” is a sleight of had that hides those worst effected economically behind a slur of social oppression. Capitalism will always seek to maximise capital gain and the state will always protect this exploitation. If the best we can hope to do within the current system is club together in co-ops, self-produce, or steal expropriate from those who hold our needs ransom then while we should do this to alleviate some of the pain, ultimately we are still living the same shadow of the existence we deserve. This piece, and the concerns I’ve heard others voice, are not calls to implement better choices within capitalism while we organise its demise, but are kicking the worst off when they are down.

Fuck capitalism. Fuck the state. And fuck anyone who blames any animal for trying to live rather than exist.

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The Three C’s of Prefigurative Action

Posted on 10/02/2013 by floaker

This is a short explanation of an idea I’m sure to refer back to in later articles. It was first presented to me in this format by my close comrade fleabite and it has since used as a practical and flexible rule-of-thumb by which I check my actions. Enjoy!

As anarchists everything we undertake in our lives should have some prefigurative quality – as in the methodology by which we organise our groups, campaign in the community or workplace, or the way in which we live our lives and choose to behave should all embody some small move away from our current dominant culture and towards our goal of a world organised along libertarian communist principles. We also have to acknowledge that we are in a less than ideal starting position and so this will not always be possible, though we should try and avoid or be aware of the circumstances that will hinder us. We also need to be open to revising our own positions as new information comes to light, constantly being anarchists to our own anarchism.

One way to judge whether our actions will be prefigurative is through how they relate to “The Three C’s”, not just for ourselves but also for everyone involved:

  • Consciousness of our class situation under capital and state (in the communist sense of the term), and the role that different organisations and actions would play to support or oppose the twin yoke of exploitation and oppression.
  • Confidence to take direct action to create a free and egalitarian world and to challenge ourselves and others to struggle against those who would stand in the way of those aims.
  • Competence to evaluate a situation, to take good decisions and to forge the path of least resistance towards anarchist communism.

Anarchists should not only promote ideas that will encourage all three of these traits but should also actively critique and oppose those forms of action which would inhibit them. We should do this not only by discussing the flaws in others but by also acknowledging the flaws in our own positions, showing how they would be preferable to the alternatives, and then demonstrating the strong merits of our advocated position.

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Writing Begins in Ernest…

Posted on 08/02/2013 by floaker

Hiya peeps,

The layout here is now completed and I’m working on some content to populate these columns and give me a backlog of roughly written articles to work from. I’m expecting the first main posts to land about March so watch this space. I look forward to kickstarting some thought provoking conversations off the back of things here. Thanks for your patience. In the mean time please remember:

Class Snuggles

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