I am currently reading http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/r/democracy/ again to see the primary areas of disagreement I have while at the same time observing the many other positions held by others here. My definition of "maximalist" would be those that can't support the framework concepts proposed by Crimethinc AND can't accept the democratic framework as proposed by those that vote union. This is a compare contrast document, to show that todays anarchists can still be democratic when applying anarchist principles, but can also be anarchic, with a Crimethinc framework, in less inclusive, but not necessarily exclusive collective practices.
As anarchists, we all want independence and autonomy and we want to exist in a time space where our desires can be met without a great deal of artificial interference. People, machines, domestic animals, roads, walls, fences, canals, etc. are all constituted into the system and are shaped by state and capital to encourage its mentality. Animals are often not just companions nor carry overs from a simpler pre-historic life. Industrialism and the progress of the state has driven away all competitors and if anything can influence our Anthropocene times, it is industry, not agriculture, as the anarcho-primitivist maximalists insist. The use mentality of industrialism has weeded out many varieties of every form of life, often shaping, even creating new species in its wake. Any evolutionary process formed around agriculture is indeed part of the Anthropocene, but the consequences of its "harm" have mostly been of small impact or beneficial until the entrance of industrialism and mass society.
As argued by pro-technology anarchists, there is a way to shape the network of technology in a radical direction, but in order for this to occur, current technology must lose its totalism. Technological totalism is the one arm of the state which never goes away and in order for anarchists to have technology, technological totalism must also be abolished. It is the practices the ensure the maintenance of some sort of technological totality. An unshakable given that is taken for granted that it is maintained to exist. Present technology is totalizing and any new "alternative" that comes around will be absorbed into the totality of technology and forced to operate on the base premises that exist now.
Alternative energy people point to certain changes in technology, but by playing into the technological totalism, it still relies on massive levels of exploitive resource practices, harming environment and people. An end to industrialism ends also the monopoly of technological totalism, allowing for more localized technologies to exist, but for this to occur, to have a polytechno anarchic world, the logic of the technology will be connected to the present logic of the people. Like institutions, this technology will freeze these values and growth will be based on the first steps taken by those that first venture outside the totalized paradigms of the old. If technology is to be free, it can't become progressive as this web will hinder a polytechnology, where a breakdown in one technology merely means allowing it to collapse and moving to another experiment not necessarily connected to the old logic that created the previous technology the new is replacing. Leaving ruins is okay as they become absorbed by nature.
This approach to technology is also the logical approach one has with democracy. As stated by Crimethinc:
This is the essence of government: decisions made in one space determine what can take place in all other spaces. The result is alienation—the friction between what is decided and what is lived.
Democracy promises to solve this problem by incorporating everyone into the space of decision-making: the rule of all by all. “The citizens of a democracy submit to the law because they recognize that, however indirectly, they are submitting to themselves as makers of the law.” But if all those decisions were actually made by the people they impact, there would be no need for a means of enforcing them.
However, this view of democracy is based on it already holding total dominance in an area. The included and excluded in a democractic state is different from one in an anarchist democracy. In a democratic state, one is forced to participate, or in cases of voluntary participation, one is forced to accept the decisions of others even if one chose not to participate. This is where government, state and democracy often combine. A good citizen in a democratic state is a little aristocrat, while the oligarchs that rule with nominal influence from the actual voting system define citizenry. The democratic votes in a republic of today is just one part of the contest for ruling class dominance. It is believing in the voting system, even if it is rigged and the system corrupt, that defines a good citizen. A good citizen will always hold the high ground in a democratic state as their views are always in line with the views imposed by the process. If it is bad, it probably should be illegal, is their logic.
In an anarchist democracy, this totalism isn't there. It is merely a framework upon which our decisions can be made in a way we can rely on and share. It is voluntary in two ways a democratic state isn't. You don't have to participate and if you don't, you aren't necessarily penalized. There is no imminent domain or appropriating behaviors taken on in a democracy influenced by anarchist principles. Can it become a state? Yes. Any body of people can take on the logic of totalism and feel their system should be shared by all and the decisions made by this body has more legitimacy over other bodies of people than their own systems or lack of. An anarchist influence in democracy would attempt to prevent, negate or minimize these statelike behaviors, but this does not mean total failure should the anarchist not be heeded. We can always attempt to regain ground lost to forces we don't agree with. This is why democractic states can still be interacted with while most other forms of government rule make this impossible. When a democracy is only nominally one, activism is created and when activism is seen as ineffective, the democratic state may of lost even its democratic features.
Rather than championing democratic procedures as an end in themselves, then, let’s return to the values that drew us to democracy in the first place: egalitarianism, inclusivity, the idea that each person should control her own destiny. If democracy is not the most effective way to actualize these, what is?
As fiercer and fiercer struggles rock today’s democracies, the stakes of this discussion keep getting higher. If we go on trying to replace the prevailing order with a more participatory version of the same thing, we’ll keep ending up right back where we started, and others who share our disillusionment will gravitate towards more authoritarian alternatives. We need a framework that can fulfill the promises democracy has betrayed.
Or we need a democratic framework that anarchist principles can influence. The inclusivity anarchists aim to achieve isn't harmed by democracy, but rather the logic of totalism, the statelike aspects that even disempowered citizens impose on the culture to garner the benefits of good citizenry. The totalism influences our technology, our institutions, our culture and in turn enables the democratic state to become more of a state with less need of democratic features to define its legitimacy. In the end, totalitarianism is the end logic of totalism, where the good citizen no longer is respected for voting as much as they are respected for behaving and enforcing the logic of the state on those less patriotic than themselves.
We need to connect with each other and democracy isn't a failure because of inherit flaws found in collective decision making. Rather these flaws exist because anarchist principles are not communicated effectively within democratic bodies and in turn they lose to majorities that see less libertarian options as practical. This doesn't mean we should lose all ground, nor that we do lose all ground in these occasions. Like all the many other forces at play, we can't expect to win every vote just as we can't win every battle. But if we are to win, we need to wage effective campaigns to encourage people to not just vote, but vote for anarchist principles, vote for anarchist approaches, vote for anarchist practices and especially vote against totalism and all monopolies, especially the monopolies of logic that reproduce the problems of today.
So Crimethinc has written something significant, I feel we need to continue to look into their views, especially their criticism of democracy and see also what kind of framework they hold to be better than democracy.
If you have any comments or replies you'd like to send me directly, you can email me at voteunionanarchist@riseup.net
We are the future we are looking for!
Are you just screwing the pooch at a miserable office job or what? You're really putting some time in to this asinine nonsense. Why don't you learn a new language or how to brew booze or something?
Die sooner than later, maaan! It'll make everyone happier, including you perhaps. For a painless and fun experience with some of the highest rate of efficiency, go for the high cliff or high overpass (extra bonus points for the disruption of traffic on busy highway sections!). Way cheaper and more accessible than finding cyanide or a gun.
Navajo have a beautiful superstition that if someone dies face up, you won't be reincarnating to this realm again, which you'll do if you die face down.
I don't think I'll die anytime soon. But for those who might be dying or have family members in such a state, a democratic framework can help provide the glue one need to see mutual aid, direct action and democracy intertwine to help others. What of your loved ones? You want to rid yourself of the system, but what should replace it? Who will take care of nana when the state comes knocking at your door?
These issues and more can be discussed and thought about in a democracy! One founded on anarchist principles, established a framework where we can connect with others that see their struggle in our struggle.
When the maximalists cry die die die, I say why you cry, just vote union.
"When the maximalists cry die die die, I say why you cry, just vote union." Could be lyrics for some (wobbly) bluegrass song!
If Voteunion had his way in choosing a members for this hypothetical bluegrass band he would probably suggest Bookchin and Chomsky on vocals, and they would have to play inside a cage at any anarchist bookfair like the Blues Bros at a country and western bar. It would be fun hurling empty beer bottles at them.
Thinking the same thing!
Except they wouldn't be racing against hordes of pigmobiles tho...
Lol no, they'd make a deal with the man, typical syndicalist methodology, probably even organize a cop escort to the venue, and then request full body searches at the entrance, what a drag. Playful idea from Blues Bros, superglue Voteunions' fingers to a keyboard.
The jump would have to be backwards off the overpass to land flat on the back and avoid reincarnation, unless forward with one twist and horizontal flop(been watching the Olympics diving and picked up some jargon), which is difficult to do without training. Maybe just lie down and get a friend to drive over you slowly, or an axe.
Correction- with one half twist and horizontal flop
OK, I thought you were a troll, but either you are a troll with wayyyy too much time on your hands, or you are an actual person who has realized that saying "vote union" is the #1 way to raise hackles here. Interesting. Can I ask, out of curiosity, how old you are? Like, is this weird synthesist thing that you have going on gonna be the next generation of anarchists? Because if it is, then, ...wow.
he's not a troll. He is an anarchist who has heterodox opinions about voting, and is talking about it in an anarchist space.
Lots of anarchists have heterodox opinions about voting, i.e. there are lots of anarchists who vote, who participate in democracy of some kind, who jerk off to dreams of electoral reform. It's just that few of them say so in anarchist spaces. Most of the time, when such things are being said in an anarchist space, it is someone who isn't an anarchist coming into an anarchist space and saying it. People who are anarchists, in the sense of being somewhat embedded in the norms of an anarchist community, usually have the good sense to keep such opinions to themselves. This sense is formed by learning which sorts of discourse are cool and okay in the community, and also giving a fuck.
I don't feel like engaging with this text in a particularly comprehensive way, but it has quite a few things that annoy me, like a failure to actually define what is meant by "democracy" for one, and an evasion of the central CrimethInc. critique that it is plainly obfuscatory to use "democratic" as a shorthand for (social) anarchist values.
I kind of like the term "maximalist" though.
Hi Shadowsmoke,
Thank you for the reply. What am I do mean by democracy? As both anarchy and democracy are malleable concepts, it would be difficult to give a blueprint. However, with anarchist principles, the influence would be towards a decentered approach, with federation bodies less empowered to favor the local groups and individuals that decided to affiliate. Also with a decentered approach you will have many different types of groups rather than one body. It isn't about CPUSA, nor the IWW, though the IWW does take a similar approach, One Big Union, for them, means much the same as what I'm discussing. They propose industrial democracy, ran through unions empowered as syndicates. What I want is more decentered than this, as industrial democracy presumes industrial totalism as a technological paradigm, forcing a monopoly of technology on an area. But this is wishes and desires versus actual practicing democracy, where all wants and desires must communicate through often massive scales.
For anarchists, there can be some frustrations here, but it is not as if we don't have the ability to influence from this direction, considering much of the path created around democratic leftism is influenced by anarchist theory and practices. I am not saying democracy is utopia. Rather it is a working framework that can function at both massive and small scales of groups. People all have different ideas on what their democracy is, just as people have their own ideas about what their anarchy is. Everything has some level of compromise, it just is that democracy is an accepted norm for interaction, while anarchy almost requires indoctrination to reduce massive scale groups without collapse of what interests united them into practicing struggle. Both easily overlap, as does consensus practices and the problems that Crimethinc points out with democracies mainly deal with democracies as a form of state rather than democratic processes being used by anarchists to communicate and make decisions with others.
I'll try to address any further issues you have in a follow up essay, so feel free to add any further thoughts. While you are at it, consider my ideas and how you'd like to vote union and express the reality that is needed to overcome the old order.
Actually, most of crimethInc's critique was aimed at the popular assemblies of the various movements of the last few years. Of-fucking-course anarchists shouldn't be down with state democracy but even popular assemblies are hugely problematic. Ever spent much time at them? I have. The level of compromise was ultimately way too compromising for my taste and arguably for any genuine anarchist praxis. I'm not going to argue that people should never use consensus, only that it's not what anarchists should be spending much of their energy on.
I think Greek people, as I observed, have an interesting tradition of popular assemblies though it's got little to do with usual conceptions that social anarchists have in the West (which is usually some godawful BS dehumanizing processes). The popular assembly tradition has been ongoing for ages and is still alive in country towns, some urban neighborhoods and occupations. These are far more "natural' structures that can be hardly distinguished from informal group discussions, and tend to not lead to any constitutive regulation or decisive status. People also voice their opinions and disputes openly in a rather disorderly way, and a lot of time (random pauses and silences) is left for individual cogitation. No annoying, hippie hand signs, no tour of speech. Random fights or insults do happen on a regular basis though they often contribute to the process.
But as far as I know they don't care calling it "democracy" as a paradigm or system of political ethics so why bother keeping promoting that dead horse?
Each other. One is a rational organized system(anarchy is essentially a critique of organization and apparatus), the other is a relational orientation. End of story. Quit trying to marry the two and fuck voting.
Which is why democracy and anarchy can be the same thing. It might not be your cup of tea, but it communicates in ways that anarchy doesn't, especially among regular people. To open up for democracy and to say "you too can participate" means a lot. For anarchy, people are left to question. Typically people run implicitly as anarchists because saying what they are doing is anarchy doesn't help much and leaves people with more questions than answers.
The fact is that despite those people railing against democracy, it is a great way, in the here and now, to assert anarchist principles and attempt to steer democratic groups towards anarchist approaches. It might not be the only struggle, but as of present, most anarchists dismiss any point of strength that can be taken, such as being able to influence the behavior of massive bodies of people and catalyze them towards ends that we can both share victory in. This is what it is like to vote union.
First off democracy is the closed system not anarchy. IT'S A SYSTEM. All organizational systems are closed to some degree. This is simply the nature of organization. ANARCHY is not organization, it is orientation based in the here and now and there is nothing closed about it. It's relational not rational. In rational systems certain irreversible decisions have already been made. This is the case with democracy and ultimately ALL organization due to the fact that all rational organization goes back to some apparatic form/function that is compulsory at its base. No anarchy to be found.
You might reconcile some forms of anarchist/anarchism with democracy due to it's elective/proposed nature but anarch/anarchy you cannot.
Sounds more like you want democracy to be one thing and anarchy to be another rather than allow these terms to remain fluid, real, physical. As long as they are stuck in your head and no where else, they become the meanderings of a maximalist out of touch with reality. Your dreams are not the defining feature of either democracy nor of anarchy. It is through the practice of these terms that we see what they are and they aren't fixed, fluid nor held within any absolute.
I agree that democracy is a system and it isn't a perfect system. I disagree with your attempt to make anarchy an unobtainable nothing that is always better and beyond reach than anything around. A beautiful thought, you may have, that anarchy could be this one thing you wished it were, but actual practicing anarchy leans more on the framework that Crimethinc outlines than this maximalist attempt to paralyze anarchy, cripple it into a world of fantasy where only dreamers can appreciate its awesomeness.
Having just listened to their audiozine on democracy and still absorbing the article I linked above, they still fall back to our argument. The argument of those who vote union is that democracy can be an effective tool of resistance and it communicates effectively in many ways. I will detail more my thoughts on Crimethinc's position in a follow up shortly.
As should be apparent, I am not attempting to hold democracy up as a monopoly concept, but rather I am arguing it can be effective to engage in democracy and attempt to apply anarchist principles within them. While you may want to write a comic book about relational anarchy, there is nothing about words that freezes practice. Practice will always reframe words. Often practice does not match up with the words one uses. Liberal revolutionaries spoke of freedom while keeping slaves. They too used a bunch of dreamy words and concepts, and they too had to forge these ideas in the fires of practice and they were found wanting.
Anarchy is not a firmly defined term because it exists as a physical reality when it does exist. Infoshops have anarchy revolve around them while at the same time employing democracy and participating with democratic groups. The novelty of non-existing anarchy needs to yield way to actually existing anarchy, get the romance over and then we can talk about what it really is rather than a lofty idea that dreamers like to turn into comic books.
And democracy another. Anarchy was essentially born as maximalist aspirational preference. Democracy belongs to the preferential not the aspirational. Anarchy is a beautiful thought not to be impedimented by rational general space frameworks. Of course if you try to look at it from the point of rationality it's not going to happen. Anarchy is an event of temporality and contextual space and it has happened and will continue to happen throughout all existence, human or otherwise.
I'm not interested in struggle and resistance that is not corporeally warranted. The anarchy of aspiration is the only anarchy there is. The rest is all moral rational duty or preference. I have no issue mediating certain preferences, but do not mix and mingle such things with anarchy.
Here's some more by John Moore http://www.primitivism.com/maximalism.htm
No, anarchy wasn't born out of whatever you think it was. It is a living, existing thing that people actually participate in and your little dream world is just more lofty comic book nonsense. You are easily dismissed because you offer nothing real. Your imagination can't affect reality because YOU fear reality. I believe your comic book would be called "Fantasyland in the Clouds".
Are actually based on reality and vice versa when you consider that we are myth prone species. Anarchy on a rudimentary level is no law and order. Everything else is good descriptions/proscriptions and bad. Seeing as democracy is not even good on a preferential level it's obvious that you are on the bad end as an overall impediment to anarchy.
Btw reality has no stable definition or existence. There is quite literally nothing to fear seeing as it cannot be separated from individual subjectivity.
Reality is based on comic books? Okay, tell me more. I want to see your logic play out, since you dismiss a rational framework. I imagine nothing will connect together very well, as right now, since there is nothing of substance to what you say. It is just one comic page after another, drafted up and inked, given to the world as a display of reality, yet lacking anything beyond imagination to be absorbed. This is not the case for anarchy nor democracy. Your fantasy world is not important to me, though I will accept I won't convince you of anything since you seem to be a firmly rooted maximalist that doesn't interact with the real world.
That's all you have to look at in terms of how 'reality' has been constructed over the ages. Where do you think comics come from? Rational frameworks come out of mythological frameworks. They are quite overrated and they have nothing to do with anarchy. Keep your silly democracy away from that word and idea.
Also, perhaps you can try to actually define the 'real world' for me. How is the real world(if it exists) divorced from the imagination good and bad. Your precious D is as much a product of imagination as anarchy is minus the creativity.
And you're the one preaching the virtues of democracy, as an ideal that actually was never accomplished and always a projected utopia serving the few in the name of the many?
Our "fantasy world" starts with a question, not a prefab answer. It's the unknown.
Actually I'm talking about actually existing anarchy (or anarchist framework) and existing democracy (democratic framework). If you look to Crimethinc, which is linked at the top of the page, they discuss this at length. I am indeed exposing that there are uses for democracy and engaging with democratic bodies. These things have been accomplished time and again, many times anarchists attempt to even co-opt or say these bodies are "anarchistic" or "like what anarchists want". It is utterly ridiculous to continue to misunderstand my point on what these terms actually mean, as opposed to what they mean to the maximalist dreamers that have hijacked anarchist discourse and paralyzed the movement with their waxing on about comic books with their heads in the clouds.
What we are aiming for is a decentered struggle that creates a critical mass and overwhelms based on territorial autonomy, removing state powers while using a democratic framework to continue the operation of mass society while transforming it with anti-mass engagements from outside their bodies. Historically these have leaned on traditional structures or structures created by a strong historic context and not just some Western noble ideal hopping into discussion and making everyone say "yay democracy".
Very simply, anarchists need to understand that by voting union, you choose to not let criticism defeat your purpose. We will stand united where others fall into bickering, nay saying and comic books. Rather than keep our heads in the clouds as the maximalists do, we move forward, accept givens rather than make wishes. We criticize, but we don't necessarily mean negation of what is criticized, as criticism is merely a communication that can happen about anything, and those with defeated purpose are easily swayed by criticism, thus our low point is being perpetuated by maximalist dreamers and their buddies, the LARPing eco-extremists!
It is ridiculous that this amount of nay saying and constant babble should keep anarchists from creating change in ways that they have never before thought possible. We are the change we are looking for! Vote union!
What is framework? It is the base structure upon which something is built. A frame. A skeleton. To define a democratic framework from an anarchist framework would be to note the difference between assemblies of legitimacy versus the structure holding no inherent validity. Crimethinc proposes that no single assembly nor cluster of assemblies should hold central legitimacy in a resistance struggle. They point to Occupy and how the spokescouncil bodies were given more legitimacy by democratic minded people while some anarchists and many individuals preferred to see it as a space to communicate stuff that needs done with others and see if the sea of people there might be interested in it, then they can break off and figure out that project.
I like the anarchist method. I am, after all, an anarchist. Yet it can't be denied that the democracy kept purpose and connection for enough people to keep a core of people *occupied* with something that interested them enough to keep up the resistance. When one looks throughout the world and democratic struggles that anarchists participate in, we are always allowed our autonomy and self sense of direction, though we often do choose to exclude ourselves from participation in these democratic assemblies.
As I've said, I see many reasons for anti-mass approaches, but there really is a great deal that can be done in a democracy, including affecting its behavior to be on friendly terms with the anarchic approaches (i.e. diversity of tactics, mutual aid networks, direct action friendly, etc.) and anarchist people inside and outside the assembly. As stated, I'm not proposing a state and Crimethinc's criticism of the democratic state is apt enough in that it criticizes a *state* that happens to use democratic organizational methods. This is an important point and not a word jumble, like maximalist dreamers with their heads in the clouds, always thinking about their next comic book, think.
As anarchists, we are opposed to states, yet our opposition to a democratic state is different, ala the Kurdish resistance states, which employ many experimental democratic and authoritarian methods, while also being friendly to anarchists and their desires to not be absorbed within these bodies in the resistance. A Marxist-Leninist, historically, saw this behavior as a threat to its legitimacy, but this is not the case with democratic states. This means that we can be open critics that can also use our democratic influence to argue back...or attempt to appeal to the many in such a thing, as one would appeal to the public. However the engagement, the result would be about the same.
So as anarchists, we aren't opposed to democracy, we are opposed to states. A democratic state we an openly criticize as well as resist any state behaviors they might employ, yet I don't see the instant need for an anarchist conflictual approach if the ground is open enough that our influence can be felt and we might be able to use democracy to dismantle state behaviors. I think a great deal of ideological hype goes into maximalist dreams of no compromise when most of the time they stand aside when any state functionary is around, thus the compromise is the paralyzed nothing that could've been less militantly worded and became something with some people behind it, in union.
???_ _ _??? ???_ _ _ ??? SOS Save Our Sensitivities
Democracy is a fascist closed loop probability and statistics game which ignores the desires of most people under the age of 18.
This appears to be the meat and bones of a democratic critique from an anarchist position. The problem is that democracy is actually more inclusive than any other system and there isn't anything that can be contrasted as more inclusive outside of no system, which I've already discussed as also legitimate. It must be considered if democracy will be useful or not to participate in, rather than "is it an enemy or not". States always can be enemies, including democratic states. A democratic resistance, however, this isn't the case and most often, the democratic resistance IS the resistance, at least the popular resistance. An anarchist influence in these democratic bodies can cause real influence in the libertarian character or can put forth a critical challenge to more authoritarian aspirations within the democratic body.
To me, I have a fairly strong argument, backed by decades of practice by tens and hundreds of thousands of anarchists around the world for generations. We anarchists have both lost and won in democracy, but it is not a strength to abandon democracy, but it can be a strength to have a critical engagement with democratic bodies, inside and out. To me, it seems the maximalists are out of touch, have a certain subset of writers and journals they subscribe to and they don't seem to get out very much. Maximalists grow older and older with very few replacing their numbers. Instead we see anarchists growing as an identity while adopting democratic ideals in union with others at the same time!
These are real things that are often practiced outside of urban avant garde anarchist milieus, which have little connection with reality themselves. I'd say they play board games, but they are more like bored games. Tiresome, never ending discussions that never make decisions in the end, filled with the world's most insignificant self important people, all in a circle. Their union is a never ending series of complaints and bickerings about anybody that is actually doing something, as well as waxing on about individual philosophy and thinking it is radical, when really all they are do is draft comic books with their heads in the clouds.
"The problem is that democracy is actually more inclusive than any other system and there isn't anything that can be contrasted as more inclusive outside of no system"
"Inclusive" means that there is also exclusion. In the case of what is democracy in the real world (not in some other projected utopia of a "Better Democracy"), this means a tiny establishment having exclusivity over key political processes. Having "delegates" sitting on different instances and councils doesn't change that, and is also what State socialism has experimented already.
Anarchist surely aren't for building a system. Unless they actually are socialists or SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS.
Or anarchists do engage in these systems all the time and you don't know what reality is. Get your head out of the clouds, dreamer!
Inclusive actually means inclusive. Not also exclusion. Since you've missed almost every point I've made which covers the rest of what you say, I'll just say exclusion means exclusion. It is nice you want one thing to mean another, but they don't. Crimethinc covers this point better, in saying that democracy is more a member based system. Access to democracy in many states is mandatory, so this "exclusion" argument is somewhat moot. Others with more participatory systems, democracy is part of the culture and discussion, face to face, is far more common and social than some maximalist dreamer comic book discussion.
You want things to mean things they don't and this is the problem. You might like Michael Jackson's song "Bad", which, I guess, is good.
"Inclusive actually means inclusive. Not also exclusion."
No it means also exclusion. If you can include, that's because there also are means and recourses to exclude. An anarchy is not inclusive, it's just freedom.
As opposed to democracy which is a soft opposition to freedom.
Magical thinking. Why not ghost write a Harry Potter comic book to put on the shelf with the rest of your dream world ideas? According to your definition inclusion means exclusion. Then does exclusion mean inclusion? Then wouldn't inclusive democracy means exclusion which means inclusion? Your cycle of thinking is off. No wonder rational thinking is discarded by maximalists like you.
Name me one or a few "inclusive" democracies that weren't exclusive to some people.
You realize how dumb this is... If you can include people in some structure or system, this means they were not included initially, and that this form of power doesn't require their inclusion to work on its own.
But here's a big counter-example for starters. Myriads of businesses and institutions have inclusion policies towards some minority groups, yet will exclude some people not coming from the right social background. The fact that they can also decide to include some new people means that they are already exclusive organizations and groups.
If I decide to start including street people in my apartment (which wouldn't be a bad idea), this means that this apartment and its building was already an enclosure of capitalist property.
But on the other hand, what's the fucking reason to have any inclusion policy if I'd be camping in some forest where there's room for tons of people? Only a State structure and capitalist abstraction would make people crazy enough to do that, after the said forest would have had abstract property concepts applied on it.
why waste your time with authoritarian trolls like this? surely any sensible opponent of domination and control can see that democracy is, as John Adams said many years ago, "the tyranny of the majority". Whenever a democracy is instituted, it is guaranteed at that very moment that there will always be disenfranchised and oppressed people.
This voteunion guy is either a paid troll, a dumb zealot, or a brilliant satirist. I can't decide which.
I'd say he was one of Avakian's proteges i.e. dumb zealot.
Yeah I know, sorry... Was bored and drunk again last night so I felt the need to mentally-smash some idiot.
If he's indeed just a brilliant satirist, that's rather a satirist-sadist.
What is your definition of inclusion? What does inclusion mean to you? These things seem to be defined rather narrow, where "inclusion" is exclusive. More interesting, you talk about the real world and how inclusion and exclusion works for you. Your apartment is exclusive to those living in it. Even if it weren't capitalist property, but just simply a domicile you occupy and people just out of no where come in without invitation, there at the least needs to be a communication, but with the givens of what is expected in today's society and what an intrusion is considered, certainly people might be more upset in today's society than in an anarchy, but there still could be friction even without property laws. I think you wanted a better example than what you gave, but you more aptly defined exclusion and what that is. What is more important is realizing we are talking words, not enacting anything. There is no democracy between us. There might be a little anarchy in our relationship together as we continue this discussion. On a practical level, we are but all individual blips of text, babbling at each other.
If democracy should spring between us and those that use this site, it could be completely open, like an internet poll and the influence could be non-exclusionary, though also the vote would be easily corruptible if we have no proper security to ensure the poll is honest. So then we go to perhaps a more defined system, which allows only registered users to vote in the polls to ensure their honesty. Though technically open to everyone, there is always going to be anarchists that don't want to include themselves. In this case, those that don't want to registered themselves as a user. This then also influences how the system behaves, favoring the registered users over the non-registered. There is already stated bias by thecollective, which unabashedly administrates this site in a top down, no questions asked, cut throat, do as they want even if you don't know what they want, manner. Their bias would be to favor registered users, should registered user polling ever become an aspect to aiding in the administration of the site. So yes, this democracy would be one that excludes, but oppress? Dominate? These are not universal terms that can be thrown against any target. Democracy cannot always provide an oppression nor a domination. Perhaps an uneven playing field, or a bias, but these jargon laden words hardly do anything more than impose an ideological viewpoint rather than attempt to grapple with reality.
Please get your head out of the clouds, get your feet on the ground. Put down the comic books and actually think about how to engage and communicate without this black white nay say willy nilly hodge podge random babble that is more able attempting to find criticism where none necessarily is helpful than it is about helping anarchist struggle, be it through the democratic assemblies of resistance or the clusters of affinity groups of small autonomy associations. We need a decentered struggle, where we build a critical mass of autonomous groups and individuals, that can overwhelm territories and bring about moments of territorial autonomy that can be as real as Rojova or Chiapas.
For the maximalist, there is a fear of reality. They can't seem to find a way that can engage it, while others move forward and vote union. Almost everyone proponent of democracy doesn't paint democracy as a lofty ideal. They also are critical of the majoritarian and exclusionary aspects of democracy. See, I said exclusionary, not inclusionary means exclusionary. Its amazing that one can look at things in ways that aren't always stuck in binaries. Binaries are as limiting as the two party system. Everyone that can count past two can see there is something wrong with this picture.
Unlike I do! :-D