ANARCHIST THEORY:

DIFFERENT SORTS OF FREEDOM:

My dear mother, God rest her soul, used to regale me with stories of the most stupid family in the patch of geography where she grew up. She was born near Simferopal Crimea and grew up in northwest Saskatchewan where you could go 200 miles to anything that resembled a city. From my point of view a great place to grow up but also a great place to leave at the time of puberty. I was blessed.

Anyways, amongst the tales of the "stupid family" shooting their horses while duck hunting and also shooting themselves in the foot (accidentally believe it or not) there were truly magnificent tales of low brain function. The family usually managed to live just long enough to contaminate the next generation with their genes despite classic acts of idiocy like using a match to see if a gas tank was full (yeah it really happened).

I can remember my own examples of stupidity from the 'Battey' family when I grew up in south central Saskatchewan. Fuck were this clan pests, driving their cattle through the town and refusing to feed their kids rights. There was also their dog "Nipper" who was the meanest dog in the RM. If old man Batty didn't feed his family even on the rare occasions that he was sober you can understand the attitude of the semi-wolf Nipper who mostly lived on what he could kill. One of the kids of this overly productive (in a generative sense), Dale Battey, used to bring the dog to town to bite other kids. Amusement is hard to find in rural Saskatchewan.

Being a kind hearted little kid I took to stealing (or saving) meat from my family to feed to the dog. I'd rather be a little bit hungry than see the dog starve. He sometimes wandered into town without his owners. The dog and I became great friends. One day Battey brought Nipper into town to bite me. Stupid move, speaking of stupidity. Sic em he said while pointing to the only person in the world who had ever shown the dog the tiniest piece of kindness. You could practically see the sparks flying off the dog's head as he weighed his pack loyalty to the animal who feeds him against his fear of his so-called owners. He did nothing and evil Dale booted his ass back all the way to home.

There was a conclusion to this example of stupidity. I owned two cats when I was growing up, Midnight and Bumpy. They were particularly bizarre examples of feline behavior (or rather instructive examples0 as Bumpy kept nursing off her mother Midnight even when she had kittens herself who were nursing off her. Quite normal behavior amongst Felis domesticus actually as is the formation of cooperative groups amongst related cats. Here's to inclusive fitness.

In any case the cats were a team. After his dog refused to bite me Dale Battey was really pissed off, and he figured he could get his revenge by bringing his semi-wolf to town to fight my cats. At that time my cats had a rep. They'd beat any dog in the RM. The older one Midnight would distract the dog by slowly surrendering space while lashing out at his face and making noise big time. At the same time Bumpy would silently sneak up beside the dog, leap on his back and skitter up to the head where she could bite at his throat. It would usually ended with the dog screaming across a field as one cat rode him and chewed on his neck while the other lashed out at his asshole.

Well Battey brought his dog to town, and the cats knew when they were outmatched (the fucker couldn't feel pain in a kill frenzy). One quick look and they did what they had never done before. They ran. They ran up to Battey who was standing by the low back "porch" (kitchen actually) of our house, ran up his body leaving bloody scratch marks behind. They turned around and spit fury at the dog from a safe perch while Battey stood there stunned with blood dripping down his body.. Probably telling him they'd get him by surprise. The poor dog continued to run back and forth frantically barking all the time. By the time my brother and I got up off the ground from where we had been rolling over and over with laughing evil Battey was already booting the dog back to the Battey farm (so-called).

OK, all that being said and indeed it was a lot to be said I prefaced this with the extensive personal story so that the reader cannot imagine that I am unacquainted with "stupidity". In the actual real sense where there are immediate consequences. The trouble with 'political stupidity' is that them punishment for the idiocy is not immediate, and thus its ability to teach is severely reduced.

Recently I have received a "reply" that says I should consider a "general tax cut" as more consistent with libertarianISM than my libertarian socialist view. I cannot agree with that, and, of course, here in Canada we can argue out what "libertarian" means. The stupidity in this debate is the ignorance about what "libertarian" means to the 95% of the world's population who live outside of the USA. The stupidity here is in the arrogant assumption that ones views translate across the world.

ANARCHIST THEORY:

STATE AND CLASS:

I originally saw the following item on the Miami Autonomy and Solidarity site. The original source is an exciting new website Havana Times written from a progressive viewpoint but with none of the displaced mindless patriotism so typical of western leftists who worship foreign dictatorships.

I would certainly not characterize Havana Times as anarchist, but many of the items there are things that few anarchists could disagree with. I found the following interesting despite having my own disagreements with some of the author's opinions. Like many, perhaps most, anarchists the author characterizes state socialist regimes as being essentially "state capitalist". I disagree, and I think "managerial" is a better word just as it is for the societies in which most of us live ie so-called "capitalist" regimes. My reason is the overwhelming way in which prices are set and resources allocated in such regimes, a manner remote from the idealized "capitalism" of a century ago (though "capitalism" was always a mixed economy in any case) where they were supposed to be set by market competition. In the case of Marxist dictatorships the word is even less apt because the supposed labour market consisting of those free to sell their labour to the highest bidder is a total fantasy. The labour "market" under Marxism is closer to that of theocratic slave states or serfdom than it is to "capitalism".

I also disagree that a system of de jure government ownership and de facto self management would be anything resembling a stable arrangement. I admit its theoretical possibility and actual probability over a long term transition to real self management. With the proviso, of course, that the controllers of the state would continually try to expand their power at the expense of actual self managed socialism.

All that being said the following is a perceptive look at the difference between legal fictions of ownership and the actual realities of social power. Well worth reading.

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State Owned Doesn’t Mean Socialist
HAVANA TIMES, April 27 — Recently in Granma, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, an article appeared about the economic efficiency of “socialist government enterprises” in the armed forces (4/16/10).

In the spirit of helping to clarify certain concepts, I have attempted to provide a few, more precise, details here.

Apparently the comrades who wrote about the Military Agricultural Union “socialist government enterprise,” based themselves on the identification of state and socialist property by virtue of the fact that this property belongs to the Cuban state; they assume that all state property is, de jure, socialist. However, what gives a property its social character —be it socialist or capitalist— is the form of its operation and the appropriation of its output, not its legal form.
This confusion was introduced in socialist theory by those who mistook estatización (state ownership) for socialization. They thought that for property to be socialized, it was sufficient to place it under state ownership and then hold the state sacred above the rest of society.

The social character of a company is one thing and the legal structure of its ownership is something else. The social character of property is determined by the form in which it is put to use, by the way in which work is organized, the mode of production (based on slave, serf, wage or freely associated labor) and the way in which the surplus obtained is distributed. This is independent of the property’s legal structure, which can be state-owned, collective or privately owned. This said, the natural tendency is for the content (the social character) of property to determine its legal form (structure), not the other way around.

Certainly, a government enterprise that exploits wage labor can be efficient. There are many examples of this throughout the entire capitalist world , even in the USA, England and Japan.

However, though the legal form of such property is state-owned, those companies are not socialist. They are capitalist because they respond to the capitalist logic of obtaining profits through wage labor, which in this case is appropriated by the state. As a corollary, when that state seeks the “well being” of the workers, with fairer distribution, this is what characterizes social democracy.

So what if the state is in the hands of the workers?” the statists might ask.

The same thing would happen as what has occurred in every “worker’s state”: the workers would continue being paid a wage (which would not be determined by the level of production), they would have no ownership or usufruct relationship with the means of production, and they would not participate in the distribution of profits.


On behalf of socialism, all those tasks would be overseen by a bureaucratic stratum, which in the long run —as has always occurred— winds up as the bureau-bourgeoisie (“the accidental class,” as described by Russian academics) who appropriate the means of production and the surpluses, and plunge the working class into deeper misery.

That “working class,” harnessed to their new capitalists (the bureaucrats), would not bring new production relations with them, since these laborers still would not have understood their need to liquidate themselves as a working class and become a new class of freely associated workers…of cultured cooperativists, the new class that bears the new production relations.

The government enterprise that exploits wage labor, seeks profits and concentrates the surplus in a few hands is in fact a state capitalist company given its content…given its social character.

Its juridical state form doesn’t matter. This was what all the confusion was around concerning “state socialism,” which never transcended the limits of state monopoly capitalism. This clearly occurred in Russia but also in Cuba.

Wage labor is what characterizes the form of capitalist exploitation, while freely-associated, cooperative or autogestionario (self-managed) work is the generic form of organizing socialist labor.

For the social character of a company to be described as socialist (it doesn’t matter if the property legally belongs to the state or the collective of workers) it must be managed through socialist methods – not capitalists ones; this is to say, with cooperative and self-managerial forms of work and management by freely associated workers who are directed and managed in a collective and democratic way by the workers themselves.

This would even include the election of management, which should be revolving, and the equal distribution of part of the profits (after paying taxes and other expenses due to the state and leaving another part for the extended reproduction of the company, emergency funds and other reserves).

Even under capitalism there are properties that are legally collective, but that in and of itself doesn’t make them socialist. This is the case of the corporation, which legally belongs to its community of shareholders, a few or many of whom might work for that same company. However by organizing itself into a capitalist form of operation —that’s to say with wage labor, with hierarchical forms of management and control of the surplus by a group of owners who control most of the shares— it continues essentially as a capitalist company given its social character, even when it constitutes the first form of the decomposition of capital.

This is what they deceivingly refer to as “popular capitalism,” which capitalists sought to present as an alternative to cooperativist socialism.

Likewise, there exists property that is private by its legal form and socialist by its self-managerial social form of operation. This is the case of many small family-owned businesses, which manage the company democratically, distribute the profits equally and do not exploit wage labor.

Socialist government enterprises would be those where the state maintains the ownership of the means of production in a legal form, but where the social form of its operation is carried out in a socialist, self-managerial and cooperative manner. This would be the case of a type of company that is co-managed between the state and the workers.

By the same token, just as cooperatives are socialist firms in capitalist countries, it’s possible for there to exit in socialist countries reminiscences of capitalist companies (not in name, but because some day cooperative and self-management types of freely associated production relations will prevail), be they state, private or mixed ownership.

The interesting experience of Perfeccionamiento Empresarial (Managerial Improvement), originally conceived and applied in the Cuban armed forces (MINFAR), was a step forward in connection with the traditional statist wage-labor scheme, though still without breaking from it.

MOLLY'S POETRY CORNER
'GOVERNMENT' BY CARL SANDBURG:


The sun is sinking in the west, and the Muse is afoot for yet another enchanted nocturnal visit. And whose door should she decide to knock upon than Molly's, the veritable inner sanctum of all that is cultural. You guessed it. Another episode of Molly's Poetry Corner. Cheer up. It's better than most of the trash on the idiot box, and maybe a little "genteeelity" will rub off on you.


Today's offering is 'Government' by American poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967). Ok, Ok, Sandburg was not an anarchist but was rather a lifelong socialist. Still, what follows below could easily have been penned by an anarchism inspired writer. Sandburg, after all, became a socialist in the early days of the 20th century when the contrast between anarchist socialism and the class rule of the managers (with or without grinding dictatorship) embodied in statist socialism had nothing of the almost 100 years of historical example that it has today.


Sandberg went on to live a long and productive life, winning no less than three Pulitzer prizes for his works. A good sample of his poetry can be accessed at the Carl Sandburg site. Here's one of his poems 'Government', first published in 1916 in the book 'Chicago Poems'.
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GOVERNMENT
THE Government--I heard about the Government and
I went out to find it. I said I would look closely at
it when I saw it.
Then I saw a policeman dragging a drunken man to
the callaboose. It was the Government in action.
I saw a ward alderman slip into an office one morning
and talk with a judge. Later in the day the judge
dismissed a case against a pickpocket who was a
live ward worker for the alderman. Again I saw
this was the Government, doing things.
I saw militiamen level their rifles at a crowd of
workingmen who were trying to get other workingmen
to stay away from a shop where there was a strike
on. Government in action.

Everywhere I saw that Government is a thing made of
men, that Government has blood and bones, it is
many mouths whispering into many ears, sending
telegrams, aiming rifles, writing orders, saying
"yes" and "no."

Government dies as the men who form it die and are laid
away in their graves and the new Government that
comes after is human, made of heartbeats of blood,
ambitions, lusts, and money running through it all,
money paid and money taken, and money covered
up and spoken of with hushed voices.
A Government is just as secret and mysterious and sensitive
as any human sinner carrying a load of germs,
traditions and corpuscles handed down from
fathers and mothers away back.
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Sandburg's incredible 300 page poem 'The People, Yes' (1936) is considered by some to be his masterpiece. Here's an excerpt.
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Excerpt From The People Yes

Carl Sandburg
--------------------
The people yes
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can't laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas.

The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic,
is a vast huddle with many units saying:
"I earn my living.
I make enough to get by
and it takes all my time.
If I had more time
I could do more for myself
and maybe for others.
I could read and study
and talk things over
and find out about things.
It takes time.
I wish I had the time."

The people is a tragic and comic two-face: hero and hoodlum:
phantom and gorilla twisting to moan with a gargoyle mouth:
"They buy me and sell me...it's a game...sometime I'll
break loose..."

Once having marched
Over the margins of animal necessity,
Over the grim line of sheer subsistence
Then man came
To the deeper rituals of his bones,
To the lights lighter than any bones,
To the time for thinking things over,
To the dance, the song, the story,
Or the hours given over to dreaming,
Once having so marched.

Between the finite limitations of the five senses
and the endless yearnings of man for the beyond
the people hold to the humdrum bidding of work and food
while reaching out when it comes their way
for lights beyond the prison of the five senses,
for keepsakes lasting beyond any hunger or death.
This reaching is alive.
The panderers and liars have violated and smutted it.
Yet this reaching is alive yet
for lights and keepsakes.

The people know the salt of the sea
and the strength of the winds
lashing the corners of the earth.
The people take the earth
as a tomb of rest and a cradle of hope.
Who else speaks for the Family of Man?
They are in tune and step
with constellations of universal law.
The people is a polychrome,
a spectrum and a prism
held in a moving monolith,
a console organ of changing themes,
a clavilux of color poems
wherein the sea offers fog
and the fog moves off in rain
and the labrador sunset shortens
to a nocturne of clear stars
serene over the shot spray
of northern lights.

The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:

This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can't be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can't hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?

In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
"Where to? what next?"
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In addition to the official Carl Sandburg site mentioned above there are a couple of other sites where you can read Sandburg's poetry. One is the Black Cat Poems site, and the other is the Poem Hunter site. Here from the later site is a poem similar to the above but written much earlier.
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I AM THE PEOPLE, THE MOB
I AM the people--the mob--the crowd--the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is
done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the
world's food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons
come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And
then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand
for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me.
I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted.
I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and
makes me work and give up what I have. And I
forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red
drops for history to remember. Then--I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the
People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer
forget who robbed me last year, who played me for
a fool--then there will be no speaker in all the world
say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a
sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob--the crowd--the mass--will arrive then.

CANADIAN POLITICS:

A NEW REGINA MANIFESTO:

The Regina Manifesto which was the founding document of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (the CCF, later to be the NDP) is mostly of antiquarian interest today. Social democracy in Canada has strayed far from its idealistic roots, becoming both more reformist, in the bad sense, and also much more statist than it once was. Today even the statist parts of socialism, let alone the idea that the cooperative way is a legitimate alternative to government direction, are basically a thing of the past. Cooperativism has found its major home outside the party. Not that there aren't those, however, in the present NDP who would like to see a revival of these ideals. One of these is Pierre Ducasse, a once candidate for leadership of the federal party. The following is a recent article published at his Ecodema blog. M. Ducasse is, for sure, not an anarchist in any sense, but he represents the better part of social democracy, the part that preserves at least some of the ideals of socialism.

CPCPCPCPCPCPCP

The New Regina Manifesto?:

A Work in Progress
I'm at it again. Can't leave the CCF alone. I've been reworking the Regina Manifesto, reframing it in largely non-statist terms, as if guild socialists had written the Regina Manifesto rather than Fabians. It is also framed in term of an actual cooperative rather than as a political party per se. Historically cooperatives have played both roles concurrently. I invite others to join in the fun. What I've whipped up so far is in the extended entry.

The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America will not rest until it has brought the values of life, liberty and happiness into every enterprise in America and has put into full operation a cooperative and collaborative platform for an open economy throughout the whole of America.

CCF is a free association of individuals, organizations and communities whose purpose is the establishment of a cooperative commonwealth in which production, distribution and exchange are openly arranged for social purposes and the defense of our common cultural heritage.

The CCF aims to replace the closed corporate system that has been used by the privileged corporate interests of Wall Street mercantilists and their K-Street hirelings to enclose Main Street America's credit, investment, productive capacity and access of each and every American in Mexico, Canada, USA and elsewhere to a free and participative marketplace. This corporate enclosure has limited the progress of communities, entrepreneurs and companies alike. An open economy of enterprise formation and shared capital accumulation will supersede the closed corporate framework and replace it with an open framework in which enterprise is freed to participate in a self-governing, decentralized and federated economic democracy.

The principles of economic democracy at the heart of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America has the power to lift communities, families and working people from poverty into prosperity, rewards achievement for work and entrepreneurship and eliminates the means for the anti-social formation of privileged wealth. The Cooperative Commonwealth of North America contends in marketplaces and marketspaces against the closed corporate system and its fruits: in an age of plenty it condemns working people and whole communities to poverty and insecurity. Closed Corporate Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of investment bankers, asset-strippers and hedge fund speculators and to their predatory interests the majority are habitually sacrificed.

Under the rule of these latter-day merchantilists the drive for a monopoly on credit and access to capital leaves the productive world high and dry and working Americans tossed to-and-fro between periods of manic and wasteful activity in which the main benefits go to Wall Street speculators, investment bankers and the industrial-military-financial complex of war profiteers, and then to yet another round of catastrophic depression, in which the already precarious situation of insecurity and hardship of people alienated from their birthright is compounded. We believe that these evils can be removed by free people committed to building a free and open economy together where the means of production, distribution and credit creation are socially-held within the partnership-based framework of open enterprise models.

The new social, political and economic order can not be achieved by partisan political means, nor can it be achieved by redistributive taxation nor by the nationalization of businesses. The aim of the Cooperative Commonwealth of North America will be achieved by creating an economic democracy that shares a common operating system with that of the political republic. The CCF knows that no political republic can long guarantee liberty to individuals and to society as a whole without the presence of a strong civil, participatory and democratic marketplace.
This social and economic transformation can be brought about by the action of a social movement inspired by the ideal of a Co-operative Commonwealth and dedicated to the practical application of USA's founding values of life, liberty and reward for honest achievement. We believe in change effected by Main Street's working people, entrepreneurs and companies as they work collaboratively and in solidarity toward their social and economic agenda in the marketplace on a daily basis.

We consider a purely partisan framework for the transformation we seek for our communities and companies to be wholly inadequate. While the activist base of North America's political parties of left, right and center hold many values in common with the Cooperative Commonwealth of North America there are a number of reasons why political parties in North America have often failed to serve as agents of social, political and economic transformation.

Despite the differences voiced in the heat of political campaigning there is often little difference in the measures taken by parties once forming their governments. It is the tendency of parties of government and opposition both to carry on government affairs in accordance with the aims of those interests, mostly closed corporate interests, that finance them while marginalizing the social capital that exists in their activist base. Seeking to effect a revolutionary social and economic transformation in such an environment is much like trying to steer a ship from the bow. The power of the closed corporate mercantilists that we challenge is exercised by their having control of the economic rudder.

The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America aims to guide the political ship of state by empowering the people to grab a hold on the economic rudder that directs the political ship. Consequently the CCF of North America is a democratic social movement that organizes farmers, workers, entrepreneurs and communities to act on its social and economic agenda in the marketplace as well as advocate its doctrine and principles in the course of governance. Therefore the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America is financed by its own members and by investors who support its social and economic programs. It conducts its affairs solely by constitutional means in accordance with the constitutions of Canada, USA and Mexico. It appeals to all the liberty-loving people of North America who believe that the time has come now for a far-reaching restructuring of our economic, social and political relationships, and that the field of liberty is white and ready for the harvest of prosperity to those who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work while it is yet day, put their shoulder to the wheel and thrust in their sickles with all their might to the end of carrying out the following projects and programs:
1. Establishing a General System for Open Corporate Enterprise Models
2. Reestablishing the Credit Commons

The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America advocates a decoupling of its affiliated enterprises from speculative financial arrangements and draws upon the concepts of Social Credit, The Theory of Monetary Emissions and Open Capital to fashion a creditary system that has the power to sustain a free and open economy. A creditary system in conformance with our objectives
(I) issues credit not as debt but as 'equity carried forward' as Chris Cook (http://www.opencapital.net ) and Thom Greco advocates.
(II)separates banking into 3 distinct departments namely an issuing (monetary department), financial department and capital department to prevent asset-price bubbles that arise from an over supply of fixed capital that in turn results in an excess of production over consumption. This departmentalization of banking is advocated in Bernard Schmitt's Theory of Monetary Emissions (http://www.csbancari.ch/istituti/RMElab/bibliography.htm ).
(III)The formation of a beneficially-held pool of productive capacity and capability in the form of a Capital Account constituting the 'Real Credit' of society from which credit may be issued debt free to all consumers and households on a statistically controlled basis to effect non-inflationary and non-deflationary market clearing. This is the course of action advised by advocates of Social Credit.

All of these measures may be undertaken by non-governmental bodies affiliated with the Cooperative Commonwealth of North America and in collaboration with government jurisdictions.
3. Co-Operative Institutions and Open Capital Partnerships
4. Farming, Ecology and Economy
5. Inter-regional Trade and Development Compacts

ANARCHISM:

MOLLY'S ANARCHISM- PART TWO:

This is part two of my effort to define what I consider as anarchism, particularly "my anarchism". The first essay on this subject brought forth some responses which I have taken to heart, even if I see no reason to change what I wrote previously. As I go further in this project I am sure that there will be even more that various people disagree with. My purpose in this series is not to lay out some "overwhelming ideology" that I would expect should be adopted by all anarchists. That is a simple impossibility, as anarchism, by its nature, is a fluid set of positions that are given different emphases in different situations. The situation that anarchists find themselves in will very much govern which aspect of the principles come to the fore. Anarchism never was the sort of closed totalitarian system that Marxism aspired to be. In actual fact the principles that lie at the basis of anarchism do not form some conflict free "whole". They exist in a dynamic tension, sometimes reinforcing each other and sometimes in opposition to each other. This will become plainer as we go on, but, for now, all that I can say is that the very fact that humans always have and must always live in a society put a limit on the "total freedom of the individual" while, conversely, attempts to over-emphasize the "collective dimension" of anarchism (and socialism) run the grave risk of producing a society even worse than the one they wished to replace.



I still think that the first attempt at a definition of anarchist socialism that I put forward is useful to proceed from. I also think that it descriptive of what anarchism throughout almost all of its history and in almost all of the world has been. I am aware that there is a current of "anarchism" in the USA, the anarcho-capitalists, who are not socialist in any sense. I would ask the reader, however, to not confuse this current with the traditional individualist anarchist current that was prominent in the USA, but also in many other countries (Italy, France, Spain and England come to mind). This current of anarchism is a totally different beast than the ideological capitalism popular in some quarters in the USA, and the proponents of this sort of individualism were very much socialist by both their actions and their own self-definition. This sort of individualist anarchism still exists in the USA , even though it is small to the point of disappearance elsewhere. I cannot self-identify with it, but I can view it sympathetically. I hope that proponents of these views (opposite to those of the anarcho-capitalists) will forgive me if I use the term "left-libertarian" as broadly descriptive of what they believe.




Words can be treacherous things. There are words in the dictionary that can have 25 or more definitions appended after them. In the definition of "socialism" that I proffered in the first part of this series I tried to "get beneath" the disputes about ways and means that divide various schools of socialism and find a definition that would encompass all socialists whatever their attitude to "tactics". The contrary definition from Wikipedia excluded at least one form of enterprise that I consider socialist ie consumer cooperatives. It also seemed to imply that socialists, as a whole, believe in "total equality" rather than the "much more egalitarian" belief that I offered. That socialists, anarchists or otherwise, believe in such total equality is debatable. What is manifestly not debatable is that the vast majority of socialists, statist and libertarian alike, do not believe that we should concoct some grand scheme whereby consumption is governed solely by "labour hours" put in. On the anarchist side this was what was called "collectivism", and it has not been a popular option for over a century. On the statist side, if one imagines that this is a goal of statist socialists then where, on God's green Earth, do all the welfare measures and "collective consumption" that socialists have advocated over all of their history come from ? Certainly not from a belief in "labour vouchers".




Then we come to the matter of whether "anarcho-capitalists" are actually anarchists. These people certainly do not believe in equality. If the only defining point of anarchism were to be against government then one would have to admit the 'anarcho-caps' into the family. Even if, however, they have a tendency to define "government" to their own advantage. To their point of view the old classic of the peasants rising up to burn out the manor house is government while the manor lord hiring a gang of thugs to shoot down the peasants is "free enterprise" and not "government". In the end, to maintain the inequality that will be the result of their economics, they will inevitably have to employ the force that they deplore when it is used by present governments.




The problem with anarcho-capitalism is that it doesn't proceed from a deep enough ethical basis. One may argue about whether it has any ethics at all. It is here where I have to start tacking things onto the original position that I gave in the first essay, of anarchism as a form of egalitarian socialism that believes in decentralized governance. The purpose of both equality and personal political influence-which can only be exercised in direct rather than representative democracy to to produce both individual fulfilment/happiness (in a life that leaves less matter for envy and more of a sense of personal worth) and collective fulfilment/happiness (being that humans happen to be social animals who are happiest when they experience a life of "community").




The need for individual happiness necessitates the maximum possible personal freedom. This means that the sort of "equality" dictated by the collective (of which the Communist states, especially such horrors as Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge or North Korea today, were/are the primary example), whether state or otherwise is not a worthwhile goal. Freedom can certainly be restricted by the state, but, contrary to what anarcho-capitalists may think, the state is hardly the only way that a collective (or strong individuals within a community) can restrict individual freedom. The history of religion is, to a large extent, standing proof of how freedom can be restricted by practices other than statist ones. Also, despite the almost Stalinesque delusions of the true believers in the "noble savage", actual stateless societies that have existed have not necessarily been either egalitarian nor respecters of freedom.




The need for personal freedom, both in the negative sense (of "freedom from" ) and in the positive sense ( of "freedom to") is an absolutely necessary part of any anarchism. The positive aspect is pretty well totally ignored by such as the anarcho-capitalists, and because of this their "anarchism" is of the same dwarfed and twisted form that led all too many anarchists to make the opposite error in the past and assume the 'Soviet-anarchist' position as viable. Anarchism is not only class struggle, though such is an absolutely central part of it. It is also class struggle to a purpose. Dethroning the "Bosses" will only result in a new set of bosses being thrown up if the extent of personal liberty is not also expanded at the same time. Similarly trying to get rid of the state without, at the same time, increasing the equality in society and also increasing the "freedom to do" (two things that often are much the same thing) will merely result in a new state under a different name.




So, the idea of anarchism as a socialism of a different sort has to be supplemented with the idea of anarchism as a struggle for personal freedom. There is a lot more to be said on this "freedom", but I'll leave that for a subsequent essay.

CANADIAN LABOUR-KITIMAT/TERRACE BC:

SELF MANAGEMENT IN THE MOUNTAINS ?

Now here's an encouraging piece of news, fresh in from the Terrace Standard out BC way. The Eurocan West Fraser pulp and paper mill out there was due to close down at the end of the month/year. Rather than meekly accept the result the workers involved, represented by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP Union) held a vote, and 91% of the workers involved in one local supported the idea of buying out the plant and operating it as a producers' cooperative. According to the article they have the enthusiastic support of local municipal councillors and at least the half-hearted approval of the provincial government. The CEP union is one Canadian union that is quite supportive of such initiatives, and their buyout of the CHEK TV station in Victoria BC has recently been approved by the CRTC (November 9). That purchase was, admittedly, a rather mixed affair, involving not just the station employees but an unnamed "consortium" of local investors. One can hope that the people in Kitimat/Terrance will see fit to go with either a "pure" producers' co-op or some sort of mixed worker/community ownership. Not that private investment should be totally disavowed, but any such input should purchase either non-voting shares or bonds ie managerial control should not reside in people outside of the workers and the community. The CEP union is quite the creative outfit. besides the official website mentioned above interested people can also follow the actions of the union via the (quite) unofficial CEP Union Blog. See also the website of CEP Union Local 298.

Actions such as these are to be highly commended, with due deference to the financial difficulties that are often involved. They are actually a much more practical way to respond to not just the present economic difficulties but also to the desire of ordinary workers to live a better life in sunnier times. It is actions such as these, not demands for nationalization nor government bailouts, that build the sort of democratic and local (libertarian) socialism that Molly believes in. It is only sad that this sort of thing is usually only undertaken at the worst possible time-one where the firm in question has buggered up its finances up to or beyond the point of no return.

Here's the story.

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UNION FAVOURS PULP MILL PURCHASE:
UNIONIZED WORKERS workers at West Fraser’s Eurocan pulp and kraft paper mill are supporting the idea of buying the operation the company wants to close down the end of next month.

First results from voting earlier this week indicate 91 per cent of the members of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada Local 298 support of the idea, according to a union spokesperson. At press time, results were not yet available for the decision of Local 1127.

Forest minister Pat Bell, in Kitimat Tuesday, said he’s a “big fan of employee-owned business models.”

“The power of employees with their own money invested in an operation is significant,” he said. “I’d never want to bet against someone who, not only is their job on the line, but their house is on the line because they just mortgaged it to invest in the facility.”

“If there’s a future for West Fraser, it is likely under an employee ownership model of some kind.”

Kitimat mayor Joanne Monaghan said that a group was formed in-camera at the Nov. 30 council committee of the whole meeting. The group’s members, from both the union and council, will work together to decide the feasibility of a union buyout of Eurocan.

Councillors Richard McLaren, Randy Halyk as well as district manager Trafford Hall volunteered to be part of the team.

“It is an avenue that needs to be pursued,” said Monaghan.

Kitimat councillors were informed of the idea of a union purchase at their Nov. 23 council meeting by Local 298 president Mary Murphy.

“On November 30th, I’ll be requesting direction and support from my membership for a buyout strategy,” she said. “Both locals will need a huge amount of support in order to make this venture a success.”

Her presentation was followed with applause from the council gallery.

“The closure of Eurocan will have a direct effect on Kitimat, Terrace and everyone in BC,” she said. “CEP National and our local union are continually looking for opportunities in having the mill viable and running. I believe that the mill can be successful, and I’m not the only one.”

Her announcement came on the heels of news that an unnamed Chinese company had expressed interest in the mill.

Provincial forest minister Pat Bell has also told reporters that a company with “fairly large interests in China” is looking at the mill’s financial records.

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-DENMARK:

SOMETHING FRESH IN THE STATE OF DENMARK:

The following pleasing little piece of news about a new anarchist organization in the country of Denmark comes from the Anarkismo anarchist news website.

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Libertære Socialister/Libertarian Socialists formed in Denmark!:

The 8th of November witnessed the founding conference of the Danish group Libertære Socialister (literally: Libertarian Socialists). It's over ten years since Denmark last had a specifically socialist anarchist group, so this happy event was long overdue. Over two days, 18 representatives from local groups in Aalborg, Århus, Copenhagen and Svendborg, as well as members of the sister organizations SUF (Sweden) and Motmakt (Norway) met in good spirits to discuss and vote in a constitution, political platform and an action plan for 2010.

Politically, Libertære Socialister has oriented itself towards syndicalist, anarcho-communist and collectivist anarchist currents, as well as council communists and other strains of libertarian socialism. In practice, it will be organised on the basis of local groups organized together by way of direct democracy in a federal structure. These local groups will be supplemented by working groups that will deal with specific political or practical issues.

Libertære Socialister expects to start with approximately 25 members nationwide, and welcomes contact with like-minded groups abroad - they can be contacted at lskontakt@gmail.com
Related Link: http://www.libsoc.dk

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MOLLY NOTES:

To say the least Molly approves, particularly in terms of the name choice. Throughout most of the world, including here in Canada, the word "socialist" hardly has the mountainous difficulty in public acceptance that such words as "anarchist" or especially "communist" do. The only country in the world where this label would present difficulties and endless wasted hours in trying to redefine preconceptions would be the USA. It has to be said, however, that as to the average American who thinks this is a dirty word that they wouldn't know a socialist if he came up behind them and nationalized their asshole (with excessive compensation of course). Similarly the word "libertarian" hardly leads to confusion outside of the USA where there is the world's one and only influential "libertarian" culture and party on the right.

It is also commendable that the comrades have seen the need to focus on the socialist heart of what anarchism is. Far too often this is more than slightly obscured by a frenzied issue hopping and the illusion that sheer activism equals some sort of progress. Anarchism has grown tremendously in the last few decades, but until it pays attention to the often "boring" ( to some who have romantic illusions ) everyday details of economics and people's ordinary lives it will be doomed to remain the property of a closed sect. Similarly anarchism cannot progress beyond the possession of an incestuous subculture or academic fad until it recognizes the crying need for organization, no matter how small to begin with.

Good luck to the new Danish organization, and may all their herrings be well pickled and the Mermaid always smile on them.

CANADIAN LABOUR/HUMAN RIGHTS:

LABOUR AND TRANSGENDER RIGHTS:

This item from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)comes from yesterday, but the issue it speaks about is 365. It was once that socialism and "the left" believed that all that was necessary to liberate humanity was to remove the bosses of the economy. Worse than that the majority of socialists believed that the best way to to this was by replacing private bosses with government bosses, nationalization either by electoral or revolutionary means. That dream is over in many different ways. The "public bosses" have proven to be just as tyrannical as the private ones. In the case of revolutionary regimes they have usually proven to be far, far worse. Besides that, the wheel of history has travelled far down many other roads as well. Nowadays it is pretty well understood that improving the human condition involves many more aspects of life than the purely economic.

Anarchist socialism has always stood solidly against the 'political illusion', has always known what has been proven repeatedly over the course of the last century- without a single exception -that humans are too fallible a creature to allow economic power to be concentrated in the hands of a "benevolent" elite. The disease of inequality has never been cured by political medications, and far too often the result has been not just that the original disease worsened or remained the same. Far too often a new and much more horrible syndrome has developed. In medicine it's called "iatrogenic disease".

Anarchist socialism has also historically actively stood for the concept that the "liberation" of humanity doesn't just involve economics. In recent decades, as socialist movements rebuild, pretty well 100% of the brightest economic ideas- self management, producer coops, community control, etc., have come from the anarchist grab bag where they have been sitting for almost a century and a half. How well and, unfortunately in some cases how honestly, the lessons that anarchism always had to teach have been absorbed may be questioned, but the historical trend is clear.

Nowadays socialism, and the general labour movement, is also rediscovering the fact that "liberation" is not just about economics. To a large extent even the economic goals of labour will be unachievable unless labour ties itself to a much broader movement for justice. Only some of these causes are from the anarchist tradition. Others are much more recent, brought to light by the glare of the past few decades. The advantage anarchism has always had, in relation to more well known forms of socialism, is that it is at its basis an ethical choice. It is not a set of theories, though those it does indeed have aplenty. Its ethical basis has always been a safeguard (not an infallible one-there is no such thing- but a pretty damn effective one) against the sort of perverted pathways that other socialisms have far too often taken. New emphases/causes slide more easier into place in such a system of though than in statist systems. These news causes are, of course, just as susceptible to perversion as the economic cause has proven to be. One can hope that anarchism has an advantage there as well, that its ethical basis provides the sort of "natural immunity" that can prevent malignancies other than economic from taking hold.

I take no special view of anarchism, that it is some sort of infallible guide that can never go wrong. Regular readers of this blog know very well just how critical of some 'anarchist" ideas I am. Some fashionable "anarchisms" I hold in complete and utter contempt. History is also full of examples where large numbers of anarchists went down ways that were not just wrong but visibly absurd and even evil from top to bottom. Yet....the centre held.

Today the wider labour movement is also rediscovering what exactly it should be- part of a wider movement for general human betterment. Labour is increasingly realizing that it must rediscover ethics and its place in a wider movement if it is even to succeed in its own goals. Most often this rediscovery is being done by workers who are not anarchists, people who may never even have heard much about it. People whose only acquaintance with it may come from reading about the "kindergarten terrorism" or silly freak shows that a minority of anarchists practice. Some may even know more or less what the word means but may still disagree, honestly or otherwise. As I said I do not see anarchism as some GPS system that will always tell you where to go, but what it is is at least a crude map that is a better guide than any other available.

But I'm sure the crowd is getting tired of Molly's soapbox. Here is one bright example from CUPE about how labour is setting down new roots in very fertile soil. It is merely one happy story out of tens of thousands.

CLCLCLCLCLCLCL

Remember and Organize:
November 20 marks the 11th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day to remember our transgender sisters and brothers at home and abroad who have been murdered as a result of transphobic violence.

Toronto’s 519 Community Centre estimates that more than one trans person per month dies from transphobic violence and that trans women of colour who are sex workers are disproportionately affected by violence. Most often, these tragic events are not reported in the mainstream media and the perpetrators are seldom prosecuted.

Most instances of discrimination, however, are more subtle than these shocking acts of violence - and today is an opportunity to think about some of the ways that, as trade unionists, we can commit ourselves to working toward the full equality of our transgender sisters and brothers in our workplaces, in our communities and in our union.
We can:
**Educate ourselves and our members about the challenging affecting trans people in the workplace. One way to do this is the Pride in CUPE workshop offered through our union education.
**Put trans issues on our list of priorities at the bargaining table. Sample language can be found in CUPE's Bargaining Equality guide.
**Work with our divisions to lobby for inclusion of gender identity and gender expression in our human rights legislation.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to security of person and to protection from violence or bodily harm. The labour movement embodies these principles through our sense of solidarity with one another and the notion that an injury to one is an injury to all. Let us honour those who have died but let us also commit individually and collectively to re-energize our support for trans communities and their struggle for equality – in our locals, in our divisions and nationally.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY:

ONE FINAL NOTE:

Before I shut it down for the night here's one more item on International Women's Day, this one a reprint of a post here at Molly's Blog from this time last year.

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HOLIDAYS (OR IT SHOULD BE)
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY:
Today, March 8, is celebrated as 'International Women's Day'. Way back when, on March 8 1908, 15,000 women marched through the streets of New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. In 1910 the first international women's conference was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, under the aegis of the Second Socialist International. The German socialist Clara Zetkin was the originator of the proposal. No fixed date was set at this event. The conference called for the establishment of an international women's day. This had been preceded by a declaration of the Socialist Party of America in 1909 calling for such an event on the last Sunday of February.

The date of March 8 gradually became an accepted time because it commemorated an 1857 protest in NYC by garment workers who later went on to establish the first labour union in the USA two years later. March 8 was also the day when women in Europe held peace rallies in 1913 as the clouds of WW1 gathered. IWD also gathered force from the Commemoration of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire on March 25, 1911 when 140 garment workers were killed in a factory fire because the owners had locked the doors, barring any escape.

On the persuasion of Alexandra Kollontai IWD was declared a holiday in the USSR shortly after the Revolution. But.....this "holiday" remained a regular working day until May 8, 1965. Wags might remark that this is the usual stuff of communist pronouncements, with the name and the reality usually at significant variance. Nonetheless IWD remains an official holiday in many countries today. Most are members of the ex-Soviet bloc or other communist countries. By 1975, International Women's Year, the United nations began to sponsor the day. Today there is pressure in many countries to declare it an official holiday. In 2005, for instance, the British Trade Union Congress passed a resolution calling on the United Kingdom to issue such a declaration.

Nowadays celebrations are held across the world on this day. The global women's group Aurora hosts a semi-official list of events and resources. For an anarchist take on the day and its significance see THIS and THIS from the Anarkismo.Net news site. Also 'Feminism, Class and Anarchism' by Deidre Hogan (also available as a downloadable pdf).

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS/INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-VENEZUELA:

HUGO CHAVEZ VERSUS THE REVOLUTION:

Recently a quite lengthy (too lengthy to reprint in full on this blog) article has been making the rounds of the 'anarchonet'. The article in question 'Venezuela, The Revolution Delayed: 10 years of Hugo Chavez's Rule' has been reprinted, amongst other places, on the A-Infos website(see HERE and HERE). You can also read it, along with other English translations from the Spanish, in the English language section of the Venezuelan anarchist publication El Libertario. The article, in fact, is an interview with members of the El Libertario collective by a French anarchist 'Charles Reeve'.

Venezuela is, of course, a darling of the present left, and the leftist attitude towards said state is even more uncritical, if that is possible, than their views of the Castroite dictatorship. The latter, of course, is reaching its end soon, and "analyses" of its successes and failings will be soon left to the political autopsy technicians. The regime of Chavez, however, appears, at least on the surface, to still have some wind in its sails- though its longevity is undoubtedly very dependent on the world price of oil.

I encourage readers to take in the full article. To those unfamiliar with previous "autopsies" of failed "socialist" states it may be quite revealing. The Venezuelan comrades provide a guide to the topsy turvy world of state socialism in power, and how such simple concepts as "cooperative" have a meaning that becomes totally different when the rising ruling class of the state bureaucrats lay their hands on them. This, of course, is old news to those of us who are old enough to have seen the Leninist states in full power and to have witnesses the old leftist reaction to them as well.

As I said, the article is far too long to reproduce here, but the following excerpts will hopefully give the flavour of it.

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CHAVEZ AS CAUDILLO:

Miguel (M.) – There is a lot of talk nowadays of a left turn in Latin America. There have indeed been several governments elected who belong to traditional left tendencies. For us, there are two main currents. On the one hand are governments brought to power after great social movements,such as is the case in Bolivia and Brazil, countries with a long history of struggle.

Apart from these – and more particularly, in Venezuela - the so-called “left” governments have not come to power off the back of social movements or grassroots struggles. They belong to a cultural set more linked to Latin American populism of the caudillo variety. It is clear in our eyes that all such governments meet the needs of a situation of political crisis. It is impossible to understand the rise of Chavismo without looking back to the caracazo of 1989. These riots in Caracas left thousands dead. The pact which had existed between the various forces in politics was thus broken and society faced a crisis of governability. This concern was most acute within the ruling class itself. All the more so given that these riots opened up a cycle of struggle in Venezuelan society, with the emergence of grassroots organisations independent of the old left political parties. Some people called this “a new civil society”,particularly as regards the student movement and even the movements in the poor barrios. For example, the Human Rights group, with which I work, came about in these years. The same went for environmentalist groups and women’s groups. So people who identified with leftist ideas escaped the control of the parties.

For its part the workers’ movement mostly remained dominated by social democracy (and the Acción Democrática party), with a few fringes controlled by groups of the authoritarian Marxist left. During the 90s there was real turmoil in Venezuelan society, with popular struggles organised in opposition to A. Perez, the social-democrat president responsible for the 1989 massacres. This turmoil led to huge changes in society. Three years later, in 1992, there was an attempted military coup: a recurrent event in the history of this country, where the army has often intervened in political life. Despite their failure, within a few years these putschist army men, in particular Chávez, had managed to recuperate the whole of this popular resistance movement. Chávez’s appeal in part came from the fact that he was able to make himself seem in tune with the popular movements of the 90s.

That is how this powerful resistance movement fell behind this figure and became part of a new institutional arrangement.This was a dialectical integration: well known activists in these movements were also on the look-out for some institutional role: in their eyes, indispensable for carrying out their plans.

This “civil society” was new, having existed for barely a decade and had carved out very little space of its own in society. It had little experience in terms of concrete social engagement and anti-authoritarian organising. So now, rather surprisingly, we find the cadres of this new“civil society” in power with Chávez. The blank cheque they have given in part results from this inexperience and lack of a concrete project. Here we find the imprint of the country’s cultural make-up. Even if revolutions define themselves by breaking with such paradigms, we have to say that Chávez himself is repeating the whole caudillo, statist and militarist tradition long established in Venezuela. He has breathed fresh life into this culture.

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'Chavismo” and the neo-liberal model

I. - Chavismo has another characteristic beside its links with the traditional left. The régime’s project is tied into the current international situation, which supports a global drive for capitalist rule. I will explain: nowadays it is easier to implement the plans of neo-liberal capitalism in a country with a left-wing government which uses populist slogans without provoking real mobilisation on the part of workers. For us, that is Chavismo’s principal role. Of course, I am not saying that all the people and groups who support Chávez are conscious of this. I repeat, Chavismo does not have a homogeneous supporter base. There are those who think the régime is doing the best it can to improve the lot of the people... there are even thous who are convinced that today we are experiencing a unique opportunity to “build socialism”. We, for our part, think that this neo-liberal role can be seen in the régime’s policies on oil and trade, and indeed in its whole economic agenda. This manipulative populist rhetoric covers up the real agenda of clearing the way for the implementation of the neo-liberal model, to a greater extent than ever before.

C.R. - Chavismo as the spearhead of neo-liberal policies: quite an original take on things! From this standpoint, can we see the rise - or the creation - of a new private sector emerging from the Chávez years: one based on the new networks of patronage and corruption?

I. - But obviously! In Venezuela such networks have always been integral to the functioning of society. Initially the Chavistas tried to break with this set-up. But in reality there were but minor changes in the structures of bureaucracy, and corruption and patronage continued. There are few studies of this issue. But at an empirical level we can state that it is plain to see in the oil and financial sectors where the government has introduced its plans. In the co-operative sector, for example, cliques have identifiably appropriated projects to build centres of economic power from which they can make personal gains.

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CHAVEZ AND THE COOPERATIVES:

M. - Of course, we have a totally different idea of co-operatives. For us,a co-operative is an initiative which comes from below. For the Chavistas, on the contrary, enterprises in what they now call the “social economy sector” must operate in the form of state-aided co-operatives. Every day people start organising co-operatives - people who are totally foreign to the spirit and practice of co-operativism... because it is the quickest way of getting contracts and state credit! In many industries the law obliges the state to give priority of tenders to “co-operatives” above private enterprises. So many malign people have started creating co-operatives in order to win contracts with government bodies. That as the case with the public roads enterprise you mentioned. A private enterprise was thus transformed inter a co-operative to win the tender, and at a stroke the workers lost all their rights and bonuses. They now have three-month renewable contracts, such that the “co-operativist” (in reality, the new name for the boss!) has no duties towards them. Thanks to this lie, after a few months it could be said that there were 200,000 co-operatives... All this in order to make propaganda showing that society has changed. But it is all artificial, created by decree.

I. - I would add that, after the oil workers’ strike, the government learned that it had to control the world of work. First it explained that the state would create a new form of organisation based on solidarity and where all workers would benefit from the same privileges. The co-operatives! At a stroke the government broke the services contracts it had with private companies (particularly for cleaning), which by law had to pay workers ’social bonuses’. The workers were laid off and forced to seek temporary work with these co-operatives now dealing with the state.They lost the bonuses and rights which they had previously (in theory at least) had. Moreover, many of these co-operatives disappeared as soon as they were created. So we are witnessing, as your friend is right to emphasise, the casualisation of work.

MOLLY'S ANARCHISM: PART TWO, CHAPTER ONE:
WHY I AM NOT A "REVOLUTIONIST":
Wayne Price of NEFAC (The Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists) has recently published an essay entitled 'Why I am Not a Pacifist' on the Anarkismo board. His essay makes some telling points (no, there was no way to remove Hitler without violence, pacifists mistake their actions for "non-coercion", etc,etc) with things that can best be styled "flights of fancy" (the only way to avoid the holocaust was through a 'proletarian revolution', Americans may have to call for an invasion from Mexico to "save their revolution",once more, etc.,etc.,etc.).
Now, Molly has actually met a very few real pacifists in her life. They don't include the majority of those who style themselves as such. Wayne's points about "coercion" can be telling in these cases. Molly likes these people even if she considers them wrongheaded. However "wrongheaded" they may be, however, they are less so than others whom Molly has met who are under some sort of delusion that a "revolution" in imminent in North America (or any European country for that matter) and especially that they can hasten this apocalypse by mindless acts of militancy. Mr. Price is, of course, not amongst this collection of fools. As a member of NEFAC he recognizes the value of patient organization and is at least somewhat aware of the broad outlines of reality in terms of how (un)popular a libertarian view of socialism is in North America. Yet, perhaps for 'romantic reasons' he clings to the idea of "revolution" as a Deus ex-machina that is both possible and necessary to achieve the goals of libertarian socialism in his country (the USA) and mine (Canada). Molly disagrees with both the term "possible" and the term "necessary", and I will try and explain this as I go along in this blog. Not all will be said in this post. I will also eventually reproduce Price's essay here and reply to it, but that is unimportant for now.
For now I refer the reader back to my previous post on 'Molly's Anarchism' and what I quoted professor Richards as saying. The non-statist trend of world socialism has always be present in Canadian socialism, just as it has been present elsewhere under different names, often taking the word "anarchism" to describe itself. In Canada non-statist socialism has been represented by the cooperative movement, whether it be that of Western Canada (with which I am most familiar), Quebec or the Antigonish movement of the East Coast. It has been represented in the unions, whether they were the IWW or the OBU of history or the more recent attempts to chart a course independent of the US based Internationals. It has even been present in a multitude of local community struggles for various things, struggles that presuppose that local communities should have a greater role than the feds, the provinces or even the cities in determining things in their immediate environment. Native struggles have been lighthouses in this matter, but they are hardly unique or even more than a minority of such struggles across Canada.
This socialism is different from that which has been the dominant strain in Canada to date. It has nothing whatsoever to do with "building political parties" whether they be social democratic such as the NDP or bizarre communist sects. It has everything to do with building cooperatives, both producer and consumer cooperatives. It has everything to do with attempting at all times to recover political power for the most local community possible and to expand the scope of democracy beyond that of a popularity contest. It has everything to do with the day to day struggle of working people to control the conditions of their work life and eventually to take the workplaces over and govern them by democratic principles.
This sort of socialism is neither pacifist nor revolutionary. It is merely "realistic". It recognizes and builds on popular struggles that have occurred throughout Canadian (and American) history and asks for the maximum possible clarity in regards to same. This clarity means that we have to "work with" those who believe in "political means" but that we should always be apart from them, with an ideal of total independence for the popular organizations as the ultimate goal. It means that we push bit by tiny bit towards this goal, navigating the possible, and not recruiting for some dangerous enterprise in the foggy future. It means that we agree to be pluralistic and not dream of some show of force in the future, a dream that would almost inevitably lead to disaster.
It furthermore means that we take the best of our own socialist traditions and build on them, and that we call ourselves "anarchists" because this is the best, though limited, name for what we want to achieve- a socialism that builds cooperation without the excessive burden of state imposed conformity. Look above to the graphic on this blog. This is the graphic of the Spanish CGT. Spain has always been the "heartland" of anarchism. There have been disagreements in Spanish anarchism for well over a century about how to proceed towards libertarian socialism. The present day CGT which represents about 2 million Spanish workers is the heir of one of these currents, the anarchism of Salvador Segui, of Juan Piero, of Angel Pestana (before he deserted the cause). This anarchism is the reborn anarchism of the Iberian Peninsula, an anarchism that is appropriate for the modern age. It is the same as the socialism of those here in Canada who advocated (and advocate today) for community clinics, for local control, for increased rights for workers, for producers and consumers cooperatives. It is the only socialism worthy of the name, and its name is anarchism. It does not imply a quasi-religious commitment to some future "revolution", only the commitment to advance the cause today in the here and now.
Molly is not a "revolutionist" for many reasons which I will detail later, but the main reason is that the "revolution" is a fantasy which is way in the future and far away from how we live today. But the struggle for socialism- well that I've seen every day of my life. It exists here and now. One more cooperative is socialism. One more victory against the state is socialism. I don't live in an utopia. I live in the here and now.
Much more later,
Molly