Comment

Comment by Double Standards??? on January 25, 2010 at 11:30am

"Rather, we have a prime example of someone who does not like LibSoc ideas..."

That is an inaccurate assumption about me. I agree with many Liberatian Socialist ideas such as organizational structure and most of the activist I've organized with are anarchists. One of the reasons I became "inactive" is because there isn't much of an anti-authoritarian political current in the Black/New Afrikan community and most black radical organizations in the U.S. are either marxist-leninist or authoritarian religious cults.

Comment by Db0 on January 25, 2010 at 3:15am

Just because revolutionary movements have been defeated and the working class has been subdued with a combination of imperial spoils and coerction does not make anarchism unviable, anymore that because democracy was put down by emperors makes it unviable or because slavery was the norm until the industrial revolution makes it impossible to abolish. An argument from longlevity is a fallacy.

To see if Anarchism is sustainable, you need to see if it is internally consistent and prone to implosion by bad distribution or unworkable organization or "human nature" arguments. It clearly isn't

The question of surviving a revolution is a question of the status of the working class, of the material conditions in the world (the education level of humans, the intensity of exploitation and alienation worldwide, the stability of the capitalist system etc) and how much we've learned from previous mistakes.

You asked for examples of working Anarchism, I gave it to you. You now shifted the goalposts and claim that unless Anarchism is existing currently, it's utopian. It doesn't exist currently, therefore it can't exist. Which is nonsense. By arguments such as yours, slavery would have never been abolished and we would probably still be living under the aristocracy.

Anarchism is neither utopian nor simply reminiscent of history, nor irrelevant.

Rather, we have a prime example of someone who does not like LibSoc ideas and uses intellectually dishonest arguments to argue against them, possibly without realizing it.

Comment by Double Standards??? on January 24, 2010 at 8:20pm

What is it that I don't understand? First, I knew before you posted your last comment that you would use the Spanish Civil War as an example. Second, the only example you can give is from over 70 years ago of resistance that last for 3 years involving "hundreds of thousands of people" that failed because the revolution was smashed by fascists. I can post a laundry list of communist revolutions that sustained themselves for decades who also smashed anarchists resistance. In my original post before I rewrote it I stated that no one can give an example of where anarchism has worked on a large scale for a prolonged period of time. Lastly, without enough military might, anarchism cannot sustain itself against totalitarian forces for very long. Capitalism will not be abolished and the capitalist class will give up power, land, etc... without bloodshed. Anarchist beliefs are utopian and anarcho-syndicalist unions like the IWW are more of a historical society than anything else, who reminisce about the good ole days of Spain over 70 years ago.

Comment by Db0 on January 24, 2010 at 6:52pm

A military victory, specifically when one party was supported and funded by 2 other nations does not speak against the viability of anarchism as a sociopolitical system. To say that you're familiar with the Spanish Revolution by simply knowing that "the Fascists won" is only showing that you don't understand it. Read about what the organization was in the CNT-controlled areas of Spain. Read how the people were organized in cities in syndicalist form and increased production manyfold, to the point that they could resist the fascists for 3 years.

Comment by Double Standards??? on January 24, 2010 at 4:51pm

Db0, I'm very familiar with the Spanish Civil War. The facists won.

Comment by Db0 on January 24, 2010 at 4:30pm

Black, I would suggest you check the Spanish Revolution to see an example of Anarchy in action for hundreds of thousands of people. Furthermore, the lifestyle of communal farmers and even the medieval cities of the 11-13th centuries had many anarchistic aspects.

Comment by Double Standards??? on January 24, 2010 at 3:57pm

Anarchism can work on a small scale, however it does not work on a large scale as in 7 billion people or even tens of millions of people and no one can give an example of where it has. I'm not a communist, but they have had successful revolutions in countries with populations of hundreds of millions of people.

Comment by Anwar Diamante on January 24, 2010 at 2:50pm

Thanks DB0, I feel that nothing gets accomplished when vandalism, arson or robbery occurs but just breaking laws. I think that an individuals interpretation of anarchy is that of being a rebellious teenager: i.e. I can do what I want when I want because there are no laws to govern us. However, if one thinks with that then we will live in chaos not anarchy. Anarchy in my opinion, is un-doing oppression, and isolation that is how I interpret it. However, some people take it to mean other things.

Comment by Db0 on January 18, 2010 at 9:19am

Well many anarchists (including me) have a general dislike for lifestyle anarchism but that is not the end-all of Anarchism as a movement. Usually those who are into it more than lifestyle are not the most visible as well since they're more behind the scenes, organizing syndicalist unions and worker co-operatives rather than breaking windows.

What Anwar said is right, in that Anarchism as an ideology is the only true path for liberation.

Comment by Kyle Griffith on January 18, 2010 at 9:19am

Well, I hope that you mean "anarchism" rather than "anarchy", because the latter means "operating without any rules or political structure at all", and that's a pretty hard argument to defend from any rational perspective that I've ever heard of. All of the academic communities that "scholars" operate within that I know about have internal rules and other political structures, though some of them are among the most anarchistic of all existing human institutions. As I pointed out in an earlier message in this thread, "anarchism" is the belief that authoritarian political structures should be minimized by direct empowerment of ALL of the people being governed. This can only be done by designing all of a society's institutions with checks and balances on all forms of power built into them, and this is easier to do in an institution whose basic goal is to promote "scholarship", defined as "the learning and teaching of information through study, research, and experimentation." Two of the most important policies used to put checks and balances on authoritarian power in such institutions are "peer reviews" and "minority reports". The first means that members are encouraged to make formal, rational critiques of data and conclusions submitted by other members, and the second means that a lot of submissions that don't have the approval of a majority of the members are published. A lot of Internet venues are scholarly institutions of this type, and it looks to me like this forum that we're posting in right now is a pretty good example.

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