Re: AUT: Anarchism & Marxism

["ROWAN WILSON" <ajxrw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<color><param>0100,0100,0100</param>Hi

Firstly can I say, agreed, there are more important things to
discuss at present. So this will be my last post on the subject (if
you want to contact me off-list, that's fine).

However, they are discussions, ultimately, about the way we
theorise organisation which are vital. Admittedly, the level of
reductionism has been too crude to be helpful. Anarchism is a very
broad movement. My brief piece was only a quick and crude
impression of the anarchist literature I've read from the UK and the
US (and I've read a lot over the past 10 years or so).


Jamal: Apologies for offending you by using the term leninism.
None was intended - looking back at my post I realise it can be
read as if I was trying to be offensive, the 'L' word can be far too
incendiary - so apologies. However, I'm neither a liar or an idiot. By
suggesting that anarchism could be leninist I was merely trying to
point out that its reliance on humanism can be authoritarian (an
accusation that can also be thrown against humanist marxists, as
Harald points out). The idea that the human subject has an
essence that has been repressed suggests that this essence is
known as an objective fact. Who decides how we know what this
essence is? A theorist that uses an objective essence as a fact
has created a power relation. For instance, the primitivist anarchist
(eg John Zerzan) sees the human essence as having a particular
relationship with nature - such that technology of all forms are
involved in alienation. In effect, they have made a universal claim - a
claim about not only themselves but myself. Here we are on
dodgey ground - there is a problem here in that I am being told how
to behave.

As to the second part of my post, I'll explain some more. One of
the reasons why I'm interested in autonomist marxism is that the
problem of authority and power is never far away. I did not intend to
suggest that Negri et al have solved the problem of power and are
thus more libertarian. Rather, the dichotomies of
freedom/organisation, individual/society are usefully highlighted in
much of their writing. Negri, for instance, is often trying to think
through these problems and does not take them for granted. My
own experience of anarchist literature is that, often, the removal of
the repressive agency solves all these problems (this is also a
problem in much marxism).

This is not to claim any purity within autonomism. I would suggest
that Negri et al also have some dubious authoritarian tendencies.
(see the article that George Caffentzis wrote somewhere on the
net, also included in the latest Common Sense). There are still
plenty of power/knowledge areas that are to be contested in
autonomist marxism.

The nub of what I was getting at was that the theory of autonomist
marxism can, at its best, recognise the need for authority and
worries about it. Much anarchist theory doesn't realise that it is
being authoritarian in its truth claims (eg in my above example of
primitivism).

However, I still read plenty of anarcho stuff and find it useful and
incisive in other ways.


Harald: Agreed - I was being far too inclusive of ALL anarchists
when I was talking of my particular impression of anarchism, a
crime doubly heinous when I get irritated by people putting all
marxists in the same marxist-leninist boat.

Of course, I don't deny that many anarchists are fully involved in
direct action. Yes, agreed, the anarchists have critiqued
themselves for Spain, etc. What I meant by my comments (and I
did try to emphasise this by referring to anarchism's theoretical
legacy) was that many anarchists seem to be reluctant to
construct a theory of power beyond seeing it as purely repressive. </color>I
have come across very few anarchists that have taken an interest
in post-structuralism. Apart from Bey who else should I look out for?


Anyway - enough crass reductionism on my part. For all my
invocation of Foucault in my piece I have relied on a particular
linear interpretation of the two currents, rather than tracing a more
interesting rhizomatic genealogy, that might confound the notion of
two opposed churches.

Cheers

Rowan<color><param>0100,0100,0100</param>

<nofill>


     --- from list aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---