Re: AUT: Anarchism & Marxism

[Ilan Shalif <gshalif@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi people and ROWAN WILSON.

> 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

As for Marx, so for Lenin - it has different flavor for each.
However, for libertarian communists of most trends Leninism stands for authoritarian
vangardist and distrust for the working people.

To say that an Anarchist can be leninist means a unique meaning to leninism.
No  class war social anarchist will accept this in any other way but as insult.

The fact that people who call themselves anarchist say that anarchists
who are for organization of anarchist collectives of activists is "leninist"
does not justify the use of this label by people who know the difference.

> 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).

Authoritarian is one who support the application of authoritarian means of interpersonal
relation. It is curious way to label the way one think about human nature - that
justify the opposition to authoritarian relation as authoritarian.

> The idea that the human subject has an essence that has been repressed suggests that this essence is known as an objective fact.

There are many objective facts already found about the essence of human nature.
As they are in contradiction to the pro-capitalist propaganda, it is no wonder
even libertarian communists do not know about them.

If you really want to know some of them you can look into findings of psychological
research about "equity", "cooperation", and the system of basic emotion.

Some findings about what the "human subject has an essence that has been repressed",
How pro capitalist socialization represses it, and how one can get rid of this repression -
can be found in my web site(s):
http://www.shalif.com/psychology/
http://www.shalif.com/anarchy/

> Who decides how we know what this essence is?

The most rigorous way is scientific research done by anti capitalist people.

> A theorist that uses an objective essence as a fact has created a power relation.

I wonder what power relations result from my findings about pro-social and pro-human
basic inborn emotions.

> 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.

So they put forward a claim that was scientifically refuted. Just take into
consideration that post-modernist to not take facts too seriously...

> Here we are on dodgey ground - there is a problem here in that I am being told how to behave.

There is quite a difference even between erroneous suggestions about behavior.
The one who says "you should" is authoritarian the one who says "if you want X
you should practice Y can be just a stupid one.

>  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).

People who are only emotionally driven or those who are too individualists that
resist the fact that human are social being, do not put forward a viable model beyond
the removal of the repressive agency.

If you read the anarco-communists model about present organization and future
organization via direct democracy you may find some interesting texts.

> 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.

There is the authority of people as expert and reliable and there is the authority
to tell other people what to do. May be I have not read enough about the theory
of autonomist marxism, but I have not encountered yet the model of future society
based on direct democracy that does not need authoritarian relations.

> Much anarchist theory doesn't realise that it is being authoritarian in its truth claims (eg in my above example of primitivism).

Claims about truth can be more justified by hard facts or less supported by them...
But to call them authoritarian is not abusing the concept "authoritarian" is in place
only if they suggest authoritarian relations.

>  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.

I wonder what a place have "a theory of power" in isolation to the nature of class
society. For sure human being use force to coerce other people.

You will always have to use it with infants and others who can not take care
of themselves or infringe on the freedom of others. But a theory of power regardless
of context?

Social sciences has long ago replaced "philosophy" as a way to discover new
truth.

> 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?

I wonder if you will find serious anarchists who waste time on the pseudo scientific
theories.

>  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.

I wonder why marxists who are supposed to be "scientific socialists" find in
reactionary people like Foucault who put forward unscientific "theories" and
"philosophies" to justify their hidden agendas.
Ilan
EMAC (East Mediterranean Anarchist Collective)
http://www.shalif.com/psychology/
http://www.shalif.com/anarchy/
Tel-Aviv 61132 ISRAEL (Occupied Palestain)





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