Re: AUT: Anarchism & Conflicts

[leila tlon <leila_tlon@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Jamal Hannah <jah@xxxxxxx> wrote:


> The major debates in the anarchist movement have
> been, at least in the US,
> about Organization. Some anarchists would like to
> have anarchists belong
> to formal organizations with paid membership and a
> statement of
> principles. Others (seems like most) feel that it's
> best that we stick to
> small, informal groups and keep it at that.
>
> There was a problem a few years ago with anarchism
> drifting too far
> towards postmodernism and away from class struggle.

I don't think you can really reduce the debate to
postmodernism on one side and class struggle on the
other.  This is just a reproduction of a dichotomy
Bookchin invented in order to say that anyone who
wasn't a social ecologist wasn't an anarchist.  The
continued use of such terms is just a way of avoiding
any meaningful discussion of the theoretical and
practical differences among anarchists.

> This problems seems
> to have now been resolved as all anarchists
> recognize capitalism as the
> enemy, it's just that some place different priority
> on fighting it.

This problem never "resolved" itself as it never
existed.

>
> There also was a debate about class struggle
> organizing verses personal
> lifestyle change... as with the above, this seems to
> have been reolved.

Ditto as to what I said above.  Most of the people
that have been named "lifestylists" by Bookchin have
little in common with his depiction in his ugly little
book.  Just as there are major differences amongst
them.  I say ugly because its only purpose was to
defend the territory that Bookchin viewed himself
losing.

>
> There is now a lot of attacks, however, from the
> "lifestylist" branch of
> anarchism, perticularly Anarchy magazine, on
> "workerist" anarchists.  I
> think this is mostly anger over a book that Murray
> Bookchin wrote called
> "Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An
> Unbridgeable Chasm"... the
> shrill denounciations are going so far as to attack
> anarcho-syndicalism,
> Noam Chomsky, and anything associated with the
> traditional anarchist
> position.  I dont know if this "post leftist"
> anarchy will catch on or if
> it will simply alienate Anarchy magazine from most
> anarchists, who dislike
> infighting.

First of all,  attacks on syndicalism go way back
before Bookchin put out his book.  They are not at all
a reaction to the book, but are an attempt to critique
an anarchist practice seen by many as a losing road.
Secondly, the term "lifestylist"  has little meaning
in reality.  Bookchin used it to dump a whole lot of
people together and them attack them for the words of
one or two of them.  There is no such thing as a
"lifestylist branch of anarchism."  Most anarchists
who have critiqued syndicalism still wish to overturn
capitalism and get rid of the state.  Many, in fact,
are insurrectionists.  Anarchy Magazine has by far the
largest circulation of any anarchist magazine in the
states.  I don't think they have alienated most
anarchists.  If any form of anarchism has died out in
the US, it is syndicalism.  The IWW still exists, but
doesn't have any industrial workers in it.
  Instead of being sucked in by those who want to
protect their political territory, we could discuss
the differences in practice that exist to see if we
can work together in some way or not totally conflict.
---- s.

> There are other debates too.. anarcho-syndicalism
> vs. anarcho-communism,
> and the debate around the anarchist "Platform", but
> these are mostly
> acedemic.
>
> In Europe, the anarcho-syndicalist movement has
> split several times over
> the issue of collaboration with the government in a
> limited way.
> It is a very difficult issue to resolve because on
> one hand, we could have
> a larger movement if we collaborated with the
> government a little and
> became more "mainstream"... but on the other hand,
> if we stuck strongl;y
> and rigidly to our principles, we could live outside
> contradiction, yet
> has a small and innefectual movement.
>
> Anyway, thats the way I've seen things...
>
>  - Jamal
>
>
>
>
>      --- from list
> aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>

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