AUT: Re: Marxism not worth defending

[fabian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

>
>To:aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>From:fabian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Fabian Tompsett)
>Subject:Re: Marxism not worth defending
>
>It would seem that the variety of anarchists responding to my arguments
>are as much concerned to criticise Marxism as defend anarchism, as if
>anarchism is principally some sort of anti-marxism. This is similar to the
>UK's <<Anarchist Year Book 1999>> when the editor remarks that they are
>not Marxist Leninists.
>
>It seems a bizarre way of arguing as no-one is defending Marxism. Indeed
>it is not worth defending.
>
>Iain Mckay says:
>
>>Anarchists, in contrast, have their writers and we take what
>>we find useful and reject the rest. With Proudhon, Bakunin, etc. we do
>>not worship everything they said or did -- rather we read them and take
>>what is relevent. Being anarchists and not Bakuninists (or whatever) we
>>can do that -- perhaps marxists are jealous of this freedom and wish
>>they could do the same with marx? But they cannot, being MARXists.
>>Little
>>wonder Marxist theory is so slow to adapt to new ideas and situations
>>(and those that do are a small minority and generally end up sounding
>>like anarchists -- not a coincidence).
>
>I think this can be very true and indeed supports the point I am making.
>
>If we are to go through and extract what is useful from anarchist
>writings, we are clearly using other criteria than that they are anrachist
>writing to guage whether they are useful.
>
>For different anarchists they use different criteria as they have
>different goals. Leaving aside the anarch-capitalists as essentially
>irrelevant (Capitalists have always completely ignored any states they can
>overwhelm, and  respect laws principally when it is profitable). Thus
>anarcho-feminists adapt anarchism to the goals of women's liberation,
>anarcho-communists to the overthrow of capitalism, and
>anarcho-individualists to acheiving their individual goals.
>
>What I am suggesting is that rather than resticting themselves to 'their'
>writers anarchist-communists could benefit from reading more broadly,
>still take what they "find useful and reject the rest". However, then they
>would no longer be emmeshed in ideological <<movement>> of people defined
>by their reading material, but indeed become communists and participate in
>more open and clearer way within a communist movement. Such a movement is
>defined in terms people actively involved in the class struggle seeking to
>overthrough capitalism, wage-labour, the nation, the state and other
>reified social relations.
>
>Iain McKay tried to fend of criticism:
>>Perhaps if criticism's of anarchism are relevent (rather than attacks on
>>individual anarchists for being less than perfect) we would pay them
>>more concern. After all, saying "Proudhon was an anti-semite" hardly is a
>>meaningful critique of anarchism. Who would take "Rousseau was sexist" as a
>>critique of democracy? Or "Marx was anti-slav and made racist comments" as a
>>critique of Marxism?
>
>The issue is not whether these individuals were less than perfect (which
>would mean in the first place looking at them from a perspective they did
>not share), but understanding them and their ideas in context.
>
>Thus Proudhon's antisemitism is linked to his patriotism. The problem is
>anarchists like Larry Gambone try to revive Proudhon and even extol his
>patriotism. When this is combined with his defense of working class
>conservatism (see his article in <<Red and Black Notes>>) this starts to
>get distinctly worrying. In the UK anarcho-patriots like Richard Hunt (of
>Alternative Green) are now teaming up with the masonic-elitist Jonathan
>Boulter (of the Anarcho-Nihilist Accords) to launch their Anarchist
>Heretiic shindig. This is what makes proudhon's anti-semitism relevant.
>In a short piece of argument, I did not feel it necessary to go into
>greater detail.
>
>As for Rousseau's sexism, this would seem to be relevant in the denial of
>bourgeois subjectivity to women, in terms of granting them the vote or
>even the right to own property in some circumstances.
>
>As for Marx's anti-slavism and racist comments, they are of course very
>relevant:
>His anti-slavism, which was more marked in Engels with his theory of
>"non-historical people" is particularly pernicious in that they supported
>the elision of minority peoples into large more sustainable 'nations'. In
>their theory these were to be the building blocks not merely of capitalism
>but also the transitional society. Non-historical people were categorised
>as being 'backward' in a way reminiscent of the British categorisation of
>backward tribes in India.
>
>Likewise his racism goes beyond getting upset when his daughter married a
><<nigger>>:
>
>>Whilst
>>> English workers faced destitution rather than work with confederate cotton,
>>> Proudhon was arguing for support of the confederacy.
>>
>>Actually, he argued that the political structure of the confederacy was
>>better than the centralised Union. In the Principle of Federation he
>>stated that slavery was not compatible with federalism. Oh, and Bakunin
>>supported the North (like Marx). What does that imply for anarchism
>>other than the anarchists are human and say and so things other
>>anarchists disagree with.
>
>Marx's support for the North and indeed the racist Abe Lincoln shows a
>complete failure by him to think outside a euro-entric framework. He never
>took up the issue of the self-emancipation of the slaves and their
>attempts to seize control of the planations which were suppressed by the
>union forces. He never discusses the reconstruction in the South, which
>included having governements with working class people (i.e. ex-slaves) in
>them. He never discussed the full ramifications of the complex political
>process involving both the Northern Army of occupation, the freedmen, the
>ex-slave owners, carpet-baggers and poor whites . . .
>
>(If anyone knows where to find a good analysis of this I would be very
>interested!)
>
>This precisely the point, not to support either north or south but to look
>for the self-emancipation of the working class.
>
>Iain McKay remarks:
>
>>While we do agree on certain basic positions, anarchism
>>should be diverse -- it is how it grows and develops.
>
>whereas the marxist sects emerge through a process of continual
>fragmentation as they find issues to disagree upon and hence to
>distinguish themselves from each other. Thus amongst the multitude of
>marxist sects there is clearly as much diversity as amongst anarchists.
>
>>>Likewise as soon as the founding Fathers of
>>> @narchism are criticised, we are told that some anarchists don't like them
>>> anyway. Yet they continually pop up as icons of the history of @narchism.
>>
>>Actually, what we say is that we are *not* person-ists (i.e. not
>>Bakuninists, Proudhonites, whatever). We do not think them icons nor do
>>we call
>>ourselves after them.
>
>Well, whenever I visit my local @narchist bookstore (Freedom), I go past a
>wall display which features a series of icons of prominent anarchists,
>including Proudhon and Bakunin!!! It would be useful to know who this 'we'
>is who not thinking of such people as icons? Clearly it is not all
>anarchists (unless Freedom is run by some personists posing as
>anarchists). However if it is a faction within this putative anarchist
>collective identity, it would be useful too have it identified.
>
>And this perhaps touches on the crux of the matter:
>Whereas marxists continually set-up ever smaller splinter groups
>distinguished by a continual refinement of political positions(i.e.
>chiselling), anarchists define themselves as a broad movement where such
>distinctions are lost (i.e. amplic)
>
>Both fail to find unity in diversity because both function in ideological ways.
>
>
>Harald expresses the point thus:
>>I must I admit that I find this debate rather absurd as far
>>as what is under discussion is everything from (for instance)
>>Errico Malatesta to Sex Pistols. I know that this is precisely
>>"Leutha Blisset"'s point with his being "caught in the halls of
>>mirrors" picture, though he might as well have referred the Sex
>>Pistols to the halls of mirrors of "pro-situs".
>>
>>Despite this, it does not take much of a genius to see that
>>(for instance) Malatesta and the Sex Pistols is not the same
>>phenomenom. You might as well ask the marxist on this list
>>to answer for everything from the "bordigaist-primitivist"
>>Jacques Cammate to Stalin, and to whether or not these are/
>>were "authentic" marxists. Both marxists and "pro-situs" -
>>"unauthentic" by definition - as well as anarchists should of
>>course answer for the late Fredy Perlman has ever said. And
>>does really the U.S. magazine "Anarchy" as well as "Hakim Bey"
>>have their roots in marxism, in as far as they are inspired
>>by "pro-situ" currents and knowing the Situationist Inter-
>>national debt to Marx? Both Toni Negri and the Norwegian deep-
>>ecologist Arne Naess seem to love reading Spinoza, so can we
>>so to speak discern a deeper relation here?
>
>As marxist are chiselling, they do not have to answer for everything
>anyone who has called themselves as marxist for.i.e. to the extant they
>defend marxism it is as a method rather than a movement, and hence the
>denunciation of those who do not use the method properly is de rigeur.
>(Not that the marxists on this list are as such.) Thus with the pro-situs,
>they are defined precisely because they failed to understand what the
>Situationist International was doing, and far from being inspired bu the
>SI were inspired by the spectacle of the SI rather than its substance.
>
>Whilst I would agree that Malatesta and the sex pistols do not have the
>same substance, as they are recylced by @narchism they function at the
>same phenomenalogical level. As regards Negri and Naess (about whom i know
>nothing I might add), if they both engage in the critique of substance
>this does not imply that the substance of their critique is one and the
>same.
>
>I can no longer hide my disappointment that one of the practical issues I
>raised on 12/12 has not been addressed despite this debate being posted on
>anarchy-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>
>>It is currently unclear whether the Mayday conference in London
>>will be limited anarchists. The event is decribed as a festival of
>>"anarchist ideas and
>>action". As many of the ideas and actions they want to discuss often
>>actually originally emerged elsewhere, it is to be hoped that the discussion
>>wont be restricted to how these ideas have been derived in anarchist
>>circles. The previous conferences at Bradford (1998) and Glasgow (1999)
>>defined themselves more broadly.
>
>It would be useful to have more information on this event, unless it is
>just going to be an anarcho-gleefest where 'unacceptable' opinions are
>projected onto an amorphous other identified as 'marxism', which is then
>driven into the wilderness . . .
>
>Leutha Blissett
>
>P.S.
>Jamal wrote:
>
>>There was a problem a few years ago with anarchism drifting too far
>>towards postmodernism and away from class struggle.  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 is good news indeed! What happened to those anarchists who thought
>the class struggle anarchism <<outdated>>?
>




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