RE: AUT: a rejuvenated communist

["Paul Bowman" <paul.bowman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris Wright wrote:
> I think the focus on the state puts the cart before the horse.
> The state is
> not the source of the problem, IMO.  The alienation of human beings
> resulting from the exploitation of labor, and the resulting class
> formation,
> gives rise to the state.
Mmm, not very historical or materialist Chris. The state historically
invented money and was the main consumer for much trade (originally for
logistical reasons of keeping an army in the field). I don't think there
would be much contention that the needs of the state gave birth to
capitalism. And of course for the proletariat to exist they must be
alienated from the means of production (at least the land) - historically
again this has only been executed by state power. The state provides the
power to maintain class divisions, which in turn leaves the "people of no
property" no choice to enter into wage slavery. You have it upside down.
However, I would braodly agree that...

> Getting rid of the state without ending
> alienated
> human social relations will just gaurantee the re-appearance of
> what we got
> rid of

Certainly that would be the case if we maintained value exchange - a
worker's self-managed capitalism would be a contradiction that could only
break down again into accumulation and class polarisation. (that BTW was the
original contribution of the Italian International - Cafiero, Costa,
Malatesta et al - to recognise that communism in the results of production
is the necessary complement to the common property in the means of
production, otherwise capitalism would be re-introduced - unfortunately this
aspect of il communismo libertario does not come across well in Malatesta's
writing, Galleani's "End of Anarchism" is probably the clearest summary of
this departure from Marx's "lower phase" or Bakunin's collectivism -
Kropotkin also developed the theme but unfortunately more from a more
ethical point of view).

However, it is impossible to get rid of value exchange and the wage relation
without abolishing the state, the latter being no more than a organisation
of people bound into an authoritarian structure by the authroity of the
wage - a soldier who obeys orders not because his wage, bread and future
existence depends on it, but because he or she chooses to is no longer a
soldier but a volunteer - soldiers who don't get paid are notoriously
useless or even dangerous from the point of view of state power (c.f. Zaire,
etc.). The division between the political power of the state and the
capitalist power of money is a liberal delusion. They are two sides of the
same, er... , coin (sorry :). Communism _is_ Anarchism, Anarchism _is_
Communism.



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