Blackscare
1st July 2010, 23:13
I've been here for a while, and over that time my views have evolved a bit. I used to consider myself a total Anarchist, then flirted with Left Communism, and have come to see that no tendency, either theoretically or in practice (it's usually one or the other it seems :/ ), really meshes with what I believe. I sort of feel like that phrase "the more you learn, the less you know" is applying to me. Not to say I'm an expert theorist, but my thoughts have changed a bit over time.
So please, I would consider it a favor if anyone actually read this and gave me feedback. I'm very frustrated because I want to get involved politically but I don't want to throw in with a lot that I am not compatible with.
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Every day I vacillate between Platformism and Left Communism. Well, not really even Platformism so much as a point of view based more on the concrete actions of the Makhnovist movement.
That said, I like Marxist analysis much more than Anarchist analysis, I find it much more insightful, although for sure some Left Communist positions are overly puritanical. Libertarian Marxists in practice, however, are woefully ineffective in times of social upheaval, or at carrying out the fostering of a mass movement today. I mean, less so than even the rest of the left. Let's be clear though: I really don't see many or any Anarchist organizations that don't seem like total horseshit today either. Lifestylism, paralyzing idealism, etc, it's all been covered before.
So, I sympathize most with a movement that died at the end of the Russian civil war, and the writers I like most in terms of analysis have never been able to square their theory with practice to my satisfaction. So I don't know a good god damn what to do.
This is what I do believe without doubt:
1. Revolution in first world imperialist countries is a necessity to successfully make revolution around the globe.
2. The Left today has failed to fully grasp the fundamental paradigm shift that is the Information Age, both in terms of organizing worker's struggles today and perhaps more importantly, how this technology could serve the purpose of making direct democracy much more practical. Until Leftist thought is fully patched, and soon, it isn't going to get anywhere significant, at least in the west. This is a vague point, some points farther down will expand on this a bit, but by no means cover everything.
3. I believe in a strong, non-party oriented libertarian vanguard. I believe that this vanguard should institute certain decentralized democratic institutions and then refrain to participate in them, only serve to protect them. It is not un-anarchist to use force as an organized vanguard, so long as this use of force is consigned creating democratic institutions in the factories, communities, and on the farms. Also, this vanguard should act to carry out the wishes of these institutions and protect their sovereignty.
4. Related to the point above in a way, I strongly believe that the most important element of protecting a socialist order and keeping it on track is to set down a form of government that, because of it's structure, inherently favors the interests of the working class. I believe that if you take the US constitution as an example, it is easy to argue that you can structure a government to inherently favor a particular class without the need for any sort of "vanguard" to keep individual policy in line ideologically.
Representative government inherently favors the rich because it creates layers of abstraction between people and government. One cannot reach a significant position in the US government without considerable federal backing. We can see that throughout US history several main parties were born and replaced in their time, but the basic agenda remained the same. The system is class biased because of the way in which decisions are reached, not because there happen to be two evil parties that unfairly dominate. It's bound to be like that.
On that note, voting councils can only be based on the concrete interests of those involved at ground level, as those are who are making the decisions. There is no abstraction in government, decisions are local and their effects immediately recognizable to anyone.
5. On the issue of federation, I believe that cohesive cooperation and coordination can be facilitated through things like the internet without the need for even retractable delegates. Certain platforms on the internet today that facilitate communication should be taken as the basis of a new mode of post-revolutionary economic and social networking, as trivial as some of these platforms may seem today (which I believe is primarily because of the uses they are put to, not the way they function).
6. I believe that there is much to learn from Wal-Mart on the Left.
Ok, now breathe. What I am referring to is their method of monitoring and organizing inventory, and the way that they have basically re-invented production from a "push" model (producers makes x amount of product, attempts to push it to retailers) to a "pull" model (retailer, through real-time monitoring of consumer trends and demand, dictates how much of what is made). I believe that this can be the basis of a model for a socialist economy that successfully overcomes the idea of planned production and is as receptive to consumer desires, or perhaps more so given that it is based on real world need and objective analysis of product's merits by consumers rather than intense ad campaigns, than free market supply and demand. What I tend to call this is a 'reflexive' market, though that is just some loose term that I use for lack of something more concrete.
This statistical analysis of people's desires versus the arbitrary decisions of bureaucrats, or lengthy and inefficient debates by factory workers over the details of exactly what products to produce, in what colors, etc, is far more realistic. It would entail the continued existence of professional product designers, people who make concept models, etc, but of course there will still be niche carriers in certain areas, and techs.
I believe that the mode of economic organization I hinted at in point 5, a sort of large scale economic forum, could be a good model for polling people on what new products to make. Designers post ideas, public shows enough interest, people put it into production. Have you ever had a "there's gotta be a better way!" moment like in those cheesy infomercials? Well, in that case, you could a) access a complete listing of products separated by category, that already exist, or b) access a different listing of proposed products, or even perhaps c) submit suggestions which could then be weeded out by merit via voting by other interested consumers. There are currently many websites that do things similar to what I am describing in one way or another.
7) I believe that outside of consumer-end concerns and in the realm of logistics for industry, a sort of re-vamped digital cybersyn like system linking factories should be implemented. This system could share relevant hard data as well as mass communications between workers separated widely by geography. Obviously I also support pursuing automation as much as possible, and eventually converting all hard labor into machine labor. I don't think we have anything to fear from our robot overlords.
....OK. I have more to say on the nerdy side of things similar to my last few points, maybe at a later date, but lest I get absolutely too rambly I'm going to end it here and ask for some feedback after you digest that nasty wall of text.
Thanks for the patience to read that, please tell me what you think.
-Blackscare
ps: inb4 tl;dr
So please, I would consider it a favor if anyone actually read this and gave me feedback. I'm very frustrated because I want to get involved politically but I don't want to throw in with a lot that I am not compatible with.
************************************************** *
Every day I vacillate between Platformism and Left Communism. Well, not really even Platformism so much as a point of view based more on the concrete actions of the Makhnovist movement.
That said, I like Marxist analysis much more than Anarchist analysis, I find it much more insightful, although for sure some Left Communist positions are overly puritanical. Libertarian Marxists in practice, however, are woefully ineffective in times of social upheaval, or at carrying out the fostering of a mass movement today. I mean, less so than even the rest of the left. Let's be clear though: I really don't see many or any Anarchist organizations that don't seem like total horseshit today either. Lifestylism, paralyzing idealism, etc, it's all been covered before.
So, I sympathize most with a movement that died at the end of the Russian civil war, and the writers I like most in terms of analysis have never been able to square their theory with practice to my satisfaction. So I don't know a good god damn what to do.
This is what I do believe without doubt:
1. Revolution in first world imperialist countries is a necessity to successfully make revolution around the globe.
2. The Left today has failed to fully grasp the fundamental paradigm shift that is the Information Age, both in terms of organizing worker's struggles today and perhaps more importantly, how this technology could serve the purpose of making direct democracy much more practical. Until Leftist thought is fully patched, and soon, it isn't going to get anywhere significant, at least in the west. This is a vague point, some points farther down will expand on this a bit, but by no means cover everything.
3. I believe in a strong, non-party oriented libertarian vanguard. I believe that this vanguard should institute certain decentralized democratic institutions and then refrain to participate in them, only serve to protect them. It is not un-anarchist to use force as an organized vanguard, so long as this use of force is consigned creating democratic institutions in the factories, communities, and on the farms. Also, this vanguard should act to carry out the wishes of these institutions and protect their sovereignty.
4. Related to the point above in a way, I strongly believe that the most important element of protecting a socialist order and keeping it on track is to set down a form of government that, because of it's structure, inherently favors the interests of the working class. I believe that if you take the US constitution as an example, it is easy to argue that you can structure a government to inherently favor a particular class without the need for any sort of "vanguard" to keep individual policy in line ideologically.
Representative government inherently favors the rich because it creates layers of abstraction between people and government. One cannot reach a significant position in the US government without considerable federal backing. We can see that throughout US history several main parties were born and replaced in their time, but the basic agenda remained the same. The system is class biased because of the way in which decisions are reached, not because there happen to be two evil parties that unfairly dominate. It's bound to be like that.
On that note, voting councils can only be based on the concrete interests of those involved at ground level, as those are who are making the decisions. There is no abstraction in government, decisions are local and their effects immediately recognizable to anyone.
5. On the issue of federation, I believe that cohesive cooperation and coordination can be facilitated through things like the internet without the need for even retractable delegates. Certain platforms on the internet today that facilitate communication should be taken as the basis of a new mode of post-revolutionary economic and social networking, as trivial as some of these platforms may seem today (which I believe is primarily because of the uses they are put to, not the way they function).
6. I believe that there is much to learn from Wal-Mart on the Left.
Ok, now breathe. What I am referring to is their method of monitoring and organizing inventory, and the way that they have basically re-invented production from a "push" model (producers makes x amount of product, attempts to push it to retailers) to a "pull" model (retailer, through real-time monitoring of consumer trends and demand, dictates how much of what is made). I believe that this can be the basis of a model for a socialist economy that successfully overcomes the idea of planned production and is as receptive to consumer desires, or perhaps more so given that it is based on real world need and objective analysis of product's merits by consumers rather than intense ad campaigns, than free market supply and demand. What I tend to call this is a 'reflexive' market, though that is just some loose term that I use for lack of something more concrete.
This statistical analysis of people's desires versus the arbitrary decisions of bureaucrats, or lengthy and inefficient debates by factory workers over the details of exactly what products to produce, in what colors, etc, is far more realistic. It would entail the continued existence of professional product designers, people who make concept models, etc, but of course there will still be niche carriers in certain areas, and techs.
I believe that the mode of economic organization I hinted at in point 5, a sort of large scale economic forum, could be a good model for polling people on what new products to make. Designers post ideas, public shows enough interest, people put it into production. Have you ever had a "there's gotta be a better way!" moment like in those cheesy infomercials? Well, in that case, you could a) access a complete listing of products separated by category, that already exist, or b) access a different listing of proposed products, or even perhaps c) submit suggestions which could then be weeded out by merit via voting by other interested consumers. There are currently many websites that do things similar to what I am describing in one way or another.
7) I believe that outside of consumer-end concerns and in the realm of logistics for industry, a sort of re-vamped digital cybersyn like system linking factories should be implemented. This system could share relevant hard data as well as mass communications between workers separated widely by geography. Obviously I also support pursuing automation as much as possible, and eventually converting all hard labor into machine labor. I don't think we have anything to fear from our robot overlords.
....OK. I have more to say on the nerdy side of things similar to my last few points, maybe at a later date, but lest I get absolutely too rambly I'm going to end it here and ask for some feedback after you digest that nasty wall of text.
Thanks for the patience to read that, please tell me what you think.
-Blackscare
ps: inb4 tl;dr