spanish revolution at a crossroads

[bcbm]

by that rascally peter gelderloos:

http://www.counterpunch.org/gelderloos06072011.html

[Delenda Carthago]

Yeah. "Crossroads". They have to deside, now that the heat is up, if they are going to go to cafeterias or straight to the beach as the Left wing of the Revolucion proposes. "Having gone so far with the revolution, it will be a huge step back to support capitalist corporations to drink our coffee. The beach on the contrary is for free" as the announcement of the Left wing said.

Probably the revolution will rise after the heat is gone, so check back in Octomber.

[RedSunRising]

What revolution?

I dont see any serious attempt to over turn one social system and replace it with another one.

[Red Phalanx]

What revolution?

I dont see any serious attempt to over turn one social system and replace it with another one.


Agreed.

[ckaihatsu]

by that rascally peter gelderloos:

http://www.counterpunch.org/gelderloos06072011.html




It is the paranoia rooted in the impulse towards centralization—the idea that one decision-making structure should be legitimized at the cost of all others, that social conflict should be avoided, that all decisions need to be approved by a higher power, that people cannot be trusted to organize themselves in decentralized networks—that demands a concentration of power and the concomitant exclusion, elitism, and repression. The scientific basis for the idea of centralization has already been undermined, in complexity theory, economics, computer science, the understanding of collective intelligence and emergent behaviors, and even in military strategy. But the Hobbesian myth of a need for a singular, centralized power to keep everything from falling apart remains necessary as long as that central power continues to exist, and thanks to its control over education and media, even those who claim to oppose it will be indoctrinated in the values that constantly regenerate it.


Quick distinction here:

Of course we (categorically, ideologically) *don't* want the class enemy to have consolidated their forces into a centralized apparatus -- namely, the state.

Obversely, a *decentralization* of our *opposition* to the capitalist mode of production should be as *undesirable* to us as the idea of decentralization would be to the employers of capitalist violence. The reason *they* use hierarchical (centralized) structures is because *they work*. The working class should not settle for anything less organized / more chaotic.





In cities where the central structure was not challenged and critiqued, it soon consolidated power, pushed out critical voices, pushed out homeless people, immigrants selling beers, or others deemed antisocial, and imploded in a spectacle of boredom as most people left rather than sitting through an umpteenth meeting in which all they could do was listen to someone else talk.

Failure, in these cases, cannot be chalked up to the usual exhaustion and burnout after the first week's excitement. The level of activity in each encampment was inversely proportionate to its level of centralization. The greater the possibility of inclusion for multiple political trajectories, multiple organizing forms and styles, and a multiplicity, rather than a unity, of proposals and initiatives, the greater and more enduring the participation. In Barcelona, this decentralization has taken on a geographical as well as a structural aspect, as people begin to join or form neighborhood assemblies, which are holding weekly meetings in a central plaza in their respective neighborhoods. These meetings end in noise demos, protests, blockades of major avenues, or other actions more dynamic than those that came out of the central assembly in Plaça Catalunya.








Yes sure A few very large scale projects might be organised at a global level. But that is not a society-wide planning. Society-wide or central planning means the totality of production is organsed from a single centre and under the aegis of a single plan. Some vast large scale project organised globally would still be concerned with only a minuscule portion of the world's total inputs and outputs and even then I suspect that such project would entail a significant degree of decentralised decisionmaking





Realistically I'd imagine that such a scale of emergent coordination would be particularly useful for things like standards -- for what fuels to use, how to supply electricity, the arrangement and construction of long-distance transportation networks, planning for forthcoming Internet services / protocols, etc. The issue of *standards*, or policy, is really central -- excuse the pun -- to politics altogether, because if things are *decentralized* enough then there *is no* politics, since there's no need for it. But politics are needed precisely to decide on policy standards so that not everyone has to provide their own fuel, generate their own electricity, drive only cars on unpaved roads, and use local bulletin-board systems (BBSes) for online information sharing.

So if we *are* to realize mass economies of scale -- so as to avoid a d.i.y.-type stasis -- then we *are* talking about things like policy, standards, politics, and society-wide / centralized planning.

[Reznov]

The real question is,

Do we have any Spanish Communists/groups actively agitating the class struggle in Spain right now?

And what can we do to provide support?

[Red_Struggle]

[QUOTE=Reznov;2139581]Do we have any Spanish Communists/groups actively agitating the class struggle in Spain right now? /QUOTE]

http://www.pceml.info/

They're not engaged in guerilla warfare or anything, but they are working to build up workers' consciousness, like any Marxist organization.

[Buitraker]

The real question is,

Do we have any Spanish Communists/groups actively agitating the class struggle in Spain right now?

They are but without any mass or people power, they are little groups

[ckaihatsu]

The scientific basis for the idea of centralization has already been undermined, in complexity theory, economics, computer science, the understanding of collective intelligence and emergent behaviors, and even in military strategy.


Referring back to post #5 I'd like to add that *this* line is *particularly* disingenuous and misleading since it brings forth as examples dynamics and systems that are all, by their nature, emergent and non-conscious, or determined from without.

The argument, then, is as meaningless as saying that animals will never give lectures because they are animals.

What we are looking for here is *conscious* *political activity* that can yield results for the world's working class based on the dynamics of its organization, however that may be constructed. While I'm a Marxist-vanguardist, I won't be so inflexible as to say that *only* a strictly regimented hierarchical workers organization is enough to defeat the bourgeoisie, but I *will* say that that's the kind of structure that the bourgeoisie *currently* uses to its immense advantage.

[Coach Trotsky]

Okay, again, are there any consistently revolutionary socialist forces intensely intervening within the Spanish mass protests who are arguing for and initiating independent mass militant workers' action to actualize their demands?

If not, where the fuck is "the Left" in Spain and what the hell are they doing? Somehow I doubt we're gonna like the answer, but we need to know the truth, and their behavior in this context says a lot about their class orientation and political health and the role they are actually playing in society.

[Tim Cornelis]

I read a 'deceleration' by the CNT, but only in Dutch (source: http://anarcho-syndicalisme.nl/wp/?p=896). It isn't much more than declaration though.