To former anar-coms:

[Susurrus]

What caused you to change, and what are you now? How deep were you into anarchism, and for how long? Curious.

[unfriendly]

I've written extensively about the subject here.

http://wethesibyl.tumblr.com/tagged/anarchism

As for what I am now I don't know; I'm very much anti-capitalism (edit: and anti-state, at least the way states exist in the western world and similarly euroderivitive* forms elsewhere) but I haven't found an ideology that I feel like I can trust. "Anarchist" might actually still be an accurate label -- but I'd need to find anarchists who I'm actually comfortable organizing with.

*is it ok for me to say that? I'm worried about being erasive of forms of states that I'm not personally familiar with. maybe a better way to say this would be that I'm against using violence to enforce codified laws.

I was a part of anarchist scenes for something like two years, traveling around the country and participating in a variety of groups/cliques/milieus. I was pretty deep into lifestyleism and the anarcho-queer/bash back scene.

[socialistjustin]

I am not even sure I understood anarcho communism really. I was against free access communism and I kept hearing many anarcho communists going on about that so I went to syndicalism. I started reading more about parecon and had a decent understanding of that, but I then stayed away from theory for a couple of years.

This brings me to recently where I picked up a couple of old books and started reading. Now I wouldcall myself a revolutionary socialist of some kind. Do not know what specific tendency I would be really.

[Leftsolidarity]

I considered myself an anarcho-communist for about 2 years. I don't really call myself anything but I would probably fall under Marxist-Leninist with anarchist sympathies. Nothing really made me change, it was just a progression of my thought.

[HEAD ICE]

I stopped being an anarchist because I stopped believing that "hierarchy" and "authoritarianism" are inherently bad things, in fact they can be necessities. Things like "authority corrupts" is a left wing version of an appeal to human nature.

[Imposter Marxist]

It was only a brief weekly period, but I abandoned anarchism because the arguments against Leninism are fallacious or strawmen. Also, anarchists give me a head ache in real life. Trying to do political work with every 'anarchist' ive met was like pulling teeth from a dinosaur.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I couldn't be an anarchist, I can't fit in with their activism tbh. I'm not really a fan of how they organise or what they do, but I have a lot of respect for their ideology and a lot of the commitment shown by many anarchist comrades.

[unfriendly]

I think one incident in particular that really made me feel like I was pretty much done with that crap is when some college dude accused me of being an FBI informant. At the time I was involved in exactly 0 organizing activity aside from running a blog about my personality disorder, was squatting in the constant presence of 7-8 other anarchists (who were themselves more interested in intra-scene personal struggles than revolutionary activity), and incapable of leaving the house on my own for mental health reasons. Close to 3 months later and I hear the rumor's still circulating.

Think I'm about done with that.

The exchange that led to the accusation asked with him asking me to "share my experiences with police brutality" for his college study or whatever. This time last year I had an extremely traumatic three-week stay in a mens' jail to which I thought he was alluding. I had no interest in reliving that for some college child's thesis, so some white college dude calls me an informant and apparently everyone listens.

The above writing, meanwhile, everyone got defensive about.

[Nox]

FBI informant

The guy who accused you of working for the FBI has a pretty screwed up logic, why would an FBI agent be an anarchist? :confused:

As for the OP, I was an Anarcho-Communist for a while, I stopped because I believed Anarchism would never achieve world revolution.

[unfriendly]

It's a real thing that happens, especially in the pacific northwest where state intervention in similar groups is significantly more intense than what I've seen in the rest of the country.

However, I was never really based in the pacific northwest, and I have a long history with similar groups all over the US, rarely staying anywhere for more than two months.

Apparently the most powerful empire in the world has nothing better to do than send some autistic kid all over the country to spy on teenagers.

I bet they think that I write letters to the princess of capitalism at the end of every episode, detailing the lessons I learned about truth, justice, and the American way.

[EvilRedGuy]

I am not even sure I understood anarcho communism really. I was against free access communism and I kept hearing many anarcho communists going on about that so I went to syndicalism. I started reading more about parecon and had a decent understanding of that, but I then stayed away from theory for a couple of years.

This brings me to recently where I picked up a couple of old books and started reading. Now I wouldcall myself a revolutionary socialist of some kind. Do not know what specific tendency I would be really.

Go get restricted then. Please.

^He said he wasn't a revolutionary socialist. :closedeyes:

[GPDP]

I was an anarchist for about 2 years, maybe close to 3, and I got pretty deep into it. However, much of the reason I sided with anarchism instead of another tendency was because I bought into many of the strawman arguments levied against Marxism by Chomsky and Michael Albert (of Parecon fame). As I learned more about Marxism, I realized it's not an inherently authoritarian ideology or any of that crap.

Moreover, I have a problem with much of the idealism that permeates anarchism. Not all anarchists are what I would call idealists, mind you, but nevertheless I just found Marxism to be a little more coherent in that regard.

[Nox]

Go get restricted then. Please.

^He said he wasn't a revolutionary socialist. :closedeyes:

Can't you read?


Now I wouldcall myself a revolutionary socialist of some kind

[robbo203]

I am not even sure I understood anarcho communism really. I was against free access communism and I kept hearing many anarcho communists going on about that so I went to syndicalism. I started reading more about parecon and had a decent understanding of that, but I then stayed away from theory for a couple of years.

This brings me to recently where I picked up a couple of old books and started reading. Now I wouldcall myself a revolutionary socialist of some kind. Do not know what specific tendency I would be really.

Why were you against free access communism - Marx's "higher" communism. I would have thought this is what every Marxist or Anarchist ultimately subscribes to even if not in the short term. Its what its all about in the end, innit?

There are some links in the free access communism group (see below) if yoiu want to rehearse the arguments..

[eyedrop]

Keep the witch-hunt and accusations out of the learning forum.

[socialistjustin]

Why were you against free access communism - Marx's "higher" communism. I would have thought this is what every Marxist or Anarchist ultimately subscribes to even if not in the short term. Its what its all about in the end, innit?

There are some links in the free access communism group (see below) if yoiu want to rehearse the arguments..

To get to the end you need to go through the transition and I dont believe its achievable in the short term. I have read most threads on this and Syndicat often brings up the example of farmers feeding pigs bread and such. People would waste resources. Thats why I am not for it in the short term.

[syndicat]

"Anarcho-communism" is not just one thing tho. There are very great differences in behavior and attitudes towards organizing among people who call themselves "anarcho-communists". It's more relevant to consider organizations, not isolated individuals. Isolated individuals who identify with "anarchism" can have all sorts of crocked ideas and attitudes in my experience. The word is too vague to have any clear reference.

I've always been leery of anarchist-communism since i first investigated it back in the '70s, such as reading Bertrand Russell's criticisms in "Roads to Freedom" (a book he wrote during his guild socialist phase, when he was more sympathetic to the libertarian left). I belonged for two years to the North American Anarchist Communist Federation. Altho more sensible and better thought out than some anarcho-coms, it broke up due to incompatible ideas about strategy. I've since existed in another organization with anarcho-coms, but one put together on a syndicalist platform, so the problems of anarcho-communism are less likely to come to the fore. But i find that it encourages certain kinds of cultish ideas, such as the obsession with abolishing money.

[Bronco]

I've written extensively about the subject here.

http://wethesibyl.tumblr.com/tagged/anarchism

As for what I am now I don't know; I'm very much anti-capitalism (edit: and anti-state, at least the way states exist in the western world and similarly euroderivitive* forms elsewhere) but I haven't found an ideology that I feel like I can trust. "Anarchist" might actually still be an accurate label -- but I'd need to find anarchists who I'm actually comfortable organizing with.

*is it ok for me to say that? I'm worried about being erasive of forms of states that I'm not personally familiar with. maybe a better way to say this would be that I'm against using violence to enforce codified laws.

I was a part of anarchist scenes for something like two years, traveling around the country and participating in a variety of groups/cliques/milieus. I was pretty deep into lifestyleism and the anarcho-queer/bash back scene.


The majority of the anarchists in this area are white, male, abled, and come from middle and upperclass backgrounds, and while some of them are poor now they still have parents who could support them if they became ill. They don’t need the programs they want to dismantle.

Whenever we’d discuss social programs the answers were always the same. It wasn’t “their responsibility” to “take care of” disabled people, poor people, non white people, oppressed people

That sounds more like you're describing right-Libertarians or Anarcho-Capitalists than An-Coms

[robbo203]

To get to the end you need to go through the transition and I dont believe its achievable in the short term. I have read most threads on this and Syndicat often brings up the example of farmers feeding pigs bread and such. People would waste resources. Thats why I am not for it in the short term.

I am curious about this term, "transition". Its the usual excuse offered for not going directly towards a communist society and settling for something rather less. Traditionally it has meant a period of adjustment following the capture of power by a movement ostensibly motivated by the desire to establish communism in the long run. Generally speaking such an approach has always led to an accommodation with existing capitalist reality and the gradual abandonment of communism as a goal. In short the transformation of the movement into a more or less overtly capitalist movement

But there is another way of looking at this question and this is to say that we are in the transition right now. To say that we need to go through this transition is correct in the sense that peoples' outlook and values have to change before you can have communism - it cannot be imposed from above by a small minority. But that is not quite the same as saying you are not for it in the short term. If you or people generally are not in interested in promoting communism in the short term you/they might just as well say you/they are not interested in communism, full stop. Because it is only by advocating communism here and now that we stand any chance of achieving it - either in the short term or the long term

[Susurrus]

strawman arguments levied against Marxism by Chomsky

Where have you seen this, what I've read of Chomsky is Marxist(libertarian marxist, but still marxist)?.

[GPDP]

Where have you seen this, what I've read of Chomsky is Marxist(libertarian marxist, but still marxist)?.

First off, Chomsky considers himself an anarchist, not a Marxist. Secondly, he has talked about how Bakunin was right in prophesying that Marxism would lead to the kind of society that the Soviet Union became (an authoritarian dictatorship). While one can make the argument that Leninism may indeed lead there, he never seems to acknowledge the role that material conditions and imperialism played in the SU's development, nor do I recount (but I am welcome to be corrected) him laying the blame at Leninism specifically, but at Marxism more generally.

[Susurrus]

nor do I recount (but I am welcome to be corrected) him laying the blame at Leninism specifically, but at Marxism more generally.

yQsceZ9skQI

[unfriendly]

That sounds more like you're describing right-Libertarians or Anarcho-Capitalists than An-Coms

That post isn't mine, it's one I'm replying to. If it has a grey bar to the left of it it's not my comment, it's something someone else said. I'm sorry, Tumblr's layout is pretty hard to read but anything where I talk to cloveflowers, transsupremacy, or kavitiya is the important parts, along with any solo rants; the stuff with terroristfag (ugh) is intra-queer politicking.

This is the rant that sparked most of the discussion, and reading it first might be helpful:

http://wethesibyl.tumblr.com/post/9158841604/so-uhm-im-calling-out-pretty-much-every-anarchist-in

It wasn't meant as a goodbye letter, just a call-out. Anarchists reacting defensively to it instead of circulating and discussing it hurt enough that I didn't want anything to do with the movement anymore, since it's basically a documentation of the ways I've been fucked around by them and their friends for like two years straight.

[Agent Equality]

yQsceZ9skQI

Chomsky seems to get a lot of flack from the ML camp simply because he puts the spotlight on the inconsistencies and misleading nature of Leninism and shows it as it really is.

[MarxSchmarx]

I stopped being an anarchist because I stopped believing that "hierarchy" and "authoritarianism" are inherently bad things, in fact they can be necessities. Things like "authority corrupts" is a left wing version of an appeal to human nature.

Anarchists are wrong about a lot of things. But their analysis of authoritarian systems of power isn't just that they are "inherently bad" ipso facto, but that these things operate in a manner analogous to capitalism.

Nor is the argument really that "authority" somehow "naturally" corrupts (although this addage does have quite a bit of truth to it). Again, it is quite like the observation that the accumulation of finance capital by individuals rewards greed, and so humans behave greedily. Similarly, the accumulation of authority and hierarchical power into an individual systemically rewards anti-social behavior.

Thus it is not a "leftwing version of an appeal to human nature" but rather a critique rooted in an understanding that people are shaped by their environment and that man is a species being that must operate within certain social frameworks. Consequently, anarchists have little use for social frameworks that systematically seek to reward, and ultimately elicit, an ethos that counteracts liberatory aspirations.

[Leftsolidarity]

Thread is starting to get derailed a tad. Lets try to keep tendency wars to minimum.

[EvilRedGuy]

Can't you read?

Tell him to learn to spell then. :laugh:

sorry.

[Smyg]

This thread amuses me.

[Blake's Baby]

I was an Anarchist for 20 years, and called myself an Anarchist-Communist for about 16 of them. For much of that period, I was pretty close politically to the ACF/AF. In the last 8 years or so of that period (so from about 13 years ago) I also started reading more avowedly Marxist stuff - both going back to Marxists from previous periods, and reading stuff from groups now - first the SPGB and then Left Communist groups, particularly the ICC and ICT.

The reason I don't identify myself (often) as an Anarchist(-Communist) now is that I'm politically closer to the Communist Left than to Anarchist-Communism, though I do still support and defend a lot of positions of the AF and other Anarchist groups. But fundamantally, I think the Marxist explanation of history is pretty convincing, and therefore I don't see any real reason not to consider myself a Marxist.

[Искра]

I used to be an anarcho-syndicalist. I posted alot here 2 years ago (or 1, I don't know), but some things changed my mind.

First thing was Lenin's State and Revolution. I know what was agenda of this book, but still I really like what's inside of it. Also, I read works by some incredible Marxists like Luxemburg, Dunayevskaya, Panennkoek, Gorter, Korsh etc. Also, I started to read more Marx (I'm almost finished with his selected works and I'm planning to read Capital, and after that Luxemburg's Acumulation Of Capital). So, I wasn't active here because I was reading a lot...

Main reason why I don't call myself an anarchist any more is because I agree more with Marx and Engels regarding the state and proletarian dictatorship. Of course, that dosen't mean that I agree with ML's.

As you can see I listed myself as "left communist". I did that because I think that I'm closest to that position and I have really great admiration and sympathies for left communists. Still, I have a lot to learn about all.

But in the end, there's one thing that bothers me with all these left tendencies and that is the fact that I don't believe that most of them are relevant today. I think that each era creates its own tendency (so to speak), and that the most important task is to adapt to historical conditions, but also to preserve certain ideals and aspects of ideology. For example I don't believe that in 21 century, and I'm writing from perspective of person living in post-socialist country, any kind of SERIOUS Marxist party is posible. This is era of spontanious movements, but still it's important to build a strong organisation (of course based on direct democracy and selfmanagment) which could influence those movements and offer them ideological background.

[black magick hustla]

anarchism has too many rules lol. but seriously, anarchists are too obsessed with the form organizations should take (federalism, some of them into consensus democracy, others syndicalists) which i think is a very formalistic thinking and not very useful at having a better understanding on how things work. there are a ton of anarchists anyway, i identify somewhat with some tendencies within it, like those close to the "ultraleft" (some people in AFed) and some varieties of insurrectionism, and some of the more ultraleftish elements of anarcho syndicalism (some of the IWA-AIT people) but def. i am against neoplataformism and the folks surrounding the anarkismo tendency, and a lot of the stupid neoluddite/idontlikeshampoo ppl

[Искра]

stupid neoluddite/idontlikeshampoo ppl
:laugh: Good one! :)

But, I don't think that we should identify anarchism with subcultures. It's true that a lot of postmodernist and subculture movemenets adopted anarchist views (at least they say so) and iconography, but anarchism is more than that. Anarchism is working class movement... well at least it used to be before WW2.

And yes, anarchists are obsessed with form of organisation and the biggest problem in those organisations (as in every small organisation) is personal/charismatic authority. Some people are "better with words" than others and they can sucesfully manipulate others. I'm not saying that the commies don't have such problems, but I'm saying that this is a huge problem within anarchist organisations.

Anarkismo people suck. Except Van der Walt ;)

[Susurrus]

What is anarkismo, and why do you not like platformism? The platform itself seem pretty sensible to me.

[Искра]

www.anarkismo.net

I have no problems with Platform, but with various interpretations of that document. Todays "platformists" do pretty stupid stuff, like for example, they participate in reformist unions, support national liberation struggles etc. Also, Liberty & Solidarity from UK has pretty ugly logo which is taken from the most reactionary party ever - SPD... you know those 3 stupid arrows which RASH skinheads use :D