Questions, Progress, and News

[Philosophis Pony]

Hello! I've been gone for away but I am back, I've made quite a bit of progress politically, spiritually, and philosophically, though I still have yet to completely pinpoint my leftist ideology, though I feel most comfortable with the anarchist spectrum. I have many questions, though I'd like to say something first. I am utterly off my rocker, bonkers, crazed, loony, out of my mind, deranged, a nutty fruitcake! I probably don't know what I'm talking about! Alright, now that I have that out of the way, my first question is directed preferably toward an Individualist Anarchist.
Can you tell me more about the political philosophy of individualist anarchism and it's relation capitalism, and you specifically. Do you have any recommendations for books, about individualist anarchism?

My second question! I wanted to look into Anarcho-syndicalism, though I am having trouble finding resources, can anyone enlighten me on it, or point me to a good resource to look into, such as a book or political website.

Third question, is Collectivist anarchism frowned upon here, I was wondering because it appears to uphold the wage system from what limited info I was able to find on wikipedia.

Final question, are there any well known modern day spiritual philosophers, people trying to understand the spiritual and truth in everything?

[Caj]

individualist anarchism and it's relation capitalism, and you specifically. Do you have any recommendations for books, about individualist anarchism?

As I understand it, individualist anarchists generally believe individuals should be free from coercion and follow their own self interests.

You should check out Max Stirner's The Ego and His Own. It's considered the founding text of individualist anarchism by many. In it, he proposes that individuals sacrifice their own self interests by enslaving themselves to "spooks", ideas, concepts, and abstractions that become ends in themselves instead of means to egoistic satisfaction.

Another well known individualist anarchist is Benjamin C. Tucker. I haven't got around to reading much of him yet, so I can't really say whether or not I'd recommend him.

What you should keep in kind is that individualism and collectivism are not mutually exclusive; one can be both an individualist and a collectivist.

Kropotkin, for example, maintained that it was in the interests of the individual to form social bonds and practice mutual aid at some point during our evolutionary history. The advances made in anthropology and evolutionary biology in the last century have seemed to confirm this.

Bakunin, too, was somewhat of an individualist. Bakunin believed that the desire of the individual for freedom, the "spirit of revolt" as he termed it, could only be fulfilled in the context of society. Without society, freedom is an impossibility. He termed this the "materialist, collectivist, and realist conception of freedom".

Outside of anarchism, there were and still are many individualist collectivists. Marxists, for example, generally accept the notion that class interests correspond with the self interests of a particular member of that class. It is, therefore, in the interests of the individual proletarian to unite with his fellow proletarians and overthrow the bourgeoisie.


My second question! I wanted to look into Anarcho-syndicalism, though I am having trouble finding resources, can anyone enlighten me on it, or point me to a good resource to look into, such as a book or political website.

Anarcho-syndicalism focuses on revolutionary unions or syndicates as a means to bring about revolution. In my opinion, anarcho-syndicalism represents the (partial) re-unification of the anarchist movement with the workers' movement, which had previously been seperated after the expulsion of the anarchists from the First International and the degeneration of the movement into utopianism, idealism, and terrorism (propaganda by the deed).

The classic work on anarcho-syndicalism is Rudolf Rocker's Anarcho-Syndicalism: From Theory to Practice. It's a short work and worth a read.

Here's some Rudolf Rocker for ya': http://marxists.org/reference/archive/rocker-rudolf/misc/anarchism-anarcho-syndicalism.htm


Third question, is Collectivist anarchism frowned upon here, I was wondering because it appears to uphold the wage system from what limited info I was able to find on wikipedia.

The idea that anarcho-collectivism differs theoretically from anarcho-communism is false. Their differences are historical.

The collectivists were the anarchists in the First International. They adopted the term collectivism to distinguish thenselves from the Marxists, who were often simply referred to as communists. On the question of remuneration, the collectivists maintained that a system of "from each according to his or her ability, to each according to his or her need" would be adopted if possible, otherwise a system of remuneration would be necessary.

The anarchists began identifying themselves as communists after their expulsion from the First International and their alienation from the labor movement. Regarding remuneration, they, like the collectivists, were, for the most part, concerned with practicality. The anarchist communist Errico Malatesta, for example, maintained that remuneration would be inevitable, if only temporarily, in regions with a lack of certain essential resources.

EDIT: You said "wage system" instead of remuneration, and I just want to point out that there is a difference. Wages presuppose the process of surplus value extraction, and are, therefore, a symptom of bourgeois society. Remuneration is a broader term that includes both exploitative forms of payment (wages) and non-exploitative forms that return the full value of the worker's labor in monetary form. The latter could (and probably will, at least temporarily) be implemented in a post-revolutionary society. The former cannot, as it is an inherently bourgeois phenomenon that presupposes the existence of the capitalist mode of production itself.


Final question, are there any well known modern day spiritual philosophers, people trying to understand the spiritual and truth in everything?

Don't know; don't care.

[Philosophis Pony]

Thank you very much for responding, this info helped me very much, I look forward to reading The Ego and His Own, when I get it. An interesting note I noticed was the way Max Stirner died when I found some information on him, probably one of the less extravagant ways a person can die sadly.