Alright, I'm stuck

[JazzRemington]

For the past few months I've been reassessing my economic/social organization beliefs. Up until recently, I have been an anarchist communist, but now am drifting toward mutualism, but I am now stuck in the middle.

Basically, I believe that workers should own and operate the means of production and be entitled to do what they wish with both. I believe that it is important to work together as a class to organize in solidarity and to overthrow both the State and capitalism. I also believe that sometimes organizing into associations isn't necessary sometimes, for instance with artists and individuals who can perform a job themselves without any aid.

I don't mind people acting in their own interest, and combining with others to fullfill their interests, but I do not like it when they do so at the expense of others unjustly. I do not believe it is authoritarian to abolish authoritarianism.

It's just that I believe the only way we can work together and accomplish our goals is to organize and work together, but there are times when it probably isn't best to do this, as for the reasons I've stated above.

Does this make sense, or am I talking out of my ass?

[Bureau de Change]

My question back to you would be: Why do you feel the need to label yourself as anything? The ideas you have discussed in your above post will forever remain debated. If you want someone to work out what you believe in then that should be up to you to work it out. If you are asking which you should call yourself, then don't bother, pigeonholing yourself to a strict doctrine is not anarchism. Labels are only a shorthand so don't get hung up on being between the two, there is no black and white with these ideological strands.

[JazzRemington]

I'm not labelling myself, I'm just trying to figure out what I believe. I'm beginning to promote anarchism and I would just like to know what to tell people if they ever ask me what I would want.

But I've reached the conclusion of anarchist communism, which was my original belief.

[danny android]

Just tell People what YOU believe in. Don't go around telling people exactly what your Idealogy believes in.

[Faceless]

BELIEF in anything is counter-revolutionary. You claim you believe in anarchism, something I hear frequently, but you should keep your mind open to whether or not it is possible to create a communistic society without an intermediate dictatorship of the proletariat. I would say that I have always considered mutualism to be a petty bourgeois phenomenon. When Proudhon exclaimed that "property is theft" he failed to recognise the different forms of property which have historically existed. What he advocates is just petty bourgeois private property, simply retracting the scale of private property to a semi-feudal existance. Through the use of violence and what Marx termed "primitive accumulation" by usurers which will necessarily spring from this form of property, we will be back to corporate capitalism in no time flat, with all the violence of the industrial revolution. And the state does not endow people with private property but rather private property is the creation of the state.

[Bureau de Change]

"He failed to recognise the different forms of property"? When Proudhon said, "what is property? may I not likewise answer theft" he meant the sum of its abuses. i.e. that robbing a man of the fruits of his labour is theft. He also said property is liberty and he claimed that 'personal possessions' oppressed nobody. Because 'property' usually equates to 'means of production' I don't necessarily believe Mutualism will lead back to 'capitalism' seen in the industrial revolution. Oh and what do you mean by "BELIEF in anything is counter-revolutionary"?

[Faceless]

"He failed to recognise the different forms of property"

When Proudhon said, "what is property? may I not likewise answer theft" he meant the sum of its abuses. i.e. that robbing a man of the fruits of his labour is theft.

Indeed, however, he is reffering to a specific type of property, namely private property with a productivity of labour sufficient for an advanced commodity economy to exist. There is also collective property, there is simple artisan private property in which there is no division of labour, which Proudhon seems to advocate. However, this requires an absolute regression in the productive forces and is, as shown by the phase of primitive accumulation in all capitailst societies, a total fiction which inevitably dissolves.


He also said property is liberty and he claimed that 'personal possessions' oppressed nobody.

Certainly, and thus he called for the reduction of the means of production to the form of mere personal property. This is counter to the historical progression seen in capitalism. There was an intermediate phase, not clearly distinguishable, between feudalism and capitalism in which this has already existed. What Proudhon advocated would not entail the abolition of simple commodity exchange in any way. And simple commodity exchange has been shown to be inevitably self-destructive as a new invention etc. lends favour to an individual petty bourgeois who procedes to use usury or force (in the last instance) to appropriate his neighbour's plot. This is a progressive deterioration though, and one which leads to where we are now. It is substantiated by historical fact, it is neither an opinion nor a mere theory. The early yeomanry which developed the cotton industry managed to become a new bourgeoisie very rapidly and conquered power INSPITE of the state acting counter to their interests in the form of the feudal monarchy. As such the state is a mere tool of accumulation and control, not the cause of it.

Whilst I feel I have explained what I understand to be the core of mutualism, I must ask what it is you mean when you say, "Because 'property' usually equates to 'means of production'..." etc, with relation to the rest of your post? You mean that the means of production themselves are theft? The existence of the factory entails theft? Tha is surely nonesense, a "collectively" run factory suggests cooperation, not theft. the means of production is theft and the means of production is freedom seem meaningless, absurd concepts to me.


Oh and what do you mean by "BELIEF in anything is counter-revolutionary"?

To have a revolutionary understanding of a concept you need to ditch a belief in a political system but approach a question objectively. The truth alone is revolutionary.

[Bureau de Change]

The means of production sentence was the result of editing a post into one a quarter of the size of the original because my connection cannot handle making large posts. The two parts of that sentence do not go together and I blame that on sleep deprivation ;) - please disregard it. It was concerned with showing the difference between property and possessions, but I removed the rest of that as it wandered somewhat.
I think your comment with regards to "belief" plays with semantics. "Belief" taken to mean one's own ideas based on objective reasoning is not the same as a "belief" in a set doctrine that you use the word to mean. And as for "truth", well, lets just leave that alone. :P