A Query

[The Grey Blur]

Have many of you Mainstream Communists read Libertarian Communist work and vice-versa?

I mean the real meat-and-potatoes stuff like Bakhunin or The Communist Manifesto

I'm thinking of someday picking up some Anarchist stuff

[PRC-UTE]

You wouldn't like Bakunin.

I'd recommend reading up on the CNT-FAI if you want to get a grasp of revolutionary class struggle anarchist praxis.

[Umoja]

I've read the Communist Manifesto, and skimmed some of Proudhon's 'What is Property?'

I figure eventually your views calicfy anyway, so it's hard not to see what you want to see in what an author writes.

[apathy maybe]

One of my first political texts to read was the Communist Manifesto. I have since not read much original Marx, but I do know sufficient to know I disagree with a lot of what he said. I have also read only a little bit of the "original" anarchists, I have tended to read more modern authors who reframe the arguments. Some of them have been original rather then just paraphrasing. In reality, you don't need to read the original texts unless you want to know exactly what the original author thought. Reading secondary texts is often easier, and you get an overview of the ideas, then you make up your own mind. (Just make sure you read sufficient to remove any bias in the secondary texts.)

[JC1]

One of my first political texts to read was the Communist Manifesto. I have since not read much original Marx, but I do know sufficient to know I disagree with a lot of what he said.

You read 80-pages of the guy's earliest, most basic shit and declare yo know enought to disagree with most of what he says ?

And you only read authors that dont challege youre beliefs or what ? Knowing you disagree is suffient enough reason to not look into new ideas ?

[apathy maybe]

You read 80-pages of the guy's earliest, most basic shit and declare yo know enought to disagree with most of what he says ?I've read secondary sources. As I said above. You don't need to read the original to find out what the persons thoughts were, especially if you read enough and varied on the theories involved. Which I have.


And you only read authors that dont challege youre beliefs or what ? Knowing you disagree is suffient enough reason to not look into new ideas ?I don't know where you got this from. I have read a lot of different political books over the years, some I agree with, some I don't. Some I even recommend, even when I don't agree with them, for example Anarchy, State and Utopia by Nozick. I disagree with it, but have read it twice now.

Reading things that don't challenge your beliefs is definitely easier, but not what I do.

[rouchambeau]

I would read about the history of anarchism rather than some ideology of an old dead white guy who had little or no experience with the workers.

[RevolverNo9]

I have since not read much original Marx, but I do know sufficient to know I disagree with a lot of what he said.

Are you sure about that? What is that you disagree with?

[The Grey Blur]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 04:13 PM
I would read about the history of anarchism rather than some ideology of an old dead white guy who had little or no experience with the workers.
Well that post was dump

Any others?

[BreadBros]

Many political texts, both "mainstream Marxist" and "libertarian Marxist" or however you would like to term are enlightening reading. However just as many seem to be completely irrelevant or useless. Too many of both kinds focus on ideological squabbles of their 'day and age' instead of anything relevant to contemporary class society in any meaningful way. Marx's 'Capital' is such a valuable texts not for the immediate political programmes that he lays forth which deal mainly with 1800s Germany, but because of the materialist way of looking at and analyzing human society and history. Marx's main method of coming to the viewpoint and conclusions that he did was by analyzing history and analyzing the contemporary economics of society in his day. In that regard while certain texts like 'Capital' are essential, I wouldn't really recommend reading re-living many of the petty squabbles of past leftist battles. Focusing more on reading about the current state of political, social, and economic affairs would be much more valuable.

[Floyce White]

"Libertarian communist," like "anarcho-communist," is a title that anarchists slap on themselves to spread the lie that "anarchism is communism." It is not. Communism is the massive worldwide workers' movement. Anarchism is a tiny, esoteric, petty-bourgeois literary movement that promotes property atomization.

[Janus]

Anarchism is a tiny, esoteric, petty-bourgeois literary movement that promotes property atomization.
Could you go into further depth on that. You seem to be describing anarcho-capitalism.

[Janus]

Moved

[BreadBros]

Originally posted by Floyce [email protected] 8 2006, 05:35 AM
Communism is the massive worldwide workers' movement. Anarchism is a tiny, esoteric, petty-bourgeois literary movement that promotes property atomization.
The problem with this statement is that you are taking what the Communist "movement" strives to be (a worldwide worker's movement) and comparing it to the current state of the Anarchist "movement" (and in that regard your comments are broadly painted and inaccurate). There is no massive Communist worldwide worker's movement...yet. At best there are scattered national Socialist movements throughout the globe. Anarchism has definitely historically been the smaller, less widespread of the two leftist ideologies, but the fact that a large % of it's theoreticians and writers have been petty-bourgeois isn't special, the exact same is true for Socialism and "Communism" historically.

[dannie]

i've read f.e. marx, trotski, lenin, as well as f.e. kropotkin, berkman, bakunin, goldman. The problem with those old dudes and dudettes is that they write so damn boring

[Floyce White]

BreadBros: "There is no massive Communist worldwide worker's movement...yet. At best there are scattered national Socialist movements throughout the globe."

The co-option of mass workers' movements can occur only because massive workers' struggles exist to be co-opted. There is also significant fightback afterwards. The communists in these struggles don't "go away" just because they fight within organizations that are co-opted, or in events that were built to support some reformist demands.

Janus: "Could you go into further depth on that?"

Besides my Antiproperty (http://www.geocities.com/antiproperty/index.html) articles on anarchism as a pro-property movement, here's what I said in a current thread on another message board (that is censored here and I cannot link to):

"'Working-class anarchists.' The whole problem is that working-class people are not identifying themselves as 'working-class people.' They're not identifying themselves as separate and distinct from the capitalist-class people in these 'anarchist' groups and movements. As long as they identify themselves as anything but the low-class poor servants that they are, they continue to be divided against each other--helpless pawns, forever incapable of creating their own solutions--because they are waiting in vain for an 'anarchist' solution.

"I don't have to ask anybody his or her opinion about what a social movement means. I ask myself 'who would accumulate property if this happened, and how?' Forget the bourgeois labels. Forget the sake-of-argument labels. Look at where we are in the labor movement, and how we got here. I didn't invent the name of the antiproperty movement any more than I invented the names of the property-nationalization movement or the property-atomization movement. It's self-defeating to call one by the name of another. It's a sign of deep illusions in the property system. To stop saying that 'anarchism is communism' is to struggle for your own understanding, and for the class consciousness of your comrades who discuss politics with you. . . .

"Hundreds of millions of now-living lower-class persons called their struggles 'communism' in recent decades. Millions of current activists do now. It would be a subjective error to define terms according to the strength of anticommunist taboo in some regions. That would be adaptation. . . .

"Lower-class people all over the world for decades have known anarchism as a virtually non-existent, esoteric, literary movement. 'Literary' as in 'read Proudhon.' 'Literary' as in Internet 'virtual anarchism.' 'Literary' as in small propaganda circles. 'Literary' as in a few articles in academic political journals. 'Literary' as in printed-T-shirt and book sales, poetry readings, and popular-music concerts.

"The thousands of lower-class, overtly-political activists in the US or Britain who call themselves 'communist' do not constitute a mass movement, and their usage does not define terms. Neither does that of the far fewer who call themselves 'anarchist.' . . .

"The state is a form of property, not the other way around. For anarchists to universally oppose any current state DOES NOT INFER that they oppose all other forms of property. As with socialists, anarchists oppose some property forms because they prefer others. This is the reason why anarchist opposition to the state is ineffectual. This is the reason why socialist opposition to private property is ineffectual.

"The lower class makes effective opposition to the upper class. Lower-class ideology is not ineffective; therefore, it is not anarchist and not socialist. These halfway oppositions to property are deliberate attempts by the upper class to co-opt the struggle of the lower class."