Conversation Between Anglo-Saxon Philistine and The Feral Underclass

  1. (2/2) When Marxists talk about the political victory of the working class, I think people should be weary. What does that mean? What implication does that have? Historically this has mean the substitution of the class with a small cadre of politicians. Sure, what I'm talking about needs to happen globally, but the production of communism is an economic one, not a political one and relies upon how we relate to communism as a social relationship in our lived lives, not in the realm of bourgeois political structures.
  2. (1/2) Your argument takes on the appearance of assuming capitalism to be some physical structure; a complex that we all reside within. It's not. Capitalism is a social relationship (or a mode of production if you prefer). It's a way of managing our means of subsistence. Yes, everything happens within capitalism because that social relationship/mode of production prevails; it determines our material reality, but when that logic breaks down and a communist social relationship or modes of production are produced, that previous social relationship no longer exists -- it is negated.
  3. Sorry for replying late, I was busy with university nonsense for the last few weeks.

    The question is, what does not mean to produce the logic of communism? To me, the only possible interpretation of that is that it means producing communist relations of production. But these would necessarily be produced form within capitalism, as capitalism is currently the global mode of production. Everything happens within capitalism. Even the revolution will happen within capitalism, and the revolutionary area will have to trade on the global market. For us outside the communisation tradition, communist relations are established globally, and this alone requires the previous political victory of the proletariat.
  4. (2/2) The point being that capital is just a social relationship. If that social relationship is under attack or breaks down completely then it no longer exists. You don't need to seize the economy or the state in order to do that. Of course you need to defend yourself, but that comes through the generalisation of these measures. This is where I break with communisation theory, because I believe you need more formal organisation in which to achieve that.
  5. (1/2) Okay, I'm not being obtuse, but I don't see how the text you quoted is the same as implying "that communist relations of production can be established voluntaristically within the capitalist society." What it's saying is that looking at the struggle against capitalism as one whereby you seize power to manage the economy is to fail in understanding how capital as a social relation derives its power. You don't break down the logic of capitalism by seizing the economy and re-managing it. You break down the logic of capitalism by producing the logic of communism. You're therefore not producing communism within capitalism, you're negating capitalism by producing communism...
  6. For example, there is a text by La Banquise, Re-collecting Our Past, and I would draw your attention to page 115, the paragraph in the middle starting with "Revolutionaries have difficulty...". I would c/p the text here but that produces some very strange results.

    edit:
    The text is at https://libcom.org/files/Banquse_recollecting.pdf .
  7. "It implies that communist relations of production can be established voluntaristically within the capitalist society"

    I've never come across this view when reading communisation theory. Can you point a text where it says this, either clearly or implicitly because I genuinely don't understand what you mean?
  8. It implies that communist relations of production can be established voluntaristically within the capitalist society; of course the communisers don't claim communism can be established without generalisation of these relations, but I think it's close enough for what was never intended to be a serious, in-depth analysis.

    As for "the hip crowd", communisation theory dates back to, what, the seventies? But it seems to have become a buzzword in the last decade or so, probably because of Tikkun and their use of the term (I don't think Tikkun can be called communisers though).
  9. Oh right. What is it about communisation theory that makes you think it's "socialism in one country for the hip crowd"?
  10. Socialism in one country. The O should have been capitalised as well but ah, such is life.
Showing Visitor Messages 1 to 10 of 22
123