HB writes on Thursday August 01 2002 @ 08:59AM PDT: [ reply | parent ] You "primitivist" slander is beneath contempt - and par for the course for you, unfortunately - and I refuse to be baited by such utter trollery. To your other point, that cities make pipes and refrigerators and such, then I can only wonder if ever you've been outside your own living room. In the first place, production does not take place within cities any longer. The only reason that it ever did, for one brief period in human existence, is because of three factors a) access to cheap labor and b) necessity of large-scale structures to produce power and c) access to distribution channels, such as rivers. A is inoperative in a non-exploitative world and hasn't even been true of Western cities for over 20 years, B has not been true for 50 years, and C is trivial within almost every corner of the globe. Almost all production that takes place today, takes place at the site of modern day cheap labor sources - in rural areas. Frankly, Andrew, I'm a bit surprised at your obvious lack of knowledge about something so basic; have you never even bothered to wander around the old sections of cities - usually called a "warehouse" district or "industrial park" or something - that used to house industry but now house only yuppies, students, and artists? Or have you never visited the rural communities of the countryside in the Anglo-European world? They're all factory towns, with the exception of those unfortunate enough to have lost their factories to some place in the global south, and they now have prisons, mostly, where they make a living incarcerating the lower class from the cities. Do you never even leave your computer scrren, for chissake? Secondly, even IF - and what a mammoth "if" that is - these items could ONLY be produced in cities - for, if they could be produced in rural communities that also were able to grow food and such, they would not be able to get people to voluntarily pay such a high price in labor and resources to get them, then the cities would be unable to extract such high prices in the first place - the resources to make the bloody things in the first place would have to come form somewhere. What about the aluminium that goes into the body of that fridge? Are you under the impression that it crawls of the bauxite and makes its way into the factory of its own bloody volition? Someone, somewhere, has to rip up his community in order to extract it. Without an armed force to force them off the place, the price of ripping up those communities, the price that they will willing take will be very much higher than it is today. Same for coal, uranium, iron, and even water. (Your reference to building a dam shows just how bizarre your notions have become. Are you under the impression that the towns ripped up when the dam is filled are going to just come along quietly without a military to force them off? Even with the military threatening to pummel them, those communities put up fights in the present day, some of them for years.) As to this bit about global trade, you have simply allowed your imagination - what with seeing primitivists and no doubts ghosties, too, everywhere you look - to run away from you. I imagine that there would be a great deal of global trade, in fact even more than there is now and in a reciprocal rather than one-sided relationship, especially the orange-for-sheep variety that you mentioned. What you forget, or else simply ignored for your own purposes, is that the production of oranges and sheep is sustainable and would, therefore, not necessitate convincing people to rape their own local environment in order to send you city raw materials. 

Andrew writes on Friday August 02 2002 @ 04:00AM PDT: [ reply | parent ] HB when you argue that cities cannot exist after the revolution you appear to be making what I would call a 'primitivist' argument. Reading your reply I see your argument is actually somewhat odder but I originally used primitivist because that seemed to be what you were arguing. Now I see you are defining cities in some manner I don't understand. To me a city is a place where a large number of people live together and engage in labour that is not about then extracting (or growing) raw materials. In Ireland this continues to be the standard location where the goods I listed are produced. I've travelled a fair bit all across Europe, North Africa and Mexico (only been to NY in the US through) and in general this is they way such goods are produced everywhere. As far as I can see you are trying to define cities as places where no production occurs and are then trying to use this definition to 'prove' that cities are non-productive. The logical error here is pretty obvious I think! I see you want to define the productive cities as 'factory towns' rather then cities. This sounds like you might be arguing that big cities are not productive. I guess places like Washington DC or New York may no longer be centres of manufacturing but visit Madrid (one of the two largest cities in Europe), or the Ruhr conurbation and you'll see plenty of production going on. I guess you don't know much about Ireland as you have taken the rather odd line of attack that I don't agree with you because I'm unaware of rural life. In fact the south remains one of the most agricultual countries of western Europe although in the last decade with the Celtic tiger far fewer people are employed in agriculture. But be assured, particularly as a teenager, I spent a lot of time in rural settings and a lot of my friends from that period were from farming families. I've driven tractors, bailed hay, fixed fences, harvested various fruit and veg and herded bullocks. In fact that is why I was so puzzled by this idea that rural workers would not want the products of a city. Not just the physical ones but also the cultural ones - I can remember us all crowding into to someones front room on a regular basis to watch 'V' on the TV back in the 80's for instance. And in a Zapatista community in Chiapas I saw the same thing where people would crowd into the one 'house' in the community with a TV to watch the Simpsons. So even LA, the most fucked up city on Earth in comparison to the wealth it contains churns out products that rular workers want. I'm quite amused by the fact that you presume I don't know about aluminium production as in the post in which this thread emerges from I posted a link to a talk on global trade. If you have followed this before assuming my ignorance you'd have discovered I actually use aluminium production myself to illustrate the problems of post-capitalist production. Check it out at t http://struggle.ws/talks/trade_mar01.html To quote from that "The production of aluminium under capitalism provides example after example for each stage of the most naked and ruthless exploitation". So I'm not arguing that such production will simply continue as before! Or indeed that Holywood would remain unchanged (or even odder that global trade would be in the form of bartering sheep for oranges, where do you get these ideas!). There are major problems that a future anarchist society will have to sort out. You appearantly want to have global trade without the production of metals or oils. How do you propose to transport goods then? Maybe in the longer term a return to wooden ships and sail would be possible but don't forget that I'm writing from a country that was covered in Oak forests until the needs of the British military and trade navies saw them felled to build ships. Also I think you continue to ignore the fact that there are over 6 billion of us on the planet. A return to agriculture that does not require large inputs of energy, metals and chemicals is not a option in the short to medium term. This is another pretty fucked up problem a post revolutionary society will face. Again because you don't even acknowledge this I assumed you were making a 'primitivist' argument. Finally your dam references also seems to be based on you not paying attention to the earlier parts of the discussion. It arose because I was using dams and the obvious opposition to them to show why formal rather then informal decision making was often required and how freedom of (dis)association wouldn't apply where one community was building a dam that would flood the land or take water away from another. Of course dams are going to be resisted but also of course they will be needed. This is yet another problem for the future. On one level this discussion is pretty irrelevant to the platform. So why does it commonly arise? In my mind this is because platformists concentrate on making a revolution in the world that exists. Its critics, as here, often seem to want to simply assume (or wish) another world into existance where different rules of geography and agriculture apply! HB writes on Friday August 02 2002 @ 07:15AM PDT: [ reply | parent ] Alas, the great lengths that some people will go to in order to justify their claim that a "large", "centralized", "formal" party ... pardon me, "organization" ... is the Way-It-Must-Be (TM). It's obvious that this conversation is not going to go anywhere, so I'm just going to clear up a few things, then let you go back to ranting against those "primitivst" ghosties you seem to be emotionally plagued by. You said: "or even odder that global trade would be in the form of bartering sheep for oranges, where do you get these ideas!)." Which is a very odd thing, indeed, to say two posts after saying this: "And apart from that those of us living off the land in Ireland would be quite happy to swap our potatoes and sheep for oranges and bananas." Just to clarify the answer to your question, M. Flood, it was YOUR idea, so, logically, I "got" it from YOU. Furthermore, you ongoing attempt to draw and either/or between centralized bureaucracy - which, take note, please, REQUIRES some form of coercion to exist - and millions of famine deaths is nothing short of pathetic. You entire argument thus far has been confined to this sort of reasoning. Either centralized military power or crushed by Britain (You really should credit Stalin when you make this argument. He was the one, after all, who worked so hard to publicize it all those years. Open-source philosophy does not mean that you shouldn't credit the source!); either centralized power or mass starvation; either centralized power or ecological disaster. Now, you can run backwards as far as you want on these things being "in the short to medium term" - which directly contradicts you previous statement that our means must be "closely linked to our ends", btw - but the fact is that anarchism cannot be construed in such a way as to legitimate the creation, propogation, or extension of centralized power in any form whatsoever. This is not equivocal, this not debatable, this is not mutable. As was said earlier, you simply must choose (and these either/or problems are actually insoluble, unlike your farcical non-sequitors): Either the local (be that person or group) are autonomous or they are not. If they are, centralized power is impossible, if they are not, anarchism is impossible. Ne'er the twain shall meet, no matter any facile attempts to de-link "decentralized" and "non-hierarchial". The one always implies the other, because without hierarchial power relations any locally autonomous entity can freely withdraw, taking themselves out of the jurisdiction of the centrality. The marginal cost of exit is then lower, so more local autonomous entities follow, sending the marginal cost lower, in a sprial that sends all centralized entities toward entropic decentralization and relatively smmoth power distributions. As you have stated repeatedly, though, you disapprove of local autonomy - in fact, you declared it impossible! - so, I am left wondering how it is that you can have "non-hierarchial" societal structure while disallowing local autonomy. Why would anyone think the two are seperable?! Your argument that the local cannot be autonomous because they share roads, rivers, and such, is as ludicrous on the resources side of the equation as the typical "law-and-order" argument is on the social side. Just as people will not run about killing each other in the absence of a State, communities will not run about destroying their own environments in the absence of a centralized power. (Perhaps you could inform us as to exactly how a State and a centralized power are different, because the distinction is not at all apparent to me.) In fact, as the experience of the Soviet Bloc demonstrated so horrificly well, a centralized power structure (in addition to creating that same mass starvation that you keep going on about) is EXACTLY the thing with the highest tendency to run roughshod over a local community while utterly decimating the environment all-round. (Speaking of which, Andrew, perhaps you should also explain to those, like myself, who have lived for many years with a region dominated by dams and their consequences, exactly why anyone would want one of the damned (no pun intended) things. I'm sure you know the litany of horrible side-effects of dams, so I'm at a loss as to what possible benefit you could see to offset these ecological disaster of having a dam, much less the calamities that occur during its construction. Also, you might explain to us what exactly happens when that majority of people who will supposedly benefit from the electricity [Know you anything about hydro-power?! For the love of Breid, why do you keep imagining that power production must be taken on in a cetralized fashion?! To paraphrase your previous words, centralizing power supply is "neither mandatory or desirable".] "have their say" and "vote" or something to kick the people off the land where the dam will be built. What happens when the local communities won't consent to being flooded out of their homes? Will you send in your police ... sorry, I mean "centralized security forces"?) What this boils down to is that you refuse to confront the underlying quandries: People are free to associate or they are not. Communities are free to associate or they are not. And, in this refusal, you are forced to introduce a ludicrous juxtaposition of the either/or problem by framing a discussion that is either centralization of power - please do remind us how it's different from a State, s'il vous plait - or calamity (starvation, military occupation, ecological disaster, blah, blah, blah). In fact, while you're explaining the difference between "centralized power" and "State", please also explain the difference - a request I made several posts earlier, but which you avoided altogether - between your "short to medium term" (at least) centralized power strategy and Leninism. So far in this thread, the only thing any of you has found to say in your defense is that "But OURS really will wither away!" I think it goes without saying, but I shall interject as a reminder, that the Leninists themselves say EXACTLY the same thing. Andrew writes on Friday August 02 2002 @ 07:42AM PDT: [ reply | parent ] Hey HB I think you have lost the plot entirely now. I can't make much of your argument above beyond that you think 1) My arguments come from Stalin! (if you check you will find Bakunin and other early anarchists also wrote quite a bit about the need to defend the revolution, you seem to haved a bit of a Stalin thing though). 2. That in some sense I am disagee with the statement that "anarchism cannot be construed in such a way as to legitimate the creation, propogation, or extension of centralized power in any form whatsoever". This I find completly odd. You argument in short seems to be 'you are stalin, nah, nah, nah' which may be amusing but is not convincing! -----------------Andrew writes on Friday August 02 2002 @ 08:36AM PDT: [ reply | parent ] Well looking over it again here are a few points I will clear up "Now, you can run backwards as far as you want on these things being "in the short to medium term" - which directly contradicts you previous statement that our means must be "closely linked to our ends" Well no - the question of how anarchists should organise is rather different from wishing that capitalism was organised in a different way then it is. In this case it is a fact there are over 6 billion people on the planet and it is a fact that they day after the revolution this 6 billion will still want to eat. We will inherit a system of agriculture and distribution from capitalism that is deeply, deeply flawed BUT we will have to use that system even as we change it so that people can continue to eat. (Or many of them will starve) This will mean in the 'short to medium term' using the equipment, chemicals and even some of the methods we have inherited. HOWEVER where you get a centralised bureaucracy out of all this I don't know - read the article I've posted the URL for twice and you will see the point I make is that the working class as a whole will need to sort out the problem. You cannot wish this problem out of existence. If you have another solution for how we can feed ourselves in the weeks, months and years it will take to transform capitalist agriculture and distribution then lets hear it. "Either the local (be that person or group) are autonomous or they are not." Does this mean its ok for me to murder someone? No because such a use of my autonomy would be an infringement of theirs. Autonomy does not mean 'the right to make any decision you like regardless of how it affects others'. It means 'the right of those affected by a decision to be the only ones who make it'. Bakunin recognised that 'Everything that lives, does so under the categorical condition of decisively interfering in the life of someone else... Freedom itself, the freedom of every man, is the ever-renewed effect of the great mass of physical. intellectual, and moral influonces to which this man is subjected by the people surrounding him and the environment in which he was born and in which he passed his whole life. To wish to escape this influence in the name of some . . . self- sufficient and absolutely egoistical freedom. is to aim toward non- being. To do away with this reciprocal influence is tantamount to death. And in demanding the freedom of the masses we do not intend to do away with natural influences to which man is subjected by individuals and groups. All we want is to do away with is factitious. legitimized influences. to do away with the privileges in exerting influence." In short the problem here is you do not understand what autonomy means and so interpret as some sort of absolute right to do your own thing regardless of the consequences. This is neither desirable nor indeed possible. "communities will not run about destroying their own environments in the absence of a centralized power". Well of course I agree with this statement, but it's irrelevant to what is under discussion. I was arguing that communites will have to deal with their neighboors because decisions they might take (to pump sewage into a stream where it flows out of their area) may effect their neighboors. In those cases they will not be 'destroying their own environment' but damaging that of a neighboor. This can and does happen. They can't simply say they are autonomous in such cases because what they do affects the neighboors. This sort of conflict happens all the time (co-incidentally I've been putting communiques online this afternoon from Zapatista communites that deal with just such conflicts, see http://struggle.ws/mexico/  ezln/2002/amc/peMAY.html for one example). On a minor level if you share a living space with people then you need to reach agreement about doing the washing up. Telling them you are autonomous won't make you many friends. "while you're explaining the difference between "centralized power" and "State"" I don't have to because I have made no argument for centralised power! Again this instance on centralised power is something that is leapping out of your head rather then mine. A trival note, you were not meant to take the word 'swap' in "swap our potatoes and sheep for oranges and bananas" in a literal sense. I presumed this was so obvious at the time that it didn't need to be spelt out, I then presumed you were taking the piss when you got high and mighty about the bartering implied. But in case you remain in dougbt I favour a communist society based on mutual aid rather then any form of exchange.------------------  Andrew writes on Thursday August 01 2002 @ 07:24AM PDT: [ reply | parent ] HB please pay attention. I am NOT a NEFAC member but a member of an Irish platformist group called the Workers Solidarity Movement. We have no formal connection with NEFAC although we think they are the most positive thing in N America for some time. With that clarified you seem to have missed the bit of my post that reads "you use both decentralized and non-hierarchical so I'm going to assume you mean different things by each. To me there is no requirement that anarchism be decentralized except in the context of it being non-hierarchical". Freedom of association is rather obviously a case in point where non-hierarchical covers the requirements. If it makes you feel better to call this 'political decentralisation' then feel free to do so. My point is that in geographic terms the statement "either local communities will be free to associate with their geographic neighbors or not" is meaningless. If for instance they are part of the same city then they will almost certainly share the same road networks, sewer, water and electricity supplies. Non-association is NOT an option in that context, if one community disposes of its sewage into the water pipes supplying the other community then the 2nd is not going to take a 'we would rather not discuss this with you' as a reply to their complaints are they! On larger geographical scales the construction of a dam that would take the water supply of the community downstream is another case in point. Here again geographic reality REQUIRES association. This is of course already an issue in large areas of the world. Freedom to not associate can obviously only apply to situations where your actions are not going to affect your neighboors. As to your "centralized bureacracy", "befitting Stalin" this is something that has emerged from your head. It's not what I wrote. I can only presume you are either wrestling with your own ghosts or you have no answer to the rather obvious point that a global anarchist society will not be small. It's a historic fact that all non-capitalist societies have been economically and physically attacked by capitalism in the past - its probably a good assumption that this will also happen in the future. And in that situation expansion of the revolution on the global level is the only defence we have. The question of people who what to "voluntarily associate in some fashion ... such as a patriarchal religious community" is interesting. How would you deal with the situation where such a community was forbidding some of its members to leave for instance? A teenage women for instance who reckoned the anarchist commune next door offered her more but whom the menfolk were keeping locked up. What about if they decided to burn some women cause they reckoned she was a witch? Would you defend their right to do so or reckon maybe she also had a right to disassociation? I've nothing against people engaging in consensual S&M but the key word here is consensual and consent can be withdrawn at any point. Anyway this sort of a problem with be an equal problem for any anarchist society and is not all that relevant to the platform. Again your reference to Freedom of Speech seems to be more about you wrestling with your own ghosts then relevant to anything any NEFAC member has written here. --------------HB writes on Thursday August 01 2002 @ 07:27AM PDT: [ reply | parent ] "Voluntary association" implies the ability to leave, so your teenager is a non-sequitor. ----------------- Andrew writes on Thursday August 01 2002 @ 07:54AM PDT: [ reply | parent ] Well no, the whole point of a "patriarchal religious community" is that presumably women and young women in particular are not free to decide to leave. That is the current situation in many areas of the world, women are sometimes maimed or even murdered for attempting to flee such situations. If you asking supporting free association for a community that pretends to be a "patriarchal religious community" but in practise allows women to make such decisions then we have no disagreement, do we?" -------------- HB writes on Friday August 02 2002 @ 07:28AM PDT: [ reply | parent ] Well, no, the point of a patriarchial religious community is that while inside the community, the decisions are made by religious males. The decision of whether to voluntarily associate with the community by being there is another question altogether and can ONLY be made by individuals. The point is that even if some women voluntarily associated in this fashion (or some men in an Amazonian community), these bastards would go in and grind them "into the dirt", because they did not fit their own personal definition of How-Things-Ought-to-Be(TM). They even go so far as to say that any woman (or man) who would choose to live in such a situation must have been "brainwashed" or some other such nonsense, and so, therefore, their choice is not relevant. I can imagine few sentiments quite so authoritarian. --------------------- Andrew writes on Friday August 02 2002 @ 07:55AM PDT: [ reply | parent ] I'm sorry HB but you are simply trying to have your cake and eat it here. Lets go through this slowly 1) In the world today there are societies where women are not allowed to leave the family home without the permission of and accompanied by a male family member. 2) A post revolution patriarchial religious community could well want to operate under the same rules - for the sake of this argument lets assume they do 3) In that case the women could not CHOOSE to leave the community (because according to their rules she would require their permission to do so - it is not her choice in other words). If they reckoned she might try and escape they would lock her up or worse (and unfortunatly this happens today). 4) So the women gets a 'help me' note out to the anarchist community next door. Do they a) Rescue her and violate the religous communities rights? b) Not rescue her and so allow her right to disassociate to be violated? As I've said several times I have no problem with a community that is pretending to be a 'patriarchial religious community'. Such a community would simply allow the women to leave once she decided she no longer choose to stay there. But presuming they are not playing at being 'patriarchial' but are 'patriarchial' they would not allow her to make this choice, because she is a women and the property of her father. BTW you keep ranting about 'grinding them into the dust'. Seeing as I have never said anything of the sort I presume again this is something leaping out of your head.:::