Reply to Critics of Anarchism Essay
Albert Replies to
Critics of His
Anarchism Essay
We have attempted to incorporate all the materials that have come our way, and to organize it in a flow more or less from origin to conclusion. Some of the critics are more substantive than others. We have not included the names of participant critics, of which there were quite a few, but we have tried to break the flow with dividers (===) where the critic raising points changes.
If anyone has any additional materials that were missed in our efforts to gather them -- please send to sysop@zmag.org
The material is arranged, as best we could, in order of appearance, oldest first to appear) at the top. Newest at the bottom...
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Critic: Fucking moron. I'll write a critique when I get a chance, unless someone else beats me to it. What rock has he been living under?
Albert: Looking up, I can never remember seeing the underside of a rock...other than in some demonstrations, at rare moments, when friendly fire happened to accidentally get over my head, that is -- so I can't be the one to answer, I am afraid...
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Critic: This actually read like parody, didn't it? With his "good anarchism" and "not so good anarchism," the envy that his side wasn't getting the most media attention, and all the rest.
Albert: I think you missed the point of the comment about "attention" -- which was that Primitivism, usually in the persona of John Zerzan, is given attention by the mainstream as compared to other strands of anarchism whose better substance is literally ignored, precisely in the same way Stalinism's vile aspects were given attention as compared to other strands of anti-capitalist organization in the past whose better substance was ignored -- to discredit everyone with the attributes highlighted.
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Critic: In another thread, we were discussing what individuals/social theories might deserve some indepth critique. We might just have found a candidate.
Albert: I'll look forward to that...but don't you think having not yet done it, already knowing the conclusion is just a little bit off base?
Most anarchists in history call that kind of pre-judgment without evidence sectarianism...I wonder why you aren't concerned about that...
Critic: What's interesting is that while the Zmag-type libertarian socialists, like Chomsky and Cockburn, have criticized us in the past, they really haven't gone out of their way to do so. This initiative by Albert might mark something of a turning point in that regard.
Albert: By the by, Chomsky is an anarchist and Cockburn is probably more aptly described as leninist, though arguably with libertarian inclinations.
As to a turning point, I doubt it. I think I am probably one of the very very few people who isn't within primitivism who would be willing to interact with primitivists on matters of substance, at least to a point, given your dismissive style of interactions and the general content level they involve. And I am not sure how long my own willingness will persist. Life is short, after all, and as you know, there are many priorities for our time...
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Critic: It is quite a gagfest, Albert claims anarchism is not popular because of those bad anti-tech, anti-org. anarchists.
Albert: Actually, I claimed that those themes are both wrong and counterproductive -- and noted other themes that are far more promising ...
Critic: So according to him if we all became liberals we'd be much more popular.
Albert: It would be interesting to see which words of mine convey this message to you, or whether it is simply a canned response referring to none of my words at all. Certainly the word liberal is never used in the essay...so I wonder what it is in the essay that you take to be advocating liberalism...
Critic: He has the same old tired knee-jerk responses to primitivism and a smug know-it-all persona.
Albert: What makes something knee jerk is that it is undertaken reflexively, without regard to its applicability, without evidence, argument, and so on...usually to defend a persona, to defend an identity, rather than in serious pursuit of knowledge. I don't think it is my essay that has that character. As to being know it all -- I can't comment. But I will say that I do I think I know some things -- yes, I am guilty of that.
Critic: Albert says anarchism is against illegitamite authority but he favors reformism, work and technology.
Albert: Looking at the essay would reveal that in fact I explicitly reject reformism -- but not all reforms. I wonder, during the Gulf War did you oppose it? If the
Moving on...work is part of the expression of human capacity...and, as well, is a precondition for consuming human products. You may think disavowing it is constructive. and starving or living short brutish lives is desirable. I instead think conceiving how to carry work out in non-authoritarian ways that not only meet material needs and expand options, but also further values we hold dear, is a better mindset. You might want to go back and read, say, Kropotkin on the subject, and then decide who you think is more in accord with the heritage of anarchism, on these matters.
As to technology -- you oppose it all. I oppose the conditions that make much technology a vehicle of oppression, while seeing clear to understand that, again, technology itself (as work itself, or reforms themselves) is not the problem.
But mostly, notice that you address not a single argument that is raised in the essay. You simply repeat your position -- sort of -- as if in pronouncing disagreement a case is made. You use the word knee-jerk, earlier...this is an example of it...I am afraid.
Critic: Obviously he feels these are legitimate. Fuck him and his lame liberal magazine. I remember a couple of years ago when Z almost went out of buisness, I was thrilled, but then it appeared again, thanking all the "big donors" who kept it afloat.
Albert: Your take on the world is interesting...if among the most sectarian I have encountered in many years...but is not going to advance justice, I fear. But, for accuracy which you don't seem to care about -- we have no "big donors."
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Critic: Just how long as Albert been an anarchist anyway?
Albert: I became politicized in 1966 -- so that would be about 35 years. From virtually day one -- this was not so common, then -- I learned from but was also highly critical of marxism and especially leninism, which were quite a bit more prominent in many respects, then. I wrote a book called What Is To Be Undone -- my first -- about thirty years ago. From the title you may garner its gist. The chapter on anarchism might even appeal to you should you be interested in "getting to know the enemy" say...
Critic: I coudn't believe a recent issue of 5th Estate which featured articles by Albert and Roxanne Dunbar, two long time Marxist bullshit artists.
Albert: I am unaware of this...I have very little in common with Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, however.
By the by, I doubt there is a Marxist in the U.S. who would claim me as one of theirs, so to speak -- since I have put forth over the years a steady critique of marxism on various grounds.
I write these words only to let you know that you are shooting from the hip -- again -- having no idea what the reality is...something you might want to think about as most often serious anarchists are admirably quite hostile to such an approach.
Critic: Post-Seattle all the leftoids have been trying to steer a moving train in their direction. Christian Parenti is another "new anarchist" and I myself have heard him say, "Stalin wasn't all bad." These people are pitiful, walking corpses of theory. Let's put them up against the wall of our much more cogent critique.
Albert: I don't know of Christian saying such a thing -- but not me. On the other hand, I have to say if these messages indicate anything about your views, I'd be hard pressed to call them cogent.
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Critic: Michael Albert is no anarchist; he never refers to himself as one, and his grasp on the fundamentals of anarcist theory is too flimsy for there to be much of a basis for serious critique, at least from that angle.
Albert: Actually, I often refer to myself as anarchist regarding the political dimensions of society, and have done so for about thirty five years... I call myself feminist, also, and intercommunalist or multi-culturalist, and regarding economics I have called myself socialist, in the past -- but now call myself pareconist.
Critic: His perspective is hostile precisely because he doesn't think that anarchism per se is a good thing.
Albert: I have to wonder whether any of you have even bothered reading the essay in question, much less anything else I have written. It says, in fact, that I think anarchism could become the central perspective of all activism in coming years, to everyone's advantage. That is hardly hostile, obviously...unless -- well, there are two ways the claim I am hostile to anarchism, could still make sense for you, I guess. (1) You didn't read the piece and this is just more reflex with no intent to convey actual reality, but only to flail. Then it makes sense, but not logical sense. (2) You feel that primitivism is anarchism, and that everything else is not...so that in being critical of primitivism, I am critical of anarchism per se -- and I am simply confused when I think I am praising anarchism because, actually, I am praising some deviant mindset. That's at least consistent, if it is your take on things. Of course, it also would mean that bakunin, kropotkin, malestesta, rocker, goldman, berkman, and so on and so forth, were also, also, hostile to anarchism, a deviant mindset, and so on.
Critic: He only appreciates the energy and enthusiasm of anarchists who are involved in struggles and campaigns in which he and his allies are involved. In that respect he is no different from liberals, social democrats, leninists, and all other species of leftist; anarchists are tolerable as long as they can be controlled. That goes for actions as well as theory.
Albert: This is the first interesting comment -- at least to me. One way to read it is Albert only appreciates what he appreciates -- which wouldn't be too instructive, obviously. More subtly, one could read it as saying Albert only appreciates what is literally in accord with what he already believes, having no capacity to trust that others could go beyond his beliefs and teach him something. That would be a very fair criticism. On the other hand, what if I am very eager for others to go beyond my beliefs -- as in when I ask anarchists to produce new vision I can learn from and support -- but don't think that a particular group is very likely to come up with much. Then the criticism would be misplaced. I guess you have to just read the piece and see for yourself if that picture is apt.
Critic: Albert wrote a shorter version of that essay for the conference last summer in LA, and I responded briefly to it in my report on that stunning event in Anarchy magazine #49 (I think). I will see if I have any of it on a disc somewhere to post here if people express any interest.
Albert: I did do a piece on request, yes...though I didn't consult it when preparing this one and honestly don't remember its content.
Critic: Albert's calls for institutionalized decisionmaking, legislation, adjudication, etc. are calls to recreate the state.
Albert: This is substance -- and we disagree. You conflate certain functions -- legislation, adjudication, etc. -- with having a state in the oppressive sense of an authoritarian agency imposing on most of the population from above. As a result, admirably wanting to get rid of such oppressive agencies, you say we also have to get rid of the functions themselves. But you provide no argument whatever to back the claim that the functions cannot be accomplished by means other than an authoritarian state -- which is my claim -- or to rebut the claim that getting rid of the functions would be calamitous, which i also claim.
Critic: As such, anarchists who know anything about anarchism will reject them out of hand.
Albert: This indicates, as earlier, that while you are an anarchist by your definition -- kropotkin, bakunin, berkman, goldman, and so on, are not....
I suppose you can choose to use the words that way...but if you do, I hope you will understand that a great many other folks will find your choice extremely odd, to be courteous about it.
Critic: If that makes Albert sad, too fucking bad. He wants anarchists to remake themselves in his image.
Albert: This is such a strange formulation...if someone proposes something one can dismiss it on these grounds whatever it may be. So, if you propose eliminating technology -- thereby suggesting that you think 90% or so of the planet's population should die and the rest live as you ordain...someone could say the above about you. Of course, it would be irrelevant -- the real issue being the substance of your proposal, not the truism that you are proposing it. Thus the real issue lurking in the above is whether anarchists developing social vision, enlarging the conceptual framework beneath their efforts to encompass all dimensions of social life, and working hard on non-reformist stuggles to improve peoples lives in the present while building means of winning systemic change in the future -- would be good. Issues you of course ignore.
Critic: Many anarchists may decide to do just that;
Albert: If you mean generate vision, enlarge focus, and struggle for the oppressed in non-reformist ways, well, as I noted, many are already doing it, and doing it very well.
Critic: we then have to wonder how strong their attachment to anarchist ideas were in the first place (but that's another subject).
Albert: Actually, I have a feeling that is the only subject for you -- a kind of identity politics, a kind of clubism, in which loyalty (measurable in some odd currency that I don't understand) is the measure of all things. Or so it seems...\\
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Critic: I suppose a point by point response to Albert may be necessary, but my god it's so tedious trying to explain to someone who's so completely clueless about the basics that he's clueless. Mikus, if you decide to give it a try, I'd be happy to read it first and give you comments before you publish it and send it to Z Mazine.
Albert: I can empathize with this feeling...
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Critic: Here is an earlier piece of yours (another critic, one of those above) that covered the antics of Michael Albert regarding the conference:
Critic: I am writing to express my considerable concern about the participation of Michael Albert in the conference. Mr Albert is a social democrat who has denounced the committed anarchists who were in
Albert: Two points made -- both ridiculous. In fact, I criticized a particular confrontationist choice in a particular context -- actually not even the confrontationist choice per se, which I advocate in some contexts. And, of course, I am not a social democrat.
Regarding that, with thirty years of writing to choose from -- probably 2.5 million words or so -- it ought to be trivially easy to actually back up claims like this. You ought to be able to quote me saying capitalism is forever and our only real option is to amelioriate its ills, for example. Perhaps you would like to try and find such a formulation to back up your claim? Even something that remotely intimates that? Of course, to be honest about it, you'd also have to look to see if anti-capitalist sentiments, analyses, demands, visions, are present. Otherwise, it is just sectarian stone throwing without substance.
But there is a more important point. Suppose you are arguing a point and it is with a social democrat. So what? You don't win the argument, or even sensibly pursue it, by saying hey, you are a social democrat, therefore you must be wrong -- any more than he would win the argument or even sensibly pursue it, by saying hey, you are an anarchist, therefore you must be wrong. That is called sectarianism, on the one hand, and is logically flawed, on the other. The point is to discuss or argue or debate substance at stake, not broader allegiance.
Critic: His invitation to speak to his enemies (anarchists) is appalling and a provocation.
Albert: That is, you found the fact that the conference invited me appalling, I guess...
Critic: I am certain that there would be disruptions at his speech, creating unnecessary internal strife at the conference; such disruptions are a distraction from the tasks at hand.
Albert: Gee, I wish I had been able to attend in person -- I believe the speech I was invited to send was merely read out at the event, instead, since I couldn't go....
Critic: At each of the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fairs, there have been speakers who have not been anarchists; we can learn from anyone. But none of the non-anarchist speakers have published denunciations of anarchists, as Albert has.
Albert: I have to wonder whether you know what the word denunciation means... Perhaps, to get us on the same page, you can quote me denouncing anarchism, please -- so I know what you are referring to, at least, since, to my knowledge, I have never done so.
Critic: He welcomes anarchists into his "movement" so long as we abandon our commitment to individual initiative, antiauthoritarian decision making, and imagination;
Albert: Similarly, perhaps you could quote me suggesting any of this...and while you are at it...why not entertain the impossible, and look to see if you can find serious discussion, by me, of what constitutes anti-authoritarian decision making and of means to accomplish it. The astounding thing is, that were you to look, I suspect you could not find anyone who has written more that bears on that topic, and in ways you would like, than myself. Perhaps not so, but if not, not by much...
The point is, you just have no idea what you are saying...no idea what my views are...
Critic: Like all authoritarians he urges unity and collaboration, but only on his terms, never on ours.
Albert: This is sort of odd too -- because the only thing it can possibly be referring to is the discussion of confrontation in demonstrations. For example, another matter would be the issue of democracy and participation and anti-authoritarianism as compared to democratic centralism and vanguard partyism in political work -- but of course, I say that the latter should simply not be part of the left, thus arguing precisely that any unity on this truly important front has to be exactly on anarchist terms. Again, you have no idea what you are talking about...
Returning to the confrontation issue -- actually, my propsal there was also that unity should come on the anarchist principles far more than any others: that is, that those involved in activities should have say over them proportionately as they are involved, reserving that same level of say for all others, of course.
Go back and look...
Critic: The phenomenon of anarchists knuckling under to such demands is old and ugly; it is precisely why anarchists have consistently been on the shit end of the stick throughout our history. I urge you as the organizers of this important anarchist event to reconsider your invitation to Albert. This is a conference for anarchists and our allies, not for those who wish we'd just go away."
Albert: I guess they ignored you, huh?
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Critic: Is Michael Albert really worried about anarchism not attracting enough allegiance among social change activists?
Albert: Yes, I am. Why do you think it is constructive to start out an exchange by implying someone is lying, I wonder?
Critic: I I don't think he's lying when he professes to be concerned about anarchism-it's just that I don't trust his motives.
Albert: No point quibbling about this. Either you think you are a better judge of my motives than I am and I am confused about them-- or that I know them and am lying about them.
Critic: Good/bad or desirable/less desirable-the negative judgement is the same. He's either trying to backtrack from his hostility, or he's hoping that no one will actually read what he in fact wrote.
Albert: Not at all. The views I am calling undesirable I think are undesirable -- rejection of technology, institutions, reforms per se. I don't see how it could be clearly. The phrase is gentle, meant to be civil. I find the rejection of these things, tout court, well, absurd, insane, outrageous, beyond comprehension -- choose your term. I think that is obvious from what I have written which makes clear the basis of the view.
Critic: His complaint is that "less desirable anarchism" is getting attention from the mainstream because they look for the most ridiculous so-called representatives. That's true. But it also sounds a bit like sour grapes-that they're not paying attention to him.
Albert: What an odd formulation, what a degrading and demeaning one.
Suppose you thought, as I suspect you do, that someone saying that it was good to expand the sway of markets was talking nonsense, and that the fact that they were highlighted in media reflected media's biases and system-supporting priorities, not a sober judgement of merit. Would it make any sense for someone to say, that sounds like sour grapes? No. It wouldn't, of course.
I honestly don't have time for this kind of thing -- if you want to address substance, okay.
Critic: Yes, I have on occasion read the magazine. Every so often there is something that stands out as incisive, but mostly it's filled with the same old leftist analysis and jargon.
Albert: Is this you -- what does this word "leftist" mean to you, I wonder, to use it as a dismissive adjective?
Critic: Ah, so we finally get a name attached to his previously anonymous brand of "less desirable" anarchism. Albert's objections are about John Zerzan, and the attention he's been getting.
Albert: No, they are about views...the one's I enunciated. Zerzan happens to be a forthright propopent of those views.
Critic: I do know John Zerzan's views; I've been in regular contact with him as an ally and comrade since 1985. While he and I don't agree on everything, I respect his critical abilities and the fact that he doesn't shy away from expanding his critiques to their (sometimes uncomfortable) conclusions. It is not my place or my desire to defend or justify John's positions regarding technology, language, numbers, and time (that's for him to do if he wants); but the issue of division of labor is an interesting one.
Albert: Okay...let's address what you wish to, sure...
Critic: Is Albert implying that he doesn't reject division of labor?
Albert: Of course I am. Are you saying you think all people should do all things -- with no differentiation? I doubt it. We'd all promptly die. Division of labor is essential to survival. What isn't essential to survival is specific divisions of labor that benefit elites and subordinate everyone else.
Critic: Or perhaps he just understands it to mean a specialization/separation of tasks, rather than how the term is used by most radicals: an integral component of alienated labor, based on the perpetuation of class society within a capitalist framework.
Albert: Well, you can use it as you like, I suppose...but Zerzan is quite a bit more encompassing. More, I actually describe in detail how to have specialization and expertise yet also work responsibilities that are not class divided or hierarchical. You might find it interesting, in fact...
Critic: Regardless of my opinions of John's critiques of technology, etc., the fact that he rejects the principle of government as well as its actual manifestations in the state means that he is in fact an anarchist. The rejection of statism as an ideology and a practice is the foundational principle of anarchism; where this foundation leads in terms of how to implement anarchy is where disputes arise in the anarchist project and between anarchists. This lack of universal dogma is part of what makes anarchism strong as an idea and relevant and open to various individuals and their ideas.
Albert: People can define terms as they wish to. With your definition he is anarchist...and I didn't say he wasn't. I said, rather that he goes off in an undesirable direction -- with others -- and that many more go in a very desirable direction.
But I think it would be far more instructive and wise to say that anarchists reject authoritarian political forms, typical government arrangments, etc. etc. This leaves quite open the questions of what other political forms are desirable, the question whose answer I think is very much on the agenda.
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Critic: Since anarchists are getting a lot of attention, Albert can't afford to ignore us either.
Albert: A strange formulation, it seems to me. First, why would you want to be ignored? Second, having written about anarchism at various times for over thirty years...what makes my doing so now such a surprise?
Critic: I'm not making up any quotes. These terms all came from his essay. "Distasteful" appears in the paragraph that begins "Problems arise." "Debilitating" appears in the paragraph that begins "And finally, regarding reforms." "Negative," "unsustainable and objectionable" appears in the paragraph that begins "It shouldn't be necessary." And "counter productive" appears there too-I left that one out by mistake. If he wants them not to be his characterizations, then he should say so-called or something. Otherwise, it looks like he's being totally dishonest.
Albert: When I read your message I went and looked at the wrong piece, and didn't see the words. My mistake. The implication in your message was that I applied these terms to anarchism -- or so it seemed to me -- and of course I knew I did not do that. I applied them, instead, to very particular viewpoints. Much as you might use critical or negative words in reference to leninist vanguard organization, say.
Critic: His assumptions about anarchists rejecting "illegitimate authority" and promoting "appropriate control" over people is the basis of his overall cluelessness.
Albert: Anarchists certainly don't accept illegitimate authority, do they? So that's not our disagreement. Presumably your concern here is that I don't reject all authority, correct? That I can conceive of lots of situations in which authority is reasonably and sensibly granted?
In contrast, do you think there is no such thing as legitimate authority? This would distinguish you from virtually every well known anarchist in history -- certainly kropotkin, goldman, malestesta, bakunin, rocker, and on and on...
But more, it would mean that you think a child's will should prevail over an adult's, by definition, in every circumstance -- no adult ever having legitimate authority over a child. It would mean that at a meeting, say, where it was voted that everyone should talk in turn, you would feel that there would be nothing wrong with you talking whenever you wished -- ignoring that authority -- and that anyone angry at you for doing so would be deluded. It would mean that in a workplace with agreed norms for how long and in what circumstances people work, etc., you would feel it would be perfectly fine for you or anyone to simply ignore the agreements and sit around and chat, or take up someone else's spot and do their work against their preference, and so on and so forth.
I doubt you believe these things. And I would in fact suggest that no one anywhere believes, in practice, that there is no legitimate authority possible other than arguably a sociopath - which I of course doubt you are. I just think you are using words without realizing their implications...or perhaps they mean something different for yourself than they mean via the dictionary, say.
Critic: Now we come to the core issue of authority and its legitimacy or illegitimacy. Like all (aspiring) leaders, Albert is very concerned about the legitimacy of his own authority.
Albert: Do you notice here how you immediately couch your comments in personal and dengrating ways? Why? There is nothing in what is written above to warrant this. There is no quotation from me that you offer to warrant it. It is simply nasty, without basis, and irrelevant.
Critic: But it's not authority "per se" to which I object; if I want to learn a skill, I will naturally find a skilled person to share her/his knowledge with me. Is this what he means by legitimate authority-the kind of skill the person with the skill has? Fine.
Albert: So if I meant only that -- which I didn't but which you indicate I might have -- then the above slur wouldn't apply. So why make it? It seems like a kind of reflex. Those who disagree with you about something must be ill-motivated. They must be aspiring leaders or dictators. It really isn't a productive way to argue...
Critic: But what anarchists object to and reject-as I said in the very next sentence-is institutionalized authority. This arises when someone with that skill uses their knowledge of it as a way to sustain and perpetuate power differentials with her/his peers.
Albert: Fine. We agree. But the key words are perpetuate power differentials. Notice, you can have authority sometimes, I other times, a group's will sometimes, and so on -- without this adverse situation pertaining. Thus...legitimate authority. I literally offered simple examples above. You ignored them. Why is that? How come I respectfully attent to your every substantive comment -- and you simply ignore most of mine?
Critic: Authority turns into power when it becomes self-perpetuating (institutionalized)-regardless of whether it is based on expertise and persuasion (what we might call legitimate authority, due to its more or less voluntary nature) or the threat (or use) of force (which hardly anyone supports).
Albert: This may or may not be something I would agree with, depending on what you mean. In a workplace, for example, suppose there is agreement that the worker's council should decide certain issues by certain methods -- say one person one vote mahority rule in some cases, consensus in others, and so on. Now it reaches a decision. Does that decision have legitimate authority binding upon you and me, even if we voted differently? If you think not, if you think you or I can do whatever we please, regardless, then we powerfully disagree. But if you think so, then we agree -- and I am left having no idea what you mean when you preclude institutionalized authority, since this authority is institutionally embodied, though legitimate.
Please answer that, very directly, as I think it will me understand what you are saying.
Critic: The issue of legitimate versus illegitimate authority doesn't interest me-the issue of power does.
Albert: If it doesn't interest you, fine -- why tear into me about it as if it is your primary interest, without even asking what I mean...and why ignore all the examples and other substance which reveals the meaning, I wonder.
Critic: Part of the anarchist analysis is that no person is both wise and ethical enough that power will not have a negative influence on her/him.
Albert: Indeed...disproportionate or inappropriate influence/power has precisely that effect. I quite agree. But no anarchist thinks people should have no power -- on the contrary, anarchists think, I think when you really explore it, people should have power in decisions in proportion as they are impacted by them. Which is not only what I believe, but what the institutions I advocate achieve.
Critic: It doesn't matter from where their authority might originate. I think that if he actually had read Pete, Em, Rick, Mike, and Rudy in any depth, he'd be able to understand the clear difference they all acknowledge between power and authority.
Albert: Why not just agree on something positive and substantive -- we all think people should have influence on decisions in proportion as they are affected by them. If you don't agree, tell me what you would prefer.
Critic: As for the child's will "prevailing," that just shows how stuck he is in authoritarian thinking. Must all relationships have one person who prevails and one who is therefore vanquished? Besides, in a battle of wills, adults usually exercise power over children rather than authority. I'm so happy that he doesn't consider me to be a sociopath; what a relief.
Albert: You keep on trying to pose things in ways that will demean. No quotes, just paraphrases and reinterpretations to demean. I wonder why.
Critic: A fundamental aspect of anarchist theory is the rejection of any and all forms of institutionalized authority, whether it derives from knowledge and expertise or raw coercion.
Albert: What about when it derives from collective agreement?
Do you think anarchist organizations have no norms, no agreed rules that people must abide. Do you think the Spanish anarchists believed anything goes? Do you think they didn't kick out laggards, fire people who didn't do their work, in fact even kill people who violated agreed norms in war time?
The anarchist point isn't that there are no norms, but that norms be socially agreed by those affected by them.
Critic: Norms are not the same as authority. Wanting no ruler (the definition of anarchy, as I get so tired of needing to repeat) is not the same as wanting no rules. No anarchist theorist ever suggested an "anything goes" way of creating or maintaining egalitarian social relations.
Albert: Quite so. You know if you bothered to actually read what I wrote in the first piece, or any subsequent piece, we might not have to debating at all.
You agree there can be rules. You presumably agree that people should not violate them but instead abide them. Thus, the rules have legitimate authority. Now where do they come from. Presumably they are agreed to by the people involved. Do you impact them? Do I? Sure. So we each have come power in that decision, as we ought to. How much? Well, different people have different views about this. I think the influence we have ought to correlate to the degree we are in turn impacted by the decision.
Critic: Anarchists don't believe that anyone can exercise "appropriate control." Anarchists believe that any control is inappropriate and illegitimate; that is why we are anarchists.
Albert: If by control you mean illegitimate authority -- then we agree but then we are having a pointless discussion since I began by rejecting illegitimate authority.
But if you mean anarchists think that at all times anything goes -- so there is no such thing as legitimate authority which constrains what you or I can do and so each person is perfectly warranted in doing whatever they desire -- that is just nonsense. Not only is it dysfunctionally impossible, but it also isn't what any anarchist I have ever heard tell of has written or argued.
Imagine you arrived at Kropotkin's house at midnight, broke in the door, and began messing up his living room doing some kind of arts and crafts you enjoy. Do you think his reaction would be, that's cool -- there is no such thing as the "institution called household" and within that institution there is no delegation of greater authority to the members than to random people arriving? It is a silly example, in some sense, but is meant to be so in order to escape presuppositions. Once it is comprehended, it seems to me, it is very easy to extrapolate to other realms from it.
I truly wonder where you arrive at these positions from...what makes you think they are a part of the anarchist heritage? Yes, the words are like the words of the heritage, but they are used blindly when asserting no authority, no institutional norms...as compared to as they are meant within the heritage.
Why didn't you answer this...I wonder.
Critic: "Assuming that societies need to fulfill adjudicative, legislative, and implementation functions." Well, these are statist assumptions, not those of most anarchists.
Albert: By statist, you mean they presuppose authoritarian agencies outside the control of and above the will of the populace they affect. Why? Why do these functions imply an institution of that character? Why can't they be accomplished, instead, by completely non-authoritarian structures which, indeed, have positive attributes?
We have a new society. Do you think that there will be no need for collective agreements? Do you believe there will be no need for norms that are widely shared and thus arrived at by some means, and abided, and if violated ways of dealing with the violations? Do you think there will be no need for implementation of plans...and that there will be no disputes that need adjudication?
When you dismiss adjudicative, legislative, and implementation functions as you do above...that is the meaning of your words. Do you really intend that meaning?
To my knowledge, no serious anarchist who is part of the past creation of what you called anarchist theory believes such things...
You think anarchism is a vast and powerful heritage that is wise and can help us to a better future. So do I. But the difference is that I have, as a result, spent years coming to grips with it...and still consider myself a student of it...rather than thinking I know all there is to know in a flash...and so can dismiss whole swaths of institutions and thought and people without even a shred of argument.
Critic: Wow, has he put words in my mouth!
Albert: Where? If I did I apologize, but I don't think I did.
Critic: Even if these functions were fulfilled by agencies within the control and subordinate to the will of "the populace" I would still object, because they are governmental functions.
Albert: See -- you reject the functions per se. You say above, earlier paragraph, that anarchists, including you, don't reject rules, only rulers. Okay, where do rules come from if not legislation. That is what the funtion is...generating rules, shared norms, etc.
As to adjudication -- what does it even mean to reject that. There will be differences. They will be resolved, one presumably hopes. That's adjudication.
As to implementation, societies will have collective priorities they agree on, and these will be carried out. Implemention, that is.
So these functions will occur in any society. That's just a given. Now the question becomes, how will they occur. You don't want to accomplish them in ways that subvert self management. Neither do I.
Critic: Anarchists reject government, whether controlled by one person or a bunch of people, regardless of whether their authority is "illegitimate" or not.
Albert: It is just rhetoric. Why can't you go behind it. Why can't you examine one step deeped. Okay, we don't want authoritarian institutions. But we do need legislation, adjudication, implementation of shared agendas. So, next step, how do accomplish these in positive ways? You act as though asking that question is some kind of sell out of anti-authoritarian desires -- yet it is precisely their elaboration to the actual level of saying something positive about how we intertwine socially.
Critic: Which anarchist theorist supported the fulfillment of these functions? Where have these functions been fulfilled in a "completely" antiauthoritarian and non-hierarchical manner-even an imaginary place where "the will of the populace" might be so completely monolithic all the time that any dissent would be impossible?
Albert: Who has accomplished production, consumption, and allocation as we desire to in a better future. You are arguing that the past necessitates the future...a type of argument anarchists historically reject passionately, and rightly.
If you want to make a case that accomplishing adjuciation, legislation, and implementation via lasting poltiical institutional structures will necessarily subvert values we hold dear -- such as self-management -- then you need to make a case that there is something about these functions, intrinsic to every conceivable way we might achieve them, that has the harmful impact. You haven't done that. In fact, you haven't tried to do that. And I would argue you can't do that, because it is false.
Critic: The "outside the control and above the will" construction makes it crystal clear that Albert thinks that states are neutral constructions: where these functions are controlled by the will of the populace, the state is good; where they are not, the state is bad.
Albert: We are back in rhetoric. Leave it aside for just a minute. Use your own words. You say society will have rules, but not rulers -- as in indivdiuals or groups who rule others. Okay, fine. Now, where do these good rules come from? How do people partake of their creation and refinement? How are they enacted, enforced, etc. These are political functions -- you say the rules will be present so, so will the functions. Now how are they done? Don't just fling out the word state as if that in itself concludes all discussion...address the substance. You mean by state an authoritarian institution. Okay, I reject it. But what, instead?
Critic: It is precisely here that the most serious difference between Albert and anarchists exists. Anarchists are against the state. All states, no matter who rules; all governments, regardless of from where their authority derives. It doesn't get any simpler.
Albert: You will pardon me, please, but it doesn't get any less substantive, unless we clarify...
Do you mean anarchists are against all political structures of any sort -- because your word government and state encompass them all?
If so, then you are saying we have no political institutions, no political structures. Fine. It's a position. But it leaves us with the question -- from where do rules come? From where do shared collective programs come? What happens when parties disagree? How are disputes, big ones, resolved? What happens when people violate the freedom of others? And so on.
Critic: These functions are not "norms"; they are functions of social control, which he implicitly accepts when he speaks of "violations." Why not just say "crime" and get it over with, so then he can speak of the fulfillment of the function of punishment, which of course must be added to his list of governmental functions.
Albert: I most certainly am happy to. In a preferred future killing someone will not be acceptable, nor robbing personal holdings, and so on and so forth. These are still crimes, to be sure. We still have the problem of dealing with them...but we want to do it very differently than now.
Critic: Agreements, norms, conflict resolution? Of course anarchists are interested in these things. Legislation and adjudication? This entails the enforcement of laws, which are created for the maintenance of the state.
Albert: Wait...
You see agreements, norms, conflict resolution -- which is adjudication are all perfectly reasonable things to be worried about -- yet above, my being worried about them allows you to say I am authoritarian. Why is this? Why is okay if carried out by you or in your words, but not okay if by me in my words?
You want to distinguish norm and law. What is the distinction? You mean one is unenforced and the other is enforced. Okay, fine, I want rules that are enforced. You can't kill. In the workplace if the workers council decides by its agreed methods that breaks are on the half hour, you can't take them on the quarter hour, and so on.
You say legislation and adjudication entail enforcement. I think that is correct. Then you say enforcement must be for the maintanence of the state. How does this follow? Why can't it be, instead, for the mainanence of the socially agreed conditions the laws or the adjudication respects?
Critic: When he speaks of legislation and adjudication and dealing with violations, he's talking about what states do, which is usually called government. I don't know what he's talking about when he says "no serious anarchist.believes such things." I came to understand how states and governments operate this way by reading Pete, Em, Rick, Mike, and Rudy.
Albert: I read em too. We disagree.
When I talk about production, consumption, and allocation, I am talking about things that corporations do -- which is usually called capitalism. But I don't say I want these things accomplished in a good economy by corporations or with capitalist divisons of labor or profit seeking. Nor do I say, since they are done miserably and inhumanely in society as we currently know it, we should say we don't want to do them at all in a better future society. The solution to bad production, bad consumption, and bad allocation isn't to have no econmy -- but to have no corporations, no capitalism...and to accomplish the functions in ways that enhance values we hold dear.
The same arguments holds for needed political functions. The solution to states and governments and courts and police as we have known and suffered them isn't to get rid of legislation, adjudication, and implementation per se -- it is to get rid of the authoritarian and otherwise oppressive ways of accomplishing these, and to find anarchist ways of doing so, instead.
Critic: How can he then demand that anarchists come up with alternative ways of performing these tasks if anarchists want to dispense with them altogether?
Albert: I didn't "demand" anything. How can you write like that...treat other people so cavalierly - forget that you are actually doing it to an ally...it wouldn't be warranted to an enemy.
But it wouldn't even make sense to suggest coming up with the indicated alternatives, you are correct, if it was intrinsically contrary to what anarchism means. But there is no such thing as dispensing with these functions I am talking about. It is as if someone were to say socialization is horrible in our society, which is true, so let's dump it per se in the society that we want, which would be ridiculous. Or it is as if someone were to say that production is horrible in our society, which is true, so let's dump that in the future, which is simple suicide.
You can't not have certain essential and human and social functions, nor is there any reason to want to not have them. The point is to accomplish needed and desirable functions in ways that are consistent with and propel values you hold dear. I hold dear self management, equity, solidarity, and diversity, among others. So I want to conceive ways of accomplishing political, community, kinship, socialization, and economic functions, for example, that propel those values while also getting needed tasks accomplished.
You seem to want to dismiss that kind of view as if you are dealing with a fool for reasons that elude me. I think you really ought to consider whether that is a productive way to communicate. You may know just a little less than you think you do and I may know just a bit more. Maybe not, but it's possible, and if it is possible, isn't it worth at least investigating?
Critic: Just because he says "there is no such thing as dispensing with these functions" doesn't make it so.
Albert: Correct. So I don't just say it, I argue it. I point out that societies need rules -- which above you agree with -- and that within societies there are disputes that need resolution -- and that within societies there will be needs and aspirations that can be best fulfilled by enacting shared collective agendas -- and then I note that generating the rules, resolving the disputes, and carrying out the shared programs are respectively called legislation, adjudication, and implementation -- as functions -- so we need them. In reply, it is you who simply repeat a position over and over -- that is, in fact, a non sequitor...that is, no government, no state.
Critic: It is his opinion, and he asserts it. But an assertion is not the same thing as a fact.
Albert: Quite so.
Critic: I believe that human societies cannot function without agreements, norms, and methods of resolving conflicts, but these things, as I envision them, are not the same as what Albert is talking about.
Albert: How do you know that? The main problem in this discussion is that we aren't having a discussion. You are writing to and with a fictitious creation, not me, or so it seems.
All I have said, in fact, is that I would like to see anarchists explain who they see these functions being fulfilled in a future desirable society. Go back and look -- I do not offer a proposed vision, myself.
Now if you think you know what I prefer -- though I am in the dark about that, in fact -- and you think you favor something quite different, fine. Tell me what you favor, then.
Critic: He and I have a difference of opinion: he wants these functions to be institutionalized and I don' t. I see the inevitable creation and maintenance of power in institutionalized structures (and the state in the ones he specifically lists), and he doesn't. So Albert isn't an anarchist-so what? But that he presumes to tell anarchists how we should alter our basic premises and foundational principles in order to fit into his social, political, and economic visions is intolerable.
Albert: Well, you need to reread. I have nowhere suggested that you diminish an iota your rejection of authoritarian structures. Our problem is the word institution. You use it with a grimace, meaning authoritarianism. I use it more broadly -- incorporating all social arrangements that last.
Now, if you honestly think we will have no lasting social arrangments that bear upon legislation, adjudication, or implementation -- okay -- but we are left with the question how these will be handled. If you answer to how they will be handled includes lasting structures, then your dismissal of me is disengenuous or confused, since you too advocate institutionalization...
So which is it?
Critic: He wants these functions to be fulfilled more positively. Like all leftists, his project is to appoint/elect/mandate better, wiser rulers. Anarchists want no rulers; that is why we are anarchists.
Albert: Did I say anything about rulers...did I mention those approaches that you list? No. You simply attribute views to me, so as to dismiss.
Wanting no rulers and wanting no legislation or adjudication, however, are not even remotely the same thing. The former we can agree on, not the latter. If you can't see why they are different, then that is where our communication gap lies.
Saying we want no rules is more or less like saying we want no exploitation, or we want no alienated labor, or perhaps we want no markets (all of which we would agree on, I imagine, or, at any rate, I would say) but saying you want no adjudication or legislation or implementation is like saying we want no production...no consumption...no allocation...which is absurd.
This "gap" is not about communication or even definitions of words (although there might be some of that going on as well); this "gap" is about how each of us prefers to promote a radically altered social reality. It is a difference of opinion rather than a difference of definition. As I said before, I don't think that anarchism means "no rules"-it means no rulers. If Albert can't live without his governmental functions, fine. He just shouldn't expect anarchists to help him create and fulfill them. It seems absurd to him because he can't imagine anyone being more radical or intelligent than himself. No problem; but his agenda is not shared by all other people interested in radical social change. He needs to get used to that idea.
Here, as elsewhere, you just have to demean and degrade. Why? I think if you read through everything above, and got to this passage, and still think you were legitimate in writing it, we are not going to make much headway.
Critic: Albert wants anarchists to be remade in his own image-that of a social democrat.
Albert: This kind of comment is so beneath your aspirations that its ridiculous, and you probably know it is. But if not, take a look through thirty years of my writing and activity and I'll bet you that you can't find anything to make a case that I am a social democrat. Not a sentence. Do you have any idea how sectarian it is (how like the behavior of Leninist sects, that is) to cast aside something that you don't think you like by identifying it with some "enemy" framework, having, however, no evidence whatsoever for making such an identification? That is what anarchists hate, or ought to, at any rate.
To be sure we are on the same page, here, a social democrat is someone who accepts capitalism as essentially permanent (that could be because they benefit from it, or it could be an honest if wrong view whether they like capitalism or not), and who wants to ameliorate the pains capitalism causes people as best he or she can. (By the by, there are social democrats -- not many, but some - who are among the most wonderful people you will ever encounter, devoted, courageous, hard working on behalf of justice. But that's another matter...)
Since I am one of the ridiculously few people in this country who not only says I am anti-capitalist but who actually puts forth a positive economic vision that is utterly different from capitalism, and since I am also one of the few people who has built and sustained organizations that avoid capitalist structure of all kinds and yet persist -- it is a very odd and uninformed thing to say me.
My point isn't to defend myself, by the way. I honestly don't feel the need. My point is to try to communicate to you just how far from truth your words are, and thus to get you to see that you are writing them not due to evidence, but in a sectarian manner that puts forth no evidence and cares not a whit at flying in the face of endless evidence.
Critic: How nice to know that I hit a raw nerve. Why do I need to read any other documents (his "endless evidence"-I bet it is endless too) to deduce the political perspective behind his essay on anarchism?
Albert: Because you have misread the essay on anarchism, because you have no idea what you are saying...
Critic: The insulting "On Trashing and
Albert: You have no idea what they are, by and large. We can test this, if you want. As but a few examples, am I for or against -- to make it simple --
- leninist organization
- vanguardism
- marxism
- leninism
- anarchism
- reforms
- reformism private ownership of productive property
- remuneration for output
- corporate divisions of labor
- division of labor
- parliamentary democracy
- peaceful protest
- civil disobedience
- destroying property as a tactic of social change
- armed insurrection
And you can add to the above list, if you wish, of course. By the way, if you choose to indicate my view on each of the above...indicate your's too, and whether we differ or agree.
Critic: His project is to have better people fulfill governmental functions "more positively."
Albert: Actually, what I requested was to see an anarchist vision for accomplishing needed poltical functions.
Critic: Because I am a radical antiauthoritarian coming out of the anarchist tradition, I don't believe that his project is possible. And I find it insulting for him as a non-anarchist to presume to tell anarchists what we "ought to hate."
Albert: What does this mean -- you find it insulting? And who are you to decree who is and who isn't anarchist -- without bothering to attend to people's views or practice as a basis for your judgement, for that matter?
Critic: I don't care what he calls himself (and he's careful not to call himself anything other than "anti-capitalist"-how useful a categorization is that?),
Albert: Nonsense.
I am feminist, I am intercommunalist, I am anti-capitalist, I am pareconist (if you will), I am green, and I am anarchist...in turn regarding kinship relations, community and cultural relations, economics (twice), ecology, and political relations.
Critic: ....but let's take a quick look at what social democracy is, rather than what Albert says it is. The "social" in social democracy means socialism, as opposed to capitalism.
Albert: Wrong. A social democrat is not a socialist...in the sense of seeking to win socialism He or she may or may not feel that socialism would be a better system. But that's neither here nor there, because he or she feels, overwhelmingly, that there is no road in any forseeable future, away from capitalism. Thus, the best course is to ameliorate its ills via social democratic programs for income redistribution, protecting the environment, and so on.
Critic: How social democrats understand capitalism and socialism is complex; there are identifiable leftist, rightist, and centrist traditions among social democrats and each of them contains a particular understanding of what capitalism is, and so what socialism will look like.
Albert: True enough...at this level you are discussing it.
Critic: Albert's characterization of social democrats accepting capitalism may be true about centrist and right wing social democrats (like the Mensheviks and Prieto and Negrin in Spain in the '30s), but it an unfair and dishonest characterization of committed anti-capitalist social democrats like Rosa Luxembourg.
Albert: By any sensible use of the label I am aware of - in the
Critic: Let's not forget that the Bolsheviks ("majority") were so called to distinguish themselves from the Mensheviks ("minority") within the Russian Social Democratic Party.
Albert: I don't have time or interest in this discussion of history -- that there have been parties that use the phrase with all sort of connotations and meanings is true. If your usage was to say I am like Luxemourg in certain respects...fine, so be it.
Critic: The "democracy" in social democracy means majority rule, as opposed to the minority rule of capitalists and their puppets.
Albert: Well...this is new to me as a dissection...
Critic: In the essay "On Trashing and
Albert: You might want to go back and look again. I was very clear, in fact, that simple democracy -- one person one vote majority rules -- was very much NOT the point. That the point, instead, was that people should impact decisions and outcomes as they are affected by them, not, instead, overreaching and dominating the wills of others, in either direction.
Critic: The main strategy of all social democrats is to get democratically elected to legislative bodies in order to pass laws that will create and protect the legal rights of workers; and they will eventually legislate socialism into existence.
Albert: This is one formulation -- yes. In my view, most times, for most of them, it isn't the truth. Rather, they presuppose continuation of existing institutions and mean only to amelioriate their problems. Your formulation is more generous -- but I think less applicable in the modern world. It isn't worth debating, though...
Critic: "Peaceful, legal" is their slogan.
Albert: Not always...imagine picket lines, etc. But even if so, this would not make the slogan intrinsically social democratic... any more than if they said they were against authority that would make being against authority intrinsically social democratic.
Critic: The innovation of Lenin and his gang was to add a minority-based coup strategy to the social democratic toolbox, just in case the legal strategy didn't work. Albert claims not to be a leninist, and I believe him. So he is anti-capitalist, a believer in democracy, and not a leninist. Then what is he? An anti-capitalist democrat? How is this not the same as being some form of social democrat?
Albert: As a noted earlier, I favor participatory self management, which is well beyond democracy in its simplest meaning. So let's see. You seem to be saying that if someone favors a desirable new society, favors overcoming all obstacles to it, opposes leninist and related methods as contrary to the aims, one is necessarly a social democrat? If so, what makes you not a social democrat, I wonder?
Critic: But anarchists are not extreme social democrats any more than we are extreme liberals or extreme leninists.
Albert: No -- and to my knowledge no one ever has assumed such. Where do you get these notions, I wonder?
Critic: Well, I got those ideas from Bakunin and Kropotkin, and more recently Bookchin and Chomsky. Bakunin's project within the International was called-without a trace of irony-the
Albert: I think a large part of our problem is that you take singular facts and extrapolate them way beyond their true meaning. I don't see the point of starting to debate Bakunin or Kropotkin's views -- better to stick to the views themselves. I happen to agree that Bookchin seems to have decided that one person one vote majority rule is some kind of overarching and fundamental principle... and that this is a serious mistake. But the main thing here is your reference to Chomsky...
Of course he is not above wanting to use the state as a tool for attempting to ameliorate the pains of capitalism, if we can, by our collective pressure, force the state to so act. Who would be against that?
Did you try to force the state to stop bombing Kosovo? Would you have tried to get it to stop bombing
Critic: Anarchism is a discrete philosophy that begins from the premise that the principle and practice of government is as pernicious as it is unnecessary.
Albert: This is rhetoric, and if you don't know what the words mean, it is useless rhetoric. It doesn't mean that there are no political functions to be carried out. It means that political functions should not be carried out by institutions that act above and against the populace. Now that includes virtually every form that has been tried heretofore, to be sure...but that fact doesn't mean we can just forget about accomplishing the functions.
Critic: One person's rhetoric is another person's definition.
Albert: Sure, and what about the rest of what I wrote...
Critic: Albert, like all leftists, doesn't share this analysis, but his disgust is tempered by his implicit acknowledgement that anarchism is more attractive than social democracy.
Albert: What disgust? You just make it up as you go along don't you, in the manner of any sectarian person, holding views as an identity, and lashing out at anything that seems contrary to those views, often even when it isn't. You have no idea what I believe. If you were to actually read anything by me that didn't affront you right off -- say the book I wrote in about 1970, the first one, titled What Is To Be Undone -- a rejection of Leninism and Marxism Leninism extolling anarchism -- you'd probably love it.
I suspect if you read most of my recent works, say on economic vision... you'd like them too, perhaps a whole lot. Try the AK Press book that just came out. Give it a chance. Write me about the substance. That would be interesting.
But this letter you have written in response to the short commentary on anarchism is a reflex...in that you respond not only, or even mostly, to what was in the article, but rather to a constructed image of me that you use in order to dismiss whatever it was that actually bothered you in the article. That is the kind of behavior that anarchists are ordinarily quite above...or ought to be, at any rate.
Critic: The disgust I mention comes from the terms he used before: "distasteful," "debilitating," "unsustainable," "objectionable," "negative," "counter productive." Am I supposed to think that these are neutral descriptive terms?
Albert: Go back and see what the terms were applied to. Not to anarchism...of course. They were applied, instead, to three very specific views -- the rejection of technology per se, the rejection of institutions per se, and the rejection of reforms per se.
Critic: I can only make judgements about what he believes based on the materials I've read, and then draw conclusions.
Albert: In all honesty, I don't think that is what you are doing. Instead, I think you have in mind a particular set of views that you think anyone critical of you will hold, in all or part -- and then when you read me and you see some critical terms, you simply conclude that I most hold all or most of those views, and you then read my words to fit them to that pattern -- utterly against what they actually say.
It makes it very hard to communicate...
Critic: As a critic, I have a hard time taking anything at face value; I want to know what assumptions lie behind a person's positions.
Albert: That sounds good, but it's false. You are giving a lot of time to this -- as am I. So if you really wanted to know anything about my views, in more depth, you could easily accomplish that.
Critic: I want to try to figure out what s/he believes based on what s/he says within a particular context. My conclusions about Albert's politics have not changed. I know he's not an anarchist; I know he's not a leninist; I know he promotes majority rule;
Albert: About the first you are right if you mean by anarchism one must be anti-technology, anti-institutions, anti-reforms -- but not if you mean one must be anti-authoritarian and subscribe broadly to the heritage of kroptkin, bakunin, goldman, and so on, re the polity and other aspects of life as well.
About Leninism you are right...but I suspect you would be quite surprised and quite like it, if you read me on the topic.
About majority rule, you are simply wrong. I know more support majority rule per se than dictatorship or consensus per se. I support, in principle, however, participatory self management which sometimes calls for majority rule, other times decisive impact even for individuals, other times consensus, and so on.
Critic: I know he's not necessarily opposed to property destruction; I know he's not necessarily opposed to leftist anarchism. I conclude therefore that he is a democratic leftist. This is descriptive, not dismissive.
Albert: Yes, this is, but other little jibs throughout are not. So be it.
Critic: I dismiss Albert's political program because it promotes the continuation of authoritarian political relationships through the mechanism of a state (regardless of what else he prefers to call it), not because I characterize his politics as social democracy.
Albert: I don't have a political program...rather I requested that anarchists provide leadership regarding the polity by putting forth a vision for a good one. It is incredible to me that that is seen as negative, rather than, as it very much is, positive.
Critic: Just because AK Press decides to publish something doesn't give it an anarchist imprimatur. Give me a break.
Albert: No doubt.
Critic: It's amazing that Albert thinks that my criticisms have nothing to do with the substance of his essay, but only "a constructed image" of him that I "use in order to dismiss whatever it was that actually bothered" me. Let me say it again: I don't care what Albert calls himself or what political position he professes to hold. I was going by what he actually said and not what I think he might have said. He promotes government and the state, and because I am opposed to government I oppose his political project.
Albert: Do me a favor, go back and find a single sentence which says I propose a government or state...there may be something like that, but I very much doubt it.
Rather, I say that I believe in any society certain functions will have to be accomplished including legislation, adjudication, and implementation (of shared program).
Two possibilities arise, broadly. This is false. Societies don't need to accomplish these functions, I am confused. If you think that, argue it. You haven't.
Second, I am right and so we need to figure out how to accomplish them.
Now, again, there are possibilities.
Critic: The only way to do it is via what you are calling government or the state -- by which you mean an authoritarian institution. If so, we are fucked, on that score. Second possibility -- which I believe -- is that these can be accomplished in ways that advance values we hold dear, rather than authoritarianism -- for example, justice, equity, diversity, solidarity, and also self management.
Albert: Preferring and believing in the latter, and certainly at least wanting to explore it -- I say I would love to see anarchist provide leadership by providing vision on this score. You find this insulting.
I can't help that.
=====================
Critic: Of course the first and therefore biggest problem (since it informs the rest of Albert's analysis) is the stupid idea that anarchists only challenge "illegitimate authority."
Albert: As to whether it is "stupid" I suppose we can differ. Of course if you were to quote the passage, it might look a little less dumb - since it indicates the kinds of things that constitute illegitimate authority, such as class relations, authoritarian political forms, kin and cultural hierarchies, violations of future generations, and so on. But let's ask what it would mean to say it is false. Surely we can agree that anarchists do at least oppose illegitimate authority. That much we must agree on. So to say it is false would mean that they oppose not only illegitimate authority - but all authority, including some, presumably, that I would call legitimate.
Well, this is not true for bakunin, berman, kropotkin, malestesta, rocker, goldman - in fact, I daresay it isn't true for any well known anarchist in history. All such anarchists I am familiar with recognize, that is, that there are situations and contexts in which authority is delegated to some subset of actors and in which others are (who did the delegating) are then expected to abide it. This could be abiding the temporary authority of a surgeon, say, in a hospital operating room, or of a sympony conductor, or of someone coordinating the acts of a group of producers for a period, and so on. Now anarchists will say - in addition, as will I - that accomplishing these temporary conditions of legitimate authority should be done in ways that don't engender lasting hierarchy and inequality and that are consistent with collective self management. And the same goes for the authority that accrues to collective decisions, which should not over time lead to some having disproportionate power over social outcomes than others, and so on. To say otherwise is to say that each actor is perfectly warranted in doing whatever he or she wants regardless of its implications for other actors - a position I can't imagine you hold, or anyone holds. So I truly do wonder what exactly you disagree with. Of course I have already asked this question in this exchange, in a few forms, a few times, with no answers forthcoming.
Critic: That's what generic social justice activists challenge; anarchists challenge--and most of us surely REJECT--any form of institutionalized authority, whether "illegitimate" or otherwise.
Albert: So if you form a movement group meant to last during a long stuggle - like the Spanish anarchists, did, say -- an institution - and you collectively decide to undertake some demonstration, say, (or as in the case of those Spanish anarchists military actions) and agree that at that demonstration (or action) no one can carry a telephone (it being a piece of technology you all reject, let's say), or no one can violate an order in the field (as in the Spanish struggles), it is okay that you decide to do so anyway? The authority being violated is not worthy and deserves, by definition, to be violated? And so the Spanish anarchists who would punish, expel, sometimes no doubt even execute those violating agreed authority in their struggles, were - what? - not anarchists?
I honestly don't know what you all are saying that you are for - but just for clarity, what I favor regarding decision making is that all actors should have decision making input proportionate to the degree that they are affected by the decisions in question. We can usefully call it participatory self management.
Critic: My knowledge of history and anarchist theory (coming from extensive reading and study)allows me to facilitate an anarchist study group from a place of knowledge. I have no authority over the group to decide what we will study, for how long, or who can participate, or any other logistical detail.
Albert: You have no such authority unless it is by agreemeent of the group, I agree. But now suppose you put up a bulletin saying you are going to spend weeks preparing a syllabus regarding kropotkin and bakunin, let's say - and you would like people to sign up, and the group will meet every Tuesday and Thursday for a couple of hours, and the condition of participating is doing the readings, relating in class to the material, and so on. So twenty folks come, all having set aside time and organized themselves to follow the outline and study the material, and so on. But one person gets up at the outset of the third of ten sessions, let's say, and says, wait a minute.I have decided that kropotkin and bakunin are boring - so from here on I am going to disrupt any discussion of them, and I am going to instead give speeches that emphasize max stirner's great works. Is this okay with you? Or is this person removed from the course? If the latter, isn't it because, in essence, he is violating legitimate authority?
Critic: Because I have the widest base of knowledge, I can ask stimulating questions. That is where my authority ends; I am not the leader of the study group. I have no influence over other anarchic activities that occur outside the study group forum. If I were to try to push my particular vision of anarchy in the study group, we'd only look at essays, books, reviews of anarchists who I agree with. In that case there would be an excercise of authority, but would it be "illegitimate" in the way Albert means it? No, because I started the study group, I took care of the logistical arrangements, and I've been in it the longest. All these things (from a perspective that is hierarchical and authoritarian) make the study group mine, and give me the authority to mold it any way I see fit.
Albert: It would be authoritarian of if you were somehow holding power over others, forcing their involvement, abrogating agreements, and so on. If not, then most likely not.
Now let's consider more general matters - let's say the operation of a workplace. If there is a hierarchy of job conditions that empowers some while subordinating others such that people are impacting the decisions that affect them disproportionately, then I would say we have a violation of self management. On the other hand, if we have no workplace, have no institution, we are going to starve and go without clothes. So not wanting a hierarchical workplace that misapportions power doesn't mean that there can never be a workplace at all, nor even that it will never occur that one person or set of person's will agree on something which others may not prefer but will have to abide. But it does mean that there is no systematic pattern of a subset imposing its will on others.
This discussion would take longer to seriously pursue then we likely have time for. Our disagreement is not about whether it is good to avoid authoritarian structure - or for that matter homogenizing, or alienating, or exploitative structure. We both say that. Our debate is whether we can have lasting social relations and ties - institutions - which achieve valuable and necessary functions, but do not violate these values and aims, instead furthering them. And the disagreement spurs another, whether we can have only illegitimate authority - which we must oppose, or, instead, can have as well legitimate authority, which we together ought to respect.
Suppose I were to ask you how education should take place in a society you would like - an anarchist society. My guess is you would begin to describe interesting and probably very desirable ways that people at different levels of knowledge, with different other responsibilities as well, could learn and convey information, among one another, etc., without imposing hierarchies of power that would rob some of dignity or their rightful influence on events. You would be describing how to set up an education institution, that is, true to anarchist values. The problem between us only arises - and I am beginning to wonder if it is largely semantics - because you say you are against institutions per se, which would preclude such a school even existing. Or you are against divisions of labor, or roles, etc. (You may not yourself say that, but Zerzan and others certainly do.) Institutions do involve structures of lasting responsibility and decision making wherein the decisions then have authority, and if there are good versions of institutions, there is such thing as legitimate authority.
Critic: Albert's proprietary presumptions about the social change movement that appeared in Seattle (see his essay, On Trashing and Movement Building) make it clear that the amount of time he's been doing this kind of stuff, and the fact that he writes about it in his magazine, makes him an authority on it.
Albert: What makes words uttered about some tactic or social relation or historical event or anything else compelling is their logic and the evidence brought to bear for them. Longevity of the utterer - or even, for that matter, other views that the utterer may have - might make one suspect that his or her words will be valuable or not, but can not make a case either way. We agree on that.
Critic: Albert certainly thinks that authority coming from a group of people using majority rule is legitimate; anarchists who understand anarchism reject majority rule (since anarchy means No Rule).
Albert: It seems you really don't care whether what you say has bearing or validity or not. Is that the case? I ask that seriously because in fact I happen to think in certain contexts majority rule, one person one vote, is a good approach - whereas in other contexts I think it is horrendous, so, your claim is false. Now I am curious how you came to make your claim. How is it that you decide you can say "albert thinks x" at all? Is it because you read things by me that you take to mean "x"? Is so, why not quote it? Or is it because you assume that anyone who you think disagrees with you must think "x" and so you can say it is the case even without bothering to look? If so, that is sectarian.
Critic: Similarly Albert doesn't like authority coming from minority rule; anarchists also reject minority rule (since anarchy means No Rule).
Albert: Actually, there are many situations in which the will of a minority, or even of an individual, should override that of greater numbers of other people. So once again, you attribute to me views I don't hold.
The norm that I think does make sense, almost always, is that people should have a say proportionate to the affect on them of what is being decided.
Critic: Again, anarchists reject all institutionalized forms of authority. That's what makes us anarchists as opposed to social democrats or liberals. I apologize for the rambling tone of this--I just woke up and I'm irritated (not a good combination for the most lucid writing).
Albert: The problem here is not lucidity, I think.
Actually, what makes an anarchist an anarchist as compared to a social democrat is overwhelmingly the belief that capitalism can be replaced with a better system - that it is not permanent so rather than merely try to amelioriate its ills while presuming its continuation (a social democrat) it is desirable to amelioriate its ills while working toward a new and superior system.
Critic: What the fuck is "appropriate control"? Anarchists don't want "appropriate control," we want total control. Here again Albert begins with an incorrect assumption about anarchism. For Albert, the needs and desires of the individual (nowhere present in his analysis) are always to be subordinated to the needs and desires of the majority.
Albert: Well let's see about this. Let's not take anarchists, let's take you. One person. What level of impact, what level of control, should you have over the activity of a group in which you are one member - it could be a team, it could be an affinity group, it could be a workplace group, it could be a family, it could be members of a neighborhood, the whole population of a city or country, or country. What appropriate control probably referred to - taking it out of context it is hard to tell - is people having a say in group decisions that is appropriate.not having too much say, not having too little say.
There are two things at work in this exchange that I am trying to address - one is substantive issues. The other is your frequently asserting what I think and systematically getting it grossly wrong. I think this latter is rather important.
Actually, as in every other instance where you have attempted to define my views and allegiances, about this point too you are wrong. In fact, most of my thinking on social matters starts precisely with the individual.and, moreover, even when it arrives at social wholes it does not, most often, advocate subordinating individuals to majorities. It does recognize, however, that as social beings we do have responsibilities that extend beyond ourselves, and that sometimes individuals or groups will find themselves having to abide larger agreements with which they may disagree.
Critic: This presents no problems to the liberal or the social democrat; they are always interested in controlling the lives of others. But for anarchsists, the tension between the individual and society is always present. Anarchists deal with this tension (some better than others), while leftists merely ignore the inconvenience. Like all leaders, Albert reserves for himself and his allies the authority--legitimate of course!--to decide what is appropriate control.
Albert: It is as if, in a discussion, you can imagine an opponent, and then just characterize whoever you are actually in fact talking with as you imagine this fictitious opponent to be, with no concern whatever for truth. That is very typical of what's called sectarianism. You, and the others who have replied to the piece I wrote, have, thus far, not addressed a single argument that appears in it. You have not quoted any of the logic offered. You have, instead, simply attributed views that aren't held. I don't know why you do this.I don't see how it can be of any value.
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Critic: Is Michael Albert really worried about anarchism > not attracting enough allegiance among social change activists?
Albert: Yes, I am. Why do you think it is constructive to start out an exchange by implying someone is lying, I wonder.
Critic: It might seem so to the uncritical reader of his ridiculous essay.
Albert: You mean it might seem so because I say it is so, and because the typical reader might actually take me at my word?
Critic: For Albert there is good anarchism and bad anarchism; the bad tendency is > the one that the media pays attention to, because its adherents make good > copy-quite the opposite of his own lackluster crowd at Z > Magazine.
Albert: Actually, I believe the terms I used were desirable and less desirable...
Do you think "making good copy in mainstream media" itself indicates being relevant, insightful, or anything else positive? If not, I don't understand the point.
As to the "lackluster crowd at Z Magazine"...well, to each their own, I guess, but it is quite a large group to dismiss in one swoop. I am curious if you even read the magazine? At any rate, it isn't that the not so desirable anarchism makes good copy. It is that writing about it as if it were anarchism per se, delegitimates the term, and thus all other anarchists. I think that's more their logic/
Zerzan is of course the main mainstream focus for this conflating of all anarchism with the type I labeled not so desirable. I am curious, do you actually know what his views are? Do you know, for example, that he not only rejects technology, and all division of labor, and thus all institutions, but even language, numbers, and time? Do you realize that that's what is put forth as being "Anarchist"?
Critic: Since anarchists are getting a lot of attention, Albert can't afford to > ignore us either.
Albert: A strange formulation, it seems to me. First, why would you want to be ignored? Second, having written about anarchism at various times for over thirty years...what makes my doing so now such a surprise?
Critic: But he uses the same sorts of hostile dismissals that come out of the > mainstream: "distasteful," "debilitating," "unsustainable," "objectionable," "negative."
Albert: Actually...not really. These are not quotes from me, and putting quotes around them doesn't make them so.
In the essay I used the phase "not as desirable" -- that was very gentle, in fact. Zerzan's brand of anarchism -- whether it is anarchism or not, seems to me to be more a pose, a kind of provocation, like an artist might make, mistaken by others as something serious.
Critic: Good anarchists, according to Albert, just lack clarity and a compelling and structured > vision for an alternative to the current organization of international > capitalism. And like all self-appointed leaders, he's only too happy to > help.
Albert: Actually, what I suggested was that the desirable strand of anarchism was concerned to develop such vision and also to broaden their conceptual framework to take in more dimensions of social life -- and that they weren't confused about institutions or technology or reforms per se...pursuing non-reformist reforms, at that...and that for these various reasons, the framework could well become central to all activism in the coming years.
Critic: His assumptions about anarchists rejecting "illegitimate authority" and > promoting "appropriate control" over people is the basis of his overall > cluelessness.
Albert: Anarchists certainly don't accept illegitimate authority, do they? So that's not our disagreement. Presumably your concern here is that I don't reject all authority, correct? That I can conceive of lots of situations in which authority is reasonably and sensibly granted?
In contrast, do you think there is no such thing as legitimate authority? This would distinguish you from virtually every well known anarchist in history -- certainly kropotkin, goldman, malestesta, bakunin, rocker, and on and on...
But more, it would mean that you think a child's will should prevail over an adult's, by definition, in every circumstance -- no adult ever having legitimate authority over a child. It would mean that at a meeting, say, where it was voted that everyone should talk in turn, you would feel that there would be nothing wrong with you talking whenever you wished -- ignoring that authority -- and that anyone angry at you for doing so would be deluded. It would mean that in a workplace with agreed norms for how long and in what circumstances people work, etc., you would feel it would be perfectly fine for you or anyone to simply ignore the agreements and sit around and chat, or take up someone else's spot and do their work against their preference, and so on and so forth.
I doubt you believe these things. And I would in fact suggest that no one anywhere believes, in practice, that there is no legitimate authority possible other than arguably a sociopath -- which I of course doubt you are. I just think you are using words without realizing their implications...or perhaps they mean something different for yourself than they mean via the dictionary, say.
Critic: A fundamental aspect of anarchist theory is the rejection > of any and all forms of institutionalized authority, whether it derives > from knowledge and expertise or raw coercion.
Albert: What about when it derives from collective agreement?
Do you think anarchist organizations have no norms, no agreed rules that people must abide. Do you think the Spanish anarchists believed anything goes? Do you think they didn't kick out laggards, fire people who didn't do their work, in fact even kill people who violated agreed norms in war time?
The anarchist point isn't that there are no norms, but that norms be socially agreed by those affected by them.
Critic: Anarchists don't believe that anyone can exercise "appropriate control." > Anarchists believe that any control is inappropriate and illegitimate; > that is why we are anarchists.
Albert: If by control you mean illegitimate authority -- then we agree but then we are having a pointless discussion since I began by rejecting illegitimate authority.
But if you mean anarchists think that at all times anything goes -- so there is no such thing as legitimate authority which constrains what you or I can do and so each person is perfectly warranted in doing whatever they desire -- that is just nonsense. Not only is it dysfunctionally impossible, but it also isn't what any anarchist I have ever heard tell of has written or argued.
Imagine you arrived at Kropotkin's house at midnight, broke in the door, and began messing up his living room doing some kind of arts and crafts you enjoy. Do you think his reaction would be, that's cool -- there is no such thing as the "institution called household" and within that institution there is no delegation of greater authority to the members than to random people arriving? It is a silly example, in some sense, but is meant to be so in order to escape presuppositions. Once it is comprehended, it seems to me, it is very easy to extrapolate to other realms from it.
I truly wonder where you arrive at these positions from...what makes you think they are a part of the anarchist heritage? Yes, the words are like the words of the heritage, but they are used blindly when asserting no authority, no institutional norms...as compared to as they are meant within the heritage.
Critic: "Assuming that societies need to fulfill adjudicative, legislative, and > implementation functions." Well, these are statist assumptions, not those > of most anarchists.
Albert: By statist, you mean they presuppose authoritarian agencies outside the control of and above the will of the populace they affect. Why? Why do these functions imply an institution of that character? Why can't they be accomplished, instead, by completely non-authoritarian structures which, indeed, have positive attributes?
We have a new society. Do you think that there will be no need for collective agreements? Do you believe there will be no need for norms that are widely shared and thus arrived at by some means, and abided, and if violated ways of dealing with the violations? Do you think there will be no need for implementation of plans...and that there will be no disputes that need adjudication?
When you dismiss adjudicative, legislative, and implementation functions as you do above...that is the meaning of your words. Do you really intend that meaning?
To my knowledge, no serious anarchist who is part of the past creation of what you called anarchist theory believes such things...
You think anarchism is a vast and powerful heritage that is wise and can help us to a better future. So do I. But the difference is that I have, as a result, spent years coming to grips with it...and still consider myself a student of it...rather than thinking I know all there is to know in a flash...and so can dismiss whole swaths of institutions and thought and people without even a shred of argument.
Critic: How can he then demand that anarchists come up with > alternative ways of performing these tasks if anarchists want to dispense > with them altogether?
Albert: I didn't "demand" anything. How can you write like that...treat other people so cavalierly -- forget that you are actually doing it to an ally...it wouldn't be warranted to an enemy.
But it wouldn't even make sense to suggest coming up with the indicated alternatives, you are correct, if it was intrinsically contrary to what anarchism means. But there is no such thing as dispensing with these functions I am talking about. It is as if someone were to say socialization is horrible in our society, which is true, so let's dump it per se in the society that we want, which would be ridiculous. Or it is as if someone were to say that production is horrible in our society, which is true, so let's dump that in the future, which is simple suicide.
You can't not have certain essential and human and social functions, nor is there any reason to want to not have them. The point is to accomplish needed and desirable functions in ways that are consistent with and propel values you hold dear. I hold dear self management, equity, solidarity, and diversity, among others. So I want to conceive ways of accomplishing political, community, kinship, socialization, and economic functions, for example, that propel those values while also getting needed tasks accomplished.
You seem to want to dismiss that kind of view as if you are dealing with a fool for reasons that elude me. I think you really ought to consider whether that is a productive way to communicate. You may know just a little less than you think you do and I may know just a bit more. Maybe not, but it's possible, and if it is possible, isn't it worth at least investigating?
Critic: Is it a rhetorical device, or is he just dense?
Albert: Neither...
Did you even try to think a little to see if there was possibly a more positive explanation?
Critic: He wants these functions to be fulfilled more positively. Like all leftists, > his project is to appoint/elect/mandate better, wiser rulers. Anarchists > want no rulers; that is why we are anarchists.
Albert: Did I say anything about rulers...did I mention those approaches that you list? No. You simply attribute views to me, so as to dismiss.
Wanting no rulers and wanting no legislation or adjudication, however, are not even remotely the same thing. The former we can agree on, not the latter. If you can't see why they are different, then that is where our communication gap lies.
Saying we want no rules is more or less like saying we want no exploitation, or we want no alienated labor, or perhaps we want no markets (all of which we would agree on, I imagine, or, at any rate, I would say) but saying you want no adjudication or legislation or implementation is like saying we want no production...no consumption...no allocation...which is absurd.
Critic: Albert wants anarchists to be remade in his own image-that of a social > democrat.
Albert: This kind of comment is so beneath your aspirations that its ridiculous, and you probably know it is. But if not, take a look through thirty years of my writing and activity and I'll bet you that you can't find anything to make a case that I am a social democrat. Not a sentence. Do you have any idea how sectarian it is (how like the behavior of Leninist sects, that is) to cast aside something that you don't think you like by identifying it with some "enemy" framework, having, however, no evidence whatsoever for making such an identification? That is what anarchists hate, or ought to, at any rate.
To be sure we are on the same page, here, a social democrat is someone who accepts capitalism as essentially permanent (that could be because they benefit from it, or it could be an honest if wrong view whether they like capitalism or not), and who wants to ameliorate the pains capitalism causes people as best he or she can. (By the by, there are social democrats -- not many, but some -- who are among the most wonderful people you will ever encounter, devoted, courageous, hard working on behalf of justice. But that's another matter...)
Since I am one of the ridiculously few people in this country who not only says I am anti-capitalist but who actually puts forth a positive economic vision that is utterly different from capitalism, and since I am also one of the few people who has built and sustained organizations that avoid capitalist structure of all kinds and yet persist -- it is a very odd and uninformed thing to say me.
My point isn't to defend myself, by the way. I honestly don't feel the need. My point is to try to communicate to you just how far from truth your words are, and thus to get you to see that you are writing them not due to evidence, but in a sectarian manner that puts forth no evidence and cares not a whit at flying in the face of endless evidence.
Critic: But anarchists are not extreme social democrats any more than > we are extreme liberals or extreme leninists.
Albert: No -- and to my knowledge no one ever has assumed such. Where do you get these notions, I wonder?
Critic: Anarchism is a discrete philosophy that begins from the premise that the > principle and practice of government is as pernicious as it is unnecessary.
Albert: This is rhetoric, and if you don't know what the words mean, it is useless rhetoric. It doesn't mean that there are no political functions to be carried out. It means that political functions should not be carried out by institutions that act above and against the populace. Now that includes virtually every form that has been tried heretofore, to be sure...but that fact doesn't mean we can just forget about accomplishing the functions.
Critic: Albert, like all leftists, doesn't share this analysis, but his > disgust is tempered by his implicit acknowledgement that anarchism is more > attractive than social democracy.
Albert: What disgust? You just make it up as you go along don't you, in the manner of any sectarian person, holding views as an identity, and lashing out at anything that seems contrary to those views, often even when it isn't. You have no idea what I believe. If you were to actually read anything by me that didn't affront you right off -- say the book I wrote in about 1970, the first one, titled What Is To Be Undone -- a rejection of Leninism and Marxism Leninism extolling anarchism -- you'd probably love it.
I suspect if you read most of my recent works, say on economic vision... you'd like them too, perhaps a whole lot. Try the AK Press book that just came out. Give it a chance. Write me about the substance. That would be interesting.
But this letter you have written in response to the short commentary on anarchism is a reflex...in that you respond not only, or even mostly, to what was in the article, but rather to a constructed image of me that you use in order to dismiss whatever it was that actually bothered you in the article. That is the kind of behavior that anarchists are ordinarily quite above...or ought to be, at any rate.
Critic: He wants good anarchists to be interested in institutionalized > structures for maintaining appropriate control through the exercise of > legitimate authority. Some anarchists may be suckered into this, but they > won't be good anarchists any more; they'll be no kind of anarchist at all.
Albert: So let's see... Do you think in an anarchist society if there is an orchestra there is no authority when a piece is being played...that in a hospital room during an operation no one is delegated legitimate authority telling others what to do...and on and on. The anarchist words are beautiful, but it is important to think about what they mean in actual situations.
Critic: Michael Albert is certainly worried, but not about anarchism becoming > less popular. His complaints about what are some of the most fundamental > principles of anarchist philosophy are based on his adherence to > authoritarian principles and their hierarchical manifestations.
Albert: Can you see that you are making claims about me, about my views, yet you offer no evidence whatsoever. You just want it to be the case, so that I will be dismissible -- because for some reason something I said rubs you wrong -- and I am not even sure, after all this, what that is given that I very much doubt, in fact, that you believe there is no situation in which authority legitimately pertains.
What if you actually looked at my writing, at the institutions I have helped build, at my practice more broadly, and you found much to your surprise that I have written extensively and harshly about Leninism, about authoritarianism, etc., and have worked endlessly creating organizations with no hierarchy in them? Then what would happen to the above dismissal?
Critic: By trying to foment a split between good anarchists and bad anarchists,
Albert: Do you really believe this? Did you think about it or just write it out in a rush? The split exists. The people I called good anarchists, and the ones I called not so desirable anarchists (being very generous to them) can't stand one another. Zerzan hates with a passion those who have the positive views I described. His dismissal of people like Bookchin and Chomsky is incredible. Those with the positive views I described reject Zerzan, and, unlike me, simply disavow him as being not an anarchist at all...
I didn't manufacture that. Rather, it's there, and I tried to shed some light on the issues -- rather than personalities -- at stake.
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Critic: Michael Albert is certainly worried, but not about anarchism becoming less popular. His complaints about what are some of the most fundamental principles of anarchist philosophy are based on his adherence to authoritarian principles and their hierarchical manifestations.
Albert: Can you see that you are making claims about me, about my views, yet you offer no evidence whatsoever. You just want it to be the case, so that I will be dismissible -- because for some reason something I said rubs you wrong -- and I am not even sure, after all this, what that is given that I very much doubt, in fact, that you believe there is no situation in which authority legitimately pertains.
What if you actually looked at my writing, at the institutions I have helped build, at my practice more broadly, and you found much to your surprise that I have written extensively and harshly about Leninism, about authoritarianism, etc., and have worked endlessly creating organizations with no hierarchy in them? Then what would happen to the above dismissal?
Critic: Well, the above dismissal might be tempered by some counter-evidence. But as he provides none, I can't help it if my opinion doesn't change.
Albert: Your statement is that I adhere to "authoritarian principles and their hierarchical manifestations." How? You say that what evidences this is that I believe certain functions -- mentioned ad infintitum -- need accomplishing. Of course I say I want to see them accomplished consistent with the principles I hold dear, which are self-management, solidarity, diveristy, and equity, among others, but that seems not to have any bearing to you.
Critic: Writing harshly about authoritarianism doesn't make one antiauthoritarian in practice-and I include myself here.
Albert: This is silly -- because a discussion between us about idea should not be about our personal practice but about the ideas.
However...you are right, of course. One can say x and do y. So one would have to look, if one was interested, which of course you haven't done.
Critic: Being consciously antiauthoritarian all the time in an environment that creates and promotes authoritarian relationships is an arduous task. Publicly denouncing authoritarianism doesn't make that conditioning suddenly disappear. Maybe he and I have a different understanding of what hierarchy means.
Albert: Maybe so...but you might be surprised and interested were you to look and learn that I avoid them like the plague, and fight against them, and construct alternatives to them, and so on -- as my practice.
Critic: By trying to foment a split between good anarchists and bad anarchists,
Albert: Do you really believe this? Did you think about it or just write it out in a rush? The split exists. The people I called good anarchists, and the ones I called not so desirable anarchists (being very generous to them) can't stand one another. Zerzan hates with a passion those who have the positive views I described. His dismissal of people like Bookchin and Chomsky is incredible. Those with the positive views I described reject Zerzan, and, unlike me, simply disavow him as being not an anarchist at all...
I didn't manufacture that. Rather, it's there, and I tried to shed some light on the issues - rather than personalities -- at stake.
Critic: Albert certainly has not manufactured the differences between and among anarchists; that's not what "foment" means. It means to promote the growth of something. There certainly are differences between various anarchist tendencies, but Albert constructed his own distinction ("desirable" and "less desirable") based on his particular non-anarchist whims.
Albert: Well, no, it was based on my particular judgements, reasoned as best I can.
But the opposition I posed is in fact far less aggressive than what exists... far far less, as you well know. I posed desirable and not so desirable anarchism -- trying to avoid polarizing even as the necessary discussion of substance was pursued. As you know, adherants of the different camps are more often prone to hurl vicious epithets at one another. So rather than forment division, I was, in point of fact, trying to deal with the substance in ways allowing actual communication. Perhaps it didn't work out that way, I don't know.
Critic: Whatever substance there might be to his polarity, it is not necessarily what anarchists have come to understand as our differences. And those differences may not be quite as wide as what Albert supposes.
Albert: Perhaps. I hope you are right. But if the responses from both sides to the other -- that is the comments of both about the other -- that I have heard in the past few weeks are any indication, I am afraid you are wrong.
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>>> Good/bad or desirable/less desirable-the negative judgement is the same.
>>Not at all. The views I am calling undesirable I think are undesirable -- rejection of technology, institutions, reforms per se. I don't see how it could be clearly. The phrase is gentle, meant to be civil. I find the rejection of these things, tout court, well, absurd, insane, outrageous, beyond comprehension -- choose your term. I think that is obvious from what I have written which makes clear the basis of the view.
> So I conclude that this is his opinion about what anarchism should look like: reasonable, responsible, sane, comprehensible… The words he originally used are terms of hostile and abusive dismissal-sectarian if you will.
I am rejecting certain very specific views -- that technology, institutions, and reforms are bad per se. I do it forcefully, because I find these views - well, what I said, now many times. That anarchism should embody reason, should take responsibility, should be sane, should be couched in a manner people can comprehend and use - yes, I plead guilty to thinking all those things.
> The "rejection of technology, institutions, reforms per se" is Albert's understanding of a wider critique of civilization.
Noi, the rejection of all that is in my view just confused wrong-headedness.
The rejection of bad technology, oppressive institutions, and reformism -- that's different. I agree with that.
> That Albert sees a rejection "per se" and "tout court" where others proffer critique is not the fault of the "undesirable" anarchists; it is the frightened defensiveness of the one who defends those things.
What are you talking about? Look at the quotations from Zerzan--but it is irrelevant. If you don't reject technology, institutions, and reforms per se -- then why are you berating me? If you don't reject them per se, and if you would say that doing so would be a mistake -- then why wouldn't that be frightened defensiveness? It wouldn't be because it would be, instead, calm expression of a view. Not a view defending all technology, or all institutions, or all reforms -- but one rejected that all are bad...
> Are certain topics out of bounds when it comes to radical analysis? Are radicals to dispense with critical thinking just because some self-appointed authority says that we can't dispense with certain things? Since when?
This is just a complete non-sequitor. You criticize my views, I don't reply with nonsense like this. I either defend the views, or perhaps you will convince me. I don't say that you are wrong to criticize and that in doing so you are self appointing yourself, etc.
Nor you should you resort to this type tactic. To express views, presumably, is something anarchism welcomes. I wonder why you don't.
I express the views I have and you don't explain why you think my view is wrong, you just dismiss it -- I don't know why...perhaps it will change below.
> With his celebration of the split that exists between "Zerzan" (I use quotes here to denote that he has fabricated some sort of faction that is reducible to John-which is of course ridiculous) and all others, he's attempting to save the decent anarchists from the undesirables.
I am celebrating a split...I am proposing that people, anarchists and others, examine and assess various beliefs. I find them wanting. I hope others will too. You seem to think there is something in that -- even just in that -- that is worthy of attack...unworthy of respect. I fail to see why.
> If my "rhetoric" about the state is meant to "conclude all discussion," then what should we call Albert's attempts to exacerbate and finalize the differences of opinion between "Zerzan" and the "desirable" anarchists?
I have no idea what this means. Finalize differences? Why don't you first name the differences --
rejection of technology, institutions, and reforms -- we won't even bother with language, numbers, etc. etc. -- per se, by zerzan and some number of other folks -- versus rejecting oppressive technology and institutions, and rejecting reformism, on the part of others.
Yes, I plead guilty to feeling one side of this debate is right and the other is wrong.
>>> Is Albert implying that he doesn't reject division of labor?
>>
Of course I am. Are you saying you think all people should do all things -- with no differentiation? I doubt it. We'd all promptly die. Division of labor is essential to survival. What isn't essential to survival is specific divisions of labor that benefit elites and subordinate everyone else.
>>> Or perhaps he just understands it to mean a specialization/separation of tasks, rather than how the term is used by most radicals: an integral component of alienated labor, based on the perpetuation of class society within a capitalist framework.
>> Well, you can use it as you like, I suppose...but Zerzan is quite a bit more encompassing. More, I actually describe in detail how to have specialization and expertise yet also work responsibilities that are not class divided or hierarchical. You might find it interesting, in fact...
> Again, I'm not just making up a definition I like because it suits me. Division of labor does not refer to specialization of tasks; it refers to a system of class- or gender- or ethnically-based social values attached to specific specialized tasks, which are used to maintain hierarchical economic, political, and social relations. It is what keeps the assembly-line worker from becoming the design engineer, what maintains the infamous 'glass ceiling,' what keeps most african-americans from becoming chemists and physicists. It is an integral and basic component of capitalism and hierarchical society.
This is simply false. These are specific divisions of labor, yes. AND, hear this, they are ones I reject. But that some people work on producing steel, others on health care, others making music -- and on and on -- even if there is no class division at all, no sexual division of labor at all, no racial division of labor at all -- and more, even if there is no fixed division that relevates some to subservience and others to positions of power over them -- is, nonetheless, a division of labor.
If you want to make a new definition and say that division of labor is a phrase covering, instead, only those social divisions that create fixed hierarchies of class, race, gender, sexual, etc. power differentials -- okay. Then we would both reject division of labor in your sense -- a totally idiosyncratic use of the term. But then we would need a new word for some people exerting on some tasks, others on other tasks, with the intention of on the one hand better expressing their particular preferences, and, on the other, better organizing their efforts to increase their output and the benefits that thereby accrue. Suppose we call that Apportionments of Labor. So now we would both, I assume, support Apportionments of Labor? Is that correct? By zerzan's rhetoric, he wouldn't.
We either had a semantic problem or not. We will only find out if you will take me at my word...even if only for the purpose of debate -- though why you should not want to is beyond me.
>>> But what anarchists object to and reject-as I said in the very next sentence-is institutionalized authority. This arises when someone with that skill uses their knowledge of it as a way to sustain and perpetuate power differentials with her/his peers.
>> Fine. We agree. But the key words are perpetuate power differentials. Notice, you can have authority sometimes, I other times, a group's will sometimes, and so on -- without this adverse situation pertaining. Thus...legitimate authority. I literally offered simple examples above. You ignored them. Why is that? How come I respectfully attend to your every substantive comment - and you simply ignore most of mine?
> Show me a self-perpetuating and permanent institution that exists without a bureaucracy, that maintains a supposed anti-hierarchical and non-authoritarian relationship to the people it's supposed to serve, and doesn't "overreach and dominate the wills of others."
I believe all the institutions in a participatory economy have this character.
You seem to think there is something intrinsic to being an institution -- that is a set of roles -- that implies oppressiveness in diverse ways...I'm hoping you will explain why, below...
>His "simple examples" were more simple-minded than exemplary; that's why I ignored them.
I don't remember what they were -- your approach doesn't warm one, though...
> Once again, he refuses to pay attention. Whether authority is legitimate or not, whether it derives from knowledge or force, it is not an appropriate basis for institutionalized social control, because anarchists refuse institutionalized authority and social control.
If this is given specific meaning, I will probably agree, but in this form only, there is no way to know.
Suppose we have a new society -- whatever else it has -- should it have a group of people who work together using various tools, etc., to put out fires in our town? Let's call it a fire department. Do we want the task of putting out fires (caring for the dreadfully sick, producing electricity, removing garbage, playing symphonies) to be done randomly, or to be done by groups of people who understand one others comittments, who fulfill their join and mutual responsibilities? I think that latter, and that means institutions. Now I also think we should impose some conditions on these institutions -- for example, that within them people have proportionate say in decisions as they are affected by them, and that, the consituencies outside them, affected by them, also have proportionate say. Other conditions too...
My contention is, in other words, that to accomplish a nearly endless list of socially nesessary and or highly desirable fucnctions we need to group together into social relationships with understandings of mutual responsibilities and comittments to them, with methods for making decisions, with people abiding them, and so on. And my contention is that this can be done, accomplishing the needed or highly desirable tasks, not only without producing bad social outcomes and oppressing those involved or others, but even furthering values we hold dear -- such as solidarity, equity, diversity, and self-management, for example. More, I think it is the responsibility of those who reject existing institutions -- corporations, trade agencies, governments, and whatever else -- to develop visions of these new forms for accomplishing needed and highly desirable functions in positive ways.
You seem to feel instead that there is something about humans in interactive relations that guarantees that if there are any lasting mutual responsibilities and ties and divisions of labor -- then it will devolve, whether it is anybody's intention or not, into oppressive relations. That's a very depressing hypothesis...that I reject.
If that isn't what you think, apologies -- and hopefully below you will clarify.
One other possibility is that you actually agree with me -- but as with the possible semantic confusion over division of labor, here too there is a semantic difficulty. It may be that you mean by institution the congealing of power and authority in some small group, or even just in processes and structures, that operate above and beyond the influence of those impacted. If that is what you mean by the term -- well, I reject that too. But it is, again, not ordinary usage. If you use the term that way...then there would have to be another term -- let's say agglomeration, or something -- for structures of people in which no such divorce of decision making influence and those impacted occurs...and then we would both support agglomerations...
> This has nothing to do with whether authority exists or not, but how it is used. If a person has authority and another person enters into a voluntary relationship with her/him (which can only obtain if there's a pre-existent egalitarian social context), then there's no need for an institutionalized framework for that relationship.
It would seem my guess above is correct. Let's take that fire dept. We need to have very clear understanding about the roles...we then go out on a call and fulfill them. We need means to make quick decisions in drastic situations, and other means, likely, for making much more deliberate decisions in other situations. To say we have an institution for this doesn't say --in any terminology I am aware of -- that we have typical corporate divisions of labor for it. It could be that. But it also could be other things...such as equally empowered actors agreeing on a shared set of mutual responsibilities...which apparently you would favor.
I think our problem is to a great extent your feeling somehow that you are under assault, when, instead, certain views, which it seems you don't in fact hold, are under assault.
> I am suspicious of those who take up so much time trying to prove that their authority is legitimate.
But notice, no one is going that. You are not just suspicious, but you see certain things almost as a kind of reflex, even when nothing like it is occuring.
Why would someone saying I don't reject all institutions translate into defending "their authority"?
> Albert's personal authority derives from his long history of activism and his editorship of Z Magazine and his control of the ZNet website. He has it, and he uses it.
I do have great say over ZNet and some over Z Magazine -- though I barely work on that or impact its choice anymore, in fact. The former rests on my doing nearly all the work...
> In this case, he's using it to try to further a conflict that already exists among anarchists concerning issues of technology and reformism. He has nobody to blame but himself if I (and others) object to this provocative intrusion.
Why intrusion? This is amazing...coming from an anarchist. How can it be intrusive that someone takes an interest in serious political issues? And why is it "trying to further a conflict" ather than trying to make a case for a particular viewpoint?
This would all be true even if this were my first contact with anarchism or anarchists -- but, of course, I have had contact and in fact called myself anarchist, like calling myself feminist, intercommunalist, etc. for about thirty years.
>>> Authority turns into power when it becomes self-perpetuating (institutionalized)-regardless of whether it is based on expertise and persuasion (what we might call legitimate authority, due to its more or less voluntary nature) or the threat (or use) of force (which hardly anyone supports).
>> This may or may not be something I would agree with, depending on what you mean. In a workplace, for example, suppose there is agreement that the worker's council should decide certain issues by certain methods -- say one person one vote majority rule in some cases, consensus in others, and so on. Now it reaches a decision. Does that decision have legitimate authority binding upon you and me, even if we voted differently? If you think not, if you think you or I can do whatever we please, regardless, then we powerfully disagree. But if you think so, then we agree -- and I am left having no idea what you mean when you preclude institutionalized authority, since this authority is institutionally embodied, though legitimate. Please answer that, very directly, as I think it will me understand what you are saying.
> The decision is "binding" because the people who are involved in making and carrying out that decision decide to make it binding (as a voluntary condition for being able to execute the decision, for example), not because of some metaphysical "legitimate authority" that resides in the workers themselves individually or as a group.
This is beyond me. It is binding on you and me because we are in the group that decides that this is the process and its results bind us all. We group together into an amalgam, that is, with certain responsibilities and understandings for each, and we work with that. I call it an institution...so would pretty much everybody else. You want to not use that term in this case, apparently, because in this case we have people collectively ruling themselves -- though there must be input as well for neighbors, consumers, and so on.
I think we have a semantics problem, then...
> Albert's worker's council becomes an institution when the decision-making process and the bindingness of the decisions and their executions become part of its permanent features.
What does permanent features mean?
We have a workplace. We socially agree on many things about workplaces such as that there should be no wage labor, that there should be no division of labor that relegates some to disempowering tasks and others to empowering tasks, that remuneration should be just (which means, for me, in accord with effort and sacrifice), that it interacts with other workplaces by way of mutually agreed and supported allocation institutions (I think participatory planning).
Now I don't know what you mean by permanent -- perhaps you will explain below. But to me the above is an institutions, but it can be a liberatory one...even though its defining features persist from day to day...and even year to year. I think we may well agree.
> When the workers themselves (individually or as a group) can no longer decide how, when, why, and with whom to make decisions, execute them, and make them binding, when there is no room for effective dissent, or the ability of a minority to secede from the majority (or vice versa), this is an institution.
I am not sure we agree or disagree. In any parecon workplace, of course people can leave. Workers decide their situations and actions -- though consumers also impact, and those affected by pollution, and so on -- each with a say proportionate to affect on them. So do we have a problem merely because it is structured? Or do we not have a problem due it being structured in a desirable way?
> Full voluntary participation of radical, self-conscious individuals precludes the so-called need for institutions. The idea of voluntary association-another cornerstone of anarchist theory-is nowhere to be found in Albert's various "simple examples."
Actually, they are all based on voluntary association, of course. But, it leaves open certain questions. 100 of us voluntarily associate to be a fire department or to produce bicycles, or whatever. We establish our structure with balanced job complexes -- no class division, that is -- with remuneration for effort and sacrifice, etc. We have decision making methods that apportion influence in proportion to degree impacted (and respect as well that consumers etc., should relate similarly). Now, we are out working and there are roles -- let's say you are supposed to climb the ladder and hose the top floor, or something, and I am not. But I decide I want to and fuck the agreement. Now what? The point is, we can agree that our decisions are binding, and that when people decide to violate them they are doing something unacceptable, and can be told to leave, or whatever... This is an institution because it is many poeple colectively accomplishing various aims with agreed roles and methods for doing so.
I don't believe you reject this. I think what you do reject -- I reject too. And I think our problem is mostly a function of semantics -- and your inclination to not trust my words.
>>> The issue of legitimate versus illegitimate authority doesn't interest me-the issue of power does.
>>If it doesn't interest you, fine -- why tear into me about it as if it is your primary interest, without even asking what I mean...and why ignore all the examples and other substance which reveals the meaning, I wonder.
> The reason I "tear into" him is that he constantly drones on and on about "legitimate authority" as if it were some panacea for solving every social division and conflict. I maintain that the issue is not authority, but the use of it for gaining and maintaining power and control. He has not convinced me that his "legitimate authority" would not be used the same way as any other mechanism of social control.
We are back to the basic point. Either any structured relations must devolve into oppressive relations -- in which case we must oppose lasting structures, roles that people abide, and so on -- or it is possible to have lasting structures, roles, decision methods, etc. etc. that accomplish collective organization and functionality and advance values we hold dear.
I can't remember using the phrase legitimate authority other than in these exchanges...perhaps I have...but I don't remember. It is certainly not an important concept. The important concept is, instead, participatory self management -- which is people having influence on decisions in proportion as they are affected by them.
>>>> Part of the anarchist analysis is that no person is both wise and ethical enough that power will not have a negative influence on her/him.
>>Indeed...disproportionate or inappropriate influence/power has precisely that effect. I quite agree. But no anarchist thinks people should have no power -- on the contrary, anarchists think, I think when you really explore it, people should have power in decisions in proportion as they are impacted by them. Which is not only what I believe, but what the institutions I advocate achieve.
> The issue of disproportionate influence/power is definitely an interesting one, but here again, he just reverts back to the magic pill of "legitimate authority," which explains nothing about how the people who supposedly have it will not use it inappropriately in their institutions.
Why is it interesting? I will tell you in nutshell. If we all have a say propotionate to the degree we are impacted, we are all equal actors, sometimes with more and sometimes less influence, but only due to the logical and moral reason of our being affected more or less. If this doesn't pertain, then some have disproportionately more say, others disproportionately less say -- and the nightmare dynamics you hate arise...
Now as to describing institutional roles and structures and methods which apportion influence according to this self managing maxim -- I have done a lot of that in many venues in discussions of participatory economics. But the point is, if you accomplish that, then decisions are not only arrived at by fair and just participation, but they are justifiably deemed binding on people. Thus, if you will, they have legitimate authority...
> I am skeptical of the achievements of the institutions he advocates; what are they, who's in them, who has left them and why?
There are two kinds of skepticism...and yours, here, is universal. You aren't skeptical of the institutions I advocate, because you don't know what they are. You are skeptical of institutions per se...yet, at other points, you are for voluntary associations that get things done -- and unless you think they form and unform daily, these are institutions.
>>> It doesn't matter from where their authority might originate. I think that if he actually had read Pete, Em, Rick, Mike, and Rudy in any depth, he'd be able to understand the clear difference they all acknowledge between power and authority.
>>Why not just agree on something positive and substantive -- we all think people should have influence on decisions in proportion as they are affected by them. If you don't agree, tell me what you would prefer.
> I don't disagree with the idea that people should have influence in proportion to the degree they are affected by various decisions.
Then you might be interested in knowing that the person you are debating, and whose comittment in all manner of ways you question, has devoted years to conceiving how to accomplish precisely that maxim in economic institutions, not to mention practicing it in the ones I have been involved in.
> The problem I have is that in order to make a decision about what an appropriate level of influence is, some sort of criteria need to be established. Who does that? The people who have the "legitimate authority" to decide who is allowed to be part of a decision? This is just circular reasoning.
Yes, but it is your circular reasoning, not mine.
Maybe you should take a look at descriptions of participatory economics and see what you think...
> How would they do it? Saying that "people should have power in decisions in proportion as they are impacted [sic] by them" and "the influence we have ought to correlate to the degree we are in turn impacted [sic] by the decision" doesn't answer the question-it just creates new ones.
That is correct. But saying that we should have no institutions doesn't even do that -- instead it closes all doors, as does saying no technology, or no reforms...
But I haven't only said that I like this maxim. Quite the contrary. I very much agree with you. I think it is our responsibility, and in any event necessary, to not only put forth values like this -- and others -- but to then describe institutions that can manifest them in various domains. That is what I have done for economics. And, by the way -- in the another main component of the essay that precipitated this disagreement -- it is what I have said I hope anarchists will do for another domain, the polity.
> Anarchists don't believe that anyone can exercise "appropriate control."
Well...it is actually you that want to pose everything in these simple phrases, not me...
I think anarchists and everyone ought to believe that humans can group together in lasting structures in which people have influence proporationate to the degree they are affected and in which decisions reached under such conditions are considered by all to be legitimate and binding -- though of course folks can dissent, and so on.
>>> Anarchists believe that any control is inappropriate and illegitimate; that is why we are anarchists.
>>If by control you mean illegitimate authority -- then we agree but then we are having a pointless discussion since I began by rejecting illegitimate authority. But if you mean anarchists think that at all times anything goes -- so there is no such thing as legitimate authority which constrains what you or I can do and so each person is perfectly warranted in doing whatever they desire -- that is just nonsense. Not only is it dysfunctionally impossible, but it also isn't what any anarchist I have ever heard tell of has written or argued.
For example, imagine you arrived at Kropotkin's house at midnight, broke in the door, and began messing up his living room doing some kind of arts and crafts you enjoy. Do you think his reaction would be, that's cool -- there is no such thing as the "institution called household" and within that institution there is no delegation of greater authority to the members than to random people arriving? It is a silly example, in some sense, but is meant to be so in order to escape presuppositions. Once it is comprehended, it seems to me, it is very easy to extrapolate to other realms from it.
I truly wonder where you arrive at these positions from...what makes you think they are a part of the anarchist heritage? Yes, the words are like the words of the heritage, but they are used blindly when asserting no authority, no institutional norms...as compared to as they are meant within the heritage.
Why didn't you answer this...I wonder.
> The reason I didn't answer is contained in the scenario itself: "it is a silly example." The idea that "legitimate authority" constrains people from engaging in irresponsible behavior is as simpleminded as supposing that the existence of police is a deterrent to crime.
Well, I think you are missing the point, and I think you want to miss the point, in some sense, because you don't want to agree, though I don't understand why...
>>> Anarchists reject government, whether controlled by one person or a bunch of people, regardless of whether their authority is "illegitimate" or not.
>> It is just rhetoric. Why can't you go behind it. Why can't you examine one step deeped. Okay, we don't want authoritarian institutions. But we do need legislation, adjudication, implementation of shared agendas. So, next step, how do accomplish these in positive ways? You act as though asking that question is some kind of sell out of anti-authoritarian desires -- yet it is precisely their elaboration to the actual level of saying something positive about how we intertwine socially.
If you want to make a case that accomplishing adjudication, legislation, and implementation via lasting political institutional structures will necessarily subvert values we hold dear -- such as self-management -- then you need to make a case that there is something about these functions, intrinsic to every conceivable way we might achieve them, that has the harmful impact. You haven't done that. In fact, you haven't tried to do that. And I would argue you can't do that, because it is false.
> Legislation means to enact laws, adjudicate means to act as a judge. Anarchists don't want laws any more than we want rulers. I maintain that laws are not the same as rules. Laws exist at an institutional level (as Albert continues to make clear), and I see rules existing on an individual and group level, where they can be negotiated, tossed out, remade, ignored, or made binding by the people who are affected by them.
By institution here you seem to mean engraved in stone, or perhaps enfored by a limited number on all others. Of course I reject that too, however.
Saying they can be altered, etc. by the people affected is fine -- and I quite want that. But that isn't the same as saying that in a workplace, say, with a few hundred people, five can decide to function in ways that the group has collectively ruled out...and which ways impose on others. And so, we clearly have binding rules -- ones that are truly participatory and just -- but rules no less.
Suppose a good society decides to debate the issue of killing purposes. Whatever political forms it has, it decides this should never happen. Or make it killing people, if you prefer. Is this not a law? Is this bad for being a law?
This is two different domains, I offered -- economy and polity, and one could pursue others, too.
> An institutionalized method of making laws can't possibly have the flexibility that is necessary for egalitarian social relations to exist between and among individuals and groups.
The problem is you simply use the word institution, or hear it, in ways differently than I do. If we threw it away -- rather than arguing about it -- and came up with new labels to use...I think much of our disagreements here would dissipate. I think you would see that if you attended my words...but I can't do much more to make that happen.
> Judging and implementing the laws is also a function of institutions, and again, I maintain that such an institution cannot have the requisite flexibility to exist within an egalitarian social environment.
This is a kind of apriori argument...it is very like when advocates of the status quo say nothing better is possible. They just say it, and say it, and say it. But there is no argument for it.
What is the reason why you think it is impossible for humans to cohere into collective structures with mutually agreed roles, norms of behavior, assignments and responsibilities, methods of decision making, and so on -- that doesn't devolve into authoritarianism, or class division, and so on.
It is precisely what advocates of capitalism claim -- these divisions are inevitable, these dynamics must exist (unless we forgo all institutions, etc.) and so our best hope is to guard against their horrible effects in various ways, though accepting their basic presense.
You don't say that -- you agree on the first part, and then say, okay, no institutions.
I don't accept either part --
Now I haven't produced a political vision -- remember, I said I wished anarchists would offer that to us all. But I have no trouble conceiving that we could have structures that manifest citizen's wills fairly and with appropriate levels of influence in the creation of social rules (laws) and in deciding disputes (adjudicating), etc.
>The point for me is that social relations begin with individuals, and for Albert they begin and end with institutions.
Actually, you don't know much of anything about my views, I think. And you make no effort, ever, when you attribute views to me, to demonstrate that it is the case. I find that odd...
In any event, you are wrong. I can give you numerous references, if you wish, of works where I try to build a political conception more or less from scratch, if you will, and in every such case I start with people and their attributes -- not with institutions.
> Further, he assumes that these institutions are indispensable for social existence. This is his opinion. Mine is different;
I am not so sure it is different -- because I think we use the word institution very differently.
I use it to mean any lasting set of roles that people conduct themselves in terms of -- could be authoritarian, class divided, etc. or it could be voluntarily conceived, without classes, without disproportionate influence for any actors, and so on.
You use it to mean -- I think -- a lasting structure that imposes some requirements or norms or behaviors on people who have not in fact agreed with them and which impose class, sexual, racial, gender, or political differentitations, give some exessive and some too limited influence, and so on.
Now the big question is whether you think that my second type of institution -- now let's call it, instead, a voluntary agglomeration, or whatever you want, but lasting, and with responsbilities, and so on, but without unjust structures, true to people's wills and desires, is possible.
>I believe that the institutions of enacting laws and judging people who violate them constitute a government. It might be the most responsive government in terms of how easily people are able to influence the decisions that it implements, but it would still be a government.
For you all political institutions, all political structures, all lasting political arrangement are a government -- and government is verboten. Well, it that's your position, we disagree. If you reject government because it is authoritarian, than non authoritarian or anti-authoritarian political institutions should not be rejected by some kind of false identification...
> I can't understand why Albert doesn't want to look at history;
What kind of comment is that .... you are writing me in email. I have lots of responsibilities. I should do anything you request...
I have written whole books on revolutionary processes in history...that I don't want to move from substantive discussion of comittments to itnerpretations of history or even what ocurred and what didn't -- should be too much of a surprise. We only have one life to life, and I don't want to spend it entirely in email exchanges with you.
>I see the difference between laws and rules in the same way that I see a difference between morality and ethics. Morality is an arrogant system that promotes a specific way of behaving. Moralists presume that their values exist outside their particular cultural and temporal context. When what is considered proper behavior has positive social value attached to conformity and negative social value attached to refusal, and it is then combined with presumptions of universality and eternality, it becomes authoritarian-its adherents try to make certain that their morality will outlast them. What Albert promotes with his institutions looks the same to me.
Well, I think you have no idea what I promote or advocate, in positive terms...so I don't know how you can have opinions about it. But so be it...
>>> The "outside the control and above the will" construction makes it crystal clear that Albert thinks that states are neutral constructions: where these functions are controlled by the will of the populace, the state is good; where they are not, the state is bad.
>>We are back in rhetoric. Leave it aside for just a minute. Use your own words. You say society will have rules, but not rulers -- as in individuals or groups who rule others. Okay, fine. Now, where do these good rules come from? How do people partake of their creation and refinement? How are they enacted, enforced, etc. These are political functions -- you say the rules will be present so, so will the functions. Now how are they done? Don't just fling out the word state as if that in itself concludes all discussion...address the substance. You mean by state an authoritarian institution. Okay, I reject it. But what, instead?
> I also mean by "state" a possibly non-authoritarian institution.
Okay, I had hoped we were close to some kind of agreement, but I guess not. I think we are going to have to agree to disagree...
> The way Albert wants rules to be implemented is through establishing institutions that make laws, judge between disputants, and punish offenders.
Institutions don't do it, people do it, and they do it in interaction with other people. We call these structures and their roles, institutions. But the people are the actors. Now can this be horrible, of course. Can it be good, I believe so -- we better hope so.
> I prefer to make rules binding through voluntary agreements rather than some method of enforcement.
So a hundred of us, or however many voluntarily and mutually come to some decision. And I decide, fuck it, I don't ilke it, I will aborgate it. Now what? Make it workplace -- fire department, steel plant, it doesn't matter.
It isn't irrelevant, either, to ask, what do we do about a very violent drunk, much less a serial murderer. If you are going to say they won't exist -- well, I hope you are right but I very much doubt it. There will be fewer, but not none. So, what of those who do exist.
So I have offered two cases -- an economic agreement that someone violates and a political agreement that someone violates. Yes, I think societies involve agreements that are binding and include issues of enforcement -- but, I think we can accomplish these in ways that further rather than destroying the values we hold dear, and, indeed, I think figuring out how to do so is our visionary task, so to speak -- one I have tried to tackle for economics.
> It is the promotion of law, judgement, and enforcement that recreate government and the state. This is the situation I reject because I am against the idea and manifestation of government. He may think that this is just a matter of disagreement on definitions, but my question then is this: How do the institutions that Albert proposes differ from government? How will his political institutions not recreate the social conditions of a state? No amount of talk about "legitimate authority" reduces my suspicion and skepticism. Why is it necessary for me to repeat this endlessly? He thinks that it's a non-sequitur; but I maintain that it is, in fact, the central point of the argument.
You don't have to repeat it again. We can just agree to disagree and be done.
I don't fetishize single words. I try to get behind them. I reject states that are authoritarian structures which remove from most people -- actually even from anyone -- the free and easy opportunity to impact with influence proportionate to effect on them any social decisions.
I do not reject people coming together to mutually produce, consume, and allocate -- in the economy -- via lasting structures of roles and responsibilities with methods of reaching decisions, and so on -- institutions. And I think parecon institutions accomplish the needed functions yet promote rather than destroy equity, diversity, solidarity, and participatory self management.
I do not reject people coming together to organize their mutual social relations including determining laws that are binding on citizens, projects that are implemented, and including resolving disputes, and including enforcing shared norms, etc. -- via lasting structures of roles and responsibilities with methods of reaching decisions -- but, while I don't yet have a vision for polity that I subscribe to, I would not settle for any institutions to accomplish these functions which did not also promote rathet than destroy equity, diversity, solidarity, and participatory self management.
>> Well, you need to reread. I have nowhere suggested that you diminish an iota your rejection of authoritarian structures. Our problem is the word institution. You use it with a grimace, meaning authoritarianism. I use it more broadly -- incorporating all social arrangements that last. Now, if you honestly think we will have no lasting social arrangements that bear upon legislation, adjudication, or implementation -- okay -- but we are left with the question how these will be handled. If you answer to how they will be handled includes lasting structures, then your dismissal of me is disengenuous or confused, since you too advocate institutionalization...
So which is it?
> Albert suggests that an institution is a generic term for "all social arrangements that last." So what happens when a new person wants to enter into some arrangement? This arrangement has an institutional framework already in place, but what if the new person objects to that framework? Does the institution accommodate to the new person or does the new person accommodate to the institution?
It depends, obviously.
Suppose we have a workplace. Each of us has various responsibilities. We meaure our efforts in mutually agreed ways. We reach decisions by agreed methods. We participate in the whole economy by agreed activities. And so on.
So we need to produce more, we need more people working, and people apply.
Who gets to work with us. Well, we decide. We may accommodate contrary desires of an applicant, or we take a different one and accommodate other desires, or they may be one who fits perfectly with no accommodation.
What some people don't like about the image of an institution is that a person has to "join" which means fitting the institutions structures. It gives an image of the person molding themselves to fit...perhaps turning their round selves into square members of the institution.
Well this isn't good. If it is happening -- it tells us that our society has institutions that don't fit the aspirations of the populace. We need change. But the solution isn't no institutions...it is institutions that manifest the wills and preferences of the populace, rather than of some small fraction of it.
> Having been involved with various types of anarchist organizations over the years, and reading lots of history, I have come to the conclusion that even the most consciously and consistently antiauthoritarian institutions will have as their primary goal the perpetuation of the institution.
Yes, there is a lot of this out there, even in our movements, I agree. And I have written about it, and tried to argue with it...for which you would probably berate me as in where does he get the authority to differ, or something...
But it is a mistake to extrapolate from such experiences to universal conclusions. This is precisely the kind of approach that causes most people to say nothing better than what we endure is possible -- there is no alternative...and it is wrong headed.
A pattern isn't an argument. You need to relate the pattern to causes. I think there are many many factors at work in the tendency of all kinds of leftists who produce institutions to begin to narrow their sites from broad social change to the preservation of their institutions...some are reasonable, many are not.
But this is a whole new topic...
> I am open to the possibility that this will not always be the case, but I remain highly suspicious, hence my "grimace."
The minute you say you are open to the possibility our debate floats off into space. Because in that statement you are saying that conceivably there could be desirable institutions (desirable technologies, desirable divisions of labor, desirable changes that contribute to a process of liberation yet are partial -- desirable reforms). And in that minute you have agreed with me that it is wrong (premature, if you prefer) to say we must do without all these per se. In fact, I think in that minute you join me in a positive hope, as well, that is, that we can define such positive aims. you might see doing so as a priority for yourself, but you certainly shouldn't rule out others trying, I would think...
> Serving the people who are supposed to be served by the institution eventually becomes only a secondary consideration. The best example of this is the CNT in
Something to do with the institutionalized nature of the CNT -- okay, sure. But that doesn't mean institution per se, but the particular one, its particular features. I think many other factors were at work, as well...but that's neither here nor there.
As but a few examples, am I for or against - to make it simple --
leninist organization
vanguardism
marxism
leninism
anarchism
reforms
reformism
private ownership of productive property
remuneration for output
corporate divisions of labor
division of labor
parliamentary democracy
peaceful protest
civil disobedience
destroying property as a tactic of social change
armed insurrection
And you can add to the above list, if you wish, of course. By the way, if you choose to indicate my view on each of the above...indicate your's too, and whether we differ or agree.
This would be a stupid exercise, because Albert's definitions are probably different from mine on a number of these topics-as they are on the central issues of government and the state. Frankly I don't care what he's for or against on this list. Anyway, the last four items are strategic issues (as opposed to principles), which of course can and should be used at different times for different purposes. I don't think he really cares how I feel about these things either.
Well, sure, I asked because I don't care. Nope.
>>> Because I am a radical antiauthoritarian coming out of the anarchist tradition, I don't believe that his project is possible. And I find it insulting for him as a non-anarchist to presume to tell anarchists what we "ought to hate."
>> What does this mean -- you find it insulting? And who are you to decree who is and who isn't anarchist -- without bothering to attend to people's views or practice as a basis for your judgement, for that matter?
I am feminist, I am intercommunalist, I am anti-capitalist, I am pareconist (if you will), I am green, and I am anarchist...in turn regarding kinship relations, community and cultural relations, economics (twice), ecology, and political relations.
> I can only "decree" if people are anarchists or not by a single criterion: is s/he in favor of the abolition of the principle and manifestation of government and the state? If the answer is yes, then s/he is an anarchist; if not, then not. My analysis is that the institutions that Albert promotes perform the functions of government. Therefore he is not an anarchist. It's nothing personal-some of my best friends aren't anarchists…
I know it isn't personal, it is just not very useful, either. But I think we can agree to disagree... Some functions of government, like some functions of corporations, need doing -- it is just that they need doing in positive ways that meet people's needs, abide their aspirations, and further values we hold dear.
>>You might want to go back and look again. I was very clear, in fact, that simple democracy - one person one vote majority rules -- was very much NOT the point. That the point, instead, was that people should impact decisions and outcomes as they are affected by them, not, instead, overreaching and dominating the wills of others, in either direction.
>Again, who gets to decide precisely how much anyone is affected by a particular decision? The way that he formulated his criticism of the black bloc in
I think you should go back and look again...I think you will be surprised if you read with an open mind, rather than a preconceived box you want to put me in.
>The fact is that the people who eventually did break windows had made it clear for months beforehand that this tactic was part of their agenda. Yet Albert talked about it as if the window breaking was a total surprise to everyone involved.
No, what I talked about was the undesirability of subsets making choices that trump other choices made by other (adn even much larger) subsets.
> How is it that a group of people engaging in property destruction away from the area where people are sitting in the street can be characterized as "overreaching and dominating the wills of others"?
Now we are just rewriting history, but I don't see why we are off into this in any event...
> People in the black bloc didn't force anyone to break windows any more than the civilly disobedient folks forced others to sit in the streets and endure the vicious non-lethal and chemical punishments of the riot cops.
How is it that the wise and ethically sound people in Albert's institutions will not be able to use their "legitimate authority" to "overreach and dominate the wills of others"?
This is precisely the question that must be addressed for the construction of a poliitical vision. I would put it more positively, how is that political functions can be accomplished with all actors having appropriate input rather than some being dominated by others. Yes, I agree with the importance of the question. I have tried to answer parallel ones for the economy. I think folks should try to do so for the polity as well.
>>As a noted earlier, I favor participatory self management, which is well beyond democracy in its simplest meaning. So let's see. You seem to be saying that if someone favors a desirable new society, favors overcoming all obstacles to it, opposes leninist and related methods as contrary to the aims, one is necessarily a social democrat? If so, what makes you not a social democrat, I wonder?
>I didn't say it was necessary; I just wondered what the hell else was available. What makes me (like all other anarchists) not a social democrat is that I reject parliamentary democracy and the state.
I reject parliamentary democracy too, and I also reject the state as we know and have known it. What I don't reject is accomplishing needed and desirable political functions via social structures that meet needs and advance desirable values.
>> Of course [Chomsky] is not above wanting to use the state as a tool for attempting to ameliorate the pains of capitalism, if we can, by our collective pressure, force the state to so act. Who would be against that?
Well anyone in favor of direct action as a tactical principle would be against that. Having the state do anything for you is a serious contradiction for anyone espousing anarchist beliefs and principles. For anarchists, the state can never do anything that isn't in some way harmful. As Chomsky himself said (quoting Hypocrates) in relation to the US/NATO Kosovo bombing: "First, do no harm."
This is nonsense, I am afraid. What direct action against a war or for affirmative action or pay raises or whatever else seeks to do is precisely to force elites to do what they otherwise wouldn't -- which is implement programs, or stop atrocities, as we are demanding.
I think this is my last reply. If you want to discuss further my views, I suggest publishing a piece in which you address them. Surely I have written more than enough. But I would like not to receive any more huge email messages - as I don't think we are making sufficient progress and I just don't have time, given all my other responsibilities. On the other hand, were you to become a ZNet sustainer, I do host a forum where I discuss all manner of things with participants.
>>Did you try to force the state to stop bombing Kosovo? Would you have tried to get it to stop bombing
Demanding that the state stop bombing Kosovo and
It is no different at all except for your derogatory and irrelevant use of the word begging. No one is talking about begging, because it accomplishes nothing.
But forcing the government to give women suffrage, to enact laws that end jim crow, to enact an eight hour day, to raise minimum wages, and all kinds of things we could think of in the future -- is quite like seeking to them to stop bombing some country -- in that in both cases we are trying to force elites to do something that benefits not them, not their constituencies, but us and our constituencies.
>I reject supporting Nader (and all other politicians) on the grounds that it is a diversion from direct action, not because "it wasn't a direct assault on capital and government," as Albert presumptuously and pompously asserts.
So direct action -- is the only reasonable course...alright, let's see what it is.
> Direct action is when an action is taken without the permission of legally constituted authorities, not necessarily in confrontation with them.
So you must break the law? To march legally is by definition not worthwhile? Very strange...
> When people-outside a governmental framework-create mutual aid and support networks and projects, when they engage in egalitarian relations, when they resolve disputes with the help of their friends and comrades, when they find ways to promote and further solidarity between different communities, that is direct action.
And it is very good -- but why is it that only what you like best can be good, I wonder.
It is not good to strike for higher wages? It is not good to organize, legally, to arouse a community against a dangerous incinerator, say? And so on.
I have nothing against direct action...as you define it. I think it is a very important tactical component of movement activism. But not the only one.
> "Direct assaults" mostly have little to do with direct action; they are usually intended to persuade or force politicians to change some policy. Having someone else do something for you is not direct action.
Well, when we force a president to call back the troops, or we force a corporate head to raise wages, or we force a supreme court to change laws in desirable ways, and on and on -- we are not doing something subservient, something submissive, but, instead, we are manifesting our power, hopefully with victories. Take the mumia case...do you want to raise social costs so high that the state decides releasing him is better than executing him, for them, because they are afraid of the repercussions, even though if it happens, it will be a despicable governor who signs the release? Or course -- or, if not, why don't you write a letter to mumia explaining to him how anarchists shouldn't be trying to get the state to release him.
>>About the first you are right if you mean by anarchism one must be anti-technology, anti-institutions, anti-reforms -- but not if you mean one must be anti-authoritarian and subscribe broadly to the heritage of kroptkin, bakunin, goldman, and so on, re the polity and other aspects of life as well.
> I propose no special criteria for being an anarchist other than a rejection of the idea and existence of government and the state.
The trouble is, that's rather vague -- if it means all political institutions, than I would not be an anarchist. If it means all authoritarian governance, then I would be.
> That is the only thing "one must be" in order to be an anarchist. After that, there are many varieties and styles, economic proposals, emphases, etc. That there is a tendency among anarchists that is critical of technology, skeptical of the possibility to create anti-hierarchical institutions, and that rejects reforms carried out by means of the state is a fact (even though this is an oversimplification). Albert doesn't like it, but that's too bad.
Suppose some leninist said to you that that you don't like that some leninists think x -- which you wrote a critique of. Would that make any sense? Of course not.
>>About majority rule, you are simply wrong. I know more support majority rule per se than dictatorship or consensus per se. I support, in principle, however, participatory self management which sometimes calls for majority rule, other times decisive impact even for individuals, other times consensus, and so on.
> I'm glad that Albert has explained his position regarding majority rule. I am positively impressed with the sophistication and flexibility of his model of participatory self-management. It is light years ahead of what most radicals propose. I hereby apologize for calling him a democrat.
I don't know whether this is sarcasm or just silliness -- at this point I don't care.
> Do me a favor, go back and find a single sentence which says I propose a government or state...there may be something like that, but I very much doubt it.
Once again: the "something like that" is that I perceive that the institutions Albert promotes are a form of government, which rests on authoritarian principles and their hierarchical manifestations; I therefore conclude that he is not an anarchist. He might "subscribe broadly to the heritage" of some anarchist heroes, but that doesn't mean he's an anti-statist.
Well, let's stop there...with you deciding that despite that I reject all forms of class, gender, sex, race, religious, and political hierarchy, that I reject divisions of labor that impose disproportionately too much say for some and too little for others, that I offer very detailed institutional models for accomplishing production, consumption, and allocation in classless ways that empower all participants proportionately to impact on them, that I have helped conceive and worked in organizations that embrace these priorities, and that I also urge figuring out how to accomplish political functions in ways that also promote equity, diversity, solidarity and self management...that, nonetheless, I am an advocate of aims that "rest on authoritarian principles and their hierarchical manifestations."
====================
----
> I'm reading the seemingly endless screed covering debate on Albert's Anarchism piece, and I find myself pissed off at both the willful misreading of the critics and Albert's incredibly patronizing and condescending attitude towards them.
I should like to know what you thought was incredibly patronizing or condescending -- say just two examples, please.
> But that's just a personal beef, just like the fact that our "provider of vision" just happens to be an older white guy with lots of time, intellectual energy, and confidence, encompassed by the term "privilege".
I am older -- longer lived, we like to say -- I am white, I am a guy, but what does having lots of time mean? I don't work for a boss, true enough, but those I live with and around estimate my workload at about 70 hours a week...without writing messages about anarchism. But that's all neither here nor there -- one doesn't judge ideas or arguments by their point of origin, by how long people have to produce them, etc., but by their merit...right?
You say I am incredibly condescending and patronizing...I think I just address ideas and formulations -- not people -- and that I do it expressing my honest view of those ideas and formulations, not disparaging the people. But I also think those I am arguing with repeatedly address not ideas that I have voiced or written -- which would be fine -- but images of me that they construct rhetorically as in "provider of vision" and much worse, also impungning my motives, my honesty, my commitments, and so on.
> But I won't slag Albert for things he can't help (and I don't know much else about Albert's background), although, fer pete's sake, acknowledge that someone else might have a point every once in a while....
When there is a point to be acknowledged, by all means. I think what some folks don't like is precisely being taken seriously and having their views addressed forthrightly and rigorously...which is exactly the opposite of patronizingly saying, oh yes, sure, what wisdom and insight you show, and by the way, you are wrong.
We agree there is no point acknowledging non-points, only points, and valid ones at that. So go back and look at the two essays -- one, on anarchism, is half about the innovations in contemporary anarchism and their worthiness for all activists. It is hard to imagine how one could be more positive. The other essay, about zerzan, in the case of each criticism indicates the kernal of insight that has been taken too far. That's as positive as I could be.
As far as the letters about the exchange that I have responded to...I'd have to go back and look myself. I think what I would find is that I addressed every substantive point raised, taking over the words of the author exactly. In contrast, I think many of my comments have been ignored and people have repeatedly claiming that I think this or that with no words of mine to substantiate it and despite endless words of mine showing contrary views. I think, in other words, that I am taking the people I am talking with seriously, never discussing them personally -- since I don't know them -- and always being as true as I can to their actual words. I can't the same is being done in reverse.
> Regarding primivitist anarchists, I'm wondering if Albert has made himself familiar with much of the work done in mainstream modern anthropology. If not, I recommend Clastre and Sahlins, as examples that a life without technology need not be nasty, brtish, and short.
Some...for instance Shalins who I read many years back...and we can differ and agree on parts -- but it has nothing to do with this debate, as far as I can see because it is one thing to talk about low population communities that have subsisted for ages on a very low level of technology...at whatever standards and levels of living, longevity, etc., they attained -- and quite another thing to talk about taking populations that have employed much more technology back to that stage. The latter pursuit would involve billions of deaths and yield short, brutish lives...yes, I believe so. And I find it hard to comprehend how anyone could doubt this, I admit.
> I think a reasonable interpretation of primitivism is not that we should immediately return to the trees, but that regaining the wild elements in unalienated human existence is part of the ultimate project.
I don't know what those wild elements you have in mind are -- but if all Zerzan or anyone else in the primitivst camp is saying is that once we remove the impositions of oppressive social structures humans will display many attributes we don't know see -- some that were more familiar in the past, some that have never before emerged -- and that this will be wonderfully positive, sure, I agree. But if that is what someone (Zerzan? my crtiics by email?) means, why not say that? Why instead, write words that convey that we should be opposed to technology, divisions of labor, institutions, reforms, even numbers and language -- per se? And if having written those words was a mistake -- why not just back off and support the acceptable position you offer? Why be offended by someone taking the position you say those being criticized also hold?
> Much of the work on permaculture shows that we can eat just fine without the division of labour modern agriculture insists on, for example.
By this you could be saying (1) let's get rid of division of labor in agriculture - if so, it would be a prescription for calamity on a scale unknown in human history.
Or you could be saying, (2) let's get rid of profit seeking in food production and distribution, and as well with all the needless or harmful features that profit seeking has imposed on our food production and distribution. Which I would agree with, of course. If Zerzan and others mean (2) they should say it. I believe he, at least, means (1), becuase I take him at his written word.
Sometimes folks I am communicating with seem to be arguing that you can't be for (2) unless you are for (1). If you say you are for (2) but not for (1) they deduce that you are either lying, or, if merely confused, but it's no matter, because unless you eliminate division of labor divisions of labor will bring all the bad crap under (2) back into play, in time, even if they are briefly reduced.
The contrary position is that in taking position (1) you do accomplish (2), yes, but you do it rather like dropping nuclear weapons on
Those saying you gotta do (1) to get (2) are saying all division of labor is heinous -- all division of labor leads to capitalist and otherwise despicable social outcomes. What's wrong with this view is that it precludes defining work in ways that accord with people's different preferences and that take advantage of enormous gains in output per effort which can be had by dividing up tasks effectively and it forgoes looking for what we need...ways to do this without introducing hierarchies of power or reward of any kind.
> Living in harmony with nature, not objectifying the world with abstractions, and not reifying human relationships are worthy goals it seems, and to end the anarchist project at a set of institutions is to do it a disservice.
I don't know what not objectifying the world with abstractions means -- if it means don't use language, don't use numbers, which is what Zerzan says -- then it is off the wall. If it means, don't lose track of diverse qualities by pinpointing only broad shared features, or something like that, well sure.
I don't know what not reifying human relationships means. I have a parrot, a wonderful bird, which flies around loose in our house. If this means I should think my relations with the parrot are like those with other humans in all respects, of course, not. If it means they have their own worthy and entrancing features, of course.
> In fact, it seems like an echo of the Hobbesian argument for the state: if technology/state/authority is a "necessary" evil, then we need it, and shouldn't spend our efforts figuring ways of avoiding it.
First, the threesome was technology/institutions/reforms
Second, it is not me, but various others who claim these are evil -- but not necessary. I claim they are not evil, but are, at least in desirable forms, necessary -- not a state, but means to accomplish needed political functions, not authority, but decision making that is desirable and then abided.
The difference between ont he one hand right wing and liberal arguments that we ought to put up with what we have and on the other hand these primitivist arguments to dispense with what we have, is that both state there is no good technology and no good institutions -- the rightwing/liberal answer is to make do the best we can with bad ones, the primitivist answer is to dispense technology and institutions for a distant past condition.
My views are quite different. We should dispense technologies and institutions which constrain and delimit human fulfillment and potential, but we should elaborate in their place ones which advance it.
> Albert is missing the romantic utopianism that gives anarchism its passion and hope. The perpetual whining about things "not being good enough" is part and parcel of beign radical, IMHO.
I don't understand the second half -- and since most people would call me a romantic utopian -- the first half is ironic.
> I don't think many primivist anarchists are against reforms, at least not the ones I've met.
Okay, so far you have said they aren't against all technology, aren't against all institutions, and now aren't against all reforms.
So, if that's so, why are they mad about someone saying those positions -- which they don't hold, in your current formulation, shouldn't be held?
How come they didn't say in response to the first essay -- right on. We agree. Was there any confusion about that? How come folks were confused?
> Many gleefully throw themselves into things like Food Not Bombs, anti-poverty groups, community gardening, and of course, the globalization-from-below groups. What I think is meant by "non-reformism" is precisely what Albert means.
Great...though they may see all these as not involving reforms...but if they do think reforms are worth fighting for, often, then why not just agree in the first place? I hope you are right. But if people dismiss, say, everyone who supported nader, or everyone who would fight for a living wage, and so on, as reformist without offering any supporting specific argument in context -- just on the grounds that the aims are reforms -- then they aren't doing what you say, but are, instead, dismissing based on some universal claim about reforms being bad.
> We can push for short term changes without compromising the revolutionary goals, but we must be careful. Too often the policy wonks and reformers coopt and discard radical elements, so, from experience, I think those that are wary of any reforms have a full right to be.
Yes, and a responsibility to express themselves clearly about the matter, I agree.
> This also doesn't mean that all of our efforts have to be both dealing with a current issue and threatening capitalism; it is perfectly okay to have actions that are non-reformist, threatening state capitalism directly without a proxy target like globalization or Bush. The tired phrase "non-reformist reforms" implies that those should be our only goals.
I am not sure what you are saying...
> Regarding legitimate authority, it is a question of costs. Is the benefit gained by investing people with specialized knowledge offset the losses of autonomy suffered by those that need to implement said knowledge.
This is simply not the issue I presented.
I don't believe in investing people with power along with specialized knowledge -- though the latter is fine.
Someone is a chemist, in part of their worklike, and I am not. So she has special knowledge that I lack. If you want to do away with that, either no one knows any chemistry, or we all know it--neither of which is remotely feasible or desirable.
So we can't/shouldn't do away with it, and we have some who do know chemistry and many who don't. The chemists tell us that lead in paint on walls is bad. Now who decides what to do about it? All of us. The chemist doesn't get more say due to knowing the underlying chemical phenomena....
Now what you are saying may be different. You may be saying by virtue of various types of knowledge being held by others, but not me, I become dependent in some sense on those with that knowledge. Sure. And what is the problem in this? There is no virtue in humans being independent atoms in the sense of unentwined with others, not benefiting from or benefiting others, and without society. Quite the contrary.
> Of course, such utilitarian arguments aren't really useful, so let me frame it in rights talk. Do people have the right to autonomy, regardless of the "material benefits" garnered by certain amounts of hierarchy. I would hope, and parecon is not so clear on this(I have other problems with Parecon, but I'll save those, as they are the technical criticisms of an economist, not the fundamental ones of an anarchist), that anyone would have the option of not having to take orders and still live a healthy life.
Now you are talking about power -- not interdependence. That some have different knowledge than others doesn't have to accrue to them greater power. It will do so, I agree, if the distribution of knowledge is such that some have more empowering circumstances and situations, or a monopoly on decision-making related skills, talents, and levers, yes. But suppose we get rid of that hierarchy -- yet still have expertise. Now the concern that you have is gone. People aren't trading their rightful influence to benefit from the special knowledge of the chemist at all. They retain that rightful influence, and they also benefit from the fact that some have enlarged the collective human knowledge of chemistry greatly -- and the chemist in turn benefits in realms she doesn't have much knowledge of.
> It doesn't matter if the authority is seen as legitimate by everyone else, there are some things that the collective cannot do to an individual, regardless of utility.(Of course, liberals would put the right to property under this blanket, but we know better).
The people I have been arguing with have said there is simply no such thing as legitimate authority, period. That says that if a collective -- society, a workplace, a neighborhood, a living unit, whatever -- comes to some decision by a worthy means, still, the decision has no more "authority" no more weight, than any utterance by any single member. I reject that, yes. If you want to use the word authority to mean what I call illegitimate authority, then we would need another word -- let's say compelity that we would both say exists sometimes.
You say, in contrast, above, that groups should not have the means or right or option to do certain things to individuals...okay, fine, what things? What you are saying and what my earlier critics are saying are only connecting if one says there is a slippery slope such that any constraints by groups on the options or behaviors of individuals will lead, inexorably, to the bad type of constraints you reject. But there is no argument ever given for that -- and there can't be one given because it doesn't exist.
> The division of labour that makes technology possible also makes hierarchy inevitable.
This position is absolutely without merit. Sorry, that's my view.
First, it is false. Second, to act on it would be beyond disastrous. I await to hear the argument for why you believe that some people spending some time doing a, b, and c and other people spending time doing x, y, and z -- which is in fact what the phrase a division of labor means -- inexorably leads to hierarchy.
> We all clearly cannot take the time to know fully how to assemble every ridiculous gadget in modern western society. Are anarchists against the authority conferred by technical expertise? I think Albert would say no, citing this as a perfect example of legitimate authority.
Well, you are wrong about this...
Actually I am very much against structuring social relations so that authority is conveyed by technical expertise -- authority over decisions and outcomes, that is. This is most certainly not a perfect example of legitimate authority, unless you mean authority about the technical facts...only.
> However, I'm not so cheerful about the prospects for post-capitalist technics. While I don't necessarily believe that we can immediately return to the trees, there is a lot to be said for low-surplus egalitarian communism... The voices of technical experts inevitably carry more weight, and it is unclear as to whether or not we want the benefits of their specialization enough to take their orders...
Look at how you express this -- you don't necessarily believe we can immediately return to the trees -- I wonder why you say that as you do. I think you realize it is utter lunacy to think in terms of immediately returning to the trees, and I suspect you feel doing so in the long run is also nonsense. So why such a timid formulation...
Do you really think it is responsible to talk about becoming hunterer gatherers immediately, or even over a long haul...other than due to some kind of nuclear or other cataclysm?
But going on to the substantive part...I reject people taking orders from other people (as compared to from the whole polity, say...) based on virtually anything -- other than in a very temporary and transient relationship and where the orders have emerged from a process that has the sanction of those impacted -- no fixed hierarchy that reduces some to generalized obedience and others to order giving.
And I reject knowledge conveying power over decisions, as well, in any event. The irony at primitivists getting so hostile with me is that there are very few other folks outside your campe who, in fact, agree with you even remotely about any of this...but I am one.
So the question is how do we organize ourselves so as to allow for and enjoy the benefits of specializations by different folks, yet also retain for all people decision-making influence in proportion as each is affected by the decision outcomes? You seem to look at that question and decide -- on what basis, I don't know -- that there is no positive answer. I find that incomprehensible from leftists...anarchists...anyone who isn't trying to justify standing pat with the structures we already have. It reminds me very much of folks who say we can have markets or central planning, but no other allocation option exists or can exist, so choose. I say back, rather than choose between poisons, thank you, I will work to conceive and then implement something desirable.
In other words, we have two choices we are debating.
We look at history and in a nutshell see that even beyond private ownership of capital, which we both reject, divisions of labor have historically led to a class of information and skill monopolizing "coordinators" who dominate decisions and amass disproprotionate wealth, and a much larger class of folks doing overwhelmingly rote labors, being ruled, and having disproportionately little wealth.
We both find that abhorrent on diverse grounds, as well. So now what?
You say, in response, okay, let's dump the division of labor tout court -- and thereby escape this division into classes and the subordination of many, or even anyone -- and yes, you add, we will have to forgo most technology, most institutions, and so on, but that's a small price to pay for liberty.
I say, I think that price is not small but almost unimaginably large, but, at any rate, however large it is, why throw out the baby with the bathwater? Why not spend a little longer and find specifically what kind of divisions of labor are responsible for the abhorrent outcomes. Jettison those divisions of labor, yes. Then ask, can we have our cake (the increased output and reduced time at work that labor differentiations permit) and eat fair shares of it too (remunerated for our effort and sacrifice, not for holding property, or having power, or even output) and also all have proper say in its make up and allocation and all other social decisions (self management)?
You more or less accept the claims by right wing and liberal advocates of the contemporary systems around us that no NEW systems that retain desirable productivity and technology gains from accruing great knowledge, and so on, but that eliminate injustices and hierarchies are possible. You accept their argument that we either accept the hierarchies to get the output, or we give up the bounty to jettison the hierarchies. I reject that view as absolutely ridiculous...as being without substance, without argument, with no impetus other than warding off hope and intelligent assessment of real possibilities.
> Your detailed descriptions of how a non-hierarchical division of labour might happen ignores the dynamics that occur in meetings, as any activist will note. Meetings and planning sessions are too often dominated by those with dominant personalities, loud voices, and, yes, expert knowledge. Some of this expert knowledge is not worth it. Something Hahnel and you should incorporate into the formal models is social choice theory...
This moves us from anarchism to parecon economic aims.
We are very aware of the dynamics you describe...
We deal extensively with the matter of expert knowledge dominating meetings and decisions...in our formulation of balanced job complexes. Once that is done, we are not very worried about loud voices and personalities...which would seem to be a matter of sensible meeting procedures...as we spell out in many discussions that I won't repeat at length here.
> Also, regarding institutions and power. A set of roles is a restriction on autonomy, if one has to follow the role against one's will.
That is correct -- and my favorite version of the insight is dylan's "to live outside the law you must be honest" which I hear as him singing that the only way a law or role isn't constraining is if you would have wanted to do whatever it indicates even were it not there...your point exactly. You don't live outside it by breaking it or obeying it, if it is contrary to your inclinations.
But this reality is only bad if you want it to be the case that each and every person can simply do whatever they wish too all the time. What if we instead say we want that people can do what they prefer so long as the choice doesn't restrict other's abilities to do likewise -- then limits are inevitable, but not bad, depending on how they are arrived at.
For example, advocates of capitalism point out that by having institutions which do not include the role of capitalist employer we have cut off an option that currently exists. And they are correct, one application of your more general insight. Parecon institutions and their roles are such that someone who wants to be a capitalist, can't. Their "autonomy" is in that sense delimited by their being in a society in which, regardless of their preferences, they cannot hire wage slaves. Slave owners used to point out that abolition had this affect on them, too, reducing their life options against their preferences. Who cares? I don't, because the options they want are one's whose implications are to limit other people severely.
Can we have institutions which leave each of us in position to express our potentials, fulfill our needs, exert proportionate influence...but which rule out any of us doing these things in ways that mean others won't be able to do it to the same level as us? I think the answer is yes -- and that to accomplish this we don't have to remove most options (by going primitive) but can instead go forward to new ways of socially organizing.
> Institutions have this weird way of subordinating people to them, regardless of how democratic...adaptive preferences and all... It seems like it is anarchist to at least have a healthy disdain for institutions, at least looking at the history of institutions.
This is where we disagree.
For an anarchist to disdain imposed hierarchies, whether racial, sexual, geographic, economic, political, yes, I agree. To worry that an institution described in positive terms will, in fact, have contrary implications, yes, I agree. But to move from all that to rhetoric which disdains institutions per se -- in essense rejecting people coming to gether and creating lasting role expectations in their entwinements, is to me going from reasonable insights beyond extreme to absurd. I'm sorry, but that is how I see it.
> A set of roles will bend people to those roles, and while liberals might not have a problem as long as consent is obtained, radicals should be afraid of structures that restrict what might be natural, human development...
Okay, but what is the implication?
For one person, it is to say no structures.
For the next person -- me -- it is to say well, how do we have institutions which not only don't curtail natural human development but foster and propel it.
Take schools. On the one hand they have to prepare people to function in society otherwise society collapses due to people not being prepared, on becoming adults, so to speak, to conduct all its various functions and so on. On the other hand, we want schools to permit and indeed facilitate people developing themselves, their insights, their skills, and so on, as they wish, in accord with their personal free inclinations.
So is this an unresolvable conflict?
No -- what it implies is that the two should become the same. We should structure society so that by being a vehicle for personal exploration and development schools simultaneously prepare folks to participate in it.
It seems to me that at every turn the primitivist type anarchists take reasonable insights, good ones in many instances, into a direction that is horribly self-defeating due to throwing out good with bad...
> On the topic of work, it seems like the Marxists have played the decisive card here: work sucks, and our immediate job should be to get rid of(at least minimize) all of the useless shit that fills our days and get on with deciding(directly) if we value refridgerators enough to work the rote, boring, tasks it takes to make them. Albert assumes that people will favour the exchange, but I'm not sure that the institutions he favours will allow for that debate to happen.
You are wrong...parecon structures very much leave the trade off of work and its outputs/pleasures versus leisure and its pleasures to the workforce/consumers with no pressure in either direction built into the institutions.
But about work -- your view is actually quite contrary to what is typical of anarchism historically, I believe, and of marx too, for that matter. Both reject wage slavery and alienated labor, of course. Here is a relevant passage from marx -- one of my favorites...followed by one from Kropotkin...
"In the individual expression of my own life I would have brought about the immediate expression of your life, and so in my individual activity I would have directly confirmed and realized my authentic nature, my human, communal nature. Our productions would be as many mirrors from which our natures would shine forth. This relation would be mutual: what applies to me would also apply to you. My labor would be the free expression and hence the enjoyment of life."
--Karl Marx
"Overwork is repulsive to human nature-not work. Overwork for supplying the few with luxury-not work for the well-being of all. Work, labor, is a physiological necessity, a necessity of spending accumulated bodily energy, a necessity which is health and life itself. "
--Kropotki
=====================
At the start of these messages you wrote to me...in my email, I believe, in reaction to the essay I wrote called anarchism -- unless I am misremembering or confusing you with someone else. In any event, I am sure that I asked you, if you were going to write me in my email with messages you were also posting elsewhere, if you would please post in that venue, as well, my replies. I don't know if you have done that...have you? If so, where does this exchange appear -- other than what I have placed on ZNet?
> There is nothing that can be gained from further discussions with Michael
> Albert-he and I agree on that. From the beginning, he and I have been
> talking at (and often past) each other. I too am withdrawing from the
> dispute, but not without a final response.
Correcting the facts: actually, no we don't agree on that. I think I have addressed virtually every substantive point you have raised. I also think I have not attacked you personally. I think in return, however, you have not only not achieved similar aims, but have not even tried to achieve them. I think we have a different view of what it means to conduct a discussion or a debate, to take seriously what the other person says, to respect their words and address them as written, and so on. What we both do think is that discussing with the other is at this point unlikely to be productive. I suspect, however you think in general discussing with you is productive, just like I think, in general, discussing with me is productive.
> He graciously offers me the opportunity to become a ZNet sustainer,
> thereby being able to join a discussion forum he hosts.
Correcting the facts: there are in fact about thirty forums...I host one of them. So do many other writers host others -- chomsky, zinn, wise, bernard, peters, shalom, and so on. Then there are forums that aren't hosted by individuals.
> I find it amazing that Albert the anti-capitalist presides over a forum where participation
> requires a monthly subscription. Doesn't he have a real job to provide
> him with an income? I do, and like most people who work for a living, I
> operate on a tight budget.
More denigration...one wonders why. Of course I work. About 70 hours a week...in a balanced job complex, at that, with a salary that is limited on principle. Not that this is remotely relevant.
> Why should I pay Albert to disagree with me?
You would be donating to ZNet, and you would get a premium -- a daily commentary, forums, an online zine. Why do it? To support alternative media broadly, and the sustainer program, and the broader public ZNet, and Z print, and the Z Media Institute. If you don't want to do that, then of course you shouldn't become a donor.
> (My family does that for free.) I am painfully aware of the amount of
> sheer idiocy that passes for communication in various chat rooms, on
> message boards, etc. but I don't think that making people pay to
> participate is in keeping with the ethics of anti-capitalism.
ZNet forums have no idiocy, no anti-social behavior, no harassment, etc.
As to deciding between not charging or charging, I think you confuse anti-capitalism with the extreme throw out the baby with the bathwater kinds of positions I have been criticizing -- in this case some new ones, anti-remuneration or anti-exchange. Being anti-capitalist doesn't mean that one thinks that in a good economy everything is free -- much less that in our current economy leftists should create institutions that have no mechanisms for gathering revenues, including not even taking donations.
Based on our exchanges I would have to guess that this confusion arises -- mistaking anti-capitalism with anti-remuneration or anti-exchange rates and even with anti-donations so that you are surprised that someone who is anti-capitalist would also be in favor of charging for a periodical or taking donations for a web system and providing a special premium for those donations -- for the same reason as the confusions around technology or institutions or divisions of labor or reforms arise. Reasonable insights are taken way beyond their zone of relevance, elaborated into false claims, made into rhetorically extreme positions, and then those positions become some kind of touchstone of political identity such that when anyone questions any of them -- imagine the gall of someone being critical of a political position and viewpoint -- you think that you have been personally attacked, that your identity has been called into question, and you lash out. Of course what has actually happened is not that at all, but rather a viewpoint has simply been criticized, as in the original essay which criticisized three very specific viewpoints.
Getting back to web sites taking donations or even charging for services, progressive and left media, to sustain itself, to grow, to do fine work, needs resources. We refuse to even think about selling ads, for what I hope are obvious reasons. But to sell Z print subscriptions, not give it away, is essential or Z print wouldn't exist. And to get donations for ZNet, likewise is essential to support its immense public operations, and to subsidize our other efforts as well. So the choice we face is to provide everything free, and shortly thereafter to watch as the everything we provide devolves into nothing for want of revenues. Or to provide some things for a fee or as a premium for donations (both of which we do) and thereby enlarge those elements and in particular to also support massive free operations as well.
> In addition, the set-up is already in place, making it necessary for me to
> accept and abide by the rules of the forum organizers. Even if I
> disapprove of all he stands for, he doesn't have any problem with me
> joining his forum-because he created it, helped to make the rules, and
> therefore has authority, power, and privilege. This is a transparently
> authoritarian situation. Why should anyone voluntarily submit to that?
So we create a system in which people can mutually interact - as well as question or criticize authors, and in which the only rules are that people have to be civil and can't deploy racist, sexist, or classist rhetoric, and in which no one can do anything any different than anyone else...and it is a horrible authoritarian trap. That's quite a leap...
But what you paragraph really repeats is the same tout court rejection of institutions I have been criticizing all along. Consider, the logic is that no one should join an institution that has been in existence already, beforehand, conceived by others. By this logic we cannot have workplaces, cannot have symphonies, cannot have schools, etc. etc. Even if one were to spontaneously form, with all those involved partaking of its definition, the minute new people were to become involved it would have disband and reform, or some such thing....
Can't you conceive of respecting -- not me -- BUT ANYONE, any group, sufficiently that you wish to join an operation they have created, deciding you like its roles and norms and decision making and purpose, etc.? If you can, then the above is just rhetoric. If you can't than it is a substantive real position, but one that consigns humanity to forgoing lasting social relations and structures...
On the other hand, if the reason you don't want to partake of the forums and sustainer program isn't a generic rejection of anything that exists prior to your defining it yourself, but, instead, knowing something about its norms or content and not liking them, fine, but then why spew at something just because you personally don't wish to partake.
> As to my apology for calling him a democrat, I was being totally sincere,
> not sarcastic or silly.
I have no idea what this refers to...
> Direct action ("as you define it") is one tactic in Albert's activist
> "movement." I'm not interested in a movement. I'm more interested in
> furthering anti-hierarchical relationships with individuals and groups
> and in people developing skills for self-organization and direct action.
Well, I am interested in movement -- but I happen to also be interested in creating institutions with anti-hierarchical structures -- liberatory ones -- and in developing skills for self organization and direct action. That's why I have helped create quite a few such institutions, a summer school, and why ZNet has so much instructional material and so many interactive facilities and mechanisms (including public forums, by the way, in addition to the sustainer forums). The irony in the anger and hostility that you and some others have sent my way in these exchanges is that you are actually arguing with someone who has political allegiances, involvements, and history far closer to what you believe in and aspire to -- minus rejection of institutions per se, technology pe se, divisions of labor per se, and reforms per se -- than you are aware of.
> The projects I'm involved in reflect that. He stupidly assumes that
> direct action must necessarily entail breaking the law. I prefer avoiding
> the law.
I have no idea what you are referring to here, either...and why you feel the need to be abusive again, I don't know.
> Albert's analysis is different than mine, his vision is different than
> mine, his strategies are different than mine, and his principles are
> different than mine. It doesn't necessarily mean he's my enemy, but he
> sure isn't my ally.
The problem with this conclusion is that (a) you don't know much about my vision, strategy or principles, (b) you are not interested in finding out much about them, (c) you are even less interested in exploring where the differences really do exist, what their basis is, and in entertaining that just maybe there is something there to be learned, and -- what makes all that a problem, is that you opened these discussion with me, not vice versa, and even in the absense of such knowledge for some reason you feel that it is desirable to lash out, even asserting, repeatedly, things about my views or actions which have no basis in fact at all. As to why that is, I don't know.
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A Question
By Fairbanks, John at Feb 23, 2010 04:10 AM
I begin by saying that I have a great deal of respect for you, Mr. Albert. I haven't had the time to read this entire page yet (I read your essay and this page, so far, to the point where you discover their 'first interesting' criticism), but I have one question based upon what I've read. I think that, actually, the comment , "His perspective is hostile precisely because he doesn't think that anarchism per se is a good thing" was quite interesting. I say this because, reading your essay I too got the impression, as a result of such language use as "Counterproductive" to label the luddites and referring to your own 'trajectory' as good, that you do NOT, in fact, find the anti-authoritarian sentiment running through all the various manifestations of anarchism to be inherently desirable...
I entertain a very similar concept of anarchism to yourself, and I think that your views are much more future-oriented, but I would have to disagree with the notion that anarchism is not an intrinsically positive thing. Obviously, I disagree with such notions as "All technology is abhorrent, reduces the value of man," etc., but I do think that movements such as this can be/are to our advantage. Sure, the media often uses them to paint us as crazy zealots, but they do that with any group they see as a threat. If the subgroups within anarchism did not exist, surely the media would find others amongst our ranks to use in the same fashion?
I grant that my evaluation of your essay may be off, and I hope that you respond to this to set me straight if that's the case! I guess my question, in summarizing, is: Do you really think there are anti-authoritarian positions that are actually harmful to the overall image/future of anarchism, and if so I'd appreciate a little more explanation, a response to my second paragraph, and any additional information you would be so generous to provide.
Thank you,
John Fairbanks
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Re: A Question
By Green, James at Nov 27, 2010 07:19 AM
A video was posted on znet yesterday showing clips of the student demonstrations breaking out in the UK against increased student fees. There was a great deal of footage of students trashing police vans and someone on the street was explaining how the vans were abandoned by the police directly in front of parliment. A row of about 10 professional photographers snapped pictures of the students expressing their rage towards the police van. And one person made a valiant attempt to explain that the vandalizers were merely giving photo opportunities to the right wing press.
It`s easy to imagine that the police purposely abandoned the van there because the urge to destroy it would be both irresistable and counter productive to the demonstrators. I would call this a classical example of how anit-authoritarian attitudes were harming the interests of anarchism. Those photographs will be used to justify higher security budgets and harsher crack downs on peaceful and effective dissidents and organizers.
I also think we are very lucky indeed to have someone like Michael Albert who is willing to take the time to reply to comments such as the ones in the material above. It`s a credit to the intellectual integrity of his work, and the absence thereof from people who support the ideas of so called anarcho-primitivism.
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