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subrosa wrote

More on Curious George chaos:

Since at least the days of Kropotkin, anarchists have consciously distanced themselves from the idea of chaos. Legends have even been whispered that the mysterious circle A represents order in chaos. Nearly every “serious” anarchist writer in recent years has tried to distance anarchism from chaos. Yet for most ordinary people, chaos and anarchy are forever linked. The connection between chaos and anarchism should be rethought and embraced, instead of being downplayed and repressed. Chaos is the nightmare of rulers, states, and capitalists. For this and other reasons, chaos is a natural ally in our struggles. We should not polish the image of anarchism by erasing chaos. Instead, we should remember that chaos is not only burning ruins but also butterfly wings. [...]

Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs

In my experience, the whole chaos/order thing can easily turn into an exercise in talking past each other. I guess it is/was a necessary intervention in response to the "anarchy is order" consensus. Because it's not clear that anarchy is order in any familiar sense of the word, or that it isn't also a whole lot of chaos, whatever that word means.

To me it makes sense to start with the opposition to both, law and order. I wouldn't want the opposition reduced to a substitute natural law and anarchic order, especially not if your idea of 'order' plays a key role in an anarchism stuck in political and governmental frameworks. Nor would I want a dual-power type of order competing in terms of the current order. In response to "anarchy is chaos" it is probably more interesting to say "not exclusively", and go from there.

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kin wrote

Just a thought that I hold, maybe the rebranding of Anarchism is a historical necessity, and started to appeal to the 19 century mindset, all the Positivism and scientificism, the belief in eternal progress, no bondaries to Human potential (domination?)and so on. Marx took the same Positivism from Comte to build Scientific Socialism™, Ideology that the first wave of Anarchism tried to appeal in my opinion. No intellectual want their movement associated to amoral criminals with Freedom to act.

Lots of "anarchist rules" derivated from these efforts, Organization as the only tool to build a lasting Anarchism, Kropotkin efforts to justify the natural law of Mutual Aid, "Anarchy is order" motto and the circledA, a moral vanguard within the mass mvement to maintain the purity of the Anarchism (CNTFAI & Platform).

Maybe there is nothing wrong with these tenets, but don't try to sell it as the only try Anarchism™ when in reality you aiming for libertarian communism or something else.

I agree with your frame

In response to "anarchy is chaos" it is probably more interesting to say "not exclusively", and go from there

It is more interesting when we can explore ideas without the constraints of closed rules, and the need to be right every single time

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Esperaux wrote

Anarchism without communism ends up always either just being a collectivist reform of capitalism or unliveable conditions that lead to the ability for one to dominate another. Even the most supposedly individualist forms of anarchism in practice still ultimately rely on mutual aid and or the affinity group model.

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_caspar_ wrote

"Even the most supposedly individualist forms of anarchism in practice still ultimately rely on mutual aid and or the affinity group model."

mutual aid/affinity does not necessitate communism.

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Esperaux wrote

A system based around principles of mutual aid and the elimination of hierarchical relationships leading to all being utilized for all would very much be communism. Even more primitivist styles of living would still effectively be operating under the communist mode of production. It's not a matter of it being necessary it's an eventual outcome of taking on the tyranny of capitalism and the state.

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ziq wrote

Communism is extractive and industrial. The whole 'primitive communism' line is deeply flawed when 'advanced communism' has nothing in common with it other than the fact that both involve people doing stuff.

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Esperaux wrote

Communism is not simply when industry is collectivized. Communism if anything removes the unsustainable demand of growth for the sake of growth.

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_caspar_ wrote

mutual aid/affinity does not necessitate a system or utility. Im already aware of Marx's prophetic tautology about the eventual outcome of communism. I remain unconvinced by attempts to capture all human endeavors into its logic, and dogmatic recitations (as if hyperstitiously the more its proclaimed, the more true it becomes!).

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Esperaux wrote (edited )

So do you think a capitalistic system or one based around markets and competition is compatible with anarchism? If not then such a solution would be communistic. If not then the alternative is just going to still retain the same coercive hierarchical issues carried over from capitalism regardless if the workplace is collectivized.

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_caspar_ wrote

I think anarchism is incompatible with solution-based thinking, especially solutions that are large-scale and replicable. the closest thing to something like a solution to capitalism (exiting outside and/or resistance to) would be successful only-and-because-of the particulars of those who find one.

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Esperaux wrote

Defining yourself only by what you are opposed to and not solutions you seek is how you end up falling down paths that can be detrimental to both yourself and others. Also this ignores the fact that anarchism is very much based in finding solutions to the forms of coercion and exploitation that exist.

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_caspar_ wrote

"Defining yourself only by what you are opposed to and not solutions you seek is how you end up falling down paths that can be detrimental to both yourself and others."

agreed, which is why I find the capitalistic/communistic binary as a way to frame anarchism unsatisfying. similar to the liberal individualism/collectivism dilemma: my particular anarchist formulation (not so different from many others, but like those others, a unique-to-me composite) is not determined by one side of this fence or the other, but an altogether different understanding. I dont find it helpful to consider anarchism/anarchist practice as solution oriented (as if all coercion and exploitation can be solved), but instead an ongoing tension that perhaps small-scale context-based solutions (mostly temporary and/or limiting) to context-based problems can spring from (often accidentally and through experimentation).

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Esperaux wrote (edited )

What do you consider a third position between communism and capitalism? Do you propose we preserve markets? You're being extremely vague with your terms. There is a point where rejecting binaries is a good step but only when you are actually specific on what policies or views are transcending these binaries. Otherwise it's no different from empty statements from a politician trying to court the broad support of people with no actual solid position.

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_caspar_ wrote (edited )

what you are asking and looking for is a policy. I have no policy for you, as I have no interest in drafting frameworks for how hundreds/thousands/millions of people should live like pieces on a gameboard. you are reading what I am saying only through a political lens. we are just speaking from entirely different perspectives.

my terms might sound vague to a politician whose logic is embedded in what are taken as societal givens, humanism, reason, utility, and so on: "what should we do, how can we do it?" I cannot propose a solution for we because we is so much more vaguer than anything I am describing. the best I can do is offer strategies, failures, and experiments from lived experience. Im even fine playing with utopic imaginaries, but always keeping in mind they are utopic, imaginary and not proposals to manage others i.e. policies.

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kin wrote

There is some proposals of left market anarchism, mutualism and other "schools" that do not rely on the communism paradigm.

And there is the issue, which communism (even in Marxism you will find tons of definitions and diff explanations to conceptualize communism) are you proposing here as the inherent quality of the Anarchist society/economy?

The main point some of the other users are keep making is that Communism and Anarchism are different things and in not in any way dependent on each other. You will find that often this topic is pushed, in bad faith, by ML to poison the well in anarchist spaces.

And as I agreed in another post Is very easy to loose time imagining and world building little Utopias when there is lots to figure out here in the world.

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Esperaux wrote

A system operating without markets and the coercion of work would be by definition communistic since commodity production would be abolished and markets would be replaced with marketless systems. When it comes to the issue of market systems under anarchism this poses several problems. One being growth for the sake of growth. Meaning that sustainability, the abolition of work, and the growth of a ruling class through monetary wealth would still be existent issues. Another being the preservation of competition and domination over cooperation and mutual aid. The workplace exists to generate profits not to meet the needs of people. Artifical scarcity as such would still exist and resources would have to arbitrarily be denied based on whatever method of calculating value they use. Simple issues like shoplifting would still be reinforced and preserved as "crimes".

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kin wrote

Your assessment is correct at some level, but I can't explain further or rebutt some of your points (like the perpetual growth is not a intrisical characterisc of markets). Maybe the agorists and mutualist(?) can help.

Postscarcity, gift economy, indigenous view on economy, etc are the things I checked before, but when you try to frame Anarchist theory as only possible with communist economy you deny Anarchism for lots of people. And I am not talking about the anarchocapitalists or whatsoever here, there are lots of people that live Anarchism in a different way.

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Esperaux wrote

The two versions of anarchism that claim not to be communistic are often either capitalist in nature or despite their best intentions only reforming capitalism and preserving the very coercive forces that need to be abolished. Mutualists have their contributions to the theory but are even more archaic than the syndicalists. The agorists only react to the mechanisms of capitalism but still don't actually exist to abolish it.

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kin wrote

The point I was trying to made is: trying to frame Anarchism as a Dichotomy between social Anarchism (communism) and individualist Anarchism (capitalist) is shallow. Trying to gatekeeping others Anarchisms will face resistance here.

I think you are making your point in good faith but preaching the communism gospel here will get no results here.

Anarchism is simple as the root of the word - no masters, either in economy or in democracy, etc. We don't need to complicated it.

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kin wrote

And if you look, your posts had some approval here, even Bookchin stuff, but when you try to proselytize the a"Red Truth" you get all this reaction.

So this can say something about how we feel about this whole deal of "my anarchism is the only anarchism possible"

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subrosa wrote

How about...

communism ends up always either just being a collectivist reform of capitalism or unliveable conditions that lead to the ability for one to dominate another.

Seriously though, what makes you think anarchism needs communism?

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Esperaux wrote

Taking on the hierarchies of capitalism and the state leads one to pursuing the creation of a stateless classless system.

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ziq wrote

if anarchists made communism (which in every working example in history means industrialism with theoretically more equitable distribution of wealth), they'd be making another extractive expansionist colonialist mass society where exploitation is rampant and ecocide / desertification continue unabated

slightly altering the way you distribute the spoils when you conquer the land doesn't make you an anarchist

and when you have vast spoils to distribute, vast bodies of workers to manage and vast lands/natural resources to exploit, you can't do it without forming government

so anarchist communists would fully embody authority, taking over the role of government, of production, of ruling the world, and thus no longer be anarchists.

to do anarchy is to resist authority, not become the architect of it

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Esperaux wrote

Communism is not just collectivized industry. You already brought up primitive communism so you are more than aware that it is not inherently tied to industrial extraction. Furthermore one of the key factors that it tackles is the issue of commodity production under capitalism. A big component in what drives growth for the sake of growth. The competitive and dominating nature of the firm over both the worker and nature. Spoils aren't simply to be distributed the very manner of which production and consumption is organized is radically altered.

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subrosa wrote

Why not pursue anarchy instead? Why start with 'the creation of a stateless classless system'? That can be some libertarian socialism. Communism. Bookchin City. Democratic council-whateverism. Can be any number of things.

Why not let anarchy be the guiding principle? And if you do, how come you have already reduced your options to "from each, to each" rather specific economic relations?

I'm not saying, for now at least, that communism can't be anarchist. But what I want to say is that communism a real pain in the ass for our inherited anarchism. Things could be easier if we didn't present ourselves standing in the shadow of Marxism, or as a slightly less popular version of it. Anarchism can be its own thing, far outside of leftism, governmentalisms, politics. As in, not a subcategory to any of that shit.

What do you think?

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Esperaux wrote

Communism is not exclusive to Marx though. If anything Peter Kropotkin went in a completely different direction from Marx who very much had centralizing tendencies and attitudes towards communism. At least from my own experience reading Malatesta he himself stressed the importance of the relationship between anarchism and socialism. Mutual aid is the basis for pushing for a system free of the competition and domination of states and capitalism. It's not a matter of ideology but of what conditions are to look like when complete freedom for all is pursued.

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subrosa wrote

I feel you're too busy defending communism (pointing to its opposition to state and capital) to address my questions about its relation to anarchism. To rephrase, I'm primarily interested in why you think anarchism needs to be communist. It's not like I'm wholesale anti-Kropotkin or something. And, as someone else pointed out, mutual aid doesn't necessitate communism.

If I can be excused pulling a litmus test of sorts: Would you reject anarchy if it isn't in any way communist? Would you rather focus on building a network of 'non-competitive' communist democracies than focus on creating and living anarchy?

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Esperaux wrote

It's not a question of anarchism needing to be communist it's a question of what anarchism itself means. Working against the structures of capitalism and the state means radically changing the very way resources are extracted and consumed. What forms of noncommunist anarchy exists besides either market anarchism or anarchist capitalism? The former preserving the coercive forces of capitalism but collectivizing the system and the second being a contradictory concept.

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subrosa wrote

It's not a question of anarchism needing to be communist it's a question of what anarchism itself means.

Ok. Why do you think it means communism?

What forms of noncommunist anarchy exists besides either market anarchism or anarchist capitalism? The former preserving the coercive forces of capitalism but collectivizing the system and the second being a contradictory concept.

I highly doubt the usefulness of the 'market or communism' thing you do, I would be similarly critical if it were the other way around. ("Anarchism without markets ends up always coercive communism blah blah", I can imagine some C4SS reader tweeting that). Either approach would seem a little stuck in the 'ontology' of existing economics and politics, the interlocking sciences and practices of household-managing and government that gave us the most commonly accepted meanings of 'markets' and 'communism'. As if anarchism is merely another political program, a plan for how to run the community or whatever 'house' you plan to communize.

Obviously unwilling to 'kill my heroes', or just not great with language, here's me pulling two quotes that express important bits of what I'm trying to get at:

I believe that anarcho-hyphenations tend to favor the non-anarchist side of the hyphen and should be avoided. [...] This burden of hyphenation wasn't necessarily the way it had to happen. Hyphenated positions can just be a way to state a preference, to work through the extremes of a position, or to compensate for the fact that so many partisans of positions have gone quiet in our modern era, replaced by mealy mouthed voyeurs who swipe left and right on the infinite choices life presents them.

Aragorn!

[...] if I am anywhere near correct that it is various forms of something like escheat that connects the various kinds of exploitation that we currently experience, then I am probably not too far wrong in thinking that the entire abandonment of the polity-form is the key to shifting from archic to anarchic forms of social organization.

That, it seems to me, is the one fundamentally anarchistic task we face and, if we manage to accomplish it, many of the challenges to follow are really just technical questions, to be answered experimentally as we try to best match our available resources with our needs and desires. At that point, we can settle back into a kind of economic analysis that we’ve learned to approach with a mix of skill and pleasure. But, at that point, I expect that the market-form itself will have diminished considerably in its specific importance, losing much of the ideological significance that it clearly now bears.

Shawn Wilbur

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