Anarchist puts case for contesting elections
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‘Waiting for contradictions’ will lead to, as it always has, ‘waiting’.
Who’s waiting?
There are millions of empty housing units all around the world – 60 million in China alone 18 million in the US, 17 million in Europe and that’s not to mention all those office, factory, warehousing and retails units lying empty and decaying. At the same time there are millions of homeless people, tens of thousands of them living rough on the street
That’s a “contradiction”. We dont have to “wait” for it to materialise. It already exists. We need to act on it
“We need to act on it”
Is the “we” the collective we as in the working class as a whole
Or is it the “we” as in the SPGB/WSM
And, of course, we have to wait until either of the “we” decide upon just what sort of action.
Is the “we” the collective we as in the working class as a whole
Yes. Obviously, there is nothing we in the WSM can do about the contradiction referred to – empty homes alongside homeless people – though I would personally encourage people to squat if they can get away with it. Only when the working class as a whole becomes socialist-minded will we able to do something effective about getting rid of it by getting rid of the cause – capitalism.
The point I was making is that the contradiction exists in reality as an empirically demonstrable fact even if some of us may not be aware of it or dont care two hoots about it
“Of course, the precise details of the revolutionary change will differ from country to country depending on the political conditions (where legal ballots do not exist or cannot be trusted the workers must create our own) and it will also differ in accordance with different creative ideas about what needs to be done before the establishment of socialism which will emerge as the socialist movement grows. In this sense John Crump is quite right to say that “the millions of men and women who will be the architects of the new world” will decide the exact means by which the revolution is to occur…
… We should build on whatever ideas we have in common. It is pointless for workers who share a vision of a stateless society based on the uncompromised principles of socialism to be endlessly squabbling over the texts of the nineteenth century. If the ranks of the revolutionary movement can be swelled on the basis of principled unity it would be wrong for anyone to delay the process…”
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/02/debate-is-there-common-ground-between.html
Termiting our Hostility Clause
Assertion
‘We should build on whatever ideas we have in common…’
Comment
There is only one idea worth sharing in common—that is our Object.
At present no one else shares it nor aims for it. Rather the rest aim for something other than and antagonistic toward our Object. Their ideas stand in direct opposition to ours.
As their ideas aim for something else, they are useless for us.
We have no ideas in common with those who won’t share our Object.
Assertion
‘…workers who share a vision of a stateless society’
Comment
A vision of a stateless society covers the fondest desires of the latest self-styled libertarian conservatives.
The social state is a superstructural consequence of class ownership and control of the social means of life. Under capitalist class ownership and control of the social means of life, the vision of a stateless society remains just that—a vision, an anti-socialist fantasy.
A stateless society is only meaningful in the context of our achieved Object.
We harbour no vision of a stateless society in common with those who won’t share our Object.
Assertion
‘…based on the uncompromised principles of socialism’
Comment
Please explain which uncompromised principles of socialism if not our Object and D of P?
Assertion
‘If the ranks of the revolutionary movement can be swelled on the basis of principled unity it would be wrong for anyone to delay the process…’
Comment
Please explain which principles we should have unity with if not our Object and D of P?
* * *
In the wetlands of Kakadu you find massive termite mounds that are aligned—polarized, you might call them—parallel to lines of Earth longitude within a degree or two, pointing like compass needles to the Earth’s celestial poles.
The other species of termites in the drylands build wondrously baroque columnar palaces, but their’s do not face broadside to the morning and afternoon sun, and they lack a definite common axis of North–South orientation.
Both these eusocial cooperative mound-builders share much in common, but only one species invariably aligns them in the same direction.
1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.
twc, you will have to address these comments to the Socialist Standard and enquire if the present editors stand by that 1987 reply.
Not all those involved in the production of the Socialist Standard bother to visit this forum so you may well have to submit a formal letter to the Socialist Standard
All off topic posts in this thread of “Anarchist puts case for contesting elections”.
have been moved to this thread.
This topic has been closed for the time being, until posters stop posting off topic material onto it.
Use the new thread for the subject of ‘Reality’.
Thanks. That’s good, but I think a more appropriate place to have moved the posts to would have been
Non-serious discussion, joke sharing and anything else.The thread is open again for discussion specifically on the topic, ‘Anarchist puts case for contesting elections’ so please make your other asides elsewhere.
I couldn’t get your link to work in this list.
Pointing to a book.
It’s chapter 3 of this book.
Mind you, Morris was a case of a Socialist putting the case for not contesting elections, at least up until the 1890s.
Stirner recommended as’philosophical teacher of the proletariat’, and ‘The Unique and its Property’ [aka The Ego and its Own] as ‘a book that should be in the hand of every thinking worker’.
Recommended by an anarchist? No. By a German social-democrat in 1897:
https://jacobin.com/2024/02/max-stirner-proletariat-philosophy-duncker
FWIW, as I’ve said before, the influence of Stirner on the development of anarchism has been grossly over-inflated. A couple of individualist anarchists mention him as an influence, and Bakunin mentions him in ‘Statism and Anarchy’ but not to claim him as an anarchist or an influence on Anarchism. It’s largely from hostile and inaccurate sources (unfortunately some early articles in the Standard fall into this category) that this link has been popularised.
As a reference see Zoe Baker’s ‘Means and Ends’ which has now been published (I’d say this and ‘Black Flame’ are the best books about Anarchism). Stirner gets a mention on page 42, and that’s it.
As well claiming that Proudhom is one of the founders of Anarchism is totally false, he had the same conceptions as the US economist Henry George.
The Marxist Humanists claim that Marx was a Hegelian philosopher during all his life, and I do not agree with that asseveration, personally I think that he was more inclined toward Anthropology and he was a real Anarchist
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