Ask an Anarchist!

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I think that a lot of that came down to the fact that those Anarchists were in the Kropotkinite strain, and so lacked a proper understanding of class or of capitalist society, and so the ability to make any meaningful moves towards class conciousness and so an effective socialist society. (Also, that their Anarchism was often a bit half-formed, containing as much of a peasant "clubmen" mentality as a true revolutionary one.)

Oh yes, that much is certain. Of course, I would argue that nearly all anarchists lack a true sense of class consciousness.

If you look at the Anarcho-Syndicalists in Spain, who were very concious of class issues, you'll see that they cooperated more effectively with both each other and with non-Anarchist forces. Aside from anything else, they had abandoned the old Anarchist conviction that the state necessarily precedes the ruling class, moving closer to a Council Communist-style understanding of the state and ruling class as mutually re-enforcing. Indeed, in practice there is very little difference between Anarcho-Syndicalism and "Left" forms of Communism, or even some of the libertarian forms of Leninism, at least in the short term.

The Catalonian anarcho-syndicalists faced similar problems, actually. They were unable to form a unified block that could take on the Nationalists, and their relations were plagued by infighting and political intrigue.

As a side-note, the Communards also faced a very similar problem in 1871; the Versaillese were able to take on the quarters piecemeal, as the locals refused to form a united defense of the city.

 

[Quackers]

I know I have asked a lot but this thread is interesting

"ahem"

If the population needs class conciousness for left-wing anarchy to succeed.

-How much understanding is needed to achieve this level?
-Can everybody be class conciousness? Do you need to be able to write a 20,000 word dissertion on class to be conscious of it?

I would imagine Britain is probably the most classist society in the world - you can distinguise a man's class based on his accent - so why has far-left ideas comprehensively failed in the UK?

 

[Berzerker]

So what? It's still possible to have multiple products in the same organization without that organization competing with itself.

And other businesses will be competing with that organization, therefore competition exists under anarchism.

Not without a huge workforce, no.

Somebody invents a highly desired product, they'll have no problem getting people to make it - unless the anarchists dont really believe in freedom and screw the inventor and his employees.

Why do you think a collective would only make one product?

Whether they make 1 or 10 dont matter... They're gonna be competing with other people making similar (or the same) products.

And they still have to get that initial money. Someone who's trying to reestablish a capitalist enterprise isn't going to get any loans...

The inventor wont have trouble raising money if they have a good idea... Or does "anarchism" mean everyone gets their property stolen for the collective and no one is allowed to re-accumulate wealth? That'll just slow the inventor down, but if the collective is playing under the same rules, they have the same problem.

It's exploitative because the capitalists are stealing the surplus-value of a worker's labor(the product the worker made was worth more than they got paid). There's other factors, such as alienation from the means of production and such as well. Volunteering to let someone steal from you is still you being exploited.

I'm not entitled (morally) to the combined value of my labor enhanced by someone else's equipment and clientele. Your collective wont be able to buy equipment if the workers get paid the product's value.

 

[Traitorfish]

Oh yes, that much is certain. Of course, I would argue that nearly all anarchists lack a true sense of class consciousness.

I think that may be an over-generalisation. There's a long history of communication, exchange and cooperation between Marxism (particularly Left Marxism) and Anarco-Syndicalism- a movement which honestly owes more to Marx than to Bakunin- including a lot of shared though on class relations and struggle. Anarchists have certainly had a harder time, as a movement, getting to grips with and communicating issues of class, but I think that owes to an historical preoccupation with the state by Anarchists, rather than any essential quality of Anarchism itself.

The Catalonian anarcho-syndicalists faced similar problems, actually. They were unable to form a unified block that could take on the Nationalists, and their relations were plagued by infighting and political intrigue.

True, but that's a comment on the entirety of the Republic, rather than the anarchists in particular; few factions were able to cooperated effectively, regardless of ideology. The dominant factor in this in-fighting, if any, was the pro-/anti-Soviet rivalry, which was hardly down to the Anarchists alone.