Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 09:37:24 +1000
From: sjwright-AT-vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au (Steve Wright)
Subject: Re: economics of communist societies/bolos/GIK


Chris C,

_Processed World_ #17 (Autumn 1986) had an ad at the back from pm calling
for a _bolo-log_, to which contributors could supply their images of a
'bolo-project' or 'bolo-fantasy'. This was seen as one step towards
'creat[ing] connections useful for the making of real bolos . . .'

Did it ever get printed? Have you or anyone else seen it?

In answer to Gra's question: pm envisages a new global society of small
federated communities, each of which is self-sufficient in terms of its
food needs (an important point for the author, who sees this as one
guarantee against the possible re-emergence of tyrannies). Or at least
that's how I remember it . . .

In the ad mentioned above bolos are described as:

'approximately 500 people living together, supplying themselves with food,
developing their own lifestyles. bolos are in fact very old: tribes,
villages, communities, neighborhoods. They can exist in the country or in
cities (blocks + agricultural basis). bolos are middle-sized units,
universal social communities for us or the Third World. They are the only
way out of our nightmare of work and misery'.

The book _bolo'bolo_ does have considerable charm, and has certainly drawn
positive responses from a range of friends who would consider themselves
opposed to capitalism but skeptical about the feasability of alternatives.
For that reason alone I became something of an enthusiast for the book; but
also, midst the wackiness (much of which I actually enjoyed) there are some
serious arguments worth considering. Perhaps the most controversial aspect
for me is the advocacy as Bryan says of an *exodus* from capital and the
state: much as it appeals to me at times, I just don't think it's possible
to get away with covertly constructing new social relations without capital
and the state noticing. To be fair, pm does talk of 'substruction' ie
finding ways to combine subversion of the old and construction  of the new
- so maybe I'm being unfair reducing his/her argument to the notions of
exodus that I criticised in my piece on debates within the Italian
movement. Can anybody else comment on this aspect of the book?

A while ago I stumbled across a web site dedicated to 'bolo utopias' -
although I haven't checked it in months. The URL was
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1650/e_utopia.htm

And last year the Italian anarchist weekly _Umanita' Nova_ had an
interesting article concerning subsequent books by pm, one of which it
seems was a novel about living in a world of bolos. Again, does anyone know
anymore about this?

On a slightly different trajectory: I have the 1995 _Collegamenti_ article
of Visconte Grisi on the GIK 'Principles of Communist Production and
Distribution' mentioned by Ragnar. It is a useful discussion of the GIK's
arguments, so I will add it to my list of things to translate. Should
anyone else wish to have a stab at turning it from Italian to English first
(nudge nudge), I will happily post them a photocopy of the original. Those
with web access should be able to find it at
http://www.imprese.com/mesp/CW6.html.

ATB,

Steve

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