File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0112, message 149


Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 11:02:10 -0800 (PST)
From: mikus <idlehandsdistro-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: For Communism


OOPS, haha, didn't realize that he posted them on this
list.  Suppose i should let him speak for himself...
sorry about that
Mike


--- Sergio Fiedler <s.fiedler-AT-unsw.edu.au> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> These articles are really a good read, but
> unfortunately they ended up
> just replicating the old leninist/trotquist/
> anacho-sydicalist critique
> of identity politics and silly statements about
> denying democratic
> rights to communists from burgeois society within
> the organisation, as
> if communism did not arise from the conditions
> created by capitalism
> itself, or as if a class position determined
> mechanistically the
> ideology of comrade. If Floyce is in fact for
> creating communism now he
> would also advocate to abolish class division about
> communists
> themselves. Again many stalinist and trotquists
> parties always procured
> to retain a proletarian majority within their
> central committees, that
> did not make the politics of those parties less
> problematic.
> 
> By  genuinely attempting to address the pitfalls of
> identity politcis
> within the left, Floyce ends up bending the stick
> too much to the other
> side, considering as desirable and positive an
> homogeneous  working
> class. This approach deny the fact that the unequal
> relations of power
> within the class are real, and while working class
> men might not
> directly benefit IN THE LONG RUN from the oppression
> of women, the
> former in most cases participate activelly in the
> extraction of unpaid
> labour by capital from the latter. The rejection of
> the sexual
> revolution is equally problematic as if changes in
> people's sexual
> behaviour were irrelevant to the reproduction of
> capitalism,
> 
> To live communism in the here and now is really
> about transforming the
> struggle against system and exodus from the system
> into a process of
> transforming social relations, and open the
> possibilities for human
> beings belonging to the proletariat to present
> themselves not simply as
> working class but as collectivety and multiplicity
> of needs and desires.
> Certainly the differences created by capitalism
> atomise and fragment tle
> class, but that process of difference through
> atomisation goes hand in
> hand with processes of homogenisation like the
> reduction of everything
> to exchange value. So where capitalism creates
> atomisation, communism
> attempts to create unity (or as Deleuze would say,
> univocity); but where
> capitalism creates unity and sameness, communism
> attempts to create
> difference and multiplicty.
> 
> I think the articles needs a better definition of
> "small capitalists".
> Often street vendors or out-workers fit technically
> the definition of
> "small capitalist" in classical Marxist framework,
> however they continue
> to be merciless exploited by corporations through a
> market regulated
> social factory.
> 
> cheers
> 
> Sergio
> 
> Floyce White wrote:
> 
> > AGAINST SOCIALISM--FOR COMMUNISM
> > A Message to All Activists in the Struggle for
> Peace
> >
> > September 29, 2001 by Floyce White
> >
> > Today we gather to oppose President Bush's threats
> to
> > launch a war of revenge--really a war for conquest
> of
> > oil and gas fields and poppy fields.  I too am
> > saddened and horrified by the depraved acts of
> murder
> > committed by terrorist hijackers September 11. 
> But I
> > will allow neither warmongering nor pacifist
> > "non-politicization" to dissuade me from
> discussing
> > these urgent issues with fellow activists.
> >
> > Peace is the natural, cooperative condition of
> > humanity.  Warfare is an anti-social aberration
> that
> > can be ended permanently.  Peace is a way of life,
> not
> > merely an interval between attacks.  Our struggle
> is
> > to end the entire system that causes war and
> violence.
> >
> > Every violent act and threat of harm is based on a
> > mistaken idea:  that one person should tell
> another
> > what to do.  Power over others is achieved by
> claiming
> > possession of the things that other people use. 
> Power
> > over others becomes a method of human relations--a
> > social system--in which every thing, every place,
> > every idea is someone's property.
> >
> > Ownership takes the actual form of society divided
> > into classes.  The upper class consists of
> inheritance
> > units--families--that make huge claims of
> ownership.
> > Economic and political oppression comes as the
> rich
> > enforce their claims.  Employers, landlords,
> > merchants, and investors are the instigators of
> > coercion and war.  For this reason, rich people
> must
> > not be invited to participate in peace activities.
> >
> > The lower class consists of the great majority
> whose
> > claims of ownership do not go beyond items of
> personal
> > use.  These dispossessed families are forced to
> sell
> > themselves as laborers to the possessing rich.
> > Working-class people are exploited, but do not
> exploit
> > others for property gain.  This concern for others
> > before one's self is the only source of peace;
> > therefore, the struggle of the working class to
> end
> > capitalism is the same as the struggle to end
> warfare.
> >
> > We must advocate action based on the
> self-organization
> > of the working class.  We must reject the elitist
> > notion that poor people are somehow unable to
> > comprehend theory or practice.  To the
> contrary--the
> > poorest people are the best informed about actual
> > conditions and are the most capable of directing
> > struggle.  We must oppose any philosophy that
> tends to
> > limit the participation of poor people.  Concepts
> of
> > race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexual
> > revolution, male chauvinism, experts or authority
> > figures, and the like are just excuses for the
> > existing structure of oppression.  Comrades from
> > capitalist family origins must step aside and
> become
> > sympathizers without voice and vote.
> >
> > For many years, the goal of the movement against
> > capitalism was called "socialism."  Socialists
> adopted
> > the idea of maximizing state (public) property
> while
> > retaining most other forms of family (private)
> > property.  The reality of so-called "socialist
> > countries" or "workers' states"--such as the USSR
> or
> > China--was rule by petty capitalist clans that
> > individually were not big enough to control heavy
> > industry.  They exploited the working class
> directly
> > through small business, and indirectly through
> > government-owned big business with a hired
> bureaucracy
> > of privileged management workers--many of who were
> > from petty-bourgeois families.  As soon as these
> > families accumulated enough power to wrest control
> of
> > heavy industry, they dropped their fiction of
> being
> > pro-worker.
> >
> > Nationalization is part of the ordinary
> organization
> 
=== message truncated ==

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of
your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com
or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com


     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005