From: JessEcoh-AT-cs.com
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 00:40:42 EST
Subject: [postanarchism] Re: Voluntary Dissociation


In a message dated 11/3/03 10:17:30 PM Central Standard Time, 
ricinger-AT-inch.com writes: 
> My coauthor "Asfodel" actually did some painstaking research and 
> Google searching to try to find anyplace in historic, "classic" anarchist 
> writing where it says that it is ideally anarchist for a group to be able 
> dissociate itself from an individual at whim, based on simply its own 
> desire to do so.  She couldn't find it.  She and I found lots of stuff 
> about how it is essential in an anarchist society for an individual to be 
> able to leave a group, but not stuff on it being just as essential for a 
> group to purge an individual.  We found some stuff from Malatesta and 
> Bakunin that basically said, if someone is guilty of an egregious act, 
> then, probably, the most appropriate thing for a group or community to do 
> is shun or exile this person (rather than, say, inflicting bodily injury or 
> imprisonment).  But these comments were vague and kind of reluctant; they 
> were by no means grand endorsements of the purge.

richard --

   you're not going to find something labeled "principle of voluntary 
dissociation," but it is certainly implicit in the principle of voluntary 
association.  the spanish anarchists certainly allowed that peasants who didn't want to 
join the collectives were free to negotiate with them as outsiders, e.g., to 
dissociate.  and not only malatesta and bakunin but kropotkin as well speak of 
shunning/exiling as a last resort in cases of individuals who are absolutely 
parasitic on a community's resources and labor.  does the idea need a stronger 
imprimatur than that?


       --jesse.


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