DJP
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This text looks interesting, but it is unreadable as forum comments.
Another option would be to post it somewhere like Libcom.org or archive.org and then share the link to that on this forum.
For Graeber, anarchism was equal with ‘democracy’ as practised through consensus at things like the Occupy movements. He was not a communist in any sense of the term, and his ideas may actually be counter-productive. See in the Standard the longer review of his book with Wengrow, for example.
Incidentally, there’s more anarchism on the BBC here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07k3ngyI think there’s an episode of ‘In Our Time’ too.
“police brutality is State brutality not necessarily racist”
So state brutality can’t be racist? In this case, the kind of snatch squads that beat Tyre Nichols to death are only deployed in black neighbourhoods. That is the structurally racist background of this incident.
A bit of a long view, seven hours in total. But Adam Curtis’s latest film outing ‘TraumaZone’ provides some good background to the ever popular ‘Russian Tensions’ thread on here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0d3hwl1/russia-19851999-traumazone
Incidentally, I have been reading a fair bit of Pannekoek lately. He keeps referring to the need of a “spiritual revolution” to bring about socialism. Of course he is not talking about mystical religion but using “spiritual” to mean “mental” or “consciousness”. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t the only one to use the word in that way at the turn of the twentieth century, but wonder how widespread this usage was?
“Alex says this is an illusion (because everything that happens anywhere in the universe at one moment is determined by everything that happened before right back to the Big Bang). Maybe it is in that unhelpful sense (unhelpful because it doesn’t explain anything). Or maybe “free will” is the (unhelpful) name given to that illusion?”
I didn’t watch the video, but the arguments seem like the common ones. I think the mistake being made here is one of confusing different levels of explanation. The assumption is that every explanation has to be reducible to physics, and since ‘free will’ can’t be seen in the world of physics (in the interactions of atoms, particles etc) then it doesn’t exist. But the kind of social explanations we are looking for take place at the level of intentional agents (eg in a social world made up of agents that act according to intentions – not in the world of atoms and particles), there is no need to reduce the explanation to physics.
This podcast explains it better (you can skip to 13 minutes if you are already familiar with the arguments): https://philosophybites.com/2020/02/christian-list-on-free-will.html
“All-in, is this true?”
Yes, for one example, see this: https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1935/1930s/no-366-february-1935/marx-force/
<i>So violence is never justified?</i>
The SPGB position isn’t a pacifist one. If a recalcitrant minority was to use force to block the majority from obtaining Socialism, then it would be justified to use force against them. That’s why there is a section in the DoP about the necessity of socialists gaining control of the armed forces.
But the difference between the SPGB and those that think a minority can achieve ‘good by force’ is that the SPGB thinks that socialism can only be bought about through conscious majority co-operative action; since a socialist society will require this kind of conscious cooperation in order to function as such.
The “usual explanations” about anarchism generally aren’t that good because there’s so much bad and inaccurate history written about anarchism, usually written by hostile or uncomprehending parties. The idea that anarchism mainly appealed to peasants or appears where capitalism hasn’t developed just doesn’t fit with the facts.
The best studies include:
“Black Flame” by Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt. Which is unfortunately out of print. Though the text overly equates anarchism with syndicalism.
This, as yet unpublished, PhD thesis by Oscar Addis: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.843328
And, “Making Sense of Anarchism: Errico Malatesta’s Experiments with Revolution” by Davide Turcato.
This podcast about Eric Hobsbawm’s ‘Primitive Rebels’ is worth listening too: https://podtail.com/en/podcast/abc-with-danny-and-jim/episode-27-eric-hobsbawm-s-primitive-rebels/
Incidentally, why isn’t the party making its own podcast? Something that would be easy to do to reach out to people.
I think this podcast on “teenage tankies” might be of interest here:
It’s a bit of trick to call them ‘pay rises’ though! I wouldn’t be surprised if most of these still represented a real terms pay cut when rises in the cost of living are subtracted.
“Alternatively, wait for Socialism”
I’m sure all the members of the aunt sally party are doing that.
In reality, revolutionary socialists have always been prominent and active members of the trade union movement – but have always been aware that this is just a rear-guard action and that trade unions can only play a conservative role.
So they have about a quarter of a million people signed up. I wonder how many of them would actually be cancelling direct debits, I would have thought a quarter would be a very optimistic estimate.
The only thing that is going to result from this is that those participating will end up paying more on their energy bills, or in worse financial trouble than they were before.
Boycotts (i.e consumers “strikes” which this is) can be effective, but only if the take-up is high enough and the goal is reachable. Doesn’t look like this is the case here.
Would be wiser, and more effective, to get involved with supporting the other trade-union led campaigns that are taking off.
“but that is not the sense in which I am using the word ‘struggle’”
What did you mean by it then? Violence?
“I don’t think everybody must have an opinion on everything. I’m not sure why you think I do or why you had to make that point at all or what you’re trying to tell me.”
Well you talked about having to measure the “dynamic consent of the overwhelming majority of people from one day to the next”. Sounds like some kind of mass opinion poll to me. What questions would they be asked?
