/anarcho/ - Anarchism Board

I'm not quite sure whether we should mostly focus on trying to gather up the supporters (probably through an email-list) for creating a commune, or take some time and work on the theory first.

We already know how the decision making process is going to work: consensus democracy. I'm personally not a big fan of using delegates for all but the most exceptional cases as I think most decisions can be made directly by the workers in a syndicate on the shop floor, and carried out collectively. It's a group of workers that actually produces, say, a car, on the shop floor, not a delegate, so I'm not sure what we would need delegates for, unless we're like opening some kind of diplomatic ties with neighbouring areas and need an envoy to them.

So since we know how the "political" side of things is going to work, we just need to work on the "economic" side of things.

If we have some land and some farms, and we've got say, 20 initial Communards living in shacks that we've built on our land, how do we then expand the economy to include things beyond the bare minimum of food and shelter and electrical power?

How can we create communal logger bands and syndicates of house construction workers to build the houses? How can we build a factory that will churn out TVs and computers for our Communards, and how will we get access to the metals and plastics, chemicals and circuit boards needed to actually make the TVs and computers? How can we produce clothes for the community?

Basically, how can we make all of the stuff described in this section of the Anarchist FAQ a reality? http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secIcon.html

I referenced in an earlier thread to a figure of 5000 people for a single Autonomous Zone is probably still a decent figure. I recently found out that the minimum number of people needed to sustain a space colony would be around 10,000. Obviously, we're not aiming for a space colony, but it's comparable in that it's an isolated commune that doesn't have the luxury of relying on outside sources for support, and would probably gain new members very, very slowly. So 10,000 might be a better figure.

Finally, there's the question of where to set up shop. If we can't buy land from a large private land-owner like a rancher, then maybe demanding land like a state or provincial park or something under the jurisdiction of a branch of government lower than the national level would be best.

I've mentioned before in my earlier thread how I think the idea of building a community in some uninhabited or sparsely populated area is flawed, but if you really wanna go for it, it might even be better in the sense that it would set a better legal precedent for future breakaway movements. That legal precedent being: breakaway movements would be tolerated in nearly any situation, not just if you're lucky enough to snatch up some uninhabited land. If a breakaway movement in a major city succeeds, then there's no chance of the government trying to put caveats on its recognition of future movements in the form of requiring that they be on uninhabited land.

Guys, if you're in a country in Latin America or perhaps Eastern Europe that might have easy-to-manage laws that we could exploit to build the commune, post in this thread!

And also, I begrudgingly admit that buying state land would be just way too difficult, and I could definitely see the local residents opposing us if we tried to buy a state park or something.

>>7839

>the Marxist guy
I was willing to get on board with this, but now that you've demonstrated you'd just make this into a lifestylist individualist "anarchist" center, I've lost all interest.

Good job.

>>7845
I've heard Riseup will doxx you if they deem you step out of line.
Just a heads up. Do remember getting doxxed for anarchist activity is kinda dangerous.
>>>/leftypol/119737

>>7849
Oh, that sucks. But yeah, never trust random anons on the internet >>6294

>>7847

I keep fucking up my writing, I wrote something wrong in the 9th paragraph of my post about the idea of building on uninhabited land vs. a populated city.

So, to clarify, actually I think either a populated area or some uninhabited State land would be workable once we get off the ground, it's just the issue of actually declaring an officially seceded Autonomous Zone.

I just think it'd be slightly easier if we start a movement to buy some national park rather than try and cordon off a section of a major city. But of course, we won't know until we try it out, maybe most countries consider their national parks to be more sacred and inviolable than their cities, I don't know.

I just found out about this "Anarchist Nation" project:
http://anarchistnation.org/

Don't really know much about what they do, but you anons might find it useful.

>>7875

Welp, it looks like this thread isn't gonna get more posters discussing actual anarchist action until we deal with this argument. I would've thought people would've read my previous arguments against this position, and just ignore this argument and go on discussing actionable strategies, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be happening.

We have to deal with the possibility that we might lose. So, let's posit that an anarchist community was set up in say, France, and it grew to 10,000 people and was influencing the society around it to such a degree that the government of France was getting worried and it started a crackdown. This spurred an anarchist revolution, which spread into Germany, but the anarchist militias had to stop their advance into Germany for some reason. Let's say the German/NATO/UN military was too powerful for some reason for the anarchists, or, in an even more likely scenario than that, the ideals of anarchism simply hadn't spread into Germany, and the Germans were resolutely against turning their cities and towns into communal confederations. They resolutely resisted anarchism, and even planned on attacking any anarchist agitators that tried to spread the message of anarchism there. We would have to turn back, hunker down and admit defeat and set up shop solely in France, that country becoming the defacto anarchist "nation" of France, the Anarchist Confederation of France, or something like that.

Obviously, if anarchism were to spread successfully to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, or Britain, the French Confederation could just be renamed the Western European Anarchist Confederation or something like that.

An anarchist "nation" is simply an area where anarchism predominates. Nothing less, nothing more. It can take control of an entire former state's territory, or only parts of it, or it can stretch over part of one former state and part of another. There's no nationalistic feeling involved, except for maybe the feeling of superiority anarchists would have over their enslaved statist neighbours, but I don't think that's necessarily all that bad of a feeling to have.

And even in a situation where we've driven off most of the leadership corps of the major world powers, all of the global bankers and international organizations, the UN, the World Bank, all that, we still have the millions of people all over the world that have some resistance to the idea of actually living under anarchism for some reason. We're going to have to deal with them, and that means cordoning off areas where anarchist beliefs dominate and letting everyone else go their own way.

We still are obligated by the ideals of anarchism to try and spread anarchism into places where it hasn't taken root yet, of course. But this is just my action plan for what to do in the worst-case scenario where we don't convert the entire world to anarchist ideals, or if it takes longer than we think.

>>8099

The surviving small republics and other states in a world where we've overturned the current order wouldn't even be really states in a way we would recognize them, since the power of the old global order would be broken, and with it its principles of the absolute inviolability of the state. The areas where states would still exist would enjoy basically 100% consent of the government, since people would be organizing themselves from below in the absence of the former Leviathan states, except in areas where crazy cult leaders and far-right groups might take power. If the major world countries become anarchist, then people in Paraguay and Benin and Myanmar and everywhere else would most likely reorganize their own societies as well, being that those countries' politicians are also subservient to the global order. But if anarchist ideals fail to penetrate those areas of the world, we can still be relatively assured that if the people there still insisted on setting up a republic, even after anarchism has proven itself, those republics would be friendly to us, because the actions of the world's politicians against us will have vindicated us in the eyes of the world's people.

>>8101

I'm really not seeing much refutation of my criticism of the idea that an anarchist nation is a paradox. If direct-democratic town councils and syndicates are the sole organizing bodies in an area of say, 30,000 sq. km, instead of covering an area of 148,326,000 sq. km (all of Earth's land), does that mean the syndicates and town councils don't actually exist? How would they be fundamentally compromised in a way that would actually make them less anarchist in real world form and practice? When statists say that anarchism wouldn't work because someone who wants power that lives in that community could violently take control, we naturally strike that down with the counterargument that the community would band together to stop them. Are you trying to say that a coup in the Anarchist Meeting Hall by someone who wants to take power would be more likely to happen in a community that doesn't have thousands of other anarchist communities in a whole huge nation surrounding it, to come in and help squash the coup?

I suppose that would be a fair criticism, but if that's your criticism, it sounds a bit like the accusation that anarchism doesn't work because the Spanish and Ukrainian anarchist territories were conquered.

You doesn't actually prove how the fundamental anarchist character of the community would be compromised. You doesn't talk about how the democratic councils might turn hierarchical in some fashion under my proposal in some fashion, or how the syndicates in my proposal might revert back to capitalism. That would be an example of proving that my proposal is anti-anarchistic, not quibbling over how many square kilometers of land I propose we control.

>transitional state

I hope you're referring to the "Socialism in one country" idea, and not a transitional state as in the idea of State Socialism being the transitional stage to full communism. If you're talking about the latter, well, I have a response to that, but if you're talking about the former, I really don't know what to to tell you. It's just not comparable, and it's such a slog to always have to bring up something related to the Soviet Union all the time in any discussion of socialism, statist or anarchistic.

The Soviets were fighting a war against the imperialist powers of the time. We won't be, at least that's not what I'm aiming for, as we'll seek a mutually recognized secession of our territory between us and the surrounding state. If they refuse, well, we'll just gather more Communards, and buy up more territory, as well as get ourselves some non-anarchist supporters, and continually expand outwards until there's some sort of eventual crackdown. You'd have to do some serious economic number crunching to really have an airtight case that a self-sufficient Autonomous Zone is impossible. It's much more rational to just assume that, just as individual self-sufficiency is possible, communal self-sufficiency is as well.

I just don't see what discussions of Stalin's theory have to do with this at all. State socialism failed because it was authoritarian and despised by the masses, and all authoritarian regimes give way eventually. It failed because central planning is immoral and inefficient, because economic life must be organized by the people from below. And it failed because the capitalist powers were opposing it with sanctions and such. And besides, if Lenin and Trotsky's theory succeeded over Socialism in One Country, it's not as if it would have led to anarchism, state socialists desire nothing but power and they had no intentions of giving up power to the proletariat after the communists ruled in every country. Socialism in one country failed, and Trotsky's permanent revolution also failed, on both a tactical level, and in terms of the ideology the Old Left held. I'm not sure why you're trying to fit my strategy into this Marxist dichotomy

>consolidation of power

The territory will be comprised of syndicates, councils governed by consensus democracy, voluntary communes, all the things most of this people on the board support. There will be no consolidation of power in hierarchical systems anywhere. Once again, you'd have to prove that an independent-city state would somehow end up more hierarchical than an enormous World Confederation, or that it would be vulnerable to people trying to take power.

I've discussed a great deal in my original thread why I think the traditional strategy of the past few decades of educating the public slowly until we get a revolution is flawed. so I think I can say, with some trepidation, that I've already proved that my strategy will "work", in the sense of being able to maintain momentum and gather up the manpower and resources necessary to actually achieve a city-state. Really, saying that something "won't work" doesn't allow for much of a thoughtful rebuttal by someone, it's pretty vague. There are multiple interpretations of something "not working", there's the lead-up phase, i.e. whether we'll actually be able to sustain the project to completion, and the task of maintaining the prosperity and fundamental anarchist character of the community once it's established. I think I've shown how my proposal is more workable than the dominant consensus among anarchists, although I freely admit I have no real plan on how to practically get going with this beyond the most fundamental steps and sketches of the future. That's where other comrades will hopefully step in.

>>8105

I'm not saying we're bound to stop after we reach some predetermined point, that we can't continue to try and expand outward and gain converts in the bordering territories to expand the reach of anarchism.

But I'm aiming for workable anarchism, a confederation of 10,000 people, within 15 years.

Since a few people seem to have personal issues with me and my admittedly wordy and tangential style, I'll repost someone else's writings in support of my plan in lieu of trying to continuously reword my arguments myself.

>There's no way there's going to be a revolution all over the world at once that leads to anarchism without different areas of the world having some pre-existing basis for anarchism to begin with.

>If you can promote the economic side of anarchism as viable in a large independent community that acts as an example of a working socialistic system, and you'll get copycats.

>THEN if the state tries to crack down it'll become obvious they aren't doing it because it's unworkable but because they are scared, and a lot of people would be alienated from the state, driving more support for anarchism.

>At that point, you are far more likely to have a worldwide revolution and to achieve actual anarchism.

>Just sitting around waiting for everyone to spontaneously revolt at the same time everywhere otherwise it's not REAL ANARCHISM™ is perfect for feeling radical and rebellious while not actually doing anything, but it's not exactly a realistic way of achieving an anarchist world.

>Obviously, anarchism is international, but international does not mean that everywhere has to convert to anarchist systems at the exact same time. Carving out large territories which actually function can be a precursor to a future revolution.