> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Chuck0
> Oh, OK, so now it's time to drag out the anti-anarchist Marxist writers.
> Do I sense some jealousy here? Am I correct in assuming that the
> authoritarian "international socialists" were caught flat-footed by the
> Battle in Seattle?
I am not sure about the authoritarian international socialists, but the democratic (more or less - and that is the issue) socialists who organized to have tens of thousands of people on the streets were generally not happy that a small handful of property-destroying folks decided to undemocratically make decisions against the will of the vast majority.
In that sense, anarchists are no different from Stalinists or concessionary union leaders who sell out the majority for their own self-interested or even high-minded strategies. In all the anti-democratic instances, a small group decides that the vast majority of activists have made or will make the wrong decision, so they take decision-making into their own hands, whether by shoving a contract down the union members throats, playing Stalinist manipulation games, or just breaking windows knowing that the media will focus on them.
In any case, the anarchists are being completely undemocratic and unwilling to abide by broader agreed upon democratic decisions. From every report I've seen, there was broad democratic agreement between the forces that organized in Seattle that while there would be a variety of different methods used - marches, street actions, etc. - the actions would all be non-violent against both people and property.
You may not like that decision, but there are hundreds of other cities in the country for anarchists to do their own actions. But when they free-ride on other peoples political organizing and then undemocratically ignore the agreements made among activists, they are not political allies but (however well-meaning) largely enemies of the democratic values most left activists seek.
There are varieties of anarchism, obviously, and many historically took abiding by democratic decision-making very seriously. They refused physical and state coercion as a mechanism for its enforcement, but they proclaimed a positive value in such respect for democratic decision-making.
The difference with a lot of modern anarchist advocates is that it is more a libertarian "do-your-own-thing-and-screw-the desires-of-others" kind of ethic. The big difference with conservative libertarians is that anarchists don't have the property exception for coercion that economic libertarians have, but the personal values are often close to the same as far as respect for democratic values.
To reiterate, there are a lot of different forms of anarchism, but the actions of the street vandals in Seattle (which may in this case have even been a net positive) are very much in line with the individualistic self-fulfillment of this later kind of do-your-own thing anarchism.
It is at the theoretical and often practical level as much the enemy of democratic socialist goals as capitalism or Stalinism.
-- Nathan Newman