> OK, fair enough. Part of what I've been trying to say is that if anarchists
> or anyone else think that human beings can live in radically different ways,
> just go ahead and do it. Show dense people like me the way. That's what
> Fourier and Owen thought--so did the Shakers and the other 19th century
> communalists. They thought that their way of life was so attractive that if
> they could only realize it in a small-scale form, everyone else would follow.
Classical anarchism was a movement against the State and capitalism and came to address all the attending ills of authoritarianism (racism, sexism, etc.) You cannot "show the way" out of this in a commune. Communes are isolated enclaves that exist within the overarching structure of capitalist society, and all its laws and problems.
I've attempted to "show the way" through labor and community organizing efforts. Not getting a bunch of people to go live off in the countryside where we can get away from it all. The anarchist collectives that do exist and which function fairly successfully - take, say, AK Press - are almost always reduced to having to act like a capitalist business to stay self-sustaining and "afloat." This is what happens to most communes - they have to generate revenue to survive, to pay property taxes, etc. To be sure, many collectives fail because they cannot act capitalist enough - and in this system, one has to in order to survive. (About 80% of new businesses fail, as well, but this is not generally seen as evidence that the capitalist model is unworkable.) Likewise, there are plenty of "successful" workers' cooperatives - but they have to try to work in a system that is hostile to them, not one that is conducive to their goals.
As I've maintained earlier, anarchism isn't an out-of-the-box system that can be fit over society like a fresh change of clothes. It is a methodology, not a hard blueprint for a Utopia. It is a body of critical analysis that points to a way of critically approaching the society we live in now. I think it's less useful to focus on long term goals of, say, regional workers' syndicates, than it is to focus on short term goals of forging renters' and employees' unions in the houses and workplaces in our immediate areas.
> A lot of so-called "anarchists" of my acquaintance talk about doing away with
> the state and permanent institutions, seem hostile to technology, and seem to
> have in mind some sort of "back-to-the-land" idea.
And a lot of the people you will see gravitating to communes and other lifestyle insitutions are health food nuts, vegans, faddists, nudists, 'bohemian' iconoclasts, avant garde poets, and the like. Many of these people call themselves "anarchists," it's true. They have no understanding of class analysis, and this is apparent in everything they do. Sam Dolgoff referred to "ox-cart anarchists" in a passage I quoted in a previous email. Their ideas generally don't stand up to a moment's scrutiny.
Brian
---
"Shouting from trucks / Spitting on, beating down those who strayed / Shitting on, beating in those who strayed / Who would not be crushed by the offensive line's weight / Jock Gestapo and applie pie ignorance." - Born Against, "Jock Gestapo"
"And Mr. Block thinks he may / Be President some day." - Joe Hill, "Mr. Block"