> s-t-t at juno.com writes:
>
> > I think the implication is that anarchism has a
> > tremendous difficulty responding to the complexities
> > of the existing social order. The mere possibility of
> > workers' councils (or whatever form and name they
> > take) voting away a major portion of society's
> > transportation infrastructure is too absurd to digest,
> > and is fairly off-track as far as expropriating the
> > expropriators is concerned.
Chomsky: "[S]kepticism is in order when we hear that 'human nature' or 'the demands of efficiency' or 'the complexity of modern life' require this or that form of oppression and autocratic rule." The award-winning historian William Jackson in fact claimed in his book on the Spanish Civil War that the 'complexity of modern life' helped defeat anarchism: "[T]he revolutionary tide began to ebb in Catalonia [after] accumulating food and supply problems, and the experience of administering villages, frontier posts, and public utilities, had rapidly shown the anarchists the unsuspected complexity of modern society." However, in his "Objectivity and Liberal Scjolarship," Noam rejoined: "Whereas Jackson attributes the ebbing of the revolutionary tide to the discovery of the unsuspected complexity of modern society, Orwell's firsthand observations [in _Homage to Catalonia_], like those of Borkenau, suggest a far simpler explanation [namely, Communist suppression]." ("'[T]he revolutionary tide began to ebb in Catalonia' under the middle-class attack led by the Communist party, not because of a recognition of the 'complexity of modern society.'") In fact. Chomsky notes, "The complexities of modern society that baffled and confounded the unsuspecting anarchist workers of Barcelona" seem not to exist; in fact, "[t]he available records do not indicate that the problems of administering villages or public utilities were either 'unsuspected' or too complex for the Catalonian workers - a remarkable and unsuspected development."
This corroborates the first hand accounts of Augustin Souchy, who, like Orwell, was also a participant in the war: "The collectivisation of the textile industry shatters once and for all the legend that the workers are incapable of administrating a great and complex corporation." This was collectivization of a fairly modern industry, not a small-scale rural operation.
The primitivists agree with Engels that wanting "to abolish authority in large-scale industry" is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself. Even many Marxists have a problem with Engels' insistence that large-scale industry must be authoritarian. For example, Harry Braverman: "Engels was so carried away by his polemic that he used terminological generalities uncharacteristic of the body of his, and especially Marx's, writings. In particular, the use of the term 'authority' as a supra-historical concept, independent of the various forms which it may assume. .... [This] can only be a source of confusion." (Introduction to Labor and Monopoly Capital, 25th Anniversary Edition, Monthly Review Press, p. 12, footnotes.)
Alexander Nekvasil wrote:
> Do B-52s count as part of the transportation
> infrastructure?
As they're used now, no. If they were used primarily for transport, that would be a positive step forward.
> I should think so. But isn't the whole point of
> anarchism in particular and the left in general that
> there be no B-52s?
That B-52s not be used as weapons of war. B-52s re-outfitted to drop supplies would be another matter. There is a small-ish movement to switch military production to peace/civilian production (i.e. keep the bases open, keep people on payrolls, but with re-allocation of equipment, and reassignment of personnel, towards peaceful, non-militaristic ends.).
> Or take cars. What is a car? A means of
> transportation? Well, yes, but mainly it is a means of
> making you consume (and work!) before you buy anything:
> on your way to the shop. There is _nothing_ innocent
> about cars. When you want cars, you get GW Bush.
The handmill gives us the feudal lord, the steam mill the capitalist - and cars, GW Bush? Cars provide a "dirty" model to work from. Non-polluting cars coupled with the struggle to make manufacturers more accountable to the public and the communities they exist in, as well as the needs of their employees, would be preferrable, yes. What else could be done? Complete abolition of automobiles in one fell swoop tomorrow night would render many sick, dying, without food, etc., as there is at this moment a web of distribution of necessities that depend upon them.
> The concept of interstate highways was invented by the
> Nazis, by the way ("A highway (Autobahn) from Munich to
> the Krim!")
Oh, brother.
Brian
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"And Mr. Block thinks he may / Be President some day." - Joe Hill, "Mr. Block"