[lbo-talk] More on BB antics and their defenders

[Marv Gandall]

Good explanation. Another factor is that, unlike the Marxists and social democrats, the anarchists never seized state power in a revolution or formed a government in a capitalist society (the latter never having been their objective) and only had limited influence in the trade unions and other popular organizations in Spain, Italy, France and a few Latin American countries prior to WW II.  In other words, the great majority of politically conscious workers and intellectuals looking at the historical record and the relative strength of the competing political tendencies, had less reason to treat anarchist tactics seriously, however attractive its anti-statist, anti-party program and heroic tradition embodied in proletarian activists like Sacco and Vanzetti. 

On 2012-02-11, at 2:23 PM, Angelus Novus wrote:


> 
> 
> Eric wrote:
> 
>> How come opponents of BB and anarchism never take it seriously (or,
> in shag's terms, respect it)?
> 
> The problem is rooted in the ambiguity of the very term "anarchism".
> 
> On the one hand, there's "Anarchism" properly speaking, a historical tendency within the labor movement tracing its roots back to the Bakunin wing of the First International, and later theoretically elaborated by thinkers like Kropotkin, and reaching its organizational and political zenith in the Spanish CNT-FAI.  This is basically the "Anarchism" dealt with in Daniel Guerin's book, with which Noam Chomsky identifies. This represents something like a defineable trend within the left, and it can be analyzed as such.
> 
> 
> Then there's "anarchism", which is just a nebulous term that newly radicalizing people apply to themselves in order to emphasize their distance from both Social Democratic electoralism as well as the various self-styled "Bolshevik" organizations.  The problem with criticizing this kind of "anarchism" is that there isn't really anything to criticize, since it means something completely different depending on the individual using the term.  So you have anarchists who reject voting, anarchists who vote, anarchists who reject labor unions or permanent organizations, anarchists who believe in those things, anarchists with a concept of "capitalism", and anarchists who reject such conceptualizing.  
> 
> 
> In other words, when you ask why "it" isn't taken seriously, that's because there isn't any one singular "it" to criticize.  Instead there is a multiplicity of various "its" that all happen to use the same label.  It's not that anyone regards "it" with contempt or dismissal; it's simply that "it" doesn't really exist.
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk