what one tradition in political and social theory might talk about is power as it operates, say, on this list: people with a command of written english, a facility with words, a willingness to be argumentative will tend to be dominant players. (this happens in meetings one on one, where talkative types dominant meetings and people who feel shy or tongue-tied often feel steamrolled). this approach might also talk about the power of ostracism and social norms: if the punks on Holloway Rd (Heartfield's recent example) had their way, they'd demand modesty in women's dress and mock, shun, ridicule women who didn't dress appropriately.
i might, as a feminist, want to talk about the way social power operates in my workplace by pointing out the ways men subtly make it clear that they think women and anything typically associated with women doesn't belong in the workplace:
1. het men will only go to lunch with other men because, they tell me, they worry about what other people will say. My eating lunch with one of them will immediately be read as a possibly sexual relationship, people will talk, wives will find out.
2. both of the male bosses i've had at this place have tried to assign me duties typically done by an administrative assistant: planning parties, buying birthday cards for co-workers (no one buys one for me! harumph!), organizing games days, etc.
3. when we are given "treats" to celebrate some accomplishment, such as a day off to celebrate at some local event, it's for race car driving, bowling, pool. Personally, I was totally into a manipedi to reward my over-time working ass.....
4. the way that all the men around me commonly engage in put downs of one another which almost always involve joking about having sex with the others' wives or girlfriends. e.g., "Yo, where you at dawg?" Answer: "Over here with your girl and a forty of beer."
Which, actually, is what *I* said to one of them once. Everyone busted a gut and also had to stop and think about the hetero/sexism.
5. Never mind the judgment and pointed comments that involve lesbian women, gay men, and bisexuality...
6. the frequent comment, from co-workers and managers, that any kind of complaint or inability is acting like a woman or girl. To put one another down, men call each other women.
That's the way that at least one form of oppressive relations of power work in the workplace
if you think this kind of power in social life is unimportant, that's fine. we'll have to disagree.
At 05:52 PM 1/22/2012, Carrol Cox wrote:
>Shag writes: "Thus, he is opposed to anarchists because, to his mind, their
>political practice does not address how to deal with power as it operates
>outside the state. Now, he's quite wrong about this since anarchists are
>very interested in the way they, themselves, as people creating alternative
>institutions, are capable of reinstantiating relations of repressive and
>oppressive power. In other words, not only are they interested, the ways
>they organize themselves are acts of conscious social reproduction, attempts
>to avoid or at least mitigate the tendency for power to operate outside of
>the state in civil society - political associations, family, community,
>etc.:"
>
>---------
>
>Shag, your whole argument may or may not hold; I simply lack energy now to
>follow the whole of it _or_ to formulate the whole of my own position here.
>But I think you are mistaken here, and the mistake appears within your own
>words:
>
>.a) "tendency for power to operate outside of the state"
>
>.b) "the way they, themselves, as people creating alternative institutions,
>are capable of reinstantiating relations of repressive and oppressive
>power."
>
>This is the same mistake writ small. Power, apparently, is something people
>create, exercise: Crudely, it is an intentional or unintentional act. They
>are conscious that is of their own tendency to exercise, to want to
>exercise, power over others. Put otherwise, power is state power, but there
>can be little states (a given anarchist project).
>
>But where then is the overwhelming power of commodity relations. When
>capitalists exercise the kind of power anarchists see, they are acting to
>preserve, protect, those social relations. The state has (fundamentally) no
>desire to exercise power in the anarchist sense; it exercises power in
>giving support to capitalist endeavors to maintain the freedom of capitalist
>relations.
>
>Now in practice, sometimes, the only protection working people have against
>the (blind, unintentional until challenged) power of normal capitalist
>practice, is THE STATE.
>
>Working conditions. Hours. Safety on the job. And so forth. In one of their
>episodes of upsurge, workers impose on the state this responsibility. And in
>a more or less effective, etc. way the state continues to exercise this
>protective role, this power over capitalists, even as labor militancy
>declines. OSHA is not 100% a dead letter. It does give woerkers some
>protection. That is state power in operation. It doesnot come from some
>innate urge to power on the part of bureaucrats or of "The State" reified as
>an Evil Power.
>
>Take another instance from actual practice. Last spring, energized by
>Wisconsin and by viewing (all by himself) the video put out by West & Pleven
>(sp?) on a National Teach-In, Sonny G (of LUC) put out a series of ambitious
>peopoala. One of them did not impress me at first, but fortunately other
>comrades responded first and a series of meetings resulted, leading to what
>we called Coming to together for Democracy; we contacted any group in town
>that seemed even vaguely "left," to send a spokesperson to a planned forum
>in which he/she would report on what their group was doing and its aimes.
>The first two came off with some success, & we are planning a third for next
>month, this time on campus, with campus groups reporting.
>
>O.k. In the planning sessions for the first Forum, a crucial parti ci pant
>was Common Action (Free School), a local anarchist group. They are not
>primarily students and are pretty sophisticated in their embodiment of the
>anarchist tradition. Several of its members, including its leaders, think
>I'm about the 8th wonder of the world, which helps in conversation. Now one
>of the slogans we played with and have used some is "Fight the Corporate
>Attak on Democracy." The Common Action person on the committee objected. We
>don't have democracy so it is incoherent to speak of defending it. We got
>over that hurdle by my enthusiastically agreeing with him but pointing out
>that lots of people thought we did so it was a good agitational slogan. We
>(various othere groups; various projects) continue to work with Common
>Action (or rather it continues to work with us). But there are bumps ahead I
>fear.
>
>Why? Because it is essential in the coming battles to make demands on the
>state, and sometimes those demands will involve not evil things the state is
>doing but evil things the state is failing to prevent. In other words, a
>Mass Movement, even one ultimately aied at the overthrw of the state, must
>in part see the state as a 'friend' failing in its duties.
>
>We want higher taxes. We do, don't we? We want the state, that is, to
>ecxercise its power. Anarchists are going to be iffy partners in this. We
>need to work on this, but those of us who aare not anarchists need to
>recognize the difficulty of forming working coalitions with people who do,
>really, overlap the libertarians. Carrol
>
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