Where does Anarchism cross paths with anti-state Marxism?

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Date:

Sunday, December 07, 2014

Time:

6:30 PM - 9:00 PM

Event Type:

Meeting

Organizer/Author:

Ron Kelch

Email:

banandl [at] yahoo.com

Address:

P.O. Box 3345, Oakland Ca., 94609

Location Details:

Niebyl-Proctor Library
6501 Telegraph Ave. (at Alcatraz), Oakland
come up the back stairs

John P. Clark’s new book, The Impossible Community, comes out of the anarchist Social Ecology tendency of Murray Bookchin. Bookchin’s ideas have been cited lately as one of the influences among Kurds of Turkey and northern Syria. The latter have inspired the world with their defense of an egalitarian, gender-equal community against the superior weapons of the Islamic State butchers.

For Clark, Hegel’s dialectic addresses the problem of free and full development after a revolution when new forms like popular assemblies appear. For Bookchin these popular assemblies are purely “unmediated social relations.” That, says Clark, can never be. Freedom means confronting anew the necessarily mediated character of social relations.

An Anarchist / Marxist-Humanist dialog will engage this issue from the perspective of Hegel’s concept of dialectical mediation. Hegel saw the need for his dialectic to be projected directly into the fray as the prevailing discourse late in his life had retrogressed into two opposite forms of “immediate truth:” either a fundamentalist attitude toward scripture or an “enlightened” pure intuitionism.

Sunday, December 7, 6:30 p.m.
Niebyl-Proctor Library
6501 Telegraph Ave. (at Alcatraz), Oakland
come up the back stairs

Sponsored by Bay Area News and Letters Committees

Added to the calendar on Fri, Nov 21, 2014 11:54AM

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§I fell asleep just reading the description

by Unit 4+3

Sun, Nov 30, 2014 2:10PM

"Anti-state Marxism"? Are you kidding me?

There is no such thing as anti-state Marxism. The very essence of the ideology is the centralization of economic decision-making in a collectively controlled state apparatus. Without state power, there can't be the compulsion necessary to force people into giving up individual ownership or ambition. And if people are allowed to "opt out" of the collectivist system, it collapses as a concept. So Marxism cannot exist without a state government.

Marxism at its core is the polar opposite of anarchism. The endless attempts of the Bay Area's Marxists to seduce anarchists into their anti-freedom worldview is highly disturbing; and it's astounding how many young and naive anarchists fall for it and get under the sway of Marxist demagogues.

Anarchists should find no common ground with Marxists. Just because both have momentarily identified the same common enemy (free-market capitalism) does not mean that they have a shared ideology.

For example, look at Iran in the late '70s: Both the communists and the Islamists were equally opposed to the Shah's rule. And they thought therefore that they should cooperate to overthrow him -- which they did. But the moment that happened, the false alliance instantly disintegrated, and the Islamists jailed/killed/expelled/oppressed all the communists, who foolishly thought they would share power with the Islamists in a new government.

Anarchists of the Bay Area: The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. Shun the Marxists, and don't fall for the lie that "anti-state Marxism" can even exist.

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