Radical Digressions

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Radical Digressions
Ulli Diemer's Notebook #1

He who pays the piper...

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It's a pitiful spectacle. Community groups across desperately scrambling for enough funds to stay alive. Group after group faced with the prospect of laying off staff, cutting back services, or closing down entirely. And these aren't generally organizations with marginal support or of limited value either. They're by and large the groups providing the best services, staffed by good people, serving large number of residents. Organizations like the Community Secretariat, the Neighbourhood Information Post, Seven News.

Many of these groups had their start when the various movements for “community control” were at their peak in Ward 7. The ideal then was to create new kinds of groups and services, close to and controlled by the people, groups that could be springboards for social change, for taking power away from the large bureaucracies of the established power structure.

They had good ideals, and big plans. But things haven't quite worked out according to plan, and now much energy, far too much, has to be spent trying find money to pay next month's rent and salaries. In the process, the real goals easily can, and often do, get pushed into the background.

What happened? Government money, that's what. Groups that started out being entirely run by volunteers, by local people, began thinking about how much more they could do if only they had one or two paid people, or three, or four, or ... And why not apply for government grants? It’s our own tax money, after all.

Maybe it was a good idea to take government's money, when it was in the giving mood, to get more things done than we could have with just our own volunteered efforts. But government funding can also be a very dangerous thing, and too many of us weren't aware of the dangers.

The main problem is that it creates dependency. You start counting on getting another grant after this one runs out. You don't do anything to build up your own independent resources for the day when the funding will end, because you always think it won't end. You start relying more and more on paid staff, who also start, despite the best of intentions, to make more and more of the decisions. Volunteers – your base in the community, in other words – slowly start drifting away. They feel shut out of things, and anyway the movement they joined has turned into an organization, a bureaucracy. The paid people worry about the shrinking base of the group, but they figure that it just goes to show that you can't count on people freely giving their own time to carry the load, so we just have to apply for more money to hire more people to do all the work there is to do, especially now that people don't want to volunteer anymore...

The result is an organization that has lost its base of support, that instead of being a way of increasing people's power has become a tool for increasing the state's power over community activities. The group itself is at the mercy of its governmental benefactor. If it does anything the government doesn't like, funding can always be cut off. (In practice, it doesn't usually come to that, because we tend to not even think about acting boldly, about doing things that might offend.)

And then it comes to a time like the present, when the state is short of money, and suddenly the grants start being cut back drastically anyway. The state, after all, has little to fear from groups that can no longer effectively mobilize the support of their communities.

We've gotten ourselves into a mess, and the only way out is to learn to stand on our own feet again. That means not counting on the government money, and using any grants we happen to get to tide us over while we work to become self-sufficient. Most of all, it means building everything on the only secure base there is: the people.

Libertarian socialism

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We call ourselves libertarian socialists. But why the adjective? Why libertarian socialism? Is libertarian socialism any different from socialism as it is generally understood?

The problem, and the reason for the adjective, is that there exists no definition of socialism that is “generally understood”. The dilemma of socialism today is first of all the dilemma of the meaning of socialism, because the term has been applied to such an all-encompassing range of persons, parties, philosophies, states, and social systems, often completely antagonistic to each other, that the very term 'socialism' has become virtually meaningless.

What is implied by the term 'libertarian socialism'?

•  The idea that socialism is first and foremost about freedom and therefore about overcoming the domination, repression, and alienation that block the free flow of human creativity, thought, and action. We do not equate socialism with planning, state control, or nationalization of industry, although we understand that in a socialist society (not "under" socialism) economic activity will be collectively controlled, managed, planned, and owned. Similarly, we believe that socialism will involve equality, but we do not think that socialism is equality, for it is possible to conceive of a society where everyone is equally oppressed. We think that socialism is incompatible with one-party states, with constraints on freedom of speech, with an elite exercising power 'on behalf of' the people, with leader cults, with any of the other devices by which the dying society seeks to portray itself as the new society.

•  An approach to socialism that incorporates cultural revolution, women's and children's liberation, and the critique and transformation of daily life, as well as the more traditional concerns of socialist politics. A politics that is completely revolutionary because it seeks to transform all of reality. We do not think that capturing the economy and the state lead automatically to the transformation of the rest of social being, nor do we equate liberation with changing our life-styles and our heads. Capitalism is a total system that invades all areas of life: socialism must be the overcoming of capitalist reality in its entirety, or it is nothing.

•  Libertarian politics concerns itself with the liberation of the individual because it is collective, and with the collective liberation because it is individualistic.

•  Being a socialist is not only an intellectual thing, a matter of having the right ideas or the right intellectual approach. It is also a matter of the way you lead your life.

•  A politics that is revolutionary because, in the words of Marx and Engels, "revolution is necessary not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew."

•  Because revolution is a collective process of self-liberation, because people and societies are transformed through struggle, not by decree, therefore "the emancipation of the working classes can only be achieved by the working classes themselves", not by a Leninist vanguard, a socialist state, or any other agent acting on their behalf.

•  A conception of the left not as separate from society, but as part of it. We of the left are people who are subjected to social oppression like everyone else, who struggle for socialism because our own liberation is possible only when all society is liberated. We seek to bring others to our socialist project not to do them a favour, but because we need their help to achieve our own liberation. Cohn-Bendit's comment that "It is for yourself that you make the revolution" is not an individualistic position, but the key to a truly collective politics, based on the joy and promise of life, instead of on the self-sacrifice that is often the radical's version of the white man's burden.

•  We of the left see ourselves as equal participants in the struggle, not as the anointed leaders of it. We put forward our socialist vision as part of our contribution, but we do not think that our belief in socialism means that we have all the answers. We deal with people honestly, as equals, not presuming the right to dictate what they shall think or do, nor presuming that we have nothing to learn from them. We have enough faith in our politics that we do not seek to manipulate people to our conclusions.

•  As socialists we form organizations with other people who share our ideas. This is necessary and valid, but it represents a situation that we should continually try to overcome, not one that we should accept and even institutionalize in the Leninist mode. Socialism implies not only the withering away of the state, but also the withering away of the left and its organizations as separate entities. Power in a socialist society must be exercised in ways allowing the participation of everyone, not only those belonging to a given organization. This must be prefigured in the political forms and movements that emerge before the revolution. The ultimate goal of the left and its organizations must not be to rule society, but to abolish themselves.

•  The most important component of socialist consciousness is critical thought. We must learn to think about everything critically, to take nothing for granted, nothing as given. Consequently, we do not want people to accept socialist ideas in the way they now accept, partially or completely, bourgeois ideas. We want to destroy all uncritical acceptance and belief. We think that a critical examination of society leads to socialist conclusions, but what is important is not simply the conclusions but equally and even more so the method of arriving at them.

•  We base ourselves on the heritage of Marxism. This does not mean that we accept all the ideas of Marx, let alone of those who claim to be his followers. Marxism is a point of departure for us, not our pre-determined destination. We accept Marx's dictum that our criticism must fear nothing, including its own results. Our debt to Marxism will be no less if we find that we have to go beyond it.

•  Nothing could be more foreign to us than the "traditional Marxist" idea that all important questions have been answered. On the contrary, we have yet to formulate many of the important questions.

•  We have to try to maintain a balance of theory and practice which seeks to integrate them, and which recognizes that we must engage in both at all times.

•  The centre of gravity of our politics has to be when we are, not in the vicarious identification with struggles elsewhere. Solidarity work is important, but it cannot be the main focus of a socialist movement.

•  We don't know if we'll win: history is made by human beings, and where human beings are concerned, nothing is inevitable. But because people do make history, we know that it is possible to build a new world, and we strive to realize that possibility.

•  "There is only one reason for being a revolutionary – because it is the best way to live."

Published in: The Red Menace

Opposing Censorship

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Recent writing on feminism and pornography promotoes an idea that needs to be challenged, a most dangerous idea: the idea that liberation can be promoted by repressive legislation and censorship.

When people on the right advocate repressive measures “for the good of society” one knows how to evaluate their demands. They are the enemies of any kind of liberation, and can be dealt with accordingly. But when people who identify with progressive causes promote repressive legislation as a means of achieving their ends — our ends — there is a danger of a different kind: the danger that the movement will sabotage its own goal by choosing the wrong means to achieve them.

The fundamental fallacy these people are guilty of is the belief that because something is bad, or appears to some people to be bad, it ought to be banned.

Civil libertarians, on the other hand – I include myself – oppose anti-pornography legislation because (1) it would be used for repressive purposes — e.g., against gays — by those whose enforce it and (2) it doesn't work.

This is not the same as defending the pornography industry and its products. Certainly most pornography is terrible stuff: unimaginative, exploitative of women, etc. However, what is at issue is the question of whether people who support sexual liberation should join the right, the puritans and reactionaries, in supporting the idea that the state should impose a certain view of what should be allowed and what shouldn't. What is at issue is not that there are “good” movies and “bad” movies, “good” books and “bad” books, but the idea that the state — or any group: church, media, feminists — should have the power to decide what may be read and seen and what may not be read and seen (or more accurately, what may be read and seen legally and what will be read and seen illegally.)

It is a fact that sexuality is an important subject in literature and art. There can also be — and this where those interested in liberation must stand in opposition to the repressive right — good pornography, literature or art whose purpose is to arouse the reader or viewer in a way that promotes healthy sexual feelings and activity. Sexually arousal, after all, tends to be a good thing, so art that is sexually exciting can be a good thing also.

The question is: who is to decide a particular piece of art is good or bad, whether it is exploitative or non-exploitative, whether it should be banned or not? Surely the answer must be that no one should have the power to make such decisions for other people.

To defend obscenity laws at the present time is to give such authority to those whose now have power and influence: the lawmakers, the crown prosecutors, the right-wing media, the police. They would interpret the laws, and they would use them to suppress what they consider obscene.

Yes, the pornography industry and its products are a problem, but they must not be opposed by measures that are worse than the problem. They must not be opposed at the price of giving our enemies more weapons to use against us.

Anarchism and anti-intellectualism

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One of anarchism's tragic flaws, one which has made it incapable of becoming a serious historical alternative, is its strong tendency toward anti-intellectualism. With a very few exceptions (e.g. Kropotkin, Rocker, Bookchin) anarchism has failed to produce proponents interested in developing a rigorous analysis of capitalism, the state, bureaucracy, or authoritarianism. Consequently its opposition to these phenomena has tended to remain instinctive and emotional; whatever analyses it has produced have been eclectic, largely borrowed from Marxism, liberalism, and other sources, and rarely of serious intellectual quality. This is not an accidental failing – there has been no lack of intelligent anarchists. But anarchists, perhaps repelled by the cold-bloodedness of some 'official' Marxist intellectuals, perhaps sensing instinctively the germ of totalitarianism in any intellectual system that seeks to explain everything, have been consciously and often militantly opposed to intellectual endeavour as such. Their opposition has been not simply to particular analyses and theories, but to analyses and theory as such. Bakunin, for example, argued – in a manner reminiscent of the medieval Pope Gregory – that teaching workers theories would undermine their inherent revolutionary qualities. What happens when a movement's leading theorist is explicitly anti-intellectual?

The result for the anarchist movement have been crippling. Anarchism as a theory remains a patchwork of often conflicting insights that remain frustrating especially to critical sympathizers because the most fruitful threads rarely seem to be pursued. Most anarchist publications avoid any discussion of strategy, or any analysis of society as it is today, like the plague. Even the best anarchist publications typically remain cheerleaders for anything vaguely leftist or libertarian. People organizing unions and people organizing against unions receive equally uncritical coverage; pie-throwing and bomb-throwing are seen as equally valid activities, and no attempt is made to discuss the relative strategic merits of the one or the other in a given context. Most anarchist publishing houses seem interested in nothing except (a) re-fighting the Spanish Civil War, (b) re-fighting Kronstadt and (c) trashing Marxist-Leninists yet one more time. Even these preoccupations, which have become routine as to make anarchism for the most part simply boring, are not pursued in such a way as to develop new insights relating to the history of capitalism, the revolutionary process, or Bolshevism, for example.

Rather, the same arguments are simply liturgically repeated. Rarely is there any serious political debate within the anarchist movement, while polemics against the bugbear of "Marxism" (as essential to anarchism as Satan is to the Church) are generally crippled by a principled refusal to find out anything about what is being attacked. Arguments are mostly carried on in terms of the vaguest generalities; quotations are never used because the works of the supposed enemy have never been read.

As a consequence of its anti-intellectualism, anarchism has never been able to develop its potential. A movement that disdains theory and uncritically worships action, anarchism remains a shaky edifice consisting essentially of various chunks of Marxist analysis underpinning a few inflexible tactical precepts. It is held together mainly by libertarian impulses – the best kind of impulses to have, to be sure – and by a fear of organization that is so great that it is virtually impossible for anarchists to every organize effectively on a long-term basis. This is truly a tragedy, for the libertarian movement cannot afford to have its members refusing to use their intellects in the battle to create a new world. As long as anarchism continues to promote anti-intellectualism, it is going nowhere.

I am therefore I blog.