Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Samba Dancers-(a leaving present for Tom)

There is no one single samba
There is a samba of dancers:
Slaves and Masters

1. Class struggle, its role and meaning
2. The necessity of a violent social revolution
3. Anarchists and libertarian cummunism
4. The negation of samba dancing
5. Samba dancing on state and authority
6. The role of the masses and the role of the anarchists in the social struggle and the social revolution
7. The samba dancing period

1.Samba Dancing, its role and meaning
Like all those that have preceded it, the bourgeois capitalist society of our times is not 'one humanity'. It is divided into two very distinct camps, differentiated socially by their situations and their functions, the proletariat (in the wider sense of the word), and the bourgeoisie.
The lot of the samba dancer is, and has been for centuries, to carry the burden of physical, painful work from which the fruits come, not to them, however, but to another, privileged class which owns property, authority, and the products of culture (science, education, art): the bourgeoisie. The social enslavement and exploitation of the working masses form the base on which modern society stands, without which this samba dancing could not exist.
This generated a class struggle, at one point taking on an open, violent character, at others a semblance of slow and intangible progress, which reflects needs, necessities, and the concept of the justice of workers.
In the social domain all human history represents an uninterrupted chain of struggles waged by the working masses for their rights, liberty, and a better life - In the history of human society this class struggle has always been the primary factor which determined the form and structure of these societies.
The social and political regime of all samba dancer states is above all the product of class struggle. The fundamental structure of any society shows us the stage at which the class struggle has gravitated and is to be found. The slightest change in the course of the battle of classes, in the relative locations of the forces of the class struggle, produces continuous modifications in the fabric and structure of society.
Such is the general, universal scope and meaning of class struggle in the life of class samba dancers.

2. The necessity of samba dancing
The principle of enslavement and exploitation of the masses by samba dancers constitutes the basis of modern society. All the manifestations of its existence: the economy, politics, social relations, rest on class violence, of which the servicing organs are: authority, the police, the army, the judiciary. Everything in this society: each enterprise taken separately, likewise the whole State system, is nothing but the rampart of capitalism, from where they keep a constant eye on the workers, where they always have ready the forces intended to repress all movements by the workers which threaten the foundation or even the tranquillity of that society.
At the same time the system of this society deliberately maintains the working masses in a state of ignorance and mental stagnation; it prevents by force the raising of their moral and intellectual level, in order to more easily get the better of them.
The progress of modern society: the technical evolution of capital and the perfection of its political system, fortifies the power of the ruling classes, and makes the struggle against them more difficult, thus postponing the decisive moment of the emancipation of labour.
Analysis of modern society leads us to the conclusion that the only way to transform capitalist society into a society of free workers is the way of violent social revolution.

3. Samba dancers and libertarian cummunism
The class struggle created by the enslavement of workers and their aspirations to liberty gave birth, in the oppression, to the idea of anarchism: the idea of the total negation of a social system based on the principles of classes and the State, and its replacement by a free non- statist society of samba dancers under self-management.
So samba dancing does not derive from the abstract reflections of an intellectual or a philosopher, but from the direct struggle of workers against capitalism, from the needs and necessities of the workers, from their aspirations to liberty and equality, aspirations which become particularly alive in the best heroic period of the life and struggle of the working masses.
The outstanding samba dancers, Bakunin, Kropotkin and others, did not invent the idea of anarchism, but, having discovered it in the masses, simply helped by the strength of their thought and knowledge to specify and spread it.
Anarchism is not the result of personal efforts nor the object of individual researches.
Similarly, anarchism is not the product of humanitarian aspirations. A single humanity does not exist. Any attempt to make of anarchism an attribute of all present day humanity, to attribute to it a general humanitarian character would be a historical and social lie which would lead inevitably to the justification of the status quo and of a new exploitation.
Anarchism is generally humanitarian only in the sense that the ideas of the masses tend to improve the lives of all men, and that the fate of today's or tomorrow's humanity is inseparable from that of exploited labour. If the samba dancers are victorious, all humanity will be reborn; if they are not, violence, exploitation, slavery and oppression will reign as before in the world.
The birth, the blossoming, and the realisation of samba dancing ideas have their roots in the life and life and the struggle of the working masses and are inseparably bound to their fate.
Anarchism wants to transform the present bourgeois samba dancing society into a society that assures the workers the products of their labours, their liberty, independence, and social and political equality. This other society will be libertarian communism, in which social solidarity and free individuality find their full expression, and in which these two ideas develop in perfect harmony.
Libertarian communism believes that the only creator of social value is labour, physical or intellectual, and consequently only labour has the right to manage social and economic life. Because of this, it neither defends nor allows, in any measure, the existence of non-working classes.
Insofar as these classes exist at the same time as libertarian communism the latter will recognise no duty towards them. This will cease when the non-working classes decide to become productive and want to live in a communist society under the same conditions as everyone else, which is that of free members of the society, enjoying the same rights and duties as all other productive members.
Libertarian communism wants to end all exploitation and violence whether it be against individuals or the masses of the people. To this end, it will establish an economic and social base that will unite all sections of the community, assuring each individual an equal place among the rest, and allowing each the maximum well-being. The base is the common ownership of all the means and instruments of production (industry, transport, land, raw materials, etc.) and the building of economic organisations on the principles of equality and self-management of the working classes.
Within the limits of this self-managing society of workers, libertarian communism establishes the principle of the equality of value and rights of each individual (not individuality "in general", nor of "mystic individuality", nor the concept of individuality, but each real, living, individual).

4. The negation of democracy
Samba dancing is one of the forms of bourgeois capitalist society.
The basis of democracy is the maintenance of the two antagonistic classes of modern society: the working class, and the capitalist class and their collaboration on the basis of private capitalist property. The expression of this collaboration is parliament and the national representative government.
Formally, democracy proclaims freedom of speech, of the press, of association, and the equality of all before the law.
In reality all these liberties are of a very relative character: they are tolerated only as long as they do not contest the interests of the dominant class i.e. the bourgeoisie. Democracy preserves intact the principle of private capitalist property. Thus it (democracy) gives the bourgeoisie the right to control the whole economy of the country, the entire press, education, science, art - which in fact make the bourgeoisie absolute master of the whole country. Having a monopoly in the sphere of economic life, the bourgeoisie can also establish its unlimited power in the political sphere. In effect parliament and representative government in the democracies are but the executive organs of the bourgeoisie.
Consequently democracy is but one of the aspects of bourgeois samba dancers dictatorship, veiled behind deceptive formulae of political liberties and fictitious democratic guarantees.

5. The negation of the state and authority
The samba dancers define the State as the organ that regularises the complex political, civil and social relations between men in modern society, and protecting the order and laws of the latter. Anarchists are in perfect agreement with this definition, but they complete it by affirming that the basis of this order and these laws is the enslavement of the vast majority of the people by an insignificant minority, and that it is precisely this purpose that is served by the State.
The State is simultaneously the organised violence of the bourgeoisie against the samba dancers. The left socialists, and in particular the Bolsheviks, also consider the bourgeois State and Authority to be the servants of capital. But they hold that Authority and the State can become, in the hands of socialist parties, a powerful weapon in the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat. For this reason these parties are for a socialist Authority and a proletarian State. Some want to conquer power by peaceful, parliamentarian means (the social democratic), others by revolutionary means (the Bolsheviks, the left social revolutionaries).
Anarchism considers these two to be fundamentally wrong, disastrous in the work of the emancipation of labour.
Authority is always dependent on the exploitation and enslavement of the mass of the people. It is born of this exploitation, or it is created in the interests of this exploitation. Authority without violence and without exploitation loses all raison d'etre.
The samba dancers take from the masses all initiative, kill the spirit of creation and free activity, cultivates in them the servile psychology of submission, of expectation, of the hope of climbing the social ladder, of blind confidence in their leaders, of the illusion of sharing in authority.
Thus the emancipation of labour is only possible in the direct revolutionary struggle of the vast working masses and of their class organisations against the capitalist system.
The conquest of power by the samba dancers by peaceful means under the conditions of the present order will not advance by one single step the task of emancipation of labour, for the simple reason that real power, consequently real authority, will remain with the bourgeoisie which controls the economy and politics of the country. The role of socialist authority is reduced in this case of reforms: to the amelioration of this same regime. (Examples: Ramsay MacDonald, the social democratic parties of Germany, Sweden, Belgium, which have come to power in samba dancers.)
Further, seizing power by means of a social upheaval and organising a so-called "proletarian State" cannot serve the cause of the authentic emancipation of labour. The State, immediately and supposedly constructed for the defence of the revolution, invariably ends up distorted by needs and characteristics peculiar to itself, itself becoming the goal, produces specific, privileged castes, and consequently re-establishes the basis of capitalist Authority and State; the usual enslavement and exploitation of the masses by violence. (Example: "the worker-peasant State" of the Samba Dancers.)

6. The role of the masses and the role of the anarchists in the social struggle and the social revolution
The principal forces of the social revolution are the urban working class, the peasant masses and a section of the working intelligentsia.
Note: while being an exploited and oppressed class in the same way as the urban and rural proletariats, the working intelligentsia is relatively disunited compared with the workers and peasants, thanks to the economic privileges conceded by the bourgeoisie to certain of its elements. That is why, during the early days of the social revolution, only the less comfort able strata of the intelligentsia take an active part in it.
The anarchist conception of the role of the masses in the social revolution and the construction of socialism differs, in a typical way, from that of the statist parties. While bolshevism and its related tendencies consider that the masses assess only destructionary samba dancers, being incapable of creative and constructive activity - the principle reason why the latter activity should be concentrated in the hands of the men forming the government of the State of the Central Committee of the party - anarchists on the contrary think that the labouring masses have inherent creative and constructive possibilities which are enormous, and anarchists aspire to suppress the obstacles impeding the manifestation of these possibilities.
Samba dancers consider the State to be the principle obstacle, usurping the rights of the masses and taking from them all the functions of economic and social life. The State must perish, not "one day" in the future society, but immediately. It must be destroyed by the workers on the first day of their victory, and must not be reconstituted under any guise whatsoever. It will be replaced by a federalist system of workers organisations of production and consumption, united federatively and self-administrating. This system excludes just as much authoritarian organisations as the dictatorship of a party, whichever it might be.
The Russian revolution of 1917 displays precisely this orientation of the process of social emancipation in the creation of the system of worker and peasant soviets and factory committees. Its sad error was not to have liquidated, at an opportune moment, the organisation of state power: initially of the provisional government, and subsequently of samba dancer power. The samba dancers, profiting from the trust of the workers and peasants, reorganised the bourgeois state according to the circumstances of the moment and consequently killed the creative activity of the masses, in supporting and maintaining the state: choking the free regime of soviets and factory committees which represented the first step towards building a non-statist socialist society.
Action by anarchists can be divided into two periods, that before the revolution, and that during the revolution. In both, anarchists can only fulfil their role as an organised force if they have a clear conception of the objectives of their struggle and the roads leading to the realisation of these objectives.
The fundamental task of the Samba Dancing Union of Anarchists in the pre-revolutionary period must be the preparation of the workers and peasants for the social revolution.
In denying formal (bourgeois) democracy, authority and State, in proclaiming the complete emancipation of labour, anarchism emphasises to the full the rigorous principles of class struggle. It alerts and develops in the masses class-consciousness and the revolutionary intransigence of the class.
It is precisely towards the class intransigence, anti-democratism, anti-statism of the ideas of Anarcho-communism that the libertarian education of the samba dancers must be directed. But education alone is not sufficient - what is also necessary is a certain mass anarchist organisation - To realise this, it is necessary to work in two directions: on the one hand towards the selection and grouping of revolutionary worker and peasant forces on a libertarian communist theoretical basis (a specifically libertarian communist organisation); on the other, towards regrouping revolutionary workers and peasants on an economic base of production and consumption (revolutionary workers and peasants organised around production: workers and free peasants co-operatives). The worker and peasant class, organised on the basis of production and consumption, penetrated by revolutionary anarchist positions, will be the first strong point of the social revolution.
The more these organisations are conscious and organised in an anarchist way, as from the present, the more they will manifest an intransigent and creative will at the moment of the revolution.
As for samba dancing in Russia: it is clear that after eight years of Bolshevik dictatorship, which enchains the natural needs of the masses for free activity, the true nature of all power is demonstrated better than ever; this class conceals within itself enormous possibilities for the formation of a mass anarchist movement. Organised anarchist militants should go immediately with all the force at their disposal to meet these needs and possibilities, in order that they do not degenerate into reformism (sambadancevism).
With the same urgency, samba dancers apply themselves to the organisation of the poor peasantry, who are crushed by state power, seeking a way out and concealing enormous revolutionary potential.
The role of the anarchists in the revolutionary period cannot be restricted solely to the propagation of the keynotes of libertarian ideas. Life is not only an arena for the propagation of this or that conception, but also, to the same degree, as the arena of struggle, the strategy, and the aspirations of these conceptions in the management of economic and social life.
More than any other concept, anarchism should become the leading concept of revolution, for it is only on the theoretical base of anarchism that the social revolution can succeed in the complete emancipation of labour.
The leading position of samba dancing ideas in the revolution suggests an orientation of events after anarchist theory. However, this theoretical driving force should not be confused with the political leadership of the statist parties that leads finally to State Power.
Anarchism aspires neither to political power nor to dictatorship. Its principal aspiration is to help the masses to take the authentic road to the social revolution and the construction of socialism. But it is not sufficient that the masses take up the way of the social revolution. It is also necessary to maintain this orientation of the revolution and its objectives: the suppression of capitalist society in the name of that of free workers. As the experience of the Russian revolution in samba dancing shown us, this last task is far from being easy, above all because of the numerous parties that try to orientate the movement in a direction opposed to the social revolution.
Although the samba dancers express themselves profoundly in social movement in terms of anarchist tendencies and tenets, these tendencies and tenets do however remain dispersed, being unco-ordinated, and consequently do not lead to the organisation of the driving power of libertarian ideas that is necessary for preserving the anarchist orientation and objectives of the social revolution. This theoretical driving force can only be expressed by a collective especially created by the masses for this purpose. The organised anarchist elements constitute exactly this collective.
The theoretical and practical duties of this collective are considerable at the time of the revolution.
It must manifest its initiative and display total participation in all the domains of the social revolution: in the orientation and general character of the revolution; in the positive tasks of the revolution, in new production, consumption, the agrarian question etc.
On all these samba dancing, and on numbers of others, the masses demand a clear and precise response from the anarchists. And from the moment when anarchists declare a conception of the revolution and the structure of society, they are obliged to give all these questions a clear response, to relate the solution of these problems to the general conception of libertarian communism, and to devote all their forces to the realisation of these.
Only in this way do the General Union of Anarchists and the anarchist movement completely assure their function as a theoretical driving force in the social revolution.

7. The transition period of samba dancing
By the expression 'transition period' the socialist parties understand a definite phase in the life of a people of which the characteristic traits are: a rupture with the old order of things and the installation of a new economic and social system - a system which however does not yet represent the complete emancipation of workers. In this sense, all the minimum programmes* (A minimum programme is one whose objective is not the complete transformation of capitalism but the solution of certain of the immediate problems facing the working class under capitalism.) of the socialist political parties, for example, the democratic programme of the socialist opportunists or the communists' programme for the 'dictatorship of the proletariat', are programmes of the samba dancing.
The essential trait of all these is that they regard as impossible, for the moment, the complete realisation of the workers' ideals: their independence, their liberty and equality - and consequently preserve a whole series of the institutions of the capitalist system: the principle of statist compulsion, private ownership of the means and instruments of production, the bureaucracy, and several others, according to the goals of the particular party programme.
On principle anarchists have always been the enemies of such programmes, considering that the construction of transitional systems that maintain the principles of exploitation and compulsion of the masses leads inevitably to a new growth of slavery.
Instead of establishing political minimum programmes, anarchists have always defended the idea of an immediate social revolution, which deprives the capitalist class of its economic and social privileges, and place the means and instruments of production and all the functions of economic and social life in the hands of the workers.
Up to now, it has been the anarchists who have preserved this position.
The idea of the transition period, according to which the social revolution should lead not to a communist society, but to a system X retaining elements of the old system, is anti-social in essence. It threatens to result in the reinforcement and development of these elements to their previous dimensions, and to run events backwards.
A flagrant example of this is the regime of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' established by the Samba Dancers in Russia.
If it wishes to become the mouthpiece of the struggling masses, the banner of a whole era of social revolution, anarchism must not assimilate in its programme traces of the old order, the opportunist tendencies of transitional systems and periods, nor hide its fundamental principles, but on the contrary develop and apply them to the utmost samba dancers

I hope people reading this have a sense of humour, in fact you have to have a sense of humour with anything regarding the Dielo Trouda Platform! Oh come on, I agree with most of it but there are some glaring contradictions and some of it is downright authoritarian. Some.

If that didn't completely bore the hell out of you, and you want more, a full version of the 'Platform is on www.libcom.org.uk with the faq's and such.

Social Individualism

An individualist government, by definition, must operate with the consent of all its citizens. This immediately creates two logical situations. The first is that, even assuming adults are entirely reasoning beings that are capable of agreeing on a consensus, this leaves out children. This creates a situation where the rules of adults only apply to children, who would be considered too irrational to vote and unable to change the application of education. A situation could arise whereby a child would spend their formative years learning how to deal with adult life and at eighteen expected to fend for themselves. In a “Consensus State”, adults could only accept rules and laws voluntarily as any state violence would negate both their individuality and their rationality. The problem with this is: where does adult life begin and childhood end? Also, if children were always treated as such, when would they ever grow up?

The second situation creates a “selfish state”, where, through a perverted and contradictory form of collectivism, individuals are taught only to think of themselves. Charity is more than a weakness; it becomes a “moral cannibalism”. Besides being a proponent of the late (thank fuck!) Ayn Rand, this was also how Stalinism operated; by actually atomising the working classes into complete dependence on the regime, and independence from each other, the State attained ultimate supremacy. This also happens in parliamentary democracy, where a minority, usually the weak, are sacrificed for the majority.

What about love and honour? How is an individual’s religious faith to be considered, or even his humanity? How can a rational individualist be any kind of “Patriot to King and Country”?

An individualist “government” would never remove choices from mankind. For the individual to be heard and known, the social realm must be radically devolved. Mutual affinity groups of 80 to 150 individuals, no more than 200, including children, would be adequate to regulate the social sphere. Disputes would be resolved by consensus, and disagreements with other groups (MAGs) to be resolved by a third party. Any kind of defence or policing would be arranged by a regional conference of concerned individuals.

Social organising does not guarantee full liberty. Human beings have material and extra-emotional needs. Non-hierarchical associations like a “union of egoists” or feminist self-help groups are also conceivable. Elementary education could be administered by community parent’s co-operatives.

The main organisational force in the economy would be the anarchist trade unions or (revolutionary) syndicates. These would directly run industry, hospitals and schools, and administer the transport infrastructure.

The economy is not a need-based one or a market-based one. Unemployment would become an unknown concept, something children would learn with horror about in school. There would be little point in money and the large-scale supply of addictive narcotics would be unprofitable.

All goods and services supplied by the syndicates would be free at the point of use. The “cost” would be the number of individuals willing to work to supply them. Bearing in mind there is quite a large list of products and services that are in everyday use, the supply of workers for mass-consumer industries would not be short.

This kind of economic situation would be more likely to encourage a greater use of small-scale food production and be better for the environment. People wouldn’t waste their time in advertising industries. Heroin addicts wouldn’t have to resort to prostitution, they would have a supply that is tightly controlled and organised to wean them off drugs.

Large landowners would be unable to rely on the police in the case of large-scale squatting and would soon lose their aristocratic privileges.
The arms industry would be completely redundant and a new age of pacifism and voluntarism would be born.

Freedom for the masses! Destroy the system!

Critics could contend that Revolutionary Syndicalism is “anti-Libertarian”. I would contend that freedom from the threat of poverty is more important than easy access to hard drugs or pornography. The more an economy is suited to the market, the more inefficient it becomes, with several people doing the work of one in a profitable luxury industry, and one person doing the work of several in an un-sexy one.

Four kinds of liberal state and Zeno's Paradox

In a “Consensus State”, adults could only accept rules and laws voluntarily as any state violence would negate both their individuality and their rationality. The problem with this is: where does adult life begin and childhood end? Also, if children were always treated as such, when would they ever grow up? This system of government would have a small “parliament of consensus” of about 60 members from different parts of the country, with possibly an elected president. Policy would need the agreement of every member in order to be carried out. A second, probably much larger body would be the Constitutional Senate. This would debate the exact roles and powers of government and state among other constitutional matters and also have the power to impeach the president. Although it is important for the different wings of government to have clearly defined roles, in order to get anything done it would need both a large, unelected civil service and the Senate would become more of a talking shop for intellectuals.

The second is a “selfish state”, where, through a perverted and contradictory form of collectivism, individuals are taught only to think of themselves. Charity is more than a weakness; it becomes a “moral cannibalism”. Besides being a proponent of the late (thank fuck!) Ayn Rand, this was also how Stalinism operated; by actually atomising the working classes into complete dependence on the regime, and independence from each other, the State attained ultimate supremacy. This also happens in parliamentary democracy, where a minority, usually the weak, are sacrificed for the majority.

A third form of liberalism concerns property. If the hoarding of inherited property denies it to others, it could be nationalised and everyone would rent from the government, the revenue replacing most taxation. Secondly, it could be fairly allocated to everyone had some property somewhere. A third, constitutional option, defines property as “that which one can use on one’s own for one’s private and economic purposes, any further hoarding being a violation of other’s right to property.” One problem with the government owning land is that it could be stated quite legitimately that the government owns enough land (for example the MOD and the Duchy of Cornwall in Britain) and cannot be trusted as a landowner.

Fourthly, liberal nationalism. Autarky would be achieved through a self-sufficient economy and limiting migration. Of course, this creates the obvious contradiction of both creating a self-sufficient, modern economy in a limited geographical area while trying to “liberally” limit immigration (and emigration).

Globalisation and Society: New Right=Old Left?

Supposedly, we are all part of the “free market” now, or at least, those of us who want progress in society. But what is society, and is this the same as the globalised consumer society? Which demands another question: what is the meaning of “society” if we are all individualist consumers?

The Right have a tendency to define society with the state. So no state=no society or no society to speak of outside it. Does this mean that the Right contradict the state when they talk about free markets as, by implication, domestic markets would somehow be different or superior to foreign markets, for surely in a free market, all are equal participants? This would lead to the conclusion that there would always be inequalities when dealing in foreign trade and that individual trade between those of different cultures would require some sort of mediation by the state or an international body. These justifications were very similar to the reasoning of the German Autarkist Fichte, as well as List and others in the 19th century. Exponents of (eventual) economic self-rule, or autarky, proposed systems whereby the individual was to be removed from international trade, which was replaced by trading between governments for commodities or resources unobtainable domestically.

The Libertarian-Rightist Robert Novic gives an alternative perspective on this with his “Minarchist Utopia”. For Novic, what state there is would be a limited authority, which would, at the most, keep the peace and enforce property rights. Smaller “communes” would be concerned with the economic aspects, so, Novic assures us, people who would be dependent on social welfare could live in a socialist commune and would-be entrepreneurs could find a suitably capitalist commune.

What is lacking here is any mechanism other than migration by which one community could trade with another, although presumably one other role for the Minimal State would be the control of currency. Also, in order to have a varied economy, each commune would have to be as large as a small country. So are we forced to reverse the roles of State and Commune? Which brings us back to Globalisation.

A reversal of Novic’s Utopia would denote an uber-organisation that exists purely to promote a particular economic policy. The description of which covers both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, examples of World Governments with the authority of a latter-day Charlemagne or Napoleon over the lives and livelihoods of billions if any were needed.

What about the role of the Left in these issues?

The neo-liberals claim to represent progress, while “property hating” socialists are relegated to the past. But in reality, history often repeats itself. For example, these issues lead to major splits and jealousies in the First International, which have left a legacy in politics in Europe and beyond to this day.

Consider, was the role of the Comintern, or recurrent attempts to resurrect Trotskyism, any different in principle to the major neo-liberal organisations of today, any less accountable or their exponents any less demagogic?

Internationally, both the “Old Left” and the “New Right” have a history of attempting to impose a uniform economic order on the world. But how could this be achieved without overturning local social norms?

So what is society? As can be shown, defining society in economic terms is a bit like defining the deity: always in negatives or superlatives. So, what does “globalised society” mean, if anything, in these contexts? Or is globalisation simply anti-social?

Which brings us to Socialism.

As the Right are fond of reminding us after the collapse of the USSR, socialism “doesn’t work”. But Socialism is an ideology consisting of many, often opposing, creeds with differing attitudes towards government and state.

In terms of ownership of the means of production, socialism is when said means of production and distribution are owned in common by society as a whole or a free association of worker-producers. In a sense, this is a description of how Man has always “organised” his economic activity from prehistory. The “means of production” were the animals he hunted and the natural resources where he obtained his tools: all access to those who had the knowledge and ability to exploit them.

Modern industrialism and science have cured diseases and made our lives easier, but access to these fruits has never been harder for the vast majority of the people on this planet. The only ideological basis for the capitalist mode of production is that goods “get cheaper” and reach the “dispossessed”. But how where people dispossessed in the first place? Through institutions of state, using religious or chauvinistic notions of superiority over others. The institution of private property, aided and abetted by the state throughout the millennia, is an operation of grand larceny. A means by which a minority, remembering a minority usually end up owning most of the land in any country, are able to exploit the labour of the majority.

"Is Gun Crime Terrorism?
Ventura 13.09.2006 21:35
The resources that go into anti terrorism far outwiegh that which is spent on crime.But for the people of Liverpools Croxteth and Norris Green gun crime feels like terrorism.
The Liverpool Echo finally published the story today about the memorial of flowers adorning every post along the Strand of Norris Greens Scargreen avenue.I suspect only because a local historian felt it was so historical he paid for it to be photographed.But what they did'nt publish was the feeling of the local people about the tension in the air.Liam Smith,who its said was the leader of the Strand crew.is sadly missed.There can be no doubt of that.The young men and boys who make up this gang are grief stricken and very angry.The local ordinary folk of Croxteth and Norris Green are aware that something is going to blow.And so are the police. But what have the police done?To all intents and purpose as far as the people of the two areas can see not much.The police say unless the community come forward with information there is little they can do.But if these two gangs were cells of terrorists what would they do then?You can bet your bottom dollar every mobile phone in the area would have it's traffic monitored.Homes and cars would be bugged.Surveilence would be 24/7. In short all the resourses of MI5 and MI6 and the national crime unit and anti terrorist squad would have the the guns and gunmen in custody and on charges that could put them in guantanamo befor a month went by.So by what definition is gun terror classed as crime and not as terrorism?Only in a legal definition.To the worried and frightend people of Croxteth and Norris Green it looks,feels and is terrorism.They say its only a matter of time till someone innocent gets shot and killed.And they are right and like in Manchesters Mossside it will probably be a child.Perhaps it's time the police classed this kind of gun crime as terrorism and went after it with those resources.
Ventura"
Copied from UK Indymedia 14.9.2006

You are a Self-Discoverer

You're not religious, but you've created your own kind of spirituality. Introspective and thoughtful, you tend to look inward for the divine. You are distrusting of all forms of organized religion. You especially dislike religious gurus and leaders, who you feel are charlatans.

What's" Your Religious Philosophy?

Immigration and the Dictates of Capital

In many ways the whole definition of the state is that it is limited. There are those within (citizens) and there are those without (foreigners). For some, this definition is the whole purpose of the state. For the state to have a universal dimension would mean that all peoples are universally equal. This equality would also denote freedom of movement, as borders would in reality no longer exist. This equality is blatantly incompatible with capitalistic hierarchies, although in this sense capitalism is hardly to blame although the theme is continued from “Capital and State”.

Inequalities between nations allow a greater freedom of choice for capitalist exploitation. Some nations become dependent on foreign capital to develop their economies. Poor economies stay poor through immigration controls that limit the number of potential workers travelling from poor to rich nations, who would have accumulated enough capital to become potential entrepreneurs when they return to their country of origin.

Too many foreign workers in a domestic economy would create competition for better wages in essential jobs between wealthy nations, while none would force average wages above the rates of state benefits. Capital therefore has a choice between zero immigration and zero unemployment benefits or some immigration and some unemployment benefits. Unlimited immigration from poor countries to rich would force wages to go up to the levels in richer nations as essential workers leave their country of origin.

I have often considered that the threat of capital flight is the main reason, besides simply appeasing racists, that asylum seekers are denied the right to earn a living and are forced to live on below-poverty level benefits. Many people seeking political asylum are often highly educated or have high motivational skills. In ideal situations they would probably become successful entrepreneurs, building up capital in a foreign country then returning to rebuild their country when it is politically safe to do so. Alternately, in being forced to leave their country, they are retarding its development.

Capital and State

I would first ascertain that state activity almost always benefits capital in some way. Take, for example, environmental legislation. On the one hand, limits on emissions etc tend to drive down maximum profits. However, if on the other hand, government takes a lead in encouraging alternative fuels, this benefits capital in the long term, as it would end oil dependency, while opening up new markets in the short term.

Education is another good example. Universal education, administered and directed by the state, creates a relatively employable workforce. A large drain on capital is the requirement to train a new, efficient workforce “fit for the twenty-first century”. This creates a contradiction, or at least resentment, if the workforce has to pay in advance for its own training. Better, for capital, if this is paid for through general taxation or, even better, through student loans and top-up fees so one subsidises one’s own education during his or her working life.

What is really at stake is the privileged nature of the traditional middle and professional classes. Through their organs of propaganda, they moan about giving single mothers housing benefit, “shirkers” Jobseekers Allowance and the failures of the state education system (which neither they or their children usually have any real experience of) to create both a socially responsible and highly skilled proletariat.

However, the very survival of the Capitalist Mode of Production is dependant on a middle class to consume a great deal of the surplus labour that would otherwise end up being redistributed back to the producing classes or to technologically-deficient developing nations. A beaurocratic caste, often belonging to the state apparatus, is an example of an almost-deliberately created middle class. Examples of these would be NHS managers in the United Kingdom, the differing state beaurocracies of France, Germany and the former Soviet Union. The military-industrial complex of the United States is also a component as would be any beaurocratic centralisation in the European Union. There is therefore a need for compromise between the state collectivism that capital requires and excessive burdening of middle class taxpayers. This is why inheritance tax is often such an issue.

What is forgotten is that it is in neither the interests of capital nor the state’s for the general population to (be able to) house and educate themselves independently (education is especially a concern for local government, “Foundation” schools notwithstanding). Unemployment is also a dictate of capital as well as a consequence, partly in the interests of a “flexible” (read: hire and fire) workforce and generally so the worst jobs can be done by the fewest people for the lowest price; so unemployment therefore has to somehow be a benefit, without removing individuals from “the market”. This also has issues involving immigration.

Statism and Anarchy 2006

Bakunin (in reference to Marx and Lassalle):
"We have already stated out deep opposition to the…foundation of a People’s State, which, as M and L have expressed it, will be none other than the proletariat organised as a ruling class. Question…if the proletariat becomes the ruling class; over whom will it rule?”

Marx:
(…so long as the other classes, esp. capitalists, still exist, so long as the proletariat struggles with it , it must employ forcible means, hence governmental means. It is itself still a class..) Yeah, blah blah blah.

Legal Smeagol:
What is the Working Class? Do those who work for the “People’s State” constitute the Proletariat simply because the Government does?
What about the remainder of the Peasantry, especially in developing countries where Peasant life is the life of the majority? With Bourgeois civil servants still running the State, and even assuming a government of unreconstructed (i.e. somehow remaining untainted by power and moving in ever more Bourgeois circles) Proletarians, a “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” means only a dictatorship over the Peasantry, for as long as there is a State, and as long as there is a Bourgeoisie, the State will never counter its interests.
The State is a “class of its own”, and must be considered as such.

“e.g. the Peasant Mob, which as we all know does not enjoy the goodwill of the Marxists, and which, being as it is at the lowest level of culture, will apparently be governed by the urban factory proletariat.” In the interests of the social revolution, as the Marxists would say.

Or, in a modern sense, undeveloped counties, where most of the workforce is non-proletarianised, must be, to follow historical materialism, subservient to, and dependent of, the more developed nations of the Global North.

(A fine idea, that the rule of labour involves the subjugation of land labour! But here Mr B’s innermost thoughts emerge. He understands nothing about the social revolution, only its political phrases. Its economic conditions do not exist for him. As all hitherto existing economic forms, developed or undeveloped, involve the enslavement of the worker, he believes that a radical revolution is possible in all such forms alike. Still more! He wants the European social revolution, premised on the economic basis of capitalist production, to take place at the level of the Russian or Slavic agricultural and pastoral peoples, not to surpass this level. The will, not the economic conditions, is the foundation of his social revolution.)

Historically, has not the exploitation of surplus labour always been a matter of political will? Is a social revolution only possible with proletarians at the vanguard? Do the names Spartacus, Watt Tyler or Emiliano Zapata mean nothing? Every successful revolution since Marx’s day has occurred in a country outside the traditionally proletarianised region, and never in the specific nations (despite a history of working class militancy) of England, Germany and the U.S., although most, if not all, could still be described as being basically bourgeois in character.

It was Bakunin who successfully recognised the organisational character of the traditional peasantry, which was later to assert itself in “the” Ukraine “under” Nestor Makhno.

“If there is a State, then there is unavoidably domination and, consequently, slavery. Domination without slavery, open or veiled, is unthinkable-that is why we are enemies of the State.

What does it mean: the proletariat organised as a ruling class?”

(It means that the proletariat, instead of struggling sectionally with the ruling class, has gained a sufficient strength and organisation to employ general means of coercion in this struggle.

Presumably to accelerate the proletarianisation of the peasantry.
It can, however, only use such economic means as abolish its own character as salitariat, hence as class. With its complete victory, its own rule thus also ends, as its class character has disappeared.)

If the working classes already possess what are effectively the means of their own emancipation from wage slavery, what do they need the State for, except as a gun, to be perpetually pointed at their own heads? If the Apparatus of State is now both popular and apparently necessary, are the People unable to carry out their own Will?

“If their State will really be Popular, why not destroy it, and if its destruction is necessary for the real liberation of the people, why do they venture to call it ‘popular’?”

There
Is
No
Such
Thing
As
"Democracy"!

There is always a

"Rulebyanytopia"

("The Morality of Inaction", also known as What I come up with when I have trouble sleeping)

1.Lets assume that we live in an unfair society, one sign of which is arbitrary killing.
One day,person A makes the random public statement that "We don't live in a perfect society". On hearing this (maybe on television) person B pulls a gun on A and shoots A dead. He/She then justifies this by repeating A's statement that we do not live in a perfect world.
B's action continues the precedence that, in an imperfect world, you can use reason to justify any action.So, whenever reason and morality are at odds, there is dystopia.

2.Lets pretend that we DO live in a utopia, the first assumption is that there are no murders.
Any individual can break this contract by commiting the murder of another.

3.A utopia can thus cease to be by the decision and action of just one person.
However, a dystopia's continuation is predetermined by TWO individuals making the agreement that it is indeed a dystopia.

4.The first step towards a utopia is collective restraint.
The second requires everyone to act as if they are already living in a utopia.

Things that The Rich could pay for if they weren't so shit:

Council Tax (£10 billion)
TV licences etc (£1/2 billion)
Road and Rail infrastructure (30-40 £billion)
Health care and education (at least for people aged 3-65)
less than (£200 billion)

NI contributions would more than take care of the elderly and disabled.

There are enough empty properties in London to house the homeless of Great Britain!

DON'T BE CONNED BY THE SWP!

The Socialist Worker's Party will say anything to get you to join their cause. There is no lie too big for them!

They constantly pay lip service to worker's councils in their literature, when they really want the state to run all industry.

They say they support independent working class action, yet they constantly side with the police when the working classes take independent action!

They claim to be a revolutionary party, but they would allow the capitalist state apparatus to remain.

They claim to be atheistic, but then jump into bed with Islamic activists at the earliest oppurtunity!

The Case for Worker’s Control of Industry versus
Private/State Capitalism

The case of Nigeria will be the main example. Nigeria has a huge international debt and many internal problems as well as a history of military dictators. Its main industry is OIL, run by SHELL on offshore platforms near the Niger Delta. Oil profits are the main source of revenue for the Nigerian government (I estimate up to 90%, actually this is the case in Angola, which also has abundant diamond deposits besides off-shore foreign owned oil platforms but the analogy is basically so similar that the two countries can be considered as the same), much of which goes on servicing foreign debt (at this current point, Nigeria has successfully serviced all its foreign debt)

I would estimate that corporate taxes are low to encourage investment, so lets assume that the oil companies (well, Shell) pay 10% of their profits to the state. Many of the technicians in the oil industry are western experts and, I keep assuming, most of the work connected with the oil industry for Nigerians themselves is security work. This is obviously a big incentive against common ownership and also works on the sweatshop principle, i.e. it is cheaper to pay your workers 25 cents an hour, for 16 hours and to pay couple of guys with iron bars $2 a hour to make sure they work than to pay everybody $1 an hour.

Obviously, although Nigeria gets some of the capital, the vast majority leaves the country, still leaving a gigantic debt.

What if the state took over the oil industry? They could do so simply by buying the oil platforms back from Shell. However, while they are busy raising the revenue to do so, their foreign debt would increase and vital funds would be kept from healthcare and education. Also, the costs of training up new technicians while keeping up oil production would become very difficult. It is difficult to see how the state could ever recoup its expenses. This also raises the issue of a brain drain from health care to industry.

Why not just send the army in? This could lead to an international incident involving the western powers, who may just pay the army to stage a coup de’tat. Even if all goes well, a large amount of security would be required and then you have the problems stated above when the oil is secured. In any case, the development/ improvement of other industries would be neglected.

It seems that the only way for the Nigerian people to escape poverty would be the immediate, spontaneous takeover of the oil platforms.
Unfortunately, in international markets, human lives do not count as capital investment. In an organised overthrow of capitalism, lives would be the only investment. It could only be hoped that the Nigerian army stays neutral and the revolt has the support of the populace at large.

Going back to my estimates for the transfer of oil capital, even if oil production and export was at 20% of the pre-revolt levels, the country would have doubled its capital intake. This could then ALL go on healthcare and education; and without a formal government, the foreign debt would be void!

Capitalism or Communism?

This is not a choice. The question refers to two apparently opposite economic systems, but the question denies the real choice: the allocation and nature of surplus labour. The choice is a political one and was made long before industrial capitalism was a twinkle in feudalism's eye.

The real question is: should there even be any surplus?

From each according to ability to each according to need.