I would say pragmatist, rather than a reformist. Reform makes the least mess to clean up after and leaves the smallest window for a hypothetical Joe the Billionaire from starting an actual monarchy after the overthrow of the system. If I had my way we’d replace the constitution with a new one that establishes a strong, expanded bill of right and the power to enforce it at a national level and all other decisions would be made at a city or county level, with state governments becoming caretakers and losing all legislative, executive, and judicial power beyond what’s needed to maintain the roads and grid(s).
Replacing consumerism as a means of validation and acceptance is easier than it looks. Alienation is a combination of disenfranchisement, social rejection, and a lack of agency. The “buy nothing, buy less, buy used, buy local” is part of the zine I’m currently writing. The idea is that you replace consumerism with community. Buy nothing groups, swap meets, farmer’s markets, flea markets, craigslist meets all provide real human interaction and social validation. Actively trying to avoid any money possible going to billionaires and corrupt state coffers means more time spent shopping, specifically in meatspace, rather than online (where huge chunks of your money go to billionaires).
I’ve actually been working on compiling all of the zine and essay content into a website, I will make a note and drop you a link when it goes live (months still, but this year). If I wasn’t already on a watch list (old crusty anarchist), I will absolutely be on one when that goes up, lol.
I mean I guess as a Marxist there are just some things we have fundamentally different understandings? The way you talk about consumerism and alienation, is fundamentally opposed to a Marxist’s definition. To a Marxist alienation isn’t subjective, it is material; a result of workers slavish relation to commodity production, as the relation that generates surplus value.
But I’m trying to back off of explicitly anarchist critiques, and kind of begrudgingly think about your basic conceptions. I’ve spent enough time around anarchists and Marxists to know that there’s something sort of broken there, broken by history. And I know enough about anarchists, who kind of effortlessly organize circles around us, and the history of anarchism as it relates to various socialist projects of the 20th century, than to do what many of my comrades do, and just like quote “On Authority” to y’all as if it has ever made a lick of difference. I guess to put it plainly: I can understand why an anarchist wouldn’t necessarily be all for a Marxist or Leninist conception of revolution, might advocate for a measure of caution and search for a “third way”. I won’t be convinced that money is anything other than a mechanism of class oppression, and the value form itself is actually a tremendous mind fuck, accounting for the alienation that workers experience.
What I think I really don’t understand, is the anarchist conception of the individual, like, in a scientific way. There’s something “in the sauce” that I can’t account for in our analysis, something that overlaps with a great deal of the working class. But if we are comrades in sharing and binding ourselves to the struggles of workers then that’s basically what’s most important. It isnt right to demand that you adhere to “correct” theoretical analysis when there is something I dont understand about like one of anarchism’s fundamental concepts, something that seems to be very “right” that comes from your tradition, something that I can’t just dismiss as “petty bourgeois” or liberal.
So more power to ya, friend. I’d love to read anything you come out with.
I would say pragmatist, rather than a reformist. Reform makes the least mess to clean up after and leaves the smallest window for a hypothetical Joe the Billionaire from starting an actual monarchy after the overthrow of the system. If I had my way we’d replace the constitution with a new one that establishes a strong, expanded bill of right and the power to enforce it at a national level and all other decisions would be made at a city or county level, with state governments becoming caretakers and losing all legislative, executive, and judicial power beyond what’s needed to maintain the roads and grid(s).
Replacing consumerism as a means of validation and acceptance is easier than it looks. Alienation is a combination of disenfranchisement, social rejection, and a lack of agency. The “buy nothing, buy less, buy used, buy local” is part of the zine I’m currently writing. The idea is that you replace consumerism with community. Buy nothing groups, swap meets, farmer’s markets, flea markets, craigslist meets all provide real human interaction and social validation. Actively trying to avoid any money possible going to billionaires and corrupt state coffers means more time spent shopping, specifically in meatspace, rather than online (where huge chunks of your money go to billionaires).
I’ve actually been working on compiling all of the zine and essay content into a website, I will make a note and drop you a link when it goes live (months still, but this year). If I wasn’t already on a watch list (old crusty anarchist), I will absolutely be on one when that goes up, lol.
I mean I guess as a Marxist there are just some things we have fundamentally different understandings? The way you talk about consumerism and alienation, is fundamentally opposed to a Marxist’s definition. To a Marxist alienation isn’t subjective, it is material; a result of workers slavish relation to commodity production, as the relation that generates surplus value.
But I’m trying to back off of explicitly anarchist critiques, and kind of begrudgingly think about your basic conceptions. I’ve spent enough time around anarchists and Marxists to know that there’s something sort of broken there, broken by history. And I know enough about anarchists, who kind of effortlessly organize circles around us, and the history of anarchism as it relates to various socialist projects of the 20th century, than to do what many of my comrades do, and just like quote “On Authority” to y’all as if it has ever made a lick of difference. I guess to put it plainly: I can understand why an anarchist wouldn’t necessarily be all for a Marxist or Leninist conception of revolution, might advocate for a measure of caution and search for a “third way”. I won’t be convinced that money is anything other than a mechanism of class oppression, and the value form itself is actually a tremendous mind fuck, accounting for the alienation that workers experience.
What I think I really don’t understand, is the anarchist conception of the individual, like, in a scientific way. There’s something “in the sauce” that I can’t account for in our analysis, something that overlaps with a great deal of the working class. But if we are comrades in sharing and binding ourselves to the struggles of workers then that’s basically what’s most important. It isnt right to demand that you adhere to “correct” theoretical analysis when there is something I dont understand about like one of anarchism’s fundamental concepts, something that seems to be very “right” that comes from your tradition, something that I can’t just dismiss as “petty bourgeois” or liberal.
So more power to ya, friend. I’d love to read anything you come out with.