B  I  B  L  I  O  T  H  E  Q  U  E ~ V  I  R  T  U  E  L  L  E

  Jack London
War of the Classes



PREFACE
When I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature, because, forsooth, I was a socialist. Reporters from local papers interviewed me, and the interviews, when published, were pathological studies of a strange and abnormal specimen of man. At that time (nine or ten years ago), because I made a stand in my native town for municipal ownership of public utilities, I was branded a "red-shirt," a "dynamiter," and an "anarchist"; and really decent fellows, who liked me very well, drew the line at my appearing in public with their sisters.

But the times changed. There came a day when I heard, in my native town, a Republican mayor publicly proclaim that "municipal ownership was a fixed American policy." And in that day I found myself picking up in the world. No longer did the pathologist study me, while the really decent fellows did not mind in the least the propinquity of myself and their sisters in the public eye. My political and sociological ideas were ascribed to the vagaries of youth, and good-natured elderly men patronized me and told me that I would grow up some day and become an unusually intelligent member of the community. Also they told me that my views were biassed by my empty pockets, and that some day, when I had gathered to me a few dollars, my views would be wholly different,--in short, that my views would be their views.

And then came the day when my socialism grew respectable,--still a vagary of youth, it was held, but romantically respectable. Romance, to the bourgeois mind, was respectable because it was not dangerous. As a "red-shirt," with bombs in all his pockets, I was dangerous. As a youth with nothing more menacing than a few philosophical ideas, Germanic in their origin, I was an interesting and pleasing personality.

Through all this experience I noted one thing. It was not I that changed, but the community. In fact, my socialistic views grew solider and more pronounced. I repeat, it was the community that changed, and to my chagrin I discovered that the community changed to such purpose that it was not above stealing my thunder. The community branded me a "red-shirt" because I stood for municipal ownership; a little later it applauded its mayor when he proclaimed municipal ownership to be a fixed American policy. He stole my thunder, and the community applauded the theft. And today the community is able to come around and give me points on municipal ownership.

What happened to me has been in no wise different from what has happened to the socialist movement as a whole in the United States. In the bourgeois mind socialism has changed from a terrible disease to a youthful vagary, and later on had its thunder stolen by the two old parties,--socialism, like a meek and thrifty workingman, being exploited became respectable.

Only dangerous things are abhorrent. The thing that is not dangerous is always respectable. And so with socialism in the United States. For several years it has been very respectable,--a sweet and beautiful Utopian dream, in the bourgeois mind, yet a dream, only a dream. During this period, which has just ended, socialism was tolerated because it was impossible and non-menacing. Much of its thunder had been stolen, and the workingmen had been made happy with full dinner-pails. There was nothing to fear. The kind old world spun on, coupons were clipped, and larger profits than ever were extracted from the toilers. Coupon-clipping and profit-extracting would continue to the end of time. These were functions divine in origin and held by divine right. The newspapers, the preachers, and the college presidents said so, and what they say, of course, is so--to the bourgeois mind.

Then came the presidential election of 1904. Like a bolt out of a clear sky was the socialist vote of 435,000,--an increase of nearly 400 per cent in four years, the largest third-party vote, with one exception, since the Civil War. Socialism had shown that it was a very live and growing revolutionary force, and all its old menace revived. I am afraid that neither it nor I are any longer respectable. The capitalist press of the country confirms me in my opinion, and herewith I give a few post-election utterances of the capitalist press:-

"The Democratic party of the constitution is dead. The Social- Democratic party of continental Europe, preaching discontent and class hatred, assailing law, property, and personal rights, and insinuating confiscation and plunder, is here."--Chicago Chronicle.

"That over forty thousand votes should have been cast in this city to make such a person as Eugene V. Debs the President of the United States is about the worst kind of advertising that Chicago could receive."--Chicago Inter-Ocean.

"We cannot blink the fact that socialism is making rapid growth in this country, where, of all others, there would seem to be less inspiration for it."--Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

"Upon the hands of the Republican party an awful responsibility was placed last Tuesday. . . It knows that reforms--great, far-sweeping reforms--are necessary, and it has the power to make them. God help our civilization if it does not! . . . It must repress the trusts or stand before the world responsible for our system of government being changed into a social republic. The arbitrary cutting down of wages must cease, or socialism will seize another lever to lift itself into power."--The Chicago New World.

"Scarcely any phase of the election is more sinisterly interesting than the increase in the socialist vote. Before election we said that we could not afford to give aid and comfort to the socialists in any manner. . . It (socialism) must be fought in all its phases, in its every manifestation."--San Francisco Argonaut.

And far be it from me to deny that socialism is a menace. It is its purpose to wipe out, root and branch, all capitalistic institutions of present-day society. It is distinctly revolutionary, and in scope and depth is vastly more tremendous than any revolution that has ever occurred in the history of the world. It presents a new spectacle to the astonished world,--that of an ORGANIZED, INTERNATIONAL, REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT. In the bourgeois mind a class struggle is a terrible and hateful thing, and yet that is precisely what socialism is,--a world-wide class struggle between the propertyless workers and the propertied masters of workers. It is the prime preachment of socialism that the struggle is a class struggle. The working class, in the process of social evolution, (in the very nature of things), is bound to revolt from the sway of the capitalist class and to overthrow the capitalist class. This is the menace of socialism, and in affirming it and in tallying myself an adherent of it, I accept my own consequent unrespectability.

As yet, to the average bourgeois mind, socialism is merely a menace, vague and formless. The average member of the capitalist class, when he discusses socialism, is condemned an ignoramus out of his own mouth. He does not know the literature of socialism, its philosophy, nor its politics. He wags his head sagely and rattles the dry bones of dead and buried ideas. His lips mumble mouldy phrases, such as, "Men are not born equal and never can be;" "It is Utopian and impossible;" "Abstinence should be rewarded;" "Man will first have to be born again;" "Cooperative colonies have always failed;" and "What if we do divide up? in ten years there would be rich and poor men such as there are today."

It surely is time that the capitalists knew something about this socialism that they feel menaces them. And it is the hope of the writer that the socialistic studies in this volume may in some slight degree enlighten a few capitalistic minds. The capitalist must learn, first and for always, that socialism is based, not upon the equality, but upon the inequality, of men. Next, he must learn that no new birth into spiritual purity is necessary before socialism becomes possible. He must learn that socialism deals with what is, not with what ought to be; and that the material with which it deals is the "clay of the common road," the warm human, fallible and frail, sordid and petty, absurd and contradictory, even grotesque, and yet, withal, shot through with flashes and glimmerings of something finer and God-like, with here and there sweetnesses of service and unselfishness, desires for goodness, for renunciation and sacrifice, and with conscience, stern and awful, at times blazingly imperious, demanding the right,--the right, nothing more nor less than the right.

JACK LONDON. OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. January 12, 1905.
 

READ THE CLASS STRUGGLE HERE  http://sami.is.free.fr/Oeuvres/london_war_classes.html

India Walton Is Reviving the American Tradition of Municipal Socialism

BY JOSHUA KLUEVER

JACOBIN

06.29.2021

With her win last week, Buffalo’s India Walton will almost certainly become the first socialist mayor of a major US city in years. She’s reviving a robust American tradition: municipal socialism.
India Walton defeated incumbent mayor Byron Brown in Buffalo’s Democratic primary on June 22. (Photo courtesy India Walton for Mayor)

Last Tuesday, as news coverage focused on New York City’s mayoral race, an upset occurred in New York’s second-largest city. India Walton, a nurse and union activist endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Working Families Party, defeated incumbent mayor Byron Brown in Buffalo’s Democratic primary.

Walton proudly called herself a democratic socialist throughout the campaign, and on election night, she refused to back away from that label. Responding to a reporter’s question about whether she considers herself a socialist, Walton was adamant: “Oh, absolutely. The entire intent of this campaign is to draw power and resources to the ground level and into the hands of the people.”

At a victory party the same night, she laid out her political vision: “All that we are doing in this moment is claiming what is rightfully ours. We are the workers. We do the work. And we deserve a government that works with and for us.”

Having won the primary in Democrat-heavy Buffalo, Walton will almost certainly become the city’s first female mayor — and the first socialist mayor of a major US city in years. Her upset is another milestone in the rise of DSA, which put considerable energy into Walton’s campaign. But her victory also points to an important, if often overlooked, tradition of US politics: municipal and state-level socialism.

During the early twentieth century, the Socialist Party of America (SPA) fielded formidable candidates across the country. The most prominent was Eugene Debs, who ran for president five times, including from a federal prison in 1920. (He was serving time for opposing World War I.) New York’s Meyer London and Wisconsin’s Victor Berger both won election to the US Congress as Socialists in the 1910s and ’20s.

1912 Socialist ticket for president.

The real action, however, was down-ballot, where Socialists secured spots on city councils, state legislatures, county boards, and an array of other governing bodies. The SPA elected over 150 state legislators during the early twentieth century. They also won mayoral races. There was Jasper McLevy in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Louis Duncan in Butte, Montana; J. Henry Stump in Reading, Pennsylvania, and John Gibbons in Lackawanna, New York, just south of Buffalo. In Buffalo itself, Socialist Frank Perkins won a city council seat in 1920. All told, Socialists won office in at least 353 cities, the vast majority in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

The longest socialist administration was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where from 1910 to 1960 the city had three socialist mayors. Emil Seidel, Daniel Hoan, and Frank Zeidler’s administrations promoted “sewer socialism,” a moderate form of socialism aimed at delivering workers immediate material improvements and de-commodifying society through a democratic process. While they de-emphasized strikes and labor struggles, the sewer socialists were able to build an incredibly well-organized machine and a rich working-class culture.

Emil Seidel was elected in 1910, becoming the country’s first Socialist mayor of a major city. During his brief tenure, he created the city’s first public works department and started the city parks system. After losing reelection, Seidel served as Eugene Debs’s running mate in 1912.

Milwaukee Socialists regained power with Daniel Hoan’s victory in 1916. Hoan’s twenty-four-year tenure remains the longest continuous Socialist administration in US history. Milwaukee set up the country’s first public housing project, Garden Homes, in 1923, and the Hoan administration pushed for municipal ownership of street lighting, city sanitation, and water purification. It also financed public marketplaces, raised funds to improve Milwaukee’s harbors, and purged the corruption that had plagued past administrations.

Hoan’s tenure ended in 1940, but socialist governance returned under Frank Zeidler starting in 1948. Zeidler continued the “sewer socialism” tradition while overseeing Milwaukee’s territorial expansion and population rise. He stood out as a strong supporter of civil rights as Milwaukee’s black population increased following World War II (an especially laudable stance given the bigotry of earlier sewer socialists like Victor Berger).

The Wisconsin Socialist Party’s success wasn’t limited to Milwaukee. From 1905 to 1945, Socialists sent seventy-four legislators to the state capital, where they passed over five hundred pieces of legislation, often aimed at supporting the municipal administrations back in Milwaukee. A 1919 socialist bill, for instance, gave the city permission to create public housing.

Like their city-level comrades, Socialist state legislators worked to deliver tangible changes to workers’ lives. Socialists authored Wisconsin’s first workmen’s compensation bill, which passed in 1911, and pushed legislation that allowed women to receive their paychecks instead of having it sent to their husbands. They updated housing codes, reduced working hours for women, and funded public county hospitals. They exempted union property from taxation and made it illegal for company investigators to infiltrate unions.

Daniel Hoan, Socialist mayor of Milwaukee from 1916 to 1940. (Milwaukee Public Library)

Socialist state legislators in Wisconsin didn’t accomplish what they did alone. They aligned with progressive Republicans when possible and, as a result, much of the legislation that came out of the legislature looked like a mixture of socialist and progressive positions.

Still, Socialists were more than happy to call out progressives for not going far enough to help the working class. In 1931, the legislature debated a state unemployment system to combat the effects of the Great Depression. The socialist version of the bill called for $12 a week in benefits and included a provision to create an eight-hour working day across all industries. Progressives rallied around a bill that called for $10 a week in benefits and no cap on working hours. Socialist representative George Tews summarized the caucus’s sentiment when he declared on the House floor that a progressive was a “socialist with their brains knocked out.”

The Milwaukee socialists became mainstays of the state legislature, managing to survive the First Red Scare following World War I. Elsewhere, state repression (and deep splits within the party) proved more devastating. In New York, for instance, state officials operating under the anti-radical Lusk Committee targeted Buffalo, where Frank Perkins had been elected city councilor in 1920, and the nearby steel town of Lackawanna, where socialist John Gibbons won the mayor’s office. Under the cloud of federal repression, neither Perkins nor Gibbons won reelection.

The Wisconsin Socialists’ numbers and electoral victories evaporated following World War II, and for decades, socialists largely found themselves outside the halls of power (some exceptions: Oakland, California mayor Ron Dellums; St Paul, Minnesota mayor Jim Scheibel; Berkeley, California mayor Gus Newport; Santa Cruz, California mayor Mike Rokin, and Irving, California mayor Larry Agran — all DSA members).

But DSA victories in congressional, state, and local races have again placed socialism on the map. The key now will be to fight for concrete improvements in workers’ lives, raising their expectations about what is politically possible.

In her victory speech last Tuesday, India Walton laid out an optimistic view of socialist successes to come. “This victory is ours. It is the first of many. If you are in an elected office right now, you are being put on notice. We are coming.”

That kind of optimism was warranted at the state and local level during the early twentieth century. There is no reason it cannot be so again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joshua Kluever is a PhD candidate of twentieth-century American history at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

State-less Socialism

I get called an oxymoron (which I guess is better than being called just a moron, by Warren Kinsella) for using the term Libertarian Communist.

When I pondered the title of this page I could have called it an anarchist, or anarcho-syndicalist, or autonomous marxist or a libertarian socialist, or left communist. But I decided to use the contradictory phrase libertarian communist. Which to me is embraces all these the ideas and those of the Anti-Parlimentary Communists, which included Sylvia Pankhurst, James Connolly and Guy Aldred.

My, my all these terms which are really interchangable. They really are only terms used for what Kropotkin orginally said of anarchism, 'we are the left wing of the socialist movement'. Why I use the term Libertarian Communist rather than Anarchist Socialist could be best illustrated by comparing the ideas of Marx and Benjamin Tucker .

Not to abolish wages, but to make every man dependent upon wages and secure to every man his whole wages is the aim of Anarchistic Socialism. What Anarchistic Socialism aims to abolish is usury. It does not want to deprive labor of its reward; it wants to deprive capital of its reward. It does not hold that labor should not be sold; it holds that capital should not be hired at usury. Benjamin Tucker

This is what I call distributist economics, that is the idea that the problem with the market place is distribution of goods rather than the social relations of production. Tucker was influenced by Prodhoun in this and it is the idea that the problem with capitalism is usury and monopoly, and could be summed up as a fair days wage for a fair days work.

In fact it is exactly that phrase which we get from the old labour movement of the time the American Federation of Labor, which was influenced by another 'anarchist socialist' Joe Labadie. Both Labadie and Tucker represent this American school of anarchist socialism.

Whereas the IWW took as their watchword Abolish the wages system. from Marx's essay Value, Price and Profit.

And for good reason, wages will never reflect thre real value of labour, merely its exchange value, the price paid for a good. In this Marx was using the original idea of gift economy, where the intrinsic value of the goods exchanged were determined socially, by prestige or importance of the person giving them, rather than their value as appraised in money or exchange value. Thus the call to abolish the wage system is a call to also end wage slavery, which is the source of all capitalist profit.

It is not a question of wages or prices; these are but the reflections of the social relations of capitalism. K. Marx

And this is where the Anarchist Socialist school of Labadie and Tucker diverges from what I call Libertarian or Anarchist Communism. Labadie and Tucker were the percursors of todays Libertarian movement, and still are. Whereas my position is closer to that of the older Anti-Statist Socialists and Communists.

Too often today Libertarianism is equated or associated with Ayn Rand, Objectivism, neo-conservatives, the Austrian School of Economics, and a host of other right wing theorists. The knee jerk reaction of many so called right wing libertarians (because they follow neo-liberal regulation economics I refer to them as liberaltarians for accuracy) I read or who occasionally post here, is to immediately equate ALL socialism as STATE socialism.

Idealistic socialists consider the socialism under Stalin’s state to be a far cry from what they want, which, if I understand their paradoxical philosophy correctly, is actually some form of voluntary socialist anarchy –In the end, state capitalists and state socialists will always find enough common ground to work together. They’ll continue to advance a corporate state socialism that no peaceful, freedom-loving individual wants. And so the rest of us, who reject the state and are willing to put all our other nominal differences aside, must stick together, at least in our attempts to push back the wave of statism imposed on us by the authoritarian socialists and state capitalists of all parties and all stripes.

Corporate State Socialism by Anthony Gregory

And this is their major failure in understanding the history of the socialist movement, which is where their libertarianism (anarchist socialism) originates from. They continue to mistake state capitalism (a historic evolution of capitalism) with socialism.

However there are some who you will find listed in the sidebar either under Blogs I Read, or A little Anarchy who are evolving a new debate amongst those of us that are Anti-Statists, Left Libertarians.

"Tom Knapp, you see — like Kevin Carson, myself, Professor Roderick Long and the Libertarian Left in general — holds that free-market anarchism is, in all essentials, fundamentally compatible with and/or identical to a genuinely voluntary, anti-state socialism." Brad Spangler

And it is not just the right that suffers from this knee jerk reaction, the left wing anarchists do as well. They like to dis and dump on Marx, Engels as well as the socialist and communist movements, as if the old fights over the First International of Bakunins day occured mere moments ago.

In doing so they often throw Marx out with the bath water, something even Bakunin wouldn't do, since he admonished anarchists to read Marx's writings. Their dispute was political, over the practice and formation of the revolutionary organization of the workers movement. Bakunin was fascinated with secret societies, as well as unions and direct action. Marx and Engels argued for public mass workers political parties, to win sufferage and democratic reforms of the state.

The anarchist movement was very broad, as broad as the entire socialist movement itself. It carried the seeds of the gay and womens movement in it in England, where anarchism and socialism were united in William Morris's Socialist Labour Party.

When those that talk of nationalization, without speaking of workers ownership of the means of production, they are speaking of state capitalism, not socialism.

The influence of anarhco syndicalism on the communist left and the socialist movement cannot be under estimated. Along with the workers councils (soviets) that arose in 1905 in Russia and again during WWI in Russia and Italy showed that workers could run production by themselves for the good of all.

It gave a model of real socialism, not state socialism, not nationalization of capitalist industry and not Prussian War Socialism which the Bolsehveks degenerated into. Rather it opened a door on a future socialism that was not parlimentary, but revolutionary, and not middle class; the social welfare state.

Here are some quotes from the radical socialist movement which sound like they lept off the pages of the Libertarian movement in their criticism of the State and State Socialism.

Man will be compelled, Kropotkin declared, "to find new forms of organisation for the social functions which the State fulfils through the bureaucracy" and he insisted that ''as long as this is not done nothing will be done."

Anarchism as a Theory of Organization Colin Ward (1966)

On the other hand the State has also been confused with Government. Since there can be no State without government, it has sometimes been said that what one must aim at is the absence of government and not the abolition of the State.

However, it seems to me that State and government are two concepts of a different order. The State idea means something quite different from the idea of government. It not only includes the existence of a power situated above society, but also of a territorial concentration as well as the concentration in the hands of a few of many functions in the life of societies. It implies some new relationships between members of society which did not exist before the formation of the State. A whole mechanism of legislation and of policing has to be developed in order to subject some classes to the domination of others.

The State: Its Historic Role
Piotr Kropotkin
(1897)

For ourselves, we consider that State is and ought to be nothing whatever but the united power of the people, organized, not to be an instrument of oppression and mutual plunder among citizens; but, on the contrary, to secure to every one his own, and to cause justice and security to reign.

The State
Frédéric Bastiat
(1848)

Finally, in its struggle against the revolution, the parliamentary republic found itself compelled to strengthen, along the repressive measures, the resources and centralisation of governmental power. All revolutions perfected this machine instead of smashing it. The parties that contended in turn for domination regarded the possession of this huge state edifice as the principal spoils of the victor.

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Karl Marx
(1852)

Socialism properly implies above all things the co-operative control by the workers of the machinery of production; without this co-operative control the public ownership by the State is not Socialism – it is only State capitalism.

Schemes of state and municipal ownership, if unaccompanied by this co-operative principle, are but schemes for the perfectioning of the mechanism of capitalist government-schemes to make the capitalist regime respectable and efficient for the purposes of the capitalist; in the second place they represent the class-conscious instinct of the business man who feels that capitalist should not prey upon capitalist, while all may unite to prey upon the workers. The chief immediate sufferers from private ownership of railways, canals, and telephones are the middle class shop-keeping element, and their resentment at the tariffs imposed is but the capitalist political expression of the old adage that “dog should not eat dog.”

It will thus be seen that an immense gulf separates the ‘nationalising’ proposals of the middle class from the ‘socialising’ demands of the revolutionary working class.

State Monopoly versus Socialism
James Connolly
Workers’ Republic, 10 June 1899

There is not a Socialist in the world today who can indicate with any degree of clearness how we can bring about the co-operative commonwealth except along the lines suggested by industrial organization of the workers.

Political institutions are not adapted to the administration of industry. Only industrial organizations are adapted to the administration of a co-operative commonwealth that we are working for. Only the industrial form of organization offers us even a theoretical constructive Socialist programme. There is no constructive Socialism except in the industrial field.

Here is a statement that no Socialist with a clear knowledge of the essentials of his doctrine can dispute. The political institutions of today are simply the coercive forces of capitalist society they have grown up out of, and are based upon, territorial divisions of power in the hands of the ruling class in past ages, and were carried over into capitalist society to suit the needs of the capitalist class when that class overthrew the dominion of its predecessors.

What the Socialist does realize is that under a social democratic form of society the administration of affairs will be in the hands of representatives of the various industries of the nation; that the workers in the shops and factories will organize themselves into unions, each union comprising all the workers at a given industry; that said union will democratically control the workshop life of its own industry, electing all foremen etc., and regulating the routine of labour in that industry in subordination to the needs of society in general, to the needs of its allied trades, and to the departments of industry to which it belongs; that representatives elected from these various departments of industry will meet and form the industrial administration or national government of the country.

In short, social democracy, as its name implies, is the application to industry, or to the social life of the nation, of the fundamental principles of democracy. Such application will necessarily have to begin in the workshop, and proceed logically and consecutively upward through all the grades of industrial organization until it reaches the culminating point of national executive power and direction. In other words, social democracy must proceed from the bottom upward, whereas capitalist political society is organized from above downward.

It will be seen that this conception of Socialism destroys at one blow all the fears of a bureaucratic State, ruling and ordering the lives of every individual from above, and thus gives assurance that the social order of the future will be an extension of the freedom of the individual, and not the suppression of it. In short, it blends the fullest democratic control with the most absolute expert supervision, something unthinkable of any society built upon the political State.

Industrial Unionism and Constructive Socialism
James Connolly
From Socialism Made Easy, 1908.

Trade Unionism has conquered social power and commanded influence in so far as it satisfied and arose from the social necessities of the capitalist epoch. Because it has answered capitalist needs, the Trade Union has qualified for its modern position as the sign manual of skilled labour.

But the growth in social and political importance of the Trade Union leader has not menaced the foundations of capitalist society. He has been cited more and more as the friend of reform and the enemy of revolution. It has been urged that he is a sober and responsible member of capitalist society. Consequently, capitalist apologists have been obliged to acknowledge that he discharged useful and important functions in society.

This admission has forced them to assert that the law of supply and demand does not determine, with exactness, the nominal - or even the actual price of the commodity, labour power. Hence it has been allowed that Trade Unions enable their members to increase the amount of the price received for their labour-power, without being hurtful to the interests of the commonwealth-i.e. the capitalist class-when conducted with moderation and fairness.

Modern Trade Unionism enjoys this respectable reputation to a very large extent because it has sacrificed its original vitality. This was inevitable, since, in its very origin, it was reformist and not revolutionary. Trade Unionism has sacrificed no economic principle during its century's development. It has surrendered no industrial or political consistency. But it has not maintained its early earnestness or sentiment of solidarity. Had it done so, it would have been compelled to have evolved socially and politically. Instead of stagnating in reform, it would have had to progress towards revolution.

Our Trade Unionist friend, with his loose revolutionary violence and threatening, as opposed to a sound revolutionary activity, finding himself either consciously or unconsciously on the side of bourgeois society, will insist that there must be representation and delegation of authority.

To this I reply with the statement of Marxian philosophy, that every industrial epoch has its own system of representation. The fact that minority and majority rule find their harmonious expression in the political bureaucratic autocracy of capitalism signifies that its negation in the terms of Socialism shall embody a counter affirmative which embody the principle of true organisation and freedom of the individual idiosyncrasy. What the details of that organisation will be shall be made the subject of discussion in another essay. That it will not be "a Socialist majority" can be' seen from the fact that democracy usually signifies the surrender of majority incompetence and mis-education to the interests of minority expertism and bourgeois concentration of its power over the lives and destinies of the exploited proletarians, no less through the medium of the worker's Trade and Industrial Union, than through that of the Capitalist State.

Marx truly conceived of the bourgeois State as being but an executive committee for administering the ~affairs of the whole bourgeois class, which has stripped of its halo every profession previously venerated and regarded as honourable, and thus turned doctor, lawyer, priest, poet, philosopher, and labour leader into its paid wage workers. The Trade Union becomes daily more and more an essential department or expression of the bourgeois State.

Out of the class or property social system there cannot emerge a "representation" which signifies an honest attempt to secure just exposition of principles and expressions of antagonistic interests. Where there is no social or economic equality, there can be no democracy and no representation. The barren wilderness of money- juggling "freedom" cannot secure real personal liberty of being to any citizen. True organisation like true liberty belongs to the future - and the Socialist Commonwealth, or, as I have termed it elsewhere, the Anarchist Republic.

Trade Unionism and The Class War (1911)
Guy Aldred

Thus, economically, politically, and psychologically the whole of the trend of social evolution shows that Socialism can only have its social expression in an era of freedom, and its political expression in a State which shall treat of the management of production instead of the control of persons*. The psychological guarantee against expertism will be found in the contempt with which all men will regard it, and the tendency to excellence of administration ~ill be reposed in the admiration which all men will have for efficiency Should this possibility still meet with opposition on the ground that such a central directing authority finding its embodiment in a collective will, would not find legal oppression incongruous with its industrial basis, one cm only conclude that either humanity is inherently bad and progress an impossibility or else that in a system of absolute individualism must humanity's hope lie.

*Here the term 'State' is used in a sense entirely unhistorical. Such a political order is Anarchy and can only be termed a state in the sense of being a social condition

Representation and the State (1940)
Guy Aldred

Well thats all well and good and I could find more quotes to make my point but that is the past what about the future. Could we organize ourselves into self governing associations and federations? Could we replace the state with self governing anarcho communism? Why heck sure we could cause you are online in a libertarian communist gift economy right now.

During the Sixties, the New Left created a new form of radical politics: anarcho-communism. Above all, the Situationists and similar groups believed that the tribal gift economy proved that individuals could successfully live together without needing either the state or the market. From May 1968 to the late Nineties, this utopian vision of anarcho-communism has inspired community media and DIY culture activists. Within the universities, the gift economy already was the primary method of socialising labour. From its earliest days, the technical structure and social mores of the Net has ignored intellectual property. Although the system has expanded far beyond the university, the self-interest of Net users perpetuates this hi-tech gift economy. As an everyday activity, users circulate free information as e-mail, on listservs, in newsgroups, within on-line conferences and through Web sites. As shown by the Apache and Linux programs, the hi-tech gift economy is even at the forefront of software development. Contrary to the purist vision of the New Left, anarcho-communism on the Net can only exist in a compromised form. Money-commodity and gift relations are not just in conflict with each other, but also co-exist in symbiosis. The 'New Economy' of cyberspace is an advanced form of social democracy.

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KURDISH ECO SOCIALISM

Öztürk: It is possible to reorganize socialism with the concept of eco-economy

Stating that it is possible to reorganize socialism with eco-economy, Hakan Öztürk said, "Even a single good example of a commune or municipality shatters all prejudices about the horizon that eco-economy will try to give and creates a domino effect."


HAKAN OZTURK
ANF
ISTANBUL
Monday, December 15, 2025


The worldwide destruction of capitalist modernity is becoming more and more evident. The blocked system is trying to survive by creating great destruction in the world because it cannot find ways to renew itself. The shortcomings and blockages of the real socialist economy also lead to the gradual spread of this ruthless economic system of capitalist modernity.

The eco-economy model, which Leader Apo has long proposed against capitalist and real socialist economy models, continues to be discussed. Especially with the destruction of real socialist experiences, the eco-economy, which emerged as the theoretical infrastructure of socialist circles to eliminate the deficiencies and create a new life, began to be discussed again.

"The eco-economy approach says that we should stop running towards these disasters that we can foresee," said Hakan Öztürk, Chairman of the Labour Movement Party, explaining the concept and necessity of eco-economy to ANF.

'A VALUE THAT CAN SHAKE THE PHYSICAL STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD IS ACCUMULATING'

Drawing attention to the magnitude of the destruction of capitalist modernity in the world, Öztürk said, "A great value that can shake the physical existence of the world is accumulating in the hands of a group of visionless and virtuous bosses" and continued his words as follows:

"Almost everyone observes that capitalism is not leading the world to a good place. The owners of capital are taking away the surplus value as large as the ocean from the working class day by day. The wages of the working class are being reduced. The working class, which is tested by hunger and poverty, either works a second job, receives assistance or borrows money in order to survive. He resists the resulting physical collapse, moral collapse and the loss of his future.

The owners of capital create unemployment and make workers who have the opportunity to work for very long periods of time. The basic needs of the society such as nutrition, shelter, education, health and transportation cannot be met in any way. A great value that can shake the physical existence of the world is accumulating in the hands of a group of visionless and virtuous bosses.

Despite all this, the issue is not even that the bosses have made an unfair profit. The conflict between capitalist countries humanity; global warming, destruction of nature, economic crisis, regional and nuclear war disasters. This is the deep pain and issue that cannot be spoken. The eco-economy approach says that we need to stop rushing towards these disasters that we can foresee."

'AS ÖCALAN SAID, HUMANITY HAS COME TO THE BRINK OF BEING SWALLOWED BY THE MONSTER IT CREATED'

Stating that sometimes great losses cannot be seen without looking at the society, Öztürk continued his words by referring to the words of Leader Apo:

"They say, 'The devil is in the details,' but at the same time, the devil is hidden in the grand total result. Sometimes the big loss cannot be seen without approaching the end and looking at the total. The understanding, which forgets that it has a metabolic relationship with nature and aims only at capital accumulation, is about to reach all its logical conclusions. When we look at the end of the story and the cumulative total, we see that profits are made, capital accumulation is achieved, but the fertility of the soil disappears.

Production is carried out in the agricultural field. However, cities no longer have any connection with the agricultural area. When agricultural production is consumed in cities, the wastes generated cannot return to the soil with their nutritional qualities such as nitrogen and phosphorus. There is a big abyss, an irreparable disconnection here. This damaging cycle progresses, producing a massive total.

As Abdullah Öcalan stated in his manifesto, 'Today, humanity has reached the limits of being swallowed by the monster it created.' Yes, if we ask 'are there limits?', there are. We are facing an apocalyptic end. The sea is over; the sea, ocean, rivers and drinking water are finished. Production is made, profits are made, competition is made, but the bottom and top of the soil are polluted. Forests are disappearing, animals and plants are becoming extinct, biodiversity is decreasing. The problem is not just not accepting this system as ethical; the life-and-death struggle of nature, living beings and humanity."

Referring to the definition of eco-economy written by Leader Apo in the 'Manifesto for Peace and Democratic Society', Öztürk said that the main source of the problem is stated here, and said, "In the 'eco-economy / eco-industry' section of the manifesto, the subject is discussed as follows: 'Third nature is the subject of overcoming the sovereignist mentality and production methods that alienate nature and cause destruction and crisis to nature; It means finding ways to live in harmony and on the basis of a contract with nature, and to ecologize the production-consumption culture accordingly.'

'IT IS NECESSARY NOT ONLY TO BRING SPEECH, BUT ALSO TO CREATE AN ALTERNATIVE'

Based on this paragraph, we can understand the dimensions that eco-economy indicates. Here, we see that the main source of the problem is determined first. It is stated that there is an alienation from nature. This means the deterioration of harmony and integrity with nature. Production emerges thanks to labor and nature. In conditions where production is confiscated and man's connection with nature is severed, humanity becomes alienated from both its own labor and nature.

Second, the process that led to the problem is explained. Similarly, the 96th article of the manifesto. On its page, 'There is a lot to be said about industrialism. It destroyed the underground, destroyed the earth, filled the air with carbon dioxide, the oceans were filled with garbage. Cities are carcinogenic. No one can stand against it for the deliberate killer to make a profit' and it is determined that the 'goal of making a profit' takes precedence over everything else. It is this process itself that creates both economic crises and destruction in nature. This process is dragging the planet towards the last fifty years, society and nature.

As the third point, we can say that a solution is put forward. The approach that this process should be 'overcome' is stated. Then, the assessment that it is necessary to 'live in harmony with nature' and 'find ways to ecologize the production-consumption culture' is put forward. This struggle for overcoming is not only the understanding of expressing and protesting, but also of creating an alternative. This solution needs to be walked and there is a long way to go.

The manifesto reveals this in another place with the following statement: 'Our perspective for the new period; It is the reconstruction of society on the basis of a democratic nation, eco-economy and communalism. The responsibility of developing the philosophical foundations, ideological dimensions and the conceptual-theoretical framework necessary for this construction to come into being in the detailed social structure stands before us.' In other words, this is a progress that has been started but has not yet ended."

Stating that the eco-economy model can be an alternative for the salvation of humanity, Öztürk said, "Of course it can and this is how it should be. We need an approach that positions itself according to the total and final results of capitalism. We have a duty to create a universal political program to defend nature and society against these catastrophic consequences. The eco-economy approach put forward in the manifesto; It sets out to do this by standing against industrialism, crises, wars and the destruction of nature. Increasing the scale of the struggle to stand against crises and defend nature is an accurate philosophical-political approach. The struggle for socialism is both an attempt to be against exploitation and to save the world in every way. It is necessary to identify the sources, processes and solutions of the destruction of humanity and nature and to create an alternative against it. The perspective in the manifesto also tries to develop this.

Has there been a problem so far? It happened. Is it necessary to develop a solution? Just as the socialist feminism approach is an alternative in the field of inequality towards women; The definition of eco-economy and eco-industry against the destruction of humanity and nature can also be considered in this way. It should not be taken into account that those who have not spoken about any of these problem areas and have not tried to develop a political program find this approach tried to be developed in the Manifesto 'too innovative'."

'THE ISSUE WILL COME TO HOW THE PRODUCTION WILL BE'

Pointing out that the needs in systems are based on the development of an economy, Öztürk continued his words as follows:

"No matter how much we put forward the right principle, the subject will eventually come to the issue of how production will be, and life always rules in this field.

Lenin describes a transition period in 'State and Revolution'; the period after a political power is taken. This is the upper stage in which our real principles operate, not communism. Considering what the conditions are, the power has been taken, but everything else is uncertain. The functioning of the economy here will not be able to remain isolated even if desired. Eventually, some products will be bought and given. Needs require an economy to function no matter what is done. This situation leads to the following in a chain way: The economy works and the area in which the economy operates, that structure cannot remain isolated, small and self-sufficient. This table connects that unit to the world economy no matter what.

Let's think about it this way: Bread and coal will not only be demanded as at the beginning of the 20th century. Wanting even just one 'mobile phone' connects that economic unit to the whole world. Society can have its own economy; but it also becomes related to the world economy in a chain. As a result, there can be no operation completely separate from the general economic functioning. Even the simplest economic rules become decisive in the outcome.

Let's imagine that the government in Russia spends a little more time. First, because it is besieged, those who are besieged will initially compete aggressively economically. In the continuation of this, for example, when we come to the Second World War, this economic competition will turn into a direct war move. This means that no matter what is done, it is not possible to move forward completely separately and on its own. We can see this: We cannot be separated; Corrosive conditions last until the end and last a long time."

'MUNICIPALITIES CAN START PRODUCING WITH THE MEANS THEY HAVE'

Stating that the commune system is important in the eco-economy model and that it is possible to show the society what socialism will look like, especially with the studies to be carried out through the acquired municipalities, Öztürk continued as follows:

"However, the manifesto says that the commune also means a municipal positioning. A municipality can start producing public products and services based on its public property and public facilities. It can use its resources to meet the needs of society, not to make a profit. This cannot have fully 'built tomorrow today', but it reveals the tendencies and projection of the future society.

Is there a need for this? And it is extremely needed. This is how we can evaluate every municipality that has been won and every commune that has been established. As Canadian socialist Sam Gintin put it in a brilliant article, 'We have to say what socialism will look like.'

'IT IS NECESSARY TO SHOW THE SOCIETY WHAT SOCIALISM WILL LOOK LIKE'

We have to say what socialism will look like, we have to discuss what socialism will look like in front of everyone and we have to be right. If there is an opportunity to start with, we can start by producing public products and services in municipalities. This approach will give the message to the world that 'this is how it will be and it will be good'. Because after the defeats we have suffered, we have a problem of persuasion and ensuring that the society is locked on a goal. This is our biggest crisis. We are not walking as undefeated, but as soldiers of a defeated movement."

'COMMUNES HAVE TO TELL EVERYONE WHAT THE ECO-ECONOMY WILL LOOK LIKE'

Stating that communes and municipalities can win the society by giving good examples, Öztürk said, "Even a single good example of a commune or municipality shatters all prejudices about the horizon that the eco-economy will try to give and creates a domino effect. There is no need to wait; even the newly elected New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is already a candidate to have this effect. Mamdani said the following on the way to the elections: 'Social housing will be built, kindergartens will be opened for children, municipal markets will be established, the minimum wage will be raised, education support will be given to university students, and taxes on the rich and large companies will be increased.'

Our communes and municipalities can also say all of these and all hell breaks loose. Communes that do this can open up an incredible field of action for themselves. He will have said and done what the eco-economy will look like in front of everyone. The formation of a ruling or enriching caste in that commune can be prevented; To put it more precisely, we can resist it.

However, when an economy on a larger scale becomes manageable and it is in question to plan it, it will be necessary to create communes, assemblies or Soviet-style organizations under these conditions. In the coming time, when communes, that is, municipalities, adopt a political program in the style of eco-economy, they will increase their power and sphere of influence a hundred times so far."

Referring to the importance of the concept of eco-economy in terms of socialism, Öztürk referred to the words of Leader Apo and said:

"In the words of the manifesto, an approach that 'tries to find ways to ecologize the production-consumption culture by overcoming the sovereignist mentality and production methods that destroy and crisis nature' is completely correct for socialism. It is an understanding that does not leave the destruction of nature aside, takes into account crises and asserts to overcome the modes of production that create them. As a result, socialism is a change in the mode of production; It is the work of creating a mode of production that is in harmony with nature and eliminates exploitation. The concept of eco-economy, its political program and practice will move towards this by following the logical chain."

'IT IS POSSIBLE TO REORGANIZE SOCIALISM WITH THE CONCEPT OF ECO-ECONOMY'

Stating that it is possible to organize the socialism of the new age through the concept of eco-economy, Öztürk gave an example from the New York elections and said:

"It's possible and it can get off to a great start. There is no need to win a surprise election like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The social structure that will be behind the idea of eco-economy has already reached a power that has been able to win over municipalities for years. What needs to be done is just to change the perspective and move on to practice. There is no power that can prevent the communes from building democracy and making public production. As soon as it is said that I am implementing this program, the whole country will change and turn upside down.

The important thing is the beginning. Only after the October Revolution did a third of the world reach socialism. There was no one who dreamed of this even in Russia. We can do it again. Once the communes and municipalities are successful, they can immediately develop partnerships between them and move on to democratic planning.

Wherever socialism expands its sphere of influence, it will definitely experience a transition period in order to leap to a further stage. Commune experiences can be seen as preparation for this period and as the focus of resistance of this period. History has shown that these transition periods last for a very long time. It is necessary to prepare for such a transition period and to resist such a transition period.

In this sense, there is a great need for communes both in the current conditions, in the transition period and afterwards. Eco-economic communes and municipalities can serve as flares with examples of democracy and public production. As it progresses successfully, it can spread across metropolises and become encompassing. The rest is up to the socialists' ability to get the job done. The eco-economy and communes can perform all kinds of progressive functions up to that stage and beyond."

The Commune and the Kurds

The commune is the organized power of society; it is a common way of life. Communal life emerged in Mesopotamia. The capitalist system and the occupying states have made great efforts to move the society away from the commune spirit in Kurdistan.



SİNAN SAHIN
BEHDÎNAN
Tuesday, December 9, 2025

In the Manifesto for Peace and Democratic Society, Leader Apo draws attention to the correct interpretation of history. Contrary to what Marx described, history is not a war between classes; He says it is a war between the commune and the state. The first place where the war between communal society and statist civilization was witnessed was Mesopotamia, the Zagros and Taurus mountain ranges. The statist civilization has been continuing its own life and existence on society like a tree worm by constantly distorting history.

The state is an institution that makes its own system of power mandatory in society in every process and tries to abolish the commune so that those in power can continue to exist.

When we look at the Proto-Kurds, we see that life is completely one; It is seen that it is overflowing with meaning and miracles. Society is organized in the form of a clan around the woman-mother. There were no chains that bound people's feet; There was no such thing as private property or personal property.

There was only movement, movement. This movement was also taking place freely and autonomously. The entire life of the clan was based on the beauty of women's labor, sensitivity and thought. For this reason, we can see that women have left their mark on many traditions today. The organizations developed by women to protect themselves from attacks have become part of a unique resistance. We can see this resistance in the adventures of Enki and Inanna.

The deliberate killer has taken this system as his goal and tried to separate it from society. How did the deliberate killer system become a culture in society? This started with the woman being held captive in the house. Thus, women were removed from their communal role. Society was oppressed with the property system. The male-dominated role of power and the enslavement of women weakened the communal reality in society. For this reason, Leader Apo attaches importance to the establishment of new ties based on truth and common life in the relations between men and women.

Today, a new life is sprouting in Rojava under the leadership of women. In this context, the leadership draws particular attention to the JINWAR experience that developed in Rojava. In the face of the problems created by the deliberate murderer on women, children and society in general, the Leadership accepts the commune as its new family.

The tribal organization in the Zagros and Taurus mountain ranges has always been in a movement and dynamism against the statist civilization. Tribal organization is not defined only on the basis of blood ties and service. It is a community that defends, grows and produces itself against statist civilization. For this reason, the tribe has the most functional social qualities of society. The old communal life continued to have an impact within the tribe. Despite all the attacks of the statist civilization, the tribes preserved and developed their own communal memory.

THE COMMUNE SYSTEM IS STILL STRONG IN KURDISTAN TODAY

The Mazda faith plays an important role in tribal organization. Mazda belief is based on the duality of darkness and light. It is based on universal dialectics. The Zoroastrian belief is the continuation of the Mazda belief. He rebels against the gods of statist civilization based on the morality of freedom. The Medes confederation established a communal lifestyle based on the Zoroastrian faith. The tribal confederation system is a commune in itself. For example, the Median tribes are confederations; 24 federations unite to form a confederation.

The Medes fought against the deliberate murderer system and the Assyrians, the most ruthless empire of the period, for 300 years and were victorious. The Medes insisted on their own communal system. For this reason, the commune system is still strong in Kurdistan today.

However, when the power passed from the Medes to the Persians, the Kastik killer system became dominant again. The Persian kings took themselves for gods, and a very harsh system was developed in which no one could disobey their word. The Zoroastrian faith did not only include the Kurds; It had a pretty serious impact on the Persians, Pakistanis, Afghans, Indians, and even China. Many aspects of the Buddha and Confucian beliefs are also seen as a continuation of Zoroaster. Although Zoroaster is Kurdish by origin, he has universalized his faith.

At that time, the Zoroastrian faith was based on the idea of the commune. However, due to the change of the Persians and their progress towards statehood, the Zoroastrian belief turned into dogmatism over time and entered the service of the state.

So, what is a commune? The commune is the organized power of society. In order to understand the commune in the best way, it is necessary to consider it in its simplest form; The commune is a common way of life. The most striking example of this is the villages. All the work and necessities of life in villages are organized jointly. Politics, self-management and self-defense, as well as agriculture, animal husbandry, housebuilding, etc., are all shared equally and jointly.

There is no need to theorize the commune at length from the point of view of Kurdish society. Even the word 'kom' itself explains this. Commune comes from the Kurdish 'kombûn'. Communal life emerged in Mesopotamia. The capitalist system and the occupying states have made great efforts to move the society away from the commune spirit in Kurdistan. The burning and destruction of Kurdistan villages is one of these practices.

IT IS NOT RIGHT TO CONSIDER WARS ONLY ON THE BASIS OF CLASS

Why were the villages burned in Baqûr? Because society was governing, organizing, producing and defending itself. For this reason, society did not need the state, society did not bow down to the state. The state had to burn the villages to make the society dependent on itself. Some of the people were forced to migrate and turned into refugees, and some were exiled to metropolises. The state wanted to make the lifestyle it imposed obligatory on society.

The same policy was implemented by Saddam in Bashur. All villages were massacred so that society could not organize, produce and protect itself. Thus, everyone was enabled to turn their direction to the cities.

The capitalist system promotes individualism and segregation. Everyone locks himself in his own house; With the development of technology and the internet, no one needs anyone. However, in the past, villages had their own assemblies and social orders. People lived together, organized and shared together. Life was just and equitable; no one dominated the other.

For this reason, Marx's definition of class war is not wrong, but it is not enough, because when we look at the reality of Kurdistan, the state has made everyone a target. Therefore, it is not correct to consider wars only on a class basis. The occupying states tried to dismantle the social culture and tribal organization in Kurdistan; Because the tribe is essentially a communal structure. There are still tribes today, but most of them have lost their communal character.

For example, there is solidarity in tribes; Everyone protects each other, does everything together. Life is organized. The state has isolated individuals by breaking down this organization and tried to make each of them dependent on itself. Some tribes in the Botan region still preserve their communal characteristics today.

There is no class distinction in tribal culture. The tribal chief is not rich; Every product obtained is shared equally with all members of the tribe. In historical accounts, it is seen that the tribal chief did not own property and was not considered rich. If the tribal chief fails to fulfill his duty, the respected members of the tribe gather and select and appoint a suitable person.

FOR CAPITALISM, THERE IS NO SOCIETY, THERE IS AN INDIVIDUAL

In the commune, there is equal sharing, natural authority and social democracy. As a continuation of the clans, there are still tribes today. The society still protects itself with clan, tribe and tribal organization today. The society defended itself by retreating to the mountains in the face of the attacks of the deliberate killer. It is clear that the center of resistance of the tribes is Kurdistan. Many values belonging to tribal culture have been preserved in the geography of Kurdistan.

The idea of the commune is based on matriarchal culture. We can see the idea of communes in Zoroastrian philosophy in Mesopotamia, Lao Tze in China, Buddhism in India, the emergence of prophets, and the philosophy of Socrates in Greece. In fact, the Leadership states the following in its new interpretations: The commune is at the basis of the history of socialization. The society has survived and protected itself with the commune system. The system against this is called the deliberate killer system.

The democratic nation is based on the formation of communes while building its own system. Democratic-communal life is essential against capitalist modernity and statist socialism. Capitalist modernity, with its understanding of liberalism, separates democracy from its essence and empties it. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a democratic and communal system.

Leader Apo's approach on this issue is as follows: 'We define modernity through the three horsemen of the apocalypse. The first pillar is the democratic nation against the nation-state; the second pillar is eco-industry against industrialism; the third pillar is the democratic/communal society against capitalism. It should be known that the existence of society is shaped on the basis of the commune. Due to the character of capitalism, society today is fragmented.

For capitalism, there is no society; there is only the individual. The basis of the philosophy on which capitalism is based is the denial of society. On the other hand, the commune is the essential quality and character of society.'

Leader Apo attaches great importance to communes in the paradigm and system of democratic modernity. Because the commune is the root of society. Democracy in the commune is one of the basic principles of life. In fact, the democratic commune is democratic socialism itself. Socialism cannot exist without the commune. The communalist system can be effective in solving social problems. The basis of democratic communes is freedom and democracy. This is the alternative to the power of the capitalist system, which is described as the 'three horsemen of the apocalypse'.

The basis of the positive revolution process is the system of communes

The process of positive revolution is the process of liberation of the developing and changing world from the grip of capitalist modernity. It is the expression of a new era not only for the Kurdistan geography but also for the world revolutionary struggle and the first step on the way to the liberation of the peoples.



ANF
NEWS CENTER
Saturday, December 6, 2025


In an analysis of the problems of socialism, Leader Apo insists that there should be a new socialist understanding when talking about the problems of socialism. When he made this assessment, the destruction of real socialism had just happened.

Regarding the problems of socialism, he said, "The important thing is to catch the problems of socialism correctly in their actuality. It is possible to list them as socialism and the state, socialism and development, socialism and morale, socialism and the national question, socialism and culture, socialism and economy, socialism and real socialism, socialism and utopia, socialism and science, socialism and religion, socialism and family, socialism and women, socialism and the right of nations to self-determination, socialism and democracy, socialism and party relations. All these have to be discussed again.

In other words, socialist ideology needs to reconceptualize itself, programmatize after these concepts are clarified, reorganize and put into action after programmatization. Inevitably, development will occur with such periods.

For now, maybe there is not too ambitious and there are some shallow, superficial discussions; but gradually, just like in the First International, in the second and in the third, the fourth and the fifth may develop", we see that the positive revolution and a new international statements he says today do not emerge suddenly.

At the point reached today, Leader Apo has shown that socialism can no longer progress with old and conservative methods, that the hope of revolution can emerge for the peoples again with the renewal of socialist ideology, and that revolution will not be a dream. That is why the age of positive revolution is the age of socialism to enter the agenda of the peoples again, to be hope again and to know that the peoples are not without alternatives.

POSITIVE REVOLUTION IS THE METHOD OF REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE

Everything that happens in the Kurdistan Freedom Movement, every word spoken is the continuation of each other, the renewal of their deficiencies by eliminating them. Therefore, the concept of positive revolution should not be considered or interpreted alone. Every definition, every concept stands in a place that binds, develops and eliminates each other's deficiencies in the ideological world of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement and Leader Apo. The name of the method is positive revolution, and the state of administration is democratic integration, deliberative democracy and communes.

We said that the name of the method is positive revolution. So how will this revolutionary process work?

It will be necessary to abandon movements that contain many shortcomings and mistakes of the real socialist understanding. The abandonment of the real socialist forms of government, especially in the Kurdish political movement; Instead of a method in which someone decides and the people apply it, a system in which decisions are made and implemented together with the people should be fully established and its continuity should be ensured. If one moves away from the logic of creating a caste system of oneself, which is one of the biggest shortcomings of the real socialist organization model, the way to organize will be opened.

There was a popular question of a while; a bourgeois was asking, 'Is my vote the same as the shepherd's vote?' One of the greatest gains of the positive revolution process is to answer this question correctly. Yes, everyone's vote is one. Everyone is equal, everyone is equally important, everyone is equally valuable.

The most important way for everyone to be equal is to build the organization of assemblies and communes, which is a horizontal organizational model, on a correct political program and line. The greatest achievement of the positive revolution will be the elimination of inequality between peoples and subordinate-superior approaches.

POSITIVE REVOLUTION WILL DESTROY THE CASTE SYSTEM

The first step in the destruction of the caste system will be the process that Leader Apo defines as "democratic integration". It is possible to break down the gap between peoples who are separated from each other and look at each other as enemies due to the attitudes of the "opponents" who have fascist and colonialist approaches, if the peoples get to know each other and approach each other in the right way. Democratic integration stands before us as the first step that will pave the way for this commonality.

Overcoming the obstacles in front of the peoples stands before us as the duty of those who carry out the struggle. It is the job of the vanguard cadres to destroy all approaches that prevent the commonality of the peoples, to expose them and to fight to condemn them in the eyes of the peoples. After opening that way, the peoples have the power, wisdom and foresight to find their own right path.

Creating the conditions for democratic integration that will eliminate the gap between the peoples against all the attacks of fascism will be one of the most important achievements in the new period of the revolution; Because the disappearance of the gaps between them and the meeting of the peoples means that the propaganda and attacks of fascism will be in vain.

The success of the democratic integration process will bring about the development of deliberative democracy. The next step for the peoples who know each other and begin to understand each other will be to talk about their problems jointly and try to find solutions together. The first step of commonality is to develop and establish a deliberative democracy system.

Deliberative democracy, which is a system in which all segments can have a say and where the peoples can take full part in the authority and decision-making stages, will also be a response to fascism, which holds force as a never-ending power, and sectarian approaches that try to live only by force. Dialogue between peoples who have been persistently separated, alienated and prevented from establishing dialogue will also ensure the development of a culture of reconciliation; This culture of consensus will pave the way for organization.

The first step of partnership is to see the problems, talk about them and come together for solutions. For this, everyone needs to sit down and talk, ask the questions in their minds and get answers. A person who moves away from the individualism of capitalist modernity will become socialized. The first step of socialization is to know, understand and empathize with each other.

Here, it is not possible for one segment to show power or put pressure on the other. Every society with oppression has a totalitarian structure. This includes real socialist practices. Although real socialism was born as an alternative to capitalism, it positioned itself as the system after capitalism from the very first moment, did not see the commons of the early periods of humanity, excluded it by defining it as "primitive", and ultimately turned into a bad, mediocre copy of capitalist modernity.

As we mentioned above, these systems will be dissolved unless the right exits and the right program are developed.

THE MOST BASIC PILLAR OF THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE POSITIVE REVOLUTION IS THE COMMUNE SYSTEM

The next step of societies that learn to cooperate and come side by side with the deliberative democracy system is to organize. The name of this organizational model is commune. The commune system stands before us as an organizational model that has existed since the first man, has been tried and proven many times throughout world history.

The society organized in communes is now politicized; It will become a departure from the character that capitalist modernity has assigned to it, "unable to make decisions, having to be governed by someone". The existence of a state in a place and the existence of a class of rulers is not an obstacle to the commune. The commune organizes societies; It protects them against the arrogance or mistakes of the ruling class and ensures that they reveal the right thing.

This is an organization created by societies that know each other through the democratic integration process, can come side by side with the deliberative democracy system, and can talk together.

The process of positive revolution emerges precisely from the combination of these. Contrary to the statist understanding of socialism that has existed until today, it reveals the socialism of the peoples. It does not see overthrowing power or taking over the state as an achievement; instead, it prefers to change the lives of the peoples and protect the peoples against the oppressive regime that the government and the state are trying to create for their own interests.

What should happen in the new ideological system created by Leader Apo is for the peoples to come together and organize themselves and say their own words against the attacks of the existing capitalist modernity and the destruction of industrialism.

Leader Apo says the following while defining socialism:

"The struggle for socialism is also the struggle against the great animalization in the imperialist period. Which monster has killed so many people of its generation? This is the biggest beast! There is nothing else to explain about this. This is the most dangerous animalization. If we want to develop social and socialist struggle, we will definitely fight against this kind of individualism, this kind of monstrosity."

The struggle for socialism is a struggle in which daily life is organized; It is a system that defends society against the capitalist system that defends individualism, tries to strengthen and organize society, and to ensure that it participates in the struggle.

In the Manifesto for Peace and Democratic Society, he says the following while drawing the framework of the positive revolution process:

"We are transitioning from nation-state socialism to democratic society socialism. This is a program: the program of Democratic Society Socialism. So, what will be the strategy and basic tactic of this? It is clear that it will not happen with the national liberation war. This new program we will replace it is the program of Democratic Society and Democratic Socialism. We abandoned the national liberation war strategy. We will replace it with the Democratic Politics Strategy. Democratic politics is a strategy, it is indispensable. A democratic society will be linked to a democratic political strategy. Whether in the constitution or in the laws, wherever necessary expression will be gained. Tactics are very much linked to strategy. This strategy will also have a tactic.

With what vehicles will it take place?

It is the law that will realize it. If the strategy is democratic politics, its tactic is the law. This means that whatever remains of the PKK legacy will gain legal character under this new democratic political strategy. As a result of the negotiations with the states, anti-democratic laws will be abolished and legal reforms will be realized. It must take place within a reasonable period of time, without spreading over years. If the legal reforms outlined above are not carried out, then the conflictual environment will inevitably continue from where it left off."

DONE.

HERE IS ANOTHER BLOG THAT PUBLISHED A CRITIQUE OF THE MYTH THAT PRUSSIAN STATE SOCIALISM IS SOCIALISM 

REAL SOCIALISM COMES FROM BELOW 

IT IS CALLED  STATELESS SOCIALISM AS I DISCUSS HERE 

I THOUGHT I WOULD SHAMELESSLY STEAL 

AND REPRINT THIS SINCE THE BLOG IS NO 

LONGER PUBLISHING UNFORTUNATELY

Socialism- the s-word…

Just a thought…

I really wish I could be either enthused or appalled by the fact that Ed Miliband is now leader of the Labour Party. I know the ultra-Blairites, with their fellow travellers in the BBC and on the Murdoch Death Star, who rallied around his brother David as the next best thing to The World’s Favourite Money Grabbing War Monger, are shocked that their cunning plan failed (‘if it hadn’t been for you meddlin’ trade unions…’) Best make the best of a bad job chaps… and go and join the Conservative Party- Education Secretary Michael Gove for one seems pretty keen on embracing the Blair Legacy.

Anyway, ‘Red Ed’? Do me a favour! You may have heard the comment that his father Ralph Miliband claimed that socialism could not come through Parliamentary means and his two sons have gone around proving it in practice. Only in a country where most mainstream politicians are in such awe of a handful of  mindlessly Thatcherite newspapers with declining circulations could someone like Ed Miliband be called a ‘Red’.  It is a bit like Business Secretary Vince ‘privatise the Post Office’ Cable being called a ‘Marxist’ for criticising the City of  London. If there is any sort of ‘Marxist’ class war in this country it is the City of London and its patsies in the mainstream media and the main political parties  against the rest of us…

Now if Vince had walked  around the Square Mile with this placard…

Anyway, socialism is a real political swear word isn’t it? Sometimes I try and think if anything has not been tagged with the ‘s-word’ at some point. I realise that for a lot of people, ‘socialism’ is any form of state intervention in the economy. Sometimes this is expanded to include any state intervention in wider social life or state interventions abroad. I then wonder how it got to this. After all, most of the original socialists were often extremely anti-state…

Every couple of years or so I seem to repost this blogpost written in 2006 by Larry Gambone, a Canadian evolutionary anarchist who now lives in Nanaimo (that’s right isn’t it, Larry?), largely as a quick refresher for those who automatically think socialism = the state:

The Myth Of Socialism As Statism [May 6th 2006]

What did the original socialists envision to be the owner and controller of the economy? Did they think it ought to be the state? Did they favor nationalization? Or did they want something else entirely? Let’s have a look, going right back to the late 18th Century, through the 19th and into the 20th, and see what important socialists and socialist organizations thought.

*Thomas Spence – farm land and industry owned by join stock companies, all farmers and workers as voting shareholders.
* St. Simon – a system of voluntary corporations
* Ricardian Socialists – worker coops
* Owen – industrial coops and cooperative intentional communities
* Fourier – the Phlanistery – an intentional community
* Cabet – industry owned by the municipality (‘commune’ in French, hence commune-ism)
* Flora Tristan – worker coops
* Proudhon – worker coops financed by Peoples Bank – a kind of credit union that issued money.
* Greene – mutualist banking system allowing farmers and workers to own means of production.
* Lasalle – worker coops financed by the state – for which he was excoriated by Marx as a ‘state socialist’
* Marx – a ‘national system of cooperative production’

Would that sound better on ‘The Apprentice’ or ‘The Dragon’s Den’, Karl?

* Tucker – mutualist banking system allowing farmers and workers to own means of production.
* Dietzgen – cooperative production
* Knights of Labor – worker coops
* Parsons – workers ownership and control of production
* Vanderveldt – socialist society as a ‘giant cooperative’
* Socialist Labor Party – industry owned and run democratically through the Socialist Industrial Unions
* Socialist Party USA – until late 1920’s emphasized workers control of production.
* CGT France, 1919 Program – mixed economy with large industry owned by stakeholder coops.
* IWW – democratically run through the industrial unions.
* Socialist Party of Canada, Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1904-05 program – common ownership, democratically run – both parties, to this very day, bitterly opposed to nationalization.
* SDP – Erfurt Program 1892 – Minimum program includes a mixed economy of state, cooperative and municipal industries. While often considered a state socialist document, in reality it does not give predominance to state ownership.

Well? Where’s the statism? All these socialisms have one thing in common, a desire to create an economy where everyone has a share and a say.

Why The Confusion

The state did play a role in the Marxist parties of the Second International. But its role was not to nationalize industry and create a vast bureaucratic state socialist economy. Put simply, the workers parties were to be elected to the national government, and backed by the trade unions, cooperative movement and other popular organizations, would expropriate the big capitalist enterprises. Three things would then happen:

1. The expropriated enterprises handed over to the workers organizations, coops and municipalities.

2.The army and police disbanded and replaced by worker and municipal militias.

3. Political power decentralized to the cantonal and municipal level and direct democracy and federalism introduced.

These three aspects are the famous ‘withering away of the state’ that Marx and Engels talked about.

The first problem with this scenario was that the workers parties never got a majority in parliament. So they began to water-down their program and adopt a lot of the statist reformism of the liberal reformers. Due to the Iron Law of Oligarchy the parties themselves became sclerotic and conservative. Then WW1 intervened, splitting the workers parties into hostile factions. Finally, under the baleful influence of the Fabians, the Bolsheviks and the ‘success’ of state capitalism in the belligerent nations, the definition of socialism began to change from one of democratic and worker ownership and control to nationalization and statism. The new post-war social democracy began to pretend that state ownership/control was economic democracy since the state was democratic. This, as we see from the list above, was not anything like the economic democracy envisaged by the previous generations of socialists and labor militants.

So there are ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ forms of socialism. I definitely identify with the latter type, while the former attracts the power hungry ‘socialist’, whatever his or her professed stripe (notice how many erstwhile ‘Bennites’ in the Labour Party thirty years ago became evangelicals for ‘Blairism’?). ‘Top-down’ socialists who identify with the Big State are a bit like ‘free marketeers’ who excuse Big Business rather than support independent trades people and the self-employed because, to use Kevin Carson’s mocking phrase, ‘Them pore ole bosses need all the help they can get.’ (Kevin A. Carson Studies in Mutualist Politcal Economyi, p.116)

Of course, to talk about a Non-Statist or Libertarian form of  Socialism throws a lot of people. Well, here another phrase to throw about: ‘market collectivism.’ That is:

‘a community of producer cooperatives. Each cooperative is owned and run by the workers themselves. Their products are sold on a market. They purchase the required raw materials themselves. There is little or no central planning….a market collectivist society is not capitalist because….workers are self-managed; they do not work under the direct or indirect control of a capitalist. In addition the workers (collectively) own the product of their labour, which they bring to the market for sale.’ Geoff Hodgson The Democratic Economy, p.177.

The nearest to a ‘market collectivist’ economy any of us have seen is Yugoslavia under Tito. Now that eventually collapsed in the wars of the 1990s but how much did market collectivism have to do with it? I suspect the lack of political freedom and the plunging of the whole country into deep debt during the 1970s and 1980s had a much more profound effect in bringing about the death of Yugoslavia.

The main theorist of market collectivism is Jaroslav Vanek. An interview with him from the early 1990s, in which he says why it has been hard for co-operatives to take off in the West, can be found here.

So what is a pore ole Market Collectivist to do? I cannot think of a British political party that is opposed to co-operatives per se. However, are any of them likely to say in the foreseeable future that co-operatives should be the dominant enterprise model for the economy? I doubt it. Even the Co-operative Party is hobbled by its links to the Labour Party. Perhaps one should just keep plugging away and things will change.  It is worth noting that the economic situation in recent years seems to have encouraged the growth of co-operatives in the US. This ‘bottom-up socialism’  is definitely better than the top-down ‘War Socialism’ which is encouraged by the Republican Party in the US:

The U.S. economy increasingly resembles the dual economy of the Soviet Union, with an overfunded military sector and a chronically weak, dysfunctional civilian sector. Like the Soviet Union in its decline, we are bogged down in an unwinnable conflict in Afghanistan. The Soviet system was supported to the end, however, by Soviet military and intelligence personnel and defense factory workers and managers. Their equivalents exist in America. Conservatives are not being irrational, when they ignore the civilian economy while fostering the military economy that provides orders and jobs to many of their constituents. Theirs is the logic of Soviet-style conservatism.

‘Watch what we say, not what we do,’ Richard Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell famously remarked. Out of power, the Republican Party preaches Ron Paul-style libertarianism. In power, the party practices Martin Feldstein-style military Keynesianism and military socialism — and Hank Paulson-style financial sector Keynesianism and socialism.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there. I do not expect to quickly change the minds of those who think socialism must always = the state, but I’ll give it a go!

Update: Suzanne Moore goes down memory lane with Da Brudders:

I have vague recollections of the Milibands thousands of years ago when I worked at Marxism Today. There were many young men around who made the tran­sition from Communist Party backgrounds to New Labour without much trouble. It ­simply required a degree of faith and opportunism.

There is still to be a good book written on how a load of erstwhile self-proclaimed ‘Marxists’ (whether from a Communist or Trotskyite background) and/or ‘Hard Left’ activists (Freud would have a field day) ended up supporting the largely pro-City of London/Big Business agenda of New Labour. They took on different ideals and goals but used the similar methods to achieve them. Discuss.

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ON OCTOBER 2, 2010 AT 10:31 PM  COMMENTS (1)  
TAGS: BENJAMIN TUCKER, DEMOCRATIC ECONOMY, GEOFF HODGSON, JAROSLAV VANEK, JUMP YOU FUCKERS, KARL MARX, KEVIN CARSON, LARRY GAMBONE, MARKET COLLECTIVISM, MUTUALISM, PETER WILBY, PROUDHON, ROBERT OWEN, RON PAUL, SOCIALISM, STUDIES IN MUTUALIST POLITICAL ECONOMY, SUZANNE MOORE, TITO, US WAR SOCIALISM, VINCE CABLE, WORK LESS PARTY, WORKERS' CO-OPERATIVES, WORKERS' SELF-MANAGEMENT