Bedtime Theory

There are different orientations towards the political left one can take while doing revolutionary work. Broadly speaking we can break up the left based on how people organize themselves ideologically, or we can find divisions in terms of the role various left actors have in proletarian movements. Seeing these different orientations helps to sort through some of the apparent by illusory differences, and where the real divisions and unity lies. (more…)

I’m going to hazard a historical thesis: that marxism and anarchism, the red and the black, have been superseded by history. (more…)

I’ve decided to try and draw together revolutionary theory about how consciousness develops, since I think there’s actually very little explicit ideas out there beyond people parroting the leninist conception or the spontaneist conception. One hugely overlooked area I’ve found is syndicalist ideas about consciousness. There appears to be debates in the early 20th century about syndicalist conceptions of the development of revolutionary consciousness, and in fact it seems to have represented a school of thought on how to bring about revolutionary consciousness in the proletariat. This is in spite of the fact that syndicalists themselves rarely wrote about such matters. Below I try to gather together the historical lessons of the proletariat engaged in syndicalist struggle, as a research thread rather than a thesis. (more…)

The ultraleft, and particularly the ultraleft which draws from the French tendencies, has been extremely influential on my own thinking about revolution, class, history, and the left. Primarily Dauve has expressed for me processes latent in struggles I’ve participated in and intuitions I’ve had. Being a non-marxist critical of elements in the anarchist movement, I wanted to introduce anarchists to some of the concepts in the french ultraleft in hopes of broadening exposure and debate. I intended to be inclusive of a broader spectrum of thinkers (theorie communiste, Camatte, krisis, etc), but ended up only having the space and energy to touch of the tendency Dauve is a part of. (more…)

I’ve always meant to read Castoriadis, but never gotten around to it. For one thing he was a huge influence on other people I read and take from (Solidarity UK, CLR James, Facing Reality, Glaberman, etc). He also came to reject Marxism, and takes lots of heat from it from orthodox marxists, which to me says there could be something to him, like my friends from Faridabad Majdoor Samachar. Castoriadis came to ideas that seem obvious to many of us now, but were from Mars 30 years ago. The division between workers and management, autogestion, the notion of revolution as autonomy of society as a whole, rejection of ideas about the economy/superstructure, determinism, party dictatorship, etc.

Now I’ve discovered that Castoriadis presents a new theory of consciousness that abandoned the traditional marxist notions of false consciousness. I can’t find any of his writings I can quote (they’re in book form or on google books), however he rejects the seperation between theory and practice, and the idea that ideas are exclusively the products of economic classes. Castoriadis sought to refound our ideas about consciousness (though it seems like he only touches on this in his broader discussions of economic and social agency) on active rationality of people who come to ideas from any number of routes, and who are capable of transformation through active engagement in autonomous struggle and self-reflection. I have to do further research into his works to draw any conclusions.

I’ve also discovered Zero Work/Midnight Notes partly came to their understanding of the problems with traditional marxist economics and the role of self-organization in history via Castoriadis. See this link.

I just found out about Rawick, a member of Facing Reality and theorist of working class self-organization and black liberation struggles. Here  he discusses worker self activity in struggle, and the problem it posed for the traditional leftist ideas about struggle. I had never heard of any of the lesser players in Facing Reality so included him as a historical point for those interested in that.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/rawick/1969/xx/self.html

Just to show I’m not sectarian… I saw this article and enjoyed it. I like stories about, I like workplace organizing, so combine the too and I’m sold. It doesn’t have the pull of a Stan Weir piece, but an interesting reflection of a militant in struggle (if you can overlook the fetishization of armed struggle and mechanistic notions of race).

There is a disconnect between revolutionary theory (and practice) and our experience of everyday life concerning the role that conscious thought and deliberation play in creating action. I’ve been reading the above authors of late, and am going to try and be better about putting my thoughts down as I read things. One thing I’ve discovered is that we have a weak point in how we understand knowledge and action to arise both socially and individually. (more…)

A comrade translated Huerta Grande, a once seminal and often cited text from 1972 in Uruguay. Below I give a quick and dirty rough history of the uruguayan anarchist movement in the 2nd half of the 20th century in hopes of elaborating some of the context. Huerta Grande is here. (more…)

I’m collecting here how marxists in their own words define centralization, democratic centralism, and decentralization as part of an ongoing debate I’m having with friends over revolution, organization, and the economy. Also see sections H 5.5, 5.6, and 5.10 of the anarchist FAQ for definitions of democratic centralism, why anarchists oppose it, and why it produces so-called bureaucratic centralism, an alleged wrong turn of democratic centralism. http://infoshop.org/faq/secH5.html#sech55. Seeing even just this narrow of a selection of marxists (it leaves out all the social democrats, and left communists) demonstrates in my opinion that lack of any semblence of a coherent notion of centralization. Centralization is more of a buzz word for being effective than a rigorous material concept used in building revolutionary praxis. (more…)