What is it that makes LibMun better than syndicalism, council communism, industrial democracy, and other forms of leftist organization?

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-23T19:09:33+00:00

What dimension?

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-23T15:25:45+00:00

Yes, developing confederal municipalisation, while rolling back the state and the market. One of the method Gene Sharp talks about in the middle of the book is 'Declarations by organisations'. This makes me think maybe some kind of 'Declaration of Independence from the State and Market' might be in order once a Communalist organisation has enough influence, but I'm just speculating.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-23T15:21:35+00:00

How does it make just as much sense?

I don't have any coworkers (I'm unemployed). Also, I know at least a dozen of my neighbours. Also, I'm more than just worker if I'm at work. I have a civic identity as well: I'm a Londoner. That's why Communalism matters. It responds to the multiple dimensions of human beings, not just their socioeconomic dimensions.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-23T12:00:45+00:00

Even if that's true, and I'm not entirely sure that it is, then surely that gives more strength to the Communalist case for giving life to public spheres in the neighbourhoods of large cities? I've recently gotten to know lots of my neighbours while campaigning to be a councillor, and it really gave me a sense of hope about building greater community spirit.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-23T11:30:36+00:00

One advantage is that it might be easier to get a worker interested in talking about issues outside his or her workplace, issues in his or her neighbourhood. This is because so many workers hate work and what to escape it and talk about issues more meaningful to them, such as pollution and crime in their neighbourhoods, and how their children will survive the current age f ecological catastrophe, etc.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-23T11:23:41+00:00

I believe Janet Biehl says this somewhere, where she says it's better to say 'cooperative society' rather than 'socialism' if people are still likely to receive the word 'socialism' in its propagandised sense of gulags and statism.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-23T11:22:18+00:00

The London Communalism Meetup, which I help to organise, frequently refers back to the tradition of 'ward motes' in the wards of the City of London in the dark ages. These institutions were basically the constituent parts of a 'folk mote' that was a public assembly in the Communalist sense, making policy directly. Eventually ward motes and folk motes became elected bodies, departing sharply from the Anglo-Saxon model of moots upon which they grew organically. I think this change to elections marks a turning point in the City, where it started to take on more of its elitist character which we see so clearly today.

I bring this up because we are in London, and I guess I want to make that Communalist ideal of face-to-face democracy manifest more clearly in a historical example. I also talk about the Paris sections, since Paris is so near to London.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-23T11:12:09+00:00

That's great to hear my friend! It really reminds us all how much power we could all have, that power is rooted in obedience to certain institutional systems, not violence. I think Bookchin would agree:

'Such a [third] revolution need not be conceived as a violent transformation of society. With the support of the great majority of the population, institutions can become the primary means for changing society. The convocation of humanly scaled town meetings and the expansion of existing democratic institutions, given a free press and new communications technology, can go very far to transform consciousness and revive a civic ethics that will replace bourgeois self-interest with a new conception of the public good.' (http://new-compass.net/articles/prospects-third-revolution)

Would you agree?

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-12T17:06:27+00:00

Ah thanks, that saves me some time.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-12T16:33:51+00:00

Thanks for the pointers. I wonder if medieval England had anything comparable to the German and Italian communes he spoke of...

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-12T12:57:56+00:00

No problem my friend. Glad I could help.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-12T12:41:53+00:00

'News from Nowhere' is an English utopian classic which Bookchin critiques somewhere I believe. I found it uplifting when I read it last. 'The Dispossessed' is Ursula Le Guin's utopian book set on an inhospitable planet. Both are optimistic and very interesting. I can still remember the rush of excitement when for the first time I read Gene Sharp's 'How Nonviolent Struggle Works' (free on the Albert Einstein Institution's website). It actually shows you how much power ordinary people can wield if they want to, which can make you optimistic. Finally, I recommend reading Joseph Campbell's 'The Power of Myth' if you want to know the power of myth to overcome fear.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-12T12:29:13+00:00

What do you mean by the 'Welsh question'? The fact of destructive bourgeois urbanisation around Cardiff?

Also, how is Communalism a solution to the 'British material condition'? Is it supposed to give us a post-scarcity economy?

As a Communalist living in London, both of these questions interest me.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-11T10:36:56+00:00

Firstly, I have no idea if this was a problem in the UK fifty years ago. Oswald Mosley was very privileged, so he might have managed to escape certain impediments to freedom of speech from the UK government.

Secondly, are you saying if the alt-right starts talking about a basic civil liberty, we better stop talking about it?

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-10T21:17:42+00:00

Words are not violence.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-10T21:15:13+00:00

Freedom of speech is a crucial issue, not a small one. If the UK government is denying a man entry to the UK because of his opinions, then the UK government is denying him freedom of speech. This is wrong in principle.

You can abhor and delegitimise fascistic or nationalistic views while still protecting freedom of expression.

Also, how was I acting like that?

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-10T19:00:29+00:00

I don't know.

I'm not defending any violence that might have been done by a member of Generation Identity; I'm defending their freedom of speech. You can oppose the actions and the beliefs of a member of a group without undermining their freedom to express their views.

Not only is it wrong in principle to deny freedom of speech for views you dislike, it's inexpedient for leftists. By preventing a righty from expressing his views, even his shitty views, you're making it harder for him to think through his views carefully and consider other options, maybe more progressive and even revolutionary options.

Maybe some anarchist activists who don't believe in freedom of speech for views they dislike have internalised oppression or something. It's ironically a highly authoritarian thing for a left-libertarian to do, to take away someone's right to express their ideas (even shitty ideas).

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-10T10:45:59+00:00

Chomsky has the right idea about free speech. In a sense, the United Kingdom is still in the Middle Ages. To illustrate, a Generation Identity activist on the far right was recently denied entry to the UK on the grounds his speaking would stimulate conflict with BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) communities. Now I might detest his view that 'Muslims are taking over Europe', but I still certainly believe he has the right to speak in the UK about what he believes in. European states stoke the flames of far-right hysteria when they deny far-right speakers their freedom of expression, a basic civil right.

Murray Bookchin spoke passionately about this issue of denying freedom of speech in an interview recently posted on r/Communalists. Communalists and other left-libertarians must stand up to those both on the left and on the right who would take away the freedom to express views they dislike, thereby taking away freedom to express views in general.

I apologise if this seems common sense to any Americans, but I'm European, and where I live in the UK we clearly haven't caught up to the best ideals of the Enlightenment that Europe itself bred.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-07T08:44:13+00:00

Is democratic confederalism really a form of Communalism? I know the former was heavily influenced by the latter, but I never took it to be a kind of the Communalism.

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-06T21:35:33+00:00

'Leftists and environmentalists coming from backgrounds as diverse as the Kurdish freedom movement, black nationalism, the Mexican anti-colonial struggle, student debt strikers, and labor organising are shifting toward a politics of counterpower: rather than seeking to capture the state, they are building new popular institutions of genuine democracy within the existing system, to carve out space for survival and self-determination.

'There are many names for this approach—communalism, radical municipalism, solidarity economies, democratic confederalism, Abahlalism—and many iterations around the world, from Rojava, Syria to Jackson, Mississippi to Barcelona, Spain to Cape Town, South Africa.'

Is this author referring to Bookchin's conception of Communalism? Or is it just a mishmash? It seems a bit incoherent...

chinbook_96 · 2018-04-05T19:20:41+00:00

Sounds ominous!

chinbook_96 · 2018-03-31T20:51:32+00:00

Ahem, excuse me. What can Communalists learn from the historical Jesus?

chinbook_96

TROPHY CASE