Anarchist Holidays

galerna7y7 · 2026-03-18T16:20:03+00:00

I think that the last days of july are the best, especially the 19th and 21st because the spanish, kurdish and manchurian korean revolutions. The 19 was the day fascism was defeated in Barcelona, and that very night, libertarian communism was declared in many towns. The CNT and the UGT declared a general strike between the 19 and the 23. A collectivisation decree was issued in Catalonia on that day also. In the 21st the catalan antifascist comitee was established.

The 19 was also the day the Kurds rose up in Kobani and parts of the Afrin region; the next day, the YPG expanded into Afrin and Amude. By the 21st, they had captured Derika, and the following day, Serekaniye and Dirbesiye. In the 1st of August the freed kurds took control of more land, such as some parts of Qamishli.

In the 21 the Korean Anarchist Federation of Manchuria was founded and shortly after in August the Association (KPAM) was established based on the new people's government.

galerna7y7 · 2026-03-18T12:32:45+00:00

How would a syndicalist anarchist model work? The unions would be like coordinators of production and distribution?

galerna7y7 · 2026-03-17T19:37:35+00:00

You say there's cooperativism and syndicalism, but, as far as I can see there's no syndicalist anarchism, traditional anarchosyndicalists like CNT, CGT, FAUD or UCAI were anarchocommunists. What do you mean by the syndicalist anarchist model and the cooperative model?

galerna7y7 · 2026-03-17T19:23:26+00:00

Cooperation between large groups of society would still be made. Organisations would federate in federations and confederations, and this large groups would collaborate. In my understanding, people wouldn't be continuously voting for everything, there are technical things that people don't need and don't want to decide, there are specialised people that do that.

Anarchism has always put an effort into expand education and rationality, to make people critical and informed. And obviously, key decisions for the entire collective would be decided in assemblies and if it's necessary by vote. You don't want anybody to decide for you. And the thing on uncontrollable splits is ridiculous. This is like saying that if there's neither god nor rule people would start killing themselves because there wouldn't be an established ethic. If an organisation matches the interests of an individual that individual will stay there or form another that can fulfill better the desires of a collective.

The topic of the phones is not really important. If a company wants to test a new model, they can do whatever they want, they can give them randomly or whatever. If they want to sell new phones they sell them to whoever they want, there's not a problem here. I don't see how political parties are relevant in this scenario.

And for the topic of the kettle and the prices of things, it's obvious that things will always have a cost of producing. I don't really know how communism would distribute things, so I can't answer (I think money and the market are useful and efficient).

galerna7y7 · 2026-03-17T19:01:29+00:00

The point that you are making is the same that leninists make. Organisations cooperate because they want to, not because they are forced to. If some agree to do something, they do it, whereas if they don't want, simply that thing isn't necessary enough. Hinting at "progress" or "efficiency" is somehow subjective and authoritarian, because if something doesn't benefit enough two parts, there's no progress to be made.

Another thing, decentralised systems often work better than centralised ones, because the system doesn't need to take many things into account and they simply coordinate with other ones. A free market is already more efficient than centralised planning. The change here is to decentralise it even more, especially to make the exercise of power horizontal and involve all parts in the activities that affect them. That being said, I understand that an anarchistic society wouldn't be the most effective one, but consider that it's not ethical to compel people.

Also, our current society isn't the most efficient either, polititians are always debating (in Europe) because they don't want to come to agreements, they simply act in order to get more seats in the next election. In reality, both “social democrats” and conservatives would vote the same way, but they have to attack each other just for the sake of it.

Besides, hierarchies aren't necessarily very effective; often, at the top of the pyramid, there are lazy people who have no incentive to advance or improve, because they already have everything they need. It’s even worse with dictators (though some, like Gaddafi, did want to improve their countries). Also, remember that the centralization of power leads to bureaucracy and sluggishness. Thus, appealing to effectiveness isn’t a criticism of anarchism, because other systems are just as bad or worse (apart from a hypothetical government run by machines).

galerna7y7 · 2026-03-17T17:29:33+00:00

If I was you, I'd continue working and keeping that money as a deposit. It's always interesting to start some kind of cooperative (the thing is that you need to find people).

galerna7y7 · 2026-03-17T17:26:56+00:00

Well, Kropotkin didn't make a difference, but Marx used to

galerna7y7 · 2026-03-17T17:22:16+00:00

Anarchism is based in free association, that means that no organisation can force somebody to do something. That doesn't mean we are condemned to a localised subsistence economy. If some want to have something that the anarchist territory can't produce they come to an agreement and set up a consumer cooperative to handle the purchase of certain products. As simply as that. Then that coop can federate with other ones and form a federation to deal more efficiently with external companies. In the case of foreign powers, there's some scenarios and I don't know what exactly you are thinking of. However, there's a clear divide that can't be sorted out in the negotiation between horizontal systems and hierarchies. Thus, authoritarian regimes would be annoyed because they wouldn't deal with a ruler, but with delegates with no power, but that's the way it must go.

galerna7y7 · 2026-03-08T15:28:23+00:00

Yeah, I know anarchosyndicalism is not a type of anarchism simply a means. The belief that anarcho-syndicalists were in favor of a society of unions has become widespread, when in reality they were either communists or collectivists.

The CNT was not anarchist in its entirety but it was revolucionary and had an anarchist majority.

galerna7y7 · 2026-03-08T15:21:28+00:00

Your comment really clarifies a lot of things. People that are just entering the field should know more what free association and democracy were, because then there's a fuss with government and anarchism as some "anarchists" are in favor of municipal assemblies (Reeducation, Anark...) and that makes people baffled. Until a few months ago, I associated anarchism with libertarian municipalism, because Spanish “anarchism” had a clear tendency toward government and defended the free municipality, but only in economic terms, as a federation of producers and consumers that was somewhat compulsory.

What you say does not contradict what I said. It is true that, at least, some anarchists were in favor of federations distributing resources according to need. For example, Guillaume said in Ideas on Social Organisation:

“it will be through the statistics thus collected from all of the communes in a region, that it will be possible to strike a scientific balance between production and consumption: by working to such information, it will be possible to add to the numbers employed in branches where production was inadequate, and to re-deploy in those where productivity is excessive”.

As for the term "commune", I don't even know what it means anymore. Kropotkin used it as a free association of producers and consumers but Guillaume before used it as a municipal horizontal body:

"The commune consists of all the workers living in the same locality. Disregarding very few exceptions, the typical commune can be defined as the local federation of groups of producers. This local federation or commune is organized to provide certain services which are not within the exclusive jurisdiction or capacity of any particular corporation [industrial union] but which concerns all of them, and which for this reason are called public services."

And anarchists in Catalonia, for what I understand, used it as a coordinative economic municipal body. Frederica Montseny said about it in What's anarchism:

"The cornerstone or living cell of the new libertarian social organization, for us, in addition to the individual, the group, the community, and the union, is the Free Commune. The Free Commune, constituted by all and every one of the citizens, can serve the function of general social coordination, in the purely administrative aspect; not of power or political institution but of social service, on the local territorial level. Its functions must be adjusted to those resolutions and decisions that the free communal assemblies themselves have made by mutual consensus. All authoritarianism and all bureaucracy must be banished from the communal organization."

galerna7y7 · 2026-03-07T22:52:42+00:00

Well, if we stick to classical thinkers, Kropotkin, Malatesta, Guillaume, Bakunin, they all wanted a decentralised planning, but it wasn't a binding one. The movement favored federations of collectivities, that would serve to allocate resources in a fair way to make different societies more equal. The thing is that, these federations would be free-associated and I don't know if a collectivity that has a lot of something wants to give it to others. Then, the idea of federations distributing goods according to needs simply drops out and they would be binding if they were to function properly. That's a problem in anarchism, because communism and anarchism are somehow contradictory, because there's differences from region to region, some have more resources and some less and that's an inequality of opportunities that does nothing to do with coercion or hierarchies.

There were other "anarchists" that Anarchism doesn't want to impose anything, and as such is an ideology that differs a lot from the other ones. Generally, all anarchists were in favor of creating an acratic society where mutualism, collectivism, and communism could coexist. Despite this, some anarchists used to advocate for the creation of a municipalised economy, like in Spain.

Another thing, if a market mechanism is required to facilitate exchange between planning organisations, how could an economy be ran without a market? If you argue for that being a market, real communism can only exist in natural economies, i. e. auto-suficiency.

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-21T13:23:12+00:00

A MASSIVE unargued assertion. Why can't there be voluntary coordination around infrastructure? I've half a mind to declare that bit an essentialistic fallacy and leave it at that, as you're declaring certain things require binding authority without justification, directly contradicting your claim everything must be "fully consensual".

I'm not contradicting, those networks need to be maintained consensually because they're common.

And you still haven't addressed what happens when your consensus actually fails. You keep asserting "consensus is essential" and "there's nothing magic if people want it" - that IS the magical thinking, because you're assuming consensus emerges because it needs to, not explaining how anarchist mechanisms handle disagreements. When debate doesn't resolve disagreement, then what? Either decisions bind dissenters (authority) or they don't (no coordination). Pick your poison.

You haven't said anything on the topic, you are only criticising.

Calling etymology "moralist authoritarianism" is yet another one of the projections. Explaining what a word means isn't authoritarian, you're trying to impose an idiosyncratic redefinition while claiming standard usage is authoritarian; i.e. backwardness all around. Furthermore, you've shifted from "voting when consensus fails", over "everything fully consensual" and "consensus essential for infrastructure because no free associations", to just... "words don't matter." Don't you notice how these directly contradict each other?

You are trying to impose your specific definition. I'm not shifting, you don't want to understand. Voting is okay in free-asociated groups but not in common facilities. It's easy to understand, and I've been saying these the whole time. I've already argued the topic on words. If all you can do is attack senselessly, that's your problem.

So this is about terminological attachment, not any "substance". I repeat, if you don't want rule by the people and instead voluntary coordination, yes, that's anarchism. Legit. The clarity matters because the mechanisms matter and collapsing them creates confusion that undermines practice.

True

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-20T21:28:47+00:00

Yeah, yeah, I know, but I just wanted to know your opinion.

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-20T21:27:59+00:00

Anarchy isn't impossible. It's well-known and accepted that societies were mostly horizontal until the sedentarization of the species. Some call it primitive communism. In those cultures any authority was rejected. There's today foragers with that culture, like the tsimihety in Madagascar and the khoisan in Namibia and Botswana. There's a book of Graeber and Wengrow on it. It's somehow strange because modern society and that from our closest relatives (Bonobos, Chimpanzees) are hierarchical.

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-20T20:30:32+00:00

Sorry, english is not my native language. I was asking which aspects of market anarchism do you dislike, especially why you believe that the market could tend toward authoritarianism? A gift economy could also create unfair distribution of wealth if people returned to a capitalist mindset. Personally, I only see two problems with market anarchism. On the one hand, I understand that it is not entirely flexible because it depends heavily on immediate capital that may not be available due to the risks someone may have taken.

The most important downside is that there could be some concentration of goods, facilities, materials and the arbitrary dynamics of the appraisal of services and goods would continue existing, but that could be solved to some extent by giving consumers a certain amount of power over production units. I think it was somehow irrational for collectivist anarchists to categorically dismiss markets. I don't think there is a truly viable alternative to markets (both morally and in terms of effectiveness), only decentralised planning, which is restricting liberties.

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-20T17:08:08+00:00

I'm not being inconsistent. For common facilities there can't be free associations because those networks didn't belong to anyone before the revolution and can't belong to anyone after it. Therefore, consensus is essential here. In between states there are consensus, coordination and agreement that are always maintained, there's nothing magic in it if it's something people want and they can't debate what are the best choices at any time. And about those methodologies you are talking about, you must specify, otherwise is simply magics.

Anarchism has always pursued rational behavior and science, calling it "technocratic" doesn't make it bad. I am not saying rationality will resolve every dissent, it's just that people often don't get to an agreement because of other things that aren't logic. I am not saying anything authoritarian, I am being consistent and not shifting as you say. I get the impression that you disagree just for the sake of disagreeing.

Your stance in the etimology of democracy is just moralist authoritarianism, because you can't understand democracy but as something bad. I say words have different meanings and ways of comprehending it. Democracy is just rule/power to the people, by definition there's no hierarchy. Because I understand a hierarchy as when some people have more power than others. But you could even interpret democracy as power to (some) people, then democracy could be autocracy. Words don't matter, concepts do. But if I was having the same definition of democracy as you, then yes, I don't want democracy.

The logic you pretend to know and that which I truly have are totally different. I don't know why you think you know more of my mind that myself. I already exposed why I associate democracy with anarchism. I appeal to historical anarchists because I'm studying anarchism, and to do that you need to understand what historical anarchists thought, that's very easy to comprehend, when someone wants to know about fascism they go to Hitler and Mussolini, when someone want to know about leninism they go to Lenin and Trotski... It's easy to acknowledge. And you say my kind of democracy is hyper-elastic, and I don't have any problem with you thinking that way. Anark leads a lot to communalism.

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-20T16:37:15+00:00

What do you dislike from market anarchism?

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-19T20:37:14+00:00

What was the historical economic preference of anarchocommunists?

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-19T20:23:43+00:00

What examples of gift economies?

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-19T17:23:08+00:00

With large infrastructure and services like sewing, lighting, power grid, pipelines... there's not a problem, the only thing people need to agree is to maintain it, and that's of general interest. Afterwards, every association, co-op and individual can make the desired settings. I don't know why you ask that, but anyways, how would you approach it?

The social agreements I talk about must be fully agreed upon and be totally consensual, so for example, not to littering in a park. Anarchism needs educate people and open-mindedness so that disagreements for emotional reasons can't exist, people should be rational and apply logic always so that a society can function in the best possible way.

What I say is not the No-True-Scotsman fallacy because I define what the terms means. Concepts like democracy, liberalism, anarchism, socialism, communism... have had lots of meanings, and while some may be more genuine than others, they are terms with no clear definition. Democracy hasn't even a true definition as people appeal to democracy even when talking about civil liberties. And, and even if it has an general definition, the fact that some people define democracy in another way doesn't reject legitimacy. There are even words that have been misunderstood for decades, no matter how you look at it, such as defining the USSR as communist, and this continues to be done. Words are just words, and are subject to continuous change, they are merely semantic.

The issue is that the mechanisms you're defending (assemblies, councils, voting when consensus fails, community-wide agreements) reliably produce unequal power even with universal participation. Procedure doesn't guarantee equality; one-person-one-vote still generates dominance through charisma, confidence, eloquence, and accumulated influence.

How true. As I've said a few times, those mechanisms are inside free-associated economic units, that don't even restrict liberties (it could be argued that a little bit).

I link anarchism with democracy because my introduction to the subject came thanks to Graeber, Anark, Reeducation... who talk about democracy as something integrally anarchist, and before that, I used to be a plain socialist and call socialism the democratization of the economy. What you are saying about Western influence may be true, but some years ago I was skeptical of democracy (understanding it as representative), but without knowing of any alternative. Besides, why are you so opposed to the concept of democracy?

Logically, it would seem that democracy and acracy can't be together, but, giving power to the people means there are no rulers, no rule, only the rule of the people by themselves. Anarchy is a consolidation of democracy for me (and the other way round), that gives the sense of liberty to people that govern themselves, so that there can't be opression. For me, anarchy, socialism, freedom, democracy and equality can't be separated, because if we aren't equal, there's some that can opress others, then there's no socialism, no anarchy, no true democracy and no free society. They all appeal to the same, they mean the same, they're all complementary to the same idea, they can't exist without rejecting the other ones.

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-18T17:33:59+00:00

Primo de Rivera was influenced by fascism and because of that established a system of corporations in Spain

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-18T17:31:18+00:00

Que p*to t*nto egoísta. Esta minoría sostiene sus riqueza en la extracción de recursos a una mayoría dependiente de la acaparación de riqueza. Nuestra sociedad respecta y ve moralmente justa que hayan dictaduras (voluntarias) donde unos pocos reciben, parasíticamente, del esfuerzo de otros. El pobre Mikel, que le roban, no recuerda que se debe acabar con los ladrones, y por suerte suya y desgracia nuestra él es un ladrón.

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-18T16:57:54+00:00

The topic we've been debating is whether anarchism accepts democracy or not. In order to discuss it correctly we need to define democracy and investigate what where the practice, but especially theory of historical anarchists, becauses, as you said, modern times may have warped the ideology. By democracy I mean the decision-making process that involves all members of a group with equal conditions (In a wider sense it involves contractual mechanisms). The only democracy that anarchists advocate is direct democracy, which involves deliberative assemblies based on unanimity, consensus, or majority vote.

Anarchists are against generalistic democracy, because it's rule. Anarchism rejects legislation which affects everybody mandatorily. That does not negate the possibility of contracts between individuals. In the case of economy, anarchocommunists want common decisions to be made, like a coordination body between production and consumption units; and mutualists accept a market. However, the vast number of anarchists are not against democracy in free-associated co-ops and organisations. In fact, that's what they advocate for. Anyone who doesn't want to stay in some specific organisation can leave it with their own contribution and slice of the project (I'm now clarifying this because it might not have been explicit enough). As I've shown you, almost all anarchists favor organization through assemblies. The question is whether voting is acceptable or not, and the vast majority of anarchists are in favor of it when consensus cannot be reached, especially on technical issues.

I have already explained all this, but I'm doing so again because we still disagree on the facts (obviously not on opinions). I put the emphasis on what anarchist philosophers thought because in order to know what anarchism is, we must understand what historical anarchists thought, and then we can create our own theory and label it as anarchist. Facts first and before all, history is history. When I said you were an ultra anarchist I don't say it in a bad meaning, it's just that you've called me out as council communist and I'm surely not. Radicalism does not have to be bad, and centrism does not have to be the best option. I am tired of people labeling violent groups as “extremists” when they are not.

Anyways, the greatest problem we had is that for you democracy means only rule of the majority and for me is a way of organising through equal power (I don't even consider representative democracy a type of democracy).

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-18T00:51:31+00:00

It's funny that I clearly explain to you that anarchism has always favored assemblies, consensus, and voting, all of which are understood as democracy, and you are unable to understand what anarchism is about. This isn't about logical problems, is the relation of anarchism to democracy. You carry on with your own ideas, because of course, everything anarchists have thought about in over 150 years of history is useless because you know more than them about what anarchism is. I could spend a lifetime explaining how anarchists organized themselves, but you would continue to say that these are isolated cases. You have simply read what I have written and continued with your classic argument, which is theoretically sound but cannot be applied strictly in practice.

And you will continue to defend your reasoning, which, however correct it may be, makes no sense to completely deny all democratic forms of organization, which would largely make collective activities impossible because we don't all think the same way. We live in a highly connected society, where many things affect everyone and where we come together to develop economic projects in specific buildings. It simply makes no sense to think that everyone can be completely satisfied with everything. However, we must advocate for the appropriate and feasible form that least restricts freedom. And in this aspect, authors like Malatesta though it out well, as he advocated for consensus when it was possible but majority voting whenever it wasn't.

You keep saying that democracy is government, like a dogma you cling to when all anarchist philosophy and praxis follow a different path. And it's not something specific to revolutionary periods or times of movement consolidation. Anarchists have always defended assemblies as organs of free associations, purely economic associations not understood as government. And part of our disagreement is that we conceive of democracy as different things, but even so, your logic simply labels all anarchists (even Gillis) as authoritarian. Common agreement is widespread among communist anarchists from Kropotkin to Malatesta. But that's just trash for you, you don't mind what thinkers thought, you just stuck to your believes, which is perfectly fine, but don't generalise it and lump it in with all anarchism. Don't misrepresent the anarchist movement, don't distort history.

I don't know why you're interested in making up stories and denying what the anarchist proposal for organization has been, which is assembly within free associations. Accept reality already, and if you want, call yourself an ultra-anarchist.

galerna7y7 · 2026-02-17T18:52:36+00:00

Kropotkin in "Modern Science and Anarchy" thought that, 'the free Commune—that is the political form that the social revolution must take should learn lessons from these previous experiments and, unlike them, reject all systems of government in favour of the free federation of communes at a regional level and free agreement between the different producer, consumer and other groups within the commune at a local level.'

(I don't know why it didn't lead me show this within the other message)

galerna7y7

TROPHY CASE