Good to see another video, especially on a topic that very much interests me. I bought "Means and Ends" from AK press and I'm really enjoying it. Please keep writing books and making videos Zoe!!!!! 🙂
OMGF. Okay, so Derick is basically the only reason I still tune into Diet Soap podcasts. Always found him to be an extremely detailed and curious thinker. Despite disagreeing on some points, I always find my disagreements with Derick's position to be productive because they force me to read more, think more, and reconsider my positions. Had no idea you were in contact with them. I am VERY excited to listen to this discussion!
Paternalistic Conservative here, I'm highly excited to work through this video and learn more! While I have a lot of substantive disagreements with anarchist schools of thought, it always made me think and I've definitely grabbed concepts like unity of means and ends and applied it to my own political ideology. I'm definitely going to recommend u to some of my anarchist friends who I work with in soup kitchens/mixed incoming housing projects, u deserve more views!
Anyone has references to the letters Zoe mentions @54:00 , about Malatesta and people pushing his name as a candidate? It sounds like they might be a fun read. Btw, gotta comment that Zoe's thought and answers to these general, all-encompassing questions have gotten so smooth, it is always a pleasure to listen.
The relevant sources are "Protest Candidates" and "A Letter From Errico Malatesta" in The Complete Works of Malatesta Volume III: "A Long and Patient Work": The Anarchist Socialism of L'Agitazione, 1897-98 (AK Press, 2016). He writes, whilst imprisoned on the island of Lampedusa, "I have learned that in a number of localities the (non-anarchist) socialists and the republicans stood me as a protest candidate in local and commercial elections . . . I therefore request my name not be used in any of the electoral struggles that socialists and republicans go fighting. And, should anyone persist in running me as a candidate, I declare that this would be done, not just without my support, but with my express disapproval." (p456-57).
The Swedish state apparatus was established already in the 1550's. A top-down hierarchy, all the way from the king to the peasantry., through the king's own bailiff/sheriffs.
Thx for the chat, enjoyed the insights. I just call it 'top-down governance' instead of state. tbh, I don't get the point of anarcho-syndicalism, trade unions won't be needed in an anarchist economy. (Obv within capitalism they are essential.) I use 'Western' is a useful term for the Empire.
1:14:55 I would actually argue that Bob Black and Hakim Bey, for all of the obvious criticisms one can make of them, pretty self-evidently exist within a continuity with both anti-organisationalist anarcho-communism (as pointed out by Lawrence Jarach at the time) and the broader individualist anarchist tradition descending from Godwin and Stirner, just as the turn away from the possibility of global revolution seen in contemporary nihilists and illegalists has clear predecessors in the likes of Kaneko Fumiko and Renzo Novatore, particularly as seen in the Greek insurrectionist movement of the last twenty years (eg. the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, etc.). Granted, whether you consider these tendencies productive or not is an entirely different question; I would say that Black's centring of the abolition of work has left its mark on contemporary anarcho-communism in a notable way-although he'd probably point to the late great Alfredo Maria Bonanno's invectives against work within the postwar Italian anarchist tradition (and Paul Lafargue and Charles Fourier, who were not anarchists at all, long before him) as having done it first-but the penchant for petty infighting amongst both the post-leftists and the Bookchinites in the late '90s is certainly not the energy I'd prefer to bring into the current conversation. (It is also perhaps worth noting that, particularly when talking about Japanese anarchism, distinguishing between "individualist," "mass" and "insurrectionary" currents is somewhat meaningless; Ōsugi Sakae, for instance, was both a Stirnerite egoist and an anarcho-syndicalist, while Hatta Shūzō's "pure anarchism" has fairly few direct modern parallels, although "postciv" anti-urbanism isn't far off in its implications. There's also a great deal to be said about the American individualist anarchist tradition beginning with the Boston school through Tucker and the elder Labadie on into the postwar years, but that's its own topic somewhat removed from the context of European anarcho-communism.) That being said, interesting discussion. I share a lot of similar frustrations with Graeber even as someone who hasn't extensively studied the classical anarchist tradition-although I do know enough to be annoying about it! :P-so it was nice to see someone who isn't operating on a real inside-baseball level just say, "Yeah, I like him, but I don't think he always knows what he's talking about."
Hey Zoe, love your work, only one thing I don't really agree with is how you frame the split in the IWA. I've heard you describe it multiple times (also in your book I think) as more of a simple misunderstanding of Marx that Bakunin secretly want to bend the IWA to it's own will and become the dictator of the IWA as how Marx put it. I think this contrary to what really happened and also gives Marx way to much excuse for his authoritarian plot to bend the IWA to it's own political views. Early on you can already find traces of Marx and Engels fighting for centralized power with in the IWA. As early as 11 September 1867, Marx already writes to Engels "And in the next revolution, which is perhaps nearer than it appears, we (that is, you and I) will have this powerful engine in our hands"[1]. From what I make up out of this letter is that the "powerful engine" points to the IWA and that it's a clear sign of a move to centralized power over the IWA by Marx and Engels. There are more other signs expressed of Marx and Engels intentions to use the IWA as a body to push throw their political strategy of fighting for political power within parliamentarian politics but unfortunately I don't have the time/resources to point to all evidence to back this up right now. But I can share the conclusions of people who did. As Wolfgang Eckhardt states in his book The First Socialist Schism "It wasn’t the rivalry between two arch-enemies or a personal vendetta based of resentments that made the conflict between Marx and Bakunin so important. Of importance was that the conflict heralded the beginning of a split within socialism between parliamentary party politics aiming to conquer political power and social-revolutionary concepts. The federations defending their autonomy became aware of what separated them from the social democratic movement influenced by Marx, which relied on centralist organisational forms, the establishment of national labour parties, and the conquest of political power." And Felipe Corrêa in his new book 'Freedom or Death: The Theory and Practice of Mikhail Bakunin'[2] writes: "In this way, it was possible for the centralists to achieve their purposes. Two of them, quite evident since the 1871 conference: to approve positions about "political action by the working class" and definitively exclude the Alliancists, thus weakening federalist collectivism. In The Hague, it was adopted that "the working class cannot act as a class except by constituting itself into a political party" and that "the conquest of political power then became the great duty of the working class." It was also possible to expel Bakunin and Guillaume; Schwitzguébel and the Spanish Alliancists managed to save themselves. Not only did the accusations about the existence of the Alliance-considered a body hostile to the IWA, with a view to disorganizing it or dominating it, which was never proven-fall on Bakunin, but also on Netchaiev's actions, in particular the threat to the editor of Capital But a third, less obvious purpose was the approval of the transfer of the General Council to New York (IWA, 1872). Differently from what has often been claimed in historiography, The Hague Congress did not mean the victory of the centralists or a personal conflict between Marx and Bakunin. Nor would it be appropriate to interpret it as a simple split between centralists and federalists. Berthier's thesis (2015c) that what really led to the conflict was the conduct of the General Council and the imposition of a political program on the International (the constitution of the class into a party and the quest for political power), provisionally realized in London and definitively in The Hague, and contrary to what was recommended by Bakunin (solidarity in the immediate economic struggle) seems correct. This was what motivated the general dissatisfaction and protest of the sections against the General Council,61 With this body's subsequent determination that those who disagreed with resolutions would automatically be excluded, it ended up "excluding" from the IWA practically all of its sections and the immense majority of its members. The transfer of the General Council to New York provoked the withdrawal of even the Blanquists who understood the measure as an organizational suicide- and anticipated, for 1872, the death certificate of the Centralist International, formalized four years later." So the claim that the main motivations from Marx and Engels is that they falsely and mistakenly believed that Bakunin had a plot to take over the IWA and that this motivated them to make their own plot obscures a great deal and for me personally, the whole power grab can be more interpretation as a means to achieve their political goals of pushing throw their own political program. Again, love all your work but please reconsider this point because from what I can see is this a incomplete representation of what really happened. Also that book by Felipe Corrêa is really worth checking out, for any anarchist who reads this. (all his work actually) [1]: www.marxists.org/archive/marx//works/1867/letters/67_09_11.htm [2]: blackrosebooks.com/products/freedom-or-death-filipe-correa
I'm aware of everything you talk about here. I have read the first socialist schism, including every single endnote, twice. At no point do I present the split as a "simple misunderstanding". I consistently claim that the split centered on different views about (a) electoral politics/conquest of political power and (b) federalism. Marx and Engels wanted the first international to adopt their ideas. But the same is true of every other faction in the organization who likewise viewed the first international as a useful means to advance their ideological agenda. So then the question is why did Marx and Engels, from the london conference onwards, attempt to impose their commitment to electoral politics on the international? I think if you read through their writings a very clear factor is their false beliefs about Bakunin and the alliance. For example, they consistently describe the actions of other people as, in some sense, reducible to Bakunin plotting eg in a 1870 letter Marx refers to "Bakunin's machinations" and "Bakunin, as you know, has in that blatherer Hins a fanatical instrument at his disposal in the Belgian General Council." Again in another 1870 letter Marx writes, "the Belgians have proposed the congress be held in Amsterdam on 5 September. This is the plan of Mr Bakunin. The congress would consist chiefly of his TOOLS". Notice the consistent conspiratorial language in which people are mere tools and instruments of sinister plotting Bakunin. Obviously other factors are at play eg their extreme arrogance and pervading sense of intellectual superiority over other people who they treat, to use one of Marx's fav insult, as schoolboys.
@@anarchozoe You are right, I was exaggerating to state that you reduce it to a "simple misunderstanding". > "Marx and Engels wanted the first international to adopt their ideas. But the same is true of every other faction in the organization who likewise viewed the first international as a useful means to advance their ideological agenda." Yes, of course but there is a big difference by what means. And Karl Marx means were highly undemocratic. This can not be said about Bakunin and the federalists. > "So then the question is why did Marx and Engels, from the london conference onwards, attempt to impose their commitment to electoral politics on the international? [...] I think if you read through their writings a very clear factor is their false beliefs about Bakunin and the alliance." But are you then saying that because of this false believe they attempted to impose their commitment to electoral politics (with the effect that it would discard all federalists from the IWA) BECAUSE of their false believes, or (and this is my claim) they did the power grab because the federalist idea was in the way of their political agenda, making the believe of the Bakunin conspiracy secondary but beneficial argument in support for their agenda. And if we assume that Marx and Engels truly believed that Bakunin had a dictatorial agenda, I think we also need to accept that they did not poses the intelligence or were just to stubborn (could be a possible explanation considering their personalities) to understand Bakunin's position and strategy as a federalist and socialist revolutionary. Even though there we multiple attempts and possibilities to read about Bakunins political idea and intention related to the IWA. But looking at the extent and the sometimes extremely far fetched claims that Marx accused Bakunin of, and the intelligence of Marx, I don't believe Marx did not understand Bakunin's anarchistic political agenda, of strengthening the IWA as a revolutionary and federative democratic body. And even when we do assume they truly believed in the conspiracy it was not their primary motive for their power move.
@@wehateradio5119 In their letters they consistently frame their actions as a necessary response to Bakunin's conspiracy. This includes letters between Marx and Engels. It therefore was not something they just publicly said to provide an after the fact justification for their private ambitions for a power grab eg in 1868 Marx writes to Engels upon learning of the alliance "Mr Bakunin-in the background of this business-is condescending enough to wish to take the workers' movement under Russian leadership". So the evidence indicates they sincerely believed in the Bakunin conspiracy. I think they view the situation as follows: we want the international to adopt our ideas. Sections in the international are instead adopting the ideas of Bakunin. This is happening due to a secret plot by Bakunin to take over the international and impose his anarchist programme onto it. In order to stop this, and achieve our own political goals or at least prevent our opponents from winning, we have to rig congresses in our favour. This includes making the 1st international committed to electoral politics/conquest of political power and thereby stoping the abstentionists, who are just tools of Bakunin, from winning. It's an open question if they would have resorted to this in the absence of the perceived Bakunin conspiracy and, as with history in general, we don't really know as there are too many variables at play and we cannot do repeat experiments.
Good to see another video, especially on a topic that very much interests me. I bought "Means and Ends" from AK press and I'm really enjoying it.
Please keep writing books and making videos Zoe!!!!! 🙂
OMGF. Okay, so Derick is basically the only reason I still tune into Diet Soap podcasts. Always found him to be an extremely detailed and curious thinker. Despite disagreeing on some points, I always find my disagreements with Derick's position to be productive because they force me to read more, think more, and reconsider my positions. Had no idea you were in contact with them. I am VERY excited to listen to this discussion!
This was great! Thank you.
An Expertly written book! I still have to finish it, LOVE U ZOE!!!
great talk!
Engagement for the engagement god!
Excellent conversation. Really appreciate it.
Amazing conversation, thank you :)
Paternalistic Conservative here, I'm highly excited to work through this video and learn more! While I have a lot of substantive disagreements with anarchist schools of thought, it always made me think and I've definitely grabbed concepts like unity of means and ends and applied it to my own political ideology. I'm definitely going to recommend u to some of my anarchist friends who I work with in soup kitchens/mixed incoming housing projects, u deserve more views!
54:03 I'm imagining the plot to Benvenuto Presidente, but the main character is replaced by Malatesta
Anyone has references to the letters Zoe mentions @54:00 , about Malatesta and people pushing his name as a candidate? It sounds like they might be a fun read.
Btw, gotta comment that Zoe's thought and answers to these general, all-encompassing questions have gotten so smooth, it is always a pleasure to listen.
The relevant sources are "Protest Candidates" and "A Letter From Errico Malatesta" in The Complete Works of Malatesta Volume III: "A Long and Patient Work": The Anarchist Socialism of L'Agitazione, 1897-98 (AK Press, 2016).
He writes, whilst imprisoned on the island of Lampedusa,
"I have learned that in a number of localities the (non-anarchist) socialists and the republicans stood me as a protest candidate in local and commercial elections . . . I therefore request my name not be used in any of the electoral struggles that socialists and republicans go fighting. And, should anyone persist in running me as a candidate, I declare that this would be done, not just without my support, but with my express disapproval." (p456-57).
@@anarchozoe Gonna write in Malatesta on US ballots cause I don't think he'd mind now that he's dead.
@@anarchozoe thanks : )
The Swedish state apparatus was established already in the 1550's. A top-down hierarchy, all the way from the king to the peasantry., through the king's own bailiff/sheriffs.
Thx for the chat, enjoyed the insights.
I just call it 'top-down governance' instead of state.
tbh, I don't get the point of anarcho-syndicalism, trade unions won't be needed in an anarchist economy. (Obv within capitalism they are essential.)
I use 'Western' is a useful term for the Empire.
Thank you =], 💙
Poggers video thank you for your research
Thanks for making these very long lectures
1:14:55 I would actually argue that Bob Black and Hakim Bey, for all of the obvious criticisms one can make of them, pretty self-evidently exist within a continuity with both anti-organisationalist anarcho-communism (as pointed out by Lawrence Jarach at the time) and the broader individualist anarchist tradition descending from Godwin and Stirner, just as the turn away from the possibility of global revolution seen in contemporary nihilists and illegalists has clear predecessors in the likes of Kaneko Fumiko and Renzo Novatore, particularly as seen in the Greek insurrectionist movement of the last twenty years (eg. the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, etc.). Granted, whether you consider these tendencies productive or not is an entirely different question; I would say that Black's centring of the abolition of work has left its mark on contemporary anarcho-communism in a notable way-although he'd probably point to the late great Alfredo Maria Bonanno's invectives against work within the postwar Italian anarchist tradition (and Paul Lafargue and Charles Fourier, who were not anarchists at all, long before him) as having done it first-but the penchant for petty infighting amongst both the post-leftists and the Bookchinites in the late '90s is certainly not the energy I'd prefer to bring into the current conversation. (It is also perhaps worth noting that, particularly when talking about Japanese anarchism, distinguishing between "individualist," "mass" and "insurrectionary" currents is somewhat meaningless; Ōsugi Sakae, for instance, was both a Stirnerite egoist and an anarcho-syndicalist, while Hatta Shūzō's "pure anarchism" has fairly few direct modern parallels, although "postciv" anti-urbanism isn't far off in its implications. There's also a great deal to be said about the American individualist anarchist tradition beginning with the Boston school through Tucker and the elder Labadie on into the postwar years, but that's its own topic somewhat removed from the context of European anarcho-communism.)
That being said, interesting discussion. I share a lot of similar frustrations with Graeber even as someone who hasn't extensively studied the classical anarchist tradition-although I do know enough to be annoying about it! :P-so it was nice to see someone who isn't operating on a real inside-baseball level just say, "Yeah, I like him, but I don't think he always knows what he's talking about."
first
Second
Zoe dropping AGAIN?
Hey Zoe, love your work, only one thing I don't really agree with is how you frame the split in the IWA. I've heard you describe it multiple times (also in your book I think) as more of a simple misunderstanding of Marx that Bakunin secretly want to bend the IWA to it's own will and become the dictator of the IWA as how Marx put it. I think this contrary to what really happened and also gives Marx way to much excuse for his authoritarian plot to bend the IWA to it's own political views.
Early on you can already find traces of Marx and Engels fighting for centralized power with in the IWA. As early as 11 September 1867, Marx already writes to Engels "And in the next revolution, which is perhaps nearer than it appears, we (that is, you and I) will have this powerful engine in our hands"[1]. From what I make up out of this letter is that the "powerful engine" points to the IWA and that it's a clear sign of a move to centralized power over the IWA by Marx and Engels.
There are more other signs expressed of Marx and Engels intentions to use the IWA as a body to push throw their political strategy of fighting for political power within parliamentarian politics but unfortunately I don't have the time/resources to point to all evidence to back this up right now. But I can share the conclusions of people who did. As Wolfgang Eckhardt states in his book The First Socialist Schism
"It wasn’t the rivalry between two arch-enemies or a personal vendetta based of resentments that made the conflict between Marx and Bakunin so important. Of importance was that the conflict heralded the beginning of a split within socialism between parliamentary party politics aiming to conquer political power and social-revolutionary concepts. The federations defending their autonomy became aware of what separated them from the social democratic movement influenced by Marx, which relied on centralist organisational forms, the establishment of national labour parties, and the conquest of political power."
And Felipe Corrêa in his new book 'Freedom or Death: The Theory and Practice of Mikhail Bakunin'[2] writes:
"In this way, it was possible for the centralists to achieve their purposes. Two of them, quite evident since the 1871 conference: to approve positions about "political action by the working class" and definitively exclude the Alliancists, thus weakening federalist collectivism. In The Hague, it was adopted that "the working class cannot act as a class except by constituting itself into a political party" and that "the conquest of political power then became the great duty of the working class." It was also possible to expel Bakunin and Guillaume; Schwitzguébel and the Spanish Alliancists managed to save themselves. Not only did the accusations about the existence of the Alliance-considered a body hostile to the IWA, with a view to disorganizing it or dominating it, which was never proven-fall on Bakunin, but also on Netchaiev's actions, in particular the threat to the editor of Capital But a third, less obvious purpose was the approval of the transfer of the General Council to New York (IWA, 1872).
Differently from what has often been claimed in historiography, The Hague Congress did not mean the victory of the centralists or a personal conflict between Marx and Bakunin. Nor would it be appropriate to interpret it as a simple split between centralists and federalists. Berthier's thesis (2015c) that what really led to the conflict was the conduct of the General Council and the imposition of a political program on the International (the constitution of the class into a party and the quest for political power), provisionally realized in London and definitively in The Hague, and contrary to what was recommended by Bakunin (solidarity in the immediate economic struggle) seems correct. This was what motivated the general dissatisfaction and protest of the sections against the General Council,61 With this body's subsequent determination that those who disagreed with resolutions would automatically be excluded, it ended up "excluding" from the IWA practically all of its sections and the immense majority of its members. The transfer of the General Council to New York provoked the withdrawal of even the Blanquists who understood the measure as an organizational suicide- and anticipated, for 1872, the death certificate of the Centralist International, formalized four years later."
So the claim that the main motivations from Marx and Engels is that they falsely and mistakenly believed that Bakunin had a plot to take over the IWA and that this motivated them to make their own plot obscures a great deal and for me personally, the whole power grab can be more interpretation as a means to achieve their political goals of pushing throw their own political program.
Again, love all your work but please reconsider this point because from what I can see is this a incomplete representation of what really happened.
Also that book by Felipe Corrêa is really worth checking out, for any anarchist who reads this. (all his work actually)
[1]: www.marxists.org/archive/marx//works/1867/letters/67_09_11.htm
[2]: blackrosebooks.com/products/freedom-or-death-filipe-correa
I'm aware of everything you talk about here. I have read the first socialist schism, including every single endnote, twice. At no point do I present the split as a "simple misunderstanding". I consistently claim that the split centered on different views about (a) electoral politics/conquest of political power and (b) federalism.
Marx and Engels wanted the first international to adopt their ideas. But the same is true of every other faction in the organization who likewise viewed the first international as a useful means to advance their ideological agenda. So then the question is why did Marx and Engels, from the london conference onwards, attempt to impose their commitment to electoral politics on the international?
I think if you read through their writings a very clear factor is their false beliefs about Bakunin and the alliance. For example, they consistently describe the actions of other people as, in some sense, reducible to Bakunin plotting eg in a 1870 letter Marx refers to "Bakunin's machinations" and "Bakunin, as you know, has in that blatherer Hins a fanatical instrument at his disposal in the Belgian General Council."
Again in another 1870 letter Marx writes, "the Belgians have proposed the congress be held in Amsterdam on 5 September. This is the plan of Mr Bakunin. The congress would consist chiefly of his TOOLS".
Notice the consistent conspiratorial language in which people are mere tools and instruments of sinister plotting Bakunin.
Obviously other factors are at play eg their extreme arrogance and pervading sense of intellectual superiority over other people who they treat, to use one of Marx's fav insult, as schoolboys.
@@anarchozoe You are right, I was exaggerating to state that you reduce it to a "simple misunderstanding".
> "Marx and Engels wanted the first international to adopt their ideas. But the same is true of every other faction in the organization who likewise viewed the first international as a useful means to advance their ideological agenda."
Yes, of course but there is a big difference by what means. And Karl Marx means were highly undemocratic. This can not be said about Bakunin and the federalists.
> "So then the question is why did Marx and Engels, from the london conference onwards, attempt to impose their commitment to electoral politics on the international? [...] I think if you read through their writings a very clear factor is their false beliefs about Bakunin and the alliance."
But are you then saying that because of this false believe they attempted to impose their commitment to electoral politics (with the effect that it would discard all federalists from the IWA) BECAUSE of their false believes, or (and this is my claim) they did the power grab because the federalist idea was in the way of their political agenda, making the believe of the Bakunin conspiracy secondary but beneficial argument in support for their agenda.
And if we assume that Marx and Engels truly believed that Bakunin had a dictatorial agenda, I think we also need to accept that they did not poses the intelligence or were just to stubborn (could be a possible explanation considering their personalities) to understand Bakunin's position and strategy as a federalist and socialist revolutionary. Even though there we multiple attempts and possibilities to read about Bakunins political idea and intention related to the IWA. But looking at the extent and the sometimes extremely far fetched claims that Marx accused Bakunin of, and the intelligence of Marx, I don't believe Marx did not understand Bakunin's anarchistic political agenda, of strengthening the IWA as a revolutionary and federative democratic body. And even when we do assume they truly believed in the conspiracy it was not their primary motive for their power move.
@@wehateradio5119
In their letters they consistently frame their actions as a necessary response to Bakunin's conspiracy. This includes letters between Marx and Engels. It therefore was not something they just publicly said to provide an after the fact justification for their private ambitions for a power grab eg in 1868 Marx writes to Engels upon learning of the alliance "Mr Bakunin-in the background of this business-is condescending enough to wish to take the workers' movement under Russian leadership". So the evidence indicates they sincerely believed in the Bakunin conspiracy.
I think they view the situation as follows: we want the international to adopt our ideas. Sections in the international are instead adopting the ideas of Bakunin. This is happening due to a secret plot by Bakunin to take over the international and impose his anarchist programme onto it. In order to stop this, and achieve our own political goals or at least prevent our opponents from winning, we have to rig congresses in our favour. This includes making the 1st international committed to electoral politics/conquest of political power and thereby stoping the abstentionists, who are just tools of Bakunin, from winning.
It's an open question if they would have resorted to this in the absence of the perceived Bakunin conspiracy and, as with history in general, we don't really know as there are too many variables at play and we cannot do repeat experiments.
Always love Zoe Baker.
evil zoe baker:
10 minute video
Looking forward to Anarchism and Marxism.
Aussie aussie aussue ❤
I love that this got a 'translate' option. Like it's French.
Never change, Australia, never change.