Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

J30 - where are the class struggle anarchists?

The ghost of solidarity fetishism | 28.06.2011 16:13 | J30 Strike

For years class struggle anarchists in the UK have been waging war against lifestyle anarchists for the legitimacy of anarchist identity.

Previously lifestyle anarchists had their summit protests and 'big set pieces' much, being the most active, gaining the most attention, much to the chagrin of the class struggle anarchists who would emphasise, mostly on the internet, the importance of anarchists organising in their workplaces and in their communities. Class struggle anarchism became a badge of honour amongst anarchists who would distance themselves from any sort visible activity.

Class struggle anarchism was just waiting for their moment when the balance of class forces would mean their ideas would be relevant, and accessible to ordinary working class people.

Given most class struggle anarchists work in the public sector, and J30 is a genuine (i.e. universal) class conflict where the fuck are all the class struggle anarchists?

Do they exist? Are they a kind of inverse black bloc - they only come out when there is not class conflict to be seen on the streets? Where's the propaganda? The outreach? The organising in our workplaces? The communities of resistance?

Now should be the perfect opportunity for class struggle anarchists to stake a claim in the real world. And yet it is the lifestyle activism of UK Uncut who have ingratiated themselves with the trade unionists, with the media and with anybody who actually gives a shit about June 30th.

We say to the class struggle anarchists: WHERE ARE YOU? Stand up. Identify yourselves, make an impact, make some noise, you're not going to get a better opportunity.

The ghost of solidarity fetishism

Comments

Hide the following 9 comments

"Identify yourselves"

28.06.2011 16:48

LOL! good attempt.

Ghost of authority


where are they? what are they?

28.06.2011 17:44

Humans live of other humans, like a farmer lives of his cattle. That's the nature of human societies. A society is a pecking order, a social economic hierarchy.

'Class struggle anarchists' are those who struggle for status of their group, within the class structure, may be attempting to re-structure the social structure. They are not really 'anarchists' in the pure sense of the word, but very admirable, militant socialists.
They seek to control centralised production for the benefit of all, equally.

The much ridiculed 'life style anarchists' are those who try to live according to their principals of anarchy, living out side of and rejecting the socioeconomic structure of modern economic society. They reject the principal of centralised production altogether.

Pure philosophical anarchists won't be fighting government cuts because they reject government!

commentator


Where are they? At the grassroots, which is why you can't see them!

28.06.2011 18:08

Class struggle anarchists, true to their ideals, are doing just what they should be - building for the strike in their workplaces and neighbourhoods, working with unions and fellow workers to make it happen. They don't wear some kind of uniform! Also, you'll find leafleting while masked up has too many complications... :-P

anon


dumbed down indymedia?

28.06.2011 19:12

"Given most class struggle anarchists work in the public sector"

Do they? figures?

Shame the comment and analysis is very shallow as well as the piece itself.

Ongoing debates seem to have involved binary oppositions.

The social anarchists are calling the 'lifestyle anarchists' bourgeois
The insurrectionists are calling the social anarchists bourgeois
Reformist workerism production fetishism vs reclaiming our land
Activist ghettos vs 'engaging within your own community vs parachuting in...
Long term vs short term struggles...etc etc

Bit more complicated than the above innit!
as we know eh...

Many of us don't fit into comfortable categorisation nor like top down commands about what the anarchists need to do....

Revolution is problematic in a service economy ( ultimately a neo-fascist police state ) servicing the military industrial complex and corporate money markets fleecing the planet.

btw I don't want to be a cleaner or factory worker again or any other dumb shit slave job I've done for the fat nazi state we've sleepwalked into.





ex factory worker unemployed, landless and pissed off


hit the nail on the head

29.06.2011 00:41

Where are they? At the grassroots, which is why you can't see them!

28.06.2011 18:08
Class struggle anarchists, true to their ideals, are doing just what they should be - building for the strike in their workplaces and neighbourhoods, working with unions and fellow workers to make it happen. They don't wear some kind of uniform! Also, you'll find leafleting while masked up has too many complications... :-P

anon

=============================================

absolutely right mate.

Giuseppe Pinelli


Look and ye shall find

29.06.2011 13:54

You mean apart from helping organise the big Lewisham event, leafletting boroughs all over the city, actually being involved as strikers and agitating in workplaces and being about on the day you mean?

Just because we’re not showing up on the news or at your gaff doesn’t mean we aren’t around, it just means we’re not around in the places you usually frequent.

Rob Ray


He

29.06.2011 16:40

He's off sick!

Anon


beware of the anarchist

30.06.2011 08:51

Anarchists think that if we have a revolution -our capitalist, indiviudalist society will suddenly be able to stand on its own two feet because people will realise that "absolute power corrupts absolutley" and suddenly become enlightened. Sorry but people will not - what will happen is that there will be a dangerous survival if the fittest scenerio with everyone left to fend for themselves.

This is what is needed.
A revolution which demands that communites are put before profit.
A mass media which defends and supports a revolutionary process.
A governing body (yes a state or if it makes it more palatble to you an "assembly") which has the power and strength to defend a revolution and one that has the authority to plan for the economic welfare of its people.
A society which promotes local politcal particpation and cooperation between people for the benefit of society.

Only after a revoloutionary consciousness has been deeply embedded within the people -which would take 100s of years to develop -can more anarchist practices be considered. It is a process and we should be working with proper communists and socialist groups now to build this.

Anarchists are often dangerous because they will fight against socialists and communists in revolutionary situations out of misguided idealism.

why does everyone stay in the borders of their group


Get over yourself!

01.07.2011 12:52

Sorry but all I read in your 'article' was 'blah blah blah murray bookchin murray bookchin wank wank wank' Get off the computer and DO something instead of waffling on about different 'kinds' of 'anarchists'. If you want real change, go out and make it.

bored.com


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech