[mobglob-discuss] [Fwd] "Against Organizationalism" Editorial - Anarchy Magazine

Wed Dec 4 17:41:39 PST 2002

Some interesting thoughts here from the editor of Anarchy Magazine.  TC
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  ----- Forwarded message: -----
Delivered-To: infoshop-news at flag.blackened.net
From: "Jason McQuinn" <jmcquinn at coin.org>
To: "infoshop-news" <infoshop-news at infoshop.org>
Subject: [Infoshop News] "Against Organizationalism"
  --Editorial from Anarchy magazine #54/Fall-Winter 2002-03 
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 00:47:36 -0600

>From Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #54/Fall-Winter
2002-03: http://www.anarchymag.org/54/editorial_organization.html

Against Organizationalism:
Anarchism as both Theory and Critique of Organization

 One of the most annoying and oft repeated cliches of leftist political
rhetoric concerns the unquestioned imperative for nonspecific, generic
"organization." Whatever else might define the left, it has always and
consistently called for the creation and development of formal
organizations that are supposed to represent and lead the masses or the
working class (or these days often the appropriate identity-group or
"minority"). Of course, when leftists leave the realm of rhetoric and
enter the realm of practice, it becomes quite evident why the details of
organization are usually left unspecified. It's easy to say that
unorganized or disorganized people probably won't have much success
pursuing large, complex projects. But when the form of organization
actually proposed calls for a "transmission-belt" structure with an
explicit division between leaders and led, along with provisions to
discipline rank and file members while shielding leaders from
responsibility to those being led, more than a few people wise up to the
con game and reject it. Even the addition of a little democracy these
days isn't enough to disguise the stench of power politics.

 None of this is surprising to most anarchists, because the mainstream
left has been explicitly hierarchical, authoritarian and statist since
the time of the Jacobins and the French Revolution. However, even
anarchists-or at least the more leftist of anarchists-have not been
immune to organizational fetishism. From a genuine concern for helping
to create the conditions for the have-nots to take back their world, the
leftist organizational imperative is too often mistaken for a healthy
underlying strategy which has unfortunately been undermined and
discredited by unethical or power-hungry authoritarian leftists.

 It's true that the increasingly widespread disillusionment with formal
organization amongst genuine radicals is often a direct result of two
hundred years of counterproductive leftist practice. But leftist
organizational practice isn't just a good strategy corrupted by bad
personnel. The same organization-building strategies with more radical
theory and values grafted in place would continue to produce the same
type of self-defeating practice precisely because the underlying
problems are structural and not incidental. The cult of
organizationalism-in which the construction and enlargement of formal,
mass political and economic organizations take priority over the
encouragement and generalization of anarchist self-organization-directly
contradicts anarchist principles and goals. Organizationalism encourages
and produces authoritarian, hierarchical, and alienating practices
because it is based on the idea that people should be organized by
politically-conscious militants rather than the anarchist idea that
people must organize themselves for their own liberation.

 Historically, the anarchist idea, anarchist theory and the international
anarchist movement all originated in large degree in critical response to
the problems posed by radical organization. Yet, today, all too many left
anarchists are taking on the job of rehabilitating a highly problematic
organizationalist rhetoric and practice, relying only on superficial
criticisms of the explicitly authoritarian, statist left to prevent-they
hope-their own projects from duplicating the duplicity of the many
leftist disasters that litter revolutionary history.

 All anarchists differ from the political left in one central way:
anarchists propose individual and communal self-activity, self-direction
and self-organization as the only possible method for genuinely taking
control of our lives. The political left, on the contrary, proposes
organizing people as objects in order to gain the political power
necessary to change institutional social conditions. The more radical of
leftists will add that such change in institutional conditions can help
bring about the possibility that the masses will eventually develop
enough self-awareness to directly govern themselves. But this is, of
course, relegated to the indefinite future.

 Given the ongoing disintegration of the international left, it has
become ever more important for anarchists to rediscover and reconsider
the foundations of the anarchist movement in the anarchist theory and
critique of organization. As more leftists and ex-leftists drift into
the anarchist milieu, it becomes increasingly important to remember that
anarchism isn't merely a form of leftism without an explicit goal of
taking state power. The entire leftist political culture of
representation, hierarchical organization, heteronomous discipline and
the cult of leadership is contrary to the anarchist culture of autonomy,
free association, self-organization, direct action and personal
responsibility. The leftist practice of creating formal mass
organizations in order to build political power involves entirely
different assumptions and goals than the anarchist practice of
encouraging generalized self-initiated, self-directed activity.

 All the various forms of left anarchism involve attempted syntheses of
aspects of left organizationalism with aspects of anarchist organization.
And all of these attempted syntheses require some degree of sacrifice of
anarchist theory, practice and values in exchange for an anticipated
increase in ideological appeal or practical power. But anarchists will
always sacrifice their own principles at great risk. There have been
powerful left-anarchist syntheses that have made great practical
contributions towards revolt, insurrection and revolution at times in the
past: the heyday of anarcho-syndicalism around the turn of the 19th to
the 20th century being one. But these have always come at the price of
also diluting and confusing the anarchist side of the syntheses, which
has ultimately led to their defeat.

 In order to prevent further defeats, we can consciously base our practice
on consistent principles of self-organization, always with as few
compromises as possible, and with a clear eye on our goals.

Jason McQuinn, Editor
C.A.L. Press
POB 1446
Columbia, MO 65205-1446
USA
Alternative Press Review web site:
http://www.altpr.org
Anarchy magazine web site:
http://www.anarchymag.org

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