Well, when I posed my previous blog (on my letter to Freedom on Keynes), I did think that I would be blogging against quite quickly. However, this was not to be. I was expected a reply to my latest letter to the Weekly Worker on anarchism, but there was no reply in the next two issues. They did publish my letter along from another anarchist one (and, yet again, I must praise their letters policy as being excellent) but no reply. I’m not that surprised, I should note.
Well, when I posed my previous blog (on my letter to Freedom on Keynes), I did think that I would be blogging against quite quickly. However, this was not to be. I was expected a reply to my latest letter to the Weekly Worker on anarchism, but there was no reply in the next two issues. They did publish my letter along from another anarchist one (and, yet again, I must praise their letters policy as being excellent) but no reply. I’m not that surprised, I should note.
My talk at the launch of the new edition of Mutual Aid went down quite well, I think. Freedom‘s new edition has an extremely pretty front cover and is well laid-out. I still think it was a mistake not to include my full introduction — as it would have made it more attractive to buy, particularly as there are other editions of it out there (and it may have caused people who already have it to buy the new edition), but that was not my decision — space seemed to have been the driven reason. Still, they used part of it (although they should have kept the footnotes in!). I’ll be talking to AK Press on getting it published via them later this year. I’ll be making a few minor changes to the text and referencing the new edition for page numbers before publication. If you have spotted any typos or unclear parts, please let me know!
I’ve also posted a few new "old" articles (so to speak). First off, is one on the first anarcha-feminist group which was in Argentina in the 1890s. I knocked that together for Black Flag no. 227, and is basically a summary of the academic article referenced at the end. The guy who did the layout stuck my name on it, and given its obvious historic interest I thought I would post it. That issue also contains a rare article by Emma Goldman on Mary Wollstonecraft which was last printed a few decades ago in an academic journal (yes, that was a plug for Black Flag and, yes, we are still looking for writers!).
Next is a review of a Tom Hank’s film on activities of an American politician trying to get funding for the Afghan resistance against the Soviet invasion. It places this activity in historical context (i.e., support started before the invasion in order to provoke that precise response), it’s illegal nature and, of course, the unexpected blowback it produced in 2001.
Then there is a piece I wrote on anarchism and unionism, complemented by my thoughts on the failure of the Anarchist Workers Network plus general comments on how anarchists in the UK should be relating to workplace struggles. After the strange comments at the meeting in Ghent (see my last post), I thought it seemed relevant. I also forget to mention that the French CNT-AIT speaker stated that his strategy was the same as the FORA and so was anarchosyndicalist. I pointed out that the FORA was a union (Malatesta helped set up unions when he was there). Later, over a few beers, I pointed out to the WSM people there (who were as perplexed by the CNT-F as I was) that the FORA had hundreds of thousands of members — they were not all anarchist militants — as well as congresses, at which the "pure" syndicalist faction managed to get the FORA’s commitment to anarcho-communism removed from its consistution (and so provoking a split). Sounds like a union to me…
The last three are letters on various subjects. The first are my three letters on Platformism to Anarchy, in response to their terrible issue on it. The first letter was circulated without my knowledge before Anarchy published it, I should mention. I should also stress again that I’m not a Platformist, which seemed to have escaped Bob Black (who excommunicated me from anarchism for supporting it!). It was the inaccuracies of Black’s article on the Platform which motivated me to write, particularly his baseless accusation that the WSM had edited their copy of the Platform without mentioning it. It took me a whole ten minutes to show that was not the case. And not to mention the irony of Black repeating Lenin’s mantra that the working class, by its own efforts, could not develop socialist ideas. I gave up after the third letter, and subsequently gave up reading Anarchy totally.
Then there are two series of letters to Freedom. The first were in response to the primitivists of the Wildfire collective. As can be seen from the letters, they did not (probably could not) answer the (obvious) points I raised. That little exchange prompted me to add a section on primitivism to AFAQ (although I had to rewrite it somewhat as some people misintrepreted my meaning). The second were two different exchanges with an individualist who left anarchism to became an "anarcho"-capitalist. I’ve always stunned at their blindness to property-based authority, not to mention their lack of commonsense when it comes to groups. Of course there are group issues, as individuals form groups! If the group does not manage their common affairs then someone else will — either the state or the boss. I never could understand why autocracy/dictatorship can be considered more consistent with liberty than democracy, but apparently for the "rugged individualist" being ruled by a boss is preferably to participating in group decision making…
I should also mention I added a quote from Steve Keen’s excellent Debunking Economics to the unfinished appendix on classical economics. It is to do with the transformation issue, noting in more detail that (irony of ironies) the only way that neo-classical economics can avoid the Cambridge Capital Critique is to assume that all industries have the same level of investment, the very thing which caused the so-called "transformation issue" in classical/Marxist economics!
On to other things. First there was Tina Fey and Sarah Palin, now 30 Rock has (hopefully) ended the wider political career of another Republican rising-star, namely Bobby Jindal and his amazing likeness to Kenneth the Page
I was obviously surprised that Jindal even mentioned Katrina at all, given that the government at the time was led by a certain George W. Bush, a Republican, and was ruled by a Republican majority in both Houses. Still, Bush seems to be in the process of being placed in the Memory Hole by the rabid right. Even worse, his story about Katrina may not even be true. Where do they get these people from? And why do people vote for them?
I’ll probably try and blog on more serious matters next week, but it really is a question of finding the time. I’ve a few yet projects on the go — such as revising sections I and J of AFAQ for publication next year (and, no, section I will not be ready by the 18th of March as I hoped!), the Proudhon Reader (which I have high hopes for) as well as various reviews I need to do and so on. That and having a life, of course! I’ll need to prioritise, and that may mean less new material. We will see, I suppose.
Until I blog again… Be Seeing you!