The Spanish Revolution, co-operatives and economists

First off, I should say that I’ve not blogged on Gaza and I should
explain why. Needless to say, I oppose the war (if you can call it that,
given the firepower differences involved). There seems to be little point
blogging to say that, particularly as I have little original to write on
the subject. For those interested in anarchist responses, I would recommend
libertarian news sites (such as Infoshop News and
Anarkismo).

Second, there is a new article.
This was written in response to an article in
Freedom
arguing against co-operatives as one of the libertarian solutions to the
current crisis. So it is an expansion of
my previous article
on this subject, an edited version of which was published in the same edition as the anti-coop piece.
As can be seen, I feel that my position has not really been addressed. I am somewhat
surprised that an anarcho-syndicalist would be so against the expropriation of workplaces!

As will soon become clear, I dislike the use of the expressions like “self-exploitation”
to describe opposition to mutualism (market libertarian socialism based on co-operatives).
I know what is meant by this term, namely that market forces pressurise workers in
co-ops to act in ways they dislike and place short-term necessity to survive on the market
above other key needs. Which is why most anarchists (including myself) oppose non-capitalist
markets as an economic goal — particularly in the long-term. I am somewhat agnostic on
markets immediately after a social revolution — based on historical experience, mutualism
seems the first stage in any revolt and transforming an economic structure marked by
centuries of hierarchy will take time. But that is by-the-way, as my point (and I do
have one!) is that using “self-exploitation” to describe this does not make sense. If
workers’ own their means of production and manage their own labour then it is no more
“self-exploitation” than it is “workers’ capitalism” — we need to come up with a better
name for this! Any suggestions?

And I should add, I would recommend subscribing to Freedom, it is rather good!

The next article is a review of
an excellent BBC programme on George Orwell.
This is on Youtube, but the imbedding has been disabled. The parts most relevant to
anarchism (namely, on
the Spanish Revolution)
are here
and here. Orwell
produced my current favourite quote when he noted how one right-wing author
“use[d] ‘Anarchism’ indifferently with ‘anarchy’, which is a hardly more
correct use of words than saying that a Conservative is one who makes jam.”
Wonderful!

I’m a big fan of Orwell and I would recommend
Homage to Catalonia, it
is essential reading for anyone interested in Spain. This classic is included
with everything else he wrote about Spain in Orwell on Spain (from which
the above quote is from, page 298). Recommended. And it contains another old
favourite quote by Orwell (from
Looking Back On The Spanish War):

“The question is very simple. Shall people
like that Italian soldier be allowed to live the decent, fully human life
which is now technically achievable, or shan’t they? Shall the common man
be pushed back into the mud, or shall he not? I myself believe, perhaps
on insufficient grounds, that the common man will win his fight sooner or
later, but I want it to be sooner and not later — some time within the
next hundred years, say, and not some time within the next ten thousand
years. That was the real issue of the Spanish war, and of the last war,
and perhaps of other wars yet to come.”

Next is a review
of a good general history of the Spanish Civil War by Antony Beevor.
First published in 1982, it was reprinted a while back and I would
recommend it for anyone interested in a mainstream account of the conflict.
Beevor has recently produced a new edition of his book (called The
Battle for Spain) which is, unfortunately, not as good as the 1982
version. This is mostly because he downplays the revolution and
libertarian aspects of the struggle, although it is still a good history.

I do hate it when new editions of books are not as good as the previous
one. So Beevor joins Jeremy Brecher’s Strike! as examples of books
where you should, if you can, buy the first version (at least Beevor
made it easy by changing the book’s title!). In case you are wondering,
the second edition removed the excellent final chapter which discussed
the dynamics, and revolutionary possibilities, of mass strikes. The actual
accounts of the strikes are still worth reading, but removing that final
chapter was a big mistake.

When I saw the film Bob Roberts back in the early 1990s I
enjoyed it (it is a fun and funny film) but thought it was way, way
over the top. I knew the Tories here in Britain were bad, but the vision
of the American Right seemed totally unlikely. How could a sensible
society tolerate such blatant manipulation and nonsense. Here is the
trailer (Youtube is great!):

Then I got on-line and discovered that Bob Roberts was
not really a satire at all, it was a documentary! There really were
people like that and they are welcomed onto the American media
and some are even elected (for example, that Republican politician
who publically wondered whether Obama was going to create a
Marxist or Fascist dictatorship!). And I came across them, in the
various anarchist newsgroups, namely various
“anarcho”-capitalist
nutters at the head of which stands James A. Donald!

Which brings me to my other posting, namely
Right-wing “libertarians” on Spanish Anarchism: A reply”.
Back in the mid-1990s (yes, that is now 15 years ago — time flies!) there
was a massive “debate” (if that is the right word) between anarchists and
“anarcho”-capitalists on
the Spanish Revolution. Donald was basically arguing
that the CNT-FAI were totalitarians who created a centrally-organised system
of mass murder (apparently within a few days or weeks of putting down the
fascist coup). Moreover, when they joined the government in November (as a
minority!) that created a totalitarian state! Yes, I know, utterly insane.

To support his claim, he selectively quotes from Fraser’s Blood of Spain
(which is worth a read, although the author is not sympathetic to the anarchists
and is somewhat anti-libertarian in parts, often when the evidence does not
support it). Initially, he had the advantage in that I did not have a copy of
the book but once I did, it was easy to refute his claims — you simply had to
look up the page and point out the bits he failed to quote (and, at times, point
out that he had just made stuff up). What comes across most is how weak his claim
is — it is based on selective quotes and much spectulation. The reason is simply
explained, of course, as he cannot quote a single credible historian who mentions
Donald’s centralised system of mass murder! Strange that…

But why bother with this now? After all, few people would take this nonsense
seriously if they knew anything about the events of the Spanish Civil War. But
that is the problem, most people do not. And his nonsense gets referenced sometimes,
by those who do not know better (like Wikipedia and
right-“libertarians”) and those who you would think should, like
“anarcho-primitivists”.
Ken Knabb (of the excellent Bureau of Public Secrets)
wrote a very good critique of primitivism
(The Poverty of Primitivism) and
in which the primitivist he was debating with linked to James Donald’s nonsense in an
attempt to deny the importance of the Spanish Revolution! As Knabb so rightly argues:

“The link Filiss recommends is a right-wing libertarian website which retails
a few biased atrocity stories and concludes that the Spanish anarchists were
too ‘socialist’ because they interfered with the free market . . . Granting that
the Spanish revolution had its shortcomings, anarchists and other revolutionaries
have always with good reason held it up as probably the single richest
example of the potentials of autonomous popular creativity. The fact that
anarcho-primitivists are now often seen disparaging it is an indication of how far they
have drifted from any serious consideration of revolutionary possibilities.”

Thanks to YouTube, you can get a glimpse of what actually happened
in Spain and why anarchists are so keen on it. First, this is
part of a documentary on the Civil War:

And a shorter account:

And some kind comrade has put up (in ten parts)
Living Utopia (Vivir la utopia),
which is a series of interviews with Spanish Anarchists. Here is part 1:

Then Bryan Caplan (of Anarchist Theory FAQ
notoriety) joined in the debate with an essay which, while it appears more academic
is still riddled with the same biases and selective quoting. Significantly,
he does not support claims on the matter of a centralised system of mass murder
which shows how full of nonsense Donald is. Last I saw of him was his book for
the Cato Institute on how irrational voters are, in which he advocated that the
American President’s Council of Economic Advisors should have the right to veto
any policies which do not confirm to economic “science” (he makes much of the
fact that ordinary people hold views that economics disapproves of). In other
words, an autocracy by economists! How very libertarian, but to quote Micheal
Moorcock (from Starship Stormtroopers):

“Rugged individualism also goes hand in hand with a strong faith in
paternalism — albeit a tolerant and somewhat distant paternalism — and
many otherwise sharp-witted libertarians seem to see nothing in the morality
of a John Wayne Western to conflict with their views. Heinlein’s paternalism
is at heart the same as Wayne’s. In the final analysis it is a kind of
easy-going militarism favoured by the veteran professional soldier — the
chain of command is complex — many adult responsibilities can be left to
that chain as long as broad, but firmly enforced, rules from ‘high up’ are
adhered to. Heinlein is Eisenhower Man and his views seem to me to be more
pernicious than ordinary infantile back-to-the-land Christian communism,
with its mysticism and its hatred of technology. To be an anarchist,
surely, is to reject authority but to accept self-discipline and community
responsibility. To be a rugged individualist a la Heinlein and others is to
be forever a child who must obey, charm and cajole to be tolerated by some
benign, omniscient father: Rooster Coburn shuffling his feet in front of a
judge he respects for his office (but not necessarily himself) in True Grit.”

Caplan holds Milton Friedman in high regard, which seems to go against his
argument as Friedman was notable being wrong with regards the core of his ideology
(monetarism). The Thatcher government tried to implement it and failed, the
money supply could not be controlled. Giving an ideologue like Friedman the
power to veto policy would not be a good idea. Particularly given that few, if
any, mainstream economists predicted the current economic crisis. And talking
of which, I should point out that Friedman was very good at not recognising
economic crisises coming. Thus he proclaimed Pinochet’s Chile an
“economic miracle”
(thanks to its “economic liberty”)
shortly before it collapsed. Similarly,
he predicted a mild recession under Thatcher
in the early 1980s just before the worse recession since the 1930s the following year.

I was reading
Naomi Klein’s reply to criticism
of her last book (Shock Doctrine —
it is very good, and I really need to finish my review of it). She
links to a 2003 interview with Milton Friedman where he states that
the US economy was “in a healthier position than many
people suggest . . . After years of the boom we had one of the mildest
recessions ever in 2001. Again: the economy is healthier than many
fear . . . The chances of a worldwide recession are extremely small.
I don’t see why the economy shouldn’t speed up when the uncertainty
over the Iraq conflict has been resolved.”

Okay, not quite as good as the Chile and UK predictions the year before
they collapsed, but still not bad going (but nowhere near as bad as this
muppet’s assertion that “There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas
were wrong. It’s not going to happen.” — from
Bush Boom Continues).
And I notice that now that Iceland’s economy has collapsed, none of
the Friedmanites are claiming responsibility for it. So it appears quite
easy — if the economy is doing well, the power of Friedman’s ideas,
if it then collapses then this event is unrelated to Friedman’s ideas…

So, perhaps it is not wise to put economists in charge of anything. After all,
as I blogged before there is an economist in charge of the Fed just
now, Ben S. Bernanke, who is also a fan of Friedman. Which explains why his grasp
of the roots of the crisis (and possible solutions) is so bad. Steven Keen has a
good overview
of this.

And in his 2003 interview Friedman indulges in the usual right-wing attack
on unions:

“Friedman: All I say is, resurrect the former economic miracle minister
Ludwig Erhard. He gave the market free reign, broke up the encrusted
structures, dismantled the bureaucracy and made the labor market
flexible. With the all-to powerful German unions that is just impossible.

FOCUS: Is the misery really all the unions’ fault?

Friedman: To a meaningful degree.

As Proudhon put it: “Political economy — that is, proprietary
despotism — can never be in the wrong: it must be the proletariat.”
(from his
“System of Economical Contradictions”
— and much better than you would think if you have just read Marx’s
diatribe against it, or just heard of it. Like most of Proudhon’s work,
it is worth reading).

I do like that quote. Must be in my top five Proudhon quotes, easily.

Hopefully AK Press will agree to my idea of a Proudhon Reader for
2010. Firstly, to make more of Proudhon’s work available for anarchists today
(you really cannot understand anarchism unless you understand Proudhon’s
critique of property, in fact I would go so far to say that you cannot be
an anarchist if you reject it). Secondly, 2010 is 170 years since he first
used “anarchist” to describe a socio-political theory so it makes sense to
mark the birth of anarchism as a named theory. I’ll keep you posted — and
feel free to suggest good material for entry in it.

And with that, I guess it is off to do other things. I’ll leave you with
the CNT song A las barricadas:

Until I blog again…