Comment to Thomas...... You wrote: "I stand in awe, and then I bow, before John's "Egalitarians". They are like no other human beings I have ever met. Every such being I have ever known, is a fallible human being, subject to social relations and conditions not of their own making." .................. I invite you to read aloud your words: " subject to social relations and conditions not of their own making".... And then ponder: WHAT IF SOCIAL RELATIONS AND CONDITIONS.... profoundly changed? Wouldn't that ALSO mean, given your beliefs.. that their ways of thinking and behaving would also? By your very own thoughts.. the answer would have to be ... "Yes." ... And that would then mean, your view of people .. would also.. This, by your own logic, Thomas...
WHY, at the end of this article, are you listed at "548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104" ? More and more people in the USA (and perhaps elsewhere, too) now work for a "me-alone wage" rather than for a "family wage, just as more and more capitalists seem to be creating for "max-for-me profit" rather than for "reasonable, society-considering profit."
“One does not need to have read Karl Marx’s Das Kapital with all of its unnecessary complexities and predictions to understand why wage labor is inherently exploitative and a form of oppression.”
To reduce Das Kapital to unnecessary complexity is disingenuous at best. It is a dense volume and that is because the subject IS complex.
What the Bolsheviks faced post 1917 — a vast peasant population emerging from centuries of Czarism — is not comparable to Spain in 1936. This is historical falsity.
Much to admire and learn from about Spain in the 1930’s, a struggle in which many Socialists and Communists participated including from the US.
Are you saying that one DOES need to read Das Kapital to understand why wage labor is inherently exploitative and a form of oppression? Or do you agree with my assertion that one does not?
In the service of his own "Brand" new ideology, (the latest and the greatest of them all!) John is being dishonest. He writes here as follows, "In rural areas there were voluntary agricultural collectives formed by the peasants where the former rich landowners had fled to the part of Spain that the fascist general Franco still controlled. Peasants who did not wish to join the collective were considered friends of those who did, were admitted to the local assemblies that were the sovereign power in the local community, and were allowed to own as much—and ONLY as much!—land as they could farm with their OWN labor without being allowed to hire wage labor."
So everything between the collectivizing and the property owning peasants was just peachy keen friendliness, hunh, John?
That's bull. And John knows it already. How do I know he knows it? Because in the process of debating him before the Green Liberty Caucus, recently, I wrote the following:
"John’s assertion, based on this naive view, that the anarchists creation of agricultural collectives throughout Catalonia was on a purely voluntary basis, was disputed by historian Burnett Bolloton, in his book, The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution. He revealed that while many of the peasants joined the collectives voluntarily, many were reluctant, and only did so because they came under enormous pressure by the anarchists." https://bmccproftomsmith7.substack.com/p/talk-on-behalf-of-the-white-rose
John is also purposefully ignoring a debate we had even more recently, where I asked him a question he never answered to my satisfaction. "how [would his] assemblies ... stop ... [a powerful socio-economic] dynamic leading to a significant minority or even majority of the members of these local assemblies themselves, opting out of collective property ownership/sharing,, settling into a petite bourgeois consciousness, and then voting to change the laws to permit themselves to hire wage labor?"
His reply?: "Egalitarians use all the force they can muster, including military force, to oppose anybody hiring wage labor and they either succeed or they fail, meaning the egalitarian revolution either succeeds or fails, but at least it won’t fail for not explicitly advocating egalitarian principles. "
His reply, in a nutshell, is that his "Egalitarians", will use their willpower to stop this.
My reply to this: "I stand in awe, and then I bow, before John's "Egalitarians". They are like no other human beings I have ever met. Every such being I have ever known, is a fallible human being, subject to social relations and conditions not of their own making.
His Egalitarians are super-beings. Like God Almighty, they are Unmoved Movers. They are not subject to the socio-economic dynamics that they themselves set in motion."
Dear Thomas, the capitalists and fascists are in complete total control of every aspect of life on this planet, and things are set to get much much worse from January, and yet you seem to be directing all your passion, energy, ingenuity, knowledge and focus and ire into a personal vendetta to put down, fight and destroy someone who barely has a couple of likes on his posts and whose reach is so tiny that it is beyond miniscule, simply becasue his suggestion on how to free ourselves from the horrors of capitalism and the abusive ruling class doesn't exactly match yours. It all just seems so childish, ego-driven and petty...
I do appreciate and am thankful for your passion and knowledge abd what you bring to the table and you're of course free to do as you see fit but i can't help but wonder if there might not be a better use of our energy, passion, knowledge, time and focus, seeing the profound control that the ruling class have over every aspect of life on this planet and seeing the profound fascist wave washing over the planet...
In other words, we have a common enemy. I wonder if it won't it be much wiser and much more productive to focus our passion, energy and time on that rather than on personal animosity and putting down and attacking and trying to destroy each other?! Attacking those who barely have any reach at all and who are hated by the ruling class..
I can't help but wonder if this is really the best use of our passion, ingenuity, energy, time and focus, and does this bring any real good into the world?!
Hey, Tribal, these debates are important, to me. If they are not to you, then that's fine. Don't try to interfere with my life, and I won't interfere with yours. I choose where I put my passion, ingenuity, energy, time and focus. Got that?
Thomas says that I am being dishonest in saying that the Spanish anarchists' rural agriculture collectives were voluntary. Thomas says that Burnett Bolloten shows, in his book The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution, that in joining the collectives they "only did so because they came under enormous pressure by the anarchists."
What was this "enormous pressure" according to Bolloten? Here are Bolloten's words on this matter [pg. 257]
“As a consequence, the fate of the peasant owner and tenant farmer in the communities occupied by the CNT-FAI militia was determined from the outset; for although a meeting of the population was generally held to decide on the establishment of the collective system, the vote was always taken by acclamation, and the presence of armed militiamen never failed to impose respect and fear on all opponents. Even if the peasant proprietor and tenant farmer were not compelled to adhere to the collective system, life was made difficult for recalcitrants; not only were they prevented from employing hired labor and disposing freely of their crops, as has already been seen, 61 but they were often denied all benefits enjoyed by members. 62 In practice, this meant that in the villages where libertarian communism had been established they were not allowed to receive the services of the collectivized barber shops, to use the ovens of the communal bakery and the means of transport and agricultural equipment of the collective farms, or to obtain supplies of food from the communal warehouses and collectivized stores. Moreover, the tenant farmer, who had believed himself freed from the payment of rent by the execution or flight of the landowner or of his steward, was often compelled to continue such payment to the village committee. 63 All these factors combined to exert pressure almost as powerful as the butt of the rifle and eventually forced the small owners and tenant farmers in many villages to relinquish their land and other possessions to the collective farms. As Souchy put it: “Those instances in which the small owners gave up their property for idealistic reasons were few, although not altogether rare. In some cases fear of seizure by force was the reason for relinquishing their land in favor of the collectives. 64 But nearly always the reasons were economic.”
— The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution by Burnett Bolloten
Judge for yourself if the anarchists in Spain did right or wrong.
Note that Bolloten affirms that the peasants were not allowed to hire wage labor, in stark contrast I might point out, to the Bolsheviks who relied on wage labor and allowed the Kulak farmers to employ it.
Yes maybe there is an aspirational aspect to John's writings but often people just need to be convinced that thd dog eat dog society is not the only way. Thanks for postinv your thoughts though.
Comment to Thomas...... You wrote: "I stand in awe, and then I bow, before John's "Egalitarians". They are like no other human beings I have ever met. Every such being I have ever known, is a fallible human being, subject to social relations and conditions not of their own making." .................. I invite you to read aloud your words: " subject to social relations and conditions not of their own making".... And then ponder: WHAT IF SOCIAL RELATIONS AND CONDITIONS.... profoundly changed? Wouldn't that ALSO mean, given your beliefs.. that their ways of thinking and behaving would also? By your very own thoughts.. the answer would have to be ... "Yes." ... And that would then mean, your view of people .. would also.. This, by your own logic, Thomas...
WHY, at the end of this article, are you listed at "548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104" ? More and more people in the USA (and perhaps elsewhere, too) now work for a "me-alone wage" rather than for a "family wage, just as more and more capitalists seem to be creating for "max-for-me profit" rather than for "reasonable, society-considering profit."
I think that’s the Substack address in California.
John's posts are like dense neuron stars which contain links and compressed infornation explaining so much of our current predicaments.
“One does not need to have read Karl Marx’s Das Kapital with all of its unnecessary complexities and predictions to understand why wage labor is inherently exploitative and a form of oppression.”
To reduce Das Kapital to unnecessary complexity is disingenuous at best. It is a dense volume and that is because the subject IS complex.
What the Bolsheviks faced post 1917 — a vast peasant population emerging from centuries of Czarism — is not comparable to Spain in 1936. This is historical falsity.
Much to admire and learn from about Spain in the 1930’s, a struggle in which many Socialists and Communists participated including from the US.
Are you saying that one DOES need to read Das Kapital to understand why wage labor is inherently exploitative and a form of oppression? Or do you agree with my assertion that one does not?
No, a reading of Das Kapital is not necessary to oppose wage slavery.
A workers’ daily experience can be enough.
In the service of his own "Brand" new ideology, (the latest and the greatest of them all!) John is being dishonest. He writes here as follows, "In rural areas there were voluntary agricultural collectives formed by the peasants where the former rich landowners had fled to the part of Spain that the fascist general Franco still controlled. Peasants who did not wish to join the collective were considered friends of those who did, were admitted to the local assemblies that were the sovereign power in the local community, and were allowed to own as much—and ONLY as much!—land as they could farm with their OWN labor without being allowed to hire wage labor."
So everything between the collectivizing and the property owning peasants was just peachy keen friendliness, hunh, John?
That's bull. And John knows it already. How do I know he knows it? Because in the process of debating him before the Green Liberty Caucus, recently, I wrote the following:
"John’s assertion, based on this naive view, that the anarchists creation of agricultural collectives throughout Catalonia was on a purely voluntary basis, was disputed by historian Burnett Bolloton, in his book, The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution. He revealed that while many of the peasants joined the collectives voluntarily, many were reluctant, and only did so because they came under enormous pressure by the anarchists." https://bmccproftomsmith7.substack.com/p/talk-on-behalf-of-the-white-rose
John is also purposefully ignoring a debate we had even more recently, where I asked him a question he never answered to my satisfaction. "how [would his] assemblies ... stop ... [a powerful socio-economic] dynamic leading to a significant minority or even majority of the members of these local assemblies themselves, opting out of collective property ownership/sharing,, settling into a petite bourgeois consciousness, and then voting to change the laws to permit themselves to hire wage labor?"
His reply?: "Egalitarians use all the force they can muster, including military force, to oppose anybody hiring wage labor and they either succeed or they fail, meaning the egalitarian revolution either succeeds or fails, but at least it won’t fail for not explicitly advocating egalitarian principles. "
His reply, in a nutshell, is that his "Egalitarians", will use their willpower to stop this.
My reply to this: "I stand in awe, and then I bow, before John's "Egalitarians". They are like no other human beings I have ever met. Every such being I have ever known, is a fallible human being, subject to social relations and conditions not of their own making.
His Egalitarians are super-beings. Like God Almighty, they are Unmoved Movers. They are not subject to the socio-economic dynamics that they themselves set in motion."
"
Dear Thomas, the capitalists and fascists are in complete total control of every aspect of life on this planet, and things are set to get much much worse from January, and yet you seem to be directing all your passion, energy, ingenuity, knowledge and focus and ire into a personal vendetta to put down, fight and destroy someone who barely has a couple of likes on his posts and whose reach is so tiny that it is beyond miniscule, simply becasue his suggestion on how to free ourselves from the horrors of capitalism and the abusive ruling class doesn't exactly match yours. It all just seems so childish, ego-driven and petty...
I do appreciate and am thankful for your passion and knowledge abd what you bring to the table and you're of course free to do as you see fit but i can't help but wonder if there might not be a better use of our energy, passion, knowledge, time and focus, seeing the profound control that the ruling class have over every aspect of life on this planet and seeing the profound fascist wave washing over the planet...
In other words, we have a common enemy. I wonder if it won't it be much wiser and much more productive to focus our passion, energy and time on that rather than on personal animosity and putting down and attacking and trying to destroy each other?! Attacking those who barely have any reach at all and who are hated by the ruling class..
I can't help but wonder if this is really the best use of our passion, ingenuity, energy, time and focus, and does this bring any real good into the world?!
Hey, Tribal, these debates are important, to me. If they are not to you, then that's fine. Don't try to interfere with my life, and I won't interfere with yours. I choose where I put my passion, ingenuity, energy, time and focus. Got that?
Thomas says that I am being dishonest in saying that the Spanish anarchists' rural agriculture collectives were voluntary. Thomas says that Burnett Bolloten shows, in his book The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution, that in joining the collectives they "only did so because they came under enormous pressure by the anarchists."
What was this "enormous pressure" according to Bolloten? Here are Bolloten's words on this matter [pg. 257]
“As a consequence, the fate of the peasant owner and tenant farmer in the communities occupied by the CNT-FAI militia was determined from the outset; for although a meeting of the population was generally held to decide on the establishment of the collective system, the vote was always taken by acclamation, and the presence of armed militiamen never failed to impose respect and fear on all opponents. Even if the peasant proprietor and tenant farmer were not compelled to adhere to the collective system, life was made difficult for recalcitrants; not only were they prevented from employing hired labor and disposing freely of their crops, as has already been seen, 61 but they were often denied all benefits enjoyed by members. 62 In practice, this meant that in the villages where libertarian communism had been established they were not allowed to receive the services of the collectivized barber shops, to use the ovens of the communal bakery and the means of transport and agricultural equipment of the collective farms, or to obtain supplies of food from the communal warehouses and collectivized stores. Moreover, the tenant farmer, who had believed himself freed from the payment of rent by the execution or flight of the landowner or of his steward, was often compelled to continue such payment to the village committee. 63 All these factors combined to exert pressure almost as powerful as the butt of the rifle and eventually forced the small owners and tenant farmers in many villages to relinquish their land and other possessions to the collective farms. As Souchy put it: “Those instances in which the small owners gave up their property for idealistic reasons were few, although not altogether rare. In some cases fear of seizure by force was the reason for relinquishing their land in favor of the collectives. 64 But nearly always the reasons were economic.”
— The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution by Burnett Bolloten
https://a.co/9CEFqpoJ
Judge for yourself if the anarchists in Spain did right or wrong.
Note that Bolloten affirms that the peasants were not allowed to hire wage labor, in stark contrast I might point out, to the Bolsheviks who relied on wage labor and allowed the Kulak farmers to employ it.
Oh, so this is YOUR idea of peachy keen friendliness, hunh?
It sounds to me more like Noam Chomsky's sentiment toward the unvaxxed: if they need food, that's their problem.
Case closed.
Yes maybe there is an aspirational aspect to John's writings but often people just need to be convinced that thd dog eat dog society is not the only way. Thanks for postinv your thoughts though.