27/06: Taking Freedom: A Short Response to Herod's "Getting Free" Part Two
So James Herod covers most everything you can think of in this book as far as talking about a general mass strategy for overcoming capitalism. He talks about strategies that failed: Social democracy, Leninism, guerilla warfare, syndicalism, general strikes, strikes, unions, insurrections, civil disobedience, single issue campaigns, demonstrations, new social movements, boycotts, dropping out, luddism, publishing and education. This I can agree with, all of this has failed.
Where Herod goes wrong is by insisting on a strategy in the first place. Like the previous strategy I talked about in part one, this one is about growing our strength while weakening the strength of capitalism. His strategy is based on intention, its not simply about creating face-to-face connections and real community. Its about this AND its about being absorbed in a diliberate game of chess with the system. We must stop supporting the dominant economy and support the shadow economy we create as an alternative at the same time. Herod realistically announces that the state will be brutal to this strategy, as it is with all social movements that resist its authority.
Herod doesn't pull any punches and announces his intentions for an alternative civilization using this strategy that requires a total image. Not just understanding that we are in conflict with a totalizing way of life, but creating a new totalized life in the image that Herod proposes. However, Herod must be commended for avoiding the creation of a new ideology, instead insisting that this is a strategy of desire.
Herod's proposal uses several diliberate organs in his strategy, something I also took into account with my own personal strategy. These organs are: "autonomous, self‑governing, democratic neighborhoods (through the practice of the neighborhood assembly); self-managed projects; cooperatively operated households; and an association, by means of treaties, of neighborhoods one with another."
Herod get's more in depth with his strategy in chapter 7. What does he actually propose in the present? This is perhaps the greatest failing of these strategies, they often rely on the small business owner to initiate, if not run completely. Herod attempts to overcome this with several parts to this broad strategy. He suggests we: form neighborhood associations, employee associations, cooperative housing associations, build meeting halls, worker co-ops, convert other small business owners to the worker co-op lifestyle, change jobs to worker-owned when the opportunity presents itself, setup local currencies, organize community land trusts, will your house to a community controlled trust fund, switch to more environomentally friendly methods of energy, grow your own food, create neighborhood storehouses for mutual aid, support preventative healthcare and orthomolecular medicine, don't work hard in a dominant economy job, organize grassroots movements against ruling class offenses in our neighborhoods, force criminal laws to apply to capitalists, democratize our voluntary associations, reject divisions in knowledge (specialization), don't watch television/listen to the radio, support independent media, don't buy from the culture industry or commodified entertainment, recover our language, recover the capacity for self-defense, fight religion, negotiate global agreements, abolish war, get control of union pension funds, don't cooperate with the police, don't join the military or become a cop, don't become a boss, reject Robert's Rules of Order, don't deposit money in corporate banks, stay out of debt, break free from schooling, support unschooling, reject church and state certified marriage, break away from the nuclear family, don't recycle, don't wear a suit, don't play the lottery, reject and campaign against representative government.
This is all suggested for now, the present and this is why I like it. Given our circumstances, many of these ideas can be practiced or a dialog about their use can be created to overcome areas that Herod suggests that are disagreeable. They are part of what Herod calls a resistance culture and this I again must commend Herod on. A discussion on his points from any variety of anarchy can help develop our own ideas on what a resistance culture may look like.
After a resistance culture is astablished, Herod suggests we practice space seizures, but also stating that the space seizure would start happening after we've already established ourselves and we are assured victory, they are the last things we are to do.
Herod continues to explain throughout the last parts of his book on ideas revolving around his strategy and specific functions of the various associations. He defends thinking strategically, as that is the whole point to his book, he exposes that he's put a great deal of thought into this book, touching on how people can respect differences with his strategy or within his system. He outlines who controls the resources (the neighborhood assembly) and how big households and neighborhood assemblies may be.
Herod takes on both organic resistance and individualism, but does so in a way that strictly rejects both. Here is where Herod loses me as a critical supporter. Here is where Herod takes the path of sectarianism rather than finding some way for these ideas to be shared in some manner together. Organic resistance can easily take on many of his present suggestions for a resistance culture, organic resistance can even find his ideas on seizing space appealing, but organic resistance clearly can't accept the diliberate methods that Herod takes because like most mass strategies, failure is a drain in creating a mass strategy and success is political if there is no crisis for the creation of mass organs. It does indeed take years to make a resistance culture, but it isn't required to be seen as a diliberate strategy. We can create what we desire now and when a crisis occurs, our resistance culture will respond by joining with organic mass struggle, rather than creating it to manage the methods of resistance.
His attacks on what he calls "individualism" are completely uncalled for and divisive. Herod builds a strawman and attacks this so-called individualism in the same manner that Marx did over a hundred years ago to anarchists, the same way that Lenin attacked the left communists, the same way that Debbs attacked anarchists, the same way that Bookchin attacks "lifestylists", the same way that Staudenmeijer attack post-left anarchy, the same way the Price attacked "some" anarchists and so on. No thought goes into any sort of reconciliation, Herod is strictly on the side of "social anarchism" as if those lumped by his strawman were anti-social psychotics bent on poisoning the meaning of anarchy. This is too far, this is not a way to build bridges in the anarchist community, it is rather a way to start a war between potential allies. Herod attempts to speak for "classical anarchism" as if there were really such a thing. Like the 1950s to the conservatives, this looking backwards is unhealthy and is founded on misconceptions.
Anarchists have always been for individuals, but not all anarchists. Anarchy is the name for multiple tendencies that seek to resist the state and capitalism. The insurrections of 1848 were organic and were the foundation of Bakunin's ideas on resistance are not removed from his ideas on collectivism simply because one was a conspiracy while the other was a formal business association. Bakunin applauded the mutualists and their cooperatives but he also greatly embraced conspiracy to agitate and attack the social order. Bakunin wasn't immune to strategy, but he definately wasn't all about the system he is more popularly attributed to. Collectivism was part of his ideas on a future society and the creation of an anti-state resistance culture. The coop and labor movements are indeed very much apart of classic anarchy, but so are insurrections and covert action. Kropotkin also could be said to embrace a commune strategy modelled after the Paris Commune, but it was defended by the tactics of direct action and propaganda of the deed. Anarchist intervention never rejected the informal groups that make attacking the system possible. During the early period of classic anarchism, the differences between diliberate and organic were hardly assumed, it wasn't until later when diliberate groups in the workplace became legal that they became as diliberate as the co-operatives.
I see no reason to critique Herod's strawman here, I've already challenged these strawmen many times, as have other authors, yet they still continue to be written as if no challenges have ever occurred. Its my opinion that ALL of these authors read the critiques of "individualism" but not how the "individualists" respond. As a social anarchist I'll simply say that "individualist" authors must be challenged by "social anarchists" in a less dogmatic way on an individual basis. Staudenmaier comes close with his Anarchists in Wonderland and its responses, but he is properly taken to school by Jason McQuinn and Lawrence Jarach. Perhaps Herod would benefit from reading this debate and discussing his ideas with the various people and tendencies he lumps under "individualism".
Outside of this great flaw, I recommend reading this book. It may make you think about how contemporary anarchy can develop that isn't based on following the latest trend in political activity.
Where Herod goes wrong is by insisting on a strategy in the first place. Like the previous strategy I talked about in part one, this one is about growing our strength while weakening the strength of capitalism. His strategy is based on intention, its not simply about creating face-to-face connections and real community. Its about this AND its about being absorbed in a diliberate game of chess with the system. We must stop supporting the dominant economy and support the shadow economy we create as an alternative at the same time. Herod realistically announces that the state will be brutal to this strategy, as it is with all social movements that resist its authority.
Herod doesn't pull any punches and announces his intentions for an alternative civilization using this strategy that requires a total image. Not just understanding that we are in conflict with a totalizing way of life, but creating a new totalized life in the image that Herod proposes. However, Herod must be commended for avoiding the creation of a new ideology, instead insisting that this is a strategy of desire.
Herod's proposal uses several diliberate organs in his strategy, something I also took into account with my own personal strategy. These organs are: "autonomous, self‑governing, democratic neighborhoods (through the practice of the neighborhood assembly); self-managed projects; cooperatively operated households; and an association, by means of treaties, of neighborhoods one with another."
Herod get's more in depth with his strategy in chapter 7. What does he actually propose in the present? This is perhaps the greatest failing of these strategies, they often rely on the small business owner to initiate, if not run completely. Herod attempts to overcome this with several parts to this broad strategy. He suggests we: form neighborhood associations, employee associations, cooperative housing associations, build meeting halls, worker co-ops, convert other small business owners to the worker co-op lifestyle, change jobs to worker-owned when the opportunity presents itself, setup local currencies, organize community land trusts, will your house to a community controlled trust fund, switch to more environomentally friendly methods of energy, grow your own food, create neighborhood storehouses for mutual aid, support preventative healthcare and orthomolecular medicine, don't work hard in a dominant economy job, organize grassroots movements against ruling class offenses in our neighborhoods, force criminal laws to apply to capitalists, democratize our voluntary associations, reject divisions in knowledge (specialization), don't watch television/listen to the radio, support independent media, don't buy from the culture industry or commodified entertainment, recover our language, recover the capacity for self-defense, fight religion, negotiate global agreements, abolish war, get control of union pension funds, don't cooperate with the police, don't join the military or become a cop, don't become a boss, reject Robert's Rules of Order, don't deposit money in corporate banks, stay out of debt, break free from schooling, support unschooling, reject church and state certified marriage, break away from the nuclear family, don't recycle, don't wear a suit, don't play the lottery, reject and campaign against representative government.
This is all suggested for now, the present and this is why I like it. Given our circumstances, many of these ideas can be practiced or a dialog about their use can be created to overcome areas that Herod suggests that are disagreeable. They are part of what Herod calls a resistance culture and this I again must commend Herod on. A discussion on his points from any variety of anarchy can help develop our own ideas on what a resistance culture may look like.
After a resistance culture is astablished, Herod suggests we practice space seizures, but also stating that the space seizure would start happening after we've already established ourselves and we are assured victory, they are the last things we are to do.
Herod continues to explain throughout the last parts of his book on ideas revolving around his strategy and specific functions of the various associations. He defends thinking strategically, as that is the whole point to his book, he exposes that he's put a great deal of thought into this book, touching on how people can respect differences with his strategy or within his system. He outlines who controls the resources (the neighborhood assembly) and how big households and neighborhood assemblies may be.
Herod takes on both organic resistance and individualism, but does so in a way that strictly rejects both. Here is where Herod loses me as a critical supporter. Here is where Herod takes the path of sectarianism rather than finding some way for these ideas to be shared in some manner together. Organic resistance can easily take on many of his present suggestions for a resistance culture, organic resistance can even find his ideas on seizing space appealing, but organic resistance clearly can't accept the diliberate methods that Herod takes because like most mass strategies, failure is a drain in creating a mass strategy and success is political if there is no crisis for the creation of mass organs. It does indeed take years to make a resistance culture, but it isn't required to be seen as a diliberate strategy. We can create what we desire now and when a crisis occurs, our resistance culture will respond by joining with organic mass struggle, rather than creating it to manage the methods of resistance.
His attacks on what he calls "individualism" are completely uncalled for and divisive. Herod builds a strawman and attacks this so-called individualism in the same manner that Marx did over a hundred years ago to anarchists, the same way that Lenin attacked the left communists, the same way that Debbs attacked anarchists, the same way that Bookchin attacks "lifestylists", the same way that Staudenmeijer attack post-left anarchy, the same way the Price attacked "some" anarchists and so on. No thought goes into any sort of reconciliation, Herod is strictly on the side of "social anarchism" as if those lumped by his strawman were anti-social psychotics bent on poisoning the meaning of anarchy. This is too far, this is not a way to build bridges in the anarchist community, it is rather a way to start a war between potential allies. Herod attempts to speak for "classical anarchism" as if there were really such a thing. Like the 1950s to the conservatives, this looking backwards is unhealthy and is founded on misconceptions.
Anarchists have always been for individuals, but not all anarchists. Anarchy is the name for multiple tendencies that seek to resist the state and capitalism. The insurrections of 1848 were organic and were the foundation of Bakunin's ideas on resistance are not removed from his ideas on collectivism simply because one was a conspiracy while the other was a formal business association. Bakunin applauded the mutualists and their cooperatives but he also greatly embraced conspiracy to agitate and attack the social order. Bakunin wasn't immune to strategy, but he definately wasn't all about the system he is more popularly attributed to. Collectivism was part of his ideas on a future society and the creation of an anti-state resistance culture. The coop and labor movements are indeed very much apart of classic anarchy, but so are insurrections and covert action. Kropotkin also could be said to embrace a commune strategy modelled after the Paris Commune, but it was defended by the tactics of direct action and propaganda of the deed. Anarchist intervention never rejected the informal groups that make attacking the system possible. During the early period of classic anarchism, the differences between diliberate and organic were hardly assumed, it wasn't until later when diliberate groups in the workplace became legal that they became as diliberate as the co-operatives.
I see no reason to critique Herod's strawman here, I've already challenged these strawmen many times, as have other authors, yet they still continue to be written as if no challenges have ever occurred. Its my opinion that ALL of these authors read the critiques of "individualism" but not how the "individualists" respond. As a social anarchist I'll simply say that "individualist" authors must be challenged by "social anarchists" in a less dogmatic way on an individual basis. Staudenmaier comes close with his Anarchists in Wonderland and its responses, but he is properly taken to school by Jason McQuinn and Lawrence Jarach. Perhaps Herod would benefit from reading this debate and discussing his ideas with the various people and tendencies he lumps under "individualism".
Outside of this great flaw, I recommend reading this book. It may make you think about how contemporary anarchy can develop that isn't based on following the latest trend in political activity.
