*"* *Are layers of the Anarchists moving towards Trotsky's transitional method despite having this author having the worse aspects of Anaracism!* *"*
(The portions of this commentary are in regular type (made plain by the insertions of brackets <<...>> ) My replies are in Italics." <<Dear comrades, <<Allow me to share my thoughts as someone who has always been a passive Marxist—never part of an active organization, but a sympathizer with a modest understanding of Marxism. As an anarchist I have been an active Marxist for over 50 years. Thus I describe myself as an 'anarcho-Marxist'. And I believe that I have a more than "a modest understanding of Marxism", in particular, a grasp of Marxian economics--with which I am self-taught and thus have none of the prides and prejudices of the organizationally educated and thus indoctrinated. My understanding of 'political Marxism' is more challenged as I have never given a damn about the ebbs and flows of the 'isms' of Marxist history as I have always held that the situations facing the working class, at this point, at any point, have to be examined in their relationships not to the events of the past but to the desires of the future. And it is in that manner that the present needs be examined. Arguments amongst Marxists can be traced back to arguments that have existed since 1917 and before. My knowledge of political anarchism is much the same. I have read no Kropotkin and have no desire to engage with Proudhon. My anarchism is summed in but one sentence: "The fundamental equality of each and every one of us." All other political and economic positions follow from this 'prime directive'. <<If we analyze the current state of society using the method of Marx and Engels, I believe they might conclude that the "conquest of power by the proletariat" is no longer a viable possibility. In their time, the industrial proletariat was a revolutionary force capable of leading a transformation toward communism. However, society has undergone profound changes since then. "...the 'conquest of power by the proletariat' is no longer a viable possibility..." Such a 'conquest' is the only possibility of changing this world into a place fit for human beings. <<The industrial proletariat, as it existed in Marx and Engels’ era, no longer represents the majority of the population. Nor does it have the potential to act as the driving force for revolutionary change. The large industries that once concentrated workers in vast numbers have largely disappeared, replaced by fragmented and decentralized forms of production.>> Accepting the just above, which I don't, the comrade's analysis seems not to rise but falls upon a preconceived idea as to what it is that the 'industrial proletariat' (IP) is. Yes. Workers at Boeing are IP. But workers in agriculture picking fruit are IP. Health care workers are IP. School teachers are IP. Starbucks workers are IP. In short, wherever a laborer toils so as to produce, for the capitalist, a product that is a bearer of surplus-value, there that worker is an IP. Today's organization of production, whether the workforces of mega-giants such as Amazon or 'small businesses'--defined as having fewer than five hundred employees and thus qualify for the U.S. Small Business Administration--are such organizations where there lurks the 'Moorlocks' that are the IP. 'Moorlocks' that must and will rise up out of dungeon to slay the 'Eloi' that for centuries they have toiled in the shadoes to feed those baskingin the sunshine of oppression. There are two major classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. 1 ( #sdfootnote1sym ) There is but one clash: the battle for the value-added by labor above its own costs-of-production, i.e. surplus-value. <<Moreover, workers today are no longer in the position of having "nothing to lose but their chains," as described in The Communist Manifesto. Many now possess property, enjoy social mobility, or find some degree of comfort within the existing system, making the abolition of private property a far less compelling objective. Marxists have never called for the abolition of private ownership of the means of living. The 'private property' which we seek to abolish is the societal division between those who own the 'means of production' and those who own only themselves and their ability to work, i.e. their 'labor-power'. In such a division the latter can only 'make a living' via terms dictated by the owners. <<In short, the material conditions that once enabled the proletariat to act as a revolutionary force have changed so dramatically that a proletarian-led revolution no longer seems feasible.>> It will only become feasible when two circumstances arise: 1.) that we recognize the underlying unity of all workers and cease the sub-conscious and conscious division of the members of our class into middle-, working- and so-called lumpen-classes; and, 2.) when we come to our senses and realize that the internecine battle amongst the members of the -isms of Marxism has been and is today the single most important part of our oppression that continues and will continue. Finally, we must recognize the comradeship of all who stand on our side of the class struggle line. Matters not how they choose to wage struggle so long as the overriding, underlying and unifying theme is the defeat of the bourgeoisie. "We have nothing to lose but our chains." JAI 1 ( #sdfootnote1anc ) There are two minor classes: the independent producer that owns his own means of production but employs no wage labor (“In that original state of things, which precedes both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer. He has neither landlord nor master to share with him.” Adam Smith. “Wealth of Nations.” https:// www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch08.htm ( http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch08.htm ) ) and the petit-bourgeoisie who owns more that his own means of production, and is thus able to employ workers that produce surplus-value, but must himself be apart of the production process adding additional value necessary for the venture to succeed. (“Of course he (the capitalist) can, like her labourer, take to work himself, participate directly in the process of production, but he is then only a hybrid between capitalist and labourer, a ‘small master’.” Marx. Capital (Vol 1) . https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch11.htm ) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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