Anarchic update news all over the world - 5.03.2017
Today's Topics:
1. Britain, freedom news: France: March against police killings
unites the left (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Southern Africa: zabalaza.net: Bakunin for Anti-Imperialists
by Arthur Lehning (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #269 - Economy: An
inoffensive strategy against capitalism (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Poland, rozbrat: 6th anniversary of the murder of Jolanta
Brzeska - the opening of the square in Warsaw [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Greece, Libertarian Thessaloniki Initiative: Concentration
in the courts against auctions - 1/3 - Housing is a social good
and not a commodity (gr) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Over a hundred organisations from around the world, including a number of anarchist groups
and British organisations, are backing the callout for a massive march in Paris to take
place on March 13th against police brutality. Led by the families of people who have died
at the hands of police and following on from weeks of protests and clashes in the streets,
organisers say that, as the law is adapting to the needs of the police rather than the
people, France's working classes must assert dignity and unity. The main callout is
translated below. ---- One per month. That is, on average, the number of fathers,
brothers, sons that we lose because of the brutality of the forces of order. A brutality
that takes several forms, from restraint techniques that lead to asphyxiation of the
victims, to punches, bullets or Taserings which, in the worst cases, prove fatal.
Regularly, for more than 40 years, our people are thus killed by the French State, at the
hands of those who are ironically called "guardians of peace." Regularly for more than 40
years, it is with the most abusive impunity and campaigns of criminalisation that they
respond to the mobilisations of those who claim truth and justice for their dead. The
police, judicial and political persecution against the Traoré family, to whom we express
our solidarity, is proof of this. Every time, it's the same story.
The repression that targets us, we families of victims, has been accentuated by the state
of emergency. All abuses have become possible, leading to tragic consequences. It is no
longer the police which must adapt to the law, it is the law that adapts to the police.
And we are far from the only ones to have been targeted by the reinforcement of the
security services and State violence. In 2015, the government declared what amounted to an
internal war. It traced migrants and those who defended them, pursuing its traditional
repression of "blacks," "Arabs," "Muslims," "Roma" and more generally of working-class
neighbourhoods, including searches, house arrests and the completely arbitrary closure of
mosques. In addition there is the social quagmire that (Blairite former prime minister)
Manuel Valls and consorts have created, especially in the context of mobilisation against
the labour law. Faced with the resistance of working-class neighbourhoods and social
movements, violence has been unleashed against previously protected categories.
The terrible attacks we saw in 2015 and 2016 have reinforced the arsenal of the security
services, as they are the direct result of the war policy that France and its allies have
been leading abroad. The French State, which still places all its weight on the peoples it
dominates in Africa, extends this policy into the Middle East even as it ratifies the
occupation of Palestine. The "fight against terrorism" resembles a permanent aggression
against innocent people. It is, among other things, what fuels the humanitarian crisis of
refugees, themselves treated cynically as a potential "terror" threat. It is the snake
that bites its tail - this climate of internal war makes it possible to justify ever-more
brutal control over the population and delivers a license for violence to the forces of
order, which repress all those who voice dissent and all those, from the families of
victims to demonstrators against the law, working through the militants of the
working-class neighborhoods of the ZAD, dare to organise against the State, claim justice
and assert their dignity.
We are all affected!
The presidential campaign is not going to fix anything. On the contrary. Almost every new
statement is an insult to our struggles, our concerns and our needs.
Because we will not submit to arbitrary power,
Because the words "justice" and "dignity" still make sense to us,
Because we believe that it is essential to organise together to fight against this war on
the poor, migrants, descendants of the colonised,
We call on all those who feel concerned by these issues to join us in all future
initiatives and to participate very widely in the March for Justice and Dignity that will
take place on Sunday, March 19th, 2017 in Paris. Against the hogra, against humiliation,
against racism and police violence, against the cowardly wars made on our behalf against
peoples who have done us no harm.
Let us find hope, strength and unity in order to be together in the name of justice and
dignity.
First signatory families:
Family of Lahoucine Ait Omghar - Family of Amine Bentounsi - Family of Hocine Bouras -
Family of Abdoulaye Camara - Family of Lamine Dieng - Family of Wissam El Yamni - Family
of Amadou Koumé - Family of Mourad Touat - Family of Ali Ziri - Family of Jean-Pierre
Ferrara - Family of Rémi Fraisse - Family of Babacar Gueye
With the support of:
Truth and Justice Committee for Lamine Dieng - Truth and Justice Committee for Mamadou
Marega - Truth and Justice Committee for Abou Bakari Tandia - Truth and Justice Collective
for Babacar Gueye
Collective signatures
https://freedomnews.org.uk/france-march-against-police-killings-unites-the-left/
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Message: 2
On imperialism itself,[Mikhail] Bakunin [1814-1876] has nothing specifically to say. That
is not strange, because imperialism in its modern form had not yet appeared; besides,
opposition to imperialism by a revolutionary is a rather obvious thing. But I think
Bakunin's writings can be useful to anti-imperialists in several ways. Firstly, on account
of the general view held by Bakunin about the essence of the revolutionary struggle and
his conceptions about federalism and the state. Secondly on account of his activities in
the eighty forties. ---- As far as the last point is concerned, it is clear that I don't
wish to stress it too much. All historical parallels can be abusive. However, it is not
abusive to point out the similarities between various kinds of Nineteenth Century
nationalism and anti-imperialism in our time. This is not only because a great deal of
today's anti-imperialist fight is carried out on nationalist platforms, but also on
account of the intensity with which the banner of then and that of today monopolise the
attention of men with radical consciousness. In this respect, Bakunin has important things
to say.
BAKUNIN FOR ANTI-IMPERIALISTS
By Arthur Lehning
[Marked up by Leroy Maisiri, ZACF]
THE USE OF READING BAKUNIN FOR ANTI-IMPERIALISTS
On imperialism itself,[Mikhail] Bakunin [1814-1876] has nothing specifically to say. That
is not strange, because imperialism in its modern form had not yet appeared; besides,
opposition to imperialism by a revolutionary is a rather obvious thing. But I think
Bakunin's writings can be useful to anti-imperialists in several ways. Firstly, on account
of the general view held by Bakunin about the essence of the revolutionary struggle and
his conceptions about federalism and the state. Secondly on account of his activities in
the eighty forties.
As far as the last point is concerned, it is clear that I don't wish to stress it too
much. All historical parallels can be abusive. However, it is not abusive to point out the
similarities between various kinds of Nineteenth Century nationalism and anti-imperialism
in our time. This is not only because a great deal of today's anti-imperialist fight is
carried out on nationalist platforms, but also on account of the intensity with which the
banner of then and that of today monopolise the attention of men with radical
consciousness. In this respect, Bakunin has important things to say.
[BAKUNIN FROM NATIONALISM TO ANARCHISM]
Bakunin's so-called "revolutionary Pan-Slavism" in the 1840s is usually misunderstood. In
his famous Appeal to the Slavs (1848) he advocated a coalition between the Slavs of
Austria, the Hungarians and the democratic Germans in order to liquidate the Austrian
Empire and to coalesce with the Poles for an independent Poland and a revolution in
Russia. He hoped that a Slav Federation would encourage the Slavs to take part in the
struggle the revolution was waging throughout Europe. The social liberation of the masses
and the emancipation of the suppressed nationalities should, in the view he then held,
lead to a universal federation of European republics.
After the failure of the Polish insurrection[for independence - Ed.]of 1863, however,
Bakunin no longer believed in using the banner of nationalism for social revolutionary
aims. By 1864 he had definitely formulated the philosophical, political and socialist
ideas which are associated with his name. From then on he would defend social revolution
on an international scale, and reject every form of nationalism. Nationality is not a
principle, he wrote, it is a fact, as legitimate as individuality. But neither peace nor
the unification of Europe would be possible as long as the centralized states continued to
exist.
[FIGHTING IMPERIALISM, BUT NOT THROUGH NATIONALISM]
The point I wish to make is that yesterday's nationalist faith, like the anti-imperialist
dedication of many present-day revolutionaries, though deserving our admiration, can be
insidious and lead to dangerously wrong conclusions - such as that by putting an end to
imperialist domination the revolution will be achieved and the way towards socialism be paved.
No one will deny the importance of analysing modern forms of imperialism, but it is not
less important to be cautious about the methods to be used in this fight if one wants to
prevent replacing imperialist domination by a national form of exploitation and despotism.
This, of course, involves the fundamental question of what means to employ to achieve the
aim of socialism and freedom; and experience allows us to say that the end of imperialism
and the destruction of capitalism in a given country does not necessarily solve the
problem of oppression.
We may ask meaningfully the capital question whether the instauration of some kind of
revolutionary state brings us any nearer to a real socialist society. I don't intend to
try to answer it here, only to insist that it is not an academic question as much as it
seems. Few people will deny the fact that in the so-called socialist countries the state
is not withering away, but there might still be some who think that their regimes may
easier pave its way. This, however, may be doubted in the light of the dominating trend of
these countries and in that of the history of the last five decades.
[IMPERIALISM AND STATISM VERSUS SOCIALISM]
Bakunin's view has importance also in that it does not see a break between nationalism and
imperialism, state domination inland and abroad. Marx and the Marxists considered
imperialism primarily as a consequence of capitalism, Bakunin saw it as a consequence of
strong states and centralized power. Obviously, there are imperialist campaigns in the
twentieth century that cannot be explained in terms of economic forces. Although Bakunin
agreed with most of the Marxist analysis of the economic system, he did not believe that
socialism could be achieved by centralizing power, in which hand it ever was.
Modern capitalist production and banking speculation, Bakunin wrote, demand for their full
development an advanced centralised state apparatus. The modern state is necessarily a
military state in its aims, and a military state is driven on by the very same logic to
become a conquering state. A strong state can only have one foundation: military and
bureaucratic centralisation.
Every state, even if dressed up in the most liberal and democratic form, is necessarily
based upon domination and violence, that is upon despotism - concealed despotism, but not
less dangerous.
For Bakunin, equality without liberty was an irredeemable fraud, "perpetuated by deceivers
to deceive fools". Equality must be created by "the spontaneous organisation of the work
and the common property of the manufacturing associations and by the equally spontaneous
federation of the communities, not by the supreme and paternal activity of the state".
Equality without liberty meant for him the despotism of the state, and in his opinion the
state cannot survive for a single day without "possessing an exploiting and privileged
class: the bureaucracy". The conspiracy of Babeuf and all similar attempts to establish a
socialist society were bound to fail, because in all these systems equality was associated
with the power and authority of the state and in consequence excluded liberty.
The most sinister alliance imaginable would combine socialism and absolutism - that is to
say, the aspirations of the people for economic liberation and material prosperity with
dictatorship and the concentration of all political and social forces in the state:
"May the future preserve us from the benevolence of despotism, and may it also save us
from the damaging and stultifying consequences of authoritarian, doctrinaire or
institutional socialism. Let us be socialists, but let us never become sheep. Let us seek
justice, complete political, economic and social justice, but without any sacrifice of
liberty. There can be no life, no humanity without liberty, and a form of socialism which
excluded liberty or did not accept it as a basis and as the only creative principle, would
lead us straight back to slavery and bestiality".
[PEOPLE'S POWER OR STATE POWER]
For these reasons, Bakunin opposed the belief that a social revolution can be decreed and
organised by a dictatorship or by a constituent assembly set up by a political revolution.
Only after the abolition of the state - the first, the essential condition for real
freedom - can society be reorganized, but not from above, not according to some visionary
plan, nor by decrees spewed forth by some dictatorial power. This would simply lead,
again, to the establishment of a state and to the formation of a ruling "aristocracy",
i.e. a whole class of people who have nothing in common with the masses and who will begin
to exploit and suppress the people all over again, under the pretence of acting in the
general interest, or in order to save the state. "The victory of the Jacobins or the
Blanquists[bourgeois and socialist revolutionaries advocating dictatorship - Ed.]would
mean the death of the revolution".
The Great[French]Revolution, which for the first time in history had proclaimed the
liberty of citizens and men, by making itself the heir of the monarchy which it had
destroyed, revived at the same time this negation of all liberty, centralisation and
omnipotence of the state. "Seventy- five years of sad and harsh experience", Bakunin wrote
to a Frenchman in 1868: "spent in sterile tossing between a freedom that was several times
recovered and always lost again, and state despotism ever more victorious, have proved to
France and the world that in 1793 your Girondins were right against your Jacobins.
Robespierre, Saint-Just, Carnot, Couthon, Cambon and so many other citizens of the
Montagne were great and pure patriots, but it is nonetheless true that they established
the machine of government, that formidable centralisation of the state, which made the
military dictatorship of Napoleon I possible, natural, necessary, and which, having
survived all subsequent revolutions, by no means diminished but rather preserved, cosseted
and developed by the Restoration and by the July Monarchy as by the Republic of 1848, was
bound to lead ultimately to the destruction of all your liberties".
[DEMOCRACY FROM BELOW: COLLECTIVES, ASSEMBLIES, DELEGATES, MILITIAS]
A radical revolution can only be brought about by an attack on the institutions and by the
destruction of property and its associate, the state. Then it will not be necessary to
destroy people and thereby provoke the inevitable reaction which the massacre of the
people always causes in every society.
That is, for Bakunin, the great secret of revolution. It must begin with the dissolution
of the state; the disbanding of the army and the police; the abolition of the courts; the
burning of all bonds, bills and securities; the repeal of those bourgeois laws which
sanction private property, and their replacement by expropriation. The entire social
capital - including public buildings, raw materials, the property owned by church and
state - should be put in the hands of the workers' organizations. At the outbreak of the
revolution the community should be organized by the "Permanent Federation of the
Barricades". The council of the revolutionary community should consist of one or two
delegates from each barricade, one from each street or suburb; these deputies, with a
binding mandate, should always be responsible, and subject to recall.
Bakunin did not mean that there could be a revolution without violence, but that this
should be directed against institutions rather than against persons. The revolution
should, however, not develop a new authority, i.e. the right to coerce. Those who carry
out the repression will do so with the approval of the revolutionaries; this is the only
legitimation for violence should be short and not lead to an organization invested with
authority to repress. In all his writings Bakunin rejected the idea of a "revolutionary
government", of "Committees of Public Safety", including the so-called "dictatorship of
the proletariat". For such a new authority, such a "proletarian state", in theory
representing the workers, would lead in practice to a new ruling class.
Revolution means to overthrow the state, because social revolution must put an end to the
old system of organization based upon violence, giving full liberty to the masses, groups,
communes and associations, and likewise to the individuals themselves. It would destroy
once and for all the historic cause of all violence, the power and the very existence of
the state, the downfall of which will carry down with it all the iniquities of juridical
right and all the falsehoods of the various religious cults, that simply are the
consecration, ideal as well as real, of all the violence represented, guaranteed and
furthered by the state.
[THE NEED FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY IDEA]
Poverty and despondency are not sufficient to provoke a social revolution. They may lead
to local revolts, but are inadequate to arouse whole masses of people. Only when the
people are stirred by a universal idea evolving from the depths of the folk instinct and
clarified by events and experience, when people have a general idea of their rights,
revolution can take place.
One cannot aim at destruction without having at least a remote conception of the new order
that should succeed to the one extent; and the more vividly that future is visualized, the
more powerful is the force of destruction. The nearer such visualization approaches the
truth, that is the more it conforms to the necessary development of the actual social
world, the more salutary are the results of destructive action, determined not only by the
degree of its intensity but also by the means it takes to reach the positive ideal.
Exploitation and oppression are not merely economic and political, and would therefore not
be automatically abolished by a conquest of political power and the organization of the
new economic system. They have one common source: authority.
Bakunin held the view that every dictatorship could have no aim but that of
self-perpetuation and that it could beget only slavery in the people tolerating it.
Freedom can only be created by freedom. The new social organization should be set up by
the free integration of workers' associations, villages, communes and regions from below
upwards, conforming to the needs and instincts of the people.
[GLOBALIZATION FROM BELOW]
That was what Bakunin meant by federalism. Smaller groups should federate into greater units.
Of course he was well aware that a certain economic centralization was inevitable, as a
consequence of the development of large scale production, but he rejected the view that
these problems could only be solved by political centralisation. He insisted on the need
of collective ownership of property and argued that if the authoritarian state, with its
unnatural centralisation, would become the basis of social organisation, the unavoidable
result would be the destruction of the liberty of individual man and of smaller groups,
and this would lead to new exploitation and to endless wars.
In Bakunin's theory, free productive associations, having become their own masters, would
expand one day beyond national frontiers and form one vast economic federation, with a
parliament informed by detailed statistics on a world scale, that would decide and
distribute the output of world industry among the various countries, so that there would
be no longer or hardly ever industrial crisis, stagnation, disasters and waste of capital:
human labour, emancipation, each and every man would regenerate the world.
[WORKING CLASS AND PEASANT REVOLUTION]
Contrary to Marx, Bakunin generally regarded the peasants as a revolutionary force, though
historically the essential role belonged to the proletarians of the cities. In his Letters
to a Frenchman, written two months after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war[1870]and
in which Bakunin exposed his views on the way the revolutionary movement had to take, he
gave practical advice how to overcome the antagonism between workers and peasants. Their
fatal antagonism had to be eliminated, otherwise the revolution would be paralysed. It
would be necessary to undermine in fact, and not in words, the authority of the state.
Bakunin advocated that delegates should be sent to the villages to promote a revolutionary
movement amongst the peasants. Communism or collectivism should not be imposed on them,
even if the workers had enough power to do so, because such an authoritarian communism
would need the regularly organized violence of the state, and this would lead to the
reestablishment of authority and a new privileged class. The revolutionary authorities -
and there should be as few of them as possible - must promote the revolution not by
issuing decrees but by stirring the masses to action. They must under no circumstances
foist any artificial organisation whatsoever upon the masses. On the contrary, they should
foster the self-organisation of the masses into autonomous bodies, federated from the
bottom upward.
[STATES ARE NOT PROGRESSIVE FORCES]
Bakunin differed from Marx and Engels not only with regard to the role of the Slavs, but
also in his appreciation of the political future of Europe, and he was far from agreeing
with them that[Prince Otto von]Bismarck[Prussian founder of the German Empire - Ed.]and
Victor Emmanuel[King of Italy - Ed.]in their striving towards unification of their
respective countries did useful work for socialism. On 20 July 1870 Marx wrote to Engels:
"If the Prussians are victorious the centralization of state power will be useful to the
centralisation of the German working class". And a few weeks later Engels replied that
Bismarck now, as in 1866, did "a part of our job".
National unity with its consequences of political and economic centralisation was, in the
opinion of Marx, a prerequisite of socialism. According to Marxian dialectics, the capture
of the centralised state by a working class organized in a political party would open up
towards socialism and the ultimate "withering away" of the state. In this context, the
predominance of Marx's theory, that is his conception of this historical process, became
itself an element and a precondition of this process.
Bakunin understood this basic concept perfectly well but did not agree with it. "What has
made us reject this system", he wrote, pointing to revolutionary authorities, liberty
directed from above, "is that it leads directly to the establishment of a new set of great
national states, would be separate and necessarily rivals and hostile to each other, and
to the negation of internationalism".
Bakunin feared that this development would lead to a new Caesarism[a militaristic order
headed by a strongman, involving a cult of personality - Ed.], and after the
Franco-Prussian War he predicted an era of ceaseless wars and the danger of a
Prusso-Germanisation of Europe. Two years before his death he wrote: "Bismarckism, that is
militarism, the police and financial monopoly merged into a single whole, namely the
modern state, is everywhere victorious. Conceivably, this powerful and scientific negation
of all that is human may continue triumphant for another ten or fifteen years".
Certainly, this triumph has been rampant for more than a century, and is still very much
alive.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY: Paul Arthur Müller-Lehning (1899-2000), born in Utrecht, the
Netherlands, was an anarchist and syndicalist from the 1920s. Involved in the
Anti-Militarist Bureau and the syndicalist International Workingmen's Association, he fled
Nazi Germany for the Netherlands in 1933. In 1935, he helped found the International
Institute for Social History (IISH), which includes the Mikhail Bakunin archives, and the
Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels papers. In 1940, he fled to Britain when the Nazis invaded.
He retained some influence after his return to Europe. A prolific writer and editor, his
masterwork was the edited works of Bakunin, published in French in 1976.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN BIOGRAPHY: A world-famous revolutionary, Bakunin was involved in
pro-democracy and anti-imperialist movements in the 1840s. Jailed in 1849, he was
sentenced to death twice, in both cases commuted to life imprisonment. After long, brutal
years in various prisons, he was exiled to Siberia. After a dramatic escape in 1861, he
made his way to Western Europe. Here he was increasingly involved in the rising workers'
and socialist movement. In the International Workingmen's Association, founded 1864, he
helped found the anarchist and syndicalist movement, clashing with Karl Marx. Bakunin
always retained his deep opposition to imperialism. As an anarchist, however, he insisted
it be combined with a revolutionary class struggle to create a self-managed,
international, free, socialist and stateless society from below.
Otherwise, independence would be hijacked by local ruling classes, the masses left in
chains and still exploited.
NOTES: Marked up by Leroy Maisiri, ZACF. Headings and explanatory notes added. Author
biography and Bakunin biography added by Lucien van der Walt.
SOURCE: Workers Solidarity Alliance (New York USA) pamphlet (undated).
https://zabalaza.net/2017/02/22/bakunin-for-anti-imperialists/#more-5229
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Message: 3
Citizenship generally proposes a recycling of past receipts, which neither live up to the
crisis encountered by capitalism nor politically satisfying, promising only a better
management of capitalism. ---- Citizenship is a nebula, a scattered movement, without a
coherent program, but reproducing and mixing the analyzes and propositions of
altercapitalist authors mediated. However, these authors lead us into an impasse to end
crises and inequalities. ---- Bernard Friot: a revised economic collectivism ---- Bernard
Friot's society project is based on five pillars: the abolition of lucrative property,
replaced by customary ownership, the payment of a lifetime wage, remuneration for
qualification (on a scale of one to four times The smic, with a net smic to 1500 euros),
the extension of the contribution as an alternative to the direct wage, monetary creation
without credit. It reminds us greatly of the basis of economic collectivism, combining
collective property (here governed by the state), and commercial distribution (contrary to
communism, which suppresses it).
The first problem is the concept of lucrative property. It is not private property. It
refers to that of owners of large means of production, generating large profits, but does
not include small commercial property[1]. However, private commercial property, whether
large or small, necessarily involves the obligation to sell the goods and at the same time
the uncertainty of selling them, selling them on time and at the right price, in order to
guarantee their wages And the sustainability of the activity. It can lead to lower
incomes, redundancies, bankruptcies, and, by domino effect, crises. To avoid such
problems, all private property should be abolished.
With the salary for life, an individual, from his majority to his death, would be entitled
to a salary, which would be revalued upwards by qualification and would remain the same at
the time of retirement. In the spirit, whether to guarantee a right of access to
consumption for life is quite right. However, the wage and monetary form is open to
criticism. It implies a posteriori socialization of production, supply and demand meeting
only on the market - and not upstream (censuses and other democratic and rational
expectations). This results in high risks of disproportionate production (overproduction
on the one hand, shortage on the other), resulting in dissatisfaction with needs, an
overabundance of unsaleable goods (constituting an enormous waste), and maintaining In
spite of the stated intentions, of a labor market.
Remuneration for qualification is equally problematic. A business manager or a university
professor would earn 6000 euros per month. An unqualified employee would receive 1500
euros. This society would still be very unequal, legitimized by the principle "to each
according to his diploma" and not "to each according to his needs". However, the
justification of the income hierarchy was deconstructed by Castoriadis, in the name of
complementarity of tasks, of self-management versatility, but also, possibly, for an
inverted hierarchy in favor of the most painful or dangerous activities[2]. In addition,
instead of a revenue hierarchy, for these particular activities, reductions in working
hours and / or job rotations could be introduced.
There remains the question of how this system should be financed. If the extension of the
social contribution would allow financial equalization between enterprises (wage payments
and means of production), the structures underlying the industrial and commercial
crisis[3]would remain intact and their effects would be recurrent. It would result, in
times of crises, the same effects as with capitalism.
Friot proposes a solution to remedy this problem: monetary creation without credit.
However, the operation of this measure is not clearly explained. It is therefore difficult
to assess its potential effectiveness. The problem is that, like the Keynesians, it refers
the causes of overproduction crises to a default of means of payment, which could be
solved by turning the printing press. However, such a policy entails high risks of
inflation, without, however, addressing the problem at its root.
Finally, Friot intends to redefine value as "the power to determine what is worth," rather
than as a reflection of the "average social time of production". He thus eludes the
analysis of value as a social relation of production. However, by maintaining the concrete
structures of the valorization of capital (bourgeois private ownership or bureaucracy and
the market) and their interactions, we can not assert that dynamics no longer operate. By
not recognizing Marx's definition of value, structures would continue to operate in an
invisible way. Society would suffer crises, without identifying the causes or being able
to act intentionally to suppress them[4].
Jean-Marie Harribey: the pseudo-autonomy of the non-market sector
Harribey currently advocates the extension of the non-market public sector to the
detriment of the commercial private sector[5]. The commercial sector, confronted with
serious problems of valorisation, seems to be moving towards an impassable systemic limit.
It should disappear and give way to a non-market economy. Harribey here seems to
understand the problem and hold the solution. However, it considers that the non-market
sector would be self-financed (financed by the State, local authorities and local
authorities). Public authorities finance services by indirect levies on wages (taxes) and
profits (business taxes and property taxes). The more the public non-market sector
develops in relation to the market sector, the more the levies on the value produced are
important. In this way, companies find it difficult to finance themselves, while at the
same time they will experience it in order to enhance themselves, because of the systemic
dynamics of capitalism. All this can only lead to a crisis. There can therefore be no
gradual and harmonious economic transition from the private to the non-commercial public.
To put an end to the mode of commercial distribution, a revolution, eliminating private
ownership of the means of production and associating all enterprises with each other, is
necessary beforehand.
Frédéric Lordon: Keynes and Proudhon, for the best and especially for the worst!
The economic positions of Frédéric Lordon are mainly developed in the Diplomatic World. It
is part of the Keynesian prism of the Terrified Economists. The latter advocates a revival
of the economy by public investment on credit (debt), legal sovereignty, even monetary,
protectionism.
Keynesians view overproduction crises as under-consumption crises. On the one hand, there
would be people who do not have enough money, on the other, people who have money, but
who, in the face of a pessimistic economic situation, are provident and prefer to save. To
solve this problem, it would be necessary to inject money into the economy, to resort to
monetary creation. The State should then intervene for this purpose, and could put in
place policies of major works. In doing so, he will continue to go into debt, hoping to
fill the debts, at least the excessive debts later. The Keynesians do not look for a
balanced budget, but an acceptable level of indebtedness. Keynesianism is complemented by
the idea that debt is a means of maintaining social ties, but also of preventing war. But
this is historically false. The 1930s gave birth to "War Keynesianism" in the major
warlike countries of the Second World War. This policy is therefore ineffective, as are
protectionism and sovereignty, which did not really have any convincing effects in the
crises of the 1930s and 1974. Finally, considering finance as an unproductive vampire, To
remedy this, restrictive measures such as Slam[6]or, more radical, to hang creditors and
financiers, testifies to an incomprehension of the relations between "real" and
"fictitious" capital. It was the massive development of finance and credit that, after the
1974 crisis, helped to avoid the collapse of growth rates. If they are successful, with
other capitalist measures in an unproductive financial over-accumulation, regulate
capitalism in this way will not prevent the crisis of value to manifest again[7].
Finally, Lordon, also drawing inspiration from a truncated self-management-libertarian
conception[8]approaching Proudhon, also speaks of the suppression of lucrative ownership
and direct management of enterprises by employees. Cooperativism and mutualism do not lead
to a harmonious capitalism without patrons or shareholders. They had already been refuted
by Marx and Bakunin in the international premiere[9], as now forms of private property and
market, and thus social inequalities and crises. Defending such a project is a regression
for the labor movement.
A critique of neo-liberalism that leads to a dead end
As we can see, citizenship does not have a common and coherent economic program, and
consists mainly of a rejection of neoliberalism. It criticizes inequalities only in the
name of a more just, but not egalitarian, distribution of wealth. It does not necessarily
reject private ownership and the market, but it defends small businesses against major
trusts, proximity trading against international trade. Now, as Marx has demonstrated, the
very existence of the pair of private property and merchant exchange implies the
possibility of crises. To maintain these structures is to condemn oneself to suffer them,
in one way or another. To change society, citizen movements should get rid of their
prominent altercapitalist figures, and review their analyzes, projects and strategies.
Floran Palin (AL Marne)
Étienne Chouard: pseudo-anticapitalism and confusionism
Chouard is in a confusing line. It is not to be put on the same level as the authors
mentioned in the article opposite, which are clearly on the side of the social movement.
However, from an economic point of view, it is more or less in line with the overwhelming
economists. He is critical of neoliberalism, of free trade, and is particularly critical
of private banks and finance. He also spoke in favor of protectionism and sovereignty. It
is known, besides its doubtful proposals for rewriting the constitution and drawing lots,
for its interventions on the debt. According to him, it would be due to excessive
predation of finance, exorbitant interest rates, and ultimately to a lack of control over
monetary policies. Again, this is a superficial criticism of capitalism. "Excessive"
interest on the debt can not conceal the fact that there is a "net" debt, which will
certainly not be met and will only increase due to devaluation. Not accepting that the
fundamental problem stems from the private ownership of the means of production and the
market, Chouard turns around, calling bankers and financiers "real fascists" and extreme
right-wing personalities of " Resistant ". Instead of being part of a "fascist" elite
duality against good people, which can only lead to disastrous economic, social and
political crises, we should rather consider capitalism as a hydra whose representatives of
capital (FN , LR, PS etc., bosses, bankers, financiers), each constituting one of the
heads, while it is to be destroyed at the base.
[1]"The lucrative property", N. Chomel, to be read on the site of Salary Network.
[2]Cornelius Castoriadis, "Self-management and hierarchy", to be read on infokiosques.ne.
[3]Alain Bihr, Reproduction of Capital, Volume II, Chapter 16, to be read at http:
//classiques.uqac.c
[4]Alain Bihr, "Universalize wages or suppress wage-earning? About Bernard Friot's "The
issue of wages", to be read on http://alencontre.org .
[5]"The law of value", with Jean-Marie Harribey and Bernard Friot for the Librairie
Tropiques, to listen on http://ekouter.net .
[6]Anglo-Saxon acronym, translated as "authorized shareholder's margin": confiscatory tax
beyond a certain tranche, the maximum amount of income allowed.
[7]Ernst Lohoff & Norbert Trenkle, The Great Devaluation.
[8]"Frederic Lordon, wolf or sheep? " Alternative Libertaire, in October 2016, to read on
http://alternativelibertaire.org .
[9]Fourth Congress of the First International, Basel, 1869.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Economie-Une-strategie-inoffensive
------------------------------
Message: 4
In six years the case of murder Joli Brzeska - the charismatic leader of the movement
tenant and the founder of the[arszawskiego]S[accompaniment]L[okatorów]- went a very long
way: from trying to blur the identity of the murdered, by recognizing her death as the
result of suicide, then retraining for murder and redemption investigation after its
restoration along with a new - Warsaw against the police and the prosecutor's office,
which covered up the matter. ---- During these six years he has undergone a similar way
all traffic condominiums that from the first day did not allow to be forgotten and
forgiven the crime, and the fight for social justice - no longer Brest, subjected to
constant repression and manipulation - refused to be silenced and lose independence.
Today, when in the end the entire political class is changing the word "re-privatization"
through all the cases, the more we must strive to break the stained with the blood of the
policy, according to which the poorer strata of society are to finance fortune elite. Help
support the fight: 1 March 2017 year on the sixth anniversary of the brutal murder Joli
Brest, open square dedicated to the sacrifice of the system - from the square, we hope
more loudly demand justice for the tenants and all groups fighting against exploitation.
See. also art .: Jola Brzeska - the first heretic Third Republic
***
TENANT movement demands justice in a very particular dimension by submitting proposals
that will put an end another injustice. On the occasion of the anniversary of the
assassination of Brest, below we repeat the most important demands:
Punish those guilty of the murder of the founder of WSL and officers of the Warsaw police
and prosecutors who cover up the traces of the crime
Despite the declaration of the representative of the new government and the initiation of
two investigations - ws. Murder and concealment of evidence by the Warsaw law enforcement
agencies still have not lived to present any charges against the responsible for the
massacre and the hiding the perpetrators.
Restore control of resource rents in the private
Poland, the liberal elite want to be very "European", in 2005, he abolished one of the
greatest social gains, which implemented the twentieth-century Europe - control of rents
in private premises. Successive governments that throw people to feed free-for, are also
responsible for the repression of traffic lokatorskim - House Jolanta Brzeska was taken
shortly after the reform as one of the first great wave of restitution "gold rush", which
has just launched the abolition of control of private rents. The murder of Brest came
because she stubbornly blocking the desire for profit, which no longer want to block
Polish law.
Tenants transferred against their will to the free market in the course of
re-privatization to restore communal resource. Establish a compensation fund for indebted
by rent increases in the acquired buildings
Tens of thousands of people after privatization have been subjected to drastic increases
in rent, debt, displaced. For these people, re-privatization is structural throws into
poverty - the national authority and the local government must take responsibility for this.
Stop phrases in nature and form of financial, expropriate cleaners
Restitution is the largest post-war looting in Warsaw - the scale and depth of the wrongs
in twenty years broke already Bierut Decree. This multibillion-dollar transfer of funds
from the poorer strata of society for the rich, who uwlaszczaja to universal free social
work, which was the reconstruction of Warsaw. We demand the halting phrases "in the wild"
and "financial compensation" for the owners. Czyscicielom whose statutory job is to harass
the tenants by the deterioration of the acquired buildings and drastic increases, you
should pick up houses by breaking the contract of use and turn them back to the resource
center.
Turn the anti-social reforms and cuts due to the need to repay the 'compensation'
financial in restitution (over 1.5 billion)
Restitution is nothing like an opportunity to carry out devastating social cuts and the
transfer of profits for the elite. Only one beneficjentce reprivatization of the town hall
paid "compensation" in the form of 38 million zl. Where did he get the money? To pay
elites, authorities have for years forced the poorer strata of society to tighten their
belts. For example, the increase of privatization canteens affected more than 100,000
children and saved the town hall in this only 10 million zl. To build the fortunes of the
most elite threw local authority tenants - a threefold increase in rents in municipal
flats since 2008. And the introduction of an illegal "tax on poverty" (ie. "Penal rent")
caused a giant, 500-million-dollar debt with thousands of tenants utilities. We demand the
abolition of artificial illegal debt, rent reduction and reversal of anti-social reforms,
which were flying the budget hole by re-privatization.
Expand the resource public housing, reduced dramatically as a result of the privatization of
destroying the stock of low-cost public housing 1,200 apartments per year, the city
removes tools to combat speculation on the prices of private homes and refuses to use such
alternatives for indigent persons. As a result, the tenants, especially young people, have
to choose between a rock and a hard place - pay astronomical rents for rent on the private
market, or take credit for the redemption of the apartment and into debt in banks for
life. The apartment is a right for all, not a commodity. We demand low-cost public housing.
JUSTICE FOR Brzeski,
ALL US NOT burn!
http://www.rozbrat.org/informacje/krajowe/4514-6-rocznica-zabojstwa-jolanty-brzeskiej-otwarcie-skweru
------------------------------
Message: 5
Inside the lunar landscape of Greek reality, as formulated in the period of capitalist
crisis, the right-left governments and the European Union, the social wealth bleeding
campaign puts another purpose: housing. After the all-out attack the state and capital to
work, agriculture, insurance, social liberties, the environment and social goods, raise
their targeted one of the few remaining materials supports the working class and
oppressed. ---- The antiasfalistiko bill passed by parliament, is another face of the new
war which has declared the local and international capital to employees, self-employed,
farmers, pensioners and by extension to all people who support with their incomes (
children, relatives with chronic diseases, etc.). After the new criminal bill in social
security, is more evident than ever that an all-out counterattack class, in the fields of
housing, insurance, health, leading to a concerted proletarian refusal of payment is
necessary.
Leaving now aside any pretext, the recent enactment of prerequisites in late 2015 by the
SYRIZA-ANEL government, paving the way for the advent and international finance capital
against the house. Manage Red loans and real estate longer enter into international
investment houses and funds, and in particular, as the guardian of the interests of
debtors against the above companies, displayed by the Bank of Greece and the Banking Code
of Conduct (!).
After 'legal drafting improvements "in November substantially slash whatever protections
existed until now, the framework of the auctions protection afstiropoieitai dramatically
timeouts remain unclear, while new abstract concepts are introduced as the" cooperative
borrower. " Clarifications, definitions, reviews etc., Pass all the banking crisis. The
government washes its hands, simply asking bankers to show understanding and grace (see.
Dragasakis November statements). Queues of debtors in local courts late last December, for
joining the relatively favorable settings Katseli Law, reveal the dimensions of the
threat. The application for inclusion in the Act itself is a costly process with the
required amount could rise to about 1000 euro. Even the claim to protect, handsomely paid.
From 1/1 / 2016, the possibility of zero dose abolished for those who have no income or
unable not only to pay their installments and to cope with daily expenses of their
families. In addition, it opened the process of free sale and reducing the costs of
auctioning. If that is the first auction prove fruitless, the second starts at half the
market value of the property, and if he too is not completed, the third starts from zero
starting price. Even if the property is auctioned at an amount lower than the commercial
value and the loan amount, the borrower still owes the bank the remaining amount. And
loses his home and still owes. In essence sought from borrowers repayment of the loan for
the second time. And this at a time when many of the red loans have essentially paid to
banks through taxes and bank recapitalization.
So if someone is unable to repay the banks the net profit will be marked "uncooperative"
and the house will be coming under the hammer or alternatively, the loan can be passed
into the hands of investment houses, who added convenience -as the banks do not expect
necessarily to the repayment of the loan will convert the property to a financial product
and gambling, multiplying their winnings. For us, the defense of the first housing and
preventing evictions and auction, is practical and class terms defend the social good
housing. Away from populist, radical Falsified fanfare, our policy framework for the fight
against auctions, is class protection of all social assets, part of which is the
dwelling-house.
The cancellation of an auction in the county court, shifts the process to two months after
creating a first time, a temporary defense forefront of our class. Therefore, the presence
of all of us in local courts is necessary. We must realize the need to pass from the
defense of housing, to guarantee as good for all and all; the necessity of passing from
defense to attack.
Starting from this position, and against all private and commercial exploitation of the
dwelling use but put the tool of the occupation as a form of militant recovery of social
wealth, to ensure housing for all the oppressed of the world, homeless / s, immigrants /
only three, laborers / behavior shows, the ftochodiavolous of our time.
As Anarchist Federation, part of the exploited and oppressed, we fight with our class by
any means. We will be there, the local courts, roads, neighborhoods, opposite to the
judges, bank representatives and managers of investment funds, in physical confrontation
if necessary with their uniformed protectors; with the poor, the unemployed, workers, the
oppressed with the exploited against the state and capital.
Do not let anyone just opposite to bank gangs
Class counterattack, self-organization, solidarity
anarchist Federation
http://anarchist-federation.gr
info@anarchist-federation.gr
twitter: https://twitter.com/anarchistfedGr
fb: https://www.facebook.com/anarxikiomospondia2015/
In Thessaloniki, auctions are held every Wednesday at 15:30 in Thessaloniki courts. Until
the definitive exclusion of primary housing and safeguard the housing as an inalienable
right of our class, block in practice, as a means of pressure, each auction, what property
they respect and whatever its use. Until then, we will not allow in all sorts of
government and non predators to "do their job".
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2017/03/01/
