UCL, Consensus and the Student Movement.

I haven't had the Internet for a while, and it seems I went in too hard and threw up all over the UCL occupation blog without taking the time to think about it.  Funnily enough, someone moderates comments on the leaderless, free speech movement website.  So here is what I wrote in response to a UCL socialist trying to claim anarchist ideas as their own, by describing them without naming them.  (minus a few typos and grammar I spotted once I posted, ranting and spelling at the same time is a skill I am yet to master)

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Anarchists use consensus decision making rather than voting in order to foster environment where every member is encouraged to participate in decision-making, take initiative and fill the various roles responsible for the smooth functioning of the group.

In contrast to the quantitative rather than qualitative model of decision-making practiced with a vote, in which the major concern is the number taken to win a majority as appose to the issue itself, consensus is a process of synthesis, bringing together diverse elements and blending them into a decision acceptable to the group as a whole. Creating opportunities for self-empowerment and reducing opportunities for corruption.

A decision made by the entirety of the group has the benefit of the committal of the entire group. When each member of a group partakes in a decision each view is valued, developing trust between members and a stronger proposals that in turn are developed by the group into the best possible decision.

It is true that anarchists are anti-authoritarian, opposed to political authority in the sense that they deny anyone the legitimate right to issue commands and have them obeyed. That does not mean that all anarchists reject all forms of authority. Bakunin for example, accepted the authority of technical competence on a basis of voluntary consent: if I am to accept the authority Sam the tech guy in the matter of twitter, my decision to act on his advice is mine and not his. Malatesta also believed it inevitable that a person with superior understanding and ability to carry out a given task will succeed more easily in having his opinion accepted, and it is all right for them to act as guide in their area of competence for those less able.

Avoiding leaders is necessary to avoid concentrating power in the hands of a few who might dominate a group, or in the case of democratic socialism, a new elite of bureaucrats, administering in their own interests rather than in the interest of those they are supposed to serve, encouraging dependency and conformity by threatening to withdraw their aid to those who do not tow the party line and by rewarding those they favour. This does not mean that anarchists believe there is no need for (for want of a better phrase) ‘leadership roles’. To avoid having power concentrated in the hands of a few entrenched leaders, leadership skills are encouraged in every member of a group and all roles are rotated. This is accomplished by holding skill-building workshops and by encouraging and supporting people to be self empowered, especially those who are generally reserved.

In fact what distinguishes anarchists from socialists is that, unlike Engels, we believe it possible to organise production and distribution without authority, without compulsion, based on free agreement and voluntary co-operation. This method of organisation has been developed by anarchists for many years and, as Donnacha so eloquently pointed out, is called direct democracy. In contrast to the ridiculous notion forwarded by Eliot Hoving that anarchism is a rejection of democracy, anarchism is the absolute embrace of democracy. The current political orthodoxy is more polyarchy than democracy. Direct democracy, as advocated by anarchists is classically termed ‘pure’ democracy for obvious reasons. Unlike socialists and liberals, anarchists seek, like Plato, in democracy the genuine resolution of equality. Everyone has an equal claim to be free.

These conversations are all old news, as is this movement. “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great events and characters of world history occur, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add; the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”. Reading Marx, his supplement to Hegel’s notion of repetition and his diagnoses of the fall of the german ancien regime as a farcical repetition of the tragic fall of the French ancien regime it is easy to draw parallels with the student movement of the 1960′s. In retrospect, much of the ideas and tactics were profoundly anarchist in character, although those professing them would probably not have self-associated as such. We even have Laurie Penny as a farcical reoccurrence of Ulrike Meinhof.

The last student uprising produced, amongst much else, Daniel Guerins book on anarchism, Mustapha Khayatis The Poverty of Student Life, the Urban Guerilla Concept, and most notable to this discussion, Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendits Le Gauchisme, remede a la maladie senile du communisme (a sustained polemic against Bolshevism, both Leninist and Stalinist, focussing particularly on the repression of the anarchist opposition during the Russian Revolution, and also the exact same topic being debated here about the need to avoid leadership and party since the latter inevitable lead to the ‘freedom to agree with the party’). We get Laurie Pennys book that will be entitled something like ‘The day I changed the world’.  Excuse me while I throw up.  Don’t be surprised if it ends up next to Katie Price on the bookshelves.

The student movement is set to die twice, and this time it is farcical. Face it, in an international world we are the bourgeoisie fighting a self-interest cause and, unlike many in the previous student movement, although quite happy to discuss global warming at a dinner party we drove too, drinking Australian wine under the patio heater, we are no more willing to give up our privilege than the CEO of some big bank thus making all this nonsense nothing more than a bourgois study. We are not fighting for the emancipation of the real proletariat, and unless we admit that, history will remember us as a farcical kitten fart on the list of kerazy things the privileged get up too whilst at uni, alongside joining a socialist society, sleeping with a stranger during fresher’s and sleeping during an exam due to all night partying.

For people who want to actually understand anarchism a good place to start would be the pamphlet produced by the Anarchist Federation, which can be found at …

http://www.afed.org.uk/publications/pamphlets-booklets/163-introduction-to-anarchist-communism.html

An anarchist reply to the SWP (they are notorious for inaccurate diatribes on anarchism) can also be found at

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/anarcho/marxism-anarchism-reply-swp

As can many other interesting articles written by anarchists.