Social Movement Building Combining Marx and Bakunin

2010. Crushing Capitalism with Dr. Asimakopoulos. Vol. 1, ISSN: 2155-8086

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Resistance
• Direct Action
• Rebellion
• Revolt
• Revolution
• Exploitation
• Law
• Community
• Organizing
• Public Policy
• Property
• Marxism
• Anarchy
• Capitalism
• Inequality
• Social
• Institutions
• Government
• Elite
• Corporations
• Class
• Conflict
• Civil
• Rights
• Liberty
• Marx
• Economic
• Capital
• Ideology
• Legitimacy
• Collapse
• Counter Institutions
• Counter Ideology
• Bakunin
• Movements
• Justice
• Theory
• Self Rule
• Self Direction
• Self Governance
• Gramsci

[Westonelm]

Noam Chomsky ( in September 2010 on the BBC) suggested that the USA was similar to the Weimar Republic at the moment....!

[TSIMedia1]

Greetings Westonelm! All of your comments are very scary … because you are absolutely correct! We may be facing the prologue to WW3 e.g. look at all the currency fights. China wants to keep its currency artificially low, the US is doing the same by printing money, the Europeans have their heads up their butts… Exactly what preceded the other world wars.

[toosinbeymen]

Counter institutions, fine. But could we have some details. Could you flesh this idea out a little bit. Take it to the next level. Fill in the blanks, please.

I like the idea but I'd like to know more.

[johnaimani]

Communists must announce their existence in opposition to the sham straw dog of Obama as "socialist" thrown out and asserted by a resurgent right-wing who have energized their ranks just so through the political process. We must engage this process and win the battle of ideas.

[johnaimani]

It is not the pursuit of power (as exercised in the above) that I advocate (though such ability to re-make laws in our own image is possible to be obtained after and through mass political work) but the use of the process itself to attract and energize our comrades, the mass, into the creation, maintenance and expansion of parallel institutions-in-the-making.

[johnaimani]

The political arena is the battlefield of ideas where this or that notion finds favor or disfavor with a mass of 'citizens' (voters). The expression of the majority collective will favoring this or that political notion (e.g. anti-immigration) finds its counterpart and its fulfillment in the appointments to offices of officials (politicians) who have the authority (by making 'laws') that have a direct effect upon not only the majority they serve but also upon the minority they suppress.

[johnaimani]

Agree with the necessity of building parallel institutions. Disagree with the notion that in order to avoid becoming "co-opted" we must keep ourselves 'pure' and avoid the entrapments of bourgeois politics lest we become like the European Social Democratic and Socialists (and the 'Communist') parties.

[Westonelm]

It's important to note also that capitalism is about rising and falling on your own merits and yet current government bailouts (ensuring that the biggest don't fail and be replaced) do not correspond with pure capitalism......almost fascism ( the alarming merger of state and corporate powers = "corporatism") Counter institutions, therefore; should be regarded as morally "right"

[Westonelm]

I think it's highly important that the continuing agenda of the Elites should be opposed and to build from the bottom upwards with alternative counter institutions.....and to be aware that it is an illusion that the government (Elite--controlled) care about those at the bottom and are making moves to improve their plight.