Zoe Baker on the History of Anarchism and Communism | Southpaw Podcast

[@wyndgrove9452]

Turns out I didn't know the first thing about real life anarchism, despite being a lefty: I've been working through your videos, and they're such a great education. Thanks!

[@nicholasdasilva34]

Love you, Zoe! I have been better understanding my gender identity lately and your work and voice has been a huge support for me!

[@lukei7291]

Always love seeing you on podcasts

[@MrxstGrssmnstMttckstPhlNelThot]

Not to be too much of a bother, but any chance we can get an idea when your PhD thesis might be able to be publically available? It sounds really interesting and I can't wait to read it.

[@ComradeLavender]

Same

[@rattler515151]

I would also be interested in reading it

[@bassplayer8815]

This is going to be a good vid, it's has Zoe in it :)

[@radroatch]

Loving this recent informative interview-format content 👍👍👍

[@PiceaSitchensis]

Yes! Thanks for doing this and posting it. You do great work.

[@PunksForProgress]

Fantastic description. Thank you.

[@MutualAidWorks]

Great video Zoe - and the sound was fine.

[@8DX]

Excellent video, does a lot to explain the necessary history in a clear and concise manner. Thanks! =8)-DX

[@tigerstyle4505]

Another amazing contribution, fam. Stay at it! Stay strong! Stay fighting! ✊👊🖤☮️🥀🏴🌐A///E

[@nicitha]

Could these be uploaded as podcasts so that we can listen ”on the go” (without having to have our phone screens on)? :)

[@anarchozoe]

They already are podcasts. Just go to www.southpawpod.com/

[@deathuponusalll]

@@anarchozoe thank you!

[@trancesoftheblast]

you are my favorite youtuber

[@sleepyhead8681]

I just discovered her. The best Anachist youtube channel I've found. Renagade Cut is close but he doesn't talk Anachism offen.

[@SK-np2vz]

important channel

[@konstantinoss9715]

too much to ask probably, but would it be possible to have an audioscript of this?

[@paifu.]

47:00 Collectivism, Lower phase Communism and Higher Phase Communism

[@dailybreadneighbor383]

So what about wants? I don't need video games, but I want to play them. How will video games, or, say, comic books, be distributed in a non-market society? Assuming all needs are met, would it be unethical to have a market for limited but nonessential goods and services? Or is there a non-market way to both distribute and insentivize the production of luxury goods (meaning non essential)? Cuba has formed a kind of second economy for such things, and the lack of availability of luxury consumer goods was a major source of discontent in the Soviet Union.

[@genghiskant7591]

Making/consuming art is arguably a need. But, regardless of whether comics/games are a "want" or a "need", they can totally be shared/distributed without a market. They kind of already are in some spaces. For example, there's a variety of (legally) free (100% free, not free-to-play) games online. And a lot of illegal sharing happens, too, which wouldn't be illegal in an anarchist society. And there's a variety of zines (some of which include comic book-related stuff) that are distributed for free online and some people also print them out and distribute them irl for free. Also a variety of manga and other comics shared for free online (some of which is currently illegal, but wouldn't be in an anarchist society). And there's likely a variety of incentives that already lead people to make/distribute artwork that would still exist in an anarchist society. One that I've felt/acted upon: it's fun! 🙂

[@dailybreadneighbor383]

@@genghiskant7591 I can understand why someone might create art for free, but what if it requires some kind of production for distribution? For example, somebody across the world programs a cool new VR game that requires specific hardware and a headset to experience. I want to play it, but I'd need both the headset and a computer capable of running the program. How would I acquire these, from across the world, in a market free society. Unlike food and shelter, it may not be particularly feasible to produce those things where I live. And if I want it made and send to me, so do potentially hundreds of thousands of other people. This is going to require someone doing work to produce and send these goods, and not particularly fun or rewarding work, like programing a fun new game. There are PlayStations all over the world today because capitalism makes people produce them, even if they don't really want to. The result is a single gaming platform that is globally accessible. In a way, I feel that the global illegal sharing of games and software that happens today is somewhat resting on the products of capitalism. I don't mean capitalism drove the innovation to invent our computer infrastructure, but the uniformity of global computing protocols is largely do to market that assures that new hardware is standardized and new software is compatible with mainstream hardware. With no market incentive, what keeps computer hardware and software compatible over long distances? And when new innovations arise, who produces it? One problem I have with 19th century Anarchist theory is that it doesn't often map well onto 21st century wants and needs. If there is modern theory that addresses this, I'd love to hear about it.

[@Weighty68]

@@dailybreadneighbor383 I view it as personal property and things that likely only one person or small group or family would use that comes from public productive efforts, yet is personal in the way that it most likely won’t leave the bounds of those who actively utilize it. Such is the library example where likely rentals are only used by the person checking them out, but should the time arise where the person’s interest wanes or they finish, it can be passed on to those desiring it or recycled to be put towards other needs. As far as making these things and acquiring them, though, I believe it would very much be done out of the love of the craft and building things or sending them to clear people who have put in a request to acquire them. Time may be a factor as capitalistic market pressure would no longer be at play, but that would make it less strenuous on the workers and the internet itself helps immensely with the sharing of software as it is. Most likely forums and federations would exist precisely to exercise the wants of interested people and see to it that all these people can gain their desires in some form. I believe there is better reading as are better explanations than what I could provide for this lol but I see your point! Those would be processes we would have to work through together, aided by anarchist thought, to solve! *Sorry one last edit: I also feel consoles wouldn’t exist in the form we have them now due to exclusives probably ceasing to exist in a truly egalitarian socialist systems. Consoles would likely still be available as a means to quickly play games over the likes of PCs that have other uses, but since exclusives would most likely dissolve as everything would become freeware, consoles would definitely change in their current ecosystem

[@jackrucinsky6205]

Cool video.

[@dallasjacob99]

I love your videos comrade

[@iamnohere]

_Spread the bread, algorhithm!_

[@artemkanarchist]

❤️🖤

[@aspie-anarchist9854]

Ok thank you so much. I thought I was losing my mind. I was like am the only one who doesn't seem a huge similarity between Marxism and anarchism. What I mean is ok the three steps in marxist Leninism is 1.) Seize the means of production. 2.) Lower phase communism or socialism. 3.) Higher phase communism or communism is very similar to 1.) An anarcho-syndicalist take over and a seizure of the means, 2.) Anarcho-collectivism and 3.) anarcho-communism. Wether not this is something we should do, I just have always noticed the massive amounts of similarities. So much of this comes to down to language. Don't get me wrong I know leninsts don't actually want that but in theory it works out

[@johnmccrae2932]

😍😍

[@zelenisok]

Bad definitions at the beginning. So, Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin are not anarchists, being that they didn't advocate communal ownership, but use-ownership, which was established by Proudhon as a core plank of anarchism. Anarcho-collectivists and anarcho-communists advocate additionally for people to voluntarily join with the means of production they possess into wider economic federations for coordination of production and distribution - but they do not hold that if some people on their farm or in their workshop or factory choose to not associate with others in a collectivist or communist economy then society has the right to kick them out from the means of production they work at, because they are owned communally. No, they are owned by the people using them. For mutualists and anarcho-individualists it is even clearer that they don't advocate communal ownership, because they advocate a market economy, not a non-market one. In fact, advocating common property not only goes against classical anarchist theory in the sense that it goes against it's plank of use-ownership, but it also goes against it's plank of freedom of association, ie that everyone must be free to associate or not associate with others. If property over the means of production were to be common, then the community would be legitimate in deciding to force people to associate with others in a collectivist or communist economy. This kind of arrangement was called by Malatesta "the most detestable tyranny that the human mind could conceive". Also revolutionary strategy isn't necessary for anarchism, virtually all mutualists and anarcho-individualists wanted anarchism to be established via an economic transition and gradual devolution of the state.

[@anarchozoe]

"Bad definitions at the beginning. So, Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin are not anarchists, being that they didn't advocate communal ownership, but use-ownership, which was established by Proudhon as a core plank of anarchism." This is extremely pedantic and ignores that anarchists did advocate collective or communal ownership over and over again. They in fact frequently advocate collective or communal ownership in the same paragraph that they talk about use rights. Bakunin writes that "instruments of labour, land and all forms of capital should become the collective property of society, as a whole, and should be used only by workers, that is to say by industrial and agricultural associations." He describes "the creation of collective property" as "the absolute precondition for real, universal equality, for freedom, justice and meaningful fraternity." Kropotkin writes that "this immense capital - cities, houses, pastures, arable lands, factories, highways, education - must cease to be regarded as private property, for the monopolist to dispose of at his pleasure" and instead "must become common property, so that the collective interests of men may gain from it the greatest good for all." Rocker writes that "Anarchists demand the abolition of all economic monopolies and the common ownership of the soil and all the other means of production, the use of which must be available to all without distinction; for personal and social freedom is conceivable only on the basis of equal economic advantages for everybody." Malatesta writes that private property should be abolished in favour of "a property regime based on common ownership, in which all people, contributing their just amount of labour, will receive the maximum possible level of wellbeing." Berkman writes that "the revolution abolishes private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and with it goes capitalistic business. Personal possession remains only in the things you use. Thus, your watch is your own, but the watch factory belongs to the people. Land, machinery, and all other public utilities will be collective property, neither to be bought nor sold. Actual use will be considered the only title - not to ownership but to possession. The organization of the coal miners, for example, will be in charge of the coal mines, not as owners but as the operating agency. Similarly will the railroad brotherhoods run the railroads, and so on. Collective possession, coöperatively managed in the interests of the community, will take the place of personal ownership privately conducted for profit." The programme of the IWMA, written by Malatesta, defines anarchist collectivism as "the land, raw materials, the instruments of labour" are "collective property, with everyone entitled to the use of them in his work, and for the entire product of labor". I could go on and on with lots more examples from around the world but I think the point is clear.

[@zelenisok]

Well, the fact that these thinkers weren't analytic /rationalist philosophers is a problem, so we have to do the conceptual and reasoning analyses for them, from what they wrote and advocated. Proudhon also talks about 'social ownership' tho obviously the core point is that property rights are replaced by use rights, and not in the sense a right to use granted by the community, but ownership based on use. Despite their rhetoric they (Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Malatesta, IDK about Rocker and Berkman) obviously thought that individual means of production belong to the specific workers using them, and not to the community, being that they held that it's not ok for the community to eject some specific workers from the means of production they are using for refusing to join a collectivist or communist economy, but must leave them alone on their possessions, as long as they don't try to oppress (ie impose something) or exploit anyone (ie enforce slave, serf, wage-labor, or property income contracts). If they had really advocated communal property they must have had thought that it was ok for the community to do that, because that what property is, the right to do such things, like eject people from a property one owns. If we wanted to go even more "pendantic" we could delve into the issue of whether not only, as i already mentioned, common property goes against the plank of free association, but expanding on that - does it go against being anti-state, and in what way is a political organization which enforces common property and ejects workers from the means of production they dont use because they dont want to joint the communist economy - is not really a state.But even without going into "pedantic" reasoning of these kinds, we can by less "pendatic" reasoning see that defining anarchism via common property is wrong because it would exclude Prudhon, mutualists and anarcho-individualists from the fold of anarchism, even thought they too were anti-hierarchical anti-state anti-capitalists.

[@zelenisok]

This kind of lack of "pedantic" thinking you seem to insist on is what also leads you to eg say that anarchists are against all domination, which of course isn't true, BDMS is not against anarchism. But even in a wider social setting, Bakunin explicitly says that people must be free to accept to be someone's servant, or to enter into an exploitative arrangement, as long as such an arrangement is not an enforceable contract but remains in every moment a voluntary thing which can be ended if any party chooses to. When reading authors who didn't do it themselves, we need to apply pedantic thinking on what they see so when we can what they're actually saying, if they phrased it right, or in what way they mean something, so we look not just their general proclamations, but also the specifics of what they advocated, and from that when can see how what they actually advocated and how that can be appropriately formulated.

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

@@zelenisok I don't have the time for a full answer, but I do feel like you're stretching words quite a bit, instead of taking them as meant by the people using them in a given context, and that does sound pedantic, and not in any good "analytical" way. I'm just saying this because I do think you're arguing in good faith, even though I disagree with most of your points.

[@HarryS77]

@@zelenisok Take the L.