Zoe Baker on Prefiguration and Platformism | From Below Podcast

[@BasicallyBanal]

Wake up babe new Zoe Baker video just dropped 🖤

[@Tellez.43]

Sex is cool but have you listened to the new Zoe Baker interview? 😂 Loving the episode and content so far!

[@Somebodyherefornow]

sex is not cool, zoe baker is!

[@freekashyyyk896]

Do both at the same time

[@goyoelburro]

I just purchased "Means and Ends" from AK Press and am waiting for it to arrive.... Really eager to read it! Zoe has incredible academic creds on Anarchism!!!!

[@Ukalnsk]

You are my favorite political intellectual!

[@bassplayer8815]

Zoe Baker makes really good posts 👍

[@shevekdeanarres]

Dope interview. Really liked the background on the platform. Also checked out the from below podcast and saw that they did an interview with Trader Joe's union people too. Good stuff.

[@ReadyAimSing]

Good stuff. Minor nitpick at ~ 1:08:30 - that's a plurality, rather than a majority.

[@OddoFelacio]

need that book. very educational

[@SPAnComCat]

Excellent Content as always, Zoe Baker!

[@jakefrasrr7130]

Could you make a video on the anarchist theory of practice?

[@Alex-fu3mi]

she starts talking about it at 22:02

[@rainbowmonkMC]

she did make one... check her channel :)

[@forstudentpower]

Fantastic interview! 👏👏👏 Definitely subscribing to From Below 🍿

[@carleugenestroud]

Great work compas!

[@malOn_malOFF]

Very nice Episode, thanks!

[@nickhbt]

Such a good podcast I bought the book.

[@chaoskitten]

I seriously appreciate all the work you do, Zoe! Thank you!

[@jonathanschweiss316]

The real takeaway: Zoe really likes tennis. Jokes aside, always a pleasure learning from Zoe.

[@Dr.acai.jr.]

I agree.

[@jemandoondame2581]

What happened to your video discussing wage slavery?

[@mk3c]

I found quite contradictory the mention of "no cherry-picking", but then actually doing so in the mention of Bakunin+ and the 1st International (where the building of secret societies was not Marx's fantasy, but a quite well known tactic of Bakunin). In any case, looking forward to reading the book and learning more about anarchism from an anarchist perspective!

[@anarchozoe]

As I explain at length in the book, the secret alliance as an informal social network existed. But Bakunin was explicitly against the programme of the alliance being made the program of the international. Marx and Engels thought he wanted to make the alliance programme mandatory and was a dictator of the alliance who aimed to become the dictator of the international. This was false and all the evidence shows this.

[@mk3c]

@@anarchozoe I am interested in looking at your description in the book! :) But on the main argument that you make, I think this is just semantics: Bakunin's activities and texts through the years provide quite clear evidence of this tactic of "secret political societies". If you want to call them "informal social networks", this doesn't really change the essence.

[@anarchozoe]

@@mk3c You misunderstand. Bakunin did attempt to create several secret political organisations. Its just that the alliance ended up just being an informal social network. I explain in the book: "During his 1864-67 stay in Italy, Bakunin tried to transform the loose network of revolutionaries he knew into an organization that adhered to a specific program. In late 1864, Bakunin, who had recently moved from London to Florence, founded his first proper revolutionary organization: the Brotherhood. Although the Brotherhood certainly existed, and had a membership of at least thirty individuals from largely republican circles, it did not last long and soon faded away after Bakunin moved to Sorrento, near Naples, at the end of May 1865. Bakunin, who was becoming increasingly socialist and shifting closer to his mature anarchist politics, then moved to Naples in October, and met a number of republican revolutionaries. Sometime between late 1865 and early 1866, Bakunin persuaded these individuals to join a new secret revolutionary socialist organization called the International Brotherhood, which was the spiritual successor to the previous Brotherhood based in Florence. Bakunin subsequently cofounded two distinct but overlapping organizations: the public International Alliance and the secret Alliance in October 1868. The public International Alliance applied to join the First International and, after its application was rejected, converted itself into a Geneva section of the First International in July 1869. The Geneva public Alliance decided to disband in August 1871, in the aftermath of various splits and conflicts within the Romance Federation of the First International, and took this decision without consulting Bakunin. The original secret Alliance disbanded soon after its founding, due to personal conflicts between its members. It continued to exist only as an informal social network composed of a few individuals who were mainly from Spain, Italy, and Switzerland and members of Bakunin’s inner circle. At around the same time, a distinct secret organization called the Alianza de la Democracia Socialista was founded in Spain, to coordinate the activity of key militants and promote the growth of the Spanish section of the First International. The Alianza decided to dissolve itself in April 1872 and continued to adhere to this decision, despite Bakunin writing a letter attempting to persuade them to do otherwise. A few months later, Bakunin cofounded a new secret society, called the Alliance of Social Revolutionaries in September 1872, after Bakunin had been expelled from the First International by the Hague Congress." Bakunin was not expelled for being in a secret group. If the informal alliance was a secret group then so was Marx's secret conspiracies with Engels, Utin etc. He was expelled for being in a secret group "with rules completely at variance, from the social and political point of view, with those of the International Working Men’s Association." As Marx himself said at the Hague "I am not speaking against secret societies as such - for I myself have belonged to such societies - but against secret societies which are hostile and harmful to the I.W.A.’" These allegations were false and there is zero evidence to support it. See Eckhardt, The First Socialist Schism for more details. Its a very large book but is the most detailed history of the first international.

[@mk3c]

@@anarchozoe OK, so to clarify, your argument is not that Bakunin was not forming secret societies etc, but that his programme was not harmful and hostile to the IWA?

[@anarchozoe]

@@mk3c Yes and that Marx and Engel's main charge, that he was trying to impose the programme of the alliance onto the international, is false. In several letters he is explicitly against doing this eg the alliance was committed to atheism but he didn't think the international should be because this would exclude the huge number of religious workers.

[@mm-rj3vo]

It means unlearning gender roles, and, unfortunately (to some people's conceptions) also unlearning MANY religiously held beliefs about MANY facets of human life. False consciousness extends to even the most otherwise effectively organizing leagues of anarchists.

[@kennethhymes9734]

Agreed. Christian ideas and frames extend deep into all of our institutions and factions. White Too Long is a good data driven book showing how racism is created even by liberal churches, e.g. It is a good contemporary starting point for seeing implicit and structural isms around us, because the examples are concrete and available for looking at, and the writing is accessible.

[@kennethhymes9734]

and it is a white person schooling other white people on their racism, which is what we need, black people are not reaponsible for our education

[@artemkanarchist]

🖤🏴🖤

[@NoOne-go3ml]

based

[@CozyRodent]

the goat

[@Ibnwhitetrashabdullah]

Great Fugazi intro

[@skrts000]

Zoe can you do a video about Insurrectionary anarchism, sort of the "modern" side of anarchism today

[@karlstarkweathermedia]

I’m a platformist and exist in 2024. Am I not modern? 😝

[@guyfauks2576]

insurrectionary anarchism (F for failure)

[@DonClotaBlest]

Siempre he pensado que como la mayoría de la gente no tiene ni tiempo ni recursos como para organizarse y crear estructuras alternativas , salvo que estén en momentos extremadamente críticos (que no suele ser habitual) , es mas aterrizado a la realidad que las izquierdas radicales levanten un "programa" que contenga como mínimos la democracia directa , la economía solidaria poniendo un incentivo a las empresas que funcionen de esta manera , la transparencia fiscal absoluta y mecanismos de justicia directos a nivel local para deliberar. Nunca he encontrado ningún potencial en organizaciones anarquistas o de otro tipo de izquierda radical "aisladas" unas de las otras , o bien juntas pero peliando porque es muy liberal esto o muy marxista aquello o muy anarquista esto.

[@ibrahimmaalej4509]

first

[@AnarkhX]

🏴🚩🏴‍☠️ ☭

[@jakefrasrr7130]

Could you make a video on the anarchist theory of practice?

[@Alex-fu3mi]

she starts talking about it at 22:02