'Marx for anarchists'

I think it's a good idea. As for helping out, I'm not nearly as schooled on Marx as some of you lot.

I like the new political Refused.

yeah i think this is a great idea too, and some of you folks definitely have the writing skills to make it worthwhile. if this takes off and i can contribute somehow i will, even if just (as is likely given my own fairly basic understanding) checking its readability for someone not so well versed in marx.

It would be great, I would definetely order half a dozen or so copies. I could try to help out, maybe you could send me a list of subheadings or something, but I'm a shit writer.

It's a good project. I don't think I can be that involved (I'd rather put my energy into a potential Palestine pamphlet), but I'd be happy to proofread, check for readability/clarity and all that.

Definitely put libcom penguin on the cover.

I think it's a great idea - as a young anarchist I just equated Marx with Leninism - a mixture of pure ignorance and taking Leninists' claims to the heritage of Marx at face value.

I can see a couple of issues to resolve first - is it about Marx's writings only or would it include the libertarian marxist tradition? It would make more sense to me to cover the whole tradition, but that has implications for either the length or the depth of the pamphlet.

Would it be a summary of key ideas or would it be more analytical? There are aleady plenty of summaries around already, though they're often aimed at apolitical students. If it's the latter there needs to be a reasonable degree of agreement between the collaborators - eg, this might count me out, as I'm not totally convinced (beyond its usefulness as a simplified description of exploitation) by the labour theory of value as set out in Capital*.

*Before anyone derails the thread this is still something I'm trying to work through, it's not straight in my head, let alone something I'm ready to have a full discussion on.

I think that this sounds potentially like a good idea.

However, it seems to me to be pretty inward looking - just aimed at anarchists.

On this site we generally try to aim at a wider audience - workers in general. Even for some sort of advanced text though I think it could be aimed wider - I would say the average member of most "Marxist" groups has almost no understanding of Marx either, or activists of varying levels in the official labour movement, or various related single issue campaigns (environmentalists, etc), or just quite politicised people in general.

So something aimed at this sort of level might be more worth the effort it would take.

I reckon the writing should be aimed at 'potentially interested people' rather than anarchists as such -i.e. it shouldn't spend much if any time hashing over the usual marxism vs. anarchism stuff even if it's to point out where it's wrong. Having said that, I quite like the title 'Marx for anarchists' as a title.

Doesn't seem like a bad idea, but like others I don't have much time to put into something like that at the moment

I do think that theres some merit to a 'Marx for anarchists' project, certainly in attempting to mobilise the ideas for the libertarian communist movement and break through some of the conceptions among anarchists about Marx's ideas being a bizarre amalgamation of Engels, Lenin and Althusser. There are some academic articles in a similar vein to whats being talked about, but nothing accessible I can think of aimed at anarchist types.

I do think we'd have difficulty circulating a pamphlet amongst a general audience for the reasons JK has described - and I tend to think that publications should be as outward looking as possible. There are plenty of alternatives for an introduction to Marx that people could arrive at before something we might put together, wheras people looking for say, an introduction to anarchist communism or contemporary anarcho-syndicalist strategy are much more likely to arrive at what we publish. Saying this, there could easily be a happy medium - a pamphlet about the libertarian implications of the critique of political economy etc, aimed at countering common conceptions of what Marx's writings tell us amongst both ordinary people and anarchists - presuming we put it online it would get a number of views from non-anarchoids.

I suppose whether we address the whole teleological question of "anarchism vs Marxism" would depend on who we orient the project towards. A brief foreword about the ideas, not the personalities behind them being what is important would suffice for something for a general audience, wheras something aimed at anarchists would likely require something lengthier. But again, there is a medium that could be reached.

I'd hope to contribute in some capacity, though if the internationalism/national liberation pamphlet thats been discussed elsewhere gets mandated by the AF I can see that taking up a lot of the time I could devote to something like this.

Assuming there is a focus on Marx's critique of political economy and the fetish character of bourgeois society, I would be interested in assisting.

Hi all.
I would love to help.
rebel love
Dave

"Anarchists for Marx"?

I think work is the perfect place to start. The whole idea of working for an employer is treated by a lot of people as if it's almost a natural relationship. Breaking it down into what it actually is - you selling the only commodity you have - does three things. It immediately relates the text to everyday life, encapsulates class relations and leads into a wider analysis of the commodity without it all seeming too abstract.

Would this be any help?

Agree with everything Joseph K has said, I think there's definitely a need to increase awareness on the libertarian aspects of Marx's work within the anarchist movement.. I think its part of the debates that happen within political minorities and a 'Marx for workers' type thing has already been done pretty well by prole, imo.

Agree with Steven's point on Trots not understanding Marx either though, and they'd probably get a lot from a pamphlet like this. Maybe putting "(and Leninists too..)" would still be sufficiently provocative for both anarchists and Leninists to be interested in reading. Or maybe not, I dunno..

Think it would be good to also have a little section (before the Marxists of interest section maybe) on where the shit stuff from Marx comes from (i.e. late Marx and that bastard Engels).

Anarchism, Marxism and Leninism?

Well, I suppose I should recommend section H of An Anarchist FAQ here. It tries to show how Marxism and Leninism are related, but different. It also discusses the anarchist critique of Marx, as well as summarising Bakunin's critique. It also notes that some Marxists are closer to anarchism (such as the council communists) -- in fact, I would argue that closer to Bakunin than Marx on many key issues (but I won't get into that again).

Also, there is The Paris Commune, Marxism and Anarchism, which discusses the Paris Commune and its lessons, contrasting the anarchist position with both Marxism and Leninism. It places the Commune in the wider context of Marx's ideas on the state, as well as discussing the limitations of the Commune which anarchists like Bakunin and Kropotkin pointed to.

Marx is an important thinker, someone who need to know and understand -- and more importantly build upon. Just as Marx built on the socialists that preceded him (like Proudhon, Owen and so on).

Saying that, I would argue that the anarchists got more right on Marx did -- Bakunin predicted the rise of reformism in Social Democracy, for example, as well as predicting that the dictatorship of the proeltariat would become the dictatorship over the proletariat (both, of course, related to the nature and role of the state). Which is why I'm an anarchist!

WTF? "Late Marx" is the Marx of the critique of political economy and the ethnological notebooks, as well as the letters exchange with Zasulich. Those are his primary contributions to communist critique. If you strike "late Marx", what the hell is left of Marx's legacy?

Admin: no flaming the FAQ says nothing about the critique of political economy, which is what most communists have in mind when they refer to Marx.

Your persistent attempts to re-fight the factional battles of the First International are reminiscent of a Dungeons & Dragons game, but even more nerdy.

I think you're missing the point and spirit behind this a little. I think its a mistake to get into who got what "right" historically, because as I understand it the people interested in doing this are doing it because they want to get away from these "anarchism vs marxism" debates. The point isn't really about who got what "right" (Bakunin may have got some things "right", so did Marx, Bakunin also got some things horribly wrong, as did every "anarchist" I can think of), but that Marx's work on the critique of political economy and that which precedes it has no comparable peer, and that familiarity with it is important to understanding capitalism and how to get rid of it. The antique spats of long dead personalities have no interest to me, and no bearing on my politics. Ideas which allow us to understand capitalism and the state and think about how to get rid of them do.

Hi all. Perhaps it could be organised on the basis of concepts - commodity fetishism, surplus value, alienation etc. Like a 'tool box' of Marx that anarchists (and others) might find useful.
rebel love
Dave

What would this contribute that Fredy Perlman's 'Commodity Fetishism' and 'Reproduction of Everyday Life' did not?

Readability maybe?

'Reproduction of Everyday Life' I've attempted to read this twice, maybe i can comment when i do...

What? Sorry, but there is a whole section (section C) critiquing capitalism. It also quotes Marx and Marxists approvingly.

And, apparently, nothing else Marx wrote is of any consequence, just his critique of political economy? Sorry, but, really, who takes that seriously? Marx is an important thinker, but you need to evaluate his whole contribution. Limiting comments just to the bits you happen to like is unlikely to happen.

Man, you really do not get it, do you? We need to learn from and build upon people like Marx, and that means evaluating their whole contribution. I fail to see how pointing out where Marx was wrong means "to re-fight the factional battles of the First International" And you really have a problem with anarchists saying that they are anarchists because they think anarchists got more right than Marx!

I guess Angelus Novus will now (yet again) turn a discussion on Marxism and anarchism into a discussion of me... I'm flattered that he thinks I'm so important that I need to be cyber-stalked on libcom -- apparently no anarchist can suggest that anarchists got more right than wrong....