[p2p-research] Concerning wikiworld and its use of socialist terminology

[Michel Bauwens]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [p2p-research] Concerning wikiworld and its use of socialist
terminology
Date: Tue, 11 May 2010 12:32:12 +0300
From: Tere Vadén <tere.vaden at uta.fi>
To: p2p research network <p2presearch at listcultures.org>,  Juha Olavi
Suoranta <juha.suoranta at gmail.com>
Hi all,

well, there are several things here.

First of all, I want to say that the discussions and reservations on the
words "socialist" and "communist" presented on this list and by
participants elsewhere have not gone unnoticed by Juha and myself.
Indeed, the historical connotations do give me pause, in two ways: i)
the atrocities perpetrated by people calling themselves communists and
ii) the tendencies toward fixation on persons (Marx etc.) and the
theories presented by them. (I like David Graeber's point that the
difference between socialists and anarchists is evident already in the
fact that the factions of the former are identified by proper names
(Marxists, Leninists, Trotskyists, etc.) while the latter are identified
by ideas (syndicalists, libertarians, communalists, etc.)). These
discussions have made me more reflective and careful in using those
terms; I'm thankful to you all for that.

However, I still do use those terms, and we decided to keep them in
Wikiworld. Why?

There is the general point that I think that we should not give language
and words up too easily. "Anarchism" is maybe even more a case in point
than communism. To the man in the street "anarchism" means all that is
wrong, and this is the result of a conscious and purposeful campaign of
meaning-change by the enemies of anarchism (including factions of
communists, to be sure). I'm not sure we should just abandon a word that
is willfully poisoned; that would keep us running forever. Having said
that I have nothing in principle against new words and names, just as
long as they are good ones. :)

So are the words "socialism" and "communism" worth trying to save? Well,
the wager here is that they are. First, communism is a very "obvious"
idea to which no Marx or no China has a copyright. Think about certain
primitive societies: there is no party or coercion there, but certainly
communism. Second, there is an inspiring new wave of thinking about
communism in the post-communist era; I'm thinking of people like Zizek
and Graeber ("communism is what you do naturally when you co-operate in
a family, a village, etc."), for instance, and especially the
indianismo-movements in Latin America that combine socialism with
anti-colonialism. Third, and most importantly, I'm personally familiar
with a form of communist/socialist politics that was not blind towards
Stalinism, that was not violent, not subservient to "Marxism", and that
did produce real, tangible results. My grandfather was a part of a
communist generation after the civil war in Finland that started their
political activity underground. With the industrialization of the
country, especially after WWII, the communists and socialist were very
popular in elections; my grandfather was a representative in the
municipal council for decades. The main goals for him there were free
education and universal health care; both of which were achieved. There
was a very direct link between his socialism and the school next door;
the "reds" wanted it, the reds built it and made sure everyone gets in.
The reds had their own co-op shops, banks, sport stadions, etc., indeed
a relatively autonomous and self-reliant economic sphere that is even
hard to imagine now. This is the "concrete utopia" I have in mind: the
little money the reds had never entered the stock exchange, they
collectively owned food production and processing chains that also made
possible improving on working conditions, they had their own independent
non-Hollywood culture. This was, to be sure, to some extent parasitic on
the growth of the capitalist system (fossil fuels), but I see no
in-principle reason why it could not have been made more independent,
had they been aware of the energy-environment facts. (There was, indeed,
a local municipally owned water-powered electricity station, too, that
was torn down as "ineffective" later). (I would have to admit, however,
that violence – the threat of violence – did probably have its role. The
fact of the civil war and the proximity of the Soviet Union forced the
hand of the right in granting major concessions to the left.) At the
same time, he was very critical and non-naive about the Soviet Union,
having visited it several times and knowing already from the 30's about
what happened to Finnish communists that moved there (they were killed).
To sum up: this was not Don Quixote, this was not ideological blindness,
but a very nitty-gritty and down-to-earth day-to-day grind that did
eventually over the decades produce concrete results, most of which
have, alas, been lost. I just don't have the stomach to say that he was
wrong in calling it "socialism" or "communism". ("Welfare-statism" would
be one possible alternative, but that has its problems too, since while
welfare was an important goal and the state an important tool, equality,
locality and internationalism would override both welfare and statism in
his thinking and action.)

Maybe the conclusion, then, is that when we want to envision, on one
hand, a world of education that for its freedom needs also the
collective/common ownership of the physical infrastructure, and, on the
other hand, want to see this model take root in physical production as
well, it would actually be dishonest to call it something else than
socialist or communist. We know more, we have better tools, so it will
not be the same; if we can come up with a better name, I'm in. But at
the same time, there already exists a significant body of thought and
praxis on these things that also helps to situate current developments
in context, so why invent everything from the ground? (This point is not
only academic: in my day job in the university I talk about p2p and open
hardware and so on, which might be tactically right, but gives me some
trouble with my conscience, because I know that it is "communism with a
twist" I'm talking about and I suspect the students can see that, too.
So why not say it?)

One last point: I suspect that with peak oil and the financial/debt
crisis, certainly the right and possibly the left will in the
foreseeable future turn more and more authoritarian. So the decisive
political divide will more be on the authoritarian - anti-authoritarian
axis than on the right-left axis.

Best,

T:T

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