SIN[A]PSIS Vol. 1 Editorial

SIN@PSIS is an Anarchist video magazine from Chile. This is an anarchist video editorial from SIN@PSIS Vol. 1, on the privatization of public transportation in Santiago Chile, the first neoliberal state.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrII0vELAa4

Mayday 2010 San Diego Anarchist Bloc

The march was to take place on one side of the street. The bloc tried to take the street and encountered resistance by the parade cops, and other protesters.

Mayday 2010 San Diego Anarchist Bloc - Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8v_aKEpUoQ&feature=related

Mayday 2010 San Diego Anarchist Bloc - Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2moiGNlg1Y

Peter Kropotkin, the "Prince" of Anarchism

Here is an article I wrote on my favorite anarchist philosopher, Peter Kropotkin. Hope you enjoy.

Towards the end of the industrial revolution and the development of modern Capitalism, an anti-authoritarian undercurrent began to develop in Russia. These thoughts culminated and were exemplified by Peter Kropotkin, a Russian geographer and fervent anarchist writer. Born in Moscow on December 21, 1842 into a wealthy royal family. In fact, Kropotkin had a legitimate claim to the Russian throne, but renounced his title after he mapped Siberia in 1871 (WorldBook Online). In 1872 Kropotkin joined the Circle of Chaykovsky, a revolutionary anarchist group that smuggled subversive literature into Russia, and were also responsible for the assassination of Alexander II (Robinson, 44).

Kropotkin's political philosophy was heavily influenced by his experiences in his youth. As a child of noble birth, his family owned more than 1200 serfs who he would befriend over the years. Peter watched his father beat them regularly, and he became very disenfranchised with his noble birthright. As a young man, when he was charting Siberia, Kropotkin became enamored of the small villages that existed there. In these villages, the Russian peasants and the native tribesman worked together to provide for everyone in the community. It was after these experiences that Kropotkin identified himself as an Anarchist Communist (Avrich, 55).

Anarchist Communism is a political ideology in which society is comprised of a federation of autonomous communes. Each commune would constitute a self-supporting village where inhabitants would work cooperatively in a decentralized cottage industry to trade with other communes. These communes would be established by free agreement of individuals without any form of authority or hierarchy.

A number of facets of a state society would be entirely eliminated in Anarchist Communism. Two of these are currency and private property. The abolition of currency, Kropotkin explains, is necessary in order to end class war and prevent the exploitation of the poor. Collectivism, another anarchist sect, proposed that instead of having currency, workers would be paid with labor cheques that denote how much time has been worked, that can be exchanged for a variety of commodities. Kropotkin argued that this system would only result in the reinstitution of private property, because these labor cheques would become the new currency (Kropotkin, Conquest…, 200-7).

In the event of a revolution, Kropotkin shows that expropriation is necessary in order to end class conflict in a post-capitalist society. He explains: "We do not want to rob any one of his coat, but we wish to give to the workers all those things the lack of which makes them fall an easy prey to the exploiter, and we will do our utmost that none shall lack aught, that not a single man shall be forced to sell the strength of his right arm to obtain a bare subsistence for himself and his babes" (Kropotkin, Conquest…, 41). The nature of this revolution must be inherently peaceful though, he claims. Breaking with Marx's belief in the revolutionary dictator, Kropotkin said that the nature of a revolution will define the nature of post-revolutionary society, and thus the ends do not justify the means (Avrich, 67).

Kropotkin was also known to have a proclivity for federalism. He states that centralization of government "creates an army of office-holders, sitting like spiders in their webs, who have never seen the world except through the dingy panes of their office windows and only know it from their files and absurd formulae…so long as it guarantees a maximum salary for a minimum of work" (Kropotkin, "Paroles…"). He demonstrates that many aspects of modern society have federalist tendencies without any governing body such as "The International Postal Union, the railway unions, and the learned societies give us examples of solutions based on free agreement in place and stead of law" (Kropotkin, Conquest…, 32).

As a proponent of Anarchist Communism, Kropotkin posits that "Anarchy leads to Communism, and Communism to Anarchy, both alike being expressions of the predominant tendency in modern societies, the pursuit of equality" (Kropotkin, Conquest…, 29). Anarchism is not an artificially implemented social order, but rather the natural flow of human behavior in the absence of the state. Kropotkin also argues that all existing societies that are founded on individualism "are inevitably impelled in the direction of Communism.

Another subject of great importance to him was the division of labor. In Anarchist Communism there is no divide between manual workers and brain workers. One reason for this is that if there were this division there would soon emerge an intellectual class and a working class. Another reason is that mixing manual and brain work makes doing work in general much more enjoyable. Kropotkin gives the example that "a weaver invent who merely supervises four looms, without knowing anything either about their complicated movements or how the machines grew to be what they are? What can a man invent who is condemned for life to bind together the ends of two threads with the greatest celerity, and knows nothing beyond making a knot?" (Kropotkin, Fields…, 367).

In response to criticism of Anarchist theory, Kropotkin addresses the problem of deviancy in society. Based on his experience in two prisons, he was an ardent opponent their institution because "criminals" are "simply unfortunate; that the remedy is not to flog him, to chain him up, or to kill him on the scaffold or in prison, but to help him by the most brotherly care, by treatment based on equality, by the usages of life amongst honest men" (Ward, 41). Kropotkin was the first person to use the phrase "prisons are the universities of crime" (Avrich, 66).

In addition to his political beliefs, Kropotkin is also renowned for his contributions to ethics and evolutionary biology. Kropotkin read "On the Law of Mutual Aid," one of Professor Karl Kessler's lectures while in Clairvaux prison, which "emphasized that the desire to protect their offspring brought animals together, and that 'the more individuals keep together, the more they mutually support each other, and the more are the chances of the species for surviving, as well as for making further progress in its intellectual development'" (Avrich, 56-7). This view is directly antithetical to that of Thomas Huxley, Darwin's top disciple, who argued that "in civilized society, the inevitable result of such obedience [to the animal kingdom's law of bloody battle] is the re-establishment, in all its intensity, of that struggle for existence – the war of each against all – the mitigation or abolition of which was the chief end of social organization" (Gould, par. 8). This stark opposition prompted him to write his most influential book Mutual Aid.

Kropotkin has gained a significant reputation as an ethical anarchist. As an early advocate of the evolutionary basis of morality, he contends that morality is an instinctual imperative. Morality, he explains, is "the close dependency of every one's happiness upon the happiness of all; and of the sense of justice, or equity, which brings the individual to consider the rights of every other individual as equal to his own. Upon this broad and necessary foundation the still higher moral feelings are developed" (Conquest, 22). In the pamphlet "Anarchist Morality," Kropotkin argued that human morality is an instinctual precondition of humanity. These moral instincts are intended to cause humans to engage in mutual aid and socialization, making humans evolutionarily adept ("Anarchist Morality").

Sources:

Avrich, Paul. Anarchist Portraits. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Berneri, C. "Peter Kropotkin: His Federalist Ideas." London: Freedom Press, 1942.
Gould, Stephen Jay. "Kropotkin Was No Crackpot." Natural History June 1997: 12-21.
Kropotkin, Peter. "Anarchism." The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910 ed.
Kropotkin, Peter. Anarchist Morality. Print.
Kropotkin, Peter. The Conquest of Bread. New York: Vanguard Press, 1995.
Kropotkin, Peter. Fields, Factories and Workshops: or, Industry Combined with
Agriculture and Brain Work with Manual Work. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1913.
Kropotkin, Peter. Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. London: Freedom Press, 1998.
Kropotkin, Petr, and Martin Zemliak. Paroles D'un Révolté. Paris: Flammarion, 1978.
Morris, Brian. "Basic Kropotkin." London: Anarchist Federation, 2008.
Robinson, Victor. "Scenes From Serfdom." Comrade Kropotkin. New York: Altrurians, 1908.
Ward, Colin. Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press
Inc., 2004.
"Kropotkin, Peter." World Book Advanced. World Book, 2010. Web. 2 April 2010.

Some Randomness Cause I've Never Blogged a Blog

Hi folks, this is one of Steevi's poems... I guess it was written under duress (skool), but I think it's fucking AWSOME!!! So I'm posting it to try this blogger blog... If you know Steevi, let her know what you think. I love Anarchy! I love San Diego!

My blood is forgotten faded and cold to the touch but burning inside

I am an orphan of murdered culture

I am the daughter of raped dreams

Mutilation in diaspora.

Somehow I always knew that I would never

Feel

American

Which in the end is what my grandmothers sacrificed themselves for.

Which in the end is what they were sacrificed for.

And when I try to trace my way back to that

I’m wading through raging streams of blood. Searching for my sunken roots. Trying to keep my head above what used to be water

Only to be standing eyelid deep in the sudden heavy stillness

Of knowing that I can’t go back and stop them.

The seduction of our captors sickens me

Capitalist and colonies. Candies and condoms

Laced with cages wrapped in packages that say “for the free”

For those who dare to be brave and free. Welcome to your pretty cage

At the cost of your soul. To be wrapped up in bundles and boxes

To be lost and gathering dust amongst the millions of others

Stacked in towering rows of endless bundles and boxes all gathering dust with labels that say “free”.

Can we not understand what we are worth?

Though our histories may be silenced they are woven into our landscapes.

They peek through the bars of our cages like the flower that rises through the cracks in the concrete and mouths the words to us when no one is watching.

Lullabies and riddles with the secrets to our humanities

Inscribed like brail upon the earth

A muse hidden in the strokes of a painting that everyone’s forgotten to try to find.

Tangled amongst the stems of a flowerbed,

she turns hollow echoes into music we pretend we cannot hear

Never realizing we were not alone.

She tries to make warriors out of broken dolls and cigarette butts

She tries to make their laughter her own and

Trampled under toe she teaches herself to dance beneath the rush of the crowd.

Singing to her captors. Rapists. Though I cannot yet understand why.

Bewilderment will sting the guilty with minds open enough to feel overwhelmed.

Desperately avoided truths will shake loose the dormant madness of this mirage

Like the wild flecks of color in our eyes caught by flashes of angular light.

She whispers to us from under our feet: Do you silence all your epiphanies?

Generations of lost children whose spirit animals are extinct

Roam along roads that fold into themselves as irony.

Refugees. Vagabonds. That flinch at the sight of broken dolls and cigarette butts.

Pinched by the red ears of our cowardice

and drawn onto a stage to mutter the beaten morals of stories no one wants to hear.

Wringing our hands and shaking our heads at our own shadows

We deny ourselves any face to save

Reeling before the rows of windows where the ghosts of our ancestors watch us

Before the rows of bundles and boxes gathering dust

No one had seen them becoming walls. Becoming bars

Ropes and cages. For caricatures and robots.

Feeding on the dead.

We eat in the darkness so we can forget how it must feel for them to have been eaten.

So we can forget we are being eaten.

Blindness becomes almost necessary.

For survival.

Self mutilation, in diaspora.

We forget so we may function.

And resign ourselves to distractions and disposable muses to replace those we have forgotten

While we’re waiting for the end. Waiting. Waiting. For. The end.

We forget that windows are not screens nor the other way around

And we can walk without the crosswalks marked.

That our mother’s mother’s mothers used to build universes with their own two hands

And sacrificed their songs in efforts to save us

While we so often forget they used to sing.

That those songs echo ender foot, in the burning streams of blood that we trace back in search of our roots

To find that our spirit animals are not extinct but endangered

And in cages gathering dust. Labeled as candies and condoms.

If we could find them they would teach us that

That we must peek through our own cages like the flower through the cracks in the concrete

And sing

Even though they will try to silence us

For having discovered our voice.

Book Review: The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto

In Hernando De Soto's most influential work, The Mystery of Capital, he proclaims that integration of extralegal settlements is necessary for the economies of developing and former communist countries to prosper. He explains that the informal economy is caused by legal failure, and that assets held extralegally are what he calls "dead capital."

The book begins by explaining how capitalism only works if the majority of people possess capital. De Soto shows how the key manifestation of capital is land, which people can use to receive loans. By receiving loans on land owned, that land carries out two lives, one that is real, and one that is more economically useful and represented by titles and deeds.

This second life of assets is only possible with formal property, the absence of which, De Soto claims, renders the economic potential of the asset useless. It is here that he analyzes what he calls "extralegal settlements": informal economic activity that has become predominant in developing and former communist countries. In these extralegal settlements, people have constructed homes on land that they did not own, and have formed a cottage industry to support their well-being.

De Soto recognizes six benefits of owning formal, rather than informal, property. The first is fixing the economic potential of assets, which is done by allowing economic activity regarding the asset to be carried out using a representation (title) of the asset. Next is integrating a variety of social contracts that have already been agreed upon into a formal system, which is essentially codification of law. The third effect is making people accountable, for in an integrated formal system of law anonymity becomes impossible. Another effect is making assets fungible, which he means to give a value in dollars to a variety of assets. The fifth effect is networking people, where credit records allow for more investment of greater yield. The final aspect of formal property is protecting transactions, where law guarantees safety in trade of large quantities of assets.

De Soto substantiates his claims through analyzing the history of the United States. He presents 19th century settlers in the U.S. to being in a similar situation as in developing countries today. In the wake of the ever increasing amount of squatters in the western United States, these extralegal settlements were integrated into formal property law by observing existing social contracts. De Soto argues that this integration must be mimicked by developing and former communist countries today in order for them to become integrated into global capitalism.

Throughout the book, De Soto places the blame for these extralegal settlements entirely on labyrinthian legislation and short sighted lawyers. It is because of the difficulty to obtain legal property that people choose to behave informally. He demonstrates this by trying to open a clothing store in Lima, Peru. It took him an entire year to open the store legally, and they soon found that it is just as difficult to maintain legal status as it is to get it.

Although this book has been highly acclaimed and has been implemented into several government policies since, I see De Soto's understanding of capitalism fatally flawed. Particularly, his conception of capital is highly influenced by his bourgeois lifestyle and he is unable to understand that the reason for poverty in developing countries is because of capitalism, not the lack thereof.

Capitalism allows for great wealth to be amassed, but it would be with great naiveté to believe that "capital" is the Higgs boson of economic growth. It is evidenced by the disparity of income in developed countries that the wealth of the capitalist is gained at the expense of those he employs. For the capitalist, capital is everywhere, and once found, he can exploit it.

To demonstrate this point, let us examine the capitalist practice of renting property. Because the poor cannot afford to own property, they are forced to rent this property. This rent is paid to the capitalist, but results in no accumulation of assets, and absolutely no return on the money spent. You see, the capitalist is not creating any value in owning this property, but he rather is capitalizing on the wage disparity in his country in order to exploit the labor of the proletariat. The very existence of the bourgeoisie is entirely due to their ability to exploit the proletariat.

In this light, money can be viewed as merely a stock, or share, of the nation's scarce resources. Money is a representation of the useful properties of commodities, similarly to how a title is a representation of a plot of land. This implies the finite nature of money, where capitalism only disproportionately allocates resources to achieve a facade of national prosperity. Capitalism, very much like a Ponzi scheme, is inevitably doomed to fail, and as Marx argued is merely a means to an end.

It is this concept that entirely escapes De Soto in writing this book. He sincerely believes that capitalism will benefit the poor if they only are integrated into the formal property system. This view is an utterly unsophisticated oversimplification of global poverty. In the developing world, extralegal settlements essentially make up the middle class. Were his idea of integration to come to fruition the wealthier squatters would ascend to higher classes, but the rest would lose the few assets they had. This integration would destroy the middle classes of these societies and pave the way for creating a new, developed, society, where the rich become richer as the poor lose their niche in an overly industrialized society.

Where De Soto claims that extralegal settlers have assets that are "dead capital", they rather have assets that they refuse to allow to be exploited by capitalism. Where De Soto says "capital" he really means money, as for the rich, money appears to be the sole means of production. De Soto fails to recognize that in these pre-capitalist societies in developing countries, the workers see the full benefit of each ounce of their labor. They pay no taxes on their land, and operate in swift cottage industries reminiscent of 19th century Switzerland.

Entirely self-supporting, the strength of these informal economies is derived from their refusal to integrate with the formal economy. It is this refusal to integrate that allowed these societies to flourish; with non-hierarchal social constructs they developed a community that was entirely their own. De Soto's attempt to integrate these great communities will surely spell their demise.

Extralegal settlements are not new to society, and go back even further than De Soto would care to notice. The fall of the western Roman Empire was largely caused by extralegal settlements. Lus privatum (private law), stipulatio (contract law), and rei vindicatio (property law) encompassed all of the laws relating to property, but all of these laws were designated to only apply to Roman citizens. After massive germanic immigrations, a huge informal economy was developed by these immigrants. This informal economy threatened the sovereignty of the Roman minority, and resulted in the secession from the greater Roman empire. When an informal economy becomes prevalent or even stronger than the formal economy, the state will inevitably lose sovereignty over its subjects. What De Soto is arguing for in this book is the protection of global capitalism from informal economies that could challenge the status quo.

De Soto is the president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, a think tank advocating neoliberal imperialism. In the 1990's the ILD drafted legislation on behalf of Alberto Fujimori to formalize the informal sector of the Peruvian economy. Working with the World Bank to enact massive legislation in Peru which successfully formalized their economy. Peru was then completely prepared to be exploited by global capitalism.

Under the direction of new president Alan Garcia, the United States - Peru Trade Promotion Agreement was signed into law on April 12, 2006. This bill essentially destroys all trade barriers meant to protect their markets from american corporations, as well as rendering all agricultural products exported by the U.S. tariff and duty free. Also, as stated on official documentation on the bill, "Peru has agreed to exceed its commitments made in the WTO, and to dismantle significant services and investment barriers, such as measures that require U.S. firms to hire nationals rather than U.S. professionals and measures requiring the purchase of local goods." This legislation was entirely made possible by De Soto's manipulation of the Peruvian people by masking his imperialist agenda by one of mere populism.

Keep posted about the Anarchist Studies conference next January!

2nd North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference: Toronto!

Welcome friends, comrades and vagrants alike. This is the "official" blog for the 2nd (quasi-annual) North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference slated to take place in Toronto, Canada in January of 2011.

Please return to this page for all future information regarding the event, including workshop and paper call outs, as well as any associated and relevant information (location, dates, participants etc).

We are still in the early stages of moving ahead with this project, but are excited about the possibility of doing great things.

With much love, peace and solidarity,

The NAASN Toronto Crew

Let's meet!

Hey all,

So today I had a really interesting conversation with some peers about anarchy and what it all means and discussing different hypotheticals and such. This reminded me that I would love a chance to sit down and talk, exchange ideas and opinions to kind of learn and share about our own interpretations of what anarchy means or would look like. What does everyone think? A bit of face to face time?

I will be gone most of the summer so I was hoping some time before the second week of June would be good for me.

Either way, what do you all think about meeting up?

Thanks!

Carolina

repost from san diego for educational justice

chicago conspiracy - documentary on chile at free skool this monday

*The City Heights Free Skool and Subversive Action Films Present:*

*Screening of The Chicago Conspiracy followed by a conversation with the
director*
Monday, May 10, 6:30 pm

4246 Wightman Street, SD
*
Directions/Map http://tinyurl.com/freeskoolmap
cityheightsfreeskool@riseup.net

Come hungry! We will be serving the famous burritos de jamaica con frijoles
de la Casa Snowdrop. Donations for travel costs gladly accepted!

The screening will be accompanied by a photo exhibition of social struggle
in Chile. The Chicago Conspiracy is a documentary based in Chile that
explores the legacy of the Pincohet dictatorship and the current political
conflict. The Chicago Conspiracy is response to neoliberalism, militarism
and authoritarianism.

Check out the trailer!
http://www.subversiveactionfilms.org/the-chicago-conspiracy/
*

*
*
*The Chicago Conspiracy* is a documentary three years in the making. The
project was filmed in Chile, and the story extends into the Mapuche
indigenous lands of Wallmapu. The concept for the film was born with the
death of a former military dictator. We celebrated in the streets of
Santiago with thousands of people after hearing the news: General Augusto
Pinochet was dead. His regime murdered thousands and tortured tens of
thousands after the military coup on September 11, 1973. We celebrated both
his death and the implication that the political and economic system which
put him in power might itself be mortal. We began this documentary with the
death of a dictator, but we continue with *the legacy of a dictatorship*.

*[image:
photo1]<http://www.subversiveactionfilms.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/photo1.jpg>The
Chicago Conspiracy* takes its name from the approximately 25 Chilean
economists who attended the University of Chicago and other prestigious
universities beginning in the 1960s to study under the neoliberal economists
Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger. After embracing Friedman’s neoliberal
ideas, these economists returned to assist Pinochet’s military regime in
imposing free market policies. They privatized nearly every aspect of
society, and Chile soon became a classic example of free market capitalism
under the barrel of a gun.

The military coup was a conspiracy initiated by the upper classes in Chile
and assisted by their international counterparts. The military’s action and
its support from the CIA was executed on the pretext that the president at
the time, Salvador Allende, a reformist and supporter of the democratic
state, was actually a militant Marxist revolutionary. They claimed his
government included a secret *Plan Z* that would establish a system similar
to communist Cuba. The military has never successfully proven the existence
of this plan.

looking for thoughts/reflections on sd's may day:

so today is may second, so after a long day of people talking to people standing around, some walking, then more people talking to a shrinking crowd of people standing around and pro arizona d-bags yelling at all of us, i think it would be cool if we could get a few people's thoughts on how may day went in san diego. maybe something they would have like to have seen, some constructive criticism, etc

here is a link from infoshop with links to may day recaps from all over the world:
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2010mayday

also, the may first coalition that planned the march yesterday have lots of links to video and photos on their facebook wall


ken