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Title: Communalism and Especifismo Author: Usufruct Collective Date: August 4, 2021 Language: en Topics: communalism, Especifismo, assemblies, organization, prefigurative politics, Organizational Dualism Source: Retrieved on 10/27/2021 from https://usufructcollective.wordpress.com/2021/08/04/communalism-and-especifismo/
Communalism is a philosophy and praxis in favor of the means and ends of
developing community assemblies with specific kinds of qualifications:
those qualifications being practices and processes of horizontality,
direct democracy, free association, co-federation mutual aid, and direct
action. Horizontality combined with direct democracy means direct
collective decision making without ruling classes or ruling strata. Free
association means the freedom of, from, and within associations.
Co-federation refers to ways of organizing between organizations where
policy making power is retained in general assemblies of groups. Mutual
aid refers to mutual support and voluntary association to meet people’s
needs. Direct action refers to direct activity of collectives and
persons more broadly– although usually refers to oppositional politics
done by people directly. The above practices are the extension of
freedom and self-management of each and all on every scale. Communal
assemblies in harmony with communalism have the above features as part
of their living practices and processes and enshrine such features in
bylaws, constitutions, and structure. Such assemblies are communalist
assemblies not in the sense that the assemblies and the members thereof
all have the specific ideology of communalism, but in the sense that
such assemblies have the minimal qualifiers of what constitutes
communalist processes and practices.
Such communal assemblies in harmony with the features of communalism
functionally do reconstructive and oppositional politics. Reconstructive
politics refers to developing horizontalist and common politics and
economics, people powered infrastructure and institutions, mutual aid
projects, and other features that should exist according to criteria of
freedom of each and all and the means thereof. Oppositional politics
refers to opposing hierarchies (institutionalized top-down command
obedience), injustice, and arbitrary limits to freedom and using direct
action to achieve various liberatory goals. Communal assemblies can
create a wide array of sustained mutual aid projects and direct action
campaigns. Such communal assemblies pool needs, tools, resources, ideas,
abilities, activities, technology, etc. together to achieve common goals
through deliberation and collective action. In such assemblies there is
open dialogue, a search for agreement, disagreements, alternatives,
amendments, questions etc. If full agreement is not reached, then a
decision is made through majority vote. In order to be in harmony with
communalist practices and processes, any decisions communal assemblies
make must be qualified by horizontalist rights and duties, form and
content, as well as free association and participatory activity of
persons. Such communal assemblies have mandated and recallable
participatory councils and delegates that implement various decisions
that are made at the communal level by general assemblies. All policy
making power resides in the general assemblies. Embedded councils
self-manage within the limits of the policy they are mandated by from
below. Such embedded delegates and councils are instantly recallable by
their respective communal assemblies and co-federations thereof.
In a good society, communal assemblies become forms of horizontal
political economic governance. Means of production, fields, factories,
and workshops would be communalized, all would have guaranteed rights to
common means of production, the means of existence, and the means of
direct horizontalist politics. Persons and collectives would have access
to the means to develop their various social, philosophical, and
artistic activities, aspirations, and hobbies. Necessities and luxuries
would be free for all and made abundant. When there is scarcity of
luxury goods, there would be new plans to meet needs with scarce luxury
goods rationed as needed. Communities would get together to make
decentralized and co-federated communal and intercommunal decisions and
plans to meet people’s needs within and between communities and to
develop common projects, activities, and infrastructure as expressions
of participatory communal and inter-communal life. Communal self
governance would become a realm of common freedom: participatory
activity of each and all within horizontalist bounds and the means
thereof.
The process of developing a communalist society is through the strategic
prefiguration of communalist institutions and practices via oppositional
and reconstructive politics in particular contexts adapted to relevant
variables. Such a process consists of meeting people’s needs, opposing
hierarchies and injustice, building the kinds of organizations that
should exist in the future society by including the features of a good
society within the means used to develop such ends. Such general
practices would be adapted to contexts and relevant variables to achieve
short term, mid term, and long term goals. As communal organizations in
harmony with the features of communalism multiply, they can constitute a
“third sector” to the capitalist market and the state that can be
expanded into confederations and gain legitimacy by meeting needs,
solving problems, and developing horizontalist power at the expense of
hierarchical power. Overtime, this communal sector would develop itself
and overthrow hierarchical institutions and institute libertarian
communism.
Such communal assemblies can engage in and assist oppositional and
reconstructive politics in spheres such as extraction, reproduction of
daily life, production, distribution, consumption, community life, and
intercommunal life. This makes them flexible and adaptable to specific
contexts and provides a non-reductionist approach to where revolutionary
activity can take place. Additionally, such communal assemblies are
needed for self-management in every sphere and is the extension of the
self-management of each and all on the community sphere. For such ends
and processes to be developed they need to be prefigured– that is
developed in such a way where the ends are as much as possible contained
within the means, where groups with communalist form and content
continue to develop and multiply such form and content. Additionally
communal assemblies can easily assist various groups and projects as
part of a social movement ecosystem . It is for the above reasons, and
others, that communal assemblies are “keystone organizations” to be
developed (to use an ecological metaphor).
What is especifismo? Whereas communal assemblies–and other kinds of
groups like radical unions– are designed to be popular organizations
with common processes and practices, theoretically specific libertarian
communist groups are a distinct kind of group that serve a distinct
function. Social movement groups and popular organizations (such as but
not limited to communal assemblies) should have some kind of shared
processes and practices and goals, they should also reach out to and be
comprised of common people en masse irrespective of if they have some
special sauce libertarian communist ideological litmus test. Unlike
social movement groups and popular organizations, theoretically specific
groups are made out of people who have a sufficient degree of tight-knit
theoretical unity. Members of such theoretically specific groups
function as an “active minority” within social movements.
The major purpose of such theoretically unified libertarian communist
groups is to do social insertion: that is to create and participate in
social movements, social movement groups, and popular organizations in
and out of the workplace (such as community assemblies, mutual aid
projects, unions, tenants’ unions, issue specific social movements, etc)
in such a way where members of such theoretically unified libertarian
communist groups help to develop and assist liberatory processes and
practices within social movements and popular organizations. Within
social movements and popular organizations, members of especifismo
groups advocate for practices of self-organization, direct democracy,
federalism, direct action, mutual aid, class struggle, and opposition to
hierarchy more broadly. Such libertarian practices are spread within
social movements and popular organizations through deliberation,
persuasion, and demonstration. Such practices can be developed in new
organizations starting from scratch or through joining already existing
organizations and helping to cultivate the already existing libertarian
thrust of such groups towards their own goals. The goal of social
insertion is to spread such libertarian socialist processes and
practices and not to get any particular person or group to proclaim any
specific ideology– however in the process of spreading liberatory
practices and giving reasons for them various corresponding theories
will likely spread to people and become more generalized.
Especifismo groups are places for like minded organizers and militants
to produce, reproduce, deliberate and strategize about theory and
practice more broadly. Especifismo groups engage in political education
and propagation of libertarian communist theory and practices. These
groups require a high degree of collective responsibility on the part of
participants. Specifics in regards to especifismo groups and how they
function can be found in FARJ’s “Social Anarchism and Organization”.
If libertarian socialists merely organize with libertarian socialists,
then they will lose contact with the broader population they need to be
reaching. If libertarian socialists merely join social movements without
advocating various libertarian socialist practices that can be used,
then social movements can easily drift into being susceptible to
reformist, unstrategic, liberal, and leninist tendencies and
opportunists. If libertarian socialists merely join social movements and
try to spread ideas and practices in mere individual ways, they will be
far less successful than a well thought out coordinated effort. And if
theoretically specific libertarian socialist groups try to control
social movements and popular organizations from the top down, then such
specific groups sacrifice their own principles and will reproduce
hierarchical organizing. In contrast to authoritarian vanguardist
conceptions, especifismo groups and especifists put their activity
towards the self-organization of movements and organizations.
Especifismo is a tendency initially developed by FAU in Uruguay building
off of already existing organizational dualist tendencies within
anarchism. Especifismo is a living praxis being developed on multiple
continents. Especifismo is distinct from other kinds of organizational
dualism in its advocacy for and conception of strategic unity rather
than mere tactical unity, through its polished conception and strategy
of social insertion, and through having a broader conception of groups
to organize with and relate to far beyond radical unions.
Communalist especifists combine both communalism and especifismo: That
is they are in favor of communal assemblies as popular organizations
before, during, and after revolutions and they are in favor of joining
especifismo groups to help develop such communalist assemblies as well
as other kinds of liberatory groups. The two praxes combine through
social insertion in relation to community assemblies: both through
starting communal assemblies and helping to develop already existing
community associations into ones that use a cluster of liberatory
practices. Additionally such communalist social insertion means
developing community assemblies within or connected to social movements
to help achieve the goals of social movements when that makes sense in
specific contexts.
Part of what distinguishes communalist especifismo from classical
communalism is the emphasis upon the distinction and need (or more
moderately desirability) for both theoretically specific libertarian
socialist organizations and popular organizations as well as social
insertion for purposes of revolutionary social change. Without the
distinction between theoretically specific and popular organizations, it
is quite possible to form a group that tries to do the functions of both
yet functionally does not fulfill the functions and aspirations of
either (a problem some organizational dualist tendencies are consciously
responding to). Part of what distinguishes communalist especifismo from
especifismo is agreeing with the most salient features of communalism
such as the notion that communal assemblies in harmony with the features
of communalism are “keystone organizations” to be developed before,
during, and after revolutions. Such a communalist orientation is not
essential to especifismo despite overlap between especifismo groups and
communal assemblies. Communalist especifismo does not and should not
mean a reduction of especifismo groups to only interfacing communal
assemblies: merely an additional emphasis upon communal assemblies as
keystone organizations to be prefigured and developed before, during,
and after revolutions (for ethical and strategic reasons). A communalist
especifismo group would be composed of people who agree with especifismo
and communalism and who are actively engaged in trying to develop such a
revolutionary project.
Bookchin, Murray. Social Ecology and Communalism. AK Press, 2007.
FARJ. Social Anarchism and Organisation , 2008.
Weaver, Adam. “Especifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building Popular
Movements and Revolutionary Organization in South America .” libcom.org,
2006.https://libcom.org/library/especifismo-anarchist-praxis-building-popular-movements-revolutionary-organization-south.
Usufruct Collective. Communalist Especifism. 2019