Responses

We’ll publish responses to the proposal as they are sent to us.

Mutiny

Adelaide Federation Discussion

Reader

We are putting a reader out a few weeks before the convergence. We are inviting collectives and individuals to write their responses to the proposal and their thoughts about a Federation.

We want to know people’s ideas about what revolution means in the here and now, and what we should be doing to expedite it. We’ll also look at including pieces about how federation’s have worked in other parts of the world.
We’ll be trying to send this reader out before the convergence to help facilitate communication and discussion beforehand.

The due date has now passed, but we are still looking for late submissions.

Please keep writing!

3 responses to “Responses”

  1. MAC's avatar MAC
    February 3, 2008 at 5:01 am

    Hi,

    I have email you guys as well but I wanted to make sure the word is out. MAC has a space for a convergence on Easter Weekend21st-23rd March. Email us!

    Reply
  2. MAC's avatar MAC
    February 3, 2008 at 5:34 am

    Also, I had been delegated to post our Aims and Principles to this site by way of adding to the debate and a basis for federation.

    We haven’t put a group response together yet but
    want to encourage everyone to keep going with
    this idea.

    So here are the current Aims and Principles of MAC; some food for thought.

    Aims & Principles
    of the Melbourne Anarchist Club (MAC)
    Ratified at the MAC Annual General Meeting, 28/10/2007

    Introduction
    Anarchism is both a political philosophy and a social movement. As a social movement, anarchism aims to create a classless, non‑hierarchical society; that is, a society ‘without rulers’ (anarchy). As a political philosophy, anarchism maintains that the creation of such a society is both possible and desirable.
    Anarchists are those who actively work towards realising this possibility.

    Principles

    Liberty
    The concept of individual human freedom lies at the heart of anarchist philosophy. As such, anarchists seek to maximise the ability of individuals to live freely, in the absence of the arbitrary constraints imposed by illegitimate forms of authority. Anarchists therefore oppose all forms of domination and exploitation, and work, through both individual and collective struggle, to subvert all social structures based on these practices.

    Equality
    The anarchist concept of freedom is intrinsically linked to the notion of equality. That is, anarchists maintain that individuals are most free in a society in which there is economic, political and social equality. ‘From each according to their ability; to each according to their need’.

    Solidarity
    ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’. Anarchists oppose the false principle of the survival of the fittest, and believe that human survival and social development can best be secured through co‑operation among individuals and groups to their mutual benefit.

    Direct Action
    ‘The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves’. An anarchist society can only be achieved through direct action; that is, through forms of social struggle unmediated by political authority (government).

    Direct Democracy
    Anarchists advocate the creation of directly democratic forms of social organization, in which individual members have an equal right to take part in decision‑making processes. As such, anarchists oppose forms of representative democracy, and agitate for their replacement by directly democratic ones

    Federation
    Anarchists advocate the establishment of voluntary, non‑hierarchical associations between directly democratic organizations. By the same token, anarchists also maintain the right of members of federated bodies to leave such associations, if and when they deem them to be contrary to their interests.

    Aims:

    Abolition of the State
    Anarchists regard the state as an oppressive institution, the abolition of which is necessary to human liberation.
    “The state is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of human behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently.”
    — Gustav Landauer
    The destruction of the state is a collective responsibility which will be achieved through social revolution.

    Social Revolution
    The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger, want and boredom are found among billions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish capitalism and the state, and live in harmony with
    the Earth.

    Anarchist Economics:
    The ideal economic system, one that is consistent with the principles of liberty, equality and solidarity, is anarchist or libertarian communism. Libertarian communism means the common ownership of the means of production and the free association of producers. The implementation of Anarchism can only be through the free federation of productive and communal organizations.

    ‘Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without freedom is slavery.’ — Mikhail Bakunin.

    Goals
    M.A.C. aims to facilitate the establishment of a federation of anarchist groups with the object of transferring custodianship of the building to a functioning federation.

    Reply

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