<div>Thanks for the clarifications Dmytri. I'm on the road for the next few days, so I'm simply taking your information in.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Michel<br><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/16/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">Dmytri Kleiner</b> <<a href="mailto:dk@telekommunisten.net">dk@telekommunisten.net</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:27:40 -0700 (PDT), Michael Bauwens<br><<a href="mailto:michelsub2003@yahoo.com">michelsub2003@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>> As far as I understand Oekonux<br><br>Hi Michel, Oekonux is used in the title of that article as an example,<br>it<br>is not about Oekonux specifically, which is not mentioned in the<br>article.<br><br>The self-description of Oekonux as wanting a "GPL Society" is simply<br>
the most comical of any similar group, and thus the best example, and<br>my recent experiences on their list made it an obvious choice.<br><br>Oekonux is far from alone in utopian thinking.<br><br>There are many others, i.e. the whole Basic Income and/or Tobin Tax<br>
crowd,<br>or various others promoting that the State should adopt policy A, B or C<br>and who believe that democratic participation on it's own can end<br>exploitation, //if only the politicians would understand//, for as Marx<br>
sarcastically comments "how can people, when once they understand<br>their system, fail to see it in the best possible plan of the best<br>possible state of society?"<br><br>Oekonux itself hardly presents a coherent or united view, but Merten<br>
makes<br>it clear, when he's not making wildly inappropriate accusations of<br>antisemitism and unsubscribing unwanted voices from his list, that is,<br>that he is against class antagonism and wants to "appeal to society<br>
at large, without distinction of class."<br><br>Case in point:<br><br> To: <a href="mailto:list-en@oekonux.org">list-en@oekonux.org</a><br> From: Stefan Merten <<a href="mailto:smerten@oekonux.de">smerten@oekonux.de</a>><br>
Message-Id:<br><<a href="mailto:20080204204241.E85C8ABE6@paulla.merten-home.homelinux.org">20080204204241.E85C8ABE6@paulla.merten-home.homelinux.org</a>><br><br> [...]<br><br> Oekonux has nothing to do with class struggle in any meaning I know<br>
of<br><br> [...]<br><br>QED.<br><br>Later in the same message he demonstrates the late twentieth century<br>triumphalism that I refer to very well:<br><br> On exactly that base class struggle has been fought for 200 years -<br>
and<br> failed. If there were any questions about this they have been<br>answered<br> in 1989.<br><br>The remarkable shallowness of the later quote should make It obvious<br>that<br>Oekonux, of which Merten as the founder and most prominent spokesperson,<br>
is not based on a "a close observation and analysis" of anything, but<br>exactly the sort of smug Utopianism my article is about.<br><br><br>> Marx's prescriptions, and his critique of the utopian<br>> socialist, seem pretty moot after 200 years of experience, with no<br>
> revolutionary labour movement in sight.<br><br>Ha!<br><br>I'm far from a Marx scholar, but it is pretty obvious that Marx's<br>views, as well as those of other Socialist theorist including Anarchist<br>are much more relevant, and far more visible, far more influential,<br>
and far more widely held than "Oekonux" can ever hope to be.<br><br>If Marxian and Anarchist labour movements are nowhere in sight, despite<br>having at least hundreds of thousands of adherents in there ranks, then<br>
how irrelevant is "Oekonux?" which is basically less than a dozen<br>confused people?<br><br>Your conceit here is laughable. Oekonux will never be as large a<br>movement<br>as even the smallest, most obscure and most cranky branch of Socialism.<br>
<br><br>> Your approach, which seems related to mutualism, seems based on the<br>> creation of small commons-oriented enterprises, and it seems to me,<br>> precisely what he criticized in the utopians.<br><br>You have confused Anarchism and Utopian Socialism. Mutualism<br>
is a part of Anarchist theory.<br><br>As you can see from the actual quotation used, Marx was criticising<br>the Utopians, not for commons-oriented enterprises, but because<br>they "consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms."<br>
<br>Specifically he was referring to Utopian socialist opposition to Jacobin<br>and Chartist activism.<br><br>And that "they habitually appeal to society at large, without<br>distinction<br>of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class."<br>
<br>It should be perfectly obvious that Marx's primary Anarchist rivals,<br>Prudhon and Bakunin, could not be accused of rejecting class antagonisms<br>nor appealing to the ruling class.<br><br>You simply have not understood the quote my article uses as a point of<br>
departure.<br><br>But more importantly, you seem to have defensively understood my article<br>as saying that Marx, specifically, disapproves of Oekonux, specifically.<br>I am not a scholar of Marx, and certainly not something so fishy as<br>
"Oekonux."<br><br>Rather my article is a reflection about how cyclical periods of<br>privilege<br>cause these sorts of delusional ideologies to come about, later<br>nineteenth century Britian produced the Utopian Socialists, and late<br>
twentieth century America produced the "California Ideology," I am not<br>saying these are the same, but rather that they are both products of<br>delusion born of a temporary wealth bubble among the working classes<br>
during a period of international dominance of their nation.<br><br>You may have noticed that Marx's opinions about Oekonux are not<br>mentioned in the article.<br><br><br>> I understand that you have a very radical rhetoric about class<br>
> struggle,<br>> but that doesn't make anything happen per se.<br><br>It is the only thing that ever has.<br><br><br>> My own approach, which I propose to those monitoring our work at the<br>> P2P<br>> Foundation, is to closely observe actual social movements and<br>
> practices,<br>> to idenfity those projects with the highest emancipatory potential,<br>> including your venture proposals and experiences, and to internetwork<br>> them so that they can learn from their successes and failures.<br>
<br>Yes, as you know I appreciate and encourage the work that the P2P<br>Foundation does.<br><br><br>> We do not deny 'class struggle' (that is for me simply a reality),<br><br>Pick a number.<br><br>Whatever number you pick, you can find that many quotations of the<br>
primary<br>Oekonux contributors denying class struggle.<br><br>i.e. this quote from the smarter Stefan, Stefan Meretz:<br><br> "I am not interested in solutions for some partial groups on costs of<br> others."<br>
<br>Oekonux imagines that we can help the robbed without costing the<br>robbers!<br><br>Or this idiotic recent exchange:<br><br>Stefan responds to the following simple points:<br><br> 2) question the role and complicity of the commons within the<br>
global economy and put the common stock out of the exploitation<br> of large companies;<br> More generally the whole finance world is based on rent.<br>Financialisation<br> is precisely the name of rent that parasites domestic savings.<br>
<br>With this crap:<br><br> "I'm really sorry to say this but once more your anti-Semitic<br> attitude shows through: Single workers may but large companies<br> may not? [...] That argument has an anti-Semitic structure If I had<br>
looked for a proof of the anti-Semitic structure of your<br> arguments I had finally found it here"<br> -- Stefan Merten, responding to the points above.<br><br>You see? Talking about Class Struggle not only "has nothing to do" with<br>
Oekonux, but the very concept is antisemitic! Is this the "close<br>observation and analysis" you are referring to?<br><br><br>> but a harsh rhetoric of resistance is not necessarily the best way of<br>> obtaining results,<br>
<br>Yes it is.<br><br><br>> Thanks for explaining why your approach should not be considered<br>> Utopian?<br><br>Because in the context clearly defined in my article "Utopian" refers<br>to a socialism that denies class struggle and appeals to the ruling<br>
class to implement it's proposals.<br><br>My approach does neither. It seems you are responding to an argument<br>you have inferred on your own from the title of my article than<br>to the arguments made in the article itself.<br>
<br>This response is preferably my last discussing Oekonux per se,<br>I wish you all goodbye and good luck, however if anything I<br>actually mention in my article outside the title is interesting<br>to you, I would rather discuss that.<br>
<br>Cheers.<br><br><br>--<br>Dmytri Kleiner<br>editing text files since 1981<br><br><a href="http://www.telekommunisten.net">http://www.telekommunisten.net</a><br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>
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