Communalism and Especifismo:
Communalism and Especifismo:
Communalism:
What it is:
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, ruling strata, or domination. Free association means the freedom of, from, and within associations. Co-federation refers to ways of organizing between organizations for mutual aid and joint actions where policy making power is retained in general assemblies of groups. Mutual aid refers to multi-directional assistance to meet people’s needs. Direct action refers to direct activity of collectives and persons more broadly– but specifically refers to oppositional politics done by people directly (ethical forms thereof being oppositional actions against some hierarchy/domination/exploitation/oppression). The above dimensions are needed for the self-management of each and all on every scale. Community assemblies in harmony with communalism have the above features as part of their living practices and processes and enshrine such features in bylaws, constitutions, programs, and structures. 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 communalist processes and practices.
What communal assemblies do and how they function:
Community assemblies in harmony with the features of communalism functionally do reconstructive and oppositional politics. Reconstructive politics refers to developing horizontal and common politics and economics, common infrastructure, mutual aid committees, projects, and practices. Oppositional politics refers to opposing hierarchies (institutionalized top-down command obedience relations), domination/exploitation/oppression, and arbitrary limits to freedom and using direct action to achieve various liberatory goals. Community assemblies can create a wide array of sustained mutual aid and direct action committees and projects. Such community 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, decisions community assemblies make must be in harmony with non-hierarchical rights, duties, form and content. Such community assemblies have mandated and recallable councils and delegates that implement various decisions that are made at the communal level by general assemblies. All policy making is held by community assemblies and participants thereof directly. Embedded councils self-manage within the limits of the policies/mandates/protocols made from below. Such embedded delegates and councils are instantly recallable by their respective community assemblies and co-federations thereof.
In the good place:
In a good society, community assemblies and co-federations thereof become forms of horizontal political economic governance. Means of existence and production, fields, factories, and workshops would be communalized; all would have guaranteed substantial rights to common means of existence, common means of production, and the means of horizontal and democratic politics. In assemblies, people deliberate, make direct collective decisions, and make agreements to share in the implementation of decisions. Embedded mandated and recallable councils and delegates would self-manage implementation of decisions within the mandates/policies/protocols made from below. Necessities and luxuries would be free for all and made abundant in ecological ways. Persons and collectives would have access to the means to develop various social, philosophical, and artistic activities, aspirations, and hobbies. 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 intercommunal projects, activities, and infrastructure as expressions of participatory communal and inter-communal life. Communal self governance would become a realm of freedom where people meet needs and desires through the self-management of each and all and freedom from hierarchy/domination/exploitation/oppression.
From here to there:
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, domination, exploitation, and oppression, developing the kinds of organizations, committees, and practices 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, opposing domination, solving problems, and developing self-managed power at the expense of hierarchical power. Overtime, this communal sector would develop itself, overthrow hierarchical institutions, and institute libertarian communism.
**The process of developing a communalist society would also include a plurality of other kinds of self-managed social movement groups in additional to communal assemblies.
Some Reasons Why:
Self-managed community assemblies can engage in and assist oppositional and reconstructive politics in regards to extraction, reproduction of daily life, production, distribution, consumption, community life, and inter-communal life. This makes them adaptable and applicable to multitudes of specific contexts. Additionally, such community assemblies are needed for self-management of each and all on every scale. For all who need, use, and participate in the economy to make collective decisions together about social reproduction, production, consumption, and politics in a deliberative, egalitarian, and libertarian way, there needs to be self-managed community assemblies in relation to communal and intercommunal economics. For such ends and processes to be developed, they need to be prefigured– that is developed in such a way where the ends people are striving for are consistent with and as much as possible present within the means used to arrive at such goals. Through prefiguration, communalist form and content can continue to develop and multiply such form and content. Additionally, community 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).
Especifismo and Ideologically and Theoretically Specific Libertarian Communists groups:
What is Especifismo:
Especifismo organizations are ideologically and theoretically specific groups that actively develop and interface with social movements and social movement organizations to help actualize the liberatory potentials of such movements and organizations. Whereas community assemblies and other kinds of groups like radical unions are designed to be mass organizations, ideologically and theoretically specific libertarian communist groups are distinct kinds of groups that serve distinct functions. Social movement organizations (such as but not limited to communal assemblies and radical labor unions) should develop liberatory shared processes, practices, and goals AND 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, ideological and theoretically specific groups are made out of people who have a sufficient degree of tight-knit ideological and theoretical unity. Members of such ideologically and theoretically specific groups function as an “active minority” and “small motor” within social movements.
The major purpose of such ideologically and theoretically specific libertarian communist groups is to do social work and social insertion: that is to create and participate in social movements and social movement organizations in and out of the workplace (such as community assemblies, labor unions, tenants’ unions, issue specific social movements, etc) in such a way where members of ideologically and theoretically specific libertarian communist groups help to develop and assist liberatory processes, practices, and strategies of social movements and social movement organizations. While social work is part of the broader process of social insertion, an especifismo organization does, “social work when it creates or develops work with social movements, and social insertion when it manages to influence movements with anarchist practices,” (FARJ, 2008). Within social movements and social movement organizations, members of especifismo groups can advocate for practices of direct democracy, federalism, direct action, mutual aid, class struggle, and opposition to hierarchy more broadly. Libertarian practices and strategies are spread within social movements and social movement 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. The goal of social insertion is to spread such liberatory processes, practices, and strategies rather than to get any particular person or group to proclaim any specific ideology. However, in the process of spreading liberatory practices and strategies and giving reasons for them, various corresponding ideologies and theories will likely spread to people and become more generalized.
Especifismo groups (and Ideologically and theoretically specific libertarian communist organizations influenced by especifismo) 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 organizations and how they function can be found in FARJ’s “Social Anarchism and Organization”. FARJ’s “Social Anarchism and Organization” is in our opinion the most comprehensive text on the subject.
Why Organizational Dualism:
Organizational Dualism refers to the anarchist approach of having both social movement organizations AND ideologically and theoretically specific anarchist organizations. Especifismo is one such approach to organizational dualism. 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 ideologically and 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-management of movements and organizations.
Differences Between Especifismo and other “Organizational Dualisms”:
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– primarily but far from exclusively within Latin America. On one level, Especifismo shares a lot of features with other approaches to organizational dualism prior and since. Some ways that especifismo is distinct from other kinds of organizational dualism is through a more polished conception of strategic unity rather than mere tactical unity, through a polished conception and strategy of social insertion, and through having a broader conception of groups to organize with and relate to beyond labor unions (Weaver, 2006). There is a tendency in organizational dualism that sees labor unions as the main mass organizations. FARJ’s iteration/articulation of especifismo in particular is in our opinion particularly holistic in its pluralist approach to social movement organizations– building off of the community, union, student model of FAU.
Communalist Especifismo:
Communalism + especifismo would combine both praxes. Such a communalist especifist approach would be in favor of self-managed community assemblies as organizations before, during, and after revolutions AND in favor of ideologically and theoretically specific libertarian communist groups to help develop such assemblies as well as other kinds of liberatory social movement organizations. The two praxes combine through social work and social insertion in relation to community assemblies: both through starting community assemblies and helping to develop already existing community assemblies into ones that use a cluster of liberatory practices. Additionally such communalist social work and social insertion includes developing community assemblies within or connected to various issues and social movements to help achieve the goals of social movements when that makes sense in specific contexts.
Part of what distinguishes a communalist especifismo approach from classical communalism is the emphasis upon the distinction and need (or more moderately desirability) for both self-managed community assemblies AND ideologically and theoretically specific libertarian socialist organizations– as well as a strategy of social work and social insertion for purposes of revolutionary social change. Without the distinction between ideologically and theoretically specific groups and social movement 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 especifismo is consciously responding to). Part of what distinguishes a communalist especifismo approach from especifismo is agreeing with the most salient features of communalism– such as the notion that community assemblies in harmony with the features of communalism are “keystone organizations” to be developed before, during, and after revolutions. Such a specifically communalist orientation is not essential to especifismo despite the actually existing and rich overlap between especifismo organizations and community assemblies of various kinds. However, a communalist approach to organizational dualism heavily influenced by especifsmo (probably the more accurate way of describing this praxis) does not and should not mean a reduction of ideologically specific libertarian communist groups to merely creating and interfacing communal assemblies: Instead, such a communalist approach would be an additional emphasis upon communal assemblies as keystone popular organizations to be prefigured and developed before, during, and after revolutions (for ethical and strategic reasons). The notion that a good society consists of communalist ends shapes the strategy and tactics towards such ends. An ideologically specific libertarian communist group rooted in communalism and heavily influenced by especifismo would be composed of people who agree with communalism and especifismo. Such an ideologically specific group would be actively engaged in social work and social insertion in the spheres of community, union, student, and beyond and the development of federated self-managed communal assemblies as popular organs of oppositional politics and reconstructive politics.
Endnotes:
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