Saturday

The undemocratic thoughts of Wolfi Landstreicher

Wolfi Landstreicher is the name of a contemporary activist. He has edited the anarchist publication Willful Disobedience, which was published from 1996 until 2005, and currently publishes a variety of anarchist texts and booklets through his project, Venomous Butterfly Publications. "Landstreicher" is the German word for vagabond, tramp.



Landstreicher is an insurrectionist, he thinks an individual should rise up in open revolt against her or his condition (individual insurrection) and wants “a destructive, subversive rupture on the large scale with the current social order”, indeed, the rising of “the exploited and excluded classes against their condition (social insurrection). “ Now, I never believed much in the importance of destruction, I nowadays think it is really important to revolt in a constructive way, by advocating true democracy, educating people and myself, working together with others.
This is why I really dislike individualist anarchism. While Landstreicher thinks that daily acts of sabotage, theft, subversion and revolt of exploited people are interesting, I think such acts are often badly informed, and can also just be personalistic revolts or deeds of despair. While Wolfi Landstreicher sees no dichotomy between individualism and libertarian communism, I do. And I also see individual revolts as something really differing from class struggle. Individual revolt often is unorganized behaviour. But class struggle can only be successful when it's organized well. While Landstreicher thinks of freedom as something that is opposed to democracy, I and other communalists see democracy as a necessary condition for freedom. Democracy should be deepened and established in confederations of communes. Democracy should therefor become authentic, not often be faked or “representative”.
“At present, capitalism and the socio-political system that best corresponds with it—democracy—dominate the planet”, writes Landstreicher in one of his pamphlets. But capitalism is not at all democratic, in fact it is close to the totalitarian. The anarchist perspective of Landstreicher is egoist and communist at the same time, which is very eclectic. I believe in ecological industrialism, he opposes industrialism. I think institutions of property, commodity exchange and work can sometimes lead to some liberation, he wants to destroy them. No, I am not an ecological anarchist.