WEBVTT - CZM Rewind: The Japanese Anarchists Part Two 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:02.880 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:08.000 Hello, and welcome to Cool People who did cool stuff. 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:10.879 You're a weekly reminder that I have a podcast and 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:14.239 my name is Margaret Kiljoy, and we are doing a 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.480 rerun week and this week the thing we are re 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.640 running is Japanese anarchists, women who kept trying to kill emperors, 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:26.160 because that's a thing that used to happen. And some 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:31.720 of these people were real, neat and interesting, including one 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.559 of my favorite love stories I've ever gotten to tell 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:45.000 on this show. I guess I'm starting this one. 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:49.400 Hi, Welcome jac it appened here. It's a show. If 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:51.080 you're listening to this episode, you probably listened to the 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.800 last one. I hope you so you know what it's about. Yeah, 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:55.840 please do don't start with I mean, I guess you 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.319 could start with this one, because this one is sort 0:00:58.360 --> 0:00:59.640 of wildly different from the last one. 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.280 But this is when we're rewriting it so they all survive. 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.440 Yeah, I mean, I don't. No one gets executed this episode. Yes, 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:10.200 that is. 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:12.880 That is a win. That's and the cosmists come, the 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:19.560 Russian cosmos come, and they resurrect at least Kennikofumiko. The rest, 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:22.839 give or take whatever. Maybe the children could be resurrected. 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:26.320 That's how I would prioritize it in that order. 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:28.119 That makes sense. 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:34.320 Yeah, And that voice you're hearing is Margaret Kiljoy, host. 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:37.440 Of Cool, host of cpw DCS. 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:39.479 Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, a cools On media 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.120 podcast that is launching its first episode on May second, 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:45.840 and episodes are every Monday and Wednesday. I did it. 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:50.520 Okay ww, that's true. All the things are true, except 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:51.320 the Cosmos part. 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:53.440 The Cosmists. 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:54.320 I don't know. 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:56.800 Maybe maybe maybe they'll still pull it off all right 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.760 as as of yet, so we're gonna go back a 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.720 little bit. We wentded the last episode in nineteen twenty three, 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:09.040 nine twenty four with everyone sort of dead. But the 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:12.040 reason that also didn't wipe out the anarchist movement was 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:13.760 that does another sort of wing of it, and the 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.440 other wing of it is in nineteen eighteen, nineteen seventeen, 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.280 nineteen eighteen, labor movement in Japan re emerges, and it 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.120 re emerges because there's the war, like Japan fights to 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.960 over one and there's just like mass inflation and deprivation, 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.680 and so even though striking is like unbelievably illegal, people 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:33.000 do it anyways because the unhard. It is just starving 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:37.520 to death. And so there's this reformist trade union that 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:41.320 eventually becomes Japanese Confederation of Labor that swells in numbers 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:43.760 about thirty thousand people and actually mentioned like thirty thousand 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.640 people is like it doesn't sound like that big for 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:50.280 a union. I think this is the biggest any union 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.400 is going to get in this period. I think this 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:56.000 union might get slightly bigger than that, but like, yeah, 0:02:56.040 --> 0:03:00.320 most of the unions don't crack twenty k because the 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.120 size of the Japanese diustrial working class isn't that big, 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:07.000 and also the amount of oppression is unbelievable. But you know, 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:11.040 having thirty thousand people in your union means that your 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:14.000 union is now the site of Japanese intro left conflict, 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:15.920 which is wonderful. 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:21.160 I mean there is actually like the fuck people up. 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:25.359 Yeah, it's there's like, you know, there's a period where 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.000 everyone kind of gets along, like all of there was 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.040 like everyone of the Japanese left knows each other, like 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:32.440 all they're all dating each other, Like this is true, 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:34.000 Like you know we've been talking about all the anarchis 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:35.800 dating each other. The anarchists, the communists are all dating 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.200 each other, like the reformists are also dating each other, 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.800 Like they're all sort of like everyone knows each other, 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.280 and for like a bit they're sort of able to 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:52.920 get along. But with with the the Japanese Confederation of Labor, 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.080 this lasts for like one year, and by nineteen twenty one, 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.240 the anarchists and the Bolsheviks have split over the questions 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.920 of the USSR after the anarchists published like Emma Goldman 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.680 writing about how it's bad actually, and suddenly these two 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.720 factions are like, yeah, these these actions are like fighting 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.160 tooth and nail for control of like the entire left 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:11.960 because like these see, these these groups are like the 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.920 anarchists and communists are in every social movement, like they're 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:17.880 in They're in labor, they're in the feminist movement, They're 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:19.520 in this movement. They're like we haven't really talked about, 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:21.640 but it's going on in the background of all of this, 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.799 which is the uh Burakuman liberation movement. The burk Kumen 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.200 are this like they're this like hereditary class. I'm pronouncing 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:32.200 that extremely badly and I apologize, but this hereditary class 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.239 and like the old fuel system, which is like technically 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:37.760 abolish in the late teen hundreds, but like discrimination against 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.960 them continues. It's it's very similar to like the like 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.719 the untouchable, like the untouchables in India. And so they 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.080 have this sort of movement and the anarchists back it, 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:51.080 and the communists like waffle on it because they're Bolsheviks. 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.280 It takes them like a while before they're like no, no, no, 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.560 nineteen twenty five where we're fully backing this now. And 0:04:57.640 --> 0:04:59.440 so yeah, I mean that gets wrapped up in this 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.720 this giant battle for the control of the left, and 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:04.520 the battle for the control of the left leads to 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.720 like one of history's most common alliances, which is Bolsheviks 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:11.359 allying with reformists who like also favor like centralized control 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.680 to fight the anarchists who don't want centralized control. Yeah, 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:22.840 there are new things, ye know, in labor movement. This 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.200 plays out in this battle over like where power is 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.640 supposed to be in a union confederation. So you know, 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:30.320 the question basically is it supposed to be in the 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.600 federation bureaucracy like the people are like the sort of 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:34.440 high level of the bureaucracy it stuff, or is it 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:36.200 supposed to be in the unions who are like the 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:39.240 part of this federation. And this has real consequences, you know, 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:41.560 like in a lot of sort of centralized union federations, 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:43.839 like the central union bureaucracy, the people who decide if 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:48.359 you can strike or not. And you know, this is 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.919 extremely useful to both reformist bureaucrats who want to make 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.000 sure nobody goes on strike because they have their deal 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.080 with the capitalists and they they don't want a revolution 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.040 to happen. And it's also very useful for the Bolsheviks 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:59.280 who want to make sure they can purge anyone who 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.000 they don't like, and also want to make sure that 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.240 the union movement is just like an extension of their politics. 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:06.719 And so there's this huge battle and it ends with 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.560 basically like both the Bolsheviks and the reformists pull out 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:10.040 of the union. 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.880 Whoa, so the anarchists win, yes sort of, well they 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.040 they there's a victory. There's like nothing left. Yeah, well 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:18.560 it's not. 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:22.240 There's nothing. So like twenty thousand members go with the reformists, 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.520 like twelve thousand go with the Bolsheviks, about eight thousand 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:25.360 go with the anarchists. 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:27.359 Oh okay, so. 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.880 It's not the best, but they rebuild and into this 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:37.560 phrase steps uh, arguably Japan's greatest anarchist theorists of this period, 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:42.000 how to Shooso. And this guy is a character. He's 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.880 he's he's barely known in Japan. I mean, there was 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.240 a sort of like renaissance in how to Cheezo scholarship 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:50.400 when this one guy named John Krupp wrote this book 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.440 called how to Shooso, How to Shooso in Pure Anarchism 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:55.960 and into War Japan, which is a mouthful of a title, 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:57.479 But I'm just gonna keep plugging this because like this 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.680 is the book that made me an anarchist. Like this 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:01.320 is like I checked this book out from my library 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:02.720 and I read it and I was like, oh my god, 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:09.320 I'm an anarchist now. So yeah, yeah, he has he 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.160 has like a okay, she has a wild story. He's 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.160 born in He's born in Japan in December eighth, eighteen 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.800 eighty six, and he sort of like bounces around like 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.880 different manual labor jobs in Tokyo, and like at one 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.280 point he wants to be like a he tries to 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:26.320 be like I don't know if it's long, shortly, he 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:28.640 wants to be like a sailor. So he gets on 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:30.000 a boat and he's going to be a sailor, and 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.560 then he, after like one sail ride to Taiwan, he 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:35.560 immediately decides he doesn't want to be a sailor anymore. 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:36.840 So he just gets off the boat and leaves and 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:37.520 doesn't come back. 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:39.000 I feel like that's what I would do if I 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:41.760 just said, oh, yeah, like. 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.800 That job, especially like the nineteen like twenties, that job 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:45.600 seems awful. 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:48.000 Yeah, you're like, oh, I want adventure, and then you're like, oh, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:49.400 adventure means bad things happen. 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:54.480 Yeah, it's like, I guess I understand why all these 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.679 people are anarchists, because like that is a terrible job. 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:03.240 But yeah, so she so winds up so just like 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.320 wandering around Taiwan. And one of the things happens when 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.360 he's wandering around Taiwan, by the way, is a Japanese 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:12.320 colony at this point, Okay, And while he's wandering around Taiwan, 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:14.960 he becomes a Christian and he like goes to school 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:16.920 as like a theologian, but he drops out, but then 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:21.160 he somehow still becomes a pastor. Because I don't know, 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.400 this guy's career is wild. Uh No, She's always not 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.200 like a noble pastor. He rapidly starts pissing off like 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:31.280 everyone around him because he's like all of his sermons 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.480 are just him and antagonizing rich people and preaching this 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.200 like very very left wed in the gospital. 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:40.280 He like read the Bible. Yeah, yeah, it's incredible that 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.600 there's this great quote from a hot Chizu and peer 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.079 anarchism been into war Japan about his time as a pastor. 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:48.920 From like someone who was there, it was Pastor how 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:51.280 To sermons were superb so much so that I thought 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:53.480 it was a shame that more people were not there 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:55.960 to hear them. It was like the Bible talking in 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.320 the spirit of pure socialism. But one of my friends 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.520 admired Pastor hat Is so much he asked him to 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:08.080 celebrate his marriage. Yeah, and you know this like this 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:09.679 does not make going around. 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:10.080 Yeah. 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.319 Yeah, Well it's funny because so he starts like as 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.080 a Christian, right, but like he just like progressively keeps 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.880 getting more and more left wing and keeps realizing that like, okay, 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.320 so there's the Kingdom of God in heaven, right, but 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:25.240 like what if we did that here? And like as 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:27.120 he's getting like, as he's pissing off more of the 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:31.240 church and as like they're they're they're in fighting, gets bigger, 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:33.320 he's becoming just more and more of an anarchist, and 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:35.760 by the end he just like gets he gets booted 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:37.720 out by his church and he's just like, Okay, I'm 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:39.920 an anarchist propagandist now. And so nineteen twenty four he 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.600 just like leaves and he's like, well, I'm an anarchist now, okay, 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.960 And Shoozo becomes what's known as a pure anarchist. And 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.120 this is something that is like entirely unique to Japan 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.720 that like there's nothing there's this doesn't exist anywhere else, 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:55.960 and this is different than like like basically every other 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.880 anarchist theorist and movement in Japan until this point has 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.120 been like something you can find parallels with and other 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.920 anarchist movements around the globe. Like there are nihilists and 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.040 lots of countries. There's egoists everywhere, Like there's syndicalists literally 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.640 in every country that's ever existed, and they mostly sort 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:12.520 of believe the same things, you know, and you get 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:17.880 some like like oh Czikai's like combination of egoism and 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:18.760 syndicalism is like. 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.920 It's cool but likes I like that idea, but yeah, yeah, 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:22.480 it's a good idea. 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.160 But it's also not like it's like he's not like 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:26.760 he's not the first person to ever do this right, 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:29.640 And like the Japanese cyniccist movement is built in the 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.880 mold of like the French Syndicalists and the CGT, which 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.800 is this big union. Actually they're still around today. They're 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.080 so in like the very early eighteen hundreds they were there, 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:41.319 there were a sort of an arcosyndicalist union, like nineteen 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:43.520 oh six, they have this famous charter. It's like anarchists. 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.880 But then they go reformists and they like they vote 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.240 for World War over one and now they're famous for 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.320 uh there have been like twelve things that probably could 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.600 have been a revolution in France if the CGT had 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:55.440 ever a single time went to the barricades. And they 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.439 never do, like it's never ever. That's like their whole thing, 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.280 Like like they they set out Bay sixty eight, like 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:07.160 that's yeah, this is a union. Yeah yeah, and they 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:09.400 set out Bay sixty eight. It's like yeah, it's incredible, 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.080 but you know the but you know, in like nineteen 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.000 oh six, right, the Japanese are looking at it like 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.360 cideicos looking at this like, oh my god, this this 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:18.920 union has like millions of people in it, like it's enormous. 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:19.840 It's a cynical union. 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:21.720 Yeah, which is cool some time. 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.680 Yeah yeah, And like you know, they they the Japanese 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:28.400 anarchists do is sort of their standard syndicalist things like 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:30.920 that they're building up democratic unions. They're like working courds, 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.439 a general strike, the season music production. They're like fighting 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:35.840 for a society or production is run by workers themselves. 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:36.720 Blah blah blah. 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.640 Blah, I shouldn blah blah blah blah. That's actually it's 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:44.000 it's cool, it's fine. But pure anarchism is not that. 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.960 I'm dying to know what pure anarchism is. This new 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.840 anarchism just dropped. I'm excited years ago. 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.080 It's it's kind of a it's it's a version of 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:55.920 a naricle communism. But like what if you like really 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.880 really rigorously applied in narco communism, and this is the 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.200 this is the thing. It doesn't exist anywhere else because everywhere, 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.120 like in the West and in Latin America, like syndicalism 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.120 and anarchist and in arcal communism just like fuse to 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:09.600 the point where like they're not really They're like, but 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:11.880 there's not really they're not really separtendency like nobody's written 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:17.040 in arco communist theory in like one hundred years, like 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:19.240 like they say start you know, they've basically cease to 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:23.920 be separate tendencies. But in Japan, the syndicalists of the 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.160 an comms like fight it out to the death and 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.199 this this produces pure anarchism and it rules. Weren't talk 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.280 about what it is because it's both wonderful and incredibly 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.640 silly at the same time. So okay, So to understand 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.360 what they're arguing about, because this is this is this, 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.280 this causes like a huge fracture in the anexist movements. 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:46.959 I think we need to sort of like go into 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.720 like the vulgar marxistconception of class structure that's kind of 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.880 shared by the syndicalists. Okay, So okay, okay, so you're 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.040 you're you're okay. The important thing about this is that 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.240 like this doesn't work in Japan, like that the vulgar 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.400 theory of like mark class structure, right, is that like, okay, 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.320 so you're supposed to have the great dostro proletariat, Like 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:07.080 if that's supposed to become a majority of the population. 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:09.080 It's supposed to be unified and organized by like the 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.839 discipline of the factory system, and the entire world is 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.720 supposed to be reduced to two classes, like the burgeoisie 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:17.520 and the proletariat, like one class of people who have 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:19.520 nothing to sell with their labor. One class of people 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:24.800 who exist purely to like extract wealth from people, because 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.680 you entirely supports by owning things. And you know, eventually 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:30.160 these are supposed to, like if you if you read 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.640 your communist manifesto, eventually these two classes are supposed to 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:34.679 like meet themselves in like a final conflict or the 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:41.400 proletariat defeats it's called yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know, 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.559 the portario defeats them, and then they abolish the conditions 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.120 of their own existence as a class and you get stateless, 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.920 classless money in this society. It's like a free association 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:53.200 of workers. And this is what communism is. And famously 0:13:53.280 --> 0:14:01.719 this never happened. A yeah, what about the mortal science. Yeah, 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.559 you know, well the the ordal science. Yeah, this this 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:05.520 is the sort of this is the problem with the 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.360 immortal science is that one, instead of unifying the industrial proletariat, 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.120 capitalism like divides it and just sort of like like 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.000 literally spatially like kicks them into suburbs, and you can 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.319 get this sort of like the system where instead of 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.520 like unifying everyone into one class, everyone is now this 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:22.840 like completely alienated like boomer living in a suburb, even if. 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:23.760 It's still work at a factory. 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:28.040 And the other problem is that there's never just two classes. 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.800 And this is the problem that like yeah, yeah, all 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:33.040 the other ones are our enemies. 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:35.480 Yeah, this word too, you know, but this is a 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:37.400 real problem, right because like like the marks run into 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.600 this in Russia, where it's like, okay, so we did 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:42.520 our thing, we did our urban poltary and revolution, but 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.280 like there's all these peasants and they don't like us 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.080 because we keep taking their granted gunpoint and but but 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:50.960 you know, you have you have this one problem and 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:56.120 popular yeah, it goes great, right, nothing bad ever happens. 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.800 They don't famously have to kill enormous numbers of these people. 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.800 But then like, you know, so there's something weird happens, 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.560 which is in China, u Stalin managed to get like 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.760 the entire urb like the entire urban Chinese working class, 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.200 like miltant working class killed, and so Mao has to 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.360 like make a revolution with peasants, and so you know, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.480 peasants become the sort of like you know, this this 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:19.560 sort of like this, this is what the actual revolution 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.000 subject of communism wants up being, like from like China 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.000 to Columbia, it is these peasants. But like, you know, okay, 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:27.560 so your theory of the industrial poletariat is already down 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:29.400 the toilet, and this is what Shoozo is reacting to you. 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.600 Like he looks at Japanese society and there's like five 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.840 people who you wage labor. Mostly there's this enormous like 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.480 like forty fourteen million people who are tenant farmers who 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.080 are like trying to suppoil their families on these like 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:45.240 tiny plots of rented land. But you know, and like 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:47.400 center Marxist theory is like, well, okay, these people will 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.400 inevitably be absorbed into capitalism right by they'll be driven 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.200 by competition or whatever to the market. But like they're not, 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:56.080 it's not happening. They're just they're sitting there and they're 0:15:56.080 --> 0:16:00.800 still just really poor and paying their landlords and yeah, yeah, well, 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:03.080 you just gotta wait for all of Japan to be like. 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:05.760 Annihilated to be saved by the second point of yeah 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:08.480 uh yeah, yeah, it's it's it's going great. 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.160 But and it's also like there's all these other like 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.880 classes too, Like there's there's these classes of like there's 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.400 these like petty traders for example, or like they're like 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.920 low level, like really low level government officials like like 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.880 you know, you're like like a clerk for example, who 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.360 just don't fit into this sort of class schement at all. 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:27.480 Like if if if marks some things about like like 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.000 small like I don't know, people who like cut would 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:32.560 and then go into a town and sell it. 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:34.760 Like they're like, well there's these people are perti bourgeois, 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:36.520 like their reactionaries blah blah blah. 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.400 And then there's this whole history of like anarchists organizing 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:40.920 people like this who mark just just sort of like 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:45.240 steer at Like Bolivia has this where like anarchists organize 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.920 these like these indigenous like passive like they're not really passive, 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:49.920 these indigenous artisans whose things like they did go to 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.320 market and they sell their craft, and the Marxists were just. 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:54.760 Like why do we care about these people, like why yeah, 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.320 not workers, And it always seems like the better I 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:00.280 don't know, whenever I was like presented with the basic 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:02.720 analysis of like, Okay, we've got the proletariat who have 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.560 terrible lives and factories, and then you have the lump 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:07.879 and proletariat who refuse that kind of work and are 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.879 like beggars and thieves and people doing work outside of 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.600 the traditional system or whatever. And then you have the 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.520 petty bourgeoisie who are like you know, own stores or 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.280 artisans or whatever. And then you have the bourgeoisi over it. 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:22.199 And this just always funny to me because I look 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:24.560 at I'm like, well, clearly the only ones that would 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.320 be worth being would be lump and proletariat or petty boogizzi, 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:29.520 like they're the only ones who get to have any fun, 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:31.639 Like yeah, you know. 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.000 And I think like, like, this is a problem that 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:39.560 that chooso sees. And I'm going to read part of U. 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.000 Krupp's book about his solution to this, because I think 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:45.879 it's really interesting. Given the failure of the available methods 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.960 of class analysis to capture the subtleties of Japan's social structure, 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.840 Hada developed a notion of the property list masses as 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.959 an alternative concept of the proletariat. The property list masses 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:01.160 was a wide ranching term which accompassed tenant farmers, small traders, officials, artisans, 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.040 and even wage laborers. When they are prepared to forsake 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:09.200 their preoccupation with narrowly defending advantages that accompany their urban lifestyle, 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:10.920 and we're ready to throw in their lot with the 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:11.919 other oppressed strata. 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:15.080 Yeah, that makes sense. That's just the ninety nine percent, 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.639 you know, it's the like or just the haves and 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:18.200 have nots. 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.840 It's like, okay, well it's it's kind of but but okay, 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.520 there's there's a crucial difference here, which is that like, okay, 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.240 so the other like the really big thing about the 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:29.480 pure anarchists that they don't believe in. 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:31.040 Class struggle, okay. 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.880 And the reason why they don't believe in class struggle 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.239 is that they think that, Okay. So they look at 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.440 the history of the union movement, right, and it's like, okay, 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.280 so has the union movement ended capitalism? It's like no, 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:45.399 So like, well, okay, what does it actually do? And 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:47.359 the answer is it gets people slightly more money out 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.920 or capitalism, which is nice too, yeah, which which is nice, 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:53.320 but it's also like shooso like adoptions to that. There's 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.000 no other Japanese anarchists who who has this metaphor. It's 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.000 like he compares it to like people fighting instead of 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.720 like a bandit where it's like, okay, so if you 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:04.560 have you have like fight, like the bosses of the 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.400 bandit gang are obviously exploiting like the lower level people 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.440 in the bandit gang. But you know, even if even 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:13.720 if the lower level people in this bandit gang like 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:15.560 take over, they're not actually going to stop being a 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.680 bandit gang, right, It's just that the distribution of where 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:21.760 the bandit gang wealth is going changes. And this is 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.240 a big thing for for for the pianicists beause the 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:27.359 pianarchists are you know, they they're looking at the industrial 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.680 working classes like this is tiny and they're they're all 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:33.720