one piece of feedback we received on this booklet:

The one aspect that I'd like to problematize is the notion of "mass" and "the masses" that exists in this piece and in similar comments and discussions that I have seen lately. I think that there is more to this concept of "mass" than that of "the majority of people". The concept is relational and suggests its own other, e.g. the "masses" and the "elites". It is a concept that relates to intra-class relationships (the masses and elites within many organizations and social movements, i.e. the leaders and the led), and as a proxy for inter-class ones (elites = the bosses and the politicians within the dominant economic-political regime, masses = the working class). The concept of "mass" can also be thought of in terms "massification", i.e. the forced emergence of an industrial proletariat following the enclosures of rural land and the emergence of free labour, and the associated urbanization and proletarianization of an increasingly homogenized, deskilled and exploited working class. Or the emergence of "mass communications" and a homogenized "mass society".

There are some binary forms associated with the word "mass", likes mass/elite, mass/vanguard, and so on, that can make sense to use. But I really think that we need to understand "mass" as "massification", i.e. a process, something that is actively created by the movement of capital, the state and social forces. And, as with all processes, it has contingency and specificity - it doesn't exist in all places and times. The end of the post-WWII wave of capitalist accumulation in countries like Canada marked the decline of the relevance of "mass" as a category in political struggles, and the emergence of new social movements.

So, I am not sure if this paradigm ("mass anarchism") really captures the present form of power and exploitative economic relationships, nor the real social struggles related to domination, nor do I think that it has ever been adequate to capture the dynamics of class-based economic exploitation. I think that it is a concept out of a particular place in time. The working-class is not an undifferentiated mass, as it was in the 19th century in Europe. Social movements are more and more about the expression of diversity of struggle than some kind of monolithic uniformity. I think that there are so many multiplicities, identities, contradictory class locations and relationships, intersections of oppression and systems of domination (named and recognized) today that complementary and synthesis is what is most needed in movement-building.

This doesn't change the fundamental contradictory class relationship between those who own the means of production and the rest of us, of course. But I do think that 21st century class struggle anarchism needs to move away from thinking about class in terms of an abstract "mass" and to re-center ourselves and our struggles in terms of the more concrete notion of "social base".

Related to this is that many of us class struggle anarchists need to divorce ourselves from the idea that unless a majority of a given population agrees with or supports something that this something is necessarily vanguardist. The key in moving beyond this, I think, is to put front and center the project of organizing within one's own social base and in supporting self-determination among other parts of the social base - a process more analogous to finding the pieces of the puzzle and collectively putting the pieces together until they fit into part of a bigger picture (in which it takes a while to happen, is characterized by trial and error, messiness of struggle, etc.), than to coming together with others to draw up the master blueprint to build a house (or a bridge) (where you have one chance to get it right and a lot of specialists to ensure that they don't collapse).

(Side point: I don't think that this position is anti-organizational, but I do think that it privileges "movement" over "organization". When the converse occurs is when you risk getting into the zone of sectarianism, vanguardism, lowest-common denominator "big tent" approaches and minimalist positions, and otherwise reproducing authoritarian power relationships.)

Let me give an example. One June 15, 2000, OCAP held a militant demonstration against the Harris government, demanding that the government's representatives meet with an OCAP delegation. When this failed to happen, confrontation and a good hour of melee on the grounds of the provincial legislature ensued. Charges (not sedition but something close to it) were pressed against a number of OCAP organizers. OCAP were vilified in the media, but also by many in the established "anti-poverty" and "social justice" organizations. In the aftermath, some unions, like CAW, cut off their funding for OCAP. But across the province, activist groups, union locals, and others stepped up to support OCAP such that it supported the broadening of their organization's activities and led to the establishment of a province-wide network of allies.

By organizing within their social base and focusing its struggle and message within this social base, OCAP was able to remain militant and also to attract the support of allies. Some times "mass unpopularity" can strengthen and build an organization that is tight within its social base - especially when it exposes the ideological and political distinctions between those who are prepared to engage in and support struggle, and those who seek to contain and direct struggle (into "legitimate" channels). This in itself is part of the process of learning where to build (or finding where the pieces are that might fit together).

In fact, there are minority currents within many different social struggles that are against statism, institutionalization, domination by and cooptation of individual leadership, and accommodation to the existing framework of power. We often have more in common with each other ideologically and politically even though our experiences and location in terms of systems of domination vary tremendously. It is at least as true that by building and networking these currents that we are likely to get somewhere than in building passive majority support within specific organizations that are part of social struggles.

I don't think that this means that organization and class struggle anarchism are irrelevant - on the contrary, I think that they are increasingly important. But the principles of organization, and the differentiated and interpenetrated forms of struggle and the increasing intersectionality and heterogeneity of class itself requires more nuanced views than that of a platform or concrete basis of unity. It requires respecting and nurturing complementarities in struggle. Building bridges along a spectrum or continuum of resistance - not by appealing to the lowest common denominator across all federated sections of a movement in the name of "collective discipline".

This piece is strongest where it speaks of intersectionality and recognizing the need to move beyond economism and workerism. They are also spot-on when they say: "Identifying as an anarchist is not important, but identifying, agreeing with and acting upon anarchist principles is essential. Any free society must be based on the principles of liberty, equality, and solidarity." But I am unconvinced that the four principles of Platformism represent the only form of viable anarchist or anti-authoritarian mode of social organization (I think, in fact, that they are less viable than some others); I think that both individual and collective "rights" matter, and without both you really don't have either; that organizational forms are often temporary; and that we need to move beyond the 19th and early 20th century in terms of our theory and practice.

CC Ottawa!

I want to take issue with some of the inaccuracies in relation to the example of OCAP. The June 15 "riot" did indeed produce a mix of state repression and grassroots support. However, it is wrong that the CAW cut their funding of OCAP at this point. The CAW in fact cut their funding to OCAP after the 2001 mock-eviction of Ontario Finance minister Jim Flaherty in Whitby.

The eviction action happened in the midst of trying to organize an Ontario Common Front and was very counter-productive in hindsight as it lead to a lot of OCAP activists being arrested (myself included), charged, held on remand (some for almost 6 weeks), and destroyed the links between the CAW flying squads and anti-poverty activists as well as provided an opportunity for the CAW National leadership to crush any autonomy of the CAW flying squads. The eviction hurt the chances of substantial labour support for the upcoming "fall campaign" of economic disruption that OCAP was trying to organize. The chill on the social and labour movements after September 11, 2001 finished it off.

The "Fall Campaign" itself was less than hoped for with the main protest still being in Toronto and a few smaller protests in other Ontario cities. The "Ontario Common Front" quickly collapsed from a broad alliance of community based organizations into an much smaller network of OCAP-style anti-poverty groups, and that itself fell apart after a couple of years.