George Washington & Thomas Jefferson both called for genocide against the natives Americans and were therefore genocidal monsters.
"...the gradual extension of our settlements will as certainly cause the savage, as the wolf, to retire; both being beast of prey, tho' they differ in shape" (G. Washington in 1783)
"...if ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond..." (T. Jefferson in 1807)
"...the cruel massacres they have committed on the women and children of our frontiers taken by surprise, will oblige us now to pursue them to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach" (T. Jefferson in 1813)
Taken from
this essay.
I'm not a primitivist, but there are some significant flaws in
Civilisation, Primitivism and anarchism by Andrew Flood.
First, it's based on a partial straw man. Not all primitivists reject agriculture, some are open to low-tech forms of agriculture. Freddy Perlman was a very influencial anarcho-primitivist and he didn't see agriculture as the problem, he saw "the leviathan" as the problem. In Against His-story, Against Leviathan!, basically a history of the world from Perlman's primitivist perspective, Perlman sees things as fine up until the creation of the first states/ruling classes in Mesopitamia. See also Anything is Possible, a collection of essays he wrote.
Second, every primitivist I've met who believes population reduction is necessary (this is not universal among primitivists, especially the pro-agriculture type) believes it should be done gradually over a long multi-generational timespan as the result of lower birthrates. No
anarcho-primitivist believes in a mass die off. The transition would be gradual, with various parts dismantled along the way. Even
John Zerzan, probably the most extreme of the primitivists, says:
What could be dispensed with immediately? Borders, governments, hierarchy....What else? How fast could more deep-seated forms of authority and separation be dissolved, such as that of division of labor? I assert, and not, I hope, in the spirit of wishing to derive blueprints from abstract principle, that I can see no ultimate freedom or wholeness without the dissolution of the inherent power of specialists of every kind.
Many say that millions would die if the present techno-global fealty to work and the commodity were scrapped. But this overlooks many potentialities. For example, consider the vast numbers of people who would be freed from manipulative, parasitic, destructive pursuits for those of creativity, health, and liberty. At present, in fact, very few contribute in any way to satisfying authentic needs.
Transporting food thousands of miles, not an atypical pursuit today, is an instance of pointless activity, as is producing countless tons of herbicide and pesticide poisons. The picture of humanity starving if a transformation were attempted may be brought into perspective by reference to a few other agricultural specifics, of a more positive nature. It is perfectly feasible, generally speaking, that we grow our own food. There are simple approaches, involving no division of labor, to large yields in small spaces.
Agriculture itself must be overcome, as domestication, and because it removes more organic matter from the soil than it puts back. Permaculture is a technique that seems to attempt an agriculture that develops or reproduces itself and thus tends toward nature and away from domestication. It is one example of promising interim ways to survive while moving away from civilization. Cultivation within the cities is another aspect of practical transition, and a further step toward superseding domestication would be a more or less random propagation of plants, a la Johnny Appleseed.
Regarding urban life, any steps toward autonomy and self-help should be realized, beginning now, so that cities may be all the more quickly abandoned later. Created out of capital's need to centralize control of property transactions, religion, and political domination, cities remain as extended life-destroying monuments to the same basic needs of capital. Something on the order of what we know now as museums might be a good idea so that post-upheaval generations could know how grotesque our species' existence became. Moveable celebration sites may be the nearest configuration to cities that disalienated life will express.
...
As for population itself, its growth is no more a natural or neutral phenomenon than its technology. When life is fatally out of balance, the urge to reproduce appears as compensation for impoverishment, as with the non-civilized gatherer-hunters surviving today, population levels would be relatively quite low.
...
It seems evident that industrialization and the factories could not be gotten rid of instantly, but equally clear that their liquidation must be pursued with all the vigor behind the rush of break-out. Such enslavement of people and nature must disappear forever, so that words like production and economy will have no meaning. A graffito from the rising in France in '68 was simply 'Quick!' Those partisans apparently realized the need to move rapidly forward all the way, with no temporizing or compromise with the old world. Half a revolution would only preserve domination and cement its hold over us.
Thus even Zerzan sees hunter-gatherer society coming about gradually, not instantaneously, although he wants that transition to go as fast as feasible. He claims that implementing this transition will cause birth rates to decline without any kind of mass death. Indeed, given that fertility is already declining in a few centuries we may end up at a point where hunter-gatherer society is feasible even if primitivist ideas go nowhere.
Third, and this is where I take issue with primitivism, the article doesn't really refute their critiques of technology. Many criticisms have been laid out in some depth, such as Pentagon of Power by Lewis Mumford, Against the MegaMachine by David Watson and The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. Hypothetically, Flood's claims about population and their claims about technology could both be right, since he has not even attempted to refute their theories about technology. If this were the case it would show that anarchy is impossible and, even if it were possible, it would only be a minor improvement over the status quo. Defending his advocacy of techno-anarchy requires Flood to refute their theories about technology but he fails to do that, instead focusing on his silly population thesis. He partially gets at this in the "We need more not less technology" section, but not really. For example, many primitivists echo Engels in claiming that technology is inherently hierarchical. And there are other criticisms, too, that you don't address.
"Even if you could turn the clock back it would just start ticking again" can just as easily be applied to the state or capitalism as technology. Fredy Perlman doesn't argue that technology "came from the gods" he claims it was the result of hierarchical society and is an important part of it.
Fourth, I think Flood's article is unnecessarily sectarian. Yes, primitivists can be sectarian, too - but that doesn't make it okay for you to do it. Smearing anarcho-primitivists by associating them with the beliefs of authoritarian primitivists is just as wrong as smearing libertarian socialists by associating them with the beliefs of authoritarian socialists. I could quote positive statements about Castro or Lenin made by advocates of "proletarian revolution," even some by anarchists, but that would hardly be a good reason to argue against libertarian socialism.
Fifth, to say "We need more not less technology" is silly. Some technologies are harmful and should be abolished. Like nuclear weapons. Please, tell me, why do we need more nuclear weapons not less nuclear weapons? The worship of science & industry is just as bad as the primitivists' total rejection of it. Both primitvists and techno-philiacs err in treating all technologies the same. Some technologies are harmful and should be abolished, others are good and should be kept. Primitivist theory, however, is more helpful in thinking about technology because it's based on a social analysis while most technophilia is based on platitudes.
The "overpopulation problem" is a myth. Fertility has been declining for 20 years. World population will peak at 9 billion later in this century and then begin declining.
Fertility has been dropping for decades and almost certainly will continue to do so for some time. Therefore, any problems arising from large populations will gradually work themselves out over time. It's not a problem. Total population is going to rise in the short term, but not to levels where it threatens doomsday or even a major impact on quality of life.
Historically, the overpopulation myth has been used to justify these which is why it keeps repeatedly poping up even those its predictions are consistently false.
"What most frequently meets our view (and occasions complaint), is our teeming population: our numbers are burdensome to the world, which can hardly supply us from its natural elements; our wants grow more and more keen, and our complaints more bitter in all mouths, whilst Nature fails in affording us her usual sustenance. In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars, and earthquakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as the means of pruning the luxuriance of the human race" - Tertullian, 2nd century C.E.
With current technology we can produce enough food to feed 30-35 billion people. People have been talking about a "population bomb" since ancient Carthage, over 2,000 years ago. Back in the '60s and seventies there were all sorts of ominous predictions based on this myth. They never happened and they're never going to happen. People starve because of capitalism, not overpopulation.
North Korea has massed artillery which make an invasion extremely expensive, it may have nuclear weapons which make an invasion extremely difficult, and because the US needs the troops in Iraq right now. North Korea is outside the American empire, and so far has been able to keep itself outside. Other parts of the world have not been able to do this.
The belief that Iraq would be torn apart by various warlords if the US pulled out is based on bigotry. It first of all assumes that Iraqis are incapable of running their own country and need the west to dominate them. That's just a new version of the white man's burden. Second, it is based on various prejudices & stereotypes about "third world" peoples - such as the belief that they're prone to choas & civil war. In the case of Iraq this simply isn't true. Iraq has never had a real civil war and its history is no more choatic than your average European nation.
If the US invaded Iran while fighting the insurgency in Iraq it would not only lose, it would lose Iraq too and possibly its bases & client states in other parts of the middle east. It would encourage further revolts and be a major blow to the prestige of the empire, probably with significant domestic implications.
There is no such thing as the "middle class." Most so-called "middle class" people are really better-off workers. 95% of Americans call themselves "middle class," which is absurd - how can the middle class be 95% percent of the population?!? The concept is just a way to obscure actual class relations.
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