How to deal with the police is a point of dispute between Social Democratic Anarchists and Communist Anarchists (photo: Thomas Good/NLN, Creative Commons)
'Social Democratic Anarchists',
'Communist Anarchists' and the
Occupy Wall Street Movement
By Left Eye on Books
SolidarityEconomy.net via lefteyeonbooks.com
Oct 23, 2011 - A division exists within the leaderless communities at the heart of the Occupy protests. I would describe this as a split between Social Democratic Anarchists and Communist Anarchists.
I use these two terms provocatively, knowing that most of those I refer to would not describe themselves as either. Neither the terms Social Democrat or Communist are especially popular in the U.S., and the latter is often associated with small left-wing sects that those I describe as Communist Anarchists have a low opinion of.
It also lately seems that the term “anarchist” is becoming unfashionable again. The terms are meant to indicate both continuity and rupture with the historical left. Since 1917, Social Democracy and Communism referred to two different paths of change. Social Democrats believed in reforming capitalism, so that its benefits would be shared more equitably. Communists believed in overthrowing capitalism. Both created disciplined, bureaucratic organizations to achieve their goals. Both believed attaining state power was crucial, either through elections — usually the path of Social Democrats — or armed struggle — more associated with Communists. Although they often vituperatively denounced each other, they could sometimes work together, as was the case in the 1930s in the U.S., when New Deal reformers, who closely resembled Social Democrats, were strengthened by the organizing efforts of Communists.
Today, we see similar splits, in the U.S. and all over the world, in the context of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and related movements. Some — undoubtedly the majority of participants in the U.S. — wish to reform capitalism. Others would like to destroy capitalism.
However, in two crucial respects the participants in the movement–reformers and revolutionaries alike — differ from the old left. They all eschew bureaucratic forms of organization in favor of leaderless modes of organizing. And they all believe that building power from below is more important than strategizing about how to attain and exercise state power. That is why I describe them as “anarchists”, even if they might not adopt that label themselves. Over the next five to ten years, some of these movements may develop electoral wings, but it is difficult to imagine them attaching to these wings the same lofty hopes and dreams that characterized the old left.
So how do these divisions play out in the current movement?
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by Mitchel Cohen, Brooklyn Greens/Green Party, and co-founder, Red Balloon Collective
FORTY YEARS IT'S BEEN. In October 1967, I was an 18-year-old junior at SUNY Stony Brook, organizing students to participate in the first militant demonstration on the East Coast against the Vietnam war. At the Pentagon.
Phil Ochs -- my hero -- was scheduled to perform at Stony Brook that night. Many students were saying they weren't going on the march because they wanted to go to Phil's concert instead. SDS wrote letter after letter trying to get him to change the date. No answer. Finally -- oh, how it cut my heart out -- we organized a boycott of his records. 
Reviewed by Joseph Matthews
For those Guild members who know Paul Harris from his time as President of the NLG, the fact that he has written a book about characters with deep political convictions will come as no surprise. The same is true for those who know him as co-founder of the San Francisco Community Law Collective, or as the teacher of “guerrilla law†in his guise as Charles Garry Professor of Law at New College in San Francisco. That this novel presents a convincing and powerful historical account of the collision of radical politics and the “justice†system will also make perfect sense to anyone who has read his earlier non-fiction exposition of guerrilla law in action, Black Rage Confronts the Law (NYU Press, 1997). 
powerful influence of the “old school†veterans of the 60s’ and the overwhelmingly dominant approach that reduces organizing to around the terms of redistribution of our society’s wealth—more jobs, more benefits, better working conditions and cedes to capital the major decisions and initiative in organizing the power of the market and deciding on what to produce, how to produce it, management, technology, the terms of finance, etc.
Much of the left and activist movement is finally only comfortable with the mechanisms of the state as the defender of public and economic interests. Not that all the aspects of redistribution aren’t important—they must remain a key foundation of our efforts. They are required but insufficient as I argue in my earlier 
