Prefigurative politics in the context of Carl Boggs


Prefigurative politics in the context of Carl Boggs

⭐ Core Definition: Prefigurative politics

Prefigurative politics are modes of organization and social relationships that strive to reflect the future society being sought by a group. In practice, they involve building a new society "within the shell of the old" by living out the values and social structures the group desires for the future.

According to Carl Boggs, who coined the term, prefigurative politics aims to embody "within the ongoing political practice of a movement [...] those forms of social relations, decision-making, culture, and human experience that are the ultimate goal," thus aligning the means and the ends of social change. Prefigurative politics are sometimes justified based on the premise that the ends a social movement can achieve are "fundamentally shaped by the means it employs." Prefigurativism is the attempt to enact prefigurative politics.

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Prefigurative politics in the context of Anarcho-syndicalism

Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both a means to achieve immediate improvements to working conditions and to build towards a social revolution in the form of a general strike, with the ultimate aim of abolishing the state and capitalism. Anarcho-syndicalists consider trade unions to be the prefiguration of a post-capitalist society and seek to use them in order to establish workers' control of production and distribution. An anti-political ideology, anarcho-syndicalism rejects political parties and participation in parliamentary politics, considering them to be a corrupting influence on the labour movement. In order to achieve their material and economic goals, anarcho-syndicalists instead practice direct action in the form of strike actions, boycotts and sabotage. Anarcho-syndicalists also attempt to build solidarity among the working class, in order to unite workers against the exploitation of labour and build workers' self-management.

The foundations of anarcho-syndicalism were laid by the anti-authoritarian faction of the International Workingmen's Association (IWMA) and developed by the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT). Anarcho-syndicalism was constituted as a specific tendency following the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in 1907, which led to anarcho-syndicalism becoming the dominant form of trade union organisation in Europe and Latin America. After facing suppression during the Revolutions of 1917–1923, anarcho-syndicalists established the International Workers' Association (IWA) in 1922. Anarcho-syndicalism reached its apex during the Spanish Revolution of 1936, when the National Confederation of Labour (CNT) established an anarcho-syndicalist economy throughout much of the Spanish Republic. Anarcho-syndicalism went into decline after the defeat of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War in 1939. The movement split into two factions: the "orthodox" faction, which held to traditional syndicalist principles in spite of changing material conditions; and the "revisionist" faction, which aimed to achieve a mass base and work within the framework of newly established welfare states. By the end of the 20th century, the rise of neoliberalism and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc had led to a revival in anarcho-syndicalism, with syndicalist unions once again being established throughout the globe.

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Prefigurative politics in the context of Community-supported agriculture

Community-supported agriculture (CSA model) or cropsharing is a system that connects producers and consumers within the food system more closely by allowing the consumer to subscribe to the harvest of a certain farm or group of farms. It is an alternative socioeconomic model of agriculture and food distribution that allows the producer and consumer to share the risks of farming. The model is a subcategory of civic agriculture that has an overarching goal of strengthening a sense of community through local markets.

Community-supported agriculture can be considered as a practice of commoning. It is an example of community-led management of the production and distribution of goods and services. The organization of food provisioning through commoning is complementary to the horizontal axis of market mediated food provisioning and the verticality of the state distribution and regulation on food. As a model in which market agents do not interact solely as competitors but as "members of a community collaborating in pursuing a collective action for the commonwealth", it is also recognized and supported by public policies in some countries. Such frameworks of collaboration between public administration and the cooperative sector are known as public-common partnerships (PCP), and have also been established in relation to food. As a prefigurative practice that decommodifies food and “strengthens the imaginary of community as a source of reward and space of emancipation“ CSA has been acknowledged as an important step-stone in a sustainability transition in agri-food systems.

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