Peter Mc Gregor - Political Philosophy

Political Philosophy

However, by the mid 70s McGregor’s politics had evolved to an anarchist position, under the influence of Socialisme ou Barbarie, Solidarity (UK) and the Brisbane Self Management Group.

Of the established left, McGregor quickly dismissed the various Communist parties – both the Aarons/Sydney independent-of-the-Soviet Union grouping, the Melbourne Maoists, and the pro-Soviet Clancy/Socialist Party (the current Communist Party). Then there were the Trotskyists – all 37 varieties – and the Spartacists (International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)) who had the most coherent theoretical position – which appealed to his new-found interest in theory. But it was the grouping round Nick Origlass, Izzy Wyner and Hall Greenland who were the closest to self-management… Because it was the Brisbane Red & Black Bookshop folks – the Self Management Group (SMG) that really excited him.

As a recent convert to a born-again -anarchist, McGregor embraced a purist position, of refusing to reproduce capitalist daily life - commodity, exchange relationships - by abolishing the limits imposed upon people by wage-labor & private property. Namely, for instance, don't work & don't pay rent. In the purist spirit of Charles Fourier's - Some Advice Concerning the Next Social Metamorphosis: "Never sacrifice a present good to a future good. Enjoy the moment; don't get into anything which doesn't satisfy your passions right away. Why should you work today for jam tomorrow, since you will be loaded down with it anyway, & in fact in the new order you will only have one problem, namely how to find enough time to get through all the pleasures in store for you." And Fredy Perlman's - The Reproduction of Everyday Life: "The task of capitalist ideology (= the spectacle - PMcG), is to maintain the veil which keeps people from seeing that their own activities reproduce the form of their daily life; the task of critical theory is to unveil the activities of daily life, to render them transparent, to make the reproduction of the social form of capitalist activity visible within people's daily activities."

His re-birthing from politics as external issues - activism for a cause; war, racism, explicit political repression- to activism as a way-of-life meant not merely protesting to bring about reforms, but critically exploring the basis of social systems and embracing revolutionary change via a politics of everyday life. Extending the feminist take on the personal being political - addressing interpersonal relations as a primary site of gender/class/race/etc politics. And also integrating one's living arrangements ('home'), and what one is doing ('work') into as coherent as possible a life-style. Not unlike, 'be the changes you want to see in the world', and 'change the world by changing yourself', and 'the means are the ends in the making'. So, since property was theft, why not squat; and since work was wage-slavery, then don't.