There are an infinite variety of flavors of socialism, at some point you gotta learn to find folks you don’t disagree with on anything too important. In my experience anarchists are generally chill.
I don’t know how any of that applies to what I said here.
Edit: I skimmed through the text on the first read because I was sleepy. After reading more carefully I guess you’re agreeing with me somewhat: yes, the necessity for certain types of organization in specific situations is why I dislike anarchism.
I don’t know why a certain ineffective administrative model would have to be coupled with a more equitable economic model. Although I didn’t want to argue that point, rather express a preference.
anarchism acknowledges Marxist theory, but rejects the need for a state/beaurocratic apparatus, as it is considered to be fundamentally oppressive.
the state is an abstraction of capital, and cannot liberate the working class, as it exists to perpetuate its own hegemonic existence, our subjugation.
governance need not be heirarchichal; I promote collective mutual determination as an egalitarian system by which society can organize.
can’t dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools
governance need not be heirarchichal; I promote collective mutual determination as an egalitarian system by which society can organize.
I don’t. I don’t think all hierarchies are unjust, I evaluate them based on their effect on the world. If a hierarchy can solve a problem better, it’s the preferable solution.
Everyone believes they are capable of behaving reasonably themselves. If they think laws and police are necessary, it is only because they don’t believe that other people are. But if you think about it, don’t those people all feel exactly the same way about you?
But what if we all have a different idea of what behaving reasonably means?
Anarchists argue that almost all the anti-social behavior which makes us think it’s necessary to have armies, police, prisons, and governments to control our lives, is actually caused by the systematic inequalities and injustice those armies, police, prisons and governments make possible.
That’s silly. Systemic inequalities don’t make people park their vehicles on the bike path or murder their wife because they think she cheated on them. If anarchism is all about thinking people are angels unless bad, bad oppressive systems make them do evil things they couldn’t do on their own then I don’t think we’ll ever get along. It’s alternate reality and an incredibly naive way of looking at the world and human nature.
Edit: could you kindly not respond to this? I don’t have an option to silence this thread on my end, and don’t want to hear about it any further.
I wanted to mute this conversation but couldn’t. They could always modify their comment or respond to themselves and not give me any notifications. I just didn’t want to discuss this at the moment.
But they did try to convince me of the virtue of anarchism and it’s compatibility with Marxism, so I thought I would at least put out some of the reasons I don’t like anarchism so that my first terse comment isn’t misunderstood as me not knowing what anarchism is and rejecting it on that basis.
I promote collective mutual determination as an egalitarian system by which society can organize.
In practice, direct democracy? Or, how would that work - how would we organize society?
Positions would still need to be held, no? Roles appointed, decisions made, lines drawn. No one can be up-to-date on all matters in their local nor global environment. And certainly not at the same point in time. How would anything work with any cohesiveness?
Sorry to be so dismissive, I’m actually kinda curious on your thoughts. Only ways I see are AI governance or a hive mind. Not sure about either tbh.
anarchism acknowledges Marxist theory, but rejects the need for a state/beaurocratic apparatus, as it is considered to be fundamentally oppressive.
Acknowledges Marxist theory as much as acknowledging Newtonian gravitational theory may be a way to put it. Most of the ones I know either accept Marxist general theory as a whole, non-critically, and the rest are anti-communist/anti-marxist idealists, as much as any fascist would be. Because the true essence and reason for the existence of fascism is anti-communism.
There are many social relations that are oppressive, why limit it to state? Parents are oppressive, teachers, professors, bosses, cops, military higher officers, spouses, parents in law, … prison guards … they are all oppressive. Is it just the state? Is it a different class of people who oppress from those being oppressed?
the state is an abstraction of capital, and cannot liberate the working class, as it exists to perpetuate its own hegemonic existence, our subjugation.
Between the late 1800s and early 1900s the state became an insurer of labor law and justice, the welfare state was born, rights to pension, an 8hr day, sick leave, vacation, overtime pay, were all provided and were promised by the state. So we can say the state backed off and became hostile to capital. Between struggle (labor syndicalism) and the capitalist state there was a dialectic transformation, the social democracy was born. Today the state has absolutely surrendered to the powers of the banking financial world system, made out of a handful of banks and financial institutions mainly based in NY, London, Frankfurt, Paris, maybe even in HKong, Tokyo, to a lesser extent. All states owe to private global markets to such a degree that just one or two clicks down on their bond ratings and they are bankrupt and in the hands of IMF and other bankers to implement the most vicious neo-liberal reform anyone can imagine.
This means that when leninists propose on taking over a state that just means removing it from the markets and sentencing the population to starvation and misery. “Abolishing the state” is just as suicidal. Should there be a thing like political responsibility for genocide proposed by pseudo revolutionaries, who want to enforce their fantasy on people already suffering because of capitalism?
governance need not be heirarchichal; I promote collective mutual determination as an egalitarian system by which society can organize.
As long as you speak of “a system” you imply, like it or not, a centralized system, a system that supervises whether the system is implemented correctly or not. That constitutes an authority. Whether this authority and enforcement is conducted by “anti-authoritarians” who as a minority forced their terms and conditions on a society, we are speaking of a revolutionary vanguard, an authoritarian force over the entire society (under the state and within state borders).
By the way, the collapse of the Syrian state had a gradual effect of Turkey moving sourth, Israel and Libanon moving further east, Iran moving west, I am uncleat of Jordan is taking a piece of the pie, and some Iraqi authorities are eyeballing the Kurdish management of some areas they would like to grub as well. So by abolishing a state these days the remaining states in the globe legitimize the neighbors all grubbing a piece without anyone being a state to protest. Assad’s only friend is too busy fighting the entirety of NATO playing a game on the heads of the residents of ex-Ukraine.
can’t dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools
As long as your focus is to destroy and dismantle instead of constructing an alternative and an escape route from capitalism you will be condemned by history as a force of nothing beneficial to humanity.
As long as you preach -isms- from a high tower looking down on people without ideology, and you refuse to accept that the dialectic between leninism and libertarianism has already materialized, that more than a million people have been living OUTSIDE of capitalism, in autonomous communities, for nearly 30years (this next new year’s eve), decide in their communities EVERYTHING about their own lives, mostly using consensus, and their federation (2 levels) is designed to serve the community not to dictate to the community, you are more authoritarian and stuck up than you really think. Now these people have liberated themselves from capitalism, they live outside it, they are unaffected by it, other by having to fend off some para-military attacks here and there 2-3 times a year, their values and principles are even more strict than the early 1900s CNT constitution, and they laugh really hard and stick a finger up to all revolutionary vanguards, but you keep speaking hypothetically, what if society did this and that and the other thing.
If you want to be heard, you should be looking up to indigenous peasants, farmers, not down. If you want the residents of the favela to follow bureaucrats and academics to social change, you are in worse shape and dillusion than the average tankies. If you want children industrial workers in SE Asia to look up to your ideology and rhetoric, to buy your story, I assure you they think you are dumber than they are.
Who gives a flying ** what “anarchism” acknowledges.
look for anarchists if you desire a classless, stateless, moneyless society.
communism has been coopted by auth apologists infatuated with the color red.
But what if I’m not an anarchist? I like Marx but not Lenin, so I can’t be an ML either.
There are an infinite variety of flavors of socialism, at some point you gotta learn to find folks you don’t disagree with on anything too important. In my experience anarchists are generally chill.
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I don’t know how any of that applies to what I said here.
Edit: I skimmed through the text on the first read because I was sleepy. After reading more carefully I guess you’re agreeing with me somewhat: yes, the necessity for certain types of organization in specific situations is why I dislike anarchism.
I don’t know why a certain ineffective administrative model would have to be coupled with a more equitable economic model. Although I didn’t want to argue that point, rather express a preference.
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I disagree that he ever did anything approaching Marxism. His writings and his actions are pretty distant from one another.
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https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you
anarchism acknowledges Marxist theory, but rejects the need for a state/beaurocratic apparatus, as it is considered to be fundamentally oppressive.
the state is an abstraction of capital, and cannot liberate the working class, as it exists to perpetuate its own hegemonic existence, our subjugation.
governance need not be heirarchichal; I promote collective mutual determination as an egalitarian system by which society can organize.
can’t dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools
I don’t. I don’t think all hierarchies are unjust, I evaluate them based on their effect on the world. If a hierarchy can solve a problem better, it’s the preferable solution.
But what if we all have a different idea of what behaving reasonably means?
That’s silly. Systemic inequalities don’t make people park their vehicles on the bike path or murder their wife because they think she cheated on them. If anarchism is all about thinking people are angels unless bad, bad oppressive systems make them do evil things they couldn’t do on their own then I don’t think we’ll ever get along. It’s alternate reality and an incredibly naive way of looking at the world and human nature.
Edit: could you kindly not respond to this? I don’t have an option to silence this thread on my end, and don’t want to hear about it any further.
So I have to ask… Why would you respond and then deny someone the same respect?
I wanted to mute this conversation but couldn’t. They could always modify their comment or respond to themselves and not give me any notifications. I just didn’t want to discuss this at the moment.
But they did try to convince me of the virtue of anarchism and it’s compatibility with Marxism, so I thought I would at least put out some of the reasons I don’t like anarchism so that my first terse comment isn’t misunderstood as me not knowing what anarchism is and rejecting it on that basis.
In practice, direct democracy? Or, how would that work - how would we organize society? Positions would still need to be held, no? Roles appointed, decisions made, lines drawn. No one can be up-to-date on all matters in their local nor global environment. And certainly not at the same point in time. How would anything work with any cohesiveness?
Sorry to be so dismissive, I’m actually kinda curious on your thoughts. Only ways I see are AI governance or a hive mind. Not sure about either tbh.
Acknowledges Marxist theory as much as acknowledging Newtonian gravitational theory may be a way to put it. Most of the ones I know either accept Marxist general theory as a whole, non-critically, and the rest are anti-communist/anti-marxist idealists, as much as any fascist would be. Because the true essence and reason for the existence of fascism is anti-communism.
There are many social relations that are oppressive, why limit it to state? Parents are oppressive, teachers, professors, bosses, cops, military higher officers, spouses, parents in law, … prison guards … they are all oppressive. Is it just the state? Is it a different class of people who oppress from those being oppressed?
Between the late 1800s and early 1900s the state became an insurer of labor law and justice, the welfare state was born, rights to pension, an 8hr day, sick leave, vacation, overtime pay, were all provided and were promised by the state. So we can say the state backed off and became hostile to capital. Between struggle (labor syndicalism) and the capitalist state there was a dialectic transformation, the social democracy was born. Today the state has absolutely surrendered to the powers of the banking financial world system, made out of a handful of banks and financial institutions mainly based in NY, London, Frankfurt, Paris, maybe even in HKong, Tokyo, to a lesser extent. All states owe to private global markets to such a degree that just one or two clicks down on their bond ratings and they are bankrupt and in the hands of IMF and other bankers to implement the most vicious neo-liberal reform anyone can imagine.
This means that when leninists propose on taking over a state that just means removing it from the markets and sentencing the population to starvation and misery. “Abolishing the state” is just as suicidal. Should there be a thing like political responsibility for genocide proposed by pseudo revolutionaries, who want to enforce their fantasy on people already suffering because of capitalism?
As long as you speak of “a system” you imply, like it or not, a centralized system, a system that supervises whether the system is implemented correctly or not. That constitutes an authority. Whether this authority and enforcement is conducted by “anti-authoritarians” who as a minority forced their terms and conditions on a society, we are speaking of a revolutionary vanguard, an authoritarian force over the entire society (under the state and within state borders).
By the way, the collapse of the Syrian state had a gradual effect of Turkey moving sourth, Israel and Libanon moving further east, Iran moving west, I am uncleat of Jordan is taking a piece of the pie, and some Iraqi authorities are eyeballing the Kurdish management of some areas they would like to grub as well. So by abolishing a state these days the remaining states in the globe legitimize the neighbors all grubbing a piece without anyone being a state to protest. Assad’s only friend is too busy fighting the entirety of NATO playing a game on the heads of the residents of ex-Ukraine.
As long as your focus is to destroy and dismantle instead of constructing an alternative and an escape route from capitalism you will be condemned by history as a force of nothing beneficial to humanity.
As long as you preach -isms- from a high tower looking down on people without ideology, and you refuse to accept that the dialectic between leninism and libertarianism has already materialized, that more than a million people have been living OUTSIDE of capitalism, in autonomous communities, for nearly 30years (this next new year’s eve), decide in their communities EVERYTHING about their own lives, mostly using consensus, and their federation (2 levels) is designed to serve the community not to dictate to the community, you are more authoritarian and stuck up than you really think. Now these people have liberated themselves from capitalism, they live outside it, they are unaffected by it, other by having to fend off some para-military attacks here and there 2-3 times a year, their values and principles are even more strict than the early 1900s CNT constitution, and they laugh really hard and stick a finger up to all revolutionary vanguards, but you keep speaking hypothetically, what if society did this and that and the other thing.
If you want to be heard, you should be looking up to indigenous peasants, farmers, not down. If you want the residents of the favela to follow bureaucrats and academics to social change, you are in worse shape and dillusion than the average tankies. If you want children industrial workers in SE Asia to look up to your ideology and rhetoric, to buy your story, I assure you they think you are dumber than they are.
Who gives a flying ** what “anarchism” acknowledges.
Which happened almost instantly. I don’t have much hope that other radical leftist movements will fare much better.