Quoting a prominent anarchist makes one a radlib, now? I'm far from an anarchist, but I recognize that they're very much part of the left and that they have legitimate critiques of various revolutionary states. Shit, Parenti echoed some of these criticisms in his chapter in Blackshirts and Reds that criticized the Soviet Union from a leftist perspective.
You don't have to be a card-carrying anarchist, registered with the CEO of anarchism, to recognize when anarchists have a good point. And it's not as if anyone's self-described political affiliation has ever shielded them from criticism in the form of "sure they say that, but they're actually X."
No but in the same way that Nazi's called themselves national socialists it doesn't make them socialist.
The self-classification of someone's political leanings mean a lot less than their actions in the real world. If people who believe in electoral reform and use that as their main outlet for power call themselves anarchists, they're probably not.
It's not to shield anyone from criticism, if anything it is adding to the list of criticisms due to their ideological illiteracy.
The self-classification of someone’s political leanings mean a lot less than their actions in the real world.
Absolutely.
If people who believe in electoral reform and use that as their main outlet for power call themselves anarchists, they’re probably not.
He's not calling himself an anarchist, though. He's saying "anarchists have some good points; here's one of them."
ideological illiteracy
One of the worst, most counterproductive trends on the left is endless squabbling over what 10 different leftist labels mean and who is or isn't each one of them. As you said, it's their actions that are what's most important.
NJR calls himself an anarchist all the time idk what ur talking about. Hes also a reformist and has constantly shit on Marx and Lenin in the most unproductive and cringe anarkiddie way possible.
One of the worst, most counterproductive trends on the left is endless squabbling over what 10 different leftist labels mean and who is or isn’t each one of them. As you said, it’s their actions that are what’s most important.
You can stan whoever you want but he just has bad takes on this and its needlessly antagonistic and just stirs up this infighting, and he never talks about HIS theory of change which he should be rightfully called out for.
One of the worst, most counterproductive trends on the left is endless squabbling over what 10 different leftist labels mean and who is or isn’t each one of them based solely on their tweets
Also:
he never talks about HIS theory of change
Lol he runs a fucking socialist magazine where he writes about this endlessly. If you're going to argue that someone hasn't done enough homework on leftist theory, do a minimal amount of homework on the person you're bashing?
He literally talks all the time about how hes never read Marx and Lenin give me a break lmao, this guy is a clown and everyone always calls him out for it. He's literally the one starting shit without being able to actually back it up lmao
The guy is obviously committed to "you have to read something before you criticize it," far past the point of reason, and you honestly believe he's never read Marx?
Not understanding that a dictatorship of the Proletariat is not a literal dictatorship, and using Anarchist theory when you're literally not an anarchist to bad faith left punch as a supposed "DemSoc..." that is absolutely ideological illiteracy. Total galaxy brain shit.
Literally, the idea behind Democratic Socialism is that you can peacefully transition to a DotP without a revolution. Opposing is at odds with your literal mission goal. And so are anarchists. That's not anti left unity, that's the just the fucking definitions. You're not trying to abolish the state as a DemSoc, you're trying to peacefully take it over. That's just what that term means.
The left does uselessly squabble a lot, but it has just as many clout chasing, opportunist fucking fools looking to leverage discontent into a clique or a job or some other form of money and fame.
That is bad enough on its own without also being completely idiotic and at odds with itself.
Not understanding that a dictatorship of the Proletariat is not a literal dictatorship
In theory it's not. The anarchist critique is that in practice it is, or at least can be. This is not a new criticism. You can disagree with that anarchist criticism, but it's a response to the concept of "dictatorship of the proletariat," not a misunderstanding of it.
No, it's only the former. "States are good, sometimes" is the Marxist take. Bakunin is arguing here that it is impossible to create a worker's state, not that it's unlikely.
And NJR is using that as a bad faith critique to say that they actually did mean a literal dictatorship, can't mean anything else, and is just left punching and red scaring at, frankly, like at a liberal's level. That you can't even include Marx in your analysis because he's scary and violent and power hungry.
As if smashing the fucking state, the position of an actual anarchist, isn't going to require a violent, revolutionary dictatorship. Conveniently, he leaves that part out.
He's jumping back and forth between DemSoc ideology and methods and anarchist critique, which are fundamentally incompatible.
Oh sorry I totally misunderstood your comment to the other person. I thought you were saying NJR was an anarchist and you were quoting him, not that NJR was quoting an anarchist. Whoops.
I could write a page of criticisms on the guy. What I take issue with is the trend of roasting people on the left -- people who are actually out trying to grow the movement -- as if they're some discount chud. We can criticize people on the left, but when those people have their heart in the right place and are trying something to move us towards socialism we should interact with them in good faith. No one wants to be part of a group where you get mercilessly shat on if you try something with good intentions and (some) other people in the group don't like it.
There have been dozens of people like Nathan J Robinsons in the United States before, Anti-Communists "leftists" intellectuals who've worked as editors for periodicals like Nation, Dissent, Jacobin, or common dreams. Crucially, these writers can only support socialism as it exists in their utopian fantasies; where it can afford to have total freedom, and no state or faults at all. However, when it comes to actually existing Socialist States that do challenge the hegemony of capital (not social-imperialist countries such as Norway, or the Great Society era US) these writers always find that these States fall short of their socialist fantasy, and thus deserve no support at all.
The issue is that if one is a Utopian like NJR refuses to learn from the lessons of History (rather believing that the strength of the purity of one's ideas will be enough to succeed) you won't actually be able to meaningfully grow a Communist movement beyond the Brooklyn like bubbles of middle-class intellectuals (this is particularly true if you adopt a fake British accent, and dress like a 19th-century dandy). I would not be surprised if less industrial workers read current affairs, than corporate human resources directors. Perhaps Nathan J Robinson doesn't hate the idea of a dictatorship of the Proletarian because it is a dictatorship, but rather because it is of the Proletarian.
Moreover not only are these intellectuals often useless in terms of taking pragmatic steps to actually grow a Communist movement, but they are often a net negative to the cause of workers freedom worldwide, as they can't help themselves from contributing to the constant bourgeois slander against existing socialist countries, putting themselves on the same side as Capital in their defense of imperialist hegemony.
Anyway, if you want to read what I said, but written, and argued, much better, please check out this chapter from "Blackshirts and Reds" by Michael Parenti;
Crucially, these writers can only support socialism as it exists in their utopian fantasies; where it can afford to have total freedom, and no state or faults at all. However, when it comes to actually existing Socialist States that do challenge the hegemony of capital (not social-imperialist countries such as Norway, or the Great Society era US) these writers always find that these States fall short of their socialist fantasy, and thus deserve no support at all.
you won’t actually be able to meaningfully grow a Communist movement beyond the Brooklyn like bubbles of middle-class intellectuals (this is particularly true if you adopt a fake British accent, and dress like a 19th-century dandy). I would not be surprised if less industrial workers read current affairs, than corporate human resources directors.
This is all legit criticism that I almost entirely agree with (and it's a good, concise summary of that Parenti chapter).
Perhaps Nathan J Robinson doesn’t hate the idea of a dictatorship of the Proletarian because it is a dictatorship, but rather because it is of the Proletarian.
"He just thinks the poors are icky" is a speculative personal attack.
a net negative to the cause of workers freedom worldwide
This is just inaccurate. Current Affairs does tons of great, regular work on immigration and anti-imperialism. They're also a space where leftists can perform all the functions traditional media performs and still earn a paycheck, which is desperately needed.
Legit criticism is one thing; my issue is that every time someone posts a twitter screenshot from this guy the thread devolves into speculative personal attacks and stuff that's flat-out inaccurate.
The issue is that the Current Affair's anti-imperialism only criticizes the means of imperialism (torture, war, destruction of infrastructure, etc.) and not the goals of imperialism (the replacement of governments which are hostile to the American Empire)
Here are some quotes:
On China,
"China’s a poor example. The party took complete priority over the workers. In reality, we’ve never seen a true socialist state"
"When anyone points me to the Soviet Union or Castro’s Cuba and says “Well, there’s your socialism,” my answer isn’t “well, they didn’t try hard enough.” It’s that these regimes bear absolutely no relationship to the principle for which I am fighting. They weren’t egalitarian in any sense; they were dictatorships. Thus to say “Well, look what a disaster an egalitarian society is” is to mistake the nature of the Soviet Union. The history of these states shows what is wrong with authoritarian societies, in which people are not equal, and shows the fallacy of thinking you can achieve egalitarian ends through authoritarian means"
"But like many other examples of radically authoritarian “socialist” regimes, the collapse of Venezuela tells us a lot more about the problems of dictatorship, corruption, and incompetence than it does about “socialism.”
This is not "great work" on anti-imperialism, it's anti-communist and anti-Global South propaganda against societies whose primary crime is challenging the supremacy of the Sword and the Dollar. That CA has done so little in the past few months to challenge the Americas propaganda buildup to manufacture consent for hostile actions against the "evil" Chinese Communists proves the net negative nature of Current Affairs.
only criticizes the means of imperialism (torture, war, destruction of infrastructure, etc.)
Even if this is what they're limited to, and it's not, there are so few media outlets who are even willing to go this far that we shouldn't be ragging on them as if they're the NYT.
and not the goals of imperialism (the replacement of governments which are hostile to the American Empire)
Because he wants to show that Trump has destroyed an America that was “actually great,” he has to rewrite the entire history of post-World War II American foreign policy. He has to dismiss unspeakable crimes as minor blips, and avoid mentioning countless instances of intervention that show American policy to have been anything but idealistic and principled...
Perhaps the best place for Krugman to begin correcting his misimpression is the excellent Wikipedia article “United States Involvement in Regime Change.” He might learn quite a bit about how his country has pursued its noble democratic ideals over the past century or so, in “some” countries including Vietnam, Guatemala, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Congo, Grenada, Honduras, Chile, Brazil, and Cuba. The United States tried to replace foreign governments 72 times during the course of the Cold War alone.... [this paragraph goes on for a while about all the shitty things the U.S. empire has done]
I think we can see here a good example of the extreme moral contortions are necessary to avoid concluding that the United States has historically been a self-interested country largely indifferent to the welfare of anyone other than its ruling majority...
It’s not surprising to see Paul Krugman defending American empire, although it’s a little remarkable to see him literally using the word “empire” as a positive. One of the central differences between liberalism and leftism is that liberals believe American dominance over the world is a good idea, but just needs to be run by decent people, while leftists believe that it’s impossible to talk of democracy while also imposing your will on others.
Bad takes (and I agree that all of those takes you quoted are bad) on existing leftist states are not the same as not caring about the Global South, or an indifference to the evils of American Empire. This is especially evident when those bad takes on existing leftist states are at least coming from a leftist (in this case, anarchist) perspective. You've read Blackshirts and Reds -- the chapter right after "Left Anticommunism" is "Communism in Wonderland," and is 13 pages of leftist critique of the Soviet Union. You don't have to agree with every leftist critique of leftist state projects to see that there's a huge difference between that and some chud hooting about "gobunism no food."
What is your criticism of the argument that if you allow power to be consolidated, 10/10 times you wind up with an oligarchy. Principles simply do not matter to people when they can get untold riches (and likely wind up getting blackmailed) by looking the other way. Why would a leftist authoritarian regime be any different?
Sorry for roasting someone actively spreading anti-marxist hosrseshit repeatedly on Twitter, in a way that is literally the least helpful to any growing of the movement. His heart is not in the right place here. He's spreading bullshit.
Quoting a prominent anarchist makes one a radlib, now? I'm far from an anarchist, but I recognize that they're very much part of the left and that they have legitimate critiques of various revolutionary states. Shit, Parenti echoed some of these criticisms in his chapter in Blackshirts and Reds that criticized the Soviet Union from a leftist perspective.
Does he call himself an anarchist? The only stuff I've seen from him involves electoral politics, which isn't very "anarchist".
He's considers himself an anarcho-social democrat lol
Seems like he can anarcho-deez nutz.
Ha! Good usage. Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxyiccilVKM
things that exist for 5000 $
You don't have to be a card-carrying anarchist, registered with the CEO of anarchism, to recognize when anarchists have a good point. And it's not as if anyone's self-described political affiliation has ever shielded them from criticism in the form of "sure they say that, but they're actually X."
No but in the same way that Nazi's called themselves national socialists it doesn't make them socialist.
The self-classification of someone's political leanings mean a lot less than their actions in the real world. If people who believe in electoral reform and use that as their main outlet for power call themselves anarchists, they're probably not.
It's not to shield anyone from criticism, if anything it is adding to the list of criticisms due to their ideological illiteracy.
Absolutely.
He's not calling himself an anarchist, though. He's saying "anarchists have some good points; here's one of them."
One of the worst, most counterproductive trends on the left is endless squabbling over what 10 different leftist labels mean and who is or isn't each one of them. As you said, it's their actions that are what's most important.
NJR calls himself an anarchist all the time idk what ur talking about. Hes also a reformist and has constantly shit on Marx and Lenin in the most unproductive and cringe anarkiddie way possible.
There's a disconnect here. Again:
https://twitter.com/NathanJRobinson/status/1290111333799665666
You can stan whoever you want but he just has bad takes on this and its needlessly antagonistic and just stirs up this infighting, and he never talks about HIS theory of change which he should be rightfully called out for.
Let me amend this to:
Also:
Lol he runs a fucking socialist magazine where he writes about this endlessly. If you're going to argue that someone hasn't done enough homework on leftist theory, do a minimal amount of homework on the person you're bashing?
He literally talks all the time about how hes never read Marx and Lenin give me a break lmao, this guy is a clown and everyone always calls him out for it. He's literally the one starting shit without being able to actually back it up lmao
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The guy is obviously committed to "you have to read something before you criticize it," far past the point of reason, and you honestly believe he's never read Marx?
He's quoted Marx in his writing, so I doubt that.
Not understanding that a dictatorship of the Proletariat is not a literal dictatorship, and using Anarchist theory when you're literally not an anarchist to bad faith left punch as a supposed "DemSoc..." that is absolutely ideological illiteracy. Total galaxy brain shit.
Literally, the idea behind Democratic Socialism is that you can peacefully transition to a DotP without a revolution. Opposing is at odds with your literal mission goal. And so are anarchists. That's not anti left unity, that's the just the fucking definitions. You're not trying to abolish the state as a DemSoc, you're trying to peacefully take it over. That's just what that term means.
The left does uselessly squabble a lot, but it has just as many clout chasing, opportunist fucking fools looking to leverage discontent into a clique or a job or some other form of money and fame.
That is bad enough on its own without also being completely idiotic and at odds with itself.
In theory it's not. The anarchist critique is that in practice it is, or at least can be. This is not a new criticism. You can disagree with that anarchist criticism, but it's a response to the concept of "dictatorship of the proletariat," not a misunderstanding of it.
No, it's only the former. "States are good, sometimes" is the Marxist take. Bakunin is arguing here that it is impossible to create a worker's state, not that it's unlikely.
And NJR is using that as a bad faith critique to say that they actually did mean a literal dictatorship, can't mean anything else, and is just left punching and red scaring at, frankly, like at a liberal's level. That you can't even include Marx in your analysis because he's scary and violent and power hungry.
As if smashing the fucking state, the position of an actual anarchist, isn't going to require a violent, revolutionary dictatorship. Conveniently, he leaves that part out.
He's jumping back and forth between DemSoc ideology and methods and anarchist critique, which are fundamentally incompatible.
Oh sorry I totally misunderstood your comment to the other person. I thought you were saying NJR was an anarchist and you were quoting him, not that NJR was quoting an anarchist. Whoops.
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lol the nathan j robinson stan is back
lol imagine remembering people you get in internet slapfights with
Difficult to forget someone as horny for Nathan as you. Hope you find someone one day that can make you as happy as he does.
I could write a page of criticisms on the guy. What I take issue with is the trend of roasting people on the left -- people who are actually out trying to grow the movement -- as if they're some discount chud. We can criticize people on the left, but when those people have their heart in the right place and are trying something to move us towards socialism we should interact with them in good faith. No one wants to be part of a group where you get mercilessly shat on if you try something with good intentions and (some) other people in the group don't like it.
There have been dozens of people like Nathan J Robinsons in the United States before, Anti-Communists "leftists" intellectuals who've worked as editors for periodicals like Nation, Dissent, Jacobin, or common dreams. Crucially, these writers can only support socialism as it exists in their utopian fantasies; where it can afford to have total freedom, and no state or faults at all. However, when it comes to actually existing Socialist States that do challenge the hegemony of capital (not social-imperialist countries such as Norway, or the Great Society era US) these writers always find that these States fall short of their socialist fantasy, and thus deserve no support at all.
The issue is that if one is a Utopian like NJR refuses to learn from the lessons of History (rather believing that the strength of the purity of one's ideas will be enough to succeed) you won't actually be able to meaningfully grow a Communist movement beyond the Brooklyn like bubbles of middle-class intellectuals (this is particularly true if you adopt a fake British accent, and dress like a 19th-century dandy). I would not be surprised if less industrial workers read current affairs, than corporate human resources directors. Perhaps Nathan J Robinson doesn't hate the idea of a dictatorship of the Proletarian because it is a dictatorship, but rather because it is of the Proletarian.
Moreover not only are these intellectuals often useless in terms of taking pragmatic steps to actually grow a Communist movement, but they are often a net negative to the cause of workers freedom worldwide, as they can't help themselves from contributing to the constant bourgeois slander against existing socialist countries, putting themselves on the same side as Capital in their defense of imperialist hegemony.
Anyway, if you want to read what I said, but written, and argued, much better, please check out this chapter from "Blackshirts and Reds" by Michael Parenti;
https://cym.ie/2020/04/01/left-anti-communism-the-unkindest-cut-by-michael-parenti/
also,
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm
This is all legit criticism that I almost entirely agree with (and it's a good, concise summary of that Parenti chapter).
"He just thinks the poors are icky" is a speculative personal attack.
This is just inaccurate. Current Affairs does tons of great, regular work on immigration and anti-imperialism. They're also a space where leftists can perform all the functions traditional media performs and still earn a paycheck, which is desperately needed.
Legit criticism is one thing; my issue is that every time someone posts a twitter screenshot from this guy the thread devolves into speculative personal attacks and stuff that's flat-out inaccurate.
The issue is that the Current Affair's anti-imperialism only criticizes the means of imperialism (torture, war, destruction of infrastructure, etc.) and not the goals of imperialism (the replacement of governments which are hostile to the American Empire)
Here are some quotes:
On China,
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/12/get-in-losers-were-doing-socialism
On Cuba and the USSR,
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/how-to-be-a-socialist-without-being-an-apologist-for-the-atrocities-of-communist-regimes
On Venezuela
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/05/what-venezuela-tells-us-about-socialism
This is not "great work" on anti-imperialism, it's anti-communist and anti-Global South propaganda against societies whose primary crime is challenging the supremacy of the Sword and the Dollar. That CA has done so little in the past few months to challenge the Americas propaganda buildup to manufacture consent for hostile actions against the "evil" Chinese Communists proves the net negative nature of Current Affairs.
Even if this is what they're limited to, and it's not, there are so few media outlets who are even willing to go this far that we shouldn't be ragging on them as if they're the NYT.
From an article directly about this:
Bad takes (and I agree that all of those takes you quoted are bad) on existing leftist states are not the same as not caring about the Global South, or an indifference to the evils of American Empire. This is especially evident when those bad takes on existing leftist states are at least coming from a leftist (in this case, anarchist) perspective. You've read Blackshirts and Reds -- the chapter right after "Left Anticommunism" is "Communism in Wonderland," and is 13 pages of leftist critique of the Soviet Union. You don't have to agree with every leftist critique of leftist state projects to see that there's a huge difference between that and some chud hooting about "gobunism no food."
What is your criticism of the argument that if you allow power to be consolidated, 10/10 times you wind up with an oligarchy. Principles simply do not matter to people when they can get untold riches (and likely wind up getting blackmailed) by looking the other way. Why would a leftist authoritarian regime be any different?
Sorry for roasting someone actively spreading anti-marxist hosrseshit repeatedly on Twitter, in a way that is literally the least helpful to any growing of the movement. His heart is not in the right place here. He's spreading bullshit.