Radlibs continue to convince me that america has to end before it can see an actual left movement
Radlibs
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".
Ha! Good usage. Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxyiccilVKM
Does he call himself an anarchist?
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.
calls himself an anarchist
Hes also a reformist
There's a disconnect here. Again:
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.
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:
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?
talks all the time about he hes 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.
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.
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
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"
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/12/get-in-losers-were-doing-socialism
On Cuba and the USSR,
"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"
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/how-to-be-a-socialist-without-being-an-apologist-for-the-atrocities-of-communist-regimes
On Venezuela
"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.”
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.
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)
From an article directly about this:
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.
Bakunin has some reasonable points here -- we should be skeptical of politicians even if they started off as workers, and we should be skeptical of politicians that try to justify their power with "I'm politically educated and you're not." I think there are great responses to these points (often in the form of "what better alternatives do you have?", which is usually a good response to anarchist critiques), but that doesn't mean those points are silly to begin with.
As much as I agree with you in theory, my own experience with democratic centralist organizations has shown minorities on particular issues can be shown the door quickly without debate even when a full floor democratic decision had not been made prior, and even when both sides are supporting the existing party line.
Power absolutely does corrupt, even when the amount of power wielded is irrelevant, just look at how far towards neoliberalism Vietnam has gone, look at how the USSR was even able to fail as it did. The only good features of modern liberal democracy is a very powerful and politically independent judiciary, the lacks of checks and balances to reenforce a socialist vision has absolutely contributed to the failures of past socialist projects.
I mean modding reddit or discord for a medium sized community is no meaningful power and yet power corrupts lol. Anyone unable to buy this analysis did not go outside in the before times
There are accountable to the party of the working class and have risen to a higher position by getting democratically voted to do so through their activity inside the party
So can you cite some examples when a marxist-leninist leader was actually held accountable for shit that they've done?
It's vague because i am not looking for a gotcha, i want to understand the mechanism that ensures that in an ml state the members of the party, who are clearly above the proletariat, no matter how much of this is only for coordinational or organizational reasons can be removed when they stray from the revolutionary path. Much like the USSR did in it's later stages.
You cannot say that there weren't failures in the democratic centralist form of governing when many of these countries no longer exist as socialist states, with many of the ones that still existing turning towards neoliberalism.
One of the key enforcement mechanisms of liberal capitalist democracy in the US is the judiciary existing as an independent entity, and I think that many of these countries would've heeded better if they didn't entirely rely on democratic centralism among the politiburo for decision making. They needed independent groups to make sure they were always living up to constitutional desires.
Eh? Constituents can recall their representatives with a simple vote, at literally any time. That by itself provides incredible power that nobody in existing democracies currently has. It forces representatives to be constantly seeking to actually represent their area, especially as their is very high local transparency of government and a requirement for constant updates on their activities.
If constituents could recall their reps at any time in liberal democracies they would be under an endless threat of repeated votes for all the shit they don't actually represent their constituents for.
No he doesn't, it's fundamentally not rigorous. Just "grrrrr, state bad, abolish."
Sometimes I think anarchists are just looking to abolish the state so they can become petite bourgeois and give up on the world.
You have to reckon with forces of fucking history. No one is just going to "leave you alone." You have to do away with Imperialist supply chains, with forces of reaction. You have to redistribute, reeducate, and rebuild infrastructure.
Who the fuck is going to do all that? How are you going to deal with the hundreds of millions who oppose you? With states and violence?
It's wall-to-wall reaction out there. Are you going to kill 40-80 million people and just let the suburbs and McMansions drown in blood? Because how the fuck else is anyone who currently has property going to give any of it up without a state enforcing it? And how could that possibly be better than a Stalinist purge?
The point of an anarchist critique of the state is to give up on it as an option, not to point out that it could go wrong and to be careful.
Fucking everyone knows it could go wrong, that states can become devices of terror that exist on their own momentum.
But if you can't articulate how to deal with global problems without one, or how to prevent that situation from arising, that criticism is just a bad faith attack to give up on the problem, presumably in Bakunin's case, because he's only thinking about how his community can get out of it, not how to end the problem of global capitalism entirely.
Not to be a whiny loser, but this post has a lot of downvotes with zero clarification or refutation.
That's not exactly lessening my paranoia of people larping anarchist ideology as a cloak for bourgeois aspirationalism.
If I didn't hit the mark, a lot of people are angry and aren't explaining why.
The point of an anarchist critique of the state is to give up on it as an option, not to point out that it could go wrong and to be careful.
There's a difference between having a state and recreating the bourgeois state (or individual parts of it) wholecloth. Also I'm not gonna defend Bakunin or NJR, I don't care about them.
The way systems are organized affects their behavior so you wouldn't want a socialist version of the CIA with the only change being that it's now called the People's Intelligence Agency or something for example because it would end up doing similar shit just under a different ideological cover. Now this doesn't mean you can't have a functioning system of counter/intelligence you just need to be careful in how it's constructed and for it be effectively different it's gonna have to be radically different.
Now I'm sure that seems obvious but it ties into the anarchist critiques of the 'state' as such. Though I'm probably not the best person to defend this since I'm not an anarchist but I have sympathy for the critique. As far as I understand it, the modern idea is to create organizational structures whose functions emerge from the bottom up rather than having a set bureaucracy or formal structure, i.e. a state, dictating what is to be done. It also somewhat hinges on exactly how you define 'the state' but to keep it short, this is obviously easier said than done. There are various proposals to replace what are currently organs of the state with more or less horizontally organized power structures but I'm not interested in the specifics for the point I'm making, you can find them if you're intrigued. Though I will say, the bourgeoisie destroying their own institutions certainly makes this approach easier.
You might be saying that this is just a semantic argument and that still constitutes what is essentially a state but even so, it would be a radically different one. It would have it's own problems to be sure but they'd be very different problems.
Now there are anarchists out there who think even this is too much of a state but frankly if they want no organizational structure at all they're just primitivists and not really worth engaging with. I don't think any serious anarchist believes their revolution wouldn't have at least some level of violence though, not sure where you're getting that idea.
how the fuck else is anyone who currently has property going to give any of it up without a state enforcing it?
I can think of one off the top of my head, make it in their material interest to give it up. You could accomplish this in a variety of ways of course, some more violent/direct than others but the suburbs are particularly weak, they can't sustain themselves without constant supplies from elsewhere for more than a couple days.
As it happens, I think both the anarchist and traditional ML(M) methods of organizing power/production (trying not to say state) are flawed/insufficient. However, that's a whole other topic but if I can clarify anything else I'm happy to.
I don't disagree at all with this, but if this what anarchists think, then yeah, it's just fucking semantics.
Like if you don't want to call a group of guys with guns arresting a guy for charging rent after we've abolished it a "state," go for it.
I mean it definitely is. It's a Proletarian state, but it's still a state.
But if that's what they want, and they get mad if we call that a state, then we can call it something else. I don't care. Not attached to the name.
But what you've described here is essentially the outline of ML ideology. So if that's accurate, what the fuck do we even disagree about except for the name?
if this what anarchists think, then yeah, it’s just fucking semantics.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, the semantic issue is whether having an organizational body that performs traditional state functions qualifies as a state even if the way it carries them out is so drastically different that it'd be more accurate to call it something else, not just that you're avoiding calling it a state because you don't like the word though there is an element of that. Though maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
Like if you don’t want to call a group of guys with guns arresting a guy for charging rent after we’ve abolished it a “state,” go for it.
This is a good example actually. A lot of the anarchist (and some newer ML) proposals I know of require universal conscription, which would definitely effect how that scenario plays out and provides a check on the body of armed men that wouldn't be there otherwise. Presumably rent would be abolished anyway but you can sub anything else for it and the example holds. Universal conscription would be considered a self-negating hierarchy because even though you're forcing people to go through whatever military training, the act of going through it provides you with the ability to defend yourself from others imposing things on you, in a similar way to how a teacher-student relationship is considered a justified hierarchy because the goal of it is to make both equals to each other by the end, negating the need for the hierarchy.
But if that’s what they want, and they get mad if we call that a state, then we can call it something else. I don’t care. Not attached to the name.
Definitely some of it is semantics. However, if you call it a state then it makes the transition of the state oppressing certain classes for the people to the state oppressing certain classes for itself a lot easier of an ideological pill to swallow and many probably wouldn't even notice the shift. It sounds petty, I know, but how you justify things does matter especially when it's an entire state apparatus doing it.
But what you’ve described here is essentially the outline of ML ideology
Except it's not, especially when put into practice. That's where recreating bourgeois institutions comes into play, because the USSR did a lot of that after some brief failed experiments. Structurally the various police and intelligence wings of the USSR lined up pretty damn close to the Czarist police and intelligence services. You can make whatever justifications for it that you want but it absolutely affected how those organizations behaved towards the people they were nominally supposed to be defending. Now that was the first attempt so giving it some slack for not knowing better is fair, but basically all of the various really existing socialist states have made the same error so at the very least there's an implementation problem.
So if that’s accurate, what the fuck do we even disagree about except for the name?
That is the problem though, it's at least so far not been accurate to really existing socialist states. Putting a new coat of paint on a bourgeois state and expecting it to abolish capitalism, even just within itself, has historically not worked (the USSR is the best case for this but I'm not gonna get into a debate about how capitalist or not the USSR was I just want to point out that successive states have gotten worse at this, not better). So there's a fundamental problem somewhere in the various ML programs that leads to more or less the same outcome regardless of the intent of the revolutionaries who carry it out. Don't think I'm treating actually existing socialist states unfairly though, they've gotten the closest out of anyone but they haven't succeeded yet. So I think it's more useful to be critical about the ideology/praxis rather than hoping it'll all work out the next time, if there even is a next time.
That's just not true though. Like whatever you think of the USSR, it was a country where you could fuck off from work for three hours to go pick up your kids and no one would ask where you went. It had free healthcare, guaranteed housing and education, no homelessness or unemployment. I'm not about to sing the praises of a police state, but they were at fucking war for 69 years. We have a police state now and that's not even true for us.
It may not be what anyone idealized, far from it, but it's fucking crazy to think it recreated Bourgeois institutions. No one was hoarding wealth while others were homeless.
Ditto to no one succeeding afterwards. What the fuck is Cuba? Or Vietnam? Think about the conditions they emerged from, survive in.
Why bother doing the Cold War if that's true? Why kill Allende? Why terrorize Venezuela? Why kick Evo Morales out of power?
I'm sorry but that's just fucking bullshit dude. A lot of people succeeded without recreating the same institutions.
The rest, yes, is semantics.
Like we could sit argue the minutiae of this and that all day long. About if this or that institution is accountable to the people and delivers the material necessities or not, or whatever.
But at the end of the day, there is no way forward without essentially a gigantically centrally organized apparatus telling people what to do even though they'd rather not. What else is the idea of universal conscription except exactly that?
Especially because most people are gonna be right wing before and after any theoretical left takeover. All the middle and upper classes are not going to acquiese. Shit, plenty of proles won't either.
You can't horizontally organize with people who don't agree with you, and that's most people by definition. They're going to try to bring capitalism back. This never hasn't happened.
So those people are gonna have to be forced by dudes with guns.
That's a state, to me, whether it's organized sweety pie or draconian.
Again, call it something different if you want. But what's the task ahead of us requires.
And it ain't what Bakunin or NJR are talking about. I'll let the rest of the anarchists speak for themselves.
I’m sorry but that’s just fucking bullshit dude.
By succeed I mean that capitalism is abolished and that socialism/communism is implemented wherever there are humans. Both are necessary and as of yet neither have occurred.
A lot of people succeeded without recreating the same institutions.
Except they did, just because they didn't recreate all of them does not mean that the ones they did recreate somehow don't/didn't exist. And as time has gone by, they've become more like bourgeois states not less.
Why bother doing the Cold War if that’s true? Why kill Allende? Why terrorize Venezuela? Why kick Evo Morales out of power?
Capitalist states compete to be hegemonic, as capitalism has developed what counts as hegemonic has grown with each successive hegemon. To the point that now it requires a state's hegemony to be global, so any competition on Earth to the hegemon's hegemony will be stopped (or attempted anyway) by that hegemon regardless of whether the competition comes from other would be aspiring capialist states or non-capitalist ones. That the US decided to do a bunch of coup's/war's in countries that didn't want to listen to it does not determine whether or not those countries were anti-capialist and not just anti-US capitalist, let alone socialist. It just means that those rebelling could not be submitted by more subtle forms of control, i.e. market discipline etc.
But at the end of the day, there is no way forward without essentially a gigantically centrally organized apparatus telling people what to do even though they’d rather not.
Lack of imagination is not an effective argument. The key word is 'centrally', that is where anarchists disagree with you and honestly so do many flavors of Marxists. You can call it semantics as much as you want, I can't convince you that the way systems are organized affects the behavior of those engaged in the system if you don't believe it, it's basically a truism. The other issues you raised mostly stem from the material conditions of the countries where they were implemented. States that are more materially well off tend to be less coercive because they can afford not to be (the USSR is a good example of this phenomenon in a single country). Should a revolution actually happen in the first world (especially the US) the revolutionaries would be able to implement less violent means of coercion because the material conditions afford such luxuries as long as they did not choose a model of organization that encourages excessive use of force--hence the universal conscription and such.
What else is the idea of universal conscription except exactly that?
A self-destructive hierarchy. Read some anarchist theory if I'm not explaining it well enough for you.
And it ain’t what Bakunin or NJR are talking about.
Well yeah but like I said, I don't care about them. I was trying to clear some misconceptions you had about anarchism. I'm not trying to convince you to be an anarchist, just that they might have some ideas that are useful for aspiring revolutionaries.
I’ll let the rest of the anarchists speak for themselves.
Fair enough.
Just kind of summed up why I drifted from anarchist to ML, honestly
I think there are great responses to these points (often in the form of “what better alternatives do you have?”, which is usually a good response to anarchist critiques)
I don't think Bakunin is right overall. I'm saying you can make a reasonable point in a losing argument, and that point might have value even if you ultimately go a different direction.
The entire point of the damn critique is that revolutionary tyranny is bad.
NJR is using that to left punch, while ignoring that there is no anarchist method that does not involve equal or greater violence than a traditional Marxist one. Engels made this point and I've never heard an anarchist response to it, ever.
But this isn't just not providing an alternative, it's incoherent!
It's positing a Marxist boogeyman to an ideology that historically has advocated and done the exact same thing. The Paris Commune didn't exactly ask nicely, did they?
And as head of the DSA, that's what he's proposing we do, ask nicely for the reins of the state. To do what, exactly?
This isn't an attack on you but NJR's line of reasoning is incoherent and he must know that.
You cannot use an anti state argument as a fucking DemSoc. And you can't handwring about tyranny as a fucking anarchist! Car bombs and molotovs aren't exactly fucking horizontal organizing.
Nathan has posted this passage before - and I've pointed out that Bakunin had a very specific "privileged minority" in mind - "the parasitic Jewish nation" - who he thought Marx wanted to rule over the great masses of the people. Here's Bakunin, 1871. https://connexions.org/RedMenace/Docs/RM4-BakuninonMarxRothschild.htm
https://twitter.com/peterjgowan/status/1296503097989177346
This goes a little past the point of reasonable skepticism, its borderline hysterical
I can think of tons of politicians who started off good and didn't stay that way. "Power corrupts" is hardly a hysterical take.
He’s literally railing against the entire concept of elected governance, justifying it thru “corrupt human nature” which ironically kinda spells trouble for his own personnel ideology, of course I doubt he detected the implication since he was too busy moralizing about hypothetical corrupt working class politicians
And usually from the global south if it's quality. Western Anarchists usually are either naive, Marxists who don't want to repeat the same mistakes of USSR, or FBI.
Recommendations? I'm from the global south and entirely discomnected from the tradition.
Graeber and Sahlins are for sure mostly Marxists, but a lot of more recent stuff seems to draw on Walter Benjamin, Michele Foucault and others to a lesser degree as much or more than it draws on Marx.
Getting real sick of Caviar: Renegade Angel and his left punching hot takes tbh
Marx's DOTP is literally not the state in any meaningful sense, he floated having people in positions by sortition for crying out loud. Bakunin thinks the whole thing is gonna play out like Robespierre and the Marxists are lying/deluded about it. It's fair criticism (no one should want a dictatorship of the vitreous be floated again) , but NJR just bungles that quote.
I was talking about this TODAY! Shitposted the Mark Twain two Reign of Terror quotes here
Yeah same tbh. I own a copy of some of his writings. A dictatorship of the virtuous is still a dead end though imo.
The thing that annoys me about NJR's repeated commitment to this take is that it's completely useless.
It doesn't serve any purpose except giving himself something to post about
agreed. your opinion on something that happened a hundred years ago that you weren't fucking around for is fucking irrelevant when compared to the shit sandwich capitalism is driving down our throats right now. mother fuckers need to stop punching left.
The only explanation he's offered as far as I know is that he doesn't understand it, and claims anyone who has tried to explain it to him has not convinced him.
The only thing I've heard Chomsky say about it is that it's silly to name it marxism, basically. He points out that Freudianism is the only other personality cult like that in the sciences, and is total bullshit.
His point is that marx should just be considered one of the thinkers of sociology like any other, and that by fetishzing the one person, marxists fall prey to not tossing out the ideas which will inevitably become obsolete as science progresses.
He did give credit to a bunch of marx's theorizing about capitalism, for sure. But I think he is wary that calling the thing Marxism would lead leftists to tend to stan/uphold cults of personalities around various marxists which... he isn't completely wrong about any of that, tbf hahahaha
I can't find anything of his on 'dialectics' in particular, just on marxism broadly
Who the fuck says that dictatorships didn't exist back then? Literally it's a dictatorship. Every member of the proletariat is a dictator, which both diffuses the power and gives them absolute power over the state. That's how it's supposed to work.
God I fucking hate this creep. People like him need to be given a fucking swirly and made to never opine on anything related to politics ever again.
Anarchists are always some of the first to go out and take direct action.
That doesn't make the ideology coherent or desirable.
And yeah, if you intend to just abolish the state locally and not account for global capitalism, not only is that anti left petite bourgeois aspirationalism, you won't even succeed! Because fucking of course they'll come crush you.
I'm not saying anarchism is the way to go. I'm saying "anarchists are worthless" is an objectively shit take, especially if you're of the opinion that it will take revolutionary street violence to end capitalism.
Yes, that's fair.
But it is really annoying how not rigorous the ideology is.
You cannot critique the state based tendencies if your ideology isn't less violent and can't account for historical forces.
Like I'm fine with left unity. But if you're gonna start left punching, you better come with something substantive.
But it is really annoying how not rigorous the ideology is.
Oh, 100%. The way I describe it is that:
- Marxists and anarchists share the same high-level goals and fundamental values, but
- While anarchists are some of the people most down to do Steps A, B, and C to achieve those goals, and while we're in agreement on the ideal endgame (Steps X, Y, an Z), I don't see their plan for anything in between as workable.
Meanwhile there are a bunch of ML states that have made huge (if incomplete or derailed) progress towards those goals -- stuff that goes far beyond Steps A, B, and C.
He's not an Anarchist, he's a Social Democrat who incorporates very basic anarchist theory into his outlook. He constantly tries and fails to square the circle of being an Anarchist and Social Democrat at the same time, and it produces arrogant idiocy.
