Anarchists can have little a state power, as a treat (also because we ran out of time for an organic bottom up cultural revolution a while ago :sadness: ).
I don't really want any tbh, state power's main function is reciprocating itself, it ain't withering away.
That’s because it’s not cybernetically organized
So far it has always developed as a network of alienated institutions funded by unstable monetary and fiscal regimes, that creates a perverse internal logic geared towards the incentives of whoever funds said institutions
Change that base logic and the funding structure and new realities open up
This is a "deeper" reason theoreticaly but historicaly it has been much simpler than that. There was no point during the lifespan of any state born by a communist/socialist revolution where not having a state (or even being further down the line of the "withering away") was preferable, feasible or reconsilable with the projects own existance having to continue, survive and be guaranteed. I cant really see the fact that the state didnt wither away in the USSR/DPRK/Cuba/China or wherever as a strong counterargument against the general concept of the withering away of the state if i cant see how ,in the enviroment they existed, that withering away could in any way naturaly happen . Or even if it was "forced" to happen by the party (which we shouldnt do, its un-marxist) that it would have been a correct and benefitial choice. So i cant even begin to attribute the non withering away of the state to maybe that "deeper reason" you stated being determinal since i dont see it as ever being in the forefront of impact on the existance or not of the state for these historical projects
Thats not to say that there was room for those projects to be less centralized or more localy democratic and less bureaocratized. There was (a lot in some cases) and should have been persued within their calculated risks. But the "withering away of the state" is another dimension entirely
And the entire crux i feel is whether or not you believe that the state in any large scale progect should or would wither away when that project came into existance and had to survive and progress in a world were capitalism and imperialism are by far the dominant forces on almost all aspects and hostile to you, forcing you to defend and catch up(your starting point being garbage) as vital goals of your existance. And that once that contradiction is lessened or resolved to a large enough degree then a comprehensive withering away of the state can naturaly happen or be observed. Thats where im coming from so im still very unconvinced of interpreting past experiments as showing us a "state power’s main function is reciprocating itself, it ain’t withering away." conclusion. They didnt get a chance to do that in their own merrit
Couldn't agree more, you ever hear of Wing Walking? Well the first rule is to never ever let go until you have something else to hold on to, otherwise you'd die
The revolutionaries of the past didn't have anything else to hold on to, but we do and creating a portal to that dimension you described suddenly doesn't seem like science fiction like it did in 1930
I was just about to comment that a state system would have a chance to wither if the means of production were left in the hands of the workers-councils, and not a party with its internal loyalties that functions as state apparatus. Would that constitute that base change in logic?
Yep, at that point waiting for the state to wither would be pointless as the fundamental nature would have shifted so profoundly that what we call a state would become unrecognizable and whether you want to call the networks and structures that develop at scale “councils” or “parties” is irrelevant
You’d require a whole new set of theories and terminology just to describe the economic logic and incentives that would emerge
My main problem with state structures is their monopoly on violence/power.
A fully decentralized network where the economy is not regulated/controled by one body would not be able to maintain a monopoly of violence that a revolutionary army holds initially.
I would not call the resulting borderless network a state, but discussing that would be semantics.
Stop reading Weber and read more Marx. Most violence comes from private companies and the workplace.
Most violence comes from private companies and the workplace.
??? It ain't the corpos bombing the middle east, or shooting black teens.
Have you heard of the companies Blackwater or Boeing? Wars are waged for the interest of private companies. The police are also regulatory functions that stem from the settler lynchings done by white people which are now part of the system as part of the 1960s compromise between Settlers and the bourgiosie to give a veneer of oversight, none of which are actually done by the "state" but local governments.
Stop reading Marx and more queer theory. Most violence happens in the home.
What's inefficient about it? All queetr theory is Marxism, the ones that dont and serve to affirm liberalism is not worth reading at all.
You can have an analysis about normalization and disciplinary violence which doesn't invoke relational class but still challenges liberalism by critiquing all of its institutions.
? It is all about class, it is why Engels writes that
"Thus, on the one hand, in proportion as wealth increased, it made the man’s position in the family more important than the woman’s, and on the other hand created an impulse to exploit this strengthened position in order to overthrow, in favor of his children, the traditional order of inheritance. This, however, was impossible so long as descent was reckoned according to mother right. Mother-right, therefore, had to be overthrown, and overthrown it was. This was by no means so difficult as it looks to us today"
I guess it does not have to be explicit about 'class' but you can read between the tea leaves and find the material basis is in class as long as you got historical materialism on your side.
Material basis is not the same as class. Class is often part of it, but the bourgeoisie at this point could end homophobia and keep their profits in tact. Maybe there's a material basis, but it could be too complicated to describe in language. There is use in describing power as it exists and not worrying about its basis.
The corpos control the state that gives them in turn legitimacy, so any violence originates from the corporations regardles. I get that.
But you can't deny the immense potential for abuse the Soviet state still had. With no looming imperial power ready to conquer the imperial core upon its fall, I see no reason how we could justify tolerating even that remaining shred of violence.
What "potential of absue" did the soviet state have? If you mean the abuse to repress capitalists then I am all for it. I'm interested in real concrete examples, not hypothetics or fantasies by liberals.
Exectutions with little justification, forced conscription, forced relocations, expropriation of grain beyond reason, restrictions on press and newspapers, massive failed agriculture projects, nepotism/the enabling of corruption through officials, the measures taken against the bag-men as concrete example... a lot of it done with war in mind, but why even keep the state without war?
But the real question is different. Why keep the state if you are a western imperial core? There is no fucking reason.
The implementation of a regimental system for a revolutionary army would largely eliminate those risks, while also playing to the strengths of a decentralized but coordinating series of networks that operate at scale
I'm leaning more into Anarcho Syndicalism, which is very comparable. But honestly, I'd support most leftist movements that I see could have a fair chance.
like some kind of union of soviets. By jove I think we're onto something
The soviets had very little power in the soviet union so if that's what is proposed, no thanks.
Yeah, but like, without appointed leaders, and without disarming the working class, and without ending elections in the military.
