I mean, it's something impossible that also almost no one wants. So it's kinda silly to make a big deal out of demanding it. Even defunding the police and diverting funds in a meaningful way seems to be near impossible in the US. But it's actually something that you could rally people behind and make progress.
Alright I'd never heard before about the Koch Brothers supporting any form of police abolition but there's a big difference between leftist/anarchist police abolition proposals and what I imagine the Koch Brothers would be in favor of (which I assume is privatization? Which isn't even abolition lmao?).
Like, the Koch brothers are also in favor of open borders (which I get the feeling you'd also point out as a knock against open borders but whatever), but just like with abolition, there's a pretty big difference between what a leftist proposal for open borders and what a Koch proposal for open borders would look like, as well as a difference in the motives.
It looks like the joke is that the Kochs (and "anarcho-capitalist" right-"libertarians") would respond to the police abolition demand by replacing nominally publicly-accountable cops with privatized security guards and mercenaries, instead of doing what the anarchists actually want, which is effectively to get rid of the armed agents of the capitalist class altogether.
Exactly and it's not a doomer take to say that it literally isn't possible to abolish the police under capitalism, it's just marxist one. The end result of abolishing the police under capitalism (were that ever to occur) is that you get private police. Motives don't matter when the outcome is the same.
Well, you don't really wanna "let" the libs do one thing while you do another, you wanna get people to organise with you instead of the liberals. So you gotta offer more but not really "abolish the police" more, because then most just won't care any more. Even if we could do a revolution tomorrow, straight up abolishing the police would take years and years supported by broad change in all sectors of society. But it's not like there is no gap between what toothless libs say and "abolish the police", you can say all sorts of stuff, create alternative bodies, fund affected communities, abolish private prisons, throw away the old penal code, demilitarize/disarm the police and take away their liberties, idk, all sorts of stuff.
You should clarify what you mean by impossible. Is it economically impossible given the existing balance of power between classes, or is it merely politically impossible without sustained grassroots pressure, the sort of demand which could theoretically be met under capitalism? There's an important difference here.
People misunderstand the whole "start big on negotiations" concept. You want to start big, but you don't want to start so big that you get brushed off as not seriously negotiating. There are limits.
If the typical pay for a position is $50K and you start off asking for $75K, the other side might still be willing to talk to you, and you can compromise away a big chunk of your initial demand and still wind up at (say) 120% of the going rate. But if you start off asking for ten billion dollars and your own private jet, they're just not going to take that as a serious offer. It's not on the table, it's not even a bit off the edge of the table -- it's something they would never consider for any reason, and they might not even have the resources to do. That ten billion dollar demand isn't going to translate into landing you a $250K salary for the position just because you can back so far off your initial offer.
Even after revolution it's not happening for many, many years. Replace the police yeah, but it's not really gonna be an abolition. Police abolition also means penal code abolition, justice system abolition etc, stuff that communists always assigned to the "higher stage of communism". If you're the zapatistas you can do it because of how unified and tightly knit they are and the peculiarities of their situation and way of life, but in a highly advanced, urbanised and heterogeneous society it's not really so simple.
Saying "abolish the police" is kinda like saying "abolish the state". It's not happening.
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I mean, it's something impossible that also almost no one wants. So it's kinda silly to make a big deal out of demanding it. Even defunding the police and diverting funds in a meaningful way seems to be near impossible in the US. But it's actually something that you could rally people behind and make progress.
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anarchists :unity: koch brothers
Alright I'd never heard before about the Koch Brothers supporting any form of police abolition but there's a big difference between leftist/anarchist police abolition proposals and what I imagine the Koch Brothers would be in favor of (which I assume is privatization? Which isn't even abolition lmao?).
Like, the Koch brothers are also in favor of open borders (which I get the feeling you'd also point out as a knock against open borders but whatever), but just like with abolition, there's a pretty big difference between what a leftist proposal for open borders and what a Koch proposal for open borders would look like, as well as a difference in the motives.
It looks like the joke is that the Kochs (and "anarcho-capitalist" right-"libertarians") would respond to the police abolition demand by replacing nominally publicly-accountable cops with privatized security guards and mercenaries, instead of doing what the anarchists actually want, which is effectively to get rid of the armed agents of the capitalist class altogether.
Exactly and it's not a doomer take to say that it literally isn't possible to abolish the police under capitalism, it's just marxist one. The end result of abolishing the police under capitalism (were that ever to occur) is that you get private police. Motives don't matter when the outcome is the same.
Well, you don't really wanna "let" the libs do one thing while you do another, you wanna get people to organise with you instead of the liberals. So you gotta offer more but not really "abolish the police" more, because then most just won't care any more. Even if we could do a revolution tomorrow, straight up abolishing the police would take years and years supported by broad change in all sectors of society. But it's not like there is no gap between what toothless libs say and "abolish the police", you can say all sorts of stuff, create alternative bodies, fund affected communities, abolish private prisons, throw away the old penal code, demilitarize/disarm the police and take away their liberties, idk, all sorts of stuff.
You should clarify what you mean by impossible. Is it economically impossible given the existing balance of power between classes, or is it merely politically impossible without sustained grassroots pressure, the sort of demand which could theoretically be met under capitalism? There's an important difference here.
People misunderstand the whole "start big on negotiations" concept. You want to start big, but you don't want to start so big that you get brushed off as not seriously negotiating. There are limits.
If the typical pay for a position is $50K and you start off asking for $75K, the other side might still be willing to talk to you, and you can compromise away a big chunk of your initial demand and still wind up at (say) 120% of the going rate. But if you start off asking for ten billion dollars and your own private jet, they're just not going to take that as a serious offer. It's not on the table, it's not even a bit off the edge of the table -- it's something they would never consider for any reason, and they might not even have the resources to do. That ten billion dollar demand isn't going to translate into landing you a $250K salary for the position just because you can back so far off your initial offer.
The first sentence of this is one of the points I was trying to make earlier but much more concise. Thank you for that.
Although I wouldn't say "it's not happening", but rather "it's not happening before revolution does".
Even after revolution it's not happening for many, many years. Replace the police yeah, but it's not really gonna be an abolition. Police abolition also means penal code abolition, justice system abolition etc, stuff that communists always assigned to the "higher stage of communism". If you're the zapatistas you can do it because of how unified and tightly knit they are and the peculiarities of their situation and way of life, but in a highly advanced, urbanised and heterogeneous society it's not really so simple.