I know this is a troll but just in case anyone passing by buys into this.
Capitalism is a huge reason why we’ve had such difficulty fighting the ongoing climate catastrophe, plastic pollution issue, PFAS pollution issue, Mercury pollution issue and housing crisis.
The reason is twofold, first fiduciary obligation will make sure that any publicly traded corporation has to prioritize short-term gain over long term sustainability both for themselves and the planet.
The second reason is that once a company has sufficient control over a market they can use their money to influence legislation and competition with little regard for societal effects.
These are just some things off the top of my head.
Definitely not imo, if we are talking about the ideology. Many socialist/communist countries have been totalitarian though, so there’s a big divide between the ideological basis and goals and what has ended up happening.
Sort of? Vanguardism is inherently totalitarian, for example. The core idea is that the vanguard know better than the poor proles what’s good for them (Maoism is basically vanguardism). Stalinism is quite obviously and clearly totalitarian, putting rapid “strong” decision-making for the goal of rapid economic development above everything.
There are more democratic and equal forms of socialism, like Democratic socialism, syndicalism, mutualism (if you accept anarchists as part of the umbrella) and so on.
My core point is that socialism can be totalitarian or not depending on the actual ideology inside the big varied umbrella term.
Well put. I just meant more that socialism and communism doesn’t have to be totalitarian, ideologically a lot of the views inside those can be close to anarchism. The real life examples of socialist and communist states we’ve had (the thing people think of often when they think of socialism and communism) have just been examples of it either having been a totalitarian form of it or have devolved to totalitarianism (depending a bit on the interpretation, but that’s a really heave topic).
Anarchism is an inherently socialist and communist ideology.
Anarchism in short: heirarchy should be abolished
Socialism: workers should own the means of production. Being forced into wage labor is a form of heirarchy
Communism: a stateless (hierarchical structure), classless (social heirarchy), moneyless (a system of power that easily lends itself to hierarchical means) society.
One way to look at anarchism is a description of the way to realize communism, and continue past it into a more egalitarian social structure. Nobody has successfully realized communism for an extended period of time, but there are/have been projects that were well on their way. The zapatistas, CNT-FAI, and rojava come to mind. We’re lead to view the USSR and China (for example) as socialist/Communist because associating those places with the word understandably puts people off of the idea. Their insistence that they are socialist/communist doesn’t help that either. They never really met the mark imo
I knew of the Zaptistas, but reading up on the other two u mentioned. CNT-FAI, im vaguely familiar with the anarchist movement in the Spanish Civil War, but did not know of this acronym for their organizing efforts. Thought this bit taken from their wiki (itself sourced from an archived version of their statutes published in 77) was a fun condemnation of tankie claims on this website that not participating in the current political system is part and parcel for far-left politics (emphasis mine):
“…the aims of the CNT are to “develop a sense of solidarity among workers”, hoping to improve their conditions under the current social system, prepare them for future emancipation, when the means of production have been socialized, to practice mutual aid amongst CNT collectives, and maintain relationships with other like-minded groups hoping for emancipation of the entire working class.”
Will be reading more about them, and rojava as well, thanks!
Happy to give you a new rabbit hole! The more you learn about libertarian socialist tactics/theory the more you realize just how little of the popular conceptions of what “anarchism” is holds up to scrutiny. It’s not all breaking windows and punching cops. Currently, there’s very little of that. Most of it is starting unions, co-ops, non-profits and general mutual aid. It’s all prefigurative and done with intent. Sometimes the state apparatus is used (insofar as it doesn’t negatively impact your goals) sometimes it isn’t, it’s all contextual and nuanced. Something a lot of auth-left people seem to struggle with. Guess they’re not used to having a toolbox instead of a script
Ive a positive view on anarchy since reading Conquest of Bread, though id hesitate to call myself an anarchist as much as a far leftist. I agree with Kropotkin on his views on man, our propensity towards mutual aid, and I also agree that smaller communes would prolly be the way to go. I dont agree, however, with anarchist notions of revolution which seems impossible in an age of drones, mass surveillance, and militarized police. Nevertheless, I feel the anarchists are doing something rare in the world, and actually imagining what utopia would look like; i cant help but believe that, long term, humans must either learn to live together in harmony, or perish.
I dont agree with anarchist notions on how we get there necessarily, but anarchist methods of direct action do work in practice, as evidenced by history, just not necessarily at getting all of mankind to rise up together so much as improving, or deshittifying, if you will, existing conditions. Which is a point in and of itself, i dont think utopia happens on a less than global level due to nation-states propensity for imperialism when they can get away with it.
Anyway, i will dive into these rabbit holes over the next week, maybe. Cheers, and thanks if I hadnt said it yet!
If I may ask, what is your view of an anarchist revolution? Many people imagine the masses rising up over a short period (for good reason, those are the ones that make it into the history books) and overthrowing their oppressors. And that has been a popular conceptions of it within anarchism at large for quite a while. However, most libertarian organizations have come to view prefigurarion and “little r revolution” as the path forward. Gaining gradual and calculated wins to erode hegemonic power structures, weakening it to a point so that when the “big R Revolution” inevitably comes the state/kyriarchy/mega machine/whathaveyou is easier to abolish. The zapatistas were pivotal in proving the viability of this strategy in their region. It’s far too much to sum up here but during your dive I’m sure you’ll come across their story to see this concept put to use. Theyve been going strong for almost 40 years now and have only gotten stronger and more horizontal in their approach.
Direct action and mutual aid, while being cornerstones of anarchist praxis are not all that we utilize either. Prefigurarion is a broad framework at our disposal as mentioned along with conceptions of means ends unity serve to guide thought an action in productive directions. Common tactics of political action aren’t out of bounds either, anarchists had a bit of an assassination phase for a while as an example. It didn’t work lol but there isn’t much that is off limits, so long as it empowers the people to have control over their lives.
You mentioned your admiration for anarchists’ proclivity for imagining a utopia. That’s also one of the things that brought me in and something I view as one of our finest qualities. You need to be able to see past present conditions in order to realize the future you wish to build. One of these visions that I’ve recently fallen in love with is library socialism, a praxis built around constructing “libraries of things” for your community to encourage mutual aid and communal living. This combined with a return to (and expansion of) the commons as well as the utilization of time banking would be a powerful combination revolutionary action that could transform social and economic relations in much of capitalist society. It’s not the end, but it’s a wonderful start that many orgs are actively working towards in their communities. Once it’s at a large enough point within it’s area, these could be combined and spread through democratic confederalism All of these small acts of revolution leading to a Revolutionary shift in the status quo.
If you’re interested in/sympathetic to anarchist thought and all youve read so far is kropotkin (not to say you have, I may very well be mentioning things you’re aware of haha), I would encourage you to keep reading, listening, watching. There’s well over a centurys worth of brilliant and enlightening work out there for you to discover. If you’d like I’d be more than happy to dump a bunch of links. Cheers!
If I may ask, why do you think that? They’ve been a big inspiration to me and most of what Ive read about them has been great. Outside of authoritarians wildly misunderstanding their recent restructuring I haven’t seen much in the way of criticism. If anything, I’m a bit more critical of rojava. They have something that appears to be (or could turn into) an embryonic state at the top of their organization. The fact that there is a “top” to their organization is cause for concern of we’re speaking strictly in terms of libertarian socialism
Much of the Zapatista ‘success’ narrative has been coasting on the fact that there was enough protest over the place being shot up in the early 2000s that the Mexican government stopped trying to send troops there. Since, there’s been very little improvement in their situation (relative to the rest of Mexico, mind) despite massive amounts of outside aid being poured in for local, supposedly sustainable, projects; including large amounts of aid from the Mexican government. The younger generation has largely abandoned the movement because the place is under crushing poverty and political infighting has hamstrung their ability to utilize the aid they get. The localties that pledge their allegiance to the Zapatista cause generally have an only skin-deep connection to the ideology, mired in oppressive traditions and the power of each village’s elites, who generally have a clientistic relationship with the Zapatistas and change sides whenever the government or the Zapatistas offer them more. And recently they all but dissolved their main organizational body because, for all of their military posturing, they were incapable of fending off drug lords who moved into the area (unsurprising, considering that the local loyalty to the Zapatista cause is shaky at best). Their response? To blame the Mexican army for not fighting them off.
They have an amazing PR arm for outreach to other leftists internationally. But it’s just a PR arm.
I don’t know about Rojava’s long-term prospects, (and considering how long the Syrian Civil War has gone on, I’d be a fool to try to prognosticate) but they’ve done good work in restoring educational capacity and creating a seemingly stable left-wing organization in the middle of a very brutal civil war. They transitioned from an ethnic-based org to an extremely pluralistic org with remarkable speed and efficiency, and their militia forces have been very effective in defending their territory from both other rebels (and terrorists), and state forces. The local economy is thriving with the system of cooperatives and local councils, and corruption is noticeably less than in surrounding areas.
Gods only know how it’ll end, though. I have concerns about what happens when the Syrian state recovers (or is replaced). Plus, Turkiye won’t stand for it if they don’t have to, Iranian proxies in Iraq are unlikely to look fondly on Rojava, and the US support for Kurds is tepid at best and prone to sudden drawbacks for domestic or international political concerns. That’s a hell of a position to be in.
Just wanted to be clear, nitpicking their praxis from the comfort of my couch isn’t a denigration of their work. Rojava is doing something amazing. They’ve managed to make a relative utopia out of a horrible situation and they’ve advanced the cause greatly in their efforts. I have nothing but respect and admiration for their struggle.
I had no idea things were shaping up so poorly for the zapatistas. Hopefully they get their shit together, it’d be a shame for their legacy to be so underwhelming. I’m gonna have to look into all that a bit more. Got any recommendations?
Seems pretty fair to me. Socialism and communism are inherently totalitarian.
Right when bad things happen under capitalism it’s just the profit motive
Bad things don’t happen under capitalism.
Bitch, bad things are happening RIGHT NOW under capitalism wtfdym
Lolwut?
You’d see if you’d open your eyes and stopped trolling
What is happening? Stock prices are through the roof, markets are booming, everything is bloody awesome.
I know this is a troll but just in case anyone passing by buys into this.
Capitalism is a huge reason why we’ve had such difficulty fighting the ongoing climate catastrophe, plastic pollution issue, PFAS pollution issue, Mercury pollution issue and housing crisis.
The reason is twofold, first fiduciary obligation will make sure that any publicly traded corporation has to prioritize short-term gain over long term sustainability both for themselves and the planet.
The second reason is that once a company has sufficient control over a market they can use their money to influence legislation and competition with little regard for societal effects.
These are just some things off the top of my head.
“Capitalism is when everyone just has a good time”
fucking what
Definitely not imo, if we are talking about the ideology. Many socialist/communist countries have been totalitarian though, so there’s a big divide between the ideological basis and goals and what has ended up happening.
Sort of? Vanguardism is inherently totalitarian, for example. The core idea is that the vanguard know better than the poor proles what’s good for them (Maoism is basically vanguardism). Stalinism is quite obviously and clearly totalitarian, putting rapid “strong” decision-making for the goal of rapid economic development above everything.
There are more democratic and equal forms of socialism, like Democratic socialism, syndicalism, mutualism (if you accept anarchists as part of the umbrella) and so on.
My core point is that socialism can be totalitarian or not depending on the actual ideology inside the big varied umbrella term.
Well put. I just meant more that socialism and communism doesn’t have to be totalitarian, ideologically a lot of the views inside those can be close to anarchism. The real life examples of socialist and communist states we’ve had (the thing people think of often when they think of socialism and communism) have just been examples of it either having been a totalitarian form of it or have devolved to totalitarianism (depending a bit on the interpretation, but that’s a really heave topic).
Anarchism is an inherently socialist and communist ideology.
Anarchism in short: heirarchy should be abolished
Socialism: workers should own the means of production. Being forced into wage labor is a form of heirarchy
Communism: a stateless (hierarchical structure), classless (social heirarchy), moneyless (a system of power that easily lends itself to hierarchical means) society.
One way to look at anarchism is a description of the way to realize communism, and continue past it into a more egalitarian social structure. Nobody has successfully realized communism for an extended period of time, but there are/have been projects that were well on their way. The zapatistas, CNT-FAI, and rojava come to mind. We’re lead to view the USSR and China (for example) as socialist/Communist because associating those places with the word understandably puts people off of the idea. Their insistence that they are socialist/communist doesn’t help that either. They never really met the mark imo
I knew of the Zaptistas, but reading up on the other two u mentioned. CNT-FAI, im vaguely familiar with the anarchist movement in the Spanish Civil War, but did not know of this acronym for their organizing efforts. Thought this bit taken from their wiki (itself sourced from an archived version of their statutes published in 77) was a fun condemnation of tankie claims on this website that not participating in the current political system is part and parcel for far-left politics (emphasis mine):
“…the aims of the CNT are to “develop a sense of solidarity among workers”, hoping to improve their conditions under the current social system, prepare them for future emancipation, when the means of production have been socialized, to practice mutual aid amongst CNT collectives, and maintain relationships with other like-minded groups hoping for emancipation of the entire working class.”
Will be reading more about them, and rojava as well, thanks!
Happy to give you a new rabbit hole! The more you learn about libertarian socialist tactics/theory the more you realize just how little of the popular conceptions of what “anarchism” is holds up to scrutiny. It’s not all breaking windows and punching cops. Currently, there’s very little of that. Most of it is starting unions, co-ops, non-profits and general mutual aid. It’s all prefigurative and done with intent. Sometimes the state apparatus is used (insofar as it doesn’t negatively impact your goals) sometimes it isn’t, it’s all contextual and nuanced. Something a lot of auth-left people seem to struggle with. Guess they’re not used to having a toolbox instead of a script
Ive a positive view on anarchy since reading Conquest of Bread, though id hesitate to call myself an anarchist as much as a far leftist. I agree with Kropotkin on his views on man, our propensity towards mutual aid, and I also agree that smaller communes would prolly be the way to go. I dont agree, however, with anarchist notions of revolution which seems impossible in an age of drones, mass surveillance, and militarized police. Nevertheless, I feel the anarchists are doing something rare in the world, and actually imagining what utopia would look like; i cant help but believe that, long term, humans must either learn to live together in harmony, or perish.
I dont agree with anarchist notions on how we get there necessarily, but anarchist methods of direct action do work in practice, as evidenced by history, just not necessarily at getting all of mankind to rise up together so much as improving, or deshittifying, if you will, existing conditions. Which is a point in and of itself, i dont think utopia happens on a less than global level due to nation-states propensity for imperialism when they can get away with it.
Anyway, i will dive into these rabbit holes over the next week, maybe. Cheers, and thanks if I hadnt said it yet!
If I may ask, what is your view of an anarchist revolution? Many people imagine the masses rising up over a short period (for good reason, those are the ones that make it into the history books) and overthrowing their oppressors. And that has been a popular conceptions of it within anarchism at large for quite a while. However, most libertarian organizations have come to view prefigurarion and “little r revolution” as the path forward. Gaining gradual and calculated wins to erode hegemonic power structures, weakening it to a point so that when the “big R Revolution” inevitably comes the state/kyriarchy/mega machine/whathaveyou is easier to abolish. The zapatistas were pivotal in proving the viability of this strategy in their region. It’s far too much to sum up here but during your dive I’m sure you’ll come across their story to see this concept put to use. Theyve been going strong for almost 40 years now and have only gotten stronger and more horizontal in their approach.
Direct action and mutual aid, while being cornerstones of anarchist praxis are not all that we utilize either. Prefigurarion is a broad framework at our disposal as mentioned along with conceptions of means ends unity serve to guide thought an action in productive directions. Common tactics of political action aren’t out of bounds either, anarchists had a bit of an assassination phase for a while as an example. It didn’t work lol but there isn’t much that is off limits, so long as it empowers the people to have control over their lives.
You mentioned your admiration for anarchists’ proclivity for imagining a utopia. That’s also one of the things that brought me in and something I view as one of our finest qualities. You need to be able to see past present conditions in order to realize the future you wish to build. One of these visions that I’ve recently fallen in love with is library socialism, a praxis built around constructing “libraries of things” for your community to encourage mutual aid and communal living. This combined with a return to (and expansion of) the commons as well as the utilization of time banking would be a powerful combination revolutionary action that could transform social and economic relations in much of capitalist society. It’s not the end, but it’s a wonderful start that many orgs are actively working towards in their communities. Once it’s at a large enough point within it’s area, these could be combined and spread through democratic confederalism All of these small acts of revolution leading to a Revolutionary shift in the status quo.
If you’re interested in/sympathetic to anarchist thought and all youve read so far is kropotkin (not to say you have, I may very well be mentioning things you’re aware of haha), I would encourage you to keep reading, listening, watching. There’s well over a centurys worth of brilliant and enlightening work out there for you to discover. If you’d like I’d be more than happy to dump a bunch of links. Cheers!
Zapatistas have a good PR arm, that’s it. Always stick up for the CNT-FAI and Rojava though.
If I may ask, why do you think that? They’ve been a big inspiration to me and most of what Ive read about them has been great. Outside of authoritarians wildly misunderstanding their recent restructuring I haven’t seen much in the way of criticism. If anything, I’m a bit more critical of rojava. They have something that appears to be (or could turn into) an embryonic state at the top of their organization. The fact that there is a “top” to their organization is cause for concern of we’re speaking strictly in terms of libertarian socialism
Much of the Zapatista ‘success’ narrative has been coasting on the fact that there was enough protest over the place being shot up in the early 2000s that the Mexican government stopped trying to send troops there. Since, there’s been very little improvement in their situation (relative to the rest of Mexico, mind) despite massive amounts of outside aid being poured in for local, supposedly sustainable, projects; including large amounts of aid from the Mexican government. The younger generation has largely abandoned the movement because the place is under crushing poverty and political infighting has hamstrung their ability to utilize the aid they get. The localties that pledge their allegiance to the Zapatista cause generally have an only skin-deep connection to the ideology, mired in oppressive traditions and the power of each village’s elites, who generally have a clientistic relationship with the Zapatistas and change sides whenever the government or the Zapatistas offer them more. And recently they all but dissolved their main organizational body because, for all of their military posturing, they were incapable of fending off drug lords who moved into the area (unsurprising, considering that the local loyalty to the Zapatista cause is shaky at best). Their response? To blame the Mexican army for not fighting them off.
They have an amazing PR arm for outreach to other leftists internationally. But it’s just a PR arm.
I don’t know about Rojava’s long-term prospects, (and considering how long the Syrian Civil War has gone on, I’d be a fool to try to prognosticate) but they’ve done good work in restoring educational capacity and creating a seemingly stable left-wing organization in the middle of a very brutal civil war. They transitioned from an ethnic-based org to an extremely pluralistic org with remarkable speed and efficiency, and their militia forces have been very effective in defending their territory from both other rebels (and terrorists), and state forces. The local economy is thriving with the system of cooperatives and local councils, and corruption is noticeably less than in surrounding areas.
Gods only know how it’ll end, though. I have concerns about what happens when the Syrian state recovers (or is replaced). Plus, Turkiye won’t stand for it if they don’t have to, Iranian proxies in Iraq are unlikely to look fondly on Rojava, and the US support for Kurds is tepid at best and prone to sudden drawbacks for domestic or international political concerns. That’s a hell of a position to be in.
Just wanted to be clear, nitpicking their praxis from the comfort of my couch isn’t a denigration of their work. Rojava is doing something amazing. They’ve managed to make a relative utopia out of a horrible situation and they’ve advanced the cause greatly in their efforts. I have nothing but respect and admiration for their struggle.
I had no idea things were shaping up so poorly for the zapatistas. Hopefully they get their shit together, it’d be a shame for their legacy to be so underwhelming. I’m gonna have to look into all that a bit more. Got any recommendations?
The whole point of these ideologies is a totalitarian regime.
As someone above said it well, it depends. The whole of socialism and communism though, no.
Yes. One must be utterly delusional to believe that communism is not totalitarian.