No.1813002[Last 50 Posts]
Dear Statists:
How, why, and under what conditions do you think the State would "wither away"?
What exactly does this process entail, I mean what are the details of it exectly? Which institutions do you image are you going to just disappear spontaniously? And how do you ensure they'll stay withered away for good?
And what if the politicians at the frontline of your Vanguard Party decide they would actually, quite like to keep power now even though the pre-requisite conditions for such a "withering away" has been met?
In other words, what if the Party leader falls to corruption due to their powerful position? Then what are you going to do about it? What if he and his loyal followers and his furture successors tell you, eternally, that the conditions for withering away, or in fact any reduction in the State haven't been met?
The concept of the great "withering away" has always struck me as the least well explained part of Communist thought. For otherwise very materialist and smart individuals, it seems like the last hold out of unexplained magical thinking. "It will just happen okay, don't ask for any proof, or examples, or theory explaining it!"
If you can't explain how it will occur then surely it's time Auth-Leftists just admitted they never wanted a classless society from the get-go? And if you can explain it, why do you think it is so rarely, or so poorly explained?
No.1813020
Trust me bro it has to become so big it pops, like a baloon. Or something along those lines
No.1813024
We can talk about the state withering away after every last capitalist state has become socialist.
Until then stop whining about how your decentralized anarkiddie commune that can't even supply purified drinking water to itself since the local capitalist government disconnected the water supply to the abandoned buildings being squatted by your comrades, is akshually a purer example of communism.
No.1813031
>>1813024>>1813026The thread can be closed. The next 150+ replies will just be versions of this exchange.
No.1813033
the state will never wither away. this is a pipe dream that has no historic bearing.
No.1813034
>>1813002Statists dont care "the state" exist, so for them it doesnt matter.
No.1813038
>>1813002>dear leftypol please divine the future for me<when you attempt to i'll whine like a child and call everybody tankesStoped reading.
I will never understand why you're like this
No.1813042
>>1813038>We can talk about the state withering away after every last capitalist state has become socialist.Until then stop whining about how your decentralized anarkiddie commune
This is not trying anything
No.1813046
>How
impossible to say and utopian to speculate on
>why
because there are no more porkies. until then you are to fall in line
>And what if the politicians at the frontline of your Vanguard Party decide they would actually, quite like to keep power now even though the pre-requisite conditions for such a "withering away" has been met?
what if indeed. this would amount to there existing a new parasitical class, so the "why" is still some distance away from being fulfilled. there's a reason class struggle intensifies after a revolution
No.1813048
>>1813042<incoherence Really made me think.
Thanks anon!
No.1813057
The state is necessary as long as there are classes. When there are no classes there will be no state. Your attention should not be focused on whether the vanguard party will 'decide' to keep power/maintain the state once classless society comes into being, but rather whether it will permit a classless society to come into being in the first place.
No.1813059
>>1813002I'm not a statist, but I've always had a problem with the theoretical assumption of state obsolescence under communism. The phrase is from Engels (not Marx), in Anti-Dühring:
>The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then ceases of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not "abolished", it withers awayThis connects with Engels overall view of the state as a mechanism of class repression, and connects to his related thesis that capitalist societies evolve toward state capitalism as the final stage and summation of contradictions. The process of capital accumulation and concentration proletarianizes the mass of humanity, as the actual capitalist class shrinks and grows proportionately capitalized as they consume the smaller capitals. So the few remaining capitalists are stuck in a room full of angry, pauperized proletarians, and you get what happens next.
Here's where I get a bit heretical. I don't deny that the state is a mechanism of class repression. However I question the materialist tenet that class determinations are solely reducible to relations of production and property. I believe class supervenes more primally on certain sociobiological or if you will "monkey brained" factors. We need to introduce vaguer, less coherent terms such as "power" and "status" and "social role" into our lexicon, which refer to social relations purely in and of themselves, and not relations to production.
So for instance, if you have a group of doctors, they become a medical class, with power over that domain of human experience. Even in a post-capitalist society, you may end up with a managerial class of bureaucrats, a governing class. Class becomes a much more slippery and pernicious concept under this analysis. You can't just one-shot it by negating economic class. You can have a priestly class, etc etc.
The second component is the role of standing armies. The state gets its self-justification through its relation to the military, which supplies it with a monopoly on force, and through which it regulates its affairs with other state militaries. The USSR was arguably prevented from reaching true statelessness by the pressing need of a standing army, and the corresponding state apparatus necessary to control it.
Engels effectively viewed the state primarily in administrative terms, as a system adjacent to production and commerce. That's why he overpredicted the effects that the development of the productive forces would have on the persistence of statehood. As the productive forces reach a theoretical point of maximal completion, perhaps by automation, all those administrative functions could then be absorbed into generalized ownership, " anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organisation." But it's tricker than that, I'm afraid.
No.1813066
I also question Engel's claim that state capitalism represents the final contradictory stage of capitalism , a sort of unsustainable "false organization". If anything the record shows how capitalism subsumes the state as one of its functions, rendering it into a mere "market maker" role, thereby freeing itself to increase the "anarchy of production" (anarcho-capitalism). Capitalism has an entropic character in this way. It leads less to false organization and more to increased entropy.
States ultimately become at the mercy of market forces as much as individuals, and eventually a capitalist global market becomes an uncontrollable beast operating according to its own whims.
No.1813075
>>1813002Dear OP:
Leftypol is a place for MLs to influence anarchists into becoming sympathetic to Leninists or converting.
They will take down your thread for sectarianism or use you as an example for recruitment.
In other words: it's over already. I will drink in and hope you never become one of them.
No.1813080
>>1813057>Your attention should not be focused on whether the vanguard party will 'decide' to keep power/maintain the state once classless society comes into being, but rather whether it will permit a classless society to come into being in the first placeI think what OP is afraid of is "what if classes re-emerge?". after all, we see this in the USSR. but the answer is as always: endless struggle
No.1813081
When the conditions that necessitate the state are no longer present, the function of the state will no longer serve any real material purpose. It can either issue useless decrees or just abolish itself.
No.1813087
>>1813080The bourgeoisie re-emerged in the USSR because capitalist relations were never completely abolished, socialism arises out of capitalism but can't completely abolish it until communism is reached. Until then there lies the possibility of capitalist restoration. Its not endless class struggle, its class struggle until communism.
No.1813114
>>1813080I don't think the USSR saw the re-emergence of classes, it was always a class society and one in which capitalist relations of production predominated, of wage labour, surplus exploitation, etc.
No political superstructure can exist in perpetuity in contradiction with it's material base and the managers who had in their hands the decision making power on the political structure of the state eventually realigned it to match the underlying economic relations and empower themselves. Victory over the bourgeoisie needs to be achieved in less than 70 years, no revolutionary enthusiasm or 'eternal struggle' can carry on that long. Only a global victory of the proletariat in the class war can prevent this by having the security and peace of mind necessary to truly socialise the means of production and abolish itself without the need for ruthless productivist competition with global capital.
No.1813142
>>1813002>How, why, and under what conditions do you think the State would "wither away"?never
No.1813148
>>1813002dear anarchists:
name an existing anarchist autonomist zone that is larger than one town/suburb and not currently at war.
explain why foregoing the legal protections that come from statehood is to the benefit of any population?
why are marginalized and opressed populations like the palestinians and the kurds are in a death battle with regional powers to attain statehood?
the value of statehood won't go away without the pacification of the great powers. multipolarity will exacerbate this problem as the periphery becomes a battleground. no responsible leader is going to dissolve their government and watch their people be robbed and murdered by invaders. finally: democracy (direct or representative) is stupid and gay.
No.1813152
>>1813002The reason it's not written about in more detail is because there is no historical account to objectively define how it would be achieved. It's literally finish line shit. The rationalization is that once you achieve communism and the enemies of it are gone, then there is no need for the State anymore because it existed to protect the process of achieving communism, hence the term "withering away." Until then, the KGB had to exist because the CIA exists and et cetera. It's common sense. Contrast this with anarchism where historically we have overwhelming proof that it gets knocked out quickly due to its inability to protect itself, such as Angola. It's the anarchists that need to explain themselves. I initially wanted to be an anarchist until I just couldn't get an actual, material explanation for anything beyond calling everyone fascist. You can't even protest police brutality without 1/5th of the dudes there glowing in the dark and then you turn around and think the CIA will leave your commune alone. It's just so idealistic to think that you would achieve anarchism, with no violence and THEN every country on earth just decides to leave you alone forever.
Addressing your other point
>but what if the State attacks to protect itself!<what if the communists attack communists to stop communismIf the "vanguard" is actively trying to prevent communism, they're not communist, so then we're not at the "wither away" part yet and we still have work to do.
No.1813155
>>1813002 (OP)
https://leftypol.org/leftypol_archive/res/7443.htmlGo to the archives, Leftypol is not having much activity anyway.
Studying the anons of the past might give you some insight
>>1813048Thanks Glowing black flag anon, always a plasure
>>1813148
>the value of statehood won't go away without the pacification of the great powers. multipolarity will exacerbate this problem as the periphery becomes a battleground. no responsible leader is going to dissolve their government and watch their people be robbed and murdered by invaders. finally: democracy (direct or representative) is stupid and gay.
>democracy (direct or representative) is stupid and gay.Chapter XI : The Electoral System
ARTICLE 134. Member s of all Soviets of Working People's Deputies - of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., the Supreme Soviets of the Union Republics, the Soviets of Working People's Deputies of the Territories and Regions, the Supreme Soviets of the Autonomous Republics, the Soviets of Working People’s Deputies of Autonomous Regions, area, district, city and rural (stanitsa, village, hamlet, kishlak, aul) Soviets of Working People's Deputies - are chosen by the electors on the basis of universal, direct and equal suffrage by secret ballot.
ARTICLE 135. Elections of deputies are universal : all citizens of the U.S.S.R. who have reached the age of eighteen, irrespective of race or nationality, religion, educational and residential qualifications, social origin, property status or past activities, have the right to vote in the election of deputies and to be elected, with the exception of insane persons and persons who have been convicted by a court of law and whose sentences include deprivation of electoral rights.
ARTICLE 136. Elections of deputies are equal : each citizen has one vote; all citizens participate in elections on an equal footing.
ARTICLE 137. Women have the right to elect and be elected on equal terms with men.
ARTICLE 138. Citizens serving in the Red Army have the right to elect and be elected on equal terms with all other citizens.
ARTICLE 139. Elections of deputies are direct : all Soviets of Working People's Deputies from rural and city Soviets of Working People's Deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., inclusive, are elected by the citizens by direct vote.
ARTICLE 140. Voting at elections of deputies is secret.
ARTICLE 141. Candidates for election are nominated according to electoral areas.
The right to nominate candidates is secured to public organizations and societies of the working people : Communist Party organizations, trade unions, cooperatives, youth organizations and cultural societies.
No.1813157
>>1813148Also this, since you put a muamar gadafi picture.
"There was no electricity bill in Libya; electricity was free for all its citizens. There was no interest on loans, banks in Libya were state-owned and loans given to all its citizens at zero percent interest by law. Having a home was considered a human right in Libya. All newlyweds in Libya used to receive 60,000 dinar (£34,470) by the government to buy their first apartment, to help start up a family. Education and medical treatments were free in Libya. Before Gaddafi only 25 percent of Libyans were literate. Today, the figure is 83%. If Libyans wanted to take up a farming career, they would have received farming land, a farming house, equipment, seeds and livestock to kick-start their farms - all for free. If Libyans could not find the education or medical facilities they needed, the government funded them to go abroad. For it was not only paid for, but they got a £1585/month for accommodation and car allowance. If a Libyan bought a car, the government used to subsidize 50 percent of the price. The price of petrol in Libya was £0.09 per litre. Libya had no external debt and its reserves amounted to £103 billion -which are now frozen globally. If a Libyan was unable to get employment after graduation, the state would pay the average salary of the profession, as if he or she was employed, until employment was found. A portion of every Libyan oil sale was credited directly to the bank accounts of all Libyan citizens. A mother who gave birth to a child received £3447. 40 loaves of bread in Libya used to cost £0.10. Lastly, 25 percent of Libyans now have a university degree."
No.1813160
>>1813057>The state is necessary as long as there are classes.The state reproduces the system of class rule. You can't abolish class without abolishing the state. This is essentially what Marx and Engels argued would happen upon the proletariat seizing power - the abolition of the proletariat as proletariat and along with that the abolition of the state. The wouldn't happen overnight but through class struggle. It was Lenin who argued that the proletariat would need to construct its own state, which is an oxymoron since the proletariat is by definition a subjugated class. You might have a "socialist state" or a "vanguard state" but not a proletarian state. Whoever supersedes the bourgeois rulers cannot be a proletarian. They may be bourgeois themselves, some other ruling class, or the people of a society beyond class.
No.1813168
>>1813024Turning one slave system into another slave system changes nothing.
No.1813185
>>1813160>The state reproduces the system of class rule. You can't abolish class without abolishing the state.But can the proletariat expropriate the bourgeoisie without having a state 'of its own' to channel it's power through?
I suppose the question is can a class subjugate itself for its own greater good? Class consciousness means an ability for a class to consciously coordinate and organise itself for its interests, this involves self-sacrifice. So I think a proletarian state (DotP) can exist, but is neccessarily a transitional stage, it cannot last long lest it degenerate, the final push past the dialectical ratchet has to happen or else backsliding is inevitable. I think socialist state is an oxymoron, at least when meant as anything other than 'a state with a stated goal of socialism'.
No.1813193
>>1813114>the USSR was le capitalistI expect better from leninhat. did the USSR have generalized commodity production? no. did it have private property? no.
>wage labour>surplus exploitationneither of these are in contradiction with (lower-phase) communism
>No political superstructure can exist in perpetuity in contradiction with it's material base and the managers who had in their hands the decision making power on the political structure of the state eventually realigned it to match the underlying economic relations and empower themselvesthis is true. I find the lack of class analysis applied to the USSR strange
>Victory over the bourgeoisie needs to be achieved in less than 70 yearsmaybe, maybe not. capitalism didn't take over from feudalism all at once nor over such a small time frame
No.1813232
Why anarchists cannot outgrow their superficial and casuistic understanding of the state as a concept, when by denying the state they actually deny any vertical hierarchy as a social-forming superstructure and tools of coercion of the minority by the majority as it is. Teenage rebellion is forgivable, but these 30 year old grown manchildren? Only recreation gulags can fix them, he who does not work, neither shall he eat.
No.1813238
>>1813237You fundamentally misunderstand the left
No.1813243
>>1813193>did the USSR have generalized commodity production? no. did it have private property? no.Yes and yes. State property is no less private and modes of production are defined by the relations of production which predominate in an economy. The soviet economy was overwhelmingly a wage labour one, a proletariat existed being greatly exploited. The surplus all being accrued to a single monopolistic economic entity rather than to several makes no difference to the nature of the economic relationship therein.
The DotP is invariably capitalist, it can be no other way. It is an attempt by the proletariat to take the capitalist machinery and make an immense self-sacrifical effort to crush the political and economic power of its previous wielders using it. This role reversal does not destroy capital, it does not defeat its insidious logic which will invariably reassert itself over mere human willpower over a long enough timeframe.
Communism, lower or higher stage is a communist mode of production in which capitalist relations of production no longer predominate.
>capitalism didn't take over from feudalism all at once nor over such a small time frameI often see this sentiment, but I don't think people take it to any properly marxist conclusions. Historical materialism isn't just applying a single pattern across every mode of production, the class struggle that birthed capitalism, that of the bourgeoisie against the landed aristocracy is different in nature to the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The capitalist was from the get go by defintion an employer of labour, he carved out his domain in the urban centres out of the reach of the nobility and accumulated capital and came to more and more predominate and buy out the nobility, the productive forces marshalled by capitalists were eventually greater and far more significiant to their economies than the unproductive feudal land holdings which were outcompeted or destroyed once the class struggle erupted as a revolutionary war in which the bourgeoisie finally readjusted the lagging political superstructure to match the reality on the ground.
The proletariat by contrasts does not build socialism within capitalism, it is dispossesed and builds up the productive forces of capital with its labour. It's class struggle is defined not by building it's own mode of production apart and outgrowing the capitalists (this is in fact utopian socialism) but by seizing what their labour has built and is held by the capitalists, which is the culmination of the class struggle of organising the power of the class conscious proletariat. The long time frame of socialism overcoming capitalism is the growth of the proletarian class to become a majority of the world, that is how the proletariat outgrows and overwhelms the bourgeoisie towards a tipping point. We're not going to reach socialism through coops.
No.1813247
>>1813155>democracy isn't stupid and gay because the USSR did itthe ussr was a state, and a fat lot of good democracy did for them when it only took one alcoholic named boris to fuck it all up anyway.
>>1813157I know right. fucked if anarchists have ever achieved a fraction of what one anti-colonial socialst dictator did.
No.1813248
>>1813002https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/errico-malatesta-let-s-demolish-and-thenIt is essential, says Bianchi, to have the means of making bread; it would therefore be madness to think of destroying rather than perfecting those means. But bread is not the only indispensable item. Indeed, I believe it would be very difficult to find any present institution, including the worst of them — even prisons, brothels, barracks, privileges and monopolies — that does not respond, directly or indirectly, to a social need and that it would be possible to truly destroy and for ever unless it was replaced by something that better satisfies the need that generated it in the first place.
Do not ask, a comrade said, what we should substitute for cholera. It is an evil, and evil has to be eliminated, not replaced. This is true. But the trouble is that cholera persists and returns unless conditions of improved hygiene have replaced those that first allowed the disease to gain a foothold and spread.
Bread is a need, yes. But the question of bread is more complicated than hose who live in a small farming centre and produce wheat for their own families might suppose. Providing bread for all is a problem that involves an entire social organisation: type of land ownership, method of working the land, means of exchange, transport systems, importation of grain, should the amount produced at home not be enough, means of distribution to the various centres of population, and thereafter to the individual consumers. In other words, it means that solutions must be found to the questions of ownership, value, currency, trade, etc.
Present day production and distribution of bread are exploitative and humiliating for the workers; the consumers are robbed and a whole army of parasites benefits at the expense of both producers and consumers. We, on the other hand, want bread to be produced and distributed for the greater benefit of all, without draining energy and materials, without oppression and parasitism and with fairness and efficiency. And we must seek the means of realising this goal, or as great an approximation to it as we can manage. Our descendants will certainly do better than us; but we must do as we know and can — and do it at once, the very same day as the crisis breaks, because if there were an interruption in rail services, or the milling and baking bosses began manoeuvring and concealing the bread, the urban centres would not receive it (nor would they receive other basic necessities); the revolution would be lost and the forces of reaction would triumph under the guise of restoration of the monarchy or under the form of dictatorship.
(…)
And another comrade, who then had pretensions of being some sort of super-anarchist, unwittingly expressed the logical consequences of this kind of mentality. Finding himself with his back to the wall in just such a discussion as this, he said to me: ‘But these are matters that don’t concern me. Providing bread and so on is the responsibility of the leaders.’
The conclusion, indeed, is this: either we all apply our minds to thinking about social reorganisation, and right away, at the very same moment that the old structures are being swept away, and we shall have a more humane and more just society, open to future advances; or we shall leave such matters to the ‘leaders’ and we shall have a new government; and this will do exactly what governments have always done — make the masses pay for the limited and bad services it provides, taking away their freedom while allowing the parasites and the privileged of all stripes the freedom to exploit them by every means.
No.1813252
>>1813234>>1813232>>1813024>>1813033If you guys hate anarchism so much, you should move to someplace else.
Leftypol is, and always will be, a place for topics related to leftist thought. Posts should, overall, be conductive to an informed and productive discussion
Except my posts./leftypol/ does not adhere to a specific leftist ideology. Sectarianism is banned.
No.1813253
>>1813247>it only took one alcoholic named boris to fuck it all up anywayishygdtt
No.1813256
>>1813002uooh 😳sexo with you constant 😳sexoo UUOHH 😭😭😭
No.1813258
>>1813002Anon, I have to sleep. Be patient. I hope you get good answers. Ignore the trolls.
No.1813264
>>1813252>you should>is bannedPretty self explanatory.
Wonder how anarchism as inherently anti-collectivist and contradictive (due to its idealistic roots) ideology could be still counted on far left side. You can ban for any f given, but doesnt mean you shoud. ACAB comrade, amirite? *wink wink*.
No.1813272
>>1813264>anti-collectivistYou have terminal political compass brain, seek medical assistance immediately
No.1813304
>>1813002Let's say socialist states won against the capitalist states and now the world is nothing but separate socialist states. They begin coordinating their economies together to bring development around the world. Warfare has effectively ended because there is no need to be imperialist to keep up profits and socialist states just trade and help each other.
At that point why should each state keep maintaining a large army? Maybe they want to make sure they maintain independence for the other socialist states so they still have an army but after years of peace it's literally just sitting there, eating up resources. So they start cutting back on the military and putting more resources into actually productive sectors. This continues for years and over time there's barely anything left.
So what about police? Workers no longer have to commit crimes to survive and guaranteed jobs maintain high living standards. So now a big amount of crime has been reduced and police are just sitting around. Maybe we should put more resources into something more productive instead of just having guys sit around in goofy uniforms doing nothing productive?
Over time our understanding of social sciences and individual psychology increases. Crimes of passion? We figured out how to undercut them years ago. Premeditated crimes? Our systems of detecting crime are so robust we can basically solve them immediately. Why maintain a large police force now? Those workers should actually do something more productive.
There you go. The basics of the state withering away.
No.1813309
>>1813264Anarchism doesn't mean no rules, in fact, it requires rules. It is the belief that rules can exist without a ruler.
No.1813312
>>1813309Who would enforce these rules, how would you keep organized for decades/centuries even and how would you prevent another system taking its place
No.1813314
>>1813237lol, this might be the first time I've seen someone complain that the left wasn't utopian (in the sense Marx used) enough
No.1813325
>>1813314Every invention starts with an ideal vision of a product. If you have no vision you have nothing.
No.1813334
>>1813325And of course the hypothetical product needs to be superior to the one you currently use otherwise what would be the point on pursuing it?
No.1813351
>>1813185>But can the proletariat expropriate the bourgeoisie without having a state 'of its own' to channel it's power through? Why would the proletariat need a state to do that? We have the numbers advantage as well as all the technical knowledge of how to use the means of production. It's only by virtue of the power the bourgeois wield through the state that they manage to keep control away from the proletariat.
>I suppose the question is can a class subjugate itself for its own greater good?That's pretty much a moot point, since the great majority (the erstwhile proletariat) can't itself operate a state. Lenin was correct on that point, but his follow-up that therefore we need a vanguard to lead for us is where he goes wrong.
>Class consciousness means an ability for a class to consciously coordinate and organise itself for its interests, this involves self-sacrifice.People are able to run co-ops which, while not socialism in themselves, are an example of the workers directing their activities of production without either a capitalist or a government making them do it.
>So I think a proletarian state (DotP) can existYou have to stretch the definition of a state pretty far to consider DotP necessarily a state. And that's not even definition mongering by saying you have to accept the anarchist definition. DotP doesn't require Marx's notion of a state either. The workers asserting control of the economy doesn't require that kind of body. There are plenty of examples of worker seizures of factories and the like, and they are able to do it directly, without relying on some government outside the enterprise. Indeed, it is the government that breaks up their organizing. And in the case of "socialist states" such as the USSR it is typical for the "socialist state" to likewise break up workers' direct control and organizations running the workplace. That's not an ideological failure or a political failure of the revolutionaries, but an inevitability of the state apparatus. Lenin was "right" to abolish the soviets as a matter of statecraft, which is a demonstration of the antagonism between the state and worker control.
>but is neccessarily a transitional stage, it cannot last long lest it degenerate, the final push past the dialectical ratchet has to happen or else backsliding is inevitable.Backsliding is inevitable however long the vanguard state lasts. The only way for it not to happen is for it to be overcome quickly by the workers movements, which in that context would be the left-wing of the revolution, opposed to reforms and half measures. The flipside to this is that without that state the revolution is a lot more vulnerable to sabotage from the outside. Of course, having a state has by no means ensured the success of the revolution either. The sample size is really too small to make serious conclusions about this, but we do have examples both of state socialism and stateless revolutionary projects to look to. Both have their drawbacks, but both also can maintain their existence under the right circumstances. In the last analysis, however, these are all disturbances within capitalism and not the final crisis that will overcome it. Capitalism can't be turned off by pushing the Socialism Button. Nor do counter-hegemonic powers need to simply build more productive forces. It's inherently unstable and unsustainable, heading towards its own destruction. Until the critical moment arrives, we can't be rid of it no matter what methods we use; we can only try to hasten its degeneration and/or serve the immediate interests of the working people to make life more bearable and our cause more popular. These are worthy causes in themselves and we should avoid deluding ourselves about our limits. When the time does arrive, there will certainly be no need for a state to protect the revolution. The primary drivers of imperial decline at this moment - the Palestinian resistance and the Houthi rebels - are already able to effectively resist and degrade global capitalism against all odds without the use of a state apparatus to repress the capitalists. That struggle will get more doable as capitalism continues to decline.
>I think socialist state is an oxymoron, at least when meant as anything other than 'a state with a stated goal of socialism'.I'll do you one better: it's always an oxymoron. The people in power might be honest-to-god socialists, but they (usually unwittingly) necessarily reproduce capitalism by using a political device designed to reproduce capitalism.
No.1813381
>>1813252mate I can criticize contemporary anarchists and anarchism for being an imperial core ideology primarily concerned with ablating colonial guilt with both sidesism and a conspicuous ignorance of realpolitik without resorting to sectarianism or even being an adherent to any sect.
if you really don't believe in authority maybe you should come up with some intersting answers for the three questions I asked here
>>1813148 instead of being boring and calling the mods.
the state will persist at least as long as the empire and probably much longer as an organizational unit. it's a stupid point to get caught up on and doesn't bear thinking about in the present global order.
No.1813384
>>1813381 >anarchism for being an imperial core ideology primarily concerned with ablating colonial guilt with both sidesism and a conspicuous ignorance of realpolitik without resorting to sectarianism or even being an adherent to any sect.Ok
No.1813390
>>1813148>name an existing anarchist autonomist zone that is larger than one town/suburb and not currently at war.I can't name one
>explain why foregoing the legal protections that come from statehood is to the benefit of any population?As mentioned in the Malatesta text, it is not only about destroying the state, but replacing it with a new social order that guarantees both the "benefits of the old order" to the people, and the liberty and freedom of said people.
>why are marginalized and opressed populations like the palestinians and the kurds are in a death battle with regional powers to attain statehood?They are fighting against genocide, imperialism and the loss of their liberty. It is a battle for survival. They are not fighting because of a political party or govnerment in specific.
>the value of statehood won't go away without the pacification of the great powers. multipolarity will exacerbate this problem as the periphery becomes a battleground. no responsible leader is going to dissolve their government and watch their people be robbed and murdered by invaders. finally: democracy (direct or representative) is stupid and gay.Again, anarchism is not about "Just destroy govnerment". Zapata, Ukraine black army, CNT-FAI, Kurdistan and Paris commune, all of them were destroyed by the use of force, not because "they didn't work", or because of the "robbers and murderes", or because the "economy" fail. No matter what ideology you have, it is not a guarantee you will win or lose a war. Communists lost and won battles, anarchists lost and won battles. War is about material power and organization, not ideology per say.
Vietnam fought against imperialism for decades, and survive, even against the mighty of the imperialism of the US. Kurdistan is fighting a similar war against the US, but they don't have any superpower backing then. They are alone, and yet they resist. The ukrainian black army fought against both whites and red, both Austrians and any who fought against them, and they survived for a long time. I could go on and on, but those are few examples
But this is just my unfounded, without source, nor theory, opinion.
I can't wait to have someone mock me for being retarded rn. Btw, my opinion doesn't represent the anarchist line of thought at all No.1813392
>>1813390>They are fighting against genocide, imperialism and the loss of their liberty. It is a battle for survival. They are not fighting because of a political party or govnerment in specific.Yes they are fighting for self-determination, like every autonomous anarchist commune ever fought.
No.1813394
This is now imo one of the strongest criticisms of communism I have since no longer being a communist. Communists try to reduce the state to class antagonisms but the state is so much more than that, it can be that, but it's not only that. The state is primarily the bureaucratic machine used by the Sovereign to rule over society, and it's essentially always been a part of human society. Even among hunter-gatherers, the "State" or proto-State is the tribe leader, since he is the Sovereign. The State is inherent to humanity, it's can't ever go away.
No.1813400
The state withers away when the social formation of a society no longer relies on exchange-value, thereby developing itself in a way where use-values determine production. This would also mean it no longer leans on the fetishism of the 'plan" in place of market relations to obfuscate labor's role in production.
http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/ECFP70.html Take the Bettelheimpill.
No.1813415
>>1813408The transhumanist should have laser eyes or something, idk what they actually want to achieve tbhonest
No.1813425
>>1813408>Even among hunter-gatherers, the "State" or proto-State is the tribe leader>tribe<group of people<misanthropic antisocial lone-wolvesPrehistoric warfare (picrel - some caveman kill leader Grug and ate his entrails, tribe terrified!!)
>>1813415>idk what they actually want to achieve tbhonestPosthumanism. Meatbag hate.
No.1813429
>>1813408He truly meaned hierarchy, or any vertically organized social structure, dont play dumb.
>>1813425Id rather trust my survival to any troglodite tribesman, than any leftoid tbh. And i dont even consider anarkiddies as n option.
No.1813444
>>1813442
>homoerotic fantasies
Peak leftypol antropology enjoyer.
No.1813445
>>1813429>He truly meaned hierarchy,>inherent to humanity<humanity>>1813408???
>Id rather trust my survival to someone elseYou are so fucking dead if you have to rely on others in a survival of the fittest situation. That is a darwinian dream come true to fight those who cannot fend for themselves. The only reason I can see any tribe leader sparing you is if they want to rape you.
>>1813444>homoerotic fantasiesMore like what the primmies in the likes of Flowerbomb and Julian Langer have been writing.
No.1813446
>>1813436Sorry, but biotechnology wins easily. Metal on skin looks cool, ngl, but tiny molecular motor protein was perfected by trillions attempts to save another microjoyle of energy, all it needs is just liquid water meduim.
No.1813447
>>1813445And lets not forget the infamous Wild Reaction aka ITS who have been writing essays fetishizing murders of hikers they've done.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/edelweiss-pirates-of-indiscriminate-attacks-wild-reactions
<Why is no one talking about the fact that Abe Cabrera, Ramon Elani, and Atassa are on a pro-rape mission, and that LBC is enabling it? That people are now getting into physical skirmishes to defend the honor of a rape publication? Why have multiple people on Goodreads given Atassa 5-star reviews? Are they not careful readers? Did they just not care? Do they agree with Elani and Cabrera? Or are they only thirsty for material that ostensibly represents the hardcore against civilization, as so many of us are? No.1813451
>>1813449Primitivism is anti-tech. What you're describing would be posthumanism with post-civilization.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/strangers-in-a-tangled-wilderness-post-civ-a-brief-philosophical-and-political-introduction-toAlthough insofar most post-civ essays have also been skeptical of tech. There are some interesting outliars here and there. Maybe like the blog Misanthropes Going Their Own Way although it wasn't much, it was clearly inspired by cyberpunk.
https://misanthropesgoingtheirownway.wordpress.com/ No.1813489
>>1813463
Facts
No.1813490
>>1813468It's easy to shit on anybody if your method is to cherrypick any cringelords with the most tenuous link and go "this is you, dude."
No.1813529
>>1813468lenin and leftcoms are more similar than lenin and leninists
No.1813637
>>1813243>State property is no less privatenonsense
>a proletariat existed being greatly exploitedby whom? a surplus was produced for sure, as is necessary for investment. this isn't exploitation unless you can somehow valorize said surplus
>The surplus all being accrued to a single monopolistic economic entitywhat do you think abolishment of private property means? yes, the surplus goes to a single entity - the public sector. your critique is nothing but petty bourgeois whining. I bet you are in favor of antitrust legislation
>The DotP is invariably capitalist, it can be no other way. It is an attempt by the proletariat to take the capitalist machinery and make an immense self-sacrifical effort to crush the political and economic power of its previous wielders using it. This role reversal does not destroy capital, it does not defeat its insidious logic which will invariably reassert itself over mere human willpower over a long enough timeframe.if it does not engage in valorization then it isn't capital. simple as
>The proletariat by contrasts does not build socialism within capitalismwhy not? socialism is a higher mode of production. as such it will crush capitalism, just as capitalism crushed feudalism. we should expect socialism to be even more cancerous than capitalism is, or else it has no chance of success
>seizing what their labour has built and is held by the capitalistswhat, everywhere at once? because otherwise you will unavoidably have an island embedded in the capitalist world order
>We're not going to reach socialism through coopsthis is true. which is why it is of utmost important that a fledgling socialist economy not be split up into multiple competing entities, but that it be a single entity. a single global state with a single global base, a single global plan, a single global system of accounting and so on
No.1813794
>>1813529Not the Pannekoek leftcoms. The Italian LeftComs and the Dutch-German LeftComs held different views. The latter expressed that stuff went wrong after Lenin, while the former - after Marx.
After more than a century of armchair activism LeftComs have also armed themselves with decades of anarchist and post-structuralist theory.
No.1813799
>>1813794Pasta leftcoms might think they're more Leninist than Lenin
But are there any communists who've claimed they're more Marxist than Marx?
No.1813810
>>1813802>Any war that isn't a class war against the capitalist class is a war between imperialists, and everyone involved is an imperialist.>Any attempt to fight back in a war where you are being murdered systematically by a colonialist makes you the imperialist too!Hey leftcom retards, if someone tries to murder me in order to steal my home or collectively punish my entire ethnicity, and if under such a circumstance fighting back rather than just embracing death for myself and everyone I know and love makes me an imperialist, then I guess I'm an imperialist.
If you're a leftcom and your neighbour breaks into your house and tries to murder you to steal your armchair, I expect you'll transform your leftcom theory to praxis and embrace being beaten to death with your own books rather than take the choice of self-defense, which by your theory would've made you equally the culprit!
No.1813825
>>1813637Not an argument. Of course valorisation of capital took place in the USSR, it was the entire basis on which it undertook industrialisation. Workers were alienated from their labour and exploited. It's entirely capitalist. The public sector is still capitalism lol and its utterly delusional to act like it isn't.
Socialism does not crush capitalism, socialism is what's left after the proletariat crushes capitalism, which it does through it's power as a class organised for itself.
The proletariat will abolish capitalism and itself, thereby establishing socialism because it is in its class interest to own the means of production, to labour unalienated and keep for itself the lion's share of surplus. NOT because it wants to maximise the productive forces or any such nonsense peddled by the whig eschatology of the productivists who worship capital's dominion over man.
It's only capitalism which seeks endlessly to optimise the maximal exploitation of workers surplus.
Your 'socialism' which seeks to outcompete it on it's own terms will just reproduce all the brutality of capitalism but with the direct overt violence of the state in place of the covert violence of the market.
No.1813839
>>1813810True, and that's why I support Ukraine.
No.1813840
The state must be replaced by a proletarian state, a proletarian state representing the interests of the proletariat, the political expression of the rule of the proletariat, which has the task to combat other classes. Once such the other classes are gone, the need for a repressive state will be no more, and we can start to dismantle and transform its functions into new, better fitting forms. That is what withering away means, not the automatic evaporation, but the slow replacement and reformation of its function as a natural process once the root cause for its existence has been taken away.
>Why hasn't the state withered away before in the USSR or China
Because it was engaged in a battle for the future of humanity against the bourgeois states
>XYZ state was not the rule of the proletariat
Then it was not a true socialist or communist-led state
>XYZ ideology is inherently corrupting due to its organizational form
Then lessons must be learned from the past to not make those mistakes again
>Abolish the state immediately
Two answers to that: 1. For the same reason we serious Marxists look at mistakes and corruption in past experiments to try to not repeat it, anarchists should look at their myriad of failures in the past to learn and not make the same mistakes. 2. The most long lasting forms of Anarchism that actually existed in modern history, such as Catalonia and Kurdistan, are when looked at their concrete political structure a state, with a form of hierarchical government with democratic rights restricted to only the proletariat and/or revolutionary classes, harsh violent repression of other classes and their interests, jails, police, executions, etc. for all intends and purposes, actually existing anarchism is indistinguishable from forms several of Marxism outside the Leninist tradition.
No.1813846
>>1813825You need to explore the workers or the industry will not compete with capitalist nations. They will explore more, só they Will create more guns and stuff
No.1813856
>>1813840One last addition
The entire root cause of the split between marxists and anarchists is the following
>Marxists view the state's existance as a consequence of class society, a tool conciously build and maintained by the ruling class of a society to maintain its position>Anarchists view the state as a-historic, as one and the same as the concept of hierarchy itself. Class, the state, police, are to them consequences of having hierarchy, not build and maintained by those already in power to maintain said power, but a self-perpetuating system where those who wound up at the top maintain the hierarchy and its instruments for the sake of maintaining at the top, personally.To anarchists, a state is not the product of class society. To marxists, a state only exists because of pre-existing class society. To a marxist, a state is a tool created by an unequal society to maintain itself and its ruling class, for an anarchist, the state is itself one and the same as inequality in general, class neutral. For marxists, the state is caused by class. For anarchists (if they consider class at all), class is caused by the state and the existance of hierarchy in the abstract.
As a marxist, and as someone who has read history books, even bourgoies history books, it is very clear to me that the state as it exists now has little to nothing in common or has little continuity with the feudal states of old. It was very deliberately created by the capitalist class, used to eliminate all rival classes, used to suppress rival classes, and to specifically enforce rules that benefit the bourgoiesie as a class, rather than benefit politicians as people. Similarly, medieval rules and ideology were made specifically to keep the nobility as a class in power, not just whoever happened to be the holy roman emperor. The roman state existed to keep the landed gentry in power, not the plebians, not the senators themselves.
But anarchists take a wholly individualistic view of things, where they view the state as being perpetuated primarily by those at the top of the state, to the benefit of those same people. For the USSR this is a simple caricature to make, because in socialist states (or states attempting to be so), the economic and political power are explicitly unified into a single body. But such an analysis falls apart when looking at western capitalist states. Biden, Macron, Trump, Zelensky, all of them do not perpetuate their respective states for the sole reason of enriching and empowering themselves, their laws are not there to benefit them and them alone. They are lacquis of the much wider capitalist class. The Bezos', Gates', Bloombergs, Kochs, Musks. The state is maintained and shaped by these people and their dynasties, politicians in the state are directly on the pay roll of these people or on think tanks ran by these people. Politicians in countries where lobbying is illegal are given lucrative well paid low effort positions in multinationals once their terms are over. These politicians do not maintain the state to maintain and empower themselves. Their laws are not there to enrich themselves. In fact, these states have pretty strict laws against politicians enriching themselves through insider trading and outright corruption. That does not sound like the anarchist analysis to me. That sounds like the state is a bunch of lackeys for a wider capitalist class, shaped in the interest of that class, kept in check by that class, with all kinds of failsafes to prevent these politicians of going against the wishes of this class for their own benefit.
With all that in mind, to me it is quite clear that the marxist conception of the state is the correct one. The state is born as a tool for class domination, it is not a self-perpetuating hierarchy in itself, it is not the cause of capitalism, it is not the cause of class. And given this analysis, it can (and has been by other classes in the past) be used to suppress the previous ruling class. And given the state is thus a tool serving the needs of a specific class against others, once the other classes are gone, its function as a repressive institution ceases to be, and thus the support for its existance will evaporate, leading to it withering away until its traces can only be found in historybooks.
No.1813860
>>1813856>anarchists all have the same view of the statewrong
hell,
>marxists all have the same view of the statealso wrong lol
No.1813976
>The people’s state has been flung in our teeth ad nauseam by the anarchists, although Marx’s anti-Proudhon piece and after it the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear. Now, since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one’s enemies by force, it is utter nonsense to speak of a free people’s state; so long as the proletariat still makes use of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies and, as soon as there can be any question of freedom, the state as such ceases to exist. We would therefore suggest that Gemeinwesen ["commonalty"] be universally substituted for state; it is a good old German word that can very well do service for the French “Commune.”https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_03_18.htm No.1814034
>>1813825>Of course valorisation of capital took place in the USSR, it was the entire basis on which it undertook industrialisationno it didn't lol. it was the complete opposite. industrialization in the USSR happened so as to be able to resist bourgeois invasion. it was
not for the purpose of making money - the Soviet state could print money at will
>The public sector is still capitalismyou're arguing like ancap schizo, replacing "not real capitalism!" with "not real socialism!"
>The proletariat will abolish capitalism and itself, thereby establishing socialism because it is in its class interest to own the means of production, to labour unalienated and keep for itself the lion's share of surplushow?
>Your 'socialism' which seeks to outcompete it on it's own terms will just reproduce all the brutality of capitalism but with the direct overt violence of the state in place of the covert violence of the market.the direct and explicitly political violence of the state is infinitely preferable to the indirect violence of capital. you will submit to the needs of the collective, to the range of production permissible by the global plan solver working within the bounds set by the polity
No.1814036
>>1813351> therefore we need a vanguard to lead for usLenin never said this and you have the conception of it backwards. Marx said that the communist movement will be led by the most class conscious section of workers, which makes sense, of course the most class conscious people are the most likely to get organized. Most advanced doesn't mean the bestest good boys it means the people who get off their ass and do something.
No.1814044
>>1813390>all of them were destroyed by the use of forceHow does that not immediately tell you that you need an equal or stronger for to defend yourself? This is equivalent to saying guns are bad so its bad to have one for self defense or that if you kill nazis you are just as bad as a nazi.
the reason "use of force" worked is because they didn't have a centralized economy capable of producing the means of defending against it. this is even true of the USSR which ultimately failed because western containment deprived them of critical input resources for their economy
No.1814050
>>1813002>How, why, and under what conditions do you think the State would "wither away"?its dialectics - the simplified way to explain it is that state capitalism increases productive forces and as quantity increases over the threshold to a new quality you reach a singularity in production with a fully automated post-scarcity economy. this removes the need for the state to to reinforce property laws and it stops being an organ to distribute limited resources fairly according to ability and becomes like an amazon prime where what was once the state is now just a logistics administration center for giving people free stuff. the entire thing revolves around productive forces. this is pretty straitforward and present in early marx
the longer explanation for why that this hasnt happened yet because imperialism forces communists to invest in self defense instead of productive forces
No.1814276
ancoms will do anything but read state and revolution
No.1814285
"We are not the kind of people who, when the word "anarchism" is mentioned, turn away contemptuously and say with a supercilious wave of the hand: "Why waste time on that, it's not worth talking about!" We think that such cheap "criticism" is undignified and useless.
Nor are we the kind of people who console themselves with the thought that the Anarchists "have no masses behind them and, therefore, are not so dangerous." It is not who has a larger or smaller "mass" following today, but the essence of the doctrine that matters. If the "doctrine" of the Anarchists expresses the truth, then it goes without saying that it will certainly hew a path for itself and will rally the masses around itself."
J. V. Stalin
No.1814357
>>1814285Stalin is an anarchist???
No.1814360
>>1814285>>1814357Anarchists are closer to Stalin than Stalinists are.
No.1814365
>>1814036>> therefore we need a vanguard to lead for us>Lenin never said this
<The proletariat needs state power, a centralized organization of force, an organization of violence, both to crush the resistance of the exploiters and to lead the enormous mass of the population — the peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, and semi-proletarians — in the work of organizing a socialist economy.<By educating the workers' party, Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat, capable of assuming power and leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organizing the new system, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the working and exploited people in organizing their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie. <t. Lenin, State and Revolution Chapter 2
<We are not utopians, we do not “dream” of dispensing at once with all administration, with all subordination. These anarchist dreams, based upon incomprehension of the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship, are totally alien to Marxism, and, as a matter of fact, serve only to postpone the socialist revolution until people are different. No, we want the socialist revolution with people as they are now, with people who cannot dispense with subordination, control, and "foremen and accountants".<The subordination, however, must be to the armed vanguard of all the exploited and working people, i.e., to the proletariat.<t. Lenin, State and Revolution Chapter 3 No.1814373
>>1813390>I can't name [an anarchist autnomist zone larger than a town and not currently at war]meditate on that. the reason why we never discuss actually existing anarchism is not because the pure and vital anarchists have been betrayed by marxist statists: they've never taken responsibility for material production and distribution at a scale larger than mutual aid. people need hospitals and doctors, and food, education, work, and leisure, not volunteer workshops and a dumpster dived soup kitchen. I love the anarchist communes in my city, they aren't a model that scales or provides people long term opportunities. There's a core of lifers that organise everything and the majority of people filter through and leave when they finish a degree.
>Communists lost and won battles, anarchists lost and won battlesvictory in battle is not as important as victories that can be leveraged when brokering a peace. one of the important ones is recognized statehood that lets you leverage success in armed conflict into treaties.
No.1814378
>>1813002>Dear Statists:<Ancom Flag<Anime Bolshevik Red Army girl in a BudyenovkaNot even bothering with this bait.
No.1814507
>>1813148>finally: democracy (direct or representative) is stupid and gaybased
>>1813390>replacing it with a new social order that guarantees both the "benefits of the old order" to the people, and the liberty and freedom of said peoplefucking magic. got it
>all of them were destroyed by the use of force, not because "they didn't work"if getting destroyed by the use of force isn't not working then what the hell is? "the patient died because of an infection, not because their immune system didn't work"
>War is about material power and organizationit's almost like you need an organization of equal or greater material power. read pdfrel
No.1815967
>>1813002The theory goes is that it is just the next logical step when socialism is everywhere.
When, how, or why, no one knows. The material conditions will dictate it to be so.
No.1815969
>>1813002A stalinist LARP board is the last place you should ask this question
No.1815970
>>1813232>Why do anarchists claim a tyranny of the majority isn't inherently good?Because this logic can easily justify committing genocide against an ethnic or racial group if the majority desire it?
No.1815974
"tyranny of the majority" is a spook myth. There is some anarchists texts that explain this.
No.1815978
>>1815974Ancient Athens enters chat
No.1815979
>>1814507>fucking magic. got itRead history.
>if getting destroyed by the use of force isn't not working then what the hell is? "the patient died because of an infection, not because their immune system didn't work"Anarchism has worked as a political and economic system in history. Anarchism has not worked so well as a military system. They lost because the enemy was always 100 times more powerful. If you think any of those revolutions would have succeed if they had other ideology you believe in magic.
>it's almost like you need an organization of equal or greater material power. read pdfrelYes, you need a organization of equal or greater material power. This has nothing to do with ideology
No.1815981
I need to finish this text.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-worksAfter i will read State and revolution, but not now
No.1815983
>>1815970'Tyranny of the majority' aka democracy. How are you an anarchist if you are against this?
No.1815988
>>1813232 >le minority vs majority These reductionist terms do not help anyone, Anon. Tools of coercion are derived from individual actors, performing to hierarchies determined by individuals. The state is simply the mechanism to which individuals conjoin to draw the curtain to hide their individual powerlessness. It is not the state that grows the food, but the farmer, and they who shall not work for the farmer, or by proxy in some contract, shall not be entitled the fruits of their labor, there is no need for a "state", or a third party, it is a mutual arrangement.
No.1815992
>>1815983I guess I know much more about anarchism than an internet stalinist, crazy, I know
Societies like ancient Athens, where a citizen majority were able to keep a foreign minority in legal bondage at the status of human property is why many anarchists do not blindly support "democracy"
There's a reason anarchists promote societies of consent rather than societies of coercion, a coercive society will never have a hard time creating slaves or committing genocide
No.1815997
>>1815992>what if [ridiculous thing] happened in democracy?is nothing more than an elitist liberal prejudice to justify the belief that people can't rule themselves.
No.1815998
>>1815997The only people I see on this site regularly justifying why people cannot rule themselves are self-described MLs
It's interesting that you think "majority rule" is synonymous with "self-rule", I wonder if any slave, who are always a minority population for your info, agree with that
Do you think the slaves of Athens thought the rule of the majority was the way to go?
Or perhaps there should also be a necessity for consent such that the majority can't do something like, say, conquer another group of people and compel the smaller population to do all the physically demanding tasks so they can enjoy lives of relative leisure, which has happened multiple times throughout history?
Or are you going to continue to pretend that democratic Athens, a place more democratic than modern liberal states, did not exist?
Is nuance something sloshering around that smooth brain of yours, or are the two alternatives tyranny of the majority or tyranny of a minority?
Does the notion of having a society not based on domination trouble your smooth western brain?
No.1816072
>>1815998>It's interesting that you think "majority rule" is synonymous with "self-rule", I wonder if any slave, who are always a minority population for your info, agree with thatYeah democracy is self-rule, it means people (citizens) going to the agora and ruling themselves. Slaves weren't part of the people, they were property.
>Or perhaps there should also be a necessity for consent such that the majority can't do something like, say, conquer another group of people and compel the smaller population to do all the physically demanding tasks so they can enjoy lives of relative leisure, which has happened multiple times throughout history?If a "society of consent" consents to genocide, how is this any different than genocide by coercive society? Republicanism is all about consent and you see where it leads to.
No.1816076
>>1816072>Yeah democracy is self-rule, it means people (citizens) going to the agora and ruling themselves. Slaves weren't part of the people, they were property.Imagine the kind of retarded idealist nonsense you're forced to spew to justify democracy as an unassailable approach
<Uhhh it was actually great dummy, except for the people that didn't count as people because the majority decided they didn't Genuinely why do the nitwits that gather here like flies on shit call themselves communists? You fuckers will now shill class society if the majority decides to impose one? Fuck what a den of morons.
Do MLs collectively get stupider when they debate anarchists?
>If a "society of consent" consents to genocide, how is this any different than genocide by coercive society? <Why would you say a society that requires consent wouldn't lead to genocide and slavery? What if people decide they want to be massacred or enslaved?This is the sort of shit tanks come up with when they're arguing with anarchists
This absolute fucking nonsense
No.1816394
>>1815978Ancient athens wasn't majority rule, it was minority rule by slave owning men with birthright citizenship.
>Estimates of the population of ancient Athens vary. During the 4th century BC, there might well have been some 250,000–300,000 people in Attica.[4] Citizen families could have amounted to 100,000 people and out of these some 30,000 would have been the adult male citizens entitled to vote in the assembly. In the mid-5th century the number of adult male citizens was perhaps as high as 60,000, but this number fell precipitously during the Peloponnesian War.[25] This slump was permanent, due to the introduction of a stricter definition of citizen described below. From a modern perspective these figures may seem small, but among Greek city-states Athens was huge: most of the thousand or so Greek cities could only muster 1,000–1,500 adult male citizens each; and Corinth, a major power, had at most 15,000.[26]
>The non-citizen component of the population was made up of resident foreigners (metics) and slaves, with the latter perhaps somewhat more numerous. Around 338 BC the orator Hyperides (fragment 13) claimed that there were 150,000 slaves in Attica, but this figure is probably no more than an impression: slaves outnumbered those of citizen stock but did not swamp them.[27] No.1816461
Marx was wrong, the state won't wither away and that's a good thing.
No.1816465
There would have to be a massive increase in the forces of production and a change in the mode of production.
No.1816470
>>1815979>They lost because the enemy was always 100 times more powerfulthis sounds like a complete ass-pull. let's take the Spanish Civil War as an example, for which we only need to go to Wikipedia to find that the Republicans and the Nationalists were quite evenly matched by 1938. the CNT-FAI by 1937 was about 1.5 million strong, which compared to the Spanish population of 25 million in 1937 is certainly nothing to sneeze at, especially compared to the POUM. but also if your strength is but 1% of the enemy then don't go picking fights
>Yes, you need a organization of equal or greater material powerthat is a necessary but not sufficient condition. you need to be able to counter threats at all scales. if the enemy is well-organized while your defense consists of disorganized cells, then even a material superiority matters very little. the best you can hope for is guerilla tactics once you've already been conquered (and such tactics cannot last forever)
I had a discussion similar to this with a local anarchist who proposed that an anarchist revolution could defend itself from well-organized threats by spontaneously forming the necessary structure and dissolve it later. next time I meet him I plan on asking what he thinks of Stalin who put that theory to the test by purging the Red Army of much of its officer corps prior to invading Finland, with disastrous results
No.1816629
>>1816470>cites Spanish population circa 1938Except we both know that the Spanish Civil War was not fought naked and barehanded, and that
>>1815979 is not referencing the sheer army size disparities, but the difference in weapons and tech. The Nationalists outweighed the CNT-FAI in support from the Axis and Stalin.
The nature of disorganized cells was designed for fighting occupying forces in small skirmishes, dwindling their numbers, and I agree against an overwhelming well-organized force, resistance grumbles. However, an organization of cells into a larger regime can still be established on anarchist principles, and there have been countless examples in modern history, from East Asia, Middle East, beyond, of guerilla tactics being successful against an overwhelming force. These instances were largely local cells, and while albeit almost entirely hierarchical, an anarchist cell could function just as properly.
No.1816693
>>1814425The party is not the same as the proletariat. Claiming to act in the proletariat's interests doesn't automatically make it true. Look at literally the rest of the fuckign sentence you quoted:
<capable of assuming power and leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organizing the new system, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the working and exploited people in organizing their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie.It's right there black and white that the vanguard is a specific subset of the people who will lead the whole of them.
No.1816696
>>1816470>which we only need to go to Wikipedia to find that the Republicans and the Nationalists Why are you lying though?
The nationalists vastly outpowered the Republicans, thry had strong international aid, an (iirc donated) air force.
No.1816707
>>1816461This is what Stalin unironically believed according to Molotov btw
No.1816711
>>1816698no contradiction!
No.1816718
>>1816461So many shit thrown both sides, but no one seems to bring exact quote about what Marx considered as "state" in his work logic - "the organ of class domination, of the oppression of one class by another".
Thats incomplete definition in the breadth of how we perceive state, because its not useful in terms of actual economics, institutions and society without political economy context.
No.1816721
>>1816707Why must you lie? Stalin very clearly believed in the withering of the state. He talks about it on Economic problems of the USSR.
No.1816750
>>1816721It's not a lie, in his memoirs Molotov states that privately he and Stalin disagreed about the state under communism and whether communism was possible in one country.
No.1816769
>>1816750Ok then. I don't find old Molotov's memoirs very trusty to be honest. But I do remember Stalin in the 1930s having some "doubts" about the state, though fascism had a lot to do with them. It could be that.. maybe by the 50s he'd changed his mind.
No.1816835
>>1816693the vanguard isn't a group of people "claiming to act in the proletariat's interests" its the most advanced section of the working class. if there is a workers party, that would be the most advanced section. your incorrectly putting the cart before the horse and insisting on it
No.1816865
>>1816835What do you mean by "advanced" Anon? This idea of MLism always confused me, how does one obtain "vanguardism"? Do they have 1000+ hours of Marxist study?
No.1816924
>>1816865>What do you mean by "advanced" Anon?the people who are most class conscious, the ones who are organized, the ones who join a workers party. in any movement there will be a section of people who are more serious and more willing to take part in the struggle. the people that actually get up and go to the demonstration or meetings not the ones who post online. that is the vanguard, its an emergent part of the mass movement not some group who comes from outside to impose itself on the masses.
No.1816935
>>1813002Pet boug nonsense. Why is it important for the state - as a class dictatorship of the proletariat to "wither away" anyway?
Anti-statism reeks of lib toddler individualism. If you want to be free of communal bonds and cultural expectations go live in the woods alone.
The State won't wither away. It will be obsoleted. When every man can be self-sufficient without relying on the products of industrial (mass) production, agriculture, there is no need for production to be organized at the scale it is today. Engels specifically talking of abolishing the distinction between city and countryside is very much related to this.
But this won't be achieved unless replicators are invented tomorrow and we find a source of energy that is plentiful, cheap to exploit and universally accessible. Or we find several different Earths where 8 billion people can separately live as "free" hunter gatherers.
Obviously none of this will happen anytime soon.
No.1816940
>>1816935The state and the dictatorship of the proletariat are totally different things. But then again, you have the nuclear flag.
No.1816965
>>1816940The state is the instrument of class dictatorship. The will of a class culminated in a set of institutions.
The "State" (under direction of the proletariat) and the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" are the same, because without the necessity of dictatorship of the proletariat vis-a-vis the bourgeoisie, reactionary forces, and the need to organize production, there is no need to speak of either.
When class and the division of labor itself have been abolished , there remains neither dictatorship nor state.
No.1816968
All these Marxist-Leninist fuckers have read are the “Communist Manifesto” and “Economic Problems of the USSR.”
Have they even read the first paragraph of “Capital” vol.1???
Dictatorship of the proletariat is NOT socialism and that’s only state capitalism!!!
No.1816970
>>1816930Also Stirner is post-left. Not a leftist. The dumb uygha who put him there should kill himself asap.
No.1816971
>>1816970stirner arrived at the same conclusions marx did lol
No.1816979
>>1816968>Communism is a state of affairs to be established, not a movementt. Kultural Marx
No.1816982
>>1816970NOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKKKKK UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Sorry for the terror, it was necessaryT. Karl Marx
No.1816990
>>1816968>Everything is state capitalism>REAL communism has never been triedThis attitude has nothing to do with Marxism. It's residual western Christian ideology. Where Revolution is the apocalypse, Communism is heaven (and cannot be established on Earth), and where every attempt is ruined by some sinful Judas (Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Lenin himself) betraying The Revolution
Workers seizing Power (and ceasing to be "oppressed") tarnishes them with Sin (Worldliness). The only revolutions unbetrayed are those that failed, the only revolutionaries that died as Communists are those that were Martyred in service of a failed cause
It's brainrot that has nothing to do with communism.
No.1817231
>>1816990>omfg if you dont believe weve ever reached a classless stateless society then youre a christianwhat the fuck am i even reading lol
No.1817237
>>1817234Can you give me an example of a dotp?
No.1817242
>>1816990>>1816979Take your meds, you schizo pseud. Literally arguing against shit nobody's said.
>>1816935>Why is it important for the state - as a class dictatorship of the proletariat to "wither away" anyway?>The State won't wither away. It will be obsoleted.>>1816965>When class and the division of labor itself have been abolished , there remains neither dictatorship nor state.? You're answering yourself while being autistic about terms.
>this won't be achieved unless replicators are invented tomorrow and we find a source of energy that is plentiful, cheap to exploit and universally accessible. Or we find several different Earths where 8 billion people can separately live as "free" hunter gatherers.Oh you're retarded. Nevermind.
No.1817357
>>1816990they hated him because he told them the truth
Vivek Chibber makes much the same argument btw. we're allowed to notice religious influence in Eastern Marxism, but not in Western Marxism
No.1817359
>>1816979it's actually both. the meaning of many words is context dependent
No.1819142
>>1817234Woah its communisms fault that the capitalist hegemon collapses and so gives way to smaller capitalist states filling in the void
Unique IPs: 57