well the OP image had a whataboutism energy, like “you criticize a state despite all states being bad” and like I said I don’t think that kind of attitude is helping anyone in the context of discussing more or less oppressive governments
It’s not “whataboutism” it’s pointing out contradictions in their internal logic. “I hate all states, but I agree with the US’s foreign policy and hate their enemies specifically.” If someone is against unjust hierarchy they should be primarily anti-capitalist as capitalism is a very “authoritarian” system where one’s boss has autocratic control of their labor power and you don’t have work because the system can’t find need for you you may be condemned to starve. There is also global imperialism, slave (prison) labor and so on. This is the system we should spend our energy opposing as most of us live under it. Also, even if you don’t like Russia or China, if you live in the US your “anti-hierarchical energy” should be spend fighting the US. Especially as they are the global imperialist hegemon and have more bodies to their name than any other government (beside maybe Britain from whom they inherited their system). Even if you oppose Russia too (which is also capitalist), leave it to the Russians to fight Putin.
It’s not a contradiction and it’s not about the United States’ foreign policy, it’s about the differences in restricted expression between states. Would you not agree that a country that has LGBT-free zones are more oppressive than otherwise comparable countries?
You can think all states are authoritarian and acknowledge that some states allow more liberty than others, so bringing up that all states are authoritarian is a whataboutism (“You think that state is particularly authoritarian? But what about the inherent authority of all states?”)
A state by ML definition is a tool of oppression from one class to another. I believe you’re referring to institutions. Since all oppression is some kind of authoritarianism, the label is meaningless.
I am not speaking strictly in a ML capacity, by “state” I mean country or government, and the term is not meaningless because (unless you believe every state is equally oppressive) it can still be used to measure relative liberty
When MLs say, ‘state’, they have a specific, relational concept in mind. A state is authoritarian by definition. And it has class characteristics, as does every other concept.
There are no degrees of being authoritarian but rather a question of what the state uses that authority for. Which class exercises that authority?
This is also a materialist concept, not an idealist one. We look at states to understand what they are. We don’t start by thinking about what a state could be or should be.
In a capitalist state, the authority is used to oppress workers. In a workers’ state, the authority is used to oppress capitalists. Which class oppresses and which is oppressed?
In a similar sense, there are no degrees of liberty. The question is, whose liberties are granted and whose are denied?
MLs reject relativism. There is only dialectical and historical materialism for us. The links posted by Non-Diagetic Screams would be a good place to start to see where we’re coming from. Otherwise you might find it a bit hostile here as we might be talking at cross-purposes. Especially if you use non-Marxist definitions and/or fail to explain the definitions you are using.
When the OP meme criticises anarchists for disagreeing with states in the abstract while accepting US State Department propaganda, anarchism reflects very little unity of thought and becomes another way of propping up the system it claims to despise.
When you say LGBT+ free zones, what do you mean? If this is a dig at China or Russia, it’s doing almost exactly what the OP meme is criticising.
Even if there something to the claim (we can go through it if you provide sources), the point is that you could only say e.g. China has less liberty than e.g. the US if you did a full material comparison of the two states. I emphasise ‘material’, here, because liberal democracies, being grounded in idealism are very good at pretending one thing while they do another. This is partly because they have well developed and conscious ideological state apparatuses.
Any state should be criticised for shit LGBT practices and rules. The problem arises when using that criticism as a stick to beat one kind of state but not another. To declare that socialists and liberty don’t go together is to be pro-capitalist and pro-unjust-heirarchy.
Being a westerner (you might not be) and criticising a workers’ state over LGBT+ issues before or without criticising whatever is happening in Florida or almost any educational or employment or housing of healthcare setting or throughout western media is functionally to be a shill for the capitalists. And this is all before we get to broader questions of gendered and racial capitalism, in which a prime function of the state is to subjugate the entirety of the global south so that westerners stay wealthy.
A fortiori it means propping up authoritarian states who use their authority to oppress workers. And on an historical scale, there’s no comparison with the amount of devastation and oppression coming from capitalist states.
“Liberty” under capitalism is freedom to exploit and hold private property. The police, as an instrument of class rule defend businesses (who probably have insurance anyway) from “rioters” who are simply expressing anger at the unjust killing by police. The people that are killed by police are almost always poor, having no property to compel the state to protect them. We can compare over a thousand dead at the hands of US police a year to only nineteen in the history of the People’s Republic of China. Which one is more “authoritarian?”
well the OP image had a whataboutism energy, like “you criticize a state despite all states being bad” and like I said I don’t think that kind of attitude is helping anyone in the context of discussing more or less oppressive governments
It’s not “whataboutism” it’s pointing out contradictions in their internal logic. “I hate all states, but I agree with the US’s foreign policy and hate their enemies specifically.” If someone is against unjust hierarchy they should be primarily anti-capitalist as capitalism is a very “authoritarian” system where one’s boss has autocratic control of their labor power and you don’t have work because the system can’t find need for you you may be condemned to starve. There is also global imperialism, slave (prison) labor and so on. This is the system we should spend our energy opposing as most of us live under it. Also, even if you don’t like Russia or China, if you live in the US your “anti-hierarchical energy” should be spend fighting the US. Especially as they are the global imperialist hegemon and have more bodies to their name than any other government (beside maybe Britain from whom they inherited their system). Even if you oppose Russia too (which is also capitalist), leave it to the Russians to fight Putin.
It’s not a contradiction and it’s not about the United States’ foreign policy, it’s about the differences in restricted expression between states. Would you not agree that a country that has LGBT-free zones are more oppressive than otherwise comparable countries?
You can think all states are authoritarian and acknowledge that some states allow more liberty than others, so bringing up that all states are authoritarian is a whataboutism (“You think that state is particularly authoritarian? But what about the inherent authority of all states?”)
A state by ML definition is a tool of oppression from one class to another. I believe you’re referring to institutions. Since all oppression is some kind of authoritarianism, the label is meaningless.
I am not speaking strictly in a ML capacity, by “state” I mean country or government, and the term is not meaningless because (unless you believe every state is equally oppressive) it can still be used to measure relative liberty
When MLs say, ‘state’, they have a specific, relational concept in mind. A state is authoritarian by definition. And it has class characteristics, as does every other concept.
There are no degrees of being authoritarian but rather a question of what the state uses that authority for. Which class exercises that authority?
This is also a materialist concept, not an idealist one. We look at states to understand what they are. We don’t start by thinking about what a state could be or should be.
In a capitalist state, the authority is used to oppress workers. In a workers’ state, the authority is used to oppress capitalists. Which class oppresses and which is oppressed?
In a similar sense, there are no degrees of liberty. The question is, whose liberties are granted and whose are denied?
MLs reject relativism. There is only dialectical and historical materialism for us. The links posted by Non-Diagetic Screams would be a good place to start to see where we’re coming from. Otherwise you might find it a bit hostile here as we might be talking at cross-purposes. Especially if you use non-Marxist definitions and/or fail to explain the definitions you are using.
When the OP meme criticises anarchists for disagreeing with states in the abstract while accepting US State Department propaganda, anarchism reflects very little unity of thought and becomes another way of propping up the system it claims to despise.
When you say LGBT+ free zones, what do you mean? If this is a dig at China or Russia, it’s doing almost exactly what the OP meme is criticising.
Even if there something to the claim (we can go through it if you provide sources), the point is that you could only say e.g. China has less liberty than e.g. the US if you did a full material comparison of the two states. I emphasise ‘material’, here, because liberal democracies, being grounded in idealism are very good at pretending one thing while they do another. This is partly because they have well developed and conscious ideological state apparatuses.
Any state should be criticised for shit LGBT practices and rules. The problem arises when using that criticism as a stick to beat one kind of state but not another. To declare that socialists and liberty don’t go together is to be pro-capitalist and pro-unjust-heirarchy.
Being a westerner (you might not be) and criticising a workers’ state over LGBT+ issues before or without criticising whatever is happening in Florida or almost any educational or employment or housing of healthcare setting or throughout western media is functionally to be a shill for the capitalists. And this is all before we get to broader questions of gendered and racial capitalism, in which a prime function of the state is to subjugate the entirety of the global south so that westerners stay wealthy.
A fortiori it means propping up authoritarian states who use their authority to oppress workers. And on an historical scale, there’s no comparison with the amount of devastation and oppression coming from capitalist states.
That’s simply just not true, some states can restrict more liberties than others.
Please re-read my comment. I made a distinction between authority and liberty.
“it’s about the differences in restricted expression between states”
that’s all I’m saying
“Liberty” under capitalism is freedom to exploit and hold private property. The police, as an instrument of class rule defend businesses (who probably have insurance anyway) from “rioters” who are simply expressing anger at the unjust killing by police. The people that are killed by police are almost always poor, having no property to compel the state to protect them. We can compare over a thousand dead at the hands of US police a year to only nineteen in the history of the People’s Republic of China. Which one is more “authoritarian?”
No, I mean liberty as in the freedom to live your own life, such as my previously mentioned LGBT-free zones