Technically, anarchism is incompatible with communism, fascism, and socialism, as all of those require the state to exist in some way if undertaken at the national scale.
Anarcho-capitalism makes the most sense of them all. Just say you don’t want a state to exist at all because you want to suck some robber baron/warlord’s cock.
Which do you not understand: anarchism or communism? Communism is a stateless, classless society. It does not require a state, and it is perfectly compatible with anarchism. In fact, within any form of anarchism you’d find communism.
Anarchism is no state and no hierarchies. In any form, it seeks horizontality and mutual aid. It is absolutely unhinged to think that’s compatible in any way with capitalism.
Jfc the media has really succeeded in deluding people about what anarchism is, haven’t they? The surprising thing is I’d expect that on, say, Facebook or 4chan or Stormfront, but I thought 196 was more … leftist
Good point. I always browse by new, so I forgot that that’s a thing.
I guess that explains why posts seem to start with some productive discussion, but then tend to get derailed over time. It gets exhausting having to explain the very basics over and over again, but maybe I need more patience. I too grew up propagandized, and thankfully I’ve had some people help me learn.
Yeah, it can spiral downhill pretty quick, and it’s often the same handful of people who go around doing their wilfully ignorant reactionary thing on every fucking post (and since we can see them on kbin - another group who lurk and downvote any marginally leftist comment without engaging, because gods forbid their bias gets challenged)…
Trying to help these people learn is great, but can only go so far as long as they aren’t interested in knowing. The undecided lurkers though, those are the ones you hope are picking up your knowledge!
It’s because capitalism the pejorative is distinct from capitalism the naturalistic economic theory and a lot of people actively refuse to understand this. Unless your anarchist society is truly post-scarcity, you will end up with commerce and value proxies regardless of how much you wish otherwise. And even in a material post-scarcity society, there will still be scarcity in the form of things like artistic talent, companionship, etc. If you don’t want to call that capitalism, then you might as well just define capitalism as monsters under your bed.
There is no post-capitalist society besides the one focused on harm reduction. And then there is no utopia, no end goal, only an eternal struggle to combat the evils of where material scarcity and human greed intersect.
I think you are misunderstanding the conversation. I am a leftist, and I am not saying it’s “human nature,” more that “capitalist” structures are an inevitable byproduct of scarcity. This is not particularly controversial economics, and if anything, I am making a linguistic argument against reducing capitalism to “everything bad about modernity.” Just like many people do in terms of reducing leftism to “everything bad about the USSR.”
More generally, making leftism liturgical and literally blocking out any discussion of first principles is one of the biggest things about online leftist communities which turns people off.
The whole issue is that you go into pretty much any Lemmy thread and it’s like “man I hate getting up early for work” and there will inevitably be a bunch of comments being like “yeah fuck capitalism.”
Because communism is when sleeping in, or whatever.
It’s just kind of juvenile and completely misses the point about the nature of the anti-capitalist struggle and the nature of effective praxis, and I’m honestly sick of it. And to make matters even worse, on top of that you have people smugly spouting off day one political science 101 like it is some kind of enlightenment, and then literally blocking out any conversation about more contemporary leftist thought, literally calling it propaganda, because I guess it doesn’t scratch the itch for revolutionary fan service enough. And this is the “intellectual side” of internet leftism.
As someone who has actually studied political science and economics, being lectured by ignorant internet leftists after gently questioning their reductive, outdated dogma is just exhausting.
You misspelled utopia. Not sure what reality you’d expect humans to create a stateless and classless “communism” outside the hippie commune out in the woods.
The comment you replied to even said “at a national scale.” That’s the rub, isn’t it?
Well of course, there would be no nation ideally, so the concept of a national scale is a bit incompatible in a way, isn’t it? As you pointed out in another comment, the existence of nations only threatens progress and equity! They can and do disrupt any such attempt. I mean, look what happened to the Spanish anarchists, and what the US has done every time a remotely leftist movement has taken hold in Latin America.
I don’t agree with the Marxist-Leninists, but even for them the end goal is (at least in theory) to advance to statelessness and classlessness. We anarchists don’t agree that such a thing can be achieved via a state. A state will never offload its power. Its whole shtick is coercion and control, and it will hold onto that at all costs.
utopia
Very few anarchists would use this term. The concept of a utopia is rather antithetical to anarchism, by most people’s assessment. “Utopia” implies a perfect society with no room to progress. I doubt such a thing is possible, and I think it might be rather harmful to imagine we’ve arrived at perfection. It would stifle progress, now wouldn’t it?
Communism requires someone to distribute goods and assign labor. That person is effectively going to be your state at essentially any scale above a family.
And if you want to live in a developed society, you need a state to defend against invasion and colonization, arrest murderers and rapists, and regulate trade (even if trade is only external).
Communism does not require a state. What part of “a stateless, classless society” are you failing to grasp?
Even state authoritarian communist nations at least ostensibly seek a stateless, classless society. That’s the whole fucking point.
And you don’t need a state for those other things either. Do you think anarchists just throw shit at the wall and hope for the best? There are functioning anarchist communities which have no state. If they did, then they wouldn’t be anarchist.
That distribution doesn’t have to be top down. And as communism is a stateless society, the entire concept is predicated on the absence of top down distribution. Read up on democratic confederalism, parecon, project cybersin (admittedly done with the presence of a state but there’s nothing about the system the necessitates one).
The CNT-FAI, zapatistas, rojava, and free territories of ukraine can all speak to decentralized militias. For auth-left examples just check out maoist militant orgs, they drew a ton of inspiration for anarchists in how to manage militias.
Most anarchists are prison abolitionists, I’m not going to summarize that one, look into it if you wish
Market economies can and have existed in horizontal societies. There’s nothing inherently contradictory regarding trade regulations in a horizontal society
Communism is a stateless, moneyless, classless society. In what way is that incompatible with anarchism, the ideology based on the elimination of heirarchy (the state)?
Modulo MLs defining state to mean “any method of organising a society” in which case not even anarchism is stateless because yes of course we’re doing that. The common politological understanding of state is more or less along those lines, too. I propose to not get anything in any twists over definitions.
Anything is only incompatible with anarchism insofar as it inflicts hierarchical power. Certain stuff at least some people call communism most certainly falls under that umbrella (though even Lenin admitted it was state capitalism), others are compatible or at least very close. Classical council communism certainly looks awfully like anarcho-syndicalism.
That’s assuming anarchists agree with Marx’s definition of the state. Which, famously, they don’t. It’s far too nebulous to be useful for analysis, theory or prefigurarion. Marx isn’t the end all be all of left wing politics. Here’s a short video going into more depth on anarchist criticisms of the Marxist conception of the state.
To quote Malatesta “Anarchists, including this writer, have used the word State, and still do, to mean the sum total of the political, legislative, judiciary, military and financial institutions through which the management of their own affairs, the control over their personal behaviour, the responsibility for their personal safety, are taken away from the people and entrusted to others who, by usurpation or delegation, are vested with the powers to make the laws for everything and everybody, and to oblige the people to observe them, if need be, by the use of collective force.”
If you’re going to debate anarchist ideas, you should use anarchist definitions so at the very least you understand what you’re criticizing.
Definitions matter and communism has been understood as a stateless, classless, moneyless society for as long as the term has existed. The only people who would contest that definition are either ignorant or anti-communist actors who have a vested interest in muddying the waters. And I don’t think those individuals should have the final say on what is and isn’t communism.
Lenin didn’t practice or install a communist society, and as you’ve noted, he didn’t intend to. Council communists and even libertarian marxists (Marxist autonomists for example) are both horizontal ideologies and despite some linguistic differences from anarchism, I consider them comrades. They can call it a state if they want, anarchists would disagree. But if the only difference between us and them is definitions, I don’t really see an issue. That’s something that can be debated post-revolution
If you’re going to debate anarchist ideas, you should use anarchist definitions so at the very least you understand what you’re criticizing.
I know Malatesta’s definition trouble is I consider it just as problematic as the other definitions as it obscures horizontal structures already existing within the overall hierarchical structure, dismissing all of it because it’s part of the overall usurpation of power, while we have way better terms to address the parts that matter (hierarchy and horizontal). Back in Malatesta’s time, the state indeed was horizontal, and peasants organised horizontally apart from the state. Things are way more intertwined and fuzzy now.
But more generally speaking I wanted to point out, to the general audience, that different definitions are in use.
I don’t have a good definition of state, either. I’d even go so far and ask why the hell should anarchists have a definition of state? Why should we cling onto a concept which can either only ever be used in the negative, or bog down to something so generic as the ML one? Neither is theoretically productive.
And on yet another level I’d say that’s all egg-headed gobbeldygook without any practical relevance whatsowhatever. Including my meta-thoughts on this. So I just avoid the term state and talk about power to vs. power over/hierachy vs. horizontal.
I generally agree with you but I do find it useful to have some description of the state. If anything, I’d say Malatesta’s definition is more relevant now than it was when he wrote it. At the very least when speaking to non-anarchists who may not have a grasp on how power functions. It points out specific areas of statehood that are broadly problematic and shifts the conversation towards the lack of political power and self determination present in our everyday lives. It’s a useful rhetorical device, perhaps a bit dated, but most people aren’t familiar with politics outside of electoralism. Having a short description on hand can help others towards radicalization.
Having negative terms isn’t inherently a bad thing either. Every ideology has things they’re for and against. Being able to clearly describe the things we’re against is not only helpful, it’s necessary. We use terms like domination, coercion and heirarchy almost exclusively in the negative, should we get rid of those as well?
It is a bit nerdy lol, but I feel the concept of a state still has relevance in our day to day work, even if onyl as a rhetorical device. It can, and still is, used to write good theory and analysis. At the end of the day, MLs and other authoritarians use the term positively and seek to grow state power. The state is still present in our everyday lives as I (and I think plenty of other anarchists) view it as part of the kyriarchy/mega machine/whatever you want to call it. What would you refer to this particular apparatus as?
What would you refer to this particular apparatus as?
The state. But in the usual politigological sense, not a special anarchist one. Anarchists can also talk about bananas, and solve issues and organisational problems regarding bananas, without having a specifically Anarchist definition of bananas: A specifically Anarchist understanding and approach suffices.
More practically speaking: There is a metric buttload of horizontal organisation that can be done in the average liberal democracy, without stepping on the state’s toes but still prefiguring Anarchism, strongly challenging hierarchical realism. Depending on where you are, the state will even actively support your work, even if it’s specifically Anarchist, say, increasing rapport and horizontal enmeshment between civil society actors. If, in such a situation, we’re theoretically fixated on opposition of “the state” we’re, in my mind, by pure equivocation of the Anarchist vs. politicological concepts of state, less effective than possible. “Let’s apply for that state funding pot, it meets our goals and principles” shouldn’t be a taboo thing to say in a meeting, just make sure to have an erm diplomatic corps in place when dealing with entities that are mixed hierarchical/horizontal to avoid becoming hierarchical by osmosis.
Of course, I agree that that might be completely impossible or just too much of an headache depending on how the local state bureaucracy functions. Over here the long march through the institutions has been quite successful, they don’t really have an idea what to really do with those newly-gained positions, but they and with it many parts of the apparatus are amenable. You deal with them just like you’d deal with, what, the Rotary Club: At arm’s length, but not antagonistic on principle (even though they’re a bunch of elitist bourgeois snobs). Antagonism should be directed specifically at hierarchy, and not attack imperfect and only barely principled other structures, those should be left room to see the light for themselves, absorb horizontalism by osmosis.
Or, differently put: If your local city council wants to move a homeless camp to proper housing and to organise that they call you first, not the Salvation Army (six hierarchy steps from “soldier” to “general”) because they think you can do it better you’ve already won, the system just hasn’t fully understood it yet.
If bananas were a central part of anarchist ideology and, through decades of discussion and theory, we came to a more holistic and useful conception of what constitutes a banana than the common understanding of what a banana is, I would argue in favor of using the more distinct definition. But the state is also infinitely more complicated than a banana. It’s character has changed over time, often progressing in ways that past anarchists have predicted. The fact that a hundred year old conception of the state still has legs shows that not only is it accurate, but useful. You could define so many horizontal societies as states using the common definition. If we’re trying to build a society distinct and separate from what currently exists, shouldn’t our language reflect that? It’s important to distinct, concrete markers for progress in our struggles. And the abolition of the modern state is among the top of the list in matters of importance.
Just because we can peacefully coexist and even work with the state apparatus for a time doesn’t mean we don’t seek it’s elimination. If we’re calling our end goal by the same name as the thing we wish to eliminate, it only serves to create confusion. What’s the point of saying “the state is our enemy, we seek to recreate the state but minus all of the things that most people would consider functions of the state?”
Language can also be prefigurative, and part of that is using terms held in common among our group in the way we understand them. It’s far easier to mold this facet of the world we wish to change if we’re not immediately contradicting ourselves and confusing others. Even if you went through the route of focusing strictly on power dynamics and heirarchy without mentioning the state. Eventually it’s going to come up, people are going to ask if we want to get rid of the state/government. What do you say? “We don’t want to get rid of the state, we want to turn it into the state but one that’s completely unrecognizable as a state to the average person”?
Just because we can peacefully coexist and even work with the state apparatus for a time doesn’t mean we don’t seek it’s elimination.
You’re doing it. That’s the equivocation I was talking about: We’re not co-existing with the state Malatesta put at the core of his definition, we cannot seek its abolition because it does not exist in that form, any more. We’re not out to eliminate the muncipical organisation of garbage collection yet when you say “eliminate the state apparatus (that we currently can work with)” you’re saying exactly that. Malatesta’s state would never fund a rag-tag group of peasants doing things the lord didn’t order.
“We don’t want to get rid of the state, we want to turn it into the state but one that’s completely unrecognizable as a state to the average person”?
Honestly? Yes. If in doubt just say that you want a better democracy: More participatory, more direct, delegates instead of representatives. I have no idea whether there will actually be a revolution or not because noone, anywhere, has ever actually come close to implement what’s possible in liberal democracies, without changing the constitution, without changing laws. Take over at least a municipality before judging how the broader state will react – over here our federal states don’t really care, aren’t allowed to care (subsidiarity), how a municipality collects garbage what’s mandated is that garbage is collected which isn’t really a thing I feel like rebelling against. There’s some doubts I have about constitutional requirements, OTOH the law on municipal constitutions actually does contain an experiment clause, so you could make a council structure municipal law and state courts would uphold it. Is it undignified to have to beg state bureaucracy to let you organise your municipality in the way you want? Possibly, but also remember that the laws are in place to prevent fascists from abolishing municipal democracy, any anarchist federation would have a similar mechanism, “here’s five standard municipal constitutions to choose from, if you like something else and it’s still anarchist we can talk”. In the mean time you can elect people to the official city council that take being a delegate of their neighbourhood council instead of mere representatives seriously. Yes, form a party if that’s what’s needed.
Zen (bear with me) talks about “sudden enlightenment, gradual refinement”, what I want to say is that the revolution might actually already have happened, and what’s necessary now for society is to find our bearings, to cast off old habits, that resistance we still face is not due to hierarchy still being in a strong position, but due to inertia and our own incapability to come up with horizontal modes of organisation to replace existing structures, and the courage to implement them, that this “the state is the enemy” talk is actually a mistake of ours, preventing ourselves from doing what we could because we confuse Malatesta’s state for the one that currently exists.
Tell me you know nothing about anarchism, communism, fascism, or socialism, without saying you know nothing about anarchism, communism, fascism, or socialism lol…
A state, according to the average anarchist, is a society ruled by rulers who make decisions for you.
Resource distribution and factory management could absolutely be planned without a central planner under socialism/communism/whatever. Capitalism, on the other hand, needs bosses and police officers that protect the boss’s property. Fascism doesn’t require an explanation IMO.
Whoever is making the decisions about distribution and factory management is effectively a state at that point.
There’s also the fact that generally, people want to live in developed nations. You’ll need a military to keep your neighboring countries from taking all your stuff/people/land, and you’ll need some kind of police force to keep those few assholes you have internally from just kidnapping people or stealing everything that isn’t nailed down whatever.
You’ll need a military to keep your neighboring countries from taking all your stuff/people/land, and you’ll need some kind of police force to keep those few assholes you have internally from just kidnapping people or stealing everything that isn’t nailed down whatever
As you have pointed out here, the state will always be the enemy of progress, will stand in the way of and disrupt every attempt at creating a more equitable society (which must exist apart from a state, since a state will always trend toward fascism, without exception).
For this reason, most anarchists start practicing our ideals immediately and do not await a revolution. We try to educate people and inform them. We work imperfectly within desperately broken and inequitable systems to introduce more equity and justice.
Want to see an example of this in action? Look up the Zapatistas.
I love how that was the one moment you weren’t willing to expand your explanation and just left a link. Did you notice yourself accidentally describing a state and decided to not leave the opening?
Whatever diplomatic routine you pull that results in the organization that communists are striving for: that’s the state. An external force with a plan about how people organize. You can call it whatever form of state you want, you can call it a commune, a collective, but whatever method the people use to organize themselves that way is that state.
Think it through: how are decisions made, do we cast a vote? Well contracts, you have a democratic state. Do we use diplomacy? Congrats, you have a diplomatic state. Okay so what if we just want some rules for who does what and we don’t make people make those decisions, congrats you have a constitutional state. Uh oh people aren’t following rules, looks like we need to hire people to enforce those rules… Ever wonder why every communist system ever had an overabundance of police?
The link you posted is completely untrustworthy by the way. I mean, look at this:
If anything, getting paid to do something makes it less enjoyable
Any health brain in the world would throw up alarm bells at this. A classic sophist technique, to prime the conclusions by peppering little lies that make it more palatable. Every study ever performed on paid/unpaid labor has this solved, don’t start pretending it’s true now.
Here’s a hint: unpaid labor is called what exactly? Using unpaid labor to get things done, what’s that called?
Plus, look at how this comment chain started. The original replier made the point that communism fascism and socialism all need a state to exist. Your source, when arguing that you don’t need bosses or state control mentioned a case where 500,000 workers over through a factory and controlled it democratically. He suspiciously doesn’t mention how long it lasted, only that it happened post WW1. He also doesn’t mention that that’s immediately before the fascist takeover of Italy, in which Mussolini cooperated with many of these violent revolutionaries called syndicates, and they were unproductive without right control.
I hold the same sentiment as you in regards to the state, I have a natural distrust towards it I suppose. However, I do not agree that this is at all compatible with an ideology that necessitates maximal cooperation. It’s not any wonder to me at all that the regimes who felt most passionately about how people should cooperate and live together end up the most oppressive
Technically, anarchism is incompatible with communism, fascism, and socialism, as all of those require the state to exist in some way if undertaken at the national scale.
Anarcho-capitalism makes the most sense of them all. Just say you don’t want a state to exist at all because you want to suck some robber baron/warlord’s cock.
Which do you not understand: anarchism or communism? Communism is a stateless, classless society. It does not require a state, and it is perfectly compatible with anarchism. In fact, within any form of anarchism you’d find communism.
Anarchism is no state and no hierarchies. In any form, it seeks horizontality and mutual aid. It is absolutely unhinged to think that’s compatible in any way with capitalism.
Jfc the media has really succeeded in deluding people about what anarchism is, haven’t they? The surprising thing is I’d expect that on, say, Facebook or 4chan or Stormfront, but I thought 196 was more … leftist
Unfortunately once there are more than a few votes a post will reach /all, making it visible on all instances, and with that come… the others… lol
Good point. I always browse by new, so I forgot that that’s a thing.
I guess that explains why posts seem to start with some productive discussion, but then tend to get derailed over time. It gets exhausting having to explain the very basics over and over again, but maybe I need more patience. I too grew up propagandized, and thankfully I’ve had some people help me learn.
Yeah, it can spiral downhill pretty quick, and it’s often the same handful of people who go around doing their wilfully ignorant reactionary thing on every fucking post (and since we can see them on kbin - another group who lurk and downvote any marginally leftist comment without engaging, because gods forbid their bias gets challenged)…
Trying to help these people learn is great, but can only go so far as long as they aren’t interested in knowing. The undecided lurkers though, those are the ones you hope are picking up your knowledge!
Ancaps and tankies are everywhere these days. No good place for an old fashioned ancom anymore.
Then again, same as it ever was.
People grossly misunderstanding both anarchism and communism: nothing new under the sun lol
It’s because capitalism the pejorative is distinct from capitalism the naturalistic economic theory and a lot of people actively refuse to understand this. Unless your anarchist society is truly post-scarcity, you will end up with commerce and value proxies regardless of how much you wish otherwise. And even in a material post-scarcity society, there will still be scarcity in the form of things like artistic talent, companionship, etc. If you don’t want to call that capitalism, then you might as well just define capitalism as monsters under your bed.
There is no post-capitalist society besides the one focused on harm reduction. And then there is no utopia, no end goal, only an eternal struggle to combat the evils of where material scarcity and human greed intersect.
Oh look, the “capitalism is human nature” folk have arrived!
Thoroughly debunked propaganda. Blocked.
I think you are misunderstanding the conversation. I am a leftist, and I am not saying it’s “human nature,” more that “capitalist” structures are an inevitable byproduct of scarcity. This is not particularly controversial economics, and if anything, I am making a linguistic argument against reducing capitalism to “everything bad about modernity.” Just like many people do in terms of reducing leftism to “everything bad about the USSR.”
More generally, making leftism liturgical and literally blocking out any discussion of first principles is one of the biggest things about online leftist communities which turns people off.
i would argue that leftists constantly arguing about what their words even mean is one of the biggest turn offs.
people don’t love pedantry.
The whole issue is that you go into pretty much any Lemmy thread and it’s like “man I hate getting up early for work” and there will inevitably be a bunch of comments being like “yeah fuck capitalism.”
Because communism is when sleeping in, or whatever.
It’s just kind of juvenile and completely misses the point about the nature of the anti-capitalist struggle and the nature of effective praxis, and I’m honestly sick of it. And to make matters even worse, on top of that you have people smugly spouting off day one political science 101 like it is some kind of enlightenment, and then literally blocking out any conversation about more contemporary leftist thought, literally calling it propaganda, because I guess it doesn’t scratch the itch for revolutionary fan service enough. And this is the “intellectual side” of internet leftism.
As someone who has actually studied political science and economics, being lectured by ignorant internet leftists after gently questioning their reductive, outdated dogma is just exhausting.
You misspelled utopia. Not sure what reality you’d expect humans to create a stateless and classless “communism” outside the hippie commune out in the woods.
The comment you replied to even said “at a national scale.” That’s the rub, isn’t it?
Well of course, there would be no nation ideally, so the concept of a national scale is a bit incompatible in a way, isn’t it? As you pointed out in another comment, the existence of nations only threatens progress and equity! They can and do disrupt any such attempt. I mean, look what happened to the Spanish anarchists, and what the US has done every time a remotely leftist movement has taken hold in Latin America.
I don’t agree with the Marxist-Leninists, but even for them the end goal is (at least in theory) to advance to statelessness and classlessness. We anarchists don’t agree that such a thing can be achieved via a state. A state will never offload its power. Its whole shtick is coercion and control, and it will hold onto that at all costs.
Very few anarchists would use this term. The concept of a utopia is rather antithetical to anarchism, by most people’s assessment. “Utopia” implies a perfect society with no room to progress. I doubt such a thing is possible, and I think it might be rather harmful to imagine we’ve arrived at perfection. It would stifle progress, now wouldn’t it?
Well I won’t fault you for being an optimist.
Every great movement in history was started by optimists ;)
But hey, calling the anarchist an “optimist” is progress in itself! “Optimist” wasn’t the word they used for people like Emma Goldman.
Communism requires someone to distribute goods and assign labor. That person is effectively going to be your state at essentially any scale above a family.
And if you want to live in a developed society, you need a state to defend against invasion and colonization, arrest murderers and rapists, and regulate trade (even if trade is only external).
Communism does not require a state. What part of “a stateless, classless society” are you failing to grasp?
Even state authoritarian communist nations at least ostensibly seek a stateless, classless society. That’s the whole fucking point.
And you don’t need a state for those other things either. Do you think anarchists just throw shit at the wall and hope for the best? There are functioning anarchist communities which have no state. If they did, then they wouldn’t be anarchist.
That distribution doesn’t have to be top down. And as communism is a stateless society, the entire concept is predicated on the absence of top down distribution. Read up on democratic confederalism, parecon, project cybersin (admittedly done with the presence of a state but there’s nothing about the system the necessitates one).
The CNT-FAI, zapatistas, rojava, and free territories of ukraine can all speak to decentralized militias. For auth-left examples just check out maoist militant orgs, they drew a ton of inspiration for anarchists in how to manage militias.
Most anarchists are prison abolitionists, I’m not going to summarize that one, look into it if you wish
Market economies can and have existed in horizontal societies. There’s nothing inherently contradictory regarding trade regulations in a horizontal society
Communism is a stateless, moneyless, classless society. In what way is that incompatible with anarchism, the ideology based on the elimination of heirarchy (the state)?
Modulo MLs defining state to mean “any method of organising a society” in which case not even anarchism is stateless because yes of course we’re doing that. The common politological understanding of state is more or less along those lines, too. I propose to not get anything in any twists over definitions.
Anything is only incompatible with anarchism insofar as it inflicts hierarchical power. Certain stuff at least some people call communism most certainly falls under that umbrella (though even Lenin admitted it was state capitalism), others are compatible or at least very close. Classical council communism certainly looks awfully like anarcho-syndicalism.
That’s assuming anarchists agree with Marx’s definition of the state. Which, famously, they don’t. It’s far too nebulous to be useful for analysis, theory or prefigurarion. Marx isn’t the end all be all of left wing politics. Here’s a short video going into more depth on anarchist criticisms of the Marxist conception of the state.
To quote Malatesta “Anarchists, including this writer, have used the word State, and still do, to mean the sum total of the political, legislative, judiciary, military and financial institutions through which the management of their own affairs, the control over their personal behaviour, the responsibility for their personal safety, are taken away from the people and entrusted to others who, by usurpation or delegation, are vested with the powers to make the laws for everything and everybody, and to oblige the people to observe them, if need be, by the use of collective force.”
If you’re going to debate anarchist ideas, you should use anarchist definitions so at the very least you understand what you’re criticizing.
Definitions matter and communism has been understood as a stateless, classless, moneyless society for as long as the term has existed. The only people who would contest that definition are either ignorant or anti-communist actors who have a vested interest in muddying the waters. And I don’t think those individuals should have the final say on what is and isn’t communism.
Lenin didn’t practice or install a communist society, and as you’ve noted, he didn’t intend to. Council communists and even libertarian marxists (Marxist autonomists for example) are both horizontal ideologies and despite some linguistic differences from anarchism, I consider them comrades. They can call it a state if they want, anarchists would disagree. But if the only difference between us and them is definitions, I don’t really see an issue. That’s something that can be debated post-revolution
I know Malatesta’s definition trouble is I consider it just as problematic as the other definitions as it obscures horizontal structures already existing within the overall hierarchical structure, dismissing all of it because it’s part of the overall usurpation of power, while we have way better terms to address the parts that matter (hierarchy and horizontal). Back in Malatesta’s time, the state indeed was horizontal, and peasants organised horizontally apart from the state. Things are way more intertwined and fuzzy now.
But more generally speaking I wanted to point out, to the general audience, that different definitions are in use.
I don’t have a good definition of state, either. I’d even go so far and ask why the hell should anarchists have a definition of state? Why should we cling onto a concept which can either only ever be used in the negative, or bog down to something so generic as the ML one? Neither is theoretically productive.
And on yet another level I’d say that’s all egg-headed gobbeldygook without any practical relevance whatsowhatever. Including my meta-thoughts on this. So I just avoid the term state and talk about power to vs. power over/hierachy vs. horizontal.
I generally agree with you but I do find it useful to have some description of the state. If anything, I’d say Malatesta’s definition is more relevant now than it was when he wrote it. At the very least when speaking to non-anarchists who may not have a grasp on how power functions. It points out specific areas of statehood that are broadly problematic and shifts the conversation towards the lack of political power and self determination present in our everyday lives. It’s a useful rhetorical device, perhaps a bit dated, but most people aren’t familiar with politics outside of electoralism. Having a short description on hand can help others towards radicalization.
Having negative terms isn’t inherently a bad thing either. Every ideology has things they’re for and against. Being able to clearly describe the things we’re against is not only helpful, it’s necessary. We use terms like domination, coercion and heirarchy almost exclusively in the negative, should we get rid of those as well?
It is a bit nerdy lol, but I feel the concept of a state still has relevance in our day to day work, even if onyl as a rhetorical device. It can, and still is, used to write good theory and analysis. At the end of the day, MLs and other authoritarians use the term positively and seek to grow state power. The state is still present in our everyday lives as I (and I think plenty of other anarchists) view it as part of the kyriarchy/mega machine/whatever you want to call it. What would you refer to this particular apparatus as?
The state. But in the usual politigological sense, not a special anarchist one. Anarchists can also talk about bananas, and solve issues and organisational problems regarding bananas, without having a specifically Anarchist definition of bananas: A specifically Anarchist understanding and approach suffices.
More practically speaking: There is a metric buttload of horizontal organisation that can be done in the average liberal democracy, without stepping on the state’s toes but still prefiguring Anarchism, strongly challenging hierarchical realism. Depending on where you are, the state will even actively support your work, even if it’s specifically Anarchist, say, increasing rapport and horizontal enmeshment between civil society actors. If, in such a situation, we’re theoretically fixated on opposition of “the state” we’re, in my mind, by pure equivocation of the Anarchist vs. politicological concepts of state, less effective than possible. “Let’s apply for that state funding pot, it meets our goals and principles” shouldn’t be a taboo thing to say in a meeting, just make sure to have an erm diplomatic corps in place when dealing with entities that are mixed hierarchical/horizontal to avoid becoming hierarchical by osmosis.
Of course, I agree that that might be completely impossible or just too much of an headache depending on how the local state bureaucracy functions. Over here the long march through the institutions has been quite successful, they don’t really have an idea what to really do with those newly-gained positions, but they and with it many parts of the apparatus are amenable. You deal with them just like you’d deal with, what, the Rotary Club: At arm’s length, but not antagonistic on principle (even though they’re a bunch of elitist bourgeois snobs). Antagonism should be directed specifically at hierarchy, and not attack imperfect and only barely principled other structures, those should be left room to see the light for themselves, absorb horizontalism by osmosis.
Or, differently put: If your local city council wants to move a homeless camp to proper housing and to organise that they call you first, not the Salvation Army (six hierarchy steps from “soldier” to “general”) because they think you can do it better you’ve already won, the system just hasn’t fully understood it yet.
If bananas were a central part of anarchist ideology and, through decades of discussion and theory, we came to a more holistic and useful conception of what constitutes a banana than the common understanding of what a banana is, I would argue in favor of using the more distinct definition. But the state is also infinitely more complicated than a banana. It’s character has changed over time, often progressing in ways that past anarchists have predicted. The fact that a hundred year old conception of the state still has legs shows that not only is it accurate, but useful. You could define so many horizontal societies as states using the common definition. If we’re trying to build a society distinct and separate from what currently exists, shouldn’t our language reflect that? It’s important to distinct, concrete markers for progress in our struggles. And the abolition of the modern state is among the top of the list in matters of importance.
Just because we can peacefully coexist and even work with the state apparatus for a time doesn’t mean we don’t seek it’s elimination. If we’re calling our end goal by the same name as the thing we wish to eliminate, it only serves to create confusion. What’s the point of saying “the state is our enemy, we seek to recreate the state but minus all of the things that most people would consider functions of the state?”
Language can also be prefigurative, and part of that is using terms held in common among our group in the way we understand them. It’s far easier to mold this facet of the world we wish to change if we’re not immediately contradicting ourselves and confusing others. Even if you went through the route of focusing strictly on power dynamics and heirarchy without mentioning the state. Eventually it’s going to come up, people are going to ask if we want to get rid of the state/government. What do you say? “We don’t want to get rid of the state, we want to turn it into the state but one that’s completely unrecognizable as a state to the average person”?
You’re doing it. That’s the equivocation I was talking about: We’re not co-existing with the state Malatesta put at the core of his definition, we cannot seek its abolition because it does not exist in that form, any more. We’re not out to eliminate the muncipical organisation of garbage collection yet when you say “eliminate the state apparatus (that we currently can work with)” you’re saying exactly that. Malatesta’s state would never fund a rag-tag group of peasants doing things the lord didn’t order.
Honestly? Yes. If in doubt just say that you want a better democracy: More participatory, more direct, delegates instead of representatives. I have no idea whether there will actually be a revolution or not because noone, anywhere, has ever actually come close to implement what’s possible in liberal democracies, without changing the constitution, without changing laws. Take over at least a municipality before judging how the broader state will react – over here our federal states don’t really care, aren’t allowed to care (subsidiarity), how a municipality collects garbage what’s mandated is that garbage is collected which isn’t really a thing I feel like rebelling against. There’s some doubts I have about constitutional requirements, OTOH the law on municipal constitutions actually does contain an experiment clause, so you could make a council structure municipal law and state courts would uphold it. Is it undignified to have to beg state bureaucracy to let you organise your municipality in the way you want? Possibly, but also remember that the laws are in place to prevent fascists from abolishing municipal democracy, any anarchist federation would have a similar mechanism, “here’s five standard municipal constitutions to choose from, if you like something else and it’s still anarchist we can talk”. In the mean time you can elect people to the official city council that take being a delegate of their neighbourhood council instead of mere representatives seriously. Yes, form a party if that’s what’s needed.
Zen (bear with me) talks about “sudden enlightenment, gradual refinement”, what I want to say is that the revolution might actually already have happened, and what’s necessary now for society is to find our bearings, to cast off old habits, that resistance we still face is not due to hierarchy still being in a strong position, but due to inertia and our own incapability to come up with horizontal modes of organisation to replace existing structures, and the courage to implement them, that this “the state is the enemy” talk is actually a mistake of ours, preventing ourselves from doing what we could because we confuse Malatesta’s state for the one that currently exists.
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Tell me you know nothing about anarchism, communism, fascism, or socialism, without saying you know nothing about anarchism, communism, fascism, or socialism lol…
https://medium.com/international-workers-press/misconceptions-about-communism-2e366f1ef51f
https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionA.html#seca2
https://truthout.org/articles/fascism-is-possible-not-in-spite-of-liberal-capitalism-but-because-of-it/
Are Ancaps aware they could just…suck a dick without the rest right? I mean if dick in mouth is the endgame they could just get right to it.
A state, according to the average anarchist, is a society ruled by rulers who make decisions for you.
Resource distribution and factory management could absolutely be planned without a central planner under socialism/communism/whatever. Capitalism, on the other hand, needs bosses and police officers that protect the boss’s property. Fascism doesn’t require an explanation IMO.
Whoever is making the decisions about distribution and factory management is effectively a state at that point.
There’s also the fact that generally, people want to live in developed nations. You’ll need a military to keep your neighboring countries from taking all your stuff/people/land, and you’ll need some kind of police force to keep those few assholes you have internally from just kidnapping people or stealing everything that isn’t nailed down whatever.
This is objectively false. You can do all these things and not have a state. See: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works
As you have pointed out here, the state will always be the enemy of progress, will stand in the way of and disrupt every attempt at creating a more equitable society (which must exist apart from a state, since a state will always trend toward fascism, without exception).
For this reason, most anarchists start practicing our ideals immediately and do not await a revolution. We try to educate people and inform them. We work imperfectly within desperately broken and inequitable systems to introduce more equity and justice.
Want to see an example of this in action? Look up the Zapatistas.
You’re just not calling it a state.
I love how that was the one moment you weren’t willing to expand your explanation and just left a link. Did you notice yourself accidentally describing a state and decided to not leave the opening?
Whatever diplomatic routine you pull that results in the organization that communists are striving for: that’s the state. An external force with a plan about how people organize. You can call it whatever form of state you want, you can call it a commune, a collective, but whatever method the people use to organize themselves that way is that state.
Think it through: how are decisions made, do we cast a vote? Well contracts, you have a democratic state. Do we use diplomacy? Congrats, you have a diplomatic state. Okay so what if we just want some rules for who does what and we don’t make people make those decisions, congrats you have a constitutional state. Uh oh people aren’t following rules, looks like we need to hire people to enforce those rules… Ever wonder why every communist system ever had an overabundance of police?
The link you posted is completely untrustworthy by the way. I mean, look at this:
Any health brain in the world would throw up alarm bells at this. A classic sophist technique, to prime the conclusions by peppering little lies that make it more palatable. Every study ever performed on paid/unpaid labor has this solved, don’t start pretending it’s true now.
Here’s a hint: unpaid labor is called what exactly? Using unpaid labor to get things done, what’s that called?
Plus, look at how this comment chain started. The original replier made the point that communism fascism and socialism all need a state to exist. Your source, when arguing that you don’t need bosses or state control mentioned a case where 500,000 workers over through a factory and controlled it democratically. He suspiciously doesn’t mention how long it lasted, only that it happened post WW1. He also doesn’t mention that that’s immediately before the fascist takeover of Italy, in which Mussolini cooperated with many of these violent revolutionaries called syndicates, and they were unproductive without right control.
I hold the same sentiment as you in regards to the state, I have a natural distrust towards it I suppose. However, I do not agree that this is at all compatible with an ideology that necessitates maximal cooperation. It’s not any wonder to me at all that the regimes who felt most passionately about how people should cooperate and live together end up the most oppressive