That doesn’t feel like a good argument, there are many reasons why a government descends into any of those, for one the CIA is known to disrupt any socialist/communist attempt at government and that can and did cause brutalism.
I mean if any attempt to give an alternative to the suffocating order of power is going to have to survive against the pressure of such power of course the only “successful” ones will have traits of authoritarism and strict even violent control of power itself.
Now don’t misunderstand me I’m not saying that authoritarism is good or even that communism would certainly be able to lead to a better rule, I’m arguing that we don’t know that because there are many other factors that can lead to the failures of a system.
Also really a blanket statement followed by generic stereotypes meant to undermine any other opinion will not lead to any intelligent discussion and betterment of any of the sides, we can do so much better.
I’m arguing that communism could work and that not working in our world doesn’t disprove it, for all that matters.
I also think that the concept of failure needs a little attention, I mean you could argue that democracy failed too, it’s supposed to give everyone an equal voice in the system and yet rich people have an incomparably stronger pull on elections and therefore decisions.
I would argue that humans value collectivism more than individualism, the last few centuries would see to go against this notion but for most of humanity we have lived in close knitted communities and valued our dépendance on each others. Even now the most individualist and powerful human would die in matter of months without help from the community (think of the water distribution and sanitation, no water = no food = death).
Thank you for arguing your point though, I appreciate it and it gave me very much food for thought, I’m not even denying that communism failed, it did, it has had its successes but it mostly failed it’s purpose, as did democracy. One of them pulled it off better though, of course democracy.
Why do you think communism “lead” to authoritarianism? Do you think communism is inherently authoritarian? Is the distinction between Marxism-Leninism and Anarcho-Communism and other ‘communisms’ meaningless to you?
I’ll bite. Anarcho-communism and ML are distinct in theory, but in practice would converge to generic authoritarian communism.
Let’s think about anarcho communism. Anarcho Communists call for the abolition of private property and collectively owned goods items and services. In a utopian society that would be pretty sweet, but in practical circumstances there would have to be someone enforcing this order (i.e. a state for all intents and purposes even if you don’t want to call it that). This makes the entire theory paradoxical and fundamentally equivalent with ML which is a more honest version of communism which recognises that the boot of the state is required to create any kind of societal order.
The state is needed to enforce private property, not the lack of it.
Critically, you assume that authority is required for order, so obviously you’re unable to envision whatever it might be that anarchists are getting at.
Sure, communism is an ideal that does not exist in practice currently, but the point of an ideal is to work towards it. The “anarcho” part specifies complete opposition to authority in praxis as well. Strategies could include unionising, community building, mutual aid, permablitzing, FOSS, copyleft, and whatever else can undermine the current power structures while maintaining anarchist principles. Which explicitly excludes Marxist-Leninist strategies of coopting the state, or forming any other kind of heirarchy.
It would also be needed to enforce the lack of private property as that implies it would be illegal for private individuals to own their own property, unless everybody in the world agreed anarcho communism was the way forward of course. But as human beings are still arguing about religion I can’t envision a world in which we agree on something as profound as that collectively.
In your scenario the mechanisms you listed such as unions will become a de facto state.
Using the state to make private property “illegal” might be a possible strategy, but it certainly isn’t an anarchist one.
Hypothetically, the moment that the state doesn’t exist, private property would be unenforceable/meaningless. How the state might be abolished is another question. While marxist-leninists might opt for a “trust me bro the state will dissolve once we reach true communism” strategy, anarchists again would not. Obviously it’s a tough question and an even tougher endeavour but it’s not something anarchists don’t have answers for.
Anarchist praxis is more grassroots focused, because obviously anarchy/anarcho-communism can’t happen overnight, and requires a profound change in social values. If you choose to believe that it’s impossible, I can’t blame you, but I would like to ask why.
Also you use private property and “property” interchangeably, but there’s a difference between personal property and private property. Abolishing private property isn’t about taking away your personal house and toothbrush, it’s about abolishing landlords, factory owners, and other “private” ownership of public/communal spaces.
Regarding unions, it depends whether or not they’ve been structured specifically without hierarchy in mind. In any case the point is that anarchist praxis is diverse and decentralised.
Sounds pretty good, but it wouldn’t be sustainable. Someone would eventually consolidate power. There would be a union that oversees and regulates the local unions and you’re right back where you were. Humans are shitty and will make power grabs when presented with the opportunity.
That is why for any such society to exist there must be a widespread cultural belief in opposing authority. All of the members of society need to call out those who try to consolidate power. The entire community must be opposed to any individual power grab. They must not be given the opportunity. That is the only way to sustain the system.
That’s just what you choose to believe. These’s no scientific proof that they make up some kind of transcendent truth about the human condition.
It’s entirely possible that the humans traits of greed and selfishness tend to become much more pronounced when humans are subjected to systems that reward those qualities.
Also, greed and selfishness are distinct from self-interest. And besides, self-interest doesn’t explain the entirety of human behaviour either.
Perhaps other systems that reward collaboration and egalitarianism and autonomy are not only possible, but also more sustainable that the shitshow we’ve got now, and all we need is for enough people to get out of the mental rut of believing capitalist bullshit about “humanity” and “life” just because it’s the status quo.
You lack substance, attack the idea not who voiced it. I am NO communist, but you are intellectually dishonest.
If you don’t like communism (the idea) critisize the idea. You don’t even seem to have read “das Kaptial” so how can you even know what Communism even is to begin with?
Authoritarianism, brutalism and opression are independent of economic model. In argentinia they had the most free market capitalism ever in the 80s and they are guilty of all three: Authoritarianism, brutalism and opression.
Please do not conflate these things. The idea and a person claiming to implement that idea are not the same thing. Communism is an idea. Tell us what exactly about that idea you take issue with. Nobody is saying USSR was an El Dorado of free speech. Tbh I would probably have been murdered in the USSR but I probably would have shared the same fate in many other places like post ware spain …
Democracy wouldn’t work if you tried to set it up in middle ages Europe either. All that proves is that the dominant kingdoms would close ranks and sabotage you, because you’re an obvious threat to their power.
It doesn’t mean that democracy is a bad system, or that it would never work. Although plenty of cogent and well lettered people over the centuries have spilled boatloads of ink arguing it was “unnatural” (goes against human nature) or “naive” (it might be nice, but the people can’t be trusted). But it still happened. It just took a while to get there.
I’m a bit of a gradualist in that respect, I admit. But that’s another topic.
Anyone who makes a wack generic statement like that can’t be particularly “intelligent” either
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That doesn’t feel like a good argument, there are many reasons why a government descends into any of those, for one the CIA is known to disrupt any socialist/communist attempt at government and that can and did cause brutalism.
I mean if any attempt to give an alternative to the suffocating order of power is going to have to survive against the pressure of such power of course the only “successful” ones will have traits of authoritarism and strict even violent control of power itself.
Now don’t misunderstand me I’m not saying that authoritarism is good or even that communism would certainly be able to lead to a better rule, I’m arguing that we don’t know that because there are many other factors that can lead to the failures of a system.
Also really a blanket statement followed by generic stereotypes meant to undermine any other opinion will not lead to any intelligent discussion and betterment of any of the sides, we can do so much better.
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I’m arguing that communism could work and that not working in our world doesn’t disprove it, for all that matters.
I also think that the concept of failure needs a little attention, I mean you could argue that democracy failed too, it’s supposed to give everyone an equal voice in the system and yet rich people have an incomparably stronger pull on elections and therefore decisions.
I would argue that humans value collectivism more than individualism, the last few centuries would see to go against this notion but for most of humanity we have lived in close knitted communities and valued our dépendance on each others. Even now the most individualist and powerful human would die in matter of months without help from the community (think of the water distribution and sanitation, no water = no food = death).
Thank you for arguing your point though, I appreciate it and it gave me very much food for thought, I’m not even denying that communism failed, it did, it has had its successes but it mostly failed it’s purpose, as did democracy. One of them pulled it off better though, of course democracy.
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You don’t have the foggiest idea what you are even talking about, do you?
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FTFY.
Why do you think communism “lead” to authoritarianism? Do you think communism is inherently authoritarian? Is the distinction between Marxism-Leninism and Anarcho-Communism and other ‘communisms’ meaningless to you?
What do you think communism means?
I’ll bite. Anarcho-communism and ML are distinct in theory, but in practice would converge to generic authoritarian communism.
Let’s think about anarcho communism. Anarcho Communists call for the abolition of private property and collectively owned goods items and services. In a utopian society that would be pretty sweet, but in practical circumstances there would have to be someone enforcing this order (i.e. a state for all intents and purposes even if you don’t want to call it that). This makes the entire theory paradoxical and fundamentally equivalent with ML which is a more honest version of communism which recognises that the boot of the state is required to create any kind of societal order.
The state is needed to enforce private property, not the lack of it.
Critically, you assume that authority is required for order, so obviously you’re unable to envision whatever it might be that anarchists are getting at.
Sure, communism is an ideal that does not exist in practice currently, but the point of an ideal is to work towards it. The “anarcho” part specifies complete opposition to authority in praxis as well. Strategies could include unionising, community building, mutual aid, permablitzing, FOSS, copyleft, and whatever else can undermine the current power structures while maintaining anarchist principles. Which explicitly excludes Marxist-Leninist strategies of coopting the state, or forming any other kind of heirarchy.
It would also be needed to enforce the lack of private property as that implies it would be illegal for private individuals to own their own property, unless everybody in the world agreed anarcho communism was the way forward of course. But as human beings are still arguing about religion I can’t envision a world in which we agree on something as profound as that collectively.
In your scenario the mechanisms you listed such as unions will become a de facto state.
Using the state to make private property “illegal” might be a possible strategy, but it certainly isn’t an anarchist one.
Hypothetically, the moment that the state doesn’t exist, private property would be unenforceable/meaningless. How the state might be abolished is another question. While marxist-leninists might opt for a “trust me bro the state will dissolve once we reach true communism” strategy, anarchists again would not. Obviously it’s a tough question and an even tougher endeavour but it’s not something anarchists don’t have answers for.
Anarchist praxis is more grassroots focused, because obviously anarchy/anarcho-communism can’t happen overnight, and requires a profound change in social values. If you choose to believe that it’s impossible, I can’t blame you, but I would like to ask why.
Also you use private property and “property” interchangeably, but there’s a difference between personal property and private property. Abolishing private property isn’t about taking away your personal house and toothbrush, it’s about abolishing landlords, factory owners, and other “private” ownership of public/communal spaces.
Regarding unions, it depends whether or not they’ve been structured specifically without hierarchy in mind. In any case the point is that anarchist praxis is diverse and decentralised.
Actually an entire state made out of democratic worker unions sounds pretty good. Although I personally would prefer no state.
Sounds pretty good, but it wouldn’t be sustainable. Someone would eventually consolidate power. There would be a union that oversees and regulates the local unions and you’re right back where you were. Humans are shitty and will make power grabs when presented with the opportunity.
That is why for any such society to exist there must be a widespread cultural belief in opposing authority. All of the members of society need to call out those who try to consolidate power. The entire community must be opposed to any individual power grab. They must not be given the opportunity. That is the only way to sustain the system.
Sounds like council communism I think?
Communism is as much of a fairy tale as the Free Market.
For exactly the same reasons: humans are greedy and selfish.
That’s just what you choose to believe. These’s no scientific proof that they make up some kind of transcendent truth about the human condition.
It’s entirely possible that the humans traits of greed and selfishness tend to become much more pronounced when humans are subjected to systems that reward those qualities.
Also, greed and selfishness are distinct from self-interest. And besides, self-interest doesn’t explain the entirety of human behaviour either.
Perhaps other systems that reward collaboration and egalitarianism and autonomy are not only possible, but also more sustainable that the shitshow we’ve got now, and all we need is for enough people to get out of the mental rut of believing capitalist bullshit about “humanity” and “life” just because it’s the status quo.
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Name a country where communism was adopted in the first place
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You haven’t used any of the terms in that comment correctly, amazing.
I can’t provide you with examples if I don’t know what you think communism means.
You lack substance, attack the idea not who voiced it. I am NO communist, but you are intellectually dishonest. If you don’t like communism (the idea) critisize the idea. You don’t even seem to have read “das Kaptial” so how can you even know what Communism even is to begin with?
Authoritarianism, brutalism and opression are independent of economic model. In argentinia they had the most free market capitalism ever in the 80s and they are guilty of all three: Authoritarianism, brutalism and opression.
Please do not conflate these things. The idea and a person claiming to implement that idea are not the same thing. Communism is an idea. Tell us what exactly about that idea you take issue with. Nobody is saying USSR was an El Dorado of free speech. Tbh I would probably have been murdered in the USSR but I probably would have shared the same fate in many other places like post ware spain …
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… name one country where communism was adopted in the first place lol
Democracy wouldn’t work if you tried to set it up in middle ages Europe either. All that proves is that the dominant kingdoms would close ranks and sabotage you, because you’re an obvious threat to their power.
It doesn’t mean that democracy is a bad system, or that it would never work. Although plenty of cogent and well lettered people over the centuries have spilled boatloads of ink arguing it was “unnatural” (goes against human nature) or “naive” (it might be nice, but the people can’t be trusted). But it still happened. It just took a while to get there.
I’m a bit of a gradualist in that respect, I admit. But that’s another topic.
Says the person so smart they capitalize the word communism.
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