I had the same oddly sarcastic impulse - “oh, brave take”. But then I noticed that’s only because of how stridently leftist this space is. Then I wandered away, too unbothered to even finish replying
The problem with both anarchism and communism is that while they can work at the smaller scales, at the bigger ones they become more and more vulnerable. Both can pretty easily devolve into plain authoritarianism. I’m a big fan of anarchy as a concept, but i don’t see how it could work on a geopolitical scale.
I’d say anarchism has more self-checks against authoritarianism compared to capitalism or “communism” of the Soviet or Chinese variety. In the end, it’s all about reducing the reliance on hierarchies and there’s no single right way to do it.
Getting rid of hierarchies certainly helps, yeah… The problem is though, that a political power without a hierarchy will inherently lose to a hierarchical one at least in terms of military power, which is geopoliticianeese for “i’m free to take by whomever!”
Hierarchy does not inherently translate to military power. Anarchism is simply a different form of organization, having enough people/resources/power isn’t dependent on specific form of organization.
No it doesn’t, but military is authoritarian by design, it will be much less effective without a strict hierarchy.
Case in point — greek polises. Each of them individually weren’t quite anarchist per se, but how they interacted with each other, and how they stopped being independent entities in the end is very illustrative of what happens to geopolitical entities without an established hierarchy.
I mean this is sort of backdooring itself into the trove of arguments and theory around why a communist revolution has to be an international liberation movement, and why you need a revolutionary vanguard cause you can’t hope to achieve communism while capitalist imperialism is still around.
Which is precisely why the question of socialism/communism or Anarchism and how to achieve it goes beyond just seizing control of the state or reorganizing production and the relationship with the state within national borders. It’s also became heavily about surviving and overcoming an international system of capitalist power that has both the material incentive and institutional capacity to prevent those alternatives from succeeding.
Except even the world revolution can’t solve the issue of degradation into a plain-old authoritarianism. Speaking in analogies, both communism and anarchism, as geopolitical regimes, create a power vacuum. A sterile room, ridden of all the bacteria, but neither of them has an answer on how to keep the room sterile after without having to overthrow yet another government.
[…] It’s also became heavily about surviving and overcoming an international system of capitalist power […]
As i said in my initial comment, both ideologies can work on smaller (than a geopolitical one) scales. Anarchism is already basically intrinsic to any friend/family group in some capacity. Help efforts, no matter whether they were started by ideological anarchists, exist, and nobody bats an eye about that. That’s just not what i’m discussing here. I’m discussing the realism of a communist and/or anarchist state.
Depends on the definition given. I’m not devolving into arguing about linguistics. If you didn’t understand what i was trying to say, then feel free to ask and I’ll clarify. If you did understand and are just being pedantic, while switching the topic of conversation, then it’s just rude,
The only implementation of communism that was actually tried long-term is Marxist-Leninism (aka Stalinism), which is both uniquely authoritarian and basically heretical. Everything else was crushed either by the capitalist West or by the USSR itself, so really the jury is out on what a more normal attempt at socialism would actually look like.
Yes, communism is yet to be ever implemented in reality, but i see no problem with mentally evaluating the idea before implementing it. After all, do you jump off the roof before looking down, or you look down before jumping? I’m sticking with the second one, and if you’re not, i suggest you call your local suicide prevention hotline.
Communism, no matter the flavor, will anyway be laying somewhere on a spectrum between centralization and decentralization, so it will be vulnerable in any case. If you can imagine an idea where it isn’t, i wholeheartedly ought you to share it.
Makhno was right all along
I don’t think that was ever in doubt.
I had the same oddly sarcastic impulse - “oh, brave take”. But then I noticed that’s only because of how stridently leftist this space is. Then I wandered away, too unbothered to even finish replying
The problem with both anarchism and communism is that while they can work at the smaller scales, at the bigger ones they become more and more vulnerable. Both can pretty easily devolve into plain authoritarianism. I’m a big fan of anarchy as a concept, but i don’t see how it could work on a geopolitical scale.
I’d say anarchism has more self-checks against authoritarianism compared to capitalism or “communism” of the Soviet or Chinese variety. In the end, it’s all about reducing the reliance on hierarchies and there’s no single right way to do it.
Getting rid of hierarchies certainly helps, yeah… The problem is though, that a political power without a hierarchy will inherently lose to a hierarchical one at least in terms of military power, which is geopoliticianeese for “i’m free to take by whomever!”
Hierarchy does not inherently translate to military power. Anarchism is simply a different form of organization, having enough people/resources/power isn’t dependent on specific form of organization.
No it doesn’t, but military is authoritarian by design, it will be much less effective without a strict hierarchy.
Case in point — greek polises. Each of them individually weren’t quite anarchist per se, but how they interacted with each other, and how they stopped being independent entities in the end is very illustrative of what happens to geopolitical entities without an established hierarchy.
I mean this is sort of backdooring itself into the trove of arguments and theory around why a communist revolution has to be an international liberation movement, and why you need a revolutionary vanguard cause you can’t hope to achieve communism while capitalist imperialism is still around.
Which is precisely why the question of socialism/communism or Anarchism and how to achieve it goes beyond just seizing control of the state or reorganizing production and the relationship with the state within national borders. It’s also became heavily about surviving and overcoming an international system of capitalist power that has both the material incentive and institutional capacity to prevent those alternatives from succeeding.
Except even the world revolution can’t solve the issue of degradation into a plain-old authoritarianism. Speaking in analogies, both communism and anarchism, as geopolitical regimes, create a power vacuum. A sterile room, ridden of all the bacteria, but neither of them has an answer on how to keep the room sterile after without having to overthrow yet another government.
As i said in my initial comment, both ideologies can work on smaller (than a geopolitical one) scales. Anarchism is already basically intrinsic to any friend/family group in some capacity. Help efforts, no matter whether they were started by ideological anarchists, exist, and nobody bats an eye about that. That’s just not what i’m discussing here. I’m discussing the realism of a communist and/or anarchist state.
“anarchist state” is a self contradiction
Depends on the definition given. I’m not devolving into arguing about linguistics. If you didn’t understand what i was trying to say, then feel free to ask and I’ll clarify. If you did understand and are just being pedantic, while switching the topic of conversation, then it’s just rude,
The only implementation of communism that was actually tried long-term is Marxist-Leninism (aka Stalinism), which is both uniquely authoritarian and basically heretical. Everything else was crushed either by the capitalist West or by the USSR itself, so really the jury is out on what a more normal attempt at socialism would actually look like.
Yes, communism is yet to be ever implemented in reality, but i see no problem with mentally evaluating the idea before implementing it. After all, do you jump off the roof before looking down, or you look down before jumping? I’m sticking with the second one, and if you’re not, i suggest you call your local suicide prevention hotline.
Communism, no matter the flavor, will anyway be laying somewhere on a spectrum between centralization and decentralization, so it will be vulnerable in any case. If you can imagine an idea where it isn’t, i wholeheartedly ought you to share it.
Groups remain small
Small divided groups are inherently easier to subjugate. The saying “Divide and conquer” exists for a reason.