To be clear, the vast majority of Marxists support the PRC and USSR. The only major exceptions are Trots, who are mostly found in the Western Left due to their anti-AES slant aligning with the overall liberal Western hegemony, and small pockets in South America. Trots have produced no successful revolutions, so they pose little threat. Though I do think it’s funny that Trots love newspapers.
As for “anti-authoritarian,” I’m not really sure what that means unless you are either an Anarchist or have an arbitrary level of government you deem unacceptable.
Anarchist. I lean somewhere between anarcho communist and libertarian socialist. In the most basic sense, I’m suspicious of power because I believe power corrupts and no system of economics or government is immune to this.
Can you elaborate? Moreover, can you explain why you believe Anarchism to be better at solving this percieved problem?
Corruption exists in all systems, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fought against. Letting perfect utopia be the enemy of massive progress is fatal. Even in an Anarchist system, there can and would be differences in power and access to resources, only without a spread of power across the system.
I don’t really wish to debate this. Marxism so far has involved centralized power. Centralized power is easy to manipulate and corrupt. Anarchism at its core is decentralized power. Not impossible to manipulate and corrupt but more difficult.
Most people want to be left alone with the fruits of their labor. Anarchism is more likely to accomplish this.
Marxists believe that Central Planning and Public Ownership is necessary in the long run, yes. This centralism, however, derives its power from the masses, and flows from below. It isn’t a cabal of all-powerful and unaccountable individuals in theory nor in practice. Anarchism, meanwhile, only has theory, and not yet practice outside of a few short periods. Anarchism at its core retains the ability for different cooperatives or communes to develop at different rates and allow the resurgance of Capitalism on the basis of those differences, Marxism does not.
Most people want to be left alone with the fruits of their labor
Most people in the West want that, thanks to the prevailing ideologies surrounding individualism under Capitalism stemming from liberalism. In different modes of production, this is not the standard.
Anarchism is more likely to accomplish this.
Why? On the contrary, it seems to me that it’s less likely to accomplish anything, so far. Anarchists do great work, and many are excellent comrades, but to proclaim Marxism as “authoritarian” and Anarchism as “more likely” to do anything is a failure to recognize the historic shortcomings thus far of Anarchist theory and praxis.
Your first statement is pretty silly. For starters, Anarchists have had nowhere near the level of influence achieved by Marxists, so they haven’t even had a chance to make mistakes. Secondly, who are you referring to when you say Communists have “murdered millions?” Fascists? The Nazis during WWII, 80% of which were killed by the antifascist Red Army? The fascist slaver Batista and his goons? The landlords? Tsarists? Elaborate, because your only argument here is that Anarchists get to remain “pure” because they have never had widespread success. This is pointless sectarianism, Marxists are your allies.
Secondly, the Marxist conception of a State is not the same as the Anarchist conception. For Marxists, the State is a tool of class oppression, while for Anarchists the State is a monopoly on violence. Communism is a world Socialist Republic, because full public ownership eliminates class distinctions and thus the state. The State withers away as it gradually appropriates Private Property and folds it into the public sector.
When ultimately it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself superfluous. As soon as there is no social class to be held in subjection any longer, as soon as class domination and the struggle for individual existence based on the anarchy of production existing up to now are eliminated together with the collisions and excesses arising from them, there is nothing more to repress, nothing necessitating a special repressive force, a state. The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away 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 away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase “a free people’s state” with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
To be clear, the vast majority of Marxists support the PRC and USSR. The only major exceptions are Trots, who are mostly found in the Western Left due to their anti-AES slant aligning with the overall liberal Western hegemony, and small pockets in South America. Trots have produced no successful revolutions, so they pose little threat. Though I do think it’s funny that Trots love newspapers.
As for “anti-authoritarian,” I’m not really sure what that means unless you are either an Anarchist or have an arbitrary level of government you deem unacceptable.
Anarchist. I lean somewhere between anarcho communist and libertarian socialist. In the most basic sense, I’m suspicious of power because I believe power corrupts and no system of economics or government is immune to this.
Why do you believe Anarchism is better at solving this problem than Marxism?
Marxism already proved itself corruptable.
Can you elaborate? Moreover, can you explain why you believe Anarchism to be better at solving this percieved problem?
Corruption exists in all systems, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fought against. Letting perfect utopia be the enemy of massive progress is fatal. Even in an Anarchist system, there can and would be differences in power and access to resources, only without a spread of power across the system.
I don’t really wish to debate this. Marxism so far has involved centralized power. Centralized power is easy to manipulate and corrupt. Anarchism at its core is decentralized power. Not impossible to manipulate and corrupt but more difficult.
Most people want to be left alone with the fruits of their labor. Anarchism is more likely to accomplish this.
Marxists believe that Central Planning and Public Ownership is necessary in the long run, yes. This centralism, however, derives its power from the masses, and flows from below. It isn’t a cabal of all-powerful and unaccountable individuals in theory nor in practice. Anarchism, meanwhile, only has theory, and not yet practice outside of a few short periods. Anarchism at its core retains the ability for different cooperatives or communes to develop at different rates and allow the resurgance of Capitalism on the basis of those differences, Marxism does not.
Most people in the West want that, thanks to the prevailing ideologies surrounding individualism under Capitalism stemming from liberalism. In different modes of production, this is not the standard.
Why? On the contrary, it seems to me that it’s less likely to accomplish anything, so far. Anarchists do great work, and many are excellent comrades, but to proclaim Marxism as “authoritarian” and Anarchism as “more likely” to do anything is a failure to recognize the historic shortcomings thus far of Anarchist theory and praxis.
We don’t have to debate, but I do think you should give this more thought. If you want to learn more about Marxism, I made an introductory Marxist reading list you can check out. Open for feedback!
Anarchists have yet to murder millions, unlike communists who seem to need a state to become stateless
Your first statement is pretty silly. For starters, Anarchists have had nowhere near the level of influence achieved by Marxists, so they haven’t even had a chance to make mistakes. Secondly, who are you referring to when you say Communists have “murdered millions?” Fascists? The Nazis during WWII, 80% of which were killed by the antifascist Red Army? The fascist slaver Batista and his goons? The landlords? Tsarists? Elaborate, because your only argument here is that Anarchists get to remain “pure” because they have never had widespread success. This is pointless sectarianism, Marxists are your allies.
Secondly, the Marxist conception of a State is not the same as the Anarchist conception. For Marxists, the State is a tool of class oppression, while for Anarchists the State is a monopoly on violence. Communism is a world Socialist Republic, because full public ownership eliminates class distinctions and thus the state. The State withers away as it gradually appropriates Private Property and folds it into the public sector.
-Engels, Socialism and Scientific