There is such a severe misunderstanding of anarchism among socialists that not even self described anarchists know what anarchism is.
I’ve always been under the impression that the difference between Marxists and anarchists was in the need for a transitory dictatorship of the proletariat to prevent reaction. Any issues an anarchist’s ideology would face besides reaction are issues Marxists will have to deal with anyways if they’re successful.
I don’t think there is that much widespread misunderstanding of anarchism among Marxists. The differences aren’t just in the tactics to achieve communism but are fundamental philosophical differences that are present at the very root of each movement. Anarchism is fundamentally an individualistic and idealistic ideology that is incompatible with dialectical materialist Marxism.
I don’t think that Bakunin is representative of most anarchist’s beliefs these days. Many of them would definitely be willing to push for reforms in bourgeoisie states to amass more worker power as a secondary tactic, a distinctly more Marx opinion than Bakunin.
I’m also going to commit a grievous sin, and say that Stalin is wrong in the exact same way a libertarian would be in that text. The individual and the mass have the exact same interests, the same character, as masses are made entirely of individuals. More recent schools of anarchism even emphasize this, with anarchists insisting that appreciation for and the liberation of the masses is essential to the liberation of the individual, that both struggles are truly identical. “For the masses” and “for the individual” are not irreconciliable, and if they were, it would imply that liberation of the mass hurts individuals… something that is blatantly untrue. Stalin‘s one and only mistake in that text is to assume that the two principles he listed are valid, and actually mean anything different from one another. Starting from an (understandably) faulty premise, Stalin is incapable of coming to a correct conclusion except through coincidence.
I say understandable, because with a quick skimming of the text, it seems that Stalin is fundamentally arguing against the faulty conclusions that anarchists drew from their own ideology at the time. I am convinced that Anarchism’s true flaws lie in contradictions with itself, flaws that would reveal an entirely different philosophy (possibly Marxism, true) if analyzed and reconciled.
And, finally, the post we’re literally talking on shows a fundamental misunderstanding of anarchism. How is it some kind of own that an anarchist doesn’t have a solid plan for space travel? Why is it presumed that everyone should want to have a solid plan for space travel? Why is our desire for space travel seen as automatically more valid than a desire to just exist without oppression? Arguing that anarchists couldn’t achieve space travel doesn’t dismiss or debunk their beliefs, quite the contrary, our belief that it can highlights that we have a fundamentally maladjusted view of anarchism.
I don’t think that Bakunin is representative of most anarchist’s beliefs these days. Many of them would definitely be willing to push for reforms in bourgeoisie states to amass more worker power as a secondary tactic, a distinctly more Marx opinion than Bakunin.
I don’t know about Bakunin’s status among anarchists today but it’s not that important. This whole point is irrelevant, the important point is the underlying philosophy and world-view which is still the same.
The individual and the mass have the exact same interests, the same character, as masses are made entirely of individuals.
Not all the individuals in a mass have the same needs and interests. Classes exist but even within classes there are contradictions. The mass is thoroughly heterogeneous. Individuals make up the mass but they don’t exist as abstract entities outside of the mass. It’s a dialectical relationship - individuals exist only as parts of the mass. Some vague abstract freedom of the individual is not compatible with the material liberation of the masses. We evolved as social creatures and continue to exist as such, we can’t just yell about “individual freedom” while completely ignoring the material conditions we exist in. To quote Marx: ‘“Liberation” is an historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions, the development of industry, commerce, agriculture…’
anarchists insisting that appreciation for and the liberation of the masses is essential to the liberation of the individual
Anarchism as an ideology cannot achieve the long-term liberation of the masses. Historically through practice we know that Marxism is the path towards this.
it would imply that liberation of the mass hurts individuals… something that is blatantly untrue
I don’t see how this is implied anywhere here. The opposite of this, however, is true. The whole premise of liberalism is some vague idealistic freedom of the individual which in reality includes the freedom to enslave and exploit others.
I am convinced that Anarchism’s true flaws lie in contradictions with itself, flaws that would reveal an entirely different philosophy (possibly Marxism, true) if analyzed and reconciled.
You’re basically saying if anarchism was correct, it would be Marxism which is true but a meaningless statement. Anarchists are more than welcome to learn and become Marxists but this doesn’t save the ideology of anarchism form being incorrect.
And, finally, the post we’re literally talking on shows a fundamental misunderstanding of anarchism.
It’s just a meme which does expose some of the flaws and contradictions in anarchism but it’s by no means a theoretical analysis of it. Marxist analyses of anarchism have been done (I linked some of them in my previous comment) and all reach the same conclusion. The ideology of anarchism is not salvageable because it is fundamentally flawed.
How is it some kind of own that an anarchist doesn’t have a solid plan for space travel? Why is it presumed that everyone should want to have a solid plan for space travel? Why is our desire for space travel seen as automatically more valid than a desire to just exist without oppression?
Space travel here is just a bit of an exaggerated example but it really can be substituted by any sufficiently complex industry or endeavor which is necessary for the continuation of society. We cannot go backwards, we have reached a certain industrial, scientific and technological complexity which we keep advancing and which is necessary to feed, house, and educate all the people on Earth and is necessary for our daily lives to continue functioning properly. After capitalism, these things will still need to happen and this will require further organization and societal structures or institutions which when communist build them, anarchist call out as bad. Not to mention the protection of such a society from counterrevolution or outside imperialist forces.
Arguing that anarchists couldn’t achieve space travel doesn’t dismiss or debunk their beliefs
Saying that anarchist couldn’t achieve space travel follows directly from a debunk of their beliefs because in order to actually achieve space travel you need to first have a successful revolution and then a successful society which can fulfill all the basic needs of its people and then deal with all the technological and scientific work necessary for space travel which the anarchist ideology does not provide a basis for. If anarchists actually create a materially plausible plan for any of this, it basically just sound like a Marxist type socialism and not anarchism.
These are good points. I was going to make similar ones but you’ve covered it.
In addition, self-proclaimed ‘anarchists’ are free to answer that they aren’t interested in space programs. Maybe that would make them anarcho-primitivists. But if they reject that version and claim to have a plan to go into space, the answer in the OP meme is woefully lacking.
Besides, no space programs (not just space ‘travel’) means no satellites. No satellites means no more emergency services. And good luck mapping and responding to climate change. Maybe the plan is just to make do with the satellites that already exist. But how long will they last without maintenance? That option sounds like a slow decline into another dark age where humanity’s scientific advancement has long since peaked.
I don’t know about Bakunin’s status among anarchists today
He’s still mentioned basically every time anyone asks about anarchist theory so i would say he’s significant. Of course between “mentioned” and “actually being read” there is a huge gap, especially in case of anarchists.
I agree with most of what you say, but I don’t think it’s entirely incompatible what I’m thinking. I think I’m just shitty at communicating what I’m thinking here
“Transitory dictatorship” is left pretty vague by Marx. But what he is talking about class dictatorship, not dictatorship in the literal sense of one person in a country having unlimited political authority. There are so so many anarchists and liberals that do not understand this because they continue to conflate the word “dictator” in the way Marx meant with how Western capitalist states weaponize the word.
Dictatorship of the Proletariat is seen as a law within Marxism the same way there are laws within other scientific fields. It’s the acknowledgement and observation that after political power is seized by the working class, class relations do not automatically just disappear. The working class will need to sustain and protect the revolution until those class relations from the previous mode of production wither away over generations. History has shown us this since the beginning.
A centralized vanguard party is Lenin’s well-tested contribution to Marxist theory on how to achieve and protect a socialist revolution under seige by imperialism. But that doesn’t exclude the possibilities of other tactics in the future.
There is such a severe misunderstanding of anarchism among socialists that not even self described anarchists know what anarchism is.
I’ve always been under the impression that the difference between Marxists and anarchists was in the need for a transitory dictatorship of the proletariat to prevent reaction. Any issues an anarchist’s ideology would face besides reaction are issues Marxists will have to deal with anyways if they’re successful.
I don’t think there is that much widespread misunderstanding of anarchism among Marxists. The differences aren’t just in the tactics to achieve communism but are fundamental philosophical differences that are present at the very root of each movement. Anarchism is fundamentally an individualistic and idealistic ideology that is incompatible with dialectical materialist Marxism.
I don’t think that Bakunin is representative of most anarchist’s beliefs these days. Many of them would definitely be willing to push for reforms in bourgeoisie states to amass more worker power as a secondary tactic, a distinctly more Marx opinion than Bakunin.
I’m also going to commit a grievous sin, and say that Stalin is wrong in the exact same way a libertarian would be in that text. The individual and the mass have the exact same interests, the same character, as masses are made entirely of individuals. More recent schools of anarchism even emphasize this, with anarchists insisting that appreciation for and the liberation of the masses is essential to the liberation of the individual, that both struggles are truly identical. “For the masses” and “for the individual” are not irreconciliable, and if they were, it would imply that liberation of the mass hurts individuals… something that is blatantly untrue. Stalin‘s one and only mistake in that text is to assume that the two principles he listed are valid, and actually mean anything different from one another. Starting from an (understandably) faulty premise, Stalin is incapable of coming to a correct conclusion except through coincidence.
I say understandable, because with a quick skimming of the text, it seems that Stalin is fundamentally arguing against the faulty conclusions that anarchists drew from their own ideology at the time. I am convinced that Anarchism’s true flaws lie in contradictions with itself, flaws that would reveal an entirely different philosophy (possibly Marxism, true) if analyzed and reconciled.
And, finally, the post we’re literally talking on shows a fundamental misunderstanding of anarchism. How is it some kind of own that an anarchist doesn’t have a solid plan for space travel? Why is it presumed that everyone should want to have a solid plan for space travel? Why is our desire for space travel seen as automatically more valid than a desire to just exist without oppression? Arguing that anarchists couldn’t achieve space travel doesn’t dismiss or debunk their beliefs, quite the contrary, our belief that it can highlights that we have a fundamentally maladjusted view of anarchism.
I don’t know about Bakunin’s status among anarchists today but it’s not that important. This whole point is irrelevant, the important point is the underlying philosophy and world-view which is still the same.
Not all the individuals in a mass have the same needs and interests. Classes exist but even within classes there are contradictions. The mass is thoroughly heterogeneous. Individuals make up the mass but they don’t exist as abstract entities outside of the mass. It’s a dialectical relationship - individuals exist only as parts of the mass. Some vague abstract freedom of the individual is not compatible with the material liberation of the masses. We evolved as social creatures and continue to exist as such, we can’t just yell about “individual freedom” while completely ignoring the material conditions we exist in. To quote Marx: ‘“Liberation” is an historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions, the development of industry, commerce, agriculture…’
Anarchism as an ideology cannot achieve the long-term liberation of the masses. Historically through practice we know that Marxism is the path towards this.
I don’t see how this is implied anywhere here. The opposite of this, however, is true. The whole premise of liberalism is some vague idealistic freedom of the individual which in reality includes the freedom to enslave and exploit others.
You’re basically saying if anarchism was correct, it would be Marxism which is true but a meaningless statement. Anarchists are more than welcome to learn and become Marxists but this doesn’t save the ideology of anarchism form being incorrect.
It’s just a meme which does expose some of the flaws and contradictions in anarchism but it’s by no means a theoretical analysis of it. Marxist analyses of anarchism have been done (I linked some of them in my previous comment) and all reach the same conclusion. The ideology of anarchism is not salvageable because it is fundamentally flawed.
Space travel here is just a bit of an exaggerated example but it really can be substituted by any sufficiently complex industry or endeavor which is necessary for the continuation of society. We cannot go backwards, we have reached a certain industrial, scientific and technological complexity which we keep advancing and which is necessary to feed, house, and educate all the people on Earth and is necessary for our daily lives to continue functioning properly. After capitalism, these things will still need to happen and this will require further organization and societal structures or institutions which when communist build them, anarchist call out as bad. Not to mention the protection of such a society from counterrevolution or outside imperialist forces.
Saying that anarchist couldn’t achieve space travel follows directly from a debunk of their beliefs because in order to actually achieve space travel you need to first have a successful revolution and then a successful society which can fulfill all the basic needs of its people and then deal with all the technological and scientific work necessary for space travel which the anarchist ideology does not provide a basis for. If anarchists actually create a materially plausible plan for any of this, it basically just sound like a Marxist type socialism and not anarchism.
These are good points. I was going to make similar ones but you’ve covered it.
In addition, self-proclaimed ‘anarchists’ are free to answer that they aren’t interested in space programs. Maybe that would make them anarcho-primitivists. But if they reject that version and claim to have a plan to go into space, the answer in the OP meme is woefully lacking.
Besides, no space programs (not just space ‘travel’) means no satellites. No satellites means no more emergency services. And good luck mapping and responding to climate change. Maybe the plan is just to make do with the satellites that already exist. But how long will they last without maintenance? That option sounds like a slow decline into another dark age where humanity’s scientific advancement has long since peaked.
He’s still mentioned basically every time anyone asks about anarchist theory so i would say he’s significant. Of course between “mentioned” and “actually being read” there is a huge gap, especially in case of anarchists.
I agree with most of what you say, but I don’t think it’s entirely incompatible what I’m thinking. I think I’m just shitty at communicating what I’m thinking here
“Transitory dictatorship” is left pretty vague by Marx. But what he is talking about class dictatorship, not dictatorship in the literal sense of one person in a country having unlimited political authority. There are so so many anarchists and liberals that do not understand this because they continue to conflate the word “dictator” in the way Marx meant with how Western capitalist states weaponize the word.
Dictatorship of the Proletariat is seen as a law within Marxism the same way there are laws within other scientific fields. It’s the acknowledgement and observation that after political power is seized by the working class, class relations do not automatically just disappear. The working class will need to sustain and protect the revolution until those class relations from the previous mode of production wither away over generations. History has shown us this since the beginning.
A centralized vanguard party is Lenin’s well-tested contribution to Marxist theory on how to achieve and protect a socialist revolution under seige by imperialism. But that doesn’t exclude the possibilities of other tactics in the future.