- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/53714894
cope, shitlibs
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you are so pressed you had to post this to feel better
WDYM?
My communism says we should disassemble all the tanks and never make any new ones.
Not all the communists are tankies but all the tankies are communist.
The difference is where you believe the power should be concentrated.
I believe in a stateless system and that any system with a state is not communism.
Congratulations you believe the exact same thing as tankies in that regard.
Correct! We are discussing the means, and if the means are justified. This is where I disagree with the direction Lenin wants us to take, by creating a vanguard to lead on the behalf of the proleteriat.
Might not be your intention but you’re making a very benign concept that is essentially a necessity at any sort of scale (representative democracy) sound quite ominous. For any organisation of groups beyond a few people everyone voting on everything is simply unfeasible.
This is not even to get into the weeds of the uneven development of class consciousness, etc.
It’s actually not unfeasible nowadays. Maybe back then.
Collecting 100’s of millions to billions of votes for every little decision is absolutely unfeasible. Even if the act of voting itself was instant the time lag for everyone to get informed to the degree they feel comfortable and then get around to voting alone would make it unworkable. There’s a reason even movements like the Zapatistas end up shifting towards some version of councils/representatives.
So we all agree that China and the USSR have never come close to communism, correct?
They were/are Socialist. Communism is an end stage that can only be achieved once the class struggle has been overcome on a global scale. Unfortunately since no button exists to make this happen instantly and perfectly a transitional period is necessary, and the most successful/best answer that has been put forth thus far on how to implement this is the proletarian state. This is what tankies (and communists more generally understand/believe).
To me (anarchist) communism means no social classes of any kind.
The political or ruling class is a social class, therefor any form of modern state that is not actively trying to devolve itself into a decentralized network without leaders is anti-communist by nature, regardless what they tell you.
This is largely just a disagreement you have with Marx on what class means. For Marx, class is a social category related to ownership of the means of production, and all class societies are divided primarily into two classes, an owning class and a working class. The ruling class of society is the one that owns the state and the commanding heights of the economy. By insinuating that there is a “political class,” you create a third class that exists outside of the class struggle, oppressing all, but this isn’t how states function or how the state relates to the economic base.
This is why the Marxist path to class abolition requires collectivizing all production and distribution, not simply dismantling as much hierarchy as possible. There’s intra-class hierarchy, which can be benign or not, and inter-class hierarchy, which the working class can wield to it’s own advantage by becoming the ruling class. It isn’t the “political class” that controls the state, but instead one of the two primary classes in any given society, the workers or owners.
As the state collectivizes production and distribution, it creates one unified society that sees no distinction in ownership, thus creating classless society and eliminating the need for a state to keep the ruling class on top, as there is no distinction between workers and owners, as all occupy both.
There’s intra-class hierarchy, which can be benign or not, and inter-class hierarchy, which the working class can wield to it’s own advantage by becoming the ruling class. It isn’t the “political class” that controls the state, but instead one of the two primary classes in any given society, the workers or owners.
The problem with this analysis is that you don’t have to own capital to control capital. So while in communist states technically a leader might not own the means of production, if they are making decisions about the uses of capital then there is little practical difference, especially when their position of authority can not be effectively challenged. Thus class just becomes a function of proximity to power and control over capital, same as capitalism.
How do we solve that problem?
edit: genuinely curious
In order to answer as best I can, I’ll have to be a bit picky with the term “capital” as you use it here. Capital isn’t just the means of production and distribution, it’s MOP and MOD employed essentially to pilfer surplus value. This is called “valorization” of capital, where the capitalist “casts out the net of money, returning back to his pockets more money,” or mathematically expressed, the M-C…P…C’-M’ process (where M is money, C is MoP and labor-power, P is production, C’ is the produced commodity of higher value than what C was purchased for, and M’ is the greater sum of money that becomes the new M).
All of that is important because this process is the general path of capitalist accumulation, that works out only because capital owners own capital. This circuit is where profit comes from, which has tremendous impacts on the structure of the state, the distribution of wealth, and how power itself is distributed. It creates an owning and a working class.
To return to your actual question, what’s the difference practically for administrators in a socialist state or communist society (at which point in development there are no classes and thus no need for a state, but that’s me being picky with terms again)? The difference is that management of production and distribution is not the same as employing it for personal profits in that same circuit described earlier. In capitalism, managers and CEOs are rarely owners of capital, but merely servants of the actual owners (though owner-managers do exist, of course). Management is socially necessary labor, especially in highly advanced production, but ownership creates not one bit of value itself, as I’m sure we agree.
This is why I say that the problem isn’t that production is managed with intra-class hierarchy, but instead the form of the superstructure. Socialist states aren’t perfectly democratic, because they exist in the real world. The measures we put in place to advance democratization are organizational structures that are vital to constructing more effective socialist management. Council/soviet democracy is one such example, where local and regional committees elect delegates to higher committees. Protections against corruption can come in the form of recall elections and frequent elections, and education itself on how the system works and bringing the people up into the system with mass participation also helps.
Administrators are not magically immune to corruption, of course. We have to learn the best structures through testing theory to practice. Socialist democracy has gone through many changes over the years, and each socialist state that exists today has its own form, even if they may share characteristics. The important takeaway, though, is that because administrators in socialism do not actually own capital, but merely direct and steer production, they do not participate in a circuit of accumulation for their own profit.
They can abuse their power, but do not form a class, and thus share the common class interest with the rest of the working class: develop the productive forces to a level where they can be fully collectivized, and run to a common, scientific plan. Both administrative workers and non-administrative workers share this interest, as it benefits all, and this process naturally requires greater participation by all in the running of society simply to keep up with the advancing complexities of production and distribution. This has an equalizing effect and erodes the distinction between administrative and non-administrative labor.
This was a bit of a ramble, but I hope I made sense!
Thanks for you eloquent reply.
You might be on to something there, mainly that while i stil very much respect Marx and the work he did, i have found myself deviating from his philosophies as i got more left on the political spectrum.
For example the dictatorship of the proletariat never sat right with me. Power in my observation always corrupts, regardless of who holds it.
I instead find myself much more in agreement with Kropotkin. Its quite telling that while Kropotkin did get a preferable treatment being somewhat on friendly terms with Lenin his fellow anarchist got prosecuted under Bolshevik rule. Which to me sounds like state cencorship, oppresion of individual freedom.
Needless to say i would have been prosecuted the same. So i while i do respect marx for his theory i firmly oppose Lenin his practical execution.
Extending the thoughts of my previous comment, the state can only ever be the dictatorship of a given class. In classless society, there is no class to be dictator, and thus there is no basis for the state. The state exists for class supremacy. The dictatorship of the proletariat is simply a democratic system where the working class controls all political power, and uses the state against those that would oppose the interests of the working class (typically the owning class, but also class traitors).
The notion that “power corrupts” isn’t actually how administrative positions function in reality. Power isn’t some supernatural force that people turn metaphysically evil by. Administrative positions allow people levers, and these levers can be twisted in their own favor. At the same time, administration is a necessity for large-scale production and distribution, the kind necessary to achive classless society, meet the needs of everyone, expand everyone’s freedoms, and achieve scientific, collective planned goals. Keeping the problems that can come from manipulating these levers in check is a problem of form of organization, not a challenge to the necessity of these positions.
I used to be an anarchist, but understanding scientific socialism as presented by Marx and Engels leads me to accept Marxism-Leninism as fundamentally correct. The vanguard path to revolution as is key to Leninism is merely an advance in the strategy of establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat, not a change in what the dictatorship of the proletariat looks like.
I understand the theory you are coming from but with all respect reading your comment made me shiver. “State supremacy” most of all.
I do not trust any individual to control levers that they can adjust in their own favour or ideals, especialy not the levers that can dictate who is and who is not a class traitor. It does not take a supernatural force to start punishing anyone critical of the leadership as traitors and have others agreeing against their interests out of fear of being branded a traitor.
In an ideal world i think no state should exist at all, more realistically it should be as decentralised as can be keeping organisational powers as local as can be with no offices one individual can hold.
I do find myself fortunatly priviledged to live in the age of internet communication. Therefor i can envision such decentralized system where all individuals can join and attend to organize shared interests.
Administration and measurements can be provider transparantly for all to read like open source projects. Good ideas can spread organicly and be Imitated by any people to fit their own usecase.
Without modern tools it seems more then logical to have a centralized administration to coordinate the many parts of a society. But we have the means to evolve past needing such.
Collectivization and working class supremacy do not have to conflict with having spread-out power. Every socialist state is made up of local and central government cells, where local, regional, provincial cells take care of most matters in their jurisdiction and a central one to manage the affairs pertaining to all of society. The idea of a single central unit dominating all of society sounds scary, but it’s also not how socialism works in theory or practice.
As productive forces expand and get more complex, so too does the necessity for expanding administration. It can sometimes be lowered, but only temporarily. Just because you can envision a society does not make it actually achievable, this is a huge problem early socialist thinkers like Robert Owen ran into, called “Utopian socialists.” Marx and Engels advanced beyond them by developing historical materialism and the scientific approach to socialism, which is why shortly after their deaths a string of socialist revolutions actually succeeded.
but… for the state to not exist that would require the elimination of class, which no socialism has ever been able to achieve immediately. Without a state there would be no way to enforce the abolition of private property, defend your pocket of socialism against your own bourgeoisie or a counterrevolution funded by a foreign imperialist bourgeoisie. I understand that all states commit excesses of violence and oppression and you feel rightly repulsed by that, but to get to a point where abolishing the state is possible, workers have to achieve power over most of the world, and the world is very divided by imperialism.
“Imperfect” state socialism is the only viable option when a revolution only succeeds in a portion of the world and capitalism is still the dominant, world-spanning mode of production.
I do have some ideas on how to get there without the need of a violent revolution.
I have already made somd attempts in the past to write a full book to properly explain myself here but in gist (also i am super tired)
The idea is to create a template for a new analogous economy that views ownership and the concept of money in a completely different way and presents every single data point open to everyone, yet can technically exist to be fully compatible within todays capitalist economy. This analogue system would have its own logic of logistics to manage production and distribution which at first you need to be working within the new system to get acces towards.
I believe my concept has some distinct. advantages that could make it attractive for non profit startups and organisations especially if they network with other organisations making the analogus economy bigger. It would also have huge advantages for a state to dissolve the problem of state debt. And in earnest the easiest path is a state voluntary backing early organisations in this system but its not required. And a state that does would eventually disolve much of its own power by rendering it reasonably useless.
As these decentralized networks grow it will make more and more sense to join the system, eventually replacing the one we have now and render traditional money but a wortless statistic with no more executive power then a statistical debt.
I really hope to write that book someday, a social media discussion cant really do it justice.
Edit: A nice mechanic of my concept is that the bigger the profit marge of todays bussinesses the more economocly viable it becomes for citizens to try organise the new non profit system without state assistance.
“my concept”
Okay, it’s just slop. I wasted my god damn time, there was no point in arguing with this person. Go develop your own diy special snowflake political alignment, then.
“It would also have huge advantages for a state to dissolve the problem of state debt.”
Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger effect? Well, you’re on the peak of Mt. Stupid and set up camp there. Now your brain is dying from the lack of oxygen.
decentralized network without
leadersrulersFTFY.
Anarchists really need to get over this confused understanding of how human organisation works.
Rulers is indeed what i meant.
Most excellent!
By “anarchist”, you must mean “shitlib”, because THE BOOKS, YOU MUST HAVE NOT READ THE BOOKS! You are clearly just uneducated. (this is satire)
Have you read the books? You should really read the books. It certainly can’t hurt.
Recommend me a book of theory written after the invention of the desktop computer and all the infrastructure involved, and then I will take said “theory” seriously.
Kwame Nkrumah wrote Neo-Colonialism, The Last Stage of Imperialism in 1965 exactly coinciding with the release of the first ever desktop computer, the P101.
Thank you for providing what I asked for. I will read that.
Psychologists don’t read Freud for the correct takes in the mind, and biologists don’t read Darwin for the most accurate biological theories. Why should I read Marx and Engals to know the best political models?
Darwin is a terrible example because biologists didn’t throw out Darwin did they? I guess general relativity is a bunk theory and nobody should read about it, because now we know it’s probably only a low energy limit of some kind of 11 dimesional superstring theory.
Here:
Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher written in 2009.
Women, Race and Class written by Angela Davis in 1981. (This one is a really good analysis of slavery in America.)
Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson was written in 1970. (I haven’t read this one, but it’s on my list. It definitely is still relevant: the horrific oppression of black people by the US carceral system is still ongoing and you can make comparisons to the treatment of immigrants.)
First off, I do not think either example I gave was bad, because they did not “throw out” Darwin, nor did psychologists even fully “throw out” all of Freud. My point was that it would be accurate to say that the base theories arn’t actually very helpful for advanced precise sciences without the additional revisions made by new scientists after more tests and data. That is also true for political and philosophical theories in my opinion and I rarely see people trying to revise Marx’ perspectives. Which has been my turnoff for a lot of “communism”, because at the end of the day, Marx was not all knowing and did not have perfected concepts. And when people act like he, an educated white male author, did have it perfected, it makes anything they say after that seem cultish to me.
Thank you, genuinely, for some more neuanced (I hope) writings. I will definately read them :)
“Nuanced.”
You’re gonna have fun reading them, especially, George Jackson. He’d have a lot to say about you.
Marx Orthodoxy is the word you’re looking for.
For example the difference between a social democrat and a democratic socialist is that the latter read marx and disagreed while the former never read him at all.
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Watching videos is a poor excuse for reading. There is a reason you’re such an uneducated clown, and it’s correlated with how you’ve only read Harry Potter and you’re ostensibly an adult.
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There is a reason why you have no chance at achieving your goal, and it’s because you’re weak as fuck.
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Oops, I won. Good luck, lmao.
Can you tell green grass from a cold steel rail? Most probably not.
why are trains catching strays? I love trains.
Yes, I’m certain the shitlibs will cope, as well as seethe!
“Unf i need power centralized with a dictator so badly, rule me daddy!”
