I don’t like spending this much time arguing against campism but they just keep talking at me.
Didn’t Marx warn of an authoritarian takeover of a people’s revolution and how that was no different than having a bourgeoisie?
Yup.
I don’t think Marx ever condemned the word “authoritarian.” Or said anything about a dictatorship of the proletariat becoming more unjust than a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. That doesn’t sound like anything he’d say.
Not according to “tankies” :D They love shiny boots holding a red flag. They just hate brown flags, but love a good boot-liking
Can’t wait for the tankies to show up and once again try to defend bootlicking.
It’s what they do.
Idk what communist movement you think is going to emerge pristine out of this horrific, traumatizing, wasteland of human suffering without being wrong in really terrible ways.
A socialist or anti-imperialist movement does not have to be morally correct for me to back them. Class struggle does not have to be led by good people to succeed, they don’t have to have a correct interpretation of Marxism or be Marxist at all, they don’t have to not have corruption, and they will almost always carry reactionary baggage. In a lot of situations (almost universally) it’s not realistic or possible at all for a resistance to capitalist exploitation, colonialism or imperialism to exist without all of those problems and more, but doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. If they’re opposing capitalism, even if they’re doing it badly, they deserve support.
Also, yes, MLs shouldn’t do apologia for the things the USSR did or other socialisms did, they should state the truth clearly without discomfort. I’m kinda disillusioned with ML spaces on the internet, actually, because they really suck. It’s like a game to some people; a game about being right and not caring about fucking anything. It puts me off when I see like uncritical support of past socialisms as if they were perfect, which is impossible, and you’ll always end up being disappointed, which is the one of the points of this whole message, but it only serves to make them look like atrocity-denying historical revisionists to other people. Like the Soviets really did deport Tatars in trains, and really didn’t work to correct the colonialist past they inherited from the Russian Empire.
However, the dissolution of the USSR and the throwing of its people to the wolves of finance capital was a humanitarian catastrophe for Eastern Europe and created a situation that even now is actually sickening to think about, and I don’t know at all how or when things will recover and get better for people there. It put into motion the fucking tragedy that is happening now in Ukraine plus all of the unseen suffering in the poor regions of what was the Eastern Bloc. The ex-Soviet countries are are perfect example of what losing looks like.
Like I’m sure there are lurid, real crimes that Hamas, or Iran, or Ansar Allah committed, but I hope to god they don’t lose, because they’re fighting against the IDF and the American military and all of the bad things that the resistance has done cannot hold a candle to what the US and Israel have done. That’s how I feel about resistance to capital.
Like you’ve gotta understand historical materialism and a lot more than just that, you have to keep trying to understand things for years to be good communist. I’m not a good communist. If you approach politics with the goal of having the correct hot takes, you’ll never want to understand anything. Just stop making hot takes, and look at the world.
Thanks for sharing this perspective.
As a baby leftist, I don’t want to fall into the traps of others when it comes to heralding the goods of past socialist experiments without criticizing the ills as well.
Nothing is perfect, as you say, and it a materialist socialists’ life long project to see the world clearly for all the material conditions that exist, and have existed up until this point. Idealist socialists and idealist communists will capsize their entire movement, and endlessly make things about purity tests.
The words “purity tests” sets off my liberal detector, because of accusations of “purity testing” being used to defend Democratic party entryism and terrible DSA candidates from criticism.
Yep, I agree with all of that.
I’m not sure if you’re into this sort of thing, but I’m working with some friends on a tabletop game jam that we’re planning to run (online) over a weekend some time early next year about stories set in the midst of a future revolution. You can see the draft document into which we’ve been occasionally adding ideas here. Let me know if you’re interested.
Someone agrees with me? That’s cool. I thought all of that was going to be for naught.
It is possible. We had socialist consenus not that long ago :/ The only possible way to achieve at least near-socialist system is democratic. If the system does not directly represent views of their citizens, eventually you get oligarchic corpocracy with planned economy, that will crush all the nations beneath their boots. Furthermore: Bolsheviks were fucking extremists. When post-revolution parliament was established, and parties ran for seats, the majority of votes were Social-Revolutionaries, bolsheviks didnt have nearly as much votes. But then bolsheviks just shut down the parliament because they lost, and put their opponents in jail or even executed. So much for the people’s republic ig.
Instead, we need to actually get support in southeen countries, fight US hegemony and get votes in european countries, but this time hwlping global south first would be priority, so the european and us capitalists couldnt move their capital to poorer parts of the world and thus destroy the socialist consensus.
What is “socialist consensus?” What are these words? “Oligarchic corpocracy?” “Social Revolutionaries?” Are you talking about the Mensheviks? Is this some kind of social democratic stroke?
The fact you have no idea who social-revolutionaries are, means you gave a huge rant about your views, meanwhile having no idea how the most important socialist revolution went. Or even such a simple thing like socialist democratic consensus of pre-60s Congratulations you are a fucking tankie. And I dont get paid to explain history to americans. May your extremist pseudosocialist brainrot mythology stay with you
How does a nonauthoritarian communist society handle a billionaire who buys up income-generating property and pays people to run it for the billionaire’s main benefit?
Let’s also assume he pays people to be security guards for this operation.
Property’s not for sale dumbass, it’s a communist society. Property is owned collectively by all the people and the state’s job (yes you need the organization of a state) is to distribute that profit among the people. Any power is acquired via being elected (which is the “doesn’t have to be authoritarian” part so many temporarily embarrassed millionaires ignore) and punishment for self dealing from a position of power is treated as treason
In short: care is taken that an owning class cannot ever develop.
If there are billionaires it’s not a communist society is it now?
How does one become communist without forcing the billionaire to give up their wealth? Is it not through the use of authority?
This is such a weird question.
How does this billionaire exist in this hypothetical communist society? And how do you expect them to buy up a business?
It’s these weird pointless thought exercises people keep throwing at me that drive me to make these posts.
If you really want to know what my desired society looks like, it’s this solarpunk game my friends and I play: Fully Automated! Solarpunk RPG World Guide
Go read that, find all the stuff you don’t like in it, then write Substack article about it and don’t send me a link.
Billionaires do exist, currently, already, in our non hypothetical world.
I wrongly assumed the proponent of nonauthoritarian communism had some idea how to bring about their ideal society from our current world.
Did you already get through the whole thing?
If you’re impatient, the relevant section is on page 65.
All governments are authoritarian at some point. Even anarchist communities theoretically will exert force on intruders by mustering up the people where they are, where they live.
Serious question: If there’s no money, what’s the incentive to work, other than punishment for not working?
You are just describing how it is currently. You don’t get much from working, but if you don’t you can’t afford basic necessities and thus are punished for not working.
People tend to be motivated to work if they can see a viable benefit from the things they do for the community around them. This is something that capitalism desperately tries to hide and prevent, so people only see work as a purpose to make money for living
Since you are asking seriously I will answer you: Because we have to.
At the most basic level we have to do work for basic survival. Cooking, cleaning ourselves, cleaning our living space, those are necessary to live and are actual work. This can extend to people we care about, as we are willing to put in work to maintain relationships and make sure they are well.
As for why would anyone work for something other than survival, well that can get a little philosophical. One philosophy is existentialism, where we as humans desire to have meaning in our lives and are willing to put in work to achieve something. Basically, just look back at any hobby you have done.
Now, at the societal level people will not work at the current conditions without being forced to earn a wage to survive. Once you remove money from the equation then that lets people decide for themselves how and when to work. Under those conditions people will still work for society, so long as they see the benefits it brings to that society.
An uncommon but relevant example is at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine there was a nuclear plant near the border that everyone was worried would have a meltdown either due to bombing or the Ukrainian workers abandoning it. Some of the workers chose to stay all the way until it was captured. Then there was some diplomacy between Ukraine and Russia to figure out what to do about the plant and the workers. Those workers recognized the value of maintaining the plant to protect society, and did it without pay and at the risk of being bombed.
I think we’re so far from that world that this is more a question of abstract philosophy than political theory. But for what it’s worth, I think these are the three most common answers to that question:
- We reach a state of automated post-scarcity in which we don’t need people to work;
- People work for the sake of personal satisfaction or community recognition or some other non-monetary reward;
- Goods and services are exchanged in a Gift Economy: people still get rewarded commiserate to their labor, but the exchange isn’t mediated through currency.
Personally, I don’t think it’s something that we need to figure out this decades or next.
I bet you’ll vote for a Democrat that calls me a “biological man” too.
No. But, tell us, what part of the post are you struggling most with comprehending? The “antiauthoritarian” part?
I guess I’m not comprehending the “tankie” part. If you’re on the left and don’t vote for Democrats, you’ll smeared with the same brush. It’s a meaningless red scare snarl word used by your enemies, you seem to think it won’t be applied to you too.
When they start rounding people up, we’ll be rounded up together. So what’s the point of this?
Honestly, I was just letting out my frustration with some folks in another comment section who were proudly insisting that I wasn’t a real enough leftist unless I simp for strongmen.
I’ll still march alongside you (and them too).
Alright here’s my 2 cents.
There exists an impossibly we’ll organized & funded ruling class. Our society broadly is uneducated or misinformed.
How do people intend to reverse course without a very powerful form of authoritarian-leftism?
Do we intent to reform our governments so radically without the use of authoritarian mechanisms?
How do you get the average person on board with a communist society without striping the privileges the ruling class has almost always enjoyed?
I’m in favor of radical reforms. Those reforms would necessitate authoritarian mechanisms geared against the ruling class and their consolidation of wealth & power.
Four legs good!
Two legs bad!
Four legs good!
Two legs bad!
Animal farm?
Indeed.
it’s incredibly ironic that you are using a phrase meant to ridicule people who reduce communism to black and white moralistic idealism… and repeating it like a mantra (like a sheep, perhaps) as part of a conversation where bringing up that excerpt from that Orwell book makes extremely little sense. You are making a satire of yourself, stop doing it.
You sound like you think you are much smarter than you actually are, and you didn’t understand my point.
I think the problem I’m seeing is that you seem to be equating any use of force with authoritarianism.
You can have a revolution, restore the means of production to the commons, and then just not have a single-party state. You can deliberately distribute power among the working class. Use of force doesn’t require unchecked state power.
Great! I’m a billionaire and I’m going to start my own fascist party and buy out and flood every means of mass communication with propaganda for my party. I sure am glad you’re going to allow my legitimate political party to flourish.
Restore the means of production to the commons. I’ll have to see what that means concretely. I’m not familiar with the idea.
In my idea of how the government should be run, one would need to implement an extremely steep taxation structure.
That would adversely effect a minority group within the nation enacting those laws. I feel that this action as a consequence would be authoritarian.
I agree with you, I believe. The difference being that the authoritarian nature be geared towards exclusively a group that is VOLUNTARILY JOINED and nothing else. If you want to own that much wealth, you get some fancy new governmental oversight and regulations. Congrats. I don’t believe that that has be “authoritarian” to the VAST majority of people. Well over 95%.
Totally agree but, it would have to be aggressive in our current world. They will not willingly part with their wealth.
I’m assuming all options would be on the table for mitigating this level of greed. Obviously in an effort to get to a better society.
The rich aren’t a minority group, and the action you’re describing is literally the polar opposite of authoritarianism. If you have to redefine words to make an argument, you don’t have an argument.
Minority group - any group holding less power than the group exercising the majority of it.
Authoritarian - concentration of power into one or just a few ELITE members.First, regarding recommoning the means of production: it’s not a single discrete thing, but rather a collection of economic and political policies and approaches.
Look into is Solidarity Economies: this is a term that bundles together worker cooperatives, housing coops, public banks, credit unions, and all the other structures that allow groups of people to cut investors out of the critical institutions on which we rely.
As for the other part: progressive taxation is not authoritarian and does not require authoritarianism.
Progressive taxation would be a bandaid solution in my opinion but, maybe I’m being dramatic. Solidarity economics sound great as a shift in production.
The point I suppose I failed to make. In order to reverse course and affect radical change, you would need to enact taxation policies (FBI style raids on penthouses, IRS investigations into corporations, ICE style black bagging of CEOs etc.) that would be heavy handed. The heavy handedness one would think of when a regular person, like myself, misuses the term “authoritarian”.
Well, I’ll give you some nuance then:
You’re right. A revolution is not going to be bloodless. Use of force requires moral compromises, and we probably won’t get there with our hands clean.
But: I think there’s a big difference between the contradictions we struggle to navigate as we strive to build a world without masters, and the choice to enthusiastically hand unchecked power to “good” masters who we naively expect to treat us well even when we have no means to constrain them or impose accountability.
Put another way, I can tolerate grey areas we’re reluctantly forced into if our goals are anti-authoritarian, because I believe that such a project would have a good chance of reigning in those excesses. But if we accept and embrace domination from the start, the outcome is inevitably that we all wind up under a boot. Does that make sense?
Some (most) of the species like to be dommed by a big daddy or mommy of one form or another. They should be free to live like the submissive Lil boogers that they are. We should be free of their pathetic attempt to get the parental figure they lacked in their formative years.
Every commune wont be the same. Let them be wrong.
Imagine the reactions you’d get from other people if you said this in real life. Accusing other people of like having a psychosexual fixation with being dominated and that’s why they have their political beliefs is such a strange thing to say. You’ve made it unclear if it’s a joke, but I don’t really care.
“We should be free of their pathetic attempt to get the parental figure they lacked in their formative years.”
Why do you have to degrade people with childhood trauma to make this analogy?
You’re both idiots in your own special way.
