What do you think of Communism

[Nilokeras]

Hispida's point was not that anarchism is wrong for using violence. Hispida's point was that so-called "anarchists", which have the most basic ideological principle of "not having a state" in practice just continue the state in order to enforce the illusion of a lack of a state. In other words; anarchism fucking contradicts itself... which is what you expect from an ideology who has no actual theory outside of "DESTROY AUTHORITY!".

Anarchism induces its own downfall by making it impossible to implement without the usage of authority and force.

There is absolutely a great deal of anarchist theory about the usage of force and even compulsion in the service of anarchist aims. I just quoted some of it. That you don't care enough to engage with it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and I don't know what you think you're gaining by tilting at this windmill of imagined anarchism like a Leninist Ben Shapiro.

[Querria]

What a great way to suffer a neural arrest.

[Haganham]

You've got it backwards. Under capitalism, compensation is an alternate to appreciation.

Is this a semantic point or does it have substance?

both

[Umeria]

anarchism, which famously worked in revolutionary catalonia (which used a provisional state to suppress opposition), the rojava (which jails suspected terrorists, cracked down on protests, and conscripts people into the SDF), the KPAM (which was invaded and failed to mount a proper response after the decapitation of its leadership), and makhnovia (which used a provisional state to suppress opposition and conscript peasants).

Anarchism is not synonymous with pacifism, or even squeamishness about the deployment of violence to defend an anarchist project. To quote Malatesta:

It is our aspiration and our aim that everyone should become socially conscious and effective; but to achieve this end, it is necessary to provide all with the means of life and for development, and it is therefore necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies these means to the workers.

I'm not sure how this guy thinks "social consciousness and effectiveness" eliminates the need for a state, or that giving people their material needs would facilitate this higher state of mind.

Why not just make "people having their material needs" the end goal? Why jump through all these hoops with developing consciousness or whatever? Honestly this "it happens by extension" stuff sounds a lot like libertarians arguing that things will eventually turn out fine if we just let everything rely on the market.

[Nilokeras]

I'm not sure how this guy thinks "social consciousness and effectiveness" eliminates the need for a state, or that giving people their material needs would facilitate this higher state of mind.

Well I mean if everyone is an anarchist, then there wouldn't need to be a state, no?

Why not just make "people having their material needs" the end goal? Why jump through all these hoops with developing consciousness or whatever? Honestly this "it happens by extension" stuff sounds a lot like libertarians arguing that things will eventually turn out fine if we just let everything rely on the market.

Arguably you can't have one without the other. We did just have this whole argument about the apparent innate tyranny of bakers - if you think people are not inherently tyrannical like bakers but are instead acculturated by their society to believe and act in certain ways, which has material consequences for said society, then convincing people to believe and act differently is a prerequisite for changing said society.

[Umeria]

I'm not sure how this guy thinks "social consciousness and effectiveness" eliminates the need for a state, or that giving people their material needs would facilitate this higher state of mind.

Well I mean if everyone is an anarchist, then there wouldn't need to be a state, no?

Are anarchists incapable of misdeeds?

Why not just make "people having their material needs" the end goal? Why jump through all these hoops with developing consciousness or whatever? Honestly this "it happens by extension" stuff sounds a lot like libertarians arguing that things will eventually turn out fine if we just let everything rely on the market.

Arguably you can't have one without the other. We did just have this whole argument about the apparent innate tyranny of bakers - if you think people are not inherently tyrannical like bakers but are instead acculturated by their society to believe and act in certain ways, which has material consequences for said society, then convincing people to believe and act differently is a prerequisite for changing said society.

No, that's only if you want the change to be organic. You could just have a set of laws that the baker has to follow, then it doesn't really matter whether he's a good person or not.

[Nilokeras]

Are anarchists incapable of misdeeds?

If they're all anarchists then surely anarchist justice systems could handle their misdeeds, since they all buy into said system implicitly. They may commit misdeeds, but since they believe that the justice system is legitimate if caught they will participate in them.

No, that's only if you want the change to be organic. You could just have a set of laws that the baker has to follow, then it doesn't really matter whether he's a good person or not.

And that might be fine for a Leninist, but obviously an anarchist is going to disagree with the morality and effectiveness of the Anti-Evil Baker Overlord Law.

[Jellian Federation]

The whole thing is trying to deal with human nature.
Some with force, some with motivation, some with suppression, some that enable.

[Terminus Station]

Lets simplify this topic to its core components.

1. Marx's criticism of Capitalism
2. Communist regimes and authoritarianism/dictatorships
3. Communism's economic inefficiencies vs external pressures from capitalism

Marx has some valid criticisms of capitalism but his proposal of using communism as a solution are ultimately worse than the perceived problems hes trying to fix due to the following next issues.

Communism has a problem when it comes to bottlenecking all power towards the government. The government gets to control all your freedoms and gets all your money to implement their version of communism, this will always be a recipe for disaster.

Lastly, putting aside the argument of "true communism" and why the nonsensical argument that communism has never failed because true communism has never been tried, that still doesn't change the fact that communism doesn't insensitive economic stability/growth or innovation.

People have no reason to work, they cant choose the job they want or make money when you aren't allowed to have any. In spite of capitalism's faults, generating wealth and incentives for people to come up with new and better products isn't one of them...Well to a degree before big corpos start gobbling things up and sabotage emerging markets, but even then you'll still have a chance to make money.

Commie state ownership means resources are put towards political ideology instead of market demand and slow to implement unlike in a capitalist market where those who are most efficient to seize an opportunity produce the most and implement changes quickly. Im not saying a Communism government cant reach the same conclusion as a capitalist market demand, but by the time the commies get going the capitalist would have already capitalized by several magnitudes due to the economic freedoms allotted in a capitalist system.

Capitalism isn't perfect, we're seeing its limitations now as late stage capitalism trickle up the vast majority of wealth into fewer hands who already have the most. But that doesn't make Communism with its worse problems, superior.

This is probably the last time I'm going to post on this topic. Being from an Asian culture, I know what Communism does to a people, its far worse than any fault Capitalism has. If that's not enough to convince you to why Communism doesn't work and will never work, having known people who were victimized by Communist regimes, who've lost family members to Communist regimes, then nothing will.

Well said, well said

thank you. Communism really is a dismal failure. At some point someone in a commie government will realize they can just decide for themselves that everybody can do all the work "according to their abilities" and give them nothing in return "according to their needs." At that point, why bother working?

[Hispida]

anarchism, which famously worked in revolutionary catalonia (which used a provisional state to suppress opposition), the rojava (which jails suspected terrorists, cracked down on protests, and conscripts people into the SDF), the KPAM (which was invaded and failed to mount a proper response after the decapitation of its leadership), and makhnovia (which used a provisional state to suppress opposition and conscript peasants).

Anarchism is not synonymous with pacifism, or even squeamishness about the deployment of violence to defend an anarchist project. To quote Malatesta:

It is our aspiration and our aim that everyone should become socially conscious and effective; but to achieve this end, it is necessary to provide all with the means of life and for development, and it is therefore necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies these means to the workers.

my point wasn't that anarchism uses violence. my point was that anarchism has, historically, resulted in the anarchist government using, or creating, its monopoly on force to maintain and support its interests: i.e. creating a state.

your quote from malatesta basically describes exactly why a post-revolutionary state is necessary. seems awfully anti-anarchist to me...

[Umeria]

Are anarchists incapable of misdeeds?

If they're all anarchists then surely anarchist justice systems could handle their misdeeds, since they all buy into said system implicitly.

In what ways does an anarchist justice system differ from a regular one.

No, that's only if you want the change to be organic. You could just have a set of laws that the baker has to follow, then it doesn't really matter whether he's a good person or not.

And that might be fine for a Leninist, but obviously an anarchist is going to disagree with the morality and effectiveness of the Anti-Evil Baker Overlord Law.

Seems like trying to abide by this moral stance is much less effective than just having laws. Which again questions why it needs to be prioritized over the supposed goal of keeping everyone fed and housed and stuff.

[Nilokeras]

In what ways does an anarchist justice system differ from a regular one.

Usually they're conceived of as being diffuse and having no particular devoted organs of justice, ie police, judges, etc because those are hierarchical instruments - the administration of justice is everyone's concern so things like community tribunals where disputes, misdeeds etc are brought forward and solved as a community.

Seems like trying to abide by this moral stance is much less effective than just having laws. Which again questions why it needs to be prioritized over the supposed goal of keeping everyone fed and housed and stuff.

A society where everyone is an anarchist is equally 'effective'. You may disagree with how realistic that is, of course, as I would about the strange conception of bakers as being inherently evil. 'Effectiveness' is not a particularly good metric to measure thought experiments by.

[Nilokeras]

my point wasn't that anarchism uses violence. my point was that anarchism has, historically, resulted in the anarchist government using, or creating, its monopoly on force to maintain and support its interests: i.e. creating a state.

your quote from malatesta basically describes exactly why a post-revolutionary state is necessary. seems awfully anti-anarchist to me...

The question really becomes whether or not a monopoly of force is synonymous with a state, I think - if a body of anarchists is using its local monopoly of force to repel state intrusions into the spaces they control, is that synonymous with being a state? Where is the line between state and non-state uses of force?

[Australian rePublic]

You can't just do things "on your own terms". A sewer pipe is not going to sit and say "Golly Gee, I wanted to fail now, but it's 3 am, I should till wait morning to fairl"
So without cash money, why would they do it? I'm still waiting for that answer

Probably because they know it needs doing and can do it on their own terms and make it as bearable as possible.
[/quote]
I'm not saying that we shouldn't do things on our terms. That can still happen under capitalism. But in either case, you still have to have some level of coordination and control. I mean, you can't do things "at your own" terms. If that's a case, if a sewer were to fail at 3 am, everyone would wait till morning to fix it, and in the meanwhile in the meanwhile, everyone has to piss, shit and expel menstrual blood on the street. I'm all for trying to mitigate the shittiness of the job, we absolutely should. But at the end of the day, a rose coloured turd is still a turd.

The word salad of a coward who knows he's wrong

How can I be wrong about what my own job is?

Word saald of a coward

See? This is funny.

It was out of line to call you a coward, and I'm sorry for that. But in either case, your unwillingness to tell me what you do for a living really isn't helping your cause

Then how would you incentivise them to do that work? And in either case, you are defending Nilokeras who was making such a claim. Forgive me for thinking that you agreed with him/her.

I don't think people would actually need any special effort made to incentivise them to maintain their local sewer system. Certainly working on sewer systems is probably pretty nasty at times, but do you know what's probably a lot fucking worse? Living in a town without a functioning sewer system.

Except you got it backwards. Working in sewers requires years of training and specialised equipment. What you're suggesting will lead to unqualified people doing a half-arsed job fixing a sewer pipe whenever it fails. Sure, someone might do that, but that's very different to training someone to maintain sewer pipes day in day out. And you can't train everyone to do every job. If everyone were trained to be a plumber or an electrician, etc. you'd probably need more than 20 years to gain the basic skills, much less experience.

Then why are you spending so much time trying to defend tbis one point that I am making? Pathetic excuse?

I believe that this particular tangent started with someone else's post. I'm just responding to the posts in this thread as and when I feel like I have something to say in response to them.

And also, no, none of my points, they're all about communism. I am discussing communism, the topic of discussion in this thread. If you're not willing to discuss any of my other reasons why communism sucks and only try to run this one into the ground, then you're not really interested in the topic at hand, rather than you are suggesting that people would do sewer work for free. By your own logic, this thread isn't about whether or not people would do sewer work for free, and yet, here you are discussing that, at nauisum. I have discussed why communism sucks from multiple angles, and yet you're only focusing on this one. Pathetic excuse. You're now resoeting to pathetic excuses as to why you're unable to prove me wrong

I don't know what other reasons you're talking about. I probably didn't read whatever post you mentioned them in, or maybe I wasn't bothered to respond to the whole thing. Maybe don't get too worked up about it.

[/quote]
Fair enough. Here you go. I guess I was too emotional, and I apologise. I had forgotten that it was specifically addressed at someone who wasn't you, so it was my fault, not yours. I apologise
viewtopic.php?p=40563042&sid=d8312a33b36eacf92ebded3ac5c592ad#p40563042

[Australian rePublic]

The same way that we ended up with government in the first place- people all living peacefuly and cooperating with each other, until someone with a big stick ceases control of everything and oppeesses everyone else. Same way we ended up with slavery. Some guy with a bigger stick forced everyone else to work for him. Dictators don't rule with numbers, they rule with iron fists oppressing the masses. If the masses were to overthrow the government, naturally, some power hungry nut will eventually take over everything. Why so you think dictatorships exist? If you were able to start a coup with naught but the majority of the population, the concept of dictatorship would have ended centuries ago. If having the majority of the population support a cause were enough to make it happen, fudalism wouldn't have lasted as long as it did, nor would have slavery.

I think you're skipping over the bit about the government having been abolished. Because it's not like the government will allow that to happen peacefully. So when you say that the mafia would take over, you're talking about them taking over people who had just stood up to the police and military and all the power of the government and won.

And all of human history has proven wrong. Slave rebellions have been quashed easily despite the slaves outnumbering their masters. Dictators rule with an iron fist, irrespective of being in a minority, mafias are able to extort the masses. Nothing would change under the communism. Abolishing a government would only make it easier. As for currency. If the masses don't understand the fundamentals of value, then it's easier for someone to take advantage. It's easier for someone to question why it costs $1 billion to build a single train station, much harder to ask why you need 200 million bricks, the extra of which can be pocketed and by whoever commissioned the station can be used to make the house larger. Corruption would still exist and would actually be easier to get away with

[Umeria]

In what ways does an anarchist justice system differ from a regular one.

Usually they're conceived of as being diffuse and having no particular devoted organs of justice, ie police, judges, etc because those are hierarchical instruments - the administration of justice is everyone's concern so things like community tribunals where disputes, misdeeds etc are brought forward and solved as a community.

I'm not seeing how this is made possible by social consciousness, or even how social consciousness improves the situation here. Is it that everyone has the same training as a policeman or a judge would, and thus can carry out their responsibilities on their own?

Seems like trying to abide by this moral stance is much less effective than just having laws. Which again questions why it needs to be prioritized over the supposed goal of keeping everyone fed and housed and stuff.

A society where everyone is an anarchist is equally 'effective'. You may disagree with how realistic that is, of course, as I would about the strange conception of bakers as being inherently evil. 'Effectiveness' is not a particularly good metric to measure thought experiments by.

I'm still not sold on the idea that an unorganized entity would be as effective as an organized one, yes.

Did I say that bakers were inherently evil? I think the conception you disagreed with was that we should prevent bakers and anyone else from doing evil things. You compared this to preemptive measures against Cthulhu, as I recall. Although now you seem to be arguing that these preemptive measures should exist, just in the form of community enforcement. Weird!

[Umeria]

my point wasn't that anarchism uses violence. my point was that anarchism has, historically, resulted in the anarchist government using, or creating, its monopoly on force to maintain and support its interests: i.e. creating a state.

your quote from malatesta basically describes exactly why a post-revolutionary state is necessary. seems awfully anti-anarchist to me...

The question really becomes whether or not a monopoly of force is synonymous with a state, I think - if a body of anarchists is using its local monopoly of force to repel state intrusions into the spaces they control, is that synonymous with being a state? Where is the line between state and non-state uses of force?

The answer is yes. If it's a monopoly on force, it's a state.

[Nilokeras]

I'm not seeing how this is made possible by social consciousness, or even how social consciousness improves the situation here. Is it that everyone has the same training as a policeman or a judge would, and thus can carry out their responsibilities on their own?

The anarchist critique of the justice system is usually that it's an intensely hierarchical system that has accumulated complexity around it as a mechanism of preserving that hierarchy - do we really need the vast apparatus of the legal system? Are there not more simple ways of organizing society to deal with 'anti social' behaviour? As Le Guin's anarchist philosopher Odo put it - 'to make a thief make an owner, to create crime create laws'.

I'm still not sold on the idea that an unorganized entity would be as effective as an organized one, yes.

Did I say that bakers were inherently evil? I think the conception you disagreed with was that we should prevent bakers and anyone else from doing evil things. You compared this to preemptive measures against Cthulhu, as I recall. Although now you seem to be arguing that these preemptive measures should exist, just in the form of community enforcement. Weird!

I was questioning why you were proposing bakers would commit those 'misdeeds' in the first place, because there seemed to be little else behind the reasoning except 'well its human nature to misbehave, and misbehave badly enough to collapse communism'.

The answer is yes. If it's a monopoly on force, it's a state.

I don't think a definition of 'state' that encompasses a hypothetical anarchist society that has the capability to defend itself from state intrusion is particularly useful as a diagnostic tool.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Usually they're conceived of as being diffuse and having no particular devoted organs of justice, ie police, judges, etc because those are hierarchical instruments - the administration of justice is everyone's concern so things like community tribunals where disputes, misdeeds etc are brought forward and solved as a community.

I'm not seeing how this is made possible by social consciousness, or even how social consciousness improves the situation here. Is it that everyone has the same training as a policeman or a judge would, and thus can carry out their responsibilities on their own?

This is a typical liberal conception: turning everyone into a cop or a judge. This presupposes a definite order where someone decides what actions one should and should not take, and thus it presupposes law and coercion.

In an anarchist system, justice would be more social. You yourself probably have some sense of how justice is managed among friends, without the need to revert to law. That principle can be extended throughout society, as long as no-one has power over one another.

[Umeria]

I'm not seeing how this is made possible by social consciousness, or even how social consciousness improves the situation here. Is it that everyone has the same training as a policeman or a judge would, and thus can carry out their responsibilities on their own?

The anarchist critique of the justice system is usually that it's an intensely hierarchical system that has accumulated complexity around it as a mechanism of preserving that hierarchy - do we really need the vast apparatus of the legal system? Are there not more simple ways of organizing society to deal with 'anti social' behaviour? As Le Guin's anarchist philosopher Odo put it - 'to make a thief make an owner, to create crime create laws'.

Prison industrial complex is bad etc. etc. but I don't see the problem with having policemen and judges as a concept. You can make things simpler and also still have professionals enacting those simpler things. And you didn't answer my question - what does any of this have to do with social consciousness.

I'm still not sold on the idea that an unorganized entity would be as effective as an organized one, yes.

Did I say that bakers were inherently evil? I think the conception you disagreed with was that we should prevent bakers and anyone else from doing evil things. You compared this to preemptive measures against Cthulhu, as I recall. Although now you seem to be arguing that these preemptive measures should exist, just in the form of community enforcement. Weird!

I was questioning why you were proposing bakers would commit those 'misdeeds' in the first place, because there seemed to be little else behind the reasoning except 'well its human nature to misbehave, and misbehave badly enough to collapse communism'.

You are also proposing that bakers will sometimes commit misdeeds, that's what the tribunals and stuff are for, remember? Whatever point about human nature you think I'm making, you agree with it.

The answer is yes. If it's a monopoly on force, it's a state.

I don't think a definition of 'state' that encompasses a hypothetical anarchist society that has the capability to defend itself from state intrusion is particularly useful as a diagnostic tool.

The situation you're describing is two separate states existing. Calling one of them anarchist doesn't change anything.

[Umeria]

I'm not seeing how this is made possible by social consciousness, or even how social consciousness improves the situation here. Is it that everyone has the same training as a policeman or a judge would, and thus can carry out their responsibilities on their own?

This is a typical liberal conception: turning everyone into a cop or a judge. This presupposes a definite order where someone decides what actions one should and should not take, and thus it presupposes law and coercion.

In an anarchist system, justice would be more social. You yourself probably have some sense of how justice is managed among friends, without the need to revert to law. That principle can be extended throughout society, as long as no-one has power over one another.

I don't manage justice among my friends. If one of them commits a crime then the regular justice system gets involved.

[Nilokeras]

Prison industrial complex is bad etc. etc. but I don't see the problem with having policemen and judges as a concept. You can make things simpler and also still have professionals enacting those simpler things. And you didn't answer my question - what does any of this have to do with social consciousness.

Again, obviously an anarchist justice system is much easier to enact when everyone is an anarchist. Hence the need to build 'social consciousness' towards achieving that goal.

You are also proposing that bakers will sometimes commit misdeeds, that's what the tribunals and stuff are for, remember? Whatever point about human nature you think I'm making, you agree with it.

I'm quoting some common conceptions of how justice might work in an anarchist society. I never said that I agreed with them. I might, in fact, be a secret statist who is taking up this whole argument because for some reason the topic of anarchism seems to be the Orb of Confusion for some people. Or I could actually be an anarchist. Surprisingly little of this conversation has had anything to do with what I personally believe, and instead has focused on picking apart the fascinating ways people grapple with the ideas of communism or anarchism. Like tyrannical bakers, or how its actually Stalinism for one Australian dude's girlfriend to ask him to do the dishes.

The situation you're describing is two separate states existing. Calling one of them anarchist doesn't change anything.

The purpose of labels like 'state' is to help us categorize and understand the varieties of social systems we see in the world. What does defining a 'state' such that a fully functioning anarchist utopia that happens to operate an aircraft carrier is a 'statist' society gain us in terms of that understanding?

[Umeria]

Prison industrial complex is bad etc. etc. but I don't see the problem with having policemen and judges as a concept. You can make things simpler and also still have professionals enacting those simpler things. And you didn't answer my question - what does any of this have to do with social consciousness.

Again, obviously an anarchist justice system is much easier to enact when everyone is an anarchist. Hence the need to build 'social consciousness' towards achieving that goal.

So this is just a generic point about governments requiring popular approval to function?

You are also proposing that bakers will sometimes commit misdeeds, that's what the tribunals and stuff are for, remember? Whatever point about human nature you think I'm making, you agree with it.

I'm quoting some common conceptions of how justice might work in an anarchist society. I never said that I agreed with them. I might, in fact, be a secret statist who is taking up this whole argument because for some reason the topic of anarchism seems to be the Orb of Confusion for some people. Or I could actually be an anarchist. Surprisingly little of this conversation has had anything to do with what I personally believe, and instead has focused on picking apart the fascinating ways people grapple with the ideas of communism or anarchism. Like tyrannical bakers, or how its actually Stalinism for one Australian dude's girlfriend to ask him to do the dishes.

If I ask you "are anarchists incapable of misdeeds" and you say "surely anarchist justice systems could handle their misdeeds", it seems reasonable to conclude that you believe people in anarchist societies will sometimes commit misdeeds.

What is your position, if not that? I'd hate to make you defend something you don't even believe.

The situation you're describing is two separate states existing. Calling one of them anarchist doesn't change anything.

The purpose of labels like 'state' is to help us categorize and understand the varieties of social systems we see in the world. What does defining a 'state' such that a fully functioning anarchist utopia that happens to operate an aircraft carrier is a 'statist' society gain us in terms of that understanding?

It helps us understand what is necessary for that utopia to exist.

[Australian rePublic]

This is a typical liberal conception: turning everyone into a cop or a judge. This presupposes a definite order where someone decides what actions one should and should not take, and thus it presupposes law and coercion.

In an anarchist system, justice would be more social. You yourself probably have some sense of how justice is managed among friends, without the need to revert to law. That principle can be extended throughout society, as long as no-one has power over one another.

I don't manage justice among my friends. If one of them commits a crime then the regular justice system gets involved.

Exactly. We need a formal justice system. Without a formal justice system, we resort to mob justice. Now, ask yourself this- which is better- take a rape for example.

A) The alleged rapist is sent to police custody. He gets the chance yo prove his innocence in court. If found guilty, he is punished accordingly
B} The alleged rapist is caught by an angry mob. The angry mob corner him, shove ptich forks into him as a form of tourture abefore finishing him off in cold blood. It turns out that mob had the wrong guy. Oopsies.

At least in the west, we have spent centuries developing systems to make sure that we end up with Scanario A rather B. Why would anyone want to go back to Scanario B? It boggles the mind. And considering that the term "mob justice" exists solely to describe situation B, good luck trying to argue that it wouldn't happen

In a past life, I used to work in a bar. We had this guy who was so drunk off his head that he managed to split a toilet in half by shoving a broken glass bottle down there. We don't know ho did it, all we know was that there was a broken toilet in the men's room with half a glass bottle in it. Under capitalism, if we ever found out who did it, he would probably get banned from that bar. What would you propose happen to him umder mob justice? I wasn't there when it happened, I turned up the next morning to news of half a toilet, but the people who were there were sure that he didn't do it on purpose, but he did it out of drunkeness, so no bullshit about his social status will fly

[Portzania]

We have passed
:3333

(anarchism has never worked)

(And never will)