This is all so wrong. First of all, most anarchist advocate for prefiguritive politics, or “building a new world within the shell of the old” which is why things like Food Not Bombs exists, along with many many other anarchist projects specifically aimed at building a stateless, moneyless, classes society. They don’t NOT want to simply abolish the state completely overnight.
Anarchists have come up with a WHOLE lot of ways that a society could be run, and they generally don’t think that there’s a one size fits all solution that would work for everybody.
You haven’t read a single thing about anarchism that didn’t come from a Marxist source, have you?
There still has to be a point where there is a state and then a point where there is not. Are you advocating for seizing control of that state before it seizes to exist, or does your political program want to stay outside of the state until the state stops existing?
That really depends on the anarchist and what they believe about how capitalism comes to an end. But that’s all theory anyway. Anarchists are usually considers materialists, so theory usually comes second to practice. Like, "If I can fill that pothole on my street right now, then why not just do it? For example.
Sure, but can you offer me at least one example? I don’t mean to bore you with the Socratic method so I should just lay my cards on the table:
In my view, either you aim to exist outside of the state until the state ceases to exist, which is a morally admirable view but extremely fragile. The second the state acquires enough hegemonic force to wipe you off the face of the planet, they will and you will leave no trace, so there goes your revolutionary project (that you never stood much of a chance to defend, either).
Or you do want to use the state to wage class war. In this case, that’s really the same as what the Marxists want, fundamentally at least. You’re just stronger in your moral condemnation of the state, while Marxists focus on functionally describing how the struggle from the current capitalist status quo can evolve into a stateless society via a historical process.
Yes I can. But you may not be totally satisfied, because anarchists and Marxists view the “revolutionary project” as slightly different things. My previous hypothetical about potholes wasn’t actually hypothetical. It was based on a real thing called PARC (Portland Anarchist Road Care) which I had the pleasure of participating in back in 2017.
There’s the old standard Food Not Bombs which has fed probably millions of people since the early 80s and are often the first people on the scene in the wake of a natural disaster along with anarchist darlings Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
But if you’re looking for things that more closely emulate state level actions, you’re going to be more out of luck, as anarchists don’t advocate for a state at all, and so that would be a little antithetical.
There are, however, a few examples to point to when it comes to highly intricate levels of organization and resources distribution. For example the aforementioned Zapatistas who don’t claim to be anarchists (there movement is much more multifaceted and intersectional due to the intersecting indigenous rights issues), but they DO adhere to primarily anarchist principle. There’s also Rojava or Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria which operates on a sort of localized version of Social Ecology/Libertarian Municipalism called Democratic Confederalism, that was, and it’s worth noting, developed out of an ostensibly Marxist-Leninist structure.
Of course there are historical examples in Revolutionary Catalonia and the Makhnovshchina, both of which I genuinely believe would have more successful with a little left unity.
In my view, either you aim to exist outside of the state until the state ceases to exist, which is a morally admirable view but extremely fragile. The second the state acquires enough hegemonic force to wipe you off the face of the planet, they will and you will leave no trace, so there goes your revolutionary project (that you never stood much of a chance to defend, either).
This is a valid critique. I personally tend to envision a scenario that would NECESSITATE mutual aid (think, the total dissolution of anything that resembles social welfare in a given location or a massive natural disaster or just the inevitability of destabilization due to climate change), which would have the positive side effect of concentrating more power into the hands of the proletariat. But there’s certainly other ideas about exactly HOW a revolution would take place, I just don’t personally tend to concern myself with those.
Or you do want to use the state to wage class war. In this case, that’s really the same as what the Marxists want, fundamentally at least. You’re just stronger in your moral condemnation of the state, while Marxists focus on functionally describing how the struggle from the current capitalist status quo can evolve into a stateless society via a historical process.
This really depends on what you mean. Anarchists usually see the state and capitalism and inextricably linked, and to defeat one, you must defeat both. But many anarchists also consider capitalism to be inherently unstable and prone to crashes, affording a prime opportunity to step in and show people that people are capable of taking care of people. But I wouldn’t consider the inevitability of the state using force against the proletariat as “using the state to wage class war”, as much as revolutionary potential.
*I’m really sorry this is so long, but you gave me a lot to think about and I didn’t want to just give you a bullshit non answer.
Thank you for the thoughtful answer. I’ll reflect on those points.
Just one final question that’s a bit unrelated: I’ve seen a tendency online from anarchists to be extremely critical of revolution, in general. Some say that Marxists are doing nothing because they’re all waiting for “the glorious revolution” that will fix all problems. Some say that revolution is a gradual process that happens through many reforms. Other say that revolutionary politics are reactionary because the revolution will inevitably harm a lot of marginalized people, like the disabled who won’t have their care infrastructure while there is a civil war going on. I think you can probably spot a lot of contradictions and weaknesses in those arguments, maybe to the point that it looks like I’m presenting a strawman. But I actually mean to ask with genuine interest: what do we say to those people? If there are people who lose faith in revolution because they’re more concerned with morals and “anarchist principles” or “anti-authoritarian principles” to ever actually join a revolutionary struggle, how do we win them back?
You’ve done nothing but act in good faith so far, and of course I will extend you the benefit of the doubt. Asking questions is how we learn, right?
Honestly, I think the reason why a lot of anarchists tend to view Marxists as overly theoretical is because there a few of them participating in the everyday struggles. I can personally say (and this is purely anecdotal) that in actions I’ve taken part in, the committed Marxists that are there are some of the most loyal and trustworthy people I’ve ever been beaten up by cops with, but they are almost always the minority. It’s usually a mix of various leftist tendencies, mostly anarchist, that are all there to achieve a common goal. Very liberal protests, for what it’s worth, seem to have a tendency to attract large groups of Trotskyists.
And then in big tent orgs I’ve been in, then MLs especially, are usually the ones pushing for electoralism and reform.
Anarchism is a LARGE umbrella, kind of like Marxism. But anarchists that I know in real life are generally willing to put aside differences in petty ideology in order to accomplish a goal for the greater good.
I run into people online ALL the time who blindly support the DPRK, the PRC and modern Russia out of some kind of, I don’t know, ritual practice? ANYBODY political online (including both of us) should be treated with heaping mounds of scepticism.
But to more directly answer your question: Anarchism has a history with nihilism. And it has a history with statist projects. And the two things are not mutually exclusive. You will be called “Tankie” the same as I will be called “Liberal”, because nobody that’s making those accusations really know what they’re saying anyway.
Personally, Tankie is a term reserved for very specifically people who defend the Soviet Union in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia . Nothing more or nothing less.
Now, if you’re talking about if you can count on anarchist comrades to take arms and fight against their oppressors, the answer is a definitive “yes”. But if you’re asking them to follow a vanguard that promises it has their best interests at heart, then that is a resounding, “no”. Because hierarchy itself is challenged, there will be no capitulations on personal autonomy that doesn’t originate specifically from the proletariat.
The fact that anarchists can’t agree on a unified course of action is a big part of the reason why all these different ways of running society that people have dreamed up remain firmly in the realm of fantasy.
Sure, in initial stages you’ll have many different orgs. This was the case during Russian revolution as well. However, eventually a single unified vanguard emerges and people get on the same page regarding how to move forward. There is no mechanism for creating a unified vanguard under anarchist approach where there is no central authority by design.
I’m not an anarchist but in their defense, while anarchism proper has never had lasting success the Zapatistas are much less centralized than other socialist experiments and have taken a lot of inspiration from anarchist principles. Left unity should mean that we take an earnest and good faith approach to learning about what we have in common, not just seizing any opportunity to dunk on the other “team.”
Also, even MLism still recognizes that different contradictions demand different approaches. Marx doesn’t prescribe a one-size-fits-all approach either. For some revolutions the right move is a guerilla struggle. For others a general strike. For others it’s about landless peasants doing protracted struggle. So on and so on.
I generally agree that there’s no one size fits all approach. However, any effective organization needs to be grounded in material reality. Discussing concrete examples of organization like Zapatistas is useful because they are achieving something tangible, but saying that people dreamed up plenty of ways to organize society is not very useful of itself.
I just don’t want to get into all the nitty gritty if you haven’t done the reading. We could talk about mutualism, anarcho-communism, syndicalism, democratic confederalism, zapatistas, Makhnovshchina, social ecology, library socialism, etc, etc, etc if you want. We can talk about about all of those and specifically HOW they prescribe a society, how they could interact and/or intersect ALL DAY LONG. But anarchists tend to be materialists, and praxis often takes priority over just theory.
I’m not, no. Because most anarchists I know ARE Marxists (at least in terms of economic analysis). But, in my experience, anarchists are the ones that are actually out there preventing fascist cop training grounds from being built, feeding the unhoused, smuggling people across state lines for healthcare, prison outreach, etc. Because (and this is genuinely just my own experience; I’m totally sure this isn’t a universal constant) I see a lot of Marxists and MLs talking a lot about “when the revolution happens” and not a whole lot about the revolution being fought right now, everyday.
I’m not sure who these MLs are that you’re referring to, but the whole point of ML approach is to do all these things you’re talking about and couple that with education that provides a clear theoretical understanding of what the problems are, and what the solutions need to be. The whole contribution of Lenin to Marxism was to provide the structure for organizing a revolutionary movement.
And that was a useful framework in the early 20th century (I’ve at least read the April Theses), but can we not continue to adapt our revolutionary strategy to better combat the forces who opposed us today rather than in 1917?
Because (and this is genuinely just my own experience; I’m totally sure this isn’t a universal constant) I see a lot of Marxists and MLs talking a lot about “when the revolution happens” and not a whole lot about the revolution being fought right now, everyday.
It’s unfortunate that the MLs in your area are that way. I think it’s interesting that I’ve seen the opposite where I am in the global south. Student groups tend to have a lot of wonderful anarchist tendencies and lots of people who have come to understand politics via online forums (I guess that’s partly true of myself, except I sort of ended up on the other side). Meanwhile, when you go to Palestinian solidarity marches, the labor movement, and other things on the ground (well, except for when student groups demand something from the university) it looks a lot more traditional left wing, with the usual Trotskyist groups and some ML.
I guess if I can point to anything in this dynamic it’s that there isn’t really a huge difference in how effective the different groups are at accomplishing their short term goals, so IMO it would just make more sense to figure out which ideological line is most attractive to the people it’s supposed to serve in a given area and stick to that.
I guess if I can point to anything in this dynamic it’s that there isn’t really a huge difference in how effective the different groups are at accomplishing their short term goals, so IMO it would just make more sense to figure out which ideological line is most attractive to the people it’s supposed to serve in a given area and stick to that.
This is all so wrong. First of all, most anarchist advocate for prefiguritive politics, or “building a new world within the shell of the old” which is why things like Food Not Bombs exists, along with many many other anarchist projects specifically aimed at building a stateless, moneyless, classes society. They don’t NOT want to simply abolish the state completely overnight.
Anarchists have come up with a WHOLE lot of ways that a society could be run, and they generally don’t think that there’s a one size fits all solution that would work for everybody.
You haven’t read a single thing about anarchism that didn’t come from a Marxist source, have you?
There still has to be a point where there is a state and then a point where there is not. Are you advocating for seizing control of that state before it seizes to exist, or does your political program want to stay outside of the state until the state stops existing?
That really depends on the anarchist and what they believe about how capitalism comes to an end. But that’s all theory anyway. Anarchists are usually considers materialists, so theory usually comes second to practice. Like, "If I can fill that pothole on my street right now, then why not just do it? For example.
Anarchists are not materialists for the most parts, and the ones that are are cribbing from Marxism
That’s not what materialism means
Sure, but can you offer me at least one example? I don’t mean to bore you with the Socratic method so I should just lay my cards on the table:
In my view, either you aim to exist outside of the state until the state ceases to exist, which is a morally admirable view but extremely fragile. The second the state acquires enough hegemonic force to wipe you off the face of the planet, they will and you will leave no trace, so there goes your revolutionary project (that you never stood much of a chance to defend, either).
Or you do want to use the state to wage class war. In this case, that’s really the same as what the Marxists want, fundamentally at least. You’re just stronger in your moral condemnation of the state, while Marxists focus on functionally describing how the struggle from the current capitalist status quo can evolve into a stateless society via a historical process.
Yes I can. But you may not be totally satisfied, because anarchists and Marxists view the “revolutionary project” as slightly different things. My previous hypothetical about potholes wasn’t actually hypothetical. It was based on a real thing called PARC (Portland Anarchist Road Care) which I had the pleasure of participating in back in 2017.
There’s the old standard Food Not Bombs which has fed probably millions of people since the early 80s and are often the first people on the scene in the wake of a natural disaster along with anarchist darlings Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
But if you’re looking for things that more closely emulate state level actions, you’re going to be more out of luck, as anarchists don’t advocate for a state at all, and so that would be a little antithetical. There are, however, a few examples to point to when it comes to highly intricate levels of organization and resources distribution. For example the aforementioned Zapatistas who don’t claim to be anarchists (there movement is much more multifaceted and intersectional due to the intersecting indigenous rights issues), but they DO adhere to primarily anarchist principle. There’s also Rojava or Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria which operates on a sort of localized version of Social Ecology/Libertarian Municipalism called Democratic Confederalism, that was, and it’s worth noting, developed out of an ostensibly Marxist-Leninist structure.
Of course there are historical examples in Revolutionary Catalonia and the Makhnovshchina, both of which I genuinely believe would have more successful with a little left unity.
This is a valid critique. I personally tend to envision a scenario that would NECESSITATE mutual aid (think, the total dissolution of anything that resembles social welfare in a given location or a massive natural disaster or just the inevitability of destabilization due to climate change), which would have the positive side effect of concentrating more power into the hands of the proletariat. But there’s certainly other ideas about exactly HOW a revolution would take place, I just don’t personally tend to concern myself with those.
This really depends on what you mean. Anarchists usually see the state and capitalism and inextricably linked, and to defeat one, you must defeat both. But many anarchists also consider capitalism to be inherently unstable and prone to crashes, affording a prime opportunity to step in and show people that people are capable of taking care of people. But I wouldn’t consider the inevitability of the state using force against the proletariat as “using the state to wage class war”, as much as revolutionary potential.
*I’m really sorry this is so long, but you gave me a lot to think about and I didn’t want to just give you a bullshit non answer.
Thank you for the thoughtful answer. I’ll reflect on those points.
Just one final question that’s a bit unrelated: I’ve seen a tendency online from anarchists to be extremely critical of revolution, in general. Some say that Marxists are doing nothing because they’re all waiting for “the glorious revolution” that will fix all problems. Some say that revolution is a gradual process that happens through many reforms. Other say that revolutionary politics are reactionary because the revolution will inevitably harm a lot of marginalized people, like the disabled who won’t have their care infrastructure while there is a civil war going on. I think you can probably spot a lot of contradictions and weaknesses in those arguments, maybe to the point that it looks like I’m presenting a strawman. But I actually mean to ask with genuine interest: what do we say to those people? If there are people who lose faith in revolution because they’re more concerned with morals and “anarchist principles” or “anti-authoritarian principles” to ever actually join a revolutionary struggle, how do we win them back?
You’ve done nothing but act in good faith so far, and of course I will extend you the benefit of the doubt. Asking questions is how we learn, right?
Honestly, I think the reason why a lot of anarchists tend to view Marxists as overly theoretical is because there a few of them participating in the everyday struggles. I can personally say (and this is purely anecdotal) that in actions I’ve taken part in, the committed Marxists that are there are some of the most loyal and trustworthy people I’ve ever been beaten up by cops with, but they are almost always the minority. It’s usually a mix of various leftist tendencies, mostly anarchist, that are all there to achieve a common goal. Very liberal protests, for what it’s worth, seem to have a tendency to attract large groups of Trotskyists.
And then in big tent orgs I’ve been in, then MLs especially, are usually the ones pushing for electoralism and reform.
Anarchism is a LARGE umbrella, kind of like Marxism. But anarchists that I know in real life are generally willing to put aside differences in petty ideology in order to accomplish a goal for the greater good.
I run into people online ALL the time who blindly support the DPRK, the PRC and modern Russia out of some kind of, I don’t know, ritual practice? ANYBODY political online (including both of us) should be treated with heaping mounds of scepticism.
But to more directly answer your question: Anarchism has a history with nihilism. And it has a history with statist projects. And the two things are not mutually exclusive. You will be called “Tankie” the same as I will be called “Liberal”, because nobody that’s making those accusations really know what they’re saying anyway.
Personally, Tankie is a term reserved for very specifically people who defend the Soviet Union in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia . Nothing more or nothing less.
Now, if you’re talking about if you can count on anarchist comrades to take arms and fight against their oppressors, the answer is a definitive “yes”. But if you’re asking them to follow a vanguard that promises it has their best interests at heart, then that is a resounding, “no”. Because hierarchy itself is challenged, there will be no capitulations on personal autonomy that doesn’t originate specifically from the proletariat.
Why Czechoslovakia? The term originally came from Hungary
The fact that anarchists can’t agree on a unified course of action is a big part of the reason why all these different ways of running society that people have dreamed up remain firmly in the realm of fantasy.
There are at least six feuding Marxist orgs where I live, I don’t think this is a valid critique of anarchism.
Sure, in initial stages you’ll have many different orgs. This was the case during Russian revolution as well. However, eventually a single unified vanguard emerges and people get on the same page regarding how to move forward. There is no mechanism for creating a unified vanguard under anarchist approach where there is no central authority by design.
Good point.
I’m not an anarchist but in their defense, while anarchism proper has never had lasting success the Zapatistas are much less centralized than other socialist experiments and have taken a lot of inspiration from anarchist principles. Left unity should mean that we take an earnest and good faith approach to learning about what we have in common, not just seizing any opportunity to dunk on the other “team.”
Also, even MLism still recognizes that different contradictions demand different approaches. Marx doesn’t prescribe a one-size-fits-all approach either. For some revolutions the right move is a guerilla struggle. For others a general strike. For others it’s about landless peasants doing protracted struggle. So on and so on.
I generally agree that there’s no one size fits all approach. However, any effective organization needs to be grounded in material reality. Discussing concrete examples of organization like Zapatistas is useful because they are achieving something tangible, but saying that people dreamed up plenty of ways to organize society is not very useful of itself.
I just don’t want to get into all the nitty gritty if you haven’t done the reading. We could talk about mutualism, anarcho-communism, syndicalism, democratic confederalism, zapatistas, Makhnovshchina, social ecology, library socialism, etc, etc, etc if you want. We can talk about about all of those and specifically HOW they prescribe a society, how they could interact and/or intersect ALL DAY LONG. But anarchists tend to be materialists, and praxis often takes priority over just theory.
Are you implying this is somehow different from Marxists?
I’m not, no. Because most anarchists I know ARE Marxists (at least in terms of economic analysis). But, in my experience, anarchists are the ones that are actually out there preventing fascist cop training grounds from being built, feeding the unhoused, smuggling people across state lines for healthcare, prison outreach, etc. Because (and this is genuinely just my own experience; I’m totally sure this isn’t a universal constant) I see a lot of Marxists and MLs talking a lot about “when the revolution happens” and not a whole lot about the revolution being fought right now, everyday.
I’m not sure who these MLs are that you’re referring to, but the whole point of ML approach is to do all these things you’re talking about and couple that with education that provides a clear theoretical understanding of what the problems are, and what the solutions need to be. The whole contribution of Lenin to Marxism was to provide the structure for organizing a revolutionary movement.
And that was a useful framework in the early 20th century (I’ve at least read the April Theses), but can we not continue to adapt our revolutionary strategy to better combat the forces who opposed us today rather than in 1917?
It’s unfortunate that the MLs in your area are that way. I think it’s interesting that I’ve seen the opposite where I am in the global south. Student groups tend to have a lot of wonderful anarchist tendencies and lots of people who have come to understand politics via online forums (I guess that’s partly true of myself, except I sort of ended up on the other side). Meanwhile, when you go to Palestinian solidarity marches, the labor movement, and other things on the ground (well, except for when student groups demand something from the university) it looks a lot more traditional left wing, with the usual Trotskyist groups and some ML.
I guess if I can point to anything in this dynamic it’s that there isn’t really a huge difference in how effective the different groups are at accomplishing their short term goals, so IMO it would just make more sense to figure out which ideological line is most attractive to the people it’s supposed to serve in a given area and stick to that.
I 100% agree