The difference between communism and anarchism isn’t the aims, but whether the state could immediately be abolished or that there must be a transitional period.
Anarchists don’t want a fully publicly owned and planned global republic, Marxists do. Anarchists want networks of decentralized communes, Marxists do not.
The “state” for Marxists is the oppressive elements of society that make up class distinctions, such as private property rights and the current police structure, whereas for Anarchists its usually seen as a form of hierarchy entrenched with violence.
Chiefly, a decentralized network of communed does not get rid of class, but entrenches petite bourgeois class structures where each commune owns only what is within its commune, whereas Marxists want to abolish class by making all property equally owned by all in a highly developed and complex economy.
If you believe in great man theory™ and think that all political developments happen because one person can magically steer entire countries and the world, in geo-political terms, or idealists in thinking that if you have the correct ideas, you can magically steer the entire rest of the world to whatever you think, by having the correct thoughts. Then your theories of political developments are non-materialist, like this comment is objecting to. The system sets the conditions of who is going to be empowered or rewarded for their actions and positions.
People in this context appears to be plural, thus I don’t see how Montreal_Metro’s take is Great Man Theory.
The system sets the conditions of who is going to be empowered or rewarded for their actions and positions.
Ultimately, any system is operated by mere mortals who will arbitrarily reward and punish people based on their own bias, morals and desires. Systems only work so long as the people manning them follow the rules. Systems only last if the people running it punish rule breakers.
According to all of history, corruption, apathy, and pure human greed and ingenuity will gradually eat away any system, economic and political, until it collapses. Only for the failing system to be replaced by a “better” system, which begins the cycle again.
The fact that it is attributed to a very few actors and not a literal, singular actor does not negate great man theory.
The issue is that this is arbitrarily flattening of the actual material conditions. You can point out that nearly all political systems, on a long enough timeline lead to some form of collapse (Joseph Tainter is a good reference on this). But all of these things are dependent, not independent, of the systems and conditions they find themselves in. The timescales and forms can vary drastically depending on the material conditions actors find themselves in.
Did the system that created the conditions people find themselves in come first. Or did the people running the system create the conditions that they find themselves in?
It is not that there isn’t some flow both ways, but that the material conditions is much more dominant than people coming up with ideas and mechanations moving things in ways contradicting the conditions. The system setting the conditions is in fact dominant. The way corruption and self-dealing manifests is different between where you can just create a private corporation and lobby for a government contract to justify being given a 500 million dollars of tax payer money, versus trying to massage Gosplan to syphon off several million Rubles of excess spending, versus tricking a sovereign wealth fund to hand over several billion dollars for some supposed innovative building company to create innovations for Neom.
It doesn’t matter what ideology. If the people running it are rotten, any system can be corrupted.
So then the solution is to decentralize so everyone is running it.
Communism by any other name would smell as sweet
A co-operative ?
Communism is more about centralization, Anarchism is the one about decentralization as a rule.
The difference between communism and anarchism isn’t the aims, but whether the state could immediately be abolished or that there must be a transitional period.
Anarchists don’t want a fully publicly owned and planned global republic, Marxists do. Anarchists want networks of decentralized communes, Marxists do not.
The “state” for Marxists is the oppressive elements of society that make up class distinctions, such as private property rights and the current police structure, whereas for Anarchists its usually seen as a form of hierarchy entrenched with violence.
Chiefly, a decentralized network of communed does not get rid of class, but entrenches petite bourgeois class structures where each commune owns only what is within its commune, whereas Marxists want to abolish class by making all property equally owned by all in a highly developed and complex economy.
And likewise, oligarchy calling itself communism smells just as rancid.
Deeply anti-materialist take.
Can you explain how you disagree? Is it about incentives to be corrupt (or against) depending on the system?
If you believe in great man theory™ and think that all political developments happen because one person can magically steer entire countries and the world, in geo-political terms, or idealists in thinking that if you have the correct ideas, you can magically steer the entire rest of the world to whatever you think, by having the correct thoughts. Then your theories of political developments are non-materialist, like this comment is objecting to. The system sets the conditions of who is going to be empowered or rewarded for their actions and positions.
People in this context appears to be plural, thus I don’t see how Montreal_Metro’s take is Great Man Theory.
Ultimately, any system is operated by mere mortals who will arbitrarily reward and punish people based on their own bias, morals and desires. Systems only work so long as the people manning them follow the rules. Systems only last if the people running it punish rule breakers.
According to all of history, corruption, apathy, and pure human greed and ingenuity will gradually eat away any system, economic and political, until it collapses. Only for the failing system to be replaced by a “better” system, which begins the cycle again.
The fact that it is attributed to a very few actors and not a literal, singular actor does not negate great man theory.
The issue is that this is arbitrarily flattening of the actual material conditions. You can point out that nearly all political systems, on a long enough timeline lead to some form of collapse (Joseph Tainter is a good reference on this). But all of these things are dependent, not independent, of the systems and conditions they find themselves in. The timescales and forms can vary drastically depending on the material conditions actors find themselves in.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
Did the system that created the conditions people find themselves in come first. Or did the people running the system create the conditions that they find themselves in?
It is not that there isn’t some flow both ways, but that the material conditions is much more dominant than people coming up with ideas and mechanations moving things in ways contradicting the conditions. The system setting the conditions is in fact dominant. The way corruption and self-dealing manifests is different between where you can just create a private corporation and lobby for a government contract to justify being given a 500 million dollars of tax payer money, versus trying to massage Gosplan to syphon off several million Rubles of excess spending, versus tricking a sovereign wealth fund to hand over several billion dollars for some supposed innovative building company to create innovations for Neom.
Thank you for the answers! That makes sense to me.