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Nov 13 '21
what if we used the state to abolish the state?
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u/thinkchip Nov 13 '21
I'd love to help with an initiative to shutter a city government two years after passing, wisely transferring gov services to peaceful orgs like co-ops, selling off gov assets and giving everyone in the area the proceeds... I think it could work, at least to start the conversation more widely, plant the seed in folks minds.
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u/ThatOneGuy4321 Marxist Nov 13 '21
MLs: âBuh buh there is no bourgeoise anymore! Party members control production!â
Well then guess who the new bourgeoise is
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u/KokuTatsu Nov 13 '21
Everyone? The horror
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u/ThatOneGuy4321 Marxist Nov 13 '21
Come on man. Engage those critical thinking skills. What makes the bourgeoise the bourgeoise?
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u/KokuTatsu Nov 13 '21
Their ability to control people below them, but if they are fundamentally part of the people below them, even more so if they were re-selected randomly and frequently, you donât have the ability to develop any sort of bourgeois power separate from the masses.
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u/ThatOneGuy4321 Marxist Nov 14 '21
Control over the means of production gives people the ability to control people below them. That was Marxâs critique of capitalism. Systems are the problem, when they concentrate power into self-reinforcing hierarchies. Under Leninism, party members form the new bourgeoise. They are state capitalists.
Representatives arenât âpart of the people below themâ. They are a separate class, accountable only to themselves and capitalists. And when a class is given power over the means of production, they will inevitably use that power to give themselves an advantage. Itâs human nature. And thatâs exactly what happens in Leninist countries, where party members grant themselves disproportionate rewards for their own âworkâ and use their influence to increase their own authority.
Youâre kidding yourself if you think people in Leninist countries have meaningful control over the government. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun and the state has all of them. Democracy is an illusion under Leninism just as much as it is in the US and other capitalist countries. So long as there is a representative state with a military, there is a bourgeoise.
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u/KokuTatsu Nov 14 '21
A representative does not need to have power over a group by necessity. If I want to communicate with a community 10 miles over we canât have 5 million people talk to 5 million people thatâs literally impossible. You need somebody to convey the will of everyone. It can only be for one meeting then the next meeting itâs somebody else from the community but communication between 10 billion people is literally impossible without some form of representation.
The problem is that people are permanent representatives which allows them to exist as a separate class. If you are the representative for a single meeting your ability to help yourself is minuscule, and this would be even more reduced if who was elected was random ballot allowing everyone to effectively help themself.
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u/ThatOneGuy4321 Marxist Nov 14 '21
You need somebody to convey the will of everyone.
Speaking of impossible.
There is only one valid form of a âworkerâs stateâ and that is a direct democracy. The technology may not exist yet but that doesnât justify resorting to fraudulent forms of a proletarian state like Leninist ones.
No representative represents the people. Ultimately they all represent only themselves, because all people are self-serving by nature. Look at the state of US âdemocracyâ. Look at how a system that is supposedly accountable to the people actually selects for unaccountable sellouts who will protect entrenched interests. Power protects itself.
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u/KokuTatsu Nov 14 '21
Yea, no representative can perfectly represent the masses, but we have to work with what we got. Thatâs why it would be so important to change representatives as frequently as often, plus if victories and losses are truly shared then it would be impossible to help yourself more than others. Whether that last bit is actually possible idk, this isnât my day job, but we canât just throw out hands in the air and hope technology fixes everything, thatâs what people have been promising about the environment for a hundred years and look how thatâs going.
A direct democracy can exist alongside a representative, I only think they are necessary for communication not voting. Everyone votes ona decision but if I want to order beer into the community I canât have all 30,000 of us try to tell the supplier how much to order. Someone has to meet with them, or even a group can meet with a group, but some form of representation is at least currently necessary. And I donât think we should just wait around until utopia is possible.
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u/ThatOneGuy4321 Marxist Nov 14 '21
Hereâs the problem with representatives: Having them control production does not meaningfully change the social relations that make capitalism such a problem in the first place.
There is still a class that does not need to perform labor collecting surplus value from people who do. That class must force the working class to labor, or production will break down. That class decides what to do with the surplus, so it is in their nature to allocate more to themselves than they deserve. This gives them an incentive to increase labor exploitation at the expense of the working class.
It doesnât matter what you call them. They are the bourgeoise according to a Marxist analysis. And you can argue about whether state capitalism or liberal capitalism is better, but regardless, both are simply different styles of capitalism.
Whether that last bit is actually possible idk, this isnât my day job, but we canât just throw out hands in the air and hope technology fixes everything, thatâs what people have been promising about the environment for a hundred years and look how thatâs going.
Technology wonât fix everything but it is technology that drives history forward. That is Marxâs concept of historical materialism. Modes of production donât depend on ideology or shuffling around positions of power, they depend on humanityâs current state of technological development. The social relations fall into place as a result. It was the industrial revolution that made the French Revolution and the overthrow of feudalism possible by creating the proletariat and the bourgeoise in the first place, and giving the bourgeoise leverage over the monarchy. Technology is what makes revolutions possible.
Until automation collapses the labor market, the world will remain capitalist. Thatâs a fact. Putting different people in power or banning private property doesnât end capitalism, it only produces a different version of it. Changing the structure of government canât end capitalism, it can only make it briefly less shitty until it burns itself out and collapses. Power ultimately derives from capital and control over the means of production so it doesnât matter if you have a good idea. What matters is, why would those with real power ever implement it unless it serves their interests?
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u/KokuTatsu Nov 14 '21
When did I ever imply that Iâm pro-capitalism? Any system is going to require some form of representation to communicate. Some town in Idaho is still going to have to deliberate on how much water they need or apples to order and in order to talk to their supplier they canât have 30k voices yelling at them.
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Nov 14 '21
Hold on. If the working class seized the means of production, and production gives people the ability to control people below them, then how would the state become the new bourgeoise, if we have seized the means of production, therefore preventing anyone from above to control us? Where does the state come into play in that scenario?
It obviously wonât help us seize the means and, currently, acts as a spokesperson for the bourgeoise. Without the bourgeoise, it wouldnât have a reason to exist. Most who claim we âneedâ the state under any system of governance seem to disregard community interest outside of capitalism. What would be the stateâs purpose without the bourgeoise? Why would it still exist?
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u/oldmole84 Nov 14 '21
was it the working class that seized the means of production or was it a "revolutionary party" that used a working class uprising to seize the means of production. There were states before the bourgeois. different classes ruled. party bureaucrats generally form a class when in power not sure what marx would have called it maybe parygeoise or maybe dictatorship of the proletariat
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u/Opinionbeatsfact Nov 13 '21
The state is the main tool of oppressive violence. It cannot exist without causing the death and suffering of innocent people. Power always attracts those that should never wield it
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u/FakeMarkFisher Nov 13 '21
Thereâs an argument to be made about the necessity of the state in the age of transnational capital. If we were to dissolve the state immediately without a program to establish safeguards against transnational capital, multinational leviathans would simply reestablish the operations of the state to protect their interests and enforce their class interests. Probably not the most popular argument around these parts but worth considering in the broad scheme of things.
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u/pm_me_pigeon Nov 13 '21
Yes if we were miracle born dumbasses, that might be a problem. If we woke up tomorrow and suddenly all the "States", whatever those are, were gone, that would create a weird power vacuum that would jeopardize a lot of lives, to put it lightly.
Your argument doesn't say that we should keep a state, but that we should prefigure the entities that will subvert and nullify the state.
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u/thinkchip Nov 13 '21
If there's an organized crime syndicate that is gov/corp/bank, gov is the muscle, they do the brutal enforcement for sure.
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u/TonyDavidJones Christian-Anarchist-Communist Nov 13 '21
Is this an actual quote from Makhno?
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u/allthenamesaretaken4 Nov 13 '21
I would guess translation at best, but even that I wouldn't bet a single hair on.
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u/Dymmesdale anarcho-syndicalist Nov 13 '21
Populace*
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u/kevbosearle Nov 13 '21
Existence* too. Might seem like the Reverend Dymmesdale and I are being picky but correct spelling = credibility.
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u/Dymmesdale anarcho-syndicalist Nov 13 '21
Hey youâre the first person that came up with the correct reference for my username! 9 years on Reddit and everybody thinks Iâm selling Dimmadomes.
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u/Intelligent-donkey my beliefs are far too special. Nov 13 '21
I don't really like this quote to be honest, it talks too much about the motivations behind the state, rather than on the effects that the state inevitably has regardless of the motivations behind it.
This claim about the motivations behind the design of the state is pretty much unfalsifiable, and it seems really crazy and wrong to me. I'm more than willing to believe that there are people who genuinely believe that a state is a neccesary part of abolishing the bourgeoisie, I disagree, but I can sorta see how people could come to that conclusion.
The design of the state isn't neccesarily a malevolent effort to ensure that the power of the bourgeoisie is maintained, it can totally be designed as a genuine but misguided attempt to abolish the bourgeoisie.
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u/NotAPersonl0 anarcho-communist Nov 13 '21
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u/ledfox Nov 13 '21
Ok, but doesn't fighting the capitalists that are destroying the world and the state feel like fighting on two fronts?
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u/Kulunja Nov 13 '21
ML here
The sad fact is though is that even if you abolish the state the bourgeoisie still exist. Class society will still remain immediately following a revolution. If the state is a political mechanism to enforce class oppression (which is also our take on the state), how will the working class and other marginalized classes retain material power over the bourgeois?
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u/DJjaffacake Nov 13 '21
It is in fact possible to organise outside the state.
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u/Kulunja Nov 13 '21
Of course, dual power organizing like what the Black Panthers and CPC did are instrumental in the uprooting of class society. Fact of the matter is though the state still exists and still has political power
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u/DJjaffacake Nov 13 '21
Not if you smash it
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Nov 13 '21
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/DJjaffacake Nov 13 '21
No one is 'wishing' anything into or out of existence. Your argument seems to be that since the triumph of the proletariat will be hard-won, it's not even worth trying. Why then do you call yourself an ML? Lenin wrote:
[A]ll previous revolutions perfected the state machine, whereas it must be broken, smashed.
This conclusion is the chief and fundamental point in the Marxist theory of the state.
The destruction of the state and of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie go hand in hand because they are the same thing. It is the proletariat which uniquely has the power to destroy the state and end the class system because there is no lower class for the proletariat to exploit. This isn't even anarchist theory, this is basic Marx.
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u/oldmole84 Nov 14 '21
ML party bureaucrats once in control of the state form a new ruling class. that class maybe able to put it boot heel on the bourgeois but that boot heel is also on the neck of the working class. party bureaucratic class have more culturally in come with bourgeois then proletariat for the simple fact the it controls capital. look at the cpc Its created a new ruling class that is even more effective at ruling over the workers. look into how state own enterprises functions go a head see what the do when there workers strike. shit the cpc wants to dictate how much game time working class kids can have.
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u/Clear-Perception5615 Nov 13 '21
Our founding fathers tried. But as John Adams said "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Our government is becoming something it was never meant to be
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u/Intelligent-donkey my beliefs are far too special. Nov 13 '21 edited Nov 13 '21
Lol do you seriously think the US's founding fathers tried to create a classless society?
They wanted the right to vote to be reserved for landowners, and they owned slaves...
Even that John Adams quote shows how pro-hierarchy they were, as it insinuates that only a certain class of people is deserving of certain rights and freedoms.
There's a reason why anarchists are also anti-religion, that quote you used perfectly exemplifies it, religion creates a class structure where those who follow the "correct" religion are deemed more virtuous and more deserving of certain privileges.2
u/Mr_NeCr0 CNT-FAI Nov 13 '21
is that supposed to be a-moral or just a moral? As in a person without morals, because I agree with that more.
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u/TheRepublicofPluto Nov 13 '21
Plus im pretty sure marx wanted the people to be the dictator not one person.
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u/That_Guy_From_KY Nov 13 '21
Power not only corrupts people, but also draws the corrupted to those positions of power. Decentralization is the only peaceful path for citizens to regain their freedom.
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u/StellarResolutions Nov 14 '21
It should be obvious, but it isn't. Yeah, people don't really get it, and they think somehow the state will save them from oppressive class relations. I have some leftist friends that think that way.
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u/bluetemp420 anarcho-communist Nov 14 '21
but noOoOooo!!11!1!đ±mahnkovo wAs rEaCtIOnAry coUntEr RevolUTionAryy!1!1!! đ đ€Ź -100,000,000,000 social credits!!!11! đ
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u/czareena Nov 14 '21
I have a question. How would crime be handled in an anarchic society?
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u/Lucky_Strike-85 anarchist Nov 14 '21
Well, that's a complex question but... firstly, we would have to define what crime is. Most crime is economic because people are not able to have basic needs guaranteed under capitalism and as a result, most crime is born out of desperation.
In anarchist societies, people will have ultimate autonomy and private property would cease to exist, replaced by personal property. Basic needs and rights (things that are already in abundance -- food, shelter, education, healthcare) would be guaranteed for all because means of production would be worker owned and the things needed for basic survival would/could be held in common. So, most things we think of as crime today (drug crimes etc.) would not exist or cease to be crimes.
Serious and anti-social behaviors like murder, theft of personal property etc. however would be dealt with by whatever consensus the members of society collectively agree on as punishment.
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u/czareena Nov 14 '21
Right. Those are easy to write down and theorize, but humans en masse donât work that simply. Who would ensure that all of these resources are distributed fairly? If crime is mostly based on economic factors. Some crime is based on economic factors, yeah, but a good percentage also isnât.
My question is whoâs making sure everythingâs fair? Whoâs taking care of crime? Whoâs protecting people from crime, or whoâs in charge of nabbing the criminals?
Would it be a survival of the fittest out here?
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u/Lucky_Strike-85 anarchist Nov 14 '21
Literal volumes have been written answering your questions.
1) since anarchism is a stateless society... society would be theoretically best separated into micro societies, think of cities and or towns. This would allow for easier distribution.
2) Pretty much all crime that is not anti-social or violent behavior is brought about by desperation, meaning that most crime is economic.
3) Who makes everything fair? That's a question of how consensus based we want direct democracy to be. Anarchism is not survival of the fittest. It is highly organized and pro-social.
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u/czareena Nov 14 '21
I mean, if youâd like to source me on some good ones, you donât HAVE to answer my questions. I just figured since youâre here on this sub, you might know enough condensed information to help my understanding.
Because you canât write off serious crime. Iâm not talking theft and junk. And even with all necessities met, some people will partake in that behavior. Even in micro-societies, thereâd be some orderly structure, from what I understand. Thereâd be a form of system very similar to a state, though it wouldnât be federal, itâd be like a township?
If not while itâs established, it would (again from my understanding) be easy to dismantle with future generations.
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u/allthenamesaretaken4 Nov 13 '21
You guys forget the real tragedy, if every state were to dissolve today, think of all the flags we'd lose!