reading the list of ideologies "harmful to the global south" and comparing it to the ideologies that the global south has tried and gotten results from and drawing no conclusions

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      9 months ago

      it's more my experience that anarchists I've met who avoid the internet just don't care about the debates at all. They don't tend to agree with Marxists, but also don't think the debate is very important

      • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        9 months ago

        This has been my experience as well. Most of them (us) just aren't all that interested in having the theory debate most of the time. I have strong principled commitments to anarchism, and some theory disagreements with MLs, but I can and do work with MLs in the real world. The world we live in is so far away from the one where those theory disagreements will practically matter that they might as well not exist.

          • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]
            ·
            9 months ago

            Yeah, I think all of that is right. There's so far to go before we even start to approach that problem, though, that sectarianism at this point seems ridiculous. If and when we get to the point of revolution, it will become a live question. Until then, though, we effectively all want the same thing.

            • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
              ·
              9 months ago

              It may not even be too intense of a question depending on how power is gained and when. I personally see China's development as a synthesis of anarchist elements during the cultural revolution and more traditional ML party structure. China's urban/rural divide represent different land management systems for instance as well. Cuban syndicalists/unions also frequently collaborate with the state in a similar way.

              In those situations though the primary enemy was imperialism. Depending on how things go in the west, the anarchist/ML divide may not even be an issue, or it won't manifest that way. That's what I've always imagined, that the situation of an earnest socialist insurgency in the west would be such a drastically different situation that what we have now that there's probably going to be full volumes of new theory that have to be written.

              • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]
                ·
                9 months ago

                the situation of an earnest socialist insurgency in the west would be such a drastically different situation that what we have now that there's probably going to be full volumes of new theory that have to be written.

                That's a better way to put it, and I agree. I think sometimes people imagine that revolution in (say) the US would just look like the October Revolution come again. It won't. Our material conditions are vastly different, and the theory, tactics, concerns, and problems will be vastly different as well. There's certainly no need to do the enemy's work for him and reproduce the problems of the past before we even get to that juncture, and things may be so different we never need get there at all.