Without wanting to sound like an attack, if anarchism works, why hasn’t it worked?
You might not be intending it to be this way, but this is just a tired mindless attack, the same one your average chud makes against any form of communism. If your definition of valid forms of society includes only ones which have successfully overthrown capitalism in a modern state and stayed that way to the current day, then capitalism is the only valid way to arrange society.
Are you really surprised that anarchist communities tend to be smaller in scale? My understanding of anarchist values would lead me to assume a smaller scale, less centralized existence. I think many anarchists would consider these positives.
if communism was as successful as capitalism I’d have hoped to have seen communist projects on a scale to collectively rival capitalist projects in size
The argument your making is no better than the one made by bourgeois capitalists to "disprove" communism.
Just remember, we're fighting the same fight, and there's no reason existing communist countries and existing anarchist communities can't work together. Zapatistas seem to have figured out leftist unity.
The most successfull revolutionary group in the history of the imperial core was a maoist vanguard party , the black panthers.
In the US, yeah, but generally many European countries had much more successful revolutionary groups than a relatively short lived movement with 8k members in a country of 300 million, and most of Europe is generally considered part of the imperial core.
I live in Europe the idea that any kind of marxist group is able to get enough power to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat is silly to me
Where in Europe do you live? Because in most European countries in the 20th century it was marxist communists who had any kind of success at all ever, as opposed to anarchists, unless you take into account Catalonia which was before the war and had nothing to do with modern anarchy, in which case you'd also have to take into account all the partisans all over Europe, the communists in Spain, and the (failed) revolutions that happened.
I favour communism over capitalism for ideological not practical reasons, but I favour marxism over anarchism for practical reasons over the ideological.
I think most anarchists favor anarchism over marxism for ideological reasons, so using practicality-based arguments might not appeal to most anarchists.
These days though I just think a marxist approach is more realistic and less utopian
I think there's room in the world for both, and perhaps each is more capable in certain places.
Well, the way I see it is that the most effective method for achieving communism in China is marxism, and the most effective method for achieving communism in Chiapas is anarchism; both evidenced by the fact that their attempts to fight back against capitalism worked, and the rest of the world's attempts have failed. I think pretending there's gonna be one blueprint that's "the most effective" everywhere is naïve.
There's been dozens of successful Marxist-Leninist revolutions. It took the US half a century of unparalleled economic, military, diplomatic and propagandistic efforts to wear these states down, states that without exception where undeveloped, impoverished, largely illiterate backwaters either suffering under despotic monarchs, a colonial extractive economy or both before the communists came along, and not only did most of them hold out against the biggest superpower in the world for decades while making substantial headway in improving material conditions, the yanqui swine still haven't succeeded in their effort against China, the DPRK, Cuba and Vietnam. There's good, valid criticisms from the left of all of these states and how far they've actually come in building AES, but denying their successes in their entirity because they didn't immediately implement full communism, ignoring the sacking of the bourgeoise class in these countries and saying that capitalism is the only game in town and that our only alternative would be some totally different approach that just has never been tried yet, that these projects are "not actually socialism", is a form of capitalist realism. Please stop adopting chuds "socialism doesn't work" arguments. Of course socialism does work, there would have been no need for a Cold War if it wouldn't. If even the transitionary stage of socialism wasn't a massive, vital threat to capitalism, if communist revolutions would be as pointless in overcoming cpaitalism as you are stating, why would capital bother to fight tooth and nail against this?
Look, it's not really an own if you need to put words in my mouth to make your argument work. I didn't argue against anarchism at all, i was arguing for socialism, which you are dismissing in exactly the same way as some chud or neolib - by saying that there has never been a viable alternative to capitalism. But there has been, and there is.
You might not be intending it to be this way, but this is just a tired mindless attack, the same one your average chud makes against any form of communism. If your definition of valid forms of society includes only ones which have successfully overthrown capitalism in a modern state and stayed that way to the current day, then capitalism is the only valid way to arrange society.
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Are you really surprised that anarchist communities tend to be smaller in scale? My understanding of anarchist values would lead me to assume a smaller scale, less centralized existence. I think many anarchists would consider these positives.
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The argument your making is no better than the one made by bourgeois capitalists to "disprove" communism.
Just remember, we're fighting the same fight, and there's no reason existing communist countries and existing anarchist communities can't work together. Zapatistas seem to have figured out leftist unity.
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In the US, yeah, but generally many European countries had much more successful revolutionary groups than a relatively short lived movement with 8k members in a country of 300 million, and most of Europe is generally considered part of the imperial core.
Lots of anarchist groups had the same success the BPP had
Where in Europe do you live? Because in most European countries in the 20th century it was marxist communists who had any kind of success at all ever, as opposed to anarchists, unless you take into account Catalonia which was before the war and had nothing to do with modern anarchy, in which case you'd also have to take into account all the partisans all over Europe, the communists in Spain, and the (failed) revolutions that happened.
I think most anarchists favor anarchism over marxism for ideological reasons, so using practicality-based arguments might not appeal to most anarchists.
I think there's room in the world for both, and perhaps each is more capable in certain places.
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Well, the way I see it is that the most effective method for achieving communism in China is marxism, and the most effective method for achieving communism in Chiapas is anarchism; both evidenced by the fact that their attempts to fight back against capitalism worked, and the rest of the world's attempts have failed. I think pretending there's gonna be one blueprint that's "the most effective" everywhere is naïve.
Nothing has ever seen long-term or large-scale success, if you uncharitably tweak the definitions of long-term and large-scale.
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Sorry, they haven't lasted long enough to be long-term, and they're not big enough to be large-scale.
I, too, can use meaningless filler terms with definitions only I know while insisting I'm arguing in good faith.
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You sound like Matthew Yglesias.
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It means your arguments sound like those made by bourgeois capitalists.
There's been dozens of successful Marxist-Leninist revolutions. It took the US half a century of unparalleled economic, military, diplomatic and propagandistic efforts to wear these states down, states that without exception where undeveloped, impoverished, largely illiterate backwaters either suffering under despotic monarchs, a colonial extractive economy or both before the communists came along, and not only did most of them hold out against the biggest superpower in the world for decades while making substantial headway in improving material conditions, the yanqui swine still haven't succeeded in their effort against China, the DPRK, Cuba and Vietnam. There's good, valid criticisms from the left of all of these states and how far they've actually come in building AES, but denying their successes in their entirity because they didn't immediately implement full communism, ignoring the sacking of the bourgeoise class in these countries and saying that capitalism is the only game in town and that our only alternative would be some totally different approach that just has never been tried yet, that these projects are "not actually socialism", is a form of capitalist realism. Please stop adopting chuds "socialism doesn't work" arguments. Of course socialism does work, there would have been no need for a Cold War if it wouldn't. If even the transitionary stage of socialism wasn't a massive, vital threat to capitalism, if communist revolutions would be as pointless in overcoming cpaitalism as you are stating, why would capital bother to fight tooth and nail against this?
please take a step back and appreciate the irony
Look, it's not really an own if you need to put words in my mouth to make your argument work. I didn't argue against anarchism at all, i was arguing for socialism, which you are dismissing in exactly the same way as some chud or neolib - by saying that there has never been a viable alternative to capitalism. But there has been, and there is.
yes you did
no im not
i fully, unironically support the DPRK you fucking clown
take your disingenuous bullshit somewhere else. your arguments are chud-tier, your walls of text hurt my eyes.
Dude, wtf? Are you always like this?
impatient toward disingenuous sectarian bullshit by extremely online debate nerds? yes. thats a good thing.