andyh wrote:
Guevarista wrote:
i want to know whether the country you base your opinion on had freedom and material abundance to achieve socialism,
Since when is that ever going to happen with a revolution or some unions? lol
Socialism as it is today is really obviously an authoritarian model, governance was distinctly authoritarian in the past just as it is now.
Being involved in it, only encourages it.
The elite recognised all this donkeys years ago, you're miles behind them. They're already working on shutting the door of opportunity forever and you're sat talking about stuff that has been going on for centuries.
So you attack me for studying the development of class consciousness, the development of the struggle for equality and freedom, why, so i'll believe your options for the future are the only ones?
There are basically three modes of anarchist thought for 'solution' if you want to call it that.
1. Violent uprising. (which will probably be co-opted before it gets anywhere and everyone involved will end up dead/injured/incarcerated etc etc unless it involves literally millions of people, if you 'win' what happens afterwards- usually yet more laws and regulations anew hence co-opted)
Scratch that one off then obviously a solution to nothing.
2. Creation of a separate state. (requires bloody massive initial investment and effort)
Why you think this is more logical or likely than assuming control of the current apparatus is beyond me, and contrary to more or less every anarchist author i've ever read.
3. Individual non-violent non-cooperation and participation with the system and co-operation with like minded individuals (weak, small scale, unlikely to change much other than for individuals involved). On the plus side, this is at least 'moral'.
Moral Anarchism eh, sounds shite, who determines the morals?
Why you think this is at all more productive than fighting the ruling interests for control of the system within politics, or somehow more moral i don't really get?
So all in all, in your opinion Anarchism offers zero solutions, yet you are a self proclaimed anarchist of the "3rd type"
Anarchists do not believe in political participation in a system designed to keep people in line in the first place for a few extra crumbs. Socialism as it is today is basically about whining and griping and petitions to pretend that people are somehow getting something extra for it. The crumbs are there to shut you all up and keep you stupid.
I wouldn't say the system was designed to keep people in line, it came to resemble absolutely Feudalism, being that the material basis of Feudalism remained, put simplistically, option #2 above is what the Bourgeois did to Negate Feudal servitude, demonstrated by the house of commons, but that state then came to enforce servitude of the Proletariat, as Marx hundreds of years ago said it would, the interests of Capitalism and Imperialism would eventually turn on their host making the collective human transcendence of that paradigm, the paradigm you seem to advocate working hard within, entirely likely if not inevitable.
Socialism is about opposition to austerity, and neo-liberal economics, it is about infiltrating the Labour party and effecting a move to the Left in mainstream politics, you have your own cynical opinions of what political action can achieve, that's fine, you're welcome to them.
You are correct to mention that abundance would lead to something fantastic, but who is going to work towards that abundance and how? Such a situation cannot arise except perhaps with option 2 for many and option 3 for a few.
through socializing the means of production capitalism created immense abundance, even today in post industrial UK we still produce enough waste to feed several countries, the USA probably produces enough waste to eliminate food poverty completely:
The amount of food wasted in the United States is staggering. In 2010, more than 34 million tons of food waste was generated, more than any other material category but paper. Food waste accounted for almost 14 percent of the total municipal solid waste stream, less than three percent of which was recovered and recycled in 2010. The rest —33 million tons— was thrown away, making food waste the single largest component of MSW reaching landfills and incinerators.
www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/organics/food/fd-basic.htm
Socialists argue for planning in the production of commodities and production of resources to accommodate for the obvious need, the abundance is there, it's all around us manifesting as inequality.
Option 2 would be something like the venus project in a remote part of the world with a large initial investment and effort as mentioned. Only extremely dedicated and well educated and skilled people could ever accomplish it and I doubt they will be left alone to do it either.
In 20 years or less Politics will be beginning to be filled with people using the already existing material abundance and political infrastructure, to implement if not promote ideas of a similar nature to the Venus Project, so why you think all solutions should be based around negating collective bargaining and decision making through politics (when the potential is there for dramatically improving people's lives) is again, another of the many aspects of your ideology that quite simply I don't understand.
It's good that you are opening up about your perspective though, I must admit I still find it quite contrary to most Anarchism with shades of bourgeois reaction and extreme individualism, this transhumanism and attitude towards the internet is also something I don't really agree with you on but am interested in learning more about your perspective, so I hope I managed to refrain from sounding petulant or sarcastic or anything.
A lil bird told me you like Malatesta so I found some quotes:
“One may, therefore, prefer communism, or individualism, or collectivism, or any other system, and work by example and propaganda for the achievement of one’s personal preferences, but one must beware, at the risk of certain disaster, of supposing that ones system is the only, and infallible, one, good for all men, everywhere and for all times, and that its success must be assured at all costs, by means other than those which depend on persuasion, which spring from the evidence of facts.”
“After the revolution, that is, after the defeat of the existing powers and the overwhelming victory of the forces of insurrection, what then? It is then that gradualism really comes into operation. We shall have to study all the practical problems of life: production, exchange, the means of communication, relations between anarchist groupings and those living under under some kind of authority....And in every problem [anarchists] should prefer the solutions which not only are economically superior but which satisfy the need for justice and freedom and leave the way open for future improvements....”
