Guevarista wrote:
In this particular thread I asked you how Marx said we could hope to move from the revolution to a cashless society....iirc first you went on about anarchists, then you went "ooo I've been homeless, pity me", then you referred to a shite 80's electro band, then you strawmaned, then you said some shite about we have to wait for the world to be perfect before we can think about it....(not necessarily in that order )....Is that how you choose to discuss Marxism?

I did rather like the last sentence of that post..it made me

Here is an interesting film. It's not about Marxism/Communism but it does present an interesting view on some of the issues we face.
I'm of course not in agreement with all of it but it's worth watching all the same:

Thing is GV, I currently have the freedom and the skills to barter as we speak, with these attributes we have changed cam belts on a Sunday morning, in return for a Sunday roast, made shoes from materials savd that others have thrown away, no money changed hands, I wear those boot as I type, handmade to last many years.

We can talk about things all day, read marx till the cows come home, my shop doors remain open, ideas and skills in hand and are plentiful without needing money.

Factions are a waste of time, at any time, doer's get the goods, talkers mostly nothing, the Green typed are often too yellow to admit they are reds at heart, devoid of skills and talk a lot and do nothing with their hands.

Movies used to be silent, then came subtitles, we dont need sub titles, when we have each other.

Ideas and beliefs are of little consequence, what is of consequence is what we do with our hands and to each other, nothing else really matters, just saying.

Just been reading the wiki page on the Paris Commune. Interestingly this bit appears near the bottom:

" The split between the Marxists and anarchists at the 1872 Hague Congress of the First International (IWA) may in part be traced to Marx's stance that the Commune might have saved itself had it dealt more harshly with reactionaries, instituted conscription, and centralized decision making in the hands of a revolutionary direction, etc. The other point of disagreement was the anti-authoritarian socialists' oppositions to the Communist conception of conquest of power and of a temporary transitional state (the anarchists were in favor of general strike and immediate dismantlement of the state through the constitution of decentralized workers' councils as those seen in the commune)."

I dunno but that kind of hints that Marx was indeed a fan of harsh, authoritarian, centralised rule...

dubmeup wrote: good.
No I don't think that's what happened, you've taken aspects of my posts out of context and joined the most irrelevant parts of a few different posts in the above quote.
I basically explained to you what Marx suggested, ie the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the use of the state by the Oppressed masses of humanity, but I know you already disagree with that point so I tried to show what Marx based his theory on, the Failure of the Paris Commune, and where he differed from Anarchists, I could have posted his position in relation to the social democrats but there is nobody here who really holds that position, there are some anarchists here so I tried to give you an explanation of how to abolish the state/money/class oppression etc.

I never said the world had to be perfect, I did say there are more immediate steps required to make the abolision of financial exchange relations a reality or beneficial circumstance for the masses.
I'd say that shows Marx was a true revolutionary, he wanted the Paris Commune to succeed, the overthrow of Bourgeois class oppression "by any means necessary".

That's definitely a criticism of the older Marx though, that he was more authoritarian, the tendency for people these days is to simply dismiss him based on a word or two and not research or perhaps understand why somebody like him may have developed his theories in that way, after all he had first hand experience and knowledge of the failings of the IWA, the Paris Commune, perhaps these were logical appropriations for the Proletariat class to make and part of the "lumber of the state to be destroyed" transcended by the Proletarian class along with financial basis of human interaction, private (not personal) property, class distinction etc when the conditions allowed for it.

So I'd say a similar idea would be if a radical left wing labour government came to power and didn't use that power to destabilize the entrenched wealth and land holdings of UK nobility, monarchy, wealthy industrialists etc, Marx would have criticised them for being too weak not using their power to go far enough against entrenched inequalities etc.

These days it's also frequent that people dismiss centralization on principle, I think it's important to realize throughout Chinese history and other large empires, centralization of resources is an important reaction to scarcity, protection from famine etc.

That's a really good post

Here's an outstretched hand...perhaps you'll take it and we can get to discussing this properly?

So from your post then, Marx got more authoritarian as he got older and witnessed more of the world and failed revolutions? Would that be fair to say?

The Apprentice wrote: Overall I agree with you, that's a nicer, more fulfilling, less alienated and alienating way of life.
It's a return to the medieval Guild system of commerce, cottage industry, generational trades etc, I would just say we've been there before, it gave rise to some of the inequalities that formed the basis of Capitalism, socialized industrial production etc.

So to me even the requirement for barter could be removed with the abundance of material wealth, technology and means of production in the effluent West, there would be enough for everyone to have basics with a bit of planning in food&drink production eliminating huge industrial food waste, with freely available food, shelter and clothing you would be free to enjoy your cottage industry lifestyle, and so would many, many others.

I just think you can't leave the status quo as it is, any alternative way of life will be steered, governed by market forces, profit motivation, tend towards inequality and accumulation of wealth, ultimately there will still be multinationals with the ability to poison your water supply, without people like us becoming politically active, organizing and developing a mass movement/mass resistance the best we can hope for will be gradual reform and the next fifty years of Fracking.

"effluent West" love it. I may nick that

dubmeup wrote: I don't think so because authoritarian is a loaded term, he became more scientific, more authoritative imo.

Guevarista wrote:
I also agree with your thoughts in many ways. I see my system as one within another, one that I or we ultimately control to get what we need, not want. If you have ever read the working ideals of Edmund Marriage, you can see that most if no all of what we both realise, has been before. These times had a centralised form of food supply and an army for defensive needs, and most importantly, the right and title of the skilled female, who chose when they wanted to give birth.

Also all leaders were trained to be such, also having multiple hand skills, which our leaders today find a forein body.

I prefer to be practically active, rather than politically active, let me wares do the talking and learn from my mistakes, jotfrom books written by truly skilless writers with a political agenda, paid to write and do nothing towards the physical building of the society they live within.

Maybe I am different GV but my method works for us, and the people we have shared our minds bounty.

In oder of making things work, we have to be the articiphers of our trades, in order of passing on the much needed long term knowledge.

Well it's a case of you being extremely highly cultured and actually outgrowing the confines and major constraints of the Capitalist mode of production, an achievement I would like to see available for more people than it currently is, and on a global scale too!

There are some clear but surmountable obstructions to that aim imo, so i'll keep chipping away.

Guevarista wrote:
I hear what your saying GV. To remove those obstructions we see before us, first we must learn from those who have cut their own keys, then make our own to unlock the obstacles in our way, with each successful model births the arrows that are every had to break. There can be no half measures in doing this, otherwise all the energy is wasted.

Much like the occupy movements of late.

Guevarista wrote:
But Marx always argued for the General Council to have genuine power to make decisions for the wider membership didn't he? And having read about the Paris Commune and his thoughts on it he did seem to criticize them for not being what I would call "authoritarian" enough.
The planks certainly seem to be a recipe that could very easily lead to an authoritarian state. Which attempts at employing Marx's ideas have invariably led to. I personally think (as you know) that his assurance that there needed to be an intermediate State, post revolution, was a massive flaw. A stumbling block that has just led to power crazed individuals and groups flooding into the power vacuum and not carrying through with the "mission". Ok you can't blame Marx for what they did but he was perhaps unwise not to see that the door was open to that...and given his thoughts on the GC and what I now learn of his thoughts on this mini revolution in Paris, you could be forgiven for thinking that he did rather have an attitude conducive to power being held firmly by a few. I'd appreciate your thoughts. Or examples of a Communist revolution that DID get to the point of having no State, no currency etc.

But then really this thread was meant to be about them 10 planks and we've gone well away from there

i don't see the Occupy movement as a waste of energy, I see it as a roll call, a preemptive check of the apparatus, development of the method before our next experiment

i like your analogy, i'd say you're right the keys have been cut, i'd maybe even chance most of the doors are open, there are just the private security guards of the Bourgeois State standing in the way, and Fabian Socialists outside telling us we've got to stand around bored for a little while longer

Guevarista wrote:
I could say, my energy movements have brough forward much more than someone standing out in the cold, to be fair to the occupy guys and girls, many new reindships have been made, but no answers or sollutions fully realised as yet. instead of breaking off their duty to shop in Tesco, only to return to the cold, I preferred to boycot the giants completely and support my local makers and growers of things, the perfect corporate killer model.

I have as Dub says, wandered away from the wooden hill with ten steps, but my stairway dips and turns in many different directions, never the way it is supposed to be. The Normans built their spiral staircases with a right twist going upwards, because it was easier to defend from above if the majority were right handed.

Follow what one knows is right, what our hearts tells us.

Edit. The keys to all the locks within doors we have cut, remain open.

dubmeup wrote:
I'd really struggle to find you an example of a Socialist Revolution that hasn't fallen to Counter Revolution in similar ways as the Paris Commune fell, an example is Thomas Sankhara, he was assassinated by his closest friend who then assumed power of Burkino Faso. Lenin and Trotsky were both pretty clear they were going to need and hopefully provoke the Communist Revolution in Europe to have success in Russia, but Communist groups on the Continent were violently suppressed and ultimately defeated by Social Democrats who Marx Engel's also often criticized.

It would be hard to give you a full explanation of why most these countries instituting Marxism have failed without explaining exactly what the CIA were doing for the last fifty years in South America, Africa, Belgium, Italy, UK, France, the Philippines, Vietnam etc.

You can study the internal activities of the Bourgeois state to counter socialism on many Conspiracy Theory websites, in many Universities, think tanks, and institutions like the Hoover Institute on War and Peace, The Monday Club, Le Cercle etc.

I've been trying to see if the accusation of authoritarianism labelled at Marx (including by myself) is in fact valid or merely a kind of smear. Which led me to this essay:

libcom.org/library/marx-bakunin-question-authoritarianism

The overwhelming impression I get from it is that Marx and Bakunin were as bad as each other and let their differences get far too much in the way (perhaps some of us here could learn from that )

My attention is drawn to this section:
"After quoting at length Bakunin’s charges that Marx was using the First International to impose on the world a “government invested with dictatorial powers,” Daniel Guerin comments, “No doubt Bakunin was distorting the thoughts of Marx quite severely in attributing to him such a universally authoritarian concept, but the experience of the Third International has since shown that the danger of which he warned did eventually materialize.” This is a curious justification for Bakunin’s criticism: because people have done authoritarian things in Marx’s name, Bakunin’s elaborate straw-man argument becomes retroactively vindicated. Another commentator writes, “Bakunin’s conception of the Marxist state he saw waiting in the wings of history was disturbing but correct. . . . history seems to have been on Bakunin’s, not Marx’s, side. . . .” Praise for Bakunin’s prophetic powers has served to gloss over the inaccuracy of his portrayal of Marx’s ideas."

Which kind of ties in to what I said in the last post. That whilst perhaps nowhere near the authoritarian he is portrayed to be, Marx's work opened the door to authoritarians and was therefore seriously flawed.

Guevarista wrote: Fair comment, I don't think many here will be blind to the effects of the external forces of capitalist powers. I'm not gonna let the authoritarians get away quite that lightly though. I'm sure that you won't either. Some of them were just plain old power crazed bastards, regardless of pressure from elsewhere.

So Socialist Democrats and Anarchist generally are the one's who use that tactic, SD because he is too radical and understands by the very existence of a SD/reformist tendency a requirement for guiding the revolution away from falling into conformity with the Status Quo, Anarchists because he is too realistic in describing how to achieve the aims Marxists and Anarchist/Blanquists generally share, Capitalist and the dominant ideology opportunistically accentuates and increases these divisions by deliberately and knowingly misrepresenting Marx, and infiltrating/corrupting the development of the working class.

If you bring up Marx amongst New Labourites you get called a radical idealist, if you bring up Marx with some Radical Leftists you get called an authoritarian Stalinist fanboy.

I think while Anarchists, and anarchist petit bourgeois youth, "lumpenproles" etc remain politically inactive in the Left Wing of the Labour Movement we're lacking a realistic representation of the working class, so many of my activities are geared towards that end, so I quite like Huey P Newton and Jean Paul Sartre on Marxism, the greater our diversity, the more representative of our people our democracy is, the better imo.

I'd think it fair for an anarchist to not exactly support the notion of State, 'rule' of the GC etc that Marx espoused tbh Gue. If an anarchist did support such things, they wouldn't be an anarchist really would they (Cue comments about Bakunin )

That said, I'm in agreement that in these times there really should be a united front shown by the radical left/socialist/marxist/unionists whatever and anarchists. Too often (as we often exemplify here) there are squabbles and disagreements that merely render our thoughts and discussions, worthless and toothless in real terms.

Personally I would say that the approach championed by the apprentice is of far more value in this age than that of Marx Engels Bakunin or whatever. Rather than try to overthrow an oppressive system, we could just walk away from it. However I do agree with yourself that political activism is also important. If only in the sense of informing those that do not understand the nature of our capitalist, hierarchical system and offering up the alternative of working for ourselves and each other.