this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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Yeah.
And that would never happen. Same goes for communism. On paper its all pretty but in practice you have to deal with han beings who want their own thing.
The only way to push through communism (or anarchism, for that matter) is to force people to follow it. This inevitably leads to the dictatorships we all know and love where people were murdered by the thousands only for disagreeing. Corruption will flourish because you'll keep having a richer class who just hide all their crap better, and those backroom deals are just awesome for a system corrupt to the core
Just acting as if the current problems with capitalism only exist because most people are blind while you "opened your eyes" is an attitude I'd expect from a 15 year old who is just repeating slogans
Personal property ≠ private property of the means of production
It's astonishing how many people are ok with building bombs to kill kids in the Middle East or developing better drugs that are paywalled by private healthcare so that rich people can get richer, but instead of chalking this up to "human nature" we can see it as a product of repression and persuasion.
Who says I'm okay with bombs?
I'm pretty sure that no one is "fine" with bombs. The reason we have them though is that they are (still) a necessary evil. The second you start your sweet anarchistix community where were all friends and let eachother be free and do what we want you'll get your ass run over by your dictator neighbor who loves what you did with the place.
You either prepare yourself to defend yourself or you will either be imprisoned, enslaved, or killed. Look at what Russia is doing right now.
I HATE violence, and if it were up to me, all guns would be gone tomorrow. However, I also am realistic enough to understand that that is not how the world works.
Same for drug development, I fully agree. This is a bad part of capitalism that needs to be resolved. Absolutely agree. However, I'm not so naive to just say "dump capitalism" because I also understand the positive aspects of capitalism.
How about instead wed try for a mix of it all. Best of all worlds, capitalism, socialism, anarchism. The raw power of limited and tightly controlled capitalism to create capital for all from capitalism, that can fund all the socialist systems like free healthcare, free education, free housing, etc.
There is no "limited and tightly controlled capitalism" in the long run. It's like trying to reason with cancer. But you do you.
Capitalism is not the only method of producing Capital. On the contrary, once competition plays itself out and monopolies form, it loses efficiency in doing so. Yet, we cannot simply introduce new Competition, and to break up monopoly just reduces efficiency. Rather, the next step that makes logical sense is to fold them into the public sector and plan them accordingly.
Socialism is not "social programs." Socialism is a mode of production characterized by collectivization and planning in the primary of an economy.
The only way to try and get everyone to follow communism is through force, which requires a state, that is true. This is why I prefer anarcho-communism, where there is no state enforcing it.
It is also true under anarchism people have the option to not cooperate peacefully. As you said, humans are still humans at the end of the day and some will take advantage of others or hoard resources.
But I don't think that is reason enough to not at least try to get there. Because under capitalism those same issues still exist, only people are expected to be okay with losing their autonomy and giving up their resources for the sake of a wealthy ruling class.
Regarding Communism, I mean, kinda? But at the point of Communism, where all production is owned and managed collectively along a common plan, what would you reasonably want that would cause you to want to go against the rest of Humanity?
I certainly agree that reasonably there should be no need to go against humanity when resources are shared collectively and needs are met. However, humans don't always act in a reasonable way, not to mention sociopaths and psychopaths that may place short term gain ahead of long term stability.
There would still be healthcare facilities, mental heakth facilities, and social workers.
I just can't see how you aren't describing feudalism once anarchist communities become large and widespread enough to create resource competition between them. Some people are just always going to accumulate some foothold of power and then it's all downhill from there.
I want to love anarchism and communism, but I can never escape the fact that they require consistent, universal altruism in a way that just seems utopian to me. It comes across as maybe the ultimate example of perfect-is-the-enemy-of-good.
Communism doesn't require "constant universal altruism," the goal is a collectively owned and planned world Socialist Republic, kinda like Star Trek. There's criticism that differences between communes in Anarchism could lead to a resurgance of competition, trade, and Capitalism eventually (which I'll let Anarchists respond to, not me), but Communism in the Marxian understanding is the opposite of Utopian.
Star Trek isn't a realistic model, though. I understand the goal you're describing, but what's the motivation that gets enough of the population to play along?
Star Trek is just to get an image in your head. Motivation is similar for other modes of production, labor for goods and services. At a lower stage, Communism would likely have systems like labor vouchers to credit an hour of labor, with more for more intense or skilled labor. At a higher phase with sufficient automation, this becomes less necessary to keep production going.
I see your point on altruism, it seems a much larger problem with large-scale anarchism. I think my primary issue with what you're describing is that I hold a dim view of planned economies. Thanks for explaining.
No problem! If you want to look more into the results of planned economies, Blackshirts and Reds is an excellent and snappy read.
Wonder why we cant just hammer capitalism into the socialism everyone wants with money. Just beat the shit out of it with money until its utopia. Well, i imagine thats what the neoliberals would like to do. Too bad people give more money to evil people