this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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More like: People on the internet being critical of the current system, Americans on the internet saying "COMMUNISM BAD" as if USSR style state capitalism is the only other possible option.
How else would it work? You need some power structure that actively forbids a free market and private ownership. And that power will sooner or later be abused.
You can't just imagine some utopia where nobody has to work, and everything is free, and call that communism.
The core tenant of every form of Communism, regardless of if said party or organisation follows it, is as follows: that the means of production should belong to the workers who work them. If the means of production are not in the hands of the workers, then they are not communist. If they are in the hands of a CEO or a corporation, you have private capitalism or market capitalis like the US. If you put them in the hands of a state, they are in the state, you get state capitalism ala China or the USSR.
The power structure of the state protects an upper class, be it billionaires or "the party". If you abolish the state, but not capitalism, capitalism will rebuild the state (which is why Anarcho capitalism fails every time) and vice versa (which is what happens with Marxist Leninism).
For a Communist or communalist society to work it needs to be Anarchist or classically Libertarian (aka like Bakunin or Kropotkin proposed, not "money first"). It needs to have a horizontal and democratic decision making process that is decentralised, federated, and involves all the members of the community or communities effected. If there is to be a state, it should be to facilitate the colaboration of communities in a bottom up manner. These are the features of almost every single effective or successful Anarchist or Socialist movements from Rojava or the Zapatistas, as well as non-political movements like the Open Source Movement, railway preservatiion movement, and even the early RNLI.
The power structure thant would forbid a free market would be the collective weight of everyone else rather than a state that, sooner or later, becomes the jackboot of capital.
how would such an anarchist/liberal stateless communist organization defend itself from invasion?
So the first thing to consider is that anarchy is a very diverse field of thought, so there isn't one answer to questions about it.
An anarchist society faced with violence from outsiders could:
Remember that an attacker wants something. If they aren't getting what they want out of a conflict, or if the costs are greater than what is gained, they are likely to stop pursuing it. Anarchist communities likely have different values, and resource extraction is the most likely reason to attack such a community; making it extremely difficult or impossible to do that is something an organized community can achieve.
Think about Vietnam; while Vietnam was and is not anarchist or non-hierarchical, a decentralized military strategy with deep support from the population led to victory over a technologically superior invader. For an example closer to anarchy, you can read up on the Zapatistas, who employed decentralized resistance to the Mexican government and won.
Last, I want to add that the above is more or less true of any community or country that is attacked by a larger force, whether they are communist, or capitalist, or stateless. Economic and social structure are not going to protect any group from being attacked, and doesn't guarantee victory no matter how organized the defense may be.
What do you mean by "transitive"?
Note that one of the merits behind an effective modern army is its ability to maintain regular troops that are trained, equipped, drilled and rotated with a reserve on a regular basis - something that's usually achieved with a centralized form of organization and is backed by resources that in the current day are provided by a state. What's the plan on providing modern weaponry, persistent intelligence, as well as infrastructures for logistic, communication, ordinance etc' for a militia that's "transitive" by nature? who's going to keep an eye on those resources and make sure they don't breed power tripping warlords, terrorists or even simple crime organizations? what's the plan on keeping track of munitions and deadly weapons after the militia is disbanded?
Highly effective to a degree and can still be bleed-out, toppled or at the very least kept under control with a more organized army. Also decentralization can easily turn to feudalism with armed groups if they start going against each other for whatever reason, such as in the case of political subversion exploiting inherit weaknesses in a non-centralized structure (divide and conquer, etc').
What's a nonviolent resistance going to do to a threat actor who's eventual plan is political subversion and/or an incursion? why would they give a s*it as long as the war-effort on their side goes uninterrupted by the target or their allies until they decide to escalate?
Transitive wasn't the best term to use, you're right to ask about that - I was referring to structures that are temporary, voluntary, and established as necessary. Non-hierarchical communities can form such voluntary hierarchies for specific tasks, much like the fire department analogy.
Your comments seem to question the resilience of smaller, less militarized societies against well-resourced, aggressive forces. Unfortunately, the vulnerability to more powerful entities is not unique to communities practicing non-hierarchical or alternative systems; it's a universal issue.
Examples like the Zapatistas, India's independence, and Vietnam's resistance against a superpower demonstrate that less militarized societies can sometimes successfully resist more powerful adversaries. These examples don't guarantee success but show that various forms of resistance can be effective.
An ideal anarchistic community focuses on mutual aid and sustainable, non-coercive living. They, like any small community, are susceptible to violent disruption or displacement by larger hierarchical entities. The fear of warlords or similar figures, as you mentioned, essentially acknowledges the ever-present human tendency to consolidate power.
The Doukhobors offer another insightful case study. They're not anarchists due to their patriarchal Christian family structures, but their community-oriented, pacifist lifestyle echoes anarchist ideals. Historically, they've been displaced by the state due to their rejection of many governmental norms. Wherever they resettled, they reliably transformed inhospitable land into productive farmland. Some argue this cycle of displacement and land cultivation was strategically orchestrated by the Canadian governmen to exploit their agricultural expertise. In their case, they demonstrate resilience instead of resistance.
It's common for people encountering anarchist philosophy for the first time to question its practicality against militaristic threats and it's a valid question. But the harsh reality is, regardless of a society's structure or philosophy, it remains vulnerable to aggressive entities with superior military resources.
The system you describe cannot exist. An anarchist or libertarian state in the real world can neither regulate nor defend itself from other states. It's a fantasy that would collapse immediately upon implementation in all possible real world circumstances.
@MostlyBirds @abbiistabbii, anarchy is the system to which a mature and sovereign society automatically converges, but for this current humanity is still too young as specie, the evolutionary state can be compared with that of a child in puberty, regarding behavior. An anarchic system would necessarily lead to a collapse total of the current society (Lord of the Flies effect). A long way still to go.
This is completely made up nonsense. There's a reason no one takes anarchists seriously.
If we're following Marx's historical materialism (that society has transitions has a society, roughly being feudalism -> capitalism -> socialism -> communism), I think the next best step is a transition from capitalism to socialism is union ownership. Personally, I think worker co-ops and general syndicalism with a competing in a market for the worker owned businesses would be a great in between step that would not involve a crushingly oppressive state. The goal should be to keep it decentralized so one power structure being consumed by corruption doesn't sink the fleet
Achieving communism thru the state (called vanguard parties) isn't all that well liked by many types of socialists and communists, especially those of us in the west. A lot of us prefer to take inspiration from mid-1900s labor groups who, while not achieving socialism that we want, created infinitely better working conditions and power dynamics for working class people. Most of the people who ran those organizations were socialists/communists in and of themselves, and they often times relied more upon collective direct action than just electoralism.
Those are the anarchists (usually, definitions get fuzzy)
Most communists recognize the need for a transition state, we call that Socialism.
This isn't a utopia we're pitching, it's hard work, and there will always be controversy, and people will have to work, we will just work less, and we will strive toward working even less over time.
There's LOTS of evidence that, right now, under capitalism, that abuse is veeeeery bad. We can learn the lessons of previous socialist attempts, but capitalism? That's shown to be corrupt and beyond repair.
As well, right now, under capitalism, your politicians are bought and paid for by capitalists. Power is already being abused beyond control. Under a socialist system, it would be illegal to donate to politicians. Political campaigns would run within a short, standardized window of time, with equal funding, and commercials would be illegal, it would just be a platform of ideas and opinions. The people would vote for the person who best represents them, normal people.
This exist in Cuba, right now. It's SO much harder to take power from a system that actually represents regular citizens, instead of a system that is bought and paid for by the highest bidder.
Uhm… who exactly is doing that last part, other than bad-faith actors?
People that don't see any problem with communism? Where the first and obvious problem is that it's inherently (and ironically) a fascist system...
Careful now buddy, the internet is no place for common sense acknowledgement of reality.
Sad life you must live if your common sense is this...