Anarchism

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Discuss anarchist praxis and philosophy. Don't take yourselves too seriously.

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A brief overview of the Socialist legacy of the 20th century (petergelderloos.substack.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/1803761

Original title (which I find a bit too click-baity):

Socialism: Let’s Not Resuscitate the Worst Mistake of the 20th Century

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So I am a little confused about what the author is saying here. He seems to be saying let's not repeat the past mistakes of socialism but let's do socialism again but make it work this time? This just seems like another person saying we haven't actually had a socialist system yet so we should try to actually try it. I don't know. Can anyone clarify this one for me or at least offer their interpretation.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm guessing that when you hear "socialism", like most people you think of state socialism. USSR, China, etc, as well as the various political parties trying to implement socialist policies through the electoral process. The socialist movement has always had a significant anarchist faction as well. Basically, things went like this:

State socialists: Right, we're going to do state socialism
Anarchists: That's going to go very badly, let's do anarchism instead
State socialists proceed to do state socialism, and it goes very badly
Anarchists: Okay, now that we all have the benefit of historical hindsight, let's do anarchism now?
State socialists: No, we're going to do state socialism again
Anarchists: Oh for fuck's sake

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And its not even a case of "state socialism results in state violence" (it does, continously), its that planned economies make it so that small errors in judgement result in massive issues. I'm a little tired of the "mistakes where made" crowd like "oopsie we did a The Great Famine". Contemporary analysis by anarchists and unionists knew already said it wouldn't work.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep. I tend to be skeptical of anarcho-communism, but at least it fails gracefully. Worst case scenario, people just start trading again. I still want people to try it, because what if they're right? Or what if they're not completely right, but we learn something useful?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah, like small scale communism, anarcho or not, is extremely old and has even worked in the industrial age. When it fails, the communities dissolve, but they don't starve

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

First of all, do you know the difference between Socialism, Marxism, Anarchism and Communism? If not, you can start by checking out this quick run-down (disclaimer: this video is made by a Marxist).

Now, what OOP is saying is that we know from historical evidence that state socialism (like Marxism) always ends badly, one way or the other, but we also know that anarchism and libertarian socialism do work, so we need to push for that without falling in the pitfall of believing that 'this time state socialism might work'.