this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Very true, although I can't think of a better solution than having the state monopolize violence and enforce things like personal property etc and that's not necessarily anything specific to capitalism either.
Some very smart and imaginative anarchist philosophers have been working on exactly that for a very long time, from Mikhail Bakunin 200 years ago to more modern writers like Noam Chomsky or David Graeber. I think their work is worthwhile.
I haven't found Chomskys work to be convincing... it's always so... extra...
I don't think it's extra. Quite the opposite. If anything, it could use a little extra, because it's extremely dry and academic.
I think we used the slang version of extra differently is all.
I can't think of a worse one.
Sorry, it's the internet so I can't tell if you're kidding or not (I'm hoping hyperbole).
Are you genuinely saying you think everyone using violence at their own discretion for example is better?
Individual descretion occurs within a context of established norms and rules, which would be very different under a society in which everyone protects one another, rather than one in which such responsibility has been forfeit to a power that controls the population.
A society of the prior kind would be safer, by not being held hostage, and by not being disempowered to control itself.
It's called a gang. That's just gangs. Or tribes. Not a thing that scales up too well. Also not known for its safety.
You could literally be held hostage, unless your gang (hope you belong to a tough one) does something about it.
We aren't disempowered, we vote and elect representatives. We give input that takes those norms and rules and puts them into laws to eliminate that individual discretion that is most often faulty (people have emotions after all, so don't behave fairly when it's personal).
Basically all the safest places in the world have violence monopolized by the state to enforce laws. All the most dangerous are where that isn't the case (gangs, warlords, cartels, corruption) with few exceptions.
A gang is a criminal organization. Its relation to surrounding society is antagonistic, and it is broadly indifferent to the harmful effects it causes to anyone outside. Gangs often enrich themselves by theft supported by violence. They generally do not produce.
A group whose members live nearby to one another and who keep each other safe is a community. Members of a community generally participate in production, as the shared source of wealth and sustenance.
A tribe is a political structure often constituted as a loose affiliation of bands. A band is a kind of community. Bands are usually relatively isolated socially and geographically from other communities.
Many other communities, as often found in modern societies, are highly integrated with other communities, and maintain favorable relationships with them, seeking a minimization of violence, and fostering shared peace and prosperity through production and trade.
Voting is not empowering.
Voting is at best a choice of whom to empower. Those who compete against one another for the votes of the public generally have more in common with each other than with the public. Most rules change very little regardless of who is elected, and most rules carry the broader effect of protecting the power of those already empowered.
Broadly, voting generally maintains and protects, not challenges, the status quo and the disempowerment of the public.
For the public to become empowered, it would need to gain some power relative to those for whom it votes.
States perpetrate violence on massive scales. They function to protect themselves, not to protect the public. For almost the entirety of human existence, people have protected each other without states.
The idea that the state, even as a principle, should protect the public, is quite recent, even relative to the duration since states have emerged, and the practical reality is quite different from the principle.
When the interests of the public come into conflict with the interests of the state, then the state inflicts violence against the public.
When the capacity of the state becomes strained, to inflict violence against the public, then the state simply exercises its power to augment its capacity to inflict violence.
Luckily solutions don't rely on your imagination.
If people who "can't think of a better way" would stop trying to impose their lack of imagination on the rest of us we would be able to progress.
There are smarter people than you or I in the world and they aren't the ones running things, the ones whispering, "You're nothing without me"
The first step of any abusive relationship is recognizing it's an abusive relationship. The second is to stop making excuses for your abuser and just leave, no matter what they claim the cost to be.
Yes and there are people who can’t leave, eg have no place to go, no means of survival, otherwise. Disabled, power differentiate between men/women/children, etc.
Yep. We're all stuck and only together can we get unstuck. Unionize. Vote. Share ideas. Help others escape the fog when they get stuck.
Unfortunately some don't want to be help. They'll defend their abusers with violence. They are the most dangerous. Flying monkey's doing the bidding of the powerful.
No shame when they wake though; capitalism is a mind fuck.
Doing all of it without voting probably would be just as good.
Voting is a critical step. Without voting you'll lose the ability to the the rest.
How is voting necessary for building unions and helping others?
Unions exist because they were voted into existence. They can be voted out of existence. The right has been working on it for decades
Are you referring to votes among workers in a company, or to participation in elections?
Elections.
No. Unions were never "voted into existence" through elections. It is not possible for a union to form due to government action. A union only forms from a conviction among workers to be organized, and to protect each other from those who would harm them.
The government can create laws to make unions ineffectual.
I don't have the time or patience to give a civic lesson on why voting in political elections is important for unionization.
I suggest you explore the topic on your own if you seek to not be confidently incorrect in life.
The government does antagonize unions, but their strength comes from within them, not from elections.
Again, unions were never "voted into existence".
https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/collective-bargaining-rights
NLRB is not a union, nor a body that creates unions.
Workers create unions, by choose to unite, to organize themselves toward shares interests.
I feel you're arguing some pedantic point, possibly to dissuade voting at the political level or just because you enjoy the pedantry of this.
I am not arguing pedantically
Labor organization is the vehicle through which the working class advances.
Voting has very little meaningful effect on conditions.
I am not discouraging anyone from voting, only from believing from that voting is generally meaningful, or the cause of change.
As you conceded, states are generally antagonistic to the interests of workers. When workers believe that the state is their friend, workers lose.
Meaningful change happens from the ground up.
The federal government has rules in place to prevent states from stomping on union efforts.
The state can and will outlaw to right for your union to be recognized.
It's is more than just the people can do it organically since the state will union bust. "Right to work" laws are an example of this.
The state's with these laws actively force your union to protect freeloaders who don't join the union.
Fucking vote.
Any rules of the state that protect unions were gained through fights by unions, and may easily be taken away
The state busts unions because the state interest is in busting unions, not because the state lacks rules within itself that somehow may prevent the state from protecting its interests.
Bosses protect bosses, not workers. Who holds the titles should be of relatively minor concern. No one will protect workers unless workers protect themselves.
You present a weird romanticize idea of unionizing.
Without the support of the state it is a bloody affair.
There appear to be parts of history you do not know. That is not often taught in school.
The idea that bosses were dragged into the street and taught to listen is incomplete. These bosses quickly learned to surround themselves with thugs.
The bosses would deploy mobs to murder union organizers because though numbers are in our favor, a handful of us can be bought to beat the rest.
Things were bloody before laws were passed to prevent this blood shed.
But the blood these laws were written from was soon forgotten.
Once forgotten the bosses learned they could use whisper campaigns to convince their workers that unions were their truth enemy. Their whispers convinced workers to vote for politicians to dilute these laws.
This is where we sit today. Weakened laws whose blood sacrifices have been forgotten.
Their whisper campaigns now include the futility of voting because they know our votes are power.
You have succumbed to these whispers and so you at this moment are doing their work for them.
The no longer need to pay for thugs. People like you do the work for them freely.
Uncompensated, working against your own best interests convincing others that voting isn't important.
It is at best naive position for you to push and at worst you are not what you claim to be; the reality being you work for the bosses.
From where I sit it is best for me to assume you are the later as you continue to insist you are correct and I am wrong. Willful or not, you are an enemy to our unionization efforts by your claims.
The state is us and we are the state. Never forget it. Do not believe anyone that tells you otherwise, including yourself.
An authoritarian state exists only if we allow it to exist. Fear or ignorance. The outcome is the same for the owners.
Vote today or bleed in the streets tomorrow.
If you think that I am romanticizing the formation of unions, then I doubt you have read my comments sincerely.
I think you are romanticizing the relevancy of legislation and the state to support workers.
The state supports capital, not workers.
The structure of our society places the state and capital within the ruling class, with the same interests, the repression of workers. Voting cannot effect fundamental changes, the way you are imagining. It may only offer modest benefit for broader movements.
Meaningful change happens from the ground up.
This is a terrible argument.
Is not an argument.
Well that's a problem.
Yes. For you.
I can no more save you from capitalism than I can save you from an abusive relationship.
The real tell is when I point it out and you get upset with me; classic response by the abused.
Are you intentionally trying to be off-putting?
Nope. Just comes naturally.
Well, as long as you recognize your abusive behavior and realize that it isn't desirable.
Abusive behavior? Really? Because I'm saying you're being abused. Fucking hell. Stay asleep.
Thank you for demonstrating my point.
Being annoyed with you isn't abusive.
I'm going to take a guess here that you're right wing ideologist.
😂 I'm a socialist you asshole. Just because you can't put together an argument and you are an asshole to people doesn't make me a right wing nutter.
You seem intent on being offended and attacking me while playing the victim.
I'm sure you understand the confusion if you spent as much time as I have discussing these things with right wing ideologists.
You certainly have a knack for being an insufferable ass.
You have offered zero constructive criticism but as if you already a convert I see no reason to converse with you further; now or ever in the future.
It is a respectable argument in the way that matters, as identifying a previous, terrible argument, one that was nothing but an appeal to ignorance.