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Hope you like socialism
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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Ask the Anarchists on Hexbear why they're fine with Marxists.
In my experience, Hexbear is a much less toxic instance due to the anti-sectarian rules. Someone described it as "less like a Communist Party and more like the bar Communists hang out at after the meeting," which is both cute and accurate. It's a nice atmosphere if you aren't a liberal.
Doesn't sound like it would have a nice atmosphere for socialists or anarchists either
Edit: Also that place allows coordinated attacks against non-tankies, and the most troubling users from blåhaj ran to that place, so I'm not super impressed.
Like I said, you can ask the anarchists and socialists there yourself. I'm a Marxist-Leninist, it's a nice atmosphere, and I get along with the Anarchists there as well.
Mind explaining what you mean by "coordinated attacks?" And what do you mean by "troubling users from blåhaj?" People leaving one instance for Hexbear isn't necessarily indicative of Hexbear being bad.
Hexbear has been problematic from the start. I would love to find some sources, but that would require effort that I'm not willing to expend right now. Basically hexbear has done a lot of brigading and bullying in the past, with blessings from their moderators.
I do not consider tankies socialists, as socialism is inherently anti-authoritarian, and I honestly have little respect for socialists and anarchists that hang out with them. History has seen the regimes the tankies defend ruin attempts at socialism and anarchy countless times, especially considering that these regimes are often military takeovers of actual socialist revolutions.
I would love to see sources.
Are you genuinely making the argument that Marxism isn't Socialist? Marxism isn't Anarchist, correct, but Marxism is fundamentally Socialist. It's the largest and most significant strain of Socialism, historically and presently.
I dunno where to find sources on hexbear being bad, but please stop using marxist and tankie as if they are synonymous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
You're using them synonymously, you denied the Marxist states as "not Socialist," and have claimed the Marxists on Hexbear are "tankies." Can you meaningfully explain the difference between Marxism and "tankies?" Engels himself even wrote On Authority because Anarchists constantly accused him and Marx of being authoritarian, it isn't a new concept, because Marx advocated for centralization of the Means of Production Anarchists stood firmly opposed.
I'm not going to spend too much time debating a tankie, but I think most of these regimes kinda by definition are not socialist given how little power the workers had. When unions are suppressed and the military and the dictatorship are essentially the same thing, how could they be socialist? Socialism requires that workers own their workplaces, that they run them. This was not the case in the soviet union nor is it the case in china today, where businesses are either organized by the state (like in the soviet union) or mixed (CCP). The state organizing businesses or whatever you want to call them would be fine if the people owned the state, but again these were/are dictatorships.
The people don't control anything at all in your so called marxist states, and so therefore they are not marxist. Centralization is not something that I'm opposed to, but what does it matter how decentralized or centralized something is if it's not also democratically owned?
I would probably call myself a marxist if tankies hadn't so thoroughly stained the term.
Edit: I am also well aware that there were unions in the soviet union, hence the name. However they had little power, and mostly could only ever push for worker safety regulations.
So you've read Marx and Engles and agree with them?
No actually. The Soviet Union was a union of national republics, hence the name.
I want to "throw" Soviet Democracy at you, but I haven't finished my epub of it yet... I should get on it.
Oh, I have This Soviet World. Doesn't go into as much detail, but does go over it.
Ah, I misremembered. I thought soviet meant council as in a union.
Yes. Soviet does mean council. I misinterpreted what you were saying.
Soviets were "units." Not the same as unions, they were horizontal units that elected delegates from among themselves to participate in soviets of soviets vertically. I have a diagram linked in my other comment.
Using the USSR as an example, the workers had far more power and democratic participation in the economy. They couldn't have had much more, unfortunately, because democratic participation requires planning, and planning requires development. The USSR was underdeveloped, so it could not have been more democratized than it was.
They had a publicly owned and planned economy, drastically reduced wealth disparity, centralized production, and had universal free healthcare and education.
Incorrect. You are referring to cooperatives, which is not the same as Marxism. Engels actually wrote against such a system in Anti-Duhring, as cooperatives without central planning and ownership begets accumulation and competition, serving as a breeding ground for Capitalism. Cooperatives are not Marxist, because it transforms the proletarians into petite bourgeoisie.
You're describing Marxism and saying it isn't Socialist, I am not sure what your point is. State planning is Marxist.
They were and are not dictatorships, from Soviet Democracy to whole-process people's democracy, there are democratic structures in place. It isn't liberal democracy, but it is democratic.
Oh, but they did. You can read the linked sources.
They were and are, though, this is a point you just assert over and over again without anything backing it up.
I encourage you to read Marx. I understand that you likely won't agree with what I am saying in this comment, but if you want reading recommendations I can give suggestions. In particular, I think you should study Historical and Dialectical Materialism, a thorough understanding of each helps place AES countries and their successes and failures into context.
The soviet union and the CCP today famously committed a number of genocides, killed dissenters, and are one party states. You seem to think I mean liberal democracy when I say democracy. I mean democracy.
Soviet Democracy by Priestland seems to disagree with you on how democratic the worplaces were. The power of the unions was greatly dialed back very quickly, with managers being reintroduced and the economy becoming more hierarchical as time went on.
Socialism being when the workers own the means of production is kinda essential, be it directly or indirectly. This is the basis on which I state that tankies are not socialists. I'm guessing you think that the workers indirectly own the means in the soviet union, or that the direct democracy you seem to think existed there for any meaningful amount of time counted (it did count, but again, only briefly).
Anything you've said about china is just flat out wrong. The soviet union is certainly complicated, and much could be debated there, especially since the power of the unions fluctuated with time, but workers have literally zero power under the ccp.
But we clearly disagree on reality, no further debate is necessary. Have a nice day I guess.
Having a one party state is not anti-democratic. What matters is what you can vote on, which the Soviet system allowed for moreso than liberal democracy.
Again, hierarchy and managers are not against Marxism, nor is direct worker self management Marxism.
I highly recommend reading Why do Marxists fail to bring about the "Worker's Paradise?", it's an excellent article on economic democracy with respect to Historical Materialism.
I literally linked you a wikipedia article, I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. There's workplace democracy in China, and public property is entitely state planned. I wish you'd throw me a bone here we can work with, you just denied everything outright.
I really implore you to have an open mind, and again, read Marx regarding Historical and Dialectical Materialism. Elementary Principles of Philosophy is my personal favorite overview of the concepts.
I'm an anarchist and I agree with what you're trying to say, but marxist-leninists are going to jump all over you with semantics arguments because of your unorthodox use of the word socialist.
Edit: I should mention you would be welcome in slrpnk communities. We're primarily anarchist and have hexbear blocked for the aforementioned brigading, but we are welcoming to everyone so long as they behave themselves.
It's really not unorthodox in leftist spaces, only in tankie and non-leftist places :/
I'll admit my perspective may be skewed because I spend a good amount of time debating marxist-leninists, but I really don't like arguing semantics unless it's important to the discussion at large. For that reason I'll often avoid using words in a way that will start semantics arguments that derail the discussion.
It's also why I typically avoid calling people I'm currently debating tankies, because I think that makes them defensive and is bad for outreach. Maybe I'm wasting my time trying to change people's minds, but if that's the case then people who argue aggressively are definitely wasting their time.
Here's me discovering socialism, new to the (actual) ideas but vibing with them pretty well.
Start talking about it online.
Anarchist: fuck you you stupid fucking tankie.
I had no idea what a tankie was, but I figured out real quick that anarchists are the angsty atheists of the political world.
If you've had bad experiences with anarchists before I'm sorry, but in my experience anarchists have been much kinder and more welcoming than marxist-leninists, especially in person. Characterizing anarchists as the angsty atheists of the political world is a bit hurtful, but I can see where you're coming from. In the same way atheists sometimes lash out against religious folks, anarchists sometimes lash out against marxist-leninists because of bad experiences in the past. A lot of anarchists I know went through a similar political development where they started being curious about socialism and were met with pretty harsh responses to questions about the more authoritarian aspects of marxism-leninism.