What are the most important Marxist criticisms of Anarchism?

[tellyontellyon]

Thanks:)

[Zanthorus]

Well first of all different Marxist tendencies are going to have different criticisms of anarchism. No Left-Communist grouping for example is going to start chiding anarchists for not participating in bourgeois elections or for not being all that fond of the Stalin-era USSR.

Another difficulty comes in the fact that there are also lots of different positions calling themselves anarchist. Any one critique you make is going to be disputed by the various anarchist groups to whom it doesn't apply. You will probably find that there are even anarchist and Marxist groupings out there whose positions converged on basically every point.

In general I would say that anarchists don't really have any coherent methodology like historical materialism... but even that doesn't apply to some of them.

I prefer to think of just a generalised communist movement with varying tendencies rather than a straight down the line divide between Marxists and anarchists.

[Adi Shankara]

rather than get it from someone else, you should read a contemporary account from the golden age of anarchist theory:

this one is the best account: http://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1895/anarch/ch08.htm

but also read the whole thing if you're interested.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1895/anarch/index.htm

It covers alot of good points, esp. how some Marxists consider anarchism as strengthening the bourgeoisie since it'll just allow them to form a new class society upon achievement of anarchism...also, the "socialist" idea that anarchists espouse unachievable beliefs of Utopianism (lol, I'm sorry, but that criticism is a little...well, you get the point ;))

[Zanthorus]

I've only skimmed over it but that Plekhanov piece looks pretty lame. Most modern social anarchists don't really follow Proudhon. Also there were more anarchists in the first international than Bakunin and it's developed a lot since then anyway. You might try actually criticising the positions of modern anarchist organisations instead of focusing on debates from over a hundred years ago.

[Adi Shankara]

I've only skimmed over it but that Plekhanov piece looks pretty lame. Most modern social anarchists don't really follow Proudhon. Also there were more anarchists in the first international than Bakunin and it's developed a lot since then anyway. You might try actually criticising the positions of modern anarchist organisations instead of focusing on debates from over a hundred years ago.

But he was asking for Marxist criticisms of anarchism, and classical Marxism reached it's zenith in the late 1800's to early 1900's, with the likes of Bakunin, Engels, Lenin and Bukharin all adding their two cents at this time.

Edited by Fuserg9:Removed pointless and unnecessary pictures and comments

[Ravachol]

It covers alot of good points, esp. how some Marxists consider anarchism as strengthening the bourgeoisie since it'll just allow them to form a new class society upon achievement of anarchism




In fact the Anarchists combat democracy because democracy, according to them, is nothing but the tyranny of “the morality from the habit of well doing.” The morality of the impose its wishes upon the minority. But if this is so, in the name of what moral principle do the Anarchists revolt against the bourgeosie? Because the bourgeosie are not a minority? Or because they do not do what they “will” to do?
“Do as thou would’st,” proclaim the Anarchists.


Say what? :blink:

I know no serious anarchist or anarchist organisation espousing this kind of Stirnerite ultra-individualism. Why is it that criticisms of Anarchism are always aimed at stirnerist or proudhonist positions (gross misrepresentations of those, no less) which aren't espoused by any actually existing anarchist tendency or group.

[Agnapostate]

The ones authored by Marx.

[this is an invasion]

I prefer to think of just a generalised communist movement with varying tendencies rather than a straight down the line divide between Marxists and anarchists.

For me the divide is on how the state is seen.

[Zanthorus]

For me the divide is on how the state is seen.

But most anarchists when you ask them will support some kind of transitional period involving workers councils which is eerily similar to the ideas proposed by many Marxist groups.

[Wolf Larson]

But most anarchists when you ask them will support some kind of transitional period involving workers councils which is eerily similar to the ideas proposed by many Marxist groups.
Until Lenin came along and handed the Soviets (workers councils) to the communist party ;)

[this is an invasion]

But most anarchists when you ask them will support some kind of transitional period involving workers councils which is eerily similar to the ideas proposed by many Marxist groups.

I don't have a problem with worker's councils. I have a problem with consolidating them into a hierarchical structure, where people no longer have direct control over their shit.

[Rjevan]

As much as I admire Engels: a thread entitled "What are the most important Marxist criticisms of Anarchism?" is clearly not the right place to discuss his beard...
Thomas_Sankara, don't post unrelated spam pics outside of Chit Chat, keep the "totally unrelated notes" there, too, and stay on topic (this also goes for everybody else, of course). This is a verbal warning.

[Adi Shankara]

a thread entitled "What are the most important Marxist criticisms of Anarchism?" is clearly not the right place to discuss [Engels'] beard...

lol okay, my mistake

[Adi Shankara]

Say what? :blink:

I know no serious anarchist or anarchist organisation espousing this kind of Stirnerite ultra-individualism. Why is it that criticisms of Anarchism are always aimed at stirnerist or proudhonist positions (gross misrepresentations of those, no less) which aren't espoused by any actually existing anarchist tendency or group.

I don't know any organization either. I was just posting the discourse, and meant "good" as in it was probably what OP was looking for :) that's all.

but I agree with you--most of the criticisms are pretty bogus, and the "Utopian" one sounds hypocritical at best, coming from a man who (I believe) espoused dialectical materialism.

[F9]

Cleaned the thread from the offtopic, and dont do that again, especially in learning

[AK]

Until Lenin came along and handed the Soviets (workers councils) to the communist party ;)
Don't be a douche. Marxism and Leninism are different things, believe it or not.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This is a very wide question because it would be hard to lump all of anarchism together just as it would be to ask "what are the anarchist critiques of socialism"? What would that mean? Fabian socialism, democratic-socialism, revolutionary socialism, Stalinism etc. are all socialism but critiques would be very different.

Is there a specific aspect of anarchism that you were curious about? That might help the discussion.

[Os Cangaceiros]

As others have mentioned, modern day anarchism really isn't a single coherent ideology. That makes it very difficult to criticize "anarchism", because who are you criticizing? Hakim Bey, Robert Paul Wolff and the various philosophical anarchists? Stirnerian egoists? Post-modern anarchists like Jon Purkis? Primitivists or lifestylist punks? Class struggle anarchists, amoungst whom there are large divisions?

Also, I think that this is somewhat relevant, as per my very own experiences on this site:


Marxism normally tries to refrain from criticising anarchism as such, unless driven to do so, when it exposes it's own authoritarianism ("how can workers run railways, for instance, without direction...that is to say, without authority?") and concentrates it's attack not on anarchism, but on anarchists. This is based on a double standard: anarchists are held responsible for the thought and actions of all persons, live or dead, calling themselves anarchists, even only temporarily, or persons referred to as anarchists by others, even if they disagree, or whose actions could be held to be anarchistic by non-anarchists (even on a faulty premise). Marxists take responsibility for Marxists holding their particular party card at the time.

[mikelepore]

Anarchists usually say that the state should be abolished, "smashed", and similar terms. In Marxism, the end of the state means to remove the conditions that make the state be a state. After there are no more classes, although the state hasn't been abolished, the state now represents the whole society, not a ruling class, and therefore it is no longer a state. Anarchists usually say that some tangible part of the state should be eliminated, for example, they sometimes speak of an end to "authority", or they say they're against "parliamentary" procedures. In Marxism, there is no specific part or institution of the state that must be removed. It is the control by a ruling class that is to be removed. That removal of control by a ruling class will allow the state to go through a subsequent conversion from administering people to administering inanimate objects, production, and therefore the state ceases to be state.

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The following text is copied from Engels, "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific":

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Whilst the capitalist mode of production more and more completely transforms the great majority of the population into proletarians, it creates the power which, under penalty of its own destruction, is forced to accomplish this revolution. Whilst it forces on more and more of the transformation of the vast means of production, already socialized, into state property, it shows itself the way to accomplishing this revolution. The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into state property.

But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes also the state as state. Society, thus far, based upon class antagonisms, had need of the state. That is, of an organization of the particular class which was, pro tempore, the exploiting class, an organization for the purpose of preventing any interference from without with the existing conditions of production, and, therefore, especially, for the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited classes in the condition of oppression corresponding with the given mode of production (slavery, serfdom, wage-labor). The state was the official representative of society as a whole; the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment. But, it was this only in so far as it was the state of that class which itself represented, for the time being, society as a whole:

-- in ancient times, the state of slaveowning citizens;

-- in the Middle Ages, the feudal lords;

-- in our own times, the bourgeoisie.

When, at last, it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society -- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a state. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not "abolished". It dies out.

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[Lyev]

I would think broad unity on the left is more important than picking out criticisms for each other. Having said this, having valid criticism of another ideology on the left isn't tantamount to divisive sectarianism, in some cases.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Another difficulty comes in the fact that there are also lots of different positions calling themselves anarchist. Any one critique you make is going to be disputed by the various anarchist groups to whom it doesn't apply. You will probably find that there are even anarchist and Marxist groupings out there whose positions converged on basically every point.


I would actually argue the opposite of this. In general I would say Anarchists are a fairly coherent group. Yes there are two main trends, insurrectionary and syndicalist but nonetheless I don't think these two groups are that much in opposition, to me it is a minor squabble, one see's unions as revolutionary under no circumstances and the other sees a revolutionary union as the focal point of a revolution or the way by which we can build the communist society. Of course there's primitivists, lifestylists etc but these groupings aren't relevant to the Anarchism of the labour movement.

[Zanthorus]

I would actually argue the opposite of this. In general I would say Anarchists are a fairly coherent group. Yes there are two main trends, insurrectionary and syndicalist but nonetheless I don't think these two groups are that much in opposition, to me it is a minor squabble, one see's unions as revolutionary under no circumstances and the other sees a revolutionary union as the focal point of a revolution or the way by which we can build the communist society. Of course there's primitivists, lifestylists etc but these groupings aren't relevant to the Anarchism of the labour movement.

I don't think this is true. The anarchist federation for example has as point seven of it's aims and principles:


Unions by their very nature cannot become vehicles for the revolutionary transformation of society. They have to be accepted by capitalism in order to function and so cannot play a part in its overthrow. Trades unions divide the working class (between employed and unemployed, trade and craft, skilled and unskilled, etc). Even syndicalist unions are constrained by the fundamental nature of unionism. The union has to be able to control its membership in order to make deals with management.

However it is certainly not an insurrectionary anarchist organisation.