Power Corrupts

[Art Vandelay]

I have heard this claim levied against anarchists that the reason we're considered "liberals" by our commie brethren is because we hold onto the liberal notion that "power corrupts." Now I have never actually seen this claim explained or even an attempt made to trace back this line of though to liberal thinkers, so I was hoping perhaps a communist (although I consider myself a communist as well) could clear things up for me?

I would say that I don't necessarily hold the notion that all power corrupts and frankly have never even heard an anarchist say that (which is why I believe I could be addressing a strawman right now) but I would hold the conviction that during times of social upheaval, material conditions create situations which become ripe for opportunism.

So why is my analysis anti-materialist exactly?

[Imposter Marxist]

Power corrupts, thats why we need a revolution from BELOW

[el_chavista]

If we assume that the phrase "power corrupts" is a general truth then the only acceptable government is the direct democracy of the people.
When people delegate their sovereign power to elected representatives an oligarchy is automatically formed.

[bcbm]

for anarchists the issue isn't that power corrupts but that power is the result of class distinctions, class being not just relationship to the means of production but also relationships of domination and so the ruling class is made up of both the capitalists who own the means of productions as well as the political class who control the means of domination. this is why anarchists oppose the marxist 'dictatorship of the proletariat,' arguing that in creating a 'workers' government they are creating a new dominating class, the bureaucracy, that will maintain class distinction and pursue its own class goals which are a combination of the above (hence state capitalism).

[jookyle]

Power doesn't really corrupt, bad people just have a special affinity for gaining power.

[el_chavista]

Power doesn't really corrupt, bad people just have a special affinity for gaining power.
The "degenerated-personality" issue won't explain why bureaucracy invariably has turned into a petty bourgeois layer that usurps power in the socialist experiences of the 20th century.

[Rafiq]

Anarchists do believe power corrupts, or believe power to be inherently toward that shift. Why else would one be opposed to 'authoritarianism'?

[Revolution starts with U]

Anarchists do believe power corrupts, or believe power to be inherently toward that shift. Why else would one be opposed to 'authoritarianism'?

Authority is the antithesis of equality.

Trust should be earned, not demanded.

Politicians, being people with self interests, will sell out their class if it affords them enough benefit.

It centralizes power into too few hands, leaving all possibility of resistance that much harder.

Anarchists understand that "anything necessary" doesn't mean "open fire at the first sign of movement."

[Qavvik]

.

[Magón]

The only time I've heard a Liberal or two say, power corrupts, was when Bush II was in charge, and it was 2008. So take that as you will.

I'm not aware of any Liberals who would agree with the Anarchist context, when Anarchists say power corrupts. Anarchists follow that all power on a bureaucratic level, is evidently corruptible, not just one political party (like Liberals), but all political parties, because it just lures in people looking only for their own self interests.

It's also why you see so many Anarchists who oppose even union organizations today, which was something the Anarchists in the past were so for and apart of. The power structure that unions have taken to, has become just as corruptible as any national party power structure. Not that some Anarchists who are apart of a union are corrupted, or don't see the union they're apart of uncorrupted, or even Anarchists who are opposed to current union organizing would be in the future if a "pure" union grew, but those who oppose union organizing just see that form of organizing as flawed and corrupted with what's given to them.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

Have you read Bakunin's Power corrupts the best? (http://revolutionaryanarchist.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/bakunin-power-corrupts-the-best/)

[jookyle]

The "degenerated-personality" issue won't explain why bureaucracy invariably has turned into a petty bourgeois layer that usurps power in the socialist experiences of the 20th century.

Bureaucracies aren't some mystic force that come out of nowhere. People make them.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I have heard this claim levied against anarchists that the reason we're considered "liberals" by our commie brethren is because we hold onto the liberal notion that "power corrupts." Now I have never actually seen this claim explained or even an attempt made to trace back this line of though to liberal thinkers, so I was hoping perhaps a communist (although I consider myself a communist as well) could clear things up for me?

I would say that I don't necessarily hold the notion that all power corrupts and frankly have never even heard an anarchist say that (which is why I believe I could be addressing a strawman right now) but I would hold the conviction that during times of social upheaval, material conditions create situations which become ripe for opportunism.

So why is my analysis anti-materialist exactly?I don't think that all anarchists believe this in the sort of liberal sense (which I will try and explain below, as I see it). But among the general anarchist trend (at least in the US) there are liberal-anarchists just as there are reformist Marxists or people who think "socialism" just means a social safety-net. Among this tendency there is sort of a crude notion of where oppression comes from that can basically be summed up in the idea that "power corrupts".

Why this crude version of the argument is "liberal" is because it is idealist and not based in a class-view of society. For capitalists, bourgeois rule, has total power and is not corrupt: they consider corruption only individual capitalists or politicians gaming the system at the expense of either other capitalists or the legitimacy of the system in the eyes of the population. It's not corrupt for business to guide campaigns or for politicians to make promises (unless it get's too ugly and exposed), it's how representative democracy works! It's not corrupt for bosses to restore some profits on the backs of their workforce. It's not corrupt for the whole system to consciously engage in a process of increasing inequality.

But for workers, it's all inherently corrupt and an abuse of power. Even workers who don't have much class consciousness are shocked if they've been loyal to the company and are then thrown away.

For anti-Stalinist Marxists, the problem with the USSR wasn't too much worker's power, but too little (or none at all)! It wasn't power in the abstract that was the problem, it was WHO had power and for what reason and who didn't have power. The leadership of the USSR didn't see themselves as corrupt, they saw what they did as being in the interests of the nation and protecting it from western imperialism. But this was corrupt in the eyes of workers because they didn't have power and the system was set up to keep the bureaucracy in place.

Liberals view things in these terms all the time. The problem with US democracy isn't in the class structure and the connection between the state and the ruling class, it's just too much corporate power. It is basically an argument to counterpose "true" parliamentary states from corrupted actual parliamentary systems as well as autocratic states, even though these are just different forms for managing the same system with the same kinds of problems more or less.

[Art Vandelay]

Anarchists do believe power corrupts, or believe power to be inherently toward that shift. Why else would one be opposed to 'authoritarianism'?

Anarchists are not against power, or authority, simply illegitimate or imposed power or authority. You have managed to say absolutely nothing of substance and simply regurgitate your typical anti-anarchist rhetoric. That is not an argument.

[Rafiq]

Authority is the antithesis of equality.

Without authority, there can be no equality.


Trust should be earned, not demanded.


I don't care about your moralism.


Politicians, being people with self interests, will sell out their class if it affords them enough benefit.


Examples? This pressuposes several universal moralist tenets inherent to Liberalism, which Anarchism upholds but reinvents with a different class base.


It centralizes power into too few hands, leaving all possibility of resistance that much harder.


Such is inherent to class society. Try again (There is always a ruling class behind this).



Anarchists understand that "anything necessary" doesn't mean "open fire at the first sign of movement."


No, Anarchists hold a universalist ethical view opposed to Authority, Hierarchy and so on, and deem the state to be the source of all "Bad/Evil", while Marxists challenge the very concept of "Bad/Evil" or Objective Morality itself.

[Rafiq]

Anarchists are not against power, or authority, simply illegitimate or imposed power or authority. You have managed to say absolutely nothing of substance and simply regurgitate your typical anti-anarchist rhetoric. That is not an argument.

What is power or authority, if not imposed?

Anarchists hold a universalist ethical view as their theoretical base. Marxists hold Materialism.

I'm an Anti Anarchist only theoretically and strategically.

[Art Vandelay]

What is power or authority, if not imposed?

Authority, like power, can be earned.

Unless one was worried their convictions would not gain traction with the working class, what would be the point of being authoritarian?

[Art Vandelay]

Without authority, there can be no equality.

This is a pretty big claim to make which almost undermines your belief in the feasibility of a classless stateless society.

[Revolution starts with U]

Without authority, there can be no equality.

Authority doesn't simply mean "someone giving direction." Authority specifically means functional "class" rule; ie, one party is in possession of a legalized status position which makes their views trump others.
Workers voting among each other is not authority. The boss telling them what to do is.


I don't care about your moralism.

Good for you. I don't care about your Leninist (bourgeois) anti-moralism. There's nothing wrong with thinking society should follow certain morals, if you don't think it necessary that they must.


Examples? This pressuposes several universal moralist tenets inherent to Liberalism, which Anarchism upholds but reinvents with a different class base.

Yes, we know, anarchists are liberals which means they are class traitors just by being anarchists, bourgeois, ruling class intelligentsia, and as such it is perfectly ok to execute them without trial. We know... Rafiq would have the revolution be no more than 10 leninists who actually understand materialism and begin slaughtering the rest of society, en masse, as counterrevolutionaries... get this, because their IDEAS are wrong, not their actions.


Such is inherent to class society. Try again (There is always a ruling class behind this).

You seem to presuppose that any Revolution automatically defeats and deposes the ruling class, that the "Revolution" happens and finishes the day the oppressed rise up and revolt. How else could your response to anything that says "for the good of the Revolution we shouldn't allow power to centralize" be "you assume class society."
The ruling class, nor the want to be ruling class, does not simply disappear the day workers pick up a gun. The Revolution is a long process in the hearts and minds of all people and in their relations to each other, and productivity. The Revolution is not merely economic and military, and it also political and social. It is all encompassing, not this "shoot a CEO and we win" view you seem to possess...
forgive me if I'm wrong.


No, Anarchists hold a universalist ethical view opposed to Authority, Hierarchy and so on, and deem the state to be the source of all "Bad/Evil", while Marxists challenge the very concept of "Bad/Evil" or Objective Morality itself.
1) Anarchists believe a wide range of things, we/they are very diverse.
2) I don't know of a single anarchist who sees the state as the "source of all evil" (you mean nonarchists, ie ancaps maybe). I know of a bunch who see the state as not possibly being anything more than one small subset of people deciding the common direction of society unilaterally... idk about you but that sounds like a class society.

[Rafiq]

Authority, like power, can be earned.

Unless one was worried their convictions would not gain traction with the working class, what would be the point of being authoritarian?

It's strictly organizational. No matter how much of the population is in concurance, Authoritarianism is necessary to fend off the counter revolution.

It can't be "earned" (whatever that means).

[Rafiq]

This is a pretty big claim to make which almost undermines your belief in the feasibility of a classless stateless society.

I don't have a "belief" in that. And how, anyway, though?

[wsg1991]

i just wondering how can we organize exchange of goods between different regions without State system ?

[Rafiq]

Authority doesn't simply mean "someone giving direction." Authority specifically means functional "class" rule;

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/authority

Authority doesn't equate to class rule. I don't know of anyone to ever put forward such a ludicrous assertion.


ie, one party is in possession of a legalized status position which makes their views trump others.


What a fixed, useless, and especially specific definition of Authority. No, that's the horse shit Liberalist stereotype of what went down in the majority of "Marxist Leninist" states. nice try, though.


Workers voting among each other is not authority. The boss telling them what to do is.


That still doesn't address the issue of the counter revolution, or the capitalist mode of production. The latter can certainly survive whilst Workers vote amongst each other in the work place.

And now, what social structure is going to allow workers "voting" among each other? Authority is a necessity to fend off the counter revolution, and every Libertarian "paradise" had brute authority (Spain, free territory). What happens afterwards is none of my concern.


Good for you. I don't care about your Leninist (bourgeois) anti-moralism.

Do you not see the Irony? There's nothing "bourgeois" about my views. Your rampant Liberalist pressuposions, on the other hand, could say a lot about the magnitude of Bourgeois thought taints your views.


There's nothing wrong with thinking society should follow certain morals, if you don't think it necessary that they must.


Not only do you assert what people "should" do, you assert the moral of allowing moralism (I.e. Morals 'should' be x). How absurd. If you understood the origin and nature of morals themselves, i.e. that they are super structural, then you'd understand they exist independently of will, too.


Yes, we know, anarchists are liberals which means they are class traitors just by being anarchists, bourgeois,

Shut the fuck up. I'm so sick of this sensationalist nonsense I've been getting about people. Do you want to invent my positions, as well?

I've said numerous times Anarchism is, no matter how I view it theoretically, a Proletarian ideology, invented by proletarians. Because I said Anarchists pressupose a lot of Liberalist convictions, they are class traitors now, according to me?

Fuck you.


ruling class intelligentsia, and as such it is perfectly ok to execute them without trial.

I'm just going to report this, as this is indeed trolling. Good job de railing the thread, you pathetic piece of shit. What a grossly idiotic interperitation of my views. Anyone whose familiar with my posts would never concur with this "analysation" of my posts.

I guess Idealists think the revolution executes people because of their Ideas, rather than their class background and magnitude of threat towards the revolution itself they pose.


We know... Rafiq would have the revolution be no more than 10 leninists who actually understand materialism and begin slaughtering the rest of society, en masse, as counterrevolutionaries...

Of course. :rolleyes:

We Materialists want to kill people because of their Ideas.


get this, because their IDEAS are wrong, not their actions.

Why don't you point out where I said people will die because of Ideas? I said that if it's necessary, the spreaders of mass counter revolutionary propaganda could face death. Explain how that translates.

Also, stop fucking derailing the thread you worthless fuck. You aren't even capable to articulate a dose of the content I put forward in my post, so every chance you get, in any thread, you bring things up from other threads in which you got your ass whooped. Just because it's a new thread (this one) doesn't mean you didn't get your ass handed to you in the other one.


You seem to presuppose that any Revolution automatically defeats and deposes the ruling class,

Name me a revolution that was any different.


that the "Revolution" happens and finishes the day the oppressed rise up and revolt.

This isn't even a functional sentence. I don't know what this means.


How else could your response to anything that says "for the good of the Revolution we shouldn't allow power to centralize" be "you assume class society."

Fucking moron. It's because to think power, if centralized, will "corrupt" is something only inherent to class society, or capitalist society to be more specific, as so long capital exists, the state will be swayed to be it's dog. That's the origin of the myth.

I fail to see how decentralizing anything is going to be for the "good" of the revolution. You want to kill the revolution and make it week to preserve your disgusting bourgeois liberal morals. Piss off.


The ruling class, nor the want to be ruling class, does not simply disappear the day workers pick up a gun.

You don't know what a revolution is. We don't want to get rid of the "want" to be ruling class. We want to suppress them to the point where to do so is to risk one's life.

A revolution is not the benevolence of the class enemy.


The Revolution is a long process in the hearts and minds of all people and in their relations to each other, and productivity.

No, it's the overthrowing of one class over another. Even the most self righteous of Anarchists know this. You, on the other hand...


The Revolution is not merely economic and military, and it also political and social.

Those are all super structural. A revolution is a radical change in the mode of production, and for such to happen, that would change all of those things by default.


It is all encompassing, not this "shoot a CEO and we win" view you seem to possess...


Shoot the CEO when he tries to be another Kornilov. That's the rule.

Listen you fuck, I want you to go back and link several posts I've made that would be in concurance with all of the horse shit accusations you've levelled against me. Where have I said a revolution means "Shooting a CEO"? You've dumbed down so much... God damn...


forgive me if I'm wrong.


You know you're wrong. You're a troll.


1) Anarchists believe a wide range of things, we/they are very diverse.


All Anarchists hold the universalist ethical base for all of their views, in the same way Marxists hold materialism.


2) I don't know of a single anarchist who sees the state as the "source of all evil" (you mean nonarchists, ie ancaps maybe).

They see power, hierarchy, and authority as the source of human suffering. Such constitutes as a base for their historical analysis.


I know of a bunch who see the state as not possibly being anything more than one small subset of people deciding the common direction of society unilaterally

That was never the function of the state. The state is an instrument of class rule. Nothing more, nothing less.


... idk about you but that sounds like a class society.


Indeed, you don't know what class means for Marxists, do you? (Hint: It's not one guy telling another guy to do something, i.e. authority).

Class is defined by specific relations tot he mode of production which are beyond mere management. The Bourgeois class is unique in it's servitude toward Capital, and so on. It's not, by any means, a mere power relation.

You adopt Bourgeois Liberal morality, and, on top of that, a Bourgeois rationalist conception of class. Well done.

You're an insult to all decent Anarchists.

[Ele'ill]

Rafiq, calm down.

[campesino]

Anarchists do believe power corrupts, or believe power to be inherently toward that shift. Why else would one be opposed to 'authoritarianism'?

I oppose authoritarianism, because liberation of the working class is liberation of the working class, you can not have a liberated working class with a group of people whose sole purpose is to "manage, lead" the working class. no, matter how well this group leads, it is anti-communist to have an entity that commands the working class. I do believe the working class should have all the authority in the world, to rid the world of the counter-revolution, but no entity should control the working class.

[Rafiq]

Why? What's wrong with a Vanguard? What if I told you it was impossible for any society to function, with seven billion people, without such massive delegation?

Does the Bourgeois state control the Bourgeoisie? Why hasn't the Bourgeois state "corrupted" and turned against the class that controls it?

And here comes my conclusion: This group of people will be instruments of class rule.

[campesino]

Why? What's wrong with a Vanguard? What if I told you it was impossible for any society to function, with seven billion people, without such massive delegation?

Does the Bourgeois state control the Bourgeoisie? Why hasn't the Bourgeois state "corrupted" and turned against the class that controls it?

And here comes my conclusion: This group of people will be instruments of class rule.

I see what you're saying. I want to know the mechanism, the working class will have, to keep the state in check. wouldn't a state that manages itself in a manner unpopular with the working class, and detrimental to the working class, be anti-communist.

[Rafiq]

I see what you're saying. I want to know the mechanism, the working class will have, to keep the state in check. wouldn't a state that manages itself in a manner unpopular with the working class, and detrimental to the working class, be anti-communist.

For one, the proletariat will be the armed wing of the state, none the less, as Lenin put it. As I'm not a fan of democratic rhetoric, of course, as would be possible in Industrialized countries, the State would function "democratically".

A worker's dictatorship is like Bourgeois dictatorship, i.e. a democracy for that class.

Also, a state can't exist with an interest external from a class base.

[campesino]

how would worker's democracy work? a parliament? the only worker's democracy I see as necessary is, the right of the worker to refuse orders from the state.

with the working class being the armed wing(something which I support)
Won't your plan just reduce the state to nothing but a group of advisors with no real bite. what would be their role? would they be necessary?

[Rafiq]

The state has to be large and powerful with a mass proletarian base to support it. I'm not one for planning societies, so I don't know how a proletarian democracy could work. Though, perhaps in the sense of Aristotle, (Mob rule) wouldn't be so bad. The point is that the state and the workers wouldn't be two different interests, i.e. The state would be an instrument of the proletariat, not the other way around.

The state is very necessary for organization and management. Just as the Bourgeois state is necessary for them, to regulate Capital and organize and carry out such regulations that stretch through all corners of society.

[campesino]

last question. What is something the state can do, that the the working class can't do by themselves?

[Rafiq]

Provide the proper organs of mass organization, i.e. to embody proletarian power into an entity which could fend off the counter revolution in the most systemically efficient means possible.

[Welshy]

last question. What is something the state can do, that the the working class can't do by themselves?

The state is a tool of class rule, so if the working class is the ruling class then the state would be their tool. So your question proposes a false dichotomy at best and a straw man of the argument being proposed here at worse.

[Revolution starts with U]

Authority doesn't equate to class rule. I don't know of anyone to ever put forward such a ludicrous assertion.

Me. And if you're going to discuss with anarchists you should know that most of us believe the same. When we talk about "authority" and "authoritarian" we are, almost to a t, speaking about something more than simple respect.


What a fixed, useless, and especially specific definition of Authority. No, that's the horse shit Liberalist stereotype of what went down in the majority of "Marxist Leninist" states. nice try, though.

Or what all states have been since the first state was begun... just because it fits the history of the Bolsheviks doesn't make it any less true. Note that by "party" I meant in the legal sense, not political; ie, a person or group with a singular (or nearly so) outlook.


That still doesn't address the issue of the counter revolution, or the capitalist mode of production. The latter can certainly survive whilst Workers vote amongst each other in the work place.

What is capital other than the legalized control of production and exchange by one party? It doesn't matter if the capitalist does this because he claims "ownership" or because he claims "State imperative." What matters is that one small subset of people claim legalized control over production and exchange.
^That certainly cannot outlive capital. It IS capital, by definition.

And now, what social structure is going to allow workers "voting" among each other?
A democratic one? I don't get the question...

Authority is a necessity to fend off the counter revolution, and every Libertarian "paradise" had brute authority (Spain, free territory). What happens afterwards is none of my concern.

You act as if these revolutions were successful... you also act as if we see these as paradises, or that any anarchist believes them to be...



Do you not see the Irony? There's nothing "bourgeois" about my views. Your rampant Liberalist pressuposions, on the other hand, could say a lot about the magnitude of Bourgeois thought taints your views.

I don't openly express my support for a bourgeois government that ruled in a bourgeois manner, which openly and admittedly implemented a capitalist system in the name of proletarian revolution...
What "rampant liberalist presuppositions?" You mean my view that "power corrupts' that I don't have, or my view that states only exist if classes exist?


Not only do you assert what people "should" do, you assert the moral of allowing moralism (I.e. Morals 'should' be x). How absurd. If you understood the origin and nature of morals themselves, i.e. that they are super structural, then you'd understand they exist independently of will, too.

Ah, yes... the tired ol' line of "if you were as smart as me you would agree." Good thing for me you haven't even attempted to explain what's wrong with having morals.
Also good for me, I think morals should be decided socially and democratically...


Shut the fuck up.
You should know by now I don't respect imposed authority... so, no.


I've said numerous times Anarchism is, no matter how I view it theoretically, a Proletarian ideology, invented by proletarians. Because I said Anarchists pressupose a lot of Liberalist convictions, they are class traitors now, according to me?

What else is one supposed to think when you openly supported the kidnapping and murder of innocents simply because they were related to liberals/counterrevolutionaries?

Fuck you.

Love you too...


I'm just going to report this, as this is indeed trolling.
That's fine. It's not trolling, but if you feel it needs reporting, ok. Maybe we can have a fair trial...

Anyone whose familiar with my posts would never concur with this "analysation" of my posts.

Question... why do so many on this site believe your posts to be not what you believe them to be? Why does it surprise you when many people will concur that you lust for blood? Maybe we are wrong, I hope we are. The question is, why are you so misunderstood?

I guess Idealists think the revolution executes people because of their Ideas, rather than their class background and magnitude of threat towards the revolution itself they pose.

Well, when one says "yes I openly support the kidnapping and murder of innocent family members of counterrevs" is it really so hard to see why people might think that person is not really interested in the suppression of counterrevolutionary ACTIVITY, more than they are interested in the idea of counterrevolution?


We Materialists want to kill people because of their Ideas.

Well..


Why don't you point out where I said people will die because of Ideas? I said that if it's necessary, the spreaders of mass counter revolutionary propaganda could face death. Explain how that translates.

Look, I'm trying to approach things honestly. Perhaps there is a reason why I consistently get you wrong. I don't see how it's so absurd to think the conclusion to "censoring propaganda is essential to fight the counterrevolution" and "counterrevolutionaries will need to be executed, en masse, without trial," is "we will have to execute without trial propagandists, ie spreaders of ideas."

Also, stop fucking derailing the thread you worthless fuck.
The thread is about the supposed view of anarchists that "power corrupts." I don't see where I derailed that.

You aren't even capable to articulate a dose of the content I put forward in my post, so every chance you get, in any thread, you bring things up from other threads in which you got your ass whooped.
1) I've always thought your threads ended with your throwing your hands up in frustration, announcing to everyone you're busy, and might be returning, but probably not. I don't see where you "whooped" anyone's ass.
2) I'm here to upgrade my knowledge... Not to "win debates" with people I don't even know, and are irrelevant to my social status. If I wanted to "win debates" I would be doing it in far more influential places than here, places that would push my rise up the political ladder.
3) Do you think there's a reason, beyond just my stupidity, that leads me to consistently misrepresent your position. I am willing to admit I may have done so, and in all honesty thought I wasn't.

Just because it's a new thread (this one) doesn't mean you didn't get your ass handed to you in the other one.

:drool:


Name me a revolution that was any different.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Bourgeois revolutions may have deposed the standing ruling class, only to implement a new class dictatorship in its place. All hitherto revolutions, whether if successful revolts or not, were not successful Revolutions.



This isn't even a functional sentence. I don't know what this means.

That military revolt is the entirety of the Revolution.


Fucking moron. It's because to think power, if centralized, will "corrupt" is something only inherent to class society, or capitalist society to be more specific, as so long capital exists, the state will be swayed to be it's dog. That's the origin of the myth.

Who said it will corrupt anything? What was posited was that power is used in the interests of the powerful. There's nothing absurd about that.
This is what I mean tho, you think that once we revolt, the Revolution is done; the proletariat has won.
Everybody (should) know that the Revolution starts long before the revolt, and finishes long after. You seem to recognize this in one sentence, when you say it will have to be protected from counterrevolution. Then just as quickly you forget it in analyzing whether the people left in charge of the existing apparatus are really acting in the interests of the proletariat.


I fail to see how decentralizing anything is going to be for the "good" of the revolution. You want to kill the revolution and make it week to preserve your disgusting bourgeois liberal morals. Piss off.

I don't know how many times I can say that if the Revolution must be authoritarian and bloody, I have no problem with that. Where I have a problem is when people try to say that it will have to be, or should be. Again, you make the mistake of thinking I think my positions to be absolute truth, rather than truth as I see it... you fail to see that I am democratic in my whole being, that I view all as equals, friend and foe alike.


You don't know what a revolution is.
Ok..

We don't want to get rid of the "want" to be ruling class. We want to suppress them to the point where to do so is to risk one's life.

So it's a successful Revolution even if it falls to pieces less than a generation later?

A revolution is not the benevolence of the class enemy.

I don't understand the meaning here.



No, it's the overthrowing of one class over another.

Nothing in this sentence contradicts what I said. You don't overthrow a class simply by killing its members, as the nature of class is somewhat irrelevant to the actual people involved; if you kill all the bourgeoisie off while leaving the capitalist structure in place, a new crop of individuals will simply fill their shoes.
Obviously the Revolution is FAR MORE than the military engagement with the class enemy.



Those are all super structural. A revolution is a radical change in the mode of production, and for such to happen, that would change all of those things by default.

Forgive me for any misunderstanding, but this seems to imply we could reform our way to socialism; that if we just vote in socialist policy, the rest of society would follow suit. I know this is a misunderstanding, because I don't think you would believe anything to be so absurd.
A Revolution is a radical change in all of society, and society is a self-perpetuating feedback loop. We can't simply overtake the workplaces, ala unionism, we have to create a whole new political economy.



Shoot the CEO when he tries to be another Kornilov. That's the rule.

Or if they're the family of Kornilov...

Listen you fuck, I want you to go back and link several posts I've made that would be in concurance with all of the horse shit accusations you've levelled against me. Where have I said a revolution means "Shooting a CEO"? You've dumbed down so much... God damn...

I can do so, tho it will take me a few days. I already once linked, through a 5min skim of your posts, the "there will be blood" theme of your posts. Tho, honestly, I don't know why it surprises you that people often get your position wrong...


You know you're wrong. You're a troll.

No, sorry.


All Anarchists hold the universalist ethical base for all of their views, in the same way Marxists hold materialism.

Prove it.

(Hint; this is going to be hard for you since you're discussing with an "anarchist" right now that considers himself a strict materialist which doesn't believe in any universal ethic.)

They see power, hierarchy, and authority as the source of human suffering. Such constitutes as a base for their historical analysis.

I've always thought they tended to think, like me, that humans are the source of human suffering, but ok...


That was never the function of the state. The state is an instrument of class rule. Nothing more, nothing less.

That IS class rule... for G_D's sake...


Indeed, you don't know what class means for Marxists, do you? (Hint: It's not one guy telling another guy to do something, i.e. authority).

Class is defined by specific relations tot he mode of production which are beyond mere management. The Bourgeois class is unique in it's servitude toward Capital, and so on. It's not, by any means, a mere power relation.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles… Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight..."
Wikipedia then goes on to say "Since the distribution of political power is determined by power over production, or power over capital, it is no surprise that the bourgeois class uses their wealth to legitimatize and protect their property and consequent social relations. Thus the ruling class is those who hold the economic power and make the decisions."
(It's wikipedia, I know. That's a seperate debate. Please show why they are wrong without simply saying "they're wrong because I said so."
Marx says:

As privates of the industrial army, they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, in the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.

"The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (trade unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.
Sounds like a power struggle if you ask me. What specific relation to the means of production does the bourgeoisie have if not the power to unilaterally decide its direction and distribution?


You adopt Bourgeois Liberal morality, and, on top of that, a Bourgeois rationalist conception of class. Well done.

No, I didn't. But thanks anyway...

You're an insult to all decent Anarchists.
I'm not sure what anarchists you consider decent, when you consistently portray them as universally having a liberalist framework.

[Jimmie Higgins]

how would worker's democracy work? a parliament? the only worker's democracy I see as necessary is, the right of the worker to refuse orders from the state.I could see something like a "bill of rights" that would guarentee the right of collective strikes or other things, and I think workers would probably get together and come up with some basic decrees about some basic things, but I think mostly the use of such thing is in defending class power from counter-revolution (from without and from within since we have the example of the USSR as a warning) and reorganizing society.

If the capitalist state is the arena for the common management of the capitalist system by the capitalists, a "worker's state" would be the same thing - but for and by the working class. Workers are going to argue over different priorities and different goals for common matters and so there needs to be a place and a way - especially at first when the most structural changes would be taking place and be most needed, where workers could collectively work these big issues out.


with the working class being the armed wing(something which I support)
Won't your plan just reduce the state to nothing but a group of advisors with no real bite. what would be their role? would they be necessary?As far as any representatives or "state positions" then yes, I think that would be the goal in fact. Maybe not advisers though - just true representatives with a rather narrow mandate to argue the collectively decided apon positions of those they represent.

Capitalists use parliamentary democracy to create a buffer between the public face of the government and the actual ruling and decision-making process. "Checks and balences" are not to prevent the Supreme Court from making themselves emperors (as we are told) because power often shits between the various branches - the check is to keep popular democracy from being effective. Legislatures are just for making campaign speeches, the real policy is decided behind closed doors with meetings between representatives of business interests and politicians.

The whole point of a worker's state would be to inverse this - to make state functionaries basically drones for carrying out mass democratic decisions. As Marx talked about it: legislative bodies would be working bodies, any reps would be instantly recallable by democratic vote at any time etc.

This is why it's impossible to "take over" the existing state - it would be like trying to make a plane act as a submarine. Workers will have to create new processes and ways of doing things that actually are more responsive to popular will.


last question. What is something the state can do, that the the working class can't do by themselves?Yes, this is a false separation of the two. If workers got together in mass meetings of the whole population and made decisions, this would be the form of the state. As that is impractical I think probably workers will probably do something like decide things on a local workplace and community level and then pick representatives who are empowered to carry out whatever people desire them to do. But the specific way workers choose to set this up is secondary IMO as long as it actually helps us democratically run things rather than hinder that.

[Jimmie Higgins]

power often shits between the various branchesLol. I meant "shifts". Can you tell I was attracted to anarchism when I first radicalized.:)

[Ostrinski]

Something that only exists in the abstract cannot have a meaningful material relationship with something that physically exists.

[Thirsty Crow]

The state has to be large and powerful with a mass proletarian base to support it. I'm not one for planning societies, so I don't know how a proletarian democracy could work.
I think that your forcing the old position of not putting forward "blueprints" for future society doesn't actually take into account what kind of blueprints early "scientific socialists" argued against.
And a far more serious problem with such an approach is that without a notion of possible political organization of working class rule, the insurgent workers' would find themselves in an extremely confusing situation, with very limited time and opportunities for deliberation on the new political stuctures (I assume that all communists do uphold the notion of the necessity to destroy the bourgeois state) which can jeopardize the very same class rule. In other words, I think your approach is dangerously impractical.

Though, that doesn't entail isolated political theorists bringing perfect models up out of their own ingenious imagination, but rather a reflection of existing potentials and strucutres arising from struggle which takes place.

Anyway, I think that at least one prerequisite for going beyond the phase of national expropriation of individual capitalists, which points towards world revolution, would be mass workers' participation in the exercise of political power, as opposed to the formation of the national party-state, which IMO has historically been shown as a form very much prone to conservatism and opportunism.

[Rafiq]

It's one of the last weeks of my academic courses, so yeah. Friday night or the weekend I'll address whatever response were made to me.

[Grenzer]

Anyway, I think that at least one prerequisite for going beyond the phase of national expropriation of individual capitalists, which points towards world revolution, would be mass workers' participation in the exercise of political power, as opposed to the formation of the national party-state, which IMO has historically been shown as a form very much prone to conservatism and opportunism.

Insofar as you divorce the idea of a "party-state"(ignoring the fact that so called "one-party" states couldn't really have been considered to be parties in a technical sense, since a real party is a class movement) from the material circumstances which gave rise to the said opportunism to begin with, which is in no way exclusively dependent on the form of organization. We're well aware of the left communist idealism in regards to the state as an "inherently conservative" institution.

International organization of the working class is paramount, but at the same time it must be construed in a way that allows struggle to be conducted locally in a way that can effectively respond to individual peculiarities a given segment of the proletariat may face in a struggle with a given segment of the bourgeoisie. The kind of internationalism you promote pushes it to a superficial, aesthetic extreme and produces an inability to effectively respond to more local needs. It was not for no reason that Marx said the proletariat of a given country must first settle accounts with their own bourgeoisie, which in no way implies losing sight of the fact that class struggle is also global in scope.

If there is any opportunism around here, it's how some people jump on any form nationally based organization as somehow being inherently insufficient..

[vagrantmoralist]

I've never quite believed in the whole 'power corrupts' spiel - it always seemed to be an easy way to explain why so-called leaders often turn out to be bastards. I also never understood how anarchism would actually function as a global (or hell, national) system, but perhaps I'm missing something. There must be some way to prevent self-interest from interfering with liberty - laws are the most effective way to ensure that, while a democratically elected government is required to frame and amend laws as the people's will changes.

Of course, maybe there's an anarchist here who can refute all of my points and I'd be forced to agree and radicalise :P (PS I don't consider myself - a revolutionary socialist, a radical, because it seems to me to be the most efficient and equitable way to allocate resources in a society. Thus, not radical, but logical. Of course, most people I've met disagree.)

[seventeethdecember2016]

I have heard this claim levied against anarchists that the reason we're considered "liberals" by our commie brethren is because we hold onto the liberal notion that "power corrupts." Now I have never actually seen this claim explained or even an attempt made to trace back this line of though to liberal thinkers, so I was hoping perhaps a communist (although I consider myself a communist as well) could clear things up for me?
Generally power causes a quick deradicalization, at least in the extent of policy making and such, towards more practical approaches. Rhetoric likely won't change though. Power does change people, because you essentially can't follow a simple lifestyle when you have so much responsibility on your shoulders.
Power doesn't corrupt, it actually alleviates you from corruption. Corruption exists only in society, where people have little virtue and live on pleasure(at least that's my Platonic and Aristotelian explanation).



So why is my analysis anti-materialist exactly?
I guess if you follow a Hobbesian Materialistic concept, it isn't anti-materialist. However, arguments which include Human Nature don't really hold water for Dialectical Materialists.

[Prinskaj]

The point is that the state and the workers wouldn't be two different interests, i.e. The state would be an instrument of the proletariat, not the other way around. But what mechanism is to insure that?

[Rafiq]

But what mechanism is to insure that?

All states have a class character. There cannot exist a state devoid of such. There cannot exist a mechanism is constantly regulating a thing that is inherently, already in itself devoid of such antagonism and class contradiction.

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[Guayaco]

The "degenerated-personality" issue won't explain why bureaucracy invariably has turned into a petty bourgeois layer that usurps power in the socialist experiences of the 20th century.

The "inevitable authoritarianism of Leninism" position also has many flaws. For example, Stalin didn´t physically liquidate/exile all of the Old Bolsheviks because he was a paranoid bastard. He was quite methodical and rather cautious at the beginning, since he had not yet consolidated power. If it usurpation of power is inevitable, then why did Stalin have to resort to such measures?

(I see you used the plural "socialist experiences." I´ll reserve the argument about the class nature of the "other" experiences for their corresponding threads)

[Comrade Jandar]

The bourgeois state can definitely betray it's class interests, especially liberal-democratic regimes. Decisions are made everyday that further the decomposition of capitalism in favor of right-wing, neo-liberal ideology.

[Comrade Jandar]

The "inevitable authoritarianism of Leninism" position also has many flaws. For example, Stalin didn´t physically liquidate/exile all of the Old Bolsheviks because he was a paranoid bastard. He was quite methodical and rather cautious at the beginning, since he had not yet consolidated power. If it usurpation of power is inevitable, then why did Stalin have to resort to such measures?

(I see you used the plural "socialist experiences." I´ll reserve the argument about the class nature of the "other" experiences for their corresponding threads)

The "inevitable authoritarianism of Leninism" lies in that fact that it advocates not the Dictatorship of the Proletariat but the Dictatorship of the Bourgeois Intelligentsia. In other words, the workers still not being in power

[Rafiq]

The bourgeois state can definitely betray it's class interests, especially liberal-democratic regimes. Decisions are made everyday that further the decomposition of capitalism in favor of right-wing, neo-liberal ideology.

Still in the favor of the bourgeois class, and thus, capital. Capitalism was already decomposing (70's), Neoliberalism is what prolonged it's destruction...

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[Rafiq]

The "inevitable authoritarianism of Leninism" lies in that fact that it advocates not the Dictatorship of the Proletariat but the Dictatorship of the Bourgeois Intelligentsia. In other words, the workers still not being in power

Most Industrial proletarians in Russia were more or less intelligentisa. They were a minority, but they were still proletarians, and thus their dictatorship did exist. DOTP doesn't equate to national level democracy. It's self explanatory.

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[Engels]

The "inevitable authoritarianism of Leninism" position also has many flaws.

I agree with this. Victor Serge summed it up nicely, “the virus of Stalinism was indeed in Leninism, but in Leninism there were many other viruses that could have developed in other directions as well”.


For example, Stalin didn´t physically liquidate/exile all of the Old Bolsheviks because he was a paranoid bastard. He was quite methodical and rather cautious at the beginning, since he had not yet consolidated power. If it usurpation of power is inevitable, then why did Stalin have to resort to such measures?

Perhaps I misunderstood, but what does it matter that Stalin had to resort to such measures when in the end, he actually did “usurp power”? Does that not support the notion that it was “inevitable”?

[Comrade Jandar]

Still in the favor of the bourgeois class, and thus, capital. Capitalism was already decomposing (70's), Neoliberalism is what prolonged it's destruction...

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How is it in the interests of the bourgeois as a class to put capitalism in to crisis? Individual bourgeoisie or certains segments of it can do things that benefit them or their specific strata but not the class as a whole.

[Rafiq]

How is it in the interests of the bourgeois as a class to put capitalism in to crisis? Individual bourgeoisie or certains segments of it can do things that benefit them or their specific strata but not the class as a whole.

You still don't get it, don't you? There was a major crises in the 1970's which forced the Bourgeois class to adopt something similar to Neoliberalism. It's not as if it immediately put them into crises. No, as while proletarians globally suffered a tremendous defeat and sought a decline in living standards, the Bourgeois class was stronger and healthier than ever.

[Anarpest]

I don't really like the 'power corrupts' slogan that much, because it seems to focus a bit too much on personality, as if the only reason why a certain power structure doesn't work is that the leaders happen to be susceptible to personal corruption, in other words the moral sense of the leaders. It's almost akin to a great man theory, in that sense. However, it probably does have some truth, namely that inherently hierarchical social structures will create a leadership divorced from society as a whole, with its own independent interests, and which will, in the interests of self-perpetuation, tend to reproduce the underlying form of society which guarantees its power.

When leaders are campaigning for leadership, or in any case uncrowned, there's not that much of a force of necessity guiding their actions and positions, except perhaps attempts to gain popular appeal through promises, etc. When they become leaders, on the other hand, they become faced with the necessity of upholding their power, their economy, their international stature, etc., while no longer needing as much to respect the mass of the populace, and this can quite easily lead to the appearance of 'corruption.' Earlier, they were just themselves, and could do effectively what they liked, now they are part of a social institution, and must function in accordance with the machine as a whole.

[Engels]

as if the only reason why a certain power structure doesn't work is that the leaders happen to be susceptible to personal corruption...

Along the same lines, one could also argue that these power structures and institutions tend to attract a certain power hungry, psychopathic type of person. These institutions then go on to reward and perpetuate the same type of behaviour.