Critique

[Sinister Intents]

What is the Marxist critique of anarchism?

What is the critique of Marxism from anarchists?

I know the answers, but I just want to see what my comrades on RevLeft have to say so that I can expand my knowledge

[tuwix]

What is the Marxist critique of anarchism?


Firstly, I explain that I don't recognize Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists, Hodxaists, etc. a Marxists. They different ideologies
Secondly, Marx criticize Proudhon and Bakunin. And I think it was just reaction on critique on Marx. Especially it's the case of Proudhon. When Proudhon refused to join international organization, Marx started to criticize Proudhon. However, Proudhon was inspiration for Marx and Marx expanded scientifically works of Proudhon especially "What is Property?".
Critique of Bakunin was based on argument that free cooperative movement will mean return of capitalism.



What is the critique of Marxism from anarchists?


The most known is Bakunin's critique that maintaining a state will cause a creation of new class composed of state bureaucracy that will ultimately owners of the production means.

The main issue between Marxists and anarchists is role of state. Especially, what to do with bureaucracy? For Marxists, it's beyond the imagination haw to deal without them. For anarchists, it's impossible to have state bureaucracy. And this conflict wasn't resolved until today and I don't know who is right and who is wrong in this issue.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

An Anarchist is a man who – when he is not a police agent – is fated always and everywhere to attain the opposite of that which he attempts to achieve. - Plekhanov... Nah, just kidding. :lol:

Anarchists believe that it will be possible to immediately transition from capitalism to communism. Marxists believe that there will be a period where the proletariat has to seize the organs of the state and use it in their own benefit, ie the dictatorship of the proletariat. This has lead historically to different tactics, sometimes completely at odds with each other, and inevitably different analysis of situations. At the extreme ends of this spectrum it has lead to some so-called Marxists to become completely entrenched in the bourgeois system (the Second International, for example) and some anarchists to become completely separated from the proletariat as a petty bourgeois sub-culture, thus confirming the broader milieu of each group's own bias about the other.

[The Idler]

The best classical Marxist critique of Anarchism I ever read was from Socialist Studies pamphlet a few years ago
http://www.socialiststudies.org.uk/pamphlet%20anarchy.shtml

Best Anarchist critique of Marxism, Murray Bookchin's Listen Marxist! (although more aimed a Bolsheviks than Classical Marxists)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bookchin/1969/listen-marxist.htm

[ckaihatsu]

The most known is Bakunin's critique that maintaining a state will cause a creation of new class composed of state bureaucracy that will ultimately owners of the production means.

The main issue between Marxists and anarchists is role of state. Especially, what to do with bureaucracy? For Marxists, it's beyond the imagination haw to deal without them. For anarchists, it's impossible to have state bureaucracy. And this conflict wasn't resolved until today and I don't know who is right and who is wrong in this issue.


The problem with these standing positions is that they're too *prescriptive*, and are borderline dogmatic. It's no wonder that the topic generates more heat than light when, instead of using either position to analyze real-world, developing conditions, these factions would rather argue internally for 'turf', apparently.

I'll use this excerpt from a recent post as an interlude here....





[I] mean to say that I doubt *anyone* would be arguing for a 'strong state' if actual conditions allowed for it to be abolished at once -- that's the whole *point* of a revolution, and the only authoritarianism necessary would be to repulse the bourgeois counter-revolutionary opposition.

So really it's about privilege vs. revolution, and not 'shades of gray' among revolutionaries regarding "how fast" or "how slow" bourgeois rule should be overthrown.


This means that the *possibility* of using the bourgeois state apparatus against bourgeois rule has to be thought-of as a *strategy*, and not as fixed doctrine. Actual conditions might very well allow for a *quick defeat* of bourgeois opposition, *or* they may not:





Best-case is that everything happens quickly and money instantly becomes obsolete and anachronistic -- this would equate to the resounding defeat of the bourgeoisie on a worldwide mass basis and the quick dissolution of its state. It would be replaced more-or-less in a bottom-up organic way with production rapidly reorganized on vast scales (for economies of scale and efficiency).

Worst-case is that there's an ongoing situation of dual-power where contending forces from the bourgeoisie and proletariat linger on in protracted labor-based battles, both political and physical. World public opinion remains divided and the class war takes on the characteristics of a country-by-country civil war between the classes. In such a situation it would be more-than-understandable for revolutionary forces to call for the seizing of the state, and to use it in an authoritarian, top-down way in the interests of the workers' forces, against the imperialists. This could include a system of labor vouchers, in an attempt to assert some kind of consistent economic valuation system, as counterposed to imperialist/colonialist resource extraction, corporatist/militarist syndicalism, and market-type commodity-production valuations.


Worldview Diagram

http://s6.postimage.org/axvyymiy5/120824_Worldview_Diagram.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/axvyymiy5/)

[Jimmie Higgins]

What is the Marxist critique of anarchism?

What is the critique of Marxism from anarchists?

I know the answers, but I just want to see what my comrades on RevLeft have to say so that I can expand my knowledgewhat anarchism and what Marxism? For example I broadly disagree with lifestyle anarchism or Stalinism, I narrowly disagree with syndicalism or orthodox Trotskyism and so criticisms of each would be different.

In the very crudest terms, I agree with anarchism in general on socialism from below, I disagree generally that workers can negate capitalism without creating counter-hegemony of their own. Not all anarchist believe in socialism from below and not all of them are against workers creating organized counter-power however.

[helot]

The best classical Marxist critique of Anarchism I ever read was from Socialist Studies pamphlet a few years ago
http://www.socialiststudies.org.uk/pamphlet%20anarchy.shtml



hahaha really, that's the best? It categorises everything that isn't electioneering for the spgb as being impractical, idealist and utopian. It's a comedy piece, right?

[The Idler]

hahaha really, that's the best? It categorises everything that isn't electioneering for the spgb as being impractical, idealist and utopian. It's a comedy piece, right?
Many strands of anarchist strategy are popular, even among non-anarchists, but impractical. Since many also reject the capture of political power, and fetishise abstentionism then its worth pointing out the SPGB does seek to capture political power. As Engels put it in 1895

With this successful utilization of universal suffrage, an entirely new mode of proletarian struggle came into force, and this quickly developed further. It was found that the state institutions, in which the rule of the bourgeoisie is organized, offer still further opportunities for the working class to fight these very state institutions. They took part in elections to individual diets, to municipal councils and to industrial courts; they contested every post against the bourgeoisie in the occupation of which a sufficient part of the proletariat had its say. And so it happened that the bourgeoisie and the government came to be much more afraid of the legal than of the illegal action of the workers' party, of the results of elections than of those of rebellion.
For here, too, the conditions of the struggle had essentially changed. Rebellion in the old style, the street fight with barricades, which up to 1848 gave everywhere the final decision, was to a considerable extent obsolete.
Let us have no illusions about it: a real victory of an insurrection over the military in street fighting, a victory as between two armies, is one of the rarest exceptions.

[tuwix]

This means that the *possibility* of using the bourgeois state apparatus against bourgeois rule has to be thought-of as a *strategy*, and not as fixed doctrine. Actual conditions might very well allow for a *quick defeat* of bourgeois opposition, *or* they may not:


I don't think that is it "bourgeois state apparatus" or other bureaucracy is relevant. Bureaucracy was researched very well. And it has own distinct properties. Mainly the purpose of bureaucracy is to reproduce and expand. The tasks given to them by others are less relevant comparing to their two purposes. And the question is what to do not to allow a bureaucracy to expand to such extent that they are new bourgeoisie. I think it's main problem of Marxism. The bureaucracy IMHO was the main of the fall of state-capitalism countries. And Bakunin has predicted this problem...

[helot]

Many strands of anarchist strategy are popular, even among non-anarchists, but impractical. Since many also reject the capture of political power, and fetishise abstentionism then its worth pointing out the SPGB does seek to capture political power. As Engels put it in 1895


some vague strategy is impractical, no doubt. Yet the supposed critique rejects not this or that strategy thought up by someone who's inexperienced or anything but direct action itself.


Btw, i couldn't give a toss what Engels thought about suffrage. We've got over a century's worth of data compared to him.

[0zgurluk]

Karl Heinrich Marx was one of nine children born to Heinrich and Henrietta Marx in Trier, Prussia. His father was a successful lawyer who revered Kant and Voltaire, and was a passionate activist for Prussian reform. Although both parents were Jewish with rabbinical ancestry, Karl’s father converted to Christianity in 1816 at the age of 35.

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http://postimage.us/images/images.jpg

[BIXX]

Karl Heinrich Marx was one of nine children born to Heinrich and Henrietta Marx in Trier, Prussia. His father was a successful lawyer who revered Kant and Voltaire, and was a passionate activist for Prussian reform. Although both parents were Jewish with rabbinical ancestry, Karl’s father converted to Christianity in 1816 at the age of 35.

_______________________________

http://postimage.us/images/images.jpg


What the fuck does this have to do with anything?

[The Idler]

some vague strategy is impractical, no doubt. Yet the supposed critique rejects not this or that strategy thought up by someone who's inexperienced or anything but direct action itself.


Btw, i couldn't give a toss what Engels thought about suffrage. We've got over a century's worth of data compared to him.
The same group wrote this critique of direct action in 2004
http://theoryandpractice.org.uk/library/parliament-or-direct-action-socialist-studies-2004

[LovingCommie]

Anarchism and Marxism have nothing inherently opposing each other. Anarchism is an ethical belief while Marxism is a set of "scientific" principles.

Marxists often have feud with anarchists because anarchists tend to be idealists acting in favor of whatever supports their ethical belief, ignoring Marxist principles.


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[ckaihatsu]

Anarchism and Marxism have nothing inherently opposing each other. Anarchism is an ethical belief while Marxism is a set of "scientific" principles.

Marxists often have feud with anarchists because anarchists tend to be idealists acting in favor of whatever supports their ethical belief, ignoring Marxist principles.


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Why the quotation marks around 'scientific' -- ?

[helot]

The same group wrote this critique of direct action in 2004
http://theoryandpractice.org.uk/library/parliament-or-direct-action-socialist-studies-2004

Yeah i stopped reading that part way through when it started equating direct action to propaganda of the deed and then attacking Berkman. It doesn't look like a serious critique at all. No doubt the prevailing wisdom is 'direct action is suicide, voting is safe'.

[consuming negativity]

The best classical Marxist critique of Anarchism I ever read was from Socialist Studies pamphlet a few years ago
http://www.socialiststudies.org.uk/pamphlet%20anarchy.shtml

This critique is is... pretty bad. It starts off okay but it quickly goes downhill.

Excerpt 1:


The Anarchists who claimed that they would "abolish the State" never explained just how they proposed to do this -assuming that the capitalist class were unlikely to go quietly, meekly surrendering their wealth and power.

This could not be farther from the truth and stating something this bold and this wrong so early in the essay already makes me doubt its credibility.

Excerpt 2:


ii). Small Property-owning anarchists (Proudhon, SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTION). Proudhon wrote that "Since the "citizen" only seeks 'absolute' liberty in Government the State is nothing but a fiction"/p>

And Plekenhov replied: "Every class struggle is a political struggle. Whosoever repudiates the political struggle by this very act gives up all part and lot in the class struggle" (ANARCHISM AND SOCIALISM p. 62).

And Plekenhov went on to say how in 1848 Proudhon "preached the reconciliation of classes"; not a million miles from the "class partnership" advocated, today, by Tony Blair's Labour Government.

Marx saw Proudhon's anarchism as the theory of the petty bourgeoisie and responded accordingly in his POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY in which he tore Proudhon to shreds from the position of the revolutionary working class with its own interests and own socialist objective. Proudhon's anarchism was a backward looking utopia articulating the interests of artisans and peasants unable to come to terms with the development of modern capitalism, competition and the class struggle.

How is saying that Marx "tore Proudhon to shreds" in a book a critique or refutation of any kind? Are we supposed to just take the author's word for it without even so much as an example?

Excerpt 3:


A spin off from Bakunin's anarchism was "Propaganda by Deed" which had its advocates in the 1970's in the futile gestures of the Red Brigade, the Beider-Meinhof group and the Angry Brigade. Violent direct action through "deed" was acts of terrorism, like throwing bombs in public places, and nowadays the suicide bombers in Israel and elsewhere whose strategy is to kill as many, men, women and children as possible.

"Propaganda by Deed" became notorious in the USA with the Chicago bomb blast. It was this strand in anarchism which became dominant in the Socialist League, to the point where even Morris had to get out of it. The point was made by Eleanor Marx Aveling (Preface to Plekhanov's ANARCHISM OR SOCIALISM), that this has the effect of justifying tougher police measures going on to note that such anarchists, if tolerated, would make Workers' congresses "a playground for reaction and international spydom". In our own day, the action of September 11th has enabled Bush and Blair to ride roughshod over existing civil liberties, legal and constitutional "rights".

....really? I don't even know where to begin here.

This is really the best critique you can offer? Are you an anarchist yourself, pointing us at such an intellectually vacuous essay to make a point? I don't see any point in reading any farther into this unless you or someone else can successfully go to bat for these quotations.

[helot]

Excerpt 2:
[
ii). Small Property-owning anarchists (Proudhon, SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTION). Proudhon wrote that "Since the "citizen" only seeks 'absolute' liberty in Government the State is nothing but a fiction"]


Your posts reminds me... To say Proudhon supported small property ownership is to completely miss the point. Proudhon advocated the social ownership of the MoP which he was adamant about from his earliest work What is Property? onwards.

[blake 3:17]

I'm increasingly open to anarchist ideas on ethical and ecological issues.

[The Idler]

Yeah i stopped reading that part way through when it started equating direct action to propaganda of the deed and then attacking Berkman. It doesn't look like a serious critique at all. No doubt the prevailing wisdom is 'direct action is suicide, voting is safe'.
More like direct action is less safe, voting is less dangerous.

[helot]

More like direct action is less safe, voting is less dangerous.


So that's the main criticism of direct action then? That's not a criticism, it's a rationalisation.

[The Idler]

Well the original criticism posted was about Anarchism (and not just direct action) but you started talking about tactics.

[helot]

Well the original criticism posted was about Anarchism (and not just direct action) but you started talking about tactics.

shame the author doesn't even have a passing familiarity with anarchism then. It most definitely wasn't critiquing my anarchism, hell it couldn't even critique the shitty anarchism of Proudhon without misrepresenting him.

[The Idler]

shame the author doesn't even have a passing familiarity with anarchism then. It most definitely wasn't critiquing my anarchism, hell it couldn't even critique the shitty anarchism of Proudhon without misrepresenting him.
It specifically states (my emphasis)

There is no one anarchist doctrine. However, anarchism is inconceivable without capitalism from which it sprang. Anarchism, despite its wild idealism, has its material historical roots in the response of the peasantry, feudal aristocracy, wild frontiersmen and petty traders to the development of capitalism, large scale capitalist industries and the rise of the working class. Below is a list of a common selection of anarchist positions which Socialists have periodically had to confront and repudiate. It is not exhaustive. There appear to be as many anarchist positions as there are anarchists.
It then goes on to criticise nine different common strands of anarchism. I'd say this required more than a passing familiarity.

[helot]

It specifically states (my emphasis)

It then goes on to criticise nine different common strands of anarchism. I'd say this required more than a passing familiarity.


What 9 strands are these? It starts with individualists (i'm not too familiar with those but you should really contact EchoShock about the quality of that critique), then "Small Property-owning anarchists" i.e. Proudhon without the author realising he opposed property and advocated the social ownership of the MoP, then onto Collectivists and Bukunin specifically while also misrepresenting him through claims he thought the workers were incapable of overthrowing capitalism, then goes on to misrepresent Kropotkin then starts going after Council Communism and Situationists which are of the Marxist tradition and then starts talking about "anarcho"-capitalists.

It's bullshit, mate. It's based on misrepresentations and cherry-picking.