Originally posted by
[email protected] 14 2005, 06:29 AM
It doesn't. *chuckle*
Really though, anarchists seek to skip the transition stage to communism and immediatly jump into a stateless and classless society overnight. This is absolutely impossible for several reasons.
For example, even if you eliminate the current bourgeoisie, you still must have a cultural revolution that wipes out all of the inequalities between mental and manual labor, and the city and the country side, or else those who are more advanced than the others excell and become the new rulers of society. To abolish the concept of rulers and ruled one must have a cultural revolution that allows all people in society to develop evenly and equally.
Also, without a state, it is absolutely impossible to defend a revolution from foreign imperialist states. There is absolutely no way that a society that functions in the way that a stateless and classless society function to be able to stand up to militaries backed with state power. To fight the imperialist military, it takes revolutionary state power.
The difference is that communists seek to abolish the state through the dialectical and scientifica method of removing the contradictions that create the need for a state, whereas anarchists seeking to go against dialectics and abolish it overnight, which leads to the creation of a new state.
I'm glad this was brought up. First of all, marxist communism (which is the proper name for what you refer to as "communism" -- bear in mind that Peter Kropotkin existed, and it's truly upsetting to hear one of the greater minds of the left so blatantly disregarded) believes in a dictatorship of the proliteriat -- that is, a working class' state. It does not take into account (as ironic as this may sound) Hegel's belief in the change of human nature. When you truly boil it all down, most of the working class does not want a revolution, just more money. While I know this may offend quite a bit of people here, it's a reality that we all must face. As revolutionaries, we must realize that people have been brainwashed on a daily basis; we are constantly told how much better our lives will be if we only buy this, or acquire that much capital. The American Dream may be a twisted nightmare to us, but to many it is still a comforting state of slumber.
Factor in the utilization of patriotism and fear, and you have yourself a bloody disaster. Nobody wants to become ordinary; "The worst day of your life is when you realize that you're just like everybody else."-Grant Morrison. Set up your proliterian state, and you will only be left with a new ruling class. This occured before with the bourgeosie, and before that with feudalism, and so on. So many warn of anarchy resulting in despotic rule, and yet the only time said "despotic rule" has formed was the result of statist ambitions: Mao, Castro, Stalin...the list goes on and on.
My friend, you assume that we (anarchists) plan on using Marx's outline of social revolution! This is not the case at all, that would be anarcho-syndicalists, who wish for a worker's economy and a PEOPLE'S nation. However, that is a matter for another time. The fact of the matter is that revolution is NOT an event as you claim we view it. It is a process; whether the final push into true socialism takes place in an instant or not is irrelevant. It takes push after push, re-education, and demonstrations to get where we plan on going. It seems, that anarchists have the most absolutely absurd notion that one's means and ends should hold consistent. While we wish to abolish the state by putting an end to all rule, marxist communists wish to abolish the state by augmenting said rule. As the old saying goes, "The king is dead, long live the king!" Call it scientific or dialectic, I simply call it insane and destructive.