To Anarcho Socialists and the like.

[Tankie]

Okay, so I just have a question. How exactly do you manage and enforce socialism without a government? Sure, the end goal for most communists would see an end to the state, but how are you going to get there by abolishing the state first? What about on a worldwide scale? I can easily see this being no problem in micro communities. However nation wide, world wide. How exactly do you plan to achieve this? Small micro communities here and there? It seems like it would take hundreds (maybe more) of years for them to grow large enough to spread through the nation and especially the world... What do you do if it's contained by the state? As in, they halt progression or decide enough is enough you guys can't do that?

Okay so revolution! I like revolutions!

... however ....

If that were to happen in any nation, the way the current world system is set up I would say it's very likely... and I mean next to impossible that other nations would just sit there and let it happen. Even if you took over the nation, other nations would probably send forces in. You'd need a central state in order to manage your own forces. Imagine if Hitler invaded an anarchist Socialist Russia in an alternate time line. Without central government the fascists would have walked all the way to Moscow and beyond. That would be the end of that. Hell, even relatively weak nations could probably outmaneuver a bigger yet anarchist nation and take it over. You also set up the conditions for regional warlords to take power. Then what?

Only way I see it happening is via internet. Everyone or most people would all have to agree that this is what we should do, and all do it. And when trouble comes up, people contain it before it spreads. Idk. I just dont see that happening. Due to human nature I think you absolutely have to have a strong state to enforce socialism, there realistically is just no way around it. Eventually maybe after awhile, once the state has eliminated the bourgeois at home and afar we'd get to communism. As long as the bourgeois exist they wont let communism happen, even if it's not in their own nation.

[IbelieveInanarchy]

If a large enough group decides to do it and leads by example by building anarchist communes which can show that it is a better way of living then more will follow and by this small scale communes it could spread to the whole world. This is how i see an anarchist revolution by people freely associating because they see the benefits. We dont take over nations, since nations cease to excist.

To your point of a reactionary state fighting the anarchist. It is possible for anarchist to in a certain period of time to federalize and fight for a common goal. Good example is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolu...rmy_of_Ukraine . You will have a set of leaders who have expertise in strategy etc but they wont be bosses or somehow a ruling class.

But i believe the main strength of anarchism is in the free association with this system and not the "we fight everyone till they are dead" idea.

Typed this a bit fast cause im busy so sorry for bad language and lack of theoretical background. You are right that this is a interesting topic though which raises a lot of questions.

[Antiochus]

Man this kid needs to be a comedian.

Good example is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolu...rmy_of_Ukraine . You will have a set of leaders who have expertise in strategy etc but they wont be bosses or somehow a ruling class.

I am sorry, is this meant as a satirical statement? Makhno? Nestor Makhno? The guy whose personality cult would put Stalin or KJU to shame? That is your example of a "leader who wasn't a boss"? Makhno literally made drunkenness punishable by death while he was an alcoholic. His Wikipedia page has become a cultic puff piece that gets re-edited by Anarchists every month whenever something 'out of line' gets posted.

If a large enough group decides to do it and leads by example by building anarchist communes which can show that it is a better way of living then more will follow and by this small scale communes it could spread to the whole world. This is how i see an anarchist revolution by people freely associating because they see the benefits.

This is such a joke I can't even begin to comment, but there are people out there that still think Anarchist Catalonia actually was like this, that suddenly the masses of peasants slid down the rainbow and collectivized their farms. That it was "libertarian". Let me tell you something: The anarchists in Catalonia executed, proportionally, more people in 1 year (1936) than demonic Judeo-Bolshevism did in 3 years in the former Russian Empire. This Chomskyte myth of some paradise were all these "libertarian" rights were respected and anyone could say what they pleased is so convoluted it boggles the imagination.

 [/COLOR]Diego Abad de Santillan]We do not wish to deny that the nineteenth of July brought with it an overflowing of passions and abuses, a natural phenomenon of the transfer of power from the hands of privileged to the hands of the people. It is possible that our victory resulted in the death by violence of four or five thousand inhabitants of Catalonia who were listed as rightists and were linked to political or ecclesiastical reaction

Now, 4-5,000 might not sound like 'much'. But in a geographic area with a population of 2-3 million, you can see why my statement above is correct. Never mind the fact that its an underestimate. The truth is the Anarchists in Catalonia did everything they chastised the Bolsheviks for doing and then some. And of course collectivization was forced on peasants, they didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts blah blah and all that other nonsense. The Makhnovites though were straight up petty-bourgeois revolutionaries, whereas the Catalan Anarchists were proletarians.

But i believe the main strength of anarchism is in the free association with this system and not the "we fight everyone till they are dead" idea.

See how dumb that notion is when confronted with historical reality. The Makhnovites literally exterminated some pacifist religious cult. By exterminated I mean killed. Guess they chose not to "freely associate".

Also, I'd like to add that the CNT and Makhnovites both set up functions identical to the state, they simply chose to use obfuscating names for it. So for example, the Makhnovites established conscription in their areas of control, they called it 'mandatory volunteering' and the like. And instead of an "army" they called it a "militia". Instead of Makhno directly approving officers ('putting his people in charge') they called it "consulting". You get the picture. Now there is nothing wrong with this because this is an obvious necessity when fighting in a revolution, it just totally counter-acts their conception of what a revolution 'is'.

The whole concept of 'small communes' are the epitome of this infantile, petite-bourgeois thinking. That the world can be organized into these autonomous villages existing in a "de-centralized" framework ("but if they need to make a central decision they can?!"). Its just a bad joke. As Rafiq mentioned in a post a while ago, imagine if one of these "autonomous villages" ended up near a gold mine or a piece of particularly fertile land. Its just a call for barbarism. You are much more likely to end up with some Mad Max type world than anything that could ever be called 'Communist'. Nor is this what most, original, Revolutionary Anarchists ever meant. Its just an outgrowth, a mix of utopian socialism and some of the most reactionary survivalist crap out there. Its also why the whole ecology debate is so important, because this ideology reproduces their own ideology in the same manner that scientific racism reproduced the British Empire's.

[(A)]

Okay, so I just have a question. How exactly do you manage and enforce socialism without a government? Sure, the end goal for most communists would see an end to the state

You dont Enforce socialism. Anarchism questions and seeks to end the Legitimacy of the violence used to enforce capitalism.
Capitalism cant exist without this Monopoly on violence.

If your government gave you permission to kill/depose your boss and socialize your workplace you would.

We simply understand that the government only uses violence to maintain its control over capital and the working class.
That when you realize that the rule of law is not legitimate and that capitalism is extortion you can stop that extortion by not respecting the property rights of the rich.

Kropotkin showed evidence that socialism; or more specifically communism; was the natural state of society and that without the idea that property and the state that enforces it was legitimate...
socialism was inevitable.

but how are you going to get there by abolishing the state first? What about on a worldwide scale? I can easily see this being no problem in micro communities. However nation wide, world wide. How exactly do you plan to achieve this?

The workers revolution.
How in Marx's name could your state socialism be world wide if by definition it was confined to small nation states.

You either think that the USSR should have taken over the world (the meaning of the term tanky basically)

OR that each community would have to rise up and overthrow the "capitalist" state in exchange for a new "Socialist" state.

We reject this as the state is inherently Capitalist and Authoritarian and can not be Socialist nor Communist.

How could it be when it was created by Capitalist Liberals to be the guardian of Capitalism and Liberalism.

1f that were to happen in any nation, the way the current world system is set up I would say it's very likely... and I mean next to impossible that other nations would just sit there and let it happen. Even if you took over the nation, other nations would probably send forces in. You'd need a central state in order to manage your own forces.

Firstly the revolution would be internal to each and every state. Every worker would have to rise up; not just workers within one set of imaginary borders.
Secondly you do not need a state to manage the working class or its revolution. That is called Liberalism and we reject it as stupid as shit.

As long as the bourgeois exist they wont let communism happen, even if it's not in their own nation.

As long as the working class are subjected to the rule of law they will never be free to act in their collective interests. The law, the state, the government IS the ruling class. The only Platform for politicians should be this one
the-guillotine-large.jpg

[(A)]

Cite evidence of your claims Anti.

Also I would like to point out that no Anarchist I know Worships Spain or Makhno or any other Libertarian movements.
We simply use them as examples of movements that where aimed at Libertarianism (Although not all of the CNT was Anarchist; or at least not fully)
Unlike you I criticize everything; even movements that are towards the same goals as I have.
If I did not I would be a Boot licking ideologue like you.

But in defense of the position to create punishments within an organization.
I dont know the specifics of the Ukrainian revolution save for it was Lenin who exiled the Russian Anarchists to the Ukraine but a Libertarian militia is a voluntary organization unlike the USSR.
If you dont want to join you are not conscripted and if you dont want to be punished you should be free to leave. I cant speak to the specifics of what happened because I have not done enough researched and wont make shit up like some people.

I would Like to have a debate with someone that does not reference history and only ideology.
Authoritarian State socialism VS Libertarian Socialism.
That would be in the favor I think of the former as the mayhem of Anarchy is wholly conjectural where as History proves the former can not work.

[Antiochus]

Besides the obvious reference I listed by a member of the CNT, pro-Anarchist?

If you dont want to join you are not conscripted and if you dont want to be punished you should be free to leave. I cant speak to the specifics of what happened because I have not done enough researched and wont make shit up like some people.

That goes without saying. The fact is the "libertarian" "voluntary" "militias" executed "volunteers" for drunkenness and masturbation/illicit sexual escapades. The notion that they could just leave the "militia" shows that you have no understanding of what went on. Deserters were shot.

I would Like to have a debate with someone that does not reference history and only ideology.

Unlike you I criticize everything; even movements that are towards the same goals as I have.
If I did not I would be a Boot licking ideologue like you.

You aren't a bootlicker, that would entail you being a Revolutionary Anarchist, you aren't. What you are is a capitalist ass-wiper couching his positions in "anarchism" the same way 15 year old kids in youtube espousing far-right filth claim they are "anarchists" because they are against the "gubmint".

[(A)]

More Nonsense. If your going to try and post shit wont it be easier to just post a picture of your feces covered self then type it out?

Again I very specifically stated that I dont have a stance on the Ukrainian revolution because I dont know enough about it to and you AGAIN failed to actually show evidence of your claims.
Try again.

[IbelieveInanarchy]

@antochus I know you always want to start fights on here and thats why you always misrepresent their points.

i never claimed that the wikipedia page is a blueprint for building anarchism. I showed that anarchists could unite in such a way to resist outside aggresion. Maybe try reading, or asking me to clarify something instead of jumping to conclusions.

I never claimed anarchist catalonia was like this.

I never claimed to support makhnovites.

Stop just trolling and if you think someone says something which seems to be incorrect, ask them to clarify and dont immediatly try to pick fights. I know you find this to be somehow very entertaining but it is quite petty.

[Antiochus]

If you honestly think you are getting away with posting reactionary garbage unchallenged, sorry, not going to happen. And I don't only speak for myself. Maybe instead of trying to pass your posts as "innocent" observations you could grow the fuck up and take responsibility for what you post. Never mind when you get people like Democracy who literally goes around littering every thread with his stupidity and his pseudo-liberalism and posting garbage like:

I would Like to have a debate with someone that does not reference history and only ideology.
Authoritarian State socialism VS Libertarian Socialism.

And again trying to pass this off as some 'innocent' statement instead of a see-through attempt to idiotically frame an argument. Why not "Realistic-Accomplished Scientific Socialism vs Chomskyte Liberalism". That is far more accurate.

I showed that anarchists could unite in such a way to resist outside aggresion. Maybe try reading, or asking me to clarify something instead of jumping to conclusions.

And I showed that the first thing the Makhonovites and Catalan Anarchists did was re-create the state and establish all the 'evil' things they rail about: Conscription, revolutionary laws, military and worker discipline etc...

I've already provided sources but just to have a laugh, here is another one:

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica] Some groups have understood voluntary mobilization as mobilization only for those who wish to enter the Insurrectionary Army, and that anyone who for any reason wishes to stay at home is not liable…. This is not correct…. The voluntary mobilization has been called because the peasants, workers and insurgents themselves decided to mobilize themselves without awaiting the arrival of instructions from the central authorities [/FONT]

[IbelieveInanarchy]

And I showed that the first thing the Makhonovites and Catalan Anarchists did was re-create the state and establish all the 'evil' things they rail about: Conscription, revolutionary laws, military and worker discipline etc...

And the subject wasn't specific policies of the makhonovites so why bring their speicific policies up? I, unlike you, don't agree with state aggression. So stop trying to bait me into somehow defending everyone who calls theself anarchist, because i wont.

Thanks for your fruitfull contribution

[RedLeaf]

Well first of all a goverment is an commanding ruling institution. Anarchists reject any kind of ruling hierarchy systems. Nothing would b wrong if the "goverment" would jsut be a administrative post and not a governing post. So people or the communes would autonomously determine in social and legal matters and a supraregional administrative post would manage economic or infrasturcutral issues, of course in a absolute democratic way.

[ckaihatsu]

Well first of all a goverment is an commanding ruling institution. Anarchists reject any kind of ruling hierarchy systems. Nothing would b wrong if the "goverment" would jsut be a administrative post and not a governing post. So people or the communes would autonomously determine in social and legal matters and a supraregional administrative post would manage economic or infrasturcutral issues, of course in a absolute democratic way.

What form would the economics take, from commune to commune? How would (liberated) labor inputs be judged in social value?

[(A)]

Well first of all a goverment is an commanding ruling institution. Anarchists reject any kind of ruling hierarchy systems. Nothing would b wrong if the "goverment" would jsut be a administrative post and not a governing post. So people or the communes would autonomously determine in social and legal matters and a supraregional administrative post would manage economic or infrasturcutral issues, of course in a absolute democratic way.

There is no real difference between administration and governance.

An administer is someone who governs; a governor.

Your mistake here is that the social and economic are separate. If you "administer" the economy then you govern the society.

How can you govern/administer the economy I you don't have property rights or use violence to enforce your administration?

[(A)]

What form would the economics take, from commune to commune? How would (liberated) labor inputs be judged in social value?

A democratic economy is one governed by the society itself. Labor inputs would not need to be "judged".
Who is to judge?

The economy would be participatory and not bound by law. Every member of the community will participate as they will with only the governance of themselves and their physical possession over the product of their labor.

Without violence one can only possess what one is able to make or be given. The actions of the working class will "govern" the economy.

A self-managed society = Anarchism.

[Statesponsoredterror]

If a large enough group decides to do it and leads by example by building anarchist communes which can show that it is a better way of living then more will follow and by this small scale communes it could spread to the whole world. This is how i see an anarchist revolution by people freely associating because they see the benefits. We dont take over nations, since nations cease to excist.

You sound like a National Anarchist...

[(A)]

You sound like a National Anarchist...

What the fuck! How did any line in what you quoted call for nationalism?

This has to be a misunderstanding or obvious trolling.

Him literally saying that nations would cease to exist. A national "anarchist" is someone who believes "ethno-nationalism" is a natural structure/hierarchy (so not really anarchists at all) and so will form the basis of a stateless society.

Basically that without governments the only nations left will be ethnic ones.

How is ANYTHING you quoted in support of that?

Explain how one anarchist community being an example to others is fucking nationalistic?

[Statesponsoredterror]

What the fuck! How did any line in what you quoted call for nationalism?
This has to be a misunderstanding or obvious trolling.

Relax, next round of valium in the nearest inn, is on me. No need to discredit one with silly ad-hominems, mighty and respectable frost troll slayer.

Him literally saying that nations would cease to exist. A national "anarchist" is someone who believes "ethno-nationalism" is a natural structure/hierarchy (so not really anarchists at all) and so will form the basis of a stateless society.

To my, maybe limited(?), knowledge National Anarchist did not and do not support nations in any way, shape or form. My comment was merely aimed at his "organising communes" that "could spread" quote. Quote about "free association" isn't alien nor exclusive to National Anarchists as well, so drop the pitchfork - no one is getting burned at the stake.


Excuse me for taking so long to reply, silly auto-correct tries to "correct" me, and by the time I am done, I get logged out.

[(A)]

National Anarchists call themselves that because they are racists who dont want to be forced by the state to live with Non-Whites.

"organizing communes" that "could spread" has nothing to do with Nationalism what so ever. Well I mean it has as much to do with Nationalism as it does a sandwich.

[Statesponsoredterror]

National Anarchists call themselves that because they are racists who dont want to be forced by the state to live with Non-Whites.

Nah, not really, but I am not going to argue otherwise...

"organizing communes" that "could spread" has nothing to do with Nationalism what so ever. Well I mean it has as much to do with Nationalism as it does a sandwich.

That was in response to National Anarchists vs. Anarcho (anarchists) Socialists, not nationalists/nationalism per se. I didn't wish to contrast what I have quoted with nationalism. Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but I don't know the bloke, he knows himself best, so my comment might just as well be tongue-in-cheek. I mean, as if I possess an innate and infallibile understanding of human nature and workings therof - give me a break.

[ckaihatsu]

Well first of all a goverment is an commanding ruling institution. Anarchists reject any kind of ruling hierarchy systems. Nothing would b wrong if the "goverment" would jsut be a administrative post and not a governing post. So people or the communes would autonomously determine in social and legal matters and a supraregional administrative post would manage economic or infrasturcutral issues, of course in a absolute democratic way.

There is no real difference between administration and governance.

An administer is someone who governs; a governor.

Your mistake here is that the social and economic are separate. If you "administer" the economy then you govern the society.

How can you govern/administer the economy I you don't have property rights or use violence to enforce your administration?

On the last point a worker-collectivist administration could be entirely *voluntary* (no individualistic / private 'property rights' or violence *needed*) -- while factions over individual policy issues could certainly exist, everyone would basically defer to the overall, *emergent* policy after a period of discussions and debates over all feasible options. (I understand this to be the process of 'organic centralism'.)

Moreover, there *is* a distinction in *function* -- using (unavoidable) centralism over some range of geographic or policy area -- between decision-making, and 'administration'. This doesn't mean that there would be those who make the decisions, and those who follow those decisions, as separate groups -- rather, in line with socialism, these functions would *overlap* within the purview / scope of all participants, in their respective domains of socio-political involvement.

Here's an elaboration, from another thread:

[C]onsider the scenario of a workers apparatus that functions as an *institution* as a whole, and *not* as a fixed, standing bureaucracy of political-specialists.

In other words, it would be an institution in which all workers *take a turn*, similar to military service today, so that no one has any specific careerist claim to extended participation. This would be a strategy for *supplanting* existing bourgeois institutions, carrying out necessary societal functions for larger working-class interests, while spreading the revolution as needed.

---

[I] think the vanguard could exist *at-large* (in-general), as it does today, without any intentional formal formulation or vehicle -- a vanguard party may *have* to exist, in addition, to cover any situations where a decisive *decision*, or command, would be required. I'd imagine the party would be derived from the (general) vanguard as-a-whole, but with the baggage of having to have discrete membership -- organizational overhead, basically.

The *instrument* of this vanguard / party would be the workers state (at whatever size and extents worldwide), and, from my quote above, it should be thought-of as a routine revolutionary duty, so that it exists and is-empowered as a total *institution*, but one that has no careerist-type 'specialists' over the medium- or long-term (maybe 2 years within any 20 years, subject to adjustment according to realities). I assume that much, if not all, of its workings would be transparent anyway, so certainly its actions and functioning would be the subject of news and discussions far beyond its internal personnel anyway.

The state.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/threads/19...57#post2877057

[The] people or the communes would autonomously determine in social and legal matters and a supraregional administrative post would manage economic or infrasturcutral issues, of course in a absolute democratic way.

I do differ with this *particular* dichotomization of issues, though, in favor of the structure I just described, which would handle *all* issues, combined. As centralization would be unavoidable, there would be some available hierarchy on an as-needed basis (vanguard party), while the day-to-day could readily be handled comprehensively by everyone involved, within their scopes of experience and knowledge.

(So, for example, if transportation workers in one locale see a problem they would already have organizational links to transportation workers anywhere and everywhere else, so as to communicate this issue, while handling it as best they can -- as news spreads the problem may be seen to be more-widespread, over *many* locales, and could then be addressed and corrected on a larger-scale basis, all without invoking hierarchy.)

(And, another example: If attacks are taking place against an upsurge of revolutionary workers in one area, a vanguard party could step-in and quickly call for a dispatching of revolutionary workers from nearby areas to converge and add protective efforts to the place where the workers are being assaulted by bourgeois forces, thereby conferring the *benefits* of a workers' own hierarchy.)


---

What form would the economics take, from commune to commune? How would (liberated) labor inputs be judged in social value?

A democratic economy is one governed by the society itself. Labor inputs would not need to be "judged".
Who is to judge?

The point here is that not all labor inputs would be the same, so there would have to be some standard of *differentiation* for such -- a communist-type 'gift economy' of sheer voluntarism would be preferred, congruent with what you're saying, but as soon as there are geographically separate 'communes', as you're also saying, the question of 'local control versus generalization' comes into play.

What if one type of (liberated) labor is needed in one commune, but those particular liberated laborers are in a neighboring commune and don't really want to move -- ? Sure, the 'lacking' commune could rise to the occasion and 'adapt' to what needs to be done as quickly as possible, but this scenario just goes to show that a potential *pan-communal* economics is non-existent and *balkanized* on the basis of separatist geographic-based communes, similar to nation-states today.

If there was some clear method of material-economic *reciprocation* regarding liberated labor efforts, then efforts *could* be pan-local and *generalized* over broader areas, as for large-scale infrastructure projects for the greater common good (transportation, etc.).

The economy would be participatory and not bound by law. Every member of the community will participate as they will with only the governance of themselves and their physical possession over the product of their labor.

So, according to you, all materials would have to exist on a *personal* basis only -- how would groups needing to use the same infrastructure (factories) decide among themselves which group would get to use such equipment first, second, third, and so on -- ?

Without violence one can only possess what one is able to make or be given. The actions of the working class will "govern" the economy.

A self-managed society = Anarchism.

I think this is entirely possible, but I'm always interested in potential *specifics* for such, especially regarding the process of decision-making over large-scale means of mass industrial production, the distribution of resulting goods, and how liberated labor inputs are to be valued in relation to *other*, different types of liberated-labor inputs.

We've covered some of this terrain in past threads:


In an anarchist society, how would one implement a business idea?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/threads/19...-business-idea


Vanguard party?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/threads/195874-Vanguard-party