On the internet I don’t see too many Anarchists give arguments past “communism doesn’t work because communists are doomed to repeat the same exploitative power structures of the capitalist state” and “we dont know what an anarchist society will look like we gotta wait til we get there!” Which like…is not convincing to me at all. I’ve engaged in what was supposed to be consensus based decision making systems and there were a ton of flaws, though that’s purely anecdotal.
So, I’d really like to have some suggestions on what to read that you think might really challenge where I stand/take anarchism more seriously. It might take me 5 years to get to them bc executive dysfunction but I really want to see if my mind can be changed on if it would be a better system from the get go than communism.
I think it would be super interesting to hear from anyone who shifted into anarchism from Marxism on why it made more sense to you
idk, looking at beehives and termite mounds I was never able to pick out which one of them was the General Secretary
were you?
the queen
The queen bee doesn’t exactly do any coordination and planning tho.
That said it’s a pretty nonsense analogy in the first place, people aren’t insects.
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Nah, queens in eusocial insects don’t control the hive. Afaik in honey bees the girls decide things in a weird communal democratish way, and ants make decisions using pretty strict behavioral rules. I’ve read several entomologists say calling them queens was a mistake and creates an incorrect impression about their role. They’re much more at the mercy of the hive than the other way around.
Eusocial insects are hard to map on to human behavior, though. Like bees do seem to have something that roughly maps to democracy, but ants and termites seem to be essentially machines that operate on strict behavioral rules.