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
Anarchists generally think that state communist parties (council communists are a different question) are not capable to lead towards a stateless, classless society, since they want to use state power, whose primary functions include reproducing itself. I’m yet to read any convincing account about how, if we got there, Leninists would start to break down the vehicle they used to defeat capitalism and rallied society around.
If you’re asking my opinion, i have much of the same scepticism towards communist parties, but not on an equal level, for example i see much more potential in Latin American left/communist movements than in China. What i differ from most anarchists tho is that i’d be very happy to be proven wrong and generally won’t advocate for the overthrow of the CCP in the current context.
Doesn’t it seem reasonable that the idea of trying to create a classless society would be a task better suited for those who come after us? For example, the promise of socialism is that democracy is then increased to be available to the wider masses of people. Socialist societies have in the past, and even in the modern day, demonstrate that they’re able to make huge leaps in social progress that enable more people than ever before be able to participate in the democratic processes of a society. I guess I’m not convinced that the idea that “Leninsts would not break down their own state” is something which is provable, and thus not a useful heuristic for making decisions. So what if “Leninists” aren’t capable of the next step in the growth of humanity, it’s been shown that they’ll give up on their power much more peacefully than societies dominated by the bourgeois class ever will (even and especially communist officials who didn’t benefit from the transition to liberal governance). If we’re able to save the planetary ecosystem with cybernetic planning, end hunger, guarantee housing and work for those who’re able and a good life for those who aren’t as the “Leninists” demand; won’t we have left our children with far more fertile soil for an anarchist society than if we simply struggle directly for a classeless society today?
Mind expanding on that since it seems like in the us its doing a piss poor job of it. In fact I’d say that a capital dominated state wants to do away with itself via privatization.
Engle’s makes a pretty convincing argument that the state arose to mediate class conflict in favor of capital and that it cannot be destroyed until that class conflict is resolved.
Take the landlord tenant relationship. In order for this to exist then the landlord must exercise their property right through state mediated violence and the tenant is offered some rudimentary protections. If the state simply no longer recognized the property right of the land lord the state would wither and class conflict would resolve a bit.