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I've been reading a little anarchist material lately, scholarly stuff centred around Iain M. Banks' CULTURE novels. I'm finding I have the same reaction to it as I do Marxist material: this hot stuff, great tools for critiquing power, and some new ways of looking at the world that will inform my politics.
But I'm not convinced the *goal* of the project is viable. Both of them seem, at times, to convince themselves that after the present order is overturned and replaced, the villains of their narratives won't simply rise up and try to take power, over and over again, forever.
There is, IMO, no future in which some percentage of people aren't going to be little would-be dictators and authoritarians. They will come back, so we have to have mechanisms in place to fend them off.
As heartbreaking as this sounds, I think we have to harden our utopias.
BUT! I'm no expert on either of those schools of thought. I'm a perpetual dabbler, and I know that lots of very smart people have been talking about Marxism and anarchism for a LONG time, so I'm sure lots of them have addressed these concerns. I just don't *see* them addressed in what I'm reading.
The utopian impulse is really beautiful, but we're "doing it wrong" if we let it turn into prophecy.
"Both of them (anarchism and marxism)[..] convince themselves that after the present order is overturned and replaced, the villains of their narratives won't simply rise up and try to take power, over and over again, forever."
This is true of anarchism, but not of Marxism. 1/2
Marxism very clearly anticipates for counter-revolution and prepares for it with the establishment of a "dictatorship of the proletariat," a democratic socialist state where the proletarian class is the ruling class that would repress the capitalist class and prevent capitalism's restoration while simultaneously building socialism. 2/2
#socialism #capitalism #communism #anarchism
@Radical_EgoCom That's very interesting. I always read the "dictatorship of the proletariat" to be a stage along the way to the worker utopia on the other side.
Seriously though, why would you quote me and then remove the qualifier phrase "both of them *seem, at times* to..." ? Not sure what the point of quoting me is if you're going to change what I said. And also, like, my post is right there, so...?
Edit: And you slagged anarchists along the way. Starting to think you're in bad-faith, here.