I think, if you have convinced an anarchist to form a state to defend their anarchist ideals, you have pretty much convinced them of Marxism, just with different words.
They’re still missing the important Marxist class analysis
WIthoutFurtherDelay
joined 2 years ago
This is really bad quote to use by itself if you’re trying to “debunk” anarchists. Not because it’s actually a bad quote, but because it seems like one when read naively.
Even though it’s trying to make a different, much more salient point, it just reads as another version of the “Hitler was a vegan” cliche.
Anti-capitalism is technically a single issue movement.
Extremely good advice, thank you. I would go as far as to say it has no business being on an internet forum.
I’ve always been supportive of publicly funded dating apps, it would open up a whole series of dating app maintainer jobs and that would be objectively the funniest
But I guess due to the lack of landlords leeching unnecessary value off of tenants in the DPRK, people would have a decent amount of spending cash compared to a minimum wage worker in the US.
I’m going to guess this is what’s happening. The United States is such an evil country that they basically bribe their populace to not care about the war crimes they commit, but the US capitalists and landlords still can’t resist exploiting its citizens for profit, leading to even the most oppressed and imperialized socialist country having better quality of life, by virtue of them just actually caring about their own population.
I can’t say that’s it’s actually that much better than your average USian, especially because expensive tech goods are super easy to get here in the US compared to most countries, I imagine, but I do think that based on what you described, “saving up” for expensive consumer goods like that is legitimately reasonable in North Korea, as opposed to the United States, where your entire earning is dumped into your landlord’s pockets every month. Of course, actually saving up could still be impossible despite that, given issues like “the amount of money a phone could cost due to sanctions and the cost of international trade is more than a regular person could make in an entire lifetime”, but the fact they’ve put something together like this at all just shows the power of socialism when faced with adversity.
“Hierarchy” is less vague and is indicative of an opposition to the state of it is assumed that it is referring to specifically violent hierarchy- or hierarchy that is enforced primarily through violence.
I have my own, more concretely defined definition of Anarchism, but it is true that most anarchists don’t adhere to it. I think that attention needs to be put into solidifying and realizing a concretely defined Anarchism, a process which would be much more effective at “converting” self-described anarchists into a proletarian movement than insisting that they agree with us because we are correct.
The state.
I just finished reading it, and I think I can say my feelings on it with more certainty.
It is absolutely a bad refutation when misused. It is a refutation of specific, radlib strains of left-adjacent thought, not of anarchism itself. The only reason I specify anarchism is because “anti-authoritarianism” is completely and utterly meaningless, a vague gesture on removing an entire facet of natural human behavior, while anarchism is a committed opposition to a specific form of political organization.
The fact that the pamphlet often is useful as a refutation of self-described “anarchists” isn’t because it is an effective tool for debunking anarchism, but because the majority of self-described anarchists have put zero effort into analyzing things and actually have no concrete political beliefs.
I think, counter-intuitively, the solution might be to focus on anarchist tendencies more. By temporarily adopting a “Utopian” mindset, tempered and viciously sharpened with a constant awareness of materialism and the concrete reality of class, we could create a new breed of anarchism that’s more resistant to liberal intrusions, and more willing to work with actually existing socialism, while still maintaining it’s utopian moral principle.
I’m not suggesting this because I agree with utopian or anarchist beliefs, but because I think that the fundamental desires that feed into the inclination towards anarchism are valid, and will still lead to correct conclusions if tempered with a connection to materialism. Instead of denying their initial goals, we should instead point out to anarchists what actually achieves them
Half of this comment probably sounds completely insane. I am tired.
The average North Korean makes about 80,000 KPW a month from state jobs, although this can vary based on your profession.
But since your basic needs are covered, your salary is basically pocket money.
Eating out in a restaurant in Pyongyang is pretty pricy, which a full meal probably costing you 1000 to 2000 KPW.
Doesn’t this mean your average citizen could afford to eat out more than 40 times a month? What the actual fuck? Most Amerikkkans can’t afford to do that. If that is true, that makes North Korea’s economic system ridiculously resilient, and proves that socialism and cooperation just works better.
But that is what I am saying.
The article seems to miss the fact that the ultimate point of instating a dictatorship of the proletariat is to protect the creation of a mode of production that doesn’t need a State at all.
If the Anarchist says they are against the existence of the State, then that makes their desire ultimately the same as ours - a communist mode of production. The flaw of anarchist ideology seems to be this idea that the State is not justifiable even if it’s purpose is to destroy itself, which seems like a simple example of not reading about the tolerance paradox to me.
The arguments in the article just seem inefficient.