Current Affairs - "3 Arguments Against Socialism and Why They Fail" - Polidicks

Anarchy being an -ism makes very little sense to me. Other than that, I’ll agree that deconstruction of hierarchies everywhere is a complete u-turn from our current conception of social structures, and I understand the concern of anarchy/socialism disincentivizing the worker. That’s discounting how reluctant individuals might be to undergo cultural transformation from a society of spectacle and commodity, too. It doesn’t make any less sense than our current living arrangement though, but I see how a complete restructuration of the republic & workplace could threaten the livelihood of many in the short run. The USA, out of all countries, is the least prepared for that leap of faith.

Anarchy =/ Anarchism

Current Affairs is biased in that they are a left wing magazine discussing and analysing left wing ideas and talking points, not because they report fake facts or whatever. It’s not a news magazine. Your centrist sources will never discuss the type of ideas found in these specialised magazines and so it’s definitely beneficial to read them. if you’re blowing it off for not being news then fair enough but otherwise, I don’t see a problem with it.

Where did Garry say that source selection rules are no longer in effect?

He's pretty much reduced the rules to "don't do anything illegal", and a few other specific rules. So there's currently no written rule against garbo sources.

That's a goddamn shame. The source selection criteria were one of the best changes ever made to SH and PD.

We have also eschewed with 'low effort posting' and 'shitposting' being bannable offenses (specifically called out as 'not bannable'). So expect Polidicks to become a lot more opinion fighting and a lot less data crunching I guess.

Pure unregulated capitalism is far worse of a fucking nightmare tbh

Absolutely. I loved the fact that no matter what kind of article was posted, you could never use a shit source because someone would always complain if it was. It was making us all more engaged in the legitimacy of sources. I'm sure we can get a specific rule like this back.

Though I wish you could post a source with whatever bias you wanted as long as the source in general is considered to be factual.

1. Syndicalism calls for radical trade unions in order to build a movement, and then kick-start the revolution with a general strike. This approach has historical significance but requires some rethinking to be applicable in some modern contexts, but i'd imagine it to be a better strategy in densely populated, impoverished places in the Global South where there are a high concentration of exploited workers, and there might already be a movement blooming in Bangladesh. As for mutualism, I take the economic theory and property norms (e.g. occupancy and use) and the implication that no economic or resource distribution arrangement is prescribed, given that basic necessities are free and the means of production are controlled in a non-hierarchical fashion by the producers and workers. This leaves it open for new implentations of market socialism that can co-exist with other economic implementations such as communism. My main gripe with anarcho-communism is the sort of "one size fits all" approach to economics, "work 5 hours every week and recieve all the benefits from the commune" which does sound great, and probably would be applicable to a lot of communities, but I still feel that it would limit my options. I also believe mutualism would be easier to implement in the context of urbanized communities than communism. If you've read Proudhon, you'd see that the forms of dual-power organisation that he proposes have similarities with the syndicalist approach and I think the link can be made easily. You got workers councils and co-ops vs trade unions. I'd imagine both implementations would run on consensus decisionmaking or another horizontal form of voluntary decisionmaking. I'd also add that both syndicalism and mutualism proposes confederation of organisations/trade unions/coucils (which in mutualism, taken to its highest level of federation, is called the "agro-industrial federation") 2. I'll speak cautiously of insurrectionary praxis. It doesn't make anarchism look like a serious movement comitted to the liberation of all people, no, but it can be empowering for those involved and can have an effect in combating certain aspects of capitalism short term. For example, there are affinity groups in Montreal that are effectively fighting gentrification in their communities by smashing windows and burning or slashing the tires of luxury cars during the night. It's risky, it's controversial, and I it took me while to reconcile with it, but it can get you results so I don't feel like I can exclude it entirely. 3. Yes. I've gone to several anti-fascist counter-demonstrations, I have some friends that occasionally do Food Not Bombs and also several more friends in the squatting scene, and I've visited quite a few squats around the world. But the absolute most fun form of praxis is going to a party, getting buzzed and a little stoned, and then debating with random, willing people. Gotta plant those seeds. 4. As an unique individual it is in my self-interest to live in a free society, but I like seeing different options on how to get there. I'd agree that syndicalism can be pretty spooky, in particular the proletarian work ethic, but it's a form of praxis that have historically brought results and has the potential to bring forward such results in some given contexts. Thus, if it would be in the self-interests of a community of workes to band together and start a union and build a mass movement, and it brings results, I would support it. I approach egoism as a phenomenology, as a way of seeing yourself as a unique individual in relation to the world, in order to strip away the prescribed essences of normative values. I don't propose that "union of egoists" should be the only form of organisation in society, I just see Stirnerian egoism as a theoretical backbone for radical anti-essentialism. And also, the word spook is just too memetically cool to not use (even though more recent translations of Stirner prefers the term "phantasm").

Thanks for answering, however, I will only respond to the parts I have further comments on. It is important to note that the ends cannot be separated from the means and that while such tactics might in some small contexts achieve short-term results, in the long term the praxis is neither very conducive to the propagation of ideology in the minds of people nor very healthy for any long-term "revolution" as violence (even against objects!) is just one more form of power - hardly a thing you'd want normalized in any post-statist society, be it short-lived or stable enough to last a decade or two. I would not even call such people useful idiots, and enabling them a detriment to the stability of the reality to be created in realization of ideology. Is it not profoundly simpler to free yourself and the few people you care about through exploitation of the existing system, as opposed to going through the effort of destroying and replacing it? Or would that not be a sufficient satisfaction of your greater self-interest due to being pretty bothered by the concept of hierarchical systems being the only option for all? After all, to champion such movements as an alternative to the status quo is to believe not only the very undertaking of this attempt to be satisfying to you but also the likely result. A struggle for a different society affords significantly less personal freedom than the comparatively simpler acquisition of social and economic power, or hell, even merely self sufficiency. The union of egoists is less a form of organizing society (a thing like that would require tremendous effort and a great shift in collective morality, basically a mass exorcism) and more of a way to organize your own social life with the few people you care to interact with, it is not a thing meant to be stable or permanent but a natural consequence of mutual interests aligning, however briefly - hell, it is basically indistinguishable from a really good friendship. Also, what resulted in the translation as "spook" is closer in meaning to "spectre" than it is to "phantasm", but the memetic potential of the former is so great that to discount the term due to a bunch of internet memelords misunderstanding and misusing it is a real waste. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All of this being stated, you seem pretty certain in the desirability of a total disruption of the status-quo and the robustness of whatever it is you believe might be brought about as well as the large likelihood of it being better; Reality has proven the facts on the ground are never as clean or seductively pretty as the ideologies call for, to discount this is to discount the falibility of humans and their capacity to translate ideology into praxis. People in practice, especially during stress, are not machines of ideology and value somehow pure and untainted by personal will and bias. I wish I shared your certainty that any form of anarchism not only is possible to bring about and maintain in a stable fashion, but viably better for people in the long term, or even worth fighting for in the short term. No matter how much anarchist literature I have consumed this doubt and pessimism has not left me, the nagging of a thousand hidden variables hidden in the abstractions of political ideology and value. How can you be certain it is viable when all such societies fall to either bickering and liberal application of violence from within and overwhelming force from without?

i do not know why, but from my experience communities around leftism seem rife with infighting. I cannot see any singular ideology or group of similar ideologies flourishing when there is no real concensus.

because there's actual debate at hand though its good that "leftism" doesn't result in stagnation because it's consistently progressive and attempts to address that point. Course there's no infighting in the political right when they all agree they just want to keep all the money and get rid of the immigrants and the poor

That is a very reductive and condescending view of the political right as a spectrum of ideals, beliefs and calls for action.

I just read that point, the latter bit seems to be the usual "Well the USSR wasn't real socialism" bullshit that socialists love to try and say. Since, at national levels, socialism devolves into totalitarian, oppressive dictatorships, I'd say that that is moreso what real socialism is, and that the ideal proposed by socialist theory is just that, a theory. That doesn't mean that there aren't things we can learn from socialist theory, it just means that socialist theory is not practically applicable in its entirety, since it is so prone to exploitation by oppressive populists who will turn the ideals against the population that was fighting for them in the first place. Additionally, he tries to argue that socialism worked in America on smaller scales and within confines of a larger, capitalist political system, so therefore socialism must work, which is a false assumption. Socialists on a small-scale within a capitalist country may have been able to bring about some quality-of-life improvements for workers and people in the areas they were elected, however one town or city electing a socialist doesn't fundamentally change how life is going to work in that town compared to the rest of the country that dramatically. America has always been a capitalist country, even when there were these early 1900s pockets of socialism, the core belief set was still one of capitalism. It's not like these socialist mayors could really ban stores from existing in their towns, or really try to seize government control over big industry or infrastructure, since a mayor of a city wouldn't really have that authority, and it could be overridden by the state fairly easily. Talking about these pockets of socialism within a capitalist society and using them as an example of the success of overall socialism is disingenuous, since it's not possible for socialism to exist in the theoretical "pure" form when it is constrained within a competing ideology, and must adapt and conform to that ideology's framework. All it shows, if anything, is that a mixed economy is the best way to go to provide the maximum benefit for the people living within a country, which is basically what Scandinavia does to achieve its success and high quality of life. There's an appropriate balance between capitalist enterprise and government control that leads to a society with people living better lives. It takes a look at the competing ideologies of capitalism and socialism and attempts to strike the most beneficial balance between the two, and quite frankly, compromise like this on competing ideologies tends to yield the best results, since people are able to pick the best points of both systems, given that both systems do have their highs and their lows.

Anarchism is usually the METHOD to which a form of government is formed. Hence AnarchoCapitalist, AnarchoSocialist and etc.

Also, to say that Communism failed fails to put into perspective that the form of prevailing communism was a Stalinst Isolation Policy. Trotsky, instead, put more power into regional governments made up of the local populace making final decisions in tandem with one another as Trotsky wanted to spread Communism, not protect it all his own. A lot of people paint Trotsky as this super chill guy who would've been way better than Stalin. And yes, yes he would've been, but he also would've committed just as many war crimes because a lot of the ones committed during the Russian Revolution were under his orders.

Good thing Tudd got himself perma'd a while ago. Shame we still have other people around...

my fear is that while people debate the merits and demerits of the many leftist ideologies, the political right continues to consolidate and gain power. i've seen infighting happen at protests, mostly between authcoms and ancoms. there time and place for debate, i don't think in the trenches is it.

The problem of media bias is overrated. Unless it's a legit trash source like Infowars or Breitbart (who deliberately misrepresent facts) then I really don't care what political ideology the source cheers for, provided they make their bias clear and the facts are reported objectively. Sometimes it's very useful to glean perspective that way and it exposes you to other ways of thinking. Neutrality bias is also a thing. Neutrality is not the same thing as objectivity. CNN is a perfect example.

So it's means Pro-Russian or Russo-government articles are now acceptable again?!?

That's... Not even what anarchism is...

might as well just let tudd back in lmao

Insurrectionary anarchism is a specific, fringe subset of individualist and/or post-left anarchism that is anti-organisational and espouses temporary affinity groups (in the style of the "union of egoists") and militant direct action. Not all anarchism is like that.

Nor are all unions of egoists like that! I would go so far to say that nothing resembling true anarchism is possible without conscious intentionality behind all voluntary association, and that you would merely replace the formal external state with a non-formal subconscious inner state - that of unofficial group relation and social obligation, a much more insidious form of power-inequality: that is to say, you would replace police and external pressure with interest-cliques and internal pressure - for without the proper mindset in its proponents the very concept of anarchism is useless. I would go even further and say that unconditional solidarity due to short-term common enemies is not conducive to the kind of mindset you would want in the people making up such a society where you believe you'd personally have greater freedom - that the path to your goal cannot be separated from your goal. That being said, it is one more reason I believe your seeming certainty on this to be a product of hubris.

Hot damn, I have been out-spooked Look, I'll admit that I haven't fully developed my thought and haven't read too far into post-left criticisms of leftism, but I want to try to take them into account somewhat. I'd love som reading suggestions from you

I am ashamed to admit that I do not actually have many reading suggestions on post-left anarchism, and that most of these things I've actually come to as conclusions on my own through reading non post-left texts. You'll figure it out, I guess, just be careful of them spooks and not entirely concretely based certainty (actually, just avoid certainty if you can help it, it inhibits self-correction and nurtures delusion).

And you'd be correct in that, given that's how current implementations of right-wing policy portray themselves. Economic-right I would feel more apologetic for my comment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng