cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/1803761
Original title (which I find a bit too click-baity):
Socialism: Let’s Not Resuscitate the Worst Mistake of the 20th Century
I read and commented over there, but I will add: this really drives home the importance of creating ground-up power structures that are not dependant on and exist in opposition to the state. When the goal becomes statism, the result is never not a state.
So I am a little confused about what the author is saying here. He seems to be saying let’s not repeat the past mistakes of socialism but let’s do socialism again but make it work this time? This just seems like another person saying we haven’t actually had a socialist system yet so we should try to actually try it. I don’t know. Can anyone clarify this one for me or at least offer their interpretation.
I’m guessing that when you hear “socialism”, like most people you think of state socialism. USSR, China, etc, as well as the various political parties trying to implement socialist policies through the electoral process. The socialist movement has always had a significant anarchist faction as well. Basically, things went like this:
- State socialists: Right, we’re going to do state socialism
- Anarchists: That’s going to go very badly, let’s do anarchism instead
- State socialists proceed to do state socialism, and it goes very badly
- Anarchists: Okay, now that we all have the benefit of historical hindsight, let’s do anarchism now?
- State socialists: No, we’re going to do state socialism again
- Anarchists: Oh for fuck’s sake
And its not even a case of “state socialism results in state violence” (it does, continously), its that planned economies make it so that small errors in judgement result in massive issues. I’m a little tired of the “mistakes where made” crowd like “oopsie we did a The Great Famine”. Contemporary analysis by anarchists and unionists knew already said it wouldn’t work.
Yep. I tend to be skeptical of anarcho-communism, but at least it fails gracefully. Worst case scenario, people just start trading again. I still want people to try it, because what if they’re right? Or what if they’re not completely right, but we learn something useful?
Yeah, like small scale communism, anarcho or not, is extremely old and has even worked in the industrial age. When it fails, the communities dissolve, but they don’t starve
First of all, do you know the difference between Socialism, Marxism, Anarchism and Communism? If not, you can start by checking out this quick run-down (disclaimer: this video is made by a Marxist).
Now, what OOP is saying is that we know from historical evidence that state socialism (like Marxism) always ends badly, one way or the other, but we also know that anarchism and libertarian socialism do work, so we need to push for that without falling in the pitfall of believing that ‘this time state socialism might work’.
