true, the lack of consistency and cohesive principles is baked into it

I’ve seen Anark’s video, and I maintain that I still haven’t seen a good refutation of On Authority. You don’t have to debate me or anything, but attacking people for thinking it has some good points and then dipping on the first pushback, asserting that I must not be aware of the standard arguments against it because I disagree with you is a bit silly. It’s like you forget that I used to be an anarchist, and thus had a process where I regularly viewed anarchist critique of Marxism before becoming a Marxist-Leninist (and still check out critique from time to time).

Oh well, happy New Year!

Anark’s first criticism of Engels here is to note how Engels substitutes a discussion of the human, conscious relations that constitute authority for a purely mechanical discussion on the progression of technology. Anark sums up Engels’ point as being that technology is authoritarian. I think this is a misreading of Engels: Engels isn’t saying the technology is inherently authoritarian, or that an inanimate object holds authority, he’s saying that economic production in general is a centralizing process (this is a common theme in Marxist criticism of capitalism) that gains increasing authority and shows examples of technologies that have subordinated larger amounts of labor. In essence, this is a demonstration of a historical (i.e. human) process, it’s not about the technology itself but how humans interact with it. This pattern should be obvious to anyone that has familiarity with Marxist theory: nothing is ever in a vacuum, everything is implicitly or explicitly being analyzed because of how it interacts with the rest of the social totality.

The second criticism Anark brings up is in reading this bit:

Everywhere combined action, the complication of processes dependent upon each other, displaces independent action by individuals. But whoever mentions combined action speaks of organisation; now, is it possible to have organisation without authority?

Anark reads this as laying out the case that organization as Engels describes it here does not rely on authority per se, but on necessity. Essentially, Anark states that dependence implies necessity, but not authority. But I think that if you go back up to what Engels defines as authority, “the imposition of the will of another upon ours,” this doesn’t necessarily hold up. In every organization there will be a collective or individual will that is imposed on its members. That’s just part of what it means to be organized, otherwise instead of organizations there would be individuals that happen to share the same goal. From here on, Anark attacks much of what Engels lays out because the way Anark sees it, organization doesn’t require authority, but Engels believes that it does. I’m going to take the position that authority is necessary for any kind of non-trivial organization because I didn’t find Anark’s counterargument here to be much more than a semantics nitpick.

There’s a bit of a huge semantics problem here, in fact, because Engels adopts a broad definition of authority (at least Anark seems to think so). If you then change the rules of what counts as authority to be more narrow you can then make Engels out to be a fool who’s arguing with a poor definition in mind. Unluckily, this is much of what will follow in the video.^[1]

The next substantial point comes when Anark reads this paragraph:

Let us take by way of example a cotton spinning mill. The cotton must pass through at least six successive operations before it is reduced to the state of thread, and these operations take place for the most part in different rooms. Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current repairs, and many other labourers whose business it is to transfer the products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for individual autonomy. The workers must, therefore, first come to an understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed, must be observed by all, without any exception. Thereafter particular questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of production, distribution of material, etc., which must be settled by decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labour or, if possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled in an authoritarian way. The automatic machinery of the big factory is much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have been. At least with regard to the hours of work one may write upon the portals of these factories: Lasciate ogni autonomia, voi che entrate! [Leave, ye that enter in, all autonomy behind!]

Contrary to what I said in my first paragraph, Engels here does literally state that steam holds authority over the workers. Anark attacks this as absurd and an obvious error. And it’s at least literally true that steam has no will, being an inanimate thing, to impose on workers. The point Engels is making is that workers in a cotton mill aren’t free to do what they want: they have to contend with the force of steam, their individual will be damned. Engels is about to explain other forces that trump worker autonomy, like the way in which the manner of production has to be decided in an organized fashion. So it’s a metaphor where steam is the things that are outside of an individual’s hands, and must be tackled by making an organized plan; it’s not really that much of a metaphor, to be honest, because steam is literally one of the things that determines the hours of work, his ultimate example of authority. Anark also seems to see Engels’ point and even congratulates him on “getting back to reality” by naming real examples of authority in a factory floor. Unfortunately, Anark does not see that Engels is generalizing on this point with the last two sentences of the paragraph.

If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him, in so far as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all social organisation. Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel.

Part of what Anark takes issue with here is that Engels is making authority out to be inescapable because it’s present in every mundane thing, like steam. Anark then shows that Engels’ take on how steam demonstrates its authority is as absurd as saying that hunters were subordinated by the authority food has over them. I think that’s a pretty bad counterexample, though! Hunting clearly is an activity that benefits from organization. You hunt in an organized group that has to respect the limits imposed on you by nature, and will probably devise a manner of organization to improve your chance of success. Anark then takes issue with Engels proposing the spinning wheel as an antiauthoritarian replacement of the power loom. Anark says that automated machinery creates rhythmic necessities, but this is not too different from the way that a more primitive technology like the spinning wheel also has necessities. I think that this point might have some validity, but the essence of what Engels is saying is that increased production brings increased organization; therefore Anark isn’t contradicting Engels (and Anark concedes that more advanced machinery does imply more necessity).

The next bit about Engels’ example of the railway is a repetition of the previous one where Anark attacks Engels’ definition. Anark lays out a principle by which anti-authoritarians might make decisions: the people who are engaged in something are the people who get to make decisions about how something is structured. And I honestly believe that Engels wouldn’t disagree! That is, unless Anark is engaging in a bit of potatoes-in-a-sack theory here and would use this principle to reject the notion that more comprehensive levels of organization ought to be laid out that would have power over the workers’ councils or some other lower level of organization. This particular bit here is probably too abstract to criticize too much because I’d essentially have to give an entire analysis of Anark’s version of Anarchism.

Then the one about ships on the sea has Anark argue that a democratically run ship is a counterexample to what Engels is saying. I won’t bother writing much here because I think mostly everyone should be able to recognize that Engels (and everyone who reads Engels) was aware of democracy and does not think democracy removes all authority.

So far, the most substantial bit of arguing semantics comes when addressing this paragraph:

When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that’s true, but there it is not the case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.

Anark objects that the anti-authoritarians aren’t simply changing the words to refer to the same thing, but are talking about a different form of organization where the social structure may be freely rescinded (continued)

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

• yewtu.be
• inv.nadeko.net
• yt.artemislena.eu
• piped.video

Have you actually read it, and if so, what are your actual thoughts on it? If it is genuinely the “worst drivel ever written” it should be easy to show us all why that is.

And even if we don’t listen to you, at least passive observers in this thread will be able to see you making cogent and interesting arguments and think your position has merit. Declaring something is bad while also showing that you don’t seem to have actually read it just makes you come across to people as smug and ignorant. And saying “no u” when called out on this just makes you look worse, don’t you want to put us dumb tankies in our place by showing us that you know what you’re talking about and we don’t?

sorry, LCP? The anarchist fellow? I do agree it’s quite hard to listen to.