There is not a continuum of political progress. Looking back at historical records, it is easy to create a narrative that political progress, like time, is linear and progressing toward some goal.
Systems without heirarchy continue to be an option. Prefiguring such a system without a monopoly on violence is the tricky bit.
Liberalism was an improvement over monarchy for a specific class of merchant. The system has continued success for said class.
Using 1776 seems like a “life begins at conception” argument. The currently constituted system began closer to 1787. Declaration of Independence was issued in 1776. The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781. The Constitution was ratified in 1787.
The supposition that the USA’s government was founded as an alpha version of democracy that failed to update seems ripe with American Exceptionalism. The claims suggest reform could have fixed a system built to serve a specific class. The system is working as intended with continued expansion of power into fewer hands.
The USA is not different in character from previous and existing systems of extraction. There is, and will continue to be, a class that benefits from said system. There are continued fomentings among the marginalized. Given the hegemony of the USA, Lemmy is a space where fomentings are happening. May such fomentings prefigure an end to extraction and heirarchy.
I stumbled upon I checked your cellphone by Otoboke Beaver. Maybe there is some resemblance to I-E-A-I-A-I-O by System of a Down. Maybe the authors in the screenshot peaked musically at 14. I stumble upon new great music all the time.
Autonomy in “what is produced” is stiffled under the system of wage labor.
My understanding of Euromaidan is likely tainted, but wasn’t that a Ukrainian alignment to the European Union and not NATO? Aligning to the European Union would still be a move away from Russian influence.
A fair point.
Anarchism is the ideology. Anarchy is the implentation. Anarchism can cause less confusion in people conditioned to think anarchy is a society without law or order.
Good catch.
More competition in the CPU and GPU space is welcome. Addressing the question of European CPU design, isn’t ARM, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings, in Europe?
I agree that colonizers have harmed indigenous people, but find the argument anyone has a birth right claim to property proposterous. As Proudhon proclaimed, “Property is theft!”. I expect any revolution toward anarchy to remove property from the owning class.
I am less knowledgable than you about “land back”. How does “land back” differ from other ethno nationalist movements like “blood and soil”?
The justice system is working as intended. Working people are disenfranchised. The powerless create myths when the system can’t be criticized. We are all dumb, but power belongs to the owning class.
The dichotomy of anarchy and voting is confusing. Anarchy in context probably means lawlessness. Defining anarchy as lawlessness ignores anarchy as a political philosophy.
Roads, schools, hospitals and fire departments do not require bosses. Anarchy keeps infrastructure without bosses.
Voting puts bosses in place to make decisions. Anarchy prefers consensus building between effected parties.
People deserve to make more decisions in how their lives are run. A lack of respect for laws passed by our bosses is fitting.
Voting for bosses that make laws to chain people who can run their own school or hospital is unnecesary. Vote because it is the extent of power afforded to us now. Concurrently build better systems and power structures like anarchy.
I acknowledge the argument NATO is encircling Russia. To what extent does Ukraine differ from other actions by Russia such as Georgia in 2008? Which sorts of actions are not resistance to NATO encircling?
In the USA, humans were enslaved. Abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass, resisted the practice of slavery. There are many important abolitionist figures. I’m fond of John Brown.
The ideas that domination is the goal are correct. The domination goes beyond social issues. Owing someone rent puts them in a position to dominate me. Saying the rent is the people’s rent doesn’t rationalize the domination.
Why build another party? The bourgeoisie built a new power structure under feudalism.
Prefiguration is about building new power structures within existing structures.
I haven’t read much Trotsky. Thank you for the recommendation. I will give it a read. My fault with Lenin has been the mechanism by which the vanguard party relinquishes power to the prolitariat.
I realize I expanded the scope by bringing Engels’ “On Authority” into the conversation. I want to remain focused on Lenin’s vanguard party as an implementation of the “dictatorship of the prolitariat”. I agree that Lenin’s ideas were informed by the writings of Marx.
Marx’s “dictatorship of the prolitariat” could be implemented as a vanguard party as per Lenin. Lenin’s iteration could be construed as accurate to Marx’s definition.
However, Marx also referred to the Paris Commune as a “dictatorship of the prolitariat” even without a vanguard party. Therefore my qualm, similar to the original comment, is that Lenin’s vanguard party is a method to extract rents from the prolitariat.
I like how your post addresses the anti-intellectualism of the original post. I also like the acknowledgment of cherry picking sources. The critique validly states the meme creator is ignoring scholarly sources on the right. The best part is, even with scholarly sources involved, humans are still silly. Humans sometimes consume content, TV show or book, to feel superior to other humans.
I have found delving into the views of others has helped me create better arguments. For example, I read “Anarchy, State and Utopia” by Robert Nozick, to better understand the anarcho-capitalist minimal state position. Even if I can form a better argument, I realize I can “proceed to say the most stupid shit”. Keep it stupid comrades.
You fuckin’ dorks ain’t a source of the art You can’t be cooler than the corners Where you source all your parts
Lenin had contemporary critiques.
When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called “the People’s Stick”.
A concern is the vanguard party ruling over the prolitariate thereby exchanging capital ownership from one minority to another.
Engels argued the imbalance of ownership is natural because a mill is subject to the authority of the water to operate. There is a lack of imagination in justifying a ruling minority after the revolution by saying that’s how capitalist technology works.
What good are my electric tools if I am unable to get electricity from the centralized power plant of the vanguard party? I will need to subject myself to the minority and pay rents. How does Lenin’s vanguard party differ from capitalism in terms of ownership? Does it only work if the vanguard party are benevolent towards the prolitariat?
Cats have great singing voices especially when humans are asleep. Do cats sing for humans? Maybe they sing because they love opera?