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ziq OP wrote (edited )

Now at first I recieved it with an open mind (because if there is a better way to achieve a good society then of course I want to know)

Spoiler: my essay has nothing to do with building a society.

and I began reading it, however the more I read, the more it seemed like an annoyed rant rife with misunderstanding in a similiar way to pieces like "On Authourity".

Well that's both the cruelest and most nonsensical thing anyone has ever said about me. And no explanation of what I've misunderstood and why, of course.

Now bear in mind I havent read in detail every part

No shit?

It views all Ancoms as cliched Chomskyists just waiting to rienstate "justified hierarchies"

See f/cringe or just about any post on r/anarchy101 or r/debateanarchism or r/anarchism or r/breadtube that defines anarchism.

and form police and buerecrats to reinstate imperialism

Please explain how you police stores and divvy up resources without police / bureaucracy.

and subjegate indiginous groups when in most cases nothing could be further from the truth.

Flashbacks to anarcho-settlers telling me they're going to take natural resources from my country by force for the good of the people.

Furthermore either they havent heard of the consensus based decison making or wilfully ignore it because they frequently point to "dictatorship of the majority" type situtions .

Except I wrote a whole essay about that bullshit. Maybe you should explain how consensus can be applied to mass society instead of expecting me to.

They also think that cities and mass industry is crucial to being an ancom when in fact the very dismatelling of capitalism will result in a reduction in cities.

Gross supposition with no basis in reality or any kind of evidence.

It all reeks of the ignorant superiority and I have yet to find a single persuasive argument in it.

Luckily my function in this life isn't to persuade wide-eyed settlers to stop fantasizing about remaking society according to a dead prince's ideology.

The highlight was when they compared ancoms to capitalists and facists

What I actually said was "Communism, capitalism, fascism, they’re all founded on ecocide". Where's the lie? Industrial society requires ecocide. Every communist experiment in history has done oodles of ecocide. Since this is abject fact and I've given countless examples of it in my other essays, shouldn't the burden of proof be on you?

The biggest disappointment was the lack of proposal of a meaningful alternative

Translation: Why won't ziq spoonfeed prescriptive utopian dogma to me like my fave ideology does? Why won't ziq tell me everything is gonna be awesome after the global ancom revolution that gives everyone everything their heart desires?? I don't understand!

instead the peice concludes that they will just watch the world burn and hope something better comes afterwards, which is just annoying and reductionist,

It's almost like ziq is some kind of disgusting nihilist.

I heavily expect this was written by a person who was tired of getting downvoted, called an "ecofacist" or that his beliefs where ableistt and made an ill-informed hit piece to let out his anger.

Nice gendering dipshit. Yes, everything I believe is defined by settlers downvoting me and calling me names on the internet for not conforming to Kropotkinism enough.

I think it might be worth a read to atleast glean any kind of constructive criticism from it

Oh, is that what this is?

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kin wrote

Skimming through though, I don't know why they assume that industrialization and resource extraction would be exactly the same within an anarcho-communist society when the systemic incentives would be much different.

They are still hoping for miraculous technical solutions and green tech. Not saying that it's impossible, but if you are working with reformed paradigms don't expect the fruit falling far from the tree

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ziq OP wrote

And those reform paradigms aren't even anarcho-communism. Anarcho-communism is a specific prescriptive ideology revolving around workers in an industrial society. So when ancoms claim ancommunism isn't industrial, they're just straight up lying.

The fundemental message of communism; all communism is that we would all have a little more if we just distributed the resources evenly. Which did make sense 100 years ago, but in 2022? When we're experiencing unprecedented global collapse due to industrial society on a daily basis? How does dividing thoroughly depleted resources equally solve our problems in 2022? However we divvy up the spoils of ecocide, everything is still going to die. That's what communism completely fails to understand and anyone claiming communism isn't about proliferating the factory in the name of progress is a shitty communist.

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Potkea wrote

FWIW, AnComs like Berkman said that rationing would precede full communism.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-berkman-what-is-communist-anarchism#toc31

Let us take up the organization of consumption first, because people have to eat before they can work and produce.

”What do you mean by the organization of consumption?” your friend asks.

“He means rationing, I suppose,” you remark.

I do. Of course, when the social revolution has become thoroughly organized and production is functioning normally there will be enough for everybody. But in the first stages of the revolution, during the process of reconstruction, we must take care to supply the people as best we can, and equally, which means rationing.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

That's logical, but the part I think has become outdated is "when the social revolution has become thoroughly organized and production is functioning normally there will be enough for everybody". For several reasons.

First, there's nothing regenerative or sustainable about the social revolution ancommunism provides a blueprint for, so there really won't be enough for everyone if society continues to revolve around the factory and dividing the spoils of industry, whether equally or unequally.

Even the rationing point, though completely logical... asking billions of people to sacrifice what they're used to and do with less than they had under capitalism isn't going to go well. Note that revolution always happens because people want more than what their rulers are giving them. So Berkman telling people to expect rationing post-revolution isn't going to get them to support his revolution.

You can see how people freak out when the monetary costs of extractivism become unsustainable and people are asked to tighten their belts - see the streets of Kazahkstan right now because fuel prices went up. Or even the bread lines in Turkey.

People at large consider it a failed system the moment scarcity rears its ugly head, and they revolt, demanding a return to the luxury afforded to them in the past, however destructive and unsustainable it was.

The only reason people don't experience scarcity in the West right now is because of rampant and heavily-subsidized extractivism (enabled by imperialism) - something with a clear end date that's set in stone as soon as the oil wells and coal mines run dry.

So the way forward, for me, isn't to create more equality in the extract/manufacture/distribute processes, it's to reject the entire idea of an extractive society and all the authority it brings. Something that the vast majority of people in civilization will never accept because they don't want to go without or even with less. The whole point of communism, even according to Berkman's post-rationing society, is for people to have more luxury than they have now. Not less.

Even knowing everything outside the cities is on fire, most people refuse to give an inch of what they've fought for in this world.

So knowing what's necessary to end ecocide won't happen because it would be deeply unpopular in a society accustomed to extracting millions of years worth of resources in a few decades, the only anarchy left, for me, is nihilism. I know what's coming (well, it's already here in my country) and I know there's no way to avoid it.

Pockets of anarchy will be found in the ashes because there's always anarchy somewhere.

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[deleted] wrote

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

Primitive communism as an ideology? Isn't that just Marx/Engels' concept of hunter gatherers..? They weren't communists, they were anarchists. Living without authority. Marx called it primitive communism because his 'scientific' communism required an advanced industrial society (authority). So the entire concept of primitive communism is just a way to patronise hunter gatherers as not being advanced enough for real communism (authority).

Neozapatistas

Eh, that's a whole book.

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OdiousOutlaw wrote

and subjegate indiginous groups when in most cases nothing could be further from the truth.

in most cases

They can't even completely deny it.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

What this Master Critiquer misses is that building mass society of any kind (yes, even one based on communist values) allows authority to wrap itself around everything.

Historically, when The People™ are told everything being done to them is for the good of the revolution, to secure a utopian end game where everyone will be equal and blissful and have all their desires met, they've been a hell of a lot more willing to accept all kinds of tyranny. Whether it be Christians, communists or transhumanists, the majority of people in a society will put up with any injustice so long as they're promised every luxury in the afterlife / afterrev / digital rapture.

Lenin was a huge fan of Kropotkin before he built the USSR. Mao identified as an ancom before he built modern China. Both instantly turned to authority as soon as they were granted the wherewithal to realize communism and were met with the practicalities of making millions of people follow the program.

If the majority of self-identified ancoms today still spend hours upon hours of their days planning out how to build anarcho-prisons and justified-hierarchies and legitimate-government and democratic-police and whine that the blood-soaked land they've stolen doesn't belong to indigenous people but everyone because communism, how would anyone expect an ancom revolution to do anything different?

When in history has revolution not lead to more centralized power and the widening of authority's reach? When in history have people who have decided they want to remake the world in their image not turned out to be utter tyrants the moment they realized not everyone would follow their program to create their holy paradise?

When has a popular revolution ever, ever worked out for racial, ethnic or sexual minorities? Did I simply imagine hundreds of years of brutal, bloody history demonstrating that revolution always, always, always creates massive power hierarchy, especially when the revolutionaries profess to be the saviors of the people? Did Zimbabwe not happen? Russia? China? Cuba? Hungary? Romania? Vietnam? Yugoslavia? North Korea? France? The USA? Was it all a weird fever dream?

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

Seriously tho, imagine if the average ancom convinced millions/billions of people to do their revolution? Most of them are so attached to authority that they can't let go of prisons / police / government / class reductionism / settleritis even at the theoretical internet forum zero-stakes stage.

So imagine how quickly they'd compromise whatever anarchistic values they actually hold in the face of having to convince millions of liberals to follow a united program? I mean, they can't even reach a consensus with other anarchists without trying to purge us for dissent against the program, so how are they gonna reach almighty consensus with millions of liberals that aren't going to want to give up an inch of their privilege?

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kin wrote

It's funny how some Social Anarchists say that they reject Democracy and Industries but don't engage with other red anarchists about it, they only want to dunk on post left, nihilists or Anticiv greens..

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

They only reject those things when they're being criticized for celebrating them. That's when they'll claim communism isn't industrial, and then go right back to discussing how to better organize the factories in the very next thread. I'm starting to think ideology is all one big game of kick the goal post.

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ziq OP wrote

That is why such powerful minorities constitute themselves in the midst of civilized nations, and loudly ask for the return to the community of all riches accumulated by the work of preceding generations. The holding in common of land, mines, factories, inhabited houses, and means of transport is already the watchword of these imposing factions, and repression — the favorite weapon of the rich and powerful — can no longer do anything to arrest the triumphal march of the spirit of revolt. And if millions of workers do not rise to seize the land and factories from the monopolists by force, be sure it is not for want of desire. They but wait for a favorable opportunity.

-Kropotkin talking about anarcho-communism. The totally not industrial ideology.

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