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kittybecca wrote

I don't think either answer is possible outside of a thought experiment.

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rot wrote

Can't.

both are intertwined, capital without a state becomes it's own state, the state without capitalism has existed before and isn't any better (see feudalism, aristocracy, theocracy, and yes; state socialists like the soviets)

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celebratedrecluse wrote

i know this is just a casual forum post, but tbh I am pretty sure you cannot abolish just one or the other, they are engaged in a dialectic and will recreate the other.

For example, a collapse of state power would result in Ancapistan, neo-feudalism which would continue to seek the accumulation of wealth (eg, social power) until some kind of state could be re-created; perhaps a mercantilist monarchy, definitely some sort of hereditary aristocracy, etc

Meanwhile, A collapse of neoliberal capitalism would probably result in some kind of authoritarian state (only a totalizing force can subsume another totalizing force). This state would likely find that it is easiest to continue the maintenance of its power by creating a system of incentives similar to neoliberal capitalism-- if for nothing else than to maintain the armies & police networks, which have for thousands of years required some sort of value-token to work. In fact, if you read Graeber's "Debt", he lays out why it appears that the foundations of contemporary capitalist norms & practices lie in the adventures of imperial armies.

a major challenge for revolutionaries is to find ways to pit these two oppressive forces (markets, states) against each other, despite the deep interconnection and shared fate they have. While this chaos is happening, revolutionaries can then build space for liberatory means of sociality to reproduce themselves & flourish.

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