• Val ( Val@anarchist.nexus ) 
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    11 months ago

    Oh I absolutely could spend a lot of mental effort trying to explain “marxism bad” (It would actually be Vanguardism bad, marxism ancient) but I just don’t care enough. I have no interest in being antagonistic (except maybe for a couple of quips), cause it’s not going to change anything.

    Production and distribution (henceforth economy) is necessary there isn’t a magical grace period where people stop needing food. For any anarchist system to work they need to have an economy. The anarchist systems that exist right now solve this by relying on donations and members having jobs. As more and more anarchist systems start popping up (although this is probably never going to happen) this would transform to a more independent/self-sustaining system. But what that system looks like doesn’t really matter, because whatever it is will be determined by the ones who make it.

    This is the ultimate difference between anarchism and everything else, and the reason why I think so many people bounce off it. Anarchism requires belief in people. That whatever system they come up with will work and compliment others who will be able to build their own systems: Economic, social or political.

    Anarchy is a process of creating social structures that defy oppression, control and manipulation, and believing that these structures will be able to solve the problems they face. It’s not just about economy but about the connections people form. When I look at communists I see only economic analysis: Class, Production, Ownership. Concepts which are secondary to the thing that actually matters: eliminating oppression and exploitation, not just economic, but also social and political.

    • Cowbee [he/they] ( Cowbee@lemmy.ml ) 
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      11 months ago

      Ignoring the bit on “vanguardism bad and Marxism ancient” for now, though I disagree vehemontly with both. One thing that you bring up is that a lot of the currently or formerly existing anarchist societies depend on outside production and donation. It simply isn’t feasible to produce, say, a smartphone horizontally. You need rare earths, highly trained individuals for circuit manufacturing, incredible amounts of previous capital and continuous organization of labor and logistics to make it all come together. The anarchists can either concede that smartphones are unnecessary (along with anything else that takes such huge production scales to create), or concede that they depend on outside production that can do so.

      Marxists do focus on class, the mode of production, the base. Marxists focus on the liberation of all peoples, not just those within our immediate communities. And to be fair, most anarchists also tend to care about liberation for everyone, not just their immediate communities, but the key difference is that Marxism does not depend on everyone believing the same thing, or rely on production from the outside. Marxism focuses on the liberation of all oppressed peoples and the satisfaction of everyone’s needs, forever.

      Social relations are core to Marxism. The economy is just one such social relation, but there’s also culture, hegemony, art, and class itself. You cannot have Marxism without analysis of social relations.