Riddle me this if you would educate a layman

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The part where the revolutionaries consciously opt to reduce their own power and the ability to maintain it by giving back what they 'liberated' after they just won a civil war. I'm asking about there being a 'tyranny prediction and compensation' mechanism somewhere in M-L theory.

…then it won't work?

That's not what he's saying, he's saying what's stopping them from just changing there minds once the state is overthrown. (I think)

I'll also add my own question, after the new Marxist state dissolves itself what is to stop someone form reinstating a means to accumulate wealth? What if they create a means of production, hide it, and use that to trade on a black market.

The reasoning goes as follows: Once capitalism has reached the point of abundance (automation), capital is concentrated in the hands of few individuals, capitalism ceases to grow/spiral outwards since commodities are being produced en masse but their value can no longer be realized on the market. This is horrible, horrible, horrible, since capitalism inherently depends on growing, capital derives its value from flowing through the system – this is the reason why every economy wants inflation and why we are creating money out of thing air with no end in sight right now. The system inevitably reaches a point at which it collapses since all the mechanisms that are in place right now are no longer enough to stimulate growth, such as the state stimulating the market, or raising the proletariats consumer demand (which has hit its peak already with everything being available in abundance and the proles being cut out off the production process entirely). The absurdity of the system will be laid bare and capitalism inevitably collapses.

This is where the collapse of the state follows, since the state is directly tied to capitalism and sort of its byproduct. The existence of the police, military, nation and so on serves capitalist interests: I want to point to the history of these entities (police was initially created by capitalists to keep workers suppressed, and still today fulfills the role of combating elements that are deemed harmful to the system), the military is used for imperialist purposes more than anything, nations are used to concentrate capital and influence the proles (create consumer demand + counter revolutionary tendencies within a state) and so on. With no capital at the center of society anymore, the state therefore naturally loses its purpose and will either collapse entirely or be reshaped as to be something different from before that can no longer be called a state in the way we know it.

Hope this answered your questions for now.

I'm not even an ML I just think this is kind of a low-tier criticism of their ideology along the "human nature" thread of argumentation. But yeah, clearly there needs to be accountability set up internally within the party structure pre-revolution. Your latter point isn't specific to "vanguard" ideology and can be posed to anarchist doctrines as well (what's stopping someone from accumulating wealth in either?), and the answer is to strip the mechanisms of accumulating wealth from society (i.e the entire thesis of all socialist/anarchist ideologies wrt removing capital).

Nothing. And that is why marxism needs to be state enforced, otherwise we just get back to square one.

Not a Marxist, but the point has always been to create a superabundance of goods under FALC so that markets and classes and all other hierarchies are no longer needed at all.

To quote someone, "not an argument".

Marx argued for something more similar to council communism, basically anarchism with a little bit of hierarchy beyond the bare minimum. He argued that these institutions of the people, constituting a new state (or a new government under the anarchist definition), should always be vigilant of any sort of party which helped bring the proletariat to power.

But if marxism is state enforced then the state must not have dissolved itself, and if the state did not dissolve itself then there would need to be people who run it, and if there are people running it then they would need to be compensated for their time, compensation that would come from people not running the state, at which point you've created a ruling class and it all falls apart.

Tankies advocate social democracy at gunpoint and don't understand that the essential point of Marxism is to remove constraints on workers managing their own lives freely. Don't take them seriously. Marxposters are worth talking to.

Well ask yourself this question: What is stopping us from reinstating monarchy and feudalism? What is stopping us from returning to a tribal way of life?

The answer is: The material conditions and organization which form the base of our society and the superstructure that originates from this base. Socialism/communism is imagined to become reality once the base changes again and unless some catastrophic event happens that destroys this base, we will naturally continue on the path of socialist organization.

So the state doesn't disband, but breaks down into council-governed communes that can maintain and defend themselves?
See, this is a decent answer.
So how does the commune disincentivise the accumulation of wealth and power in its own hands and in other communes? Some form of exchange would surely be necessary for complex projects, which incentivizes trade and speculation, correct?

Tankies are mostly retarded and don't understand that capitalism and the state are inherently tied to each other. That is why every attempt at ML so far has ended in state capitalism – which don't get me wrong, if managed by a benevolent communist party (think Tito instead of Pol Pot) would still be preferable to the path of destruction we are going down right now.

Government =/= state

You've just created capitalism, congratulations!

Imma grab one of them black flags then.

All communists have suffered at the hands of rulership, so in turn we set out to dictate over the present-day dictators. Our reign though will be the dictatorship to end all dictatorships. The DoTP necessarily culminates in communist society, a type of community designed for the working-poor and entailing the total cancellation of elite muh privilege in society. The essence of statism is organized repression of dissent, and no dissent will be necessary under these conditions. Communist statism is the only road to statelessness.

You could also read Marx instead

No, the reason that people don't return to monarchy is 2 fold.

1: Because they want to maximize their utility (yes, I'm using capitalist economics terms,) and do not believe that a tribalistic way of life or a monarchy would allow for such. Capitalism on the other hand would, especially since it creates haves and have-nots.

2 The major reason people haven't gone back to monarchy though is it requires that EVERYONE (in a certain group) be subject to the monarch and you can't get everyone to agree to anything, let alone a king. Capitalism isn't like that though, if people choose to not participate in a capitalistic environment then the capitalists can simply factor those people out of their equations and continue to trade with those that do.

First off, you were arguing entirely within the argument (perhaps without realizing it) that I presented, I don't understand why you had to present your argument as contradictory to what I said, second the organization of feudal society goes beyond "everyone agrees on a king" – a Marxist perspective is to look at the economic relationship between the ruling class and the peasants, mainly serfdom and its exploitation.

And if people decide not to participate in feudalism, they can equally be factored out, assuming – just as in capitalist society – they can escape the ruling classes' reach.

It did. So it follows that the only violence necessary is that which will occur when capitalism collapses naturally, being unable to further grow and through growth, survive and nurture the state.
Doesn't that make the role of the revolutionary not to do violence, but to reduce it so that the means of production and abundance are not sabotaged or destroyed during the transition?

Ok? So basically it all boils down to "people won't reinstate capitalism because they won't want to." or something? But what's to stop someone from WANTING to reinstate capitalism? After all George Soros is better off than George Costanza. So if someone thinks they can be like George Soros what's to stop them?
Without a state to enforce some form of negative repercussions there would be no reason to NOT start a capitalistic system.

Well the state is the monopoly on violence, used by one class over another. Once all class contradictions are destroyed, and classes no longer exist then there will be a need for the state. This requires global socialism and people to realise that socialism is much better than capitalism and have no incentive to go back also.

How do anarchist communists plan to destroy remaining class contradictions after the revolution and prevent anyone from trying to bring back capitalism? Also how do we have simultaneous world revolution? How do we defeat the most powerful armies in the world without an organised army?

A decentralised voluntary working class army? How is that not a state? A revolution is by nature authoritarian, Marxists just admit we need an on-going one.

Another point: I hate verticality too but armies seem to require it and not just pure horizontality, so now what do we have, a centralised army? Even the people who deny (wrongly) decentralised armies are states can't deny a centralised army is.

Side note: all current attempts at anarchism resulted in states, just anarchists deny they were. Also Marxist socialism could look far more like anarchism than all the previous attempts at it, they had far too much central power and bureaucracy.

Also if you destroy capitalist relations there are no monetary incentives so in theory no corruption.

I mean, that's the question, isn't it? Depending on your point of view you have Leftcoms who do nothing but sit in their armchair all day and tell us to wait until the material conditions are ripe since any attempt to bring about revolution when the circumstances are not met are futile and even worse perhaps even reactionary, and MLs who believe we are 5 past midnight and need to start PURGING yesterday, so that we can either bring about the material conditions necessary for the state to wither away or already move towards a socialist society if they see the material conditions as ripe.

A revolution without violence is very unlikely, since it assumes that once capitalism collapses the capitalists and state will act rationally and immediately transform society towards communism, while realistically speaking most wouldn't even be aware of capitalism being at its end.

No, it boils down to people not wanting to reinstate capitalism because of the superstructure they live under and influence, which in turn is shaped by the base that is organized communist – the act of attempting to accumulate capital is irrational in a society in which capital holds no power.

Again, the very same thing that is stopping you right now from declaring yourself a landlord or king: Society does not respect your claim and is not organized such a mode of production any longer. I know it's hard to imagine a society post-capitalism, as Zizek already said, it's almost easier to imagine the end of the world, but the principle behind societal organization will still hold up.

How do we then determine if the necessary material conditions are in place? We're already creating artificial markets to sell some remarkably inventive products that fulfill needs we ourselves have created. Elsewhere, people starve to death on a fairly regular basis.
We probably have enough for everyone to live that 'minimally satisfactory' life, but is that enough for the pursuit of wealth and power to hold no allure?
The necessary conditions crowd says to wait until we have so much wealth that everyone would be able to produce all they want. They don't know how to make sure that is the case.
The revolution now crowd ends in dictatorship if they're wrong about the time, and they have been wrong about the time with disastrous results.
How can we tell?

I have no idea, I'm not smart enough to answer that part of the question.

Is someone else, preferably someone I can read or listen to?
The proposition of communism seems to me a wager of cosmic proportions with no way to game the system. On one hand, you have paradise. There's no other way to put it, it is a society of people free of material want and coercion, the ultimate achievement of humanity: to do away with the human condition as far as materially possible.
On the other, if you make a false move, you have chaos, destruction, death and tyranny.
What are the odds? You don't know, there's no sure way to measure.
How to improve them? You don't know, an action can make them worse just as well, and you can't tell the result before you act.

Hm, not really sure. From what theory and philosophers I read and follow, you sometimes get the impression that the world is just fucked and everything is depressing tbh. Hopefully somebody else can answer with an example of positive, constructive and uplifting ideology that provides answers to your questions (questions that undoubtedly are very hard to even attempt to answer).

In general though I'd recommend to check out the recommended reading thread that's stickied at the top and if you prefer videos, Zizek is always entertaining, Richard D. Wolff is a meme economist that promotes coops (basically capitalism with a pinch of proletarian organization), or this youtube.com/watch?v=83Yx6RBvoFc recent David Harvey talk for an explanation of Capital by Marx.

It won't, this is a dumb idea. There's a reason I'm not a narcho, and it's not to become one anyway a bit further down the line. Sorry Marx.

Appreciated. I'm in dire need of a game plan other than 'mine the system for long enough to either become the exploiter or opt out'. It's a good game plan and I'm making solid progress, but I think you'd agree it's somewhat depressing.

Here's what I would tell a layman "yeah it's kinda dumb marx was a MUCH better economist than political theorist. That's why I don't consider myself a marxist, just a non-marxist socialist."

this triggered me I hope you're happy

You skipped a few steps.
In capitalism growing there is some economic prosperity, this should free more people to educate themselves.
Educated and motivated people then remove the ruling class, overthrow them if you must use visual words.
This then slowly proceeds to communities organizing themselves and the state becoming redundant. With enough people helping themselves and each other the state loses all its emotions to appeal about "helping the poor and the homeless" and taxes for redistribution are no longer needed when the ruling class has been castrated or destroyed.
Thanks for asking OP!

Did Marx really ask for that? There are bits in his writing that seem to suggest a strong centralized authority (marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm) and others that seem to go the opposite way (like his famous line that in communism, it is "possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic"). The way that MLs usually treat that is saying one is the short term goal and the other long term (and please don't ask for a date), which makes sense when you look at his critique of the Gotha Program, where Marx does talk about a lower and higher phase of communism (even if the lower phase doesn't exactly correspond to what the Bolshies did).

I think another interpretation is possible, namely that interactions with other people can be to a high extent up to individuals making lots of spontaneous decisions while at the same time the means of production are organized in a very centralized way, instead of being owned by local communities.

I think the communes could easily restructure themselves to meet the demands of any kind larger project.

there is no reason to believe any interim State Socialist government would surrender power to the population. It has never occurred in the history of Socialist States and likely never will. Just as Capitalism cannot sustain a free market as it relies on the state enforcing property rights, Socialism relies on the State enforcing economic equality, people have no reason to not steal or hoard. They will continue stealing from the collective and hoarding resources psychotically and selfishly. There is no way of fixing this, its simply the way most people are. so the state needs to step in and enforce collective ownership of the means of production and proper distribution of wealth. Therefore, there won't ever be anarcho-socialism or stateless communism

I think the bourgeoisie can easily push artificial scarcity more and more, so the flow of capital could go on forever.

Just think about how many bs jobs do we have right now and how many useless shit is sold on the market.
Nowadays in our society we are already able to feed ourselves with little effort and satisfy other basic needs. This means that we are very close to post-scarcity, closer then most people would think.

We are already being fucked by artificial scarcity, and when automation increases, it will definetily get worse. The spectacle can and will get larger.

Waiting for the lie to get so big that it will end is foolish. These people choose to do nothing, thus they are actively helping the lie to sustain itself. I'm not talking about leftcoms, I am talking about every person on the face of the Earth

The "right time" for the proletariat to rise up is this very moment.