I'm relatively new and I can't decide between Marxism and Anarchism so I'd like to start a productive discussion...

Marxism was good for its dialectical interpretation of history, however it was limited by the anthropological material of Marx's time. The reality, is that culturally quantifiable hierarchies emerged before the accumulation of surplus value and emergence of class. As long as Marxism fails to realise this, it will be fundamentally irrational. Anarchism came closer to addressing this, but falls short do to anti-organisational and individualist tendencies.

Check out Murray Bookchin, OP. He's the best of both Anarchism and Marxism.

Duh, all cultural hierarchies are a product of material conditions, and those presumably existed before capitalism.

This isn't correct through. For example, geronotocracy and shamanism, as early human hierarchies, are not reducible to mere products of material conditions and are distinctly cultural. The base-superstructure distinction is wrong.

Reject both and embrace communalism instead. Marx's critique of capital is correct but his view of the proletariat as the revolutionary agent is incorrect. Anarchism is correct with it's desire to abolish hierarchy and domination but is too individualist and doesn't see the necessity to create institutions. Both fail to recognize the distinction between "politics" and "statecraft" . The latter meaning the management of society by an institution alienated from it and run by bueracrats, lawyers and officers. The former meaning the self management of society by instititons of direct democracy and localized decision making, including but not limited to organs of education to create an informed citizenry as well as any other institions that empower them such as the militia. Communalists also subscribe to dialectical thinking same as marxists and unlike anarchists, but have a different view of history then that of historical materialism. Communalists realize that hierarchy and domination existed before class, and can exist after it. They see the historical conflict not limited to class conflict, but between democracy/autonomy and domination/hierarchy. This is a very limited explaination of communalism and i recommend checking out r/communalists to learn more

Looks like somebody beat me to it

Quality post by leftcom

In my experience Marxism seems to be the most scientific of the two purely because it bases its arguments on testable and predictable results. Now the problem with Marxism isn't that it isn't sound theory. It is. The problem is that the method to achieve socialism is not made abundantly clear. Lenin came along and tried to get this done, but it's unclear if he thought that what he was doing would achieve socialism, I suspect that he did not himself think this. But Marxism does give us a few hints on what we need to do to achieve socialism. First and foremost, the abolition of the Law of Value and Private Property. These two things are mostly what give power to the bourgeois state and the capitalist system. Again, the problem is how we do those things. Anarchists believe a lot of things, but seem obsessed with eliminating all forms of hierarchy, which makes them hard to organize. Some are more sensible, and I tend to agree that we should eliminate all "unnecessary" hierarchy. However, I think the transition period from a socialist world republic to communism is necessary, as so most Marxists. It is true that the state is a tool to oppress one class over another. This is fine if the class oppressed is the bourgeoisie, and we continue to do so until that class ceases to exist. From this, we can make the state wither away. Anarchists believe this leads to totalitarianism, but I don't see how a true worker's state can go that route as there is no incentive for it. Power isn't concentrated in government, instead it's concentrated on workers who are those that dictate to the government and therefore themselves.

Bottom line is that anarchists and Marxists have the same goals. The problem is the method of achieving those goals. Because anarchism lacks scientific theory and instead tends to go the philosophical route or arguments of other sorts, I cannot myself rely on these to guide me, however, that doesn't mean they aren't hard-charging badasses from time to time and we should seek to work with them when we can.

Could you expand on this? Also provide some evidence/examples?

I think you need to read Marx again, as there were classes before capitalism, they were just different classes also based on material realities.
Stop spouting this meme.

Called it:

This is like the entire penchant of materialist thinking. Class and hierrachy is not inexorably linked to machinations of the capitalist mode of production in Marx; feudalism itself hinged only very marginally on the predecessor to capitalist accumulation (primitive accumulation) and pre-feudal slave society were entirely absent of a law of value.

Nah, that would be: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communization. Also see: theanarchistlibrary.org/library/francois-martin-and-jean-barrot-aka-gilles-dauve-eclipse-and-re-emergence-of-the-communist-move.

You're neither a Marxist if you reject the proletariat as the only revolutionary agent under capitalism capable of overthrowing it, and you're not an anarchist if you advocate for particular models of statecraft as an answer to the hierarchical necessities immanent in capitalism and the state's contradictions. What you are then is whatever your preferred pronoun is.

I'm not just talking about before capitalism though. I'm talking about the shift from so-called "primitive communism" to slave society as described in the materialist conception of history. According to this, classes only emerged with the accumulation of surplus value.

The reality is more complicated, and couldn't have been reached by 19th century anthropology. "Primitive communism" likely never existed, and cultural hierarchies existed long before the urban and neolithic revolutions. Marxism was limited by the anthropology of its day, namely what is called Unilineal Evolutionism. Within cultural anthropology, this tendency has been more-or-less universally rejected as outdated now. Social evolutionism has progressed far beyond the ideas of Lewis Henry Morgan and co, and if you want a philosophical approach to history to be accurate, then you need to take into consideration new anthropological information and modify your theories as such. This is exactly what Bookchin did to the materialist conception of history.

No, classes emerged with the invention of property. Read a book, nigger. Stop pushing your meme ideology.

Insufferable demagogue. Every single time the same autism, same rhetoric and same le ebin jpegs. You faggots have your own cyclical and several more threads on this and you still try to shill it everywhere when it's entirely irrelevant.

It's high time this incessant shitposting was addressed by the mods, because clearly you idiots have no capability of understanding how hard you're flooding the board with low quality posts.

How do you intend to be taken seriously if you obviously don't understand the basics of the theory you claim to have "improved"?

Hierarchy first emerged with gerontacry (though some dispute that patriarchy came first). Primitive societies still had egalitarian distribution of resources but social priveledges were still existing. The word of the old/men was considered worth more then the young/female. bookchin lists his sources in his acknowledgement section of ecology of freedom, one being an american cultural anthropologist who's name eludes me

this

also this

What am I reading?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The "Marxism" you critique is the same caricature of Marxism found in Bookchin's works like "Listen, Marxist!"; just as absolutely devoid of any proper understanding of the Marxist worldview, which produces equally uneducated conclusions and implications. I'm starting to think that's the only reason that meme-tier text had no citations to Marx or any Marxists whatsoever; because it's a "critique" of Marxism based on an entirely wilfully ignorant conception of it.

If you ask me, the only thing I've read that was of value Bookchin's ever written was The Spanish Anarchists, which is undeniably one of the most solidly researched on the subject I’ve come across and is up there with Seidman's Workers Against Work and Wagner's Anarchism and the Spanish Revolution.

This shitposter managed to derail the thread exactly as I predicted. Not even half the thread addresses the OP in any way, shape or form anymore.

There is more to the distinction than that, much of which revolves around what constitutes a dictatorship of the proletariat. The MLs also take a different tack when it comes to just how acceptable nationalism should be. Of course there are the economic squabbles between the resepective proponents of central planning, decentralized planning, and market socialism.

Memetastic. See
Truly the revolutionary vanguard :^)

More leftcom posts like this. Good shit

Btw, could you respond to this?

I'm not sure if it's true (seems plausible enough), but at the same time I don't really see the relevance of it? Like historical materialism has a use in explaining history, and making predictions about things. This "historical naturalism" that adds "OH BUT ALSO OLD PEOPLE WERE RUNNING SHIT"…I just don't see the relevance of it…unless I'm missing something.

What are your thoughts?

See:

To further expand, the historical conflict is between first and second nature. First nature essentially means society as it existed before the emergence of hierarchy and domination. Bookchin calls this "organic society". In organic society, you had an egalitarian system with a moral and ethical framework that can't really be improved upon (within a tribe that is). However, you also had bloody conflicts between groups based on blood ties. With the emergence of hierarchy and domination, society started to move away from this and towards the creation of class and state systems. With this came the creation of the first cities, and the emergence of "cultural nature" , nature created by man and exclusively human. You had the negatives of class and state, but the benefit of the degradation of blood ties. Now, people of different "tribes" could coexist and and not slaughter each other as they previously did. History is ultimately formed by the conflict between these two natures. It can be evidenced by the consistent emergence of democratic assemblies (dual powers) in contrast to the power of upper classes and states. The idea is not to eliminate either first or second nature, but the synthesis of both into a "free nature", or third nature.

Never said that fag. Read again.

That is: a material condition. Wisdom and thus power being disproportionally distributed by cause of experience (age).

For Marx, as he says in the Grundrisse, the most basic form of materially-bound hierarchy is one we can find in the different sexes. Men innately possess more strength, and thus without a developed ideological superstructure to inform this prime condition, the most basic form of domination is introduced, which is an institutionless patriarchy that then develops into an institutional (superstructural) one.

But Marx's point is precisely that we, as humans, are not slaves to our own evolutionary or natural destiny in this way. "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please", that is: they organize new forms of development born out of prior material conditions, never fully aware of the total sum of all material conditions, which inform the way their conditions of existence are and how they are informed about them. This is why today we can have economists: people so charmed by the reproduction of daily life under capitalism without being able to think of it as capitalism, but rather simply the way of man's innate qualities, and that any discord in this natural way comes from outside forces disrupting it.

This basic theory of false consciousness is for many Marxists at the most basic level capable of explaining ideological phenomena, but perhaps not enough. Structuralism for example, elaborates on this basic principle. This is but one example of how Marxism is not in permanent orthodoxy; it provides a basic discursive worldview centered around matter in motion, and it can, should and does constantly develop around new interpretations and altered material conditions.

This thread was supposed to be about OP's question of Marxism versus anarchism, not this Bookchinfag's shilling and certainly not about any Marxist circlejerk.

Marxism is not synonymous with vanguardism. You're retarded.

No, it's definitely cultural.

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Age does not necessairly connotate better decision making. The legitmization and implemntation of gerontocracy is part of the superstructure, not the base. Your post ignores the fact that hierarchy and domination did not coincide with material benefit, but purely social benefit.
And there's no reason why communalists can't give their opinion on the disadvantages and advantages of both. To simply say that it shouldn't be given because you dislike the view is not a legitimate reason.
So you don't subscribe to the view of there being class concsious proles leading the way? I'm not even against vanguardism, but that doesn't mean i can't make fun of you for having a superiority complex while whining like a child

Knowledge is a cultural thing. The establishment of hierarchy based on knowledge (i.e. shamanism), is the establishment of hierarchy based on culture.

I like Marx and I like Lenin. But man, Marxism-Leninism is garbage.

Y tho

I never implied this. At its most basic, age is increasingly proportionate with muscular mass and experience first. In the case of experience: the first in slave societies to discover the bullwhip were those who had the ability to enact extortionate rule, and this development itself was conditional upon the conditions to discover first the idea of the bullwhip's design and the material required to create it.

Not contested. What is contested is the idea that this superstructure is created out of thin air without first being materially enabled by a base. Take the time to slowly read my post and some Marxist works before making claims about either.

No. Read the text I posted here: . Vanguardism is only unique to Leninism and its derivatives, and concepts of vanguardism very much different from that that exist in other Marxist currents are again different.

Suit yourself.

And again, knowledge and culture are not immanent things. They exist by virtue of matter's shaping and influencing of them. We are reaching levels of Berkeleyan idealism that shouldn't even be possible.

Can you take even the smallest amounts of time to inform yourself on the things you're trying to critique? Don't bother replying if all you want is for people here to repeat themselves to you and spoonfeed you; I won't bother again.

You idiots are as clueless as tankies.

he killed bourgies and didnt afraid of anything

To take this back to what OP wanted to talk about, I would point out the superiority of the marxist revolutionary praxis, primarily in regard to the inevitable conflict with counter-revolutionary military forces. State and hierarchy are necessary to field a modern military, and a modern military is necessary to do something more than hide in the mountains for three years before being killed by a modern military.

It's the same shit, dictatorship of the proletariat is an euphemism.

What i described was a vanguard. I made no mention of the DotP you disengenous faggot

What does it have to do with Marxism?

Wrong. Both want to smash the state and replace it with a new proletariat dictatorship semi-state. Leninists want to form a political party made of the most class conscious member of the proletariat. Otherwise they are just ordinary Marxist's.

Marxism supposes that hierarchy and domination are merely economic issues, and won't exist once class is abolished. This ignores the fact that both of these things predate class

It doesn't exist.

No

I'm not sinuating that they think economics is the only determining factor, merely that they consider hierarchy and domination to have first emerged with class and will be gone with the elimination of class. What about this is incorrect?

Everything.

Fuck off and give a real response you troll

*or

Honestly? Most of the differences between Marxism and Anarchism are completely semantical and can all be traced back to the initial split between Marx and Bakunin at the First International, the causes of which seem to be completely forgotten today. Most people frame the disagreement as Bakunin predicting the Soviet Union and accusing Marx of Authoritarianism, but that's not true.

What actually happened is they both mutually accused eachother of authoritarianism, Bakunin believed that Communism was authoritarian because he was against the dictatorship of the proletariat and was completely against a worker lead society, Marx accused Bakunin of authoritarianism because he believed in a society where an "invisible council" of anonymous professional revolutionary anarchists would manipulate society from the shadows in order to liberate the people from their own oppression, kind of like the Khmer Rouge. Also Bakunin believed Communism was a zionist conspiracy and thought Marx was in it with the Rothschilds. Also Marx and Engels spread rumors about Bakunin being gay in order to get him booted out of the international, so I'm not saying Marx wasn't a dick too, but as you can see, contemporary ideas of anarchism don't have too much to do with what counted for anarchism back in the 19th Century.

To be honest most post-20th Century ancoms and syndicalists would consider most 19th century anarchism completely reactionary by today's standards, including /leftypols/ favorite meme Stirner, so yeah, read Marx, read Kropotkin, read Bordiga, and yeah, read Bookchin, he's not that bad

What's wrong with Stirner?

Are you retarded? Marxists do not consider hierarchy and domination to have first emerged with class and to be gone with the elimination of class. Everything you've just written is wrong. Did you want me to put it out in a way that doesn't hurt your feelings?

I remember reading him say that. Proudhon had done the same thing after getting in a conflict with Marx.

This is a strawman claim.

Yeah, I think it's a good idea to study and gain insights from all of them.

twitter.com/pomofoco/status/845459412600918018

He's not the worst, but it's like th 60's Lefts obsession with Nietzsche, at the end of the day, in their own life times they were essentially proto-fascists, but their ideas can be rehabilitated for Leftist ends, but that kernel of individualist fear of the masses and the "mob" is always there, and I just think there are more cohesively egalitarian and communal world views out there. I honestly think the only end result of reading Stirner is a sort of post-left anarchism.

Honestly, antisemitism was a lot more ubiquitous in the 19th Century anarchist movement then one would think.

Show me where he stipulated otherwise

Burden of the proof, mate.

Confirmed for being full of shit. Marx views pre class society as primitive communism, as in non-hierarchical.

...

Communism is classless, not "non-hierarchical".

Stalin did nothing wrong.

/thread

um ok

kys my man

Both of you need to read The Origin of the Family

marxism of course, what are you 16?

I have a similar question. Anarchism and anarchist seem to have a conception of society that is better and much more worth fighting for.

However the pragmatist in me sometimes says some state capitalism and statism might be necessary just for the aquistion of power.

How do I reconcile libertarianism with also liking to eat bread and not getting killed by Franco?

Genuinely curious, what did Stalin do right? I haven't read much on Soviet history, but how do you roll with the "USSR was Socialist" stuff? Do you say "it was never Socialism", or "it was only Socialist for the first few months" or "muh imperialit western powers" or do you fully say "workers owned the MoP and products were made to be used rather than exchanged, so Socialism"?

How do you respond to Holodomor? The fact that criticism of the state was repressed?

You are the one making bullshit claim. But please, do quote The origin of family to support your claim.

I'm not a Stalinist by any means, but the notion of a "holodomor" as an analogue to the holocaust is just Ukrainian nationalist bullshit. The USSR executed a disastrous agricultural policy which led to famines in multiple places (not just Ukraine), which was then further exacerbated by poor weather and either neglectful or incompetent handling of the situation by the USSR. They didn't purposefully set out to kill Ukrainians. Not even Robert "I literally write anti-Soviet propaganda for a living" Conquest was able to maintain the view that it was a genocide after gaining access to the Soviet archives.

pic name related

This is extremely far removed from Marxism.

Why do you keep bitching about hierarchy? It's not inherently wrong or unwarranted under certain circumstances, for example, the relationship between teacher and pupil, or parent or child. Kill yourself, shit for brains.

But those two examples you provide are excellent.

This is why people think you're a fucking retard.

The whole purpose of the education is primarily to prepare children to lead the kinds of alienated lives that adults live as wage earners. Of course someone who's against wage labor would be against the education system.

That "people" (understood as people in common, people with common sense) find this retarded is a compliment, because people in general are filled with the ideologies that justify our current society.

Teacher =/= educational system

The original post i replied to used a vague "the relationship between teacher and pupil". I responded under the assumption that we're talking about the current relationship between teacher and pupil.

Both sides should be critizised, both sides have good and bad ideas. Keep in mind that the more or less successful Anarchist groups have been Anarcho-Syndicalist or Platformist (which some Anarchists describe as a boshevised form of Anarchism) not Individualists or Utopians. So there is a lot of liberal bullshit in the Anarchosphere.
Also keep in mind that some of Marx' predictions have turned out to be wrong and the core of his books his Crisis Theory.

No, we weren't, and even if that was your position, it doesn't change the fact that it's a hole in your "theory", as you seem to be obsessed with eliminating hierarchy when some of it is necessary anyway. Honestly, don't even go read a book. Think, nigger, think!

Right, except for the fact that the tendency for the rate of profit to fall is real, and most attempts to disprove it are absolute liberal sophistry.

from what i've read, trpf and ltv are both correct, and asiatic mode of production is obvious rubbish

Marx wasn't a god, but his theories are useful.

Both can be abusive and should never have unrestrained power over them. There's one thing in respecting the knowledge of people know better, another to completely allow them to have power over you.
Literally no u, sophist

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Nobody said they should. What a strawman.

You don't have to respect the people raising you for them to have authority. You can say "Fuck you, mom" but she still has the right to fucking discipline you so you're not a shitty person. Get over yourself, faggot. What you're advocating for is a society of barbarians.

That's what hierarchy entails. One has power over the other.
Yeah you do. All the beatings will mean nothing unless there is respect there, and the beatings are more then likely to reduce respect then to garner it.
And the child should have the right to punish the parent if they overstep their bounds and are overly abusive to the child. Such a relationship of balanced power is not hierarchical
No u.
What I'm advocating for is a society of ethics which respects the liberty of all it's members, including children. Children need to be taught and guided, but in a way in which they are merely subjugated and restricted by a rigid and unjust hierarchy. Kill yourself my man

but not in a way*

An anarchist, what kind of question is this?

They don't. Read the rest of the thread and read pics related. Changes in the superstructure happened independently of changes in the base in this instance

So if I know more shit than you and tell you to learn it on my rules, I have to be killed, then because I'm not like respecting your freedom, maaan. Kill yourself.

Who said beatings, you drooling retard? I said discipline. Yes, discipline is required for children, and the only ones that respond to spankings are young children. How retarded are you?

Yeah, no duh, retard. Discipline, again, doesn't mean brutal beatings. Apply yourself.

Parent and child will always be hierarchical. At the end of the day the parent says the final word. Or is child sex legal now? Because "the child consents"? You can't tell the child no. That would be hierarchy.

You're right. If a child wants to touch the stove, you shouldn't slap his hand away, you should give him a written thesis on why this is a bad idea. You're such a fucking idiot.

Fug off with your strawmen. Not having to treat you like a superior and allow you to order me to do whatever you want is not the same as simply killing you for trying. You have rights just like the next person.
My point still stands. Plenty of times that children don't respond to negative reinforcement, and indeed negative reinforcement can have negative effects in itself. Stop projecting your own shitty childhood in a hierarchical and class society onto revolutionary society.
Discipline can definitely mean brutal beatings. Conception of discipline isn't static but changes over time. There's ways to enact discipline without the use of physical force at all you sophist
Must a child listen to whatever a parent tells them? No? Then where is the hierarchical relationship of obedience and command? Does the parent have the final word when the parent coerces their child into pleasuring them sexually? No? Then your argument is self defeating.
Keeping someone from jumping off a hill is not a hierarchical relationship you sophist. Hierarchy is more nuanced then your hamfisted sophistry. It's hilarious that you're using this example to somehow make the case that patriarchy, class, gerontocoracy and other forms of hierarchy are completely justified. Kill yourself my man

So then, I still have power over you because you remain ignorant. How are you going to remedy this? Oh, wait, you can't, because you didn't bother to use your brain.

You have both. It doesn't change the fact that parents have final say in this hierarchy.

Yes, I'm sure your parents let you run around and shit yourself all day. That's why you're so fucking retarded now. I bet you dropped out of school because they weren't like respecting your rights, duuudee.

But it doesn't mean that only, retard. You're the one that brought it up as if it were the only thing it could be. Are you illiterate? Is reading comprehension hierarchical?

Who said physical force? Are you going to continue to be retarded? Or do you think I meant only beatings and "physical force" are discipline? I get it, being literate is oppressive and shit.

Yes, within the boundaries of the law. If your mom tells you not to eat from the fucking cookie jar, you don't eat from the fucking cookie jar. I don't care how oppressive you think that is. If you think you can raise children without rules, then congratulations, you've just shown me you don't have children, but are, in fact, a child yourself.

That's abuse, and we've covered that. Notice that the law (oh, no) can tell a parent how to raise their child. Soo oppressive.

Stop oppressing them. Maybe they want to jump from that hill. Stop using force. That's hierarchical.

I didn't make that case. I never said those were "justified", and patriarchy doesn't even real, you faggot, neither is gerontocracy, you misspelling faggot. I guess spell check is too oppressive too.

"Listen, Marxist!" was trash indeed

I am personally a Marxist. This isn't to say he was totally right. I am ashamed of "Marxism-Leninism".

Anarchism is a pretty cool guy too. We will come together at the fated time, or we will not. Just read your shit and be ready. ha, ha, "read"/"ready"

Learn what hierarchy means
Parents have final say in this society. That doesn't make it justified.
No, u
You're advocating forms of physical punishment. The line between abuse and discipline when applied to physical discipline is a fine one.
You did, multiple times.
The law is a shitty appeal frankly. The law stipulates in some places that female mutilation is perfectly legal, as is marrying off children to older men against their wishes. Both are unjustified but legal.
See above. Abuse is not a static concept either, silly sophist
Nope. Still need to learn what hierarchy means my Holla Forumsyp friend.
Because forced female genital mutilation as well as forced marriage isn't a partriarchical form of oppression. Holla Forums pls. Worth noting that children in Kurdistan routinely reject their parents authority and join the PKK to escape things like forced marriages, but you would consider this to be wrong because "MUH LAWS". Please, go read a book before coming back Holla Forums

The fact that it makes you guys so butthurt means it has to be doing something right.

Apparently it means whatever you want it to mean, because earlier you complained about hierarchy due to knowledge and experience.

It does, actually. Parents have a responsibility to raise you correctly, and as such have the right to discipline you.

So I guess I was right.

Point to me where I said that. I said spanking worked on young kids, and it does because they don't understand words. Other than that, I'd like you to say what issue you have with that.

No, it isn't, because most people aren't fucking retards like you.

Then point it out, or shut up, illiterate.

And under socialism we wouldn't have those, because we've already moved past that. Those are structures of different material conditions.

Again, we can define abuse scientifically. We know what does and doesn't harm the child, and telling you to clean your fucking room and not shit yourself doesn't count and will never count. Kill yourself.

I guess concrete definitions are also hierarchical.

Oh, no primitive societies that we have no part in do stupid shit. That means that patriarchy totally exists.

Those people aren't living in a socialist society. Parenting authority would still be a thing then, no matter how much you want it not to be. Again, should children have sex? Not letting them is hierarchical.

Kek

...

The smart should not have dominion over anyone less smart them then. By that logic, you would be my slave. :^)
Reiterating the assertion doesn't make it so
Still no u
Spanking is psychical force.
No u
I did, and no u.
There's absolutely no reason why genital mutilation or forced marriages could not exist in a socialist society. Hierarchy and domination emerged without a change in the base but purely from the superstructure.
wew lad go ahead and do so then
Actually there is considerable debate regarding numerous thins and their effects on children
No u
Pic related is how I define hierarchy.
Not an argument. Clearly an example of control of women by men.
See above. These things can still exist in a socialist society.
Authority =/= hierarchy. You can recognize the authority of the craftsmen but you don't have to listen to him, same goes with parents. As if you always listened to whatever your parents told you.
if you're an illiterate with only the most basic of understanding of concepts like socialism and hierarchy, then yeah you probably came over from Holla Forums pretty recently.

Nah, but the fact that they get so butthurt at it without actually making any salient retorts to it is pretty telling

this is fucking garbage

Holy shit this is some hot garbage.

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