Thoughts on hierarchy: What is it and is it more important than class-struggle?

Marx postulated that most societal struggles were based upon class-struggle and thus that this struggle is the struggle that has defined almost every conflict in history. However, does that really paint the whole picture?

I would postulate, comrades, that the driving force of history is not so much class struggle as it is hierarchy in-of-itself. History is based upon one group of people feeling entitled to another group's possessions and wealth, and thus taking it from them, often through private property.

However, the 20th century leaves us with an interesting question: if class was all that really mattered so to speak, then how come the socialist movements in soviet Russia, China, the third world and Germany all degenerated into something that was decidedly not socialist in nature.

I think the answer must be that the socialist movement is about ending hierarchy, top-down structures made to siphon value from one group to another, more so than it is about ending class-struggle.

A good example would be the Nazi-movement in Germany; they supported a doctrine of racial hierarchy and "german" right to "subhuman" people's land and wealth, and thus they failed to implement socialism, as they didn't really care about horizontalism and direct democracy, which is the defining feature of socialism when applied to the work-place at least.

The same could be said about the USSR and other such ML states; I would postulate that these too degenerated into non-socialism because, while they opposed hierarchy in the workplace, the didn't oppose hierarchy in the public sphere through the state; thus, these movements were not anti-hierarchial.

So what are your thoughts? Is socialism only possible if it seeks to abolish all hierarchies? Will it degenerate if it does not, as it seems to have done historically?
Is it therefore infeasible to support racialist movements as a socialist? Can we cooperate with Anarcho-nationalists and National-Bolscheviks?

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Hierarchy is inevitably for a functioning technological society. If you have scientists who are a legitimate authority in their field over a layman, that's still hierarchy.

Well, is hierarchy and authority truly the same? Is a doctor giving you tips on your personal health the same as a feudal lord commanding you and taking your surplus labour?

Does our ideologically charged language not conceal the reality of the very real difference between these two relationships?

No it isn't.
I follow doctor's advice because they are learned about their subject, not because they allegedly rule over me (they don't).

Experts existing doesn't constitute hierarchy. You need some force to keep people believing in the truth.


That's when you have a clear incentive to listen. What about when scientists warn of disastrous environmental effects? Those who stand to benefit will spread disinfo, and if nobody is held accountable to the truth some people will believe it and they won't be stopped.

Anarchists distinguish between the type of authority a doctor would hold and the one say a standard public official would exercise.
youtube.com/watch?v=4AgX4xS_w_k

What truth? Whose truth? Why would reason have to be enforced? Do we not have a right to rule ourselves, even if we make foolish decisions?

Would a capitalist not be able to say that he simply owns the means of production because he's an "expert" who seeks to protect the workers from making bad business deals?

Because people will deny the fact that their actions are hurting other people, who then lose the right to rule themselves.

Only if you consider information as means of production.

Correct
Firstly, define "the truth". Secondly, point to these forces today which force people to believe "the truth". If they exist, which you posit they do, they certainly aren't doing a very good job of it.

Right. So why should it be different for any other subject?

Who is standing to benefit in a propertyless society? Why would someone listen to these spreaders of "disinfo" if they have no expertise on the matter? If, as you say, the experts in a field are the ones who hold "the truth", then who are these people who are spreading lies? Politicians, businessmen, corporate interests. People who would not exist in an anarchist society.

Look at the state of environmental policy today and tell me these truth authorities, if they exist, are doing a great job.

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Yeah, but that's exactly what I'm trying to adress. While we only concern ourselves with the means of production, we forget about the hierarchical part of the capitalist mode of production that indeed defines modes of production that have private property.

Why take orders from "experts" when you wouldn't take orders from a capitalist?

Fair enough. "the truth" is a pretty clunk way to phrase it. How about instead of forcing people to believe the truth, we prevent people from believing things that are known to be false, since it's possible to falsify things.

I didn't say they exist. I said they need to for a technological society to function. Society today is destroying itself.

Because if you're benefiting from hurting other people your incentive is to keep doing that, and spreading disinfo will help you in your pursuit.

You don't need property to reap benefits. Come on now.
Same reason they do now.
Those people are a subset of the people who will deceive others for their own gain. The subset would be eliminated, but not the superset.

Nobody is enforcing an absence of falsified claims. There is very little happening to enshrine scientific progress in the collective consciousness.

Because nobody has time to know everything, and I may not know that my doing something is hurting other people. Maybe I won't believe so if told, and I will continue to hurt them because continuing my practices matter more to me than examining the system and determining whether there's a legitimate externality.

There's a good video on authority by the Left Libertarian :youtube.com/watch?v=Wchnu3Lygr8

What about that which is unfalsifiable? What punishment will you impose on those who voice false statements? Are you going to imprison people who make false claims, not out of personal greed, but out of genuine ignorance? Who is going to determine what is false and not? What is going to stop them bending the truth to suit their own ends?


Society today is destroying itself because of the adverse influence of a group of tyrants placed at the top of society.


Okay, and what benefits are people going to derive in a society without property or heirarchy?

I don't? How can I reap the benefits if I have no way of excluding others from said benefits?


A lack of information, caused by poor education and restrictions on the flow of information. Both of which are the machination of those who benefit from it (the state/ruling class).


Who is this superset?

Further more, how do you expect our knowledge of "the truth" to advance if questioning what we currently hold to be "true" is punishable? It will effectively condemn scientific investigation to stasis.

Class [struggle] (between slave-owner and slave, landlord and serf, bourg and prole) is what creates the conditions for hierarchies, not the other way around.

This is basic shit, ffs.

Yep. Hierarchy can not be eliminated until class is. We should address the disease, not flail at symptoms.

Class is a heirarchy you tards

Then you can investigate whether the unfalsifiable idea is beneficial or not and harmful or not, and if its harms outweigh the benefits, it gets blacklisted.
Depends on intent.
No, they get re-education. For malicious people (whom ignorant people become if they refuse to learn why they're wrong), then not quite. They would be paroled and punished by being forced to educate people on why they're wrong.
Scientific community. Determining falsehood isn't the same as enforcing it.
Extremely stringent requirements for peer review and replicability. Allow anybody to submit peer review or replication study, with a disinterested third party vetting it. If falsification fails at any point, it does not get included in the enforcement or gets removed. To be enforced in the first place, there would be a required number of replications and criticisms that the falsification would have to pass. Leave the requirements up to the scientists, and give them enough resources to rigorously test things.

I only mentioned that because I figured someone would say "well society works now and people believe bullshit"

Social benefits mostly. Human relationships still exist regardless of the material conditions.

You don't have to prevent other people from something to benefit from it. Not all benefits are based in property. Again, social behavior.

You are saying that without a ruling class, deception and exploitation are impossible. This is ridiculous. Children can figure out how to trick people to get something they want.

All people who would deceive others for their own gain. For instance, person A envies persons B and C's relationship and tricks person B into ruining it, to A's satisfaction. Psychopaths exist regardless of a ruling class, mate.

Class is a material relationship to the means of production. It produces hierarchy in various forms depending on the mode of production. The difference between class and hierarchy is the difference between a disease and its symptoms.

That is going to create a good ol' boy club that can be utilized to push an agenda.

No. Class is a hierarchy on its own. Though it is true that it leads to the further emergence of other hierarchies.

What definition of "class" are you using?

Not him, but the one where one group (class) is entitled to the surplus labour and resources of another.
Thus, while class indeed is a hierarchy and must be ended, the problem is not isolate to classes, but to hierarchy itself.

Thus why racial socialism and state socialism degenerates into non-socialism, because neither have dealt away with the concepts of hierarchy.

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Yes… a heirarchical relationship to the means of production.

Good argument

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Who is deciding what is beneficial and harmful? What if it is neither? Who will enforce the "blacklisting"? What will stop them from exploiting their position?

Who is this "scientific community"? Is it an exclusive club? If so, what will stop them from exploiting their position as arbiters of the truth to the negative benefit of the rest of society (those deemed unworthy of determining the truth).

It essentially is if they are the only ones with the power to do so, and a state organ to enforce their view.

There is no such thing as a disinterested third party in a statist society.

Who is deciding who is the scientists, if anyone can submit peer reviewed studies?

What are these social benefits that will harm society if I recieve them, and that only I exclusive can reap?

State what these benefits are.

How are they going to "get something" with no way to exclude people from it?

And yes, exploitation is impossible without a ruling class.

Where did he say it was fascist you fucking simpleton?

It's harmful if it impedes people's freedom or does medical harm without their consent.
Same as if it's beneficial. It's not on the blacklist.
Call it whatever you like but a government or police force.
The scientists are the ones deciding the truth. If they determine the enforcers are abusing their power (same process as any study) they are stripped of the relevant resources.

Anyone conducting science and submitting papers to a central system.
Anyone can submit a study.
Because anyone can become a scientist. They just have to do the work and submit a study. There is no vetting process to submit. Peer review just criticizes what's already there.

In effect, sure. I only mentioned this to make a technical distinction and describe the system better.

why not

Everyone who submits is a scientist. If they do bad work it will come out in the peer review. If it doesn't get peer reviewed it won't be enforced.

Why does it matter that you can only exclusively reap some benefit? Because schadenfreude and sadism exist, it's always possible for some people to benefit from others' harm. That's not even going into people's relationships with each other.

Positive emotions are what it comes down to but these stem from things like relationships or experiences.

Different people can respond to the same events in different ways. For some it may be a positive response, for others a negative. If someone is injured they are harmed but someone else may be helped because they get the opportunity to ply their skills as a healer (something that brings them satisfaction).

Only if you define exploitation to require a ruling class. One person can manipulate another to do their bidding and cause themselves some harm. Is this not exploitation? Does this act create separate classes if there were none otherwise?

hmm, I wonder what kind of word view is behind this post

He was equating them in the sense that they both operate on heirarchies. You still haven't offered any counterpoint.

That's your definition. What makes you think your scientist kings will come to the same conclusion?

And what if they determine they are not out of their own self-interest? Who is going to stop them? Themselves?

So you're basically saying that everyone is going to peer review everything. Which negates the distinction between "the scientific community" and the masses. So everyone is free to determine the truth.


Because it implies a propertied society.

Again, what benefit?

So, nothing tangible.

This didn't answer my question.

It does.

What kind of manipulation is this that it can exist in a society without enforcers and tyrants? Mind control?

SHYGGIDY

I still don't see any counterarguments to the comparison he made. You're just assuming he claims they are both "fascist", despite him never saying that, and shitposting. Not very convincing.

He also did not accept racial socialism as socialism, so that is just an outright strawman.

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Hi there, reddit! Could you point me to where, in this thread, someone made that claim?

I know that you do not mean that people of different classes are in some kind of hierarchy over the means of production, so I am going to assume that what you actually mean is that people of different classes exist in a hierarchal relationship with one another. Is that correct?

The nazis and the MLs never dealt with class either.

I mean both.

The former makes no sense. Being in a hierarchy over the means of production is like your ass being in a hierarchy over the chair.

Of course. Right here:

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AKA Slaves not being as important as Land ownership, because roman empire colapsing?

AKA Land ownership not being as important as having money (capital) as industrilazation makes farming easier and more people gather in cities?
AKA Capital not being as important, as labor becomes easier by robots and people no longer need to trade?

Hierarchy is not what drives history forward.
It's only one way for society to function.

Nomenclature.

Anarkids thinking you can change societal structures overnight.


KEK!

>Can we cooperate with Anarcho-nationalists and National-Bolscheviks unrealistic made-up ideologies, that contradict themselves?

NOPE!

No, it's like having a heirarchy over other people who want to use the chair. I don't get why this is so hard for you to grasp.

You seem to have confused someone saying that heirarchy is impossible to abolish without abolishing class, and someone saying all heirarchies will disappear when class is abolished. Easy mistake to make. On your way back to /r/FULLCOMMUNISM now!

And where is the proof that class needs to be abolished first?

REVOLUTION WITHOUT REVOLUTION!

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ANARKIDS!

But user, we must not question the established dogma of Marx (PBUH) :^)

Let's just have socialism with hierarchy and see it degenerate into utter totalitarian shit.
Yet again.
This time, it will really bring forth the emancipation of the individual :DDDDD

Patriarchal society came about during hunter-gatherer days; long before private property and the rise of slave society.

Spooky shit man. Dystopia vibes

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Strawman, again. This is getting boring.

Thanks for confirming you don't understand what you are talking about.

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You are still confusing the effect with the cause.

Bullshit. Fucking Christ, read just a little anthropology.

Source: sociologyguide.com/gender/patriarchy.php

This is the greatest bourgie BS i've read in my life.


This BS you reference has no evidence of all this, and is PURE ideology.

I'm still more convinced by Engels, bringing up indegenous population that are still hunter-gatherers as example for his theory.

Adentum:


Whoever wrote this shit, has never read the book.

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Whoever wrote it (who, actually?) is a bourgie faggot, that doesn't CARE about marxist ideas, OR historical materialism.

It's a clear example of neoliberal propaganda.

But… Life wasn't short until the neolithic age.
And at that point, growing crops was far more relevant than hunting animals.
Also, modern hunter-gatherer societies are known for their gender equality and lack of gender hierarchy.
I smell poorly reasearched muck.

also the conclusion we can draw from this is that men dominating women is, quite literally, natural and inherent to out species and so therefore it's naive to believe we can do anything about it

However, it is true that gender-divisions as a division of labour arose before the rise of class-division of labour and thus that gender-divisions are indeed older than class-divisions.

However, whether this gender-division represented an exploitative hierarchy, now that's quite another case. I kinda doubt it.
Still, while class-hierarchy may be the primordial one, the problem lays at the feet of all systems of hierarchy. We will not achieve socialism, if we decide to keep one of these systems, as our socialism will degenerate.

Degenerate into something like Star Treck, then?