I've come to believe that anarchists are deep down a reactionary force

I've come to believe that anarchists are deep down a reactionary force.

For the most part, I subscribe to the same belief that almost every post-Cold War leftists has of not dividing the Left over petty theoretical disputes, which means that I never really cared if the guy next to me was an anarchist, a leninist, a social democrat, or what have you. So, in general, I respected anarchists whenever they were around in the left-wing movements, studying groups or online spaces I am also part of.

However, in the past few years I've noticed that their presence often becomes a trojan horse for a type of petty moralism that inhibits any type of organization and coordination among serious leftists.

Since I became an active leftist, I've noticed that in right-wing advancement after right-wing advancement, targeting everything from welfare to labour rights to academic freedom to state property, anarchists would often disrupt our events with a petty, misguided anti-state moralism manifestating itself through a refusal to defend any of these gains or institutions, which are typically protected by center-left parties, because that would be the equivalent of defending a party, which means being a silly statist or something.

It's an attempt to signal how "non-aligned" with any apparatus of the state they are. In my country, I frankly believe that if the conservatives wanted to privatize air and the social-democrats didn't, they would still refuse to take sides. And as we face a rightist Coup, I've noticed that our tolerance towards these types has allowed for a corruption of leftist culture and movements, to the point where any attempt of mobilization in this critical moment is met with a sarcastic "lol u defend politician" attitude.

In pushing disregard for any authority, any verticality, any cohesion and any institutionalization of our actions, we've become a formless, inactive mass of utopianists, crossing our arms and throwing a sarcastic smirk at the "bootlickers" and "governists" who are desperately trying to protect the security net that keeps their families fed, arrogant middle-class kids whose entire platform can now be reduced to graffiti in college bathrooms everywhere.

I'm fucking hopeless, and I'm starting to wish I had been more sectarian and dogmatist in the past.

Congratulations, you've realized that "the left" in the United States is minuscule and basically functions as an edgy mark of personal identity, though it's (barely) starting to emerge from that. As to your criticisms of anarchists, I'm not one, but I don't really mind them, especially since (no offense to the ones here) I don't see them becoming a relevant force, though they have slightly better odds than Reddit/Tumblr/Twitter Stalinist LARPers.

Yeah it's not like "Marxists" have a long history of betraying the masses and siding with the bourgeois.

I'm poor and an anarchist. I try and talk to people and get shit done. Some anarchists are more puritanical and non-compromising than other more practical ones.

I have always considered Anarchists to be the moral inner voice of the left, the problem comes when you give them too much attention. A lot of times, Anarchists have proven to be more concerned about moral or ideological disrupts than actual advancement of specific demands.

But this attitude is not always bad, at all. Personally, I have experienced how the students movement in my country got co-opted by SocDems, opportunists and people who were looking to make themselves a name in order to get into the business of institutional politics, and only the anarchists, people who we used to call LeftCom in my party (ML), and us denounced this situation, and there are possibilities that next year this odd mix will form a kind of coalition to counter them. In this case, theie ideological puritanism proved to be right, it proved that their "inner moral voice" role was benefitial, but a broken clock is correct twice a day.

As OP said, their refusal against any kind of pyramidal organization, as democratic as it could be, has proven again and again that they could bomb even the most legit movement if it doesnt acts exactly as their ideal model.

Anarchists are a double-eged sword, and should be handled with care and attention.

well it's not like "Marxists" have a long history of betraying other Marxists and siding with the bourgeois.

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Anarchists may be a little too idealistic (or naive) at times, but at least they protest whenever the other socialist factions perpetually compromise with capitalism and water down their message for the sake of maintaining their organization and power.

Work on your reading comprehension comr8

oh boy

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Damn man sorry for having to post from a phone. The keyboard here is not a precision wonder.

yea and venezuela is a good representation of what socialism is amirite

What is wrong with being "sectarian" anyway. Anarchism and marxism are two different ideologies.

Why should we work together with the anarchists?

All of the anarchists I know are just extremely edgy liberals (i.e., idealists with little to no theoretical framework). It's a shame, really.

There are some legit theoretical anarchists out there. We just need more thinkers

That applies to most socialists to be honest. Shit the Communist Party USA is supporting Clinton and most student groups are more concerned with microagressions or whatever than socialism.

What do you guys consider to be the final solution to the Anarchist question?

Socialism.

Anarchists are socialists. Haven't you read anything?

Yeah yeah, sure.

You're kidding, right?

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Answer is obvious. Radical democracy. Radical in the respect that you extend democratic consensus to as many people and decisions as possible. You need good math too, obviously. First past the post doesn't work.

Anarchists may not love every vote outcome, but you have to give them the chance to speak (free speech is necessary for democracy) and vote and field candidates if they so choose. Personal liberty is important to them and you'd hope radical democracy would grant that.

Poor form

this is coming from somebody who appreciates anarchism as a concept btw and thinks Bakunin and Kropotkin are thinkers every leftist, Libertarian or not should read. Fuck Bookchin, opportunist career scum

Bookchin's work is what inspired/inspires the systematic implementations going on in Rojava, so no.

ftfy

Still did something

Fantastic rebuttal

You are also a great example of anarchism's rich intellectualism

Haha leftypol isn't a place for debating. It should be but it just isn't. Besides, your claim wasn't very sophisticated either, and I'm too lazy.

Says who

Says who

Then it shouldn't be too hard to point out its flaws right

That's really no excuse for a valiant Social-Anarchist such as yourself, a bit contradicting to your idealogy innit :^)

Says me. What you just did shows why. You figure it out. Being unsophisticated doesn't really mean wrong. Since when am I a social anarchist? Green text is annoying.

Because they remind us to aviod the pitfalls of centralized power.

Fuck off.

An anarchist appealing to his own authority, how hillarious

Why

But I'm obviously too stupid according to you you tell me why you wonderful genius


Than my argument "not being very sophisticated either" shouldn't mean anything at all should it

I assumed you were since your appeal to authority which started this whole debacle was Bookchin and when I described why I thought he was bullshit your only response was "still did something". I concede that maybe that was hasty, but your inability to defend a figure you admire beyond saying he justifies himself because "he did something" led me to believe you are a social anarchist sorry (Stalin also "still did something" btw and if that's too "Godwin's Law" Derrida "still did something" as well)

Sorry didn't realize you were so thin skinned :^)


Why

Yo, you have a really bad attitude haha. I said, "says me" because I was literally the one who said it. I also never called you stupid. I only said your claim was unsophisticated because it was. It was unsophisticated in its PRESENTATION. Well duh! It was like two sentences. This doesn't mean that I think you can't explain your opinions in depth or in a complex way. I don't admire Bookchin. And yeah, green text is annoying and you just reminded me why again. By saying debates sucked on leftypol, I got myself into the most trivial of "debates." I'm not the person who told you to fuck off though.

Who else thought up communalism and municipalism? Who else thought of anarchist reformism being possible as a doctrine?

Bookchin is not someone to be disregarded just like that.

That is the point of anarchism, no?

Why is it bad?

So are some of the most profound quotes from historical thinkers or writers. Not saying I'm on their level as far as what I said, I'm certainly not, I'm just saying whether something is two sentences or not=! level of sophistication

You didn't say this, you said "leftypol isn't a place for debate, it should be but it just isn't" which implies that nobody can ever have a serious debate on Holla Forums or if they can they choose not to (which, for the sake of argument, if this was true, you would be adding to the problem not helping it at all by pursuing the line you've pursued this whole time btw)

Why is this debate trivial and why is it a "debate" rather than a debate

And?


Well communalism has also been known as "communism" and it's been around a while and Municipalism went by the name Anarcho-Syndicalism for a while and it was pretty popular in the 20th century


Appealing to your own authority and obeying only your own authority or the authority which you designate as okay using your authority is different from appealing to yourself as an authority on a topic which you obviously aren't even an authority on

A lack of "petty moralism" in leftism is what led to the Soviet Union.

Though any anarchists who oppose government institutions* because they are statist is an idiot. Capitalism and private power are the #1 enemies here.

*that is helpful government institutions like the DOE. Fuck the NSA, DEA, and ATF

that shit's nearly unreadable

it might help if you knew how to read

or it might be because i filtered your trip, faggot

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Good job my fellow Anglo! Keep alive the memory of the 100 million, sassenach!

Anarchists are fundamentally idealists so at the end of the day they can only serve as useful idiots, although they more often than not are useless idiots owning to their penchant for adventurism.

The legitimate inheritors of the "anti-statist" left are obviously left-communists whilst the thrust of the anarchist "movement" has only engaged in theoretical naval-gazing e.g the post-left and egoists.

Quite frankly outside of Platformists I consider anarchists to be enemy's of the working class movement particularly those of a life-stylist bent.

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Okay?

Please… please… just… no more of that picture

Well, fuck you buddy.

I guess all that union agitation was really against the worker's movement.
I guess aiding Marxists at every junction only to be stabbed in the back when we refused to bend the knee was a huge crime to working people.

I guess opposing capitalism of the state is being for capitalism.

I know that almost every anarchist would sooner side with mutualists than myself in any revolutionary situation, that alone is enough to qualify them as enemies to communism. To them class struggle takes a backseat in their bizarre crusade against whatever they perceive to be totalitarian. Why do we keep telling ourselves that denouncing these idiots is 'sectarian?' Disregarding the state is a handicap for any socialist movement that is only justified by the paranoid belief that any centralized power will be inherently tyrannical. They're already against us, these beliefs naturally incline them more towards socdems and demsocs than Marxists. And much like other reformists we all know they'll never accomplish anything, which is why it's a shame we have to take them seriously. If we don't they could steer potential communists sharply to the right.

Make no mistake, they are enemies to the communists and always will be. If by some miracle these people actually manage to take partial control of some sub-trillion GDP country again I have no doubts they would utilize whatever methods of violence are necessary to protect themselves, but as long as we do they same they'll continue to denounce us as 'Stalinist.'

Mutualists are anarchists and most anarchists are communists. What are you talking about?

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Anyone who is a self respecting real economic leftist should be in the end anti-state.

The whole problem comes down how do you topple the state? To this question anarchists respond by agitating a part of teh population without real class consciousness, which as we know hasn't done shit. Action for action's sake is the anarchists problem, hence their moralism against states.

Anarchists want the exact same thing that we do. They just have a different way of going about it. Their failure to account for material reality does not make them our enemies.

t. anarkiddie

Someone has been reading Bookchin, good one on ya.

revolution isn't a dinner party, what's right and wrong doesn't change based on how easy or hard it is to achieve

Both sides have way too much baggage these days. I will say that being dogmatic about morals is a lot worse than the shittiest economic determinism you can find in SocDem lit.

Or you know paying lip service to materialism (and forgetting negation of the negation *cough* Stalin) and then writing off the masses, that seems to be a big problem for the Marxists - along with ever asking 'Why the party is correct'?

Both sides forget to be dialectical more often than not when it comes down to praxis it seems.