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People following me on here because of my objectively awesome and correct takes who are then shocked and appalled to discover that I an anarchist and that I genuinely and truly advocate the abolition of the state have forgotten the “objectively awesome and correct” part.
@HeavenlyPossum its so weird to me when someone will agree with me about political/economical stuff until the find out where those ideas come from.
“If we abolish the state, who will protect us from villains like Donald Trump and Elon Musk?!?” bitch I’m begging you to think critically about the state for like half a second
@HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes what about Bezos and Zuckerberg?
@alessandro @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes their monetary influence over the state is no less responsible for where we are now
@xale @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes certainly, but I don't think a lack of state would check their power. I for one am a believer in a publicly-held power to prevent unchecked antisocial powers like corporations. I know this ground has been trodden by far smarter people than me but I'm skeptical that anarchism can avoid becoming Ancapistan.
@alessandro @xale @squeakypancakes
They *are* the state, in the sense that they only have power over you because of state violence, and in the sense that the state is an arm of the capital class. When I say “bitch I’m begging you to think critically about the state for even a second” I’m talking to people like you.
*The public does not wield power via the state.* The state is not publicly-held power.
@alessandro @xale @squeakypancakes
Zuckerberg and Bezos only have power because the state coercively guarantees their control over the labor of others.
They have used that power to manipulate elections in their favor and seize control over the dissemination of information to shape public opinion in ways favorable to their politician allies.
They are, fundamentally, two sides of the same coin. The idea that the state somehow represents public power to constrain capitalist elites is just a fundamental misunderstanding of public power, the state, and capitalism.
@alessandro @xale @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes
Are Bezos and Zuckerberg out in the streets personally, carrying weapons and assaulting people themselves? Are they personally, physically guarding their properties (businesses and ideas)?
It's critical to understand that private property, intellectual property, and capitalism (the sources of Bezos' and Zuckerberg's power) cannot exist without state.
"But they could hire private armies!"
And pay them with what? Without state there is no currency in the sense we have now: universally accepted and required.
Without Enclosure and enforced wage slavery, people do not have to seek jobs to survive and therefore are not subject to the exploitation and extortion that grants power to people like Bezos and Zuckerberg.
AnCaps have a completely incoherent ideology, opposing state but thinking that capitalism is cool and can exist apart from state. They can think these absurd thoughts only because they operate under a ridiculously inept and disingenuous definition of capitalism, equating it with "voluntary exchange". Capitalism is nothing of the sort. There are reasons the word was not coined until the 1800's; there are reasons why capitalism as a global system did not emerge until the foundations of state, Enclosure, and colonialism were firmly set. I guarantee you that "Ancapistan" is not a real concern at all. That's not to say that there could never be any tyrants or violent gangs in the absence of state, but they wouldn't be capitalists.
@RD4Anarchy @alessandro @xale @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes Violent gangs is literally how most of the european countries were founded - they are a proto-state. A Prince is an old word for a ring leader of a party that was riding horses around and looting the local villages for tribute. If violent gangs appear, it's not anarchy but a state allover again.
@alessandro @xale @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes You are operating on an idea that abolishing the state is the same as taking society as it is and simply removing the state from it, ignoring the revolutionary struggle between today and anarchy.
@Sabodeeds @alessandro @xale @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes
Dual/parallel power. Build better systems on anarchist principles now, and constantly, to render the bad systems obsolete and to catch people as the bad systems collapse. That is the backbone of the revolutionary struggle.
@alessandro @xale @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes Re: “I for one am a believer in a publicly-held power to prevent unchecked antisocial powers like corporations.” Can you give an example of that actually happening? Particularly in the last 50 years?
@alessandro @xale @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes last time i checked, money was printed by state reserve and had its founders on it.
@alessandro @xale @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes
As David Graeber observes, "Despite the persistent liberal assumption—rooted in Adam Smith's legacy—that states and markets are somehow opposed, historical evidence reveals the opposite: stateless societies typically lack markets." Consequently, it is state-imposed taxation, artificial scarcities in land, housing, and technology, and regulatory monopolies over sectors like banking and healthcare that compel us into exploitative relationships. We are forced to pay rents to landlords, interest to bankers, profits to bosses, and royalties to pharmaceutical companies, or become dependent on a capitalist or political class for essential services like healthcare. Without the state's intervention, these markets—and the corporations they sustain—against which we must constantly defend, would cease to exist.
@HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes I usually frame the discussion in terms of the radical democratization of the state, and devolution of its powers and functions to local level where communities most impacted by policies can be involved in decisionmaking.
Whether we could eventually abolish the state entirely doesn't seem like a discussion worth having yet, as we haven't gone far enough along the above path to know to what extent that might be practical or even desirable.
@ApostateEnglishman @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes a system of autonomous communities seems like a possible way of getting rid of the state. In some situations a government may collapse, but most people are not anarchists and will just make another one. An anarchist community has anarchist members; anybody who decided that they didn't want to be an anarchist could look for some other community to take them in. Even an AnCap community may be possible by consent.
@ApostateEnglishman @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes it has been described before in a unique style in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo%27bolo
@ghouston @HeavenlyPossum @squeakypancakes Thanks for this, Gary, I'll give it a careful read once the appropriate blood-caffiene ratio has been achieved!