[Paradigm]

In my experience, there's a lot of common ground between anarchists and Marxists. I've worked with Marxists on a number of different issues, from workplace organizing to foreclosure defense and many other leftist causes. The major difference - I would go so far as to say the irreconcilable difference between the two camps - lies in the issue of hegemony. Or as Richard Day, author of Gramsci is Dead, puts it: the hegemony of hegemony. Marxists seek to counter capitalist hegemony by creating a new hegemony of the party. Anarchists seek to oppose all forms of hegemony, including centralism, vanguardism, etc. Anarchists advocate revolution from the bottom up. Rather than imposing standards and institutions from the top down, we seek to create them organically through direct action. We can struggle together against capitalism, but at some point the issue of hegemony will create divisions.

[Dagoth Ur]

Revolution won't come from the unified group but a majority of the group. This means a bunch of workers will be our enemies, case closed. Cultural Hegemony is important because capitalist hegemony (on an international scale) will not be eliminated overnight. Acting like you can beat hegemony without a worker's one is like saying you can beat a bunch of guys with nukes with rocks and sticks.

[Goldberk]

Acting like you can beat hegemony without a worker's one is like saying you can beat a bunch of guys with nukes with rocks and sticks.

This argument falls apart if you consider the true enemy not to be capitalist hegemony but hegemony full stop.

Anarchists do not oppose who has power but the structure itself.

[Dagoth Ur]

What's bad about a hegemony of the majority? The anarchists unconsciously create one in worker's councils and proletarianization.

[Someone5]

What's bad about a hegemony of the majority?

The hegemony itself. The treatment of the other 40%. The intractability and inability to pursue something different.

The anarchists unconsciously create one in worker's councils and proletarianization.

You're always free to leave a worker council; to create another to represent the views of you and any fellows who agree with you.

[Goldberk]

The anarchists unconsciously create one in worker's councils and proletarianization.

Free association is key, hegemony prevents that.

[Dagoth Ur]

Anybody can choose to not be part of hegemony. I could go love in the woods and eat berries and be "free" from the bourgeoisie hegemony but the bourgeoisie hegemony still exists and is effected in no way whatsoever.

The hegemony itself.

Yeah that's not an answer to "why is hegemony bad". That's like saying it is because it is.

The treatment of the other 40%. The intractability and inability to pursue something different.

Okay none of that makes sense. I was always talking about a hegemony of the proletariat which is not even a simple majority but an overwhelming one. Secondly hegemony does not imply rigidity. The bourgeoisie doesn't enforce 50's morality anymore even without any threat to its hegemony whatsoever.

You're always free to leave a worker council; to create another to represent the views of you and any fellows who agree with you.

An army on one is meaningless. The Human is a strong thing not for its individual strength or intellect but his ability to form humanity with other humans. A proletarian hegemony (soon replaced by a socialist hegemony as the proletarian is eradicated by their own elevation to class rulers) is the hegemony of man with rebel outliers living in barbarity and anti-human "individualism" (aka libertine bullshit).

[Someone5]

Anybody can choose to not be part of hegemony.

The only way to do that in the United States is to check out of industrial life entirely and go find a retreat in the middle of the woods to live a subsistence lifestyle. It is possible (assuming you can set aside enough money to pay taxes on the property), but not really a practical answer to the problem. It's not a valid answer.

Yeah that's not an answer to "why is hegemony bad". That's like saying it is because it is.

It is "bad" because it forces people into roles they may or may not wish to hold; it is bad because it enforces a system of exploitation from which there are only self-destructive escapes--like your example of checking out of industrial society.

Okay none of that makes sense. I was always talking about a hegemony of the proletariat which is not even a simple majority but an overwhelming one.

Okay, it's still not a good scenario for the twenty or ten percent who aren't going along. Even worse, in fact. Of course, getting such a majority IS actually impossible. Ten people can't even agree on what to eat for dinner, let alone four hundred million constructing a hegemonic society by consensus.

Secondly hegemony does not imply rigidity.

Yes it does. It wouldn't be a hegemony if it was flexible; it wouldn't be a system at all if it was flexible.

The bourgeoisie doesn't enforce 50's morality anymore even without any threat to its hegemony whatsoever.

There are no meaningful threats to their hegemony in today's society. They are so ascendent it is difficult to imagine how people could meaningfully resist without decades of ground work. The only reason they aren't enforcing 50's morality is because they want 2013 morality. The rigidity of the system giving them the power to set that agenda is just as rigid today as it was fifty years ago. More rigid, perhaps, because at least back then socialists had some kind of voice--the government would at least give some token responses.

An army on one is meaningless.

It's a more valid response than your "check out of industrial society and go live in the woods" counter-example. Others are always free to go along with you, and if you're dissatisfied with the worker council for valid reasons, there are probably others who agree and will follow. If your dissatisfaction is not for valid reasons, well, then people rightly SHOULDN'T follow.

A proletarian hegemony (soon replaced by a socialist hegemony as the proletarian is eradicated by their own elevation to class rulers) is the hegemony of man with rebel outliers living in barbarity and anti-human "individualism" (aka libertine bullshit).

You are responding to a thread about why communists and anarchists have issues with each other; here you go. Your answer is precisely why communists and anarchists have issues with each other.

[Dagoth Ur]

The only way to do that in the United States is to check out of industrial life entirely and go find a retreat in the middle of the woods to live a subsistence lifestyle. It is possible (assuming you can set aside enough money to pay taxes on the property), but not really a practical answer to the problem. It's not a valid answer.

You don't get it. Human society, by definition, is a hegemony. It's never easy to leave such a thing but it is doable by those with enough degeneracy to abandon humanity.

It is "bad" because it forces people into roles they may or may not wish to hold; it is bad because it enforces a system of exploitation from which there are only self-destructive escapes--like your example of checking out of industrial society.

The issue is simple: hegemony = humanity. Also the division of labor is the problem not hegemony.

Okay, it's still not a good scenario for the twenty or ten percent who aren't going along. Even worse, in fact. Of course, getting such a majority IS actually impossible. Ten people can't even agree on what to eat for dinner, let alone four hundred million constructing a hegemonic society by consensus.

Your defeatism is quaint. Hegemony is in the interest of a class at large, not its individual components. We cannot be bogged down by pathetic fools so concerned with "getting their's". We have far too much to achieve.

Yes it does. It wouldn't be a hegemony if it was flexible; it wouldn't be a system at all if it was flexible.

... the fuck are you talking about? Systems by definition are rigid? Haha

Others are always free to go along with you, and if you're dissatisfied with the worker council for valid reasons, there are probably others who agree and will follow. If your dissatisfaction is not for valid reasons, well, then people rightly SHOULDN'T follow.

If you don't like what your local worker's council is doing then you organize to recall that council. Giving up and running away to form some new council is reactionary.

You are responding to a thread about why communists and anarchists have issues with each other; here you go. Your answer is precisely why communists and anarchists have issues with each other.

Actually most anarchists I know are so cowardly as to run away from things they don't like.

[Someone5]

You don't get it. Human society, by definition, is a hegemony. It's never easy to leave such a thing but it is doable by those with enough degeneracy to abandon humanity.

Human society can honestly break down into some fairly small units while still being considered a society.

I think I'm going to have to ask you the definition you're using for the word "hegemony" since it seems to bear no relationship to the customary definition. In real societies, people can agree to disagree.

The issue is simple: hegemony = humanity. Also the division of labor is the problem not hegemony.

Hegemony is the problem; without it people would be free to refuse any assignment of labor.

Your defeatism is quaint.

And realistic. Actual prospects for socialist reform or revolution are distant prospects that will require quite a lot of ground work in the developed world.

Hegemony is in the interest of a class at large, not its individual components. We cannot be bogged down by pathetic fools so concerned with "getting their's". We have far too much to achieve.

No you don't. I rather doubt you will achieve anything at all. If I were to venture a guess, I would say that you may well struggle your whole life without getting anything done. Because you're proposing something that very few people are interested in supporting.

Let me put it this way; how can you propose to advance a "hegemony of the majority" by saying you know best for what people need? Can't be done. The only way people will actually have their class interests protected is to give them the means and the motive to protect their own interests. That means breaking down these systems of coercion--which is a goal in direct opposition to communist objectives.

[/quote]... the fuck are you talking about? Systems by definition are rigid? Haha[/quote]

They really are quite rigid.

If you don't like what your local worker's council is doing then you organize to recall that council. Giving up and running away to form some new council is reactionary.

It's really not. A reactionary approach would be to say "no way jack, I'm not playing that game, and if you and your followers come near me I'll shoot them." Peacefully departing and opting to pursue a different course of action is not reactionary at all--that's how a sane democratic society would function.

Actually most anarchists I know are so cowardly as to run away from things they don't like.

Better a "coward" than a tool, as most communists end up becoming.

[Dagoth Ur]

Human society can honestly break down into some fairly small units while still being considered a society.

Any unified society is a hegemony of its ruling body, no matter the form that society takes. From the tribal chieftain to the communist/anachist worker's councils.

I think I'm going to have to ask you the definition you're using for the word "hegemony" since it seems to bear no relationship to the customary definition. In real societies, people can agree to disagree.

Agreeing to disagree is in no way a contradiction of hegemony. Hegemony is simply the organs of society being directed towards the interests of the ruling class. Worker's Councils are precisely this.

Hegemony is the problem; without it people would be free to refuse any assignment of labor.

No without your own hegemony you will find yourself under the yoke of your enemy's hegemony. Can you point to any time in history where societies did not maintain hegemonies (at the very least local ones)? Also in a communist hegemony the division of labor would cease to exist and man would be finally able to find individual fulfillment.

A

nd realistic. Actual prospects for socialist reform or revolution are distant prospects that will require quite a lot of ground work in the developed world.

So? I never said revolution was around the bend. But like most defeatists you lack any fortitude of spirit.

No you don't. I rather doubt you will achieve anything at all. If I were to venture a guess, I would say that you may well struggle your whole life without getting anything done. Because you're proposing something that very few people are interested in supporting.

To begin with I didn't say "I" have a lot to achieve but "we" (read: the proletarians who are set to inherit the world) have much to achieve. Namely the reorientation of society into a pro-majority hegemony (something that has never graced this Earth). To continue I don't mind if all my life's work leads to little to nothing. I agitate for the people even if the people are lost in false consciousness. Unlike you I have a great love for humanity.

Let me put it this way; how can you propose to advance a "hegemony of the majority" by saying you know best for what people need? Can't be done. The only way people will actually have their class interests protected is to give them the means and the motive to protect their own interests. That means breaking down these systems of coercion--which is a goal in direct opposition to communist objectives.

Convincing and Coercion are one in the same. Quit your moralizing. Also I never said I know what is best for the everyone but I know what is the best for me as a worker. I also know most workers agitate against their own interests (especially working class randites).

They really are quite rigid.

*sigh* How are systems rigid by definition?

It's really not. A reactionary approach would be to say "no way jack, I'm not playing that game, and if you and your followers come near me I'll shoot them." Peacefully departing and opting to pursue a different course of action is not reactionary at all--that's how a sane democratic society would function.

No it's reactionary because you want all the benefits of a socialist society without any of the hard work that goes with it. What you mentioned is just violently reactionary.

Better a "coward" than a tool, as most communists end up becoming.

Being a coward is always awful, a coward is not even a human because he has replaced his love of man with love of self. If I'm a tool for the liberation of man I'm not so selfish as to resist. Like it or not there are things more important than you.

[Deutschmania]

I currently think of myself as being a Communalist. And while I do not like to get into arguements over specific ideologies, lest I generate antagonism between myself and others on the left, I do feel that my positions bridges the gap between anarchism, and Marxism. The question remains though, in respects to left anarchism vs. Communism, what constitutes a state? For example, in the example of Murray Bookchin, I advocate in favour of libertarian municipalism. But, would such a community represent a worker's state, or would it constitute a voluntary association? I know that even amongst declared anarchists there is discrepency between indivisualists, and collectivists. There are even platformists whom advocate organised revolutionary action. But, the question still remains, are those like me anarchists, or are we Communists? For now anyway, I just have my ideology listed as being socialist. But yet , a libertarian socialist, may have views ranging from council communism, on one hand, to mutualism, on the other end. And different persons might end up describing me as being either anarchist, or Communist. I've gotten conflicting results from various political tests too. In closing, I feel that Communists, and anarchists, have enough common ground to form common cause, in some instances anyway. But I also feel that anarchist federations should not permit Marxist-Lenists to upstage them. Organizational autonomy is important I think. And no cadre should be expecting to impose some sort of partyline upon other comrades in the revolutionary class struggle.

[KurtFF8]

The main issue tends to be abstract. Marxists tend to think that Anarchists are treating a symptom instead of the root of the problem. Dissolving the state would destabilize certain institutional inequalities, for sure. However, without replacing the means of production and all that it entails—giving people the ability to live better lives with fewer restrictions.

I completely disagree with this assessment. The struggles between Marxists and Anarchists, while they do date back to Marx and the First International , may seem abstract in places like the US and internet forums: have real political reasons behind them.

The classic cases are of course Russia, Spain, and Cuba where Communists and Anarchists alike joined to fight a common foe, to then turn on each other. This wasn't the result of abstract arguments, but real political opposition by the anarchists towards the Communists efforts to construct a proletarian state. Take Cuba for example, the Anarchists were opposed to the idea of building a workers state from the start, which put them in the category of opposition to the very political process that was ongoing at the time. That coupled with the fact that Cuba increasingly saw itself on the "wrong end" of US imperialism made them a genuine threat to the revolution.

It may sound abstract to talk about the role of a proletarian state after a revolution to protect the new ruling class (the proletariat) from the old elements (the old bourgeois ruling class), but in a case like the Cuban revolution where the old ruling class was actively attempting to retake power while more and more soliciting the support of the most powerful country in the world that happened to be 90 miles away... Well it becomes less abstract and more a question of survival.

I'm not trying to drive a wedge between anarchists and socialists here (I have plenty of anarchist friends and we have worked on common political projects throughout the years) but too often it's framed in this idea that this is an abstract debate, not a historical one.

[The Immortal Goon]

I don't disagree that it becomes a historical and real debate in actual revolution. Ukraine is always a good example. Unable to organize effectively against the Whites, the Reds had to wipe out the anarchists in order to fight the reaction.

In such a situation, Engels was proven correct:

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

However, his conclusion was that all anarchists are reactionary. And I disagree because of something else he mentions:

When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that's true, but there it is not the case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.

And to this I say, let them change the word so long as they're fighting for the right side. But you are right to point out that it ceases to be cosmetic argument when forced to deal with reaction and the administration of a socislist or worker's state.

Even here though, the anarchists of certain stripes prove useful. The libertarians turned anarchists will naturally be opposed by both Marxists and anarchists into collectivism. In the same sense, the survivalists and other reactionaries will be naturally peeled away by both Marxists and other anarchists.

So in this sense, I don't see anarchism as a legitimate threat. By their very nature they cannot stand against organized Marxists. And they themselves are divided by radically different interpretations of the same think. Like Lenin said of the Mensheviks, the cream came to the Bolsheviks during revolution.

And we are not at revolution, let alone construction for the conditions of socialism. So as it stands now, I do think it is a cosmetic difference for the time being.

[KurtFF8]

Yeah I don't disagree with any of that on principle. If anything I think that Communists and Anarchists need to have a sort of united front in a revolutionary period. But in a place like the US where real working class anarchism is all but absent, I don't see it going beyond a theoretical exercise any time soon.

[jc_]

That coupled with the fact that Cuba increasingly saw itself on the "wrong end" of US imperialism made them a genuine threat to the revolution.

I consider this an excuse, though. And a weak one, at that. If you believe your system is the best system then suppressing "dissent" (people who do not believe your system is the best system) is only proof that your system is, in fact, not the best.

[Goldberk]

If you believe your system is the best system then suppressing "dissent" (people who do not believe your system is the best system) is only proof that your system is, in fact, not the best.

But what if those people who believe your system is not the best are wrong, should they be allowed their dissent? Even if said dissent leads to a worse system for all?

[KurtFF8]

I consider this an excuse, though. And a weak one, at that. If you believe your system is the best system then suppressing "dissent" (people who do not believe your system is the best system) is only proof that your system is, in fact, not the best.

This doesn't make a bit of sense. Cuba was genuinely under assault from the United States. The Cuban state, and thus the Cuban working class (whom the state claimed to represent) were actual targets of the forces of the old ruling class in alliance with the United States government.

Anarchist publications also opposed the Cuban government, seeking its dissolution while it was under attack. It isn't some measure of how to morally construct the best society, but in a time of war (which included actually invasion attempts, threats of air strikes, etc.) the Anarchist position was genuinely that of opposition to the revolutionary state.

Suppressing dissent is not a uniform move. Not all dissent is the same, there are different class movements, different ideological movements, etc. Likewise supporting all dissent is an absurd move that some "Leftists" try to make. We shouldn't just jump to supporting people on the streets opposing their governments on an abstract principle of "supporting the people" without first analyzing both the class character of said movements, and the political consequences of said movements.