- 16 Aug 2020 19:20
#15113701
Please suggest me some easy readings if possible explain it to me in simple words. Thanks !!
Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...
Wellsy wrote:What comes to mind is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_confederalism
Philosopher101 wrote:How is it even related to Anarchism ? It talks about government in Democratic Confederalism, when in anarchism, Government is a unnecessary evil. They don't even talk about Individuality. Basically, my question is that, does democracy play any role in an anarchist society ?
Wellsy wrote:Well thats some of he controversy over Murray Bookchin in his later years of whether he was really an anarchist but democratic confederalism was inspired by him.He wanted to develop a state on basis of Marxist-lenin theory, where they claim, we'll start with a state but in the end, society will reach at a point where the roles of state will be left to nothing and Stateless society will be achieved. But it never happens. Never happened. Because people in power make sure that it won't achieve the end anyway.
And anarchy opposes hierarchy fundamentally more so than rejects any form of governance I thought. It emphasizes the voluntary nature of association. Although its not clear to me how they conceive of the state and its basis.
Philosopher101 wrote:He wanted to develop a state on basis of Marxist-lenin theory, where they claim, we'll start with a state but in the end, society will reach at a point where the roles of state will be left to nothing and Stateless society will be achieved. But it never happens. Never happened. Because people in power make sure that it won't achieve the end anyway.
Wellsy wrote:Fair enough.I found majority wrong in most of cases. Maybe, i would sound like an authoritarian or something but it is duty of philosophers to get public aware about true nature of freedom. Anarchy does the shit for them. But still we need people to understand it. There's many people who they're either unaware to true freedom or just don't find it necessary as per they have been used to of it. I'm not personally in favour of democracy. Because I'm seeing disaster which from we're going through in our country. I wanna know more about republic or Republicans. Who they're and what they believe in and how anarchy behaves side by side with Republicans ?
Back to the thread topic though, my own thought is that I imagine some anarchists might respond in rejection of the authority of the majority or even consensus decision perhaps.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ziq-do-anarchists-support-democracy
But then I do wonder if there is any legitimate collective decision making process. Majority got favour with the capitalist class and eventually working class, then consensus got legitimized from quakers and eventually movements in the US.
But the emphasis on the individual free from force/coercion from others against their will seems to be the sort of freedom from interference/negative freedom and doesn’t have a clear basis for a social group other than what is already founded in capitalism although it is of course an ideal abstraction for liberalism in consider people as freely entering into mutual relations free from coercion.
But then anarchists of a more communitarian sort might not outright reject democracy as an ideal via majority vote or perhaps even consensus. But they probably reject liberal democracy and want to somehow change the quality of a person’s vote and how people are represented. Although its seems there is opposition to representation as part of the problem of democracy as they are seen as not true representatives. Or they are true representatives but of their class and not the majority.
What kind of answer would you give to the thread topic? Do you think their compatible and how?
Philosopher101 wrote:I found majority wrong in most of cases. Maybe, i would sound like an authoritarian or something but it is duty of philosophers to get public aware about true nature of freedom. Anarchy does the shit for them. But still we need people to understand it. There's many people who they're either unaware to true freedom or just don't find it necessary as per they have been used to of it. I'm not personally in favour of democracy. Because I'm seeing disaster which from we're going through in our country. I wanna know more about republic or Republicans. Who they're and what they believe in and how anarchy behaves side by side with Republicans ?
Whereas Marxists pursue class warfare to advance their goals, liberals pursue an opposite strategy of the neutralization of conflicts. They refuse to distinguish between friend and enemy, and thereby they reject the core of the process that creates political identity. Liberals by nature want to diffuse social tension and struggle, and by doing so, they try to turn politics into administrative affairs. Schmitt criticizes this tendency towards neutralization and asks them: “how can you decide not to decide?” By avoiding conflicts, they reject the other as other. Liberalism allows differences, but only within a legal framework that understands itself to be rational, hence also universal. This will render fundamental differences into degrees of similarity, thus failing to recognize the real differences between people or groups of people. Liberal parliamentarians try to decide all questions by law, but what they really do is attempting to defang and tame politics. The consequence of a liberal understanding of the state is a weakening of the state that exposes it to the dangers of political factions, such as fascists, Bolsheviks, or, in today’s environment, to large corporations and lobbying groups. Schmitt argues that liberal republicanism is not really a political doctrine; it is a negation of politics, an attempt to replace real politics with law, morality, or economics. In fact, liberal parliamentarians are elitist as well, without admitting or recognizing it. They think they represent moral and legal humanism. The enemies of liberal societies, then, are easily labeled as anti-humanist, or even as terrorists whose motivation nobody can understand. The next step is to treat them as insane, anti-social, or as enemies of all of humanity.
Abstract unqualified objects cannot exist because they cannot affect matter, and thereby cannot bring about the expression of their essences. It is for this reason that Marx says “abstract individuality is freedom from being, not freedom in being” (Doctoral Dissertation on Epicurus, MECW 1:62). Moreover, Marx argued, reasoning based on contemplation of such abstract objects will necessarily lapse into methodological idealism, eschewing material determinations as mere appearances that distract from a proper appreciation of the nature of reality, rather than being the absolute starting place for a proper understanding of reality.
...
Marx's second argument against Kantian morality is that its focus on the free will belies the extent to which the will is itself determined by material conditions and material interests. The abstraction of the “free will” is illegitimate according to Marx because it attempts to prize apart the intellectual life of individuals from their economic, social, and historical context. A person with a will that is “wholly independent of foreign causes determining it,” to adopt Kant's phrase, simply does not exist in reality, and therefore such a subject makes a rather poor starting point for moral theory. (Later, in 1853, Marx writes, there critiquing Hegel, “Is it not a delusion to substitute for the individual with his real motives, with multifarious social circumstances pressing upon him, the abstraction of “free-will” — one among the many qualities of man for man himself”74!)
Liberal rights and ideas of justice are premised on the idea that each of us needs protection from other human beings who are a threat to our liberty and security. Therefore liberal rights are rights of separation, designed to protect us from such perceived threats. Freedom on such a view, is freedom from interference. What this view overlooks is the possibility — for Marx, the fact — that real freedom is to be found positively in our relations with other people. It is to be found in human community, not in isolation. Accordingly, insisting on a regime of rights encourages us to view each other in ways that undermine the possibility of the real freedom we may find in human emancipation.
Thus, the social bases of liberalism are two-fold: the raising of property to the status of the primary social relation, and the loss of community, the loss of the capacity to appeal to or rely upon shared meaning beyond the satisfaction of individual desire.
...
In each of the historical settings that MacIntyre investigates, he is able to show that the type of justice and the type of rationality which appears to the philosophical spokespeople of the community to be necessary and universal, turns out to be a description of the type of citizens of the community in question. Accordingly, the justice of liberalism and the rationality of liberalism is simply that justice and that rationality of the “citizens of nowhere” (p. 388), the “outsiders,” people lacking in any social obligation or any reason for acting other than to satisfy their desires and to defend the conditions under which they are able to continue satisfying their desires. Their rationality is therefore that of the objects of their desire.
Consensus fosters certain duties and virtues which are not fostered by Majority. The ethic of Consensus is above all inclusion. Discussion will continue until every point of view has not just been heard, but taken account of in the proposal. Even laissez faire supports inclusion in that multiple actions are an alternative to pressing on for actual unity. Consensus does not foster solidarity however, because the dissident minority is free to go their own way and is under no obligation to support the majority in their decision.
Consensus expresses respect for others, for the different. Whereas in Majority, the dissident is tolerated, because after all, the collective can always move to a vote. In Consensus, this option is not open; the collective must continue discussing until the dissidents’ point of view has been incorporated. This can lead to intolerance for persistent nonconformity, but at the same time it denotes respect for the different opinion
I don’t believe that equality is an ethical principle which is relevant to Consensus; different persons are considered incommensurable rather than equal. Abstract decision making by the counting of votes is discounted in favour of exhaustive efforts to find a creative solution to differences.
There is a serious problem with Consensus however, which has ethical implications; this is the paradox of the status quo: if there is no consensus, then the status quo ante is the default decision. Let’s suppose someone can’t hear what is being said in the meeting and proposes that the air conditioning be turned off; if anyone refuses to agree, then the air conditioning stays on. But let’s suppose the complainant had simply turned it off and then left it for someone to propose that it be turned on – it would remain off. Let us suppose that all the employees in a privately owned firm meet with the owner with a view to transforming the firm into a cooperative; everyone agrees except the owner; so, under the paradigm of Consensus, the firm remains in private hands. Clearly social transformation cannot be achieved by Consensus, because participation in a social order is compulsory, and there is no possibility of opting out.
Maintenance of the illusion of “objectivity” is essential, and MacIntyre sees the universities as playing a crucial role in the maintenance of this illusion. Since academics rely for their livelihood on disproving each other’s theories, the resulting interminable and esoteric debate continuously re-establishes the impossibility of consensus.
“In the course of history liberalism, which began as an appeal to alleged principles of shared rationality against what was felt to be the tyranny of tradition, has itself been transformed into a tradition whose continuities are partly defined by the interminability of the debate over such principles. An interminability which was from the standpoint of an earlier liberalism a grave defect to be remedied as soon as possible has become, in the eyes of some liberals at least, a kind of virtue”. (p. 335)
Far from this failure to find any firm ground undermining liberalism, MacIntyre believes that it reinforces it, because one of the fundamental bases for liberalism is the conviction that no comprehensive idea (to use Rawls’ term) can enjoy majority, let alone unanimous, support. This then justifies the ban on governments pursuing the general good.
Philosopher101 wrote:You actually just gave me lots of reading, which I liked obviously but it will take little more longer to answer your questions. As first I'm curious to know that, what is the source of this writing -Spoiler: show
Plus I want to point out it, there's difference in between "Liberals" and "Left Libertarians". Anarchism is sect of left libertarianism. In parliaments liberals are actually Right wing. Maybe the writing is quite applicable for liberals and right libertarians but left libertarians aren't elitists.
Wellsy wrote:Dissatisfaction with liberal democracy isn't necessarily authoritarian except in the eyes of liberals who frame everything illiberal as irrational.Yes, let me clear you some of points here. Current Liberalism that can be seen in USA, isn't what that it used to be. The crucial terms or ideologies have been flipped in between Liberalism and Conservatism.
What do you think freedom is?
I have tried to think on this fleetingly at times when trying to consider a sound basis for free will.
https://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=167524.
The best position I see is a kind fo compatibilism that is defined by self-determination as opposed to freedom from being determined.
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/10867/1/VWills_ETD_2011.pdf
My concern with those that posit freedom from influence tend towards the metaphysical sense of free will which seems nonsensical as it falls into Descartes problem of substance dualism and can't explain that which is higher(cultured) in man whilst retaining the sense of his continuity from a common ancestor with apes (evolutionary theory).
And I worry about the extent to which this freedom from influence is in particularly influenced by an individualism based within capitalist relations which is defined in an anti-social way.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/#2.1
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/macintyre2.pdf
And just to be clear, when you say republicans you don't mean specifically the US Republican party but those who believe in Republicanism generally correct?
Because one might point out the anti-democratic tendencies of the modern republican party of the US and it's historical efforts to minimize democracy even in its liberal form (who can vote in the abstract and practically).
Which doesn't mean they're not republicans as a republic can be quite anti-democratic.
And there are major limitations with the majority vote where it can only effectively decide between two options and it can be fatally messed with depending on who gets to decide what those two options are.
I wonder if Anarchists might see a the greater appeal in consensus decision making which I think relates well to some ideas about prefiguration (acting in a way that one envisages for the future society.
In consensus no one can force even the minority to do anything against their will, they can simply go their own way. The one problem with consensus decision making is that it makes it difficult to change anything as there is a tendency towards the status quo.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Collaborative%20Ethics.pdf
A concern of this is once again that it is a reflection of liberalism's strength to appeal to the indeterminable nature of consensus so as to defend the status quo and never change things.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/macintyre2.pdf
It can become impotence for social change although it has been useful for whether one wants to be included in certain actions within a movement of the 20th century. And it's not a decision making process without merit, it's just that it seems to have problems in regards to providing solidarity within conditions of modernity and prompting change, it is prone to fragmentation based on differences rather than unity towards an end despite differences of the minority (ie dissent and then unity in action based on the majority)
So would you say you find the above tendencies on consensus more appealing to you? This is why I prompted a point about decision making. Consensus decision making is relatively recent in origins and affinity for it gives a natural dislike for majority vote which seems oppressive to a minority viewpoint.
I'm curious to hear what you think about all this all though it is a lot.
Philosopher101 wrote:Yes, let me clear you some of points here. Current Liberalism that can be seen in USA, isn't what that it used to be. The crucial terms or ideologies have been flipped in between Liberalism and Conservatism.
You can understand it pretty well, here :-
Second point that I wanna make about the writings of "Carl Schmitt", a conservative thinker. Liberals would be elitist but Liberals are very different than libertarians. Conservatives also have their head up their ass, but they aren’t elitist. They’re openly racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and antisemitic, but they aren’t elitist. But some people believes that they're elitists too, on basis of what i mentioned about them above, for further understanding read this “Conservative Elitists” by William B. Turner https://link.medium.com/4y0jamX358
Third Point is that, they all are right wing in America . Liberals are Democrats and right wing, conservatives are right wing as well even Right wing Libertarians also exists there. I believe Right wing ideology is the issue, they did overlap in past as well like with liberals. John Stuart Mill's writing on liberalism shows that he wasn't Libertarian but he wasn't an elitists as well, he was in support of Socialist System. So I believe overlap can be possible. I found personally that right wings are dangerous.
"The Distribution of wealth … is a matter of human institution solely. The things once there, mankind, individually or collectively, can do with them as they like. They can place them at the disposal of whomsoever they please, and on whatever terms. Further, in the social state, in every state except total solitude, any disposal whatever of them can only take place by the consent of society, or rather of those who dispose of its active force [i.e. government]. Even what a person has produced by his individual toil, unaided by any one, he cannot keep, unless by the permission of society. Not only can society take it from him, but individuals could and would take it from him, if society only remained passive; if it did not either interfere en masse, or employ and pay people [i.e. police] for the purpose of preventing him from being disturbed in the possession. The distribution of wealth, therefore, depends on the laws and customs of society. The rules by which it is determined are what the opinions and feelings of the ruling portion of the community make them, and are very different in different ages and countries; and might still be more different, if mankind so chose."
The aim is, rather, to present production – see e.g. Mill – as distinct from distribution etc., as encased in eternal natural laws independent of history, at which opportunity bourgeois relations are then quietly smuggled in as the inviolable natural laws on which society in the abstract is founded. This is the more or less conscious purpose of the whole proceeding. In distribution, by contrast, humanity has allegedly permitted itself to be considerably more arbitrary.
...
In the shallowest conception, distribution appears as the distribution of products, and hence as further removed from and quasi-independent of production. But before distribution can be the distribution of products, it is: (1) the distribution of the instruments of production, and (2), which is a further specification of the same relation, the distribution of the members of the society among the different kinds of production. (Subsumption of the individuals under specific relations of production.) The distribution of products is evidently only a result of this distribution, which is comprised within the process of production itself and determines the structure of production. To examine production while disregarding this internal distribution within it is obviously an empty abstraction; while conversely, the distribution of products follows by itself from this distribution which forms an original moment of production. Ricardo, whose concern was to grasp the specific social structure of modern production, and who is the economist of production par excellence, declares for precisely that reason that not production but distribution is the proper study of modern economics. [18] This again shows the ineptitude of those economists who portray production as an eternal truth while banishing history to the realm of distribution.
Conclusion :- Overlap of other theories and ideology on Anarchism is possible. It is happening anyway currently, where you can be aware to the terms like Anarcho-capitalism, Anarcho-communism/Marxism and other right wings terms in anarchism.
And thank you so much for welcoming me here.
The implementation of such a genuine, substantive freedom of course would require “despotic inroads117 on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production,” something Marx already wrote earlier, in The Communist Manifesto (Manifesto of the Communist Party, MECW 6:504). It would neither be a realization of bourgeois freedom nor would it even be commensurate with, or justifiable on the basis of, bourgeois freedom and equality, even as it is bourgeois production which makes this substantive freedom first possible.
The very term "Zionist" now has taken on[…]
The world is not a Nazi paradise with color codes[…]
...People tend to empathize with victims of viole[…]
Charles de Gaulle's (French president from Januar[…]