this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Friedrich Engels, 1872, On authority

Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is. It is the act by which one part of the population imposes its will on the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannons — by the most authoritarian means possible; and the victors, if they do not want to have fought in vain, must maintain this rule by means of the terror which their arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if the communards had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach them for not having used it enough?

Therefore, we must conclude one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they are only sowing confusion; or they do know, in which case they are betraying the proletarian movement. In either case, they serve reaction.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

People seriously still quote On Authority? 🙄

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I found the quote interesting. Is the source material bad? How so?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Engels conflates authority with basically everything: necessity, organization, processes, violence, self-defense, etc.

This video thoroughly debunks the essay

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

An anticommunist breadtuber (but I repeat myself) debunks Engels 😂 Anarchism, unlike Marxism-Leninism, has yet to succeed in the real world for more than a few months. We will welcome anarchists’ lectures once they’ve proven their theory in praxis.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Anything else than ad-hominem attacks and wishful thinking? Like actually engaging with the actual critique, tankie?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Anarchism’s lack of success to date is historical fact, and I think that’s reason enough not to take the time to engage with some Burgerland anarchist’s video essay.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Someone's scared, I see.

What a great theorist Engels must have been, given that you must find ridiculous excuses in order to avoid engaging critically with his work. /s

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

So, tell me: in what way is necessity, the laws of physics or self-defense the same thing as a monopolization of decision making power?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

On authority is used to justify the fact that many communist movements of the past turned into brutal dictatorships and that "it's fine actually that mao starved half of China because you can't have a revolution without being authoritarian".

The actual paper is short and kind of stupid. What Engels was arguing in that short essay with a ridiculously outsized influence was that he was technically correct (the best kind) that anarchists are silly because any type of government someone could propose inevitably involves one person imposing their will on another like your quote says.

Really what Engels (who was a prominent communist thinker) was doing was fucking up any attempts at communist organization because now 1/3 of communists think that brutal authoritarianism is based and necessary for a revolution.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Just because you have trouble comprehending something doesn't make it stupid.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

To this day, nobody's actually articulated any counterpoints to it, so yeah.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Just cause you chose to ignore the well-founded critique, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If the critique was well founded we'd see it applied in practice in the real world. The fact that anarchists aren't able to put their ideas into practice shows that they can be safely binned.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Libertarian socialists have come closer to achieving socialism than any state in the ML tradition.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Xi will give the means of production back to the workers yany day now* I can feel it. /s

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Will this be implemented before or after they allow non-state-run unions to exist?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

socialism is when non-state-run unions 🤣

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Do you understand the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

If memorizing age of consent laws by region is achieving socialism, then sure.