Ownership isn’t a preference. It’s the material anchor of class power.
Why do you think only ownership can be a “material anchor”? When someone can “own” something they’ve never been within a thousand miles of, why couldn’t another form of institutionally enforced authority over that object fulfill that same role?
But the solution isn’t to abandon proletarian authority. It’s to deepen mass line, criticism-self-criticism, recall mechanisms.
You reformist! ;)
Why would regulation offer any more resistance against the pressure of material relations between authority and worker within state communism than in liberal capitalism?
they end up adopting positions functionally close to MLs, because material conditions demand it. The “authority is inherently tyrannical” line is tyranny of bedtime idealism that collapses on contact with actual struggle
It’s natural that functions converge when pursuing the same goals, especially when the pressure is on. Pulling someone out of the way of a moving bus is going to look the same in all ideologies.
It’s also natural that when you ask someone raised in a statist society what they would do, they’re going to be primed to answer in a more centralized way. One of the nice things of anarchy is that other people can exercise their better ideas, so even if I give a bad answer they are free to give a good answer and people can go with that instead. That’s how you prevent beginner mistakes like the four pests campaign or the holodomor from killing millions of people.
You can’t dismantle the bourgeois state with decentralized cells.
You can if you want primitivism, but yeah dying of smallpox sucks. That’s why anarchists prefigure structures, as you note.
You can’t break imperial chains with sociocracy.
Why couldn’t you?
As I mentioned before, the below are just my personal guesses of what would be good options. Anarchist society is larger than me and will do better than me.
Who are “the people”?
Everyone, with those who can’t communicate effectively being assisted to have a say.
How do they coordinate at scale?
Sociocracy, federations, and whatever else they come up with and consent to.
How do they defend against counter-revolution
Shaping the material conditions towards decentralization and voluntary association, so there is nothing for the counterrevolution to seize.
imperial invasion
Shaping the material conditions to make places as hard as possible to hold with force, and the prevent the existence of strategic positions for the empire to hold. Decentralization, guerilla defense infrastructure, weapons caches. Mass solidarity. Propagandize among the invader’s population and encourage revolution and resistance there.
economic sabotage?
Decentralized local production. Long-lasting repairable goods. Living within your ecological means.
Perhaps to help make these ideas more concrete we could have drills/competitions where different communes or federations showcase the strategies they think work best so groups can share and learn empirically.
Why do you think only ownership can be a “material anchor”? When someone can “own” something they’ve never been within a thousand miles of, why couldn’t another form of institutionally enforced authority over that object fulfill that same role?
You reformist! ;)
Why would regulation offer any more resistance against the pressure of material relations between authority and worker within state communism than in liberal capitalism?
It’s natural that functions converge when pursuing the same goals, especially when the pressure is on. Pulling someone out of the way of a moving bus is going to look the same in all ideologies.
It’s also natural that when you ask someone raised in a statist society what they would do, they’re going to be primed to answer in a more centralized way. One of the nice things of anarchy is that other people can exercise their better ideas, so even if I give a bad answer they are free to give a good answer and people can go with that instead. That’s how you prevent beginner mistakes like the four pests campaign or the holodomor from killing millions of people.
You can if you want primitivism, but yeah dying of smallpox sucks. That’s why anarchists prefigure structures, as you note.
Why couldn’t you?
As I mentioned before, the below are just my personal guesses of what would be good options. Anarchist society is larger than me and will do better than me.
Everyone, with those who can’t communicate effectively being assisted to have a say.
Sociocracy, federations, and whatever else they come up with and consent to.
Shaping the material conditions towards decentralization and voluntary association, so there is nothing for the counterrevolution to seize.
Shaping the material conditions to make places as hard as possible to hold with force, and the prevent the existence of strategic positions for the empire to hold. Decentralization, guerilla defense infrastructure, weapons caches. Mass solidarity. Propagandize among the invader’s population and encourage revolution and resistance there.
Decentralized local production. Long-lasting repairable goods. Living within your ecological means.
Perhaps to help make these ideas more concrete we could have drills/competitions where different communes or federations showcase the strategies they think work best so groups can share and learn empirically.