You have a hypothesis, but it doesn’t actually map out to the experience of socialist countries. For example, wealth inequality in the USSR was far lower than Tsarist Russia or the modern Russian Federation:
Systems like recall elections and anti-corruption campaigns exist to keep corrupt officials in check, and socialist forms of democracy require administrators to be elected, either literally working their way up from the bottom as in the PRC, or through other forms of candidate proposal and approval like in Cuba.
Nope, my main criticism is from the perspective of a historical materialist. Communalization of production goes against the direction society is heading in in such a fashion that it would completely eliminate key industries like medical production beyond what can be manufactured in small communities or a couple linked ones, nothing comparable to modern mass manufacturing. It would be a dramatic loss in productive capability, and would further give rise to capitalism once again as these communities begin to compete.
That’s part of it, yea. The next mode of production is built on the foundations of the existing mode of production, this has happened every time a change in mode of production has occured. The modern era of mass manufacturing has built the bedrock of socialism, of a coordinated and collectivized system of production and distribution with the working classes on top of society.
Anarchism has no such basis in modern society, and every time it has been attempted it has either been extremely small, extremely short-lived, or both. We cannot simply build a society by imagining it, we have to examine historical trajectory. This is what turned socialism from utopian to scientific, and enabled the establishment of long-lasting socialist states that dramatically improved the world.
I don’t really think you can, my problems with anarchism are multi-layered and comprehensive, not something simple to be summarized into a single line. I’ve given more than enough to work off of if you want a discussion on that, I feel.
You have a hypothesis, but it doesn’t actually map out to the experience of socialist countries. For example, wealth inequality in the USSR was far lower than Tsarist Russia or the modern Russian Federation:
Systems like recall elections and anti-corruption campaigns exist to keep corrupt officials in check, and socialist forms of democracy require administrators to be elected, either literally working their way up from the bottom as in the PRC, or through other forms of candidate proposal and approval like in Cuba.
So your main criticism is historical evidence for anarchist models?
Nope, my main criticism is from the perspective of a historical materialist. Communalization of production goes against the direction society is heading in in such a fashion that it would completely eliminate key industries like medical production beyond what can be manufactured in small communities or a couple linked ones, nothing comparable to modern mass manufacturing. It would be a dramatic loss in productive capability, and would further give rise to capitalism once again as these communities begin to compete.
So your main criticism is that anarchism isn’t feasible because it cannot reproduce mass manufacturing?
That’s part of it, yea. The next mode of production is built on the foundations of the existing mode of production, this has happened every time a change in mode of production has occured. The modern era of mass manufacturing has built the bedrock of socialism, of a coordinated and collectivized system of production and distribution with the working classes on top of society.
Anarchism has no such basis in modern society, and every time it has been attempted it has either been extremely small, extremely short-lived, or both. We cannot simply build a society by imagining it, we have to examine historical trajectory. This is what turned socialism from utopian to scientific, and enabled the establishment of long-lasting socialist states that dramatically improved the world.
I’m trying to summarize your primary criticism into one line here.
I don’t really think you can, my problems with anarchism are multi-layered and comprehensive, not something simple to be summarized into a single line. I’ve given more than enough to work off of if you want a discussion on that, I feel.
I’m not trying to unravel your entire outlook, just respond to your best argument. Is there one you’d put at top?
To put it in the simplest terms possible, and in a single sentence:
Anarchists reject historical materialism, and this rejection leads anarchists to idealist analysis that manifests in the form of utopianism, whereas Marxist advancements in philosophy led to the development of dialectical materialism and its application forming the aforementioned historical materialism and modern scientific socialism.