You don’t need hierarchy to have a common plan, but I’ll get back on the bits relating to management and time-critical aspects mentioned here later.
Not convinced on hierarchies not being exploitative. The higher up you go in the corporate ladder, the more room the person has to exploit those beneath him. You say managers do not steal surplus value, which I’m not sure is the case. Additionally, I wasn’t solely referring to economic exploitation. Workplace conditions are often highly toxic and higher-ups are routinely able to get away with their abuse of those under them because of hierarchy. Hierarchy not only enables, it attracts power-hungry people who abuse it. Patriarchy is another good example of hierarchy directly causing abuse.
Regarding the necessity of hierarchy for a common plan, you do need it at the scale I am referring to, to coordinate all of these moving parts. Horizontal communication works best for when 2 parts of the supply chain interact, but having a plan on top of them coordinating even the disconnected links is necessary in many cases, and helpful in nearly all.
You’re turning your fear of potential for abuse into a reason to abandon an incredibly useful and necessary tool. Do you also argue against fire, because it can spread if we aren’t careful and wary? Is fire “evil?” Hierarchy does not attract “power-hungry people” either, people typically work to better their own conditions.
As for patriarchy, it isn’t something that exists in a vacuum, it’s directly related to class society and its problems. Marxists have studied the origin of the form of the family and the role of women since Marx and Engels, and some of the founding Bolsheviks were women, such as Alexandra Kollontai.
It’s not merely “potential” or a “fear” thereof, it’s a historically established pattern. If I were to describe it the way you do from historical perspectives, I’d frame it as “the necessary and natural outcome”.
Apples to oranges analogy with fire. Fire doesn’t subjugate people, fire doesn’t put people in positions where they can belittle, abuse, or otherwise coerce others beneath them.
Again, you’re not engaging with the reasoning I gave for this.
Patriarchy would not exist without hierarchy. Female Marxists existing doesn’t change that.
So yeah, hierarchy is “evil”. I just used that phrasing for brevity, it can be explained scientifically.
I do believe hierarchy attracts power hungry people.
Coercive domination and subjugation requires hierarchy, but I’m not sure if that is a concern for you.
The fire analogy absolutely applies, you’re turning your fear of abuse into the belief that abuse is omnipresent. The fear that fire could spread does not mean we cannot overcome this and account for it, same with administration and management.
Patriarchy does not exist because of nebulous “hierarchy,” it exists as an established part of how class society evolved over time, relegating women to unpaid domestic labor to maximize returns on paying a single male laborer, and this arrangement too is gradually shattered by capitalism as women are simultaneously proletarianized while also expected to keep up with their feudal and early capitalist roles.
Coercive domination and subjugation doesn’t require management and administration either. Abuse can happen between peers who share the same societal position. Management can absolutely abuse its position, but just like fire, it does not mean that this has to happen, or that it cannot be safeguarded against.
What matters to me is that we build a better world, where we collectively produce and distribute to satisfy the needs and wants of all, along a scientific plan. Ideologies that are ultimately unworkable go against the progress towards this goal, and I believe anarchism falls into this. Anarchists are certainly better than liberals, in that we both share capitalism as an enemy, but anarchists do ultimately take a position I believe weakens the movement.
A good example is what happened to anarchists in Russia. Anarchism is not an exclusively proletarian ideology like communism is, in fact many bourgeois and many, many petite bourgeois anarchists exist. In Russia, after the revolution, the proletarian and peasant anarchists overwhelmingly joined the communists, while the petite bourgeois and bourgeois anarchists rebelled against the socialist state. The reason for this is that proletarian and peasant power was uplifted by socialism while the position of the petite bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie were weakened and oppressed.
You’re still not engaging with my reasoning. I gave you reasons as to why fire is nothing like it.
Patriarchy is literally a type of hierarchy, if all hierarchy was abolished, patriarchy would too by nature of it being a type of hierarchy.
Just because coercive domination and subjugation can occur outside of hierarchy, doesn’t mean hierarchy isn’t the primary cause of it. As stated earlier, this is historically well-established and is a necessary outcome of hierarchy.
I engaged with your reasoning, I just disagree and explained why. Fire is alike in all the ways that matter for my points: a potentially dangerous but also immensely useful tool that we can learn and study to more effectively and more safely use. Just like we can create procedures and fire-resistant equipment, we can organize administration in such a fashion that corruption and abuse are nearly non-existent and directly accountable. They are not literally the same, but for the purpose of comparison serve a similar role.
Patriarchy is indeed a form of hierarchy, but you don’t get rid of patriarchy by eliminating some nebulous concept of hierarchy in general. This is an idealist argument, not a materialist one. You abolish patriarchy by eliminating the material basis of patriarchy in particular, and the social basis of patriarchy in the modern era is in capitalism and class society. Management and administration existing does not imply patriarchy, even if present administration is male-dominated. In all socialist societies, the role of women in administration and women’s rights in general have exploded.
Hierarchy is not the cause of abuse. Hierarchy can help facilitate abuse if we are not careful, but just like wildfire, fire and management are not the cause.
You don’t need hierarchy to have a common plan, but I’ll get back on the bits relating to management and time-critical aspects mentioned here later.
Not convinced on hierarchies not being exploitative. The higher up you go in the corporate ladder, the more room the person has to exploit those beneath him. You say managers do not steal surplus value, which I’m not sure is the case. Additionally, I wasn’t solely referring to economic exploitation. Workplace conditions are often highly toxic and higher-ups are routinely able to get away with their abuse of those under them because of hierarchy. Hierarchy not only enables, it attracts power-hungry people who abuse it. Patriarchy is another good example of hierarchy directly causing abuse.
If you ask me, these are evil.
Regarding the necessity of hierarchy for a common plan, you do need it at the scale I am referring to, to coordinate all of these moving parts. Horizontal communication works best for when 2 parts of the supply chain interact, but having a plan on top of them coordinating even the disconnected links is necessary in many cases, and helpful in nearly all.
You’re turning your fear of potential for abuse into a reason to abandon an incredibly useful and necessary tool. Do you also argue against fire, because it can spread if we aren’t careful and wary? Is fire “evil?” Hierarchy does not attract “power-hungry people” either, people typically work to better their own conditions.
As for patriarchy, it isn’t something that exists in a vacuum, it’s directly related to class society and its problems. Marxists have studied the origin of the form of the family and the role of women since Marx and Engels, and some of the founding Bolsheviks were women, such as Alexandra Kollontai.
It’s not merely “potential” or a “fear” thereof, it’s a historically established pattern. If I were to describe it the way you do from historical perspectives, I’d frame it as “the necessary and natural outcome”.
Apples to oranges analogy with fire. Fire doesn’t subjugate people, fire doesn’t put people in positions where they can belittle, abuse, or otherwise coerce others beneath them.
Again, you’re not engaging with the reasoning I gave for this.
Patriarchy would not exist without hierarchy. Female Marxists existing doesn’t change that.
So yeah, hierarchy is “evil”. I just used that phrasing for brevity, it can be explained scientifically.
I do believe hierarchy attracts power hungry people.
Coercive domination and subjugation requires hierarchy, but I’m not sure if that is a concern for you.
The fire analogy absolutely applies, you’re turning your fear of abuse into the belief that abuse is omnipresent. The fear that fire could spread does not mean we cannot overcome this and account for it, same with administration and management.
Patriarchy does not exist because of nebulous “hierarchy,” it exists as an established part of how class society evolved over time, relegating women to unpaid domestic labor to maximize returns on paying a single male laborer, and this arrangement too is gradually shattered by capitalism as women are simultaneously proletarianized while also expected to keep up with their feudal and early capitalist roles.
Coercive domination and subjugation doesn’t require management and administration either. Abuse can happen between peers who share the same societal position. Management can absolutely abuse its position, but just like fire, it does not mean that this has to happen, or that it cannot be safeguarded against.
What matters to me is that we build a better world, where we collectively produce and distribute to satisfy the needs and wants of all, along a scientific plan. Ideologies that are ultimately unworkable go against the progress towards this goal, and I believe anarchism falls into this. Anarchists are certainly better than liberals, in that we both share capitalism as an enemy, but anarchists do ultimately take a position I believe weakens the movement.
A good example is what happened to anarchists in Russia. Anarchism is not an exclusively proletarian ideology like communism is, in fact many bourgeois and many, many petite bourgeois anarchists exist. In Russia, after the revolution, the proletarian and peasant anarchists overwhelmingly joined the communists, while the petite bourgeois and bourgeois anarchists rebelled against the socialist state. The reason for this is that proletarian and peasant power was uplifted by socialism while the position of the petite bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie were weakened and oppressed.
For more on that last bit, see Gramsci’s An Address to Anarchists, describing this process.
You’re still not engaging with my reasoning. I gave you reasons as to why fire is nothing like it.
Patriarchy is literally a type of hierarchy, if all hierarchy was abolished, patriarchy would too by nature of it being a type of hierarchy.
Just because coercive domination and subjugation can occur outside of hierarchy, doesn’t mean hierarchy isn’t the primary cause of it. As stated earlier, this is historically well-established and is a necessary outcome of hierarchy.
I engaged with your reasoning, I just disagree and explained why. Fire is alike in all the ways that matter for my points: a potentially dangerous but also immensely useful tool that we can learn and study to more effectively and more safely use. Just like we can create procedures and fire-resistant equipment, we can organize administration in such a fashion that corruption and abuse are nearly non-existent and directly accountable. They are not literally the same, but for the purpose of comparison serve a similar role.
Patriarchy is indeed a form of hierarchy, but you don’t get rid of patriarchy by eliminating some nebulous concept of hierarchy in general. This is an idealist argument, not a materialist one. You abolish patriarchy by eliminating the material basis of patriarchy in particular, and the social basis of patriarchy in the modern era is in capitalism and class society. Management and administration existing does not imply patriarchy, even if present administration is male-dominated. In all socialist societies, the role of women in administration and women’s rights in general have exploded.
Hierarchy is not the cause of abuse. Hierarchy can help facilitate abuse if we are not careful, but just like wildfire, fire and management are not the cause.