I am a Marxist who believes that the means of production should belong to the workers (not the state), and an Anarchist who dislikes the coercive nature of social hierarchy.
There is no such thing as anarcho-Marxism. You do not know what neither of these terms mean if unironically believe you are both.
The only plausible way one could justify anarchism in a Marxist framework is if they submitted a thesis demonstrating a flaw in Marx’s analysis of capitalism’s development and showed that the trends he identified will not actually occur, but rather, capitalism trends towards the foundations of a new mode of production conducive to anarchism instead.
But if you point this out, most anarchists’ heads explode, and they have no idea what you’re even talking about. I remember asking one other self-identified anarcho-Marxist for this analysis, and he looked at me and said, with complete sincerity, “what does the development of capitalism have to do with socialism?” Indeed, I recall another telling me that the development of capitalism has nothing to do with socialism, because the systems are “different,” so of course we’re just going to change it all so it doesn’t matter.
Do you actually understand what I’m talking about at all?
I understand what you are saying very well. I did not however, describe myself as an anarcho-Marxist, nor would I. I pretty clearly stated that there are aspects of liberalism, Marxism, and anarchism that I agree with. I don’t adopt any of those as my political identity, however, because each of those ideologies has problematic ideas, theorists, adherents, and histories.
A lot of socialism’s problematic histories stem precisely from revolutionaries in agrarian monarchies ignoring the fact that it is supposed to be a post-industrial, post-capitalist economic system. The lack of existing industry in those countries led to authoritarianism in an attempt to compete economically with capitalist nations, and in most cases that predictably led to fascism with a veneer of socialist/communist marketing.
Anarchism is an ideal - I don’t want to say it is unachievable, but humanity is currently far from ready for the level of vigilance it would take to maintain such a system, and I have no good ideas for how to get there from here. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can do within our current societies to push things in that direction culturally and economically, but I don’t think that overcoming the entrenched state powers directly is likely anytime soon. And since it has become clear in the last decade that much of the world doesn’t remember or never properly learned the political lessons of the 20th century, I think that the best we can hope for in the short term is a more peaceful world in which wealth inequality is shrinking rather than growing and human/civil rights are expanding.
There is no such thing as anarcho-Marxism. You do not know what neither of these terms mean if unironically believe you are both.
The only plausible way one could justify anarchism in a Marxist framework is if they submitted a thesis demonstrating a flaw in Marx’s analysis of capitalism’s development and showed that the trends he identified will not actually occur, but rather, capitalism trends towards the foundations of a new mode of production conducive to anarchism instead.
But if you point this out, most anarchists’ heads explode, and they have no idea what you’re even talking about. I remember asking one other self-identified anarcho-Marxist for this analysis, and he looked at me and said, with complete sincerity, “what does the development of capitalism have to do with socialism?” Indeed, I recall another telling me that the development of capitalism has nothing to do with socialism, because the systems are “different,” so of course we’re just going to change it all so it doesn’t matter.
Do you actually understand what I’m talking about at all?
I understand what you are saying very well. I did not however, describe myself as an anarcho-Marxist, nor would I. I pretty clearly stated that there are aspects of liberalism, Marxism, and anarchism that I agree with. I don’t adopt any of those as my political identity, however, because each of those ideologies has problematic ideas, theorists, adherents, and histories.
A lot of socialism’s problematic histories stem precisely from revolutionaries in agrarian monarchies ignoring the fact that it is supposed to be a post-industrial, post-capitalist economic system. The lack of existing industry in those countries led to authoritarianism in an attempt to compete economically with capitalist nations, and in most cases that predictably led to fascism with a veneer of socialist/communist marketing.
Anarchism is an ideal - I don’t want to say it is unachievable, but humanity is currently far from ready for the level of vigilance it would take to maintain such a system, and I have no good ideas for how to get there from here. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can do within our current societies to push things in that direction culturally and economically, but I don’t think that overcoming the entrenched state powers directly is likely anytime soon. And since it has become clear in the last decade that much of the world doesn’t remember or never properly learned the political lessons of the 20th century, I think that the best we can hope for in the short term is a more peaceful world in which wealth inequality is shrinking rather than growing and human/civil rights are expanding.