Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)

  • Solar Bear@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    You lived in a country that called itself communist, in the same way that North Koreans live in a country that calls itself democratic. There has never been a country that actually achieved communism, because communism requires there be no state. At best these countries would claim that communism was their goal, but honestly most were lying, or at the very least co-opted and turned against their ideals somewhere down the line.

    • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      I do agree that the ideal communist state has never existed, though I need to challenge the assertion that communism demands the existence of no state. Anti-state philosophies are generally characterized as “anarchism” – it’s certainly true that communists and anarchists have historically held common interests, but in general they do not view themselves as members of the same group.

      It’s a weird distinction, but the distinction exists for a reason. Communists do not reject the establishment of a governing apparatus, so it’s actually very inaccurate to say that “communism requires there to be no state”. You could instead adopt the anarchist argument that “communism is self-defeating because it leads to the creation of non-communist states”, but keep in mind that this is in-and-of-itself a rejection of communism in favor of communal anarchism.

      • Solar Bear@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        The back and forth on what is and isn’t communism will continue until there aren’t two humans left to argue about it. I’ve described the classical Marxist view of communism including the withering away of the state. It has been redefined by various persons and groups over time, but I don’t have a high opinion of those definitions.

        Communists do not reject the establishment of a governing apparatus

        Anarchists also do not inherently reject the establishment of a governing apparatus.

        • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          The back and forth on what is and isn’t communism will continue until there aren’t two humans left to argue about it. I’ve described the classical Marxist view of communism including the withering away of the state. It has been redefined by various persons and groups over time, but I don’t have a high opinion of those definitions.

          Very eloquently put! If you’ll forgive me for quoting Engels (circa 1872) rather than Marx, I’d like to highlight a salient excerpt from his letters (bolded emphasis is my own, italicised emphasis preserved from original translation):

          While the great mass of the Social-Democratic workers hold our view that state power is nothing more than the organisation with which the ruling classes, landlords and capitalists have provided themselves in order to protect their social prerogatives, Bakunin maintains that it is the state which has created capital, that the capitalist has his capital only by favour of the state. As, therefore, the state is the chief evil, it is above all the state which must be done away with and then capitalism will go to hell of itself. We, on the contrary say: do away with capital, the appropriation of the whole means of production in the hands of the few, and the state will fall away of itself. The difference is an essential one. Without a previous social revolution the abolition of the state is nonsense; the abolition of capital is in itself the social revolution and involves a change in the whole method of production. Further, however, as for Bakunin the state is the main evil, nothing must be done which can maintain the existence of any state, whether it be a republic, a monarchy or whatever it may be. Hence therefore complete abstention from all politics. To perpetrate a political action, and especially to take part in an election, would be a betrayal of principle. The thing to do is to conduct propaganda, abuse the state, organise, and when all the workers are won over, i.e., the majority, depose the authorities, abolish the state and replace it by the organisation of the International. This great act, with which the millennium begins, is called social liquidation.

          […]

          Now as, according to Bakunin, the International is not to be formed for political struggle but in order that it may at once replace the old state organisation as soon as social liquidation takes place, it follows that it must come as near as possible to the Bakunist ideal of the society of the future. In this society there will above all be no authority, for authority = state = an absolute evil. (How these people propose to run a factory, work a railway or steer a ship without having in the last resort one deciding will, without a unified direction, they do not indeed tell us.) The authority of the majority over the minority also ceases. Every individual and every community is autonomous, but as to how a society, even of only two people, is possible unless each gives up some of his autonomy, Bakunin again remains silent.

          As you can see, even early Marxists did not actively advocate for the abolition of the state and in fact strongly sought to be perceived as separate from those who viewed abolition of the state as a fundamental prerequisite. Engels even ridicules the idea of completely abolishing state authority as magical thinking despite conceding that communism could eventually lead to the obviation of traditional state functions.

    • UnknownQuantity@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Fantastic! I thought that communism was impossible to achieve in a state, but if it is only achievable in ‘no state’, then we have to come up with a word more negative than ‘impossible’.