cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/42620143
Their lives are blissful… free from the burden of self doubt.
Revolutionary Spain represents an example of extremely effective armed resistance to the rise of fascist forces backed by Hitler and Mussolini, surviving for years. By contrast, many established democracies collapsed relatively quickly when invaded.
For more information, you can check out an anarchist FAQ’s answer to the question, “Does revolutionary Spain show that libertarian socialism can work in practice?”. For a more current example of an anarchist society working in practice, you could also check out the Zapatista movement, an anarchist society which today consists of at least 300,000 people.
If you’re unfamiliar with anarchism, you probably have some misconceptions about it, so I encourage you to watch the Q&Anarchy video series by Thought Slime or have a look through an Anarchist FAQ, because it’s almost definitely nothing like what you think.
A couple of years sounds nice but no fully anarchist society has ever overthrown a state and remained stable long-term at a national level.
I get that its more of a ‘process of radical change’ rather than an objective ‘end goal’, but i always thought anarchy was strangely way too optimistic about human cooperation. No rules (obviously there would have to be some), police or concept of state? With the amount of people ive encountered on this planet, that requires everyone to think exactly the same or change their views accordingly at the same exact time. Oof good luck with that
Anarchists believe in rules, we just don’t believe in rulers. We believe that the people who live and work in a place should decide the rules of that place, rather than the king or billionaire or whoever.
You should check out the Q&Anarchy video series, it addresses all of the concerns you have, and then some.
Doesnt address the insane amount of optimism with no long-term proof. Zapatista sounds great, but they are focused on the self-determination of indigenous Mayan communities. Its small and niche, different to an entire country with different races all mixed in with different views
Anarchism is completely compatible with individuals acting according to their self interest - indeed, egoist anarchism is entirely centered around that concept, but other anarchist traditions are fully compatible with self-interest. An incredible amount of optimism in human co-operation and selflessness is not necessary.
they are focused on the self-determination of indigenous Mayan communities
You’ve unintentionally touched on what makes anarchism so stable - by its very nature because it is built by the people who live and work in an area, it can be perfectly attuned to meet their needs! An anarchist society formed in a city would be completely different from one formed in the rural countryside. It is not an imposed blueprint for society that follows some dogma, it’s an approach where everyone involved in the society has a say in how it’s run, and no one has power over others. That’s all!
So stable*
*for a couple of years
Zapatista sounds great, but…
for a couple of years
Put some respect on your elders.
It is not a nationwide example of anarchy, so no
You’re a perfect example of the original meme, just moving the goalposts constantly.
I haven’t forgotten the time you refused to accept that a society without homelessness would be good so I have no doubt you’re arguing in bad faith at this point.
I hope one day you’ll figure things out and join us, but until then, we’ll fight for you. Much love and solidarity forever!
anarchism rejects nations, so why should its success be judged based on national borders? a successful society is av successful society
that is a really weird bar to have to clear. “well, your anarchy doesn’t conform to our borders, so it doesn’t count” ???
Nobody sane wants to live like the Zapatistas.
“You are in Zapatista territory in rebellion. Here the people command and the government obeys.”
Speak for yourself, because that sounds fucking awesome, to me.
read some of the links OP helpfully posted to clear up the misconceptions about anarchism you display in your comment
This feels like reading the headline “Promising treatment for cancer in rats discovered” and immediately sticking your dick in a microwave because apparently “you will be fine”
Liberals can’t help falling over themselves to claim anarchism always fails despite the fact that anarchism resisted fascism more effectively than liberal nations and despite the fact that liberalism inevitably leads to fascism.
Liberalism is collapsing into fascism right now. It always has, and it always will. It is inevitable.
If we want to resist the rise of fascism, it would be good to learn from an example which was more successful at doing so than every other nation in mainland Europe, no?
How does capitalism inevitably lead to fascism?
Basically, the issue with capitalism is that the more wealth you have, the easier it is for you to make more money. And since money can be used to buy goods, services and influence, there is always a way to use money to gain more political and social power. With that political and social power, you can push society and the legal system in the direction you want to go. So you can use your wealth to gain power, and then you can use your power to change laws and society so that you can make even more wealth and power. It’s a positive feedback loop.
Obviously, though, if the billionaires and ruling class are accumulating more and more of our society’s wealth, that inevitably means that there’s less for everyone else to go around - therefore, working class people feel poorer and poorer. Meanwhile, the economy is going absolutely great for rich people, so inflation continues to go up - everything gets more expensive, but wages don’t increase. The wealthy just keep more and more of the wealth for themselves. To accumulate more and more wealth, they change the laws so that they can avoid paying taxes, so public services collapse. Politicians are lobbied to ensure that public funds are diverted away from where it is most needed - housing, healthcare, transportation, infrastructure - and instead into industries where their class interests most benefit from it, such as weapons manufacturing and extractive industries such as fossil fuels and mining.
The working class are bound to notice that their lives are getting shittier and shittier, and if that situation is left unchecked, the working class would realize that the ruling class are fucking them over, rise up, and overthrow their rulers. Obviously, the ruling class need to do something about this, but there’s no solution that the ruling class can offer. They’re causing all of the problems, to fix them they’d have to give up some of their wealth and power - and that’s not something they’re going to do. So they need to find someone else to blame the problems we have in society on. Unfortunately, though, no matter who they blame the problems on, and no matter what they do to “fix” it, the issue will continue to persist, because the material conditions underlying the issues are, very intentionally, never addressed.
So, the conundrum returns: The ruling class said that minority A caused all of the problems, minority A is persecuted and oppressed, but society doesn’t actually get any better. Either the problem wasn’t minority A, or minority A just hasn’t been oppressed enough yet. So the ruling class can either escalate the oppression, or they can shift the focus to another minority group. The division continues to escalate in terms of how vitriolic and extreme it is, and it also continues to divide the working class into smaller and smaller groups.
To get the working class to buy into this hateful message, they need to take advantage of our worst instincts, and one of those instincts is the in-group bias. The majority are manipulated into being suspicious, then intolerant, then hateful, then violent, then genocidal, towards whatever the targeted minority of the day is. Anything that can be used to divide the working class - sexuality, nationality, immigration status, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, age, all of these will be used as wedges to keep the working class split apart and not working together, because they know that if the working class actually unite against them, they are completely and truly fucked.
That’s exactly how fascism manifests. It’s because it’s possible for people to accumulate power through wealth. This is why capitalism must be abolished. If we do not abolish capitalism, fascism will always return. It’s just a matter of time.
But can't capitalism can be reformed?
While, of course, some laws to reform capitalism can be passed, and would definitely alleviate the worst harm caused, over the long term, capitalism cannot be reformed.
Any attempts to reform, democratize or socialize capitalism may yield short term improvements to quality of life of the working class, but if capitalism is not abolished, it will always reassert itself, and capitalism inevitably leads towards fascism.
The New Deal prevented the US from sliding into fascism in the 20th century, so that’s ultimately a good thing, but it did not go far enough, and that’s why we have the resurgence of fascism in the 21st century America.
So the system that lasted for less than 3 years before enabling Franco worked better than the system between Washington and Nixon? Fascism arises from popularism, someone giving three word answers to difficult questions, it’s always going to rise up and people like to unite under the idea they could get on with things witbout the world being messy and complicated. I quite like the idea of a head of state and cabinet being chosen by lottery, I believe it would have the exact same ebbs and flows of an elected person. but I know that eventually someone would come in and put a stop to it.
And did Fidesz directly provide the crib notes or did they let you copy paste from r/politics directly?
So the system that lasted for less than 3 years before enabling Franco
It fought tooth and nail for three years against a regime which was supported by Hitler and Mussolini. Clearly they should have used anarchist magic to defeat a regime that completely dominated the continent.
America was never invaded. If it had been, it would have folded like a paper bag. Heck, it still hasn’t been invaded, and yet it is fascist anyways, and has been for a long time now.
did Fidesz directly provide the crib notes or did they let you copy paste from r/politics directly?
I wrote literally all of it myself. I haven’t been on Reddit for years. I notice you’d rather disparage me than actually address any of my arguments, and I prefer not to waste my time with people who argue in bad faith, so I will leave this here.
Much love, solidarity forever!
Now let’s compare that to China, who won its freedom while fighting Fascist Japan. Slightly over 3 years.
With all due respect - I don’t really want to argue with a fellow leftist here while there are liberals attacking us all over the place - the CPC was hardly the only force in China fighting against Imperial Japan, the Second United Front also involved various nationalist forces, including the Kuomintang and various warlords. Were it not for Chinese nationalism and anti-Japanese sentiment, the socialists would have been utterly crushed long before the Japanese invasion of China.
I don’t really want to argue with a fellow leftist here while there are liberals attacking us all over the place
Me, an ML, defending my anarchist comrades from the liberals o7
Appreciate the support comrade! It’s not uncommon for me to defend communist states/leaders in much the same spirit, whenever I see them being unfairly maligned, such as recently where I defended Mao Zedong, my anti-imperialist goat. Stalin is a bit harder to defend. I’d defend Khrushchev, except I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone criticise him. Probably because most liberals don’t really know much about the USSR tbh.
Anyways, solidarity!
Exactly. The Chinese communists were barely fighting the Japanese. The nationalists did most of that. The communists were hiding out in remote areas during the long march. After the Japanese had left, the communists managed to beat the weakened Nationalists.
I knew it was liberal party of MAGA that is bringing fascism
Both US mainstream parties were neoliberal, so… yeah? I’m not sure if you were being sarcastic or not. They enabled eachother. While the Republicans are much worse, the Democrats didn’t prevent the rise of fascism, because doing so would have required moving towards the left, which would have impacted the class interests of wealthy donors. If the Democratic party hadn’t gone around parading with Liz Cheney and denying the genocide, they’d have won, they literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with Harris/Biden.
But in reality, the real reason why democrats lost is because the party and majority who support it are quite lazy people. In all stats/online pollings the democrats should have won, but they didn’t because only minority actually went to vote.
If democrats had the same engagement as conservatives, it would have been an easy win.
The Democrats didn’t have a candidate who inspired people to get out and vote. They just keep trying to appeal to some moderate centrist vote which doesn’t actually ever materialize.
If Harris didn’t peddle the exact same anti-immigrant, pro-israel, genocide supporting neoliberal shit and instead advocated for medicare for all, wealth tax, opposition to war, and bringing Israel to heel, she would have absolutely swept the election.
That’s why the Republicans had a stronger turnout. Trump was offering his base all of the psychotic shit they love.
You can’t blame voters for not being engaged and getting out to vote when the very best they can hope for is the not-quite-as-bad-as-Trump candidate. That shit does not work. They need to actually give their voters things they want, not just be the lesser evil.
You cannot imagine how little people cared about the things you care about in US (Ie. Israel/Gaza). It was mostly social media being loud about it, but it didn’t affect the results. If you genuinely thought Harris would support Israel more than Trump, I have few bridges to sell you.
You cannot imagine how little people cared about the things you care about in US (Ie. Israel/Gaza)
Well, to begin with, Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people was just one issue I mentioned among half a dozen, but I think you’d actually be surprised:
Top Democratic officials who worked on the party’s still-secret autopsy of the 2024 election concluded that Kamala Harris lost significant support because of the Biden administration’s approach to the war in Gaza
If you’re making the point that Israel’s genocide wasn’t the biggest contributor to Kamala’s loss, I would agree. Polling has shown that voters care about medicare for all and the cost of living crisis far more, but the DNC completely refuse to address those issues in any meaningful way either. The fact is, they put the interests of the wealthy before the interests of the working class, because of wealthy and corporate donors, and PACs. With that said, Israel’s genocide absolutely was quite a significant issue, and acting like it wasn’t just because you feel like it wasn’t, is ignorant denialism.
If you genuinely thought Harris would support Israel more than Trump, I have few bridges to sell you.
Do you not recognize that I am presenting a nuanced position? I’m not saying that Harris was worse than Trump, I’m saying that she did not significantly differentiate herself from Trump because she held positions that were close to the Republican party and she refused to yield to the left/progressive flank of the Democratic party, and that is why the Democratic party lost.
You really should come to terms with the fact that the Trump presidency is now in power because the DNC refused to give working class voters what they want, because the DNC is more responsive to their wealthy donors than they are to the needs of the working class. Both mainstream parties are completely beholden to the interests of the ruling class.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Spanish anarchists. Their story is very romantic and inspiring. However, they didn’t exactly succeed no? The Spanish put up a solid resistance to fascism but in doing so they had to abandon quite a few of their ideals. I mean they had labor camps yk? They had to a build a semi-state apparatus in order to survive and I think that really undermines the message here.
Ok but it didn’t work.
I’m not saying anarchism as a political concept is doomed to failure based on history (though one could make an argument) but when looking to the past for inspiration toward the future, a few years of anarchist political experiment in Spain does not instill much confidence.
They fought tooth and nail for three years against a regime which was supported by Hitler and Mussolini. Clearly they should have used anarchist magic to defeat a regime that completely dominated the continent.
For a more current example of an anarchist society working in practice, you could also check out the Zapatista movement, an anarchist society which today consists of at least 300,000 people.
The Zaptistas have their ideological base not purely in western anarchism and Marxism. Liberation theology and catholic religion plays a big role in practice. They also emphasize a mystical connection to the land (people of maize), so their ideology is adjacent to blood & soil nationalism in some ways. They also leverage lots of traditional power structures like family clans, tribal loyalties, and such.
They have been successful in a way as they are still around and actually have local government structures in place that seem to work. However the EZLN hasn’t succeeded in providing stability and security to the region. Economically it’s still one of poorest regions in Mexico.
The limited success of the Zapatistas is more a sign of the weakness and failures of the central government of Mexico. They have managed to build a somewhat functioning local government and militia providing security in a remote poor rural area.
Similarly to the Machnov anarchists in Ukraine, Catalan anarcho-syndicalists, they leverage ethnic nationalism for cohesion.
What the Zapatistas have achieved is admirable, but their model doesn’t transfer to highly developed multi ethnic multi cultural highly urbanized countries with disintegrating social bonds.
Western contemporary anarchists are mostly fringe and usually not well connected with traditional structures like family, ethnicity, nation, religion.
Pretty sure the Spanish Anarchists lost to Nazis, so…
Why don’t we compare to some other nations, to see how long they lasted before falling to fascism?
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Greece: 7-8 months
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Norway: 2 months
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France: 6 weeks
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Poland: 5 weeks
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Belgium: 18 days
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Netherlands: 5 days
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Denmark: 6 hours
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Revolutionary Spain: 2 years, 9 months
That implies that the Anarchists ever took control of the nation away from the Nationalist party which knelt down to the Nazis IMMEDIATELY. So not only was it a failed state, but a failed revolution which never controlled the state.
The Nationalists were the fucking nazis, my guy, the clue is right there in the name. They were backed by Hitler and Mussolini.
Clearly, unless the anarchists somehow defeated the German Reich and Italy pretty much single-handedly, you view it as a failure. Yet, while neoliberalism is failing now, you don’t see the failures of liberalism.
the point of anarchism is not to control the state, but rather to stop having one. for the territory that made up anarchist Spain, that was successfully achieved. it’s no weakness of anarchism itself to be defeated militarily; all kinds of societies have been defeated militarily.
That’s kind of my point. They didn’t manage to do that. Spain still existed, and even stamped out the anarchists.
they did it for years in a significant territory. the state had no power there during that time. that was a success, even if it was rolled back by a nationalist military (supported by nazi Germany) and undermined by authoritarian communists. also, again, there’s rojava & zapatista Mexico currently, plus other historical examples.
why are you demanding an impossible standard of perfection before you are willing to fight for a better life for yourself and everyone else? that’s just doomerism and it serves the capitalists.
It’s not an “impossible standard” to expect a movement to create any lasting changes, or even at a bare minimum oppose fascism, to be considered a success.
You’ve had multiple examples of things pointed out to you that meet that standard. It just doesn’t look like anything to you.
Liberalism embraces fascism. Liberalism becomes fascism.
You are a fascist.
it’s hard to keep your brand new society when the tanks show up immediately. this is not a weakness of anarchism or any political system.
you can look to rojava and the zapatistas for an example of defense that has worked for years despite long odds.
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Both of your examples fared incredibly poorly under external pressure and collapsed. Which is pretty much what happens with every poorly aligned group of people.
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Mexico itself is under a lot of pressure due to the cartels, some of which are armed and supported by the United States to act as a destabilizing force.
But the Zapatistas are not hiding from the threat. How can a territory with borders containing hundreds of thousands of individuals hide? They are taking the threat seriously, of course, and have heightened security, but aren’t hiding.
By contrast, Stalin would have probably executed a few thousand innocent people to respond to such a situation.
How can a territory with borders containing hundreds of thousands of individuals hide?
Real Wakanda EZLN
Do you not understand what is a state? Zapatista is essentially Amish community within a state. They can exist due to Mexico’s trade deals, security from external factors and bunch of other things the surrounding state is giving/guaranteeing, so it’s quite hard to collapse.
When you’re in Zaptiska and you get critically sick. Do you die or do you get over yourself and go to a state’s hospital? Who foots the bill?
It’s like they’re a bunch of roleplayers who have managed to bullshit themselves
“where governments listen to us” lmao, okay edgelord. The real state does not give a shit about them, neither they listen to them. Only reason they have not been kicked out and banned is because they don’t threaten the actual state and Mexico doesn’t need anything from them.
I read pretty much all your replies and you remind me of a typical ignorant rebel teenager who doesn’t really understand the world.
Somalia wasn’t organized according to any anarchist principles, it was just a total chaotic, disordered mess.
Anarchy in definition is not organized by any principles. It’s lack of ruling.
The moment you insert governing factor, be it principle if you will, it stops being anarchy but follows some guideline.
Lack of ruling is lack of ruling.
Anarchy in definition is not organized by any principles. It’s lack of ruling.
That’s not true - it’s lack of rulers, from the greek “an archos”, meaning “without rulers”. In an anarchist society, there are still rules, but the rules are decided by the people who live and work in a place, rather than a king or a politician or a billionaire or a CEO or whoever. There are many ways to determine what those rules are, such as direct democracy and consensus-based decision making. You might want to check out the Q&Anarchy video series to learn what anarchists actually believe and practice.
Somalia is a failed state, not a project built around anarchist organizing principles
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