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Books or papers I should read on Anarchism that would challenge my bias towards Marxism/Leninism? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 years ago* by to c/anarchism@hexbear.net
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On the internet I don't see too many Anarchists give arguments past "communism doesn't work because communists are doomed to repeat the same exploitative power structures of the capitalist state" and "we dont know what an anarchist society will look like we gotta wait til we get there!" Which like...is not convincing to me at all. I've engaged in what was supposed to be consensus based decision making systems and there were a ton of flaws, though that's purely anecdotal.

So, I'd really like to have some suggestions on what to read that you think might really challenge where I stand/take anarchism more seriously. It might take me 5 years to get to them bc executive dysfunction but I really want to see if my mind can be changed on if it would be a better system from the get go than communism.

I think it would be super interesting to hear from anyone who shifted into anarchism from Marxism on why it made more sense to you

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[–] 22 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Gotta keep in mind that many internet Anarchists are angry young people who haven't had much if any connection with Anarchist or other left movements. They still mostly trapped in a world of NATO propaganda and if you uncritically accept everything NATOstan says about communism then internet "No gods no bedtimes" no theory "anarchism" looks reasonable. I'd suggest go dig in to real shit - The old school stuff like Kropotkin, but also look up modern, functioning Anarchist projects. There aren't a lot of big ones but there are lots of places where communities are run on either explicitly Anarchist lines or on lines that meaningfully run parallel to Anarchist thought. Try to look for projects outside of NATOstan and the Anglosphere. Places in the global south seem to be a lot less prone to being infected with NATO brainworms. I wish I had some examples but it's been a while since I've looked it up, but you're looking for coops, community self defense orgs, community infrastructure development, things like that. I'd say look up the Zapatistas as a starting point. Don't worry too much about what the rest of the world calls them, try to dig up their own writings about their project and how it works day to day.

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  • [–] [S] 11 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Truuuue that makes sense. I did watch a few videos on anarchism that seemed pretty rooted in theory, drawing a lot from Malatesta I believe. But it still didn't really do anything for me, like it feels like I could poke holes in a lot of what was being explained about how it would work. But there's only so much they can explain in 10-20 minute videos.

    I'm familiar with the Zapatistas but not much else but they are based af. Or were, I think I read something recently where narcos have started to move in to their territory :/ I'll definitely search and see if I can find out about more projects outside of the west though!

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    My understanding is that there are a number of radically different ideologies under the Anarchist umbrella. Like you've got chill community building people who have a solid theory of a society without the coercive and violent organs of a state, but you've also got dangerous anti-social edgelords organizing under the eight-fold star of chaos undivided. Both groups get lumped in to Anarchism but idk if it can be said they actually share much in the way of goals and beliefs beyond opposition to states.

    And yeah, I understand the Zapatistas are facing serious problems and making changes. There's no end to history, sadly.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, being a punk I was introduced to (mostly) edgelord/accelerationist "anarchists" lol. There seems to be a fairly active anarchist community where I live; from what I remember it was thriving in the 90's here too. There's a ton of share fairs, FNB, mutual aid groups, etc. During some of the bad first wildfires here a mutual aid network sprang up overnight and it was so so impressive, I helped out a bit with delivering groceries to people without transportation or who were medically vulnerable to the intense smoke. It was very cool; that's some anarchist shit I DO like.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Um that 8 folf star is the symbol of chaos from Moorcock's work. 40k appropriated it, in Moorcock's stories chaos and law are balancing forces. It also saw extensive use in occult stuff before warhammer.

    My understanding of why it's popular as a symbol in like Greece, Chili etc is in the Moorcock sense. I.e. when states centralise and suffocate chaos is needed to restore freedom and balance. Similar to flying a black flag as the negation of flags.

    Nothing in 40k is original and everything in it is a shallow ripoff of something more interesting.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Something seems backwards here. It's not like the Zapatistas call themselves anarchists but the rest of the world refuses to acknowledge it. The Zapatistas have on multiple occasions said they do not care for anarchism, but they are often portrayed by the rest of the world as anarchist.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, that's what I meant. The world calls them Anarchists, they don't call themselves Anarchists, but many of their methods can be analyzed in dialogue with Anarchist theory and methods. The name is less important than the praxis.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Ah okay. Understood, thank you for clarifying and sorry for misunderstanding.

    One thing it will say as a critique is that while there is a lot of misrepresentation of anarchism online, it's worth being careful not to go to the opposite extreme of being a terminally offline anarchist, as it were. In its experience with organizing, there's a lot of anarchists out there who are intensely insecure about not wanting to be one of "those" anarchists online. The consequence is that they don't just resist NATO propaganda, but genuinely important additions to structural analysis because they basically assume anything new is like, terminally online stuff that doesn't matter. it's had to waste a shitton of time and energy organizing to resist anarchists who will not get with the times and end up being incredibly chauvinistic because they're too busy throwing out dogwhistles abt how the other anarchists are children with no experience with REAL organizing, when everyone would've been better off if they sat down and listened and evaluated things they were being educated on instead of desperately trying to detect and avoid "terminally online" elements of anarchism.

    For that reason it pretty much never tells anyone to be wary of "internet anarchism" because they overcorrect into this incredibly out of touch terminally offline anarchism that really slows down organizing and causes a great deal of harm.

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