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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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[–] [S] 2 points 2 years ago

Hey, sorry to respond so late to this! I appreciate your detailed response a lot, will give me a lot to think about. I don't know that it sits right with me to say that an anarchist would "do better" when it comes to recognizing abusive patterns of behavior cuz that seeks to be a broad generalization but I have not ran in explicitly anarchist or ML spaces Irl so maybe it's more likely than with MLs in general. I am also surprised/not surprised to hear about the lack of self critique in actual active leninist groups. People here seem to be able to, for the most part, reckon with the fact that there are problems and issues with lenin/marx/Stalin etc. But maybe, being pretty new to studying this stuff, there is more apologia going on than I recognize. When I have some time I'll look at the links it included. Thanks! (I've never used it/it's pronouns so I hope "it included" is correct instead of "you included")

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