“I am not waving it away, I am lowering its status to be within the same realm as concerns that are secondary in capitalism.”
You can’t just decide ownership matters less after capitalism by fiat. That’s idealism. Ownership isn’t a preference. It’s the material anchor of class power. The point of proletarian state power isn’t to wish authority away. It’s to use authority to socialize production, break imperial chains, and create the conditions where class distinctions become obsolete. You don’t get there by lowering the status of property relations. You get there by transforming them.
“Any group with authority over these matters that can have solidarity within the authoritative group will serve as a ruling class that gains from exploiting the working class.”
This conflates function with class. Yes, bureaucrats can degenerate. That’s a real contradiction. Mao wrote extensively about the risk of a “new bourgeoisie” emerging from within the party. But the solution isn’t to abandon proletarian authority. It’s to deepen mass line, criticism-self-criticism, recall mechanisms. The AES experiences show that proletarian authority can break imperial dependency, socialize surplus, and expand human development. That isn’t authority becoming a class. That’s authority being wielded to transform the conditions that make class possible.
“If the singular working class as a concept had more teeth than nationality I would expect it to, well, take a bigger bite out of history. For French revolutionaries to abolish slavery…”
The French Revolution was a bourgeois revolution. Of course bourgeois revolutionaries didn’t abolish colonial slavery out of “solidarity.” That proves the class character of that revolution, not the impossibility of proletarian internationalism. The Paris Commune, the Bolsheviks, the Chinese revolution, the Vietnamese revolution, the Cuban revolution, these show proletarian internationalism in practice. It’s uneven, contradictory, contested. But it exists. And it exists because imperialism creates a shared enemy, not because workers spontaneously feel nice to each other.
“No, we should become anarchist… complex social structures with far less authority already exist from sociocracy to decentralized guerilla cells.”
“Anarchism”(I’ve read anarchist theory and debated principled anarchists; in practice, when faced with real revolutionary tasks (smashing the bourgeois state, defending against counter-revolution, coordinating production at scale) they end up adopting positions functionally close to MLs, because material conditions demand it. The “authority is inherently tyrannical” line is tyranny of bedtime idealism that collapses on contact with actual struggle.) treats authority as the problem. But authority isn’t the problem. Class power is. You can’t dismantle the bourgeois state with decentralized cells. You can’t break imperial chains with sociocracy. The material task of revolution is to seize state power, socialize production, and defend the revolution against counter-revolution. That requires coordination, discipline, and yes, authority. “Anarchism’s” refusal to confront this is why it has repeatedly failed when faced with real revolutionary situations.
“But where you expect administrators to make such improvements to their personal and (sub)class’ detriment, anarchy keeps the power to make these changes with the people…”
This sounds good but is abstract. Who are “the people”? How do they coordinate at scale? How do they defend against counter-revolution, imperial invasion, economic sabotage? The mass line is a method for tying leadership to the masses through concrete practice. But it requires a vanguard, a party, a state form capable of wielding power. “Anarchism’s” distrust of all authority leaves it unable to answer these questions.
“We are able to be anarchist (or state communist) even within capitalism…”
You can build prefigurative spaces under capitalism. That’s great, but prefiguration isn’t revolution. The bourgeois state won’t be voted away or out-organized by parallel structures. It has to be smashed. And what replaces it has to be capable of holding power, not just avoiding it.
You see authority as inherently dangerous, so you want to minimize it. I see authority as a social relation, so I ask: which class wields it, for what end, and with what mechanisms to prevent ossification? One approach leads to moralism. The other leads to strategy.
Ownership isn’t a preference. It’s the material anchor of class power.
Why do you think only ownership can be a “material anchor”? When someone can “own” something they’ve never been within a thousand miles of, why couldn’t another form of institutionally enforced authority over that object fulfill that same role?
But the solution isn’t to abandon proletarian authority. It’s to deepen mass line, criticism-self-criticism, recall mechanisms.
You reformist! ;)
Why would regulation offer any more resistance against the pressure of material relations between authority and worker within state communism than in liberal capitalism?
they end up adopting positions functionally close to MLs, because material conditions demand it. The “authority is inherently tyrannical” line is tyranny of bedtime idealism that collapses on contact with actual struggle
It’s natural that functions converge when pursuing the same goals, especially when the pressure is on. Pulling someone out of the way of a moving bus is going to look the same in all ideologies.
It’s also natural that when you ask someone raised in a statist society what they would do, they’re going to be primed to answer in a more centralized way. One of the nice things of anarchy is that other people can exercise their better ideas, so even if I give a bad answer they are free to give a good answer and people can go with that instead. That’s how you prevent beginner mistakes like the four pests campaign or the holodomor from killing millions of people.
You can’t dismantle the bourgeois state with decentralized cells.
You can if you want primitivism, but yeah dying of smallpox sucks. That’s why anarchists prefigure structures, as you note.
You can’t break imperial chains with sociocracy.
Why couldn’t you?
As I mentioned before, the below are just my personal guesses of what would be good options. Anarchist society is larger than me and will do better than me.
Who are “the people”?
Everyone, with those who can’t communicate effectively being assisted to have a say.
How do they coordinate at scale?
Sociocracy, federations, and whatever else they come up with and consent to.
How do they defend against counter-revolution
Shaping the material conditions towards decentralization and voluntary association, so there is nothing for the counterrevolution to seize.
imperial invasion
Shaping the material conditions to make places as hard as possible to hold with force, and the prevent the existence of strategic positions for the empire to hold. Decentralization, guerilla defense infrastructure, weapons caches. Mass solidarity. Propagandize among the invader’s population and encourage revolution and resistance there.
economic sabotage?
Decentralized local production. Long-lasting repairable goods. Living within your ecological means.
Perhaps to help make these ideas more concrete we could have drills/competitions where different communes or federations showcase the strategies they think work best so groups can share and learn empirically.
“Why do you think only ownership can be a ‘material anchor’? When someone can ‘own’ something they’ve never been within a thousand miles of, why couldn’t another form of institutionally enforced authority over that object fulfill that same role?”
Ownership isn’t about physical proximity. It’s about the right to exclude, to appropriate surplus, to transfer control. That’s what makes it a material anchor. Institutional authority without that right is conditional. A manager can direct labour, but if they can’t sell the factory, bequeath it, or pocket the profit, they aren’t a capitalist. That distinction, as has been pointed out already, is the difference between a function and a class.
“You reformist! ;) Why would regulation offer any more resistance against the pressure of material relations between authority and worker within state communism than in liberal capitalism?”
Mass line, criticism-self-criticism, recall mechanisms aren’t liberal reforms. They’re tools to keep proletarian authority tied to the class it serves. The AES have used them, imperfectly but materially, to prevent bureaucratic ossification. That’s not reformism. It’s simply recognizing that contradiction doesn’t disappear after revolution. It has to be managed through practice, not wished away. And let’s be clear: these tools work because the dictatorship of the proletariat has an objective interest in aligning leadership with the masses. The dictatorship of capital has the opposite aim. Its core function is to reproduce exploitation. No amount of “recall mechanisms” will make a bourgeois state serve workers, because its class character is defined by serving capital. You can’t reform a class enemy into an ally.
“It’s natural that functions converge when pursuing the same goals, especially when the pressure is on.”
Exactly. Material conditions demand certain forms. That’s proof that strategy must be grounded in reality, not moral preference. If anarchists end up adopting ML positions when faced with real tasks (smashing the state, defending the revolution, coordinating production) that says something about those ML positions. They are proven correct by practice.
“One of the nice things of anarchy is that other people can exercise their better ideas, so even if I give a bad answer they are free to give a good answer and people can go with that instead. That’s how you prevent beginner mistakes like the four pests campaign or the holodomor from killing millions of people.”
This is historical illiteracy. First, the “beginner mistakes” line erases the material conditions those revolutions faced: invasion, embargo, sabotage, famine imposed from outside. Second, it ignores that anarchist experiments have their own body counts when they fail to coordinate defense or production. Third, it pretends the AES didn’t learn, adapt, and save hundreds of millions from imperial predation. The PRC lifted nearly a billion people out of poverty, built world-class infrastructure, and broke imperial dependency. That’s a historical achievement under nearly impossible conditions not to mind the USSR going from illiterate peasants to space faring in under 50 years.
And the “let others try their better ideas” approach sounds open but is functionally irresponsible. Revolution isn’t a laboratory. People die when strategy fails. The mass line isn’t about letting everyone do their own thing. It’s about synthesizing mass experience into coherent strategy through disciplined practice.
“You can’t break imperial chains with sociocracy. Why couldn’t you?”
Show me where it has shown even the slightest potential to. Imperialism doesn’t care about your decision-making model. It bombs, sanctions, coups. Breaking imperial chains requires coordinated political power, economic planning, and military defense. That requires authority. Decentralization without central coordination isn’t a strength. If anything it’s a massive weakness begging to be exploited.
“Shaping the material conditions towards decentralization and voluntary association, so there is nothing for the counterrevolution to seize.”
This is magical thinking. Counter-revolution doesn’t need a central office to seize. It needs discontent, scarcity, external backing. Imperial invasion doesn’t require a capital city to target. It requires weakness to exploit. Defense requires logistics, intelligence, strategy. That means coordination, discipline, authority.
“Everyone, with those who can’t communicate effectively being assisted to have a say.”
Abstract universalism ignores concrete contradictions. Who decides what “effective communication” means? How are conflicting interests adjudicated? How is surplus allocated when not everyone’s needs can be met equally?
“Decentralized local production. Long-lasting repairable goods. Living within your ecological means.”
All good things in theory. But imperialism doesn’t respect local autarky. It enforces dependency through debt, trade, force. Breaking that requires collective power at scale. And let’s be concrete: decentralized, uncoordinated production cannot manufacture modern technology. Computer chips, phones, advanced medicine, modern weapons, none of it happens in isolated communes. Kneecapping yourself technologically in the face of a hegemonic aggressor is suicidal at best. And we’re back to fuck the ill and disabled if your model can’t produce the medicine and equipment they need to survive.
“Perhaps to help make these ideas more concrete we could have drills/competitions where different communes or federations showcase the strategies they think work best so groups can share and learn empirically.”
Prefigurative practice has value. But revolution isn’t a showcase. It’s a life-and-death struggle against a ruthless enemy.
The core disagreement remains simple. You see authority as inherently dangerous, so you want to minimize it. I see authority as a social relation, so I ask: which class wields it, for what end, and with what mechanisms to prevent ossification? One approach leads to moralism. The other leads to strategy. But to be blunt: your “anarchist” vision is idealist fantasy in the face of hegemonic violence. Imperialism doesn’t negotiate with your decision-making model. It crushes what it can’t co-opt. Material conditions don’t care about your preferences. They only respond to power which you fear rather than understand.
You can’t just decide ownership matters less after capitalism by fiat. That’s idealism. Ownership isn’t a preference. It’s the material anchor of class power. The point of proletarian state power isn’t to wish authority away. It’s to use authority to socialize production, break imperial chains, and create the conditions where class distinctions become obsolete. You don’t get there by lowering the status of property relations. You get there by transforming them.
This conflates function with class. Yes, bureaucrats can degenerate. That’s a real contradiction. Mao wrote extensively about the risk of a “new bourgeoisie” emerging from within the party. But the solution isn’t to abandon proletarian authority. It’s to deepen mass line, criticism-self-criticism, recall mechanisms. The AES experiences show that proletarian authority can break imperial dependency, socialize surplus, and expand human development. That isn’t authority becoming a class. That’s authority being wielded to transform the conditions that make class possible.
The French Revolution was a bourgeois revolution. Of course bourgeois revolutionaries didn’t abolish colonial slavery out of “solidarity.” That proves the class character of that revolution, not the impossibility of proletarian internationalism. The Paris Commune, the Bolsheviks, the Chinese revolution, the Vietnamese revolution, the Cuban revolution, these show proletarian internationalism in practice. It’s uneven, contradictory, contested. But it exists. And it exists because imperialism creates a shared enemy, not because workers spontaneously feel nice to each other.
“Anarchism”(I’ve read anarchist theory and debated principled anarchists; in practice, when faced with real revolutionary tasks (smashing the bourgeois state, defending against counter-revolution, coordinating production at scale) they end up adopting positions functionally close to MLs, because material conditions demand it. The “authority is inherently tyrannical” line is tyranny of bedtime idealism that collapses on contact with actual struggle.) treats authority as the problem. But authority isn’t the problem. Class power is. You can’t dismantle the bourgeois state with decentralized cells. You can’t break imperial chains with sociocracy. The material task of revolution is to seize state power, socialize production, and defend the revolution against counter-revolution. That requires coordination, discipline, and yes, authority. “Anarchism’s” refusal to confront this is why it has repeatedly failed when faced with real revolutionary situations.
This sounds good but is abstract. Who are “the people”? How do they coordinate at scale? How do they defend against counter-revolution, imperial invasion, economic sabotage? The mass line is a method for tying leadership to the masses through concrete practice. But it requires a vanguard, a party, a state form capable of wielding power. “Anarchism’s” distrust of all authority leaves it unable to answer these questions.
You can build prefigurative spaces under capitalism. That’s great, but prefiguration isn’t revolution. The bourgeois state won’t be voted away or out-organized by parallel structures. It has to be smashed. And what replaces it has to be capable of holding power, not just avoiding it.
You see authority as inherently dangerous, so you want to minimize it. I see authority as a social relation, so I ask: which class wields it, for what end, and with what mechanisms to prevent ossification? One approach leads to moralism. The other leads to strategy.
Why do you think only ownership can be a “material anchor”? When someone can “own” something they’ve never been within a thousand miles of, why couldn’t another form of institutionally enforced authority over that object fulfill that same role?
You reformist! ;)
Why would regulation offer any more resistance against the pressure of material relations between authority and worker within state communism than in liberal capitalism?
It’s natural that functions converge when pursuing the same goals, especially when the pressure is on. Pulling someone out of the way of a moving bus is going to look the same in all ideologies.
It’s also natural that when you ask someone raised in a statist society what they would do, they’re going to be primed to answer in a more centralized way. One of the nice things of anarchy is that other people can exercise their better ideas, so even if I give a bad answer they are free to give a good answer and people can go with that instead. That’s how you prevent beginner mistakes like the four pests campaign or the holodomor from killing millions of people.
You can if you want primitivism, but yeah dying of smallpox sucks. That’s why anarchists prefigure structures, as you note.
Why couldn’t you?
As I mentioned before, the below are just my personal guesses of what would be good options. Anarchist society is larger than me and will do better than me.
Everyone, with those who can’t communicate effectively being assisted to have a say.
Sociocracy, federations, and whatever else they come up with and consent to.
Shaping the material conditions towards decentralization and voluntary association, so there is nothing for the counterrevolution to seize.
Shaping the material conditions to make places as hard as possible to hold with force, and the prevent the existence of strategic positions for the empire to hold. Decentralization, guerilla defense infrastructure, weapons caches. Mass solidarity. Propagandize among the invader’s population and encourage revolution and resistance there.
Decentralized local production. Long-lasting repairable goods. Living within your ecological means.
Perhaps to help make these ideas more concrete we could have drills/competitions where different communes or federations showcase the strategies they think work best so groups can share and learn empirically.
Ownership isn’t about physical proximity. It’s about the right to exclude, to appropriate surplus, to transfer control. That’s what makes it a material anchor. Institutional authority without that right is conditional. A manager can direct labour, but if they can’t sell the factory, bequeath it, or pocket the profit, they aren’t a capitalist. That distinction, as has been pointed out already, is the difference between a function and a class.
Mass line, criticism-self-criticism, recall mechanisms aren’t liberal reforms. They’re tools to keep proletarian authority tied to the class it serves. The AES have used them, imperfectly but materially, to prevent bureaucratic ossification. That’s not reformism. It’s simply recognizing that contradiction doesn’t disappear after revolution. It has to be managed through practice, not wished away. And let’s be clear: these tools work because the dictatorship of the proletariat has an objective interest in aligning leadership with the masses. The dictatorship of capital has the opposite aim. Its core function is to reproduce exploitation. No amount of “recall mechanisms” will make a bourgeois state serve workers, because its class character is defined by serving capital. You can’t reform a class enemy into an ally.
Exactly. Material conditions demand certain forms. That’s proof that strategy must be grounded in reality, not moral preference. If anarchists end up adopting ML positions when faced with real tasks (smashing the state, defending the revolution, coordinating production) that says something about those ML positions. They are proven correct by practice.
This is historical illiteracy. First, the “beginner mistakes” line erases the material conditions those revolutions faced: invasion, embargo, sabotage, famine imposed from outside. Second, it ignores that anarchist experiments have their own body counts when they fail to coordinate defense or production. Third, it pretends the AES didn’t learn, adapt, and save hundreds of millions from imperial predation. The PRC lifted nearly a billion people out of poverty, built world-class infrastructure, and broke imperial dependency. That’s a historical achievement under nearly impossible conditions not to mind the USSR going from illiterate peasants to space faring in under 50 years.
And the “let others try their better ideas” approach sounds open but is functionally irresponsible. Revolution isn’t a laboratory. People die when strategy fails. The mass line isn’t about letting everyone do their own thing. It’s about synthesizing mass experience into coherent strategy through disciplined practice.
Show me where it has shown even the slightest potential to. Imperialism doesn’t care about your decision-making model. It bombs, sanctions, coups. Breaking imperial chains requires coordinated political power, economic planning, and military defense. That requires authority. Decentralization without central coordination isn’t a strength. If anything it’s a massive weakness begging to be exploited.
This is magical thinking. Counter-revolution doesn’t need a central office to seize. It needs discontent, scarcity, external backing. Imperial invasion doesn’t require a capital city to target. It requires weakness to exploit. Defense requires logistics, intelligence, strategy. That means coordination, discipline, authority.
Abstract universalism ignores concrete contradictions. Who decides what “effective communication” means? How are conflicting interests adjudicated? How is surplus allocated when not everyone’s needs can be met equally?
All good things in theory. But imperialism doesn’t respect local autarky. It enforces dependency through debt, trade, force. Breaking that requires collective power at scale. And let’s be concrete: decentralized, uncoordinated production cannot manufacture modern technology. Computer chips, phones, advanced medicine, modern weapons, none of it happens in isolated communes. Kneecapping yourself technologically in the face of a hegemonic aggressor is suicidal at best. And we’re back to fuck the ill and disabled if your model can’t produce the medicine and equipment they need to survive.
Prefigurative practice has value. But revolution isn’t a showcase. It’s a life-and-death struggle against a ruthless enemy.
The core disagreement remains simple. You see authority as inherently dangerous, so you want to minimize it. I see authority as a social relation, so I ask: which class wields it, for what end, and with what mechanisms to prevent ossification? One approach leads to moralism. The other leads to strategy. But to be blunt: your “anarchist” vision is idealist fantasy in the face of hegemonic violence. Imperialism doesn’t negotiate with your decision-making model. It crushes what it can’t co-opt. Material conditions don’t care about your preferences. They only respond to power which you fear rather than understand.