Jason’s Comments (group member since Jan 13, 2021)

Jason’s comments from the Reading with Comrades group.

lindsi wrote: "Jason wrote: "Can other factions of Leftism join?”

Yes, absolutely! Our DSA chapter spans the gamut from democratic socialists to MLs."

Awesome, I'd love to join

lindsi wrote: "And would you be interested in joining a sci-fi DSA reading group?

Thinking of starting with an Octavia Butler work but not sure which one.

All suggestions welcome!"

Can other factions of Leftism join?

And I would think that Star Trek would HAVE to be required reading. It's literally Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism ;)

The Paradoxes of Anarchism: When Liberty leads to Authority

One of the most grievous offenses you can commit within the confines of Anarchist thought, is to impose your will on another person. This impugns upon their individual liberty. How then can Anarchy be considered as a sustainable societal model on anything remotely resembling a large scale? A country, to say nothing of a global scale. Take the United States for example; The US Population is an estimated 330,000,000, meaning you would need to drastically alter the societal paradigm of one third of a billion people. Now while just from a statistical standpoint you're bound to have people within that 330,000,000 who would by sympathetic and supportive of an Anarchist Society but just as likely, if not more so, you will have people who reject the idea of Anarchism as being feasible or who out and out prefer living under some sort of State. These people's will runs in opposition to the Anarchist but what is the Anarchist to do?

Certainly Anarchists can't impose their will on another sovereign individual so then the State continues and any attempt at smaller Anarchist Communes within that State will naturally be crushed, because Statists have no qualms about imposing their will upon Anarchists. Anarchists can and have absolutely fought for their liberty but their own school of thought prevents them from engendering any substantial and sustainable socio-economic change. Because they cannot, will not, violate the liberty of another even if that other wants to form a State. And since their school of thought prevents this, "authoritarianism" and statism persist.

People are groomed from birth to obey the state, rely on the state, and to defend the state. That kind of programming is not something that can be re-written easily. Add to that fact that human beings in general are highly resistant to change. It scares us. So those who have been programmed by the State will fight any attempt at de-programming tooth and nail. So what is the Anarchist solution? Live and let live, perhaps? Unfortunately, the State doesn't play by those rules. So the State persists.

Furthermore, in regards to Anarcho-Communism/Mutualism/Syndicalism, how would one prevent someone else from engaging in Capitalism? Again, from a purely statistical stand point, you are bound to have people even post socio-economic revolution who would rather exploit their fellows for their own personal gain. So how would Anarcho-Communists prevent a resurgence of Capitalism? Mandatory re-education? Sounds eerily similar to Joseph Stalin's gulags. Perhaps exile? Telling an individual that they can't live where they want to live seems pretty authoritative. What about execution? Well that's not just denying someone their liberty, it's denying them life! So with no recourse that does not impose their will on another and violates individual liberty, Anarcho-Communists would be unable to stem the resurgence of Capitalist exploitation. Then of course Class Divisions would re-emerge, bringing with them Class Antagonisms. And of course, those Class Antagonisms inevitably lead to the resurgence of the State.

Then of course there is the most paradoxical branch of "Anarchist" thought, "Anarcho"-Capitalism. This school of thought is erroneous right out of the gate. Ignoring the fact that Class Divisions brought about by Capitalism will lead the smaller, far more wealthy, class to form a State to protect them from the much poorer and much more populous class. But even entertaining the idea of an "Anarcho"-Capitalist society you run into an immediate problem with the concept of Private Property. Because if an individual began buying large tracts of land, say 20 square miles, and said that anyone could live on their land provided that they worked for that individual. Also, that individual made another condition of living on his property that his word was Law. That person would have effectively set up a fiefdom with them as Lord. They would have formed a State. And because of their sacred private property rights, "Anarcho"=Capitalists couldn't even voice dissent, because it's that individual's private property and to dictate what they can and can't do with their private property would be to impugn on their liberty. Statism persists, but in this case Feudalism reemerges from the dust bin of history.

The overarching problem with a concept like Universal Unfettered Liberty is that with a population of roughly 8,000,000,000 globally, or even with just the population of the United States, is that it is damn near statistically inevitable that someone will exercise their liberty to do something that the next person is diametrically opposed to. It hampers social cohesion, even with concepts like the Non-Aggression Policy as population numbers increase so does the statistical probability of conflict. Then, of course with there being no Law and therefore no Courts, disputes would devolve into violence. Without at least a minimal level of authority, society would devolve into chaos. Because as much as Anarchists would love to believe that everyone in the world would be interested in the mutual good of their fellow human beings, historically this has not proven to be the case. That's not to say that the reality of a Classless and Ungoverned Society is an impossibility, far from it, but to achieve it Anarchists are going to have to bite the bullet and eat their veggies before they get dessert.

This entire diatribe may make it seem as though I am opposed to Anarchists/Anarcho-Communists and this couldn't be further from the truth. In my heart I am an Anarcho-Communist in the vein of Pytor Kropotkin and Mikael Bakunin. But I am also a pragmatist, and taking an ideal and making it material is, to me, the purest form of Praxis imaginable. And while great minds like Kropotkin and Bakunin were able to clearly envision the finish line, were able to see society as it should be much like Plato's philosophy, great minds were figuring out how to get us to that finish line from the starting line. They, much like Aristotle to Anarcho-Communism's Plato, were focused on what is. People like Vladimir Lenin, Thomas Sankara, Mao Ze Dong, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, Huey Newton and Fred Hampton, Malcom X and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and just about every other Black Civil Rights Activist you can think of. All people who heard the call of the oppressed and heeded that call. Every last one, a Marxist-Leninist (maybe except for Lenin himself, not really sure if it's appropriate to call the man himself a Leninist, it's sort of a given).

But in truth every ML has wanted the exact same thing that Anarchists want. A Classless, Ungoverned, Egalitarian Society. I challenge anyone to read Lenin's State and Revolution and not see that at heart Lenin was as much an Anarcho-Communist as Kropotkin, and if you can then you're reading that book wrong. But much like Plato and Aristotle, Idealism and Pragmatism, Kropotkin and Lenin differed simply on what means were acceptable of attaining that ultimate end; the Idealistic or the Realistic. So I make a plea to my Anarchist/Anarcho-Communist Comrades, embrace Authoritarian Communism as the means to an end, not the end itself. Let us have Leftist Unity. AnComs if you think I'm a Tankie, I'm cool with that, and just know you can throw your Molotov Cocktails from the top of my Tank anytime.

I make this plea, because currently our Movement, our Cause, is infected. It is rife with Social Democrats and Radical Liberals who are more than content to wait patiently while sitting on their hands for Guaranteed Healthcare whilst in the midst of a lethal, global, pandemic and they expect us to do the same. So called "Leftists" who eagerly champion American Politicians who endorse Imperialism, Corporatism/Capitalism, Ecological Exploitation and who will give over a trillion dollars to the richest people in the country while the rest of us are fighting tooth and nail for a measly two thousand dollars and still not getting a fucking dime. Any American Politician, Republican or Democrat, is not our Comrade. Period.
This is why we need Leftist Unity, because with so many enemies from without, we cannot afford to be distracted by conflict from within.

Capital Vol. 1-3, Wage Labor and Capital, "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, Reform or Revolution, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

That's my first batch of Theory. Next will be Thomas Sankara, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao Tse-tung.