Where do you fall politically?
I’m hoping this doesn’t start a fight, I’m just curious what the political orientation is of this community. I grew up in a liberal (in the American sense) family, and I identify now as a socialist, though a lot of the liberalism I grew up in has stuck with me, like interest in LGBTQ and women’s rights, environmentalism, etc. Wondering where people here land?
I’m an anarchocommunist.
While states still exist, I am a Welsh nationalist because independence from the UK is the only way we can stave off English attempts to undermine the senedd and Welsh democracy as a whole.
As I said before, only while states exist.
Welsh nationalism as a short-term project, because the structure of the UK gives ultimate control to the houses of parliament (a largely unelected seat of power), if any form of communism, let alone anarchist communism, is to be successfully built in Wales we must first be free from direct interference by our neighbours.
I realise that I’m using nationalist in a context that you’re probably unfamiliar with.
When I say Welsh nationalism I’m using this definition - “advocacy of or support for the political independence of a particular nation or people.”
As opposed to the definition you’re likely more familiar with -“identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.”
Now for how I Square these two otherwise inconsistent political goals:
It is a complicated process and I don’t doubt that the Welsh nationalist movement may present some hurdles in the long run to the dissolution of state hierarchy. But the way I see it is like this:
UK parliament controls the entire UK, there’s the senedd in Wales and the Scottish parliament but ultimately they only have the power to make minor adjustments to laws (such as change the speed limit slightly).
As such, any revolution that occurs in Wales has to contend not just with the local bourgeois but also from the bourgeois of the United Kingdom as a whole.
Now two possible tactics exist in this situation:
Or
Of the two of those, I believe the latter outcome is more likely to succeed.
Sorry for the huge wall of text.
Sorry for the huge wall of text.
It’s fine, I prefer detailed responses.
And I understand the difference between left wing and right wing nationalism, but it’s kind of weird to be for the identity of Wales and against all governments, given national identities heavily rely on governments to exist.
If an anarchist revolution is successful, the dissolution of the state is inevitable.
If a socialist revolution is successful then the eventual dissolution of the state will likely occur in a framework such as Engels’ “withering away of the state”.
Since capitalism cannot sustain itself indefinitely, it is likely that one of these two revolutions will occur (or there will be a backslide into fascism).
Pëtr Kropotkin wrote a lot about possible organisation of anarchist society after the revolution, at this point it’s a meme to recommend reading “the bread book” The Conquest of Bread and I don’t personally recommend starting with it and instead beginning with a pamphlet like Anarchism and Revolution.
The ZAD de Notres-Dame-des-Landes, is a good example of a long running commune that has managed to withstand assault from an external state. But the kinds of large scale anarchism that will do away with the state in its entirety has not yet been attempted.
ZAD de Notres-Dame-des-Landes
I’m surprised you didn’t cite Catalonia or Zapatistas or Anarchist Ukraine? Guess you don’t like those?
Revolutionary Catalonia provides a good example of an anarchist project where large scale industrial infrastructure was maintained and could help form the blueprint for decentralised industry. Much ink has been spilled pointing fingers about who was to blame for the sectarian infighting that ultimately led to its collapse, I think a more important question would be “how do we stop something like that happening next time?” A question that I have no clue how to answer.
Anarchist Ukraine - correct me if I’m wrong, but this is about the Mahknovists right? Despite being largely agrarian, they were able to rebuild destroyed infrastructure an astounding rate in the face of multiple invasions and an ongoing civil war. There are rumours of antisemitism within Mahknovshchina but a lot of them come from USSR aligned sources and are hotly debated by different anarchist groups, I don’t know enough about Ukrainian history to know if the accusations are true.
The Zapatistas are not anarchists and have never claimed to be. While they do have some similarities to historical anarchist projects it would do them a disservice to lump them into an ideology with which they don’t identify.
Fair enough on the Zapatistias, I just hear about them a lot from anarchists as a workable example of anarchosocialism.
And yeah I actually don’t know a lot about anarchist Catalonia, just that it’s basically the biggest example of anarchism on a society-wide level. Was actually goading you for more information lol.
Mahknovists
Yes, them. Also don’t know much about them. I know far more about the Menshevik territories in Georgia and Russia, which were democratic socialist and not anarchist, and even more forgotten about.
Was actually goading you for more information lol.
Give me a bit and I’ll track down some sources on them. Check back in, like, an hour or so and I’ll have a list edited on this comment.
Revolutionary Catalonia
Here’s a first-hand account from someone who was a child at the time.
Murray Bookchin on the Spanish revolution.
Write up on the Mujeres Libres, a group of women anarchists.
George Orwell was a snitch who did a lot of work to undermine British anarchists, but he did witness the Spanish civil war first-hand here’s a link to what he wrote about his experiences
Gonna a take a while longer for more on Makhnovshchina. So I’ll edit again when I’ve found sources.
Oh, this is the popular conception of anarchy as a political project, but doesn’t really reflect anarchist thought much at all.
Anarchy is the project of volentary, participatory, and minimally coercive government. You can’t really have “no government” in any largish group of people. What you can do is structure that government to have the least amount of heirarchy and control with the greatest amount of participation.
Counter to popular conception, this actually means a lot of rules, just rules that everyone has a say in making. The goal will be that the rules serve to protect and promote wellbeing while having the minimum impact onthe choices people have available,
How can you have communism without a state forcing everyone to surrender their property?
If private property exists, that’s not communism. But to enforce communism you need a state so that’s not anarchy.
I believe anarchy and communism are polar opposites, and cannot co-exist. You’re either for anarchy (which ultimately leads to individualism and capitalism) or communism, which requires a huge controlling state to exist.
Tankie, though if I take the 2-axis politics test I wind up being in the bottom left corner (you have to give some pretty unhinged answers to get top left).
I started out as a techno-libertarian and then lib left, then socdem, then anarchist. There’s been life experiences that have changed my politics.
I vote Green. Howard destroyed the utopia future we all hoped for, but there is still opportunity for Australia to be a society of equals.
The two right wing and far right wing parties of the US still mostly confuse me. Their lack of compulsory voting scares me. I also have been shocked on my visits to the US as to how their country is full of inequalities and people desperately poor. Weird place, glad I don’t live there.
I don’t know about Australia, but in the countries i have heard about with compulsory voting, it’s totally legal to vote blank, i.e. not actually vote for anyone. You just have to go to the polling station and put your blank ballot in the box.
So you’re (if i’m not mistaken) not forced to vote for a party you don’t agree with.
I’m right wing, or at least compared to most of lemmy.
I want everyone to bear arms. To that end, we should air drop liberator-style pistols all over the world. No, I’m not joking.
I think America should put America first.
I think Trek is cool, but its also fiction and not some sort of practical political ideal.
I think we need common sense immigration laws, which would mean going after coyotes and businesses that hire illegals and abuse visa workers. We’ll be fine if our population was stagnant for a bit.
I think (in regards to lgbt) that you can do whatever you want between consenting adults, but leave kids out of it. Lot of upset about elementary school libraries and drag in schools, especially for a group that has nothing to do with kids.
I think we need better mental health, but I have no idea how that would look practically.
The internet was an inevitable mistake.
Anime was an avoidable mistake. Darkness best waifu.
Leftism feels like a cult these days. I don’t know why or how to describe it, but it does.
I think large international corporations need to be heavily regulated. At a certain size, maybe even making them utilities. Small companies should have more leeway.
There are problems, but they can be solved without burning down the system.
So you are one of those types against drag story hour?
Also you want a stagnant population and prefer that over immigration?
CBO projects that the majority of population growth overthe next two decades is from immigration. It seems our friend here is in favor of a shrinking population
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