Thursday, February 05, 2004
Sasha Volokh discusses lame critique of Marxist Anarchism:
critque:
The truth is that communism cannot exist without force because it depends so heavily upon squelching individual human ambition and making it subservient to the community. The moment an individual in a communist society attempts to take property for himself, or trade with others for his own profit, there must be a collective force available to stop his activities. That neccessity leads to a strong government, which eliminates any potential for an anarchistic communism
Sasha:
Step 3 is where you say, "But wait a minute, here's my political-science theory where I argue that any socialism degenerates into something as bad as Soviet-style socialism, because it requires so much control over people's behavior that you need a powerful police state, the worst get to the top, etc., etc." Step 4 is where the proponent has to show how his proposed implementation avoids that problem.
I'm going to draw on my experience visiting the Bruderhof, a (non-marxist) anarchist commune in Maryland. That is, the part I visited was in Maryland; they have other centers in New York and South America.
One of things they have there is a shared belief in a personal jesus.
They live together as they think the early christians lived.
Higher-tech naturally; one of their companies does airplane maintenance for example.
Coersion would not be used to deter capitalist acts between consenting adults. They would rely on moral suasion and non-cooperation. Like a taboo. Budding capitalists would encounter the yuck factor. Capitalist perverts could be shunned, and perhaps develop a shadowy underground
with their own bars and newsletters, and someday engage in activsm to have their deviant lifestyle tolerated, even the right to marry. Each other.
Exclusively. Oh yuck!
I liked my visit there. Good coffee and good books in the bookstore.
Tolerable food. No TV.At the time of my visit, I was deeply depressed, lonely, alienated, hoping that this might be the community I'm looking for.
They were considerate hosts. um, bruderhof.org? However, I'm an agnostic.
I don't share the thing that binds them socially. So I went back home.
There was also some stuff on the web about how they aren't friendly to people who choose to leave, suggesting there might be darker side.
But no stalinism.
I chose bruderhof as an illustrative example, but the larger point is that anarchist socialist communities do not require coersion, so there need be no downward spiral into stalinism. Does this meet sasha's step 4?
There's another point I want to make about marxism, one I learned largely from Sandra Harding, a marxist feminist philosopher. Marxist politics, having nation-states make experients at socialism, does indeed tend to stalinism, and most of the campus academic marxists have tended to be complicit in this.
But, marxist epistemology need not be coupled with marxist politics.
As we know from soc 101, weber, marx, durkheim, offer a way of looking at how societies are put together and how an individual's awareness is colored by their role in society. If this turns out to a be a useful set of theory, a person could be a Marxist in that sense, without adopting the political errors of central planning or stalinism.
I think this set of theory is indeed useful.
For example, in thinking about solipcism, it is worth noting that we think about solipsism in English, and english has a history and evolution, that Occam's razor suggests is incompatable with solipcism.
I think in English, which at least suggests that others exist.
Cogito ergo sum. The meme, "I think therefore I am", was expressed in latin, by Descartes, before being translated into English, at least suggesting that descarte existed.
We can postulate that there are others, who think about things sort of the way we do. But we can also postulate that others have had life experiences which we have not, and therefor they have had different thoughts and come to different conclusions than we have.
Marxist theory builds on this, with ideas about class consciousness.
Am I a Libertarian because libertarianism is right, or because I'm a white guy from the suburbs who was oppressed by LBJ, or both?
I am convinced that Libertarianism is right, but I also see that that is easier for me to see than for someone wwith different life experiences.
Maybe Marxist epistemology offers techiques and tools I can use to communicate the libertarian vision to people who's life experiences make libertarianism less than obvious.
critque:
The truth is that communism cannot exist without force because it depends so heavily upon squelching individual human ambition and making it subservient to the community. The moment an individual in a communist society attempts to take property for himself, or trade with others for his own profit, there must be a collective force available to stop his activities. That neccessity leads to a strong government, which eliminates any potential for an anarchistic communism
Sasha:
Step 3 is where you say, "But wait a minute, here's my political-science theory where I argue that any socialism degenerates into something as bad as Soviet-style socialism, because it requires so much control over people's behavior that you need a powerful police state, the worst get to the top, etc., etc." Step 4 is where the proponent has to show how his proposed implementation avoids that problem.
I'm going to draw on my experience visiting the Bruderhof, a (non-marxist) anarchist commune in Maryland. That is, the part I visited was in Maryland; they have other centers in New York and South America.
One of things they have there is a shared belief in a personal jesus.
They live together as they think the early christians lived.
Higher-tech naturally; one of their companies does airplane maintenance for example.
Coersion would not be used to deter capitalist acts between consenting adults. They would rely on moral suasion and non-cooperation. Like a taboo. Budding capitalists would encounter the yuck factor. Capitalist perverts could be shunned, and perhaps develop a shadowy underground
with their own bars and newsletters, and someday engage in activsm to have their deviant lifestyle tolerated, even the right to marry. Each other.
Exclusively. Oh yuck!
I liked my visit there. Good coffee and good books in the bookstore.
Tolerable food. No TV.At the time of my visit, I was deeply depressed, lonely, alienated, hoping that this might be the community I'm looking for.
They were considerate hosts. um, bruderhof.org? However, I'm an agnostic.
I don't share the thing that binds them socially. So I went back home.
There was also some stuff on the web about how they aren't friendly to people who choose to leave, suggesting there might be darker side.
But no stalinism.
I chose bruderhof as an illustrative example, but the larger point is that anarchist socialist communities do not require coersion, so there need be no downward spiral into stalinism. Does this meet sasha's step 4?
There's another point I want to make about marxism, one I learned largely from Sandra Harding, a marxist feminist philosopher. Marxist politics, having nation-states make experients at socialism, does indeed tend to stalinism, and most of the campus academic marxists have tended to be complicit in this.
But, marxist epistemology need not be coupled with marxist politics.
As we know from soc 101, weber, marx, durkheim, offer a way of looking at how societies are put together and how an individual's awareness is colored by their role in society. If this turns out to a be a useful set of theory, a person could be a Marxist in that sense, without adopting the political errors of central planning or stalinism.
I think this set of theory is indeed useful.
For example, in thinking about solipcism, it is worth noting that we think about solipsism in English, and english has a history and evolution, that Occam's razor suggests is incompatable with solipcism.
I think in English, which at least suggests that others exist.
Cogito ergo sum. The meme, "I think therefore I am", was expressed in latin, by Descartes, before being translated into English, at least suggesting that descarte existed.
We can postulate that there are others, who think about things sort of the way we do. But we can also postulate that others have had life experiences which we have not, and therefor they have had different thoughts and come to different conclusions than we have.
Marxist theory builds on this, with ideas about class consciousness.
Am I a Libertarian because libertarianism is right, or because I'm a white guy from the suburbs who was oppressed by LBJ, or both?
I am convinced that Libertarianism is right, but I also see that that is easier for me to see than for someone wwith different life experiences.
Maybe Marxist epistemology offers techiques and tools I can use to communicate the libertarian vision to people who's life experiences make libertarianism less than obvious.
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