As a person who feels anarchist principles would be the most benificial way to organize a society, I don’t personally feel like its possible to be harder left.
I always feel trepidatious engaging in hexbear threads. I can’t tell if many of the takes on here are sincere or trolling, and the immediate mass response to guessing wrong is a dissincentive.
Hexbear has some anarchists but more MLs. The mods delete more blatant sectarianism, but it’s not always perfect.
The main point of friction always ends up being US foreign policy. MLs see you criticizing a socialist state like China and think you’re an anti, when of course it’s still evil because all states are evil. But on the other hand, we’re having this conversation in English. The biggest influence we’d have on Chinese politics from over here would be to convince other English speakers to support anti-China foreign policy in their own governments. That’s state intervention, not anarchism.
Yeah, thats fair. The biggest thought trap I see people going in to is “the enemy of my enemy”. As I see it, capital impiaralism must be dismantled, and countered, but state capitalism with socialist characteristics doesn’t look like an ultimately fruitful path for enhanced liberty, so I think its important to be critical but not dismissive. I haven’t found that to be a minority stance amongst anarchsts. Ultimately, the idea of “foriegn policy” itself is statist and true solidarity means standing up for everyone regardless of who the oppressor is.
The characterization of china as state capitalism? You know, I hadn’t ever gatten a first hand source for it, so you did inspire me to check my understanding.
Its a central tenant and a core part of Xi Jiping thought. It was unanimously affirmed at the 20th party constitution convention. Some key highlights:
the system under which public ownership is the mainstay and diverse forms of ownership develop together
the socialist market economy
efforts to foster a new pattern of development that is focused on the domestic economy and features positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows
My understanding of it is a system of ownership and direction of enterprizes, where the state participates as a capitalist and as managenent, either wholely or in concert with private ownership.
edit to add: Lennin was certainly against any private participation in capitalism, but the soviet party did loosen that with parastroika, and the Chinese Communist party started with, I believe, Deng Xiaping Thought, tho I would have to double chetk that it didn’t start earlier
You are correct on what state capitalism is, but that flies in the face of the cases discussed. Perestroika USSR is not Lenin’s USSR, but one that suffered from decades of revisionist rot that started before Stalin’s corpse was even cold.
Normal-ass private citizen capitalists are anathema to Lenin’s state capitalist model, the whole point was for the state to take that mantle in order to remove the existence of an independent capitalist class. I don’t think this was correct, and in fact a pretty catastrophic failure of grasping counterfactual class antagonism, but it is what it is.
China’s model is officially called (among other things) “state socialism”, so named because the primary role of the state is not to nullify and supplant the capitalist class but rather to subjugate it at the direction of the proletariat. We can say in a looser sense that things like it’s public enterprise in oil are “state capitalist”, but the PRC overall is not a state capitalist entity.
Thanks, that did help deepen my understanding. Its good to see that the current thought remains commited to socialism and recognizes the miss-steps of the past, and is continuing to iterate towards a more equitable future.
Perhaps one day they will achieve it. I certainly hope they do. As of yet, the state capitalism approach to building socialism has had a number of mistakes and limited success, such that I still remain skeptical of it.
As a person who feels anarchist principles would be the most benificial way to organize a society, I don’t personally feel like its possible to be harder left.
I always feel trepidatious engaging in hexbear threads. I can’t tell if many of the takes on here are sincere or trolling, and the immediate mass response to guessing wrong is a dissincentive.
If Hexbears get at you for being a left anarchist report em. This is a left unity site. Sectarianism is not welcome. Our anarchist comrades are.
Hexbear has some anarchists but more MLs. The mods delete more blatant sectarianism, but it’s not always perfect.
The main point of friction always ends up being US foreign policy. MLs see you criticizing a socialist state like China and think you’re an anti, when of course it’s still evil because all states are evil. But on the other hand, we’re having this conversation in English. The biggest influence we’d have on Chinese politics from over here would be to convince other English speakers to support anti-China foreign policy in their own governments. That’s state intervention, not anarchism.
Yeah, thats fair. The biggest thought trap I see people going in to is “the enemy of my enemy”. As I see it, capital impiaralism must be dismantled, and countered, but state capitalism with socialist characteristics doesn’t look like an ultimately fruitful path for enhanced liberty, so I think its important to be critical but not dismissive. I haven’t found that to be a minority stance amongst anarchsts. Ultimately, the idea of “foriegn policy” itself is statist and true solidarity means standing up for everyone regardless of who the oppressor is.
How much have you actually investigated this claim?
The characterization of china as state capitalism? You know, I hadn’t ever gatten a first hand source for it, so you did inspire me to check my understanding.
Its a central tenant and a core part of Xi Jiping thought. It was unanimously affirmed at the 20th party constitution convention. Some key highlights:
you can read it yourself in the resolution on Party Constitution amendment
That’s something. Now, what do you mean by “state capitalist”?
My understanding of it is a system of ownership and direction of enterprizes, where the state participates as a capitalist and as managenent, either wholely or in concert with private ownership.
You know, like Lennin meant
edit to add: Lennin was certainly against any private participation in capitalism, but the soviet party did loosen that with parastroika, and the Chinese Communist party started with, I believe, Deng Xiaping Thought, tho I would have to double chetk that it didn’t start earlier
You are correct on what state capitalism is, but that flies in the face of the cases discussed. Perestroika USSR is not Lenin’s USSR, but one that suffered from decades of revisionist rot that started before Stalin’s corpse was even cold.
Normal-ass private citizen capitalists are anathema to Lenin’s state capitalist model, the whole point was for the state to take that mantle in order to remove the existence of an independent capitalist class. I don’t think this was correct, and in fact a pretty catastrophic failure of grasping counterfactual class antagonism, but it is what it is.
China’s model is officially called (among other things) “state socialism”, so named because the primary role of the state is not to nullify and supplant the capitalist class but rather to subjugate it at the direction of the proletariat. We can say in a looser sense that things like it’s public enterprise in oil are “state capitalist”, but the PRC overall is not a state capitalist entity.
Worth a read, this is from Vijay Prashad’s organisation: https://thetricontinental.org/wenhua-zongheng-2023-2-socialism-3-in-china/
Thanks, that did help deepen my understanding. Its good to see that the current thought remains commited to socialism and recognizes the miss-steps of the past, and is continuing to iterate towards a more equitable future.
Perhaps one day they will achieve it. I certainly hope they do. As of yet, the state capitalism approach to building socialism has had a number of mistakes and limited success, such that I still remain skeptical of it.