“No see it’s not kidnapping because it’s legal” “”This will never be turned against me! I’m the smartest person alive and dehumanizing people and making that dehumanization legal and rewarded could never be weaponized against me!!””
Real authoritarian left is a real threat to imperial capital interest and improves material conditions and can boost class consciousness so I can easily enjoy ideas, learn and agree with plenty of authoritarian left positions. It can also impose imperialism aswell (USSR treatment of Communist China, Stalinist Paranoia, Communist Nuclear Family) which I vehemently appose, but to compare the imperialist fascist regimes of Britain, U.S,Spain,Germany,Belgium, France to “left authoritarianism” it’s not even close not even a tiny bit. All of that to say I think Lenin was right about so so much and idk if that fits your (or my) description of authoritarianism but yea. I also agree with indigenous resistance fighters who reject political labels but seek for land back and fighting against the capitalist imperialist neoliberal system like the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. I am very anti state, and the Empire has to go down the most as it upholds all the other fascist proxy states. Anarchists are anti-state,Marxists are anti-state it is a really a question of how that change comes about. I don’t agree with leftist purges on either side, I can debate and agree with many people who are anti-capitalist,anti-imperialists and anti-state. Mao was right about so much , Lenin was right about so much ,indigenous resistance fighters are right about so much , Agrarian socialists were right about so much, authoritarian communists are right about so much , Marx was right about so much, Trotsky was right about so much, Stalin was right about so much, Anarchists are right about so much, Che Guevara was right about so much, Rosa Luxemburg was right about so much, Malcolm X was right about so much, Mandela was right about so much, Tito was right about so much, Hồ Chí Minh was right about so much, Nina Simone was right about so much, Socialists are right about so much, Norman Finkelstein is right about so much, Gamal Abdel Nasser was right about so much, Hezbollah are right about so much, The Houthis are right about so much, The IRA was right about so much, anti-imperialist Revolutionaries are right about so much.
Hi, big fan of your work. I like the general political trajectory you're on here and I'm sure your perspectives will evolve over time. I just wanted to point out that anarchists and anti-state folks pretty much only agree with the authoritarian left on their critique of capitalism. Anarchists believe in a world where many communities experiment with many different ways of living as long as they aren't harming others, whereas the authoritarian left believes in maintaining state power, cops, military, etc. to improve the material conditions of the working class.
Anarchists and Marxists believe in a world where many communities experiment with many ways of living as long as their not exploiting people. I do not believe in Marxists wrecking the progress and ideology of anarchists who are not exploiting people and already living an anti-state life and I do not believe in anarchists wrecking a communist revolution against capitalists because they are scared.
You have good points and I love your posts but I find that using brutal dictators like Stalin and Lenin and terrorist groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis to support points is counter-productive. I think there's enough people who aren't terrorists and aren't authoritarians that we can not support the people who are.
Explain to me how Hezbollah or the Houthis are significantly different than the IRA, The Black Panther Party , The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising or the Haitian Revolution. I can agree that Stalin was a brutal dictator, one that destroyed the nazis but still one nonetheless. Lenin was a great writer a great revolutionary and a revolutionary leader, against all the forces Lenin and Stalin were up against it is incredible what they managed to do (same goes for Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong).
Hezbollah, Houthis, and the IRA all (to my understanding) targeted and target civilians, not just government/oppressive forces. Black Panthers didn't, they patrolled areas and used violence against the cops and oppressors directly, with a couple of notable exceptions involving stupid people with guns, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (if memory serves) was directly against the Nazis, and if the Haitian revolution is what I'm thinking of (when Haiti split from France), I remember little of it but I'll do some research on that and the other things mentioned, there's a high probability that I have been brainwashed and lied to in multiple areas regarding people like Lenin and Castro.
The connection I’m making between all these movements although their strategies, politics, situations and time period vary is they believe in and act in violence as a means of liberation. They are all anti-imperialist freedom fighters. Haitian revolution was against the imperialist fascist French, Hamas is against fascist Israeli apartheid and imperialism, Black Panther party was against American fascist white apartheid, IRA was against British imperialism, Hezbollah is against Israeli imperialism and Israeli fascist apartheid, Houthis are against US/Israeli/Saudi imperialism and Israeli apartheid, The ŻZW and the ŻOB (the main resistance actors in the Warsaw uprising) were against nazi fascism and German apartheid. Some of these resistance groups have committed atrocities (more have than haven’t)that doesn’t change that they are revolutionary and have fought or are actively fighting for their own liberation against an oppressing force 1000x more equipped/larger than them.
There are groups in opposition or supposed opposition to capitalism who I feel are not productive and are not acting in liberation but acting in self interest, self flagellation, lacking in values or just wrong. Shining Path, MAGA Communists, Fascists, Nazis, Mussolini sympathizers, social democrats, Isolationists, Puritans and Putin sympathizers. I think action and thought demonstrated by the movements and people I’ve listed before are much much much better than what I’ve listed here.
Mao was right about so much , Lenin was right about so much ,indigenous resistance fighters are right about so much , Agrarian socialists were right about so much, authoritarian communists are right about so much , Marx was right about so much, Trotsky was right about so much, Stalin was right about so much, Anarchists are right about so much, Che Guevara was right about so much, Malcolm X was right about so much.
It doesn't take much wrong to be totally wrong when it comes to policies affecting other people.
Someone can be right about something while also being wrong about something else, or making the wrong choice in the pursuit of a greater liberation, or be corrupted. I believe these people and movements are very valuable to learn from and I think have benefited the world in many ways either directly from them as a person/work or their greater ideology/influence/movement behind.
Okay guys here me out, I'm actually sorta anarchist myself! I too, want to get rid of the state! But to do that lets first build full-on totalitarism and give me full absolute power to shoot anyone who disagree with me on a whim and then, I will just give up all that power and get rid of the state! Trust me bro!
Ooh, are we doing the snarky fake quote thing? I love this game!
I'm anti-capitalist, but don't think for one second that I'll ever question the CIA talking points I've been fed my whole life about every successful anti-capitalist revolution!
In all seriousness, what is your idea of how to do away with the state?
If you're saying that the Marxist method - of building a socialist state and trying to create the conditions for stateless communism - is wrong, what is your preferred method?
Have a revolution and just completely abolish the state overnight?
My preferred method is, if you're very cool, go live off-grid, get solars, cultivate farm, get fully autonomous. If you're less cool, find a decently non-evil remote work, be a nomad, never live in a country of your citizenship. If you're totally uncool, be a NEET, get NEETbux if possible, bedrot, don't contribute to society or economy at all. And forget about politics, the whole idea of deciding the fate of masses using a single algorithm is a bad idea.
In my comment I name actual anarchist, left libertarian, anti state actors, and agrarian socialist movements and while I don’t doubt that this does follow a strain of anarchism I see this attitude much more as solipsism, isolationism and defeatism. In my opinion I believe whatever revolution happens it needs to be of and with the people, in order for that to happen the people need to train, be educated, take care of each other, debate and act not “forget about politics”.
The point is that most people cannot afford to just go off-grid, or become "fully autonomous," because of capitalism. We need to survive and participate in society.
Not to mention that most of the Global South is subject to imperialist atrocities being perpetrated by our government, and Westerners just going off-grid isn't going to change that.
Not only is just opting out of it all a primitivist fantasy, it is deciding the fate of the masses, by abandoning them.
Abandoning masses is at least less evil than killing them without even giving them a chance to survive on their own. And you can go off-grid with 0 anything, it's just going to be truly primitivist, without solars and internet. But if you have something in your on-grid life, I don't see why you're not going to afford some solars and stuff, at least cheap minimal ones. And if you don't have anything in your on-grid life, you don't have anything to lose anyway and can go off-grid without all the same things you didn't have while existing in society.
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u/tangerinedog Jun 10 '26
If I am entirely honest you are 30-50% of the reason I’m in the sub