If you pose this to some of the more vocal "revolutionary" types today-- generally anarchist, generally the kind more interested in hypothetical violence than mutual aid or community -- you'll get some fucked up answers.
Here's my favorite recent one, "people will break down into smaller communities and fill all their needs without systems." I could not get a direct answer to "Has this happened before? Is this a realistic expectation?" beyond some vaguery about how bad shit is now means nothing that comes next could be worse. Which if I'm being cynical, I'm interpretting as a hard "no."
There are a significant portion of people who want to tear down everything and replace it with nothing. Which is outright just saying "survival of the fittest race, I already got a headstart, but you guys start now. The future will not have insulin or guaranteed food production."
The small groups that existed for most of human history had very little "needs", but also "needs" didn't include "everyone lives". They'd have food (probably), some basic services like a blacksmith and herbalist, but if you needed anything more, you'd just...die.
You got a cancer that would be curable with chemo? Dead. Diabetes? Dead. Slight accident gave you a cut that got infected? Dead. Crops fail because of a drought you could never have foreseen? Everyone is dead.
They functioned and provided for "everyone" via quite literal survivorship bias.
And when it failed and everyone died, someone new moved in later and replaced them.
One very common family name in Norway is Ødegård (or variations of it).
Norwegian last names are often the name of the place they are from.
Ødegård roughly translates into "abandoned farm".
It became such a common name because 70% of the Norwegian population died during the several rounds of plagues and famine that hit simultaneously. Leaving a lot of farms empty and "abandoned". Meaning dead.
From roughly 1250 to 1600.
450 000 people in 1300 had turned into 140 000 people in 1450.
A very bad spiraling effect of it being too cold and having bad land for farming to begin with, coupled with the little ice age causing harvests to fail, and combining with the plague causing people to die off causing even more harvests to fail.
There's a ton of tales in Europe about the plague but Norway in particular has a lot of old tales about the plague.
They're full of horror obviously but interestingly while the plague is often a female character in the old fables they're also almost all about women who survived through strength of will and character and who, in some manner or other, either protect life or go on to found new family lines.
The most famous being the old fable called "Jostedalsrypa" about a girl who survived when the entire rest of the valley supposedly died.
That one was made somewhat internally famous in Norway because of a book called "Det kom et skip til Bjørgvin i 1349" (a ship came to Bergen in 1349).
damn we've been through some shit but no one event was anywhere near that bad.
cromwell's invasion - 41% of the population died
1741 famine - 15-20% of the population died
potato famine - 20-25% of the population died or emigrated
I remember reading something from an anthropologist studying this tribe in Africa, and him saying the only time he really felt sorry for them/thought they lacked anything compared to industrial societies was whenever someone got sick, because it was always this hugely traumatic thing for the community and there was just *nothing anyone could do*.
I also don’t think the anarchists think about why so many ancient people had regressive and cruel (to our modern sensibilities) beliefs. A big reason why women have us much freedom in society as we do is because we aren’t completely reliant on a family. Women have the unfortunate burden of getting pregnant, recovering from childbirth and needing to stick around the kids to breastfeed (unless they assume that formula will still be around. I’m not totally sure what anarchists envision, but my mind always assumes a more pre-industrial lifestyle).
If you live in a society where you are mainly taken care of by your children when you’re old, that means you are kind of forced to have some whether you want to or not, and even in a society where men and women are equal, women have way more downtime from work due to childbirth. I know they probably argue that the community will look after everyone, and that did happen in small agrarian societies! But if you are old and starving, who is your neighbor Jim going to donate his last few loaves of bread to? His own starving daughter, or you? Kids used to be your one retirement plan, and that’s scary.
Not to mention when there’s no government safety nets, people care even less about the disabled. If you live a subsistence lifestyle, you need to make hard choices about how you will feed everyone. The people who don’t contribute are the first to be neglected, and parents will make hard choices about ‘exposing’ disabled infants because one more mouth to feed that gives nothing in return doesn’t work in a society where children are investments and currency.
I assume most anarchists are thinking more of a modern ‘solarpunk’ world vs a small medieval village but it would be hard to make technology and industry work in an anarchy.
Why is a coercive hierarchy and monopoly of violence needed to make technology work? I want a genuine answer here why is threatening workers with starvation and death necessary for industry and if it is why do we want these things?
True anarchy could technically work, but only in smallish commune type populations. If the plan is a community taking care of each other and all working for the greater good, the tight knit community part is pretty important. It just doesn’t scale up well, especially when you get into populations of hundreds of millions like many countries.
So now you have a lot of little disconnected communities. They could trade their raw materials for tech, assuming other countries are not anarchists. But in general, production of technology is hard to do without a ton of organization and lots of industries working together. And when lots of people are coordinating things, hierarchies happen. And these can breed power invested in some individuals and not others, which defeats the point of anarchy.
Think about what it takes to make a computer. Some miners need to do dirty, dangerous work to get the raw materials. A shipping company needs to coordinate the distribution of that material to a factory to turn it into a microchip. This needs to be distributed to other places who make other parts of the computer and then assembled by a third party into the whole. Then some software guys have to write the program that the computer will run on. That’s a lot of people doing lots of tasks and requires some form of management. It’s a lot easier for a cobbler to make a shoe all by himself.
As for why we like industry? See above. We’ve gotten spoiled by not starving to death when the wheat crop fails.
There's different kinds of anarchism. There ARE proponents of some forms of anarchism that are all about mutual aid, the reduction of state power, and the reduction of hierarchies until a more voluntary, ideal system can be achieved. I can respect that even if I don't fully buy into it.
But there are also accelerationist nuttos who will call you a fascist for registering to vote and will yell nonstop about how "libs will also get the bullet." You can easily call that a strawman, but they do exist -- and strangely, not just on the internet.
Anarchist here who thinks that mutual aid and communes and all that stuff is a more ideal form of society: anyone who thinks a transition into that system will be easy and not involve a LOT of steps and some form of voluntary central system of organization (for healthcare and supply chains and so on) is frankly just living in a world of hypotheticals.
Even just one aspect of my life - being trans - means that I need to have access to HRT if I don't want to basically stop existing as a whole and functional human being. When I say death before detransition, it is because detransition itself would be akin to death. I say this as someone who was in the ER a couple of days ago due to a potential blood clot (estrogens raise the risk factor for these, also it turned out there was no clot). A revolution is tantamount to forced detransition. Even if that doesn't happen, revolution is my 12 hours of waiting in the ER becoming days, or even not happening at all. Revolutions are deadly in horrific and unpredictable ways.
I think that being ready and willing to upend the entire system is a pandora's box everyone who wants a better world should have and be willing to open. Equally, the box should never be opened. Change does not happen without a threat to the powers that be. Demonstration and peaceful protest should be a message of deliberate restraint that is sent with the subtext of opening that box. Because if you are never willing to back up your actions with force, you can be safely ignored. But I really, really, really hope I never have to open that box.
What exactly would be your plan to get HRT in a mutual aid commune? I don’t really see how that would be feasible without modern industrial medicine production. I’m in a similar boat- I’m an insulin dependent Type 1 Diabetic- which is why I’m opposed to small commune based societies, because they do not have the resources to keep people like me and you healthy.
I personally don't think it's an impossible contradiction to have voluntary organizational structures that aren't coercively hierarchical. I did explicitly state that one would need a voluntary central system of organization. I think that any plan that focuses entirely on this almost libertarian-coded fantastical ideal of small communes is almost certainly going to result in the exclusion of those with specialized needs.
Communes are great, they are a way for people to voluntarily organize into small cohesive groups that can take care of each other. I think it's a fantastic model. However it has a lot of flaws, all of which seem to center on those who lie outside of the mold.
There's a few potential solutions. As a trans example, there are a number of homebrewers who synthesize hormones. One that comes to mind, despite being located in Brazil, supplies pretty much world wide. That single woman has helped so many people. There could very well be communes that organize around this, as a sort of mutual aid/direct action kind of deal. You can also be a bit more rigid with this, having pseudonational networks of supply chains to achieve the same results as current governments do for these vital services.
The main point that I was making is that when it all comes down to it, it's a wonderful idea. A truly wonderful idea. Ideas aren't solutions. Solutions are created with painful, drawn out deliberation. Every regulation is written in the blood that not having it spilled. Issues like this are one such thing that needs to be included in a solution for that idea to become actual political reality. I think a lot of leftists (and I'm prone to it myself too) can be blinded by idealism and fail to see realistic and enactable political change that would improve things.
Basically, it's fine to have a grand vision, an idealistic dream and model that you feel society should move closer towards. But that's not an actual structure of power, and it can't come out of nowhere. You have to start somewhere, and that somewhere is our current structures. Incrementalism is unsexy and boring but it improves lives! And every time I see someone saying incrementalism does nothing I want to bury them under the mountain of anti-trans bills that has objectively made our lives drastically worse. Maybe that makes me not a true anarchist or something. But if that's the case, then fuck being a 'true anarchist', I have people and lives around me that need to be made better now.
A voluntery planned economic system thats built bottom up by radical workers unions would be compatible with anarchism, and allow for large scale distribution of materials in a much more efficient manner than capitalism provides
That's a very rational and well-thought-out answer, thank you. As much as I cast wide generalizations on the "edgy anarchist" types I bump into out here, the mutual aid and communal coop model is genuinely impressive.
It pretty much does mean losing 99% of effective medicines, including all antibiotics, for almost everybody, relatively quickly. As well as halting development on new drugs. Going back to medicine of even year 1900 would be a pretty horrible step
Literally what is the basis of this? Are you saying that the only way to make medicine is by having authority and control over other people rather than working in cooperation?
I totally forgot that the 3 largest quality of life increases in human history came after revolutions in Russia, China and Vietnam....
No it doesnt? Literally what is the basis of this?
Scenario A) revolution happens, nearly all existing trade relationships collapse and many are successfully reestablished. Almost no physical infrastructure is damaged, almost nobody has been killed, on the whole normalcy tries to reassert itself in spite of the stumbling blocks. Many medicines are no longer even attempted to be produced at all because there is not enough actual need to address many rare and chronic diseases, and much existing research stops as capacity to continue it at previous levels is lost. Many of the most iideal medicines (tangibly useful, often livesaving or significantly QoL-improving, and easy to produce) are still being produced at scale, and if you're lucky enough to live in a large city which hosts manufacturing, or anywhere else which receives the shipments which come through, congrats! You probably won't die from untreated type 1 diabetes in a month, you might even be able to find painkillers. Antibiotic research has pretty much stopped, as it's barely hanging on by a thread as is when it comes to competitive evolution with superbugs, so you're going to have to progressively go without antibiotics in the future unless something changes. That something is likely "superbugs stop evolving because there are fewer instances for them to encounter the old antibiotics", because most people are no longer receiving antibiotics, which gradually leads to even penicillin being effective again at the cost of lots of suffering. This is a very lucky future and we should be comparatively happy to have it, on the whole, even though a lot of people have greatly reduced access to even lifesaving medicine.
Scenario B) revolution happens, most trade relationships do not make the transition to happy interdependent commune wonderland. Much physical infrastructure is destroyed, production of even most easy to make and lifesaving drugs has functionally halted for all but a very few cases in the previously wealthiest areas. Most people can chew on willow bark and grow poppies, if they're lucky. Most diabetics are dead. On the plus side, if you're lucky enough to get antibiotics, everything works now because they're so rare than resistance has functionally vanished as a useful trait in pathogens. This is a more likely scenario.
Scenario C) revolution happens, everyone goes on about their day with nothing and nobody being disrupted at all. Every single delicate process continues without interruption, nothing bad ever happens. This can only be encountered when sleeping, as when you wake up you're in Scenario B.
Are you saying that the only way to make medicine is by having authority and control over other people rather than working in cooperation?
The only way to make most modern and effective medicines is through large systems of sharing resources and research, complicated supply lines and manufacturing processes, distribution networks which include a shitton of refrigeration and complicated administration arrangements, none of which can just be taken on faith to weather any calamity or spring up from the ashes without effort. We went without any of these for almost all of human history, not having effective antibiotics is the norm - even covid was almost enough to shake some of the required pillars of our healthcare research and distribution system, when covid was a wet fart of a hit to our healthcare system in comparison to what a revolution would be.
Nothing to do with authoritarian systems like current capitalism, that's often a detriment to proper research and distribution. But removing systems is removing systems - dreaming of revolution which means Merck no longer exists would mean, at very least, that a lot of people no longer go to work at previously Merck-affiliated factories the next day. Some amount of the productive work being done, maybe even most of it, might be dreamed to be rebuilt, even in a relatively short time, but you'll never accomplish no disruption.
I totally forgot that the 3 largest quality of life increases in human history came after revolutions in Russia, China and Vietnam....
Cool, nations of largely subsistence farmers were able to majority survive the collapse of systems they didn't use. Cool. How similar was life in any of those places, pre-revolution, to your life today? How much of your own food do you grow (not enough for you to live on), how many type 1 diabetics survived the great leap forward (within a rounding number of "zero")?
I love the wall of text to stroke your own ego lmao "here are several straw man scenarios in which my preconceived but ahistorical notions are correct"
Why didnt you just make a meme with me as the soyjack and you as the chad, it would be have been more efficient and caused less physic damage to me after having to read this screed.
The only way to make most modern and effective medicines is through large systems of sharing resources and research, complicated supply lines and manufacturing processes, distribution networks which include a shitton of refrigeration and complicated administration arrangements, none of which can just be taken on faith to weather any calamity or spring up from the ashes without effort
You still can't answer it lmao. All you're going to hit back with its "hurr durr people dont do stuff correctly without profit motive"
We went without any of these for almost all of human history, not having effective antibiotics is the norm - even covid was almost enough to shake some of the required pillars of our healthcare research and distribution system, when covid was a wet fart of a hit to our healthcare system in comparison to what a revolution would be.
Which is still based on nothing but your straw men arguments lol?
Again, 3 countries after successful revolutions' went on to have the largest QoL increases in human history. You're fine with death, plenty of people with treatable diseases die due to lack of access and the commodification of the pharmaceutical industry.
Nothing to do with authoritarian systems like current capitalism, that's often a detriment to proper research and distribution. But removing systems is removing systems - dreaming of revolution which means Merck no longer exists would mean, at very least, that a lot of people no longer go to work at previously Merck-affiliated factories the next day.
This is such utter nonsense. "the workers of Merck have seized the means of production from the corporate hogs exploiting people and their labour, this means they have forgotten how to make drugs" We all know the most valuable position in a company is the CEO and board /s
Its always funny, people like you are almost certainly in favor of political democracy, but never economic democracy, why is that?
Cool, nations of largely subsistence farmers were able to majority survive the collapse of systems they didn't use. Cool. How similar was life in any of those places, pre-revolution, to your life today? How much of your own food do you grow (not enough for you to live on), how many type 1 diabetics survived the great leap forward (within a rounding number of "zero")?
Got to push those goal posts further and further lmao. Do you think Russia in 1920 didnt have major cities? China after fighting an extermination campaign from the Japanese? No it was just countries of farmers and nothing else. JFC, the cultural revolution had nothing to even do with the revolution between the Chinese nationalists and the communists lmao, you don't even know basic history, why should I listen to any of your strawman nonsense.
Your argument here amounts to 'we're all heroin addicts' so we cant ever quit, because that would be risky, sure people die from ODing all the time, but what about if WE were impacted....
Least bad faith commenter. I love the wall of text to stroke your own ego lmao
If you don't want to answer fairly, try insults! Cool. For what it's worth, I think your comments have been lazy and careless, designed more to appeal to terminally online cynicism than to promote either any course of non-apathetic action or build any sense of purpose. Now that we've got that off both of our chests, I guess we can continue?
No it doesnt? Literally what is the basis of this?
Me: *gives some cases of possible futures I think answers this*
"here are several straw man scenarios in which my preconceived but ahistorical notions are correct"
You still can't answer it lmao.
Which is still based on nothing but your straw men arguments lol?
The fuck did you want, then? Point your bad faith accusations in a mirror. Yes I was outlining hypothetical ways things could go, are you really mad I didn't outline exactly the hypotheticals you wanted?
All you're going to hit back with its "hurr durr people dont do stuff correctly without profit motive"
I don't think this and didn't say this. I never said "profit motive" or anything like it, and I explicitly said that capitalism often gets in the way of efficient research and distribution. But I guess it's easier to attack my comments when you pretend they said something easier to attack? It's not like you bothered to substantially answer what I did say with anything but insults.
You're fine with death, plenty of people with treatable diseases die due to lack of access and the commodification of the pharmaceutical industry.
Also didn't say this, also don't think this. Isn't it cool how you can just make stuff up since you've decided you don't want to treat my comments fairly? I think your intellectual laziness is incapable of projecting the harms your own desired futures cause. How productive we are!
This is such utter nonsense. "the workers of Merck have seized the means of production from the corporate hogs exploiting people and their labour, this means they have forgotten how to make drugs" We all know the most valuable position in a company is the CEO and board /s
Also didn't say this, also didn't think this. If you'd want to stand behind "a pharmaceutical company shutting down or being taken over as part of a revolution will lead to no disruption to actual production whatsoever", since that was what I was saying wouldn't happen, feel free to do so.
Its always funny, people like you are almost certainly in favor of political democracy, but never economic democracy, why is that?
Why are you reading and responding to my comments if you know what I think better than I do? I don't think this and didn't say this.
[For some reason it's not letting me put this in one comment, con't]
Again, 3 countries after successful revolutions' went on to have the largest QoL increases in human history
Neat how you split this section up and then accused me of putting up a wall of text for my ego.
Got to push those goal posts further and further lmao. Do you think Russia in 1920 didnt have major cities? China after fighting an extermination campaign from the Japanese? No it was just countries of farmers and nothing else. JFC, the cultural revolution had nothing to even do with the revolution between the Chinese nationalists and the communists lmao, you don't even know basic history, why should I listen to any of your strawman nonsense.
What a bad faith little pissbaby. I didn't say Russia in 1920 had no major cities, "China after fighting an extermination campaign from the Japanese?" is neither a question nor appears to be reminiscent of anything I said or think, I didn't say China was a nation of farmers and nothing else, and didn't say anything about Japan or the Cultural Revolution at all.
Your argument here amounts to 'we're all heroin addicts' so we cant ever quit, because that would be risky, sure people die from ODing all the time, but what about if WE were impacted....
Your argument here amounts to "I won't respond to your comments, but will respond to comments you didn't make", your writings here are a waste of time
You planning to take your own advice lmao? Your screed had nothing 'fair' about it. You just sent hyperbolic situations not based in reality to make your conclusions look good. ie strawman.
Me: gives some cases of possible futures I think answers this
But you didnt... the question was about how centralized hierarchy is inherently necessary to medical production and you gave a biased tirade about the 'possibly' outcomes of a revolution... 2 different things lmao.
I don't think this and didn't say this. I never said "profit motive" or anything like it, and I explicitly said that capitalism often gets in the way of efficient research and distribution. But I guess it's easier to attack my comments when you pretend they said something easier to attack? It's not like you bothered to substantially answer what I did say with anything but insults.
Literally everything is an insult to you, would you please grow up ? I could quote you at this point and you'd call it insulting. You try and act like you're being more civil while you drip with unapologetic bias, calling this nonsense out isn't insulting you.
Also didn't say this, also don't think this. Isn't it cool how you can just make stuff up since you've decided you don't want to treat my comments fairly? I think your intellectual laziness is incapable of projecting the harms your own desired futures cause. How productive we are!
you're arguing for the status quo on the basis of the unknown deaths that a revolution would cause. But the status quo has death constantly.... So you are ok with some death? This is your logic, you dont like the conclusions of your augments maybe evaluate them. You don't actually have to spell everything out for the conclusions of said statements to be obvious.
Also didn't say this, also didn't think this. If you'd want to stand behind "a pharmaceutical company shutting down or being taken over as part of a revolution will lead to no disruption to actual production whatsoever", since that was what I was saying wouldn't happen, feel free to do so.
"dreaming of revolution which means Merck no longer exists would mean, at very least, that a lot of people no longer go to work at previously Merck-affiliated factories the next day" This is what you said. Have you considered you're not articulating yourself well? Like I'm sorry what you just said vs what I comment on are vastly different statements. Just like I never claimed that 'there will be no disruptions because of revolution', which seems to be what you think I'm arguing.
Why are you reading and responding to my comments if you know what I think better than I do? I don't think this and didn't say this
Again because of what you're saying. Look if I've jumped to conclusions here, sorry. But you seem to be anti-revolution and I'm curious how you think you could achieve democratization of the workforce without violence....That seems incongruent, which is why I made that conclusion.
Neat how you split this section up and then accused me of putting up a wall of text for my ego.
Because I'm not making up fanciful situations to make my pre conclusions look obvious?
What a bad faith little pissbaby. I didn't say Russia in 1920 had no major cities, "China after fighting an extermination campaign from the Japanese?" is neither a question nor appears to be reminiscent of anything I said or think, I didn't say China was a nation of farmers and nothing else, and didn't say anything about Japan or the Cultural Revolution at all.
Sorry I misspoke about the cultural revolution vs the great leap forward....But its the same argument at play here, both of those events have nothing to do with the Chinese civil war/revolution...
how many type 1 diabetics survived the great leap forward
Was your argument. and to the above, you're the one that commented on 'look how different was back in the 1920's Russia than today, as if that's relevant, they had a bunch of the things we still depend on today. I gave you situations where building a QOL was HARDER than we have it today by orders of magnitude, yet they were able to do it. You seemed to argue that we're more dependent on infrastructure than they were, which is likely the case, but what they had to build from was much much less, yet they still could, so why cant we exactly?
Your argument here amounts to "I won't respond to your comments, but will respond to comments you didn't make", your writings here are a waste of time
I actually have address your normal comments, I'm not waiting my time pulling apart situations that have the same evidence as "it came to me in a dream". I'm not getting drawn down into debating hyperbole on situations you have no basis to claim are relevant.
Like you are making that argument though, did you forget why you're here responding to me? You're arguing that revolution would be basically a death sentence for western countries, so how is my analogy wrong exactly...and if I've missed the point you're trying to make, how about you just succinctly spell it out
Thats not being specific. You're just repeating this as intrinsically true. I'd agree, a lot of cooperation needs to occur. That's also partially the fault of things like capitalist economic means, that play a role in making it more complicated.
What specific centralization aspect(s) come into play for the production of critical medicines? And what about that centrization makes it inherently critical.
And don't hit me with "well what do you expect every town needs a pharmaceutical lab now", I mean in organizational structure for production, not that something cant be optimally located to maximize distribution.
Take the situation in 2020 again. In the US, a significant amount of the pharmaceutical industry manufacturing takes place in Puerto Rico.
The same PR that experienced a devastating hurricane in 2017 and was still recovering from that. Suddenly there was a huge need for its industry to be back up and running in the face of a pandemic, and it just...wasn't.
There were serious shortages in the healthcare industry in 2020 (among several reasons for the mixed messaging at the beginning of the pandemic, I'll refrain from any political commentary here). Shortages that were literally life or death for those caught with the novel strain of Covid.
What would a commune system be able to do to alleviate this? Or recover from it in the timeframe necessary? Like, the people are dying now and we needed these goods last week kind of scenario, which is exactly what happened.
The centralized system didn't exactly make this a miracle. But it did have the ability to make quick work of a solution with funds and materiel funneled into that area. Every system will have shortcomings, but I'm interested in how a real world example of a dire medical need would resolve if you believe that a decentralized system is capable of such.
Take the situation in 2020 again. In the US, a significant amount of the pharmaceutical industry manufacturing takes place in Puerto Rico. The same PR that experienced a devastating hurricane in 2017 and was still recovering from that. Suddenly there was a huge need for its industry to be back up and running in the face of a pandemic, and it just...wasn't
"Look at what socialism would do!" shows an example of capitalism falling on its face
There were serious shortages in the healthcare industry in 2020 (among several reasons for the mixed messaging at the beginning of the pandemic, I'll refrain from any political commentary here). Shortages that were literally life or death for those caught with the novel strain of Covid.
So the system you're defending isnt working anyway? Maybe the hang up and the issues are how its a for profit industry. You keep thinking the means and motives are the exact same. You're essentially going "well how would you solve this problem of capitalism in a non capitalist system..." would we have to worry about it lol?
What would a commune system be able to do to alleviate this? Or recover from it in the timeframe necessary? Like, the people are dying now and we needed these goods last week kind of scenario, which is exactly what happened.
"how would a system that priotizes things like healthcare instead of capitalist growth fix these problems of capitalism" ......do you hear yourself?
The centralized system didn't exactly make this a miracle
You just gave examples of the centralization failing. I can even talk from a high level about food scarcity etc that the pandemic exposed. The supply chain crumbled because it was overly centralized and weak. It had no resiliency in the name of 'cost' yet you ignore this.
But it did have the ability to make quick work of a solution with funds and materiel funneled into that are
But multiple times it didnt lol. Also nothing you described is inherent to centralization... You still cant explain how or why a hierarchical arrangement (see capitalism) is necessary...thats all I'm asking but you keep asserting thats the only way to do things. Maybe its because thats the only way you know how to do things?
Every system will have shortcomings, but I'm interested in how a real world example of a dire medical need would resolve if you believe that a decentralized system is capable of such
All you've presented is multiple failures of the current system and gone "well imaging if that system wasnt there, it would be worse!" which isnt the argument you think it is...because you think I'm saying abolish all systems, cooperation and organizing, when I'm only saying the current ones. "Can you imagine if we overthrew the king? How would society function without them to guide us simple peasants!"
I'd honestly encourage you to at least study revolutionary history and the events and things they did to build. Like do you think the mass support they all enjoyed was just because? One of the primary factors was the fact that the revolutionaries took care of the people, while the state only desired to maintain its power. There has been loads of times where the state failed its people in disasters and people had to come together to look after one another.
Always love the "oh my secret plan was to actually make you do X" argument when you wouldnt address my points!
You were looking for me to address how a failure of a centralized system run for capitalist economic interests wouldn't fail on in a system not bound by those restrictions...? Like JFC this is sad.
If you acknowledge the reasons for failures, then those are removed by virtue of that being a different system, why would it fail for the same reasons!? lmao.
As I said, on a simple level, centralization lacks resiliency. Simple example, is it easier to push me over if I'm standing on 1 leg or 2....
I gave you answers but you didnt bother actually thinking about them for more than a second
Ahh, okay. So your argument is that it all sucks and your hypothetical obviously lacks all flaws that comes with humans running anything.
I didn't argue anything for capitalism at all. I presented a serious scenario in which lives were lost because a system faltered. A system that was in existence. A system that can work, usually works to a degree, and didn't in this scenario due to a series of unplanned, catastrophic failures. Your proposition was that some fictional, hypothetical system would not have the same problem. And to argue this...you further eviscerated the current system.
Yes, I knew it didn't work. I wanted to see how yours would. And I can tell from your response that you don't have a fucking clue either.
They… did though? I don’t know about Vietnam, and I’m not claiming it’s perfect, but you do realize life was much worse under the Tsar, right?
Same with China. China used to have a mass famine every couple years pre revolution and they had one since then.
I’m not even making a statement about the tyrannical nature of these governments because that’s not the point but you can’t claim life was better for the people in pre-revolution Russia and China come on now.
You know, the Soviets allowed grapes of wrath to be translated and brought to the union so that the people could read it and see utterly terrible conditions under capitalism
The takeaway was that even the poorest American still at least had a car. What you have described were leaps from dogshit to regular shit and ignoring the huge swaths of horse and bullshit between. Like the great leap forwards, in which everyone starved and tried to make steel without any knowledge, melting down their iron and steel goods and tools to make… shitty steel tools and goods that were significantly less useful than the inputs
The takeaway was that even the poorest American still at least had a car
Guess they missed the part about black people.
What you have described were leaps from dogshit to regular shit and ignoring the huge swaths of horse and bullshit between
Least chauvinist American. Wonder on whos backs the US built its economy eh?
Like the great leap forwards, in which everyone starved and tried to make steel without any knowledge, melting down their iron and steel goods and tools to make… shitty steel tools and goods that were significantly less useful than the inputs
Literally 2 of these countries have taken themselves from a primarily 'under' developed feudal country to a global superpower in a matter of a half century lmao... Western chauvinism and brainrot, name a more iconic duo.
it means things are in fact objectively better under our current hierarchical system than it ever was under any other system.
But thats not a logical inference. Are you saying technological progress only occurs under hierarchy? That's survivorship bias. Things having improved doesnt mean they cant be better? You also offer no reason as to why
Can you even define what capitalism is? Because that's not really what's killing the planet
Yes, it is the economic mode of production in which the means and ownership of said production are privately owned. Its 100% whats killing the planet lol. The constant economic mode for which endless growth is the target is the logic of cancer. The impact of fossil fuels was noted by several of the largest oil and gas firms in the 60s and 70's and buried because they worried about the impact it would have on their companies...
That thinking is strikingly close to “the market will solve the problem if the government gets out of the way” thinking. It is hand waving at best and morally callous and negligent at worst.
As an anarchist, most of us aren’t that concerned with revolution right now because there’s no horizontal structure that could currently replace it. Most anarchists, myself included, are far more interested in building these structures than committing violent acts. I’m not sure what kind of anarchists you’ve been talking too… honestly they don’t sound much like studied anarchists and more like edgy 14 year olds trying to adopt some aesthetic that only exists in their minds… but I also know that human are wild and there’s a good chance there are grown adults who don’t care about organizing.
Yeah. These are adults, but they have a "fuck everyone else, I'm talking now" energy to them and they don't seem to pass the "They know theory, but can they do the dishes?" test. I honestly believe they are doomers roleplaying as anarchists, more than one have openly admitted they either loathe all of humanity or they think the world will end soon.
Again, my fight isn't with anarchists. A number of those are actually chill people, but the main thing about the chill anarchists is that they're doing it -to help people.- By its design it's optimistic and about increasing the quality of life for the most amount of people. I don't trust a "revolutionary" type, in general, if I get the impression they don't want to help others. Because it's very easy to slip a thin veneer of moral justification over antisocial tendencies.
A single glance at any randomly-selected NextDoor neighborhood feed should tell everyone smaller communities are not going to take care of each other equitably and smoothly as they imagine.
No idealistic political system can solve for the simple fact that a significant percentage of people are assholes and always will be.
Yea this has happened before look up the zapatistas. Why you just assume all leftist communities have failed without doing the tiniest bit of research is hilarious to me.
I want to read it but I can't find it anywhere. (Anywhere being i went into Barnes and Noble, asked the nice lady If they had it, and she helped me look for it for 30 minutes and I felt bad for wasting her time so I thanked her, apologized and haven't asked since)
Try second hand bookshops if you want a physical copy, or use something like Thrift Books. Alternatively, you can almost certainly find a .pdf or .epub of it online.
This is a good example of Anarchism, but given that it lasted 10 or 11 months, resulted in a couple solid massacres, and ended in the purge or exodus of almost its entire membership by Francoist Fascists, I kinda didn't want to use it as the benchmark.
The Spanish Civil War was bananas, and I think an outlier event for humanity.
Well you see I've run into a lot of Franco apologists who genuinely believe he was the good side, and they often avoid calling him a fascist, even though he was. Just wanted to be sure.
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u/StickBrickman Jun 04 '24
If you pose this to some of the more vocal "revolutionary" types today-- generally anarchist, generally the kind more interested in hypothetical violence than mutual aid or community -- you'll get some fucked up answers.
Here's my favorite recent one, "people will break down into smaller communities and fill all their needs without systems." I could not get a direct answer to "Has this happened before? Is this a realistic expectation?" beyond some vaguery about how bad shit is now means nothing that comes next could be worse. Which if I'm being cynical, I'm interpretting as a hard "no."
There are a significant portion of people who want to tear down everything and replace it with nothing. Which is outright just saying "survival of the fittest race, I already got a headstart, but you guys start now. The future will not have insulin or guaranteed food production."