Strawman - most anarchists acknowledge that it takes a transitional period to get from capitalism to communism. Any ML who claims that (all) anarchists refuse to accept that just didn’t bother engaging in anarchist theory.
The main difference to authoritaian socialists (as opposed to libertarian socialists) when it comes to the transitionary period is that they take means-ends-unity into account.
Marxists take means-ends-unity into account as well, though. The Marxist concept of the withering of the state isn’t the fantasy of a strong central body willingly decided to abolish itself, this actually goes against how Marxists understand social class and administration under socialism. The withering of the state is a process that coexists with the gradual collectivization of all production and distribution, and because anarchists often see hierarchy as synonymous with class, they think this administration forms its own class. In reality, administrators in socialism are not a distinct class from the working class, but a subclass of them, with class interests aligned with the rest of their class.
I would not dismiss the concern of an administration being seen as a class onto itself, with its own discretionary powers and interests, out of hand. This isn’t too distant from clerics that were/are the law, and acted in their own interests in times present/past. They speak for their gods, so of course they must be right in their righteousness.
By using definitions to declare that an administrator or other principle executive of an organ of power, as being a member of the working class (therefore: you see comrade, they cannot possibly be a class on to themself as they are part of the working class) skirts around the concern of the anarchist.
It seems to trivialise the notion that others can act in their own interest, in the interest of their office, or even in the perception of their office, or that responsibilities and powers given to those bodies, and the corruptibility of those powers, and the entrenchment of those bodies against the perceived enemies of those offices, can never be used against the interests of that of the working class as naïvety is itself naïve.
The model is obviously Russia. In Russia, something very instructive happened: the working class legit overthrew the Tsar but was very close to giving in to moderates who were unambiguously going to reinstall the tsar as part of a constitutional monarchy, and carry out violent martial law via Kornilov to accomplish this.
The revolutionary leadership of the Bolsheviks was able to to defeat the capitalists and the tsarists, to “finish” the revolution, but what came after was a horrible civil war that destroyed what little productive capacity Russia had developed. Without factories, there’s no workers, without workers, there’s no workers councils (soviets) to hold power. What was left over was the bureaucracy that developed during wartime. This is the class that developed their own interests apart from the working class, effectively becoming a new bourgeois to administer the mixed economy of Stalinism.
Yes Anarchists should be wary of this, and yes “authoritarian statists” are IMO no more revolutionary than a moderate social bureaucrat. I just wish there was better discussion around the practical history of these movements. Even Paul Averich, the anarchist historian, blames events, not ideology, on the degeneration of the Russian revolution.
Administrators absolutely have privledges, even within socialism, that can and are abused. This, however, is not enough to designate them a class. The primacy of class analysis is not in how abusable a position is, but instead the actual class interests and relations a class has with others. In the Marxist view of class, the upper class in a given society exploits the lower class, and exploitation specifically relates to the economic control of the surplus created by the lower class.
This has profound implications when it comes to administration. Marxists understand that mental labor is still socially necessary, and this includes administrative labor. Administration is therefore a job, not a class. The form of class of administration therefore depends on how this group actually gains their means of life, through wages, or through exploitation?
In socialism, administrators receive their pay through wages, not through deploying capital through an M-C-M’ circuit. This is not a mere technicality, it’s the entire basis of shared, collective class interest. This does not mean administrators are infallible, corruption definitely exists, and it is easier to be corrupt with an administrative position, but because it does not form its own class it does not actually make any sense to abolish this job position, as it is socially necessary for expanded production and distribution, which forms the basis for lowering working hours and educating the entire working class to a far greater and more equalized level of participation in society.
Strawman - most anarchists acknowledge that it takes a transitional period to get from capitalism to communism. Any ML who claims that (all) anarchists refuse to accept that just didn’t bother engaging in anarchist theory.
The main difference to authoritaian socialists (as opposed to libertarian socialists) when it comes to the transitionary period is that they take means-ends-unity into account.
Marxists take means-ends-unity into account as well, though. The Marxist concept of the withering of the state isn’t the fantasy of a strong central body willingly decided to abolish itself, this actually goes against how Marxists understand social class and administration under socialism. The withering of the state is a process that coexists with the gradual collectivization of all production and distribution, and because anarchists often see hierarchy as synonymous with class, they think this administration forms its own class. In reality, administrators in socialism are not a distinct class from the working class, but a subclass of them, with class interests aligned with the rest of their class.
I would not dismiss the concern of an administration being seen as a class onto itself, with its own discretionary powers and interests, out of hand. This isn’t too distant from clerics that were/are the law, and acted in their own interests in times present/past. They speak for their gods, so of course they must be right in their righteousness.
By using definitions to declare that an administrator or other principle executive of an organ of power, as being a member of the working class (therefore: you see comrade, they cannot possibly be a class on to themself as they are part of the working class) skirts around the concern of the anarchist.
It seems to trivialise the notion that others can act in their own interest, in the interest of their office, or even in the perception of their office, or that responsibilities and powers given to those bodies, and the corruptibility of those powers, and the entrenchment of those bodies against the perceived enemies of those offices, can never be used against the interests of that of the working class as naïvety is itself naïve.
The model is obviously Russia. In Russia, something very instructive happened: the working class legit overthrew the Tsar but was very close to giving in to moderates who were unambiguously going to reinstall the tsar as part of a constitutional monarchy, and carry out violent martial law via Kornilov to accomplish this.
The revolutionary leadership of the Bolsheviks was able to to defeat the capitalists and the tsarists, to “finish” the revolution, but what came after was a horrible civil war that destroyed what little productive capacity Russia had developed. Without factories, there’s no workers, without workers, there’s no workers councils (soviets) to hold power. What was left over was the bureaucracy that developed during wartime. This is the class that developed their own interests apart from the working class, effectively becoming a new bourgeois to administer the mixed economy of Stalinism.
Yes Anarchists should be wary of this, and yes “authoritarian statists” are IMO no more revolutionary than a moderate social bureaucrat. I just wish there was better discussion around the practical history of these movements. Even Paul Averich, the anarchist historian, blames events, not ideology, on the degeneration of the Russian revolution.
Administrators absolutely have privledges, even within socialism, that can and are abused. This, however, is not enough to designate them a class. The primacy of class analysis is not in how abusable a position is, but instead the actual class interests and relations a class has with others. In the Marxist view of class, the upper class in a given society exploits the lower class, and exploitation specifically relates to the economic control of the surplus created by the lower class.
This has profound implications when it comes to administration. Marxists understand that mental labor is still socially necessary, and this includes administrative labor. Administration is therefore a job, not a class. The form of class of administration therefore depends on how this group actually gains their means of life, through wages, or through exploitation?
In socialism, administrators receive their pay through wages, not through deploying capital through an M-C-M’ circuit. This is not a mere technicality, it’s the entire basis of shared, collective class interest. This does not mean administrators are infallible, corruption definitely exists, and it is easier to be corrupt with an administrative position, but because it does not form its own class it does not actually make any sense to abolish this job position, as it is socially necessary for expanded production and distribution, which forms the basis for lowering working hours and educating the entire working class to a far greater and more equalized level of participation in society.