communism

[johnny two cool]

The state that anarchists typically describe is a useful fiction. You can define the state as the entity that has a monopoly on the use of violence, but that is highly abstracted and idealized, and it’s not useful for describing any modern state in any depth at all.
Moreover, states often do not actually have that monopoly. Plenty of non-state actors achieve that all the time, plenty of states compete with other entities, etc. It also doesn’t describe what states do very well. Modern states directly build or contract the construction of roadways. Saying that they are able to do that because they have a monopoly on the use of violence raises nore questions than it answers.

Democratic legitimacy, or at least the formal appearance of it, is a basic achievement of pretty much all existing states. All states at least strive for democratic legitimacy or act as if they have it. Better working definition.

On another note, the end to “state violence” just sounds like unleashing organized mob violence (like the mafia).

[Pat]

Jan 24, 2024 23:44:11 GMT -5 @notsean said:

I bumped this thread while searching for a thread about caveman doing screaming vocals pre electricity

You want my solo track?

[Magnum P.P.]

Jan 25, 2024 15:56:06 GMT -5 johnny two cool said:

The state that anarchists typically describe is a useful fiction. You can define the state as the entity that has a monopoly on the use of violence, but that is highly abstracted and idealized, and it’s not useful for describing any modern state in any depth at all.
Moreover, states often do not actually have that monopoly. Plenty of non-state actors achieve that all the time, plenty of states compete with other entities, etc. It also doesn’t describe what states do very well. Modern states directly build or contract the construction of roadways. Saying that they are able to do that because they have a monopoly on the use of violence raises nore questions than it answers.

Democratic legitimacy, or at least the formal appearance of it, is a basic achievement of pretty much all existing states. All states at least strive for democratic legitimacy or act as if they have it. Better working definition.

On another note, the end to “state violence” just sounds like unleashing organized mob violence (like the mafia).

you are wrong and i will not elaborate 😎 my fists (sacco and vanzetti) are about to challenge the legitimacy of the states monopoly on violence in a sec 😤

[johnny two cool]

I have geist on my side

[dmk]

Man I have narc blocked, why did I have to read that? But yes, communities can come together to build roads, use a direct democracy, and protect each other without using violence lol.

[Deleted]

They can?

[dmk]

Restorative justice is a beautiful thing Sean!

[Deleted]

Is that how they build the roads I’m so confused!!

[Deleted]

Road building session on the third Saturday of every month after Sage’s potluck. I’m not trying to be rude I just do not understand. Why so afraid of the word hierarchy? Or does this world exist like 700 years from now when all the imperialism is gone? I really do not understand

[dmk]

Of course not, you need a centralized government that's located in New York City to give you orders on how to build a road.

[johnny two cool]

Jan 25, 2024 20:57:52 GMT -5 dmk said:

Man I have narc blocked, why did I have to read that? But yes, communities can come together to build roads, use a direct democracy, and protect each other without using violence lol.

No, they can’t. They never have. The sort of trade and transportation networks that exist in China and the United States were not even imaginable prior to the modern bureaucratic state.

[johnny two cool]

Jan 25, 2024 21:38:19 GMT -5 dmk said:

Of course not, you need a centralized government that's located in New York City to give you orders on how to build a road.

Are you sure? Because local decentralized communities are currently unable to do that anywhere in the world.

[Deleted]

Jan 25, 2024 21:38:19 GMT -5 dmk said:

Of course not, you need a centralized government that's located in New York City to give you orders on how to build a road.

again not trying to be rude but how do we get to the world youre describing? I cannot see how without capturing the state like the Bolsheviks did, or the creation of some sort of alternative.

This is like a fraction of the problem we would be facing en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War

[Magnum P.P.]

[dmk]

Societies have been building roads for thousands of years lol. Just because you obsesses over roads and trains doesn't mean there wouldn't be a use for them all of a sudden, it's not like infrastructure doesn't have any use under anarchism, it just doesn't have a use in a capitalistic sense. And considering the knowledge we have today, there's plenty of people who can build them and they can even teach others how to mix or lay cement, I mean hell I did it for a summer as a stoned 20 year old lol.


And that's enough answering to bad faith arguments today!

[Magnum P.P.]

speaking of anarchism and roads anarchists were the first to utilize the automobile in service of armed robbery. next time you flee from an armed robbery in a car thank the bonnot gang for--if youll pardon the expression--paving the way.

[johnny two cool]

Jan 25, 2024 21:48:36 GMT -5 dmk said:

Societies have been building roads for thousands of years lol. Just because you obsesses over roads and trains doesn't mean there wouldn't be a use for them all of a sudden, it's not like infrastructure doesn't have any use under anarchism, it just doesn't have a use in a capitalistic sense. And considering the knowledge we have today, there's plenty of people who can build them and they can even teach others how to mix or lay cement, I mean hell I did it for a summer as a stoned 20 year old lol.


And that's enough answering to bad faith arguments today!

There wasn’t a bad faith argument. You didn’t read what I said in good faith. It takes a highly, highly developed organizational system to build and maintain the road system we have today. It requires millions and millions of dollars in education and workforce development alone, and it took several hundred years for that to develop to its current level. It required the unprecedented and massive bureaucratization that first developed during the 1700-1800s to accomplish that. That type of organization simply had not existed prior to modernity (I’m not gonna talk about China way back in day, but that would reinforce my point).

[johnny two cool]

God damn I’m glad the FBI monitors these people

[Magnum P.P.]

massive highways are important to maintaining the capitalist mode of production and are precisely a product of that. under communism cars and highways will be deemed super gay and well levitate to wherever we need to go having ascended to a new spiritual aeroplane.

[Tstigz]

Speaking of roads I wish someone would slop some hot ass fault into the pot holes in my street there’s been a lot of freeze thaw frost wedging going on and my Subaru forester is bumpin all over those holes

[Magnum P.P.]

Jan 25, 2024 22:00:55 GMT -5 johnny two cool said:

God damn I’m glad the FBI monitors these people

the FBI was literally founded to surveil anarchists

[johnny two cool]

Jan 25, 2024 22:05:41 GMT -5 Magnum P.P. said:

Jan 25, 2024 22:00:55 GMT -5 johnny two cool said:

God damn I’m glad the FBI monitors these people

the FBI was literally founded to surveil anarchists

Day after day, watching the formation of a voluntary committee consisting of all community members to address various menial topics.

[dmk]

Jan 25, 2024 22:04:19 GMT -5 Magnum P.P. said:

massive highways are important to maintaining the capitalist mode of production and are precisely a product of that. under communism cars and highways will be deemed super gay (in a good way) and well levitate to wherever we need to go having ascended to a new spiritual aeroplane.

But we need the 8 lane highways for our autistic children!!!!

[johnny two cool]

I do not consent to following the building code, you fascist

[Deleted]

Socialism will cum at the point commodity production and not just the management of roads. If people want 8 lane highways or some like walking trails that’s besides the point

[johnny two cool]

Honestly, the part about communism I’m most looking forward is the improvement in zoning ordinances. Closely followed by the incorporation of Schoenberg’s twelve-one serialism into grade school general music education.

[Magnum P.P.]

theres no state in communism so therefore no more roads sorry pal

[Magnum P.P.]

the roads will wither away sort of like they are now haha

[dmk]

It's just wild that people who believe in a system that needs a unified global Bloc in order to succeed can't comprehend people coming together to build or repair roads.

[johnny two cool]

Hegel’s social conception of freedom (“being oneself in another”), which emphasizes mutual dependency as a precondition rather than a hindrance to the realization of freedom, is certainly at odds with the state and globalized capitalism as has developed in the United States, but I think many communists believe that this is simply evidence that the project of modernity is not yet finished, right? (I dunno sean knows this stuff better than me). The state as we know it will be “sublated”