This whole thing started when you said “Pretending that there isn’t a spectrum, of governments restricting liberty or expression, isn’t helping anyone.” The type of anarchists criticized by OP are those that say they hate all government yet only criticize enemies of the US. I would agree with what you originally said as in socialist societies are less oppressive to the average person than capitalism (insert Stalin quote:
spoiler
IT IS DIFFICULT FOR ME TO IMAGINE WHAT PERSONAL LIBERTY IS ENJOYED BY AN UNEMPLOYED HUNGRY PERSON. TRUE FREEDOM CAN ONLY BE WHERE THERE IS NO EXPLOITATION AND OPPRESSION OF ONE PERSON BY ANOTHER: WHERE THERE IS NOT UNEMPLOYMENT, AND WHERE A PERSON IS NOT LIVING IN FEAR OF LOSING HIS JOB, HIS HOME AND HIS BREAD. ONLY IN SUCH A SOCIETY PERSONAL AND ANY OTHER FREEDOM CAN EXIST FOR REAL AND NOT ON PAPER.
)
The whole reason why all of us are arguing with you is because you seem to be defending the anarchists we criticize, despite supposedly not agreeing with them.
well the OP image had a whataboutism energy, like “you criticize a state despite all states being bad” and like I said I don’t think that kind of attitude is helping anyone in the context of discussing more or less oppressive governments
It’s not “whataboutism” it’s pointing out contradictions in their internal logic. “I hate all states, but I agree with the US’s foreign policy and hate their enemies specifically.” If someone is against unjust hierarchy they should be primarily anti-capitalist as capitalism is a very “authoritarian” system where one’s boss has autocratic control of their labor power and you don’t have work because the system can’t find need for you you may be condemned to starve. There is also global imperialism, slave (prison) labor and so on. This is the system we should spend our energy opposing as most of us live under it. Also, even if you don’t like Russia or China, if you live in the US your “anti-hierarchical energy” should be spend fighting the US. Especially as they are the global imperialist hegemon and have more bodies to their name than any other government (beside maybe Britain from whom they inherited their system). Even if you oppose Russia too (which is also capitalist), leave it to the Russians to fight Putin.
It’s not a contradiction and it’s not about the United States’ foreign policy, it’s about the differences in restricted expression between states. Would you not agree that a country that has LGBT-free zones are more oppressive than otherwise comparable countries?
You can think all states are authoritarian and acknowledge that some states allow more liberty than others, so bringing up that all states are authoritarian is a whataboutism (“You think that state is particularly authoritarian? But what about the inherent authority of all states?”)
A state by ML definition is a tool of oppression from one class to another. I believe you’re referring to institutions. Since all oppression is some kind of authoritarianism, the label is meaningless.
I am not speaking strictly in a ML capacity, by “state” I mean country or government, and the term is not meaningless because (unless you believe every state is equally oppressive) it can still be used to measure relative liberty
When MLs say, ‘state’, they have a specific, relational concept in mind. A state is authoritarian by definition. And it has class characteristics, as does every other concept.
There are no degrees of being authoritarian but rather a question of what the state uses that authority for. Which class exercises that authority?
This is also a materialist concept, not an idealist one. We look at states to understand what they are. We don’t start by thinking about what a state could be or should be.
In a capitalist state, the authority is used to oppress workers. In a workers’ state, the authority is used to oppress capitalists. Which class oppresses and which is oppressed?
In a similar sense, there are no degrees of liberty. The question is, whose liberties are granted and whose are denied?
MLs reject relativism. There is only dialectical and historical materialism for us. The links posted by Non-Diagetic Screams would be a good place to start to see where we’re coming from. Otherwise you might find it a bit hostile here as we might be talking at cross-purposes. Especially if you use non-Marxist definitions and/or fail to explain the definitions you are using.
When the OP meme criticises anarchists for disagreeing with states in the abstract while accepting US State Department propaganda, anarchism reflects very little unity of thought and becomes another way of propping up the system it claims to despise.
When you say LGBT+ free zones, what do you mean? If this is a dig at China or Russia, it’s doing almost exactly what the OP meme is criticising.
Even if there something to the claim (we can go through it if you provide sources), the point is that you could only say e.g. China has less liberty than e.g. the US if you did a full material comparison of the two states. I emphasise ‘material’, here, because liberal democracies, being grounded in idealism are very good at pretending one thing while they do another. This is partly because they have well developed and conscious ideological state apparatuses.
Any state should be criticised for shit LGBT practices and rules. The problem arises when using that criticism as a stick to beat one kind of state but not another. To declare that socialists and liberty don’t go together is to be pro-capitalist and pro-unjust-heirarchy.
Being a westerner (you might not be) and criticising a workers’ state over LGBT+ issues before or without criticising whatever is happening in Florida or almost any educational or employment or housing of healthcare setting or throughout western media is functionally to be a shill for the capitalists. And this is all before we get to broader questions of gendered and racial capitalism, in which a prime function of the state is to subjugate the entirety of the global south so that westerners stay wealthy.
A fortiori it means propping up authoritarian states who use their authority to oppress workers. And on an historical scale, there’s no comparison with the amount of devastation and oppression coming from capitalist states.
“Liberty” under capitalism is freedom to exploit and hold private property. The police, as an instrument of class rule defend businesses (who probably have insurance anyway) from “rioters” who are simply expressing anger at the unjust killing by police. The people that are killed by police are almost always poor, having no property to compel the state to protect them. We can compare over a thousand dead at the hands of US police a year to only nineteen in the history of the People’s Republic of China. Which one is more “authoritarian?”
Fine let’s talk LGBT+ rights in particular. Communists have always been at the forefront of the struggle for LGBT+ rights. The USSR took homosexuality out of the criminal code in 1922. East Germany legalized homosexuality in the ‘50s. The Supreme Court of the GDR ruled:
spoiler
“HOMOSEXUALITY, JUST LIKE HETEROSEXUALITY, REPRESENTS A VARIANT OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR HOMOSEXUAL PEOPLE DO THEREFORE NOT STAND OUTSIDE SOCIALIST SOCIETY, AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS ARE WARRANTED TO THEM EXACTLY AS TO ALL OTHER CITIZENS.”
Here’s a quote from something I don’t know the source of:
spoiler
“Now that East and West Germany are being united into one country, the laws concerning transsexuals and sex change operations are being re-evaluated. East Germany scores higher on transsexual rights than West Germany, but East Germany’s more humane laws may not prevail in the new reunited country. As it stands now in East Germany, men and women 18 years and older have been able to receive govern-ment-sponsored sex reassignment surgery, get married and adopt children. According to Professor Goerlich of East Germany, who spoke at a meeting on the subject in Hamburg, in two cases a transsexual mother gained custody of her adopted children after a divorce. Goerlich plans to fight to retain these more liberal laws in the future Germany.”
In addition a quote from (afaik) ‘why women have better sex under socialism:’
spoiler
sexual partners on average) than West Germans (dpa, 19906). Another study indicated that East German women typically enjoyed sex much more (with a 70% orgasm rate), at least partially because communism allowed East German women to feel equal, far more independent, and far less oppressed (Kleinschmid, 1985).
Let’s compare that to the US. Here, we are literally on step 8 of trans genocide.
A decent amount this country is obsessed with scapegoating and fear-mongering about us. If you’re born in the wrong household you may be kicked out to the streets for not being born the normative way. If you live in the wrong state you will be subject to genital inspections by schools if you’re too good at sports. At this point they are even trying to detransition people. Nazis harass and threaten people for participating in drag queen story time. Random fascists shoot up gay bars or kill individual trans people. It’s so bad that almost half of trans folk attempt suicide.
Now which one has more “liberty?” The places which still have some progress to make, or the place committing genocide? Which one should the queer American anarchist be spending all their attention on?
This whole thing started when you said “Pretending that there isn’t a spectrum, of governments restricting liberty or expression, isn’t helping anyone.” The type of anarchists criticized by OP are those that say they hate all government yet only criticize enemies of the US. I would agree with what you originally said as in socialist societies are less oppressive to the average person than capitalism (insert Stalin quote:
spoiler
IT IS DIFFICULT FOR ME TO IMAGINE WHAT PERSONAL LIBERTY IS ENJOYED BY AN UNEMPLOYED HUNGRY PERSON. TRUE FREEDOM CAN ONLY BE WHERE THERE IS NO EXPLOITATION AND OPPRESSION OF ONE PERSON BY ANOTHER: WHERE THERE IS NOT UNEMPLOYMENT, AND WHERE A PERSON IS NOT LIVING IN FEAR OF LOSING HIS JOB, HIS HOME AND HIS BREAD. ONLY IN SUCH A SOCIETY PERSONAL AND ANY OTHER FREEDOM CAN EXIST FOR REAL AND NOT ON PAPER.
)
The whole reason why all of us are arguing with you is because you seem to be defending the anarchists we criticize, despite supposedly not agreeing with them.
well the OP image had a whataboutism energy, like “you criticize a state despite all states being bad” and like I said I don’t think that kind of attitude is helping anyone in the context of discussing more or less oppressive governments
It’s not “whataboutism” it’s pointing out contradictions in their internal logic. “I hate all states, but I agree with the US’s foreign policy and hate their enemies specifically.” If someone is against unjust hierarchy they should be primarily anti-capitalist as capitalism is a very “authoritarian” system where one’s boss has autocratic control of their labor power and you don’t have work because the system can’t find need for you you may be condemned to starve. There is also global imperialism, slave (prison) labor and so on. This is the system we should spend our energy opposing as most of us live under it. Also, even if you don’t like Russia or China, if you live in the US your “anti-hierarchical energy” should be spend fighting the US. Especially as they are the global imperialist hegemon and have more bodies to their name than any other government (beside maybe Britain from whom they inherited their system). Even if you oppose Russia too (which is also capitalist), leave it to the Russians to fight Putin.
It’s not a contradiction and it’s not about the United States’ foreign policy, it’s about the differences in restricted expression between states. Would you not agree that a country that has LGBT-free zones are more oppressive than otherwise comparable countries?
You can think all states are authoritarian and acknowledge that some states allow more liberty than others, so bringing up that all states are authoritarian is a whataboutism (“You think that state is particularly authoritarian? But what about the inherent authority of all states?”)
A state by ML definition is a tool of oppression from one class to another. I believe you’re referring to institutions. Since all oppression is some kind of authoritarianism, the label is meaningless.
I am not speaking strictly in a ML capacity, by “state” I mean country or government, and the term is not meaningless because (unless you believe every state is equally oppressive) it can still be used to measure relative liberty
When MLs say, ‘state’, they have a specific, relational concept in mind. A state is authoritarian by definition. And it has class characteristics, as does every other concept.
There are no degrees of being authoritarian but rather a question of what the state uses that authority for. Which class exercises that authority?
This is also a materialist concept, not an idealist one. We look at states to understand what they are. We don’t start by thinking about what a state could be or should be.
In a capitalist state, the authority is used to oppress workers. In a workers’ state, the authority is used to oppress capitalists. Which class oppresses and which is oppressed?
In a similar sense, there are no degrees of liberty. The question is, whose liberties are granted and whose are denied?
MLs reject relativism. There is only dialectical and historical materialism for us. The links posted by Non-Diagetic Screams would be a good place to start to see where we’re coming from. Otherwise you might find it a bit hostile here as we might be talking at cross-purposes. Especially if you use non-Marxist definitions and/or fail to explain the definitions you are using.
When the OP meme criticises anarchists for disagreeing with states in the abstract while accepting US State Department propaganda, anarchism reflects very little unity of thought and becomes another way of propping up the system it claims to despise.
When you say LGBT+ free zones, what do you mean? If this is a dig at China or Russia, it’s doing almost exactly what the OP meme is criticising.
Even if there something to the claim (we can go through it if you provide sources), the point is that you could only say e.g. China has less liberty than e.g. the US if you did a full material comparison of the two states. I emphasise ‘material’, here, because liberal democracies, being grounded in idealism are very good at pretending one thing while they do another. This is partly because they have well developed and conscious ideological state apparatuses.
Any state should be criticised for shit LGBT practices and rules. The problem arises when using that criticism as a stick to beat one kind of state but not another. To declare that socialists and liberty don’t go together is to be pro-capitalist and pro-unjust-heirarchy.
Being a westerner (you might not be) and criticising a workers’ state over LGBT+ issues before or without criticising whatever is happening in Florida or almost any educational or employment or housing of healthcare setting or throughout western media is functionally to be a shill for the capitalists. And this is all before we get to broader questions of gendered and racial capitalism, in which a prime function of the state is to subjugate the entirety of the global south so that westerners stay wealthy.
A fortiori it means propping up authoritarian states who use their authority to oppress workers. And on an historical scale, there’s no comparison with the amount of devastation and oppression coming from capitalist states.
That’s simply just not true, some states can restrict more liberties than others.
Please re-read my comment. I made a distinction between authority and liberty.
“Liberty” under capitalism is freedom to exploit and hold private property. The police, as an instrument of class rule defend businesses (who probably have insurance anyway) from “rioters” who are simply expressing anger at the unjust killing by police. The people that are killed by police are almost always poor, having no property to compel the state to protect them. We can compare over a thousand dead at the hands of US police a year to only nineteen in the history of the People’s Republic of China. Which one is more “authoritarian?”
No, I mean liberty as in the freedom to live your own life, such as my previously mentioned LGBT-free zones
Fine let’s talk LGBT+ rights in particular. Communists have always been at the forefront of the struggle for LGBT+ rights. The USSR took homosexuality out of the criminal code in 1922. East Germany legalized homosexuality in the ‘50s. The Supreme Court of the GDR ruled:
spoiler
“HOMOSEXUALITY, JUST LIKE HETEROSEXUALITY, REPRESENTS A VARIANT OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR HOMOSEXUAL PEOPLE DO THEREFORE NOT STAND OUTSIDE SOCIALIST SOCIETY, AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS ARE WARRANTED TO THEM EXACTLY AS TO ALL OTHER CITIZENS.”
Here’s a quote from something I don’t know the source of:
spoiler
“Now that East and West Germany are being united into one country, the laws concerning transsexuals and sex change operations are being re-evaluated. East Germany scores higher on transsexual rights than West Germany, but East Germany’s more humane laws may not prevail in the new reunited country. As it stands now in East Germany, men and women 18 years and older have been able to receive govern-ment-sponsored sex reassignment surgery, get married and adopt children. According to Professor Goerlich of East Germany, who spoke at a meeting on the subject in Hamburg, in two cases a transsexual mother gained custody of her adopted children after a divorce. Goerlich plans to fight to retain these more liberal laws in the future Germany.”
In addition a quote from (afaik) ‘why women have better sex under socialism:’
spoiler
sexual partners on average) than West Germans (dpa, 19906). Another study indicated that East German women typically enjoyed sex much more (with a 70% orgasm rate), at least partially because communism allowed East German women to feel equal, far more independent, and far less oppressed (Kleinschmid, 1985).
But let’s not just talk about past socialist experiments, let’s talk about the present. There is lots of mainstream acceptance in Vietnam. China is making progress on trans rights including for youth. China has also made progress in gay rights.Cuba has the world’s most progressive family code. They also have good free trans healthcare.
Let’s compare that to the US. Here, we are literally on step 8 of trans genocide.
A decent amount this country is obsessed with scapegoating and fear-mongering about us. If you’re born in the wrong household you may be kicked out to the streets for not being born the normative way. If you live in the wrong state you will be subject to genital inspections by schools if you’re too good at sports. At this point they are even trying to detransition people. Nazis harass and threaten people for participating in drag queen story time. Random fascists shoot up gay bars or kill individual trans people. It’s so bad that almost half of trans folk attempt suicide.
Now which one has more “liberty?” The places which still have some progress to make, or the place committing genocide? Which one should the queer American anarchist be spending all their attention on?