Yeah, what’s a little authoritarianism between friends?
- Guy who wants everything labeled and documented, because it will be easier to do sweeping economic reforms later
VS
- Guy who is into good vibes and not rocking the boat, but if you harsh his mellow he’ll start breaking anything that looks expensive
Who would win?
Instructions unclear:
Have autism. Labeling and documenting everything with the hopes to do a sweeping reform are my good vibes.
This boat been rocking since before i was born.
Collective improving of society when?
There’s a reason our anarchist instance has so many folks with adhd and autism. We even have a unique flair for either for people like me who aren’t afraid of being labeled.
anarchism is a bit different than breaking things… however whenever there’s a riot, there’s a newscaster yelling “it’s ANARCHY in the streets! pure anarchy!”.
anarchism is a bit different than breaking things…
If you go back to the Spanish Civil War or the French Revolution, or you look to modern anarchist movements in capitalist states in the Americas and the Pacific Rim?
Anarchist resistance efforts are most successful at spontaneous work stoppages and radical efforts at sabotage. But they’re awful at coordinating across wide areas, resisting infiltration, or leveraging economies of scale to expand industrial operations.
Anarchists aren’t allows just breaking things. I regularly work with a mix of groups in my local Food Not Bombs chapter. But raising funds, organizing a reliable workforce, and expanding the enterprise is extraordinarily difficult when its just spontaneous organization.
I think history has shown that authoritarianism tends to be pretty successful, not that that means it will continue to be so. But even if that wasn’t the case, if we only cared about what succeeds we’d all be deliriously happy with capitalism, wouldn’t we?
authoritarianism
I see the term kicked around. But it tends to be interpreted as “authority I disagree with” which can mean just about anything depending on the listener.
Conservatives have gleefully used the term in their crusade to dissolve consumer protections, to wage war on civil groups, and to persecute minorities under the banner of “anti-DEI”.
if we only cared about what succeeds we’d all be deliriously happy with capitalism
Capitalist growth drive contains the seeds of its own destruction. We’re seeing that play out with Trump’s tariffs, Boeing’s bankruptcies, and the failure of a slew of liberal institutions throughout the NATO block.
But its naive to conclude the failure of capitalism - or “authoritarianism” generally speaking - is just bureaucracy writ large. At some point, you need a new orthodoxy to organize around. It can’t just be vibes based individualism that we’re all gambling on spontaneously congeling around a better system of interaction.
Depends on your metric of success. By my metrics they are abysmal failures.