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Friedrich Engels, 1872, On authority
Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is. It is the act by which one part of the population imposes its will on the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannons — by the most authoritarian means possible; and the victors, if they do not want to have fought in vain, must maintain this rule by means of the terror which their arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if the communards had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach them for not having used it enough?
Therefore, we must conclude one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they are only sowing confusion; or they do know, in which case they are betraying the proletarian movement. In either case, they serve reaction.
People seriously still quote On Authority? 🙄
I found the quote interesting. Is the source material bad? How so?
On authority is used to justify the fact that many communist movements of the past turned into brutal dictatorships and that "it's fine actually that mao starved half of China because you can't have a revolution without being authoritarian".
The actual paper is short and kind of stupid. What Engels was arguing in that short essay with a ridiculously outsized influence was that he was technically correct (the best kind) that anarchists are silly because any type of government someone could propose inevitably involves one person imposing their will on another like your quote says.
Really what Engels (who was a prominent communist thinker) was doing was fucking up any attempts at communist organization because now 1/3 of communists think that brutal authoritarianism is based and necessary for a revolution.
This is the kind of analysis you get when you have no understanding how organizations work. Mao was not some lone actor who miraculously acquired supreme power, and then starved "half of China" for shits and giggles apparently.
Anyone familiar with the way that Mao operated knows that he made frequent use of the mass line and mass mobilisation. He also made use of the collective leadership of the party, and was often frustrated by their lack of cooperation with him (at one point even threatening to launch a revolution against the party). Even anti-communists who have at least studied China in detail know that the lone dictator nonsense is well, nonsense. It is just great man theory of history. A society is made of many moving parts.
As to the failures of the glf, they were entirely technical. The rush to industrialise in a decentralised manner left agricultural production vulnerable to poor weather conditions. This was compounded with the fact that much of the country at the time had poor transportation and communications, and ruled by corrupt cardie, leading to a disastrous lack of effective coordination across the nation. It is only with higher level organization today that countries can mount effective disaster responses. The glf proves the opposite of your point.
Just because you have trouble comprehending something doesn't make it stupid.
Engels conflates authority with basically everything: necessity, organization, processes, violence, self-defense, etc.
He literally just cites abridged arguments from “The problems with on authority”
Read "A Marxist Response to “The problems with on authority” ": https://hexbear.net/post/2141265
Also yeah, I watched it so everyone else doesn't have to waste time
Ok, I've read it and I'm not impressed. The post on hexbear tries to act as if they were seriously considering the anarchist point of view, they are constantly being disingenuous.
The biggest point of critique againstEngels is that he is effectively strawmanning anti-authoritarians, by using a definition of authority that differs from the anarchist definition in a fundamental way. While the hexbear author acknowledges that fact in the beginning and seems to take the (IMHO flawed) definition of the anarchist's critique at face value, he repeats the same mistake that Engels did and takes Engels' definition as the only logical one.
The post on hexbear tries to act as if they were seriously considering the anarchist point of view, they are constantly being disingenuous.
I think you're confusing dismissing your viewpoint after engaging with it in a serious way with being disingenuous
The biggest point of critique againstEngels is that he is effectively strawmanning anti-authoritarians, by using a definition of authority that differs from the anarchist definition in a fundamental way.
You mean the definition of authority that the video you linked as a rebuttal is based on? Because that is the one that is being critiqued in a Marxist Response
he repeats the same mistake that Engels did and takes Engels’ definition as the only logical one
The argument is that the alternate definition that the anarchist proposes is incoherent.
They aren't engaging with the definition in a serious way. That is my point.
I follow a different definition, that's more complete, IMHO: Authority is the monopolization of power from the hands of the many to the hands of the few. With that definition, which is compatible with the bulk of anarchist theory, "On authority" is nothing, but the incoherent ramblings of someone with too much personal beef.
The hexbear author not once seriously engages with any of the two viewpoints given in the anarchist rebuttal. They give this example of a robbery, where they try to reach a point with the anarchist's definition and call it absurd. The only reason, they do so, is begause in the middle of their argument, they switch definitions back to Engels' definition. If I change the preconditions in the middle of my logical chain, shit will get goofy. Duh.
You mean the definition of authority that the video you linked as a rebuttal is based on? Because that is the one that is being critiqued.
No. The video and the essay huse different definitions. You didn't watch the -ideo, or didn't listen to it, properly.
The argument is that the alternate definition that the anarchist proposes is incoherent.
The hexbear author fails to do so and doesn't properly represent the anarchist's essay's point of view.
Engels created a straw-man. No anti-authoritarian thinks that necessity, or self-defense is authority. Therefore, they don't argue against necessity, or self-defense.
I follow a different definition, that’s more complete, IMHO: Authority is the monopolization of power from the hands of the many to the hands of the few.
Okay:
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then don't link a video to defend your point that you don't agree with
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then Marxist Leninist projects meet your definition of anti-authoritarian?
They give this example of a robbery, where they try to reach a point with the anarchist’s definition and call it absurd. The only reason, they do so, is begause in the middle of their argument, they switch definitions back to Engels’ definition.
The robber example rebuts the claim by the most popular anarchist rebuttal that authority is established by unquestioning obedience. Did you not read the anarchist rebuttal?
This feels like a basic misreading of the text.
No. The video and the essay huse different definitions. You didn’t watch the -ideo, or didn’t listen to it, properly.
No, you don't get to claim this after your failure to read, I spent 45 minutes that I will never get back listening to inane shit like him claiming "steam isn't authority" without understanding how the circumstances of prime mover operation is socially created and influences downstream production processes, or "delegates and representatives are different actually, silly Engels" It was the same inane failures of reading along similar thrusts to the article.
The hexbear author fails to do so and doesn’t properly represent the anarchist’s essay’s point of view.
How would you know? You didn't fucking read it, if you didn't source the argument of "authority is created through unquestioning obedience"!
Engels created a straw-man. No anti-authoritarian thinks that necessity, or self-defense is authority.
There are literally those who think self defense is authority but justifiable authority, did you read the "Problems with "On Authority""? No?
- The video used the same definition. I never claimed it was congruent with the essay on the anarchist library.
- Lol, no. Power was incredibly monopolized by the bolsheviki and their Komisars.
I read the anarchist rebuttal. It made clear that force and authority are different things. The robbery example would not be authority, but force, according to the anarchist essay. The hexbear author didn't understand that, or misrepresented the anarchist.
It's ok, if you didn't get the video. How is steam a monopolization of power?
Do you know the difference between a free and an imperative mandate? If not, then you don't understand the anarchist's critique.
How would you know? You didn't fucking read it, if you didn't source the argument of "authority is created through unquestioning obedience"!
I did read both the anarchist's rebuttal and the hexbear comment (as far as I could stomach). I don't completely agree with the anarchist's rebuttal, which is why I didn't share it. The hexbear bloke didn't genuinely take the anarchist's proposal seriously, as I've explained several times now.
There are literally those who think self defense is authority but justifiable authority, did you read the "Problems with "On Authority""? No?
That's not what the essay's author claims. The essay's author doesn't view self-defense as "blind obedience", hence they don't think it is authority. Please stop misrepresenting stuff, it's getting exhausting.
It's no use arguing, if we both don't accept each other's definition of authority. You claim that the anarchist definition is incomplete, which you try to prove with Engels' definition. I say that no anti-authoritarian uses the same definition as Engels and the cycle continues.
Just admit that you don't want to consider anarchist perspectives. It would save you a lot of time.
Lol, no. Power was incredibly monopolized by the bolsheviki and their Komisars.
Okay so the first problem is that you're basing your ideas around the soviet union on popular western media and not an actual understanding of how the system worked.
Here is a fun rabbit hole to go down.. how did too much horizontalism lead to a failure to cyberize the planned economy ala cybersyn?
The video used the same definition. I never claimed it was congruent with the essay on the anarchist library.
Timestamp.
It’s ok, if you didn’t get the video. How is steam a monopolization of power?
The decisions made regarding the nature and circumstances of operation impose restrictions on all operatives in the system, ergo decisions made on a local level affect everyone. It is the monopolization of the use of literal power (and torque) unless you reject specialization, it is the imposition of authority. And rejecting specialization on a practical societal level requires a massive imposition of authority.
Do you know the difference between a free and an imperative mandate?
Yes, are you asking a ML if they don't understand the difference between strong and weak delegates? Y'all know democratic centralism is our thing right? Which is a much more thorough application of the principle.
The robbery example would not be authority, but force, according to the anarchist essay.
LOL. Someone pointing a gun at you and giving you instructions isn't authority? It isn't the monopolization of violence in this context?
The essay’s author doesn’t view self-defense as “blind obedience”, hence they don’t think it is authority.
The essays author establishes that some anarchists define self defense as a justifiable exercise in authority.
You claim that the anarchist definition is incomplete, which you try to prove with Engels’ definition.
No, the argument is that the anarchist definition isn't grounded in materialism.
I say that no anti-authoritarian uses the same definition as Engels and the cycle continues.
That is because Engels is a dialectical materialist and convinced that definitions grounded in dialectical materialism are superior- his problem is that anarchists are being idealist in their definition, and that they should embrace a more coherent definition of it.
Just admit that you don’t want to consider anarchist perspectives.
I spent a couple years reading anarchist literature, and turned to reading marxist lit when the anarchists started giving unsatisfactory explanations.
This might be your pipeline. But I would suggest avoiding wasting time on YouTube.
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Authority as indirect or direct force (essentially the engels) argument is the only logical way of definition authority, as the hexbear post argues using the example of the armed mugger. The definition of authority as blind obedience (as defined by the anarchist) is completely flawed in that it doesn't account for the source of the blind obidelience and isn't easy to measure.
In addition to not making sense from a historical development or material analysis perspective
An anticommunist breadtuber (but I repeat myself) debunks Engels 😂 Anarchism, unlike Marxism-Leninism, has yet to succeed in the real world for more than a few months. We will welcome anarchists’ lectures once they’ve proven their theory in praxis.
Anything else than ad-hominem attacks and wishful thinking? Like actually engaging with the actual critique, tankie?
Anarchism’s lack of success to date is historical fact, and I think that’s reason enough not to take the time to engage with some Burgerland anarchist’s video essay.
Someone's scared, I see.
What a great theorist Engels must have been, given that you must find ridiculous excuses in order to avoid engaging critically with his work. /s
WATCH MY VIDEO YOU COWARDSo, tell me: in what way is necessity, the laws of physics or self-defense the same thing as a monopolization of decision making power?
The laws or nature impose required forms of organization upon human society to function. The "double slavery" idea is not some obscure idea. When humans enslave nature to use it for their benefit, nature enslaved humans and imposes specific forms of organisation in turn. The specific form of organization imposed upon a society of large scale industrial producers is large scale centralized organization, in which the will of singular individuals is drowned out.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
This video thoroughly debunks the essay
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
To this day, nobody's actually articulated any counterpoints to it, so yeah.
Just cause you chose to ignore the well-founded critique, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
If the critique was well founded we'd see it applied in practice in the real world. The fact that anarchists aren't able to put their ideas into practice shows that they can be safely binned.
Libertarian socialists have come closer to achieving socialism than any state in the ML tradition.
If memorizing age of consent laws by region is achieving socialism, then sure.
Please research what libertarian socialism means. You obviously have no idea what's being talked about.
LMFAO
Xi will give the means of production back to the workers yany day now* I can feel it. /s
Yes, Engels does a pretty good job of explaining why "authoritarian" complaints are usually explained purely by vibes.
Lol, where do you get all that straw from?
He mostly explained how he actually didn't really have a proper grasp of what authority actually means. He conflated them with a lot of things without actually making sense. I'm surprised why "On authority" is so widely known.
He has a great grasp on how often Anarchists operate mainly on vibes, even if in practice when they get into power they still implement some form of authoritarianism, such as the labor camps in Revolutionary Catalonia.
Sorry, but claiming that just shows that someone didn't engage at all with anarchist theory.
Edit - addendum: even if this wasn't true back then in Engel's days: Still quoting him today ignores all that anarchist theory on power that happened since then.
The problem with anarchist theory is that it demonstrably doesn't work. A theory that can't be put into practice is not worth the paper its written on.
I have, I used to lean more Anarchist, until I read more Marxist theory. Concepts like ParEcon were extremely interesting, and could be applied to both an Anarchist system or a Worker State. I am aware of Anarchist principles of horizontal organization, and I think they are quite beautiful, but I am also aware that Anarchist critique of Marxism falls flat almost all of the time.
What kind of Marxism? Marx's Marxism, or that body of theory by his followers that even Marx denounced, i.e. ML, MLM, etc.
Anarchist's analysis of power has been spot-on ever since Bakunin predicted the bureaucratic dictatorship that Russia became under the Bolsheviki.
How exactly would Marx denounce Lenin? Or Mao? That's a supremely goofy statement.
Bakunin was not correct in analyzing power. If saying "states have issues" counts as being "correct" enough to only approve a system that has only ever lasted a few years at a time, you're intentionally missing the forest for the trees. The USSR was by no means perfect, but it was history's first true Socialist state and managed to prove that Socialism does work.
How exactly would Marx denounce Lenin? Or Mao?
You'd know if you read anarchist theory 😂
Oh duh, just gotta ask the Anarchist necromancers
While he didn't specifically denounce Lenin or Mao, he himself exclaimed once, reacting to self-appointed Marxists: "All I know is that I'm not a marxist." That's what I was referencing.
Are you sure you read anarchist theory? Bakunin didn't claim that states "had issues". Here's a quote, for example:
That is because no state, not even the most republican and democratic, not even the pseudo-popular state contemplated by Marx, in essence represents anything but government of the masses from above downward, by an educated and thereby privileged minority which supposedly understands the real interests of the people better than the people themselves.
The USSR was a state-capitalist state, where the bourgeoisy was replaced with bureaucrats - as predicted by Bakunin. If it were truly socialist, it wouldn't have taken away power from the soviets and Lenin wouldn't have abolished unions in favour of his high-modernist ideas.
You are wrong on the factual level.
The role of money in soviet society was always subordinate to material production. Money was necessary only due to the technical limitations of planning a vast economy without sufficient computing power. The sphere of commodity exchange was supressed as much as possible. Much of the soviet citizen's consumption was either heavily subsidised or free. This went all the way from food, transportation to even fancy entertainment (like spas and theatres). In fact, the heavy distortion of prices in soviet society is often cited as a reason for its eventual collapse.
Therefore, calling the soviet union state capitalist is absurd. Capitalism requires a dominant bourgeois class, the operation of the law of value and the anarchy of production. None of these elements were present in the soviet union.
That's a bit ridiculous, with respect to the Marx claim. Marx was attacking Dogmatism, not his own ideas. Post-Marx's death, people following his ideas understandably called themselves Marxists not because they worshipped Marx, but because they were working with his ideas!
As for Bakunin, he's a pure idealist here. His rejection of the state is based on the notion that the elected cannot represent the will of the people because they are not the people. This, of course, is wrong, as it assumes the people do not want someone managing higher-order decisions! Letting vast improvements in material conditions be held back because workers had representatives is why Anarchism has failed to last very long.
As for the USSR being "State Capitalist," that referred to the NEP. Judging Leftist movements by their structure as compared to perfect Marxism in a vacuum without considering the historical context is deeply silly idealism. You would have to do some heavy justification for why you believe a worker state to form a new class that isn't just vibes.
Marx died March 14th, 1883
Mao was born December 26th, 1893
Was Karl Marx a time traveler?
Yes. /j
Let me guess, you've read "The problems with on authority", but haven't read "A Marxist Response to "The problems with on authority" " ?
Here you go: https://hexbear.net/post/2141265
Lol, not dipping into that cesspool.
Hey, I stepped into an anarchist space to read the most popular critique of on authority, you can step into a non-sectarian left space to read a critique of the critique.