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this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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I'm tired of tankies telling me I need "leftist unity" when I want freedom
I think the whole authoritarian vs antiauthoritarian split is kinda BS - IMO it's more about who's dictating terms to who. We really badly need land reform, and landlords aren't going to willingly give that up, so we have to be a bit "authoritarian" in order to make them do so. Same thing goes with wealth redistribution, and land back. If you give up on using force to get what you want, how do you get land back to indigenous populations, or stop the genocide in Gaza?
I think we'll be more free if we work together to build socialism than we would be if we keep shitting on each others approaches towards building it. Then we'll just keep refining it until there's a minimum amount of hierarchy or control in society that's used to prevent re-privatisation, exploitation, and the re-establishment of Capitalism.
Signed, a "tankie"
My problem is there's an assumption that you know what's best for people, rather than self determination of peoples.
You think it's a BS line because even in US and Canada at least (where I'm most familiar with). We're still under (though to a much lesser extent) authoritarianism.
The Government knowingly executed a probably innocent man.
The victims family, and even the prosecution, admits they got it wrong.
How is this not authoritarianism if the state can execute innocent people?
Just because you can vote, doesn't mean you have power.
First of all, yes, we're living under a shitty authoritarian government in the US. It's basically a dictatorship of the richest in society. I want to invert that, where the workers have all the power. It'll flatten out the power hierarchy eventually because everyone will become workers like everyone else. Just, in order to get there, we've gotta do some things which will smack of authoritarianism, such as forcibly redistributing wealth and converting businesses to being worker-owned.
I don't know what's best for people, other than that we should make society more democratic. But thing is, we can't let everyone act in their own self interest when doing so harms others. Like, it's in a landlord's individual self interest to charge as much money as possible and to refuse to redistribute their property.
Also, if you let everyone act in their own self interest, how do we solve the problem of getting land back to indigenous populations? For example, I'm certain that many white people in the US won't want to give land back, and there could be a democratic majority that opposes doing the right thing. What do we do then?
We build real community. That's the answer to all of it.
If we all feel we own the park, we'll start taking care of it more. Rather than it being the cities (i.e. someone else's) problem.
How do we give land back? We decide as a community to do that.
Also, land back isn't about ownership, it's about stewardship. If we were community focused, we'd understand that, and maybe even participate in it.
How do we do justice? We let community decide what's best.
Fuck these countries. We should be caring and looking out for our neighbours. Not these nation states.
How do we deal with wealth redistribution? Support community. Spend as local as you can. Give your wealth to community.
It's not about heorarchy, it's about being mutually invested in eachother. Not just "friends", not just hanging out, but sticking through tough times. Calling out BS. Trying out best to bring our the best in eachother.
Giving power to people is not the same as democracy. People have a right to be governed however they want to be. If a community wants a king, sure. That's their right as a people. There's a difference between intervening on something like a genocide, and imposing democracy on a people that don't want it.
You can have revolution without authority, the true question is should the workers truly own the nation they built or a self appointed "vanguard"? Do the ends truly justify the means? Also we shit on auths because for most of history they felt no need to truly work with us unless they were desperate (and then they proceed to backstab us when they get comfortable).
So, I think the workers should own the nation and that power should be held at the level of workplace unions and community organizations. I see being "the vanguard" of communism as similar to a 1st place designation in Mario Kart - it's a floating title that depends on who's doing the most for the effort and who other people look to. That vanguard shouldn't get any extra privileges, they're workers just like anyone else.
In my opinion at that point why even have a vanguard when the power can be held exclusively by syndicates (just to clearify though I do respect your position).
Agreed, power should be held by syndicates, ideally with those syndicates/groups/unions/etc working together by sending delegates to a Congress and then abiding by the democratic decisions made by that Congress.
I think deciding who is or isn't the vanguard is something you can only do when you look back at history - you can point at different groups at different times when they were leading the movement, but if you were living through it things might not be clear. It's pointless trying to figure out who the vanguard is right now, instead we should be organizing.