Posted by Phil Dickens on 07/03/2011 · 5 Comments
The somewhat poetic title to this post comes from a status update I put on Facebook last week; Best descriptor for Marxism and Leninism I’ve ever read has to be “analysing everything through the eyes of corpses.” Genius. This was a reference to the tendency of nearly all groups and currents (though far from all … Read more
Filed under Debate and discourse · Tagged with building the new world in the shell of the old, Capitalism, central committee, class consciousness, communism, democratic centralism, federalism, Karl Marx, Leninism, Mao, Marxism, Pol Pot, revolution, self-organisation, Soviet Union, Spain, Stalin, transitional stage, Trotsky, vanguard of the proletariat, Vladimir Lenin, workers party, workers' state, working class
Posted by Phil Dickens on 26/07/2010 · 10 Comments
The terms “capitalism” and “the free market” carry a lot of historical weight and baggage. For the right, they are basic neccesities for freedom and prosperity. For the left, they are the root of social and class inequality, the primary source of misery and injustice in the name of human greed. For the vast majority … Read more
Filed under Anarchism, Capitalism · Tagged with anarchist, anarchist communism, anarcho-syndicalism, Benjamin Tucker, Capitalism, communism, corporatism, Emma Goldman, free markets, Kevin Carson, libertarian, murray rothbard, mutualism, petty bourgeois, private property, scarcity, socialism, state-capitalism
Posted by Phil Dickens on 27/06/2010 · 8 Comments
The fundamental difference between anarchist communists and any other kind of communist (Leninst, Trotskyist, Titoist, whatever) can be boiled down, ultimately, to two sentences from Karl Marx; Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in … Read more
Filed under Debate and discourse, The state · Tagged with Alliance For Workers' Liberty, Anarchism, Bolsheviks, communism, democratic centralism, dictatorship of the proletariat, International Workingmen's Association, Josef Stalin, Karl Marx, Kronstadt, Leninism, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong, mikhail bakunin, Militant Tendency, Piotr Archinov, Pol Pot, POUM, revolution from below, self-organisation, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers' Party, Spanish Civil War, Stalinism, transitional state, Trotskyism, vanguard of the proletariat, Vladimir Lenin, workers party
Posted by Phil Dickens on 23/03/2010 · 7 Comments
Anarchists are against hierarchy and coercion, and as such oppose the structures of the state. From this simplistic premise, there are those who find it hard to comprehend anarchist support for public services and the public provision of welfare. Right-wing “libertarians” and “anarcho”-capitalists are the most vocal in their criticisms of such a stance. Murray … Read more
Filed under Anarchism, Capitalism · Tagged with An Anarchist FAQ, Anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, Capitalism, collectivism, communism, consumers, Diego Abad de Santillan, dogma, free market, Hans Hermann Hoppe, homestead principle, Kevin A Carson, laissez-faire, libertarianism, liberty, Ludwig von Mises, market socialism, mikhail bakunin, murray rothbard, mutualism, neo-liberalism, Noam Chomsky, Peter Kropotkin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, private monarchy, private property, private sector, public sector, public services, scoial welfare, social democracy, Steve Millet, usury, welfare state, workers
