I’m hoping this doesn’t start a fight, I’m just curious what the political orientation is of this community. I grew up in a liberal (in the American sense) family, and I identify now as a socialist, though a lot of the liberalism I grew up in has stuck with me, like interest in LGBTQ and women’s rights, environmentalism, etc. Wondering where people here land?
Capitalism also has to be enforced.
What do you think all those counter revolutionary insurgencies like the bay of pigs invasion are?
Or the state crackdowns on communist groups like the red scare?
Capitalism is not a natural state that things can revert to, it is a system that needs to be imposed.
Anarchism is the absence of involuntary hierarchies such as the state. Authority and authoritarianism is meaningless in drawing a dividing line between ideologies because every socioeconomic framework needs to defend itself from being undermined one way or another. A good place to get started on this matter would be On Authority by Friedrich Engels.
If you actually care about digging deeper into anarchocommunism as an ideology, I’d recommend starting with mutual aid, a factor in evolution and Communism and Anarchy (both written by Pëtr Kropotkin).
The bay of pigs invasion and the red scare were attempts to stop communist ideology from spreading. This was done in order to perpetuate and protect the status quo in the USA for geopolitical reasons, but is not necessary for capitalism to function. Many nations start conflicts with each other because of a difference in ideology, and a perceived need to contain or counteract the ideology of the other nation, and this is not limited to capitalist societies. The USSR for example engaged in many conflicts with its neighbors in an attempt to export the revolution and spread its influence. Yet I wouldn’t say these conflicts were necessary for communism to function as a system, any more than the conflicts capitalist countries engaged in were necessary for capitalism to work.
I disagree that capitalism is not a natural state that things can revert to. I believe that if you were to take a random sample of humanity, wipe their memories and drop them on an alien world, capitalism would happen. Not because there’s a “system” making it happen, but because that’s just what people do.
I appreciate the recommendations. I’ll check out Pëtr Kropotkin.
If capitalism is the natural way for civilisation to organise itself, how come it took until the 1700s to become a widespread ideology? Humans have been around for a hell of a lot longer than that.
For real, sitting here flabbergasted by this claim. I think it is interesting though, it highlights a very specific isolated Western dominated historical worldview to assume capitalism is naturally occurring. I demand more anthropology in school!
People on the star trek forum with a historical timeline more in line with the people thinking the world is 6000 years old and defending private property
Let’s think about that claim a little more carefully, why didn’t the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Arabs, the Sumerians, the Ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Maya, or the Inca develop capitalism
Why did it take 5,000 years after recorded history began for capitalism to emerge if it’s such a “natural phenomenon”
You really don’t see the contradiction in your claim? Let me spell it out; the “status quo” of the USA IS capitalism
Graeber’s The Dawn of Everything shows you are wrong. Capitalism isn’t natural and communism is “naturally” occurring.