>That's too vague. We were talking about a particular disagreement, whether
>Marx's commitment to the idea of something like a workers' state and the
>need to seize political power were connected with "economic determinism" in
>any of the specified senses. So far you have given us no reason to think
>so.
Simply put, Marx states that communism is "inevitable", it is a final stage of human development, and that it is only possible after specific material development requirements have been met. That certain material developments facilitate communism [authoritarian or libertarian] is obvious, however, Marx carries the arguement further. On both of these points, Marx clearly comes out as a determinist = and both of these points are a) directly related to economics and b) to his anti-anarchist thetorich. , etc. . . . "
>See above. But even if Marx had restricted himself to just saying that some
>of the Slavs lacked the industrial conditions for progress to socialism,
>that is not a stroing or interesting sort of ED. Is it objectionable to say
>that there are some economic conditions for the development of certain
>kinds of social formations? That seems to be obviously true.
The bottom line is that benig anti-determinist, I believe it would have been materially possible for the slavs Marx cites to build commonism, which Marx clearly doesn't. Marx's economic determinism is most clearly seen in his insistance that the German and Britain proletariats, being the most "advanced" economically, were closest to revolution. In reality, they turned uot to be the most reformist of the european working class, and conincidentally Marx's bases of support after the majority of the International sided with the Anarchists.
>Furthermore there is still no link to views about state power.
>
>
> > > I don't take the extreme accuracy of anarchist > theory regarding
>Marxism as > proof of everything anarchists espouse, rather, I > see it as
>credible > evidence that anarchist theory must be right about > something,
>or else its > just a fluke.
>
>Same can be said about liberal democracy, conservatism, left-wing Marxism,
>lots of theories that had similar critiques.
>
>Like I said before, I don't see how an > acknolwedged > dialectical
>materialist can dismiss this.
>
>Who's the acknowledged dialectical materialist? Not me! I'm a pragmatist
>and a lowercase liberal democrat.
>
> > > Revolutionary marxists like Luxembourg made varying > and incomplete >
>arguements when compared with the extensive > anarchist critique.
>
>Well, that can be debated. But liberals and conservatives made more
>extensive critiques tahtw ere quite similar.
>
>
> > There are many workers in the IWW, or at least in > chapters like
>Portland and > Vancouver that do real organising in real workplaces > and
>what not.
>
>But the union members in the IWW, and there aren't that many, can't
>necessarily be claimed as ideological anarchists, or even as following the
>lead of IAs. Hell, I've been in and out of the IWW, and I'm not an
>anarchist.
>
>While the > IWW may be largely a nostalgia cult,
>
>Concedes my point.
>
>it still has > "real workers".
>
>So does the CPUSA, probably more of them. That doesn't make it a
>revolutionary workers party.
>
>
> > You can call the self-critical analysis of > anarchists
>"rationalizations" all > you want, it doesn't change their self-critical >
>nature and the desire of > anarchists to analyze defeat and move forward. >
>That's what platformisms all > about.
>
>Analyse away. i think moving forward means getting beyong demonstrably
>failed ideologies like Anarchism and indeed Marxism.
>
>
> > > No anarchist revoltion has ever failed "under its > own weight".
>Rather, the > overwhelming objective circumstances of such > revolutions
>have crushed them > in situations that cannot possibly be regarded as >
>wholly dependent upon the > actions of the anarchists themselves.
>
>You can say the same of thefailure of Marxist revolutions.
>
>
> > your stab against Mahkno is complete out of place. > He never was an >
>anti-semite, and to re-hash Bolshevik slander and > lies in such a manner
>is > dishonest at best.
>
>I didn't get this from any Bolshies, but from standard histories of the
>Russian Civil War. But I don't think anarchism stands or falls with whether
>some of its leading lights were subject to primitive prejudices -- Bakunin
>too was guilty of ugly antisemitic rants --even while other distinguished
>anarchists (like Emma Goldman) were Jewish. Anarchism falls because of its
>historical record of failure, its lack of practival realism in dealing with
>the goals it sets itself, and the error of its fundamental premise, that a
>complex stateless society would be desirable or possible. That would all
>hold even if your anarchist heroes were all utterly free of prejudice.
>Likewise, the validity or lack of it of Marxism doesn't depend on whether
>Marx expressed Germanic chauvinism or even (as he is sometimes charged)
>antisemitism.
>
>jks
>
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