[lbo-talk] query: from anarchist to marxist???

[c b]

I recently re-watched the interview with David Graeber on Charlie Rose
that, I think, ravi posted. He described anarchism in a way that I
thought was really interesting. In general, he said that it is a
committment to the idea that it's possible to have a society based on
self-organization, voluntary association and mutual aid. If you are
interested in living as if that is possible, then you are an
anarchist.

I take it that the passage through anarchism to Marxism probably comes
by way of a recognition of the necessity of the state--that was
something that Doug touched on in passing in the interview w/Corey
Robin. I wonder what Marxists--or "Marxists"--think of this.

-christian

^^^^
CB; Marxists agree with anarchists that humans do not need a state
power to organize society , and that ultimately the state will whither
away in Communism after capitalist relations of production are
abolished. However, Marxists do not agree that initial step to
Communism is to directly abolish the state.  The state as the
dictatorship of the proletariat will last as long as there are
capitalists with control of state powers and repressive force .

Lenin gives the full Marxist theory of the state, contrasting it with
the anarchist attitude to the state in _The State and Revolution_.