MeanwhileOnGrad
"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
Welcome to MoG!
Meanwhile On Grad
Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!
What is a Tankie?
Alternatively, a detailed blog post about Tankies.
(caution of biased source)
Basic Rules:
Sh.itjust.works Instance rules apply! If you are from other instances, please be mindful of the rules. — Basically, don't be a dick.
Hate-Speech — You should be familiar with this one already; practically all instances have the same rules on hate speech.
Apologia — (Using the Modern terminology for Apologia) No Defending, Denying, Justifying, Bolstering, or Differentiating authoritarian acts or endeavours, whether be a Pro-CCP viewpoint, Stalinism, Islamic Terrorism or any variation of Tankie Ideology.
Revisionism — No downplaying or denying atrocities past and present. Calling Tankies shills, foreign/federal agents, or bots also falls under this rule. Extremists exist. They are real. Do not call them shills or fake users as it handwaves their extremism.
Tankies can explain their views but may be criticised or attacked for them. Any slight infraction on the rules above will immediately earn a warning and possibly a ban.
Off-topic Discussion — Do not discuss unrelated topics to the point of derailing the thread. Stay focused on the direct content of the post as opposed to arguing.
You'll be warned if you're violating the instance and community rules. Continuing poor behaviour after being warned will result in a ban or removal of your comments. Bans typically only last 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction will double the amount. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.
view the rest of the comments
Basically this. Socialism and communism both fall down because they're brittle systems. All it takes is one corrupt, selfish individual to exploit the system, accumulate wealth, use it to buy power, and the system falls over.
It's true for every system. Any system can be captured and taken advantage of. But the systems without built in central control are harder to take advantage of.
Yes, though I think one difference is that capitalism just assumes that everyone is selfish and will act out of self-interest, and builds a kind of stability out of this. This doesn't make capitalism good, but perhaps more realistic.
Gestures wildly hwhat?!
Anyway, anarchism deals with this issue by not allowing anyone to accumulate wealth in the first place.
Oh, yeah, well it only stays that way as long as there's enough competition to prevent any single actor from gaining too much control. Like I said, it's not good.
How exactly would this be enforced in an anarchist society? Who would be doing the "not allowing", and how would they decide what constitutes too much accumulation, and what form would the enforcement take?
You misunderstand. Accumulation requires enforcement. Anarchists would just reasonably ask why one thinks they deserve to keep more than they need for themselves
If I am a woodworker, and I make furniture in a particular style, and that style becomes desirable so that other people want to have furniture made by me, and are willing to trade goods and services to me beyond what you might consider the normal value of the materials and labor cost of the furniture, am I now "accumulating wealth" by making furniture that is highly valued? Have I already accumulated wealth by acquiring the tools and the workshop needed to make the furniture?
If I am a painter, and my paintings become popular, am I accumulating wealth by continuing to produce paintings which I know will be highly valued?
If I start a library, am I accumulating wealth by collecting books?
How are these in any way "enforcement"?
Who defines "need" or "reasonable"?
Ultimately what I am understanding from what you are saying is that this anarchist society requires individuals to be self-monitoring and self-limiting. I think all of human history describes how unrealistic that idea is.
Further, it would require that all 8billion+ people in the world have some collectively shared definition of what is reasonable, deserving, needful. This is a kind of conformity and uniformity that I find deeply uncomfortable.
If we are talking about already being in an anarchist society, then this example makes no sense. This woodworker doesn't exist in a vacuum. They need food to eat, and material to produce with. The workers providing these services would do so under the expectation that the woodworker would provide according to their own capabilities and take according to their own needs. Why would other workers keep enabling someone who appears to want to hoard in order to exercise power over others.
We all do, collectively.
Humans achieved civilization because we are the most cooperative of the animal kingdom. We're so empathetic that we can feel emotional pain and attachment to inanimate objects. Human history shows that this is the most realistic scenario and that actually going against this with hierarchies and competition between us has brought not civilization, but the earth ecosystem's capacity to maintain us to the brink.
Not at all. You don't need 8 billion people to agree on what is reasonable for one to own. Just your immediate community, let's say ~150 people. The rest happens through federation and cofederations