kotukutuku

kotukutuku t1_jaacrd5 wrote

Reply to comment by New-Shop-7539 in The world should be governed by people with intellectual thought and people should listen by New-Shop-7539

Well, here's my thoughts. Anyone with half a brain can see that rampant neoliberal capitalism is dumbing us down and destroying the planet very efficiently, so that has me backing some form of socialism. I think socialism is the only hope we have now to focus production and consumption around genuine societal needs (health, education etc) instead of the endless oceans of plastic and junk food our children are growing up in. But what flavour of socialism does not inevitably result in authoritarian bureaucracy? How do we stop power grabs from those in powerful positions, or elites firming, as in the case of Soviet Russia?

Anarchism is the only socialist school of thought that directly challenges hierarchy and authority, with most of the various branches (syndicalism, anarcho-communism etc) offering systems of organisation that consciously distribute power, and mitigate centralisation. For those reasons I find anarchism really attractive. But the more I've thought about it, I come back to the need ultimately to sometimes require some kind of authority, at least on occasion, along with security. Even the few fledgling anarchistic regimes established had to acknowledge those needs in practice (before they were snuffed out by their opponents), and saw some corruption as a result. And if you start a revolution, who's to say who will end up in control? The best people to fight for a revolution are almost certainly not those you would want in charge of the new regime.

So if not anarchism, what? This is the question I've been stuck on for a long time, and the most satisfying answer I've found so far is Murray Bookchin's Social Ecology, also known as Municipal Communalism. I like it not only for it's pioneering vision of the need to create more sustainable societies, but for it's 'dual power' method of praxis, which acknowledges the risks if, and avoids, the classic revolutionary method of violent overthrow in place of gradual replacement.

To quote a slightly obscure meme: "Google Murray Bookchin"

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