Posting to 'grad because I don’t know where that’d belong on 'bear. I hope it’s OK!
I genuinely cannot see how anarchism could work large scale, but there are anarchist spaces: anarchist communes. I think after a leftist revolution the world would be generally communist, but there would be independent anarchist communes. I think that’d be a true way anarchists and communists could coexist in reality. Alongside one another but not forced to abandon their political stances.
OP: I found a way for anarchists and communists to coexist after the revolution!
Every ML in the thread: anarchism doesn’t work.
Lmao
My biggest issue with it tbf is even trying to approach it as open minded as I could, I do not understand how you’d keep, or even maintain what you took. Eventually, the grinding of gears between the state and the commune(s) will lead to either a co-opting of the commune(s), or an utter shunning of them from an inability to standardize rules, regulations, and practices; and I don’t quite see how that helps either of us.
If there’s no profit incentive, and the standards/regulations are suitable, then there’s no reason for communes to disregard them. If the standards (or rules) are reached by consensus, then I don’t see why it couldn’t work. Unless, of course, the state is working for the benefit of a minority at the expense of society as a whole.
This is exactly what I was worried about. Who arbitrates who the state is working for when a communist state would be for the laborers, and by the laborers; or otherwise, not be communist? I don’t trust in the skills of discernment in individualists enough to have faith that one of these hypothetical communes wouldn’t just go wrecker because they perceive a ‘work towards the benefit of a minority’.
Who determines whether or not the actions of a state are in the best interests of society? That’s a great question, with a variety of answers depending on your preferred flavour of communism, anarchism, Marxism, etc. but the broad answer is that, well, we all do - as in, we, the working class.
Societies are necessarily structures composed of individuals, and therefore, individuals need to be involved in the decision making somewhere, it’s unavoidable.
There isn’t really anything you wrote which is uniquely applicable to a commune that isn’t also applicable to a transitional state. For example, what’s to stop such a state from determining that some innocent commune is involved in anti-communist, anti-worker’s rights activities and going wrecker, as you put it? Either by mistake, or for some malicious purpose, such as for the individual benefit of some individual in that structure?
You distrust individualists to exist outside of a state, but you trust them enough to be responsible with all of the instruments and powers of the state - that is quite strange to me indeed!
I tend to believe that, at the moment at least, humans are pretty selfish, ego-driven and tend towards making irrational choices. That’s why I believe that no-one should really be trusted with power over others that isn’t absolutely, 100% necessary for the functioning of society.
Also, just to clarify, there’s no such thing as a communist state - that’s a contradiction in terms. Communism, definitionally, is a classless, moneyless, stateless society - I’m guessing that you meant a transitional state, or a communist society, but a communist society couldn’t really “enforce” laws in the traditional top-down way that we think of those things.