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RE: OSAPAP 001 - A New Open Source Anti Propaganda Animation Project
no government is an idealistic fantasy, still worth striving for
Totally disagree, on this point. A "peaceful" coercive state is an oxymoron and utopian fantasy which violates property rights.
I wish I could support this, but as a Voluntaryist who views individual self-ownership as the bedrock principle for all legitimate social interactions, I cannot support a Marxist endeavor.
This project is about anti-establishment resistance and counter-propaganda raging against the machine and "the man". This project is not necessarily anarchist or Marxist though I may be. I certainly don't situate myself on the left-center-right spectrum/paradigm. I don't like labels much and don't usually fit them perfectly but sometimes quick shorthand helps, in this case for this introduction.
I totally agree with you, though I think you're confused about what Marxism is.
I am all for anarchy, aka agorism, aka voluntaryism.
Like I said - it is still worth striving for.
I would prefer no government or coercive state at all. And I never ever said any government state was peaceful.
I also can realize that most people are tribal. Some people want or actually need so-called "leaders", terrible as that sounds. Hopefully this project would help people be aware and able to challenge that.
If we delete all hierarchies in some kind of magic instantaneous reboot, 1) who's to say that people's brainwashed status quo programming, herding instincts, and flock/mob mentality won't just bring them back into that fold, and 2) who's to say that the private corporate boardroom elites and secret societies won't just reform their privileged groups to figure out ways to influence, dominate, and exploit others? Honestly, I'd rather delete the entire state system (including letting all criminals out of jail), and I bet we'd all do better (if we could forget all the status quo nanny state programming).
You and everyone using Steemit, are clearly intelligent. While complimentary, it's just a fact. Stupid people don't push themselves to grow, learn, explore, etc. - online or offline. It's not their fault - and they are no less human for it. My point is, you probably don't associate with stupid people, and in your "smart" bubble you forget how many stupid people there really are. This morning I got a panicked call from my Mom's friend who didn't know how to fix the noise from her old stereo by switching from "tuner" to "CD". Stupid has all kinds of flavours. We are all tone-deaf with blind-spots and stupidity about all sorts of things we may or may not fully understand. We may not be able to, may choose to ignore them, might want to avoid them, or be too busy struggling with life, work, family, etc. The system is so rigged and stressful that people would rather check out and watch football or talent shows than affect policies that directly apply to them. On many levels in many ways, we are all ignorant of some things.
My Mom refuses to investigate or discuss the disturbing gory details of the Boston bombing, or Sandy Hook, and barely indulges in 9/11 discussion, yet she claims to have a solid informed knowledge about the "truth" of those matters because she saw it on the CBC - government corporate propaganda, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
The average person is stupider than average, or stupidly close. This includes politicians and "elites".
Perhaps you know this or perhaps you don't, you didn't go into detail so I'm going to clarify what is often falsely demonized about Marxism/socialism:
Marx was not "an evil communist" as many believe due to distortions of propaganda. Communism is a corrupted socialist totalitarianist system. Capitalism is a corporatocratic/fascistic inverted-totalitarianist system. Both are terrible forms of authoritarianism.
Marx was a critic of capitalism, pointing out the good, the bad, and the ugly. Social and socialist ideas existed long before Marx, though he embraced them for the majority of people who were the exploited working class to find better constructive ideas for the greater good of everyone. Not everything he said was great or perfect, but it resonated and caught on faster than anything else in history.
Workers cooperatives are a successful example of Marxist/socialist ideas and authentic democracy in the work place. You don't ever see this idea in corporate media because they don't want a fair workplace because the establishment systems all depend on the pyramid scheme hierarchies of exploitation.
Communism, a perversion of Marxist/socialist ideas, is a failure because it's top down authoritarian state-ism. Scientology is a perversion of "science". Big tobacco perverted their "scientific research" for decades. Big phrama is doing it now.
Socialism is a process, like science is a process. These processes, like any, can be good or they can be corrupted at any point along the way - by bad ideas, bad methods, selective analysis, influence of power and money, etc. If the Steemit process was perfect there wouldn't be debates and discussion about whales and weighting systems.
Every single government and military is socialist in countless respects. Roads, schools, utilities, cities, counties, hospitals, etc. are all socialist in many ways. Socially beneficial open-source projects have social Marxist values and many are profitable and for profit. Steemit is a social medium and is socialist by definition - people collecting ideas and efforts collaboratively.
Steemit has Marxist tendencies very similar to a worker cooperative, aka a worker directed enterprise, where everyone is a part-owner part-boss. While we don't get to truly democratically vote on how it's all configured, we do get to vote within our community on other people's work, how much they should earn, etc. If Steemit were truly open-sourced, transparent, and decentralized, then it would be even more Marxist.
No one is an island.
A baseball team has socialist goals of winning a game. Self described "democratic socialist" Bernie Sanders, the most popular politician in the USA, won't allow himself to just be called a "socialist" because he believes in the corrupt government state and obviously supported the rigged fake "democratic" process. I don't like his corporatism side, but at least he realizes everything is not just out of balance (always has been), but is waaay out of balance, and he has some good ideas for leftists, conservatives, progressives, libertarians, and anarchists. As far as I'm concerned, there are no Marxist states. I don't even know what that would look like. You don't have to believe in government to have socialist tendencies. And you don't have to agree on everything if you can agree that we're going in the wrong direction and need to do something about it.
If you think I'm wrong about Marx or any of this, I'd really like to know. I try to hear all perspectives and triangulate in my truth. Being open and skeptical about everything allows me to be flexible, to change, and to grow.
A quote from Marx:
One, by definition cannot be a Marxist and a Voluntaryist as Voluntaryism holds private property (an extension of self-ownership) as its bedrock, founding principle.
I really do appreciate the explanation. Voluntary socialism is fine. Once coercion is involved against even one individual, though, it becomes illegitimate.
I'm still looking forward to your project.
Private property is not the same thing as personal property.
Individuals own personal property. Your toothbrush can't be privatized but it is personal. So too with your house.
Privatized businesses are not democratically set up fairly and the workers are exploited. They have not stock in the enterprise. They have no say where the profits go. They have no say how it may pollute their community. They are disposable for profits. Rather than firing a person and making others work longer to save money, a worker coop would lessen everyone's hours, thereby supporting their community.
Private corporations, enforced by whatever kind of state, have unaccountable exploitative power over everyone. Capitalist states frequently de-fund and set up public services to fail, then "bail" them out by privatizing take overs that end up exploiting until the government is forced to de-privatize it and start the cycle again where everyone loses except the investors and executives. This would not likely happen with a worker cooperative.
Communism is a whole other perverted and corrupted mess with another top down hierarchy.
Abolish all private property. Abolish all governments. Abolish all taxes, wars, police, borders, etc. - these are all fantastic dreams worth aspiring to. But who's going to abolish private property? Who's going to abolish government? Thugs? Police? Smurfs?
I have not nor ever will endorse coercion of any sort. I believe in self-defense, even against cops but at that point you're in desperate deep shit any way you look at it.
It won't happen peacefully because the authority won't let it. I don't expect violence will solve it because it will be met with worse violence from the "official" state monopoly on violence. It's just not going to happen without a revolution of the mind, despite the propaganda.
A voluntaryist is also about self-reliant independence and grass roots bottom up community interactions.
I am not alone in being a self-described anarcho-Marxist. We can and do exist. If you can imagine a socialist-Libertarian, the I'm sure you can understand it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Until government is abolished we work with what exists, for better or worse, and I typically lean progressively "left" by the old standard but I hate using that spectrum especially when today the left and right are insanely retarded and don't mean anything anymore. The most important part of anarcho-Marxist is the anarchy, that's why it's first. I'd like to take credit but I didn't make up the term. Maybe I should call myself an anarcho-neo-Marxist. Now that term I just made up. (I wonder if Richard Wolff and Yanis Varoufakis would consider themselve neo-Marxists rather than just Marxists?)
If you really want more of this project, votes prove it.
P.S. Shit. I just looked it up: Neo-Marxism already exists. "There are many different "branches" of Neo-Marxism often not in agreement with each other and their theories." There's also Post-Marxism, also developed last century. How about "post-9/11-Marxism"? Millenial-Marxism makes me sound too young.
Here we go...
I respect you, man. But I don't have time for this. I have been down this road several times.
If the business interaction is voluntary, it is legitimate. The end.
Private businesses are not by default exploitative.
Voluntary interaction is legit, otherwise I agree to disagree.
Most people do not voluntarily accept minimum wage or part time jobs. By that point they're taking the only thing they can get to survive.
I get what you are saying, and in my view it is state violence stifling the free market which can create such a situation. This does not by default make all private business exploitative.
I agree. Completely.
Feeling safe not to cite supporting statistics I'd also add that the majority of folks these days are involuntarily feeling the squeeze. If the majority of folks are employed by private businesses, then the majority of bosses are doing the squeezing, in large part because the hierarchy above them is squeezing. The whole thing is a giant pyramid scheme zit about to explode/implode.
As long as the state exists, in any form, there is no free market. In the old days there were no taxes and the government thrived on import/export tariffs. The local free-ish market was more sustainable.
Funny there's no maximum wage limit.
Also, spare some vote?