Marxism or Anarchism?
Anarcho | 09.12.2003 21:01 | Analysis
A talk given as part of a debate organised by the Trotskyist party "Alliance for Workers' Liberty." A basic introduction to why anarchism is better than Leninism.
Introduction
Before starting, I would like to stress that I'm addressing mainstream Marxism here. In other words, Social Democracy and Leninism/Trotskyism. I am not talking about libertarian forms of Marxism which are close to Anarchism such as council communism or some forms of Autonomous Marxism. So, with that caveat, I will begin.
Marxism has failed. Where has it actually produced socialism? Nowhere. Rather it has created various one-party dictatorships presiding over state capitalist economies. Ironically, the "victories" of Marxism simply ended up providing empirical evidence
for anarchist critiques of it. Social Democracy became reformist. The Bolshevik revolution quickly became the dictatorship
over the proletariat. Just as we predicted.
In spite of this there are still Marxists around so I will discuss why Marxism was doomed to fail and indicate the anarchist alternative
Marxists versus Anarchism
Marxists tend to repeat certain straw men arguments about anarchism, so it is useful to clear the decks and go over them now....
The rest of the article can be found at:
http://anarchism.ws/writers/anarcho/left/marxismanarchism.html
Before starting, I would like to stress that I'm addressing mainstream Marxism here. In other words, Social Democracy and Leninism/Trotskyism. I am not talking about libertarian forms of Marxism which are close to Anarchism such as council communism or some forms of Autonomous Marxism. So, with that caveat, I will begin.
Marxism has failed. Where has it actually produced socialism? Nowhere. Rather it has created various one-party dictatorships presiding over state capitalist economies. Ironically, the "victories" of Marxism simply ended up providing empirical evidence
for anarchist critiques of it. Social Democracy became reformist. The Bolshevik revolution quickly became the dictatorship
over the proletariat. Just as we predicted.
In spite of this there are still Marxists around so I will discuss why Marxism was doomed to fail and indicate the anarchist alternative
Marxists versus Anarchism
Marxists tend to repeat certain straw men arguments about anarchism, so it is useful to clear the decks and go over them now....
The rest of the article can be found at:
http://anarchism.ws/writers/anarcho/left/marxismanarchism.html
Anarcho
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anarcho@geocities.com
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