I would argue only that currently liberalism is failing, fascism is rising and all leftist movements are too weak to beat fascism alone.
I think we can fight together in the same fight against fascism, and work together against the ever worsening climate disaster.
There will be time to fight eachother when we’re not beset by right wing enemies destroying civilization and the earth on all sides.
I’m worried that not fighting together when our goals are reasonably aligned means we’ll simply get defeated by fascism.
Malcom Harris in his recent book “What’s Left” lays out a great strategy to work together without giving up our socialist, communist, or anarchist essence and goals.
Right now, most leftist groups are so small that even if they all worked together it wouldn’t be militarily significant. So even if we threw out all our values and worked together with genocidal assholes, we would still lose. You’re asking people to sell out their entire ethical framework for a couple thousand untrustworthy allies. That just doesn’t make sense.
As for liberalism, by your own admission it is failing, so why on god’s green earth should we tie ourselves to that sinking ship as it goes under?
Luckily, there is a way out: You forgot that ideologies are made of people, and that it is those people changing their minds that cause the power balance between ideologies to shift. Liberalism is sinking because it has lost all credibility, and fascism is growing because it helps rich liberals preserve their power as the liberal economy contracts and because it gives the western working class a clear narrative of preserving some privileges in spite of that contraction by more violently extracting wealth from the less privileged.
So what we need to do is to have a clear narrative of how leftism will improve people’s lives, ideally one that reflects reality. If we cooperate with genocidal parties, that muddies the narrative. If we cooperate with the liberals who set the world on fire, that muddies the narrative. It is great for the narrative to support diversity of tactics and diversity of ideology, but then we need to weave that into the narrative by explaining the limits of tolerated diversity and the process through which better tactics and ideologies are cultivated.
If we want to have any chance of winning, we can’t team up with genocide supporters. Nobody could trust our promise of solidarity if we do. We might sometimes benefit from giving them resources or coordinating strikes with them, but they are a different faction.
The fascist threat is from both black and red. Rather than work with our enemies to fight our enemies, anarchists should focus on doing what they do and build our power independently from fascism.
And its always interesting, you never see people pressuring communists to work with liberals to help liberalism fight fascism but anarchists must always work with communists to do so.
And its always interesting, you never see people pressuring communists to work with liberals to help liberalism fight fascism but anarchists must always work with communists to do so.
Are you kidding? We see radicals of all kinds being pushed to vote for or support liberals, especially communists. This is very out of touch with reality.
I used to be part of a Trotskyist organisation a while ago and that’s pretty much exactly what we did. I believe it’s called entryism. Not only was it policy to vote Labour but to enter the party and try to push it further left.
I am sorry but you are just wrong here, and dangerously out of touch.
If you want anarchists to invade ML group, destabilise and flip them, I’m all for it, still not going to join in as a I think it’s futile, but I’ll support others doing it - but I highly suspect that’s not what they’re asking us to do.
While I understand what you are saying in practice it means voting for and backing up a liberal party even if it’s a means to an end. People push anarchists to work with MLs and with liberals for the same reasons. Mainly that it’s a form of harm reduction until an actual revolution can take place. The entryism into labour wasn’t done instead of a revolution. It was meant to get policies that support the working class in place until such a time as a real revolution could be enacted which obviously takes time.
That’s not the case. Malcom Harris (famously an anarchist) argues exactly for communists to work with liberals (social democrats). That’s exactly the framework he sets up: in so far as many of our goals are now aligned, we all work together, but without compromising our own goals and values.
I would argue only that currently liberalism is failing, fascism is rising and all leftist movements are too weak to beat fascism alone.
I think we can fight together in the same fight against fascism, and work together against the ever worsening climate disaster.
There will be time to fight eachother when we’re not beset by right wing enemies destroying civilization and the earth on all sides.
I’m worried that not fighting together when our goals are reasonably aligned means we’ll simply get defeated by fascism.
Malcom Harris in his recent book “What’s Left” lays out a great strategy to work together without giving up our socialist, communist, or anarchist essence and goals.
Right now, most leftist groups are so small that even if they all worked together it wouldn’t be militarily significant. So even if we threw out all our values and worked together with genocidal assholes, we would still lose. You’re asking people to sell out their entire ethical framework for a couple thousand untrustworthy allies. That just doesn’t make sense.
As for liberalism, by your own admission it is failing, so why on god’s green earth should we tie ourselves to that sinking ship as it goes under?
Luckily, there is a way out: You forgot that ideologies are made of people, and that it is those people changing their minds that cause the power balance between ideologies to shift. Liberalism is sinking because it has lost all credibility, and fascism is growing because it helps rich liberals preserve their power as the liberal economy contracts and because it gives the western working class a clear narrative of preserving some privileges in spite of that contraction by more violently extracting wealth from the less privileged.
So what we need to do is to have a clear narrative of how leftism will improve people’s lives, ideally one that reflects reality. If we cooperate with genocidal parties, that muddies the narrative. If we cooperate with the liberals who set the world on fire, that muddies the narrative. It is great for the narrative to support diversity of tactics and diversity of ideology, but then we need to weave that into the narrative by explaining the limits of tolerated diversity and the process through which better tactics and ideologies are cultivated.
If we want to have any chance of winning, we can’t team up with genocide supporters. Nobody could trust our promise of solidarity if we do. We might sometimes benefit from giving them resources or coordinating strikes with them, but they are a different faction.
The fascist threat is from both black and red. Rather than work with our enemies to fight our enemies, anarchists should focus on doing what they do and build our power independently from fascism.
And its always interesting, you never see people pressuring communists to work with liberals to help liberalism fight fascism but anarchists must always work with communists to do so.
Are you kidding? We see radicals of all kinds being pushed to vote for or support liberals, especially communists. This is very out of touch with reality.
I never see ML’s pushing other ML’s to support liberals.
I used to be part of a Trotskyist organisation a while ago and that’s pretty much exactly what we did. I believe it’s called entryism. Not only was it policy to vote Labour but to enter the party and try to push it further left.
I am sorry but you are just wrong here, and dangerously out of touch.
Entryism is not supporting, it’s subverting.
If you want anarchists to invade ML group, destabilise and flip them, I’m all for it, still not going to join in as a I think it’s futile, but I’ll support others doing it - but I highly suspect that’s not what they’re asking us to do.
While I understand what you are saying in practice it means voting for and backing up a liberal party even if it’s a means to an end. People push anarchists to work with MLs and with liberals for the same reasons. Mainly that it’s a form of harm reduction until an actual revolution can take place. The entryism into labour wasn’t done instead of a revolution. It was meant to get policies that support the working class in place until such a time as a real revolution could be enacted which obviously takes time.
That’s not the case. Malcom Harris (famously an anarchist) argues exactly for communists to work with liberals (social democrats). That’s exactly the framework he sets up: in so far as many of our goals are now aligned, we all work together, but without compromising our own goals and values.