where do you stand on the socialist spectrum? i’ll start: my socialist views are a fusion of market socialism, welfarism, georgism and left-libertarianism - i took the leftvalues quiz (as shown in the photo attached in this post), and i got “centrist marxism”. you DON’T have to take the quiz though.
EDIT: i just added the link
That’s great, glad to see that you’re making good progress! And yep, I was hit harder than I thought I’d be by Parenti’s passing, I knew he was on his way out for years and yet it still hurt quite a bit when I heard about it. Rest in peace, comrade, may we continue what you left off!
That’s the humanity, we all knew he had little time and he was happy, but nobody is ever prepared for it :(
Yes, can’t thank you enough for your guidance, it took me some time (a month or two because i struggle to pay attention, but I feel like I understand the inevitability of class struggle, and the basics of dialectics more!) and now i’m preparing to read socialism: utopian and scientific. From how i understand, anti-dühring is very similar (nearly identical first chapter), but is focused as a rigorous critique of Dühring, and not an explanation of scientific socialism? It took more than two years for Engels to write and it’s the size of a book unlike the pamphlet sizes i’ve been going through, any idea which i should choose?
If you want an EPUB of it, there is a Comrade’s Library version of here: https://comlib.encryptionin.space/lib/epub/sus.epub
It hasn’t been published on the website because it should (… might never get done) be proofread.
No worries on taking time! It’s great that you’re reading, and progressing. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is a snippet from the broader Anti-Dühring, correct. A-D has 3 sections: Philosophy, where Engels goes over dialectical materialism in depth, Scientific Socialism, where Engels explores more about how socialism came to be “scientific” and what that means, and a section on Political Economy.
Really, my recommendation is to go for Socialism: Utopian and Scientifc for now, and return to Anti-Dühring later, seeing it (as well as his unfinished Dialectics of Nature) as Engels’ Capital, his masterwork. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is where I personally broke from anarchism and became convinced of Marxism, and while that may not happen to you (and that’s okay), it’s such an amazing work for how short it is.
Be sure to read the footnotes and captions! It’s extremely easy to misunderstand the notes on Bismarck and the section on the withering away of the state, but as long as you’re reading carefully you’ll have no problems. Good luck!
Ah it’s a snippet, makes sense. Thanks!
I believe that with existence of private property and the division of labor, classes and their struggle is inevitable. I see after this what’s meant by “marxism is a science”, it’s a worldview built around applying a basic concept, dialectics, to the development of humanity, you start with dialectics and everything else comes later from it. With the explanation of why class struggle is inevitable, the DotP concept makes much more sense.
However so far, all my reads have been on a theoretical basis but seeing the implementations i think is quite important too. Not just AES, but marxist parties in general. An important part here would not just take stuff out of context, but to actually compare them to pre-communism and post-communism, depending on the situation. i.e. not taking the USSR by itself, but comparing to Tsarist Russia and the modern RF.
You’re really hitting the nail on the head with respect to why our study is never finished. Dialectics requires us to look at everything in its context, not just metaphysically (ie, isolated, static, unchanging). The USSR, for example, was both tremendously progressive with respect to Tsarist Russia and its contemporaries, while having real struggles and flaws.
Socialism became scientific with the creation of dialectical materialism, ie seeking materialist explanations for real phenomena, and using dialectics as the methodology. When applied to history, we see socialism not as an idea to be implemented, ie “utopian” in thinking, but as it develops historically. In capitalism, markets centralize over time, while raising the number of proletarians and decreasing the number of bourgeois, creating the conditions for collectivized ownership and distribution.
The proletariat as a ruling class is unique in that, rather than seeking perpetuation of its status, seeks to end itself as such. This is why dialectical materialism is a proletarian ideology, seeing everything as it comes into and out of existence, as a process and in constant motion, because all previous ruling classes sought to explain their rule as permanent.
The part where this breaks with anarchism for me is the fact that anarchists, ultimately, seek to implement society in a way that goes against how capitalism progresses. This is why it’s so difficult to start a cohesive anarchist movement that lasts, it isn’t because it’s impossible, but because anarchists are “working against the wheel of history,” so to speak, in trying to decentralize all production and distribution. It certainly isn’t impossible, but it’s orders of magnitude more difficult at scale. Locally is where anarchism has its advantages.
This was a bit of a ramble, but this will all make much more sense after reading Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, I hope. I’m not telling you to abandon your anarchism or anything, just that this is the work that personally marked the end of identifying as an anarchist, so it will probably give you a good deal to think about at a minimum.
Thanks! I’m proud that i managed to learn this all when i didn’t have high expectations i could.
Also don’t worry! I genuinely like your rambles lol. So far, marxism has read good to me. I conflict with a couple of my anarchist peers anyway. mainly on instead of focusing locally, i mainly stick to international issues, and the whole viewpoint of imperialism i.e. color revolutions, neocolonialism etc. If i align more with marxists then i don’t see a big issue there.
Besides, i don’t think marxist/anarchist differences matter too much to me. Theoretically/philosophically i could be either, but in practice i will work with any two of them, and will be friends with any of them anyway. Honestly nowadays i just call myself a communist in general, since it applies to both schools of thought
Thanks again comrade:D
You should be proud! And yea, I figured you wouldn’t be dissuaded, just wanted to point out my personal experience with that text in particular, to give you something to consider while reading it. In practice, Marxists and anarchists work alongside each other frequently! Also, side note, I’ve been reading Maurice Cornforth’s Materialism and the Dialectical Method recently, and it has been fantastic, and will probably replace Politzer’s work in my reading list once I finish it. If you feel like you aren’t fully solid in dialectical materialism, consider giving it a read after you finish Socialism: Utopian and Scientific!
And thanks again, comrade!