this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2023
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Politics

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[–] rothaine 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Can you have communism without authoritarianism though? How would distribution of resources be enforced without control?

[–] communist 14 points 1 year ago (10 children)
[–] Pagliacci@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That answer assumes democracy can't be authoritarian, which isn't true.

[–] communist 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Authoritarianism and democracy are directly incompatible.

[–] Pagliacci@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How so? If the majority votes in authoritarian laws that are violently enforced on minority populations, is that not authoritarian?

[–] communist 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, because a simple majority could also reverse them, it wouldn't be authoritarian, it'd be fascistic.

[–] Pagliacci@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know Wikipedia isn't the ultimate arbiter of truth, but this is how it's article on Fascism begins, and I think it would be fairly common for people to consider fascism a form of authoritarianism:

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement,[1][2][3] characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

FWIW I'm not meaning to attack democracy here, I find it to be far preferable to the other systems we have at our disposal. But it is a tool that can be used for good or bad.

[–] communist 2 points 1 year ago

Well, it's more like a large portion of the people voting would have to be fascistic, not that the system itself would be fascistic

It'd be a weird contradiction to have such an anarchist system end up fascistic, I don't think it's a concern in the real world.

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[–] alyaza 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Can you have communism without authoritarianism though?

well, we'd have a more settled answer if historically communists of all stripes weren't immediately persecuted wherever they win power (whether democratically or through revolution), but Revolutionary Catalonia strongly suggests the answer is yes. its most anarchist regions successfully managed themselves pretty well for more than 2 years during a vicious civil war before being crushed, and those are the literal worst circumstances possible to try and build an egalitarian, stateless, classless society in. i would imagine doing this is substantially easier without a well-armed state trying to murder you.

(also ironically, the anarchists in Catalonia sometimes had to fight the Marxist-Leninists who were ostensibly united with them against the Francoists, because the two sides had such radically different visions of society)