By: Anonymous

Anonymous
Fri, 05 Aug 2011 14:34:44 +0000

Good call
As Anarcho has pointed out, two of the three major strands of left-wing politics/economics have failed: Marxism and social democracy, though the latter is much preferrable to the former.

Given the 100% failure rate of Marxist states (I’d like to know what a successful one is like), it is pointless for the left to continue down this road. Even if a population is agreeable to Marxism, and even if the dictatorship is somehow benevelent to the public, returning to the central planning model is a sure recipe for disaster. Have Marxists not learned anything from the last century? As most socialists tend to be Marxists, it is no wonder the left has lost a lot of influence and power in the last several decades.

Perhaps if Marxists were less dogmatic and placed much greater emphasis on market socialism (mixed-mode economy with government combined with worker-run and owned competitive markets), they could be more relevent, like David Schweickart. But I wouldn’t pin my hopes on this happening any time soon.

Anarchist societies could have gained prominance if the two most promising experiments weren’t crushed by Marxists during the 20th century, Spain and Russia.

Given that social democracy always degenerates into reformism, it appears that libertarian socialism is the only path available to the left that may yet produce something valuable.

Something I found funny:

…the City of Westminster police’s “counter terrorist focus desk” called for anti-anarchist whistleblowers stating: “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/31/westminster-police-anarchist-whistleblower-advice

Philip