A lot of necessary jobs go undone if nobody wants to do them, like garbage disposal, sewer maintenance, etc. The notion that if everyone did only what everyone wanted, at least without moving to the far, far future, that everything necessary for society to function would get done is baseless.
Furthermore, the idea that Marxism isn't Socialist is old, yes. However, Marxism is based on collectivization of property and worker's rights, so it is Socialist. Further, it's by far the most historically relevant and the most relevant at a modern point because there are several Marxist states.
I'm not sure what you're trying to do here, you're taking a hard-line stance abandoned by most Anarchists a century ago, all you're doing is making Anarchism look silly when there has been advancements in Anarchist theory. Trying to discredit Marxism as validly Socialist and pretending Socialism means Anarchism only further alienates what you're saying from actually convincing anyone.
It is absolutely in the interest of workers to ignore safety concerns. They want to go home earlier, they don't care enough, they don't think it's important enough, etc. If you work in the trades, or in factories, or another industrial environment, you can find dozens of safety violations even in a well-kept place. Your following points don't follow because the base is wrong.
Furthermore, identifying Anarchism as the only form of Socialism, is dishonest. Socialism isn't about abolition of hierarchy, Anarchism is specificially. Socialism is an economic mode of production based around collectivization of property, but not necessarily abolition of class or hierarchy. Anarchism seeks to turn everyone into Petite Bourgeoisie out of a desire to eliminate hierarchy, Marxisk seeks to collectivize property equally among everyone out of a desire to eliminate class. Both are Socialist.
Power, authority, hierarchy, whatever you wish to call it, is a tool. The goal of Socialism is the uplifting and abolition of the Proletariat, simple as. It is not about "ceasing to infringe on any other worker's self-interests," such a mischaracterization is idealist. It is not "infringing on worker's interests" for OSHA to be able to shut down unsafe production even if the people there want to keep going, rather, it protects them and the people that could have been hurt.
At the end of the day, by trying to redefine Socialism as Anarchism and say Marxism isn't Socialist, you aren't going to convince anyone. You're not convincing me, and you sure aren't convincing anyone else. You say Marx gets stuff "wrong," but the stuff he supposedly got wrong is all stuff you seemed to have made up. It's silly, and this isn't going anymore.
Disengage.
The necessity for OSHA to have power is that people act in their own self-interest as a rule. Humanity can collectively plan and produce, and eventually as production is improved these measures will not need to be as strict, but they remain a necessity for administration and planning.
Again, it is awfully dishonest to attempt to redefine Socialism as Anarchism.
Okay, so OSHA needs power. If a factory is producing in unsafe conditions or produce toxic or unsafe goods for the public. Not every situation can be solved via "convincing." Depending on OSHA to be "convincing" is silly, all such Utopian formations of societies like the Owenites and Saint-Simon's commune failed for similar reasons.
I think you need to revisit Marxist theory and history, and you honestly should revisit Anarchist theory which today understands the necessity of just hierarchy. The USSR was great, not perfect but absolutely massive for Workers around the world.
You're doing exactly what Engels points out, though. You are trying to change the nature of a thing by changing its name.
OSHA has authority, power, whatever you want to call it to compel unsafe or toxic production to cease. This is necessary, and cannot simply be a request to be denied, as people will work in their own interests and may want to cut corners. You don't need to threaten people not to put their genitals in vices, correct, but you do need to have power over people who are deliberately skirting safety protocol for their own benefit.
This is why this entire conversation has been relatively pointless, it's clear that you certainly have firm beliefs about what you want, you just fundamentally lack the understanding of the Marxist position to its entirety and can only disagree with it by shifting and distorting things or by changing the names of things we agree on. You double down when proven wrong and try to pretend Marxism isn't Socialist.
I think you need to take a step back and read at list a bit of Marx and Engels and read up more on the various AES states if you want to actually come up with sensible critique.
See, you go on to prove my exact point, that QA workers and safety workers need the authority to stop production. You recognize this necessary authority, but then undermine it by saying it's the "will of the workers." If you don't recognize it as authority, then it can be gone against, meaning you have to recognize it as authority. Managers don't just do reports, otherwise they wouldn't exist. Managers are coordinators of production, if you ever step foot in a factory you'll see assembly line leaders and area leaders that help coordinate between each other and solve problems as they arise.
You describe fantastic examples like OSHA, which are necessary authorities, essentially explaining why not all hierarchy and not all authority is necessarilly a bad thing. However, you change the names and bring up non-sequitors like GULAGs and whatnot as though you could have an OSHA that only politely asks a factory producing toxic products to stop. OSHA has power because it is punishable to not do what they say, they have authority.
Finally, saying that Marxism isn't Socialist is very silly, but does indeed go along with you pretending Anarchism is the only form of Socialism, and flip-flopping back and forth on whether or not authority is necessary by trying to change the names of structures we both seem to support materially.
The rest of your comment is anticommunist nonsense that you repeat without any sources, so I'll leave you with some great ones:
Wasn't obvious it was a joke, tons of right-wingers unironically repeat that same line and believe it.
Not at all. The Nazi party was formed specifically to combat the rising KPD and the unions, and to facilitate privitization and protect the interests of Capitalists. I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds.
You genuinely believe if you change the name of something, you change it materially. Your admission that there needs to be management is an admission of authority's necessity in controlled contexts. To trust the bootmaking factory to be safe, have controlled QA, to be practicing safe environmental practices, all aspects of mass industry require at some level administration and management. The QA worker must have a backed authority to halt production of boots with toxic materials, the safety workers must have the authority to ensure proper lock-out tag-out is followed, the maintenance workers must be able to have authority to halt production to fix machinery.
Describe how a smart phone would be made in Anarchism, and you'll find you need some form of authority and administration to ensure safety, quality, and coordination of logistics.
It is not that Marxists simply can't imagine a better society. Marxists understand that Capitalist production evolved the way it did, and when you cut out non-productive labor it did so to maximize profits along highly complex production methods. What needs to change is the method of ownership and direction, rather than being at the whim and for the profits of few individuals, production can be owned and run by all for all.
As for the USSR, as you say, the purpose of a system is what it does. It doubled life expectancy from the 30s to the 70s, over tripled literacy rates to be higher than 99%, ended famine, dramatically lowered wealth disparity while improving median wages, democratized the economy, rapidly expanded housing, supported national liberation movements in countries like Palestine, Algeria, Cuba, China, and more. They provided free, high quality education and healthcare. Their presence on the world stage, combined with working class organization internally, was the driving force beyond the major expansions in social safety nets in the 20th century, and after the dissolution of the USSR these have been withering.
No, you don't have to be a Marxist if you don't want to be. No, the USSR was not perfect, and no Marxist claims it to be either. Marxists simply claim that the USSR was the world's first Socialist state, and as such the very real working class victories were due to the working people that built them. I'm going to go ahead and link Blackshirts and Reds again so if you want to read a history book written after the soviet archives opened up, you can.
Well, since you insist on distorting history, I'll leave you with Soviet Democracy for historical record on the democratic structure of the USSR. The Bolsheviks carried out the revolution and created the first Socialist state. It certainly wasn't Anarchist, but it was Marxist and thus counts as Socialist.
As for MLs being "counter-revolutionary," I don't know how you make the claim that the only Marxists to succeed in revolution are somehow "counter-revolutionary." Seems you have a martyrdom fetish, the second Leftists succeed they cease to be Leftists. Blackshirts and Reds is a good critical account of the USSR.
I have no clue why you think the tiny subsection of western Marxists that make up "council communists," popularized a century ago and promptly abandoned due to having horrible theoretical analysis, are "modern Marxists." Marxism-Leninism is the most common and successful form of Marxism by far and is the guiding ideology of several Socialist states today, like Cuba. Unless you're trying to say that only Westerners can truly understand Marx, and that the millions of Communists in the Global South that have spent their lives building Socialism are simply incapable of grasping Marx, then there's no reason to think council communists are much of anything. Personally, I think we should look to those who actually have succeeded in revolution to see what they have to say.
As for management, management needs authority, to deny that fact is to deny QA workers the ability to exert authority over production if the products are toxic, or to deny the health and safety officials the authority to stop unsafe production, or education officials to maintain standards for engineering education. Relying on every single decision to be democratically held would grind production to a halt in a day and to not do so is to recognize authority as necessary. If you agree that some people should be voted to have this necessary authority, then congrats, you agree with Marxist-Leninists.
I think it's clear enough to anybody else by now that you really have no clue what you're talking about with respect to Marxism, I've made my case so I think we are done here.
Not necessarily. Managers are not separate classes from workers, management is a form of labor. Same with econic planning. What you describe as "managers meeting workers at eye level" is what historically has happened in Socialist countries, and is what is advocated by Marxists. You should look into the various democratic structures in AES countries, I can make recommendations for sources if you wish.
Either way, I understand that you don't care to represent Marx or AES accurately, that's why I wanted to correct the clear misconceptions you had. Again, you can be an Anarchist and think Marx wrong while not understanding Marx, that's your right and your ability, I just want to make sure that Marx is being measured by what he actually wrote on his own terms and not as though he were an Anarchist.
No. Classes are social relations to the Means of Production. A manager is not a separate class from the worker, but the business owner is. The Anarchists take issue with hierarchy, not classes, yet a commune in the global context consists of Petite Bourgeoisie, all interested in the success of their commune but not necessarily others. The Marxists take issue with classes, seeking full collective ownership for all of humanity. It's an important distinction that guides philosophy, the Anarchist crituque of Marxism is the preservation of hierarchy while the Marxist critique of Anarchism is the preservation of class distinctions.
I ignored the second part because I didn't think it important to address. I don't care to debate Anarchism with you, just correct your misconceptions with Marxism so if anyone else reads this they won't just go along with what you say.
You're actually quite far off about Marx and the State, and are presupposing the Anarchist as the "legitimate" and "original." For Marx, Engels, Lenin, and other non-Anarchist Socialists, the state was the tool of class oppression. The goal of Marx and Engels in their analysis was to show that the centralization of Capitalism leads to public ownership and planning, not decentralization. From Engels:
But to recognize the French Revolution as a class struggle and not simply as one between nobility and bourgeoisie, but between nobility, bourgeoisie, and those without any property, was, in the year 1802, a discovery of the greatest genius. In 1816 he declared that politics was the science of production and foretold the complete absorption of politics by economics.[23] Although the knowledge that economic conditions are the basis of political institutions appears here only in embryo, what is already very plainly expressed is the transition from political rule over men to the administration of things and the guidance of the processes of production -- that is to say, the "abolition of the state", about which there has recently been so much noise.
Further along:
The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society -- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not "abolished", it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase "a free people's state" with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
Anarchists seek abolition of hierarchy, Marxists seek abolition of classes. You can be an Anarchist, but don't distort Marx to suit your ends.
"Stateless" doesn't mean "governmentless," though the dissolution of the Socialist system nearly a century after its founding does not mean they never had a Socialist economy. Further, such a system did not "exploit the masses," it achieved massive working class victories such as free healthcare and education, doubled life expectancy, over tripling literacy rates to be higher than the Western world, and democratized the economy.
On Authority doesn't strawman anything.
Yep, eventually twisting into knots to defend movements that haven't accomplished anything as "truly practical."
With respect to Rosa Luxemburg, I am referring to Reform or Revolution, an excellent work.
For the uncommented bit, I am not sure the point you are making here. The goal of Socialism is not a fully publicly owned and planned economy, those are the means once industry has developed enough to make such a system practical. Russia was extremely underdeveloped when the NEP was employed. I think reading Marx might help you understand a bit more:
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
In a country where such a process hadn't yet become more developed, the Marxist answer is to create the foundations for public ownership and planning through a highly controlled and temporary market-focused economy, which was done away with.
The bit on the SPD is a bit silly, you claim that they are on the money yet have never created any form of Socialism, while Marxists have. You can be an Anarchist if you think that's best, that's your choice, but I recommend reading Marx if you want to better critique Marxists.
"Democratic Socialism" is a bit of a misnomer. It usually means one of two things, achieving Socialism via liberal democracy (impossible, as was proven by Rosa Luxemburg) or creating a Socialism via revolution but recreating liberal democracy, and not Socialist democracy, which is contradictory. In reality, therefore, it remains a Social Democratic ideology that upholds Capitalism but wishes to expand safety nets, and therefore isn't Socialist at all.
As for State Capitalism, that refers to a specific period of time, namely the NEP. The economy of states guided by Marxism historically are guided by public ownership and central planning, which was core to Marx's conception of an eventual Communist society. "State Capitalism" refers to a specific formation where a Socialist State employs a market-focused economy and heavily guides it in a manner to achieve quick development, as Marxists believe public ownership and central planning is incredibly difficult to build "from the ground up" but that Markets readily create the infrastructure for public ownership and central planning through competition.
Historically, the three arrows symbol has been used by groups attacking Socialists, hence why I added the slash. Overwhelmingly, those who use the three arrows, including those who originated the symbol, are Social Democrats. Social Democracy is not Socialism, it's Capitalism with larger and more robust safety nets, and as such said Social Democrats have historically had just as much problem with Socialists as they have with Communists.
This is without getting into my own personal analysis of Socialism, that being that any society dedicated to maintaining Socialism will almost certainly eventually move towards Commnism anyways. This is just historical contextualization. Three Arrows the YouTuber identifies as a Social Democrat as well, so this is again reinforcing the idea that I don't think someone who isn't a Socialist and doesn't support Socialism should be seen as an authority on analyzing whether or not a system is Socialist.
That's why I recommended a historian with a doctorate who wrote a famous book on precisely this subject. It's a quick, snappy read too.
There's a large difference between taking care of your personal living space and having communal services, and maintaining sewers and toxic waste is at a far worse level. Legitimately, you're digging a deeper logical hole here.