Authoritarianism is not only acceptable but is encouraged. In fascism this comes in the form of a totalitarian dictatorship and in Marxism it comes in the form of an tyrannical transitional government that rules with an iron fist to establish socialism and bring about the social climate necessary to realize communism (dictatorship of the proletariat).
Marx proposed a temporary state wherein proles, collectively, use the apparatus of the state in an authoritarian manner to manage a transition to a non authoritarian non state. The vanguard party stuff is all Lenin. If you want to compare ML to fascism that’s a separate discussion, iirc Marx is actually pretty vague on what precisely the DotP would actually look like. Fascism proposes an indefinite centralisation of power with the goal of ultimate preservation of the state.
The significant debate and purging around the formation of, for instance, the USSR should be a hint that endorsement of authoritarianism is not really something everyone takes away from a reading of Marx. Incidentally, have you? read marx?
Everything except the most radical anarchist ideologies makes some use of authority in certain circumstances, I think it’s somewhat farcical to draw parallels between crisis and the proposed status quo.
Ideology revolves around common enemies - In fascism this comes in the form certain ethnicities or nationalities while in Marxism it comes in the form of classes.
Wat? This is so ludicrously broad as to apply to everything. Westminster democracy aligns itself against a common enemy of absolute monarchy, republics unite themselves against a nobility, tribes unite themselves against non kin outsiders… Is there an ideology that doesn’t declare itself against some enemy which is protects against?
Bitterly oppose materialism - Fascism opposes materialism because it is deemed to lack acknowledgement of the role of the spirit, while Marxism opposes materialism because it is deem to be a key engine in class warfare.
Sure I guess. Again this is hardly unique to the two. I mean Buddhism does this along with monastic Christianity and new age smoothie cults /shrug
Bitterly oppose individualism - Both ideologies revolve around the concepts communality and unity, and so they see individualism as a threat to their core ideological views.
Ah, you have not read Marx! I can see how you might get this stance but no. This is just false. Marx imagined a utopia where people, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, could pursue individual fulfilment. If I may pretentiously quote:
“For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”
Seems pretty clearly individualistic to me!
Explicit support of political violence - You’re trying to water it down, but both support widescale poltical violence. Marxism calls for a violent revolution that overthrows capitalism by burning down the capitalist system and institutions (literally and metaphorically) as well as killing the entirety of the bourgeoisie (democide). Fascism calls for political violence as legitimate way to gain power and achieve aims, which includes getting rid of undesirable national, ethnic, racial, or religious groups (genocide).
Actually Marx said it was magically scientifically inevitable that capitalism would collapse in violence. Not that people should set out to do it. Also Marx didn’t want to “burn down the capitalist system and institutions” actually in a straight reading of Marx capitalism is a necessary step to communism. Marx didn’t think it was good, he thought the bourgeoisie would never willingingly surrender power because of their material interest and thus the only way for proles to avoid mass death was instead to unify and take power through violence.
This sounds a lot like “Both involve violence therefore the same” but that’s extraordinarily reductive. I mean literally all governments make themselves governments through control of violence.
So in summary I think you have as similarities:
Don’t like materialism, authority features, has an enemy, and violence features. Which ok, if that makes stuff sister ideologies then it’s a broad tent with literally everything from Liberation Theology Christianity, to westminster democracy, to Peelan Policing sharing sisterhood with Marxism and Fascism.
Marx proposed a temporary state wherein proles, collectively, use the apparatus of the state in an authoritarian manner to manage a transition to a non authoritarian non state.
The issue here is that the “non authoritarian non state” is communism, and communism for all intents and purposes is just a utopia. It was Marx and Engels vision of a perfect society. It’s nothing more than a fantasy. Utopias don’t exist and never will. When these types of violent revolutions happen and the dictatorship of the proletariat is established, it’s going to remain there indefinitely because communism is an unachievable goal. The theory itself is flawed.
The significant debate and purging around the formation of, for instance, the USSR should be a hint that endorsement of authoritarianism is not really something everyone takes away from a reading of Marx. Incidentally, have you? read marx?
Marx laid out what he meant by dictatorship of proletariat in his short work, Critique of the Gotha Programme. In this critique he went after the German Social Democratic Party program for being too pragmatic, pacifist, and wanting reform which he deemed didn’t go far enough in overthrowing capitalism and establishing communism. As a part of his critique, he explained what a post revolution dictatorship looks like. There’s a lot to it but it could more or less be summed up in these points
He saw the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary transitional phase between capitalism and communism. During this phase, the proletariat will hold all the political power and use it to reorganize society and the economy.
He doubled down on the idea that the proletariat must seize political power through revolution in order to exert control over the state apparatus, which he thought was a tool of class oppression under capitalism.
He emphasized that the dictatorship of the proletariat is aimed at dismantling capitalist relations of production, including private ownership of the means of production, and replacing them with collective ownership.
He viewed the dictatorship of the proletariat as a form of state in which the working class, organized as the ruling class, actively suppresses the resistance of the bourgeoisie and other counter revolutionary forces (read: democide).
He thought that once the conditions for communism have been established, the need for a state will slowly wither away… which would ultimately lead to communism
This is pretty well defined and not nearly as vague as you’re trying to make it out to be. Points 1 and 5 won’t ever happen as previously explained, and points 2-4 are pure violence and authoritarianism. This is fascism levels of violence and tyranny. His idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat is flawed as well because of the way he framed it. He wants the proletariat to rule with an iron fist as a collective, however, that’s not really feasible. You would need to have something like a one party state that “acts on the behalf of the workers” to make it work… which is what the Soviet Union went with as it’s the most obvious implementation of such an idea… and that ended up being a disaster. While the ideology does leave room for interpretation, all the attempts of Marxism ended up being authoritarian. This is not a coincidence, it’s an integral part of the ideology.
Everything except the most radical anarchist ideologies makes some use of authority in certain circumstances, I think it’s somewhat farcical to draw parallels between crisis and the proposed status quo.
This is a pretty disingenuous take. The type of authority that Marx wished for is not anywhere near the realm of reasonable. It’s silly to try and present this false dichotomy between tyranny and pure anarchy. What’s interesting is that Marxism wanted both of these extremes at different stages of his ideology, but not anything in the middle. It’s like that man was allergic to anything that wasn’t extreme.
Wat? This is so ludicrously broad as to apply to everything… Is there an ideology that doesn’t declare itself against some enemy which is protects against?
Perhaps I worded myself poorly there. When you look at the more pragmatic ideologies around, you’ll notice that they don’t have enemies that define the ideology. Take for example, modern day social democracy. Who are it’s enemies? It doesn’t really have any. The ideology is more focused on specific values and approaches to issues rather than trying to define an enemy group as the root cause of everything. The same goes for liberalism. You could say that the ideology views monarchies in such a light, but that’s only true in a historical sense. Monarchies are mostly no more, but the ideology is still alive despite that. This is because this is another ideology that doesn’t really have enemies, it’s revolves around approach and adherence to a few principles.
It’s not as core to the ideology as it is to radical ideologies Marxism or islam or Nazism or anarchism. islam as an ideology revolves around fighting the nonbelievers because they are ignorant sinners, Nazism revolves around killing all the Jews because they control everything, Marxism revolves around eradicating the bourgeoisie because they’re the cause of everything wrong with society, anarchy revolves around blaming the state or any kind of authority for all the problems in the world. Do you see the difference I’m trying to point out? These radical ideologies wouldn’t function without their perceived enemy, while pragmatic ideologies can. Marxism without it’s hatred of the bourgeoisies used to justify a lot of it’s unpleasant elements is a pretty hollow ideology.
Sure I guess. Again this is hardly unique to the two. I mean Buddhism does this along with monastic Christianity and new age smoothie cults /shrug
I mean none of these similarities are exclusive to Marxism or Fascism, they’re all found in a lot of different ideologies. Their similarity stems for their aggregate commonalities.
Seems pretty clearly individualistic to me!
Lol individualism in this context doesn’t mean having a personality. Collectivism isn’t about turning people into identical drones with no personalities, it just means that the well being and cohesion of the collective take precedence over the individual and personal pursuits. That’s literally the whole point of Marxism. Both Fascism and Marxism are collectivist ideologies, something like liberalism is individualist.
Actually Marx said it was magically scientifically inevitable that capitalism would collapse in violence.
It’s good to know with power of hindsight that he was wrong on this.
Not that people should set out to do it. Also Marx didn’t want to “burn down the capitalist system and institutions” actually in a straight reading of Marx capitalism is a necessary step to communism. Marx didn’t think it was good, he thought the bourgeoisie would never willingingly surrender power because of their material interest and thus the only way for proles to avoid mass death was instead to unify and take power through violence.
You contradicted yourself here. Marx doesn’t want a violent overthrow of capitalism because he thought that capitalism was a necessary step to communism, therefore, he just wants a violent overthrow of capitalism to prevent mass violence by using mass violence. This is some grand logic lol
This sounds a lot like “Both involve violence therefore the same” but that’s extraordinarily reductive. I mean literally all governments make themselves governments through control of violence.
What you’re doing here is extraordinarily reductive. What you’re doing here is like trying to equate a paper airplane and a real airplane because they’re both technically airplanes that can fly. Marxism and Fascism don’t just use violence to maintain control, they view violence as a perfectly acceptable way of achieving political goals. Is there a system you don’t like? You violently overthrow it. You have group of dissenters you don’t like? You just call them bourgeoise or counterrevolutionaries and kill them all. Are there people who don’t want to give up their private property? You go there and violently seize the property by force. You get the idea. This is vastly different than a government having a monopoly of violence to ensure law and order.
Quibbles:
Marx proposed a temporary state wherein proles, collectively, use the apparatus of the state in an authoritarian manner to manage a transition to a non authoritarian non state. The vanguard party stuff is all Lenin. If you want to compare ML to fascism that’s a separate discussion, iirc Marx is actually pretty vague on what precisely the DotP would actually look like. Fascism proposes an indefinite centralisation of power with the goal of ultimate preservation of the state.
The significant debate and purging around the formation of, for instance, the USSR should be a hint that endorsement of authoritarianism is not really something everyone takes away from a reading of Marx. Incidentally, have you? read marx?
Everything except the most radical anarchist ideologies makes some use of authority in certain circumstances, I think it’s somewhat farcical to draw parallels between crisis and the proposed status quo.
Wat? This is so ludicrously broad as to apply to everything. Westminster democracy aligns itself against a common enemy of absolute monarchy, republics unite themselves against a nobility, tribes unite themselves against non kin outsiders… Is there an ideology that doesn’t declare itself against some enemy which is protects against?
Sure I guess. Again this is hardly unique to the two. I mean Buddhism does this along with monastic Christianity and new age smoothie cults /shrug
Ah, you have not read Marx! I can see how you might get this stance but no. This is just false. Marx imagined a utopia where people, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, could pursue individual fulfilment. If I may pretentiously quote:
“For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”
Seems pretty clearly individualistic to me!
Actually Marx said it was magically scientifically inevitable that capitalism would collapse in violence. Not that people should set out to do it. Also Marx didn’t want to “burn down the capitalist system and institutions” actually in a straight reading of Marx capitalism is a necessary step to communism. Marx didn’t think it was good, he thought the bourgeoisie would never willingingly surrender power because of their material interest and thus the only way for proles to avoid mass death was instead to unify and take power through violence.
This sounds a lot like “Both involve violence therefore the same” but that’s extraordinarily reductive. I mean literally all governments make themselves governments through control of violence.
So in summary I think you have as similarities:
Don’t like materialism, authority features, has an enemy, and violence features. Which ok, if that makes stuff sister ideologies then it’s a broad tent with literally everything from Liberation Theology Christianity, to westminster democracy, to Peelan Policing sharing sisterhood with Marxism and Fascism.
The issue here is that the “non authoritarian non state” is communism, and communism for all intents and purposes is just a utopia. It was Marx and Engels vision of a perfect society. It’s nothing more than a fantasy. Utopias don’t exist and never will. When these types of violent revolutions happen and the dictatorship of the proletariat is established, it’s going to remain there indefinitely because communism is an unachievable goal. The theory itself is flawed.
Marx laid out what he meant by dictatorship of proletariat in his short work, Critique of the Gotha Programme. In this critique he went after the German Social Democratic Party program for being too pragmatic, pacifist, and wanting reform which he deemed didn’t go far enough in overthrowing capitalism and establishing communism. As a part of his critique, he explained what a post revolution dictatorship looks like. There’s a lot to it but it could more or less be summed up in these points
He saw the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary transitional phase between capitalism and communism. During this phase, the proletariat will hold all the political power and use it to reorganize society and the economy.
He doubled down on the idea that the proletariat must seize political power through revolution in order to exert control over the state apparatus, which he thought was a tool of class oppression under capitalism.
He emphasized that the dictatorship of the proletariat is aimed at dismantling capitalist relations of production, including private ownership of the means of production, and replacing them with collective ownership.
He viewed the dictatorship of the proletariat as a form of state in which the working class, organized as the ruling class, actively suppresses the resistance of the bourgeoisie and other counter revolutionary forces (read: democide).
He thought that once the conditions for communism have been established, the need for a state will slowly wither away… which would ultimately lead to communism
This is pretty well defined and not nearly as vague as you’re trying to make it out to be. Points 1 and 5 won’t ever happen as previously explained, and points 2-4 are pure violence and authoritarianism. This is fascism levels of violence and tyranny. His idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat is flawed as well because of the way he framed it. He wants the proletariat to rule with an iron fist as a collective, however, that’s not really feasible. You would need to have something like a one party state that “acts on the behalf of the workers” to make it work… which is what the Soviet Union went with as it’s the most obvious implementation of such an idea… and that ended up being a disaster. While the ideology does leave room for interpretation, all the attempts of Marxism ended up being authoritarian. This is not a coincidence, it’s an integral part of the ideology.
You can read the full critique here btw:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/
This is a pretty disingenuous take. The type of authority that Marx wished for is not anywhere near the realm of reasonable. It’s silly to try and present this false dichotomy between tyranny and pure anarchy. What’s interesting is that Marxism wanted both of these extremes at different stages of his ideology, but not anything in the middle. It’s like that man was allergic to anything that wasn’t extreme.
Perhaps I worded myself poorly there. When you look at the more pragmatic ideologies around, you’ll notice that they don’t have enemies that define the ideology. Take for example, modern day social democracy. Who are it’s enemies? It doesn’t really have any. The ideology is more focused on specific values and approaches to issues rather than trying to define an enemy group as the root cause of everything. The same goes for liberalism. You could say that the ideology views monarchies in such a light, but that’s only true in a historical sense. Monarchies are mostly no more, but the ideology is still alive despite that. This is because this is another ideology that doesn’t really have enemies, it’s revolves around approach and adherence to a few principles.
It’s not as core to the ideology as it is to radical ideologies Marxism or islam or Nazism or anarchism. islam as an ideology revolves around fighting the nonbelievers because they are ignorant sinners, Nazism revolves around killing all the Jews because they control everything, Marxism revolves around eradicating the bourgeoisie because they’re the cause of everything wrong with society, anarchy revolves around blaming the state or any kind of authority for all the problems in the world. Do you see the difference I’m trying to point out? These radical ideologies wouldn’t function without their perceived enemy, while pragmatic ideologies can. Marxism without it’s hatred of the bourgeoisies used to justify a lot of it’s unpleasant elements is a pretty hollow ideology.
I mean none of these similarities are exclusive to Marxism or Fascism, they’re all found in a lot of different ideologies. Their similarity stems for their aggregate commonalities.
Lol individualism in this context doesn’t mean having a personality. Collectivism isn’t about turning people into identical drones with no personalities, it just means that the well being and cohesion of the collective take precedence over the individual and personal pursuits. That’s literally the whole point of Marxism. Both Fascism and Marxism are collectivist ideologies, something like liberalism is individualist.
It’s good to know with power of hindsight that he was wrong on this.
You contradicted yourself here. Marx doesn’t want a violent overthrow of capitalism because he thought that capitalism was a necessary step to communism, therefore, he just wants a violent overthrow of capitalism to prevent mass violence by using mass violence. This is some grand logic lol
What you’re doing here is extraordinarily reductive. What you’re doing here is like trying to equate a paper airplane and a real airplane because they’re both technically airplanes that can fly. Marxism and Fascism don’t just use violence to maintain control, they view violence as a perfectly acceptable way of achieving political goals. Is there a system you don’t like? You violently overthrow it. You have group of dissenters you don’t like? You just call them bourgeoise or counterrevolutionaries and kill them all. Are there people who don’t want to give up their private property? You go there and violently seize the property by force. You get the idea. This is vastly different than a government having a monopoly of violence to ensure law and order.