I don't like spending this much time arguing against campism but they just keep talking at me.
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2026
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Lol. Lmao even.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
Treating Marx and Engels like prophets and not men with a mix of good and naive ideas is part of the problem. Just because he dismissed anarchism doesn’t automatically make it a dogmatic truth
Ok, the actually rebut what he said. Should be simple if he's wrong, shouldn't it?
Sure, I’ll summarize what I remember of what Bakunin wrote the year before On Authority came out, What is Authority?, which you can guess by the name is an anarchist perspective on authority.
Engels claims organization requires authority, but it really only requires agreements, coordination, and sometimes rules; a strict hierarchy isn’t a necessary requirement for that to exist. Engels also says production requires obiedience, which doesn’t require an absolute authority as Engels asserts. Union elections, leaders accountable through recall votes, etc are also means of guiding production without relying on an absolutist revolutionary vanguard. The same goes for revolutionary leadership. It requires coordination, not domination by a central party.
It really boils down to do you think obedience is imposed or agreed upon. I’d like to live in a world where the workers have a voice rather than an authority telling them what they must do. It’s needlessly paternalistic and infantilizing in my view.
Yeah.
One of my biggest peeves with philosophy is that unlike the sciences, I don't think there is much of a structure to build on and supersede notable figures.
To make a comparison, no one in biology cites Charles Darwin as a contemporary source of truth. He made contributions, and then others did, and then Watson, and Franklin, and Crick, and Sanger, and so on. But no one cites fifty or a hundred year old theories as the basis of an argument.
And just like other scientists Marx had really different phases in his work. Some are more of political activism, some are philosophical and some are economic.
“Lol. Lmao even” and other cringy Reddit-speak should be banned on Lemmy
And pretending "authoritarian" isn't a useless word used to make a false equivalence between communism and fascism should be banned from life, but here we are nevertheless.
One man in charge of a country for the rest of his life without elections is pretty authoritarian, whether it’s fascism or not, don’t you think?
That’s China, Russia, and North Korea, comrade.
Well, thanks for pointing out that you don't know the difference between a lack of term limits and AuThOrItArIaNiSm!!!!1!!!!one!!!!
Leaders popular in their own countries tend to get re-elected, more news at 11!
I hope this is a bit. The idea of a real person believing Putin, Xi, and the Kims keep getting reelected under fair, democratic processes is just too sad to contemplate.
Ah yes, the critique that's so bad it actually is what made me become interested in anarchism in the first place.
I can imagine that. I just read it and thought, 'Geez... this is like a mid-tier reddit comment. It's such flimsy strawman nonsense. Not his best work.'
I feel like anarchism is coming back into vogue. I'm not an anarchist myself, but despite scoffing at the concept years ago, I'm finding a lot more value in it as a school of thought than I once did.
you're probably more of an anarchist than you think!
Authority is when steam engine
Engels weakest work tbh
Like how dare he to call liberation through revolution an authoritarian act? Thats such a lib take, idk how tankies keep linking to it
Yeah, there's nothing authoritarian about overthrowing the entire superstructure and killing anyone who tries to stop you, what a crazy idea!
It's incredible what wild opinions people have about marxist theory when they've onviously never read any.
"He had different phases in his life, some more philosophical some more economic" what the actual fuck is that even supposed to mean
I think It means they liked the Wikipedia summary of the Manifesto but Capital was way too dense for them...
Agreed.
I feel like tossing out a thinkers' weaker work is an act of charity.
I wouldn't want anyone to hold up my dumbest takes after I'm dead. So when I say that I think that article is dumb and we should just pretend that Engels didn't write it... I'm saying that as a compliment to Engels.
For you to be able to decide something like that, you'd at least need to have a basic grasp of his work.