Let's explain what we mean. Marxist Leninist tendencies are characterized by a vanguard ("THE party") in leading towards a revolution and the liberation of one class from another. A leading minority based on a very specific theory, ideology, program, heads the overthrow of capitalism and seeks to grab the power of the state to do so.
Libertarians (of the classic anti-capitalist kind, not the post-modern US hybrid between neo-liberalism neo-fascism and individualism) propose a way that groups in society can be organized without authoritarian structures, pursuing the greatest degree of equality among them, to achieve the overthrow of authority, exploitation, and oppression. A social organization proposal, without specific theory, ideology, and political program.
The primary is rejected by the later as authoritarian and therefore oppressive, the later is rejected by the primary as a utopia that can only materialize if a leading revolutionary pushes, or drags, society to follow. Therefore it is rejected as a dream that will never materialize and is rejected on that basis.
What if the two can be merged by avoiding the content of their incompatibilities?
current rough copy of discussion
It is true, that most people specially in the first world have been conditioned to have an instant aversion to any “collective” proposal and look for individualistic answers to whatever the question is. Even some of the archaic religions of South and East Asia have been modified to fit this individual relation with god, even though they were very collective in their foundations. It has become near impossible to even begin a conversation with such people (indoctrination?). The very same people have also been conditioned to delegate powers (pseudo democracy) in the same way they use an electrician, a physician, an accountant, or a lawyer. The “I don’t care just fix it and I will pay you”. So even if they were at the point of the realization the world needs fixing, they would look for the experts to do the fixing for them. “Just govern and I will pay taxes”. Luckily, those are the kind of people who have the least interest in change. The notion that ideas about material reality need to be modified so they can appeal to the majority and be popular is also just as wrong as the motives for conditioning the masses. Taking a few steps back, since the topic here seems to be #vanguardism, the approach of having to appeal to the consciousness of people and rearranging their perceptions and understanding, is clearly a vanguard’s approach. “If you agree with what I explain then follow me”. The libertarian for over 1.5centuries has been proposing a way for people, who have already decided they need to do something to change their material conditions, to organize in an non-hierarchical non-authoritarian way. But this rarely ever had any effects on getting people organized, except for some very small isolated groups and for brief periods of time. So the one way may have worked in the past but lead people to the wrong path and sometimes disaster, the other way fails to materialize, with a few exceptions that are hardly recognized or advertised enough to be known. As far as we know the indigenous communities in Chiapas Mexico that have been seeking autonomy seem to be by far the largest scale and longest living exception. In those past 30years those in the vanguards camp have claimed they are influenced by us, the ones in the libertarian camp say “no, they are the living proof of quite the opposite”. So what do we do? Reverse engineering. How do we make theory out of praxis so it can be adoptable in different time and geography for those that really need change. Or at least if it is not praxis (action) the wording of what that praxis is should be enough. The synthesis? The ideological vanguard that serves and protects, physically and politically, which is what the EZLN has been doing for “40 years”, and we only have known about the past 30. My understanding is that the proposal was that “if you organize based on those values and principles, to exit capitalism, we will obey, serve, advise, and protect you, not as individuals but as communities”. So m-l people who criticized this practice, said they failed to take over and change government, they are nothing but an anarchist commune. The libertarians who criticized them said that they are under the control of the EZLN who are nothing but leninists. Somehow we need to make more sense from the EZLN poetry and the announcements of the federation of communities (ex-good-government). Unfortunately Bookchin died a bit too soon to make sense out of all this. Iri Yan I say from now on when we say libertarian we mean libertarian, the anti-capitalist kind, not the neo-con neo-fascists. The task we have in front of us for a possible merge and synthesis is not small, neither should it be reduced to be “how do we merge anarchists and marxists to work together”, they can’t. We shouldn’t forget that a large portion of the so-called anarchists think and act as vanguards themselves, it is not an exclusive privilege of Marxists. Rather this speculative discussion leads to the realization that what can be born is either new enough that it can’t be described as any particular part of its predecessors, or a blend of what is compatible for both with what is incompatible left out. In doing so we become ideological vanguards ourselves, if we reject or not this role is upon us to discuss. The sensitive issue we are dancing with here is that for most of us anti-capitalists the theory of how capital works and why, appears to have a single source. Libertarian/Anarchist literature, or at least what is known as anarcho-communism, may be theoretical in nature but has failed to produce a single coherent theory of how everything works and why. So Marxism is about the only theory we have. Rejecting it as a whole is not very dialectic, so what we reject will have to be substantially documented rational criticism, which also presents modification, enrichment, extension, to evolve in a new theory. The aspects that relate to economics explaining historically how capitalism came to be and how it works I believe is pretty much spot on. It is why there hasn’t been an alternative theory explaining economics for a century and a half. The parts that relate to the evolution of the state and how power, authority, structure of the state, is a major failure. A failure that gradually became more and more pronounced as the relation of capital, state, people evolved, and it did! Marxism fails miserably, despite of efforts to reduce every social phenomenon into a side effect of economics, to describe gender relations, race/ethnic relations, and traditional authoritative structures that exist in a wider economic stratification. Marxism, a product of its time (industrial/machine/fuel revolution) also presents industrial development as a tool for equalization and improvement of working conditions. We clearly see now that this is leading to a disaster or extinction if it goes on, while still 2/3 of the earth’'s population live similar or worse conditions than in pre-industrial times. As far as I can imagine what we are left is a theory on capital/value and the theoretical foundation of dialectical/historical materialism. Can we strip those parts and still remain with a theory, even though it will have gaps to be filled? joborun linux Class is extremely single dimensional, dealing with exploitation laundering oppression out. When you dance with the idea there are more contributors to class than economics, you step into aspects of power/authority. It becomes complex to conceive as a now two dimensional product wealth and power become interchangeable, you can have one if you have the other, or the equivalent of the other. But the two more often than not are correlated, the more of one the more of the other. It is the outliers of the correlation that are of interest. A wealthy abused spouse, a poor commissar with tremendous party power, and all the gray in between. Then suddenly gender/sex/race/ethnic/family come to play a role in class, but also you have the workplace and authoritative structure of managing production based on expertise and specialization, division of labor. Can you have industrial mass production without labor division, and how can this operate without it being oppressive? I like Hannah Arendt’s definitions of power, where a group has power when their decisions are executed uncontested. So power becomes the effect of a decision/execution process. Nobody has elaborated more in decision process than early libertarians, for Marxists democratizing the decision process has been rejected or skillfully set aside. The meritocracy that is taken as a natural law in most Marxist thought (to replace those born into power or gaining power with wealth) stems from a structure within capitalism and was produced as a tool in capitalism to justify stratification. Unfortunately this brings back the issue of how anar/lib activists see specialization and meritocracy. When most people are encountered with revolutionary ideas, proposals, utopia, “post-revolutionary” society (what Emma Goldman kindly tried to dismiss as toxic and focus on values and principles of the social revolution) they conceive how would they personally and individually fit in all this. The doctor wants to see himself as the doctor (after the events :), the academic, the engineer, the architect, even the accountant and the insurance agent, see themselves in enjoying some status based on profession and specialty. Those attributes carry their own little structures from capitalism into the new world as if they weren’t products themselves of the overall capital/state complex. A very individualistic and short-sighted view, I believe, and a tremendous obstacle in conceiving collective liberation and continuous drive/revolt against all exploitative and oppressive mechanisms of the past. But what do I know, I am just a #joborun linux packager, a mechanic, but more often just the creative cook.