On Authority is one of my absolute favourites because it’s so ludicrously bourgeois. “Oh, you Anarchists”, quoth Engels, “All you amount to is saying that a stone falls down when let go, and that having to hold it up so that it doesn’t fall down, to have to bow to that authority, is oppressive”.
Maybe, Friedrich, your workers don’t mind dealing with the necessities and physical processes of yarn and cloth manufacture, what they mind is not being able to fire your ass for saying excessively over-reductive shit like that.
On Authority is one of my absolute favourites because it’s so ludicrously bourgeois
Are you really saying “Engels was bourgeois, therefore the argument he’s making is bourgeois”? lol
“All you amount to is saying that a stone falls down when let go, and that having to hold it up so that it doesn’t fall down, to have to bow to that authority, is oppressive”.
Tell me how you haven’t read it even more. Because he’s actually concluding:
When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that’s true, but there it is not the case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.
Read the paragraphs directly before: Engels refers to “arguments as these”, so we can safely assume that the example he gives there is representative. What’s his example? Safety in railway operations.
That, indeed, is not a job for a delegate, a person chosen by council to represent the council in a bigger council, a political position which comes with no authority, but one of a safety commissioner, a person who was entrusted with, granted authority, by a council to enact necessary safety procedures for the common good. The railway safety commissioner would be choosen by the railway workers. Someone they trust to be a stickler to details and procedure.
Both, btw, are recallable on the spot should they abuse their positions, or turn out to not be suitable for other reasons.
This is not a mere “changing of names”, the tasks are completely different in character and the levels of authority could not be any more different. What Engels seems to be incapable of conceiving is that an e.g. city council doesn’t have authority over a neighbourhood council. That the delegates the neighbourhood councils choose come together in a city council and then precisely not dictate to the neighbourhood councils what they’re supposed to do. That’s your brain on hierarchy.
So, yes, Engels concludes that he’s right. And thereby proves that he either a) didn’t understand what the anti-auths were telling him or b) didn’t care, as authoritarians are prone to do when challenged on the necessity of there being rulers.
As to “labour cannot be organised without hierarchy” in general: It’s long been proven false. There’s a gazillion of examples in which it has done. There are, right now, armies out there operating without hierarchy that are fighting both Cartels and ISIS, very successfully so. If armies can be organised like that, surely it does work for ice cream factories. Stick to materialism, please, your idealist claim doesn’t become true by repeating it.
That, indeed, is not a job for a delegate, a person chosen by council to represent the council in a bigger council, a political position which comes with no authority, but one of a safety commissioner, a person who was entrusted with, granted authority, by a council to enact necessary safety procedures for the common good.
granted authority
authority
?
This is not a mere “changing of names”, the tasks are completely different in character and the levels of authority could not be any more different. What Engels seems to be incapable of conceiving is that an e.g. city council doesn’t have authority over a neighbourhood council. That the delegates the neighbourhood councils choose come together in a city council and then precisely not dictate to the neighbourhood councils what they’re supposed to do. That’s your brain on hierarchy.
So how can you organize anything if noone tells anyone what to do? People just suddenly know? How is that supposed to work? Who decides the level of authority? Another authority?
a) didn’t understand what the anti-auths were telling him
Literally changing the name of “authority” to “granted authority”. You only changed the name of things. Engels is making the argument on the materiality of authority. That even if the authority is granted, it’s an authority. He is referring to whatever makes the organization happen as authority (even when granted).
And says that without this (authority) organization is impossible. Which makes sense.
b) authoritarians are prone to do when challenged on the necessity of there being rulers.
So how can you organize anything if noone tells anyone what to do? People just suddenly know?
You talk to other people and agree on a plan of action? Have you ever, in your life, interacted with people?
That even if the authority is granted, it’s an authority.
One example doesn’t even grant any authority: A delegate has no authority.
If you OTOH now try to pull semantics and say “but by being convinced by other people of a joint plan of action, they have authority over you”, or “A delegate has the authority to do as they’re told by their council” then you’re doing the “holding up a stone thing”: You make authority such a broad term that not just organisation, but physics itself is impossible without it. Or, in different words: It’s playing dumb. You hear what Anarchists are saying, including their definitions of authority, of distinguishing power-to against power-over, and say “but the stone has authority over you that’s silly”!
You talk to other people and agree on a plan of action? Have you ever, in your life, interacted with people?
Yes but than the plan of action takes form of authority. Which is the point that Engels makes.
One example doesn’t even grant any authority: A delegate has no authority.
Then noone is required to take the delegate serious. The delegate enjoys no authority and there’s no organization happening as everybody is free to do whatever th fuck they want.
holding up a stone thing”: You make authority such a broad term that not just organisation, but physics itself is impossible without it.
Only when you take it in in bad faith, because we’re talking about people and not inanimate objects (stones). The definition of anarchists is just another social construct that basically describes authority…
Yes but than the plan of action takes form of authority. Which is the point that Engels makes.
It is an extension to the libertarian notion of authority that Engels makes.
Suppose you and your comrades are are at a party conference in another city, and, in a wild bout of anti-authoritarianism, you’re talking among yourselves which restaurant to go to instead of following party orders. Maybe it’s just an oversight, the responsible buerocrat didn’t do their job. Anyway the obstacle is not insurmountable, the choice is not very contentious, some people have preference, one’s a vegan, but in the end you all agree that Mexican is a perfectly fine choice.
Then, out of nowhere, a KGB agent appears saying “Now it would be a shame if someone changed their mind about eating Mexican and would need to be sent to Gulag, would it, after all, we can’t have a decision without subsequent imposition of authority”.
Then noone is required to take the delegate serious.
The delegate is taken just as serious as the council they represent. They are, after all, the representative of that council. If you ignore what the delegate says, you’re ignoring what the council says. But the authority is that of the council, not of the delegate.
The definition of anarchists
Council communists have a compatible definition, btw. It’s only Bolsheviks and their descendants who disagree because they can’t stand workers actually having a say in things, see the Trotsky quote before. That is authoritarianism. You can’t declare it away by playing semantic games.
Suppose you and your comrades are are at a party conference in another city, and, in a wild bout of anti-authoritarianism, you’re talking among yourselves which restaurant to go to instead of following party orders. Maybe it’s just an oversight, the responsible buerocrat didn’t do their job. Anyway the obstacle is not insurmountable, the choice is not very contentious, some people have preference, one’s a vegan, but in the end you all agree that Mexican is a perfectly fine choice.
Then, out of nowhere, a KGB agent appears saying “Now it would be a shame if someone changed their mind about eating Mexican and would need to be sent to Gulag, would it, after all, we can’t have a decision without subsequent imposition of authority”.
Basically you’re arguing against the state, which we sure both want. The abolishion of class society, meaning one class is not subjugating it’s will on another, be it capitalist or a socialist state bureaucrats.
I think that without a state you cannot abolish the existing forces that give rise to class society as it’s not a even playing field between labour and capital. You need a form of authority to make the reorganization of political economy possible.
The delegate is taken just as serious as the council they represent. They are, after all, the representative of that council. If you ignore what the delegate says, you’re ignoring what the council says. But the authority is that of the council, not of the delegate.
authority is that of the council
authority
How are you not aware of what you’re saying? Do you want me to do an anarchist caricature of going to the restaurant like you did in your example? Only the proper application would be of the building the restaurant and how noone likes to do the actual work of building it as everyone is free not to do it. There’s no authority. If you tell me that the hunger is the authority im going to laugh
Basically you’re arguing against the state, which we sure both want.
You are aware that communism, too, not just anarchism, is a stateless society?
(Side note: In the ole socialist definition of “state”. Both still qualify for the modern political theory definition of state which bogs down to “a people, a territory, a type of governing system (organisation)”. Gotta be careful with that one it often gets confused).
I think that without a state you cannot abolish the existing forces that give rise to class society as it’s not a even playing field between labour and capital.
Indeed, without state power labour would have the upper hand. You saw that in the Russian revolution where workers very quickly formed soviets and kept things running. Then the Bolsheviks re-established state power, deliberately destroying horizontal worker organisation with hierarchical structure, and everything went to shit.
Then, going back a tiny bit:
The abolishion of class society, meaning one class is not subjugating it’s will on another, be it capitalist or a socialist state bureaucrats.
How do you envision a state without state bureaucrats?
Only the proper application would be of the building the restaurant and how noone likes to do the actual work of building it as everyone is free not to do it.
How do you come to the conclusion that nobody likes building things? Doubly so if there’s a couple of people around who like cooking for the community who could really use a nice place to provide their services?
There’s actually interesting modern polls around this, made in the context of UBI: The overwhelming majority say that if they received UBI, they’d still be working about as much. Maybe get another job, maybe cut down hour a bit, maybe take a sabbatical to do learn a new trade and switch there, but overall the wheels would keep churning at about the same speed. Meanwhile, the same overwhelming majority, when asked what other people would be doing, said “they’d stop working”. That kind of mind-bug is a mixture of capitalist realism and hierarchical realism, the notion that people need to feel the whip to be motivated to be productive. That without imposition of force, humanity as we know it would cease to exist: We’d lose our zest, our creativity, our ambition, our love for one another, everything. That humanity is an inherently asocial species, held together by the powers that be. That we need to be domesticated to be ourselves.
On Authority is one of my absolute favourites because it’s so ludicrously bourgeois. “Oh, you Anarchists”, quoth Engels, “All you amount to is saying that a stone falls down when let go, and that having to hold it up so that it doesn’t fall down, to have to bow to that authority, is oppressive”.
Maybe, Friedrich, your workers don’t mind dealing with the necessities and physical processes of yarn and cloth manufacture, what they mind is not being able to fire your ass for saying excessively over-reductive shit like that.
Are you really saying “Engels was bourgeois, therefore the argument he’s making is bourgeois”? lol
Tell me how you haven’t read it even more. Because he’s actually concluding:
Read the paragraphs directly before: Engels refers to “arguments as these”, so we can safely assume that the example he gives there is representative. What’s his example? Safety in railway operations.
That, indeed, is not a job for a delegate, a person chosen by council to represent the council in a bigger council, a political position which comes with no authority, but one of a safety commissioner, a person who was entrusted with, granted authority, by a council to enact necessary safety procedures for the common good. The railway safety commissioner would be choosen by the railway workers. Someone they trust to be a stickler to details and procedure.
Both, btw, are recallable on the spot should they abuse their positions, or turn out to not be suitable for other reasons.
This is not a mere “changing of names”, the tasks are completely different in character and the levels of authority could not be any more different. What Engels seems to be incapable of conceiving is that an e.g. city council doesn’t have authority over a neighbourhood council. That the delegates the neighbourhood councils choose come together in a city council and then precisely not dictate to the neighbourhood councils what they’re supposed to do. That’s your brain on hierarchy.
So, yes, Engels concludes that he’s right. And thereby proves that he either a) didn’t understand what the anti-auths were telling him or b) didn’t care, as authoritarians are prone to do when challenged on the necessity of there being rulers.
As to “labour cannot be organised without hierarchy” in general: It’s long been proven false. There’s a gazillion of examples in which it has done. There are, right now, armies out there operating without hierarchy that are fighting both Cartels and ISIS, very successfully so. If armies can be organised like that, surely it does work for ice cream factories. Stick to materialism, please, your idealist claim doesn’t become true by repeating it.
?
So how can you organize anything if noone tells anyone what to do? People just suddenly know? How is that supposed to work? Who decides the level of authority? Another authority?
Literally changing the name of “authority” to “granted authority”. You only changed the name of things. Engels is making the argument on the materiality of authority. That even if the authority is granted, it’s an authority. He is referring to whatever makes the organization happen as authority (even when granted).
And says that without this (authority) organization is impossible. Which makes sense.
pls expand
Just now walking in now, and, oh, this is still going on? Christ these memes are a PITA.
You talk to other people and agree on a plan of action? Have you ever, in your life, interacted with people?
One example doesn’t even grant any authority: A delegate has no authority.
If you OTOH now try to pull semantics and say “but by being convinced by other people of a joint plan of action, they have authority over you”, or “A delegate has the authority to do as they’re told by their council” then you’re doing the “holding up a stone thing”: You make authority such a broad term that not just organisation, but physics itself is impossible without it. Or, in different words: It’s playing dumb. You hear what Anarchists are saying, including their definitions of authority, of distinguishing power-to against power-over, and say “but the stone has authority over you that’s silly”!
Yes but than the plan of action takes form of authority. Which is the point that Engels makes.
Then noone is required to take the delegate serious. The delegate enjoys no authority and there’s no organization happening as everybody is free to do whatever th fuck they want.
Only when you take it in in bad faith, because we’re talking about people and not inanimate objects (stones). The definition of anarchists is just another social construct that basically describes authority…
It is an extension to the libertarian notion of authority that Engels makes.
Suppose you and your comrades are are at a party conference in another city, and, in a wild bout of anti-authoritarianism, you’re talking among yourselves which restaurant to go to instead of following party orders. Maybe it’s just an oversight, the responsible buerocrat didn’t do their job. Anyway the obstacle is not insurmountable, the choice is not very contentious, some people have preference, one’s a vegan, but in the end you all agree that Mexican is a perfectly fine choice.
Then, out of nowhere, a KGB agent appears saying “Now it would be a shame if someone changed their mind about eating Mexican and would need to be sent to Gulag, would it, after all, we can’t have a decision without subsequent imposition of authority”.
The delegate is taken just as serious as the council they represent. They are, after all, the representative of that council. If you ignore what the delegate says, you’re ignoring what the council says. But the authority is that of the council, not of the delegate.
Council communists have a compatible definition, btw. It’s only Bolsheviks and their descendants who disagree because they can’t stand workers actually having a say in things, see the Trotsky quote before. That is authoritarianism. You can’t declare it away by playing semantic games.
Basically you’re arguing against the state, which we sure both want. The abolishion of class society, meaning one class is not subjugating it’s will on another, be it capitalist or a socialist state bureaucrats.
I think that without a state you cannot abolish the existing forces that give rise to class society as it’s not a even playing field between labour and capital. You need a form of authority to make the reorganization of political economy possible.
How are you not aware of what you’re saying? Do you want me to do an anarchist caricature of going to the restaurant like you did in your example? Only the proper application would be of the building the restaurant and how noone likes to do the actual work of building it as everyone is free not to do it. There’s no authority. If you tell me that the hunger is the authority im going to laugh
You are aware that communism, too, not just anarchism, is a stateless society?
(Side note: In the ole socialist definition of “state”. Both still qualify for the modern political theory definition of state which bogs down to “a people, a territory, a type of governing system (organisation)”. Gotta be careful with that one it often gets confused).
Indeed, without state power labour would have the upper hand. You saw that in the Russian revolution where workers very quickly formed soviets and kept things running. Then the Bolsheviks re-established state power, deliberately destroying horizontal worker organisation with hierarchical structure, and everything went to shit.
Then, going back a tiny bit:
How do you envision a state without state bureaucrats?
How do you come to the conclusion that nobody likes building things? Doubly so if there’s a couple of people around who like cooking for the community who could really use a nice place to provide their services?
There’s actually interesting modern polls around this, made in the context of UBI: The overwhelming majority say that if they received UBI, they’d still be working about as much. Maybe get another job, maybe cut down hour a bit, maybe take a sabbatical to do learn a new trade and switch there, but overall the wheels would keep churning at about the same speed. Meanwhile, the same overwhelming majority, when asked what other people would be doing, said “they’d stop working”. That kind of mind-bug is a mixture of capitalist realism and hierarchical realism, the notion that people need to feel the whip to be motivated to be productive. That without imposition of force, humanity as we know it would cease to exist: We’d lose our zest, our creativity, our ambition, our love for one another, everything. That humanity is an inherently asocial species, held together by the powers that be. That we need to be domesticated to be ourselves.