I’m digging anarchists’ more hands on, pragmatic approach to politics. I finished The Conquest of Bread a couple of weeks ago and I’m currently working my way through Bullshit Jobs. Any suggestions about theory, praxis, mutual aid, etc. would be appreciated
I also find a lot of Marxism to be agreeable. I’ve read a bit of Marx, the principles of communism by Engles, I’m about half way through Imperialism by Lenin. I’ve done some reading on life in the USSR, the Chinese revolution, as well as Allende and project cybersyn. There’s some great concepts laid out and good arguments as well. Where Marxism/ML/MLM kind of lose me is social liberties. I’m coming from the perspective of “my rights end where yours begin”. We all ultimately make concessions to our freedom in order to peacefully live in a society. I feel a governments only duty to social issues is to intervene when a groups rights are being violated and to not interfere otherwise. There’s some nuance to that obviously but speaking generally I feel it’s a good rule to go by
I see a lot of praise for China and modern day Russia from Marxists spaces online. And while I’m able to admit I’m not the most informed on life in either of these countries, China particularly because its pretty difficult to find reliable info on the social climate there. Things like the Uyghur concentration camps, LGBT rights, racism, and general discrimination along social lines seems pretty common and largely accepted. I get it’s kind of the pot calling the kettle black on these things coming from the US, but I’d think a socialist government would be better equipped and much more willing to tackle these problems. Support for modern Russia just straight up doesn’t make sense to me. They’re a capitalist society, rife with inequities and corruption like every other capitalist state. I see no reason to support them. The amount of support for them leaves a sour taste in my mouth. As I continue to learn that may change but it’s hard reconciling what I read with what I see