[Daktoria]

I've cut out approximately the entire first half of this article because I'm assuming people know what utopian socialism is. If you don't, then you're invited to read what's been snipped to learn about the foolishness of Fourier.

In any case, this really isn't any surprise. Socialism, by definition, is utopian even in its most scientific methods because it assumes we can magically schedule an appropriate amount of history to refer to in economic planning. Furthermore, history is subjective, not objective, since details have to be chose among, recorded, and interpreted.

Then of course, there's the classic topological dilemma. Just because you see the numbers 1, 2, 3 doesn't mean the next number will necessarily be 4. If this was the case, everyone could apply Elliot Wave Analysis and arbitrage the market forever.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/art ... tml?page=3

The persistence of certain features of utopian socialism over 200 years is impressive. Only the dress codes and gadgets change. If Charles Fourier emerged from a wormhole at the Occupy Wall Street D.C. tent city in McPherson Square in Washington, he’d feel right at home. The very term “occupy” or “occupation” is an attack on private property. So are the theft and vandalism widely reported at Occupy Wall Street locations. The smells, the assaults, the rejection of the conventional in favor of the subversive, and the embrace of pantheistic spirituality flow logically from the utopian rejection of middle-class norms. The things that Mayor Bloomberg found objectionable about the encampment in Zuccotti Park​—​that it “was coming to pose a health and fire safety hazard to the protesters and to the surrounding community”​—​are not accidental. They are baked into the utopian cake.

Over the course of the nineteenth century the quest for the ideal society took many directions that can be clustered in two broad categories. There were the Marxian attempts at “scientific socialism,” in which the proletarian vanguard sought to overthrow the bourgeoisie to bring about the classless society as ordained by the laws of history. And there was the revolutionary anarchist project of achieving utopia by leveling hierarchies and abolishing authorities.

The two overlapped on certain points. But for the most part the Marxists looked at the anarchists as boobs and the anarchists looked at the Marxists as totalitarians​—​which of course they were. Scientific socialism is more famous than revolutionary anarchism, if only because in the twentieth century it succeeded in taking over much of the world. The incalculable human cost of communism has obscured the destructive activities of the anarchists, but they were considerable.

Anarchism is often dismissed as merely the rationalization of hooligans. But that is a mistake. Anarchism has a theory and even a canon: Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman, and others. Anarchism’s purpose is to turn the whole world into one big Fourierist phalanx. “At every stage of history our concern must be to dismantle those forms of authority and oppression that survive from an era when they might have been justified in terms of the need for security or survival or economic development, but that now contribute to​—​rather than alleviate​—​material and cultural deficit,” writes Noam Chomsky in an introduction to Daniel Guérin’s classic, Anarchism. Dismantle “the system.” Then we’ll be free.

The anarchist sees no distinction between free enterprise and state socialism. He cannot be happy as long as anyone has more property or power than someone else. “Any consistent anarchist must oppose private ownership of the means of production and the wage-slavery which is a component of this system,” Chomsky writes, “as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer.” What Chomsky is saying is that you can justly grow your own tomato, but you can never hire anyone else to pick it.

An anarchist does not distinguish between types
of government. Democracy to him is just another form of control. Here is Chomsky again: “Democracy is largely a sham when the industrial system is controlled by any form of autocratic elite, whether of owners, managers and technocrats, a ‘vanguard’ party, or a state bureaucracy.” (Or bankers!) The ballot, wrote Guérin, is “a cunning swindle benefiting only the united barons of industry, trade, and property.”

This permanent rebellion leads to some predictable outcomes. By denying the legitimacy of democratic politics, the anarchists undermine their ability to affect people’s lives. No living wage movement for them. No debate over the Bush tax rates. Anarchists don’t believe in wages, and they certainly don’t believe in taxes. David Graeber, an anthropologist and a leading figure in Occupy Wall Street, puts it this way: “By participating in policy debates the very best one can achieve is to limit the damage, since the very premise is inimical to the idea of people managing their own affairs.” The reason that Occupy Wall Street has
no agenda is that anarchism allows for no agenda. All the anarchist can do is set an example​—​or tear down the existing order through violence.

Just as hostility to property is inextricably linked to utopian socialism, violence is tightly bound to anarchism. “Anarchists reject states and all those systematic forms of inequality states make possible,” writes Graeber. “They do not seek to pressure the government to institute reforms. Neither do they seek to seize state power for themselves. Rather, they wish to destroy that power, using means that are​—​so far as possible​—​consistent with their ends, that embody them.” What seems aimless and chaotic is in fact purposeful. By means of “direct action”​—​marches, occupations, blockades, sit-ins​—​the anarchist “proceeds as if the state does not exist.” But one who behaves as if the government has no reality and the laws do not apply is an outlaw, not to say a criminal.

When you see occupiers clash with the NYPD on the Brooklyn Bridge, or masked teenagers destroying shop windows and lighting fires in downtown Oakland, you are seeing anarchism in action. Apologists for Occupy Wall Street may say that these “black bloc” tactics are deployed solely by fringe elements. But the apologists miss the point. The young men in black wearing keffiyehs and causing mayhem are simply following the logic of revolutionary anarchism to its violent conclusion. The fringe isn’t the exception, it’s the rule. The exception would be “direct action” that took care to respect the law.

The unstable nature of revolutionary anarchism has meant that movements based on these tactics quickly flame out. Consider the case of the International Working People’s Association, an anarchist group in 1880s Chicago. As Michael Kazin details in American Dreamers, his history of the U.S. left, the IWPA held an adversarial attitude toward government, markets, and elections. They didn’t run candidates for office. They blew things up. “Men and women could organize their affairs quite well, they believed, without the aid of any boss or master, even that of a workers’ state.” But rejecting democratic politics was a dead end. And violence was the natural consequence: In 1887, four IWPA leaders were executed for the murder of eight policemen in the Haymarket Square bombing. The organization collapsed soon after.

Attempts to establish a socialist utopia through revolutionary anarchism tend to be short-lived. The last great outbreak in America was in the late 1960s and early ’70s, with the urban riots, terrorism, and street actions of the New Left and the Weathermen. The tide turned with the rise of conservatism in American politics and the end of the Soviet empire. The utopian ideal seemed discredited. The teachings of Fourier and Chomsky seemed confined to the academy. Little did we realize that the stage was being set for a new anarchism​—​the variety that confronts us today.

VP Note: For the discussion to progress, at the very least the first few posts ought to be on-topic. Off topic posts deleted.

[HoniSoit]

Socialism, by definition, is utopian

Depending on who you are asking. A free market economy may very well be seen utopian, and socialism as the rationalisation of production, the economy and the society as a whole. In any case, the protests are hardly socialist - though socialists and anarchists alike have participated - since on the whole the movement is not demanding the overthrow of capitalism nor is it likely to have a good chance of doing so even if it wanted.

[Daktoria]

Depending on who you are asking. A free market economy may very well be seen utopian, and socialism as the rationalisation of production, the economy and the society as a whole. In any case, the protests are hardly socialist - though socialists and anarchists alike have participated - since on the whole the movement is not demanding the overthrow of capitalism nor is it likely to have a good chance of doing so even if it wanted.

Can you honestly explain how historical materialism (as the decision making process of socialism) is rational at all?

Historical materialism is completely based on hindsight being 20/20, but rational thought is based upon abstract frameworks in advance of experience.

The only way a socialist society could exist is if it got lucky in historical trends continuing endlessly into the future like a fractal equation.

That's why I made the topological dilemma reference above. Say you're scaling a mountain range as a socialist explorer. According to historical materialism, you would project future mountain altitudes based upon previous mountain altitudes. From those projections, you would tune the economy to provide appropriate climbing gear.

The problem, of course, is mountain ranges aren't perfectly symmetrical, so you're inevitably going to have errors, even fatal errors, when using that historically materialist evaluation.

The only way to really project appropriate mountain altitudes is to discover how mountains are created and simulate that creation process, yet historical materialism doesn't allow for that. Instead, it INSISTS on people performing "correlation is not causation" fallacies.

[nucklepunche]

Can you honestly explain how historical materialism (as the decision making process of socialism) is rational at all?

How about I school you on history Dak?

Lesson 1: Utopian socialism was a pejorative term used by Karl Marx to describe socialists who REJECTED class conflict and historical materialism. They never called themselves that at the time (though CounterChaos has embraced the term). Edward Bellamy, who features in my profile pic, is considered part of this "utopian" trend. I don't like that term, I prefer "non-Marxist socialism" but the term has stuck. This term also applies to Robert Owen, H.G. Wells, and others who lived in 19th century before, during, and after Marx's lifetime. Basically the focus of utopian socialists as in building new societies from the ground up, whereas Marx is more concerned with short term bread and butter issues.

Lesson 2: The main difference between utopian socialists, or non-Marxist socialists, and Marxist socialists and those descended from Marx's ideas are four. One is a rejection of class conflict in favor of class collaboration. Two is a rejection of historical materialism. Three is a a rejection of revolution as a means to achieve socialism. Indeed, many of the utopian socialists were what Marxists would consider insufferably bourgeoisie (which ironically, Marx was himself). Fourth is that most utopian socialists were not obsessed with labor, in fact many suggested doing away with it or reducing it, including myself as a technocrat.

Lesson 3: The Marxist strand of socialism over time came to dominate socialist thought. Originally most socialists were indeed radical however some moderated as time went on. Most modern democratic socialists are nonetheless more in debt to Marx than to utopian non-Marxist socialists, particularly how they frame their arguments. They tend to reject revolution as infeasible in favor of democracy, though utopian socialists rejected revolution outright. In addition, many utopian/non-Marxist socialists are unsympathetic to democracy, myself included. This often takes on anarchistic and non-anarchist tones, I being in the non-anarchist camp.

Lesson 4: Occupy Wall Street is clearly a revolutionary democratic socialist movement with a debt to Marxian ideas. It fully embraces class conflict (the 99% vs. the 1%) and in framing things along these lines many of the intellectual side of the movement embrace an implied historical materialism. Even if for the most part (with some notable exceptions) few OWS people are full on communists and not explicit Marxists per se, they owe a bigger intellectual debt to Marx than they do utopian socialists.

[ralfy]

More like social justice. And if we look at the global occupy scenario, a reaction to high oil and food prices coupled with unemployment.