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innerspaceboy · 10-01-2016, 08:52 AM

I'll be the first to admit that I am entirely a novice to political philosophy, but I have a fantastic interest in the subject and am exploring it as best I can with the resources available.

I understand the numerous inherent failures of capitalism as outlined by Marx, though I do not align myself entirely with his vision for its successor.

My ideals and values are primarily united with those of social anarchism (also dubbed libertarian socialism though I understand the community's distancing itself from the "l" word since the advent of conservative neo-liberarianism.)

I support socially-conscious individual liberty, a rich commons, and oppose intellectual and private property. I support Kopimism, reject groupthink and collective conformity, and recognize the benefits of collectivism and unionized workers.

However I also recognize the utopian fallacies of this philosophy. Its impracticality lies with the fact that man is fundamentally an animal driven by selfishness and fear. This prevents large-scale collaborative efforts from being realized, sacrificing the well-being of one's fellow man in the name of his pursuit of capital.

And, as Marx himself described, middle-class owners of property will characteristically opt for a conservative preservation of the status quo, (ironically in opposition of their own interests). Like the conservative poor, they will have no part in the revolution toward collective/syndicalism, as they've been effectively conditioned for Bernay's engineering of consent to serve the establishment.

And as a dear friend of mine so succinctly uttered - "anarchism doesn't work because it's hard to trade CDs for Band-Aids at three in the morning." After five hundred years of man's role in merchant-capital-based societies, the majority of the population, ignorant of or simply disinterested by the revolution, will cling fast to that system, once again due to man's inherent selfishness and fear.

Still, I'm eager to explore the writings of Chomsky, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and other key figures of the anarchist school of thought. I just fear that it is too utopian a construct to be actualized in our time.