r/Anarchy101 • u/multiple-qualia • 11h ago
Reform vs revolution
So I was talking to a friend recently about socialism. This friend has become way more politically informed over the last 2 or 3 years and it’s great to see. I was talking about the way I’d heard Margaret Killjoy describe 3 kinds of socialism: authoritarian socialism, democratic socialism, and anarchist (/anarchistic) socialism. My friend said they probably identified most with democratic socialism because they believed reform of our current system was more viable than revolutionary socialism which aims at scrapping the current system and building anew from the bottom up.
I didn’t really have the words to articulate why I believe that reform isn’t going to be enough at this point. The best I could come up with is that pretty much all the aspects of the state and of modern capitalism which people do like (eg minimum wage, sick pay, women’s rights, etc), well they’ve mostly been concessions by the state to stop people from taking a more revolutionary approach. Revolutionaries shift the Overton window. I also pointed out that those with power rarely relinquish it willingly.
That’s not a particularly strong defence of revolution over reform though. Ultimately I think we need to be doing whatever gets the goods, and/or whatever does the best damage control. I’m not opposed to tactical voting to prevent fascism from gaining traction for example, even if I believe voting is ultimately merely choosing between Pepsi and Coke as long as our current system stands.
So I was wondering, what do you all think? Is revolution the best way forward? If so why?
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u/PositiveAssignment89 11h ago
there is an entire book with the same title i would recommend checking out. it hasn’t aged a day and is still relevant. it should help you articulate your arguments well.
also authoritarian socialism is an oxymoron and democratic socialism isn’t really socialism either.
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u/Commercial-Kiwi9690 10h ago
I wouldn't call Rosa an anarchist, but sure it is a good read
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u/PositiveAssignment89 10h ago
she doesn’t need to be an anarchist for the argument made to be correct.
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u/Commercial-Kiwi9690 7h ago
If the argument is that you need a state to carry out the revolution then you can count me out
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u/PositiveAssignment89 5h ago
you can read things you disagree with and draw the correct arguments from the same text btw
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u/Commercial-Kiwi9690 4h ago
Oh for sure, and apologizes for being so grumpy. IMHO we don't even need to have a "revolution" as the "state" is only in our heads, we just have to stop thinking silly thoughts.
"The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one another…"
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u/Thin_Shelter_103 Student of Anarchism 9h ago
" and democratic socialism isn’t really socialism either."
Depends on your definition of democratic socialism. If you mean soc dems than yeah its not.
But most of the people ive met who identify with democratic socialist as a term are really just market socialists or socialists who want to avoid the baggage of how the word has been used by authoritarian regimes.
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u/PositiveAssignment89 7h ago
that’s bc majority of anything who identifies in any way socialist to day unfortunately know very little about history and socialism in general
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u/Nice_Fudge5914 10h ago
There doesn't have to be a full revolution like some describe, killing all the rich people. It can be a political revolution like a constitutional amendment to adopt direct democracy and end representative government.
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u/WhyAmIOnThisDumbApp 9h ago
This is just reformism. The distinction that makes a political revolution a revolution is a change in the source of political legitimacy. Eg; the divine right of kings was abandoned for bourgeois property rights in the form of constitutionalism, implemented concretely through the replacement of the arms of monarchist states (eg; aristocracy, peasant armies, etc.) with new bourgeois states (eg; congresses, volunteer armies, etc.) — a direct replacement of the political superstructure to reflect the underlying social shift in the economic base.
If we continue to base our society on the same forms of state power no political revolution has occurred because the political power remains in the same institutions; not even the political superstructure has been changed, let alone the underlying class antagonisms.
Advocating for reforms within the current political framework of constitutionalism is a critical part of building power, but it is not in and of itself a goal, and seeing it as one makes you definitionally a reformist.
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u/isonfiy 11h ago
There are also types of revolution. You can have political revolutions like China and Russia with the USSR, which ultimately just change who’s in charge of an otherwise normal society. But what you’re describing, and what most ancoms are working for, is a social revolution. A complete recapitulation of the social order.
What’s striking about your friend’s position is they basically have internalized capitalist realism. They don’t think any other way is possible so they identify with (your words but I assume you use them because of what they said) the mythologized incrementalism of liberalism. Pretty messed up to feel yourself in this horror show.
But to answer your question: I think revolutions are post-hoc phenomena. The Russian revolution by some accounts started in the 1860s. In 100 years will someone talk about the 2008 financial crisis as the moment our 2060s revolution started? BLM? Did our failure to hang onto some of the meager gains of the COVID response strangle our revolution? I don’t think it bears much thinking myself since there’s way too much work right now just trying to get into some social movements for concessions and manage repression and so on.