- 2 Posts
- 3 Comments
The practical effect of any sort of gun (or bullet) control would be to disarm the working class. I will not be disarmed under any circumstances, and the vast majority of American workers, convinced communists or not, will agree with me on refusing to disarm.
“Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.” (Marx, Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm)
Tankie here. I would agree on the following point – that we are not the same. But, neither are communities where most people are respectful of others’ liberties the same as, or suited to the same kind of rule as, communities where most people are authoritarians. Anarchism doesn’t work among authoritarian populations.
In some places, there isn’t a whole lot of class struggle – I could see anarchism working in those places, but not with most modern people. Those are typically isolated places where people are self-sustaining and disconnected from modern industry, places where states can’t naturally grow on account of the pre-existing lack of class struggle in those areas.




The ideal, if you want to get nice behavior out of people, is to be strict and fair at the same time with them. If people are nice to you, you treat them ten times more nicely. If people are mean to you, you treat them ten times more meanly, and seek out every opportunity to break their happiness until they surrender. You do not have to be evil; it is not good to always be mean like the evil people do, since they create enemies who will come to you for support, and that is their weakness. You just have to be just and measured, rewarding those who do you well, and punishing those who do you wrong.