Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this

• binux@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Notice I wrote ‘as you’ve described it’. I shouldn’t have to explain that the criticism the term tankie is calling attention to in theory is authoritarianism, not communism or socialism as a whole (as the term was literally created by communists). Unless you’re arguing that authoritarianism is a good thing. I guess I wouldn’t be all that surprised.

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  • Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It isn’t so much that “authoritarianism is a good thing,” and more that it isn’t a useful term. All states are a tool by which one class exerts its authority, all states are therefore “authoritarian,” including socialist states. Therefore, “authoritarian communists” just means “communists” in practice.

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    • binux@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      This is a semantic argument so it’s pretty much a nothingburger. I’m just gonna go ahead and apply Alder’s razor and call it here

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      • RiverRock@lemmy.ml ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        This is a semantic argument

        Yes, exactly, it’s a purely semantic distinction that serves no useful purpose other than to decontextualize regular-ass socialist democratic policy and recast it as some kind of dark foreign despotism.

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      • Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        I think it’s pretty critical to the discussion, considering it tries to designate some communists as “authoritarian” and others presumably as not so.

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      • zbyte64@awful.systems ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        It must look strange to those who conflate authority with power. A state that has power without authority is a state that is in crisis. Calling a government authoritarian is to say it’s authority comes from it’s exercise of power.

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