Comment on .ml has got to be the only place on earth where I'd get downvoted for a comment like this
leftascenter@jlai.lu 1 day agoNot to mention socialism isn’t apart of the meaning at all as you’ve described it.
Have you tried clicking on the “authoritarian communists” link for a definition?
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.
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.
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
RiverRock@lemmy.ml 18 hours ago
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.
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.
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.