Overthrow

I saw a Jacobin article recently that summarized the thinking of the left. It basically said: when people ask us where we will get the money to pay for Medicare for All and more social programs, they are just trying to distract us and demoralize us. The important thing is to win power and then we will deal with those questions later. These leftists don't want to ask about what the power consists in and what it's used for. They don't want to ask why so many people are complete ly destroyed and unable to afford basic healthcare. They don't want to ask what kind of economy needs massive social programs (hint: one that presupposes massive poverty). They don't want to clarify anything about the state and its basis. They don't want to think about the blackmail power of the capitalists that the whole system is based on. It's just like: "we will tax the hell out of them!" But then you have to ask: what will you do so that they invest? Without investment, n...

When one criticizes Law and Order or the state, one inevitably hears the question: "yes, but don't we need rules?"  One must first point out a conflation that takes place here. Rule and rules are different. We don’t know any good purpose that rule serves. Law and order is imposed by force and backed up by overwhelming violence. When we talk about a communal voluntary economy without being ruled, the criticism of communism is that we need rules: if there are no traffic laws, then people crash. If there aren't rules about temperatures to store food at, then people get sick. This sort of rebuttal confuses rule with conventions and agreements for living life in an expedient or rational manner; it has nothing to do with force and the violence to implement it. All the rules that are forced on us in a bourgeois democracy are looked at as useful conventions that make life possible. This is a big mistake. There’s a big difference between driving on the right side of the r...