Hey y'all! Here we are reading and discussing the Sections H.0-H.1 of AFAQ the following 3(!) weeks, which are the intro of why do anarchists oppose state socialism and about whether anarchists have always opposed state socialism! Here we go with Section H, it seems to be a huge section!

Happy reading!

• Section H.0: https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionH.html#sech0
• Section H.1: https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionH.html#sech1

There is also an EPUB version of AFAQ, courtesy of @irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com: here

If you'd like to join, please comment and we'll ping you next post.

Link to last week's read: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/75024604

PS. Feedback request: How did you find last week's reading pace? Fast/Slow/OK/etc.?

Pings of Week #57:

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"[n]o revolution can ever succeed as factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSE to be achieved." [Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia, p. 261] In other words, statist and authoritarian means will result in statist and authoritarian ends.

I wholeheartedly agree. But I think the issue goes deeper: if we want a peaceful society, it cannot be achieved through violent means. Yet can capitalist society be overcome without violence? It seems like a dead end.

Another quote for you out of Berlin:

The failure of all struggles for social freedom waged thus far stems from the fact that they were never waged to achieve a truly free life—a social condition positively imbued with freedom—but rather arose from the intolerability of the status quo and limited their goal to the purely negative liberation from this intolerability.

-- Erich Mühsam, Declaration of principles (1907)

This is why I think it's important to use violence only for self-defence. Our main weapons should be peaceful but if the ruling class refuses to give up power then we will have to use violence to defend ourselves. However it should never be allowed to be the means through which we achieve change, only to protect what we have already achieved.