Authoritarianism is authoritarianism. Doesnt matter how you paint it.
Memes
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
Not really, no. To a capitalist, all forms of leftism is 'authoritarian,' because they consider private property natural and oppose leftists 'stealing' in.
'Authoritarianism' just isn't a particularly useful term because nobody who uses is is ever actually categorically opposed to forcefully compelling people to do or not do things. They will always have a build in exception for what ever they consider to be 'legitimate authority', and what they consider justified authority will just depend on what political philosophy they ascribe to. So really calling the word just means "someone with a different political theory to me with regards to legitimate authority."
Just because some people might not use the term correctly doesn’t mean it isn’t a useful term
I left lemmy.ml because there were too many people defending or denying historical acts of political violence. That’s what we mean when we say tankies are authoritarian.
If you'd actually read my post, you'd know my point wasn't about it being used "incorrectly".
people defending or denying historical acts of political violence. That’s what we mean when we say tankies are authoritarian.
Defeating the Nazis was an act of political violence, freeing slaves was an act of political violence, over throwing the feudal system was an act of political believe, driving out colonial empires is an act of political violence, enforcing property rights is an act of political violence, ceasing the means of production is an act of political violence.
See? This is exactly, exactly what I was talking about.
There are people who are categorically opposed to forcefully compelling people, and many of them use the word 'authoritarian'.
It can be a useful term, not all systems are equally authoritarian. It's a spectrum.
Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?
On authority, by Frederick Engels 1872
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
-- and they both punch left; exactly as conservatives like to do.
The liberals are still doing this in 2025. We shouldn't really be surprised I spose.
Do MLs consider anarchists liberals now?
Anarchists tend to be smart enough to not use the word tankie.
There are exceptions of course.
Generally not. Anarchists and Marxists want separate goals and have separate means, but Liberalism is a separate ideology.
No, but a lot of liberals consider themselves anarchists.
Truly. Any moderate support for AES? Immediately labeled a tankie, I've seen Anarchists and even Liberals labeled a tankie. The term only exists to punch left from the Liberal POV, just like "Woke" is used to punch anything left of fascism.
True but only for terminally online liberals. I still haven't heard anyone in real life ever use that word.
Just replace "woke" with "russian".
Tankie doesn't really mean anything to me anymore. Even self-proclaimed tankies often have trouble defining it in a way that is consistent among leftist groups.
I'm not into that authoritarian stuff. Worshipping a fascist authoritarian state is not a leftist make.
Communism and fascism are entirely different, and conflating the two has roots in Double Genocide Theory, a form of Holocaust trivialization and Nazi Apologia. The Nazis industrialized murder and attempted to colonize the world, the Soviets uplifted the Proletariat and supported national liberation movements such as in Cuba, China, Algeria, and Palestine. I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds.
Authoritarian communist, essentially
All it really boils down to is "supports AES," though. The article even says as much.
Wikipedia has a good article about the term
If you think Hitler is bad, wait until you hear what he has to say about the soviets!
Its become the boomer equivalent of calling everything bad communist.