What's annoying is that we probably would be a whole lot closer to actual communism and anarchism if the bolsheviks never took power and destroy all the communism that was happening during the Russian revolution.
Yup, and for a deep dive into the history of how this happened in both the USSR and Maoist China, I'd recommend Anark's series The State is Counterrevolutionary.
Dr. Wolff made a great video today about this very topic! It essentially boiled down to saying that a socialist revolution can only succeed if there is also a revolution in the workplace. Workers need to elect their managers, and have a strong union to coordinate production between industries.
That was a really great episode, thanks for the shoutout! I usually only catch Economic Update on my local Leftist radio, but with that description I just had to seek it out, and I’m glad I did.
The irony that in this quote he was supporting the authority of government specifically on taxation for long term defense. "Temporary" was kind of the whole point.
Which is precisely why it works in this context. He was talking about the Pennsylvania governor's ability to levy a new tax which some Englanders who ruled from afar were trying to bribe him to veto. His argument was that if people gave up their ability to govern themselves and let some faraway Leviathan do it in the hopes that said Leviathan would keep them safe, they deserved whatever was coming to them. I think this translates nicely onto "Socialism is not some Christmas gift for those who accept a dictator now in the hopes of achieving freedom in the future."
You heard it first from old Ben, stop saving money for retirement, you’re just giving up on your current liberty to have some temporary safety later in life.