The promotion of anarchism within capitalist media, coupled with the suppression of Marxist thought, is damning evidence against anarchism as viable opposition to capitalist hegemony. In fact, the two happen to be perfectly compatible. Meanwhile, history demonstrates time and again that revolutions require centralized authority to dismantle oppressive systems. Capitalism tolerates anarchism precisely because it poses no systemic threat, while revolutionary movements succeed only by embracing disciplined, organized force.
Capitalist media platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime glorify anarchist individualism with shows like Money Heist and The Umbrella Academy while demonizing Marxist collectivism. The narratives in the media fetishize lone rebels “fighting the system” through symbolic acts such as heists or sabotage that never threaten the core machinery of the system. By contrast, media vilifies Marxist movements as “authoritarian” as seen in The Hunger Games’ critique of collective resistance vs. glorification of individual heroism. Anarchism’s rejection of centralized power also neatly aligns with neoliberalism’s war on institutional solidarity. Capitalist elites amplify anarchism precisely because it atomizes dissent into spectacle, ensuring resistance remains fragmented and impotent. If anarchism actually threatened capital, it would be censored as fiercely as Marxism.
The reality of the situation is that every effective society of meaningful scale, be it capitalist or socialist, relies on centralized power. Capitalist states enforce property rights, monetary policy, and corporate monopolies through institutions like central banks, militaries, police, and courts. Amazon’'s logistics empire, the Federal Reserve’s control over currency, and NATO’s geopolitical dominance all depend on rigid hierarchies. On the other hand, anarchists refuse to acknowledge that dismantling capitalism requires confronting its centralized power structures with equal organizational force.
What anarchists fail to acknowledge is that revolutions are authoritarian by their very nature. To overthrow a ruling class, the oppressed must organize into a cohesive force capable of seizing and wielding power. The Bolsheviks built a vanguard party to crush counterrevolutionaries and nationalize industry in order to dismantle the Tsarist regime. Mao’s Red Army imposed discipline to expel bourgeoisie and landlords. Engels acknowledged this reality saying that 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.
Rejecting this authority ensures that a movement becomes irrelevant in the long run. The Spanish anarchists of 1936, despite initial successes, were crushed by fascists because they lacked centralized coordination. Modern “autonomous zones” such as CHAZ dissolve quickly, as they cannot defend against state violence or organize production.
Anarchism’s fatal flaw is its lack of a cohesive vision. It splinters into countless factions such as eco-anarchists, insurrectionists, anprims, mutualists, and so on. Each one prioritizes disparate goals of degrowth, anti-work, anti-civ, etc., that are often at odds with one another. Movements like Occupy with their “leaderless” structure are effortlessly dispersed by the state. By contrast, capitalist states execute power with singular purpose of ensuring profit accumulation in the hands of the oligarchs. Marxist movements, too, succeed through unified strategy as articulated by Lenin in What Is to Be Done? where he prioritized a centralized party precisely to avoid anarchist-style disarray. The capitalist ruling class understands perfectly well that it is easier to crush a hundred squabbling collectives than a single disciplined force. Hence why anarchism becomes a sanctioned form of dissent that never coalesces into material threat.
Meanwhile, revolutions demand the use of authority as a tool for the oppressed to defeat capitalism. Serious movements must embrace the discipline capitalists fear most. The kind of discipline that builds states, expropriates billionaires, and silences reactionaries.
You’re claiming that because anarchism can be misrepresented by capitalist media, that’s proof it’s inherently weak. By that logic, the fact that “Marxism” has been weaponized by authoritarian regimes to justify gulags, purges, and secret police would mean Marxism is inherently corrupt too. But obviously you’d say that’s a distortion of Marxism, right? Same here. You don’t get to say “anarchism is fake because it’s misrepresented” and then handwave how Marxism has been used to justify new forms of domination for the last hundred years.
Second, claiming that the USSR, Cuba, China, etc. weren’t oppressive because they weren’t capitalist is just word games. Was there a ruling class? Yes. Was there state violence against workers who dissented? Yes. Were new hierarchies built concentrating power in the hands of a few? Yes. You can call it whatever you want, it wasn’t worker liberation. It was swapping out old bosses for new ones.
You also argue that “diversity of tendencies” is a fatal flaw. Maybe if your whole strategy is to seize the state and impose one line on everyone, sure. But if the goal is actually abolishing domination, not just repainting it, then diversity is resilience, not weakness. Monocultures look strong until they collapse. Ask the Soviet Union.
You keep saying Marxists “overcame” state violence. The examples you point to are movements that became state violence. That’s not liberation. That’s just flipping who holds the gun.
As for anarchists “having little to show,” you’re acting like the only valid measure of success is building a new state. If the goal is liberation, not new domination, then actually anarchists have a lot to show. The CNT’s collectivizations in Spain. Makhno’s Free Territory in Ukraine. Rojava today with their federated councils and militias. Were they perfect? No. But none of them built gulags or cults of personality. I’d rather fail fighting for real freedom than “win” by building a new boot to put on people’s necks.
And calling me ignorant because I won’t pretend that copying centralized hierarchies counts as revolutionary isn’t an argument. It’s just coping. You think seizing state power is the only path because you can’t imagine anything beyond it. That’s fine. But don’t act like history has proven you right. Some of us are trying to actually build something better. Not just repaint the old cage.
“I’d rather fail than achieve anything” is the funniest thing i’ve read today
peak anarchist lmao
The fact that you keep talking about AuThorItAriaNism is proof that you’re a deeply unserious person. If you spent even a modicum of time actually learning history then you’d see how idiotic this line of argument is.
No, I would say that bad things happen under every system because real world is not utopian. As a materialist, I understand why certain types of power structures form, and how historical and material conditions affect the way socialist states are the way they are given that they exist under siege from capitalism which is the dominant power in the world.
The actual question that a rational person would ask is whether socialist states improve material conditions compared to capitalism, and the answer is unequivocally that they do. Socialists lifted over a billion people out of poverty, provided them with food, housing, education, healthcare, and other necessities of life. That’s what Marxism accomplished time and again.
There sure was, and it was necessary to prevent counter revolutions by capitalists.
No, as can be clearly seen if you look at actual facts of the situation. All the communist parties from USSR, to Vietnam, to Cuba, to China are composed of regular working class people. There is no oligarchy.
Repeating nonsense over and over isn’t going to make it true.
I grew up in Soviet Union, and it collapsed precisely because it started liberalizing and allowed a counter revolution to occur. Again, learn a bit of actual history on the subject to have informed opinions on it.
That’s right, it is flipping who holds the gun. Marxists understand that it’s a question of class dictatorship. They understand that the working majority has to wrest power away from capitalists and then safeguard the revolution.
If the goal was liberation then it would translate into tangible and effective action. The actual goal is coping under capitalism without actually challenging the system in a meaningful way.
And none of them exist today precisely because they were not effective in the long term. Utopian ideology is a roach motel for the left that you’re living in.
I’m calling you ignorant because you spew ahistorical nonsense as form of argument.
Nah, I can imagine lots of things, but having a functional brain I understand that tangible improvement in conditions and defeat of capitalism is far more important than pseudo intellectual moralizing that achieves nothing. That’s the difference between Marxists and anarchists in a nutshell.