You hear that Anarchists? The Marxists are calling you liars! /s
this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2026
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I'm a self-identified anarchist and marxist. His theories are foundational, but he's been dead 143 years so unless you're some fundamentalist weirdo you're adapting his theories, not wielding them like scripture.
He's an economist, his economic theories hold up today.
Not sure what it has to do with history though, there's a lot of history that happened before him.
Bakunin says "what?"
Bookchin says yo
That's actually somebody I've not read any of yet despite being on the list for some time. Any particular recommendations?
Post-Scarcity Anarchism was my introduction to him, it's a collection of mid-life essays on a variety of early ideas that would later coalesce into his larger themes like social ecology and communalism (One of them is actually about updating Marxism). I found it accessible and exciting in the same way that Kropotkin's The Conquest of Bread is.
I've yet to check it out but I've heard multiple times that The Murray Bookchin Reader, a later collection of essays, is perhaps the best.
The Ecology of Freedom is considered his magnum opus as it's the longest and contains some of the most developed versions of his ideas, but IMO I wouldn't start with it as it's a rather dense and somewhat less accessible. For a new reader, Social Ecology and Communalism is a more succinct exploration of the same topics.
Don't worry we're used to doing all the work and getting shot in the back.
I dislike strawmans so this argument always irks me.
Teachers are left leaning because people with left leaning predilections tend to choose teaching as a career. There are multiple models to explain this but the most relevant is the idea that lefties tend to order their moral hierarchy "outward in" (World > Society > community > family > self) and righies tend to reverse that order (self > family > community > society > world)
The type of person that morally prioritizes the broader world & society will be more inclined to learn about it and also to teach it.
I don't think that's true. I mean I'm a leftist and I'd order it closer to what you say is conservatism, because I want to be happy and that means I want to be surrounded by good and happy people in a thriving world
I do good things because it makes my life better. It makes my brain release happy chemicals, it makes my environment just a tiny bit better, it makes me feel good about myself. It makes the people around me say pleasant things and care about my well being
Nearly everyone becomes more left leaning as they become more educated, because the more you learn the more you come to realize we're all in this together.
Education ultimately helps you to understand a simple truth - that you and everyone you care about would be better off and happier poor in a good society than on top in a bad one
It's not about personal values or beliefs, greater understanding of the world simply opens your eyes to the fact that the way humanity has organized itself sucks. We could do so much better... The more you learn the more you understand this.
It's a lack of understanding and imagination that causes people to act against their own interests, not a difference in values
You claimed to have an inward-out moral hierarchy but the rest of you comment demonstrated the opposite. "we’re all in this together.", "better off and happier poor in a good society than on top in a bad one", "the way humanity has organized itself sucks. We could do so much better". These are all statements that imply you would take actions that are objectively worse for you + your immediate community if it benefited the broader society. People that feel that way tend to be left leaning. E.x.
- Vote to increase taxes that would affect you
- Let's assume you own a gun for arguments sake, you would still vote for gun control
- Prefer to not be in a war even if it objectively benefited your countries economy
Many conservatives would rather be rich in a worse society, for example. Or that humanities organization doesn't really matter so long as they can do what they want when they want.
That said this is just one model. I'm not claiming it applies to everyone.--
You claimed to have an inward-out moral hierarchy but the rest of you comment demonstrated the opposite. "we’re all in this together.", "better off and happier poor in a good society than on top in a bad one", "the way humanity has organized itself sucks. We could do so much better". These are all statements that imply you would take actions that are objectively worse for you + your immediate community if it benefited the broader society. People that feel that way tend to be left leaning.
Here's the thing... These sentiments are objectively true. I know these things because of my education, just the same as I know "opposites attract" does not stand up to empirical analysis. We are actually all in this together, and living poor in a society that takes care of the poor is does actually lead to higher happiness than living rich in an inequal one
You talk about actions that are worse for me - I'm not so sure I'd do something that's actually worse for me. I'm not that selfless
What I will do is take actions that prioritize the long term over instant gratification, or give up something direct for the sake of something less direct or even something ephemeral
Some of that is that I have a lot of empathy, being around someone suffering or someone full of hatred feels bad. But my political positions all come from sociological analysis - growing up my positions were closer to anarcho-capitalists because I love freedom, and now I'm very left leaning because I learned
I spend a lot of time around conservative people, and their values aren't very different. They want what we all want - they want life to be affordable, they want a future for the children, they want to live in a thriving world.
The difference is they don't understand how things can be better. They don't understand that they're voting against their own interests. They don't understand that their perceived enemies are just like them, people who just want to live a good life
They see the state of the world, and they believe others are out to get them. They think everyone has bad intentions, and so they must "play the game" and get theirs before someone else does it first
And they're often not actually bad people, they can be as generous as anyone and sometimes have a strong will to help others, so long as they feel it's not their perceived enemies
They choose short term benefits and to disadvantage others, because fundamentally they don't understand the world and the nature of others.
It all boils down to ignorance, often an ignorance they will fight to maintain, but it's ignorance.
And education challenges that belief. If they make it through higher education without changing their beliefs, they either do it through an extreme pessimistic view towards the motivations of others (the knowing liers happy to "get theirs" like "anyone would"), or they come out ranting and raving about liberals in academia did their best to poison their minds
But mostly, they fail or come out with different views because of their new understandings. People say reality has a leftist bent, but it's more that conservative views require a warped view of reality
I dunno man, I have a friend with a bachelor's in history. He's full maga. Some people just like authoritarians...
they assume they are the in group… lol
Or they’re in trouble somehow and hope the in group will protect them
There's a lot of history buffs that just hard believe in the great man threory. And god damn do they wanna lick some geeat man boots.
Unironically, yes.
Source: Student of History.
The realization that US history requirements for education subtlely strips the political situation from the history felt like a revelation
In ~10th grade public school a buddy told me "You know this all like complete BS right? Like this is not what happened, it's just a propaganda version of events" and I thought he was just a conspiracy nut.
But uuuuuuuh nope! Public school US history curriculum is basically just propaganda.
The AP courses weren't as bad when I was in. Of course the closer you got to modern day it did get skewed more. Learned a lot of accurate history on Jim Crow, the civil war, and reconstruction. The revolution and civil rights movement were probably the least accurate.
Of course these classes had to teach for the AP tests designed by an independent national board not by the state government
I had a history professor in college who was literally CIA. His class was so full of bullshit lol.
Ah, one of the classics.
Although the unironic uttering of the words "You know Marx literally founded sociology, right?" remains my favorite from this genre.
Björn Höcke, one of the most insane freaks in the german AFD party is a history teacher …
He made his choice
Can confirm. Studied history ("worthless" degrees to prove it.)Not thrilled with our system. Worthless because of our system. Knowledge is invaluable.
Some of them enjoy cruelty, those go further right as they learn
You can always just be wilfully evil too, but I guess a certain amount of lying comes with that
yeah, unfortunately I've only ever had experience with the liars.
Tbh you don't need to study history, you just need a common sense 😜
the devil's advocate would probably mention that most schools have policies restricting the type that would want to be conservative history teachers (something something no racial slurs no beating students)
ah yes the two ideolgies: Radical Marxism and Nazism
I wasn't even thinking naziism, just pro confederacy/slavery
