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Showing posts from August, 2020

God-builders

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Epiphanes is the author of  On Righteousness , a notable early Gnostic Christian literary work that promotes communist principles. A notable belief attributed to Epiphanes and described in  On Righteousness  was the idea of communal living or communism, including shared property and spouses. The text begins: "The righteousness of God is a kind of sharing along with equality." The idea of communal living may have come from Plato’s ideas in The Republic.   Voegelin perceived similarities between ancient Gnosticism and modernist political theories, particularly Communism.    He identified the root of the Gnostic impulse as alienation, that is, a sense of disconnection from society and a belief that this lack is the result of the inherent disorder, or even evil, of the world. According to Voegelin, the Gnostics really reject the Christian eschaton of the kingdom of God and replace it with a human form of salvation through esoteric ritual or practice.  The primary feature that cha

Possibilism

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The first possibilists were a faction of the French socialist movement, led by Paul Brousse and Benoît Malon. They were leftist firebrands and radicals, but they opposed the anarchists, and those advocating for a worker’s revolt, because they didn’t believe those solutions could work in their contemporary context. Instead they proclaimed the reformist principle of achieving only what is ‘possible’: working for reachable gains instead of the utopian ideal. The Possibilists were a trend in the French workers’ movement from the 1880’s to the early 20th century that supported the idea of municipal socialism. At first the Possibilists, headed by Brousse and soon after by Malon, constituted the reformist wing of the Workers’ Party. They led the movement against revolutionary Marxism and adhered to the “policy of possibilities” as formulated by Brousse.  Thus a possibilist is a supporter or advocate of policies aiming to bring about immediately practicable or feasible reforms. It is not the p

Five Pillars of Minarcho-Councilism

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This new ideology seeks to combine worker owned means of production with a "as minimal as posssible" state to ensure the protection of workers and their rights. Minarcho-Councilism  advocates for workers councils being the core foundation of a socialist society. It favors council democracy to state socialism. This governance model is based on the following five pillars: Libertarian Socialism  This philosophy seeks a socialism that is about the self-emancipation of the working class. It involves the building of counter power parallel to the state. It criticizes wage slavery relationships    within the workplace emphasizing workers self management and decentralized structures of political organization such as direct democracy, popular assemblies, cooperatives, trade unions and workers councils.  Anarcha Feminism  This position posits patriarchy and traditional gender roles as manifestations of involuntary coercive hierarchy that should be replaced by decentralized free associat

Pan-Leftism to Ultra-Leftism

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Pan-leftism is an ideology, or the lack there of one, which promotes the notion that Anti-Capitalist Leftists of all shades should cooperate instead of constantly bickering amongst themselves. Pan-leftists welcome all Anti-Capitalists be they Anarchist; Communists of all shades including Maoists, Trotskyists; Religious Socialists (Such as Liberation Theologists or Islamic Socialists); Democratic Socialists (of the sort who don't support the Capitalist means of production); Syndicalists or any other ideology which supports the working class against Capitalism and Fascism. But if what unites the Left is only an amorphous anti-capitalism and anti-fascism, then what truly holds us together? Here is what Ultra-Leftism has to offer as a basis for uniting the Left.  Ultra-Leftism emerges from these traditions coming together in the 1960s French ultra-gauche. The term originated in the 1920s in the German and Dutch workers movements, originally referring to a Marxist group opposed to both

New Age Politics

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As the 1970s began, the New Left faded away, and many movements arose in its wake – among them the feminist, spiritual, human potential, ecology, appropriate technology, intentional community, and holistic health movements. Mark Satin attempts to offer a systemic overview of the new post-liberal, post-Marxist, post-anarchist politics arising in the wake of the New Left. Some academics say it offers a new ideology. At the heart of  New Age Politics  is a critique of the consciousness we all supposedly share, a "culture-complex” that has kept us all trapped in lower consciousness. The six sides of the "culture complex" are said to be: patriarchal attitudes, egocentricity, scientific single vision, the bureaucratic mentality, nationalism (xenophobia), and the "big city outlook" (fear of nature).  Since consciousness, according to Satin, ultimately determines our institutions, “oppressive” consciousness is said to be ultimately responsible for "monolithic"