Ew. Fuck China. I do admire that they can just do stuff when needed, but again that’s just a function of authoritarianism and the surveillance state keeping everyone in line for Big Brother. The current US government is almost as bad overall, better in some ways, worse in some ways. There are a lot of state governments that are doing good stuff in terms of solarpunk and democratic socialism though.
edit: I forgot I was on ml and anything short of blind cult-following of any even remotely communist state is despised. China isn’t really even communist, no more than the NSDAP was socialist.
In the most abstract sense: Is organisation without authority possible?
In a concrete sense, yes
What appeals to you about that text?
How authority is defined and how Engels actually logically provides an answer to the question whether organization without authority is possible
A short ‘logical’ essay can give any answer in an abstract sense, but that doesn’t discount empirical examples.
Always seemed to me like Engels begs the question, takes “anarchy = chaos” as a starting assumption.
Empirical examples… that you have not provided?
Why not just say you’re against solarpunk? Why try to twist solarpunk to be something it’s not?
Have you forgotten all about me:
My problem with Solarpunk is that it’s an aesthetics-first movement. I appreciate solar and believe it to be necessary, I just believe that theory and practice need to form the base of any movement.
Punk has always had an ethos
I’m aware, but Solarpunk specifically, from what I’ve read from the people pushing the movement, tends to lack theoretical and practical basis, closer to early utopianism than a scientific form of socialism.
That’s deliberate.
The lack of a theoretical and practical basis is deliberate, or the idea that Solarpunk lacks such a basis is deliberate? I’m referring to what people that consider themselves in the Solarpunk community and movement have described and recommended to me for reading.
For example, from the Solarpunk Manifesto:
Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?”
The aesthetics of solarpunk merge the practical with the beautiful, the well-designed with the green and lush, the bright and colorful with the earthy and solid.
Solarpunk can be utopian, just optimistic, or concerned with the struggles en route to a better world , but never dystopian. As our world roils with calamity, we need solutions, not only warnings.
It’s primarily based on aesthetics and finding potential plans for future society, not a practical means for getting there or implementing said plans, despite its insistence on doing so. This is why I say it isn’t really scientific socialism, but utopianism, which has historically resulted in one-off communes that last a good while without actually challenging the status quo or spreading.
Solarpunk in practice borrows from anarchism or Marxism, without fully committing to either, and as such is reduced to its aesthetics.
We discussed those green skyscrapers in university environment class, and as far as I know they didn’t work that well. It was hard to keep the plants alive and when they did grow, they became a breeding ground for pest insects that got into the units where people were living. It’s very much prioritizing looking green over being green.
IMO it’s better to just have efficient but visually boring skyscrapers, and then have dedicated green space around clusters of density (which is what China is mostly doing nowadays). Separating housing and green space make both more effective, easier to manage, and more resiliant.
Also, in case you’re wondering, most Western environment profs are very impressed by what China has done, at least in the university I went to.
