A Good Point? No. The Plot Against Civilization pp. 230-235

 Plato believed that Democracy was the worst form of government. It was rule by the mob, the uneducated masses who didn’t know what the best for them was. Aristotle would later correct this generality by differentiating between Democracy and Anarchy. Democracy was fine, because it had a purpose whereas Anarchy was a corruption because that is when the mob rules for the individuals’ sake. In much the same what at Monarchy can be good because it just means that a single person, the king, rules for the people; whereas Tyranny is a corruption because the king rules for themselves. Fascism has no pure or good form; because it just means that the state serves itself.

Webster is going to make the case that Socialism and Anarchism are different conceptions of the state that are both bad, but different bad. Webster’s Fascism is going to be at odds for both because not only does the state need to exist for its own sake, it also needs to exist at the expense of the multitude to benefit the powerful.

She’s not wrong that Anarchism and Socialism are different. She is correct here. She may not be wrong that until the late 19^th century the terms were interchangeable. I suspect that this isn’t the case in academics but it may be the case in the cultural revolutions that were happening. She has a definition of “Socialism” from Malon that isn’t bad. To summarize it claims that “Socialism,” has, as its goal, the end of the class war through the means of abolishing the classes by nationalizing the production and the distribution of wealth. That definition is a little more “Communism” than “Socialism” but for the books that we read here this is a pretty good definition.

We go to her boyfriend Bakunin for the definition of Anarchism, “Abolition of the State in all its religious, juristic, political, and social realizations; reorganization by the free initiative of free individuals in free groups. It was this formula that became later that of Anarchy.”

Again, this is pretty good. When she goes to the primary source—an actual Anarchist, she gets it right. Right after this quote from her boy she adds, “And we might add, still later, that of Syndicalism.”

No, we might not add something incorrect. Syndicalism is government by trade unions/guilds. This would be more like Socialism than Anarchism—still wrong, but more like it. She has the breakaway and then hits the pipe on an empty netter.

She identifies someone named Maurice Hess as a “Marxian.” Which is strange because at this time people following the Socialism of Marx were calling themselves “Marxists,” I just don’t get what this remark is supposed to be. Maybe she seriously thinks they’re called “Marxians?” I don’t know because the people she quotes use the term “Marxist” a lot. This is just weird.

This entire section is about the conflict between Socialists and Anarchists. For the most part, she delivers. It’s internal squabbles and debates which is normal, but for Webster this is proof of something more, something evil, something German. She tells us that it wasn’t Marx’s ideas that aroused the wrath of her boyfriend rather it was that his goal was actually “Pan-Germanism.”

Again, real quick, the unification of the German states is now under the process of happening, by mid 1871 there appears the first true state to be called “Germany.” Webster really hates the Germans and we’re never really told why. This is similar to Robison’s anger at the secret plan to spread literacy throughout the German speaking states in his book “Proofs of a Conspiracy…”

When modern conspiracy theorists talk about Germany we get why, they’re lazy and comparison’s to Nazism is a low hanging fruit, you know, except when they’re actually implementing Nazi policies and talking about the Great Replacement Theory. Here, Webster just hates Germans on equal footing with how much she hates Jews.

While dishing about the squabbles between Bakunin and the Marxists, she never fails to mention when one of the people involved is Jewish. It’s not Nicholas Outine, it’s “The Jew Nicholas Outine;” Marx has “Jewish disciples,” and it’s a Russian Jewess that appears to exile Bakunin.

It becomes apparent that this section isn’t about Marxists and Socialist against Anarchists; it’s about Marxists and Socialists against Bakunin and his followers. She can’t get it through her head, that people just didn’t like Bakunin. I’ve said it a few times now: Bakunin was too violent for Socialist revolutionaries. He seemed to not have a goal other than revolution for the love of the game. I can appreciate that, but when it becomes time to build these aren’t the people you need to have around.

We are given a section of rumors and innuendo followed with this line, “It is impossible to disentangle the truth from all this web of lying and intrigue;” ok, so then why are we being told any of it? Webster’s tactic here is to highlight the internal problems of these competing groups and act like it’s evidence of some greater evil. Yet we are expected to fear these groups as agents of a grand conspiracy. This is laughable when they are unable to get their own houses in order.

“The inner history of the Internationale, like the history of all revolutionary organizations from the Terror onwards, Is simply a series of petty rivalries and of miserable quarrels between the leaders, conducted without the faintest regard for the interests of the people whom such demagogues profess to represent.”

And they fail. The Internationale, as she pointed out, failed. The Jura Federation, an offshoot of the Internationale, failed. According to her we need to fear these groups, but they tend to expire on their own. We need not even bother with it.

The Chapter ends with an exortation to read the pamphlet “L’Alliance Sociale Democratique;” in which they conclude with the goal of “killing Bakunin dead.” Webster gives us the French, “le tuer raide mort” which translates as killing someone so stone dead, so there is no question about his death. In the book itself, the phrase does not appear, nor can I find where there is a command to kill Bakunin. I only glanced through it, and my French is pretty bad so I’ll admit that I may have missed it.

They plan on killing Bakunin until he dies from it. Which would be shocking if we didn’t already know that no one like Bakunin. This society, “The Alliance for Social Democracy” attempted to exist within the Internationale, and the Internationale didn’t accept it as a party. This is like trying to form a rival group within an existing party; the organization is kicked out but members of the Internationale are not convinced that it’s gone. The death of Bakunin is probably the only thing that will guarantee that Alliance will be finished. Bakunin is going to die in 1876 and that pretty much solves the question. The final note on the chapter is Webster telling us that we don’t need to look at anti-Socialist literature to find arguments against Marx and these movements. We, however do, because we’ve been given no other arguments. She says that it is, “impossible to retain any illusions on the character of either Marx or his opponent [Bakunin]” so it’s settled. In all types of reasoning we refer to this as an ad hominem. She’s not argued once against Socialism or Anarchism as an idea; only that sometimes these people are assholes. Which, yes, I’ll agree; but that doesn’t make them wrong.