And Lenin would say of your freedom that it is a bourgeois freedom, and not freedom proper -- that only the dictatorship of the proletariat as enacted by a vanguard revolutionary party in the interests of the working class can found a free society. — Moliere

The people who describe themselves in these terms -- say different things than you do about themselves. — Moliere

Of course, people can justify violence and tyranny for every possible benevolent cause there is.

You see, it's easy to find faults in an existing society, but the real question is what is then given as the solution and cure to the problems. How well have these solutions worked should be the focus. Usually anything starting from "we need to create a new man", teach a new generation to be something totally else, will not only utterly fail, but will just bring sorrow and misery. And this is the typical sin of the so-called "intelligentsia": while being critical of the present society they live in, they fall into the delusional fantasies of radical ideologies that simply will not work in the real World. Yes, there is a time and place for radical thinking, but radical changing of the society usually doesn't work.

And freedom? You simply look at the true track record of how "free" the people were. How many people were killed as the "enemy of the state", how many were/are prisoned because of their political beliefs. And has the "experiment" been successful... like if it still exists.

Great. Now that we have the perspective of a liberal capitalist on Leninism -- a thing I definitely think is worth noting if we want to gain a perspective on some political position, and increase our understanding -- can you address the part where I said that in addition to criticisms and barbs from opponents one must also look at what people who self-identify as this or that political group say for themselves?

Right now you're kind of just going on a tirade against something you dislike. All well and good. But your disliking it doesn't really change the history of there being two kinds of communism, one of which is libertarian communism.

But your disliking it doesn't really change the history of there being two kinds of communism, one of which is libertarian communism. — Moliere

OK, let's look at the history of libertarian communism then, Moliere?

Where do you find it or what examples do you have in mind? Perhaps in the Spanish or Russian Civil war? Likely the ideology was championed by those who were communists, but were also against the totalitarianism of the typical Marxist-Leninism? In both cases, the anarcho-communist groups were destroyed. Or are you thinking of some some small community living in the middle of nowhere that has declared itself to be a communist paradise? Or are we talking just about the ideology of Kropotkin?

The basic problem is that very small societies, groups or communes, anarchism could perhaps work somehow (and this is close to the objectives of some anarchist ideology), but with a larger society the problems rise. And this actually isn't just a problem for anarchism. A total monarchy with the ruler having basically dictatorial powers can work also quite well in a small society. Monaco and Brunei come to mind here as examples. These are quite rich societies and as the citizens can easily approach the monarch, and as the monarchs aren't crazy, the citizens don't have any problem of being subjects of a traditional monarch. The problems naturally rise when the society is larger and that direct link to the monarch is impossible. Then the lack of any kind of institutions make huge problems.

Where do you find it or what examples do you have in mind? Perhaps in the Spanish or Russian Civil war? Likely the ideology was championed by those who were communists, but were also against the totalitarianism of the typical Marxist-Leninism? In both cases, the anarcho-communist groups were destroyed. — ssu

Hey! You do know some examples. Good for you. Those aren't exhaustive, but they are enough to prove my point

Them having been destroyed doesn't mean that they never were. Nor that it didn't continue on elsewhere.

In fact you might recall that some of those who did the destroying were of the authoritarian variety of communism. Seems to me that if people are willing to kill or die over a difference it's a difference that makes a difference.

And that's really all I've been saying here -- that there is a difference between them. I really have no interest in convincing you of the virtues of anarchy, though they are plentiful. Politics doesn't really work by way of argument, so I don't see that as being fruitful at all. It's not like I haven't heard what you are saying before.

Why does this graph put Relativism in the top-left corner?
Also, I am sort of the opinion that libertarian Socialism just is Anarchism, and, so, agree with that.

I don't think that you should abide by the map. Something akin to participatoy democracy, for instance, should be in the bottom left corner. They accepted the quasi-Randian division between Objectivism and Relativism. The libertarian/authoritarian distinction is fine. I think that the Left/Right of the political compass is actually better than the collectivist/individualist distinction. According to that graph, a May '68 protestor could be placed in the bottom right which would be totally absurd. I don't actually know what the distinction should be as opposed to Left and Right which still doesn't quite suffice. Perhaps a person's political philosophy is just too complex to map on a two-dimensional graph.

Triple post, sorry.

It looks like that graph was not made in good faith and is just designed to make someone like Michel Foucault out to be a Marxist-Leninist. The political compass would probably be better.

Just like a square becomes a cube with more dimensions, is there room for other variants of a political system that no one is really thinking about and do not fit the coordinates present at this time? — Christoffer

What about these dimensions?

1. "Level of individual participation in taking decisions" One side of the dimension: low participation, less control of the majority of people over power, but quicker process of decision making. Other side of the dimension: high participation, more control of the majority of people over power, but more difficult and lengthy process of decision making.

2. "Competition vs collaboration": One side of the dimension: high competition, better selection for giving power to the most fit ( maybe called Darwinism? not sure ) but lower ability to act as a group. Other side of the dimension: worse selection of the most fit but better ability to act as a group (altruism?)

How do these two dimensions fit in the graph? are they independent from the other two?