4 ms·

TL;DR: It's just communism by another name.

Florin_Andrei 9y ago
Meh. Seems to me like these are really the Vinge / Kurzweil crowd, and the offshoots of that trend. The commie connection seems to be the author's interpretation (unsurprising given the journal that's published the article).
jressey 9y ago
I don't think you read it. It is really complex and actually hypercapitalistic, and nationalistic in its basic form. It advocates for advancement of their perception of humanity over all else. The newest iteration even advocates for independent, authoritative nation states! I concede the article also discusses a branch that goes left, and yes it is probably closest to social democracy.
- mixedCase 9y ago
  From the article: "Accelerationism, therefore, goes against conservatism, traditional socialism, social democracy, environmentalism, protectionism, populism, nationalism, localism and all the other ideologies that have sought to moderate or reverse the already hugely disruptive, seemingly runaway pace of change in the modern world." My notion of accelerationism before this article was "communists, disappointed after communism failed at taking over the west, advocating that more capitalism will inevitably show its failures and lead to communism". This notion persists after reading the article.
  - uxp100 9y ago
    I think there are at least 3 different meanings of acceleration-ism, and you are conflating some of them. But the article is too, and once I read the article I started to as well. Is there hard evidence of an intellectual connection between Zelazny, Land, and Leftist Accelerationism? This kinda feels like left-anarchism vs right-anarchism all over again. Wildly different ideologies that share very little, except a name. I would think the leftist variant predates the 60s, ue_ in response to you found elements of it in Marx. Maybe this is a bad article.
    - uxp100 9y ago
      Well, I realize now that there is a leftism->Land connection mentioned in the article. I was too harsh. But I still think there us conflation going on.
WaxProlix 9y ago
Not quite what the article talks about, but Accelerationism in communist/anarchist thought is the notion that you either permit capitalism to go off the rails without hindering it or even encourage it actively. The goal is to "show it for what it really is" and make things so unpalatable that a worker uprising is inevitable (or at least more likely). So in that view, an accelerationist could be a socialist who opposes things like minimum wage, universal health care, privacy rights legislation, etc.
- ue_ 9y ago
  I am a Socialist myself and I often talk with people who are accelerationists; I am divided on the issue personally. Accelerationism in the Communist sphere tends to align itself with policies against working within the democratic system to improve conditions, as you noticed even to reject social democratic policies. The other argument for this from their point of view is that it would encourage complacency of the workers to be having these social democratic policies, as some view Keynesianism did to the Western capitalist nations. An interesting point here is about Marx himself; he wrote: "Moreover, the protectionist system is nothing but a means of establishing large-scale industry in any given country, that is to say, of making it dependent upon the world market, and from the moment that dependence upon the world market is established, there is already more or less dependence upon free trade. Besides this, the protective system helps to develop free competition within a country. Hence we see that in countries where the bourgeoisie is beginning to make itself felt as a class, in Germany for example, it makes great efforts to obtain protective duties. They serve the bourgeoisie as weapons against feudalism and absolute government, as a means for the concentration of its own powers and for the realization of free trade within the same country. "But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade." (Emphasis mine)
  - naravara 9y ago
    >I am a Socialist myself and I often talk with people who are accelerationists; I am divided on the issue personally. By the time working people are miserable enough to unite and rebel it will already be too late. The rich and powerful will have the logistics and technology on their side to quash any rebellion handily. Social Democracy is the only way forward. The people on the bottom need to have the capacity to resist and you can only do that by keeping the relative power of each segment of society at rough parity so nobody can exercise dominance over another. The trouble with an accelerationist viewpoint is that even if the system collapses what comes out of the ashes won't be enlightened advancement and revolution, it will be a general regression into warlordism and feudalism. Even if Lefties win those fights you won't get anything like a Socialist society on the other side of it. The skill sets and temperament required to consolidate power among sociopathic warlords are not the skills sets or temperament you need to establish a just and egalitarian society. Quite the opposite, as you see by any country where communist insurgencies actually wind up in charge.
defen 9y ago
I was wondering if you could expand on this. It seems like a comment someone would make if they are either entirely unfamiliar with accelerationism, or if they have a deep understanding of it - I'm curious if you fall into either of those camps :) The reason I say that is that Land claims to be utterly opposed to communism - his favorite suggestion is that communists should be dropped out of helicopters into the ocean (cf Pinochet). On the other hand, I'm not entirely convinced that he's not a "deep cover" agent of socialism/communism - after all, that's where his sympathies initially were before his "conversion". For example it's possible he thinks accelerationism is the path to the predicted end-stage or utopia version of communism - a classless society with free access to the articles of consumption.
- ue_ 9y ago
  > his favorite suggestion is that communists should be dropped out of helicopters into the ocean (cf Pinochet). Very frighteningly, I see this suggestion echoed around seemingly seriously by certain groups of libertarians, especially on Reddit, and those libertarians on the "alt-right".
steveklabnik 9y ago
Many leftists of various stripes are quite against accelerationism, including many communists.
omginternets 9y ago
You don't know what communism is, and it shows.
- dang 9y ago
  That's both unsubstantive and uncivil, exactly the opposite of what we want here. We ban accounts that comment like this, so please don't do it again.
  - omginternets 9y ago
    Respectfully, it's factual.
    - dang 9y ago
      "What communism is" is not a fact. Even if it were, not all statements of fact are civil and substantive, and that's the standard you need to follow here.
dang 9y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments, especially not generic ideological tangents, which usually amount to trolling.

Meh. Seems to me like these are really the Vinge / Kurzweil crowd, and the offshoots of that trend. The commie connection seems to be the author's interpretation (unsurprising given the journal that's published the article).

jressey 9y ago

I don't think you read it. It is really complex and actually hypercapitalistic, and nationalistic in its basic form. It advocates for advancement of their perception of humanity over all else. The newest iteration even advocates for independent, authoritative nation states! I concede the article also discusses a branch that goes left, and yes it is probably closest to social democracy.

mixedCase 9y ago
From the article: "Accelerationism, therefore, goes against conservatism, traditional socialism, social democracy, environmentalism, protectionism, populism, nationalism, localism and all the other ideologies that have sought to moderate or reverse the already hugely disruptive, seemingly runaway pace of change in the modern world." My notion of accelerationism before this article was "communists, disappointed after communism failed at taking over the west, advocating that more capitalism will inevitably show its failures and lead to communism". This notion persists after reading the article.
- uxp100 9y ago
  I think there are at least 3 different meanings of acceleration-ism, and you are conflating some of them. But the article is too, and once I read the article I started to as well. Is there hard evidence of an intellectual connection between Zelazny, Land, and Leftist Accelerationism? This kinda feels like left-anarchism vs right-anarchism all over again. Wildly different ideologies that share very little, except a name. I would think the leftist variant predates the 60s, ue_ in response to you found elements of it in Marx. Maybe this is a bad article.
  - uxp100 9y ago
    Well, I realize now that there is a leftism->Land connection mentioned in the article. I was too harsh. But I still think there us conflation going on.

WaxProlix 9y ago

Not quite what the article talks about, but Accelerationism in communist/anarchist thought is the notion that you either permit capitalism to go off the rails without hindering it or even encourage it actively. The goal is to "show it for what it really is" and make things so unpalatable that a worker uprising is inevitable (or at least more likely). So in that view, an accelerationist could be a socialist who opposes things like minimum wage, universal health care, privacy rights legislation, etc.

ue_ 9y ago
I am a Socialist myself and I often talk with people who are accelerationists; I am divided on the issue personally. Accelerationism in the Communist sphere tends to align itself with policies against working within the democratic system to improve conditions, as you noticed even to reject social democratic policies. The other argument for this from their point of view is that it would encourage complacency of the workers to be having these social democratic policies, as some view Keynesianism did to the Western capitalist nations. An interesting point here is about Marx himself; he wrote: "Moreover, the protectionist system is nothing but a means of establishing large-scale industry in any given country, that is to say, of making it dependent upon the world market, and from the moment that dependence upon the world market is established, there is already more or less dependence upon free trade. Besides this, the protective system helps to develop free competition within a country. Hence we see that in countries where the bourgeoisie is beginning to make itself felt as a class, in Germany for example, it makes great efforts to obtain protective duties. They serve the bourgeoisie as weapons against feudalism and absolute government, as a means for the concentration of its own powers and for the realization of free trade within the same country. "But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade." (Emphasis mine)
- naravara 9y ago
  >I am a Socialist myself and I often talk with people who are accelerationists; I am divided on the issue personally. By the time working people are miserable enough to unite and rebel it will already be too late. The rich and powerful will have the logistics and technology on their side to quash any rebellion handily. Social Democracy is the only way forward. The people on the bottom need to have the capacity to resist and you can only do that by keeping the relative power of each segment of society at rough parity so nobody can exercise dominance over another. The trouble with an accelerationist viewpoint is that even if the system collapses what comes out of the ashes won't be enlightened advancement and revolution, it will be a general regression into warlordism and feudalism. Even if Lefties win those fights you won't get anything like a Socialist society on the other side of it. The skill sets and temperament required to consolidate power among sociopathic warlords are not the skills sets or temperament you need to establish a just and egalitarian society. Quite the opposite, as you see by any country where communist insurgencies actually wind up in charge.

defen 9y ago

I was wondering if you could expand on this. It seems like a comment someone would make if they are either entirely unfamiliar with accelerationism, or if they have a deep understanding of it - I'm curious if you fall into either of those camps :) The reason I say that is that Land claims to be utterly opposed to communism - his favorite suggestion is that communists should be dropped out of helicopters into the ocean (cf Pinochet). On the other hand, I'm not entirely convinced that he's not a "deep cover" agent of socialism/communism - after all, that's where his sympathies initially were before his "conversion". For example it's possible he thinks accelerationism is the path to the predicted end-stage or utopia version of communism - a classless society with free access to the articles of consumption.

ue_ 9y ago
> his favorite suggestion is that communists should be dropped out of helicopters into the ocean (cf Pinochet). Very frighteningly, I see this suggestion echoed around seemingly seriously by certain groups of libertarians, especially on Reddit, and those libertarians on the "alt-right".

steveklabnik 9y ago

Many leftists of various stripes are quite against accelerationism, including many communists.

omginternets 9y ago

You don't know what communism is, and it shows.

dang 9y ago
That's both unsubstantive and uncivil, exactly the opposite of what we want here. We ban accounts that comment like this, so please don't do it again.
- omginternets 9y ago
  Respectfully, it's factual.
  - dang 9y ago
    "What communism is" is not a fact. Even if it were, not all statements of fact are civil and substantive, and that's the standard you need to follow here.

dang 9y ago

Please don't post unsubstantive comments, especially not generic ideological tangents, which usually amount to trolling.