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Radical ecologism (Jacques Ellul, André Gorz, Ivan Illich) and left anarchism (Bakunin, Guy Debord) advocate for the disparition of the state, in favor of little communes, living peacefully, sharing what they produce.

How do these movements tackle the issue of other countries military imperialism?

A territory with no state and people living such a way of life would be very easy to conquer for a country which does not adopt radical ecologism and anarchist communism values, and such countries are numerous.

For instance:

_Do they plan to convince these other countries to adopt their values?

_Do they hold that, except from the West, other countries are not imperialist, so this is not an issue?

Starckman
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    Does anyone argue that we need to do this now in our country or do they describe this as an ideal for humanity in general? – Bougainville Sep 12 '23 at 12:55
  • related: https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/74211/what-is-the-pacifist-position-on-ukraine – Italian Philosophers 4 Monica Sep 12 '23 at 14:45
  • @Bougainville I don’t know. I did not read about how their ideology relates with outside countries – Starckman Sep 13 '23 at 03:56
  • Subvert the Empire? Most likely any empire still relies on oppressing it's citizens, so there's probably not even a need to convince them that this is bad, you'd just need to show them that it's unnessesary and possible without the empire. – haxor789 Sep 13 '23 at 12:29
  • @haxor789 what is “this” in “this is bad”? What is “them” in “to show them”? What is “it” in “it's unnecessary”? – Starckman Sep 13 '23 at 13:11
  • That the oppression is bad and conversely that the oppressor is bad. The people suffering from that oppression. The oppression and the means to create and uphold it. – haxor789 Sep 13 '23 at 13:13
  • @haxor789 so the left ecologists and anarchists believe in the strategy of “diffusing one’s ideas/policies by giving the good example (as opposed to imposing one’s policies by force)”, this is what you mean? This was the strategy of Charles Fourier and Saint Simon, after being really shocked by the Terror episode of the French Revolution – Starckman Sep 13 '23 at 13:24
  • If yes, are there any left ecologists or anarchists who pointed out that this is maybe very speculative, and for that reason, dangerous? – Starckman Sep 13 '23 at 13:26
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    Ignore keeping the neighbours out - how do you keep the sea out? One of the oldest continuous governments (predating modern states by centuries) are the Dutch water boards. – MSalters Sep 14 '23 at 14:17

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The importance of these worldviews doesn't lie in their pragmatism or realism; the importance lies in the expression of a high-minded ideal.

I mean — and please pardon the cynicism — it's an observable fact that corrupt, degraded, amoral people put a lot of effort into convincing those around them to be corrupt, degraded, and amoral. People without ethics feel judged and diminished by people with ethics, and so they have to undercut ethics wherever they see it just to feel good about themselves. It's a sad and karmic aspect of human nature, but it is what is. Someone has to speak for higher values, or all anyone will ever hear is the scratching of beasts at the door.

Ted Wrigley
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  • But that would run counter to Kant's "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law". It would be awful if everybody would adopt eco-anarchism as the unversal law and then it would not work for them by design. – alamar Sep 22 '23 at 21:04
  • @alamar: Why would it be awful if everybody would adopt eco-anarchism as a universal law? It's utopian, sure, but I don't see a downside to it apart from that. – Ted Wrigley Sep 22 '23 at 21:24
  • Humans are not robots, they have individuality: If eco-anarchism is unstable in presense of smallest attempts of power grabbing, you will quickly end up with unscrupulous eco-anarchists taking over the rest of the population, and thus emergency of hierarchy. It would be an interesting area of discussion how much peer to peer policing would a community of faithful eco-anarchists need to prevent this from happening, and whether it would predictably fail as soon as one sufficiently large faction of hierarchists emerge. – alamar Sep 22 '23 at 21:53
  • @alamar: You can't argue against the value of an ideal by arguing it isn't practical. Ideals are never practical. – Ted Wrigley Sep 22 '23 at 22:42
  • Kand could and so would I. – alamar Sep 22 '23 at 22:50
  • @alamar: Suit yourself. But I sincerely doubt Kant would agree with you. Remember, you're invoking the principle of 'universal law' and disputing it because other people might not accept it as a universal. That is entirely against the spirt of Kant's work. – Ted Wrigley Sep 22 '23 at 23:15
  • Any unversal order has to be homeostatic and resilient against small unavoidable perturbations. That the described eco-anarchism does not seem to exhibit. Ideas are not set in stone so it's not too late to further develop those. – alamar Sep 22 '23 at 23:21
  • @alamar: That's an extremely odd assertion, which (again) confuses ideals with pragmatics. Any principle which is held as universal by all participants is automatically homeostatic and resilient, but a single individual who rejects the universality of a principle renders that principle chaotic and friable for all members of society. I get that you dislike eco-anarchism, but your position is philosophically unsound. – Ted Wrigley Sep 22 '23 at 23:42
  • I just believe that good ideas are watertight, and bad ideas may be turned into good ones by making them watertight. You insist that political ideas are like art in that they are permitted to be impractical. In my eyes, that's a suggestion that bad ideas are free to stay bad. – alamar Sep 23 '23 at 00:36
  • @alamar: No, I just distinguish between domains. There are two questions here: (1) Would I will eco-anarchy as a universal law, and (2) do I think it's functional policy? The answer to the first question is yes, I might will that as a universal law; it has a lot to recommend it. That satisfies Kant. But the answer to the second is that I don't think it would be good policy, not unless we found an effective way of encouraging or legislating the principle. You seem to be arguing that its weaknesses as policy make it useless as a principle, and that's too nihilistic for my tastes. – Ted Wrigley Sep 23 '23 at 02:02
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It is hard to find any theoretical politics that are pragmatic enough to be seen as anything other than ideal forms. As such, the United States is colloquially "capitalist" because we proclaim to aspire to capitalist ideals and generally do in practice.

Many die-hard fans of Marx will hammer (and sickle) down the idea that communism is fundamentally stateless, but this is obviously completely impractical as there are currently states... Offshoots of communist theory are conveniently separated from the Marxian theory because they took the step of being pragmatic enough to attempt to implement communism in the real world (think: tankies). In this way, Marxist theory tends to insulate itself from criticism by flaunting its ideal form as totally realistic if only it was done "correctly". It is the same as die-hard, Adam Smith capitalists dismissing criticisms of capitalism because no country has ever gone completely free market "correctly" (of course, ignoring the fact that Adam Smith didn't even believe in completely free markets).

To answer the question directly: They necessarily don't as a condition of the framing of the theory. It is presupposed that the environment is fertile for such a system to occur. Any attempts at causing that environment to occur are described as a separate ideology.

benjaminbaggs
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    Well, many radical ecologists do implement their theory, they are called "degrowth", and are people who go to live in the Alps (for instance), in little communities, cultivating their own vegetables, building their own ecological home, finding solutions to get drinkable water from the rain, etc. There are many coverage of these endeavors on Youtube – Starckman Sep 14 '23 at 12:15
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    Often they will also make a living by selling the vegetables they produce via the "short food supply chains" system, for instance; or by working in association who promotes ecological ways of life and techniques (e.g. compost) – Starckman Sep 14 '23 at 12:17
  • Yes, but they don't implement their theory to the necessary extent that it is self-perpetuating. In other words, as you seem to imply by this question, radical ecologists do not exist anywhere other than in disjointed and remote communities. In this sense radical ecologist society has always existed in the form of communities that don't have contact with the rest of society. However, these communities only exist because there is yet no reason for imperialist powers to care about them. To exist beyond those parameters would cause that community to no longer represent radical ecology. – benjaminbaggs Sep 14 '23 at 13:13
  • "Yes, but they don't implement their theory to the necessary extent that it is self-perpetuating." But they want their ideology to expand across the globe. Otherwise, they won't self-claimed to be a political movement. – Starckman Sep 14 '23 at 13:17
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    They want to, but not literally. As I have described, to take any actual steps toward expanding the ideology globally, the movement would necessarily have to betray its own ideals by coercing others to adopt the "correct' perspective. In the context of modern society, this would require organization on a broad scale which is directly antithetical to the core beliefs of those movements. Of course, I can't predict the future which is why "they just didn't do it correctly" will always be somewhat valid... maybe we all decide to live in the mountains and abandon nationality tomorrow for fun! – benjaminbaggs Sep 14 '23 at 13:23
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Marx said for workers for the world to unite, not workers in their respective countries. Anything short of that won't and hasn't ever worked. People need to put too many resources into defense, otherwise.

Tyler Mc
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  • Ok, but what about when workers in countries B are subjected to an imperialist state which aims to conquer countries A? Also my question concerns more anti-state left ideologies (radical ecologism and left anarchism) than communism; which, because it recognizes the legitimacy of the state (at least during the first phase of the dictatorship) doesn't exhibit the issue my question points to – Starckman Sep 14 '23 at 12:27
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    Marx never described communism and he and Bakunin (who was referred to as a revolutionary socialist at first) agreed on a lot and say a lot of the same stuff, just differed on tactics, which is basically still the difference today. What you're describing would be a failed attempt. –  Sep 14 '23 at 12:31
  • Then I feel marxism (including radical ecologism, communism and anarchism) needs to rely on a massive use of propaganda (in the neutral sense of the term), if the proletariat/anti-capitalists have to unite at the same time all over the world. This is not really what they do when the radical ecologists go to live withdrawn in the mountains, rejecting WIFI, etc. – Starckman Sep 14 '23 at 12:35
  • They would need to coordinate and grow yes. Radical ecologists might have options in the current world if there are locations left that aren't wanted for their resources, though it'd rarely be the best land. I can't say I'm as familiar with them, their wants probably differ. –  Sep 14 '23 at 12:40
  • "They would need to coordinate and grow yes." Well, again, their ideology drives them to withdraw in the mountains without WIFI so... it makes coordination with people all over the world very difficult. Not speaking of a problem we did not mention which is that imperialist countries may, as it is often the case, employ strong censorship and propaganda inside their controlled territory, so that their people would not be opened to the ideas of the radical ecologists – Starckman Sep 14 '23 at 12:45
  • Idk, probably shouldn't lump these two groups together. –  Sep 14 '23 at 12:58
  • Which two groups? – Starckman Sep 14 '23 at 13:00
  • The two you are asking about –  Sep 14 '23 at 13:56
  • As far as I am in my research on the subject, many radical ecologists were either marxists, or very influenced by marxism. – Starckman Sep 14 '23 at 14:02
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    They have very different views, Marx wasn't a luddite. –  Sep 14 '23 at 14:09