Pajamas Media has this to say in its victory lap:
In American politics there are two strong currents of anti-capitalist thought: Marxism/communism/socialism versus Anarchism/far-left-libertarianism. The problem is that these two ideologies are fundamentally at odds; one advocates hyper-centralization of political and economic power, while the other advocates hyper-decentralization.
In earlier times, the communists and the anarchists hated each other; they are natural enemies. But in recent decades they have formed an uneasy and deeply unstable alliance; since they both hate the status quo of American capitalism, they feel they ought to band together and smash the system as a unified front, and worry about how to pick up the pieces later.
But the Day of Rage revealed that this alliance can never succeed, because it can never offer a consensus philosophy; it’s impossible to draw the sympathy of the great masses when you offer two completely divergent philosophies as your “unified message.” In truth, there is no unified message, and there never can be; that’s why the “Day of Rage” organizers couldn’t even decide on what their one single demand would be at the protest.
I feel this is a turning point in the anti-capitalist movement; the failure of the much-hyped Day of Rage proved that the communists and the anarchists never will be able to smooth over their differences, and the far-left will necessarily fracture in two. The anarchists will break free of their socialist bedmates and drift more toward honest extreme libertarianism and anti-authoritarianism; while Team Marx will no longer feel the need to temper their collectivist message with a bunch of dishonest slogans about freedom and independence.
This is fine to talk about from a purely academic standpoint. The problem is, I wouldn’t spend so much time and so many column-inches describing a “debate” between two rinky dink loser factions within loserville. The “fight” between the “Marxist” far left and the “Anarchist” far left is about as germane as a wrestling match between two four-year olds, for much the same reason.
Another problem with this analysis is that it assumes that the omni-everything model of government of Marxists and the nihilistic model of government of the Anarchists are “at odds.” In reality, they’re the same thing — “No government” usually loops around and becomes ultra-big government, (think: ordo ab chao) and, at least in classical Marxist theory, it’s true in the other direction — Ultra-big government is only supposed to be a temporary and unfortunately “necessary” institution to reconstruct society such that it is ready for no government.
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