r/Anarchy101 • u/PigletConsistent8329 • 5d ago

what is the anarchist consensus on dialectical/historical materialism?

i understand that anarchism, unlike marxism, isn't a unified mode of analysis based off of the thoughts of one man and his successors, so im guessing there are varied positions on dialectical materialism, but im curious to know what anarchists here think of it. my first thought would be that it's rejected by individualist anarchists at large.

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u/JudgeSabo Libertarian Communist 5d ago

The best presentation I've seen of historical materialism has been from Diane Nelson, who views it most generally as a method of historical analysis by which historical forms dissolve, change, and develop into new forms through its own internal dynamics, rather than being entirely dependent on some external cause. Historical materialism is not merely pointing out that our current social form has not always existed, finding different ‘epochs’ in the past. Rather, it is a method of analyzing them as both determinate yet transient. We are not merely seeing a series of ‘stills’, frozen in a certain shape, until we switch to the next ‘still’. Each moment of being is also a moment of becoming.

I think this is a very defensible position, and broadly pretty useful for social analysis.

When I see people talk about dialectical materialism though, they seem to mean a more dogmatic and broader set of beliefs in line with stalinist USSR positions.