Those are bad examples of democracies, since Poland is captured by the right wing and Taiwan and Korea only swing left when there's a popular uprising. These countries have elected bodies, but they don't reflect the will of the people.
I'd encourage you to take a look into the foundation of Taiwan and the Republic of Korea.
As far as defending democracy, call me when New Zealand or Bolivia are under attack.
If you're into the Indigenous critique of colonial capitalist patriarchy / settler society or whatever name you like, As We Have Always Done by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a must read. I am telling everyone.
It is his easiest read lmao. After Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams and Debt: The First 5000 Years it's a refreshingly short and easy read.
You're actually one of the people I had in mind when I wrote this. You don't fit cleanly in either camp and imo really recognize what's beneficial in each. Like, I'd call myself an anarchist and you'd probably say you're a leninist, but from what I can tell, our politics are more closely aligned than a lot of folks in this site.
Most anarchists don't really respect Chomsky anymore, except on niche things like the media and imperialism. His "against illegitimate authority" thing is, again, an unpopular opinion now. Sort of like primitivism it had its moment and is mostly abandoned now.
Idealism is the idea that history moves forward through some kind of spiritual or discursive dialectic. Graeber is not one because he rejects linear history. Bookchin is not one because he uses a material dialectic like Marx. Federici isn't because she is a Marxist.
If there are any idealist anarchists, probably Cederic Robison? The idea is pretty unpopular now a days.
That's an ML anti-anarchist meme. There are plenty of anarchists who draw on Marx and social science to ground their political project. Bookchin, Graeber and Federici are 3 famous examples.
I've been thinking about what sets anarchist politics apart from ML recently. In the past, it was easier, there were lines like abolition, degrowth, and commoning, that set anarchists apart.
I think those are softer boundary markers now, as MLs embrace those ideas. I think that now, it's more a question of how important those things are. Like, an ML might support commoning over nationalizing, but still consider nationalization a worthwhile goal, whereas anarchists won't compromise on commoning as the mode of socialization. Same for abolition, it seems like a lot of MLs support abolition here, but care less about philosophies and systems of justice in AES.
On the other side, anti-imperialism used to be a big wedge issue, with MLs taking a "lesser of two evils approach" to issues like Iran and anarchists taking a "fuck-all-states" approach. Anarchists are softening on this now, and are often heard expressing the same logic in softer terms, with the positions on anti-imperialism being similar but with the main differences being rhetorical.
IMO this is a good thing for our movements and is a sign of a maturing left where distinctions like "ML" and "anarchist" are losing meaning.
Someone said that it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism and unfortunately capitalism's making that more true by the day.
It really seems like a "we kill capitalism or it kills us" situation.
![Nagarjuna [he/him]](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/309fd4db-88c3-4d0e-a9dd-3488d44be3f1.jpeg?format=webp&thumbnail=128)
Those are bad examples of democracies, since Poland is captured by the right wing and Taiwan and Korea only swing left when there's a popular uprising. These countries have elected bodies, but they don't reflect the will of the people.
I'd encourage you to take a look into the foundation of Taiwan and the Republic of Korea.
As far as defending democracy, call me when New Zealand or Bolivia are under attack.