In this video we discuss some common arguments for and against taking state power as a strategy for achieving free socialism.  

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Footnotes:

1. For more detail on these and related arguments, see and for a more in-depth di Raekstad, P. and Gradin, S. 2019. Prefigurative Politics: Building Tomorrow Today. Cambridge: Polity, ch. 6.

2. Blanc, E. 2019. Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics. London: Verso and his article here: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/10/bernie-sanders-teachers-strikes-movement-building, where he writes that “Bernie’s 2016 primary run played a crucial role in legitimizing class-struggle politics and inspiring strike leaders in each of the red states that experienced illegal statewide walkouts in early 2018 – West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona.”

3. See Michael Mochaidean and Erin Dyke’s article here: https://blackrosefed.org/movements-gave-rise-to-teachers-revolt-not-bernie/?fbclid=IwAR3ItmT8eIVGClwzPFLuuWbHRik-qeC-ewlbeh_0V5rsppRjvE_UpQUlWJY

4. For more on this, see Anarchopac’s essay here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anarchopac-means-and-ends and in video format here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsRyTWBj84E

5. Some argue that there’s a version of this in Engels’ “On Authority” here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm, but I think a careful reading shows it not to be the case, since at no point does that evoke minority control, but explicitly points out that the binding decisions made over how to e.g. organise complex production processes can be made either by majority votes or by sufficiently empowered delegates (as Engels points out that his opponents, like him, agree on).

6. There’s arguably a version of this in Engels’ “On Authority” here:  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm  and another in “The Bakunists at Work: An Account of the Spanish Revolt in the Summer of 1873” here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1873/bakunin/

7. https://roarmag.org/essays/zapatistas-announce-major-expansion-of-autonomous-territories/?fbclid=IwAR3WAATSQgQGH_oD55MsbtOaSIx9ZiZUhrGGd5mf-inR3S2FSDHyP94zDog