Ends, Ways and Means

Two nights ago, I spent some time in a bar with some communists. It took about five minutes for the differences between the communists and the left libertarians to be made perfectly clear. Again.

Largely, it's a matter of means to an end. Ostensibly the two groups want the same ends, but it's the way of getting there that make the two groups two groups.

The communists believe you must grab state power and replace the capitalist state with a workers' state. Eventually, the state will wither away and the commune will spread around the world. Their means are the ballot, and eventually the revolution. The anarchists believe that you must do away with the state from the start. Their means is through education, organization, and through the social revolution.