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Western-leftist critiques of capitalism, informed by anarchism/libertarianism, tend to focus on the mechanisms of exploitation. The best example is the simplistic anti-communist metaphor by Bakunin, rehashed by Chomsky, about "the People's Stick".
Adherence to these platitudes explains why they offer only begrudging praise in acknowledgement of how well China and Cuba are handling the crisis. Communist lessons are largely ignored when westerners look to improve their own situation.
The issue is that, when it comes to exploitation, the anarchist critique focuses on *how*, whereas Marxist critique focuses on *why*. The difference between Feudalism and Capitalism was the most interesting thing in the world to Marx, whereas anarchists focus on similarities.
As Marx put it, ‘the limits to the exploitation of the feudal serf were determined by the walls of the stomach of the feudal lord’. This was in contrast to the injunction to exploit and accumulate imposed by forces arising from the very basic block of market commodity exchange.
Marx predicted that even in the hypothetical case that a benevolent capitalist didn't personally wish to exploit, they would do so anyway, else they'd be replaced by another willing exploiter. This is the "invisible hand" in reverse. This is the "fetishism of the commodities".
Capitalists aren't the masters of capitalism. They are cultists or devotees or agents or high priests of capitalism. The master of capitalism is Capital itself.
Understanding this leads e.g. Lenin to explore the relationship between imperialism and capitalism as an inevitability, and Fidel Castro to reject any social-democratic or market-oriented compromises. There's interesting theory out there!
Western leftists tend to not care for, or reject this. They insist on formulas like "new boss, same as the old boss" and "bureaucrats, capitalists, kings, bosses are all the same". We don't like being forced to do things. Which, okay, fair, who does?
They do not see their inability to differentiate between the various forms of hierarchy as a problem, like the "colour-blind who cannot see race" and "humanists who cannot see gender"; aided by poorly-defined terms like "authoritarian" and "totalitarian".
In every case it is privilege declaring that all conflict can be understood best, or only, through its own experience.
However, not understanding that not all hierarchies are the same, or the true nature of capitalism, means routinely falling for colour revolutions and "Liberate HK" nonsense. It means hoping Empire Does Good For Once in Rojava.
Theory without practice may be borderline navel-gazing, but practice without theory leads to tragic waste of effort, jadedness, self-sabotage, and perhaps worst of all, failure.
Some good reads:
Lenin: Anarchism and Socialism (1901)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/dec/31.htm
Lenin: Anarchism and Socialism (1901)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/dec/31.htm
Lenin: Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm
Parenti: Left Anticommunism, the Unkindest Cut https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/10/06/left-anticommunism-the-unkindest-cut/
Tarzie: White Supremacy and Magic Paper (on "Free Speech Absolutism") https://ohtarzie.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/white-supremacy-and-magic-paper/
Gowans: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised… Nor Will It Be Brought To You By Russell Brand, Oliver Stone Or Noam Chomsky https://gowans.blog/2013/11/09/the-revolution-will-not-be-televised-nor-will-it-be-brought-to-you-by-russell-brand-oliver-stone-or-noam-chomsky/
Mandela on Gaddafi and Castro
Malcolm X on the CBC
Prashad: What is the Meaning of the Left?
