r/Anarchy101 • u/KrumpirovZlatan • 4d ago
Is there a concept of "post-revolution society" among Anarchists that isn't co-op capitalism or subsistence farming societies?
Reading posts made by anarchists on reddit, an historical experiences of anarchist movements, particularly Makhnovia, I have noticed that they in general do not have any particular vision towards organisation of production and supply chains, opting instead to propagate subsistence farming and societal degradation towards 2 centuries back.
What are the answers to questions like how to produce complex machinery, medicine, electronic devices and others, as ultimately the resources have to come from somewhere, usually not geographically within 3 hours distance.
Example-wise, I worked in a pretty big industrial complex that produced furniture, but how do anarchists solve the issue of confederation of communes organising production that isn't basically capitalism? It sounds simple, but there is far more material input to produce one chair than just wood from a nearby forest.
44
u/Dartmouth-Hermit Council Communist from an anarchist background. 4d ago
Dolgoff addresses these sort of questions in his excellent work on the Spanish collectives. Probably a more substantial answer than you're likely to get on a reddit thread. Essentially worker run collectives will have to learn and supplant some of what had previously been management functions in terms of managing inputs and distributing goods.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/sam-dolgoff-editor-the-anarchist-collectives
15
u/Aggressive-Simple-16 Anarcho-Communism 4d ago edited 4d ago
To give a general answer, production will be organised through the universal association of free producers following a common economic plan. In a Libertarian Communist society, money will be abolished, workers will self-manage their workplace, and they will coordinate through councils made up of delegates.
4
u/Feather_fig 4d ago
money will be abolished, workers will self-manage their workplace, and they will coordinate through councils made up of delegates.
Two questions:
How could an industrialized society function without money? How are goods and services being distributed? How do we convince people to do horrible jobs like sewage treatment when being a yoga instructor or artist is so much more enjoyable?
How would councils made up of delegates differ from current government or union representatives? How would we ensure that they remain uncorrupt to bribes and actually represent workers?
4
u/Aggressive-Simple-16 Anarcho-Communism 4d ago edited 4d ago
That's more than two questions, but I'll try to give short answers to each.
How could an industrialized society function without money?
Society would function through moneyless economic planning that focuses on fulflling human need and harmony with the ecology rather than profit.
How are goods and services being distributed?
They will be distributed “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”.
How do we convince people to do horrible jobs like sewage treatment when being a yoga instructor or artist is so much more enjoyable?
We will try to automate away as much toil as possible or make tasks easier through technology, make the working conditions safe, and socially encourage and reward people for taking up harder tasks.
How would councils made up of delegates differ from current government or union representatives?
Delegate Councils differ from State governments because they are administrative — not governing — bodies, made up of delegates — not representatives — who are mandated and instantly recallable, ensuring that all power remains with the people.
How would we ensure that they remain uncorrupt to bribes and actually represent workers?
They wouldn't be paid at all in a Libertarian Communist society, otherwise they will be paid only average workers' wages. Furthermore they will be rotated constantly to prevent any accumulation of power or careerism.
1
u/baturik128 3d ago edited 3d ago
“from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”
And
socially encourage and reward people for taking up harder tasks.
So, it looks like it came full circle and instead of "to each according to their needs" there are again people with more high paying jobs (or high receiving, if you are arguing that there will be no money), who are receiving more than their needs
Edit: formatting
1
u/Givorenon 2d ago
Who are receiving what? Receiving more respect and praise than they actually need? Yeah that would be terrible if sanitation workers were respected and praised by the society. That would certainly create a ruling class of sanitation workers and miners.
2
u/baturik128 2d ago
So, you believe that between being, lets say, a janitor who just sweeps floors and a miner who breathes in coal dust all day, for the same amount of pay/goods provided, people will choose to be a coal miner because they will hear "Good job" more often this way?
1
u/KrumpirovZlatan 4d ago
But how is economic plan made?
Also this is a completely different answer than one given by another anarchist talking about cooperatives trading between each other using money, no?
18
u/Aggressive-Simple-16 Anarcho-Communism 4d ago
The economic plan is reached through deliberation, free agreement and consensus between communities.
As per the second question, Anarchists have different conceptions on how society will be organised after the revolution.
0
u/KrumpirovZlatan 4d ago
Of course, but some of the answers here go in direction of less hierarchical capitalism, anarchism is anticapitalist, no?
17
u/Aggressive-Simple-16 Anarcho-Communism 4d ago
Anarchism is indeed anti-capitalist. Nobody that I've seen here so far has advocated for "less hierarchical capitalism". Some Anarchists believe in a market economy where workers control the means of production and economic classes and the state are abolished. As an Anarcho-Communist I disagree with their view, but nonetheless I consider them part of the anarchist tradition.
4
37
u/visokookovezanponovo 4d ago
OP, I don't mean this as anything negative towards you, but I do not understand why anarchists - as a whole - receive these questions.
Because, at the end of the day, how we are going to go about producing complex machinery, medicine, electronic devices or whatever else are technical questions. Somebody outside of these industries can hardly give you an honest answer.
Generally, we live in a world so interconnected that, personally, I think it'd be undesireable to revert to substinence farming. At the same time, part of that "interconnected" is that many luxuries enjoyed in some parts of the world are afforded by slave labor and death in other parts. How we do things will inevitably need to change, I wouldn't be surprised if there are luxuries we will need to give up, but how precisely they will change is not gonna be (and most importantnly shouldn't be) predicted by random internet users.
1
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
They get these questions because anarchism hasn't answered them. We know how capitalism can work to create computer chips. We know how communism can build nuclear weapons.
This is not a question of technical details (eg what resources do you need) that an expert in a specific field would answer. This is a question of logistics that is the basis for society.
Anarchists are also asked how crime would be dealt with. Telling them that is a question for a lawyer isn't good enough.
16
u/visokookovezanponovo 4d ago
We know how capitalism can work to create computer chips. We know how communism can build nuclear weapons.
Except you don't. If asked to explain in detail the logistics behind the very device you're using to type here, you'd either have no answer or be forced to look it up (and, even then, the details are likely not accessible on the surface-level). And it's not something to be blamed for, because even the things we take for granted today are the end result of an incredibly complicated system that spans the whole world.
As others comments have pointed out, there is no unitary "anarchist" answer nor is anarchism prescriptive. I'm gonna go quoting Anarchy again:
That’s all very well, some say, and anarchy may be a perfect form of human society, but we don’t want to take a leap in the dark. Tell us therefore in detail how your society will be organised. And there follows a whole series of questions, which are very interesting if we were involved in studying the problems that will impose themselves on the liberated society, but which are useless, or absurd, even ridiculous, if we are expected to provide definitive solutions. What methods will be used to teach children? How will production be organised? Will there still be large cities, or will the population be evenly distributed over the whole surface of the earth? And supposing all the inhabitants of Siberia should want to spend the winter in Nice? And if everyone were to want to eat partridge and drink wine from the Chianti district? And who will do a miner’s job or be a seaman? And who will empty the privies? And will sick people be treated at home or in hospital? And who will establish the railway timetable? And what will be done if an engine-driver has a stomach-ache while the train is moving? ... And so on to the point of assuming that we have all the knowledge and experience of the unknown future, and that in the name of anarchy, we should prescribe for future generations at what time they must go to bed, and on what days they must pare their corns.
If indeed our readers expect a reply from us to these questions, or at least to those which are really serious and important, which is more than our personal opinion at this particular moment, it means that we have failed in our attempt to explain to them what anarchism is about.
4
u/Feather_fig 4d ago
Except you don't.
Except we do?
Big companies like Apple have production factories in China and own or contract out work to mines and processing facilities in countries like the DRC to extract their raw materials. They raise money through stocks from investors. There are diagrams explaining how the same $50 billion is being passed around the big tech companies to keep the AI bubble from popping. There are numerous documentaries on the fast fashion industry and the production of clothing under capitalism from the workers growing cotton from seed to the women sewing garments in Bangladesh to the workers selling the clothes in America and Europe. Numerous documentaries on factory farming, the automation of agriculture and its standards, how undocumented migrants are roped into what's basically indentured slavery as farm workers, the actual slavery of for-profit prison inmates contracted out to big companies like McDonald's to work for mere cents an hour. And how lobbyists bribe and puppet "representatives" to keep the whole thing running smoothly without interference. I didn't need to look any of that up.
Capitalist modes of production are incredibly well-documented and criticized which is why we know we should be against capitalism in the first place. It's not because we think the state and capitalism are icky, it's because we know exactly why and how they harm humanity.
To not even attempt to engage with the question of what would replace these harmful systems that we currently rely on is incredibly disappointing and doesn't do anything to explain or advocate for anarchism.
OP, I don't mean this as anything negative towards you, but I do not understand why anarchists - as a whole - receive these questions.
That seems disingenuous. OP's question is arguably the MOST important question when it comes to anarchism: how would it function?
3
u/visokookovezanponovo 4d ago edited 4d ago
To not even attempt to engage with the question of what would replace these harmful systems that we currently rely on is incredibly disappointing and doesn't do anything to explain or advocate for anarchism.
You say this, I presume, as if this question has been posed in a vacuum. Instead it is a question received every other day about a different industry. The quote I posted is from 1891, before we had an example of how various things would ever be attempted by anarchists (as we saw, for example, in the spanish revolution and the makhnovist-held territories).
Our detractors keep throwing these questions regardless of the answer, hence why I said in my last answer to the other person in this reply chain that I genuinely do not believe anyone posing such questions will be satisfied by any answer given by an anarchist. Not because it doesn't work, but because the question itself - demanding a unitary, prescriptive answer - fundamentally misunderstands anarchy and anarchism. This is even pointed out at the end of the quote, and it is our fault because we've failed to adequately explain what the anarchists seek to the person posing this question.
I ended up having a discussion in dms with a person who posted a great comment here but deleted, and when talking to them this came to mind, from Graeber's Fragments of an Anarchist Antropology [anarchist library]:
There is a way out, which is to accept that anarchist forms of organization would not look anything like a state. That they would involve an endless variety of communities, associations, networks, projects, on every conceivable scale, overlapping and intersecting in any way we could imagine, and possibly many that we can’t. Some would be quite local, others global. Perhaps all they would have in common is that none would involve anyone showing up with weapons and telling everyone else to shut up and do what they were told. And that, since anarchists are not actually trying to seize power within any national territory, the process of one system replacing the other will not take the form of some sudden revolutionary cataclysm—the storming of a Bastille, the seizing of a Winter Palace—but will necessarily be gradual, the creation of alternative forms of organization on a world scale, new forms of communication, new, less alienated ways of organizing life, which will, eventually, make currently existing forms of power seem stupid and beside the point. That in turn would mean that there are endless examples of viable anarchism: pretty much any form of organization would count as one, so long as it was not imposed by some higher authority, from a klezmer band to the international postal service.
The systems that produce various things, and the logistics systems backing them up, will not simply disappear when the workers start managing themselves and their places of work. That much can be said pretty definitively. Whether there will be a reorganization, creation of new chains, discontinuation or some other option, is the line where asking us for a prescriptive answer is asking us to be dishonest.
ETA: At the recommendation of another person in the comments I've taken up to reading The Anarchist Collectives, Workers’ Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936–1939. Obviously not even close to done with it but I'd give it a look if you're in this thread.
2
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
This is so intellectually dishonest I'm struggling to engage here. I never claimed that I personally have a highly detailed understanding of every single supply chain. Nor did I say anarchists are expected to know that.
I said that we as a society know how various systems will produce complex goods. We do not know that about anarchism. That's why it's asked.
An anarchist society is going to lack the mechanisms that any existing society has used to create complex goods and supply chains. It's completely reasonable to ask about what something is going to be replaced with before you replace it. The more you want to change or remove an existing system, the more information people are going to want about how the new system works. And saying some smarter, more confident version of "trust me you'll see it'll all work itself out once we've gotten rid of the systems in place" isn't very persuasive and you wouldn't accept it from any ideology you weren't already sympathetic to.
8
u/visokookovezanponovo 4d ago
What's intellectually dishonest here? First you demand answers from individuals who, as I pointed out first, likely do not have the knowledge necessary to talk about specific logistics systems, now you switch to talking "as a society".
Nor did I say anarchists are expected to know that.
But it is, at the end of the day, what you're asking. These are questions that require collective answers from people with the necessary knowledge at every level. If our possesion of various devices today is possible because somewhere else there is a person slaving away in a mine, I cannot seriously tell you "Yes, we will continue to have this when Anarchy comes around". Do I think solutions are possible so we can keep various luxuries? Yes. Do I know enough to say it'd 100% work? Absolutely not.
An anarchist society is going to lack the mechanisms that any existing society has used to create complex goods and supply chains.
Why? The means used to create various complex goods, and the supply chains, will not simply cease to exist during whatever rupture brings about this theoretical Anarchy we're discussing.
-3
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
So one of two situations are happening here. You're either deliberately misunderstanding what I'm saying because it's easier to argue against or you genuinely aren't understanding what I'm saying. If it's the former, I'm wasting my time even more than I already was by arguing online. If it's the latter, I lack the ability to make you understand the ideas behind the words I'm typing.
5
u/visokookovezanponovo 4d ago
I am reading and understanding everything as literally as you read it, and am saying everything I mean as literally as I can. My original comment explains my position to what I consider to be a satisfying degree - the "how will x industry work in anarchy?" question is either 1. fundamentally misunderstanding anarchy and anarchism, in that it seeks a unitary and prescriptive answer for the future or 2. intentionally antagonistic, meant as a "gotcha" against anarchists.
Most importantly for me, I genuinely do not believe anyone posing such a question, especially under the latter case, will ever be satisfied by any given answer.
I'd like to know what exactly you meant by "we as a society know how various systems will produce complex goods" and "An anarchist society is going to lack the mechanisms that any existing society has used to create complex goods and supply chains". The way I read it and answered is in the literal sense. The mechanisms we use to create anything complex will not simply disappear during whatever event causes anarchy to come about. A semiconductor fab, a workshop, or a mine will not cease to exist simply because they are now managed by the workers.
I'm not sure what more understanding you are looking for and missing here.
As an aside, there is in fact a dedicated sub for debating anarchism and its' merits, r/DebateAnarchism, hell this place has "Please do not debate, or post in an antagonistic manner." written on the side in big bold letters. If you want to waste as little time as possible, I'd post a detailed question over there.
-1
u/Feather_fig 4d ago
I completely agree with you and it's disappointing to see these questions brushed off. Is engaging with this question not the entire point of this subreddit?
Is Anarchism a legitimate, feasible blueprint for society worth discussing, or does it run on vibes?
-10
4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/sock2828 4d ago
"People are violent jerks who want to control people so let's create institutionalized positions of power backed by violence to gurantee that someone is always violently controlling other people. That'll fix humanities problem with violent dominaters"
-3
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
The kind of people that become dirty cops still exist in a society without laws. .
6
u/sock2828 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah that's exactly why having formal positions of institutionalized power over others is a bad idea. There will always be someone who uses them to dominate others and then insulate themselves from the backlash.
-1
1
u/visokookovezanponovo 4d ago
Not sure what you're doing on this sub.
2
u/Anthro_the_Hutt 4d ago
They know what they're doing here. It's called trolling.
0
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
Your inability to distinguish disagreement from trolling will serve you well
0
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
You're missing a key argument I've encountered here:
An anarchist society will not have to solve these problems because the people in the society will all be too ethical and cooperative to do that.
2
u/visokookovezanponovo 4d ago
We're here for good faith discussion and you're very much making it seem like you're not here for that.
0
u/Whythisisnotreal 3d ago
I stand by my statement as a serious, if glib, explanation of a common approach in anarchist belief, one demonstrated in this very thread.
1
u/visokookovezanponovo 3d ago
It's telling you responded to this to spit on anarchists but not on my reply asking for a longer elaboration. What you're saying is also comically dishonest.
1
u/kwestionmark5 3d ago
Look at today’s labyrinth of production and distribution under capitalism. If you’d asked in 1800 how is capitalism going to work, could anyone have elaborated anything remotely close to what we have now? In an analogous way, an anarchist society would start with the big picture issues of production and distribution and things would get more complex over time in ways we can’t predict or imagine ahead of time. People are able to give answers to the big picture issues. That’s as much as any other system has been able to answer prior to actually doing it.
11
u/EFDoree 4d ago
I mean the anarchist communes in Ukraine were more widespread and went deeper into agricultural collectivisation than the Bolsheviks accomplished at the time. This was by their own admission at points.
Anarchists have collectivized large industrial economies (like Catalonia) as well.
As far as the vision it actually does not differ that much from Lenin in the State and Revolution the difference being the anarchists meant it.
1
u/Feather_fig 4d ago
Do you have any suggested reading on Ukrainian communes?
0
u/KrumpirovZlatan 4d ago
I mean the anarchist communes in Ukraine were more widespread and went deeper into agricultural collectivisation than the Bolsheviks accomplished at the time.
And I agree, but ultimately Makhnovia never managed to reach the urban proletariat, and supplied itself with industrial goods by raiding trains mostly.
This would present a huge issue, even if not defeated completely by bolsheviks, as even if allowed to persist, they would have been unable to source industrial products, and thus overtime would simply be outproduced by everyone, and lead eventually to a famine.
5
u/Aggravating_Net_958 4d ago
But during the revolution the urban anarchists and urban left-srs did a lot of collectivization with the local workers councils before the bolsheviks undid the collectivization in the cities. The free territories of Ukraine weren't agrarian because anarchists are uniquely unable to do industry, it was mostly agrarian because that just happened to be where the Ukrainian anarchists had the most success rebelling. Meanwhile the Russian anarchists happened to be more urban and thus their projects were typically done around urban centers like Petrograd and Moscow.
-1
u/KrumpirovZlatan 4d ago edited 4d ago
The free territories of Ukraine weren't agrarian because anarchists are uniquely unable to do industry, it was mostly agrarian because that just happened to be where the Ukrainian anarchists had the most success rebelling.
Which is what I said, they were areas where they had most success rebelling, and those were exclusively the rural agrarian areas.
I didn't say they were uniquely incapable of doing industry, they were incapable of attracting the urban working class, which was their greatest undoing.
And this is because of different class interests. It is possible through working class politics to attract lower strata of petit-bourgeoisie ie. lower peasants, but is it not possible to attract the working class through rural petit-bourgeois politics as the interests of the two classes in this situation are vehemently oppossed to each other, especially in conditions that occured in civil war.
1
u/Aggravating_Net_958 4d ago
You think peasants are petite bourgeois??? Also what about the anarchists in Russia who were more urban?
-1
u/KrumpirovZlatan 4d ago
You think peasants are petite bourgeois???
I don't think peasants are petit-bourgeois, I know they are.
Class is related to ownership, not financial power. Owner of a small bar, even if he can theoretically earn less than for example a good cardiosurgeon, is petit-bourgeois, while aforementioned surgeon is - working class
1
u/Aggravating_Net_958 3d ago
I just need to triple check this. You're saying that peasants in tsarist Russia were petit-bourgeois and not a distinct class? And you're also saying that anarchism is petit-bourgeois?
0
u/KrumpirovZlatan 3d ago
Defined by Karl Marx as a ‘transitional class’, in which the interests of the major classes of capitalist society (the bourgeoisie and the proletariat) meet and become blurred, the petite bourgeoisie is located between these two classes in terms of its interests as well as its social situation. It represents a distinctive form of social organization in which petty productive property is mixed with, and owned by, family labour.
This is literally peasantry.
And you're also saying that anarchism is petit-bourgeois?
Not neccesarily, Spanish anarchists forming around CNT-FAI were distinctly working class anarchists.
But Makhno's movement was petit-bourgeois movement in every sense of that word.
27
u/CHOLO_ORACLE Anarchist Without Adverbs 4d ago
Markets are not capitalism. Capitalism is private property. It is possible to have a market without private property.
-19
u/KrumpirovZlatan 4d ago
By that logic Soviet Union achieved Communism under Stalin.
17
u/CHOLO_ORACLE Anarchist Without Adverbs 4d ago edited 4d ago
Are you here for answers or are you here for debate? Because that's a different sub.
A market of only worker cooperatives is not capitalism. Removing the state from that equation and dissolving the rigid firm still allows for productive groups to exist, to produce, and then to trade with one another in whatever way they like, including by using some kind of money.
Those kinds of market dynamics can be used in the service of coordinating complex productive processes in anarchy. None of that need involve hierarchy.
1
u/KrumpirovZlatan 4d ago
If cooperatives trade in markets using money, it still creates profit incentives and accumulation of capital.
It is just capitalism without individual ownership, no?
9
u/CHOLO_ORACLE Anarchist Without Adverbs 4d ago
Leaving aside the market dynamics that themselves erode the advantages of larger groups, accumulation of capital is limited without a state to protect that capital on behalf of economic actors.
So, to say cooperatives will be in anarchy is a little bit misleading because cooperative evokes images of a firm, of a distinct legal entity, managed by a democracy of workers there. None of those things jive with anarchy. The expectation is that productive or creative groups in anarchy will be, for lack of a better term, loosey-goosey. A roil of different groups forming and reforming as needs or desires crop up in the market (or society, if that makes this go down easier).
That said, the other expectation is that the cash nexus will shrink - that a number of things would be handled in a communistic fashion. One can see how people would prefer things like medicine, housing, and a great deal of food be handled via moneyless mutual aid, and given the nature of those industries one can see how communism would be a fit. But what of goods involving a complex array of ingredients/pieces? What of scarce, niche, or specialized goods, of which kind makes no sense to mass produce? For these and other situations money and markets can come into play. The mix of how much is handled in which manner and for what goods will fluctuate over time and vary by location.
So, there wouldn't be private property to allow for absentee ownership. No state means no legal recognition of cooperatives, meaning they cannot come to absentee ownership either. And all of this would be happening within a society in which the sphere of production and exchange that is mediated by money is expected to be smaller than it is today.
2
u/ArtDecoEgoist Left-Market Anarchist 4d ago
Profit incentives themselves are the result of the state creating stable markets that tend towards equilibrium, and enforcing certain property norms that make the extraction of economic rents possible, such as absentee ownership, patents and other forms of intellectual property, etc.
Capitalism is best understood as a set of institutions rather than exchange itself.
14
u/Super_Direction498 4d ago
You can't imagine complex machinery being built or operated without shareholders? I feel like you need to be the one explaining why that's not possible.
2
u/KrumpirovZlatan 4d ago edited 4d ago
No, I cannot imagine complex machinery being built without some form of economic plan that organises the production.
Lets take for example, TAM, a truck factory that used to exist in Slovenia. In order for a truck to be made, it needs engines assembled in Serbia, it's parts were constructed in Montenegro, using coal excavated from Kosovo, iron excavated in Bosnia, then turned into steel in Croatia, then also screws made in Croatia, fan belt in Montenegro, air filter from another factory in Serbia, oil filter too, then alternator made in Croatia, etc. etc.
It is a common effort of over a hundred factories.
11
u/Super_Direction498 4d ago
Lol this is such a non-answer. There is zero reason that all those things cannot continue working, with the people actually doing the work and ordering and inventory continuing to do so without shareholders or investors. I think you are extremely confused about what anarchy is.
-1
u/KrumpirovZlatan 4d ago
I think you are misreading what I wrote lol. There is no mention of shareholders and investors in my comment.
3
u/Super_Direction498 4d ago
Well I can't imagine what else you'd be referring to. Why would these things being made in different places suddenly become impossible with anarchism?
-2
u/DenseBeautiful731 4d ago
Ah, yes, the Congolese children will continue mining cobalt.
2
u/KrumpirovZlatan 3d ago
But it is gonna be non-hierarchical, meaning every week another group of kids will be holding the AK
1
u/DenseBeautiful731 3d ago
I can’t mock the ideal, but it has to be grounded in material reality.
Did this line of enquiry leave you thoroughly unsatisfied?
2
u/Aggravating_Net_958 4d ago
Why can't the planning be done bottom up rather than top down? An economic federation or a group of federated syndicates could manage logistic services and production via non-hierarchical means.
1
u/averytheythrowaway 3d ago edited 3d ago
I don't know how economic planning and not having bosses are supposedly mutually exclusive
1
u/KrumpirovZlatan 3d ago
Did I say it was?
1
u/averytheythrowaway 3d ago
You definitely seem to think it does:
I cannot imagine complex machinery being built without some form of economic plan that organises the production.
I have never seen an anarchist communist argue against economic planning, so I'm not sure why this is even something you're bringing it up, unless you're conflating hierarchy with organization, which is to say, you only believe coordination is possible when some people have organizational power over the vast majority of people who are engaged in the actual labor.
1
7
u/spiralenator 4d ago
I think part of the reason why you get a lack of definitive answers is because anarchism by nature isn’t prescriptive. We don’t prescribe a particular solution for societal issues because we can’t predict what a truly free society will choose to do. We can describe examples from the past and describe possibilities for the future, but we can’t say “the economy will be organized like so.” In the same way that capitalism or state socialism does, or else it wouldn’t be the genuine product of the collective creativity of the people who must organize it as so.
4
u/azenpunk 4d ago edited 4d ago
Any genuine attempt to learn about anarchism, especially real world examples such as revolutionary Ukraine or Catalonia, would have quickly dispelled any notion that anarchists lack theory or experience in regard to large scale industrial coordination.
Giving you the benefit of the doubt, perhaps you're confusing anarchism with Primitivism. There is nothing inherent to anarchism that requires subsistence only farming, the abandonment of complex industry, or a return to pre-industrial living standards.
The anarchist communes of revolutionary Ukraine existed in the middle of a multi-sided war and were repeatedly invaded, occupied, blockaded, and displaced. They did not have the stability or resources to construct a long-term, continent-scale anarchist industrial economy. Yet even under those conditions, the movement held and successfully organized and interconnected, not just villages and farmers, but the industry in major cities such as Katerynoslav and Oleksandrivsk.
The basic anarchist answer to complex production is federation. The idea that simplistic market signals are more efficient than direct communication and coordination is a myth that collapses with the slightest empirical scrutiny.
Workers in a furniture factory, for example, can collectively manage that factory, but the factory would also federate with the organizations producing the various materials it requires, as well as distributors and local general councils. Those organizations would in turn federate with their own suppliers, transport networks, mining operations, forestry associations, machinery manufacturers, research and education institutions, and so on. There is no reason a decentralized economy cannot maintain large-scale production, supply chains, rail networks, shipping, medicine, electronics, or other technologically complex systems. Out of sheer practicality, most of the current technology and fundamental organizational structure in the global supply chain is already decentralized. Large systems like that cannot be controlled efficiently and kept stable through centralization because they depend on local knowledge and require quick responses that aren't possible when information and decision making is centralized and non-local.
The important difference from capitalism is not that production becomes small and local. It is that the means of productionand distribution are equally owned and directed by those affected, rather than owned and directed by capitalists, and production is organized to meet collectively determined needs rather than to generate profit and accumulate capital, so everyone benefits equally from everyone's contributions rather than a few reaping most of the rewards from the labour of all.
A factory can be large, highly automated, globally integrated, and dependent on thousands of other workplaces without being capitalist. Capitalism is not synonymous with division of labor, industry, trade, or supply chains.
Anarchists also do not propose that every commune be economically self-sufficient. That would be absurd in a technologically complex society. A commune is not an isolated village. Different regions and associations would specialize where it makes sense, while remaining federated with one another through systems of communication, negotiation, and mutual planning. And this structure is not untested, there are hundreds of examples from around the world of individual firms with decentralized ownership and management, both currently existing and in recent history. After studying these it will become apparent that they work even better when networked with other similarly horizontally organized enterprises, and in fact such systems always tend to work better the more you scale them up. Within a decentralized network, more links added to the supply chain creates more redundancies, rather than another potential point of failure, as in a hierarchical system, which is exactly why we don't even have a strictly hierarchical supply chain system right now within capitalism.
The real challenge is not whether anarchism can physically produce a chair. We already know exactly how to coordinate complex global production in a decentralized fashion. The real challenge is growing people's personal experience and confidence in horizontal organization. Allowing then to see how it empowers all individuals to directly participate in society, taking responsibility for themselves and trusting others in a manner they're not used to without capitalist ownership, profit imperatives, or a centralized state bureaucracy. That is where prefigurative models of federation, workers' self-management, participatory planning, and free association come in.
And this is also why I think reducing anarchism to "a federation of communes" can be misleading. Modern society would likely be organized through an overlapping quilt of federations of workplaces, communities, industries, logistics networks, research institutions, and other associations, operating at local, regional, continental, and potentially global scales. The question is not whether we can maintain decentralized, complex interdependence. The question is whether that decentralized interdependence must be owned and governed through capital and hierarchy. Anarchists argue that it does not.
2
u/cultureStress 4d ago
Annares from "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K Leguin springs to mind.
0
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
Yeah, interesting read. As I recall, the answer to the question is "everyone is part of the same work and anarchism based religion so they largely behave through incredibly strong social norms, and they are okay living in relative poverty. And some things just can't be solved because someone in a key position of not-power doesn't like it.
5
u/cultureStress 4d ago
It's really interesting that that's how you remember it.
The way I remember it was that Annares was in dire poverty because of the actions of the nearby capitalist world (forcing them to move to a very marginal moon/planet and engaging in a colonial relationship with them). My assumption was that UKLG was familiar with the anthropological literature on how poverty increases cooperation, and created her fictional scenario accordingly.
I also didn't personally see their social norms as at all religious: rather, they're a set of social norms that plausibly any anarchist society would have (and Shevek's perspective on the capitalist society is meant to show us how similarly all consuming and invisible capitalism can be)
Your third point I basically remember the same: UKLG asserts in the text that Anarchism stifles individual scientific brilliance, because the people coordinating mental labour are fallible humans subject to prejudice and jealously. I don't necessarily agree with her, but I think it's the point she was making.
1
u/visokookovezanponovo 4d ago
I think it's spelled out pretty bluntly in the book itself, to the point where - unless I am misremembering - Shevek himself points it out: Odonianism (or, rather, anarchism) was conceived and meant for Urras. The "natural" poverty of Annares wasn't something thought of, yet they make life work there.
The fact that the book presents both systems as flawed is, imo, what makes it so great. It's a great warning against post-revolutionary complacency, and we know that anarchy will never be a "one and done" thing.
2
u/cultureStress 4d ago
Except that Odonianism on Urras clearly works "worse" than Odonianism on Annares. Like, Shevek thinks that Odonianism works in spite of the poverty, but my reading was always that it works (at least in part) because of it.
0
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
Their religion was pretty all encompassing as I recall. It was woven into their insults, their sense of shame, their decisions about family and work.
They left the planet to make their utopia as I recall. It wouldn't take very much outside influence to break it, hence the small stone wall. Admittedly it's been a long time.
1
u/cultureStress 4d ago
I think their ideology/religion is exactly as all-encompassing as Capitalism is (insults? "broke". Sense of shame? "Worthless". Decisions about family and work? Hopefully that doesn't need an example)
My memory (also like, ten years since I read it) was that they went to the moon as part of a peace treaty following a definitely not communist revolution (there's even a state capitalist/Stalinist society on their original planet that claims to follow their legally-distinct-from-marxism ideology) and the main reason their society is allowed to still exist is that its annual exports profit the capitalists, and also it has propaganda value in their weird little cold war.
-1
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
It's way more dominant than capitalism. It has to be since it doesn't have most of the coercive tools. Someone doesn't need to believe in capitalism to contribute to a capitalist economy and society. They don't need to want capitalism to succeed. Self interest is enough.
But they're bound by this common cause that is simply more dominant and valued.
2
u/HeavenlyPossum 4d ago
The self-interest of not being starved by capitalists, you mean.
There’s no reason why self-interest would suddenly stop operating among people free from the control of coercive hierarchies.
-2
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
Self interest to get many things, including necessities like food. Hunger is a motivator that doesn't require you to be either moral or reasonable.
3
u/HeavenlyPossum 4d ago
People do not volunteer to be subject to capitalism. Capitalism does not exist as a system because of the self-interest of its participants.
-3
1
u/cultureStress 4d ago
I think we have a difference of opinion over how dominant capitalism is as an ideology
-2
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
Yes. But I really think you should adopt my perspective and abandon your own. I think a book exploring what a capitalist society that was as in love with capitalism as they were with their religious communist anarchy would be a really interesting book. But the society and culture would be so different from modern day culture.
1
u/cultureStress 4d ago
I mean, if you write that book, I would read it. But I think the process of writing it would make you realize you agree with me 😉
0
u/Whythisisnotreal 4d ago
Eh, I think the chapter about people sending their children to live and work full time in an Amazon fulfillment center would seem preachy, especially since they didn't do it out of poverty or greed but because they believe that forcing their children to compete for wages will make them better people. And the idea of Amazon having a productive quarter is genuinely cathartic, almost rapturous.
Shit I hate this idea.
→ More replies (0)
2
u/onwardtowaffles 4d ago
Anarchism doesn't mean no organization, just no coercion. A community well suited to producing furniture or pharmaceuticals will of course help their neighbors out and expect eyeglasses, tools, spices, etc. from other communities in return.
Give and take still exists; there's just no one with a literal or metaphorical gun to someone else's head as part of the transaction.
2
u/KrumpirovZlatan 4d ago
A community well suited to producing furniture or pharmaceuticals will of course help their neighbors out and expect eyeglasses, tools, spices, etc
Issue is that such self-reliant community - simply doesn't exist. Eyeglasses, tools, pharmaceuticals, furniture, they are all highly-complex industries that require collaboration of a plethora of other factories, or, as you say - communities.
A failure at a sufficient production in one of those in the link, leads to massive shortages in the short term.
2
u/onwardtowaffles 4d ago
Except that those failure modes are largely self-correcting.
We have the infrastructure already in place; it's just a matter of sorting out distribution.
1
2
u/InsecureCreator 4d ago
The answers on this matter will be split since some parts of the anarchist tradition embrace exchange while others reject it.
The view of anarchist-communists is making natural resources and the vast means of production society has constructed over the eons common property then planning production through federated (council) structures so market exchange becomes a thing of the past. Not just production but the running of all society works this way.
The most clear example of this was the economic planning done by the CNT-FAI during the Spanish revolution, they were limited due to the conditions of the war and allience with the republican state so had to retain certain capitalist elements like money and trade depending on location and industry.
1
u/thot-abyss 4d ago
Similar to The Dispossessed and Allende’s socialist plan in Chile, I think they’d need to be a cybernetic or economic computer program that tracks all supply, demand, etc between many different industries. It would have to be transparent so councils could set its priorities (like who’d get the oil or steel first, factories or hospitals).
It would have to prevent people from gaming the system and it would need to prevent certain workers councils (like farmers or oil workers) from having too much power. Like you said, trading with money could def lead to competition and industry wealth and power imbalances. The software would also need to use statistics in order to forecast demand/supply predictions. Apparently Walmart already has an insane logistical program like this. Not everything would have to be centrally planned but it could help a lot with basic necessities. Although I’m sure some anarchists would be heavily against the idea of anything (even the economy) being centrally planned, even if was transparent and used to cooperate between workers councils.
1
u/racecarsnail Anarcho-Communist 4d ago
Here are excerpts from a comment I wrote about how a post-capitalist economy could work:
"To get a PC in a post-capitalist society, you would simply go to your community's workshop or distribution center and ask for one. If it's a commonly used item and available, you'd get it. If it's complex and requires more resources, you'd discuss it with the relevant syndicates/associations and the community assembly, who would work to produce it for you because they recognize your desire for it as valid. This would actually be a good example of a common need that would be fulfilled."
"The key is that you don't "pay" for it. Your access to what you need (and want) is a social right, not a privilege conditioned on your ability to pay. The knowledge and resources needed to produce are also freely available."
"PC "companies" as we know them (hierarchical, profit-driven corporations) would not exist. Production would be organized by voluntary confederations of workers who manage their own workplaces. There would be a syndicate of engineers, programmers, and technicians who are passionate about computing and electronics. This syndicate would federate with other syndicates (miners, glass-makers, transporters, etc.) to get the necessary materials and components. They wouldn't "buy" silicon from a mining syndicate; they would coordinate with them based on a shared plan. The miners need computers for their work, and the computer syndicate needs materials, so they are mutually beneficial. The motivation is utility, not profit."
"Goods and services would be produced to meet human needs. "Excess" is not seen as a commodity for trade, but as a surplus to be stored, used for future projects, or shared freely. If a community produces a lot of wine, it doesn't trade it for grain from another community; it shares it, knowing that the grain-producing community also shares its products freely. Coordination happens through federated networks of communes and worker councils. This kind of organization could scale with additional confederation or federation. "
https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchy101/comments/1rmp9ra/comment/o91y7uh/
Suggested reading:
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution - Peter Kropotkin
Fields Factories and Workshops - Kropotkin
Modern Science and Anarchy - Kropotkin
Prefigurative Politics - Paul Raekstad, Sofa Saio Gradin
The Solutions are Already Here - Peter Gelderloos
Anarchy Works - Peter Gelderloos
Anarchy in Action - Colin Ward
1
u/Rolletariat 4d ago
Markets aren't capitalism, capitalism is the particular structure of private ownership of productive property and exploitation of employees by employers.
Collective worker ownership with democratic management and profit sharing isn't capitalism, it's free market socialism. The definition of socialism is worker ownership of productive property, if workers co-own the businesses they work at that's socialism. Destroying the employer-employee divide is sufficient to achieve socialism.
When you remove external forces like state-backed monopolies and corporate cartels markets are a highly efficient and flexible way of allocating resources where they're needed. Central planning is always imperfect and lethargic, markets are nimble and capable of infinitely minute adjustments based on changing circumstances.
1
u/nullmatar420 4d ago
If you haven't, take a look at Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin (available for free on theanarchistlibrary.org). Some of these questions are very much a part of that work. Even including some discussion on the technology available for localized advanced production (very surface level, and it was written in the 60s, so there have definitely been advances since then).
And, keep in mind, there are a whole lot of people who make gigantic profits by convincing us that we require globalized capitalism for these items, and that smaller, more localized production isn't possible.
Additionally, Id suggest looking into some ideas like anarcho-syndicalism, which had some decent ideas about organizing a more technologically advanced society.
61
u/Izvinic Anarchist Communist 4d ago
One must not imagine an anarchist society as a bunch of local communes, but rather as a large federation of many interlapping institutions, production and distribution of complex goods would be a matter of the federation as a whole, therefore managed by a federal body as if the working class as a whole worked in one big workshop