Best examples of anarchist economic theory and proposals

Good thread. I've noticed in past libcom discussions, a couple people saying that anarchism (at least in its communist form) cannot have an economic system, because economics is about managing scarce resources and communism is the abolition of scarcity. Therefore, if coming from an anarcho-communist perspective, we should never speak of anarchist economics.

To me it seems like a bad idea. It's already hard enough to communicate anarchist views to people who don't yet agree. If someone is curious about anarchist economics and we have to say "Actually there will be no economics" we just will confuse them, and we make anarchism seem unrealistic.

Also, I don't even know if I agree with the premise. Scarce resources is just a fact of life, communism or not.

double post

"... is helping us develop a more complete understanding of what was attempted in the past, and why it may have failed..."

On my regular internet travels to various American 'progressive' websites i frequently come across articles and comments that are very sympathetic to co-operatives.

I find any criticism of them falls on deaf ears although i keep reminding them that they are not some sort of abstract theoretical critiques but we have near-on 300 years of empirical evidence to study on why they have either failed to bring socialism any closer or supplant the prevailing version of capitalism and remain on the fringes of capitalism, supplying a niche market.

Advocates of coops appear blind because within us all there is the desire to be our own boss, even though it means that the hardest task-masters will be ourselves. ( Also the most demanding employer is frequently the self-made person)

Nevertheless, there exists this romantic emotional attachment to creating and running a co-op that defies any challenge. There may be other reasons for the defensive attitudes but no matter how comradely i counter the enthusiasm for co-ops, in many cases, it becomes treated as a personal affront to their integrity.

Quite old now but we did a long exchange with one of the proponents of 'parecon' nearly a decade ago: http://libcom.org/library/participatory-society-or-libertarian-communism

I think parecon is an example of a bad (almost dystopian) approach to imagining a future society.

The more interesting thing for me is people trying to think through the first six weeks or six months of an insurrection and how existing infrastructure could or could not be used. This is what a lot of Kropotkin's writing was about at the time - questions like how to feed revolutionary Paris in 1905 or whatever.

OOTW on logistics:

https://libcom.org/blog/disaster-communism-part-3-logistics-repurposing-...

AWW's Insurrection and Production: https://libcom.org/blog/insurrection-production-29082016

Michael Albert of Parecon has a new book out
Practical Utopia

I'll let him blow his own horn

https://zcomm.org/zblogs/practical-utopia/

I find that when folks on the Left (or in general) defend firmly entrenched beliefs - such as those advocates of co-operatives - it is often because they have invested so much into it, whether doing research and being convinced that it provides the best path to socialism, or being involved with it on a practical level, or some combination of both. That's how they develop an emotional attachment to such things, which as you say, "defies any challenge". They haven't invested in nearly as much into the history of the labor and socialist movement. Unfortunately, it's not enough to simply remind them of the nearly "300 years of empirical evidence". What I don't see enough from anarchist/libertarian socialists are attempts to develop new ways to encourage people to engage with that history. I mean, it's nice to have critiques of such things, but in addition to that, there is a need to find ways to connect people to that history, and in which how that history is presented isn't an afterthought.

Other defenses of co-ops I've come across involves accusations of sectarianism and "we can do both" type arguments that totally misses the point.

Ever since that debate with libcom, I've almost completely forgotten about him and there's rarely a day when the "practical utopia" of parecon have crossed my mind.

After reviewing this thread, I've noticed no one has provided 'Ideas on Social Organisation', a pamphlet written by James Guillaume. It is definitely not the "best", far from it, but it is one of the earliest economic proposals. I think Guillaume later abandoned this - even collectivism altogether - probably because of how certain aspects of it clearly didn't make sense as well as critiques from anarchist communists.

"...there is a need to find ways to connect people to that history, and in which how that history is presented isn't an afterthought..."

On my exchanges on those US "progressive" websites, i usually offer a link to Eugene Debs, simply to recall a bit of historical perspective for liberals and leftists since he has been moreorless deleted from history, as has most labour events with the exception of the occasional book by Zinn and others.

Yesterday in a comment I linked to https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/s7h546 since it was a new bit of info for me.

With co-ops I think the discussion gets held up on a couple of things.

Co-ops, for some particular types of industry, can be a way for particular groups of workers to improve their conditions under capitalism (either more control over organisation of work, or higher wages, or both). Similarly housing co-ops work for some people to lower the cost of housing compared to private renting or the often inaccessible routes of social housing or getting an individual mortgage.

But they're not always that, here's the Economist of all places singing the praises of co-ops as a way to avoid class conflict: http://libcom.org/library/co-operatives-all-together noting that there are plenty of co-ops with high wage differentials, temporary staff with no stake in the co-op etc.

Then there's co-ops as a way to transform the economy in some kind of socialist direction, I think this comes out of seeing capital as something which involves individual capitalists (who are not present in a co-op) rather than a social relation based on wage labour, the commodity form, private property. Co-ops do nothing to disrupt the latter - the firm is the private property of the co-op members, it pays wages, produces commodities, competes with other firms, same as any other firm.

At a similar time to the Parecon exchange, we also did this one on co-ops, haven't re-read it for a long time, but fwiw: https://libcom.org/library/co-ops-or-conflicts

The Labour Party is floating co-ops recently, so this is becoming a current discussion again in a way. The New Socialist is pro-Corbyn but tends to be a bit more critical than other places. I think the fact that the Labour Party is floating top-down implementation of co-ops to rescue the economy ought to be cautionary for people pushing them as somehow revolutionary:

https://newsocialist.org.uk/labours-alternative-models-of-ownership-repo...

We forgot to mention former Conservative prime minister David Cameron's promotion of the co-op.

https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/cameron-announces-bill-consolidate-coopera...

I feel like a lot of libertarian-communists might disagree with me but I really like Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution by "GIK".

https://libcom.org/library/fundamental-principles-communist-production-g...

I don't agree with everything about their proposal but I think it's important that in a libertarian-communist society we calculate how much time we are generally devoting towards different types of goods and services or "use-values" , how much is available over a certain period to safely be consumed (ie. till the next harvest or shipment of these things) vs. the rate in which we consume those things, or seem to want to consume them.

I think this information, along with lots of other information (ie. how much we want to use scarce or environmentally costly resources) could be used to allow federated workplace and community councils make economic decisions- ie. if a good is in short supply would we be okay switching to producing that thing or is everybody happy the way things are.

Their proposal uses labour-vouchers but even if you disagree with labour-vouchers I think it still has useful information and their proposals could certainly still be used in a society in which all goods and services were free access. I personally believe in some combination of free access, rationing, giving everybody an equal number of credits to purchase different scarce goods and also perhaps extra credits for people who do undesirable or unsafe work.

You might find this essay of interest

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2018/12/socialism-and-calc...

I don't have any actual opinion on the content cos I've not listened to it yet, the Final Straw folk just did an interview with Wayne Price about anarchism and Marxist economics, which might be of interest: https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2020/05/10/wayne-price-on-an...