Is LibCom voluntary?

Er, learning about it. If that's ok with you?

Others on here have told me that this isn't about good guys and bad guys so what's with the 'rich bastards' whos live's are 'worthless'. If you have a prejudice against rich people fair enough but don't kid yourself that it serves any purpose or that it's part of communist ideology.
You imply that the rich are lazy which shows that you know fuck all about the rich. My company's clients are very rich and they all seem to work themselves into the ground. They do far more hours than I do. Why, I couldn't tell you - if I had enough money to live a life of luxury ten times over I sure as hell wouldn't be doing it!
Maybe you mean manual work? Well what's so worthy about manual work? One of the things that makes communism attractive to me is the fact that there will be LESS WORK to do.

As for the student comment - I could say I was drawing parallels between the lack of 'real work' carried out by capitalists, managers etc and students, but the truth is, in the interests of maintaining the balance of the universe I thought I would be a wanker as well.

Yes, these were exactly the words I were looking for. All of this is so damn weird.

Yeah, this argument is a bit weird, but let's keep it civil.

Webby, I think they meant lazy as in not productive/wanting to live off the labour of others.

"Lazy" may be sloppy terminology, but we all accept that capitalists can work long hours. It's just that the work they do is fundamentally based on making profit and enforcing labour discipline. As always, this is not always conscious or intentionally, but it's how capitalist functions.

All that said, give me a chance to stick some of my ex-bosses on boat and I am totally fucking up for it.

And I dare say they deserve it! They may also be worthy of the title 'rich bastards'. The problem is the generalisations posted by jumped up know alls that seem to totally lack the spirit of inclusiveness that I get from other posters including your good self. Not enough humanity and too many chips on shoulders about sums it up.
Fucking hell, with people like that around, after the revolution there won't be room to swing a cat in 'the wilderness' - every fucker will be there trying to avoid the boorish bossy bootses on this site that are ready for a verbal punch as soon as anyone says anything that they don't like the sound of!

Most capitalist owners don't even engage in disciplining labour; rather they have hired managers and supervisors.

I think this thread has become increasingly awful considering the explicitly sympathetic views towards the bourgeoisie being expressed in post #33. And this greenjuice fellow have no arguments other than the shit he pulls out of his ASSFAQ.

I suppose if he goes on to form a community with others like himself, it would probably look like this:

comrade appleton- capitalist
anarchomedia- manager
greenjuice- worker
webby- unemployed

Again, let's keep it civil. I don't agree with a lot of what Greenjuice has said. With Webby, well there's issues of terminology and politics. However, I don't think either of them are here in bad faith and I think we should respect that.

I underestimated you, at least you have a sense of humour - me at the bottom of the pile too. That's fine, I know my place! Tell you what though, you'd make an excellent boss, all the traits are there. Just think how much opportunity you'd have to make a misery of the lives of anyone that didn't agree with you - you'd love it.
As for 'sympathy', what the fuck are you on about?The only way that post 33 could be looked at as sympathetic is if you were totally blinded by bigotry.

Obviously, you haven't read anything we previously wrote, which is a typical practice by ancaps.

This.

And read Capital. Particularly, the first chapter on value.

http://libcom.org/library/capitalism-introduction

Furthermore, for money to make more money, more and more things have to be exchangeable for money. Thus the tendency is for everything from everyday items to DNA sequences to carbon dioxide emissions – and, crucially, our ability to work - to become commodified.

And it is this last point - the commodification of our creative and productive capacities, our ability to work - which holds the secret to capital accumulation. Money does not turn into more money by magic, but by the work we do every day.

In a world where everything is for sale, we all need something to sell in order to buy the things we need. Those of us with nothing to sell except our ability to work have to sell this ability to those who own the factories, offices, etc. And of course, the things we produce at work aren't ours, they belong to our bosses.

THIS

Greenjuice, since you like Locke, you'd probably appreciate an arguement that resembles Lockes social contract argument as is used to justify political obligation to the present state of affairs - only being substituted towards the post revolutionary situation. It would probably go along like this: - a system like post-revolutionary libcom would be justified according to the historical fact of a revolution taking place. So in essence you could substitute the Lockean notions of a mythological social contract by the historical fact of a revolution. The very fact that society would be directed via every persons equal input would be much superior (don't you think?) than Lockean justfications for the present state of affairs via "tacit consent".

But yeah the fact of the matter is, a situation like Libertarian communism could probably not co-exist with societies founded on simple commodity production which as others have said create the conditions where accumulation could take place (primative or otherwise) which would transform the C-M-C (simple commodity production) way of doing things towards the M-C-M one whereby the social relations of capitalist and proletarian would come into being once more. And then factoring in the need for more value, iron laws of competion and what not, it wouldnt be long till those on the individualist island (well the capitalists anyway)would be like 'those hippy libcom folks over yonder is a massive fucking market, we need to get in on the action" all of a sudden begetting a new market for weapons and what not, and before you know it - hey presto we are back to square one.

Ultimately, greenjuice though, you are kinda half right - markets existed long before capitalism and therefore one can probably construct an argument around that historical fact that they neednot be inherantly about exploitation. But even historically such as feudal times markets were there to trade surpluses, so you can see that they are very susceptable towards accumulation hence the rather close relationship between C-M-C and M-C-M (and the social relations that MCM entails).

Ha, a reformed capitalism!

Ehm no, i dont see how you can infer such consequences from what i stated. And i most certainly do not argue some kinda quasi-analytic proposition about libcom along the lines of "libcom by definition is not oppressive therefore x practice in 'libcom' society is unoppressive".

You on the other hand seem to take that kinda approach whereby you state :

where either a) arguing that by virtue of a society being 'AnInd' and 'AnMut' in particular because of the anarchist prefix that there will be no exploitation.

and/or b) that by virtue of 'banning' (coercion) that there would be no exploitation.

Neither of which (in and of themselves without further elaboration)are very convincing arguements,.

But id like to pick you up on the stalinist rhetorical flourish - You seem to be drawing that out on the basis of my recognition of the fact that one does not choose which society they are born into so that a similiar problem arises for people born into libcom societties on the question political obligation that Locke struggled in his writings, as some kinda love for a coercive society hence the stalinist forced collectivisation charge. Yet at the same time ok with coercion in your depiction of the visions that you have set out. Which makes the very initial question you asked about the voluntary nature of societies seem a bit confusing. What are you arguing for here? Coercion or not coercion, and if so what parameters of coercion are ok with you?

You are the guy who likes Locke! And the fact that you totally relegate practically the whole rationale of Lockes 2 treatise around the whole question of political obligation makes me wonder if you actually have read Locke. What are you saying that Locke is arguing for us to return to his state of nature?

Are you being serious here? Its pretty obvious logically that accumulation of commodities (which Marx in Capital Volume 2 refers to as 'commodity capital') can be exchanged for money that can be put to use for hiring wage laborers to extract surplus value from, and in one fell swoop the transformation from simple commodity production towards capitalist production with the corresponding social relations takes place. Historically that is the case also.

What evidence do you have in the favour of your argument that commodity bearing societies are adequate to ensure that a development towards capitalist mode of production wont take place? What safeguards do you propose? Is this where your banning comes into being? But what if said banning orders social power does not correlate with the power of our money accumulator to buy labourers to defend their mode of existence? Also how does society deal with market externalities without violating ones 'natural right' to private property?

sheesh!

As for quoting various anarchists, all you are doing is committing the fallacy of appeal to authority. Just thought that since you are fond of pointing out peoples argumentative problems you ought to apply the same strict standard to yourself!

I can imagine an 'AnCom' society tolerating 'AnIns', but I think the indulgence will only extend up to a point. Hell, there'll still be teenagers ATR. That said, I think in most cases an AnIn community living side by side with a AnCom one will be difficult to justify, be difficult to manage, and difficult to maintain.

Will AnIns expect to use social services, like hospitals, sewage systems, roads, communication satellites, etc. then slink off back to their shack in the woods when they're feeling all oppressed? Or will they construct entirely new, parallel services? Remember, labour vouchers won't count for shit in what we'll assume is the majority AnCom world, and we'd be reluctant to let you come and have a heart transplant if you've been bitching about how dictatorial the commune is and refusing to contribute a single thing to it, preferring to try and trade/ exchange your labour or commodities or so on.

I do think there's plenty of room for a huge variety of lifestyles in an AnCom framework - perhaps the most in any political theory - but if you're purely in it for yourself, as it were, there'll be significant resistance if you turn up one day at the commune and start making demands. If I had to choose between an AnIn and an AnCom society, I know which one I'd choose in an instant; I just think the benefits of the latter outweigh the former by a hundredfold, especially if you're not some Bear Grylls-type superhero and you actually get ill and get old and get lonely.

Then you've got the problem of the next generation; especially if you're keeping them from enjoying the fruits of society that they are entitled to, which becomes a form of domination.

Too often these ideas seem like a backdoor for some kind of escalation into hierarchical or exploitative structures; where mutualism and markets and "individual commodity production" are just a few steps short of something a lot less pleasant, and something that would have to be actively resisted to protect AnCom values. This isn't a liberal society, this is a society with teeth, which defends its gains and its way of life as something valuable and worth fighting for.

In short, AnComs ATR will have to be vigilant and maybe even proactive against the return of capitalist and other power structures, and I imagine most of what mutualism etc. proposes looks like it could be serious trouble down the line.

NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A POST!

Libcom has delivered at last! But hold on, shit, I've been rumbled! It's back to the family mansion in the the wilderness for me. I can't wait to see Mom(Sarah Palin) and Dad(David Icke).
As for you nasty commies - you'll never see me again!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sob.

A new current has emerged recently, and its called anarcho-trollism. Its a political current that seeks to establish strictly political organizations purportedly organized on anarchist principals, and which members adhere to a common language. Firm belief in the holy doctrine (whatever that may be, individualism, mutualism, AFAQism, etc.) is required by members or potential members. Its purpose is to penetrate other inclusive organizations and influence that organization and its members with its own ideas. Eventually, the goal is to "win the battle of ideas" and takeover the invaded organization, restructure it according to the principals of the holy doctrine. Often, the method of winning the battle is by repeating the doctrine over and over until their opponents are infected with mind numbing isms of all sorts. Formerly, one member would be elected to accomplish the task, but it often failed. Learning through experience, advocates of anarcho-trollism realized they had to storm through other organizations with at least two members, each applauding each other on the back, no matter how banal the argument put forth by that other member.

One case example is the Individual's Rights Association, whose members include Comrade Appleton, Anarchomedia, Webby and Greenjuice. Comrade Appleton was the founding father of the organization and laid down a strict pro-individualist doctrine for oncoming members to adhere to. Often he would get into conflict with new members, who he thought were not that far enough to the individualist end of the spectrum. But, as showcased in recent battles with rivals like Libcom.org, members have been able to speak the right line and their quite comfortable at it. In the first encounter with their rival, Comrade Appleton penetrated Libcom alone and managed a thread of almost 500 posts! But it sadly failed. Now the organization is currently through their second attempt encompassing four threads with the use of three members. Two threads have disappeared along with one member, Anarchomedia. Feeling oppressed by communist ideology, he ditched society and jumped into the Iguazu Falls in Argentina to embrace the wilderness. Meanwhile, Webby and Greenjuice are putting as much effort as they possibly can, and they hope to be rewarded with a product equivalent to their efforts. Or else, they will feel exploited. Their success will determine the fate of anarcho-trollism.

While I think Nanner's post was pretty effing funny, I will remind folks that this ain't libcommunity...

Nanner's post deserves to be nominated for Best Post of the Year.

I think if you read back the thread starting from the beginning, you'll find all of the answers your looking for.

At best, mutualist ideas seems like a temporary measure during or immediately following a revolutionary period in times where proper libcom organisation is incredibly difficult (maybe because of shortages, conflict, geography, mass migration or similar). Even then I'm not entirely convinced. Either way, it certainly isn't a viable foundation for a new society, or at least it doesn't seem that way to me.

The idea of two people exchanging their crafted tables for a pair of shoes as if they were in some kind of social and economic vacuum just ignores so much of lib-com theory that it just isn't anarchism any more, and as such not worth debating, (but perhaps I'm strawmanning here).

In much the same way as a communist revolution has to be global to succeed, I think it is really difficult to create an alternative economic system that would stand next to a libcom one -- if not completely impossible. It is much more likely that individual regions/ communes/ cities would be organised politically and socially in a number of different ways, but economically I think the foundation necessarily has to be communist(ic).

No, of course not impossible. I just meant that a) why would anyone live like that when you have full communism a quick boat ride away b) no-one is going to tolerate certain kinds of behaviours/ organisations. Again, to reiterate, this isn't anarchy in 'oh shit do whatever you like son' sense. It isn't oppressive to stop people being wankers towards one another, however voluntary the arrangement might seem.

Which brings us back full circle to post #3:

I see that. However, as other posters have pointed out, the non-communistic economic systems you seem to favour may result in capital accumulation, resource hogging, or unjust penalising of 'non-productive' members of society (you didn't earn any labour vouchers today grandma, so no dinner for you tonight), and inequality. It is also isolationist to the extreme, and if the non-communistic society was located in a particularly fertile/ resource-rich area, then you're gonna have a bad time (as the meme goes).