What's it all about?

Yeah, sorry mate, for being flippant in my reply to Pikel about the other posters and 'individualism'.

Although, if you want a serious discussion, I'm up for it. The problem is, I usually get called names when I ask serious questions of the more 'individualist-inclined' Anarchist posters.

...anyway, here goes...

Who will these 'non-affiliates' be? If the Earth is a 'common treasury for all', how can someone just decide as an individual to go off and take a bit for themselves to live on?

If you were to argue that it'll be 'just a few weirdos' going off into the forests to live off mushrooms and dandelions, perhaps that might be seen as acceptable by the vast majority.

But really, hasn't everyone got a social duty to participate in social production anyway? Isn't the 'commune' the inescapable 'social womb' for all. Isn't the notion of the individual going off of their own accord similar to the idea of the two-month-old foetus just 'popping out of its mother for a stroll'?

Is 'life' maintainable for any 'individual' outside of productive society? Or is it all just a very recent bourgeois ideological fantasy, with no basis in any real human social experience throughout history?

Not only do we receive gifts from current society, we are the recipients of gifts handed down from generations past. Many things have been given to us. I am communicating with you using the gift of language, which was given to me by my parents and the society in which I grew up. I did not pay.

Society is a multiplier of labour. Together, as society, we can produce and benefit from things which we could not dream of as individuals, merely adding our labour to each others.

Only if you listen to anarcho-capitalists; and since few anarchists would consider them anarchists at all (other than themselves, obviously), this point is a bit of a dead end. Similarly, the idea of an anarchist communist (cashless) society being able to trade (involving cash) with an anarcho-capitalist one causes something of a short circuit in logic, as does the idea of two such fundamentally opposed areas being able to exist side by side without conflict for more than, say, a fortnight.

It's been linked already here but An Anarchist FAQ addresses issues around anarcho-capitalism here and here. The section on "anarchism and dissidents" from the second link may be of interest.

If the Earth really is a 'common treasury for all', then the individual would automatically be included under that 'all' and have an equal right to its use, whether part of a collective organization or not.

Two questions arise there: Where does this duty arise from? If two individuals went off to farm or hunt in a distant corner of the wilderness, and had a child, does that child have a "social duty to participate in social production"? Why?

And moreover, how exactly is this "social duty" going to be enforced? Individuals opting out of the collective societies or mechanisms in place -- what then?

that really makes no sense, anarchism is fundamental opposed to capitalism of any kind and capitalism needs the state, its not a corruption of an other wise pure system, its necessary for its existence.

Successful anarchist would be a global system, if people want to drop out of if and do some thing else they would not dictate the relations for it, the dominant relations would remain communist even if some people decided to form some kind of capitalism community or something.

I don't think anyone is really free to opt out of the dominant economic system and live a normal life, the question is how free are they within the dominant economic system? i think that anarchism communism gives a much higher level of freedom than an other possible system, and so is for me better.

I'm not seeing many of these gifts.

Granted, language is socially bestowed with compensation only rarely required. That being said, the original discussion turned on the statement, "just hand back everything that society has given you!". It's rather hard to hand back language. I took as my starting point orienting the discussion around material objects, things we possibly COULD give back.

I certainly wouldn't contest that.

That's a fair point, the capitalist system allows gifts, physical and symbolic, to be accumulated by hoarders. I'm not seeing many of the gifts either! But I know they're out there, it's just that some other bastard is keeping it to themselves.

Now, I can't remember what we're arguing about.

I think the clue is in the word 'common' and the singular noun. The phrase isn't '7 billion treasuries divided between all'. Your argument brings to mind everybody using a chainsaw to hack our planet to bits, into 7 billion little planetoids, all then floating 'individually' through the cosmos.

The society that produces us all? Or did you have a wombless genesis?

Just like in every other society that's ever existed on this planet. By 'social means'. That doesn't necessarily have to mean a 'state'.

As I said to Omnivar earlier, the only way to consistently opt out of society's shaping of your mind is to have a lobotomy. I'd be surprised if you'd even recognise a 'farm' then - or even know the word. In fact, to act consistently with the ideology of 'individualism' is to die.

Alone.

We are social beings.

I certainly wouldn't want to equivocate, but I'm not seeing much difference in this case of "for all" and "between all".

If the world itself is held in common, it's held in common in such a way that each individual necessarily has a share. I would question why being held in common means it needs to be collectively enjoyed and only as a collective.

This didn't address my question -- if a child is born to two parents isolated from any society living solely off of nature, purely as a hypothetical, where does the duty to socially produce arise from?

I didn't say opting out of societal influence, which is an obvious impossibility, I said opting out of the mechanisms and institutions of collectivity.

What you seem to be suggesting here is that whatever information and initial nurturing society gives entails a lifelong debt to the maintenance of that society which could never be paid off, and more deeply, that this debt extends across and into descendants.

If this debt could be given a specific remunerative value, then it could in fact be worked off. Which would then lead to the rather funny scenario of individuals working off their "life debt" in collectivist societies to earn the right to live individually, beyond society (in the wild, say).

In any conceivable collectivist society, I would enthusiastically and voluntarily cooperate.

But the minute that society begins to "enforce" certain "social duties", you've entirely lost me. I don't know if I'm the only one that might feel that way, but regardless.

Clearly there is a difference between "for all" and "between all".

Take a swimming pool as a metaphor for the wealth of the world - a pool large enough for everyone to swim in. Shall we then divide it into 7 billion isolated "standing" pools, "that's your bit, enjoy!" ?

I don't think LBird is suggesting that the relationships we have with each other are relationships of account. They are human relationships. I trust you are human!

Omnivar a notion of state-less capitalism only exists in fairy tales. The accumulation of capital ( as opposed to just 'exchange' which actually Graeber's new book on debt shows only developed historical due to the state) has always required a vast expansion of the state from the 1600s onwards..

I think Pikel's 'pool' analogy expresses the difference quite nicely.

A body of water split 'between all' into muddy puddles is not a central reservoir of fresh water 'for all'.

This doesn't make logical sense to me, mate. If something is held 'in common', it's not held as 'individual shares'. This leads me to be confused as to the meaning you and other 'individualist Communists' assign to 'Communist'. It's... well, 'communal', isn't it? Why would someone claim to favour 'communes', and fight hard against the bourgeoisie to achieve this collective goal, then split the 'common treasury' back into individual packets, a social arrangement so beloved of the defeated bourgeoisie?

I didn't address this question directly because I thought that by now you'd have cottoned on to the fact that its premises are entirely bourgeois, and didn't want to highlight your ideological conditioning. But since you persevere...

The basis of your question is entirely ahistoric. There has never been, and never will be, "two parents isolated from any society". All you've done is remove our point about the 'individual' back a generation. If we show the same logic applies to the 'two parents', will you just go on to ask 'what about four grandparents', ad infinitum?

And then all your talk of 'individual debt' and 'specific remunerative value' sounds awfully like neo-classical economics and 'individual consumption'.

Communism is about 'social production', not 'individual consumption'.

I think that might be one of our axiomatic differences. I'll leave the others till later.

I might be a bit thick, but I'm still not seeing it. If the world was a swimming pool large enough for all 7 billion people to swim in, and was expressly designated as being held in common (for all), would this not mean that each of those 7 billion people have a direct stake in that swimming pool (between all)?

That feels to me like the very root of egalitarianism. A crop is produced which is for all. How would that be divided up? Equally and between all.

Sure am.

Exactly right -- which is why I brought up the point that

"What you seem to be suggesting here is that whatever information and initial nurturing society gives entails a lifelong debt to the maintenance of that society which could never be paid off, and more deeply, that this debt extends across and into descendants".

The intellectual and social debt accrued by the parents transfers to the children which thus necessarily entails your "social duty". And apparently this social debt is to such an unparalleled height that it could never be made up for, even if people so desired to.

I don't really know much about economics to be honest (although I've just started reading Capital).

My real concern is that ultimately we've elevated the social to such a degree that if somebody wanted to go live by themselves as a hunter or fisher, away from society, this is forbidden.

And forbidding something like that doesn't sit right with me.

Yeah, this is an extremely serious shortcoming for anyone claiming to be a 'Communist', since most of the debates surrounding Communism are, at heart, about production.

I have trouble taking this seriously as a belief, mate. We live in a society, dominated by bourgeois ideology, that constantly stresses, throughout socialisation, education and the media, that 'we are all individuals'.

There are even some Communists who appear to believe in 'individualism', so great is the bourgeoisie's ideological power and reach.

This just sounds like any 'individualist' propaganda put out by the right.

I think that really you're trying to make a much deeper point about 'social authority', which I think is a further point of separation between Communists and individualists of any stripe.

But let's keep discussing...

First thing, there is no detail plan for how communism is to work. The idea is that we should work it out together, a process. Discussion like this often get stuck at curious points as they attempt to figure out all details between two or three people who can only fake interest in the issues at hand you have no "material" interest in the question at this point in time. Obviously context will determine if you are "allowed" to go into the wild and what consequences it will have. What is this wild? Will you destroy others ability to live by going into it either because of what you will do to the "wild" or what you withdraw from the society you came from?

In other words the abstract discussion cannot lead to answers. Remember no one has written the law for this hypothetical society, discussions like above follow a pattern as if you were the rulers of this society empowered to lay down the law.

The swimming pool is a good example. Only a broken society would choose to split up the pool into muddy puddles. The society that allows no parting gift to one of it's members leaving to pursue her future is equally so.

Without money the splitting of everything into tiny bits is no longer feasible. This fragmentation cannot happen without the universal commodity. Just consider the consequences of not having money. They are quite far reaching and many of your problems can no longer figure.

You will never be reassured that going into the wild will never be forbidden as no one here can make those reassurances. No one can make any such assurances about any society as societies change.

Hence why I've begun reading Capital. My point was that I'm not really familiar with neoliberal economics.

I don't want to tout "individualism", just the individual as the basis for collectivity.

I think that of course there would be stateless mechanisms to ensure basic things, in order to keep people from getting attacked say, which is what 'social authority' would entail.

What I'm curious about in your conception is if people don't voluntarily wish to produce or work together under the model of the collective, if they voluntarily decide another model is more suited to them.

This is a hugely ironic statement, 2fast2war! You're totally familiar with 'neoliberal economics' (or 'neo-classical' as I'd prefer to call them). Everything you say about 'individuals', 'voluntary', 'ahistoric' starting points of non-social individuals, 'debts', your apparent 'fear' of the 'social', etc. is straight out of the ideology of the neo-classical economists!

You, like the rest of us, have been brainwashed by the bourgeoisie all our lives. Part of the reason becoming a Communist is so difficult is that it challenges all our 'common sense' views of the world in which we all live.

I apologise if this sounds as if I'm being patronising, but your coming study of 'political economy' (not fuckin' bullshit 'economics' [see, even the title that you give to what you are to study matters]) will be a great revelation to you! Soon you will be able to discern the 'neo-classical' content of your posts on this thread. You'll probably wince, but then we all do as we learn about our 'own' ideas and from where they originate.

Great comic timing, mate!

[see my earlier post about the difference between 'common treasury' and '7000 treasuries', or Pikel's pool analogy]

.

Aren't the seeds of your answer within your own contradictory statements?

'Ensure'? Doesn't that oppose 'voluntary'? How can you have anything 'ensured' (by whom?) if it is 'voluntarily' opposed (by whom?)?

Perhaps a social mechanism to bring together 'ensure' and 'voluntary', driven the same 'whom', by democratic methods? A 'stateless' authority?

While I largely agree with you on this on LBird, keep in mind we are dealing with someone who's admittedly new to all this. Statements like this...

...come across as both patronising and aggressive.

Good to hear on both counts, Chili: me and you agree on the substantive stuff, and we all (me, you and 2fast2war) recognise that 2fast2war is 'new to all this'.

Hmmmm.... an opening apology, an enthusiastic, comradely promise of the beauty to come, an admittance of own previous ignorance and an identification with 2fast2war's current journey.

No, I'd have thought saying either:

"No, of course you're right 2f2w, you do know as much about Communism as the other posters here who've lived, breathed and studied it for decades; of course you're entitled to your own well-thought-out personal opinion about economics"

or:

"Buck up, you stupid dickhead!"

would be classed as patronising or aggressive, eh?

Personally, I think that 2fast2war can cope with some tender 'poking of fun', and can continue to ask their interesting questions and we can all try to help, in our own peculiar, individual ways.

Hmmm... more irony, eh? A Marxist lecturing an Anarchist on 'individuality'.

Hey, pushing the 'party line' next, for you, mate!

Anarchism couldn't remain consistent with Capitalism as Capitalism contains strong coercion and unavoidable power abuse as a means to economise. I see it as highly unnatural that you work on something, build something, spend a good portion of your life maintaining something, but don't own it (or co-own it).

AC wouldn't serve as a mere collective amongst capitalist enterprises because the Capitalist wouldn't get to own the means of production, delegate wages and decide what to do with the accumulative produce, those who contribute to the work would. A market system, however could co-exist with communism in my opinion. Basically, Mutualism or something similar, could be used as an alternative in an anarchist society for those who wanted to use an adcanced market system to live by. This would still consist of worker-owned syndicates who control their environment and labour, but would obviously have inequality regarding renumeration.

I'm still pretty green, but I'd say direct democracy, and being in control of your labour are the neccesities to living in a free society. We have our own reasons for preferring communism/collectivism to a socialist free market system.

If 'Communism' is 'the democratic control of the economy', how would a market allocation system be able to 'co-exist'?

Surely goods and services would be allocated by democratically-decided need, not individual consumers' purchasing power? Or do you see 'money' as a neutral 'oil' within the economy?

I'm inclined to think that those whose main concern is 'individual consumption' (they want the personal 'right to choose' what they consume) would be the ones to support some form of 'market socialism'. I hasten to add that I'm not accusing you of thinking or wanting this, Baronarchist.

For my part, I wish to smash the market mechanism, and replace it with production and consumption based on collectively-assessed needs and wants.

Democracy, in fact, in the economy. Communism isn't the manifestation of some dream of 'perfectly equal consumption'.

I'd like to hear the views of others, especially regarding the idea that 'the market' is inherently linked to 'the individual', and is thus incompatible with any collective control of production and consumption.

@Pikel and 2fast2war, what about organ and blood donations as being one current example of a gift economy?

The Political Economy of Human Tissue, Part I

But the bourgeois conception of individuality is loaded with the whole culture of capitalism, and has an important social dimension to it which is inherently against the individual. Capitalism would flounder if its ideological basis was truly individualistic. For a capitalist society to function, it needs atomization, but it needs the full flowering of individuality to be stunted, because the state, as the political appendage of capitalism, is the suppression of collective as well as individual liberty, which are mutually intertwined.

That was beautifully put, q.

yes I liked it too.

Yeah, that puts all the crap about 'I'm an individual' and 'I won't be subject to any social authority' into the bin, qbbmvrjsssdd.

Too true, 'liberty' is as much 'we' as 'me'. And the inescapable link is democracy.

As you imply, 'atomisation' is poison to any human society, including to the proletariat and Communism.