Social Ecology

Hi

The ghosts of dead labour, actually. Just because you're not a liberal doesn't mean you can't proffer a thoroughly liberal argument when your favourite rodents come into the line of fire.

If rats are so useful we should genetically engineer them to serve drinks or leap into deep fat fryers to be turned into delicious meals. It will give them something to do when they’re too old to “keep the streets clean”. Perhaps you could start a trade union for them or something.

Sorry, I’m being silly. I’ll leave it.

Love

LR

jesus fuck i've been driven to cheering on Laz.

Hi

Watch it, Calamity Jane, or I'll discredit you by supporting your perspective on Bookchin.

Love

LR

"Jes' got back from the Windy City"

Lazy you should love Bookchins municipalism, it's your neighbourhood assemblies managing a market.

Hi

I don’t despise it, but I can do without those requisition-forms or whatever he proposes for forecasting demand. As for social ecology, I think I’ve set my stall out well enough.

Besides, I’m a hard-core Open Market Ultra Left Anarchist, not a beret wearing post-left beatnik.

Love

LR

Come here and let me explain how cave paintings are really very similar to a PSP, in their open source nature, etc. 8)

That's your glorious techno-future, isn't it? Eating GM quorn-rats in a concrete bunker while playing communist poker gambling on line or summat

Hi

That sounds pretty good to me. Throw in some sex and you're on.

Love

LR

Here you go, techno-crat

Hi

I've contributed to the lumpeness of this thread. It is on "thought" after all, I apologise to you all.

I love you Greens. What do make of the various Green Parties? Has Germany’s so called Red/Green alliance acted in the best interests of their electorate? What modifications would you have made to their programme?

Love

Danny Cohn Bendit

www.cohn-bendit.de

+100% Angel Kings

greets

Death of Rats is a cool character in the discworld books

mal

Libertarian communism means people organising their own lives and communites non-hierarchically. Surely its obvious that its as green as the people's priorities?

A gift economy will eliminate the stupidities of competition (built in obselescance, excess packaging, externalities and the need for enterprises to ignore the extra cost of preventing pollution in order to remain competetive) but aside from that, its up to us.

Hi

Monopoly, not competition, is the cause of these Bad Things(tm). Gift economies are perfect markets.

Love

LR

It's possible to be a Humanist and Green. I'd argue from the position that we want the quality of life to be as great as possible for all and with the environment knackered this isn't possible.

Picked up a copy of Green Anarchist for the first time last week. Can't help thinking they take things way too far.

Could you please explain.

Sam

Hi

For a £30 donation to libcom, I would.

Love

LR

World of voluntary co-peration my ass! . Anyway, if you believe in a gift economy then you should tell me for free.

Sam

Hi

Fair enough. What specific criteria do you think denote a gift economy? Is it just a way of looking at work or are there some concrete proposals on how one might go about producing the right amount of correct stuff?

Love

LR

Thge only criteria which specifically denotes a gift economy is that things are given away for free. At least, thats the only common denominator. I'm not really sure what you've heard of and how much detail you want.

If your talking about how it could be organised and administered, there are various ideas, and you've probably heard of as many or more than me. There could be a federation of workplace assemblies like anarcho-syndicalists recommend, or a local commune based around an assembly of all inhabitants. Then all members could agree to give their produce for free. Obviously this could only work if there was someone to produce everything needed, so that there was a sort of full circle of production.

In these directly democratic associations members could expel anyone who tried to abuse the system by taking but not giving, and could discuss and decide what exactly should be produced. This could happen on a federal level as well, if planning was needed.

This is kind of basic, but its not just a way of looking at work (I'm not really sure what you mean by this), its really a way fo ensuring everyone can get what they need, and getting rid of needless competition that leads to overproduction, overwork and externalities etc. In essence people replace an exchange of goods with an exchange of material security, rplacing competition (in which there is always winner or loser, and capital accumulation which can lead to hierarchy) with solidarity.

Hi

If everything is free then you’ll have a market in labour as people compete for the best jobs, otherwise you’ll have a lot of economically unproductive pop-stars and footballers.

Allow me to venture that a system of democratic production planning would involve a mediating agency measuring consumer demand. It’ll be tough competing with the cream of design engineers and artists to work in that field. Even if over subscribed positions are given to the popular vote, X-Factor style, that’s a market for labour.

But seeing as everything’s free, the market for labour has no ill effects. The most onerous tasks presumably attract enough incentive to get done, and every one’s happy.

If all products cost the same, nought pee, the only things left on the shelf will be badly designed nonsense that was made by mistake, or stuff everyone thought was a good idea at the time but didn’t really work out as well as they’d hoped.

Given that the workers who made rubbishy stuff don’t suffer income cuts for their unpopular products, there will be no incentive to deceive the consumer into using poor quality merchandise.

http://www.encycogov.com/B10CompetitionInProductMarkets/App10PerfectMarketModel/Exhi_Perf_market_econ.asp

I struggle to imagine a high-tech, democratic, non-monetary economy that isn’t a perfect market. Something you cash-haters can use against me in the future.

Love

LR

Where to start.

1) there can be no market for jobs if there are no buyers i.e. no capitalists. And anyway, what are the best jobs? tell me yours and i bet mine will be different. Self management could make most jobs a lot more enjoyable than they now are. It is the lack of social status and renumeration that makes jobs degrading. For example, dustbin men are seen as having a nasty mucky job, and not given social status. Surgeons jobs are much more dirty, but they are revered. I have met sewage cleaners who are proud of their job. And in any participatory community there are jobs that everyone wants doing but no-one wants to do, they can either organise a rota system or deal with the consequences of leaving the job undone. Or otherwise, if everyone agrees how many hours of work need to be done to produce what is needed, the nasty jobs can be given less hours.

This is a statement that needs justification. The market makes it more likely that products will be shity, because the need to keep on selling or be out competed makes built-in-obselescence neccessary. It is possible to make cars that last for 50 years or more, but we don't because it is not profitable.

3) Do you think that people don't enjoy making things, doing a good job? As Alexander berkman said, a lazy man is a man in the wrong place. People don't want to work because it is degrading, but self managed work is not. Plus those who ignore consumer demands or make sub standard products do not get off scot free. Firstly there is social pressure. Imagine being discussed at a public meeting as a problem. Secondly, if the other members of a commune feel that their consumer needs (discussed in assemblies), or that the goods are substandard, the offending group or individual can be expelled from the gift economy temporarily or permenantly.

3) just a note on inovation. Inovation would be more easy in a gift economy. In a market economy, any work (such as research) that may be unproductive means you risk falling behind your competitors. But in a gift system, the only impertive is to supply the needs of your associates, and you do not risk destitution by trying out new products and methods.

I'm not a money hater. I'm a hierarchy hater. tell me how a market can avoid the following problems. And don't give me any shit about perfect competition. it has never happened and it never will. Its just a device used by capitlaists whenever free market capitalism goes wrong (when does it go right?). If its not right, they say "Oh! we didn't have perfect competition. if we had of, everything would have been OK."

1) Externalities. If your competitors do not introduce pollution prevention measures, you are forced not to either, because it would be expensive and would put you at a disadvantage. If treating others and the world like shite is cheaper, market forces force you to do it.

2)The need for built in obselescence, which is shit for the environment. Stupidities such as advertising.

3) On firm out competing others and putting them out of a job. copetition has winners and losers, and therefore hierarchy.

4)Capital accumulation, creating natural barriers to entry to the market, reducing competition and (according to marketeers) the need to make good products. Inequalities are magnified as the top competitors can get more advertsing etc.

5) Anti-democratic. those with the most money (begged, borrowed or stolen), have more £ votes and have more say in what is produced.

6) Operating in a market means submitting to the profit criterion. Social criteria are ignored. To ignore profitability would cause their firm to go bankrupt. Markets therefore create conditions that compel workers and consumers to decide things which are not be in their interest, for example introducing deskilling or polluting technology, longer hours, and so on.

7) people's needs are not dependent on their ability to pay. the ethics pof mathematics. It is not profitable to supply clean water to African villages who cannot pay for it etc. Noam Chomsky "wealth and power tend to accrue to those who are ruthless, cunning, avaricious, self-seeking, lacking in sympathy and compassion, subservient to authority and willing to abandon principle for material gain, and so on. . . Such qualities might be just the valuable ones for a war of all against all." i.e. competition.

8) Money is hierarchical. Prices are effected by what people are willing to pay for them. If there are many people with more money than me, it effects me because goods will be more expensive. In any moneyed economy we have a hierarchy power through money.

9) isn't life too short? Why spend our lives trying to outdo each other? Why not just sit make what we need, make them well so they last and we don't have to remake them too soon, and then sit back and enjoy ourselves without worrying about losing market share!

Hi

There are buyers. The price of everything is 0p. The hallmark of a market is consumption, not money.

The easiest to fill.

Agreed. Long holidays provide excellent incentive for under subscribed professions.

But if everything costs 0p, who cares if you’re out competed? Just do something more useful. Why would self-managed firms of economically secure associates make unreliable products?

Economically insecure, misinformed and psychologically weak consumers help make unreliable products profitable, alongside professional hierarchy. Seeing as zero-price super-reliable cars will be just as unprofitable in a gift economy, why should we bother making those?

My comrades will vouch for my ultraleftist credentials.

Why not send them to work in the salt mines?

1.

Research is productive, to suggest otherwise smacks of economic rightism.

2.

Even in a Capitalist “market”, firms with big research efforts are the most profitable. Firms who don’t research are the ones that fall behind.

A perfect market, economic security, political liberty. Love it. Why is the threat of destitution a requirement for markets? Does Jesus decree it?

My only assertion is that gift economies are perfect markets. If pollution prevention costs nothing, savvy consumers will gravitate towards environmentally friendly products because they have increased utility. Dirty firms will close, or maybe made to operate in one of those reservations for the expelled.

Advertising is fun. Do you think it’s Ok to have more than one style of shoe? Do you support banning porn?

If being out of a job doesn’t make you poor, it’s an opportunity not a problem. Ending political hierarchy doesn’t mean discarding hierarchy as a concept. Will you be banning football leagues, poker and competitive darts?

Big deal. Whose defending capitalism? I won’t dwell on how this contradicts the notion that advertising is stupid.

On the contrary, social criteria, that is to say, utility and demand are central.

Again, my only assertion is that gift economies are perfect markets. But please, feel free to go over why those of lowest social utility may suffer more than is strictly civilised.

Not short of a few bob. I like Chomsky, but he does show a lack of introspection when criticising his fellow wealthy celebrities.

Money is flat. Capitalist social policy for money supply is hierarchically determined and hence reactionary. Regardless, marbles and conkers in games are more naturally hierarchal value tokens and cause no harm. “Things” aren’t hierarchal (unless you think of it from the point of view of their microscopic structure), organisational systems are. Even then, hierarchies are only harmful when high status gives increased political weight.

Love

LR

I seem to agree with you on most points. I thought you were argueing against a gift economy, but it doesn't soundlike you are. Correct me if I'm wrong. I have a tendencu to go into confronational mode at the slightest provocation.

I didn't say research wasn't productive. But there is a risk that a particualr piece of research may not result in anything useful, and in a moneyed market system this could put you at competitive disadvantage. I have certainly read that in the US for example, a lot of the research that leads to consumer technology is funded by pentagon military technology spending though.

Not all social criteria are buyable. You annot buy wilerness (unless you want ot re-instate privarte property), when you buy toilet paper you may not know that is was made from Redwood forest (stupid example). Money can't buy you love (sorry, couldn't resist)

On chomsky having a few bob, I'm more interestewd in what he has to say than who he is. Poverty isn't madatory (although its hard to get rich without exploiting someone, admittedly). Lets not start a brand of anarcho-puritanism.

On hierarchy, I think we mean different things. Sure, you can have hierarchy of sports teams or you could be considered a better chess player than me. I mean 'pyramid' social hierarchies which gives those at the top the power to command obdience from those below on pain of sanctions. But you know that.

OK. I don't really think we disagree. My problem is with moneyed markets. but if a you think that only consumption is the hallmark of a market the I'm not aginst markets per say. Any economy must be a market.

Hi

Anarchists. God bless ‘em.

I’m inclined to agree. I’m not sure if a “perfect market” is much like markets under Capitalism. If a high technology, gift economy can be implemented at all then I can’t see how it isn’t technically a kind of perfect market.

Love

LR

Good post from sam_frances, calls for a (partial) defence of markets.

No market can avoid that, externalities are known market failures, are generally accepted as requiring taxation or other government intervention to be dealt with, in the capitalist system as much as in any market socialism. Note that the problem is lessened with capitalism removed from the picture – worker and community owned firms are much less likely to vote to pollute their own neighbourhoods than absentee owned corporations are.

I think built in obsolescence is a dated criticism now, that was the way it worked in the 1950’s, but after that German and Japanese firms destroyed US and British industry by manufacturing reliable, long life, products, and they did that through a market system.

Mass advertising should I think be viewed as another externality, polluting the airwaves, and so subjected to the same remedies – being legislated or taxed away. Europe already forbids TV and radio adverts for political campaigns and tobacco, and limits advertising time and frequency compared to the US, and Sweden prohibits adverts aimed at children.

A substantial part of advertising spend is non economic (in any market sense), and, like corporate donations to political campaigns, is done to buy influence over editorial policy and newsdesks. That element of advertising/sponsorship will become more dominant as technological restrictions on broadcasting bandwidth ease. For the most part that is an issue with capitalism rather than markets – capitalists need to buy a huge propaganda system to keep the masses under control, while worker and community owned firms would have much less reason to pay to propagandise themselves.

Yes, there is no equality with markets, and therefore there is hierarchy of a kind.

That is certainly an unavoidable problem with markets, but the scale of the problem can be exaggerated – barriers to entry are slight except for high-tech large economy of scale manufacturing, and those require such high investment as to be more suitable areas for non market investment planning anyway.

Right, markets are incompatible with equality.

“Submit”, “compel” are strong words, too strong I think for what would be preferences within a market. To ignore profitability would, yes, cause a firm to go bankrupt, but firms can adopt criteria of operation in addition to (but not instead of) profitability, and yet not go bankrupt. And who would want it otherwise – would anyone suggest that firms should ignore profitability (social utility) altogether?

Deskilling, polluting, longer hours, are externalities, known market failures, requiring government intervention in the form of taxation or legislation (such that: it is forbidden to restrict individuals to the same tasks for extended periods, it is forbidden to work more than 48 hours per week, and so on).

Imagine that people are believed to have rights that are irrespective of ability to pay, such as a right to life, to liberty, to staple material goods such as clean water. Then a village desiring clean water would have it pumped for free (free in the sense of being outside any market dealing), but a village desiring Jacuzzis – they would have to pay, to enter the marketplace.

Cut throat competition would be good for the ruthless and bad for everyone else. But why should it be like that, what about a balance between co-operation and competition? People, communities, firms, are perfectly capable of dealing fairly with each other even when their dealings involve money transactions, and that would be especially true for neighbours united in the same libertarian local community or federation who work with each other every day.

An analogy to competition might be with war and violence (literally war of all against all) – no one would argue against the idea that wars are bad things, but taking that to the pacifist extreme of absolute non violence in all circumstances would be a step too far for most people, who would be comfortable with the idea of an army or militia being used to defend the community.

Yes, there is no equality with markets, and therefore hierarchy of a kind. Not the same kind of hierarchy as that of capitalist over worker though.

Sounds good, but care to spell out how “anarcho-let’s-sit-back-ism” will work in practice, when complex high-tech goods are required, in huge numbers, all around the world? Does it involve things like “Facilitation Boards” (Parecon) or “Confederal Bodies” (Social Ecology) or a ‘Federal Economic Council’ (Syndicalism), that issue plans for us to obey?

Hi

Talk about the Left of Capital. afraser, I hope this Market Socialist incubator economy of yours will be short lived, it sounds like hard work what with the commissars and bankers cracking the whip, threatening to take the roof from over my head unless I pay for their yachts and villas in tax and usury. Thanks very much but you can keep your “right to work”. I’d rather hibernate for the duration, wake me up after the revolution.

By what mechanism will you be setting income tax levels and interest rates? Will high street banks still borrow from a central bank as the method for supplying money? How will people eliminate poverty from their communities without having to appeal to the consciences of a middle class of economic technocrats or accept their “generous” offers of employment?

Love

LR

I generally agree with you afraser, and a lot of these problems would be less pronounced under some form of market in which all firms were self managed and accoutnable to communities etc. I disagree with your idea of government legislation. Sorry, anarchists don't like government much. If you wanna know why there are a thousand people on this forum who will inform you. Aside from anything, since in representative democracy it helps to have money to run for office, those more successful self managed firms could pay the parties who would use the force of the state to their advantage. Best to keep power over our lives and our communites in our hands, thank you very much.

That said, it would be perfectly possible and desirable for every community to agree through their community assemblies and federations (or otherwise workplace federations) not to work more than a certain number of hours etc. In a self managed system with no division between capital and labour I'd imagine people would be all too happy to agree to such a measure. If they don't, well they'll have to deal with working more than they want to.

About "anarcho-lets-sit-backism" lets be perfectly clear. All we need to do is make enough stuff that everone needs and wants. Then we should stop working if we can. Unfortunately market competition will make this difficult. That is why i think some form of gift economy is a good idea. I've already talked about this earlier. 'What we need' could be discussed in our community meetings etc. and everyone would have agreed to make at least what was asked of them. You don't think making reciprocal agreements and sticking to them counts as being forced to "obey" do you? This could be repeated in federal meetings (meetings of madated, recallable delegates, whose decsions can be overturned by their mandatees). That's if such planning is neccessary. Some form probably would be, but I don't think decentralised planning within directly democratic associations, where all delegate decisions can be ultimately overturned and reforged by madatees is anti-anarchistic. Its not a case of everyone obeying some "federal body" external and above the populace, like a government. Its about people directly participating in co-operation within and between communites and associations on a voluntarily agreed basis.

P.S. Laziness is a virtue in my book. I've worked my socks off as a student for most of my life (being 17), and I have in the past held the "work is good for you" viewpoint, but its worn pretty thin. I only want to work to live, not live to work.