What Is Venture Communism?

False. As proven by the existence of Co-operatives, Building societies, Kibutzim, Credit Unions and many other examples of collective organisations, including the very ones that provide forums like this.

There would be struggle certainly, however it would be a defensive stuggle, wich is much easier to wage out than an offensive one.

And this threat of occupation is an empty one which you will never attempt.

And even if you did, so long as you have less wealth to apply towards revolutionary violence that then your oposition has towards counter-revolutionary violence, you will lose.

It is expensive to take something from someone else, even if your cause is just.

It is not expensive to simply stop giving them what is yours, the product of your labour, it turns the cost around and forces them to try the far more expensive and unsustainable process of taking it from you, or simply buy it from you for a fair price.

Instead you would rather make empty threats to sieze productive inputs which you will never even attempt to carry out let alone accomplish?

I'm not holding my breath.

If Mahkno and Bakunin couldn't do it, what chance do you lot have?

I'll do the math for you: zero.

I did make it up, but that doesn't mean that others haven't thought of it/ said it as well, I am against all property, including intellectual property

It first appeared in my "Venture Communist Memorandum," a short flyer that was distributed around 2001, IIRC.

http://symbio.trick.ca/HomeQuirkVentureCommunism

This is not a scheme to create one giant venture commune, it is a new mode of production for all workers, there would be as many venture communes as people wanted to have. It doesn't matter how big or small any given Commune is, so long as workers own the land and capital they apply their labour too and the product of their labour is thiers.

I don't see how it would cause any greater effect on interest rates and inflation than any co-operative system.

Thanks for your offer, I am interested in the LLP as a model of incorporation, perhaps one day I will take you up on it.

If you want to be kept up to date on the progress of Venture Communism, join this list:

http://www.groovy.net/mailman/listinfo/vencom

Believe me, I try. In person I am very pleasent and sociable, online things always sound harsher they're meant to due to the lack of body language and voice.

I actually say this sort of thing all the time, my primary reason for contributing to these forums is exactly to help me develop my ideas and my ability to explain them, and my thanks is thus extended to those in this forum, especially yourself and oisleep.

However, I am frequently very disapointed in the low level of knowledge regarding Anarchism that you find in online Anarchist forums, one wonders if many particpants have bothered to read any Anarchist theory, or if they think revolutionary activity consists mainly of dressing funny and making fun of politicians. This forum would be improved if it's contributers did a little research of their own regarding their chosen political affiliation.

Thanks and regards.

My mother assures me I'm very funny.

Yet a Venture Commune would face the exact same organisational challenges as the kinds of organisations listed above, thus as these can exist so can Venture Communes as I have described them.

It is far more practicle than taking it by force, the economics of which I have attempted to explain, if you dispute this then provide an alternative explanation to mine.

I am not sure what you mean by Capital in this statment, Capital is the material input to production that is the resul of labour applied to land, namely Tools, Machines, Factories, etc.

In both modes of production Capital formation leads to more Capital formation, it is just the roles of the dominant and subordinate inputs that switch places.

What I think you are trying to say is that you can not see the Capitalist class accepting a system where the yield of Capital is retined by its workers and not appropriated for the unearned accumulation of wealth by the Capitalist class.

My response to this is that, even if you believe that conflict is inevetiable, Venture Communism stills _delays_ conflict until the Capitalist class sees us as threat, by which time we already have a certain degree of accumulated wealth with which to defend ourselves, and as I mentioned, defense is far less expensive than offence.

Further, what do you imagine the Capitalist class will do about it once workers _refuse_ to apply their labour to private property?

Escalate the police state to the point of forced labour camps?

This is beyond their means, they simply can not afford to do this, that would mean that the vast majority of their appropriated wealth would need to be dedicated to this application of force, which means that they would need to extract surplus values of more than half just to fund enough goons to control every worker, plus extract enough to arm the goon, defend the land, form the capital, and all this before they have extracted any wealth at all for their own consumption. No slaves are productive enough to support such a system and it would collapse, as all societies that have even attempted such hights of despotism have.

Further, very few of the Capitalist class are idiological Capitalist, or even understand any theories of political economy, and thus would not understand the revolutionary nature of the Venture Communes enough to even attempt to resist them.

"Class Consiousness" is just as false among the Capitalist Class as it is among the Working Class, in both cases all actors will act on the basis of short turm gain even if it is against their long term Class interests.

Thanks for your comments.

Regards.

If you are interesting is "showing me up" I concede, I am not interested in a posturing contest.

If you are interesting in applying the theories of Kropotkin, Bookchin, or actuall revolutionary events to what is being discussed, please go ahead, just making allusions to them is pretty empty.

It is exactly this lack of the application of these ideas that I am complaining about, no doubt there are Anarchist texts scattered around this site, but where is the application of the ideas that ought to result from reading and understanding them in a discusion where a specific proposal is being made?

It is encouraging that you can identify the Mutualist strains in my work, now lets see if you can talk about ideas, or if your contribution is to be limited to discussing me as a person.

I am fully prepared to take back everything I said about this forum if I am shown to have misjudged.

Regards.

Straw man. I said that a Venture Communes would not face significantly different financial challanges than co-ops and building societies, not that these where revolutionary.

Well let me know when you have occupied something of value and managed to retain it and put it to productive use.

As I said, I'm not holding my breath.

I'm sorry you find a two page proposal "long winded," you must find Proudon a crashing bore, let alone that wind bag Kropotkin

Reasoning?

Thanks, and yes, I always have fun with my projects, as do others who participate.

If I don't like it, I should leave, is that it? I've heard that somewhere before....

In anycase, peace and solidarity to all here, I mean no offense, however I am serious about ideas, and will debate them stongly. I don't mean to upset anyone with it, I do mean to challenge you though. I hope you take it well. Actually, I expect you to. Sorry if you think this an unreasonable expectation to have of professed Anarchists. I eagerly accept challenges in return. Actually, I depend on it.

Regards.

No.

That is why I propose that workers enclose their productivty in an alternative mode of production, and _not_ waste their energy trying to overhaul the current system. Pull out its life support and let it die on its own.

As far as I know, my work is compatibale with what Bookchin says, in that Venture Communes do "developed together with counterinstitutions to the prevailing institutions" that is the entire point, to make the State irrelevenat, stop allowing it to consume our labour, and instead build _our own_ alternatives.

The psuedo-Georgist Rent mechanism built into the Commune allows for the provision of Public Goods, including social welfare systems and defense and all other benefits currently provided by the prevailing institutions.

Though a Venture Commune shares elements with co-ops and syndicates, it is a distinct model. The "four properties" make it distinct, and I hope it is clear that it is a model that is still in development, with more details being actively investigated and fleshed out.

Also, how would this discusion be going if in response to criticisms made here I merely posted a link to some outside article and did not apply and explain my reasoning?

I would be very grateful of you applied the ideas you reference, not simply referenced them.

In anycase, Murry Bookchin's theories are a welcome addition to this conversation.

Regards.