Founding an anarcho-communist communal enterprise - ideas and suggestions.

What kind of problems can arise

The market?

Be curious to hear more about what you've got in mind and why you're opting to create a co-op?

Nah, the market as in you'll still feel the pressures of capital on even the most well-intentioned of workers co-ops. On "having to turn to the government for aid", fuck that dude, it's about maintaining working class living standards. We won that social democratic safety net. You can bet your ass I'll be using it and I don't think it compromises my principles as a revolutionary one bit.

On remaking society, the power of the working class is exercised at the point of production--the ability to fuck up accumulation as the productive class in society. That's how social change is brought about, not by attempting to become communal capitalists. This is not to say, I should add, that I think co-ops don't have a place in a revolutionary movement. But they're not a revolutionary strategy.

Anyway, some reading if you're interested:

http://libcom.org/library/co-ops-or-conflicts
http://libcom.org/library/co-operatives-all-together
http://libcom.org/library/participatory-society-or-libertarian-communism

anarchomedia

State welfare is a poisoned chalice and it costs us the working class more than we get from it, it is just another con and psychologically it has made us into helpless babies.

Yeah, hope i get sanctioned tomorrow. Maybe if im lucky they'll take away my housing benefit too, that'll really stick it to Cameron and Osbourne.

When you say it's 'practical' what historical precedence were you thinking of? In the UK, mutual aid societies were ran by the trade unions (one reason for their timidity) and got co-opted by the state, hence the NHS. I don't think we should make the same mistake twice.

Or the massive UK co-op movement (which undoubtedly started as a working class institution) that slowly--through the pressure of the market--became nothing more than capitalism with a friendly face and a year-end bonus.

I'm not anti-market and I like a bit of pressure. I don't like manipulated markets such as we have thanks to the state and its capitalist friends,

Markets are objectively manipulated: the state is needed to help create and certainly to sustain them. And powerful players in the market will use their power to manipulate to their advantage. It's not about intentions, it's about the inherent functioning of a market.

very much agree that we need to start building alternative forms of support networks (to the state), are you in the US or UK?

anarchomedia

If we don't make coops then we are have no choice but be waged labour for the capitalists or be helplessly dependant on toxic aid of the state. The capitalist class practically bought the state and when the coops are numerous enough and powerful enough we can buy it too and then abolish it.

But we do have the choice to be waged labour for some co-op maaaaaaaaaan or exploit ourselves? That seems just as bogus. If you accept the co-op movement was recuperated in the past, what would be different in the future?

The 'market forces' force workers coops/ self employed workers to exploit themselves. For example- if you are part of a coop producing bread and the price of bread drops, you have to cut wages and increase your working hours to ensure your bread is sold at a competitive price so you wont loose all your customers to cheaper rivals. If the price of flour increases- likewise and so on...

If you want to start or join a coop as a personal lifestyle thing then whatevs- good luck n'all- but be aware there are fundamental limitations on the coop model- both in terms of improved lifestyle and most especially as a revolutionary strategy to emancipate ourselves from capital (and the oppression and exploitation that it heaps on all workers).

One alternative to spending our time and energy setting up 'anarchist' enterprises that fit in with capitalist social relations and the market (or attempt to avoid them as far as possible) is to organise in our workplaces and communities to fight against the exploitation and oppression we witness and experience... and do that in a non-hierarchical way which promotes solidarity and mutual aid.

What Wotsit said. Since co-ops are just a right on hobby, alternatives could be trainspotting, multiplayer video games, watching moody French films? Fundamental change can't happen within capitalism and there's no easy answers.

Of course I agree that a manipulated market is bad for us and that the state is the foremost tool of the capitalist class in ensuring that manipulation works against our interests by keeping capital out of the hands of the working class. So to remedy this situation the state must be abolished, well any anarchist understands this, and then markets will be more fair and our work will be properly valued and the workers will have the ability to accumulate their own capital too and be self-employed or pool their capital to make co-ops.

Are you suggesting that the revolution should abolish the state but not capital!?!

Here's my alternative:

http://www.libcom.org/library/fighting-ourselves-anarcho-syndicalism-class-struggle-solidarity-federation

Mutual aid is practiced on the job and against landlords, the police, and an exploitative benefits system, not by trying to 'unmanipulate' markets or by trying to increase the level of 'capital' owned by the working class (a contradictory notion that brings about contradictory results).

markets will be more fair and our work will be properly valued and the workers will have the ability to accumulate their own capital too

Wait, are you an an-cap?

Of course I do mutual aid- We all do mutual aid every day- even non-anarchists- that's kind of like the whole point, innit.

We are highly social animals who rely on each other for pretty much everything (food clothing, shelter etc etc etc)- it's just capital and hierarchical social relations get in the way of the full potential of socially productive individuals using mutual aid and solidarity to organise ourselves to meet all our needs better- yeah.

Yes I do want to promote it- promote does not just mean 'talk about'.

pro·mote
/prəˈmōt/
Verb
1. Further the progress of (something, esp. a cause, venture, or aim); support or actively encourage.
2. Give publicity to (a product, organization, or venture) so as to increase sales or public awareness.

For example- I might help out a workmate if they're in trouble with the boss and encourage others to stick up for them as well- and I'd expect that would promote the idea of standing up for ourselves and each other generally. I might even say 'look if we don't stand up for each other there's going to be no one else to help us out when we need it'.

I'd primarily aim to promote solidarity/ mutual aid through action and explain why I had decided to take that action, or attempted to organise action. In my previous job I was always looking for ways we could help each other out and I got involved in supporting a lot of my workmates with their workplace problems and I gained a lot from it.

I think you're looking for easy answers and nice simple models of anarchist communist communities which can function within a capitalist society that just don't/ can't exist. I actually used to think that setting up little anarcho coop/ communes would be a good idea- but I now see that as naive and indicative of a fundamental lack of understanding of how capital creates and fuels exploitation and oppression- and how we might best fight back.

I'd encourage you to read more on libcom/ solfed/ afed about workplace and community organising and critiques/ limitations of the coop/ commune model. I think this will help you improve the content of your website and help you see why your comments on this thread got the responses they did from other people who are trying to promote anarchist communism in practice.

I'm currently reading the new SolFed book/pamphlet and I highly recommend that...

Well, I don't think any of us particularly consider ourselves part of the left, despite our obvious anti-capitalism.

Workplace agitation is fine but I am self-employed so who am I supposed to rebel against, myself?

And this, my friend, is the exact point about co-ops.

most of my life I have been reading and not doing and feel that I have had enough of theory and now want to roll up my sleeves and finally get my hands dirty.

Look I'm all for theory being informed by practice, but I'd be curious what sort of "anarcho-communist" literature you've been reading thats supports markets and capital accumulation by the working class...

However difficult you imagine it is to start a coop in a capitalist world if it succeeds then at least you have stepped out of wage slavery and become a grown up.

"Grown up"? What does that even mean?

Also "doing":

http://libcom.org/blog/worker-control-staff-meeting-15082012

anarchomedia

Workplace agitation is fine but I am self-employed so who am I supposed to rebel against, myself?

Agitation is only one part of workplace organising (and generally the easiest bit- most people hate their boss and their job and their shitty pay and conditions already- it's organising effective direct action that's the tricky bit). If you don't have co-workers and you are self-employed its obviously harder, but not impossible, to support workplace struggles.

I see from your profile you're a taxi driver- so for example, on days when other transport workers are on strike you can opt to strike in solidarity, join their pickets etc.

anarchomedia

Workplace agitation is fine but whatever happens you still stay a wage slave so what's the diff?

However difficult you imagine it is to start a coop in a capitalist world if it succeeds then at least you have stepped out of wage slavery and become a grown up.

Coops are broadly based on capitalist social relations- it's just that the people in them embody two sets of opposing class interests- being both capitalists and wage workers. You are still dependent on wages- if you don't take a wage from the coop then how on earth do you think you'll get by- but it is you (and your fellow coop boss/workers) who have to enforce labour discipline on yourselves, cut wages, raise working hours, ignore safety, to keep pace with the rest of the market so the coop remains profitable enough to compete and pay your wages. That's not an alternative to capitalism.

anarchomedia

Making an alternative to capitalism is plainly superior to temper tantrums against the boss but yet remaining dependant on him.

The working class are not dependant on bosses- you've got it the wrong way around- we are the ones who produce everything of useful value and they are the ones that sponge off our labour.

I was becoming disillusioned with the left in general but the more I grew to understand anarchist communism specifically (and how it critiques other ideologies, and illuminates the effects of different social relations) the more things seemed to become clearer.

Looks like we've met a thinker to rival Marx comrades:

Capital is just stuff: tools, machines, finished products and of course tokens of exchange (money) and you can't abolish stuff, that doesn't make any sense.

anarchomedia

Comrade Chili - By 'left' I mean socialists in the most general sense, sorry I couldn't think of a better word and yes probably there shouldn't be a word to lump both state-socialists together with anarchists because state-socialists have more in common with fascists than they do with anarchists of anykind. I should have be said that I am getting dis-illusioned with anarchists since I have never thought well of state-socialists.

And this, my friend, is the exact point about co-ops.

This doesn't make any sense. It sounds like you are suggesting that being a 'rebellious' wage slave is better than being a worker who owns the means of production, but that is just so pitiably wrong it is not funny. Is rebellion a sport now? Am I supposed to go back to being a wage-slave because I don't get enough humilation to be rebellious. I own my means of production which is exactly the goal of worker emancipation isn't it?

you seem to be thinking about tactics in terms of personal morality, this is generally a mistake. Capitalism can't be overthrown by people opting out, it is quite fundamentally to capitalism that the overwhelming majority of the population is disposed and can't see up cooperatives, so while the people working in cooperatives may find them preferable to having a boss (assuming its a non hiracical cooperative, which is rarely the case) this does nothing to change the socal realitons of society of which the cooperative is also a part.

anarchomedia

My idea about markets and capital are largely my own work. Capital is just stuff: tools, machines, finished products and of course tokens of exchange (money) and you can't abolish stuff, that doesn't make any sense. The problem with state-capitalism is that all the stuff that really matters ends up in the hands of the nasty minority of idlers, those we call the capitalists. Hence why we want to get back control of the means of production, the workers want to be capitalists too.

You should maybe find out what other people mean by capitalism
And class

anarchomedia

Markets is just the exchange of owned stuff. Society can't function if people don't exchange stuff because no one nor any collective can possibly be entirely self-sufficient so to get things they lack they have to either steal or trade with others. Trade is plainly more moral and beneficient than stealing. Trade is a kind of mutual aid, stealing is mutual strife.

markets have a natural tendency to concentrate wealth. Trade is not mutual aid. mutual aid doesn't demand payment and only help those who can afford the price

The thing about how you cant have little independent units is why you cant escape capitalism by forming a cooperative. It doesn't how ever mean they trade is esentional. It is possible to produce things without payment.

anarchomedia

Your link is sad, it is great that those workers got a little feeling of power from challenging the boss but they haven't really changed anything they are still just dispossessed wage slaves. This is supposed to be better than founding a coop? That's just fucked up.

you fail to understand the example, capitalism can only be abolished by the working class acting for itself, for the workin class to do this requiers that they belive they can, which means before a revolution takes place it is necessery that working class people take part in activity aht increases there sense of power.
This is not an alternative to coopratives, because for the vast majority of coops are not an option, they must contiue to work for a boss, but if they can increase there sense fo power while doing so then it is possible.

Wotsit

Coops are broadly based on capitalist social relations- it's just that the people in them embody two sets of opposing class interests- being both capitalists and wage workers. You are still dependent on wages- if you don't take a wage from the coop then how on earth do you think you'll get by- but it is you (and your fellow coop boss/workers) who have to enforce labour discipline on yourselves, cut wages, raise working hours, ignore safety, to keep pace with the rest of the market so the coop remains profitable enough to compete and pay your wages. That's not an alternative to capitalism.

Wotsit, that is beautifully articulated. Seriously one of the best descriptions of the contradictory nature of co-ops I've ever read. Anarchomedia, take note.

AM

It sounds like you are suggesting that being a 'rebellious' wage slave is better than being a worker who owns the means of production, but that is just so pitiably wrong it is not funny. Is rebellion a sport now? Am I supposed to go back to being a wage-slave because I don't get enough humilation to be rebellious.

First off, you really have to quit strawmanning. Your comments are childish and not a very effective form of debate.

Anyway, I don't think anyone holds it against you that, as a self-employed person, you have a bit more control over your labor than someone who works for a boss. What we're arguing is that individual ownership of capital or collective ownership of capital is neither possible on a large scale nor a revolutionary strategy.

Capitalism forces the vast majority of the population into the position of wage slaves. It is from that point that we discover our collective interests and can exercise our collective power. It doesn't mean the self-employed can't support those struggles or that co-ops have no place in the movement. It does mean, however, that class power is fundamentally exercised on the shop floor against capitalists.

AM

I own my means of production which is exactly the goal of worker emancipation isn't it?

No, it's not. The goal of worker emancipation is not for us all to individually own an equal share of the means of productions. Rather, it's that all means of production will become socialised and (if you'll forgive the Marx here) we'll destroy the exchange value of commodities so that capital will cease to exist.

AM

Capital is just stuff: tools, machines, finished products and of course tokens of exchange (money) and you can't abolish stuff, that doesn't make any sense.

No, you're misunderstanding basic concepts. The means of productions are only capital when they're involved in a process making money (accumulation). You're right that we can't abolish "stuff" but we can abolish the social relations which form capital.

AM

Your link is sad, it is great that those workers got a little feeling of power from challenging the boss but they haven't really changed anything they are still just dispossessed wage slaves.

I don't think you need to read any anarcho-communism theory to understand how the class struggle operates, but I still don't think you've read any. The point is to build up class power and class confidence so that we can (1) improve our living conditions in the here and now and (2) build towards a revolutionary movement.

And it's a dialectical process: participation in struggles (no matter how small) make clear the nature of the class relationship and opens up the space for larger political discussions. That's the point of the piece, which you clearly (and I think probably willingly) misunderstood.

AM

workers want to be capitalists too

Fuck, I give up.

Wait, it's the messiah!

Or perhaps just a thoroughly deluded person? http://www.anarchomedia.info/is-cancer-merely-a-vitamin-deficiency-disease/

Marxists sometimes have their uses. Two articles by Kropotkin hosted at marxists.org on communal experiments.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1893/advice.htm

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1895/settlement.htm

You are obviously no more than a well-meaning entrepreneur, what the fuck are you doing on a communist website?

Anarcho-entrepreneurism! The stop gap solution between now and the revolutionnnnnnnnnnn.

I think you have it mixed up a bit. Probably none of the people on this site "loathe" capitalists as "greedy" (or if they do, it's not a central tenet of their politics, but more of an emotional appendix of it). What we are against is a form of production based on private property, and we oppose it for reasons which go far beyond its moral or cultural consequences (greed, hoarding, vanity etc.).

The thing is: if you sympathize with (anarcho-)communism, be advised that your attempts, as long as you think of them as a means of changing the world, are doomed to failure (and hardly anyone will notice before they fail). There is a long historical record of this. Of course, the record for other methods is no better, but one can identify structural, "endogenous" causes of the collapse of communal experiments amidst capitalism, whereas social revolutions or attempts at them were mosty simply drowned in blood. If you just want to create a successful business where you treat people nice, without any ambitions of changing the world, then good luck with that, but I think people other than communists would be more qualified to give you advice on that. (We don't run businesses, we ruin them.)

Also, I don't know to what extent the articles on www.anarchomedia.info express your views, but some of the stuff there is simply antithetical to what virtually all communists view as the interests of the working class. For example, the article on feminism reproduces the most horrible stereotypes about women, and by discouraging their involvement in the job market serves to weaken the working class and stultify women's emancipation. Or take the article on cancer as a "vitamin-deficiency" disease: it reproduces a well-known and long-disproved hoax used by con-men to sell useless "treatments" to seriously ill people (who are often hopeless and poor). The attitude towards science and rationality that it supports (at least implicitly, but perhaps also explicitly – I haven't had the patience to read all of it) is the exact opposite of what the workers' movement stands for. If you're serious about anarcho-communism, I'd suggest you look around this site and read up a bit.

I did this the last time we had someone here promoting the somewhat confused idea of overthrowing capitalism by setting up small businesses and competing with capitalists in the market place:

(Click for biggsies.)

TBH, I'd go with your plan to herd [s]cats[/s] an-caps.

jura

Or perhaps just a thoroughly deluded person? http://www.anarchomedia.info/is-cancer-merely-a-vitamin-deficiency-disease/

http://www.anarchomedia.info/feminism-a-trojan-horse-in-the-socialist-camp/

Feminism began as a trick to distort the labour market in the favour of the capitalists and finished as a weapon to kill the mutual aid society of marriage. Men used to honour women, now they despise them and treat them as toys. Really now men don’t even grow up at all; bereft of a honourable hard working father for a role-model, the modern man remains perpetually a boy-child. Women, in turn, deprived of a husband, are overworked if they have children and doomed to a lonely old age if they don’t.

http://www.anarchomedia.info/an-anarchists-guide-to-bitcoin/

Another virtue of bitcoin that is more generally interesting is that there is a hard limit to the quantity of coins that can ever be minted, 21 million.

http://www.anarchomedia.info/julian-assange/

All good revolutionaries face persecution and Julian Assange is no exception.

:-(

anarchomedia

flaneur - It might turn out to be more than a stop-gap solution it might become the revolution itself...

[youtube]OT4B-NJUcZE[/youtube]

Well, I single-handedly overthrew capitalism last night by eating a whole vegan quiche, if that counts - not that anyone here noticed!

Feminism began as a trick to distort the labour market in the favour of the capitalists and finished as a weapon to kill the mutual aid society of marriage. Men used to honour women, now they despise them and treat them as toys. Really now men don’t even grow up at all; bereft of a honourable hard working father for a role-model,

Allright everyone here is crapping all over my idea but what do any of you do that is so much better? (I bet nothing at all)

Dude, people started off this conversation with you as critical but friendly. It's your childish style of argumentation, petty insults, and refusal to actually engage with any of the critiques that's led to this point.

On the other hand, it's all been pretty entertaining.

"group think"

I'd very much like to feel offended or provoked by anything you wrote, but I can't, for the simple reason that, sadly, all of this has been done to death in the past 200 years with the same result (you lose).

His godwaful website

"If you don't control your mind, someone else will."
— John Allston1

Open your minds, sheeple! Open your minds!

• 1Even Wikipedia doesn't know who John Allston is.

ah they think they critiqued our arguments, how cute

His godawful website also

What do you say?
How do you want Anarcho-media to fund itself?
[ ] Donations
[ ] Subscription fees
[ ] Selling merchandise
[ ] Third-party advertising
[ ] User targeted advertising (goodle adsense)
[ ] Do not care how it is done
[x] I want Anarcho-media to fail and disappear from the net.

[clicks to vote for last option three or four times!]

Total voters: 4
Total votes: 7

Donations (4 votes, 57%)
Subscription fees (1 votes, 14%)
Selling merchandise (2 votes, 29%)
Third-party advertising (0 votes, 0%)
User targeted advertising (goodle1 adsense) (0 votes, 0%)
Do not care how it is done (0 votes, 0%)
I want Anarcho-media to fail and disappear from the net. (0 votes, 0%)

Four people voted seven times, one person's repeated vote not counted at all. Democracy in action!

• 1
  Also, bonus points for misspelling "google".

I think that generally we shouldn't ridicule people who try and understand anarchism/ communism and that rational argument (or proof-is-in-the-pudding direct action) is the best approach in almost all circumstances where people with different ideas are trying to prove a point (or achieve a goal).

Having said that, I did give up quite quickly on this debate as a lost cause and I did enjoy some of the subsequent taunts, and think in many cases they were a good stand-in for a rational debate which never materialised.

Anarchomedia, if you feel at all inclined to read more on libcom and then return to this debate I think it would be a good thing for you and I hope people here would engage with any questions you still had (not about setting up an enterprise, because we already tried to explain why that's not our cup of tea- do let us know how you get on though if you try that though)...

On an important point I think it would be for the best if you were to take your website offline or at least remove any association with anarchist communism because most of the stuff on there is just awful and has nothing to do with what anarchist communists want or believe.

anarchomedia

Could you try again?

I could, but I've already lost the will to live...

A Wotsit

On an important point I think it would be for the best if you were to take your website offline or at least remove any association with anarchist communism because most of the stuff on there is just awful and has nothing to do with what anarchist communists want or believe.

You can vote for him to shut down his website, apparently.

I did- it didn't show up in the results

:D

Yes it has been entertaining and did learn something, the left is lost. I didn't start the insults, if you care to look back over the thread, in fact I haven't made any insults

You called us "helpless babies" in the 5th post and "repugnant dependant babies suckling on the state's toxic tit" in the 29th post. Your views on women and feminism are just repugnant.

Given how 'left' anarchists seem to be marxists now (Bakunin would be turning in his grave

No he wouldn't. Bakunin wrote of co-operatives in Statism and Anarchy (1873) here:

The various forms of cooperation are incontestably one of the most equitable and rational ways of organizing the future system of production. But before it can realize its aim of emancipating the laboring masses so that they will receive the full product of their labor, the land and all forms of capital must he converted into collective property. As long as this is not accomplished, the cooperatives will be overwhelmed by the all-powerful competition of monopoly capital and vast landed property; ... and even in the unlikely event that a small group of cooperatives should somehow surmount the competition, their success would only beget a new class of prosperous cooperators in the midst of a poverty-stricken mass of proletarians. While cooperatives cannot achieve the emancipation of the laboring masses under the present socioeconomic conditions, it nevertheless has this advantage, that cooperation can habituate the workers to organize themselves to conduct their own affairs (after the overthrow of the old society) ...

And lol at you ignorantly lumping Bakunin and Nestor Makhno with anarcho-capitalists, idiot.

anarchomedia

Given how 'left' anarchists seem to be marxists now (Bakunin would be turning in his grave, not to mention Nestor Makhno)

Bakunin was contracted to do the Russian translation of Marx's Capital. Makhno was one of the main authors of the Organisational Platform of Libertarian Communists. Whoops.

Hah, this thread is pretty jokes. :-).

Anarchomedia (on the off-chance you come back to this thread) with the best will in the world, I think your understanding of anarchist-communist politics is very limited. I don't want to sound mean, everyone starts from square one on this stuff, and anarchists are often pretty bad at communicating their politics even allowing for the general social bias against revolutionary ideas in most readily available media. Maybe you feel like people have been hostile, but I think if you read over the early comments in this thread again with a cool head and a sense of humor you might see it a bit differently. Or maybe not, I dunno.

Anyway, where you say:

Anarchomedia

I like doing better than I like reading or rather most of my life I have been reading and not doing and feel that I have had enough of theory and now want to roll up my sleeves and finally get my hands dirty.

I think this is probably a good idea, one way or the other. You can read lots of stuff without really understanding it. Personally, my experience is that I've learned the most from actually talking to people who challenged my assumptions and ideas. You can learn loads from books of course, but a lot of the time you just end up reading things that reinforce what you already think anyway.

So yeah, get your hands dirty. I'm pretty skeptical about your plan for a "communal enterprise" as you put it, like most other posters here I think co-ops and the like and the like are very limited in terms of them directly challenging capitalism and the state. But if you're not convinced by the arguments that have been put to you here then go ahead. Try it and see how it goes. Or try something else, get in touch with other anarchists locally, see what they're up to.

One thing to bear in mind though, maybe people got your back up with their initial responses on here, but if you're going to start a political co-op or get involved seriously in activism you've got to have a bit more patience than you've shown here:

Anarchomedia

Yes it has been entertaining and did learn something, the left is lost. I didn't start the insults, if you care to look back over the thread, in fact I haven't made any insults just critiques of people's arguments which I suppose some found offensive as they challenged the group-think here which is apparently verboten. Anyway all the best to you all.

Really? You've been told off on a web forum and come to the conclusion "the left is lost"? After a week posting here you're ready to accuse us all of group-think etc. - I think you'll struggle with running your communal enterprise if this is how you react when people disagree with you.

Anyways, take care.

~J.

anarchomedia

I like an-caps,

Folks, this thread has officially peaked! It can only go downhill from here...

anarchomedia

i mean some of their ideas are bonkers and they take the private property thing too far

Who'd have thought that supporters of capitalism would have such strange views about private property?

Can I proclaim Omen the winner of this thread?

anarchomedia

"Jew"

And about time too! We were in danger of taking you seriously for a moment there...

anarchomedia

Omen - Bakunin said "jew" you little weasel.

Which was why I quoted it in quote marks and directly under your post where everyone could see it.

Quite why someone would quote that, other than to show what a dick Bakunin could be, I don't know. I thought you were supposed to be showing us why Bakunin was better than Marx, or something.

OK, fair enough, but you should probably be clearer before letting off a J-bomb in a public place.

A Frick, a Gould who could, if he wanted, "hire half the working-class to kill the other half", but would instead show us the way to the promised land?

The Dupont's are having their revenge on Libcom.

However difficult you imagine it is to start a coop in a capitalist world if it succeeds then at least you have stepped out of wage slavery and become a grown up

anarchomedia

Hence why we want to get back control of the means of production, the workers want to be capitalists too.

I'm reading through this thread; haven't finished though. I just have to say, reading along the way, I find that quote to be absolutely hilarious. Am I the only one?

Just finished going through the whole thread. The stuff posted here is by far some of the most funniest things I've read on the web, his website included. It's like a sequel to "Reading Recommendations" by ComradeAppleton. And just like ComradeAppleton who held a lot of -isms (like racism againsts Africans), anarchomedia has some -isms of his own too.

But seriously, the anti-semitism you decided to bring up is really disgusting. What in the world is wrong with you ancaps?

anarchomedia

Patience - yes you are right I should try to be more patient. When I said the 'left is lost' it was not just from this thread but other interactions I have had that causes me to think that the left has lost something crucial to success against the 'system'. It is a dismal thought but what can I do?

Jesus, so that means you've peddled this shit elsewhere and it's received a similar response. A sensible person would probably rethink their master plan and decide perhaps it's nae such a good idea?

anarchomedia

jolasmo - My understanding of anarcho-communism is just fine but my ideas have moved on a bit from the 19th century so maybe I am not an orthodox anarcho-communist anymore.

I'd say your ideas certainly differ substantially from those of 19th century anarchist-communists (such as your favorite thinker, Peter Kropotkin). Whether they represent a move forward, as you assert, or a step back, is a different question entirely.

It's not as if the anarchist-communists who use this forum have lifted their politics straight from the pages of The Conquest of Bread or whatever. There have been many all sorts of new developments in anarchist-communist ideas since then, some of which have been linked to in this thread - from Fighting For Ourselves to the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists.

On the other hand, you ideas - judging from your posts here, and on your website - can't really be accurately described as anarcho-communist, "orthodox" or otherwise. When you say that

anarchomedia

the state must be abolished, well any anarchist understands this, and then markets will be more fair and our work will be properly valued and the workers will have the ability to accumulate their own capital too and be self-employed or pool their capital to make co-ops

this not only contradicts the most basic principles of anarchist-communism (which has always meant a stateless, moneyless society) but parrots the very arguments that anarchist-communism originally evolved to oppose, such as the 'mutualism' of Proudhon. While it might be a step away from 'orthodox' anarchist-communism, it's not a step forwards.

~J.

I'm not about to use insults like idiot etc sprinkled with maaannnn and revolutionnn ( and frankly this patronising behaviour puts off so many newcomers to libcom) but the market and anarchist-communism are a complete contradiction. I'm afraid what you are saying, anarchomedia, is not an innovation in anarchist-communism but looks backwards towards mutualism, as Jolasmo says. Anyway, I don't want to sound patronising myself, but I think that your coming experiences will show that what you are advocating is a dead end, that is if you don't become a successful entrepreneur yourself a la Ben and Jerry. Anyway for you to find out.

flaneur

...

Jesus, so that means you've peddled this shit elsewhere and it's received a similar response. A sensible person would probably rethink their master plan and decide perhaps it's nae such a good idea?

RevLeft (well-known for its tolerance):

http://www.revleft.com/vb/set-up-mutual-t176582/index.html?t=176582
http://www.revleft.com/vb/gift-trade-theft-t176516/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/ppi-tax-remedy-t176608/index.html?t=176608

Instead of just telling us about why your ideas are so great, why don't you go out and set up your [s]small business[/s] anarchist commune, and then you can come back here and have a good laugh at us when you've overthrown capitalism by selling tofu1 , or whatever it is you intend to do?

• 1The commune in the first post really does make tofu!

You should listen to me I have solved these contradictions, my doctrine is consistent, moral and pragmatic. Would you like to know more?

Sell us some vitamins while you're at it.

You aren't exactly the first person to show up on an internet forum innocently asking for advice, then dismissing all of the advice given out of hand, then trying to convince everyone of the righteousness of your vision. It usually takes a few more pages for this to become apparent, so you probably should have held out for longer.

anarchomedia

You people are slipperier than a oilskin sack of greased eels,

I am a greased [s]lizard[/s] eel

[youtube]0AckvdGbk4w[/youtube]

anarchomedia

I didn't start this thread to tell about my ideas, I started it to ask for advice. But yeah I will proceed with my project.

I don't know why I feel compelled to write this but...

I think our advice was:

- if you are aiming to set up a coop/ commune to advance the anarchist communist cause then don't bother, because anarchist/ communist theory, practice and history tells us this doesn't work. Therefore, we advise that if you wanna play a part in advancing the revolutionary cause then instead of starting an enterprise, try co-organising things which disrupt, rather than fit-in with capitalist social relations, or at least achieve gains, or prevent losses, for the working class within the capitalist system and boost our ability to organise for positive change.

- if you are aiming to set up a coop/ commune to earn a wage (or accumulate capital) and be your own co-boss; then go ahead. Find a product or service people will buy, that you can produce and sell at a price which people will pay (this can be anything from tofu to drugs- I buy both regularly and would buy them from you if the price and quality were competitive). Then ?somehow? acquire some capital, organise production, decision making, sales, distribution etc...and hey presto- you can earn a profit, pay yourselves wages (or try to make some of the stuff you need) and continue to get by as part of the capitalist system ... just don't expect that to be revolutionary in any way, shape or form.

I genuinely wish you luck in your endeavors- it's frustrating and disheartening that it is so difficult to organise anything that's genuinely revolutionary- it must be especially so as a self-employed worker with fewer obvious means of advancing the class struggle in your everyday life.

Some advice you didn't ask for but I feel is necessary- you seriously need to check some of you opinions and assertions if you want to be accepted as a comrade by other people who define as anarchist communists.For example, your views on women, benefit claimants, your understanding of what capital is, your understanding of what capitalism is and your understanding of what anarchist communism is.

I am very curious to know what project you had in mind specifically, though I would understand if you didn't want to tell us now....

Bakunin would be turning in his grave, not to mention Nestor Makhno

Says the pan-anarcho-communist who supports capital accumulation and the market...

Also, knee-jerk anti-Marx strawmanning: best debating technique EVER.

wojtek

[youtube]0AckvdGbk4w[/youtube]

WHY ISN'T THIS GETTING MORE UPS?!!?

Allright it is not as dramatic as rolling a police car or chucking petrol bombs but it is a step in the right direction and it can be a base for other steps...

And no one here would support these as the basis for a revolutionary movement either.

Just like Proudhon's mutualism (which advocated no state, but markets and co-ops--although at least he claimed to want to destroy capital), 'propaganda by the deed' has been proven a historical failure. Hence, the vast, overwhelming majority of anarchists* no longer subscribe to either.

*note: an-caps are NOT anarchists by any remotely consistent definition of the word.

For everyone - OK obviously this guys ideas are very different to ours but being rude is never going to win anyone over. Even if it is frustrating and makes you want to bang your head into a wall and take the piss and vent don't, it's just wierd and off putting for newcomers. Go for a walk or something seriously or just be more patient.

For anarcho-media - I think that what your not seeing when we advocate collective struggle over creating co-ops is that we're not just advocating it because it we think it's good for people to show rebelliousness against heirarchy. We're advocating it because in a very fundamental way it actually it exposes the contradictions in and weakens capitalism.

How? That belief comes from our basic understanding of what capitalism i and how it functions. We see capitalism as being on the most basic level a system based on the "accumulation of capital" in plain english that means the investment of capital in means of production and purchased labour power to create a commodity to sell to create profit which can then be reinvested and the cycle can continue. Profit is all important as it is the driving force for economic activity. We see it every day and all over the world, how the thirst for profit causes suffering death poverty war ecological destruction etc And it's not because of individual greed it is woven into the very fabric of the way that capitalism needs to operate.

Now when the working class struggles collectively to further their own economic interests it does so in direct opposition to the interests of the capitalist class. By fighting to have their needs fulfilled workers are making a statement that their lives are actually more important than profits of their bosses, which undermines capitalism in a way that workers creating co-ops never can.

Its the basic contradiction in capitalism between the bosses and workers that we call class struggle. Have you read the Libcom intro to class struggle? You might get a lot out of it.

noodlehead

collective struggle... undermines capitalism in a way that workers creating co-ops never can.

The reason for this as other have pointed out is because when you create a co-op or become self employed you are becoming the capitalist AND the worker, operating within a wider environement of capitalism, and therefore still following the laws and logic of capital.

Anarchist communism isn't about workers becoming their own boss, its a about a total transformation of society. Abolishing class, and the institution of private property which forms the basis for it, so that people can finally begin to relate to eachother and work together on a level as equal human beings. This is why a few workers self managinging within capitalism isn't radical - its ignoring what is happening everywhere outside of their little bubble. Even if it's succesful its just like a tribe or gang practicing mutual aid within their clique rather fighting within a global movement for justice and equality

Well said, noodlehead!

That was well said Noodlehead (although Wotsit did say the same thing to Anarchomedia 3 pages ago and he didn't listen then...).

Anyway, there's a difference between a naive liberal who wonders onto libcom and makes arguments about co-ops or tax justice or whatever. I'm (often quite literally*) the first person to tell folks to keep it civil.

However, by his second post anarchomedia was dissing benefits claimants and by his sixth posts he's calling folks "weak" armchair anarchists. This is not engaging in good faith.

Then folks pointed out that his website not only contradicts basic anarcho-communism, but is fucking mysoginistic. Oh, and he thinks an-caps are what, "the only anarchists doing interesting things in the 21st century" or some shit. Come on.

* As I wrote on this thread last week:

Alright everyone, let's keep it civilised. At the risk of sounding patronising, I really like to have people like Gregory on the site. I mean, he's not an anarchist, but he is here to engage with our politics which--as long as things are kept respectful on both sides--I think is a big part of the potential of libcom.

anarchistmedia - you should go away and mull what wotsit and others have said - I don't mean that in a patronising way, I just think you should take a step back and actually take in the points. They're really worth thinking deeply about even if you still end up disagreeing.

anyway, I really enjoyed your contributions, even if you made abysmal arguments, no-one can deny you have a way with words...

noodlehead

For everyone - OK obviously this guys ideas are very different to ours but being rude is never going to win anyone over. Even if it is frustrating and makes you want to bang your head into a wall and take the piss and vent don't, it's just wierd and off putting for newcomers. Go for a walk or something seriously or just be more patient.

I don't think anyone wants to win him over. And I don't think he's some newcomer open to new ideas. My best guess is that he was sent by the Ayn Rand Institute to mess with us. The president of the institute is ComradeAppleton, of course, and this is supposed to be his revenge against us.

Chilli, I just noticed you gave me props for an earlier comment I posted- thanks for that!

To follow up on your response to noodlehead's appeal for a different tone of responses... whether people want to be polite or humours or confrontational when faced with insulting language and repellent political views isn't really important imo, but I do agree with noodlehead that we could have collectively made better use of our exchange with AM.

We all agree that a lot of AMs views are abhorrent and/or deluded, and deserve a robust response and also their communication style is irksome, perhaps deliberately so, but in support of what I think noodlehead is getting at with regards to the general tone of some libcom users responses on this thread...

I think sometimes when people focus too much on the confrontational humour/ taking the piss and not enough on critiquing the content of what someone is actually saying, and presenting a clear counter-argument, it reduces the effectiveness of the message we're trying to get across.

I think it's helpful not to assume too much prior common understanding when exchanging ideas with someone (no matter what political label they give themselves) and with this in mind, we should try to explain our own views in detail, or at least make one or two points in a way which would be clear to anyone who has never read (and/or understood) an anarchist communist text in their life (even if that means more of us end up sounding as patronising and long-winded as I frequently seem to).

I recall how hard it was for me to 'get it' when I was first learning about anarchist communism- often people need to hear the same view repeated in different ways several times for it to sink in, I know I did, and I had the benefit of a friendly anarcho-syndicalist workplace organiser to ask questions face-to-face, and even a day's training to help me get my head around it!

I quite enjoy it when other people take the piss in situations like this, it's just not something I think delivers any benefits beyond the amusement of regular libcom users. (Chilli, although I wrote this in response to your post, I do think you are a constructive poster, as indeed I think all posters on this thread are most of the time, and I don't think you need to defend your credentials in this regard).

Anyways, I intend on doing a response to AM's last post when I can get my brain to stop reeling in shock every time I try and digest it.

edit: cross-posted with several others- took too long to post- I may not bother replying to AM's earlier post if the convo takes a more constructive direction...

anarchomedia

Alright so the radical unions struggle to control the means of production, they succeed now the factory or farm is theirs, how will they organise it? As a coop perchance? Or something else? If the goal is a cooperative then what difference does it make how you get there? By taking or making you still end up with coops so what's the diff?

This is when I start to bang my head against the wall. So disappointed, even though I shouldn't expected any better.

I did want to join the boorish* crowd of nay sayers earlier so decided against it. Thanks to commieprincess, wotsit and noodlehead for persevering.

I think this so far is a fair comment,

anarchomedia

Alright so the radical unions struggle to control the means of production, they succeed now the factory or farm is theirs, how will they organise it? As a coop perchance? Or something else? If the goal is a cooperative then what difference does it make how you get there? By taking or making you still end up with coops so what's the diff?

The difference is this co-operative action needs to take place in a broader context of anti-capitalist struggle that looks to fundamentally change the organization of the mode of production. Otherwise you run in to all sorts of problematics. Do you source raw materials (coffee beans and coffee cups, lets say. Cleaning materials, etc, etc) from industries that engage in some sort of exploitation (this is basically a riff on the impossibility of an ethical consumerist). But while capitalism exists, you will still be, in the last instance, a slave to it's imperatives (there is a bit in Capital where Marx says the immanent laws of capitalist production are felt to the bourgeoisie as if they were external laws compelling him to act in certain ways. This is completely relevant for co-ops). You will still have to compete in the context of a wider capitalist economy. This will inevitably bring you at logger heads. Basically you will need to become capitalist in some way or you will fail. I wish I could give you a link (I can't remember the name of the co-op), but there is an example of co-ops here in Britain where they basically had a two tiered system. There was the core co-operative while they worked along side hired labourers (co-operative class exploitation). A better example can be seen from the experience of Argentina in 2001 where a few factories became co-operatives but eventually failed. You can read about it
here

* Don't take my use of boorish offensively anyone. I love being boorish.

oh yeah the stuff about feminism is really REALLY off by the way. But we should probably start a new thread for that ;-).

anarchomedia

a manipulated market is bad for us and that the state is the foremost tool of the capitalist class in ensuring that manipulation works against our interests by keeping capital out of the hands of the working class. So to remedy this situation the state must be abolished, well any anarchist understands this, and then markets will be more fair and our work will be properly valued and the workers will have the ability to accumulate their own capital too and be self-employed or pool their capital to make co-ops.

This might sound rude but you know nothing. We need to "abolish the state so the markets will be more fair and workers will have a chance to accumulate capital"? "Market anarchists" aren't anarchists. You're not an anarchist. Anyone who thinks competition in a market based in private property which sets the stage for wealth accumulation is a good thing is not an anarchist.

You don't understand how capitalism works. You don't understand what creates a class society and what gives rise to the state apparatus. Let me guess, you think Kevin Carson is an anarchist? You live somewhere inbetween NY and CA? Most of your experience with "anarchism" has been online?

anarchomedia

Alright so the radical unions struggle to control the means of production, they succeed now the factory or farm is theirs, how will they organise it? As a coop perchance? Or something else? If the goal is a cooperative then what difference does it make how you get there? By taking or making you still end up with coops so what's the diff? [and why?]

As I gave you in my second post:

http://libcom.org/library/co-ops-or-conflicts
http://libcom.org/library/co-operatives-all-together
http://libcom.org/library/participatory-society-or-libertarian-communism

Oh, I really enjoyed this:

AM

I'll take a look a bit more at libcom but some of the articles are not great (to be polite)

Libcom is probably the largest English language collection of anarchist and class struggle articles in the world. I like how you spent 10 minutes doing a quick search and decided "they are not great".

Also,
AM

Free thinking is verboten!

Freedom isn't free!!!

And good luck calling your an-caps friends "comrade".

anyone for a nice cup of tea?

there is a bit in Capital where Marx says the immanent laws of capitalist production are felt to the bourgeoisie as if they were external laws compelling him to act in certain ways. This is completely relevant for co-ops

Man, you don't really "want to overthrow the state, just impose a marxist state on the old state's bones."

Oh yeah, "co-ops":

http://solfed.org.uk/?q=north-london/solidarity-with-the-john-lewis-cleaners-%E2%80%93-for-a-living-wage-for-all-workers

Shit, I missed this earlier in the thread:

The capitalist class practically bought the state and when the coops are numerous enough and powerful enough we can buy it too and then abolish it.

At least the Leninists thought they could overthrow the state politically, but, fuck, buying out the state?!?

anarchomedia

, so I'll just stick with answering the points that I see as the most honest and well reasoned.

I think my post is pretty well reasoned (if you have a problem with the reasoning, I am happy to elucidate further).

anarchomedia

The totalitarianism underlying all your assumptions is a problem though and it will kill our vision faster than anything the capitalist could dream up. I dissent from this idea of communism for all (even if they don't want it), so now you abhor me and mock me.

This is an actual disgrace. The definition of totalitarianism is not 'mocking bad ideas'. If you want to hang around in ancap mutualist milieu's please do (good luck with that by the way, they only exist on the internet and as bosses and millionaires) but don't throw around bullshit about people being 'totalitarian marxist-leninist' because they disagree with you.

cardy lady

anyone for a nice cup of tea?

I'll take this...along with a custard cream

anarchomedia

The capitalist class practically bought the state and when the coops are numerous enough and powerful enough we can buy it too and then abolish it.

How did I miss this one? Did he even post it? First of all, aside from being “bought” by capitalists, the state is capitalist in design. Why? Well, because the source of its power is the surplus value extracted by the bourgeoisie out of the proletariat. In order to maintain and expand its power, it has to keep those capitalists happy and profitable.

anarchomedia

You won't want to believe this but I have had the 'vision' that I suppose we all have had, of all the people of the world sharing all the property and working together in perfect harmony, no need to measure worth or value or count the cost and so on. I still believe in that vision but I had some more pragmatic realisations too that lead me to a different understanding of how to get to this utopia than you. Real people are more like cats than ants so not everyone (probably few people) will want to do this vision in exactly the same way or at all so either communism will be an option some can take or it will be imposed on everyone by violence. The standard line is that it has to be imposed globally or it won't work. I think that is not just wrong morally and unworkable practically but also it is unnecessary. If communism has any worth then some people will chose it. You all chose it, and I chose it, so at least some people believe it is at least worth a try and that is enough for starters.

I still don’t understand where you ancaps get this idea that anarcho-communism is violent force or has to be imposed on everyone with violent force. “The standard line is that it has to be imposed globally or it won’t work.” Whose standard line is that? Nobody here’s vision of libertarian communism implies forcing everyone into a position of where their all being treated the same. Capitalism on the other hand is imposed globally. And if it wasn’t, then “an-capitalism” won’t work.

I have no idea where you’re going with trade, but all I know is that in a communist society, the law of value will be abolished. Production will be carried out for human needs and desires, not for the manufacture of exchange values. This will allow federative communities (local, regional, continental, etc.) to come together and coordinate the delivery of inputs to wherever their needed for production to take place, as well as finished output. “Trade” won’t exist because there isn’t a price on anything. And no community would be producing for profit.

Now, I don’t object to some communities not wanting to form association with others. That’s fine with me. They can do that. But that would mean they would need to achieve localized, self-sufficiency, which is not possible. Productive systems are global and complex. They wouldn’t be able to meet all of their needs on their own. And they shouldn’t. Most communities would want to form associations with each other. Why would members of any community want to confine themselves to just that community? Libertarian communism is about abolishing all borders and barriers to one’s (and all’s) self-fulfillment. It’s about creating one, true human community. Not several communities adverse to each other.

Wiggleston

cardy lady

anyone for a nice cup of tea?

I'll take this...along with a custard cream

[youtube]aPaClw2kM3Q[/youtube]

What is anarchomedia's theory of the state you might ask? Here you go:

anarchomedia

What is government? Sometimes it is hard to tell what is the essence of it. It muscles its way into so many social activities: health, education, standards, trade, dispute resolution, justice, research and development, media, insurance, investment, defence. Its essence is obscured by these activities like camouflage. But it is none of these activities; they can and have been done without government. When you subtract out all the activities of government that do not require government, can be done and even be done better by civil organisations, then all you are left with is an armed and idle minority bullying and robbing an unarmed working majority. That is the essence of government. It is nothing but a ‘protection’ racket. A local monopoly on the self-legitimised use of violence utilised for fun and profit. It is then an institution of oppression, no matter if it calls itself a republic or a democracy. It is a parasite on society, like a flea on a dog. Lackeys of the government will say in defence of their master that the flea can be reformed; one can plead with it to drink less blood from its host. Fleas can’t be reformed, the cure can only come from their removal. You can’t teach a flea new tricks.

And this is the funny part:

anarchomedia

One may support capitalism or socialism; neither requires government and both are perverted by its presence. How capitalist is the USA when government robs property and distorts the markets? How socialist was the USSR when the government shoots workers that strike? The USSR was the final proof of the intrinsically evil and unredeemable nature of government. Prior to the USSR all governments had been founded explicitly on the coercion of obedience and the robbing of the wealth of the many into the undeserving hands of the few. The USSR was founded on nobler values yet within a few years became exactly as oppressive as any state before it. No Marxist state that followed has ever differed from this pattern. Socialist or capitalist, recognise your ideals can not be safely entrusted to government.

anarchomedia

1. Income tax – tax on income is a tax on labour and is finely calculated to wipe out any surplus gained from employment. This surplus that the worker could achieve without income tax could enable the worker to save enough to individually or collectively start his own business and become an employer himself which would increase the demand for labour further and therefore increase the market price of labour.

So that's where the rest of the 'value of my labor product' has gone! Those statist-bastards. I could have become so powerful, that I myself would never again object to wage-labor. Oh, the benefits we can all have if the state hadn't exist. I would have been able to open a book shop, which would get more people to read. And since my bookshop would be filled with revolutionary pamphlets, they would have had a gradual change in consciousness and then join me to to abolish capitalism! Which means, I have to oppose the state first and only, and point out all of the "fleas" and "evils" it possesses, in order to move my agenda. Oh yeaahh, inflation, your next.

http://www.anarchomedia.info/would-a-free-market-lead-to-communism-2/

anarchomedia

Real people are more like cats than ants so not everyone (probably few people) will want to do this vision in exactly the same way or at all so either communism will be an option some can take or it will be imposed on everyone by violence. The standard line is that it has to be imposed globally or it won't work. I think that is not just wrong morally and unworkable practically but also it is unnecessary. If communism has any worth then some people will chose it. You all chose it, and I chose it, so at least some people believe it is at least worth a try and that is enough for starters.

The totalitarianism underlying all your assumptions is a problem though and it will kill our vision faster than anything the capitalist could dream up.

If there are billionaires/trillionaires in Germany, France, Australia, England, USA and Russia then this means there will be a strong state in each of those nations in order to legitimize the exploitative system which makes their wealth accumulation possible. Capitalism as a system must be global in order to function, this means capitalism needs a sort of global military (at the moment America is playing that role). If any real threats to the capitalist global order arise it's the role of the state to squash that threat. If at any point lifestyist based co-ops became a threat to the global capitalist system they would be squashed by a single or various capitalist states working together. Communism and capitalism cannot exist side by side. The state's role first and foremost is to legitimize (internally) and defend (internally and externally)the global capitalist order. Hence, the state is at the root of the problem.

As far as "forcing" communism on people goes. You, as is the case with most Americans, think Soviet Russia was communist. It was not. Soviet Russia was the result of attempting isolated communism side by side with capitalism. The end result? The cold war (thanks to the USA's policy of containment), the near annihilation of the planet in nuclear war and all manner of authoritarian nonsense within any nation attempting socialism in one country. Also, arguably, the Russian Bolsheviks were authoritarian from the start but by in large Russia was a mess because they attempted communism without a global revolution. Also using the state to facilitate future communism isn't what we're about. The details can fill pages in it's own thread.

What we want is global expropriation of capital and an end to the various capitalist states. Essentially we want to stop any and all processes that lead to wealth accumulation.

The only 'force' I personally would support is self defense- it IS self defense when, by force, we would not allow any process of wealth accumulation to take place. This isn't to say in a global communist society everyone would be living in abject poverty, wealth accumulation happens when people are able to exploit others via wage labor, rent, interest bearing loans or outright strong arm robbery (I see wage labor/rent/interest as robbery). If you can by your own labor/skill accumulate enough possessions to live a life of total leisure than that's great.

Anyone in an advanced communist/anarchist society can do anything they want (economically) so long as it doesn't involve wealth accumulation at the expense of others. "Anarcho" capitalism or Market "anarchism" excuses wealth accumulation at the expense of others. "Agorism" and much of American style "mutualism" does the same. The only force Anarchists are advocating is the eventual abolition of the state and capital and any future attempts to reestablish capital and the state via wealth accumulation.

---

anarchomedia

Arbeiten - yes you post was worth answering but I agree with it all so what should I say?

I have been on many other forums but never had this treatment. I am not offended or anything just well.. dissappointed. See an-caps are okay with communism just as long as they aren't forced to participate. They want to do their own thing but have no problem at all with others doing their own thing too. I like that approach and I don't see why we can't do it too.

http://libcom.org/library/co-ops-or-conflicts
http://libcom.org/library/co-operatives-all-together
http://libcom.org/library/participatory-society-or-libertarian-communism

AotFI

How did I miss this one? Did he even post it?

Oh yes, first page.

anarchomedia

Here's a thought, isn't the market dynamic essentially a dialectical process? Like so:-

I want an ipad, give me an ipad for free! (thesis)
I could give you an ipad but in return I want a million bucks! (anti-thesis)
Okay I'll give fifty quid for it.
Done. Here you go! Enjoy! (synthesis)

http://www.libcom.org/forums/libcommunity/libcom-awards-2012-07122012#comment-504612

Best explanation of dialectical materialism since ever. All those hours spent reading for nothing

Have you ever heard of "alienation"? Can anyone recommend a good article?

anarchomedia

My communal / cooperative enterprise will...

I'm not sure you've got the hang of this anarcho-communism thing, yet. But anyway, my cooperative will have free lollipops for workers, and unicorn rides for their children, and rainbows and bubblegum trees, etc, etc. You get the point...

anarchomedia

...not least because it also helps avoid suffering the parasitism that is taxation

Yeah! Fuck hospitals and schools! I want my money! :x

anarchomedia

Coops - It is sobering but I don't see this too much as a refutation of the model. The problem is more external than internal.

The problem is that whatever the aims and intentions of the people within the co-op, your internal decision making processes, personal politics etc- they do nothing to alter the fundamental external conditions of capitalism, they remain both subject to, and supportive of, the forces of capital- they internalise capitalism, they embody capitalist social relations, they embody production for profit and are not based on human need and mutual aid.

Actually, I don't want to try and explain why coops aren't revolutionary again because I'm starting to think that in order for us to successfully refute the coop model to you we need to spend more time talking about the nature of capital and markets to see if we can find some common understanding there. I'll give that a crack soon and I hope someone else gives it a try n'all.

The working class fought hard for the social wage and public services- they were and are kept running by our labour and (broadly) at our consent- the ruling class benefit from them in as much as that they sustain and reproduce the workforce which produce the wealth they sponge off, and they (probably) make us less likely to revolt.

Trying to make that an issue of working class people not being 'intelligent' enough to fund a hospital through individual purchases, and then calling omen a toff, is just silly.

I'm not saying the government is the most efficient provider of things we need which could possibly exist (that will be anarchist communism)- but in countries where schools and hospitals are not funded publicly and you have to access privately on a market (or at least the people who are rich enough do) they are far less efficient and functional by all measures- wasting time and resources (workers labour) on advertising and vanity treatments for eg- I'm not saying there isn't a more efficient/ functional system than the current one, but suggesting people should have to spend their money on essential services like schools and hospitals as individuals instead of making them a collective social thing is batshit.

anarchomedia

What are you some kind of toff?

Um? Toff's are opposed to the welfare state. They send their children to private schools (or so-called "public" schools), and use private hospitals. They don't like paying taxes to send the oiks to pleb school. Also, what Wotsit said.

This is a simple question, not a criticism: Is the purpose of this site to promote and defend an(obviously well thought out and established) doctrine that simply refutes any idea that does not fit within that doctrine or is it's purpose to explore ideas on their own merit regardless of what (perceived) school of thought they come from?
Obviously I'm getting the impression that it is the former or else I would not be asking the question. If this is the case fair enough but it will definitely diminish my interest and my belief in the credibility of what is beng posted.

[The welfare state] was devised and imposed by the political class for the interests of themselves and the wider ruling class

Well this part is true at least, but not for the reason you suggest - the idea wasn't to induce dependency per se (though the co-option of some socialist institutions was part of that process) but to buy off the working classes through a limited redistribution of wealth while capital re-entrenched itself post-war. Tory minister Quintin Hogg summarised the creation of the modern welfare state in these terms in 1943: “We must give them reforms or they will give us revolution.”

What worried Western governments of the time was the potential perfect storm of resurgent communist and socialist groups "doing a Russia" by using the lack of a welfare state as a means of recruiting swathes pissed-off workers who at the time had little more than guns, military training and time on their hands.

Now If it hadn't been for the mass workers' movements of the time and the memory of what happens when you repress rather than reform, they almost certainly wouldn't have bothered. Because actually, forcing working class people into dependency is significantly easier without a welfare system - if you have no assets or education and your only choice is to work for 60 hours a week for a pittance or starve to death, you work for a pittance.*

This is why now that the workers are no longer armed, no longer organised in things like mass unions, Europe's rich are stripping back the welfare state even as I write this (they certainly aren't just talking about it), and why the Republicans just loooove cutting taxes in the US. The absence of a welfare state is what wealthy hard-right types truly want in the final analysis - a system in which they literally have the power of life or death over billions of people who have nothing to sell but their labour.

Now none of this is to suggest that the posters on libcom really really love welfare and want the state to survive. Of course we don't, we're communists. But any really nuanced understanding of how the rich relate to the poor in modern capitalism has to take into account that welfare is not just a legacy of inefficiency and waste - it's also a primary means of redistributing wealth which the working class won through the threat it posed to the status quo and which is characterised in ruling class arguments by the mantra "how low can we go before those bozos kick off."

It's worth noting too, that in direct contradiction to what I suspect you think, that benefits leave the working classes a bit soggy round the middle, the high points of modern class rebellion in Britain occured in the 1960s and 70s - at a time when benefits had never been so comprehensive.

Edit:

The dreaded market even is not really the problem either.

Many people on here know a great deal about market economics and most likely will have read far more widely than you. They're worth treating with some respect rather than offhand dismissal which you've repeatedly expressed your distaste for when it comes from other people.

--------------
* This also concerns your business plan btw. An ability of bosses to threaten the poor worldwide with total destitution allows large businesses to undercut you - a process you can see happening right now through the slow collapse of Japanese electronics manufacturers which can't compete with the super-exploited workers of China's SEZ's.

Webby

This is a simple question, not a criticism: Is the purpose of this site to promote and defend an(obviously well thought out and established) doctrine that simply refutes any idea that does not fit within that doctrine or is it's purpose to explore ideas on their own merit regardless of what (perceived) school of thought they come from?
Obviously I'm getting the impression that it is the former or else I would not be asking the question. If this is the case fair enough but it will definitely diminish my interest and my belief in the credibility of what is beng posted.

You do know what libcom is short for right? It doesn't stand for liberal communication. It isn't a site where we just come together and discuss 'any ideas' on their merit. Certainly it covers a broad remit, but if you come to a libertarian communist website, the chances are, it is going to be (hopefully) populated by libertarian communists.....

Brief aside. Is there something not worth credibility in libertarian communist ideas....or....?

I'm here to learn about anarchist communism, which despite being something I know little about, is something I have always had a predjudice against. Why have I been predjudiced? Various reasons, most of which probably have little merit. Just being honest about this and now want to broaden my knowledge.
Ref the 'brief aside' - I'll tell you when I know what they are whether or not I think libertarian communist ideas are credible, but for now, no, I'm not questioning their credibility. My issue is that if you are stuck in a way of thinking about and seeing the world, excluding anything that doesn't fit in with that way, in my eyes your credibility is lost, as, at least in my opinion, a closed mind is a mind incapable of original thought and adaptation to developments.
One more thing - conviction is a worthy and admirable quality in a person but without keeping in mind the possibility that you may be wrong conviction simply becomes arrogance.

your credibility is lost, as, at least in my opinion, a closed mind is a mind incapable of original thought

I always wonder about this line - I mean of all the political ideologies in the world anarchism is among the most obscure and on the rare occasions it's mentioned at all it's in a context of ridicule or fear from mainstream media sources, so logically it's going to involve a higher percentage of people who are prepared to think outside the box, no?

And tbh, if you know so little about it and certainly don't know anything about any of us, it comes across as pretty closed-minded to come to such a sweeping conclusion before you even begin.

Sorry Rob Ray, I'm not sure what you mean. I believe I have an open mind but not a particularly well functioning brain! Can you try again please?

Just for clarity, my post was refering to reactions to Anarcomedia's ideas earlier in the thread.

Edit: oooh okay, thought you were saying libertarian communists come across as closed-minded, hence my confusion cos tbh if there's one creed where people fly off in all directions it's this one!

Webby

closed mind is a mind incapable of original thought and adaptation to developments..

OK I concede this is an important point. But we are not talking about a new ontological insight or some such innovation, we are talking about letting go of a fundamental component of our politics (the anti-capitalist element. The belief that 'markets' are in no way natural*). This in itself is an original insight. The way I see it now is that you are calling people conservative because they keep hold of a good original insight and won't accept it being watered down by it's anti-thesis (capitalism).

Webby

One more thing - conviction is a worthy and admirable quality in a person but without keeping in mind the possibility that you may be wrong conviction simply becomes arrogance.

But ample ample historical evidence to the contrary has been offered to dispute the idea that we can have islands of self sufficiency in capitalist society.

One last thing on this point about co-ops etc, etc. Why should we go through more hard work creating independent worlds when we, the working class, have already built the world we live in. There are enough functioning hospitals, schools, etc, etc that are all good and proper. Why make more when we can take the ones that we made in the first place?

*briefly. In this discussion I don't think people are talking about the same thing when they are talking about markets. I think an-media is basically talking about human social activity and confusing that with markets which, in-itself is a capitalist conceit or ideology

Ah, I see.
Would be interested to know what you meant in the first paragraph of your 14.01 post.

It's mainly a response to the idea that anarchist-communists are dogmatic (which does crop up now and again) - people from the US in particular like to complain that the media's all run by liberals and commies and that we're brainwashed as a result.

Well I must say that I am receiving that impression, although part of the reason I am studying this site(and others) is to try to find a way to solidify my ideas, as, by my own admission, I'm a bit all over the place!
Can't say what I've read so far is really grabbing me although I would say that is, in part, because the contributers on hear are of a far greater intellect than me, in the acedemic sense at least. I'm having to read and re-read and Google the meaning of words every 5 minutes.
As for liberals running the media - pah! Why Americans would think that, I have no idea! For the record, I'm not American. In fact, they won't let me in the country!

Arbeiten

Point 1 - Fair point, I was refering to the tone of responses indicating a closed mind rather than the actual issues being discussed but I probably didn't make that very clear.

Point 2 - Firstly, historical evidence is always open to interpretation and manipulation to make it fit a certain viewpoint.
Secondly, why should we go through more hard work building co-ops etc? Because, as free individuals me may want to. I can think of many motivations to do so, you, on the other hand may be motivated to do things that I have no interest in. Simple as that.

anarchomedia

I felt like shouting the market isn't some monster to be slain, the market is people coming together to exchange their goods and services. The market has a human face, 7 billion human faces!

Really? The market is people coming together to exchange goods. Does human beings include Walmart and Sears? Do you produce and exchange goods with your fellow beings? If so, what do you and they produce that's worth exchanging? And where did you guys get your own plot of land?

anarchomedia

Health, education, welfare and the state. - Of course welfare is necessary but the welfare state was not something the working classes struggled for; there were no mass demos, rallies or awareness campaigns to create it. It was devised and imposed by the political class for the interests of themselves and the wider ruling class (capitalists). Of course it was marketed as a 'good thing' to working classes but that was really so they would not protest it. Gradually we have all become dependant on it, as all the voluntary welfare societies shriveled up from lack of support, unable to 'compete' with a welfare provider that can force participation. Some toffs come out and bash the welfare state but I suspect that is more to do with a 'good cop bad cop' routine to keep the masses on board with their slavery. So red toff (good cop) can say to the masses "look little people! nasty mad blue toff (bad cop) wants to cut all welfare and force you to live out of dustbins! Support me and my program to expand the welfare state (and increase taxes on the poor)!". State schools purpose is to program a new generation of wage-slaves to be helplessly ignorant and dependant on the ruling class so of course toffs (red and blue) don't send their children there and make sure that private school fees are ridiculously high to keep out the plebs. Low cost but quality schooling and healthcare is possible however, there is no magic to it, but only if the working people are not forced to support high cost but low quality healthcare imposed by the government. The bottom line is if a service was any good you wouldn't need to force people to support it.

No offense, but I don't think you have ever taken history course in your life. Some of the stuff you say seems as though its being made up as this thread goes along.

Webby

Ref the 'brief aside' - I'll tell you when I know what they are whether or not I think libertarian communist ideas are credible, but for now, no, I'm not questioning their credibility. My issue is that if you are stuck in a way of thinking about and seeing the world, excluding anything that doesn't fit in with that way, in my eyes your credibility is lost, as, at least in my opinion, a closed mind is a mind incapable of original thought and adaptation to developments.

Why have we lost credibility? And to whom? You? Anarchomedia? Why? Because we don't support co-operatives as a basis for the revolutionary change of society? What have anyone here said that proves libcommies' thinking "excludes anything that doesn't fit in that way" other than the co-op issue?

Arbeiten

*briefly. In this discussion I don't think people are talking about the same thing when they are talking about markets. I think an-media is basically talking about human social activity and confusing that with markets which, in-itself is a capitalist conceit or ideology

More like an-propaganda to me!

Well I must say that I am receiving that impression

You might be on this thread (and fuck if there's one place I'd advise not drawing conclusions about a political framework it's forums) I don't know, but it's not the reality - anarchists have been at the forefront of challenging societal norms pretty much ever since Proudhon first launched his critique of property in the 19th century (I mean seriously, 99% of people find it impossible to envisage a world without private property now).

but it does not go from the rich to the poor but the otherway around

Sure the rich dodge tax [which is surely an argument to collectively strongarm the bastards, not give up], but five million of Britain's bottom-rung households receive housing benefit which by itself is likely to be more than they pay in via tax, let alone if you take free healthcare, pensions, unemployment benefit, child benefit etc into account. For all its faults, in our current society unless you are in a pretty privileged position welfare is always going to be substantially better than nothing.

Personally I'd love to see alternatives set up - if we had a modern analogue of the Bourse du Travaille today that would be absolutely amazing - but to even think about doing that sort of thing we need working class communities which are confident and united, which we don't have. We're at a much, much lower point today than we were then where the spread of solidarity-based politics and the building of class confidence is required before anything else can happen, something which telling impoverished people "I don't think you should receive benefits" is unlikely to help achieve.

I guess this acronym means super exploitation zone

Special Economic Zone, but yeah pretty much.

The external exploitation is a higher order kind of exploitation that comes from interference in the market dynamic through: currency manipulation, taxation, forced consumption, algorithmic fake trading to fix commodity prices and inflation.

All those are very different beasts, and only one of them (tax) is something that doing away with government would change in a "pure" market. Overproduction, fake trading, currency manipulation and inflation are not going to go away in a stateless marketplace, because in a competitive environment people will always try and game the system, with the most successful of these increasing their power exponentially until they achieve oligopoly/monopoly status.

At which point it's game over for your co-op and that "free" market everyone loves to big up, because market incomers will simply get chewed up by their rivals' supply and distro chain stranglehold, which has nothing to do with state interference and never will do. The basic flaw with all this "free and fair markets" stuff is that people who want to get (or rather stay) rich are not fair. They don't play by rules, they don't give the little guy a chance. If you want rid of them, you have to get rid of the system which allows them to thrive - which is market competition.

I didn't say that you had lost credibility with anyone. I said IF you exclude things that don't fit your model for no other reason that it's not part of your established doctrine, then you lose credibility. I was asking a question, not making an accusation.

Right, I've only been here a few days but I've reached the conclusion that the activity that we're involved in here is mental masturbation, which, like it's physical counterpart, is quite nice when you're doing it but leaves you feeling rather hollow and a little bit dirty afterwards. For this reason I think I'd better quit - enough people think I'm a wanker already!

Tbh Webby you came on a thread which is based on what most libertarian communists would reckon is a false premise (ie. founding an anarcho-communist company), most of which was always going to turn into a debate around markets etc. There's plenty of practical advice on the site however for improving your lot and that of your friends/family via the "organise" tab at the top of the page. I'd recommend reading it.

complaining that anarchists are not open minded about markets is like complaining that astronomers are not open minded about the idea of epicycles. A bunch of communists are not going to abandon masses of observation, analysis etc just because some says "but markets are good really"

So I got bored again, and doodled this to cheer the thread up:

(Click for biggsies.)

anarchomedia

SEZ vs Japan - I guess this acronym means super exploitation zone? I will say something on exploitation then. Exploitation is a multi-layered thing. Within the business we can see exploitation when that the market value of the product is not distributed to members fairly, usually this is because some members are paykeepers for the rest, in small businesses this is the owners but in large businesses it is actually the management more than the owners. A well formed coop solves this internal exploitation, but so far has no solutions for the external exploitation. The external exploitation however does not lie in other businesses internal exploitation wherever they are. The external exploitation is a higher order kind of exploitation that comes from interference in the market dynamic through: currency manipulation, taxation, forced consumption, algorithmic fake trading to fix commodity prices and inflation. Co-ops are an elegant solution to internal exploitation and we should hold on to that. What we need to do now is to fix the higher order exploitation. Most of these market problems can be remedied through using alternative non-state currencies. I have mentioned mutual credit and bitcoins already. These two have different strengths that complement and cover for their weaknesses. Mutual credit is self-regulating, egalitarian but requires an element of trust for use value so it doesn't travel well, it works best for local trade. Bitcoins are the ultimate hard currency, no trust needed for value, it travels well but it is maybe a little cumbersome for facilitating trade because like gold or silver it is always 'positive' money never credit. You could loan out bitcoins but you could never get it back if the borrower didn't or couldn't give it back. Using either mutual credit or bitcoins exclusively is possible but best results will come from using both where appropriate.

Your whole philosophy is predicated on the belief that all we need to do is get the means of life in the right hands [i.e. society's producers] and then everything will be alright. And the market will become genuine, not "bad" as it is today. Based on your beliefs, the "market" is just the sum of all individuals' activities. So, if everyone had a piece of the means of life, then everything would be "good". What makes it "bad" today? Your answer: state intervention in the forms of currency manipulation, taxation, social spending, etc. That sort of sounds like your coming from Reason magazine. But I don't think exploitation inherent in capitalist structures even exists in your equation.

The "market" is not just the sum of individuals' activities. To be honest, I don't even know what is meant by the term because it is such an abstract concept. From the early Enlightenment thinkers, it was the idea of everybody owning their "own plot of land", each producing stuffs that each can exchange with each other. Everyone would be more or less equal. It's basically a fantasy that can never exist.

libcom.org's brief introduction to capitalism and how it works

Capitalism is based on a simple process – money is invested to generate more money. When money functions like this, it functions as capital. For instance, when a company uses its profits to hire more staff or open new premises, and so make more profit, the money here is functioning as capital. As capital increases (or the economy expands), this is called 'capital accumulation', and it's the driving force of the economy.

Capital is used to produce stuff for exchange in order to realize profits, which is further used to expand capital itself. This has a tendency to reduce everything - including human beings - into a commodity to be bought and sold. The means of life, like human beings, are limited and acquired through successive rounds of competition by more successful units of capital. More and more of the world passes into a few hands because of the "freedom" of capitalism. Such laws are inherent in what we call capitalism, and left to themselves, the world we have today is what we get. The state doesn't corrupt capitalism or what you call the "market". In fact, it makes capitalism works better. Without the state, capitalism would have difficulty surviving.

As capitals expand their share of everything, everyone else sees their access to the means of life increasingly diminishing. At this point, the majority of people on this planet have nothing. That's why they have to sell their labor power in exchange for a wage in order to survive. This has been the process, inherent in capitalism, that has been taking place for the past centuries. If we start all over, by having every single person own an equal piece of the means of life, the world will eventually end up where we are today. And that is what your proposing. Like ComradeAppleton, you want to restart capitalism.

Perhaps, you are ComradeAppleton. I don't know. I don't even know who I am responding to anymore. Webby? An-media? Reason magazine?

anarchomedia

Stan -
Your references to capital need a definition I'm afraid. The conventional definition of capital is something like

Material wealth used or available for use in the production of more wealth.

so I assume you are using an unusual definition of capital as abolishing capital by that definition doesn't make any sense except perhaps in the sense of 'rewilding' as the anarcho-primitives call the return to a state of nature, hunting for squirrels with their bare hands and this kind of thing.......

..The market can't be abolished as it is simply the sum of all exchanges. It is farcical to even suggest that is possible, like abolishing desire or bowel movements. Unless of course you are using the word market to mean something else in which case again I need a definition in order to understand what you are talking about. Who is the market? It is us.

Yeah you pretty much are using entirely different definitions of capital and market to us.

I believe anyway that these alternative definitions will help to illuminate the basic mechanisms of capitalism that are getting us so angry. We're on different wavelengths and were only sometimes getting eachother because we're speaking different languages...so if you can try to be patient with us (perhaps more patient than some of us have been with you) we can try to explain where we're coming from.

You are talking about capital as just material wealth..stuff basically. We argue that something has to go beyond that to be considered capital, have another element to it. That basically it fits into a wider system of capitalist social relations in that it is used to create commodities that have EXCHANGE VALUE in order for them to be traded on the market to make a return on that capital. I.e. profit. In a communist society where competition has been eliminated in favour of mutual aid and co-operation stuff, tools, machinery etc will still exist but capital will not because we are using the things for the purposes of creating objects for their USE VALUE so that people can enjoy them individually and collectivelly, this is the important bit [b] not because we are trying to exchange them on the market to make profit. The entire reasons for and mechanism of production has been turned around from an individualistic (or almost tribal in the case of a co-op in capitalism) process based on exchanging things for personal (or collective personal) gain into something that is done collectively in order to satisfy humanities needs directly.

Ill try explain market later but I've got to get ready to go out.

Webby

Point 2 - Firstly, historical evidence is always open to interpretation and manipulation to make it fit a certain viewpoint.

Oh my days. Nietzsche at play school. Well, if you have a different interpretations as to the failure of the co-ops in Argentina. I look forward to reading them.

Webby

Secondly, why should we go through more hard work building co-ops etc? Because, as free individuals me may want to. I can think of many motivations to do so, you, on the other hand may be motivated to do things that I have no interest in. Simple as that.

Simple as that? More like wasting everyone's bloody time (let's bracket for the second that this isn't actually 'simple' [sic] at all and the lack of simplicity (the existence of nation states, capitalism, the commodity form, property rights etc, etc) is what most posters have been trying to relay to you). If you want to do something as a 'free individual' (lol), just go do it and don't waste everyone else's time answering your pedantic questions.

Well, that's me told then isn't it, and I dare say your right. Hope you feel better now.
Faced though, with the choice of talking out of your arse or dissapearing up it I, as you have been at pains to point out chose the former whilst you have quite clearly chosen the latter. Tata.

anarchomedia

I think your idea about market competition is more mythology than you would care to realise. Markets are about people choosing what they like and other people getting a reward for fulfilling that choice.

I guess your idea of the 'market' is also about choosing what you want to believe regardless of its relation to reality.

anarchomedia

There are advantages to being big because just as Kropotkin observed mutual aid is more 'competitive' than mutual strife. But the irony is that of all the market participants it is the capitalist corporations that do mutual aid on the largest scale and it is for this reason they currently dominate. When we have consumer corporations and worker-managed corporations on similiar scales of mutual aid then they will have that advantage too. To my knowledge only the IWW seems to have the right idea about that.

There are dis-economies of scale too so being big is not everything; a lot of these capitalist-corporations have had to have massive bailouts from the government to remain in the game, sans the state that is no option for them and they will just go bust or break up.

WHhhhhhhhyyy??? Did the world actually come to an end? Mutual aid, Kropotkin, and capitalist corporations in the same passage?

How and why do ancaps find their way to a libertarian communist website? Especially when they do not want to understand new ideas?

Businesses like coops and non-coops depend on us the consumers to voluntarily choose their goods and services in order to get the currency they need to purchase the goods and services that they want

Just like people voluntary choose to work, eh?

Or, in fact, do people take jobs because the market (in particular, the need to work to secure money so you don't starve) forces people into the labour market?

Similarly, markets are for the exchange of commodities. No one's arguing for some sort of individual or collective based self-sufficiency. Rather, the goal of communism is to have a democratic and rational system of production and distribution.

That's not a market.

I don't know what faults you may have with libertarian communism, but I know for sure you don't really know what it is despite your reference to Kropotkin. You probably looked him up on Wikipedia. Just to give you a quick insight on how people will receive the wealth they themselves create, since I think it is that which troubles you most:

In an (anarcho-)communist society, the means of production (factories, machines, office buildings, etc.) would be held in common. Everything people need and desire will be produced and transported to storage and distribution facilities. Assuming there is abundance (which is possible in our day and age), members of the new, post-revolutionary community can go into these facilities and come out with whatever they need without the use of paper money-currency or labor notes. Nonexistent is the kind of "exchange" that we see under capitalism. This doesn't mean that Billy can't make stuff on his own, like a piece of clothing, and give it to his friend as a present or exchange it with his friend in return for something else that was made by that friend on his/her own. If it makes them feel happy that they produced stuff on their own, then so be it. I think most people, however, will be fine with having most of the things they need being collectively mass-produced. The whole point of a communist society is to have goods and services produced for direct use, not for "exchange" (realizing profit).

Today, however, people go to Walmart or Sears to exchange whatever portion of their wages for stuff they need, or in a lot of cases, for stuff they would have never thought of needing had it not been for the massive advertising and propaganda system built by the bourgeoisie on the one hand, and the hallowing out of people's souls by the dehumanizing effects of capitalism on the other hand. It seems to me you treat Walmart or Sears like individual people. When you say the 'market' is people coming together for exchanging stuff, are they included in you fantastic dream?

Just so you know, the wages working people receive are never equal to what they produce. Rather, its often enough to reproduce one's labor power. Money, and the wages-system, is basically a system of rationing. People should have free access to everything they produce, including all that crappy stuff at Sears. But they can't under the current system because the function of the wages-system, which is a necessary component of capitalism, is to restrict one's access to the goods he/she needs unless they have enough of those wages issued out to them.

alongside that is the rest of the working class that have much much more taken from them than they get back and they do resent that.

Wrong way round. A minority of the working class actively lose out from the existence of the benefits system and they are already in the top tiers of earners. To prioritise their needs over those of the "rest" of the class would be kind of stupid from a communist perspective as they are already relative winners from the system as it stands and home turf for the right - it'd be like deliberately not eating the cake on your own table to try and steal mouldy bread from the psycho next door.

Markets are about people choosing what they like and other people getting a reward for fulfilling that choice.

Maybe for you, but most businessmen would laugh at that description. For any really successful company markets are about increasing profit to reproduce and expand commercial power to achieve a position of dominance (itself a function of the need to avoid being beaten out by rivals). In most mature industries what people like barely even enters into it.

And that process of consolidation, monopolisation and super-exploitation happens regardless of the level of state intervention, in pretty much every industry you can name. It's how banks can fix Libor, how supermarkets buy milk at pretty much cost before selling it on at thrice the price and how publishers maintain total control over which books the public get to read. It's a structural thing, not optional. For example...

When we have consumer corporations and worker-managed corporations on similiar scales of mutual aid then they will have that advantage too.

We already do, it's called the Co-operative. The group is one of Britain's biggest employers, it's been going for 168 years and it acts exactly like any other company, something which is totally predictable using the sort of anarchist-communist theory that various people have outlined above. Thing to remember is your take isn't new - it's really, really old. It's something which has been tried many times before. It's something which was put to the test in the general strike of 1926, when the hugely successful, socialist-aligned co-operative movement of the time was asked to provide the resource backbone for the strikers and largely went for a long walk. It's something which has failed over, and over, and over again.

dp

its almost like you've done no research at all

anarchomedia

I have been on many other forums but never had this treatment. I am not offended or anything just well.. dissappointed. See an-caps are okay with communism just as long as they aren't forced to participate. They want to do their own thing but have no problem at all with others doing their own thing too. I like that approach and I don't see why we can't do it too.

I wasted five minutes, in an earlier post, explaining why "anarcho" CAPITALISTS have no place in any revolutionary rebuilding of the global system. You're inability to even understand why capitalists running around with a privatized state would be a bad thing speaks volume to your complete lack of insight in general. "anarcho" capitalists or market "anarchists" probably don't mind your silly ideas because your silly ideas allow wealth accumulation and thus make communism impossible. It's not that hard to understand. It's also not hard to understand that co-ops can't out compete capitalism or traditional capitalist property relations.

Thank you all for taking the time to share you understanding with me and in manner that I find more helpful than was the case earlier in the thread.

No, folks have said basically the same things to you in the same way they did at the beginning of the thread. The difference is that you're making some (very) small effort to engage with what people say and not have a little tantrum while throwing around petty insults.

I mean, Jesus, read my second post. In that post, I even give ground that co-ops could play a part in a revolutionary movement--although, of course, there's nothing revolutionary about co-ops themselves.

Again, here's where I don't think you've actual read much anarcho-communism: anarchists have never argued communism will be produce all the same things as capitalism in the same way, but under worker control. To be blunt, I think you're missing the point about what a socialised system of production and distrobution looks like (which makes sense if you still think market exchange--and by extension, commodity production--will still exist).

Similarly, the argument that people are too lazy or selfish of whatever has been dealt with time and time again by anarcho-communists. Kropotkin (who you supposedly love so much) argued that mutual aid--not mediated through exchange value--has a biological nature. Other writers, like Berkman (end of chapter 19 and chapteres 20 and 21), have argued it's more a matter of recognising individual and collective self-interest, notions which are, at best, obscured and, at worst, destroyed by market exchange.

Mm tbh I think you should try reading more around Marx's Labour Value Theory before going any further on this thread, or at the least the wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value, otherwise I suspect you're going to continue to misunderstand the nature of many of the arguments being put forward. Ideally, you should probably have a look at the wider context of it as well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxian_economics.

I'm loathe to give any credit to mainstream economists because generally they're a bunch of quacks, but even they tend to give it more respect than just blithely chucking it and similar thinking out as "tenuous" - this is s theory which has stood for more than a century and is still being revived whenever there's a market crisis.

NB//You lose 1 million points if you dismiss Marx out of hand because he's Marx. We don't, and it was our tendency that split with him.

Altruism

On the subject of altruism, yeah to echo some of the above you don't seem to be looking on society as an organism (which is the whole point of Kropotkin's Mutual Aid) but as a collection of selfish individuals held permanently in our current state of socialisation. Your petrol driver for example would...

a) not be called on to do it all the time, as they would be part of a much larger group of people within their collective - much larger, as useless jobs like advertising and banking will have been eliminated
b) be aware of their collective's responsibility to haul petrol if society is to keep running
c) be aware that petrol on its own is neither edible nor something you can shelter under

What changes when moving to a communist context is that responsibility shifts from the self to the collective. You lose some freedoms in this sense (the freedom to "get rich" etc) but gain others (eg. freedom from want, isolation etc).

You're not alone in struggling with this sort of concept btw - I think part of the problem today for many people, particularly when engaging our sorts of ideas, is that mainstream commentators rarely talk about examples of this kind of concept working in practice (and it's as well for the ruling classes that they don't, as it's the single most dangerous threat they face from the workers).

It's worth looking around for it though particularly in the trade union movement, where tens of thousands of people used to and still do walk out on sympathy strike for workers they might never have met in an example of people making individual sacrifices for the collective good of ongoing solidarity - a deferred good, in fact where they knew they would receive solidarity in their turn when they needed it. A couple names to look up in this vein might be Saltley Gates or Grunwick.

anarchomedia

Agent's description of an-com economy is quite where I'd like things to go which is why I called myself an-com instead of an-cap or an-mutie. However I don't see this new world happening everywhere all at once by magic or even revolution. Which means if it happens at all some people will be doing the commie way while others are not. I am interested in how they can interact with each other. I have some ideas how this can be done but I am not sure I am quite able to articulate them right now.

But you can't get it through cooperatives! If you think you and a bunch of fellow dudes who think like yourself are going to start a cooperative sector, and expect that sector to expand their share of the market and eventually encompass the whole economy, then your naive. The bourgeoisie will always squash you punks in their game. We need revolutionary movements organizing people in their workplaces and communities. Competing for power (marker position) is how your thinking about social change, which is absolutely wrong. People need to turn against the system, not to try to get comfortable within it. Although cooperatives don't make anyone comfortable; its just a form of self-exploitation.

radicalgraffiti

its almost like you've done no research at all

Its like he's pulling shit out from fortune cookies.

Rob Ray

On the subject of altruism, yeah to echo some of the above you don't seem to be looking on society as an organism (which is the whole point of Kropotkin's Mutual Aid) but as a collection of selfish individuals held permanently in our current state of socialisation. Your petrol driver for example would...

a) not be called on to do it all the time, as they would be part of a much larger group of people within their collective - much larger, as useless jobs like advertising and banking will have been eliminated
b) be aware of their collective's responsibility to haul petrol if society is to keep running
c) be aware that petrol on its own is neither edible nor something you can shelter under

What changes when moving to a communist context is that responsibility shifts from the self to the collective. You lose some freedoms in this sense (the freedom to "get rich" etc) but gain others (eg. freedom from want, isolation etc).

Just to add:
In a communist society, not only would there be a shift in responsibility from the self to the collective, but there would also be a complete transformation in the nature of the productive activities (contributing to the wealth of society) that we choose to engage in. "Work will be abolished" and that petrol driver will no longer be a petrol driver. The mechanic will no longer be the mechanic. And the plumber will no longer will the plumber. No one will have to remain permanently in the same position their whole entire life, doing the same thing over and over again like a robot, life escaping from their grips, living with boredom, regret and disappointment. No one will be caged in with bosses and time sheets.

First I was curious, then amused, now bewildered.
anarchomedia - you deserve a medal for keeping up with this twaddle.

Stan Milgram

anarchomedia

I have been on many other forums but never had this treatment. I am not offended or anything just well.. dissappointed. See an-caps are okay with communism just as long as they aren't forced to participate. They want to do their own thing but have no problem at all with others doing their own thing too. I like that approach and I don't see why we can't do it too.

I wasted five minutes, in an earlier post, explaining why "anarcho" CAPITALISTS have no place in any revolutionary rebuilding of the global system. You're inability to even understand why capitalists running around with a privatized state would be a bad thing speaks volume to your complete lack of insight in general. "anarcho" capitalists or market "anarchists" probably don't mind your silly ideas because your silly ideas allow wealth accumulation and thus make communism impossible. It's not that hard to understand. It's also not hard to understand that co-ops can't out compete capitalism or traditional capitalist property relations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_accumulation_of_capital

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Transformation_(book)

I would suggest, as far as your acceptance of market "anarchists' goes, starting from the top and reading one link to the next not moving on until you understand how class society arose along with the state and how the traditional state morphed into the modern capitalist state. Heck, understanding historical materialism in general helps clear up the broader picture. I'd advise anyone in your position start with historical materialism and work up from there. Wiki isn't going to be enough. Try Kautsky's "The Materialist Conception of History". There's plenty modern writings out there that can help. Blah blah. "Anarcho" capitalists just want to be left alone, pfft. Empty your cup so you can fill it with valid ideas please :)

anarchomedia

Stan Milgram - Oh right well I do know something about history and the evolution of the state. An-caps don't support this kind of capital accumulation, to them it qualifies as theft and a contravention of their non-aggression principle. Perhaps you should actually find out what an-caps think before lumping them together with aristocrats and what they call crony capitalists, and I call state-capitalists and you just call capitalists. Maybe I am not the only one who needs to empty his cup now and again.

When you write "I call state-capitalists and you just call capitalists"; are you trying to say what you call 'state-capitalists' is what we just call 'capitalists'? If so, I think your wrong. An-caps believe when a state intervenes in the economy, the market is no longer 'pure'. Therefore, capitalists as we understand them automatically becomes 'state-capitalists', or 'statists' as somebody else from another thread called them. This change in designation comes even though their was no structural changes the economy. The state has not taken direct control of commodity production, as in the USSR, Eastern Europe, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and China. The (private-)capitalists hasn't become the state, or vice versa. Property is still privately owned and we still have individual, yet sizable, units of capital competing with each other. Now, the state does intervenes in the economy to support capital through bailouts, subsidies, tax breaks, R&D, etc. But that doesn't mean we have a state-capitalist economy. We still have (private-)capitalism. The existence of the state within it is not a detriment to the 'market' but serves a necessary service to it. That I think you don't understand. "An-capitalism" requires a state.

---

The state isn't required to protect property though the state often sells itself as a protector of property.
Would you say I was a capitalist? I claim to own as private property my means of production (my taxi). I obtained it through voluntary transactions and the trading I do with it is all voluntary. Where is the harm in that?

As if there was any doubt, in the vast majority of circumstances the petty-bourgeosie come down with the bourgeoisie proper--even, if like Anarchomedia, they're not concious of it.

Yeah I think we're done here, if you're going to blindly cling to market ideology because "people are selfish" directly after being given an example of people acting in concert to win battles for other people rather than themselves as part of a sense of collective gain then the rest of this argument is pointless, you're clearly just going to ignore whatever doesn't chime with your existing views. Tbh given your insistence that you know better than everyone here across seven pages despite being repeatedly shown that you don't I'd suggest a bit of self-examination on your part and a lot more reading (or even re-reading with a slightly more open mind).

In the meantime as a general parting thought, if you're not prepared to rethink your current politics you should probably stop trying to convince people you're an anarchist/communist. Actual communists will think you're an uninformed fool, and anyone else is just going to be put off. What you actually are is a small businessman who's worked out he's easily stepped on and wants to organise with other small businessmen within capitalism to stop that from happening.

So stick with "I like the idea of starting a co-op" - there's plenty of groups which exist specifically to help set that stuff up. The member groups in Radical Routes are mostly way to your left but their guide to setting up a workers co-op will probably be of some help.

I promised myself I wouldn't post on here again but couldn't resist following this thread and seeing as 'we're done here' I thought as the thread was started by an 'uniformed fool' it would be fitting for another one to finish it.
Ok then, I wouldn't dream of taking you lot on about points of principle again, you're obviously far better read than me and are very adept at protecting your position. I'll tell you this though, the vast majority of the working(or ruling, for that matter) class will never 'get' what you are on about and if they did, like myself, will find your vision of a post revolution society singularly unattracive.
On the other hand, for people looking for a new way to live, the Twin Oaks project will look very attractive as it is reality, not theory. Those 100 people are living a satisfying life which, to a large degree,takes them away from the mainstream society that we are all so dissatified with. Now you can scoff, and mock my lack of insight, knowledge and credibility, and no doubt you will but whatever else you may say this has to be a problem for you. Rightly or wrongly, people like myself will always go for action over theory.
A few people on here have tried to help with my understanding and I thank them for that and I now know that I'm clearly not an ancom but the general tone towards myself(who maybe deserved it a bit) and AM(who definitely didn't) was very haughty and smacked of elitism and snobbery.
Finally 'you're clearly just going to ignore anything that doesn't chime with tour existing views'. Absolutely priceless! Pots, kettles etc???
Anyhow, best of luck to you all - boy, are you going to need it

will find your vision of a post revolution society singularly unattracive

You don't know what our vision of a post-revolutionary society is, that's part of the problem, all you appear to have read is a thread in which anarchomedia's claim to be a communist businessman is examined and debunked, which hardly amounts to ignoring him and certainly won't give you much insight into what sort of day-to-day activity we get up to.

Tbh it seems very much like you've come on wanting to find reasons to dismiss us, have been unable to do so and have arrived at an uncomfortable compromise of denouncing people you've never met and know nothing about for not being action-oriented enough and probably a bit snobby cos y'know, people who you can't beat in an argument have got to be snobs, right? Impossible that they might just be normal people who happen to have read around a bit in their chosen field...

I don't think I have argued but maybe you're right, maybe I don't know what your vision is, and I don't know what you guys get up to. So point conceded.
As for thinking you're snobs because I can't beat you in an argument, definitely not. I've pointed out all along that I don't know much about this stuff - I wouldn't expect to win an argument with you. I'm actually very impressed with the depth of knowledge available here.
What I've been pointing out is the impression that I'm getting from the site is unattractive. You may say that my impression is scewed but I don't think so. When I found this site I was genuinely excited at the prospect of educating myself and have read a number of articles and threads although admittedly a lot of it was way over my head, but the reaction to AM got my goat and so I've played up a bit. Probably shouldn't have done that and if I were in your shoes I daresay I'd feel pissed off, so sorry for that.
Anyway, thinking about it, if I don't like the site I should probably just scarper. I've moaned about arrogance whilst being pretty arrogant myself so while in a more humble mood I'll withdraw and wish you well with your endevours.

what was it about us, at least to start with, trying to explain to AM what we disagreed about and why we thought he was wrong? did you expect us not to say any thing? or to play along with his ridicules idea and uniformed claims about anarchism?

Well, this for a start

Yeah, hope i get sanctioned tomorrow. Maybe if im lucky they'll take away my housing benefit too, that'll really stick it to Cameron and Osbourne.

And this:

But we do have the choice to be waged labour for some co-op maaaaaaaaaan

Edit: hadn't read Webby's last post when I wrote this as I write pretty slow :(

Anarchomedia's ideas are also based on theories. Maybe he hasn't read that much or maybe he hasn't thought about things for as long as he could have done, I don't know why he's come to the conclusions he has. But clearly he thinks he understands how capitalism functions and his ideas for what action to take are based on that. A lot of the people responding to him have a completely different undestanding of how things work and their actions (because they don't just live on libcom, they also exist in reality and interact with the world around them) are based on this. But this understanding of the world is not just based on having read some books. It's based on looking at reality and trying to understand what is going on. While people have been recommending that anarchomedia does some more reading, this has been in the hope that this reading will help him understand what he observes better, as this is what it's done for them.

People have been giving real life examples of how co-ops don't result in the kind progress that AM imagines they will, and real life examples of other action which has been taken, while explaining why they believe this is more likely to get better results.

I'm not particularly well-read myself. I'm also currently self-employed and being so in a largely unregulated industry has been a crash course in laissez-faire capitalism for me. My attempts to make sense of the world around me, the jobs I've done, experiences my friends and family have had etc, have corresponded to a great extent to what I've learnt from other anarchist communists, had summarised for me from books, and occaisonally even managed to read myself.

I've been following this thread for entertainment but I felt this post was too frustrating to not respond to. This claim to favour action (however ill-informed it may be) over theory (which is supposedly completely disconnected from reality) is a cop-out.

And this:

Since co-ops are just a right on hobby, alternatives could be trainspotting, multiplayer video games, watching moody French films?

Webby

Well, this for a start

Yeah, hope i get sanctioned tomorrow. Maybe if im lucky they'll take away my housing benefit too, that'll really stick it to Cameron and Osbourne.

well do you really expect people not to be annoyed if some claims we'd all be better off if they where left to starve? as for your other examples, AM was far ruder first so i don't think this relitivly mild mockery is bad in the context of the thread

Konsequent - It probably is a cop out, at least from your perspective but it's just how I feel. And yes, I see the irony in that statement - a cop out to excuse a cop out! I'm starting to think that maybe I should join in with a bit of Webby bashing myself!
Look, hands up, I'm all over the place here. You guys just crack on and I'll slip back in to the hole that I came out of. You're not going to convince me and I'm certainly not going to convince you seeing as I'm not even sure what I want to convince you of!

Sure. Some people have been a bit rude. Although not everyone. Some people have been extraordinarily patient. I can sympathise with some of the frustrated comments and was pretty impressed (though quite unable to relate) with the people who stuck it out for numerous pages, politely making the same points over and over.

And of course it is possible to get a bit hung up on theory. Discussing details that don't make any difference to what we're doing right now can be at best a hobby and at worst a distraction. But sometimes things have seemed unnecessarily theoretical to me until I realised the effect they would have on my currect actions. The subject of this thread is a pretty major practical issue I think.

Yes, very true. On reflection, I think what pissed me off was the fact that whatever we believe and however well or ill informed we are, we visit sites like this because we want to figure out the best way for us to acheive freedom from the current state of affairs that we all endure and it's a shame that some of us end up sniping at each other. I took part in that out of frustration as I have many times in various times in my life. I actually discussed this propensity of mine with A Wotsit on the thread titled 'Inclusion?' and stated that I wanted to avoid such behavior. Well, I made a right old balls up of that, didn't I!
All the best. Paul.

anarchomedia

Stan Milgram - Oh right well I do know something about history and the evolution of the state.

No, no you don't. Not if you accept "anarcho"capitalism as a valid system which can coexist with communism.

anarchomedia

An-caps don't support this kind of capital accumulation, to them it qualifies as theft and a contravention of their non-aggression principle. Perhaps you should actually find out what an-caps think before lumping them together with aristocrats and what they call crony capitalists, and I call state-capitalists and you just call capitalists. Maybe I am not the only one who needs to empty his cup now and again.

Listen, if you knew how capital accumulated it was in the very conditions "anarcho" capitalists want to create.Thats all their silly ideology is, a resetting of sorts of primitive accumulation and subsequent total and brutal domination of capital. An environment with no state (which would shortly give rise to a state) with some people attaining more wealth than others which leads/led to property owners and non property owners (please understand the distinction between property and possessions). The property owners, in order to profit, you know, the capitalists, need a large population of people who have no choice but to sell their labor, rent homes and pay interest on various loans in order to survive. "Anarcho" capitalists and so called "volunteerists", "agorists" and market "anarchists"get around this by implying a capitalist society can exist where workers all "volunteer" to be wage slaves. Where people "volunteer" to pay rent and interest- you see, all these things, in reality, depend on coercion. The "NAP" or "non aggression principle" is oil and capitalist property relations is water. They simply don't mix. Why would you assume I haven't had extensive debates with these capitalists who think they're anarchists?

Next thing they do is blame the state for monopolies when in reality it was also collusion between capitalists and simply the tendency for competition in the market to force non competitive businesses out of the market. It's like they don't understand their own economic system (among many other things, I'll go ahead and throw you into the same category). As if the capitalists who have forced smaller businesses out of the market would not use the privatized state to claim more land, resources and wealth. There would be a bunch of private armies (see Pinkertons) laying waste to the land and brutalizing anyone who stood in the way of profits. The NAP is pure fantasy. Sure it sounds nice, so does Santa Clause.

The state cannot be a distinct separate entity from any capitalist market - without coercion either by a privatized state (or in the form of the state we now have) an economic system with haves and have nots could not exist. Wage labor, rent and interest cannot be the basis of any economic system without people being deprived of the ability to either collectively provide sustenance or individually provide sustenance. In reality this process of dispossession was done via coercion and in reality "anarcho" capitalism would depend on a privatized state in order to make sure there was a dispossessed class. Anyhow the privatized fire department in NY city refused to put out fires of non paying customers which led to the entire city being burned to the ground. Having "toll roads" where drivers need to pay every time they cross "private property" is so absurd I shouldn't have to address it. Only having private for profit schools would create even more disgusting conditions than we already have, as in, a population, a large population, of people who can't afford education. In that system even basic education would be unattainable for most workers in so creating a abject master and slave class. It goes on and on with such examples. So called "anarcho" capitalism is ten times worse than anything humanity has had to endure thus far. I'd rather have the Church take us back to the dark ages and be strung up on a torture device in some dark dungeon confessing my sins. The fact you come in here with silly ideas and show not one ounce of actual understanding with some stubborn attitude and smug sense of intellectual entitlement is why I'm being somewhat abrasive. I've been debating "anarcho" capitalists for over 20 years.

Think about that before you messy up this thread with any more nonsense.

Next thing they ("anarcho" capitalists) do is warp and mangle Max Stirner. His "union of egoists" has fuck all to do with capitalism or capitalist property relations. Then they throw Spooner and Tucker into the mix, Tucker, later in life total separating from Anarchism. Any so called "individualist"
who supports and or makes excuses for capitalist property relations is NOT an individualist anarchist.

http://www.mutualist.org/

The quote below is from the above link:

Our ultimate vision is of a society in which the economy is organized around free market exchange between producers, and production is carried out mainly by self-employed artisans and farmers, small producers' cooperatives, worker-controlled large enterprises, and consumers' cooperatives. To the extent that wage labor still exists (which is likely, if we do not coercively suppress it), the removal of statist privileges will result in the worker's natural wage, as Benjamin Tucker put it, being his full product.

First off, industry is what has given humanity the chance at abundance rather than scarcity. Anarchism proper has no problem with individualists living outside of the system that worker controlled industry would create but self-employed artisans and farmers, small producers' cooperatives competing with worker controlled industry/agriculture in "the market" is absurd. Worker controlled industry/agriculture would be considered a "monopoly" and we would put you out of business. If somehow, you, by your own labor, could compete with worker run industry/agriculture then the conditions of competition would create the division of labor and other exploitative work place conditions. You see, competition is part of capitalism's exploitative foundation. It's not desirable. Anyhow competing with worker run industry/agriculture would be impossible unless you had an army of wage slaves which would depend on there being a dispossessed class with no other choice but to sell their labor for a wage.

The only suppression which will take place is suppressing property owners who seek to benefit from dispossession. In an actual anarchist or advanced communist society (they are one in the same) you wouldn't be able to find anyone stupid enough to work for you for a "wage" and actual individualists want to live by their own labor anyhow. There would be no dispossessed population to work for a boss and if someone was stupid enough to volunteer to work for a boss why would the boss do so if he was not going to profit? Sure on a small scale people might trade favors or trade possessions or trade things one makes with his/her own hands but this isnt a"market" and it would all be done from a general basis of equality not out of necessity as worker controlled industry/agriculture would provide necessities for society.

Again, if people chose to live outside of the benefits of industry/agriculture they can do so and go at it on their own but as soon as they find people dumb enough to accumulate wealth for a boss or as soon as they try to create a dispossessed class is when we would step in and stop it.

I can't seem to drag myself away form this debate but I'll confine myself to questions rather than comment. I found the Stan Milgram post at 18.03 quite straightforward, which is how I need this information.
What I'm curious to know is what form the 'step in and stop it' would take. Would violence be an option and if so how severe? If not, what other strategies would you have for dealing with determined individuals?

Well there's no one line on it, but the usual one is simple withdrawal of co-operation. In the same way as you can't really live outside of capitalist society today without trading, even the most insistent individualist would need resources from outside their plot to survive in a communist society.

In extreme cases where people are arming themselves though it might need to go further with the forcible breaking up of proto-capitalist enclaves (the level of severity of violence would depend on the level of resistance, I expect).

There's various things which have been written suggesting how you might raise and run temporary people's militias under such circumstances, but most likely the models we have today would be totally superseded in a society where communist behaviours are the norm.

Interesting. Do you believe there is a credible pacifist model of communism and if so what would be the next step if withdrawal of cooperation failed?

Webby

I can't seem to drag myself away form this debate but I'll confine myself to questions rather than comment. I found the Stan Milgram post at 18.03 quite straightforward, which is how I need this information.
What I'm curious to know is what form the 'step in and stop it' would take. Would violence be an option and if so how severe? If not, what other strategies would you have for dealing with determined individuals?

"Determined individuals", I'm going to assume that means people who's life's mission is to exploit others and reestablish the capitalist order/class society/hierarchical society/capitalist property relations/primitive accumulation?

What would a chattel slave do if after the freeing of chattel slaves people were attempting to once again enslave them? They would band together and fight it tooth and nail. Mistakenly, Kropotkin in chapter 4 of Conquest Of Bread thinks capitalists outside of any communist society would be no threat:

How are you to prevent a person from amassing millions in China and then settling amongst you? How are you going to prevent such a one from surrounding himself with lackeys and wage-slaves--from exploiting them and enriching himself at their expense?

"You cannot bring about a revolution all over the world at the same time. Well, then, are you going to establish custom-houses on your frontiers to search all who enter your country and confiscate the money they bring with them?--Anarchist policemen firing on travellers would be a fine spectacle!"

But at the root of this argument there is a great error. Those who propound it have never paused to inquire whence come the fortunes of the rich. A little thought would, however, suffice to show them that these fortunes have their beginnings in the poverty of the poor. When there are no longer any destitute there will no longer be any rich to exploit them.

Let us glance for a moment at the Middle Ages, when great fortunes began to spring up.

A feudal baron seizes on a fertile valley. But as long as the fertile valley is empty of folk our baron is not rich. His land brings him in nothing; he might as well possess a property in the moon.

What does our baron do to enrich himself? He looks out for peasants--for poor peasants!

If every peasant-farmer had a piece of land, free from rent and taxes, if he had in addition the tools and the stock necessary for farm labour, who would plough the lands of the baron? Everyone would look after his own. But there are thousands of destitute persons ruined by wars, or drought, or pestilence. They have neither horse nor plough. (Iron was costly in the Middle Ages, and a draughthorse still more so.)

All these destitute creatures are trying to better their condition. One day they see on the road at the confines of our baron's estate a notice-board indicating by certain signs adapted to their comprehension that the labourer who is willing to settle on this estate will receive the tools and materials to build his cottage and sow his fields, and a portion of land rent free for a certain number of years. The number of years is represented by so many crosses on the sign-board, and the peasant understands the meaning of these crosses.

So the poor wretches swarm over the baron's lands, making roads, draining marshes, building villages. In nine years he begins to tax them. Five years later he increases the rent. Then he doubles it. The peasant accepts these new conditions because he cannot find better ones elsewhere; and little by little, with the aid of laws made by the barons, the poverty of the peasant becomes the source of the landlord's wealth. And it is not only the lord of the manor who preys upon him. A whole host of usurers swoop down upon the villages, multiplying as the wretchedness of the peasants increases. That is how things went in the Middle Ages. And to-day is it not still the same thing? If there were free lands which the peasant could cultivate if he pleased, would he pay £50 to some "shabble of a duke"1 for condescending to sell him a scrap? Would he burden himself with a lease which absorbed a third of the produce? Would he--on the métayer system--consent to give the half of his harvest to the landowner?

But he has nothing. So he will accept any conditions, if only he can keep body and soul together, while he tills the soil and enriches the landlord.

So in the nineteenth century, just as in the Middle Ages, the poverty of the peasant is a source of wealth to the landed proprietor.

He assumes capitalists are moral actors, history has shown they're willing to kill millions of people in order to maintain their system. The NAP or "non aggression pact" if literally a force of nature which couldn't be broken, if that were true capitalism couldn't exist. As Kropotkin said capitalists depend on there being a large poor population in order for profits to be made, in an earlier post I called them the dispossessed. I don't think Kropotkin was aware at the time how far capitalists would go to maintain their system and capitalism as a system must be global and perpetually expand into "new markets" perpetually compounding profit over profit over profit. If it doesn't it will enter severe crisis and the whole system will collapse. Whether capitalists have a 'public' state or privatized state this fact doesn't change so any and all resources across the globe need to be open to or under the control of capitalist interests. This is our modern military/war reality in a nut shell- this is why capitalists and their politicians laugh at people like Ron Paul, because they KNOW capitalism cannot exist without coercion.

Anyway, I would assume if some person was attempting to re-establish capitalist relations or if an 'outside' capitalist somehow existed side by side with an advanced communist society they would have to be neutralized. Avoiding euphemisms this may include killing them, it may include workers forming militias to fight all out total war, it may include a good talking to, it may include a number of things but I would think such a person would only understand violence seeing their goal is to subjugate humanity. In a post revolution advanced communist society I would have no problem with any of the above tactics. I think ignoring them as Kroptkin believes we should do would be a grave mistake but I'm of the opinion a global revolution is necessary for any advanced communist society to exist. Capitalists are aware of the fact that capitalism must be global and it cannot exist side by side with communism which is the basis of their containment policy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment

If a global revolution isn't possible, it's been my opinion, that the most militarily/economically advanced nations must have revolutions first. America, Russia, China, Britain. Creating an advanced communist society side by side with capitalism or by doing so creating co-ops sounds great but in reality capitalists would never let it happen. Their system depends on the majority of earths population having no other choice BUT to take part in their system. This is what the OP of this thread doesn't understand.

Webby

Interesting. Do you believe there is a credible pacifist model of communism

Capitalists make that impossible. Systemically capitalism makes it impossible.

Stan, would you say the views expressed in your posts hold consensus amongst ancoms or are they more personal?
Also, do you see capitalists as the enemy or only capitalism itself?

Webby

Stan, would you say the views expressed in your posts hold consensus amongst ancoms or are they more personal?
Also, do you see capitalists as the enemy or only capitalism itself?

There's no such thing as "ancom" in the sense you mean. When we use that term it's to distinguish Anarchism from Marxism. When you say "ancom" I have to assume you mean anarchist communist as oppose to "anarchist" capitalists. "Anarcho" capitalism isn't anarchism. Anarchism has always been a stateless non hierarchical society free of private property, wage labor, rent and interest. So called "anarcho" capitalists advocate the continuance of hierarchical society, property, wage labor, rent and interest so they are NOT anarchists. No amount of word play can make it so.

Which views? Not everyone agrees revolutions need to happen in the most militaristiclly/economically advanced nations. Some people think capitalism doesn't need to perpetually expand (the argument is if that were true then it's only a matter of time till capitalism goes away on its own). They think this takes away from our agency in a deterministic fashion but it is what it is in my opinion. I think if we sit back and do nothing whilst capitalism deteriorates fascism may take hold. Or some new horrible oppressive system.

Most actual Anarchists have no problem with self defense and in a post capitalist advanced communist society (in an anarchist society) it would be self defense to stop the ascension of capital but I'm pretty sure some people on this message board might disagree with some things I say, in fact I know they do. You have to be a tad more specific. I think you may be trying to make the point Murray Rothbard tried to make- that our attempt to stop capital accumulation would require a military and thus state so we are not anarchists at all. I'd have to say, obviously, democratically run workers militias formed in self defense against the rise of capital is not a state. It's purpose isnt to maintain class society but would be workers coming together to defend a classless society. The state's primary role is to legitimize any system that creates haves and have nots and also to keep the have nots from brushing aside the haves. At the foundation of our forming an army would be defense from capital so again it is capital or capitalist accumulation/capitalist property relations that create the need for anything even closely resembling a state.

Anyway to summarize my counterpoints regarding some of the OP's assertions:

1. artisans and small business owners cant compete with large scale worker run industry/agriculture (nor is competition in "the market" preferable/desirable).

2. In order to compete against worker run industry/agriculture business owners would need a large dispossessed population to work for the business owner/capitalist/boss in competition against worker run industry.

3. In order to create this dispossessed class and or keep this dispossessed class in the capitalist system the state (public or private) would have to coerce millions/billions of people in order to set the stage for wage labor, rent and interest to be the only choice people have in order to survive. It would then have to maintain that set up, as in, keep the workers in line which is one of the states primary roles. The other role is market expansion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_Government_Services

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States

4.. Capitalism has to perpetually expand into new markets. Without perpetual compounding profits capitalism will enter crisis so in the face of that colonialism/neo-colonialism and imperialism took/take place. This is why capitalists and their politicians laugh at people like this:

[youtube]V5_ThKD2g4U[/youtube]

Some peaceful industrialized "market" (capitalist) society based on voluntary wage slavery, rent and interest with "peaceful" trade as the basis of market expansion is delusional. It's an impossibility and no amount of crack pot theory can make it so. Capitalism cannot exist without coercion. Fallacy fallacy fallacy. "Anarcho" fallacy.

The guy (Ron Paul, judging by the 58 second mark on in the video above) isn't even aware why the USA was in Vietnam. It was to stop the spread of potential communism. It was part of the containment policy. He thinks the USA should have just 'traded' with Vietnam. He doesn't understand the system and is a product of the Ludwig Von Mises/Rothbard/Lew Rockwell right wing "anarcho" capitalist type thinking which necessitates a total and complete break with reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Edward_Konkin_III

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carson

Then we have people like Samuel Konkin (dead) and Kevin Carson (alive), the men who are the inspiration for this statue:

Kevin Carson is where much of the OP's thoughts are coming from not Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Marx etc. the fact Carson and Konkin have wiki pages with a big A for Anarchism on them doesn't help much. They're not anarchists, never will be and thats that. If you can get Carson on this site to defend his claim to anarchism or to being representative of the anarchist tradition that would be great. He's responsible for confusing a great number of people in America and it looks like that confusion is spreading to Europe. Can anyone get him on here? I guess I could try. At the least I'd like to see his wiki page changed.

I'm suddenly starting to enjoy reading this thread now...

That was quite some answer! I meant ancom as an abbreviation for anarchist communist which is the way many on here describe themselves not to distinguish from ancaps.
I wasn't trying to make Rothbard's point, although now you have pointed it out I can see how some may be in sympathy with it. The design behind my questions, was to try to understand communism through one persons viewpoint, working on the assumption that if anything you said was considered outside of the perameters of general consensus others would contribute also.
As for Ron Paul, I haven't watched the video because I'm in bed and don't want to wake up my girlfriend but I have checked him out before and felt I wouldn't trust him any further than I could throw an elephant!
Thanks for your replies and if you don't mind answering them I'll come back soon with more questions. Time for a kip now though.

Below is more source material for the OP's mislead world view.

http://radgeek.com/gt/2011/10/Markets-Not-Capitalism-2011-Chartier-and-Johnson.pdf

This directed at Webby: The original poster was taking the piss from post one. He says he is an anarchist communist and he believe in a capitalist method of distribution- the market: idiot or liar!
I am one of the least well read anarchist communists (I have a reading disability) on libcom but from post one I could smell shit. It is hard enough to read all the posts so I seldom get as far as writing my self but I do try to engage. When people disagree with me I do not have a strop- I engage with what they say and test it against what I say- that is how we learn as an organisation- the OP did not engage he insulted- got it back from better read and more intellectually vigorous people and that smarted- but at all times his points were answered. Given that he was on an communist website arguing for capitalist solutions it is not surprising he got peoples back up. I opened this thread hoping for a discussion about how to find alternative survival strategies for workers not some waffle about how pure markets are a free- my life situation will change and I will need to find a way of earning- I am an older unskilled labourer with a learning difficulty and I will be out of work in a couple of years- I am too angry for most bosses to take so I was thinking about starting some kind of working situation where I can have more control than I would selling labour direct to a boss- I want a revolution but I need a livelihood! I would be interested in co-ops only in the knowledge that they are an individual solution to a problem of living in capitalism not a collective response for the establishment of communism.

Ok, thanks.
Moving on then, a fairly obvious question. What is going to inspire a rather disinterested working class, that is stupified by trash TV, a dishonest and manipulative media and spare time spent reading and producing inane witterings on Facebook, to create and carry through a global or even national revolution? Campaigning? Financial collapse? Dissatisfaction with the above mentioned things that I believe play a big part in stopping them thinking or doing anything to change their circumstances. All of the above or are there other things that I am missing?
Also, how can the principles of revolutionary communism be explained to the average person. I am no idiot I hope, but I am struggling very hard to understand this stuff. I think I am just about keeping up with your posts but other stuff that I have read on this site goes way over my head. Take this just as an example:

When presented as guidelines for a philosophy of change, not as dogmatic percepts true by fiat, the three classical laws of dialectics embody a holistic vision that views change as interaction among components of complete systems, and sees the components themselves not as a priori entities, but as both products and inputs to the system. Thus, the law of "interpenetrating opposites" records the inextricable interdependence of components: the "transformation of quantity to quality" defends a systems-based view of change that translates incremental inputs into alterations of state; and the "negation of negation" describes the direction given to history because complex systems cannot revert exactly to previous states.

Now, I'm not critisizing this, in fact, I'd love to be able to read and understand this easily but in terms of the general public I doubt it will drag them away from The Sun or Take Me Out! I have serious trouble engaging friends, family and colleagues in political or social discussions at all. Maybe I'm just a boring bastard or they detect that I'm talking bollocks but I don't think so(although both may be true?!!!). I think it's more that they accept their lives the way they are, and just moan about politicians, bankers or whatever the media tells them is this weeks outrage whilst doing nothing to extricate themselves from the power of government and institutions.
The above few paragraphs aren't a declaration of my beliefs for the sake of it but as the background for my basic question which I'll now simplify:

What will inspire and create a communist revolution?

Quote from Tart:

I would be interested in co-ops only in the knowledge that they are an individual solution to a problem of living in capitalism not a collective response for the establishment of communism.

I wish I could have seen that quote earlier in the thread. It would have been more helpful than the more sarcastic descriptions posted.
I don't know if AM was taking the piss or not - I've not been here a week yet and have a lot to learn about the politics AND culture of this site.
What is true is that, despite my less respectful posts, I am here to learn but am having some difficulty doing so. My exchanges with Stan are starting to penetrate though but I would love it if it could be simpler still. I understand though that if I'm to get to grips with a complex subject I'm going to have to strain the old brain a fair bit.

Webby, action oftens precedes conciousness and organising politically in the workplace as a radical and a revolutionary is almost guaranteed to be a non-starter.

This is a bit of flagrant self-promotion. Here's a piece I linked to earlier in the thread. AM dismissed it as "sad" if I recall, but it's a write up of my attempt to relate to my workmates materially and then use the space opened up by struggle to discuss deeper political issues later on:

http://libcom.org/blog/worker-control-staff-meeting-15082012

There's also this, FWIW:

A dialectical process is where two ideas--often unconciously--bounce off one another and develop one another, sometimes resulting in a new idea.

So, I'll often say that in the class struggle, action and conciousness are a dialectical. So it's the idea that one doesn't need class conciousness to act in a class concious manner. However, acting in a class concious manner begins to make clear the class nature of bourgeois society and futhers the development of becoming concious of your class interests.

Thanks Chilli. Digesting for now and refraining from commenting until stuff sinks in and to curb my tendancy to run my mouth before I have really grasped what I'm talking about.
Can't comment on your article anyway as I have no experience of this type of work enviroment(well, not counting 2 days packing pills in a factory - I jacked) but have always been self employed or worked for very small companies(3 - 6 full time staff). All my bosses have worked within the small team carrying out the same tasks so I've always looked on them as the same as me. Naive, possibly, but that's how it's been for me. Interesting concept though(dialectical process) and good to have it put in to context.

I know what you mean about small scale bosses being workmates- I have worked directly for a single craftsman and we were friends. It is a different thing from working for the anonymous cunts who owned the venture fund that owned the chain that ran my last workplace. The people I worked with were being ground by the main contractors they were subbing to and the banks- plus landlords for the lockup- a lot of their labour was paying off the parasites. I felt we were in it together- maybe an illusion but it made the work more bearable.

Webby

Ok, thanks.
What is going to inspire a rather disinterested working class, that is stupified by trash TV, a dishonest and manipulative media and spare time spent reading and producing inane witterings on Facebook, to create and carry through a global or even national revolution? Campaigning? Financial collapse? Dissatisfaction with the above mentioned things that I believe play a big part in stopping them thinking or doing anything to change their circumstances. All of the above or are there other things that I am missing?

I personally think it's going to take an almost total collapse of the system, meaning, quality of life becoming worse and worse for most people where capitalism can no longer support a large half way comfortable consumer/working class - this would probably start wars between nations for control of resources and a new fascist like nationalism so it's extremely important for socialists to try to explain, every day, alternatives to capitalism/fascism. What brought me to Marxism (first) and later Anarchism were the work place conditions in my 20's. I felt like a wage slave on a daily basis. I physically felt the exploitation on the job site drain me to the point where all I could do after work was sleep to re-energize for the next day of brutal labor. I also saw how much the boss/owner was profiting off of my labor and it made me sick. Here I was, working myself to literal death and could hardly afford a 500 sq ft studio apartment while my boss was living in 3 million dollar custom home. All he did to 'earn' that lifestyle was put inside bids on contracts (fixed bids) and drove around 10 different job sites demanding we all work faster and faster.

He also took the division of labor even further (as if production housing in America hadn't already split each trade into micro specialty trades). I ended up having to preform the exact same task at work over and over at break neck speed for almost ten years (it was a form of Taylorism in the home building process) . The only relief I got was the housing crisis which meant no more job. That's not exactly relief ya know? Had to move into my brothers home and find a job in the service sector rather than trades where I now make even less money but the same work place conditions exist. Not as brutal, I don't have to constantly lift, bend, stoop and crawl with 100 pound tool bags on but it's exploitation non the less, both physical and economic exploitation. Just one pay check away from total disaster. No health insurance. Can't afford car insurance etc. The thing is, millions of people are living like this in America and yet? At times I start to think there's some serious machiavellian mind control conspiracy going on but this isn't a new question:

Orwell/1984

If there was hope, it must lie in the proles because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within. It's enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice; at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet--!

Some people will criticize me for posting that above quote in saying I'm patronizing millions of people but I'm one of them (working class) myself so....I don't know. If anyone had a strategy to make hundreds of millions of people demand an end to capitalism then we'd be in good shape but we don't. My opinion (which isn't popular) is too many people are too comfortable in their slavery and we also suffer from a sort of Plato's Cave scenario. People just don't get it.

Why don't most all workers want to end capitalism now? I can only tell you what brought me to wanting to end capitalism now. If I knew how to "convert" millions of workers I'd be revolutionary Jesus. I can only say I think it will happen with declining material conditions but even then it's not a given which is why it's so important for Anarchists and Marxists to help expose the conflict between labor and capital (if the worker doesn't understand the set up already) while explaining the socialist alternative to capitalism. Most wage slaves do hate their jobs, most people deep down don't like capitalism but I think change may cause a great deal of fear. Maybe other's are suffering from a sort of Stockholm Syndrome? maybe some people can't even imagine another system taking hold? I don't have all the answers. No one does. Maybe we've embraced a reality that pits everyone against everyone in perpetual competition in an egoist war of each against each to see how you can achieve "success". Ya know, If you work just a little harder, just save a little longer, just pay a little more interest on that bigger loan you too can live the glamorous life.

Capitalism provides a lot of distraction but at the end of the day most of us are indeed unfree. We're told we're free living under democracy but we have a pseudo democracy which was never intended to give the people power. We're only "free to chose" (as Milton Friedman would say). Free to chose what to buy ourselves. Free to chose which boss to work for. Consumerism has been sold as freedom. It's not just hyper consumerism there's all manner of propaganda that we're hit with from the day we enter school to when we get home in front of the TV. The entire system is build to perpetually legitimize capitalism. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE is capitalism being shoved down our throats. Physically, emotionally, psychologically, existentially. Everywhere. This is what leads many to lifstylism and or counterculture as a strategy but that alone isn't the answer. Be suspicious of anyone claiming to have all the answers.

What will inspire and create a communist revolution?[/quote]
I have all the answers ;)

Capitalism in decay and socialists connecting with the broader working class as a whole rather than focusing on various sub groups within capitalist society. I should say capitalism decay will set the stage for revolution but it's up to us to make it happen. This is just my opinion and people on this and other Anarchist or Marxist sites will disagree. Some will also agree. No one concretely knows when, where and how a revolution will take place or if a global revolution will ever take place.

I personally think it's going to take an almost total collapse of the system, meaning, quality of life becoming worse and worse for most people where capitalism can no longer support a large half way comfortable consumer/working class

people don't fight because things are shit, they fight because they think they can win, things don't even need to be bad, if people think they can win they will fight.

Stan, I don't know what answer I was expecting but that wasn't it. I would like to comment on a few points but don't have time now. I'll just say that I pretty much agree with everything that you said. The use of the passage from 1984 wasn't in the least bit patronising. How can the truth be patronising? The people are their own worst enemy. I love 1984 but 1985 by Anthony Burgess, whilst not as good a book, parallels the story in a way more closely resembles the world we now live in although it may offend many unionists. It was a huge influence on me as a teenager and I still read it now 30 years on.
Time to go to work now!

radicalgraffiti

I personally think it's going to take an almost total collapse of the system, meaning, quality of life becoming worse and worse for most people where capitalism can no longer support a large half way comfortable consumer/working class

people don't fight because things are shit, they fight because they think they can win, things don't even need to be bad, if people think they can win they will fight.

Case in point. Greece. Why do we see so many people in Greece taking to the streets right now, people way more open to the idea of replacing capitalism with another system? Occupy Wall St. That's been the most noisy the working class has been for over a decade (In America). What set the stage for that?

Well in Greece it's because they've had big socialist/communist/anarchist movements for the best part of 40 years, so when attacks happen they're taken on. Similarly in Spain and Portugal with the Indignados and in France with its tradition of wildcats. In fact I'd say the relatively anaemic phenomenon of Occupy in the US/Britain compared to other countries shows how little reliance can be placed on misery alone being the catalyst for mass action.

Cases in point for the other side would also be Britain, France and Italy in the 60s and 70s - people were far, far better off in terms of being able to find jobs and having a social safety net than they are today, but nevertheless came closer to bringing the edifice crashing down than we could dream of in the depths of post-2008 austerity.

True enough about the sixties and seventies but I'm sure many other factors come in to play as our culture has changed, not least the soporiphic effect of may types of social media, multi channel TV and the huge increase in the use of drugs, particularly 'party' drugs since the late eighties.
I know that social media has a positive side, this forum being a case in point but for a revolution to happen the dissatisfaction of the politically unaware, that rather than use social media to exchange ideas or spread information, spend half their lives posting about what they had for dinner or what colour socks they're wearing on Facebook.
As for drugs I can speak from personal experience. In 1989, overnight, I went from someone that was fairly active politically to someone that lived purely for the weekend Acid House parties that I attended. I forgot about everything else and grafted extra hard at work for the extra money I needed to buy the ecstacy pills etc that I wanted to take at the parties. Now don't get me wrong, it was fucking great, in fact I still go to squat parties in London 3 or 4 times a year(without drugs now though!) but it served a great purpose to the authorities in the early nineties recession.
These are some of the reasons that I agree with Stan about the a huge economic break down being a major catylist for bursting the bubble of peoples 'comfort in their slavery'.
I take Stans point about counter culture and lifestylism being insufficient in changing the world but getting back to the original subject of the thread I can't feel critical of people changing their own lives to achieve happiness as the residents of Twin Oaks have.

Sorry, didn't finish thi sentance -

I know that social media has a positive side, this forum being a case in point but for a revolution to happen the dissatisfaction of the politically unaware, that rather than use social media to exchange ideas or spread information, spend half their lives posting about what they had for dinner or what colour socks they're wearing on Facebook, is required.

Rob Ray

Well in Greece it's because they've had big socialist/communist/anarchist movements for the best part of 40 years, so when attacks happen they're taken on. Similarly in Spain and Portugal with the Indignados and in France with its tradition of wildcats. In fact I'd say the relatively anaemic phenomenon of Occupy in the US/Britain compared to other countries shows how little reliance can be placed on misery alone being the catalyst for mass action.

Cases in point for the other side would also be Britain, France and Italy in the 60s and 70s - people were far, far better off in terms of being able to find jobs and having a social safety net than they are today, but nevertheless came closer to bringing the edifice crashing down than we could dream of in the depths of post-2008 austerity.

True, which is why I think it's important for us to blend in with the community/work place with anti-capitalist ideas as much as humanly possible but at the end of the day I don't think any of us have the answers to the overall problem of building a global mass movement to overthrow capitalism (which explains all the various tendencies to a certain extent). Can the 68 protests in France be repeated but with the end result being revolution in whatever country? If so, lets say, if French workers abolished the state and took over the economy or if Marxists took over the state what do you think surrounding capitalist states would do? How long could that victory last isolated in a "sea of capitalism"? Another cold war scenario?

The question is what will it take to globally form a mass movement that really threatens the capitalist system as a whole? This goes all the way back to the 1917 Russian revolution. Some people said "workers in advanced capitalist nations of the time left Russia hanging" so to speak, some thought Russia would be the spark that ignited a global revolution but it didn't happen. I'm of the opinion, in order for a true global revolution we may need to see the almost complete decomposition of capitalism but while this is happening, and I think it's happening right now, it's paramount that workers have a passionate agenda to replace capitalism with communism and that's where ideology comes into play. Maybe capitalism can go on forever with bubbles bursts war and fascism to save it? I hope not. Maybe one day people on a massive scale will simply demand change but you have to remember what I witness in America, most people don't even know what anarchism, Marxism or communism in general [b]really is [/b] and show no interest in it whatsoever (some do through the struggle but by in large communism isn't on American workers minds - perhaps more struggle cause by declining material conditions would change that? ). What will change peoples non interest in communism in your opinion? What will make people more receptive? The only thing I can come up with, at least for Americans, is declining material conditions and fighting for better conditions via struggle but it's not like there isn't multitudes of millions of us living pay check to pay check right now so I may be wrong. I really can't say I know 100% for sure what will snap people out of it on a massive scale. I know one thing for sure it won't happen if Anarchists and Marxists sit around and do nothing, I'm not advocating that scenario.

Some of my old Marxist thinking might be muddying up my mind, I basically get these views from Kautsky's post 1917 criticism of Bolsheviks, Grossman and Marx's materialist conception of history and theory of crisis and even sociologists such as Webber, Durkheim and Buechler. The examples you give (which I've known about for decades) do in fact negate there is only ONE PATH to social upheaval but I'm more concerned with global revolution on a mass scale which in my opinion won't happen without the breakdown or decomposition of global capitalism.

I also found a thread on libcom discussing this so in lieu of fogging up this thread perhaps we should post here (below)? Or we could talk in this thread. Whichever.

http://libcom.org/forums/theory/material-conditions-necessary-socialism-communism-12042011?page=2

edit, and if we look at the two most successful Marxist and Anarchist revolutions (Russia/Spain) we see promises of "bread peace and land" (basic material needs) and in Spain fighting fascism (a much more desperate condition than the average American now faces). Even so in Russia they succeeded* and if Spain succeeded in long term worker control they were and would have been isolated in a sea of capitalism, no global revolution took place. can ideology alone be the foundation for a sort of chain reaction effect overthrowing the global capitalist order? You'll have to convince me, I'm open to there being different paths in different areas but at the root of it all I see capitalism being overthrown globally during a period of almost total breakdown.

* (thats questionable seeing certain material conditions had yet to be met, namely the lack of a mature capitalist work force)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strain_theory_(sociology)

Another opinion I've held for a while is many people (who are living in an advanced capitalist society) in lieu of turning to revolutionary communism they turn against themselves so to speak (rising suicide rates in China?) manifesting in a form of anomie. Sometimes becoming depressed, violent or hopeless. I'm almost positive there's more hopeless and depressed Americans who blame themselves for a perceived socioeconomic status failure then there are who advocate revolutionary communism. Millions also turn to crime and become institutionalized. This doesn't necessarily conflict with my *somewhat deterministic view that capitalism will have to almost completely decay before global revolution is possible it simply might answer why many people are "stuck" in a more personal battle with themselves or blame other things rather than embrace a collective battle against the system.

They see themselves as the problem because that's what capitalist society tells them. That it's "up to us to succeed". To climb the social ladder. To provide a comfortable life. This is what we're told in school, by many of our parents, by all manner of media. The "American dream" dictates anyone can make it and if you don't it's your fault, you just have to work hard. I think when it becomes blatantly undeniably obvious to the majority of Americans that there is no American dream workers here will begin to liven up. When there's no more illusions. When the elephant in the room screams. This problem might be uniquely American.

* emphasis added

[youtube]kIjo-dWE1Jg[/youtube]

Nice to see some people had a productive christmas break! :D

wrong thread

Rob Ray

Well in Greece it's because they've had big socialist/communist/anarchist movements for the best part of 40 years, so when attacks happen they're taken on. Similarly in Spain and Portugal with the Indignados and in France with its tradition of wildcats. In fact I'd say the relatively anaemic phenomenon of Occupy in the US/Britain compared to other countries shows how little reliance can be placed on misery alone being the catalyst for mass action.

Cases in point for the other side would also be Britain, France and Italy in the 60s and 70s - people were far, far better off in terms of being able to find jobs and having a social safety net than they are today, but nevertheless came closer to bringing the edifice crashing down than we could dream of in the depths of post-2008 austerity.

QFT.

I'm now pretty sure the Stan is CRUD. Webby, don't take this guy as representative of an anarchism and libcom. He's gone round and round on the same points (namely the need for total immiseration of the class for a revolutionary movement to develop). No matter how many times people disprove the hell out of it, he's always back for another round with a different username.

Chilli Sauce

Rob Ray

Well in Greece it's because they've had big socialist/communist/anarchist movements for the best part of 40 years, so when attacks happen they're taken on. Similarly in Spain and Portugal with the Indignados and in France with its tradition of wildcats. In fact I'd say the relatively anaemic phenomenon of Occupy in the US/Britain compared to other countries shows how little reliance can be placed on misery alone being the catalyst for mass action.

Cases in point for the other side would also be Britain, France and Italy in the 60s and 70s - people were far, far better off in terms of being able to find jobs and having a social safety net than they are today, but nevertheless came closer to bringing the edifice crashing down than we could dream of in the depths of post-2008 austerity.

QFT.

I'm now pretty sure the Stan is CRUD. Webby, don't take this guy as representative of an anarchism and libcom. He's gone round and round on the same points (namely the need for total immiseration of the class for a revolutionary movement to develop). No matter how many times people disprove the hell out of it, he's always back for another round with a different username.

http://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sections/britain/periodicals/communist_review/1922/07/soc_rev.htm

It's an old debate most people who have been Marxists at one point are familiar with. I'm not crud and am aware revolutions, the French Revolution for example, have taken place in conditions where the people were enjoying a quality of life far superior to most other nations. The question is an old one and not limited to some crud poster who people on this site seem to abhor. Sure the theory is rooted in traditional Marxism which isn't anarchism per say unless you consider anarchism to be idealist rather than materialist, if you're an idealist then so be it. We can agree to disagree.

I never said the total immiseration of the working class everywhere is necessary for revolution (although Marx did at one point) I said capitalist decline or almost total breakdown of it's ability to function as a global system might be necessary before a global revolution is possible specifically effecting American workers to the point where we can no longer be half way comfortable, as in, content with simply going about their daily lives having the occasional struggle for better wages/benefits. The formula is simple, declining capitalism = attacks on working class = more struggle= higher class consciousness. Another thing I said is if workers in isolated nations succeed in isolated revolutions with capitalism functioning at 'normal' levels it would simply reset the cold war. These are all relevant questions that make people uncomfortable. The United States is the leading military power and until that changes socialism anywhere isn't going to happen on any meaningful scale that will threaten the global capitalist order. What do you think would take the United States out of the position of being the global capitalist police if not the decay of the global capitalist system? What would it take in America to see a 68 French style uprising but on an even more massive scale?

What I did say is when this happens, when capitalism begins to decay, I and think it's slowly happening now, it's very important for us to be active advocating socialism as an alternative to fascism and war which have traditionally saved capitalism from severe crisis. I think anarchists in Europe deal with a different level of class consciousness or something because workers in the US just don't see communism as a viable alternative and aren't even thinking about an alternative to capitalism at this point. They're content with working within the system to achieve gains in work place conditions, wages and benefits. What will change that?

what have I missed, can someone give me an abridged version?

cardy lady

what have I missed, can someone give me an abridged version?

I read a lot of Henryk Grossman and think capitalist crisis= attacks on working class = intensified struggle against attacks = higher class consciousness. Some people disagree. Using this logic I think a global crisis might be the foundation for a global revolution. This makes me evil bad man or 'crud'. A label I've been enjoying anytime some one disagrees with me on this site.

Read this to start if you don't want to buy any of his books online https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/48485/3/kuhn_crisis_rev_postprint.pdf

Excuse my ignorance but what the devil is 'CRUD'?

Excuse my ignorance but what the devil is 'CRUD'?

Webby

Excuse my ignorance but what the devil is 'CRUD'?

The ancaps are watching us!

It's Stan's old username. He wrote a lot of long, antagonistic posts and--I believe--has been banned more than once.

Chilli - thanks for the info.

Agent - Que? I don't follow you!

I think you have quite a confused definition of what capital is. From what you have described above, your actually talking about the means of production. Those things that allow us to produce things (knives, hammers, work spaces etc, etc), the means of production, are what are suseptable to breakage etc, etc, not capital per se (although one can we imagine the production of other means of production as commodities for instance a table shop lets say which sells tables which are then used by a butcher or whatever). I'm too tired to write more right now, but what I would say briefly is that from a lib-communist perspective we want to do away with the production of things as commodities (as things produced to be sold, for a profit). In any case. more later. :D

anarchomedia

I'm back from Christmas with just a few points I meant to make earlier but didn't.

A phenomena called 'capital accumulation' has been mentioned with what I perceived (perhaps mistakenly) to be the implication that it is a 'bad thing' that renders private property and exchange (capital and markets) as something diabolical. Unless we are using a special redefinition of the words capital and accumulation then there nothing intrinsically evil in this phenomena.

Wealth accumulation by any means other than what you can accumulate with your own two hands, your own labor, is the basis of class society. End of story. No amount of theoretical excuses made for private property, wage labor and interest will change it. Anarchists oppose all forms of hierarchical society be it capitalism or any lame new theoretical nonsense (anarcho capitalism) that excuse wealth accumulation. If it's the church accumulating wealth from money taken from the community, if it's a guy who somehow build a factory with his own two hands and hires wage laborer's, if it's a magician who conjured up a bunch of gold and lent it out to people with interest it doesn't matter.

Wealth accumulation doesn't need capital as non capital wealth accumulation is the basis of capital which we call primitive accumulation. To understand capital read this, it's pretty basic http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/a.htm

Chilli Sauce

It's Stan's old username. He wrote a lot of long, antagonistic posts and--I believe--has been banned more than once.

So there is only one person who thinks henryk grossman has a point and identity issues being put at the forefront of class struggle is nonsense. Got it. These are basically positions I've has since I was a Marxist. I don't think they're very rare. The knee jerk reaction from the guy who started in with all this crud nonsense (over identity issues taking the forefront of the class struggle) could have been avoided if I simply said I opposes this (link below) model for revolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemony_and_Socialist_Strategy In a nut shell they take the "war of position" -Gramsci- and add to it, in a negative way, advocating the acceptance of or nurturing of the almost total fragmentation of the working class with each having various issues we are separatelytrying to address in the struggle which is somehow suppose to give rise to class consciousness and the overthrow of capitalism. What I see as a result of this is, well, fragmentation and disorganization, two things that will never be the basis of a mass movement. Laclau and Mouffe argue that the failure of revolutions from Eastern Europe and lack of in the west calls into question the entire basis for previous socialist thought, that the rise of the new social movements based on identity politics signals the end of the era of 'universal discourses' and lays the basis for building a new left based on a different theory. The theory responsible for identity issues taking front stage above the general issue of class. In response, thus far on this site, people take my, no, our opposition to this strategy as somehow saying fighting racism,sexism and homophobia is a waste of time. It's nonsense thrown my way based in misunderstanding.

Read the above book and if this site by in large agrees with the premise and can give a detailed critique of the book as to why this site advocates that strategy then I'll stop posting here. As far as I knew this was mostly an anarcho syndicalist site? As far as possible material and social conditions (I always thought the two were symbiotically linked) which would ignite a global revolution I already said we should perhaps post in another thread and found one here on libcom and linked to it. Don't act like I'm obsessed about talking about this, although these are the crucial questions, what will spark a global revolution and how should the working class as a whole organize, it was sort of the natural flow of this thread seeing the OP thought communes could do the trick. Stop with the crud nonsense please.

anarchomedia

Nonsense

Dude seriously? Have you just ignored explanations by people in this thread that Capital is not "just Stuff" and that it is a social relationship?

You are obviously a troll, but if you are serious about actually understanding what communists mean by capital, these videos are a good introduction http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/law-of-value-introduction/

Oh come on man. Why does every thread have to turn into one about you Stan. If you want to moan about 'identity issues' why not make a new thread about it, rather than turn every thread into the Stan show. I think your post is problematic in that you have added in parameters into your general diatribe. The people who called you out were talking about Occupy Oakland, a very different beast to Laclau and Mouffe*. Goal post moving is going to get you nowhere. If you think your post there is part of a natural flow of this thread then your utter, utterly mad.

I dont know whether or not you are CRUD (I honestly don't care), but why do you keep posting here? If I went to a website and everyone accused me of being a sexist racist CRUD, I don't think I would bother after a while.

* Suggesting anyone is holding a Laclauian model of revolution is pretty slanderous in my opinion.

Honestly bro if that's what you want to do, don't let us stop you. But businesses can't be anarchistic, a business is a scheme to enrich oneself off the labour of others. And that isn't anarchistic or communistic in any sense. If you really want to abstain from capitalism, your going to have to become the American Zapatistas. ;)

Those definitions are paraphrases of one another. I'm not a Marxist however, I generally avoid the guy all-together because he was opposed to Anarchism from the beginning. He had a very strong faith in the state, just as Ancaps have reverent faith in the market. There are plenty of people expert in Anarchist theory; I'm much more concerned with physically advancing Anarchism.

Your idea of co-ops is extremely interesting. I agree with the idea of workplace democracy, and while still capitalist it is similar to how industry would be managed under Anarchism. At least in my mind's eye it is. For a lot of people it can also be a stepping stone into Anarchist theory. So go for it bro, and understand that Anarchists are quite critical of one another.

Perhaps, rather than just telling people here that their definition of capital is wrong, you could try engaging with the substance of what they're actually saying. The Marxist concept isn't a "special redefinition"; it's an accepted and widely used one. Ditto with our understanding of things like class - another term which has a variety of meanings related to politics, economics, sociology and the like. That doesn't necessarily make one of these definitions "right" and the others "wrong", so much as recognising that they're used in different ways in different fields by different people.

While this is all a bit out of my depth, wikipedia gives a summary of what Marxists mean by capital accumulation. I'll leave it to those with more knowledge than I as to how accurate it is, but it's a start at least.

As regards co-ops in general...while I've not worked for one myself, my impression as an outsider is that they're a bit of a mixed bag. Being able to run the workplace yourself, not having a boss breathing down your neck constantly, having some degree over the work you're doing and how you do it can all be positive things; on the other, even the most progressive co-op is still going to be subject to the market, leaving those working for it to essentially enforce the results - such as wage cuts - on themselves. Not to mention the admin and bureaucracy side of things.

The only real role I could see a co-operative business playing as regards anarchism would be essentially a supportive one - though I really don't mean that to be dismissive. Obvious example, there's a pub where I live that recently became a co-op owned by its workers and a committee of supporters; one result is that they're able to provide rooms to various groups for free, such as a recent IWW meeting. Similarly co-operative print shops providing groups with cheap or free printing, or transport co-ops giving people deals on bus hire or whatever. But the idea of essentially destroying capitalism by becoming (self-managed) capitalists makes very little sense to me.

:eek: Are you serious? You think Marx was stupid enough to confuse capitalism with arbitrage (by the way that definition of marx's capital you quote there [I note that it isn't a marx quote, you should be wary of that] isn't even an example of arbitrage). you think he wrote thousands of pages on the whole capitalist ensemble just to confuse it with arbitrage?

O.K. let me try go through this. Note in my post above I said the means of production are not capital per se. To expand on that, they are one element in the totality. Another element is labour. After all the coffee doesn't appear in the cup through some magical force, somebody has to make it happen (likewise cheese doesn't just appear in between two slices of bread. You get the point ;-) ). See here in lies the problem with your [sic] forth definition. Is capital just saving? Then everyone with a savings account is a capitalist? No. Capital isn't just savings and capitalists arn't just people with the biggest savings. The capitalist accumulates more capital through putting people to work. These people produce x amount that will pay for their wages and replace the capital with which the boss put into the business in the first place (this is what Marx calls constant capital [this, as I just said, includes wages. But it also includes things like raw materials, means of production e.g. buildings, knives, ropes, whatever is needed to construct the commodity]. All that is required to reproduce the production process [the creation of commodities]. While the 'left over' is variable capital). But then there is a bit left over. This is the surplus value produced by the labourer. Through the work of other people the capitalist has taken something left over. This is the site of capitalist exploitation and the 'left over' is what the whole system is geared toward. It is neither here nor there what commodity is produced, the fact is things are produced to realise this extra bit, profit. This is the whole impetus that keeps the cogs spinning, regardless of where it all leads to. This is all I can write for the time being. I am more than happy to answer more basic marx stuff if you ask in good faith :) .

- Usury is not really central for marx. I can't be bothered to write more than that (the exploitative relations are much more fundamental and happen at a much earlier 'stage').

N.B. I think it is pretty lazy of you to offer 4 sources that support your point then one source that apparently tells us all about 'marxist economics' (strictly speaking there is not 'marxist economics', Marx is writing a critique of economics and is not providing a new model).

I think the last two posts hit the nail square on the head. AM, I'd like to see you engage with the substance of the posts and not just make this semantic.

I will, however, throw in my two cents. The key distinction is between the means of production and capital. You're right that "stuff" (the means of production and goods/services) has always and always will exist, but it becomes capital and commodities under specific economic circumstances.

But it goes deeper than that in as much as capital is a social relations. This is what Marx was talking about when he talked about the fetishization of commodities. Commodities appear to be a relationship between things (i.e. you exchange money for the gas to fuel your taxi). In reality, however, they're hiding (or obscuring) a relationship between people i.e. the labor that goes into you driving your car as compared to the labor that goes into extracting, refining, and transporting petroleum.

As long as we are talking about Marx, it's worth worth noting that Marx didn't invent much of this terminology. The distinction between means of production and capital had long been acknowledged by the classical political economists. Marx was actually retaining much of their terminology. FWIW, this is partly why Das Kapital can seem so dense. Marx was working on the assumption that his readers would already be familiar with the mainstreams usage of such terms.

Oh yeah, four unsourced sources :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

Chilli Sauce

Oh yeah, four unsourced sources :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

I was curious so I googled some of the quotes. The first one was wikipedia (fine, though not scholarly) and the last matched up with this:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=capital

This may be the first time I've seen urbandictionary quoted in a discussion about economics.

On the Bitcoin lunatic fantasy, try reading http://junge-linke.org/en/bitcoin-finally-fair-money.

Why do I keep following this thread when every time I look at at it my reserves of will to live are even further depleted? I'm either a masochist or a moron. Probably both.

You're posing the question as if we're in this big supermarket of social forms that we can pick from for our own convenience. Products of labor become commodities on the basis of a division of labor founded on private property. Take the foundation away, socialize labor, and the necessity (as well as the whole point) of "trading" vanishes. I can see why as a taxi driver you're so obsessed about it, though. (A few years ago I used to wonder why Marx thought Proudhonism was a petty-bourgeois variant of socialism, and whether that was a fair assessment; not anymore).

Anarchomedia, you're just not a communist.

You appear to reject basic principles of communist (and, by extension, anarcho-communist) theory and critique. That's fine, it's your prerogative.

So now you need to either (a) engage with what we're saying, try to find common terminology, and begin discussing the substantive points in good faith of (b) let if freaking go, stop calling yourself an anarchist or a communist, and change your website to reflect the fact.

Chilli Sauce

Anarchomedia, you're just not a communist.

I think this is fairly right-on. Sorry an-media, but yeah, the reason why you find anarcho-capitalists so sociable is that your amongst 'comrades' [sic].

Why not drop the pretence and just fess up that you are Marxist authoritarian statist?

Difference is that he actually is anti-state and anti-authoritarian, whereas you are not a communist. Look, here's some definitions of communism, and not from some randoms either:

Wikipedia:

"Communism (from Latin communis - common, universal) is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless[1][2] and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production"

Encyclopaedia Britannica:

"Communism, the political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society."

Oxford Dictionary:

[Communism is] "a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs."

Merriam-Webster:

Definition of COMMUNISM:
a : a theory advocating elimination of private property
b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed

Are you getting a pattern here? Communism = the elimination of private property and production for profit. You are pro private property and profit. Ergo, you are not a communist.

1. Did AM ever respond to the points raised about his zany views on feminism?

2. At what point do Omen cartoons become appropriate?

anarchomedia

jura - To a large extent we are part of a big market of social forms that we can pick and choose from more so today than ever.

You are confusing social forms with ideologies. I can believe in chivalry, but it won't make feudalism (the social form) any more viable or even possible nowadays than it did in Don Quijote's times. Similarly, you can dream up a utopia based on "pure" commodities, money and exchange, "untainted" by exploitation, usury and violence, but that does not mean it can actually be implemented in practice (or ever could).

anarchomedia

Okay and the problem with that is? Mostly people don't go to work because they want to make chairs, head gaskets, wait on tables, watch cctv, sweep the streets or tunnel for gold. They do that because someone will give them money to do these things, money they can use to buy the stuff they do want but can't make for themselves.

You conveniently left out the part where most people are deprived of the means of production and hence choose between converting most of their time to labor time (while producing leisure time for the capitalist class) on the one hand, and a life in abject poverty or death by starvation on the other hand. (The former, with its relative poverty, accidents at work and work-related illnesses is of course so much better!)

If we are against voluntary trade then we can only be in favour of involuntary trade (slavery and theft) if there is a third option I love to know what it is.

Let's see: providing free access to most goods and collectively regulated access to luxury goods, while, for the sake of a parallel with the present state of things, requiring some reasonable amount of work per day from all those who are able to work.

The foundation being 'private property'? What is socialising labour (I can tell from your spelling that you are american)? Does this mean the doctor, teacher, engineer, baker, miner, will be made to work by some political commitee? And if they get a bit lazy and decide to stay in bed, smoke pot and play video games all day instead of working what will the political committee do to re-educate them?

Socializing labor means that the society as a whole draws up a plan of what is to be produced based on expectations of what will be needed, and then puts it in practice. Probably unlike many other people on this site, I don't have a problem with very harsh measures against those abusing such system or working against it (even under "full communism"). So yeah, if you'll want to start a horse-cart-taxi company (car production will have to be scaled down anyway) and employ people, paying them tokens or whatever, you will be prevented from doing so, by talking you out of it (doesn't seem work too well so far :)) or by violent means, if necessary. I don't see what's so horrible or scary about that. Try walking into a shop today and messing with the laws of private property. However, you'll be free to give rides to people in your free time if you wish, or to suggest this service to be included in the plan.

Having said that, the goal of communists is to establish a society in which necessary work is reduced to a minimum. This will allow more time for self-actualization than people ever had (and with much more potent means), so I wonder why anyone would want to go back to trading their time for pieces of paper or whatever. Anyway, given the rising productivity of labor and the reduction in unproductive labor after the revolution (by scaling down and eliminating sectors like cars, arms, finance, accounting, real estate, marketing etc., and, of course, the state, its police and army), I don't see the reduction of necessary labor time as much of a problem. Another related part of the project is to change the very nature of work: once free access to most goods is implemented, work will cease to be a separate activity done "for a living". The distinction between work and leisure will disappear. You'll love it.

BTW, your inference about my nationality is impressive but wrong (see my profile).

anarchomedia

Proudhon was a true anarchist and the first to call himself such. Marx was never an anarchist but the opposite an ardent statist. You like Marx better than Proudhon, fine, but why do you call yourself a libertarian communist? Why not drop the pretence and just fess up that you are Marxist authoritarian statist?

I never called myself a libertarian communist in the first place.

I could not let this go:

Jura(paraphrased) - After the revolution, if you don't do what we tell you, we will beat the living shit out of you.

What a beautiful vision of a free society you have. Well done.

Beating is so 1500s.

laborbund

At what point do Omen cartoons become appropriate?

Several pages back, apparently.

Anyway, here's another:

(Click for biggsies.)

Beating is so 1500s

???????????????????????????????????

I would have thought anachronisms are right up your street

Seriously though, I've seen some unattractive ideas on this site but that one takes the piss!

Omen, this shit will never get old. To 2013 and more slamming cartoons of trollers who have no clue!

Webby

I would have thought anachronisms are right up your street

No, you see, communists like me are arguing from the standpoint of a more modern mode of production, the preconditions for which are created by capitalism. It's you guys who can't seem to let go off private property (and poverty), credit (and debt), wages (and disposession), capital (and the state) who are anachronistic!

Anyway, it's funny that you don't seem to [s]mind[/s] like people living off your labor today but throw a red scare hissy fit when I mention that something like that should be prevented in a society of free producers in the future.

(Edited, sorry for the mistake.)

Who are 'you guys'. What have I said that indicates whether or not I mind people living off my labour. Actually it depends on the circumstances in which they live of my labour. With my job I don't mind one bit. Tomorrow, I will be at work while my boss stays at home. He'll be doing nothing and still earning money. You call that exploitation. I call it leverage.
Anyway, he needs some free time to figure out new ways of tearing the food from the bleeding lips of the starving poor.

I've been told that it's not a matter of good guys and bad guys but rather the incompatible interests of opposing classes. Well, that's how you think and fair enough but I don't think like that. I think in terms of individual people - there behaviour and attitudes.
If you want to clump people together how about this, which has been my personal experience for decades:

Ruling class(as in the wealthy clients whose homes and businesses I work in) - Respectful, positive, energetic, helpful, compassionate, open minded.

Working class(as in the tradespeople that I often work alongside) - Rude, lazy, dishonest, bigoted, dullwitted, irresponsible fingerpointers.

Many exceptions of course but basically true. And yes, I know that these are examples of cultural differences but they are closely tied to the economic definition. You'll be needing this working class for your revolution - good luck with that.

I don't suppose you'll recognise the above descriptions either because of the lack of my types of experiences or because of your predjudice against the ruling class and your romantic idea of the working class. Maybe my predjudice sends me the other way but I don't think so as I am friends with right on lefties, squatters, 'criminals', business people, 'toffs' and wealthy people of various descriptions.
I am not smart enough, or educated enough in political theory to give a fully thought out alternative to to communism but I know what I don't like. Right at the top of the list is the idea that people that don't do as they are told will be violently dealt with. Absolutely revolting.

You're a dick.

How do you think capitalism deals with people who don't do what they're told? You can starve if you're lucky. If you unlucky, well, the history of class struggle is one of violence being dealt to unruly wage slaves.

Tomorrow, I will be at work while my boss stays at home. He'll be doing nothing and still earning money. You call that exploitation. I call it leverage.

WTF? Leverage for who? You or your boss?

EDIT: I acknowledge Jura was a bit blunt, but the point stands: if we are willing to have a revolution today to stop capitalists living off our labour, we also need to be prepared to stop post-revolutionary wannabe capitalists from doing the same.

Good grief!

Also, you'll find no romanticised notions of the working class round here.

However, I do think our role as workers--high stress, overwork, lack of money, too little access to healthy food, repetative tasks at work, schooling for the job market instead of education for education's sake--does almost inevitably make for coarse individuals.

I'd also argue that solidarity and the concious creation of a working culture is the anti-dote to all that.

In any case, it's easy to be "compassionate" and "open-minded" when you've always had the best in life, private schooling, and a steady income. They may be nice to you when they're your "client", but if they're a boss it doesn't matter how kind they want to be, their choices are limited by the market, by the needs of capital.

And that's the point about class analysis not being about individuals or "culture"--it's about understanding the economic forces which give power and control to a small group while limiting the choices available to all.

Ruling class(as in the wealthy clients whose homes and businesses I work in) - Respectful, positive, energetic, helpful, compassionate, open minded.

The Soul of Man Under Socialism - Oscar Wilde

But it may be asked how Individualism, which is now more or less dependent on the existence of private property for its development, will benefit by the abolition of such private property. The answer is very simple. It is true that, under existing conditions, a few men who have had private means of their own, such as Byron, Shelley, Browning, Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, and others, have been able to realise their personality more or less completely. Not one of these men ever did a single day's work for hire. They were relieved from poverty. They had an immense advantage. The question is whether it would be for the good of Individualism that such an advantage should be taken away. Let us suppose that it is taken away. What happens then to Individualism? How will it benefit ?

It will benefit in this way. Under the new conditions Individualism will be far freer, far finer, and far more intensified than it is now. I am not talking of the great imaginatively realised Individualism of such poets as I have mentioned, but of the great actual Individualism latent and potential in mankind generally. For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses.

:wall:

Webby, seriously? You really, genuinely believe that what you've written makes sense? You seem to be claiming that factual descriptions of how the market works are the same as baseless, prejudiced, lazy stereotypes.

Right at the top of the list is the idea that people that don't do as they are told will be violently dealt with. Absolutely revolting.

Firstly, you've just described what we have right now. Secondly, do you really want to live in a world where people do whatever the fuck they like regardless of whether it harms other people? No, me neither. You have to have some ways of ensuring people are safe and happy etc. Essential to this is everyone getting what they need and contributing what they can. If some dickhead individuals want to fuck with that and screw others over then, yeah, we need sanctions for that. Just like if an individual is going round killing people or whatever.

Chilli - 'You're a dick'. Fair point. Won't argue with that one. But you miss my point. Of course we are currently forced to do all sorts of stuff we don't want to. How is Jura's idea any better. Replacing one bunch of bullies with another is an appalling idea.
Leverage for my boss of course. I don't have a problem with that. We all use leverage all the time - technology, people whatever. My point is that I am not coerced in to doing it. I have no resentment.
You are wrong if you think all or even the majority of wealthy people had all the advantages you mention. Many have, many haven't - fact.
Ok, I may be playing devils advocate a bit here but Jura's assertion bothered me not a little along with the misconceptions that you have. I'm sure I've got a lot wrong too but I'm open minded enough to admit it. I am not attached to the idea of being correct. Overwhelmingly on this forum though, the posters seem to have visited the revolutionary supermarket, picked up their little set of absolutes and cannot countenance anything that does not fit within those absolutes. To me that means all the pontificating on here amounts to one big dry wank.

Chilli Sauce

Also, you'll find no romanticised notions of the working class round here.

However, I do think our role as workers--high stress, overwork, lack of money, too little access to healthy food, repetative tasks at work, schooling for the job market instead of education for education's sake--does almost inevitably make for coarse individuals.

I'd also argue that solidarity and the concious creation of a working culture is the anti-dote to all that.

In any case, it's easy to be "compassionate" and "open-minded" when you've always had the best in life, private schooling, and a steady income. They may be nice to you when they're your "client", but if they're a boss it doesn't matter how kind they want to be, their choices are limited by the market, by the needs of capital.

And that's the point about class analysis not being about individuals or "culture"--it's about understanding the economic forces which give power and control to a small group while limiting the choices available to all.

I'm going to go ahead and agree with every one of Chilli's points and throw in my own two cents by saying: I don't favor the working class and class struggle as a means of achieving communism because I think working class people are all paragons of virtue (they clearly aren't) but because the working class in located at a spot in the production process - a sociological and economic position - which makes the working class ideally suited to making the rev and bringing about communism. Chilli is also right, imo, that "the concious creation of a working culture is the anti-dote to all that [shitty, reactionary stuff in the working class]." The task of creating and spreading a culture of working class solidarity is, I think, where we fit in; not as some sort of know-it-all vanguard but as regular working class people trying to organize and interact positively with our peers generally.

Also, I looked at that twin oaks video from the first post and saw a bunch of things I'm actually hoping will disappear in the post revolutionary society: back-to-the-land type projects that isolate people and damage the environment by unnecessarily creating new human settlements, compensation based on contribution ("we kick people out if they aren't pulling their weight") instead of the needs principle, long hours of highly laborious work... I think worker co-ops can play a positive and supporting role in the movement but this isn't it.

Also, omen, thanks for the cartoon. I actually didn't mean to ask for one, but to seriously ask at what point they become okay. I felt like CA was an obvious case in point where your cartoons were warranted. I feel like AM was at least approaching that point if he hadn't in fact reached or passed it. AM has, apparently, fucking awful views on women and feminism. I wonder if we would tolerate him as long as we have if instead he had awful views on minorities and anti-racism? I understand that many people enter the movement with some reactionary baggage and everything, but I feel like that's okay when they're willing to honestly reexamine and challenge that shit in their head and their behavior. But when all they want to do is endlessly defend their reactionary nonsense I feel like its time for the rest of us to bid our farewell.

Webby

Of course we are currently forced to do all sorts of stuff we don't want to. How is Jura's idea any better. Replacing one bunch of bullies with another is an appalling idea.

So imagine the bully gets replaced but everything else changes for the better. A society with real infrastructure to fulfill your needs and give you agency to create and participate. Exploitation and oppression abolished. Would it still be an appaling idea? I'd call in an improvement to say the least.

Then consider that it isn't the same bully and he is never permanent in his job but rather the expression of the security needs of the community. I wouldn't argue for Juras tough love but speculating is useless as every community would have to decide for themselves where the line should be drawn and how it should be enforced.

Webby

My point is that I am not coerced in to doing it. I have no resentment.
You are wrong if you think all or even the majority of wealthy people had all the advantages you mention. Many have, many haven't - fact.

You are coerced as many has pointed out. Only if you are extremely well off can you choose freely.

You continously fall into talking about individuals. You have to realise that you can't discuss society and large scale features of it unless you use abstractions. Socialists use the classes to describe defining features of capitalism and a way out, a way of destroing capitalism, class society and the state.

I've had nice bosses and awful workmates. I've been relatively happy in some jobs. It's all irrelevant. You may have the best possible job, the system is still exploitative and highly coercive.

Doing your job for (at least) eight hours a day five days a week sucks regardless of how great your boss and your job is. You are trapped. I pretty much do my (two) dream jobs, capitalism makes them both suck and turns whatever positive potential they have into destructive garbage.

Webby

Overwhelmingly on this forum though, the posters seem to have visited the revolutionary supermarket, picked up their little set of absolutes and cannot countenance anything that does not fit within those absolutes.

People here have honed their views pretty tightly. Libertarian communism is a fairly specific set of ideas and people on this forum know an awful lot about it. The arguments put forward often hide an iceberg of knowledge and an absurd amount of reading. This can't be communicated immediately. To understand you have to listen a bit more carefully and read up a bit.

I'll say this; it's a good job I'm not here to win an argument - I don't stand a chance against you guys! Cooked in particular made pretty short work of the points I raised.
However, the fact remains that I DO think in terms of individuals and I DON'T think in terms of class structure. Therefore to me it's an abstraction too far. My failing, I dare say, but hardly my fault - it takes all sorts and all that, a fact that you will need to deal with in your new society.
I have tried to listen and believe it or not, I've read quite a lot too but hardly anything appeals. Improvements are very commendable I suppose, but I just can't seem to get excited at the prospect of getting a punch on the nose just because I'm no longer getting kicked in the bollocks.
The bottom line is that you offer something that is far more researched, thought out and refined than anything I would come up with if I had a million years to do so but I just don't like it. Every fibre of my being says this is not the way. My brain has a long way to go before it catches up with my feelings as you will all stand testement to but I doubt I will end up on side with you all.
So for now all I can see that I can do is be honest, caring, generous etc. Just do my best to be a decent person. Defeatist? Realist? Doesn't really matter does it. Just another gobshite who should leave you to get on with what you believe in I guess. Sadly though, I really feel that for all your sterling efforts you'll have about as much effect on the world as me doing fuck all.

There seems to be a pattern here; of late, libcom has been graced with not only our present mutualist friend, but also a Stirner-style "individualist anarchist" and a modern-day DeLeonist.

My theory: libcom is the target of an elaborate trolling by the ghost of leftism past. Next up, anarcho-Bundism and the Committee for a Saint-Simonian International.

Every fibre of my being says this is not the way.

Webby, I have followed this whole debate with a mix of frustration and entertainment, and I think it's nice to occasionally have someone with your insistence around here, because even if you can't always come up with the best arguments, others eventually can, and I have learned a lot from them.

However, your quote above surprised me a lot. We're talking about freedom and participatory democracy, sharing of society's wealth equally among all its members, reordering of work to make it voluntary and less boring, wasting less natural resources and rendering us more leisure and time to fulfill our passions, and yet "every fiber of your being says this is not the way". Your problem with this is that you think it's not attainable or just not desirable?

Or was it that part about violent action that scared you? I think only few people want to put lives in danger in any circumstance, so conflict resolution in a communist society would probably rely on dialogue and agreements more than anything else, but if one's action puts others into harm and one is unwilling to find alternatives to one's behavior, why would those involved not take direct action against the person inflicting them harm? If people in a far away community decide to try some private property organization, soon falling into all the wrongs of capitalism, it puts the rest of the region (not to say the world) in danger, because we have seen how capitalism needs violence to spread, and so it would be better to simply act in order to prevent such kind of social arrangements from even taking place. Education, dissuasion, propaganda, and, if nothing works, force. Sometimes I see some people with a strange ideal that if the society of the future is not 100% violence free in all the pores of the world, it's not a society worth fighting for, but I think to get there, even with the best settings, we will need some time to mature, and bad things certainly will happen, no matter what, unfortunately.

Webby

I've been told that it's not a matter of good guys and bad guys but rather the incompatible interests of opposing classes. Well, that's how you think and fair enough but I don't think like that. I think in terms of individual people - there behaviour and attitudes.

Fair enough. We have ourselves here another 'individualist' who wholeheartedly rejects history, politics, economics, sociology, anthropology, humanities, and a whole array of arts and sciences.

Thinking in terms of the 'individual' is how we are taught to think about social issues everyday by the capitalist-induced culture, education and media complex. And thinking on those terms is only a benefit to those who rule over us and (more importantly) the system that divided humanity into rulers and ruled.

If that's how you want to come to understand the world we live in, then go ahead, nobody can stop you. But you might as well listen to some Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, because you'll get a lot of that kind of sophisticated pro-individualist analysis from those well-known "thinkers".

I personally don't know how one can understand social calamities such as economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, climate change, war, and a bunch of other things by calling working-class people "lazy", "bigoted", "rude", and "irresponsible", and the complete opposite for people belonging to the capitalist-class. What do you do? Do you count every person in the world and categorize each and every one of them as "good" or "bad"? How do you tell which direction this gigantic collection of individuals will take society? Do you have a massive database of everyone on the planet? If so, do you have any idea who assassinated JFK? Or, is that individual long gone?

I think these are legitimate questions for your highly modern pro-individualist analysis. Is it called pro-individualist analysis? Or, a classless analysis? You may have to invent a name for it.

As for your claim that we have to deal with a working class that is entirely "Rude, lazy, dishonest, bigoted, dullwitted, irresponsible fingerpointers", without an ounce of a positive quality; I would say that you most likely have no friends. So wonder you can't find yourself being able to take part in a revolution with fellow comrades from your workplace or neighborhood.

Its your fault that you can't make friends because you turn everybody away every time you make an open declaration of your intentions to acquire large property, subjugate them into wage-labor, and exploit them for your own benefit.

Agent - Good description of me apart from rejection of arts? I'll be surprised if you can't give an example that proves you're correct though. I suspect though that your description implies an inferiority? My position rests on precisely this point though. I am not saying that you guys are wrong(or right), I'm saying that I am different to you. Not better or worse, just different. I am no more able to change my thought patterns, natural abilities and disabilities than I am able to change the colour of my eyes. That doesn't mean that I can't be persuaded or change my mind. I'm talking about the way my brain approaches what it is presented with. And I'm not the only one, which, as I have repeatedly stated is a big problem for you lot.

Davi - I'm glad you think it's nice to have me around here. I suspect that you are a member of a very small minority there though!
Firstly, I don't even try to come up with the best arguments, I just say what I think and feel. I know that most people here think I'm a knobhead but it doesn't matter to me as my ego doesn't work that way. I'm not here to troll although I know I am occasionally antagonistic. I shouldn't even be here but the truth is I am fascinated by the dedication, single mindedness and depth of historical and theoretical knowledge on display here. I just can't get my head 'round it. I find it admirable and infuriating in equal measure.

I think your aims are unobtainable but also partly undesirable because there seems to be no place in your new society for anyone that you disagree with. You(Libcommers) seem not to entertain even the slightest possibility that you're wrong - I find it very amusing that Bullguard categorises Libcom as 'religeous, no threat'. Your adherence to dogma borders on the theological.
No, I am not opposed to the idea of violence. As a teenager I thought I was a pacifist but at the 1983 Stop the City event when trying to break out from a kettle situation, a cop that was on the floor had hold of my coat and told me I was under arrest. A gentle kick in the head got me out of that problem and I realised that self protection can certainly justify violence. What disgusted me was the we're right, you're wrong, do as we say or else attitude. You do not know if you are right. You do not know if communism will work. I don't care what examples you bring up from history. Here and now are different to there and then.
All through my posts I've admitted I don't have the answers. I'm just making observations and thinking out loud. If this annoys people too much just let me know on this thread or by PM and I'll dissapear. This is YOUR space, you've built it and the last thing I want to do is ruin it.

Just seen 2 more agent posts. I don't think you actually read mine. I was giving an example of how sweeping generalisations that you lot are prone to can easily be swittched round. Where is your ounce of positive quality in what you term the ruling class? See what I mean???

As for the first paragraph of your 17.37 post. Words fail me.

I also stated earlier in the thread that I have friends from all 'classes' including the wealthy and right on lefties. I get on well with all sorts of people. You accuse me of being friendless - not true.
You accuse me declaring the intention to aquire large property and subjacate people. - not true.
Or am I a liar? Seriously mate, simmer down and quit the insults. As I said, if you lot want shot of me just say the word. I personally am enjoying the exchange but I've got plenty of other things that I enjoy doing.

My point is that I am not coerced in to doing it. I have no resentment.

I think Cooked has already nailed it, but the concern of communists is not individual coercion but systemic coercion. So you may not immediately feel coerced, but for those who don't own capital (i.e. workers) the choice is either to sell your labour (or labour power if we're going Marxist) or starve. That's coercion. The market is inherently coercive.

In the event of mass struggle, we have tons of examples of workers being fired upon by the state and private security. For an example from very recent history, see the South African miners.

I also feel like you're taking a small thing out of context. In reality, the vast majority of the human population has everything to gain from abolishing capitalism. The idea that we have as communists is not that the working class is some bastion of virtue, but that throught struggle we'll come to discover our collective self-interest in abolishing capitalism--in abolishing wage slavery.

So while Jura is of course right that post-revolution some degree of force may be neccesary to stop would-be exploiters, a revolution will not happen unless their is revolutionary movement. And since widespread solidarity will be neccesary for the revolution to succeed, the society created after the revolution will be one based on that very solidarity.

You're thinking very capitalisticly (with a dose of liberalism pacifism--which in it's denial of the coerciveness of class society--chucked in). That's all very fair enough given our current society. To be perfectly honest, it's those exact type of perceptions we'd hope would change in the course of widespread, revolutionary class struggle when the the violent and coercive nature of class society becomes that much more evident.

webby, it's not about "I'm right, you're wrong". Plenty of people here are more than happy to learn from each other, hash out arguments, change their minds. But they have to actually be presented with points that challenge their views. You've yet to do that. All the 'points' you've made have, by your own admission, been floppy nonsense. You keep saying you don't have all the answers and your thoughts are based on how you 'feel'. Don't you want to base your thoughts and ideas on actual facts and logic rather than just knee-jerk, prejudiced feelings? (Not that feelings about things aren't important). To add to that, it's not about whether you feel exploited by your boss. You just are. It's simply an economic fact. That's how capitalism works. How do you think bosses get rich?

It's not just about how well read or educated people are either. The class stratification of society is right there for all to see, it's not a secret that only academics can understand. My god, I'm shit at reading and have read pretty much no lefty texts, but I find it painfully obvious that capitalism is balls and full communism would be so much less ballsy.

Webby

Just seen 2 more agent posts. I don't think you actually read mine. I was giving an example of how sweeping generalisations that you lot are prone to can easily be swittched round. Where is your ounce of positive quality in what you term the ruling class? See what I mean???

As for the first paragraph of your 17.37 post. Words fail me.

I think you missed the point about how those who adhere to a class analysis don't judge individuals as either "good" or "bad", or possessing this or that quality.

Webby

I think your aims are unobtainable but also partly undesirable because there seems to be no place in your new society for anyone that you disagree with.

Once again, you have little knowledge of what our "new society" would be like, yet your sure it will be undesirable and no place for those who disagree with "us".

Webby, I sympathize with the way you try to keep safe from committing to the ideas presented here and elsewhere, although sometimes it does seem like you're just trolling because regular people can rarely endure the kind of answers you received here without simply quitting. If you're for real, I think it's a cool ability to sustain an argument for so long even when completely opposed.

Chilli Sauce and commieprincess already said pretty much what I was going to write, so there's nothing much else to add right now. I just couldn't understand much of that "dogmatic" accusation, as sometimes calling something dogmatic is a cheap attack to discredit an idea without actually engaging with it. I think nobody here is talking about world communist police. For what I understand, we're talking pretty much about self-defense. There are social organizations that are harmful to a great part of their participants, not because people are bad, but because its very functioning depends on doing harm, and I certainly don't ever want to be subjugated to such an arrangement, therefore I must make sure it never takes place. If a group of people decided to live in a way that doesn't threaten the life of my own group of communities, there'd be no reason to interfere in their lives and tell how they should live. Let them be in peace, we've got nothing to do with them. However, there's indeed the fear that, for example, a society that relies in private property to attain justice will in fact become the exact opposite of what it seems to propose, as those who don't get sick often, who are born strong or more focused, who don't have to raise and take care of children or elderly people, who are young and vigorous, who had access to the better lands or better machines will succeed in accumulating a lot more than others, certainly working towards the elimination of their competitors as it becomes a possibility, as life is much more pleasant when you know there's no one to threaten you. When people have unequal access to resources, the divide in society tends to make things very tense and, well, I don't know, I don't see why everything shouldn't be shared equally among all. Our productive capacity allows us to produce enough of our most our needs for everybody, so why not just distributing things for everybody instead of making them buy it? If I worked harder than the other, so what? I get all I want anyway. It's not possible to get free², double free; if it's free, it's free! Take what you need and be happy like all the others around you.

People don't oppose the market, the state, classes and private property because it's their choice among many others of equal potential, but because it has been indicated so through research, debate and practical work that these issues must be opposed to make the world a better place. Capitalism works very well for a small group of people, so yeah, it's a valid choice for sure, as long as your goal is to create a society like ours. In our case, we envision a world of mutual aid, solidarity, free association and decentralized power, and to get there, we see a certain number of factors as essential to its success. If you want "free market", you probably won't get equal opportunities and autonomy for all, but if that's what attracted you when you were at the great supermarket of ideologies, then you'll get what you were expecting, so we can call it a success! But if you want a society of equal opportunities of human development for all, the set of ideas worked by communists are quite consistent. It may seem utopic (although it probably isn't), and history will not be over right after the revolution, there will be lots of issues to work on, but it's not like communism as a whole has never won any significant victory for the working class ever since its conceptualization! It has many promising ideals, I hope you recognize it. Therefore, what's wrong in defending it? There's a lot more to communism than you can read in this forum, please keep that in mind.

But if you don't think it's not an ideal worth fighting for, there's nothing really much we can say to convince you, and there's also no purpose to that. I guess we engage in this kind of conversation mostly to clear up our ideas, putting them into confrontation and making adjustments. Hopefully you can take the ideas you were presented to here, and many others from your upcoming readings, to your own practical experience. If your practical experiences can eventually relate to what people have been telling you here, that will be nice. If not, patience for us all.

jonthom

libcom is the target of an elaborate trolling by the ghost of leftism past. Next up, anarcho-Bundism and the Committee for a Saint-Simonian International.

If you mean the old Jewish Labor Bund I will happily make up a character for myself and come back to libcom trollin hard. I'll ask the rather ancient members of my family how to play it for authenticity. But you all have to pretend that you don't know its me.

Speaking of dogmatism, I can't ever recall a time when our an-cap friends such as Anarchomedia, Webby, or ComradeAppleton have engaged on our terms, with a clear idea of what we're talking about, even if we tell them repeatedly to do so. They continue debating in their own language; twisting everything we say around like a puzzle.

anarchomedia

This idea that the means of production should be common property also doesn't bear close inspection. At what point does an object become the 'means of production'? My toothbrush is means of producing clean teeth...

You know that toothpaste is capitalist plot and dental problems can be solved by taking vitamins right?

And are you still a misogynist?

This has been fun and all but after 10 pages isn't it time to ban this idiot?