legit question not for any argumentative reason but also when/if you respond I may also have a response that pushes back. No harm tho.
When it comes to being an anarchist what do you actually imagine the end game being? I also agree the powers that be are shit. But anarchy in my mind will lead to small collectives of people like feudal socialism or something.
Anarchists are rarely the “no government” people the media portrays them as. Generally it’s an understanding that hierarchy is inharently bad, though still sometimes required. From there it can go any number of directions.
I appreciate you want to understand. For a bit more research for yourself, I’m actually an anarcho-syndicalist. I’m also pretty unique even within that ideology, fwiw. What I imagine is a socialist library economy, in which the librarians are elected and the library is the primary method of distributing goods. The librarians are also responsible for managing and automating work and food production. I imagine a solarpunk society where communities are mostly self sustaining but also interdependent. I imagine a world that has no need for money.
I also imagine that unions represent both their communities and the workers within the community and that all managers within workplaces are elected. When the many various dealings happen between communities, I imagine something similar to haudenosaunee council meetings. Each community sends a proportional bargaining committee of their population, and the largest communities must reach consensus between and with each other before being decided on by and between consensus from the smaller communities. Tentative agreements must then be voted and ratified through simple majority by all communities to be considered participants in the contracts. I’m sure people will say “that’s too slow”. To that I say, you’ve never seen how quick a union can turn around an emergency meeting.
There’s many different types of moneyless economies. Just gonna spitball a couple ancient ones at you.
In a gift economy, individuals will create things and share them amongst the the community. These gifts just keep being given over and over, and not reciprocating a gift eventually leads to poor standing.
In a community stockpile, everyone works together to collect what others need. A group essentially tracks the stockpiling and helps determine how the stockpile should be used, such as in times of low yield.
My understanding is that Marx believed that there’d eventually be a day when people would essentially do group-makes for whatever they needed or wanted. Basically no money or anything - one guy would go “I want this”, he and others would volunteer, they’d all work together to design a fabrication process, and then would all make as many of the thing as there were those who wanted it. A completely volunteer process.
That’s what the library is for! Instead of buying things, you borrow from the community library. When you no longer need to use that thing, you return it to the library. If you need to own something, you get it from the library or you can make it/privately trade for it. As much labor as possible is automated, while the people performing labor do it out of passion and at their own pace, with the goods being manufactured for the library to distribute. Some of the automated manufacturing and 3d printed custom designs can be onsite and available to the public.
Use this moment. Keep leading them on, and then when the moment is right say “that’s why I’m an anarchist”
And they hit back with, “I’m a sovereign citizen too!”
💀
“Anarcho-capitalist, right?”
“That depends, is capitalism still intrinsically hierarchical?”
legit question not for any argumentative reason but also when/if you respond I may also have a response that pushes back. No harm tho.
When it comes to being an anarchist what do you actually imagine the end game being? I also agree the powers that be are shit. But anarchy in my mind will lead to small collectives of people like feudal socialism or something.
Anarchists are rarely the “no government” people the media portrays them as. Generally it’s an understanding that hierarchy is inharently bad, though still sometimes required. From there it can go any number of directions.
I appreciate you want to understand. For a bit more research for yourself, I’m actually an anarcho-syndicalist. I’m also pretty unique even within that ideology, fwiw. What I imagine is a socialist library economy, in which the librarians are elected and the library is the primary method of distributing goods. The librarians are also responsible for managing and automating work and food production. I imagine a solarpunk society where communities are mostly self sustaining but also interdependent. I imagine a world that has no need for money.
I also imagine that unions represent both their communities and the workers within the community and that all managers within workplaces are elected. When the many various dealings happen between communities, I imagine something similar to haudenosaunee council meetings. Each community sends a proportional bargaining committee of their population, and the largest communities must reach consensus between and with each other before being decided on by and between consensus from the smaller communities. Tentative agreements must then be voted and ratified through simple majority by all communities to be considered participants in the contracts. I’m sure people will say “that’s too slow”. To that I say, you’ve never seen how quick a union can turn around an emergency meeting.
Come join us at slrpnk.net, you’ll find like-minded people there interested in prefiguring such systems.
Very interesting, thank you for the write-up! Out of curiosity, how does a moneyless society work?
Just I do you solids, you do me solids? How does a moneyless society allow trade if one party doesn’t have any goods the other party wants?
There’s many different types of moneyless economies. Just gonna spitball a couple ancient ones at you.
In a gift economy, individuals will create things and share them amongst the the community. These gifts just keep being given over and over, and not reciprocating a gift eventually leads to poor standing.
In a community stockpile, everyone works together to collect what others need. A group essentially tracks the stockpiling and helps determine how the stockpile should be used, such as in times of low yield.
My understanding is that Marx believed that there’d eventually be a day when people would essentially do group-makes for whatever they needed or wanted. Basically no money or anything - one guy would go “I want this”, he and others would volunteer, they’d all work together to design a fabrication process, and then would all make as many of the thing as there were those who wanted it. A completely volunteer process.
That’s what the library is for! Instead of buying things, you borrow from the community library. When you no longer need to use that thing, you return it to the library. If you need to own something, you get it from the library or you can make it/privately trade for it. As much labor as possible is automated, while the people performing labor do it out of passion and at their own pace, with the goods being manufactured for the library to distribute. Some of the automated manufacturing and 3d printed custom designs can be onsite and available to the public.
Interesting! It’s a cool concept for sure