this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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How do you define a system where decisions are made decentrally at a communal level and the owners of capital are the workers? Any serious study of early attempts at economic decentralization of the early Soviet and CCP systems should result in the conclusion that it was effectively an attempt at economic anarchy by its very definition. Just because it is not your prefered anarchy does not mean it was not anarchy.
Capitalism is compatible with kindness and, in fact, works better with it. Capitalism also allows for anarchist structures. Just because people do not throw resources at your system does not mean that it is not allowed. Any system that refuses to allow capitalist structures is one that does not allow dissent. Any anarchist system that does allow for capitalism bleeds skilled labor and capital over time. Any education system that promotes kindness and humanity is just as effective at bettering a capitalist system as it would be an anarchist one but good luck controlling the educational system with anarchist structures. We cannot even keep religious dogma out of our current ones with the strongest and most rigid structures.
Economics is the study of how best to allocate the resources within society. Anarchism does not allow for any of the economic structures that allow for resource allocation at scale. A command economy can but is inefficient the more centralized it is. Capitalism can but it is less human the larger it is. If you take out the scale of a command economy, people starve. If you make capitalist systems smaller, they become more human. There is a clearly preferred system which is smaller capitalism. That is my answer to you on a system that has all that.
Beyond the simple answer, it requires a few other things as a roadmap to get there (which Anarchism does not have in any form beyond attempts at general strikes and generally degrading the system in the hope that fascism would not be the natural response)
All of the above are interlinked and require each other to be most effective. All of them can be done in your community right now and don't require interjection by a higher government than your local town/city.
It honestly sounds to me like you do not understand capitalism if you think there is not a human element that comes into play. Reducing suffering enables better human interaction, excess kindness, leisure time, friendliness, and absolutely requires tolerance and acceptance. An efficient system is not one that allows for discrimination based on any human factors and that would be present in any system. Tribalism is in our nature. You see it in class with how people sit and between groups when they are at odds for goals. The only thing that can affect it is education and awareness. Only after that can we talk about resourcing solutions. It sounds to me like you just want a kinder world. I recommend finding a place that supports that in your life. They do exist and it requires compassion and probably moving on your part to find them. No one is going to force it on you.
I thank you for the detailed answer. It is going to take me time to properly think about everything you have said. I will get back to you when I have finished thinking about it. You have definitely given me lots to think about and I thank you for it.
But one thing I will say is that I am talking about cultural anarchism instead of economical one. such a culture needs time to grow and a few months of economic decentralization is a god start anarchism requires a lot more than that.
EDIT: You just might have triggered a massive change in how I perceive politics. Thank You!
Okay, how to I even begin. I'm going to start with a Thank You! This comment has made me think about a lot of different aspects of my Ideology and I am genuinely grateful that your comment initiated that. Ensuring clearer understanding of my ideology is very important to me.
Let's start with the easy response. The final statement of my previous comment was very absolute.
I now see that was a mistake. What I should have said instead was that it would make it more anarchistic, and you have confirmed this by suggesting methods that I believe are anarchistic. All the steps have the purpose of lessening the power structures of current society and if I would have to think about how to transition a capitalist society into an anarchist society I imagine I would come up with similar steps.
Therefor I support this "small capitalism". I see it as a stepping stone towards anarchism, because it is moving in the right direction. It just doesn't go far enough. You seem to be okay with money as a concept (and maybe wage slavery unless it falls under "equity of at the lowest levels"), I am not. I think that as long as money is a necessity to live you have the means through witch you can coerce others and remove these freedoms and safeguards put in place so in the end you will have just capitalism. Cruel, unjust and uncaring capitalism.
Removing money does not prevent against this, because anarchism also requires a lot of oversight to prevent collapsing. Money is just another vector of collapse that capitalism has. Also unlike anarchism, capitalism also does not have oversight of society by all members of society. This is the cultural anarchism I am talking about. Anarchists have no representative democracy, No political laziness. Everyone has a voice and you can't give your voice to someone else. All the individuals are collectively in charge of everything that happens in their commune, and the society is nothing more than a collection of communes.
I also believe both can coexist. Nothing about anarchism prevents collaboration with other political systems. In fact I believe that an anarchist society must have good relations with a neighboring capitalist system to survive, because otherwise the capitalists in the system have nowhere to go and will rebel, the other society functions like an overflow pipe. Also the effect works reversed as well.
Anarchism does not allow for discrimination. All forms of discrimination are antithetical to anarchism.
Also I would like to address the in anarchism capitalism is dissent argument. Is fascism dissent? or theocracy? because from an anarchist point of view all those are coercive unjust power structures, that should be dismantled. They are authoritarian and oppressive. anarchy does not allow capitalism of this. It is the same logic as the paradox of tolerance, but also I do not believe alternative systems should not be allowed to exists. as long as they respect our right to independence and self-determination I have no problem with alternate political systems existing, only if they are unreasonably oppressive (including genocidal).
I could also talk about economics but I think this comment is already long enough.
The entire first two paragraphs of your statement is exactly what the CCP and USSR attempted to set up but it failed miserably due to efficiency issues, They then consolidated in to sudo fascism. How many attempts do you need to see that people in aggregate cannot form that level of trust in society or social engagement? The majority of people do not even use their power in the current West because they do not care and are happy with the status quo.
Anarchism does not provide robust power to protect minorities so it does not matter if it does not allow discrimination, it cannot prevent it. The same level of educational and social change that you would propose under an anarchist system would solve it in any other system. There are no solid controls in place to counteract tribalism. This is actually one of my strongest held beliefs on the topic having worked in this area on the government and private sector sides.
The issue with not allowing dissent is that anarchists have never been able to force their system on society if it was not wrapped in communism. It very quickly collapses into an authoritarian regime or reversion to the status quo having hurt a lot of people in the revolution.
Don't get me wrong, there are aspects of anarchism that do work within systems of power. Decentralization of power tends to provide a check on centralized power such as in a federal system. Private contracts (anarcho-capitalism) between people can be extremely efficient provided they are not the only form of sustenance for people. Rights backed by the higher power with no economic perverse incentives is an extremely effective form of equality and to a certain extent equity. Nonprofits provide an opportunity for people to actually support others and if we were all ready to be equal members in an anarchist society, it is all you would need and capitalism would not matter. You cannot claim that it is the owners of capital that are preventing it because they would be there in any other system, except with the power of the state or no state to stop them. If you solve them, you solve capitalism without any transition to a new system.
I talk this a lot with folks involved in higher education that conform to these ideals which is why I speak to your narratives instead of some bastardized version skewed by ignorance in a nationalist upbringing. People have not been taught what fascists, socialists, and/or anarchists actually believe so they have also forgotten the counter-narratives to them. They are susceptible to highly effective propaganda that works. Anarchists are tools used to degrade liberal democracies by fascist powers because it works. It is a playbook used countless times in the 20th century and forgotten because a liberal democracy won the so-called final war. Germany's release of Lenin successfully knocked Russia out of the First World War and it is in Russia's playbook right now to cause internal tensions in the West with political instability. A success on that front would not lead to a happy world but instead the next period of conflict and great power competition between totalitarian systems out of a wartime necessity just as in the great war.
I do not want an anarchist revolution that forces anarchy onto the entire society. That would not work. The people wouldn't accept it. I want a system where anarchism can be implemented alongside other systems so everyone, me included, can find their spot, their best way to live. I do not think everyone is an anarchist, and can live in an anarchist system. People have different values and those values impact their politics. I just want a space where anarchy can exist without being destroyed. If a person is fine working 9-5 for 5 days a week for just enough money to pay rent, buy food and maybe sometimes some clothes then that's fine. I would rather die.
I do not believe that's what the USSR was trying to do, but because I wasn't there I cannot say for certain. All I can say is that if they did try to do it they failed to stop authoritarians getting to power and that was on them, not on the ideology. If you try to force a bunch of people who do not care about running their own lives and give them the power to run their own lives they will walk up to the first person telling them what to do and mindlessly do it. This is why an anarchist revolution has to be cultural as well as political. People need to want it, otherwise they won't get it.
A hundred years have past since then. Humanity has gone from an agrarian society to a post-industrial (robots) society. I think the circumstances have changed enough to make any assumptions based on past revolutions inaccurate.
The community prevents it. If someone is acting like a dick people come together and deal with it. Together. Anarchism does not provide this power because it is up to the community to decide how it works.
It was what they were trying to do because the basis of communism is the commune. The USSR originally started out as a decentralized organization of communes and it did not work at scale.
What you describe as wanting literally exists in western society. There are communes all over and they fail all the time or simply survive chugging along as is. Maybe you should go live on one and see if you like it. I mean that as sincerely as possible.