A couple of questions

[JustMovement]

In anarchism how are competing claims settled? I.e after a revolution all land and means of production are put under collective control, but how is the use they are put to then decided? I understand that kropotkin said that it would be done on the basis of voluntary groups, but say that me and tom want to use x amount of paper to distribute flyers while mary and joe want to use them for an entirely different purpose, what happens? Or say that after the revolution, in a given place 40% of people want to live in the same house and 60% want to redistribute accomodations more equitably, how is it mediated? In a democracy (of any flavour direct or representative) the majority would decide. I guess my main question is how does anarchism, which by definition is anti-authoritarian, deal with the necessity of coercion?
Second question is what is the role of money, or labour credits or whatever in modern anarchist theory?
The third question relates to marxist theory in general. In capitalism prices have the function of allocating resources, in a certain sense, not justly but efficiently. I know there are a bunch of caveats to that statement but bear with me. Whereby as supply of something increases (if there is competition) the price will decrease until it is no longer profitable to keep producing that item and resources are shifted somehwere else where there is demand. In the USSR a major obstacle for economic growth was the fact that, without prices being set by the market, resources where not being allocated efficently, so that economic planners could not foresee, for example, which factories would need how much of what. It also means that place A might have an excess of butter but a shortage of bread and place B the reverse. Can anyone tell me flaws and solutions to that argument in modern theory? Thank you.

[ContrarianLemming]

Just looking at your post - it's a bit of a mess, could you please phrase them more contructively? When people phrase multiple questions numbersed then much more people will answer, and people can tackle each question seperatly.

ergo:

1.
2.
3.

It's rather confusing to muddle through your post and just try to find the questions.

[Forward Union]

In anarchism how are competing claims settled? I.e after a revolution all land and means of production are put under collective control, but how is the use they are put to then decided? I understand that kropotkin said that it would be done on the basis of voluntary groups, but say that me and tom want to use x amount of paper to distribute flyers while mary and joe want to use them for an entirely different purpose, what happens? Or say that after the revolution, in a given place 40% of people want to live in the same house and 60% want to redistribute accomodations more equitably, how is it mediated? In a democracy (of any flavour direct or representative) the majority would decide. I guess my main question is how does anarchism, which by definition is anti-authoritarian, deal with the necessity of coercion?

Well this is the crux of the matter; that Anarchism is not "against all authority" by any means at all. It's against centralised authority but that is a differnt thing, it's a different discussion. For example, Anarchism recognises the right of the People, through Peoples/Workers Councils to exert it's right to democratically run society by use of force. It therefore legitimises the peoples authority over counter revolutionaries.

The majority would have authority over the minority. Though all societies ought to have a constitution, a bill of rights which protects minorities from complete destruction of course. The majority can't vote to exterminate the minority for fun or something.


Second question is what is the role of money, or labour credits or whatever in modern anarchist theory?

Largely depends on the situation. In a healthy, functioning anarchist society money wont actually have a practical function. But in a Cold war situation, an Anarchist region, commonwealth or whatever locked in competition with a Capitalist economy will be economically straned, and measures like labour credits, rationing or whatever may be a neccesity.


It also means that place A might have an excess of butter but a shortage of bread and place B the reverse. Can anyone tell me flaws and solutions to that argument in modern theory? Thank you.

Well with modern technology, including the ability to instantainously communicate with people anywhere in the world, im sure misallocations can be reallocated?

[JustMovement]

Ok let me rephrase.
1) How does anarchism deal with the need for coercion?
Foward union answered saying that it would be on the basis of worker's councils.
2) Who would enforce decisions? Would there be laws? And, ugh, police, judges and lawyers?
3) What mechanisms are suggested in Marxist theory to efficiently allocate resources, lacking the price mechanism built into the free market?
F

[mikelepore]

Ok let me rephrase.
1) How does anarchism deal with the need for coercion?
Foward union answered saying that it would be on the basis of worker's councils.
2) Who would enforce decisions? Would there be laws? And, ugh, police, judges and lawyers?

This is my OPINION, not a textbook answer:

Anarchists haven't yet figured out good answers to those problems, and haven't yet recognized how serious a deficiency they have, not to have answered them -- that's why they are still anarchists.

I consider those problems to be unresolved and important --that's why I'm not an anarchist.

My suggested answer, as a Marxist, is: A classless society will probably have coercive institutions that are similar to those that exist today, such as laws, police and jails, with the main differences being that these institutions will no longer be enforcing class division and class rule, and these institutions will have less work to do and will therefore be smaller in size than they are today.


3) What mechanisms are suggested in Marxist theory to efficiently allocate resources, lacking the price mechanism built into the free market?


Under capitalism, prices have nothing to do with efficiently allocating resources. Prices are based on two things, the cost of production of each product, which mainly reflects the labor time consumed per unit of the product, and, after that, a positive or negative offset that is based on supply and demand, which means how desperate the seller is to dispose of the article and how desperate the buyer is to acquire the article. If this results in the grossest inefficiency, for example, not enough paper available for school books but plenty of paper for junk advertisements, or not enough chemicals for medicine but plenty of chemicals for weapons, etc., then so be it, as far as the market system is concerned.

A classless economy would need an administrative system, which at this late date would probably be a network of computer software, to cause products to be shipped to the destinations where they are called for, and to signal production lines about what quantities to manufacture for the next time period. Wherever human intelligence has to intervene, that is, establish a policy by conscious choice, such as ethical and aesthetic judgments, then democratically elected delegations or public referendums will set the controls of the system.

Quoting Marx from "Capital", chapter 13: "All combined labour on a large scale requires, more or less, a directing authority, in order to secure the harmonious working of the individual activities, and to perform the general functions that have their origin in the action of the combined organism, as distinguished from the action of its separate organs. A single violin player is his own conductor; an orchestra requires a separate one."

Quoting Engels from "Principles of Communism": "What will this new social order have to be like? Above all, it will have to take the control of industry and of all branches of production out of the hands of mutually competing individuals, and instead institute a system in which all these branches of production are operated by society as a whole -- that is, for the common account, according to a common plan, and with the participation of all members of society. It will, in other words, abolish competition and replace it with association."

[Magón]

Ok let me rephrase.
1) How does anarchism deal with the need for coercion?
Foward union answered saying that it would be on the basis of worker's councils.
2) Who would enforce decisions? Would there be laws? And, ugh, police, judges and lawyers?
3) What mechanisms are suggested in Marxist theory to efficiently allocate resources, lacking the price mechanism built into the free market?
F

1. Coercion usually leads to misleadings, and lying to the people. Anarchists don't want to have anything to do with that sort of thing, but we do generally have the basis that education is important. I guess you could call that a form of coercion, but really it's just (from an Anarchist point of view) trying to keep people all equal and everything balanced. Everyone understands that doing something wrong will not only hurt those they did their act towards, but themselves as well. Anyone who would try coercion on an Anarchist Society (hypothetically speaking) would probably be met with a lot of angry people anyway, before anything could really get off. And since Anarchists don't have a State or Government System that acts as a "State", Government Coercion would cease to exist.

2. Anarchists are opposed to Laws, because Laws are man made obstacles to keep the worker down, and keep those in power, still in power. So are police, and when you have a well trained armed populous, the need for cops is very little. (Cease to be.) I'm sure people could have neighborhood watches, just incase there's some vandals, but a police force would be out of the question I think for any real Anarchist Society to succeed. (In the sense that they are now.) Police now, are meant to keep those in power, still in power, and step on anyone who would oppose that. Having neighborhood watches would cut that whole part out, and everyone would make sure everyone's staying safe and not harmed. But who would dare harm someone, when they know that the whole populous is armed like I said?

3. Anarchists don't support Free Market. Period.