Luxuries, Niche Items, and other Questions on Anarcho-Communism

[Arcanius]

I've been lurking around this forum for a while, reading some leftist articles, essays, etc. but I still have a few questions that I hope aren't too absurd or annoying.

I'm a big computer geek, and I'm wondering about the production of some of my peripherals in an anarchist society. I use mechanical keyboards, currently only own one, looking to buy a second. These keyboards use mechanical switches, with springs or other more complex actuation methods.
However, a mechanical keyboard easily sells for at least $100, if not more. I find that typing on a non-mechanical causes pains in my wrists and tendons. Mechanical switches have a longer travel, lower actuation force, among other things to reduce effort, and increase speed, efficiency, and comfort. However, the price is steep, and not many people own such a thing.
I'm curious as to how a person would acquire such a keyboard in an anarcho-communist society. Would these be produced? By whom? Also, what would stop these keyboards, considered superior by most to the rubber dome keyboards one sees in stores nowadays, from totally stopping production of the inferior keyboards?
I guess my question applies to any higher-quality product not found as often in the mainstream, but considered superior. Nowadays, these products are expensive. But if a true communism is achieved, how would these be produced, distributed, and would anybody have access? Wouldn't everybody just want to have these higher-quality products? Would that not pose a problem to production and other things?
I own a pair of Sennheiser HD555 headphones, that I really enjoy. I'm a musician, and love to have high sound quality. But then again, wouldn't everybody? What would happen to production of high-end headphones? Would it be banned? Or would the low-end headphones be eventually phased out for high-end models?

That's number one.

Secondly, I was having a discussion with a teacher at a high school in my area, and he said that he wouldn't want a communist society because he likes living in his house, and wouldn't want to be "crammed" in an apartment so that he'd be equal to others. I didn't really know what to say to this. What would happen to housing in one of these societies? I know I wouldn't mind living in an apartment, but I'd need soundproofing to not disturb the neighbors. Other people really want a house. How would they be accommodated?

Thirdly. If a company or person produces, say, some weird niche item, that I would need, but I live far away from this person, say in a different commune, would I still be able to acquire this product? Wouldn't this mean that he's not contributing to his local economy by sending me this product? How would such a thing work out? Wouldn't this be somewhat contrary to a decentralized economy?

Sorry for such a long post, I hope I haven't angered anybody with my silly questions.

[syndicat]

The capitalist high tech sector produces things entirely based on making a profit. This means they push costs onto others. The non-ergonomic equipment they produce is an example. They sell these in bulk to employers, where workers don't run things, and can't affect design of equipment.

There are many other examples. They also pollute ground water because of the nasty chemicals used in manufacture of integrated circuits and electronic assembly. With the development of "green chemistry" non polluting alternatives exist or could be developed...but this would cost more, so it doesn't happen.

Under libertarian socialism the workers would directly control the industries where they work in, and would have control over technical research & development, and would be able to ensure safer types of equipment.

Communities would have their assemblies and there would be regional congresses and so on where people who would be effected by things liike pollution from assembly plants would have power to control use of the enviro commons, and could force production facilities to not pollute them.

Communities and househiolds would also self-manage their own consumption and what they would request to be produced. So they can decide what kind of housing they want produced. If households prefer their own houses, they that is what would be produced.

Private use right to houses is consistent with libertarian socialism so long as we don't have buying and sellling of houses for private profit. It's consistent because it's part of self-management...control over your life, over the things that affect you, and certainly your living space is part of this.

Also, if someone wants a larger dwelling and is willing to work more or give up other things to get it, that would be consistent with libertarian socialism.

Economies are integrated over a very large area. Thus the industrial federations and the federations of communities, which would extend over the revolutionary territory, would need to have a way for social planning and coordination to also extend over this whole area so that things produced in one location would be available in other areas. There is nothing inconsistent with libertarian socialism in that.

[Arcanius]

So you're saying that products would be of higher quality, because profit motive would eliminate the need to sell cheap products at high prices? But what about products that are harder or require more time to build/assemble? Say... customized equipment.
What about extremely expensive, luxury products, such as.... Patek Philippe watches. Would these still be produced at a rate of a few every year? Would the plant be expanded? Would the product be abolished?
I would understand that the fall of advertising, as well as a society that sees no use in such products would just eliminate this product, because of its lack of utility. Am I right in this?
With the housing industry, what would stop everybody from wanting houses that are larger, and then run out room to place these? Ie. Won't we run out of space if everybody wants a detached house with a yard, larger lot, garages, etc? Who would limit the size of the houses?

One more thing to do with electronics. Intel and AMD compete to make better processors, and one big goal is to make the process smaller and smaller. For example, in 2002, a 90nm process was introduced. Now we're at 32nm. Without a profit motive, what would lead the workers to do all this R&D, and to make better and better hardware? Would it just be the workers who want to do all the research?

[syndicat]

There is no general anarchist or libertarian communist answer to your questions because opinions differ.

I can only tell you my opinion. I believe that production organizations need to be accountable to the consumers and the community in regard to effects on them.

Also, you need to have a way to measure social opportunity costs. An economy can't be effective if it can't do that.

I would propose an interactive participatory planning process between households, communities etc on the one hand and the production organizations.

So households, communities make initial set of requests of things they want produced. The worker organizations then respond with estimates of the costs. These depend on things like the current level of demand by production organizations for the resources or inputs used to make that product, as well as total labor time (e.g. number of worker hours).

Once initial costs are published, then households and communities will need to revise their requests because each has a finite budget...it's fair share of the total product, based on things like the effort of the workforce there in producing things of value to others that is, things people have requested.

So, to stay within their budgets, and in light of the current cost estimates, this determines what people will request. People can decide how much of their share of the social product to put into making particular things. So whether or not some expensive to produce item is produced depends on how much particular people, groups, communities want it and are willing to put more of their share of the social product into that thing. But this is in the framework of a society where what people "earn" is the same that is, equal shares of the social product. so there won't be the extreme variation in things people acquire and use as there is now but people nonetheless, within those egalitarian limits, should be free to consume what they want.

[Ballyfornia]

[QUOTE=Arcanius;2090370]
One more thing to do with electronics. Intel and AMD compete to make better processors, and one big goal is to make the process smaller and smaller. For example, in 2002, a 90nm process was introduced. Now we're at 32nm. Without a profit motive, what would lead the workers to do all this R&D, and to make better and better hardware? Would it just be the workers who want to do all the research?[/QUOTE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc that there goes over what your talking about on the competition aspect

[syndicat]

Without a profit motive, what would lead the workers to do all this R&D, and to make better and better hardware? Would it just be the workers who want to do all the research?

workers would do the research. but the motivation lies in providing things people want and request, including enhancements to functionality of products.

In my previous post i mentioned accountability. I think this needs to be measured in terms of the ratio of benefit provided to the social cost. So we have ways of measuring the benefit -- how much of their share of the social product are people willing to put into this thing? -- and we measure costs, including enviro costs, human costs to workers.

A production organization needs to keep up to at least the social average of the ratio between benefit and cost. If it does not, we're not getting the most benefit from allowing those workers to use the socially owned equipment etc. They would need to show why we shouldn't dissolve their production outfit and give the resources to another group of workers.

So, a motivation for trying do what people want is preventing dissolution of their production organization, and also trying to earn approval of the customers and users of their products, and general social kudos for a job well done.

[thesadmafioso]

I think there are more pressing political issues to concern yourself with before dealing with the question of the fate of such generally useless goods to any society upon the application of communist ideology to economics. When you apply scope to this question, it simply becomes an invisible speck in contrast to the more significant challenges facing humanity.

[krazny]

So I'm new here and just learning my way myself, but these are questions that have crossed my mind too. Without regard to specific flavors of politics, the answer to the innovation question would be the same; Workers, and therefore companies, would innovate because of passion. I'm not much for electrical engineering, but I can innovate process enhancements. Someone else out there has no understanding of efficiency, but has a passion for chip design. Someone else has a passion for nanotech. In an egalitarian world, one could do the work one loves, which leads to innovation. Maybe we even take a cue from Google and have all workers devote ten percent of their time to a pet project, as an alternative to shortening the work week per se. That last is just a thought, and not directly relevant, but would certainly lead to innovation.