Communism, voluntarism, tolerance.

[fabian]

A question for communists: Do you think in a communist society people should be forced in communes?

quote:

So, the question is whether communist-anarchists are in favour of forcing people to be communists. If their communism is based on voluntary association then, according to the Individualist Anarchists themselves, it is a form of anarchism. Unsurprisingly, we discover that communist-anarchists have long argued that their communism was voluntary in nature and that working people who did not desire to be communists would be free not to be.

This position can be found in Kropotkin, from his earliest writings to his last. Thus we discover him arguing that an anarchist revolution "would take care not to touch the holding of the peasant who cultivates it himself . . . without wage labour. But we would expropriate all land that was not cultivated by the hands of those who at present possess the land." This was compatible with communism because libertarian communists aimed at "the complete expropriation of all those who have the means of exploiting human beings; the return to the community of the nation of everything that in the hands of anyone can be used to exploit others." Following Proudhon's analysis, private property was different from individual possession and as long as "social wealth remains in the hands of the few who possess it today" there would be exploitation. Instead, the aim was to see such social wealth currently monopolised by the capitalist class "being placed, on the day of the revolution, at the free disposition of all the workers." This would "create the situation where each person may live by working freely, without being forced to sell his work and his liberty to others." [Words of a Rebel, p. 214, pp. 207-8, p. 207 and p. 208] If someone desired to work outside of the commune, then that was perfectly compatible with this aim.

http://infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionG2#secg21

So, if I get this right- in communism, being that people wouldn't be forced into communes, they would be free to organise their own alternative economy if they don't exploit (employ) anyone. Which would mean that market socialism (/mutualism) is a pressuposed possibility in a communist society, and it should be noted that it is the same with communist economy within market socialism inside which people would be free do forgo the use of currency and form communes.

So basically, market socialists and communists (at least those communists who are not for forcing people into communes) are fighting for the same thing- a classless society free of hierarchy and exploatation (employer-employee relationship) where people would freely associate in communes or markets.


...

Which makes me wander why are market socialists considered reactionary on this forum, and are being ghettoed in the "opposing ideology" section.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

Collectivisation and communalisation is voluntary. In CNT controlled Spain, if an individual didn't want to join a commune they were given enough land to work themselves.


Very quickly more than 60% of the land was collectively
cultivated by the peasants themselves , without landlords , without
bosses, and without instituting capit alist competition to spur
production. In almost all the industries, factories , mills, workshops ,
transportation services, public services, and utilities , the rank and file
workers , their revolutionary committees , and their syndicates
reorganiz ed and administered production, distribution, and public
services without capitalists , high salaried managers , or the authority of
the state .
Even more : the various agrarian and industrial collectives
immediately instituted economic equality in accordance with the
essential principle of communism, "From each according to his ability
and to each according to his needs." They coordinated their efforts
through free association in whole regions, created new wealth,
increased production ( especially in agriculture ) , built more schools ,
and bettered public services. They instituted not bourgeois formal
democracy but genuine grassroots functional libertarian democracy,
where each individual participated directly in the revolutionary
reorganization of social life. They replaced the war between men,
"survival of the fittest," by the universal practice of mutual aid, and
replaced rivalry by the principle of solidarity. - Gaston Leval.

Again, Market Socialism is meant to gain profit, which requires surplus-value, and contrary to Communism. You still need some form of currency, bosses etc. No where in the history of Anarchism did we institute free-enterprise (Market) economy. Please do not associate us with such vile acts. When you're given just enough land you're supposed to use the resources to provide yourself with your needs, not sell the surplus, since there wont be any. Additionally, labor vouchers are meant to procure items needed, then they're destroyed. You have Market Socialism and Mutualism confused.

[fabian]

Again, Market Socialism is meant to gain profit, which requires surplus-value, and contrary to Communism. You still need some form of currency, bosses etc.
False. In Market Socialism there is no employer-employee relationship, thus no wage labor, thus not surplus-value, thus no exploatation, thus no bosses. If there was- that would be market capitalism, which it isn't, it's Market Socialism.


When you're given just enough land you're supposed to use the resources to provide yourself with your needs, not sell the surplus
So you are saying that in a communism, people would have the "freedom" not be in a commune- if they are completely self-sufficient.


You have Market Socialism and Mutualism confused.
Mutualism is Market Socialism that is anarchistic and totally free market. I, personally, am for a statist mixed system Market Socialism, with market for goods and services constituted of self-employed workers and worker cooperatives mixed with tax payed (but democratically organized) police, army, fire department, health care and education.

But all types of Market Socialism are free of hierarchy, exploatation (boss-employee relation), and making of unearned incomes, otherwise they wouldn't be Socialist.

[PhoenixAsh]

False. In Market Socialism there is no employer-employee relationship, thus no wage labor, thus not surplus-value, thus no exploatation, thus no bosses. If there was- that would be market capitalism, which it isn't, it's Market Socialism.


So you are saying that in a communism, people would have the "freedom" not be in a commune- if they are completely self-sufficient.


Mutualism is Market Socialism that is anarchistic and totally free market. I, personally, am for a statist mixed system Market Socialism, with market for goods and services constituted of self-employed workers and worker cooperatives mixed with tax payed (but democratically organized) police, army, fire department, health care and education.

But all types of Market Socialism are free of hierarchy, exploatation (boss-employee relation), and making of unearned incomes, otherwise they wouldn't be Socialist.


Mutualism =/ market socialism as you claim market socialism to be. Market socialism relies on profit whereas mutualism relies on the labour theory of value and does not include profit. Mutualism relies on equility of trade value and prices are not set in a market economy based on supply and demand and a free pricing system but on labour and cost of production.

Market socialism however relies on profit. Profit means that trade value is unequal and prices are set in a free pricing system (the market part of your socialism)

[fabian]

Market socialism relies on profit whereas mutualism relies on the labour theory of value and does not include profit.
Market socialism can be organized both according to labor theory of value and subjetive theory of value. As long as there's no wage labor (employer-employee relationship), rent, interest and investments, it's Socialism.

[l'Enfermé]

I'm rather curious of how you intend to to maintain a market system without money or how you intend to maintain equality between workers in such a utopia, seeing as how more productive "self-employed" workers would be far more prosperous than the less productive.

Anyways, maybe you should give up your theoretically hopeless liberal petty-bourgeois Kropotkinism-Bakuninism.

[fabian]

I'm rather curious of how you intend to to maintain a market system without money
All money is going to magically disappear and it would be magically impossible for people to make new money (even commodity monety) or to barter (either bilaterally or multilaterally) and thus people who don't want be in a commune would be incapable of creating a market (even if it's an arket)?

[Azraella]

Anyways, maybe you should give up your theoretically hopeless liberal petty-bourgeois Kropotkinism-Bakuninism.


How's that Leninism going for you?

---

Back on topic, as much as I don't like the idea of forcing people into a commune I seriously doubt that market socialism will ever have the momentum to be an actual movement meaning that in a revolutionary situation most folks are going to be a communist of some sort.

[fabian]

The "scope of Expropriation," Kropotkin argued was clear and would only "apply to everything that enables any man -- be he financier, mill-owner, or landlord -- to appropriate the product of others' toil." Thus only those forms of property based on wage labour would be expropriated. In terms of housing, the same general rule applies ("the expropriation of dwellings contains the whole social revolution"). Kropotkin explicitly discusses the man who "by dint of privation has contrived to buy a house just large enough to hold his family. And we are going to deprive him of his hard-earned happiness, to turn him into the street! Certainly not . . . Let him work in his little garden, too." Anarchist-communism "will make the lodger understand that he need not pay his former landlord any more rent. Stay where you are, but rent free." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 61, p. 95, pp. 95-6 and p. 96]

http://infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionG2#secg21

So, if there is no exploatation and unearned incomes (wage labor, rent, etc), it can exist in a post-revolution society alongside the system of communes.

I see only votes against forcing people into communes, yet the treatment of socialist (for a non-hierarchical and classless society and against wage labor, rent, etc) who want to function on a market (take products of their labor and barter them bilateratally or multilaterally, or sell them for paper or commodity money to people who want to buy them) on this forum, where we are labeled "reactionary" and confined to "opposing ideologies" section, it not consistent with that.

[Revolution starts with U]

None of the above.

[Jimmie Higgins]

How's that Leninism going for you?Like syndicalism non-Stalinist Leninism is operating under much more favorable conditions now than at any time in at least my lifetime (and probably anytime since the cold war because of the dominance of USSR-influenced "socialism" among both leftists and anti-leftists.

It's hard play a part in working class movements from below in the absence of much working class struggle - as IWW members should know from their own history as well as anyone.:)

But struggle is happening now and things like the IWW's Starbucks campaign as well as of course other more general things like Occupy and so on demonstrate the new kinds of possibilities for organic working class struggle.


Back on topic, as much as I don't like the idea of forcing people into a commune I seriously doubt that market socialism will ever have the momentum to be an actual movement meaning that in a revolutionary situation most folks are going to be a communist of some sort.Well I think the bigger problem isn't popularity of the idea but that it wouldn't solve some of the inherent contradictions of capitalism like crisis and the concentration of productive wealth (which would lead to a concentration of power). However, I don't see how a democratically organized economy would mean forcing people to move onto communes. In most places, small businesses and certainty small farms are not a major force in the economy compared to the major agricultural producers and manufacturers - not to mention transportation which is either huge companies or partially government-run anyway. So I think in the short-term it would be best for workers to allow people who ran their own shop or farmed their own land to do so if they are supportive of worker's power in society.

[fabian]

Well I think the bigger problem isn't popularity of the idea but that it wouldn't solve some of the inherent contradictions of capitalism like crisis and the concentration of productive wealth
Economic crisis is not a market, but a fiat money problem (easily solvable by labor vauchers, free banking or gold standard). Concentration of any wealth would be impossible in Market Socialiasm, being that there would not only be an absence of barriers to entry (no ownership of natural recourses, no intelectual property, no investments, radically decentralised market because of no "private property"), but there would be a huge incentive (interest-free starting loans), which would make any kind of predatory business obsolete and make markets simply a tool of freely allocating goods and services among the workers.

[Tim Cornelis]

I'm rather curious of how you intend to to maintain a market system without money or how you intend to maintain equality between workers in such a utopia, seeing as how more productive "self-employed" workers would be far more prosperous than the less productive.

Anyways, maybe you should give up your theoretically hopeless liberal petty-bourgeois Kropotkinism-Bakuninism.

Neither Kropotkin nor Bakunin supported markets. If you are going to use such rhetoric at least make sure its somewhat substantiated.

[fabian]

Neither Kropotkin nor Bakunin supported markets.
How about tolerate supporters of markets? As opposed to confining supporters of markets (when they are socialist- for abolition of classes, hierarchy, wage labor, rent, interest and investments) into some ghetto, toghether with other opponents of revolution, and labeling them "reactionary".

[Bronco]

I see only votes against forcing people into communes, yet the treatment of socialist (for a non-hierarchical and classless society and against wage labor, rent, etc) who want to function on a market (take products of their labor and barter them bilateratally or multilaterally, or sell them for paper or commodity money to people who want to buy them) on this forum, where we are labeled "reactionary" and confined to "opposing ideologies" section, it not consistent with that.

Yeah except this forum isn't intended as a model for a future communist society, sorry

[Revolution starts with U]

OI is not a ghetto. You should change your name to Cicero, a Roman who better fits your rhetoric. :lol:

Woe is me. I can't post on a discussion forum. This is tantamount to fencing me in, starving me, and brutalizing my psyche

[Tim Cornelis]

How about tolerate supporters of markets? As opposed to confining supporters of markets (when they are socialist- for abolition of classes, hierarchy, wage labor, rent, interest and investments) into some ghetto, toghether with other opponents of revolution, and labeling them "reactionary".

My comment wasn't direct at you. Markets, imo, should be allowed insofar workers freely choose them. The chances of markets springing up in a functioning communist society are practically nil though, so there is no reason to say it will or should be violently opposed.

[l'Enfermé]

How's that Leninism going for you?

I don't understand your question.

[MarxSchmarx]

Who the fuck voted 'yes'?

[o well this is ok I guess]

theoretically hopeless liberal petty-bourgeois Kropotkinism-Bakuninism. ._.

[fabian]

Who the fuck voted 'yes'?
And 2 people :confused:

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

So, if I get this right- in communism, being that people wouldn't be forced into communes, they would be free to organise their own alternative economy if they don't exploit (employ) anyone. Which would mean that market socialism (/mutualism) is a pressuposed possibility in a communist society, and it should be noted that it is the same with communist economy within market socialism inside which people would be free do forgo the use of currency and form communes.

So basically, market socialists and communists (at least those communists who are not for forcing people into communes) are fighting for the same thing- a classless society free of hierarchy and exploatation (employer-employee relationship) where people would freely associate in communes or markets.

How do you imagine the markets would survive in the face of competition from collective industry? Why would anyone bother buying or bartering things which they could get for free elsewhere?

Labour would also be alienated in a market economy, with all the problems and issues that such a thing entails.

[Luís Henrique]

mutualism relies on the labour theory of value and does not include profit.

How is such chimera possible? What is the point of value, if not profit?

Luís Henrique

[o well this is ok I guess]

How is such chimera possible? What is the point of value, if not profit?

Luís Henrique If I recall correctly, Proudhon stated two things: that labour creates something out of nothing, and all labour leaves surplus value. Cannot for the life of me recall where in the Proudhon anthology he did so (I really should bookmark or highlight this sort of thing) though I distinctly remember the feeling of distaste upon reading so.
So, if all labour leaves a surplus, merely labouring results in a profit since the resulting product is worth more than materials used.

[Luís Henrique]

If I recall correctly, Proudhon stated two things: that labour creates something out of nothing, and all labour leaves surplus value. Cannot for the life of me recall where in the Proudhon anthology he did so (I really should bookmark or highlight this sort of thing) though I distinctly remember the feeling of distaste upon reading so.
So, if all labour leaves a surplus, merely labouring results in a profit since the resulting product is worth more than materials used.

It seems Proudhon confuses wealth with value. All work will produce more wealth than necessary for the survival of the worker; but such surplus is only "surplus value" in societies dominated by value (ie, societies in which all or overwhelmingly most production is production of commodities).

And, of course, there is a difference between surplus value and profit. The capitalist has a surplus value in his hands at the moment the labour processes are finished, in the form of surplus commodities, but he has no profits until he actually sells the stuff.

Luís Henrique

[fabian]

How do you imagine the markets would survive in the face of competition from collective industry? Why would anyone bother buying or bartering things which they could get for free elsewhere?
Some people would not want to give everything they make to the community on a promise that they could take everything they need for free, but would want less intimate association with other people in the community.


It seems Proudhon confuses wealth with value.
Yes Proudhon confuses terms because two anonymous guys on the internets who don't know what he wrote say so.
.

Anyways, what's the point? Revolution has happened, I live in a Free(d) society, lots of people are organising themselves in communes, entire villages and cities are collectivised by people in them, everything menaged by toiler councils, and those communes freely exchange goods between themselves.

Some people, including myself, don't want to go into communes, we want to have personal property over our houses that are just large enough to accomodate our families, and over our fields that are just large enough to toil by ourselves without employing anyone, instead of communes we form agriculture, artisan of industrial coops (or stay individually self-employed), and we sell goods we make among ourselves for some kind of currency, any kind we choose.

There would also maybe be people who would want to organise themselves according to Bakunin's ideas of collectives without a market composed of individuals, but "communes" with a collectivised market where earning payed for work and prices for goods and services are agreed upon collectively.

The point is- people organising into communes are not going to stop us, because no employment of other (that is- no exploatation) happens, and further more- no rent, interest, investments and similar (that is- no unearned incomes) exist, so our organising ourselves into markets (or into Bakuninist collectives) is not only compatible, but pressuposed in a free society.

So, essentially- we, market socialist, as long as we're really socialist (against employment, investments, rent, interest) are for the same thing as are the communist- a society free of oppresion and hierarchy, the only difference being what we think and/or would like how the majority of people in that society is going to organize; we market socialist prefer markets, you communists prefer federation of communes, but both would be voluntary (as would be collectivist organisation), and that means that these alteratives are not forbidden.

So in the light of that fact that all of us- we market socialist, along with communists and collectivists, are fighting for the same thing- a free society, and that the concept of a post-revolution free society pressuposed the legimitacy of each of us, I find it stupid that market socialists on this forum are restricted and labeled reactionary.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Some people would not want to give everything they make to the community on a promise that they could take everything they need for free, but would want less intimate association with other people in the community.

How does the provision of goods and services in a non-monetary context imply intimacy?

[fabian]

How does the provision of goods and services in a non-monetary context imply intimacy?
Communal tilling of the ground implies cohousing or something near that.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Communal tilling of the ground implies cohousing or something near that.How many people after a modern worker's revolution would be tilling the ground?:lol:


Anyways, what's the point? Revolution has happened, I live in a Free(d) society, lots of people are organising themselves in communes, entire villages and cities are collectivised by people in them, everything menaged by toiler councils, and those communes freely exchange goods between themselves.

Some people, including myself, don't want to go into communes, we want to have personal property over our houses that are just large enough to accomodate our families, and over our fields that are just large enough to toil by ourselves without employing anyone, instead of communes we form agriculture, artisan of industrial coops (or stay individually self-employed), and we sell goods we make among ourselves for some kind of currency, any kind we choose.Interesting. So you argue: fight for worker's revolution and then organize atomized market-based communes as personal preference? It's kind of abstract, but I guess there's no issue with that, it would be like post-capitalist Amish communities or something.

But I think it could only possibly work in these small scale communities, I'm totally unconvinced that the dominant mode of production under a modern worker-controlled society would involve undemocratic or ademocratic (?) features. Markets are still planned-economies, just planned based on competition and markets; if production is organized on a need and use-value basis then I can't imagine an effective way to accomplish this on a massive scale without some kind of democratically planned process or prioritization.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Communal tilling of the ground implies cohousing or something near that.

I have no intention of rolling back the labour-saving gains made during the mechanisation of agriculture, and I suspect I'm hardly alone in that.