What would it look like, how would it work?

[Was tun, wenn's brennt?]

Imagine a total collapse of government; all civil servants abandon their positions; no police, no firemen, no postal workers, no road maintenance crews, no mayors, senators, president etc. As a result, people panic and stop going to work. Lacking any sort of police force, widespread violence and looting begins to sweep across the nation.

Now imagine that everyone in your city looks to you to guide them through this darkness. What would your plan be to build a society that is your vision of how it should be? Would we still be able to have modern conveniences like cellphones, the internet and television? How would laws "if there were any" be decided and enforced? How would you feed "your people"? What is your blueprint for a society that would thrive and provide a high enough quality of life for the people who exist in this society to not want your head on a plate?

[Sea]

Imagine a total collapse of government; all civil servants abandon their positions; no police, no firemen, no postal workers, no road maintenance crews, no mayors, senators, president etc. As a result, people panic and stop going to work. Lacking any sort of police force, widespread violence and looting begins to sweep across the nation.

Now imagine that everyone in your city looks to you to guide them through this darkness. What would your plan be to build a society that is your vision of how it should be? Would we still be able to have modern conveniences like cellphones, the internet and television? How would laws "if there were any" be decided and enforced? How would you feed "your people"? What is your blueprint for a society that would thrive and provide a high enough quality of life for the people who exist in this society to not want your head on a plate?I'd go home, get something to drink, sit down and scratch my butt for a while, wondering why in the name of all that is marxist and holy that those masses huddled outside my house are looking for someone to stand above them, "leading" them while being alienated from them. If that happens at all, we have screwed up something massive.

[tuwix]

Imagine a total collapse of government; all civil servants abandon their positions; no police, no firemen, no postal workers, no road maintenance crews, no mayors, senators, president etc. As a result, people panic and stop going to work. Lacking any sort of police force, widespread violence and looting begins to sweep across the nation.


Highly impropable scenario. When private property exists, there always state will be restored. Dismantling a state should be startetd from dismantling a private and state property. Otherwise a state will arise in one or other form,

[Soomie]

Sounds like Detroit. There is actually a group of anarchists trying to go into Detroit and make it into a stateless community. I imagine the same would happen. Groups of leftists would band together to bring us back as a society.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Groups of leftists would band together to bring us back as a society.I think there would be problems there if it were leftists, and this isn't to bash the ideas of leftists either: just that a set of ideas can't create a functioning society by will or desire to do so outside of social forces which are materially capable of a functioning society.

I think in the OPs situation, we'd be in some trouble. Something positive might emerge, but if it happened tomorrow with the current lack of organic class organization or consiousness, most likely people would go into a siege-mode - at least initially. Without an organic way of self-organizing, those with the ability to compell other through force might be the best situated (gangs of former cops?).

States can fail, mass movements can even topple states (as we've seen recently) but without an alternative way to organize society, most likely the former society will just reconsitute itself. If, on the other hand, there is more of an independant workers movement that maybe has practical skills at organizing communities and workplaces, then workers might create their own new networks for distributing food, workers who could get electricity running again, transportation and so on. This happens in sharp mass or general strikes, it happens in insurrections (think of all the infrastructure they build in an ad-hoc way in Egypt from doctors for activists to neighborhood defense). So in the cases of the Paris Commune or Anarchist Spain, it wasn't just that the official government collapsed, but that people were able to create structures of their own for carrying out the tasks of maintaining a functioning society... in fact seeds for a better society.

[Was tun, wenn's brennt?]

Re-reading this thread after some months, I see that I could have (read "should have") articulated myself better. Ultimately, what I was trying to get at was a brief description of what an anarcho-socialist society would look like and how it would function. My imagined scenario at the beginning, which I think is what obfuscated my intent, was merely an unnecessary vehicle for arriving at the point where such a society could be implemented.

Since making this thread I have taken the initiative and started to educate myself on such matters, which I should have done in the first place. In doing so, I have come up with a few more questions and, if anyone here would be kind enough to indulge me in answers and/or recommendations for further reading regarding my questions. Don't worry, I will phrase my questions in a less ambiguous and convoluted way.

Also, as a quick aside, I realize that there is a "Learning" section for such questions and the "Research" sub-forum for more specific questions but I did not see these questions addressed there (apologies if I missed them) and I didn't want to make another thread when I have this one already.

And, finally, my questions:

In an anarcho-socialist society it is presumed that each individual will work in some capacity according their ability (skills, training, etc.) in order to keep up the production of goods and rendering of services to take care of the needs of everyone, but, how would a career path for a given individual be determined? Would a person have the right to pursue any career path they wanted or would their role in society be predetermined?

Another question I have, which related to the one I just asked concerns motivation: I believe it was Kropotkin who talked of guaranteed food, clothing and shelter for a minimum of five hours work and that those who did not work would not receive that aforementioned food, clothing and shelter. This, of course, is indistinguishable from capitalism's "work or starve" wage-slavery coercion and is not conducive to a classless society. Is this "5 hour model" a good representation of how an anarcho-socialist society should function or at least a foundation to built upon? What of people refusing to work, would they have to go without or would they be provided for?

And my last question regards technology: "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need" -- who needs an iPhone, PS3, laptop, *insert any luxury item here*? More to the point, without competition for profits, What's the likelihood of further advancements in technology specifically concerning entertainment/social/leisure time?

Surely the need for easier communication lead way to the advent of telephones, computers and cellphones but now the desire for profits have lead to this items having more and more features added to them that have little, if anything, to do with fulfilling their original purpose and only exist as a way to drive up prices and maximize desire and, by proxy, profit. I realize this question is largely irrelevant to the efficacy of anarcho-socialism but it is something I am curious about none-the-less and would appreciate some insight.

Again, personal opinions on the questions are just as encouraged as suggestions for further reading. I thank you in advance for your patience, time and consideration.

[ckaihatsu]

Imagine a total collapse of government; all civil servants abandon their positions; no police, no firemen, no postal workers, no road maintenance crews, no mayors, senators, president etc. As a result, people panic and stop going to work. Lacking any sort of police force, widespread violence and looting begins to sweep across the nation.


In other, less developed countries civil servants are often owed back-pay for months and months -- nonetheless they continue to put in their time at their public positions, for the greater good. This fact itself is an excellent argument for why workers should be the ones solely in control of society's implements.





Now imagine that everyone in your city looks to you to guide them through this darkness.


This is a strange and unrealistic construction -- isn't it more likely that people would simply want to continue putting their expertise and skills to use, to keep things running in some kind of coordinated way -- ?

The overall historical trend has been that political power gets *more* distributed (away from the church and from monarchs, for example) -- it's socially irresponsible to even *suggest* that we should consider *more*-concentrated forms of power and rule.





What would your plan be to build a society that is your vision of how it should be? Would we still be able to have modern conveniences like cellphones, the internet and television?


Any politics that can't at least *match* the level of social order and material productivity that currently exists should not even be considered to begin with.





How would laws "if there were any" be decided and enforced? How would you feed "your people"? What is your blueprint for a society that would thrive and provide a high enough quality of life for the people who exist in this society to not want your head on a plate?


We should be internalizing a politics that is even *more* inclusive than today's is, particularly for the workers of the world, since they're / we're more hands-on with all of this than any other kinds of people.





[W]hat I was trying to get at was a brief description of what an anarcho-socialist society would look like and how it would function.




In an anarcho-socialist society it is presumed that each individual will work in some capacity according their ability (skills, training, etc.) in order to keep up the production of goods and rendering of services to take care of the needs of everyone, but, how would a career path for a given individual be determined? Would a person have the right to pursue any career path they wanted or would their role in society be predetermined?


No, people's roles in society would *not* be predetermined, because that contradicts the premise of a global proletarian social order.

Careerism and the whole notion of fixed work roles would be antithetical to the concept of what communism is -- people could certainly find other avenues for their individualism and personal aspirations:





I'd estimate that the whole transforming of socially necessary *work roles* would parallel this sea-change in what is considered 'labor' and what isn't -- in other words, there are plenty of incentives under capitalism to *specialize* and be as "indispensable" as possible, to individualistically cut against the system's tendency to standardize and make things as interchangeable as possible.

I'll argue that the communist spirit is *anti-specialization*, and so work roles would tend to be made as *practical* as possible, for the sake of the laborers first, and for broad-based social benefit.





Another question I have, which related to the one I just asked concerns motivation: I believe it was Kropotkin who talked of guaranteed food, clothing and shelter for a minimum of five hours work and that those who did not work would not receive that aforementioned food, clothing and shelter. This, of course, is indistinguishable from capitalism's "work or starve" wage-slavery coercion and is not conducive to a classless society. Is this "5 hour model" a good representation of how an anarcho-socialist society should function or at least a foundation to built upon? What of people refusing to work, would they have to go without or would they be provided for?


I'm not speaking as an anarchist here, since I'm not one -- that said, the *goal* really should be a 'no-hour' workday since all of our basic, common daily needs and conveniences can already be supplied with existing technology. 'Work' in a collectivized society would be ongoing co-participation in the political economy, for the continuous oversight of the technological commons.

Whether individuals decide to participate or not in that collectivist politics wouldn't affect the ongoing cooperation and coordination in the least -- there would be easily be enough mass productivity to provide for everyone's basic humane needs, regardless.





And my last question regards technology: "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need" -- who needs an iPhone, PS3, laptop, *insert any luxury item here*? More to the point, without competition for profits, What's the likelihood of further advancements in technology specifically concerning entertainment/social/leisure time?





I suppose it would be a matter of how "ambitious" a post-revolution world population would be. Undoubtedly there would have to be some kind of Facebook-scale societal initiative to "inventory" everything in the world and see discussions form as to what humanity would happen to want most at that point.




I'll remind the reader that Wikipedia has now documented almost every commonly known entity of information -- the same could certainly be done for the means of mass production, meaning individual factories. Every workplace could have its own wiki page, with basic information and ongoing discussions over its respective productive capacities and scheduling.


What do you think true modern communist society would be like?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/do-you-think-t183657/index.html


Btw, WTWB, I happen to agree with you that the question of luxury good production is an important *political* issue for the revolutionary camp -- it emphasizes what would be *worthwhile* to produce, once the rule of capital is done away with once and for all:





The matter of material accounting -- with labor credits or whatever -- will remain a pressing question, along with the issue of luxury goods, and it would be better to be as decisive as possible on these, earlier rather than later.


Having a detailed vision of communism

http://www.revleft.com/vb/having-detailed-vision-t183268/index.html?p=2663500

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Moved to Learning.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

i'd probably steal a few cases of jamesons from the tesco in town and start drinking

[Crabbensmasher]

My voice would turn really gritty, like gravel, or rocks in a blender. Then I'd say:

"I aint cut out for this shit no more! I quit the force five years ago damn it!"

No, but seriously, I'd make it my task to find somebody else more fitting to take the torch.

[Was tun, wenn's brennt?]

I appreciate the links and your input. I'll be doing some perusal of the threads linked and then might return with more question.

[RedHal]

Sounds like a kickass 80s post apocalyptic movie, but not a Socialist Revolution.

[ckaihatsu]

I'll add that, considering today's existing technology, it's *currently* feasible for everyone on earth to be immediately waited-on by automated robot-type machinery, to satisfy any conceivable humane need, convenience, or pleasure. We could all be living like kings and queens, as far as material goods and services go, without calling on the labor of even a single person, if the matter of capital could be ignored.

(Consider something like a mini-fridge on wheels, with wifi and GPS, commanded through a web interface.)

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2PPNMNqEI4

[Was tun, wenn's brennt?]

Sounds like a kickass 80s post apocalyptic movie, but not a Socialist Revolution.

Disregard my initial post, I explain myself better just a little further up.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do find it interesting that there is no consensus on what the Socialist society would look like, how it would actually work and especially not on how we can get there. Yeah, it's nice to imagine a world where a person could just walk into a store and take whatever they wanted off the shelf because there is plenty to go around for everyone and money has been phased out but, without a cogent blueprint, it all just seems like head-in-the-clouds idealism. Socialists making a good case for Capitalism simply because Capitalists have a least figured out how their system works and how to implement it. And no, that's not an endorsement of Capitalism, in case anyone was thinking of twisting my words.

[ckaihatsu]

Robots Let Doctors Beam Into Hospitals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2PPNMNqEI4


[LaborTech] Korean Doctors threaten walkout over telemedicine



Korean Doctors threaten walkout over telemedicine
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2013/11/116_146954.html

By Nam Hyun-woo

https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=fffb3857d9&view=att&th=1429b9d63d054cef&attid=0.1&disp=emb&zw&atsh=1

Roh Hwan-kyu
KMA president


Doctors threaten they will stage a walkout in protest of the government’s plan to allow telemedicine and the operation of for-profit hospitals, the nation’s largest doctors group said Wednesday.

“Most members of the Korean Medical Association (KMA) are strongly opposing the government’s schemes. The KMA will come up with a level of protest, up to an all-out strike in a worst case, by December,” said Roh Hwan-kyu, president of the KMA, at a press conference.

Roh said that about 90 percent of the KMA’s doctors said should consider an all-out walkout in protest. He said that many of the group’s members want to stage a walkout next month.

Presidents and heads of six medical associations in Korea, including the KMA, the Korean Dental Association and the Association of Korean Medicine (AKOM), jointly held the press conference.

They claimed that some 50,000 jobs will disappear if the government pushes ahead with the introduction of telemedicine and for-profit hospitals.

Last month, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced a revision to the Medical Law that contained details on the use of telemedicine, which directly provides clinical diagnosis to distant patients through telecommunication devices, such as Internet. The ministry also said the service will be available as early as 2015.

The government has pushed for the telemedicine plan and legalizing for-profit hospitals under the banner of “medical industry advancement.”

The country does not currently allow for-profit hospitals which attempt to generate profits for their shareholders.

But it is seeking to lift the ban, saying that such investor-owned hospitals can create more jobs and improve the country’s service industry.

“The government’s plans will only bring the collapse of the country’s healthcare system and polarization between large hospitals and small clinics,” said Kim Seh-young, president of the Korean Dental Association.

Kim Pil-gun, president of the AKOM stressed that the government’s reference to “medical industry advancement” is flawed.

“Medical services should not be considered as an industry controlled by capital,” Kim said. He estimated that the government’s plan will generate the same kind of controversy the U.S. has been dealing with in connection with President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan, otherwise known as “Obamacare.”

The group also denounced the Ministry of Strategy and Finance for pushing telemedicine and for-profit hospitals, calling the move “nonsense.”

[email protected],

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[argeiphontes]

Socialists making a good case for Capitalism simply because Capitalists have a least figured out how their system works and how to implement it. And no, that's not an endorsement of Capitalism, in case anyone was thinking of twisting my words.

Well, that's an important point, and one that my main man David Schweickart also stresses. It's not enough to just criticize the system. After all, it might be the best system possible.

Fortunately, it isn't. I envision a decentralized market socialism, consisting of producer collectives in a federal structure, and various levels of democratic investment decisions and coordination. Eventually, it might be possible to replace most or all markets with some other system, but I haven't read anything that convinces me, not without empirical proof of its workability, which won't be forthcoming until the social relations of production have been changed.

I try not to fetishize authority any more than markets, but any resulting system should comply with the left-libertarian principles (as I see them) of 1) There should only be that authority which can be justified, and 2) People should have say over decisions in proportion to how much that decision affects them. So a state apparatus to manage the entire economy, or consumption councils having veto power over individual consumption decisions, is undesirable IMO and I prefer the market.

Collectives would be worker-managed, with authority over most aspects of their internal relations, so they wouldn't necessarily be cookie-cutter copies of each other. They would be granted use of capital by the federations, to which they would pay a capital tax as proposed by Schweickart. People would probably belong to more than one collective, for example a primary job and also some work time to provide local services for the neighborhood or region, in order to mitigate the problem of less empowering work like the usual garbage collection example. Of course, a locality could just decide to pay others (another collective) a premium to provide the services.

Maybe not a complete answer, but it's a start. And the path to getting there is pretty clear, too, and more importantly, an empirical practice, unlike some other visions that require instant replacement of the current system, taking over the state, or convincing the majority of people about the truth of an abstract idea.

[ckaihatsu]

Collectives would be worker-managed, with authority over most aspects of their internal relations, so they wouldn't necessarily be cookie-cutter copies of each other. They would be granted use of capital by the federations, to which they would pay a capital tax as proposed by Schweickart.


My concern with anything price- or point-based is that the existential question of where the funds come from, and what they mean (per-unit), would be unaddressed -- how would a post-capitalist federation have come by that capital that it's using, and how would that economics be any different than what we have now under capitalism -- ?





People would probably belong to more than one collective, for example a primary job and also some work time to provide local services for the neighborhood or region, in order to mitigate the problem of less empowering work like the usual garbage collection example. Of course, a locality could just decide to pay others (another collective) a premium to provide the services.

Maybe not a complete answer, but it's a start. And the path to getting there is pretty clear, too, and more importantly, an empirical practice, unlike some other visions that require instant replacement of the current system, taking over the state, or convincing the majority of people about the truth of an abstract idea.


I don't think we can just sidestep the issue of power, because the bourgeoisie from whatever country *will* impose their own currency on any area that slips into a political vacuum and/or can't hold off predatory colonialism.