Anarchism, Trading Labor and Market economies

[Chicano Shamrock]

I am not very familiar with Mutualism and Collectivism. I made the transition of thought from Communist to communist a bit back. I never really thought along the lines of something like Marxist Leninist but I was just swayed by authoritarian propaganda and statism back then. Since then I have come to the conclusion that the only way that I can envision communism to come about is without a state. So I am an anarchist communist.

As such I believe that wage labor, money and the market should be abolished after the revolution but I heard of people talking about anarchist societies with markets and wanted to know about them. I have read some of "an anarchist faq" and have read about Individualist anarchism a little bit on that and I read about mutualism and collectivism a little on this forums Anarchism for dummies thread.

I was wondering if anyone can explain to me the nature of markets in some of these anarchist branches(individualist, mutualist and collectivist). Also what your opinion is on if a society can be without hierarchy and at the same time have a market that divides people based on money or goods. I just don't understand at this point. Thanks.

[apathy maybe]

There are a few threads around on this very topic, a quick search for 'market socialism', "labour/labor theory of value", 'individualist anarchism' and 'mutualism' should bring up a few threads.

But just quickly, my understanding of these sorts of anarchism, is that they are based more on freedom rather then equality. Of course, it is my opinion that all sorts of anarchism can co-exist freely with out a problem (obviously not including free market non-state capitalism, some times called by its proponents "anarcho-capitalism", I'll explain why shortly).

The thing about all sorts of "market socialism" (well actually, I can only speak authoritatively on the anarchistic sorts) is that "property" is restricted to what one can use, and the market is based on the idea that "labour is the limit of cost", that is that the maximum price for an object, is the amount of labour put into making it (and the raw materials etc.).

This is opposed to the capitalist conception of price being whatever you can get for a product. This difference, along with the difference on the amount of property a person can have (capitalists believe that so long as the "transfers" are fair, a single person can accumulate everything), and the opposition to all forms of usury (rent, interest and so on) by market socialists makes it obvious that market socialists are not capitalists.


So, it is possible to have some small hierarchy in a market socialist system, however, because all labourers receive the value of their labour, and because it is not possible to accumulate much more then anyone else (if you accumulate more (for example) land then what you can farm or use, it is likely that someone else in the community will go to the community and receive its backing to move in and use it. The same with other things.

Etc. I'll answer questions, but I can't really think of what more to add.

[Janus]

Discussed in these threads:
Mutualism (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=62420&hl=mutualism)

market socialism (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=51619&hl=+market++socialism)

Most recently debated here:
anarchism (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=64331)

[Chicano Shamrock]

Thanks I tried to search for this stuff but I couldn't really find anything substantial. I just suck at the search.