Opting out of communism?

This is just a question some of my an-cap friends regularly bring up in discussions. In a communist society(yes, I'm talking about after the state disappears and all that) would they be able to op out and create their own an-cap community or would they have to comply to the rules of communism? I know it's directly against what we want, but it's just something they get me thinking about and I am yet to be able to give a satisfactory answer.

Unfortunately the question involves too many assumptions, simplifications, and abstractions to make much sense. We don't really know what a communist society would look like, nor an anarchist society, nor anything really beyond general outlines of a theory. So wondering about specific issues within this abstraction is rather silly.

People will not be "allowed" as such, as an opt out is an attack upon the system.

Lol what? You're hilarious.

That is true, it is very hypothetical but they keep asking me. Apparently forcing them to live in a collective society is "initiating force" against them, which they say they're against. However, forcing somebody to starve because they're too poor to buy food because they're unemployed or something is also forceful. Silly an-caps :laugh:.

I'm genuinely curious how this would work though if they really wanted their own society of "individualism".

You're whole hypothetical is founded upon nonsense. No one is "forcing" anyone to live in a collective society as this is self-contradictory. A collective is a society which everyone chooses to be a part of. It seems as though you have not adequately explained communism to them, or they did not understand you when you did, because there are so many misunderstandings involved that it's futile to keep the conversation up and running.

You going to go massacre tribal villages for not partaking in collective farming and industrial production?

They claim to know what communism is though so I didn't really feel a need to explain, but yet this question keeps coming up :confused:. Maybe they're just trying to paint communism as flawed.

SrA communist, anarchist, whatever society is supposedly democratic. Far more than anythingthat exists today.

Well, who would opt out in such a scenario? It would be people who lose, probably chronically elections. How can a democratic society function if the losers of an election are free to disregard its results?

The question was asked in reference to AFTER the great communist worldwide victory. At this point, tribal villages should be safely incorporated.

Why would their be elections? Even for lenenists, communism comes after the state has withered away. There wouldn't be elections to choose people to make up any state because there wouldn't be any need to.

They can form their little anarcho-capitalist communities in the insane asylums that we will stuff them into.

People will still need and want things. Production still needs to occurr. Resourced still need to be allocated. Every indication that such things will be decided democratically.

Threre is certainly historical precedence for socialist communities taking such steps...

Yeah, they could if they wanted too. In revolutionary Spain, 30% of the peasants chose not to collectivize, and where free to do so.

Yes but that's the point of federalism under a stateless society. If you disagree that much with decisions relating to those things then perhaps it'd be more suitable for you to live somewhere where you didn't have such disagrrements with the majority. Not that you'd have to, but it's a choice you'd have under federalism (note: not the same as nationalism). So you'd have no right really to dissent given that, if you were of a slim minority and wouldn't leave. Note that federalism means different laws in different areas within reason. Establishing "anarcho"-capitalism wouldn't work because they'd be trying to function under a market economy which would be incompatible with everyone else. We could also just isolate them from recieving resources if they tried to reestablish hierarchy through ancapitalism. They could try, but it wouldn't be successful at all for them.

By the way, democracy and elections aren't the same thing, so you've already moved the goalposts.

Yes... This is what i said. Its not possible because dissent is an attack uppn the system.

Doesn't every system seek to protect itself? If not, what would be the point of establishing that system to begin with? In all honesty though, ancaps represent about as much of a global threat to stateless communism as couch potatoes do to already existing pro-athletes.

Plus An-caps say they don't believe in using force(except to defend private property) so I doubt they would openly attack communists unless we forced them to collectivize or something. Even if they did though I doubt there would be enough to pose a major threat.

The way I've always approached this is that if someone wants to go out into the woods and fend for themselves because they don't like society for whatever reason, they're free to do so, but if they want to live, work, associate, etc. with other people and enjoy the benefits of human society, then they're just going to have to deal with the community making decisions democratically (the horror!).

As for a whole group of people going out and forming some kind of an-cap town, just ask them who, in a society of free producers, is going to volunteer to leave everything they have and everyone they love to go have their labor exploited by some capitalist. Everyone can't be the capitalist, so whoever is going to be the (or a) capitalist is going to have to convince a lot of people to do something completely against their interests before they can even start. So yeah, that whole notion is just ridiculous and you should let them know that.

Not if they, as they intend to do, advocate a market system based on private property and thus wealth accumulation. As soon as a small class began to accumulate capital that class would become a threat to freedom and equality everywhere and we would expropriate the wealth they accumulated.

Anyhow, capitalism, any market system based on private property, depends on there being a massive amount of poor people who have no choice but to sell their labor in order to survive. These theoretical capitalists wouldn't be able to have an industrial society without this dispossessed class. Communism would see to it that this class doesn't exist (their answer to that is people would 'volunteer' to be wage slaves which is laughable). If they were planning on living a pastoral non industrial life exploiting each other I don't think they could accumulate enough wealth to make a difference either way but that's not what they're all about.

They simply want capitalism without that pesky public state that workers can sometimes use to push work place regulations and other laws that effect the capitalists drive to profit by any means necessary. They want the total and complete rule of capital by iron fist even more dominating than we see now. No taxes. They want the benefits of their market system all to them but try to hide that fact behind 'the market will take care of everything' rhetoric.

Oh, but now those pesky evil commies are oppressing them by making them share :rolleyes:.

Share? If theoretical capitalists of their nature want to build a factory with their own two hands, travel across the globe for materials and somehow produce goods with their own labor I wouldn't bother them one bit (because that's impossible as their entire system depends on multitudes of millions having no other choice but to be wage slaves). Their concept of sharing seems to be strange because it's the global dispossessed class that's doing all the actual work while they would reap the lions share of the benefits.

They also don't seem to understand their own system. It has to be global, ever expanding. The earth needs to have every nook and cranny open to trade and development within the market system in order for it to exist on any long term meaningful scale.

Well I more so meant that they think it's oppressive to have to comply to the rules of communism. They genuinely think it's forceful since they don't get to own factories and exploit people. That seems to be them assuming a communist society could just pop up within our lifetimes though. It would take at least a few generations imo and by then I'm sure most people wouldn't even know about the concepts of private ownership of industry and such so creating these an-cap societies would not even occur to anybody. Even if people wanted to it would be an extremely unpopular idea I think.

Yes I was just thinking about this more and my original question seems silly now.

Yeah, I think MarxArchist pretty much nailed this, but to elaborate (and give you some more ammo for this sort of debate), I want to talk about differentiating between capitalism as an abstract ideal, and capitalism as actual historical phenomena.
You can't just "go off and have a capitalist society" because that's not how societies happen. Capitalism didn't come about because the future capitalists said, "Hey! Wouldn't this be great?!" That's patently absurd. On the contrary, capitalism is premised on the accumulation of capital - you can't just produce that ex nihilo. Capitalism, historically, came out of the enclosure of common lands, the enslavement of indigenous Americans and Africans, the reconfiguring of gender roles (wherein women were made dependent on men through the wage system), and so on.
So, in the abstract, is there anything wrong with some wingnut losers going off on their own to try to have a capitalist community? No, there's not. The thing is, it's not possible. One might as well say, "I'm going to go off in to the woods and bake cakes!" But where's the flour? Where's the sugar? Where's the oven?

I would probably prefer they go away and try to build theoretical capitalism on an island separate from any sort of primitive accumulation. What a joy that would be to watch, from a distance. That might make a good TV show in a communist society. "Hey look, Booby just killed and eat Micheal!". Or they would be forced to.....function together

+ YouTube Video

Why not. I doubt it would happen though.

Imagine if today, now that capitalism has firmly rooted it's relations in most places, if someone bought a large chunk of land and told people they could live there but he gets to whip them and pass decrees about them, and they also have to give up a portion of the food they grow and make on the land themselves as well as occasionally provide direct services for the lord. And they have to call the person "Lord" and believe that God has bonded them to his land and rule. First would they even be able to find "willing serfs and pesants"? And even if he did find some people who wanted to live off the land and subject themselves to this rule, it would just be a little bubble in the world of some kind of wierd lifestyle commune - not "feudalism" as a realistic system for organizing production throughout the world today.

As Bird pointed out; it's pretty difficult to make any kind of specific predictions about how a thriving Socialist civilization would function. That said; I see no reason why not, so long as the members of these groups did not infringe upon the rights of others. We are able to live comfortably next to the Amish, etc. I have no doubt that a Socialist society, while predominantly atheist, would (unfortunately) still have various religious sects, etc. Incidentally; I think it would be extraordinarily difficult to maintain, probably even more so than attempting to establish an island of Socialism in the midst of a capitalist society. Again; as long as they don't do anything to infringe upon the rights of others, I don't see a problem.

I personally think that if they experienced communism they'd give up the capitalist crap. Yep, communism is that great. :lol:

It is true that one of the distinguishing features of Socialism is the absence of a state, both in the common sense, as in; 'nation-state', as well as the Marxist connotation referring to the rule of a particular class. That does not mean, however; that such a society would have no government, quite the contrary. Elections are simply unavoidable if one wants to manage large societies, in a democratic fashion. Again; it's really impossible to sketch out what this would look like, in complete detail, but I would picture something along the lines of Professor Stephen Shaloms' Parpolity model.

As you point out; these people have a myopic, one-dimensional, and entirely negative conception of; 'freedom.' Real freedom combines the negative (Freedom from.) and the positive. (Freedom to.) Like the German guy said; the kingdom of freedom can only be reached by transcending the kingdom of necessity.

We also need to point out that "anarcho-capitalism" can't actually exist. The state is needed for capitalism to function and survive.

You can't "opt out" of the economic superstructure of the world around you.

Sure - I'll gladly take their labor-time and compensate them poorly.

probably, but they'll be just as weird and unsuccessful as the weirdo communists who create communes in the middle of forests and adorn them with pics of kim il sung and shit. fuck that shit.

reminds me of a story when some libertarian shithead wanted to try some libertarian dream society and decided to create a new country on some island off some african country. they put up a flag in the middle of the small island. ended with the soldiers of said african country coming there and playing the anthem of said african country on a boombox while lowering the libertarian flag.

personally i dont give two fucks about ancaps, for all i care they can fuck off to some island and build their shit, but really one should ask how successful it would be to "opt out" of a global mode of production.

With the disappearance of the state would also come the disappearance of money, so who would these "an-capitalists" sell to? Each other?

Tell them this: Communism is
1) From each according to their ability
2) To each according to their needs and wants

An isolated Capitalist community might attract some asshole hoarders who want MORE than their needs and wants. Or bosses who miss the old days when they could mistreat workers. But where would they get workers? If the world is communist and all the workers are happy and content, why would any give that up to be exploited again?

Tell your friends they are making no sense.

Well no. A fully communist society could only exist if everyone was cooperating within it. If any sizable chunk decided that they didn't wish to exist within the communist society they would throw off the workings of said society and therefore would cause it to become unstable. Communism can only exist if everyone under it wishes to be there. If not than you're being forced and that is slavery.

Its an impossible stage to reach because without the state forcing everyone to participate, socialism would just disintegrate into markets. So in a world without a state a communist society couldn't stop people from leaving, but also couldn't afford for them to.

If someone tried to bring back prices, they would be outcompeted.

The important question that comes to my mind is- what is the incentive to break from society under communism? Are you going to produce something to then try and charge a price for something or pay a price for something that is otherwise free and available? Will money eventually become a novelty item and used in exchanges for nostalgia's sake?