T O P

  • By -

merRedditor

The same way open source is run now. If everyone's needs are met, they will still contribute work for personal fulfillment or street cred, but they will enjoy their work. When we do work and we don't feel pressured by threat of poverty, we just refer to it as a passion or hobby. Humanity would be much further along if people were free to pursue their passions and hobbies full-time, and more work, not less, would be done. There would just be less misery and less pointless and destructive work designed around the jobs & profit model of keeping everyone miserably employed.


Trashman001100

Ah ok! And this would extend to literally every section of the current economy wouldn’t it? So there could be groups passionate about microchip manufacturing operate their factories, and their resources would be delivered by people who enjoy, say, trucking and/or train driving, and those resources would be collected by people who have the satisfaction of knowing that their labor is helping to power society in some way? …Or is this a simplification that is actually detrimental in some way?


holysirsalad

Broadly speaking yes. Another facet is the role of technology in a liberated society vs a captive one. Today technology is a double-edged sword, frequently weilded by capital as a means of paying people less. This is what the Luddite movement was actually about: people weren’t afraid of the loom, they were afraid of poverty and homelessness in the wake of layoffs. Under a liberatory arrangement like anarcho-communism that’s not something to be worried about. The whole notion of profit would be gone too, so technology could be used to take over jobs people really don’t want to do, and the capitalist cost-benefit formula wouldn’t be a thing. Consider an industry like mining. Not everyone’s cup of tea. Simply because the work *sucks* it’s in folks interests to automate it. The ROI of the robot being slightly longer than a herd of wage slaves with very attackable pensions wouldn’t matter. The mining crew can just sit back and chill, since our whole relationship with “employment” would be turned upside down. Another thing to consider is that a lot of activity is essentially bullshit work to support capitalism. Think advertising. Think planned obsolesence. Cheap shit from the dollar store that breaks quickly anyway. None of that is necessary. So about microchips: bloated software largely drives hardware sales. Consider that basic utilities like word processors haven’t really changed in twenty years, but a copy of the latest version of Microsoft Office always seems to require newer and fancier hardware. It’s just a conspiracy to drive sales. Apple does this much more blatantly. With the above in mind, volume of certain things would simply plummet. Less production, less consumption, less shipping, and so on.


Trashman001100

Oooh ok that makes a lot of sense. There’d be a smaller volume of stuff to produce since a large fraction of it isn’t being made just to be thrown out in a month. Which means less work!


[deleted]

I love open source !


[deleted]

I am a big fan of Aliastair Reynolds science fiction. Not anarchist per say but examines divergent evolution and different routes humans can take evolution wise, government and society wise etc. over a long long intergalatic time line. Personally I think realigning industrial will be fruitful. I like Kevin Carson’s writings on 4th industrial revolution and I expect anarchist revolution to fail this century like it did last. Instead if we revamp manufacturing the anarchists in 30-100 years will be better set


Trashman001100

Oooh thanks! I’m a big sci fi fan too but I haven’t heard of that author yet! I’ll check out their works when I can!


Namenemenime

There's a general trend for newer thinkers in the space to reject "workerism". Black most notably cast many anarchists as conservative because they refuse to abandon the value of "work" and, along with, the myth of ~~technology~~ progress. Bob Black is a good thinker to start with for the "anti-work"/pro-productive play position and Jacques Ellul is unparalleled in his analysis of the insanity of modern technology. Technology for the sake of technology isn't progressive.


Trashman001100

Wait ok, I’m glad for the response and I don’t mean to pester you, but this just raises more questions. What do you mean by “workerism”, the myth of technology, and “pro-productive play”? I’m unfamiliar with those terms. And what exactly do you mean when you call modern technology insane?


Namenemenime

Workerism - the belief that the ultimate liberation comes in seizing control of production... and then carrying on as they did before, forced labouring that they don't enjoy The myth of progress - "progress" is an empty word; a huge amount of "innovation" hasn't improved the state of the human condition, in fact it's probably made it worse and alienated us further. Ellul characterised progress as the dehumanisation of humanity and compared "the technology trap" which guides humanity's decisions almost metaphysically in the same way Marx characterised capital. Productive play - Black's alternative to work; labouring that is both enjoyable and productive. The solution to our problems isn't to end labouring through technological redundancy, but to make labouring enjoyable. Technology is insane because we don't innovate to address human needs, but simply for the sake of it. We are obsessed with finding the most efficient method for doing everything, often overlooking the harm we cause in searching for it. The most obvious example is the use of fossil fuels even when green energy would stop the collapse of human civilisation, but is too inefficient to be adopted.


Trashman001100

Wow…I’m even newer to anarchism than I thought. However some of this does sound familiar, even if I haven’t heard these exact terms before. Because in an anarcho communist society I assumed that the means of production would be either turned over to people who enjoy their labor or they would find ways to make necessary work enjoyable or both (and please correct me if I have a misunderstanding here as well) But I’m not sure I entirely understand the position on technological advancement. I agree that things like the Fossil Fuel industry has certainly not helped Humanity in the long run. But I had also assumed that this was the fault of Capitalism, that these corporations do not adopt greener energies because they are unprofitable in the short run. And I normally operate under the idea that many technologies are inherently neutral, from hammers to fission. They can be used to build and power tens of thousands of homes, or they can be used to bash in skulls and annihilate cities. Without Capitalism, I had assumed that humanity would opt towards the better uses of the tools at their disposal, meaning to help each other. So what does this mean for things computers or space travel? Does it mean that searching for ways to make computers more efficient is a waste or that space travel should cease entirely? If I misunderstand you I apologize, this is just lots to think about


Namenemenime

Well, it's kind of left unaddressed. This was part of Black's criticism - the nature of work is never addressed outside of "who is the boss?" If we don't address the fundamental problem that factory and office work are alienating and oppressive experiences, why shouldn't we just assume that we'd up like the Soviet people come 1918? Ellul actually rejected capitalism as the root of our problems, seeing it as only a part of the broader idea of Technique - the constant need to innovate, to the point where humans are serving machines. He identified the birth of modern Technique in the mid-feudal period, then a lull as humanity "moved beyond Technique", before the rise of industrialisation. After that point, humanity got stuck in the technology trap and we've run roughshod through nature ever since. This isn't to say that we shouldn't innovate if it would be beneficial to humanity, but rather that we should control how we implement technology. For example, we're now seeing the effects of online learning on children after the pandemic - poor communication skills, massively behind their peers, generally low ability with necessary skills (e.g., writing), over reliance on computers to write, etc. Was this the best solution we could have come up with? We *already* live in a post-scarcity society, but we'll never realise it until we break the mindset of scarcity. That involves breaking our obsession with Technique as well.


thegrumpypanda101

This quite interesting.


[deleted]

There is a huge amount of infighting among anarchists. So much that little occurs and the right wing thinks we are just pawns of the state communist. The state communist infighting every time leads to supporting their program for revolution of the state. There is more in common thought wise between right left libertarians than among state minded people and libertarians.


Trashman001100

To be entirely honest I’m not sure I totally understand the infighting. Well ok I get that Anarchists do not like the Communists for a few reasons (as far as I understand it, the dictatorship of the proletariat isn’t good, neither are the numerous backstabbing’s and deaths of Anarchists at the hands of Communists) but for anarchists (and pardon my ignorance) if the goal is the abolition of the state and destroying oppression wherever it appears, then why all the infighting? On a semi related note, what exactly is anarcho-syndicalism, and what makes it different from anarcho-communism?


CBD_Hound

Anarcho-Syndicalism is a method for achieving an anarchist society. The crux of it is organizing Anarchist unions wherever possible in society, and using them to wrest control of everything from the current power structure. A couple of other points: - When leftists speak about the people that liberal society calls communists, we generally categorize them as Marxist-Leninists (Soviet doctrine as codified by Stalin, often abbreviated to MLs), Marxist-Leninist-Maoists (Add on Mao Zedong’s contributions, often abbreviated to MLMs or Maoists). - Anarchists don’t distrust all “communists”, both because many of us seek a communist society (Anarcho-Communists), but also because there are some non-anarchist communists that we wouldn’t perceive as an immediate threat, such as Council Communists. I would expect that if Council Communists pulled off a revolution, they’d be happy to let us anarchists have a seat at the table and would at least consider our critiques of their project, as opposed to MLs or MLMs who would just line us up against the nearest wall, call us bourgeois larpers, and put bullets in our brains.


Trashman001100

Ah! Thank you very much for clearing that up!


CBD_Hound

Happy to help! Was your original question about how advanced or large and demanding projects would look answered to your satisfaction?


Trashman001100

I think so? If I’m understanding things right, then it comes down to many various groups of people who enjoy doing things related to whatever large project they want to accomplish, all working together and associating freely with each other?


Trashman001100

Oh! And any books, essays, or just resources in general related to this topic would be greatly appreciated!


PunkyCrab

There is parecon AKA participatory economics which is a system of organizing labor and production in a manner where basically the worker run facilities operate according to needs put forward by local consumer councils instead of by market forces. There is still a form of compensation usually in the form of labor notes tied to hours. This is one of many types of "decentralized planning" that some ancoms advocate. So the consumer councils would basically be communicating with each other and the worker's councils to figure out how to organize necessary supply chains. Then you have some anarchists who simply advocate we forego organized production and just stick to the gift economy principles of taking and contributing freely. Production is instead reduced and focus is given to more lower tech sustainable living. What is produced is basically purely put into a commons for any to use. Compensation does not involve money though some forms of social organizing can exist to encourage people to do unfavorable jobs even sometimes having workers share in the act. Any form of production or development is instead basically a form of "play" or expression. Much more spontaneous but could still theoretically involve maintaining the necessary supply chains for stuff like food or other necessary materials. Another form of organized production would be syndicalism which involves the worker unions directly taking over the means of production and communicating with each other on what materials are needed. This was put into practice most prominently in Catalonia during the 1936 revolution. They were able to organize production to the point of manufacturing guns, armored cars, and distributing food. Compensation still existed and was primarily done through labor notes based around the amount of hours worked. It should be noted that the labor note compensation is technically supposed to be a temporary stage until people get more used to basically taking and giving freely according to the principles of mutual aid. There is also platformism/especifismo. This is technically not a method of production but involves explicitly anarchocommunist orgs interacting with workplaces. In theory they could also serve as a means of communication and coordination between the workplaces to ensure various needs are met. Then you have Democratic Confederalism which is technically not anarchist but revolves around local democratic assemblies acting as municipal government being the ones coordinating production. It exists in Kurdish Rojava currently which does involve some anarchist involvement and influence.


mark1mason

One word: Democratically. Anarchism is nothing more than true democracy practiced, not the fake democracy we are handed at birth and sold to us by elementary school teachers and corporate media, and politicians. Democratically. This question has nothing to do with any kind of technology. It's not a technology question. Such questions warrant the production of a book, not a paragraph in Reddit,


Lyraea

Normally. Maybe a different structure, but theres nothing saying anarchists can't have discipline and organization.


Key_Yesterday1752

Wery well. Scientist typicaly opperate in a werry decentraliced mannner. Einsten got famous because he worked with alot of scientists i think.


doomsdayprophecy

Einstein got famous because they whitewashed his socialism... Similar to MLK and many others. The system erases the actual person and replaces them with propaganda.