[Rothbardian]

"The realization of self-determination of individuals and communities is good." There you go.

Alright. I was hoping for the line of reasoning that lead up to this realization but I see that's far too much to ask.

Since a community is nothing more than a group of individuals, we can focus on the self determination of the individual which then goes on to create the community.

Assuming all individuals are to be regarded equally, it's not possible to create an involuntary hierarchy as long as we maintain this principle. No man can stand above another man without consent, and no one can grant rights or authority over others without their consent. Group A cannot give person B the right to dominate or rule group C without the consent of group C.

Is that accurate?

As to your other comments, you are, either of you, welcome to create a similar challenge for the 'right' instead of trying to derail this thread. I guarantee the responses you get will be far more to the point.

[Eran]

So, while you would agree with the fact that we push for a voluntary organization, you would disagree on the kind of organization we push for--which is thoroughly socialist.

You are trying to have it both ways - claim you are advocating a voluntary society while dictating what this society would look like.

Avoiding this problem is the reason I stopped characterising myself as "anarcho-capitalist", and replacing it with "voluntaryist" or, more informatively, "anarchic libertarian".

Once society is fully voluntary, I predict that economic production will proceed along broadly-capitalist lines (though with much greater weight for small companies and sole proprietorships, and, correspondingly, better working terms for those choosing to be employed).

But I am not advocating this form of organisation. Rather, I am advocating a society in which people will be able to choose for themselves. If socialist (or syndicalist, or whatever) for of organisation is voluntarily chosen by workers (because they come to recognise the evils of wage slavery and are empowered by the absence of arbitrary/pro-capital government regulations), so be it.


IF people voluntarily choose socialist production, you and I will both be happy with the outcome.

But what would you do if people voluntarily choose to work as wage slaves? Which will you give up, the principle of voluntaryism or of socialism?



Imagine you established your dream society. Now let's follow the following steps which, uninterrupted, would lead to the creation of a capitalist organisation:

1. Mr. PC (Proto-Capitailst) works as a sandwich designer for a democratically-controlled sandwich-making syndicate. He is frustrated that his co-workers don't support his dream of combining jam and hard cheese in a single sandwich. He opens his own sandwich making operation whereby they buy bread, cheese and jam, makes sandwiches, and sells them to the public.

2. Surprisingly, people love the combination of cheese and jam, and Mr. PC's business flourishes. Soon, he gets more sandwich orders than he can handle personally.

2. Mr. PC places an ad in which he offers $15/hour for an assistant sandwich maker. Under the terms of employment, and prospective employee has to sign a declaration stating that he is aware that he will own no equity in the sandwich-making operation, and the entire compensation for his labour will be his hourly wages.

3. Mr. PSL (Proto-Slave-Labourer) decides to leave his current job at a democratically-controlled sandwich-making syndicate, where he is only paid $13/hour, and accept Mr. PC's offer.

4. Within a few years, Mr. PC's sandwich-making operation employs 15 happy and satisfied ex-syndicate workers.



Questions:
1. At what point, if any, are people with guns going to try and stop this chain of events? By what authority? How is that authority not a government?

2. Mr. PC and his workers are not interested in getting free or subsidised products from their local consumer union. Can the local consumer union force them to contribute to the pool of resources used to purchase those products for the benefit of the other members of the union? If so, how is the local consumer union different from government?

3. If the answer to the previous question is negative, how will the local consumer union manage to fund its food purchases if more and more people opt out?

Although it is telling that you think real democratic practice to be nightmarish!

What I find nightmarish is being forced to spend my earnings based (in part or in whole) on the dictates of others. Whether those "others" are a remote government or one formed by my neighbours, whether it is dictatorial or democratic, are all secondary questions.

[anticlimacus]

But I am not advocating this form of organisation.

Yes you are. You've admitted this several times before, in fact. How does an anarcho-capitalist society develop? You have no quest for popularizing the idea, for ingraining it in culture, for arguing for it, etc?

What did I say about anarcho-syndicalism? I said it is something to advocate for from the bottom up. To push for it, to raise consciousness and hopefully that is what people would fight for. However, as opposed to anarcho-capitalism, I think average working people would be much more inclined for an anarcho-syndicalist world, and find it matches their common sense, while anarcho-capitalism would just seem like a greater hell than they are already in. At any rate, you can clearly see, I do, in fact, seek a voluntary society--but why would I not advocate for the kind of society that seems to make the most sense to me? That is what democracy is all about. What I want is a real participatory democratic society, both in the political and economic spheres of life. I think that makes much more sense to people than cutthroat competition.

Imagine you established your dream society. Now let's follow the following steps which, uninterrupted, would lead to the creation of a capitalist organisation:

1. Mr. PC (Proto-Capitailst) works as a sandwich designer for a democratically-controlled sandwich-making syndicate. He is frustrated that his co-workers don't support his dream of combining jam and hard cheese in a single sandwich. He opens his own sandwich making operation whereby they buy bread, cheese and jam, makes sandwiches, and sells them to the public.

2. Surprisingly, people love the combination of cheese and jam, and Mr. PC's business flourishes. Soon, he gets more sandwich orders than he can handle personally.

2. Mr. PC places an ad in which he offers $15/hour for an assistant sandwich maker. Under the terms of employment, and prospective employee has to sign a declaration stating that he is aware that he will own no equity in the sandwich-making operation, and the entire compensation for his labour will be his hourly wages.

3. Mr. PSL (Proto-Slave-Labourer) decides to leave his current job at a democratically-controlled sandwich-making syndicate, where he is only paid $13/hour, and accept Mr. PC's offer.

4. Within a few years, Mr. PC's sandwich-making operation employs 15 happy and satisfied ex-syndicate workers.

Now you're starting to sound like Phred. For some odd reason, although you claim you understand the means of production are socialized, and that we have sought to establish a society where basic needs are met for all, and where we have established institutions for full decision making participation for all, we still have people who simply are seeking wage labor! Why do they want to sell themselves to somebody else under these conditions? You assume, falsely, that people simply want to own nothing but their labor power and who simply want to sell themselves. To me that goes against what seems to be an aversion to slavery--nobody wants to be owned, even if they are bought. So the first thing you are ignoring is that in an anarcho-syndicalist society we've effectively eliminated the conditions under which wage labor develops. The second thing is that, on the entrepreneurial side, the aim is not to create monetary profit--because we've effectively eliminated the conditions under which economic profit becomes a mode of domination and power, at least in the sense of capitalist domination. So Mr. PC, who decides he no longer wants to participate in the sandwich shop, has many options. Start up a new shop, and all who voluntarily would like to join in may. But they won't join in if Mr. PC gives them no say in production. Mr. PC may take some like-minded sandwich makers and have their cheese and jam shop. But their "winning out" does not mean other starve or go without basic needs. And his new shop is going to necessitate voluntary participation in the anarcho-syndicalist meaning of the term: a Democratic workplace. Finally, no work place, no co-op, works in a vacuum. The means of production, including the resources within society are democratically controlled. Co-ops need to work in connection with communities, therefore, in order to decide on what to produce and how much should be produced. They do not just take up a business and do what they want, to hell with everybody else so long as they can make a "profit".

Questions

These seem irrelevant because, as I mentioned above, your assumptions are fallacious. The real question is rather the opposite of what you suggest: is somebody going to take a guns and attempt to acquire private control over the means of production? Is there going to be some group who wants to dominate everybody else and institute some form of socio-economic domination that regresses from the real democratic, decentralized reforms and advances we have made?

What I find nightmarish is being forced to spend my earnings based (in part or in whole) on the dictates of others. Whether those "others" are a remote government or one formed by my neighbours, whether it is dictatorial or democratic, are all secondary questions.

This already occurs! It's just abstract. Most people are forced to spend most their earnings on the bare essentials--and yet they are still in debt! Most importantly, while they have to do this they have little to no say in their work life or in their communal and political life. There is domination all over the place for most of society in capitalism. Just because your overloards are far away and a part of an economic system and therefore less visible, does not mean they are not there. All your freedoms in capitalism are mere abstractions. The concrete and substantial reality for most is what I described in the first sentences of this paragraph: no control over your life and debt upon debt. The result is effective domination running throughout society. The insult is that such domination is considered, in abstract law and bourgeois ideology, to be voluntary. This is why it is common sense for the real people who live it, to reject all this nonsense.

[SolarCross]

You assume, falsely, that people simply want to own nothing but their labor power and who simply want to sell themselves.

It is precisely because people like to own stuff that they "sell" themselves instead of just giving themselves away. What do they want in return for their efforts? Money, an ownable thing that allows you trade for other ownable things.
Capitalism offers money in return for work.
Syndicalism offers nothing concrete or tradable in return for work.
In capitalism you DO get to own the fruit of your labours, - profit, wages, dividends.

[Eran]

Why do they want to sell themselves to somebody else under these conditions? You assume, falsely, that people simply want to own nothing but their labor power and who simply want to sell themselves. To me that goes against what seems to be an aversion to slavery--nobody wants to be owned, even if they are bought.

I have worked as a wage slave all of my life. I have never felt like a slave, like I was owned. Everywhere I worked, I knew, my employer knew, and I knew that my employer knew that I could leave at any point at which I felt I had a better option open to me.

Why do they want to sell their labour to somebody else under these conditions? Perhaps because they would be paid more. Perhaps because that somebody is a person they like, respect, appreciate, even admire. Perhaps they feel they can learn and progress. Who knows? Different people do things for different reasons.

You assume, falsely, that people simply want to own nothing but their labor power and who simply want to sell themselves.

I assume, correctly, that different people have different wants and priorities. The same holds for different employers, many (if not most) of whom treat their workers with respect, help them progress professionally, appreciate their input and compensate them fairly.

The second thing is that, on the entrepreneurial side, the aim is not to create monetary profit--because we've effectively eliminated the conditions under which economic profit becomes a mode of domination and power, at least in the sense of capitalist domination.

First, you assume, without a base, that the only reason people become entrepreneurial is the promise of monetary profit, and that the only reason people pursue monetary profit is domination and power.

In fact, many people become entrepreneurs because they have an idea they are passionate about, and which they are unable to properly promote within existing production structures.

Further, many people (myself, for example) pursue monetary gain for personal, not social purposes. In my case, I'd love to retire sooner rather than later, so I can dedicate more of my time to writing on PoFo. The more money I make and save, the sooner that day will come.

And his new shop is going to necessitate voluntary participation in the anarcho-syndicalist meaning of the term: a Democratic workplace.

Why? What if Mr. PC offers, and several workers voluntarily agree to participate in his new shop in the anarcho-capitalist, rather than anarcho-syndicalist meaning of the term?

Who will stop them, and why?

They do not just take up a business and do what they want, to hell with everybody else so long as they can make a "profit".

I assume that in your society, individuals retain some freedom to dispense with their income on "luxuries".

If people view cheese and jam sandwiches as a desired luxury, what's to stop them from buying them? If Mr. PC can provide sandwiches at a lower cost than what people are willing to pay for them, whose permission would he need to seek? Who will stop him if he doesn't? And why?

is somebody going to take a guns and attempt to acquire private control over the means of production?

That is not part of the anarcho-capitalist way. However, it is perfectly sensible that somebody may take money and attempt to acquire private control over means of production by either buying them from their current owners, or by creating them himself.

There need not (in fact, in an anarcho-capitalist society, there can not) be force used in the acquisition of means of production.

Is there going to be some group who wants to dominate everybody else and institute some form of socio-economic domination that regresses from the real democratic, decentralized reforms and advances we have made?

Not at all. Rather, there will be a mixed bag of productive enterprises, some worker-controlled, other owner-controlled, some mixed (with workers having partial say but not complete control over the running of the enterprise).

Having an option of joining a syndicate, capitalists would have to tempt workers with better conditions, both in terms of net pay and in qualitative terms such as respect, initiative, education and acquisition of skills, etc.


So let me understand your position. Is it your claim that under an initial state of anarcho-syndicalism, the scenario I painted is completely impossible, as no workers would ever agree to join Mr. PC's enterprise as mere employees?

In a society of hundreds of millions of people, can you honestly exclude even the possibility that some of them may want to voluntarily accept wage employment?

Most people are forced to spend most their earnings on the bare essentials--and yet they are still in debt!

Only with a progressively expanding definition of what constitutes "bare essentials". American poor have many modern conveniences that middle-class Americans didn't have 15-20 years ago. Colour TVs, game systems, air conditioners, cars, washer/driers, microwaves, etc, etc, aren't "bare essentials" in any meaningful sense of the term.

Most importantly, while they have to do this they have little to no say in their work life or in their communal and political life.

On the contrary - they have the most important say in their work life, namely, whom they work for. There are millions of employers in America, not to mention thousands of self-employment possibilities. For a modest amount, hundreds of different vocational qualification courses are available to launch people (without higher education) into a huge range of careers, from dog groomers to plumbers, from electricians to caterers. Many of those careers involve self-employment.

As for getting into debt, that is invariably a result of choice, often irresponsible choice. There is no reason whatsoever that a single, high-school educated 18-year-old at the start of his or her career would need to go into debt.

You are describing a society which has very little to do with any modern western society.

[anticlimacus]

I have worked as a wage slave all of my life. I have never felt like a slave, like I was owned. Everywhere I worked, I knew, my employer knew, and I knew that my employer knew that I could leave at any point at which I felt I had a better option open to me.

Your personal experience is besides the point. There are many professionals who may feel the same way you do. There are probably many workers who simply have no idea of any other possibilities than the current capitalist world they live in, and the propaganda that tells them that everything else is simply evil. There have been times where I have felt like a wage slave, and experiences where I have felt fairly liberated in my professional career. That too is besides the point. The fact that I or you have experienced it one way or another does not have any bearings on the experiences of others and the trends both within current capitalist society and the history of capitalism.

I assume, correctly, that different people have different wants and priorities.

And you assume, incorrectly, that only capitalist society allows for different wants and priorities. See the irony of what you are saying here is that you fail to see that anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism in general developed precisely because of a desire to allow people to participate and actualize their different wants and priorities, rather than having the snuffed out by a consolidation of economic and political power.

First, you assume, without a base, that the only reason people become entrepreneurial is the promise of monetary profit, and that the only reason people pursue monetary profit is domination and power.

No, in fact I do not assume this. I'm arguing quite the opposite: people can be entrepreneurial without the incentive of monetary profit.

Further, many people (myself, for example) pursue monetary gain for personal, not social purposes. In my case, I'd love to retire sooner rather than later, so I can dedicate more of my time to writing on PoFo. The more money I make and save, the sooner that day will come.

Under the social organization I am talking about, the basic needs of all are met, and the work load is not nearly what it is today, with less waste. People are free to develop their own tastes, to make their private life what they want, but nobody goes without. The sense of "retirement" therefore becomes entirely different, as does the meaning of work. It is no longer an entirely individual matter of everybody for themselves.

Why? What if Mr. PC offers, and several workers voluntarily agree to participate in his new shop in the anarcho-capitalist, rather than anarcho-syndicalist meaning of the term?

Who will stop them, and why?

Wage labor does not just occur naturally. There are conditions that require it, primarily the privatization of the means of production. Once you eliminate that, you pretty much eliminate the conditions of wage labor. What you are asking then is this: what if these workers, instead of having a say in their work life, production, and value now want to surrender all that to Mr. PC? I'm not sure why they would want to do this--it just doesn't make any sense. First they have their basic needs--so they do not need the work in order to survive. Second, they are actual participants in their work (like professionals who, like you, tend to enjoy their work and find meaning in it), so they are not just being told what to do all day. Third, they are actual participants in the functioning of their communities which also has say in what is produced and what happens with the resources. Mr. PC is not then just up against a small group of workers--Mr. PC, is up against the entire social system in trying to create a capitalist enterprise. It's not a question of "who will stop him and why?" It's a question of how is Mr. PC going to stop them and why. In a capitalist world, like ours, the burden of proof is on us to demonstrate why we want an alternative. I've made those arguments. In a socialist world, the burden of proof is now on your capitalist who thinks he can roll things back to the way they were before the economy was revolutionized.

I assume that in your society, individuals retain some freedom to dispense with their income on "luxuries".

If people view cheese and jam sandwiches as a desired luxury, what's to stop them from buying them? If Mr. PC can provide sandwiches at a lower cost than what people are willing to pay for them, whose permission would he need to seek? Who will stop him if he doesn't? And why?

Why is Mr. PC trying to gain a monetary profit in a socialist world? You are asking me to explain how capitalism works within socialism! Look, if people want different sandwiches, I don't see any reason why they could not get them if that's what they want--it is their society, and I've been talking about a democratically controlled society. But it's not going to occur through capitalist economic measures--nor does it need to.

That is not part of the anarcho-capitalist way.

Really? In a non-capitalist world it has been the capitalist way to use brute force in order to make it a capitalist world.

So let me understand your position. Is it your claim that under an initial state of anarcho-syndicalism, the scenario I painted is completely impossible, as no workers would ever agree to join Mr. PC's enterprise as mere employees?

In a society of hundreds of millions of people, can you honestly exclude even the possibility that some of them may want to voluntarily accept wage employment?

Yes, I am actually stating that capitalism does not develop in a socialist society.

Only with a progressively expanding definition of what constitutes "bare essentials". American poor have many modern conveniences that middle-class Americans didn't have 15-20 years ago. Colour TVs, game systems, air conditioners, cars, washer/driers, microwaves, etc, etc, aren't "bare essentials" in any meaningful sense of the term.

There are also many burdens middle class Americans experience today they did not experience 20 years ago: greater debt, their wages being less with higher cost in education and healthcare, 15% real unemployment, lower power of labor unions, increasing competition from cheaper global labor, etc. The fact that somebody can have own a cell phone does not mean they do not struggle and are leading some sort of "luxurious poverty". I saw a man come into a soup kitchen yesterday with a nice shirt. I guess he did not need the meal? More importantly, the wealth in the US--most acutely experienced and enjoyed by the top end--does not occur without effecting the conditions of workers elswhere. The fact that I can throw a meal away while others starve on another part of the globe are certainly related issues. The fact that we have the capacity to feed, shelter, provide education and health care for all, and yet they are all so unevenly distributed and even scarce in many ways is something endemic to capitalist production.

On the contrary - they have the most important say in their work life, namely, whom they work for. There are millions of employers in America, not to mention thousands of self-employment possibilities. For a modest amount, hundreds of different vocational qualification courses are available to launch people (without higher education) into a huge range of careers, from dog groomers to plumbers, from electricians to caterers. Many of those careers involve self-employment.

As for getting into debt, that is invariably a result of choice, often irresponsible choice. There is no reason whatsoever that a single, high-school educated 18-year-old at the start of his or her career would need to go into debt.

You are describing a society which has very little to do with any modern western society.

After a global economic crisis which is still very real to most people, and which greatly reduced the economic power of the middle classes and the poor, when the cost of everything has gone up (from education and health care to groceries and gas) while income has gone down for the majority of Americans, when American labor is under more downward pressure due to global compition, etc. I'm not sure how you can say that it I am the one not describing western society. I'm confused on why and how you think there is so much more opportunity and choice than ever--it's baffling.

[Eran]

Your personal experience is besides the point.

No, it isn't. It goes to show that different people and circumstances give rise to different experiences and attitudes.

We can not, with that in mind, rule out that some people, under particular circumstances, would be interested in voluntarily accepting offers of traditional "capitalist" employment.

I still don't know whether the society you envision would merely culturally discourage, or actively prohibit such arrangements.

This, for me (and Phred) is a crucial difference.

And you assume, incorrectly, that only capitalist society allows for different wants and priorities.

I never claimed that. My claim is that only a voluntaryist society, one which allows both syndicate/socialist and capitalist production models to co-exist, does that.

The society I am advocating has room for syndicate as well as capitalist enterprises. Does the society you are advocating have room for both too?

I'm arguing quite the opposite: people can be entrepreneurial without the incentive of monetary profit.

The second thing is that, on the entrepreneurial side, the aim is not to create monetary profit--because we've effectively eliminated the conditions under which economic profit becomes a mode of domination and power, at least in the sense of capitalist domination.

Your previous statement seemed to imply that capitalist entrepreneurship is exclusively motivated by monetary profit, an aim no longer relevant under conditions under which is a mode of domination and power.

If we both agree that entrepreneurial energy can be motivate by different incentives, including both monetary profit (though not, in the context of your society, for the ultimate end of power and domination) and non-monetary interests (e.g. for the good of the community, or to express one's individuality and creativity)

With that in mind, would you agree that even in the context of the society you are advocating, some people (perhaps many fewer than today) would opt for capitalist model of employment. Would your society allow them to do so?

Under the social organization I am talking about, the basic needs of all are met, and the work load is not nearly what it is today, with less waste. People are free to develop their own tastes, to make their private life what they want, but nobody goes without.

Are you suggesting that people's basic needs are all met even if they choose not to work?

It is no longer an entirely individual matter of everybody for themselves.

There are, of course, two sides to this coin. There is the "nice" part, namely that others will take care of my needs even if I am unable or unwilling to do so. But there is also the other side, namely that I have to work for the benefit of others.

To be clear, would giving up some of my income for the benefit of others be voluntary/optional, or mandatory/enforced?

Wage labor does not just occur naturally. There are conditions that require it, primarily the privatization of the means of production. Once you eliminate that, you pretty much eliminate the conditions of wage labor.

Assets don't come with a clear label "means of production". I gave as an example a sandwich-making enterprise because the means of production required for making sandwiches are found in every kitchen.

And if personal property becomes insufficient and dedicated, industrial means of production are required, an entrepreneur would either purchase or manufacture those means of production himself. What would happen then? Would other members of society have the right to confiscate those assets?

And at the top of this post, I thought we agreed that some people's employment experience may be entirely positive. If a motivated entrepreneur makes an attractive option (in terms of pay, working conditions and qualitative work aspects such as autonomy and respect), you cannot rule out the emergence, at least as minority phenomenon, of wage labour.

what if these workers, instead of having a say in their work life, production, and value now want to surrender all that to Mr. PC? I'm not sure why they would want to do this--it just doesn't make any sense.

Let me try and make sense for you. "These workers" don't make decisions as a unit. Each worker makes decisions as an individual. An individual worker has very limited say of his work life, production and value even within a worker-run syndicate. His is just one voice in hundreds. And since workers aren't identical, what suits his fellow workers may not necessarily suit him.

It is entirely possible, then, that an enlightened employer (one who knows that his workers have alternatives, and is thus compelled to offer them superior working conditions) will make an offer that individual workers will find more attractive than that of the democratically-run syndicate.

Compare: Singapore is not a democracy. Yet many people choose to work and live there, even though they could live in a democracy like the US or UK. By your logic, that could never happen. Yet it does.

First they have their basic needs--so they do not need the work in order to survive.

Precisely a reason to feel comfortable accepting wage employment - knowing that if terms change or become unpleasant, they can always leave at short notice.

Second, they are actual participants in their work (like professionals who, like you, tend to enjoy their work and find meaning in it), so they are not just being told what to do all day.

From an individual worker's perspective there is no difference between working in a place where you have one vote in a thousand, and one in which you have no vote, but your employer knows he must respect you or lose you.

Third, they are actual participants in the functioning of their communities which also has say in what is produced and what happens with the resources.

Having the "say" of one in a thousand isn't a substitute for having a 100% say over your personal consumption choices.

Mr. PC is not then just up against a small group of workers--Mr. PC, is up against the entire social system in trying to create a capitalist enterprise.

Mr. PC is not up against anybody. He is making an offer to free agents - people who, by your own description, can choose whether to work for him or not. His relationship with them (like the relationship I have always experienced myself) is collaborative, not adversarial.

In a socialist world, the burden of proof is now on your capitalist who thinks he can roll things back to the way they were before the economy was revolutionized.

The capitalist has no economy-wide intentions. All he wants to do is make sandwiches, and pay a few willing people to help him out. In so doing, he is not encroaching on anybody's property. He isn't coercing anybody (either his employees or his customers). He is entirely peaceful.

Are you going to stop him?

Why is Mr. PC trying to gain a monetary profit in a socialist world?

Who knows? Perhaps he is merely sick and tired of having to run every sandwich idea by a democratic committee. Perhaps he wants to extend his stamp collection, and wants more money with which to buy stamps. Different people are differently motivated.

Look, if people want different sandwiches, I don't see any reason why they could not get them if that's what they want--it is their society, and I've been talking about a democratically controlled society.

How does that help? Obviously, if a majority (or, probably, even a large minority) of people want difference sandwiches, they could get them in the context of a democratically-run society.

But if an individual (or a small group) wants something, a democracy is no guarantee that they will be offered what they want. Admittedly, neither is a market economy. But in a free economy, people can pursue their goals without asking other people's permission.

In a non-capitalist world it has been the capitalist way to use brute force in order to make it a capitalist world.

It is not the anarcho-capitalist way.

If you disagree, please show how, Mr. PC has been using "brute force" in starting and growing his business.

[Red Barn]

Since Eran is clearly unable to grasp the basic idea of commonly held property as described by anarchists (and is therefor going on for pages and pages to no purpose, no doubt threatening Anticlimacus's sanity in the process) I thought I'd try a somewhat different angle.



The basic ideas of Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom are (or should be) more familiar to the non-syndicalist, and this short essay encapsulates them pretty well:

Elinor Ostrom and the solution to the tragedy of the commons

Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, England promulgated the Enclosure Acts, which were responsible for privatizing (and fencing in) the lands for grazing livestock, so that they could be devoted to intensive cultivation. Until that point, those lands were common and under-used, without an owner except the sovereign, in a purely formal sense, but freely accessible to anyone. The English shepherds, farmers, cultivators, and hunters who, until then, had freely used the commons for their livelihood were excluded or limited in access due to the enclosures and had to move with their families from the countryside into the cities.

This Great Transformation, as the socio-economist Karl Polanyi defined it, caused low-cost labor to be concentrated in places like the city, a precondition for exploiting the use of Watt's steam engine and opening the English Industrial Revolution. In about the same years, with the promulgation of the Homestead Act, a similar process occurred in the U.S. at the expense of the Native Americans.

The privatization of land had the advantage of allowing for a more intensive use of resources and thus promoting the economic development of the West, but at the cost of shameful socio-hygienic conditions for most of the worker population that were only solved (at least partially) after many decades (or centuries) with the labor laws and a welfare state.

Around the same time, but in another place in the world, in Törbel, Switzerland, there was a substantially different definition of the law on land. The management of land was not assigned to either a private or a government entity, but belonged to a community of people that used it. This particular instance of "collective" institutions was stable and efficient for centuries in Törbel, showing that there may be a third way (and an efficient and effective one) that lies between the strictly state management of resources (like in England before the enclosures) and strictly private management (in England after the enclosures). This represents the greatest empirical and theoretical contribution of Elinor Ostrom.

Unfortunately, Elinor Ostrom, the first woman (and currently the only one!) to win the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences in 2009, died on June 12 at age 78 from cancer. In April of 2012, Time magazine had named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She worked at the University of Indiana and headed the "Vincent and Elinor Ostrom" Research Center for political studies and analysis with her husband.

Her research concerned the governance of common resources (also known as commons). The commons are natural resources, like land for grazing, fishing areas, forests for timber, water for the irrigation of farmland, and also more intangible resources, like knowledge, for which it is very expensive to control and fence in "user" consumption. The problem with these types of resources, as shown in 1968 by Garrett Hardin (but Aristotle had already observed a similar phenomenon) is that they are over-exploited, or at least their care and sustainability is overlooked by users. The reason is that people behave opportunistically (like free-riders) and consider the resource they are accessing, without the possibility of being excluded, as a free resource, and they therefore maximize their private benefits but neglect, or collectivize, the costs.

Hardin coined the phrase "tragedy of the commons" to describe this phenomenon and gave social sciences one of the most evocative metaphors after Adam Smith's "invisible hand". These two metaphors are effective because they capture two essential social situations in marked contrast to one another. When social interactions are guided by an invisible hand, they reconcile individual choice and socially desirable results, whereas in the tragedy of the commons, individuals pursuing their private objectives cause disastrous consequences for themselves and others. The solution to the tragedy of the commons, before the contribution of Ostrom and her studies, was to privatize resources or, in a diametrically opposite view, to form a Leviathan state in order to manage them.

Instead, Ostrom demonstrated that, within communities, rules and institutions of non-market and not resulting from public planning can emerge from the bottom up to ensure a sustainable, shared management of resources, as well as one that is efficient from an economical point of view. Besides the village of Törbel, Ostrom shows examples of common lands in the Japanese villages of Hirano and Nagaike, the huerta irrigation mechanism between Valencia, Murcia and Alicante in Spain, and the zanjera irrigation community in the Philippines. Also, the property in the form of "vicinale", neighborhoods, typical of regions of Italy like Emilia, the Belluno and the Ticino, are also collective institutions, although not investigated by Ostrom. The argument then has a more modern example if one notices that even the "Wikipedia community" is a form of successful collective institution of a communal resource (knowledge).

In all these cases, the "institutional details" are essential. Starting from the theoretical contributions of Ronald Coase, Douglass North and Oliver Williamson, Ostrom isolates the main characteristics of local self-government. The first condition for the institutional basis of the success of these mechanisms is the clarity of the law (Who can do what? What can one not do? Who punishes whom? And how?). In addition to being clear, the rules must be shared by the community. This is why another essential element of self-government is the establishment of methods of collective and democratic decision-making, able to involve all users of the resource.

Furthermore, the mechanisms of conflict resolution must be local and public, so as to be accessible to all individuals of a community. Besides mechanisms of graduated sanctions, a mutual control of the resource among the users themselves must be established. This has a double merit. First, those interested in the proper management of the resource (the user) also have an incentive to check that management, and second, the users are also the subjects that have the best information on how the resource can be used in an inappropriate manner by the others. Finally, the rules, in addition to being clear, shared and made ​​effective by all users, must not conflict with higher levels of government.

With this last condition, it is clear that the great dichotomy of state and market is partial and too narrow, and therefore destined to crumble in theory (Ostrom writes in her Governing the Commons). More correctly (as the title of the Ostrom's Nobel Lecture "Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems" reminds us) one must take into account the fact that, in reality, multiple and complementary (and not strictly alternate) levels of "governance" of the same resource emerge and can coexist. As Ostrom stated, the term polycentrism indicates a plurality of interdependent decision-making centers on the management of a resource. The next step in the research, inherited from Elinor Ostrom is that of determining under which conditions the various levels cooperate as a single system or conflict with one another, and we should remember that the Tocqueville-Acton Research Center dedicated its 2011 annal to "Subsidiarity and Institutional Polyarchy".

http://www.aei.org/article/economics/el ... e-commons/

While polyarchy is not yet anarchy, it's certainly prefigures anarchist ideas - and, one hopes, helps clarify some of these points.

All one needs do is extend the rules of ownership Ostrom describes as governing pockets of land and resources to all land and resources, and there ya go: there is simply no room for the budding capitalist to annex resources to himself. Why? Because they are already owned.

Thus there need be no central authority to repress or punish him, and no reason to suppose that people will spontaneously rise up and beg to be enslaved all over again (which, BTW, strikes me as the silliest part of Eran's entire spiel).

Wage slavery, under such conditions, would be as abhorrent and unacceptable as chattel slavery is today, and might well be "against the law" for similar reasons, but that's really a moot point when discussing fully realized anarchist social organization. There'd be very little likelihood that capitalist forms of organization could or would arise in the first place, so that entire line of argument is essentially pointless.

[anticlimacus]

Wage slavery, under such conditions, would be as abhorrent and unacceptable as chattel slavery is today, and might well be "against the law" for similar reasons, but that's really a moot point when discussing fully realized anarchist social organization. There'd be very little likelihood that capitalist forms of organization could or would arise in the first place, so that entire line of argument is essentially pointless.

Yes, thank you Red Barn for your post. What our capitalist friends seem to be forgetting is that wage slavery develops when labor has nothing to sell but its own labor power. Well, in a libertarian socialist world this fundamental condition is no longer the case. Labor controls the means of production! Why--after acquiring the gains they made after revolutionizing the economy--do they then want to voluntarily alienate themselves all over again?

The capitalist has no economy-wide intentions. All he wants to do is make sandwiches, and pay a few willing people to help him out. In so doing, he is not encroaching on anybody's property. He isn't coercing anybody (either his employees or his customers). He is entirely peaceful.

Are you going to stop him?

Since the bulk of your post is about Mr. PC, I singled this out. I have actually already responded to this with Phred, and his clay-pot empire. This was my initial reply and I put in bold important points:

If you had people who wanted to participate in this venture with you, there would be no problem. You of course could not coerce them with your economic power and wage slavery, because that would be irrelevant with the means of production socialized. Work--as a means to individual survival--is no longer a zero sum game. They would volunteer to do this, to be a part of it and whatever reward you give them would be between you and them. More than likely it a group with similar interests, say of fellow artists, would work together and so each share the load of traveling back and forth. Who knows! The most important part is that people are engaged in things that are meaningful to them and doing it voluntarily. Thank God for the socialization of the means of production!

What you and Phred are basically asking is this: can person X start up anything and ask for help, and compensate his/her help. The answer is, of course, yes. Why not?

But you and Phred seem to want to go further. You and Phred also assume that this situation necessarily becomes the equivalent to capitalist production, where wage labor (where individuals have nothing except their labor power to sell ) is the natural consequent, while a capitalists profits off of his/her acquired capital. What is surreptitious about this assumption is that the conditions of wage labor have been abolished! Labor is not bereft of the means of production! That is why I said to Phred, X cannot force labor to do anything with his/her economic power--which is precisely how socialists have critiqued wage labor. Now I completely understand that you (and Phred) think wage labor is entirely voluntary because, formally--in capitalist society--they are free to sell themselves and free not to. But we are not talking about a capitalist society. We therefore have a wholly different paradigm of conditions--and that is what you and Phred have to start to grapple with. Throughout all capitalist history, labor has sold itself to capital because that was it's only option. In addition to this, and as Red Barn's post states and as I have stated several times in this thread, no single group controls the resources. They are "Polycentric". Co-ops do not just decide in a vacuum what they are going to produce. They are in dialogue with labor cartels, with communal boards, etc. and production is organized from multiple centers. So this idea that a single person X somehow gains control over the means of production and then starts making all kinds of decisions in a vacuum is simply ignoring the institutional constraints of anarchism that prevent this from happening in the first place (regardless of the socialization of the means of production).

[SolarCross]

An honest trade requires as a minimum that the commodities being exchanged are owned by the exchangers or that the exchangers have the authority granted by the owner to make the exchange on the owners behalf. This is true for all exchangable commodities including a person's time and skill. When a business contracts with a worker to buy his time and skill under mutually agreeable terms, it is assumed that the worker does indeed own his own time and skill and thus has the authority to rent it out. If a syndicalist would prevent the worker from selling his time then the syndicalist is explicitly disputing that the worker is the sole owner of his own time and skill and in effect the syndicalist is asserting a superior claim over the time of the worker, which is directly equivalent to asserting that the time of the worker is in fact the property of the syndicalist not the worker. A situation that is a whisker away from being actual slavery.

[Red Barn]

This is like saying that a person is "a whisker away from actual slavery" if s/he loses the "right" to choose beating with a stick over beating with a lead pipe.

What Anticlimacus is describing is a society in which nobody is holding either a pipe or a stick, so this "right" has become meaningless.

[SolarCross]

This is like saying that a person is "a whisker away from actual slavery" if s/he loses the "right" to choose beating with a stick over beating with a lead pipe.

What Anticlimacus is describing is a society in which nobody is holding either a pipe or a stick, so this "right" has become meaningless.

We are not talking about a choice between a beating and beating, that much is obvious. But if you assert your society wouldn't be "holding either a pipe or a stick" then how are you going to prevent people cutting their own deals independantly of your syndicate? Your hegemony over workers will be toothless.

[Red Barn]

Dear God in heaven! I give up!



(You have the patience of fifty saints, Anticlimacus, but I'm afraid I'm at the end of my tether on this. When it gets to the point that they're actually advertising the fact that they don't read a word of what's been written, it just doesn't seem worth the bother . . . But best luck to you, brother - you certainly deserve it.)

[anticlimacus]

We are not talking about a choice between a beating and beating, that much is obvious. But if you assert your society wouldn't be "holding either a pipe or a stick" then how are you going to prevent people cutting their own deals independantly of your syndicate? Your hegemony over workers will be toothless.

I see--the problem seems to be that you cannot envision workers being free without being sold to capitalists. I am curious, Tax, what "hegemony over workers" are you talking about?

The very very odd thing is that while we are talking about an anarcho-syndicalist society, you capitalists keep wanting us to explain why capitalism doesn't spontaneously spring up! The irony, is that you feel no need to explain just the opposite: why and how does capitalism spontaneously spring up? That is the real question in this case. The institutional means within which capitalism develops are now gone. Of course there is no problem with, say, Joe helping Billy build a fence and Billy and Joe agreeing to compensation--but that is not capitalism!

(You have the patience of fifty saints, Anticlimacus, but I'm afraid I'm at the end of my tether on this. When it gets to the point that they're actually advertising the fact that they don't read a word of what's been written, it just doesn't seem worth the bother . . . But best luck to you, brother - you certainly deserve it.)

It seems to me that they simply cannot imagine a world where the means of production are socialized and there is no centralized state controlling everything. Somehow, they think, capitalism just naturally occurs--as if a square peg can fit into a triangle shaped hole! And of course, this is not surprising--as we have been saying all along, this is exactly why the original anarchists were socialists, not capitalists!

Regardless, what their claim seems to be is this: you cannot have a free society unless you allow for capitalist enterprise. Well--what am I to say to that? We have been attempting to describe a free society within which the means of production are socialized--conditions antithetical to capitalist production! The problem is, I think, is that they are having trouble wrapping their heads around this idea that capitalist "freedom" is not freedom. It's servitude. More than that capitalist exchange is not simply a private matter between Tom and Don--it's social and requires socio-economic conditions, that allows Tom to own the means of production and that forces Don to sell his labor to Tom, to which Tom profits. Whether or not they agree with that, is another question. But I think they are simply having trouble with that very idea.

[SolarCross]

I see--the problem seems to be that you cannot envision workers being free without being sold to capitalists. I am curious, Tax, what "hegemony over workers" are you talking about?

No you don't see at all. What I don't see is how a worker can be free if he is not allowed by the syndicate to cut his own deals. If your syndicate is contractual then it would not be hegemony but syndicalists certainly seem consistently opposed to individuals making their own choices even if they have not consented to be governed by the syndicates rules. This would be a non-contractual hegemony.

[anticlimacus]

What I don't see is how a worker can be free if he is not allowed by the syndicate to cut his own deals. If your syndicate is contractual then it would not be hegemony but syndicalists certainly seem consistently opposed to individuals making their own choices even if they have not consented to be governed by the syndicates rules. This would be a non-contractual hegemony.

Cut his own deals in what sense, Tax? Cut his own deals in the sense of a worker usurps the community and syndicate and takes the factory and then hires labor? Or cuts his own deals in the truly private sense of the term: Billy need some help with a fence and asks Joe for some help and then bakes him a pie for compensation? What are you talking about?

[Eran]

All one needs do is extend the rules of ownership Ostrom describes as governing pockets of land and resources to all land and resources, and there ya go: there is simply no room for the budding capitalist to annex resources to himself. Why? Because they are already owned.

Every carving and spreading knife is already owned?

Every computer with which one can write software is already owned?

Every machine that hasn't yet been produced is already owned?

Every square mile of untouched wilderness is already owned?

I chose sandwich-making for a reason - it is a potentially-viable business for which the "means of production" are nothing more than personal property, allowed, as I understand it, even under social anarchism. I could have chosen a taxi service (requiring only a car). Or a home-cleaning service (requiring only a mop and cleaning liquids). Or software development (requiring only a PC).

Budding capitalists don't "annex resources". They tend to buy them, fair and square. Out of their savings. Sometimes they make them themselves. Sometimes they convert personal property into "means of production".

What you and Phred are basically asking is this: can person X start up anything and ask for help, and compensate his/her help. The answer is, of course, yes. Why not?

Thank you.

How then is asking for help and compensating for such help any different from ordinary employment?

What is surreptitious about this assumption is that the conditions of wage labor have been abolished!

Perhaps. But the conditions for an honest exchange of labour for fixed wages haven't been abolished. The term "wage labour" is a slippery and charged one. In some contexts it was explained to me that only some forms of wage employment qualify as "wage labour", namely those situations in which the worker is stripped of any initiative and flexibility, and is forced to perform the same tasks with mind-numbing rigidity.

At other times, "wage slavery" seems synonymous with any employment in which somebody other than workers (management, capital owners, entrepreneur) retains some of the profit of the business.

In this case, I am genuinely confused about what you have in mind.

If I ask somebody to help me in exchange for pay, have I created wage slavery or not? Does it depend on the nature of help? Does it depend on the alternatives open to that individual?

Now I completely understand that you (and Phred) think wage labor is entirely voluntary because, formally--in capitalist society--they are free to sell themselves and free not to.

Of course they are. You would be correct to state that such freedom is not very meaningful if alternative methods of making a living are arbitrarily, artificially, illegitimately closed to them. I would agree.

But keep in mind - in the society I am advocating, nobody has the power (nowadays routinely exercised by government) to arbitrarily, artificially, illegitimately close production options to individuals.

But in what starts as your society, i.e. one in which workers have the option of working for a syndicate (all workers? is there guaranteed employment in your world? can workers of a syndicate vote to fire one of their co-workers? are people guaranteed their basic needs even if they choose to laze about all day and watch TV?), clearly, but your own term, any choice to accept employment is "truly" voluntary, right?

So in such society, there is no harm in enterprises in which some people work for wages without owning the means of production, right?

Throughout all capitalist history, labor has sold itself to capital because that was it's only option.

That is historically false. In many societies, workers have chosen to accept offers of wage labour from management of privately-owned productive enterprises because such offers represented the best opportunity available to them, even while self-employment opportunities (in small crafts or farming, for example) were still open to them.

While the aristocracy and gentry of Europe can reasonably be said to have monopolised agricultural land before the 19th century, the same cannot be said about either the US or Europe's non-agricultural sector. Means of production aren't monopolised in any sense. They are continually manufactured, purchased and replaced.

And much as that was the case during the industrial production era, it is even more so in today's information age, when the cost of means of production is often a tiny fraction of the value produced, and is easily available for people of very modest savings.


What workers get from an employer today is often little to do with means of production in the sense of land and machinery.

What they often get is reputation, know-how, contacts, management skills and entrepreneurial innovation, none of which are monopolised in any meaningful sense.

So this idea that a single person X somehow gains control over the means of production and then starts making all kinds of decisions in a vacuum is simply ignoring the institutional constraints of anarchism that prevent this from happening in the first place (regardless of the socialization of the means of production).

This idea that a single person X somehow gains control over the means of production hasn't made sense in any society whatever.

Rather, a single person uses his savings or a bank loan to acquire, adapt or manufacture modest means of production which, together with much more valuable and scarce energy, innovation, entrepreneurial alertness and insight, hard work and managerial skills, (and, of course, willingness to take risk) he transforms into a productive enterprise.

He then asks for the help of others, in exchange for payment. Those others appreciate the value associated with working with that person. He has those rare qualities which separate successful entrepreneurs from most people. He is offering them better terms for their help than they can hope to obtain anywhere else. They gladly accept, and consider themselves lucky.

As for the production decisions, those aren't made in a vacuum. They are subject to the unforgiving discipline of the market. If the entrepreneur makes a mistake in his prediction of what consumers will choose to purchase and/or how much they'll be willing to pay for it, he stands to lose his shirt (figuratively) or his life savings (often literally).

The very very odd thing is that while we are talking about an anarcho-syndicalist society, you capitalists keep wanting us to explain why capitalism doesn't spontaneously spring up!

Note that neither taxizen nor I advocate an anarcho-capitalist society as such. Rather, we advocate a voluntaryist society in which all people are free to do as they wish, subject only to the prohibition on the initiation of force (equivalent to respect of other people's peaceful projects, or "property").

In such society, many workers may, as you describe it, opt to form and work in the context of syndicate. Fine. Many consumers may wish to collaborate in the context of a consumer union. Double-fine.

But what Phred, taxizen and I suggest is that some people may wish to establish different forms of association, including one in which the workplace isn't democratically-run. One in which there are clear managers and workers. One in which workers receive fixed wages (regardless of profitability, protected from potential losses) which entrepreneurs and/or investors enjoy the up-side associated with success and profit (while risking the down-side associated with the much-more-common failure).

You may plausibly argue that many fewer people would choose such an option, and I won't argue. You may well be right. You could argue that under proper "initial conditions" in which syndicalist employment and mutual aid are widely available, accepting such an employment offer no longer counts as "wage slavery" or "traditional capitalist production". Triple-Fine. I couldn't care less.

All I want to know is whether in your society, people are free to associate and produce in any way they choose, provided only that they do not trample the equal rights of others.

Amazingly, it seems extraordinarily difficult to get a simple answer from you on this question.

Cut his own deals in the sense of a worker usurps the community and syndicate and takes the factory and then hires labor?

A factory is not a mountain or a lake. It isn't part of nature. It was built by somebody, paid for by somebody, owned by somebody (potentially a group of people or an entire community, whatever).

Clearly we are not advocating the right of anybody to just "take" anything. But do people have the right to build the factory themselves? Or buy the factory with their own savings? If they do, would it count as "usurping the community"?

[Phred]

What our capitalist friends seem to be forgetting is that wage slavery develops when labor has nothing to sell but its own labor power.

First, who is "labor"? Point to her. Name her. There is no such entity as "labor". There are only individual humans expending productive effort and exchanging the resulting products with other humans.

You say "labor" has nothing to sell but her own effort? Well, duh! That is true of every human ever born into the world. We don't emerge from the womb clutching a wad of currency. Unless and until other humans (usually guardians) gift a newborn some property, the only way she can obtain any is by trading her services (labor, if you prefer) for concrete goods.

Well, in a libertarian socialist world this fundamental condition is no longer the case. Labor controls the means of production!

You keep evading Eran's observation that "the means of production" is not just lying around on the ground like berry bushes or mineral deposits. Means of production are not harvested, they are produced. As such, there is an ever-increasing amount of them. I didn't stumble across my wheel and kiln out in the forest somewhere, I created both of them. Until I designed and assembled them, they didn't exist, hence were neither owned nor controlled by "labor" (whoever she is).

Why--after acquiring the gains they made after revolutionizing the economy--

Translation -- stealing other people's stuff.

...do they then want to voluntarily alienate themselves all over again?

Leaving aside the silly and meaningless buzzword "alienate", it doesn't matter why they want to live in a manner of which you disapprove. The fact is, they do. The question you Lefties never get around to answering is - will anyone forcibly prevent them from living in this manner? You claim that in the society you advocate, no one will forcibly prevent them from living in this manner. This means you cannot be a Left Anarchist, since Left Anarchists repeat ad nauseum their threats to prevent anyone from living in this manner.

What you and Phred are basically asking is this: can person X start up anything and ask for help, and compensate his/her help. The answer is, of course, yes. Why not?

So, you are not a Left Anarchist, then. That is what I have been pointing out all along.

You and Phred also assume that this situation necessarily becomes the equivalent to capitalist production...

How is it not the equivalent of the capitalist mode of production? It is a textbook example of it, duh!

...(where individuals have nothing except their labor power to sell )...

As has been previously noted, everyone starts out with nothing to sell. Those who engage in productive effort can shortly end up with plenty to sell.

... is the natural consequent, while a capitalists profits off of his/her acquired capital.

In my case my "acquired capital" is my wheel and kiln. Please explain to the audience what you find objectionable about the mode by which I acquired them. In Eran's example, Mr PC's "acquired capital" is a few bread knives and cutting boards and butter knives. Please explain to the audience what you find objectionable about the mode by which Mr PC acquired them.

What is surreptitious about this assumption is that the conditions of wage labor have been abolished!

What you insist on obscuring by labeling "wage labor" others recognize as a free and voluntary exchange of goods and services. Nothing I or any of the people with whom I am carrying out exchanges has done anything whatsoever to prevent anyone else from carrying out exchanges: even exchanges taking place under the umbrella of "socialized means of production". My own means of production are entirely irrelevant to the ones that were socialized before I decided to "acquire" them. They operate outside the "socialized means of production" environment and do nothing to negatively impact that environment.

Labor is not bereft of the means of production!

If so, then why does "labor" (whoever she is) need my pitifully insignificant means of production? Why can she not leave it in my hands? She has her own, fa cryin' out loud!

That is why I said to Phred, X cannot force labor to do anything with his/her economic power...

Of course I can't. Nor do I want to. I simply want to offer people a chance to get stuff by providing a service to me. They are left perfectly free at all times to decline my offer. There is no force involved at all.

Now I completely understand that you (and Phred) think wage labor is entirely voluntary because, formally--in capitalist society--they are free to sell themselves and free not to. But we are not talking about a capitalist society.

No, we are (according to you) in this section of the thread talking about a Left-Anarchist society. Are you saying that in a Left-Anarchist society people are not permitted to voluntarily exchange services for goods as they are in a Capitalist society? That leads back to Eran's (and my, and everyone else not a Left Anarchist) unanswered question - who will stop them? You keep claiming you won't stop them. Which other members of a Left Anarchist society will stop them, then, if not you?

We therefore have a wholly different paradigm of conditions--and that is what you and Phred have to start to grapple with. Throughout all capitalist history, labor has sold itself to capital because that was it's only option.

"Labor" (whoever she is) doesn't "sell herself" to "capital", but instead exchanges her services for an agreed-upon quantity of goods (or other services, or currency, or shares in the enterprise, or any combination thereof). At worst, she "rents herself", with one of the terms of the rental agreement being she can leave at any time she decides to.

In addition to this, and as Red Barn's post states and as I have stated several times in this thread, no single group controls the resources. They are "Polycentric". Co-ops do not just decide in a vacuum what they are going to produce. They are in dialogue with labor cartels, with communal boards, etc. and production is organized from multiple centers. So this idea that a single person X somehow gains control over the means of production and then starts making all kinds of decisions in a vacuum is simply ignoring the institutional constraints of anarchism that prevent this from happening in the first place (regardless of the socialization of the means of production).

I never had any misconception that some single person in a Left Anarchist society would manage to gain control over all the socialized means of production. But even if some person could accomplish that, it is irrelevant to my example (and to Eran's sandwich maker), since I make pots not with "socialized means of production" but with my own wheel which I built with my own hands and my own kiln which I likewise built with my own hands after "the" means of production had already been "socialized" (whatever that means). My own means of production didn't even exist when all the means of production of those other poor schmucks was being "socialized". Similarly, Eran's sandwich makers make sandwiches not with "socialized means of production" but with a few knives and cutting boards.


Phred

[Paradigm]

What you and Phred are basically asking is this: can person X start up anything and ask for help, and compensate his/her help. The answer is, of course, yes. Why not?

But you and Phred seem to want to go further. You and Phred also assume that this situation necessarily becomes the equivalent to capitalist production, where wage labor (where individuals have nothing except their labor power to sell ) is the natural consequent, while a capitalists profits off of his/her acquired capital.

There is a very clever sleight-of-hand that apologists for capitalism use to defend the wage system: They equivocate between production and exchange. Or to be more precise, they reduce production to exchange. The worker, they say, is just offering their services like any other merchant. But a little reflection reveals this for the ruse it is. None of us think that when we call a plumber, they become our employee. We may shop around for them, but when we select one, we agree to their terms, not vice-versa. We don't own their equipment. We don't accumulate profit from them and then pay them back a fixed portion of it. They may even be employees of a company that does these things, but we are not the ones who have this power over them. In short, capital is not the customer of labor, but its dictator.

[Phred]

There is a very clever sleight-of-hand that apologists for capitalism use to defend the wage system: They equivocate between production and exchange. Or to be more precise, they reduce production to exchange.

Not in the slightest. In a co-operative production endeavor, all parties bring something to the table. Eran has gone into this in great detail in many posts. The financier, the entrepreneur, the manager/director, and the worker all play their roles.

The worker, they say, is just offering their services like any other merchant.

She is.

But a little reflection reveals this for the ruse it is. None of us think that when we call a plumber, they become our employee.

They do become our employees. It's just that the term of employment may vary. In my current job I hire plumbers all the time, sometimes for months.

We may shop around for them, but when we select one, we agree to their terms, not vice-versa.

On the contrary. They agree to my terms. I tell them I can pay X per day and ask them if they will accept that X or not.

We don't own their equipment.

A pipe wrench and a propane torch? Big whoop. I do own the massively more expensive infrastructure they are working on.

We don't accumulate profit from them and then pay them back a fixed portion of it.

Yeah, I do. The amount of pay they get from me is a fraction of the money generated by the project in which the infrastructure they work on is located. And the amount they receive from me is fixed - it has no connection whatsoever to the eventual income generated by the infrastructure (capital, in actual fact) on which they work.

In short, capital is not the customer of labor, but its dictator.

What does that even mean?


Phred