[anticlimacus]

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.

Well put, Paradigm. And this really shouldn't be anything new--Marx was talking about this in painstaking detail in the mid 19th century, and yet we still hear arguments that make the very reduction you mention. Most importantly, the fact that capital becomes the center of the system--the alpha and omega--is simply ignored. What this means, then--and this is why Marx was so important for modern sociology--is that capital is a social power, not just a personal relation between a buyer and seller. It posits a fundamental distinction in society between owners of capital and owners of nothing but labor, between decision makers and order takers, and this hierarchy permeates through all the major decision making institutions of a capitalist society.

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.

And this idea of an equal happy coordination between all the parties has been thoroughly debunked in just as many posts. Nobody here is simply playing out a role in an otherwise benign system of production. These different parties are different positions within social struggle and competition for capital and subsistence. The fact that capital needs labor, does not mean that labor and capital therefore work together. It means that capital goes to any lengths in order to subdue and exploit labor.

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

This is why Paradigm's post was so important. How do you not see that asking your neighbor for help and giving him/her some compensation is not the same thing as living within a socio-economic system that produces wage labor on the one hand and wielders of capital on the other, where capital accumulation is central to production?

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?

Max Weber noted that other societies also had trading, but not like in the West. They did not become capitalist societies. In order for this to occur there needed to be, on the one hand, the organization of formally free labor and on the other hand the private control of capital for the calculated utilization of labor for the production of profit. What then is "free labor"? It is labor that is systematically separated from the means of production, and that is therefore free to sell itself to capital. This is a socio-economic phenomenon, not a private matter of Billy hiring Joe to help build a fence, something that happens in non-capitalist societies just as much as it does in capitalist societies. The fact that I have family members help me move, and I buy them dinner in return does not make them wage labor and me a capitalist. Wage slavery is not a simple matter of exchange. Wage slavery is a a product of the transformation of the mode of production--conditions that put social power, relatively speaking, concentrated with those who own the means of production and fragmented with those who own nothing but their labor power.

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.

In other words we do not create a society where the means of production are socialized...

This is where the fight against capitalism is won: when the current system is revolutionized producing a socialist economy. I think it is foolish to imagine that we try to form a society off a blank slate and assume that all things are equal (when they are not!) and then ask what people want to do. No, we are talking about a society where the means of production are privately controlled and at the expense of the majority of workers. Thus, at the bottom level--i.e. at the level of our communities and working sites--we fight for the socialization of the means of production and democratizing the economy. If we win that battle we have created a socialist system--not ground zero. As far as I understand, you seek the very society we have now, only without government. So you formally say "you are free to associate how you want"--but substantially, only a small few posses the socio-economic power to order society and its relations.

[Phred]

Most importantly, the fact that capital becomes the center of the system--the alpha and omega--is simply ignored.

As it should be. What matters here isn't whether capital "becomes the center of the system" - whatever that means - what matters is will people who want to provide services to Phred the potter or PC the sandwich maker be prevented from doing so. Will they or won't they? Quit dodging the question.

What this means, then--and this is why Marx was so important for modern sociology--is that capital is a social power, not just a personal relation between a buyer and seller.

Capital is not a "social power" - whatever that means - it is merely one essential component of the production process.

A posits a fundamental distinction in society between owners of capital and owners of nothing but labor...

You continue to ignore the obvious fact that we all are born into this world owning nothing but labor (the ability to expend effort on productive endeavors). We all gain goods through the expenditure of productive effort. You will note I wasn't born with my wheel and my kiln, I expended productive effort to produce them. Once I created them I - who once had nothing but my labor - had acquired through peaceful methods "the means of production". Why can't you do the same?

...between decision makers and order takers...

The decision maker and the order taker are the same person at different times of their lives. I took orders when I flipped burgers in order to acquire the materials I needed to build my wheel and kiln. Then I gave orders to the guy who agreed to schlep clay from the riverbank to my ceramic works in exchange for money.

...and this hierarchy permeates through all the major decision making institutions of a capitalist society.

If true, so what? Who cares if a hierarchy exists? That's not what is being asked. What is being asked is - would you forcibly prevent someone who wanted to partake in the hierarchy from doing so? Why don't you answer the question? Eran is right - this is like pulling teeth. Look, we know you have all kinds of weird ideas about class and hierarchy and alienation and domination and exploitation and surplus value and other such oh-so-irrelevant nitpickery. We don't care about any of that because none of those rambling diversions have anything to do with the essential core of what is being asked: will you or won't you prevent that guy (or gal) from schlepping clay from the riverbank to my ceramic works.

And this idea of an equal happy coordination between all the parties has been thoroughly debunked in just as many posts.

Actually, that's just it, it hasn't. Not only has it not been debunked, it hasn't for the most part even been addressed. What is this obsession you Left Anarchists have with emotions? Who cares if I co-ordinate production happily or grumpily? What matters is that it gets co-ordinated. Why don't you answer the question - will you prevent people from co-ordinating the production of pots and jugs and vases at my ceramics factory by forcibly preventing that guy (or gal) from schlepping clay from the riverbank to my receiving dock?

Nobody here is simply playing out a role in an otherwise benign system of production.

Au contraire. The gal (or guy) schlepping clay is playing the role of materials transporter.

These different parties are different positions within social struggle...

Fuck a bunch of social "struggle". The guy is bringing me clay. There's nothing more to it than that. It has nothing to do with any "social struggle". Since he is free at any time to stop bringing me clay and return to doing whatever he was doing before he agreed to bring me clay, under what possible lunatic definition is he "struggling"?

The fact that capital needs labor, does not mean that labor and capital therefore work together.

It means exactly that.

It means that capital goes to any lengths in order to subdue and exploit labor.

Oh give it a rest. How is "labor" (whoever she is) being subdued and exploited when she voluntarily agreed to the arrangement in the first place and is free - at any time - to leave and go back to whatever she was doing before she agreed to that arrangement?

Max Weber blah blah blah blah...

You once again dodged the question. The question was:

"If I ask somebody to help me in exchange for pay, have I created wage slavery or not?"

This is a yes or no question, by the way.

The fact that I have family members help me move, and I buy them dinner in return does not make them wage labor and me a capitalist.

What's your point? Neither I nor Eran care what you want to label it, we just want to know if you will forcibly prevent it from taking place! Why can't you answer a straightforward question? This isn't some cleverly designed trick question, it's as plainly-expressed and straightforward as it is possible to phrase it. Why are you performing this insanely convoluted linguistic kabuki dance in an effort to dodge the question? I don't care if you want to call me a capitalist and the clay schlepper a wage-slave. If it will help you burnish your Lefty street cred and sleep better at night, have at it! Just answer the question.

Wage slavery is not a simple matter of exchange. Wage slavery is a a product of the transformation of the mode of production--conditions that put social power, relatively speaking, concentrated with those who own the means of production and fragmented with those who own nothing but their labor power.

So are you saying that Eran has created wage slavery or not? I can't decode your jargon. Me too stoopid.

In other words we do not create a society where the means of production are socialized...

Wait... whut?

This is where the fight against capitalism is won: when the current system is revolutionized producing a socialist economy. I think it is foolish to imagine that we try to form a society off a blank slate and assume that all things are equal (when they are not!) and then ask what people want to do.

What some people want to do is schlep clay to my ceramic works in exchange for stuff I agree to give them. Will you allow them to do that?

No, we are talking about a society where the means of production are privately controlled and at the expense of the majority of workers. Thus, at the bottom level--i.e. at the level of our communities and working sites--we fight for the socialization of the means of production and democratizing the economy. If we win that battle we have created a socialist system--not ground zero.

So when I create new means of production - a wheel and kiln, let's say, or perhaps a table with some knives and cutting boards, will they be seized from me... oops... "socialized"... or not?


Phred

[anticlimacus]

Phred, I cannot help but to feel like I've addressed half the shit you just posted up there. Take your clay potter question--I answered this a few pages ago the first time you asked it (and, ironically, I just re-posted it for Eran):

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!

I even answered how I took to be the formalization of your question, a couple of posts ago to Eran to which both he and Paradigm have quoted:

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?

I then went on to state the following, which you also have totally ignored:

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).

And yet after all this, after explaining in detail what a libertarian socialist society is you still want to know this:

What is being asked is - would you forcibly prevent someone who wanted to partake in the hierarchy from doing so?

To, which I think, is better phrased as

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.

Now since, where I think you are wanting to go with this is--how can wage labor develop?--my initial answer to this was that it doesn't. The conditions under which wage-labor develop are abolished. But I'll be quite literal with your question and take it up:

If you had a specific factory, say a produce farm, where all the workers unanimously simply wanted to take orders from the manager, this would be possible, but you would still have oversight from other co-ops and communal boards who also work in connection with the produce farm and participate in controlling the means of production. Of course, the manager is not making any profit off of this, and neither does the manager own the means of production. He/she is just calling all the shots without any impute, because (for some reason) this is what everybody wants in that farm. Now this might raise alarms, to others--labor cartels and communal boards--concerning quality, and so they might insist that there be a group who is in charge. But regardless, how does this change things for you? This is still not wage labor, this is still not capitalism, precisely because the means of production are still socialized (this manager does not own them), and all the workers could leave this task without risk of starvation etc. or change the way the job functions if they desired. Now if the question is, can a group who wants to control the means of production all by themselves without any participation from others whom it impacts do this, then the answer is obviously no, the means of production are socially controlled--not just by the work place, but by local communities and in relation to other labor cartels. That would be theft.

So, of course, there is a tremendous amount of flexibility and variety within which the work place can function and in which society can function; but it is not a capitalist society, and none of what I said above makes the farm a capitalist organization. So I suppose I'm confused as to why you ask the question...It seems to me, what you are trying to do is find a way in which capitalism develops in a socialist world, and it's not that you're pulling teeth in trying to get answers. Quite the contrary! You're pulling teeth in trying to make this magical capitalist society spring up where the conditions for it don't exist. And you are consistently so surprised when, after explaining the ideals and organization of this libertarian socialist society, that my answer is not that voluntary association is not allowed, but that voluntary association is no longer capitalist in structure. What about that are you struggling to understand?

[Eran]

In line with the fiction that means of production are nature-given and merely monopolised by force by evil capitalists, your examples refer to existing productive enterprises.

What both Phred and I asked is for you to follow the organic development of productive enterprises, from small-scale, single-person operations, through the gradual addition of both capital and workers.

I am encouraged by the following:

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.

This seems to allow for the voluntary cooperation of entrepreneurs, managers and workers.

My only concern here is with the italicised words.

At what point does personal property (presumably allowed in your system) become "socialised"?

If I use my private knives and cutting boards to make sandwiches, do I lose personal control over them (by virtue of them being deemed "socialised means of production") the moment I invited a worker to help me in exchange for a fixed wage?

What if, from my private money, I purchase an over in which to bake bread? Is it immediately "socialised"? Is it deemed socialised the moment I introduced another voluntary "helper"?

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!

Could it be that our differences are merely semantic?

With the conditions of wage labour having been abolished, an arrangement that looks superficially very much like wage labour (person A agrees to help person B in exchange for a fixed, agreed wage) no longer counts as wage labour!

The conditions of wage labour are still mysterious to me. You refer to them as conditions where individuals have nothing except their labour power to sell. What would individuals have to sell, beyond their labour power, in your society?


And while we are at it, please help me understand the following:
1. Are people entitled to their basic needs even if they refuse to work while being capable of doing so?
2. Are workers guaranteed a job, even if no syndicate wants to allow them to join?
3. On the consumption side, are people forced to join a consumer union, or are they allowed to opt to make their own consumption choices?
4. Would it be allowed, from the starting point of your ideal society, for an individual market (i.e. a market in which both production and consumption are in individual, rather than communal hands) to develop?
5. If not, how would your society legitimately stop it from emerging?
6. If so, is it possible that certain individual producers would become filthy rich? Say a particular artist is very popular and in great demand (Phred's ceramics, for example). It takes Phred only 30 minutes to create a beautiful vase that individuals are willing to pay a week's wage for. Phred, all on his own for now, becomes very wealthy. Kosher?
7. How are syndicates interacting with each other? Say a steel-making syndicates produces a finite quantity of steel. Multiple machine-making syndicates wish to use the steel. Who decides which of those gets how much steel? Is it up to the steel-making syndicate? Or is there an over-arching body with authority to force the steel-making syndicate to provide steel based on this body's choices?
8. Is there, in other words, a market in means of production?

[SolarCross]

Anticlimacus - If the whole world was syndicalist then you may have a point that no capitalist style mode of production could emerge in the first place, but that is an unlikely scenario. Where we are, it is more likely that syndicalists will have to share the world with innumerable other ideologies and likely they won't even have a local majority anywhere. If the monopolism of the state gives way to a more anarchic society then the people of that anarchic society are going to be a hyper-diverse mix of christians, muslims, greens, pirates, voluntaryists, cypherpunks, entrepreneurs, hedonists, fascists, survivalists and all sorts of others. Even within left-leaning ideologists there is a good deal of diversity of opinion on morality, economics and law. While some may subscribe to the belief that the "means of production" should be "socialised" many more will have no opinion on that or be opposed to this idea. The merits of any particular ideology in an anarchic society will come more from its proponent's ability to interact peacefully with the proponents of other ideologies than from its merits in a hypothetical situation where it has no ideological competition. Voluntaryists have something that most people can easily subscribe to which is the NAP. They can easily subscribe to this while being no less a green or a christian or a survivalist or whatever else. How could syndicalists get along with others, I am less sure about. What will you do if no-one or few people will allow you to "socialise" their means of production? What if they call that theft and defend themselves accordingly?

[Phred]

I then went on to state the following, which you also have totally ignored:

"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... blah blah blah"

I have not totally ignored it. I addressed it extensively here - viewtopic.php?p=14211163#p14211163

Now since, where I think you are wanting to go with this is--how can wage labor develop?

That is not where I want to go with it. I want to know if those who wish to provide services in exchange for stuff will be stopped from doing so. You keep saying they won't be stopped. But Left Anarchists are adamant that they will be stopped. I am trying to get you to explain how you can consider yourself a Left Anarchist when you keep insisting you would have no problems allowing my blatantly capitalist ceramics works to operate. Or Mr PC's sandwich shop.

...my initial answer to this was that it doesn't.

Quite clearly it does. Who is my clay schlepper if not a wage laborer?

The conditions under which wage-labor develop are abolished.

No, they weren't. All that happened was that as many of "the means of production" that the Left Anarchists could find and designate as such were stolen from their rightful owners and "socialized". But as Eran and I have repeatedly pointed out, new means of production are constantly being produced. So unless the Left Anarchists engage in ceaseless theft of other people's stuff, the conditions under which wage labor operates continue.

If you had a specific factory, say a produce farm...

Why a produce farm? Why will you not address my ceramics business? Why do you not address Eran's sandwich shop? But just for grins and giggles, let's see what fallacies you're about to unveil about farming...

...where all the workers unanimously simply wanted to take orders from the manager, this would be possible, but you would still have oversight from other co-ops and communal boards who also work in connection with the produce farm and participate in controlling the means of production.

What happens if the owner of the farm rejects the "oversight" and politely informs the co-ops and councils and communal boards that he will run his farm the way he sees fit, thank you very much. Will his farm be seized from him and "socialized"?

Of course, the manager is not making any profit off of this, and neither does the manager own the means of production.

Oh, wait. So when you posit that I have a factory - a produce farm - I don't really have it at all. It isn't my farm, it's the farm of the "People's Council" or whatever and they just allow me to supervise the activities of those working on it. See, this is why Eran and I have to provide our own examples: because the Left's understanding of capitalism is so inadequate they can't even provide an example of capitalist activity.

There is no point my critiquing this any further since it has nothing to do with the hypotheticals Eran and I are seeking your answers on.

Now if the question is, can a group who wants to control the means of production all by themselves without any participation from others whom it impacts do this, then the answer is obviously no, the means of production are socially controlled--not just by the work place, but by local communities and in relation to other labor cartels. That would be theft.

Wait, what? You just finished chastising me for not accepting your protestations that of course in your Left Anarchist world my ceramics business and Mr PC's sandwich shop were safe from your "workers councils" or whatever. Now you tell me they aren't safe at all - that they violate your bizarre ideas of what is just and what is unjust and will therefore be seized by your henchmen.

See, this is why people like Eran and me keep asking the same questions in an attempt to pin down your position - in one breath you say that of course my employees and I are safe from your predations, and in the next breath you say that what we are doing is evil and will not be tolerated. How can you not see that you contradict yourself at every turn? You can't have it both ways, dude - which is it?

It seems to me, what you are trying to do is find a way in which capitalism develops in a socialist world...

I'm not trying to find out how it will re-emerge, I know exactly how it will re-emerge. Through the efforts of potters like myself and sandwich makers like Mr PC.

You're pulling teeth in trying to make this magical capitalist society spring up where the conditions for it don't exist.

I'm not "trying" to make your society into a "capitalist" one. I'm pointing out the obvious truth - that unless someone in your Left-Anarchist society actively suppresses through the application of force the activities of people left free to act in their own perceived self-interest, then people like me and like Mr PC will have no difficulty persuading other people to schlep clay and assemble sandwiches in exchange for stuff I and Mr PC give to them (usually but not necessarily currency). I understand that you believe your Left-Anarchist society will be so wonderful that no one would ever dream of co-operating with me or with Mr PC, but the existence of myself and Eran proves this isn't the case at all - if you could wave a wand and produce your Left-Anarchist society in the blink of an eye, I would still be perfectly willing to make sandwiches for Eran in exchange for sufficient compensation. Maybe not for forty years, but certainly long enough to acquire enough money (or chits or credits or work vouchers or whatever) to buy what I needed to start my ceramics business.

Eran and I have stated repeatedly that it is of no import to us whether most (or even 99%) of the others in your preferred society are content to be bossed around by neighboring co-ops and communal boards and whatever other apparatchiks show up, all that matters to us is whether or not - if we manage to persuade people to schlep clay or assemble sandwiches for us - those people will be forcibly interfered with by you and your cronies.

And you are consistently so surprised when, after explaining the ideals and organization of this libertarian socialist society, that my answer is not that voluntary association is not allowed, but that voluntary association is no longer capitalist in structure.

In what way is my ceramics business not capitalist in structure? In what way is Mr PC's sandwich shop not capitalist in structure?

What about that are you struggling to understand?

I'm struggling to understand how you can fail to see that the ceramics business I describe is quintessentially capitalist in every aspect of its operation.

The reality is that you - like all other Left-Anarchists - would in fact forcibly prevent my employee from schlepping clay in exchange for pay, probably through seizing my wheel and kiln as contraband "means of production" but you are afraid to admit it here in an open forum because the admission blows your cover. So you instead pretend that my business would be tolerated because somehow it isn't really capitalist. Well... I'm calling you on that pretense. It's time for you to show the readers of this thread in which way/s my ceramics business is so different from a textbook capitalist operation that you as a Left-Anarchist will tolerate it.


Phred

[Eran]

Anticlimacus - If the whole world was syndicalist then you may have a point that no capitalist style mode of production could emerge in the first place

I disagree.

What Phred and I are working hard to show is that, in the context of a large and diverse human society, some people may well wish to start private production enterprises which could naturally grow into capitalist-style production (in the sense of ownership and wage, not necessarily in the sense of oppression and "wage slavery").

[SolarCross]

eran - I agree that in a large and diverse human society private enterprise is surely going to exist and will likely be the normal way to do business. The point I was trying to make is that unless the whole world subscribes to the syndicalist vision (which extremely unlikely) then syndicalists are going to have to accept the existence of non-syndicalist modes of production.

[anticlimacus]

In line with the fiction that means of production are nature-given and merely monopolised by force by evil capitalists, your examples refer to existing productive enterprises.

Nobody has ever said this--never in the history of socialist or capitalist thought, and I don't believe on this thread either. I myself have said it could be resources, machinery, tools, etc. The means of production are the resources and instruments that go into production. What makes this different from the cutting knife I use to produce a peanut butter sandwich is that there is nothing economic or social about my use of the knife in this instance. Once my ownership of this knife is used to create a social good that can be used economically, say as in profit, then it becomes a means of production. The means of production are fundamentally social in nature creating social relationships of certain forms, and that is the only reason it is worth talking about.

In capitalist society the means of production produces wage labor--and capitalism has been peculiar in this way. You, Phred, et al. keep referring to these tiny artisans or cottage industries, etc. which neither Marx nor Proudhon nor Bakunin had any problem with. Allow me to once again go right back to the Communist Manifesto and quote it at some length:

The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few...

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's own labor...

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

Or do you mean modern bourgeois private property?

But does wage labor create any property for the laborer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property that exploits labor, and that cannot increase except upon the condition of begetting a new supply of wage labor for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labor.

As you can see, from the above quote, we are talking about a very specific kind of property--a property peculiar to capitalist production which creates, on the one hand capital (the accrual of profit off a sale which then returns to production for the same), and on the other hand wage labor, paid human capital that goes into the capitalist production process. In this way, labor is just another part of the machine that goes into production for profits. The social dynamics created here are important, and they always have been to workers and socialist writers. So Phred's writing off comments about antagonism, conflict, and domination is quite surprising. Anarchism is about acquiring self-determination and overcoming modes of domination that places master on one end, and servant on another. And so in rejecting the capitalist mode of production we are rejecting its social relations, which are of domination and class conflict. This should clear up a bulk of these questions and the rants on the small clay potter examples which are just...well...odd and missing the point entirely.

In Spain, during the various anarchist revolutions there, workers took control of the means of production--the factories, the land they worked, the machinery, etc. All of these resources they worked as paid labor. All of these were social relations that posed class antagonisms between the owners of capital and the owners of nothing but labor--and Phred, labor is not capital until it is put into the production process. We are not really talking about anything too different than this. In abolishing private property, we are abolishing the private ownership the means of production for private gain. This is not the small artisan that subsists without wage labor. What you should be getting out of this, and in particular my quote of Marx--and my reference to Weber a couple of posts back--is that wage labor is not simply a private matter that spontaneously develops out of nowhere. Wage labor is a product of a socio-economic system that produces, on the one hand a class of capitalists and on the other a class of labor, broadly speaking. Random private interactions, between Billy and Joe--entirely voluntary in a substantive sense of the term, not merely formal--is not a capitalist interaction under a capitalist mode of production.

And while we are at it, please help me understand the following:
1. Are people entitled to their basic needs even if they refuse to work while being capable of doing so?
2. Are workers guaranteed a job, even if no syndicate wants to allow them to join?
3. On the consumption side, are people forced to join a consumer union, or are they allowed to opt to make their own consumption choices?
4. Would it be allowed, from the starting point of your ideal society, for an individual market (i.e. a market in which both production and consumption are in individual, rather than communal hands) to develop?
5. If not, how would your society legitimately stop it from emerging?
6. If so, is it possible that certain individual producers would become filthy rich? Say a particular artist is very popular and in great demand (Phred's ceramics, for example). It takes Phred only 30 minutes to create a beautiful vase that individuals are willing to pay a week's wage for. Phred, all on his own for now, becomes very wealthy. Kosher?
7. How are syndicates interacting with each other? Say a steel-making syndicates produces a finite quantity of steel. Multiple machine-making syndicates wish to use the steel. Who decides which of those gets how much steel? Is it up to the steel-making syndicate? Or is there an over-arching body with authority to force the steel-making syndicate to provide steel based on this body's choices?
8. Is there, in other words, a market in means of production?

I'm not quite sure what all these detailed questions have to do with anything. There are many questions that arise in an anarchist society of any stripe, and most of those questions must be dealt with, not in advance by a theorist who has a one-size-fits all plan, but by those in the society themselves. I think most of these questions lead us into tangential issues that are missing the big picture. Anyway, here goes...

1. Yes, but there is a question that remains with what we do with people who do not want to work. But I see no problem with ensuring basic provisions for all.
2. Not quite sure how this is too different from the above. Presumably we do something with both trouble makers and with those incapable of working.
3. I assume we'd have a mix of this, as I explained earlier. Every society rations, whether we do it in a capitalist mode where rationing occurs in a competitive race to the resources and the production of artificial scarcity or in a socialist form where we ration through a mix of planning and allowing for spontaneity.
4. I explained this in length above, but yes. Small artisans as a real viable possibility producing their work for its own sake, as opposed to doing it for economic profit, is actually more realistic in this world.
5. The question you are asking is how do we prevent capitalist relations from developing. Capitalism has never developed from small artisans becoming vast trade empires. It has occurred through generations of primitive accumulation of capital, largely supported and instigated by state force. How we prevent capitalism from developing is by abolishing not only the state, but also private property.
6. There is always a possibility for modes of domination to develop, and those we deal with on a case by case basis. But what I'm not quite sure of is why you have become so convinced that Phred's clay potter example is a killer argument for what you are trying to suggest. For instance, Raphael, a real historic example, had several apprentices who, as Phred would say, "Schlepped" for him. Did this make Raphael a capitalist? This nonenense has to stop . There was a wholly different system of relations between Raphael and his apprentices--who also hoped to be masters. Now I'm not defending that system, but what is just stupefying is how you seem to not be able imagine people working together in a non-capitalist mode!
7. I believe I've addressed this several times, but I'm going to again point to Rudolf Rocker:

Workers in each locality join the unions of their respective trade...The trade unions of a city or a rural district combine in a so-called labour cartel...All the labour cartels are grouped according to districts and regions to form the National Federation of Labour Cartels, which maintain the permanent connection between the local bodies, arrange for free adjustment of the productive labour of the members of the different organizations on co-operative lines, provide for the necessary co-ordination in the work of education, in which the stronger cartels will need to come to aid of the weaker ones, and in general support the local groups with council and guidance. Every trade union, is, moreover, federatively allied with all hte organizations in the same trade throughout the country, and these in turn with all related trades, so that all are combined in general industrial alliances...Anarcho-Syndicalists are convinced that a Socialist economic order cannot be created by the decrees and statutes of a government, but only by the solidaric collaboration of the workers with hand or brain in each special branch of production; that is, through the taking over of the management of all plants by the producers themselves under such form that the separate groups, plants, and branches of industry are independent memebers of the general economic organization and systematically carry on production and the distribution of the products in the interest of the community on the basis of free mutual agreements.

I would only add to Rocker that in addition to labor cartels, there would be community boards of various types that would also relate to labor cartels in for production purposes and distribution, etc. And I would also focus more on producing deliberative democratic practice--But I think this gives a crude outline of what the syndicalist has in mind.

[Red Barn]

That is not where I want to go with it. I want to know if those who wish to provide services in exchange for stuff will be stopped from doing so.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

They won't be stopped from doing anything. You will be automatically stopped from acquiring the leverage that comes from private property, and thus will be unable to "employ" them in a non-democratic enterprise. No force is required here; this is a simple, straightforward function of collective ownership.

Thus:

1.) You own a pottery wheel. Huzzah.

2.) Your pottery empire also needs clay, however, and lots of water. The river from which this clay and water come is collectively owned, and that's the bit that's crucial, because this circumstance, all by itself, forces you to negotiate with every community involved in the network of ownership that determines that river's use. "Collective ownership" means that you can't act without them in a project of appreciable scale, no matter how much you fume and fuss, so you effectively have no choice but to engage in a "socialized" form of production once you require either more resources or more manpower than you yourself can generate without assistance.

Are you with me so far?

We could easily extend this example to include the gallons of color you need to paint your pots, the fuel you need for firing them, and the ginormous factory you want to build on the riverbank. The only way these things could ever come into being in the first place would be by a socialized effort, so the idea that your own private empire could somehow grow up in a vacuum, or be "seized" after the fact, shows a complete misunderstanding of the ideas in play.



Naturally, the dairies that produce the cheese Eran needs for his (ghastly) sandwiches are collectively owned also, as are the strawberries he needs for jam and the wheat he needs for bread. So, again, he's naturally compelled to work within whatever parameters these productive communities decide.

If you and Eran can use your boundless charm to convince the collective owners of these various resources that painted pots and (disgusting) sandwiches are worth their time and effort, they can certainly choose to involve themselves in the production of these things as equals if they feel so inclined. Or not.

You can't force the issue by "buying" a piece of the river because the river's not for sale; it's part of the commons, and that's that. Eran can't "buy" the ground dairy cows graze on, or the patch strawberries grow on, for exactly the same reason. If nobody wants pots and sandwiches produced on a scale that requires collective resources and effort, or if you demand some goofy capitalist form of "private ownership," you are simply shit out of luck. Your outlandish claims don't mean squat in this universe, and your tears will melt no hearts.



And that brings us right around to #3): Suzie Q. Labor, who has no reason at all to take orders from some grouchy old sod with no means of generating "profit" sufficient to tempt her, and no means of forcing her to cooperate out of need.

The only laborers available to you, in fact - or to anyone else, for that matter - are people just like Suzie; that is, workers who are already the owners of the very resources you need to produce anything at all. So if Suzie wants a clay pot or a (revolting) sandwich, and you and Eran want Suzie's help, you and she can trade as equals, but not as master and servant.

You, as an individual, can keep whatever you yourself can produce or trade for, and whatever else you can convince others to voluntarily assist you with. But the fact that resources are collectively held effectively puts the kibosh on your ability to coerce the actions of others.

"No duties without rights, and no rights without duties." It's not that fucking complicated.

The only reason you find Anticlimacus' arguments inconclusive is that you simply don't understand them, and haven't grasped what they ultimately imply. You're envisioning scenarios that might, I'm sure, take place in an Anarcho-Capitalist world, but not in an Anarcho-Syndicalist one.

[Phred]

The means of production are the resources and instruments that go into production.

So not just tools, but the raw materials as well? Okay then, that raises at least one additional question - who will limit my clay schlepper to X pounds of clay per day?

What makes this different from the cutting knife I use to produce a peanut butter sandwich is that there is nothing economic or social about my use of the knife in this instance.

Fuck a whole bunch of "social" What the hell does "social" even mean? What is this obsession you Lefties have with the word "social"?

Look, a knife can be used to produce sandwiches. Are you saying that if it is used to produce sandwiches for me and my family and my friends it is not "the means of production" but as soon as I hand to a non-friend non-relative a sandwich cut by that knife and receive in return, say, a small clay ashtray, then that knife has magically become "the means of production"? See, this is why Left-Anarchism cannot be taken seriously by thinking people. A knife is a knife is a knife.

Once my ownership of this knife is used to create a social good that can be used economically, say as in profit, then it becomes a means of production. The means of production are fundamentally social in nature creating social relationships of certain forms, and that is the only reason it is worth talking about.

My lord, that is what you are saying! So what happens then? Do your minions seize the knife (since all means of production must be "socialized"), or do they seize the sandwiches? Or maybe they seize the ashtray?

You, Phred, et al. keep referring to these tiny artisans or cottage industries, etc. which neither Marx nor Proudhon nor Bakunin had any problem with.

As Eran and I (and centuries of human history) have shown, these cottage industries can tend to expand until they become quite expansive endeavors. MacDonalds started life as a single burger shack. At what point did Marx and Proudhon and Bakunin decide an industry no longer qualified as "cottage" and thus had to be either dismantled by the use of force or seized by the use of force? When there was one employee? Five? Ten?

Allow me to once again go right back to the Communist Manifesto and quote it at some length:

Why can't you explain it in your own words?

As you can see, from the above quote, we are talking about a very specific kind of property...

No, we aren't. You aren't talking about property at all. You are talking about human behavior. You don't object to the knife, you object to how the knife is being used. It's the same knife, it was always the same knife. It's just that if I behave properly (in your lights) by using the knife to prepare food consumed by myself and immediate family, then I will not be aggressed against by your henchmen... errr... your co-op or council or whatever. But if I behave improperly, by persuading someone else to use that same knife and the same bread and same ingredients to prepare for pay food that will eventually be exchanged with strangers for other goods (usually but not always currency), then I am to be forcibly prevented from continuing that behavior.

In this way, labor is just another part of the machine that goes into production for profits.

Well, duh! Production requires labor, whether it is done for profit or as a hobby.

The social dynamics created here are important...

Only to Lefties. No one else gives a damn.

Anarchism is about acquiring self-determination and overcoming modes of domination that places master on one end, and servant on another.

But it is only Lefties who insist on distorting reality and redefining commonly-used words. That's why the rest of us remain so baffled by your jargon - none of it bears any relation to the reality we see around us. When I was an employee, my manager wasn't my "master", nor was I his slave. The owner/s of the business we both worked for weren't our "masters" either. Getting back to the guy I pay to schlep clay - in what possible way can he reasonably be considered a slave? He was free at all times to reject my offer, and once he had accepted it, he remains free to leave at any time.

And so in rejecting the capitalist mode of production we are rejecting its social relations, which are of domination and class conflict.

I don't care if you disapprove of the way my employees (and I) choose to interact with one another, the only thing that matters to me is whether or not you will forcibly prevent us from continuing to interact with each other in a way both of us find entirely acceptable. You keep saying you won't prevent us from doing so, even though our interactions are textbook examples of (to your bizarre way of looking at the world) domination and hierarchy and exploitation and class conflict and struggle and blah blah blah pick your buzzword. This makes you vastly different from Red Barn, who is just itching to prevent us from interacting in this way. So who is the real Left-Anarchist, you or Red Barn?

This should clear up a bulk of these questions and the rants on the small clay potter examples which are just...well...odd and missing the point entirely.

It doesn't clear up a thing, and it is hilarious you believe it does.

In Spain, during the various anarchist revolutions there, workers took control of the means of production--the factories, the land they worked, the machinery, etc.

Translation - they stole stuff from its rightful owners.

All of these resources they worked as paid labor. In abolishing private property, we are abolishing the private ownership the means of production for private gain.

So you say right this minute, but two minutes ago you insisted indignantly you had no interest in seizing my wheel or my kiln or forcibly preventing my clay schlepper from bringing me clay, even though I made it abundantly clear that "the means of production" in my example were being used for my private gain. I repeat, you can't have it both ways. Either I and my employees are to be permitted by you and your ilk to continue to interact as I described in detail or I and my employees are not to be permitted. Which is it? Pick one stance and stick with it.

This is not the small artisan that subsists without wage labor.

I made it very plain that with the introduction of my clay schlepper (and later my salesman and booth-assembler and clay shapers) that I have moved on from being a one-man shop to a textbook example of a capitalist enterprise. You said you had no problem with that. But everything else you write - everything - indicates that you do indeed have a problem with it.

What you should be getting out of this, and in particular my quote of Marx--and my reference to Weber a couple of posts back--is that wage labor is not simply a private matter that spontaneously develops out of nowhere.

Of course it develops out of nowhere, duh! You Lefties believe the most astonishing things, I swear. It's no wonder you come up with the wackiest systems of organizing humans.

Wage labor is a product of a socio-economic system that produces, on the one hand a class of capitalists and on the other a class of labor, broadly speaking.

Let's stop speaking "broadly" and instead speak accurately - wage labor allows humans who own nothing to acquire through peaceful and productive methods, something.

Random private interactions, between Billy and Joe--entirely voluntary in a substantive sense of the term, not merely formal--is not a capitalist interaction under a capitalist mode of production.

Random? No, of course not. But there is nothing random about the interactions I describe (and Eran describes) among the pottery-making and sandwich-making folks in our examples. In each case, the people described are quite obviously engaged in textbook examples of capitalist activity. Yet you continue to insist you have no objection to their behavior and get all huffy that we don't believe you. Then a few lines later you are nattering on like a typical Leftie about domination and alienation and social this and class that and quoting Marx and Weber and referencing Proudhon and Bakunin. Can you not see why we have a difficult time deciding which anticlimacus is the real one?

Capitalism has never developed from small artisans becoming vast trade empires.

Never heard of MacDonalds, I see.

... in the interest of the community on the basis of free mutual agreements.

Please explain to the audience how the agreement between me and my clay schlepper is not a free mutual agreement.



Phred

[Phred]

Jesus Fucking Christ.

They won't be stopped from doing anything. You will be automatically stopped from acquiring the leverage that comes from private property, and thus will be unable to "employ" them in a non-democratic enterprise.

See anticlimacus? Red Barn isn't afraid to reveal the true face of Left-Anarchism - those who freely and peacefully interact with each other according to freely arrived at, mutually agreeable terms will be forcibly stopped. Why are you reluctant to do the same?

Folks, I have to leave you now for some time. I'll address the rest of Red Barn's promotion of aggression against peaceful humans later.


Phred

[Red Barn]

See, Anticlimacus? They don't read a single word we write! (Either that, or they haven't got three functioning brain cells between them. I'll leave that for you to decide.)

Here's the sentence that immediately follows the ones Phred quoted:

No force is required here; this is a simple, straightforward function of collective ownership.

To which Phred replied:

Red Barn isn't afraid to reveal the true face of Left-Anarchism - those who freely and peacefully interact with each other according to freely arrived at, mutually agreeable terms will be forcibly stopped.

Honestly - what is one to make of this nonsense? How can you even have a conversation with people like this?

It's totally hopeless.

[anticlimacus]

Your post was excellent Red Barn, which was consistent with everything I have been saying since the first post in this thread, and I think that is fairly clear. And I wouldn't take too much stock in what Phred is saying--his entire argument is prove that I am really an anarcho-capitalist! However, I think in large part he is just being combative, period. Phred also ignores that I said what amounts to the exact same thing as the quote of yours he provided, and which also makes clear there is no need for direct force, as his capitalist pottery manufacture is institutionally precluded:

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.

or this from several pages ago when Phred first brought up his pottery empire example:

Based on what I have said before, this notion of somebody becoming a quasi-capitalist is no longer possible. Artisans working their shops, possibly and likely in connection with like artisans, all of which depend on the social labor and efforts of the rest of society means that no single person sits above everybody else. There are some shared tasks in each community--perhaps those things that nobody wants to do, so we organize those socially. But by and large our work becomes our vocation , in the sense that it becomes our choice and a meaningful life activity for us that we share with others. In order for this to be possible I contribute to society just as society contributes to me.

Phred, you seem to have this preconceived notion of what anarcho-syndicalism is, and no matter how much anarcho-syndicalist writings tell a different story you will stick to your own. It seems to me the reality is that you simply are not understanding at all what is being said, and are jumping to conclusions in order to fulfill your own (false) preconceived notions of what libertarian socialism is. What I suggest, is that instead of trying to one-up me in an argument, you actually first try and understand what I am talking about.

But you do say this

This makes you vastly different from Red Barn, who is just itching to prevent us from interacting in this way. So who is the real Left-Anarchist, you or Red Barn?

Red Barn and I, so far as I can tell, have not said anything inconsistent with each other--And I think Red Barn would agree with this. You want to read Red Barn as an authoritarian and me as an anarcho-capitalist, but the simple fact of the matter is that you have no idea what either of us are talking about. So my question from a few posts ago still stands:

it's not that voluntary association is not allowed, but that voluntary association is no longer capitalist in structure. What about that are you struggling to understand?

[Red Barn]

Red Barn and I, so far as I can tell, have not said anything inconsistent with each other--And I think Red Barn would agree with this.

Oh, hell, yes - of course.

I was simply trying to illustrate the "principles and positions" you've already described in terms so simple that even the meanest intelligence would be forced to acknowledge them. (Phred's belligerent repetition of the same stupid questions - even after they'd been answered a million times - drove me to it. The sheer cheapness of that particular gambit just bugs me no end.)

I'm starting to get the feeling, though, that no explanation on earth will ever be be simple enough. I think - exactly as you say - that these guys long ago invented an imaginary "Left" to act as a strawman, and that nothing short of a nuclear apocalypse will make them let go of it.

[Phred]

I'll get back to you later, anticlimacus. Red Barn has been waiting patiently for her turn. I just want to point out that your supposed trump card -

"So my question from a few posts ago still stands:"

it's not that voluntary association is not allowed, but that voluntary association is no longer capitalist in structure. What about that are you struggling to understand?

- has not only been addressed, but has an unanswered question still attached to it. I repeat -

In what way is my ceramics business not capitalist in structure? In what way is Mr PC's sandwich shop not capitalist in structure?

I'll get back to the rest of your latest post at some point after I lay a whuppin' on Red Barn.


Phred

[The Clockwork Rat]

Phred.

Go back and re-read the responses. The answers are most certainly there; I have been following this thread for over a fortnight, and Red Barn and anticlimacus have both answered your question in depth and detail.

[Red Barn]

I repeat -

In what way is my ceramics business not capitalist in structure? In what way is Mr PC's sandwich shop not capitalist in structure?

As envisioned by you, they are capitalist in structure, which is exactly why a socialist organization of property would preclude their existing in the first place. This has now been explained to you 14 times.



(I sincerely hope my whuppin is more exciting than this depressing little effort. I could be mending socks right now.)

[Phred]

They won't be stopped from doing anything. You will be automatically stopped from acquiring the leverage that comes from private property, and thus will be unable to "employ" them in a non-democratic enterprise. No force is required here; this is a simple, straightforward function of collective ownership.

Thus:

1.) You own a pottery wheel. Huzzah.

2.) Your pottery empire also needs clay, however, and lots of water. The river from which this clay and water come is collectively owned, and that's the bit that's crucial, because this circumstance, all by itself, forces you to negotiate with every community involved in the network of ownership that determines that river's use. "Collective ownership" means that you can't act without them in a project of appreciable scale, no matter how much you fume and fuss, so you effectively have no choice but to engage in a "socialized" form of production once you require either more resources or more manpower than you yourself can generate without assistance.

Let me make sure I am not misrepresenting your position here -

The enormous clay deposits lining the riverbanks for miles - hundreds of thousands of tons of the stuff - are to be rationed out (by whom, incidentally?) at a few pounds a day to any individual Left-Anarchist who wishes to claim his rightful share of the communal resources. However, the nearby People's Terracotta Roof Tile Production Facility D-48 is allowed tons of the stuff per day - essentially as much as they can process, because at the People's TRTPF D-48 everyone decides democratically how much tile should be produced, of what design, to be dispensed over a democratically determined area at a democratically determined number of tiles per inhabitant (or per acre or per building or whatever... the key point is that the decisions are done democratically) by worker-owner-custodian-managers who are all compensated equally.

And it won't do me any good to pole my barge say twenty miles upriver to where there are no inhabitants at all and no TRTPFs anywhere nearby, and load a few tons of clay onto the barge because, hey... you never know: one day there might be a house built within a mile or two of where I am shovelling .00000001 per cent of the available clay in the area onto a barge. And that house might be one that requires terra cotta tiles for its roof rather than slate or shingle or galvanized sheeting. So, no gathering of clay without the necessary permit from the Peoples Coordinating Council with authority over that stretch of barren wilderness. The instant anyone sees me returning downriver with a big blob of clay, I will be challenged (by whom, actually?) to show my identity card certifying that I am an authorized clay rationer. Or that I work at one of the People's TRTPFs.

What - if anything - am I misrepresenting in my above analysis of the situation?

We could easily extend this example to include the gallons of color you need to paint your pots...

Same as above, except we substitute deposits of sand and iron oxide and copper carbonate, etc. for deposits of clay.

...the fuel you need for firing them...

Same as above, except we substitute deposits of peat or firewood or coal for clay. In each case, anyone spotting me (or anyone else not carrying the proper papers) transporting .0000000001 per cent of the region's chunks of coal or cubic meters of peat or whatever, would report the transgressor to the appropriate authorities (who might those be, by the way?) who would then seize by force the illicitly-appropriated contraband and send it to the nearest People's Coal Fired Electrical Generating Co-Operative or the next district's People's Chemical Refining Facility.

...and the ginormous factory you want to build on the riverbank.

I don't want a ginormous factory. I would be perfectly content to stop expanding at five wheels and ten kilns.

The only way these things could ever come into being in the first place would be by a socialized effort...

This is the answer Left Anarchists always give: we will ride herd on our hive so tightly that no one will ever be allowed to dissent from the orthodoxy without being immediately detected, reported, and chastised.

...so the idea that your own private empire could somehow grow up in a vacuum, or be "seized" after the fact, shows a complete misunderstanding of the ideas in play.

And again the standard answer given by those too unimaginative to see how easily their strictures can be evaded - "You won't succeed because we've thought of everything and have choked off all possible leaks in the system."

Maybe you have. Maybe you haven't. Answer me this -

Would everyone in your Left-Anarchist society be allotted an equal daily (or weekly or whatever) ration of the essentially limitless clay deposits stretching for miles? Obviously the People's TCRTPF would receive a vastly greater ration, but that is beside the point. I want to know about the individuals in the society. Do they all receive an equal allotment of clay? If not, why not?

If you and Eran can use your boundless charm to convince the collective owners of these various resources that painted pots and (disgusting) sandwiches are worth their time and effort, they can certainly choose to involve themselves in the production of these things as equals if they feel so inclined.

Why the italicized part? Will they be allowed (by whom, incidentally?) to involve themselves in the production of these things as unequals? If not, why not?

Eran can't "buy" the ground dairy cows graze on, or the patch strawberries grow on, for exactly the same reason.

But he can collect his daily ration of milk and his daily ration of strawberries, right? The same ration every other member of the Left-Anarchist society is entitled to?

If nobody wants pots and sandwiches produced on a scale that requires collective resources and effort...

Then the venture will fail, just as it would in a non Left-Anarchist society. Yes, we realize that.

...or if you demand some goofy capitalist form of "private ownership," you are simply shit out of luck.

Wait, now. Am I allowed to keep my wheels and kilns or am I not? Is Mr PC allowed to keep his knives and cutting boards or is he not? If we are, and you earlier stated that I am, since my wheels and kilns are no threat to your authority without clay and fuel, then I need not "demand" private ownership of my things, you have conceded it.

The only laborers available to you, in fact - or to anyone else, for that matter - are people just like Suzie; that is, workers who are already the owners of the very resources you need to produce anything at all. So if Suzie wants a clay pot or a (revolting) sandwich, and you and Eran want Suzie's help, you and she can trade as equals, but not as master and servant.

Again, we are equals. I am not her master, nor is she my servant. We are instead both traders. We are trading value for value. She values the money I give her more than the labor she expends, and I value her productive effort more than I value the money I give her.

Ultimately, this is always the last resort of a Left-Anarchist when backed into a corner - re-define the meanings of commonly-used words and claim "victory".

You, as an individual, can keep whatever you yourself can produce or trade for...

Except, apparently, clay. Or milk. Or strawberries.

But the fact that resources...

You mean clay, right? Not my wheels or kilns?

...are collectively held effectively puts the kibosh on your ability to coerce the actions of others.

I don't coerce them, I persuade them. Every one in this thread has protested vociferously that they have no objection to people entering freely into trades with others. Eran and I have gone to great pains to show that our employees are in fact entering freely into trades with us. There is no coercion involved. No force. None. You, on the other hand, will forcibly prevent me from accumulating a tiny fraction of the amount of clay thrown away as waste every day at the giant People's Terra Cotta Roof Tile Production Facility D-48, even though the river is choked with the stuff, because allowing me to acquire that clay is somehow a threat to your society. A threat so grave that force must be employed to counter it.

The only reason you find Anticlimacus' arguments inconclusive is that you simply don't understand them, and haven't grasped what they ultimately imply.

I understand them completely, that's the trouble. As the saying goes, "A Marxist is someone who has read Marx. A Capitalist is someone who understands Marx." Anticlimacus is the one who isn't grasping the implications of what he is saying.

You're envisioning scenarios that might, I'm sure, take place in an Anarcho-Capitalist world, but not in an Anarcho-Syndicalist one.

They will take place in any world, because one universal attribute of humans is the desire to better their position in life.


Phred

[Phred]

Phred.

Go back and re-read the responses. The answers are most certainly there; I have been following this thread for over a fortnight, and Red Barn and anticlimacus have both answered your question in depth and detail.

Actually, no, they haven't.

Every essential component of the dreaded capitalist mode of production is there in my description of my ceramic works -

- The "means of production" is mine, not anyone else's
- I and I alone decide what pieces will be produced and how many of them, I and I alone decide what hours the facility will operate and what days are designated as days off, and I and I alone what prices the pieces will be sold at - thus making me the "master" and the employees the "slaves"
- I and I alone pocket the "surplus value" of the pieces once they are sold, hence I am clearly guilty of the "exploitation" of their labor
- They are clearly "alienated" from their labor - they are performing functions any sufficiently advanced robot could do and at the end of each day they walk home not with any of the exquisite pieces they had a part in producing, but with a handful of soulless currency.

How is this not a textbook example of a capitalist enterprise? What essential aspect of the capitalist mode of production is missing from the scenario? This is a serious question, and whenever I ask it, anticlimacus goes off on some jargon-riddled tangential rant about who knows what. Since he won't answer, maybe you will: what essential part of the capitalist production paradigm is missing here? What must I add to the above list to get all you Lefties to agree that "Yep, by golly, Phred's ceramic works is a capitalist enterprise, all right."


Phred