Means of production; Except anyone in a true free society (not the Statism we have now) anyone can produce value for someone else to buy, asks others to help out (or not)...
In a free society, there are only voluntary exchange of goods and services, not theft, coercion, violence, kidnapping and murder, like (I presume!) you are advocating in form of Socialism/Communism.
Instead of demanding the State to steal for you; Start a commune, labor-owned means of production and so on
>>...not theft, coercion, violence, kidnapping and murder, like (I presume!) you are advocating in form of Socialism/Communism.<<
Why would you presume this? If you had just taken a quick look at the profile of the person you're replying to you would see information that contradicts this presumption. It may or may not make sense to you but it should be a clue to lead you to questions, maybe about some of your own assumptions and adopted narratives.
I mean right there in their pinned toot it explains that they believe in "rejection of both state authority and class distinctions" and "a stateless, classless society where the means of production are collectively owned and managed by the community through direct democracy, voluntary association, and decentralized decision-making."
Maybe don't be so quick to presume, at least if you're actually engaging in good faith.
I try to engage in good faith. And no Socialist/Communist ever have explained how their proposed system can work without State Violence.
Scenario; Community owns means of production. I start making hand-made shoes. Are the tools I create mine, or will they be stolen? At which point does "personal property" (stuff that isn't taken by others) becomes "community property"?
How to enforce that? Coercion? No, then how?
All such details are never mentioned.
@niclas @Radical_EgoCom @passenger
You can keep your tools. But if you're an asshole about it, there will probably be consequences.
Well, at some point those tools might make me wealthier, and you are no longer in the class-less society that you aspire so much.
"being an asshole"; Does providing value, by mutually voluntary exchange of goods and services, to others considered "being an asshole"? Because that is how the vast majority of capitalist enterprise is conducted today.
@niclas @Radical_EgoCom @passenger
I'm not going to indulge your fantasy version of capitalism.
@RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @passenger
The problem isn't that capitalism or communism are good or bad. Both function perfectly fine in small egalitarian situations. The problem is in scale. They scale differently but ultimately result in the same issue of wealth disparity.
Without an answer to "how does this work at scale with evil people throughout the system" the whole discussion is moot.
@shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @passenger
The emergent system that has been named capitalism was always a global system and could never have existed without state and colonialism. It did not scale up from small egalitarian situations, it was forced upon and destroyed such situations.
The problem is that capitalism is bad.
@RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @passenger in some places that happened with capitalism, in some places it happened with communism, in some places it happened with theocracy. The issue isn't in the government type. It's with people who actively *want* to exploit other people for their own personal benefit.
@Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social @shadowsonawall@qoto.org @RD4Anarchy@kolektiva.social @passenger@kolektiva.social communism literally says there has to be no state
it's a stateless, classless society
@graphite @Radical_EgoCom @passenger @RD4Anarchy which is literally impossible in the face of evil people who actively want to exploit other people.
@shadowsonawall @graphite @passenger @RD4Anarchy
It's not literally impossible. There are other means to deal with evil people without a state or centralized authority, like the method of using a decentralized organization.
@Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger @RD4Anarchy oh? How would you deal with evil people without a state?
@shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger
State has never been about dealing with "evil people". State has always been a tool of exploitation and control by a ruling elite. Your question makes no sense.
@RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger we agree that there are evil people? How do you handle them in a system that scales past neighbors?
@shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger
Why does there have to be *a system* that scales past neighbors?
"Evil people" was your characterization, I don't usually think in those terms. But for sure there will be some assholes. I believe there would be far fewer assholes if we were liberated from capitalism, but there would still be some, sure.
Anyway, I could point you to various techniques societies have used for millennia but I don't have the patience to listen to bad faith bullshit about me wanting us to go back to hunter-gatherer days.
@RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger I'm not trying to act in bad faith. I'm trying to help you understand the limits of what you are advocating for. We don't have to continue the discussion but if you do think about it further understand that evil isn't always about the environment/system people are in. There are a ton of people who are naturally selfish, plenty who naturally believe they are superior to others. That's a reality of our tribal biology and it has played out throughout history under every yet conceived economic system to one end: people crushing other people for their own benefit.
@shadowsonawall @RD4Anarchy @graphite @passenger
I don't think you're understanding just how much influence a person's environment has on their behavior, because for most people it's far more than their biological makeup. As for the few people won't be changed from a new environment, everyone else will, and won't put up with the negative behavior of those who don't.
@Radical_EgoCom @RD4Anarchy @graphite @passenger I believe the tension is about how prevalent evil/selfishness is in the human experience. I can respect that you believe it is small relative to the whole. I disagree. I'll leave you with one last thought: do you believe that this type of system is unique to today's imagination? If not, why did it fail in the past? How could we prevent it from failing in similar ways going forward?
@shadowsonawall @RD4Anarchy @graphite @passenger
Communist experiments failed in the past due to the particular method people used to try and achieve Communism, that being the use of the state which, in every case, caused the restoration of the state and class society. The way to prevent similar failures in the future is to have an immediate transition into Communism instead of creating a transitional state.
@Radical_EgoCom @RD4Anarchy @graphite @passenger Let's say that the issue is in transition, how would one transition to an ideal Communist society "immediately" and without some kind of transition?
@shadowsonawall @RD4Anarchy @graphite @passenger
People would have to first create decentralized, non-hierarchal organizations that are united under the platform of Anarcho-Communism before the abolishion of the state happens, along with extreme and constant propaganda and education among the working class in order to both garter support for their cause and make people educated and capable enough to actually create, manage, and function within a Communist society once it is made.
@Radical_EgoCom @RD4Anarchy @graphite @passenger I wish you, all of us, luck with that transition strategy.
@Radical_EgoCom @shadowsonawall @RD4Anarchy @graphite @passenger it is also difficult to not be an organized state when other mentalities are battling you for your ideas...
@shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger
"Tribal biology"? WTF is that?
I don't need your "help", thanks.
You're welcome to have a look at this thread I compiled that could help with your tainted understanding of human history and pre-history, otherwise I don't have anything else to say to you:
@passenger @graphite @Radical_EgoCom @RD4Anarchy @shadowsonawall
As always, throwing around words like “tribal” is usually a good sign that the speaker is unfamiliar with people in actual tribal societies.
@RD4Anarchy @shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger except the reality is that there was warfare and slavery.
@CatDragon @shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger
Really? There was? OMG I have to rethink everything why didn't someone tell me this sooner 🙄
@RD4Anarchy @CatDragon @shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger in between rolling your eyes you could think on how leadership and capitalism evolved as a result of warfare.
@CatDragon @shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger
Can we cut to the chase and you go ahead and tell me what I should be concluding from thinking on those things?
@RD4Anarchy @CatDragon @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger If I had a good conclusion, I'd have been pushing that from the beginning. You seem to be passionate about this problem space. That's amazing, humanity could use as many smart passionate people thinking about these problems as possible. Your efforts are entirely wasted, however, if you don't take into consideration the darker side of humanity. We as a species don't have a history of war and brutality on accident. The uncomfortable, arguably evil, tendencies of our species need to be accounted for in any successful socioeconomic solution. In particular, the tendency for individuals to take what they want because they can. This shows up as corruption, war, famine, even interpersonal abuse.
@shadowsonawall @RD4Anarchy @CatDragon @Radical_EgoCom @graphite
Yes, which is - as I said before - why it's necessary to not have power lying around for harmful people to grab.
People like Putin, Trump, Biden, Netanyahu, Kim, Modi, Erdogan, Orban, Milosevic, and many others: there will always be such people, and they will always try to reach the highest office they can in order to do as much harm as they can. You may notice that all attempts to reserve office to only nice people have failed. Even New Zealand recently elected a white supremacist young-Earth creationist.
This being the case, giving power to such offices is like leaving a loaded gun around in a childrens' creche for the kids to play with, and saying "but sometimes there are nice people elected too" is like pointing to the days when a kid doesn't shoot another kid by mistake and saying that the gun may be fine.
Relying on people to help one another in the absence of a state isn't naive: yes, it's less effective at constructing roads, but it also results in fewer taxpayer-sponsored bombs being used to murder children of the wrong skin colour. Many people happen to think that the latter is important.
@passenger @RD4Anarchy @CatDragon @Radical_EgoCom @graphite I will admit, I do not understand how you can "not have power lying around for harmful people to grab" and resist the powerful people who are going to take the things you do have.
@shadowsonawall @RD4Anarchy @CatDragon @Radical_EgoCom @graphite
That's a good question. There's a whole school of philosophy that studies that exact question. You may have heard of it.
Here's a list of introductory materials on the topic:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchy101/comments/v26nlh/essential_reading_list_for_beginners/
Once you've read your way through that, if you have any further questions, let us know and we can recommend you some more specific texts.
@passenger @RD4Anarchy @CatDragon @Radical_EgoCom @graphite I suppose more directly: how do you convince Putin to cede his power and allow his legacy (his perception of it, the only reality that matters in this instance) to be dismantled as the state ceases to exist? Without that answer, things like Ukraine will continue to happen indefinitely. So long as things like Ukraine continue to happen, people will want protection. So long as people want protection, others will be given power to protect them. And then we have power to abuse.
@shadowsonawall @CatDragon @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger
Taking "the darker side of humanity" into consideration is exactly why I am a student of anarchism and why I have come to oppose states and rule of law.
@shadowsonawall @RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @graphite
I shall point out, respectfully, that the question "how would we deal with harmful people if we didn't have a state?" hasn't really been the most urgent question during my lifetime.
The more urgent question is "how do we deal with harmful people when they are either in control of the state and use it to their harmful ends, or else the state protects them from others while doing nothing to prevent their harmful actions?"
I'm not worried about the mugger who's hiding from the cops. I'm worried about the cops who are hunting down women who need abortions. That seems to be the more salient point.
@passenger @RD4Anarchy @shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @graphite
Of course everyone is naturally selfish. Everyone is also naturally pro social. Neither of these facts contradicts each other or predetermined a particular social outcome.
@HeavenlyPossum @passenger @RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @graphite I totally agree: we are all both selfish and egalitarian. Egalitarian when it comes to "our family" (loosely defined), selfish when it comes to those outside it. The result of those pressures is well, history. And it's not particularly pretty :(
If people were only prosocially egalitarian among their own families, humans would have gone extinct 300,000 years ago. We are obligate social animals, and humans have built countless societies in which members are—for quite self-serving reasons—cooperative and egalitarian.
@HeavenlyPossum @passenger @RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @graphite 'family' may have been the wrong word, apologies. Tribes, maybe? Think of the hardcore MAGA crowd in the united states. They are a tribe acting selfishly and for their own benefit, crushing any who stand in the way of that. They are also comfortable cutting anyone out of the tribe should that individual act against the dictated presets of the tribe. This is human, this is an actionable transition. I personally don't like where it's going but it is the kind of mechanism I was thinking of.
Odds are that you already perform communism in your daily life with total strangers.
@HeavenlyPossum @RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger
@happycoyote12
No doubt I probably do perform communism in my daily life with total strangers but, and apologies Coyote (he has a reply asking for personal funding if you are interested), I won't be in what is a critical need from a stranger. I have to live with my own selfishness, distasteful as it may be, as I try to make decisions that will most benefit me and my own. Offensive as it may be personally, though a hell of a mic drop Coyote, "the poor will always be among us" is a reality we must all navigate.
> “I won't be in what is a critical need from a stranger.”
We are constantly in critical need from strangers.
> “I have to live with my own selfishness, distasteful as it may be, as I try to make decisions that will most benefit me and my own.”
Why would communism be incompatible with your selfishness?
> “" the poor will always be among us" is a reality we must all navigate.
Poverty is a social relationship, not material deprivation, and is in no sense universal or permanent.
@RD4Anarchy @passenger @graphite @happycoyote12 @Radical_EgoCom
@HeavenlyPossum
"Why would communism be incompatible with your selfishness?"
> Because I am a vile creature and am willing to let others suffer when doing so increases the likelihood that myself and those I care about, in an intimate personal sense, will not.
"Poverty is a social relationship, not material deprivation, and is in no sense universal or permanent."
> But acutely present and not something I've yet heard a way to actually deal with, given that I'm not particularly unique in the above.
@RD4Anarchy @passenger @graphite @happycoyote12 @Radical_EgoCom
> “Because I am a vile creature and am willing to let others suffer when doing so increases the likelihood that myself and those I care about, in an intimate personal sense, will not.”
Why is this incompatible with communism?
@passenger
@RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @happycoyote12 @graphite
@HeavenlyPossum @shadowsonawall @passenger @RD4Anarchy @happycoyote12 @graphite
Because Communism is built off of mutual aid, solidarity, and voluntary cooperation. Someone who is so selfish that they choose not to help those who aren't in their immediate circle of friends or loved ones would be very out of place in a Communist society, one where helping those who you may not know or benefit from in any way will likely be a regular occurrence.
@shadowsonawall @HeavenlyPossum @RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @graphite @passenger Respected Shadow. If you do read my GoFundMe just maybe I might be less of a total stranger. Poverty? That's baked into Capitalism. Nothing goes to those above less it comes from those below. Debt is a pyramid scheme. But, thanks for the mention. Aristotle spoke of shadows on the wall that eventually morphed into The Matrix, yes?
@Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social @shadowsonawall@qoto.org @passenger@kolektiva.social @RD4Anarchy@kolektiva.social Fascists (or any politician for that matter): "I'll pretend I didn't read that"
It's not as if states don't enable evil people.
Many of the most evil people were heads of state and others use their corporate power to get protection from the state against their workers and the general public.
@shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @passenger
Capitalism arose from already existing wealth disparity, it could not have been any other way. It was created and spread precisely by "people who actively *want* to exploit other people for their own personal benefit."
Yes, such people are an issue, that is why capitalism is so problematic: because it is designed to systematically support, encourage and even create such people.
@RD4Anarchy @shadowsonawall @Radical_EgoCom @passenger It's strange that defenders of capitalism so often ignore what's right in the name they're using.
Capitalism is a social structure for accumulating capital. It's about capital. Capital is accumulated by exploiting resources to convert them into capital. Accumulating capital is the problem.
@foolishowl @RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @passenger I think you misinterpret what I mean: I dislike all the systems we've spoken about. I'd love to hear an alternative. But the alternative has to work in the face of reality.
@shadowsonawall @RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @passenger Looking back upthread, I may have misread you a bit.
Earlier you were talking about scaling problems. To some extent this is true.
Some folks will use a metaphor about rhizomes, the networks of fungi that spread below the surface almost unseen until the fruiting bodies emerge. The idea is that we don't have a centrally enforced utopian scheme, but that we organize locally in overlapping horizontal networks.
@foolishowl @RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @passenger I truly do love the idea. I believe that is exactly what the early christians attempted to do. Without changing the playbook, I fear the strategy will face a similar fate.
@shadowsonawall @RD4Anarchy @Radical_EgoCom @passenger The early history of Christianity really is interesting in this respect. I do remember reading a brief discussion of the early monastic movement and thinking that it showed that you didn't need industrial production in order to have egalitarian communities.
@shadowsonawall @RD4Anarchy @passenger
This never happened with Communism. I assume you're referring to countries like the Soviet Union, which did not achieve Communism in it's existence, nor did any of the other similar countries. The Soviet Unions' economy in particular was state capitalist with a strong Socialist leaning, but it wasn't Communist.