Ask an Anarchist

[Traitorfish]

I think there really would be chaos without some form of property ownership.

Probably. There's always chaos. Humans are good at chaos. What I hope is that there would be less chaos, less harmful chaos, and less enduring chaos. It's the common sense of this post-Fordist age that the decentralised, flexible organisation adapts to changing situations more effectively than the creaking, centralised behemoth: I propose taking that logic to its most logical conclusion. I propose that everything is up for negotiation, that everything is liable to be redefined, that the needs of the present always and absolutely outweigh the tectonic authority of the past.

I don't think that you're actually telling me, here, that property is order, and its absence chaos. You're telling me that property is one institution by which order is negotiated from chaos, and that it's the one you prefer. But you can't tell me that it's the only such institution. On a purely empirical level, that's just not tenable.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

Why would anybody participate? Even if you could sustain a complex capitalist economy on barter, and you can't, that's like Adam Smith 101, if goods are held in common, people aren't to gain anything from bartering them back and forth. It would be a waste of time. The only things that people could barter for are items of deliberately contrived scarcity, like art pieces or maybe trading cards of some sort, things that people allow to be scarce because they enjoy the fact of scarcity, nothing you could built an economy around.

People would be sick of the chaos that comes from the absence of property. A barter system would probably develop first and then the people would be inconvenienced by that and hopefully go to Capitalism (though someone might try to enforce slavery, Feudalism, Socialism, or any number of non-Capitalist systems).

So don't take it?

That's assuming I care about other people.

Let's use another example. I walk into the Louvre and decide that I could improve upon the art there. So I get a can of spray-paint and go to work on the museum's art. What happens to me?

 

[Traitorfish]

People would be sick of the chaos that comes from the absence of property. A barter system would probably develop first and then the people would be inconvenienced by that and hopefully go to Capitalism (though someone might try to enforce slavery, Feudalism, Socialism, or any number of non-Capitalist systems).

I do not believe that people would be sick of the chaos that comes from the absence of property. I believe they would prefer it, because it's a chaos in which they would have a hand, and if there must be chaos, it's better a chaos against which you have some measure of control, rather than a chaos that towers above you, its only humane face the politicians who instruct you on the virtues of you abject powerlessness.

The development of a barter system seems unlikely, because no such thing has ever been observed to occur independently of an existing system of values. They always assume some medium of exchange: nobody ever trades a pig for two chickens, they trade a bushel of grain's worth of pig for a bushel of grain's worth of chicken. Look at the way cigarettes stand in for money in prisons, so that even if prisoners are trading non-cigarette goods, they're traded by their cigarette-value. Dollars and pounds are simply the most abstract version of these mediums of exchange. There's always an existing market, somewhere, to which the exchange refers, so without such a market, how could a barter system emerge? There's simply no reference point.

I also don't believe that somebody could just start "enforcing" a whole social system, because that isn't how social systems work. Social systems are vast, collaborative efforts, they come with. They're not just something that you inflict on people with a cudgel. Even the great European empires couldn't manage that, they always spent centuries gradually rearranging local social relations (which they'd often got themselves deeply wrapped up in) before they could look at their colonies and see anything much like European capitalism. And I certainly don't see why anybody else, starting from this position of equality, would want to help them create such a system.

That's assuming I care about other people.

Let's use another example. I walk into the Louvre and decide that I could improve upon the art there. So I get a can of spray-paint and go to work on the museum's art. What happens to me?

In part I assume that you care about other people (misguided, I know), but more important is the assumption that the threat of social ostracisation outweighs the immediate gratification of taking the car or spraying painting the Mona Lisa. It assumes that you have some investment in this society working and you being a part of that, and perhaps that's not the case, but I would tend to imagine that we would have figured this out before it got to the point you were engaging in this sort of semi-random anti-social behaviour. The examples you give are not the behaviour of normal, even self-interest people presented with the situation I propose. They are the behaviour of violently deranged people, and there are not so many of them that I think we should have to build our entire social order around them.

 

[Agent327]

The development of a barter system seems unlikely, because no such thing has ever been observed to occur independently of an existing system of values. They always assume some medium of exchange: nobody ever trades a pig for two chickens, they trade a bushel of grain's worth of pig for a bushel of grain's worth of chicken. Look at the way cigarettes stand in for money in prisons, so that even if prisoners are trading non-cigarette goods, they're traded by their cigarette-value. Dollars and pounds are simply the most abstract version of these mediums of exchange. There's always an existing market, somewhere, to which the exchange refers, so without such a market, how could a barter system emerge? There's simply no reference point.

A barter system is a market, it just has no money as currency. From what you are saying one should conclude there never could have been a barter system, whereas prior to the invention of actual currency everything was bartered.

 

[Mouthwash]

1. How would I feel in an anarchist society, from day-to-day? When I get up out of bed in the morning, or eat out? Will civil servants start caring?

2. Does the relative wealth, or geopolitical position of a society have any bearing on the success of anarchism? Surely it wouldn't be the same in Bangladesh and California.

Also, quick comments on Traitor's post:

I do not believe that people would be sick of the chaos that comes from the absence of property. I believe they would prefer it, because it's a chaos in which they would have a hand, and if there must be chaos, it's better a chaos against which you have some measure of control, rather than a chaos that towers above you, its only humane face the politicians who instruct you on the virtues of you abject powerlessness.

The development of a barter system seems unlikely, because no such thing has ever been observed to occur independently of an existing system of values. They always assume some medium of exchange: nobody ever trades a pig for two chickens, they trade a bushel of grain's worth of pig for a bushel of grain's worth of chicken. Look at the way cigarettes stand in for money in prisons, so that even if prisoners are trading non-cigarette goods, they're traded by their cigarette-value. Dollars and pounds are simply the most abstract version of these mediums of exchange. There's always an existing market, somewhere, to which the exchange refers, so without such a market, how could a barter system emerge? There's simply no reference point.

Why isn't the appropriate conclusion to draw from this that the market is natural? Of course barter isn't going to develop without a medium of exchange. It isn't possible to make calculations based on everything vs everything.

In part I assume that you care about other people (misguided, I know), but more important is the assumption that the threat of social ostracisation outweighs the immediate gratification of taking the car or spraying painting the Mona Lisa. It assumes that you have some investment in this society working and you being a part of that, and perhaps that's not the case, but I would tend to imagine that we would have figured this out before it got to the point you were engaging in this sort of semi-random anti-social behaviour. The examples you give are not the behaviour of normal, even self-interest people presented with the situation I propose. They are the behaviour of violently deranged people, and there are not so many of them that I think we should have to build our entire social order around them.

But there are always going to be anti-social people. The Louvre is a massive public building, known internationally and with cultural relevance. What alternative is there to coercion?

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

I do not believe that people would be sick of the chaos that comes from the absence of property. I believe they would prefer it, because it's a chaos in which they would have a hand, and if there must be chaos, it's better a chaos against which you have some measure of control, rather than a chaos that towers above you, its only humane face the politicians who instruct you on the virtues of you abject powerlessness.

The development of a barter system seems unlikely, because no such thing has ever been observed to occur independently of an existing system of values. They always assume some medium of exchange: nobody ever trades a pig for two chickens, they trade a bushel of grain's worth of pig for a bushel of grain's worth of chicken. Look at the way cigarettes stand in for money in prisons, so that even if prisoners are trading non-cigarette goods, they're traded by their cigarette-value. Dollars and pounds are simply the most abstract version of these mediums of exchange. There's always an existing market, somewhere, to which the exchange refers, so without such a market, how could a barter system emerge? There's simply no reference point.

A barter system wouldn't last long, it would be (hopefully) replaced by Capitalism.

I also don't believe that somebody could just start "enforcing" a whole social system, because that isn't how social systems work. Social systems are vast, collaborative efforts, they come with. They're not just something that you inflict on people with a cudgel. Even the great European empires couldn't manage that, they always spent centuries gradually rearranging local social relations (which they'd often got themselves deeply wrapped up in) before they could look at their colonies and see anything much like European capitalism. And I certainly don't see why anybody else, starting from this position of equality, would want to help them create such a system.

People would be tired of people abusing the system of no property in the examples I gave. People would then agree that private property is something to be accepted.

In part I assume that you care about other people (misguided, I know), but more important is the assumption that the threat of social ostracisation outweighs the immediate gratification of taking the car or spraying painting the Mona Lisa. It assumes that you have some investment in this society working and you being a part of that, and perhaps that's not the case, but I would tend to imagine that we would have figured this out before it got to the point you were engaging in this sort of semi-random anti-social behaviour. The examples you give are not the behaviour of normal, even self-interest people presented with the situation I propose. They are the behaviour of violently deranged people, and there are not so many of them that I think we should have to build our entire social order around them.

What if it's not someone who is deranged? What if it's a prank? At the college I go to some Fraternities force pledges (people joining the fraternities) to steal signs. Vandals would probably thrive in this society because everything is owned by everyone.

Also, how would murder or rape be dealt with in an Anarcho-Communist society?

 

[RFC_Viceroy]

Also, how would murder or rape be dealt with in an Anarcho-Communist society?

If everything is "collective property" than logically they cannot be dealt with.

 

[Traitorfish]

A barter system is a market, it just has no money as currency. From what you are saying one should conclude there never could have been a barter system, whereas prior to the invention of actual currency everything was bartered.

That isn't true, though. There's no evidence for it. It's something that Adam Smith made up, and classical and neoclassical economists have parroted ever since, but it's never actually been borne out empirically.

1. How would I feel in an anarchist society, from day-to-day? When I get up out of bed in the morning, or eat out? Will civil servants start caring?

Prolly depends on a bunch of stuff. Brain chemistry, mattress quality, stuff like that. Can't generalise. People are too complicated; that's part of the point of all this, allowing them to be complicated, which neither the state nor capital are particularly willing or able to do.

2. Does the relative wealth, or geopolitical position of a society have any bearing on the success of anarchism? Surely it wouldn't be the same in Bangladesh and California.

Yeah, probably, but not necessarily any direct correlation. Depends on how it all plays out, and we can't really generalise about that. "Wealth" doesn't exist outside of a social context.

Why isn't the appropriate conclusion to draw from this that the market is natural? Of course barter isn't going to develop without a medium of exchange. It isn't possible to make calculations based on everything vs everything.

Well, why would it be appropriate? You can't ask me to prove a negative.

But there are always going to be anti-social people. The Louvre is a massive public building, known internationally and with cultural relevance. What alternative is there to coercion?

Well, as I suggested in the post, ostracisation can be as effective a means of prohibiting anti-social behaviour as coercion. The state and capital aren't very good at it, for a bunch of reasons, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work. There might also be positive incentives to behave well, basically in the form of the accumulation of trust and good-will, which in a society without state or money would be very important. In stateless societies, or for that matter between individuals, violence is usually seen as a last resort, reserved when social relations threaten to come apart, rather than the condition of social relations in the first place. The state precedes Hobbesianism, not the other way around.

A barter system wouldn't last long, it would be (hopefully) replaced by Capitalism.

I'm no longer sure how you're using either of those terms, but I've already explained why I don't think that would happen, and as this is the "Ask an Anarchist" thread and I am the designated anarchist, we can consider that a final ruling. That might seem a cop-out, but as I've said repeatedly in this thread, the point here is to enquire of anarchists, not to debate with them.

People would be tired of people abusing the system of no property in the examples I gave. People would then agree that private property is something to be accepted.

I disagree, and again I'm going to have to call that a final ruling.

What if it's not someone who is deranged? What if it's a prank? At the college I go to some Fraternities force pledges (people joining the fraternities) to steal signs. Vandals would probably thrive in this society because everything is owned by everyone.

I'd contend that anyone who gains joy from this sort of behaviour is by definition deranged. I certainly wouldn't cite frat bros as an example of normal human beings operating in a healthy social and cultural context.

Also, how would murder or rape be dealt with in an Anarcho-Communist society?

I don't know. "Murder" and "rape" are very general categories, too general to prescribe universal remedies. That's state-thinking, the idea that people can be reduced down to uniform cogs, that even extreme anti-social behaviour can be incorporated into the workings of the system like any other routine occurrence. Entirely contrary to the most basic premises I'm advancing, here. All I can say is that people would have to deal with it by whatever means seem appropriate.

If everything is "collective property" than logically they cannot be dealt with.

You are not designated in the OP as a question-answerer and have no special expertise (or, evidently, insight) on this topic, so please refrain from answering question.

 

[Ajidica]

How would an anarchist society handle large-scale projects, such as space exploration?

 

[RFC_Viceroy]

I'm no longer sure how you're using either of those terms, but I've already explained why I don't think that would happen, and as this is the "Ask an Anarchist" thread and I am the designated anarchist, we can consider that a final ruling. That might seem a cop-out, but as I've said repeatedly in this thread, the point here is to enquire of anarchists, not to debate with them.

Perhaps the thread should be changed to "ask an anarcho-communist" or something like that, in that case, as there are a whole bunch of anarchists (anarcho-capitalists) who would disagree with you on this.

 

[Tahuti]

Perhaps the thread should be changed to "ask an anarcho-communist" or something like that, in that case, as there are a whole bunch of anarchists (anarcho-capitalists) who would disagree with you on this.

amadeus is one of the panellists and is an ancap as well.

 

[RFC_Viceroy]

amadeus is one of the panellists and is an ancap as well.

Interesting. Is there a particular reason I can't answer questions here? Sorry, I am still new here.

 

[Tahuti]

I'd say you should ask. I think your anarchist credentials are fairly obvious and that they won't object to you becoming a panellist.

 

[Mouthwash]

Yeah, probably, but not necessarily any direct correlation. Depends on how it all plays out, and we can't really generalise about that. "Wealth" doesn't exist outside of a social context.

The difference between a suburb overlooking Silicon Valley and mud huts in Dhaka isn't 'social.' There are different opportunities, different means of power, both for states and other actors.

Well, why would it be appropriate? You can't ask me to prove a negative.

Does an anarchist society not require some medium of exchange?

I don't know. "Murder" and "rape" are very general categories, too general to prescribe universal remedies. That's state-thinking, the idea that people can be reduced down to uniform cogs, that even extreme anti-social behaviour can be incorporated into the workings of the system like any other routine occurrence. Entirely contrary to the most basic premises I'm advancing, here. All I can say is that people would have to deal with it by whatever means seem appropriate.

Including coercion, correct?

 

[RFC_Viceroy]

I'd say you should ask. I think your anarchist credentials are fairly obvious and that they won't object to you becoming a panellist.

Who should I ask?

 

[Old Hippy]

Who should I ask?

I'd say PM Traitorfish, (often )

 

[Takhisis]

*Whom

 

[Hygro]

Probably. There's always chaos. Humans are good at chaos. What I hope is that there would be less chaos, less harmful chaos, and less enduring chaos. It's the common sense of this post-Fordist age that the decentralised, flexible organisation adapts to changing situations more effectively than the creaking, centralised behemoth: I propose taking that logic to its most logical conclusion. I propose that everything is up for negotiation, that everything is liable to be redefined, that the needs of the present always and absolutely outweigh the tectonic authority of the past.

I don't think that you're actually telling me, here, that property is order, and its absence chaos. You're telling me that property is one institution by which order is negotiated from chaos, and that it's the one you prefer. But you can't tell me that it's the only such institution. On a purely empirical level, that's just not tenable.

Dude this post, I was like, you're on fire right now.

Let's use another example. I walk into the Louvre and decide that I could improve upon the art there. So I get a can of spray-paint and go to work on the museum's art. What happens to me?

There's a lot of graffiti where I live. Graffiti artists pretty well always respect other art. There are old pieces in places that get, tagged, tagged, retagged, detagged, and tagged again, but the old pieces are recognized by the individuals as deserving to stay. Reverence is a powerful thing.

A barter system is a market, it just has no money as currency. From what you are saying one should conclude there never could have been a barter system, whereas prior to the invention of actual currency everything was bartered.

Societies that invented money were already using numerical credit. Prior to credit there were other forms of non-barter economies. There aren't any examples I know of of barter based market economies that didn't grow out of money based economies first.

 

[Tahuti]

Who should I ask?

Traitorfish, amadeus or ParkCungHee.

 

[Traitorfish]

Interesting. Is there a particular reason I can't answer questions here? Sorry, I am still new here.

Without meaning to sound snobbish, the simple answer is credibility. We've tried to avoid this thread becoming about either debate or grand-standing, which in the past seems to have been the result of an over-liberal policy on designating answerers. We want to explain rather than simply assert anarchist positions, and where possible to pull out all the messy complexities, ambiguities and points of tension within anarchist thought and practice, so it requires a certain demonstrated familiarity with these issues.

The difference between a suburb overlooking Silicon Valley and mud huts in Dhaka isn't 'social.' There are different opportunities, different means of power, both for states and other actors.

That's what I mean by "social context". An anarchist movement is a movement towards a reorganisation of how society works, so it depends on the social context you're starting with: on how power and resources are distributed, on the prevailing power relations, on the nature of work and workplace structures, and so on. You seem to be implying that anarchism requires a certain base-line of material development, and that's the classical Marxist view, but right now one of the largest experiment in self-government is occurring among some of the poorest peoples of the Western hemisphere, in the autonomous Zapatista communities of Chiapas, Mexico. We're also seeing the emergence of self-governing communities in Syrian Kurdistan, which is a better plusher than mud huts but isn't quite Silicon Valley.

Does an anarchist society not require some medium of exchange?

Possibly, but not one that I would imagine transferring to a barter-system. To the extent that a stateless society adopts some sort of market or market-like mechanisms for large-scale problems (and it might; calculation problems are unfortunately A Thing), I think this would all be built around negotiation and trust, so any "currency", if that's even the word, would be about keeping a public account. It would be a matter of keeping reciprocal systems of behaviour transparent and roughly equitable, and if it stopped functioning as such, became a means of exercising power, then people could simply cease to recognise it, because it would after all exist only through consensus and not through the authority of any state. That wouldn't transfer to private bartering in any systematic way, even if we can imagine single off-the-books exchanges, because if it isn't functioning as part of a system of public account, it doesn't mean anything. (Further, I imagine that such a system would largely exist between communities or sectional organisations of some size- call them syndics, if you wanna get The Dispossessed-y about it- rather than between individuals, who I don't imagine would have cause to trade with each other in any routine fashion. And what use would it be organisations like this to engage in a barter-system?)

There's a certain kind of anarchist that gets a bit too enthusiastic about bitcoin, but that might approach a sketch of an anarchist "currency", a way of formalising a system of "paying it forward", rather than about exchanging values. Bitcoin et al. are still structured as stores of value because they exist within a monetary economy, but if you take away the context of a capitalist society, I think we can see them acting a something more like digital wampum belts than as money in the conventional sense.

(At this point, Hygro is invited to explain how and why I'm completely botching the theory of money and should probably stop.)

Including coercion, correct?

Possibly. I don't have an absolute anti-coercion position. I think that it's a bad way to run a society, but if somebody is acting in an erratic and violent manner, I don't know how far they can be said to be party of a society, just situated among it, like some sort of dangerous escape animal. I'd prefer people deal with the situation with as little resort to coercion as they can, but perhaps that wouldn't be possible.

How would an anarchist society handle large-scale projects, such as space exploration?

This is a very good question which deserves a more considered answer than I give right this moment, and I didn't want to just ignore, so I promise to get back to it when I get a chance.