Even in his devastating critiques of high-modernist central planning, James C Scott acknowledges the benefits to planning and the levels at which it can occur with relative safety. The author M Black also challenges us not to fetishize decentralization in such a way as to ignore the benefits of non-coercive degrees of centralization. So some degree of planning should exist. There seems to also be general agreement between all of the authors that some complexity and scale based obstacles exist to central planning, even in less centralized forms. From that point we can debate where these lines are. 

I will continue to advocate that we intentionally build out multiple competing/cooperating social welfare planning measures up to and no farther than our limits and simultaneously explore the problem space of different value signal feedback loops such as markets. This approach of testing a wide range of planning and value signal coordination approaches follows the line of thinking in Kevin’s sentiment of “Let one-hundred flowers bloom.” As Aurora’s essay is the one most directly opposed to my approach I will focus on challenging its claims and incorporating its advancements in the theoretical development of a Maximum Viable Economic Planning measure. Comprehensive integration of this limit should form the basis of any model for a new economy or array of overlapping new economies.

Challenging Aurora’s Assumptions

Beautifully integrating and generating novel insights from the fields of complexity science, network science, information theory, and neuroscience Aurora offers what I am not shy to say is one of the most substantive advancements in mathematical anarchist (communist) thought. It faces boldly the problem of scale in non-hierarchical systems in ways that few others have even attempted. It must be read by anarcho-communist theorists and must be seriously contended with by people in P2P spaces, libertarianism, social ecology, and other decentralized economics as well as being of interest to mathematicians, computer scientists, and economists more broadly. It’s fascinating and a joy to read. However, while its contributions are substantive, it suffers from several critical failures and other weaknesses which could be strengthened through future work. The contributions it does offer though help to elucidate a more robust measure of Maximum Viable Economic Planning which should be the basis for any conversation about planning, decentralization, and economic coordination.

The basic premise of the piece is that the optimization of economic coordination through the profit mechanism in markets should be replaced by an optimization of complexity through cooperation. Aurora parses several of the major advancements in related fields to settle upon a proposal that optimizes for “integrated complexity” utilizing an effective complexity measure built into a network analysis. One should take a moment to truly consider how beautiful that is on its face. It offers much to the problem of coordination, a shared metric for optimization of ideal quantities in a supply chain, which is a major area of contention in the calculation debate.

While this is a deeply intriguing view of societal evolution in general, and decentralized economic coordination in particular, it absolutely does not replace or solve against markets in the way the author assumes it does. The critical failures are as follows:

The substantive open problem of revealed preference and discovery in economics directly undercuts the viability of this proposal for large scale economic coordination. This issue was covered in some depth by the essays of myself, Gillis, and Miroslav as well as in great depth, if from a more liberal perspective, by Don Lavoie in many of his books but notably in Rivalry and Central Planning. There are also interesting parallel spaces of exploration using technology such as Holochain, as mentioned in the article by Sthalekar.

Relatedly, this essay does not actually deal with any of the practical issues of economic coordination such as, centrally, supply and demand. It claims to supplant Linear Programming but does not accomplish the basic feat that LP does. It does something more interesting but it does not solve supply chain optimization.  The algorithm proposed would be better suited for analyzing possible modes of societal and economic evolution rather than serving as a practical replacement to markets at the material levels. However, optimizing such evolution is also a task that markets freed from capitalism and monopoly rents can accomplish, as shown extensively in the various works most commonly associated with C4SS as an institution. This proposal could be thought of as a value vector creator for which something like Linear Programming could then optimize the ideal proportions of labor for.  If that is the case though, all the critiques and limits of Linear Programming to central planning still apply to this model.

The claim that this algorithm replaces the need for subjective value measures overall is completely unsubstantiated with some disturbing possible implications. Even capturing the raw input measurements for maximized integrated effective complexity does not skirt the problem of accurate input information unless the author (which I doubt) proposes some form of massive surveillance architecture to capture the information needed for this form of cybernetic coordination. 

While I will not go into it in-depth here, the author takes a very naive view of markets as automatically generating capitalism, exploitation, and massive unequal accumulation. She does not adequately address the wide arrange of known and unknown spaces of exploration around exchange such as but not limited to, left-market anarchism, mutualism, Georgism, and value-signal employing P2P systems. The author does not show a depth of understanding of the critiques of these and other schools of thought that are anti-capitalist but pro-market. Most importantly, she does not understand the types of countervailing and centrifugal forces that C4SS has long labored to explore in the process of resisting the formation of capitalism while utilizing some of the benefits of exchange. Her knee-jerk response to markets as automatically leading to capitalism is a common one because it makes some sense at the surface level (coming, as I did, from the left it was a hard pill for me to swallow). However, as a wide range of subsidies and artificial economies of scale have distorted and made myopic our visions of what is possible, it’s the duty of the anarcho in anarcho-communism to bravely facedown groupthink in the pursuit of root dynamics and mapping the wide space of possibility.

These issues are extremely nontrivial. They do not, however, minimize the overall contribution of this work, but rather call into question some of its central premises about what it can and cannot accomplish. This all being said, the contributions of this essay are also extremely non-trivial, even to, and this may dismay the author, the study of mixed market and planned decentralized economies. Indeed it offers a great jumping off point to further develop a theory of Maximum Viable Economic Planning.

Finding Our Maximum Viable Economic Planning

The transition involved in realizing a new ideal economics will involve a central conflict between those efforts devoted to expanding the non-market spaces of mutual-aid and social welfare and those innovating through the various internally competing and cooperating exchange nexuses. While this space of contestation will be dynamic and complex, as it already is, with constant new innovations blossoming in the cracks, we can build some structure now in order to reduce harm while we explore the problem space.  So while Belinsky discusses Minimum Viable Economic Planning, I argue that one form of harm reduction for exploration is developing a sense of the Maximum Viable Economic Planning Limit. 

The basic point to understand is that our ability to plan should be greater than or equal to how much we are currently relying on planning. A high level and deeply simplified overview would look like the following:

Model rate of complexity processing >=  Required rate of complexity processing

However to engage with non-math audiences as much as possible we can break this down further:

model = complexity / time

Think of this as a rate like miles per hour. It’s essentially a rate of computation within some constraints. An example would be model = 10 bits per millisecond or something like that. The model can be anything from linear programming on a certain array of computers or a direct democratic system of federated councils.

actual model > target model

The actual model is what we’re currently capable of doing. This idea is agnostic to how you’re solving the planning (ie linear programming, deep learning, councils, or whatever). This is saying if we use this type of algorithm to solve this problem we have right now, this is what our rate of solving it will look like.

The target model is what rate of solving the problem we need to have. For example, how many linear programming variables we need to compute in a certain amount of time to make sure a million people don’t die from not getting a vaccine.

The actual model must be greater than the target model or it will be failing to reach the demands placed on it.

actual model = target model

When we set it up this way you can solve for either time or complexity in the actual model side by making the other static and making it an equality. So say:

target model = 1 bit / 5 milliseconds

actual model  = 1 bit/ 10 milliseconds 

Clearly we need to either double the amount of bits we can process or half the amount of time we can process it in, if we want to produce the type of robust social economic coordination plan we need to thrive.

This simplified model of rate of computations compared to what we need to ensure everyone gets fed makes the problem of scale more stark. We can reduce the amount of complexity we need to produce or increase our computational methods or infrastructure. The major contribution of Aurora’s work is to help us define a compelling measure for economic (“integrated”) complexity that we could incorporate into an MVEP calculation in order to face soberly our computational limits. Though this does not solve the other issues related to her proposition, it opens the door for a whole new field of inquiry building on both this and her work. For example, teasing out what this MVEP inequality would look like with more robust measures on complexity, could help us gain a more nuanced view of the possibilities inherent to our given model, and, as Aurora mentioned, optimize towards more complexly interconnected and sustainable societies.

Communication Layers and Discovery

Once we’ve established this basic theoretical grounding it starts to get even more complex. The alternative to tankie style central economic planning is what’s called local knowledge which is a way of decentralizing and parallelizing the problem by relying on individuals to make the best decisions they can about their own domains and then things roughly maintain a dynamic (dis)equilibrium. 

My suspicion is that as you move closer to local(decentralized) knowledge your target rate of computation decreases because you can parallelize. But if the Austrians are correct, and I imagine they are about this even if their conclusions are weird, then that is not a linear descent. A locally embedded human mind can solve exponentially more than a broken down super-computer. This means that local knowledge has more computational power overall by parallelizing the problem. This is explored to some extent in Bilateral Trade and Small World Networks by Wilhite where he looks at different nested scales of trade networks. Through agent based modeling he shows how: global trade networks require high search resources but are able to find an optimum, local trade networks require low search resources but are not able to find an optimum, and hybrid networks allow for some leveraging of both local and global coordination knowledge. This could suggest that some planning can help a hybrid model allocate resources most optimally while leveraging local knowledge at the same time. While planning and even direct democratic consensus have complexity limits, this does not eliminate its utility in total. What’s more, there are situations in which the high context information provided by deliberation, as opposed to the stripped signals of prices, can be more beneficial. An unintended hypothetical proof of the hybrid model is how a locally planned social safety net can be locally optimal if not globally optimal, but nonetheless can help provide the basic needs of a community to better prepare them to engage in complex global coordination ie. If you aren’t starving to death you are more likely to be excited to build pro-social supra-local collaboration.

(technical section) This idea can be expanded by looking at how computation actually happens in a computer as well. The following picture is an AMD microchip. Most of what you see in this microchip is actually memory caches and connections. The logical computation is essentially free. What is expensive are all the interconnects required to move data around. In this way, even the computer that is expected to solve our coordination problems faces similar computationally expensive dilemmas of mitigating Shannon entropy of communicating preferences at different scales. This is why when trying to write high-performance software, the first thing to do is to maximize data locality and minimize communication. This logic also applies to all methods of coordinating an economy, not just those that rely on a microchip. 

Looking into the technicalities of applying super-computation to problems of (decentralized) economic coordination will help us to more accurately model what is possible and gauge our risk-taking proportionately. Similarly it allows us to break down the problem into more computable chunks or incorporate innovative overlaps with non-decentrally planned networks of cooperative exchange.

Linear Programming

Most of the non-market based models including among the decentralists, knowingly or unknowingly, rely on the contributions of Cockshott and Cottrell as proof of the calculability of economic planning and coordination through Linear Programming. There is much to be said about the nature of their models overall but suffice it to say that the actual code that people think solves all of these hard problems is a messy old Java repo with multiple years old unresolved pull requests and an open issue declaring “there is no bread”:

A dusty Github issue on Cockshott’s 5 Year Plan code stating that “there is no bread output”

Cockshott’s assumptions in this regard can be seen in the way he teaches this topic in that he, like Aurora, claims that cybernetics and the internet solve these problems:

1. The Internet allows real-time cybernetic planning and can solve the problem of dispersed information – Hayek’s key objection
2. Big data allows concentration of the information needed for planning.
3. Super computers can solve the millions of equations in seconds – von Mises objection
4. Electronic payment cards allow replacement of cash with non transferable labour credits

This, of course, similarly fails to address problems of discovery and revealed preference, while also relying on problematically simple notions of a labor theory of value which he describes at more depth in “Calculation, Complexity, and Planning.” It is no surprise then, that he is also anti-sex worker, as he sees the whole world through this simplified view of labor that is not even universally accepted among Marxists. Similarly, the issues of computation I have raised in this and my initial paper further challenge his hand-waving magical thinking about Big Data and Supercomputers. It is with an odd parallel to Hayek’s absurd insistence that Pinochet’s authoritarianism did not violate his principles of local knowledge, that Cockshott also claims that direct democracy will be able to transmit high enough information at scale to satisfyingly solve virtually all major decisions needed by a global society. Cockshott’s model’s deserve to be one of the one hundred flowers we let blossom in testing, but they are wonky and ill-suited to replace a global economy in the ways that he believes they will, most notably, because they sidestep issues of complexity, local knowledge, and revealed preference by artificially constraining the real world difficulty of these problems especially at scale. Determining the realistic limits to these and related approaches with independent outside auditors and real-world testing could help prevent us from damning ourselves with over-reliance and directing us towards much needed modernizations and pivots towards functional sustainability. His last bullet point is telling as well. His electronic payment cards would of course create a centralized super surveillance network, required for most central planning initiatives, wherein the ableist and workerist value system of an individual’s worth is their labor, replaces the grotesque capitalist notion that an individual’s worth is their wealth.

Networked Bootstrapped Experiments in Solarpunk Mutualism

M Black states, “The problem for inter-firm coordination within a market is simply that there is no mechanism which enables firms to actually coordinate their plans together and make mutual adjustments as necessary. The ideal market lacks not only a mechanism for coordination (as could exist in, e.g., a cooperative federation or a cartel) but also inhibits cooperation from the start because the competitively stable strategy within a competitive market is always non-cooperation.” as if this were a fundamental truth of markets rather than a myopic view of how they (sort of) exist now. Indeed, though regional confederations do already make complex decisions about various aspects of markets and production in large-scale co-ops and networks of co-ops, similar interventions are another space for experimentation in a hybrid economy. What does it look like for markets and direct democracies and consensual partial centralizations of coordination look like? No doubt, authors like Prytchiko and Lavoie would react in horror at the undermining of the perfect Laws of Profit, but we can work on different models that accept a degree of negative externalities of one kind (inefficient incentives) in favor of positive externalities of another kind (elimination of perverse accumulation). It seems likely that these forces would naturally compete and vie for legitimacy in the social will through proving themselves in action. 

This thread from a YPG veteran discusses how Rojava is similarly gradually introducing various collectivizations, resisting or dismantling monopolies, and utilizing currencies amidst a living experiment in Social Ecology that resembles much of what mutualists have advocated for centuries only modernized for the new era. Imperfect as it is real, they are also very much attempting to put into practice more ecological and solarpunk principles while defending themselves against fascist takeover from many directions at once.

The problem is inherently complex and, as Aurora notes, complexity itself is a meaningful goal when it stands in for the depth of vibrant choices available to people and societies. Utilizing every form of complexity maximizer available to us, including both mediums of exchange and large-scale decentralized social planning, we increase our chances of feeding the solarpunk future, already sprouting around us in the heart of this massive and violent collapse of the old order.

1.  Thanks to @hdvalence for helping me think all of this through! Here is further explanation from him: In that picture there are 8 cores in a 2×4 layout, each of which has a bunch of processing logic (the more organic-looking blobby area) and its own cache (the solar-panel looking area). Zooming in to one of the cores you can see that fully half of the area is spent on the big data cache, which is used to avoid having to communicate with the main memory. Then zooming in to the other part of the core you can see even more caching layers (the regular patterned areas, laid out in tiles) fit in with the actual processing logic (the blobby areas, laid out algorithmically). Zooming all the way out, there’s a second chip the same size as this entire unit that’s dedicated to the main memory. More on this here.

Mutual Exchange is C4SS’s goal in two senses: We favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to C4SS’s audience.

Online symposiums will include essays by a diverse range of writers presenting and debating their views on a variety of interrelated and overlapping topics, tied together by the overarching monthly theme. C4SS is extremely interested in feedback from our readers. Suggestions and comments are enthusiastically encouraged. If you’re interested in proposing topics and/or authors for our program to pursue, or if you’re interested in participating yourself, please email editor@c4ss.org or emmibevensee@email.arizona.edu.

No, it’s not surprising that the Austin Police Department let the person who killed Garrett Foster go after less than a day. It’s not surprising that they didn’t charge them. It’s not even surprising that the president of the Austin police officer’s union, Kenneth Cassaday, would publicly denounce Garrett Foster on the same day. 

Truth is, you could tell what APD thought of Garrett Foster from their very first press conference, just after midnight. It was 60 seconds, total, which also included the officer spelling her own name, (K A T R I N A  R A T C L I F F). One of the only details given was “reports” that he “may have had a rifle, and may have approached the suspect’s vehicle.” 

Within two hours of Garrett Foster being pronounced dead, APD had seemingly decided who was to blame, and in this case it was the victim. And if that press conference didn’t make it clear enough, the head of the police union certainly did. 

Now, police Chief Manley is using the latest APD press conference to highlight the suspect’s account of the shooting, effectively dismissing all other accounts as a “variety” of different reports. Which makes his pleas for anyone to “turn over” video evidence a sick joke. (And that’s not even including how Manley used the second half of the press conference as an APD boast/pity party. Yes, really.)

And, no, it’s not surprising that APD would use press conferences to attack the victim of a murder they’re supposed to investigate.

In fact, it echoes what they said about Mike Ramos, who was killed by police as he drove away. It took them a month to admit that Mike Ramos was unarmed, despite their repeated insistence on highlighting “reports” that he was.

It’s how they characterized Lawrence Parrish, who was shot seven times on his own porch. Initially, Manley had claimed that Parrish fired on officers, only to admit days later that he hadn’t. His family was still denied hospital visitation, and he was locked up for 15 months before the charges were dropped. 

It even echoes the language APD used to the victims of the 2018 Austin Bombings. Initially, APD tried to investigate the first victim, Anthony Stephan House, as the suspect. They went so far as to search his finances and speculate about the involvement of a drug dealer (yes, really). It took two more bombings, and the death of 17-year-old Draylen Mason, for APD to genuinely investigate their murders.

Eventually, they did find the perpetrator (who committed suicide), and a 25 minute “confession” video on his phone. Manley called that video “the outcry of a very challenged young man talking about challenges in his life that led him to this point.” He initially refused to call it terrorism. 

That description earned Manley a rebuke from the Onion of all places. The murder of Mike Ramos helped spark the current round of protests that Garrett Foster joined. In the first days of protest, Justin Howell was shot with a lead filled bean bag as he ran away, and critically injured. In the wake of the ensuing outrage, Austin City Council pledged to slash APD’s budget by $100 million and banned their use of escalating force. 

Manley’s explanation? That video evidence showed Justin Howell standing next to a person throwing a water bottle.

APD hasn’t released that video. 

While they did release footage of Mike Ramos’ murder early this week, it was only after months of delays. 

And they refuse to release the Austin bomber’s confession tape. 

As for the murder of Garrett Foster, the only footage released by police is a ten second dashboard cam that cuts out right before the suspect’s car leaves the scene.

Later, APD would receive a call from someone claiming to be the shooter. The suspect voluntarily turned themselves in for questioning. And was let go within a day without charge. They haven’t released his name, and probably never will. 

And that’s not surprising. On June 27th, Logan Bucknam tried to drive his car into protesters, and flashed a gun around at them. He then calmly drove to the parking garage of APD, were he met with a police officer and was released within an hour. 

According to reports, it was after that incident that Garrett Foster started bringing a gun to the protests. 

This is who APD is. And truth be told, it’s who they’ve been long before Brian Manley came into the picture. Only difference was, in the past, it was hidden behind slick PR hounds like Art Acevedo. They were able to successfully hide information from the public indefinitely.

Over the past few years, however, that mask has started to slip. It would be easy to blame Manley, for all his lack of charm. But the truth is, it’s coming from the brave activism of everyday people in, and from the city.

It was only a private cell phone video that alerted the public to what happened to Mike Ramos. It was the beautiful, heartbreaking editorializing of Joshua Howell, along with the initial accounts of on the scene medics, that shed light on what happened to Justin Howell, at a time when APD was barely acknowledging what they’d done. And it was the groundswell of local support that helped to free a wrongly imprisoned Parrish.

With this increasing activism, APD reveals itself more and more. It’s an agency that obscures facts in equivocating language, and expects the local press to do the same. It’s an agency that will hide evidence until forced by public pressure. That will eulogize terrorists, while trying to blame victims for their own plight.

And one that, left unrestrained, would turn every attempt to protest its actions into a shooting range, while coddling violent counter demonstrators, even as the bodies begin piling up.

Underneath it all, cops are cops.

No, it’s not surprising.

The most blunt and obvious anti-statist position regarding taxation and consequently public budgets (although the former is not the sole source of the latter) is their reduction or complete abolition, and this is often how it is treated amongst centrist and right-wing libertarians. For example, Murray Rothbard writes that the principled approach should be “to support all reductions in taxes, whether they be by lower rates or widening of exemption and deductions; and to oppose all rate increases or exemption decreases. In short, to seek in every instance to remove the blight of taxation as much as possible.” Thus, conversations between conventional statists and anti-statists functioning under this general approach tend to resemble the meeting of The People’s Front of Judea (not to be mistaken with The Judean People’s Front) from Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) in which they plot the kidnapping of Pilate’s wife. In this scene, Reg proclaims that the Romans have done nothing but stolen from them, their fathers, and their fathers’ fathers (and their fathers’ fathers’ fathers. And their fathers’ fathers’ fathers’ fathers) and asks, “what have they ever given us in return?” To which the conspirators respond with a litany of things the Romans have provided like aqueducts, sanitation, irrigation, medicine, health, wine, public baths, etc. Eventually Reg is reduced to revising his question to, “but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order, what have the Romans done for us?” Though this comparison lends little credit to the variety of theoretical and historical non-state stratagems for providing what the state currently provides, it does sum up the sort of unnuanced back-and-forth this position instigates.

This is not to say that the eventual abolition of taxation (or more specifically the necessity for taxation) is not a good ideal or long-term goal. Alderson Warm-Fork points out, on a Libcom.org forum about the collectivist anarchist view of taxes, that, since taxes are in essence a mechanism of redistribution, if one requires such a mechanism it means that:

1) your original distribution was severely flawed, and 2) you for some reason couldn’t change that original distribution. And to have this second distribution super-imposed on your original one would require some sort of agency standing somewhat above and apart from society – which isn’t necessarily a state but sounds worryingly like it.

Thus, one goal for a stateless society is to create the socio-economic circumstances wherein the original distribution is both equitable and efficient enough that individuals are capable of pursuing their personal lifestyles and voluntarily pooling their resources in cooperative enterprises and community ventures—the latter in particular perhaps in the form of what 18th and 19th century anarchist Joseph A. Labadie describes as the sort of “taxation” that “is now done by churches, trade unions, insurance societies, and all other voluntary associations” and what Colin Ward refers to as the “pattern of local self-taxation” demonstrated by the model of the Tredegar Medical Aid Society in South Wales. In this scenario there is no need for a state or state-like mechanism for a second distribution (or at least not an involuntary one). It is anti-statist and fellow traveler to anarchism James C. Scott’s disbelief in the creation of this sort of “relative equality”—which is “a necessary condition of mutuality and freedom”—without a state, expressed in his Two Cheers for Anarchism, that leads him to ultimately reject, “both theoretically and practically, the abolition of the state.” But consider, for example, Kevin Carson’s piece “Who Owns the Benefit? The Free Market as Full Communism” in which he argues that a free market genuinely purged of all state privileges would ultimately not privatize but socialize “the full benefits of technological progress” and “result in a society resembling not the anarcho-capitalist vision of a world owned by the Koch brothers and Halliburton, so much as Marx’s vision of a communist society of abundance.”

But the point is that there are more nuanced positions for anti-statists to take regarding taxation. As Carlos Clemente outlines, “the relationship of market anarchists to the problem of taxation is somewhat more complicated than simply pushing unconditionally for their elimination under any circumstance. Market anarchists don’t buy the argument behind a reduction of taxes à la Dubbya and Neocon company.” This is reflected well in Kevin Carson’s use of Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s concept of “dialectical libertarianism” regarding both taxation and regulation. He writes: “it doesn’t make much sense to consider particular proposals for deregulating or cutting taxes, without regard to the role the taxes and regulations play in the overall structure of state capitalism. That’s especially true, considering that most mainstream proposals from ‘free market reform’ are generated by the very class interests that benefit from the corporate state.” And furthermore, Carson does not follow the right-libertarian assertion that taxation is universally theft as he argues in his article “How Not to Fight the 1%” that all “enormous wealth is achieved through the state — the billionaires’ and corporations’ state. All that wealth comes from rents on state-enforced artificial property rights, artificial scarcities, monopolies, regulatory cartels and entry barriers (except the part that comes from direct taxpayer subsidies).” And therefore, he objects to taxing billionaires and corporations not on the basis that it is ‘theft’ because it ‘rightly belongs to them,’ but on a more utilitarian basis that eliminating state-enforced monopolies is a more effective way to address the very basis by which massive wealth disparities emerge. 

But there are certainly anarchists who do see extensive taxation of the rich as a reasonable short term means to address the enormous economic inequalities in capitalism, which raises the matter of interesting ‘positive’ approaches by anti-statists regarding taxation and public budgets, of which there are many historically. In his famous essay Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau writes, “‘That government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.” But in tandem with this anti-statist gradualism he holds a nuanced position regarding taxation, penning his refusal to pay the Massachusetts poll tax because of his opposition to slavery and its expansion through the Mexican-American War while proclaiming his willingness to pay highway taxes which would benefit his neighbors; basically opposing those taxes which only benefit the government and its tyranny. A less neighborly but not wholly dissimilar sentiment can be found on the libertarian right coming from Ayn Rand who, though a staunch critic of any redistributive tax policies, saw no contradiction for individuals to receive public scholarships, social security, unemployment benefits, etc. while still opposing statism. She writes in her 1966 essay “The Question of Scholarships” that the “victims” of these types of policies “have a clear right to any refund of their own money—and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money, unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration.” Rand herself received social security later in life. There is also the starkly different case of the famous anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin who, in The Conquest of Bread,  holds that much of the infrastructure and many of the institutions generally maintained by public budgets—such as “[m]useums, free libraries, free schools, free meals for children; parks and gardens open to all; streets paved and lighted, free to all; water supplied to every house without measure or stint”—are representative of larger trends leading society towards anarcho-communism.  

And furthermore, many anti-statists (including Carson) have expressed interest in the economic philosophy of Henry George, which, as George describes in his magnum opus Progress and Poverty, principally consists of the notion that all land is held in common while rejecting the idea that any “owner of land need be dispossessed[,] . . . [f]or rent being taken by the state in taxes, land, no matter in whose name it stood or in what parcels it was field, would be really common property, and every member of the community would participate in the advantages of its ownership” with all of this leading to the abolition of “all taxation save that upon land values.” An excellent example of an anti-statist endorsement of this is that of famed author and Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy who later in life wrote, “People do not argue with the teaching of George; they simply do not know it. And it is impossible to do otherwise with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree.” Some might point to this as demonstrative of a shift away from anarchism by Tolstoy, but in his 1899 novel Resurrection, he fictionally explores the notion of local governance—not a hegemonic state—as a means to collect land rent for the community good.

All of this is outlined in order to demonstrate the complex and nuanced approaches to taxation and public budgets that can be taken by anti-statists in order to create a context to discuss “participatory budgeting.” This process is simply where citizens—generally of municipalities—deliberate and democratically decide upon the allocation of public budgets. Its origins can be found in the participatory experiments of the Brazilian Democratic Movement during the era of the military dictatorship, but, as Steve Rushton explains, it was properly developed by the Brazilian Workers’ Party in the 80s as an attempt to springboard from electoral success to more radical forms of participatory democracy. The first successful example emerged in 1989 in the city of Porto Alegre, the capital of the Brazilian state Rio Grande do Sul. Soon, it was adopted by the city of Belo Horizonte in 1992, and from there numerous municipalities followed, with nearly half of Brazil’s largest cities employing the method. As Rushton explains, participatory budgeting in Brazil follows a yearly cycle whereby the city presents the previous yearly budget and citizens review it in neighborhood meetings where they discuss spending decisions and proposals. These assemblies then elect councilors who further debate and refine what the assemblies have proposed and discussed, and finally delegates—elected by residents—vote upon the final decisions. 

And the positive impacts of this system speak for themselves, with a World Bank report on the effort particularly in Porte Alegre accounting for an additional 27,000 new people attaining public housing in 1989, sewer and water connection increasing from 75% to 98% of houses from 1988-1997, the number of schools quadrupling since 1986, and the city’s health and education budget going from 13% to 40% from 1985-1996. Now, it must be made clear that it is not the entire budget that is being allocated in these cases and that it is not every single person who is participating. However, its control and inclusion increased in the past with PB allocating 21% of Porte Alegre’s budget in 1999 and half of Belo Horizonte’s local investment resources that same year. Furthermore, participation, as of the time of the report, is “not just restricted to the middle class or the conventional supporters of the Workers Party. People from low-income groups also take an active part in the process.”

Participatory budgeting spread to Europe in the 2000s, emerging simultaneously in several mostly Western European countries in 2005, until more than 50 European cities—including Sevilla, London, Paris, Rome, and Berlin—as well as small communes like Grottamare and Altidona in Italy, had adopted forms of the process. And it has come to the United States as well, as numerous cities, counties, housing communities, schools and more have implemented it into their structures. Rushton gives the account of the city of Greensboro, North Carolina, which adopted PB in 2015 and consequently has invested in real-time information on public transit, pedestrian crossings, emergency call boxes in parks, and increased bus shelters. And furthermore, “participatory budgeting has pushed greater inclusion for communities previously separated by language, ethnicity and poverty.” PB of a certain variety has also cropped up in New York City where “residents can now access a special map with drop pins, where they can give their specific ideas about how to improve transit, housing and other issues.” And as of 2018, 3,000 municipalities worldwide have implemented some form of PB.

With so many different contexts, PB has unsurprisingly taken on multiple different forms, but Hollie Russon Gilman accounts for four generally universal characteristics of their structures:

1. Information sessions: Citizens are given access to information about the cost and effect of different government programs.

2. Neighborhood assemblies: Citizens articulate local budgetary needs.

3. Budget delegates: Some citizens sign up to directly interact with government officials and draft viable budget proposals.

4. The vote: A larger group of residents votes on which projects to fund.

The important elements of this system are that they allow control by the public over at least some public funds but also that they “grant citizens unfiltered access to government information and elected officials” and foster “new relationships with their neighbors” and “a deepened sense of solidarity and community.” 

And PB has been proposed to address a number of unique situations and challenges as well. As mentioned earlier in the movement of the system to the United States, it has appeared in the context of schools. As the Participatory Budgeting Project describes, “[s]chools, school districts, and colleges around the world are using participatory budgeting (PB) to engage students, parents, educators, and staff in deciding how to spend a part of the school budget.” Through these efforts, communities are given greater control over their schools. And as Agustin B. of the Phoenix Union High School District attests, it gives students a greater feeling of engagement in school. Though I am no expert, it seems like basic common psychological sense that when individuals have a say in the institution they are a part of, they feel a greater sense of both freedom and satisfaction—this must surely be true of students who currently feel at times as if they work under a bureaucratic regime; as Emma Goldman describes, schools—“no matter whether public, private, or parochial”—are “for the child what the prison is for the convict and the barracks for the soldier — a place where everything is being used to break the will of the child, and then to pound, knead, and shape it into a being utterly foreign to itself.” PB does not truly meet the ideal of a truly libertarian (in its traditional sense) education, but it surely moves in that direction.

The Participatory Budgeting Project has also proposed PB as a means to address the present climate emergency. They point out that “the apparent indifference to climate issues by some residents could stem from a perceived inability to have any genuine influence on a seemingly intractable problem.” So PB can serve as a means to engage and buy-in to green initiatives “(such as more cycle lanes or less food waste). It would mean more take-up, rather than the ‘Transition Agenda’ being imposed from above.” Thus, PB serves as a mechanism to practically address and inspirationally mobilize individuals and communities to pursue more environmentally conscious practices.

PBP has even written of PB as an important mechanism to deal with the current COVID-19 epidemic:

In pandemics, it’s common to see governments lean authoritarian, all while trillions of dollars will be distributed in relief efforts. This is the exact moment when we need to strengthen democracy, to ensure the funding is allocated equitably and democratically, and to guarantee local communities — especially our most marginalized and vulnerable populations — have a say in these decisions that will greatly affect them. On a personal level, while we’re all isolated and feeling helpless, people need a way to feel connection and a sense of control. Participatory budgeting offers both.

Beyond even the more ‘neutral’ utilitarian benefits of PB, the appeal for anti-statists is surely obvious—greater government transparency, citizen control over public funds, and avoidance of top-down authoritarian methods in the face of crises. And it has been demonstrated that complete opposition to taxation is not a necessary anti-statist position, so endorsement of PB would be no blasphemy. But on a more formally strategic level, Carson, in his piece “Libertarian Municipalism,” speaks of PB as an aspect of “the emerging distributed and commons-based economy” that could serve “as a base for post-capitalist transition.” He considers “[t]he participatory budgeting projects . . . an integral part of participatory government” alongside various strategies for community- and commons-based, cooperative, and open-source production and governance “at three levels: the micro-village and other forms of cohousing/co-production, the city or town as a unit, and regional and global federations of cities.” For Carson, as he says on Mutual Exchange Radio, the goal of the “new municipalism” is “to push local government to operating in a less state-like manner and taking on the character more of a platform” and he traces this to a “larger stream of analysis” that can drawn back to Henri de Saint-Simon whereby the state is slowly done away with and is characteristic of every major socialist and anarchist analysis from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s dissolving of the state into society to Karl Marx’s withering away of the state.

For anti-statists, PB would also seem to follow the sort of strategy found in Noam Chomsky’s thinking regarding the welfare state. He writes in his collection Understanding Power that “the immediate goal of even committed anarchists should be to defend some state institutions, while helping to pry them open to more meaningful public participation, and ultimately to dismantle them in a much more free society.” PB seems like perhaps the holy grail of this sort of anti-statist thinking as public budgets represent the very core of the welfare state and this sort of participatory structure allows for both control of that and, in Carson’s earlier thinking, represents progress toward the abolition of the state as we currently understand it. Though there are certainly limitations and issues with PB—the subjects of which are not covered in this piece (but can be found in many of the studies linked to)—participatory budgeting appears as a quite consistent policy for anti-statists to forward as a nuanced approach toward taxation and public budgets.

Uma semana antes de escrever este artigo, escrevi outro onde defendia que devíamos privatizar a polícia. Quando as pessoas ouviram isso, pensaram na ideia do anarcocapitalismo com o mesmo nome. A diferente entre essa e a minha é monumental.

A ideia AnCap é que as comunidades ou, mais provavelmente, as empresas contratem uma força policial semelhante à que já temos. Iriam manter as ruas livres de crime. O problema é que esta dita polícia seria também utilizada para colectar rendas e proibir ocupações. Iriam desempenhar praticamente as mesmas funções que a polícia estatal, com o senão de serem financiadas pelo privado. Esta polícia não seria tão cordial para as pessoas nas ruas e, sendo os tribunais privados, as pessoas com as quais interagissem seriam condenadas a penas injustamente longas.

A ideia que apresento, pelo contrário, é uma na qual indivíduos contratam um grupo para proteger a sua propriedade pessoal (incluindo a sua pessoa e a sua família) dos criminosos. Estes trabalhadores da segurança iriam proteger os frutos do nosso trabalho quando não estivéssemos presentes. Os negócios de rua (e cooperativas) poderiam também contratar uma agência de defesa deste tipo.

A diferença entre estas duas abordagens é mais bem ilustrada se compararmos dois intelectuais que abordaram esta questão. Por um lado, a ideia rothbardiana de uma polícia privatizada que imagina uma força policial semelhante à versão estatal. Por outro, as agências de defesa privada tuckerianas, que defendem a nossa propriedade pessoal sem estarem ligadas a empresas ou outras forças de maior dimensão. Uma daria origem a um Estado fascista enquanto que a outra não.

Uma sociedade na qual as empresas pudessem criar as suas próprias leis estaria aberta a que uma empresa pudesse comprar todas as outras e criar o seu próprio Estado autoritário. Em contraste com uma sociedade anarquista individualista, uma sociedade AnCap não teria criada uma infra-estrutura através da qual as pessoas pudessem adquirir os fundos necessários para criar os seus próprios negócios, levando a uma situação na qual algumas pessoas não conseguissem ser produtores associados, sendo por sua vez escravos do ordenado.

Em alternativa, a única lei para governar uma sociedade anarquista individualista é o que Lysander Spooner apodou de lei natural. Essa lei é conhecida pelas crianças, pelos homens e pelas mulheres, era conhecida pelos povos ancestrais, e será também do conhecimento dos povos do futuro. Tem dez palavras. “Um indivíduo não irá violar a propriedade de outro indivíduo.”

Esta lei natural seria a única lei numa sociedade anarquista individualista. Seria a lei pela qual as agências de defesa privada se regeriam e a lei seguida pelas pessoas. Criminaliza as acções que violem os direitos à propriedade pessoal que apodo de Seis Crimes. São eles fogo posto, agressão, homicídio, estupro, pedofilia e roubo. A pena com uma única excepção seria a indemnização e a restituição. Os homicidas (incluindo as tentativas de homicídio) seriam enviados para uma prisão comunitária financiada por via de um imposto voluntário, caso fossem considerados culpados após defesa por parte do seu advogado. Um júri do tribunal comunitário (financiado também por um imposto voluntário) decidiria o nível da indemnização e a restituição, para crimes que não o de homicídio, após a audiência.

A agência de defesa privada seria semelhante à da actual ADT. Através de uma assinatura mensal, receberíamos uma placa para colocarmos no quintal a informar os potenciais criminosos que a nossa casa está a ser protegida por uma das poucas de milhares de empresas de segurança. Teriam também um contacto de emergência para o qual os assinantes poderiam telefonar gratuitamente e os não-assinantes pagando uma pequena taxa. A concorrência entre tantas firmas reduziria o preço das assinaturas e das taxas e aumentaria a qualidade do serviço. Não matariam uma vez que tal afectaria o valor das assinaturas e aumentaria também os custos do seu seguro.

Há outro substituto para a polícia que podemos apodar de “vigilantes”. Os vigilantes patrulhariam as ruas, preveniriam o crime, e defenderiam a propriedade pessoal da comunidade local. Seriam compostos por cidadãos locais, financiados por intermédio de donativos (o que os iria obrigar a providenciar um serviço de alta qualidade), e a pertença seria sujeita a voto por parte da comunidade local. Tal evitaria a entrada de quaisquer maçãs podres. Caso um racista se quisesse inscrever, a comunidade teria poder de veto.

Uma sociedade anarquista continuaria a ter quem nos defendesse e não seria uma confusão caótica. Teria uma baixa criminalidade e não teria de lidar com a chacina das minorias pela qual enveredou o bando de criminosos que temos o azar de apodar de nossa força policial. O livre mercado asseguraria a qualidade e os baixos preços, e uma indústria de defesa de livre mercado iria providenciar a protecção de qualidade de topo que merecemos.

Omdat je onder het kapitalisme altijd onder een baas werkt, tenzij je zelf de baas bent. Maar ik wil niet eens een baas zijn. Nou, misschien wil ik wel ‘een baas’ zijn, maar niet letterlijk, je begrijpt wat ik bedoel. Niet een baas in de zin van, de baas van het bedrijf, waar iedereen een tering hekel aan heeft, omdat hij ( meestal hij ) allemaal orders uitdeelt etc.

Kapitalisme is helemaal niet zo individualistisch natuurlijk. Het kapitalisme leidt altijd tot een aantal zeer rijke families, die alle touwtjes in handen hebben. Iedereen rent en draaft dan vervolgens voor die mensen. ‘Anarcho’ kapitalisme, zou dat proces gewoon extremer maken. Je accumuleert kapitaal en dat geef je dan door aan je kinderen en die geven het weer door aan hun kinderen. Binnen een paar generaties heb je een feodale elite, van grootgrondbezitters.

Is anarchisme dan vrijheid voor iedereen, zoals sommige activisten het wel eens zeggen ? Ik geloof dat iemand als Joke Kaviaar ( een activiste ) dat als haar slogan heeft, op haar site.

Vrijheid voor iedereen ? Dat weet ik ook niet. Als het maar mijn vrijheid is en dat zou het niet zijn, onder het anarcho kapitalisme. Want ik ben niet het soort van persoon, dat een grootgrondbezitter of een ‘manager’ wilt zijn. Dat is niet mijn levensdoel, of mijn levensstijl. Ik pot geld niet op, als ik het heb. Ik werk om te leven, niet andersom. Het maakt me eigenlijk niet zoveel uit, of ‘iedereen’ vrij is, als ik maar vrij ben ! En nee, dat ben ik niet onder het anarcho kapitalisme en/of Amerikaanse libertarisme van Rand en die oude kale vent, hoe heette hij ook alweer ? Van anarcho kapitalisme waardeer ik op zich hun ongepolijste egocentrisme, hun eerlijkheid en hun bijtende kritiek op de staat en haar imperialisme. MAAR, hun economische ideeën verwerp ik. De economische ideeën van het anarcho kapitalisme, zijn ongefundeerd en gevaarlijk.

Waarom individueel anarchisme ?

Individueel anarchisme, omdat ik doe wat ik wil, denk wat ik wil, zeg wat ik wil, ga waar ik wil, met of zonder de wet.

Betekend dat dan, dat ik mensen dood steek, vrouwen verkracht en huizen in de fik steek ?

Nee. Waarom niet ? Omdat ik daar geen zin in heb…Dat soort gedrag zou niet in MIJN voordeel zijn. Ik zou daar niets aan hebben. Waarom niet ? Ik wil niet een wreed iemand zijn. Ik zou me schuldig voelen en ik zou in het gevang belanden, kortom, een reden om niet zo te handelen, drie redenen. Maar, met ‘ je wet’ en ‘ je recht’ heeft het niets te maken. Ik ben te intelligent om daar niet doorheen te kijken.

Anarcho communisme ? Waarom geen maatschappelijk anarchisme, anarcho communisme ?

Linkse anarchisten vereenzelvigen zich vaak met hun collectief, hun groep. Zo verdwijn je dan helemaal, in die groep. Dat is het gevaar van een maatschappelijk anarchistische visie. Je verdwijnt in de massa, je verliest jezelf. Als je jezelf als ijkpunt hebt, kan je niet verdwalen.

Individualistisch communisme ?

Kan anarcho communisme dan niet samengaan, met individualisme ? Ja, opzich wel. Ik zou me mengen in een communisme, een vorm van communisme, alleen als ik er merkbaar profijt van heb. Ik zou de voordelen en de nadelen tegenover elkaar zetten en een conclusie trekken. Zodra het zou tegenvallen, zou ik het verlaten. Als communale productie en consumptie mij zou bevallen, zou ik er direct in participeren. Punt is alleen, ik heb nooit zo geleefd. Nergens kan je echt zo leven. Een communaal leven in zelfbeheer, en gebaseerd op zelfverdediging. In Europa zal het moeilijk zijn om dit toe te passen. Tenzij je de kraakpandjes ( gedoogde kraakpandjes ) in Europa daaronder schaart . Maar, dat geld niet echt als anarcho communisme natuurlijk.

Waar het dus op neer komt, ik kies altijd hetgeen dat het beste voor MIJ is. Welk economisch systeem zou het beste voor MIJ zijn, waar zou ik in willen leven ? Wat zou goed voor ons zijn ? We kennen alleen maar het neoliberalisme en we weten dat dit systeem totale terreur is. staatscommunisme, daar zitten we ook niet op te wachten natuurlijk. Nou, dan moet je dus voor iets anarchistisch kiezen. Veel keuze is er alleen niet,omdat de anarchistische beweging niet meer echt een daadwerkelijke infrastructuur kan faciliteren. Een economische infrastructuur. Daar is de beweging te marginaal voor. We blijven voorlopig dus individualist, voor zover het mogelijk is. Is het dan levensstijl anarchisme, wat ik toepast ? Ik weet het niet, misschien. Het kan me niet zoveel schelen ook. Misschien gaan we het daar later over hebben.

Is individueel anarchisme een ULTRA liberalisme, zoals sommige (communistische) anarchisten zeggen ?

Zegt individueel anarchisme : Doe maar wat je wilt ? zoals sommige anarcho communisten beweren ? Iets dat ze dan ultra liberaal vinden.

Ja, ‘wij’ zeggen : Doe wat je wilt, zeg wat je wilt, denk wat je wilt.

Dat zegt individueel/egoïstisch anarchisme. Maar, dat wil nog niet zeggen dat je dus ook zo handelt

Ik zeg niet dat het erg is om de buurman dood te schieten. De vraag is meer wìl je de buurman wel dood schieten ?

Wegen de voordelen op tegen de nadelen ? Meestal heeft het alleen maar nadelen, het doodschieten van je buurman.

Is dit ultra liberaal ? Nee, want liberalisme heeft juist heel veel met de wet, de collectieve moraal, de democratie, de rechten waar mensen zich aan moeten houden, dit/dat. Individueel anarchisme spuugt dat in het gezicht en houdt zich nergens aan. Individueel anarchisme is dus eerder ultra anti liberaal . Liberalisme is altijd een vrijheid, gebonden aan een wet, waar mensen zich dan aan moeten houden. Of het is geconstrueerd op basis van allerlei abstracte ‘rechten’. Het zogenaamde ‘ non agressie principe’ bijvoorbeeld, is iets waar liberalen zich op baseren. Ook dat verwerp ik. Ik heb niet een contract ondertekend, waarin ik stel dat ik per definitie ‘ non agressief’ ben.

Individueel anarchisme gaat uit van spontane orde en anders maar niet. Liberalisme gaat uit van opgelegde orde en abstracties.

In theorie zegt anarcho communisme ook : doe wat je wilt. Men baseert zich dan op het idee van de ‘mutual aid’ en het instinct tot sociabiliteit. Althans, Kropotkin baseerde zich daarop. De boel stabiliseert vanzelf. Het is een beetje te vergelijken met je hartslag. Dat gaat ook allemaal vanzelf en is een biologisch proces. Je hoeft dat niet aan te zwengelen, je bent daar niet mee bezig. Zo werkt de mutual aid ook. Je bent sociaal, want dat zit in je genen, want je bent een mens en dus een zoogdier en dus heb je een sociaal instinct. In theorie moet je alles dus gewoon zijn gang laten gaan, tussen mensen.

Ondanks dit gegeven, zie ik huidige anarcho communisten vaak een soort zedenleer opleggen, in de vorm van allerlei regels en ongeschreven regels. Ideeën over sociale rechtvaardigheid, waar ze je mee om de oren slaan. Dat gaat in tegen hun vertrouwen op dat sociale instinct wat ik hierboven noem. Als we een sociaal instinct hebben, kan je het toch allemaal loslaten en hoef je mensen toch niet tot de orde te roepen, permanent. Huidige anarcho communisten verraden hun christelijke en/of autoritaire achtergrond in hun handelen, af en toe. Door de ander permanent te betuttelen, gaan ze in tegen hun idee van de spontane orde en de mutual aid. Ze vertrouwen er blijkbaar niet ècht op.

Het loopt vanzelf wel los, want dat zit in onze genen. Iets dat ik in grote lijnen eens ben, met Kropotkin. Stirner en Kropotkin zijn dan ook wel samen te smelten .wat mij betreft. Stirner komt tot dezelfde conclusie als Kropotkin, maar vanuit de filosofie. Dit terwijl Kropotkin het uit de biologie en de wetenschap haalt.

Je dood de buurman niet, want dit is niet in je voordeel : Striner

Je dood de buurman niet, want je hebt een sociaal instinct : Kropotkin

In alle interacties ga ik uit van mutualiteit. Mijn anarchisme is een individualisme en een mutualisme.

Wat bedoel ik daarmee ? Eigenlijk is het vrij basaal allemaal.

Als we een economische transactie aangaan, worden we er BEIDE beter van, dat is de bedoeling, het streven.

We kunnen elkaar gewoon in de ogen blijven kijken. We behouden elkaars waardigheid. Dit gaat dan op, als we niet afhankelijk van elkaar zijn. Als er echt consent is tussen de participanten. Als een andere optie mogelijk geweest zou zijn, in het sociale/economische verkeer.

Ik ben niet jouw baas, maar ik doe iets samen mét jou, zodat we er allebei beter van worden.We hoeven geen beste vrienden te zijn, we hoeven elkaar niet eens te mogen, maar we erkennen wel elkaars autonomie, waardigheid.Zodat we ons niet bezwaart hoeven te voelen. Geen meester/slaaf dualisme, maar wederzijdse interacties, gebaseerd op consent. Wederzijdse verheffing, is het ideaalbeeld.

Dit gaat ook van individualisme uit, dit mutualisme. Waarom ? Het redeneert vanuit het subject. Ik ga met jou een interactie aan, als ik er beter van wordt. En ik wordt er écht beter van, als ik jou niet uitbuit, maar als jij er ook wat aan hebt. Waarom geen uitbuiting ? Zo behoud ik mijn eergevoel. Als ik een product verkoop, wil ik andere mensen niet oplichten. Waarom niet ? Omdat ik eergevoel heb. Omdat ik trots heb. Het is eer of geld, zeiden ze in het oude Rome. Mutualisme gaat meer over eer, dan over geld. Al gebruikt men wel geld. Je kan je klanten oplichten, met slechte producten, die te duur zijn en gemaakt zijn via uitbuiting. Je kan ook echte producten verkopen, waar een normale prijs voor betaald is. Dan verdien je eraan en hoef jij je niet te schamen, voor wie je bent. Je hoeft dan geen dubbelleven te leiden. Markten en winst, hoeven niet per se waardigheid uit te sluiten. En nee, dit is niet utopisch gedacht, maar gewoon praktisch. Niet alles is altijd ‘een utopie’.

We hebben dus niets tegen markten, maar wel iets tegen uitbuiting. We hebben niets tegen individualisme, maar gaan niet uit van een meester/slaaf dualisme. We hebben niets tegen egoïsme, wel iets tegen kapitalisme. We hebben niets tegen geld, wel iets tegen property en de accumulatie van kapitaal. We hebben niets tegen collectiviteit, mits het ook in het persoonlijke belang is. Mutualiteit in iedere interactie, dat is de basis van mijn handelen.Althans, mijn streven ( ik ben vast ook weleens een klootzak ).We doen iets waar we samen iets aan hebben. Waar we allebei even veel aan hebben.

Dat betekend ook dat ik dus niet voor je door het vuur ga en jij hoeft ook niet voor mij door het vuur te gaan. We zoeken elkaar slechts op, als we iets aan elkaar hebben.

Dit alles, deze mutualiteit geld voor het economische, maatschappelijke, artistieke,romantische, seksuele, politieke, maatschappelijke en sociale leven. Het is de focus. Het zal niet altijd lukken, maar het is wel de focus.

We gaan een vriendschap aan, als het voor jou leuk is en voor mij ook, anders niet. We hebben een liefdesrelatie, als het voor jou leuk is en mij ook. We gaan economische interacties aan, we voeren handel, als we er beide iets aan hebben. Anders is het gewoon uitbuiting en gemaskeerde slavernij. In kapitalistische markten, ontbreekt die wederkerige/interdependente dimensie, die cruciaal is voor menselijk welzijn. Ga maar na. Die huisbaas waar je aan betaald, die baas waarvoor je werkt. Heb jij ook iets aan die mensen ? Nee, zij hebben voornamelijk iets aan jouw arbeid, of aan het feit dat jij een dak boven je hoofd moet hebben. Hier is dus geen mutualiteit, maar uitbuiting gaande.

Mutueel voordeel, is de focus. Jij moet er beter van worden, maar ík zeker ook. Als ik er niet merkbaar beter van wordt, verwerp ik het per definitie. Hierin verschilt mijn anarchisme, van een anarcho communisme. Anarcho communisme is opofferingsgezind en maatschappelijk gericht. Individueel anarchisme legt meer de nadruk op het individuele profijt van een handeling.

Ik heb gemerkt dat dit toch een spanningsveld is, tussen anarcho communisme en individueel anarchisme ( in Nederland is anarcho communisme groot ). Al denk ik wel dat de twee stromingen iets aan elkaar kunnen hebben. In grote lijnen ben ik het eens met anarcho communisten. Maar hun accent ligt vaak anders. Ze hebben als het ware een andere smaak. Ze richten zich sneller op ‘de ander’ en het welzijn van die potentiële/abstracte ‘de andere’ en vergeten zichzelf daarmee. Terwijl jouw eigen welzijn, kan je zien als een soort anker. Een uitgangspunt. Iets dat onbetwistbaar is. Het gaat niet altijd over jou, zeggen anarcho communisten. Voor mij dus wel. Voor mij gaat niets boven mij…

Een individualist werkt wel samen met anarcho communisme. Als hij/zij er daadwerkelijk iets aan heeft. Ik denk dat je dat in je achterhoofd moet houden, als je met anarcho communisten samenwerkt. Zijn we nu ideologische luchtkastelen aan het bouwen, of heb ik hier zelf iets aan ? Direct of indirect ?

Waarom ben je anarchist ? Om de wereld te veranderen, of omdat je er zelf beter van wordt ? Waarom ben je antikapitalist ? Omdat het kapitalisme andere mensen kwaad doet, of omdat je zélf niet meer voor bazen wilt/zal werken ? De laatste stellingname is taboe, in onze christelijke/humanistische cultuur. Ik vind dat onterecht.

Kortom. Je kan anarchist zijn voor jezelf, of voor de massa. Ik ben het voor mijzelf.

Als je nayakosadashi wilt mailen met suggesties voor het opzetten van een Nederlandse individueel anarchistische beweging. Hoe kunnen we een beweging opzetten, in Nederland ? Een beweging zonder officieel lidmaatschap, waarmee we elkaar wel kunnen ondersteunen. Het zou goed zijn, als je in Nederland meerdere soorten anarchismes zou hebben. Niet alleen maar anarcho communisme óf platvloers libertarisme.

In mijn vorige artikel hier, deed ik deze oproep al. Er stond toen alleen per ongeluk geen mail bij. Nu wel.

Соединенные Штаты, став постепенно менее религиозными, одновременно укоренились в квазирелигиозной идеологии своей собственной коррумпированной двухпартийной системы. Благочестивые либералы «крестятся», вновь подтверждая свою веру в Демократического Спасителя, пришедшего в ноябре, — цепляясь за свою веру в демократию, не понимая, что система, которая, как они думают, спасет их, является той самой системой, которая создала нынешнюю политическую ситуацию.

Либерализма недостаточно. Прежде религия была опиумом для масс, ныне ее заменили. Вера в американское правительство, вера в победу либералов в ноябре — теперь это, цитируя Маркса, «вздох угнетённой твари, сердце бессердечного мира, подобно тому как она — дух бездушных порядков. Религия есть опиум народа».

Недостаточно быть либералом 

на украденной земле в украденной стране,

в стране, построенной на работорговле, нарушении прав человека, геноциде, изнасилованиях,

в стране, где до сих пор сохранились памятники превосходства белой расы,

в стране, где президент мобилизует военную силу против граждан, 

в стране, где корпорации закроются, чтобы не допустить мародерства, но в защиту прав трудящихся,

в стране, где массовое убийство животных является важным бизнесом.

Мой призыв как к анархистам, так и к либералам: восстанем же сейчас против фашизма! Мы сделаем это — и сделаем это громко! Если Дональд Трамп хочет найти «Антифа», не будем ему мешать.

7 августа Джеймс Холмс, стрелявший в кинотеатре, был приговорен к пожизненному заключению. На слушаниях по вынесению приговора мать Холмса заявила, что он был милым, невинным мальчиком, чья психическая болезнь преследовала его и в конечном итоге превратила в убийцу. От Колумбайна до Чарльстона, каждый раз, когда белый человек открывает огонь, психическое заболевание служит оправданием. Вместо того чтобы признать, что нормальные люди способны на злые поступки, обвиняют дисфункциональный мозг, как будто дисфункция и зло идут рука об руку. Тенденция обвинять зло в психических заболеваниях приводит к гротескным нарушениям прав человека против тех, кто мыслит иначе, чем социально приемлемо.

Большая часть психических заболеваний социально сконструирована. Используя медицинские диагнозы для осуждения паттернов мышления, мы клеймим позором и отчуждаем любого, кто думает иное, чем то, что допускает капиталистическое патриархальное государство. Кто-то может быть как беспокойным, так и тревожным или подавленным. Люди, которые социально для нас неприемлемы, не могут сосредоточиться на длительные периоды времени или пытаются справиться с эмоциональной травмой, а также не становятся хорошими рабочими в капиталистической системе. Патриархальный государственный капитализм зависит от подчинения масс иерархии и выполнения приказов. Для функционирования государственного капитализма субъекты государства должны соответствовать установленным им иерархическим стандартам. Люди становятся винтиками в системе, и когда человек не вписывается должным образом, эта «машина» отбрасывает его в сторону.

В недавнем прошлом Диагностическое и статистическое руководство по психическим расстройствам (DSM) включало гомосексуальность и расстройство гендерной идентичности. Гендерная дисфория до сих пор по большому счету считается психическим расстройством. Диагнозы, которые остаются в DSM, такие как синдром Аспергера, депрессия, биполярное расстройство и СДВГ, отражают «ненормальные» идентичности, а не какие-либо болезни. В то время как некоторые психические заболевания реальны и могут быть истощающими, невродиверсия желательна и является нормальной частью человеческого состояния. Невродиверсия, или отклонение от социальных стандартов нормального мышления, не является постыдной.

Люди, страдающие невродиверсией, гораздо более склонны испытывать насилие, чем совершать его. Каждый четвертый невродивергентный человек подвергается сексуальному, физическому или домашнему насилию каждый год. В психиатрических больницах и других подобных учреждениях широко распространены случаи жестокого обращения.

Независимо от природы невродивергенции, исследование 1998 года показало, что если в крови у них нет наркотиков или алкоголя, невродивергенты не более склонны совершать акты насилия, чем кто-либо другой. Когда люди с психическими заболеваниями действительно совершают насилие, оно почти всегда направлено на членов семьи и друзей, а не на незнакомых людей. Одна четверть бездомного населения страдает серьезными психическими расстройствами, поскольку общество, живущее в страхе перед психически больными, оставляет их беззащитными перед уличным насилием и жестокостью полиции.

Невродивергенты чаще становятся жертвами полицейского произвола, чем их нейротипичные коллеги. Только с января по август 2014 года полиция убила по меньшей мере 14 человек, которых государство считало психически больными. Полиция часто арестовывает людей просто из-за их психического заболевания. Или же их принудительно отправляют в больницы, а потом заставляют оплатить счет за лечение. Государство также, как известно, использует психические заболевания для подавления несогласных с ним мнений, например, в случае с классической анархисткой Авророй д’Анджело. Наше общество относится к людям с психическими заболеваниями в лучшем случае как к уродам, а в худшем — как к преступникам.

Невродивергенты должны быть в состоянии защитить себя. Поскольку они часто становятся жертвами насилия и не могут рассчитывать на надежную помощь государства, они должны иметь возможность вооружиться. Пытаясь предотвратить массовые расстрелы, государство стремится либо ограничить свободу лиц с психическими заболеваниями, либо ограничить доступ к оружию, либо и то и другое. Многие из этих ограничений, такие как AB 1014 в Калифорнии, требуют только того, чтобы кого-то подозревали в проблемах с психическим здоровьем, и никакой медицинский диагноз не требуется. Они часто основаны на ограничительных социальных нормах и, таким образом, являются ненадежными оценками нейротипичности в любом случае. Они, конечно, не должны служить стандартом для ограничения свободы человека. 

Контроль над оружием больше всего вредит социально и юридически маргинализированным группам населения, включая (особенно) невродивергентов.

В прошлое воскресенье проходил Международный женский день, посвященный чествованию и празднованию экономических, культурных, научных и политических достижений женщин, а также просто женский день. В этот день уделяется особое внимание вопросам, которые касаются женщин. Существуют две таких проблемы: принудительная секс-работа и торговля людьми. Хотя это не единственные преступления по отношению к женщинам, они являются одними из самых отвратительных. 

В прошлом месяце, после Суперкубка, насилие над секс-работниками привлекло повышенное внимание общественности. Тревожные статьи утверждали, что большое количество женщин было принудительно ввезено контрабандой в Северный Нью-Джерси для продажи сексуальных услуг тем, кто обожает спорт — среди мужчин. За последние несколько лет выросло число сообщений о крупномасштабной торговле людьми вокруг крупных спортивных мероприятий. В то время как распространенные утверждения том, что тысячи женщин контрабандой ввозятся в города, где проходят спортивные мероприятия, лишены подтверждающих доказательств, принудительная секс-работа по-прежнему ужасающе распространена в США и во всем мире. Молодых женщин по-прежнему обманывают, похищают и заставляют продавать сексуальные услуги безжалостным сутенерам, жадным торговцам людьми и мошенникам. Жертвы такого принуждения не могут доверять полиции или властям, потому что они сами занимаются незаконной деятельностью. В результате им некуда обратиться, и мало способов убежать. 

Женщины, занимающиеся незаконной сексуальной торговлей, подвергаются высокому уровню убийств и интенсивному психологическому и физическому насилию. Это трагический результат запретительной политики, которая рассматривает секс-работников как преступников. Криминализация выявляет насильственные аспекты любой торговли. Так же как запрет на алкоголь развязал руки организованной преступности, секс за деньги переходит в сферу деятельности опасных бандитов и их жертв. 

Там, где есть спрос на сексуальные услуги (как, например, в случае с крупными спортивными мероприятиями и военными базами), поставщики будут делать всё возможное для удовлетворения этого спроса. К сожалению, сутенеры и работорговцы используют насилие. Поскольку их жертвы не имеют юридического статуса, сутенерам это часто сходит с рук. Чтобы покончить с этим кошмаром, нам нужно декриминализировать секс-работу. Это означает полное невмешательство в добровольные сделки, связанные с секс-работой со стороны государства. Люди должны иметь возможность самостоятельно принимать решения по сексуальным вопросам без участия правительства. Лица, вовлеченные в криминальные профессии, такие как секс-бизнес, наркоторговля или нелегальная иммиграция, очень уязвимы для злоупотреблений и убийств. Несмотря на то что в «законной» экономике существуют несправедливые злоупотребления, наихудшие меры применяются к людям, работающим на запрещенных профессиях. Во многих отношениях это проблема подлинных трудовых прав, поскольку те, кто работают нелегально, часто подчиняются прихотям других и практически не имеют средств для ведения переговоров о более высокой зарплате, лучших условиях труда или даже свободном выходе. 

Секс-бизнес легко входит в нелегальные рынки, поэтому он настолько распространен, хотя и запрещен в большинстве стран мира. Его клиенты предъявляют постоянный, предсказуемый спрос и готовы платить высокие цены за работу, которая не требует какого-либо обширного обучения или капитальных вложений. В свободном обществе секс-работа по согласию была бы вариантом работы для людей, особенно для тех, кто считает её предпочтительной относительно других вариантов. Спрос, который погашается секс-работниками, является реальным. Люди должны иметь возможность погасить спрос предложением — безопасным, законным и согласованным способом. Было показано, что декриминализация может не только уменьшить насилие в отношении женщин, но и уменьшить передачу ЗППП. Нет никаких причин, по которым женщинам или мужчинам следует запретить зарабатывать деньги, принося удовольствие другим, если все участвующие стороны согласны. 

Хотя некоторые могут возразить, что секс-работа унизительна для тех, кто этим занимается; такая ситуация только усугубляется запретительной политикой, окружающей её. Если бы секс-работники имели полную защиту, предоставленную другим сферам деятельности, стигматизация, вероятно, уменьшилась бы. Более того, мы не должны насильно удалять варианты работы у людей только лишь потому, что они противоречат субъективным представлениям высшего среднего класса о том, что их унижает. Мы должны осудить принуждение и методы охоты на людей в серьёзных ситуациях, но мы не должны запрещать некоторые виды работ. Во всяком случае, мы должны исправить эти душераздирающие ситуации и дать людям больше возможностей. 

Секс-работа на свободном рынке потенциально может быть гораздо менее унизительной, чем большая часть работы, к которой мы привыкли. Многие из нас считают, что носить униформу работников фастфуда или выражать ложный энтузиазм телемаркетеров бесчеловечно и унижающе, и все же никто в верхнем среднем классе не предлагает нам запретить эти варианты трудоустройства. На свободном рынке лица, вовлеченные в секс-торговлю, могут работать независимо при полной защите правовой системы. Они могут начать собственное дело и освободиться не только от сутенеров и работорговцев, но и от боссов. Кроме того, те работники, у которых есть начальники, будут иметь больше свободы для организации борьбы за лучшую заработную плату и условия труда. «Индустриальные работники мира» в настоящее время организуют профсоюз работников секс-бизнеса, а Международный союз секс-работников Великобритании активно выступает за декриминализацию. В мире, свободном от произвольных запретов, правительственного фаворитизма в отношении конкретных направлений работы и бесчисленных барьеров для входа, которые существуют сегодня, для всех людей будет доступно больше вариантов. В таком мире может наблюдаться уменьшение секс-работы, или он может стать более привлекательным направлением, чем сегодня. Важно то, что все люди защищены от принуждения и могут свободно заключать любые добровольные соглашения по своему выбору. 

Когда сделки являются полностью добровольными, обе стороны могут уйти, получив выгоду. Злоупотребление сводится к минимуму, когда людям разрешено работать открыто и иметь полный доступ к возмещению ущерба. Жертва появляется, когда третьи стороны вынуждают других совершать сделки. Криминализация секс-работы не устранила этот тип виктимизации, но усугубила его. Сегодняшняя секс-работа делает жертвами женщин и мужчин из-за её потребности в секретности и угрозы постоянных нападок со стороны государства. Запрет во всех формах порождает уродливые преступные миры, где люди подвергаются жестокому обращению, убиваются и рассматриваются как одноразовые. Давайте положим конец злоупотреблениям, связанным с секс-работой, освободив ее от нападок со стороны государства и поддержав надежную защиту свободы для всех людей!

Хорошие рыночные анархисты так не поступают. Здесь, в C4SS, мы признаем, что капитализм и современные права частной собственности являются продуктом узурпации государством ранее существовавших прав собственности крестьян и постоянного вмешательства государства в экономику на благо элиты. За несколько веков это превратилось в снежный ком и привело к существующим имущественным отношениям, которые Кевин Карсон называет «исторической субсидией» (http://www.mutualist.org/id4.html).

После того как государство уничтожило относительно автономный образ жизни крестьян посредством таких актов, как огораживания, у них не было другого выбора, кроме как принять ужасные и опасные условия труда в новых невероятно загрязненных метрополиях. Это не значит, что технологические инновации, эффекты масштаба и снижение транзакционных издержек, присущие городам, также не способствовали урбанизации, просто переход от феодализма к капитализму не был чисто экономическим явлением.

Не учитывая эту важную историческую перспективу в своей философии, либертарианцы упускают важнейшую деталь, позволяющую понять, почему современный мир является таким, какой он есть. Если либертарианцы учтут описанный процесс, то обнаружат, что симпатизируют левым чаще, чем могли бы первоначально подозревать.

Anarchists have long made decentralization a core demand for the structure of our organizations and have placed tremendous faith in the decentralization of our organizations as a means by which to prevent the generation of hierarchies and abuses of power, among other issues. However, this faith is based on very little, and anarchists can stand to benefit by rejecting it as an all-or-nothing principle alongside the concomitant Manichean dichotomy between decentralization, representing the Good, and centralization, representing the Bad. It is, in fact, imperative that we do if we aim to build a movement capable of self-defense and growth in the face of growing authoritarian power.

Favorable feelings toward decentralized organizational schemes are one of the few things all flavors of anarchism have in common. Nearly every anarchist believes, to some extent, that the core values of the anarchist movement are best given life by avoiding the centralization of decision-making and power. To a certain extent, this is right. Some level of decentralization is necessary in an organization so that its organizational processes can be carried out smoothly. Besides abuses of power, there are purely practical reasons to avoid excessive centralization. An organization in which decision-making is highly centralized increases the distance of decision-makers from conditions on the ground, increasing the likelihood of a bad decision being made because of the decision maker’s ignorance of changing local conditions.¹ High centralization also can overwhelm decision-makers with minutiae that’s better off being dealt with locally, negatively impacting the rate at which projects are undertaken and completed – i.e. excessive centralization can generate bottlenecks that impede progress.

This does not mean, however, that centralization is more trouble than it’s ever worth. Similar practical problems are associated with decentralized schemes. The most notable problem with decentralization is the lack of coordination between fully autonomous organizational subunits.² In a decentralized scheme, there may be no actual coordination whatsoever, and the movement and development of the organization could be thought of as complexity generated by the interactions of the organization’s subunits rather than conscious coordination, i.e. mutual readjustment of plans, as such.

This is especially true in a context where there is no basis for cooperation, such as in a commercial market. We can reasonably argue that markets, taken as collections of agents making exchanges with one another, are decentralized systems. The interactions between these agents generate complexity – one example of which would be a “price system” – that then influences the further development of the system. Putting aside that prices in real world markets are not only the product of competition, but also contractual obligations and sometimes legal fiat, we can use this imperfect abstraction to investigate how a decentralized structure can inhibit coordination.

Market anarchists argue that markets enable coordination through the price system, which acts as a means of communication of local knowledge. It would be possible to attack this argument, derived from the Austrian aristocrat and economist Friedrich von Hayek, from a variety of angles. We could note that compressing local information, which is sometimes made up of non-quantitative observations and otherwise incommensurable figures, into a decimal value like price would entail compression to the point of obliterating any actually useful knowledge contained therein. A commodity increasing in price will not be enough for a decision to be made on the basis of that fluctuation. If the price of tin increases relative to copper, and these can be substituted in the production of a commodity, it still must be known to decision-makers at the firm-level whether that price increase reflects a temporary change in conditions, or a long-term one (Cockshott and Cottrell). The change in price alone is insufficient to guide investment decisions, and the knowledge of what drove the change is not arcane knowledge that is beyond our ability to transmit in a timely, useful, manner. The price change also involves some latency between the event that led to the price change and the actual change in price as felt by producers and consumers, meaning the timeliness of the price change may not reflect anything by the time it’s relevant to profit and loss calculations. 

We could also note that prices do not necessarily reflect truthful information, so much as the beliefs of agents in the market. Market actors routinely get things wrong, and this is only revealed after the fact by significant economic dislocations that affect the lives of workers and consumers. Speculative bubbles are a testament to this and perhaps the best example of it. It can always be argued that markets will adjust to these circumstances and that there are incentives for spotting these things. Indeed there are: these incentives to spot bubbles result in windfalls for financiers and other gamblers in real world markets, and speculative bubbles are typically resolved in a way that further centralizes and concentrates wealth.

On a game theoretic level, it is also wrong to talk of markets as “coordinating” economic processes. A “communication system” is insufficient to enable coordination. Again putting aside whether the information conveyed by price changes is accurate or has meaning, the competitive structure of markets necessarily inhibits cooperation and therefore also inhibits effective coordination toward common goals. John O’Neill provides an account of this via his discussion of Hayek’s epistemological critique of socialist planning:

In Hayek’s defence of the market, there is an assumption that the communication of relevant information in the market is all that is necessary for the achievement of coordination. He treats the solution of the problem of information distribution as ipso facto a solution to the problem of coordination. The two are, however, distinct. The possession of information about the plans and actions of others does not of itself enable one to act so that one’s actions are coordinated with those of others. For example, producers possessing information that the demand for the goods they produce is falling relative to supply are not in a position thereby to ensure that their actions are coordinated with those of consumers and other producers. The problem is not simply that of the lack of relevant information noted above. Even given this information, the problem of coordination is not thereby solved. Where plans are inappropriately coordinated, a mechanism is required to adjust those plans. For example, knowledge that (given planned consumption and production of some good) production will exceed demand is of no use to a producer who aims to achieve coordination. Even given mutual knowledge of projected discoordination, no adjustment by any particular actor of his or her own actions will necessarily lead to coordination. There must be some mechanism whereby producers can mutually adjust plans in order that activities be coordinated.

The market, as a competitive order, has no such mechanism for mutual adjustment, for the same reason that it blocks the movement of information. While mutual adjustment might benefit all parties, if one or more cooperates while another does not, ceteris paribus, the non-cooperating party will benefit. Given that all parties are self-interested, the competitively stable strategy is non-cooperation: the market inhibits the mutual adjustment of plans. Eventual adjustments of actions are achieved in the market rather via sudden dislocations in economic life, in which overproduction of certain goods leads to the disappearance of certain competing producers, underproduction to an uncontrolled and excessive movement of productive resources to supply demand.³

The problem for inter-firm coordination within a market is simply that there is no mechanism which enables firms to actually coordinate their plans together and make mutual adjustments as necessary. The ideal market lacks not only a mechanism for coordination (as could exist in, e.g., a cooperative federation or a cartel) but also inhibits cooperation from the start because the competitively stable strategy within a competitive market is always non-cooperation. When we speak of “coordination” within a market, what we’re really talking about are the dislocations that competition generates: workers being laid off when a firm is forced to readjust plans, companies being liquidated with other companies consolidating the liquidated companies’ assets and increasing their share of the market, and so on.

Not every decentralized system has to be subject to such a constraint, however. It’s possible to imagine anarchist affinity groups with clear lines of communication between themselves, and enough shared trust to coordinate a plan of action and follow it through. As much as we can imagine it, however, these kinds of interactions are irregular at best. A commitment to total decentralization prevents coordination between anarchist groups from being a more regular occurrence. Anarchist groups have few if any stable lines of communication between one another, and seldom cooperate over long periods of time and distance in a recurring manner.

Here, we need to overcome the Manichean dichotomy of decentralization and centralization, and introduce instead the concept of discretion from the Viable System Model. Espejo and Reyes use “discretion” to refer to the distribution of decision-making authority through an organization’s units over an organization’s resources and processes. The distribution of discretion within an organization will determine the degree of that organization’s centralization and decentralization.⁴

Consider a regional anarchist confederation as an example. The confederation may have a central body with discretion over the publication of a collective journal chronicling member organizations’ theoretical output and practical activities. Although effectively centralized, such a structure would not be usurping control over local issues from member organizations, nor would it be dictating anything to them. A flexible enough federation could define such centralized functions as it pleases, without necessarily endangering the autonomy of member organizations over their own processes and resources. The autonomy of member organizations enables them to mutually recognize the need for discretion to some centralized function – not every organization needs to concern itself with running its own journal – and thereby enable them to focus their attention on what really matters. This means that centralization can, in some instances, enable units to better manage the complexity generated by their own organizational processes and their interactions with other groupings.

The concept of discretion allows us to discuss centralization and decentralization without imputing moral content onto the terms, or treating them as an either/or choice. It enables us to see that centralization and decentralization can even exist alongside each other within an organization, and to understand how to appropriately structure our organizations so as to maximize the autonomy and effectiveness of members in performing their various tasks while also enabling the membership to coordinate their efforts toward a collectively-decided upon goal.

The reflexive fear of centralization among anarchists has contributed to the anarchist movement’s incapacity to respond to authoritarian threats and to pose as a counter-power to authoritarian movements. It has also generated  an informal centralization that is hidden by its lack of formalization (that is, by the lack of formally recognized discretion). Thus, Castoriadis in Workers’ Councils and the Economics of a Self-Managed Society argues:

It is not centralization as such which has made of modern societies such outstanding examples of political alienation or which has led to minorities politically expropriating the majority. This has been brought about by the development of bodies separate from and “above” the general population, bodies exclusively and specifically concerned with the function of centralization.

…

Bureaucratic centralization is a feature of all modern exploiting societies. The intimate links between centralization and totalitarian bureaucratic rule, in such class societies, provokes a healthy and understandable aversion to centralization among many contemporary revolutionaries. But this response is often confused and at times it reinforces the very things it seeks to correct. “Centralization, there’s the root of all evil” proclaim many honest militants as they break with Stalinism or Leninism in either East or West. But this formulation, at best ambiguous, becomes positively harmful when it leads as it often does – either to formal demands for the “fragmentation of power” or to demands for a limitless extension of the powers of base groupings, neglecting what is to happen at other levels.

Autonomy, the fact that we give ourselves our own rules to live by, is on one hand enabled by decentralization, and on the other hand undermined by it. Enabled, obviously, because decentralized decision-making provides local decision-makers significant authority over their own conditions. However, total decentralization imposes limitations on autonomy by restricting the control we have as members of the organization to what’s in our local reach. While the autonomy of the individual subgroup is maximized, the autonomy of the whole collective is nullified: the whole collective can not aggregate and put forward its own collective meanings and rules, it can’t even manage the complexity generated by the interactions between components parts and themselves and their environments. The effect of this on individual members is that they are confronted by complexity they have no autonomy over, which exists as an impersonal power above them. Decentralization, rather than securing autonomy, becomes a limitation on it.

One of the words that proponents of decentralization within the wider anarchist movement today will throw around is stigmergy. Stigmergy is a word which has its origins in entomology, specifically the study of eusocial insects. It’s used to describe the ways that eusocial insects, such as ants or termites, seemingly coordinate their activities without being given commands from a central body. Eusocial insects can read scent tracks left by previous hive members to determine where to search for food, where to build new additions to the hive, and so on.

Stigmergy has its downsides. The same mechanisms that enable a collective of ants to build a complex hive can also result in them fooling themselves and forming an ant mill, following each others scent trails into a spiraling death march, eventually marching themselves to death. Ant mills are unintentional effects of the way eusocial insects organize themselves, and if markets and anarchists are truly “stigmergic,” we have good reason to believe that something like the ant mill is always a possibility, that the mechanisms of “self-organization” contain failure modes which spiral out of the control of any given individuals and which would demand conscious collective intervention (obviously an option unavailable to the ants) to avoid them or steer out of. Our insistence as anarchists on decentralization at all costs may have us in an ant mill of our own, unable to confront growing authoritarian movements and powers, flailing from ideological fad to ideological fad, and unable to speak of any lasting victories since the heyday of anarchism in the nineteenth century workers’ movement.

Decentralization is a shibboleth that has hindered the ability of anarchists to organize ourselves and effectively manage our common affairs. A totally decentralized system lacks what the Viable System Model terms a “metasystem,” a subsystem that provides cohesion and coordination between primary activities. While a metasystem may necessarily feature centralization, this need not necessitate bureaucratic hierarchies and chains of command. The Viable System Model, in fact, aims to provide a conceptual blueprint for building non-hierarchical organizations. 

The task for anarchists is to find ways to organize ourselves that do not necessitate or reproduce violent hierarchies, but a centralized organization need not imply hierarchy at all, while decentralization can also be a feature of a hierarchical social organization, e.g. feudalism, or typical capitalist markets. In an organization in which every member has voting rights, the centralized democratic body containing all members of the organization, making a decision in common, represents the effective merger of decentralization and centralization. What we must avoid is not centralization, but bureaucracy: the creation of a centralized decision-making power separate from the general membership whose business is to run the affairs of the organization. 

The Leninist party provides a perfect example of bureaucratic centralization, with its Central Committee forming a body separate and above the general membership of the party, accountable only to itself and concerned with the day to day affairs of running the Party. The Bolshevik seizure of power and transformation of revolutionary institutions into military bureaucracies sealed the fate of the Russian revolution through the abolition of autonomous workers’ power. But this workers’ power, no matter what, would have taken a centralized form if only at the most immediate level, through the institution of workers’ councils and collective self-management.

Centralization and decentralization are practical matters. Anarchist discourse should cease to center a supposed conflict between the two, so that we can approach and appreciate the real value of both. Centralized organizational components, when properly designed and bound by proper rules and scope, do not pose an inherent threat to the political decentralization of power within anarchist organizations and communities. Rather, in some instances, they are practically necessary and inescapable, and sometimes even beneficial to our individual autonomy. 

Decentralization, rather than a goal in and of itself, is to be preferred when it is practically necessary or beneficial – e.g. adopting a cell structure (or some variant of it) to mitigate the amount of information any given police infiltrator can have access to. Importantly, in this instance the decentralized structure does not guarantee that any mitigation will occur. If the police forces can infiltrate every cell (which is not extremely difficult given the small number of anarchist organizations in any given place) then they have the potential to still map out the organization’s membership and initiatives. A decentralized cell network of anarchist organizations with five cells will still only take five police infiltrators to get a sufficiently complete picture for law enforcement. That is not beyond police capabilities – as green anarchists who followed the cell model and were still rounded up in the Green Scare will tell you. Decentralization and centralization have trade offs, and we have to ask ourselves, in each instance, whether the trade offs are worth it. This depends on anarchists approaching the subject with nuance and open-mindedness toward centralized solutions. 

If the anarchist movement is an ant mill, the viable system model tells us that we need a metasystem to bring ourselves out of it. This will necessarily entail centralized structures in our institutions, in order to set operational policies in response to changing internal and external conditions, and to mediate disputes that arise between operations. What matters for anarchists is that these structures do not become bureaucratic, that the individuals who make up the metasystem do not become solely and exclusively responsible for its management (and by extension, the management of the rest of the system). In order to prevent the generation of formal and informal hierarchies while still maintaining our effectiveness and cohesion, our organizations must become more thoroughly democratic. The organizational task for anarchists, in an ironic sort of way, is to prove Lenin’s dictum that “every cook can govern.”

1. Raul Espejo, Alfonso Reyes, Organizational Systems: Managing Complexity with the Viable System Model, p. 166.
2. Ibid.
3. John O’Neill, The Market: Ethics, Knowledge and Politics, pp. 136-137.
4. Espejo, Reyes, Organizational Systems, p. 166.

Mutual Exchange is C4SS’s goal in two senses: We favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to C4SS’s audience.

Online symposiums will include essays by a diverse range of writers presenting and debating their views on a variety of interrelated and overlapping topics, tied together by the overarching monthly theme. C4SS is extremely interested in feedback from our readers. Suggestions and comments are enthusiastically encouraged. If you’re interested in proposing topics and/or authors for our program to pursue, or if you’re interested in participating yourself, please email editor@c4ss.org or emmibevensee@email.arizona.edu.

Those who follow the work of C4SS Senior Fellow Roderick Long will be excited to learn he’s got a new project just launched on YouTube. The “Agoric Café” is “…devoted to philosophy, politics, history, literature, and whatever else he feels like sounding off on, as well as video interviews with interesting people.”

Taking its name from the ancient Greek agora, the new channel is devoted to Aristotelean philosophy, anarchist politics, science fiction, and intellectual history. So far there are three episodes available: an introduction, a review of Steve J. Shone’s American Anarchism, and an exploration of philosophical thought experiments and science fiction. Those with eclectic intellectual interests will enjoy the wide range of ideas Roderick covers and his creative approach to key philosophical theories.

Check out Episode 2: On Steve J. Shone’s AMERICAN ANARCHISM

Let’s face it, it’s not easy being LGBTQ+ in this society. There is an ongoing rise in the murder rates of trans and gender non-conforming individuals, with the Human Rights Campaign documenting at least 21 murders just this year, which nearly matches last year’s documented 27 murders despite us only being halfway through the year. We are posed to easily pass last year’s murder rates before the end of the year.

LGBTQ+ people are more likely to suffer from abuse, be kicked out of their homes, refused services and resources based on their identities, and face job and housing discrimination. These factors lead to increased suicide rates in the queer and trans communities. Being a person of color, disabled, undocumented, etc. only increases these struggles for many. So where does one go when they have nowhere else? Where does one seek refuge in a red state where so many are against you?

This is exactly why we are working to establish a queer communal homestead and community organizing space in the heart of Cajun Country which we have named Coup de Main. Louisiana is a deeply red state with some of the highest incarceration rates per capita in the entire world. That is why we seek to establish a sanctuary from that as much as possible.

“Coup de Main” is Cajun French for “lend a hand.” We believe this name purposely encapsulates our mission with this project. Being anarchists, we wish to establish a community based on mutual aid and solidarity. The land we are working with was abandoned after Katrina after the trailers on the property were completely demolished in the storm. Since then, they have been left to rot into the ground as nature grew up around them. Now, we have to clear an acre and a half of land from a decade and a half’s worth of overgrowth and two household’s worth of hurricane debris.

Once that acre and a half is cleared, we can build spaces for people to live and thrive, where we can organize community projects and campaigns, where we can collaborate and start worker-run businesses, where we can hold workshops, skillshares, meetings, festivals, and other events.

Even with the land being an absolute mess, it has already served as a community resource, serving as a campground for local houseless folks in need of a safe place to lay low. Coup de Main also hosted a Mardi Gras festival/work party, Coup de Gras, in which we brought Vermin Supreme and his amazing wife Becky to New Orleans for Lundi Gras and Mardi Gras days.

We have more folks interested in joining our community. Many are waiting out hurricane season since we’re still living out of tents on the property and plan to continue in the fall. We have to clear more land, clean things up more, and buy more tools and supplies to adequately care for people and finish the job. We can’t be a tent city forever.

We need gas for the generator and chainsaw, we need water tanks and solar panels, we need weed eaters, stump rot, a decent lawnmower, saws to chop up the trailers for removal, sledgehammers, shovels, rakes, and a new front gate. We need bug spray, water, food to feed those in need, fans to deal with the extreme heat and humidity, battery packs for backup power sources, rain barrels, tables, canopies, building materials, and so much more.

We’ve come a long way since we started earlier this year and many folks have donated time, labor, resources, and money to the cause including the fine folks with Team Supreme, the Coalition of Armed Labor, the Libertarian Socialist Caucus of the Libertarian Party, Enemy of the State’s Dank Pod-Stash, Green Market Agorist, and so many more. Many individuals, including myself, have put a lot of their own personal money behind this project because it is so important. They have helped us obtain tents, a generator, hand tools, machetes, chainsaws, an outdoor shower, water, food, hygiene products, canopies, fans, batteries, and so much more.

This will be an ongoing project which we hope will serve the community for decades to come. We hope that as an organizing hub, it can serve as a space to inspire positive change in the surrounding community, hopefully making it a safer more inclusive place for those seeking sanctuary at Coup de Main.

So please, if you wish to support this project, spread this fundraising call far and wide! Donate if you can and help boost the campaign by sharing on every platform you can. New Orleans may be known for its vibrant queer culture and community, but just across the bridge many of us still live in unsafe conditions with few resources and a lack of community. Help us offer that community. Together we may end up saving lives and help folks thrive in the process.

Check out the Green Market Agorist YouTube and Bitchute channels for updates.

You can donate via the project’s GoFundMe at: https://gf.me/u/x4sngr

Di Kevin Carson. Originale pubblicato il 15 giugno 2020 con il titolo Decentralized Economic Coordination: Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

La questione del calcolo economico, così come impostata da Ludwig von Mises e Friedrich Hayek, viene usata spesso dai libertari per contrastare forme di coordinamento economico che non si basano sul mercato e la moneta.

La variante misesiana, esposta ne Il calcolo economico in una società socialista e in Socialismo, ruota attorno al ruolo che hanno i prezzi dei fattori di input nel decidere la distribuzione degli input stessi tra i vari usi alternativi. Scegliamo tra diversi fattori di produzione, è la tesi, e decidiamo su cosa economizzare, confrontando i prezzi. Decidiamo cosa produrre con tali fattori confrontando il valore economico prodotto con i costi di produzione.

La versione hayekiana si basa sulla teoria della complessità, ovvero del volume delle informazioni da elaborare. I prezzi di mercato distribuiscono migliaia di risorse diverse tra migliaia di produzioni diverse come nessuna burocrazia pianificatrice centrale potrebbe affrontare.

Dico subito che sono agnostico riguardo la possibilità o meno che forme coordinative non di mercato possano essere più efficienti del sistema dei prezzi di mercato. Sono agnostico anche riguardo l’esistenza di una coordinazione economica o di un processo decisionale razionale, anche se propendo per il sì. Dunque, se cercate una dichiarazione definitiva su quale delle due forme, di mercato o non di mercato, sia più efficiente, se cercate un sostegno a questo o quel particolare meccanismo, avete sbagliato indirizzo.

Voglio però esaminare alcuni aspetti delle tesi di Mises e Hayek che mi paiono particolarmente interessanti o rilevanti ai fini della coordinazione economica.

Partendo da Mises, è già troppo dire che la sua tesi sui prezzi di input ha una qualche validità.

Tanto per cominciare, nessuna normativa sui diritti di proprietà è evidente di per sé. Esiste una vasta gamma di possibili normative. La scelta tra l’una e l’altra precede logicamente il funzionamento e la determinazione del prezzo di mercato.

Seguendo Coase, si potrebbe arguire che le norme sulla proprietà non sono importanti quando sono negoziabili; qualunque sia la loro impostazione, il mercato le costringerebbe a gravitare attorno al punto di massima efficienza. Ma cambiare le normative significa anche cambiare la distribuzione dei flussi di reddito tra i vari attori; ovvero, gli incentivi possono variare enormemente secondo come si stabiliscono i diritti di proprietà. La distribuzione del reddito e dell’incentivo a produrre varia moltissimo secondo che (ad esempio) una terra appartenga a chi la coltiva o ad un proprietario che non la coltiva. Ma dire che le normative sulla proprietà non contano finché sono negoziabili è ridicolo, è come dire che non importa se io ho il diritto di non essere ucciso o se qualcun altro ha diritto ad una compensazione per non avermi ucciso.

E non ha senso dire che i prezzi di mercato riflettono il valore perché, a seconda di come le normative assegnano la proprietà, il prezzo di una data cosa può riflettere tutta una gamma di valori. Gli economisti di orientamento neoclassico o marginalista, a prescindere dalle ipotetiche normative sulla proprietà, sostengono invariabilmente che prezzi e redditi sono il riflesso del valore creato. Si chiedono solo se tali normative sono architettate, relativamente parlando, in modo da riflettere i costi reali con maggiore o minore accuratezza.

Qualunque sia il regime dei diritti di proprietà, è tautologico dire che “la ricchezza riflette la creazione di valore”, quando il valore è definito come ciò che si riesce a far pagare per qualcosa. Secondo i marginalisti, la produttività marginale di una qualunque cosa è ciò che va ad aggiungersi al prezzo finale di beni e servizi. Se, ad esempio, si chiude un mezzo di produzione e si fa pagare un prezzo per accedervi, qualunque pedaggio vada a sommarsi al prezzo costituisce la “produttività marginale” del “servizio” che “contribuisce” alla produzione.

Se invece definiamo la creazione di valore in termini di produzione diretta di valore d’uso – l’attività umana occorrente a dare una nuova forma a del materiale fisico, o anche a trovare metodi migliori per farlo – allora è chiaro che (come vedremo più in là) l’attuale regime dei diritti di proprietà non premia affatto il lavoro, fisico e mentale, occorrente alla creazione di valore d’uso. Dopotutto, a incassare miliardi con la Tesla è Elon Musk, non qualcuno dei suoi operai o tecnici. La situazione è analoga a quella del Medio Evo, quando ad arricchire i feudatari era il controllo dell’accesso alla terra, non la produzione vera e propria di rape.

È quindi più esatto dire che la distribuzione dei fattori tra usi alternativi in concorrenza tra loro richiede un regime dei diritti di proprietà pensato appositamente. E dato questo criterio, il regime dei diritti di proprietà vigente sotto il capitalismo è tra i meno efficienti che si possano concepire.

Il sistema prevalente che da qualche secolo regola la proprietà non solo dimostra che i diritti di proprietà capitalisti non sono emersi spontaneamente, senza l’intervento dello stato, ma evidenzia anche gli effetti perversi della loro biasimevole teorizzazione.

Secondo lo schema capitalista prevalente, terre e risorse naturali – naturalmente scarse e costose – vengono rese artificialmente abbondanti e economiche grazie al fatto che le classi proprietarie possono accedervi in esclusiva. Nel corso degli ultimi secoli, il capitalismo ha seguito perlopiù un modello di crescita estensivo basato più sull’incremento dei fattori di produzione materiali, che sulla crescita dell’efficienza dei fattori di produzione esistenti. Questo spiega la maggiore efficienza dell’agricoltura industriale, in termini di rientro per ettaro, rispetto alle coltivazioni intensive di piccola scala: perché considera la terra un bene gratuito. Le haciendas dell’America Latina tengono incolto quasi il 90% delle loro terre, ottenute disonestamente, mentre i contadini poveri di terre sono costretti a lavorare come dipendenti salariati. Il governo statunitense paga i produttori per tenere le terre incolte, così che quelle terre coltivabili ma inutilizzate diventano un investimento fondiario con un rientro garantito.

In quest’ultimo secolo circa, la socializzazione degli input aziendali è diventata il capitolo di spesa principale dello stato. Lo stato ha incentivato ferrovie e autostrade interstatali, ha fatto nascere l’aviazione civile con soldi dei contribuenti, offre accesso prioritario alle terre pubbliche ad aziende petrolifere e estrattive di vario tipo, fa le guerre per il petrolio e utilizza la marina militare per garantire rotte sicure a petroliere e portacontainer (Vedi Carson, Organization Theory, pp. 65-70).

L’industria capitalista segue uno schema basato sull’incentivo allo spreco e l’obsolescenza programmata al fine di tenere in piedi la produzione. Gli stessi modelli contabili usati dai manager e dagli econometristi considerano il consumo di risorse una creazione di valore.

Dall’altro canto, i diritti di proprietà capitalisti rendono artificialmente costose idee, tecniche e innovazioni, impongono barriere e pedaggi al loro utilizzo e rendono artificialmente difficile la cooperazione.

La proprietà intellettuale causa grosse distorsioni del prezzo, tanto che chi la possiede può vivere di rendita monopolistica sulla duplicazione di dati (canzoni, libri, articoli, film, software e così via) che hanno un costo marginale di riproduzione pari a zero. E quando si copia un design o una tecnica produttiva, ecco che il grosso del prezzo va alla rendita monopolistica rappresentata dai brevetti e non ai fattori materiali e al lavoro.

I copyright sulla ricerca scientifica e i brevetti sulle nuove invenzioni impediscono l’effetto “spalle dei giganti”, per cui il progresso tecnologico è il risultato di idee aggregate o combinate in modi innovativi. Spiega Johann Soderberg (Hacking Capitalism), ad esempio, che il perfezionamento della macchina a vapore rimase bloccato fino alla scadenza del brevetto di James Watt.

I brevetti permettono alle aziende transnazionali di stabilire chi può produrre e chi no. È così che si è riusciti a delegare la produzione a appaltatori terzi in paesi a basso reddito, mantenendo il monopolio legalizzato sul diritto di vendita, e applicando un ricarico enorme ai costi reali di produzione.

Altro fattore reso artificialmente costoso dal regime di proprietà capitalista è il credito. Nel suo pamphlet del 1825, Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital, Thomas Hodgskin smontò la teoria del “finanziamento del lavoro” (secondo la quale il datore anticipa le spese per vivere dei suoi lavoratori attingendo ad un suo fondo di risparmi e quindi ha diritto ad un compenso per tale sacrificio) spiegando che, in realtà, sono i vari gruppi di lavoratori produttori ad anticiparsi l’un l’altro non solo ciò che occorre per vivere, ma anche i fattori materiali che occorrono alla produzione, attingendo alla loro produzione personale. La ricchezza del capitalista non è la fonte di tutto, ma solo della rivendicazione del diritto di fornire input prodotti da altri.

Tra chi produce gli alimenti e chi produce vestiti, tra chi produce strumenti di lavoro e chi li usa, si intromette il capitalista, che non fabbrica e non utilizza queste cose, ma si appropria del prodotto di tutte le varie parti. Con una mano il più possibile avara dà ad uno parte di ciò che ha prodotto l’altro, tenendo per sé il grosso. Gradualmente, un passo dopo l’altro, si è insinuato tra loro, è cresciuto grazie all’accresciuta produttività del lavoro, ha separato le parti al punto che nessuno capisce più da dove vengono quei beni che riceve tramite il capitalista. E mentre li deruba, li tiene separati, così che essi pensano di dovere la propria esistenza al capitalista. Che è semplicemente l’intruso che fa da intermediario tra tutti i lavoratori…

In un sistema razionale, il credito potrebbe essere organizzato cooperativamente dai lavoratori stessi come sistema di flussi orizzontali, così che ognuno finanzia la produzione dell’altro senza bisogno di avere una riserva di ricchezza. Ma la legge del capitalismo limita l’accesso al credito a chi ha già una riserva di ricchezza accumulata, solo a loro è data la possibilità di estrarre rendita dal credito. (Stranamente, gran parte dei libertari di destra sostenitori della “moneta forte” non criticano il fatto che il credito sia limitato a chi già è ricco, ma solo la “insufficienza” di tale credito in certi casi sotto forma di riserva frazionaria).

Un esempio particolare dell’irrazionalità di questo sistema creditizio è emerso in occasione della pandemia di coronavirus. Davanti all’impossibilità di decine di milioni di nuovi assunti di pagare l’affitto, è emersa (non a caso) l’indole parassitaria dei proprietari. Questi, assieme ai loro apologhi, si lamentano dicendo che le loro proprietà sono un investimento, e che dipendono dalla riscossione degli affitti per il pagamento dei mutui. Una qualunque interruzione nel flusso costante delle pigioni causa il default del debito dei proprietari. Ma fermiamoci a riflettere sul significato di ciò. L’affitto va a pagare direttamente il mutuo, mentre il proprietario fa da semplice intermediario che riceve i soldi dagli affittuari e li passa alle banche; ovviamente, facendo la cresta per il “servizio”. Questo la dice lunga sull’organizzazione irrazionale del sistema creditizio.

Simili irrazionalità risultano dal fatto che governance e diritti di proprietà sono pensati in funzione delle aziende. L’autorità gestionale è affidata ad una piramide manageriale che (teoricamente, almeno) rappresenterebbe una classe di azionisti assenteisti, piuttosto che a chi con le proprie forze e con la conoscenza diffusa fa da perno della produzione, ed è per questo che le aziende affondano tra problemi legati agli incentivi e alle informazioni e tra i conflitti d’interesse.

Ad esempio, molti miglioramenti in fatto di efficienza e produttività sono il risultato delle conoscenze diffuse dei lavoratori e del capitale da essi accumulato sotto forma di relazioni sul lavoro, ma questi lavoratori sono razionalmente incentivati a nascondere queste conoscenze perché sanno che qualunque loro contributo alla produttività verrebbe espropriato dalla dirigenza sotto forma di bonus, e per giunta gli si ritorcerebbe contro con ristrutturazioni e velocizzazione del lavoro. E anche se alla base di una maggiore efficienza c’è la conoscenza del processo produttivo da parte dei lavoratori, le dirigenze non affidano mai quelle conoscenze alla discrezione dei lavoratori stessi perché sanno che i loro interessi sono fondamentalmente in contrasto con quelli delle dirigenze. A causa delle piramidi di potere che distorcono fortemente il flusso informativo, le dirigenze operano in una bolla, e questo le costringe a limitare l’affidamento alle conoscenze dei lavoratori, a semplificare il processo lavorativo con un’operazione dall’alto e a renderlo più “leggibile” (vedi James Scott,Seeing Like a State) utilizzando regole di lavoro tayloristiche semplificate. Le dirigenze sono così costrette a spendere per il controllo interno e la disciplina molto più di quanto non avvenga nelle imprese autogestite.

Mises liquidò il modello sociale di mercato di Oskar Lange definendolo un “giocare al capitalismo”, perché le dirigenze aziendali rischiavano capitali che non appartenevano a loro. Erano premiate in caso di successo, mentre in caso contrario erano dispensate dalle responsabilità.

Chi amministra il capitalismo americano gioca al capitalismo né più né meno come i dirigenti immaginati da Lange. Solo teoricamente gli azionisti sono gli attori dell’azienda, e anche quando lo sono si tratta di personaggi fittizi distinti dagli azionisti individuali o collettivi. La verità è che gli amministratori hanno con il capitale aziendale (che sostengono di amministrare in nome degli azionisti) lo stesso rapporto che aveva la burocrazia sovietica con i mezzi di produzione, che sosteneva di amministrare in nome del popolo. Sono un’oligarchia che si autoalimenta e che controlla in maniera assolutamente discrezionale capitali enormi, di cui non è affatto responsabile in caso di perdite. L’atteggiamento tipico consiste nel dilapidare la capacità produttiva di lungo termine, far fuori il capitale umano al fine di ottenere buoni numeri nel breve termine e autoassegnarsi bonus sostanziosi, lasciando ai successori il compito di spalare le macerie.

Murray Rothbard diceva che l’economia pianificata sovietica sopravviveva solo prendendo come punto di riferimento dei prezzi le economie di mercato occidentali. Così, anche se i prezzi di trasferimento stabiliti dal Gosplan e dagli amministratori aziendali non soddisfacevano, perché non riflettevano le condizioni particolari immediate dell’Unione Sovietica, riuscivano comunque a funzionare perché erano legati indirettamente ai prezzi di mercato altrove.

Ma nel capitalismo aziendale la stragrande maggioranza dei beni intermedi del processo produttivo sono beni specifici che servono alla produzione di un’azienda particolare, non hanno un mercato. L’azienda tal dei tali compra l’acciaio sul mercato, ma poi con quell’acciaio fabbrica i suoi prodotti partendo da semilavorati fatti su design apposito. La burocrazia aziendale applica un certo prezzo di trasferimento a quei semilavorati, così che questi possono essere “venduti” da un reparto all’altro esattamente come facevano i pianificatori sovietici: facendo riferimento indiretto ai prezzi di mercato praticati all’esterno (il prezzo dell’acciaio, del lavoro, dell’energia e di tutto ciò che contribuisce alla produzione).

In breve, se esiste una realtà che conduce al “caos del calcolo economico” è proprio il mondo creato dall’economia capitalista e difeso da Mises e Hayek. In ogni caso, con una normativa della proprietà più “socialista” – gestione comune di terre e risorse, informazione libera, aziende possedute e gestite dai lavoratori – si avrebbero risultati più razionali.

In tutti i casi, i diritti di proprietà sono attribuiti a persone che non solo non ricavano alcun vantaggio dall’aumento dell’efficienza, ma i cui interessi sono l’esatto opposto di quelli dei produttori reali, di cui sono parassiti. Come scrive Kropotkin in Parole di un ribelle,

L’economia politica, pseudo-scienza della borghesia, non smette mai di tessere le lodi della proprietà individuale… [e però] gli economisti non concludono dicendo “La terra a chi la coltiva”. Al contrario, rifacendosi alla realtà attuale, si affrettano a dire “La terra a chi manda i salariati a coltivarla!” [Iain McKay, ed., Direct Struggle Against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology]

Pertanto, se è vero che non è possibile distribuire le risorse efficientemente senza normative sulla proprietà pensate razionalmente, allora tutto il ragionamento di Mises sul calcolo economico non è che un attacco a quel sistema capitalistico che egli stesso voleva difendere.

Ancora, la sua teoria riguardo le necessità del mercato in fatto di fattori o beni produttivi era poco coerente. Secondo Mises, il sindacalismo rivoluzionario avrebbe prodotto un caos computazionale perché non ci sarebbe stato un mercato dei mezzi di produzione. Per Mises, per soddisfare il calcolo economico l’economia aveva bisogno di un mercato borsistico. Confondeva il mercato dei beni con il mercato delle aziende, mentre è perfettamente fattibile un mercato di materie prime e macchine senza mercati borsistici.

Ad ogni buon conto, appare perlomeno plausibile che un’economia di mercato con diritti di proprietà ben concepiti – gestione comune delle risorse, terre comuni, aziende gestite dai lavoratori e servizi pubblici gestiti in cooperativa dagli utenti, ad esempio – sia relativamente molto più efficiente dell’attuale sistema capitalistico.

Riguardo la necessità dei prezzi di mercato al fine di distribuire le risorse, le affermazioni categoriche di Mises non mi convincono affatto. Se non altro perché, pur facendo dipendere il calcolo economico dalla necessità di assegnare valori ai fattori di base, lascia intuire come la sua tesi scivoli in direzione delle tesi di Hayek sulla complessità e il volume delle informazioni.

Dopotutto lo stesso Mises, ne Il calcolo economico nello stato socialista, ammetteva che in un’economia domestica, era possibile distribuire razionalmente (“più o meno accuratamente”) gli input produttivi, e valutarne gli effetti, senza ricorrere ai prezzi di mercato. “…Si può analizzare l’intero processo produttivo dall’inizio alla fine, e stabilire in qualunque momento quale tra i vari procedimenti produce più beni di consumo.”

Ma questo non è più possibile data l’enorme complessità delle condizioni nella nostra economia sociale. È chiaro anche in una società socialista che mille ettolitri di vino sono meglio di ottocento, e non è difficile capire se ciò che si desidera sono mille ettolitri di vino o cinquecento di olio. Non c’è bisogno di avere alcun sistema di calcolo per stabilire il fatto: a decidere è la volontà dei soggetti economici coinvolti. Ma una volta giunti alla decisione, solo allora inizia il vero compito di una direzione economica razionale, che consiste nel porre gli strumenti al servizio dello scopo. Questo può essere fatto solo con un qualche calcolo economico. Senza l’ausilio del calcolo, la mente umana non è capace di districarsi tra le miriadi di prodotti e potenzialità produttive. Resterebbe intontita e non saprebbe più come produrre e dove…

… Per quanto intelligente, un uomo da solo non è in grado di valutare l’importanza di ognuno degli innumerevoli beni di ordine superiore. Nessuna persona singola è in grado di comprendere tutte le possibili combinazioni degli assetti produttivi, così da poter prendere decisioni senza l’ausilio di qualche sistema di calcolo.

Dunque il calcolo “in natura” non è logicamente impossibile, come parrebbe di capire dall’impostazione della questione, ma semplicemente diventa un problema pratico al crescere della mole di informazioni.

Due implicazioni. La prima è che, se si tratta di un problema pratico dato dal volume e dalla complessità delle informazioni, allora visto il progresso tecnologico informatico fatto da allora (Mises scrisse Il calcolo economico nello stato socialista oltre vent’anni prima dell’invenzione del primo computer a valvole) oggi dovrebbe essere possibile gestire tali informazioni. In tal caso mi pare altrettanto possibile, partendo da una classificazione dei fattori in base alla loro relativa scarsità e facendo un calcolo in natura sulla base della produzione degli anni precedenti, fare una pianificazione computerizzata che, con qualche approssimazione, distribuisca razionalmente le risorse tra i vari usi possibili.

La seconda è che il problema pratico del calcolo non è assoluto o qualitativo, ma dipende dalle dimensioni. Se poniamo ad un’estremità l’economia domestica in cui è possibile il calcolo economico in termini non monetari, e all’altra estremità l’economia pianificata centralmente in cui il calcolo o è impossibile o avviene molto caoticamente, più la realtà si accosta al primo caso e più diventa relativamente fattibile il calcolo non monetario.

Ma, come nota Iain McKay in Anarchist FAQ, anche gli anarco-comunisti in genere ritengono la pianificazione centrale di gran lunga inefficiente, e pensano che il grosso della produzione debba avvenire nelle comuni, in villaggi agroindustriali e altro simile.

Se quindi sgombriamo il campo dall’ipotesi di un pianificatore centrale ecco che la critica di Mises perde molto vigore: invece di “un mare di possibili combinazioni economiche” gestite da un’istituzione centrale, abbiamo un minor numero di casi possibili che rispondono ad un numero limitato di necessità. A questo si aggiunge che ogni macchinario è il prodotto di beni di complessità inferiore, ovvero ogni luogo di lavoro è il consumatore di beni prodotti in altri luoghi di lavoro. Se, dunque, come ammette anche Mises, un cliente può scegliere tra beni di consumo senza dover ricorrere al denaro, allora utilizzatori e produttori di un bene di “ordine superiore” possono scegliere tra diversi beni di consumo per soddisfare i propri bisogni.

In termini decisionali, è vero che un pianificatore centrale verrebbe sommerso dalle miriadi di opzioni. Ma in un sistema socialista decentrato collettività e singoli si troverebbero a scegliere tra molte meno opzioni. E a differenza di un sistema centralizzato, singoli e collettività sanno esattamente cosa occorre loro, dunque operano con una gamma di scelta ridotta (ci sono materiali, ad esempio, che sono tecnicamente inadatti a certi usi).

A questo punto voglio ribadire il mio agnosticismo riguardo la relativa superiore efficienza del sistema dei prezzi applicato ai fattori di produzione, nonché riguardo altri modi di elaborare e convogliare informazioni economiche. Resto scettico davanti all’affermazione secondo cui una coordinazione economica non monetaria è impossibile. Come spiego meglio più giù, dubito che esista un particolare modello economico monolitico – una qualunque forma di coordinazione, di mercato o meno – attorno al quale si possa organizzare la società.

Per quanto ne dica Mises, se ci sono dubbi sul suo inquadramento della questione del calcolo economico in termini di valore assegnato ai fattori di input, molti di più sono i dubbi che, a maggior ragione, ricadono su Hayek, che vede la questione in termini di volume e complessità delle informazioni.

Così la questione della relativa maggiore efficienza dei prezzi e di altri meccanismi di coordinamento, in quanto vettori di un gran numero di informazioni, dipende fortemente dall’aspetto tecnologico. A questo proposito, credo che abbia ragione chi sostiene la fattibilità di meccanismi coordinativi non di mercato quando dice che gli apparati informatici di ultima generazione potrebbero ben coordinare un sistema economico razionalmente e funzionalmente. Che questa coordinazione non di mercato possa elaborare un grosso volume di dati complessi con la stessa accuratezza dei prezzi è un’altra questione. Anche qui confesso il mio agnosticismo.

È chiaro che è sempre più possibile coordinare tecnicamente l’economia senza ricorrere al mercato. Programmi come Ethereum e Sensorica, basano la propria coordinazione su sistemi blockchain. Ancora ricorrono a elementi di mercato per assegnare valore al flusso produttivo, ma utilizzano anche, quale più e quale meno, sistemi aperti di rendicontazione al fine di assegnare valore sulla base anche di altri parametri. In The Ethical Economy: Rebuilding Value After the Crisis, Adam Arvidsson e Nicolai Petersen analizzano le possibilità di un modello economico valutativo che tenga conto degli aspetti etici in maniera diversa dal tradizionale sistema dei prezzi. Anche Monika Hardy mostra un grosso interesse per la blockchain e altri meccanismi digitali atti a coordinare le attività produttive fuori dal mercato tradizionale.

Io non solo non so quale metodo coordinativo è più efficiente, ma mi astengo anche, per principio, dal prescrivere questo o quel metodo sostenendone la superiorità. Mi considero un anarchico senza aggettivi e son quasi certo che una società post-statale e post-capitalista sarebbe un’anarchia senza aggettivi. Fioriscano cento fiori, insomma. Come David Graeber, anch’io sono aperto a qualunque proposta di cambiamento, purché ci sia accordo e un rapporto equo tra le persone.

Mi azzardo comunque a fare qualche previsione. Credo che si possa dare per certo che alla fine i cento fiori fioriranno. Vedremo una combinazione specifica, eclettica, di espedienti atti a regolare la proprietà e la coordinazione, e tutto nascerà dai semi della società futura che già germogliano tra noi in questo momento. Credo anche che quasi certamente ci saranno i mercati, se non altro perché eliminarli richiederebbe l’istituzione di un modello organizzativo che li proibisca o li marginalizzi per principio, e non credo che la società postcapitalista nascerà da un modello. Sarà invece una nascita spontanea.

Ma credo anche che, in questa combinazione di espedienti lo scambio e i prezzi avranno un ruolo molto, molto più limitato rispetto ad oggi. Ciò che mi appare molto probabile è che, col venir meno dell’assistenza sociale, aziendale o statale, con la produzione per l’uso divenuta necessità in seguito alla crescente disoccupazione e sottoccupazione, la popolazione tenderà ad aggregarsi in grosse unità sociali primarie, come le famiglie estese, i condomini plurifamigliari, la coabitazione, i microvillaggi e altro simile. Queste unità sociali offriranno meccanismi di condivisione del rischio e dei costi, più eventuali redditi portati dall’esterno da alcuni componenti, e gran parte dei consumi saranno soddisfatti da manifatture e attività agricole di proprietà comune. Alimenti, alloggi e assistenza sanitaria saranno garantite dall’equivalente del “minimo irriducibile” delle società di raccoglitori cacciatori di cui parla Bookchin in The Ecology of Freedom. In questo caso, gran parte della produzione avverrebbe fuori dal nesso di cassa, e quel poco di mercato che resterebbe riguarderebbe perlopiù macchinari e produzioni su larga scala che le comunità non possono offrire, le risorse naturali e lo scambio di eccedenze tra comunità.

E se anche lo scambio di mercato sarà in qualche modo una delle componenti, credo che si possa dire in tutta sicurezza che le norme sulla proprietà saranno tutt’altro che capitalistiche. Prendiamo la terra, ad esempio. Come dice Graeber, è difficile credere che la popolazione possa rispettare la proprietà di qualcuno che ha recintato una grossa fetta di territorio, che accetti di andare a lavorare quella terra in cambio di uno stipendio, che paghi l’affitto della casa, invece di appropriarsene e servirsene ignorando i diritti di proprietà. Altrettanto difficile è immaginare che una popolazione anarchica permetta a un’entità come la Nestle di pompare enormi quantità d’acqua da una falda senza distruggerne gli impianti e dir loro di non farsi rivedere mai più.

Anche la natura del denaro e del credito sarebbe parimenti molto diversa. L’idea anarco-capitalista di una società in cui il denaro è una merce con un valore di mercato – che si tratti di metalli preziosi o bitcoin – e non un semplice denominatore di valore, mi appare piuttosto fantasiosa. L’offerta di credito o di liquidità per lo scambio di ciò che si produce è solo una questione di flussi, e non esiste una ragione razionale che obblighi a possedere riserve di ricchezza per attivare questi flussi. Mi sembra altamente improbabile che gruppi di lavoratori che scambiano le loro produzioni si affidino volentieri a chi possiede ricchezze accumulate affinché conceda credito al fine di permettere tale scambio, quando potrebbero semplicemente anticiparsi vicendevolmente il credito sotto forma di flussi correnti senza bisogno di coperture.

Infine, non so se un’economia potrebbe funzionare senza prezzi monetari e senza scambio. Non so se una coordinazione non monetaria avrebbe l’efficienza dello scambio monetario. Se le persone e i gruppi di produttori fossero lasciati a se stessi, non so come finirebbero per coordinarsi, se in forma più o meno monetaria.

Ciò che sappiamo è che autorità, gerarchie, differenze di potere e diritti di proprietà artificiali creano irrazionalità. E conflitti d’interesse. E spingono all’accaparramento delle informazioni. E allora aboliamo tutte queste cose, e lasciamo che la gente si edifichi l’alternativa da sé. Tutto va bene, purché funzioni.

A week before the writing of this article, I wrote another that stated that we should privatize the police. When people hear that, they think of the anarcho-capitalist idea of the same name. The difference between that and mine is monumental.

The AnCap idea is to have communities or, more likely, corporations hire a police force similar to the ones we have now. They would keep the streets free of crime. The problem is that said police would be used to collect rent and would ban squatting. They’d perform roughly the same functions as state police, with the caveat that they’re privately funded. These police wouldn’t be so kind to those on the streets and, with private courts, the people they interact with may get unfairly long sentences. 

The idea I present, instead, is one where individuals hire a group to protect their personal property (including their person and their family) from criminals. These security workers would protect the fruits of your labor while you were away. Street and road companies (and cooperatives) would also be able to hire a private defense agency of this kind.

The difference between these two approaches is best illustrated by comparing two thinkers on the issue. On the one hand, the Rothbardian idea of private police imagines a police force similar to the state run version. Tuckerite private defense agencies, on the other hand, defend your personal property without being beholden to corporations or other larger forces. One could lead to a fascist state whereas the other would not. 

A society where each business could create its own laws would be open to one business acquiring all the others and establishing its own authoritarian state. Unlike an individualist anarchist society with mutual banks, an AnCap society would not have the infrastructure in place to allow the people to acquire the funds to establish their own businesses, leading to a situation where some people are unable to become associate producers, and would instead be wage slaves.

Alternatively, the only law to govern an individualist anarchist society is what Lysander Spooner called the natural law. This law is known by children, it is known by men and women, it was known by ancient peoples, and it shall be known by future peoples. It is ten words. “An individual shall not violate the property of another individual.”

This natural law would be the only law in an individualist anarchist society. It will be the law the private defense agencies will follow and the law the people will follow. It criminalizes the actions that violate property rights which I call the Six Crimes. They are arson, assault, murder, rape, pedophilia, and theft. The punishment for all but one is compensation and restitution. Murderers (including those who attempt murder) would be sent to a community-owned prison funded through voluntary taxation if they are found guilty after their lawyer argues their case. A jury at the local community-owned courthouse (also funded through voluntary taxation) shall decide what the rate of compensation or restitution is for non-murder crimes after hearing the case.

The private defense agency would be similar to how ADT works now. For a monthly subscription, they’d give you a sign to stick in your yard to let would-be criminals know that your home is being protected by one of a few thousand defense firms. They would also have an emergency contact number that subscribers could call for free and non-subs would have to pay a small fee for. The competition between so many firms would make the subscription and fee low while also having quick response times and better quality service. They wouldn’t kill as that could hurt subscription rates and could also increase their insurance costs. 

There is another substitute for the police which we can call the “Watchmen.” The Watchmen would patrol the streets, deter crime, and defend the personal property of the local community. They would be composed of local citizens, funded through donations (thus forcing them to have high quality service), and membership would be voted on by the local community. This will deter any bad apples from getting in. If someone is racist and wants to join, the community can veto them. 

An anarchist society would still be defended and wouldn’t be a chaotic mess. It would have low levels of crime and wouldn’t have to deal with the slaughtering of minorities done by the gang of criminals we have the misfortune to call our police force. The free market ensures quality and low prices, and a free market defense industry would provide us with the world class protection we deserve.

Let me begin by stating how happy I am that this exchange is happening. As information technology has come to saturate our lives over the last two decades we’ve seen the debate over non-market economies remerge. A recent essay published in The Economist¹ both summarizes the discourse and speaks to its increasing prominence. In the coming years the debate will likely be further mainstreamed as we see disruption of the labor market thanks to technology, the failings of capitalism become more obvious and leftists incorporate these insights. The consequences of these ideas is impossible to predict, but it could very well inform the policy of states, the demands of activist movements and the day to day activity of regular people living their lives. This exchange, no matter however seemingly marginal, could end up being an essential part of a discourse that ends up changing the world.

(no pressure)

This essay critiques what I’ll term Institutional Non-Market Economy/ies (INME). The primary way decisions are made about how labor is to be deployed, what projects are to be invested in, and how individuals go about consuming in an INME is through institutions (fixed bodies that govern how labor or resources are to be deployed). The ways an INME can be organized range from the highly centralized (state socialism) to hybrid models (republican socialism) to decentralized (anarcho-collectivism). The most comprehensive articulation of how an INME would work is Towards a New Socialism by Paul Cockshott and Allin Cortell and it is through this text that I will be examining the flaws of institutions. While many proponents of non-market economies no doubt approach this text critically and would implement alternative approaches, the solutions the authors put forward to deal with economic questions can be used to show fundamental problems with any non-market economy. Therefore my critiques should apply to all attempts to build INMEs (as for non-market, non-institutional economies, I do not believe they are capable of achieving complex economies and therefore are beyond the scope of this essay).

Moreover, just because I believe that INMEs have considerable problems, does not mean all innovations their proponents develop are bad or that I consider experiments to build them to be a waste of time. One of the most frustrating things about discourse around radical alternatives to our current economy is that everyone is assumed to be a die-hard proponent of their particular approach. No political movement has ever implemented their ideology perfectly and my support for markets is not out of an intrinsic desire for markets in and of themselves, but rather because I see them as a useful means in pursuit of my overall goal of universal emancipation. If proponents of non-market systems make good points about how to get stuff done or show through experiment how they can work, I am perfectly willing to accept their points and successes.

With that out of the way, let me explain the inherent limitations to institutions (and by extension INMEs).

For an INME to function it must have a mechanism to determine the value of an individual’s labor so it can direct resources rationally. For simple labor that requires little education this is not really an issue as individuals are interchangeable. However for labor that requires investment to become proficient, you need to have some mechanism of evaluating labor so you can choose between different projects to make effective decisions. The most comprehensive articulation of this process that I know of is found in chapter 2 of Cockshott and Cortell’s Towards a New Socialism under the section Skilled Labor as a ‘Produced Input’ . Their scheme to determine the value of skilled labor is as follows:

We can envision the establishment of a baseline level of general education: workers educated to this level only will be regarded as ‘simple labour’, while the labour of workers who have received additional special education is treated as a ‘produced input’, much like other means of production. This notion of skilled labour as a produced input may be illustrated by example.

Suppose that becoming a competent engineer requires four years of study beyond the basic level of education. This four-year production process for skilled engineering labour involves a variety of labour inputs.  First there is the work of the student—attending lectures, study in the library, lab work, etc.  As stated earlier, this is regarded as valid productive work and is rewarded accordingly. It is counted as a ‘simple labour’ input. Second is the work of teaching, distributed over the number of students being taught. This is a skilled labour input. Third, there is the ‘overhead’ work connected with education (librarians, technicians, administrators). This may be a mixture of skilled and simple labour.

Let us put aside the obvious anarchist/postmodernist critiques of such schemes that figures like James C. Scott or Michel Foucault would make in response to such a scheme. That it can somehow overcome the problem of determining whether the labor that goes into training an individual is actually useful. That there is no wasted labor throughout the entire process by any of the individuals involved. That such tracking is even possible. I will give proponents of INMEs the benefit of the doubt and handwave these considerable problems away.

What can’t be ignored however is the problem of making sure that new information is integrated into the economy. For a modern economy to function it must not merely rationally allocate resources according to a fixed set of knowledge, but it must also incorporate new information and update procedures and processes accordingly.

This process is challenging to do not just because codifying new knowledge is difficult, but also because the consequences of new discoveries can be far reaching and difficult-if-not-impossible to predict. An economy is one of the go-to examples of a complex system and seemingly small perturbations in one area can have significant consequences. Mapping out how technological change impacts a single profession or industry is hard enough, but you must then analyze the nth order effects that flow on from the initial change.

Now in many cases you can get by with accepting inefficiencies. Certainly not every development will be world changing and capitalism certainly gets by with deliberate inefficiencies and waste. But even if the number of developments that result in cascading change throughout society is tiny, you still risk losing out on what could be significant benefits. An INME must restrict and slow such changes so that the internal map of the economy it maintains reflects the territory of what is actually happening. Should the model and reality diverge, accurate assessment becomes impossible and the INME can no longer make rational decisions. Hence INME must systematically restrict the actors within them so that they may function.

Markets, while not perfect, let individuals make snap judgments about the value of a particular approach or technology. Certainly this approach is messy, but it has the virtue of privileging autonomy and self-direction while also distributing the risks of experimentation across the population instead of in a small number of institutions. Furthermore, while the process of making a decision may begin with the individual, it does not have to end with them. Before making a decision, individuals can hopefully tap into an ecosystem of individuals, institutions, and algorithms that augment their capacity to make decisions. That such cognitive tools are deficient in many ways or are flat out missing speaks not to inherent tendencies of markets to erode or neglect such technologies, but rather to the requirements of those in power to maintain information scarcity.

So reorganizing centralized economic processes when circumstances change is problematic. But what about decentralized alternatives? How do they fare?

Certainly by decentralizing the process you certainly gain more capacity to adapt to change. And by giving people choice in terms of the institutions they interact with you can mitigate the pathologies of centralization by letting them easily move to alternatives.

However if collectives evaluate the value of labor internally and do not take instructions from a central institution, then they must have some sort of mechanism to come to an agreement on what the labor of particular roles is worth. This allows for more accurate assessments that reflect the particular conditions, but also introduces market dynamics in the form of labor bargaining between collectives.

Now maybe this isn’t a problem for proponents of INMEs because they see these market dynamics are sufficiently restricted and because they believe that by making the bargaining process a collective one more equitable outcomes will result. But you can’t avoid some formal process to decide how to negotiate the value of labor. No matter how you go about it you either involve people who have no idea as to what you do (both wasting their time and providing little in the way of meaningful feedback) or you risk centralizing control of the collective’s resources in the hands of a few. This is especially true as technology progresses, as automation removes the need for people to work simple tasks and what labor remains is about grappling with a complex, open ended environment. And while such work tends to be highly engaging and meaningful, it is also difficult to codify. When we’re all working on specialized, eclectic tasks evaluating the “value” that our fellow commune members bring to the table is difficult because we simply don’t know enough to make accurate assessments.

Hence there is a trade-off between centralized approaches and decentralized approaches. Centralized approaches ignore local context and are slower to adapt, but give you reliable numbers that you can make decisions with. Decentralized approaches give you more accurate graduations of what the value of labor is actually worth, but demand more time from the collective and introduce soft market mechanisms. Both solutions are inadequate for a globalized world in which individuals from across the planet cooperate in novel ways.

Complexity and the limits to control

All the problems I’ve raised stem from the fact that institutions must limit the range of behavior of the people that make them up in order to function. To understand this happens, let’s turn to  the complex systems theorist Yaneer Bar-Yam and his 1996 paper, Complexity Rising: From Human Beings to Human Civilization, explains why this is the case:

[D]uring the time of ancient empires, large-scale human systems executed relatively simple behaviors, and individuals performed relatively simple individual tasks that were repeated by many individuals over time to have a large-scale effect. … [The nature of the activity was simple enough that one individual could direct a large number of individuals. Thus, hierarchies had a large branching ratio: each controller was in charge of a large number of individuals.

As time progressed, the behavior of individuals diversified as did the collective tasks they performed. The increasing diversity of individual behaviors implies an increase in the complexity of the entire system viewed at the scale of the individual. Consequently, this required reducing the branching ratio by adding layers of management that served to exercise local control. As viewed by higher levels of management, each layer simplified the behavior to the point where an individual could control it. The hierarchy acts as a mechanism for communication of information to and from management. The role is also a filtering one, where the amount of information is reduced on the way up.

…

As the collective behavioral complexity at the scale of an individual increases, the branching ratio of the control structure becomes smaller and smaller so that fewer individuals are directed by a single manager, and the number of layers of management increases. The formation of such branching structures allows an inherently more complex local behavior of the individuals, and a larger complexity of the collective behavior as well.

At the point at which the collective complexity reaches the complexity of an individual, the process of complexity increase encounters the limitations of hierarchical structures.

(For those who have a background in cybernetics, Bar-Yam’s definition of complexity is analogous to that of variety).

While this paper uses the examples of individuals controlling others through hierarchy, the principles at play apply to any system that looks to control the behavior of other systems. As such the critique applies to institutions. While most leftists who support INMEs use the language of democracy and self-determination, you cannot define control hierarchies out of existence. For institutions to function, they must limit the range of behavior of those they manage so they can be directed rationally. 

Such restriction of complexity is necessary for the system to survive. Yaneer Bar-Yam writes:

[All systems] exist within an environment that places demands upon them. If the complexity of these demands exceeds the complexity of an organization, the organization will be likely to fail. Thus, those … [systems] that survive must have a complexity sufficiently large to respond to the complexity of environmental demands at the scale of these demands.

As such, no matter the values of those who promote them, INMEs trend towards conservatism. Too much disruption and change disrupts the ability of institutions to function, which means they must slow down and suppress change so as to maintain control. This conservative tendency can turn outright reactionary if those managing institutions decide that the value institutions bring outweighs the phenomena that are making control difficult and they stamp it out through force.

If true, this unfortunately means that many left wing projects had reactionary tendencies baked into their structure from the beginning. But it does not mean there are no alternatives to capitalism. In fact, these critiques cut just as sharply against capitalism as they do against INMEs. As Kevin Carson pointed out, the large disparities of wealth and power within capitalism came about and remain thanks to the state simplifying the environment firms operate within through violence. For capitalism to work, the options of the majority of people must be limited so that they are forced to buy into the system.

Hence increasing having a society that is more complex, in which individuals are not something we achieve after the revolution or whatever, but is instead a strategic imperative with radical consequences we can bring about today. Far from succumbing to “bourgeoisie ideology”, giving people more depth and breadth² of choice is both an essential characteristic of a liberated society and a key strategy towards achieving a liberated world. 

Interestingly, such a perspective is entirely in line with Marxist assumptions of how capitalism overcame feudal relations. Capitalism came about not after a revolution which allowed the bourgeoisie to start trading, but rather over a protracted period in which the power of feudal relations was eroded. Phenomena like warfare between states, disease, poor financial management, and internal conflict between nobility and other factions within society all created stressors that had to be managed, while technological advancement and proliferation created more options for people. Social formations that had lasted centuries found themselves unable to cope with the increase in complexity and they started making mistakes. These mistakes resulted in revolutions, wars or reforms which forced more complex social structures that could handle the increase in environmental complexity.

Now to be sure the dynamics are more complicated than the quick summary I’ve laid out. But there is a definite trend of feudal states being replaced by more liberal states and a core driver of this is rising complexity. Central to this is individual freedom. The relatively rigid roles that defined feudal relations went against the need for flexibility, specialization, and adaptability that complex technological societies demand. Modernity is characterized by constant change and that goes against the aspirations of pre-modern states for stasis.

But when it comes to moving beyond capitalism, orthodox Marxism tells us that we cannot make any meaningful changes until the proletariat achieve a decisive political victory (whether through revolution or through the ballot box). Once we have seized the state (through whatever means) we can begin the process of building a postcapitalist world (certainly Marxism as a broad body of thought is more complicated than this, but many Marxists and leftists more broadly believe this to be the case).

Such a strategy is outdated because it relies upon an organizational model that is in crisis the world over. Despite the upheaval that is increasingly becoming a constant in our lives, many on the left default to institutions as the solution, specifically the state.

Yet the nation state faces the following challenges that make its capacity as a force for positive change questionable:

• New information technologies are delegitimizing existing ideologies and are increasing the capacity of regular people to coordinate by orders of magnitude.
• Despite the massive increase in state capacity to monitor and control, technological empowerment of individuals is straining its capacity to maintain order. 
• Many bright, dedicated people are alienated from capitalism and the state. They hold values that go against the values such structures encourage (either implicitly or explicitly). The spaces opened by the internet has resulted in many of these people finding outlets for those values in areas that have the potential to undermine institutions (this won’t necessarily lead to liberation, some of those people are reactionaries).
• The increasing debt of major states like the US will multiply the impact of shocks or trends that disrupt or erode their hegemony (the US dollar is, after all, backed by the US military). Not to mention cryptocurrencies have the potential to create currencies outside the state that make traditional forms of financial control more difficult (even if you take the most cynical view of say, Bitcoin – that it’s a wasteful ponzi scheme promoted by Chinese billionaires who want to escape CCP currency controls – it still serves as a competing currency on the world market and as a hedge against state mismanagement of funds).
• In the last century technological advancement has given states immense destructive potential but we haven’t had a conventional war in close to 70 years and states across the board struggle to shut down insurgencies that fight with a fraction of the resources states possess.
• Phenomena like climate change, aging populations, and biosecurity risks are all long term disruptive phenomena that require significant change to both mitigate and adapt to that will upend the existing order.

I don’t believe that such dynamics will automatically erode the state (nor that such erosion will automatically be a net positive). What’s far more likely is a reconfiguration of the state towards a more flexible form that can better deal with the complexities of the modern world. Such reconfiguration would have positive and negative outcomes while also creating space for alternative forms of governance to arise. And while there is certainly the possibility for positive outcomes here, it does cast serious doubt on using the nation state as a means by which to achieve progressive ends.

But the state is obviously not the only means by which we can achieve leftist ends. Giving people more options not only lets them better respond to the aforementioned crises, but it also gives them the ability to resist capitalism and authoritarian states. Empowering people to make decisions for themselves, instead of shepherding them into institutions that direct their behavior, is a strategy appropriate for the material conditions we see today.

Re-examining markets

But these insights into the capacity of systems to handle complexity doesn’t just give us insights into the state of the world and how things might develop. They also let us examine the often unstated motivations for why various factions support or oppose markets.

There are many angles I could approach this from, but I think the best is through the word “competition”. Leftists tend to have an instinctive repulsion, those on the right claim to be attracted to the word. But the underlying reasons for why someone feels this way is rarely spelled out.

But if you take competitiveness of a situation as simply the measure of choice an individual has in a particular domain the result is illuminating. To give an obvious example, Das Kapital is basically an extensive study of what happens when there is an uncompetitive labor market, when the vast majority of people lack choice over where they do or do not spend their labor (non-market forms of provisioning ourselves count as choice here). By making low-overhead hustling and/or non-market means of provisioning themselves difficult, the state creates a class of people who have no choice but to sell themselves to others.

Such restriction of choice is not just unjust, but is also imposed at the cost of overall economic dynamism. The main source of economic growth is through discovering new ways to do things, not working people to death or devastating the land (we had slavery and ecological exploitation before the industrial revolution and they did little-to-nothing for overall growth). The best way to see sustainable economic growth is by giving people the freedom to explore what is possible and build for themselves, not to turn them into de facto slaves.

These insights reveal just how dishonest conservatives or reactionaries who claim to support markets are. Conservatives who favor markets because they force people to work and respect authority can only get what they want by crippling the options of most people so they’ll actually submit to hierarchy. Similar dynamics are at play for the reactionaries who desire decentralized eugenics. In both cases, dynamism must be sacrificed on the altar of social stability. Scarcity must be violently imposed on the population so that the desired outcome actually happens. For them, competition means choice for a minority achieved by limiting choice for the majority.

That ideological discourse largely fails to drill into motivations behind those speaks to broader pathologies at play when it comes to political philosophy. The frameworks given to us by long-dead founders have become so fundamental to a larger web of arguments, alliances, and perspectives that lacks any real consistency.

However this tangle is slowly eroding. Information abundance, new channels for discourse and the repeated failures of 20th century liberalism over the last two decades have all had their part to play in the discrediting of ideological frameworks. The most obvious example of this today is the reorientation we are seeing on the right as adherents, especially the young, are reconsidering the broad framework established during the Cold War. Such fracturing is also occurring on the left and will undoubtedly result in similar reorientations.

The death of these frameworks will be a painful process. Taking a critical lens to the inherited models and theory means opening fault lines that will both destroy alliances and also reveal commonalities with tendencies previously considered beyond the pale. This will be a period of disillusionment for many.

But the good news is that the reward is worth the discomfort. While the left may have fucked up by defaulting to institutions, many of its enemies have made a similar mistake and rely on control hierarchies to get stuff done. Hence, all the same limitations and vulnerabilities apply. That the left has systematically failed to incorporate such insights into its strategy, tactics and theory speaks to opportunities that remain to be seized. Who knows what it can achieve when it does so?

1. This piece is unfortunately behind a paywall. But the reason I included the article was to show that people who write for The Economist were taking the debate seriously, not because it actually contains anything of relevance to my argument, so it doesn’t matter if you can access it (I’m going to avoid giving instructions about how you’d go about bypassing the paywall as the approaches content “owners” use to defend their IP constantly evolve).
2. Depth and breadth of choice refers to the number of choices available to an individual over a given time frame. William Gillis’ Setting the Universe on Fire is a quick introduction to the concept. Similar to the concept of complexity, this approach to freedom has the virtue of applying at multiple scales and as such lets you evaluate the freedom of a society or even humanity writ large.

Mutual Exchange is C4SS’s goal in two senses: We favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to C4SS’s audience.

Online symposiums will include essays by a diverse range of writers presenting and debating their views on a variety of interrelated and overlapping topics, tied together by the overarching monthly theme. C4SS is extremely interested in feedback from our readers. Suggestions and comments are enthusiastically encouraged. If you’re interested in proposing topics and/or authors for our program to pursue, or if you’re interested in participating yourself, please email editor@c4ss.org or emmibevensee@email.arizona.edu.

Now it may surprise some, but unlike many fellow freed market anarchists at C4SS, I am not a market anarchist because of the economic calculation problem. While I do think the economic calculation problem rightly points out that top-down command economies cannot adequately produce and distribute goods to meet the needs of society, anarchist economic systems do not fall prey to this issue in the same fashion because they are not planned by outside actors in a top-down fashion but are rather decided by producers and consumers directly, thus eliminating the knowledge problem inherent to top-down economies.

To quote Mises himself:

When the “coal syndicate “provides the “iron syndicate “with coal, no price can be formed, except when both syndicates are the owners of the means of production employed in their business. This would not be socialization but…syndicalism.

Despite his semantical confusion over socialism (syndicalism is a form of socialism), his point still stands. This direct decision making by all of those involved is the key factor that sets it apart from other forms of planned economy and helps to avoid the pitfalls of outside planners. In fact, while markets have a tendency to overproduce and thus create waste, many more communal anarchist societal models allow such directly planned production and distribution to avoid unnecessary overproduction and waste.

The problem of economic calculation is that of a problem of hierarchical authority and the knowledge problem. Those removed from a situation cannot adequately make decisions for that particular situation and will in all likelihood make inadequate or misguided decisions. We need to include the voices affected in order to adequately meet their needs, whether through a freed market or directly democratic decision making. And while freed markets can be argued to cater to the more niche needs of individuals at times, there is nothing wrong with pursuing the goal of communization within the free market.

To quote Errico Malatesta:

Imposed communism would be the most detestable tyranny that the human mind could conceive. And free and voluntary communism is ironical if one has not the right and the possibility to live in a different regime, collectivist, mutualist, individualist — as one wishes, always on condition that there is no oppression or exploitation of others.

These various coexisting economic systems would indeed compete to some degree to meet the needs of those involved. Such competition would inherently be a market of sorts. Free markets keep communism truly free which is why they are so important. Full stateless communism needs the free market to maintain its voluntary nature, not so much because it is subjected to the calculation problem.

Markets are impossible to get rid of, especially in a free society. Even if most model their transactions in a completely communistic fashion, there would be enough experimentation at the fringes that would inevitably come with some sort of competition to fulfill a purpose and need, even if those purposes and needs are largely non-essential in nature and completely arbitrary. People will still trade, even if based on gifting and that free trade will make up the present market activity regardless of ideology or necessity. Markets are a description, and in no way have to function as a prescription for how we engage in economic activity. A truly free market allows economic exploration of the fullest extent.

So we as anarchists, have no need to base our market theories on the calculation problem. The calculation problem is irrelevant to anarchist economics. We can recognize and use the calculation problem as a means of disproving the effectiveness of state socialism to fellow anti-capitalists and win them over to anarchist ideals but using it to advocate for markets within anarchism is a stretch, and not to mention unnecessary when markets can’t be squashed without the force of the state.

Mutual Exchange is C4SS’s goal in two senses: We favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to C4SS’s audience.

Online symposiums will include essays by a diverse range of writers presenting and debating their views on a variety of interrelated and overlapping topics, tied together by the overarching monthly theme. C4SS is extremely interested in feedback from our readers. Suggestions and comments are enthusiastically encouraged. If you’re interested in proposing topics and/or authors for our program to pursue, or if you’re interested in participating yourself, please email editor@c4ss.org or emmibevensee@email.arizona.edu.

Libertarian Equality, by Italian author Fabio Massimo Nicosia, is a surprising book on left-libertarian political philosophy. It’s not often that left-libertarian thought pops up in Italy, so a brand new book on the topic is a refreshing novelty. In Italy – and probably elsewhere too – right-wing libertarian epigones, particularly of a Misesian-Rothbardian orientation, have been spreading their ideas for about twenty years now, mostly on the internet, with little truly original to show for it. Fabio Massimo Nicosia, a jurist, clearly detaches himself from the anarcho-capitalists (with whom he was involved for some time in the past) in virtue of his personal, professional and philosophical-legal culture, which led him to develop his own original ideas.

Throughout the book, Nicosia has a recurring polemical interlocutor, that is Murray Rothbard’s anarcho-capitalism. This is not by chance. The Austrian school, particularly the late Rothbard, appears to have had a relatively strong albeit posthumous influence on the libertarian debate in Italy, to the point that “Rothbardianism” has become the prevalent strain. For the last twenty years or so, right-libertarians have shaped mainstream liberal (in the European meaning of the word) thinking, until they monopolized and gave (their own) meaning to the very notion of freedom. In Libertarian Equality, Nicosia takes nothing for granted and starts from the basics. He investigates the canonical definition of freedom as defined by Gerald MacCallum, only to find out that it ends up incorporating authoritarian behaviors.

Nicosia neatly separates “freedom as a private good” from “freedom as a common good”, and underlines how the former can result in the “freedom of the authoritarians”; in other words, it is not characterized by the constitutive element of reciprocity and turns into real domination of one part over the other. For example, we cannot say, as Felix Oppenheim did, that Hitler was the freest man in the world, without questioning the very notion of freedom thus understood: If anything, Hitler was endowed with a “coercive power particularly intense,” which is different from freedom properly understood.

More broadly, Nicosia differentiates between “libertarian inclination” and “authoritarian inclination,” both being analytical models of individual personalities. Such differentiation allows him to avoid the mistakes of a certain natural-law philosophy (in Rothbard’s sense), namely that “Libertarian rights” are inherent in all men. On the contrary, they are just something someone can aspire to; for, if the libertarian inclination were a universal given, we would already be living in a libertarian society. Arguing this way, Nicosia thinks he can avoid falling into a naturalistic fallacy, as he does not see the libertarian rights as a “duty,” but as the description of a particular being, namely the normative product of a libertarian inclination.

The axiom of the libertarian inclination is represented by the motto “A’s ‘you must’ is not B’s legal and moral obligation”: this not only delegitimizes the state, but above all involves geo-communism, which means that the Earth and the natural resources are common property and any one-sided appropriation does not entail that others should be forced to respect such appropriation. As a consequence, general consent is always needed to validate private property, which otherwise must be seen as an institution entrusted exclusively to power relations.

Nicosia then discusses the so-called Lockean proviso, from which he derives two possibilities: either that each one owns a share of Earth of equal value, or that the dispossessed are compensated. This is the first premise of what the author calls “universal profit.” Nicosia identifies several (thirteen!) premises on which universal profit may be based, but then he specifies that all of them are based on the principle of compensation, and as such they must be judged the second best choice, the best solution being that each person self-assign a universal profit through free coinage, of which the book highlights the redistributive and egalitarian effects.

Then Nicosia takes up a few themes already covered in his previous works, particularly the now classic L’abusiva legittimità – Dallo stato ai common trust (The abusive legitimity – From the state to the common trusts), such as portraying the State as an institution based on the abuse of dominant position, when the state is considered within the framework of competition law, and pinpointing the public goods argument for the State, followed by a discussion on the very notion of public goods. In opposition to the state, inefficient and coercive, Nicosia presents a new paradigm, namely an institution that he himself conceived and called “common trust.”

According to Nicosia, the paradigm of classical political philosophy is founded on scarcity. It prompts human beings to join together and give up some of their own wealth, in terms of money, by subjecting themselves to constraint and taxation. The common trust, on the other hand, is an institution that goes exactly the other way. First of all, it is based on voluntary participation, as nobody can be forced to join a common trust; coercion and taxation are not among its functions; rather the valorization of the common and of both natural and artificial capital are. Here Nicosia presents one of his recurring topics, which is state property, the huge properties of the State, which, according to Italian law, do not belong to the State’s institutions but directly to the citizens. As the author suggests, the management of state property and of all the common capital would be entrusted to the common trusts. The latter would manage the property in order to extract an income for the benefit of the citizens; at the same time, the common trust constitutes a monetary base, which is where universal profit and free coinage tend to coincide and overlap.

Every citizen would then be the recipient of an equal share of the common trust’s profit. Nicosia is not at all opposed to free economic initiative, which indeed he considers an essential element of the notion of freedom, because everyone has the right to be what he is by sheltering himself from coercion, and also because the equality of which the author speaks does not come from the intervention of a flattening authority – which would be a derogation from the notion of equality – but is rather an outcome of the free interactions without the privileges of real capitalism, such as grants, patents, copyrights and other restrictions imposed on free competition. According to Nicosia, once those restrictions have been eliminated, we would see both libertarian and egalitarian effects; but not absolute equality, an outcome that the author does not deem desirable.

What we get is then a maximization point, in which perfect equality matches perfect freedom. An unstable balance, confirmed by Nozick’s notion that freedom upsets models and reproduces inequalities. Such unavoidable inequalities, however, would not reach dramatic levels, as they would be eased by maximum free competition, universal profit and free minting.

This process however cannot be considered an end in itself, because industrial automation processes, in a perspective of abundance (which is the basis of the common trust), tends to make the very notion of the ownership of large production means obsolete, so that this geo-communism can eventually turn into real libertarian communism, a communism of luxury and abundance, not scarcity, a communism compatible with the wider individual self-realization once the troubles created by the struggle for survival become a thing of the past.

Speaking of self-realization, we should add that Nicosia, drawing on his culture as a jurist of administrative law, does not adopt a strict reading of the notion of self-ownership. Rather than of subjective rights, he prefers speaking of legitimate interests reinforced in utilitarian terms, always keeping in mind that self-ownership is a double-edged notion, being often invoked by the anarcho-capitalists to justify both instances of real supremacy and their alienation, and therefore also self-reduction into slavery. Here Nicosia criticizes paid employment, a theme which leads him to talk about Marx, of whom he highlights the limits. Contrary to the German philosopher, given the obvious primacy of power over production, Nicosia sees the State as the framework of the economic system (the State is the capital insofar as it’s the direct owner of both natural and artificial common property), and not as a simple superstructure.

In conclusion, Libertarian Equality makes for profoundly inspiring reading. It surely presents viewpoints that are original, especially for the European panorama, but that can be a useful tool for an American audience too. The hope is that this important work will end up being part of the debate.

Di Spooky. Originale pubblicato il 28 giugno 2020 con il titolo Vulgar Anarcho-Communism: Pacifying Anti-Statism. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

È difficile far passare proposte estreme. Le reazioni sono per certi versi scontate quando, invece di limitarsi a riforme e a “soluzioni condivise”, si propone una diversa organizzazione della società. Alcuni, forse troppi, hanno cercato di smussare gli spigoli delle etichette politiche avvolgendone l’ideologia in un linguaggio più ampio, “buonista”, riducendone i punti di vista a definizioni tanto semplici quanto monche. Come Noam Chomsky quando definisce l’anarchismo una “opposizione alle gerarchie ingiustificate”. La cosa ha attirato tanti che, come me ad esempio, altrimenti non avrebbero mai indagato questi ideali.

Ci sono persone che, appigliandosi ad una certa definizione moderata, hanno inventato una branca di pensiero libertario che esse stesse descrivono come “anarchismo” pur essendo caratterizzata da un’idea di astatualità del tutto a sé. Analogamente al “libertarismo volgare” di Kevin Carson, vorrei definire queste persone anarco-comuniste volgari; una corrente di sinistra più incentrata su un concetto ampio di “eguaglianza” e proprietà collettiva e meno disposta ad accettare tutte le implicazioni della astatualità.

Il problema principale è che si insiste sul legame tra anarchismo e una definizione monolitica di “democrazia” che comporta una qualche forma di consenso universale, maggioritario, che tocchi ogni membro di una data comunità o sistema. C’è chi immagina un sistema rappresentativo con “delegati” che contrattano, votano e interagiscono con altre comunità in una sorta di congresso intercomunitario. Il fatto inquietante è che molti di questi sedicenti anarchici non ci vedono un sistema piramidale, oppure lo vedono ma pensano che basti la sua natura “democratica” a giustificarlo.

Il principio è significativo, l’anarco-comunismo volgare potrebbe essere definito una sorta di miniarchismo o di comunismo consiliarista. Di per sé non è un male, ma il problema è che queste persone distorcono la definizione di stato fin quasi a renderla irriconoscibile. Gli anarco-comunisti volgari rivedono la loro opposizione nei confronti dello stato, spiegano che non sono contro il “governo” ma solo “lo stato”, col che generalmente intendono la parte peggiore dell’attuale stato nazione: polizia, esercito, politici e così via.

Spesso ritengono che in una società postcapitalista l’unità organizzativa di primo livello debba essere formata dai consigli dei lavoratori, o dalle comuni, o da qualche forma di governo locale. La polizia non esisterebbe, dicono, perché eliminato lo stato scomparirebbero le “forze di polizia” intese nel senso attuale. La sicurezza, spiegano, sarebbe affidata a squadre comunitarie di volontari revocabili ogniqualvolta la loro opera sia giudicata insoddisfacente. Come queste istituzioni verrebbero organizzate varia notevolmente; si va dalle nomine a rotazione di membri della comunità ai gruppi di volontari fissi, sempre però specificando che si tratta di organizzazioni “gestite democraticamente” in un modo o nell’altro.

“How Would Anarchism Actually Work?”, la serie in cinque parti di Emerican Johnson, illustra bene questa versione particolare di “anarchismo”. Non che tutti gli “anarco-comunisti volgari” siano come lui, ma i concetti da lui esposti sono un esempio significativo delle basi comuni.

In una società anarchica, ogni persona avrebbe diritto al soddisfacimento di tutti i suoi bisogni materiali. Alimenti, vestiario, abitazione, acqua corrente, internet, sanità e altro. In cambio, dovrebbero offrire un ragionevole contributo alla comune. Cosa importante, il concetto di ragionevole contributo varia da persona a persona… Teoricamente, per gran parte delle persone si tratterebbe di quindici o venti ore settimanali di lavoro al servizio della comune.

Questo, come ho detto, ricorda più il comunismo consiliarista che una società astatuale. Cose come settimana lavorativa e “ragionevole contributo” lavorativo non sembrano affatto auspicabili, comunque si deliberi la cosa. Per gli anarco-comunisti volgari, la democrazia diventa un mezzo che giustifica molti fini; se si vota per una particolare temporanea forma organizzativa, questa diventa legge. Questo somiglia scandalosamente ai ragionamenti usati dai libertari di destra per giustificare i contratti di lavoro “spontanei” che in altri contesti essi stessi considererebbero costrittivi, scambiando la logica del mercato per logica del processo democratico. In alcuni casi, come fa anche Johnson, la stessa logica è usata per cercare di giustificare eventuali centri rieducativi “anarchici”.

… in una società anarchica, il crimine verrebbe considerato un problema sociale “correggibile” con misure riabilitative adattabili alle circostanze individuali… Gran parte dei crimini verrebbero affrontati con l’assistenza psicologica o educativa, o con altri interventi comunitari adatti a curare l’individuo e la comunità. Se l’atteggiamento violento non è un dovuto semplicemente al disadattamento sociale, ma nasce da certe condizioni biologico o neurologiche, la persona verrebbe affidata ad un ospedale per “casi particolari” in grado di offrire cure specifiche…

Con queste citazioni, prese dagli scritti di Johnson, voglio dimostrare dove può portare una miope attenzione per la democrazia e le relazioni economiche comuniste. Queste tendenze anarco-comuniste volgari sono particolarmente popolari tra i radicali e in ambiti anticapitalisti, il che fa intendere che ciò rappresenti la corrente di pensiero dominante nel socialismo libertario. Ciò si deve in parte alle pratiche di Chomsky e Johnson, che tacciono sulle premesse ideologiche al fine di attirare un uditorio moderato. Se il richiamo alla democrazia e all’anticapitalismo sembra funzionare come strategia di pubbliche relazioni, il fatto di non puntare sull’antistatalismo e sull’autonomia individuale, unito ad un rifiuto coerente delle gerarchie, sembra aver confuso le acque riguardo ciò che gli anarchici vogliono veramente.

Il tentativo di riconciliare l’antistatalismo significa doversi rivolgere ai moderati che vogliono sapere come funzioneranno le infrastrutture postacapitaliste. Questo, purtroppo, ha spinto molti a fare una mappa dettagliata di un ipotetico regno anarco-comunista invece di esplorare le implicazioni della astatulità. Il fatto di non saper spiegare come si faranno le strade o i videogiochi non è necessariamente una debolezza. La forza principale di una società astatuale sta nel suo decentramento totale; è possibile sperimentare tra le varie istituzioni sociali e i vari arrangiamenti economici solo perché non c’è lo stato che tiene in piedi sistemi monolitici. Gli anarco-comunisti volgari ignorano questo potenziale, optando invece per schemi che pretendono di dare la felicità a tutti, nonostante l’impossibilità di mantenere tale promessa.

Insomma, non dobbiamo annacquare i nostri ideali inseguendo il consenso delle banderuole.