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Monday January 21, 2008 17:21 by Wayne Price - (NEFAC) personal opinion drwdprice at aol dot com
A 2-part study of Anarchist Communism
The contradictory meanings of "communism:" both as a society of freedom and as one of totalitarianism. What Bakuknin, Kropotkin, and Marx had meant by communism and how this term was changed by the Leninists.
[ Deutsch ] [ Ελληνικά ]Part 2: It is Not the Label but the Content Which Matters
What is Anarchist Communism?Part 1 |
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Spring zu Komment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10I would suggest that Kropotkin was aware that communism could not be implemented immediately in all cases.
Indeed, Kropotkin stressed that anarchists "do not believe that in any country the Revolution will be accomplished at a stroke, in the twinkling of a eye, as some socialists dream." Moreover, "[n]o fallacy more harmful has ever been spread than the fallacy of a 'One-day Revolution.'" (The Conquest of Bread_, p. 81)
In fact he stressed how difficult it would be:
"A political revolution can be accomplished without shaking the foundations of industry, but a revolution where the people lay hands upon property will inevitably paralyse exchange and production . . . This point cannot be too much insisted upon; the reorganisation of industry on a new basis . . . cannot be accomplished in a few days; nor, on the other hand, will people submit to be half starved for years in order to oblige the theorists who uphold the wage system. To tide over the period of stress they will demand what they have always demanded in such cases -- communisation of supplies -- the giving of rations." (pp. 72-3)
As such, being well aware that a revolution would see distribution of goods being based on "no stint or limit to what the community possesses in abundance, but equal sharing and dividing of those commodities which are scare or apt to run short." (p. 76)
As he put it in his essay on "Anarchism", "The Conquest of Bread" aimed at "prov[ing] that communism -- at least partial -- has more chance of being established than collectivism, especially in communes taking the lead . . . [and] tried . . . to indicate how, during a revolutionary period, a large city -- if its inhabitants have accepted the idea -- could organise itself on the lines of free communism." (Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets_, p. 298)
So, I think Kropotkin was a sensible revolutionary and argued that while communism was not always immediately possible, applying communist principles and partial communism was. Malatesta, it should be noted, thought likewise.
So a minor point to a good article.
here/hier:
Wayne is incorrect when he says that participatory economics has no concept of an earlier and later stage. (By the way, I'll point out that "parecon" is Michael Albert's term. Robin Hahnel doesn't use it.)
The basic idea of participatory economics, with remuneration for private consumption based on how hard one works, is that this is the early stage, this is society as it emerges from capitalism, when there is still a substantial population opposed to the change, a large population shaped by a competitive individualist society.
Hahnel envisions that after a certain period of time, as people becomre more trustful of social solidarity and cooperation and not having to look out all the time for the knife in the back, they would increasingly provide for consumption through the public goods sector, which are the goods and services carried at social expense. This corresponds to the higher stage of communism.
However, even in this higher stage, scarcity is not gotten beyond for the simple reason it can't be. For any given use of our labor time or our resources, we could have used them for something else. This is why scarcity is inevitable.
But scarcity is not the same thing as deprivation. Deprivation we can get beyond, humanity has the productive capacity to ensure that everyone's basic needs are met. But because scarcity can't be gotten beyond, there will still be a need to measure benefit and cost in social production, even tho the calculus will be more purely social, about public goods. In such an environment we can ease up about what people's work effort has been, but we still need to look at social costs and benefits, to have an effective economy. That's why also we can't get beyond a price system of some sort. But it's use would be in terms of community decision-making and planning. In other words, even if you provide goods and services as a free sector as far as consumption by individuals is concerned, you still have a need for social accounting.
Remember, Marx was the one who kicked us out of the International. He was as much a totalitarian as Lenin was.
Indeed Kropotkin went further than Marx such as his denial for the Labour Time Vouchers transition to the abolition of wages and money .
An essay on this can found of a hypothetical meeting of Marx and Kropotkin
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=4018139&blogID=133568624&MyToken=5e12bca9-4896-4a0e-9a62-66bf5faf43e8
Also a useful read would be Rubel's Marx the theoretician of anarchism
http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubel/1973/marx-anarchism.htm
And indeed Lenin makes an artificial difference between socialism and communism and even Stalin in 1906 knew there was no difference , see his Socialism or Anarchism article
http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2006/08/i-am-stalinist.html
Abundance is not a situation where an infinite amount of every good could be produced . Similarly, scarcity is not the situation which exists in the absence of this impossible abundance. Abundance is a situation where productive resources are sufficient to produce enough wealth to satisfy human needs, while scarcity is a situation where productive resources are insufficient for this purpose. "Unlimited wants " is an abstraction of Capitalism . Needs are indeed finite .
Not all resources are available in sufficient supply to meet all uses for them. Land is an obvious case in point: a piece of land cannot be used at the same time for housing and for farming . Some criteria will indeed have to be developed for deciding what use to put them to .Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” , perhaps . Needs that were most pressing and upon which the satisfaction of others needs were contingent, would take priority over those other needs, high priority end goals would take precedence over low priority end goals where resources common to both are revealed to be in short supply .
Cost benefit analysis is an elaborate skill in capitalism and could be a neutral tool based on a “points system” to evaluate a range of different projects facing society.
Allocation calculations in socialism will not be economic but technical . In socialism calculations will be done directly in physical quantities of real things [calculation in kind ] , in use-values , without any general equivalent unit of calculation ie money and prices
Global Dissident reminds us that Marx expelled the anarchists from the First International. Therefore, apparently, GD does not think that anarchists can learn anything from Marx. Even if I agreed with the facts (in my opinion, both the Marxists and the Bakuninists acted badly in the First International split), I would not agree with GD's method. We should not be looking for heroes or saints but to improve our theory and practice. As an anarchist, I think that there is a great deal to learn from Marx in this regard.
As a historical footnote, Rudolph Rocker agrees with Wayne (in his book Anarcho Syndicalism) that there was blame to share in the First International split.
Rocker was, of course, no "saint" himself, but i respect his views. (Nationalism and Culture is brilliant.)
A PDF pamphlet including both parts of this text is now available from the Zabalaza Books site or directly from the link below:
http://www.zabalaza.net/pdfs/varpams/what_is_anarcomm_wp.pdf
Yours for freedom,
G.
But the fact that neither side in the split was blameless does not exonerate Marx. The Marx dealt with the divisions in the First International - calumny, packed congresses, use of resources for personal vendettas, the intrigues of Lafargue etc. - was qualitatively different to what Bakunin etal did.
Frankly I don't think we an be relativist about this, and I certainly have to disagree with arguments that set up a radical break between Marx and Lenin. Marx was an authoritarian in his public persona and official writings and interventions during his life. Yes, he had contradictions, but the libertarian notes in Marx were muted or largely unpublished. Perhaps Lenin pruned Marx's work of its libertarian elements (and mpulses also to social democracy), but he was pruning a tree that already existed.
Take a look at the Marx-Engels-Lenin volume on anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism (progress Press) and you will see how Marx and Engels defended hierarchy, coercion, centralisation, the Party.
With all due respect comrade Wayne, you are generally too soft on Marx and Engels. I agree we shouldn't overstate the differences, and we should also acknowledge the influence of - even embrace - Marxist economics. But it won't do to try and exonerate Marx of the whiff of the gulag.