How many of the anarchists here, have got jobs, rely on state handouts, are going to school on a state education plan, use subsidised public transport, pay taxes, and/or want to better your status? How many anarchists here have read Prouhdon? or have much idea of what the anarchists throughout history have, or do not have, in common I would suggest this is a good place to start http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft! then I would buy the actual book and read it do you believe all property is theft? what is property? I mean instead of bickering about what grand schemes we have for the world and why they would/or wouldnt work - why not just try to agree on a few simple principles by which a common language and understanding is established first? why cant we establish an understanding between anarchists before attacking or defending against opposition to anarchy Why dont we have a discussion about what anarchy is - here?
what if you are a musician by trade? once you have publicly prostituted your emotions what is rightfully yours..? cash or notierieity? it is an interesting read - i am naieve of all things - not through lack of trying - so anything that can possibly enlighten me is welcome
Wow I thought the same thing myself - was prouhdon talking about the fact that a labourer has a kind of royalty payment owed? I do not rightly know but that is why I posted the thread because I would like to discuss the basis of an anarchist economy and whether the economy outlined by our predecessors can be shown, logically, invalid - I do believe he was ssaying that the labourer is entitled to a royalty but you may differ IYO
I am a leftist with anarchist views. I believe private property is theft not personal property. What do I mean by private property? natural resources, like how can someone own an oil field when such a natural resource should belong to all. What is personal property? my house, my computer What is anarchy? freedom from exploitation, oppression, wage-slavery, all arbitrary authority. What is not property?
What about that computer you own - what claim does the labourer that built it have upon its existence? Is it just raw materials that we are talking about and not refined goods like a computer?
just as a ps to my last post I would ask this : suppose a nuclear power station is built - who owns it?
Kropotkin discusses this in "The Conquest for Bread" which I just finished reading. He uses the example of factories but the same applies to power stations. Basically he says that a factory belongs to those who work in it. The workers produce the goods as they see fit and decide how the factory operates. This could be expanded for the use of power stations to say that the plant belongs to everyone who benefits from the energy it produces and it's up to everyone to maintain it.
I just reread this and understood what you mean. If I'm right you're asking - why do you want paying for the product of your mind and a few cool guitar licks? Because that is a valuable commodity. A person would be a fool to give away for free what they can use to buy food. We cannot be talking about utopian economics we must live and that is what Prouhdon was saying too - there cannot be a utopia but there must be a better way to buy and distribute what we need
Well, in an anarchist society everyone will have to work to sustain themselves, you cannot live on the labour of others (there will be no minority that lives on the labour of others). So, therefore, assuming we are all workers will trade what we create freely with each other. The question is what will we use to trade? Money? or labour? interesting thread, it might go somewhere.
I need to think about that one - my first thoughts are that such an economy looks exactly like the socialists such as Lenin presided over - how would a Anarchist economy look different to their state capitalism?
How could that be ensured, since the term "Anarchy" means "without ruler" origionaly "without a king"? so without a minority that oversees the state of anarchy how could this be made certain - surely we could not have a government since government usurps the peoples labour to provide a (lol: intelligensia?) body that oversees how the economy is run. They produce nothing but the means of organisation - oh now I am getting us away from the principles and back into dogma and what I really want to learn from you guys is about the economy of "all property is theft" I can read the books but they wrote them hundreds of years ago. I am already interested in what you guys are teaching me
If you're willing to read a somewhat lenghty piece of text, check out "Solidarity Economics - Strategies for building economies from the bottom up". It was written by a guy named Ethan Miller, who is an anarchist folk singer from the Riotfolk collective. (Sorry if this post is kind of off topic but I still think it can be of value to some) Here is an excerpt that might help clarify some things: "Many of these non-capitalist microeconomies are familiar to us, though rarely acknowledged as legitimate economies. While it is crucial to note that not all of these non-capitalist economies are necessarily liberatory, I will highlight here some of the most positive and inspiring forms5: Householding economies—meeting basic needs with our own skills and work at home and on/with the land: raising children, offering advice or comfort, resolving relational conflicts, teaching basic life skills (like language!), cooking, sewing, cleaning the house, building the house, balancing the checkbook, fixing the car, gardening, farming, raising animals. Many types of work that have often been rendered invisible or devalued by patriarchy as “women’s work.” Barter economies—trading services with our friends or neighbors, swapping one useful thing for another: “Returning a favor”, exchanging plants or seeds, time-based local currencies. Collective economies—in their simple form these economies are about pooling our resources together (sharing): bringing food to a potluck supper, carpooling, lending and borrowing, consumer co-ops; in their most “radical” form, collective economies are based on common ownership and/or control of resources: collective communities, health care collectives, community land trusts, and more. Scavenging Economies—living on the abundance of Earth’s own gift economy: hunting, fishing, and foraging. Also living on the abundance of human wastefulness— “one person’s trash is another one’s treasure”: salvaging from demolition sites, using old car parts, dumpster-diving, the “swap-shop” at the local dump. Gift economies—giving some of our resources to other people and to our communities: volunteer fire companies, community food banks, giving rides to hitch-hikers, having neighbors over for dinner. Worker-controlled economies—workers deciding the terms and conditions of their own work: self-employment, family farms, worker-owned companies and cooperatives. “Pirate” economies—various activities that might be labeled “theft” by those in power, but would be called “rightful re-appropriation” by those who have been robbed of power: re-incarnations of Robin Hood or Pretty Boy Floyd, squatters. Subsistence market economies—thousands of very small businesses survive (and sometimes thrive) with little or no imperative to grow and accumulate wealth. These are subsistence-based businesses, created and run for the purpose of providing healthy livelihood to the owners (who are often the workers) and providing a basic service to the larger community (sometimes in the indirect form of creating a community gathering space). These categories name only some of the many diverse, non-capitalist economic relationships that are interwoven throughout our lives. The project of identifying these relationships is a project of hope, one that allows us to begin de-colonizing ourselves from the devaluing and degrading ways-of-seeing that have been imposed on us by the economics of Empire. We can begin to see, instead, the powerful spaces of freedom that already exist in our midst." Definitly check out the whole essay if you have time.
I've changed my tactic or tictac one of the two I no longer believe in reading anarchist dogma I believe in inventing rhetoric
And yet they apply more to us today than in any other period of time. those who don't learn from history....
What history - go and make some history for youself stop revelling in a dead past stop hawking these books like they contain some secret about how to live the peoplke that wrote them would laugh if they knew what revolucionaries they had made of you - go shout slogans go - go make history in a fight with the state
Really? A Computer Technician/ Network Consultant is going to teach us about "real anarchy"? About exploitation and oppression? Well then, enlighten us, for we have so obviously lost our way...
I am an anarchist I am an antichrist dont know what i want but know how to get it possibly cuz i wanna be anarchy How many ways to get what you want i use the best i use the rest i use the enemy i use anarchy cuz i i want to be anarchist get pissed DESTROYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY !!!!!!!!
