Friday, July 29, 2011

Chomsky on the Meaning of Socialism

Noam Chomsky is America’s leading advocate of libertarian socialism, though his political and economic thought draws on diverse traditions and the thinking of intellectuals such as Wilhelm von Humboldt, Mikhail Bakunin, John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, and Rudolf Rocker. Chomsky’s conception of “socialism” is anarcho-syndicalism, a system where production and production institutions would be worker-owned, democratically self-managed enterprises. Other notable syndicalists were Rudolf Rocker and the young Bertrand Russell. Syndicalism has been a major non-Marxist socialist tradition. Chomsky gives his views on the meaning of socialism in the video below.




I would argue, however, that either (1) radical progressive liberalism or (2) social democracy of the Scandinavian type has just as legitimate a claim to the name “democratic socialism.” Of course, one of the severe failings of progressive liberalism and social democracy is the inability to free themselves from neoclassical economics and the power of the private capitalist institutions. When Chomsky quotes John Dewey and complains that “politics is the shadow cast on society by big business,” he is no doubt right. The excesses of modern multinational corporations and big business are an outrage on many levels.

But, while worker-run enterprises might very well provide a superior form of business organisation, it seems to me that in some respects they would still face much the same problems as private capitalists: if the decision-making done in a worker-managed enterprise/cooperative is done by its workers, and there are thousands or hundreds of thousands of such cooperatives making de-centralized decision-making on production (even if this involves a democratic process involving many people in each individual enterprise), then you would have decisions on investment and production made in a decentralised manner that is essentially private. If the economy uses money and has some types of financial assets as a store of value, you have exactly the same problems that exist now. The people involved would still be making decisions under subjective expectations and fundamental uncertainty, and investment would, most probably, be subject to fluctuation. Say’s law would not hold in a syndicalist economy. In such an economy, there would still be failures of aggregate demand, and some democratically-accountable institution would be required to intervene at the macro-level to overcome such macro-problems. That institution would, I contend, end up being a de facto government, and would probably also accrue other responsibilities such as implementing democratic decisions on foreign policy, defence, monetary policy, science policy, education standards, and so on. I suspect that a syndicalist society would evolve into a state-based system not that much different from the most radical forms of progressive liberalism or social democracy.

23 comments:

  1. But no anarcho-syndicalist is ever a true believer.

    Even though YouTube is an organization where employees are separated from ownership and managerial control, and are limited to salaries and not stake in earnings - anarcho-syndicalists still use the services of YouTube to blog about their ideas.

    It never occured to them to start their own working syndicate for hosting and uploading videos. Nay, they must use a capitalist service. What's the point of being all talk and no action?

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    1. Sorry, but your comment is quite naive. The Internet, computers, etc..ALL came out of the socialist aspects of the U.S. system. Has nothing to do with "free markets". Did it ever occur to the folks who use the products paid for by the public/state system that they get off their lazy-asses and make something on their own?

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  2. One aspect that you are forgetting about syndicalism is that there are federations. So micro problem are dealt with at the micro level - such as basic day to day decisions of the company. Macro problems, issues of aggregate demand,long distance transportation,perhaps healthcare etc. would be dealt with at a federated level.

    One way to think of anarchism is that it replaces our current institutions with anarchist ones. The state is replaced by a federation of communities while capitalism is replaced by workers' self-management. Markets (this doesn't apply to Mutualists) is replaced by negotiated coordination where information is still decentralized.

    The reason anarchists (the real ones) can deal with marco issues is because federated communities somewhat act like states. Different for sure, but similar. This is why most anarchists fight against austerity programs.

    Also, if you haven't noticed by now, many anarchists are very interested in Post Keynesian economics. While we disagree about the subject of capitalism, I think there is enough commonalities that we can have respect for each other.

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  3. 1) It’s funny that Mises claims such industrial organization as “worker capitalism” as opposed to socialism.

    “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 workers’ capitalism and syndicalism” – Pg 19, Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth

    Apparently, socialism means no prices. The Mises crowd almost always defines socialism as some sort of Soviet Union 1984 where there must be an authority central figure (pg 4) and prices will fail to materialize vs the actual definition being something more along the lines, to put it in crude simplification, of democracy in the workplace. Things like public education, healthcare, etc, while being very nice and probably supported by most who call for some definition of socialism (especially if they define it as MSNBC does – state welfare), it doesn’t necessarily follow. Hence why Benjamin Tucker, the publisher of Liberty, talked about the hegemony on the word socialism.

    - Danny Jacobs

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  4. What exactly do you mean by the Marxist tradition of socialism? Are you implying that worker-owned, democratically enterprises come in conflict with Marx? I ask this because Marx was specifically skeptical of all blueprints for a socialist future. In particular, he found any attempt to imagine a future (i.e worker cooperatives, councils, etc) as constraining. In fact, he was notoriously ambiguous about any sort of ideas on communism – he instead simply claimed some rather normative statements (i.e free development for all, free association.” From For The Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing

    “Therefore I am not in favour of raising any dogmatic banner. On the contrary, we must try to help the dogmatists to clarify their propositions for themselves. Thus, communism, in particular, is a dogmatic abstraction; in which connection, however, I am not thinking of some imaginary and possible communism, but actually existing communism as taught by Cabet, Dézamy, Weitling, etc. This communism is itself only a special expression of the humanistic principle, an expression which is still infected by its antithesis – the private system. Hence the abolition of private property and communism are by no means identical, and it is not accidental but inevitable that communism has seen other socialist doctrines – such as those of Fourier, Proudhon, etc. – arising to confront it because it is itself only a special, one-sided realisation of the socialist principle.”

    - Danny Jacobs

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  5. One last thing I forgot to mention above. I believe you are confusing anarcho-syndicalism with Mutualism. Today, there are two types of Mutualist. Proudhonian Mutualists and Individualist Mutualism. Your criticism would only apply to Individualist Mutualism (usually promoted by Kevin Carson). I'm personally not a fan of this school of thought but it seems to be getting traction in the US. They believe in a completely free market and tend to use some Austrian economics. Say's "Law" would only apply to them. Almost all anarchists (and if I'm not mistaken Proudhon himself) don't believe in Say's "law."

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  6. Even the statement “From each according to his ability…” is tied to a larger argument about how the birthmark of capitalism would still persist for sometime after a socialist revolution, in the sense that differences between the skill, technique, quality of labor would still cause differences in remuneration i.e some people make a lot more (this is contrary to Mises claim that to Marx was ignorant of this fact and believed “ all labor is economically of the same kind” (pg 20), of which he quotes Bohm-Bawerks favorite attack passage. )

    “To understand what is implied in this connection by the phrase "fair distribution", we must take the first paragraph and this one together. The latter presupposes a society wherein the instruments of labor are common property and the total labor is co-operatively regulated, and from the first paragraph we learn that "the proceeds of labor belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society. To all members of society? To those who do not work as well? What remains then of the "undiminished" proceeds of labor? Only to those members of society who work? What remains then of the "equal right" of all members of society…But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby” – Critique of Gotha Program, pt 1

    Perhaps such a society would be impossible, although the argument for it would be that if people could fully develop their potential, then at least we would move towards some sort of equalizing ratio of value for work (in a Durkheim sense).

    Essentially, I have found some of the Left to reach a sort of cognitive dissonance – they perhaps envision a society of democratic control of means of production but Marx’s name is so tainted by the retarded events of the 21st century that they appeal to certain ideas of his but instead simply label it something like “Worker-control” or “decentralized socialism.”

    Now you might point out that Marx does speak about a transitional period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, although 1) use of a State apparatus for the achievement of a new organizational structure is hardly alien to any of these democratic socialists, or if you consider Chomsky representative of syndicalists, then that as well 2) dictatorship of the proletariat is a funny translation from German and means something quite different than what most people think when they see that word (i,e they think Hitler, Pol Pot, dictators). For example, Marx would say we are under the dictatorship of the bourgeois although it does not follow then that there are actually dictators in Western Capitalist countries (like Sweden for instance).

    - Danny Jacobs

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  7. 4) Have you ever read Market Socialism by David Schweickart? He basically argues for what you just mentioned – a society of worker cooperatives mixed with Keynesian styled policies of stimulus, etc blah blah blah.

    For Prateek:

    I am hoping you are not implying that the fact that an anarcho-syndacalist might use a capitalist service somehow negates an idea. Furthermore, I can speak from Philadelphia, that a lot of the anarchists here actually do set up worker owned internet syndicates for communities all the time. One just opened up the other day in fact in Northern Philadelphia.

    - Danny Jacobs. And i am done

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  8. It does not negate an idea, but it does very little to advance or strengthen it.

    There is little point in demanding a certain set of standards, when you don't even hold yourself to those standards.

    Anarchists often speak of wage slavery. I wonder - they are totally OK with wearing shirts made by slaves, driving cars built by slaves, walking on roads constructed by slaves, typing on a computer built by slaves, and eating food processed and distributed by slaves? They are totally OK with being beneficiaries of slavery? Do they realize the implications of what they believe?

    The difference between the libertarian and the propertarian is that the propertarian is able to live with the realities and demands of this propertarian world. When he goes to a restaurant, he obey's the restaurant's policies and rules. When he goes to an airport, he consents to airport security procedures. The libertarian, however, sees this propertarian world as wrong, but also has to undergo airport security, also has to obey restaurant rules, and also has to obey any commandments of any owner of property in his property, lest he risk trouble. No matter how much he believes in the wrongness or the "theftful" nature of property, he still has to live with it!

    It is not just that the libertarian does not live up to libertarian standards, it is also that he CAN NOT. Those standards are impossible, because we don't live in a world where everything is collectively and commonly owned. We live in a world where property dominates.

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  9. I am almost confused by your response because you appear to both disagree and agree with me within a paragraph. You point out that the libertarian “can not” live up to his standards – and I agree – and also point out that there is no point in demanding any if one cannot hold his own standards. Um, hence why the radical left has spent the last however many years arguing for some kind of radical transformation????

    I shouldn’t really speak for anarchists as I am not one but for fun, that comment really is just a tu quoque. Not everybody agrees with this sort of dual-power strategy, that the power of capital dominated conditions can simply be eroded by choosing to behave in some manner, such as not buying capitalistically produced commodities – the whole point is that we are constrained to behave in a certain way due to the current, dominating mode of production. I mean people always try to point out that Engels owned a factory as a way of ad hominem attacking him – he always responded (paraphrasing) by pointing out how obvious it is that capitalism invades all spheres of life, including the family. Plus, almost all anarchists I know participate in various forms co-ops or whatnot. I am sure there are anarchists who don’t care or are unaware in the same way that there are teenagers who walk around with Che shirts on who don’t know or people who claim to be libertarians simply because they would like marijuana to be legal. Would it be better if these people were not hypocrites – of course. But the degree to which they actually would change anything is debatable.

    Not exactly the same but there is a nice quote from Trotsky on this:
    “If socialism aimed at creating a new human nature within the limits of the old society it would be nothing more than a new edition of the moralistic utopias. Socialism does not aim at creating a socialist psychology as a pre-requisite to socialism but at creating socialist conditions of life as a pre-requisite to socialist psychology” – Results and Prospects, pg 99

    - Danny

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  10. I appreciate your well-thought out answer.

    But to build socialist conditions of life, surely a high degree of productivity and production is required, in order that there be abundance for everyone?

    And surely that brings the socialists right back to...capitalism itself?

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  11. thank you for the kudos

    1) If we are really considering the definition of capitalism, as a system in which private property of the means of production is coercive enforced by some organ of governance (state or private in a Rothbardian world), and more specifically, where the dominant mode of production is the appropration of surplus for exchange, then I don't think it follows neccessarily that capitalism = a high degree of productivity and production. Of course, in a competitive market a high degree of productivity is favorable to a firm but I don't think somehow socialists would bounce back and forth between capitalism for productivity and then back to something else.

    Marx at certain times in his writings actually becomes slightly techno-optimistic, if one would critique him. I can't cite it specifically but I believe out of the 1844 manuscripts he mentions how people in France or England could easily produce more than enough for themselves in like half the time they work for wages and then have the rest of the time for the full development of themselves (It is really in Marx's early writings that you see he was always about individualism and the maximum realization of the individual, contrary to what 99.99999% of every single mainstream potrayal of him)

    Furthermore, I am still looking for a real definite reason why a capitalist run firm (one of hierarchial decision making) is preferable to lets say a worker cooperative. I know we often hear the argument that democracy will slow down decision making, make things inefficient, etc but let me just throw this out there. When I first read Hayek's "Use of Knowledge in Society," I almost immediately thought of the hierarchial nature of a most (fine if you want to point out not all but generally) capitalist firms and how they work via a form of centralized planning. But if people as individuals each have "incomplete knowledge," then wouldn't the extension of decision making to a wider membership of a company, increase the chances of them coming to a more accurate representation of reality? I fully understand Hayek is responding to Oskar Lange and the central planning debates of the time, but I think it still applies.

    For example, the economist during the Toyota car failures last year, wrote about how several of the workers on the factory line were more than aware of the systemic and mechanical problems that the cars had but were unable to report such a manner because of the hierarchy, especially some of the family ties, within the car companies.

    - Danny Jacobs

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  12. Well, what I meant was that the only known existing system for increasing productivity and production is capitalism - be it state capitalism of China, mixed economy capitalism of US and other Western nations, or whatever.

    To clarify, even the Soviet Union is rightly considered a state capitalist enterprise.

    In order to have enough production for having the overabundance of goods for a feasible socialist society, you need to raise the production. Using what? The existing capitalist system. There is no other option available.

    And you know that even worker-run enterprises today are still confined to a capitalist system. They still have to buy their products from other capitalist enterprises, and compete with capitalist enterprises in selling those products. As long as they have to live with these confines, they are not truly socialistic, right?

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  13. " Using what? The existing system."

    - And this, at the minimum, agrees with the Marxian view of transition (whether or not such a view is correct). Read the Critique of Gotha again, specifically he mentions how transitions will have problems and still rely on some aspects of capitalist enterprise. Being post-commodity does not mean being post-scarcity - if one is producing for the needs of the community rather than for exchange (although some might try claim such a statement is tautological, I don't think so), that doesn't mean without a high level of productivity. Its the first negation - you could easily point out that people will still dominate themselves and essentially, exploit themselves.

    Perhaps a sort of world can only exist made up of small-scale communities.

    Perhaps the entire view is wrong - that's fine. The point is to see if we can look beyond our current situation towards something better. At one time, Feudalism was seen as the natural and complete order of men.

    "And you know that even worker-run enterprises today are still confined to a capitalist system. They still have to buy their products from other capitalist enterprises, and compete with capitalist enterprises in selling those products. As long as they have to live with these confines, they are not truly socialistic, right? "

    - And this agrees with my statement from two posts ago - that even if the anarchists all belonged to worker cooperatives and behaved in a certain way, it doesn't neccessarily follow that they could overcome a dominant mode of production in this manner. Capitalist production dominates, probably because it is saved by a State.

    - Danny Jacobs

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  14. It should be pointed out that this society we live in doesn't coincide with Libertarian anarcho-capitalism or Libertarian proprietarianism, either, so the hypocritical charge applies to them as well. The government has played a role in every area of industrial life from the modern complexities of the information superhighway and the National Highway System to the mundanity of streetlights. Libertarians purpose that all property be acquired from (1) land unappropriated or (2) so-called free-trade from land that has been unappropriated. Neither of these things has ever existed, or will ever exist. The self-made man and other delusions are also obviously false.
    It is true that the elites who were funded by the government weren't exactly working according to any central plan and weren't socialists, but they weren't pure capitalists either.

    Anyway, I believe the outline of anarchism works like this: In an anarcho-mutualist society, there may be a cooperative which produces a boat for a different cooperative of fisherman. They sell the boat for $10,000 to the fishermen. The fishermen take out a loan to pay for the boat. Where do they get the money? From a credit cooperative that expands the money supply as necessary and from loans that are being repaid.

    In an anarcho-socialist system, you would have cooperatives that democratically decide how resources are shared. Let's say you need to start making boats. You could require that those people not doing anything work produce the boats, or they will receive no help from the cooperative. There is no more coercion in this than there is in capitalism, where economic conditions outside of your control force you to work a job to get resources you need. In fact, it would be less coercion as you can split the commune or go join another commune.

    I think Chomsky is thinking that people will just figure out how to produce the things they need democratically. I agree it is pretty utopian, but at least it is a somewhat nice vision. People and cooperatives fail on their own merits, not because of the greed of the capitalists or what have you. He basically says, just get the government out of the way and let's see what happens. Again, this is very utopian, but at least we don't have to live according to a bunch of nonsense rules. In fact, Chomsky himself lived on a cooperative in Israel. It worked according to these principles, so maybe one day you might play ball and another day you might work. He has also cited the anarchists in Spain, and noted that they were opposed by the fascists in Spain, the communists in Russia, and the US, an example of how totalitarian forces will come together when there is a threat of "real freedom."

    I should also point out that Chomsky believes in dealing with our current problems. He has spoken with anarchists in the third world who use the metaphor that even though they believe modern society is like a prison, they believe in "expanding the floors of the cage." In other words, making life more habitable and better for working people. That may include stimulating weak demand through Keynesian methods.
    --successfulbuild

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  15. Chomsky has indeed talked of federations, councils, etc. "I think if you look at the present scene, the future society that I'd like to see is one where you continually do this, and continually extend the range of freedom and justice and lack of external control and greater public participation." "A vision of a future society from this point of view would be one in which production, decisions over investment, etc., are under control. That means control through communities, through workplaces, through works councils in factories or universities, whatever organization it happens to be, federal structures which integrate things over a broader range."

    Russell in his book, "Principles of Social Reconstruction" also purposes a kind of guild socialism similar to this, where disputes among guilds are handled by a federation.
    ____
    As for Chomsky's actual works, most of it is on linguistics or foreign policy. I agree with his foreign policy analysis, especially in Indochina, Latin America, and our interferences with Iran, Iraq, etc. I'm not too familiar with all of his work on Israel though.

    His linguistic work is still the foundation of modern linguistics and has been since the 50s.

    I usually can tell if people haven't read Chomsky if they bring up his anarchism as if that's all he writes about, when in fact, very little of what he produces is about anarchism, but about the US and its relationship with other countries, NGOs and IGOs, and free-market principles. He also has an interest in elite manipulation of the public.

    --successfulbuild

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  16. Can someone explain what Chomsky and leftists love in guilds? We already had all that from 5th to 15th centuries AD. Sure, they were worker owned and democratically self-managed enterprises, so what, that's precisely why they were such a disaster.

    And then it is Austrians who are allegedly Dark Agey?

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  17. "Chomsky’s conception of 'socialism' is anarcho-syndicalism, a system where production and production institutions would be worker-owned, democratically self-managed enterprises."

    The idea that workers should run their own workplaces pre-dates anarcho-syndicalism (as a named idea) by over 50 years. Proudhon raised it in 1840 in What is Property? and was a consistent supporter of workers' self-management of production throughout his political career. The same can be said of Bakunin, Kropotkin and so on.

    So workers self-management is something shared by almost all anarchists -- it is NOT limited to anarcho-syndicalists. Communist, collectivist and mutualist anarchists all advocated it (and the former two also support revolutionary unions). It is as old as anarchism -- and pretty much essential for any consistent anarchism.

    Tucker (the individualist anarchist) did not, but he argued that his system would eliminate exploitation -- an optimistic position, particularly given Proudhon's analysis of how wage-labour produces exploitation.

    In terms of individual co-operatives acting in isolation, anarchists have long argued for the need for federalism to counteract that. Proudhon raised this idea in the 1840s and called it the "agricultural-industrial federation" in 1863. This would seek to provide co-ordination, co-operation and mutual support precisely because we are aware that no-one lives an isolated life, including workplaces. To quote Proudhon:

    "But industries are sisters; they are parts of the same body; one cannot suffer without the others suffering because of it. I wish that they federate then, not to absorb one another and merge, but to mutually guarantee the conditions of prosperity that are common to them all and on which none can claim a monopoly. By forming such a pact, they will not infringe their liberty; they will only give it more certainty and strength." (Property is Theft!, p. 713)

    So anarchists are well aware of the need to federate above the individual workplace level. Would that be a state? No, because it would be federal, bottom-up, and so on. Don't confuse all social organisations with a specific one, the state.

    Anyways, some links...

    On Proudhon (the introduction to Property is Theft!): General Idea of the Revolution in the 21st Century

    The Economics of Anarchy

    An Anarchist FAQ

    Thanks for posting the Chomsky video -- nice to hear someone discuss something positive for a change!

    Iain

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  18. "Would that be a state? No, because it would be federal, bottom-up, and so on."

    Would you be willing to concede that an anrachist society would have institutions performing the same functions as the modern state?

    For exmaple, what democratic institutions would monitor economic statistics and unemployment to warn society that a recession is in progress? What institution would then implement some intervention to stimulate the economy?

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    1. lel, 3 years later. But who cares.

      >Would you be willing to concede that an anrachist society would have institutions performing the same functions as the modern state?

      Sure, if that's what the members of the federated associations feel like, why not? Most anarchism (especially the popular varieties, anarchists, AnComs and mutualists) isn't anti-organisationalist. On the contrary they believe in tight organisation. They disagree with the specific form of the state as a top-down organisation.

      >what democratic institutions would monitor economic statistics and unemployment to warn society that a recession is in progress?

      If there is need for that, then possibly a bureau for labor statistics like we have now would be formed (or to be precise maintained, since it already exists) and federate itself with the rest of the associations in order to keep track of all of that, to which the productive associatios (production units) would direct some of their surplus according to common agreement between the two.

      >What institution would then implement some intervention to stimulate the economy?

      let's take things slowly. First of all you should know that your criticism of mutualism above is pretty much word for word marx's criticism of it. Most anarchists are for the substitution of money with a non-exploitable standard of value, or for creating organised gift-economies and thus abolishing money.

      However I'm personally not persuaded that say's law would not be applicable in the case of mutualism where money exists. My reasoning is this.

      Sure, money is still a store of value and the competition between cooperatives would likely lead to a level of concentration. However we're talking about an economy of associated producers.So at the very least capitalist accumulation based on wage-labor would be impossible. Secondly we're talking about an economy where you can't restrict access to means of production you are not using. Insofar as we aren't at 100% of the capacity utilization rate, the unemployed can likely self-employ in one sector of the economy or other as noone can exclude them from the means of substistence even if only to produce for their own direct use and not for exchange.

      However even if it was granted that there are simply no means of production that can be used to produce either for exchange (noone wants those products) or for direct use and that no cooperative is willing to associate with those workers to not diminish its shares, and that for some reason none of the mutual aid banks have reserves to grant them (say due to a liquidity trap), then surely the people -knowing this risk exists- can create associations or even federations of associations with the sole purpose of forming a safety-net for the unemployed. Short of like unemployment insurance if you will, with the sole difference that they would all be in control of their associations. They could even create federations where all members of the federated associations would together create a fund just in case a stimulus package for them is ever required. Though I think the mutual aid banks could cover this.

      Again the point isn't a lack of organisation, the point is the form of organisation. That's kind of the beef the anarchists have with the state and with capitalism. The point is to create a form of social organisation that is trully free and democratic, instead of the current hierarchical organisation that exists above and detached from the people. Of course you could argue -again like Marx- that a more democratic form of organisation would spring organically if you simply get rid of capitalism and thus class struggle and those contradicting interests.

      >Also, would your anarchist society have financial assets as a store of value? (say, something like a risk free bond analogous to the modern government bond).

      If the people want there to be a risk free bond, then why not?

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    2. Part 2.

      >So that people can save for retirement?

      The people can save individually, or they can create bonds and invest in those but this all depends on the form of anarchism we're talking about and it's more close to what mutualists have in mind. For an AnCom it's completely irrelevant as an old person that no longer works would still have access to the gift-economy to get what he wants and in any form of anarchism the people may simply decide to direct part of the surplus they are producing to the unemployed, old, young, whatever. Lest we forget there aren't any capitalists any more that would structurally benefit from destroying such policies. This is just the people that are deciding essentially for themselves without class frictions and the old people are either they themselves or their relatives. Either they all can save fast enough -since wage labor is overthrown- that these arrangements are unecessary, or they can't in which case noone has an incentive to argue against the arrangment (as noone is receiving exorbitant amounts by virtue of his title to a factory without working, and therefore they are all saving in more or less similar paces according to the productivity of their workplace).

      >Would there be a central bank creating money for use by a credit system for worker run enterprises?

      This is one I can't answer. I'm sure the mutualists have something in mind.

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  19. Also, would your anarchist society have financial assets as a store of value? (say, something like a risk free bond analogous to the modern government bond).

    So that people can save for retirement?

    Would there be a central bank creating money for use by a credit system for worker run enterprises?

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  20. "Marxism" has been "evacuated of content" by the West (including liberals and so-called intellectuals) much like "socialism" has been (like Chomsky suggests). Marx was a syndicalist; Marxism = anarcho-syndicalism. Anyone familiar with Marx's work can't deny this.

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